Timeline 2009 April - June
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2009 Apr 1, Top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Taliban insurgents reject a US offer of "honorable reconciliation," calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops. Suicide attackers stormed provincial council offices in Kandahar city, killing 13 people including 2 provincial officials. The attackers, who wore Afghan military uniforms, were also killed, two in suicide bombings and two shot dead by security forces. Afghan and US coalition troops battled a large group of militants in southern Afghanistan before calling in an airstrike that killed 20 insurgents.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)(AFP, 4/1/09)(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 1, Albania and Croatia became NATO’s newest members.
(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, In London Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama said Russia and the United States will pursue a new deal to cut nuclear warheads, making good on a pledge to rebuild relations from a post-Cold War low. The US and China agreed to establish a "strategic and economic dialogue" group that would first meet in Washington later this year.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, G20 protesters clashed with riot police in downtown London, breaking into the heavily guarded Royal Bank of Scotland and smashing its windows. Earlier, they tried to storm the Bank of England and pelted police with eggs and fruit. Ian Tomlinson (47) was filmed being hit by an officer with a baton shortly before collapsing in the City of London financial district. He had not been taking part in the protests and died of a hemorrhage. In 2012 Dr Freddy Patel was found guilty of misconduct by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in relation to his handling of the examination of Ian Tomlinson's body. The pathologist had concluded that Tomlinson died from a heart attack.
(AP, 4/1/09)(AFP, 4/17/09)(AFP, 8/23/12)
2009 Apr 1, A helicopter returning to Aberdeen with 16 people from an oil platform crashed in the North Sea. The Bond Super Puma helicopter went down off the northeast coast of Scotland. 8 bodies were recovered and the others were presumed dead. 7 bodies were later found inside the wreckage of the helicopter.
(AFP, 4/1/09)(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 1, Honduras Pres. Manuel Zelaya's government announced a series of measures to crack down on crime, including allowing the state telephone company to obtain court orders to record cellular phone conversations and read e-mails sent from computers at Internet cafes or hotels.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new foreign minister, said Israel will not abide by commitments made to pursue Palestinian statehood at the 2007 Annapolis Peace Summit.
(WSJ, 4/2/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 1, In Malaysia Mas Selamat Kastari, an Islamic militant suspected of plotting a Sept. 11-style air attack, was arrested in Johor state, more than a year after his dramatic escape from a high-security jail in Singapore. He was arrested by Malaysian authorities with the cooperation of Singaporean and Indonesian intelligence agencies.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 Apr 1, Mexico detained Vicente Carrillo Leyva (32), one of its most wanted drug suspects. He allegedly was the second in command of the powerful Juarez cartel. Leyva is the son of drug kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was one of Mexico's most important drug traffickers before he died during plastic surgery to change his appearance in 1997.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 1, In Pakistan a suspected US drone fired two missiles at an alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader who has threatened to attack Washington, killing 14 people and wounding several others in a remote area of the Orakzai tribal region. Militants fired rockets and guns at a police van, killing five officers and wounding two in Upper Dir, on the Afghan border.
(AP, 4/1/09)(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, Puerto Rican actor Miguelangel Suarez (69) died. His career included minor roles in last year's epic "Che" and Woody Allen's "Bananas."
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, A tourist yacht and its crew of seven was hijacked by Somali pirates near the Seychelles islands off Africa's east coast.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sri Lanka’s government said more than 23,000 civilians escaped last month from the northern war zone, where the military appeared close to crushing the separatist rebels.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Saudi Arabia for a brief pilgrimage, his latest trip abroad in defiance of an international arrest warrant against him.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sweden’s Parliament adopted a new law giving same sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexuals, becoming the 5th European country to allow gay marriage.
(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, In Sweden a new law cracking down on online copyright violation went into force leading to a sharp drop in internet traffic.
(AP, 4/3/09)(http://tinyurl.com/c96saw)
2009 Apr 1, In Thailand thousands of demonstrators defied a court order to clear a road they have blocked to the prime minister's office, vowing to continue ringing the compound until the government resigns.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 2, Washington expressed no interest in an offer by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to take in any of the 240 remaining Guantanamo detainees after they are released from the US military prison.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, A US federal judge has ruled that some inmates at a US military base in Afghanistan can challenge their detention in US courts, a legal right granted to Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, US and Mexico officials said they are creating a cross-border group to develop strategies for stopping the illegal flow of guns and drugs between the two countries.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, The director of the US Mint unveiled the first US coin with an inscription in Spanish, a quarter honoring Puerto Rico as the "Isla del Encanto" (Island of Enchantment).
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, The US Environmental Working Group issued a press release drawing attention to a study by scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which looked for the chemical, perchlorate, in different brands of powdered baby formula. The study was published last month.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, A federal grand jury issued a 75-page indictment charging former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich with racketeering, extortion and fraud.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 2, In Connecticut a judge, citing DNA evidence, dropped murder charges against Miguel Roman, who served 20 years of a 60-year sentence after being convicted of the 1988 slaying of Carmen Lopez (17), his pregnant girlfriend. The same DNA tests that exonerated Roman implicated led police in December to charge another man, Pedro Miranda of New Britain. He is accused in the killings of Lopez, 16-year-old Rosa Valentin in 1986 and 13-year-old Mayra Cruz in 1987. Miranda (51) faced the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 2, Bud Shank (b.1926), innovative jazz musician, died. He played the 33-second flute solo on the 1965 hit “California Dreamin," by the Mamas and Papas.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 2, G20 countries authorized the IMF to issue $250 billion in new SDRs.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.70)
2009 Apr 2, Human rights groups and some Afghan lawmakers criticized President Hamid Karzai for signing into law legislation that some believe legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband and prevents women from leaving the house without a man's permission. Article 132 of the law says: "As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night." Critics said Karzai signed the legislation in the past month only for political gains several months before the country's presidential election. Coalition and Afghan forces killed 12 militants and one civilian in Logar province in a mission that included airstrikes. a member of the NATO-led force was killed in violence in the east. In central Ghazni province, a roadside bomb killed four construction workers, while a battle between militants and police elsewhere in the province killed two militants.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Austrian authorities arrested British-born Julius Meinl V (b.1959), head of Meinl Bank, for suspected breach of trust and deception of investors in a potential $4 billion fraud case involving a real estate fund created by the bank. He had spun much of his family’s property portfolio into Meinl European Land (MEL). By 2007 MEL had lost €1.8 billion in an attempt to support its share price. He was released after posting a €100 million bail.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.60)(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 2, A Bangladesh official said the government will strictly enforce a new ban on begging that aims to fully eliminate it within five years.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In London G20 leaders pledged $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to struggling countries and agreed to crack down on tax havens and hedge funds, but failed to reach sweeping accord on more stimulus spending to attack the global economic decline.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, The annual Canadian harp seal hunt opened. Up to 280,000 baby seals were expected to be slaughtered in Quebec and Newfoundland.
(http://network.bestfriends.org/canada/news/13925.html)(SFC, 4/18/09, p.D12)
2009 Apr 2, Greek public services closed down and transport was disrupted across the country as thousands of workers went on strike to protest government spending cuts.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, An Iraqi military spokesman said the government will next week start paying Sunni paramilitary groups in the Baghdad area despite weekend clashes with one of the units. In Baghdad two gunmen firing from a car killed an Iraqi army officer in the Mansour district. One of the gunmen was killed and the other captured. Militants hurled a grenade at an American patrol on Palestine Street in east Baghdad, wounding two civilians. In Mosul a roadside bomb exploded near a small restaurant frequented by police, wounding four of them and a civilian. A US aircraft attacked a group of men believed to be members of a government-allied Sunni paramilitary group as they were planting a roadside bomb at night north of Baghdad, killing one and wounding two. Two gay men were killed Sadr City by relatives who were shamed by their behavior, after a leading cleric repeatedly condemned homosexuality. The killings come weeks after Iraqi police found four bodies near Sadr City with the word pervert written on their chests.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 2, Malaysia's PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (69), in office for 5½ lackluster years, resigned to make way for Deputy PM Najib Razak, who must now fix an economy close to recession, heal the country's deep racial divisions and revive a moribund ruling party.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Mexico's Senate unanimously approved legislation that would allow the government to seize property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals before they are convicted.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Morocco transferred to Spain Hassan Al Haski, an Islamist convicted in both countries for terrorist acts, apparently to resume serving time behind bars there.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Pakistani authorities ordered an investigation into a video showing a man flogging a screaming woman in the country's northwest where the government recently agreed to introduce Islamic law to end a rebellion by Taliban militants. President Asif Ali Zardari was yet to sign the bill introducing Islamic law in the Swat Valley. A would-be suicide bomber shot himself dead when mourners confronted him at the funeral of a Pakistani police officer recently killed by militants.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, A Palestinian militant went on a rampage in the Bat Ayin Jewish settlement in the West Bank, killing an Israeli boy (13) with a pickax and wounding another boy (7) before fleeing the area. On April 14 Israeli authorities detained suspect Moussa Tayet (26).
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 2, In the southern Philippines Islamic militants released a Filipina Red Cross aid worker, leaving a Swiss and an Italian still held captive.
(AFP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Puerto Rico FBI agents and police arrested at least 35 suspects in an alleged drug trafficking ring blamed for seven murders.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Sudan new US special envoy Scott Gration told journalists he had come to "look, learn and listen" and hoped for its friendship and cooperation, indicating a shift in tone by Washington under President Barack Obama.
(Reuters, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Venezuelan authorities arrested retired Gen. Raul Baduel, a former defense minister and a prominent critic of President Hugo Chavez, on corruption charges. The former ally of Pres. Chavez went into opposition 18 months earlier.
(AP, 4/2/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.36)
2009 Apr 3, US administration officials said Pres. Obama planned to lift some curbs on travel to Cuba, including a ban on family travel and remittances to Cuba.
(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 3, The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released a letter disclosing bonus awards of more than $210 million through next year to more than 7,600 employees.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 3, Hassan Abu-Jihaad, a former US Navy sailor, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving details of ship movements in 2001 to operators of a Web site in London that openly espoused violent jihad against the US.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 3, The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling finding that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where gay marriage is legal.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Binghampton, NY, Jiverly Wong (41) barricaded the back door of a community center with his car and then opened fire on a room full of immigrants taking a citizenship class, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide. Officials the next day said the man, believed to be Vietnamese immigrant, was depressed and angry over losing his job and about his poor English skills.
(AP, 4/3/09)(AP, 4/4/09)(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A15)
2009 Apr 3, Australia endorsed a UN declaration that recognizes indigenous rights, reversing years of opposition and promising a new era in relations between white Australians and the nation's impoverished Aborigines. Australia was one of four nations that voted against the declaration when it was adopted by the General Assembly in 2007.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Cambodian and Thai soldiers traded fire with machine guns and rocket launchers along a disputed border, killing as many as four people in an escalation of tensions in a long-standing feud over an 11th century temple.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, NATO began its 2-day 60th anniversary summit in France and Germany.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In France US Pres. Obama won enthusiastic support for his new Afghan war strategy from French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy, who pledged more police trainers and civilian aid.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Iraq an American soldier died of noncombat-related causes in Anbar province.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 3, Israeli police interrogated the country's new hard-line foreign minister for the 2nd straight day in an ongoing bribery investigation that could make his tenure short-lived. Avigdor Lieberman was questioned for five hours about an investigation involving suspicions of receiving bribes, money laundering and breach of trust.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, A Malawi judge rejected Madonna's request to adopt a second child from Malawi even though the country's child welfare minister had supported Madonna's application to raise the 3-year-old girl.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Malaysian PM Najib Razak, in his first act after talking office, freed 13 people being held under a law that allows indefinite detention and lifted a ban on two opposition newspapers.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Mexico Alberto Rayas Rodriguez (37), the chief homicide detective in western Jalisco state, was killed while on his way to a government event when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on his car.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Nigeria a source close to negotiations said Pfizer has agreed to pay $75 million compensation over a 1996 drug trial that caused the death of 11 children in northern Nigeria. Kano state confirmed the settlement on May 14.
(AFP, 4/3/09)(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 Apr 3, The Philippines said it will take needed steps to be stricken from a list of four nations blacklisted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as uncooperative tax havens.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Sri Lankan troops captured Anandapuram, a key village from the Tamil Tigers, after heavy fighting that left at least 44 guerrillas dead. Police commandos killed 13 Tiger rebels in the eastern district of Ampara.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, The Swiss central bank said UBS has transferred its final installment of toxic assets to a special state aid fund, bringing the total to 38.7 billion dollars.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Thai citizen Suvicha Thakhor was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of insulting the king and his family by posting edited photos of the monarchy on the Internet. On June 28, 2010, Thakhor was pardoned by the king.
(AP, 4/3/09)(AFP, 6/30/10)
2009 Apr 3, The UN appointed Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to lead a mission to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 3, In Venezuela 3 of the capital’s former police chiefs were sentenced to 30 years in prison. They were accused without evidence of complicity in the murder of several supporters of Pres. Chavez, who died during a coup attempt in 2002.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.36)
2009 Apr 3, The global diamond certification body ordered a ban on trade in diamonds from eastern Zimbabwe over concerns about human rights violations.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Pittsburgh, Pa., Richard Poplawski (23) shot and killed 3 police officers, who were responding to a domestic violence disturbance. Poplawski received gunshot wounds in his legs and was charged with 3 counts of murder. The shooting began following an argument between Poplawski and his mother over a dog urinating in their house. On June 28, 2011, a jury sentenced Poplawski to death.
(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A12)(SFC, 4/6/09, p.A5)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A6)
2009 Apr 4, In Texas Jorge Alberto Mendez (42) was arrested while trying to cross into Mexico from El Paso, where he lived. He was arrested for allegedly raping 19 women across the border in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Washington state Pierce County deputies 15 miles southeast of Tacoma found four children murdered in their beds and the fifth slain in the bathroom. The four girls and the youngest child, a 7-year-old boy, apparently had been shot. Earlier in the day police found there father, James Harrison (34) dead in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle. Harrison had just discovered that his wife was leaving him for another man.
(AP, 4/5/09)(SFC, 4/6/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 4, A pair of British brothers (10 & 11) lured two young boys (9 & 10) into a clearing to see some animals, and then tortured them in an attack so violent it left one of the victims pleading to be left alone to die. On Sep 3 the brothers admitted charges of robbery, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
(AP, 9/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, Egyptian police beat and detained at least 18 members of an anti-government protest group during a demonstration to demand the release of two activists, Sarah Rezk and Amina Taha. The two 19-year-olds detained April 2 for allegedly distributing leaflets calling for a national day of protest on April 6.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, France and Germany fully endorsed President Barack Obama's new Afghan war strategy but firmly resisted sending more combat troops in a rift that overshadowed symbols of unity at NATO 60th-anniversary summit. NATO's European leaders pledged a significant increase in troops for the US-led war in Afghanistan at their summit, but the alliance seemed sure to arouse hostility in the Muslim world by choosing the controversial Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new secretary general. All 28 NATO leaders unanimously approved Rasmussen as the new civilian leader of the alliance. Black-clad protesters attacked police and set a hotel and a customs station ablaze near a bridge linking France and Germany that served hours earlier as the backdrop for a show of unity by NATO leaders.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In southern Israel a woman opened fire on a police station Beersheba before officers shot back and killed her, in an apparent Palestinian militant attack. Israeli forces shot and killed two militants who were approaching the Gaza border. Elsewhere in Gaza, militants fired at least two mortar shells toward Israel. There were no reports of damage.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Mexico 11 people were found shot to death in 5 different places, some bearing signs of torture and left with threatening messages emblematic of drug violence.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 4, In northwestern Pakistan a suspected US drone fired two missiles at an alleged militant hide-out in North Waziristan, leaving 13 people dead including women and children. A suicide bomber killed 8 people in Islamabad. At least 62 illegal migrants were found suffocated to death inside a shipping container found near the border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/4/09)(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 4, In the Philippines two homemade bombs exploded hours apart in the same bus, wounding the conductor and five passengers in an attack police said may have been the work of an extortion gang led by former Muslim rebels.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Slovakia Pres. Ovan Gasparovic was re-elected for a 2nd 5-year term with 55% of the vote over Iveta Radicova, who had hoped to become Slovakia’s 1st female president.
(WSJ, 4/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 4, Somali pirates seized a 20,000-ton German container vessel, the Hansa Stavanger and its 24-member crew, in their latest attack on the Indian Ocean's busy commercial shipping lanes. The ship and crew were released on August 3 as pirates boasted $2.75 million in ransom.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 7/18/09)(Econ, 8/22/09, p.53)
2009 Apr 4, In Sudan armed men in the Darfur kidnapped two aid workers Claire Dubois of France and Canadian Stephanie Jodoin, of Aid Medicale International (AMI). They were seized from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el Fursan. Both women were released on April 29.
(AFP, 4/5/09)(Reuters, 4/12/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Turkey several thousand leftists staged anti-U.S. and anti-NATO protests, with shouts of "Yankee Go Home!" the day before President Barack Obama's visit.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, Off the coast of Yemen a smuggling boat carrying 40 Somalis capsized as passengers were disembarking. Twenty people made it to shore, the rest were missing.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 5, State media said China has reopened Tibet to foreign tourists almost two months after imposing a ban ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In the Czech Rep. President Barack Obama set out his vision for ridding the world of nuclear arms, declaring the US ready to lead steps by all states with atomic weapons to reduce their arsenals. Obama said the US will proceed with development of a missile defense system in Europe as long as there is an Iranian threat of nuclear weapons. Obama also urged the EU to accept Turkey as a full member of the 27-nation bloc, in remarks rejected outright by France and met coolly by Germany.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Denmark Lars Lokke Rasmussen (b.1964) began serving as prime minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_L%C3%B8kke_Rasmussen)
2009 Apr 5, In Iraq Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won assurances that Iraqi leaders will protect Palestinians living in Iraq, including thousands stranded in desert refugee camps, during his first visit to the country since the US-led invasion of 2003. Two roadside bombs in Fallujah killed one officer and wounded three other people. Someone threw a grenade at a police patrol in Samarra, killing one policeman and wounding four. 8 people, including seven policemen, were wounded by a bomb that blasted their patrol in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, Macedonia’s conservative candidate Gjorgje Ivanov (49) won the runoff election in a landslide with about two-thirds of the popular vote.
(WSJ, 4/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 5, In Moldova the Communist Party won re-election under alleged ballot rigging. The Communists, in power since 2001, won about 50% of the vote in what international observers said was a fair election. With a population of 4.1 million, Moldova was one of Europe's poorest nations with an average monthly salary of $350. Last year Moldovans abroad sent home $1.6 billion, roughly the same amount as the state budget.
(AP, 4/7/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.58)
2009 Apr 5, In southern Nigeria gunmen killed a policeman as they kidnapped a Scottish oil-services worker in Port Harcourt. The British worker was released on April 25.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 5, North Korea defied international warnings and sent a rocket hurtling over the Pacific, a launch President Barack Obama called an illicit test of the regime's long-range missile technology that threatened the security of nations "near and far." North Korea said it successfully sent its "Kwangmyongsong-2" satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful bid to develop its space program. South Korea and the US military disputed North Korea's claim of a successful launch into space, saying the rocket fell into the ocean in stages.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Pakistan a suicide bombing at a crowded Shiite mosque in Chakwal city in Punjab province killed 24-26 people. A senior Pakistani Taliban commander promised two more attacks per week in the country if the US does not stop missile strikes on Pakistani territory.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.39)
2009 Apr 5, Rwanda's ambassador said the bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Somalia an overnight mortar attack aimed at troops and peacekeepers in Mogadishu killed a child and wounded six other people, including 4 of the dead child's siblings. Somali pirates hijacked a small Yemeni boat in the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 5, Sri Lanka’s military said 3 days of intense fighting in the northeast has left 525 Tamil Tiger rebels dead and pushed the remaining guerrillas into a small "no-fire" zone crowded with tens of thousands of civilians. Woman rebel commanders Vidusha and Durga were reported to be among those killed.
(AP, 4/5/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.38)
2009 Apr 5, Off the coast of Yemen another smuggling boat carrying 23 Somalis hit rough seas. 13 made it to shore and two were missing.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 6, The US Federal Reserve said it will supply new lines of credit worth up to $287 billion to the central banks of Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and EU.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, Andrew Cuomo, NY state’s attorney general, filed a civil suit against J. Ezra Merkin, a New York philanthropic leader and former chairman of GMAC, on allegations that he betrayed hundreds of investors by repeatedly lying to them about how he invested their money. Merkin had funneled $2.4 billion from universities and nonprofit organizations into the firm of Bernard Madoff, now in jail for running a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 4/7/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an unannounced visit to northern Afghanistan to meet with her country's troops and view rebuilding efforts. She pressed President Karzai to review carefully a new law that critics say legalizes marital rape. In southern Afghanistan an insurgent rocket attack hit the Netherlands' main military base, killing one Dutch soldier and wounding 5 of his colleagues and 2 Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Australia a motorcycle gang leader surrendered to police and became the sixth biker charged in connection with a brawl that left a rival bleeding to death before shocked travelers at Australia's busiest airport.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, Bangladesh police detained Faisal Mustafa, the head of a British-based charity that funded an Islamic school in southern Bangladesh, where authorities on March 24 seized weapons and explosives.
(AP, 4/6/09)(SFC, 4/7/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 6, Belgium began World Court proceedings against Senegal in an effort to bring former Chad President Hissene Habre on trial for alleged widespread human rights abuses during his eight-year reign. A Chadian commission of inquiry has concluded that Habre's regime killed at least 3,780 political opponents, but added that the figure likely represents only 10 percent of his victims.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, China announced it will make improved health care services available to all its citizens by 2020, taking aim at a system long derided as creaking and inadequate.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, Egyptian police were out in force to deal with a nationwide protest called by pro-democracy groups, arresting Islamists and seeking to contain small demonstrations in the capital, Cairo.
(AFP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In India 2 bombs ripped through crowded markets in the restive northeast, killing at least seven people and wounding 60 others. A grenade attack left two police officers injured. Authorities suspected the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom was behind the attacks.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, An Indonesian military plane carrying 24 people crashed into an airport hangar during heavy rains and burst into flames, killing everyone on board.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Iraq a series bombs rocked Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 37 people and wounding more than 100 in a dramatic escalation of violence.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 6, In central Italy a magnitude 6.3 earthquake knocked down whole blocks of buildings as residents slept, killing 309 people in L'Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region, which was near the epicenter. It was the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades. Tens of thousands were homeless and 1,500 were injured. 8 students were killed when their dorm collapsed in L'Aquila. Investigations into shoddy construction soon followed.
(AFP, 4/6/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 10/19/09)(Econ, 10/27/12, p.80)
2009 Apr 6, Japan’s Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said PM Taro Aso has ordered a $100 billion stimulus plan to boost the national economy. PM Aso and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to deepen ties in energy, investment and trade, with Japanese companies ready to participate in gas and crude production in the Latin American country.
(WSJ, 4/7/09, p.A8)(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Kenya justice minister Martha Karua resigned in protest of Pres. Kibaki’s decision to appoint judges without consulting her.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.53)
2009 Apr 6, Somali pirates seized the Taiwanese ship Win Far 161 with 29 crew onboard near an island in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. A 32,000-ton British-owned bulk carrier, the Malaspina Castle, was also hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates soon began using the Win Far as a base for attacking other commercial ships. Win Far 161 was released on Feb 11, 2010, following the payment of a ransom. Three of its crew died of malnutrition and disease during their 10 month captivity.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 8/27/09)(AP, 2/11/10)(Econ, 2/5/11, p.70)
2009 Apr 6, In South Africa prosecutors dropped corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, saying the case had been manipulated for political reasons and clearing the way for him to become the next president without the looming threat of a trial. 783 charges of corruption, fraud, money-laundering and tax evasion against Zuma were dropped shortly before he came to power.
(Reuters, 4/6/09)(Econ, 4/9/15, p.50)
2009 Apr 6, In Turkey Pres. Obama, making his first visit to a Muslim nation as president, declared that the United States "is not and will never be at war with Islam."
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Zambia western nations and lending agencies meeting in Lusaka agreed a financing package of more than $1 billion to improve infrastructure in southern and central Africa at an investment conference meant to expand transport links and trade. Britain said it would separately provide 100 million pounds ($149.2 million) to transform the region's infrastructure to increase trade and mitigate the effects of the global financial crisis. New projects will link businesses in 8 African countries: Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 7, US military leaders said the Pentagon has spent over $100 million in the past 6 months responding to and repairing damage from cyber attacks and other computer network problems.
(SFC, 4/8/09, p.C3)
2009 Apr 7, In Alabama authorities found the body of Kevin Lee Garner (45) near his burned home in Priceville. The home had burned overnight. Garner's body was found following a day of searching for him in several north Alabama counties following the murders of four of his family members in the Greenhill community of Lauderdale County.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090408/ap_on_re_us/alabama_four_dead)(SFC, 4/8/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 7, In southern California a gunman in Temecula opened fire at a Korean Christian retreat center, leaving one woman dead and four people injured.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, A lawsuit filed in US District Court in Denver by the SEC alleged that Shawn Merriman, an unlicensed broker, collected up to $20 million from investors in several states to support a lavish lifestyle. The former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allegedly operated a Ponzi scheme from his suburban Denver home for about 15 years, bilking investors out of millions of dollars to collect religious art and classic cars.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Texas Jon Dale Jones (46), a former Army hospital nurse, pleaded guilty to assault and theft. He was accused of infecting 15 patients with hepatitis C. Jones was arrested on federal charges in March of 2008 for using dirty needles to administer anesthesia, and accused of stealing painkillers for himself.
(SFC, 4/8/09, p.A5)(www.mahalo.com/Jon_Dale_Jones)
2009 Apr 7, Vermont became the first state to legalize same sex marriage through a legislature’s vote.
(SFC, 4/8/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 7, GM and Segway announced that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world. The project was called P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility).
(AP, 4/7/09)(WSJ, 4/8/09, p.B4)
2009 Apr 7, Samuel Beer, Harvard professor (1946-1982), died. His books included “British Politics in the Collectivist Age" (1965), which established him as the foremost scholar on modern British politics.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.88)
2009 Apr 7, Jack Wrangler (b.1946 as John Robert Stillman), porn star and musical theater producer, died in Manhattan. He appeared in over 30 gay sex films and 20 straight films including “The Devil in Miss Jones" (1982).
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 7, Australia announced plans to build a 30 billion US dollar broadband network, its biggest infrastructure project ever, opting to retain government control rather than contract out the deal.
(AFP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, Cuba’s President Raul Castro met with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than four hours, his first face-to-face discussions with US leaders since he became president last year. A "very healthy, very energetic" Fidel Castro asked visiting Congressional Black Caucus members what Cuba could do to help President Barack Obama improve bilateral relations during his first meeting with US officials since falling ill in 2006.
(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, Ethiopia, the world's sixth largest coffee producer, said it did not intend to nationalize the coffee sector after revoking licenses of six exporters for hoarding the beans. PM Meles Zenawi had warned the exporters against hoarding coffee, accusing them of speculation in the world markets.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, A man opened fire at a courthouse in Bavaria, killing his sister-in-law and injuring two other people. He then shot himself dead. The incident appeared to stem from a long-running inheritance dispute.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, President Barack Obama flew into Iraq from Turkey on a trip shrouded in secrecy, for a brief look at a war he opposed as a candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief. A car bomb in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least nine people and wounded 18 others. A suicide car bomb killed three people at a police checkpoint in Fallujah. In Iskandariyah police found the bullet-riddled body a member of the Awakening Council, a group of former Sunni insurgents who sided with the US in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. The councilman was kidnapped a day earlier. A car bombing in Kazimiyah killed nine people, including a mother who was riding in a taxi with her infant son.
(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, Israeli police fatally shot a Palestinian motorist as he tried to run over officers guarding the demolition of the home of a militant who killed three Israelis with a construction vehicle in July.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Moldova anti-communist protesters stormed the Parliament, hurling computers through shattered windows and setting fire to furniture in a violent demonstration against what they said were fraudulent elections. 3 people were left dead and hundreds were detained.
(AP, 4/7/09)(Econ, 8/8/09, p.46)
2009 Apr 7, In southern Pakistan police arrested five men alleged to be planning suicide attacks on the city of Karachi.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (70) was found guilty of murder and kidnapping for death squad activities during his 10-year rule during the 1990s. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His daughter, Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori (33), said people's outrage over the "vengeful" verdict will propel her to Peru's presidency in 2011. Then she'll pardon him.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, Saudi authorities beheaded 3 Pakistanis convicted of killing a fellow Pakistani during a jewelry heist. This brought to 20 the number of beheadings in the kingdom this year.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In South Korea former Pres. Roh Moo-hyun announced that his wife had received money from Park Yeon-cha, chairman of Taekwang Industrial Co., a shoe manufacturer, several hours following the arrest of Chung Sangmoon, a former aide who had accepted the money for the president’s wife.
for the president’s wife.
(WSJ, 4/8/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 7, In Thailand protesters surrounded the prime minister's car and smashed a window as he rode in it, escalating tensions a day before a massive anti-government rally that the leader said has sparked concerns of civil war.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Turkey Pres. Obama wrapped up his first European trip as president with a request of the world: Look past his nation's stereotypes and flaws. "You will find a partner and a supporter and a friend in the United States of America."
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, UNESCO awarded the World Press Freedom Prize to Lasantha Wickrematunge, a murdered Sri Lankan journalist, whose self-written obituary accused the government of silencing him. His self-written obituary was published three days after his murder in early January, in which no arrests have been made.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Venezuela legislators loyal to President Hugo Chavez approved a new law that erodes the authority of Caracas' opposition Mayor Antonio Ledezma by subordinating him to a government-appointed official.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 8, The Passover holiday, which marks the Hebrews' exodus from slavery in Egypt as recounted in the Bible, began this evening with a special meal known as the seder.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, The US Justice Dept. filed terrorism-related charges against Luis Posada Carriles (81), a prominent Cuban exile wanted by the Castro government for involvement in several 1997 hotel bombings in Cuba.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/c5j5b5)
2009 Apr 8, The US Coast Guard located a Venezuela-flagged fishing boat 500 miles east of Brazil, boarded the vessel and found about 2,500 pounds (1,135 kilograms) of cocaine. They planned to turn over the boat, the drugs, the prisoners to Venezuelan authorities.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that cyberspies have penetrated the US electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, US federal agents searched three money-transfer businesses in Minneapolis, carrying away boxes of documents and copying computer hard drives for details of transactions between the US and several African nations, including Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 8, Genentech, a unit of Roche, said it is voluntarily withdrawing its psoriasis drug Raptiva due to a link with a rare but often fatal brain disorder.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.B3)
2009 Apr 8, The international Red Cross said a polio outbreak, that now affects 15 African countries, threatens efforts to eradicate the disease.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Over 100 Afghan ministers, lawmakers and officials signed a petition opposing a controversial law that critics say legalizes marital rape. The petition said the law is unconstitutional and leads toward the "Talibanization" of Afghanistan's legal system. The petition came as Poland's President Lech Kaczynski held talks in Kabul with Karzai and reiterated his country's plans to increase its troop contribution in the country by 400 over the current 1,600 in Ghazni province. A roadside blast hit a civilian vehicle south of Kandahar city, wounding six civilians. Gen. David McKiernan, top US general in Afghanistan, met with villagers in Helmand and Kandahar. He apologized for past mistakes and said he is now studying the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 4/10/09)(SFC, 4/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 8, British police arrested 12 suspects in a major anti-terror operation. 11 of the 12 were Pakistani nationals. One 18-year-old was soon handed over to the UK border agency for questioning about his immigration status. All the suspects were released after 2 weeks.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/11/09)(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 8, A fishing vessel carrying 45 boatpeople, believed to be from Iraq, landed on Australia’s remote Christmas Island, island, a day after the opposition party said a softer stance on refugees had prompted a "surge" in illegal immigrants.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Canada Tori Stafford (8) was kidnapped outside her school in Woodstock, Ontario. In 2012 Terri-Lynne McClintic admitted she had kidnapped Tori and delivered her to her boyfriend Michael Rafferty, who raped the child. McClintic said she then battered the girl to death with a claw hammer. On May 11, 2012, a jury in London, Ontario, found Rafferty (31) guilty of first degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, dismissing his girlfriend's testimony that she alone was responsible for killing Tori Stafford.
(Reuters, 5/11/12)
2009 Apr 8, In China visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the world's center of gravity has moved to Beijing, as he focused on boosting Chinese oil purchases.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, China said that it would build a clinic in each of its nearly 700,000 villages within three years, part of a sweeping 850 billion yuan ($124 billion) investment in health care reform.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, China's state media said a court in Tibet has sentenced two people to death over riots in Lhasa last year, in what was the harshest sentence yet reported over the deadly unrest. Xinhua said the crimes committed by the five defendants resulted in seven deaths and the destruction of five shops in Lhasa.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Dubai’s public prosecution indicted Mohammed Khalfan Bin Kharbash, a former minister of state, along with several former company executives for corruption.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.C2)
2009 Apr 8, In France workers at a British-owned adhesives factory held three British executives and a local manager captive over plans to close the site down. Scapa, which announced in February it would close its plant in Bellegarde, said it was forced to cut back after the market for car industry adhesives collapsed by 50 percent in 2008. The managers were released after being held overnight.
(AP, 4/8/09)(SFC, 4/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 8, In Iraq a bomb left in a plastic bag exploded near the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 23.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Stone-throwing Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers clashed near the site of an ax attack last week that killed a Jewish teenager, leaving at least 8 Palestinians wounded.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Nigeria President Umaru Yar'Adua dismissed top managers across the board of the state Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In northwestern Pakistan a suspected US missile strike on a car near Wana, South Waziristan, killed two alleged militants and a civilian, a day after the US-allied country reiterated its opposition to such attacks to visiting American officials. Residents in Buner tried to push out a group of Taliban militants who had ventured into their territory from their stronghold in the Swat Valley and killed five people.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Paraguay lawyers filed a paternity suit against President Fernando Lugo, alleging that a son was born to the former Roman Catholic bishop five months after he abandoned the church for politics.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 8, A Russian spacecraft carrying a crew of three including US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi landed safely in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Somali pirates hijacked a US-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard. The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya. The pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips hostage after they hijacked the Maersk Alabama, then fled the cargo ship as the vessel's crew overpowered them.
(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 8, Thailand’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by .25% to 1.25% to help prop up the worsening economy. more than 100,000 anti-government protesters rallied in Bangkok in their biggest bid yet to topple premier Abhisit Vejjajiva, deepening the political crisis ahead of a key Asian summit.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.C2)(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Turkmenistan a blast on a Central Asian pipeline halted the supply of Turkmen gas to Russia. The explosion was later said to have resulted from Gazprom’s decision to stop importing gas due to high prices and falling demand. Gazprom blamed the explosion on poor maintenance.
(AP, 4/9/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.46)
2009 Apr 9, Pres. Obama submitted an $83.4 billion funding request to Congress, including $80 million to close Guantanamo, as lawmakers were on break over the Easter holidays.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 9, FBI hostage negotiators joined US Navy efforts to free an American ship captain held captive on a lifeboat by Somali pirates. A US destroyer and a spy plane kept close watch in the high-seas standoff near the Horn of Africa. Capt. Richard Phillips made a desperate escape attempt but was recaptured.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, The SEC charged Atlanta attorney Robert P. Copeland (48) for running a Ponzi scheme from about 2004-2009. He was alleged to have raised over $35 million from at least 140 investors and owed over $28 million to the victims.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.C3)(www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2009/lr20994.htm)
2009 Apr 9, Vandals in the San Jose, and San Carlos, Ca., chopped fiber optic cables disrupting service for hundreds of thousands of people in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 9, In Mena, Arkansas, a tornado struck a "direct hit" on this mountain community, killing at least three people, injuring at least 30 others and flattening homes and businesses.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Fullerton, Ca., Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart (22) was killed along with 2 others in a car accident with a suspected drunk driver.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 9, Dave Arneson (61), co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game (1974) and a pioneer of role-playing entertainment, died after a two-year battle with cancer.
(AP, 4/10/09)(SFC, 4/11/09, p.B3)
2009 Apr 9, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber attacked a police drug eradication unit, killing five people and wounding 17 others. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Four people were shot dead in the raid overnight in eastern Khost province. The US military later admitted that they were not "armed combatants" as first announced. A nine-months pregnant woman had survived the shooting that killed her unborn child. US soldiers working with Afghan forces killed 15 militants in southern Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition forces killed five "combatants" in Kandahar province's Maywand district. A dozen more insurgents were killed in adjoining Uruzgan province after another attack on an Afghan and coalition patrol.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/10/09)(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, Algerians voted in a presidential election that is expected to give the incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika another five years to try to quell terrorism and reform the North African country's lackluster economy, which is heavily dependent on oil and gas. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won 90.24% of the vote.
(AP, 4/9/09)(Reuters, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, Amnesty International said immigrants and ethnic minorities living in Austria are more likely to be suspected of crimes than whites and are regularly denied their right to equal treatment by the country's police and judicial system.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In southern Bangladesh 2 speeding passenger buses crashed into each other, killing at least 11 people and injuring another 50.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Bob Quick, Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner and Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, quit after his security blunder forced police to bring forward a major operation to thwart a suspected al Qaeda plot involving Pakistani nationals.
(Reuters, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A Chinese court executed two men from a Muslim minority group for killing 17 police in an attack in China's far west that the government portrayed as an attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A top human rights group said in a report that at least 90 women have been raped and 180 villagers killed over the past two months by rebels as well as government forces in volatile eastern Congo.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Czech Pres. Vaclav Klaus appointed nonpartisan Jan Fischer (58) as prime minister. He will replace Mirek Topolanek on May 9.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 9, A court in coup-plagued Fiji declared the military government illegal and said the president should immediately appoint an interim leader to oversee a return to democracy.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, French lawmakers rejected a tough new Internet piracy bill that would cut off illegal downloaders, in a surprise setback for President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Georgia tens of thousands of protesters thronged the streets in front of the parliament, calling on Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili to step down in the largest opposition demonstration since last year's war with Russia.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Guatemala banned more than one person from riding on motorcycles in a policy aimed at stamping out attacks by cycle-mounted hit men.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A prominent Indian comedian took aim at the country's notoriously corrupt political elite by starting up his own party with promises to bribe as many voters as possible. Jaspal Bhatti, known for his biting satire on Indian TV shows, unveiled his new party and field of candidates, saying he hoped to give the big parties a run for their dirty money.
(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Indonesians flooded polling stations across the sprawling island nation, capping a decade of democracy in a parliamentary election that boosted the reform-minded president's chances of re-election. Pres. Yudhoyono’s party won 20.8% of the popular vote. Nine parties appeared to have passed the 2.5% threshold to win seats in the 560-member parliament.
(AP, 4/9/09)(SFC, 4/10/09, p.A2)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.44)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, Iran's president inaugurated a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor. Pres. Ahmadinejad was attending celebrations in Isfahan for Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, which marks the day in 2006 when Iran enriched uranium for the first time. Iran has been building the 40-megawatt hard-water reactor in the central town of Arak for the past four years.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Iraq tens of thousands of supporters of an anti-US Shiite cleric demanded an end to the US military presence and burned effigy of ex-President George W. Bush in a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to American forces. Police raided a cartoon exhibition in the Shiite city of Karbala and seized a drawing depicting PM Nouri al-Maliki with a long nose trying to repair a car labeled "sectarian distribution of jobs." On Apr 12 a parliamentary committee criticized police for raiding the exhibition.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 9, Mexico City turned off the tap to millions of residents because water reserves have reached historic lows. The two-day shutdown of a main pipeline affected at least 5 million of the 20 million people in the Mexico City valley.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Mexico a former Guatemalan soldier, who allegedly procured weapons for a drug cartel, was killed in a gunfight with federal police. Israel Nava and two other gunmen were killed in northern Zacatecas state. Eight police were wounded. Nava was a former member of the "kaibiles," Guatemalan soldiers trained in counterinsurgency. Mexico first warned in 2005 that the Zetas were recruiting kaibiles.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A Niger government minister said Tuareg rebels have agreed to lay down their arms and join a peace process in the desert West African nation.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Nigeria's Central Bank cut its benchmark lending rate to 8% from 9.75% and announced measures aimed at boosting liquidity in the market.
(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Kim Jong Il laid to rest speculation about his health with a triumphant return to parliament for his appointment to a third term as North Korea's supreme leader. Legislators unanimously adopted a law "on revising and supplementing the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK (North Korea)" but gave no details.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Pakistan the remains 3 politicians were discovered in Baluchistan province, six days after they were reportedly abducted by armed men. They were identified as the head of the Baluchistan National Party (BNP), Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, his deputy Lala Munir Baloch, and Sher Mohammad, deputy secretary general of the Baluchistan Republican Party (BRP). Baloch played "an active role" in seeking the April 4 release of John Solecki, the UN refugee agency staffer. Rioting students set fire to two banks in another southwestern town. One policeman was killed and several others injured during the violent protests.
(AP, 4/10/09)(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Peru suspected guerrillas killed 13 Peruvian soldiers in ambushes on two patrols in the Apurimac-Ene river valley, a jungle region known for coca production and lingering rebel activity. The body of a 14th soldier was recovered on April 12.
(AP, 4/11/09)(SFC, 4/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 9, In South Africa an armed mob invaded a major land reform project in the eastern Mpumalanga province. The invaders were unhappy with the progress of the project, despite warnings that it would take up to three years before a return from what had been badly neglected farms.
(Reuters, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 9, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry said at least 10 Tiger rebels were killed in overnight fighting in Mullaittivu district, and accused the rebels of positioning their heavy weapons near civilian shelters. The pro-Tamil Tiger website Tamilnet.com said heavy shelling by the Sri Lankan army of a designated safe area had left 129 civilians dead and 282 wounded.
(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 10, A US immigration board rejected suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk's appeal of an extradition order, paving the way for deportation to Germany to face charges he committed atrocities.
(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Arizona Samuel Valdivia (18), a high school student, was caught with his math teacher, Tamara Hofmann (48) in her bedroom, and was stabbed to death by boyfriend Sixto Balbuena (20), who was himself a former student of hers. Balbuena, a Navy sailor on leave from California, was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder after police found him covered in blood and told them about the killing.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 10, Areas of Tennessee were hit by a savage line of storms that wrecked homes, killed a mother and her baby and injured dozens of others.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Michigan a student fatally shot a female classmate before turning the gun on himself in an apparent murder-suicide that prompted a lockdown at Dearborn’s Henry Ford Community College, west of Detroit. The bodies of Asia McGowan (20) of Ecorse, and Anthony Powell (28) of Detroit, were discovered inside a classroom.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In southern Afghanistan Taliban attackers killed six policemen. ISAF security troops killed 18 insurgents in the northeastern province of Kunar.
(AFP, 4/10/09)(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Algeria President Abdelaziz Bouteflika hailed his landslide re-election for a third term as a "lesson in democracy," but opposition politicians and independent media alleged fraud at the polls, and the US government expressed concern.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Britain 11 environmental activists from a group called Eastside Climate Action were arrested after they entered the power station and climbed onto equipment at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant outside Nottingham. In 2011 a trial against 6 of the accused activists broke down after a police infiltrator prepared to give evidence on their behalf.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratcliffe-on-Soar_Power_Station)(AFP, 1/10/11)
2009 Apr 10, About 30 protesters tried to force their way into China's elite Peking University to confront Sun Dongdong, a law professor, who said 99 percent of the people petitioning the government with grievances are mentally ill and could be institutionalized.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, A study was released saying China has 32 million more young men than young women, a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime, because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, Fiji's Pres. Ratu Josefa Iloilo (88) suspended the constitution of his troubled South Pacific country and fired the judges who had declared its military government illegal.
(AP, 4/10/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.44)
2009 Apr 10, In France Ekaitz Sirvent Auzmendi (29), suspected of being a master forger for ETA, was captured by French and Spanish police as he got off a bullet train that had arrived from Bordeaux at the French capital's Montparnasse station.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, France's navy freed a sailboat seized off Somalia last week by pirates, but one of the hostages was killed. Pirates had seized the sailboat carrying Florent Lemacon, his wife, 3-year-old son and two friends off the Somali coast a week ago. Two pirates were killed, and Lemacon died in an exchange of fire as he tried to duck down the hatch.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, About 20,000 demonstrators kept up the pressure on Georgia's president to resign, with some pelting his residence with cabbages and carrots on a second day of protests.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Greece a teenage student (19) armed with two handguns, dozens of bullets and a knife opened fire in a vocational training college in Athens, wounding three people before shooting himself in the head. He left a note accusing his fellow students of picking on him.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In western India a blaze at a fireworks factory killed at least 23 workers and injured 48 others.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, Iran hanged three men for their involvement in a bombing inside a packed mosque that killed 14 people on April 12, 2008.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a sandbagged wall surrounding a police headquarters in Mosul, killing five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen in the single deadliest attack against US forces in more than a year.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, Japan renewed and strengthened sanctions against North Korea, but disagreed with the US over how the UN Security Council should censure Pyongyang for its rocket launch.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In the Netherlands a man (44) pulled a gun in Rotterdam’s Laurenshof cafe after an argument and shot a patron inside, then rushed outside where he shot three more people. Several people chased the gunman when he ran outside, overpowered and disarmed him, and wrestled him to the ground until police arrived.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In southwest Pakistan four people were wounded in a bomb blast, where businesses closed for a second day to protest against the murder of 3 separatist politicians.
(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Moscow Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and PM Vladimir Putin. Al-Maliki told Medvedev in the Kremlin that Iraq is interested in Russian investment, and Putin said at a joint news conference that talks focused on oil and gas cooperation.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Somalia Islamist militants attacked African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu overnight, sparking heavy exchanges that killed two civilians.
(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Louisiana gunmen kicked down an apartment door and opened fire killing 2 children and a woman in Terrytown.
(SSFC, 4/12/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 11, Rebels ambushed Afghan and foreign forces in Zabul province, sparking an exchange of gunfire that left 22 rebels dead.
(AFP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 11, Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church for the first time issued a certificate of conversion to a Muslim-born Christian. It was only the second time that such a request has been formally made in a country where converting to Christianity, while not illegal, is practically impossible. Egypt's Copts, the largest Christian community in the Middle East, account for an estimated six to 10% of the country's 80 million inhabitants.
(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Iraq a suicide bomber walked into a crowd of US-allied Sunni paramilitaries and detonated his explosives belt, killing nine and wounding 30 others waiting in line for their salaries in Jbala.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Sajad Lone (41), an outspoken Kashmiri separatist and head of the People's Conference, said he would run in India's elections starting next week, marking a radical departure for the movement which has until now boycotted polls.
(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Morocco blamed Algeria for a "serious and blatant" violation by the Polisario Front of an 18-year-long ceasefire in the disputed Western Sahara and urged the UN to intervene.
(Reuters, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In southwestern Pakistan gunmen shot dead 8 people in separate incidents in the province of Baluchistan, amid protests over the killing of 3 local leaders this week, police.
(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Moscow Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki met with Russian business leaders to encourage them to take an active part in rebuilding Iraq's economy.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, A Saudi man convicted of rape and robbery was beheaded, becoming the 22nd prisoner to be executed by sword this year in the kingdom. An Interior Ministry statement says the man committed the crimes after drinking alcohol.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Somali pirates hijacked the Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer, an American-owned tugboat, with 16 crew in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates abandoned the ship on August 9 and all crew members were freed. No random was paid.
(AP, 4/11/09)(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Apr 11, Corin Tellado (81), a well-known Spanish author of more than 4,000 romance novels, died while celebrating the Easter holidays with her family.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Thailand anti-government protesters stormed a convention center in Pattaya where leaders of Asian nations planned to meet, smashing doors and searching room by room for the prime minister. Thailand canceled the summit and airlifted the leaders out by helicopter.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Turkey’s agriculture ministry said 11 people have died in Turkey over the past three weeks, including three young Germans, after drinking bootleg spirits.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 12, US Navy SEAL snipers on a destroyer shot and killed three Somali pirates and plucked an unharmed Capt. Richard Phillips to safety. A fourth pirate surrendered. His rescue sparked concern for other hostages and fears that the stakes have been raised for future hijackings in the Indian Ocean shipping lane.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, The Pritzker jury named Peter Zumthor (65), a Swiss architect, as the 2009 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
(AFP, 4/12/09)(SFC, 4/13/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 12, In Florida a power boat packed with 12 people slammed into a docked tug boat, killing five occupants of the pleasure craft and seriously injuring seven on the Intracoastal Waterway in St. Johns County.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, In New Hampshire a massive fire destroyed or damaged about 40 summer cottages at the 146-year-old Alton Bay Christian Conference Center.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Texas 2 firefighters were killed while battling a house fire in Houston.
(SFC, 4/13/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 12, Marilyn Chambers (born in 1952 as Marilyn Ann Briggs), adult film star, was found dead at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Canyon Country. The pretty Ivory Snow girl helped bring hard-core adult films into the mainstream consciousness when she starred in the explicit movie "Behind the Green Door" (1972).
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Kandahar, Afghanistan, Taliban gunmen on motorbikes gunned down, female legislator Sitara Achikzai.
(AFP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Bahrain a pardon by King Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa led to the release of 178 people imprisoned on security-related charges. Among them were 22 Shiite activists who have been on trial since February on charges of seeking to destabilize the government and promote regime change through terrorism.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Bangladesh security officials arrested eight suspected militants of a banned Islamic group after raiding a house in Dhaka.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Sir John Maddox (b.1925), former editor of the British journal Nature, died.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maddox)
2009 Apr 12, China announced a $10 billion infrastructure fund and $15 billion in credits and loans to help its Southeast Asian neighbors face the global financial crises.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A9)
2009 Apr 12, In the Central African Republic at least 22 people died as cattle farmers and traders clashed over stolen oxen with guns, blades and arrows. Fighting was sparked by a dispute over 170 oxen stolen by bandits 10 days earlier but later retrieved.
(AFP, 4/12/09)(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Colombia a caravan of some 500 motorcycles completed a three-week ride dedicated to hostages held by FARC rebels, but fell short of securing the release of captives. At least 22 Colombian soldiers and police were held by the FARC as political bargaining chips.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Iraq a roadside bomb killed a US soldier north of Baghdad. A second roadside bombing struck two cars carrying Iraqis in the Jisr Diyala area, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Baghdad. Nine people were wounded in the explosion, including two women and a teenage boy.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Israel's new PM Netanyahu spoke to the Palestinian Pres. Abbas on Easter for the first time since taking office, telling him that he seeks close cooperation to drive peace efforts forward.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Jordanian authorities said a man has confessed to stabbing to death his pregnant sister (28) and mutilating her body to protect the family honor. The incident, the ninth such case this year and the second this month, took place in the village of Basira, in the conservative Bedouin heartland of southern Jordan.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Malaysian police rushed to a robbery scene only to find the suspects were fellow officers. 3 men of a special elite police unit were allegedly caught robbing five men at a house. One of the officers was armed with a pistol.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Nigeria fire broke out on the Trans-Niger Pipeline. All the feeder flowstations outside Ogoniland (in Rivers State) adjoining it were shut down to allow for repairs.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, In northwestern Pakistan about 150 militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons attacked a transport terminal that lies along a key supply route used by US and NATO troops, wounding three guards and torching eight cement trucks.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Puerto Rico Army Spc. Nokware Rosado Munoz (28) had been arguing with his pregnant wife about his upcoming redeployment to Iraq before hanging himself.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, Sri Lanka's president ordered government troops to halt their offensive against cornered Tamil rebels for two days to give tens of thousands of civilians a chance to escape the fighting.
(AFP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Thailand's ousted PM Shinawatra, called for a revolution after rioting erupted in the capital, with protesters commandeering public buses and swarming triumphantly over military vehicles in unchecked defiance after the government declared a state of emergency.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Zimbabwe set up a parliamentary team to spearhead the writing of a new constitution which Pres. Mugabe's opponents say will be key to holding free and fair elections. A state newspaper reported that Zimbabwe will not use its own local currency for at least a year, while it tries to repair an economy which critics say was destroyed by President Mugabe.
(Reuters, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 13, Pres. Obama eased curbs on Cuba travel and money transfers. A broader economic embargo introduced by Pres. Kennedy in 1962 remained in place.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 13, In California a jury found Phil Spector (69), former rock-n-roll producer, guilty of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson (40).
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Minnesota’s Senate race a unanimous three-judge panel ruled in favor of Democrat Al Franken, but former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman swiftly announced he would take his fight to the state Supreme Court. After a statewide recount and seven-week trial, Franken stood 312 votes ahead.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, Afghan officials said an overnight NATO-led airstrike on a remote village killed six civilians, including two children. Western forces said they killed 4-8 armed militants. In southern Afghanistan Taliban gunmen used a firing squad to kill a young couple for trying to elope, shooting them with rifles in front of a crowd in a lawless, militant-controlled region. A young woman Canadian soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan and four other soldiers were wounded when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
(Reuters, 4/13/09)(AP, 4/14/09)(WSJ, 4/14/09, p.A1)(Reuters, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, Algeria’s constitutional council officially declared Abdelaziz Bouteflika re-elected as president of Algeria for a third mandate with 90.23% of the vote on a turnout of 74.56%.
(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, China released its first human rights action plan, pledging to improve the treatment of minorities and do more to prevent the torture of detainees but said that raising living standards would remain a central goal.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, It was reported that Egypt has cracked a major Hezbollah network and arrested 49 Hezbollah members and sympathizers between November and January.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 13, In France a 65-year-old man opened fire on three people apparently at random, killing two. The man, who had holed up in a house in the town of Douchy-les-Mines surrendered after the shootings.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, In India IJP candidate Bahadur Sonkar (48) was found hanging from an acacia tree in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh state. Dhananjay Singh, a rival BSP candidate and alleged gangster, was accused of Sonkar’s murder.
(http://labs.aljazeera.net/console/taxonomy/term/3043)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.47)
2009 Apr 13, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), an Iranian-American journalist, was convicted of spying and soon sentenced to 8 years in jail. She was released from jail on May 11 after an appeals court suspended her sentence.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101315579)(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Iraq an American soldier was killed by an armor-piercing bomb south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Lebanon gunmen ambushed government troops in the east of the country, spraying their military vehicle with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. Four soldiers were killed and an officer was wounded in the attack.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Mexico's Congress opened a three-day debate on the merits of legalizing marijuana for personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working. Mexican authorities arrested a woman guarding an arsenal that included the first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico. The army captured Ruben Granados Vargas, an alleged lieutenant for the Beltran-Leyva drug cartel in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
(AP, 4/13/09)(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, In southern Nigeria gunmen riding in 18 boats attacked a military houseboat outside an oil facility and commandeered a naval vessel. The clashes left nine militants and one naval rating dead.
(AP, 4/13/09)(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Pakistan’s Pres. Asif Ali Zardari signed a bill imposing Islamic law in the Swat Valley. Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency arrested 20 Indian fishermen and seized their four boats for illegally trawling in its waters in the Arabian Sea. Authorities estimated that more than 100 Pakistani fishermen languished in Indian jails while Indian authorities say nearly 500 Indian fishermen were in Pakistani prisons. Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s top civilian security official, said authorities in Karachi have arrested a Shahid Jamil Riaz, a 5th suspect in the November 2008 siege of Mumbai.
(WSJ, 4/14/09, p.A1)(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, An unmanned Palestinian fishing boat laden with hundreds of pounds of explosives blew up off the coast of Gaza in what the Israeli military said was an attempt to attack a naval patrol in the area.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Paraguay’s Pres. Fernando Lugo admitted that he is the father of a child conceived while he was still a Catholic bishop in San Pedro.
(SFC, 4/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 13, In Peru a foot bridge in the highlands collapsed, sending dozens of children and teachers from a nearby school plunging more than 230 feet (70 meters) into a ravine and killing 2 teachers and six schoolchildren.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Poland's deadliest fire in nearly 3 decades tore through a homeless shelter in the northwest, killing 21 and forcing parents to toss children from windows to rescuers.
(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, A Russian court ruled that tycoon Alexander Lebedev's registration as a candidate in the mayoral race in the Olympic city of Sochi is illegitimate.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Tajikistan an independent audit was posted indicating that the chairman of the Central Bank had diverted more than $850 million to a company run by himself and his family. The Ernst & Young audit said that under Murodali Alimardonov's stewardship, from 1996 to 2008, the Central Bank paid about $856 million to his Credit-Invest company, a general purpose investment concern. A further $221.5 million allocated for investment in the cotton industry in 2004-2007 remained unaccounted for.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Thai troops unleashed volleys of gunfire in street battles with anti-government protesters across Bangkok, forcing them back to their main rallying site in a final push to end days of turmoil.
(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, The UN Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's April 5 rocket launch, demanded an end to missile tests and said it will expand sanctions against the reclusive communist nation.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi proposed legislation for the city to sell and distribute medical marijuana.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 14, In Massachusetts Julissa Brisman (26) was found dead at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. On April 20 police arrested medical student Philip Markoff (22) of Quincy, in the woman's death. Police believed Markoff may have been involved in other crimes against women who also posted ads on Craigslist. On Aug 15, 2010, Markoff was found dead in his cell in Boston.
(AP, 4/21/09)(SFC, 8/16/10, p.A7)
2009 Apr 14, In Montana paleontologist Nate Murphy (51) pleaded guilty to stealing dinosaur fossils from federal land. He gained fame in 2000 when he discovered a 77 million-year-old duckbilled hadrosaur known as Leonardo.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 14, Afghanistan warned that Pakistan's deal to allow Taliban to impose Islamic law in part of the country may have "dire consequences" for the region and could harm ties between the neighbors.
(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo Morales ended a 5-day hunger strike after Bolivia’s Congress broke a political deadlock and approved a law letting him run for re-election in December.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 14, In London Sahnoun Daifallah (42) of Algeria, an unemployed chemist, was jailed for spraying a mix of urine and feces on food, wine and children's books in several British stores. Daifallah was sentenced to 9 years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of contaminating goods. Deportation proceedings were in progress.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, In northwest Central African Republic Soule Garga, a top representative of cattle breeders, was been killed by rebels, just days after a poaching bloodbath left 22 people dead.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, In southern China hundreds of workers at a textile factory blocked roads, in a second day of protests over unpaid wages.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, The EU started legal action against Britain for not applying EU data privacy rules that would restrict an Internet advertising tracker called Phorm from watching how users surf the Web.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, France's government launched a campaign against forced marriages and genital mutilation, seeking to protect women from practices that quietly thrive in immigrant communities the nation is struggling to integrate.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, French author Maurice Druon (b.1918), a fighter for France's World War II Resistance movement and writer of one of its anthems, died. After the conflict he wrote historical novels including the "Rois Maudits" (Accursed Kings) series.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, In Hungary Gordon Bajnai (b.1968) began serving as the country’s 7th prime minister. He continued to May 29,2010.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bajnai)
2009 Apr 14, Indian police arrested Ashok Sahu, a Hindu nationalist politician and member of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for an alleged April 5 anti-Christian hate speech at a poll rally in Orissa state, which was hit by Hindu-Christian riots last year.
(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, In Himalayan Kashmir an avalanche hit an Indian army post, killing 7 soldiers.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, North Korea vowed to restart its nuclear reactor and to boycott international disarmament talks for good in retaliation for the UN Security Council's condemnation of its rocket launch.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, Somali pirates captured two more nautical trophies to match the two ships they seized a day or two earlier. The MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned cargo ship, was attacked and captured by pirates in three or four speedboats. That hijacking came only hours after the Greek-managed MV Irene E.M. was seized in a rare overnight attack by pirates. Somali pirates also hijacked two Egyptian fishing boats in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast, which maritime officials said had a total of 36 crew. It was not exactly clear if those ships were hijacked April 12 or 13. The Liberty Sun, a US flagged cargo ship, repelled a pirate attack off the Somali coast. The MV Irene and 22 Filipino sailors were released on Sep 14.
(AP, 4/14/09)(WSJ, 4/15/09, p.A8)(AFP, 9/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, Thailand issued an arrest warrant for fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra for inciting street battles between anti-government protesters and troops. Leaders of the demonstrations called off their protests after rioting killed two and injured more than 120. Police issued warrants for 14 people, including the ousted prime minister at the heart of three years of turmoil.
(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, Ukrainian officials said security agents have arrested a regional lawmaker and two companions for trying to sell a radioactive substance that could be used in making a dirty bomb. The legislator in the western Ternopyl region and two local businessmen were detained last week for trying to sell 8.2 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of radioactive material to an undercover agent of the security service.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 15, Pres. Obama directed the US Treasury Dept. to seize assets of 3 Mexican drug cartels including the Sinaloa cartel, the Los Zetas cartel and the La Familia Michoacan group.
(SFC, 4/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 15, In Washington, DC, the FBI arrested Walter Kendall Myers (72) and his wife, Gwendolyn (71), for spying. For three decades, Myers and his wife had shuffled secrets to their Cuban contacts. Kendall Myers first worked for the State Department as a lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute and later as a European analyst in the department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, from 2000 until his retirement in October 2007. On Nov 20 Myers and his wife pleaded guilty to serving as covert agents since 1979. Myers agreed to serve life in prison and his wife agreed to serve 6-7½ years.
(AP, 6/6/09)(SFC, 11/21/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 15, In Florida inmates Doni Ray Brown (23) and Wayne Fletcher (25) escaped the county jail in Palatka and within hours stole 2 vehicles and killed Fletcher’s step-grandmother (66). Both were arrested on April 18 and charged with murder.
(SFC, 4/20/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 15, Hundreds of Afghans swarmed a demonstration of more than 100 women protesting against a new marriage law they say restricts wives' rights. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart. A NATO soldier and 2 Afghan policemen were killed in fresh violence. Taliban insurgents beheaded a government employee on charges of spying for foreign forces in the Bala Murghab district of Badghis province.
(AP, 4/15/09)(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Bolivian police foiled an alleged plot to assassinate President Evo Morales, killing three men at the Hotel Las Americas in a 30-minute gunbattle with a mysterious group that included suspects from Hungary, Ireland and possibly Croatia. The 3 men were killed in their beds and 2 others were arrested. The dead included: Eduardo Rozsa Flores (49), the son of a Hungarian father and Bolivian mother, Arpad Magyarosi, a Romanian-born Hungarian, and Irishman Michael Martin Dwyer. Mr. Rozsa Flores was known as an activist for the autonomy of Bolivia’s department of Santa Cruz. The 3 men were involved in a conspiracy to create a separatist right-wing militia in the eastern, opposition-dominated state of Santa Cruz.
(AP, 4/16/09)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A5)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.35)(AP, 5/21/10)
2009 Apr 15, Clement Freud (84), a grandson of Sigmund Freud, died. He became a well-known writer, politician and urbane regular on British radio. He was best known from his three decades appearing on the BBC game show, "Just a Minute," in which panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. In 2016 his widow apologized after he was accused in a television documentary of sexually abusing two girls between the late 1940s and 1970s.
(AP, 4/16/09)(AP, 6/15/16)
2009 Apr 15, China fired into orbit its second satellite in a program to build an alternative to the global positioning system based on U.S. satellites.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Colombia's most wanted drug lord was captured in a jungle raid involving hundreds of police officers. Daniel Rendon Herrera (43), a far-right warlord known as "Don Mario," was taken in shackles to the capital to await possible extradition to the United States.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Egyptian police detained three teenage Palestinian men on suspicion of crossing illegally into Egypt and also found explosives near the border with Gaza.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Fiji's military government tightened controls on the media, devalued the currency by 20% and said it would not tolerate opposition to plans for a sweeping overhaul of the country's politics.
(AP, 4/15/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.44)
2009 Apr 15, A blockade by French fishermen angry at EU quotas cut ferry links with Britain for a second day as a union official threatened to block the Channel Tunnel in support of the movement.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, French forces detained 11 pirates during an assault on a pirate "mother ship" and thwarted a pirate attack on a Liberian-registered vessel.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Iranian scientists at the Royan Research Institute cloned a goat and planned future experiments they hope will lead to a treatment for stroke patients. The female goat, named Hana, was born in the city of Isfahan in central Iran.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, In Iraq 11 Oil Ministry guards were killed and 13 wounded in a car bombing in Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 15, In Mauritania Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the leader of a coup that ousted the elected government, gave up power. This freed him to seek the presidency in balloting aimed at returning civilian rule. Senate president Ba Mamadou Mbare was quickly sworn in as interim leader of the desert nation in western Africa.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Mexico’s troubled border city of Ciudad Juarez and the federal government signed an agreement to train, recruit and equip enough city police officers to take over from 5,000 army troops now performing security patrols there.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Nigeria set up a panel to probe a multi-million dollar cash-for-contract scandal embroiling US giant Halliburton and reportedly implicating three former presidents.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Sri Lankan forces attacked Tamil guerrillas with mortar fire, artillery and heavy machine guns following a two-day cease-fire aimed at letting civilians flee the war zone, a pro-rebel Web site reported. The government denied launching a new attack.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, A Sudanese court condemned 10 rebels from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement to death for an unprecedented attack on Khartoum in May, 2008, which killed more than 220 people.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, In southern Zimbabwe at least 29 people were killed and 39 injured when a bus plunged into a river bed near Chivhu town.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, President Barack Obama announced his decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used interrogation practices described by many as torture. He condemned the aggressive techniques, including waterboarding, shackling and stripping, used on terror suspects while promising not to legally pursue the perpetrators.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, Pres. Obama committed at least $13 billion to launch a new era of high speed passenger rail transportation.
(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 16, It was reported that during the past few weeks, at least nine universities have received gifts totaling more than $45 million, and the schools had to promise not to try to find out the giver's identity.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, PEMGroup with assets of $4 billion said its board had appointed a special committee to look into allegations of a Ponzi scheme by money manager Danny Pang, who temporarily stepped aside while visiting Taiwan. The SEC soon filed a civil lawsuit against Pang and froze the assets of his firm, Private Equity Management Group Inc.
(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 16, Rosetta Stone, an American language instruction company, went public. It sold 6,250,000 shares at IPO price of $18. The stock traded as high as $26.27 before closing at $25.12.
(Econ, 1/5/13, p.52)
2009 Apr 16, In Sacramento, Ca., a tent city of some 150 homeless people was closed. It had been around for close to a decade on a strip of land between the American River and a power company.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.39)(http://obrag.org/?p=6660)
2009 Apr 16, In California pharmacy worker Mario Ramirez (50) showed up at the Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and shot Hugo Bustamante (46) and Kelly Hales (56) before turning the gun on himself and pulling the trigger.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, General Growth Properties Inc, the second largest US mall owner, filed for bankruptcy protection in one of the biggest real estate failures in US history.
(Reuters, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Drug makers GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Pfizer Inc. said they plan to create a new company to invest in the research and development of HIV treatments.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Middletown, Maryland, Christopher Alan Wood (34) killed his wife (33) and 3 children, then himself, in their home, leaving a gruesome scene that authorities said was found by the children's' grandfather on April 18.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Afghan a policeman was killed and one wounded in Helmand province. 3 "terrorists" were killed while the bomb they were planting on a road in the Nad Ali district of Helmand went off prematurely. Taliban militants attacked an Afghan counternarcotics police convoy in the Shindand district of western Herat province, sparking a battle which left one policeman dead and two wounded.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Five people were killed and dozens wounded when a blast tore apart a boat carrying more than 40 Afghan refugees off Australia's northwest coast. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation later said it was told the refugees had doused the boat in petrol to try to force the navy to land them in Australia and not turn them back to Indonesia, but that the blast was an accident. On Oct 28 two Indonesian fishermen were jailed for five years for smuggling the boat full of Afghan refugees.
(AFP, 4/20/09)(AFP, 10/28/09)
2009 Apr 16, The British government promised a multimillion pound investment to try to jumpstart the market for environmentally friendly electric cars.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 16, Ethiopian opposition protesters staged a rare demonstration in Addis Ababa, demanding the release of an official jailed for life in January.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, French fishermen allowed traffic to resume to three English Channel ports after receiving a government promise of euro4 million ($5.27 million) in aid, but they vowed to keep up their fight against European fishing quotas.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Indians voted in their tens of millions as the world's largest democracy kicked off month-long, five-stage elections, with little hope of a clear winner emerging at the end of it all. Attacks at 14 polling stations left 17 people dead in eastern and central India.
(AFP, 4/16/09)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 16, Indonesia's top court cleared Time Magazine of charges it had defamed former dictator Suharto in a cover story that alleged his family amassed billions of dollars during his decades-long rule.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Iraq a suicide bomber dressed in an army uniform detonated an explosives belt among Iraqi soldiers lined up for lunch at a base in Habbaniyah, killing at least 16 and wounding 50. Officials later maintained no one died but the attacker. An American Marine died as a result of a noncombat related incident in western Anbar province.
(AP, 4/16/09)(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, Japan promised to pledge up to $1 billion in aid for cash-strapped Pakistan at a donors conference as allies pressed the country for commitments to fight an Islamist insurgency and implement economic reforms.
(Reuters, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Hotel service in Monaco was limited and casino roulette wheels were expected to stop spinning as employees in the wealthy Mediterranean principality went on strike to protest job cuts.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In northern Nigeria a Canadian woman was seized in the city of Kaduna where she had been attending an international conference. Julie Mulligan (45) was freed unharmed in the northern city of Kaduna on April 29.
(AP, 4/18/09)(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 16, UN nuclear inspectors left North Korea after the hardline communist state ordered them out and announced plans to restart production of weapons-grade plutonium.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Pakistan Maulana Abdul Azi, the deposed chief cleric of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, was freed on bail, nearly two years after he was captured during a bloody siege. An international human rights group urged Pakistan to reverse its decision to enforce Islamic law in a northwestern valley in a peace pact with the Taliban, saying the deal threatens women and takes the region back to the "Dark Ages."
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Russia ordered an end to its counterterrorism operation in Chechnya, a move that could lead to the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops from the southern republic battered by two separatist wars in the past 15 years.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Sri Lankan troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked Tamil Tiger defenses in the northeast, a rebel-allied Web site reported, as international pressure grew for a new cease-fire to allow civilians to escape the fighting.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Sudan US Senator John Kerry said after talks with senior officials that Khartoum would allow some foreign aid to be restored in its western Darfur region but that it was not sufficient.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, Thailand’s former PM Thaksin was reported to have received a Nicaraguan passport.
(WSJ, 4/16/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 16, Turkey’s central bank cut is interest rate to 9.75% from 10.5% in a bid to combat a record surge in unemployment.
(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 17, The US EPA declared that greenhouse gases endanger public health paving the way for new federal regulations on pollutants. The Obama administration declared that carbon dioxide and 5 other industrial emissions threaten the planet.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 17, A US federal judge sentenced John Philip Hernandez of Houston to 8 years in prison for buying military-style firearms and that ended up in the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. Prosecutors said Hernandez led a group that purchased 339 weapons over 15 months.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 17, California received a windfall of over $3 billion for its schools and universities from the federal stimulus package, becoming the first state to receive an infusion of cash meant to stop a downward spiral in public education.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.B1)
2009 Apr 17, Great Basin Bank of Elko, Nevada, became the 25th US bank to fail this year.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.79)(www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/greatbasin.html)
2009 Apr 17, In Maine Laureen Rugen (50) was sentenced to 7 months in jail for stabbing her husband (61) over 25 times. She had suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse over two decades and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 17, In Afghanistan two earthquakes shook eastern Nangarhar province, collapsing mud-brick homes on top of villagers while they slept and killing at least 21 people. Two suicide bombers on foot tried to attack the office of the minister of refugees in southern Nimroz province. Guards shot and killed one bomber at the scene of the attempted attack. While fleeing the 2nd bomber detonated his explosives, killing 3 civilians. A Norwegian intelligence officer serving with the nation's peacekeeping force was killed by a roadside bomb near the northern city of Maymana.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Australia's PM Rudd denounced people smugglers who set hopeful refugees adrift in rickety boats as "scum" and pledged to step up efforts to thwart them, after one vessel exploded at sea and killed three people.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Australia revealed plans to introduce national arson laws with a maximum penalty of 25 years behind bars in the wake of deadly wildfires that claimed 173 lives.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Burkina Faso a meeting of economy and finance ministers of 14 African nations, all using a common currency that was pegged to the French franc, started with a French call to African nations to boost public spending.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Canadian police, acting on a tip-off from the United States, charged a Toronto man with trying to illegally export nuclear technology to Iran. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Mahmoud Yadegari had attempted to obtain pressure transducers, devices that are used to make enriched uranium but can also have military applications.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, President Francois Bozize of the Central African Republic accused some officials in his Kwa na Kwa Convergence party of racketeering to obtain funds and pledged a personal crackdown.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In central China a warehouse explosion reportedly killed 18 people and injured three at an illegal coal mine in Hunan province. State television reported that six people were injured in the blast with 2 missing.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 17, Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq, purported Syrian intelligence officer and one of the suspects in the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, was arrested in Dubai. He was arrested in France in October 2005 as a suspect in the murder, but disappeared from house arrest in France in March, 2008.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 17, Five of Germany's leading Internet providers agreed to block access to sites identified by national criminal investigators as hosting child pornography, as authorities reported the breakup of an international ring.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Iraq mortar rounds killed at least 4 people in the Shiite Jisr Diyala district south of Baghdad.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 17, In Mexico gunmen over the last 24 hours killed 12 people in different parts of Michoacan state, including three men who were beheaded. Authorities in Piedras Negras, in Coahuila state, bordering Texas, found the body of a man whose fingers had been cut off. Assailants stuck one finger in the man's mouth and cut out his tongue. Two buses collided head-on in the southern state of Chiapas, killing at least 19 people.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Norway a $225 million fund to provide low-price anti-malaria medicine around the world was launched in Oslo to fight a disease that kills 2,000 children a day.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 17, International donors, led by the US and Japan, pledged more than $5 billion to stabilize Pakistan's troubled economy and fight the spread of terrorism in the Islamic nation and neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Pakistan Maulana Abdul Aziz, the newly released leader of the radical Red Mosque, called for the enforcement of Islamic law across the militancy-plagued country during his defiant return to his prayer hall, where at least 100 died when Pakistani troops stormed the complex in 2007.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Pakistan was stripped of its 2011 World Cup matches by the International Cricket Council. Growing security concerns cast the country firmly into the sporting wilderness.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, A Palestinian wielding a knife was shot and killed by Jewish settlers after he tried to attack residents of a West Bank settlement. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian during a protest against Israel's separation barrier. The military said protesters threw stones and other objects at security forces during a West Bank demonstration in town of Bilin. Abu Rahmeh (31) was killed when he was hit in the chest by a tear gas canister. On March 31, 2010, the Israeli military said it closed an investigation after determining the canister was not intentionally aimed at Abu Rahmeh.
(AP, 4/17/09)(AP, 4/1/10)
2009 Apr 17, In Russia the Sochi Elections Commission decided to strike billionaire and Russian government critic Alexander Lebedev from the ballot, after an appeals court a day earlier upheld a ruling that he had misfiled financial statements when registering his candidacy last month.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 17, A Swedish court found four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running The Pirate Bay, one of the world's top illegal file-sharing websites, sentencing them to a year in prison in a landmark ruling.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Thailand the founder of the “yellow shirt" protest movement that shut down Bangkok's airports last year was shot and wounded in a possible assassination attempt, just days after troops quelled rioting by a rival, anti-government group. Sondhi Limthongkul, a media tycoon and supporter of the current government, was in stable condition after surgery that removed "small pieces of bullet" from his skull.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, The Vatican said it will spend $660 million to build the biggest solar plant in Europe on 740 acres of pasture land it owns north of Rome.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 17, Zimbabwe deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara vowed to act against illegal farm invasions amid claims that a top lawmaker and Pres. Mugabe ally was behind a fresh seizure. Mugabe made a new call for western nations to lift sanctions and prodded his unity government partners to join his campaigning against them.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 18, The Obama administration said it will boycott the April 20-25 UN conference on racism due to objectionable language in the meeting’s final draft document.
(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A13)
2009 Apr 18, In Texas 5 Houston children died after their sedan slid into a rain-swollen ditch when driver Chanton Jenkins (32) lost control while trying to answer a cell phone. Police the next day filed intoxication manslaughter charges against Jenkins, the father of 3 of the victims.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)(WSJ, 4/20/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 18, In central Afghanistan NATO-led forces and Afghan troops killed 3 suspected militants during a raid in Logar province, where insurgent attacks have spiked this year. At least two other suspected militants died in an airstrike in southern Kandahar province. A roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle in Kandahar city killed a woman and wounded five other people including three civilians.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 April 18, Eddie George (70), British central banker, died. He had helped give Britain over 40 successful quarters of economic growth.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.90)
2009 Apr 18, In Egypt the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported that an Egyptian woman has contracted bird flu in the second case in the country in as many days.
(AFP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, In southern Egypt Muslim gunmen shot dead two Coptic Christians as they left church after an Easter vigil, in an apparent five-year-old vendetta.
(AFP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 18, French and Spanish security forces thwarted a new ETA attack with the arrest of Jurdan Martitegi, the military chief of the Basque separatist group, and seven other suspected members.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 18, Jon Anza Ortunez (47), a member of the armed Basque group ETA, was last seen. ETA blamed Spanish police for a role in his disappearance — a claim Spain denied. ETA said Anza had been transporting a large sum of money between the French cities of Bayonne, which is not far from the border with Spain, and Toulouse for the group when he vanished. In 2010 his body turned up in a morgue in France. French officials told Anza's family that he had fallen ill on a street on April 29 and was taken to a hospital in Toulouse, where he died May 11. At the time, no one was reportedly able to identify him.
(AP, 3/12/10)
2009 Apr 18, Eight Mexican law enforcement officers were killed in an unsuccessful attack on a police convoy attempting to prevent the transfer of an important drug suspect to a prison in western Mexico. The attack appeared to have been an attempt to free Jeronimo Gamez, a top lieutenant of the Beltran-Leyva cartel, was arrested on the outskirts of Mexico City in January. Officers managed to deliver Gamez and eight other detainees to the prison despite the attacks.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Mexico one train apparently ran into another on the recently inaugurated Suburban Railway bordering Mexico City. At least 70 people were injured.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 18, In northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military checkpoint near the Orakzai tribal region, killing at least 27 people.
(AP, 4/18/09)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 18, A Palestinian teen (16) was fatally shot by Israeli troops after throwing firebombs at the gate of the Beit El Jewish settlement in the West Bank. A Palestinian man drove his Mercedes into two Israeli policemen checking motorists at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem. The driver was arrested after he told police he targeted the officers. Officials announced that the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would be open over the weekend to let medical patients leave the blockaded territory.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Philippine security forces rescued Andreas Notter (38), a Swiss Red Cross worker held hostage since January 15 by Islamic guerrillas. The government said it had no immediate details about a 2nd International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hostage, Italian national Eugenio Vagni (62), who was believed to be unwell and in need of hernia surgery.
(AFP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Somali parliamentarians unanimously endorsed a proposal to implement Islamic law in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Somali pirates attacked two ships off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Belgian-flagged Pompei carrying 10 crew. NATO forces intervened in the other assault, chasing the pirates down. Dutch commandos then freed 20 fishermen on a Yemeni dhow hijacked earlier. Seven pirates attempted to attack the Norwegian-flagged MV Front Ardenne but fled after crew took evasive maneuvers and alerted warships in the area. NATO warships and helicopters pursued the Somali pirates for seven hours after they attacked the tanker, and the high-speed chase only ended when warning shots were fired at the pirates' skiff. NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates. The Pompei and its crew were released on June 28.
(AP, 4/18/09)(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Sri Lanka 17 rebels were killed and 22 wounded in offensives aimed at clearing new escape routes for the civilians and a road link for the military to enter the zone. According to the military more than 2,800 civilians were able to flee the war zone.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 18, The 34-nation weekend Summit of the Americas opened in Trinidad. Cuba, as the region's only non-democracy, was not invited. Pres. Obama signaled he was ready to accept Cuban President Raul Castro's proposal of talks on issues once off-limits for Havana, including the scores of political prisoners held by the communist government.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Turkey thousands of people marched to the mausoleum of the country’s secular founder to protest the arrests of university professors and other secularists accused of involvement in an alleged plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, About 140 migrants remained stranded aboard a Turkish cargo ship for a third day as Malta and Italy argued about which country should accept them.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez said that he is restoring Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, voicing hopes for a "new era" in relations after exchanging greetings with US President Barack Obama at a regional summit in Trinidad. Chavez presented Obama with a Spanish hardcover edition of "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" (1971), by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano.
(AP, 4/18/09)(WSJ, 4/27/09, p.A13)
2009 Apr 18, Zimbabweans celebrated their first Independence Day under a coalition government, with President Robert Mugabe calling for national conciliation as he shared the stage with his former political rival.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 19, The annual Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded to 7 activists from 6 nations. Rizwana Hasan (40) of Bangladesh was awarded for exposing environmental damage and exploitative practices used in the country’s ship dismantling industry; Marc Ona Essangui (45) of Gabon, the founder of Brainforest, was awarded for exposing secret agreements for a Chinese mine project that threatened Gabon’s rain forests; Yuyun Ismawati of Indonesia was awarded for designing environmentally safe waste management systems for poor Indonesia n communities; Olga Speranskaya (46) of Eco-Accord in Russia was awarded for her efforts to control and store chemicals in Russia and former Soviet republics; Wanze Eduards (52) and Hugo Jabini (44) of Suriname, leaders of the maroon community, were awarded for their efforts that led to a landmark ruling ending tribal exploitation by the government. Maria Gunnoe (40) of West Virginia was awarded for her fight against the practice of removing of the tops of mountains and filing valleys below with tailings.
(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A18)
2009 Apr 19, In Arizona Doug Georgianni (51) was shot and killed while collecting data from a traffic enforcement camera inside an SUV in Phoenix. The next day police arrested Thomas Patrick Destories (68) on 1st degree murder charges.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.A7)(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 19, In Afghanistan roadside bomb in Kandahar city killed one police officer and wounded another.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika vowed to pursue national reconciliation, after being sworn in for a third five-year term.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, Bolivia's leftist president was headed to the airport when Barack Obama gave him what he requested the day before: public repudiation of an alleged attempt on his life.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, Author J.G. Ballard (b.1930), a China-born author and survivor of a Japanese prison camp, died in London. His vision was so dark and distinctive it was labeled "Ballardian." His first novel, "The Wind From Nowhere" (1962) sold well enough for Ballard to become a full-time writer. Other works included the novels "The Drowned World" and "The Crystal World" and the story collection "Vermilion Sands." He reached a wide audience with the autobiographical "Empire of the Sun" (1984), adapted as a film (1987) by Steven Spielberg.
(AP, 4/20/09)(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W12)
2009 Apr 19, The Shanghai Motor Show opened. Porsche kicked off the show by unveiling the Panamera, the German luxury carmaker's first foray into the sedan segment.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8007484.stm)
2009 Apr 19, Turkish Cypriot nationalists won a parliamentary election that could stifle a promising effort to reunite Cyprus, an ethnically divided island. The right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), led by Dervish Eroglu, garnered 44% of the vote. The ruling leftist Republican Turkish Party (CTP), of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, won 29%.
(AP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 19, In Haiti clear-plastic ballot boxes were nearly as empty as Port-au-Prince's unusually deserted streets as few voters turned out for Senate elections in which candidates from a major populist party were not allowed to run. Supporters of ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose Fanmi Lavalas party was disqualified from the election by Haiti's provisional electoral council, had urged an estimated 4 million registered voters not to participate.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, Iraq's parliament ended months of political paralysis by electing Ayad al-Samarraie, a prominent Sunni lawmaker, as its new speaker. Armed with pistols equipped with silencers simultaneously raided two jewelry stores near one another in northern Baghdad. At least 7 people were killed in the daylight heist.
(AP, 4/19/09)(SFC, 4/20/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 19, Italy agreed to accept 140 migrants stranded aboard a Turkish cargo ship that rescued them in the Mediterranean, ending a four-day standoff with Malta about who would take them in.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Jamaica Stephen Fray (20) forced his way through Montego Bay airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet, holding six crew members hostage. He fired his father's licensed .38-caliber revolver into the air, stole money from some of the 167 passengers aboard and demanded to be flown off the island. After 6 hours police and soldiers stormed the aircraft and captured Fray. On October 8 Fray was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Pakistan a suspected US missile attack aimed at Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels on the outskirts of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district along the border with Afghanistan, killed at least three militants. Pakistan helicopter gunships raided suspected militant hideouts near Ghiljo in the semi-autonomous tribal district of Orakzai near the Afghan border killing 20 insurgents and destroying their positions.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, In central Somalia two Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) workers were seized by around 25 gunmen traveling in two trucks. Dutch national Kees Keus (49) and Belgian Jorgen Stassijns (40) were released on April 28.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Sudan 21 people were killed when a bus they were travelling in collided with a truck about 25 miles south of Khartoum.
(AFP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Trinidad a Western Hemisphere summit wrapped up with President Barack Obama hopeful he'd boosted the image of the US among its friends in the region and perhaps even made some new ones. Caribbean leaders asked the US to expand a $1.4 billion program to help Mexico and Central America fight drug trafficking and organized crime to include aid for their island nations. The final declaration of the Summit of Americas, which Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his leftist bloc refused to sign, turned out to have just one signatory. It was PM Patrick Manning, host of the 34-nation summit.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 20, President Barack Obama convened his first formal Cabinet meeting and asked department and agency chiefs to look for ways over the next 90 days to cut $100 million out of the federal budget.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, New York-based Human Rights Watch said gunmen with suspected links to Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 Palestinians and wounded dozens in attacks on political opponents and alleged informers during and after Israel's recent war in the coastal territory. The report said 18 Palestinians were killed by Hamas during the three-week war, which ended Jan. 18, and 14 others were killed afterward.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Chesapeake Energy Corp. filed its proxy statement revealing a compensation package to CEO Aubrey McClendon that totaled $112 million for 2008, even as the company’s stock price tumbled.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.B1)
2009 Apr 20, In Florida 7 more Venezuelan polo horses sickened just before a tournament died overnight, raising the death toll to 21. Officials said they may have been killed by some type of poison. On April 23 Franck’s Pharmacy admitted to having prepared a generic version of Biodyl, a vitamin supplement banned in the US, which was administered to all the dead horses.
(AP, 4/20/09)(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 20, In Maryland a Loyola college student, her visiting parents and younger sister were found dead in a hotel room near Baltimore in an apparent murder suicide.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 20, In Washington state former Tacoma elementary school teacher Jennifer Rice (33) was convicted of having sex with a student (10) and his brother (15).
(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 20, Chicago cancelled a $2.52 billion deal to privatize Midway Airport after a winning consortium failed to line up funding.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.B4)
2009 Apr 20, Oracle Corp. snapped up computer server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. for $7.4 billion. The opportunity opened up after rival IBM Corp. abandoned an earlier bid to buy one of Silicon Valley's best known, and most troubled companies.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Benjamin F. Edwards III (77), former president (1967-2001) of St. Louis-based brokerage firm A.G. Edwards Inc., died. Under him the family firm grew from fewer than 50 branches to nearly 700.
(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 20, In southern Afghanistan two police were killed and four others wounded during a clash with insurgents in Zabul province. A roadside bomb in Uruzgan province killed a civilian, while a second roadside bomb in eastern Khost province killed two civilians.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Thousands of Tamils blocked some of London's busiest roads, demonstrating outside the Houses of Parliament for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Tamil rebels and Sri Lanka's government.
(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline said it has agreed to buy US-based skincare group Stiefel Laboratories in a deal worth up to 2.4 billion pounds ($3.6 billion).
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, At the Shanghai Motor Show Rolls Royce CEO Tom Purves announced that the company's new model would be called Ghost.
(http://tinyurl.com/dfqycq)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.66)
2009 Apr 20, In Chile Gen. Gonzalo Santelices, former head of the Santiago army garrison, was indicted along with 2 other officers in the killing of 14 dissidents in the early days of the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 20, In China a new English-language paper published by the Communist Party hit newsstands, part of Beijing's efforts to raise its profile on the global stage and find an international audience for the party line.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Ecuador’s finance minister Maria Elsa Viteri said the government will buy back about $3.2 billion in Global 2012 and 2030 bonds, worth about 32% of Ecuador's total foreign debt at a 70% discount, ending months of speculation about a default. A government audit last year determined that conditions surrounding the debt sale had left the bonds "illegal and illegitimate," prompting President Rafael Correa to order the refinancing.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, In southeast France workers at a French subsidiary of the American company Molex detained two bosses to protest plans to close the plant.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 3 Iraqi police officers and wounded eight US soldiers visiting the mayor of Baqouba city. At least 9 civilians were also injured.
(AP, 4/20/09)(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 20, In Mexico police found a body in flames dumped along a main thoroughfare on the outskirts the northern border city of Tijuana. The victim was found with his head wrapped in packing tape, a common practice used by drug smugglers against rivals.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 20, New Zealand's PM John Key said that he wants an exit strategy before sending the country's Special Air Service combat troops back to Afghanistan as the US has requested.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Nigerian pirates attacked the Aleyna Mercan ship about 50 nautical miles off Onne port, near the oil city of Port Harcourt. The vessel was delivering equipment to French oil group Total. On April 22 the kidnappers released the Turkish captain and the chief engineer.
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 20, Pakistan's central bank lowered the discount interest rate by one percentage point, acknowledging that the economy in the poverty-stricken, nuclear-armed nation was showing resilience. Pakistani security forces shelled and launched airstrikes against Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal region overnight, killing 4 civilians and 8 suspected militants.
(AFP, 4/20/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Paraguay's Pres. Fernando Lugo (57) was hit with another paternity claim, just a week after the former Roman Catholic bishop acknowledged fathering a different illegitimate child while still subject to his vows of chastity. Benigna Leguizamon, an impoverished soap-seller, said Lugo's previous admission inspired her to go public about her 6-year-old.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Vladimir Lukin, Russia's parliament-appointed human rights ombudsman, presented an annual report on human rights in Russia that included violations of religious freedoms, prisoners' rights and freedom of political expression. He said he is concerned about a growing number of claims that police and judicial authorities committed abuses.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Somali pirates in two boats with about six pirates each attacked the Maltese-flagged MV Atlantica, before the ship took evasive maneuvers and escaped in the Gulf of Aden without damages or injury. Other pirates released a Togo-flagged, Lebanese-owned ship after they found out it was supposed to pick up food destined for Somalia. The MV Sea Horse was hijacked April 14 with 19 crew as it headed to India to pick up more than 7,300 tons of food destined for Somalia. The pirates also were paid "a reward" of $100,000 by two Somali businessmen for freeing the aid ship.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Sri Lanka’s military said some 35,000 civilians fled the last corner of territory held by the Tamil Tigers, as the government warned the rebels it would launch a final assault in 24 hours. According to Tamil rebels 1,000 civilians died in a government raid on their territory. The military denied the accusation saying only 17 civilians were killed and that they died in rebel suicide bombings. Over the next 9 days some 114,520 civilians fled the area.
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 4/21/09)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.44)
2009 Apr 20, A south Sudan district official said weekend clashes left more than 170 people dead as armed fighters from the Murle ethnic group in remote Akobo county in eastern Jonglei state attacked Lou Nuer villages.
(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, A UN racism conference opened in Geneva. Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a walkout by angry Western diplomats. The US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland boycotted the conference out of concern that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Zimbabwe's central bank governor admitted that he took hard currency from the bank accounts of private businesses and foreign aid groups without permission, saying he was trying to keep his country's cash-strapped ministries running.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 21, President Barack Obama signed a $5.7 billion national service bill to foster and fulfill people's desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or building and weatherizing homes for the poor. Under the bill the AmeriCorps program started by President Bill Clinton will triple in size over the next eight years.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Daniel Andreas San Diego (31), a computer specialist from Berkeley, Ca., was added to the FBI's list of "Most Wanted" terror suspects. Authorities described him as an animal rights activist who had turned to bomb attacks. San Diego became the 24th person on the list, and the only domestic terror suspect.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In a New York court Somali pirate Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse (18) was charged with piracy and other crimes relating to the Apr 8-Apr 12 siege of the Maersk Alabama.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 21, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom formally declared his 2010 campaign for California governor.
(SFC, 4/22/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 21, In NYC real estate baroness Leona Helmsley's estate gave away $136 million to hospitals, foundations and the homeless and left $1 million to animal charities, prompting one advocate to accuse the estate of failing to honor the hotel tycoon's wishes.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, The Boston Marathon was won by Ethiopia’s Deriba Merga for the men and Salina Kosgei of Kenya for the women.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 21, National libraries and the UN education agency put some of humanity's earliest written works online, from ancient Chinese oracle bones to the first European map of the New World. The World Digital Library project is modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory project, which debuted in the 1990s.
(AP, 4/21/09)(http://www.wdl.org)
2009 Apr 21, In Afghanistan police in southern Uruzgan province clashed with militants in the Khas Uruzgan district, killing seven suspected insurgents.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Scientists attending a conference in England said that a planet named Gliese 581 e, has been located in a galaxy outside our solar system. The new planet is probably too hot for human life because it sits very close to the sun-like star it orbits. A 2nd planet, Gliese 581 d found in 2007, was said to be in a zone habitable for potential life.
(AP, 4/21/09)(SFC, 4/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 21, Jack Jones (96), Britain union leader, died. He became a household name in Britain through his battles to secure better rights for workers.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 21, The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark interest rate to an historic low of 0.25% and made no explicit commitment on taking nonconventional measures to spur the economy even as it predicted a deeper-than-expected recession.
(Reuters, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In China three people were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for deadly arson attacks during last year's rioting in the Tibetan capital.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, French police detained around 200 undocumented migrants in a major operation in the Channel port of Calais.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Egyptian antiquities authorities announced that archaeologists exploring the "Way of Horus," an old military road in the Sinai, have unearthed four new temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city that could have been used to impress foreign delegations visiting Egypt. Early studies suggested the fortified city had been Egypt's military headquarters from the New Kingdom (1569-1081 BC) until the Ptolemaic era, a period lasting about 1500 years.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, India's central bank cut two key short-term interest rates by 25 basis points each, in a bid to kickstart the Asian giant's slowing economy. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered the repo, the rate at which it lends to commercial banks, to a record low of 4.75%, from a peak of 9.0% last year. It also reduced the reverse repo, the rate at which it borrows from banks, to 3.25%.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), dual American-Iranian citizen convicted on April 13 of spying for the United States, went on a hunger strike. She was sentenced to eight years in prison after a swift, closed door trial. Saberi ended her hunger strike on April 5 and waited for her appeal process to move forward.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 Apr 21, Japan's highest court upheld the death sentence of a woman convicted of murdering four neighbors and sickening dozens more with arsenic-laced curry more than a decade ago. A district court had convicted Masumi Hayashi (47) in 2002 of deliberately lacing a pot of curry with arsenic and serving it to neighbors at a festival in July 1998 in Wakayama city.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In central Kenya villagers clashed overnight with an outlawed criminal gang using machetes, axes and clubs, killing about 40 people. Residents near the town of Karatina fought Mungiki members because the gang had been extorting money from them.
(AP, 4/21/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.53)
2009 Apr 21, Madagascar’s military-backed Pres. Andry Rajoelina banned demonstrations one day after a policeman was killed.
(SFC, 4/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 21, In Mexico soldiers captured Isaac Manuel Godoy Castro, an alleged top member of the Arellano Felix cartel, along with six other alleged members of his cell.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Myanmar authorities arrested Chit Pe, the pro-democracy deputy chairman, and party member Aung Saw Wei in Twante township. Both took part in a prayer service for the release of political prisoners which was held at a pagoda, about 20 miles south of Yangon. The two were charged with insulting religion, which carries a possible two-year jail sentence.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Nigeria officials said a strike by petrol truck drivers has caused a scarcity of fuel in the commercial capital Lagos, leading to long queues at petrol stations. The strike began at the weekend following a dispute between the tanker drivers and officials of the Lagos state traffic management authority LASMA. Gunmen in Nigeria attacked an oil tanker off the coast of the Niger Delta, kidnapping the ship's captain and an engineer. The Turkish vessel Ilena Mercan, chartered by French oil company Total, was attacked on its way to Onne port in Nigeria's southeastern Rivers state.
(AFP, 4/21/09)(Reuters, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, North and South Korea held their first formal talks for more than a year but discussions ended without agreement after just 22 minutes.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sierra Leone sent three men convicted of drug smuggling to the US, where they are wanted on similar charges, shortly after they were sentenced to five-year prison terms along with five other foreign nationals.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 21, Somali pirates freed a chemical tanker and its 23 Filipino crew members after holding them hostage in the Gulf of Aden for more than five months. The MT Stolt Strength was seized Nov. 10, 2008.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sri Lanka’s military said 52,000 had escaped the war zone.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir arrived in Ethiopia, on his sixth foreign trip since an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes was issued against him.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Geneva over 100 countries agreed on a declaration to combat racism and related forms of intolerance worldwide. The US was not among them, prompting sharp criticism from African-American groups participating in the UN's second global conference on racism.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Turkish anti-terror police detained 37 suspects accused of links to the al-Qaida terror network.
(AP, 4/21/09)(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 22, David Kellermann (41), the acting chief financial officer of money-losing mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead at his home. Police said it was an apparent suicide. Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae have both come under fire from lawmakers as they plan to pay more than $210 million in bonuses through next year to give workers the incentive to stay in their jobs.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Connecticut a decade-long battle for marriage equality ended when the General Assembly voted to update the state's marriage laws to conform with a landmark court ruling allowing gay and lesbian couples to tie the knot.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Afghanistan a cascading collection of deep-blue high-mountain lakes became the country’s first provisional national park, as the violence-plagued nation took a big first step toward protecting one of its finest natural treasures.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, Britain’s Chancellor Alistair Darling said the government will pay drivers to swap old cars for new in a scheme to boost its stricken auto sector, mirroring moves in Germany and other European nations. He also said he saw the economy starting to grow again by the end of this year following the worst recession since World War II.
(AP, 4/22/09)(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 22, Jack Cardiff (94), British cinematographer, died. Cardiff was one of the first cinematographers to shoot in Technicolor. He won an Academy Award for the film "Black Narcissus" and was awarded an honorary Oscar for his work in 2001.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, The film “City of Life and Death," written and directed by Chuan Lu, opened in China. It depicted the 1937 Japanese assault on Nanjing.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.43)(www.imdb.com/title/tt1124052/)
2009 Apr 22, The European Commission published a consultative green paper on the common fisheries policy (CFP). With almost all stocks overfished, it called for drastic cuts in the EU's 90,000-strong fishing fleet and subsidies to safeguard a sustainable and economically viable fishing industry.
(AP, 4/22/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.58)
2009 Apr 22, In northern France an auto parts factory was closed after employees angry over job losses ransacked offices and prompted new concern about increasingly violent French worker protests.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Georgia thousands of opposition supporters from the provinces poured into the capital to join the protests aimed at forcing President Mikhail Saakashvili to step down.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet approved a new law to require the vast majority of the country's Internet service providers to block child pornography sites.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed at least five people and wounded 15 inside a mosque in central Iraq. A US soldier died from combat related injuries sustained during a patrol in an eastern section of Baghdad.
(Reuters, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Ireland about 15 masked men armed with steel bars, chains and nail-studded clubs ransacked a Shell pipeline site, in the latest trouble for Ireland's most controversial energy project. Shell has spent four years battling opponents of the project in both the courts and on the ground in rural County Mayo, where the global energy giant has government permission to pump natural gas from an untapped field 80 kilometers (50 miles) out in the Atlantic. It was the first time a paramilitary-style gang has attacked a Shell site in Ireland.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Lesotho a military-style offensive took place on the official residence of the PM Pakalitha Mosisili. Two men were arrested shortly after the shooting. 7 others were arrested across the border in South Africa the day after the shooting. The 9 men were charged with 31 counts, including murder and attempted murder in the attack.
(AFP, 7/28/11)
2009 Apr 22, In Mexico the bullet-riddled bodies of the two army officers were found in the Durango township of Tepehuanes, about 30 miles (50 kms) south of Guanacevi. The discovery happened days after Roman Catholic Archbishop Hector Gonzalez Martinez created a stir by saying that Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman lives near the town of Guanacevi.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Nigeria 7 high-ranking officials from the country's electricity regulatory commission were charged with "criminal diversion" of state funds. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accused chairman Ransome Owan and six of the agency's commissioners of diverting for their private use about five billion naira ($33 million/26 million euros).
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, A group of Norwegian lawyers filed a complaint accusing 10 Israelis of war crimes in Gaza under the country's new universal jurisdiction law.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, Somalia's foreign minister urged the international community to help its fledgling government set up a coast guard to fight the rampant piracy that has disrupted shipping in one of the world's busiest waterways.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, South Africans voted in general elections set to launch the ruling ANC party's controversial leader Jacob Zuma (67) into the presidency. The African National Congress took 65.9 percent of the nearly 18 million votes cast, failing to get its coveted two-thirds of the seats in the 400-member parliament. The Democratic Alliance (DA), under Helen Zille, won nearly 17% and 17 seats, while the new COPE Party got barely 7% of the vote. The Inkatha Freedom Party got 5% of the vote winning 18 seats.
(AFP, 4/22/09)(AP, 4/25/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.53)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.13)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.50)
2009 Apr 22, A South Korean court convicted and handed down a death sentence to a masseur charged with killing 10 people, including his wife and mother-in-law. Kang Ho-sun (38) was indicted in February in the slayings of eight office workers, karaoke bar employees and university students after abducting them between September 2006 and December 2008. Kang was also accused of burning to death his wife and mother-in-law in 2005 in an attempt to win insurance money.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, Two Tamil Tiger officials surrendered to the Sri Lankan army, and refugees joined a stream of more than 80,000 people the government says have fled a war zone that appeared to shrink by the hour.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, A Sudanese court sentenced 11 members of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to death and acquitted five others for an unprecedented 2008 attack on Khartoum. A district official said the death toll from clashes between rival ethnic groups in south Sudan has risen to 250 people, with dozens of children also abducted.
(AFP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a roadmap for normalizing relations and reaching reconciliation, but it wasn't immediately clear how they would tackle their bitter dispute over Ottoman-era killings of ethnic Armenians.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Yemen two young sons of a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo were buried after a grenade they were playing with accidentally detonated inside their home. The two boys were the sons of Guantanamo prisoner #1463, Abdelsalam al-Hilah, a businessman who was captured in Cairo in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo on charges of terrorism.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 7 people have been diagnosed with a new kind of swine flu in California and Texas.
(Reuters, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, In California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a securities fraud lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co. for deceptively marketing a financial instrument to thousands of state investors who suffered losses of over $1.5 billion.
(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 23, In central Afghanistan international and Afghan troops killed two militants in an overnight raid. Afghan and coalition troops captured three suspected militants in a raid in eastern Logar province. 3 Afghan army soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in eastern Paktia province.
(AP, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, The EU development commissioner said an international conference has already pledged over 250 million dollars to help Somalia improve its security.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Dubai's deputy police chief denied a report that pirates have laundered ransom money through banks in the Gulf city-state, according to a local newspaper.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Around 110 million Indians voted in the second and largest stage of month-long elections. In eastern India suspected communist rebels blew up a jeep carrying polling officials in Bihar state, killing five people as part of a wave of violence that has marred national elections. Ethnic separatist rebels killed two policemen when they opened fire on the convoy of a politician in northeastern Assam state.
(AP, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, Iran's official news agency says Tehran has reached an agreement with Iraq to build a pipeline that will feed Iraqi crude to an Iranian refinery.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In Iraq two suicide bombers blew themselves up in separate attacks, killing at 88 people. One blast in Baghdad killed 31 people. In the other near Muqdadiya 57 dead included visiting Shiites from Iran.
(AP, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, A Kazakh court jailed the publisher of an opposition newspaper for failing to pay damages in a libel case that government critics contend is politically motivated.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In Madagascar armed forces fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators loyal to the island nation's ousted president, as looters rampaged through the streets of the capital.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, The editor of a Malaysian anti-government news Web site, charged with sedition, went into hiding, prompting a court to order his arrest. Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin, who runs the popular Malaysia Today Web site, failed to appear for a court hearing on a sedition charge stemming from an article he wrote that allegedly implied the prime minister was involved in the murder of a Mongolian woman.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In Nigeria unknown gunmen kidnapped Peter Ademokhai, a retired army general, from his farm in the southern state of Edo.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 23, Pakistani paramilitary forces rushing to protect government buildings and bridges in the Taliban-infiltrated district of Buner, just 60 miles from the capital, were met with gunfire that killed one police officer. Gunmen opened fire on a security convoy that included some of the Frontier Constabulary killing an escorting police officer and wounding another in the Totalai area. Dozens of militants armed with guns and gasoline bombs attacked a truck terminal near Peshawar, burning five tanker trucks carrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army killed at least 11 militants on the third day of an operation against insurgents in the northwest's Orakzai tribal region.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Former King Michael of Romania took the unusual step of endorsing his son-in-law as a candidate in the country's next presidential election.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Russia’s central bank said it will cut its key lending rates by half a percentage point and increase reserve requirements.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 23, In Serbia a war crimes court found four former Serbian policemen guilty of the massacre of 48 Kosovo Albanians and sentenced them to up to 20 years in prison. The verdict said the defendants rounded up members of one Kosovo Albanian family in their village of Suva Reka in March 1999, killing several men with machine-gun fire before forcing the rest into a pizza restaurant and throwing hand-grenades at them.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In South Africa with early returns giving the ANC a 66% lead, the party said it would block off downtown Johannesburg streets around its offices for Zuma to address his supporters in the evening to celebrate victory.
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Sri Lanka pleaded for international help after Doctors Without Borders warned that civilian casualties are rising rapidly in the country's war zone despite the exodus of more than 100,000 people. 15 people were killed when shells hit a Roman Catholic church, wounding a priest whose leg was amputated.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 24, US federal regulators privately began telling the nation's 19 largest financial institutions how well they performed in stress tests to assess their soundness. The results were scheduled for public release on May 4.
(AP, 4/24/09)(SFC, 4/25/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 24, It was reported that stem-cell scientists had reprogrammed mature cells into embryonic-like cells using proteins instead of genes.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 24, It was reported that scientists have created the first genetic blueprint of domestic cattle and found they share 80% of their genes with humans.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 24, South Carolina's worst wildfire in at least three decades threatened to intensify after a lull overnight, when calm winds and firebreaks helped contain the blaze that demolished homes and roared through woods just miles from the most-populated stretch of the state's tourist beaches.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Afghanistan a bomb inside a package left at a checkpoint in Kabul exploded when police opened it, killing one officer. Taliban militants released the father of Afghanistan's education minister after holding him hostage for four days. International and Afghan troops clashed with insurgents in fighting that left at least 12 militants dead.
(AP, 4/24/09)(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 24, Margaret Gelling (84), expert on English place names, died. From 1986 to 1998 she served as the president of the English Place-Name Society.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.93)
2009 Apr 24, The Canadian Auto Workers union and Chrysler Canada reached a tentative concession deal that would cut about C$19 ($15.70) an hour from labor costs in a bid to keep the struggling automaker from bankruptcy.
(Reuters, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, China enacted a new postal law propping up its China Post monopoly. It imposed new rules on small domestic companies and severely limited the activities of foreign owned firms.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.65)
2009 Apr 24, David Duke (59), the former Grand Wizard of the Louisiana-founded Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, arrived in Prague at the invitation of a local far-right group, Narodni Odpor (National Resistance). He was soon arrested and questioned for several hours on suspicion of promoting movements seeking the suppression of human rights. Duke was freed during the night and forced to leave the country the next day.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Egypt a woman (33) died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the third death from the disease in Egypt this week.
(AFP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, Ethiopian authorities arrested 35 members of an opposition group accused of plotting to carry out a "terror attack" in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 24, In India's remote northeast Assam state wild elephants demolished two thatched-roof huts, killing five villagers in a pre-dawn attack. India's northeast has the world's highest number of wild Asiatic elephants, with 7,000 estimated in the states of Assam and Meghalaya alone.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Iraq back-to-back, female suicide bombings killed 71 people outside Baghdad’s Shiite shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim . Among the dead were 25 Iranian pilgrims. An American soldier died as a result of a noncombat related incident in the northern Salahuddin province.
(AP, 4/24/09)(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, Jewish settlers, Israeli troops and Palestinian villagers clashed with guns, rocks and tear gas, leaving five Palestinians hospitalized.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, Jordan's king recorded an interview urging President Barack Obama to take a more forceful role in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, warning of a new Mideast war if there is no significant progress in the next 18 months.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Italy US and Russian arms negotiators held a "very productive" initial round of talks aimed at agreeing a new treaty to curb nuclear weapons as part of a broader effort to improve relations.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Madagascar police clashed with supporters of the ousted president leaving 2 people dead.
(SFC, 4/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 24, Malaysia's PM Najib Razak vowed to investigate a scathing report by US lawmakers saying thousands of Myanmar refugees were handed over to human traffickers and ended up working in Thai brothels.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, Mexico’s Health Secretary Jose Cordova said private and public schools in Mexico city have been ordered to remain closed due to a flue epidemic. At least 20 people have died nationwide from the flu in the last three weeks.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Mexico the bullet-riddled bodies of nine men were found in and around the resort of Acapulco. 2 federal police agents were shot to death in Ciudad Juarez, as they walked in the downtown area after leaving a bar. Mexican authorities captured German Torres (29), an alleged cartel hit man suspected in the abduction of American anti-kidnapping expert Felix Batista. Batista was kidnapped in Coahuila state Dec. 10 and has not been heard from since.
(AP, 4/24/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Pakistan Taliban militants who had seized Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital, began pulling out after the government warned it would use force to evict them.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo asked for forgiveness for a paternity scandal in which three women claim the former Roman Catholic bishop fathered their children. He vowed not to let the current scandal distract his government from pressing reforms, and said he would step down only when his term ends in 2013.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, Somalia's hardline Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys ruled out talks on with the government until African Union peacekeepers withdraw from the war-torn country.
(AFP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 25, The World Health Organization called an emergency meeting of experts to consider declaring an international public health emergency over the swine flu outbreak believed to have killed dozens of people in Mexico and sickened at least seven in the US.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Florida Joshua Cartwright (28), accused of beating his wife, killed two sheriff's deputies at a shooting range in Okaloosa County. Cartwright shot the deputies after they shocked him with a Taser. He then fled across the county line, where he died in an exchange of gunfire with deputies.
(AP, 4/26/09)(WSJ, 4/27/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 25, In Athens, Georgia, Prof. George Zinkhan (57) shot and killed his wife and 2 other people outside the Athens Community Theater. Zinkhan fled the scene. Cadaver dogs found Zinkhan’s body "beneath the earth" in the north Georgia woods on May 9, two weeks after police say he shot his wife and two other people to death outside a community theater.
(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.A7)(SFC, 4/27/09, p.A4)(AP, 5/10/09)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 Apr 25, In San Francisco Anthony’s Cookies held its grand opening at 1417 Valencia Street.
(http://tinyurl.com/yae5jzv)(SFC, 12/7/09, p.E1)
2009 Apr 25, Beatrice Arthur (b.1922), stage and TV actress, died. The tall, deep-voiced actress considered herself lucky to be discovered by television executives after a long stage career that included a Tony award for the musical "Mame." Her TV shows included “Maude" (1972-1978) and “The Golden Girls" (1985-1992).
(AP, 4/26/09)(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.B6)
2009 Apr 25, In Afghanistan 3 suicide bombers penetrated the governor's compound in Kandahar city, killing at least five police officers in the latest multi-pronged attack in the Taliban's spiritual birthplace. A roadside bomb in the eastern province of Khost killed three border police.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Australia intercepted a boat carrying more than 50 refugees north of Darwin, little more than a week after an explosion on another vessel killed five people. A boat carrying 32 Sri Lankan refugees was stopped near the northwest coast on April 23.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported the Behrad Khamesee and colleagues at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, have built a micro-robot with gripper arms that levitates.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.85)
2009 Apr 25, In Guatemala police announced that they had seized more than 500 grenades, anti-personnel mines, machine guns, 350 kilograms (770 pounds) of cocaine and two armored cars at a warehouse where five anti-drug agents were killed in a shootout the previous day.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Icelanders voted in an early parliamentary election. Iceland's leftist coalition won the country's general election, a blow for the pro-business Independence Party that many blamed for the collapse of the country's banking system. Johanna Sigurdardottir, the acting prime minister, was expected to be named prime minister.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.52)
2009 Apr 25, In India two employees of Airworks, the company that maintained the helicopter of an Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, sabotaged the gear box. The potentially lethal tampering was not motivated by corporate rivalry, but was part of a dispute between Airworks employees and management dating back to 1995. Two janitors were arrested in the attempted sabotage. Uday Warekar (42) and Palraj Ganpat Tewar (38) faced life in prison for violating the unlawful activities act and the civil aviation act.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported that Kenya’s government included 94 ministers and deputies, each earning over $15,000 a month.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p53)
2009 Apr 25, Lebanese authorities arrested three men for allegedly being part of a spying ring for Israel, in the latest episode in the long-running espionage war between the two countries. The arrests were based on information extracted from a retired Lebanese general arrested earlier this week, also for allegedly spying for Israel.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, Lebanon’s national debt was reported to have dropped to 162% of GDP, triple the world average.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.52)
2009 Apr 25, Mexico City suspended all public events for 10 days as officials tried to contain an outbreak of a deadly new swine flu. Tests showed 20 people have died of the swine flu, and 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Mexico gunmen killed the police chief of Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, less than three weeks after he took over the local force with the aim of purging alleged corruption. Six police officers were being questioned in the attack.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, North Korea said it has restarted its nuclear facilities to harvest plutonium for atomic weapons, just hours after the UN imposed new sanctions on the communist state for its recent rocket launch.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In northwest Pakistan at least four children were killed in a bomb explosion outside a girls' primary school in Luqman Banda village of Lower Dir town.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Somalia mortars fired toward the parliament missed the building but hit a police unit inside the compound as well as a residential neighborhood, killing at least 7 people. Armed fighters attacked two African Union peacekeeping bases in Mogadishu, and a witness said he saw the bodies of three civilians killed.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Hijackers seized the Maltese-flagged MV Patriot, a German-owned ship with a crew of 17, in the pirate-infested waters between Somalia and Yemen. An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tiger rebels warned that tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the northern war zone are facing starvation, as the UN sent its top humanitarian official to assess the crisis.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Thailand around 2,000 anti-government protesters gathered for a rally in Bangkok, a day after PM Abhisit Vejjajiva lifted a state of emergency imposed amid violent demonstrations earlier this month.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 26, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that students at a city high school were infected with swine flu. About 100 students complained of flu-like symptoms at the school. Some students went to Cancun on a spring break trip two weeks ago. The flu has spread beyond Mexico's borders with confirmed cases in the US and suspected cases as far away as New Zealand.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, A deal between Chrysler and the UAW was revealed that would give the union a 55% stake in the company in return for concessions. Under the plan Fiat SpA would eventually own 35% and the US government together with secured lenders would own up to 10%.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A8B)
2009 Apr 26, Hans Holzer, Austrian-born American ghost hunter died. In 1974 authored “Murder in Amityville," the basis for the 1982 film “Amityville II: The Possession." In 1977 Holzer and medium Ethel Johnson-Myers allegedly channeled the spirit of a Shinnecock Indian chief, who said the New York house stood on an ancient Indian burial ground.
(www.warrens.net/amityvill.htm)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.90)
2009 Apr 26, In Afghanistan a roadside bombing in Wardak province killed two members of a new US-funded civil defense force. On the outskirts of Kabul authorities destroyed 6.5 tons (6 metric tons) of drugs and chemicals seized in the battle against the rampant narcotics trade.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Canada reported its first confirmed cases of swine flu at opposite ends of the country, with two cases in the western province of British Columbia and four in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.
(Reuters, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, In Chile a fire touched off by brawling inmates swept through the Colina prison near Santiago, killing 10 prisoners.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi wrapped up a regional Middle East visit in Damascus saying Israel should return the Golan Heights to Syria.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Ecuador held elections. President Rafael Correa, a feisty leftist popular for his social programs, was widely favored to win re-election. Correa won 51.2 percent of the vote in an eight-candidate field, making the leftist economist the first Ecuadorean president in 30 years to be chosen without a runoff vote.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 26, In southern Iraq a pre-dawn raid by US forces killed a woman in Kut. It drew sharp fallout from Iraqi authorities who demanded an investigation and ordered the arrest of two high-ranking Iraqi military officers for allegedly allowing the operation to happen. Iraqi police officials say the wife and brother of a local clan leader were killed. US forces arrested six members of so-called "special groups," Shiite militia factions that were once part of the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. 3 Christians were killed in the northern city of Kirkuk. Police said the slayings appear to be an attempt by al-Qaida to spark sectarian clashes.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 26, Pakistan sent helicopter gunships and troops to attack Taliban militants in a district covered by a peace deal after strong US pressure on the nuclear-armed nation to confront insurgents advancing in its northwest.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, The Russian city of Sochi, host for the 2014 Winter Olympics, elected a mayor after a campaign that a liberal opposition candidate called a fraud and disgruntled voters said favored the Kremlin-backed front-runner. The Kremlin favorite won an overwhelming victory in Sochi, but the top opposition candidate claimed fraud and said he would challenge the result.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 26, Facing imminent battlefield defeat, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire and called on the government to halt its offensive to spare the tens of thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Voters in the heart of the Swiss Alps passed legislation banning naked hiking after dozens of mostly German nudists started rambling through their picturesque region.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, A Sudanese court sentenced another 11 Darfur rebels to death for a 2008 attack on Khartoum, raising to 82 the number of Justice and Equality Movement fighters ordered hanged for the raid.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Pope Benedict XVI named five new saints, including Portugal's 14th century independence leader and an Italian priest who ministered to factory workers at the dawn of the industrial era.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Pirates attacked 4 Yemeni tankers escorted by a Yemeni coast guard boat on their way to Aden. 3 of the ships escaped and coast guards captured five pirates and wounded two others. The Turkish cruiser Ariva 3, with two British and four Japanese crew aboard, survived a pirate attack near the Yemeni island of Jabal Zuqar. Somali pirates demanded a $5 million ransom for the release of two Egyptian fishing boats hijacked earlier this month. Later in the day Yemeni coast guard forces freed the hijacked Yemeni oil tanker (Qana) and arrested 11 Somali pirates, the first time the country has successfully retaken a seized vessel.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, America, Canada, Europe and Japan promised to cooperate on validating alternatives to using animals in medical research. An estimated 50-100 million animals were used in research annually around the world.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.18)
2009 Apr 27, Five members of the US Congress were arrested while protesting the expulsion of aid groups from Darfur in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. The included Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland and Lynn Woolsey of California.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Maryland an indictment named Metro Dream Homes founder Andrew Hamilton Williams Jr. (58) of Hollywood, Fla.; financial officer Michael Anthony Hickson (46) of Commack, N.Y.; president Isaac Jerome Smith (46) of Spotsylvania, Va.; and vice president Alvita Karen Gunn (31) of Hanover, Md., for defrauding over 1,000 people out of about $70 million. They were given 48 hours to turn themselves in. Investors were told they were investing in ATM machines, television advertising and calling card kiosks that would raise money for the mortgage payments. Prosecutors said those businesses never made any money.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, US cases of the deadly new flu strain rose to 40. Governments around the world acted to stem a possible flu pandemic, as a virus that has killed 149 people in Mexico and spread to North America was confirmed to have reached Europe. Spain's Health Ministry confirmed the country's first case of swine flu and said another 20 people are suspected of having the disease.
(Reuters, 4/27/09)(AP, 4/27/09)(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 27, Conde Nast Publications closed its Portfolio magazine after less than 2 years due to a downturn in advertising.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.B8)
2009 Apr 27, General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 US factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take more than half its stock in exchange for half of GM's government debt as part of a major restructuring that would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the company.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, Ernie Barnes (b.1938), former American Football League player turned artist, died. He was named the official artist of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 27, Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed to change a law critics say legalizes marital rape to remove concerns that it violates human rights. Karzai also announced that he intended to run for re-election in the country's second ever presidential vote on August 20. In Kabul province 12 "terrorists" and a police official were killed during a clash. In the east, a roadside bomb killed four police.
(AP, 4/27/09)(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, Belarus' authoritarian Pres. Lukashenko met with Pope Benedict XVI on his first trip to Western Europe since the European Union lifted a travel ban imposed in 1999 over his dismal human rights record. The EU lifted the ban to allow Lukashenko to attend an East-West summit in Prague, Czech Republic, in May.
(www.contracostatimes.com/nationandworld/ci_12237339)
2009 Apr 27, An international human rights group said elite soldiers in junta-ruled Guinea are taking advantage of an anti-corruption drive to rob, extort and beat intimidated civilians in the West African nation with impunity.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Japan Univ. of Wyoming professor Craig Arnold (41), an award-winning poet, was reported missing after he failed to return from a hike on the tiny island of Kuchinoerabu-jima, about 30 miles (50 km) off the coast of southern Kyushu island.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Kenya 2 men pleaded guilty in court to illegally possessing 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) of elephant tusks in what was believed to be the largest seizure of illegal ivory in recent years. Rangers and police arrested the two, a Kenyan and a Tanzanian, on April 25, when the Kenya Wildlife Service acted on a tip about planned ivory smuggling in Amboseli National Park.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Kosovo Serbs protesting the building of homes for ethnic Albanians in northern Kosovo threw two hand grenades and fired gunshots at European Union police officers, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades to drive the crowd away.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Mexico an earthquake of magnitude 5.6 was centered near Chilpancingo, about 130 miles (210 km) southwest of Mexico City. 2 women aged 67 and 75 died of heart attacks during or shortly after the earthquake, and four homes and a perimeter wall collapsed in and around the resort of Acapulco.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Tijuana, Mexico, 7 police officers were assassinated in about an hour's time in what authorities said was a coordinated effort. 4 of the officers, three men and a woman, were found amid more than 200 bullet shells.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Pakistan Taliban militants declared their peace deal with the Pakistani government "worthless" after authorities deployed helicopters and artillery against hide-outs of Islamist guerrillas seeking to extend their grip along the Afghan border. Paramilitary troops killed 20 suspected militants, and a total of 46 have died since the operation began. A remote-controlled bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing an officer and a passer-by while wounding five other police in the northwest Lakki Marwat area.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, Palestinian officials established formal ties with Venezuela and opened a diplomatic mission in the South American country.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, Peru's government said that it has granted political asylum to Manuel Rosales, a Venezuelan opposition leader, who faced corruption allegations in his homeland but claimed to be persecuted by leftist President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, A Moscow district police chief opened fire on the street and in a supermarket, killing three people and wounding seven others, four of them critically. Maj. Denis Yevsyukov killed a cab driver and wounded several passers-by in the street, then gunned down a cashier and a customer in the market. He then held two dozen people hostage for several hours and shot at police officers before they disarmed and detained him. On Feb 19, 2010, a Moscow court sentenced the police precinct chief to life in prison for the drunken shooting spree.
(AP, 4/27/09)(AP, 2/19/10)
2009 Apr 27, The Sri Lankan government, under intense pressure to prevent civilian deaths, said it would immediately stop airstrikes and artillery attacks but rejected calls for a cease-fire in its war against the Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In southern Thailand suspected Muslim rebels killed 10 civilians in a flurry of attacks, just ahead of the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces against militants at the Krue Se mosque.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Turkey a five-hour police shootout with a leftist militant in Istanbul left three people dead, including the militant described as a top member of a group tied to the Kurdish separatist PKK. The militant was identified as Orhan Yilmazkaya, one of three top members of the Revolutionary Headquarters.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 28, World health officials raised a global alert to an unprecedented level as swine flu was blamed for more deaths in Mexico and the epidemic crossed new borders, with the first cases confirmed in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, Veteran Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties with a suddenness that seemed to stun the Senate, a moderate's defection that pushed Democrats to within a vote of the 60 needed to overcome filibusters and enact President Barack Obama's top legislative priorities.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 28, The US Supreme Court upheld an FCC rule penalizing broadcasters for isolated utterances of expletives before 10 pm.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 28, In California a charter bus carrying French tourists overturned near Soledad killing at least 5 people.
(SFC, 4/29/09, p.B1)
2009 Apr 28, Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (b.1929), a highly regarded English poet, died near her home in Wotton-under-Edge in western England. She was first inspired by the human tragedy she saw in a neurological hospital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 28, In eastern China police freed a total of 32 people in a raid on kilns located on the outskirts of the city of Jieshou in Anhui province. Police later arrested 10 men for allegedly enslaving mentally handicapped people who were forced to work at brick kilns and endure beatings.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 Apr 28, An EU court ruled that judges in Cyprus can compel the return of land seized after the 1974 Turkish invasion.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 28, An Indonesian court sentenced a Singaporean man to 18 years in prison on terrorism charges. Mohammad Hasan bin Saynudin (36), who claimed to have met Osama bin Laden on many occasions, was convicted of plotting to kill a teacher and planning a deadly attack on a bar frequented by Western tourists.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, Lithuania reported a 12.6% drop in GDP in the first quarter as compared to a year earlier.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 28, Pakistani jets and attack helicopters bombed Taliban positions in the Buner district near the capital, in an expansion of an offensive against militants seemingly emboldened by a much-criticized peace deal. Militants seized three police stations in the north of Buner and kidnapped 70 police and paramilitary troops.
(AP, 4/28/09)(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 28, Peru’s Pres. Alan Garcia and Brazil’s Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement for six hydroelectricity schemes in Peru. The Inambari dam would be the first to be built, and most of its power would be exported to Brazil.
(www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11256.aspx)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.42)
2009 Apr 28, Ekaterina Maximova (70), legendary Russian ballerina, died. Maximova's dancing career at the Bolshoi spanned three decades, from her debut as Masha in "The Nutcracker" in 1958 until 1988.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, The Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev seized a vessel with 29 suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia. A Russian tanker fended off an attack by the same group earlier in the day. On May 4 the Russian warship freed 8 Iranians who were seized along with the suspected Somali pirates.
(AP, 4/29/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 Apr 28, The Seychelles Coast Guard said it had arrested nine suspected pirates believed to be behind the weekend attempt to hijack the melody, a luxury cruise liner carrying an estimated 1,000 tourists in the Indian Ocean. The Spanish navy had tracked the skiff and apprehended the suspects. They were then turned over to the Seychelles Coast Guard.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, South Korean scientists said they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, A Sri Lanka rebel-linked Web site and a doctor in the region said government forces pounded rebel territory with a fierce artillery barrage, a day after the government pledged to stop using heavy weapons to prevent civilian casualties.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, Taiwan was formally invited by the World Health Organization (WHO) to take part as an observer in the May 18 meeting of its governing body under the name “Chinese Taipei." This was the first time the nation has officially participated in a United Nations meeting or event since the ROC walked out of the world body in 1971.
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.52)(www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=59969&ctNode=427)
2009 Apr 28, Venezuela recalled its ambassador to protest Peru's decision to grant political asylum to a prominent opponent of President Hugo Chavez, calling it a mockery of international law and escalating a diplomatic dispute.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 29, The Obama administration joined a federal judge in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, It was reported that more than 50 million American retirees can expect to receive $250 payments from the government in the next few weeks as their share of the economic stimulus package enacted in February.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Florida Juwhan Yun, a Korean American who had served prison time for attempting to broker the sale of nerve gas bombs to Iran, was indicted in Miami on charges of trying to help South Korea obtain advanced Russian rocket technology.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 29, In New York Teresa Tambunting of Scarsdale was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. Prosecutors said she had stolen over $12 million in gold over six years from the Queens jewelry manufacturer where she worked. Police found 450 pounds of gold at her home.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 29, The WHO raised its alert for swine flu from level 4 to level 5, its 2nd highest alert level. Austria and Germany confirmed cases of swine flu, becoming the third and fourth European countries hit by the disease. US health officials reported that a 23-month-old child in Texas has died from the disease. The World Health Organization called an emergency meeting to consider its pandemic alert level.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 29, In Afghanistan US-led troops battled militants and announced they killed 42 suspected insurgents. Two attacks on German forces killed one soldier and wounded nine as Germany's foreign minister began a two-day visit to the country.
(AFP, 4/29/09)(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Australia announced it will increase by almost one half its troops in Afghanistan to about 1,550 as part of the US-led surge of international forces to bolster the faltering fight against Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Two boats carrying almost 80 people were intercepted off Australia's northern coast as the conservative political opposition called for an independent inquiry into refugee policy.
(AFP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown said it will boost its troops in Afghanistan to 9,000 to help the country through upcoming elections, unveiling a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Britain and Libya ratified a prisoner transfer deal that could potentially allow Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi (57), the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombings, to serve out the remainder of his sentence in the North African country.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, The prime ministers of China and Japan pledged to lay a stronger foundation for cooperation between the historic Asian rivals amid global economic and health crises.
(AFP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, China Mobile said it would buy 12% of Far EasTone Telecommunications, a big Taiwanese mobile operator.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.65)
2009 Apr 29, A Boeing 737 on a test flight from Brazzaville crashed southeast of Kinshasa, killing 7 people.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a statement published in state newspapers said that effective midnight, flights from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine flu. After that, airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the island and pickup Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban on flights between Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, An Iraqi-US patrol was ambushed while distributing grants to Iraqi businesses near the northern city of Kirkuk. Iraqi officials said two civilians were killed when the Americans returned fire, but the US military said those killed were enemy fighters. Five bombs hit various neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing at least 48 people in another powerful strike by suspected Sunni insurgents seeking a return to sectarian chaos.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 29, Youssef Magied al-Molqui, one of the 4 Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American passenger in 1985, left prison in Palermo, Sicily, after more than 23 years in jail. Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif, another convicted Achille Lauro hijacker, was released last year.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, Lebanon released four generals held for nearly four years in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri after a UN-backed tribunal in the Netherlands ordered them freed, setting off celebrations with fireworks and dancing.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Mexican police arrested suspected Zeta gang leader Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, one of Mexico's 24 most-wanted drug traffickers.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, NATO and Russia resumed formal contacts eight months after they were suspended because of last year's war with Georgia.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens of Taliban fighters in a fierce struggle to drive them from the Buner district, within 60 miles (100 kilometers) of Islamabad. Troops faced an estimated 450-500 militants in Buner and forecast that the operation to drive them out would take about a week. Gun attacks in the mega-city of Karachi killed at least 34 people and threatened to ignite ethnic tension. 2 Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) activists were gunned down by unknown shooters, sparking street violence.
(AP, 4/29/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, A South Korean presidential advisory committee announced that South Korea will lift a three-year ban on human stem cell research.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Sri Lanka the visiting French and British foreign ministers urged Sri Lanka to accept a cease-fire in its war with ethnic Tamil rebels, saying it needed to act quickly to save the lives of civilians in the war zone.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Taiwan said it had persuaded China to allow it to participate in a key UN body, offering a victory for President Ma Ying-jeou's campaign to win greater international recognition for the democratic island. China confirmed that Taiwan will attend next month's meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva as an observer.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Tanzania huge blasts rocked an ammunition dump at an army camp in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam. More than a dozen people were killed.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 2/18/11, p.A2)
2009 Apr 29, In southeastern Turkey suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a roadside bomb that killed nine soldiers in a US-made armored personnel carrier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Zimbabwe's teachers vowed to go on strike when the new school term begins next week after government reneged on a pledge to increase their salaries.
(AFP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, Obama administration officials said Chrysler will file for bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small group of the company's creditors.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small group of the company's creditors. Canada's government said it will take an ownership stake in Chrysler in exchange for more than $2 billion in loans, under a sweeping North American rescue plan. Ottawa and Washington demanded the Detroit company partner with Fiat as a condition for funding.
(AP, 4/30/09)(Reuters, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Illinois Ali al-Marri (43) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. A second charge of providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization was dropped. His case had sparked a legal debate over whether the government can hold terrorism suspects indefinitely. The Qatar native faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at his July 30 sentencing. On Oct 29 a federal judge sentenced Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 10/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, The San Francisco Municipal Railway announced plans to raise adult bus and streetcar fares, effective July 1, by 50 cents to $2.00, the largest one-time raise in nearly a century. Sweeping service cuts were also approved.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 30, In Texas Derrick Lamone Johnson was executed for the 1999 rape and murder of LaTausha Curry (25) abducted while she trying to make a call at a pay phone. He was the 14th Texas prisoner executed this year.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, In Wisconsin Shane Kettner (36) was arrested in Nelsonville for killing his estranged girlfriend and 2 of their children.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 30, In Azerbaijan Georgian citizen Farda Gadyrov (20) opened fire at the prestigious oil industry academy in Baku, killing 12 people and wounding 13 before turning the gun on himself.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Belgium stripped the credentials of 2 high-ranking members of Russia’s permanent mission to NATO and expelled them on accusations of espionage.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Brazil's Supreme Court struck down a 1967 press censorship law enacted during the military dictatorship. In a 7-4 vote the court ruled the law unconstitutionally violated freedom of expression.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, British forces formally ended combat operations in Iraq, one month ahead of schedule. A solemn ceremony remembered 179 dead comrades from six years of warfare.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In Beijing Japan’s PM Taro Aso called for Tokyo and Beijing to unite in facing the world's environmental and economic challenges, while playing down concerns over China's military power.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chinese state media reported that China has reopened its land border to tourists traveling to North Korea after a three-year break, with a group of 71 tourists visiting the isolated country earlier this week on a one day tour of Sinuiju.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In India millions cast their votes in the third wave of month-long elections, with security tight as the staggered polls took in the Kashmir Valley and the financial capital Mumbai.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The Iraqi government decided to kill three wild boars at the Baghdad Zoo amid worldwide fears of swine flu. No date was set for their killing. Two US Marines and a sailor were killed during combat operations in Anbar province.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican health authorities said they confirmed 300 swine flu cases and 12 deaths due to the virus among a total of 679 people tested so far.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican authorities detained 12 federal police investigators accused of leaking information to hit men who ambushed and killed 8 officers on April 18 in a failed attempt to free a high level drug cartel member.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In the Netherlands 5 people died when a car slammed into a crowd at the Queen's Day festival attended by members of the royal family in the western city of Apeldoorn. A policeman as well as the assailant died the next day from their injuries. The suspect was identified by Dutch media as Karst Tates (38). Neighbors said Tates recently was fired from his job as a security guard and was to be evicted from his home in the small eastern town of Huissen because he could no longer afford the rent. An injured woman died a week later bringing the total to 7 victims.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Pakistan troops sent to repel a Taliban advance toward the Pakistani capital killed 14 suspected militants. Troops ousted militants from the Ambela Pass leading over the mountains into Buner and were inching toward the north. Militants, who have kidnapped dozens of lightly armed police and paramilitary troops, had burned a police station farther north and sealed off the town of Sultanwas.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Peru Ashaninka and Yines Indians blocked an airport in the central jungle town of Atalaya as well as two stations on a northern oil pipeline to protest laws that they say threaten their ancestral land and resources. Some 15,000 Indians have been protesting since April 9 and planned to start taking over oil and gas rigs. They said laws passed in December opened the door to privatization of water resources and jungle land which they used.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Russia signed a deal with Georgia's two breakaway regions giving Moscow the power to guard the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a move sharply criticized in Tbilisi.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Saudi Arabia a lawyer said an 8-year-old girl has divorced her middle-aged husband after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for about $13,000. Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a close ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child marriage a "clear and unacceptable" violation of human rights.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Sri Lanka's president rejected international appeals for a cease-fire in his nation's bloody civil war, as the Tamil Tiger rebels vowed never to surrender to the advancing government forces.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Turkey's military said its warplanes struck Kurdish rebel targets overnight in northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The UN Security Council extended for another year the mandate of UN peacekeepers in southern Sudan who monitor compliance with a peace deal that ended Sudan's two-decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Police in the US Virgin Islands canceled the popular J'ouvert carnival after four people were wounded in a shooting and two stabbings.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr, A gamma ray burst was spotted by a NASA satellite. A typical burst "puts out in a few seconds the same energy expended by the sun in its whole 10 billion year life span." Researchers announced in 2011 that they have gathered data placing the blast more than 13 billion light years away, meaning that the event took place when the universe was still in its infancy.
(AP, 5/27/11)
2009 Apr, UN special investigator Philip Alston said on October 15 that Congolese soldiers had killed 50 Rwandan Hutu refugees and abducted and raped around 40 women during an April attack on a refugee camp in eastern DR Congo.
(AFP, 10/16/09)
2009 Apr, In India Mahanand Naik, a Goa auto-rickshaw driver dubbed "The Dupatta Killer," was arrested and later charged with 16 murders between 1995 and 2009. In 2011 He was also found guilty of killing Vasanti Gawade in 1995 in a village 35 km (20 miles) north of the state capital, Panaji.
(AFP, 7/20/11)
2009 Apr, In Iraq electronic clearing began in Baghdad’s main branch of the Rafidian Bank, the country’s largest lender. Electronic clearing was expected to extend to all of the bank’s 147 outlets within a year.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.48)
2009 Apr, The OECD included Panama on its “grey list" of countries that show insufficient financial openness. Panama with its lax corporate laws allows companies to be created in minutes and registers over 45,000 new offshore companies a year.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.46)
2009 Apr, Paraguay’s Pres. Lugo signed a $30 million agreement with the US ambassador to bolster the country’s judiciary, public administration and national police force to help reduce endemic corruption and patronage.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A9)
2009 Apr, In Togo former defense minister Kpatcha Gnassingbe was arrested for being the alleged mastermind of a coup plot against his half-brother. His house was raided by elite troops in an operation that led to a bloody gunfight. In 2011 the two half-brothers of President Faure Gnassingbe and 30 others appeared in court over the alleged coup plot. On Sep 15 a Togo court sentenced former defense minister Kpatcha Gnassingbe, Gen. Assani Tidjani and Abi Atti to 20 years each for their role in the plot.
(AFP, 8/30/11)(AP, 9/15/11)
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Go to May 2009
End of file
2009 May
2009 May 1, US cases of the H1N1 flu rose to 155, based on federal and state tallies. State laboratory operators believe the number is higher because they are not testing all suspected cases. Mexico raised its confirmed swine flu death toll from 15 to 16, adding that the total number of confirmed cases of the virus had risen to 397. Worldwide, the total confirmed cases were 653, with the real number also believed to be much larger.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, US government health officials warned dieters and body builders to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed a state budget, overcoming a $1.4 billion deficit by taping into emergency reserve funds and cutting state services.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.37)
2009 May 1, In south Texas Reymundo Guerra, former sheriff of Starr county, pleaded guilty to a drug trafficking charge for sharing law enforcement information with a Mexican drug ring.
(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A4)
2009 May 1, Danny Gans (52), one of the most popular entertainers on the Las Vegas Strip for the last decade, died in his sleep at his home in Henderson, Nev. A coroner later said Gans' death was accidental, caused by a prescription painkiller.
(AP, 5/2/09)(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 May 1, In southern Afghanistan gunmen attacked a troops' convoy as it traveled to a village to talk to elders about security. The troops killed one militant in the initial clash and another 14 as they pursued insurgents who were firing on them from a nearby hillside. 3 Afghan army soldiers were killed in overnight fighting with insurgents in eastern Kunar province. 5 international soldiers, including 2 American, were killed in an insurgent attack.
(AP, 5/1/09)(AFP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 1, Britain awarded the role of national poet laureate to Carol Ann Duffy (53), the first woman to hold a post that has been filled by William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes. Duffy, a gay woman, has published more than 30 books, plays and children's stories as well as poems that mix accessible modern language with traditional forms.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A3)
2009 May 1, In Cambodia a court official said Japan has donated $4.17 million to the UN-backed genocide tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge leaders on war crimes charges, just as the troubled court was running out of funding.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, In Ethiopia Communications Minister Bereket Simon said that senior military officers, including a general, had plotted to assassinate top government officials. He added that 40 people were under arrest. Bereket said the plotters belonged to the Ginbot 7 (May 15) opposition group, saying it was linked to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) headed by Berhanu Nega, currently living in the United States.
(AFP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, May Day protesters clashed with riot police in Germany, Turkey and Greece, while thousands angry at the government's responses to the global financial crisis took to the streets in France. Riot police battled 700 stone-throwing left-wing militants in Berlin for more than five hours in May Day clashes that stretched into early pre-dawn hours.
(Reuters, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In India officials said at least 18 people have died in a scorching heat wave that has swept through more than a dozen Indian states.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, Indonesia's top graft-buster, Antasari Azhar (56), was named a suspect and a mastermind in a murder case, dealing a blow to the agency that's played a key part in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's fight against corruption. He was one of several suspects in the March 14 murder of Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, a businessman who, according to local media reports, had been a witness in a corruption case investigated by the agency.
(Reuters, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, Iran hanged a young woman (23) who was convicted of murder when she was a minor, drawing condemnation from international human rights groups who have sought to end capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Delara Darabi, initially pleaded guilty to killing her father's cousin in 2003, but later retracted her confession and said her boyfriend carried out the killing.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In northern Iraq Ammar Afif Hamada (19), a would-be Syrian suicide bomber linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, was tackled by guards on the doorstep of a mosque in Kirkuk.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who has compared himself to Jesus Christ and Napoleon, boasted that he was the world's most popular leader.
(Reuters, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi held talks with visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the situation in Pakistan and ways of bolstering ties between the two nations. Pakistan and Libya signed a string of agreements to bolster economic ties on the sidelines of Zardari’s visit. The countries also decided to bolster ties in the fields of banking, health, education, public works and construction.
(AFP, 5/1/09)(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In the Netherlands robbers at the Scheringa Museum for Realism in Spanbroek stole "Adolescence," a 1941 gouache by Salvadore Dali and "La Musicienne," an oil painting from 1929 by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. The museum houses the art collection of wealthy Dutch banker Dirk Scheringa and his wife.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In Pakistan the battle between security forces and Taliban militants left 55-60 militants dead over the last 24 hours in Buner district near the capital even as the government pressed with a much-criticized peace plan in the region. Based on combined tolls released by the military, nearly 200 militants have been killed in Operation Black Thunder since tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships swung into action in Buner and neighboring Lower Dir.
(AFP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, In Paraguay Sabino Montanaro (86), who served as interior minister under ex-dictator Alfredo Stroessner, arrived in Asuncion after nearly two decades of self-imposed exile in Honduras. He faced six pending trials for the disappearance and killings of government opponents in the 1970s and 1980s.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 1, Special forces on a Portuguese warship seized explosives from suspected Somali pirates after thwarting an attack on an oil tanker, but later freed the 19 men. Hours later and hundreds of miles away, another band of pirates hijacked a cargo ship. The captain and 23 crew were all Ukrainians and the Greek-owned, Maltese-flagged Ariana was carrying a cargo of soya from Brazil to Iran when pirates attacked it southwest of the Seychelles islands. The Ariana was freed on Dec 10 following a ransom payment of $2.8 million by Athens-based Alloceans Shipping.
(AP, 5/2/09)(AP, 12/10/09)
2009 May 1, Sri Lanka's government dropped leaflets across the northern war zone urging civilians to flee the fighting amid accusations the military pounded the area with artillery shells that killed at least 10 civilians.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, A UN agency urged Israel to freeze demolitions of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, citing a growing housing crisis in the part of the city the Palestinians claim as their future capital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, In Venezuela police and national guard troops broke up an opposition march in Caracas as thousands of opponents and supporters of Pres. Chavez held separate May Day marches.
(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 2, Mine That Bird, a gelding from New Mexico trained by Bennie Woolley Jr., won the 135th Kentucky Derby. With an inspired ride on the rail from Calvin Borel the 50-to-1 odds win was one of the greatest upsets in America's most famous horse race.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C1)
2009 May 2, Jack Kemp (b.1935), Republican politician, died of cancer at his home in Maryland. A former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Kemp represented western NY for nine terms in Congress, leaving the House for an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A16)
2009 May 2, In Albania Fatmir Xhindi (49), a lawmaker from the main opposition Socialist Party, was shot and killed outside his home in Roskovec. Albania ended communist rule in 1990, but has struggled since then with high unemployment, widespread corruption, dilapidated infrastructure and organized crime.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, Australia’s government said it will spend more than 70 billion US dollars boosting its defenses over the next 20 years in response to a regional military build-up and global shifts in power.
(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Austria an avalanche killed 6 hikers not far from the popular Soelden ski resort in the alpine province of Tyrol.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 2, In Bolivia former US Pres. Jimmy Carter met with Pres. Evo Morales and discussed bettering relations with the new US government.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A6)
2009 May 2, Brazilian officials said floods and mudslides from heavy rains in the northeast have killed at least 14 people in the last month and driven tens of thousands from their homes.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Brazil Augusto Boal (78), theater director and playwright known for the interactive genre called the "Theater of the Oppressed," died. Seen as a threat to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, Boal was arrested, jailed and tortured before being exiled to Argentina. He returned to Brazil after the fall of the military regime.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, Canadian health officials said a traveler has carried the new H1N1 virus from Mexico to Canada, infecting his family and a herd of swine.
(Reuters, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, It was reported that an estimated 250,000 Roma lived in the Czech Rep. A rising number of the gypsies were applying for visas to Canada. Of 861 applications in 2008, 84 were accepted.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.54)
2009 May 2, In the Dominican Rep. the decapitated body of a migrant from neighboring Haiti was found in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Santo Domingo. Residents alleged the victim killed a local merchant. About 1 million people of Haitian descent lived in the Dominican Rep., often suffering discrimination and violence.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 2, India's biggest drug maker Ranbaxy announced the recall of an antibiotic, on sale in the US, because of manufacturing problems, marking a new setback for the company. The Japanese-controlled company said it was voluntarily recalling all lots of nitrofurantoin capsules, an antibiotic used in the treatment of urinary tract infections.
(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Iraq a roadside bomb also exploded near a car and a cement mixer in Kirkuk, killing at least 3 civilians and wounding 3 others. Two American soldiers were killed after a gunman opened fire at a combat outpost near Mosul. The attacker was described as a soldier, who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for his unit. Iraqi police arrested Mullah Nadim Jibouri, an Awakening leader in Duluija, along with 2 of his brothers.
(AP, 5/2/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A6)(SFC, 5/4/09, p.A3)(SFC, 5/6/09, p.B5)
2009 May 2, South Pacific nations announced that military-ruled Fiji has been suspended from the 16-nation bloc for its rejection of democracy, freedom and human rights.
(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 2, An Israeli airstrike against smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border killed two people.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 2, Mexico said it had no confirmed deaths from HINI swine flu overnight, even as its confirmed caseload grew to 443.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Pakistan scores of militants attacked the Spinal Tangi security post near the Afghan border, triggering a battle that left 18 combatants dead and cast doubt on claims by Pakistan's army to have regained control of a critical region. A Taliban commander in the Khyber region, just west of Peshawar, surrendered after authorities put pressure on his tribe. Iftikhar Khan Afridi was aligned with Baitullah Mehsud, the top Pakistani Taliban commander. The Taliban beheaded two government officials in the northwestern Swat Valley in revenge for the killing of two insurgent commanders by security forces.
(AP, 5/2/09)(Reuters, 5/3/09)
2009 May 2, In Senegal Madieye Diallo's, a gay man, died of HIV AIDS. His body had only been in the ground for a few hours when a mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2009 May 2, In Sri Lanka a government doctor and a rebel-linked Web site said artillery shells hit a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka's northern war zone, killing at least 64 civilians.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Trinidad 4 police officers allegedly hijacked a smuggling boat from Venezuela and stole 1,000 endangered birds and monkeys along with 400 pounds of wild animal meat. Investigators acting on a tip found birds and monkeys in people's homes, in pet shops and even along roads in Port-of-Spain.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, In California Briant Rodriguez (3) was kidnapped by 2 gunmen who broke into his family’s home in San Bernadino.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518779,00.html)(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 May 3, In Florida Troy Ryan Bellar (34) shot and killed his wife, Wendy Bellar (31) and their 5-month-old and 8-year-old sons before killing himself outside their home in Lakeland. His 13-year-old son, Nathan, escaped.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, The weekly Onion newspaper said it will close its print editions in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The free weekly began its San Francisco edition in 2005. Print editions will continue in Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Denver and Boulder.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.C1)
2009 May 3, Swine flu extended its reach through Europe and Latin America, with at least five countries reporting new cases. Health experts were investigating a case of the virus jumping from a person to pigs, trying to determine if the disease was reaching a new stage.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Three Afghan men were shot in Kabul by US defense contractors working for Paravant, a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide. 2 of the Afghan’s died. In 2010 Justin Cannon (27) and Christopher Drotleff (29) were indicted on charges that included 2nd degree murder. On March 11, 2011, Cannon and Drotleff were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 1/8/10, p.A8)(SFC, 3/12/11, p.A9)
2009 May 3, China tightened visa rules for citizens from the US, which has reported the second highest number of swine flu cases in the world.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, Egyptian police fired tear gas and clashed with irate pig farmers, leaving 12 people injured as owners resisted the government's attempt to slaughter all the nation's pigs to guard against swine flu.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, A French naval vessel intercepted 11 suspected pirates traveling off the Somali coast in two assault vessels and a so-called "mothership" loaded with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Italian media reported that PM Silvio Berlusconi's wife wants a divorce, just days after she publicly criticized his party's selection of young women to run in European elections.
(Reuters, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Mexican police found 11 bodies dumped around a southern Guerrero state, including seven wrapped in plastic bags and thrown off a bridge. The bodies of five men and two women were found in a river between the Pacific resort town of Acapulco and the city of Cuernavaca. The other four bodies were found in a 600-yard ravine in the town of Pilcaya.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Mexico at least four gunmen confronted journalist Carlos Ortega (52) when he got out of his car in front of his home in the small town of Santa Maria del Oro. Ortega was shot in the head after struggling with the attackers. Ortega recently argued with the town's mayor, Martin Silvestre Herrera, over an article on sanitation at a local slaughterhouse, and then wrote a column saying he would hold the mayor responsible if anything happened to him.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, Nepal's PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal, former Maoist rebel leader, fired army chief Rookmangud Katawal after accusing him of defying government orders, prompting a key party to quit the coalition government and plunging the Himalayan country into a political crisis that could endanger its peace process. Dahal’s firing of the army chief was rejected by President Ram Baran Yadav, who officially leads the army.
(AP, 5/3/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Niger Tuareg rebels fighting the government released their last hostage. Mamane Louali, who was captured in June 2007, was released at the airport in Agadez, a town in the country's far north and one of the traditional bases of the nomadic Tuaregs.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In Pakistan the bullet-ridden body of Fazal Haq (28), kidnapped two months ago, was found dumped by the side of a road in Naurak village, 15 km (nine miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in the semi-autonomous North Waziristan tribal region. He had been accused of spying for the United States. Militants beheaded 2 government officials in Swat, in revenge for the killing of two Taliban commanders in dir and Buner.
(AFP, 5/3/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 3, Panama held elections. Ricardo Martinelli (57), a conservative supermarket magnate, was favored to win the presidential elections. Martinelli won the election in a landslide, promising to guide the country through the world economic crisis and an ambitious expansion of the Panama Canal. A leaked cable from the US embassy later revealed that Martinelli requested help in the wiretapping of his political opponents.
(AP, 5/3/09)(AP, 5/4/09)(Econ, 11/24/12, p.40)
2009 May 3, In the southern Philippines 7 people were killed and 1,000 forced to flee their homes as fresh fighting broke out when MILF separatist guerrillas attacked civilians. The 12,000-member MILF has been waging a decades-old insurgency to set up a Muslim state in the southern Philippines, where Christian settlers now outnumber the original inhabitants.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, A gas explosion tore through a Siberian apartment block and sparked a fire that engulfed the building, killing eight people, including two children.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In northwest Spain one member of the country’s second-place junior female volleyball team died and 12 others were injured, two seriously, in a bus crash. The Emeve de Lugo team had just arrived in Santiago de Compostela from the Canary Islands when their bus overturned.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In Thailand an American identified as Jill St. Onge (27) a bartender and artist from Seattle, died while staying at a popular destination for budget travelers. Norwegian Julie Michelle Bergheim (22) died the next day. Both died after suddenly falling ill within hours of each other at the Laleena guesthouse on Koh Phi Phi in southern Thailand.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 3, Sixteen Venezuelan soldiers and a civilian were killed when a military helicopter crashed near the Colombian border. A brigadier general was among those killed.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 4, President Barack Obama proposed changing provisions in the tax code that he says encourage US companies to move jobs overseas, as part of a broader package aimed at saving $210 billion over 10 years.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, An analysis of "real-world" clinical data indicated that vitamin E, and drugs that reduce generalized inflammation, may slow the decline of mental and physical abilities in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) over the long term according to National Institutes of Health-sponsored research.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded eighty one $100,000 grants in a bid to support innovative, unconventional global health research. The foundation also announced plans to spend $73 million over the next five years to help small farmers in impoverished countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, California’s State Water Resources Control board released a study that said only 21 of 152 lakes studied were free of mercury and other contaminants. 131 lakes showed one or more pollutants above state health guidelines.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A1)
2009 May 4, In Kentucky Amanda Hornsby-Smith (28) was strangled to death. In 2010 her husband, Woody Will Smith (33), went on trial for her murder. He claimed excessive caffeine from sodas, energy drinks and diet pills left him so mentally unstable he couldn't have knowingly killed her.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2009 May 4, Dom DeLuise (b.1933), film and TV actor, died. Though lighthearted onscreen, the prolific actor was deeply passionate about food, forging a second career as a popular chef and cookbook author.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, In Afghanistan bombing runs by US-led coalition jets killed dozens of civilians taking shelter from a fierce ground battle between Taliban militants and Afghan and international forces. The US confirmed fighting in western Farah province and opened an investigation into the overnight operation. Over 100 people were killed including 25-30 Taliban. A senior US defense official later said that Marine special operations forces believe that the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, who then loaded some of the bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike. On May 20 the US military said at least 20 civilians and 60 insurgents had died in the clash.
(AP, 5/5/09)(AFP, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 4, An Afghan guard was killed by Australian Robert William Langdon as he worked for US-based private security company Four Horsemen International. A court later heard that Langdon threw a hand grenade into the truck carrying the guard's body and ordered other guards to fire into the air to simulate a Taliban attack. Langdon allegedly admitted killing the Afghan guard during a heated argument about security for a convoy. In October Langdon was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a court in Kabul. He paid a "sizeable" compensation to the victim's family and the sentenced was reduced to 20 years.
(AP, 1/27/10)(http://tinyurl.com/ybfe5lu)(AFP, 1/6/11)
2009 May 4, Australia's government put back its much-vaunted carbon-emissions trading scheme by a year, bowing to industry demands for more relief amid a recession while opening the door to an even deeper long-term reduction.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, The EU admitted that its previous forecasts were way off the mark. It now predicts "a deep and widespread recession" across the continent and said unemployment among the 16 nations that use the euro will rise to a postwar record of 11.5 percent in 2010.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Germany Sergio Marchionne, the boss of Italy's Fiat, drummed up support in Berlin for audacious plans to snap up General Motors' European arm and merge it with the bankrupt Chrysler to create a new global auto giant. Germany's economy minister said Fiat Group SpA wants to take over GM's Opel unit without running up debt and would preserve the three main German assembly plants if successful.
(AFP, 5/4/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Indonesia's top graft-buster, Antasari Azhar (56), was arrested as a suspect and a mastermind in the March 14 murder of businessman Nasrudin Zulkarnaen.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and handed him a letter of protest, demanding that Iran halt shelling against Kurdish rebels in the country's north and warned the "extremely dangerous violations" of Iraqi territory could harm relations between the two countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Mexico's health secretary said most businesses will reopen May 6 nationwide, citing ebb in the swine flu outbreak. The World Health Organization chief warned that swine flu could return with a vengeance despite Pres. Felipe Calderon insisting his country has contained the epidemic.
(AP, 5/4/09)(AFP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Nepal's PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal resigned amid a power struggle over his firing of the army chief, saying he was stepping down to "save the peace process" that brought the Himalayan nation out of a bloody decade-long civil war.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Niger’s Pres. Mamadou Tandja accompanied representatives of French energy giant Areva at a ceremony marking the beginning of a new uranium project in Imoraren. The site is expected to boost Niger's uranium production from 3,000 to 5,000 tons per year.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Pakistan clashes in a northwestern region covered by an increasingly fragile peace pact killed seven militants and one soldier. The Taliban ambushed an army convoy in Swat and armed Taliban appeared on the streets of Mingora.
(AP, 5/4/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 4, South Korean snipers hovering in a helicopter chased away pirates pursuing a North Korean freighter, while the Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev freed eight Iranian citizens held hostage for more than three months.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, South Korean news reported that North Korea runs a cyber warfare unit that tries to hack into US and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Sri Lankan forces battled Tamil Tiger insurgents, pushing deeper into rebel-held territory amid a report that navy gunboats heavily shelled an area packed with civilians.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Turkey masked assailants with automatic weapons attacked an engagement celebration in the village of Bilge, near the city of Mardin, fatally shooting 44 people.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, In southern Yemen armed protesters ambushed a military camp in Radfan killing one soldier, as separatist sentiment mounted against the weak central government.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A2)
2009 May 5, Pres. Obama and Democratic lawmakers reached agreement on a legislative proposal designed to stimulate US auto sales, which have fallen to near 30-year lows.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that the economy should pull out of a recession and start growing again later this year.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The District of Columbia Council gave final approval to legislation that recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The law became effective on July 7.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.A5)(SFC, 7/8/09, p.A4)
2009 May 5, In Detroit, Michigan, basketball legend Dave Bing was elected as mayor through the end of the year, sweeping the incumbent from office in the city with myriad problems. Bing had 52.3% of the vote, to 47.7% for Cockrel. Both are Democrats.
(http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4143798)
2009 May 5, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger said that the time is right to debate legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.A1)
2009 May 5, A Marine Corps helicopter crashed shortly before midnight in a remote area of Southern California, killing the two people who were on board.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, In California a wildfire broke out in the Santa Ynez mountains near Santa Barbara. By May 15, after destroying 80 homes, it was 90% contained. On Dec 10 officials charged 2 men with misdemeanors for allegedly sparking the Jesusita fire.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.B7)(SFC, 12/11/09, p.A11)
2009 May 5, In Columbia, Illinois, Sheri Coleman (31) and her two sons, Garett (11) and Gavin (9) were found strangled to death. Husband and father Chris Coleman (32) was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, but later pleaded not guilty.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 5, H.H Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), announced the official launch of Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Sudan had recently signed a leasing agreement with an Al Ain National Wildlife for some 6,180 square miles of southeastern wilderness to be developed as a safari site with semi-permanent tented camps and top-class hotels.
(www.ameinfo.com/155601.html)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.46)
2009 May 5, In Afghanistan a shooting followed a car accident in Kabul leaving one Afghan died and two others wounded. Four US contractors for the private security company formerly known as Blackwater were detained for their involvement in the shooting.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 5, Australia's army started shooting 6,000 kangaroos to thin their population on an army training ground near the capital, outraging conservationists who have vowed to protest.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 5, Britain for the first time published a list of people barred from entering the country for what the government says is fostering extremism or hatred.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The British International news portal One News Page was launched. One News Page (http://www.onenewspage.us/) was founded by Dr Marc Pinter-Krainer (38) a successful internet entrepreneur who has been working in the commercial online arena since 1999.
(www.onenewspage.co.uk/press.php)
2009 May 5, China said it has given 10 million dollars (7.5 million euros) to Zimbabwe, half of it directly into the state coffers, to help boost the country's troubled economy.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, In central China more than 1,000 villagers clashed with police following a land dispute with construction workers that left one person dead. Protests continued into the next day.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 5, The European Parliament voted to update the rules on the use of animals in research and to ban imports of seal products, including fur coats and even omega-3 pills, trying to force Canada to end the annual seal hunt that animal rights groups call barbaric.
(AP, 5/5/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.84)
2009 May 5, A French judge decided to investigate three African heads of state for money laundering and other alleged crimes linked to their wealth in France. The probe follows a complaint by Transparency International France, an association that tracks corruption, against Gabon's Omar Bongo, Republic of Congo's Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, Georgia said it had ended a brief mutiny at a military base near the capital that broke out after the arrest of a former special forces commander accused of planning to disrupt NATO exercises.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Guinea's ruling junta recalled 30 ambassadors, nearly five months after seizing power when the West African country's longtime dictator died.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, The leaders of Iran and Syria reaffirmed their support for Palestinian resistance, a defiant message to the US and its Mideast allies who are uneasy over Washington's efforts to forge closer ties with the hard-line government in Tehran.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Israeli authorities arrested two Palestinians who tried to sell a looted 1,900-year-old papyrus document in Hebrew worth millions of dollars.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, In Nepal thousands of Maoist supporters took to the streets of Kathmandu, a day after Prachanda, the leader of the ex-rebels, quit as prime minister following a bitter row over the country's army chief.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, In Pakistan fighting between Taliban militants and troops in a northwestern valley triggered an exodus the government said could see 500,000 people flee and signaled the end of a peace deal in the area widely criticized as a surrender to the extremists.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The Philippine military rejected a US government assessment that labeled the country's south as a terrorist safe haven. The US State Department reported last week in its annual assessment of worldwide terrorism that the southern Mindanao region, specifically predominantly Muslim Sulu province, remains a sanctuary for extremists.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Victoria, a German cargo ship carrying 11 crew members in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates released the ship and its 11 Romanian crew members on July 18 following a ransom of $1.8 million.
(AP, 5/6/09)(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 May 5, A South Korean official said 3 South Korean army personnel have been convicted of accepting or seeking bribes while serving as part of a US-led alliance aimed at rebuilding Iraq. A captain identified by his surname Park, was sentenced last month by a South Korean military court to three years in prison for taking $25,000 and a digital camera worth $800 from a local firm involved in construction projects in the northern city of Irbil in return for administrative favors. A master sergeant and a major received suspended jail terms for demanding bribes from other Iraqi firms. The captain and the two others were arrested in South Korea in December following a joint US-South Korean investigation.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, In Spain Basque Socialist leader Patxi Lopez (49), expected to be sworn in as the Basque region's first non-nationalist president, vowed to wage a relentless fight against the armed separatist group ETA.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Sudan denied accusations by the government of Chad that its forces had launched an attack against the neighboring African state.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was indicted on new graft charges as his high-profile corruption trial continued into its second month.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Turkish security forces detained 8 gunmen suspected of fatally shooting 44 people at an engagement ceremony in the southeastern village of Bilge. PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "the result of a feud between two families" had led to the deaths of six children, 17 women and 21 men.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The UN chief accused Israel of lying about attacks on United Nations schools and other facilities during the Gaza military campaign, including one reported to have killed more than 40 people, and formally demanded compensation.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, A restricted UN report said IAEA inspectors detected nuclear particles in Egypt last year and in 2007. A senior diplomat accredited to the agency said that it was the first time the traces were reported by the Vienna-based nuclear monitor.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, Yemen suspended seven publications, including the nation's most popular daily, in effort to stifle reporting on an unprecedented wave of deadly rioting sweeping the south.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, In Zimbabwe prominent human rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko and the 17 others were taken back into custody, just two months after their release on bail over an alleged plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe. PM Morgan Tsvangirai's party warned their detention threatened the survival of Zimbabwe's fledgling unity government. Zimbabwe's teachers unions called off a threatened strike at state schools after the government agreed to scrap fees for children of teachers.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 6, Maine's Gov. John Baldacci signed a freshly passed bill approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In California a wildfire surged into Santa Barbara forcing at least 8,000 residents to evacuate.
(SFC, 5/7/09, p.B6)
2009 May 6, New H1N1 flu cases across Europe and a second US death kept health officials on alert despite signs Mexico's epidemic had passed its peak. Mexican health officials said that testing of backlogged cases has increased the confirmed swine flu death toll from 31 to 42, including three new deaths in the past two days.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Virginia police found former NASCAR driver Kevin Grubb (31) dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Grubb was suspended from NASCAR indefinitely in 2006 because he refused to submit to a random drug test following the Busch Series race at Richmond International Raceway.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 6, US scientists in the Jason submersible from Woods Hole, Mass., filmed the West Mata undersea volcano between Samoa and Fiji. The summit of the volcano now reached some 4,000 feet from the sea floor and was still some 4,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A14)(http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/05/undersea-eruption.html)
2009 May 6, Ben Southall (34), a bungee jumping, ostrich-riding British charity worker was named the winner of what's been dubbed the "Best Job in the World," a 150,000 Australian dollar ($111,000) contract to serve as the caretaker of Australia’s tropical Hamilton Island. He beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world for assignment to swim, explore and relax in the Great Barrier Reef for six months while writing a blog to promote the area.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Bangladesh Home Minister Sahara Khatun said the UAE has given the government nearly $1.44 million to distribute among 879 Bangladeshi children who worked as jockeys at camel races after it was banned in 1993. The law was openly flouted until authorities reached an agreement in 2005 with UNICEF to help repatriate and rehabilitate child jockeys, who were mostly taken from poorer Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Brazilian officials said at least 29 people have been killed by floods and mudslides in northern Brazil as authorities struggled to rush aid to dozens of small cities cut off from civilization by overflowing rivers in the Amazon region.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Canada and the EU signed an "open skies" pact under which airlines from the two trading partners will be able to fly freely between any airport in the 27-country EU and any in Canada.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Iraq a car bomb exploded at the entrance to a fruit and vegetable market in south Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding about 40. Hours later, another car bomb exploded in the capital's Karradah district, killing two people and wounding six.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Malaysian officials said 2 political activists have been arrested ahead of a parliamentary showdown between the government and the opposition over control of northern Perak state.
(AFP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, NATO launched military exercises in former Soviet Georgia after heavy criticism from neighboring Russia and a brief mutiny in the Georgian military.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Nepal police clashed with protesting Maoists, who vowed to prevent a new government from being formed unless the president supports the firing of the country's army chief. The key dispute has thrown the Himalayan country into crisis.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Pakistani helicopter gunships and ground troops attacked the Taliban in the Swat valley. Pakistan said it killed more than 80 militants in heavy bombardments in an upsurge of fighting that has caused tens of thousands to flee and threatened to torpedo a northwest peace deal. There were also reports of civilian casualties in fighting in Swat.
(AFP, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/7/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 6, Russia said it is expelling two Moscow-based NATO employees who are Canadian diplomats in retaliation for NATO's recent expulsion of two Russian envoys from its headquarters in Belgium.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Russia retired Gen. Valentin Varennikov (85), a hawkish World War II veteran who directed the Soviet war in Afghanistan, died. He had joined the rebellion against Mikhail Gorbachev that sped the collapse of the Soviet Union.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Spanish authorities said they have arrested 29 people suspected of forging credit cards to finance an elaborate scheme to smuggle Cubans into the US from Mexico.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, South Africa's parliament has elected Jacob Zuma as the country's president. Zuma won 277 votes in the 400 member National Assembly. Zuma's African National Congress won elections last month with 65.9% of the vote. He is due to be inaugurated on May 9.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said intense fighting in the war zone was killing and wounding hundreds of civilians a day and asked for the UN to push for urgent food shipments to avert a hunger crisis.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Senior Sudanese aid official Hassabo Mohammed Abdelrahman said that Khartoum was ready to allow foreign aid groups to operate in Darfur but ruled out the return of the 13 aid agencies kicked out in March.
(AFP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 6, Venezuelan prosecutors filed embezzlement and other charges against a former Caracas mayor who supports the government of President Hugo Chavez. Juan Barreto, mayor from 2004 to 2008, denied the allegations and vowed to clear his name in court.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Zimbabwe a top rights activist and 14 others were ordered freed on bail after Zimbabwe's president and prime minister forced a judge to reverse her decision to send them back to the prison where they said they had been tortured. She refused, however, to free three others she had ordered returned to prison, saying their case was more serious because they had allegedly been found with explosives. The last 3 were released on May 13.
(AP, 5/6/09)(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 7, Ten of the largest US banks came up collectively $75 billion short according to government stress tests and quickly took steps to shore up their capital.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A1)
2009 May 7, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation extending hate crimes protection to homeless people.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A11)
2009 May 7, Seven Pittsburgh-area ACORN workers were charged with falsifying voter registration forms, with six accused of doing so to meet the group's alleged quota system before last year's general election.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, LA Dodger’s star Manny Ramirez (36) was suspended by Major League Baseball for 50 games for using HCG, a banned drug.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A1)
2009 May 7, General Motors Corp. lost $6 billion in the first quarter and its revenue was cut nearly in half as car buyers feared the wounded auto giant would enter bankruptcy and no longer honor its warranties.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Univ. of California regents voted 17-4 to raise tuition by 9.3%, the 6th increase in 7 years.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.B3)
2009 May 7, In Connecticut Wesleyan University junior Johanna Justin-Jinich was gunned down by a man wearing a wig. Officers arrested Stephen P. Morgan (29) the next night standing outside the store in Meriden, 10 miles from where the woman was killed. Morgan's journals contained threats against Jews and mentioned plans for a shooting spree at Wesleyan.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In Mississippi Jackson Mayor Frank Melton (60), elected in 2005, died just as polls closed in his unsuccessful bid for re-election.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.B6)
2009 May 7, John Furia Jr. (b.1929), prolific screen and television writer, died. His work included popular TV series including "Bonanza," "The Waltons," "Hawaii Five-O" and “The Twilight Zone."
(www.cbc.ca/arts/tv/story/2009/05/09/furia-obit-screenwriter.html)
2009 May 7, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 21 Afghan civilians and two British soldiers in one of the deadliest such attacks in months. Four British soldiers were killed in attacks in Helmand province. Police fired on a crowd of rock-throwing protesters in western Farah province, who were angry about civilian deaths they blame on American bombing runs.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In Algeria 4 armed Islamists were killed by Algerian security forces during firefights in Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes, east of the capital Algiers. Two soldiers died as well, and three assault rifles were seized by the military. Another Islamist was killed as security forces mounted a joint operation on an armed group at Kharrouba, near Boumerdes.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, Argentina and Brazil confirmed five swine flu cases within their borders as the virus affects more nations in South America.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, Britain promised it would remove the DNA records of hundreds of thousands from its vast national registry of genetic information, but said it will still keep the details of some innocent people for up to 12 years.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, The European Union extended its hand to former Soviet republics, holding a summit to draw them closer into the EU orbit despite Russia's deep misgivings. Presidents, premiers and their deputies from 33 nations signed an agreement meant to extend the EU's political and economic ties. The six ex-Soviet republics to whom the “eastern partnership" would apply are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
(AP, 5/7/09)(Econ, 1/10/15, p.49)
2009 May 7, The European Central Bank cut interest rates a quarter point and said it would buy euro-denominated bonds as well as offer longer-term credit to banks as it moves to get more money flowing through the 16-nation euro zone economy.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In Georgia opposition protesters clashed with police in Tbilisi in the first outbreak of violence since demonstrations began in April.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.55)
2009 May 7, In northwestern Indonesia 2 rare Sumatran elephants, believed to have been poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples, were found dead with their tusks removed. Just 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to still be living in their natural surroundings.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, Iran’s state media reported that 9 people, including a 30-year-old woman, have been hanged. 4 of the 9 including the woman were convicted of murder in separate cases and were hanged on May 6. The woman was found guilty of killing her husband with a hammer.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, The Baghdad contract for the security firm once known as Blackwater Worldwide ended, although the company will temporarily continue operations elsewhere in Iraq. US troops in Mosul shot dead a 12-year-old Iraqi boy suspected of throwing a grenade at them. It was believed insurgents were paying children to help them. The boy was found with 10,000 Iraqi dinars, or around $8.50, in his hand.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 7, In Italy Jonathan Robert Hindenach (24) of Charlotte, Michigan, killing an Italian man in Florence. He had consumed drugs and alcohol before slaying Riccardo Nistri (62).
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In Kashmir scores of protesters clashed with government troops in Srinagar as residents went to the polls in the disputed Himalayan region and other Indian key states in a monthlong parliamentary election.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Animal welfare activists said more than 300 stray dogs, dumped on isolated islands in Malaysia’s Selangor state, turned to cannibalism after weeks of starvation.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In Mexico high schools and universities closed by the swine flu epidemic reopened as teachers and parents carefully checked returning students for flu symptoms. The death toll due to the HINI flu was raised to 44. Mexico City says all businesses can reopen including sports arenas, museums, bars.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Mexican police said 3 women who disappeared in the border city of Tijuana were killed by drug traffickers who dissolved their bodies in a caustic substance. 2 drug traffickers were arrested this week and confessed to the killings. A 3rd suspect was being sought.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In Nepal riot police beat back hundreds of women from the Maoist party who protested in front of the president's house to demand that he fire the country's army chief.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In New Zealand former army reservist Jan Molenaar (51) fired a fusillade of shots from an automatic rifle at police who arrived with a warrant to search the house for cannabis. One officer was shot dead and two others seriously wounded, along with a bystander. Molenaar was found dead on May 9 in his house in the North Island city of Napier.
(AP, 5/8/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 7, In Pakistan attack helicopters and war planes pounded suspected Taliban hideouts as the government vowed a decisive victory in the northwest. Thousands of terrified Pakistanis dodged Taliban roadblocks to flee the Swat valley being shelled by the government, streaming into makeshift camps and crowding hospitals as the army bombarded the extremists who have taken over much of the area.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AFP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In the Philippines fighting in the southern island of Jolo broke out after Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf members ambushed Chief Superintendent Julasirim Kasim, killing him and four of his men. Five rebels were also killed in the attack. In retaliatory attacks that followed more than 20 Muslim extremists were killed.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 7, Russian Mission Control said the unmanned Progress M-02M lifted off from Kazakhstan on schedule and should dock with the int’l. space station on May 12.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Somali pirates captured the Netherlands Antilles-flagged MV Marathon in the Gulf of Aden. The ship listed 19 Ukrainian crew members. One of the crew members died from a gun shot wound. On June 23 the Dutch Defense Ministry reported that the ship was released.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 May 7, In Sri Lanka Stephen Sundararaj (39), a project manager for a human rights group, disappeared in Colombo. He had been abducted by police and detained for weeks under a law permitting arrests without warrant for “unlawfull activities." He challenged the case in court but disappeared hours after his release pending trial.
(http://tinyurl.com/heqfxw3)(Econ, 8/6/16, p.30)
2009 May 7, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir named Ahmed Harun, who is wanted for war crimes in Darfur, as governor of disputed south Kordofan province, transferring him from his post as a state minister. In 2007 the ICC issued a warrant for Harun on 51 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Sudan's western Darfur region in 2003 and 2004.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, A UN peacekeeper was shot dead and his car stolen by unknown gunmen in the South Darfur state capital Nyala.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In eastern Ukraine 9 people were killed in an explosion at a gambling hall in Dnipropetrovsk.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Tendai Biti, said African financial institutions have extended $428 million in credit lines in a bid to rescue the country's ailing economy.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 8, A federal jury acquitted W.R. Grace and 3 of its executives on all criminal charges that they knowingly contaminated Libby, Montana, with asbestos and conspired to cover up the deed.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)
2009 May 8, In California the 4-day Jesusita fire in Santa Barbara was only 10% contained as of the evening, after charring more than 13 square miles and destroying about 31 homes with another 47 damaged. By the next day the fire was 40% contained and residents were allowed to return to the area.
(AP, 5/9/09)(SSFC, 5/10/09, p.A12)
2009 May 8, In Panama City, Florida, Dr. Jason Newsom resigned from the Bay County Health Department under pressure following his launch of a one-man war on obesity by posting sardonic warnings on an electronic sign outside. After the lawyers threatened to sue, his bosses made him remove the anti-fried doughnut rants and eventually forced him to resign.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 May 8, In the Midwest a wave of storms damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. 5 people were left dead.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, Brazilians huddled in cow pens converted into emergency shelters, as swollen rivers continue to rise and northern Brazil's worst floods in decades boosted the number of homeless to nearly 300,000. The death toll rose to 39, and coffins started popping out of the soaked earth.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In London Marks & Spencer admitted it had "boobed" in a row over larger bras, agreeing to slash the prices of its DD-plus cup sizes to bring them in line with smaller models.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Canada a provincial medical official said a woman from Alberta has died from the H1N1 flu virus, making her the first Canadian to die from the virus.
(Reuters, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Chad’s government claimed that 225 rebels and 22 soldiers had been killed in clashes over the last 2 days south of the main eastern city of Abeche.
(AFP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, In Colombia Jorge Noguera, former director of the civilian intelligence service, DAS, was charged with conspiracy and murder. He was accused of colluding with paramilitaries and helping to plan the murders of opposition figures.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.43)
2009 May 8, A Croatian court convicted an opposition lawmaker of war crimes, making him the country's first senior politician to be held responsible for wartime atrocities against Serbs. Branimir Glavas was sentenced to 10 years in prison for war crimes against civilians, but he remained free because he enjoys parliamentary immunity from detention. During the 1991 Serbo-Croat war, he was a member of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union and formed a paramilitary unit in eastern Croatian town of Osijek, where he was seen as a warlord.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Ecuador an angry mob dragged two suspected robbers from a police station in Valencia and burned them to death.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Indian police used teargas and batons to disperse hundreds of rock-throwing Kashmiris protesting against the holding of national elections in the revolt-hit region.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Ireland Dr. Yuri Melini (47), a leading Guatemalan environmentalist who recently survived an assassination attempt, won a human rights award for his efforts to stop the rapid growth of mines in his mineral-rich nation. Melini received the annual Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk in a Dublin City Hall ceremony.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In southern Lebanon authorities arrested five people for allegedly spying for Israel as part of the two countries' long-running espionage battle.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Malaysia said it will free 13 people detained under internal security laws, including three ethnic Indian activists, members of the banned ethnic Indian rights group Hindraf, held without trial since organizing anti-government protests in 2007.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Mexico’s federal attorney general's office said authorities have arrested 25 Tijuana police officers and two civilians on organized crime charges for alleged drug gang ties. In the border state of Chihuahua, prosecutors said police acting on an anonymous tip found two clandestine graves with 7 bodies in the town of Palomas, across from Columbus, New Mexico.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Nigeria the governor of southern oil-rich Rivers state signed a law making life jail terms mandatory for kidnappers in the area.
(AFP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, Pakistani jets screamed over Mingora, a Taliban-controlled town, and bombed suspected militant positions as hundreds of thousands fled in terror and other trapped residents appealed for a pause in the fighting so they could escape. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said that 140 militants had been killed in the last 24 hours, adding to around 150 already reported slain. He did give any figures for civilian deaths, but witness and local media say that noncombatants have been killed.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In the northern Philippines Typhoon Cha-hom dumped heavy rains overnight, triggered landslides and left at least 10 people dead and four missing.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, South Sudanese gunmen killed dozens of people from a rival tribe, most of them women and children, in one of a string of attacks that have raised fears for elections in the region. Fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe raided the village of Torkej, home to the Nuer Jikany, in the region's Upper Nile state, in apparent revenge for cattle thefts. Some 71 people were killed in Torkej.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.49)
2009 May 8, Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Jordan and expressed deep respect for Islam. He said he hopes the Catholic Church can play a role in Mideast peace as he began his first trip to the region, where he hopes to improve frayed ties with Muslims.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Venezuelan police uncovered a cache of weapons and explosives at a Caracas apartment. The discovery led to the detention of 3 citizens of the Dominican Republic, Luini Omar Campusano de la Cruz (38); Edgar Floiran Sanchez (29); and Diomedis Campusano Perez (31) and a Frenchman, Laurent Frederic Bocquet, on suspicion of planning terrorist acts.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, Venezuela’s National Guard began occupying dozens of oil rigs, docks and boats operated by private contractors, both local and foreign, hired by PDVSA, the state oil company. It appeared that PDVSA had run out of cash.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.44)
2009 May 9, Federal drug enforcement agents began seizing about 351 pounds of meth from two houses in Duluth, in suburban Atlanta. The 2-day operation included the arrest of four Mexican nationals, three of whom were in the US illegally. It was the biggest seizure of Mexican crystal methamphetamine ever recorded east of the Mississippi River.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 9, Chuck Daly (b.1930), NBA basketball coach, died in Florida. He coached the Dream Team to the Olympic gold medal in 1992 after winning back-to-back NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, In Afghanistan 2 police died in a roadside blast in Zabul province.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 9, Australia and Japan joined the ranks of affected countries with confirmed H1N1 swine flu. New Zealand, the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to confirm cases, reported two more for a total of seven.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, Costa Rica reported the first swine flu death outside North America and the US announced its third death from the virus, while Mexico delayed the reopening of primary schools in some states.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, PM Nouri al-Maliki said Iraq should launch an anti-corruption campaign that would match the fight it has waged against insurgents and militias, amid increasing complaints over criminality in the government.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, In Mexico gunmen killed 9 people in three separate attacks in the western state of Michoacan. 4 horses and a bull were also killed in one of the attacks. The bodies of 4 US citizens (19-23) were found strangled, beaten and stabbed in a van in Tijuana, two days after they reportedly left their Southern California homes for a night at the Mexican clubs.
(AP, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 9, Pakistani civilians cowered in hospital beds and refugees looted UN supplies, all of them desperate for relief from the fighting that has engulfed a northwestern valley as troops and warplanes struggled to drive out Taliban militants. The army said it killed as many as 55 more Taliban fighters in Swat. A suspected US missile strike killed nine people, mostly foreigners, in another militant stronghold near the Afghan border.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, It was reported that Peru’s police over the last two months have seized some $40 million in near perfect replicas of American dollar bills in $20, $50 and $100 denominations. Most of the fake bills were sent to Ecuador and Panama, which used the greenback as their national currency.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.40)
2009 May 9, In South Africa Jacob Zuma became president, vowing to work to fulfill the dreams of all South Africans after he overcame corruption and sex scandals to reach the nation's highest office.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, Human Rights Watch accused Sri Lankan forces of repeatedly striking hospitals in the northern war zone with indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks that have killed scores of people, a charge the military denied. Sri Lankan police arrested three journalists for London-based Channel 4 television news on charges of tarnishing the image of government security forces.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, UN officials said a UN-sponsored treaty to combat highly dangerous chemicals has been expanded beyond the original "dirty dozen" to include nine more substances that are used in pesticides, flame retardants and other products.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, In Venezuela police and soldiers discovered 4,370 pounds (1,983 kilograms) of cocaine during a raid on a ranch in central Miranda state. A Colombian and two Venezuelans were detained.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 10, In southern Afghanistan a double suicide bomb attack killed 7 people and wounded 20 in the town of Gereshk in Helmand province. The majority of casualties were police and army units responding to the initial attack. A roadside bomb in eastern Nangarhar province killed eight construction workers traveling on a rural road on their way to build a checkpoint for the country's border police. Three Afghan civilians, a truck driver and two assistants, died in a roadside bomb blast in Zabul province while transporting goods to an American base.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, Floodwaters receded some in inundated towns across northern Brazil, but the number of homeless rose above 300,000 and two people were missing after an overloaded canoe overturned in swift waters.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 10, The British government hit record opinion polls lows as more details of lawmakers' expenses, detailing lavish spending on everything from home improvement to pest control, emerged in the press. Labor legislator Stuart Bell said Parliament will set up an independent body to oversee legislators' expenses following a series of damaging revelations.
(AFP, 5/10/09)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In China Deng Yujiao (21), a karaoke bar waitress, turned herself in shortly after allegedly using a fruit knife to stab Deng Guida (43), who ran a local government office for business promotion. She had also attacked his colleague Huang Dezhi at Badong's Xiongfeng Hotel after they tried to force her into having sex. On May 22 the local government in the central city of Badong posted a statement online promising her fair treatment. On May 31 the government announced that the two surviving officials had been sacked. On June 16 Yujiao was freed.
(AP, 5/22/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.40)(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 May 10, In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at least 60 people were killed over the last 48 hours during attacks blamed on Rwandan Hutu rebels.
(AFP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 10, In Guatemala lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg was shot to death by unidentified assailants while riding his bicycle. The next day a video tape that emerged alleging that if anything happened to him it would be at the behest of Guatemalan Pres. Alvaro Colom with help from Gustavo Alejos," the president's chief of staff, Gregorio Valdez, a businessman, and the approval of Sandra Torres, Pres. Colom’s wife. Rosenberg said on the tape that officials might want to kill him because he represented businessman Khalil Musa, who was killed along with his daughter Marjorie in March. Rosenberg said Musa, who had been named to the board of Guatemala's Rural Development Bank, was killed for refusing to get involved in purported illicit transactions at the bank. On Dec 9 authorities ordered the arrest of Francisco and Jose Valdes Paiz, cousins of Rosenberg, for allegedly ordering the killing of Rosenberg. Eleven people had already been arrested. On Jan 12, 2010, a special international group commissioned by the government said Rosenberg had contacted cousins of his first wife to help him find a hitman to deal with an extortionist, when he really was orchestrating his own slaying amid severe personal problems. On July 15, 2010, a judge convicted and sentenced eight men to prison for Rosenberg’s killing.
(AP, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/18/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.40)(AP, 12/30/09)(AP, 1/12/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2009 May 10, A small plane filled with cocaine crashed in Honduras. The plane registered in Venezuela was carrying around 3,300 pounds (1,500 kilograms) of cocaine when it crashed on Utila, one of the Bay Islands off the country's northern coast.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 10, Italian police arrested a fugitive crime boss who they found holed up in a secret room of his brother's house in the southern Italian region of Calabria. Salvatore Coluccio has been a fugitive since 2005.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In Jordan Pope Benedict XVI urged Middle East Christians to persevere in their faith despite hardships threatening their ancient communities, addressing a crowd of 20,000 who filled a sports stadium where he celebrated the first open-air Mass of his pilgrimage.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, Mexican prosecutors announced that police had arrested four alleged members of a drug cartel in the border city of Tijuana after police found over $542,000 in their vehicles. Federal prosecutors in Cuernavaca detained 11 men and 3 women on suspicion of smuggling weapons for the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. The 14 caught in the raid on a house were ordered held under house arrest for 40 days pending possible charges.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In Pakistan thousands of fearful civilians many on foot or donkey-pulled carts, streamed out of the Swat valley as authorities briefly lifted a curfew. The army said 50 to 60 militants died in various parts of the valley. Two soldiers also died in the latest fighting. The army said 12,000 to 15,000 troops in Swat face 4,000 to 5,000 militants, including small numbers of foreigners and hardened fighters from the South Waziristan tribal region. The Taliban executed Zahid Khan, imam of the main mosque in Mingora, because he had objected to their stockpiling arms and laying landmines.
(AP, 5/10/09)(Econ, 5/16/09, p.45)
2009 May 10, In Somalia mortars slammed into Mogadishu hitting a mosque and several homes. Weekend fighting killed at least 35 people as pro-government Islamist fighters clashed with gunmen who want to topple the Western-backed government.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In Sri Lanka a government doctor said an all-night artillery barrage in the war zone killed at least 378 civilians and forced thousands to flee to makeshift shelters. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels accused the government of killing more than 2,000 civilians in 24 hours of artillery attacks, but the military vehemently denied the allegations.
(AP, 5/10/09)(AFP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, Syria rejected the Obama administration's decision to renew economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus and urged Washington to abandon "foolish polices."
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 11, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates replaced General David McKiernan as the commander of the Afghanistan war, saying the Obama administration needs "fresh thinking" to turn around the war against a resurgent Taliban. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was named to replace McKiernan.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, US District Judge Samuel Kent was sentenced to 3 years in prison for lying to investigators about sexually abusing 2 female employees at his Galveston, Texas, courthouse. Kent had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice as his trial was about to start in February. This was the first sex abuse case ever against a sitting federal judge.
(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A5)
2009 May 11, The space shuttle Atlantis and 7 astronauts blasted off from Cape Canaveral on a mission to repair the Hubble telescope.
(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A6)
2009 May 11, The price of a US first-class stamp rose 2 cents to 44 cents.
(SFC, 5/11/09, p.A3)
2009 May 11, Insurer American International Group Inc. said it is selling its Japanese headquarters to Nippon Life Insurance Co. for $1.2 billion in cash.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu in the US climbed to more than 2,500, surpassing Mexico as the country most affected by the outbreak.
(http://tinyurl.com/prszux)
2009 May 11, In Oakland, California, Ivarene Lett (97) was found beaten to death inside her 6th story Van Buren Tower apartment near lake Merritt.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A1)
2009 May 11, The US military accused militants in Afghanistan of using white phosphorus munitions in attacks on American forces and in civilian areas, saying it has documented at least 44 incidents of insurgents using or storing the weapons. Doctors began investigating whether dozens of girls were poisoned at a high school in northern Afghanistan after 61 girls went to the hospital because of sudden illness.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Australia’s armed forces chief announced that Australia will formally end its military mission in Iraq at the end of July, bringing the country's involvement in one war to a close even as it prepares to send more troops to Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Bolivia demanded that Peru hand over three former government ministers charged with genocide in the 2003 killing of dozens of protesters. President Evo Morales called asylum an "open provocation of the Bolivian people."
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, British PM Gordon Brown and the leader of the country's main opposition party apologized over lawmakers' excessive expenses claims, pledging to overhaul the allowance system and win back public trust.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Colombian authorities arrested a senator closely allied with President Alvaro Uribe for alleged collusion with illegal far-right militias. Sen. Zulema Jattin (39) had been under Supreme Court investigation for allegedly benefitting politically from ties with militia boss Rodrigo Tovar. Jattin called her arrest a "kidnapping" by the Supreme Court.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Georgia's pro-Western president and four of his fiercest opponents failed to agree on a way to resolve the country's political crisis, a negotiator said, promising continued street demonstrations to demand his resignation.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, In Iran an appeals court reduced the jail term of Roxana Saberi (32), dual Iranian-American citizen, to a two-year suspended sentence. She planned to return home to Fargo, North Dakota.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, In Iraq Brig. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Kadhoumi, a high ranking traffic police officer, was fatally shot in central Baghdad. Sgt. John M. Russell (44), who had served previously in Iraq, fatally shot five fellow soldiers at a US military counseling clinic at the Camp Liberty base near the Baghdad Int’l. Airport. Russell was charged with murder and aggravated assault. A 325-page report on Russell was released on Oct 16. It painted a picture of a soldier on his third deployment who began to show obvious signs of unraveling nearly two weeks before the shootings at the clinic. In 2013 Russell found guilty of premeditated murder.
(AP, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/12/09)(AP, 10/20/09)(SFC, 5/14/13, p.A5)
2009 May 11, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was in Egypt for talks seen aimed at showing he can be a true Middle East peace partner before he heads to the White House on May 18. Progress in peace negotiations must come before Arab recognition of Israel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview with Israel TV.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, Pope Benedict XVI confronted the dark history of his native Germany on the first day of his visit to Israel, shaking the hands of six Holocaust survivors and saying victims of the genocide "lost their lives but they will never lose their names." He also called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian homeland, a stance that could put him at odds with his hosts on a trip aimed at improving ties between the Vatican and Jews.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Ichiro Ozawa, head of Japan’s opposition DPJ, resigned following a fund raising scandal involving his main political aide.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.42)
2009 May 11, A Libyan newspaper reported that Ali Mohamed Abdelaziz al Fakhiri (46), also known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, has killed himself in his Libyan jail cell. His fabricated testimony about al Qaeda was used by the United States to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Captured by US-led forces in Pakistan in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fakhiri later made up a story about links between al Qaeda and Iraq to avoid torture while in the custody of Egypt, according to a 2006 US Senate Intelligence Committee report. Fakhiri was extradited by the US to Libya in 2006, when Tripoli authorities sentenced him to life imprisonment. Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri later accused Libya of torturing to death al Fakhiri.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(Reuters, 10/4/09)
2009 May 11, Most of Mexico's primary schools and kindergartens welcomed back millions of students after a nationwide shutdown ordered to help put a brake on the spread of swine flu.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, In the Netherlands thieves pried open the emergency door of the IJsselstein City Museum near Utrecht. They made off with six 17th- and 19th-century landscape paintings, the second major art heist in 10 days in the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, Pakistani warplanes bombed suspected militant positions in a stronghold close to the capital, pressing ahead with a fierce offensive that has driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, many into crowded refugee camps. 52 Islamist fighters were reported killed. The government claimed 700 insurgents had died over the last 4 days and that the Taliban were on the run.
(AP, 5/11/09)(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A2)
2009 May 11, In Sudan armed men on camel and horseback shot dead three Sudanese policemen in an ambush in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur.
(AFP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, The UN condemned a "bloodbath" in Sri Lanka's northern war zone after two days of shelling that a government doctor said killed as many as 1,000 ethnic Tamil civilians, including 106 children.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 12, The US won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the first time along with Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, four countries accused of serious human rights violations.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A2)
2009 May 12, Five more people were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee this morning. The advocates of a single payer health care system were protesting the fact that Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) continues to exclude single payer advocates from a series of hearings on health care reform. Last week, eight doctors, lawyers and activists were arrested as they sought to put a single payer advocate at a table of 15 witnesses. Baucus has reportedly accepted $413,000 in drug and health insurance campaign contributions.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A7)(www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=690)
2009 May 12, A federal jury in New York convicted Oussama Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swede, of plotting to help Al-Qaida recruit for a weapons training post in Bly, Oregon in 1999 and for distributing terrorist training manuals over the Internet. On Sep 15 Kassir was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)(SFC, 9/16/09, p.A8)
2009 May 12, Medicare’s trustees warned that the program’s biggest fund would run out of money in 8 years.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)
2009 May 12, In Utah partitions known as “Zion curtains" began coming down as a new law came into effect allowing bartenders to serve patrons directly over the bar. This ended Utah’s requirement that people who wanted a drink join a “private club."
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A8)(Economist, 9/8/12, p.66)
2009 May 12, John Demjanjuk, retired Ohio autoworker, arrived at a German prison after 3 decades of fighting in court. He was deported from the US to face allegations of being an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews and others as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In eastern Afghanistan 11 Taliban suicide bombers attacked government buildings in Khost, sparking running gunbattles that killed at least 20 people and wounded three US troops. US and Afghan troops freed 20 hostages taken by the insurgents. Another 98 Afghan girls were rushed to hospital in the latest in a spate of mysterious poisonings to hit three schools north of Kabul in a fortnight. Militants fired several rockets at two other US military bases in eastern Paktika province. Six militants were killed when US troops used artillery and airstrikes to fire back. Two people not involved in the fight were also killed.
(AP, 5/12/09)(AFP, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 12, Treasurer Wayne Swan said Australia will post a record 57.6 billion Australian dollar (44.1 billion US) deficit in 2009-10 as it battles the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Vittorio Calao head of Vodafone, a British mobile phone operator, announced a plan to build a joint global platform through which software companies and content providers could sell things to mobile subscribers.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.75)
2009 May 12, In Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his car into a police truck in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing five policemen and a civilian.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Italian anti-terrorism investigators said two French citizens behind bars since last year on suspicion of smuggling migrants were al-Qaida propaganda point men in Europe and were heard talking in jail about a possible attack on a Paris airport. Bassam Ayachi (62) and Raphael Frederic Gendron (33) were served warrants in jail accusing them of criminal association for international terrorism. The men have been held in Bari since November when they were arrested on suspicion of smuggling two Syrians and three Palestinians into Italy.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Vladimir Voronin (68), Moldova's former president, was voted head of parliament by his Communist Party colleagues. Three opposition parties boycotted the ballot, claiming the country's April 5 election was rigged.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Moroccan authorities announced the arrest of a group of alleged Islamists, who planned to attack Jewish interests in the country. The suspects, alleged to be members of a cell that was part of the radical Islamist movement Salafia Jihadia, were also said to be preparing attacks against Moroccan security services.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 12, In Pakistan helicopter-borne soldiers swooped into a Taliban stronghold in a remote corner of Swat, as the UN urged help for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting. A suspected US drone attack killed up to eight people in South Waziristan, a remote tribal area near the Afghan border.
(Reuters, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said former Bolivian ministers Mirtha Quevedo and Javier Torres Goitia requested and have received refugee status, a legal measure that, unlike asylum, does not denote political persecution. They are among the former ministers of former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada, charged with genocide for sending soldiers who killed 63 people in 2003 while quelling anti-government protests in the city of El Alto.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In Peru a new law went into effect that says officers will be fired for taking bribes and abusing detainees. It also said police officers who "damage the image" of law enforcement by engaging in homosexual behavior can lose their jobs.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 12, In Somalia a human rights activist said 113 civilians have been killed in fierce fighting in Mogadishu in the past three days. Some 10,000 civilians fled their homes, raising the number displaced by the fighting to more than 27,000.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels accused government forces of killing at least 47 people in an artillery and mortar attack on a hospital. The island's military denied the charges. The defense ministry said its troops had captured more ground in the latest fighting and had recovered 35 rebel bodies.
(AFP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In Switzerland a rare 7.03-carat blue diamond sold for 9.3 million Swiss francs (more than $8.4 million), the highest price ever for a gem of its kind, according to Sotheby's.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 13, Chicago became the first US city to adopt a ban on the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups containing the chemical BPA.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, The California State Univ. Board of Trustees voted 17-2 to adopt a 10% tuition increase at its 23 campuses. This was its 7th increase since 2002.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B3)
2009 May 13, Massachusetts transportation officials banned nearly all mass-transit drivers from carrying cell phones or other digitals assistants in response to a trolley driver’s recent text message that cause a crash injuring nearly 50 people.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2009 May 13, In North Carolina, the country’s top tobacco growing state by sales, legislators approved a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2009 May 13, Off of Florida an overloaded boat capsized and sank with about 30 people aboard, mainly Haitian immigrants fleeing their country's crushing poverty. At least 9 people were dead. 17 survivors were pulled from the waters. On May 18 Jimmy Metellus (33) of Haiti was charged with human smuggling.
(AP, 5/14/09)(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)(SFC, 5/19/09, p.A5)
2009 May 13, Bank of America Corp. sold part of its stake in China Construction Bank for some $7.3 billion as the US lender sought to raise billions more to help withstand the recession. The stock sale left Bank of America with about 11% of CCB's shares.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, A new, 2-person, research submarine, the Deep Flight Super Falcon, was unveiled at the California Academy of Sciences in SF. It was designed by marine engineer Graham Hawkes. Its $1.5 million cost was underwritten by venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It was scheduled to begin exploring Monterey Bay in June.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B5)
2009 May 13, RealtyTrac Inc. said new data indicated that the number of US households faced with losing their homes to foreclosure jumped 32 percent in April compared with the same month last year, with Nevada, Florida and California showing the highest rates.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, In Afghanistan a vehicle drove up to the first gate outside Camp Salerno, on the edge of Khost city, and exploded. 7 people were killed and 21 others were wounded. Int’l. troops opened fire on a civilian vehicle in Wardak province, killing a father and his son. A gunbattle between police and Taliban in western Badghis province left one officer dead.
(AP, 5/13/09)(AFP, 5/13/09)(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, In Brazil slum dwellers rioted after the arrest of drug dealers in a Sao Paulo shantytown, burning vehicles and tires, pelting police with rocks and briefly shutting down a major urban highway.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, In Egypt the NDP's Mohammed Zaki Mohammed Mussa was found stabbed to death. He was the administrative director for the affluent Cairo suburb of 6th October City. It was later reported that Mussa’s assistant Ikram Ahmed Abdel Latif (25) stabbed Mussa for failure to pay him his monthly salary of 350 Egyptian pounds (62 dollars) four times in a row.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 13, The European Commission, after an eight-year investigation, fined Intel Corp a record 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) and ordered it to halt illegal rebates and other practices it used to squeeze out its rival, AMD.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Voting in India's marathon elections ended, with early exit polls giving the ruling Congress party and its allies a slight edge over the opposition bloc led by the Hindu nationalist BJP.
(AFP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, In Iraq Ali Mohammed Kazim of the Public Integrity Commission, a senior anti-corruption official, was assassinated on his way to work. The US Army handed over its base at the 6,000-year-old archaeological site of Ur to the Iraqi military in a ceremony.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Standing in Bethlehem, Pope Benedict XVI told Palestinians he understands their suffering and offered the Vatican's strongest and most symbolic public backing yet for an independent Palestinian homeland.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Italy's lower chamber of parliament passed a hotly debated bill making it a crime to enter or stay in Italy illegally, the latest effort by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative forces to crack down on illegal migration. The bill included a fine of up to $13,670 and jail for people housing illegal immigrants.
(AP, 5/13/09)(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A2)
2009 May 13, Nigerian MEND rebels hijacked an oil industry ship and held 15 Filipino sailors hostage. They demanded that all oil workers leave the southern Niger Delta by May 16.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, In Pakistan troops secured footholds in Swat valley overrun by the Taliban, killing 11 militants and discovering 5 headless corpses near Mingora, the region's main town. Dozens of assailants stormed a transport depot handling supplies for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan and torched eight trucks before escaping.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Russian news agencies reported that Russia, in agreement with the US, will charge US astronauts $51 million per return trip to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2012 and will resume selling seats to space tourists. In 2006 Russia charged the US $21.8 million per return flight to the ISS. Since then the price for of a space tourist ticket to the ISS has climbed to $35 million from $20 million.
(Reuters, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, South Korean Destroyer ROKS Munmu the Great and the US guided missile cruiser Gettysburg dispatched helicopters to aid Egypt’s MV Amira after it came under attack. 17 suspected pirates were apprehended following the attack in the Gulf of Aden. In 2010 a Kenya court freed all 17 pirates for lack of evidence. A magistrate blamed the loss of the case on the US Navy for not providing video and photographic proof that they claimed to have.
(AP, 5/14/09)(AP, 11/5/10)
2009 May 13, In Sri Lanka shells hit the only hospital in the northern war zone, killing at least 50 people in the second such attack in two days. Medics at the makeshift facility said they were using brief lulls between explosions to tend to patients but had little to offer beyond gauze and bandages.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, In Uruguay the defense ministry confirmed that Minister Jose Bayardi had signed a decree lifting a ban on people with “open sexual deviations," that had been imposed by the military dictatorship (1973-1985). The new decree stated that sexual orientation will no longer be considered a reason to prevent people from entering military service.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A2)
2009 May 14, It was disclosed that the US Treasury Department has agreed to extend billions in bailout funds to six major life insurers, following a months-long quest by some in the sector for government help in shoring up capital positions in the wake of major investment losses.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, Federal authorities in Detroit charged 74 members and associates of the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club with attempted murder, cocaine and steroid distribution and other crimes.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.A7)
2009 May 14, Chrysler LLC said in a bankruptcy court filing that it wants to eliminate roughly a quarter of its 3,200 US dealerships by early next month, because the network is antiquated and has too many stores competing with each other.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Scientists reported that ginger, long used as a folk remedy for stomach aches, limits nausea caused by chemotherapy used in cancer treatments.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.A14)
2009 May 14, The World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of confirmed cases of the new Influenza A (H1N1) flu has climbed to 6,497, including 65 deaths.
(Reuters, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In southern Afghanistan overnight fighting between Afghan police and insurgents left 11 militants dead in Kandahar province. A British pilot was injured after his jet crashed following takeoff in the same region. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner pledged increased financial support for police and health care following a meeting with President Hamid Karzai. A suicide car bomber struck a police station in Kandahar province's Spinboldak district, leaving only the bomber dead and 5 others wounded.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In Australia a court suspended a government program to kill 7,000 kangaroos on federal land near the Australian capital, halting efforts to thin a mushrooming population of the beloved marsupials that authorities say are threatening endangered species.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Bangladesh's high court moved to plug a gaping hole in the country's laws by introducing a first-ever ban on sexual harassment. Bangladeshi police arrested 250 border guards accused of spreading violence across the country during a mutiny that started at a military base in Dhaka.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown suspended former agriculture and environment minister Elliot Morley over embarrassing expenses claim revelations. It had emerged that Morley claimed over 16,000 pounds for a home loan 18 months after it was paid off. Hours earlier the opposition Conservatives announced that Andrew MacKay, a lawmaker, had resigned as an aide to leader David Cameron after it emerged he and his wife, also a Conservative MP, had claimed expenses for two home loans at the same time.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, A British parliamentary report into human trafficking said more than 5,000 mostly women and children have been smuggled into Britain to work as sex slaves and beggars.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, The OECD ruled to keep Britain’s Cayman Islands on its list of un-cooperative tax havens.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.41)
2009 May 14, Egyptian security forces arrested 14 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in dawn raids at their homes.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, A French rocket carrying the largest space telescope ever was launched into space on a mission that European scientists hope will help unravel the mystery of the universe's creation. The Ariane-5 rocket was loaded with the Herschel space telescope and the Planck spacecraft, carrying a payload of 5.3 tons (4.81 metric tons) when it launched from the city of Kourou near the jungles of French Guiana.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, A small plane crashed into a yard in Guatemala City, reportedly killing six people on board and setting a home on fire near the airport.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, In India Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, the 10-year-old child star of "Slumdog Millionaire," was awakened by a policeman wielding a bamboo stick and ordered out of his home. Minutes later it was bulldozed along with dozens of other shanties in the Mumbai slum he calls home.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, Iraq's Trade Minister Falah al-Sudani submitted his resignation following allegations of widespread corruption in his department. PM Nouri al-Maliki delayed accepting it to allow parliament to review the allegations. Acceptance was announced on May 25.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 14, Pope Benedict XVI greeted tens of thousands of adoring followers in Nazareth with a message of reconciliation, urging Christians and Muslims to overcome recent strife and "reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice."
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Japan’s Sony Corp. reported its first annual net loss in 14 years and forecast a bigger loss this year, saying the pressure from sliding sales, competition in gadget prices and a strong yen was expected to continue.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Jordan's king pressed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately commit to the establishment of a Palestinian state, as he pursues a sweeping resolution of the Muslim world's conflicts with Israel.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest and faces up to five years in jail after John Yettaw, an American intruder, sneaked into her lakeside home.
(AP, 5/14/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.44)
2009 May 14, Pakistan said artillery batteries shelled suspected hideouts in Swat and the neighboring district of Lower Dir, with the military claiming to have killed 54 militants in the last 24 hours. Nine soldiers were reported killed. Residents said that armed Taliban have mined roads and dug trenches around up to 200,000 civilians encircled by Pakistani troops.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Russia said it was proposing a new version of a key European arms-control treaty it suspended more than a year ago, and could once again honor the agreement if the US and its NATO allies accept the changes.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In Spain a new study said the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with at least five drugs, including trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid, a relative of LSD. The tests were done in areas where drugs were likely to be consumed.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In Sri Lanka doctors and aides abandoned the only hospital in the war zone amid unrelenting shell attacks. The military said thousands of civilians braved rebel gunfire and fled across the front lines.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 15, General Motors said it plans to eliminate some 1,000 of 6,000 showrooms over the next year in an effort to boost profits by lessening competition among dealers.
(SFC, 5/16/09, p.C1)
2009 May 15, San Francisco’s Mayor Newsom said that 1,000 city workers would lose their jobs in the coming months to help close a growing budget deficit. The city’s biggest union this week rejected $38 million in wage concessions.
(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A1)
2009 May 15, A Minnesota couple who refused chemotherapy for their son, Daniel Hauser (13), was ordered to have the boy re-evaluated to see if he would still benefit from cancer treatment for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or if it may already be too late. On May 18 Colleen Hauser Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, apparently left their home sometime after a doctor's appointment and court-ordered X-ray showed his tumor had grown. Hauser and her son returned on May 25 and agreed to medical treatment.
(AP, 5/15/09)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/26/09)(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A4)
2009 May 15, In eastern Afghanistan 2 NATO were killed in fighting with insurgents. In southern Helmand province 22 Taliban militants, including three regional commanders, were killed in overnight fighting.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, A court-appointed liquidator reported that the Antigua offshore Stanford International Bank, at the center of an alleged Ponzi scheme by a wealthy Texas businessman, had a $6 billion shortfall between assets and liabilities, confirming fears that investors will likely get little of their money back.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Britain's expense scandal widened with the suspension of a justice minister who claimed more than 65,000 pounds ($98,000) in housing costs over three years. The Daily Telegraph reported that Justice Minister Shahid Malik put in the claims while he was given a discounted rent of 100 pounds ($150) a week by a local landlord.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, The Wolfram Alpha Internet search engine was officially launched. Stephen Wolfram, British physicist, described it as a “computational knowledge engine." It was created to compute answers from its own source of materials.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Alpha)(Econ, 6/4/11, TQ p.30)
2009 May 15, Microsoft Corp. announced a 3-year partnership aimed at helping make the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou a model for innovation and protection of intellectual property, in the company's latest attempt to combat rampant software piracy.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Egypt a three-year-old boy from north Egypt tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in the second such case in two days. This brought to 71 the number of bird flu infections in Egypt.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, Among perks enjoyed by EU Parliament lawmakers: flying no-frills and expensing the cost of a full fare ticket, listing spouse or child as aides and paying them fat salaries, wining-and-dining friends at Michelin-starred restaurants and billing the taxpayer. Unprecedented reforms, agreed in long and difficult negotiations, mean the incoming 736 assembly members of the EU assembly will earn far less than their predecessors and face far stricter spending rules.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Lakhdar Boumediene (43), a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was at the center of a Supreme Court battle over inmates' rights, arrived in France, which agreed to take in the Algerian in a gesture to the Obama administration.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Hong Kong 63 governments approved the Int’l. Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. It aimed to make the business of scrapping ships safer and greener by requiring higher standards at recycling yards mostly located in South Asia. 107 environmental rights groups complained that the UN accord, doesn’t go far enough.
(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A2)
2009 May 15, Hugh Van Es (67), a Dutch photojournalist, died in Hong Kong. He covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975, a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Indonesia 6 Asia-Pacific countries, meeting at the World Oceans Conference, agreed on a management plan to protect one of the world's largest networks of coral reefs, promising to reduce pollution, eliminate overfishing and improve the livelihoods of impoverished coastal communities. The Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security covered an area defined as the Coral Triangle, which spans Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Israel Pope Benedict XVI ended his pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his strongest call yet for the creation of a Palestinian state and telling the faithful at the site of Jesus' crucifixion that peace is possible.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Mexico received eight armored vehicles as part of a US aid package to help the government with its nationwide fight against drug cartels. Mexican federal police announced the capture of an alleged lieutenant of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Mario Gonzalez Martinez was described as one of the most trusted aides of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Martinez was captured along with four alleged accomplices in the western state of Jalisco.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, Nicaraguans awoke to find that the Central Bank, moving in the night as stealthily as the Tooth Fairy, had snuck a new legal tender into their economy while the markets were sound asleep.
(www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900518,00.html?xid=rss-world-cnn)
2009 May 15, In Nigeria the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) declared "all-out war" in the southern oil-producing region. The Nigerian military rescued 10 hostages from militants in the southern oil region and destroyed the camp where the victims were being held.
(AFP, 5/15/09)(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, North Korea said it has scrapped all wage and rent agreements with South Korea at a joint industrial estate and told some 100 South Korean companies to leave if they cannot accept it.
(AFP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Pakistani forces killed 55 Taliban in the northwestern valley of Swat, and lifted a curfew to allow thousands more civilians to flee before troops assail the Taliban-held main town of Mingora. Militants had mounted a counterattack, and three soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in various clashes over the previous 24 hours.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Peru a national Indian representative said Amazon Indians who have been blocking roads, waterways and a state oil pipeline since April are declaring an "insurgency" against Peru's government for refusing to repeal laws that the protesters say make it easier for foreign companies to take their lands. The next day they said they would withdraw the call for an insurgency against the government, but vowed to press ahead with their protests.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, Polish gas firm PGNiG announced that it had signed a deal with the Qatari firm Qatargas for the supply of one million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 15, In Spain police arrested of Raffaele Amato, an alleged Camorra boss who investigators say was one of Italy's top cocaine importers.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 16, President Barack Obama reached across the political divide and named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a potential Republican presidential contender in 2012, to the sensitive diplomatic post of US ambassador to China.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Maryland Rachel Alexandra won the second leg of the Triple Crown. She joined an impressive list when she became the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, In North Oakland, Ca., motorist Anthony Perea (27) and pedestrian Floyd Ross (41) were killed when 4 suspects in a Berkeley homicide fled police and crashed. Stephon Anthony and Anthony Price were arrested. 2 other suspects, later identified as Rafael Campbell (27) and Samuel Flowers (21), escaped. The suspected gang members had just killed Charles Davis (25) in West Berkeley. Flowers was arrested on May 25 in Florida. Campbell was arrested in Sacramento on Nov 17.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.B1)(SFC, 5/20/09, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.B2)(SFC, 5/27/09, p.B5)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.C5)
2009 May 16, In Afghanistan 6 militants, including a "foreign national," were killed in a clash with troops in Uruzgan province. 5 Taliban insurgents who were preparing suicide vests in a house in central Ghazni province were killed when some of the explosives detonated.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, In Britain David Chaytor, a ruling party lawmaker, became the latest casualty of a growing row over MPs' expenses when he was suspended, as police said they would examine whether the issue merited an investigation. He was reprimanded after The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported he claimed 13,000 pounds (14,500 euros, 19,700 dollars) for mortgage interest on a loan that had already been paid off. He has said he will repay the amount.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Cuba President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance to draw attention to gay rights on the island.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Egypt 13 factory workers were killed when their small pickup truck crashed head on into a large lorry in southern Egypt.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Germany tens of thousands of workers from across the country marched through downtown Berlin to call for increased government measures to protect their jobs.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.A6)
2009 May 16, In Hong Kong two bottles of acid were thrown into a crowd in a popular downtown shopping district. 30 people suffered burns but none was seriously injured. On the same street in December, 46 people suffered burns when two plastic bottles filled with acid were thrown at pedestrians.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Indian PM Manmohan Singh's ruling coalition won an overwhelming election victory, boosting hopes of a stable government as the emerging Asian power faces economic downturn and tensions with Pakistan. The Congress party won 206 seats, short of the 272 needed for a parliamentary majority. The BJP won just 116 of 545 seats.
(Reuters, 5/16/09)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.48)
2009 May 16, A joint US-Iraqi force targeted an al-Qaida cell involved in funneling arms and weapons into Iraq from Syria, arresting three people over the last 24 hours near Mosul. A mortar round crashed into a house in the eastern part of Baghdad, killing a 2-year-old child and wounding three others. Two policemen were killed west of Baghdad by a roadside bomb that went off near their patrol. In southern Iraq an American soldier was killed during combat.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, which hopes to take control of the country in elections later this year, chose Yukio Hatoyama, the grandson of a former prime minister, as its chief.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Japan said 8 high school students had tested positive for swine flu amid fears the virus was spreading in at least two cities where scores of students said they felt ill.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Kuwaitis voted in the second parliamentary election in a year. 210 candidates for the 50-seat parliament included 16 women. Kuwaiti women won political rights in 2005, and practiced them for the third time. Kuwait’s population of about 3.4 million people included 2.3 million foreign workers. Kuwaitis elected 4 women and rejected a number of Islamic fundamentalist candidates. 21 incumbents lost their seats.
(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.50)
2009 May 16, Ziad al-Homsi, a mayor of a Lebanese village, was arrested by Lebanese special forces and later jailed for 15 years for spying for Mossad. He served three years.
(AP, 5/7/13)
2009 May 16, In central Mexico an armed gang freed 53 inmates from the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas state, including two dozen with ties to a powerful drug cartel, in a daring raid that took just five minutes. Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina said footage from the security cameras inside and outside the prison indicates that guards helped the armed gang. The bodies of two men were found shot to death in central Michoacan state. Federal police came under fire as they raided a Cuernavaca building where four of suspects were arrested, including 3 police officers. A fifth suspect was also arrested as an alleged hit man.
(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, Norway’s fiddle-wielding Alexander Rybak (23), dubbed 'Alexander the Great' by Norwegian media, won a landslide victory in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow for his song "Fairytale," gaining the most points in Eurovision's 53-year history.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, In Pakistan a suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles at militants in the North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region. Pakistani intelligence agents said the militants were preparing to cross into Afghanistan to fight there and among the 28 dead were two Arabs. A car packed with mortar bombs blew up in the city of Peshawar, killing 11 people including four children passing in a school bus.
(Reuters, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Russia riot police violently broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the Russian capital hosted the major Eurovision international pop music competition.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, The gay community in tightly controlled Singapore held its first-ever rally, taking advantage of looser laws on public gatherings to call for equality.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Sri Lankan forces seized control of the island's entire coastline for the first time in decades, sealing the Tamil Tigers in a tiny pocket of territory and cutting off the possibility of a sea escape by the rebels' top leaders.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Sudan accused Chad of mounting a second series of air strikes on its territory and said the conflict between the African neighbors must be resolved politically.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 17, In Indiana Pres. Obama addressed a graduation ceremony at Notre Dame Univ. and called for “open hearts, open minds and fair-minded words" in the pursuit of “common ground" regarding the issue of abortion rights.
(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A3)
2009 May 17, In San Francisco’s 98th Bay to Breakers race Sammy Kitwara (22) of Kenya won with a time of 33 minutes, 31 seconds. Teyba Erkesso (26) of Ethiopia was the fastest woman at 38:29. An estimated 62,000 ran as revelers swilled beer despite rules banning alcohol in the 7.5-mile. Street cleaners gathered up some 13 tons of garbage.
(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A1)(SFC, 5/19/09, p.B1)
2009 May 17, David Ireland, American sculptor, conceptual artist and Minimalist architect, died in San Francisco. In 2016 the David Ireland House at the corner of 20th and Capp streets opened as a museum to the public. The 500 Capp Street Foundation was established by Carlie Wilmans and dedicated to the preservation of Ireland's work.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ireland_(artist))(SFC, 5/1/21, p.A7)
2009 May 17, In NYC Mitchell Wiener, an assistant principal at a middle school, became the first death linked to the H1N1 flu virus.
(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A3)
2009 May 17, In southern Afghanistan militant attacks and a roadside bomb explosion killed 11 policemen and an army soldier in areas plagued by a violent Taliban insurgency.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Bangladesh a state prosecutor said a corruption charge against PM Sheikh Hasina has been dropped because the man who laid it now says he was pressured to do so by the last government.
(AFP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Chad said its air force had completed raids on "mercenaries" inside Sudan, announcing its aircraft had destroyed seven groups of fighters while ground forces had captured 100 prisoners on the border.
(Reuters, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Chile confirmed its first two cases of swine flu in two women who arrived from the Dominican Republic.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Guatemala thousands protested to demand the resignation of President Alvaro Colom over accusations that he ordered a lawyer killed, a scandal threatening the rule of the country's first leftist leader more than 50 years.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, The International Criminal Court said Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a Sudanese rebel leader, has turned himself in to face war crimes charges for an attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in September 2007.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Iraq a gunman killed an off-duty prison officer in Mosul. Hours later a car bomb went off near the governor's residence in Mosul, killing a policeman and wounding three civilians.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Israel's President Shimon Peres urged Syria to open direct peace talks and said indirect negotiations mediated by Turkey had not resumed.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Jordan and Royal Dutch Shell PLC signed a concessionary agreement to explore for oil in the country's vast oil shale deposits.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Lithuanians voted in a presidential election. Dalia Grybauskaite (53), EU budget chief and karate black belt, poised to return to politics in her recession-hit homeland as its first female head of state. Grybauskaite stood as an independent, but was nonetheless backed by the ruling Conservatives, although she warned their government is also under watch. Under Lithuanian law, the new president takes the reins in July. The government then has to step down, and the head of state names a premier. Grybauskaite won nearly 70 percent of the vote in a presidential election.
(AFP, 5/17/09)(AP, 5/18/09)(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A2)
2009 May 17, In Nepal an alliance of 22 political parties claimed to have enough support to form a new coalition government and called for a parliamentary vote to elect its candidate as the new prime minister.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Nigeria's main militant group said it destroyed two oil pipelines in the southern Niger Delta, the latest attack amid the worst outbreak of violence to hit the region in months. MEND accused government troops of killing a second unnamed hostage and said two bodies would be handed over to the Red Cross. An army spokesman said Nigerian troops have freed three more Filipinos held hostage by militants in the Niger Delta, bringing the total number of the Asians rescued in the past two days to nine.
(AP, 5/17/09)(AFP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Pakistan an army statement said 25 militants and a soldier had died in the previous 24 hours in the Swat valley, and that security forces had surrounded and entered Matta and Kanju, two key towns in the area. Britain's Sunday Times reported that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said military action would follow in the tribal belt.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In the Philippines police recovered the severed head of Doroteo Gonzales (61), a farm owner kidnapped on April 25 by Muslim militants. Authorities said he was likely beheaded because his family failed to pay ransom.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, In Somalia Islamic insurgents sustained their offensive on the nation's fragile government and captured a strategic southeastern town, hours after a key Islamic militia leader defected to the government. Several local and foreign jihadists were killed in Mogadishu when a bomb-making workshop blew up.
(AP, 5/17/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.49)
2009 May 17, In Sudan rebels of Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said they had seized a town in North Darfur after a clash with government forces.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast. The government rejected the last-ditch call for a cease-fire, saying the thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone all have escaped to safety and there was no longer any reason to stop the battle. Troops killed at least 70 rebels trying to escape the one-square km patch of land that government troops have surrounded.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Taiwan tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched through downtown Taipei to protest against President Ma Ying-jeou's policy of greater engagement with rival China, saying it could undermine the island's self-rule.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Mario Benedetti (b.1920), a prolific Uruguayan writer, died. His novels and poems reflect the idiosyncrasies of Montevideo's middle class and a social commitment forged by years in exile from a military dictatorship. Benedetti's 1960 novel "The Truce" was translated into 19 languages and along with "Thank You for the Fire" (1965), heralded his inclusion in the Latin American literary boom in the 1960s. In 1973 he joined thousands of other Uruguayans fleeing the nation's military dictatorship, spending 12 years in exile in Havana, Madrid, Lima and Buenos Aires.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 18, The US Justice Department accused Wyeth, one of the nation's biggest drug makers, of cheating Medicaid programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by overcharging for a stomach acid drug.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Colorado Springs Daniel Gudino (13) allegedly shot and killed his 9-year-old brother, Ulysses, and allegedly attempted to murder his mother, Maria Gudino (38). In 2010 a psychiatrist testified that the boy was sleepwalking.
(www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=301255)(SFC, 5/8/10, p.A5)
2009 May 18, In Larose, Louisiana, middle-school student Justin Doucet (15) fired a gunshot at a teacher in a classroom and then shot himself and died on May 23. Doucet left a handwritten journal and an apparent suicide note that described his intention to kill other people.
(AP, 5/19/09)(SFC, 5/19/09, p.A5)(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A4)
2009 May 18, Wayne Allwine (62), the actor who voiced Mickey Mouse for more than 30 years, died of complications from diabetes with Russi Taylor, his wife of 20 years and the voice of Minnie Mouse, by his side. He was the third man behind Mickey's voice. The first was Disney himself, then Jimmy MacDonald, who became Allwine's mentor and passed him the reins after voicing the mouse for 30 years.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 18, In Afghanistan a group of Afghan army soldiers in Jalalabad opened fire in a market, killing three shopkeepers. Rocket-propelled grenades and machine gunfire rained down on a motorcade carrying Ahmad Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president, in an apparent assassination attempt. A bodyguard was killed.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, British PM Gordon Brown called for "root and branch" reform to defuse an expenses scandal that has damaged the main political parties and put pressure on parliament's most senior figure to quit. A group of MPs launched a rare bid to oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, over the expenses scandal.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)(AFP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In China a government spokesman said a sex theme park that featured explicit exhibits of genitalia and sexual culture is being demolished before it can even open. The park, christened "Love Land" by its owners, went under the wrecking ball over the weekend in the southwestern city of Chongqing.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, UN military commanders told top UN officials that Congolese rebels integrated into the country's army as part of a peace deal are looting, raping and killing the civilians they are meant to protect.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Egypt a 4-year-old girl died of bird flu, making her the country's 27th death from the virus since 2006.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, A leading animal rights group criticized Egypt for using "shocking and cruel" methods to slaughter the country's pigs over swine flu fears, responding to a YouTube video that showed men skewering squealing piglets with large kitchen knives and hitting others with crowbars.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Guatemala government opponents submitted 35,000 signatures to demand that Congress start procedures to strip Pres. Colom of immunity from prosecution over allegations that he ordered a lawyer killed.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, In Guatemala Rev. Lawrence Rosebaugh (74) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was shot and killed by masked gunmen who stopped a car carrying him and four other missionaries to a meeting in Playa Grande. He had put an international spotlight on human rights abuses in Brazil in 1977.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, In India Krishna Pattabhi Jois (b.1915), a yoga teacher and practitioner famous for popularizing Ashtanga yoga in the West, died in Mysore. He concentrated on stretching and balancing. Ashtanga yoga literally means "eight-limbed yoga," as outlined by the sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. According to Patanjali, the path of internal purification for revealing the Universal Self consists of the following eight spiritual practices: Yama (moral codes), Niyama (self-purification and study), Asana (posture), Pranayama (breath control), Pratyahara (sense control), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), Samadhi (contemplation).
(AP, 5/20/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.85)(www.ashtanga.com/html/background.html)
2009 May 18, In Japan health officials said a wave of new confirmations sent the number of H1N1 flu cases soaring to more than 120, prompting the government to order the closure of schools and the cancellation of community events.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 18, Two Lebanese men suspected of spying for Israel fled across the heavily fortified border to the Jewish state, the second such escape since Lebanon stepped up a campaign of arrests against those thought to be working for its archenemy.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Lithuania Pres.-elect Dalia Grybauskaite said she would consider replacing up to five ministers in PM Andrius Kubilius' center-right Cabinet after she takes office on July 12. "They have underestimated the real scale of recession," she said. "The budget was way too optimistic and needs to be revised in nearest time. We must save money." To lead by example said she would only take half of her presidential salary of 312,000 litas ($120,000) a year.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Mexican soldiers arrested Rodolfo Lopez and several others after they landed at Monterrey's international airport to take over trafficking operations in Monterrey. Several armed men were arrested in the parking lot, where they were waiting to pick Lopez up. Police in the southern state of Guerrero found the severed heads of three men in an ice chest left on the side of a highway near the resort of Zihuatanejo.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, In Nepal Maoist lawmakers stormed the parliament and demonstrated inside the assembly hall to block a vote for a new prime minister, a move that could prolong the country's political crisis.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Nigerian university teachers decided to go on strike to demand the implementation of a pay agreement with government. After two-and-a-half years of negotiations, the government had yet to implement the agreement on pay rises and upgrading of facilities in the universities.
(AFP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, Pakistani jets and helicopters bombarded militant targets in Swat, where troops entered strategic towns in a pincer thrust towards the Taliban-held capital of the northwest valley.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In the southern Philippines mudslides tumbled down a rain-soaked mountain, burying dozens of shanties in a gold mining village and killing at least 26 people.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, It was reported that South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Somalia's war-torn government appealed for international help to set up a coast guard, saying it would guarantee that sea piracy near its shores is wiped out once it has such an agency. In Malaysia representatives of the government, attending an international conference on piracy, ruled out allowing foreign forces on Somali soil to destroy pirate bases.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Hard-line Somali Islamist fighters captured Mahaday, 70 miles (113 km) north of Mogadishu, after a pro-government militia abandoned it.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Sri Lanka declared it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, along with top deputies, Soosai and Pottu Amman, and ending their three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils. Diplomats in Brussels said the EU will endorse a call for an independent war crimes investigation into the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka. LTTE leaders Balasingham Nadesan and S. Puleedevan and their families were reportedly machine-gunned while advancing under a white flag. Defense Sec. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brother of the president, later said 6,261 soldiers had been killed in 3 years of fighting and that a total of 23,000 troops had died since October, 1981, when the insurgency began.
(AP, 5/18/09)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.44)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.42)
2009 May 18, A Turkish court ruled that President Abdullah Gul should stand trial for a fraud case dating back to the late 1990s, when the Welfare Party, a predecessor to the AK Party, was accused of misappropriating funds from the Treasury. A court of appeals will have the final say on the case.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, The World Bank said it would give $22 million to Zimbabwe, but said the country must clear its long-standing arrears to qualify for more aid.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 19, "Glee," Fox's new musical comedy, premiered.
(http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/19/entertainment/et-glee19)
2009 May 19, US astronauts completed a 5-day repair of the 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. The improved Hubble will take its first pictures by the end of the month.
(SFC, 5/20/09, p.A6)
2009 May 19, California voters defeated 5 of 6 propositions aimed to reduce the state’s $21.3 billion budget deficit. Voters approved Prop. 1F, which barred elected officials from receiving pay raises when the state’s reserve fund has a deficit larger than 1% of the general fund.
(SFC, 5/20/09, p.A1)
2009 May 19, In Ventura, Ca., an intruder dressed in black and wearing a motorcycle helmet barged into a beach home and stabbed to death a pregnant Davina Husted (42) and father, Brock Husted (42) as their two children were in other rooms.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 19, Scientists in New York unveiled the skeleton of what they said could be the common ancestor to humans, apes and other primates. The tiny creature, officially known as Darwinius masillae, but dubbed Ida, lived 47 million years ago and is unusually well preserved. The monkey-like creature, discovered in 1983, was preserved through the ages in Germany's Messel Pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils. New analysis soon followed saying Darwinius does not belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead, the analysis concluded, it falls into the other major grouping, which includes lemurs.
(AFP, 5/19/09)(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 May 19, In Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland (57), confronted by two holdup men, pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore's security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into the wounded teenager. Ersland was soon charged with first-degree murder. District Attorney David Prater later said Ersland was justified in shooting Antwun Parker (16) once in the head, but not in firing the additional shots into his belly.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 19, In Afghanistan an airstrike by NATO-led forces killed eight Afghan civilians following a battle with militants in southern Helmand province, where Afghan troops also killed 25 militants. This was the beginning of a 4-day operation.
(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 19, Michael Martin, the Speaker of Britain's lower house, said he would step down in June after criticism of his handling of a scandal over lawmakers' expenses that has badly tarnished the reputation of the "Mother of Parliaments." The last Speaker to be forced from the post was John Trevor, who lost the confidence of the house in 1695 for taking a bribe.
(Reuters, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, In London, England, a protest outside parliament turned violent early as relief agencies and governments called for urgent humanitarian aid after Sri Lanka announced defeat for Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AFP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, China and Brazil signed a raft of agreements in Beijing including a $10 billion loan for the South American country's state energy company and a deal to send oil to China amid stronger ties between the two developing world giants.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, China’s government Web site said Liu Youjun (46), a senior official in southern Guangdong province, has been detained in an apparent corruption sweep that has already targeted other major figures in the wealthy region on the cutting-edge of China's economic reforms.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Colombian lawmakers approved a proposal for voters to decide in a referendum whether to change the constitution and let President Alvaro Uribe seek a third term.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, In India newly elected Congress lawmakers formally chose PM Manmohan Singh as their leader for a second term, clearing the way for the swearing in of his new government this week.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Environmental groups in Indonesia said Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's largest paper companies, plans to clear a large swath of unprotected forest in Indonesia being used as a sanctuary for critically endangered orangutans.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Italian police arrested Franco Letizia (31), one of the country's "most-dangerous" fugitives, in raids that netted at least 70 suspected members of the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate. The search for dozens more was still under way.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Malawi held elections. Voters chose between re-electing Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika (75) or replacing him with challenger John Tembo (77) backed by his predecessor. The race between Mutharika and Tembo was too close to predict going into the polls. Mutharika, a former World Bank official credited with bringing economic gains to the southern African nation of 12 million, won the national election with about 66% of the vote.
(AP, 5/19/09)(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 19, Inmates at a Mexico City prison rioted over restrictions on visits due to swine flu, as the country reported two more confirmed deaths, raising the toll to 74 nationwide.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Russia announced it has created a commission to fight what President Dmitry Medvedev says are efforts to hurt his country by falsifying history, part of a campaign to promote the Kremlin's views and silence those who question them.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Russia and the US held talks in Moscow aimed at cutting stockpiles of nuclear weapons, a move that could herald a thaw in relations between the former Cold War foes.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, A Spanish court sentenced three senior army officers to prison for knowingly misidentifying the bodies of 30 peacekeepers killed in a plane crash on May 26, 2003, in northwestern Turkey. 32 of the Spaniards were identified correctly but relatives of the other 30 got the wrong bodies.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, In Somalia witnesses said that Ethiopian troops have crossed the border and appear to be stationing themselves at a strategic crossroads. Ethiopia denied the reports. Witnesses said they saw Ethiopian troops in the Somali town of Kalabeyr, 14 miles (22 km) from the Ethiopian border and 11 miles (18 km) north of Belet Weyne, the provincial capital of the Hiran region.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon formally named Bill Clinton as its special envoy to Haiti.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, The UN Security Council said that it had asked the Congolese government to investigate and arrest five high-ranking army officers known to have committed atrocities.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 20, President Obama signed the Homeless Emergency and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009. The HEARTH Act amends and reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act with substantial changes.
(AP, 7/15/10)(http://www.hudhre.info/hearth/)
2009 May 20, The US House passed legislation imposing new rules on credit card companies. Attached to the legislation was a bill allowing people to bring concealed and loaded guns into US national parks. Pres. Obama signed the legislation on May 22.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/qbhe4g)
2009 May 20, In Alabama 5 Birmingham police officers were fired for beating an unconscious suspect ejected from a car after a chase. The attack was captured on a patrol car videotape but didn't surface publicly for a year. The video shows police pursuing Anthony Warren's van on Jan. 23, 2008. One officer on foot was hurt when the van swerved through traffic. It overturned on a ramp, ejecting Warren, who lay motionless as officers ran toward him. The video shows them beating him with their fists, feet and a billy club.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, SF-based Craigslist sued South Carolina’s Attorney Gen’l. Henry McMaster to block him from filing criminal charges against the online classified site for abetting prostitution.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.C1)
2009 May 20, In NYC four ex-convicts, 3 Americans and a Haitian citizen, were arrested and accused of plotting to place bombs at NYC synagogues and shoot down National Guard jets. James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen envisioned themselves as holy warriors. The 4 men were convicted on Oct 18, 2010. They were caught in an FBI sting operation led by undercover informant Shahed Hussain, who faced serious punishment in a separate fraud case.
(http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7642086&page=1)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A7)(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A6)
2009 May 20, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heinemen signed a bill to prevent registered sex offenders from using social networking sites such as Facebook.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A4)
2009 May 20, Eric Yang (13), Singapore-born Texas student, won the National Geographic Bee and took home a $25,000 college scholarship.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A7)
2009 May 20, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb near Kabul killed two Americans, one service member and a civilian. 7 militants died after a firefight and airstrikes in central Ghazni province.
(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, Australian authorities declared a state of emergency in Queensland as torrential rain and gale force winds caused extensive flooding and left one man dead.
(AFP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In Britain hundreds of protesters blocked roads near an oil refinery, as other sites were hit by a second day of wildcat strikes in a dispute over hiring foreign workers.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, British actress Lucy Gordon (28), an up-and-coming talent who played a role in Spider-Man 3 and will soon appear as Jane Birkin in a Serge Gainsbourg biopic, killed herself in Paris.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, The Cayman Islands elected a new government.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.42)
2009 May 20, EU and Chinese leaders met in Prague to tackle the economic crisis and turn the page on tensions over the Dalai Lama. Lingering differences cast a shadow over the talks.
(AFP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In India the shanty home of another "Slumdog Millionaire" child star was torn down by Mumbai authorities as they demolished part of city's slum where she lived.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, An Indonesian C-130 Hercules military transport plane, carrying troops and their families, crashed into a row of houses in East Java and burst into flames, killing 99 people.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile with a range capable of reaching Israel and US Mideast bases. The solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles, far enough to strike at southeastern Europe.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, An Iraqi government agency reported that nearly one in four Iraqis lives below the poverty line. A car bomb exploded near a group of restaurants in the Shiite Shula neighborhood of northwest Baghdad, leaving 41 people dead and more than 70 others injured.
(AP, 5/21/09)(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A3)
2009 May 20, Ireland’s High Court Justice Sean Ryan unveiled a 2,600-page final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is based on testimony from thousands of former students and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions. The nine-year investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades, and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In Mexico Raymundo Almanza Morales, a top lieutenant of the Gulf drug cartel and listed among Mexico's 37 most-wanted traffickers, was captured in Monterrey along with 3 other suspects after soldiers received an tip.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 20, Pakistani troops killed 80 militants and drove the Taliban from a major urban stronghold, as US military planes brought aid for refugees fleeing fierce fighting across the northwest. Government forces cleared Sultanwas, the main Taliban-held town in Buner, overnight following intense clashes. Residents of Kalam gathered quickly to fight off the Taliban. They captured eight militants during a shootout and were expecting another attack.
(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, Paraguay President Fernando Lugo dismissed the heads of his army, navy and engineering corps for allowing nearly 1,000 Marxist youth to host a congress on military grounds.
(AP, 5/2009)
2009 May 20, In Somalia an attack by Islamic insurgents on Somali troops near an African Union peacekeeping base in Mogadishu killed at least three civilians, including one child, as regional leaders met to discuss ways of aiding the beleaguered government.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, Sri Lanka celebrated victory over the Tamil Tigers with a national holiday as the army hunted fugitive rebels, shooting dead 8 thought to have escaped from the final battle.
(AFP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In Venezuela thousands of university students marched through Caracas demanding more state financial aid for public universities after President Hugo Chavez's government reduced funding by 6 percent.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 21, Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin became the only governor to turn down federal stimulus money for energy efficiency, a move that legislators called "disappointing" for a state with some of the country's highest energy costs.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 21, In northern California police arrested James Stanley Koenig (57), Gary T. Armitage (59) and Jeffery A. Guidi (54) for running an alleged Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of people of more then $200 million since 1997.
(SFC, 5/23/09, p.B1)
2009 May 21, In Florida 11 people were indicted in Miami on charges of running a money laundering racket for the Bonano crime family of New York. A FBI agent posing as a crooked businessman was key to the indictment.
(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A6)
2009 May 21, Linda Fleming (66), a woman with late-stage pancreatic cancer, became the first person to kill herself under Washington state's new assisted suicide law, known as "death with dignity."
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 21, In Afghanistan two militants were killed and six others detained after a clash in southern Helmand province. A US military statement said US and Afghan forces had seized 16.5 tons of drugs and killed 34 Islamic militants during a 3-day operation in the south.
(AP, 5/21/09)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A2)
2009 May 21, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales called for an about-face in relations with Washington, saying past diplomatic spats can be overcome if the new US government refrains from meddling in Bolivian affairs.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, The British government announced a climbdown over settlement rights for Gurkha veterans, saying all of the Nepalese fighters who have served at least four years can apply to live here.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, In Egypt Hisham Talaat Moustafa, a real estate mogul with ties to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's son, was sentenced to death for ordering the slaying of a Lebanese pop star in a case that sparked a media frenzy in a country where the elite is often perceived as being above the law. Moustafa, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party, was accused of paying a former Egyptian police officer $2 million to kill Suzanne Tamim while she was in Dubai. Former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also convicted and sentenced to death. On March 4, 2010, the Court of Cassation, the country's highest court of appeal, overturned his conviction, and ordered a retrial.
(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 3/4/10)
2009 May 21, In Georgia police killed Giorgy Krialashvili, a former military officer accused of plotting mutiny, and wounded two others in an overnight gunbattle. Protesters condemned the shootings and blocked Tbilisi streets in the seventh week of an anti-government campaign.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 8 US-backed Sunni paramilitaries as they waited in a line to receive salaries at an Iraqi military base in the northern city of Kirkuk. A bomb exploded inside a police station in western Baghdad, killing 2 policemen and wounding 19 others. 3 American soldiers were killed in a bombing in Baghdad that also killed 12 Iraqis.
(AP, 5/21/09)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A4)
2009 May 21, Israeli security forces demolished a minor Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank, three days after President Barack Obama told visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he must halt settlement activity.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Japan’s PM Taro Aso again urged the public to stay calm as a total of 292 swine flu cases were reported, including the third in greater Tokyo, the world's largest urban area.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Fathi al-Jahmi, Libyan dissident and human rights activist repeatedly imprisoned in Libya for defying the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi, died after being released earlier this month to Jordan. He never regained consciousness after having slipped into a coma following a stroke on May 4 in a Libyan jail. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for failing to recognize Gadhafi's authority, and remained behind bars until his release to Jordan.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 21, Nepal's Maoists agreed to stop blocking parliamentary proceedings so lawmakers can choose a new government to ease the country's political crisis. Lawmakers from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) said that although they had agreed to lift their protests, they would permanently end them only if the chamber takes up a motion censuring President Ram Baran Yadav.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, New Zealand police launched an international search for Leo Gao, a businessman, and his girlfriend, Kara Hurring, who allegedly took money and ran after the Westpac Bank in Rotorua mistakenly put 10 million New Zealand dollars ($6.1 million) into their account. The couple managed to flee the country with about $2.3 million. Hurring returned to New Zealand voluntarily in Feb, 2011. She faced trial in 2012 on charges of stealing NZ$11,000 and money laundering HK$1.5 million ($192,000) in Macau. Hui (Leo) Gao was arrested by Hong Kong border patrol on Sep 29 as he tried to enter the territory from China.
(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 5/22/09)(AFP, 9/30/11)(AFP, 5/15/12)
2009 May 21, Pakistan said five soldiers and an unspecified number of "miscreants-terrorists" were killed in battles in several parts of the Swat valley during the previous 24 hours. Seven militants were captured.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, South Korea’s Supreme Court said that doctors treating a comatose woman (76) must remove her from life support as her family requested, the first time it has ruled in favor of a patient's right to die.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Sri Lanka said it planned to return most of the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by civil war to their homes this year as the president called on the country to be magnanimous in victory.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Sudan announced the results of a nationwide census seen as crucial to prepare constituencies for elections next year, but which former southern rebels said they would reject. The census showed Sudan to have a total population of 39,154,490, with 8,260,490 or 21 percent living in the south.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, In Venezuela police and soldiers raided a property belonging to the head of the only anti-government news network amid a growing confrontation between the station and President Hugo Chavez's government.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 21, Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai said the unity government has agreed on key appointments in an attempt to resolve the political impasse that has paralyzed the new administration.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 22, President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009, marking a turning point for American consumers and ending the days of unfair rate hikes and hidden fees. The new rules went into effect on Feb 22, 2010.
(http://tinyurl.com/qbhe4g)(SFC, 2/23/10, p.D2)
2009 May 22, In Pinole, Ca., Anthony Ramirez (23) was interrupted in an attempted robbery of a home and escaped leaving behind his cell phone. Ramirez was a suspect in 3 recent East Bay slayings and was apprehended on May 27 following calls to himself to retrieve his cell phone.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B2)
2009 May 22, The African Union called on the UN Security Council to take "immediate measures" to impose sanctions on Eritrea over its support for Islamist insurgents in Somalia.
(AFP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Brazil's Supreme Court approved the extradition to the US of Pablo Rayo Montano, a Colombian-born drug lord accused of running one of the world's largest drug smuggling operations.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, In Brazil a twin-engine plane crashed near a private airport in a northeastern coastal resort area, killing all 11 people aboard.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, A Canadian court found Desire Munyaneza (42), a Rwandan man, guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, making him the first person convicted under Canada's war crimes act. Munyaneza arrived in Canada in 1997 and unsuccessfully tried to claim refugee status. Police subsequently launched an investigation and arrested him in 2005. On Oct 29 Munyaneza was sentenced to 25 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.
(Reuters, 5/22/09)(Reuters, 10/29/09)
2009 May 22, A Toronto-area man (21) convicted of belonging to a group plotting al Qaeda-inspired attacks on Canadian landmarks was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in jail, the first sentence handed out in the so-called "Toronto 18" case. He has already spent two years in custody and will likely be released soon due to credit for time already served.
(Reuters, 5/24/09)
2009 May 22, In Egypt Ayman Nour, a prominent Egyptian dissident, was attacked by an assailant on a motorcycle who ignited a flammable substance in his face, leaving his head burned. Nour accused elements within the ruling party of being behind the attack.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, Haiti's civil protection department said floods have killed at least 11 people this week as heavy rains swamp towns still rebuilding from last year's hurricanes.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, In Iraq the body of Jim Kitterman (60), an American civilian contractor, was found stabbed to death in a vehicle in the Green Zone. Another contractor was killed by a rocket attack near the American Embassy. An American soldier died in a noncombat incident in Baghdad province. In June Iraqi authorities detained 4 Americans and one Iraqi in connection with the death of Kitterman, in what could be the first case of Americans facing local justice under a joint security pact that took effect this year. 3 of the detained American were soon released due to insufficient evidence.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 May 22, Israeli troops crossed into Gaza and killed two Palestinian militants who were planting a bomb along the border fence before dawn.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, An Italian warship arrested nine pirates after helping a US-flagged container vessel and another ship evade brigands off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Police in Morocco uncovered more than 20 tons of cannabis resin, one of the country's largest ever hash hauls, hidden in steel crates destined for France.
(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi pleaded not guilty at her trial and blamed the regime's lax security for allowing an American intruder to swim uninvited to her lakeside home.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Nigeria's foreign minister said that the military has rescued 12 hostages, eight Filipinos and four Ukrainians, from militants being targeted by the armed forces in the southern oil region. The military said a dozen troops had gone missing in the region.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, In Pakistan a bomb exploded at a congested marketplace in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 5 people wounding dozens. Troops encircled Taliban militants in their mountain base as well as the main town in the Swat Valley, as the UN appealed for $543 million to ease the suffering of nearly 2 million refugees from the fighting.
(AFP, 5/22/09)(AP, 5/22/09)(SFC, 5/23/09, p.A2)
2009 May 22, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev challenged EU leaders meeting at a summit in Khabarovsk to help Ukraine pay its gas bills in order to prevent disruption of Russian supplies to Europe.
(Reuters, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Serbian authorities said they will investigate a drug rehab facility sponsored by the Serbian Orthodox Church after the publication of a video showing one of the patients being severely beaten with a shovel by Orthodox priest Branislav Peranovic. On May 27 Peranovic was removed from his job leading the Crna Reka center in southern Serbia. On May 29 an employee of the center, shown in another video punching a patient with brass knuckles, was charged by police.
(AP, 5/22/09)(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 22, Hundreds of Somali government troops attacked insurgent-held positions north and south of Mogadishu and the heart of the city was heavily shelled. One witness said a busload of fleeing civilians was hit. Fighting between Somali government troops and Islamic insurgents killed 53 people in Mogadishu. Residents reported that the operation had failed to dislodge the insurgents.
(AP, 5/22/09)(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Pres. Obama selected Gen. Charles Bolden (62), a retired astronaut, to lead NASA.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A16)
2009 May 23, It was reported that millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia) have died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In 2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)
2009 May 23, In Afghanistan a group of Taliban fighters in Ghazni province ambushed police in a market and one civilian was killed in the firefight. The US military updated earlier reports and said international and Afghan forces have killed 60 militants and seized 102 tons (92 metric tons) of opium poppy seeds, drugs and chemicals during a four-day operation in southern Helmand province. A British soldier with the NATO-led alliance was killed in a bomb blast in the insurgency-hit south of the country.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 23, In Australia thousands more people in the flood-hit east were told to leave their homes as gale-force winds lashed the coast. Emergency services said up to 20,000 people had been cut off.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Horst Koehler won a 2nd term as German president in a parliamentary vote that gave conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel a symbolic victory months ahead of a national election.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Nepal’s lawmakers elected communist party leader Madhav Kumar Nepal (56) as the new prime minister in a move aimed at ending weeks of political turmoil. 2 people were killed, one of them a teenager, and 14 wounded when a bomb exploded in a packed Roman Catholic church on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, The Church of Scotland voted in favor of appointing an openly gay minister, the latest case involving sexuality to create a division in the Anglican Communion. The church's ruling body voted 326 to 267 to support the appointment of the Rev. Scott Rennie (37), who was previously married to a woman and is now in a relationship with a man.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 23, Pakistani security forces entered Mingora, the main town in a northwestern Taliban stronghold, engaging in fierce street battles as they tried to wrench the Swat Valley from militants. 17 suspected militants were killed in the past 24 hours of the operation. Matta, another major town in the valley, has been cleared of militants, but some 1,500 to 2,000 insurgents remain in the valley. Gunmen in southwestern Baluchistan province kidnapped a French tourist, snatching him from a group of compatriots.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, It was reported that Saudi Arabian investors were spending $100 million to raise wheat, barley and rise on land leased from the government of Ethiopia. The World Food Program estimated that it would spend almost the same amount between 2007 and 2011 to provide 230,000 tons of food aid to some 4.6 million Ethiopians threatened by hunger and malnutrition.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.61)
2009 May 23, Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun (62) jumped to his death while hiking in the mountains behind his rural home. His hard-won reputation as a corruption fighter was tarnished by bribery allegations that drew in his family and closest associates.
(AP, 5/23/09)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.88)
2009 May 24, The space shuttle Atlantis and its 7 astronauts landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California ending a 13-day mission that repaired and enhanced the Hubble Space Telescope. Stormy weather in Florida prevented a return to NASA's home base.
(AP, 5/24/09)(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A5)
2009 May 24, San Francisco celebrated its 31st annual Carnaval in the Mission district.
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.B1)
2009 May 24, In Afghanistan US troops detained 4 suspected Al-Qaida members during a raid in Khost province.
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A2)
2009 May 24, In Australia thousands of homeowners remained isolated in the flood-hit northeast. Authorities said days of torrential rain had created a vast "inland sea."
(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Austria groups of rival worshippers at a Sikh temple in Vienna pulled knives and at least one handgun in a mass fight. 16 people were wounded and one preacher died the next day. The Vienna temple attended by lower-caste Sikhs was attacked by Sikhs from a higher caste who accused preachers of being disrespectful of the religion's Holy Book.
(AP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 24, At the Cannes Film Festival the film “The White Ribbon" by Austrian director Michael Haneke won the top prize. Christolph Waltz won the best actor prize for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Bastards." Charlotte Gainsbourg won the best actress prize for her role in Lars von Trier’s “antichrist."
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.E4)
2009 May 24, Iran blocked access to Facebook, prompting government critics to condemn the move as an attempt to muzzle the opposition ahead of next month's presidential election.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will continue to build homes in existing West Bank settlements, defying US calls to halt settlement growth.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, Voters in Mongolia went to the polls to choose a new president less than a year after allegations of vote-rigging in parliamentary elections triggered deadly riots. The Democratic Party candidate Elbegdorj Tsakhia won 51.24% of the votes, while incumbent Enkbayar Nambar of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, the former communists, won 47.44%.
(AFP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 24, In Morocco 11 people were killed in a stampede at a stadium in the capital, Rabat, overnight when thousands of spectators hurried to leave at the end of a concert wrapping up the city's landmark music festival.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, The Nigerian army said that over the last 2 days it freed a total of six Filipinos held hostage in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Northern Ireland over 20 militant Protestant supporters of the Glasgow Rangers soccer team beat to death a Catholic man in Coleraine after the Rangers clinched a championship.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A2)
2009 May 24, Pakistani troops battling the Taliban captured several points in the Swat Valley's main town, including a spot nicknamed "bloody intersection" because militants routinely dumped the mutilated bodies of their victims there. Five suspected militants were killed in various parts of Mingora while 14 others were arrested. Overall in the valley, 10 militants were killed in the past 24 hours while three security troops died. Elsewhere in the northwest, helicopter gunships pounded alleged militant hide-outs in a tribal region, killing at least 18 people. Police said they had captured Qari Ihsanullah, an important militant commander and six other Taliban fighters.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Somalia a foreign suicide bomber killed six guards and a civilian at a military base in Mogadishu, an attack that came after two weeks of intense fighting.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Sudan raiders attempted but failed to overrun the army base at Umm Baru, close to the Chadian border in north Darfur. The next day an army spokesman said 20 Sudanese soldiers were killed in the fierce fighting and that 43 rebels had died.
(Reuters, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, The US Coast Guard cutter Venturous intercepted a smugglers' boat near the Haitian barrier island of La Tortue and took on board 35 of the approximately 100 illegal passengers. 6 armed smugglers threatened other passengers and prevented them from getting on the Coast Guard ship, instead fleeing with them aboard the vessel in shallow water.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 25, In Alabama prisoners Joshua Southwick (26) and Ashton Mink (22) were mistakenly allowed outside a prison by a worker who thought they were kitchen trusties. On June 6 they were arrested after a nearly 14-hour standoff on a ranch in North Dakota. Also taken into custody were two women who authorities said helped the men escape: Angela Diana Mink (25) and Jacquelin Rae Kennamer Mink (25) Mink's sister and wife.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 May 25, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed four civilians in Zabul province. An operation by US-led forces against a Taliban commander left 3 people dead and a woman and child wounded in Helmand province. US forces killed eight Taliban fighters in a clash Uruzgan province. 2 coalition troops and 3 Afghan policemen were wounded during the clash.
(AP, 5/25/09)(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, In Britain an internal military memo published confirmed that computer disks lost at a British Royal Air Force base last September contained sensitive files on the private lives of senior officers, including answers to vetting questions about drug abuse, extramarital affairs and the use of prostitutes.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, Dairy farmers created traffic chaos in Berlin, blocked milk processing plants in France and protested at EU headquarters in Brussels, seeking more aid to cope with a sharp drop in milk prices.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In Egypt a judge overturned the conviction and two-year prison sentence of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an exiled Egyptian-American academic and outspoken critic of the regime, paving the way for his return home.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In Paris the Church of Scientology and six of its French leaders went on trial on charges of organized fraud that could lead to an outright ban on the organization in France.
(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In India 2 protesters were killed in Punjab state in fierce rioting sparked by the shooting dead of a guru in fighting between rival Sikh communities in Austria.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In western Iraq a roadside bomb struck a US convoy in Fallujah , killing three Americans, including a State Department employee.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, It was reported that a secret Israeli government report said Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, Israeli writer Amos Elon (82), one of the country's leading chroniclers and critics, died in his adopted home of Italy. His best-known book, "The Israelis: Founders and Sons" (1971), stood out as one of the first works by an Israeli to deal with the national aspirations of the Palestinians.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, In Mexico Eliseo Barron, a veteran crime reporter for the La Opinion Milenio newspaper, was kidnapped from his home in Torreon. His body was found hours later found in an irrigation ditch in the drug-plagued northern Mexican state of Durango. Mexico's army arrested two US citizens for allegedly kidnapping a hardware store clerk in the northern border city of Tijuana. 20-year-old Teddy Toledo and his sister, both of California, and two others were arrested for abducting the clerk a week ago. Five suspects were arrested on June 11, including one man who told authorities the journalist was slain as a warning against meddling with a powerful drug cartel.
(AP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/27/09)(SSFC, 5/31/09, p.A4)(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 May 25, In Nigeria militants sabotaged major crude pipelines in the chaotic oil region, further trimming crude production as the military widened an operation to uproot the fighters. Chevron in Nigeria reported a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil output cut after a militant attack the day before on one of its pipelines in the southern Delta state. The militants said they had released three Filipino hostages seized this month.
(AP, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, North Korea claimed it carried out a powerful underground nuclear test, much larger than one conducted in 2006. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed an atomic explosion at 9:54 a.m. (0054 GMT) in northeastern North Korea, estimating the blast's yield at 10 to 20 kilotons, comparable to the bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, Haakon Lie (b.1905), a pioneer of Norway's welfare state and one of the country's most influential politicians, died in Oslo. His several books included "Slik jeg ser det naa" ("As I See it Now"), which was published last year.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, Pakistan's military said it was facing "stiff resistance" as it battled to wrest Swat valley out of Taliban hands, in an offensive that has scattered 2.38 million terrified civilians.
(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 26, President Barack Obama tapped federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, making her the first Hispanic in history picked to wear the robes of a justice.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, The California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 to uphold proposition 8, the November initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The court said same-sex couple married before Nov. 4 remain legally wed.
(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A1,6)
2009 May 26, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-rigged car into a military convoy in eastern Kapisa province, killing three American soldiers and three Afghan civilians. In the eastern Logar province US and Afghan troops called in airstrikes on two groups of militants, killing 13 insurgents. In eastern Khost province, a convoy of Afghan and American troops killed the driver of a car when the vehicle did not slow down in response to shouts to stop and warning shots.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, In Algeria 9 soldiers were killed near Biskra, 425 kilometers south of the capital, in n ambush which wounded 10 others.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 May 26, Cyclone Aila lashed low-lying areas in eastern India and Bangladesh, destroying thousands of homes, stranding tens of thousands of people in flooded villages and killing at least 191 before it began to ease.
(AP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, Wilmer Ignacio Guerrero Ibanez (40), a suspected trafficker accused of smuggling cocaine through Venezuela was deported to Colombia, where officials took him into custody at an international bridge linking the countries.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, In Denmark business leaders attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change urged governments to order steep and mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases, favoring a cap-and-trade system instead of a tax to set a market price for carbon waste.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, A Danish court ruled that residents of Copenhagen's counterculture Christiania neighborhood have no right to use the former navy base they took over in 1971. The residents planned to appeal.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened his nation's first military base in the Gulf outside Abu Dhabi, boosting the naval presence along strategic oil routes and in pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, In Paris the body of Polish-born French woman Kinga Legg (36) was found at the exclusive Hotel Bristol. Police sought her English boyfriend Ian Griffin (39).
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 26, Iran restored access to Facebook, after a block on the social networking Web site last week generated accusations that the government was trying to muzzle one of the main presidential campaign tools of the reformist opposition.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, A leading rights group urged Jordan to stop the detentions of thousands without trial each year and annul a 55-year-old law that allows people to be held without due process.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Libya and Ukraine signed deals to cooperate in both peaceful civilian nuclear energy and in defense during a visit by Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, Mexican federal forces detained 10 mayors and 18 other officials for allegedly protecting one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels in an unprecedented anti-corruption sweep in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan. Three of the mayors were released soon after they were arrested, 4 others were quietly let go Jan. 30.
(AP, 5/27/09)(AP, 3/4/10)
2009 May 26, In New Zealand an animal keeper was mauled to death by a rare white tiger at a wildlife park in New Zealand while visitors watched in horror. South African national Dalu Mncube was attacked after he and a colleague entered the cage at Zion Wildlife Park on New Zealand's North Island to clean it.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, The Nigerian army said it destroyed a militants' camp in the restive Niger Delta as it kept up operations to stem the violence and kidnappings of soldiers and foreigners in the oil-rich region.
(AFP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, North Korea reportedly tested two more short-range missiles, a day after detonating a nuclear bomb underground, pushing the regime further into a confrontation with world powers despite the threat of UN action.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Pakistan's supreme court overturned a ban on former premier Nawaz Sharif from holding office, allowing the popular opposition leader to contest elections. Military commanders said troops fighting street-by-street with Taliban militants have regained control of more than half of the largest town in the Swat valley, and many insurgents were now fleeing the battlefield.
(AFP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Russia's uranium export company signed a groundbreaking $1 billion package of contracts to supply three US utilities with enriched fuel for nuclear power plants. Tenex signed contracts to provide enriched uranium fuel to San Francisco, California-based Pacific Gas & Electric Company; St. Louis, Missouri-based AmerenUE; and Dallas, Texas-based Luminant. Tenex will supply fuel to the US utilities from 2014 through 2020 under the contracts, which provide the option for renewal.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Somali insurgents fired mortars at the presidential palace in Mogadishu, killing seven civilians and two government soldiers. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to condemn the recent surge in fighting in Somalia and called for an end to actions that undermine the country's Western-backed government.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, In Sudan scores of policemen and nearly 200 tribesmen were killed when 3,000 armed Arab tribesmen on horseback attacked security forces in the oil-producing Southern Kordofan region.
(Reuters, 5/26/09)(Reuters, 5/29/09)
2009 May 26, A Swedish Navy ship detained seven suspected pirates after stopping them from capturing a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Tunisia’s Justice Minister Bechir Tekkari said his country is ready to accept the 10 Tunisians held at Guantanamo Bay.
(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A2)
2009 May 26, A fire at a western Turkish hospital killed eight patients in an intensive care unit.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, The Red Cross said the number of cholera cases in Zimbabwe is expected to cross the 100,000 mark in the coming days, warning that the epidemic was Africa's worst in 15 years.
(AFP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 27, US federal prosecutors dropped a 5-year probe on former California state Senate leader Don Perata (64). The FBI had begun a probe of the Oakland Democrat in 2003 following charges of financial improprieties.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A1)
2009 May 27, In Texas authorities indicted 51 defendants on state charges in Fort Bend County, while 22 were indicted on federal charges for distributing anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and other drugs.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Texas Shukri Abu Baker (50) and Ghassan Elashi (55), founding members of the Holyland Foundation for Relief and Development, were sentenced to 65 years in prison for funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. They were among 5 members of the group sentenced to prison.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2009 May 27, Toys R Us Inc. said it acquired toy retailer FAO Schwarz, which has struggled for years through bankruptcies amid tough competition from discount stores.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Florida a demolition crew sank the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg seven miles off Key West, where it will become one of the world’s largest man made reefs. The WWII ship was last used by the Air Force to track missiles and spacecraft.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A8)(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2009 May 27, Clive W.G. Granger (b.1934), co-winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics, died in San Diego. The Wales-born economist shared the prize with his longtime UC San Diego colleague Robert Engle for showing that relationships between factors like money supply and national income change over time and could not be relied on as steady measures of future performance.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B5)
2009 May 27, The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a champion of the poor in Haiti and close supporter of Aristide, died in Miami following complications from a stroke.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 May 27, In Afghanistan air strikes, gunbattles and attacks killed 28 people across the country, including a government official shot dead with three of his sons near the Pakistani border. Mohammad Nader, governor of the Omna district in the eastern province of Paktika, was travelling with his family to go back home near the Pakistan border when armed insurgents attacked.
(AFP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, Alice Munro (77), Canadian short writer, won the Man Booker international prize.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.86)
2009 May 27, In Iraq a car bomb exploded near a medical compound in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad, wounding at least 15 Iraqis. A roadside bomb killed a US soldier in Baghdad, making May the deadliest month for the American military since September.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, Italian police issued 61 arrest warrants against purported members of Naples’ Camorra mob for allegedly running drug and extortion rings. Suspects arrested included 9 women and several bosses of the Sarno clan.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May 27, Malaysian police rescued three men shackled to the wall of a filthy room for two months by illegal moneylenders after failing to repay their debts.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Nigeria Ken Niweigha, a gang leader from the restive oil-rich Niger Delta, was killed in southern state of Bayelsa, a day after being arrested. Niweigha was accused of being behind the 1999 shooting of several police officers in Bayelsa that led to the town of Odi being razed by the security forces in reprisal.
(AFP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, North Korea renounced its 1953 truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels. Facing international censure for this week's nuclear test, it threatened to attack the South after it joined a US-led plan to check vessels suspected of carrying equipment for weapons of mass destruction.
(Reuters, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, In Pakistan suspected suicide attackers detonated a car bomb that destroyed a police building and sheared walls off a nearby office of the top intelligence service in Lahore. About 30 people were killed and some 300 wounded. Troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 10 suspected militants and captured a cache of weapons in raids on Siplapai town in South Waziristan.
(AP, 5/27/09)(AFP, 5/27/09)(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, A Russian space capsule, carrying Canadian Bob Thirsk, Russian Roman Romanenko and Belgian Frank De Winne, blasted off from Kazakhstan for a 2 day journey to the ISS.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May 27, In Spain some 100,000 people spilled onto the streets of the Catalan capital after Barcelona's 2-0 triumph over Manchester United in Rome. The carnival atmosphere turned ugly after midnight when youths began clashing with police around Las Ramblas, the city's most famous street. Police arrested 134 people and more than 150 were injured.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Sri Lanka government troops killed 11 suspected guerrillas in the eastern jungles, where rebel holdouts were said to be entrenched.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May 27, In Venezuela hundreds of opponents of President Hugo Chavez marched in support of press freedom, two years after his government refused to renew the concession of an opposition-aligned television station.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 28, US Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack issued a directive reinstating for one year a Clinton-era ban on new road construction and development in national forests.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A7)
2009 May 28, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed a bill to change the state’s method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection. In February the state Supreme Court ruled the electric chair was unconstitutional.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A4)
2009 May 28, Kavya Shivashankar (13) of Olathe, Kansas, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A1)
2009 May 28, The San Francisco Zoo agreed to pay $900,000 to brothers Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal, who survived a fatal attack by an escaped tiger on Dec 25, 2007.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.B1)
2009 May 28, Time Warner, which acquired America Online (AOL) in 2001, said it will spin out the company and its 7,000 employees as a separate company under CEO Tim Armstrong (38).
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.C2)
2009 May 28, It was reported that scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In eastern Afghanistan US coalition troops attacked a suspected foreign fighter camp, killing 34 insurgents, including Arabs and Pakistanis, in an intense firefight in Paktika province. In southern Afghanistan US-led coalition forces killed 35 militants and wounded 13 others during a clash. Insurgents in Zabul province killed eight truck drivers ferrying supplies for foreign troops. A NATO soldier died after a roadside bomb attack in the south.
(AP, 5/28/09)(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith condemned a wave of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne after the latest assault left a 25-year-old fighting for his life. Indian student Sravan Kumar Theerthala was stabbed with a screwdriver on May 24 when a group of teenagers gatecrashed a party he was attending in the suburbs of Melbourne.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Bulgaria a bus careered down a mountainside and plowed through pedestrians heading to a religious festival, killing at least 16 people and injuring at least 20.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Belize and Honduras a magnitude 7.1 earthquake collapsed more than two dozen homes, killing at least 6 people and injuring 40 others as terrified people ran into the streets in towns across much of Central America.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Brazil raging torrents from a ruptured dam and swamped Cocal, a northeastern farming city of about 25,000 in Piaui state, forcing residents to scramble onto rooftops and climb high trees to escape the deadly floodwaters. 4 people were killed.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, The British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said in a new report that the cuckoo bird and 51 other species were in danger of extinction due largely to a decrease in their food and water supply in sub-Saharan Africa, from where many migrate.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2009 May 28, The Indian navy thwarted a pirate attack on a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, A ship packed with Afghan migrants sank off Indonesia's western coast, killing at least 9 people and leaving 11 others missing.
(AP, 5/28/09)(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, In southeast Iran a bombing in a Shiite mosque at Zahedan killed 25 people. The next day Iran blamed the US and Israel saying the countries were trying to stoke sectarian tension with the Sunni Muslim minority.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, In Iraq a roadside bomb struck a civilian car on a highway linking the towns of Khanaqin with Qara Tappah. The blast killed two boys ages 8 and 10 and their father.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, Israel defied a surprisingly blunt US demand that it freeze all building in West Bank Jewish settlements, saying it will press ahead with construction. Since 1967, Israel has built 121 West Bank settlements, now home to around 300,000 Israelis. An additional 180,000 live in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, which, like the West Bank, was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
(AP, 5/28/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 May 28, It was reported that Japanese researchers have added genes to monkeys that cause the animals to glow under a fluorescent light, and that the new genetic attributes can pass to their offspring.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A9)
2009 May 28, In Pakistan two new blasts ripped through the Qissa Khawani market in Peshawar, killing at least 13 people.
(AP, 5/28/09)(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2009 May 28, Russian PM Vladimir Putin met Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk amid talk of massive loans to Minsk, just days after the Belarussian strongman made a furious attack on his Moscow ally.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, The Saudi Arabia, Monetary Agency froze the bank accounts of Maan al-Sanea, head of the Saad Group and ranked recently as the 3rd richest Arab businessman.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.70)
2009 May 28, In Senegal UN, African Union, EU and Arab League representatives met with Mauritian political parties in Dakar to discuss upcoming polls and a political stalemate since a coup.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, South Korean and US troops raised their alert to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Sudan Darfur's most active rebel group said it intends to free 60 Sudanese troops as a "sign of goodwill" ahead of Qatari-brokered peace talks with Sudan's government.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, Swedish media reported that a 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300 years. Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, hours after a land mine blast on the Turkish side of the border killed six soldiers.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 29, President Barack Obama said the nation for too long has failed to adequately protect the security of its computer networks. He will name a new cyber czar to take on the job.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Jay Leno made hosted his last show at "Tonight," and gave a pre-debut boost to Conan O'Brien welcoming him as his final guest.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, Phil Spector (69), former music producer, was sentenced in Los Angeles to 10 years to life in prison for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 29, In California the new National Ignition Facility was dedicated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It was designed to create conditions like those found in stars and in the explosions of hydrogen bombs. The project was over 5 years behind schedule and costs to date reached $4 billion, almost 4 times the original estimate.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A1)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.81)
2009 May 29, In Texas a Houston jury convicted Philippe Padieu (53) of Houston to 45 years in prison for knowingly infecting 6 women with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 29, The nonbinding New York Declaration, an agreement between the signatory flag states which condemns acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels and seafarers, was originally tabled by The Bahamas, the Republic of Liberia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Republic of Panama, four nations that account for more than half of global shipping.
(www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/13476.html)
2009 May 29, In Afghanistan five militants were killed in an operation in the Musa Qala region of southern Helmand province. Six militants were killed during a battle with police in the western province of Farah. Two would-be suicide attackers were shot and killed in Herat. In Kandahar province a roadside bomb killed four civilians.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Argentina Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (66) received the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize. He compared his creative process to the arc of a love affair.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, Cuba criticized Microsoft for blocking its Messenger instant messaging service on the island and in other countries under US sanctions, calling it yet another example of Washington's "harsh" treatment of Havana.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Indonesian government marine geologist Yusuf Surachman said that a massive underwater mountain discovered off the island of Sumatra could be a volcano with potentially catastrophic power. It was discovered earlier this month about 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of Bengkulu city during research to map the seabed's seismic faultlines.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, A moderate think tank led by Iran's former top nuclear negotiator accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of distorting facts about the country's nuclear program to depict himself as a hero and improve his chances in the upcoming election.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Iraq a local leader of a government-backed Sunni paramilitary group was killed when a bomb hidden on a motorcycle exploded as he opened his butcher store on the outskirts of Baqouba. Another bomb exploded inside a bus station north of Baghdad in the Shiite enclave of Khalis, killing at least four people and wounding 10. In northern Iraq an American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in Ninevah province.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, In Kashmir the bodies of two young women (17 & 22) were found in Shopian town. The pregnant wife of Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar and his teenage sister were allegedly raped and murdered by Indian soldiers.
(Reuters, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.48)
2009 May 29, North Korea warned it would act in "self-defense" if provoked by the UN Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions over the communist country's nuclear test, and followed the threat with the test launch of another short-range missile.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Puerto Rico fired nearly 8,000 government workers, the start of a wave of layoffs aimed at closing a budget deficit as the island struggles through its third year of recession.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Russian and American officials formally dedicated a high-tech plant in southern Siberia, built with the help of $1 billion from the US and designed to destroy about 2 million chemical weapons shells.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Saudi authorities beheaded and crucified a man convicted of brutally slaying an 11-year-old boy and his father.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Geneva a 65-nation Conference on Disarmament broke a dozen years of deadlock and opened the way to negotiate a new nuclear arms control treaty.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 30, In Arizona a home invasion in rural Arivaca left Brisenia Flores (9) and her father Raul Flores Jr., dead. In June 3 people were arrested for the murders. Two of the people arrested headed up a splinter Minuteman group, and were looking for drugs and money to fund their efforts to keep illegal immigrants and drug runners out of the country. On Feb 14, 2011, Shawna Forde, head of the Minutemen American Defense group, was found guilty of murder. On Feb 22 a jury sentenced her to death.
(SFC, 2/15/11, p.A10)(Econ, 3/5/11, p.38)
2009 May 30, In western Afghanistan an overnight battle in a militant-controlled region of Badgis province killed 30 insurgents and nine Afghan soldiers, while a roadside bomb in northern Kunduz province wounded an Afghan governor. A militant attack on a police checkpoint in Farah province killed four police.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Susan Boyle (48), Scottish singing sensation, was been beaten in the televised finals of "Britain's Got Talent," by the street dance group "Diversity," who jumped, kicked and shook their way to victory against her. "Diversity" mesmerized audiences with a frenetic but perfectly choreographed dance routine.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Michelle Samaraweera (35) was rape and murdered in Walthamstow, England. On July 4, 2009, Aman Vyas (26), a suspect in her murder and other sexual assaults, was arrested at Indira Gandhi International Airport just before he boarded a flight for Thailand.
(AP, 7/5/11)(http://michelle-samaraweera.gonetoosoon.org/)
2009 May 30, It was reported that some 135 gangs in Vancouver, Canada, were believed to fighting over drug business estimated at US$6.2 billion a year.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.38)
2009 May 30, In southwest China 25 miners were killed and 20 trapped by a gas explosion at the Tonghua Coal Mine in Anwen town, Chongqing municipality.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Colombia 3 computers were seized in the Bogota home of a Adela Perez (36), a suspected FARC operative. One computer, finally decrypted in July, contained an hour-long video that appeared to confirm that Colombia's largest rebel army gave money to the 2006 election campaign of President Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 May 30, Cuba agreed to resume negotiations with the US over immigration and mail service between the two countries. Cuba also expressed a willingness to cooperate with the US on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, and on hurricane disaster preparedness.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said General Motors Corp. will sell its Opel unit and other European assets to Canada's Magna International Inc. in a deal that would protect the assets from GM's likely bankruptcy.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Paris a man, wearing a suit and a hat, walked into the Chopard jewelry boutique on the chic Place Vendome. He threatened employees with a gun and, minutes later, walked calmly out of the store with loot worth up to euro6.5 million. A suspect (52) was detained in the Belgian port city of Antwerp in mid-July at the request of French justice authorities. He was extradited to France several weeks later and put in custody here.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 May 30, In Iran 3 people convicted of involvement in the May 28 mosque bombing in Zahedan were hanged. The men, identified as Haji Nouti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shahoo Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui, were also involved in several other bombings including a bus attack in March, 2006, that left 21 dead. Jundallah or God's Brigade, a Sunni militant group believed to have links with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is composed of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic minority who have been fighting a low level insurgency in southeastern Iran for years.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Iraq's former trade minister, Abdul-Falah al-Sudani, wanted on a corruption charge was arrested at the Baghdad airport after attempting to leave the country. The minister's brothers are accused of having skimmed millions of dollars in kickbacks on food imports. One of them is in custody after attempting to flee the country while the other is still at large. A man purporting to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, issued a 40-minute tape that was posted on militant Web sites.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 30, Ephraim Katzir (b.1916), Israel's 4th president (1973-1978), died. He was an internationally recognized biophysicist and a founder of Israel's renowned Weizmann Institute of Science, where he headed its biophysics department. His work on synthetic protein models deepened understanding of the genetic code and immune responses. Katzir was awarded the Israel Prize, the country's highest honor, in 1959 for his contribution to the natural sciences. He received the Japan Prize in 1985 for his work on immobilized enzymes used in oral antibiotics.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Indian Kashmir massive protests and clashes erupted after the bodies of two young women were found amid claims that they were raped and murdered by Indian soldiers.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Lebanon charged four people with collaborating with Israel, raising to 23 the number of suspected spies who have been charged in the last few months.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, In Mexico two gunmen died in a clash with soldiers in Michaocan. The gunmen opened fire on soldiers on patrol in the village of Moreno de Valencia. Soldiers found a Kalashnikov rifle, a shotgun, a handgun and a grenade inside the gunmen's sport utility vehicle.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 30, A Pakistani army spokesman said troops have retaken Mingora, the largest town in the Swat Valley from the Taliban, though they were still meeting pockets of resistance from fighters on the outskirts of the town. 25 militants and seven soldiers were killed in clashes in South Waziristan near the Afghan border, a bolt-hole for Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants south of the current army bombardment.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, In the central Philippines communist rebels threw two grenades at army troops helping treat villagers, killing two soldiers and a civilian who covered a child with his body during the attack in Northern Samar province.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated that Gulf capital was behind the consortium which bought two of Poland's three historic shipyards this week.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Taiwan officials said they had confiscated nearly 18,000 cases of Red Bull imported from Austria after finding traces of cocaine. On June 1 Hong Kong officials reported founding traces of cocaine in Red Bull cans. Red Bull moved quickly to deny the findings and said independent tests on the same batch of drinks had found no traces of cocaine.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 May 30, In South Africa 55 pilot whales beached near Cape Point, prompting a massive rescue operation. The rescue efforts failed and 44 of the whales were shot to end their suffering. The rest died of stress and organ failure.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Former Sudanese President Gaafar al-Nimeiry (b.1930) died after a period of illness. He took power in a coup in 1969 and brought Islamic rule to Sudan. He spent 16 stormy years as Sudan's leader until he was ousted in April 1985 by a military coup and granted political asylum in Egypt.
(Reuters, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai said that his efforts to restore democratic freedoms and the rule of law to Zimbabwe have so far failed. Tsvangirai urged southern African leaders to help resolve a deadlock over the appointments of the country's bank chief and attorney general. The national statistical agency said Zimbabwe had recorded a minus 1.1 percent inflation rate in April, a slower fall than March, after scrapping its worthless currency to combat world record prices.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 31, In Kansas abortion Dr. George Tiller (67) was shot and killed while serving as an usher during morning services in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita. Scott Roeder (51) fired one shot at Tiller and threatened two other people who tried to stop him. Roeder was taken into custody some 170 miles away in a Kansas City suburb about three hours after the shooting. Tiller’s clinic had been bombed in 1986, blockaded and vandalized in 1991 and in 1993 he was shot in both arms. On Jan 29, 2010, Roeder (51) was convicted of first degree murder. On April 1, 2010 Roeder was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 6/1/09)(SFC, 6/3/09, p.A7)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.30)(SFC, 1/30/10, p.A4)(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A7)
2009 May 31, A robotic vehicle named Nereus, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, made the deepest ocean dive ever - 6.8 miles (10,902 meters). At this depth, Nereus was able to explore the Challenger Deep, the ocean's lowest point, located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.
(www.livescience.com/environment/090603-ocean-abyss.html)
2009 May 31, Afghan and NATO troops killed 18 Taliban militants after insurgents attacked a joint patrol in Farah province.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, A missing Air France Airbus A330 jet, Flight 447, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil soon began a search mission off its northeastern coast.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Britain's PM Gordon Brown, facing a national uproar over lawmakers claiming lavish expenses, promised to pursue constitutional reforms including a proposal to take away legislators' power to decide their own pay.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, Phil Bolger (81), Gloucester, Mass., boat designer, committed suicide. His 600-700 boat designs included the famed Gloucester Gull (1961).
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B5)(www.smallboatforumtwo.com/forum7/30.html)
2009 May 31, Daniel Carroll (b.1927), Irish-born British entertainer (aka Danny La Rue), died. He was known for his singing and drag impersonations.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.90)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_La_Rue)
2009 May 31, In Beijing US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, aiming to persuade China that its US investments were safe, pledged that the Obama administration was firmly committed to ratcheting down huge deficits as quickly as it can once economic recovery is assured.
(Reuters, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, In Egypt police reported that a 25-year-old man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, El Salvador’s President-elect Mauricio Funes appointed his wife and a former Marxist guerrilla to Cabinet posts just hours before starting his five-year term.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Three US Army soldiers were killed and two were injured in an accident on a German autobahn near Kaiserslautern.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, In Indian Kashmir more than 40 people were wounded as clashes continued for a 2nd day between Indian police and Kashmiris demonstrating over the recent deaths of two young Muslim women.
(AFP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, An Iraqi sports broadcaster was killed by a bomb attached to his car in northern Iraq, while two other journalists were wounded in a similar blast in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Israel began the biggest civil defense drill in its history, putting soldiers, emergency crews and civilians through rehearsals for the possibility of war at a time of rising tensions with Iran.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, In Mali it was believed that Al-Qaida terrorists killed British hostage Edwin Dyer. The fate of a Swiss hostage taken at the same time was unknown. Dyer was abducted in January and his captors had threatened to kill him by the end of May if Britain refused to release extremist preacher Abu Qatada from prison.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 May 31, In Mexico gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, opened fire in the lobby of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, killing five people. Gunmen killed four men sitting in a car in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Pakistan’s military relaxed a curfew in most parts of the northwest including Mingora to allow people trapped on the roads to return home or leave the region. Taliban militants attacked a school in Hangu town south of Peshawar, killing one administrator and kidnapping three other people. In North Waziristan, a former government doctor and an Afghan national were killed by suspected militants.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, Palestinian forces stormed a Hamas hideout in Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, setting off a fierce battle that left six dead in the bloodiest factional violence since the Palestinian president launched a crackdown on the Islamic militant group two years ago.
(AP, 5/31/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.46)
2009 May 31, South Ossetia held elections condemned as "illegitimate" by the EU. Eduard Kokoity tightened his grip on the Georgian region after Yedinstvo (Unity), a party loyal to him, won the elections.
(AFP, 6/1/09)
2009 May, Prof. Lynn LoPucki and Joseph Doherty of UCLA authored a study of 102 large-company bankruptcies and found that bankruptcy judges routinely authorize fee practices that violate America’s bankruptcy code. Senior partners of the lead law firm in the Lehman Brothers clean-up charged $1000 per hour for their services in the first quarter of this year.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.82)(http://tinyurl.com/ybclluw)
2009 May, In San Francisco scientists identified an exotic seaweed growing at the SF Yacht Harbor at near Pier 40. The kelp known as Undaria pinnatifida, globally recognized as one of the top 100 invasive species, has plagued southern California harbors since 2000.
(SFC, 7/8/09, p.D2)
2009 May, Dr. Conrad Murray (56), a Las Vegas cardiologist, signed on as Michael Jackson's personal physician at $150,000 a month. He was in dire financial shape at the time and owed a total of at least $780,000 in judgments against him and his medical practice, outstanding mortgage payments on his house, delinquent student loans, child support and credit cards.
(AP, 8/1/09)
2009 May, Rhode Island under Gov. Donald Carcieri projected a budget gap of $372 million for the year ending June 30. Carcieri pushed a plan to phase out the state’s 9% corporate tax rate to improve the state’s friendliness towards business.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.34)
2009 May, The Int’l. Banking Corporation (TIBC), a Bahraini bank, defaulted. It was owned by the Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company of Saudi Arabia. The group later alleged the default was due to fraud orchestrated by Maan Al-Sanea, a Saudi billionaire born in Kuwait. The Gosaibis estimated that Al-Sanea had misappropriated some $9.2 billion.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.65)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.61)
2009 May, In CongoDRC 2 former Norwegian soldiers (Tjostolv Moland and Joshua French) allegedly murdered their driver and attempted to murder a witness. The motive behind the killing was unknown. On Sep 8 they were convicted of espionage and murder. In 2010 a military judge threw out the ruling and ordered a new case. In August, 2013, Tjostolv Moland (32), died in prison. An autopsy report said he had hanged himself.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AFP, 9/8/09)(AP, 4/22/10)(AP, 8/29/13)
2009 May, In France fashion house of Christian Lacroix filed for bankruptcy. It had been founded inside LVMH, a luxury goods group in 1987 and lost money every year since then.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.66)
2009 May, Naples began a six-month experiment hiring former convicts, including muggers, drug traffickers and con artists to guide tourists through the art-rich but crime-plagued city and use their inside knowledge of the local underworld to keep visitors safe.
(AP, 9/13/09
2009 May, Chikungunya, a mosquito-born virus endemic to tropical Africa and Asia, was reported to have arrived in Albania and Italy.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.83))
2009 May, Film evidence released in 2010 demonstrated graphically that the Sri Lankan army engaged in summary executions of prisoners during the final days of fighting. A five-minute video clip was aired by Britain's Channel 4 television in Nov 2010. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the evidence warrants a UN investigation.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2009 May, Sri Lanka's military defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels. At least 29 children disappeared in the custody of Sri Lanka's military after surrendering with their ethnic rebel parents at the end of the island nation's civil war.
(AP, 5/16/18)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to June 2009
End of file
2009 June
2009 Jun 1, A federal judge ordered the United States to publicly reveal unclassified versions of its allegations and evidence justifying the continued imprisonment of more than 100 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Effective today border crossings to US entry points from Canada required passports or other approved identification to be shown. Americans entering from the US by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean were required to present identity documents embedded with RFID tags, though conventional passports remained valid until expiration. The RFID tags could be scanned by anybody with easily obtained equipment from 30 feet.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.37)(SFC, 7/16/09, p.D5)
2009 Jun 1, Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih (31), a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay, died of an apparent suicide. His was the fifth apparent suicide at the offshore US prison, which Pres. Obama hopes to close by January. The Joint Task Force that runs the US prison in Cuba said guards conducting a routine check on June 2 found Salih unresponsive and not breathing.
(AP, 6/3/09)(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In Arkansas Pvt. William Long (23) of Conway was shot and killed outside an Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center. Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula (18) of Jacksonville, Ark., was wounded. The next day Muslim convert Abdulhakim Muhammad (23) of Little Rock was charged for the shootings. On July 25, 2011, Muhammad, born as Carlos Bledsoe, admitted to the crime in a plea deal and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 6/2/09)(SFC, 7/25/11, p.A7)
2009 Jun 1, San Francisco Mayor Newsom unveiled a $6.6 billion budget for 2009-2010. He also urged Santa Clara voters to reject a $937 million stadium project for the SF 49ers.
(SFC, 6/2/09, p.A1)
2009 Jun 1, Hawaii’s Gov. Linda Lingle, describing a "fiscal emergency," ordered three days of unpaid furloughs each month for 14,500 state employees to help erase a $729 million budget shortfall.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of the Obama administration's plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government. GM assets were valued at $82.2 billion with liabilities at $172 billion. The US government planned to receive 60.8% of GM stock, Canada’s government 11.7%, the UAW’s trust 17.5% and bondholders 10%. GM said it will permanently close nine more plants and idle three others to trim production and labor costs under bankruptcy protection. GM was expected to lose 14 factories, 29,000 workers and 2,400 dealers.
(AP, 6/1/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.9,60, 62)
2009 Jun 1, The US military announced the death of US service member the previous day from non-combat-related injuries in southern Afghanistan by posting the news on Twitter hours before announcing it in a more formal press statement. Officials said the US military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers. Mullah Mansur was killed in a strike by helicopters in Helmand province. 4 US soldiers were killed by 2 roadside bombs in Wardak province.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AP, 6/2/09)(SFC, 6/2/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 1, Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy vowed to double civilian aid to Afghanistan and welcomed plans to increase non-military assistance during a visit to Kabul.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Chilean plumber, Fernando Vera, died of swine flu, making him South America's first swine-flu death.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In China US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong US currency.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, China's special envoy to Darfur met with Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir and pledged three million dollars in humanitarian aid for the volatile region. Liu Guijin "greeted the president for the beginning of talks in Doha between the JEM and the government."
(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In El Salvador Mauricio Funes, a journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas, became the country's first leftist president, immediately restoring ties with Cuba while promising to remain friendly with the United States.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, France implemented its revenue de solidarite active (RSA), a welfare payment introduced by anti-poverty campaigner Martin Hirsch.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_active)
2009 Jun 1, A missing Air France Airbus A330 jet, Flight 447, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil soon began a search mission off its northeastern coast.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Iran state media reported that five people are dead in an arson attack on a bank in Zahedan, a restive southeastern city where 25 died in a mosque bombing last week.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region officially started pumping crude oil to the international market. A bomb in a Baghdad market killed four people. A suicide bomber exploded his car at a police checkpoint in Jalula, killing a 7-year-old child and wounding eight other people. A grenade thrown at a US patrol in the northern city of Mosul missed the Americans but killed one Iraqi and wounded 15 others.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Israel's PM Netanyahu dismissed the US demand for a settlement freeze as unreasonable, moving closer to a collision with the Obama administration, while mobs of Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian laborers and burned West Bank fields. Israeli settlers waged court battles to evict dozens of Palestinians from homes in an East Jerusalem neighborhood, a move threatening to widen Israel's rift with US President Barack Obama over settlements.
(AP, 6/1/09)(Reuters, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Mexican soldiers and federal agents detained 29 police officers in northern Nuevo Leon state for alleged ties to drug traffickers. Retired Gen. Javier Aguayo took over as police chief of Chihuahua, where drug-fueled violence has claimed hundreds of lives. Mexican soldiers in Reynosa captured Sergio Garcia Trevino, a drug cartel suspect accused of helping procure the largest illegal weapons cache found in the country.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In Nigeria MEND, main militant group in southern Nigeria said, it will release Mathew Maguire, a British hostage it has been holding for the past nine months. They noted that today was Maguire birthday. The next day MEND said "Mr Mathew Maguire has declined the gift of a release from captivity with an argument that he is now an advocate for change in the region and a honorary member of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ." Nigeria's navy killed seven militants in a gunbattle in the Niger Delta.
(AFP, 6/1/09)(AFP, 6/2/09)(AFP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 1, Pakistan's army said it lifted curfews in several parts of the Swat Valley as it hunted Taliban militants in the region, while insurgents killed two soldiers in a tribal region that could be the next front in the northwest military offensive. Armed Taliban ambushed a convoy of some 30 vehicles carrying students home for the summer. Many of the buses managed to get away. 71 students and nine staff from an army-run college were rescued the next morning as militants moved them from North Waziristan to South Waziristan. A handful of students remained unaccounted for.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In Somalia a roadside bomb in Mogadishu killed at least 4 police officers in several civilians.
(SFC, 6/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 2, Pres. Obama appeared in a BBC interview and said Iran may have some right to nuclear energy, provided it takes steps to prove its aspirations are peaceful. Obama also restated his plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 2, In Alameda County, Ca., a jury convicted Wonda Kidd (58), a former escrow officer, of two counts of felony grand theft in an equity stripping fraud case that took place from April 2005 to August 2006. Straw buyers were used to buy property at inflated prices after which a default took place forcing lenders to foreclose. In 2008 Karim Akil (42) pleaded guilty to grand theft and was sentenced to 3 years. His assistant was sentenced to one year in prison.
(SFC, 6/4/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 2, GM struck a tentative deal to sell its Hummer brand to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 2, Six Afghan family members, including two children, were killed in an explosion close to the US Bagram military base outside Kabul. The Ministry of Interior said that suspected insurgents carried out a suicide bombing against the family while they were traveling in a car. Afghan and coalition forces attacked a residential compound in Wardak province, killing six militants. The men were said to be connected to a militant commander blamed for multiple attacks. In eastern Afghanistan insurgents killed a soldier serving with NATO. A convoy in Paktia province was hit by a blast that killed one security guard. A second improvised explosive device then ripped through the convoy and killed nine guards in another vehicle. An American soldier and an Afghan interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb also in Paktia province. 11 Taliban militants were killed in a joint operation in Zabul province. 2 policemen were killed and five others were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in southern Kandahar province.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AP, 6/3/09)(SFC, 6/4/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 2, In Algeria an estimated 30 Al-Qaida-linked militants killed two teachers and eight police escorts as they brought copies of tests back from an examination center in the town of Timezrit, 49 miles east of Algiers.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, In Belgium a new museum, designed by architect Christian de Portzamparc, opened in Louvain-la-Neuve dedicated to Georges Remi (1907-1983), creator of the comic book hero Tintin (1929).
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.87)
2009 Jun 2, British media reported that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is quitting her post following the scandal over lawmakers' expenses.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, An airplane seat, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by Brazilian military pilots searching for a missing Air France airliner Flight 447.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, In Greenland the Inuit Ataqatigiit party, or IA, won 44% of votes to take 14 of the 31 seats in Greenland's Parliament, the Landsting. The left-wing opposition party defeated the long-governing Social Democrats. Siumut got 26% of the votes and lost the majority it held with its smaller coalition partner Atasut. Premier Hans Enoksen called the snap election after Greenlanders decided in a November referendum to loosen ties with Denmark.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, The Iraqi and US militaries tentatively agreed to keep a joint base on the edge of Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, maintaining an American presence in a strategic area even after the June 30 deadline for US combat troops to pull out of the capital. An American soldier died of wounds from a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, In Israel detained a Jewish man for shooting to death a Palestinian in Jerusalem and wounding another Jewish man.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, Mexico moved forward in its campaign to root out corruption, rounding up 21 more police officers in several northern cities for questioning on suspicions they had ties to drug trafficking. A total of 58 officers have been detained since the operation began a day earlier.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, Mexican truckers filed a lawsuit against the United States seeking $6 billion in compensation for losses they claim to have suffered since Washington banned them from crossing the border in violation of a trade pact. Mexico's National Cargo Transportation Association, or Canacar, filed the lawsuit representing 4,500 trucking companies. Canacar had filed an arbitration notice with the US State Department under the NAFTA in April.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, A Pakistani court ordered the release of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, because there was insufficient evidence to link him to last year's deadly Mumbai attacks. India immediately condemned the ruling. Pakistan's military said that troops were fighting inside the Taliban stronghold of Charbagh, 20km from the Swat valley's main town Mingora. The military said it had killed 21 militants in the past 24 hours of its offensive, while three soldiers died. Gunmen in Peshawar stormed a factory owned by a senior minister of North West Frontier Province, kidnapping eight workers and killing a guard who resisted.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, In South Africa 61 prospectors died from a fire in an abandoned gold mine belonging to Harmony Gold mining company, which had ceased working its Eland shaft. Illegal miners, often called "gold pirates," are hired through organized crime rackets that produce about $250 million in gold a year.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jun 2, Two major South Korean newspapers said that North Korea's military, party and government officials were informed that Kim Jong Un (26), the youngest of three, is in line to take the world's first communist dynasty into a third generation.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 3, President Barack Obama began his latest bid to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by paying a call on King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Pres. Obama spoke to King Abdullah about a host of thorny problems, from Arab-Israeli peace efforts to Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage in a move that reflects the state's changing demographics from reliably Republican and conservative to younger and more liberal.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Osama bin Laden threatened Americans in a new audio tape, saying President Barack Obama inflamed hatred toward the US by ordering Pakistan to crack down on militants in Swat Valley and block Islamic law in the area.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, David Bromige (75), London-born poet and former Sonoma State Univ. professor, died in Sebastopol, Ca. He was Sonoma County’s 2nd poet laureate (2001-2003).
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B4)
2009 Jun 3, Five Afghan private security guards escorting a supply convoy were killed in a suicide bombing near the southern border with Pakistan.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, British Communities Secretary Hazel Blears announced she was resigning, the second British cabinet minister to resign, undermining PM Gordon Brown's authority and his future as leader of the increasingly out-of-favor Labor Party. Blears last month agreed to pay more than 13,000 pounds ($21,000) in tax on the sale of a property.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, In China foreign journalists were barred from Beijing's Tiananmen Square as an Internet clampdown that blocked Twitter expanded to include more blogs on the eve of the 20th anniversary of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, In central China a storm with gale-force winds killed 20 people and seriously injured 117 as it swept through Shangqiu and Kaifeng in Henan province.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 3, The Organization of American States (OAS), meeting in Honduras, cleared the way for Cuba's possible return to the group by lifting a 1962 ban on the communist-run country, a move backed by Washington despite initial objections.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 3, India's Parliament elected Meira Kumar (64) as its first-ever female speaker. Kumar is the daughter of a former deputy prime minister and an untouchable, a member of India's lowest caste.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri vanished during a pilgrimage to the Saudi kingdom. In October Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said: "We hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Shahram Amiri's situation and consider the US to be involved in his arrest."
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Jun 3, Israel dismantled a military checkpoint that had significantly impeded Palestinian travel in the West Bank in an apparent goodwill gesture a day before President Barack Obama's much-anticipated address to the Muslim and Arab world.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, A court in Laos found Samantha Orobator (20), a pregnant British woman, guilty of trafficking heroin and sentenced her to life in prison. Under a pact signed last month by Laos and Britain that still needs ratification, Orobator could be extradited to serve her time in Britain. On Aug 6 Orobator returned to Britain to serve the remainder of her sentence, just weeks before she was due to give birth.
(AP, 6/3/09)(AP, 8/6/09)
2009 Jun 3, Mexican federal investigators questioned 48 Veracruz city traffic officers about the disappearance of the top customs official for one of Mexico's most important ports. Customs administrator Francisco Serrano has not been seen since his smashed government vehicle was found abandoned at an accident scene three days ago. Serrano recently launched a new system to check shipping containers at the Gulf coast port.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 3, Moldovan lawmakers failed for a second time to elect a president, meaning the Parliament elected in April will be dissolved and a new election will be held this summer.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Moroccan customs officers seized 19.5 tons of cannabis resin worth about 17.3 million euros (24.5 million dollars) at the northern port of Nadir. The drugs were concealed in a lorry transporting frozen octopus from a seafood processing plant in the southern town of Agadir and the Italian driver and his Spanish companion were arrested.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Pres. Obama spoke in Cairo and touched on many themes Muslims wanted to hear in the highly anticipated speech broadcast live across much of the Middle East and elsewhere across the Muslim world. Muslims praised Obama's address as a positive shift in US attitude and tone. But hard-liners criticized it as style over substance and said it lacked concrete proposals to turn the words into action.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Angelo Mozilo, the man who rode the housing boom to build Countrywide Financial Corp. into a California colossus of high-risk mortgage lending, was charged with civil fraud and illegal insider trading by federal regulators who accuse him of deceiving shareholders and profiting on confidential information. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil fraud charges against two other former executives of Countrywide.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, South Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered Gov. Mark Sanford to request $700 million in federal stimulus money, which was aimed primarily at struggling schools.
(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 4, In Tennessee handguns will soon be allowed in bars and restaurants under a new law passed by state legislators who voted to override Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen's veto. The legislation takes effect July 14 and retains an existing ban on consuming alcohol while carrying a handgun. Restaurant owners can still opt to ban weapons from their establishments.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, In Afghanistan insurgents killed three US soldiers in a bomb and small-arms attack on their vehicle in Kapisa province, considered a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. A man was killed in Nangarhar by a bomb he was trying to plant inside a university faculty. Police found the body of Yeiya Mulaye Azhar, a candidate in the provincial elections in Wardak province. he had been kidnapped 11 days earlier.
(AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 6/5/09)(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 4, Australia's Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon (47) stepped down after a series of scandals, in the first major embarrassment for PM Kevin Rudd. Fitzgibbon had been under pressure since March when he admitted not declaring to parliamentary authorities two trips to China paid for by wealthy businesswoman Helen Liu.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, British naturalist Sir David Attenborough won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias social sciences prize for his "great contributions to the defense of life and conservation of our planet."
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, China aggressively deterred dissent in Beijing on the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. But tens of thousands turned out for a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mourn the many demonstrators who were killed.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Ethiopia charged 46 people, most of them ex-military, of plotting to assassinate government officials. Ethiopia also said it has undertaken military reconnaissance operations in Somalia, but is not planning to re-deploy.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, About 375 million voters across the 27-nation European Union began 4 days of voting, to appoint candidates to 736 seats on the assembly in the second-largest election in the world after India's. Voting began in Britain and the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, In Germany the federal and state governments approved an €18 billion plan to create more university places, boost funding for research and cultivate a small group of elite institutions.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.57)
2009 Jun 4, Guatemala's anti-drug prosecutor said that thousands of bullets and grenades that were part of a Mexican drug cartel's weapons cache belong to the Guatemalan army. In the April weapons seizure, police also found eight anti-personnel mines, 11 M60 machine guns, bullet proof vests and two armored cars that investigators say belong to the Zetas, a group of assassins for Mexico's Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, In northern Iraq an American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in Tamim province. Another American soldier was killed in a grenade attack north of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, Mexican police found 11 bodies, most with their hands and feet cut off, inside an abandoned car in the border state of Sonora in violence attributed to drug traffickers battling for control of the region.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua made a new offer of amnesty to militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, after earlier rejection by armed opponents.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Palestinian police killed two Hamas militants after the men opened fire at security forces who had surrounded their underground hideout in Qalqiliya. One officer was also killed in the operation, part of an intensifying crackdown on Islamic militants in this West Bank town.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Sri Lanka's navy seized a foreign-owned ship loaded with medical, food and other supplies for war-hit civilians, saying the vessel had entered its territorial waters illegally.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, David Carradine (72), star of TV series "Kung Fu" (1972-1975), was found dead in Thailand. At first suicide was suspected but a forensics expert said circumstances suggested that he may have died from autoerotic asphyxiation. His career had roared back to life when he played the assassin-turned-victim in Quentin Tarentino's "Kill Bill" (2003).
(AP, 6/4/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.E3)
2009 Jun 4, Venezuelan prosecutors charged Guillermo Zuloaga (67), president of the anti-government television station Globovision, with usury. This ended a weeks-long investigation into his business activities that Zuloaga called politically motivated.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, President Barack Obama toured a World War II concentration camp in Germany after prodding the international community to redouble efforts toward separate Israeli and Palestinian states in hopes of resolving a conflict fueled by the Jewish nation's post-Holocaust creation.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, Raymond Lee Oyler (38), a convicted arsonist, was sentenced to death for setting the October 26, 2006, Southern California Esperanza wildfire that killed five federal firefighters struggling to defend a rural home from raging, wind-driven flames.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 5, Neal Wanless (23) accepted a ceremonial $232.1 million Powerball check in Pierre, South Dakota. Wanless bought $15 worth of tickets to the May 27 thirty-state drawing at a convenience store in Winner during a trip to buy livestock feed. He will take home a lump sum of $88.5 million after taxes are deducted.
(AP, 6/6/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 5, General Motors Corp. announced a tentative deal to sell its Saturn brand to former race car driver and dealership group owner Roger Penske.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In Oregon Korena Roberts (b.1980) bludgeoned to death Heather Snively (21) of Maryland and cut her unborn child from her womb. The baby did not survive. In 2010 Roberts pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A6)(www.kval.com/news/69767317.html)
2009 Jun 5, In San Francisco Clyde Forsman (b.1915), singer and accordion enthusiast, died. He was an initial member of San Francisco-based “Those Darn Accordions" and gained notoriety for his full body tattoos.
(SFC, 6/12/09, p.B6)
2009 Jun 5, Three Afghan children were killed by a mortar left over from a battle between police and Taliban. Two roadside bombs exploded an hour apart in separate areas of the eastern province of Nangarhar, killing six policemen. Heavy fighting erupted in eastern Khost when militants attacked a compound where foreign troops were based. At least 15 militants were killed at the site in the Sabari district. A policeman and a militia soldier contracted to the US military were also killed. Police killed three Taliban militants in the neighboring province of Paktia overnight. Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed two "opposition commanders" in the southern province of Kandahar. Another four militants were killed in incidents in Farah province in the south and Paktika in the east.
(AFP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 5, The Anglo-Australian firm Rio Tinto cancelled its controversial tie-up with China's Chinalco in favor of a joint venture with fierce rival BHP Billiton and a 15.2 billion US dollar rights issue.
(AFP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, Bosnia’s war crimes court Zeljko Ivankovic (37), a former member of a Bosnian Serb special police unit, had taken part in the July 11, 1995, killing of at least 1,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica and that he would be tried for genocide.
(SFC, 6/6/09, p.A2)(www.emportal.rs/en/news/region/81408.html)
2009 Jun 5, British PM Gordon Brown shook up his Cabinet in hopes of hanging on to his job in the midst of a scandal over lawmakers' expenses, a string of top-level resignations and catastrophic results expected in local elections. Alan Johnson confirmed he has been named home secretary in a reshuffle carried out by PM Brown.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AFP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In southwestern China at least 26 people were buried when part of a mountain collapsed in a massive landslide in a remote area of Wulong county in Chongqing municipality. 74 people were missing, including 47 workers at an iron ore mine, 21 local residents, two telecom company workers and four passers-by. 27 people died and dozens were hurt when a packed commuter bus burst into flames and was destroyed within minutes during the morning rush hour in the southwestern city of Chengdu. Police later said a 62-year-old unemployed man set the fire after carrying a bucket of gasoline onto the bus.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jun 5, Guinea-Bissau authorities said they foiled an attempted coup, and security forces killed two people allegedly involved, including a candidate in the upcoming presidential ballot. Guinea-Bissau's intelligence service said the coup plot was masterminded by former Defense Minister Helder Proenca and that presidential candidate Baciro Dabo was also involved. Both men died in separate shootings.
(AP, 6/5/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 5, In Iraq an American soldier died as the result of a non-combat related incident.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, Israeli officials said they will not heed President Barack Obama's powerful appeal to halt all settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state, a position that looks sure to cause a policy clash with its most powerful ally. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man during a demonstration against the construction of the West Bank separation barrier. Yussef Aqil Srour (35) died from a chest wound that appeared to have been caused by live fire. Witnesses said troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and possibly live rounds at rock-throwing demonstrators in the village of Naalin.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In Mexico a fast-moving fire killed 49 babies and toddlers at the ABC day care in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora state, despite desperate attempts of firefighters, who punched through the walls and fought their way through flames to rescue babies, toddlers and others trapped inside. No fire alarm or sprinkler system had gone off, according to witnesses. One mother said a second door to the day care was bolted shut and nobody could find the key. In 2011 federal police arrested Arturo Leyva Lizarraga, a former government official, on homicide and abuse of authority charges tied to a day care center fire. On June 30, 2011, federal agents arrested Delia Botello, former regional coordinator of public day care centers.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 5/10/11)(AP, 7/1/11)
2009 Jun 5, In Myanmar refugees began streaming out of the Ler Per Her camp in eastern Karen state and into Thailand as Myanmar forces shelled near a camp where they were sheltering.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 5, Indians in Peru's Amazon, protesting government moves to develop oil, gas and other resources on their lands, battled police near Bagua in an area called Curva del Diablo, or "Devil's Curve." Authorities reported the death of 11 police and 25 protesters. The official death toll after 2 days of violence was later reported at 33, including 23 police officers. Santiago Manuin (53), Awajun Indian leader, was among 48 wounded protesters.
(AP, 6/5/09)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.36)(AP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jun 5, In northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 38 people and wounded 40 attending prayers at a mosque in the Haya Gai area of Upper Dir, as the country's leaders urged visiting US envoy Holbrooke for more aid to stave off Taliban-led militancy. 4 soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in South Waziristan.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 5, Venezuela's tax agency ordered an anti-government news network to pay $2.3 million in back taxes, a day after its president was charged in a separate investigation and troops raided his home.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 6, President Barack Obama at Omaha Beach, France, paid tribute to the Allies' 1944 D-Day landings, an invasion that turned the tide of World War II and cemented the trans-Atlantic alliance.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In East St. Louis, Ill., the 34-acre Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park opened. It was named after Malcolm W. Martin (d.2004 at 91), the lawyer who formed a non-profit group in 1968 to raise money to protect the tract from developers.
(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.A10)
2009 Jun 6, Palm Inc. introduced its new smart phone called Pre. Two days later Apple unveiled updated versions of its popular iPhone.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Jun 6, In southern Arizona a sport utility vehicle crammed with at least 27 people crashed just before midnight killing 10 undocumented immigrants.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 6, In Afghanistan a suicide bomb rocked the southern town of Spin Boldak killing four people as clashes claimed the lives of another 12 in a fresh wave of insurgent violence. Taliban militants ambushed a private security company in the southwestern province of Nimroz, killing three armed guards and wounding one.
(AFP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, Brazilian search crews retrieved the first 2 bodies in the Atlantic from the May 31 crash of Air France Flight 447. Investigators said faulty speed readings had been found on the same type of jets.
(Reuters, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Central African Republic at least two people were killed and several wounded in an attack on a military base. Residents later said ethnic clashes left at least 27 people dead at a Birao military base, where former rebels were set to demobilize under a peace accord.
(AFP, 6/7/09)(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 6, Chinese rescuers found the body of Jonny Copp, an American mountain climber, following an avalanche in an isolated part of southwestern China. Wade Johnson (24) of Arden Hills, Minnesota, and Micah Dash and Jonny Copp of Boulder, Colo., were last heard from May 20 at the base camp of Mount Edgar, a peak of Mount Gongga. Johnson’s body was recovered on June 8.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 6, It was reported that Chinese aid to Myanmar totaled some $400 million over the past five years. US aid to Myanmar was said to be worth $12 million a year.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.59)
2009 Jun 6, Jean Dausset (1916), French immunologist, died. The 1980 Nobel prize-winner was a pioneer behind organ transplants and the mapping of the human genome. Dausset's discovery in 1958 of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue system allowed doctors to verify compatibility between donor and receiver for an organ transplant.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 6, A senior Iraqi police official escaped an assassination attempt by a suicide car bomber in the former insurgent stronghold of Anbar province. The US military said Insurgents are increasingly using teenagers to stage attacks against American and Iraqi security forces.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Kashmir protesters clashed with police as a separatist strike over the alleged rape and murder of two young Muslim women paralyzed Indian Kashmir for a sixth day.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Mexico 13 gunmen, 2 soldiers and 2 bystanders were killed in a 4-hour shootout in Acapulco's hotel zone in a gunbattle that went passed midnight. The soldiers found four Guerrero state police officers inside the house who said they were being held captive.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 6, Myanmar forces started launching mortar attacks during fighting with Karen guerrillas.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 6, Pakistan said that two close aides of a pro-Taliban cleric died when a makeshift bomb ripped through a military convoy transporting them for interrogation. The dead aides of Sufi Mohammad, who negotiated a peace deal in the northwest between Taliban rebels and the Pakistani government, were arrested on June 4 along with three Afghan nationals. 2 policemen were killed late in the day when a suicide bomber walked up to a police emergency helpline center, in an Islamabad residential district home to many government officials, and detonated explosives strapped to his body. Villagers in the northwest attacked Taliban militants killing 11 of them in revenge for a bomb attack on a mosque that killed about 40 people a day earlier.
(AFP, 6/6/09)(AFP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 6, Peru’s President Alan Garcia labored to contain the country’s worst political violence in years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil, gas and other resources on their native lands. The new deaths brought to 22 the number of police killed, seven with spears, since security forces on June 5 moved to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters. A judge ordered the arrest of the Indian leader, Alberto Pizango, on sedition and rebellion charges.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 6, Philippine government troops seized a Muslim separatist rebel camp in southern Maguindanao province following three days of fighting that left 30 guerrillas dead.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Saudi Arabia a screening of the Saudi film, "Menahi," brought a taste of the moviegoing experience to Riyadh more than 30 years after the government began shutting down theaters. No women were allowed. Men and children, including girls up to 10, were allowed to attend the show at a government-run cultural center.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 6, Somali pirates released the Yenegoa Ocean, a Nigerian tugboat they hijacked 10 months ago on Aug 4, 2008. A Dutch navy ship escorted it to a safe harbor.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 6, It was reported that in South Africa HIV-AIDS continued to claim some 3,000 lives a week.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.48)
2009 Jun 6, Turkmenistan state media reported that China will lend the energy-rich country $3 billion to develop its vast South Yolotan natural gas field.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 7, In Martinez, Ca., hospital patient Paul Hammond (47) was shot and killed by police after wielding a knife and cutting restraints while being treated for alcohol withdrawal. In 2011 Contra Costa County agreed to pay $1.4 million to his 4 children.
(SFC, 9/9/11, p.C2)
2009 Jun 7, A joint Afghan and US-led coalition operation against insurgents in southern Zabul province killed more than 20 Taliban fighters. After the operation a roadside bomb exploded and killed one Afghan policeman as the forces were returning to base. A militant ambush in northwest Faryab province killed four policemen. Another Taliban attack in the eastern province of Paktika killed the police chief in Sarhawza district. Militants elsewhere in Paktika ambushed a truck of private security guards, killing four of them.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement paving the way for a monetary union and plans for a unified regional currency.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 7, Brazilian and French ships recovered 14 more bodies from ocean near Air France crash, bringing the total to 16.
(AP, 6/7/09)(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 7, China and Japan pledged to throw their combined weight behind efforts to revive the struggling world economy after talks aimed at boosting trade between the two powers.
(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Egypt's public prosecutor ordered the return of a shipment of Russian wheat impounded last month on health grounds. The decision to ship back the 52,000 tons of wheat, worth 9.6 million dollars (6.8 million euros), came after an investigation found the grain was contaminated with insects and unspecified heavy metals.
(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Europe leaned to the right as tens of millions of people voted in European Parliament elections, with conservative parties favored in many countries against a backdrop of economic crisis. Center-right parties won the most seats in the election. Only 43% of 375 million eligible voters cast ballots. In Bulgaria the xenophobic Ataka party won 12% of the vote.
(AP, 6/7/09)(Reuters, 6/8/09)(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A5)(Econ, 2/6/10, p.58)
2009 Jun 7, In Indonesia 19 leading agricultural exporting nations, including Australia, Brazil and South Africa, kicked off talks in Bali aimed at pushing forward troubled world trade negotiations. The Cairns Group of nations accounted for more than 25% of the world's agricultural exports was also expected to take aim at US and European dairy export subsidies.
(Reuters, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Lebanese streamed to their hometowns to vote in a crucial election. Muslims made up at least 60 percent of the estimated 4 million population. The rest are Christians. There are 18 religious sects. Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims make up roughly a third of the population each. About 400,000 Palestinian refugees also live in Lebanon. Lebanon's Western-backed coalition defeated Hezbollah and its allies dealing a stunning setback to the Iranian-backed militants. The tally showed the winning coalition with 68 seats versus 57 for the Hezbollah-led alliance. Three seats went to independents. Turnout nationwide was about 52.3% up from 45.8% in 2005.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 7, Mexican police announced the arrest of Olga Lerma in western Jalisco state. She was wanted in the US for allegedly smuggling $2 million in cocaine-trafficking profits for a powerful drug cartel.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, In Somalia two masked gunmen killed the director of one of the country’s largest broadcasters, raising to five the number of journalists killed there this year.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, In southern Thailand Islamic insurgents shot dead a villager and then detonated a car bomb as a crowd gathered, killing one and wounding 19 in the Yi-ngo district of Narathiwat.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko said that talks with the main opposition party on forming a coalition have collapsed, indicating a continuation of the turmoil that has plagued the country's politics and hobbled its response to the severe economic crisis.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai launched a three-week trip to the West. He spoke at The Hague saying he is seeking re-engagement, not touring with a "begging bowl" asking for aid. Pres. Robert Mugabe launched a new pact aimed at tearing down trade barriers across 19 African nations with appeals for external investors and an end to domestic conflicts.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 8, The US border patrol said a Mexican truck driver was arrested over the weekend at a checkpoint in San Diego County after 73 illegal Mexican immigrants were found in the back of his rig.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 8, Royal Dutch Shell agreed In NYC to a $15.5 million settlement to end a lawsuit alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other civilians by Nigeria's former military regime.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, New Jersey officials broke ground for a new tunnel under the Hudson River linking to NYC. The $8.7 billion project was expected to be completed in 2017.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 8, North Carolina State Univ. terminated former first lady Mary Easley’s $170,000-a-year job after e-mails showed that former Gov. Mike Easley had served as an intermediary when the school hire her.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 8, In Kansas David Lee Gage of Wichita (52) was found dead of suicide in his jail cell. He had faced nearly 30 years in prison for raping 3 women who had advertised erotic services on Craigslist.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 8, Harold Norse (b.1916 as Harold Rosen), SF-based Beat poet, died. His books included “Beat Hotel" (1960), an experimental cut-up novel, and “Hotel Nirvana: Selected Poems: 1953-1973)" (1974).
(SSFC, 6/14/09, p.B6)(www.beatmuseum.org/norse/haroldnorse.html)
2009 Jun 8, Brazilian and French ships recovered 8 more bodies from Air France Flight 447, bringing the total recovered to 24. The tail section of the plane was also recovered. The plane disappeared during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on May 31 amid strong thunderstorms.
(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 8, Final election results showed a British far-right party won its first-ever parliamentary seats in EU elections. The British National Party, which does not accept nonwhite members and calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants, won two of Britain's 72 seats in the European Parliament. Austria's Freedom Party, which also campaigned on an anti-Islam platform, more than doubled its share of the vote to 13.1%. Hungary's Jobbik party, which describes itself as Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration and wants police to crack down on what it calls "Gypsy crime," won three of the country's 22 seats and almost 15% of the vote. The Greater Romania Party, which is, among other things, pro-religion, anti-gay and anti-Hungarian, made surprise gains, winning almost 9% of the vote and taking two of Romania's 33 seats. A bloc of center-right parties remained the largest group.
(AP, 6/8/09)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.63)
2009 Jun 8, In Britain van maker LDV was placed in administration after the collapse of a rescue deal by Malaysian firm Weststar collapsed. Up to 850 jobs and thousands more in the supply chain were threatened. The company, owned by Russian giant GAZ, applied to Birmingham County Court for administrators to be appointed.
(AFP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that China will require all personal computers sold in the country from July 1 to come with software that blocks access to certain websites. The program aimed to prevent the spread of pornography and other "unhealthy" content. On June 16 the government backed away from the order required use of installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort software, but the software would come pre-installed or included with all PCs sold on the mainland as of July 1.
(AFP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C3)
2009 Jun 8, Cuba formally rejected an offer to rejoin the Organization of American States (OAS), echoing the sentiments of Fidel Castro who has long maintained his island has no use for the group.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Egypt at least 18 factory workers were killed when their bus collided with a truck in the Nile Delta.
(AFP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, Gabon Pres. Omar Bongo (b.1935), the world's longest-serving president, died at a hospital in Spain. His 42-year rule reflected an era when Africa was ruled by "Big Men." He left behind at least 66 bank accounts. The first family owned 45 homes in France, including at least 14 in Paris and 11 on the French Riviera. And they boasted of 19 or more luxury cars, including a Bugatti sports model that cost the Republic of Gabon $1.5 million.
(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/20/09, p.90)
2009 Jun 8, In Hong Kong an unidentified assailant hurled acid in the busy Mong Kok shopping district, injuring 24 pedestrians including a 4-year old girl. It was the third in a series of acid attacks that have hurt some 100 people.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Iraq a bomb tore through a minibus during morning rush hour in a mainly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 24.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Indian Kashmir security forces opened fire on protesters, wounding at least seven people, including two critically, in the worst clash since unrest broke out last week over the deaths of two young women.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Malawi an international organization began moving more than 60 elephants from Phirilongwe village, south of Lake Malawi, to the Majete Wildlife Reserve. Local farmers had used violence to protect their crops from raids by the elephants, and at least 10 people and a number of elephants have recently died in such confrontations.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Mexico gunmen launched grenades and opened fire in near simultaneous attacks on two police stations in Acapulco, killing three officers in violence that broke out less than 48 hours after a gunbattle in the resort left 17 dead.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Nepal a strike called by Maoist sympathizers paralyzed large swathes of Nepal, forcing schools and businesses to shut and stranding tourists.
(AFP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, North Korea convicted Laura Ling and Euna Lee, American journalists for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV media venture, and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into its territory, intensifying the reclusive nation's confrontation with the United States.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Norway Georg Mueller (58) stepped down as bishop in the western city of Trondheim. On April 7, 2010, Norway’s Catholic Church said he did so after admitting he had molested a child years earlier, when he was a priest.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2009 Jun 8, Gaza militants equipped with explosives-laden horses approached the Israeli border, igniting a battle that left four gunmen dead.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Peru indigenous leader Alberto Pizango sought refuge at Nicaragua's embassy in Lima. Nicaragua granted Pizango political asylum but he remained at the embassy, awaiting Peru's agreement to allow him safe passage out of the country.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 8, Interfax news agency reported that Russian forces have killed Doku Umarov, the leader of the Chechen separatist movement.
(Reuters, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, Sudan passed an amended version of a media bill that sparked protests in Khartoum last month, but the new version failed to allay the fears of many Sudanese journalists.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Thailand gunmen opened fire on a mosque in Narathiwat province’s Hoh-I-Rong district killing at least 10 people and wounding 19 others.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 8, The first World Oceans Day was celebrated. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution on Dec 5, 2008, declaring that as of 2009, June 8th would be recognized as World Oceans Day.
(http://worldoceansday.org/about/)
2009 Jun 9, The US Justice Department said authorities have brought Ahmed Ghailani (b.~1974), the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States, flying him into New York to face trial for bombing US embassies. Ghailani was indicted in 1998 for the al-Qaida bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks which killed more than 224 people, including 12 Americans.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, The US Treasury Department said it has approved 10 of the nation's largest banks to repay $68 billion in government bailout money.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, The SEC filed suit in San Francisco against Peter C. Son (37) of Danville for allegedly defrauding 500 investors of $80 million in a Ponzi scheme. Jin K. Ching (46) of Los Altos was also charged for bilking their Korean American victims from 2003-2008 through SNC Asset Management Inc. of Pleasanton and SNC Investments of New York. In 2010 Peter C. Son was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.C4)(SFC, 7/31/10, p.C1)
2009 Jun 9, The SF School Board voted 4:3 to allow the JROTC program to satisfy physical education requirements, restoring the program to nearly its original condition before a 2006 effort to kill it.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 9, In California, George Torres, founder of a grocery store chain, was released on $1 million bond after a judge tossed out racketeering and conspiracy charges regarding orders for killing a rival. He remained convicted of 53 lesser charges.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.B3)
2009 Jun 9, In Garner, North Carolina, an unexplained explosion at a ConAgra Slim Jim factory left at least 2 people dead.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In New Mexico a helicopter crashed while attempting to rescue Megumi Yamamoto, a Japanese graduate student who was hiking in the mountains above Santa Fe. Police Sgt Andy Tingwall and Yamamoto died in the crash.
(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 9, In northeastern Afghanistan a grenade explosion in a crowded bazaar near a convoy of US Army troops in Kunar province killed 2 people and wounded about 50, many of them children. Three US troops were wounded in the blast. In western Ghor province a US military airstrike failed to kill Mullah Mustafa, a militant commander with reported links to Iran's elite military Quds Force. Ghor deputy Gov. Karimuddin Rezazada later said that 10 civilians, including five children, and 12 militants were killed in the airstrikes in Shahrak district. An Afghan official said a three-day operation against Taliban fighters in southern Uruzgan province killed 30 militants.
(AP, 6/9/09)(AP, 6/10/09)(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Argentina judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral asked Interpol to detain Samuel Salman (43), who is believed to be living in Lebanon, for involvement in the July 18, 1994, bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Australia a protest involving hundreds of Indian students turned into a "vigilante" attack in Sydney overnight, in the latest flare-up in racial tensions in recent weeks. Police said a group wielding sticks and baseball bats attacked men of "Middle Eastern appearance" in apparent retaliation for an earlier assault on an Indian man.
(AFP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, Two retired Chilean generals were sentenced to prison for shipping arms to Croatia in 1991 at the time of its battle for independence from Yugoslavia. The arms had been labeled as Chilean humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka. Army Gen. Guillermo Letelier and Air Force Gen. Vicente Rodriguez were sentenced to three years in prison. Letelier also was sentenced to 541 days for falsifying documents.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev visited Dagestan. He went to police bases and reviewed troops, lavishly covered by state-controlled TV. Medvedev blamed what he called foreign "freaks" for inciting the violence. Hours after Medvedev left Dagestan, a riot police officer was shot and killed as he headed home after work not far from a base where Medvedev had watched counterterrorism exercises. In another part of the Dagestan capital, a road police officer was killed after trying to stop a car to check documents.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In France Veronique Courjault (41), went on trial after admitting killing two baby boys born secretly in Seoul in 2002 and 2003, and a third child born in France in 1999. On June 18 she was convicted and sentenced to 8 years in prison.
(AFP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 9, Arcandor, the owner of Germany’s larges chain of department stores, filed for bankruptcy. In 2007 Arcandor’s property portfolio was spun off saddling its 91 Karstadt department stores with high rents.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Jun 9, An Indian air force transport plane crashed near the disputed Chinese border in the mountains of northeast Arunachal Pradesh state. All 14 on board were killed.
(Reuters, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Indian Kashmir 30 protesters were hurt when police fired shots in the air and teargas during fresh protests over the alleged rape and murder of two Muslim women.
(AFP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Mexico 2 Sonora state government officials, whose wives are owners of the ABC day care center where 44 children died in a fire, resigned saying they wanted to clear the way for an investigation into the June 5 blaze.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Nigeria MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) set a pumping station of US oil giant Chevron on fire. Government troops killed seven civilians in a waterway at Kangbene community in Delta state according to a MEND claim on June 12. The military denied the incident.
(AFP, 6/10/09)(AFP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Pakistan the military started shelling Taliban hide-outs in the Bannu district in the northwest. The shelling began after a deadline given to tribal leaders in the region to hand over militant suspects by the end of June 8 had expired. At least nine people were killed when three attackers shot their way through a security checkpost and rammed an explosives-laden truck into Peshawar's five-star Pearl Continental.
(AP, 6/9/09)(AFP, 6/10/09)(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 9, In the Philippines lawyer and radio commentator Crispin Perez Jr. was killed in Mindoro Occidental province by motorcycle-riding gunman. His wife said the attack may have been work-related.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 9, South African health activist Thembi Ngubane (24) died of tuberculosis leaving behind a daughter (4). Her radio diaries of her struggle against the AIDS virus won her audiences and admiration around the world. Ngubane was 19 when she was given a tape recorder to make an audio diary about living with HIV in a country where nearly one third of young women are infected with the virus.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 10, James von Brunn (88), identified as a white supremacist, shot and killed Guard Stephen T. Johns (39), who prevented his entrance into the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington, DC. Security engaged the gunman as soon as he stepped inside the crowded museum and began shooting. Brunn was shot in the face by other guards and was later charged with first-degree murder. He died on Jan 6, 2010, while awaiting trial in North Carolina.
(AP, 6/11/09)(SFC, 7/30/09, p.A5)(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2009 Jun 10, California's state controller said the government risks a financial "meltdown" within 50 days in light of its weakening May revenues unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers quickly plug a $24.3 billion budget gap.
(Reuters, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Pennsylvania a car fleeing a robbery scene jumped a curb in Philadelphia, smashed into a crowd and killed three young children. One robber had fled on the motorcycle and the other in a car. Both were arrested. Latoya Smith (22), the mother and aunt of two of the children, died the next days from her injuries.
(AP, 6/11/09)(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 10, Italy's Fiat became the new owner of the bulk of Chrysler's assets, closing a deal that saves the troubled US automaker from liquidation and places a new company in the hands of Fiat's CEO.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Afghanistan clashes in the north killed 12 insurgents and one Afghan soldier. The fighting spanned three villages in Baghlan province. Afghan and NATO forces in western Baghdis "killed and wounded a significant number of insurgents." No figures were given.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Argentina Father Julio Grassi (52), a Roman Catholic priest who won fame running an Argentine foundation for poor youths (1993), was convicted of sexually molesting a boy who participated in the program. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Grassi continued to proclaim his innocence, saying he was "the victim of an injustice."
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Authorities in Bangladesh decided to withdraw all 12 corruption-related cases that had been brought against PM Sheikh Hasina. Minister of state Kamrul Islam said the charges were politically motivated. He also recommended withdrawing 50 other cases against political leaders.
(www.voanews.com/bangla/2009-06-10-voa11.cfm)
2009 Jun 10, Millions of Londoners faced a grim commute, taking boats, buses and bicycles or walking in the rain as a strike by subway workers crippled the city's subway system.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, a Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar apparatus towed by a US destroyer near Subic Bay, off the coast of the Philippines. Officials later said the collision with the sonar array connected to the USS John S. McCain probably occurred due to a misjudgment of distance.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 10, In southern Dagestan a group of 10 gunmen attacked a police post with automatic weapons and mortars, battling police troops for more than an hour. The gunmen later escaped into the forested mountains.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, The French nuclear submarine Emeraude reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447 where 41 of 228 bodies have been recovered.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Gabon Senate chief Rose Francine Rogombe was sworn in as the country's interim president, the first time in more than four decades that anyone except the late leader Omar Bongo has held power.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Kuupik Kleist (b.1958) assumed office as prime minister of Greenland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuupik_Kleist)
2009 Jun 10, In Ingushetia gunmen shot and killed Aza Gazgireeva, a top judge, as she dropped her children off at school in Russia's North Caucasus. Five other people were reported wounded, including a small child. Investigators said Gazgireeva likely was killed for her role in investigating a Chechen militants' attack on Ingush police forces in 2004.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Iraq a rare car bomb ripped through a market in the town of Bathaa, in the southern Shiite heartland, as shoppers were buying meat and vegetables, killing at least 29 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, The US Navy handed over 17 suspected Somali pirates to Kenya, taking the total number held in the east African nation to 101.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi began his first visit to Italy with a warm embrace from Premier Silvio Berlusconi, evidence of better ties between the energy-rich desert nation and its former colonial ruler.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Mexican soldiers captured Jose Filiberto Parra Ramos, a suspected cartel member accused of killing two federal agents and leading bloody battles for smuggling routes in the northern city of Tijuana.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 10, Pakistan launched a new operation against Taliban fighters in the northwest.
(Reuters, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Palau agreed to accept 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay. President Johnson Toribiong said the decision of Palau, one of a handful of countries that does not recognize China and maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, was "a humanitarian gesture" intended to help the detainees restart their lives.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Peru's Congress indefinitely suspended two key legislative decrees that spurred the Amazon Indian protests that erupted in bloodshed during a government crackdown last week. Indigenous groups said the decrees make it easier for foreign companies to exploit their lands for oil, gas and logging.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir inaugurated a new plant that he said will begin producing ethanol from sugar cane with a target of 200 million liters in two years. Former rebels who fought a devastating 22-year civil war in south Sudan began laying down their arms as the UN’s biggest demobilization program stepped up a gear.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Western powers reached agreement with North Korea's key allies on a UN draft proposal that would impose tough new sanctions on the communist nation's weapons exports and financial dealings, and allow inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas.
(AP, 6/10/09)(SFC, 6/11/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 11, In San Francisco BART’s governing board approved a 6.1% fare hike effective July 1. The minimum ride went up 25 cents to $1.75.
(SFC, 6/12/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 11, In eastern Afghanistan NATO mortar rounds killed two Afghan civilians during a clash with insurgents. Two died later of their injuries while undergoing treatment. A bomb blast killed a British soldier near Kandahar. Four other Afghan civilians died in Kunar when a truck collided with a NATO vehicle.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 11, In Australia an Australian Aboriginal elder (46), arrested for drunk driving, died after being "cooked" in the back of a scorching hot prison van. The next day a coroner found that Mr. Ward's death breached Australia's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 11, Four Guantanamo detainees, Uighurs from predominantly Muslim western China, were transferred to Bermuda, marking an unexpected new chapter in their odyssey.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, The London subway workers’ strike continued for the second day in a row shutting down much of the city's Underground network. The strike ended as Transport for London agreed with workers to restart talks.
(AP, 6/11/09)(SFC, 6/12/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 11, The ICRC said armed men have killed a local employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross at Birao in the north of the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, German researchers said a new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112, Ununbium, Latin for 112, will soon be officially included in the periodic table. A team in Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.
(Reuters, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, Italian police said they were carrying out arrests in Rome, Milan and other cities as part of an investigation into the activities of suspected radical leftist terrorists.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, The Mexican army captured 25 gunmen in northern Nicolas Bravo, Chihuahua state, who witnesses say disguised themselves as soldiers. Soldiers also seized 29 automatic rifles during the raid. Gunmen tossed grenades and fired on a crowded taco stand in the city of Uruapan, Michoacan state, killing a police officer and a 15-year-old boy. Armed men barged into a motel room and killed five people in their beds in Ciudad Juarez. Two other people were killed during a car chase and shootout between armed men in downtown Juarez. The Mexican Navy in Sinaloa discovered one of the largest methamphetamine labs ever found in the country, with enough ephedrine to produce more than 40 tons of methamphetamine.
(AP, 6/11/09)(AP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/14/09)(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 11, Human Rights Watch in a report to the UN said abuses by the Mexican military have surged since the government deployed troops to fight drug cartels more than two years ago, and too little is done to investigate allegations of rapes, killing and torture. Mexico's government disputed the charges.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, North Korea demanded a 3,000 percent hike in rent from South Korea for the site of a joint industrial park at the center of a dispute roiling their relations. It also sought a more than fourfold increase in wages for North Korean workers employed by South Korean companies at the park. More than 100 South Korean companies have factories in the park, employing some 40,000 North Koreans. They are paid about $70 a month on average.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, Pakistan's army said it had killed 66 Taliban as fighting spilled into a tribal area and known bolthole for the militant group blamed for a deadly bombing at a luxury hotel. One person was killed and 35 injured when a bomb hidden in a toilet exploded on a train in southwestern Baluchistan province. On a road to Peshawar, gunmen attacked the car of northwest provincial minister for prisons Mian Nisar Gul. The official was wounded, while two of his bodyguards and one of the assailants were killed. In the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan one person was killed and 30 wounded in two separate hand grenade attacks in crowded bazaars.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, In Peru riot police used tear gas to turn student protesters away from the Congress as thousands marched to back Amazon Indians resisting oil and natural gas exploration on their land.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, In the southern Philippines Ansar Venancio, a Filipino bomb expert from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group, was arrested in Marawi city. He is thought to have carried out a deadly attack on Manila in 2000.
(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, The World Health Organization held an emergency swine flu meeting and declared the first flu pandemic in 41 years as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 12, In New Jersey an Indictment was unsealed today against three individuals who allegedly hacked into the telephone systems of large corporations and entities in the US and abroad and sold information about the compromised telephone systems to Pakistani nationals residing in Italy. Italian law enforcement conducted searches of approximately 10 locations in four regions of Italy and arrested the financiers of the hacking activity. Those financiers allegedly used the information to transmit over 12 million minutes of telephone calls valued at more than $55 million over the hacked networks of victim corporations in the US alone.
(SFC, 6/16/09, p.A2)(http://newark.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2009/nk061209.htm)
2009 Jun 12, Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Zuhair and two others were reported to have been sent home to Saudi Arabia, where they would be subject to judicial review before entering a government-run "rehabilitation" program. Zuhair had been held at Guantanamo since June 2002 and had refused to eat since the summer of 2005. He was force-fed a liquid mix to keep him alive.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber hit a fleet of fuel tankers intended for a NATO base in Helmand province, killing eight Afghans and wounding 21. A British soldier was killed Helmand in an explosion during an operation in Sangin district.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Algeria at least five members of an Islamist militant group were killed near Constantine, as well as several Islamist clan chiefs in different regions.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 12, A Brazilian ship recovered three more bodies from the Atlantic bringing the total to 44. Searchers said weather and currents complicated their job and warned it is unlikely that all the dead from Air France Flight 447 will be found.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In the Central African Republic 15 rebels of the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) and 3 soldiers were killed in fighting in the northwest of the country.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 12, Iranians packed polling stations with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Iraq a senior Sunni lawmaker was killed after delivering a sermon during at a mosque in a former insurgent stronghold in western Baghdad. Harith al-Obeidi (47) led the main Sunni bloc in parliament and was known as a fierce advocate of human rights and the rights of mainly Sunni detainees. The assailant was chased down the street by mosque guards and then detonated a grenade, killing himself and an undetermined number of pursuers. A bomb on a bicycle exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding nine others. An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.
(AP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaran, speaking in Srinagar, said India is to phase out the controversial presence of large numbers of its troops in towns across the Muslim-majority Kashmir region. Indian troops and paramilitaries were thought to number up to 500,000.
(AFP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Indonesia a male Sumatran elephant was found dead in a pulp plantation in Riau province, Sumatra with its tusks removed. Six other endangered Sumatran elephants had been killed in Riau in the last two months and two were found with missing tusks.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Mexico Mauricio Fernandez, a ruling party mayoral candidate in Monterey suburb San Pedro Garza, suggested that as mayor he would avoid confronting the Beltran Levya cartel to maintain peace. Police found the bodies of five men dumped beside on a highway in the northern state of Durango, all with signs of torture. Four more bodies were found in different parts of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Soldiers arrested Juan Manuel Jurado Zarzoza, the local leader of the Gulf drug cartel in Cancun in charge of drug sales, extortion and kidnappings.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 12, Moroccans voted in a local election that opposition Islamists hope will extend their influence in big cities.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, Mozambican state media reported that a court has sentenced Alexandre Balate to 22 years in jail for killing a suspect. Balate, the former head of the search and seizure unit, was found guilty of the 2007 murder of Abranches Penicelo, who was allegedly abducted by a group of police officers, burnt alive and shot. Amnesty International had drawn global attention to Penicelo's murder. Last year the group released a report accusing the national police of "killing and torturing people with near total impunity."
(AFP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Nigeria MEND rebels breached Chevron’s Makaraba-Utonana-Abiteye pipeline and started a fire at the Makaraba Jacket 5 facility in Delta State. MEND also released a British oil sector worker who had been held for nine months.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, Pakistan’s military said at least 39 Taliban militants and 10 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting over the last 24 hours in the northwest Swat valley. Two back-to-back suicide attacks on mosques in the eastern city of Lahore and northwestern garrison town of Nowshera killed six people including vocal anti-Taliban religious scholar Sarfraz Naeemi.
(AFP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, In the Philippines fighting with the militant Moro Islamic Liberation Front left 10 dead and 20 wounded. Columnist Antonio Castillo was killed in Masbate province by motorcycle-riding gunmen.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 12, A South Korean newspaper reported that the youngest son of North Korea's authoritarian leader has been given the title of "Brilliant Comrade," a sign the communist regime is preparing to name him as successor to the ailing Kim Jong Il.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, At least 40 south Sudanese soldiers and civilians were killed when tribal fighters ambushed boats carrying UN food aid, the latest in a string of ethnic attacks threatening a fragile peace deal.
(Reuters, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 12, Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis AG said it has successfully produced a first batch of swine flu vaccine weeks ahead of expectations.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Turkey the liberal Taraf newspaper published a copy of “Plan to Combat Islamic Fundamentalism," an alleged military plan hatched last April to overthrow the AK party and to incriminate Turkey’s largest Islamist brotherhood, led by Fetullah Gulen. It was signed by Dursun Cicek, a colonel serving in the army’s psychological warfare unit.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.56)
2009 Jun 12, The UN Security Council agreed to expand an arms embargo against North Korea with the goal of derailing the isolated nation's nuclear and missile programs. It passed Resolution 1874 authorizing the search of North Korean ship suspected of carrying illegal arms.
(AP, 6/13/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.50)
2009 Jun 12, In Yemen nine foreigners, including 3 children, were kidnapped while on a picnic in northern Saada province. 3 of the kidnapped were found dead on June 15. In May 2010 Saudi intelligence forces freed 2 German girls, aged 4 & 6. The fate of the others remained unknown.
(AP, 6/16/09)(AP, 5/18/10)
2009 Jun 13, Six Flags, an American theme park operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.79)
2009 Jun 13, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a vehicle travelling between the eastern provinces of Paktya and Khost, near the border with Pakistan, and killed three Afghan construction workers.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, Algeria's national oil company Sonatrach announced it had awarded a 79.3-billion-dinar (1.11-billion-dollar, 793-million-euro) contract to the Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to build natural gas processing facilities.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Australia it was reported Barry Tannenbaum (43), an expatriate South African businessman, has denied any wrongdoing in an alleged investment scandal. Tannenbaum has been accused of fleecing rich South Africans in what has been billed as one of the country's biggest Ponzi-style investment scandals, according to local and South African media. The massive pyramid scheme reportedly cost wealthy investors up to $1.2 billion.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In China a colorful show of drag queens dressed in Chinese opera costumes was one of the festivities that marked Shanghai's gay pride, the first in China where homosexuality remains largely hidden.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In India a rebellion by left-wing activists began against West Bengal state's communist rulers. About 1,800 state and federal troops were deployed to quell the uprising. By June 18 ten CPM activists had been killed as security camps and party offices were burned down.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Iran supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires as authorities declared the hard-line president was re-elected with 62.6% of the vote to 33.75% to Mousavi. Saeed Leilaz, a university economics professor, was among a number or protesters who were arrested. In March 2010 Leilaz was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, violating public order and participating in a plan to disturb the country's security.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 3/11/10)
2009 Jun 13, Brazil reported that a French ship had found six more bodies from Air France Flight 447, which would bring the total to 50. It went down May 31 with 228 on board.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In India a rebellion by left-wing activists began against West Bengal state's communist rulers. About 1,800 state and federal troops were deployed to quell the uprising. By June 18 ten CPM activists had been killed as security camps and party offices were burned down.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Ingushetia gunmen fatally shoot Bashir Aushev, a former deputy prime minister who oversaw police agencies, as he stands outside his home in Nazran.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Italy tens of thousands of gay rights activists demanding rights for same-sex couples marched through the streets of Rome on Saturday in a gay pride parade.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, An Italian court ordered the recall of 10,000 tons of wood fuel pellets imported from Lithuania over fears that they could have dangerous levels of radioactivity. Test results showed that they contained cesium 137, a highly toxic radioactive substance normally produced by a nuclear explosion or from the combustion of a nuclear reactor. The contaminated pellets themselves were not dangerous to humans, but danger comes from the ashes and the smoke produced when they are burned.
(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Mexico 3 federal agents were killed in two separate attacks along a highway in the western state of Michoacan. In western Guerrero state gunmen ordered a priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in the town of Arcelia.
(AP, 6/14/09)(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Morocco with more than 80% of seats counted, the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) had 4,854 seats, ahead of the governing Istiqlal (Independence) party with 4,246. PAM, founded by Fouad Ali El Himma, was created last year by lawmakers from five parties. It has positioned itself as an alternative to both opposition Islamists and Istiqlal, and has sought to combat voter apathy with promises to follow through on policy commitments. Provisional figures put the turnout at 51%.
(Reuters, 6/13/09)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.42)
2009 Jun 13, North Korea vowed to step up its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war if its ships are stopped as part of new UN sanctions aimed at punishing the nation for its latest nuclear test.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, Pakistan unveiled a deficit national budget, proposing an increase in defense expenditure to help fight Taliban militants while boosting agriculture and industrial output and reducing poverty. Pakistani troops reportedly killed 41 militants overnight in their offensive against the Taliban in the northwest. Jets bombed insurgent hideouts in response to two suicide attacks the previous day. 30 suspected militants were killed in strikes in South Waziristan.
(AFP, 6/13/09)(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In the Philippines Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants holding Eugenio Vagni (62), an Italian Red Cross worker captive, killed five Philippine marines and wounded 10 others in an ambush on southern Jolo Island.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Thailand 2 suspected insurgents riding a motorcycle hurled a bomb at a bus, killing one passenger and wounding 13 others in downtown Yala city. In Yala province's Bannang Sata district, a husband and wife were shot dead in an ambush while riding their motorcycle. In Narathiwat province a village headman's wife was killed and another person wounded while riding a motorcycle to a market.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, A Turkish soldier and a Kurdish rebel were killed in fighting in the southeast of Turkey near the border with Iraq.
(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Vietnam civil rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh (41) was arrested at his home in Ho Chi Minh City. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of sabotaging the communist government. Three other pro-democracy activists, Le Thang Long, Tran Thi Thu and Le Thi Thu Thu, were soon arrested for colluding with Dinh.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 14, In Florida Tyler Hayes Weinman (18), whose divorced parents live in the neighborhoods where many of the cats were killed, was charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body. Police said they investigated more than 30 cat deaths since May and were flooded with tips from concerned citizens.
(AP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 14, Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said more than 250 people, many of them militants and some foreign insurgents, were killed during attacks by the Taliban in 25 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces last week. Police and civilians were also among the dead. He also warned that Islamist militants would attempt to sabotage the August 20 presidential election.
(Reuters, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, Belarus boycotted a Moscow-led security summit to protest a Russian ban on Belarusian dairy products, deepening a politically charged dispute between the two ex-Soviet neighbors. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the other Organization of the Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) leaders signed an agreement creating a joint rapid-reaction force that could bolster the power and prestige of the seven-nation alliance, seen largely as an ex-Soviet answer to NATO.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, In Iran protesters set fires and smashed store windows in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities. Anti-riot police lashed back and the regime blocked Internet sites used to rally the pro-reform campaign.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, Israel’s PM Netanyahu said that he would accept a Palestinian state, but attached conditions such as having no army that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
(AP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 14, Pakistan said it would resort to force against Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. Militants remotely-detonated explosives hidden in a rickshaw, causing chaos at a busy market in Dera Ismail Khan town, with 9 people killed and dozens injured. Jet planes bombed hideouts in the tribal area of Bajaur. Up to 44 suspected militants killed in the onslaught. A US drone attack targeting a militant vehicle killed at least three people, including Uzbek and Arab militants, in the Mardar Algad area of South Waziristan.
(AFP, 6/14/09)(AFP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 14, In Sri Lanka the mandate of a presidential commission of inquiry, established two years ago under intense international pressure to investigate earlier claims of abuses in the war, expired without an extension. It had been assigned 16 cases of alleged abuses by both sides, including the 2006 execution-style slaying of 17 aid workers for the French organization Action Against Hunger. Nissanka Udalagama, a former Supreme Court justice who chaired the commission, later said it had only completed work on 7 of the assigned cases. Extensions had been routinely granted in the past, but not this time. Instead, the commission was dissolved.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 14, Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva urged the country not to panic about swine flu, after the number of cases grew nine-fold in four days and a cluster emerged in a key tourist hub. Health authorities reported that confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus soared to 150, compared with just 16 on June 10, including a number of foreigners.
(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, Yemen accused a Shiite rebel group of kidnapping 9 foreigners in northern Saada province. The Interior Ministry official said Hassan Hussein Bin Alwan, a Saudi man suspected of financing Al-Qaida cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, has been arrested.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 15, Harriet Miers, former White House counsel, during House Judiciary closed door testimony, said former White House political advisor Karl Rove played a central role in the 2006 ouster of New Mexico’s US Attorney David Iglesias as well as 8 other US attorneys.
(SFC, 8/12/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 15, In Indiana the bodies of Dr. Philip Gabriele (44), an eye surgeon, and his wife, Marcella (43), were found at his clinic in Elkhart. Suicide was suspected as they were scheduled to surrender to authorities on charges of performing unnecessary surgeries on patients and bilking money from health insurers.
(SFC, 6/16/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 15, In California the body of Joanne Witt (47) was found at her home in El Dorado Hills, east of Sacramento. On June 17 her daughter Tyler Marie Witt (15) and boyfriend Steven Paul Colver (20), suspects in the stabbing death, were arrested at a strip mall in the Bay Area city of San Bruno. On Nov 24 a judge ruled that Tyler would have to stand trial as an adult.
(SFC, 6/18/09, p.B3)(SFC, 11/25/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 15, Georgia’s Supreme Court ordered Expedia Inc. and its Hotwire.com subsidiary to collect and pay hotel occupancy taxes to the west Georgia city of Columbus in a possible precedent for cities across the country.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 15, US Gen. Stanley McChrystal formally assumed command of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
(SFC, 6/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 15, In Australia Des "Tuppence" Moran (61), a former underworld enforcer, died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head while enjoying a coffee in a suburban cafe. Gangland widow Judy Moran was one of three people later charged in the slaying. On March 9, 2011, Judy Moran (66) was convicted of orchestrating the execution-style murder of her brother-in-law.
(AFP, 6/17/09)(AFP, 3/9/11)
2009 Jun 15, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva brought a message of worker solidarity and economic responsibility to the United Nations. He left with some rare, sharp criticism from human rights groups that once championed his government.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Virgin Media, the cable TV operator owned by entrepreneur Richard Branson, launched a new kind of music download subscription service with Universal, the world's largest music company.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, The European Union agreed to help the administration of President Barack Obama "turn the page" on Guantanamo, saying individual EU nations will take detainees from the American prison in Cuba.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Gambia seven journalists were detained after criticizing the nation's president, who has ruled the tiny country since a 1994 coup.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Iran tens of thousands of supporters of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi streamed through the center of Tehran in a boisterous protest against election results that declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Iran's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud. 7 demonstrators were shot and killed.
(AP, 6/15/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 15, Italy's interior minister defended plans to allow citizen patrols to beef up security amid outrage over a new right-wing guard that has put Fascist and Nazi-like symbols on its uniforms.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi sued three Moroccan newspapers for defamation, seeking eight million euros in damages for "attacks on the dignity of a head of state."
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Mexico's attorney general's office said it charged 51 guards and prison officials, including the director, for their complicity in the escape of 53 inmates from a jail in Zacatecas state. A survey by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said an estimated 9,758 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico between September and February, mainly by drug gangs but some migrants reported that authorities were involved.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Nepal Maoist demonstrators clashed with police in Kathmandu as a general strike called by the former guerrillas' youth wing brought Kathmandu to a standstill.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, The Hague-based International Criminal Court ordered former Congolese rebel warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape and pillaging.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 15, Armed militants in Nigeria's Niger Delta claimed more attacks against facilities run by US oil giant Chevron and warned FIFA against letting the country host the under-17 World Cup tournament.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and China's state oil firm SIPEC said they have discovered crude oil in Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In North Korea tens of thousands rallied in Pyongyang to condemn the UN rebuke of the country's latest nuclear test amid concern the communist regime could conduct another one.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Pakistani forces pounded militants in tribal areas, after vowing an all-out assault on a Taliban chief in the lawless Afghan border region known to be an Al-Qaeda and rebel hideout.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Peru's government promised Amazon Indians to ask Congress to revoke decrees that native groups say would make it easier to exploit their lands for oil, gas and other development.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Moscow vetoed a Western-proposed resolution to extend the mandate of UN monitors in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. It designed to buy time to negotiate a long-term plan for the 16-year-old monitoring mission in the Black Sea rebel region.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 15, Leaders from Central Asia, China and Afghanistan joined Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev at a summit. Members of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and leaders of observer nations (Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia) met in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg for two days of talks that are expected to include extensive discussions of Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Turkmenistan Pres. Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov staged lavish ceremonies for foreign guests and media to launch a new $1.5 billion resort on the desert shore of the Caspian Sea in a city named after his eccentric and autocratic predecessor.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Yemen 3 foreign women, including two German nurses and a South Korean teacher kidnapped on June 12, were found dead. Two children were found alive. Nine foreigners, including seven German nationals, a Briton and a South Korean, disappeared June 12 while on a picnic in Yemen’s northern Saada region.
(AP, 6/15/09)(AP, 6/16/09)(SSFC, 6/21/09, p.F3)
2009 Jun 16, The US added six African countries to a blacklist of countries trafficking in people, and put US trading partner Malaysia back on the list. Chad, Eritrea, Niger, Mauritania, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe were added to the list in the annual report. Removed from the list were Qatar, Oman, Algeria, and Moldova.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, US FDA said consumers should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products because they can permanently damage the sense of smell.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Rhode Island became the 3rd state in the US to allow marijuana sales to chronically ill patients as the General Assembly voted to override a veto by Gov. Don Carcieri.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.A7)
2009 Jun 16, GM and Sweden's Koenigsegg said they have struck a deal for Koenigsegg, a niche manufacturer of some of the world's fastest and most expensive sports cars, to buy loss-making Saab Automobile from General Motors.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, The British government declared a goal for Britain become the world's "digital capital" by building cutting-edge broadband, telecoms and media infrastructure to cement its role as a "global economic powerhouse."
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, The $13.5 billion takeover of Barclays Global Investors by BlackRock was finalized. This created the world’s largest asset manager. By 2013 Aladdin, the risk management platform on its computers, kept its eye on almost 7$ of the world’s $225 trillion of financial assets.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.73)(Econ, 9/3/11, p.74)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.25)
2009 Jun 16, A new hydrogen car designed for use in cities and backed by Sebastian Piech, a relative of the founder of German luxury sportscar maker Porsche, was unveiled in London. The two-seater Riversimple Urban Car can travel 240 miles without refueling, weighs just 350 kilograms (770 pounds) and has a top speed of 50 miles per hour.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, China’s Pres. Hu Jintao announced a $10 billion loan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 2001. The SCO grouped China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
(http://tinyurl.com/pr5v65j)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.51)
2009 Jun 16, In the Dominican Rep. Mauricio Encarnacion Castillo and Ramon Antonio del Rosario set cocaine evidence on fire after exchanging gunfire with police conducting a raid. The house in San Pedro de Macoris then caught fire and the men died of smoke inhalation.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Guatemalan authorities confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million, the country's biggest seizure of the methamphetamine precursor.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Indian PM Manmohan Singh met with Pakistan's president for the first time since last year's deadly terrorist attacks on Mumbai, and told him Pakistan must prevent its territory from being used to launch such attacks. The leaders of South Asia's nuclear-armed neighbors met on the sidelines of summits in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Indonesia 16 miners were rescued after a massive explosion of methane gas collapsed a coal mine owned by local residents in West Sumatra province. 5 of the rescued miners died in hospital and the death toll rose to 31 the next day after rescuers unearthed more bodies. One more miner was believed to be buried.
(AFP, 6/16/09)(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, A spokesman said Iran's Islamic leadership is prepared to conduct a limited recount of disputed presidential elections, as thousands of people took to the streets to show support for the regime. Authorities clamped down on independent media in an attempt to control images of election protests, but pictures and videos leaked out anyway, showing how difficult it is to shut off the flow of information in the Internet age.
(AP, 6/16/09)(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Iraq a commuter bus traveling from Baghdad to a southern city caught fire near Kut, killing 14 passengers on board. An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, Italian police said they had arrested 13 people suspected of helping a top Mafia fugitive hide, communicate with other mobsters and conduct his business. Investigators said they are closing in on Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive who is among a handful of mobsters vying to take over the Sicilian Mafia. Most of the arrests were carried out in Trapani, a city in Western Sicily that is the power base of Messina Denaro.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Malaysia Teoh BEng Hock, a young aide to a state councilor, fell from a window where Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officials had been questioning him. The MACC had been created earlier this year from the ashes of another agency.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.48)
2009 Jun 16, In northern Mexico police found the bodies of seven young men who were beaten or shot to death in the state of Durango. In western Michoacan state, three suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with local police in the city of Uruapan. The Navy reported that it had detected a shipment of cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks aboard a freight ship at the Gulf coast port of Progreso.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua made a fresh amnesty offer in Abuja to militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta and promised that an amnesty centre would be set up.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Northern Ireland racist thugs armed with bricks and bottles forced more than 100 Romanian Gypsies from their Belfast homes in a wave of attacks that sent them fleeing to the safety of a nearby church.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, North Korea said that two female US journalists whom it jailed last week for 12 years had admitted a politically motivated smear campaign against the communist state. Ri Hyon Ok (33) was executed in Ryongchon for distributing the Bible. She was also accused of spying for South Korea and the US and organizing dissidents according to later reports by South Korean activists.
(AFP, 6/16/09)(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jun 16, The Norwegian firm Opera Software unveiled new technology that allows it Opera 10 Web browser to also function as a file server. A feature called Opera Unite enables users to push content and establish communications without the need for a 3rd party.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 16, Pakistan's military said it is in the early stages of an operation targeting the country's Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a key stronghold of al-Qaida and other militants.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, A Palestinian military tribunal in a security compound in the West Bank town of Jenin sentenced Taghreed, her last name was not released, to a life term of hard labor. The woman (22) said she became an informer for Israel to earn money that would get her out of prostitution.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Russia leaders from the world's top emerging economic powers met for their first summit to plot a strategy to increase their clout amid the global crisis. Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) failed to reach consensus on a new reserve currency. They did issue a statement calling for a more diversified int’l. monetary system.
(AFP, 6/16/09)(SFC, 6/17/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 16, Russia welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his first trip abroad since his bitterly disputed re-election, a show of support for a leader facing major protests at home and questions from the West about the legitimacy of the vote count.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 17, The Obama administration proposed a sweeping overhaul of the financial system. An 88-page wish list of changes released by the Treasury Dept. would require the approval of Congress and included broad new powers for the Federal Reserve to supervise institutions considered to big to fail. It included a proposal for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).
(SFC, 6/18/09, p.A1)(Econ, 6/20/09, p.77)
2009 Jun 17, A White House official said President Barack Obama, whose gay and lesbian supporters have grown frustrated with his slow movement on their priorities, is extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees but stopping short of a guarantee of full health insurance.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, The Obama administration said it will pump more than $130 million into the , Montana towns of Libby and Troy, where asbestos contamination has been blamed for more than 200 deaths.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 17, Ten large US banks said they had repaid a total of $68 billion in bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
(SFC, 6/18/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 17, The number of Nebraska cattle herds quarantined because of bovine tuberculosis concerns jumped to 42 and Colorado and South Dakota were warned the disease may have already spread there.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, It was reported that security researchers at Finjan, a venture–funded security company in San Jose, have identified a sophisticated online network, called GoldenCashworld, that was used for buying and selling access to infected PCs. The network included tools for creating malicious code and stolen credentials for about 100,000 Web sites.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 17, In southern Afghanistan 3 Danish soldiers were when a bomb exploded as their vehicle passed down Highway 1 heading toward the town of Barakhzai in Helmand province.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In southeastern Algeria Islamist rebels ambushed a military convoy and killed at least 18 gendarmes and one civilian in the deadliest attack on government forces in the last six months. In 2011 a criminal court sentenced six people to death for the attack, for which Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 6/18/09)(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)(AFP, 1/29/11)
2009 Jun 17, Belarus set up customs posts on its border with Russia for the first time in 14 years as a trade dispute between the two countries escalated.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, China and Russia expressed serious concern about tension on the Korean peninsula and, in the face of North Korea's rhetoric, joined international pressure for it to return to nuclear talks.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In China’s Hubei province, the body of Tu Yuangao (24) was found in front of the Shishou city hotel. Xinhua News later said that Tu worked as a chef at the hotel and some believed he was killed by gangsters or by the hotel's boss, who is related to the city mayor. The Communist Party boss of Shishou and head of law enforcement were dismissed on July 25 for mishandling the violent protests that followed Yuangao’s death.
(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jun 17, In China 16 miners became stuck when the Xinqiao Coal Mine flooded in Henan province. 3 of the men were rescued on July 12.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jun 17, Ralf Dahrendorf (80), German thinker and politician, died. He spent his life defining and defending liberty and wrote almost 30 books to this end.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.94)
2009 Jun 17, In Greece gunmen shot dead an anti-terrorist police officer guarding a witness in central Athens, in an escalation of domestic terrorist attacks in the country.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a direct challenge to the country's supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest disputed election results and violence against his followers. International human rights organizations said that many prominent activists and politicians have been arrested in Iran in response to protests over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 6/17/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 17, Iraqi forces acting on tips arrested Ahmed Abid Uwaid (45), a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq leader, who was believed to be a mastermind of the June 12 assassination Harith al-Obeidi, a prominent Sunni lawmaker in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/17/09)(SFC, 6/18/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 17, In Mexico four teenagers were shot to death on a Ciudad Juarez street by gunmen wielding assault rifles. The four were between the ages of 16 and 18.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 17, In Nigeria a Ukrainian plane made an emergency landing due to technical problems in the northern city of Kano. Eighteen crates of mines and ammunition, destined for Equatorial Guinea, were found aboard the aircraft. The crew and a Nigerian collaborator were detained and soon transferred to Abuja for questioning.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 17, Royal Dutch Shell said it had deferred shipments of crude oil from its Nigerian Forcados exports terminal for two months due to delays in repairing a key pipeline damaged by vandals.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In northwest Pakistan tribesman seeking to avenge a deadly mosque bombing killed six Taliban. 22 suspected rebels were killed in the Swat Valley over the last 24 hours in an ongoing military offensive.
(AFP, 6/17/09)(SFC, 6/18/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 17, Somali government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Mogadishu, triggering battles that killed at least 17 people, including Col. Ali Said , the capital's police chief.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, American engineers Raymond Tomlinson (b.1941) and Martin Cooper (b.1928), who were instrumental in developing e-mail and mobile phones, won one of Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias awards for revolutionizing the way people communicate.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 18, The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that William Osborne, a prisoner convicted in Alaska in 1994, has no constitutional right to DNA testing to prove his innocence. In April 2008, a three-judge panel of US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that Osborne should be allowed to obtain new DNA tests. The court said that it is up to the states and Congress to decide such rights.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A7)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/mkmte2)
2009 Jun 18, An Alabama state judge ordered former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to pay nearly $2.9 billion to shareholders who sued over a massive accounting fraud that nearly sent the rehabilitation chain into bankruptcy.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, In a replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial a federal jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset (32) of Minnesota willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions. Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, NASA launched its Lunar Crater Observation and sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The Mission Objectives LCROSS included confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s South Pole.
(AP, 6/18/09)(http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/)
2009 Jun 18, Ali Akbar Khan (87), Indian-born master of the 25-string Sarod, died at his home in San Anselmo, Ca.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.B3)
2009 Jun 18, In southern Afghanistan a bomb strapped to a parked bicycle exploded near a construction office in Kandahar city, killing one employee and a child about 11 years old. Afghan and International forces killed 16 Taliban militants in a gunbattle in Uruzgan province. One police officer also died in the fighting.
(AP, 6/18/09)(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, The Bank of Scotland said Fred Goodwin, its disgraced former boss, has agreed to take a 40% pension cut, after widespread pressure to do so. He will see his annual pension reduced to 342,500 pounds from 555,000 pounds. The agreement was condemned by trade unions who said it did not go far enough.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In northern Albania an explosive device killed Aleksander Keka (34), a conservative regional leader of Albania's opposition Christian Democratic Party, as he drove near Shkodra, 10 days ahead of the country's parliamentary election.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, A study by an environmental group said pollution in the Mekong River is putting the rare Irrawaddy dolphin in danger of disappearing from Cambodia and Laos.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, Canadian officials said about 70,000 harbor seals were killed in this year’s hunt out of a commercial quota of 273,000 animals. The 7-month hunt had ended earlier this week.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 18, China's Internet watchdog condemned the Chinese-language version of Google for "disseminating pornographic and vulgar information."
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, China angrily denounced the recent approval by the Asian Development Bank of a 2.9-billion-dollar funding plan for India, saying the scheme encroached on a territorial dispute between the Asian giants. China was particularly concerned about a 60-million-dollar watershed protection project in the Arunachal Pradesh region, where much of China and India's territorial dispute is centered.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Haiti a confrontation between UN peacekeepers and mourners for Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a popular priest allied with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left one person dead. A video showed marchers throwing rocks at UN soldiers, who periodically turned and fired their assault rifles into the air.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Iran supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi for a 4th straight day rallied in the streets of Tehran over the disputed presidential election, answering the opposition leader's call to turn out dressed in black to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Iraq a special committee set up by PM al-Maliki began an investigation into allegations of widespread abuse and torture in Iraq's prisons, which is threatening to become a major issue ahead of Jan. 30 national elections. Four bodies bearing signs of gunshot wounds were found in Baghdad’s Sadr city. Lawmakers loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr later claimed that men appearing to be Iraqi soldiers had stormed two houses in Sadr City and arrested four men, whose bodies were found the next day.
(AP, 6/18/09)(http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=114910)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 18, Mexico levied organized crime and drug charges against seven mayors, the former state attorney general and 19 other officials in the western state of Michoacan for allegedly aiding a drug cartel.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, Nigeria's main militant group said it had destroyed a major crude oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell as it fights a campaign against foreign oil companies.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In northwestern Pakistan suspected US missile strikes pounded the hide-outs of Taliban commander Malang Wazir, killing at least eight people.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Peru a top Indian leader called for an end to protests that left dozens dead in the Amazon region after Congress revoked two decrees that indigenous groups said would spur oil and gas exploitation and other development on their ancestral lands.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In western Somalia a suicide bombing killed at least 25 people including National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden at the Medina Hotel in Belet Weyne. Al-Shabab, an extremist group with alleged links to the al-Qaida terror network, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 6/18/09)(AP, 7/26/09)
2009 Jun 18, Thailand security forces killed four suspected Muslim militants in a gunbattle in southern Yala province.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, The United States joined the UN Human Rights Council, a body widely criticized for failing to confront abuses around the world and for acting primarily to condemn Israel, one of Washington's closest allies.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The US House impeached imprisoned US District Judge Samuel Kent of Texas for lying about sexual assaults of two women. Kent (59) entered a federal prison in Massachusetts on June 15 to serve a 33-month sentence. He pleaded guilty last month to lying to judicial investigators about sexual assaults of two female employees. Kent was refusing to resign until next year so he can continue to draw his $174,000 a year salary. If he is convicted of the impeachment charges in the Senate, he will be forced off the bench.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Federal prosecutors in Virginia indicted Texas financier Allen Stanford (59) and 4 others on fraud and other charges in connection with a multi-billion Ponzi scheme.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 19, US census officials announced that same-sex married couples would be counted for the first time in the 2010 census.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.38)
2009 Jun 19, In Illinois tank cars loaded with thousands of gallons of highly flammable ethanol exploded in flames as a freight train derailed in Rockford, killing Zoila Tellez (41) and forcing evacuations of hundreds of nearby homes.
(AP, 6/20/09)(SSFC, 6/21/09, p.A9)
2009 Jun 19, In Michigan officials said 36 members of 4 violent Detroit street gangs were arrested with immigration, probation, weapons and other violations as part of a nationwide crackdown.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 19, Google Inc. said that it was working to block pornography reaching users of its Chinese service after a mainland watchdog found the search engine turned up large numbers of links to obscene and vulgar sites.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson took part in a ceremonial groundbreaking at the remote site of Spaceport America, about 45 north of Las Cruces. The spaceport was being constructed for commercial space development.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 19, In Afghanistan a university student in Kandahar City was found dead with his throat cut in a side room of a mosque where he had gone to study. A British soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed in an explosion while on patrol near the town of Lashkar Gah in the southern province of Helmand. A roadside bomb tore through a car in the western province of Herat, killing six members of a family. 26 Taliban were killed in an air strike conducted by foreign forces near Lashkar Gah. 7 other insurgents were killed elsewhere in Helmand.
(AP, 6/19/09)(AFP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 19, The Brazilian government apologized for the torture and abuse of 44 poor farmers under the military regime that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985 and announced reparations for the victims.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 19, A top Congo army officer said 32 people have been killed in three days of fighting in eastern Congo between government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu rebels backed by Congolese militia allies.
(Reuters, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei said that the country's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue massive demonstrations demanding a new election.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The bodies of two men were handed over to the British embassy in the Iraqi capital with the Foreign Office saying the remains were "highly likely" to be those of Jason Swindlehurst (38) and Jason Creswell (39). They were among four guards protecting Peter Moore when around 40 heavily armed militants seized all five men at the finance ministry in central Baghdad on May 29, 2007.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 19, EU leaders agreed to establish a European System Risk Board. It was intended to sound an alarm over the build up of risk and to create new European supervisory authorities to keep an eye on big cross-border financial institutions.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.73)
2009 Jun 19, In West Germany 3 German retirees, who lost $1.4 million in the financial crisis, kidnapped James Amburn (56), their American investment adviser, in an attempt to recoup the money. Amburn was freed by police after 4 days. In 2010 the retirees were convicted, with their 74-year-old ringleader and sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 3/23/10)(http://tinyurl.com/yhdokyf)
2009 Jun 19, Isamu Akasaki (80), a professor at Nagoya University in central Japan, was among the winners of this year's Kyoto Prizes. He will receive the advanced technology award for his pioneering work in the development of blue light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. Peter (72) and Rosemary Grant (72), a husband-and-wife team of biologists from Princeton University, won for their decades of research on evolution in the Galapagos Islands and will share an award of $515,000. This year's award in arts and philosophy went to French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (84).
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Mexico authorities in the border city of Ciudad Juarez said they would step up patrols after killings there rebounded to levels near those that led the government to send in 5,000 army troops in March. In Michoacan state gunmen tossed a grenade at an ambulance and then opened its doors to kill a patient inside who had narrowly survived an earlier shooting in Uruapan. Paramedics ran for their lives during the attack. The man (23) died and his wife (20) was listed in serious condition.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 19, Nigeria's main militant group said it had destroyed a major pipeline supplying crude oil to Italian oil group Agip's Brass exports terminal.
(AFP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Pakistani fighter jets bombed Taliban militant hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, as the death toll from a suspected US missile strike a day earlier rose to 13.
(AFP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, New York Times reporter David S. Rohde (41) escaped from kidnappers in Pakistan after more than seven months in captivity and was flown to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan the next day.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 19, A leading South African research group said one in four male South Africans it surveyed admitted to committing rape, a finding that cast a harsh light on a culture of sexual violence that victims groups say is deeply embedded in society.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, South Korea rejected North Korea's demand for a massive increase in wages and rent at a joint industrial park struggling to stay afloat, leaving the fate of more than 100 companies and 40,000 workers there hanging in balance.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, In Spain a powerful bomb exploded near the Basque city of Bilbao, killing a policeman in an attack blamed on the separatist group ETA.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said one in six people in the world, or more than 1 billion, is now hungry, a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN said Colombia's coca crop shrank by nearly a fifth last year while cultivation of the bush that is the basis of cocaine rose for a third straight year in Peru and Bolivia, the world's two other coca-producing nations.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 20, The US pharmaceutical industry agreed to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, The SF Chronicle displayed a picture of a 9x7x2 foot, miniature, toothpick construct of San Francisco, created over the last 34 years by Scott Weaver of Rohnert Park, Ca. Weaver spent some 3,000 hours creating the work.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 20, It was reported that that the H1N1 swine flu virus has spread to at least 76 countries and caused over 160 deaths, and that Brazilian researchers have identified a new strain of the virus.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.D12)
2009 Jun 20, In eastern Afghanistan one soldier serving with the US-led coalition was killed in an insurgent attack.
(AFP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, In central China hundreds of baton-wielding police dispersed protesters and cordoned off a Shishou city hotel after a young man's mysterious death sparked unrest [see June 17]. In eastern China an explosion at a factory producing quartz sand killed 16 people and injured dozens in Fengyang, a county in Anhui province.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, Greece opened its new, $180.5 million Acropolis Museum with a lavish party, bolstering its long campaign for the return of 2,500-year-old sculptures stripped from the citadel more than two centuries ago. It was designed by Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis.
(AP, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.89)
2009 Jun 20, Indian troops regained control of Lalgarh town captured by Maoists during a rebellion by the left-wing activists against West Bengal state's communist rulers.
(AFP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, In Iran witnesses said police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran in open defiance of Iran's clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A blast at the Tehran shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wounded two. The clashes left at least 10 dead and 100 injured. Among those killed was Neda Agha Soltan (b.1982), whose death was captured on video.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neda_(Iranian_protester))
2009 Jun 20, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki called the withdrawal of US troops from cities by the end of this month a "great victory" and promised it would go ahead as scheduled. Hour later in northern in Taza, a mostly Turkomen city, a truck bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque following prayers, killing 82 people and wounding 163.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 20, Italian police in Sicily said they have arrested 14 people and placed more than 250 under investigation in the country's biggest sweep against Internet child pornography.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, Kashmir valley closed down in the latest protest over the alleged rape and murder of two Muslim women that has triggered massive anti-India demonstrations in the disputed Himalayan region.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, Pakistani warplanes resumed strikes against militant hideouts in South Waziristan. There was heavy fighting in the villages of Barwand and Madijan and about 50 militants were killed, the first confirmed militant casualties of the offensive in South Waziristan. A citizens' militia trying to drive out the Taliban killed seven militants in a two-hour clash in the troubled northwest. Another militant was wounded in the fighting night near the village of Patrak. The military killed seven militants and arrested 16 others in Malakand, which includes Upper and Lower Dir, Buner and Swat districts.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, In the southern Philippines suspected Muslim guerrillas hurled two grenades near a crowded town plaza where a beauty contest was being held, killing at least one person and wounding 32 others in the predominantly Christian town of Maasim, Sarangani province.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, Somali lawmakers pleaded for international military intervention within 24 hours to help fight Islamic insurgents, where fierce fighting has resumed in Mogadishu. The government called for troops from Kenya and Ethiopia to come to its aid.
(AP, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.56)
2009 Jun 20, Venezuela’s Commerce Minister Eduardo Saman, a close confidant of President Hugo Chavez, announced that the government would annul patents on some medicines under a reform of existing intellectual property laws. Industry leaders soon responded saying the action could cause shortages and scare off foreign investment.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, In Venezuela authorities arrested Salvatore Miceli, suspected of being a key intermediary in the drug trafficking trade and one of Italy's most dangerous Mafia fugitives, as he left his apartment in Caracas. Police also picked up two other Italian suspects.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, Zimbabwean PM Morgan Tsvangirai was booed and shouted down by exiles during a speech in London when he pleaded with them to return home to help rebuild the shattered country.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In Afghanistan a rare rocket attack on Bagram Air Base, the main US base, killed two US troops and wounded six other Americans, including two civilians.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In northeastern Central African Republic 10 people were killed in an attack on the town of Birao. A UFDR spokesman said armed men attacked a base of the former rebels of the Union of Democratic Forces for the Rally, two weeks after a similar attack. They were described as "thieves" from the Kara tribe, an ethnic minority within the UFDR, whose members oppose the leadership of Zakaria Damane, head of the movement.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, In China the Danish-Swedish comedy “Original," about mental illness, won the best picture at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival. It also took the best actor award for lead Sverrir Gudnason.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, Haiti held Senate run-offs elections. Fed up with chronic poverty and unresponsive leaders many stayed away from the elections, ignoring government efforts to improve on the paltry voter turnout that undercut the first round of voting in April.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In central India at least 11 special police personnel were killed and 10 injured in a landmine blast triggered overnight by suspected Maoist rebels in the state of Chhattisgarh.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In Iran an eerie calm settled over the streets of Tehran as state media said authorities had arrested the daughter and four other relatives of ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most powerful men. The reports brought the official death toll for a week of boisterous confrontations to at least 19. Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen, was arrested. He was released on bail on Oct 17.
(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Jun 21, It was reported that handguns, rifles and bullets enter Jamaica from the US stoking one of the world's highest murder rates.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, Nigeria's main militant group said it had attacked a Shell offshore facility, the third attack against the Anglo-Dutch company's facilities in Nigeria in one day. The company denied the incident, saying the alleged incident was part of the attack on two other Shell oil pipelines in southern Rivers state earlier in the day.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud.
(Reuters, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, The Portuguese foreign minister said his country will take in 2-3 Guantanamo Bay detainees once they are released by the US detention camp.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In San Juan, Puerto Rico, a lone man who robbed $340,000 from a popular hotel and casino by threatening a supervisor's family.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, Ukrainian border guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train from Uzbekistan, where they had been hidden and strapped down with tape to prevent them from moving.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, Pres. Obama, in an effort to curb teen smoking, signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The legislation gave the FDA unprecedented authority to regulate what goes into tobacco products.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A6)(Econ, 6/20/09, p.33)
2009 Jun 22, The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow a mining company to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby 23-acre lake, although the material will kill all of the lake's fish. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called the decision "great news for Alaska" and said it "is a green light for responsible resource development." The Kensington gold mine 45 miles north of Juneau will produce as many as 370 jobs when it begins operation.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Lead, South Dakota, scientists, politicians and other officials gathered for a groundbreaking of sorts at a lab 4,850 foot below the surface of an old gold mine that was once the site of Nobel Prize-winning physics research, a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, Kodak announced that it would discontinue the production of its Kodachrome 64 color film.
(SFC, 7/7/09, p.D1)
2009 Jun 22, In Kansas 4 bodies, including a 3-year-old girl, were found on the front year of a Kansas City home. Adrian Burks (37) was arrested the next day and charged with aggravated battery in the beating of another man hours before the slayings. Two days later Burks was charged with the 4 murders.
(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 22, A Washington DC Metrorail transit system train plowed into another stopped train, killing at least seven people and injuring scores of others. It was part of an aging fleet that federal officials had sought to phase out because of safety concerns.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, US pilot Capt. George B. Houghton (28), of Candler, NC, died in an F-16 crash at the Utah Test and Training Range near the Nevada-Utah state line.
(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 22, The United States dedicated the site of a new $170 million representative office in Taiwan.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed 7 civilians when he drove into the center of eastern Khost city and set off explosives. In Kandahar province another suicide bomber killed 3 Afghan soldiers in an attack on a convoy of troops inspecting a highway bridge for explosives. In eastern Nangarhar province, an explosion at a weapons cache killed a 6-year-old boy and wounded 20 others. A major clash in the southwestern province of Farah left nine militants and two Afghan troops dead.
(AP, 6/22/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, Australian police said that an e-mail challenging PM Kevin Rudd's honesty in his 19-month-old government's biggest political crisis appeared to be a forgery.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In eastern Bolivia 8 men from a Mennonite farming community were arrested following accusations of raping dozens of females at the settlement. 60 women, from 11 to 47 years old, have accused the men of rape.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, Britain pledged an extra five million pounds in aid to Zimbabwe, hailing progress under a new unity government but urging more reform after landmark talks between leaders of the two countries.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Toronto, Canada, garbage collectors, daycare workers and other municipal employees went on strike in a contract dispute that could lead to a prolonged shutdown of important services.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Colombia rebels killed at least seven members of a police counterinsurgency unit in an ambush in the country's southwest.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Democratic Republic of Congo rioting inmates overnight raped around 20 female prisoners during a failed prison break in Goma. Two people were killed and 12 others were injured when prisoners detonated two grenades.
(Reuters, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of subservience that suppresses women's identities.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, Across eastern and central India security forces were on high alert as Maoists staged a 2-day general strike and the federal government slapped a formal ban on the rebels.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Ingushetia a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy carrying Yunus Bek Yevkurov (45), the president of the troubled Russian province, critically wounding him and killing two bodyguards. A 3rd guard died later from his wounds. A group, which calls itself the Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs' Brigade, later said it staged the attack on the president of Ingushetia because of his support for Kremlin policies and because of his role in the second war in Chechnya that began in 1999.
(AP, 6/22/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, In Iran riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran, carrying out a threat by the country's most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election. The Guardian Council, acknowledged voting irregularities in 50 electoral districts in the June 12 vote, the most serious official admission so far of problems in the election that the opposition has labeled a fraud.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Iraq bombings killed as many as 18 people in the Baghdad area as violence intensified ahead of a planned withdrawal next week of US troops from major cities and urban areas. Bombings and shooting killed over 30 people across Iraq.
(AP, 6/22/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 22, In Italy Khaled Hussein (73), a Palestinian man who helped plan the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, died of a heart attack in a jail in Benevento.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, In Kashmir 4 Indian police officials were suspended over their handling of a rape and murder case that has sent shockwaves through the disputed Muslim-majority region.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, Mexican customs officials made 3 major drug seizures. Nearly 1,000 pounds (450 kilos) of cocaine was found hidden in a shipment of tires from Colombia, found at the Pacific port of Manzan. More than 1,200 pounds (545 kilos) of marijuana was discovered in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. 330 pounds (150 kilos) of pseudophedrine pills, used to make methamphetamine, was found in a shipment of medical supplies from Bangladesh, stopped at Mexico City International Airport.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 22, Pakistan's army said they were in the final phase of a campaign to crush militants in Swat valley, as clashes intensified with Taliban fighters in the northwest tribal belt. Militants near the Afghan border launched attacks on three Pakistani military bases and fighter jets responded with airstrikes that killed at least 25 people, mostly insurgents. 3 women and 3 children died when the house of a local tribal leader was hit in the Razmak area. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a police checkpoint in the Bagram district bordering Swat, killing two people.
(AFP, 6/22/09)(AP, 6/22/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 22, An Islamic court in Somalia sentenced four men to have a hand and a leg cut off for stealing mobile phones and guns. The court postponed the punishment the next day saying the hot weather could cause them to bleed to death.
(AP, 6/23/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, Pirates off Somalia were chased down and captured by NATO’s Portuguese warship, the Corte-real, after an attempted hijacking of a Singaporean freighter.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, In Tanzania a UN court, trying alleged masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, sentenced former interior minister Callixte Kalimanzira (56) to 30 years in prison for tricking thousands of people to hide on a hill, only to watch them get slaughtered by militias.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 23, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the United States is launching a World Trade Organization case against China over its export restrictions on raw materials. The EU said it was joining the US in the action, which follows failure to persuade China to reduce its export tariffs and raise quotas on materials such as zinc, tin, tungsten and yellow phosphorous.
(Reuters, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, CIA director Leon Panetta, learned of a nascent CIA counterterrorism program within the CIA, terminated it and the next day called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees to inform them of the program and that it was canceled. Former Vice President Dick Cheney had directed the CIA in 2001 not to inform Congress about the nascent counterterrorism program, which developed plans to dispatch small teams to kill senior Al-Qaida terrorists.
(AP, 7/12/09)(SFC, 7/14/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 23, In Santa Cruz, California, Clyde Persley (49) turned in his winning SuperLotto Plus ticket and should get his first check for about $16 million in four to six weeks.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 23, Ed McMahon (86), loyal "Tonight Show" sidekick, died. He bolstered boss Johnny Carson with guffaws and a resounding "H-e-e-e-e-e-ere's Johnny!" for 30 years.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Afghanistan 3 German soldiers were killed when their patrol near the northern city of Kunduz came under fire. A suicide car bombing targeting a US-led military convoy in the eastern province of Ghazni killed two passers-by. Also in Ghazni, Taliban ambushed a police convoy, killing a policeman. 3 Afghan aid workers were killed in a roadside bombing in the northern province of Jawzjan. Another blast killed three policeman just outside the southern city of Kandahar. Afghan and coalition forces killed 23 suspected Taliban fighters in a clash in southern Uruzgan province. Mullah Ismail, a Taliban commander in the region, was killed during the clash. A box of leaflets dropped from a British plane killed a girl.
(AFP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Britain wildcat strikes spread to oil refineries and power plants across the country. Thousands of workers demonstrated outside the Lindsey terminal in Lincolnshire, where almost 650 contract workers were sacked by French oil giant Total last week.
(AFP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Bulgarian authorities detained Agim Ceku (59), a former Kosovo prime minister (2006-2008), on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol at Serbia's request. He is wanted for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-1999 war when he was military chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, made up of ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 23, The French parliament created a commission to study the wearing of body-covering burqas and niqabs in France, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Islamic garment turns women into prisoners.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Frederic Mitterrand (b.1947) was appointed to the French government as the Minister of Culture and Communications.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Mitterrand)
2009 Jun 23, An Indian court issued arrest warrants for 22 Pakistani nationals accused of masterminding last year's deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks, including the founder of an Islamist militant group recently freed by a Pakistani court.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Iran's top electoral body said it found "no major fraud" and will not annul the results of the presidential election, closing the door to a do-over sought by angry opposition supporters alleging systematic vote-rigging. The 12-member Guardian Council also received approval for an extension of its examination to June 29. 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 6/23/09)(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A2)(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 23, Abdel Aziz Duaik, the most senior Hamas leader being held by Israel, was freed after serving the bulk of his three-year sentence.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, A Kyrgyz parliamentary committee approved a deal in which the United States has agreed to pay more than triple the previous rent for use of a key air base in Kyrgyzstan to ship non-lethal military supplies to Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Mauritania gunmen attempted to kidnap Christopher Ervin Leggett (39), an American teacher, then shot and killed him when he tried to resist. Leggett had taught at a center specializing in computer science in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott. Al-Qaida's North Africa branch soon claimed responsibility for the killing. On July 17 police arrested two suspects in the killing. On July 24 a 3rd suspect, Didi Ould Bezeid (26), was arrested in Nouakchott.
(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jun 23, Northern Ireland’s government said more than 100 Romanian Gypsies who suffered racist attacks and intimidation in Belfast are being flown back home at taxpayer expense.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Pakistan 3 unmanned drones fired missiles at the funeral procession for suspected militants killed in South Waziristan by a similar strike earlier in the day. As many as 50-80 people were reported killed. Taliban faction leader Qari Zainuddin was fatally shot in Dera Ismail Khan, reportedly by one of his own guards. He was seen as the chief rival to Baitullah Mehsud, the militant group's Pakistani head.
(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 23, Serbia's war crimes court convicted Damir Sireta, a Croatian Serb man, for the execution-style killings in Vukovar of some 200 Croatian prisoners of war in 1991 during the Balkan conflict. Sireta was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Swedish retailer IKEA announced that it was suspending its investment in Russia because of “the “unpredictable character of administrative procedures, a euphemism for graft.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.63)
2009 Jun 24, In Arizona Trenda Lynne Halton of Peoria was indicted for recruiting as many as 136 people to pose as college students and defrauding the government out of nearly $154,000 in student aid money.
(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 24, In Arizona a private plane crashed killing 4 people. The plane was returning to Texas from California and carried over 12 pounds of marijuana and over $8,000 cash.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 24, Ed Thomas, Iowa high school football coach, was shot at Aplington-Parkersburg High School while training in the school weight room. Thomas soon died of his wounds and former student Mark Becker (24) was arrested for the murder.
(www.iowa.gov/government/ag/latest_news/releases/july_2009/Mark_Becker.html)
2009 Jun 24, South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Stanford confessed to having an affair with a woman in Argentina and resigned as head of the Republican Governors Association.
(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 24, The Gosaibi family of Saudi Arabia held a creditor’s meeting in Bahrain. Their representatives revealed that the group owed $9.2 billion to over 120 banks all over the world.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.65)
2009 Jun 24, Denmark's Post Danmark A/S and Sweden's Posten AB merged to form the new holding company Posten Norden AB in the industry’s first-ever cross border tie up.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Danmark)
2009 Jun 24, Iran's supreme leader said that the government would not yield to demonstrators demanding the annulment of a disputed presidential election. The wife of the opposition leader said protesters would not buckle under a situation she compared to martial law. 70 university professors were detained after a meeting with opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the June 12 vote. All but four of the professors were soon released. Iranian authorities barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.
(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 24, In northern India a passenger bus plunged into a gorge, killing at least 25 people in Jammu-Kashmir state.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, In Indian-ruled Kashmir thousands of people defied a ban on protest marches with a fresh demonstration over the alleged rape and murder of two young Muslim women by Indian troops.
(AFP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, In Iraq an explosion late in Sadr City killed 78 people and wounded 158. The bomb was built using about 200 kilograms (441 pounds) of high explosives packed with steel bearing and other metal objects. It was apparently loaded on a motorcycle pulling a cart.
(AP, 6/25/09)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A3)(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 24, The Nigerian government met with militants from the oil-producing states of the Delta to make an amnesty offer for fighters who cease hostilities in the south of the country. President Umaru Yar'Adua ordered the release of the leader of a militant group from the oil-rich Niger Delta. Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, head of the Niger Delta People's Volunteers Force (NDPVF), was arrested the previous evening on returning from a medical exam in Germany.
(AFP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev arrived in Nigeria to sign gas and nuclear energy pacts, becoming the first Kremlin leader to visit Africa's most populous and energy-rich nation.
(AFP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, North Korea threatened to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days. Meanwhile a US destroyer tailed a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of UN sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, Venezuela and the United States said they will restore their ambassadors more than nine months after President Hugo Chavez expelled the US envoy in his final diplomatic bout with the Bush administration.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 25, US officials acknowledged that the US organized an arms shipment to the Somali government earlier this month.
(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 25, Farrah Fawcett (b.1947), a 1970s sex symbol and TV star of "Charlie's Angels" (1976), died in Santa Monica, Ca. She had spent almost three years in private fighting for her life against cancer. The news came just a month after the airing of "Farrah's Story," a documentary in which she made public her painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, Michael Jackson (b.1958), pop superstar, died at age 50 in Los Angeles. His 1982 album, "Thriller," is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide. Jackson was awash in about $400 million in debt and on the cusp of a final comeback after well over a decade of scandal. On Aug 28 the office of the LA coroner confirmed that Jackson’s death was ruled a homicide caused by a mixture of propofol and lorazepam administered by Dr. Conrad Murray.
(AP, 6/26/09)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A11)(SFC, 8/29/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 25, Scientists reported new evidence that one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, has an ocean beneath its surface.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Antigua's former chief financial regulator surrendered to face US charges that he aided an alleged $7 billion swindle by Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved a law that could legalize landholdings by some 1 million squatters occupying a Texas-sized chunk of the Amazon rain forest, despite environmentalist fears it will accelerate deforestation.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, The government of East Timor said it plans to establish a national park to protect a bounty of dolphins and whales, some of them endangered species, recently discovered mingling and feeding off its coast.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, The EU said it will give China up to euro50 million ($70 million) to build a carbon capture and storage plant that will test a technology aimed at limiting climate change.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Honduras Pres. Manuel Zelaya said he would ignore a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to reinstate a military chief he fired.
(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 25, Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, pledged not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner, hard-line Pres. Ahmadinejad, accused US Pres Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, A bombing at a bus station in a Shiite neighborhood in southwest Baghdad killed at least 7 people and wounded 31 others. Another three bombs and a mortar killed two more people around the capital. At least 3 other bombs exploded in the country as US forces prepared to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30.
(AP, 6/25/09)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 25, Israeli and Palestinian defense officials said Israel has granted US-trained Palestinian security forces greater autonomy in four major West Bank cities. Bowing to pressure from Washington Israeli officials said the army would now reduce its presence in Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Jericho and Ramallah.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Italy foreign ministers of the industrialized Group of Eight gathered for a 3-day meeting in Trieste. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he hoped delegates from the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia will condemn the crackdown in Iran and urge a recount.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Kyrgyzstan's parliament unanimously approved a deal allowing the US to continue using an air base crucial to military operations in Afghanistan, sharply shifting course months after ordering American forces out by August. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the agreement into law in early July.
(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 7/7/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Mexico’s northern state of Sonora, assailants opened fire on a car carrying a congressional candidate for Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, killing two people who were with the candidate.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Namibia Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev called for boosting trade ties with Namibia, at the start of the first-ever visit by a Kremlin chief to the southern African nation. Pres. Hifikepunye Pohamba said his nation was also keen to strengthen cooperation and build a durable economic partnership.
(AFP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Nigerian rebels said that they carried out a pre-dawn attack against Royal Dutch Shell facilities in a warning to Russia not to invest in the country's oil and gas industry. Later in the day the main militant group blew up a well-head in a Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) oil field in Delta state, hours after President Umaru Yar'Adua announced an amnesty offer for gunmen.
(AFP, 6/25/09)(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, Tens of thousands of North Koreans shouted slogans to denounce international sanctions at a rally in central Pyongyang, as the communist country vowed to enlarge its atomic arsenal and warned of a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" in the event of a US attack.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Pakistan's PM Gilani told Washington's visiting top security adviser that the US must halt drone attacks on its soil, after they killed dozens of people in the northwest.
(AFP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Russia's Supreme Court overturned the acquittal of three men charged with the 2006 murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist whose reporting on Chechnya directly challenged the country's most powerful leaders.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Somalia in a brazen show of power in Mogadishu, Islamist rebels punished four convicted thieves (ages 18-25) by cutting off a hand and a foot each before hundreds of onlookers who gathered for the bloody spectacle.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Spanish legislators voted to change a law that let judges indict Osama bin Laden and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, narrowing its scope to cases with a clear link to this country and yielding to criticism that Spain should not be a global cop.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 26, US District Judge Denny Chin entered a preliminary order, ruling that Bernard Madoff (71) must give up his interests in all property, including real estate, investments, cars and boats. The $171 billion forfeiture order was handed down only days before prosecutors seek to put the disgraced financier away in prison for the rest of his life.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Georgia regulators shut down the Community Bank of West Georgia, marking the 41st failure this year of a federally insured bank.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 26, In Michigan Monica Conyers (44), Detroit City Councilwoman and wife of Rep. John Conyers (80), pleaded guilty to taking cash in exchange for her vote on a 2007 city sludge treatment contract with Synagro Corp. The contract was rescinded last January amid accusations of wrongdoing. On June 29 Monica Conyers resigned from office.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A5)(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 26, In Oklahoma 9 people died when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped outside Miami, Okla. A 10th person died a few days later.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 26, In Texas security guard Jesse William McGraw (25), head of the Elecktronik Tribulation Army, was arrested for hacking into computers at a Dallas medical clinic in hopes of launching a massive computer attack around July 4.
(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 26, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik, accused by the UN of being linked to al Qaeda, flew out of Sudan after a court order ended his six-year exile in Khartoum. Abdelrazik was born in Sudan and gained Canadian citizenship in 1995 after entering the country as a refugee. He returned to Sudan in 2003 to visit his sick mother and was arrested and held by Sudanese authorities on two occasions.
(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Dozens of China's most prominent writers and scholars called for the release of Liu Xiaobo (53), a dissident who was arrested on Dec 8, 2008, after co-authoring a bold manifesto urging civil rights and political reforms. Xiaobo, who had been held by police at a secret location for more than six months, was formally arrested this week on suspicion of "inciting to subvert state power," a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail. In southern China ethnic tensions between workers at a toy factory sparked a brawl that left two Uighurs dead and 118 injured. Han Chinese workers had accused Uighurs of rape.
(AP, 6/26/09)(AP, 6/27/09)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.27)(AP, 10/2/10)
2009 Jun 26, Holocaust survivors, Jewish groups and experts gathered in Prague to assess efforts to return property and possessions stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners or heirs.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Martinique is free to hold a referendum on greater political autonomy but made clear the island would always belong to France.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Honduras leftist President Manuel Zelaya pushed ahead with a June 27 referendum on revamping the constitution, risking his rule in a standoff against Congress, the Supreme Court and the military.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Group of Eight foreign ministers, meeting in Trieste, Italy, criticized Iran's postelection violence, and urged its ruling clergy to ensure the outcome of the disputed ballot reflects the will of the Iranian people. The G8 countries also condemned North Korea's nuclear and missile tests and called on the country to return to the negotiating table.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Iraq a booby-trapped motorcycle loaded with nails and ball-bearings exploded in a crowded bazaar in Baghdad, killing 19 people. The attack struck just four days before the deadline for US combat troops to withdraw from cities. Senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami called for harsh retribution for dissent. Opposition leader Mousavi lost his main link to the world after his official Web site Kalemeh, came up blank and stripped of any text or pictures.
(AP, 6/26/09)(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, Iraqi authorities captured Ali Hussein Alwan Hamid al-Azzawi, a senior leader of a militant group linked to al-Qaida in Iraq who oversaw the Aug 19, 2003, bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad and other attacks. His capture was not announced until Jan 16, 2010, to ensure the capture of other suspects believed to be linked to him.
(AP, 1/16/10)
2009 Jun 26, Ireland recognized the legal rights of same-sex couples for the first time in a civil partnership bill that gave people in long-term relationships many of the statutory rights of married couples.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, The Quartet of Mideast negotiators called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip. The US, Russia, UN and EU met on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers, who made a similar call for Mideast peace.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Kashmir a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up near an army vehicle, killing at least two soldiers in the first such assault in Pakistan's part of divided Kashmir, marking an escalation in the militant campaign against security forces.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Mexico a shootout between police and suspected cartel hit men left at least 12 people dead and a police officer wounded in the town of Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato state. Suspected cartel operator Omar Ibarra was caught on a street in the northern city of Monterrey. He reportedly possessed the names of 33 policemen in the wealthy suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia who had presumably received money from Ibarra. Gunmen in the border state of Sonora opened fire on a car carrying congressional hopeful Ernesto Cornejo, killing two people who were riding with him.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Morocco a security official said security forces have arrested five suspected members of a militant cell that operated in Morocco and Spain. The five alleged members of the Salafiya Jihadia group, whose leader uses the pseudonym Abou Yacine, were picked up during the course of the week.
(AFP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Four Nigerian militant factions accepted in principle an amnesty offer from President Umaru Yar'Adua, giving a boost to his efforts to end years of unrest in Africa's biggest oil industry. The amnesty will take effect from August 6.
(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Rwanda Aloys Nsekarije, former Rwandan foreign minister and business tycoon, was acquitted by a court over involvement in the country's 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Serbian prosecutors filed war crimes charges against 17 former Kosovo guerrillas for the alleged murder, rape and torture of Serb civilians. The suspects were charged in connection with the kidnapping of 159 Serbs and the deaths of at least 51 of them in the eastern Kosovo town of Gnjilane in the wake of Kosovo's 1998-99 war.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Switzerland Solar Impulse, a project run by aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, unveiled a prototype solar powered airplane, the HB-SIA.
(AP, 6/26/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.83)
2009 Jun 26, Turkey's parliament passed legislation aimed at meeting European Union membership criteria to ensure military personnel are tried in civilian courts during peacetime rather than in military courts.
(Reuters, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, The UN refugee agency said that the bloody conflict in Somalia has created the world's largest refugee camp, with 500 hungry and exhausted refugees pouring into a wind-swept camp in neighboring Kenya every day.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Human Rights Watch said that Zimbabwe's armed forces have taken over diamond fields in the east and killed more than 200 people, forcing children to search for the precious gems and beating villagers who get in the way.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, A UN official said Ugandan rebels this year have killed around 1,200 Congolese civilians and abducted 1,500, mostly children, in a remote region of northeast Congo.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 27, The United States announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts. Insurgent bomb attacks in Afghanistan killed a provincial deputy police chief and two civilians as Taliban militants stormed a checkpoint overnight and killed eight policemen. President Hamid Karzai called on Taliban and other militants to "vote for the president they want" in Afghanistan's presidential election, while a Taliban spokesman said militants would "disrupt" the vote without harming civilians.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AFP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Los Angeles County a gunman opened fire outside a restaurant in Pico Rivera during a fundraiser by the motorcycle group know as the Old School Riders. 3 people were killed and 7 others injured.
(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 27, In Roanoke, Virginia, William Ronald Carter (56), a retired tire factory worker, shot and killed his wife Bonnie (56) and a son (29) and summoned home another son Timothy (22), who was shot but survived. Carter then set the house on fire and killed himself.
(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 27, Gale Storm (b.1922 as Josephine Owaissa Cottle), singer and former film and TV star, died. Her wholesome appearance and perky personality made her one of early television's biggest stars on "My Little Margie" (1952-1955) and "The Gale Storm Show" (1956-1960). Her 1980 autobiography was titled "I Ain't Down Yet."
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In China a nearly finished 13-story apartment building collapsed in Shanghai killing one worker. Authorities soon detained nine people in an investigation into the collapse.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Dagestan Interior Ministry troops patrolling a village south of Makhachkala clashed with a group of 10 gunmen who tried to hole up in village houses, but were driven into surrounding hillsides. A police officer was killed. Officials then called in helicopter gunships and armored vehicles to shell the forests where the gunmen hid out. Troops sweeping the forest the next morning found the bodies of four gunmen.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Hong Kong Michael Mudd, a student at California State University, Chico, caused the crash of a taxi and the death of its driver before commandeering the vehicle and slamming it into another cab. In 2010 Mudd (23) was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2009 Jun 27, In Ireland some 12,000 people marched in this year’s Gay Pride Parade in downtown Dublin.
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 27, Kyrgyzstan security forces killed three alleged members of a terrorist organization in a shootout. Authorities identified the gunmen as Islamic militants and said one of those killed was their leader, a Kyrgyz citizen who had received training at a terrorist camp in Pakistan. Another of the dead was from Khanabad, a town in neighboring Uzbekistan. The security ministry said they belonged to the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), an obscure organization that Uzbek authorities have claimed is a splinter group of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 27, Lebanon's president appointed parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri to become prime minister after his pro-Western coalition defeated a Hezbollah-led alliance in this month's election.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Mauritania more than 10 months after being overthrown in a military coup, President Sidi Cheikh Ould Abdallahi, the country’s first freely elected president, gave up his claim to power and officially resigned.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Mexico’s western state of Michoacan, gunmen opened fire on a car carrying two forensic investigators in Zamora, killing a chemist and wounding a doctor. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, a women and her 3-year-old son were shot to death by unidentified assailants on a highway. Police uncovered a mass grave in central Mexico with the remains of 14 or 15 people believed to have been executed by the Zetas drug gang.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 27, NATO and Russia agreed to resume military ties and agree to cooperate on Afghanistan, counterterrorism and anti-piracy patrols at their first high-level meeting since last year's war between Russia and Georgia.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, Northern Ireland's oldest paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, announced its full disarmament, a long-sought peacemaking move that, if confirmed, would formally end the pro-British group's decades of terror against Irish Catholics.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Pakistan at least 12 militants were killed and more than a dozen wounded when government forces attacked suspected bases of Mehsud and his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in South Waziristan. Two Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban militant hideouts in Makeen and Laddah, killing 10 Taliban and injuring 15 others. Overnight, police killed five suspected militants with links to Mehsud who were said to be plotting terrorist attacks on the port city of Karachi. Militants fired six rockets at a security camp and a paramilitary fort in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan. Security forces in retaliation shelled the militants, killing two and wounding three others. A resident said the shelling also killed two civilians and wounded three others. Insurgents fired rockets at Pakistani forces at a South Waziristan paramilitary Frontier Corps camp, killing an officer and injuring three soldiers.
(AFP, 6/27/09)(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In the Philippines two soldiers were shot dead by suspected Abu Sayyaf members as they stepped outside of their camp to buy cigarettes in Tipo-tipo town, Basilan Island.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Thailand more than 18,000 "Red Shirt" protesters loyal to fugitive premier Thaksin Shinawatra gathered in Bangkok for the biggest anti-government rally since bloody riots two months ago.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, Thousands of Venezuelans held separate protests to support and condemn an opposition-aligned TV station that President Hugo Chavez's government has threatened with closure.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 28, The US Agriculture Department said a Colorado meat company is expanding a recall of beef due to possible contamination by E.coli O157:H7 bacteria after an investigation found 18 illnesses may be linked to the meat.
(Reuters, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, It was reported that bark beetles were killing millions of pine trees from Colorado to Canada. Over 7 million acres of forest in the US have been declared all but dead. 22 million more acres were expected to die over the next 15 years.
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.A16)
2009 Jun 28, Impressionist Fred Travalena (66), a headliner in Vegas showrooms and a regular on late-night talk shows with his takes on presidents, crooners and screen stars, died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, Billy Mays (50), known to television viewers as the OxiClean guy, died of a heart attack at his Tampa home. The boisterous pitchman aired on commercials hundreds of times a week nationwide showing off his latest cleaning product or gadget. An autopsy later showed that cocaine use contributed to his heart disease.
(AP, 6/29/09)(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A4)(SFC, 8/8/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 28, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber attacked a police vehicle in Nangarhar province, killing a child nearby and wounding nine people, including four policemen.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Albanians voted in parliamentary elections seen as a crucial test of democracy to prove the Balkan country is ready for EU membership. The governing Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party were neck-and-neck in pre-election polls. PM Berisha’s Democrats won 68 seats and allies won 2 seats in the 140-seat parliament.
(AP, 6/28/09)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A2)(SFC, 7/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 28, Argentina's first couple suffered a stunning setback in an election seen as a referendum on their political dynasty, losing control of both houses of Congress. The loss weakened President Cristina Fernandez's government two years before she leaves office by diminishing her ability to push legislation through Congress. Former President Nestor Kirchner, lost a bid for a seat from Buenos Aires province. Allies of the first couple also lost key races in the election in the city of Buenos Aires and Cordoba and Santa Fe provinces.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, The Australian navy intercepted a refugee boat with 194 people aboard off the country's northwest coast. It was the 15th suspected people-smuggling craft to have been stopped in Australian waters or to have made landfall since January.
(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Egyptian security forces arrested a leading member of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and three others in pre-dawn raids. Egyptian police shot dead a migrant and wounded two others as they tried to enter Israel illegally.
(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Guinea-Bissau held elections for a new leader to replace the late President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, who was assassinated more than three months ago. The population of Guinea-Bissau stood at about 1.5 million. Leading a pack of 11 candidates were three former presidents seeking to retake the post. The election was marked by one of the lowest turnouts ever. If no candidate wins an overall majority in the first round, the election will go to a run-off between the two highest-placed contenders on July 28.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Honduras more than a dozen soldiers arrested President Manuel Zelaya and disarmed his security guards after surrounding his residence before dawn. Protesters called it a coup and flocked to the presidential palace as local news media reported that Zelaya was sent into exile in Costa Rica. He was detained shortly before voting was to begin on a constitutional referendum the president had insisted on holding even though the Supreme Court ruled it illegal and everyone from the military to Congress and members of his own party opposed it. The nonbinding referendum was to ask voters if they want to hold a vote during the November presidential election on whether to convoke an assembly to rewrite the constitution. Roberto Micheletti, the leader of Congress, was sworn in to serve until Zelaya's term ends. This was the first military ouster of a Central American president since 1993, when Guatemalan military officials refused to accept President Jorge Serrano's attempt to seize absolute power.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In India hundreds of gay rights supporters waved flags and danced past traffic during marches through three Indian cities to celebrate gay pride and call for the decriminalization of homosexuality in this deeply conservative country.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In India at least 35 people including eight children were killed after they were struck by lightning in the adjoining eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Ingushetia in a region bordering Chechnya to the east, police troops clashed with militants in an overnight gunbattle that killed four militants and one police officer.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Iranian media reported that eight local British embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests. Rot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran. It was Iran's first major post-election unrest in four days.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Iraq a roadside bomb targeting a US convoy in eastern Baghdad wounded six bystanders. It was unclear if anyone in the convoy was injured. A car bomb also exploded in the parking lot of a police academy in western Baghdad, killing one police officer and wounding six others. Insurgents were apparently taking advantage of a major sandstorm that blanketed Baghdad and reduced visibility to just a few yards in some places.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Lebanon a Sunni woman (30) was killed and three men were wounded in a gunbattle between Sunni supporters of Lebanon's prime minister-designate and parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, and rival followers of the Hezbollah-allied Shiite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, Mexican prosecutors announced they have put 93 police officers and investigators under house arrest on suspicion of aiding the Zetas, a feared gang of hit men tied to the Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Nigeria at least eight people were killed in the collapse of a three-story building in Lagos, the capital.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, The Pakistani government offered a $615,000 reward for information leading to the capture or death of Baitullah Mehsud. Fighter jets bombarded militant hideouts in Samm village of Laddha town in South Waziristan, killing 8 rebels. An ambush by rival Taliban under Gul Bahadur killed 23 soldiers in North Waziristan. 10 suspected militants were also killed in the attack. A stray mortar shell hit a mosque during prayers in Azam Warsak in South Waziristan, killing 3 tribesmen and wounding 7.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A2)(Econ, 7/25/09, p.38)
2009 Jun 28, In the Philippines 7 policemen killed in an attack by suspected Muslim guerrillas on the restive southern island of Basilan.
(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Somali pirates released the entire crew of the Belgian the Pompei dredger, a ship seized on April 18, after a ransom was paid.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Sudan 6 people were killed in weekend tribal clashes between Nuba and Misseriya tribesmen in Sudan's South Kordofan region, which borders Darfur.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, Swiss police said they have uncovered a child pornography ring involving more than 2,000 people in 78 countries.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 29, The US Supreme Court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Bernard Madoff (71) was sentenced in NYC to 150 years in prison for his multibillion-dollar fraud scheme.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that a grasshopper invasion was under way in Utah. This year's invasion in Tooele County west of Salt Lake City was worse than anyone can remember.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Afghanistan gunfire broke out after Afghan forces moved into a heavily protected government complex in Kandahar and demanded the release of a man accused of forging documents who was being held there. When the Afghan forces threatened to release the suspect by force, the provincial police chief was called in to talk. Among the officials killed were provincial police chief Matiullah Qati and the province's criminal investigations director. Total death tolls from Afghan officials ranged from between five and 10 police killed. 41 private guards were disarmed and arrested. They were to be sent to Kabul for a military trial.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that Australian scientists have developed a "trojan horse" therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs. Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the "trojan horse" therapy in the past two years.
(Reuters, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Bangladesh textile workers set fire to a factory in a third day of demonstrations for payment of wages, as the global economic crisis hits the South Asian country's main export industry.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Belarus Vasily Yusepchuk (30), an illiterate, itinerant Gypsy worker, was sentenced to death by Brest Regional Court. He did chores for elderly women, and allegedly would sneak back at night to rob and strangle them. Lawyers insisted the case hinged exclusively on a confession that they claim was obtained through torture.
(AP, 10/13/09)
2009 Jun 29, In China two passenger trains collided in Hunan province in an accident that killed three people and injured 60 as train cars were derailed and nearby houses knocked over. In northeastern China one man died after part of a bridge caved in, sending eight vehicles plunging into the river below.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China urged Beijing to reconsider implementing a controversial Internet filter, saying it raised serious concerns about security, privacy and user choice.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, The European Commission said top mobile telephone suppliers have agreed to back an EU-wide harmonization of phone chargers, hailing the pact as good news for consumers and the environment.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Representatives of a 500-member team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said that despite improvement Albania has not complied with international standards in its parliamentary elections dues to the politicization of the process and the political mistrust.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Haiti’s President Rene Preval's party won five of 11 contests to fill open Senate seats, according to preliminary results released by the provisional electoral council. Turnout in the latest voting was even lower than the 11 percent tallied in the first round. No official percentage has been reported for the June 21 elections.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, Iran conducted a partial recount of votes cast in its disputed presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked a top judge to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman who has become a potent symbol of the opposition's struggle. Iranian authorities said 17 protesters and eight Basijis have been killed in two weeks of unrest, and that hundreds of people have been arrested. The Guardian Council, an electoral authority the opposition accused of favoring Ahmadinejad, said that it had found only "slight irregularities" after randomly selecting and recounting 10 percent of nearly 40 million ballots.
(AP, 6/29/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Iraq four US soldiers were killed in combat shortly before the American military completed a withdrawal from Iraq's cities. PM al-Maliki assured Iraqis that government forces taking control of urban areas on June 30 were more than capable of protecting the country.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, Israeli court documents indicated the government has approved construction of 50 new housing units in a West Bank settlement to absorb settlers who are to be evicted from a nearby unauthorized outpost.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Italy a freight train carrying liquefied gas derailed and exploded in the midst of the Tuscan town of Viareggio just before midnight, setting off a fire that killed 21 people, many as they slept in their homes. At least 50 were injured. An axle failure was blamed for the rail disaster.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/1/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jun 29, Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, became the 186th member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The ceremony was held in Washington, DC, because the US government is the repository for the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement that created the post-World War II international financial system.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Mexico federal prosecutors released three of the 10 Mexican mayors arrested last month in an unprecedented sweep of elected officials accused of protecting a drug cartel. Assailants set ablaze a pickup truck belonging to a congressional candidate for PAN, and left two threatening notes demanding he drop out of the race. At least five people died in several drug-related slayings in the Gulf coast port of Veracruz.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 29, Three Moroccan newspapers were ordered to pay a total of three million dirhams (270,000 euros) to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who had sued them for writing critical articles.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Presidents from around Latin America gathered in Nicaragua for meetings on how to resolve the coup in Honduras, the fist in Central America in at least 16 years, while the European Union offered to help start talks between the two sides. Security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to scatter protesters, who hurled rocks and bottles as they retreated. At least 38 protesters were detained. Zelaya said that Organization of American States Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza had agreed to accompany him back to Honduras.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Niger’s Pres. Mamadou Tandja issued a decree dissolving a constitutional court, which had rejected his bid to hold a referendum to change the constitution so he could extend his time in office. The next day opposition leader Mahamadou Issoufou, expressed outrage over the president's disbanding of the court, calling the move equivalent to a coup.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, Nigerian rebels announced a new raid against a Shell oil facility and said they had killed at least 20 soldiers in a gun battle, a claim denied by the security forces.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Pakistani security forces launched an early morning raid on a suspected militant hideout in Tank, a small city near South Waziristan, killing two suspected militants and arresting nine others. 21 militants reportedly died in overnight clashes with an anti-Taliban militia in Kurram tribal region. Violence over the 24 hours claimed nearly 70 lives in the northwest region bordering Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/29/09)(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 29, Pope Benedict XVI signed his latest encyclical, "Charity in Truth," a text on ways to make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor amid the worldwide financial crisis.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai's party boycotted a meeting of the cabinet on the grounds that it made a mockery of the country's power-sharing deal. Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe has won 950 million dollars in credit lines from China, the largest loan secured by the unity government since it was formed in February.
(AFP, 6/29/09)AFP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Navy Adm. James Stavridis replaced Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock at a change of command ceremony at the US military's Patch Barracks near Stuttgart attended by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stavridis, as the new head of the US European Command and NATO's top military leader, said quelling the Afghan insurgency would take more than bullets, calling for efforts to rebuild roads, schools and farms to win local support against the Taliban. A US soldier went missing and was believed captured by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. He was later identified as Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl (23) of Ketchum, Idaho.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/2/09)(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jun 30, Boston disbanded its mounted police unit due to budget cuts. Founded in 1873 it was the first mounted unit in the country.
(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 30, Minnesota’s state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Democrat Al Franken should be certified the winner. Republican Norm Coleman pulled the plug on a bitter election that was decided by 312 votes out of almost 2.9 million cast. Franken's victory gave Democrats 60 Senate seats, the critical number needed to overcome Republican filibusters.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Michigan gunmen in a green minivan opened fire on a group of teenagers waiting at a bus stop near a Detroit school, wounding seven including two who were in critical condition.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, In California August Provost (29), a black and gay sailor, was burned and killed during an arson attack at Camp Pendleton. On July 31 Petty Officer Jonathan (32) was found dead of suicide in the base’s brig.
(SSFC, 8/2/09, p.A9)(http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/20/why-did-august-provost-die)
2009 Jun 30, The African Union Executive Council announced it was lifting sanctions against Mauritania despite the coup held there 10 months ago. The sanctions could be enforced again if the presidential election due July 18 aren't considered fair.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, Authorities in Argentina's capital and Buenos Aires province declared health emergencies and extended school vacations as the nation's swine flu death toll surged to 35.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Australian serial rapist John Xydias (45) was jailed for 28 years. For over 15 years he had dressed his unconscious victims in his collection of women's underwear and filmed assaults on them.
(AFP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Australia 2 men were charged with the murder of a female student from China who went missing June 25 after a night out in Tasmania. Stavros Papadopoulos and Daniel Joseph Williams, both 21 and from Hobart, were remanded in custody after a brief appearance before a magistrate. Accountancy student Zhang Yu (26) was last seen alive outside a Hobart city center pub. Police later found her body in the Tyenna river west of Hobart. In 2010 Papadopoulos was sentenced to life in prison. Accomplice Daniel Jo Williams was sentenced to 10 years in jail on a charge of manslaughter.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AFP, 6/30/10)
2009 Jun 30, China postponed a plan to require personal computer makers to supply Internet-filtering software, retreating in the face of protests by Washington and Web surfers hours before it was due to take effect.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Ethiopian police shot dead two people and injured six others as they blocked an attempt by Christians to build a church at a site also claimed by Muslims.
(AFP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, Shi Pei Pu (b.1938), a Chinese operatic soprano, died in Paris. His affair with French lover Bernard Boursicot (b.1945), inspired the 1988 play and 1993 film “M. Butterfly." Both were arrested for espionage in 1983 and convicted in 1986. Shi was pardoned in 1987.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.B3)
2009 Jun 30, The UN adopted a resolution calling on all 192 UN member states not to recognize any government in Honduras other than Zelaya's. Roberto Micheletti, Honduras' interim leader, warned that the only way his predecessor will return to office is through a foreign invasion. The regime that ousted Zelaya claimed that the deposed president allowed money and tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the US.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, India's first "sea bridge" was officially opened in Mumbai, raising hopes that the state-of-the-art structure will ease chronic congestion on the city's notoriously choked roads. The 5.6-kilometer (3.5-mile) Bandra-Worli Sea Link, an eight-lane freeway, will help cut the 40-minute journey between the suburbs of Bandra and Worli to just eight minutes. Suspected militants used automatic weapons and machetes to kill a family of four migrant workers in India's insurgency-hit northeast.
(AFP, 6/30/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Indonesia committed to the conservation of its dwindling tropical forests in a multimillion dollar debt-swap deal signed with the American government. Jakarta's payments to Washington will be reduced by $30 million over the next eight years under the US Tropical Forest Conservation Act.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Iraq's long-awaited licensing round to develop some of its massive oil reserves stumbled as oil and gas companies dug in their heals, demanding more money for their efforts than the government was willing to pay. Iraq celebrated National Sovereignty Day, a new public holiday, following the withdrawal of US forces from its cities. An explosion in Kirkuk killed at least 30 people.
(AP, 6/30/09)(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A2)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 30, The Israeli navy ordered a small ferry carrying medical supplies and foreign peace activists trying to break a blockade of Gaza to turn back. The Israeli navy intercepted the ship and forced it to sail to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Mexican police found the remains of six people tortured and shot to death in western Michoacan state, a focus of the government's war against drug cartels. In the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, police found the body of a 19-year-old woman, an American citizen from across the border in El Paso, dumped at an intersection with her throat slit.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, The Dutch Supreme Court upheld the war crimes conviction of businessman Frans van Anraat for selling chemicals to Iraq, which were turned into poison gas and unleashed in 1988 by the regime of Saddam Hussein on Kurds and Iranians. The court shaved six months off Anraat’s 17-year sentence because his case took so long.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Pakistan’s military said that 18 militants and three soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours. It also said militants had killed 18 of their wounded comrades in Swat. A militant faction allied with Mehsud in North Waziristan, another militant hotbed on the Afghan border, said it was ending a pact with the government because of US drone aircraft attacks and the presence of government forces in their area.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Poland officials began building a new museum of Jewish history in Warsaw that they hope will become a major cultural landmark. Museum officials say construction will cost around 150 million zlotys ($47 million) and should be completed in 2012. An earlier groundbreaking ceremony for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews took place in 2007 in the presence of the Polish president, but bureaucratic obstacles then held up construction.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, As many as 30 people were feared dead after the MV Demas Victory capsized and quickly sank in choppy Persian Gulf waters off the Qatari capital Doha. Five crew members were rescued. The ship was carrying 9 crew, along with 24 employees of the charterer HBK Power Cleaning and two caterers working for a company hired by HBK.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Turkey a civilian prosecutor charged and briefly arrested Col. Dursun Cicek for his alleged involvement in a plan to overthrow the AK party. The army ordered an investigation but declared the colonel innocent.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.49)
2009 Jun 30, A Yemenia Airbus 310 jet with 153 people on board crashed into the Indian Ocean as it tried to land during strong winds on the island nation of Comoros. The passengers were on the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseilles to Comoros with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Bahia Bakari (14), the only person to survive, was plucked from the sea after clinging to wreckage for 13 hours. Investigators on Aug 28 retrieved the slightly damaged flight data recorder and 10 more bodies from the Yemenia Airways flight. The voice recorder was recovered on Aug 29. On Nov 15, 2013, France charged Yemenia Airways with manslaughter over the crash.
(AP, 6/30/09)(SFC, 7/2/09, p.A3)(AP, 8/29/09)(AFP, 1/29/14)
2009 Jun, Sludge containing PCBs, released into the Hudson River between 1946-1977 by 2 General Electric plants, began to be shipped for disposal to West Texas. The sludge along 197 miles had been declared a Superfund site. Cleanup of the Hudson River began in 2009 at an estimated cost of $750 million, to be paid by GE.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(SFC, 6/22/09, p.A9)
2009 Jun, the last of the US analogue television transmitters switched to digital.
(Econ, 12/11/10, TQ p.14)
2009 Jun, Facebook introduced the online FarmVille game created by Zynga. Facebook shut down the game on Dec. 31, 2020. Flash, the software that powered the game, also shut down.
(NY Times, 12/31/20)
2009 Jun, In Bulgaria Plamen Momchilov (46), a cherry farmer, was killed by cherry thieves as he tried to keep them out of his orchard. Later, nine thieves were arrested and confessed to beating Momchilov to death with sticks and shovel handles. They were sentenced to 99 years in prison but as of 2011 were free pending an appeal.
(AP, 6/25/11)
2009 Jun, In the Central African Republic former prime minister Martin Ziguele was invested as the MLPC's presidential candidate for elections that were initially due in April 2010.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2009 Jun, In Egypt 75 people were sentenced to death this month in comparison to just 86 for all of 2008. In July the Cairo-based Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession issued a report expressing concern that the "extravagance" with which the penalty was being used meant that defendants were not receiving a fair trial. According to the UN 43% of Egyptians lived on less than $2 a day.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jun, Iceland made a deal to borrow some $5.5 billion from the British and Dutch governments at an annual rate of 5.5% to meet its Icesave banking obligations.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.46)
2009 Jun, In Kenya three young men and a boy told police that Rev. Renato Kizito Sesana, an Italian priest, had been sexually molesting them for years at a shelter for poor children. No church investigation followed. Kenyan police later said they found no evidence and believed Sesana is innocent. Soon after going to the police, three of the four complainants, including a 17-year-old, withdrew their accusations, saying they had been forced to make them by con men planning to take over church property. But in 2010 the 17-year-old told the AP that he recanted only because he and his mother repeatedly received anonymous text messages threatening them with death. He insisted he really had been abused but did not seek to press charges again because he felt no one would believe him.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2009 Jun, In Malaysia Hau Yuan Tyng (44), a single mother of two, pleaded innocent to charges of assaulting Siti Hajar Sadli, her Indonesian maid, in one case allegedly using hot water; in another, a hammer; and in a third, a pair of scissors. In 2010 a court sentenced Tyng to eight years in prison for the abuse, but allowed her to remain free on bail pending an appeal.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2009 Jun, North Korea shut down its largest wholesale market because of its apparent concern that big markets spread capitalist influence. Authorities closed the Pyongsong market on the outskirts of the capital of Pyongyang and set up two smaller markets in nearby districts. Pyongsong was the North's biggest wholesale market with some 30,000-40,000 stalls.
(AP, 9/21/09)
Return to home
2009 Apr 1, Top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Taliban insurgents reject a US offer of "honorable reconciliation," calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops. Suicide attackers stormed provincial council offices in Kandahar city, killing 13 people including 2 provincial officials. The attackers, who wore Afghan military uniforms, were also killed, two in suicide bombings and two shot dead by security forces. Afghan and US coalition troops battled a large group of militants in southern Afghanistan before calling in an airstrike that killed 20 insurgents.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)(AFP, 4/1/09)(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 1, Albania and Croatia became NATO’s newest members.
(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, In London Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama said Russia and the United States will pursue a new deal to cut nuclear warheads, making good on a pledge to rebuild relations from a post-Cold War low. The US and China agreed to establish a "strategic and economic dialogue" group that would first meet in Washington later this year.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, G20 protesters clashed with riot police in downtown London, breaking into the heavily guarded Royal Bank of Scotland and smashing its windows. Earlier, they tried to storm the Bank of England and pelted police with eggs and fruit. Ian Tomlinson (47) was filmed being hit by an officer with a baton shortly before collapsing in the City of London financial district. He had not been taking part in the protests and died of a hemorrhage. In 2012 Dr Freddy Patel was found guilty of misconduct by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in relation to his handling of the examination of Ian Tomlinson's body. The pathologist had concluded that Tomlinson died from a heart attack.
(AP, 4/1/09)(AFP, 4/17/09)(AFP, 8/23/12)
2009 Apr 1, A helicopter returning to Aberdeen with 16 people from an oil platform crashed in the North Sea. The Bond Super Puma helicopter went down off the northeast coast of Scotland. 8 bodies were recovered and the others were presumed dead. 7 bodies were later found inside the wreckage of the helicopter.
(AFP, 4/1/09)(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 1, Honduras Pres. Manuel Zelaya's government announced a series of measures to crack down on crime, including allowing the state telephone company to obtain court orders to record cellular phone conversations and read e-mails sent from computers at Internet cafes or hotels.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new foreign minister, said Israel will not abide by commitments made to pursue Palestinian statehood at the 2007 Annapolis Peace Summit.
(WSJ, 4/2/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 1, In Malaysia Mas Selamat Kastari, an Islamic militant suspected of plotting a Sept. 11-style air attack, was arrested in Johor state, more than a year after his dramatic escape from a high-security jail in Singapore. He was arrested by Malaysian authorities with the cooperation of Singaporean and Indonesian intelligence agencies.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 Apr 1, Mexico detained Vicente Carrillo Leyva (32), one of its most wanted drug suspects. He allegedly was the second in command of the powerful Juarez cartel. Leyva is the son of drug kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was one of Mexico's most important drug traffickers before he died during plastic surgery to change his appearance in 1997.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 1, In Pakistan a suspected US drone fired two missiles at an alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader who has threatened to attack Washington, killing 14 people and wounding several others in a remote area of the Orakzai tribal region. Militants fired rockets and guns at a police van, killing five officers and wounding two in Upper Dir, on the Afghan border.
(AP, 4/1/09)(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, Puerto Rican actor Miguelangel Suarez (69) died. His career included minor roles in last year's epic "Che" and Woody Allen's "Bananas."
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, A tourist yacht and its crew of seven was hijacked by Somali pirates near the Seychelles islands off Africa's east coast.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sri Lanka’s government said more than 23,000 civilians escaped last month from the northern war zone, where the military appeared close to crushing the separatist rebels.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Saudi Arabia for a brief pilgrimage, his latest trip abroad in defiance of an international arrest warrant against him.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sweden’s Parliament adopted a new law giving same sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexuals, becoming the 5th European country to allow gay marriage.
(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, In Sweden a new law cracking down on online copyright violation went into force leading to a sharp drop in internet traffic.
(AP, 4/3/09)(http://tinyurl.com/c96saw)
2009 Apr 1, In Thailand thousands of demonstrators defied a court order to clear a road they have blocked to the prime minister's office, vowing to continue ringing the compound until the government resigns.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 2, Washington expressed no interest in an offer by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to take in any of the 240 remaining Guantanamo detainees after they are released from the US military prison.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, A US federal judge has ruled that some inmates at a US military base in Afghanistan can challenge their detention in US courts, a legal right granted to Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, US and Mexico officials said they are creating a cross-border group to develop strategies for stopping the illegal flow of guns and drugs between the two countries.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, The director of the US Mint unveiled the first US coin with an inscription in Spanish, a quarter honoring Puerto Rico as the "Isla del Encanto" (Island of Enchantment).
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, The US Environmental Working Group issued a press release drawing attention to a study by scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which looked for the chemical, perchlorate, in different brands of powdered baby formula. The study was published last month.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, A federal grand jury issued a 75-page indictment charging former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich with racketeering, extortion and fraud.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 2, In Connecticut a judge, citing DNA evidence, dropped murder charges against Miguel Roman, who served 20 years of a 60-year sentence after being convicted of the 1988 slaying of Carmen Lopez (17), his pregnant girlfriend. The same DNA tests that exonerated Roman implicated led police in December to charge another man, Pedro Miranda of New Britain. He is accused in the killings of Lopez, 16-year-old Rosa Valentin in 1986 and 13-year-old Mayra Cruz in 1987. Miranda (51) faced the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 2, Bud Shank (b.1926), innovative jazz musician, died. He played the 33-second flute solo on the 1965 hit “California Dreamin," by the Mamas and Papas.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 2, G20 countries authorized the IMF to issue $250 billion in new SDRs.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.70)
2009 Apr 2, Human rights groups and some Afghan lawmakers criticized President Hamid Karzai for signing into law legislation that some believe legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband and prevents women from leaving the house without a man's permission. Article 132 of the law says: "As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night." Critics said Karzai signed the legislation in the past month only for political gains several months before the country's presidential election. Coalition and Afghan forces killed 12 militants and one civilian in Logar province in a mission that included airstrikes. a member of the NATO-led force was killed in violence in the east. In central Ghazni province, a roadside bomb killed four construction workers, while a battle between militants and police elsewhere in the province killed two militants.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Austrian authorities arrested British-born Julius Meinl V (b.1959), head of Meinl Bank, for suspected breach of trust and deception of investors in a potential $4 billion fraud case involving a real estate fund created by the bank. He had spun much of his family’s property portfolio into Meinl European Land (MEL). By 2007 MEL had lost €1.8 billion in an attempt to support its share price. He was released after posting a €100 million bail.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.60)(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 2, A Bangladesh official said the government will strictly enforce a new ban on begging that aims to fully eliminate it within five years.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In London G20 leaders pledged $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to struggling countries and agreed to crack down on tax havens and hedge funds, but failed to reach sweeping accord on more stimulus spending to attack the global economic decline.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, The annual Canadian harp seal hunt opened. Up to 280,000 baby seals were expected to be slaughtered in Quebec and Newfoundland.
(http://network.bestfriends.org/canada/news/13925.html)(SFC, 4/18/09, p.D12)
2009 Apr 2, Greek public services closed down and transport was disrupted across the country as thousands of workers went on strike to protest government spending cuts.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, An Iraqi military spokesman said the government will next week start paying Sunni paramilitary groups in the Baghdad area despite weekend clashes with one of the units. In Baghdad two gunmen firing from a car killed an Iraqi army officer in the Mansour district. One of the gunmen was killed and the other captured. Militants hurled a grenade at an American patrol on Palestine Street in east Baghdad, wounding two civilians. In Mosul a roadside bomb exploded near a small restaurant frequented by police, wounding four of them and a civilian. A US aircraft attacked a group of men believed to be members of a government-allied Sunni paramilitary group as they were planting a roadside bomb at night north of Baghdad, killing one and wounding two. Two gay men were killed Sadr City by relatives who were shamed by their behavior, after a leading cleric repeatedly condemned homosexuality. The killings come weeks after Iraqi police found four bodies near Sadr City with the word pervert written on their chests.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 2, Malaysia's PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (69), in office for 5½ lackluster years, resigned to make way for Deputy PM Najib Razak, who must now fix an economy close to recession, heal the country's deep racial divisions and revive a moribund ruling party.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Mexico's Senate unanimously approved legislation that would allow the government to seize property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals before they are convicted.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Morocco transferred to Spain Hassan Al Haski, an Islamist convicted in both countries for terrorist acts, apparently to resume serving time behind bars there.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Pakistani authorities ordered an investigation into a video showing a man flogging a screaming woman in the country's northwest where the government recently agreed to introduce Islamic law to end a rebellion by Taliban militants. President Asif Ali Zardari was yet to sign the bill introducing Islamic law in the Swat Valley. A would-be suicide bomber shot himself dead when mourners confronted him at the funeral of a Pakistani police officer recently killed by militants.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, A Palestinian militant went on a rampage in the Bat Ayin Jewish settlement in the West Bank, killing an Israeli boy (13) with a pickax and wounding another boy (7) before fleeing the area. On April 14 Israeli authorities detained suspect Moussa Tayet (26).
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 2, In the southern Philippines Islamic militants released a Filipina Red Cross aid worker, leaving a Swiss and an Italian still held captive.
(AFP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Puerto Rico FBI agents and police arrested at least 35 suspects in an alleged drug trafficking ring blamed for seven murders.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Sudan new US special envoy Scott Gration told journalists he had come to "look, learn and listen" and hoped for its friendship and cooperation, indicating a shift in tone by Washington under President Barack Obama.
(Reuters, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Venezuelan authorities arrested retired Gen. Raul Baduel, a former defense minister and a prominent critic of President Hugo Chavez, on corruption charges. The former ally of Pres. Chavez went into opposition 18 months earlier.
(AP, 4/2/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.36)
2009 Apr 3, US administration officials said Pres. Obama planned to lift some curbs on travel to Cuba, including a ban on family travel and remittances to Cuba.
(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 3, The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released a letter disclosing bonus awards of more than $210 million through next year to more than 7,600 employees.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 3, Hassan Abu-Jihaad, a former US Navy sailor, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving details of ship movements in 2001 to operators of a Web site in London that openly espoused violent jihad against the US.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 3, The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling finding that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where gay marriage is legal.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Binghampton, NY, Jiverly Wong (41) barricaded the back door of a community center with his car and then opened fire on a room full of immigrants taking a citizenship class, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide. Officials the next day said the man, believed to be Vietnamese immigrant, was depressed and angry over losing his job and about his poor English skills.
(AP, 4/3/09)(AP, 4/4/09)(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A15)
2009 Apr 3, Australia endorsed a UN declaration that recognizes indigenous rights, reversing years of opposition and promising a new era in relations between white Australians and the nation's impoverished Aborigines. Australia was one of four nations that voted against the declaration when it was adopted by the General Assembly in 2007.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Cambodian and Thai soldiers traded fire with machine guns and rocket launchers along a disputed border, killing as many as four people in an escalation of tensions in a long-standing feud over an 11th century temple.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, NATO began its 2-day 60th anniversary summit in France and Germany.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In France US Pres. Obama won enthusiastic support for his new Afghan war strategy from French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy, who pledged more police trainers and civilian aid.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Iraq an American soldier died of noncombat-related causes in Anbar province.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 3, Israeli police interrogated the country's new hard-line foreign minister for the 2nd straight day in an ongoing bribery investigation that could make his tenure short-lived. Avigdor Lieberman was questioned for five hours about an investigation involving suspicions of receiving bribes, money laundering and breach of trust.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, A Malawi judge rejected Madonna's request to adopt a second child from Malawi even though the country's child welfare minister had supported Madonna's application to raise the 3-year-old girl.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Malaysian PM Najib Razak, in his first act after talking office, freed 13 people being held under a law that allows indefinite detention and lifted a ban on two opposition newspapers.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Mexico Alberto Rayas Rodriguez (37), the chief homicide detective in western Jalisco state, was killed while on his way to a government event when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on his car.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Nigeria a source close to negotiations said Pfizer has agreed to pay $75 million compensation over a 1996 drug trial that caused the death of 11 children in northern Nigeria. Kano state confirmed the settlement on May 14.
(AFP, 4/3/09)(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 Apr 3, The Philippines said it will take needed steps to be stricken from a list of four nations blacklisted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as uncooperative tax havens.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Sri Lankan troops captured Anandapuram, a key village from the Tamil Tigers, after heavy fighting that left at least 44 guerrillas dead. Police commandos killed 13 Tiger rebels in the eastern district of Ampara.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, The Swiss central bank said UBS has transferred its final installment of toxic assets to a special state aid fund, bringing the total to 38.7 billion dollars.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, Thai citizen Suvicha Thakhor was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of insulting the king and his family by posting edited photos of the monarchy on the Internet. On June 28, 2010, Thakhor was pardoned by the king.
(AP, 4/3/09)(AFP, 6/30/10)
2009 Apr 3, The UN appointed Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to lead a mission to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 3, In Venezuela 3 of the capital’s former police chiefs were sentenced to 30 years in prison. They were accused without evidence of complicity in the murder of several supporters of Pres. Chavez, who died during a coup attempt in 2002.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.36)
2009 Apr 3, The global diamond certification body ordered a ban on trade in diamonds from eastern Zimbabwe over concerns about human rights violations.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Pittsburgh, Pa., Richard Poplawski (23) shot and killed 3 police officers, who were responding to a domestic violence disturbance. Poplawski received gunshot wounds in his legs and was charged with 3 counts of murder. The shooting began following an argument between Poplawski and his mother over a dog urinating in their house. On June 28, 2011, a jury sentenced Poplawski to death.
(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A12)(SFC, 4/6/09, p.A5)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A6)
2009 Apr 4, In Texas Jorge Alberto Mendez (42) was arrested while trying to cross into Mexico from El Paso, where he lived. He was arrested for allegedly raping 19 women across the border in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Washington state Pierce County deputies 15 miles southeast of Tacoma found four children murdered in their beds and the fifth slain in the bathroom. The four girls and the youngest child, a 7-year-old boy, apparently had been shot. Earlier in the day police found there father, James Harrison (34) dead in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle. Harrison had just discovered that his wife was leaving him for another man.
(AP, 4/5/09)(SFC, 4/6/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 4, A pair of British brothers (10 & 11) lured two young boys (9 & 10) into a clearing to see some animals, and then tortured them in an attack so violent it left one of the victims pleading to be left alone to die. On Sep 3 the brothers admitted charges of robbery, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
(AP, 9/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, Egyptian police beat and detained at least 18 members of an anti-government protest group during a demonstration to demand the release of two activists, Sarah Rezk and Amina Taha. The two 19-year-olds detained April 2 for allegedly distributing leaflets calling for a national day of protest on April 6.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, France and Germany fully endorsed President Barack Obama's new Afghan war strategy but firmly resisted sending more combat troops in a rift that overshadowed symbols of unity at NATO 60th-anniversary summit. NATO's European leaders pledged a significant increase in troops for the US-led war in Afghanistan at their summit, but the alliance seemed sure to arouse hostility in the Muslim world by choosing the controversial Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new secretary general. All 28 NATO leaders unanimously approved Rasmussen as the new civilian leader of the alliance. Black-clad protesters attacked police and set a hotel and a customs station ablaze near a bridge linking France and Germany that served hours earlier as the backdrop for a show of unity by NATO leaders.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In southern Israel a woman opened fire on a police station Beersheba before officers shot back and killed her, in an apparent Palestinian militant attack. Israeli forces shot and killed two militants who were approaching the Gaza border. Elsewhere in Gaza, militants fired at least two mortar shells toward Israel. There were no reports of damage.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Mexico 11 people were found shot to death in 5 different places, some bearing signs of torture and left with threatening messages emblematic of drug violence.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 4, In northwestern Pakistan a suspected US drone fired two missiles at an alleged militant hide-out in North Waziristan, leaving 13 people dead including women and children. A suicide bomber killed 8 people in Islamabad. At least 62 illegal migrants were found suffocated to death inside a shipping container found near the border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/4/09)(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 4, In the Philippines two homemade bombs exploded hours apart in the same bus, wounding the conductor and five passengers in an attack police said may have been the work of an extortion gang led by former Muslim rebels.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Slovakia Pres. Ovan Gasparovic was re-elected for a 2nd 5-year term with 55% of the vote over Iveta Radicova, who had hoped to become Slovakia’s 1st female president.
(WSJ, 4/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 4, Somali pirates seized a 20,000-ton German container vessel, the Hansa Stavanger and its 24-member crew, in their latest attack on the Indian Ocean's busy commercial shipping lanes. The ship and crew were released on August 3 as pirates boasted $2.75 million in ransom.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 7/18/09)(Econ, 8/22/09, p.53)
2009 Apr 4, In Sudan armed men in the Darfur kidnapped two aid workers Claire Dubois of France and Canadian Stephanie Jodoin, of Aid Medicale International (AMI). They were seized from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el Fursan. Both women were released on April 29.
(AFP, 4/5/09)(Reuters, 4/12/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Turkey several thousand leftists staged anti-U.S. and anti-NATO protests, with shouts of "Yankee Go Home!" the day before President Barack Obama's visit.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, Off the coast of Yemen a smuggling boat carrying 40 Somalis capsized as passengers were disembarking. Twenty people made it to shore, the rest were missing.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 5, State media said China has reopened Tibet to foreign tourists almost two months after imposing a ban ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In the Czech Rep. President Barack Obama set out his vision for ridding the world of nuclear arms, declaring the US ready to lead steps by all states with atomic weapons to reduce their arsenals. Obama said the US will proceed with development of a missile defense system in Europe as long as there is an Iranian threat of nuclear weapons. Obama also urged the EU to accept Turkey as a full member of the 27-nation bloc, in remarks rejected outright by France and met coolly by Germany.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Denmark Lars Lokke Rasmussen (b.1964) began serving as prime minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_L%C3%B8kke_Rasmussen)
2009 Apr 5, In Iraq Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won assurances that Iraqi leaders will protect Palestinians living in Iraq, including thousands stranded in desert refugee camps, during his first visit to the country since the US-led invasion of 2003. Two roadside bombs in Fallujah killed one officer and wounded three other people. Someone threw a grenade at a police patrol in Samarra, killing one policeman and wounding four. 8 people, including seven policemen, were wounded by a bomb that blasted their patrol in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, Macedonia’s conservative candidate Gjorgje Ivanov (49) won the runoff election in a landslide with about two-thirds of the popular vote.
(WSJ, 4/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 5, In Moldova the Communist Party won re-election under alleged ballot rigging. The Communists, in power since 2001, won about 50% of the vote in what international observers said was a fair election. With a population of 4.1 million, Moldova was one of Europe's poorest nations with an average monthly salary of $350. Last year Moldovans abroad sent home $1.6 billion, roughly the same amount as the state budget.
(AP, 4/7/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.58)
2009 Apr 5, In southern Nigeria gunmen killed a policeman as they kidnapped a Scottish oil-services worker in Port Harcourt. The British worker was released on April 25.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 5, North Korea defied international warnings and sent a rocket hurtling over the Pacific, a launch President Barack Obama called an illicit test of the regime's long-range missile technology that threatened the security of nations "near and far." North Korea said it successfully sent its "Kwangmyongsong-2" satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful bid to develop its space program. South Korea and the US military disputed North Korea's claim of a successful launch into space, saying the rocket fell into the ocean in stages.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Pakistan a suicide bombing at a crowded Shiite mosque in Chakwal city in Punjab province killed 24-26 people. A senior Pakistani Taliban commander promised two more attacks per week in the country if the US does not stop missile strikes on Pakistani territory.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.39)
2009 Apr 5, Rwanda's ambassador said the bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 5, In Somalia an overnight mortar attack aimed at troops and peacekeepers in Mogadishu killed a child and wounded six other people, including 4 of the dead child's siblings. Somali pirates hijacked a small Yemeni boat in the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 4/5/09)(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 5, Sri Lanka’s military said 3 days of intense fighting in the northeast has left 525 Tamil Tiger rebels dead and pushed the remaining guerrillas into a small "no-fire" zone crowded with tens of thousands of civilians. Woman rebel commanders Vidusha and Durga were reported to be among those killed.
(AP, 4/5/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.38)
2009 Apr 5, Off the coast of Yemen another smuggling boat carrying 23 Somalis hit rough seas. 13 made it to shore and two were missing.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 6, The US Federal Reserve said it will supply new lines of credit worth up to $287 billion to the central banks of Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and EU.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, Andrew Cuomo, NY state’s attorney general, filed a civil suit against J. Ezra Merkin, a New York philanthropic leader and former chairman of GMAC, on allegations that he betrayed hundreds of investors by repeatedly lying to them about how he invested their money. Merkin had funneled $2.4 billion from universities and nonprofit organizations into the firm of Bernard Madoff, now in jail for running a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 4/7/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an unannounced visit to northern Afghanistan to meet with her country's troops and view rebuilding efforts. She pressed President Karzai to review carefully a new law that critics say legalizes marital rape. In southern Afghanistan an insurgent rocket attack hit the Netherlands' main military base, killing one Dutch soldier and wounding 5 of his colleagues and 2 Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Australia a motorcycle gang leader surrendered to police and became the sixth biker charged in connection with a brawl that left a rival bleeding to death before shocked travelers at Australia's busiest airport.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, Bangladesh police detained Faisal Mustafa, the head of a British-based charity that funded an Islamic school in southern Bangladesh, where authorities on March 24 seized weapons and explosives.
(AP, 4/6/09)(SFC, 4/7/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 6, Belgium began World Court proceedings against Senegal in an effort to bring former Chad President Hissene Habre on trial for alleged widespread human rights abuses during his eight-year reign. A Chadian commission of inquiry has concluded that Habre's regime killed at least 3,780 political opponents, but added that the figure likely represents only 10 percent of his victims.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, China announced it will make improved health care services available to all its citizens by 2020, taking aim at a system long derided as creaking and inadequate.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, Egyptian police were out in force to deal with a nationwide protest called by pro-democracy groups, arresting Islamists and seeking to contain small demonstrations in the capital, Cairo.
(AFP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In India 2 bombs ripped through crowded markets in the restive northeast, killing at least seven people and wounding 60 others. A grenade attack left two police officers injured. Authorities suspected the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom was behind the attacks.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, An Indonesian military plane carrying 24 people crashed into an airport hangar during heavy rains and burst into flames, killing everyone on board.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Iraq a series bombs rocked Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 37 people and wounding more than 100 in a dramatic escalation of violence.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 6, In central Italy a magnitude 6.3 earthquake knocked down whole blocks of buildings as residents slept, killing 309 people in L'Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region, which was near the epicenter. It was the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades. Tens of thousands were homeless and 1,500 were injured. 8 students were killed when their dorm collapsed in L'Aquila. Investigations into shoddy construction soon followed.
(AFP, 4/6/09)(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 10/19/09)(Econ, 10/27/12, p.80)
2009 Apr 6, Japan’s Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said PM Taro Aso has ordered a $100 billion stimulus plan to boost the national economy. PM Aso and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to deepen ties in energy, investment and trade, with Japanese companies ready to participate in gas and crude production in the Latin American country.
(WSJ, 4/7/09, p.A8)(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Kenya justice minister Martha Karua resigned in protest of Pres. Kibaki’s decision to appoint judges without consulting her.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.53)
2009 Apr 6, Somali pirates seized the Taiwanese ship Win Far 161 with 29 crew onboard near an island in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. A 32,000-ton British-owned bulk carrier, the Malaspina Castle, was also hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates soon began using the Win Far as a base for attacking other commercial ships. Win Far 161 was released on Feb 11, 2010, following the payment of a ransom. Three of its crew died of malnutrition and disease during their 10 month captivity.
(AP, 4/6/09)(AP, 8/27/09)(AP, 2/11/10)(Econ, 2/5/11, p.70)
2009 Apr 6, In South Africa prosecutors dropped corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, saying the case had been manipulated for political reasons and clearing the way for him to become the next president without the looming threat of a trial. 783 charges of corruption, fraud, money-laundering and tax evasion against Zuma were dropped shortly before he came to power.
(Reuters, 4/6/09)(Econ, 4/9/15, p.50)
2009 Apr 6, In Turkey Pres. Obama, making his first visit to a Muslim nation as president, declared that the United States "is not and will never be at war with Islam."
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 6, In Zambia western nations and lending agencies meeting in Lusaka agreed a financing package of more than $1 billion to improve infrastructure in southern and central Africa at an investment conference meant to expand transport links and trade. Britain said it would separately provide 100 million pounds ($149.2 million) to transform the region's infrastructure to increase trade and mitigate the effects of the global financial crisis. New projects will link businesses in 8 African countries: Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 7, US military leaders said the Pentagon has spent over $100 million in the past 6 months responding to and repairing damage from cyber attacks and other computer network problems.
(SFC, 4/8/09, p.C3)
2009 Apr 7, In Alabama authorities found the body of Kevin Lee Garner (45) near his burned home in Priceville. The home had burned overnight. Garner's body was found following a day of searching for him in several north Alabama counties following the murders of four of his family members in the Greenhill community of Lauderdale County.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090408/ap_on_re_us/alabama_four_dead)(SFC, 4/8/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 7, In southern California a gunman in Temecula opened fire at a Korean Christian retreat center, leaving one woman dead and four people injured.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, A lawsuit filed in US District Court in Denver by the SEC alleged that Shawn Merriman, an unlicensed broker, collected up to $20 million from investors in several states to support a lavish lifestyle. The former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allegedly operated a Ponzi scheme from his suburban Denver home for about 15 years, bilking investors out of millions of dollars to collect religious art and classic cars.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Texas Jon Dale Jones (46), a former Army hospital nurse, pleaded guilty to assault and theft. He was accused of infecting 15 patients with hepatitis C. Jones was arrested on federal charges in March of 2008 for using dirty needles to administer anesthesia, and accused of stealing painkillers for himself.
(SFC, 4/8/09, p.A5)(www.mahalo.com/Jon_Dale_Jones)
2009 Apr 7, Vermont became the first state to legalize same sex marriage through a legislature’s vote.
(SFC, 4/8/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 7, GM and Segway announced that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world. The project was called P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility).
(AP, 4/7/09)(WSJ, 4/8/09, p.B4)
2009 Apr 7, Samuel Beer, Harvard professor (1946-1982), died. His books included “British Politics in the Collectivist Age" (1965), which established him as the foremost scholar on modern British politics.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.88)
2009 Apr 7, Jack Wrangler (b.1946 as John Robert Stillman), porn star and musical theater producer, died in Manhattan. He appeared in over 30 gay sex films and 20 straight films including “The Devil in Miss Jones" (1982).
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 7, Australia announced plans to build a 30 billion US dollar broadband network, its biggest infrastructure project ever, opting to retain government control rather than contract out the deal.
(AFP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, Cuba’s President Raul Castro met with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than four hours, his first face-to-face discussions with US leaders since he became president last year. A "very healthy, very energetic" Fidel Castro asked visiting Congressional Black Caucus members what Cuba could do to help President Barack Obama improve bilateral relations during his first meeting with US officials since falling ill in 2006.
(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, Ethiopia, the world's sixth largest coffee producer, said it did not intend to nationalize the coffee sector after revoking licenses of six exporters for hoarding the beans. PM Meles Zenawi had warned the exporters against hoarding coffee, accusing them of speculation in the world markets.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, A man opened fire at a courthouse in Bavaria, killing his sister-in-law and injuring two other people. He then shot himself dead. The incident appeared to stem from a long-running inheritance dispute.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, President Barack Obama flew into Iraq from Turkey on a trip shrouded in secrecy, for a brief look at a war he opposed as a candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief. A car bomb in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least nine people and wounded 18 others. A suicide car bomb killed three people at a police checkpoint in Fallujah. In Iskandariyah police found the bullet-riddled body a member of the Awakening Council, a group of former Sunni insurgents who sided with the US in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. The councilman was kidnapped a day earlier. A car bombing in Kazimiyah killed nine people, including a mother who was riding in a taxi with her infant son.
(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, Israeli police fatally shot a Palestinian motorist as he tried to run over officers guarding the demolition of the home of a militant who killed three Israelis with a construction vehicle in July.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Moldova anti-communist protesters stormed the Parliament, hurling computers through shattered windows and setting fire to furniture in a violent demonstration against what they said were fraudulent elections. 3 people were left dead and hundreds were detained.
(AP, 4/7/09)(Econ, 8/8/09, p.46)
2009 Apr 7, In southern Pakistan police arrested five men alleged to be planning suicide attacks on the city of Karachi.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 7, Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (70) was found guilty of murder and kidnapping for death squad activities during his 10-year rule during the 1990s. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His daughter, Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori (33), said people's outrage over the "vengeful" verdict will propel her to Peru's presidency in 2011. Then she'll pardon him.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, Saudi authorities beheaded 3 Pakistanis convicted of killing a fellow Pakistani during a jewelry heist. This brought to 20 the number of beheadings in the kingdom this year.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In South Korea former Pres. Roh Moo-hyun announced that his wife had received money from Park Yeon-cha, chairman of Taekwang Industrial Co., a shoe manufacturer, several hours following the arrest of Chung Sangmoon, a former aide who had accepted the money for the president’s wife.
for the president’s wife.
(WSJ, 4/8/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 7, In Thailand protesters surrounded the prime minister's car and smashed a window as he rode in it, escalating tensions a day before a massive anti-government rally that the leader said has sparked concerns of civil war.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Turkey Pres. Obama wrapped up his first European trip as president with a request of the world: Look past his nation's stereotypes and flaws. "You will find a partner and a supporter and a friend in the United States of America."
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, UNESCO awarded the World Press Freedom Prize to Lasantha Wickrematunge, a murdered Sri Lankan journalist, whose self-written obituary accused the government of silencing him. His self-written obituary was published three days after his murder in early January, in which no arrests have been made.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 7, In Venezuela legislators loyal to President Hugo Chavez approved a new law that erodes the authority of Caracas' opposition Mayor Antonio Ledezma by subordinating him to a government-appointed official.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 8, The Passover holiday, which marks the Hebrews' exodus from slavery in Egypt as recounted in the Bible, began this evening with a special meal known as the seder.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, The US Justice Dept. filed terrorism-related charges against Luis Posada Carriles (81), a prominent Cuban exile wanted by the Castro government for involvement in several 1997 hotel bombings in Cuba.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/c5j5b5)
2009 Apr 8, The US Coast Guard located a Venezuela-flagged fishing boat 500 miles east of Brazil, boarded the vessel and found about 2,500 pounds (1,135 kilograms) of cocaine. They planned to turn over the boat, the drugs, the prisoners to Venezuelan authorities.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that cyberspies have penetrated the US electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, US federal agents searched three money-transfer businesses in Minneapolis, carrying away boxes of documents and copying computer hard drives for details of transactions between the US and several African nations, including Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 8, Genentech, a unit of Roche, said it is voluntarily withdrawing its psoriasis drug Raptiva due to a link with a rare but often fatal brain disorder.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.B3)
2009 Apr 8, The international Red Cross said a polio outbreak, that now affects 15 African countries, threatens efforts to eradicate the disease.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Over 100 Afghan ministers, lawmakers and officials signed a petition opposing a controversial law that critics say legalizes marital rape. The petition said the law is unconstitutional and leads toward the "Talibanization" of Afghanistan's legal system. The petition came as Poland's President Lech Kaczynski held talks in Kabul with Karzai and reiterated his country's plans to increase its troop contribution in the country by 400 over the current 1,600 in Ghazni province. A roadside blast hit a civilian vehicle south of Kandahar city, wounding six civilians. Gen. David McKiernan, top US general in Afghanistan, met with villagers in Helmand and Kandahar. He apologized for past mistakes and said he is now studying the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 4/10/09)(SFC, 4/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 8, British police arrested 12 suspects in a major anti-terror operation. 11 of the 12 were Pakistani nationals. One 18-year-old was soon handed over to the UK border agency for questioning about his immigration status. All the suspects were released after 2 weeks.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/11/09)(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 8, A fishing vessel carrying 45 boatpeople, believed to be from Iraq, landed on Australia’s remote Christmas Island, island, a day after the opposition party said a softer stance on refugees had prompted a "surge" in illegal immigrants.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Canada Tori Stafford (8) was kidnapped outside her school in Woodstock, Ontario. In 2012 Terri-Lynne McClintic admitted she had kidnapped Tori and delivered her to her boyfriend Michael Rafferty, who raped the child. McClintic said she then battered the girl to death with a claw hammer. On May 11, 2012, a jury in London, Ontario, found Rafferty (31) guilty of first degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, dismissing his girlfriend's testimony that she alone was responsible for killing Tori Stafford.
(Reuters, 5/11/12)
2009 Apr 8, In China visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the world's center of gravity has moved to Beijing, as he focused on boosting Chinese oil purchases.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, China said that it would build a clinic in each of its nearly 700,000 villages within three years, part of a sweeping 850 billion yuan ($124 billion) investment in health care reform.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, China's state media said a court in Tibet has sentenced two people to death over riots in Lhasa last year, in what was the harshest sentence yet reported over the deadly unrest. Xinhua said the crimes committed by the five defendants resulted in seven deaths and the destruction of five shops in Lhasa.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Dubai’s public prosecution indicted Mohammed Khalfan Bin Kharbash, a former minister of state, along with several former company executives for corruption.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.C2)
2009 Apr 8, In France workers at a British-owned adhesives factory held three British executives and a local manager captive over plans to close the site down. Scapa, which announced in February it would close its plant in Bellegarde, said it was forced to cut back after the market for car industry adhesives collapsed by 50 percent in 2008. The managers were released after being held overnight.
(AP, 4/8/09)(SFC, 4/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 8, In Iraq a bomb left in a plastic bag exploded near the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 23.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Stone-throwing Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers clashed near the site of an ax attack last week that killed a Jewish teenager, leaving at least 8 Palestinians wounded.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Nigeria President Umaru Yar'Adua dismissed top managers across the board of the state Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In northwestern Pakistan a suspected US missile strike on a car near Wana, South Waziristan, killed two alleged militants and a civilian, a day after the US-allied country reiterated its opposition to such attacks to visiting American officials. Residents in Buner tried to push out a group of Taliban militants who had ventured into their territory from their stronghold in the Swat Valley and killed five people.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Paraguay lawyers filed a paternity suit against President Fernando Lugo, alleging that a son was born to the former Roman Catholic bishop five months after he abandoned the church for politics.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 8, A Russian spacecraft carrying a crew of three including US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi landed safely in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Somali pirates hijacked a US-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard. The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya. The pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips hostage after they hijacked the Maersk Alabama, then fled the cargo ship as the vessel's crew overpowered them.
(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 8, Thailand’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by .25% to 1.25% to help prop up the worsening economy. more than 100,000 anti-government protesters rallied in Bangkok in their biggest bid yet to topple premier Abhisit Vejjajiva, deepening the political crisis ahead of a key Asian summit.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.C2)(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Turkmenistan a blast on a Central Asian pipeline halted the supply of Turkmen gas to Russia. The explosion was later said to have resulted from Gazprom’s decision to stop importing gas due to high prices and falling demand. Gazprom blamed the explosion on poor maintenance.
(AP, 4/9/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.46)
2009 Apr 9, Pres. Obama submitted an $83.4 billion funding request to Congress, including $80 million to close Guantanamo, as lawmakers were on break over the Easter holidays.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 9, FBI hostage negotiators joined US Navy efforts to free an American ship captain held captive on a lifeboat by Somali pirates. A US destroyer and a spy plane kept close watch in the high-seas standoff near the Horn of Africa. Capt. Richard Phillips made a desperate escape attempt but was recaptured.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, The SEC charged Atlanta attorney Robert P. Copeland (48) for running a Ponzi scheme from about 2004-2009. He was alleged to have raised over $35 million from at least 140 investors and owed over $28 million to the victims.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.C3)(www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2009/lr20994.htm)
2009 Apr 9, Vandals in the San Jose, and San Carlos, Ca., chopped fiber optic cables disrupting service for hundreds of thousands of people in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 9, In Mena, Arkansas, a tornado struck a "direct hit" on this mountain community, killing at least three people, injuring at least 30 others and flattening homes and businesses.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Fullerton, Ca., Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart (22) was killed along with 2 others in a car accident with a suspected drunk driver.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 9, Dave Arneson (61), co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game (1974) and a pioneer of role-playing entertainment, died after a two-year battle with cancer.
(AP, 4/10/09)(SFC, 4/11/09, p.B3)
2009 Apr 9, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber attacked a police drug eradication unit, killing five people and wounding 17 others. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Four people were shot dead in the raid overnight in eastern Khost province. The US military later admitted that they were not "armed combatants" as first announced. A nine-months pregnant woman had survived the shooting that killed her unborn child. US soldiers working with Afghan forces killed 15 militants in southern Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition forces killed five "combatants" in Kandahar province's Maywand district. A dozen more insurgents were killed in adjoining Uruzgan province after another attack on an Afghan and coalition patrol.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/10/09)(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, Algerians voted in a presidential election that is expected to give the incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika another five years to try to quell terrorism and reform the North African country's lackluster economy, which is heavily dependent on oil and gas. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won 90.24% of the vote.
(AP, 4/9/09)(Reuters, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, Amnesty International said immigrants and ethnic minorities living in Austria are more likely to be suspected of crimes than whites and are regularly denied their right to equal treatment by the country's police and judicial system.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In southern Bangladesh 2 speeding passenger buses crashed into each other, killing at least 11 people and injuring another 50.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Bob Quick, Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner and Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, quit after his security blunder forced police to bring forward a major operation to thwart a suspected al Qaeda plot involving Pakistani nationals.
(Reuters, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A Chinese court executed two men from a Muslim minority group for killing 17 police in an attack in China's far west that the government portrayed as an attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A top human rights group said in a report that at least 90 women have been raped and 180 villagers killed over the past two months by rebels as well as government forces in volatile eastern Congo.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Czech Pres. Vaclav Klaus appointed nonpartisan Jan Fischer (58) as prime minister. He will replace Mirek Topolanek on May 9.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 9, A court in coup-plagued Fiji declared the military government illegal and said the president should immediately appoint an interim leader to oversee a return to democracy.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, French lawmakers rejected a tough new Internet piracy bill that would cut off illegal downloaders, in a surprise setback for President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Georgia tens of thousands of protesters thronged the streets in front of the parliament, calling on Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili to step down in the largest opposition demonstration since last year's war with Russia.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Guatemala banned more than one person from riding on motorcycles in a policy aimed at stamping out attacks by cycle-mounted hit men.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A prominent Indian comedian took aim at the country's notoriously corrupt political elite by starting up his own party with promises to bribe as many voters as possible. Jaspal Bhatti, known for his biting satire on Indian TV shows, unveiled his new party and field of candidates, saying he hoped to give the big parties a run for their dirty money.
(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Indonesians flooded polling stations across the sprawling island nation, capping a decade of democracy in a parliamentary election that boosted the reform-minded president's chances of re-election. Pres. Yudhoyono’s party won 20.8% of the popular vote. Nine parties appeared to have passed the 2.5% threshold to win seats in the 560-member parliament.
(AP, 4/9/09)(SFC, 4/10/09, p.A2)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.44)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 Apr 9, Iran's president inaugurated a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor. Pres. Ahmadinejad was attending celebrations in Isfahan for Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, which marks the day in 2006 when Iran enriched uranium for the first time. Iran has been building the 40-megawatt hard-water reactor in the central town of Arak for the past four years.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Iraq tens of thousands of supporters of an anti-US Shiite cleric demanded an end to the US military presence and burned effigy of ex-President George W. Bush in a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to American forces. Police raided a cartoon exhibition in the Shiite city of Karbala and seized a drawing depicting PM Nouri al-Maliki with a long nose trying to repair a car labeled "sectarian distribution of jobs." On Apr 12 a parliamentary committee criticized police for raiding the exhibition.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 9, Mexico City turned off the tap to millions of residents because water reserves have reached historic lows. The two-day shutdown of a main pipeline affected at least 5 million of the 20 million people in the Mexico City valley.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Mexico a former Guatemalan soldier, who allegedly procured weapons for a drug cartel, was killed in a gunfight with federal police. Israel Nava and two other gunmen were killed in northern Zacatecas state. Eight police were wounded. Nava was a former member of the "kaibiles," Guatemalan soldiers trained in counterinsurgency. Mexico first warned in 2005 that the Zetas were recruiting kaibiles.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, A Niger government minister said Tuareg rebels have agreed to lay down their arms and join a peace process in the desert West African nation.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Nigeria's Central Bank cut its benchmark lending rate to 8% from 9.75% and announced measures aimed at boosting liquidity in the market.
(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, Kim Jong Il laid to rest speculation about his health with a triumphant return to parliament for his appointment to a third term as North Korea's supreme leader. Legislators unanimously adopted a law "on revising and supplementing the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK (North Korea)" but gave no details.
(AP, 4/9/09)(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Pakistan the remains 3 politicians were discovered in Baluchistan province, six days after they were reportedly abducted by armed men. They were identified as the head of the Baluchistan National Party (BNP), Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, his deputy Lala Munir Baloch, and Sher Mohammad, deputy secretary general of the Baluchistan Republican Party (BRP). Baloch played "an active role" in seeking the April 4 release of John Solecki, the UN refugee agency staffer. Rioting students set fire to two banks in another southwestern town. One policeman was killed and several others injured during the violent protests.
(AP, 4/10/09)(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Peru suspected guerrillas killed 13 Peruvian soldiers in ambushes on two patrols in the Apurimac-Ene river valley, a jungle region known for coca production and lingering rebel activity. The body of a 14th soldier was recovered on April 12.
(AP, 4/11/09)(SFC, 4/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 9, In South Africa an armed mob invaded a major land reform project in the eastern Mpumalanga province. The invaders were unhappy with the progress of the project, despite warnings that it would take up to three years before a return from what had been badly neglected farms.
(Reuters, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 9, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry said at least 10 Tiger rebels were killed in overnight fighting in Mullaittivu district, and accused the rebels of positioning their heavy weapons near civilian shelters. The pro-Tamil Tiger website Tamilnet.com said heavy shelling by the Sri Lankan army of a designated safe area had left 129 civilians dead and 282 wounded.
(AFP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 10, A US immigration board rejected suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk's appeal of an extradition order, paving the way for deportation to Germany to face charges he committed atrocities.
(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Arizona Samuel Valdivia (18), a high school student, was caught with his math teacher, Tamara Hofmann (48) in her bedroom, and was stabbed to death by boyfriend Sixto Balbuena (20), who was himself a former student of hers. Balbuena, a Navy sailor on leave from California, was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder after police found him covered in blood and told them about the killing.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 10, Areas of Tennessee were hit by a savage line of storms that wrecked homes, killed a mother and her baby and injured dozens of others.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Michigan a student fatally shot a female classmate before turning the gun on himself in an apparent murder-suicide that prompted a lockdown at Dearborn’s Henry Ford Community College, west of Detroit. The bodies of Asia McGowan (20) of Ecorse, and Anthony Powell (28) of Detroit, were discovered inside a classroom.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In southern Afghanistan Taliban attackers killed six policemen. ISAF security troops killed 18 insurgents in the northeastern province of Kunar.
(AFP, 4/10/09)(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Algeria President Abdelaziz Bouteflika hailed his landslide re-election for a third term as a "lesson in democracy," but opposition politicians and independent media alleged fraud at the polls, and the US government expressed concern.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Britain 11 environmental activists from a group called Eastside Climate Action were arrested after they entered the power station and climbed onto equipment at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant outside Nottingham. In 2011 a trial against 6 of the accused activists broke down after a police infiltrator prepared to give evidence on their behalf.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratcliffe-on-Soar_Power_Station)(AFP, 1/10/11)
2009 Apr 10, About 30 protesters tried to force their way into China's elite Peking University to confront Sun Dongdong, a law professor, who said 99 percent of the people petitioning the government with grievances are mentally ill and could be institutionalized.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, A study was released saying China has 32 million more young men than young women, a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime, because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, Fiji's Pres. Ratu Josefa Iloilo (88) suspended the constitution of his troubled South Pacific country and fired the judges who had declared its military government illegal.
(AP, 4/10/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.44)
2009 Apr 10, In France Ekaitz Sirvent Auzmendi (29), suspected of being a master forger for ETA, was captured by French and Spanish police as he got off a bullet train that had arrived from Bordeaux at the French capital's Montparnasse station.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, France's navy freed a sailboat seized off Somalia last week by pirates, but one of the hostages was killed. Pirates had seized the sailboat carrying Florent Lemacon, his wife, 3-year-old son and two friends off the Somali coast a week ago. Two pirates were killed, and Lemacon died in an exchange of fire as he tried to duck down the hatch.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, About 20,000 demonstrators kept up the pressure on Georgia's president to resign, with some pelting his residence with cabbages and carrots on a second day of protests.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Greece a teenage student (19) armed with two handguns, dozens of bullets and a knife opened fire in a vocational training college in Athens, wounding three people before shooting himself in the head. He left a note accusing his fellow students of picking on him.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In western India a blaze at a fireworks factory killed at least 23 workers and injured 48 others.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, Iran hanged three men for their involvement in a bombing inside a packed mosque that killed 14 people on April 12, 2008.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a sandbagged wall surrounding a police headquarters in Mosul, killing five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen in the single deadliest attack against US forces in more than a year.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, Japan renewed and strengthened sanctions against North Korea, but disagreed with the US over how the UN Security Council should censure Pyongyang for its rocket launch.
(AP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In the Netherlands a man (44) pulled a gun in Rotterdam’s Laurenshof cafe after an argument and shot a patron inside, then rushed outside where he shot three more people. Several people chased the gunman when he ran outside, overpowered and disarmed him, and wrestled him to the ground until police arrived.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In southwest Pakistan four people were wounded in a bomb blast, where businesses closed for a second day to protest against the murder of 3 separatist politicians.
(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Moscow Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and PM Vladimir Putin. Al-Maliki told Medvedev in the Kremlin that Iraq is interested in Russian investment, and Putin said at a joint news conference that talks focused on oil and gas cooperation.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, In Somalia Islamist militants attacked African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu overnight, sparking heavy exchanges that killed two civilians.
(AFP, 4/10/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Louisiana gunmen kicked down an apartment door and opened fire killing 2 children and a woman in Terrytown.
(SSFC, 4/12/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 11, Rebels ambushed Afghan and foreign forces in Zabul province, sparking an exchange of gunfire that left 22 rebels dead.
(AFP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 11, Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church for the first time issued a certificate of conversion to a Muslim-born Christian. It was only the second time that such a request has been formally made in a country where converting to Christianity, while not illegal, is practically impossible. Egypt's Copts, the largest Christian community in the Middle East, account for an estimated six to 10% of the country's 80 million inhabitants.
(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Iraq a suicide bomber walked into a crowd of US-allied Sunni paramilitaries and detonated his explosives belt, killing nine and wounding 30 others waiting in line for their salaries in Jbala.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Sajad Lone (41), an outspoken Kashmiri separatist and head of the People's Conference, said he would run in India's elections starting next week, marking a radical departure for the movement which has until now boycotted polls.
(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Morocco blamed Algeria for a "serious and blatant" violation by the Polisario Front of an 18-year-long ceasefire in the disputed Western Sahara and urged the UN to intervene.
(Reuters, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In southwestern Pakistan gunmen shot dead 8 people in separate incidents in the province of Baluchistan, amid protests over the killing of 3 local leaders this week, police.
(AFP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Moscow Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki met with Russian business leaders to encourage them to take an active part in rebuilding Iraq's economy.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, A Saudi man convicted of rape and robbery was beheaded, becoming the 22nd prisoner to be executed by sword this year in the kingdom. An Interior Ministry statement says the man committed the crimes after drinking alcohol.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Somali pirates hijacked the Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer, an American-owned tugboat, with 16 crew in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates abandoned the ship on August 9 and all crew members were freed. No random was paid.
(AP, 4/11/09)(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Apr 11, Corin Tellado (81), a well-known Spanish author of more than 4,000 romance novels, died while celebrating the Easter holidays with her family.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, In Thailand anti-government protesters stormed a convention center in Pattaya where leaders of Asian nations planned to meet, smashing doors and searching room by room for the prime minister. Thailand canceled the summit and airlifted the leaders out by helicopter.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Turkey’s agriculture ministry said 11 people have died in Turkey over the past three weeks, including three young Germans, after drinking bootleg spirits.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 12, US Navy SEAL snipers on a destroyer shot and killed three Somali pirates and plucked an unharmed Capt. Richard Phillips to safety. A fourth pirate surrendered. His rescue sparked concern for other hostages and fears that the stakes have been raised for future hijackings in the Indian Ocean shipping lane.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, The Pritzker jury named Peter Zumthor (65), a Swiss architect, as the 2009 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
(AFP, 4/12/09)(SFC, 4/13/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 12, In Florida a power boat packed with 12 people slammed into a docked tug boat, killing five occupants of the pleasure craft and seriously injuring seven on the Intracoastal Waterway in St. Johns County.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, In New Hampshire a massive fire destroyed or damaged about 40 summer cottages at the 146-year-old Alton Bay Christian Conference Center.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Texas 2 firefighters were killed while battling a house fire in Houston.
(SFC, 4/13/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 12, Marilyn Chambers (born in 1952 as Marilyn Ann Briggs), adult film star, was found dead at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Canyon Country. The pretty Ivory Snow girl helped bring hard-core adult films into the mainstream consciousness when she starred in the explicit movie "Behind the Green Door" (1972).
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Kandahar, Afghanistan, Taliban gunmen on motorbikes gunned down, female legislator Sitara Achikzai.
(AFP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Bahrain a pardon by King Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa led to the release of 178 people imprisoned on security-related charges. Among them were 22 Shiite activists who have been on trial since February on charges of seeking to destabilize the government and promote regime change through terrorism.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Bangladesh security officials arrested eight suspected militants of a banned Islamic group after raiding a house in Dhaka.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Sir John Maddox (b.1925), former editor of the British journal Nature, died.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maddox)
2009 Apr 12, China announced a $10 billion infrastructure fund and $15 billion in credits and loans to help its Southeast Asian neighbors face the global financial crises.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A9)
2009 Apr 12, In the Central African Republic at least 22 people died as cattle farmers and traders clashed over stolen oxen with guns, blades and arrows. Fighting was sparked by a dispute over 170 oxen stolen by bandits 10 days earlier but later retrieved.
(AFP, 4/12/09)(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Colombia a caravan of some 500 motorcycles completed a three-week ride dedicated to hostages held by FARC rebels, but fell short of securing the release of captives. At least 22 Colombian soldiers and police were held by the FARC as political bargaining chips.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Iraq a roadside bomb killed a US soldier north of Baghdad. A second roadside bombing struck two cars carrying Iraqis in the Jisr Diyala area, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Baghdad. Nine people were wounded in the explosion, including two women and a teenage boy.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Israel's new PM Netanyahu spoke to the Palestinian Pres. Abbas on Easter for the first time since taking office, telling him that he seeks close cooperation to drive peace efforts forward.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Jordanian authorities said a man has confessed to stabbing to death his pregnant sister (28) and mutilating her body to protect the family honor. The incident, the ninth such case this year and the second this month, took place in the village of Basira, in the conservative Bedouin heartland of southern Jordan.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Malaysian police rushed to a robbery scene only to find the suspects were fellow officers. 3 men of a special elite police unit were allegedly caught robbing five men at a house. One of the officers was armed with a pistol.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Nigeria fire broke out on the Trans-Niger Pipeline. All the feeder flowstations outside Ogoniland (in Rivers State) adjoining it were shut down to allow for repairs.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, In northwestern Pakistan about 150 militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons attacked a transport terminal that lies along a key supply route used by US and NATO troops, wounding three guards and torching eight cement trucks.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Puerto Rico Army Spc. Nokware Rosado Munoz (28) had been arguing with his pregnant wife about his upcoming redeployment to Iraq before hanging himself.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 12, Sri Lanka's president ordered government troops to halt their offensive against cornered Tamil rebels for two days to give tens of thousands of civilians a chance to escape the fighting.
(AFP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Thailand's ousted PM Shinawatra, called for a revolution after rioting erupted in the capital, with protesters commandeering public buses and swarming triumphantly over military vehicles in unchecked defiance after the government declared a state of emergency.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 12, Zimbabwe set up a parliamentary team to spearhead the writing of a new constitution which Pres. Mugabe's opponents say will be key to holding free and fair elections. A state newspaper reported that Zimbabwe will not use its own local currency for at least a year, while it tries to repair an economy which critics say was destroyed by President Mugabe.
(Reuters, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 13, Pres. Obama eased curbs on Cuba travel and money transfers. A broader economic embargo introduced by Pres. Kennedy in 1962 remained in place.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 13, In California a jury found Phil Spector (69), former rock-n-roll producer, guilty of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson (40).
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Minnesota’s Senate race a unanimous three-judge panel ruled in favor of Democrat Al Franken, but former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman swiftly announced he would take his fight to the state Supreme Court. After a statewide recount and seven-week trial, Franken stood 312 votes ahead.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, Afghan officials said an overnight NATO-led airstrike on a remote village killed six civilians, including two children. Western forces said they killed 4-8 armed militants. In southern Afghanistan Taliban gunmen used a firing squad to kill a young couple for trying to elope, shooting them with rifles in front of a crowd in a lawless, militant-controlled region. A young woman Canadian soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan and four other soldiers were wounded when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
(Reuters, 4/13/09)(AP, 4/14/09)(WSJ, 4/14/09, p.A1)(Reuters, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, Algeria’s constitutional council officially declared Abdelaziz Bouteflika re-elected as president of Algeria for a third mandate with 90.23% of the vote on a turnout of 74.56%.
(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, China released its first human rights action plan, pledging to improve the treatment of minorities and do more to prevent the torture of detainees but said that raising living standards would remain a central goal.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, It was reported that Egypt has cracked a major Hezbollah network and arrested 49 Hezbollah members and sympathizers between November and January.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 13, In France a 65-year-old man opened fire on three people apparently at random, killing two. The man, who had holed up in a house in the town of Douchy-les-Mines surrendered after the shootings.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, In India IJP candidate Bahadur Sonkar (48) was found hanging from an acacia tree in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh state. Dhananjay Singh, a rival BSP candidate and alleged gangster, was accused of Sonkar’s murder.
(http://labs.aljazeera.net/console/taxonomy/term/3043)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.47)
2009 Apr 13, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), an Iranian-American journalist, was convicted of spying and soon sentenced to 8 years in jail. She was released from jail on May 11 after an appeals court suspended her sentence.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101315579)(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Iraq an American soldier was killed by an armor-piercing bomb south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Lebanon gunmen ambushed government troops in the east of the country, spraying their military vehicle with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. Four soldiers were killed and an officer was wounded in the attack.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Mexico's Congress opened a three-day debate on the merits of legalizing marijuana for personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working. Mexican authorities arrested a woman guarding an arsenal that included the first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico. The army captured Ruben Granados Vargas, an alleged lieutenant for the Beltran-Leyva drug cartel in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
(AP, 4/13/09)(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, In southern Nigeria gunmen riding in 18 boats attacked a military houseboat outside an oil facility and commandeered a naval vessel. The clashes left nine militants and one naval rating dead.
(AP, 4/13/09)(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Pakistan’s Pres. Asif Ali Zardari signed a bill imposing Islamic law in the Swat Valley. Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency arrested 20 Indian fishermen and seized their four boats for illegally trawling in its waters in the Arabian Sea. Authorities estimated that more than 100 Pakistani fishermen languished in Indian jails while Indian authorities say nearly 500 Indian fishermen were in Pakistani prisons. Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s top civilian security official, said authorities in Karachi have arrested a Shahid Jamil Riaz, a 5th suspect in the November 2008 siege of Mumbai.
(WSJ, 4/14/09, p.A1)(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 13, An unmanned Palestinian fishing boat laden with hundreds of pounds of explosives blew up off the coast of Gaza in what the Israeli military said was an attempt to attack a naval patrol in the area.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Paraguay’s Pres. Fernando Lugo admitted that he is the father of a child conceived while he was still a Catholic bishop in San Pedro.
(SFC, 4/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 13, In Peru a foot bridge in the highlands collapsed, sending dozens of children and teachers from a nearby school plunging more than 230 feet (70 meters) into a ravine and killing 2 teachers and six schoolchildren.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Poland's deadliest fire in nearly 3 decades tore through a homeless shelter in the northwest, killing 21 and forcing parents to toss children from windows to rescuers.
(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, A Russian court ruled that tycoon Alexander Lebedev's registration as a candidate in the mayoral race in the Olympic city of Sochi is illegitimate.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Tajikistan an independent audit was posted indicating that the chairman of the Central Bank had diverted more than $850 million to a company run by himself and his family. The Ernst & Young audit said that under Murodali Alimardonov's stewardship, from 1996 to 2008, the Central Bank paid about $856 million to his Credit-Invest company, a general purpose investment concern. A further $221.5 million allocated for investment in the cotton industry in 2004-2007 remained unaccounted for.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, Thai troops unleashed volleys of gunfire in street battles with anti-government protesters across Bangkok, forcing them back to their main rallying site in a final push to end days of turmoil.
(AFP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, The UN Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's April 5 rocket launch, demanded an end to missile tests and said it will expand sanctions against the reclusive communist nation.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi proposed legislation for the city to sell and distribute medical marijuana.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 14, In Massachusetts Julissa Brisman (26) was found dead at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. On April 20 police arrested medical student Philip Markoff (22) of Quincy, in the woman's death. Police believed Markoff may have been involved in other crimes against women who also posted ads on Craigslist. On Aug 15, 2010, Markoff was found dead in his cell in Boston.
(AP, 4/21/09)(SFC, 8/16/10, p.A7)
2009 Apr 14, In Montana paleontologist Nate Murphy (51) pleaded guilty to stealing dinosaur fossils from federal land. He gained fame in 2000 when he discovered a 77 million-year-old duckbilled hadrosaur known as Leonardo.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 14, Afghanistan warned that Pakistan's deal to allow Taliban to impose Islamic law in part of the country may have "dire consequences" for the region and could harm ties between the neighbors.
(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo Morales ended a 5-day hunger strike after Bolivia’s Congress broke a political deadlock and approved a law letting him run for re-election in December.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 14, In London Sahnoun Daifallah (42) of Algeria, an unemployed chemist, was jailed for spraying a mix of urine and feces on food, wine and children's books in several British stores. Daifallah was sentenced to 9 years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of contaminating goods. Deportation proceedings were in progress.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, In northwest Central African Republic Soule Garga, a top representative of cattle breeders, was been killed by rebels, just days after a poaching bloodbath left 22 people dead.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, In southern China hundreds of workers at a textile factory blocked roads, in a second day of protests over unpaid wages.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, The EU started legal action against Britain for not applying EU data privacy rules that would restrict an Internet advertising tracker called Phorm from watching how users surf the Web.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, France's government launched a campaign against forced marriages and genital mutilation, seeking to protect women from practices that quietly thrive in immigrant communities the nation is struggling to integrate.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, French author Maurice Druon (b.1918), a fighter for France's World War II Resistance movement and writer of one of its anthems, died. After the conflict he wrote historical novels including the "Rois Maudits" (Accursed Kings) series.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, In Hungary Gordon Bajnai (b.1968) began serving as the country’s 7th prime minister. He continued to May 29,2010.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bajnai)
2009 Apr 14, Indian police arrested Ashok Sahu, a Hindu nationalist politician and member of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for an alleged April 5 anti-Christian hate speech at a poll rally in Orissa state, which was hit by Hindu-Christian riots last year.
(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, In Himalayan Kashmir an avalanche hit an Indian army post, killing 7 soldiers.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, North Korea vowed to restart its nuclear reactor and to boycott international disarmament talks for good in retaliation for the UN Security Council's condemnation of its rocket launch.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, Somali pirates captured two more nautical trophies to match the two ships they seized a day or two earlier. The MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned cargo ship, was attacked and captured by pirates in three or four speedboats. That hijacking came only hours after the Greek-managed MV Irene E.M. was seized in a rare overnight attack by pirates. Somali pirates also hijacked two Egyptian fishing boats in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast, which maritime officials said had a total of 36 crew. It was not exactly clear if those ships were hijacked April 12 or 13. The Liberty Sun, a US flagged cargo ship, repelled a pirate attack off the Somali coast. The MV Irene and 22 Filipino sailors were released on Sep 14.
(AP, 4/14/09)(WSJ, 4/15/09, p.A8)(AFP, 9/15/09)
2009 Apr 14, Thailand issued an arrest warrant for fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra for inciting street battles between anti-government protesters and troops. Leaders of the demonstrations called off their protests after rioting killed two and injured more than 120. Police issued warrants for 14 people, including the ousted prime minister at the heart of three years of turmoil.
(AFP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, Ukrainian officials said security agents have arrested a regional lawmaker and two companions for trying to sell a radioactive substance that could be used in making a dirty bomb. The legislator in the western Ternopyl region and two local businessmen were detained last week for trying to sell 8.2 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of radioactive material to an undercover agent of the security service.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 15, Pres. Obama directed the US Treasury Dept. to seize assets of 3 Mexican drug cartels including the Sinaloa cartel, the Los Zetas cartel and the La Familia Michoacan group.
(SFC, 4/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 15, In Washington, DC, the FBI arrested Walter Kendall Myers (72) and his wife, Gwendolyn (71), for spying. For three decades, Myers and his wife had shuffled secrets to their Cuban contacts. Kendall Myers first worked for the State Department as a lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute and later as a European analyst in the department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, from 2000 until his retirement in October 2007. On Nov 20 Myers and his wife pleaded guilty to serving as covert agents since 1979. Myers agreed to serve life in prison and his wife agreed to serve 6-7½ years.
(AP, 6/6/09)(SFC, 11/21/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 15, In Florida inmates Doni Ray Brown (23) and Wayne Fletcher (25) escaped the county jail in Palatka and within hours stole 2 vehicles and killed Fletcher’s step-grandmother (66). Both were arrested on April 18 and charged with murder.
(SFC, 4/20/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 15, Hundreds of Afghans swarmed a demonstration of more than 100 women protesting against a new marriage law they say restricts wives' rights. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart. A NATO soldier and 2 Afghan policemen were killed in fresh violence. Taliban insurgents beheaded a government employee on charges of spying for foreign forces in the Bala Murghab district of Badghis province.
(AP, 4/15/09)(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Bolivian police foiled an alleged plot to assassinate President Evo Morales, killing three men at the Hotel Las Americas in a 30-minute gunbattle with a mysterious group that included suspects from Hungary, Ireland and possibly Croatia. The 3 men were killed in their beds and 2 others were arrested. The dead included: Eduardo Rozsa Flores (49), the son of a Hungarian father and Bolivian mother, Arpad Magyarosi, a Romanian-born Hungarian, and Irishman Michael Martin Dwyer. Mr. Rozsa Flores was known as an activist for the autonomy of Bolivia’s department of Santa Cruz. The 3 men were involved in a conspiracy to create a separatist right-wing militia in the eastern, opposition-dominated state of Santa Cruz.
(AP, 4/16/09)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A5)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.35)(AP, 5/21/10)
2009 Apr 15, Clement Freud (84), a grandson of Sigmund Freud, died. He became a well-known writer, politician and urbane regular on British radio. He was best known from his three decades appearing on the BBC game show, "Just a Minute," in which panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. In 2016 his widow apologized after he was accused in a television documentary of sexually abusing two girls between the late 1940s and 1970s.
(AP, 4/16/09)(AP, 6/15/16)
2009 Apr 15, China fired into orbit its second satellite in a program to build an alternative to the global positioning system based on U.S. satellites.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Colombia's most wanted drug lord was captured in a jungle raid involving hundreds of police officers. Daniel Rendon Herrera (43), a far-right warlord known as "Don Mario," was taken in shackles to the capital to await possible extradition to the United States.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Egyptian police detained three teenage Palestinian men on suspicion of crossing illegally into Egypt and also found explosives near the border with Gaza.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Fiji's military government tightened controls on the media, devalued the currency by 20% and said it would not tolerate opposition to plans for a sweeping overhaul of the country's politics.
(AP, 4/15/09)(Econ, 4/18/09, p.44)
2009 Apr 15, A blockade by French fishermen angry at EU quotas cut ferry links with Britain for a second day as a union official threatened to block the Channel Tunnel in support of the movement.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, French forces detained 11 pirates during an assault on a pirate "mother ship" and thwarted a pirate attack on a Liberian-registered vessel.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Iranian scientists at the Royan Research Institute cloned a goat and planned future experiments they hope will lead to a treatment for stroke patients. The female goat, named Hana, was born in the city of Isfahan in central Iran.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, In Iraq 11 Oil Ministry guards were killed and 13 wounded in a car bombing in Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 15, In Mauritania Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the leader of a coup that ousted the elected government, gave up power. This freed him to seek the presidency in balloting aimed at returning civilian rule. Senate president Ba Mamadou Mbare was quickly sworn in as interim leader of the desert nation in western Africa.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, Mexico’s troubled border city of Ciudad Juarez and the federal government signed an agreement to train, recruit and equip enough city police officers to take over from 5,000 army troops now performing security patrols there.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Nigeria set up a panel to probe a multi-million dollar cash-for-contract scandal embroiling US giant Halliburton and reportedly implicating three former presidents.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Sri Lankan forces attacked Tamil guerrillas with mortar fire, artillery and heavy machine guns following a two-day cease-fire aimed at letting civilians flee the war zone, a pro-rebel Web site reported. The government denied launching a new attack.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, A Sudanese court condemned 10 rebels from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement to death for an unprecedented attack on Khartoum in May, 2008, which killed more than 220 people.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, In southern Zimbabwe at least 29 people were killed and 39 injured when a bus plunged into a river bed near Chivhu town.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, President Barack Obama announced his decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used interrogation practices described by many as torture. He condemned the aggressive techniques, including waterboarding, shackling and stripping, used on terror suspects while promising not to legally pursue the perpetrators.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, Pres. Obama committed at least $13 billion to launch a new era of high speed passenger rail transportation.
(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 16, It was reported that during the past few weeks, at least nine universities have received gifts totaling more than $45 million, and the schools had to promise not to try to find out the giver's identity.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, PEMGroup with assets of $4 billion said its board had appointed a special committee to look into allegations of a Ponzi scheme by money manager Danny Pang, who temporarily stepped aside while visiting Taiwan. The SEC soon filed a civil lawsuit against Pang and froze the assets of his firm, Private Equity Management Group Inc.
(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 16, Rosetta Stone, an American language instruction company, went public. It sold 6,250,000 shares at IPO price of $18. The stock traded as high as $26.27 before closing at $25.12.
(Econ, 1/5/13, p.52)
2009 Apr 16, In Sacramento, Ca., a tent city of some 150 homeless people was closed. It had been around for close to a decade on a strip of land between the American River and a power company.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.39)(http://obrag.org/?p=6660)
2009 Apr 16, In California pharmacy worker Mario Ramirez (50) showed up at the Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and shot Hugo Bustamante (46) and Kelly Hales (56) before turning the gun on himself and pulling the trigger.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, General Growth Properties Inc, the second largest US mall owner, filed for bankruptcy protection in one of the biggest real estate failures in US history.
(Reuters, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Drug makers GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Pfizer Inc. said they plan to create a new company to invest in the research and development of HIV treatments.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Middletown, Maryland, Christopher Alan Wood (34) killed his wife (33) and 3 children, then himself, in their home, leaving a gruesome scene that authorities said was found by the children's' grandfather on April 18.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Afghan a policeman was killed and one wounded in Helmand province. 3 "terrorists" were killed while the bomb they were planting on a road in the Nad Ali district of Helmand went off prematurely. Taliban militants attacked an Afghan counternarcotics police convoy in the Shindand district of western Herat province, sparking a battle which left one policeman dead and two wounded.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Five people were killed and dozens wounded when a blast tore apart a boat carrying more than 40 Afghan refugees off Australia's northwest coast. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation later said it was told the refugees had doused the boat in petrol to try to force the navy to land them in Australia and not turn them back to Indonesia, but that the blast was an accident. On Oct 28 two Indonesian fishermen were jailed for five years for smuggling the boat full of Afghan refugees.
(AFP, 4/20/09)(AFP, 10/28/09)
2009 Apr 16, The British government promised a multimillion pound investment to try to jumpstart the market for environmentally friendly electric cars.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 16, Ethiopian opposition protesters staged a rare demonstration in Addis Ababa, demanding the release of an official jailed for life in January.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, French fishermen allowed traffic to resume to three English Channel ports after receiving a government promise of euro4 million ($5.27 million) in aid, but they vowed to keep up their fight against European fishing quotas.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Indians voted in their tens of millions as the world's largest democracy kicked off month-long, five-stage elections, with little hope of a clear winner emerging at the end of it all. Attacks at 14 polling stations left 17 people dead in eastern and central India.
(AFP, 4/16/09)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 16, Indonesia's top court cleared Time Magazine of charges it had defamed former dictator Suharto in a cover story that alleged his family amassed billions of dollars during his decades-long rule.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Iraq a suicide bomber dressed in an army uniform detonated an explosives belt among Iraqi soldiers lined up for lunch at a base in Habbaniyah, killing at least 16 and wounding 50. Officials later maintained no one died but the attacker. An American Marine died as a result of a noncombat related incident in western Anbar province.
(AP, 4/16/09)(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, Japan promised to pledge up to $1 billion in aid for cash-strapped Pakistan at a donors conference as allies pressed the country for commitments to fight an Islamist insurgency and implement economic reforms.
(Reuters, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Hotel service in Monaco was limited and casino roulette wheels were expected to stop spinning as employees in the wealthy Mediterranean principality went on strike to protest job cuts.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In northern Nigeria a Canadian woman was seized in the city of Kaduna where she had been attending an international conference. Julie Mulligan (45) was freed unharmed in the northern city of Kaduna on April 29.
(AP, 4/18/09)(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 16, UN nuclear inspectors left North Korea after the hardline communist state ordered them out and announced plans to restart production of weapons-grade plutonium.
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Pakistan Maulana Abdul Azi, the deposed chief cleric of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, was freed on bail, nearly two years after he was captured during a bloody siege. An international human rights group urged Pakistan to reverse its decision to enforce Islamic law in a northwestern valley in a peace pact with the Taliban, saying the deal threatens women and takes the region back to the "Dark Ages."
(AFP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Russia ordered an end to its counterterrorism operation in Chechnya, a move that could lead to the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops from the southern republic battered by two separatist wars in the past 15 years.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, Sri Lankan troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked Tamil Tiger defenses in the northeast, a rebel-allied Web site reported, as international pressure grew for a new cease-fire to allow civilians to escape the fighting.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Sudan US Senator John Kerry said after talks with senior officials that Khartoum would allow some foreign aid to be restored in its western Darfur region but that it was not sufficient.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 16, Thailand’s former PM Thaksin was reported to have received a Nicaraguan passport.
(WSJ, 4/16/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 16, Turkey’s central bank cut is interest rate to 9.75% from 10.5% in a bid to combat a record surge in unemployment.
(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 17, The US EPA declared that greenhouse gases endanger public health paving the way for new federal regulations on pollutants. The Obama administration declared that carbon dioxide and 5 other industrial emissions threaten the planet.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 17, A US federal judge sentenced John Philip Hernandez of Houston to 8 years in prison for buying military-style firearms and that ended up in the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. Prosecutors said Hernandez led a group that purchased 339 weapons over 15 months.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 17, California received a windfall of over $3 billion for its schools and universities from the federal stimulus package, becoming the first state to receive an infusion of cash meant to stop a downward spiral in public education.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.B1)
2009 Apr 17, Great Basin Bank of Elko, Nevada, became the 25th US bank to fail this year.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.79)(www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/greatbasin.html)
2009 Apr 17, In Maine Laureen Rugen (50) was sentenced to 7 months in jail for stabbing her husband (61) over 25 times. She had suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse over two decades and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 17, In Afghanistan two earthquakes shook eastern Nangarhar province, collapsing mud-brick homes on top of villagers while they slept and killing at least 21 people. Two suicide bombers on foot tried to attack the office of the minister of refugees in southern Nimroz province. Guards shot and killed one bomber at the scene of the attempted attack. While fleeing the 2nd bomber detonated his explosives, killing 3 civilians. A Norwegian intelligence officer serving with the nation's peacekeeping force was killed by a roadside bomb near the northern city of Maymana.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Australia's PM Rudd denounced people smugglers who set hopeful refugees adrift in rickety boats as "scum" and pledged to step up efforts to thwart them, after one vessel exploded at sea and killed three people.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Australia revealed plans to introduce national arson laws with a maximum penalty of 25 years behind bars in the wake of deadly wildfires that claimed 173 lives.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Burkina Faso a meeting of economy and finance ministers of 14 African nations, all using a common currency that was pegged to the French franc, started with a French call to African nations to boost public spending.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Canadian police, acting on a tip-off from the United States, charged a Toronto man with trying to illegally export nuclear technology to Iran. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Mahmoud Yadegari had attempted to obtain pressure transducers, devices that are used to make enriched uranium but can also have military applications.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, President Francois Bozize of the Central African Republic accused some officials in his Kwa na Kwa Convergence party of racketeering to obtain funds and pledged a personal crackdown.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In central China a warehouse explosion reportedly killed 18 people and injured three at an illegal coal mine in Hunan province. State television reported that six people were injured in the blast with 2 missing.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 17, Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq, purported Syrian intelligence officer and one of the suspects in the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, was arrested in Dubai. He was arrested in France in October 2005 as a suspect in the murder, but disappeared from house arrest in France in March, 2008.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 17, Five of Germany's leading Internet providers agreed to block access to sites identified by national criminal investigators as hosting child pornography, as authorities reported the breakup of an international ring.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Iraq mortar rounds killed at least 4 people in the Shiite Jisr Diyala district south of Baghdad.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 17, In Mexico gunmen over the last 24 hours killed 12 people in different parts of Michoacan state, including three men who were beheaded. Authorities in Piedras Negras, in Coahuila state, bordering Texas, found the body of a man whose fingers had been cut off. Assailants stuck one finger in the man's mouth and cut out his tongue. Two buses collided head-on in the southern state of Chiapas, killing at least 19 people.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Norway a $225 million fund to provide low-price anti-malaria medicine around the world was launched in Oslo to fight a disease that kills 2,000 children a day.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 17, International donors, led by the US and Japan, pledged more than $5 billion to stabilize Pakistan's troubled economy and fight the spread of terrorism in the Islamic nation and neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Pakistan Maulana Abdul Aziz, the newly released leader of the radical Red Mosque, called for the enforcement of Islamic law across the militancy-plagued country during his defiant return to his prayer hall, where at least 100 died when Pakistani troops stormed the complex in 2007.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, Pakistan was stripped of its 2011 World Cup matches by the International Cricket Council. Growing security concerns cast the country firmly into the sporting wilderness.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, A Palestinian wielding a knife was shot and killed by Jewish settlers after he tried to attack residents of a West Bank settlement. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian during a protest against Israel's separation barrier. The military said protesters threw stones and other objects at security forces during a West Bank demonstration in town of Bilin. Abu Rahmeh (31) was killed when he was hit in the chest by a tear gas canister. On March 31, 2010, the Israeli military said it closed an investigation after determining the canister was not intentionally aimed at Abu Rahmeh.
(AP, 4/17/09)(AP, 4/1/10)
2009 Apr 17, In Russia the Sochi Elections Commission decided to strike billionaire and Russian government critic Alexander Lebedev from the ballot, after an appeals court a day earlier upheld a ruling that he had misfiled financial statements when registering his candidacy last month.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 17, A Swedish court found four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running The Pirate Bay, one of the world's top illegal file-sharing websites, sentencing them to a year in prison in a landmark ruling.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, In Thailand the founder of the “yellow shirt" protest movement that shut down Bangkok's airports last year was shot and wounded in a possible assassination attempt, just days after troops quelled rioting by a rival, anti-government group. Sondhi Limthongkul, a media tycoon and supporter of the current government, was in stable condition after surgery that removed "small pieces of bullet" from his skull.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, The Vatican said it will spend $660 million to build the biggest solar plant in Europe on 740 acres of pasture land it owns north of Rome.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 17, Zimbabwe deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara vowed to act against illegal farm invasions amid claims that a top lawmaker and Pres. Mugabe ally was behind a fresh seizure. Mugabe made a new call for western nations to lift sanctions and prodded his unity government partners to join his campaigning against them.
(AFP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 18, The Obama administration said it will boycott the April 20-25 UN conference on racism due to objectionable language in the meeting’s final draft document.
(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A13)
2009 Apr 18, In Texas 5 Houston children died after their sedan slid into a rain-swollen ditch when driver Chanton Jenkins (32) lost control while trying to answer a cell phone. Police the next day filed intoxication manslaughter charges against Jenkins, the father of 3 of the victims.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)(WSJ, 4/20/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 18, In central Afghanistan NATO-led forces and Afghan troops killed 3 suspected militants during a raid in Logar province, where insurgent attacks have spiked this year. At least two other suspected militants died in an airstrike in southern Kandahar province. A roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle in Kandahar city killed a woman and wounded five other people including three civilians.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 April 18, Eddie George (70), British central banker, died. He had helped give Britain over 40 successful quarters of economic growth.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.90)
2009 Apr 18, In Egypt the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported that an Egyptian woman has contracted bird flu in the second case in the country in as many days.
(AFP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, In southern Egypt Muslim gunmen shot dead two Coptic Christians as they left church after an Easter vigil, in an apparent five-year-old vendetta.
(AFP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 18, French and Spanish security forces thwarted a new ETA attack with the arrest of Jurdan Martitegi, the military chief of the Basque separatist group, and seven other suspected members.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 18, Jon Anza Ortunez (47), a member of the armed Basque group ETA, was last seen. ETA blamed Spanish police for a role in his disappearance — a claim Spain denied. ETA said Anza had been transporting a large sum of money between the French cities of Bayonne, which is not far from the border with Spain, and Toulouse for the group when he vanished. In 2010 his body turned up in a morgue in France. French officials told Anza's family that he had fallen ill on a street on April 29 and was taken to a hospital in Toulouse, where he died May 11. At the time, no one was reportedly able to identify him.
(AP, 3/12/10)
2009 Apr 18, Eight Mexican law enforcement officers were killed in an unsuccessful attack on a police convoy attempting to prevent the transfer of an important drug suspect to a prison in western Mexico. The attack appeared to have been an attempt to free Jeronimo Gamez, a top lieutenant of the Beltran-Leyva cartel, was arrested on the outskirts of Mexico City in January. Officers managed to deliver Gamez and eight other detainees to the prison despite the attacks.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Mexico one train apparently ran into another on the recently inaugurated Suburban Railway bordering Mexico City. At least 70 people were injured.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 18, In northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military checkpoint near the Orakzai tribal region, killing at least 27 people.
(AP, 4/18/09)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 18, A Palestinian teen (16) was fatally shot by Israeli troops after throwing firebombs at the gate of the Beit El Jewish settlement in the West Bank. A Palestinian man drove his Mercedes into two Israeli policemen checking motorists at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem. The driver was arrested after he told police he targeted the officers. Officials announced that the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would be open over the weekend to let medical patients leave the blockaded territory.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Philippine security forces rescued Andreas Notter (38), a Swiss Red Cross worker held hostage since January 15 by Islamic guerrillas. The government said it had no immediate details about a 2nd International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hostage, Italian national Eugenio Vagni (62), who was believed to be unwell and in need of hernia surgery.
(AFP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Somali parliamentarians unanimously endorsed a proposal to implement Islamic law in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Somali pirates attacked two ships off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Belgian-flagged Pompei carrying 10 crew. NATO forces intervened in the other assault, chasing the pirates down. Dutch commandos then freed 20 fishermen on a Yemeni dhow hijacked earlier. Seven pirates attempted to attack the Norwegian-flagged MV Front Ardenne but fled after crew took evasive maneuvers and alerted warships in the area. NATO warships and helicopters pursued the Somali pirates for seven hours after they attacked the tanker, and the high-speed chase only ended when warning shots were fired at the pirates' skiff. NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates. The Pompei and its crew were released on June 28.
(AP, 4/18/09)(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Sri Lanka 17 rebels were killed and 22 wounded in offensives aimed at clearing new escape routes for the civilians and a road link for the military to enter the zone. According to the military more than 2,800 civilians were able to flee the war zone.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 18, The 34-nation weekend Summit of the Americas opened in Trinidad. Cuba, as the region's only non-democracy, was not invited. Pres. Obama signaled he was ready to accept Cuban President Raul Castro's proposal of talks on issues once off-limits for Havana, including the scores of political prisoners held by the communist government.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Turkey thousands of people marched to the mausoleum of the country’s secular founder to protest the arrests of university professors and other secularists accused of involvement in an alleged plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, About 140 migrants remained stranded aboard a Turkish cargo ship for a third day as Malta and Italy argued about which country should accept them.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 18, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez said that he is restoring Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, voicing hopes for a "new era" in relations after exchanging greetings with US President Barack Obama at a regional summit in Trinidad. Chavez presented Obama with a Spanish hardcover edition of "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" (1971), by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano.
(AP, 4/18/09)(WSJ, 4/27/09, p.A13)
2009 Apr 18, Zimbabweans celebrated their first Independence Day under a coalition government, with President Robert Mugabe calling for national conciliation as he shared the stage with his former political rival.
(AP, 4/18/09)
2009 Apr 19, The annual Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded to 7 activists from 6 nations. Rizwana Hasan (40) of Bangladesh was awarded for exposing environmental damage and exploitative practices used in the country’s ship dismantling industry; Marc Ona Essangui (45) of Gabon, the founder of Brainforest, was awarded for exposing secret agreements for a Chinese mine project that threatened Gabon’s rain forests; Yuyun Ismawati of Indonesia was awarded for designing environmentally safe waste management systems for poor Indonesia n communities; Olga Speranskaya (46) of Eco-Accord in Russia was awarded for her efforts to control and store chemicals in Russia and former Soviet republics; Wanze Eduards (52) and Hugo Jabini (44) of Suriname, leaders of the maroon community, were awarded for their efforts that led to a landmark ruling ending tribal exploitation by the government. Maria Gunnoe (40) of West Virginia was awarded for her fight against the practice of removing of the tops of mountains and filing valleys below with tailings.
(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A18)
2009 Apr 19, In Arizona Doug Georgianni (51) was shot and killed while collecting data from a traffic enforcement camera inside an SUV in Phoenix. The next day police arrested Thomas Patrick Destories (68) on 1st degree murder charges.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.A7)(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 19, In Afghanistan roadside bomb in Kandahar city killed one police officer and wounded another.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika vowed to pursue national reconciliation, after being sworn in for a third five-year term.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, Bolivia's leftist president was headed to the airport when Barack Obama gave him what he requested the day before: public repudiation of an alleged attempt on his life.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, Author J.G. Ballard (b.1930), a China-born author and survivor of a Japanese prison camp, died in London. His vision was so dark and distinctive it was labeled "Ballardian." His first novel, "The Wind From Nowhere" (1962) sold well enough for Ballard to become a full-time writer. Other works included the novels "The Drowned World" and "The Crystal World" and the story collection "Vermilion Sands." He reached a wide audience with the autobiographical "Empire of the Sun" (1984), adapted as a film (1987) by Steven Spielberg.
(AP, 4/20/09)(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W12)
2009 Apr 19, The Shanghai Motor Show opened. Porsche kicked off the show by unveiling the Panamera, the German luxury carmaker's first foray into the sedan segment.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8007484.stm)
2009 Apr 19, Turkish Cypriot nationalists won a parliamentary election that could stifle a promising effort to reunite Cyprus, an ethnically divided island. The right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), led by Dervish Eroglu, garnered 44% of the vote. The ruling leftist Republican Turkish Party (CTP), of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, won 29%.
(AP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 19, In Haiti clear-plastic ballot boxes were nearly as empty as Port-au-Prince's unusually deserted streets as few voters turned out for Senate elections in which candidates from a major populist party were not allowed to run. Supporters of ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose Fanmi Lavalas party was disqualified from the election by Haiti's provisional electoral council, had urged an estimated 4 million registered voters not to participate.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, Iraq's parliament ended months of political paralysis by electing Ayad al-Samarraie, a prominent Sunni lawmaker, as its new speaker. Armed with pistols equipped with silencers simultaneously raided two jewelry stores near one another in northern Baghdad. At least 7 people were killed in the daylight heist.
(AP, 4/19/09)(SFC, 4/20/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 19, Italy agreed to accept 140 migrants stranded aboard a Turkish cargo ship that rescued them in the Mediterranean, ending a four-day standoff with Malta about who would take them in.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Jamaica Stephen Fray (20) forced his way through Montego Bay airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet, holding six crew members hostage. He fired his father's licensed .38-caliber revolver into the air, stole money from some of the 167 passengers aboard and demanded to be flown off the island. After 6 hours police and soldiers stormed the aircraft and captured Fray. On October 8 Fray was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Pakistan a suspected US missile attack aimed at Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels on the outskirts of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district along the border with Afghanistan, killed at least three militants. Pakistan helicopter gunships raided suspected militant hideouts near Ghiljo in the semi-autonomous tribal district of Orakzai near the Afghan border killing 20 insurgents and destroying their positions.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, In central Somalia two Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) workers were seized by around 25 gunmen traveling in two trucks. Dutch national Kees Keus (49) and Belgian Jorgen Stassijns (40) were released on April 28.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Sudan 21 people were killed when a bus they were travelling in collided with a truck about 25 miles south of Khartoum.
(AFP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Trinidad a Western Hemisphere summit wrapped up with President Barack Obama hopeful he'd boosted the image of the US among its friends in the region and perhaps even made some new ones. Caribbean leaders asked the US to expand a $1.4 billion program to help Mexico and Central America fight drug trafficking and organized crime to include aid for their island nations. The final declaration of the Summit of Americas, which Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his leftist bloc refused to sign, turned out to have just one signatory. It was PM Patrick Manning, host of the 34-nation summit.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 20, President Barack Obama convened his first formal Cabinet meeting and asked department and agency chiefs to look for ways over the next 90 days to cut $100 million out of the federal budget.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, New York-based Human Rights Watch said gunmen with suspected links to Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 Palestinians and wounded dozens in attacks on political opponents and alleged informers during and after Israel's recent war in the coastal territory. The report said 18 Palestinians were killed by Hamas during the three-week war, which ended Jan. 18, and 14 others were killed afterward.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Chesapeake Energy Corp. filed its proxy statement revealing a compensation package to CEO Aubrey McClendon that totaled $112 million for 2008, even as the company’s stock price tumbled.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.B1)
2009 Apr 20, In Florida 7 more Venezuelan polo horses sickened just before a tournament died overnight, raising the death toll to 21. Officials said they may have been killed by some type of poison. On April 23 Franck’s Pharmacy admitted to having prepared a generic version of Biodyl, a vitamin supplement banned in the US, which was administered to all the dead horses.
(AP, 4/20/09)(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 20, In Maryland a Loyola college student, her visiting parents and younger sister were found dead in a hotel room near Baltimore in an apparent murder suicide.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 20, In Washington state former Tacoma elementary school teacher Jennifer Rice (33) was convicted of having sex with a student (10) and his brother (15).
(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 20, Chicago cancelled a $2.52 billion deal to privatize Midway Airport after a winning consortium failed to line up funding.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.B4)
2009 Apr 20, Oracle Corp. snapped up computer server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. for $7.4 billion. The opportunity opened up after rival IBM Corp. abandoned an earlier bid to buy one of Silicon Valley's best known, and most troubled companies.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Benjamin F. Edwards III (77), former president (1967-2001) of St. Louis-based brokerage firm A.G. Edwards Inc., died. Under him the family firm grew from fewer than 50 branches to nearly 700.
(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 20, In southern Afghanistan two police were killed and four others wounded during a clash with insurgents in Zabul province. A roadside bomb in Uruzgan province killed a civilian, while a second roadside bomb in eastern Khost province killed two civilians.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Thousands of Tamils blocked some of London's busiest roads, demonstrating outside the Houses of Parliament for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Tamil rebels and Sri Lanka's government.
(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline said it has agreed to buy US-based skincare group Stiefel Laboratories in a deal worth up to 2.4 billion pounds ($3.6 billion).
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, At the Shanghai Motor Show Rolls Royce CEO Tom Purves announced that the company's new model would be called Ghost.
(http://tinyurl.com/dfqycq)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.66)
2009 Apr 20, In Chile Gen. Gonzalo Santelices, former head of the Santiago army garrison, was indicted along with 2 other officers in the killing of 14 dissidents in the early days of the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 20, In China a new English-language paper published by the Communist Party hit newsstands, part of Beijing's efforts to raise its profile on the global stage and find an international audience for the party line.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Ecuador’s finance minister Maria Elsa Viteri said the government will buy back about $3.2 billion in Global 2012 and 2030 bonds, worth about 32% of Ecuador's total foreign debt at a 70% discount, ending months of speculation about a default. A government audit last year determined that conditions surrounding the debt sale had left the bonds "illegal and illegitimate," prompting President Rafael Correa to order the refinancing.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, In southeast France workers at a French subsidiary of the American company Molex detained two bosses to protest plans to close the plant.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 3 Iraqi police officers and wounded eight US soldiers visiting the mayor of Baqouba city. At least 9 civilians were also injured.
(AP, 4/20/09)(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 20, In Mexico police found a body in flames dumped along a main thoroughfare on the outskirts the northern border city of Tijuana. The victim was found with his head wrapped in packing tape, a common practice used by drug smugglers against rivals.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 20, New Zealand's PM John Key said that he wants an exit strategy before sending the country's Special Air Service combat troops back to Afghanistan as the US has requested.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Nigerian pirates attacked the Aleyna Mercan ship about 50 nautical miles off Onne port, near the oil city of Port Harcourt. The vessel was delivering equipment to French oil group Total. On April 22 the kidnappers released the Turkish captain and the chief engineer.
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 20, Pakistan's central bank lowered the discount interest rate by one percentage point, acknowledging that the economy in the poverty-stricken, nuclear-armed nation was showing resilience. Pakistani security forces shelled and launched airstrikes against Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal region overnight, killing 4 civilians and 8 suspected militants.
(AFP, 4/20/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Paraguay's Pres. Fernando Lugo (57) was hit with another paternity claim, just a week after the former Roman Catholic bishop acknowledged fathering a different illegitimate child while still subject to his vows of chastity. Benigna Leguizamon, an impoverished soap-seller, said Lugo's previous admission inspired her to go public about her 6-year-old.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Vladimir Lukin, Russia's parliament-appointed human rights ombudsman, presented an annual report on human rights in Russia that included violations of religious freedoms, prisoners' rights and freedom of political expression. He said he is concerned about a growing number of claims that police and judicial authorities committed abuses.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Somali pirates in two boats with about six pirates each attacked the Maltese-flagged MV Atlantica, before the ship took evasive maneuvers and escaped in the Gulf of Aden without damages or injury. Other pirates released a Togo-flagged, Lebanese-owned ship after they found out it was supposed to pick up food destined for Somalia. The MV Sea Horse was hijacked April 14 with 19 crew as it headed to India to pick up more than 7,300 tons of food destined for Somalia. The pirates also were paid "a reward" of $100,000 by two Somali businessmen for freeing the aid ship.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Sri Lanka’s military said some 35,000 civilians fled the last corner of territory held by the Tamil Tigers, as the government warned the rebels it would launch a final assault in 24 hours. According to Tamil rebels 1,000 civilians died in a government raid on their territory. The military denied the accusation saying only 17 civilians were killed and that they died in rebel suicide bombings. Over the next 9 days some 114,520 civilians fled the area.
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 4/21/09)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.44)
2009 Apr 20, A south Sudan district official said weekend clashes left more than 170 people dead as armed fighters from the Murle ethnic group in remote Akobo county in eastern Jonglei state attacked Lou Nuer villages.
(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, A UN racism conference opened in Geneva. Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a walkout by angry Western diplomats. The US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland boycotted the conference out of concern that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 20, Zimbabwe's central bank governor admitted that he took hard currency from the bank accounts of private businesses and foreign aid groups without permission, saying he was trying to keep his country's cash-strapped ministries running.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 21, President Barack Obama signed a $5.7 billion national service bill to foster and fulfill people's desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or building and weatherizing homes for the poor. Under the bill the AmeriCorps program started by President Bill Clinton will triple in size over the next eight years.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Daniel Andreas San Diego (31), a computer specialist from Berkeley, Ca., was added to the FBI's list of "Most Wanted" terror suspects. Authorities described him as an animal rights activist who had turned to bomb attacks. San Diego became the 24th person on the list, and the only domestic terror suspect.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In a New York court Somali pirate Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse (18) was charged with piracy and other crimes relating to the Apr 8-Apr 12 siege of the Maersk Alabama.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 21, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom formally declared his 2010 campaign for California governor.
(SFC, 4/22/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 21, In NYC real estate baroness Leona Helmsley's estate gave away $136 million to hospitals, foundations and the homeless and left $1 million to animal charities, prompting one advocate to accuse the estate of failing to honor the hotel tycoon's wishes.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, The Boston Marathon was won by Ethiopia’s Deriba Merga for the men and Salina Kosgei of Kenya for the women.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 21, National libraries and the UN education agency put some of humanity's earliest written works online, from ancient Chinese oracle bones to the first European map of the New World. The World Digital Library project is modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory project, which debuted in the 1990s.
(AP, 4/21/09)(http://www.wdl.org)
2009 Apr 21, In Afghanistan police in southern Uruzgan province clashed with militants in the Khas Uruzgan district, killing seven suspected insurgents.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Scientists attending a conference in England said that a planet named Gliese 581 e, has been located in a galaxy outside our solar system. The new planet is probably too hot for human life because it sits very close to the sun-like star it orbits. A 2nd planet, Gliese 581 d found in 2007, was said to be in a zone habitable for potential life.
(AP, 4/21/09)(SFC, 4/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 21, Jack Jones (96), Britain union leader, died. He became a household name in Britain through his battles to secure better rights for workers.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 21, The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark interest rate to an historic low of 0.25% and made no explicit commitment on taking nonconventional measures to spur the economy even as it predicted a deeper-than-expected recession.
(Reuters, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In China three people were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for deadly arson attacks during last year's rioting in the Tibetan capital.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, French police detained around 200 undocumented migrants in a major operation in the Channel port of Calais.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Egyptian antiquities authorities announced that archaeologists exploring the "Way of Horus," an old military road in the Sinai, have unearthed four new temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city that could have been used to impress foreign delegations visiting Egypt. Early studies suggested the fortified city had been Egypt's military headquarters from the New Kingdom (1569-1081 BC) until the Ptolemaic era, a period lasting about 1500 years.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, India's central bank cut two key short-term interest rates by 25 basis points each, in a bid to kickstart the Asian giant's slowing economy. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered the repo, the rate at which it lends to commercial banks, to a record low of 4.75%, from a peak of 9.0% last year. It also reduced the reverse repo, the rate at which it borrows from banks, to 3.25%.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Iran Roxana Saberi (31), dual American-Iranian citizen convicted on April 13 of spying for the United States, went on a hunger strike. She was sentenced to eight years in prison after a swift, closed door trial. Saberi ended her hunger strike on April 5 and waited for her appeal process to move forward.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 Apr 21, Japan's highest court upheld the death sentence of a woman convicted of murdering four neighbors and sickening dozens more with arsenic-laced curry more than a decade ago. A district court had convicted Masumi Hayashi (47) in 2002 of deliberately lacing a pot of curry with arsenic and serving it to neighbors at a festival in July 1998 in Wakayama city.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In central Kenya villagers clashed overnight with an outlawed criminal gang using machetes, axes and clubs, killing about 40 people. Residents near the town of Karatina fought Mungiki members because the gang had been extorting money from them.
(AP, 4/21/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.53)
2009 Apr 21, Madagascar’s military-backed Pres. Andry Rajoelina banned demonstrations one day after a policeman was killed.
(SFC, 4/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 21, In Mexico soldiers captured Isaac Manuel Godoy Castro, an alleged top member of the Arellano Felix cartel, along with six other alleged members of his cell.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Myanmar authorities arrested Chit Pe, the pro-democracy deputy chairman, and party member Aung Saw Wei in Twante township. Both took part in a prayer service for the release of political prisoners which was held at a pagoda, about 20 miles south of Yangon. The two were charged with insulting religion, which carries a possible two-year jail sentence.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Nigeria officials said a strike by petrol truck drivers has caused a scarcity of fuel in the commercial capital Lagos, leading to long queues at petrol stations. The strike began at the weekend following a dispute between the tanker drivers and officials of the Lagos state traffic management authority LASMA. Gunmen in Nigeria attacked an oil tanker off the coast of the Niger Delta, kidnapping the ship's captain and an engineer. The Turkish vessel Ilena Mercan, chartered by French oil company Total, was attacked on its way to Onne port in Nigeria's southeastern Rivers state.
(AFP, 4/21/09)(Reuters, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, North and South Korea held their first formal talks for more than a year but discussions ended without agreement after just 22 minutes.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sierra Leone sent three men convicted of drug smuggling to the US, where they are wanted on similar charges, shortly after they were sentenced to five-year prison terms along with five other foreign nationals.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 21, Somali pirates freed a chemical tanker and its 23 Filipino crew members after holding them hostage in the Gulf of Aden for more than five months. The MT Stolt Strength was seized Nov. 10, 2008.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sri Lanka’s military said 52,000 had escaped the war zone.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir arrived in Ethiopia, on his sixth foreign trip since an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes was issued against him.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Geneva over 100 countries agreed on a declaration to combat racism and related forms of intolerance worldwide. The US was not among them, prompting sharp criticism from African-American groups participating in the UN's second global conference on racism.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, Turkish anti-terror police detained 37 suspects accused of links to the al-Qaida terror network.
(AP, 4/21/09)(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 22, David Kellermann (41), the acting chief financial officer of money-losing mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead at his home. Police said it was an apparent suicide. Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae have both come under fire from lawmakers as they plan to pay more than $210 million in bonuses through next year to give workers the incentive to stay in their jobs.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Connecticut a decade-long battle for marriage equality ended when the General Assembly voted to update the state's marriage laws to conform with a landmark court ruling allowing gay and lesbian couples to tie the knot.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Afghanistan a cascading collection of deep-blue high-mountain lakes became the country’s first provisional national park, as the violence-plagued nation took a big first step toward protecting one of its finest natural treasures.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, Britain’s Chancellor Alistair Darling said the government will pay drivers to swap old cars for new in a scheme to boost its stricken auto sector, mirroring moves in Germany and other European nations. He also said he saw the economy starting to grow again by the end of this year following the worst recession since World War II.
(AP, 4/22/09)(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 22, Jack Cardiff (94), British cinematographer, died. Cardiff was one of the first cinematographers to shoot in Technicolor. He won an Academy Award for the film "Black Narcissus" and was awarded an honorary Oscar for his work in 2001.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, The film “City of Life and Death," written and directed by Chuan Lu, opened in China. It depicted the 1937 Japanese assault on Nanjing.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.43)(www.imdb.com/title/tt1124052/)
2009 Apr 22, The European Commission published a consultative green paper on the common fisheries policy (CFP). With almost all stocks overfished, it called for drastic cuts in the EU's 90,000-strong fishing fleet and subsidies to safeguard a sustainable and economically viable fishing industry.
(AP, 4/22/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.58)
2009 Apr 22, In northern France an auto parts factory was closed after employees angry over job losses ransacked offices and prompted new concern about increasingly violent French worker protests.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Georgia thousands of opposition supporters from the provinces poured into the capital to join the protests aimed at forcing President Mikhail Saakashvili to step down.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet approved a new law to require the vast majority of the country's Internet service providers to block child pornography sites.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed at least five people and wounded 15 inside a mosque in central Iraq. A US soldier died from combat related injuries sustained during a patrol in an eastern section of Baghdad.
(Reuters, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Ireland about 15 masked men armed with steel bars, chains and nail-studded clubs ransacked a Shell pipeline site, in the latest trouble for Ireland's most controversial energy project. Shell has spent four years battling opponents of the project in both the courts and on the ground in rural County Mayo, where the global energy giant has government permission to pump natural gas from an untapped field 80 kilometers (50 miles) out in the Atlantic. It was the first time a paramilitary-style gang has attacked a Shell site in Ireland.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Lesotho a military-style offensive took place on the official residence of the PM Pakalitha Mosisili. Two men were arrested shortly after the shooting. 7 others were arrested across the border in South Africa the day after the shooting. The 9 men were charged with 31 counts, including murder and attempted murder in the attack.
(AFP, 7/28/11)
2009 Apr 22, In Mexico the bullet-riddled bodies of the two army officers were found in the Durango township of Tepehuanes, about 30 miles (50 kms) south of Guanacevi. The discovery happened days after Roman Catholic Archbishop Hector Gonzalez Martinez created a stir by saying that Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman lives near the town of Guanacevi.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Nigeria 7 high-ranking officials from the country's electricity regulatory commission were charged with "criminal diversion" of state funds. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accused chairman Ransome Owan and six of the agency's commissioners of diverting for their private use about five billion naira ($33 million/26 million euros).
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, A group of Norwegian lawyers filed a complaint accusing 10 Israelis of war crimes in Gaza under the country's new universal jurisdiction law.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, Somalia's foreign minister urged the international community to help its fledgling government set up a coast guard to fight the rampant piracy that has disrupted shipping in one of the world's busiest waterways.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, South Africans voted in general elections set to launch the ruling ANC party's controversial leader Jacob Zuma (67) into the presidency. The African National Congress took 65.9 percent of the nearly 18 million votes cast, failing to get its coveted two-thirds of the seats in the 400-member parliament. The Democratic Alliance (DA), under Helen Zille, won nearly 17% and 17 seats, while the new COPE Party got barely 7% of the vote. The Inkatha Freedom Party got 5% of the vote winning 18 seats.
(AFP, 4/22/09)(AP, 4/25/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.53)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.13)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.50)
2009 Apr 22, A South Korean court convicted and handed down a death sentence to a masseur charged with killing 10 people, including his wife and mother-in-law. Kang Ho-sun (38) was indicted in February in the slayings of eight office workers, karaoke bar employees and university students after abducting them between September 2006 and December 2008. Kang was also accused of burning to death his wife and mother-in-law in 2005 in an attempt to win insurance money.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, Two Tamil Tiger officials surrendered to the Sri Lankan army, and refugees joined a stream of more than 80,000 people the government says have fled a war zone that appeared to shrink by the hour.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, A Sudanese court sentenced 11 members of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to death and acquitted five others for an unprecedented 2008 attack on Khartoum. A district official said the death toll from clashes between rival ethnic groups in south Sudan has risen to 250 people, with dozens of children also abducted.
(AFP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a roadmap for normalizing relations and reaching reconciliation, but it wasn't immediately clear how they would tackle their bitter dispute over Ottoman-era killings of ethnic Armenians.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Yemen two young sons of a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo were buried after a grenade they were playing with accidentally detonated inside their home. The two boys were the sons of Guantanamo prisoner #1463, Abdelsalam al-Hilah, a businessman who was captured in Cairo in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo on charges of terrorism.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 7 people have been diagnosed with a new kind of swine flu in California and Texas.
(Reuters, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, In California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a securities fraud lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co. for deceptively marketing a financial instrument to thousands of state investors who suffered losses of over $1.5 billion.
(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 23, In central Afghanistan international and Afghan troops killed two militants in an overnight raid. Afghan and coalition troops captured three suspected militants in a raid in eastern Logar province. 3 Afghan army soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in eastern Paktia province.
(AP, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, The EU development commissioner said an international conference has already pledged over 250 million dollars to help Somalia improve its security.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Dubai's deputy police chief denied a report that pirates have laundered ransom money through banks in the Gulf city-state, according to a local newspaper.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Around 110 million Indians voted in the second and largest stage of month-long elections. In eastern India suspected communist rebels blew up a jeep carrying polling officials in Bihar state, killing five people as part of a wave of violence that has marred national elections. Ethnic separatist rebels killed two policemen when they opened fire on the convoy of a politician in northeastern Assam state.
(AP, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, Iran's official news agency says Tehran has reached an agreement with Iraq to build a pipeline that will feed Iraqi crude to an Iranian refinery.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In Iraq two suicide bombers blew themselves up in separate attacks, killing at 88 people. One blast in Baghdad killed 31 people. In the other near Muqdadiya 57 dead included visiting Shiites from Iran.
(AP, 4/23/09)(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 23, A Kazakh court jailed the publisher of an opposition newspaper for failing to pay damages in a libel case that government critics contend is politically motivated.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In Madagascar armed forces fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators loyal to the island nation's ousted president, as looters rampaged through the streets of the capital.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, The editor of a Malaysian anti-government news Web site, charged with sedition, went into hiding, prompting a court to order his arrest. Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin, who runs the popular Malaysia Today Web site, failed to appear for a court hearing on a sedition charge stemming from an article he wrote that allegedly implied the prime minister was involved in the murder of a Mongolian woman.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In Nigeria unknown gunmen kidnapped Peter Ademokhai, a retired army general, from his farm in the southern state of Edo.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 23, Pakistani paramilitary forces rushing to protect government buildings and bridges in the Taliban-infiltrated district of Buner, just 60 miles from the capital, were met with gunfire that killed one police officer. Gunmen opened fire on a security convoy that included some of the Frontier Constabulary killing an escorting police officer and wounding another in the Totalai area. Dozens of militants armed with guns and gasoline bombs attacked a truck terminal near Peshawar, burning five tanker trucks carrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army killed at least 11 militants on the third day of an operation against insurgents in the northwest's Orakzai tribal region.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Former King Michael of Romania took the unusual step of endorsing his son-in-law as a candidate in the country's next presidential election.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Russia’s central bank said it will cut its key lending rates by half a percentage point and increase reserve requirements.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Apr 23, In Serbia a war crimes court found four former Serbian policemen guilty of the massacre of 48 Kosovo Albanians and sentenced them to up to 20 years in prison. The verdict said the defendants rounded up members of one Kosovo Albanian family in their village of Suva Reka in March 1999, killing several men with machine-gun fire before forcing the rest into a pizza restaurant and throwing hand-grenades at them.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, In South Africa with early returns giving the ANC a 66% lead, the party said it would block off downtown Johannesburg streets around its offices for Zuma to address his supporters in the evening to celebrate victory.
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Sri Lanka pleaded for international help after Doctors Without Borders warned that civilian casualties are rising rapidly in the country's war zone despite the exodus of more than 100,000 people. 15 people were killed when shells hit a Roman Catholic church, wounding a priest whose leg was amputated.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 24, US federal regulators privately began telling the nation's 19 largest financial institutions how well they performed in stress tests to assess their soundness. The results were scheduled for public release on May 4.
(AP, 4/24/09)(SFC, 4/25/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 24, It was reported that stem-cell scientists had reprogrammed mature cells into embryonic-like cells using proteins instead of genes.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 24, It was reported that scientists have created the first genetic blueprint of domestic cattle and found they share 80% of their genes with humans.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 24, South Carolina's worst wildfire in at least three decades threatened to intensify after a lull overnight, when calm winds and firebreaks helped contain the blaze that demolished homes and roared through woods just miles from the most-populated stretch of the state's tourist beaches.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Afghanistan a bomb inside a package left at a checkpoint in Kabul exploded when police opened it, killing one officer. Taliban militants released the father of Afghanistan's education minister after holding him hostage for four days. International and Afghan troops clashed with insurgents in fighting that left at least 12 militants dead.
(AP, 4/24/09)(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 24, Margaret Gelling (84), expert on English place names, died. From 1986 to 1998 she served as the president of the English Place-Name Society.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.93)
2009 Apr 24, The Canadian Auto Workers union and Chrysler Canada reached a tentative concession deal that would cut about C$19 ($15.70) an hour from labor costs in a bid to keep the struggling automaker from bankruptcy.
(Reuters, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, China enacted a new postal law propping up its China Post monopoly. It imposed new rules on small domestic companies and severely limited the activities of foreign owned firms.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.65)
2009 Apr 24, David Duke (59), the former Grand Wizard of the Louisiana-founded Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, arrived in Prague at the invitation of a local far-right group, Narodni Odpor (National Resistance). He was soon arrested and questioned for several hours on suspicion of promoting movements seeking the suppression of human rights. Duke was freed during the night and forced to leave the country the next day.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Egypt a woman (33) died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the third death from the disease in Egypt this week.
(AFP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, Ethiopian authorities arrested 35 members of an opposition group accused of plotting to carry out a "terror attack" in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 24, In India's remote northeast Assam state wild elephants demolished two thatched-roof huts, killing five villagers in a pre-dawn attack. India's northeast has the world's highest number of wild Asiatic elephants, with 7,000 estimated in the states of Assam and Meghalaya alone.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Iraq back-to-back, female suicide bombings killed 71 people outside Baghdad’s Shiite shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim . Among the dead were 25 Iranian pilgrims. An American soldier died as a result of a noncombat related incident in the northern Salahuddin province.
(AP, 4/24/09)(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, Jewish settlers, Israeli troops and Palestinian villagers clashed with guns, rocks and tear gas, leaving five Palestinians hospitalized.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, Jordan's king recorded an interview urging President Barack Obama to take a more forceful role in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, warning of a new Mideast war if there is no significant progress in the next 18 months.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Italy US and Russian arms negotiators held a "very productive" initial round of talks aimed at agreeing a new treaty to curb nuclear weapons as part of a broader effort to improve relations.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Madagascar police clashed with supporters of the ousted president leaving 2 people dead.
(SFC, 4/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 24, Malaysia's PM Najib Razak vowed to investigate a scathing report by US lawmakers saying thousands of Myanmar refugees were handed over to human traffickers and ended up working in Thai brothels.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, Mexico’s Health Secretary Jose Cordova said private and public schools in Mexico city have been ordered to remain closed due to a flue epidemic. At least 20 people have died nationwide from the flu in the last three weeks.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Mexico the bullet-riddled bodies of nine men were found in and around the resort of Acapulco. 2 federal police agents were shot to death in Ciudad Juarez, as they walked in the downtown area after leaving a bar. Mexican authorities captured German Torres (29), an alleged cartel hit man suspected in the abduction of American anti-kidnapping expert Felix Batista. Batista was kidnapped in Coahuila state Dec. 10 and has not been heard from since.
(AP, 4/24/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Pakistan Taliban militants who had seized Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital, began pulling out after the government warned it would use force to evict them.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo asked for forgiveness for a paternity scandal in which three women claim the former Roman Catholic bishop fathered their children. He vowed not to let the current scandal distract his government from pressing reforms, and said he would step down only when his term ends in 2013.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 24, Somalia's hardline Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys ruled out talks on with the government until African Union peacekeepers withdraw from the war-torn country.
(AFP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 25, The World Health Organization called an emergency meeting of experts to consider declaring an international public health emergency over the swine flu outbreak believed to have killed dozens of people in Mexico and sickened at least seven in the US.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Florida Joshua Cartwright (28), accused of beating his wife, killed two sheriff's deputies at a shooting range in Okaloosa County. Cartwright shot the deputies after they shocked him with a Taser. He then fled across the county line, where he died in an exchange of gunfire with deputies.
(AP, 4/26/09)(WSJ, 4/27/09, p.A5)
2009 Apr 25, In Athens, Georgia, Prof. George Zinkhan (57) shot and killed his wife and 2 other people outside the Athens Community Theater. Zinkhan fled the scene. Cadaver dogs found Zinkhan’s body "beneath the earth" in the north Georgia woods on May 9, two weeks after police say he shot his wife and two other people to death outside a community theater.
(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.A7)(SFC, 4/27/09, p.A4)(AP, 5/10/09)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 Apr 25, In San Francisco Anthony’s Cookies held its grand opening at 1417 Valencia Street.
(http://tinyurl.com/yae5jzv)(SFC, 12/7/09, p.E1)
2009 Apr 25, Beatrice Arthur (b.1922), stage and TV actress, died. The tall, deep-voiced actress considered herself lucky to be discovered by television executives after a long stage career that included a Tony award for the musical "Mame." Her TV shows included “Maude" (1972-1978) and “The Golden Girls" (1985-1992).
(AP, 4/26/09)(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.B6)
2009 Apr 25, In Afghanistan 3 suicide bombers penetrated the governor's compound in Kandahar city, killing at least five police officers in the latest multi-pronged attack in the Taliban's spiritual birthplace. A roadside bomb in the eastern province of Khost killed three border police.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Australia intercepted a boat carrying more than 50 refugees north of Darwin, little more than a week after an explosion on another vessel killed five people. A boat carrying 32 Sri Lankan refugees was stopped near the northwest coast on April 23.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported the Behrad Khamesee and colleagues at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, have built a micro-robot with gripper arms that levitates.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.85)
2009 Apr 25, In Guatemala police announced that they had seized more than 500 grenades, anti-personnel mines, machine guns, 350 kilograms (770 pounds) of cocaine and two armored cars at a warehouse where five anti-drug agents were killed in a shootout the previous day.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Icelanders voted in an early parliamentary election. Iceland's leftist coalition won the country's general election, a blow for the pro-business Independence Party that many blamed for the collapse of the country's banking system. Johanna Sigurdardottir, the acting prime minister, was expected to be named prime minister.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.52)
2009 Apr 25, In India two employees of Airworks, the company that maintained the helicopter of an Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, sabotaged the gear box. The potentially lethal tampering was not motivated by corporate rivalry, but was part of a dispute between Airworks employees and management dating back to 1995. Two janitors were arrested in the attempted sabotage. Uday Warekar (42) and Palraj Ganpat Tewar (38) faced life in prison for violating the unlawful activities act and the civil aviation act.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported that Kenya’s government included 94 ministers and deputies, each earning over $15,000 a month.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p53)
2009 Apr 25, Lebanese authorities arrested three men for allegedly being part of a spying ring for Israel, in the latest episode in the long-running espionage war between the two countries. The arrests were based on information extracted from a retired Lebanese general arrested earlier this week, also for allegedly spying for Israel.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, Lebanon’s national debt was reported to have dropped to 162% of GDP, triple the world average.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.52)
2009 Apr 25, Mexico City suspended all public events for 10 days as officials tried to contain an outbreak of a deadly new swine flu. Tests showed 20 people have died of the swine flu, and 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Mexico gunmen killed the police chief of Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, less than three weeks after he took over the local force with the aim of purging alleged corruption. Six police officers were being questioned in the attack.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, North Korea said it has restarted its nuclear facilities to harvest plutonium for atomic weapons, just hours after the UN imposed new sanctions on the communist state for its recent rocket launch.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In northwest Pakistan at least four children were killed in a bomb explosion outside a girls' primary school in Luqman Banda village of Lower Dir town.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Somalia mortars fired toward the parliament missed the building but hit a police unit inside the compound as well as a residential neighborhood, killing at least 7 people. Armed fighters attacked two African Union peacekeeping bases in Mogadishu, and a witness said he saw the bodies of three civilians killed.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Hijackers seized the Maltese-flagged MV Patriot, a German-owned ship with a crew of 17, in the pirate-infested waters between Somalia and Yemen. An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits.
(AP, 4/25/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tiger rebels warned that tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the northern war zone are facing starvation, as the UN sent its top humanitarian official to assess the crisis.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Thailand around 2,000 anti-government protesters gathered for a rally in Bangkok, a day after PM Abhisit Vejjajiva lifted a state of emergency imposed amid violent demonstrations earlier this month.
(AFP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 26, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that students at a city high school were infected with swine flu. About 100 students complained of flu-like symptoms at the school. Some students went to Cancun on a spring break trip two weeks ago. The flu has spread beyond Mexico's borders with confirmed cases in the US and suspected cases as far away as New Zealand.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, A deal between Chrysler and the UAW was revealed that would give the union a 55% stake in the company in return for concessions. Under the plan Fiat SpA would eventually own 35% and the US government together with secured lenders would own up to 10%.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A8B)
2009 Apr 26, Hans Holzer, Austrian-born American ghost hunter died. In 1974 authored “Murder in Amityville," the basis for the 1982 film “Amityville II: The Possession." In 1977 Holzer and medium Ethel Johnson-Myers allegedly channeled the spirit of a Shinnecock Indian chief, who said the New York house stood on an ancient Indian burial ground.
(www.warrens.net/amityvill.htm)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.90)
2009 Apr 26, In Afghanistan a roadside bombing in Wardak province killed two members of a new US-funded civil defense force. On the outskirts of Kabul authorities destroyed 6.5 tons (6 metric tons) of drugs and chemicals seized in the battle against the rampant narcotics trade.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Canada reported its first confirmed cases of swine flu at opposite ends of the country, with two cases in the western province of British Columbia and four in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.
(Reuters, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, In Chile a fire touched off by brawling inmates swept through the Colina prison near Santiago, killing 10 prisoners.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi wrapped up a regional Middle East visit in Damascus saying Israel should return the Golan Heights to Syria.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Ecuador held elections. President Rafael Correa, a feisty leftist popular for his social programs, was widely favored to win re-election. Correa won 51.2 percent of the vote in an eight-candidate field, making the leftist economist the first Ecuadorean president in 30 years to be chosen without a runoff vote.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 26, In southern Iraq a pre-dawn raid by US forces killed a woman in Kut. It drew sharp fallout from Iraqi authorities who demanded an investigation and ordered the arrest of two high-ranking Iraqi military officers for allegedly allowing the operation to happen. Iraqi police officials say the wife and brother of a local clan leader were killed. US forces arrested six members of so-called "special groups," Shiite militia factions that were once part of the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. 3 Christians were killed in the northern city of Kirkuk. Police said the slayings appear to be an attempt by al-Qaida to spark sectarian clashes.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 26, Pakistan sent helicopter gunships and troops to attack Taliban militants in a district covered by a peace deal after strong US pressure on the nuclear-armed nation to confront insurgents advancing in its northwest.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, The Russian city of Sochi, host for the 2014 Winter Olympics, elected a mayor after a campaign that a liberal opposition candidate called a fraud and disgruntled voters said favored the Kremlin-backed front-runner. The Kremlin favorite won an overwhelming victory in Sochi, but the top opposition candidate claimed fraud and said he would challenge the result.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 26, Facing imminent battlefield defeat, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire and called on the government to halt its offensive to spare the tens of thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Voters in the heart of the Swiss Alps passed legislation banning naked hiking after dozens of mostly German nudists started rambling through their picturesque region.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, A Sudanese court sentenced another 11 Darfur rebels to death for a 2008 attack on Khartoum, raising to 82 the number of Justice and Equality Movement fighters ordered hanged for the raid.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Pope Benedict XVI named five new saints, including Portugal's 14th century independence leader and an Italian priest who ministered to factory workers at the dawn of the industrial era.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 26, Pirates attacked 4 Yemeni tankers escorted by a Yemeni coast guard boat on their way to Aden. 3 of the ships escaped and coast guards captured five pirates and wounded two others. The Turkish cruiser Ariva 3, with two British and four Japanese crew aboard, survived a pirate attack near the Yemeni island of Jabal Zuqar. Somali pirates demanded a $5 million ransom for the release of two Egyptian fishing boats hijacked earlier this month. Later in the day Yemeni coast guard forces freed the hijacked Yemeni oil tanker (Qana) and arrested 11 Somali pirates, the first time the country has successfully retaken a seized vessel.
(AP, 4/26/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, America, Canada, Europe and Japan promised to cooperate on validating alternatives to using animals in medical research. An estimated 50-100 million animals were used in research annually around the world.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.18)
2009 Apr 27, Five members of the US Congress were arrested while protesting the expulsion of aid groups from Darfur in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. The included Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland and Lynn Woolsey of California.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Maryland an indictment named Metro Dream Homes founder Andrew Hamilton Williams Jr. (58) of Hollywood, Fla.; financial officer Michael Anthony Hickson (46) of Commack, N.Y.; president Isaac Jerome Smith (46) of Spotsylvania, Va.; and vice president Alvita Karen Gunn (31) of Hanover, Md., for defrauding over 1,000 people out of about $70 million. They were given 48 hours to turn themselves in. Investors were told they were investing in ATM machines, television advertising and calling card kiosks that would raise money for the mortgage payments. Prosecutors said those businesses never made any money.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, US cases of the deadly new flu strain rose to 40. Governments around the world acted to stem a possible flu pandemic, as a virus that has killed 149 people in Mexico and spread to North America was confirmed to have reached Europe. Spain's Health Ministry confirmed the country's first case of swine flu and said another 20 people are suspected of having the disease.
(Reuters, 4/27/09)(AP, 4/27/09)(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 27, Conde Nast Publications closed its Portfolio magazine after less than 2 years due to a downturn in advertising.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.B8)
2009 Apr 27, General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 US factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take more than half its stock in exchange for half of GM's government debt as part of a major restructuring that would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the company.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, Ernie Barnes (b.1938), former American Football League player turned artist, died. He was named the official artist of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 27, Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed to change a law critics say legalizes marital rape to remove concerns that it violates human rights. Karzai also announced that he intended to run for re-election in the country's second ever presidential vote on August 20. In Kabul province 12 "terrorists" and a police official were killed during a clash. In the east, a roadside bomb killed four police.
(AP, 4/27/09)(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, Belarus' authoritarian Pres. Lukashenko met with Pope Benedict XVI on his first trip to Western Europe since the European Union lifted a travel ban imposed in 1999 over his dismal human rights record. The EU lifted the ban to allow Lukashenko to attend an East-West summit in Prague, Czech Republic, in May.
(www.contracostatimes.com/nationandworld/ci_12237339)
2009 Apr 27, An international human rights group said elite soldiers in junta-ruled Guinea are taking advantage of an anti-corruption drive to rob, extort and beat intimidated civilians in the West African nation with impunity.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Japan Univ. of Wyoming professor Craig Arnold (41), an award-winning poet, was reported missing after he failed to return from a hike on the tiny island of Kuchinoerabu-jima, about 30 miles (50 km) off the coast of southern Kyushu island.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Kenya 2 men pleaded guilty in court to illegally possessing 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) of elephant tusks in what was believed to be the largest seizure of illegal ivory in recent years. Rangers and police arrested the two, a Kenyan and a Tanzanian, on April 25, when the Kenya Wildlife Service acted on a tip about planned ivory smuggling in Amboseli National Park.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Kosovo Serbs protesting the building of homes for ethnic Albanians in northern Kosovo threw two hand grenades and fired gunshots at European Union police officers, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades to drive the crowd away.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Mexico an earthquake of magnitude 5.6 was centered near Chilpancingo, about 130 miles (210 km) southwest of Mexico City. 2 women aged 67 and 75 died of heart attacks during or shortly after the earthquake, and four homes and a perimeter wall collapsed in and around the resort of Acapulco.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Tijuana, Mexico, 7 police officers were assassinated in about an hour's time in what authorities said was a coordinated effort. 4 of the officers, three men and a woman, were found amid more than 200 bullet shells.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Pakistan Taliban militants declared their peace deal with the Pakistani government "worthless" after authorities deployed helicopters and artillery against hide-outs of Islamist guerrillas seeking to extend their grip along the Afghan border. Paramilitary troops killed 20 suspected militants, and a total of 46 have died since the operation began. A remote-controlled bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing an officer and a passer-by while wounding five other police in the northwest Lakki Marwat area.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, Palestinian officials established formal ties with Venezuela and opened a diplomatic mission in the South American country.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, Peru's government said that it has granted political asylum to Manuel Rosales, a Venezuelan opposition leader, who faced corruption allegations in his homeland but claimed to be persecuted by leftist President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, A Moscow district police chief opened fire on the street and in a supermarket, killing three people and wounding seven others, four of them critically. Maj. Denis Yevsyukov killed a cab driver and wounded several passers-by in the street, then gunned down a cashier and a customer in the market. He then held two dozen people hostage for several hours and shot at police officers before they disarmed and detained him. On Feb 19, 2010, a Moscow court sentenced the police precinct chief to life in prison for the drunken shooting spree.
(AP, 4/27/09)(AP, 2/19/10)
2009 Apr 27, The Sri Lankan government, under intense pressure to prevent civilian deaths, said it would immediately stop airstrikes and artillery attacks but rejected calls for a cease-fire in its war against the Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, In southern Thailand suspected Muslim rebels killed 10 civilians in a flurry of attacks, just ahead of the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces against militants at the Krue Se mosque.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Turkey a five-hour police shootout with a leftist militant in Istanbul left three people dead, including the militant described as a top member of a group tied to the Kurdish separatist PKK. The militant was identified as Orhan Yilmazkaya, one of three top members of the Revolutionary Headquarters.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 28, World health officials raised a global alert to an unprecedented level as swine flu was blamed for more deaths in Mexico and the epidemic crossed new borders, with the first cases confirmed in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, Veteran Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties with a suddenness that seemed to stun the Senate, a moderate's defection that pushed Democrats to within a vote of the 60 needed to overcome filibusters and enact President Barack Obama's top legislative priorities.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 28, The US Supreme Court upheld an FCC rule penalizing broadcasters for isolated utterances of expletives before 10 pm.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 28, In California a charter bus carrying French tourists overturned near Soledad killing at least 5 people.
(SFC, 4/29/09, p.B1)
2009 Apr 28, Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (b.1929), a highly regarded English poet, died near her home in Wotton-under-Edge in western England. She was first inspired by the human tragedy she saw in a neurological hospital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 28, In eastern China police freed a total of 32 people in a raid on kilns located on the outskirts of the city of Jieshou in Anhui province. Police later arrested 10 men for allegedly enslaving mentally handicapped people who were forced to work at brick kilns and endure beatings.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 Apr 28, An EU court ruled that judges in Cyprus can compel the return of land seized after the 1974 Turkish invasion.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 28, An Indonesian court sentenced a Singaporean man to 18 years in prison on terrorism charges. Mohammad Hasan bin Saynudin (36), who claimed to have met Osama bin Laden on many occasions, was convicted of plotting to kill a teacher and planning a deadly attack on a bar frequented by Western tourists.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, Lithuania reported a 12.6% drop in GDP in the first quarter as compared to a year earlier.
(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 28, Pakistani jets and attack helicopters bombed Taliban positions in the Buner district near the capital, in an expansion of an offensive against militants seemingly emboldened by a much-criticized peace deal. Militants seized three police stations in the north of Buner and kidnapped 70 police and paramilitary troops.
(AP, 4/28/09)(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 28, Peru’s Pres. Alan Garcia and Brazil’s Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement for six hydroelectricity schemes in Peru. The Inambari dam would be the first to be built, and most of its power would be exported to Brazil.
(www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11256.aspx)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.42)
2009 Apr 28, Ekaterina Maximova (70), legendary Russian ballerina, died. Maximova's dancing career at the Bolshoi spanned three decades, from her debut as Masha in "The Nutcracker" in 1958 until 1988.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, The Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev seized a vessel with 29 suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia. A Russian tanker fended off an attack by the same group earlier in the day. On May 4 the Russian warship freed 8 Iranians who were seized along with the suspected Somali pirates.
(AP, 4/29/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 Apr 28, The Seychelles Coast Guard said it had arrested nine suspected pirates believed to be behind the weekend attempt to hijack the melody, a luxury cruise liner carrying an estimated 1,000 tourists in the Indian Ocean. The Spanish navy had tracked the skiff and apprehended the suspects. They were then turned over to the Seychelles Coast Guard.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, South Korean scientists said they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, A Sri Lanka rebel-linked Web site and a doctor in the region said government forces pounded rebel territory with a fierce artillery barrage, a day after the government pledged to stop using heavy weapons to prevent civilian casualties.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 28, Taiwan was formally invited by the World Health Organization (WHO) to take part as an observer in the May 18 meeting of its governing body under the name “Chinese Taipei." This was the first time the nation has officially participated in a United Nations meeting or event since the ROC walked out of the world body in 1971.
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.52)(www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=59969&ctNode=427)
2009 Apr 28, Venezuela recalled its ambassador to protest Peru's decision to grant political asylum to a prominent opponent of President Hugo Chavez, calling it a mockery of international law and escalating a diplomatic dispute.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 29, The Obama administration joined a federal judge in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, It was reported that more than 50 million American retirees can expect to receive $250 payments from the government in the next few weeks as their share of the economic stimulus package enacted in February.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Florida Juwhan Yun, a Korean American who had served prison time for attempting to broker the sale of nerve gas bombs to Iran, was indicted in Miami on charges of trying to help South Korea obtain advanced Russian rocket technology.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 29, In New York Teresa Tambunting of Scarsdale was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. Prosecutors said she had stolen over $12 million in gold over six years from the Queens jewelry manufacturer where she worked. Police found 450 pounds of gold at her home.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 29, The WHO raised its alert for swine flu from level 4 to level 5, its 2nd highest alert level. Austria and Germany confirmed cases of swine flu, becoming the third and fourth European countries hit by the disease. US health officials reported that a 23-month-old child in Texas has died from the disease. The World Health Organization called an emergency meeting to consider its pandemic alert level.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 29, In Afghanistan US-led troops battled militants and announced they killed 42 suspected insurgents. Two attacks on German forces killed one soldier and wounded nine as Germany's foreign minister began a two-day visit to the country.
(AFP, 4/29/09)(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Australia announced it will increase by almost one half its troops in Afghanistan to about 1,550 as part of the US-led surge of international forces to bolster the faltering fight against Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Two boats carrying almost 80 people were intercepted off Australia's northern coast as the conservative political opposition called for an independent inquiry into refugee policy.
(AFP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown said it will boost its troops in Afghanistan to 9,000 to help the country through upcoming elections, unveiling a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Britain and Libya ratified a prisoner transfer deal that could potentially allow Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi (57), the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombings, to serve out the remainder of his sentence in the North African country.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, The prime ministers of China and Japan pledged to lay a stronger foundation for cooperation between the historic Asian rivals amid global economic and health crises.
(AFP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, China Mobile said it would buy 12% of Far EasTone Telecommunications, a big Taiwanese mobile operator.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.65)
2009 Apr 29, A Boeing 737 on a test flight from Brazzaville crashed southeast of Kinshasa, killing 7 people.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a statement published in state newspapers said that effective midnight, flights from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine flu. After that, airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the island and pickup Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban on flights between Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, An Iraqi-US patrol was ambushed while distributing grants to Iraqi businesses near the northern city of Kirkuk. Iraqi officials said two civilians were killed when the Americans returned fire, but the US military said those killed were enemy fighters. Five bombs hit various neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing at least 48 people in another powerful strike by suspected Sunni insurgents seeking a return to sectarian chaos.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 29, Youssef Magied al-Molqui, one of the 4 Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American passenger in 1985, left prison in Palermo, Sicily, after more than 23 years in jail. Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif, another convicted Achille Lauro hijacker, was released last year.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, Lebanon released four generals held for nearly four years in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri after a UN-backed tribunal in the Netherlands ordered them freed, setting off celebrations with fireworks and dancing.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Mexican police arrested suspected Zeta gang leader Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, one of Mexico's 24 most-wanted drug traffickers.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, NATO and Russia resumed formal contacts eight months after they were suspended because of last year's war with Georgia.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens of Taliban fighters in a fierce struggle to drive them from the Buner district, within 60 miles (100 kilometers) of Islamabad. Troops faced an estimated 450-500 militants in Buner and forecast that the operation to drive them out would take about a week. Gun attacks in the mega-city of Karachi killed at least 34 people and threatened to ignite ethnic tension. 2 Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) activists were gunned down by unknown shooters, sparking street violence.
(AP, 4/29/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, A South Korean presidential advisory committee announced that South Korea will lift a three-year ban on human stem cell research.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Sri Lanka the visiting French and British foreign ministers urged Sri Lanka to accept a cease-fire in its war with ethnic Tamil rebels, saying it needed to act quickly to save the lives of civilians in the war zone.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Taiwan said it had persuaded China to allow it to participate in a key UN body, offering a victory for President Ma Ying-jeou's campaign to win greater international recognition for the democratic island. China confirmed that Taiwan will attend next month's meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva as an observer.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Tanzania huge blasts rocked an ammunition dump at an army camp in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam. More than a dozen people were killed.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 2/18/11, p.A2)
2009 Apr 29, In southeastern Turkey suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a roadside bomb that killed nine soldiers in a US-made armored personnel carrier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, Zimbabwe's teachers vowed to go on strike when the new school term begins next week after government reneged on a pledge to increase their salaries.
(AFP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, Obama administration officials said Chrysler will file for bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small group of the company's creditors.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small group of the company's creditors. Canada's government said it will take an ownership stake in Chrysler in exchange for more than $2 billion in loans, under a sweeping North American rescue plan. Ottawa and Washington demanded the Detroit company partner with Fiat as a condition for funding.
(AP, 4/30/09)(Reuters, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Illinois Ali al-Marri (43) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. A second charge of providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization was dropped. His case had sparked a legal debate over whether the government can hold terrorism suspects indefinitely. The Qatar native faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at his July 30 sentencing. On Oct 29 a federal judge sentenced Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 10/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, The San Francisco Municipal Railway announced plans to raise adult bus and streetcar fares, effective July 1, by 50 cents to $2.00, the largest one-time raise in nearly a century. Sweeping service cuts were also approved.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 30, In Texas Derrick Lamone Johnson was executed for the 1999 rape and murder of LaTausha Curry (25) abducted while she trying to make a call at a pay phone. He was the 14th Texas prisoner executed this year.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, In Wisconsin Shane Kettner (36) was arrested in Nelsonville for killing his estranged girlfriend and 2 of their children.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 30, In Azerbaijan Georgian citizen Farda Gadyrov (20) opened fire at the prestigious oil industry academy in Baku, killing 12 people and wounding 13 before turning the gun on himself.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Belgium stripped the credentials of 2 high-ranking members of Russia’s permanent mission to NATO and expelled them on accusations of espionage.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Brazil's Supreme Court struck down a 1967 press censorship law enacted during the military dictatorship. In a 7-4 vote the court ruled the law unconstitutionally violated freedom of expression.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, British forces formally ended combat operations in Iraq, one month ahead of schedule. A solemn ceremony remembered 179 dead comrades from six years of warfare.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In Beijing Japan’s PM Taro Aso called for Tokyo and Beijing to unite in facing the world's environmental and economic challenges, while playing down concerns over China's military power.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chinese state media reported that China has reopened its land border to tourists traveling to North Korea after a three-year break, with a group of 71 tourists visiting the isolated country earlier this week on a one day tour of Sinuiju.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In India millions cast their votes in the third wave of month-long elections, with security tight as the staggered polls took in the Kashmir Valley and the financial capital Mumbai.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The Iraqi government decided to kill three wild boars at the Baghdad Zoo amid worldwide fears of swine flu. No date was set for their killing. Two US Marines and a sailor were killed during combat operations in Anbar province.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican health authorities said they confirmed 300 swine flu cases and 12 deaths due to the virus among a total of 679 people tested so far.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican authorities detained 12 federal police investigators accused of leaking information to hit men who ambushed and killed 8 officers on April 18 in a failed attempt to free a high level drug cartel member.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In the Netherlands 5 people died when a car slammed into a crowd at the Queen's Day festival attended by members of the royal family in the western city of Apeldoorn. A policeman as well as the assailant died the next day from their injuries. The suspect was identified by Dutch media as Karst Tates (38). Neighbors said Tates recently was fired from his job as a security guard and was to be evicted from his home in the small eastern town of Huissen because he could no longer afford the rent. An injured woman died a week later bringing the total to 7 victims.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Pakistan troops sent to repel a Taliban advance toward the Pakistani capital killed 14 suspected militants. Troops ousted militants from the Ambela Pass leading over the mountains into Buner and were inching toward the north. Militants, who have kidnapped dozens of lightly armed police and paramilitary troops, had burned a police station farther north and sealed off the town of Sultanwas.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Peru Ashaninka and Yines Indians blocked an airport in the central jungle town of Atalaya as well as two stations on a northern oil pipeline to protest laws that they say threaten their ancestral land and resources. Some 15,000 Indians have been protesting since April 9 and planned to start taking over oil and gas rigs. They said laws passed in December opened the door to privatization of water resources and jungle land which they used.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Russia signed a deal with Georgia's two breakaway regions giving Moscow the power to guard the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a move sharply criticized in Tbilisi.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Saudi Arabia a lawyer said an 8-year-old girl has divorced her middle-aged husband after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for about $13,000. Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a close ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child marriage a "clear and unacceptable" violation of human rights.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Sri Lanka's president rejected international appeals for a cease-fire in his nation's bloody civil war, as the Tamil Tiger rebels vowed never to surrender to the advancing government forces.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Turkey's military said its warplanes struck Kurdish rebel targets overnight in northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The UN Security Council extended for another year the mandate of UN peacekeepers in southern Sudan who monitor compliance with a peace deal that ended Sudan's two-decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Police in the US Virgin Islands canceled the popular J'ouvert carnival after four people were wounded in a shooting and two stabbings.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr, A gamma ray burst was spotted by a NASA satellite. A typical burst "puts out in a few seconds the same energy expended by the sun in its whole 10 billion year life span." Researchers announced in 2011 that they have gathered data placing the blast more than 13 billion light years away, meaning that the event took place when the universe was still in its infancy.
(AP, 5/27/11)
2009 Apr, UN special investigator Philip Alston said on October 15 that Congolese soldiers had killed 50 Rwandan Hutu refugees and abducted and raped around 40 women during an April attack on a refugee camp in eastern DR Congo.
(AFP, 10/16/09)
2009 Apr, In India Mahanand Naik, a Goa auto-rickshaw driver dubbed "The Dupatta Killer," was arrested and later charged with 16 murders between 1995 and 2009. In 2011 He was also found guilty of killing Vasanti Gawade in 1995 in a village 35 km (20 miles) north of the state capital, Panaji.
(AFP, 7/20/11)
2009 Apr, In Iraq electronic clearing began in Baghdad’s main branch of the Rafidian Bank, the country’s largest lender. Electronic clearing was expected to extend to all of the bank’s 147 outlets within a year.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.48)
2009 Apr, The OECD included Panama on its “grey list" of countries that show insufficient financial openness. Panama with its lax corporate laws allows companies to be created in minutes and registers over 45,000 new offshore companies a year.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.46)
2009 Apr, Paraguay’s Pres. Lugo signed a $30 million agreement with the US ambassador to bolster the country’s judiciary, public administration and national police force to help reduce endemic corruption and patronage.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A9)
2009 Apr, In Togo former defense minister Kpatcha Gnassingbe was arrested for being the alleged mastermind of a coup plot against his half-brother. His house was raided by elite troops in an operation that led to a bloody gunfight. In 2011 the two half-brothers of President Faure Gnassingbe and 30 others appeared in court over the alleged coup plot. On Sep 15 a Togo court sentenced former defense minister Kpatcha Gnassingbe, Gen. Assani Tidjani and Abi Atti to 20 years each for their role in the plot.
(AFP, 8/30/11)(AP, 9/15/11)
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Go to May 2009
End of file
2009 May
2009 May 1, US cases of the H1N1 flu rose to 155, based on federal and state tallies. State laboratory operators believe the number is higher because they are not testing all suspected cases. Mexico raised its confirmed swine flu death toll from 15 to 16, adding that the total number of confirmed cases of the virus had risen to 397. Worldwide, the total confirmed cases were 653, with the real number also believed to be much larger.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, US government health officials warned dieters and body builders to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed a state budget, overcoming a $1.4 billion deficit by taping into emergency reserve funds and cutting state services.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.37)
2009 May 1, In south Texas Reymundo Guerra, former sheriff of Starr county, pleaded guilty to a drug trafficking charge for sharing law enforcement information with a Mexican drug ring.
(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A4)
2009 May 1, Danny Gans (52), one of the most popular entertainers on the Las Vegas Strip for the last decade, died in his sleep at his home in Henderson, Nev. A coroner later said Gans' death was accidental, caused by a prescription painkiller.
(AP, 5/2/09)(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 May 1, In southern Afghanistan gunmen attacked a troops' convoy as it traveled to a village to talk to elders about security. The troops killed one militant in the initial clash and another 14 as they pursued insurgents who were firing on them from a nearby hillside. 3 Afghan army soldiers were killed in overnight fighting with insurgents in eastern Kunar province. 5 international soldiers, including 2 American, were killed in an insurgent attack.
(AP, 5/1/09)(AFP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 1, Britain awarded the role of national poet laureate to Carol Ann Duffy (53), the first woman to hold a post that has been filled by William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes. Duffy, a gay woman, has published more than 30 books, plays and children's stories as well as poems that mix accessible modern language with traditional forms.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A3)
2009 May 1, In Cambodia a court official said Japan has donated $4.17 million to the UN-backed genocide tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge leaders on war crimes charges, just as the troubled court was running out of funding.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, In Ethiopia Communications Minister Bereket Simon said that senior military officers, including a general, had plotted to assassinate top government officials. He added that 40 people were under arrest. Bereket said the plotters belonged to the Ginbot 7 (May 15) opposition group, saying it was linked to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) headed by Berhanu Nega, currently living in the United States.
(AFP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, May Day protesters clashed with riot police in Germany, Turkey and Greece, while thousands angry at the government's responses to the global financial crisis took to the streets in France. Riot police battled 700 stone-throwing left-wing militants in Berlin for more than five hours in May Day clashes that stretched into early pre-dawn hours.
(Reuters, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In India officials said at least 18 people have died in a scorching heat wave that has swept through more than a dozen Indian states.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, Indonesia's top graft-buster, Antasari Azhar (56), was named a suspect and a mastermind in a murder case, dealing a blow to the agency that's played a key part in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's fight against corruption. He was one of several suspects in the March 14 murder of Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, a businessman who, according to local media reports, had been a witness in a corruption case investigated by the agency.
(Reuters, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, Iran hanged a young woman (23) who was convicted of murder when she was a minor, drawing condemnation from international human rights groups who have sought to end capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Delara Darabi, initially pleaded guilty to killing her father's cousin in 2003, but later retracted her confession and said her boyfriend carried out the killing.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In northern Iraq Ammar Afif Hamada (19), a would-be Syrian suicide bomber linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, was tackled by guards on the doorstep of a mosque in Kirkuk.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who has compared himself to Jesus Christ and Napoleon, boasted that he was the world's most popular leader.
(Reuters, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi held talks with visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the situation in Pakistan and ways of bolstering ties between the two nations. Pakistan and Libya signed a string of agreements to bolster economic ties on the sidelines of Zardari’s visit. The countries also decided to bolster ties in the fields of banking, health, education, public works and construction.
(AFP, 5/1/09)(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In the Netherlands robbers at the Scheringa Museum for Realism in Spanbroek stole "Adolescence," a 1941 gouache by Salvadore Dali and "La Musicienne," an oil painting from 1929 by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. The museum houses the art collection of wealthy Dutch banker Dirk Scheringa and his wife.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 1, In Pakistan the battle between security forces and Taliban militants left 55-60 militants dead over the last 24 hours in Buner district near the capital even as the government pressed with a much-criticized peace plan in the region. Based on combined tolls released by the military, nearly 200 militants have been killed in Operation Black Thunder since tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships swung into action in Buner and neighboring Lower Dir.
(AFP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, In Paraguay Sabino Montanaro (86), who served as interior minister under ex-dictator Alfredo Stroessner, arrived in Asuncion after nearly two decades of self-imposed exile in Honduras. He faced six pending trials for the disappearance and killings of government opponents in the 1970s and 1980s.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 1, Special forces on a Portuguese warship seized explosives from suspected Somali pirates after thwarting an attack on an oil tanker, but later freed the 19 men. Hours later and hundreds of miles away, another band of pirates hijacked a cargo ship. The captain and 23 crew were all Ukrainians and the Greek-owned, Maltese-flagged Ariana was carrying a cargo of soya from Brazil to Iran when pirates attacked it southwest of the Seychelles islands. The Ariana was freed on Dec 10 following a ransom payment of $2.8 million by Athens-based Alloceans Shipping.
(AP, 5/2/09)(AP, 12/10/09)
2009 May 1, Sri Lanka's government dropped leaflets across the northern war zone urging civilians to flee the fighting amid accusations the military pounded the area with artillery shells that killed at least 10 civilians.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, A UN agency urged Israel to freeze demolitions of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, citing a growing housing crisis in the part of the city the Palestinians claim as their future capital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, In Venezuela police and national guard troops broke up an opposition march in Caracas as thousands of opponents and supporters of Pres. Chavez held separate May Day marches.
(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 2, Mine That Bird, a gelding from New Mexico trained by Bennie Woolley Jr., won the 135th Kentucky Derby. With an inspired ride on the rail from Calvin Borel the 50-to-1 odds win was one of the greatest upsets in America's most famous horse race.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C1)
2009 May 2, Jack Kemp (b.1935), Republican politician, died of cancer at his home in Maryland. A former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Kemp represented western NY for nine terms in Congress, leaving the House for an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A16)
2009 May 2, In Albania Fatmir Xhindi (49), a lawmaker from the main opposition Socialist Party, was shot and killed outside his home in Roskovec. Albania ended communist rule in 1990, but has struggled since then with high unemployment, widespread corruption, dilapidated infrastructure and organized crime.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, Australia’s government said it will spend more than 70 billion US dollars boosting its defenses over the next 20 years in response to a regional military build-up and global shifts in power.
(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Austria an avalanche killed 6 hikers not far from the popular Soelden ski resort in the alpine province of Tyrol.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 2, In Bolivia former US Pres. Jimmy Carter met with Pres. Evo Morales and discussed bettering relations with the new US government.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A6)
2009 May 2, Brazilian officials said floods and mudslides from heavy rains in the northeast have killed at least 14 people in the last month and driven tens of thousands from their homes.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Brazil Augusto Boal (78), theater director and playwright known for the interactive genre called the "Theater of the Oppressed," died. Seen as a threat to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, Boal was arrested, jailed and tortured before being exiled to Argentina. He returned to Brazil after the fall of the military regime.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, Canadian health officials said a traveler has carried the new H1N1 virus from Mexico to Canada, infecting his family and a herd of swine.
(Reuters, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, It was reported that an estimated 250,000 Roma lived in the Czech Rep. A rising number of the gypsies were applying for visas to Canada. Of 861 applications in 2008, 84 were accepted.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.54)
2009 May 2, In the Dominican Rep. the decapitated body of a migrant from neighboring Haiti was found in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Santo Domingo. Residents alleged the victim killed a local merchant. About 1 million people of Haitian descent lived in the Dominican Rep., often suffering discrimination and violence.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 2, India's biggest drug maker Ranbaxy announced the recall of an antibiotic, on sale in the US, because of manufacturing problems, marking a new setback for the company. The Japanese-controlled company said it was voluntarily recalling all lots of nitrofurantoin capsules, an antibiotic used in the treatment of urinary tract infections.
(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Iraq a roadside bomb also exploded near a car and a cement mixer in Kirkuk, killing at least 3 civilians and wounding 3 others. Two American soldiers were killed after a gunman opened fire at a combat outpost near Mosul. The attacker was described as a soldier, who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for his unit. Iraqi police arrested Mullah Nadim Jibouri, an Awakening leader in Duluija, along with 2 of his brothers.
(AP, 5/2/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A6)(SFC, 5/4/09, p.A3)(SFC, 5/6/09, p.B5)
2009 May 2, South Pacific nations announced that military-ruled Fiji has been suspended from the 16-nation bloc for its rejection of democracy, freedom and human rights.
(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 May 2, An Israeli airstrike against smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border killed two people.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 2, Mexico said it had no confirmed deaths from HINI swine flu overnight, even as its confirmed caseload grew to 443.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Pakistan scores of militants attacked the Spinal Tangi security post near the Afghan border, triggering a battle that left 18 combatants dead and cast doubt on claims by Pakistan's army to have regained control of a critical region. A Taliban commander in the Khyber region, just west of Peshawar, surrendered after authorities put pressure on his tribe. Iftikhar Khan Afridi was aligned with Baitullah Mehsud, the top Pakistani Taliban commander. The Taliban beheaded two government officials in the northwestern Swat Valley in revenge for the killing of two insurgent commanders by security forces.
(AP, 5/2/09)(Reuters, 5/3/09)
2009 May 2, In Senegal Madieye Diallo's, a gay man, died of HIV AIDS. His body had only been in the ground for a few hours when a mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2009 May 2, In Sri Lanka a government doctor and a rebel-linked Web site said artillery shells hit a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka's northern war zone, killing at least 64 civilians.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, In Trinidad 4 police officers allegedly hijacked a smuggling boat from Venezuela and stole 1,000 endangered birds and monkeys along with 400 pounds of wild animal meat. Investigators acting on a tip found birds and monkeys in people's homes, in pet shops and even along roads in Port-of-Spain.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, In California Briant Rodriguez (3) was kidnapped by 2 gunmen who broke into his family’s home in San Bernadino.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518779,00.html)(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 May 3, In Florida Troy Ryan Bellar (34) shot and killed his wife, Wendy Bellar (31) and their 5-month-old and 8-year-old sons before killing himself outside their home in Lakeland. His 13-year-old son, Nathan, escaped.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, The weekly Onion newspaper said it will close its print editions in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The free weekly began its San Francisco edition in 2005. Print editions will continue in Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Denver and Boulder.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.C1)
2009 May 3, Swine flu extended its reach through Europe and Latin America, with at least five countries reporting new cases. Health experts were investigating a case of the virus jumping from a person to pigs, trying to determine if the disease was reaching a new stage.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Three Afghan men were shot in Kabul by US defense contractors working for Paravant, a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide. 2 of the Afghan’s died. In 2010 Justin Cannon (27) and Christopher Drotleff (29) were indicted on charges that included 2nd degree murder. On March 11, 2011, Cannon and Drotleff were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 1/8/10, p.A8)(SFC, 3/12/11, p.A9)
2009 May 3, China tightened visa rules for citizens from the US, which has reported the second highest number of swine flu cases in the world.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, Egyptian police fired tear gas and clashed with irate pig farmers, leaving 12 people injured as owners resisted the government's attempt to slaughter all the nation's pigs to guard against swine flu.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, A French naval vessel intercepted 11 suspected pirates traveling off the Somali coast in two assault vessels and a so-called "mothership" loaded with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Italian media reported that PM Silvio Berlusconi's wife wants a divorce, just days after she publicly criticized his party's selection of young women to run in European elections.
(Reuters, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Mexican police found 11 bodies dumped around a southern Guerrero state, including seven wrapped in plastic bags and thrown off a bridge. The bodies of five men and two women were found in a river between the Pacific resort town of Acapulco and the city of Cuernavaca. The other four bodies were found in a 600-yard ravine in the town of Pilcaya.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Mexico at least four gunmen confronted journalist Carlos Ortega (52) when he got out of his car in front of his home in the small town of Santa Maria del Oro. Ortega was shot in the head after struggling with the attackers. Ortega recently argued with the town's mayor, Martin Silvestre Herrera, over an article on sanitation at a local slaughterhouse, and then wrote a column saying he would hold the mayor responsible if anything happened to him.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, Nepal's PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal, former Maoist rebel leader, fired army chief Rookmangud Katawal after accusing him of defying government orders, prompting a key party to quit the coalition government and plunging the Himalayan country into a political crisis that could endanger its peace process. Dahal’s firing of the army chief was rejected by President Ram Baran Yadav, who officially leads the army.
(AP, 5/3/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Niger Tuareg rebels fighting the government released their last hostage. Mamane Louali, who was captured in June 2007, was released at the airport in Agadez, a town in the country's far north and one of the traditional bases of the nomadic Tuaregs.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In Pakistan the bullet-ridden body of Fazal Haq (28), kidnapped two months ago, was found dumped by the side of a road in Naurak village, 15 km (nine miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in the semi-autonomous North Waziristan tribal region. He had been accused of spying for the United States. Militants beheaded 2 government officials in Swat, in revenge for the killing of two Taliban commanders in dir and Buner.
(AFP, 5/3/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 3, Panama held elections. Ricardo Martinelli (57), a conservative supermarket magnate, was favored to win the presidential elections. Martinelli won the election in a landslide, promising to guide the country through the world economic crisis and an ambitious expansion of the Panama Canal. A leaked cable from the US embassy later revealed that Martinelli requested help in the wiretapping of his political opponents.
(AP, 5/3/09)(AP, 5/4/09)(Econ, 11/24/12, p.40)
2009 May 3, In the southern Philippines 7 people were killed and 1,000 forced to flee their homes as fresh fighting broke out when MILF separatist guerrillas attacked civilians. The 12,000-member MILF has been waging a decades-old insurgency to set up a Muslim state in the southern Philippines, where Christian settlers now outnumber the original inhabitants.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, A gas explosion tore through a Siberian apartment block and sparked a fire that engulfed the building, killing eight people, including two children.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In northwest Spain one member of the country’s second-place junior female volleyball team died and 12 others were injured, two seriously, in a bus crash. The Emeve de Lugo team had just arrived in Santiago de Compostela from the Canary Islands when their bus overturned.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In Thailand an American identified as Jill St. Onge (27) a bartender and artist from Seattle, died while staying at a popular destination for budget travelers. Norwegian Julie Michelle Bergheim (22) died the next day. Both died after suddenly falling ill within hours of each other at the Laleena guesthouse on Koh Phi Phi in southern Thailand.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 3, Sixteen Venezuelan soldiers and a civilian were killed when a military helicopter crashed near the Colombian border. A brigadier general was among those killed.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 4, President Barack Obama proposed changing provisions in the tax code that he says encourage US companies to move jobs overseas, as part of a broader package aimed at saving $210 billion over 10 years.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, An analysis of "real-world" clinical data indicated that vitamin E, and drugs that reduce generalized inflammation, may slow the decline of mental and physical abilities in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) over the long term according to National Institutes of Health-sponsored research.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded eighty one $100,000 grants in a bid to support innovative, unconventional global health research. The foundation also announced plans to spend $73 million over the next five years to help small farmers in impoverished countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, California’s State Water Resources Control board released a study that said only 21 of 152 lakes studied were free of mercury and other contaminants. 131 lakes showed one or more pollutants above state health guidelines.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A1)
2009 May 4, In Kentucky Amanda Hornsby-Smith (28) was strangled to death. In 2010 her husband, Woody Will Smith (33), went on trial for her murder. He claimed excessive caffeine from sodas, energy drinks and diet pills left him so mentally unstable he couldn't have knowingly killed her.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2009 May 4, Dom DeLuise (b.1933), film and TV actor, died. Though lighthearted onscreen, the prolific actor was deeply passionate about food, forging a second career as a popular chef and cookbook author.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, In Afghanistan bombing runs by US-led coalition jets killed dozens of civilians taking shelter from a fierce ground battle between Taliban militants and Afghan and international forces. The US confirmed fighting in western Farah province and opened an investigation into the overnight operation. Over 100 people were killed including 25-30 Taliban. A senior US defense official later said that Marine special operations forces believe that the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, who then loaded some of the bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike. On May 20 the US military said at least 20 civilians and 60 insurgents had died in the clash.
(AP, 5/5/09)(AFP, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 4, An Afghan guard was killed by Australian Robert William Langdon as he worked for US-based private security company Four Horsemen International. A court later heard that Langdon threw a hand grenade into the truck carrying the guard's body and ordered other guards to fire into the air to simulate a Taliban attack. Langdon allegedly admitted killing the Afghan guard during a heated argument about security for a convoy. In October Langdon was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a court in Kabul. He paid a "sizeable" compensation to the victim's family and the sentenced was reduced to 20 years.
(AP, 1/27/10)(http://tinyurl.com/ybfe5lu)(AFP, 1/6/11)
2009 May 4, Australia's government put back its much-vaunted carbon-emissions trading scheme by a year, bowing to industry demands for more relief amid a recession while opening the door to an even deeper long-term reduction.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, The EU admitted that its previous forecasts were way off the mark. It now predicts "a deep and widespread recession" across the continent and said unemployment among the 16 nations that use the euro will rise to a postwar record of 11.5 percent in 2010.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Germany Sergio Marchionne, the boss of Italy's Fiat, drummed up support in Berlin for audacious plans to snap up General Motors' European arm and merge it with the bankrupt Chrysler to create a new global auto giant. Germany's economy minister said Fiat Group SpA wants to take over GM's Opel unit without running up debt and would preserve the three main German assembly plants if successful.
(AFP, 5/4/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Indonesia's top graft-buster, Antasari Azhar (56), was arrested as a suspect and a mastermind in the March 14 murder of businessman Nasrudin Zulkarnaen.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and handed him a letter of protest, demanding that Iran halt shelling against Kurdish rebels in the country's north and warned the "extremely dangerous violations" of Iraqi territory could harm relations between the two countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Mexico's health secretary said most businesses will reopen May 6 nationwide, citing ebb in the swine flu outbreak. The World Health Organization chief warned that swine flu could return with a vengeance despite Pres. Felipe Calderon insisting his country has contained the epidemic.
(AP, 5/4/09)(AFP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Nepal's PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal resigned amid a power struggle over his firing of the army chief, saying he was stepping down to "save the peace process" that brought the Himalayan nation out of a bloody decade-long civil war.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Niger’s Pres. Mamadou Tandja accompanied representatives of French energy giant Areva at a ceremony marking the beginning of a new uranium project in Imoraren. The site is expected to boost Niger's uranium production from 3,000 to 5,000 tons per year.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Pakistan clashes in a northwestern region covered by an increasingly fragile peace pact killed seven militants and one soldier. The Taliban ambushed an army convoy in Swat and armed Taliban appeared on the streets of Mingora.
(AP, 5/4/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 4, South Korean snipers hovering in a helicopter chased away pirates pursuing a North Korean freighter, while the Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev freed eight Iranian citizens held hostage for more than three months.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, South Korean news reported that North Korea runs a cyber warfare unit that tries to hack into US and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Sri Lankan forces battled Tamil Tiger insurgents, pushing deeper into rebel-held territory amid a report that navy gunboats heavily shelled an area packed with civilians.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Turkey masked assailants with automatic weapons attacked an engagement celebration in the village of Bilge, near the city of Mardin, fatally shooting 44 people.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, In southern Yemen armed protesters ambushed a military camp in Radfan killing one soldier, as separatist sentiment mounted against the weak central government.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A2)
2009 May 5, Pres. Obama and Democratic lawmakers reached agreement on a legislative proposal designed to stimulate US auto sales, which have fallen to near 30-year lows.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that the economy should pull out of a recession and start growing again later this year.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The District of Columbia Council gave final approval to legislation that recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The law became effective on July 7.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.A5)(SFC, 7/8/09, p.A4)
2009 May 5, In Detroit, Michigan, basketball legend Dave Bing was elected as mayor through the end of the year, sweeping the incumbent from office in the city with myriad problems. Bing had 52.3% of the vote, to 47.7% for Cockrel. Both are Democrats.
(http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4143798)
2009 May 5, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger said that the time is right to debate legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.A1)
2009 May 5, A Marine Corps helicopter crashed shortly before midnight in a remote area of Southern California, killing the two people who were on board.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, In California a wildfire broke out in the Santa Ynez mountains near Santa Barbara. By May 15, after destroying 80 homes, it was 90% contained. On Dec 10 officials charged 2 men with misdemeanors for allegedly sparking the Jesusita fire.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.B7)(SFC, 12/11/09, p.A11)
2009 May 5, In Columbia, Illinois, Sheri Coleman (31) and her two sons, Garett (11) and Gavin (9) were found strangled to death. Husband and father Chris Coleman (32) was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, but later pleaded not guilty.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 5, H.H Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), announced the official launch of Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Sudan had recently signed a leasing agreement with an Al Ain National Wildlife for some 6,180 square miles of southeastern wilderness to be developed as a safari site with semi-permanent tented camps and top-class hotels.
(www.ameinfo.com/155601.html)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.46)
2009 May 5, In Afghanistan a shooting followed a car accident in Kabul leaving one Afghan died and two others wounded. Four US contractors for the private security company formerly known as Blackwater were detained for their involvement in the shooting.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 5, Australia's army started shooting 6,000 kangaroos to thin their population on an army training ground near the capital, outraging conservationists who have vowed to protest.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 5, Britain for the first time published a list of people barred from entering the country for what the government says is fostering extremism or hatred.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The British International news portal One News Page was launched. One News Page (http://www.onenewspage.us/) was founded by Dr Marc Pinter-Krainer (38) a successful internet entrepreneur who has been working in the commercial online arena since 1999.
(www.onenewspage.co.uk/press.php)
2009 May 5, China said it has given 10 million dollars (7.5 million euros) to Zimbabwe, half of it directly into the state coffers, to help boost the country's troubled economy.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, In central China more than 1,000 villagers clashed with police following a land dispute with construction workers that left one person dead. Protests continued into the next day.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 5, The European Parliament voted to update the rules on the use of animals in research and to ban imports of seal products, including fur coats and even omega-3 pills, trying to force Canada to end the annual seal hunt that animal rights groups call barbaric.
(AP, 5/5/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.84)
2009 May 5, A French judge decided to investigate three African heads of state for money laundering and other alleged crimes linked to their wealth in France. The probe follows a complaint by Transparency International France, an association that tracks corruption, against Gabon's Omar Bongo, Republic of Congo's Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, Georgia said it had ended a brief mutiny at a military base near the capital that broke out after the arrest of a former special forces commander accused of planning to disrupt NATO exercises.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Guinea's ruling junta recalled 30 ambassadors, nearly five months after seizing power when the West African country's longtime dictator died.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, The leaders of Iran and Syria reaffirmed their support for Palestinian resistance, a defiant message to the US and its Mideast allies who are uneasy over Washington's efforts to forge closer ties with the hard-line government in Tehran.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Israeli authorities arrested two Palestinians who tried to sell a looted 1,900-year-old papyrus document in Hebrew worth millions of dollars.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, In Nepal thousands of Maoist supporters took to the streets of Kathmandu, a day after Prachanda, the leader of the ex-rebels, quit as prime minister following a bitter row over the country's army chief.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, In Pakistan fighting between Taliban militants and troops in a northwestern valley triggered an exodus the government said could see 500,000 people flee and signaled the end of a peace deal in the area widely criticized as a surrender to the extremists.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The Philippine military rejected a US government assessment that labeled the country's south as a terrorist safe haven. The US State Department reported last week in its annual assessment of worldwide terrorism that the southern Mindanao region, specifically predominantly Muslim Sulu province, remains a sanctuary for extremists.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Victoria, a German cargo ship carrying 11 crew members in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates released the ship and its 11 Romanian crew members on July 18 following a ransom of $1.8 million.
(AP, 5/6/09)(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 May 5, A South Korean official said 3 South Korean army personnel have been convicted of accepting or seeking bribes while serving as part of a US-led alliance aimed at rebuilding Iraq. A captain identified by his surname Park, was sentenced last month by a South Korean military court to three years in prison for taking $25,000 and a digital camera worth $800 from a local firm involved in construction projects in the northern city of Irbil in return for administrative favors. A master sergeant and a major received suspended jail terms for demanding bribes from other Iraqi firms. The captain and the two others were arrested in South Korea in December following a joint US-South Korean investigation.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, In Spain Basque Socialist leader Patxi Lopez (49), expected to be sworn in as the Basque region's first non-nationalist president, vowed to wage a relentless fight against the armed separatist group ETA.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Sudan denied accusations by the government of Chad that its forces had launched an attack against the neighboring African state.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was indicted on new graft charges as his high-profile corruption trial continued into its second month.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, Turkish security forces detained 8 gunmen suspected of fatally shooting 44 people at an engagement ceremony in the southeastern village of Bilge. PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "the result of a feud between two families" had led to the deaths of six children, 17 women and 21 men.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, The UN chief accused Israel of lying about attacks on United Nations schools and other facilities during the Gaza military campaign, including one reported to have killed more than 40 people, and formally demanded compensation.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, A restricted UN report said IAEA inspectors detected nuclear particles in Egypt last year and in 2007. A senior diplomat accredited to the agency said that it was the first time the traces were reported by the Vienna-based nuclear monitor.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, Yemen suspended seven publications, including the nation's most popular daily, in effort to stifle reporting on an unprecedented wave of deadly rioting sweeping the south.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 5, In Zimbabwe prominent human rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko and the 17 others were taken back into custody, just two months after their release on bail over an alleged plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe. PM Morgan Tsvangirai's party warned their detention threatened the survival of Zimbabwe's fledgling unity government. Zimbabwe's teachers unions called off a threatened strike at state schools after the government agreed to scrap fees for children of teachers.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 6, Maine's Gov. John Baldacci signed a freshly passed bill approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In California a wildfire surged into Santa Barbara forcing at least 8,000 residents to evacuate.
(SFC, 5/7/09, p.B6)
2009 May 6, New H1N1 flu cases across Europe and a second US death kept health officials on alert despite signs Mexico's epidemic had passed its peak. Mexican health officials said that testing of backlogged cases has increased the confirmed swine flu death toll from 31 to 42, including three new deaths in the past two days.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Virginia police found former NASCAR driver Kevin Grubb (31) dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Grubb was suspended from NASCAR indefinitely in 2006 because he refused to submit to a random drug test following the Busch Series race at Richmond International Raceway.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 6, US scientists in the Jason submersible from Woods Hole, Mass., filmed the West Mata undersea volcano between Samoa and Fiji. The summit of the volcano now reached some 4,000 feet from the sea floor and was still some 4,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A14)(http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/05/undersea-eruption.html)
2009 May 6, Ben Southall (34), a bungee jumping, ostrich-riding British charity worker was named the winner of what's been dubbed the "Best Job in the World," a 150,000 Australian dollar ($111,000) contract to serve as the caretaker of Australia’s tropical Hamilton Island. He beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world for assignment to swim, explore and relax in the Great Barrier Reef for six months while writing a blog to promote the area.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Bangladesh Home Minister Sahara Khatun said the UAE has given the government nearly $1.44 million to distribute among 879 Bangladeshi children who worked as jockeys at camel races after it was banned in 1993. The law was openly flouted until authorities reached an agreement in 2005 with UNICEF to help repatriate and rehabilitate child jockeys, who were mostly taken from poorer Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Brazilian officials said at least 29 people have been killed by floods and mudslides in northern Brazil as authorities struggled to rush aid to dozens of small cities cut off from civilization by overflowing rivers in the Amazon region.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Canada and the EU signed an "open skies" pact under which airlines from the two trading partners will be able to fly freely between any airport in the 27-country EU and any in Canada.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Iraq a car bomb exploded at the entrance to a fruit and vegetable market in south Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding about 40. Hours later, another car bomb exploded in the capital's Karradah district, killing two people and wounding six.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Malaysian officials said 2 political activists have been arrested ahead of a parliamentary showdown between the government and the opposition over control of northern Perak state.
(AFP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, NATO launched military exercises in former Soviet Georgia after heavy criticism from neighboring Russia and a brief mutiny in the Georgian military.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Nepal police clashed with protesting Maoists, who vowed to prevent a new government from being formed unless the president supports the firing of the country's army chief. The key dispute has thrown the Himalayan country into crisis.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Pakistani helicopter gunships and ground troops attacked the Taliban in the Swat valley. Pakistan said it killed more than 80 militants in heavy bombardments in an upsurge of fighting that has caused tens of thousands to flee and threatened to torpedo a northwest peace deal. There were also reports of civilian casualties in fighting in Swat.
(AFP, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/7/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 6, Russia said it is expelling two Moscow-based NATO employees who are Canadian diplomats in retaliation for NATO's recent expulsion of two Russian envoys from its headquarters in Belgium.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Russia retired Gen. Valentin Varennikov (85), a hawkish World War II veteran who directed the Soviet war in Afghanistan, died. He had joined the rebellion against Mikhail Gorbachev that sped the collapse of the Soviet Union.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Spanish authorities said they have arrested 29 people suspected of forging credit cards to finance an elaborate scheme to smuggle Cubans into the US from Mexico.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, South Africa's parliament has elected Jacob Zuma as the country's president. Zuma won 277 votes in the 400 member National Assembly. Zuma's African National Congress won elections last month with 65.9% of the vote. He is due to be inaugurated on May 9.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said intense fighting in the war zone was killing and wounding hundreds of civilians a day and asked for the UN to push for urgent food shipments to avert a hunger crisis.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, Senior Sudanese aid official Hassabo Mohammed Abdelrahman said that Khartoum was ready to allow foreign aid groups to operate in Darfur but ruled out the return of the 13 aid agencies kicked out in March.
(AFP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 6, Venezuelan prosecutors filed embezzlement and other charges against a former Caracas mayor who supports the government of President Hugo Chavez. Juan Barreto, mayor from 2004 to 2008, denied the allegations and vowed to clear his name in court.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 6, In Zimbabwe a top rights activist and 14 others were ordered freed on bail after Zimbabwe's president and prime minister forced a judge to reverse her decision to send them back to the prison where they said they had been tortured. She refused, however, to free three others she had ordered returned to prison, saying their case was more serious because they had allegedly been found with explosives. The last 3 were released on May 13.
(AP, 5/6/09)(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 7, Ten of the largest US banks came up collectively $75 billion short according to government stress tests and quickly took steps to shore up their capital.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A1)
2009 May 7, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation extending hate crimes protection to homeless people.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A11)
2009 May 7, Seven Pittsburgh-area ACORN workers were charged with falsifying voter registration forms, with six accused of doing so to meet the group's alleged quota system before last year's general election.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, LA Dodger’s star Manny Ramirez (36) was suspended by Major League Baseball for 50 games for using HCG, a banned drug.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A1)
2009 May 7, General Motors Corp. lost $6 billion in the first quarter and its revenue was cut nearly in half as car buyers feared the wounded auto giant would enter bankruptcy and no longer honor its warranties.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Univ. of California regents voted 17-4 to raise tuition by 9.3%, the 6th increase in 7 years.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.B3)
2009 May 7, In Connecticut Wesleyan University junior Johanna Justin-Jinich was gunned down by a man wearing a wig. Officers arrested Stephen P. Morgan (29) the next night standing outside the store in Meriden, 10 miles from where the woman was killed. Morgan's journals contained threats against Jews and mentioned plans for a shooting spree at Wesleyan.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In Mississippi Jackson Mayor Frank Melton (60), elected in 2005, died just as polls closed in his unsuccessful bid for re-election.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.B6)
2009 May 7, John Furia Jr. (b.1929), prolific screen and television writer, died. His work included popular TV series including "Bonanza," "The Waltons," "Hawaii Five-O" and “The Twilight Zone."
(www.cbc.ca/arts/tv/story/2009/05/09/furia-obit-screenwriter.html)
2009 May 7, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 21 Afghan civilians and two British soldiers in one of the deadliest such attacks in months. Four British soldiers were killed in attacks in Helmand province. Police fired on a crowd of rock-throwing protesters in western Farah province, who were angry about civilian deaths they blame on American bombing runs.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In Algeria 4 armed Islamists were killed by Algerian security forces during firefights in Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes, east of the capital Algiers. Two soldiers died as well, and three assault rifles were seized by the military. Another Islamist was killed as security forces mounted a joint operation on an armed group at Kharrouba, near Boumerdes.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, Argentina and Brazil confirmed five swine flu cases within their borders as the virus affects more nations in South America.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, Britain promised it would remove the DNA records of hundreds of thousands from its vast national registry of genetic information, but said it will still keep the details of some innocent people for up to 12 years.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, The European Union extended its hand to former Soviet republics, holding a summit to draw them closer into the EU orbit despite Russia's deep misgivings. Presidents, premiers and their deputies from 33 nations signed an agreement meant to extend the EU's political and economic ties. The six ex-Soviet republics to whom the “eastern partnership" would apply are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
(AP, 5/7/09)(Econ, 1/10/15, p.49)
2009 May 7, The European Central Bank cut interest rates a quarter point and said it would buy euro-denominated bonds as well as offer longer-term credit to banks as it moves to get more money flowing through the 16-nation euro zone economy.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In Georgia opposition protesters clashed with police in Tbilisi in the first outbreak of violence since demonstrations began in April.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.55)
2009 May 7, In northwestern Indonesia 2 rare Sumatran elephants, believed to have been poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples, were found dead with their tusks removed. Just 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to still be living in their natural surroundings.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, Iran’s state media reported that 9 people, including a 30-year-old woman, have been hanged. 4 of the 9 including the woman were convicted of murder in separate cases and were hanged on May 6. The woman was found guilty of killing her husband with a hammer.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, The Baghdad contract for the security firm once known as Blackwater Worldwide ended, although the company will temporarily continue operations elsewhere in Iraq. US troops in Mosul shot dead a 12-year-old Iraqi boy suspected of throwing a grenade at them. It was believed insurgents were paying children to help them. The boy was found with 10,000 Iraqi dinars, or around $8.50, in his hand.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 7, In Italy Jonathan Robert Hindenach (24) of Charlotte, Michigan, killing an Italian man in Florence. He had consumed drugs and alcohol before slaying Riccardo Nistri (62).
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In Kashmir scores of protesters clashed with government troops in Srinagar as residents went to the polls in the disputed Himalayan region and other Indian key states in a monthlong parliamentary election.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Animal welfare activists said more than 300 stray dogs, dumped on isolated islands in Malaysia’s Selangor state, turned to cannibalism after weeks of starvation.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In Mexico high schools and universities closed by the swine flu epidemic reopened as teachers and parents carefully checked returning students for flu symptoms. The death toll due to the HINI flu was raised to 44. Mexico City says all businesses can reopen including sports arenas, museums, bars.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Mexican police said 3 women who disappeared in the border city of Tijuana were killed by drug traffickers who dissolved their bodies in a caustic substance. 2 drug traffickers were arrested this week and confessed to the killings. A 3rd suspect was being sought.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In Nepal riot police beat back hundreds of women from the Maoist party who protested in front of the president's house to demand that he fire the country's army chief.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In New Zealand former army reservist Jan Molenaar (51) fired a fusillade of shots from an automatic rifle at police who arrived with a warrant to search the house for cannabis. One officer was shot dead and two others seriously wounded, along with a bystander. Molenaar was found dead on May 9 in his house in the North Island city of Napier.
(AP, 5/8/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 7, In Pakistan attack helicopters and war planes pounded suspected Taliban hideouts as the government vowed a decisive victory in the northwest. Thousands of terrified Pakistanis dodged Taliban roadblocks to flee the Swat valley being shelled by the government, streaming into makeshift camps and crowding hospitals as the army bombarded the extremists who have taken over much of the area.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AFP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, In the Philippines fighting in the southern island of Jolo broke out after Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf members ambushed Chief Superintendent Julasirim Kasim, killing him and four of his men. Five rebels were also killed in the attack. In retaliatory attacks that followed more than 20 Muslim extremists were killed.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 7, Russian Mission Control said the unmanned Progress M-02M lifted off from Kazakhstan on schedule and should dock with the int’l. space station on May 12.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Somali pirates captured the Netherlands Antilles-flagged MV Marathon in the Gulf of Aden. The ship listed 19 Ukrainian crew members. One of the crew members died from a gun shot wound. On June 23 the Dutch Defense Ministry reported that the ship was released.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 May 7, In Sri Lanka Stephen Sundararaj (39), a project manager for a human rights group, disappeared in Colombo. He had been abducted by police and detained for weeks under a law permitting arrests without warrant for “unlawfull activities." He challenged the case in court but disappeared hours after his release pending trial.
(http://tinyurl.com/heqfxw3)(Econ, 8/6/16, p.30)
2009 May 7, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir named Ahmed Harun, who is wanted for war crimes in Darfur, as governor of disputed south Kordofan province, transferring him from his post as a state minister. In 2007 the ICC issued a warrant for Harun on 51 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Sudan's western Darfur region in 2003 and 2004.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, A UN peacekeeper was shot dead and his car stolen by unknown gunmen in the South Darfur state capital Nyala.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, In eastern Ukraine 9 people were killed in an explosion at a gambling hall in Dnipropetrovsk.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Tendai Biti, said African financial institutions have extended $428 million in credit lines in a bid to rescue the country's ailing economy.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 8, A federal jury acquitted W.R. Grace and 3 of its executives on all criminal charges that they knowingly contaminated Libby, Montana, with asbestos and conspired to cover up the deed.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)
2009 May 8, In California the 4-day Jesusita fire in Santa Barbara was only 10% contained as of the evening, after charring more than 13 square miles and destroying about 31 homes with another 47 damaged. By the next day the fire was 40% contained and residents were allowed to return to the area.
(AP, 5/9/09)(SSFC, 5/10/09, p.A12)
2009 May 8, In Panama City, Florida, Dr. Jason Newsom resigned from the Bay County Health Department under pressure following his launch of a one-man war on obesity by posting sardonic warnings on an electronic sign outside. After the lawyers threatened to sue, his bosses made him remove the anti-fried doughnut rants and eventually forced him to resign.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 May 8, In the Midwest a wave of storms damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. 5 people were left dead.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, Brazilians huddled in cow pens converted into emergency shelters, as swollen rivers continue to rise and northern Brazil's worst floods in decades boosted the number of homeless to nearly 300,000. The death toll rose to 39, and coffins started popping out of the soaked earth.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In London Marks & Spencer admitted it had "boobed" in a row over larger bras, agreeing to slash the prices of its DD-plus cup sizes to bring them in line with smaller models.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Canada a provincial medical official said a woman from Alberta has died from the H1N1 flu virus, making her the first Canadian to die from the virus.
(Reuters, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Chad’s government claimed that 225 rebels and 22 soldiers had been killed in clashes over the last 2 days south of the main eastern city of Abeche.
(AFP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, In Colombia Jorge Noguera, former director of the civilian intelligence service, DAS, was charged with conspiracy and murder. He was accused of colluding with paramilitaries and helping to plan the murders of opposition figures.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.43)
2009 May 8, A Croatian court convicted an opposition lawmaker of war crimes, making him the country's first senior politician to be held responsible for wartime atrocities against Serbs. Branimir Glavas was sentenced to 10 years in prison for war crimes against civilians, but he remained free because he enjoys parliamentary immunity from detention. During the 1991 Serbo-Croat war, he was a member of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union and formed a paramilitary unit in eastern Croatian town of Osijek, where he was seen as a warlord.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Ecuador an angry mob dragged two suspected robbers from a police station in Valencia and burned them to death.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Indian police used teargas and batons to disperse hundreds of rock-throwing Kashmiris protesting against the holding of national elections in the revolt-hit region.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Ireland Dr. Yuri Melini (47), a leading Guatemalan environmentalist who recently survived an assassination attempt, won a human rights award for his efforts to stop the rapid growth of mines in his mineral-rich nation. Melini received the annual Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk in a Dublin City Hall ceremony.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In southern Lebanon authorities arrested five people for allegedly spying for Israel as part of the two countries' long-running espionage battle.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Malaysia said it will free 13 people detained under internal security laws, including three ethnic Indian activists, members of the banned ethnic Indian rights group Hindraf, held without trial since organizing anti-government protests in 2007.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Mexico’s federal attorney general's office said authorities have arrested 25 Tijuana police officers and two civilians on organized crime charges for alleged drug gang ties. In the border state of Chihuahua, prosecutors said police acting on an anonymous tip found two clandestine graves with 7 bodies in the town of Palomas, across from Columbus, New Mexico.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In Nigeria the governor of southern oil-rich Rivers state signed a law making life jail terms mandatory for kidnappers in the area.
(AFP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, Pakistani jets screamed over Mingora, a Taliban-controlled town, and bombed suspected militant positions as hundreds of thousands fled in terror and other trapped residents appealed for a pause in the fighting so they could escape. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said that 140 militants had been killed in the last 24 hours, adding to around 150 already reported slain. He did give any figures for civilian deaths, but witness and local media say that noncombatants have been killed.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, In the northern Philippines Typhoon Cha-hom dumped heavy rains overnight, triggered landslides and left at least 10 people dead and four missing.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, South Sudanese gunmen killed dozens of people from a rival tribe, most of them women and children, in one of a string of attacks that have raised fears for elections in the region. Fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe raided the village of Torkej, home to the Nuer Jikany, in the region's Upper Nile state, in apparent revenge for cattle thefts. Some 71 people were killed in Torkej.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.49)
2009 May 8, Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Jordan and expressed deep respect for Islam. He said he hopes the Catholic Church can play a role in Mideast peace as he began his first trip to the region, where he hopes to improve frayed ties with Muslims.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, Venezuelan police uncovered a cache of weapons and explosives at a Caracas apartment. The discovery led to the detention of 3 citizens of the Dominican Republic, Luini Omar Campusano de la Cruz (38); Edgar Floiran Sanchez (29); and Diomedis Campusano Perez (31) and a Frenchman, Laurent Frederic Bocquet, on suspicion of planning terrorist acts.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 8, Venezuela’s National Guard began occupying dozens of oil rigs, docks and boats operated by private contractors, both local and foreign, hired by PDVSA, the state oil company. It appeared that PDVSA had run out of cash.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.44)
2009 May 9, Federal drug enforcement agents began seizing about 351 pounds of meth from two houses in Duluth, in suburban Atlanta. The 2-day operation included the arrest of four Mexican nationals, three of whom were in the US illegally. It was the biggest seizure of Mexican crystal methamphetamine ever recorded east of the Mississippi River.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 9, Chuck Daly (b.1930), NBA basketball coach, died in Florida. He coached the Dream Team to the Olympic gold medal in 1992 after winning back-to-back NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, In Afghanistan 2 police died in a roadside blast in Zabul province.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 9, Australia and Japan joined the ranks of affected countries with confirmed H1N1 swine flu. New Zealand, the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to confirm cases, reported two more for a total of seven.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, Costa Rica reported the first swine flu death outside North America and the US announced its third death from the virus, while Mexico delayed the reopening of primary schools in some states.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, PM Nouri al-Maliki said Iraq should launch an anti-corruption campaign that would match the fight it has waged against insurgents and militias, amid increasing complaints over criminality in the government.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, In Mexico gunmen killed 9 people in three separate attacks in the western state of Michoacan. 4 horses and a bull were also killed in one of the attacks. The bodies of 4 US citizens (19-23) were found strangled, beaten and stabbed in a van in Tijuana, two days after they reportedly left their Southern California homes for a night at the Mexican clubs.
(AP, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 9, Pakistani civilians cowered in hospital beds and refugees looted UN supplies, all of them desperate for relief from the fighting that has engulfed a northwestern valley as troops and warplanes struggled to drive out Taliban militants. The army said it killed as many as 55 more Taliban fighters in Swat. A suspected US missile strike killed nine people, mostly foreigners, in another militant stronghold near the Afghan border.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, It was reported that Peru’s police over the last two months have seized some $40 million in near perfect replicas of American dollar bills in $20, $50 and $100 denominations. Most of the fake bills were sent to Ecuador and Panama, which used the greenback as their national currency.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.40)
2009 May 9, In South Africa Jacob Zuma became president, vowing to work to fulfill the dreams of all South Africans after he overcame corruption and sex scandals to reach the nation's highest office.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, Human Rights Watch accused Sri Lankan forces of repeatedly striking hospitals in the northern war zone with indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks that have killed scores of people, a charge the military denied. Sri Lankan police arrested three journalists for London-based Channel 4 television news on charges of tarnishing the image of government security forces.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, UN officials said a UN-sponsored treaty to combat highly dangerous chemicals has been expanded beyond the original "dirty dozen" to include nine more substances that are used in pesticides, flame retardants and other products.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 9, In Venezuela police and soldiers discovered 4,370 pounds (1,983 kilograms) of cocaine during a raid on a ranch in central Miranda state. A Colombian and two Venezuelans were detained.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 10, In southern Afghanistan a double suicide bomb attack killed 7 people and wounded 20 in the town of Gereshk in Helmand province. The majority of casualties were police and army units responding to the initial attack. A roadside bomb in eastern Nangarhar province killed eight construction workers traveling on a rural road on their way to build a checkpoint for the country's border police. Three Afghan civilians, a truck driver and two assistants, died in a roadside bomb blast in Zabul province while transporting goods to an American base.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, Floodwaters receded some in inundated towns across northern Brazil, but the number of homeless rose above 300,000 and two people were missing after an overloaded canoe overturned in swift waters.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 10, The British government hit record opinion polls lows as more details of lawmakers' expenses, detailing lavish spending on everything from home improvement to pest control, emerged in the press. Labor legislator Stuart Bell said Parliament will set up an independent body to oversee legislators' expenses following a series of damaging revelations.
(AFP, 5/10/09)(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In China Deng Yujiao (21), a karaoke bar waitress, turned herself in shortly after allegedly using a fruit knife to stab Deng Guida (43), who ran a local government office for business promotion. She had also attacked his colleague Huang Dezhi at Badong's Xiongfeng Hotel after they tried to force her into having sex. On May 22 the local government in the central city of Badong posted a statement online promising her fair treatment. On May 31 the government announced that the two surviving officials had been sacked. On June 16 Yujiao was freed.
(AP, 5/22/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.40)(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 May 10, In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at least 60 people were killed over the last 48 hours during attacks blamed on Rwandan Hutu rebels.
(AFP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 10, In Guatemala lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg was shot to death by unidentified assailants while riding his bicycle. The next day a video tape that emerged alleging that if anything happened to him it would be at the behest of Guatemalan Pres. Alvaro Colom with help from Gustavo Alejos," the president's chief of staff, Gregorio Valdez, a businessman, and the approval of Sandra Torres, Pres. Colom’s wife. Rosenberg said on the tape that officials might want to kill him because he represented businessman Khalil Musa, who was killed along with his daughter Marjorie in March. Rosenberg said Musa, who had been named to the board of Guatemala's Rural Development Bank, was killed for refusing to get involved in purported illicit transactions at the bank. On Dec 9 authorities ordered the arrest of Francisco and Jose Valdes Paiz, cousins of Rosenberg, for allegedly ordering the killing of Rosenberg. Eleven people had already been arrested. On Jan 12, 2010, a special international group commissioned by the government said Rosenberg had contacted cousins of his first wife to help him find a hitman to deal with an extortionist, when he really was orchestrating his own slaying amid severe personal problems. On July 15, 2010, a judge convicted and sentenced eight men to prison for Rosenberg’s killing.
(AP, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/18/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.40)(AP, 12/30/09)(AP, 1/12/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2009 May 10, A small plane filled with cocaine crashed in Honduras. The plane registered in Venezuela was carrying around 3,300 pounds (1,500 kilograms) of cocaine when it crashed on Utila, one of the Bay Islands off the country's northern coast.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 10, Italian police arrested a fugitive crime boss who they found holed up in a secret room of his brother's house in the southern Italian region of Calabria. Salvatore Coluccio has been a fugitive since 2005.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In Jordan Pope Benedict XVI urged Middle East Christians to persevere in their faith despite hardships threatening their ancient communities, addressing a crowd of 20,000 who filled a sports stadium where he celebrated the first open-air Mass of his pilgrimage.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, Mexican prosecutors announced that police had arrested four alleged members of a drug cartel in the border city of Tijuana after police found over $542,000 in their vehicles. Federal prosecutors in Cuernavaca detained 11 men and 3 women on suspicion of smuggling weapons for the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. The 14 caught in the raid on a house were ordered held under house arrest for 40 days pending possible charges.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In Pakistan thousands of fearful civilians many on foot or donkey-pulled carts, streamed out of the Swat valley as authorities briefly lifted a curfew. The army said 50 to 60 militants died in various parts of the valley. Two soldiers also died in the latest fighting. The army said 12,000 to 15,000 troops in Swat face 4,000 to 5,000 militants, including small numbers of foreigners and hardened fighters from the South Waziristan tribal region. The Taliban executed Zahid Khan, imam of the main mosque in Mingora, because he had objected to their stockpiling arms and laying landmines.
(AP, 5/10/09)(Econ, 5/16/09, p.45)
2009 May 10, In Somalia mortars slammed into Mogadishu hitting a mosque and several homes. Weekend fighting killed at least 35 people as pro-government Islamist fighters clashed with gunmen who want to topple the Western-backed government.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, In Sri Lanka a government doctor said an all-night artillery barrage in the war zone killed at least 378 civilians and forced thousands to flee to makeshift shelters. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels accused the government of killing more than 2,000 civilians in 24 hours of artillery attacks, but the military vehemently denied the allegations.
(AP, 5/10/09)(AFP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 10, Syria rejected the Obama administration's decision to renew economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus and urged Washington to abandon "foolish polices."
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 11, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates replaced General David McKiernan as the commander of the Afghanistan war, saying the Obama administration needs "fresh thinking" to turn around the war against a resurgent Taliban. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was named to replace McKiernan.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, US District Judge Samuel Kent was sentenced to 3 years in prison for lying to investigators about sexually abusing 2 female employees at his Galveston, Texas, courthouse. Kent had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice as his trial was about to start in February. This was the first sex abuse case ever against a sitting federal judge.
(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A5)
2009 May 11, The space shuttle Atlantis and 7 astronauts blasted off from Cape Canaveral on a mission to repair the Hubble telescope.
(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A6)
2009 May 11, The price of a US first-class stamp rose 2 cents to 44 cents.
(SFC, 5/11/09, p.A3)
2009 May 11, Insurer American International Group Inc. said it is selling its Japanese headquarters to Nippon Life Insurance Co. for $1.2 billion in cash.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu in the US climbed to more than 2,500, surpassing Mexico as the country most affected by the outbreak.
(http://tinyurl.com/prszux)
2009 May 11, In Oakland, California, Ivarene Lett (97) was found beaten to death inside her 6th story Van Buren Tower apartment near lake Merritt.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A1)
2009 May 11, The US military accused militants in Afghanistan of using white phosphorus munitions in attacks on American forces and in civilian areas, saying it has documented at least 44 incidents of insurgents using or storing the weapons. Doctors began investigating whether dozens of girls were poisoned at a high school in northern Afghanistan after 61 girls went to the hospital because of sudden illness.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Australia’s armed forces chief announced that Australia will formally end its military mission in Iraq at the end of July, bringing the country's involvement in one war to a close even as it prepares to send more troops to Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Bolivia demanded that Peru hand over three former government ministers charged with genocide in the 2003 killing of dozens of protesters. President Evo Morales called asylum an "open provocation of the Bolivian people."
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, British PM Gordon Brown and the leader of the country's main opposition party apologized over lawmakers' excessive expenses claims, pledging to overhaul the allowance system and win back public trust.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Colombian authorities arrested a senator closely allied with President Alvaro Uribe for alleged collusion with illegal far-right militias. Sen. Zulema Jattin (39) had been under Supreme Court investigation for allegedly benefitting politically from ties with militia boss Rodrigo Tovar. Jattin called her arrest a "kidnapping" by the Supreme Court.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Georgia's pro-Western president and four of his fiercest opponents failed to agree on a way to resolve the country's political crisis, a negotiator said, promising continued street demonstrations to demand his resignation.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, In Iran an appeals court reduced the jail term of Roxana Saberi (32), dual Iranian-American citizen, to a two-year suspended sentence. She planned to return home to Fargo, North Dakota.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, In Iraq Brig. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Kadhoumi, a high ranking traffic police officer, was fatally shot in central Baghdad. Sgt. John M. Russell (44), who had served previously in Iraq, fatally shot five fellow soldiers at a US military counseling clinic at the Camp Liberty base near the Baghdad Int’l. Airport. Russell was charged with murder and aggravated assault. A 325-page report on Russell was released on Oct 16. It painted a picture of a soldier on his third deployment who began to show obvious signs of unraveling nearly two weeks before the shootings at the clinic. In 2013 Russell found guilty of premeditated murder.
(AP, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/12/09)(AP, 10/20/09)(SFC, 5/14/13, p.A5)
2009 May 11, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was in Egypt for talks seen aimed at showing he can be a true Middle East peace partner before he heads to the White House on May 18. Progress in peace negotiations must come before Arab recognition of Israel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview with Israel TV.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, Pope Benedict XVI confronted the dark history of his native Germany on the first day of his visit to Israel, shaking the hands of six Holocaust survivors and saying victims of the genocide "lost their lives but they will never lose their names." He also called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian homeland, a stance that could put him at odds with his hosts on a trip aimed at improving ties between the Vatican and Jews.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Ichiro Ozawa, head of Japan’s opposition DPJ, resigned following a fund raising scandal involving his main political aide.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.42)
2009 May 11, A Libyan newspaper reported that Ali Mohamed Abdelaziz al Fakhiri (46), also known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, has killed himself in his Libyan jail cell. His fabricated testimony about al Qaeda was used by the United States to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Captured by US-led forces in Pakistan in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fakhiri later made up a story about links between al Qaeda and Iraq to avoid torture while in the custody of Egypt, according to a 2006 US Senate Intelligence Committee report. Fakhiri was extradited by the US to Libya in 2006, when Tripoli authorities sentenced him to life imprisonment. Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri later accused Libya of torturing to death al Fakhiri.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(Reuters, 10/4/09)
2009 May 11, Most of Mexico's primary schools and kindergartens welcomed back millions of students after a nationwide shutdown ordered to help put a brake on the spread of swine flu.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, In the Netherlands thieves pried open the emergency door of the IJsselstein City Museum near Utrecht. They made off with six 17th- and 19th-century landscape paintings, the second major art heist in 10 days in the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, Pakistani warplanes bombed suspected militant positions in a stronghold close to the capital, pressing ahead with a fierce offensive that has driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, many into crowded refugee camps. 52 Islamist fighters were reported killed. The government claimed 700 insurgents had died over the last 4 days and that the Taliban were on the run.
(AP, 5/11/09)(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A2)
2009 May 11, In Sudan armed men on camel and horseback shot dead three Sudanese policemen in an ambush in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur.
(AFP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 11, The UN condemned a "bloodbath" in Sri Lanka's northern war zone after two days of shelling that a government doctor said killed as many as 1,000 ethnic Tamil civilians, including 106 children.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 12, The US won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the first time along with Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, four countries accused of serious human rights violations.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A2)
2009 May 12, Five more people were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee this morning. The advocates of a single payer health care system were protesting the fact that Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) continues to exclude single payer advocates from a series of hearings on health care reform. Last week, eight doctors, lawyers and activists were arrested as they sought to put a single payer advocate at a table of 15 witnesses. Baucus has reportedly accepted $413,000 in drug and health insurance campaign contributions.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A7)(www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=690)
2009 May 12, A federal jury in New York convicted Oussama Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swede, of plotting to help Al-Qaida recruit for a weapons training post in Bly, Oregon in 1999 and for distributing terrorist training manuals over the Internet. On Sep 15 Kassir was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)(SFC, 9/16/09, p.A8)
2009 May 12, Medicare’s trustees warned that the program’s biggest fund would run out of money in 8 years.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)
2009 May 12, In Utah partitions known as “Zion curtains" began coming down as a new law came into effect allowing bartenders to serve patrons directly over the bar. This ended Utah’s requirement that people who wanted a drink join a “private club."
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A8)(Economist, 9/8/12, p.66)
2009 May 12, John Demjanjuk, retired Ohio autoworker, arrived at a German prison after 3 decades of fighting in court. He was deported from the US to face allegations of being an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews and others as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In eastern Afghanistan 11 Taliban suicide bombers attacked government buildings in Khost, sparking running gunbattles that killed at least 20 people and wounded three US troops. US and Afghan troops freed 20 hostages taken by the insurgents. Another 98 Afghan girls were rushed to hospital in the latest in a spate of mysterious poisonings to hit three schools north of Kabul in a fortnight. Militants fired several rockets at two other US military bases in eastern Paktika province. Six militants were killed when US troops used artillery and airstrikes to fire back. Two people not involved in the fight were also killed.
(AP, 5/12/09)(AFP, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 12, Treasurer Wayne Swan said Australia will post a record 57.6 billion Australian dollar (44.1 billion US) deficit in 2009-10 as it battles the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Vittorio Calao head of Vodafone, a British mobile phone operator, announced a plan to build a joint global platform through which software companies and content providers could sell things to mobile subscribers.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.75)
2009 May 12, In Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his car into a police truck in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing five policemen and a civilian.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Italian anti-terrorism investigators said two French citizens behind bars since last year on suspicion of smuggling migrants were al-Qaida propaganda point men in Europe and were heard talking in jail about a possible attack on a Paris airport. Bassam Ayachi (62) and Raphael Frederic Gendron (33) were served warrants in jail accusing them of criminal association for international terrorism. The men have been held in Bari since November when they were arrested on suspicion of smuggling two Syrians and three Palestinians into Italy.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Vladimir Voronin (68), Moldova's former president, was voted head of parliament by his Communist Party colleagues. Three opposition parties boycotted the ballot, claiming the country's April 5 election was rigged.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Moroccan authorities announced the arrest of a group of alleged Islamists, who planned to attack Jewish interests in the country. The suspects, alleged to be members of a cell that was part of the radical Islamist movement Salafia Jihadia, were also said to be preparing attacks against Moroccan security services.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 12, In Pakistan helicopter-borne soldiers swooped into a Taliban stronghold in a remote corner of Swat, as the UN urged help for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting. A suspected US drone attack killed up to eight people in South Waziristan, a remote tribal area near the Afghan border.
(Reuters, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said former Bolivian ministers Mirtha Quevedo and Javier Torres Goitia requested and have received refugee status, a legal measure that, unlike asylum, does not denote political persecution. They are among the former ministers of former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada, charged with genocide for sending soldiers who killed 63 people in 2003 while quelling anti-government protests in the city of El Alto.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In Peru a new law went into effect that says officers will be fired for taking bribes and abusing detainees. It also said police officers who "damage the image" of law enforcement by engaging in homosexual behavior can lose their jobs.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 12, In Somalia a human rights activist said 113 civilians have been killed in fierce fighting in Mogadishu in the past three days. Some 10,000 civilians fled their homes, raising the number displaced by the fighting to more than 27,000.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels accused government forces of killing at least 47 people in an artillery and mortar attack on a hospital. The island's military denied the charges. The defense ministry said its troops had captured more ground in the latest fighting and had recovered 35 rebel bodies.
(AFP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 12, In Switzerland a rare 7.03-carat blue diamond sold for 9.3 million Swiss francs (more than $8.4 million), the highest price ever for a gem of its kind, according to Sotheby's.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 13, Chicago became the first US city to adopt a ban on the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups containing the chemical BPA.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, The California State Univ. Board of Trustees voted 17-2 to adopt a 10% tuition increase at its 23 campuses. This was its 7th increase since 2002.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B3)
2009 May 13, Massachusetts transportation officials banned nearly all mass-transit drivers from carrying cell phones or other digitals assistants in response to a trolley driver’s recent text message that cause a crash injuring nearly 50 people.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2009 May 13, In North Carolina, the country’s top tobacco growing state by sales, legislators approved a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2009 May 13, Off of Florida an overloaded boat capsized and sank with about 30 people aboard, mainly Haitian immigrants fleeing their country's crushing poverty. At least 9 people were dead. 17 survivors were pulled from the waters. On May 18 Jimmy Metellus (33) of Haiti was charged with human smuggling.
(AP, 5/14/09)(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)(SFC, 5/19/09, p.A5)
2009 May 13, Bank of America Corp. sold part of its stake in China Construction Bank for some $7.3 billion as the US lender sought to raise billions more to help withstand the recession. The stock sale left Bank of America with about 11% of CCB's shares.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, A new, 2-person, research submarine, the Deep Flight Super Falcon, was unveiled at the California Academy of Sciences in SF. It was designed by marine engineer Graham Hawkes. Its $1.5 million cost was underwritten by venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It was scheduled to begin exploring Monterey Bay in June.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B5)
2009 May 13, RealtyTrac Inc. said new data indicated that the number of US households faced with losing their homes to foreclosure jumped 32 percent in April compared with the same month last year, with Nevada, Florida and California showing the highest rates.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, In Afghanistan a vehicle drove up to the first gate outside Camp Salerno, on the edge of Khost city, and exploded. 7 people were killed and 21 others were wounded. Int’l. troops opened fire on a civilian vehicle in Wardak province, killing a father and his son. A gunbattle between police and Taliban in western Badghis province left one officer dead.
(AP, 5/13/09)(AFP, 5/13/09)(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, In Brazil slum dwellers rioted after the arrest of drug dealers in a Sao Paulo shantytown, burning vehicles and tires, pelting police with rocks and briefly shutting down a major urban highway.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, In Egypt the NDP's Mohammed Zaki Mohammed Mussa was found stabbed to death. He was the administrative director for the affluent Cairo suburb of 6th October City. It was later reported that Mussa’s assistant Ikram Ahmed Abdel Latif (25) stabbed Mussa for failure to pay him his monthly salary of 350 Egyptian pounds (62 dollars) four times in a row.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 13, The European Commission, after an eight-year investigation, fined Intel Corp a record 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) and ordered it to halt illegal rebates and other practices it used to squeeze out its rival, AMD.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Voting in India's marathon elections ended, with early exit polls giving the ruling Congress party and its allies a slight edge over the opposition bloc led by the Hindu nationalist BJP.
(AFP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, In Iraq Ali Mohammed Kazim of the Public Integrity Commission, a senior anti-corruption official, was assassinated on his way to work. The US Army handed over its base at the 6,000-year-old archaeological site of Ur to the Iraqi military in a ceremony.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Standing in Bethlehem, Pope Benedict XVI told Palestinians he understands their suffering and offered the Vatican's strongest and most symbolic public backing yet for an independent Palestinian homeland.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Italy's lower chamber of parliament passed a hotly debated bill making it a crime to enter or stay in Italy illegally, the latest effort by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative forces to crack down on illegal migration. The bill included a fine of up to $13,670 and jail for people housing illegal immigrants.
(AP, 5/13/09)(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A2)
2009 May 13, Nigerian MEND rebels hijacked an oil industry ship and held 15 Filipino sailors hostage. They demanded that all oil workers leave the southern Niger Delta by May 16.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 13, In Pakistan troops secured footholds in Swat valley overrun by the Taliban, killing 11 militants and discovering 5 headless corpses near Mingora, the region's main town. Dozens of assailants stormed a transport depot handling supplies for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan and torched eight trucks before escaping.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, Russian news agencies reported that Russia, in agreement with the US, will charge US astronauts $51 million per return trip to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2012 and will resume selling seats to space tourists. In 2006 Russia charged the US $21.8 million per return flight to the ISS. Since then the price for of a space tourist ticket to the ISS has climbed to $35 million from $20 million.
(Reuters, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, South Korean Destroyer ROKS Munmu the Great and the US guided missile cruiser Gettysburg dispatched helicopters to aid Egypt’s MV Amira after it came under attack. 17 suspected pirates were apprehended following the attack in the Gulf of Aden. In 2010 a Kenya court freed all 17 pirates for lack of evidence. A magistrate blamed the loss of the case on the US Navy for not providing video and photographic proof that they claimed to have.
(AP, 5/14/09)(AP, 11/5/10)
2009 May 13, In Sri Lanka shells hit the only hospital in the northern war zone, killing at least 50 people in the second such attack in two days. Medics at the makeshift facility said they were using brief lulls between explosions to tend to patients but had little to offer beyond gauze and bandages.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May 13, In Uruguay the defense ministry confirmed that Minister Jose Bayardi had signed a decree lifting a ban on people with “open sexual deviations," that had been imposed by the military dictatorship (1973-1985). The new decree stated that sexual orientation will no longer be considered a reason to prevent people from entering military service.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A2)
2009 May 14, It was disclosed that the US Treasury Department has agreed to extend billions in bailout funds to six major life insurers, following a months-long quest by some in the sector for government help in shoring up capital positions in the wake of major investment losses.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, Federal authorities in Detroit charged 74 members and associates of the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club with attempted murder, cocaine and steroid distribution and other crimes.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.A7)
2009 May 14, Chrysler LLC said in a bankruptcy court filing that it wants to eliminate roughly a quarter of its 3,200 US dealerships by early next month, because the network is antiquated and has too many stores competing with each other.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Scientists reported that ginger, long used as a folk remedy for stomach aches, limits nausea caused by chemotherapy used in cancer treatments.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.A14)
2009 May 14, The World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of confirmed cases of the new Influenza A (H1N1) flu has climbed to 6,497, including 65 deaths.
(Reuters, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In southern Afghanistan overnight fighting between Afghan police and insurgents left 11 militants dead in Kandahar province. A British pilot was injured after his jet crashed following takeoff in the same region. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner pledged increased financial support for police and health care following a meeting with President Hamid Karzai. A suicide car bomber struck a police station in Kandahar province's Spinboldak district, leaving only the bomber dead and 5 others wounded.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In Australia a court suspended a government program to kill 7,000 kangaroos on federal land near the Australian capital, halting efforts to thin a mushrooming population of the beloved marsupials that authorities say are threatening endangered species.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Bangladesh's high court moved to plug a gaping hole in the country's laws by introducing a first-ever ban on sexual harassment. Bangladeshi police arrested 250 border guards accused of spreading violence across the country during a mutiny that started at a military base in Dhaka.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown suspended former agriculture and environment minister Elliot Morley over embarrassing expenses claim revelations. It had emerged that Morley claimed over 16,000 pounds for a home loan 18 months after it was paid off. Hours earlier the opposition Conservatives announced that Andrew MacKay, a lawmaker, had resigned as an aide to leader David Cameron after it emerged he and his wife, also a Conservative MP, had claimed expenses for two home loans at the same time.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, A British parliamentary report into human trafficking said more than 5,000 mostly women and children have been smuggled into Britain to work as sex slaves and beggars.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, The OECD ruled to keep Britain’s Cayman Islands on its list of un-cooperative tax havens.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.41)
2009 May 14, Egyptian security forces arrested 14 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in dawn raids at their homes.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, A French rocket carrying the largest space telescope ever was launched into space on a mission that European scientists hope will help unravel the mystery of the universe's creation. The Ariane-5 rocket was loaded with the Herschel space telescope and the Planck spacecraft, carrying a payload of 5.3 tons (4.81 metric tons) when it launched from the city of Kourou near the jungles of French Guiana.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, A small plane crashed into a yard in Guatemala City, reportedly killing six people on board and setting a home on fire near the airport.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, In India Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, the 10-year-old child star of "Slumdog Millionaire," was awakened by a policeman wielding a bamboo stick and ordered out of his home. Minutes later it was bulldozed along with dozens of other shanties in the Mumbai slum he calls home.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 14, Iraq's Trade Minister Falah al-Sudani submitted his resignation following allegations of widespread corruption in his department. PM Nouri al-Maliki delayed accepting it to allow parliament to review the allegations. Acceptance was announced on May 25.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 14, Pope Benedict XVI greeted tens of thousands of adoring followers in Nazareth with a message of reconciliation, urging Christians and Muslims to overcome recent strife and "reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice."
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Japan’s Sony Corp. reported its first annual net loss in 14 years and forecast a bigger loss this year, saying the pressure from sliding sales, competition in gadget prices and a strong yen was expected to continue.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Jordan's king pressed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately commit to the establishment of a Palestinian state, as he pursues a sweeping resolution of the Muslim world's conflicts with Israel.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest and faces up to five years in jail after John Yettaw, an American intruder, sneaked into her lakeside home.
(AP, 5/14/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.44)
2009 May 14, Pakistan said artillery batteries shelled suspected hideouts in Swat and the neighboring district of Lower Dir, with the military claiming to have killed 54 militants in the last 24 hours. Nine soldiers were reported killed. Residents said that armed Taliban have mined roads and dug trenches around up to 200,000 civilians encircled by Pakistani troops.
(AFP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, Russia said it was proposing a new version of a key European arms-control treaty it suspended more than a year ago, and could once again honor the agreement if the US and its NATO allies accept the changes.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In Spain a new study said the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with at least five drugs, including trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid, a relative of LSD. The tests were done in areas where drugs were likely to be consumed.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 14, In Sri Lanka doctors and aides abandoned the only hospital in the war zone amid unrelenting shell attacks. The military said thousands of civilians braved rebel gunfire and fled across the front lines.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 15, General Motors said it plans to eliminate some 1,000 of 6,000 showrooms over the next year in an effort to boost profits by lessening competition among dealers.
(SFC, 5/16/09, p.C1)
2009 May 15, San Francisco’s Mayor Newsom said that 1,000 city workers would lose their jobs in the coming months to help close a growing budget deficit. The city’s biggest union this week rejected $38 million in wage concessions.
(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A1)
2009 May 15, A Minnesota couple who refused chemotherapy for their son, Daniel Hauser (13), was ordered to have the boy re-evaluated to see if he would still benefit from cancer treatment for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or if it may already be too late. On May 18 Colleen Hauser Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, apparently left their home sometime after a doctor's appointment and court-ordered X-ray showed his tumor had grown. Hauser and her son returned on May 25 and agreed to medical treatment.
(AP, 5/15/09)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/26/09)(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A4)
2009 May 15, In eastern Afghanistan 2 NATO were killed in fighting with insurgents. In southern Helmand province 22 Taliban militants, including three regional commanders, were killed in overnight fighting.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, A court-appointed liquidator reported that the Antigua offshore Stanford International Bank, at the center of an alleged Ponzi scheme by a wealthy Texas businessman, had a $6 billion shortfall between assets and liabilities, confirming fears that investors will likely get little of their money back.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Britain's expense scandal widened with the suspension of a justice minister who claimed more than 65,000 pounds ($98,000) in housing costs over three years. The Daily Telegraph reported that Justice Minister Shahid Malik put in the claims while he was given a discounted rent of 100 pounds ($150) a week by a local landlord.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, The Wolfram Alpha Internet search engine was officially launched. Stephen Wolfram, British physicist, described it as a “computational knowledge engine." It was created to compute answers from its own source of materials.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Alpha)(Econ, 6/4/11, TQ p.30)
2009 May 15, Microsoft Corp. announced a 3-year partnership aimed at helping make the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou a model for innovation and protection of intellectual property, in the company's latest attempt to combat rampant software piracy.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Egypt a three-year-old boy from north Egypt tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in the second such case in two days. This brought to 71 the number of bird flu infections in Egypt.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, Among perks enjoyed by EU Parliament lawmakers: flying no-frills and expensing the cost of a full fare ticket, listing spouse or child as aides and paying them fat salaries, wining-and-dining friends at Michelin-starred restaurants and billing the taxpayer. Unprecedented reforms, agreed in long and difficult negotiations, mean the incoming 736 assembly members of the EU assembly will earn far less than their predecessors and face far stricter spending rules.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Lakhdar Boumediene (43), a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was at the center of a Supreme Court battle over inmates' rights, arrived in France, which agreed to take in the Algerian in a gesture to the Obama administration.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Hong Kong 63 governments approved the Int’l. Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. It aimed to make the business of scrapping ships safer and greener by requiring higher standards at recycling yards mostly located in South Asia. 107 environmental rights groups complained that the UN accord, doesn’t go far enough.
(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A2)
2009 May 15, Hugh Van Es (67), a Dutch photojournalist, died in Hong Kong. He covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975, a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Indonesia 6 Asia-Pacific countries, meeting at the World Oceans Conference, agreed on a management plan to protect one of the world's largest networks of coral reefs, promising to reduce pollution, eliminate overfishing and improve the livelihoods of impoverished coastal communities. The Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security covered an area defined as the Coral Triangle, which spans Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Israel Pope Benedict XVI ended his pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his strongest call yet for the creation of a Palestinian state and telling the faithful at the site of Jesus' crucifixion that peace is possible.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Mexico received eight armored vehicles as part of a US aid package to help the government with its nationwide fight against drug cartels. Mexican federal police announced the capture of an alleged lieutenant of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Mario Gonzalez Martinez was described as one of the most trusted aides of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Martinez was captured along with four alleged accomplices in the western state of Jalisco.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, Nicaraguans awoke to find that the Central Bank, moving in the night as stealthily as the Tooth Fairy, had snuck a new legal tender into their economy while the markets were sound asleep.
(www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900518,00.html?xid=rss-world-cnn)
2009 May 15, In Nigeria the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) declared "all-out war" in the southern oil-producing region. The Nigerian military rescued 10 hostages from militants in the southern oil region and destroyed the camp where the victims were being held.
(AFP, 5/15/09)(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, North Korea said it has scrapped all wage and rent agreements with South Korea at a joint industrial estate and told some 100 South Korean companies to leave if they cannot accept it.
(AFP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Pakistani forces killed 55 Taliban in the northwestern valley of Swat, and lifted a curfew to allow thousands more civilians to flee before troops assail the Taliban-held main town of Mingora. Militants had mounted a counterattack, and three soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in various clashes over the previous 24 hours.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, In Peru a national Indian representative said Amazon Indians who have been blocking roads, waterways and a state oil pipeline since April are declaring an "insurgency" against Peru's government for refusing to repeal laws that the protesters say make it easier for foreign companies to take their lands. The next day they said they would withdraw the call for an insurgency against the government, but vowed to press ahead with their protests.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 15, Polish gas firm PGNiG announced that it had signed a deal with the Qatari firm Qatargas for the supply of one million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 15, In Spain police arrested of Raffaele Amato, an alleged Camorra boss who investigators say was one of Italy's top cocaine importers.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 16, President Barack Obama reached across the political divide and named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a potential Republican presidential contender in 2012, to the sensitive diplomatic post of US ambassador to China.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Maryland Rachel Alexandra won the second leg of the Triple Crown. She joined an impressive list when she became the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, In North Oakland, Ca., motorist Anthony Perea (27) and pedestrian Floyd Ross (41) were killed when 4 suspects in a Berkeley homicide fled police and crashed. Stephon Anthony and Anthony Price were arrested. 2 other suspects, later identified as Rafael Campbell (27) and Samuel Flowers (21), escaped. The suspected gang members had just killed Charles Davis (25) in West Berkeley. Flowers was arrested on May 25 in Florida. Campbell was arrested in Sacramento on Nov 17.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.B1)(SFC, 5/20/09, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.B2)(SFC, 5/27/09, p.B5)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.C5)
2009 May 16, In Afghanistan 6 militants, including a "foreign national," were killed in a clash with troops in Uruzgan province. 5 Taliban insurgents who were preparing suicide vests in a house in central Ghazni province were killed when some of the explosives detonated.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, In Britain David Chaytor, a ruling party lawmaker, became the latest casualty of a growing row over MPs' expenses when he was suspended, as police said they would examine whether the issue merited an investigation. He was reprimanded after The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported he claimed 13,000 pounds (14,500 euros, 19,700 dollars) for mortgage interest on a loan that had already been paid off. He has said he will repay the amount.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Cuba President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance to draw attention to gay rights on the island.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Egypt 13 factory workers were killed when their small pickup truck crashed head on into a large lorry in southern Egypt.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Germany tens of thousands of workers from across the country marched through downtown Berlin to call for increased government measures to protect their jobs.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.A6)
2009 May 16, In Hong Kong two bottles of acid were thrown into a crowd in a popular downtown shopping district. 30 people suffered burns but none was seriously injured. On the same street in December, 46 people suffered burns when two plastic bottles filled with acid were thrown at pedestrians.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Indian PM Manmohan Singh's ruling coalition won an overwhelming election victory, boosting hopes of a stable government as the emerging Asian power faces economic downturn and tensions with Pakistan. The Congress party won 206 seats, short of the 272 needed for a parliamentary majority. The BJP won just 116 of 545 seats.
(Reuters, 5/16/09)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.48)
2009 May 16, A joint US-Iraqi force targeted an al-Qaida cell involved in funneling arms and weapons into Iraq from Syria, arresting three people over the last 24 hours near Mosul. A mortar round crashed into a house in the eastern part of Baghdad, killing a 2-year-old child and wounding three others. Two policemen were killed west of Baghdad by a roadside bomb that went off near their patrol. In southern Iraq an American soldier was killed during combat.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, which hopes to take control of the country in elections later this year, chose Yukio Hatoyama, the grandson of a former prime minister, as its chief.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Japan said 8 high school students had tested positive for swine flu amid fears the virus was spreading in at least two cities where scores of students said they felt ill.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Kuwaitis voted in the second parliamentary election in a year. 210 candidates for the 50-seat parliament included 16 women. Kuwaiti women won political rights in 2005, and practiced them for the third time. Kuwait’s population of about 3.4 million people included 2.3 million foreign workers. Kuwaitis elected 4 women and rejected a number of Islamic fundamentalist candidates. 21 incumbents lost their seats.
(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.50)
2009 May 16, Ziad al-Homsi, a mayor of a Lebanese village, was arrested by Lebanese special forces and later jailed for 15 years for spying for Mossad. He served three years.
(AP, 5/7/13)
2009 May 16, In central Mexico an armed gang freed 53 inmates from the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas state, including two dozen with ties to a powerful drug cartel, in a daring raid that took just five minutes. Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina said footage from the security cameras inside and outside the prison indicates that guards helped the armed gang. The bodies of two men were found shot to death in central Michoacan state. Federal police came under fire as they raided a Cuernavaca building where four of suspects were arrested, including 3 police officers. A fifth suspect was also arrested as an alleged hit man.
(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, Norway’s fiddle-wielding Alexander Rybak (23), dubbed 'Alexander the Great' by Norwegian media, won a landslide victory in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow for his song "Fairytale," gaining the most points in Eurovision's 53-year history.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 16, In Pakistan a suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles at militants in the North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region. Pakistani intelligence agents said the militants were preparing to cross into Afghanistan to fight there and among the 28 dead were two Arabs. A car packed with mortar bombs blew up in the city of Peshawar, killing 11 people including four children passing in a school bus.
(Reuters, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In Russia riot police violently broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the Russian capital hosted the major Eurovision international pop music competition.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, The gay community in tightly controlled Singapore held its first-ever rally, taking advantage of looser laws on public gatherings to call for equality.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Sri Lankan forces seized control of the island's entire coastline for the first time in decades, sealing the Tamil Tigers in a tiny pocket of territory and cutting off the possibility of a sea escape by the rebels' top leaders.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, Sudan accused Chad of mounting a second series of air strikes on its territory and said the conflict between the African neighbors must be resolved politically.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 17, In Indiana Pres. Obama addressed a graduation ceremony at Notre Dame Univ. and called for “open hearts, open minds and fair-minded words" in the pursuit of “common ground" regarding the issue of abortion rights.
(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A3)
2009 May 17, In San Francisco’s 98th Bay to Breakers race Sammy Kitwara (22) of Kenya won with a time of 33 minutes, 31 seconds. Teyba Erkesso (26) of Ethiopia was the fastest woman at 38:29. An estimated 62,000 ran as revelers swilled beer despite rules banning alcohol in the 7.5-mile. Street cleaners gathered up some 13 tons of garbage.
(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A1)(SFC, 5/19/09, p.B1)
2009 May 17, David Ireland, American sculptor, conceptual artist and Minimalist architect, died in San Francisco. In 2016 the David Ireland House at the corner of 20th and Capp streets opened as a museum to the public. The 500 Capp Street Foundation was established by Carlie Wilmans and dedicated to the preservation of Ireland's work.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ireland_(artist))(SFC, 5/1/21, p.A7)
2009 May 17, In NYC Mitchell Wiener, an assistant principal at a middle school, became the first death linked to the H1N1 flu virus.
(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A3)
2009 May 17, In southern Afghanistan militant attacks and a roadside bomb explosion killed 11 policemen and an army soldier in areas plagued by a violent Taliban insurgency.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Bangladesh a state prosecutor said a corruption charge against PM Sheikh Hasina has been dropped because the man who laid it now says he was pressured to do so by the last government.
(AFP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Chad said its air force had completed raids on "mercenaries" inside Sudan, announcing its aircraft had destroyed seven groups of fighters while ground forces had captured 100 prisoners on the border.
(Reuters, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Chile confirmed its first two cases of swine flu in two women who arrived from the Dominican Republic.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Guatemala thousands protested to demand the resignation of President Alvaro Colom over accusations that he ordered a lawyer killed, a scandal threatening the rule of the country's first leftist leader more than 50 years.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, The International Criminal Court said Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a Sudanese rebel leader, has turned himself in to face war crimes charges for an attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in September 2007.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Iraq a gunman killed an off-duty prison officer in Mosul. Hours later a car bomb went off near the governor's residence in Mosul, killing a policeman and wounding three civilians.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Israel's President Shimon Peres urged Syria to open direct peace talks and said indirect negotiations mediated by Turkey had not resumed.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Jordan and Royal Dutch Shell PLC signed a concessionary agreement to explore for oil in the country's vast oil shale deposits.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Lithuanians voted in a presidential election. Dalia Grybauskaite (53), EU budget chief and karate black belt, poised to return to politics in her recession-hit homeland as its first female head of state. Grybauskaite stood as an independent, but was nonetheless backed by the ruling Conservatives, although she warned their government is also under watch. Under Lithuanian law, the new president takes the reins in July. The government then has to step down, and the head of state names a premier. Grybauskaite won nearly 70 percent of the vote in a presidential election.
(AFP, 5/17/09)(AP, 5/18/09)(SFC, 5/18/09, p.A2)
2009 May 17, In Nepal an alliance of 22 political parties claimed to have enough support to form a new coalition government and called for a parliamentary vote to elect its candidate as the new prime minister.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Nigeria's main militant group said it destroyed two oil pipelines in the southern Niger Delta, the latest attack amid the worst outbreak of violence to hit the region in months. MEND accused government troops of killing a second unnamed hostage and said two bodies would be handed over to the Red Cross. An army spokesman said Nigerian troops have freed three more Filipinos held hostage by militants in the Niger Delta, bringing the total number of the Asians rescued in the past two days to nine.
(AP, 5/17/09)(AFP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Pakistan an army statement said 25 militants and a soldier had died in the previous 24 hours in the Swat valley, and that security forces had surrounded and entered Matta and Kanju, two key towns in the area. Britain's Sunday Times reported that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said military action would follow in the tribal belt.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In the Philippines police recovered the severed head of Doroteo Gonzales (61), a farm owner kidnapped on April 25 by Muslim militants. Authorities said he was likely beheaded because his family failed to pay ransom.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, In Somalia Islamic insurgents sustained their offensive on the nation's fragile government and captured a strategic southeastern town, hours after a key Islamic militia leader defected to the government. Several local and foreign jihadists were killed in Mogadishu when a bomb-making workshop blew up.
(AP, 5/17/09)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.49)
2009 May 17, In Sudan rebels of Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said they had seized a town in North Darfur after a clash with government forces.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast. The government rejected the last-ditch call for a cease-fire, saying the thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone all have escaped to safety and there was no longer any reason to stop the battle. Troops killed at least 70 rebels trying to escape the one-square km patch of land that government troops have surrounded.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, In Taiwan tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched through downtown Taipei to protest against President Ma Ying-jeou's policy of greater engagement with rival China, saying it could undermine the island's self-rule.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Mario Benedetti (b.1920), a prolific Uruguayan writer, died. His novels and poems reflect the idiosyncrasies of Montevideo's middle class and a social commitment forged by years in exile from a military dictatorship. Benedetti's 1960 novel "The Truce" was translated into 19 languages and along with "Thank You for the Fire" (1965), heralded his inclusion in the Latin American literary boom in the 1960s. In 1973 he joined thousands of other Uruguayans fleeing the nation's military dictatorship, spending 12 years in exile in Havana, Madrid, Lima and Buenos Aires.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 18, The US Justice Department accused Wyeth, one of the nation's biggest drug makers, of cheating Medicaid programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by overcharging for a stomach acid drug.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Colorado Springs Daniel Gudino (13) allegedly shot and killed his 9-year-old brother, Ulysses, and allegedly attempted to murder his mother, Maria Gudino (38). In 2010 a psychiatrist testified that the boy was sleepwalking.
(www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=301255)(SFC, 5/8/10, p.A5)
2009 May 18, In Larose, Louisiana, middle-school student Justin Doucet (15) fired a gunshot at a teacher in a classroom and then shot himself and died on May 23. Doucet left a handwritten journal and an apparent suicide note that described his intention to kill other people.
(AP, 5/19/09)(SFC, 5/19/09, p.A5)(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A4)
2009 May 18, Wayne Allwine (62), the actor who voiced Mickey Mouse for more than 30 years, died of complications from diabetes with Russi Taylor, his wife of 20 years and the voice of Minnie Mouse, by his side. He was the third man behind Mickey's voice. The first was Disney himself, then Jimmy MacDonald, who became Allwine's mentor and passed him the reins after voicing the mouse for 30 years.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 18, In Afghanistan a group of Afghan army soldiers in Jalalabad opened fire in a market, killing three shopkeepers. Rocket-propelled grenades and machine gunfire rained down on a motorcade carrying Ahmad Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president, in an apparent assassination attempt. A bodyguard was killed.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, British PM Gordon Brown called for "root and branch" reform to defuse an expenses scandal that has damaged the main political parties and put pressure on parliament's most senior figure to quit. A group of MPs launched a rare bid to oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, over the expenses scandal.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)(AFP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In China a government spokesman said a sex theme park that featured explicit exhibits of genitalia and sexual culture is being demolished before it can even open. The park, christened "Love Land" by its owners, went under the wrecking ball over the weekend in the southwestern city of Chongqing.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, UN military commanders told top UN officials that Congolese rebels integrated into the country's army as part of a peace deal are looting, raping and killing the civilians they are meant to protect.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Egypt a 4-year-old girl died of bird flu, making her the country's 27th death from the virus since 2006.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, A leading animal rights group criticized Egypt for using "shocking and cruel" methods to slaughter the country's pigs over swine flu fears, responding to a YouTube video that showed men skewering squealing piglets with large kitchen knives and hitting others with crowbars.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Guatemala government opponents submitted 35,000 signatures to demand that Congress start procedures to strip Pres. Colom of immunity from prosecution over allegations that he ordered a lawyer killed.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, In Guatemala Rev. Lawrence Rosebaugh (74) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was shot and killed by masked gunmen who stopped a car carrying him and four other missionaries to a meeting in Playa Grande. He had put an international spotlight on human rights abuses in Brazil in 1977.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, In India Krishna Pattabhi Jois (b.1915), a yoga teacher and practitioner famous for popularizing Ashtanga yoga in the West, died in Mysore. He concentrated on stretching and balancing. Ashtanga yoga literally means "eight-limbed yoga," as outlined by the sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. According to Patanjali, the path of internal purification for revealing the Universal Self consists of the following eight spiritual practices: Yama (moral codes), Niyama (self-purification and study), Asana (posture), Pranayama (breath control), Pratyahara (sense control), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), Samadhi (contemplation).
(AP, 5/20/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.85)(www.ashtanga.com/html/background.html)
2009 May 18, In Japan health officials said a wave of new confirmations sent the number of H1N1 flu cases soaring to more than 120, prompting the government to order the closure of schools and the cancellation of community events.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 18, Two Lebanese men suspected of spying for Israel fled across the heavily fortified border to the Jewish state, the second such escape since Lebanon stepped up a campaign of arrests against those thought to be working for its archenemy.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In Lithuania Pres.-elect Dalia Grybauskaite said she would consider replacing up to five ministers in PM Andrius Kubilius' center-right Cabinet after she takes office on July 12. "They have underestimated the real scale of recession," she said. "The budget was way too optimistic and needs to be revised in nearest time. We must save money." To lead by example said she would only take half of her presidential salary of 312,000 litas ($120,000) a year.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Mexican soldiers arrested Rodolfo Lopez and several others after they landed at Monterrey's international airport to take over trafficking operations in Monterrey. Several armed men were arrested in the parking lot, where they were waiting to pick Lopez up. Police in the southern state of Guerrero found the severed heads of three men in an ice chest left on the side of a highway near the resort of Zihuatanejo.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, In Nepal Maoist lawmakers stormed the parliament and demonstrated inside the assembly hall to block a vote for a new prime minister, a move that could prolong the country's political crisis.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Nigerian university teachers decided to go on strike to demand the implementation of a pay agreement with government. After two-and-a-half years of negotiations, the government had yet to implement the agreement on pay rises and upgrading of facilities in the universities.
(AFP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, Pakistani jets and helicopters bombarded militant targets in Swat, where troops entered strategic towns in a pincer thrust towards the Taliban-held capital of the northwest valley.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, In the southern Philippines mudslides tumbled down a rain-soaked mountain, burying dozens of shanties in a gold mining village and killing at least 26 people.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, It was reported that South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Somalia's war-torn government appealed for international help to set up a coast guard, saying it would guarantee that sea piracy near its shores is wiped out once it has such an agency. In Malaysia representatives of the government, attending an international conference on piracy, ruled out allowing foreign forces on Somali soil to destroy pirate bases.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Hard-line Somali Islamist fighters captured Mahaday, 70 miles (113 km) north of Mogadishu, after a pro-government militia abandoned it.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, Sri Lanka declared it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, along with top deputies, Soosai and Pottu Amman, and ending their three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils. Diplomats in Brussels said the EU will endorse a call for an independent war crimes investigation into the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka. LTTE leaders Balasingham Nadesan and S. Puleedevan and their families were reportedly machine-gunned while advancing under a white flag. Defense Sec. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brother of the president, later said 6,261 soldiers had been killed in 3 years of fighting and that a total of 23,000 troops had died since October, 1981, when the insurgency began.
(AP, 5/18/09)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.44)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.42)
2009 May 18, A Turkish court ruled that President Abdullah Gul should stand trial for a fraud case dating back to the late 1990s, when the Welfare Party, a predecessor to the AK Party, was accused of misappropriating funds from the Treasury. A court of appeals will have the final say on the case.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 18, The World Bank said it would give $22 million to Zimbabwe, but said the country must clear its long-standing arrears to qualify for more aid.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 19, "Glee," Fox's new musical comedy, premiered.
(http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/19/entertainment/et-glee19)
2009 May 19, US astronauts completed a 5-day repair of the 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. The improved Hubble will take its first pictures by the end of the month.
(SFC, 5/20/09, p.A6)
2009 May 19, California voters defeated 5 of 6 propositions aimed to reduce the state’s $21.3 billion budget deficit. Voters approved Prop. 1F, which barred elected officials from receiving pay raises when the state’s reserve fund has a deficit larger than 1% of the general fund.
(SFC, 5/20/09, p.A1)
2009 May 19, In Ventura, Ca., an intruder dressed in black and wearing a motorcycle helmet barged into a beach home and stabbed to death a pregnant Davina Husted (42) and father, Brock Husted (42) as their two children were in other rooms.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 19, Scientists in New York unveiled the skeleton of what they said could be the common ancestor to humans, apes and other primates. The tiny creature, officially known as Darwinius masillae, but dubbed Ida, lived 47 million years ago and is unusually well preserved. The monkey-like creature, discovered in 1983, was preserved through the ages in Germany's Messel Pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils. New analysis soon followed saying Darwinius does not belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead, the analysis concluded, it falls into the other major grouping, which includes lemurs.
(AFP, 5/19/09)(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 May 19, In Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland (57), confronted by two holdup men, pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore's security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into the wounded teenager. Ersland was soon charged with first-degree murder. District Attorney David Prater later said Ersland was justified in shooting Antwun Parker (16) once in the head, but not in firing the additional shots into his belly.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 19, In Afghanistan an airstrike by NATO-led forces killed eight Afghan civilians following a battle with militants in southern Helmand province, where Afghan troops also killed 25 militants. This was the beginning of a 4-day operation.
(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 19, Michael Martin, the Speaker of Britain's lower house, said he would step down in June after criticism of his handling of a scandal over lawmakers' expenses that has badly tarnished the reputation of the "Mother of Parliaments." The last Speaker to be forced from the post was John Trevor, who lost the confidence of the house in 1695 for taking a bribe.
(Reuters, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, In London, England, a protest outside parliament turned violent early as relief agencies and governments called for urgent humanitarian aid after Sri Lanka announced defeat for Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AFP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, China and Brazil signed a raft of agreements in Beijing including a $10 billion loan for the South American country's state energy company and a deal to send oil to China amid stronger ties between the two developing world giants.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, China’s government Web site said Liu Youjun (46), a senior official in southern Guangdong province, has been detained in an apparent corruption sweep that has already targeted other major figures in the wealthy region on the cutting-edge of China's economic reforms.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Colombian lawmakers approved a proposal for voters to decide in a referendum whether to change the constitution and let President Alvaro Uribe seek a third term.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, In India newly elected Congress lawmakers formally chose PM Manmohan Singh as their leader for a second term, clearing the way for the swearing in of his new government this week.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Environmental groups in Indonesia said Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's largest paper companies, plans to clear a large swath of unprotected forest in Indonesia being used as a sanctuary for critically endangered orangutans.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Italian police arrested Franco Letizia (31), one of the country's "most-dangerous" fugitives, in raids that netted at least 70 suspected members of the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate. The search for dozens more was still under way.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Malawi held elections. Voters chose between re-electing Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika (75) or replacing him with challenger John Tembo (77) backed by his predecessor. The race between Mutharika and Tembo was too close to predict going into the polls. Mutharika, a former World Bank official credited with bringing economic gains to the southern African nation of 12 million, won the national election with about 66% of the vote.
(AP, 5/19/09)(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 19, Inmates at a Mexico City prison rioted over restrictions on visits due to swine flu, as the country reported two more confirmed deaths, raising the toll to 74 nationwide.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Russia announced it has created a commission to fight what President Dmitry Medvedev says are efforts to hurt his country by falsifying history, part of a campaign to promote the Kremlin's views and silence those who question them.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Russia and the US held talks in Moscow aimed at cutting stockpiles of nuclear weapons, a move that could herald a thaw in relations between the former Cold War foes.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, A Spanish court sentenced three senior army officers to prison for knowingly misidentifying the bodies of 30 peacekeepers killed in a plane crash on May 26, 2003, in northwestern Turkey. 32 of the Spaniards were identified correctly but relatives of the other 30 got the wrong bodies.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, In Somalia witnesses said that Ethiopian troops have crossed the border and appear to be stationing themselves at a strategic crossroads. Ethiopia denied the reports. Witnesses said they saw Ethiopian troops in the Somali town of Kalabeyr, 14 miles (22 km) from the Ethiopian border and 11 miles (18 km) north of Belet Weyne, the provincial capital of the Hiran region.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon formally named Bill Clinton as its special envoy to Haiti.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, The UN Security Council said that it had asked the Congolese government to investigate and arrest five high-ranking army officers known to have committed atrocities.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 20, President Obama signed the Homeless Emergency and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009. The HEARTH Act amends and reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act with substantial changes.
(AP, 7/15/10)(http://www.hudhre.info/hearth/)
2009 May 20, The US House passed legislation imposing new rules on credit card companies. Attached to the legislation was a bill allowing people to bring concealed and loaded guns into US national parks. Pres. Obama signed the legislation on May 22.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/qbhe4g)
2009 May 20, In Alabama 5 Birmingham police officers were fired for beating an unconscious suspect ejected from a car after a chase. The attack was captured on a patrol car videotape but didn't surface publicly for a year. The video shows police pursuing Anthony Warren's van on Jan. 23, 2008. One officer on foot was hurt when the van swerved through traffic. It overturned on a ramp, ejecting Warren, who lay motionless as officers ran toward him. The video shows them beating him with their fists, feet and a billy club.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, SF-based Craigslist sued South Carolina’s Attorney Gen’l. Henry McMaster to block him from filing criminal charges against the online classified site for abetting prostitution.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.C1)
2009 May 20, In NYC four ex-convicts, 3 Americans and a Haitian citizen, were arrested and accused of plotting to place bombs at NYC synagogues and shoot down National Guard jets. James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen envisioned themselves as holy warriors. The 4 men were convicted on Oct 18, 2010. They were caught in an FBI sting operation led by undercover informant Shahed Hussain, who faced serious punishment in a separate fraud case.
(http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7642086&page=1)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A7)(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A6)
2009 May 20, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heinemen signed a bill to prevent registered sex offenders from using social networking sites such as Facebook.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A4)
2009 May 20, Eric Yang (13), Singapore-born Texas student, won the National Geographic Bee and took home a $25,000 college scholarship.
(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A7)
2009 May 20, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb near Kabul killed two Americans, one service member and a civilian. 7 militants died after a firefight and airstrikes in central Ghazni province.
(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, Australian authorities declared a state of emergency in Queensland as torrential rain and gale force winds caused extensive flooding and left one man dead.
(AFP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In Britain hundreds of protesters blocked roads near an oil refinery, as other sites were hit by a second day of wildcat strikes in a dispute over hiring foreign workers.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, British actress Lucy Gordon (28), an up-and-coming talent who played a role in Spider-Man 3 and will soon appear as Jane Birkin in a Serge Gainsbourg biopic, killed herself in Paris.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, The Cayman Islands elected a new government.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.42)
2009 May 20, EU and Chinese leaders met in Prague to tackle the economic crisis and turn the page on tensions over the Dalai Lama. Lingering differences cast a shadow over the talks.
(AFP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In India the shanty home of another "Slumdog Millionaire" child star was torn down by Mumbai authorities as they demolished part of city's slum where she lived.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, An Indonesian C-130 Hercules military transport plane, carrying troops and their families, crashed into a row of houses in East Java and burst into flames, killing 99 people.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile with a range capable of reaching Israel and US Mideast bases. The solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles, far enough to strike at southeastern Europe.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, An Iraqi government agency reported that nearly one in four Iraqis lives below the poverty line. A car bomb exploded near a group of restaurants in the Shiite Shula neighborhood of northwest Baghdad, leaving 41 people dead and more than 70 others injured.
(AP, 5/21/09)(SFC, 5/21/09, p.A3)
2009 May 20, Ireland’s High Court Justice Sean Ryan unveiled a 2,600-page final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is based on testimony from thousands of former students and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions. The nine-year investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades, and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In Mexico Raymundo Almanza Morales, a top lieutenant of the Gulf drug cartel and listed among Mexico's 37 most-wanted traffickers, was captured in Monterrey along with 3 other suspects after soldiers received an tip.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 20, Pakistani troops killed 80 militants and drove the Taliban from a major urban stronghold, as US military planes brought aid for refugees fleeing fierce fighting across the northwest. Government forces cleared Sultanwas, the main Taliban-held town in Buner, overnight following intense clashes. Residents of Kalam gathered quickly to fight off the Taliban. They captured eight militants during a shootout and were expecting another attack.
(AP, 5/20/09)(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 20, Paraguay President Fernando Lugo dismissed the heads of his army, navy and engineering corps for allowing nearly 1,000 Marxist youth to host a congress on military grounds.
(AP, 5/2009)
2009 May 20, In Somalia an attack by Islamic insurgents on Somali troops near an African Union peacekeeping base in Mogadishu killed at least three civilians, including one child, as regional leaders met to discuss ways of aiding the beleaguered government.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, Sri Lanka celebrated victory over the Tamil Tigers with a national holiday as the army hunted fugitive rebels, shooting dead 8 thought to have escaped from the final battle.
(AFP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 20, In Venezuela thousands of university students marched through Caracas demanding more state financial aid for public universities after President Hugo Chavez's government reduced funding by 6 percent.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 21, Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin became the only governor to turn down federal stimulus money for energy efficiency, a move that legislators called "disappointing" for a state with some of the country's highest energy costs.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 21, In northern California police arrested James Stanley Koenig (57), Gary T. Armitage (59) and Jeffery A. Guidi (54) for running an alleged Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of people of more then $200 million since 1997.
(SFC, 5/23/09, p.B1)
2009 May 21, In Florida 11 people were indicted in Miami on charges of running a money laundering racket for the Bonano crime family of New York. A FBI agent posing as a crooked businessman was key to the indictment.
(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A6)
2009 May 21, Linda Fleming (66), a woman with late-stage pancreatic cancer, became the first person to kill herself under Washington state's new assisted suicide law, known as "death with dignity."
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 21, In Afghanistan two militants were killed and six others detained after a clash in southern Helmand province. A US military statement said US and Afghan forces had seized 16.5 tons of drugs and killed 34 Islamic militants during a 3-day operation in the south.
(AP, 5/21/09)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A2)
2009 May 21, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales called for an about-face in relations with Washington, saying past diplomatic spats can be overcome if the new US government refrains from meddling in Bolivian affairs.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, The British government announced a climbdown over settlement rights for Gurkha veterans, saying all of the Nepalese fighters who have served at least four years can apply to live here.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, In Egypt Hisham Talaat Moustafa, a real estate mogul with ties to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's son, was sentenced to death for ordering the slaying of a Lebanese pop star in a case that sparked a media frenzy in a country where the elite is often perceived as being above the law. Moustafa, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party, was accused of paying a former Egyptian police officer $2 million to kill Suzanne Tamim while she was in Dubai. Former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also convicted and sentenced to death. On March 4, 2010, the Court of Cassation, the country's highest court of appeal, overturned his conviction, and ordered a retrial.
(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 3/4/10)
2009 May 21, In Georgia police killed Giorgy Krialashvili, a former military officer accused of plotting mutiny, and wounded two others in an overnight gunbattle. Protesters condemned the shootings and blocked Tbilisi streets in the seventh week of an anti-government campaign.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 8 US-backed Sunni paramilitaries as they waited in a line to receive salaries at an Iraqi military base in the northern city of Kirkuk. A bomb exploded inside a police station in western Baghdad, killing 2 policemen and wounding 19 others. 3 American soldiers were killed in a bombing in Baghdad that also killed 12 Iraqis.
(AP, 5/21/09)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A4)
2009 May 21, Israeli security forces demolished a minor Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank, three days after President Barack Obama told visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he must halt settlement activity.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Japan’s PM Taro Aso again urged the public to stay calm as a total of 292 swine flu cases were reported, including the third in greater Tokyo, the world's largest urban area.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Fathi al-Jahmi, Libyan dissident and human rights activist repeatedly imprisoned in Libya for defying the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi, died after being released earlier this month to Jordan. He never regained consciousness after having slipped into a coma following a stroke on May 4 in a Libyan jail. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for failing to recognize Gadhafi's authority, and remained behind bars until his release to Jordan.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 21, Nepal's Maoists agreed to stop blocking parliamentary proceedings so lawmakers can choose a new government to ease the country's political crisis. Lawmakers from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) said that although they had agreed to lift their protests, they would permanently end them only if the chamber takes up a motion censuring President Ram Baran Yadav.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, New Zealand police launched an international search for Leo Gao, a businessman, and his girlfriend, Kara Hurring, who allegedly took money and ran after the Westpac Bank in Rotorua mistakenly put 10 million New Zealand dollars ($6.1 million) into their account. The couple managed to flee the country with about $2.3 million. Hurring returned to New Zealand voluntarily in Feb, 2011. She faced trial in 2012 on charges of stealing NZ$11,000 and money laundering HK$1.5 million ($192,000) in Macau. Hui (Leo) Gao was arrested by Hong Kong border patrol on Sep 29 as he tried to enter the territory from China.
(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 5/22/09)(AFP, 9/30/11)(AFP, 5/15/12)
2009 May 21, Pakistan said five soldiers and an unspecified number of "miscreants-terrorists" were killed in battles in several parts of the Swat valley during the previous 24 hours. Seven militants were captured.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, South Korea’s Supreme Court said that doctors treating a comatose woman (76) must remove her from life support as her family requested, the first time it has ruled in favor of a patient's right to die.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Sri Lanka said it planned to return most of the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by civil war to their homes this year as the president called on the country to be magnanimous in victory.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, Sudan announced the results of a nationwide census seen as crucial to prepare constituencies for elections next year, but which former southern rebels said they would reject. The census showed Sudan to have a total population of 39,154,490, with 8,260,490 or 21 percent living in the south.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 21, In Venezuela police and soldiers raided a property belonging to the head of the only anti-government news network amid a growing confrontation between the station and President Hugo Chavez's government.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 21, Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai said the unity government has agreed on key appointments in an attempt to resolve the political impasse that has paralyzed the new administration.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 22, President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009, marking a turning point for American consumers and ending the days of unfair rate hikes and hidden fees. The new rules went into effect on Feb 22, 2010.
(http://tinyurl.com/qbhe4g)(SFC, 2/23/10, p.D2)
2009 May 22, In Pinole, Ca., Anthony Ramirez (23) was interrupted in an attempted robbery of a home and escaped leaving behind his cell phone. Ramirez was a suspect in 3 recent East Bay slayings and was apprehended on May 27 following calls to himself to retrieve his cell phone.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B2)
2009 May 22, The African Union called on the UN Security Council to take "immediate measures" to impose sanctions on Eritrea over its support for Islamist insurgents in Somalia.
(AFP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Brazil's Supreme Court approved the extradition to the US of Pablo Rayo Montano, a Colombian-born drug lord accused of running one of the world's largest drug smuggling operations.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, In Brazil a twin-engine plane crashed near a private airport in a northeastern coastal resort area, killing all 11 people aboard.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, A Canadian court found Desire Munyaneza (42), a Rwandan man, guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, making him the first person convicted under Canada's war crimes act. Munyaneza arrived in Canada in 1997 and unsuccessfully tried to claim refugee status. Police subsequently launched an investigation and arrested him in 2005. On Oct 29 Munyaneza was sentenced to 25 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.
(Reuters, 5/22/09)(Reuters, 10/29/09)
2009 May 22, A Toronto-area man (21) convicted of belonging to a group plotting al Qaeda-inspired attacks on Canadian landmarks was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in jail, the first sentence handed out in the so-called "Toronto 18" case. He has already spent two years in custody and will likely be released soon due to credit for time already served.
(Reuters, 5/24/09)
2009 May 22, In Egypt Ayman Nour, a prominent Egyptian dissident, was attacked by an assailant on a motorcycle who ignited a flammable substance in his face, leaving his head burned. Nour accused elements within the ruling party of being behind the attack.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, Haiti's civil protection department said floods have killed at least 11 people this week as heavy rains swamp towns still rebuilding from last year's hurricanes.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, In Iraq the body of Jim Kitterman (60), an American civilian contractor, was found stabbed to death in a vehicle in the Green Zone. Another contractor was killed by a rocket attack near the American Embassy. An American soldier died in a noncombat incident in Baghdad province. In June Iraqi authorities detained 4 Americans and one Iraqi in connection with the death of Kitterman, in what could be the first case of Americans facing local justice under a joint security pact that took effect this year. 3 of the detained American were soon released due to insufficient evidence.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 May 22, Israeli troops crossed into Gaza and killed two Palestinian militants who were planting a bomb along the border fence before dawn.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, An Italian warship arrested nine pirates after helping a US-flagged container vessel and another ship evade brigands off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Police in Morocco uncovered more than 20 tons of cannabis resin, one of the country's largest ever hash hauls, hidden in steel crates destined for France.
(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi pleaded not guilty at her trial and blamed the regime's lax security for allowing an American intruder to swim uninvited to her lakeside home.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Nigeria's foreign minister said that the military has rescued 12 hostages, eight Filipinos and four Ukrainians, from militants being targeted by the armed forces in the southern oil region. The military said a dozen troops had gone missing in the region.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 22, In Pakistan a bomb exploded at a congested marketplace in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 5 people wounding dozens. Troops encircled Taliban militants in their mountain base as well as the main town in the Swat Valley, as the UN appealed for $543 million to ease the suffering of nearly 2 million refugees from the fighting.
(AFP, 5/22/09)(AP, 5/22/09)(SFC, 5/23/09, p.A2)
2009 May 22, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev challenged EU leaders meeting at a summit in Khabarovsk to help Ukraine pay its gas bills in order to prevent disruption of Russian supplies to Europe.
(Reuters, 5/22/09)
2009 May 22, Serbian authorities said they will investigate a drug rehab facility sponsored by the Serbian Orthodox Church after the publication of a video showing one of the patients being severely beaten with a shovel by Orthodox priest Branislav Peranovic. On May 27 Peranovic was removed from his job leading the Crna Reka center in southern Serbia. On May 29 an employee of the center, shown in another video punching a patient with brass knuckles, was charged by police.
(AP, 5/22/09)(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 22, Hundreds of Somali government troops attacked insurgent-held positions north and south of Mogadishu and the heart of the city was heavily shelled. One witness said a busload of fleeing civilians was hit. Fighting between Somali government troops and Islamic insurgents killed 53 people in Mogadishu. Residents reported that the operation had failed to dislodge the insurgents.
(AP, 5/22/09)(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Pres. Obama selected Gen. Charles Bolden (62), a retired astronaut, to lead NASA.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A16)
2009 May 23, It was reported that millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia) have died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In 2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)
2009 May 23, In Afghanistan a group of Taliban fighters in Ghazni province ambushed police in a market and one civilian was killed in the firefight. The US military updated earlier reports and said international and Afghan forces have killed 60 militants and seized 102 tons (92 metric tons) of opium poppy seeds, drugs and chemicals during a four-day operation in southern Helmand province. A British soldier with the NATO-led alliance was killed in a bomb blast in the insurgency-hit south of the country.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 23, In Australia thousands more people in the flood-hit east were told to leave their homes as gale-force winds lashed the coast. Emergency services said up to 20,000 people had been cut off.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Horst Koehler won a 2nd term as German president in a parliamentary vote that gave conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel a symbolic victory months ahead of a national election.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Nepal’s lawmakers elected communist party leader Madhav Kumar Nepal (56) as the new prime minister in a move aimed at ending weeks of political turmoil. 2 people were killed, one of them a teenager, and 14 wounded when a bomb exploded in a packed Roman Catholic church on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, The Church of Scotland voted in favor of appointing an openly gay minister, the latest case involving sexuality to create a division in the Anglican Communion. The church's ruling body voted 326 to 267 to support the appointment of the Rev. Scott Rennie (37), who was previously married to a woman and is now in a relationship with a man.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 23, Pakistani security forces entered Mingora, the main town in a northwestern Taliban stronghold, engaging in fierce street battles as they tried to wrench the Swat Valley from militants. 17 suspected militants were killed in the past 24 hours of the operation. Matta, another major town in the valley, has been cleared of militants, but some 1,500 to 2,000 insurgents remain in the valley. Gunmen in southwestern Baluchistan province kidnapped a French tourist, snatching him from a group of compatriots.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, It was reported that Saudi Arabian investors were spending $100 million to raise wheat, barley and rise on land leased from the government of Ethiopia. The World Food Program estimated that it would spend almost the same amount between 2007 and 2011 to provide 230,000 tons of food aid to some 4.6 million Ethiopians threatened by hunger and malnutrition.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.61)
2009 May 23, Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun (62) jumped to his death while hiking in the mountains behind his rural home. His hard-won reputation as a corruption fighter was tarnished by bribery allegations that drew in his family and closest associates.
(AP, 5/23/09)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.88)
2009 May 24, The space shuttle Atlantis and its 7 astronauts landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California ending a 13-day mission that repaired and enhanced the Hubble Space Telescope. Stormy weather in Florida prevented a return to NASA's home base.
(AP, 5/24/09)(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A5)
2009 May 24, San Francisco celebrated its 31st annual Carnaval in the Mission district.
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.B1)
2009 May 24, In Afghanistan US troops detained 4 suspected Al-Qaida members during a raid in Khost province.
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A2)
2009 May 24, In Australia thousands of homeowners remained isolated in the flood-hit northeast. Authorities said days of torrential rain had created a vast "inland sea."
(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Austria groups of rival worshippers at a Sikh temple in Vienna pulled knives and at least one handgun in a mass fight. 16 people were wounded and one preacher died the next day. The Vienna temple attended by lower-caste Sikhs was attacked by Sikhs from a higher caste who accused preachers of being disrespectful of the religion's Holy Book.
(AP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 24, At the Cannes Film Festival the film “The White Ribbon" by Austrian director Michael Haneke won the top prize. Christolph Waltz won the best actor prize for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Bastards." Charlotte Gainsbourg won the best actress prize for her role in Lars von Trier’s “antichrist."
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.E4)
2009 May 24, Iran blocked access to Facebook, prompting government critics to condemn the move as an attempt to muzzle the opposition ahead of next month's presidential election.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will continue to build homes in existing West Bank settlements, defying US calls to halt settlement growth.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, Voters in Mongolia went to the polls to choose a new president less than a year after allegations of vote-rigging in parliamentary elections triggered deadly riots. The Democratic Party candidate Elbegdorj Tsakhia won 51.24% of the votes, while incumbent Enkbayar Nambar of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, the former communists, won 47.44%.
(AFP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 24, In Morocco 11 people were killed in a stampede at a stadium in the capital, Rabat, overnight when thousands of spectators hurried to leave at the end of a concert wrapping up the city's landmark music festival.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, The Nigerian army said that over the last 2 days it freed a total of six Filipinos held hostage in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Northern Ireland over 20 militant Protestant supporters of the Glasgow Rangers soccer team beat to death a Catholic man in Coleraine after the Rangers clinched a championship.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A2)
2009 May 24, Pakistani troops battling the Taliban captured several points in the Swat Valley's main town, including a spot nicknamed "bloody intersection" because militants routinely dumped the mutilated bodies of their victims there. Five suspected militants were killed in various parts of Mingora while 14 others were arrested. Overall in the valley, 10 militants were killed in the past 24 hours while three security troops died. Elsewhere in the northwest, helicopter gunships pounded alleged militant hide-outs in a tribal region, killing at least 18 people. Police said they had captured Qari Ihsanullah, an important militant commander and six other Taliban fighters.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Somalia a foreign suicide bomber killed six guards and a civilian at a military base in Mogadishu, an attack that came after two weeks of intense fighting.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Sudan raiders attempted but failed to overrun the army base at Umm Baru, close to the Chadian border in north Darfur. The next day an army spokesman said 20 Sudanese soldiers were killed in the fierce fighting and that 43 rebels had died.
(Reuters, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, The US Coast Guard cutter Venturous intercepted a smugglers' boat near the Haitian barrier island of La Tortue and took on board 35 of the approximately 100 illegal passengers. 6 armed smugglers threatened other passengers and prevented them from getting on the Coast Guard ship, instead fleeing with them aboard the vessel in shallow water.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 25, In Alabama prisoners Joshua Southwick (26) and Ashton Mink (22) were mistakenly allowed outside a prison by a worker who thought they were kitchen trusties. On June 6 they were arrested after a nearly 14-hour standoff on a ranch in North Dakota. Also taken into custody were two women who authorities said helped the men escape: Angela Diana Mink (25) and Jacquelin Rae Kennamer Mink (25) Mink's sister and wife.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 May 25, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed four civilians in Zabul province. An operation by US-led forces against a Taliban commander left 3 people dead and a woman and child wounded in Helmand province. US forces killed eight Taliban fighters in a clash Uruzgan province. 2 coalition troops and 3 Afghan policemen were wounded during the clash.
(AP, 5/25/09)(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, In Britain an internal military memo published confirmed that computer disks lost at a British Royal Air Force base last September contained sensitive files on the private lives of senior officers, including answers to vetting questions about drug abuse, extramarital affairs and the use of prostitutes.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, Dairy farmers created traffic chaos in Berlin, blocked milk processing plants in France and protested at EU headquarters in Brussels, seeking more aid to cope with a sharp drop in milk prices.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In Egypt a judge overturned the conviction and two-year prison sentence of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an exiled Egyptian-American academic and outspoken critic of the regime, paving the way for his return home.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In Paris the Church of Scientology and six of its French leaders went on trial on charges of organized fraud that could lead to an outright ban on the organization in France.
(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In India 2 protesters were killed in Punjab state in fierce rioting sparked by the shooting dead of a guru in fighting between rival Sikh communities in Austria.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, In western Iraq a roadside bomb struck a US convoy in Fallujah , killing three Americans, including a State Department employee.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, It was reported that a secret Israeli government report said Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, Israeli writer Amos Elon (82), one of the country's leading chroniclers and critics, died in his adopted home of Italy. His best-known book, "The Israelis: Founders and Sons" (1971), stood out as one of the first works by an Israeli to deal with the national aspirations of the Palestinians.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, In Mexico Eliseo Barron, a veteran crime reporter for the La Opinion Milenio newspaper, was kidnapped from his home in Torreon. His body was found hours later found in an irrigation ditch in the drug-plagued northern Mexican state of Durango. Mexico's army arrested two US citizens for allegedly kidnapping a hardware store clerk in the northern border city of Tijuana. 20-year-old Teddy Toledo and his sister, both of California, and two others were arrested for abducting the clerk a week ago. Five suspects were arrested on June 11, including one man who told authorities the journalist was slain as a warning against meddling with a powerful drug cartel.
(AP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/27/09)(SSFC, 5/31/09, p.A4)(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 May 25, In Nigeria militants sabotaged major crude pipelines in the chaotic oil region, further trimming crude production as the military widened an operation to uproot the fighters. Chevron in Nigeria reported a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil output cut after a militant attack the day before on one of its pipelines in the southern Delta state. The militants said they had released three Filipino hostages seized this month.
(AP, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, North Korea claimed it carried out a powerful underground nuclear test, much larger than one conducted in 2006. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed an atomic explosion at 9:54 a.m. (0054 GMT) in northeastern North Korea, estimating the blast's yield at 10 to 20 kilotons, comparable to the bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 25, Haakon Lie (b.1905), a pioneer of Norway's welfare state and one of the country's most influential politicians, died in Oslo. His several books included "Slik jeg ser det naa" ("As I See it Now"), which was published last year.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 25, Pakistan's military said it was facing "stiff resistance" as it battled to wrest Swat valley out of Taliban hands, in an offensive that has scattered 2.38 million terrified civilians.
(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 26, President Barack Obama tapped federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, making her the first Hispanic in history picked to wear the robes of a justice.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, The California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 to uphold proposition 8, the November initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The court said same-sex couple married before Nov. 4 remain legally wed.
(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A1,6)
2009 May 26, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-rigged car into a military convoy in eastern Kapisa province, killing three American soldiers and three Afghan civilians. In the eastern Logar province US and Afghan troops called in airstrikes on two groups of militants, killing 13 insurgents. In eastern Khost province, a convoy of Afghan and American troops killed the driver of a car when the vehicle did not slow down in response to shouts to stop and warning shots.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, In Algeria 9 soldiers were killed near Biskra, 425 kilometers south of the capital, in n ambush which wounded 10 others.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 May 26, Cyclone Aila lashed low-lying areas in eastern India and Bangladesh, destroying thousands of homes, stranding tens of thousands of people in flooded villages and killing at least 191 before it began to ease.
(AP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, Wilmer Ignacio Guerrero Ibanez (40), a suspected trafficker accused of smuggling cocaine through Venezuela was deported to Colombia, where officials took him into custody at an international bridge linking the countries.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, In Denmark business leaders attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change urged governments to order steep and mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases, favoring a cap-and-trade system instead of a tax to set a market price for carbon waste.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, A Danish court ruled that residents of Copenhagen's counterculture Christiania neighborhood have no right to use the former navy base they took over in 1971. The residents planned to appeal.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened his nation's first military base in the Gulf outside Abu Dhabi, boosting the naval presence along strategic oil routes and in pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, In Paris the body of Polish-born French woman Kinga Legg (36) was found at the exclusive Hotel Bristol. Police sought her English boyfriend Ian Griffin (39).
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 26, Iran restored access to Facebook, after a block on the social networking Web site last week generated accusations that the government was trying to muzzle one of the main presidential campaign tools of the reformist opposition.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, A leading rights group urged Jordan to stop the detentions of thousands without trial each year and annul a 55-year-old law that allows people to be held without due process.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Libya and Ukraine signed deals to cooperate in both peaceful civilian nuclear energy and in defense during a visit by Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, Mexican federal forces detained 10 mayors and 18 other officials for allegedly protecting one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels in an unprecedented anti-corruption sweep in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan. Three of the mayors were released soon after they were arrested, 4 others were quietly let go Jan. 30.
(AP, 5/27/09)(AP, 3/4/10)
2009 May 26, In New Zealand an animal keeper was mauled to death by a rare white tiger at a wildlife park in New Zealand while visitors watched in horror. South African national Dalu Mncube was attacked after he and a colleague entered the cage at Zion Wildlife Park on New Zealand's North Island to clean it.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, The Nigerian army said it destroyed a militants' camp in the restive Niger Delta as it kept up operations to stem the violence and kidnappings of soldiers and foreigners in the oil-rich region.
(AFP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, North Korea reportedly tested two more short-range missiles, a day after detonating a nuclear bomb underground, pushing the regime further into a confrontation with world powers despite the threat of UN action.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Pakistan's supreme court overturned a ban on former premier Nawaz Sharif from holding office, allowing the popular opposition leader to contest elections. Military commanders said troops fighting street-by-street with Taliban militants have regained control of more than half of the largest town in the Swat valley, and many insurgents were now fleeing the battlefield.
(AFP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Russia's uranium export company signed a groundbreaking $1 billion package of contracts to supply three US utilities with enriched fuel for nuclear power plants. Tenex signed contracts to provide enriched uranium fuel to San Francisco, California-based Pacific Gas & Electric Company; St. Louis, Missouri-based AmerenUE; and Dallas, Texas-based Luminant. Tenex will supply fuel to the US utilities from 2014 through 2020 under the contracts, which provide the option for renewal.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Somali insurgents fired mortars at the presidential palace in Mogadishu, killing seven civilians and two government soldiers. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to condemn the recent surge in fighting in Somalia and called for an end to actions that undermine the country's Western-backed government.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 26, In Sudan scores of policemen and nearly 200 tribesmen were killed when 3,000 armed Arab tribesmen on horseback attacked security forces in the oil-producing Southern Kordofan region.
(Reuters, 5/26/09)(Reuters, 5/29/09)
2009 May 26, A Swedish Navy ship detained seven suspected pirates after stopping them from capturing a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, Tunisia’s Justice Minister Bechir Tekkari said his country is ready to accept the 10 Tunisians held at Guantanamo Bay.
(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A2)
2009 May 26, A fire at a western Turkish hospital killed eight patients in an intensive care unit.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, The Red Cross said the number of cholera cases in Zimbabwe is expected to cross the 100,000 mark in the coming days, warning that the epidemic was Africa's worst in 15 years.
(AFP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 27, US federal prosecutors dropped a 5-year probe on former California state Senate leader Don Perata (64). The FBI had begun a probe of the Oakland Democrat in 2003 following charges of financial improprieties.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A1)
2009 May 27, In Texas authorities indicted 51 defendants on state charges in Fort Bend County, while 22 were indicted on federal charges for distributing anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and other drugs.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Texas Shukri Abu Baker (50) and Ghassan Elashi (55), founding members of the Holyland Foundation for Relief and Development, were sentenced to 65 years in prison for funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. They were among 5 members of the group sentenced to prison.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2009 May 27, Toys R Us Inc. said it acquired toy retailer FAO Schwarz, which has struggled for years through bankruptcies amid tough competition from discount stores.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Florida a demolition crew sank the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg seven miles off Key West, where it will become one of the world’s largest man made reefs. The WWII ship was last used by the Air Force to track missiles and spacecraft.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A8)(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2009 May 27, Clive W.G. Granger (b.1934), co-winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics, died in San Diego. The Wales-born economist shared the prize with his longtime UC San Diego colleague Robert Engle for showing that relationships between factors like money supply and national income change over time and could not be relied on as steady measures of future performance.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B5)
2009 May 27, The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a champion of the poor in Haiti and close supporter of Aristide, died in Miami following complications from a stroke.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 May 27, In Afghanistan air strikes, gunbattles and attacks killed 28 people across the country, including a government official shot dead with three of his sons near the Pakistani border. Mohammad Nader, governor of the Omna district in the eastern province of Paktika, was travelling with his family to go back home near the Pakistan border when armed insurgents attacked.
(AFP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, Alice Munro (77), Canadian short writer, won the Man Booker international prize.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.86)
2009 May 27, In Iraq a car bomb exploded near a medical compound in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad, wounding at least 15 Iraqis. A roadside bomb killed a US soldier in Baghdad, making May the deadliest month for the American military since September.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, Italian police issued 61 arrest warrants against purported members of Naples’ Camorra mob for allegedly running drug and extortion rings. Suspects arrested included 9 women and several bosses of the Sarno clan.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May 27, Malaysian police rescued three men shackled to the wall of a filthy room for two months by illegal moneylenders after failing to repay their debts.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Nigeria Ken Niweigha, a gang leader from the restive oil-rich Niger Delta, was killed in southern state of Bayelsa, a day after being arrested. Niweigha was accused of being behind the 1999 shooting of several police officers in Bayelsa that led to the town of Odi being razed by the security forces in reprisal.
(AFP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, North Korea renounced its 1953 truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels. Facing international censure for this week's nuclear test, it threatened to attack the South after it joined a US-led plan to check vessels suspected of carrying equipment for weapons of mass destruction.
(Reuters, 5/27/09)
2009 May 27, In Pakistan suspected suicide attackers detonated a car bomb that destroyed a police building and sheared walls off a nearby office of the top intelligence service in Lahore. About 30 people were killed and some 300 wounded. Troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 10 suspected militants and captured a cache of weapons in raids on Siplapai town in South Waziristan.
(AP, 5/27/09)(AFP, 5/27/09)(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, A Russian space capsule, carrying Canadian Bob Thirsk, Russian Roman Romanenko and Belgian Frank De Winne, blasted off from Kazakhstan for a 2 day journey to the ISS.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May 27, In Spain some 100,000 people spilled onto the streets of the Catalan capital after Barcelona's 2-0 triumph over Manchester United in Rome. The carnival atmosphere turned ugly after midnight when youths began clashing with police around Las Ramblas, the city's most famous street. Police arrested 134 people and more than 150 were injured.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 27, In Sri Lanka government troops killed 11 suspected guerrillas in the eastern jungles, where rebel holdouts were said to be entrenched.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May 27, In Venezuela hundreds of opponents of President Hugo Chavez marched in support of press freedom, two years after his government refused to renew the concession of an opposition-aligned television station.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 28, US Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack issued a directive reinstating for one year a Clinton-era ban on new road construction and development in national forests.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A7)
2009 May 28, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed a bill to change the state’s method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection. In February the state Supreme Court ruled the electric chair was unconstitutional.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A4)
2009 May 28, Kavya Shivashankar (13) of Olathe, Kansas, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A1)
2009 May 28, The San Francisco Zoo agreed to pay $900,000 to brothers Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal, who survived a fatal attack by an escaped tiger on Dec 25, 2007.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.B1)
2009 May 28, Time Warner, which acquired America Online (AOL) in 2001, said it will spin out the company and its 7,000 employees as a separate company under CEO Tim Armstrong (38).
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.C2)
2009 May 28, It was reported that scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In eastern Afghanistan US coalition troops attacked a suspected foreign fighter camp, killing 34 insurgents, including Arabs and Pakistanis, in an intense firefight in Paktika province. In southern Afghanistan US-led coalition forces killed 35 militants and wounded 13 others during a clash. Insurgents in Zabul province killed eight truck drivers ferrying supplies for foreign troops. A NATO soldier died after a roadside bomb attack in the south.
(AP, 5/28/09)(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith condemned a wave of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne after the latest assault left a 25-year-old fighting for his life. Indian student Sravan Kumar Theerthala was stabbed with a screwdriver on May 24 when a group of teenagers gatecrashed a party he was attending in the suburbs of Melbourne.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Bulgaria a bus careered down a mountainside and plowed through pedestrians heading to a religious festival, killing at least 16 people and injuring at least 20.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Belize and Honduras a magnitude 7.1 earthquake collapsed more than two dozen homes, killing at least 6 people and injuring 40 others as terrified people ran into the streets in towns across much of Central America.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Brazil raging torrents from a ruptured dam and swamped Cocal, a northeastern farming city of about 25,000 in Piaui state, forcing residents to scramble onto rooftops and climb high trees to escape the deadly floodwaters. 4 people were killed.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, The British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said in a new report that the cuckoo bird and 51 other species were in danger of extinction due largely to a decrease in their food and water supply in sub-Saharan Africa, from where many migrate.
(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2009 May 28, The Indian navy thwarted a pirate attack on a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, A ship packed with Afghan migrants sank off Indonesia's western coast, killing at least 9 people and leaving 11 others missing.
(AP, 5/28/09)(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, In southeast Iran a bombing in a Shiite mosque at Zahedan killed 25 people. The next day Iran blamed the US and Israel saying the countries were trying to stoke sectarian tension with the Sunni Muslim minority.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, In Iraq a roadside bomb struck a civilian car on a highway linking the towns of Khanaqin with Qara Tappah. The blast killed two boys ages 8 and 10 and their father.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, Israel defied a surprisingly blunt US demand that it freeze all building in West Bank Jewish settlements, saying it will press ahead with construction. Since 1967, Israel has built 121 West Bank settlements, now home to around 300,000 Israelis. An additional 180,000 live in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, which, like the West Bank, was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
(AP, 5/28/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 May 28, It was reported that Japanese researchers have added genes to monkeys that cause the animals to glow under a fluorescent light, and that the new genetic attributes can pass to their offspring.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A9)
2009 May 28, In Pakistan two new blasts ripped through the Qissa Khawani market in Peshawar, killing at least 13 people.
(AP, 5/28/09)(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2009 May 28, Russian PM Vladimir Putin met Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk amid talk of massive loans to Minsk, just days after the Belarussian strongman made a furious attack on his Moscow ally.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, The Saudi Arabia, Monetary Agency froze the bank accounts of Maan al-Sanea, head of the Saad Group and ranked recently as the 3rd richest Arab businessman.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.70)
2009 May 28, In Senegal UN, African Union, EU and Arab League representatives met with Mauritian political parties in Dakar to discuss upcoming polls and a political stalemate since a coup.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, South Korean and US troops raised their alert to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, In Sudan Darfur's most active rebel group said it intends to free 60 Sudanese troops as a "sign of goodwill" ahead of Qatari-brokered peace talks with Sudan's government.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, Swedish media reported that a 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300 years. Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 28, Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, hours after a land mine blast on the Turkish side of the border killed six soldiers.
(AP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 29, President Barack Obama said the nation for too long has failed to adequately protect the security of its computer networks. He will name a new cyber czar to take on the job.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Jay Leno made hosted his last show at "Tonight," and gave a pre-debut boost to Conan O'Brien welcoming him as his final guest.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, Phil Spector (69), former music producer, was sentenced in Los Angeles to 10 years to life in prison for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 29, In California the new National Ignition Facility was dedicated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It was designed to create conditions like those found in stars and in the explosions of hydrogen bombs. The project was over 5 years behind schedule and costs to date reached $4 billion, almost 4 times the original estimate.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A1)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.81)
2009 May 29, In Texas a Houston jury convicted Philippe Padieu (53) of Houston to 45 years in prison for knowingly infecting 6 women with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 29, The nonbinding New York Declaration, an agreement between the signatory flag states which condemns acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels and seafarers, was originally tabled by The Bahamas, the Republic of Liberia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Republic of Panama, four nations that account for more than half of global shipping.
(www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/13476.html)
2009 May 29, In Afghanistan five militants were killed in an operation in the Musa Qala region of southern Helmand province. Six militants were killed during a battle with police in the western province of Farah. Two would-be suicide attackers were shot and killed in Herat. In Kandahar province a roadside bomb killed four civilians.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Argentina Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (66) received the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize. He compared his creative process to the arc of a love affair.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, Cuba criticized Microsoft for blocking its Messenger instant messaging service on the island and in other countries under US sanctions, calling it yet another example of Washington's "harsh" treatment of Havana.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Indonesian government marine geologist Yusuf Surachman said that a massive underwater mountain discovered off the island of Sumatra could be a volcano with potentially catastrophic power. It was discovered earlier this month about 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of Bengkulu city during research to map the seabed's seismic faultlines.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, A moderate think tank led by Iran's former top nuclear negotiator accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of distorting facts about the country's nuclear program to depict himself as a hero and improve his chances in the upcoming election.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Iraq a local leader of a government-backed Sunni paramilitary group was killed when a bomb hidden on a motorcycle exploded as he opened his butcher store on the outskirts of Baqouba. Another bomb exploded inside a bus station north of Baghdad in the Shiite enclave of Khalis, killing at least four people and wounding 10. In northern Iraq an American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in Ninevah province.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, In Kashmir the bodies of two young women (17 & 22) were found in Shopian town. The pregnant wife of Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar and his teenage sister were allegedly raped and murdered by Indian soldiers.
(Reuters, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.48)
2009 May 29, North Korea warned it would act in "self-defense" if provoked by the UN Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions over the communist country's nuclear test, and followed the threat with the test launch of another short-range missile.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Puerto Rico fired nearly 8,000 government workers, the start of a wave of layoffs aimed at closing a budget deficit as the island struggles through its third year of recession.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Russian and American officials formally dedicated a high-tech plant in southern Siberia, built with the help of $1 billion from the US and designed to destroy about 2 million chemical weapons shells.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Saudi authorities beheaded and crucified a man convicted of brutally slaying an 11-year-old boy and his father.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Geneva a 65-nation Conference on Disarmament broke a dozen years of deadlock and opened the way to negotiate a new nuclear arms control treaty.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 30, In Arizona a home invasion in rural Arivaca left Brisenia Flores (9) and her father Raul Flores Jr., dead. In June 3 people were arrested for the murders. Two of the people arrested headed up a splinter Minuteman group, and were looking for drugs and money to fund their efforts to keep illegal immigrants and drug runners out of the country. On Feb 14, 2011, Shawna Forde, head of the Minutemen American Defense group, was found guilty of murder. On Feb 22 a jury sentenced her to death.
(SFC, 2/15/11, p.A10)(Econ, 3/5/11, p.38)
2009 May 30, In western Afghanistan an overnight battle in a militant-controlled region of Badgis province killed 30 insurgents and nine Afghan soldiers, while a roadside bomb in northern Kunduz province wounded an Afghan governor. A militant attack on a police checkpoint in Farah province killed four police.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Susan Boyle (48), Scottish singing sensation, was been beaten in the televised finals of "Britain's Got Talent," by the street dance group "Diversity," who jumped, kicked and shook their way to victory against her. "Diversity" mesmerized audiences with a frenetic but perfectly choreographed dance routine.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Michelle Samaraweera (35) was rape and murdered in Walthamstow, England. On July 4, 2009, Aman Vyas (26), a suspect in her murder and other sexual assaults, was arrested at Indira Gandhi International Airport just before he boarded a flight for Thailand.
(AP, 7/5/11)(http://michelle-samaraweera.gonetoosoon.org/)
2009 May 30, It was reported that some 135 gangs in Vancouver, Canada, were believed to fighting over drug business estimated at US$6.2 billion a year.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.38)
2009 May 30, In southwest China 25 miners were killed and 20 trapped by a gas explosion at the Tonghua Coal Mine in Anwen town, Chongqing municipality.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Colombia 3 computers were seized in the Bogota home of a Adela Perez (36), a suspected FARC operative. One computer, finally decrypted in July, contained an hour-long video that appeared to confirm that Colombia's largest rebel army gave money to the 2006 election campaign of President Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 May 30, Cuba agreed to resume negotiations with the US over immigration and mail service between the two countries. Cuba also expressed a willingness to cooperate with the US on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, and on hurricane disaster preparedness.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said General Motors Corp. will sell its Opel unit and other European assets to Canada's Magna International Inc. in a deal that would protect the assets from GM's likely bankruptcy.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Paris a man, wearing a suit and a hat, walked into the Chopard jewelry boutique on the chic Place Vendome. He threatened employees with a gun and, minutes later, walked calmly out of the store with loot worth up to euro6.5 million. A suspect (52) was detained in the Belgian port city of Antwerp in mid-July at the request of French justice authorities. He was extradited to France several weeks later and put in custody here.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 May 30, In Iran 3 people convicted of involvement in the May 28 mosque bombing in Zahedan were hanged. The men, identified as Haji Nouti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shahoo Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui, were also involved in several other bombings including a bus attack in March, 2006, that left 21 dead. Jundallah or God's Brigade, a Sunni militant group believed to have links with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is composed of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic minority who have been fighting a low level insurgency in southeastern Iran for years.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Iraq's former trade minister, Abdul-Falah al-Sudani, wanted on a corruption charge was arrested at the Baghdad airport after attempting to leave the country. The minister's brothers are accused of having skimmed millions of dollars in kickbacks on food imports. One of them is in custody after attempting to flee the country while the other is still at large. A man purporting to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, issued a 40-minute tape that was posted on militant Web sites.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 30, Ephraim Katzir (b.1916), Israel's 4th president (1973-1978), died. He was an internationally recognized biophysicist and a founder of Israel's renowned Weizmann Institute of Science, where he headed its biophysics department. His work on synthetic protein models deepened understanding of the genetic code and immune responses. Katzir was awarded the Israel Prize, the country's highest honor, in 1959 for his contribution to the natural sciences. He received the Japan Prize in 1985 for his work on immobilized enzymes used in oral antibiotics.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Indian Kashmir massive protests and clashes erupted after the bodies of two young women were found amid claims that they were raped and murdered by Indian soldiers.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Lebanon charged four people with collaborating with Israel, raising to 23 the number of suspected spies who have been charged in the last few months.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, In Mexico two gunmen died in a clash with soldiers in Michaocan. The gunmen opened fire on soldiers on patrol in the village of Moreno de Valencia. Soldiers found a Kalashnikov rifle, a shotgun, a handgun and a grenade inside the gunmen's sport utility vehicle.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 30, A Pakistani army spokesman said troops have retaken Mingora, the largest town in the Swat Valley from the Taliban, though they were still meeting pockets of resistance from fighters on the outskirts of the town. 25 militants and seven soldiers were killed in clashes in South Waziristan near the Afghan border, a bolt-hole for Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants south of the current army bombardment.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, In the central Philippines communist rebels threw two grenades at army troops helping treat villagers, killing two soldiers and a civilian who covered a child with his body during the attack in Northern Samar province.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated that Gulf capital was behind the consortium which bought two of Poland's three historic shipyards this week.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Taiwan officials said they had confiscated nearly 18,000 cases of Red Bull imported from Austria after finding traces of cocaine. On June 1 Hong Kong officials reported founding traces of cocaine in Red Bull cans. Red Bull moved quickly to deny the findings and said independent tests on the same batch of drinks had found no traces of cocaine.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 May 30, In South Africa 55 pilot whales beached near Cape Point, prompting a massive rescue operation. The rescue efforts failed and 44 of the whales were shot to end their suffering. The rest died of stress and organ failure.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 30, Former Sudanese President Gaafar al-Nimeiry (b.1930) died after a period of illness. He took power in a coup in 1969 and brought Islamic rule to Sudan. He spent 16 stormy years as Sudan's leader until he was ousted in April 1985 by a military coup and granted political asylum in Egypt.
(Reuters, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai said that his efforts to restore democratic freedoms and the rule of law to Zimbabwe have so far failed. Tsvangirai urged southern African leaders to help resolve a deadlock over the appointments of the country's bank chief and attorney general. The national statistical agency said Zimbabwe had recorded a minus 1.1 percent inflation rate in April, a slower fall than March, after scrapping its worthless currency to combat world record prices.
(AP, 5/30/09)(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 31, In Kansas abortion Dr. George Tiller (67) was shot and killed while serving as an usher during morning services in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita. Scott Roeder (51) fired one shot at Tiller and threatened two other people who tried to stop him. Roeder was taken into custody some 170 miles away in a Kansas City suburb about three hours after the shooting. Tiller’s clinic had been bombed in 1986, blockaded and vandalized in 1991 and in 1993 he was shot in both arms. On Jan 29, 2010, Roeder (51) was convicted of first degree murder. On April 1, 2010 Roeder was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 6/1/09)(SFC, 6/3/09, p.A7)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.30)(SFC, 1/30/10, p.A4)(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A7)
2009 May 31, A robotic vehicle named Nereus, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, made the deepest ocean dive ever - 6.8 miles (10,902 meters). At this depth, Nereus was able to explore the Challenger Deep, the ocean's lowest point, located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.
(www.livescience.com/environment/090603-ocean-abyss.html)
2009 May 31, Afghan and NATO troops killed 18 Taliban militants after insurgents attacked a joint patrol in Farah province.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, A missing Air France Airbus A330 jet, Flight 447, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil soon began a search mission off its northeastern coast.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Britain's PM Gordon Brown, facing a national uproar over lawmakers claiming lavish expenses, promised to pursue constitutional reforms including a proposal to take away legislators' power to decide their own pay.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, Phil Bolger (81), Gloucester, Mass., boat designer, committed suicide. His 600-700 boat designs included the famed Gloucester Gull (1961).
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B5)(www.smallboatforumtwo.com/forum7/30.html)
2009 May 31, Daniel Carroll (b.1927), Irish-born British entertainer (aka Danny La Rue), died. He was known for his singing and drag impersonations.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.90)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_La_Rue)
2009 May 31, In Beijing US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, aiming to persuade China that its US investments were safe, pledged that the Obama administration was firmly committed to ratcheting down huge deficits as quickly as it can once economic recovery is assured.
(Reuters, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, In Egypt police reported that a 25-year-old man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, El Salvador’s President-elect Mauricio Funes appointed his wife and a former Marxist guerrilla to Cabinet posts just hours before starting his five-year term.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Three US Army soldiers were killed and two were injured in an accident on a German autobahn near Kaiserslautern.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, In Indian Kashmir more than 40 people were wounded as clashes continued for a 2nd day between Indian police and Kashmiris demonstrating over the recent deaths of two young Muslim women.
(AFP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, An Iraqi sports broadcaster was killed by a bomb attached to his car in northern Iraq, while two other journalists were wounded in a similar blast in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Israel began the biggest civil defense drill in its history, putting soldiers, emergency crews and civilians through rehearsals for the possibility of war at a time of rising tensions with Iran.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, In Mali it was believed that Al-Qaida terrorists killed British hostage Edwin Dyer. The fate of a Swiss hostage taken at the same time was unknown. Dyer was abducted in January and his captors had threatened to kill him by the end of May if Britain refused to release extremist preacher Abu Qatada from prison.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 May 31, In Mexico gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, opened fire in the lobby of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, killing five people. Gunmen killed four men sitting in a car in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, Pakistan’s military relaxed a curfew in most parts of the northwest including Mingora to allow people trapped on the roads to return home or leave the region. Taliban militants attacked a school in Hangu town south of Peshawar, killing one administrator and kidnapping three other people. In North Waziristan, a former government doctor and an Afghan national were killed by suspected militants.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 May 31, Palestinian forces stormed a Hamas hideout in Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, setting off a fierce battle that left six dead in the bloodiest factional violence since the Palestinian president launched a crackdown on the Islamic militant group two years ago.
(AP, 5/31/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.46)
2009 May 31, South Ossetia held elections condemned as "illegitimate" by the EU. Eduard Kokoity tightened his grip on the Georgian region after Yedinstvo (Unity), a party loyal to him, won the elections.
(AFP, 6/1/09)
2009 May, Prof. Lynn LoPucki and Joseph Doherty of UCLA authored a study of 102 large-company bankruptcies and found that bankruptcy judges routinely authorize fee practices that violate America’s bankruptcy code. Senior partners of the lead law firm in the Lehman Brothers clean-up charged $1000 per hour for their services in the first quarter of this year.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.82)(http://tinyurl.com/ybclluw)
2009 May, In San Francisco scientists identified an exotic seaweed growing at the SF Yacht Harbor at near Pier 40. The kelp known as Undaria pinnatifida, globally recognized as one of the top 100 invasive species, has plagued southern California harbors since 2000.
(SFC, 7/8/09, p.D2)
2009 May, Dr. Conrad Murray (56), a Las Vegas cardiologist, signed on as Michael Jackson's personal physician at $150,000 a month. He was in dire financial shape at the time and owed a total of at least $780,000 in judgments against him and his medical practice, outstanding mortgage payments on his house, delinquent student loans, child support and credit cards.
(AP, 8/1/09)
2009 May, Rhode Island under Gov. Donald Carcieri projected a budget gap of $372 million for the year ending June 30. Carcieri pushed a plan to phase out the state’s 9% corporate tax rate to improve the state’s friendliness towards business.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.34)
2009 May, The Int’l. Banking Corporation (TIBC), a Bahraini bank, defaulted. It was owned by the Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company of Saudi Arabia. The group later alleged the default was due to fraud orchestrated by Maan Al-Sanea, a Saudi billionaire born in Kuwait. The Gosaibis estimated that Al-Sanea had misappropriated some $9.2 billion.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.65)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.61)
2009 May, In CongoDRC 2 former Norwegian soldiers (Tjostolv Moland and Joshua French) allegedly murdered their driver and attempted to murder a witness. The motive behind the killing was unknown. On Sep 8 they were convicted of espionage and murder. In 2010 a military judge threw out the ruling and ordered a new case. In August, 2013, Tjostolv Moland (32), died in prison. An autopsy report said he had hanged himself.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AFP, 9/8/09)(AP, 4/22/10)(AP, 8/29/13)
2009 May, In France fashion house of Christian Lacroix filed for bankruptcy. It had been founded inside LVMH, a luxury goods group in 1987 and lost money every year since then.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.66)
2009 May, Naples began a six-month experiment hiring former convicts, including muggers, drug traffickers and con artists to guide tourists through the art-rich but crime-plagued city and use their inside knowledge of the local underworld to keep visitors safe.
(AP, 9/13/09
2009 May, Chikungunya, a mosquito-born virus endemic to tropical Africa and Asia, was reported to have arrived in Albania and Italy.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.83))
2009 May, Film evidence released in 2010 demonstrated graphically that the Sri Lankan army engaged in summary executions of prisoners during the final days of fighting. A five-minute video clip was aired by Britain's Channel 4 television in Nov 2010. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the evidence warrants a UN investigation.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2009 May, Sri Lanka's military defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels. At least 29 children disappeared in the custody of Sri Lanka's military after surrendering with their ethnic rebel parents at the end of the island nation's civil war.
(AP, 5/16/18)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to June 2009
End of file
2009 June
2009 Jun 1, A federal judge ordered the United States to publicly reveal unclassified versions of its allegations and evidence justifying the continued imprisonment of more than 100 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Effective today border crossings to US entry points from Canada required passports or other approved identification to be shown. Americans entering from the US by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean were required to present identity documents embedded with RFID tags, though conventional passports remained valid until expiration. The RFID tags could be scanned by anybody with easily obtained equipment from 30 feet.
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.37)(SFC, 7/16/09, p.D5)
2009 Jun 1, Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih (31), a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay, died of an apparent suicide. His was the fifth apparent suicide at the offshore US prison, which Pres. Obama hopes to close by January. The Joint Task Force that runs the US prison in Cuba said guards conducting a routine check on June 2 found Salih unresponsive and not breathing.
(AP, 6/3/09)(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In Arkansas Pvt. William Long (23) of Conway was shot and killed outside an Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center. Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula (18) of Jacksonville, Ark., was wounded. The next day Muslim convert Abdulhakim Muhammad (23) of Little Rock was charged for the shootings. On July 25, 2011, Muhammad, born as Carlos Bledsoe, admitted to the crime in a plea deal and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 6/2/09)(SFC, 7/25/11, p.A7)
2009 Jun 1, San Francisco Mayor Newsom unveiled a $6.6 billion budget for 2009-2010. He also urged Santa Clara voters to reject a $937 million stadium project for the SF 49ers.
(SFC, 6/2/09, p.A1)
2009 Jun 1, Hawaii’s Gov. Linda Lingle, describing a "fiscal emergency," ordered three days of unpaid furloughs each month for 14,500 state employees to help erase a $729 million budget shortfall.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of the Obama administration's plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government. GM assets were valued at $82.2 billion with liabilities at $172 billion. The US government planned to receive 60.8% of GM stock, Canada’s government 11.7%, the UAW’s trust 17.5% and bondholders 10%. GM said it will permanently close nine more plants and idle three others to trim production and labor costs under bankruptcy protection. GM was expected to lose 14 factories, 29,000 workers and 2,400 dealers.
(AP, 6/1/09)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.9,60, 62)
2009 Jun 1, The US military announced the death of US service member the previous day from non-combat-related injuries in southern Afghanistan by posting the news on Twitter hours before announcing it in a more formal press statement. Officials said the US military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers. Mullah Mansur was killed in a strike by helicopters in Helmand province. 4 US soldiers were killed by 2 roadside bombs in Wardak province.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AP, 6/2/09)(SFC, 6/2/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 1, Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy vowed to double civilian aid to Afghanistan and welcomed plans to increase non-military assistance during a visit to Kabul.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Chilean plumber, Fernando Vera, died of swine flu, making him South America's first swine-flu death.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In China US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong US currency.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, China's special envoy to Darfur met with Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir and pledged three million dollars in humanitarian aid for the volatile region. Liu Guijin "greeted the president for the beginning of talks in Doha between the JEM and the government."
(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In El Salvador Mauricio Funes, a journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas, became the country's first leftist president, immediately restoring ties with Cuba while promising to remain friendly with the United States.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, France implemented its revenue de solidarite active (RSA), a welfare payment introduced by anti-poverty campaigner Martin Hirsch.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_active)
2009 Jun 1, A missing Air France Airbus A330 jet, Flight 447, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil soon began a search mission off its northeastern coast.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Iran state media reported that five people are dead in an arson attack on a bank in Zahedan, a restive southeastern city where 25 died in a mosque bombing last week.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region officially started pumping crude oil to the international market. A bomb in a Baghdad market killed four people. A suicide bomber exploded his car at a police checkpoint in Jalula, killing a 7-year-old child and wounding eight other people. A grenade thrown at a US patrol in the northern city of Mosul missed the Americans but killed one Iraqi and wounded 15 others.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Israel's PM Netanyahu dismissed the US demand for a settlement freeze as unreasonable, moving closer to a collision with the Obama administration, while mobs of Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian laborers and burned West Bank fields. Israeli settlers waged court battles to evict dozens of Palestinians from homes in an East Jerusalem neighborhood, a move threatening to widen Israel's rift with US President Barack Obama over settlements.
(AP, 6/1/09)(Reuters, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Mexican soldiers and federal agents detained 29 police officers in northern Nuevo Leon state for alleged ties to drug traffickers. Retired Gen. Javier Aguayo took over as police chief of Chihuahua, where drug-fueled violence has claimed hundreds of lives. Mexican soldiers in Reynosa captured Sergio Garcia Trevino, a drug cartel suspect accused of helping procure the largest illegal weapons cache found in the country.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In Nigeria MEND, main militant group in southern Nigeria said, it will release Mathew Maguire, a British hostage it has been holding for the past nine months. They noted that today was Maguire birthday. The next day MEND said "Mr Mathew Maguire has declined the gift of a release from captivity with an argument that he is now an advocate for change in the region and a honorary member of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ." Nigeria's navy killed seven militants in a gunbattle in the Niger Delta.
(AFP, 6/1/09)(AFP, 6/2/09)(AFP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 1, Pakistan's army said it lifted curfews in several parts of the Swat Valley as it hunted Taliban militants in the region, while insurgents killed two soldiers in a tribal region that could be the next front in the northwest military offensive. Armed Taliban ambushed a convoy of some 30 vehicles carrying students home for the summer. Many of the buses managed to get away. 71 students and nine staff from an army-run college were rescued the next morning as militants moved them from North Waziristan to South Waziristan. A handful of students remained unaccounted for.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 1, In Somalia a roadside bomb in Mogadishu killed at least 4 police officers in several civilians.
(SFC, 6/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 2, Pres. Obama appeared in a BBC interview and said Iran may have some right to nuclear energy, provided it takes steps to prove its aspirations are peaceful. Obama also restated his plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 2, In Alameda County, Ca., a jury convicted Wonda Kidd (58), a former escrow officer, of two counts of felony grand theft in an equity stripping fraud case that took place from April 2005 to August 2006. Straw buyers were used to buy property at inflated prices after which a default took place forcing lenders to foreclose. In 2008 Karim Akil (42) pleaded guilty to grand theft and was sentenced to 3 years. His assistant was sentenced to one year in prison.
(SFC, 6/4/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 2, GM struck a tentative deal to sell its Hummer brand to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co.
(SFC, 6/3/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 2, Six Afghan family members, including two children, were killed in an explosion close to the US Bagram military base outside Kabul. The Ministry of Interior said that suspected insurgents carried out a suicide bombing against the family while they were traveling in a car. Afghan and coalition forces attacked a residential compound in Wardak province, killing six militants. The men were said to be connected to a militant commander blamed for multiple attacks. In eastern Afghanistan insurgents killed a soldier serving with NATO. A convoy in Paktia province was hit by a blast that killed one security guard. A second improvised explosive device then ripped through the convoy and killed nine guards in another vehicle. An American soldier and an Afghan interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb also in Paktia province. 11 Taliban militants were killed in a joint operation in Zabul province. 2 policemen were killed and five others were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in southern Kandahar province.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AP, 6/3/09)(SFC, 6/4/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 2, In Algeria an estimated 30 Al-Qaida-linked militants killed two teachers and eight police escorts as they brought copies of tests back from an examination center in the town of Timezrit, 49 miles east of Algiers.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, In Belgium a new museum, designed by architect Christian de Portzamparc, opened in Louvain-la-Neuve dedicated to Georges Remi (1907-1983), creator of the comic book hero Tintin (1929).
(Econ, 5/30/09, p.87)
2009 Jun 2, British media reported that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is quitting her post following the scandal over lawmakers' expenses.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, An airplane seat, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by Brazilian military pilots searching for a missing Air France airliner Flight 447.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, In Greenland the Inuit Ataqatigiit party, or IA, won 44% of votes to take 14 of the 31 seats in Greenland's Parliament, the Landsting. The left-wing opposition party defeated the long-governing Social Democrats. Siumut got 26% of the votes and lost the majority it held with its smaller coalition partner Atasut. Premier Hans Enoksen called the snap election after Greenlanders decided in a November referendum to loosen ties with Denmark.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, The Iraqi and US militaries tentatively agreed to keep a joint base on the edge of Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, maintaining an American presence in a strategic area even after the June 30 deadline for US combat troops to pull out of the capital. An American soldier died of wounds from a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, In Israel detained a Jewish man for shooting to death a Palestinian in Jerusalem and wounding another Jewish man.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, Mexico moved forward in its campaign to root out corruption, rounding up 21 more police officers in several northern cities for questioning on suspicions they had ties to drug trafficking. A total of 58 officers have been detained since the operation began a day earlier.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, Mexican truckers filed a lawsuit against the United States seeking $6 billion in compensation for losses they claim to have suffered since Washington banned them from crossing the border in violation of a trade pact. Mexico's National Cargo Transportation Association, or Canacar, filed the lawsuit representing 4,500 trucking companies. Canacar had filed an arbitration notice with the US State Department under the NAFTA in April.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 2, A Pakistani court ordered the release of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, because there was insufficient evidence to link him to last year's deadly Mumbai attacks. India immediately condemned the ruling. Pakistan's military said that troops were fighting inside the Taliban stronghold of Charbagh, 20km from the Swat valley's main town Mingora. The military said it had killed 21 militants in the past 24 hours of its offensive, while three soldiers died. Gunmen in Peshawar stormed a factory owned by a senior minister of North West Frontier Province, kidnapping eight workers and killing a guard who resisted.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, In South Africa 61 prospectors died from a fire in an abandoned gold mine belonging to Harmony Gold mining company, which had ceased working its Eland shaft. Illegal miners, often called "gold pirates," are hired through organized crime rackets that produce about $250 million in gold a year.
(AP, 6/2/09)(AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jun 2, Two major South Korean newspapers said that North Korea's military, party and government officials were informed that Kim Jong Un (26), the youngest of three, is in line to take the world's first communist dynasty into a third generation.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 3, President Barack Obama began his latest bid to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by paying a call on King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Pres. Obama spoke to King Abdullah about a host of thorny problems, from Arab-Israeli peace efforts to Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage in a move that reflects the state's changing demographics from reliably Republican and conservative to younger and more liberal.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Osama bin Laden threatened Americans in a new audio tape, saying President Barack Obama inflamed hatred toward the US by ordering Pakistan to crack down on militants in Swat Valley and block Islamic law in the area.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, David Bromige (75), London-born poet and former Sonoma State Univ. professor, died in Sebastopol, Ca. He was Sonoma County’s 2nd poet laureate (2001-2003).
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B4)
2009 Jun 3, Five Afghan private security guards escorting a supply convoy were killed in a suicide bombing near the southern border with Pakistan.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, British Communities Secretary Hazel Blears announced she was resigning, the second British cabinet minister to resign, undermining PM Gordon Brown's authority and his future as leader of the increasingly out-of-favor Labor Party. Blears last month agreed to pay more than 13,000 pounds ($21,000) in tax on the sale of a property.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, In China foreign journalists were barred from Beijing's Tiananmen Square as an Internet clampdown that blocked Twitter expanded to include more blogs on the eve of the 20th anniversary of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, In central China a storm with gale-force winds killed 20 people and seriously injured 117 as it swept through Shangqiu and Kaifeng in Henan province.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 3, The Organization of American States (OAS), meeting in Honduras, cleared the way for Cuba's possible return to the group by lifting a 1962 ban on the communist-run country, a move backed by Washington despite initial objections.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 3, India's Parliament elected Meira Kumar (64) as its first-ever female speaker. Kumar is the daughter of a former deputy prime minister and an untouchable, a member of India's lowest caste.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri vanished during a pilgrimage to the Saudi kingdom. In October Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said: "We hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Shahram Amiri's situation and consider the US to be involved in his arrest."
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Jun 3, Israel dismantled a military checkpoint that had significantly impeded Palestinian travel in the West Bank in an apparent goodwill gesture a day before President Barack Obama's much-anticipated address to the Muslim and Arab world.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, A court in Laos found Samantha Orobator (20), a pregnant British woman, guilty of trafficking heroin and sentenced her to life in prison. Under a pact signed last month by Laos and Britain that still needs ratification, Orobator could be extradited to serve her time in Britain. On Aug 6 Orobator returned to Britain to serve the remainder of her sentence, just weeks before she was due to give birth.
(AP, 6/3/09)(AP, 8/6/09)
2009 Jun 3, Mexican federal investigators questioned 48 Veracruz city traffic officers about the disappearance of the top customs official for one of Mexico's most important ports. Customs administrator Francisco Serrano has not been seen since his smashed government vehicle was found abandoned at an accident scene three days ago. Serrano recently launched a new system to check shipping containers at the Gulf coast port.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 3, Moldovan lawmakers failed for a second time to elect a president, meaning the Parliament elected in April will be dissolved and a new election will be held this summer.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Moroccan customs officers seized 19.5 tons of cannabis resin worth about 17.3 million euros (24.5 million dollars) at the northern port of Nadir. The drugs were concealed in a lorry transporting frozen octopus from a seafood processing plant in the southern town of Agadir and the Italian driver and his Spanish companion were arrested.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Pres. Obama spoke in Cairo and touched on many themes Muslims wanted to hear in the highly anticipated speech broadcast live across much of the Middle East and elsewhere across the Muslim world. Muslims praised Obama's address as a positive shift in US attitude and tone. But hard-liners criticized it as style over substance and said it lacked concrete proposals to turn the words into action.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Angelo Mozilo, the man who rode the housing boom to build Countrywide Financial Corp. into a California colossus of high-risk mortgage lending, was charged with civil fraud and illegal insider trading by federal regulators who accuse him of deceiving shareholders and profiting on confidential information. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil fraud charges against two other former executives of Countrywide.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, South Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered Gov. Mark Sanford to request $700 million in federal stimulus money, which was aimed primarily at struggling schools.
(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 4, In Tennessee handguns will soon be allowed in bars and restaurants under a new law passed by state legislators who voted to override Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen's veto. The legislation takes effect July 14 and retains an existing ban on consuming alcohol while carrying a handgun. Restaurant owners can still opt to ban weapons from their establishments.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, In Afghanistan insurgents killed three US soldiers in a bomb and small-arms attack on their vehicle in Kapisa province, considered a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. A man was killed in Nangarhar by a bomb he was trying to plant inside a university faculty. Police found the body of Yeiya Mulaye Azhar, a candidate in the provincial elections in Wardak province. he had been kidnapped 11 days earlier.
(AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 6/5/09)(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 4, Australia's Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon (47) stepped down after a series of scandals, in the first major embarrassment for PM Kevin Rudd. Fitzgibbon had been under pressure since March when he admitted not declaring to parliamentary authorities two trips to China paid for by wealthy businesswoman Helen Liu.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, British naturalist Sir David Attenborough won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias social sciences prize for his "great contributions to the defense of life and conservation of our planet."
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, China aggressively deterred dissent in Beijing on the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. But tens of thousands turned out for a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mourn the many demonstrators who were killed.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Ethiopia charged 46 people, most of them ex-military, of plotting to assassinate government officials. Ethiopia also said it has undertaken military reconnaissance operations in Somalia, but is not planning to re-deploy.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, About 375 million voters across the 27-nation European Union began 4 days of voting, to appoint candidates to 736 seats on the assembly in the second-largest election in the world after India's. Voting began in Britain and the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, In Germany the federal and state governments approved an €18 billion plan to create more university places, boost funding for research and cultivate a small group of elite institutions.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.57)
2009 Jun 4, Guatemala's anti-drug prosecutor said that thousands of bullets and grenades that were part of a Mexican drug cartel's weapons cache belong to the Guatemalan army. In the April weapons seizure, police also found eight anti-personnel mines, 11 M60 machine guns, bullet proof vests and two armored cars that investigators say belong to the Zetas, a group of assassins for Mexico's Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, In northern Iraq an American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in Tamim province. Another American soldier was killed in a grenade attack north of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, Mexican police found 11 bodies, most with their hands and feet cut off, inside an abandoned car in the border state of Sonora in violence attributed to drug traffickers battling for control of the region.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 4, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua made a new offer of amnesty to militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, after earlier rejection by armed opponents.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Palestinian police killed two Hamas militants after the men opened fire at security forces who had surrounded their underground hideout in Qalqiliya. One officer was also killed in the operation, part of an intensifying crackdown on Islamic militants in this West Bank town.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Sri Lanka's navy seized a foreign-owned ship loaded with medical, food and other supplies for war-hit civilians, saying the vessel had entered its territorial waters illegally.
(AFP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, David Carradine (72), star of TV series "Kung Fu" (1972-1975), was found dead in Thailand. At first suicide was suspected but a forensics expert said circumstances suggested that he may have died from autoerotic asphyxiation. His career had roared back to life when he played the assassin-turned-victim in Quentin Tarentino's "Kill Bill" (2003).
(AP, 6/4/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.E3)
2009 Jun 4, Venezuelan prosecutors charged Guillermo Zuloaga (67), president of the anti-government television station Globovision, with usury. This ended a weeks-long investigation into his business activities that Zuloaga called politically motivated.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, President Barack Obama toured a World War II concentration camp in Germany after prodding the international community to redouble efforts toward separate Israeli and Palestinian states in hopes of resolving a conflict fueled by the Jewish nation's post-Holocaust creation.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, Raymond Lee Oyler (38), a convicted arsonist, was sentenced to death for setting the October 26, 2006, Southern California Esperanza wildfire that killed five federal firefighters struggling to defend a rural home from raging, wind-driven flames.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 5, Neal Wanless (23) accepted a ceremonial $232.1 million Powerball check in Pierre, South Dakota. Wanless bought $15 worth of tickets to the May 27 thirty-state drawing at a convenience store in Winner during a trip to buy livestock feed. He will take home a lump sum of $88.5 million after taxes are deducted.
(AP, 6/6/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 5, General Motors Corp. announced a tentative deal to sell its Saturn brand to former race car driver and dealership group owner Roger Penske.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In Oregon Korena Roberts (b.1980) bludgeoned to death Heather Snively (21) of Maryland and cut her unborn child from her womb. The baby did not survive. In 2010 Roberts pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A6)(www.kval.com/news/69767317.html)
2009 Jun 5, In San Francisco Clyde Forsman (b.1915), singer and accordion enthusiast, died. He was an initial member of San Francisco-based “Those Darn Accordions" and gained notoriety for his full body tattoos.
(SFC, 6/12/09, p.B6)
2009 Jun 5, Three Afghan children were killed by a mortar left over from a battle between police and Taliban. Two roadside bombs exploded an hour apart in separate areas of the eastern province of Nangarhar, killing six policemen. Heavy fighting erupted in eastern Khost when militants attacked a compound where foreign troops were based. At least 15 militants were killed at the site in the Sabari district. A policeman and a militia soldier contracted to the US military were also killed. Police killed three Taliban militants in the neighboring province of Paktia overnight. Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed two "opposition commanders" in the southern province of Kandahar. Another four militants were killed in incidents in Farah province in the south and Paktika in the east.
(AFP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 5, The Anglo-Australian firm Rio Tinto cancelled its controversial tie-up with China's Chinalco in favor of a joint venture with fierce rival BHP Billiton and a 15.2 billion US dollar rights issue.
(AFP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, Bosnia’s war crimes court Zeljko Ivankovic (37), a former member of a Bosnian Serb special police unit, had taken part in the July 11, 1995, killing of at least 1,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica and that he would be tried for genocide.
(SFC, 6/6/09, p.A2)(www.emportal.rs/en/news/region/81408.html)
2009 Jun 5, British PM Gordon Brown shook up his Cabinet in hopes of hanging on to his job in the midst of a scandal over lawmakers' expenses, a string of top-level resignations and catastrophic results expected in local elections. Alan Johnson confirmed he has been named home secretary in a reshuffle carried out by PM Brown.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AFP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In southwestern China at least 26 people were buried when part of a mountain collapsed in a massive landslide in a remote area of Wulong county in Chongqing municipality. 74 people were missing, including 47 workers at an iron ore mine, 21 local residents, two telecom company workers and four passers-by. 27 people died and dozens were hurt when a packed commuter bus burst into flames and was destroyed within minutes during the morning rush hour in the southwestern city of Chengdu. Police later said a 62-year-old unemployed man set the fire after carrying a bucket of gasoline onto the bus.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jun 5, Guinea-Bissau authorities said they foiled an attempted coup, and security forces killed two people allegedly involved, including a candidate in the upcoming presidential ballot. Guinea-Bissau's intelligence service said the coup plot was masterminded by former Defense Minister Helder Proenca and that presidential candidate Baciro Dabo was also involved. Both men died in separate shootings.
(AP, 6/5/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 5, In Iraq an American soldier died as the result of a non-combat related incident.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, Israeli officials said they will not heed President Barack Obama's powerful appeal to halt all settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state, a position that looks sure to cause a policy clash with its most powerful ally. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man during a demonstration against the construction of the West Bank separation barrier. Yussef Aqil Srour (35) died from a chest wound that appeared to have been caused by live fire. Witnesses said troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and possibly live rounds at rock-throwing demonstrators in the village of Naalin.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In Mexico a fast-moving fire killed 49 babies and toddlers at the ABC day care in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora state, despite desperate attempts of firefighters, who punched through the walls and fought their way through flames to rescue babies, toddlers and others trapped inside. No fire alarm or sprinkler system had gone off, according to witnesses. One mother said a second door to the day care was bolted shut and nobody could find the key. In 2011 federal police arrested Arturo Leyva Lizarraga, a former government official, on homicide and abuse of authority charges tied to a day care center fire. On June 30, 2011, federal agents arrested Delia Botello, former regional coordinator of public day care centers.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 5/10/11)(AP, 7/1/11)
2009 Jun 5, In Myanmar refugees began streaming out of the Ler Per Her camp in eastern Karen state and into Thailand as Myanmar forces shelled near a camp where they were sheltering.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 5, Indians in Peru's Amazon, protesting government moves to develop oil, gas and other resources on their lands, battled police near Bagua in an area called Curva del Diablo, or "Devil's Curve." Authorities reported the death of 11 police and 25 protesters. The official death toll after 2 days of violence was later reported at 33, including 23 police officers. Santiago Manuin (53), Awajun Indian leader, was among 48 wounded protesters.
(AP, 6/5/09)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.36)(AP, 8/4/09)
2009 Jun 5, In northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 38 people and wounded 40 attending prayers at a mosque in the Haya Gai area of Upper Dir, as the country's leaders urged visiting US envoy Holbrooke for more aid to stave off Taliban-led militancy. 4 soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in South Waziristan.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 5, Venezuela's tax agency ordered an anti-government news network to pay $2.3 million in back taxes, a day after its president was charged in a separate investigation and troops raided his home.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 6, President Barack Obama at Omaha Beach, France, paid tribute to the Allies' 1944 D-Day landings, an invasion that turned the tide of World War II and cemented the trans-Atlantic alliance.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In East St. Louis, Ill., the 34-acre Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park opened. It was named after Malcolm W. Martin (d.2004 at 91), the lawyer who formed a non-profit group in 1968 to raise money to protect the tract from developers.
(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.A10)
2009 Jun 6, Palm Inc. introduced its new smart phone called Pre. Two days later Apple unveiled updated versions of its popular iPhone.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Jun 6, In southern Arizona a sport utility vehicle crammed with at least 27 people crashed just before midnight killing 10 undocumented immigrants.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 6, In Afghanistan a suicide bomb rocked the southern town of Spin Boldak killing four people as clashes claimed the lives of another 12 in a fresh wave of insurgent violence. Taliban militants ambushed a private security company in the southwestern province of Nimroz, killing three armed guards and wounding one.
(AFP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, Brazilian search crews retrieved the first 2 bodies in the Atlantic from the May 31 crash of Air France Flight 447. Investigators said faulty speed readings had been found on the same type of jets.
(Reuters, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Central African Republic at least two people were killed and several wounded in an attack on a military base. Residents later said ethnic clashes left at least 27 people dead at a Birao military base, where former rebels were set to demobilize under a peace accord.
(AFP, 6/7/09)(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 6, Chinese rescuers found the body of Jonny Copp, an American mountain climber, following an avalanche in an isolated part of southwestern China. Wade Johnson (24) of Arden Hills, Minnesota, and Micah Dash and Jonny Copp of Boulder, Colo., were last heard from May 20 at the base camp of Mount Edgar, a peak of Mount Gongga. Johnson’s body was recovered on June 8.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 6, It was reported that Chinese aid to Myanmar totaled some $400 million over the past five years. US aid to Myanmar was said to be worth $12 million a year.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.59)
2009 Jun 6, Jean Dausset (1916), French immunologist, died. The 1980 Nobel prize-winner was a pioneer behind organ transplants and the mapping of the human genome. Dausset's discovery in 1958 of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue system allowed doctors to verify compatibility between donor and receiver for an organ transplant.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 6, A senior Iraqi police official escaped an assassination attempt by a suicide car bomber in the former insurgent stronghold of Anbar province. The US military said Insurgents are increasingly using teenagers to stage attacks against American and Iraqi security forces.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Kashmir protesters clashed with police as a separatist strike over the alleged rape and murder of two young Muslim women paralyzed Indian Kashmir for a sixth day.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Mexico 13 gunmen, 2 soldiers and 2 bystanders were killed in a 4-hour shootout in Acapulco's hotel zone in a gunbattle that went passed midnight. The soldiers found four Guerrero state police officers inside the house who said they were being held captive.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 6, Myanmar forces started launching mortar attacks during fighting with Karen guerrillas.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 6, Pakistan said that two close aides of a pro-Taliban cleric died when a makeshift bomb ripped through a military convoy transporting them for interrogation. The dead aides of Sufi Mohammad, who negotiated a peace deal in the northwest between Taliban rebels and the Pakistani government, were arrested on June 4 along with three Afghan nationals. 2 policemen were killed late in the day when a suicide bomber walked up to a police emergency helpline center, in an Islamabad residential district home to many government officials, and detonated explosives strapped to his body. Villagers in the northwest attacked Taliban militants killing 11 of them in revenge for a bomb attack on a mosque that killed about 40 people a day earlier.
(AFP, 6/6/09)(AFP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 6, Peru’s President Alan Garcia labored to contain the country’s worst political violence in years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil, gas and other resources on their native lands. The new deaths brought to 22 the number of police killed, seven with spears, since security forces on June 5 moved to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters. A judge ordered the arrest of the Indian leader, Alberto Pizango, on sedition and rebellion charges.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 6, Philippine government troops seized a Muslim separatist rebel camp in southern Maguindanao province following three days of fighting that left 30 guerrillas dead.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Saudi Arabia a screening of the Saudi film, "Menahi," brought a taste of the moviegoing experience to Riyadh more than 30 years after the government began shutting down theaters. No women were allowed. Men and children, including girls up to 10, were allowed to attend the show at a government-run cultural center.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 6, Somali pirates released the Yenegoa Ocean, a Nigerian tugboat they hijacked 10 months ago on Aug 4, 2008. A Dutch navy ship escorted it to a safe harbor.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 6, It was reported that in South Africa HIV-AIDS continued to claim some 3,000 lives a week.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.48)
2009 Jun 6, Turkmenistan state media reported that China will lend the energy-rich country $3 billion to develop its vast South Yolotan natural gas field.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 7, In Martinez, Ca., hospital patient Paul Hammond (47) was shot and killed by police after wielding a knife and cutting restraints while being treated for alcohol withdrawal. In 2011 Contra Costa County agreed to pay $1.4 million to his 4 children.
(SFC, 9/9/11, p.C2)
2009 Jun 7, A joint Afghan and US-led coalition operation against insurgents in southern Zabul province killed more than 20 Taliban fighters. After the operation a roadside bomb exploded and killed one Afghan policeman as the forces were returning to base. A militant ambush in northwest Faryab province killed four policemen. Another Taliban attack in the eastern province of Paktika killed the police chief in Sarhawza district. Militants elsewhere in Paktika ambushed a truck of private security guards, killing four of them.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement paving the way for a monetary union and plans for a unified regional currency.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 7, Brazilian and French ships recovered 14 more bodies from ocean near Air France crash, bringing the total to 16.
(AP, 6/7/09)(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 7, China and Japan pledged to throw their combined weight behind efforts to revive the struggling world economy after talks aimed at boosting trade between the two powers.
(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Egypt's public prosecutor ordered the return of a shipment of Russian wheat impounded last month on health grounds. The decision to ship back the 52,000 tons of wheat, worth 9.6 million dollars (6.8 million euros), came after an investigation found the grain was contaminated with insects and unspecified heavy metals.
(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Europe leaned to the right as tens of millions of people voted in European Parliament elections, with conservative parties favored in many countries against a backdrop of economic crisis. Center-right parties won the most seats in the election. Only 43% of 375 million eligible voters cast ballots. In Bulgaria the xenophobic Ataka party won 12% of the vote.
(AP, 6/7/09)(Reuters, 6/8/09)(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A5)(Econ, 2/6/10, p.58)
2009 Jun 7, In Indonesia 19 leading agricultural exporting nations, including Australia, Brazil and South Africa, kicked off talks in Bali aimed at pushing forward troubled world trade negotiations. The Cairns Group of nations accounted for more than 25% of the world's agricultural exports was also expected to take aim at US and European dairy export subsidies.
(Reuters, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Lebanese streamed to their hometowns to vote in a crucial election. Muslims made up at least 60 percent of the estimated 4 million population. The rest are Christians. There are 18 religious sects. Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims make up roughly a third of the population each. About 400,000 Palestinian refugees also live in Lebanon. Lebanon's Western-backed coalition defeated Hezbollah and its allies dealing a stunning setback to the Iranian-backed militants. The tally showed the winning coalition with 68 seats versus 57 for the Hezbollah-led alliance. Three seats went to independents. Turnout nationwide was about 52.3% up from 45.8% in 2005.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 7, Mexican police announced the arrest of Olga Lerma in western Jalisco state. She was wanted in the US for allegedly smuggling $2 million in cocaine-trafficking profits for a powerful drug cartel.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, In Somalia two masked gunmen killed the director of one of the country’s largest broadcasters, raising to five the number of journalists killed there this year.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, In southern Thailand Islamic insurgents shot dead a villager and then detonated a car bomb as a crowd gathered, killing one and wounding 19 in the Yi-ngo district of Narathiwat.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko said that talks with the main opposition party on forming a coalition have collapsed, indicating a continuation of the turmoil that has plagued the country's politics and hobbled its response to the severe economic crisis.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 7, Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai launched a three-week trip to the West. He spoke at The Hague saying he is seeking re-engagement, not touring with a "begging bowl" asking for aid. Pres. Robert Mugabe launched a new pact aimed at tearing down trade barriers across 19 African nations with appeals for external investors and an end to domestic conflicts.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 8, The US border patrol said a Mexican truck driver was arrested over the weekend at a checkpoint in San Diego County after 73 illegal Mexican immigrants were found in the back of his rig.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 8, Royal Dutch Shell agreed In NYC to a $15.5 million settlement to end a lawsuit alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other civilians by Nigeria's former military regime.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, New Jersey officials broke ground for a new tunnel under the Hudson River linking to NYC. The $8.7 billion project was expected to be completed in 2017.
(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 8, North Carolina State Univ. terminated former first lady Mary Easley’s $170,000-a-year job after e-mails showed that former Gov. Mike Easley had served as an intermediary when the school hire her.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 8, In Kansas David Lee Gage of Wichita (52) was found dead of suicide in his jail cell. He had faced nearly 30 years in prison for raping 3 women who had advertised erotic services on Craigslist.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 8, Harold Norse (b.1916 as Harold Rosen), SF-based Beat poet, died. His books included “Beat Hotel" (1960), an experimental cut-up novel, and “Hotel Nirvana: Selected Poems: 1953-1973)" (1974).
(SSFC, 6/14/09, p.B6)(www.beatmuseum.org/norse/haroldnorse.html)
2009 Jun 8, Brazilian and French ships recovered 8 more bodies from Air France Flight 447, bringing the total recovered to 24. The tail section of the plane was also recovered. The plane disappeared during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on May 31 amid strong thunderstorms.
(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 8, Final election results showed a British far-right party won its first-ever parliamentary seats in EU elections. The British National Party, which does not accept nonwhite members and calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants, won two of Britain's 72 seats in the European Parliament. Austria's Freedom Party, which also campaigned on an anti-Islam platform, more than doubled its share of the vote to 13.1%. Hungary's Jobbik party, which describes itself as Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration and wants police to crack down on what it calls "Gypsy crime," won three of the country's 22 seats and almost 15% of the vote. The Greater Romania Party, which is, among other things, pro-religion, anti-gay and anti-Hungarian, made surprise gains, winning almost 9% of the vote and taking two of Romania's 33 seats. A bloc of center-right parties remained the largest group.
(AP, 6/8/09)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.63)
2009 Jun 8, In Britain van maker LDV was placed in administration after the collapse of a rescue deal by Malaysian firm Weststar collapsed. Up to 850 jobs and thousands more in the supply chain were threatened. The company, owned by Russian giant GAZ, applied to Birmingham County Court for administrators to be appointed.
(AFP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that China will require all personal computers sold in the country from July 1 to come with software that blocks access to certain websites. The program aimed to prevent the spread of pornography and other "unhealthy" content. On June 16 the government backed away from the order required use of installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort software, but the software would come pre-installed or included with all PCs sold on the mainland as of July 1.
(AFP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C3)
2009 Jun 8, Cuba formally rejected an offer to rejoin the Organization of American States (OAS), echoing the sentiments of Fidel Castro who has long maintained his island has no use for the group.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Egypt at least 18 factory workers were killed when their bus collided with a truck in the Nile Delta.
(AFP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, Gabon Pres. Omar Bongo (b.1935), the world's longest-serving president, died at a hospital in Spain. His 42-year rule reflected an era when Africa was ruled by "Big Men." He left behind at least 66 bank accounts. The first family owned 45 homes in France, including at least 14 in Paris and 11 on the French Riviera. And they boasted of 19 or more luxury cars, including a Bugatti sports model that cost the Republic of Gabon $1.5 million.
(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/20/09, p.90)
2009 Jun 8, In Hong Kong an unidentified assailant hurled acid in the busy Mong Kok shopping district, injuring 24 pedestrians including a 4-year old girl. It was the third in a series of acid attacks that have hurt some 100 people.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Iraq a bomb tore through a minibus during morning rush hour in a mainly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 24.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Indian Kashmir security forces opened fire on protesters, wounding at least seven people, including two critically, in the worst clash since unrest broke out last week over the deaths of two young women.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Malawi an international organization began moving more than 60 elephants from Phirilongwe village, south of Lake Malawi, to the Majete Wildlife Reserve. Local farmers had used violence to protect their crops from raids by the elephants, and at least 10 people and a number of elephants have recently died in such confrontations.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Mexico gunmen launched grenades and opened fire in near simultaneous attacks on two police stations in Acapulco, killing three officers in violence that broke out less than 48 hours after a gunbattle in the resort left 17 dead.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Nepal a strike called by Maoist sympathizers paralyzed large swathes of Nepal, forcing schools and businesses to shut and stranding tourists.
(AFP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, North Korea convicted Laura Ling and Euna Lee, American journalists for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV media venture, and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into its territory, intensifying the reclusive nation's confrontation with the United States.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Norway Georg Mueller (58) stepped down as bishop in the western city of Trondheim. On April 7, 2010, Norway’s Catholic Church said he did so after admitting he had molested a child years earlier, when he was a priest.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2009 Jun 8, Gaza militants equipped with explosives-laden horses approached the Israeli border, igniting a battle that left four gunmen dead.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Peru indigenous leader Alberto Pizango sought refuge at Nicaragua's embassy in Lima. Nicaragua granted Pizango political asylum but he remained at the embassy, awaiting Peru's agreement to allow him safe passage out of the country.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 8, Interfax news agency reported that Russian forces have killed Doku Umarov, the leader of the Chechen separatist movement.
(Reuters, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, Sudan passed an amended version of a media bill that sparked protests in Khartoum last month, but the new version failed to allay the fears of many Sudanese journalists.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Thailand gunmen opened fire on a mosque in Narathiwat province’s Hoh-I-Rong district killing at least 10 people and wounding 19 others.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 8, The first World Oceans Day was celebrated. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution on Dec 5, 2008, declaring that as of 2009, June 8th would be recognized as World Oceans Day.
(http://worldoceansday.org/about/)
2009 Jun 9, The US Justice Department said authorities have brought Ahmed Ghailani (b.~1974), the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States, flying him into New York to face trial for bombing US embassies. Ghailani was indicted in 1998 for the al-Qaida bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks which killed more than 224 people, including 12 Americans.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, The US Treasury Department said it has approved 10 of the nation's largest banks to repay $68 billion in government bailout money.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, The SEC filed suit in San Francisco against Peter C. Son (37) of Danville for allegedly defrauding 500 investors of $80 million in a Ponzi scheme. Jin K. Ching (46) of Los Altos was also charged for bilking their Korean American victims from 2003-2008 through SNC Asset Management Inc. of Pleasanton and SNC Investments of New York. In 2010 Peter C. Son was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.C4)(SFC, 7/31/10, p.C1)
2009 Jun 9, The SF School Board voted 4:3 to allow the JROTC program to satisfy physical education requirements, restoring the program to nearly its original condition before a 2006 effort to kill it.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 9, In California, George Torres, founder of a grocery store chain, was released on $1 million bond after a judge tossed out racketeering and conspiracy charges regarding orders for killing a rival. He remained convicted of 53 lesser charges.
(SFC, 6/10/09, p.B3)
2009 Jun 9, In Garner, North Carolina, an unexplained explosion at a ConAgra Slim Jim factory left at least 2 people dead.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In New Mexico a helicopter crashed while attempting to rescue Megumi Yamamoto, a Japanese graduate student who was hiking in the mountains above Santa Fe. Police Sgt Andy Tingwall and Yamamoto died in the crash.
(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 9, In northeastern Afghanistan a grenade explosion in a crowded bazaar near a convoy of US Army troops in Kunar province killed 2 people and wounded about 50, many of them children. Three US troops were wounded in the blast. In western Ghor province a US military airstrike failed to kill Mullah Mustafa, a militant commander with reported links to Iran's elite military Quds Force. Ghor deputy Gov. Karimuddin Rezazada later said that 10 civilians, including five children, and 12 militants were killed in the airstrikes in Shahrak district. An Afghan official said a three-day operation against Taliban fighters in southern Uruzgan province killed 30 militants.
(AP, 6/9/09)(AP, 6/10/09)(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Argentina judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral asked Interpol to detain Samuel Salman (43), who is believed to be living in Lebanon, for involvement in the July 18, 1994, bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Australia a protest involving hundreds of Indian students turned into a "vigilante" attack in Sydney overnight, in the latest flare-up in racial tensions in recent weeks. Police said a group wielding sticks and baseball bats attacked men of "Middle Eastern appearance" in apparent retaliation for an earlier assault on an Indian man.
(AFP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, Two retired Chilean generals were sentenced to prison for shipping arms to Croatia in 1991 at the time of its battle for independence from Yugoslavia. The arms had been labeled as Chilean humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka. Army Gen. Guillermo Letelier and Air Force Gen. Vicente Rodriguez were sentenced to three years in prison. Letelier also was sentenced to 541 days for falsifying documents.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev visited Dagestan. He went to police bases and reviewed troops, lavishly covered by state-controlled TV. Medvedev blamed what he called foreign "freaks" for inciting the violence. Hours after Medvedev left Dagestan, a riot police officer was shot and killed as he headed home after work not far from a base where Medvedev had watched counterterrorism exercises. In another part of the Dagestan capital, a road police officer was killed after trying to stop a car to check documents.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In France Veronique Courjault (41), went on trial after admitting killing two baby boys born secretly in Seoul in 2002 and 2003, and a third child born in France in 1999. On June 18 she was convicted and sentenced to 8 years in prison.
(AFP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 9, Arcandor, the owner of Germany’s larges chain of department stores, filed for bankruptcy. In 2007 Arcandor’s property portfolio was spun off saddling its 91 Karstadt department stores with high rents.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Jun 9, An Indian air force transport plane crashed near the disputed Chinese border in the mountains of northeast Arunachal Pradesh state. All 14 on board were killed.
(Reuters, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Indian Kashmir 30 protesters were hurt when police fired shots in the air and teargas during fresh protests over the alleged rape and murder of two Muslim women.
(AFP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Mexico 2 Sonora state government officials, whose wives are owners of the ABC day care center where 44 children died in a fire, resigned saying they wanted to clear the way for an investigation into the June 5 blaze.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Nigeria MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) set a pumping station of US oil giant Chevron on fire. Government troops killed seven civilians in a waterway at Kangbene community in Delta state according to a MEND claim on June 12. The military denied the incident.
(AFP, 6/10/09)(AFP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Pakistan the military started shelling Taliban hide-outs in the Bannu district in the northwest. The shelling began after a deadline given to tribal leaders in the region to hand over militant suspects by the end of June 8 had expired. At least nine people were killed when three attackers shot their way through a security checkpost and rammed an explosives-laden truck into Peshawar's five-star Pearl Continental.
(AP, 6/9/09)(AFP, 6/10/09)(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 9, In the Philippines lawyer and radio commentator Crispin Perez Jr. was killed in Mindoro Occidental province by motorcycle-riding gunman. His wife said the attack may have been work-related.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 9, South African health activist Thembi Ngubane (24) died of tuberculosis leaving behind a daughter (4). Her radio diaries of her struggle against the AIDS virus won her audiences and admiration around the world. Ngubane was 19 when she was given a tape recorder to make an audio diary about living with HIV in a country where nearly one third of young women are infected with the virus.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 10, James von Brunn (88), identified as a white supremacist, shot and killed Guard Stephen T. Johns (39), who prevented his entrance into the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington, DC. Security engaged the gunman as soon as he stepped inside the crowded museum and began shooting. Brunn was shot in the face by other guards and was later charged with first-degree murder. He died on Jan 6, 2010, while awaiting trial in North Carolina.
(AP, 6/11/09)(SFC, 7/30/09, p.A5)(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A4)
2009 Jun 10, California's state controller said the government risks a financial "meltdown" within 50 days in light of its weakening May revenues unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers quickly plug a $24.3 billion budget gap.
(Reuters, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Pennsylvania a car fleeing a robbery scene jumped a curb in Philadelphia, smashed into a crowd and killed three young children. One robber had fled on the motorcycle and the other in a car. Both were arrested. Latoya Smith (22), the mother and aunt of two of the children, died the next days from her injuries.
(AP, 6/11/09)(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 10, Italy's Fiat became the new owner of the bulk of Chrysler's assets, closing a deal that saves the troubled US automaker from liquidation and places a new company in the hands of Fiat's CEO.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Afghanistan clashes in the north killed 12 insurgents and one Afghan soldier. The fighting spanned three villages in Baghlan province. Afghan and NATO forces in western Baghdis "killed and wounded a significant number of insurgents." No figures were given.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Argentina Father Julio Grassi (52), a Roman Catholic priest who won fame running an Argentine foundation for poor youths (1993), was convicted of sexually molesting a boy who participated in the program. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Grassi continued to proclaim his innocence, saying he was "the victim of an injustice."
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Authorities in Bangladesh decided to withdraw all 12 corruption-related cases that had been brought against PM Sheikh Hasina. Minister of state Kamrul Islam said the charges were politically motivated. He also recommended withdrawing 50 other cases against political leaders.
(www.voanews.com/bangla/2009-06-10-voa11.cfm)
2009 Jun 10, Millions of Londoners faced a grim commute, taking boats, buses and bicycles or walking in the rain as a strike by subway workers crippled the city's subway system.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, a Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar apparatus towed by a US destroyer near Subic Bay, off the coast of the Philippines. Officials later said the collision with the sonar array connected to the USS John S. McCain probably occurred due to a misjudgment of distance.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 10, In southern Dagestan a group of 10 gunmen attacked a police post with automatic weapons and mortars, battling police troops for more than an hour. The gunmen later escaped into the forested mountains.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, The French nuclear submarine Emeraude reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447 where 41 of 228 bodies have been recovered.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Gabon Senate chief Rose Francine Rogombe was sworn in as the country's interim president, the first time in more than four decades that anyone except the late leader Omar Bongo has held power.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Kuupik Kleist (b.1958) assumed office as prime minister of Greenland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuupik_Kleist)
2009 Jun 10, In Ingushetia gunmen shot and killed Aza Gazgireeva, a top judge, as she dropped her children off at school in Russia's North Caucasus. Five other people were reported wounded, including a small child. Investigators said Gazgireeva likely was killed for her role in investigating a Chechen militants' attack on Ingush police forces in 2004.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Iraq a rare car bomb ripped through a market in the town of Bathaa, in the southern Shiite heartland, as shoppers were buying meat and vegetables, killing at least 29 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, The US Navy handed over 17 suspected Somali pirates to Kenya, taking the total number held in the east African nation to 101.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi began his first visit to Italy with a warm embrace from Premier Silvio Berlusconi, evidence of better ties between the energy-rich desert nation and its former colonial ruler.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Mexican soldiers captured Jose Filiberto Parra Ramos, a suspected cartel member accused of killing two federal agents and leading bloody battles for smuggling routes in the northern city of Tijuana.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 10, Pakistan launched a new operation against Taliban fighters in the northwest.
(Reuters, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Palau agreed to accept 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay. President Johnson Toribiong said the decision of Palau, one of a handful of countries that does not recognize China and maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, was "a humanitarian gesture" intended to help the detainees restart their lives.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Peru's Congress indefinitely suspended two key legislative decrees that spurred the Amazon Indian protests that erupted in bloodshed during a government crackdown last week. Indigenous groups said the decrees make it easier for foreign companies to exploit their lands for oil, gas and logging.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir inaugurated a new plant that he said will begin producing ethanol from sugar cane with a target of 200 million liters in two years. Former rebels who fought a devastating 22-year civil war in south Sudan began laying down their arms as the UN’s biggest demobilization program stepped up a gear.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Western powers reached agreement with North Korea's key allies on a UN draft proposal that would impose tough new sanctions on the communist nation's weapons exports and financial dealings, and allow inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas.
(AP, 6/10/09)(SFC, 6/11/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 11, In San Francisco BART’s governing board approved a 6.1% fare hike effective July 1. The minimum ride went up 25 cents to $1.75.
(SFC, 6/12/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 11, In eastern Afghanistan NATO mortar rounds killed two Afghan civilians during a clash with insurgents. Two died later of their injuries while undergoing treatment. A bomb blast killed a British soldier near Kandahar. Four other Afghan civilians died in Kunar when a truck collided with a NATO vehicle.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 11, In Australia an Australian Aboriginal elder (46), arrested for drunk driving, died after being "cooked" in the back of a scorching hot prison van. The next day a coroner found that Mr. Ward's death breached Australia's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 11, Four Guantanamo detainees, Uighurs from predominantly Muslim western China, were transferred to Bermuda, marking an unexpected new chapter in their odyssey.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, The London subway workers’ strike continued for the second day in a row shutting down much of the city's Underground network. The strike ended as Transport for London agreed with workers to restart talks.
(AP, 6/11/09)(SFC, 6/12/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 11, The ICRC said armed men have killed a local employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross at Birao in the north of the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, German researchers said a new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112, Ununbium, Latin for 112, will soon be officially included in the periodic table. A team in Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.
(Reuters, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, Italian police said they were carrying out arrests in Rome, Milan and other cities as part of an investigation into the activities of suspected radical leftist terrorists.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, The Mexican army captured 25 gunmen in northern Nicolas Bravo, Chihuahua state, who witnesses say disguised themselves as soldiers. Soldiers also seized 29 automatic rifles during the raid. Gunmen tossed grenades and fired on a crowded taco stand in the city of Uruapan, Michoacan state, killing a police officer and a 15-year-old boy. Armed men barged into a motel room and killed five people in their beds in Ciudad Juarez. Two other people were killed during a car chase and shootout between armed men in downtown Juarez. The Mexican Navy in Sinaloa discovered one of the largest methamphetamine labs ever found in the country, with enough ephedrine to produce more than 40 tons of methamphetamine.
(AP, 6/11/09)(AP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/14/09)(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 11, Human Rights Watch in a report to the UN said abuses by the Mexican military have surged since the government deployed troops to fight drug cartels more than two years ago, and too little is done to investigate allegations of rapes, killing and torture. Mexico's government disputed the charges.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, North Korea demanded a 3,000 percent hike in rent from South Korea for the site of a joint industrial park at the center of a dispute roiling their relations. It also sought a more than fourfold increase in wages for North Korean workers employed by South Korean companies at the park. More than 100 South Korean companies have factories in the park, employing some 40,000 North Koreans. They are paid about $70 a month on average.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, Pakistan's army said it had killed 66 Taliban as fighting spilled into a tribal area and known bolthole for the militant group blamed for a deadly bombing at a luxury hotel. One person was killed and 35 injured when a bomb hidden in a toilet exploded on a train in southwestern Baluchistan province. On a road to Peshawar, gunmen attacked the car of northwest provincial minister for prisons Mian Nisar Gul. The official was wounded, while two of his bodyguards and one of the assailants were killed. In the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan one person was killed and 30 wounded in two separate hand grenade attacks in crowded bazaars.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, In Peru riot police used tear gas to turn student protesters away from the Congress as thousands marched to back Amazon Indians resisting oil and natural gas exploration on their land.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, In the southern Philippines Ansar Venancio, a Filipino bomb expert from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group, was arrested in Marawi city. He is thought to have carried out a deadly attack on Manila in 2000.
(AFP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 11, The World Health Organization held an emergency swine flu meeting and declared the first flu pandemic in 41 years as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 12, In New Jersey an Indictment was unsealed today against three individuals who allegedly hacked into the telephone systems of large corporations and entities in the US and abroad and sold information about the compromised telephone systems to Pakistani nationals residing in Italy. Italian law enforcement conducted searches of approximately 10 locations in four regions of Italy and arrested the financiers of the hacking activity. Those financiers allegedly used the information to transmit over 12 million minutes of telephone calls valued at more than $55 million over the hacked networks of victim corporations in the US alone.
(SFC, 6/16/09, p.A2)(http://newark.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2009/nk061209.htm)
2009 Jun 12, Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Zuhair and two others were reported to have been sent home to Saudi Arabia, where they would be subject to judicial review before entering a government-run "rehabilitation" program. Zuhair had been held at Guantanamo since June 2002 and had refused to eat since the summer of 2005. He was force-fed a liquid mix to keep him alive.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber hit a fleet of fuel tankers intended for a NATO base in Helmand province, killing eight Afghans and wounding 21. A British soldier was killed Helmand in an explosion during an operation in Sangin district.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Algeria at least five members of an Islamist militant group were killed near Constantine, as well as several Islamist clan chiefs in different regions.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 12, A Brazilian ship recovered three more bodies from the Atlantic bringing the total to 44. Searchers said weather and currents complicated their job and warned it is unlikely that all the dead from Air France Flight 447 will be found.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In the Central African Republic 15 rebels of the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) and 3 soldiers were killed in fighting in the northwest of the country.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 12, Iranians packed polling stations with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Iraq a senior Sunni lawmaker was killed after delivering a sermon during at a mosque in a former insurgent stronghold in western Baghdad. Harith al-Obeidi (47) led the main Sunni bloc in parliament and was known as a fierce advocate of human rights and the rights of mainly Sunni detainees. The assailant was chased down the street by mosque guards and then detonated a grenade, killing himself and an undetermined number of pursuers. A bomb on a bicycle exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding nine others. An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.
(AP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaran, speaking in Srinagar, said India is to phase out the controversial presence of large numbers of its troops in towns across the Muslim-majority Kashmir region. Indian troops and paramilitaries were thought to number up to 500,000.
(AFP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Indonesia a male Sumatran elephant was found dead in a pulp plantation in Riau province, Sumatra with its tusks removed. Six other endangered Sumatran elephants had been killed in Riau in the last two months and two were found with missing tusks.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Mexico Mauricio Fernandez, a ruling party mayoral candidate in Monterey suburb San Pedro Garza, suggested that as mayor he would avoid confronting the Beltran Levya cartel to maintain peace. Police found the bodies of five men dumped beside on a highway in the northern state of Durango, all with signs of torture. Four more bodies were found in different parts of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Soldiers arrested Juan Manuel Jurado Zarzoza, the local leader of the Gulf drug cartel in Cancun in charge of drug sales, extortion and kidnappings.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 12, Moroccans voted in a local election that opposition Islamists hope will extend their influence in big cities.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, Mozambican state media reported that a court has sentenced Alexandre Balate to 22 years in jail for killing a suspect. Balate, the former head of the search and seizure unit, was found guilty of the 2007 murder of Abranches Penicelo, who was allegedly abducted by a group of police officers, burnt alive and shot. Amnesty International had drawn global attention to Penicelo's murder. Last year the group released a report accusing the national police of "killing and torturing people with near total impunity."
(AFP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Nigeria MEND rebels breached Chevron’s Makaraba-Utonana-Abiteye pipeline and started a fire at the Makaraba Jacket 5 facility in Delta State. MEND also released a British oil sector worker who had been held for nine months.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, Pakistan’s military said at least 39 Taliban militants and 10 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting over the last 24 hours in the northwest Swat valley. Two back-to-back suicide attacks on mosques in the eastern city of Lahore and northwestern garrison town of Nowshera killed six people including vocal anti-Taliban religious scholar Sarfraz Naeemi.
(AFP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 12, In the Philippines fighting with the militant Moro Islamic Liberation Front left 10 dead and 20 wounded. Columnist Antonio Castillo was killed in Masbate province by motorcycle-riding gunmen.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 12, A South Korean newspaper reported that the youngest son of North Korea's authoritarian leader has been given the title of "Brilliant Comrade," a sign the communist regime is preparing to name him as successor to the ailing Kim Jong Il.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, At least 40 south Sudanese soldiers and civilians were killed when tribal fighters ambushed boats carrying UN food aid, the latest in a string of ethnic attacks threatening a fragile peace deal.
(Reuters, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 12, Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis AG said it has successfully produced a first batch of swine flu vaccine weeks ahead of expectations.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Turkey the liberal Taraf newspaper published a copy of “Plan to Combat Islamic Fundamentalism," an alleged military plan hatched last April to overthrow the AK party and to incriminate Turkey’s largest Islamist brotherhood, led by Fetullah Gulen. It was signed by Dursun Cicek, a colonel serving in the army’s psychological warfare unit.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.56)
2009 Jun 12, The UN Security Council agreed to expand an arms embargo against North Korea with the goal of derailing the isolated nation's nuclear and missile programs. It passed Resolution 1874 authorizing the search of North Korean ship suspected of carrying illegal arms.
(AP, 6/13/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.50)
2009 Jun 12, In Yemen nine foreigners, including 3 children, were kidnapped while on a picnic in northern Saada province. 3 of the kidnapped were found dead on June 15. In May 2010 Saudi intelligence forces freed 2 German girls, aged 4 & 6. The fate of the others remained unknown.
(AP, 6/16/09)(AP, 5/18/10)
2009 Jun 13, Six Flags, an American theme park operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.79)
2009 Jun 13, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a vehicle travelling between the eastern provinces of Paktya and Khost, near the border with Pakistan, and killed three Afghan construction workers.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, Algeria's national oil company Sonatrach announced it had awarded a 79.3-billion-dinar (1.11-billion-dollar, 793-million-euro) contract to the Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to build natural gas processing facilities.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Australia it was reported Barry Tannenbaum (43), an expatriate South African businessman, has denied any wrongdoing in an alleged investment scandal. Tannenbaum has been accused of fleecing rich South Africans in what has been billed as one of the country's biggest Ponzi-style investment scandals, according to local and South African media. The massive pyramid scheme reportedly cost wealthy investors up to $1.2 billion.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In China a colorful show of drag queens dressed in Chinese opera costumes was one of the festivities that marked Shanghai's gay pride, the first in China where homosexuality remains largely hidden.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In India a rebellion by left-wing activists began against West Bengal state's communist rulers. About 1,800 state and federal troops were deployed to quell the uprising. By June 18 ten CPM activists had been killed as security camps and party offices were burned down.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Iran supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires as authorities declared the hard-line president was re-elected with 62.6% of the vote to 33.75% to Mousavi. Saeed Leilaz, a university economics professor, was among a number or protesters who were arrested. In March 2010 Leilaz was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, violating public order and participating in a plan to disturb the country's security.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 3/11/10)
2009 Jun 13, Brazil reported that a French ship had found six more bodies from Air France Flight 447, which would bring the total to 50. It went down May 31 with 228 on board.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In India a rebellion by left-wing activists began against West Bengal state's communist rulers. About 1,800 state and federal troops were deployed to quell the uprising. By June 18 ten CPM activists had been killed as security camps and party offices were burned down.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Ingushetia gunmen fatally shoot Bashir Aushev, a former deputy prime minister who oversaw police agencies, as he stands outside his home in Nazran.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Italy tens of thousands of gay rights activists demanding rights for same-sex couples marched through the streets of Rome on Saturday in a gay pride parade.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, An Italian court ordered the recall of 10,000 tons of wood fuel pellets imported from Lithuania over fears that they could have dangerous levels of radioactivity. Test results showed that they contained cesium 137, a highly toxic radioactive substance normally produced by a nuclear explosion or from the combustion of a nuclear reactor. The contaminated pellets themselves were not dangerous to humans, but danger comes from the ashes and the smoke produced when they are burned.
(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Mexico 3 federal agents were killed in two separate attacks along a highway in the western state of Michoacan. In western Guerrero state gunmen ordered a priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in the town of Arcelia.
(AP, 6/14/09)(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Morocco with more than 80% of seats counted, the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) had 4,854 seats, ahead of the governing Istiqlal (Independence) party with 4,246. PAM, founded by Fouad Ali El Himma, was created last year by lawmakers from five parties. It has positioned itself as an alternative to both opposition Islamists and Istiqlal, and has sought to combat voter apathy with promises to follow through on policy commitments. Provisional figures put the turnout at 51%.
(Reuters, 6/13/09)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.42)
2009 Jun 13, North Korea vowed to step up its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war if its ships are stopped as part of new UN sanctions aimed at punishing the nation for its latest nuclear test.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, Pakistan unveiled a deficit national budget, proposing an increase in defense expenditure to help fight Taliban militants while boosting agriculture and industrial output and reducing poverty. Pakistani troops reportedly killed 41 militants overnight in their offensive against the Taliban in the northwest. Jets bombed insurgent hideouts in response to two suicide attacks the previous day. 30 suspected militants were killed in strikes in South Waziristan.
(AFP, 6/13/09)(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In the Philippines Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants holding Eugenio Vagni (62), an Italian Red Cross worker captive, killed five Philippine marines and wounded 10 others in an ambush on southern Jolo Island.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Thailand 2 suspected insurgents riding a motorcycle hurled a bomb at a bus, killing one passenger and wounding 13 others in downtown Yala city. In Yala province's Bannang Sata district, a husband and wife were shot dead in an ambush while riding their motorcycle. In Narathiwat province a village headman's wife was killed and another person wounded while riding a motorcycle to a market.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, A Turkish soldier and a Kurdish rebel were killed in fighting in the southeast of Turkey near the border with Iraq.
(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Vietnam civil rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh (41) was arrested at his home in Ho Chi Minh City. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of sabotaging the communist government. Three other pro-democracy activists, Le Thang Long, Tran Thi Thu and Le Thi Thu Thu, were soon arrested for colluding with Dinh.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 14, In Florida Tyler Hayes Weinman (18), whose divorced parents live in the neighborhoods where many of the cats were killed, was charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body. Police said they investigated more than 30 cat deaths since May and were flooded with tips from concerned citizens.
(AP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 14, Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said more than 250 people, many of them militants and some foreign insurgents, were killed during attacks by the Taliban in 25 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces last week. Police and civilians were also among the dead. He also warned that Islamist militants would attempt to sabotage the August 20 presidential election.
(Reuters, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, Belarus boycotted a Moscow-led security summit to protest a Russian ban on Belarusian dairy products, deepening a politically charged dispute between the two ex-Soviet neighbors. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the other Organization of the Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) leaders signed an agreement creating a joint rapid-reaction force that could bolster the power and prestige of the seven-nation alliance, seen largely as an ex-Soviet answer to NATO.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, In Iran protesters set fires and smashed store windows in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities. Anti-riot police lashed back and the regime blocked Internet sites used to rally the pro-reform campaign.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, Israel’s PM Netanyahu said that he would accept a Palestinian state, but attached conditions such as having no army that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
(AP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 14, Pakistan said it would resort to force against Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. Militants remotely-detonated explosives hidden in a rickshaw, causing chaos at a busy market in Dera Ismail Khan town, with 9 people killed and dozens injured. Jet planes bombed hideouts in the tribal area of Bajaur. Up to 44 suspected militants killed in the onslaught. A US drone attack targeting a militant vehicle killed at least three people, including Uzbek and Arab militants, in the Mardar Algad area of South Waziristan.
(AFP, 6/14/09)(AFP, 6/15/09)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 14, In Sri Lanka the mandate of a presidential commission of inquiry, established two years ago under intense international pressure to investigate earlier claims of abuses in the war, expired without an extension. It had been assigned 16 cases of alleged abuses by both sides, including the 2006 execution-style slaying of 17 aid workers for the French organization Action Against Hunger. Nissanka Udalagama, a former Supreme Court justice who chaired the commission, later said it had only completed work on 7 of the assigned cases. Extensions had been routinely granted in the past, but not this time. Instead, the commission was dissolved.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 14, Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva urged the country not to panic about swine flu, after the number of cases grew nine-fold in four days and a cluster emerged in a key tourist hub. Health authorities reported that confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus soared to 150, compared with just 16 on June 10, including a number of foreigners.
(AFP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 14, Yemen accused a Shiite rebel group of kidnapping 9 foreigners in northern Saada province. The Interior Ministry official said Hassan Hussein Bin Alwan, a Saudi man suspected of financing Al-Qaida cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, has been arrested.
(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 15, Harriet Miers, former White House counsel, during House Judiciary closed door testimony, said former White House political advisor Karl Rove played a central role in the 2006 ouster of New Mexico’s US Attorney David Iglesias as well as 8 other US attorneys.
(SFC, 8/12/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 15, In Indiana the bodies of Dr. Philip Gabriele (44), an eye surgeon, and his wife, Marcella (43), were found at his clinic in Elkhart. Suicide was suspected as they were scheduled to surrender to authorities on charges of performing unnecessary surgeries on patients and bilking money from health insurers.
(SFC, 6/16/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 15, In California the body of Joanne Witt (47) was found at her home in El Dorado Hills, east of Sacramento. On June 17 her daughter Tyler Marie Witt (15) and boyfriend Steven Paul Colver (20), suspects in the stabbing death, were arrested at a strip mall in the Bay Area city of San Bruno. On Nov 24 a judge ruled that Tyler would have to stand trial as an adult.
(SFC, 6/18/09, p.B3)(SFC, 11/25/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 15, Georgia’s Supreme Court ordered Expedia Inc. and its Hotwire.com subsidiary to collect and pay hotel occupancy taxes to the west Georgia city of Columbus in a possible precedent for cities across the country.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 15, US Gen. Stanley McChrystal formally assumed command of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
(SFC, 6/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 15, In Australia Des "Tuppence" Moran (61), a former underworld enforcer, died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head while enjoying a coffee in a suburban cafe. Gangland widow Judy Moran was one of three people later charged in the slaying. On March 9, 2011, Judy Moran (66) was convicted of orchestrating the execution-style murder of her brother-in-law.
(AFP, 6/17/09)(AFP, 3/9/11)
2009 Jun 15, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva brought a message of worker solidarity and economic responsibility to the United Nations. He left with some rare, sharp criticism from human rights groups that once championed his government.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Virgin Media, the cable TV operator owned by entrepreneur Richard Branson, launched a new kind of music download subscription service with Universal, the world's largest music company.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, The European Union agreed to help the administration of President Barack Obama "turn the page" on Guantanamo, saying individual EU nations will take detainees from the American prison in Cuba.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Gambia seven journalists were detained after criticizing the nation's president, who has ruled the tiny country since a 1994 coup.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Iran tens of thousands of supporters of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi streamed through the center of Tehran in a boisterous protest against election results that declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Iran's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud. 7 demonstrators were shot and killed.
(AP, 6/15/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 15, Italy's interior minister defended plans to allow citizen patrols to beef up security amid outrage over a new right-wing guard that has put Fascist and Nazi-like symbols on its uniforms.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi sued three Moroccan newspapers for defamation, seeking eight million euros in damages for "attacks on the dignity of a head of state."
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Mexico's attorney general's office said it charged 51 guards and prison officials, including the director, for their complicity in the escape of 53 inmates from a jail in Zacatecas state. A survey by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said an estimated 9,758 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico between September and February, mainly by drug gangs but some migrants reported that authorities were involved.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Nepal Maoist demonstrators clashed with police in Kathmandu as a general strike called by the former guerrillas' youth wing brought Kathmandu to a standstill.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, The Hague-based International Criminal Court ordered former Congolese rebel warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape and pillaging.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 15, Armed militants in Nigeria's Niger Delta claimed more attacks against facilities run by US oil giant Chevron and warned FIFA against letting the country host the under-17 World Cup tournament.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and China's state oil firm SIPEC said they have discovered crude oil in Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In North Korea tens of thousands rallied in Pyongyang to condemn the UN rebuke of the country's latest nuclear test amid concern the communist regime could conduct another one.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Pakistani forces pounded militants in tribal areas, after vowing an all-out assault on a Taliban chief in the lawless Afghan border region known to be an Al-Qaeda and rebel hideout.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Peru's government promised Amazon Indians to ask Congress to revoke decrees that native groups say would make it easier to exploit their lands for oil, gas and other development.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Moscow vetoed a Western-proposed resolution to extend the mandate of UN monitors in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. It designed to buy time to negotiate a long-term plan for the 16-year-old monitoring mission in the Black Sea rebel region.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 15, Leaders from Central Asia, China and Afghanistan joined Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev at a summit. Members of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and leaders of observer nations (Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia) met in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg for two days of talks that are expected to include extensive discussions of Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Turkmenistan Pres. Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov staged lavish ceremonies for foreign guests and media to launch a new $1.5 billion resort on the desert shore of the Caspian Sea in a city named after his eccentric and autocratic predecessor.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, In Yemen 3 foreign women, including two German nurses and a South Korean teacher kidnapped on June 12, were found dead. Two children were found alive. Nine foreigners, including seven German nationals, a Briton and a South Korean, disappeared June 12 while on a picnic in Yemen’s northern Saada region.
(AP, 6/15/09)(AP, 6/16/09)(SSFC, 6/21/09, p.F3)
2009 Jun 16, The US added six African countries to a blacklist of countries trafficking in people, and put US trading partner Malaysia back on the list. Chad, Eritrea, Niger, Mauritania, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe were added to the list in the annual report. Removed from the list were Qatar, Oman, Algeria, and Moldova.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, US FDA said consumers should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products because they can permanently damage the sense of smell.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Rhode Island became the 3rd state in the US to allow marijuana sales to chronically ill patients as the General Assembly voted to override a veto by Gov. Don Carcieri.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.A7)
2009 Jun 16, GM and Sweden's Koenigsegg said they have struck a deal for Koenigsegg, a niche manufacturer of some of the world's fastest and most expensive sports cars, to buy loss-making Saab Automobile from General Motors.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, The British government declared a goal for Britain become the world's "digital capital" by building cutting-edge broadband, telecoms and media infrastructure to cement its role as a "global economic powerhouse."
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, The $13.5 billion takeover of Barclays Global Investors by BlackRock was finalized. This created the world’s largest asset manager. By 2013 Aladdin, the risk management platform on its computers, kept its eye on almost 7$ of the world’s $225 trillion of financial assets.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.73)(Econ, 9/3/11, p.74)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.25)
2009 Jun 16, A new hydrogen car designed for use in cities and backed by Sebastian Piech, a relative of the founder of German luxury sportscar maker Porsche, was unveiled in London. The two-seater Riversimple Urban Car can travel 240 miles without refueling, weighs just 350 kilograms (770 pounds) and has a top speed of 50 miles per hour.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, China’s Pres. Hu Jintao announced a $10 billion loan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 2001. The SCO grouped China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
(http://tinyurl.com/pr5v65j)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.51)
2009 Jun 16, In the Dominican Rep. Mauricio Encarnacion Castillo and Ramon Antonio del Rosario set cocaine evidence on fire after exchanging gunfire with police conducting a raid. The house in San Pedro de Macoris then caught fire and the men died of smoke inhalation.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Guatemalan authorities confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million, the country's biggest seizure of the methamphetamine precursor.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Indian PM Manmohan Singh met with Pakistan's president for the first time since last year's deadly terrorist attacks on Mumbai, and told him Pakistan must prevent its territory from being used to launch such attacks. The leaders of South Asia's nuclear-armed neighbors met on the sidelines of summits in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Indonesia 16 miners were rescued after a massive explosion of methane gas collapsed a coal mine owned by local residents in West Sumatra province. 5 of the rescued miners died in hospital and the death toll rose to 31 the next day after rescuers unearthed more bodies. One more miner was believed to be buried.
(AFP, 6/16/09)(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, A spokesman said Iran's Islamic leadership is prepared to conduct a limited recount of disputed presidential elections, as thousands of people took to the streets to show support for the regime. Authorities clamped down on independent media in an attempt to control images of election protests, but pictures and videos leaked out anyway, showing how difficult it is to shut off the flow of information in the Internet age.
(AP, 6/16/09)(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Iraq a commuter bus traveling from Baghdad to a southern city caught fire near Kut, killing 14 passengers on board. An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, Italian police said they had arrested 13 people suspected of helping a top Mafia fugitive hide, communicate with other mobsters and conduct his business. Investigators said they are closing in on Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive who is among a handful of mobsters vying to take over the Sicilian Mafia. Most of the arrests were carried out in Trapani, a city in Western Sicily that is the power base of Messina Denaro.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Malaysia Teoh BEng Hock, a young aide to a state councilor, fell from a window where Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officials had been questioning him. The MACC had been created earlier this year from the ashes of another agency.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.48)
2009 Jun 16, In northern Mexico police found the bodies of seven young men who were beaten or shot to death in the state of Durango. In western Michoacan state, three suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with local police in the city of Uruapan. The Navy reported that it had detected a shipment of cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks aboard a freight ship at the Gulf coast port of Progreso.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua made a fresh amnesty offer in Abuja to militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta and promised that an amnesty centre would be set up.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Northern Ireland racist thugs armed with bricks and bottles forced more than 100 Romanian Gypsies from their Belfast homes in a wave of attacks that sent them fleeing to the safety of a nearby church.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, North Korea said that two female US journalists whom it jailed last week for 12 years had admitted a politically motivated smear campaign against the communist state. Ri Hyon Ok (33) was executed in Ryongchon for distributing the Bible. She was also accused of spying for South Korea and the US and organizing dissidents according to later reports by South Korean activists.
(AFP, 6/16/09)(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jun 16, The Norwegian firm Opera Software unveiled new technology that allows it Opera 10 Web browser to also function as a file server. A feature called Opera Unite enables users to push content and establish communications without the need for a 3rd party.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 16, Pakistan's military said it is in the early stages of an operation targeting the country's Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a key stronghold of al-Qaida and other militants.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 16, A Palestinian military tribunal in a security compound in the West Bank town of Jenin sentenced Taghreed, her last name was not released, to a life term of hard labor. The woman (22) said she became an informer for Israel to earn money that would get her out of prostitution.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, In Russia leaders from the world's top emerging economic powers met for their first summit to plot a strategy to increase their clout amid the global crisis. Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) failed to reach consensus on a new reserve currency. They did issue a statement calling for a more diversified int’l. monetary system.
(AFP, 6/16/09)(SFC, 6/17/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 16, Russia welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his first trip abroad since his bitterly disputed re-election, a show of support for a leader facing major protests at home and questions from the West about the legitimacy of the vote count.
(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 17, The Obama administration proposed a sweeping overhaul of the financial system. An 88-page wish list of changes released by the Treasury Dept. would require the approval of Congress and included broad new powers for the Federal Reserve to supervise institutions considered to big to fail. It included a proposal for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).
(SFC, 6/18/09, p.A1)(Econ, 6/20/09, p.77)
2009 Jun 17, A White House official said President Barack Obama, whose gay and lesbian supporters have grown frustrated with his slow movement on their priorities, is extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees but stopping short of a guarantee of full health insurance.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, The Obama administration said it will pump more than $130 million into the , Montana towns of Libby and Troy, where asbestos contamination has been blamed for more than 200 deaths.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 17, Ten large US banks said they had repaid a total of $68 billion in bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
(SFC, 6/18/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 17, The number of Nebraska cattle herds quarantined because of bovine tuberculosis concerns jumped to 42 and Colorado and South Dakota were warned the disease may have already spread there.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, It was reported that security researchers at Finjan, a venture–funded security company in San Jose, have identified a sophisticated online network, called GoldenCashworld, that was used for buying and selling access to infected PCs. The network included tools for creating malicious code and stolen credentials for about 100,000 Web sites.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 17, In southern Afghanistan 3 Danish soldiers were when a bomb exploded as their vehicle passed down Highway 1 heading toward the town of Barakhzai in Helmand province.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In southeastern Algeria Islamist rebels ambushed a military convoy and killed at least 18 gendarmes and one civilian in the deadliest attack on government forces in the last six months. In 2011 a criminal court sentenced six people to death for the attack, for which Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 6/18/09)(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)(AFP, 1/29/11)
2009 Jun 17, Belarus set up customs posts on its border with Russia for the first time in 14 years as a trade dispute between the two countries escalated.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, China and Russia expressed serious concern about tension on the Korean peninsula and, in the face of North Korea's rhetoric, joined international pressure for it to return to nuclear talks.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In China’s Hubei province, the body of Tu Yuangao (24) was found in front of the Shishou city hotel. Xinhua News later said that Tu worked as a chef at the hotel and some believed he was killed by gangsters or by the hotel's boss, who is related to the city mayor. The Communist Party boss of Shishou and head of law enforcement were dismissed on July 25 for mishandling the violent protests that followed Yuangao’s death.
(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jun 17, In China 16 miners became stuck when the Xinqiao Coal Mine flooded in Henan province. 3 of the men were rescued on July 12.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jun 17, Ralf Dahrendorf (80), German thinker and politician, died. He spent his life defining and defending liberty and wrote almost 30 books to this end.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.94)
2009 Jun 17, In Greece gunmen shot dead an anti-terrorist police officer guarding a witness in central Athens, in an escalation of domestic terrorist attacks in the country.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a direct challenge to the country's supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest disputed election results and violence against his followers. International human rights organizations said that many prominent activists and politicians have been arrested in Iran in response to protests over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 6/17/09)(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 17, Iraqi forces acting on tips arrested Ahmed Abid Uwaid (45), a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq leader, who was believed to be a mastermind of the June 12 assassination Harith al-Obeidi, a prominent Sunni lawmaker in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/17/09)(SFC, 6/18/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 17, In Mexico four teenagers were shot to death on a Ciudad Juarez street by gunmen wielding assault rifles. The four were between the ages of 16 and 18.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 17, In Nigeria a Ukrainian plane made an emergency landing due to technical problems in the northern city of Kano. Eighteen crates of mines and ammunition, destined for Equatorial Guinea, were found aboard the aircraft. The crew and a Nigerian collaborator were detained and soon transferred to Abuja for questioning.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 17, Royal Dutch Shell said it had deferred shipments of crude oil from its Nigerian Forcados exports terminal for two months due to delays in repairing a key pipeline damaged by vandals.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In northwest Pakistan tribesman seeking to avenge a deadly mosque bombing killed six Taliban. 22 suspected rebels were killed in the Swat Valley over the last 24 hours in an ongoing military offensive.
(AFP, 6/17/09)(SFC, 6/18/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 17, Somali government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Mogadishu, triggering battles that killed at least 17 people, including Col. Ali Said , the capital's police chief.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, American engineers Raymond Tomlinson (b.1941) and Martin Cooper (b.1928), who were instrumental in developing e-mail and mobile phones, won one of Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias awards for revolutionizing the way people communicate.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 18, The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that William Osborne, a prisoner convicted in Alaska in 1994, has no constitutional right to DNA testing to prove his innocence. In April 2008, a three-judge panel of US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that Osborne should be allowed to obtain new DNA tests. The court said that it is up to the states and Congress to decide such rights.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A7)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/mkmte2)
2009 Jun 18, An Alabama state judge ordered former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to pay nearly $2.9 billion to shareholders who sued over a massive accounting fraud that nearly sent the rehabilitation chain into bankruptcy.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, In a replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial a federal jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset (32) of Minnesota willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions. Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, NASA launched its Lunar Crater Observation and sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The Mission Objectives LCROSS included confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s South Pole.
(AP, 6/18/09)(http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/)
2009 Jun 18, Ali Akbar Khan (87), Indian-born master of the 25-string Sarod, died at his home in San Anselmo, Ca.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.B3)
2009 Jun 18, In southern Afghanistan a bomb strapped to a parked bicycle exploded near a construction office in Kandahar city, killing one employee and a child about 11 years old. Afghan and International forces killed 16 Taliban militants in a gunbattle in Uruzgan province. One police officer also died in the fighting.
(AP, 6/18/09)(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, The Bank of Scotland said Fred Goodwin, its disgraced former boss, has agreed to take a 40% pension cut, after widespread pressure to do so. He will see his annual pension reduced to 342,500 pounds from 555,000 pounds. The agreement was condemned by trade unions who said it did not go far enough.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In northern Albania an explosive device killed Aleksander Keka (34), a conservative regional leader of Albania's opposition Christian Democratic Party, as he drove near Shkodra, 10 days ahead of the country's parliamentary election.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, A study by an environmental group said pollution in the Mekong River is putting the rare Irrawaddy dolphin in danger of disappearing from Cambodia and Laos.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, Canadian officials said about 70,000 harbor seals were killed in this year’s hunt out of a commercial quota of 273,000 animals. The 7-month hunt had ended earlier this week.
(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 18, China's Internet watchdog condemned the Chinese-language version of Google for "disseminating pornographic and vulgar information."
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, China angrily denounced the recent approval by the Asian Development Bank of a 2.9-billion-dollar funding plan for India, saying the scheme encroached on a territorial dispute between the Asian giants. China was particularly concerned about a 60-million-dollar watershed protection project in the Arunachal Pradesh region, where much of China and India's territorial dispute is centered.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Haiti a confrontation between UN peacekeepers and mourners for Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a popular priest allied with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left one person dead. A video showed marchers throwing rocks at UN soldiers, who periodically turned and fired their assault rifles into the air.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Iran supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi for a 4th straight day rallied in the streets of Tehran over the disputed presidential election, answering the opposition leader's call to turn out dressed in black to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Iraq a special committee set up by PM al-Maliki began an investigation into allegations of widespread abuse and torture in Iraq's prisons, which is threatening to become a major issue ahead of Jan. 30 national elections. Four bodies bearing signs of gunshot wounds were found in Baghdad’s Sadr city. Lawmakers loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr later claimed that men appearing to be Iraqi soldiers had stormed two houses in Sadr City and arrested four men, whose bodies were found the next day.
(AP, 6/18/09)(http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=114910)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 18, Mexico levied organized crime and drug charges against seven mayors, the former state attorney general and 19 other officials in the western state of Michoacan for allegedly aiding a drug cartel.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, Nigeria's main militant group said it had destroyed a major crude oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell as it fights a campaign against foreign oil companies.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In northwestern Pakistan suspected US missile strikes pounded the hide-outs of Taliban commander Malang Wazir, killing at least eight people.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Peru a top Indian leader called for an end to protests that left dozens dead in the Amazon region after Congress revoked two decrees that indigenous groups said would spur oil and gas exploitation and other development on their ancestral lands.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 18, In western Somalia a suicide bombing killed at least 25 people including National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden at the Medina Hotel in Belet Weyne. Al-Shabab, an extremist group with alleged links to the al-Qaida terror network, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 6/18/09)(AP, 7/26/09)
2009 Jun 18, Thailand security forces killed four suspected Muslim militants in a gunbattle in southern Yala province.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, The United States joined the UN Human Rights Council, a body widely criticized for failing to confront abuses around the world and for acting primarily to condemn Israel, one of Washington's closest allies.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The US House impeached imprisoned US District Judge Samuel Kent of Texas for lying about sexual assaults of two women. Kent (59) entered a federal prison in Massachusetts on June 15 to serve a 33-month sentence. He pleaded guilty last month to lying to judicial investigators about sexual assaults of two female employees. Kent was refusing to resign until next year so he can continue to draw his $174,000 a year salary. If he is convicted of the impeachment charges in the Senate, he will be forced off the bench.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Federal prosecutors in Virginia indicted Texas financier Allen Stanford (59) and 4 others on fraud and other charges in connection with a multi-billion Ponzi scheme.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 19, US census officials announced that same-sex married couples would be counted for the first time in the 2010 census.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.38)
2009 Jun 19, In Illinois tank cars loaded with thousands of gallons of highly flammable ethanol exploded in flames as a freight train derailed in Rockford, killing Zoila Tellez (41) and forcing evacuations of hundreds of nearby homes.
(AP, 6/20/09)(SSFC, 6/21/09, p.A9)
2009 Jun 19, In Michigan officials said 36 members of 4 violent Detroit street gangs were arrested with immigration, probation, weapons and other violations as part of a nationwide crackdown.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 19, Google Inc. said that it was working to block pornography reaching users of its Chinese service after a mainland watchdog found the search engine turned up large numbers of links to obscene and vulgar sites.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson took part in a ceremonial groundbreaking at the remote site of Spaceport America, about 45 north of Las Cruces. The spaceport was being constructed for commercial space development.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 19, In Afghanistan a university student in Kandahar City was found dead with his throat cut in a side room of a mosque where he had gone to study. A British soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed in an explosion while on patrol near the town of Lashkar Gah in the southern province of Helmand. A roadside bomb tore through a car in the western province of Herat, killing six members of a family. 26 Taliban were killed in an air strike conducted by foreign forces near Lashkar Gah. 7 other insurgents were killed elsewhere in Helmand.
(AP, 6/19/09)(AFP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 19, The Brazilian government apologized for the torture and abuse of 44 poor farmers under the military regime that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985 and announced reparations for the victims.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 19, A top Congo army officer said 32 people have been killed in three days of fighting in eastern Congo between government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu rebels backed by Congolese militia allies.
(Reuters, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei said that the country's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue massive demonstrations demanding a new election.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The bodies of two men were handed over to the British embassy in the Iraqi capital with the Foreign Office saying the remains were "highly likely" to be those of Jason Swindlehurst (38) and Jason Creswell (39). They were among four guards protecting Peter Moore when around 40 heavily armed militants seized all five men at the finance ministry in central Baghdad on May 29, 2007.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 19, EU leaders agreed to establish a European System Risk Board. It was intended to sound an alarm over the build up of risk and to create new European supervisory authorities to keep an eye on big cross-border financial institutions.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.73)
2009 Jun 19, In West Germany 3 German retirees, who lost $1.4 million in the financial crisis, kidnapped James Amburn (56), their American investment adviser, in an attempt to recoup the money. Amburn was freed by police after 4 days. In 2010 the retirees were convicted, with their 74-year-old ringleader and sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 3/23/10)(http://tinyurl.com/yhdokyf)
2009 Jun 19, Isamu Akasaki (80), a professor at Nagoya University in central Japan, was among the winners of this year's Kyoto Prizes. He will receive the advanced technology award for his pioneering work in the development of blue light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. Peter (72) and Rosemary Grant (72), a husband-and-wife team of biologists from Princeton University, won for their decades of research on evolution in the Galapagos Islands and will share an award of $515,000. This year's award in arts and philosophy went to French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (84).
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Mexico authorities in the border city of Ciudad Juarez said they would step up patrols after killings there rebounded to levels near those that led the government to send in 5,000 army troops in March. In Michoacan state gunmen tossed a grenade at an ambulance and then opened its doors to kill a patient inside who had narrowly survived an earlier shooting in Uruapan. Paramedics ran for their lives during the attack. The man (23) died and his wife (20) was listed in serious condition.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 19, Nigeria's main militant group said it had destroyed a major pipeline supplying crude oil to Italian oil group Agip's Brass exports terminal.
(AFP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, Pakistani fighter jets bombed Taliban militant hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, as the death toll from a suspected US missile strike a day earlier rose to 13.
(AFP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, New York Times reporter David S. Rohde (41) escaped from kidnappers in Pakistan after more than seven months in captivity and was flown to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan the next day.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 19, A leading South African research group said one in four male South Africans it surveyed admitted to committing rape, a finding that cast a harsh light on a culture of sexual violence that victims groups say is deeply embedded in society.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, South Korea rejected North Korea's demand for a massive increase in wages and rent at a joint industrial park struggling to stay afloat, leaving the fate of more than 100 companies and 40,000 workers there hanging in balance.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, In Spain a powerful bomb exploded near the Basque city of Bilbao, killing a policeman in an attack blamed on the separatist group ETA.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said one in six people in the world, or more than 1 billion, is now hungry, a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN said Colombia's coca crop shrank by nearly a fifth last year while cultivation of the bush that is the basis of cocaine rose for a third straight year in Peru and Bolivia, the world's two other coca-producing nations.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 20, The US pharmaceutical industry agreed to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, The SF Chronicle displayed a picture of a 9x7x2 foot, miniature, toothpick construct of San Francisco, created over the last 34 years by Scott Weaver of Rohnert Park, Ca. Weaver spent some 3,000 hours creating the work.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 20, It was reported that that the H1N1 swine flu virus has spread to at least 76 countries and caused over 160 deaths, and that Brazilian researchers have identified a new strain of the virus.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.D12)
2009 Jun 20, In eastern Afghanistan one soldier serving with the US-led coalition was killed in an insurgent attack.
(AFP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, In central China hundreds of baton-wielding police dispersed protesters and cordoned off a Shishou city hotel after a young man's mysterious death sparked unrest [see June 17]. In eastern China an explosion at a factory producing quartz sand killed 16 people and injured dozens in Fengyang, a county in Anhui province.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, Greece opened its new, $180.5 million Acropolis Museum with a lavish party, bolstering its long campaign for the return of 2,500-year-old sculptures stripped from the citadel more than two centuries ago. It was designed by Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis.
(AP, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.89)
2009 Jun 20, Indian troops regained control of Lalgarh town captured by Maoists during a rebellion by the left-wing activists against West Bengal state's communist rulers.
(AFP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, In Iran witnesses said police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran in open defiance of Iran's clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A blast at the Tehran shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wounded two. The clashes left at least 10 dead and 100 injured. Among those killed was Neda Agha Soltan (b.1982), whose death was captured on video.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neda_(Iranian_protester))
2009 Jun 20, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki called the withdrawal of US troops from cities by the end of this month a "great victory" and promised it would go ahead as scheduled. Hour later in northern in Taza, a mostly Turkomen city, a truck bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque following prayers, killing 82 people and wounding 163.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 20, Italian police in Sicily said they have arrested 14 people and placed more than 250 under investigation in the country's biggest sweep against Internet child pornography.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, Kashmir valley closed down in the latest protest over the alleged rape and murder of two Muslim women that has triggered massive anti-India demonstrations in the disputed Himalayan region.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 20, Pakistani warplanes resumed strikes against militant hideouts in South Waziristan. There was heavy fighting in the villages of Barwand and Madijan and about 50 militants were killed, the first confirmed militant casualties of the offensive in South Waziristan. A citizens' militia trying to drive out the Taliban killed seven militants in a two-hour clash in the troubled northwest. Another militant was wounded in the fighting night near the village of Patrak. The military killed seven militants and arrested 16 others in Malakand, which includes Upper and Lower Dir, Buner and Swat districts.
(AP, 6/20/09)(AP, 6/21/09)(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, In the southern Philippines suspected Muslim guerrillas hurled two grenades near a crowded town plaza where a beauty contest was being held, killing at least one person and wounding 32 others in the predominantly Christian town of Maasim, Sarangani province.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, Somali lawmakers pleaded for international military intervention within 24 hours to help fight Islamic insurgents, where fierce fighting has resumed in Mogadishu. The government called for troops from Kenya and Ethiopia to come to its aid.
(AP, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.56)
2009 Jun 20, Venezuela’s Commerce Minister Eduardo Saman, a close confidant of President Hugo Chavez, announced that the government would annul patents on some medicines under a reform of existing intellectual property laws. Industry leaders soon responded saying the action could cause shortages and scare off foreign investment.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, In Venezuela authorities arrested Salvatore Miceli, suspected of being a key intermediary in the drug trafficking trade and one of Italy's most dangerous Mafia fugitives, as he left his apartment in Caracas. Police also picked up two other Italian suspects.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 20, Zimbabwean PM Morgan Tsvangirai was booed and shouted down by exiles during a speech in London when he pleaded with them to return home to help rebuild the shattered country.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In Afghanistan a rare rocket attack on Bagram Air Base, the main US base, killed two US troops and wounded six other Americans, including two civilians.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In northeastern Central African Republic 10 people were killed in an attack on the town of Birao. A UFDR spokesman said armed men attacked a base of the former rebels of the Union of Democratic Forces for the Rally, two weeks after a similar attack. They were described as "thieves" from the Kara tribe, an ethnic minority within the UFDR, whose members oppose the leadership of Zakaria Damane, head of the movement.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, In China the Danish-Swedish comedy “Original," about mental illness, won the best picture at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival. It also took the best actor award for lead Sverrir Gudnason.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, Haiti held Senate run-offs elections. Fed up with chronic poverty and unresponsive leaders many stayed away from the elections, ignoring government efforts to improve on the paltry voter turnout that undercut the first round of voting in April.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In central India at least 11 special police personnel were killed and 10 injured in a landmine blast triggered overnight by suspected Maoist rebels in the state of Chhattisgarh.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In Iran an eerie calm settled over the streets of Tehran as state media said authorities had arrested the daughter and four other relatives of ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most powerful men. The reports brought the official death toll for a week of boisterous confrontations to at least 19. Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen, was arrested. He was released on bail on Oct 17.
(AP, 6/21/09)(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Jun 21, It was reported that handguns, rifles and bullets enter Jamaica from the US stoking one of the world's highest murder rates.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, Nigeria's main militant group said it had attacked a Shell offshore facility, the third attack against the Anglo-Dutch company's facilities in Nigeria in one day. The company denied the incident, saying the alleged incident was part of the attack on two other Shell oil pipelines in southern Rivers state earlier in the day.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud.
(Reuters, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, The Portuguese foreign minister said his country will take in 2-3 Guantanamo Bay detainees once they are released by the US detention camp.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 21, In San Juan, Puerto Rico, a lone man who robbed $340,000 from a popular hotel and casino by threatening a supervisor's family.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 21, Ukrainian border guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train from Uzbekistan, where they had been hidden and strapped down with tape to prevent them from moving.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, Pres. Obama, in an effort to curb teen smoking, signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The legislation gave the FDA unprecedented authority to regulate what goes into tobacco products.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A6)(Econ, 6/20/09, p.33)
2009 Jun 22, The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow a mining company to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby 23-acre lake, although the material will kill all of the lake's fish. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called the decision "great news for Alaska" and said it "is a green light for responsible resource development." The Kensington gold mine 45 miles north of Juneau will produce as many as 370 jobs when it begins operation.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Lead, South Dakota, scientists, politicians and other officials gathered for a groundbreaking of sorts at a lab 4,850 foot below the surface of an old gold mine that was once the site of Nobel Prize-winning physics research, a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, Kodak announced that it would discontinue the production of its Kodachrome 64 color film.
(SFC, 7/7/09, p.D1)
2009 Jun 22, In Kansas 4 bodies, including a 3-year-old girl, were found on the front year of a Kansas City home. Adrian Burks (37) was arrested the next day and charged with aggravated battery in the beating of another man hours before the slayings. Two days later Burks was charged with the 4 murders.
(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 22, A Washington DC Metrorail transit system train plowed into another stopped train, killing at least seven people and injuring scores of others. It was part of an aging fleet that federal officials had sought to phase out because of safety concerns.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, US pilot Capt. George B. Houghton (28), of Candler, NC, died in an F-16 crash at the Utah Test and Training Range near the Nevada-Utah state line.
(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 22, The United States dedicated the site of a new $170 million representative office in Taiwan.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed 7 civilians when he drove into the center of eastern Khost city and set off explosives. In Kandahar province another suicide bomber killed 3 Afghan soldiers in an attack on a convoy of troops inspecting a highway bridge for explosives. In eastern Nangarhar province, an explosion at a weapons cache killed a 6-year-old boy and wounded 20 others. A major clash in the southwestern province of Farah left nine militants and two Afghan troops dead.
(AP, 6/22/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, Australian police said that an e-mail challenging PM Kevin Rudd's honesty in his 19-month-old government's biggest political crisis appeared to be a forgery.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In eastern Bolivia 8 men from a Mennonite farming community were arrested following accusations of raping dozens of females at the settlement. 60 women, from 11 to 47 years old, have accused the men of rape.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, Britain pledged an extra five million pounds in aid to Zimbabwe, hailing progress under a new unity government but urging more reform after landmark talks between leaders of the two countries.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Toronto, Canada, garbage collectors, daycare workers and other municipal employees went on strike in a contract dispute that could lead to a prolonged shutdown of important services.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Colombia rebels killed at least seven members of a police counterinsurgency unit in an ambush in the country's southwest.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Democratic Republic of Congo rioting inmates overnight raped around 20 female prisoners during a failed prison break in Goma. Two people were killed and 12 others were injured when prisoners detonated two grenades.
(Reuters, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 22, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of subservience that suppresses women's identities.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, Across eastern and central India security forces were on high alert as Maoists staged a 2-day general strike and the federal government slapped a formal ban on the rebels.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Ingushetia a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy carrying Yunus Bek Yevkurov (45), the president of the troubled Russian province, critically wounding him and killing two bodyguards. A 3rd guard died later from his wounds. A group, which calls itself the Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs' Brigade, later said it staged the attack on the president of Ingushetia because of his support for Kremlin policies and because of his role in the second war in Chechnya that began in 1999.
(AP, 6/22/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, In Iran riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran, carrying out a threat by the country's most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election. The Guardian Council, acknowledged voting irregularities in 50 electoral districts in the June 12 vote, the most serious official admission so far of problems in the election that the opposition has labeled a fraud.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Iraq bombings killed as many as 18 people in the Baghdad area as violence intensified ahead of a planned withdrawal next week of US troops from major cities and urban areas. Bombings and shooting killed over 30 people across Iraq.
(AP, 6/22/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 22, In Italy Khaled Hussein (73), a Palestinian man who helped plan the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, died of a heart attack in a jail in Benevento.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, In Kashmir 4 Indian police officials were suspended over their handling of a rape and murder case that has sent shockwaves through the disputed Muslim-majority region.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 22, Mexican customs officials made 3 major drug seizures. Nearly 1,000 pounds (450 kilos) of cocaine was found hidden in a shipment of tires from Colombia, found at the Pacific port of Manzan. More than 1,200 pounds (545 kilos) of marijuana was discovered in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. 330 pounds (150 kilos) of pseudophedrine pills, used to make methamphetamine, was found in a shipment of medical supplies from Bangladesh, stopped at Mexico City International Airport.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 22, Pakistan's army said they were in the final phase of a campaign to crush militants in Swat valley, as clashes intensified with Taliban fighters in the northwest tribal belt. Militants near the Afghan border launched attacks on three Pakistani military bases and fighter jets responded with airstrikes that killed at least 25 people, mostly insurgents. 3 women and 3 children died when the house of a local tribal leader was hit in the Razmak area. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a police checkpoint in the Bagram district bordering Swat, killing two people.
(AFP, 6/22/09)(AP, 6/22/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 22, An Islamic court in Somalia sentenced four men to have a hand and a leg cut off for stealing mobile phones and guns. The court postponed the punishment the next day saying the hot weather could cause them to bleed to death.
(AP, 6/23/09)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, Pirates off Somalia were chased down and captured by NATO’s Portuguese warship, the Corte-real, after an attempted hijacking of a Singaporean freighter.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 22, In Tanzania a UN court, trying alleged masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, sentenced former interior minister Callixte Kalimanzira (56) to 30 years in prison for tricking thousands of people to hide on a hill, only to watch them get slaughtered by militias.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 23, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the United States is launching a World Trade Organization case against China over its export restrictions on raw materials. The EU said it was joining the US in the action, which follows failure to persuade China to reduce its export tariffs and raise quotas on materials such as zinc, tin, tungsten and yellow phosphorous.
(Reuters, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, CIA director Leon Panetta, learned of a nascent CIA counterterrorism program within the CIA, terminated it and the next day called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees to inform them of the program and that it was canceled. Former Vice President Dick Cheney had directed the CIA in 2001 not to inform Congress about the nascent counterterrorism program, which developed plans to dispatch small teams to kill senior Al-Qaida terrorists.
(AP, 7/12/09)(SFC, 7/14/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 23, In Santa Cruz, California, Clyde Persley (49) turned in his winning SuperLotto Plus ticket and should get his first check for about $16 million in four to six weeks.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 23, Ed McMahon (86), loyal "Tonight Show" sidekick, died. He bolstered boss Johnny Carson with guffaws and a resounding "H-e-e-e-e-e-ere's Johnny!" for 30 years.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Afghanistan 3 German soldiers were killed when their patrol near the northern city of Kunduz came under fire. A suicide car bombing targeting a US-led military convoy in the eastern province of Ghazni killed two passers-by. Also in Ghazni, Taliban ambushed a police convoy, killing a policeman. 3 Afghan aid workers were killed in a roadside bombing in the northern province of Jawzjan. Another blast killed three policeman just outside the southern city of Kandahar. Afghan and coalition forces killed 23 suspected Taliban fighters in a clash in southern Uruzgan province. Mullah Ismail, a Taliban commander in the region, was killed during the clash. A box of leaflets dropped from a British plane killed a girl.
(AFP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Britain wildcat strikes spread to oil refineries and power plants across the country. Thousands of workers demonstrated outside the Lindsey terminal in Lincolnshire, where almost 650 contract workers were sacked by French oil giant Total last week.
(AFP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Bulgarian authorities detained Agim Ceku (59), a former Kosovo prime minister (2006-2008), on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol at Serbia's request. He is wanted for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-1999 war when he was military chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, made up of ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 23, The French parliament created a commission to study the wearing of body-covering burqas and niqabs in France, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Islamic garment turns women into prisoners.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Frederic Mitterrand (b.1947) was appointed to the French government as the Minister of Culture and Communications.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Mitterrand)
2009 Jun 23, An Indian court issued arrest warrants for 22 Pakistani nationals accused of masterminding last year's deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks, including the founder of an Islamist militant group recently freed by a Pakistani court.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Iran's top electoral body said it found "no major fraud" and will not annul the results of the presidential election, closing the door to a do-over sought by angry opposition supporters alleging systematic vote-rigging. The 12-member Guardian Council also received approval for an extension of its examination to June 29. 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 6/23/09)(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A2)(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 23, Abdel Aziz Duaik, the most senior Hamas leader being held by Israel, was freed after serving the bulk of his three-year sentence.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, A Kyrgyz parliamentary committee approved a deal in which the United States has agreed to pay more than triple the previous rent for use of a key air base in Kyrgyzstan to ship non-lethal military supplies to Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Mauritania gunmen attempted to kidnap Christopher Ervin Leggett (39), an American teacher, then shot and killed him when he tried to resist. Leggett had taught at a center specializing in computer science in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott. Al-Qaida's North Africa branch soon claimed responsibility for the killing. On July 17 police arrested two suspects in the killing. On July 24 a 3rd suspect, Didi Ould Bezeid (26), was arrested in Nouakchott.
(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jun 23, Northern Ireland’s government said more than 100 Romanian Gypsies who suffered racist attacks and intimidation in Belfast are being flown back home at taxpayer expense.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 23, In Pakistan 3 unmanned drones fired missiles at the funeral procession for suspected militants killed in South Waziristan by a similar strike earlier in the day. As many as 50-80 people were reported killed. Taliban faction leader Qari Zainuddin was fatally shot in Dera Ismail Khan, reportedly by one of his own guards. He was seen as the chief rival to Baitullah Mehsud, the militant group's Pakistani head.
(AP, 6/23/09)(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 23, Serbia's war crimes court convicted Damir Sireta, a Croatian Serb man, for the execution-style killings in Vukovar of some 200 Croatian prisoners of war in 1991 during the Balkan conflict. Sireta was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Swedish retailer IKEA announced that it was suspending its investment in Russia because of “the “unpredictable character of administrative procedures, a euphemism for graft.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.63)
2009 Jun 24, In Arizona Trenda Lynne Halton of Peoria was indicted for recruiting as many as 136 people to pose as college students and defrauding the government out of nearly $154,000 in student aid money.
(SFC, 6/24/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 24, In Arizona a private plane crashed killing 4 people. The plane was returning to Texas from California and carried over 12 pounds of marijuana and over $8,000 cash.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 24, Ed Thomas, Iowa high school football coach, was shot at Aplington-Parkersburg High School while training in the school weight room. Thomas soon died of his wounds and former student Mark Becker (24) was arrested for the murder.
(www.iowa.gov/government/ag/latest_news/releases/july_2009/Mark_Becker.html)
2009 Jun 24, South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Stanford confessed to having an affair with a woman in Argentina and resigned as head of the Republican Governors Association.
(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 24, The Gosaibi family of Saudi Arabia held a creditor’s meeting in Bahrain. Their representatives revealed that the group owed $9.2 billion to over 120 banks all over the world.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.65)
2009 Jun 24, Denmark's Post Danmark A/S and Sweden's Posten AB merged to form the new holding company Posten Norden AB in the industry’s first-ever cross border tie up.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Danmark)
2009 Jun 24, Iran's supreme leader said that the government would not yield to demonstrators demanding the annulment of a disputed presidential election. The wife of the opposition leader said protesters would not buckle under a situation she compared to martial law. 70 university professors were detained after a meeting with opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the June 12 vote. All but four of the professors were soon released. Iranian authorities barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.
(AP, 6/24/09)(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 24, In northern India a passenger bus plunged into a gorge, killing at least 25 people in Jammu-Kashmir state.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, In Indian-ruled Kashmir thousands of people defied a ban on protest marches with a fresh demonstration over the alleged rape and murder of two young Muslim women by Indian troops.
(AFP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, In Iraq an explosion late in Sadr City killed 78 people and wounded 158. The bomb was built using about 200 kilograms (441 pounds) of high explosives packed with steel bearing and other metal objects. It was apparently loaded on a motorcycle pulling a cart.
(AP, 6/25/09)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A3)(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 24, The Nigerian government met with militants from the oil-producing states of the Delta to make an amnesty offer for fighters who cease hostilities in the south of the country. President Umaru Yar'Adua ordered the release of the leader of a militant group from the oil-rich Niger Delta. Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, head of the Niger Delta People's Volunteers Force (NDPVF), was arrested the previous evening on returning from a medical exam in Germany.
(AFP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev arrived in Nigeria to sign gas and nuclear energy pacts, becoming the first Kremlin leader to visit Africa's most populous and energy-rich nation.
(AFP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, North Korea threatened to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days. Meanwhile a US destroyer tailed a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of UN sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 24, Venezuela and the United States said they will restore their ambassadors more than nine months after President Hugo Chavez expelled the US envoy in his final diplomatic bout with the Bush administration.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 25, US officials acknowledged that the US organized an arms shipment to the Somali government earlier this month.
(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 25, Farrah Fawcett (b.1947), a 1970s sex symbol and TV star of "Charlie's Angels" (1976), died in Santa Monica, Ca. She had spent almost three years in private fighting for her life against cancer. The news came just a month after the airing of "Farrah's Story," a documentary in which she made public her painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, Michael Jackson (b.1958), pop superstar, died at age 50 in Los Angeles. His 1982 album, "Thriller," is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide. Jackson was awash in about $400 million in debt and on the cusp of a final comeback after well over a decade of scandal. On Aug 28 the office of the LA coroner confirmed that Jackson’s death was ruled a homicide caused by a mixture of propofol and lorazepam administered by Dr. Conrad Murray.
(AP, 6/26/09)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A11)(SFC, 8/29/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 25, Scientists reported new evidence that one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, has an ocean beneath its surface.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Antigua's former chief financial regulator surrendered to face US charges that he aided an alleged $7 billion swindle by Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved a law that could legalize landholdings by some 1 million squatters occupying a Texas-sized chunk of the Amazon rain forest, despite environmentalist fears it will accelerate deforestation.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, The government of East Timor said it plans to establish a national park to protect a bounty of dolphins and whales, some of them endangered species, recently discovered mingling and feeding off its coast.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, The EU said it will give China up to euro50 million ($70 million) to build a carbon capture and storage plant that will test a technology aimed at limiting climate change.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Honduras Pres. Manuel Zelaya said he would ignore a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to reinstate a military chief he fired.
(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 25, Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, pledged not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner, hard-line Pres. Ahmadinejad, accused US Pres Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, A bombing at a bus station in a Shiite neighborhood in southwest Baghdad killed at least 7 people and wounded 31 others. Another three bombs and a mortar killed two more people around the capital. At least 3 other bombs exploded in the country as US forces prepared to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30.
(AP, 6/25/09)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 25, Israeli and Palestinian defense officials said Israel has granted US-trained Palestinian security forces greater autonomy in four major West Bank cities. Bowing to pressure from Washington Israeli officials said the army would now reduce its presence in Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Jericho and Ramallah.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Italy foreign ministers of the industrialized Group of Eight gathered for a 3-day meeting in Trieste. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he hoped delegates from the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia will condemn the crackdown in Iran and urge a recount.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Kyrgyzstan's parliament unanimously approved a deal allowing the US to continue using an air base crucial to military operations in Afghanistan, sharply shifting course months after ordering American forces out by August. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the agreement into law in early July.
(AP, 6/25/09)(AP, 7/7/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Mexico’s northern state of Sonora, assailants opened fire on a car carrying a congressional candidate for Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, killing two people who were with the candidate.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Namibia Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev called for boosting trade ties with Namibia, at the start of the first-ever visit by a Kremlin chief to the southern African nation. Pres. Hifikepunye Pohamba said his nation was also keen to strengthen cooperation and build a durable economic partnership.
(AFP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Nigerian rebels said that they carried out a pre-dawn attack against Royal Dutch Shell facilities in a warning to Russia not to invest in the country's oil and gas industry. Later in the day the main militant group blew up a well-head in a Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) oil field in Delta state, hours after President Umaru Yar'Adua announced an amnesty offer for gunmen.
(AFP, 6/25/09)(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 25, Tens of thousands of North Koreans shouted slogans to denounce international sanctions at a rally in central Pyongyang, as the communist country vowed to enlarge its atomic arsenal and warned of a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" in the event of a US attack.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Pakistan's PM Gilani told Washington's visiting top security adviser that the US must halt drone attacks on its soil, after they killed dozens of people in the northwest.
(AFP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Russia's Supreme Court overturned the acquittal of three men charged with the 2006 murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist whose reporting on Chechnya directly challenged the country's most powerful leaders.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Somalia in a brazen show of power in Mogadishu, Islamist rebels punished four convicted thieves (ages 18-25) by cutting off a hand and a foot each before hundreds of onlookers who gathered for the bloody spectacle.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 25, Spanish legislators voted to change a law that let judges indict Osama bin Laden and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, narrowing its scope to cases with a clear link to this country and yielding to criticism that Spain should not be a global cop.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jun 26, US District Judge Denny Chin entered a preliminary order, ruling that Bernard Madoff (71) must give up his interests in all property, including real estate, investments, cars and boats. The $171 billion forfeiture order was handed down only days before prosecutors seek to put the disgraced financier away in prison for the rest of his life.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Georgia regulators shut down the Community Bank of West Georgia, marking the 41st failure this year of a federally insured bank.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.B1)
2009 Jun 26, In Michigan Monica Conyers (44), Detroit City Councilwoman and wife of Rep. John Conyers (80), pleaded guilty to taking cash in exchange for her vote on a 2007 city sludge treatment contract with Synagro Corp. The contract was rescinded last January amid accusations of wrongdoing. On June 29 Monica Conyers resigned from office.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A5)(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 26, In Oklahoma 9 people died when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped outside Miami, Okla. A 10th person died a few days later.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 26, In Texas security guard Jesse William McGraw (25), head of the Elecktronik Tribulation Army, was arrested for hacking into computers at a Dallas medical clinic in hopes of launching a massive computer attack around July 4.
(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 26, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik, accused by the UN of being linked to al Qaeda, flew out of Sudan after a court order ended his six-year exile in Khartoum. Abdelrazik was born in Sudan and gained Canadian citizenship in 1995 after entering the country as a refugee. He returned to Sudan in 2003 to visit his sick mother and was arrested and held by Sudanese authorities on two occasions.
(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Dozens of China's most prominent writers and scholars called for the release of Liu Xiaobo (53), a dissident who was arrested on Dec 8, 2008, after co-authoring a bold manifesto urging civil rights and political reforms. Xiaobo, who had been held by police at a secret location for more than six months, was formally arrested this week on suspicion of "inciting to subvert state power," a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail. In southern China ethnic tensions between workers at a toy factory sparked a brawl that left two Uighurs dead and 118 injured. Han Chinese workers had accused Uighurs of rape.
(AP, 6/26/09)(AP, 6/27/09)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.27)(AP, 10/2/10)
2009 Jun 26, Holocaust survivors, Jewish groups and experts gathered in Prague to assess efforts to return property and possessions stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners or heirs.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Martinique is free to hold a referendum on greater political autonomy but made clear the island would always belong to France.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Honduras leftist President Manuel Zelaya pushed ahead with a June 27 referendum on revamping the constitution, risking his rule in a standoff against Congress, the Supreme Court and the military.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Group of Eight foreign ministers, meeting in Trieste, Italy, criticized Iran's postelection violence, and urged its ruling clergy to ensure the outcome of the disputed ballot reflects the will of the Iranian people. The G8 countries also condemned North Korea's nuclear and missile tests and called on the country to return to the negotiating table.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Iraq a booby-trapped motorcycle loaded with nails and ball-bearings exploded in a crowded bazaar in Baghdad, killing 19 people. The attack struck just four days before the deadline for US combat troops to withdraw from cities. Senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami called for harsh retribution for dissent. Opposition leader Mousavi lost his main link to the world after his official Web site Kalemeh, came up blank and stripped of any text or pictures.
(AP, 6/26/09)(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, Iraqi authorities captured Ali Hussein Alwan Hamid al-Azzawi, a senior leader of a militant group linked to al-Qaida in Iraq who oversaw the Aug 19, 2003, bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad and other attacks. His capture was not announced until Jan 16, 2010, to ensure the capture of other suspects believed to be linked to him.
(AP, 1/16/10)
2009 Jun 26, Ireland recognized the legal rights of same-sex couples for the first time in a civil partnership bill that gave people in long-term relationships many of the statutory rights of married couples.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, The Quartet of Mideast negotiators called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip. The US, Russia, UN and EU met on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers, who made a similar call for Mideast peace.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Kashmir a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up near an army vehicle, killing at least two soldiers in the first such assault in Pakistan's part of divided Kashmir, marking an escalation in the militant campaign against security forces.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Mexico a shootout between police and suspected cartel hit men left at least 12 people dead and a police officer wounded in the town of Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato state. Suspected cartel operator Omar Ibarra was caught on a street in the northern city of Monterrey. He reportedly possessed the names of 33 policemen in the wealthy suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia who had presumably received money from Ibarra. Gunmen in the border state of Sonora opened fire on a car carrying congressional hopeful Ernesto Cornejo, killing two people who were riding with him.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Morocco a security official said security forces have arrested five suspected members of a militant cell that operated in Morocco and Spain. The five alleged members of the Salafiya Jihadia group, whose leader uses the pseudonym Abou Yacine, were picked up during the course of the week.
(AFP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Four Nigerian militant factions accepted in principle an amnesty offer from President Umaru Yar'Adua, giving a boost to his efforts to end years of unrest in Africa's biggest oil industry. The amnesty will take effect from August 6.
(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Rwanda Aloys Nsekarije, former Rwandan foreign minister and business tycoon, was acquitted by a court over involvement in the country's 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Serbian prosecutors filed war crimes charges against 17 former Kosovo guerrillas for the alleged murder, rape and torture of Serb civilians. The suspects were charged in connection with the kidnapping of 159 Serbs and the deaths of at least 51 of them in the eastern Kosovo town of Gnjilane in the wake of Kosovo's 1998-99 war.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Switzerland Solar Impulse, a project run by aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, unveiled a prototype solar powered airplane, the HB-SIA.
(AP, 6/26/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.83)
2009 Jun 26, Turkey's parliament passed legislation aimed at meeting European Union membership criteria to ensure military personnel are tried in civilian courts during peacetime rather than in military courts.
(Reuters, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, The UN refugee agency said that the bloody conflict in Somalia has created the world's largest refugee camp, with 500 hungry and exhausted refugees pouring into a wind-swept camp in neighboring Kenya every day.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, Human Rights Watch said that Zimbabwe's armed forces have taken over diamond fields in the east and killed more than 200 people, forcing children to search for the precious gems and beating villagers who get in the way.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 26, A UN official said Ugandan rebels this year have killed around 1,200 Congolese civilians and abducted 1,500, mostly children, in a remote region of northeast Congo.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 27, The United States announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts. Insurgent bomb attacks in Afghanistan killed a provincial deputy police chief and two civilians as Taliban militants stormed a checkpoint overnight and killed eight policemen. President Hamid Karzai called on Taliban and other militants to "vote for the president they want" in Afghanistan's presidential election, while a Taliban spokesman said militants would "disrupt" the vote without harming civilians.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AFP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Los Angeles County a gunman opened fire outside a restaurant in Pico Rivera during a fundraiser by the motorcycle group know as the Old School Riders. 3 people were killed and 7 others injured.
(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 27, In Roanoke, Virginia, William Ronald Carter (56), a retired tire factory worker, shot and killed his wife Bonnie (56) and a son (29) and summoned home another son Timothy (22), who was shot but survived. Carter then set the house on fire and killed himself.
(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 27, Gale Storm (b.1922 as Josephine Owaissa Cottle), singer and former film and TV star, died. Her wholesome appearance and perky personality made her one of early television's biggest stars on "My Little Margie" (1952-1955) and "The Gale Storm Show" (1956-1960). Her 1980 autobiography was titled "I Ain't Down Yet."
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In China a nearly finished 13-story apartment building collapsed in Shanghai killing one worker. Authorities soon detained nine people in an investigation into the collapse.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Dagestan Interior Ministry troops patrolling a village south of Makhachkala clashed with a group of 10 gunmen who tried to hole up in village houses, but were driven into surrounding hillsides. A police officer was killed. Officials then called in helicopter gunships and armored vehicles to shell the forests where the gunmen hid out. Troops sweeping the forest the next morning found the bodies of four gunmen.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Hong Kong Michael Mudd, a student at California State University, Chico, caused the crash of a taxi and the death of its driver before commandeering the vehicle and slamming it into another cab. In 2010 Mudd (23) was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2009 Jun 27, In Ireland some 12,000 people marched in this year’s Gay Pride Parade in downtown Dublin.
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 27, Kyrgyzstan security forces killed three alleged members of a terrorist organization in a shootout. Authorities identified the gunmen as Islamic militants and said one of those killed was their leader, a Kyrgyz citizen who had received training at a terrorist camp in Pakistan. Another of the dead was from Khanabad, a town in neighboring Uzbekistan. The security ministry said they belonged to the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), an obscure organization that Uzbek authorities have claimed is a splinter group of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 27, Lebanon's president appointed parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri to become prime minister after his pro-Western coalition defeated a Hezbollah-led alliance in this month's election.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Mauritania more than 10 months after being overthrown in a military coup, President Sidi Cheikh Ould Abdallahi, the country’s first freely elected president, gave up his claim to power and officially resigned.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Mexico’s western state of Michoacan, gunmen opened fire on a car carrying two forensic investigators in Zamora, killing a chemist and wounding a doctor. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, a women and her 3-year-old son were shot to death by unidentified assailants on a highway. Police uncovered a mass grave in central Mexico with the remains of 14 or 15 people believed to have been executed by the Zetas drug gang.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 27, NATO and Russia agreed to resume military ties and agree to cooperate on Afghanistan, counterterrorism and anti-piracy patrols at their first high-level meeting since last year's war between Russia and Georgia.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, Northern Ireland's oldest paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, announced its full disarmament, a long-sought peacemaking move that, if confirmed, would formally end the pro-British group's decades of terror against Irish Catholics.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Pakistan at least 12 militants were killed and more than a dozen wounded when government forces attacked suspected bases of Mehsud and his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in South Waziristan. Two Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban militant hideouts in Makeen and Laddah, killing 10 Taliban and injuring 15 others. Overnight, police killed five suspected militants with links to Mehsud who were said to be plotting terrorist attacks on the port city of Karachi. Militants fired six rockets at a security camp and a paramilitary fort in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan. Security forces in retaliation shelled the militants, killing two and wounding three others. A resident said the shelling also killed two civilians and wounded three others. Insurgents fired rockets at Pakistani forces at a South Waziristan paramilitary Frontier Corps camp, killing an officer and injuring three soldiers.
(AFP, 6/27/09)(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In the Philippines two soldiers were shot dead by suspected Abu Sayyaf members as they stepped outside of their camp to buy cigarettes in Tipo-tipo town, Basilan Island.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Thailand more than 18,000 "Red Shirt" protesters loyal to fugitive premier Thaksin Shinawatra gathered in Bangkok for the biggest anti-government rally since bloody riots two months ago.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 27, Thousands of Venezuelans held separate protests to support and condemn an opposition-aligned TV station that President Hugo Chavez's government has threatened with closure.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 28, The US Agriculture Department said a Colorado meat company is expanding a recall of beef due to possible contamination by E.coli O157:H7 bacteria after an investigation found 18 illnesses may be linked to the meat.
(Reuters, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, It was reported that bark beetles were killing millions of pine trees from Colorado to Canada. Over 7 million acres of forest in the US have been declared all but dead. 22 million more acres were expected to die over the next 15 years.
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.A16)
2009 Jun 28, Impressionist Fred Travalena (66), a headliner in Vegas showrooms and a regular on late-night talk shows with his takes on presidents, crooners and screen stars, died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, Billy Mays (50), known to television viewers as the OxiClean guy, died of a heart attack at his Tampa home. The boisterous pitchman aired on commercials hundreds of times a week nationwide showing off his latest cleaning product or gadget. An autopsy later showed that cocaine use contributed to his heart disease.
(AP, 6/29/09)(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A4)(SFC, 8/8/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 28, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber attacked a police vehicle in Nangarhar province, killing a child nearby and wounding nine people, including four policemen.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Albanians voted in parliamentary elections seen as a crucial test of democracy to prove the Balkan country is ready for EU membership. The governing Democratic Party and the opposition Socialist Party were neck-and-neck in pre-election polls. PM Berisha’s Democrats won 68 seats and allies won 2 seats in the 140-seat parliament.
(AP, 6/28/09)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A2)(SFC, 7/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 28, Argentina's first couple suffered a stunning setback in an election seen as a referendum on their political dynasty, losing control of both houses of Congress. The loss weakened President Cristina Fernandez's government two years before she leaves office by diminishing her ability to push legislation through Congress. Former President Nestor Kirchner, lost a bid for a seat from Buenos Aires province. Allies of the first couple also lost key races in the election in the city of Buenos Aires and Cordoba and Santa Fe provinces.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, The Australian navy intercepted a refugee boat with 194 people aboard off the country's northwest coast. It was the 15th suspected people-smuggling craft to have been stopped in Australian waters or to have made landfall since January.
(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Egyptian security forces arrested a leading member of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and three others in pre-dawn raids. Egyptian police shot dead a migrant and wounded two others as they tried to enter Israel illegally.
(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Guinea-Bissau held elections for a new leader to replace the late President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, who was assassinated more than three months ago. The population of Guinea-Bissau stood at about 1.5 million. Leading a pack of 11 candidates were three former presidents seeking to retake the post. The election was marked by one of the lowest turnouts ever. If no candidate wins an overall majority in the first round, the election will go to a run-off between the two highest-placed contenders on July 28.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Honduras more than a dozen soldiers arrested President Manuel Zelaya and disarmed his security guards after surrounding his residence before dawn. Protesters called it a coup and flocked to the presidential palace as local news media reported that Zelaya was sent into exile in Costa Rica. He was detained shortly before voting was to begin on a constitutional referendum the president had insisted on holding even though the Supreme Court ruled it illegal and everyone from the military to Congress and members of his own party opposed it. The nonbinding referendum was to ask voters if they want to hold a vote during the November presidential election on whether to convoke an assembly to rewrite the constitution. Roberto Micheletti, the leader of Congress, was sworn in to serve until Zelaya's term ends. This was the first military ouster of a Central American president since 1993, when Guatemalan military officials refused to accept President Jorge Serrano's attempt to seize absolute power.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In India hundreds of gay rights supporters waved flags and danced past traffic during marches through three Indian cities to celebrate gay pride and call for the decriminalization of homosexuality in this deeply conservative country.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In India at least 35 people including eight children were killed after they were struck by lightning in the adjoining eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Ingushetia in a region bordering Chechnya to the east, police troops clashed with militants in an overnight gunbattle that killed four militants and one police officer.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Iranian media reported that eight local British embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests. Rot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran. It was Iran's first major post-election unrest in four days.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Iraq a roadside bomb targeting a US convoy in eastern Baghdad wounded six bystanders. It was unclear if anyone in the convoy was injured. A car bomb also exploded in the parking lot of a police academy in western Baghdad, killing one police officer and wounding six others. Insurgents were apparently taking advantage of a major sandstorm that blanketed Baghdad and reduced visibility to just a few yards in some places.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Lebanon a Sunni woman (30) was killed and three men were wounded in a gunbattle between Sunni supporters of Lebanon's prime minister-designate and parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, and rival followers of the Hezbollah-allied Shiite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, Mexican prosecutors announced they have put 93 police officers and investigators under house arrest on suspicion of aiding the Zetas, a feared gang of hit men tied to the Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Nigeria at least eight people were killed in the collapse of a three-story building in Lagos, the capital.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, The Pakistani government offered a $615,000 reward for information leading to the capture or death of Baitullah Mehsud. Fighter jets bombarded militant hideouts in Samm village of Laddha town in South Waziristan, killing 8 rebels. An ambush by rival Taliban under Gul Bahadur killed 23 soldiers in North Waziristan. 10 suspected militants were also killed in the attack. A stray mortar shell hit a mosque during prayers in Azam Warsak in South Waziristan, killing 3 tribesmen and wounding 7.
(AP, 6/28/09)(AP, 6/29/09)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A2)(Econ, 7/25/09, p.38)
2009 Jun 28, In the Philippines 7 policemen killed in an attack by suspected Muslim guerrillas on the restive southern island of Basilan.
(AFP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, Somali pirates released the entire crew of the Belgian the Pompei dredger, a ship seized on April 18, after a ransom was paid.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Sudan 6 people were killed in weekend tribal clashes between Nuba and Misseriya tribesmen in Sudan's South Kordofan region, which borders Darfur.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 28, Swiss police said they have uncovered a child pornography ring involving more than 2,000 people in 78 countries.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 29, The US Supreme Court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Bernard Madoff (71) was sentenced in NYC to 150 years in prison for his multibillion-dollar fraud scheme.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that a grasshopper invasion was under way in Utah. This year's invasion in Tooele County west of Salt Lake City was worse than anyone can remember.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Afghanistan gunfire broke out after Afghan forces moved into a heavily protected government complex in Kandahar and demanded the release of a man accused of forging documents who was being held there. When the Afghan forces threatened to release the suspect by force, the provincial police chief was called in to talk. Among the officials killed were provincial police chief Matiullah Qati and the province's criminal investigations director. Total death tolls from Afghan officials ranged from between five and 10 police killed. 41 private guards were disarmed and arrested. They were to be sent to Kabul for a military trial.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that Australian scientists have developed a "trojan horse" therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs. Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the "trojan horse" therapy in the past two years.
(Reuters, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Bangladesh textile workers set fire to a factory in a third day of demonstrations for payment of wages, as the global economic crisis hits the South Asian country's main export industry.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Belarus Vasily Yusepchuk (30), an illiterate, itinerant Gypsy worker, was sentenced to death by Brest Regional Court. He did chores for elderly women, and allegedly would sneak back at night to rob and strangle them. Lawyers insisted the case hinged exclusively on a confession that they claim was obtained through torture.
(AP, 10/13/09)
2009 Jun 29, In China two passenger trains collided in Hunan province in an accident that killed three people and injured 60 as train cars were derailed and nearby houses knocked over. In northeastern China one man died after part of a bridge caved in, sending eight vehicles plunging into the river below.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China urged Beijing to reconsider implementing a controversial Internet filter, saying it raised serious concerns about security, privacy and user choice.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, The European Commission said top mobile telephone suppliers have agreed to back an EU-wide harmonization of phone chargers, hailing the pact as good news for consumers and the environment.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Representatives of a 500-member team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said that despite improvement Albania has not complied with international standards in its parliamentary elections dues to the politicization of the process and the political mistrust.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Haiti’s President Rene Preval's party won five of 11 contests to fill open Senate seats, according to preliminary results released by the provisional electoral council. Turnout in the latest voting was even lower than the 11 percent tallied in the first round. No official percentage has been reported for the June 21 elections.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, Iran conducted a partial recount of votes cast in its disputed presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked a top judge to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman who has become a potent symbol of the opposition's struggle. Iranian authorities said 17 protesters and eight Basijis have been killed in two weeks of unrest, and that hundreds of people have been arrested. The Guardian Council, an electoral authority the opposition accused of favoring Ahmadinejad, said that it had found only "slight irregularities" after randomly selecting and recounting 10 percent of nearly 40 million ballots.
(AP, 6/29/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Iraq four US soldiers were killed in combat shortly before the American military completed a withdrawal from Iraq's cities. PM al-Maliki assured Iraqis that government forces taking control of urban areas on June 30 were more than capable of protecting the country.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, Israeli court documents indicated the government has approved construction of 50 new housing units in a West Bank settlement to absorb settlers who are to be evicted from a nearby unauthorized outpost.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Italy a freight train carrying liquefied gas derailed and exploded in the midst of the Tuscan town of Viareggio just before midnight, setting off a fire that killed 21 people, many as they slept in their homes. At least 50 were injured. An axle failure was blamed for the rail disaster.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/1/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jun 29, Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, became the 186th member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The ceremony was held in Washington, DC, because the US government is the repository for the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement that created the post-World War II international financial system.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Mexico federal prosecutors released three of the 10 Mexican mayors arrested last month in an unprecedented sweep of elected officials accused of protecting a drug cartel. Assailants set ablaze a pickup truck belonging to a congressional candidate for PAN, and left two threatening notes demanding he drop out of the race. At least five people died in several drug-related slayings in the Gulf coast port of Veracruz.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 29, Three Moroccan newspapers were ordered to pay a total of three million dirhams (270,000 euros) to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who had sued them for writing critical articles.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Presidents from around Latin America gathered in Nicaragua for meetings on how to resolve the coup in Honduras, the fist in Central America in at least 16 years, while the European Union offered to help start talks between the two sides. Security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to scatter protesters, who hurled rocks and bottles as they retreated. At least 38 protesters were detained. Zelaya said that Organization of American States Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza had agreed to accompany him back to Honduras.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Niger’s Pres. Mamadou Tandja issued a decree dissolving a constitutional court, which had rejected his bid to hold a referendum to change the constitution so he could extend his time in office. The next day opposition leader Mahamadou Issoufou, expressed outrage over the president's disbanding of the court, calling the move equivalent to a coup.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 29, Nigerian rebels announced a new raid against a Shell oil facility and said they had killed at least 20 soldiers in a gun battle, a claim denied by the security forces.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, Pakistani security forces launched an early morning raid on a suspected militant hideout in Tank, a small city near South Waziristan, killing two suspected militants and arresting nine others. 21 militants reportedly died in overnight clashes with an anti-Taliban militia in Kurram tribal region. Violence over the 24 hours claimed nearly 70 lives in the northwest region bordering Afghanistan.
(AP, 6/29/09)(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 29, Pope Benedict XVI signed his latest encyclical, "Charity in Truth," a text on ways to make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor amid the worldwide financial crisis.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai's party boycotted a meeting of the cabinet on the grounds that it made a mockery of the country's power-sharing deal. Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe has won 950 million dollars in credit lines from China, the largest loan secured by the unity government since it was formed in February.
(AFP, 6/29/09)AFP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Navy Adm. James Stavridis replaced Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock at a change of command ceremony at the US military's Patch Barracks near Stuttgart attended by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stavridis, as the new head of the US European Command and NATO's top military leader, said quelling the Afghan insurgency would take more than bullets, calling for efforts to rebuild roads, schools and farms to win local support against the Taliban. A US soldier went missing and was believed captured by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. He was later identified as Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl (23) of Ketchum, Idaho.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/2/09)(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jun 30, Boston disbanded its mounted police unit due to budget cuts. Founded in 1873 it was the first mounted unit in the country.
(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 30, Minnesota’s state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Democrat Al Franken should be certified the winner. Republican Norm Coleman pulled the plug on a bitter election that was decided by 312 votes out of almost 2.9 million cast. Franken's victory gave Democrats 60 Senate seats, the critical number needed to overcome Republican filibusters.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Michigan gunmen in a green minivan opened fire on a group of teenagers waiting at a bus stop near a Detroit school, wounding seven including two who were in critical condition.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, In California August Provost (29), a black and gay sailor, was burned and killed during an arson attack at Camp Pendleton. On July 31 Petty Officer Jonathan (32) was found dead of suicide in the base’s brig.
(SSFC, 8/2/09, p.A9)(http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/20/why-did-august-provost-die)
2009 Jun 30, The African Union Executive Council announced it was lifting sanctions against Mauritania despite the coup held there 10 months ago. The sanctions could be enforced again if the presidential election due July 18 aren't considered fair.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, Authorities in Argentina's capital and Buenos Aires province declared health emergencies and extended school vacations as the nation's swine flu death toll surged to 35.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Australian serial rapist John Xydias (45) was jailed for 28 years. For over 15 years he had dressed his unconscious victims in his collection of women's underwear and filmed assaults on them.
(AFP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Australia 2 men were charged with the murder of a female student from China who went missing June 25 after a night out in Tasmania. Stavros Papadopoulos and Daniel Joseph Williams, both 21 and from Hobart, were remanded in custody after a brief appearance before a magistrate. Accountancy student Zhang Yu (26) was last seen alive outside a Hobart city center pub. Police later found her body in the Tyenna river west of Hobart. In 2010 Papadopoulos was sentenced to life in prison. Accomplice Daniel Jo Williams was sentenced to 10 years in jail on a charge of manslaughter.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AFP, 6/30/10)
2009 Jun 30, China postponed a plan to require personal computer makers to supply Internet-filtering software, retreating in the face of protests by Washington and Web surfers hours before it was due to take effect.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Ethiopian police shot dead two people and injured six others as they blocked an attempt by Christians to build a church at a site also claimed by Muslims.
(AFP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, Shi Pei Pu (b.1938), a Chinese operatic soprano, died in Paris. His affair with French lover Bernard Boursicot (b.1945), inspired the 1988 play and 1993 film “M. Butterfly." Both were arrested for espionage in 1983 and convicted in 1986. Shi was pardoned in 1987.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.B3)
2009 Jun 30, The UN adopted a resolution calling on all 192 UN member states not to recognize any government in Honduras other than Zelaya's. Roberto Micheletti, Honduras' interim leader, warned that the only way his predecessor will return to office is through a foreign invasion. The regime that ousted Zelaya claimed that the deposed president allowed money and tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the US.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, India's first "sea bridge" was officially opened in Mumbai, raising hopes that the state-of-the-art structure will ease chronic congestion on the city's notoriously choked roads. The 5.6-kilometer (3.5-mile) Bandra-Worli Sea Link, an eight-lane freeway, will help cut the 40-minute journey between the suburbs of Bandra and Worli to just eight minutes. Suspected militants used automatic weapons and machetes to kill a family of four migrant workers in India's insurgency-hit northeast.
(AFP, 6/30/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Indonesia committed to the conservation of its dwindling tropical forests in a multimillion dollar debt-swap deal signed with the American government. Jakarta's payments to Washington will be reduced by $30 million over the next eight years under the US Tropical Forest Conservation Act.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Iraq's long-awaited licensing round to develop some of its massive oil reserves stumbled as oil and gas companies dug in their heals, demanding more money for their efforts than the government was willing to pay. Iraq celebrated National Sovereignty Day, a new public holiday, following the withdrawal of US forces from its cities. An explosion in Kirkuk killed at least 30 people.
(AP, 6/30/09)(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A2)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 30, The Israeli navy ordered a small ferry carrying medical supplies and foreign peace activists trying to break a blockade of Gaza to turn back. The Israeli navy intercepted the ship and forced it to sail to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Mexican police found the remains of six people tortured and shot to death in western Michoacan state, a focus of the government's war against drug cartels. In the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, police found the body of a 19-year-old woman, an American citizen from across the border in El Paso, dumped at an intersection with her throat slit.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, The Dutch Supreme Court upheld the war crimes conviction of businessman Frans van Anraat for selling chemicals to Iraq, which were turned into poison gas and unleashed in 1988 by the regime of Saddam Hussein on Kurds and Iranians. The court shaved six months off Anraat’s 17-year sentence because his case took so long.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, Pakistan’s military said that 18 militants and three soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours. It also said militants had killed 18 of their wounded comrades in Swat. A militant faction allied with Mehsud in North Waziristan, another militant hotbed on the Afghan border, said it was ending a pact with the government because of US drone aircraft attacks and the presence of government forces in their area.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Poland officials began building a new museum of Jewish history in Warsaw that they hope will become a major cultural landmark. Museum officials say construction will cost around 150 million zlotys ($47 million) and should be completed in 2012. An earlier groundbreaking ceremony for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews took place in 2007 in the presence of the Polish president, but bureaucratic obstacles then held up construction.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 30, As many as 30 people were feared dead after the MV Demas Victory capsized and quickly sank in choppy Persian Gulf waters off the Qatari capital Doha. Five crew members were rescued. The ship was carrying 9 crew, along with 24 employees of the charterer HBK Power Cleaning and two caterers working for a company hired by HBK.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 30, In Turkey a civilian prosecutor charged and briefly arrested Col. Dursun Cicek for his alleged involvement in a plan to overthrow the AK party. The army ordered an investigation but declared the colonel innocent.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.49)
2009 Jun 30, A Yemenia Airbus 310 jet with 153 people on board crashed into the Indian Ocean as it tried to land during strong winds on the island nation of Comoros. The passengers were on the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseilles to Comoros with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Bahia Bakari (14), the only person to survive, was plucked from the sea after clinging to wreckage for 13 hours. Investigators on Aug 28 retrieved the slightly damaged flight data recorder and 10 more bodies from the Yemenia Airways flight. The voice recorder was recovered on Aug 29. On Nov 15, 2013, France charged Yemenia Airways with manslaughter over the crash.
(AP, 6/30/09)(SFC, 7/2/09, p.A3)(AP, 8/29/09)(AFP, 1/29/14)
2009 Jun, Sludge containing PCBs, released into the Hudson River between 1946-1977 by 2 General Electric plants, began to be shipped for disposal to West Texas. The sludge along 197 miles had been declared a Superfund site. Cleanup of the Hudson River began in 2009 at an estimated cost of $750 million, to be paid by GE.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(SFC, 6/22/09, p.A9)
2009 Jun, the last of the US analogue television transmitters switched to digital.
(Econ, 12/11/10, TQ p.14)
2009 Jun, Facebook introduced the online FarmVille game created by Zynga. Facebook shut down the game on Dec. 31, 2020. Flash, the software that powered the game, also shut down.
(NY Times, 12/31/20)
2009 Jun, In Bulgaria Plamen Momchilov (46), a cherry farmer, was killed by cherry thieves as he tried to keep them out of his orchard. Later, nine thieves were arrested and confessed to beating Momchilov to death with sticks and shovel handles. They were sentenced to 99 years in prison but as of 2011 were free pending an appeal.
(AP, 6/25/11)
2009 Jun, In the Central African Republic former prime minister Martin Ziguele was invested as the MLPC's presidential candidate for elections that were initially due in April 2010.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2009 Jun, In Egypt 75 people were sentenced to death this month in comparison to just 86 for all of 2008. In July the Cairo-based Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession issued a report expressing concern that the "extravagance" with which the penalty was being used meant that defendants were not receiving a fair trial. According to the UN 43% of Egyptians lived on less than $2 a day.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jun, Iceland made a deal to borrow some $5.5 billion from the British and Dutch governments at an annual rate of 5.5% to meet its Icesave banking obligations.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.46)
2009 Jun, In Kenya three young men and a boy told police that Rev. Renato Kizito Sesana, an Italian priest, had been sexually molesting them for years at a shelter for poor children. No church investigation followed. Kenyan police later said they found no evidence and believed Sesana is innocent. Soon after going to the police, three of the four complainants, including a 17-year-old, withdrew their accusations, saying they had been forced to make them by con men planning to take over church property. But in 2010 the 17-year-old told the AP that he recanted only because he and his mother repeatedly received anonymous text messages threatening them with death. He insisted he really had been abused but did not seek to press charges again because he felt no one would believe him.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2009 Jun, In Malaysia Hau Yuan Tyng (44), a single mother of two, pleaded innocent to charges of assaulting Siti Hajar Sadli, her Indonesian maid, in one case allegedly using hot water; in another, a hammer; and in a third, a pair of scissors. In 2010 a court sentenced Tyng to eight years in prison for the abuse, but allowed her to remain free on bail pending an appeal.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2009 Jun, North Korea shut down its largest wholesale market because of its apparent concern that big markets spread capitalist influence. Authorities closed the Pyongsong market on the outskirts of the capital of Pyongyang and set up two smaller markets in nearby districts. Pyongsong was the North's biggest wholesale market with some 30,000-40,000 stalls.
(AP, 9/21/09)
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