Timeline 2010 July - September
Return to home
2010 Jul 1, Pres. Obama signed into law new sanctions on Iran that, for the first time, will bar from the American market foreign companies that work with Iranian businesses charged with aiding Tehran’s nuclear program.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 1, US government mortgage agency Freddie Mac said that the average fixed-rate for a 30-year mortgage fell this week to 4.58%. This was the lowest since Freddie Mac started keeping track of mortgage rates in 1971.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, A US audit, commissioned by the Commerce Dept., found that the national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) fishery police misspent millions in federal fines on cars for managers, a luxury undercover boat and training in Norway.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 1, California began its fiscal year with no budget in place and a $19 billion deficit.
{California, Economics}
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, In the SF Bay Area most bridge tolls rose by $1 dollar with variable rates on the Bay Bridge depending on travel time.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, Boston researchers claimed they have hit upon genetic sequences that can predict whether you'll live to have "exceptional longevity." The scientists studied over 1,000 centenarians to develop a system of genetic analysis by which they can predict, with a 77-percent accuracy rate, whether someone has a strong chance of "exceptional longevity," according to findings published in the journal Science.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, D.light, a solar powered lantern that could provided light for up to 12 hours after charging in sunlight for one day, won the Ashden award for sustainable energy. It was designed by an Indian company in California and marketed successfully in India.
(www.dlightdesign.com/dataDoc/media/International_winners_Ashden2010_final.pdf)
2010 Jul 1, In Argentina a survivor of the former military junta detention centers was reported to have presented a list of 293 detainees, part of a trove of evidence he rescued from destruction decades ago and hid away. There, in neat columns typed by a police functionary, each "subversive delinquent" is listed alongside a terse decision on their fate, the letters "DF," military shorthand for "disposition final" — death. The 1976-1983 military junta killed at least 13,000 people, though human rights groups believe as many as 30,000 died during what Argentines call the "dirty war."
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Benin Investment Consultancy and Computering Services.(ICC) was forced to close, and more than a dozen of its employees were jailed. More than a hundred thousand people lost their savings in a Ponzi scheme run by the company that appeared to be publicly endorsed by the country's President Boni Yayi. In August the government said that more than 130,000 people gave their savings to the company and altogether lost more than $130 million.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Brazil a statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro was reinaugurated after a renovation costing nearly $4 million. The renovation of the Christ the Redeemer statue, which has towered over the city for nearly 80 years, was financed by Brazilian mining giant Vale and the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Rio.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, An Iranian military court convicted and sentenced to death two suspects charged with torturing and killing three anti-government protesters in prison.
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Iraq 2 soldiers and 2 members of a government-backed Sunni militia fighting Al-Qaida were killed in a day of attacks.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. said it's jumping into the battery business for electric vehicles in a development deal with Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Mexico a massive gun battle between rival drug and migrant trafficking gangs near the US border left 21 people dead near Nogales, Sonora state.
(AP, 7/1/10)(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, In Mexico the sprawling remains of Hurricane Alex drenched much of the north, paralyzing the major city of Monterrey. 12 people were killed.
(AP, 7/1/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A4)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.30)
2010 Jul 1, In Lahore, Pakistan, at least two suicide bombers attacked a popular Muslim shrine minutes apart killing 42 people with some 175 injured. Thousands of people were visiting Data Darbar shrine at the time of the attack. It contains the tomb of a famous Sufi saint and is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.
(AP, 7/1/10)(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, Somali and African Union troops launched a battle against an Al-Qaida-backed group in Mogadishu. A total of 17 people were killed including 16 killed and 45 wounded in the Karan neighborhood.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2, A8)
2010 Jul 1, Sudanese opposition leader Hassan Turabi said his 45-day detention and the shuttering of his party newspaper are proof that the country's historic elections haven't changed the regime's "oppressive" ways. Turabi was arrested in May after sharply criticizing Sudan's historic multiparty elections, saying they were marred by "shameful" fraud.
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, Sweden abolished compulsory military service for men during peacetime.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, The international court in Tanzania investigating Rwanda's 1994 genocide said it has sentenced Yussuf Munyakazi (75), a father of 13, to 25 years in jail for killing thousands of people. He was found guilty of "genocide and extermination" involving Tutsis who had sought refuge in Catholic churches.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, The Turkish military said fighting near the border with Iraq killed 12 Kurdish guerrillas, 2 government soldiers and 3 government-paid village guards. Clashes erupted after rebels fired long range weapons and rockets at a military unit in Slirt province.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A10)
2010 Jul 1, Francisco Chavez Abarca of El Salvador, was arrested in Venezuela, traveling on a false passport, and quickly flown to Cuba to face charges in a 1990s bombing campaign. On Sep 27 Abarca said on state TV that he was hired to plant bombs by Luis Posada Carriles, an 80-year-old anti-Castro militant and former CIA operative.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Jul 2, An appeals court in Washington put government prosecutors on notice that they must show evidence that an Algerian detainee held at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years is actually "part of" al Qaida, or set him free. The decision reversed what had been a rare victory for the government since the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees had the right to contest their incarceration in US courts. Of the 50 cases that have been decided by district courts, the government has prevailed in only 14.
(McClatchy, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, The US Border Patrol in Washington State warned hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail they could face arrest, jail and a $5,000 fine if they cross the US-Canadian border improperly. The 2,650-mile trail stretches north from Mexico, crosses the US border in the Pasayten Wilderness and continues for about nine miles to Manning Provincial Park in British Columbia.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, In California a state appellate court sided with the Schwarzenegger administration in its attempt to temporarily impose the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage on tens of thousands of state workers.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/2/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 2, More than 180,000 people packed into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum over two days for a rave party. A suspected overdose led to the death of a girl (15). Scores of injuries resulted when people tried to force their way closer to the event's five stages.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, The Chicago City Council approved what city officials said is the strictest handgun ordnance in the US.
(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 2, In northern Afghanistan Taliban suicide attackers stormed a four-story house used by an American AID organization in Kunduz, killing four people before dying in a fierce, 6-hour gunbattle with Afghan security forces.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, Dame Beryl Bainbridge, English novelist, died. Her 18 novels included “Injury Time," for which she won the Whitbread Prize in 1977.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.90)
2010 Jul 2, It was reported that grenade attacks in Burundi have killed 8 people and wounded almost 50 over the last month.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In eastern Congo a fuel tanker overturned and burst into flames, sparking a massive fire that killed at least 230 villagers and wounded more than 200 — some of whom had rushed to siphon leaking liquid from the vehicle illegally. (AP, 7/3/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A5)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In junta-ruled Guinea electoral officials announced that a runoff vote would be needed to determine who wins the mineral-rich West African nation's first free election since independence.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, In India leading Naxalite Cherkuri Rajkumar, aka Azad, was killed security forces in Andhra Pradesh state.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.44)
2010 Jul 2, Jakarta's annual month-long flora and fauna expo opened. It included sales of the world's most threatened ploughshare tortoise and the critically endangered radiated tortoises, both from Madagascar. While the government has passed legislation banning such illegal trade, dealers continue to blatantly sell endangered species without fear of arrest or prosecution.
(AP, 7/3o/10)
2010 Jul 2, Kenyans expressed outrage after members of parliament this week recommended giving themselves a $175,000 annual pay package as farmworkers averaged $40 per month.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In Kosovo an explosion tore through a Serb protest in Mitrovica fatally injuring one man and leaving 11 others with shrapnel wounds.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, Mexican authorities said they have arrested Jesus Ernesto Chavez (41), a drug-cartel enforcer. Chavez said Lesley Enriquez, a woman who worked in the Mexican border's biggest US consulate, had helped a rival gang obtain American visas, and for that he ordered her killed. Employee Lesley Enriquez (35) and two other people connected to the US consulate in the city of Ciudad Juarez were killed March 13 in attacks that raised concerns that Americans were being caught up in drug-related border violence.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 2, A Panamanian court dropped money laundering charges against former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman. The court argued the charges against Aleman were similar to charges he has faced in Nicaragua.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 2, An unmanned Russian space capsule carrying supplies to the International Space Station failed in a docking attempt. The Progress space capsule was carrying more than two tons of food, water and other supplies for the orbiting laboratory. NASA said the failure was due to an antenna problem. Space station commander Alexander Skvortsov reported the Progress was "rotating uncontrollably" as it neared the space station. The capsule docked successfully with the ISS on July 4.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In South Africa Jackie Selebi, former state police commissioner, was found guilty of corruption.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, The Geneva-based World Food Program declared its work in Niger an "emergency operation" after a survey found a sharp rise in malnutrition rates among young children. WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said 16.7 percent of children under 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition in the African country.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 3, The US government said it is handing out nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that President Barack Obama says will create thousands of jobs and increase the use of renewable energy sources.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In the Gulf of Mexico a Taiwanese converted tanker, dubbed "A Whale" and billed as the world's largest oil skimmer, arrived from Portugal in the Gulf of Mexico for testing. Officials hoped it would scrub 21 million gallons of oil-tainted seawater per day. The US Coast Guard later said it was too big to maneuver around the smaller patches and ribbons of oil.
(AP, 7/03/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A8)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 3, The US Drug Enforcement Administration said it has helped seize a submarine capable of transporting tons of cocaine. DEA officials said that the diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border. Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its maiden voyage. The sophisticated camouflaged vessel has a conning tower, periscope and air-conditioning system. It measured about nine-feet-high from the deck plates to the ceiling and stretched nearly a 100 feet long. The DEA says it was built for trans-oceanic drug trafficking.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, The British government said it has ordered many ministries to plan for spending cuts of up to 40%, far greater than announced in an emergency budget. As Britain bid to slash a record budget deficit, departments had been warned to expect spending cuts of about 25%, but many ministries have now been asked to identify where cuts of 40% could be made.
(AFP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Northumbria, England, Raoul Moat (37), a nightclub bouncer and bodybuilder, seriously injured a policeman and his ex-girlfriend and killed her new partner in and around Newcastle, before apparently fleeing to the nearby Northumbria National Park. One of Britain's biggest ever manhunts ended dramatically on July 10 when Raoul Moat shot himself dead after a six-hour stand-off with armed police.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 3, It was reported that checkpoints in Iraq, set up for fighting insurgents, have turned into shady customs stations where police demand a $9 bribe if a lorry driver’s papers are in order and multiples of that if not.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.46)
2010 Jul 3, In Kyrgyzstan Roza Otunbayeva was sworn in as president. She would hold office for 18 months and would be ineligible to stand for election.
(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A3)(Econ, 7/3/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 3, In Nigeria gunmen attacked two cargo vessels off the coast of the oil-producing Niger Delta, killing one crew member and kidnapping 12 foreign workers. The crew members were seized near Bonny in southern Rivers state. The military believe they were from eastern Europe. The workers were freed 2 days later along with three sailors taken hostage in May.
(Reuters, 7/3/10)(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Syria, Mohammed Oudeh (73), the key planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes, died.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 4, Joey Chestnut (26), of San Jose, Ca., ate 54 hot dogs capturing his 4th straight Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Int’l. Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, NYC.
(www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/04/MNSM1E9I2D.DTL)
2010 Jul 4, It was reported that 5 electricians working for the city of San Francisco spent years allegedly stealing from taxpayers, moonlighting on city time and fraudulently billing to pay for suburban life styles. 5 members of the Hetch Hetchy Power Crew were arrested in 2009. The spree had gone on for about 4 years ending in 2007.
(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 4, In Bellevue, Iowa, a pair of runaway horses, in harness to a wagon, crashed into a Fourth of July parade float and collapsed, ending a rampage that injured 24 people and killed wagon passenger Janet Steines.
(AP, 7/5/10)(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 4, In Texas an air ambulance crashed after takeoff in Alpine killing all 5 people on board including a patient and his wife.
(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 4, In Afghanistan a joint force in Kunduz province discovered rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and a roadside bomb near a mosque. A 2-day drug-sweeping operation ended in the south with security forces killing 63 smugglers and terrorists.
(AP, 7/7/10)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 4, In the Bahamas fugitive Colton Harris-Moore (19), dubbed the "Barefoot Bandit," crash landed a stolen plane on Great Abaco Island, and eluded police. Harris-Moore, who grew up in the woods of Washington state's Camano Island, has been on the run since escaping from a halfway house more than two years ago. Colton Harris-Moore was arrested on July 11 in northern Eleuthera. He pleaded guilty on July 13 and was deported to face US charges. On June 17,2011, Colton pleaded guilty to 7 charges carrying a prison term of up to 6½ years. On Dec 16 Harris-Moore was sentenced to over 7½ years in prison. On Jan 27, 2012, a US district judge sentenced him to 6½ years in prison, to run concurrent with the December ruling.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/11/10)(AP, 7/13/10)(SFC, 6/18/11, p.A6)(SFC, 12/17/11, p.A7)(SFC, 1/27/12, p.A7)
2010 Jul 4, In Northumbria, England, Raoul Moat (37), a nightclub bouncer and bodybuilder, shot policeman David Rathband as he sat in his patrol car in Newcastle. Rathband lost his sight and was fitted with prosthetic eyes. On Feb 31, 2012, Rathband (44) was found dead at his home.
(AP, 3/1/12)
2010 Jul 4, In London Rafael Nadal reclaimed his Wimbledon title. The match lasted just two hours and 13 minutes before being concluded 6-3 7-5 6-4.
(AP, 7/4/10)
2010 Jul 4, In the Central African Republic Ugandan LRA rebels killed four people and took six hostages in an attack on the village of Mandabazouma.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 4, In central China a fire on a shuttle bus carrying steel factory workers killed 24 people and injured 19. State media later reported that Dong Chuansheng (57), an angry steel worker, had started the shuttle bus fire near Shanghai.
(AP, 7/4/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 4, In Japan Toyota started recalling more than 90,000 luxury Lexus and Crown vehicles over defective engines.
(AP, 7/4/10)
2010 Jul 4, In Lebanon Grand Ayatollah Mohammed-Hussein Fadlallah (b.1935), revered Shiite cleric and one-time mentor to Hezbollah, died in Beirut.
(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 4, Poland’s moderate conservative Bronislaw Komorowski narrowly won the presidential election. Komorowski won 52.6% of the vote, according to results based on 95% of the ballots. Right-wing rival Jaroslaw Kaczynski performed much better than expected.
(Reuters, 7/4/10)
2010 Jul 4, Russia’s NTV, a TV channel controlled by Gazprom, aired “Godfather," a documentary that portrayed Belarus Pres. Lukashenka as a brutal election-rigging, opposition-repressing tyrant.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.53)
2010 Jul 4, In Zimbabwe a collision involving 2 buses and a truck killed 18 people and injured 30 others 50 miles west of Harare.
(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, US government estimates said the first stage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul would provide coverage to about 1 million uninsured Americans by next year. Many others, more than 100 million people, are getting new benefits that improve their existing coverage.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, The US deported Imam Ahmad Afzali to Saudi Arabia. He had admitted to lying to the FBI during an investigation into a suicide bomb plot against NYC subway stations in 2009.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 5, BP's costs for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill climbed nearly half a billion dollars in the past week, raising the oil giant's tab to just over $3 billion for work on cleaning and capping the gusher and payouts to individuals, businesses and governments. Tar balls from the Gulf oil spill found on a Texas beach were the first evidence that gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the Gulf states.
(AP, 7/06/10)
2010 Jul 5, Newspapers reported that at least $4.2 billion in cash have left Kabul airport in the past three-and-a-half years, raising fresh concerns about corruption in war-torn Afghanistan.
(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Australia's new leader launched a plan to make East Timor a hub for processing asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution across Asia while a debate rages in her country over illegal migration.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Australia Brendan Sokaluk pleaded not guilty to charges that he deliberately started one of the deadly wildfires that swept through southern Australia last year. The fires in Victoria state in February 2009 were Australia's deadliest, killing 173 people and destroying more than 2,000 homes. Brendan Sokaluk is accused of starting one blaze that investigators say killed 10 people.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Belarus signed a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.53)
2010 Jul 5, Brazil’s Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrapped up a state visit to Equatorial Guinea (Republica de Guinea Ecuatorial), which included the signing of multiple cooperation agreements, economic meetings, and festivities.
(PR Newswire, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Ottawa the operator of a dormant Canadian nuclear reactor that once supplied a third of the world's medical isotopes formally applied to restart the plant, saying it was safe again after lengthy repairs. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd shut down the aging Chalk River facility in eastern Ontario in May 2009 after discovering a leak of heavy water, used as a moderator and coolant in the reaction process.
(Reuters, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Canada a fire at a Toronto transformer station knocked out power to much of the city, snarling traffic in the midst of a blistering heatwave. The outage hit around 4:45 p.m. on the hottest day of the year so far in Toronto.
(Reuters, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, The Central African Republic said it has called on the United States for military support to help "neutralize" LRA rebels terrorizing the country.
(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In China Xue Feng (44), an American geologist detained and tortured by China's state security agents over an oil industry database, was sentenced in Beijing to 8 years in jail.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 5, In Cairo, Egypt, religious liberal Nasr Abu Zayd (66), a Koranic scholar declared an apostate for challenging mainstream Muslim views on the holy book, died.
(Reuters, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Authorities in Iceland exhumed the body of American chess champion Bobby Fischer to determine whether he is the father of a 9-year-old girl from the Philippines.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Tbilisi, Georgia, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged US support for the former Soviet state.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, It was reported that three decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings in Iraq have left as many as a million widows. More than 100,000 lost their husbands in the US-led invasion and violent aftermath. The struggling postwar government was of little help.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Israel dropped its long-standing restrictions on allowing consumer goods into the Gaza Strip but retained limits on desperately needed construction materials. Thousands of marchers brought the cultural and financial capital to a standstill, urging the government to do whatever it takes to win freedom for a soldier captured four years ago by Gaza militants. Near Israel's border with Gaza, thousands more gathered for a concert led by a world-famous conductor to press Hamas to let the Red Cross visit the soldier for the first time.
(AP, 7/05/10)(AP, 7/06/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Kosovo a gunman wounded legislator Petar Miletic (35), a Serb member of Kosovo’s parliament, as he walked out of his home in Mitrovica.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for seven decades before voters threw it out a decade ago, gained some momentum in state elections where the dominant issue was the country's skyrocketing drug violence. Police found the decapitated bodies of three men inside a burned-out car in the drug gang-plagued Mexican state of Sinaloa. The heads had been put on the vehicle's hood.
(McClatchy, 7/05/10)(AP, 7/05/10)
2010 Jul 5, Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency ruled that it lacks sufficient evidence to criminally charge Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima (49) for marrying a 13-year-old Egyptian girl, the daughter of his driver, to whom Yerima allegedly paid a $100,000 dowry.
(AP, 5/11/10)(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, In Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a paramilitary base killing one soldier and wounding at least 7 others. The army said it killed Taliban commander Amir Ullah Mehsud during a clash in Miran Shah.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, A Romanian military plane crashed near the Black Sea, killing 10 people and injuring three. The Antonov AN-2 plane with 13 people on board took off for parachuting training and crashed soon after takeoff.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Venezuela Carlos Alberto "Beto" Renteria (65), last remaining fugitive capo of Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel, was arrested after he traveled to Margarita Island. The next day Pres. Chavez announced that would be extradited to the US, which has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. The cartel is accused in a 2004 US indictment of shipping some 500 metric tons of cocaine to the US beginning in 1990.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, Pres. Obama met with Israel’s PM Netanyahu, who was accorded all the trappings of a visiting head of state. Obama and Netanyahu dismissed talk of a rift as wildly unfounded, and Netanyahu pledged concrete, "very robust" steps to revive sluggish Mideast peace efforts with the Palestinians. One of the main outcomes of the summit was the US push for a shift to direct talks with Palestinians.
(AP, 7/6/10)(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, The Obama administration sued Arizona to throw out the state's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law and keep other states from copying it. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix said the law, due to take effect July 29, usurps the federal government's "pre-eminent authority" under the Constitution to regulate immigration.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill extending voter approved mandates for the humane treatment of egg-laying hens in the state.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 6, In California it was reported that researchers have found fish in the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir of San Mateo County containing some of the highest mercury levels in the state. The lake collected rainwater and water from Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy reservoir to provide drinking water to 2.5 million people in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 6, The East Coast roasted under an unrelenting sun as record-setting temperatures soared past 100 from Virginia to Massachusetts, utility companies cranked up power to the limit to cool the sweating masses and railroad tracks were so hot commuter trains had to slow down. The temperature reached 100 in Philadelphia toppling a record set in 1999.
(AP, 7/6/10)(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 6, In New Orleans, Louisiana, oil from the ruptured well was reported to be seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Afghanistan 3 American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the south. A NATO airstrike in Paktika province killed several suspected insurgents and led to the arrest of several others. Coalition and Afghan special forces arrested a Taliban commander in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
(AP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 6, Algerian security forces killed three Islamist militants in a shoot-out southeast of the capital Algiers.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Australia's new PM Julia Gillard ended a three-month freeze on processing Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, and said a bar on Afghan claims was under review.
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain's Queen Elizabeth (84) addressed the UN for the first time since1957. The queen's 10-minute speech to a special session of the General Assembly was finished before Netherlands and Uruguay returned to their soccer match in Cape Town. Netherlands progressed to the finals after beating Uruguay 3-2.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain said it will hold a judge-led inquiry into allegations that its spies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects held by the US and other allies. The government also announced it will pay compensation to detainees found to have been mistreated in the global pursuit of terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain’s Guardian newspaper, citing unnamed political sources, said British troops will turn over responsibility for one of the deadliest districts in southern Afghanistan to Americans in a reconfiguration of NATO-led forces in the area, and that Britain would soon withdraw its 1,000 soldiers from the Sangin district of Helmand province, where they would be replaced by US troops who now outnumber them in Helmand. Britain’s Defense Secretary Liam Fox confirmed the announcement the next day.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, A Toronto man was convicted of attempting to illegally export nuclear-related technology to Iran, in the first Canadian criminal case resulting from UN sanctions against the Middle East nation. An Ontario judge found Mahmoud Yadegari guilty of attempting to export pressure transducers, which can be used in the building of both nuclear plants and weapons.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, China priced the IPO of Agricultural Bank of China and proceeded to raise $19.2 billion in one the world’s largest IPO to date.
(www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/business/global/07ipo.html)
2010 Jul 6, Chinese police found a Catholic priest and a nun murdered in northern China, but the motive was not immediately clear. Joseph Shulai Zhang (55) and Sister Mary Wei Yanhui (32) were apparently stabbed to death at the nursing home where they worked in the city of Wuhai in Inner Mongolia. Monk Zhang Wenping (43) was arrested on July 8 in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia region. Wenping told police that he had personal grudges against the priest and nun.
(AFP, 7/8/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Egypt Mahmoud Taha Swellem, a disgruntled employee of an Egyptian construction company, opened fire on his colleagues, killing six and wounding 16, before surrendering. Swellem, a driver, pulled over the company bus in western Cairo, whipped out an assault rifle and showered his passengers with bullets.
(AP, 7/6/10)(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 6, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Iran to stop the execution of three people including a woman who faces death by stoning for adultery. Ashton said she was "deeply concerned" about reports that the executions of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, who was sentenced to hang for a murder he committed when he was a minor, and the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, "may be imminent." She also renewed her call for Iran to drop the death sentence against Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurd who awaits execution for being an "enemy of God."
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, An EU lawmaker urged member governments to open their secret files on UFOs. Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of the European Parliament, said that the EU needs its own "X Files" archive where anyone can see information on UFOs, including data gathered by the military.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In France Pres. Sarkozy came under mounting pressure over allegations that he took illegal cash donations from Liliane Bettencourt, owner of the L’Oreal cosmetics firm and the richest woman in France.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 6, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, faced with a ballooning deficit in the health care system, decided to raise premiums and cut into the profits of doctors, dentists, hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The decision came after months of wrangling within Merkel's coalition over a fundamental overhaul of the system and after a series of political blows to the chancellor and plummeting support in the polls.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Iraq Army Specialist Bradley Manning, an American soldier suspected of leaking a military video of an attack on unarmed men, was charged with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data and putting national security at risk [see July 12, 2007]. 9 Shiite Muslims taking part in the pilgrimage in Baghdad were killed and dozens were wounded in mortar attacks and roadside bomb explosions.
(AP, 7/6/10)(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, The Israeli military indicted a soldier on a charge of manslaughter during last year's war in the Gaza Strip, the most serious criminal charge to come out of an internal investigation into the offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory. The soldier was among 3 troops, including a field commander, to face new disciplinary action stemming from their conduct during the offensive, which has drawn international condemnation for its civilian death toll.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Indian Kashmir one person was killed by drowning while fleeing security forces and a woman (25) was killed by a stray bullet at the window of her home.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 6, The bodyguard of a Mexican state governor was ordered jailed pending an investigation into allegations that he belongs to a drug cartel, one of a string of scandals that plagued weekend elections. Ismael Ortega Galicia, a bodyguard for Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez, was detained for questioning over the weekend after the newspaper Reforma reported he was on a US Treasury Department list of key members of the Gulf or Zetas gangs.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In northern Mexico about 18,000 people were evacuated from Ciudad Anahuac, where authorities feared a dam would overflow from rains that accompanied Hurricane Alex. The Venustiano Carranza dam, about 70 km (43 miles) away, reached capacity after days of heavy rains, including remnants of the hurricane, which slammed into Mexico's northern Gulf coast last week.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In South Africa Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that pupils will have the option of learning in their mother language in their first three years of schooling. Children were currently taught either in English or Afrikaans, both languages inherited from the eras of colonialism and apartheid.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Pamplona, Spain, tens of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners jammed a historic city plaza and sprayed each other with wine as a firecracker rocket blasted off to launch the famed San Fermin bull-running festival. The 9-day street drinking party got under way at midday with the traditional shout from the city hall balcony of "Viva San Fermin!," followed seconds later by the firing of the firecracker known as the chupinazo.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Sudan intelligence services imposed press censorship, which was lifted in September, six months ahead of a key referendum on independence for south Sudan.
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, A Tunisian appeals court upheld a prison sentence in absentia of four years and one month for journalist Fahem Boukaddous. He had covered protests that turned violent in 2008 over high unemployment in the Gafsa mining region.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, Venezuela announced plans to extradite a Salvadoran man wanted by Cuba as a suspect in a series of bombings. Cuba believes Chavez Abarca placed an explosive that damaged a hotel disco on April 2, 1997, and another bomb later that month that failed to explode on the 15th floor of the same hotel. Cuban officials also suspect him in a 1997 bombing of a Cuban government office.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 7, At a US military tribunal Ibrahim Gitmo detainee Ahmed Mahmoud, a Sudanese man who was said to have worked in Afghanistan as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard, driver, cook and paymaster, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.23)
2010 Jul 7, In Philadelphia, Pa., a 250-foot barge collided on the Delaware River with a stalled amphibious sightseeing boat. 2 visitors from Hungary were killed. In 2011 tug pilot Matt Devlin agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter following evidence that he was talking on a cell phone during the accident.
(AP, 7/9/10)(SFC, 7/15/11, p.A7)
2010 Jul 7, In Brazil Bruno Souza, a star goalkeeper and captain of defending club champion Flamengo, surrendered to police to face questioning in connection with the disappearance and suspected death of his ex-lover, Eliza Samudio, last seen alive on June 7. Police believed Bruno was in a home near Belo Horizonte home with Samudio at the time of her murder, and that her body was later cut into pieces, some of which were fed to dogs in a bid to cover the murder.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, Police in northeast England detained Abid Naseer (24), the alleged ringleader of an al-Qaida bomb plot, at the request of the US government. He was among 12 people arrested last year in raids across northern England. All were released without charge.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Britain scientists at a top research unit embroiled in a row over climate research were cleared of dishonesty, but their lack of openness was criticized. The Independent Climate Change Email Review found nothing in the emails to undermine reports from the United Nations' climate change panel.
(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, China executed the former top justice official in the southwestern city of Chongqing, the highest ranking person caught in a massive crackdown on violent gangs and corrupt officials who protect them. Wen Qiang (55), former director of the Chongqing Municipal Judicial Bureau, was convicted in April of corruption charges involving organized crime.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Cuba promised the Roman Catholic Church it will free 52 political prisoners, slashing the number held by nearly a third in what would be the communist-led island's largest release of dissidents since Pope John Paul II visited in 1998.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 7, East Timor's Pres. Jose Ramos Horta said he supports in principle an Australian plan to turn his country into a regional center for processing asylum seekers but does not want his tiny, impoverished nation to become an "island prison."
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, European Union lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to cap bankers' short-term cash bonuses from next year, a move that European leaders hope other parts of the world will follow.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, A French court convicted Manuel Noriega of money-laundering and sentenced Panama's former dictator to seven years in jail after he spent two decades in a US prison.
(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Germany's interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said his country plans to take in two inmates from the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Iranian media reported that the Veil and Modesty Festival, a fashion organization, has issued a new list of culturally appropriate haircuts for men, possibly indicating a new crackdown on male attire after years of strict rules for women, Iranian media reported.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Iraq militants targeted the homes of security forces west of Baghdad, blowing them up and killing three family members despite heightened security around the capital for a Shiite religious occasion. In a separate attack in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora in southern Baghdad, police Maj. Abdul-Rahman Sobhi was killed when a bomb attached to his car detonated as he drove to work. Nearly 60 people were killed in attacks in and around Baghdad, including 35 by a suicide bomber who targeted pilgrims heading to a mosque in northern Baghdad. Two people were killed near Ramadi, when insurgents blew up the houses of three policemen.
(AP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 7, Israel said that its moves to ease its blockade on Gaza do not include relaxing regulations on Palestinians looking to travel out of the enclave. Israel's military released maps and aerial photographs showing what it described as a network of Hezbollah weapons depots and command centers inside villages in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border.
(AFP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, A Tokyo court convicted a New Zealand activist of assault and obstructing Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, and sentenced him to a suspended prison term. Peter Bethune (45) was also found guilty on three other charges: trespassing, vandalism and possession of a knife. Bethune was deported 2 days later.
(AP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Indian Kashmir 2 people were killed and anger increased when security forces beat people in funeral processions.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 7, In Mexico a judge acquitted Juan Llaca Diaz, a man charged with dealing in precursor drug chemicals and allegedly linked to the bust of a Chinese-Mexican businessman who hid $205 million at his Mexico City mansion.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, A Mexican air force helicopter crashed in the western state of Jalisco, killing three military personnel on board.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 7, Royal Dutch Shell said it has begun production at a major project in Nigeria that should eventually provide up to 70,000 barrels of oil per day and help boost electricity for the power-starved nation.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 7, The UN WHO said at least 2,000 lead-poisoning victims in northern Nigeria may require treatment to remove brain-damaging lead. The poisoning was believed to be related to the processing of lead-rich ore for the extraction of gold.
(SFC, 7/8/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 7, A Peruvian judge halted the expulsion of Paul McAuley (62), a British religious activist. He was accused by the government of inciting unrest among indigenous groups protesting environmental damage to the Amazon rain forest.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In the Philippines officials said Nicanor Faeldon (44), a rebel soldier accused of leading two failed coup attempts, has turned himself in to authorities after 3 years on the run. Faeldon, a former bomb making trainer with the marines, was accused of helping lead 300 soldiers in taking over the upscale Oakwood Hotel and a nearby shopping center in Manila's financial district of Makati in July 2003, rigging the area with bombs.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Poland Warsaw district court Judge Tomasz Calkiewicz ordered that Uri Brodsky, a Mossad agent, be extradited to Germany on charges of forgery. Brodsky was suspected of helping fake a German passport that was used by a member of a hit squad believed to be behind the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Thailand police said Russian pianist and composer Mikhail Vasilievich Pletnev, founder of the Russian National Orchestra, has been charged with raping a 14-year-old boy at a beach resort.
(SFC, 7/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 7, A Yemeni court convicted two al-Qaida militants for the killing of senior police and army officers and sentenced them to death. Mubarak el-Shabawni (23) and Mansour Salem (18), arrested last December, denounced the verdict and shouted 'God is Great' afterward.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 8, Cleveland Basketball star LeBron James said to a national TV audience. "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat." Once James shared his secret, fans poured out of the same downtown bars and restaurants that have thrived during these tough economic times. A few set fire to his No. 23 jersey while others threw rocks at the 10-story-tall billboard featuring James with his head tossed back and arms pointing skyward.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, US District Court Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bars the federal government from recognizing gay marriage, is unconstitutional.
(www.aolnews.com/tag/Joseph-Tauro/)
2010 Jul 8, In California a Los Angeles jury found BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The verdict sparked a riot in downtown Oakland, Ca., with at least 50-100 people arrested for smashing windows and looting.
(SFC, 7/9/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 8, The curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, which has offered mid-career Nieman fellowships since 1938, said that a consular official at the US Embassy in Bogota told him that Colombian journalist Hollman Morris has been ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the "Terrorist activities" section of the USA Patriot Act. Hollman has been highly critical of ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, Zap Inc., a Santa Rosa, Ca., electric vehicle manufacturer, announced a merger with China’s Jonway Automobile Co. Ltd. Zap Jonway will be 51% owned by Zap.
(SFC, 7/8/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 8, US federal researchers said that they have identified a pair of naturally occurring antibodies that are able to kill more than 90% of all strains of the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 7/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 8, In California Robert de Heer (b.1923), real estate broker, died in San Rafael. He created the Realty Bluebook, which became a standard for real estate people nationwide. He also devised a standard purchase order, which started with one page and grew to 7 to reflect changes in real estate law.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 8, Dr. Thomas Peebles (b.1921), measles researcher, died at his home in Port Charlotte, Fla. His work in the 1950s enabled researchers to develop a vaccine against measles.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.C5)
2010 Jul 8, In Afghanistan two international troops died in insurgent attacks as violence spiraled across the country. NATO forces overnight captured a suspected Taliban-linked supplier of bomb-making materials in Khost province.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Argentina some of the most notorious figures of Argentina's "dirty war" were convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 22 people at the beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. A judge handed down the sentences for Gen. Luciano Menendez and former police intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz: life in prison for crimes against humanity committed at a secret detention center in provincial Tucuman. Two former police officers, brothers Luis Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido, were sentenced to 18 and 3 years, respectively.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, Australian police investigated the mysterious mass poisoning of seven million tomato, eggplant and other crops which is expected to send prices soaring. Detectives probed whether vandals or a competitor with a grudge had put herbicide in sprinklers at a nursery near the northeastern city of Cairns, wiping out 16 million tons of produce, mostly tomatoes.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, A British court in London convicted Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan and Waheed Zaman of conspiracy to murder in a case linked to a 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic jet planes.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, Canada named David Johnston (69), president of the University of Waterloo, to become the country's next acting head of state, who will have the final say in settling constitutional disputes.
(Reuters, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Chile's Supreme Court upheld murder convictions for the dictatorship's former secret police chief and his top agents in the 1974 assassination of Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife. The court also reduced Manuel Contreras' life sentence to just 20 years in prison.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In northwest China local authorities said floods triggered by torrential rain in a remote part of Qinghai province have killed 25 people. According to the China News Service, the government has recorded 483 flood-related deaths in China so far this year, with 255 people still missing.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, The International Criminal Court at The Hague suspended Congolese militia chief Thomas Lubanga's trial and rapped prosecutors for abusing court processes and ignoring judges' orders.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Cuban opposition activist Guillermo Farinas ended his 134-day hunger strike, following signs the communist government is making good on its promise to release 52 political prisoners. The court also reduced Manuel Contreras' life sentence to just 20 years in prison, reflecting a compromise between the right and left over how to punish "dirty war" crimes.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In France exiled Darfur rebel leader Abdelwahid Nur announced his decision to join peace talks brokered by Qatar.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Iran at least two people were arrested in Tehran's grand bazaar, the third day of a major strike that has alarmed the authorities. A wave of anti-tax strikes by merchants in Tehran unsettled government authorities.
(http://tinyurl.com/24nw65k)(SFC, 7/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 8, In Iraq three separate roadside bombings in eastern and northern Baghdad left 14 people dead and at least 63 wounded. The attacks targeted the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who defied violence to take part in the final day of a Shiite religious holiday.
(AP, 7/8/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Israel police arrested overnight a pair of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men suspected of trying to smuggle $1 million of pure cocaine into Israel from Brazil. More than 15,000 Israelis marched into Jerusalem and rallied at a park downtown for the government to conclude a deal for the release of a captive soldier held by Palestinian militants.
(AP, 7/8/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Libya said that it has granted some 400 Eritreans permission to stay after human rights group warnings that refugees and asylum seekers among them risked abuse if forcibly repatriated.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Mexico 4 suspects were killed in a shootout with police in the border state of Coahuila. 5 civilian bystanders were wounded.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Mozambique’s transport minister said in a report that his country will overcome a shipping bottleneck to export its vast coal deposits by finding ways for barges to navigate the Zambezi River.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Norway 2 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested for what Norwegian and US officials said was a terrorist plot linked to similar plans to bomb New York's subway and blow up a shopping mall in England. A 3rd suspect was arrested in Germany. Authorities later said the ringleader of the plot is Mikael Davud (39), an Uighur who came to Norway in 1999 as part of a UN refugee program and then became a Norwegian citizen eight years later. Davud was arrested along with suspected accomplices Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd (37), and Uzbek national, David Jakobsen (31). Norwegian and Danish police later said the 3 were likely planning an attack against a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. Jakobsen was released on Oct 15 after prosecutors revealed that he had been a police informant in the case. Jakobsen still faced terrorism charges because the allegations against the group rely partly on events that took place before he approached police last year.
(AP, 7/8/10)(AP, 8/29/10)(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Jul 8, In western Panama striking banana plantation workers and police clashed, leaving one man dead and 100 people hurt. A 2nd man was killed by police on July 10.
(AP, 7/8/10)(Reuters, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 8, Rwandan authorities arrested Agnes Uwimana, director of Umurabyo, a privately owned newspaper, on charges of incitement, denial of the 1994 genocide and contempt of the head of state.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Switzerland an experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test flight successfully, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Uruguay 12 inmates burned to death in an overcrowded prison, just as the country’s congress debated a law to put the army in charge of prison security and relieve the pressure on civilian prisons by moving some inmates into military installations.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 9, The US and Russia orchestrated the largest spy swap since the Cold War, exchanging 10 spies arrested in the US for four convicted in Russia in a tightly choreographed diplomatic dance at Vienna's airport.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, US regulators shut down 2 banks in Maryland, bringing to 88 the number of failed US banks this year.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.D3)
2010 Jul 9, US Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal that included a call to end US aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 9, Google said China has renewed its license to operate a website, preserving the search giant's toehold in the most populous Internet market after it gave up an attempt to skirt Beijing's Web censorship.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In California scuba divers began killing invasive Asian clams in Lake Tahoe. Long rubber mats were laid over half an acre in a test effort starve the clams of oxygen.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.C2)
2010 Jul 9, Aid agency Oxfam warned that the food crisis gripping the Sahel region of Africa was reaching disastrous levels and called on governments and the international community to act now. The crisis stretched across the region taking in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and northern Nigeria.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Afghanistan an explosion ripped into a convoy of NATO and Afghan forces in eastern Nangarhar province, killing one civilian and wounding nine others. Australian Pvt. Nathan Bewes was killed just before midnight by a homemade bomb, the 6th Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan in just over a month.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Chinese state media said authorities have seized 76 tons of milk powder tainted with melamine, the same chemical responsible for the deaths of six babies two years ago.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Iraq a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into an Iraqi army check point in western Baghdad, killing six people and injuring 20.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Italy's Fiat, which controls Chrysler Group LCC, said it will proceed with a euro700 million ($886 million) investment to move production of its new Panda compact from Poland to a plant near Naples despite an unresolved dispute with an Italian union.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Indian-ruled Kashmir thousands of residents defied a strict curfew prompting police to fire rubber bullets and lob tear gas as fresh rebel attacks injured two policemen. Government forces arrested dozens of suspected separatists in an attempt to stem civil unrest.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Libyan organizers said a charity headed by Saif Al-Islam Kadhafi, the second son of Libyan leader Moammar Kadhafi, is sending an aid boat from Greece to Gaza to break the Israeli "siege." Organizers of the initiative had earlier said the 25-year-old ship, owned by Piraeus-based ACA Shipping Corporation, was called Hope. The ship set sail from Greece on July 10 and headed for Egypt.
(AFP, 7/9/10)(AFP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 9, Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague cited Ratko Mladic's diaries, seized in a raid on his wife's Belgrade home in February, in a motion to reopen the trial of former Bosnian Croat political leader Jadranko Prlic and five other political and military Croat officials that ended two months ago.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Pakistan a pair of suicide bombers struck outside a government office in the Mohmand tribal region, killing 102 people and wounding 168 near the Yakaghund village office of Rasool Khan.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Puerto Rico hundreds of US drug agents and local police swept through public housing projects at dawn on the island's west coast in what officials described as the largest operation of its kind in the American territory.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Slovakia’s Pres. Ovan Gasparovic appointed a new center-right government led by Iveta Radicova, the country’s first female prime minister.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 9, South Korean prosecutors raided the office of PM Chung Un-chan over allegations that its ethics officials illegally investigated a businessman two years ago over the posting of an Internet video critical of the president.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, South Sudan's army killed seven militia fighters in a raid on their camps. Youths led an SPLA division to two hideouts used by a militia loyal to Akol's SPLM- DC (Democratic Change) party in Upper Nile.
(Reuters, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, In the Gulf of Mexico hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil were allowed to spew into the fouled waters while BP engineers prepared to install a new containment system they hope will catch it all in the coming days.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, In Afghanistan 6 American service members and at least a dozen civilians died in attacks in the east and south. Afghan and int’l. forces in a combined commando unit killed a Taliban operative and captured 8 others in an overnight raid in Paktia province, though local villagers claimed the men were innocent civilians. In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, thousands of Afghan's staged an anti-US protest over another night raid that killed two security guards. Insurgents in Kunduz province overran a checkpoint near the northern border with Tajikistan, killing at least six of the nine border police stationed there. 3 border police stationed at the checkpoint were missing. In Kunduz militants killed Malem Nazir, the chief of Qala Zal district and his body guard by remotely detonating a bomb as he passed in his car. Five other police died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in northeastern Badakshan province, next to Kunduz. A joint Afghan-international force killed a Taliban commander, Malauwi Shahbuddin, along with several armed insurgents in the Shahjoy district of Zabul province. A provincial spokesman said 13 Taliban were killed in the attack.
(AP, 7/10/10)(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, It was reported that Amazon river dolphins were being killed by fishermen for bait and that the population was dropping 7 percent a year. The gentle and curious dolphins were easy targets for nets and harpoons as they swim fearlessly up to fishing boats.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, One of Britain's biggest ever manhunts ended dramatically when Raoul Moat shot himself dead after a six-hour stand-off with armed police in Rothbury, Northumberland.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)(AFP, 3/1/12)
2010 Jul 10, In Colombia 3 soldiers were killed after entering a minefield in the northeastern province of Arauca.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 10, Cuban church officials released the names of 12 more political prisoners who will be freed and sent into exile in the coming days under a landmark agreement with President Raul Castro's government, bringing to 17 the total number of jailed dissidents who have accepted asylum in Spain.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, Baghdad officials said 58,000 stray dogs have been killed in and around the Iraqi capital over the past three months as part of a campaign to combat dog attacks.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, In Jamaica Sugar Minott (b.1956), a smooth-voiced singer and producer who helped to popularize reggae music, died.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, Mexican marines raided a house in the Pacific resort of Acapulco and captured Gamaliel Aguirre Tavira (35), a suspected regional chief of a drug gang involved in a bloody turf war in the center and south of Mexico. Authorities said Tavira is a close ally of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a Texas-born gang boss known as "La Barbie" who leads one of the two factions fighting over control of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, Myanmar state media reported that a new party formed by renegade members of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's disbanded party has received a permit to participate in Myanmar's first elections in two decades.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, North Korea expressed willingness to return to international nuclear disarmament talks, a sign it is satisfied with the UN Security Council's decision to avoid directly blaming it for the sinking of a South Korean warship.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, Northern and southern Sudanese leaders said they would consider forming a confederation or a common market if southerners chose to declare independence in an upcoming referendum.
(Reuters, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, In Spain more than a million people gathered in northeastern Barcelona to demand greater regional autonomy for Catalonia and protest a recent court ruling forbidding this prosperous region from calling itself a nation.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, The Vatican said it had posted its 3rd straight annual financial loss, registering a 4.1 million euro ($5.2 million) deficit for 2009.
(SSFC, 7/11/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 11, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals presented a study that demonstrated a new brain scan to detect the brain plaques in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 11, A total solar eclipse drew an 11,000-km (6,800-mile) arc over the Pacific, plunging remote territories into darkness.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Afghanistan a US service member died following an insurgent attack.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In China new rules went into effect requiring officials in government and state companies to report personal details from assets to the whereabouts of spouses and children. The new regulations were similar to rules released in April governing senior Communist Party officials, but have been expanded to include everyone from midlevel officials and up. Nonparty members and those working for state-owned business would now also be required to submit their details.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Colombia 10 soldiers were killed after entering a minefield in the northeastern province of Arauca. Pres. Uribe said 12 rebels, part of the security cordon for rebel leader Alfonso Cano, were killed in the southwestern mountains.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, Iran said it has produced around 20 kg of 20% enriched uranium, in defiance of the world powers who want Tehran to suspend the controversial nuclear work.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Iran a judicial official said that the controversial death sentence by stoning for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery, will not be implemented for now. She was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband, for which a court in Tabriz, in northwestern Iran, sentenced her to 99 lashes. Later that year she was also convicted of adultery, despite having retracted a confession which she claims was made under duress.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, An Iraqi judge said a court has ordered the arrest of 39 members of members of the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), an exiled Iranian opposition group, accusing them of crimes against humanity in helping Saddam Hussein to crush a revolt almost two decades ago.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Japan the center-left government of new PM Naoto Kan lost its majority in parliament's upper house in elections, spelling the threat of legislative paralysis.
(AFP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Kashmir a rigid curfew was lifted from most of the country, but shops and businesses remained shut after separatists called for a strike to protest Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Nigeria gunmen kidnapped 4 journalists traveling through the country's oil-rich southern delta. The kidnappers made a ransom demand of $1.67 million. The journalists were freed on July 18 with no ransom paid.
(AP, 7/12/10)(AFP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 11, In South Africa President Jacob Zuma convened leaders from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Togo, Mozambique, the Netherlands and neighboring Zimbabwe at an education summit, before inviting them to join him at the World Cup final. The summit was the culmination of 1GOAL, a campaign supported by football's governing body FIFA to use the attention the World Cup commands to publicize the need to get more children into school.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In South Africa Spain beat Holland for soccer’s World Cup.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Sudan peacekeepers said a total of 221 people died in tribal fighting and other violence in Sudan's Darfur in June, as the region's two main rebel groups continued to shun peace talks.
(Reuters, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Uganda twin bombings in Kampala hit crowds watching the World Cup final killing 76 people. One of the targets was an Ethiopian restaurant, a nation despised by Somali al-Shabab militants. On July 30 three were charged with terrorism and murder. By Aug 17 had officials charged 32 people in connection with the bombings. One suspect, Haruna Luyima, was supposed to set off a bomb at the dance club but changed his mind at the last minute. Luyima told a news conference in August that he did so because he didn't want to kill innocent people. Police later found his discarded mobile phone, a huge lead that helped unravel the plot.
(AP, 7/12/10)(AP, 7/30/10)(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A2)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Jul 11, Yemen’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that police in Hadramut had arrested 10 militants suspected of being al-Qaida members.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 12, Shahram Amiri, a missing Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran claims was abducted by the US, took refuge at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and asked to return to his homeland. Amiri (32) disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Police in Los Angeles County discovered thousands of pounds of marijuana in a railroad car that entered this month from Mexico.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 12, In New Jersey Lassissi Afolabi (47), a man from the West African nation Togo, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for his role in the smuggling of girls and women who were forced to work at local hair braiding salons. He pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with his ex-wife and her son to commit forced labor.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, The American branch of the YMCA announced that it would become “The Y."
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 12, In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Robert E. Reza (37), angered by a child custody dispute, shot and wounded his girlfriend and killed 2 employees at her place of work before killing himself.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 12, BP Engineers worked to replace a cap over a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after reporting good progress in attempts to contain the worst environmental disaster in US history. Expected to take between four and seven days, the round-the-clock work began at midday on July 10 when the old, less efficient cap was ripped off a fractured pipe a mile down on the sea floor by robotic submarines.
(AFP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Utah a list of over 1,300 alleged illegal immigrants living in the state was received by law enforcement and politicians around the state. On Jul 16 the ACLU of Utah commended the swift action of Governor Gary Herbert and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in responding to the legitimate public outcry and widespread demand that they investigate the extraordinary breach of privacy by state employees, which became publicly known earlier this week. 2 women, working for the state’s main welfare agency, had recently sent the stolen names, addresses, Social Security numbers - and even the due dates of expectant mothers - of some 1,300 mostly Latino people whom they suspected of being in the state illegally, to newspapers along with a letter urging their immediate deportation.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vjl89x0)(Econ, 8/7/10, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/334kjoh)
2010 Jul 12, Harvey Pekar (70), creator of the “American Splendor" comic book series, died. His friend R. Crumb helped him illustrate the first issue in the series in 1976. In 2003 it was made into an acclaimed film that starred Paul Giamatti as Mr. Pekar.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 12, A Bangladesh government minister said 40 people, suspected of killings, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war, have been barred from leaving the country ahead of a planned war crimes trial.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Brazil Paulo Moura (77), clarinet jazz great and Latin Grammy winner, died after a fight against cancer.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Britain sentenced the three final conspirators in a plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners and kill thousands of people to at least 20 years each in prison, bringing a long-running legal saga to an end.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, The Church of England national assembly decided that women should be allowed to become bishops, making only minor concessions to theological conservatives who have threatened to break away over the issue.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, A Canada Steamship Lines vessel ran aground near the Cote Sainte-Catherine canal lock south of Montreal. The Montreal Gazette newspaper said the accident punctured the ship's fuel tank, leaking between 50 and 200 tons of oil into the surrounding waters.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, In China a strike began at the Atsumitec Co. in the city of Foshan, with about 90 of the plant's 200 workers stopping work to demand a nearly 60% pay increase. The plant supplied parts for Japan's Honda Motor. On July 14 nearly all of the remaining employees joined the stoppage in response to a threat from factory management to fire the strikers.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Honduras 4 people were killed and another injured following a week of heavy rains. 3 people died in various parts of the country after being hit by lightning last week.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Iran said it has reached a final agreement with merchants on raising taxes following protests that flared in Tehran's main bazaar earlier this week. The new rate would set a top tax bracket of around 17 percent. The strike continued into a 2nd week.
(AP, 7/12/10)(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 12, A group of 91 Israelis, wounded by Hezbollah rockets during the 2006 war, sued the Arab news network Al-Jazeera for $1.2 billion in a New York court for allegedly aiding the Lebanese guerrillas. The suit claimed the Qatar-based news network intentionally violated Israel's military censorship regulations and reported the precise locations of rocket strikes in Israel in live broadcasts during the monthlong 2006 war.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Israeli archaeologists said a newly discovered clay fragment from the 14th century BC is the oldest example of writing ever found in antiquity-rich Jerusalem. Dig director Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University said the 2-centimeter-long fragment bears an ancient form of writing known as Akkadian wedge script.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Indian Kashmir shops, schools and offices were shut for a second day as politicians met to discuss how to end weeks of violent and deadly street protests against security forces.
(AFP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Mexico 3 assailants died in a shootout with soldiers in the border city of Reynosa. The soldiers reportedly came under fire while on patrol, returned fire and seized three rifles at the scene.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Northern Ireland more than 50,000 Protestants assembled at 18 marching locations across this British territory of 1.8 million. They paraded under banners depicting the July 12, 1690, victory of Protestant King William of Orange versus the forces of his rival for the British throne, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne south of Belfast. Some Protestant areas suffered violence early in the morning during eve-of-parade celebrations around hundreds of makeshift bonfires. 27 officers suffered mostly minor injuries during street clashes the previous evening with more than 200 masked Irish Catholics. Fresh rioting by Catholics opposed to Protestant marches in Belfast injured another 28 police officers.
(AP, 7/12/10)(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, In the Philippines when Canadian Geoffrey Alan Bennun (60) and his Filipino girlfriend were shot to death after a robber broke into their hotel room. Four days later, Briton James Bolton Porter (51) and his girlfriend were killed by a gunman in their house in Angeles' Malabanas village. About a week later a gunman killed American Albert Mitchell (70), a veteran of the US Air Force, along with his Filipino wife, Janet (53), and three Filipino staff inside their Angeles home [see July 27].
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 12, Polish priest Henryk Jankowski (73), who gained prominence in the 1980s by supporting Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement but who later saw his reputation marred by anti-Semitism and suspicions of pedophilia, died in Gdansk.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, Two Russian curators who angered the Russian Orthodox Church with an exhibition that included images of Jesus Christ portrayed as Mickey Mouse and Vladimir Lenin were convicted of inciting religious hatred and fined, but not sentenced to prison.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Russia's Dagestan region gunmen killed two policemen in separate shootings, including Lt. Rasul Magomedov, whose father, mother and sister died in previous attacks.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, The International Criminal Court charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in Darfur, a move that will pile further diplomatic pressure on his isolated regime.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, The Swiss government declared renowned film director Roman Polanski a free man after rejecting a US request to extradite him on a charge of having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl. The Swiss mostly blamed US authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about Polanski's sentencing procedure in 1977-1978.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Uganda investigators found an unexploded suicide vest with ball bearings in a disco hall in Kampala, suggesting that militants had planned a third bombing during the World Cup final. Four foreign suspects were arrested in connection with the find.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, In the US Virgin Islands a Puerto Rican tourist (14) was killed in front of her horrified family when she was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight attributed to warring gangs.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, Venezuelan intelligence agents detained Alejandro Pena Esclusa, a government opponent, on suspicion of links to a Salvadoran man accused of bombings in Cuba. His wife accused authorities of planting explosives while her husband was handcuffed and she was in another part of the apartment.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 12, A Zimbabwean high court released Farai Maguwu, a rights activist charged with endangering Zimbabwe's economic interests by highlighting abuses at diamond mines. He had been arrested on June 3.
(AFP, 7/12/10)(Econ, 6/26/10, p.48)
2010 Jul 13, A US federal appeals court struck down the government’s long-standing prohibition against indecency on broadcast television and radio ruling that the policy was unconstitutionally vague.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 13, The US Defense Department announced that Mohammed Odaini (26), a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, has been transferred to his homeland of Yemen. Odaini, also known as Mohammed Hassen, was 17 when he was first captured in Pakistan at an alleged al-Qaeda safe house in Faisalabad.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, US first-time adult passport fees rose to $135. Renewal fees rose to $100 from $75. The cost for an adult passport card rose to $55 from $45 for adults.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 13, A US law enforcement official said the FBI's investigation into a Russian spy ring that operated in the United States has resulted in another Russian being detained, and he soon will be deported.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Oakland, Ca., laid off 80 police officers after negotiations between city officials and union leaders failed to agree on job security.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 13, After securing a new, tight-fitting cap on top of the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, BP prepared to begin tests to see if it will hold and stop fresh oil from polluting the waters for the first time in nearly three months.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, George Steinbrenner (80), who rebuilt the NY Yankees into a sports empire with a mix of bluster and big bucks that polarized fans all across America, died in Tampa, Fl.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, A renegade Afghan soldier killed 3 British army Gurkha troops in a "suspected premeditated attack" in Helmand province. The attacker remained at large. A suicide attacker slammed a car bomb into the gate of the headquarters of the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police in Kandahar. Minutes later, insurgents opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Three US troops, an Afghan policeman and five civilians died in the attack. Insurgents manning a makeshift checkpoint pulled Saleh Mohammad, a member of a local tribal council in Khas Uruzgan district, out of his vehicle and shot him dead in the road.
(AFP, 7/13/10)(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 13, Australian police said they have seized 240 kg (530 pounds) of cocaine worth 84 million dollars ($73 million) which was stashed in paving stones. 4 men including an American, a Mexican and two Australians were arrested over the haul, Australia's fifth biggest cocaine seizure, which was discovered in two shipping containers sent to Melbourne from Mexico.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In western China landslides slammed into three mountain hamlets, killing 17 people and leaving 44 missing, while crews drained a fast-rising reservoir in another part of the country following heavy rains.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Seven former political prisoners from Cuba smiled and gave victory signs after they and their families arrived in Madrid, the first of 52 dissidents the Cuban government has promised to free in a historic policy shift.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, The Egyptian government released a Bedouin activist and blogger after three years of imprisonment as part of an effort to ease tensions in the Sinai Peninsula. Authorities detained Mosaad Suleiman Abu Fagr (41) in December 2007 and accused him of inciting Bedouins to protest against government discrimination.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Divers found bottles of champagne in a wreck near the Aland Islands between Finland and Sweden. 5 bottles of dark, foamy beer wee later recovered while salvaging the champagne. The shipwreck was believed to be from the early 19th century. In 2011 Finnish scientists said they hoped to re-brew an old ale after studying the ancient beer found in the shipwreck. On June 8, 2012, 11 bottles of the champagne were auctioned for over $156,000.
(http://tinyurl.com/4kawd2n)(AP, 2/8/11)(SFC, 6/9/12, p.D3)
2010 Jul 13, German government sources said industrial group Siemens has won a major contract from Russian Railways to be signed during a visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel this week. The 2.2-billion-euro (2.8-billion-dollar) sale of regional trains is the second major coup for Siemens in Russia this year.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Iraq 3 people were killed by a device which blew up in a mock coffin during a demonstration. In Yusifiyah, 25 km (15 miles) south of Baghdad, gunmen killed a leader of the Sahwa militia, which has sided with US forces against Al-Qaeda, and four family members in their home. Two bombs exploded near a petrol station in Baghdad’s central district of Muhandicin, killing two and wounding five others. A man was killed in the western city of Fallujah when a "sticky bomb" attached to his car blew up.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the cabinet had decided to summon representatives of the Kurdish regional government to discuss oil smuggling to Iran and "to put an end to it, as it harms Iraq's national and economic interests." Reports about the oil smuggling surfaced just over a week after the US imposed new sanctions barring the export of refined fuels to Iran.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Israeli bulldozers destroyed six buildings, including at least three homes, in contested east Jerusalem, resuming the demolition of Palestinian property after a halt aimed at encouraging peace talks.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, An Israeli military vessel confronted a Libyan aid ship trying to breach Israel's three-year-old Gaza blockade and ordered it to divert to an Egyptian port.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Italian police launched one of their biggest operations ever against the powerful 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, arresting 300 people including top bosses and seizing millions worth of property in pre-dawn raids.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Kazakhstan’s cabinet approved a crude-oil export tax of $20 per metric ton. Chevron, based in San Ramon, Ca., owns 50% of Tengiz Chevroil, which operates the biggest field in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 13, In Malaysia a police raid for stolen vehicles found 42 of them at a warehouse in Malaysia along with and hundreds of birds and other protected wildlife. Officers found some 700 birds and caged leopard cats, albino pygmy monkeys and other animals. They included about 20 protected species.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Mexico 3 dead bodies were found hanging from pedestrian bridges in the central city of Cuernavaca. The bodies were accompanied by threatening notes signed by a drug gang. The three men escaped from a state prison last month. Gunmen killed three state police officers in two ambush-style attacks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Another officer was seriously wounded.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Muzaffarabad, Kashmir, PM Raja Farooq Haider Khan, the top official in Pakistan-held Kashmir, vowed to fight India for control of the disputed territory in a speech to thousands of people assembled by a coalition of banned militant groups.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Nigeria the junior finance minister said the country’s corruption-ridden giant state oil firm NNPC is insolvent with debts of five billion dollars.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In eastern Nigeria Christians and Muslims clashes, left eight people dead and 40 seriously wounded, with six mosques and one church also torched.
(AFP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Tanzanian lawyer Jwani Mwaikusa was shot in Dar es Salaam. He was a defense lawyer for a UN tribunal that tries suspects in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Police said his nephew and a neighbor were also killed.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 13, Turkey extradited a man identified only as Salih S. to Germany to face charges of supporting a terrorist organization and membership in a terrorist organization. The German citizen, a member of the radical Islamic Jihad Union, had trained at a terrorist camp in Pakistan. He was accused of procuring GPS devices, night vision goggles and other items for Adem Yilmaz, who was convicted with 3 others earlier this year of plotting a thwarted attack that a judge said could have killed large numbers of US soldiers and civilians in Germany.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe vowed that the country would go ahead with diamond sales that were banned earlier this year because of rights violations at its largest mines. He said his nation will sell its massive stores of diamonds despite not receiving authorization from the world's diamond control body.
(AFP, 7/13/10)(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 14, NYC unveiled its first electric car charging station.
(SFC, 7/15/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 14, After days of progress on the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, BP said that delays have temporarily stopped work beneath the water on both a stopgap solution and a permanent fix to the gusher.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Afghanistan 4 American troops were killed by a roadside bomb in the south, while one more US service member died the same day of wounds from a gunbattle. 9 Afghan civilians died in the south when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the volatile district of Marjah in Helmand province. Another homemade bomb killed 2 security guards traveling on a road in eastern Paktika province. 2 suspected Taliban also died in Helmand's Lashkar Gar district when the roadside bomb they were trying to plant exploded prematurely. Gunmen kidnapped five Health Ministry employees in Kandahar province while insurgents.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 14, Jornal do Brazil said it will end its print editions in September after 119 years, but will continue with a paid online edition.
(SFC, 7/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 14, British Airways and Iberia won the EU's regulatory approval to merge and to team up with American Airlines to share more of their lucrative trans-Atlantic routes.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Canada Violet (78) and Allen Large (75), who live in a modest home in Lower Turo, Nova Scotia, scooped the Lotto 649 jackpot winning $11.2 million. They proceeded to give most of the money away to charity.
(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40009180/ns/us_news-giving/)
2010 Jul 14, In Germany new statistics were released indicating the number of Germans with immigrant roots has reached more than 16 million, or nearly 20 percent of the population.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna arrived in Pakistan saying that he brought a message of "peace and friendship" but called on Islamabad to act decisively against terrorism.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, An Air India plane carrying more than 200 passengers from New York became the first commercial flight to land at New Delhi's new Terminal 3, part of a $2.7-billion airport upgrade.
(AFP, 7/14/10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 14, In India at least 92 people were sickened, eight of them critically, when they inhaled chlorine that leaked from a cylinder in an industrial part of Mumbai.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, Iran's Foreign Ministry said nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was on a flight home, traveling through the Gulf nation of Qatar and was expected to arrive in Tehran on July 15. A US official confirmed that Amiri left the United States. The Washington Post said that Amiri had been working for the CIA for more than a year. It said he was paid $5 million out of a secret program aimed at inducing scientists and others with information on Iran's nuclear program to defect.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 14, Iraq's deputy justice minister said that US has handed over 55 former members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, including the longtime int’l. face of the regime, Tariq Aziz. As of July 15, Iraqi security officials will control Camp Cropper, and the US will hand over roughly 1,600 Iraqi prisoners currently in American custody.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, A ship sent by a Libyan charity to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip changed course in the Mediterranean Sea and docked at an Egyptian port after agreeing to deliver its cargo of aid through Egyptian territory.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Mexico gunmen shot and killed Mario Medina, the nephew of Chihuahua state governor-elect Cesar Duarte, in a botched kidnapping attempt.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 14, Northern Ireland police came under live fire during a third straight night of Belfast unrest. No officers were hit by gunfire, but police said several officers suffered minor injuries, adding to the 82 already wounded.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In the Philippines the first typhoon this year flooded parts of the capital, toppled power lines and killed at least 26 people, many of them trying to scramble to safety as the storm changed course. 38 people were missing. Typhoon Conson came ashore on the east coast of Luzon the previous night with winds of 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour).
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Rwanda Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, deputy president of the opposition Rwandan Democratic Green Party, was found nearly decapitated and dumped by a river. He was last seen a day earlier walking out of a bar in a southern district.
(AFP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In southern Yemen suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen launched simultaneous attacks on the intelligence and security services headquarters in the southern town of Zinjibar, killing three policemen and wounding 11.
(AFP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 15, The US Senate approved a 2,300 page bill for financial overhaul. The House passed the bill last month and Pres. Obama was expected to sign it into law.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 15, Hassan Nemazee (60), a wealthy Manhattan investment banker and former top Democratic fundraiser, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million, some of which he donated to politicians including Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $550 million and change its business practices to settle US regulatory claims it misled investors in collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 15, Joe Jacob (54), venture capitalist, and Peter Gruber (68), chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, led a record $450 million investor group purchase of the Golden Gate Warriors basketball team based in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A13)
2010 Jul 15, BP finally stopped oil from spewing into the sea, for the first time since an April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and unleashed the spill 5,000 feet beneath the water's surface.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Afghanistan police said they have killed a local Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Dawood, in a gunbattle. A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban commander, alias Qari Latif, responsible for a suicide attack on a US aid program. 12 other insurgents were also killed in the attack in Kunduz. A raid killed insurgent, Mullah Akhtar, who smuggled in foreign fighters through Iran, along with several other insurgents in Farah province.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, Argentina legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in Latin America to grant gays and lesbians all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Australian scientists reported their discovery of bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometers below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Makhachkala, Dagestan, Artur Suleimanov, a bishop for the Russian evangelical denomination Osanna. was killed in a shooting. 2 militants were killed by police in a clash in the town of Khasavyurt the previous day.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, French oil firm Total SA said it has signed a deal to acquire Chevron Corp.'s stake in an offshore oil block near Nigeria's coastline.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met for talks and are expected to oversee the signing of an array of deals between German and Russian companies worth billions of dollars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, India unveiled a symbol for its rupee currency that it hopes will become as globally recognized as signs for the dollar, the yen, the pound and the euro. The symbol was designed by research student D Udaya Kumar, who earned $5,300 for his pains.
(AP, 7/15/10)(Econ, 7/24/10, p.43)
2010 Jul 15, In Iraq the US handed over the last detention facility under its control to Iraqi authorities, a milestone in Iraq's push for complete sovereignty. A car bomb in Tikrit and two other attacks killed 8 people, including 4 police officers, and wounded 14 others. A double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran killed 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard in the provincial capital Zahedan. The insurgent group, Jundallah, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In northern Iraq a fire in a five-story hotel killed 28 people, half of them foreigners, in a harrowing blaze that forced several victims to jump to their deaths to escape a building without fire escapes in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
{Iraq, Fire}
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, An Israeli lieutenant colonel and one of his soldiers were convicted in a 2008 shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian demonstrator. Video taken by a local resident showed the soldier firing a rubber-coated bullet from close range at the feet of the Palestinian man, whose hands were tied behind his back.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Lebanon arrested a third person in a widening probe into a suspected network of Israeli spies employed in the country's telecom sector.
(AFP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Mexico members of a northern drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical technician, and wounding nine people. The attack was said to be in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day. It was the first time a drug cartel has used a car bomb to attack Mexican security forces. On Oct 20 Fernando Contreras was arrested in Chihuahua along with 14 others, several weapons and drugs. Police said Contreras had detonated the car bomb.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Myanmar Win Htein, a former aide to Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from prison after 14 years behind bars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Pakistan an apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in the Swat Valley killed five people and wounded at least 58.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, North Korea's military renewed its call for its own investigation into the March deadly sinking of a South Korean warship as it met with the US-led UN Command for the first time since the incident raised tensions on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Pakistan and India sought to improve their strained relationship with high-level talks aimed at rebuilding trust that was fractured by the terrorist attacks that killed 166 people in the Indian city of Mumbai nearly two years ago.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, A last-minute deal at a meeting of the Kimberley Process certification scheme in Russia authorized Zimbabwe to sell two batches of diamonds under strict monitoring and regulation through Sept. 1.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Sudan aid officials said the government has issued expulsion orders against two top relief officials in Darfur after the International Criminal Court charged President Omar al-Beshir with genocide over the seven-year conflict there. When the ICC issued a warrant for Beshir's arrest for the other charges in March last year, the Sudanese government expelled 13 relief organizations from Darfur. Three journalists working for the opposition Rai al-Shaab newspaper were handed jail terms ranging from two to five years for publishing "false reports."
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Sudanese police said at least 33 people have been killed and several others were missing following powerful floods in eastern Sudan.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, The Vatican issued a new set of norms to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal. The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Vietnam’s state media reported that Vietnam has published the first issue of a human rights magazine to help counter what it calls "erroneous and hostile allegations."
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 16, Kendall Myers (73), a retired US intelligence analyst and great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, was sentenced to life in prison for spying for Cuba. His wife was sentenced to 5½ years.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 16, In the US 94 people, including several doctors and nurses, were charged in scams totaling $251 million. Authorities indicted 33 suspects in the Miami area, accused of charging Medicare for about $140 million in various scams. Busts were carried out this week in Miami, New York City, Detroit, Houston and Baton Rouge, La., Federal authorities, while touting the operation, cautioned the cases represent only a fraction of the estimated $60 billion to $90 billion in Medicare fraud absorbed by taxpayers each year.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, James Gammon (b.1940), TV and film actor, died in Orange County, Ca. His films included “Major League" (1989) and its 1994 sequel. His TV roles included the father on “Nash Bridges" (1996-2001).
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 16, In Afghanistan 2 NATO soldiers including one British and one American died in Taliban-style bomb attacks.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Brazil an 11-year-old boy in a school classroom was killed by a stray bullet from a shootout between police and suspected drug gang members in Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, Canada’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Canada will buy 65 new fighter jets from Lockheed Martin Corp for C$9 billion ($8.6 billion), one of the biggest arms deals in the nation's history.
(Reuters, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, A typhoon that left a trail of destruction and deaths in the Philippines hit southern China as emergency workers prepared for torrential rains and lashing winds, flights and ferries were canceled and tens of thousands of residents were evacuated.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Guyana the publisher of Kaieteur News vowed to fight a libel lawsuit filed by President Bharrat Jagdeo for a column that accused the president of racism and of hiring people to disrupt an academic conference. A June 28 column accused Jagdeo and his party, which is dominated by people of East Indian descent, of hiring "goons" to noisily disrupt a conference two days earlier.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Indian Kashmir hundreds of anti-India protesters clashed with police and paramilitary soldiers despite a rigid curfew being reimposed in most of Kashmir following weeks of unrest that has killed 15 people.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico 5 factory workers were gunned down when armed men burst into a party at a house in Ciudad Juarez. In other municipalities of Chihuahua, which shares a long border with Texas, there were four killings.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico Roberto Cabrera (38), with a mysterious bulge under his T-shirt, was stopped, searched and detained at Mexico City's international airport after arriving from Peru. Authorities found 18 tiny endangered monkeys in a girdle he was wearing. Two of the monkeys were dead.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Pakistan a powerful bomb blast ripped through a busy market in the Khyber tribal region, an area along the Afghan border, killing 10 people including children.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, The Sudanese army said it inflicted a series of defeats on Darfur's most powerful rebel group, killing and capturing hundreds in a series of clashes over the past few days. General Al-Tayeb al-Musbah Osman told the state news agency that the army killed at least 300 members of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement and captured another 86. The army said 75 of its troops were also killed.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, Turkey unveiled its first drone airplane, a surveillance craft able to fly for 24-hour stretches over the rugged mountains where Kurdish rebels are waging a deadly insurgency.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Afghanistan a British and an American soldier died in Taliban-style bomb attacks. Another NATO soldier was killed in a separate attack. 4 Afghan policemen died when insurgents attacked a checkpoint in Gereshk district of Helmand province. One Afghan soldier died and another was wounded in Sabari district of Khost province after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
(AFP, 7/17/10)(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Albania 14 people died and 12 others were injured, many of them seriously, when a bus fell off a cliff 140 km (87 miles) north of the capital, Tirana.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, In China 28 miners were killed when an electrical cable caught fire inside a coal shaft in northern Shaanxi province. There were no survivors. 8 coal miners died when a blaze engulfed a mine in central Henan province.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, Typhoon Conson weakened as it headed toward Vietnam, after passing over the Chinese island of Hainan where falling billboards killed at least two people.
(Reuters, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, In France rioters exchanged gunfire with police in Grenoble early in the day, setting fire to shops and cars after police shot dead a man accused of robbing a casino.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, Hong Kong adopted its first minimum wage law, but no rate was yet set
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.73)(http://tinyurl.com/2cx6os2)
2010 Jul 17, In Kenya Pastor John Kamau and accomplice Samuel Chege Gitau were arrested with a substance believed to be ammonium nitrate, a detonator and a safety fuse.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, Lithuania’s state-owned forests reportedly amounted to 830,000 hectares or 3204 square miles and were operated by 42 companies. Government plans called for a single forestry company charged with managing the industry on a commercial basis.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.57)
2010 Jul 17, In Mexico 4 policemen were shot dead by unknown assailants on a rural road near the port of Acapulco. Six other violent deaths were recorded in Ciudad Juarez including a man and his daughter were shot by gunmen who entered his home early in the day.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In central Nigeria Muslims attacked a Christian village, killing eight people with machetes and burning seven houses and a church in fresh religious violence.
(AFP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In northwest Pakistan suspected militants ambushed a convoy of vehicles being escorted by security forces, killing 18 people, including two women in the Kurram region. 6 people were injured when two bomb blasts hit a market in Lahore, damaging two Internet cafes. Jet fighters killed 18 militants in strikes on suspected hideouts in the Orakzai region.
(Reuters, 7/17/10)(AFP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, Gaza's Hamas rulers banned women from smoking water pipes in cafes, calling it a practice that destroys marriages and sullies the image of the Palestinian people.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Poland thousands of gays and lesbians from around Europe marched through Warsaw to demand equal rights and more tolerance toward homosexuals.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Puerto Rico US federal authorities arrested Jose Figueroa Agosto (45), a fugitive alleged drug kingpin, after a decade-long chase through the Caribbean marked by his narrow escapes and public taunting that he paid off police to remain free.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 18, Gitmo detainee Aziz Abdul Naji (35), held for over 8 years, was transferred to Algeria, despite his request to remain under US detention for fear of torture and death at home. On July 25 Naji was indicted in Algeria and placed under judicial supervision.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Oakland, Ca., Jinghong Kang (45) of Virginia was robbed of $17 and killed. George Huggins Jr. (24) and his girlfriend Althea Housley (33) were soon arrested for the robbery and murder. Huggins was charged with special-circumstances murder. On March 20, 2013, Huggins was convicted of first degree murder. The robbery had netted him $10.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.C2)(SFC, 2/21/13, p.A15)
2010 Jul 18, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber slipped through Kabul’s tight security ring, killing three civilians near a busy market two days before an international conference hosting representatives from about 60 nations. An American service member was killed by a roadside bomb in the south. The Taliban staged a brazen jailbreak in the western province of Farah, where a smuggled bomb exploded at a prison, allowing 11 inmates, including suspected insurgents, to escape from the facility that held about 350. In Kandahar city 2 police officers and a civilian died when a roadside bomb exploded near a hospital. A car bomb exploded near the largest US base in Afghanistan, but killed only the suicide attacker.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In England plane manufacturers, airlines, government ministers and military top brass gathered for the Farnborough International Airshow amid hopes that the two-year downturn in the aviation and defense industry is nearing a bottom.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In China 16 workers were inside the shaft when water gushed into the mine in Jinta, a county in Gansu province, and 3 men were safely lifted out. 2 bodies were found and 11 men remained trapped. An explosion at a coal mine in northeastern Liaoning province killed four workers and injured 13 others, who were in stable condition.
(AP, 7/18/10)(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, In southwestern China a bus plunged into a river, leaving 27 people on board missing and feared dead. Rescuers were able to save 11 others.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Germany some 3 million people sat at a 37-mile long table on the A40 between Dortmund and Bochum for a cultural celebration titled "Still Life."
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Iraq twin suicide bombings killed 48 people, including dozens from a government-backed, anti-al-Qaida militia lining up to collect their paychecks near a military base southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Mexico gunmen jumped from their cars and stormed a private party in Torreon. They simply opened fire killing 17 people with 18 wounded. On July 25 prosecutors said that guards and officials at a prison let inmates out, lent them guns and sent them off in official vehicles to carry out drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 in Torreon.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 18, Singapore arrested Alan Shadrake (75), a British author, as part of a criminal defamation investigation related to his book "Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock," on the city-state's death penalty policy. On Nov 3 Shadrake was found guilty of contempt of court. The Attorney-General argued that Shadrake be jailed for at least 12 weeks.
(AP, 7/19/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.55)(http://tinyurl.com/2gygpa7)
2010 Jul 18, Spain said 9 more Cuban political prisoners will fly this week to freedom in Madrid along with around 50 of their relatives.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, Syria announced a ban on the niqab, the face-covering Islamic veil, from the country's universities.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, Thai police arrested American Ronald John Fanelli (37) on charges of killing Wanpen Satienjai (33) and concealing the crime and cause of murder. Fanelli, who has lived on the southern resort island of Phuket for three years, told investigators he took the victim home from a bar on the morning of June 18 and stabbed her to death with a penknife.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Vietnam 17 people were left missing as the tail end of Typhoon Conson blew ashore after battering the Philippines and China and killing dozens.
(AP, 7/18/10)(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The US federal government allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite a seep in the sea floor after the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks underground, settling for the moment a rift between BP and the government.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tehran has used a small Iranian-owned bank in Germany to circumvent sanctions slapped on firms blacklisted for involvement in the Islamic republic's missile programs.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, Despite being rebuffed twice by the US Supreme Court, five states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania) filed suit with a lower court demanding tougher federal and municipal action to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes and decimating their fishing industry.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, Scientists reported that a vaginal gel containing Gilead Science Inc.’s AIDS drug Viread cut HIV infections by as much as 54% in a trial in South Africa. The gel was developed by Conrad, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization.
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 19, San Francisco welcomed Barcelona, Spain, as its newest sister city.
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 19, American companies TPG and Carlyle Group edged out KKK in a takeover battle for Healthscope, an Australian hospital chain with a bid of $1.7 billion.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.64)
2010 Jul 19, Physicist Gerson Goldhaber (b.1924) died at his home in Berkeley, Ca. He contributed to the 1955 discovery of the antiproton and to the discovery of the “charm" quark, later known as the J/psi particle (1974).
(SFC, 7/22/10, p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J/%CF%88_meson)
2010 Jul 19, In Tennessee Lorenzen Wright, a 13-year former NBA player, went missing. His body was found on July 28 in a wooded area of southeast Memphis. On Dec. 15, 2017, police arrested Lorenzen’s wife, Sheera Wright (46), and charged her with his murder.
(AFP, 7/29/10)(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.A8)
2010 Jul 19, Six Afghan policemen and two US troops were killed by roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition forces killed five insurgents and detained five more near Tatang in Nangarhar.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 19, David Warren (b.1925), an Australian scientist who invented the "black box" flight data recorder, died. He designed and constructed a black box prototype in 1956, but it took several years before officials understood just how valuable the device could be and began installing them in commercial airlines worldwide. In 2002, Warren was awarded the Order of Australia, among the nation's highest civilian honors, for his work.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, In England Boeing Co. and Airbus announced new orders worth almost $13 billion at the start of the Farnborough International Airshow, raising hopes that the aviation industry is on the way back up after a dire two-year slump.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The army in the Central African Republic claimed control of the northern town of Birao, following an attack by rebels on its military base there. At least 3 people were killed.
(AFP, 7/19/10)(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, China's Cabinet, the State Council, issued an order that said the black-market trade in food waste and used oil posed "serious potential food safety risks." It vowed to crack down on refined restaurant waste finding its way back to dinner tables through illegal channels.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, In China landslides triggered by flooding killed at least 37 people with 97 missing in the central province of Shaanxi. In nearby Sichuan province, a weekend of torrential rains left 23 dead and forced nearly 600,000 to evacuate their homes.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, One of China's biggest ports, Dalian, shut down after a pipeline explosion triggered a major offshore oil spill, forcing a refinery to cut processing and importers to divert cargoes elsewhere. The government later said 1,500 tons of oil were spilled. Others later estimated as much as 60-90 thousand tons.
(Reuters, 7/19/10)(SFC, 7/31/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 19, Egypt signed a significant agreement with BP to develop 2 offshore gas fields in the largest deal for the beleaguered oil giant since its drilling rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, Germany’s domestic intelligence service started a program for Islamic radicals who want to quit extremism.
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 19, A Greek journalist was gunned down outside his home in Athens, in an attack police say is linked to a domestic terrorist group (Sect of Revolutionaries). Sokratis Giolias (37) died after being shot more than 15 times before dawn in the neighborhood of Ilioupoli.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In eastern India a powerful crash between two express trains at a station killed 63 people and injured scores more in West Bengal state.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Iraq a British national was killed in a car bomb attack on a convoy in the northern city of Mosul. A car bomb exploded near a restaurant in Baqouba, killing six people.
(AFP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 19, Israeli forces demolished a cluster of tents and shacks belonging to Palestinians in the northern West Bank.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Pakistan gunmen killed two Pakistani Christian brothers accused of blasphemy against Islam as they left a court in Faisalabad. The men were chained together when the attack took place.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The upper house of Russia's parliament passed a bill (121-1) granting expanded powers to the country's main security agency, a move that critics say echoes the era of the Soviet KGB. The bill would allow the Federal Security Service to issue warnings to people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia's security.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Russia the Khamovniki District Court in Moscow said in a statement it has convicted Tariel Oniani (58) on extortion and abduction charges. The native of Georgia had been convicted seven times and is wanted in Spain since 2005 on money laundering charges.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Slovenia a cyber mastermind, suspected of creating a malicious software code that infected 12 million computers worldwide and orchestrating other huge cyber scams, was arrested and questioned. His arrest came about five months after Spanish police broke up the massive cyber scam, arresting three of the alleged ringleaders who operated the Mariposa botnet, which stole credit cards and online banking credentials. On July 28 the FBI later said that a 23-year old Slovene known as Iserdo was picked up in Maribor, after lengthy investigation by Slovenian police, FBI and Spanish authorities. The FBI also identified, for the first time, the three individuals arrested in connection with the case in Spain: Florencio Carro Ruiz, known as "Netkairo;" Jonathan Pazos Rivera, known as "Jonyloleante;" and Juan Jose Bellido Rios, known as "Ostiator.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Somalia at least 12 people, including two government soldiers, were killed in two days of battle between Islamist militants and government forces backed by African Union peacekeepers. Government forces launched a counterattack to recapture a government office they lost to al-Shabab a day earlier.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Suriname former dictator Desi Bouterse was elected president by parliament, following weeks of jostling by opponents who sought to stop a convicted drug trafficker and ex-strongman accused of killing political opponents from returning to power. The next day Bouterse said through a spokesman that he will not interfere in his ongoing trial for the massacre of 15 political opponents during his military regime.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/21/10)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.40)
2010 Jul 19, A Turkish court indicted 196 people, including four retired military commanders, of conspiring in 2003 to overthrow the Islamic-oriented government in an alleged plot that highlights tension between Turkey's pious leadership and its secular opponents.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Uganda the African Union summit opened in Kampala amid heightened security following twin bomb attacks a week earlier.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Oakland, Ca., City Council adopted regulations permitting industrial-scale marijuana farms.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 20, In northern Afghanistan 2 American civilians and an Afghan soldier were killed in a shooting on an Afghan military base. An Afghan soldier who trained others at the base outside Mazar-e-Sharif started shooting during a weapons exercise. The shooter was killed. The international community endorsed sweeping Afghan government plans to take responsibility for security by 2014, forge peace to end nine years of war and take greater control of aid projects. NATO forces detained a Taliban operative who had been in the final preparation stages for attacks against an int’l. conference.
(AP, 7/20/10)(AFP, 7/20/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 20, It was reported that at least 26 people have died in Argentina from exposure, carbon monoxide inhalation from heaters and other weather-related causes. A cold front across much of South America was linked to dozens of deaths, mounting losses for cattle ranchers and other hardships.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Australian Sex Party promised to spice up campaigning for next month's elections with a manifesto "unlike Australia had ever seen before." The party's policies include legalizing euthanasia, decriminalizing all drugs for personal use, and watering down strict anti-pornography laws.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Bank of Canada raised its key interest rate, as expected, but warned the domestic and global recovery will be slower than it had previously forecast, suggesting any further hikes may be gradual. Borrowing costs rose 25 basis points to 0.75%.
(Reuters, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Paris-based International Energy Agency said China has overtaken the United States as the world's largest energy consumer. The IE said China's 2009 consumption of energy sources ranging from oil and coal wind and solar power was equal to 2.265 billion tons of oil, compared to 2.169 billion tons for the US.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Guinea's top court announced final results from last month's presidential election and confirmed that the top two finishers will face each other in a runoff. Former PM Cellou Dalein Diallo garnered nearly 44 percent of the vote, short of the simple majority needed to avoid a second round. Longtime opposition politician Alpha Conde won just about 18 percent, while another ex-premier, Sidya Toure came in third place with close to 13 percent of the vote.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iran's parliament authorized tit-for-tat retaliation against countries that inspect cargo on Iranian ships and aircraft as part of new UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iranian newspapers reported the hanging of 3 men in a prison in Kerman and one in public in the city of Ahvaz after they were convicted of drug trafficking.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iraqi officials discovered that 4 al-Qaida-linked detainees escaped from Karkh prison in the Baghdad area, which was handed over by the US to Iraqi authorities a week ago. The four men were officially listed in a security report as Mohammed Hamid, Qais Azmi, Malik Nazzal and Hussein Ahmed. A car bomb near a roadside restaurant just north of Baghdad killed one person and wounded seven Iranian pilgrims heading to Karbala.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 20, Israel canceled a warning to its people to avoid traveling to Turkey, citing an end to stormy protests over Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Italian engineers launched a 3-month, 8,000-mile test drive of a robotic vehicle from Parma to China.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 20, Pakistani army guards shot and killed three suspected suicide bombers and two other militants as they tried to enter a sprawling military firing range in the northwest.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Kurdish rebels killed six Turkish soldiers and wounded 15 in an overnight raid on a military outpost along the border with Iraq. Another soldier died in a separate attack.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Seoul's mass-circulation Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said Kwon Ho Ung, North Korea's chief delegate from 2004 to 2007 for high-level talks with the South's then liberal government, has been executed by firing squad.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, A Somali human rights group said at least 53 civilians were killed over the past week in clashes between government forces and Islamic militants.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 20, Spain's Parliament rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Sudan expelled three top Chadian rebel chiefs on the eve of a visit to Chad by Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Taiwan’s Pres. Ma Ying-jeou announced the formation of a new commission to battle corruption and vote buying. A week earlier 3 high court judges and a prosecutor were detained amid allegations that they took bribes to fix the outcome of a high profile case.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 20, Uganda's government defended the forced repatriation of 1,700 Rwandan refugees, action that the UN refugee agency condemned for being heavy-handed. Two people died while trying to escape the roundup. The Rwandans were forced out of Uganda on July 14 because they had no refugee status and had become a security risk.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would put a representative on the board of opposition television station Globovision, the leftist leader's boldest move yet against his fiercest media critic.
(Reuters, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Yemeni tribal chief Sheikh Zaidan al-Moqannay, his son and four of his bodyguards were killed in a rebel ambush in Saada. Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam denied that the rebels ambushed Moqannay, claiming that he was killed in confrontations which also resulted in the death of three rebels. Rebels said they welcomed a Qatari offer to help consolidate a truce.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Pres. Obama signed major financial overhaul legislation named after Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass). The Volcker rule in the legislation only took effect on July 21 2015. This banned banks from proprietary trading and ties to hedge and private equity funds.
(SFC, 7/22/10, p.D1)(Econ, 7/25/15, p.60)
2010 Jul 21, The US Dodd-Frank Act, signed today, all but shut down artisanal mining in much of eastern Congo DRC as it attempted to stop rebels from selling gold and diamonds to fund wars.
(Econ, 8/27/16, p.36)
2010 Jul 21, The United States announced new sanctions against North Korea, targeted against its leadership, and warned of serious consequences if it again attacked the South.
(Reuters, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, A US federal judge ordered imprisoned former media baron Conrad Black released on $2 million bond, while she decides whether to throw out his 2007 conviction for defrauding shareholders. The Canadian-born Black, a British peer who once led the world's third-largest newspaper publisher, entered a Florida prison in March 2008. Black still faced numerous civil suits related to Hollinger, and US tax authorities have demanded $71 million from him for unpaid taxes.
(Reuters, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, A US federal jury found Beau Diamond of Sarasota, Fla., guilty of 18 counts of fraud and money laundering crimes in association with a $37 million Ponzi scheme between 2006 and 2009. In December Diamond was sentenced to over 15 years in federal prison.
(www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100722/ARTICLE/7221060)(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 21, Scientists said a huge ball of brightly burning gas in a neighboring galaxy may be the heaviest star ever discovered, hundreds of times more massive than the sun after working out its weight for the first time. The star, called R136a1, was identified at the center of a star cluster in the Tarantula Nebula, a sprawling cloud of gas and dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy about 165,000 light-years away from our own Milky Way.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Don Backer (66), UC astronomer and pioneer in the use of the radio telescope, died in Berkeley, Ca. In 1982 Don Backer led a group which discovered PSR B1937+21, a pulsar with a rotation period of just 1.6 milliseconds.
(SFC, 7/31/10, p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar)
2010 Jul 21, In northern Afghanistan insurgents beheaded six policemen after attacking their checkpoint in Baghlan province's Dahanah-ye Ghori district. A Danish service member was killed by an explosion in the south. In Kabul NATO and Afghan forces captured another suspected insurgent who had planned attacks against this week's international conference.
(AP, 7/21/10)(AP, 7/22/10)(SFC, 7/22/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 21, In Argentina Pres. Cristina Fernandez signed a new law making Argentina the first country in Latin America to legalize marriage for same-sex couples.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 21, Thet Sambat, Cambodian journalist, and Rob Lemkin, British director, premiered their documentary “Enemies of the People" in Cambodia. It features his conversations with Nuon Ceha, Pol Pot’s right hand man. In January it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.31)(http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/)
2010 Jul 21, The Central American Integration System readmitted Honduras.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.40)
2010 Jul 21, President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Chad, the first time Sudan's leader has been in a member state of the International Criminal Court. He arrived to take part in a summit of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. Human Rights Watch said that Chad should arrest al-Bashir or risk becoming the first ICC member state to harbor a suspected war criminal.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, China said flood waters this year have killed 701 people and left 347 missing. The overall damage thus far totaled 142.2 billion yuan ($21 billion).
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, China's largest reported oil spill had more than doubled, closing beaches on the Yellow Sea and prompting an environmental official to warn the sticky black crude posed a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality. The oil was spread over 165 square miles (430 square km) of water five days since a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, The leaders of Egypt and Turkey met in Cairo to discuss stuttering international efforts to coax Israeli and Palestinian leaders back to the negotiating table.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Iran's nuclear agency said it will conduct scientific studies for the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, an engineering challenge that no nation has yet overcome.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Southern Iran was shaken by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake killing one person.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Iraq a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque in Baqouba, Diyala province, killed 15 people, the third deadly attack in the region in as many days. A US soldier was killed in a separate bombing in the same province. Iraqi soldiers arrested Saleem Khalid al-Zawbayi, the minister of defense for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). Zawbayi was suspected of organizing a July 18 suicide bombing in the town of Radwaniyah.
(AP, 7/21/10)(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 21, Israel said it will restrict its use of white phosphorus munitions and seek to limit civilian casualties in future wars, in a report to the UN secretary general released this week. Israeli fire killed two Palestinians and wounded 10 in the northern Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Kyrgyzstan police detained Akhmat Bakiyev, a brother of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, in the latest effort to solidify control over the country's tense south and dismantle the former leader's entourage. International health and rights groups said that minority ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan are being deprived of medical treatment and opportunities to seek refuge in neighboring Uzbekistan.
(AP, 7/21/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 21, Nigeria laid out plans to bail out its badly struggling banks by removing up to 21 billion dollars in deadbeat loans from their balance sheets.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Pakistan heavy monsoon rains killed at least 17 people and affected thousands more.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Romania forensic scientists exhumed what are believed to be the bodies of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena to solve the mystery of where they are truly buried.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In southern Russia 2 carloads of assailants attacked a hydroelectric station, killing two workers and setting off bombs in Kabardino-Balkariya.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Somalia 2 Ugandan soldiers were killed during clashes in Mogadishu's Bondhere district. Al-Shabab introduced 3 former members of the presidential guard, who said they had quit working for the government because it was protected by AU forces who were killing Somali civilians with indiscriminate shelling.
(AP, 7/23/10)(SFC, 7/23/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 21, It was reported that security forces from Somalia's semiautonomous northern region of Puntland were rounding up hundreds of southerners. Officials said they posed a security threat. Activist Khadija Dahir said about 500 people were deported. She called the move unacceptable and clear violation against innocent refugees.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Spain accepted a third former inmate from the US prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The inmate was originally from Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 21, Sudanese rebel group JEM signed a landmark deal with the UN, pledging to protect children caught up in the Darfur conflict.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Ugandan police said 10 people died after a boat they were traveling in capsized on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Yemeni tribal and rebel sources said fighting in the mountainous north between Shiite rebels and army-backed tribes over the past four days have left at least 49 people dead, threatening a fragile truce.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal ruled that Kosovo's former prime minister must be retried on murder and torture charges related to the country's 1998-99 war with Serbia, calling his acquittal two years ago "a miscarriage of justice." Tribunal President Patrick Robinson said the original trial for Ramush Haradinaj and two former Kosovo Liberation Army comrades was marred by intimidation that left two prosecution witnesses too scared to testify.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 22, Pres. Obama signed into law a restoration of benefits for people who have been out of work for 6 months or more.
(SFC, 7/23/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 22, The US said it was dropping a ban on ties with Indonesia's special forces, imposed over human rights abuses in the 1990s, a move that may eventually allow combat training of the once-notorious unit.
(Reuters, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The US Treasury Department added two companies owned by daughters of drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada to the list of sanctioned companies under the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The US Embassy in Mexico City said the two women, Maria Teresa Zambada Niebla and Midiam Patricia Zambada Niebla, served as "front persons" for their father's illicit transactions. The companies named to the list are Arte y Diseno de Culiacan SA de CV and Autotransportes JYM SA de CV.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The US Treasury Department sanctioned three insurgent leaders, including Nasiruddin Haqqani, an emissary for the Haqqani Network (Afghanistan-Pakistan) and brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani who leads the group with his father, Jalaluddin.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 22, In California a Greyhound bus crashed just outside downtown Fresno killing 6 people with 9 injured. It had struck an overturned SUV. 3 of the dead were women in the SUV. The driver (18) of the SUV was later found to have a .11% blood alcohol level.
(SFC, 7/23/10, p.C3)(SFC, 8/4/10, p.C4)
2010 Jul 22, In southern Afghanistan a helicopter crashed killing two US service members. The Taliban claimed it shot down the craft, but NATO said it was still investigating. Several Taliban figures, including a former spokesman for the insurgents, were captured in raids by coalition and Afghan forces across the country. In Uruzgan province the Taliban shot and killed the head of the Khas Uruzgan district development council and his assistant as they were leaving a house.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, Burundi was labeled as the most corrupt country in East Africa in a survey by Transparency International. Rwanda was found to be the least corrupt among the five countries in the region.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, In China Guangxi police uncovered a kidnapping ring during a three-month investigation and arrested seven people in coastal Fujian province. One of the suspects confessed to police the group had operated since 1989, kidnapping women and children from cities in Guangxi to sell in Fujian.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Jul 22, Egyptian security officials said smugglers who sneak consumer goods, cash and weapons into the blockaded Gaza Strip have cut hundreds of holes in an underground steel wall Egypt is building along the border to try to stop them.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, France and Mauritania carried out a military operation against al Qaeda's North African wing, believed to be holding Michel Germaneau, a 78-year-old French hostage in the desert Sahel region.
(Reuters, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, India unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, In Iraq 2 Ugandans and a Peruvian who worked as security contractors for the US government were killed during a rocket attack on the Green Zone. In Mosul a bombing and a series of drive-by shootings killed an Iraqi army brigadier general, a Sunni cleric, two policeman, a soldier and two civilians.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man entering a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, drawing a Palestinian accusation that soldiers are too quick to open fire.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, In Italy police carried out six arrests and charged that members of the Camorra mafia won contracts to rebuild the quake-hit city of L'Aquila with the help of four bank employees.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, Mexican soldiers fought gunbattles overnight with gangs who forced citizens from their cars and used the vehicles to block streets in Nuevo Laredo across the border from Texas. Witnesses reported that several gunmen were killed. 8 suspected drug gang gunmen died in a battle with Mexican soldiers in the remote mountains of northern Chihuahua state. Authorities began uncovering the remains of at least 51 people in a series of pits and scattered on the ground at a suspected drug-gang dumping site near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 22, In the northern Philippines an American man, Albert Mitchell, and four others were found shot dead at his rented home.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The UN Security Council pressed for effective actions to combat the growing threat of drug trafficking and organized crime in the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The UN's highest court said that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not break international law.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia, accusing the close US ally of fabricating reports that Colombian rebels find safe haven inside Venezuela.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, In southern Yemen Al-Qaida militants killed five soldiers in an ambush. Rebels in the north fought with army units and government-allied tribes killing at least 20 people in the latest series of clashes there.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 23, Jesus Quinonez, the international liaison for the Baja California state attorney general's office, was among 43 defendants named in a US federal racketeering complaint that alleges murder, kidnapping and other crimes. They were accused of working for Fernando Sanchez Arellano, widely considered the most-wanted drug kingpin in Tijuana. Quinonez (49) was arrested a day earlier in San Diego during a traffic stop.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 23, In Bell, Ca., 3 administrators whose huge salaries sparked outrage in this small blue-collar suburb of LA agreed to resign. Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo (56) was being paid $787,637 a year. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia made $376,288 a year, and Police Chief Randy Adams made $457,000. On July 26 the City Council voted to slash salaries by 90%. On April 14, 2014, Rizzo was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison on two counts of tax fraud. On April 16 Rizzo was sentenced to 12 years in state prison.
(AP, 7/23/10)(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A6)(SFC, 4/15/14, p.A6)(SFC, 4/17/14, p.A5)
2010 Jul 23, Work to permanently choke off BP's broken oil well stalled as Tropical Storm Bonnie raced toward the Gulf of Mexico and dozens of ships evacuated the area.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Daniel Schorr, veteran news reported died in Washington DC. In 1973 as a CBS reporter Schorr aired Pres. Nixon’s “enemies list," finding his own name as #17 of 20. Schorr’s book included “Clearing the Air" (1978).
(SFC, 7/24/10, p.C4)
2010 Jul 23, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb exploded inside a mosque, seriously wounding a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections and at least 16 other people. Two American service members left their compound in Kabul and failed to return. They were believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid later said the pair drove into an area of Logar province that is under insurgent control. He says that during a brief gunfight, one American was killed and the other was captured. The body of Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley (30) was found on July 25. On July 28 the body of the 2nd sailor, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove (25) was recovered. In southern Helmand province at least 45 civilians, many women and children, were killed in a rocket attack by the NATO-led foreign force. Alliance and Afghan troops came under attack about 6 miles (10 km) south of the village and responded with helicopter-borne strikes. Coalition forces reported six insurgents killed, including a Taliban commander.
(AP, 7/23/10)(Reuters, 7/24/10)(AP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/26/10)(AP, 7/28/10)(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A3)(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 23, The African Union said its forces battling Al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Mogadishu will be boosted by a battalion from Guinea and could further swell to reach 10,000 troops.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, A Chinese court sentenced a Uighur journalist to 15 years in jail for critical writings and comments he made to foreign media after last year's deadly ethnic riots in China's western Xinjiang region. Halaite Niyaze was found guilty of "endangering national security" and sentenced following a one-day trial in Urumqi.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Typhoon Chanthu killed three people before weakening into a tropical storm after making landfall in southern China's Guangdong province.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, In the Dominican Rep. 8 people who allegedly spent $170 million on apartments, cars and other goods using money from Jose Figueroa, the Caribbean's top drug trafficker, were formally charged with money laundering and other crimes.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Seven out of 91 banks failed European stress tests, which were organized in hope of reviving investor confidence in Europe's embattled banking sector. German state-owned lender Hypo Real Estate, five regional savings banks in Spain and ATEBank of Greece failed the test of whether they could resist a new financial shock. All have been ordered to recapitalize or take state aid.
(AFP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 23, EU police investigating corruption arrested Hashim Rexhepi, Kosovo’s central bank governor.
(www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b5155da-9666-11df-96a2-00144feab49a.html)
2010 Jul 23, In Indian Kashmir security forces fired teargas at stone-throwing protesters as fresh protests against Indian rule broke out. A minibus veered off a mountain road under construction and plunged into a river, killing at least 17 people.
(AP, 7/23/10)(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 23, The Marshall Islands region of Ebeye, which has the unflattering reputation as the "slum of the Pacific" has now been damned in a US Army report as a health threat to residents.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, A Dutch court slapped a one million euro fine on Trafigura, a Swiss-based company whose chartered ship dumped hazardous waste the Ivory Coast says killed 17 people on its soil. It was also found guilty of concealing what the charge sheet referred to as the "harmful nature" of the waste on board the Probo Koala ship that arrived at the port of Amsterdam on July 2, 2006, but was redirected to the Ivory Coast.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Pakistan’s government said 30 people had been killed in flash floods in Baluchistan province, mostly in Barkhan district.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, In South Africa a police helicopter crashed, killing seven officers on board, as it flew to the scene of a suspected hostage-taking northeast of Johannesburg.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Switzerland's popular Glacier Express tourist train derailed in the Alps, killing one person and injuring 42.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Thailand’s Culture Ministry said Facebook and Twitter are causing deteriorating language skills among Thai students and authorities want them to return to the bygone tradition of letter-writing.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 24, In Iowa the Lake Delhi dam in Delaware County gave way under the rising Maquoketa River decimating the 9-mile long lake and adjacent property values.
(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 24, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard pledged 400 million dollars (360 million US) to take old cars off the road and vowed to impose tougher fuel standards as part of her election policy on climate change.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Congolese rebels took an Indian pilot hostage when they attacked an aircraft on a remote airstrip in a tin mining zone in the country's North Kivu province.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 24, French-backed Mauritanian military operations against al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara desert wound up after four days of hunting Islamists deep inside Mali.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, The German government said it is offering asylum to 50 Iranian dissidents who took part in the massive street protests that erupted after elections there last year.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In Germany a stampede at the Love Parade techno music festival in Duisberg ended with at least 19 young people dead and more than 300 injured. Within days the death toll rose to 21 as more died from their injuries.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)(http://tinyurl.com/27m7e9l)(Reuters, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 24, Theo Albrecht (88), the secretive co-founder of Germany's worldwide discount supermarket chain Aldi, a co-owner of Trader Joe's in the United States and one of Europe's richest men, died in Essen.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 24, India’s Chhattisgarh state, seen as a bastion of an increasingly deadly Maoist revolt, said it was seeking one billion dollars to counter the left-wing insurgency with a surge in development.
(AFP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran warned it would stop trading with countries that impose restrictions on its assets abroad in the face of tightening international sanctions over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear activities.
(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran hanged three drug traffickers identified only by their initials as A.A., S.Z. and S.M., in the city of Ahvaz in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 24, North Korea vowed to respond with "powerful nuclear deterrence" to joint US and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend, saying the drills amount to a provocation that would prompt "retaliatory sacred war."
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In northwest Pakistan gunmen killed the son of Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. US missiles hit a suspected militant hide-out, killing 12 insurgents in a compound in the Nazai Narai area of South Waziristan.
(AP, 7/24/10)(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 24, Russia said it plans its biggest sell-off of state assets since the early 1990s as it seeks to raise over $29 billion to plug budget gaps over the next three years.
(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In southern Russia gunmen opened fire on security guards at a provincial food market in the city of Samara, killing at least two and wounding at least five other people. 3 soldiers in Dagestan were killed when assailants attacked their convoy in a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Ugandan forces imposed tight security in the capital as more than 30 heads of state began converging on Kampala for an African Union summit barely two weeks after deadly suicide attacks. The African Union said Africa must turn ever more to China for its development because conditions and checks often stalled the flow of funds from Western nations and the World Bank.
(AFP, 7/24/10)(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In Yemen tribal mediators succeeded in reaching a ceasefire between northern Shiite rebels and an army-backed tribe after days of fighting that killed at least 70 people.
(AFP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 25, The US and South Korea launched a major naval exercise involving a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan despite North Korea's threats of nuclear retaliation.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, Ships and workers moved back into BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico oil spill site as seas calmed, and BP could begin pumping mud into the blown-out well later this week in a bid to plug the gusher.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Washington DC a storm downed electrical lines and left 4 people dead.
(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 25, In Algeria a suicide bomber killed at least one person in the eastern Kabylie region by driving a car rigged with explosives into a building used by security forces. Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa soon claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Brazil about 300 Amazon Indians prevented workers from entering or leaving the construction site of a hydroelectric plant that protesters say is on an ancient burial ground. Native Indians took some 100 workers hostage at the construction site. Indians from eight tribes taking part in the protest demanded compensation for losses caused by construction of the Dardanelos plant in the southern Amazon city of Aripuana. The hostages were released the next day.
(AP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/25/10)(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 25, Former Nazi SS officer Erich Steidtmann (95), suspected but never convicted of involvement in World War II massacres, died from a heart attack at his home in Hannover. Steidtmann was investigated several times for his alleged involvement in killings at the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 and two massacres in the Polish city of Lublin.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 25, Iran's official news agency said an explosion at a petrochemical factory at its Kharg island oil terminal has killed four people.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, An Israeli military spokesman said Gaza-based militants fired four rockets into southern Israel over the weekend. None of them caused any casualties or damage.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Japan 5 people died when a rescue helicopter sent to help a party of climbers crashed in mountains near Tokyo.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Pakistan US missiles hit a compound in South Waziristan, killing four militants in a second drone attack in as many days in the region seen as al-Qaeda headquarters.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In the Philippines gunmen strafed the center of a southern township, killing an aide to Vice Mayor Rasul Sangki, a key witness to the Nov 23, 2009, mass killings.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 25, Puerto Rico's Gov. Luis Fortuno declared a state of emergency for 17 flooded communities in the US territory due to a weather system that later turned into Tropical Storm Bonnie.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Thailand a bomb at a bus stop in downtown Bangkok killed one person and wounded 11 shortly after polls closed in a parliamentary election that pitted a government candidate against a jailed leader of recent mass protests.
(AP, 7/25/10)(SFC, 7/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 25, In Turkey foreign ministers of Turkey and Brazil urged Iran to be flexible and open in dealings with the West over its atomic program as Iran renewed its readiness to resume frozen nuclear talks. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Iran has expressed willingness to have talks with the European Union on its nuclear program after the month of Ramadan ends in early September.
(AFP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, Uganda's president urged African Union leaders at a summit in Kampala to "sweep the terrorists" out of Africa.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Yemen Al-Qaida militants attacked the patrol in the southern town of Aqla in Shabwa province with rocket propelled grenades and sprayed it with bullets killing 6 soldiers.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised that the release of some 91,000 secret US military documents on the Afghanistan war is just the beginning, adding that he still has thousands more Afghan files to post online. The files were mostly field reports and intelligence assessments from 2004-2009. Pakistan's most powerful spy agency on lashed out against a trove of leaked US intelligence reports that alleged close connections between it and Taliban militants fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan, calling the accusations malicious and unsubstantiated.
(AP, 7/26/10)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.28)
2010 Jul 26, The US FCC announced that it had made the controversial practice of “jailbreaking" your iPhone, or any other cell phone, legal. Jailbreaking, the practice of unlocking a phone (and particularly an iPhone) so it can be used on another network and/or run other applications than those approved by Apple, has technically been illegal for years.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Michigan an oil pipeline, owned by Canada-based Enbridge Inc., leaked over 800,000 gallons into Talmadge Creek and flowed to the Kalamazoo River coating fish and birds in Battle Creek and Emmet Township. The US government estimated the leak at over 1 million gallons. Enbridge later estimated cleanup costs at about $1.2 billion. In 2014 a settlement between the company and residents and landowners was said to be $6.25 million. On May 13, 2015, officials said Enbridge Energy and its affiliates will pay $75 million to settle the case.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A4)(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A7)(SFC, 12/25/14, p.A10)(Reuters, 5/13/15)
2010 Jul 26, The Plastiki sailboat, largely constructed from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles, docked in Sydney Harbor completing a 4-month journey across the Pacific Ocean meant to raise awareness about the perils of plastic waste.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, A special tribunal in Bangladesh issued arrest warrants against four senior leaders of the country's largest Islamic party ahead of a planned trial over alleged crimes against humanity during the nation's 1971 independence war.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Brazil gunmen used a pickup truck to block an air taxi from taking off at a small airport in the northeastern city of Caruaru and stole money and documents it was carrying for the country's federation of banks.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, Campaign group Global Witness said it was launching legal action against the British government for allegedly failing to refer companies trading Congolese "conflict minerals" for UN sanctions.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, The British culture department announced plans to abolish the UK Film Council, a body responsible for funding 900 British films since it was set up in 2000.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Cambodia a UN-backed court sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (67), a Khmer Rouge prison chief better known as Duch, to 30 years in jail for crimes against humanity over mass executions during Cambodia's "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, China’s Geely Holding Group received final government approval to acquire Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Co. in a $1.8 billion deal.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 26, The EU adopted tighter sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, with steps to block oil and gas investment and curtail Tehran's refining and natural gas capability.
(Reuters, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, France said it is upgrading its diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Territories to try to spur international efforts toward creating a Palestinian state.
(AP, 7/2610)
2010 Jul 26, French Defense Minister Herve Morin visited Vietnam marking the first time a French defense minister traveled to the country since Vietnam's 1954 surprise defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The next day Vietnam’s state media reported that Morin has agreed to help Vietnam modernize its military.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In northeast India gunmen ambushed a jeep In Assam state, killing four paramilitary soldiers and wounding another three in an attack blamed on separatist rebels.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Iraq a suicide bomber driving a minibus blew himself up in front of the Baghdad office of a Saudi-funded television channel, killing 4 people. Twin car bombs killed 21 people in the Shiite city of Karbala, while four people died in a suicide attack on a Saudi-funded television channel in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Mexico six men were found inside a car in the southwestern city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero state. Next to them lay a message reading: "This will happen to all rapists, extortionists and kidnappers. Attentively, the New Cartel of the Sierra." The bodies of four men were found dumped in a plaza in Nuevo Laredo. In Cuernavaca state investigators found the burned bodies of three men near a major highway. The victims had been bound before being burned. Painted on a nearby wall were the letters "CPS," an apparent reference to the Southern Pacific drug cartel. 4 journalists disappeared in the Laguna region, which includes Durango and areas of the neighboring state of Coahuila. A Milenio newspaper and TV network cameramen and three other journalists were abducted after covering a prison scandal in the northern state of Durango in which inmates are accused of being hired guns for a local cartel. The 4 were soon freed and 3 men working for the Sinaloa drug cartel were detained for participating in the kidnapping.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/29/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Nicaragua William Adolfo Cortez of Texas and his wife Jane, an American couple wanted in Panama in the March 21 death of a US woman, were arrested by the Nicaraguan army at the border with Costa Rica.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 26, Nigeria's drug enforcement agency seized nearly half a ton of cocaine and arrested two Chinese nationals and a Nigerian in connection with the seizure. The shipment originated from Chile and passed through Peru, Bolivia and Antwerp in Belgium before being shipped to Nigeria.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber struck near the home of a provincial minister whose only son was recently killed by the militants. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province and an outspoken critic of the Taliban, was the apparent target. 7 people were killed and 25 wounded.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In central Romania an Israeli helicopter crashed with no survivors among the six Israeli and one Romanian soldiers on board.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, The island nation of Seychelles said it has prosecuted and convicted Somali pirates for the first time. A Seychelles court sentenced 11 Somali pirates to 10 years in prison each for their attempt to hijack the Seychelles coast guard patrol boat Topaz last December.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Somalia African Union forces propping up government troops launched an offensive against Islamist rebels in Mogadishu, killing at least 11 people, mainly fighters.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Sudan a helicopter, which was assigned to the UN-AU force, disappeared while transporting three members of the rebel Liberation Justice Movement from peace negotiations with the government in Doha, Qatar, to locations in South Darfur. The Russian-owned helicopter, which landed in the wrong place in Darfur, was recovered the next day with all the passengers and crew except the Russian pilot. Pilot Yevgeny Mostovshchikov was returned to his UN peacekeepers' base on July 29.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 26, In north Yemen Shiite rebels took control of a strategic army post and captured some 70 soldiers, in the latest clash to endanger an increasingly fragile truce.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 27, An audit by the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction said the US Defense Department is unable to properly account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the US for rebuilding the war ravaged nation.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, BP said its much-criticized CEO Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley on Oct. 1, as it reported a record quarterly loss and set aside $32.2 billion to cover costs of the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, SF supervisors voted 10-1 to transform the abandoned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard into a new waterfront community.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 27, The Walt Disney Co. announced a deal to buy Playdom Inc. of Mountain View, Ca., a maker of social-networking games, in a deal valued at $563.2 million.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 27, In southern Afghanistan a US service member died. A NATO drone went down in a Taliban-held area of northern Afghanistan because of mechanical problems.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, Bangladesh raised the minimum wage for its millions of garment workers by 80 percent, following months of violent protests over pay and conditions.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Bolivian authorities arrested Valentin Mejillones (55), an Aymara priest who inaugurated President Evo Morales, in a bust that netted 530 pounds (240 kg) of liquid cocaine.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Brazil Wallace Souza (51), a former TV crime show host and state legislator accused of commissioning killings to boost ratings, died. He suffered from Budd Chiari syndrome, a rare disorder that causes clots to form in blood vessels in the liver.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, British PM David Cameron visited Turkey, saying the world needs Turkey's help in pushing Iran to address concerns about its nuclear program and harshly criticizing Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Canadian actor Maury Chaykin (b.1949) died at a Toronto hospital. Chaykin had roles in "Dances With Wolves," "The Postman," "Owning Mahoney," "Mystery, Alaska," "A Life Less Ordinary," and "The Adjuster."
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In southern China a landslide caused by rains left 21 people missing, adding to a growing death toll from China's worst flood season in a decade, which is expected to worsen with heavy rains forecast across the country.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In CongoDRC a boat ferrying about 200 passengers to Kinshasa capsized after hitting a rock. As many as 138 people were killed with 80 confirmed dead.
(Reuters, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Egypt armed and masked Bedouin tribe members hijacked a bus from an industrial area in the central Sinai peninsula. The bus was carrying 30 employees of Sinai Cement who were dumped before the hijackers fled with the vehicle.
(Reuters, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, French PM Francois Fillon said France is "at war" with al-Qaida and will step up efforts to fight its North African offshoot after it executed a French hostage in the Sahara.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of internationally-acclaimed family planning as ungodly and a Western import.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iran vowed to press ahead with its nuclear program even as it expressed readiness to resume talks on the thorny issue despite being slapped with tough new EU sanctions. Russia condemned new EU sanctions on Iran, tempering hopes of closer cooperation between Moscow and the West over Iran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Iraq mortars killed 7 people and wounded 46 in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, Japan and China agreed in Tokyo to seek an early conclusion to talks over plans to jointly exploit oil and gas fields in a disputed area of the East China Sea.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Kyrgyzstan's government appealed to an international donors conference for $1.2 billion in aid to rebuild the country after months of political and ethnic violence.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Mexico 3 federal police agents were shot to death on a highway in a confrontation with gunmen. A second cousin of Gov.-elect Cesar Duarte was shot to death by attackers in the city of Parral. The severed heads of eight men were found left in pairs along highways in the northern Mexico state of Durango. Rogelio Segovia Hernandez, a suspected drug cartel lieutenant with a quarter-million-dollar reward on his head, was captured in the border state of Chihuahua, where rival gangs are waging a bloody turf war.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, Dutch judges gave the green light for a teenage girl's bid to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo, thwarting a bid to have Laura Dekker (14) kept in child care.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, A former Pakistani spy, Sultan Amir Tarar, kidnapped by militants four months ago in northwestern Pakistan threatened in a video to expose the government's "weaknesses" unless it frees prisoners to secure his release as demanded by his captors.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Philippine police tracked down Mark Dizon (28), a suspect in a series of grisly robberies and killings, with the help of his Facebook account. He was accused of killing nine people, six Filipinos, an American, a Canadian and a Briton, in three different robberies at hotels and homes this month in Angeles city.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In central Russia a Tver city court sentenced Dmitry Orlov (22), a neo-Nazi leader, to life in jail and imprisoned 13 others for four hate killings and multiple assaults.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iranian Shiite cleric Yasser Khalili was arrested in Saudi Arabia and put on trial on September 3 charged with "raising a shoe" at Prophet Mohammed's shrine. He was arrested while on pilgrimage by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice and "jailed for 38 days in handcuffs. A judge ordered him to be whipped 150 times in public in the prophet's shrine. The story was not made public until Jan 8, 2011.
(AFP, 1/8/11)
2010 Jul 27, Serb lawmakers passed a resolution vowing that their country will never recognize Kosovo as an independent state, despite a UN court ruling backing the independence declaration by the former Serbian province.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Somalia clashes in Mogadishu, pitting Islamist insurgents against government troops backed by African Union forces, killed at least 17 civilians.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, In South Africa 4 white former students pleaded guilty to charges surrounding a 2007 video they made humiliating black university employees at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. The video emerged in 2008 and the case prompted bitter protests that racism remains entrenched in South Africa more than a decade after the end of racist white rule. A court on July 30 ordered the 4 students to pay fines of nearly $3,000 each for making the video.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Uganda African Union leaders wrapping up a three-day summit in Kampala agreed to send thousands of extra troops to reinforce its military contingent battling Al Qaeda-linked insurgents in Somalia.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Venezuela's justice ministry announced the capture of a purported Colombian drug trafficker, Gloria Esther Chavez Ceballos, alias "Gloria Amparo." Ceballos was alleged to lead a group of smugglers known as "Los Indios" that moves drugs to the Caribbean and Europe. Authorities said police have apprehended six alleged far-right paramilitary fighters from Colombia, including a militia leader wanted in the killing of a Venezuelan mayor near the border with Colombia.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 28, US District Judge Susan Bolton put most of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB1070, on hold in a key first-round victory for the federal government in a fight that may go to the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 7/29/10)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.25)
2010 Jul 28, In Arizona a medical helicopter crashed on a Tucson street killing all three people aboard.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 28, California Gov. Schwarzenegger, citing an impending cash crises, ordered furloughs for 156,000 state employees, requiring them to take 3 unpaid days a month beginning on July 31. On Aug 12 a judge denied Schwarzenegger’s request pending a full hearing in September. On Aug 18 the state Supreme Court allowed the furlough program to resume as it continued to revue his authority to do so.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.C2)(SFC, 8/13/10, p.C1)(SFC, 8/19/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 28, SF arrested 2 Bay Area women and charged them with embezzlement for allegedly writing $2.6 million in bonus checks to themselves from Autonomy Inc.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 28, Aaron Cooper, an inmate at Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Va., was murdered by cellmate Robert Gleason. On Feb 11, 2011, Gleason (40), who already faced the death penalty for the May, 2009, murder of cellmate Harvey Watson Jr. (63), pleaded guilty to Cooper’s murder. Gleason was executed in the electric char on Jan 16, 2013.
(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A6)(SFC, 1/17/13, p.A6)
2010 Jul 28, In southern Afghanistan a packed bus hit a roadside bomb killing 25 people aboard. An Afghan villager, who was said to be carrying a rifle, was killed by US soldiers in the volatile Arghandab Valley, a strategic area near Kandahar City. In central Uruzgan province 3 Afghan soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb. German Army Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told reporters in Kabul that the Taliban's senior leadership ordered the assassination of multiple tribal elders in an area of Uruzgan.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Argentina and Uruguay held a signing ceremony in Buenos Aires on an agreement to a joint environmental monitoring program along the shared Uruguay River, ending a seven-year pollution controversy over a Finnish paper mill on the Uruguayan side.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Former Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic returned to Sarajevo and was greeted by hundreds of supporters a day after a British judge declared him a free man and rejected Serbia's request for his extradition to face war crimes charges.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, British PM David Cameron kicked off a much-hyped visit to India, pitching for investment and open trade to boost Britain's fragile post-recession recovery.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, British authorities found a suspect package "at a premises on Albert Embankment," the location of Britain's foreign intelligence agency. Another device was intercepted at a postal sorting office. Two men, aged 52 and 21, were later arrested in Wales on explosives charges and were being held on Aug 1 at a London police station.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Bulgaria archeologist Kazimir Popconstantinov found a box while digging under the alta of an early Christian church off the coast of Sozopol. The box bore an inscription with the name of St. John the Baptist and allegedly contained some of his bone fragments.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.43)
2010 Jul 28, In northeastern China floods caused by heavy rains stranded tens of thousands of residents without power, as the worst flooding in more than a decade continued to besiege many areas of the country.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In eastern China a powerful blast caused by a suspected gas leak rocked a plastics factory, killing at least 12 people and seriously injuring more than a dozen others.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, The Galapagos Islands, 620 miles (1,000 kms) off Ecuador's coast, were removed from the UNESCO list of sites endangered by environmental threats or overuse.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy ordered authorities to expel Gypsy illegal immigrants and to dismantle their camps.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 28, In northern France Dominique Cottrez (46) and her husband, Pierre-Marie Cottrez, were detained after two corpses were discovered in plastic bags by new owners in the garden of a house that had belonged to the woman's father in the town of Villers-au-Tertre. Under questioning, the woman admitted that there were six other corpses and told investigators that they were in plastic bags in the garage of her home where they were found. On June 25, 2015, Cottrez (51), a mother of two grown daughters, went on trial in the city of Douai.
(AP, 7/29/10)(AP, 6/25/15)
2010 Jul 28, German prosecutors said Samuel Kunz (88) was informed last week of his indictment on charges including participation in the murder of 430,000 Jews at the Belzec death camp in occupied Poland, where he allegedly served as a guard from January 1942 to July 1943. Kunz (b.1921) was also charged with murder over "personal excesses" in which he allegedly shot a total of 10 Jews in two other incidents.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Iraq a sandstorm downed an Iraqi military helicopter, killing its five-man crew. Midmorning bombings in Baghdad killed 6 people.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Japan hanged two convicted killers, including a man who burned six women to death, in the country's first executions in a year. The justice minister said she wants renewed debate on whether to continue the punishment.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Japan’s Nissan said is new car models will feature air conditioners that pump breathable vitamin C and stress-reducing seats.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Mexico 3 men and a woman were gunned down at a pizzeria in Mexico City.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 28, In the waters off Oman an explosion damaged an oil tanker carrying 270,000 tons of oil, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said the blast on its tanker M. Star caused one minor injury but did not cause an oil leak. Officials said the damage was caused by a freak wave. Japan's ministry said "A crew member saw light on the horizon just before the explosion, so (Mitsui O.S.K.) believes there is a possibility it was caused by an outside attack." On Aug 4 an obscure al-Qaida-linked group said one of its suicide bombers attacked the Japanese oil tanker, a claim that, if true, would be the first time the terror network has attacked the Japanese. On Aug 6 the Emirates' WAM news agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying the investigation revealed traces of homemade explosives on the hull of the tanker.
(AP, 7/28/10)(Reuters, 7/28/10)(AP, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Pakistan an Airbus A321 passenger jet, flight number ED202, crashed into the hills overlooking Islamabad amid poor weather, killing all 152 people on board and blazing a path of devastation strewn with body parts and twisted metal wreckage.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In northwest Pakistan flash floods and building collapses brought on by heavy rains killed 34 people.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Russia a band of 100 masked people staged a violent environmental protest in a quiet Moscow suburb, hurling Molotov cocktails and fireworks at city hall while objecting to plans for clearing a local forest for highway construction.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Spain a bullfighting ban, passed in Catalonia's parliament, provoked passionate reactions throughout the country.
(Reuters, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, South African wildlife authorities said poachers killed 152 endangered rhinoceros in the country so far this year, about 20 more than the number killed in the whole of 2009.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Sudan 3 people were killed during a gun battle between supporters of rival rebel groups in a camp for displaced people in west Darfur. 7 UNAMID peacekeepers on patrol in west Darfur were wounded when they were ambushed by unidentified armed individuals.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 28, A Turkish tour boat caught fire and sank in the Mediterranean. 18 tourists and five crew jumped into the water after flames engulfed the Kayhan-9 on its way from the Turkish resort of Marmaris to Fethiye. One Spanish tourist was missing.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, US House investigators accused New York Rep. Charles Rangel (80) of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards.
(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A10)
2010 Jul 29, The US Dept. of Justice filed a lawsuit against Oracle Corp. for overcharging the General services Administration from 1998-2006.
(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 29, The US Mint introduced a new quarter featuring Yosemite National Park. 3 other parks will be honored this year: Hot Springs, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.
(SFC, 7/30/10, p.C2)
2010 Jul 29, The X Prize foundation offered up a new $1.4 million prize for anyone who can come up with a faster way to clean oil spills from the ocean.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.79)
2010 Jul 29, Toyota Motor Corp said it would recall nearly 417,000 high-end passenger cars and SUVs in the United States and Canada to fix steering problems.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In southern Afghanistan 3 American service members died in two separate blasts.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 29, Australia said it will impose new sanctions against Iran, including restrictions for the first time on business dealings with that country's oil and gas sector.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran said it will suspend uranium enrichment to 20% if it acquires nuclear fuel for a research reactor.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran hanged Yousef Fardi, a convicted rapist, in the northern city of Qazvin.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Iraq militants flew an al-Qaida flag over a Baghdad neighborhood after killing 16 security officials and burning some of their bodies in a brazen afternoon attack that served as a grim reminder of continued insurgent strength in Iraq's capital. A suicide bomber drove a minibus into the main gate of an Iraqi army base near Tikrit, killing 4 soldiers and wounding 10. Two road side bombs, targeting Iraqi army patrols exploded in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 km) west of Baghdad, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding eight others. In Mosul a bomb attached to a police vehicle killed one policeman and injured two others.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Thousands of Israelis marched calmly in Jerusalem's longest gay pride parade despite opposition from anti-gay demonstrators.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Mexico soldiers killed Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel (56), a top leader of the Sinaloa cartel, in a raid on his posh hideout in the western city of Guadalajara. One soldier was killed and Francisco Quinones, his right-hand man, was arrested. Mexican federal troops found $7 million in cash at the site as well as jewelry, luxury watches, guns, two hand grenades and three expensive cars.
(AP, 7/30/10)(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 29, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI granted pardons or reduced sentences to nearly 1,000 people to mark his 11 years on the throne.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In northwest Pakistan the death toll rose to at least 60 people with hundreds of thousands stranded in the region's worst flooding in decades.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Qatar's PM Sheik Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani said the Arab nations have endorsed direct Palestinian talks with the Israelis but left the timing to the Palestinians themselves.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new security law which restored Soviet-era powers to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's main successor agency, a move that rights advocates fear could be used to stifle protests and intimidate the Kremlin's political opponents.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Sierra Leone 'Papa Jacques,' Montouroy (63), French legendary aid worker, died of complications from an ulcer. He spent 41 years as a humanitarian worker for Catholic Relief Services and was known for delivering food in parts of the world no one else dared enter.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Jul 29, A Spanish judge in Madrid reissued arrest warrants for three US servicemen over the death of a Spanish journalist killed by American tank fire in Iraq on April 8, 2003.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, President Jacob Zuma announced that South Africa would stop recognizing half the nation's traditional kings and queens, dismissing them as artificial creations of the apartheid regime. Leaders of the six kingships affected by the move have said they will challenge their demotion in court.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Sudan gunmen ambushed a UNAMID patrol in West Darfur state, leaving four peacekeepers slightly wounded. UNAMID soldiers repelled their assailants with heavy gunfire.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Ugandan officials said an anthrax outbreak has killed 82 hippos in the last month and a half.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, The UN released $650 million in Iraqi compensation to Kuwait, the latest payment of a war reparation scheme that began in 1994. The payment brings the total sum of compensation paid to Kuwait to $30.15 billion. A further $22.3 billion is due to Kuwait.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 30, It was reported that Walt Disney Co. has agreed to sell Miramax, the studio behind such films as "Trainspotting" and "No Country for Old Men," for more than $660 million to Filmyard Holdings LLC, ending months of talks between the media group and a star-studded cast of bidders.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Arizona 3 convicted murderers escaped from a private prison. Daniel Renwick (36) was caught on Aug 1. Terry Province (42) and John McCluskey (45) remained at large. On Aug 4, the burned remains of Linda and Gary Haas (61) were found in a charred camper in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Province and McCluskey were linked to their killing as was Casslyn Welch (44), a woman who helped them escape. Province was captured on Aug 9 in Meeteetse, Wyoming. On Jan 20, 2012, Province and Welch agreed to plead guilty to charges of carjacking resulting in death, conspiracy and other charges.
(SFC, 8/2/10, p.A5)(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A5)(SFC, 1/21/12, p.A4)
2010 Jul 30, Patrick Joseph McCabe (74), a former Catholic priest, surrendered to US authorities in Alameda, Ca.. They sought to extradite him to Ireland to face sexual assault charges dating back from 1973-1981. On June 5, 2011, McCabe was handed over to Ireland’s national police service.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A1)(SFC, 6/8/11, p.C4)
2010 Jul 30, Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said "commercial fishing will reopen for finfish and shrimp in portions of state waters east of the Mississippi River."
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Oakland, Ca., a US District judge sentence Peter C. Son (38) of Danville to 15 years in federal prison for defrauding some 500 investors of $62 million in a Ponzi scheme from 2003-2008. His partner, Jin K. Chung (46) of Los Altos, was yet to be charged in criminal court.
(SFC, 7/31/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 30, In Afghanistan an SUV, driven by US contract employees, was involved in a traffic accident. One Afghan died in the wreck and rioting followed. Kabul police later said the Afghan driver had caused the accident. A US service member died following an insurgent attack and two others were killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan. British and Afghan troops launched a new offensive in the Sayedebad area of Helmand to try to deny insurgents a base from which to launch attacks in Nad Ali and Marjah. 4 Afghan civilians were killed and 3 were injured when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Zabul province of southern Afghanistan. When police arrived at the scene, Taliban fighters opened fire. One insurgent was killed. In Kandahar, a candidate in September's parliamentary election escaped assassination when a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded. A woman and a child were killed and another child was wounded.
(AP, 7/30/10)(SFC, 8/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 30, The Australian government committed to expanding its fiber broadband Internet network to a further 300,000 homes across the vast island continent if re-elected at next month's polls.
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said his nation's ambassador would return to Honduras, but did not specify when.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, It was reported that China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In eastern CongoDRC rebels from the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu FDLR occupied Luvungi town, North Kivu, one day after beginning an attack there. Over the next 4 days they gang-raped scores of women. The rebels withdrew voluntarily on Aug 4. Later reports said there were over 500 systematic rapes.
(AP, 8/23/10)(Reuters, 9/1/10)(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Jul 30, In India separatist rebels triggered a land mine that killed at least five paramilitary soldiers and wounded 41 others in the remote northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Indian Kashmir paramilitary soldiers fired on thousands of demonstrators, killing three men and wounding at least 80 others as protests against Indian rule spread across the disputed region.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Iran said it was ready for immediate talks with the US, Russia and France over an exchange of nuclear fuel and added that it was also against stockpiling higher enriched uranium.
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In northeastern Iran an earthquake injured 274 people. A slightly stronger tremor struck central Iran the next day.
(Reuters, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Iraq the head of a five-member family was killed when a roadside bomb hit the car in which they were traveling. He was a local leader of a government-backed Sunni armed group known as an Awakening Council. The man, his wife and three children, two boys and a 4-year-old girl, were killed in the attack.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, The leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia, once bitter rivals, made an unprecedented show of cooperation, traveling together to Lebanon in hopes of preventing any violence if members of a militant group are indicted in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri. Saudi Arabia, which was close to the slain premier, holds sway with Lebanon's ruling alliance led by his son Saad, while Syria and Iran support a rival camp led by Hezbollah.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Liberia's government, still recovering from a 14-year civil war and previous decades of poverty and illiteracy, said it will now require all children to get birth certificates, a document most of them lack.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Mexico Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi signed a four-year cooperation accord with Mexico aimed at boosting political and economic ties.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Myanmar official talks between North Korea and Myanmar entered a second day. The US said it is carefully watching the budding secretive relationship between the 2 countries for signs of nuclear cooperation.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Pakistan the death toll from three days of flooding reached at least 430, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Gaza militants fired a rocket into the Israeli city of Ashkelon, a rare strike in a period of relative quiet.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Panama William Dathan Holbert, a jailed US man, admitted killing five other Americans so he could take over their businesses and other properties in a Panamanian resort area. Laura Michelle Reese, his wife, refused to talk. Holbert said his first killings in Panama occurred about three years ago, when he fatally shot a US citizen named Mike Brown, his wife and small son in the head.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Russia the Nashi movement, a Kremlin-backed youth organization, welcomed the resignation of Ella Pamfilova, President Dmitry Medvedev's human rights adviser. The group had threatened her with a libel suit for her harsh criticism. The Russian opposition has claimed Nashi activists have assaulted and intimidated its leaders.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Forest fires swept across central Russia, killing at least 25 people and forcing the evacuation of thousands during the hottest summer since records began 130 years ago.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, A UN panel of experts called on Israel to fall in line with international norms on civil rights and to take action against targeted killings, torture and impunity for security forces.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, The UN Security Council extended the stay of peacekeepers in Sudan's western Darfur region by another year, telling the force to focus primarily on protecting civilians and aid deliveries.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, UNESCO added a region of mountainous forests in Sri Lanka and the Papahanaumokuakea archipelago off Hawaii to the World Heritage list. Florida's Everglades and Madagascar's tropical forest were added to the roll of endangered sites, which is meant to ring alarm bells and encourage protective measures.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mitch Miller (b.1911), musician, conductor and producer, died in New York. His TV show, “Sing Along With Mitch" aired from 1961-1964.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 31, Afghanistan’s national disaster authority chief said flash floods have killed at least 65 people and affected more than 1,000 families.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, A Canadian waterbombing plane with 2 crew members crashed while fighting the blaze in British Columbia. 318 forest fires were burning across British Columbia, with the largest covering 25 square km (10 square miles).
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 31, In northern China an explosion ripped through a workers' dormitory area in Linfen city, Shanxi province, and killed at least 15 people at the Liugou mine, a coal mine notorious for mining disasters.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Across Indian Kashmir violence continued to rage with two people shot dead and five wounded after police in two towns opened fire on protesters who attacked their camps and pelted them with rocks.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, A senior Iranian official said China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, In Iraq a roadside bomb killed four people, including three army soldiers, and wounded 11 people south of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Israeli warplanes fired missiles killing Issa Batran (42), a senior commander of the Hamas military wing, and wounding 11 people in five targets hit across Gaza overnight. Hamas said 8 of its supporters and 3 civilians were also wounded in the overnight airstrikes and vowed revenge.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, In southern Italy an apartment building collapsed in Afragola, a small town near Naples. Rescue workers said they have pulled the bodies of 3 people from the wreckage, including a little girl.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mexican federal police rescued two kidnapped news cameramen in the northern city of Gomez Palacio, Coahuila state, five days after they were seized by drug traffickers in a bid to get their employers to broadcast cartel messages.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mexico said it will send its ambassador back to Honduras next week, recognizing the government of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo a year after his predecessor was ousted by a military-backed coup.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Pakistani officials said flooding has killed more than 800 people in a week as rescuers struggled to reach marooned victims and some evacuees showed signs of fever, diarrhea and other waterborne diseases.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Qatar's emir made a high-profile visit to south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and whose rebuilding the emirate is helping finance.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Russian police arrested a leading Kremlin opponent and dozens of fellow activists at a demonstration demanding freedom of assembly.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, In Russia raging wildfires spread across parts of western Russia, engulfing 30 percent more land in just 24 hours. PM Vladimir Putin described the situation as very difficult.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Land mines began washing up on South Korean shores, apparently swept down from North Korea by torrential rains. One killed a man and wounded another.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 31, The Tanzanian island of Zanzibar voted to form a unity government after October elections in an effort to avoid a repeat of previous electoral violence that killed dozens of people.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 31, In Uganda more than 50 people died after a boat they were traveling in capsized on Lake Albert. The boat was carrying between 70 and 80 people, but only five survivors have been found and 17 bodies recovered.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Jul 31, UNESCO added seven cultural sites to its World Heritage List including Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, home to nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s. Also added to the list were the Turaif District in Saudi Arabia; Australia's penal colony sites; the Jantar Mantar astronomical observation site in India; a shrine in Ardabil in Iran; the Tabriz historic bazaar complex, also in Iran; and the historic villages of Hahoe and Yangdong in South Korea.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul, In a retirement rush New Jersey nearly 18,000 employees in the three biggest public worker pension funds had retired by the end of July or declared their intent to retire this year, up almost 50 percent over all of last year. Several union leaders and workers considering retirement said that possible pension changes were a factor.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Jul, US researchers, led by entomologist Michael Riehle at the Univ. of Arizona, reported that they have developed a genetically engineered breed of mosquito that cannot be infected by the malaria causing parasite.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul, London, England, launched a bicycle-hire scheme with 5,000 bikes scattered around hundreds of docking stations in the center of the city.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.57)
\2010 Jul, In Derby, England, a group of Muslim men handed out leaflets calling for homosexuals to be "punished" and given the death sentence outside and near the Jamia Mosque in Rosehill Street. They also put the leaflets through people's letterboxes in the neighborhood. In 2012 Ihjaz Ali (42), Mehboob Hussain (45), Umar Javed (38), Razwan Javed (27), and Kabir Ahmed (28), are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, denied the charges.
(AFP, 1/10/12)
2010 Jul, In India SKS Microfinance went public in a $350 million offering that was 13 times oversubscribed. It had a $1.2 billion loan book.
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.65)
2010 Jul, Saudi Arabia’s population was estimated at 29.2 million.
(NYT 2011 Almanac, p.673)
2010 Aug 1, In Alaska a Fairchild C-123 registered to All West Freight of Delta Junction crashed in Denali National Park killing all 3 people on board.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100802/ap_on_re_us/us_alaska_plane_crash)
2010 Aug 1, Robert Boyle (b.1909), art director for Alfred Hitchcock, died.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.72)
2010 Aug 1, In southern Afghanistan a minibus full of civilians struck a roadside bomb in Kandahar, and six of those on board were killed. A NATO service member died after an insurgent attack in south.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told the country's banks they must use their first-half profits to start lending to businesses again.
(AFP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Chechnya, three unknown men armed with Kalashnikovs ambushed a police patrol in Grozny, the capital, and killed two officers.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In China a drunken Li Xianliang was finally subdued after he pulled an earthmover into the coal depot where he worked in Yuanshi county, Hebei province. The depot had been the place where Li had begun his murderous spree by killing his employer and 16 others. Li was taken into custody and faced the death penalty for murder.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 1, President Raul Castro said more Cubans will be allowed to work for themselves and hire their own workers as the government tries to create more productive employment.
(Reuters, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Dagestan 3 militants broke into the home of Lt. Col. Yunus Khulatayev, a senior investigator, and shot him dead after binding his wife and son with tape in the next room.
(AP, 8/1/10)(SFC, 8/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 1, In Greece an 8-day truck drivers' strike was called off as protesters agreed to enter talks with the government. The strike wreaked havoc, stranding thousands of tourists, destroying lucrative fruit exports and drying up fuel supplies nationwide.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.53)(http://tinyurl.com/2wrybtk)
2010 Aug 1, In northern India a truck carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a gorge in a mountainous region in Uttarakhand state, killing at least 20 people as rescuers searched for another seven who were missing.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Indian Kashmir two men and a girl were killed after security forces opened fire at thousands of protesters who defied a curfew, as pro-independence protests spread across the region.
(AFP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Israel approved new residency criteria that could result in the deportations of hundreds of children of migrant workers.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Dutch troops ended their mission in Afghanistan after four "proud" years, in a departure experts say signals the beginning of a drawdown of foreign forces that will leave a worrying void. Troops held a "change of command" ceremony at the main military base in central Uruzgan province where most of the country's 1,950 soldiers have been deployed. About 150 Dutch fighting forces were left in country, and they are set to leave next week.
(AFP, 8/1/10)(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded as army troops were clearing a road in the northwestern tribal region, killing two soldiers.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In northwestern Pakistan the death toll from massive floods rose to 1,100 as rescue workers struggled to save more than 27,000 people still trapped by the raging water.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Russia hundreds of new fires broke out in forests and fields that have been dried to a crisp by drought and record heat.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In South Africa 22 elderly people died when a fire swept through their old age and frail care center outside of Johannesburg.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Thailand several hundred Red Shirt protesters defied a state of emergency in Bangkok to stage a symbolic protest, with hundreds of people sprawling on the ground and chanting, "People died here!"
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Turkish media reported that 4 civilians died when their vehicle hit a landmine that Kurdish rebels are suspected of planting in southeastern Turkey.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, UNESCO added five cultural sites to its World Heritage List, including the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi in Vietnam. The other new sites include the historic monuments of Dengfeng in China, the archaeological site Sarazm in Tajikistan, the Episcopal city of Albi in France and a 17th-century canal ring in Amsterdam.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, The United Arab Emirates said it plans to block some messaging and Web services on BlackBerry smart phones, days after it warned the device could pose a potential threat to national security and social values.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe lashed out at Western powers over sanctions imposed on his ZANU-PF party, saying the European Union and United States were simply bent on driving him out of power. Mugabe said Zimbabwe's diamonds should benefit the entire country, as he urged greedy politicians to blunt their appetite for individual wealth.
(Reuters, 8/1/10)(AFP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 2, President Barack Obama said the United States will end its combat mission in Iraq as scheduled on August 31 despite a recent flare-up in violence.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, said new US sanctions against North Korea will seek to strangle the narcotics trafficking, counterfeiting of U.S. dollars and other "illicit and deceptive" activities that provide the regime with the hard currency used for its nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, US Rep. Howard Berman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suspended assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying he cannot be sure the country's armed forces are not working with Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US government said BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil, making it the largest accidental oil spill of all time.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US House ethics committee said California Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, will face a trial for her 2009 role in steering federal funds to a bank she is personally connected.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 2, In Louisiana 6 Shreveport teenagers wading in the shallows of the Red River drowned in front of their horrified families after falling into deep water. None of the teens or nearby adults could swim.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In southern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to a police truck bringing an official to work, killing six children nearby. Militants attacked a second government official in the east the same day. In eastern Nuristan province, NATO and Afghan troops attacked two villages that had been held by Taliban fighters, killing more than 30 insurgents as they secured the Bachancha and Badmuk villages. Two Afghan soldiers were killed. In northern Balkh province 6 Afghan private security guards were poisoned and fatally stabbed during a bank robbery.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Australia publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk (25) sued Australia's poshest department store and its former head, Mark McInnes, for 33 million US dollars over alleged sexual misconduct that led to the disgraced chief executive's resignation. McInnes abruptly quit in June after claims of inappropriate behavior were made.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Bolivia’s deputy land minister Juan Manuel Pinto said that a local court has upheld a government decision to seize a ranch from US cattleman Ronal Larsen (65) and his family on the grounds they treated workers as virtual slaves. Larsen has owned the 58-square-mile (15,000-hectare) ranch nearly four decades. Pinto said the ranch and an adjacent 15-square-mile (3,790-hectare) spread owned by an unrelated family, the Chavezes, would be cleared by authorities and divided among 2,000 Guarani families.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Brazilian authorities said police have dismantled a kidnapping ring that scoured social networking sites for victims.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 2, China’s state media said thousands of tons of garbage washed down by recent torrential rain are threatening to jam the locks of the massive Three Gorges Dam, and is in places so thick people can stand on it.
(Reuters, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Chinese plainclothes officers detained Ye Haiyan, an activist for sex workers' rights, a few days after she publicly called for prostitution to be legalized.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, In China lethal gas leaked into a coal mine at the Sanyuandong Coal Mine in Dengfeng city, Henan province. No survivors were found among the 16 miners trapped by the lethal gas leak.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Colombia Orlando Sigifredo Ibarra Sarmiento, an Ecuadoran businessman (37), was seized in the border city of Ipiales. In 2012 a deserter from a guerrilla army led the hostage to freedom.
(AP, 9/10/12)
2010 Aug 2, In Iraq 2 bombings and a drive-by shooting killed eight people.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, A string of rockets was fired toward the Israeli resort city Eilat, and one hit in neighboring Jordan, killing one person and wounding four. On Aug 3 Jordan said it has evidence that the rocket attack originated from neighboring Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. After days of denials an Egyptian official said the deadly rocket attacks were carried out by the militant Palestinian Hamas group operating from Egypt.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 2, Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Indian Kashmir, held crisis talks on the "cycle of violence" afflicting the region, as five more protesters died, taking the death toll to 37 in two months.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Malaysia set itself a historic precedent as 2 female sharia judges began working for the first time.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.39)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 2, North Korea opened this year's massive dance and gymnastics performance known as the Arirang Festival, turning to propaganda to unite its people amid new US sanctions on the isolated country to squeeze its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Pakistani lawmaker Raza Haider (35) was killed in a drive-by shooting in downtown Karachi, where political and ethnic assassinations have fanned increasing tensions. Haider was a member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the political party that runs the city and represents mainly descendants of Urdu-speaking migrants from India who settled in Pakistan when it was created in 1947.
(AFP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Pakistan fears were growing for up to 2.5 million people affected by the worst floods in 80 years amid outbreaks of disease after monsoon rains killed up to 1,500 people.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, In the Philippines the 2010 winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards were announced. Winners included Tadatoshi Akiba, the three-term mayor of Hiroshima, who spearheaded a global campaign for nuclear disarmament, and photographer Huo Daishan (56), who documented river pollution in his native China. The awards are considered Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Other awardees were physicists Christopher Bernido and wife Maria Victoria Carpio-Bernido of the Philippines, who introduced a novel way of teaching science, and Bangladeshi A.H.M. Noman Khan, who set up service-and-training centers for helping persons with disabilities.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Romania's central bank issued a special coin commemorating Miron Cristea, a prime minister (1938-1939) and religious leader, who stripped Jews of their citizenship before World War II. The move prompted protest from Romanian Jews as well as a director at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, Russia declared a state of emergency in seven regions after wildfires killed at least 34 people and left thousands homeless in the worst heatwave since records began 130 years ago. Officials said wildfires were also destroying what was left of wheat crops, decimated by severe drought. Expectations of slashed exports sent wheat prices soaring.
(AP, 8/2/10)(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 2, In southern Somalia Islamist rebels ordered business people to donate cash and jewelry for a holy war against African Union peacekeeping troops and the Somali government.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Suez, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship with 23 crew onboard, during an early morning raid.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, A cattle raid in Southern Sudan possibly sparked by the region's high bride price, 100 cows or more, left 21 people dead.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 2, UN chief Ban Ki-moon announced a four-member panel, including an Israeli and a Turk, to probe Israel's deadly raid in May on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, UNESCO added 6 sites located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and the South Pacific nation of Kiribati to World Heritage status.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 3, Pres. Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act. It allowed judges to take mitigating factors into account when sentencing a prisoner.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.31)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act)
2010 Aug 3, Time magazine reported on that Haitian-American music star Wyclef Jean (37) will announce his bid for president of earthquake-ravaged Haiti this week. A three-time Grammy award-winner, Jean was a founding member of the hip-hop trio The Fugees and won wider fame for his collaboration with Colombian pop star Shakira. He released a song two years ago called "If I Was President". Haiti’s ruling Unity party nominated ousted ex-Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis to lead the earthquake-ravaged nation.
(Reuters, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Manchester, Connecticut, Omar Thornton (34), a black warehouse driver who was caught steeling beer, went on a shooting rampage at the Hartford Distributors warehouse after he was asked to quit, killing eight people before committing suicide.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 3, In San Francisco federal authorities announced the seizure of over 200,000 counterfeit retail items at Fisherman’s Wharf valued at $100 million. 11 people were charged with conspiracy and smuggling. The targeted network was accused of importing goods from China that imitated 70 national and int’l. brands. Estimates of sham goods were reported to account for as much as 7-8% of the world’s retail economy.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Aug 3, Intel and the FTC confirmed the settlement of an anti-trust case.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 3, In Afghanistan insurgents wearing suicide vests tried to storm NATO's largest base in the south, but did not breach its defenses. All of the attackers were killed in the fighting including "approximately four" people in suicide vests. New Zealand suffered its first combat fatality in Afghanistan when a soldier died in an ambush that left another two New Zealand soldiers and an Afghan interpreter wounded in central Bamiyan province. An Afghan operation began in a rugged region east of Kabul in Laghman province to flush out the Taliban. Commanders called for backup from foreign forces after at least 10 Afghan soldiers were killed and up to 20 captured.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 3, British MPs of Pakistani origin hit out at President Asif Ali Zardari, saying he should be back home sorting out the flooding disaster rather than launching his son's career.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, British oil giant BP said it will sell its Colombian business for a total of 1.9 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) to national oil company Ecopetrol and Talisman of Canada.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In eastern China Fang Jiantang (26), a knife-wielding man, went on a slashing rampage in a kindergarten, leaving 3 children and one teacher dead in Shandong province. About 20 children and staff members were injured. Police detained Jiantang.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, In China gas exploded at a coal mine in the southern province of Guizhou, killing 10 people and trapping 7.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Iraq a car bomb in Kut killed at least 15 people. Suspected al-Qaida militants killed 5 Iraqi soldiers in a brazen dawn attack at a western Baghdad checkpoint and planted the terror group's black banner before fleeing the scene. An Iraqi soldier and a policeman were killed and nine people were wounded in other attacks across Baghdad.
(AP, 8/3/10)(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 3, Israeli municipal officials confirmed the approval for the building of 40 apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem's disputed eastern sector.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Indian Kashmir 4 more demonstrators died as new protests erupted in defiance of pleas for calm from the region's chief minister.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire on the border in the most serious clashes since a fierce war four years ago. 3 Lebanese nationals, two soldiers and a journalist, and an Israeli soldier were killed in the shootout which saw both sides threatening retaliation if the shooting recurred. Israeli troops returned the next day to the site of the shootout and cut down a number of trees growing along the border, completing a task which had set off the confrontation.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AFP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon said he would consider a debate on legalizing drugs as his government announced that more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006. In 2014 the 28,000 estimate was reduced to 21,000.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 5/23/14)
2010 Aug 3, In Nigeria Islamic police smashed 80,000 bottles of beer in the city of Kano to enforce a sharia law ban on consumption of alcohol that exists in much of the country's north.
(AFP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Northern Ireland Irish Republican Army dissidents detonated a bomb in a hijacked taxi outside a police base in Londonderry, damaging buildings but wounding no one despite the attackers' inaccurate warning. On Jan 12, 2011, police charged Londonderry resident Martin McCloone with six criminal counts connected to the attack.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 1/12/11)
2010 Aug 3, In Pakistan gunmen killed at least 45 people Karachi after the assassination of a prominent lawmaker set off a cycle of revenge attacks. Dozens of vehicles and shops were set ablaze as security forces struggled to regain control of the city.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Pakistan floodwaters that devastated the mountainous northwest surged into the heartland, submerging dozens of villages along bloated rivers whose torrents have killed at least 1,500 people and put 100,000 at risk of disease. Fresh rains in the hardest-hit northwest threatened to overwhelm a major dam and unleash a new deluge.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, Authorities in Panama said they recovered three more bodies on property owned by a jailed US man who prosecutors say has confessed to killing five fellow Americans to get their money and property in a Panamanian resort area.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Peru at least one farmer died when police cleared a roadblock set by coca growers demanding the government halt efforts to eradicate coca plantations in the world's top producer of the leaf, used to make cocaine.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said some of the devastating wildfires sweeping western Russia are out of control. PM Putin said he would personally supervise the reconstruction of fire-ravaged homes via video cameras to be installed at each construction site.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Rwanda the French-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accused Kigali of "flouting democracy" ahead of elections as Rwanda's regulatory body suspended some 30 media organizations.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In northern Siberia a twin-engine Antonov-24 turboprop passenger plane crashed near Igarka, killing at least 11 of the 15 people on board.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In South Africa a judge sentenced former national police chief Jackie Selebi (60) to 15 years in prison on corruption charges, saying he was an embarrassment to the crime-plagued country and the police officers who had served under him.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Arusha, Tanzania, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), found Dominique Ntawukulilyayo (68) guilty of genocide and sentenced him to 25 years of imprisonment. Prosecutors said Ntawukulilyayo in 1994 had transported soldiers to a hill where thousands of refugee Tutsis had gathered after he promised to feed and protect them. The soldiers joined other assailants in an attack, leaving possibly thousands of Tutsis dead.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, The UN launched an appeal for 478 million dollars (362 million euros) in aid to Zimbabwe, 100 million dollars more than in 2009, saying the country was at crossroads.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 4, BP PLC reached what it called a significant milestone overnight when mud that was forced down the well held back the flow of crude. A government report said much of the spilled oil is gone, though what's left is still at least quadruple the amount that poured from the Exxon Valdez.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, A judge struck down California's same-sex marriage ban as an unconstitutional violation of gay couples' civil rights, but a pending appeal of the landmark ruling could prevent gay weddings from resuming in the state any time soon.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Afghanistan NATO operations killed as many as 26 civilians. 9 civilians travelling to collect voting cards were killed in southern Helmand province when their vehicle struck an insurgent-placed roadside bomb.
(AFP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, In China heavy rains hindered efforts by workers to repair reservoirs and place sandbags along breached riverbanks as the death toll from China's worst flooding in a decade climbed above 1,000.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, Indian police battled Maoist rebels who ambushed their patrol in dense jungle, as violence worsens in an insurgency that has seen bigger and bolder attacks on government forces this year. 5 people were killed when the rebels blasted a vehicle carrying security guards of a bank in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
(Reuters, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Indonesia the Trisal Pratama sank shortly after a collision with another cargo vessel near Selayar island off South Sumatra province. Rescuers saved 11 people, including a 1-year-old girl, but searched the next day for nine others still missing.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Iraq a judge said Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammadi, No. 54 out of 55 on a former US military list of most-wanted Saddam officials, has been released from prison after he was found innocent of helping the former regime punish opponents by draining the country's fabled marshlands. 3 traffic policemen were killed in drive-by shootings in western Baghdad while gunmen stormed the house of a policeman, killing him, his wife and a relative.
(AP, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, Israeli soldiers killed a Gaza Strip militant was killed. The Israeli military said soldiers saw a group of men approach Israel's border fence with Gaza and launched an airstrike against them before dawn. 3 other militants were wounded in the attack.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Kashmir tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims marched to a town where seven people were killed over the weekend, defying a curfew in another day of massive protests against Indian rule in the Himalayan region. The Indian government warned that further "mindless violence" in Indian Kashmir could only lead to more deaths after two months of unrest that has already claimed 45 lives.
(AP, 8/4/10)(AFP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, Kenyans formed long lines before sunrise across the country to vote on a new constitution that would reduce the powers of the presidency in the nation's first ballot since postelection violence left more than 1,000 dead. 67% of Kenyans backed the new constitution to replace a British colonial-era draft that inflated the powers of the president. The new constitution provided for a wider measure of devolution to 47 new counties.
(AP, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/6/10)(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A3)(Econ, 10/30/10, p.46)
2010 Aug 4, Mexican authorities said 7 bodies were found in a clandestine grave in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state. The bodies were found after an anonymous tip and showed signs of having been tortured prior to their death.
(SFC, 8/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 4, In Nigeria Erastus Akingbola, ex-chief executive of Intercontinental Bank, turned himself in after returning from Britain. He was accused of taking part in corruption blamed for helping cause a financial crisis. The central bank removed a list of executives from their jobs at financial institutions, including Akingbola, in 2009 in a bid to clean up the banking sector.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Pakistan a suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying the chief of a paramilitary police force in Peshawar, killing him and four others in an attack that ended a relative lull in violence in a city often targeted by the Taliban.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, Moscow was engulfed by the thickest blanket of smog yet this summer, an acrid, choking haze from wildfires that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Edinburgh, Scotland, the 3 children Theresa Riggi (46), an American mother, were found dead after a suspected gas explosion. On Aug 6 she was charged with murder. On March 7, 2010, California-born Theresa Riggi pled guilty to a charge of culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility at the High Court in Edinburgh. On April 27, 2011, Riggi was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A2)(AFP, 3/7/11)(AP, 4/27/11)
2010 Aug 4, In South Africa vigilantes used whistles and vuvuzelas, the deafening horns used by fans during the World Cup, to arouse a mob to assault and kill 3 suspected thieves in their neighborhood. The victims, suspected of stealing power cables in the Lenasia district of southern Johannesburg, were burned alive. 2 others were beaten to death for wearing stolen clothes.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, A Sudanese court sentenced 19 young Muslim men to 30 lashes and a fine for breaking moral codes by wearing women's clothes and makeup, a case exposing Sudanese sensitivity toward homosexuality.
(Reuters, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 5, The US Senate voted 63-37 to confirm Elena Kagan (b.1960) to the Supreme Court.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 5, US federal indictments were unsealed in Alabama, California and Minnesota charging 14 people with terrorism offenses for allegedly aiding the radical Islamist al-Shaba organization in Somalia.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 5, In Missouri 2 people, a pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on a bus, were killed and 38 others were injured in an accident on the interstate highway near Gray Summit. In 2011 it was reported that a pickup driver (19) was texting just before his pickup truck, two school buses and a tractor truck collided in the deadly pileup.
(AP, 12/12/11)
2010 Aug 5, A federal judge in Montana reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 5, The US Export-Import Bank unveiled a loan guarantee for Ford Motor Co that will finance $3.1 billion in exports of cars and trucks to customers in Canada and Mexico.
(Reuters, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Extreme temperatures in a large swath of the US left over a dozen people dead.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 5, Afghan Pres. Karzai departed to attend a summit held among the presidents of host country Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Following the summit Feda Hussein Maliki, Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, handed Umar Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff, a large plastic bag stuffed with euro bills. The money was part of a secret stream of Iranian cash to buy the loyalty of Daudzai and promote Iran’s interests in Afghanistan’s presidential palace. It was later reported that Daudzai owns at least 6 homes located in Dubai, in the UAR and in Vancouver, Canada.
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 5, In northern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber struck a convoy of NATO troops and Afghan police, killing seven police officers and wounding at least 11 people. 9 civilians were killed by a remote-controlled bomb in the Bar Kunar district of Kunar province. 3 civilians were killed and others were wounded in a different blast in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province. In the south, Malak Janan, a tribal chief in Kandahar province's Dand district, and his son were killed when gunmen entered their home and shot them. 10 members of a medical team were shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages.
(AP, 8/5/10)(AP, 8/6/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 5, Bolivia's leftist government said it has begun military training for civilians at army barracks in what the opposition called a first step toward creating pro-government militias.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In northern Chile the collapse of a small mine left 33 miners trapped, though they could have taken refuge in an underground shelter with oxygen and food. On Aug 9 Pres. Pinera pleaded for int’l. help to rescue the miners. Rescue efforts reached the miners on Aug 22, it could take months to carve a tunnel big enough for them to get out. On Feb 2, 2011, a congressional commission found gold and copper mine owners Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny responsible for the accident that left the miners trapped for 69 days. In 2014 Hector Tobar authored “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free."
(Reuters, 8/6/10)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)(SFC, 3/3/11, p.A2)(SSFC, 10/19/14, p.Q4)
2010 Aug 5, Haitian hip-hop star Wyclef Jean registered as a presidential contender, in a move into politics that generated an outburst of popular enthusiasm in his poor, earthquake-ravaged homeland.
(Reuters, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Iraq gunmen stormed a Baghdad money exchange and killed three people, the latest in recent brash daylight attacks on banks, financial and trade centers in the Iraqi capital, many of which have been blamed on insurgents.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Israel’s Shin Bet security service reported that two Druse Arabs living in the Golan Heights and an Arab citizen of Israel were charged with passing information to the enemy and plotting to kidnap a Syrian pilot who had defected to Israel.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Indian-controlled Kashmir the death toll from civil unrest rose to 48 after two more people were killed when paramilitary forces opened fire on demonstrators angry about decades of Indian rule over the Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Kyrgyzstan government forces fired into the air to disperse hundreds of anti-government forces and arrested Urmat Baryktabasov, leader of the Mekin-Tuu political party, backed by the family of former Pres. Bakiyev.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 5, In the Netherlands Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn't know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself. Campbell said that she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, intending he use them for charity.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Pakistan began evacuating half a million people from flood-risk areas in the south as the overall number hit by the country's worst floods in living memory rose to more than four million. US Army choppers flew their first relief missions in the flood-ravaged northwest.
(AFP, 8/5/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In the southern Philippines a powerful bombing killed a man and wounded about a dozen other people including a provincial governor at the Zamboanga city airport.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Russia wildfires were raging close to a shelter housing hundreds of dogs and retired circus animals, as the death toll from weeks of blazes across the country rose to 50.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Somali pirates seized the Syria Star, a freighter with 22 Syrian and 2 Egyptian crew members in the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden, in the 2nd pirate capture this week.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Tanzania 20 school children were feared drowned and 20 rescued after a boat they were traveling in capsized on the Tanzanian side of Lake Victoria.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, The US for the first time attended a ceremony commemorating its atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 65 years after the Japanese city's obliteration rang in the nuclear age.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, It was reported that Adnan Shukrijumah (35), a suspected al-Qaida operative who lived for more than 15 years in the US, has taken over as chief of the terror network's global operations, a position once held by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, US Companies showed a lack of confidence about hiring for a third straight month in July, making it likely the economy will grow more slowly the rest of the year. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Mark Hurd, CEO at Hewlett Packard, resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment and faulty expense reports. Hurd was expected to get $12.2 million in severance payment and nearly $350,000 shares of HP stock at the Aug 6 closing price.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.D6)
2010 Aug 6, In Michigan investigators said a knife-wielding serial killer, possible motivated by racial hatred, has been attacking men in the region of Flint since May killing 5 people and wounding 8.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 6, Tony Judt (b.1948), British historian, died. His work included “Postwar" (2005), a look at the 44 years following the main fighting of WWII and the collapse of the Soviet empire.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.72)
2010 Aug 6, In northern Afghanistan the bodies 10 members of a medical team, including six Americans, were recovered. They had been shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages. The Taliban claimed the next day it killed them for being "Christian missionaries." The beheaded body of Parliamentary candidate Najibullah Gulistani, who was abducted 18 days ago, was found in Ghazni province.
(AFP, 8/7/10)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A5)(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 6, Australian scientists reported a study revealing that sea sponges share almost 70 percent of human genes.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Britain and Pakistan agreed to do more together to fight Islamist militancy, brushing aside a diplomatic spat that followed British criticism of Pakistani efforts to counter extremism. Visiting Pakistan's Pres. President Asif Ali Zardari held official talks with PM David Cameron, roughly a week after the British leader ignited a diplomatic row by accusing Pakistan of exporting terrorism during a trip to the country's nuclear rival, India.
(Reuters, 8/6/10)(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In China AIDS activist Tian Xi (24) was taken into custody after a run-in with an administrator at Xincai County No. 1 People's Hospital, where he had been given a tainted blood transfusion as a boy. He was inflected with HIV via blood transfusion in 1996, and has been struggling to get compensation and treatment from the government more or less ever since. On Feb 11, 2011, Tian Xi was sentenced to one year in prison.
(AP, 2/12/11)(http://tinyurl.com/2b9cey5)
2010 Aug 6, In Indian Kashmir at least 113 people were killed and hundreds injured after rare rainfall triggered flash floods in an area of Ladakh popular with foreign fans of high-altitude adventure sports.
(AFP, 8/6/10)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 6, In Indonesia the Mount Karangetang volcano erupted, sending lava and a searing gas cloud tumbling down its slopes. At least four family members were swept away and feared dead.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Iraq a drive-by shooting and a bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed three traffic policemen in Baghdad, taking to eight the number from the city's force killed this week.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In southern Israel 7 members of one family, including a pregnant woman and two children, were killed when the minibus they were traveling in ignored traffic signals and crossed the tracks right into the path of a speeding train near the town of Kiryat Gat.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Pakistan battled to contain flooding in its rich agricultural south, evacuating half a million people from risk areas as the UN warned of the "daunting" scale of the crisis.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Poland's new Pres. Bronislaw Komorowski was sworn in and pledged to serve as a unifying force and work closely with European allies.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Russia a choking smog from raging wildfires shrouded Moscow, grounding flights, plunging the city's iconic Red Square into a sea of dirty mist and stinging eyes and throats across the Russian capital.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Saudi Arabia suspended BlackBerry messaging services, as concerns spread across the Middle East and parts of Asia over security issues with the popular smartphones.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Sudan humanitarian officials said all aid agencies have been denied access to Darfur's Kalma camp after five people were killed there and thousands fled when divisions over peace talks turned violent. UN-African Union peacekeepers (UNAMID) have been in a stand-off with South Darfur's government and Khartoum since five men and a woman sought refuge in their Kalma police base during the violence late last month.
(Reuters, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Sweden a gang of thieves staged a remarkable break-in near the Swedish royal family's residence in Stockholm, smashing display cases at a historic 18th-century Chinese-style landmark and getting away with artifacts that police called potentially priceless.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 7, Elena Kagan was sworn in as the 112th person to serve on the US Supreme Court.
(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.A7)
2010 Aug 7, San Francisco began charging a $7 fee for visitors to the arboretum in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 7, The last bus departed the San Francisco Transbay Terminal allowing demolition to soon begin of the 71-year-old terminal.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.C2)
2010 Aug 7, It was reported that an ice island measuring 100 square miles has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 7, The Panamanian-registered MSC Chitra smashed into the St. Kitts-registered MV-Khalijia-II near Mumbai's Jawahar Lal Nehru port. The environment minister of Maharashtra state told reporters the next day that about 2 tons of oil was pouring into the water every hour. Indian authorities plugged the fuel leak on Aug 9 after some 500 tons of oil had spewed into the Arabian Sea.
(AP, 8/9/10)(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 7, In Iraq explosions killed at least 20 people at Basra’s al-Ashaar market. 5 policemen were killed in an overnight shootout at a suspected bomb workshop in Baghdad. One policeman was shot dead at a checkpoint in Fallujah. A suicide bomber killed a policeman and injured 3 others on foot patrol in Mosul.
(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.A5)(AP, 8/7/10)
2010 Aug 8, In San Francisco German tourist Mechthild Schroer was killed by a stray bullet outside a comedy club at 414 Mason. On May 4, 2011, police arrested 7 of 8 young men accused of taking part in a gang gunbattle that left her dead. In 2014 four men indicted in the shooting pleaded guilty to lesser charges and were expected to serve five to nine years in state prison.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/11, p.C2)(SFC, 8/16/14, p.C1)
2010 Aug 8, Patricia Neal (84), American actress, died at her home in Massachusetts. Her films included “The Fountainhead" (1949), “The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), “Hud" (1963) and “A Face in the Crowd" (1957). Her 1988 autobiography was titled "As I Am."
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 8, Matthew Simmons (67), who rattled the energy industry by arguing the world was rapidly approaching peak oil production capacity, died at his home in North Haven, Maine. In his 2005 book "Twilight in the Desert," Simmons argued Saudi Arabia's oil reserves were nearing the highest levels of production they were capable of achieving, after which point the world's yearly oil supply would begin to decline.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 8, In Afghanistan Pres. Karzai said foreign security companies should all be replaced by Afghan police, the same day that the bodies of 10 members of a medical team, killed on Aug 5, were returned to Kabul. 52 companies employed about 30,000 people, most of them former military officers.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.E7)(http://tinyurl.com/34uqwfs)
2010 Aug 8, Arab League chief Amr Moussa signed a letter asking for backing of a resolution urging Washington and other powers to end support of Israel's nuclear secrecy and to push the Jewish state to allow international inspections of its program. Arab nations planned submit the request to the September assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 8, In China landslides in the northwestern province of Gansu left at least 337 people dead in the deadliest incident so far in the country's worst flooding in a decade. More than 1,148 were missing.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 8, In Iraq a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad and killed 8 people, mostly civilians. Gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles boarded 4 commercial ships in a two-hour time span in the vicinity of an oil terminal in the northern Persian Gulf. The assailants took computers, cell phones and money from crew members before fleeing. The interrogation of two Iraqis arrested after the incident indicated it was a robbery attempt without a larger agenda.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 8, Libya's government announced it will pay compensation to some people it had wrongfully imprisoned, the latest step in an effort to draw a line under a history of human rights abuses.
(Reuters, 8/8/10)
2010 Aug 8, Former Mexican Pres. Vincente Fox, who was a key US ally in the war on drugs, backed the legalization of drugs, saying prohibition has failed to curb Mexico's spiraling violence and corruption.
(Reuters 8/910)
2010 Aug 8, North Korean authorities seized a South Korean fishing boat and its 7-man crew. North Korea freed the crew on Sep 7.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Aug 8, South African journalists launched a campaign to fight what they say is an attempt to curtail media freedoms in a nation known for one of Africa's freest and most open constitutions.
(AP, 8/8/10)
2010 Aug 8, In Spain people began complaining of jellyfish attacks. Over the next three days some 700 people were stung at three beaches on the Costa Blanca near Elche, where normally just a handful get stung daily.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 8, Gunmen in south Sudan killed 23 people, including police officers, in an ambush on a truck in the key oil producing state of Unity, Koch county.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez rejected Larry Palmer as the US ambassador to Caracas citing comments by Palmer regarding low morale in Venezuela’s military.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 9, The US federal court in Hawaii found Noshir Gowadia (66), a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer, guilty of selling sensitive military technology to China. Gowadia was arrested in October 2005 and accused of communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it. Further charges were added on subsequent indictments issued up until 2007.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In San Francisco, Ca., a federal grand jury charged Samuel “Maoli" Cohen of Belvedere, Marin County, with 32 counts of wire fraud and money laundering related to defrauding over 55 victims of some $30 million. Cohen was convicted in November of 29 charges of fraud, money laundering and tax invasion. On April 30, 2012, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.D1)(SFC, 5/1/12, p.C2)
2010 Aug 9, BP made its first deposit, $3 billion, into the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster fund, while top executives were summoned to the White House to pledge their long-term commitment to restoring the region.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Skype SA, the Internet calling service that was controlled until last year by eBay Inc., filed for a US initial public offering.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Honda Motor Co said it was recalling more than 428,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada because of a defect that could cause the cars to roll away if they are parked incorrectly.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, In USA a tour bus crash killed 3 Japanese tourists. Driver Yasushi Mikuni (26) was later charged with 10 felony counts of negligent driving and one misdemeanor charge of having marijuana residue in his system.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A11)
2010 Aug 9, In Alaska a small plane crashed killing former US Sen. Ted Stevens (86) and 4 others at a mountainside on Bristol Bay. 4 others survived the crash of the 1957 De Havilland DHC-3T.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 9, Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan woman who said her nose and ears were sliced off last year to punish her for running away from her violent husband, gained worldwide attention when she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. She was sent to Los Angeles over the summer for reconstructive surgery. In November her father-in-law was arrested on charges of disfiguring Aisha and of being part of a Taliban network in Uruzgan province. The only suspect arrested in the case was released in July, 2011.
(AP, 12/8/10)(SFC, 7/12/11, p.A2)
2010 Aug 9, Brazil formally offered asylum to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death in Iran on an adultery conviction. On July 31 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested he would be willing to provide the woman refuge.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Brazil Ed Stafford (34), former British army captain, ended his 2 1/2-year journey as he planned, leaping into the sea as the first man known to walk the length of the Amazon River.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, A leading Chinese general urged closer ties with Australia's military, amid a continuing freeze on Beijing's contacts with the Pentagon.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In central Europe swollen rivers surged north after carving a swath of destruction across Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. At least 11 people were reported killed.
(AP, 8/9/10)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 9, in Guatemala 7 of 19 suspects were detained after a court issued arrest warrants for 19 people including a former interior minister and a top police official for allegedly participating in the killing of inmates during a 2005 prison escape and a 2007 uprising. Those arrested included two civilians, two former policeman and an officer still on the force.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 9, Indonesian police arrested top radical Islamist preacher Abu Bakar Bashir. He was accused of funding and training extremists who were planning a wave of attacks in Jakarta.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Indonesia the Hastina III sunk off East Nusatenggara province after a large wave slammed into the wooden ship, sending panicked passengers running to one side. It capsized between Adonara and Lembata islands. 10 people were killed with one missing.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Iran announced plans to get rid of its dollar and euro reserves in response to the latest UN sanctions over its contested nuclear program. The IAEA said Iran has activated equipment to enrich uranium more efficiently in a move that defies the UN Security Council.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Two Bahai activists said an Iranian court has sentenced seven leaders of their faith to 20 years in prison after charging them with espionage and engaging in propaganda against Islam.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Iraq a rush-hour bombing at a western Baghdad police precinct killed two traffic cops and one civilian. Iraqi traffic police began to arm themselves with high-powered weapons for the first time in two years following an escalation in attacks against the force.
(AP, 8/9/10)(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Israeli photographer Rafael Rafram Chaddad, jailed by Libya for five months, returned home after an Austrian tycoon brokered a deal for his freedom that involved the delivery of 20 prefabricated homes from a Libyan charity to the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Paraguay a presidential doctor said that Fernando Lugo's lymphatic cancer is more advanced than initially thought, but the chemotherapy he will undergo should not affect his ability to do his job.
(Reuters, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, A top Russian health official said deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the city is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave. Some 830 forest fires were burning nationwide.
(AP, 8/9/10)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 9, Rwandans voted in large numbers after a presidential election campaign that rights groups said was marred by repression and violence against critics of incumbent Paul Kagame, who is expected to win by a landslide. The bush war veteran won 93 percent of the vote in more than a third of country's districts.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 9, A Somali militant group with links to al-Qaida announced it had banned three Christian aid agencies from its territory, and one aid group said militants had occupied their offices in southern Somalia.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In South Africa 4 miners were shot dead by mine guards in an abandoned gold mine near Johannesburg. Their bodies were found on Aug 12. The mine was owned by Zuma's nephew Khulubuse Zuma and Mandela's grandson Zondwa Mandela. Their company, Aurora Empowerment Systems, was embroiled in a pay dispute with mineworkers they inherited from several mines they bought from an insolvent company. In January, 2012, a court ordered Khulubuse Zuma to pay $1.25 million (955,000 euro) in debt.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AFP, 4/15/12)
2010 Aug 9, Sudan halted BBC broadcasts in Arabic on FM radio frequencies after suspending its agreement with the British public broadcaster for reasons it said had nothing to do with its newscasts.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 10, President Barack Obama signed a $26 billion bill would protect some 300,000 teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, A San Francisco judge ordered Wells Fargo to pay its customers $203 million for manipulating debit transactions to maximize overdraft fees.
(SFC, 8/12/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 10, In Ohio Roderick Davie (38) was executed by lethal injection for the murder of 2 co-workers at a pet supply company in 1991.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 10, In Afghanistan 2 gunmen with explosives strapped to them tried to storm the office of an international security company in Kabul. When guards fought back, the men detonated their explosives, killing two Afghan drivers. This followed a UN report that the number of civilians killed in the Afghan war jumped 25 percent in the first half of 2010 compared with the same period last year, with insurgents responsible for the spike.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Brazil signed on to UN sanctions against Iran despite misgivings over the measures following its efforts to negotiate a nuclear-swap deal with the Islamic state.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, The death toll from landslides in northwestern China more than doubled to 702, as crews in three countries across Asia struggled to reach survivors from flooding that has afflicted millions of people.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, China Kanghui Holdings, a maker of orthopedic implants, and its stockholders priced 6.7 million American depositary shares, representing 40.1 million ordinary shares, at $10.25 apiece. The stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "KH."
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, The leaders of Colombia and Venezuela re-established diplomatic relations, saying they are starting to repair confidence undermined by years of recriminations between the two countries. The announcement came after a four-hour meeting between Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez and Colombia's new leader, Juan Manuel Santos.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, In the Dominican Rep. over 30,000 truck drivers began a one-day strike to protest a government proposal to increase the fuel tax.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 10, Indonesia and the US launched a biodiversity research centre on the holiday island of Bali to further studies of the archipelago's rich and diverse species.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Iraq the leader of an anti-Qaeda militia was gunned down outside his home, while bombs killed three civilians in a series of attacks south of Baghdad.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Japan apologized to South Korea for its colonial rule over the country, seeking to strengthen ties between the two countries ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Japanese annexation of the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Lebanon criticized a US Congressman's decision to suspend $100 million of military aid over concerns that Iranian-backed Hezbollah may have influence over the Arab country's army and American-supplied weapons could be used to threaten neighboring Israel.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in the capital, though its decision does not force those states to begin marrying gay couples in their territory.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari returned to his flood-ravaged country, where he faced a storm of criticism for visiting Europe as his country was gripped by what his government called the nation's worst natural disaster. The UN said the Pakistan’ government's estimate of 13.8 million people affected by the country's worst-ever floods exceeded the combined total of three recent megadisasters, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Rescuers in mountainous Indian-controlled Kashmir raced to save dozens of stranded foreign trekkers and find 500 people still missing in flash floods that have killed 140.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Poland several thousand protestors rallied before Warsaw's presidential palace to seek the removal of a cross erected there after the April air crash death of president Lech Kaczynski.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Puerto Rico Coraly Campos feuded with her partner and told him he would never see the two children again. She then beat them, stabbed them with a kitchen knife and set the house afire. Her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son died in the attack in the city of Trujillo Alto. Campos also tried to kill herself. On March 11, 2011, Campos (21) was convicted of first-degree murder, child abuse, arson, domestic abuse and violation of weapons laws.
(AP, 3/12/11)
2010 Aug 10, Saudi Arabia's telecommunications regulator said it would allow BlackBerry messaging services to continue in the kingdom, citing "positive developments" with the device's Canadian manufacturer.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Northern and southern Sudanese leaders resumed negotiations on the ramifications of possible southern independence early next year, such as the distribution of oil wealth.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Turkey suspected Kurdish rebels blew up part of an Iraqi-Kurdish pipeline killing 2 people and cutting the flow of oil in Sirnak province.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 11, The US Treasury Dept. said it is sending an additional $2 billion to what it calls the 17 “hardest hit" states to help unemployed homeowners pay their mortgages.
(SFC, 8/12/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 11, A US military tribunal sentenced Ibrahim al-Qosi (50), Osama bin Laden's former cook, to 14 years in prison, but he is expected to serve far less under a plea deal that remains secret. Al-Qosi has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years. In Feb, 2011, a US military legal official reduced the sentence, suspending all but two years. On July 11, 2012, al-Qosi was returned to Sudan.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)(AP, 2/9/11)(AP, 7/11/12)
2010 Aug 11, In Iowa 3 nights of heavy rainfall caused creeks and rivers to swell, forcing hundreds of residents from their homes and killing a 16-year-old girl when three cars were swept away by a torrent of water on a rural road.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Over a billion Muslims around the world began observing the holy month of Ramadan, with the dawn-to-dusk fast posing a particular challenge for the devout in the sweltering Middle East summer.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Dan Rostenkowski (b.1928), former US Rep. from Illinois (1959-1995), died at his home in Wisconsin. In 1996 he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and served 15 months in prison.
(SFC, 8/12/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 11, In Afghanistan about 350 of the country’s Islamic clerics, or ulema, ended a 3-day meeting with a declaration calling on President Hamid Karzai to enact sharia, or Islamic law, including punishments such as stonings, lashing, amputation and execution.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Researchers reported that plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide. This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli, in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Bosnian officials said they have so far found 60 partial skeletons in the muddy banks of the manmade Lake Perucac in eastern Bosnia since the water level was lowered for dam maintenance. The victims were killed at the beginning of the 1992-95 war, thrown into the Drina river, and lodged into the banks of the lake. In 2012 a mass funeral was held for 66 Muslim Bosnians killed in Visegrad.
(AP, 8/11/10)(AP, 5/26/12)
2010 Aug 11, Canada said a cargo ship that may be carrying as many 500 migrants from Sri Lanka was nearing its Pacific coast. The M.V. Sun Sea entered an economic zone within 200 miles of Vancouver Island and was being tracked by a Canadian navy warship.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, In the Central African Republic the local Red Cross said floods have killed three people and left more than a thousand homeless in the country's north.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Chinese rescuers raced against a potential new deluge in northwest Gansu province and hurried to drain an unstable lake formed by the country’s worst mudslides in decades. The mudslide left about 1500 people dead.
(AFP, 8/11/10)(AFP, 5/13/12)
2010 Aug 11, China launched its biggest relocation program since the Three Gorges Dam. The first group of 499 villagers was moved in central Hubei province and a total of 60,000 people were to be relocated by Sept. 30. The rest, for a total of 330,000, will be moved by 2014.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, In CongoDRC around 40 people were killed when an overloaded truck laden with passengers plowed into Lake Tanganyika, Africa's deepest lake.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Indonesia's best-known radical cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, was charged with helping plan terrorist attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession by Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband. The Iranian woman had faced death by stoning for adultery. Ashtiani was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband. The next day her lawyer told a British newspaper that she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband's death.
(AP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, In Iraq gunmen burst into a house in Sadiyah, Diyala province, killing three people and sending the surviving children to an Iraqi army checkpoint to lure soldiers to the residence. As the troops arrived at the booby-trapped house, it blew up, leaving 8 soldiers dead. Gunmen broke into the house of a senior female doctor in Baghdad and killed her. the gunmen used pistols fitted with silencers and stole 250 million Iraqi dinars (about $215,000).
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Toyota said it has suspended auto exports to Iran indefinitely in line with global sanctions against Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon questioned prosecutors and judges as to why so few people are caught and punished for violent crimes.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Morocco’s official media said security forces have broken up a radical Islamist cell that was planning attacks in Morocco and foreign assets there.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Nicaraguan Supreme Court justices, who support President Daniel Ortega, picked seven lawyers from Ortega's Sandinista party to replace opposition judges who have been boycotting court sessions.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, In Nigeria a condemned building collapsed in Abuja and killed 23 people. Squatters who lived there described jumping from two storeys up to escape. Russian sailors Igor Ivanov and Andrei Pukke were kidnapped in the southern delta. On Sep 9 they were reported to have been released by their captors following a $60,000 ransom.
(AFP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/14/10)(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Aug 11, Norway pledged to work for democracy in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy during a Norwegian-sponsored meeting held in South Africa and featuring diplomats and Swazi pro-democracy groups.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, The UN appealed for $459 million in aid for flood-hit Pakistan, warning of a second wave of death among sick, hungry survivors unless help arrived quickly.
(Reuters 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, The Islamist Hamas movement released 100 prisoners in its Gaza enclave, including members of the rival Fatah, in honor of the start of Ramadan.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Russia said it has deployed high-precision air defense missiles in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, sending a defiant signal to Tblisi and the West two years after a war with Georgia.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, In Rwanda a grenade attack shook Kigali wounding at least seven people as Pres. Paul Kagame was declared winner of a much-criticized election devoid of real opposition. Two people later died of injuries sustained in the grenade blast.
(AFP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 11, Turkey said it will support petrol sales by Turkish companies to Iran, despite US sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Zimbabwe auctioned 900,000 carats of rough diamonds that were mined from its Marange fields, an area where human rights groups say soldiers killed 200 people, raped women and forced children into hard labor.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 12, Officials in Atlanta, Georgia, arrested Elias Abuelazam (33), a suspect in a string of 18 stabbings that left 5 people dead, at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Int’l. airport as he was about to board an airplane to Tel Aviv. 14 of the stabbings had taken place in Flint, Michigan. Abuelazam was extradited to Michigan where he faced homicide charges. On June 25, 2012, Abuelazam was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/27/10, p.A6)(SFC, 6/26/12, p.A5)
2010 Aug 12, In Nevada 2 gold miners were killed in an accident at the Meikle mine.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A6)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A9)
2010 Aug 12, In Oregon a small plane crashed in the Steens Mountain killing 2 men, including prominent California horse breeder Frank Vessels (58).
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 12, In eastern Afghanistan a crowd of about 300 villagers yelled "Death to the United States" and blocked a main road as they swore that US forces had killed three innocent villagers. NATO forces rejected the claim, saying they had killed several suspected insurgents and detained a local Taliban commander in the overnight raid. Elders from Zarin Khil village said American troops stormed into a family's house and shot three brothers, all young men, and then took their father into custody. In nearby Paktiya province NATO and Afghan troops killed more than 20 armed insurgents in an ongoing operation to disrupt insurgents in the area around Dazadran district. US and Afghan forces stepped up operations against a Taliban faction linked to al-Qaida, arresting several key figures in the network in raids in two eastern provinces. A British serviceman, who was injured Aug 10 in an incident involving a helicopter at a patrol base in the Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand, died at a hospital in Britain.
(AP, 8/12/10)(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, Leicester City, the English Championship soccer club, announced that a consortium led by Thai businessman Aiyawatt Raksriaksorn has bought the organization.
(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, An Iranian man was arrested in Brazil on suspicion of 11 murders allegedly aimed at protecting his illegal electronics smuggling operation. Police in the northeastern state of Ceara say Farhad Marvizi (46) hired two rogue officers and other people to carry out the killings in the last two years.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, In China 10,276 people in Inner Mongolia set a new world record for the longest chain of human dominoes toppling a record set a decade earlier in Singapore by more than several hundred.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100813/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_china_life_dominoes)
2010 Aug 12, In Colombia a car bomb exploded outside a major radio station and banks in Bogota, shattering windows and injuring at least nine people. No deaths were reported.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, Egypt's religious ministry launched an ambitious project to, neighborhood by neighborhood, unify the timing and sound of the Islamic call to prayer across Cairo, a sprawling city of 18 million. System glitches and a communication breakdown delayed it by a day.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said that over 40 illegal gypsy camps have been dismantled around the country in the last two weeks and that 700 people among those in the camps will be returned to Bulgaria and Romania.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 12, India ordered telephone operators to allow security agencies access to BlackBerry services carried on their networks by the end of the month.
(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In India Cindy Iannereli, an American from Cecil, Pa., was murdered near the Osian resort in Rajasthan state. Her son teenager Joncarlo Patton (15) was arrested as the prime suspect in the murder. On May 3, 2011, the boy was sentenced to serve three years in an Indian juvenile detention facility. On May 11, 2012, an Indian court overturned the conviction and Patton was released.
(http://tinyurl.com/3wtvvn5)(AP, 5/3/11)(AFP, 5/11/12)
2010 Aug 12, In Jamaica police shot and killed Cedric Murray, otherwise called ‘Doggie’, a senior member of the Montego Bay-based Stone Crusher gang, near the border of Clarendon and Manchester. He was on Jamaica’s ‘Most Wanted List’ for the past five years.
(www.jamaicasmostwanted.com/2008/05/03/cedric-murray/)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.48)
2010 Aug 12, In Malaysia gold coins came into circulation and could be purchased at various locations in Kelantan state. Their worth is currently about $180 per dinar and $4 per dirham. The gold dinar and silver dirham coins provide an alternative to Malaysia's currency, the ringgit, in northeastern Kelantan state, which is governed by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, a conservative opposition group that promotes religious policies in its rule.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, Guido De Marco (79), former president of Malta (1999-2004), died. He helped the island nation win European Union membership (2004).
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Mexico police found the bodies of six people in two locations. The bodies of four males, including two teenagers, were found with their hands and feet bound inside a car in the town of Tepalcatepec, Michoacan state. Minutes earlier police in Tepalcatepec found the body of a man and a woman alongside a road.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 12, Demonstrators in Morocco slapped a commercial blockade on Melilla, a Spanish enclave, allowing in only some trucks in a dispute over alleged police violence and racism against Moroccans entering the city. Besides a bustling commercial flow, about 35,000 Moroccans cross daily into Melilla, population 70,000, to work or shop.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Nigeria a senior official said a cholera outbreak has killed 40 people while 115 others have been infected in northern Nigeria's Borno State in the past week.
(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, President Dmitry Medvedev said drought has destroyed a quarter of Russia's grain crop this year, pushing some farmers to the brink of bankruptcy and hurting Russia's bid to expand food exports.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Suriname Desi Bouterse (64), a former coup leader, convicted drug trafficker and accused murderer, was sworn in as president.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, Human Rights Watch group said Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels have abducted 697 people in central Africa in the past 18 months, killing at least 255 of them.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Zimbabwe a wounded buffalo, known as one of the most aggressive animals in the African bush, gored veteran Zimbabwean conservationist Steve Kok (71) to death, ending his years of dedication to saving wild animals from poachers' traps.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 13, President Barack Obama signed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border. The new law nearly doubled fees on visas for skilled workers brought in by companies whose employees are more than 50 percent foreign, a move that largely affects India's IT and outsourcing industries.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, Pres. Obama forcefully endorsed building a mosque near ground zero, saying the country’s founding principles demand no less.
(SFC, 8/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 13, The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the Palos Bank and Trust Co. based in Palos Heights, Illinois. It was the 110th US bank to go under this year.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.D3)
2010 Aug 13, Geral Rosen (71), American novelist, died in SF. His 7 books included “Blues for a Dying Nation" (1972) and his autobiography “Cold Eye, Warm Heart" (2009).
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.C8)
2010 Aug 13, In southern Afghanistan a member of the international coalition died after an insurgent attack. A British soldier was also killed by small-arms fire in the Sangin district of Helmand province. Three small children were killed and their mother was wounded when a civilian house was hit by an insurgent rocket in Khost city. Two private security guards and two militants were killed in a gunbattle in the Karukh district of Herat province, 12 other guards were wounded in the skirmish. 3 Afghan civilians were killed and another was wounded by insurgents in three separate incidents in Kandahar province.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Australia 2 men were gunned down in a popular Melbourne bar area, shortly after the killing of a known crime figure sparked fears of a new gang war in the city's notorious underworld.
(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, A Belgian man died from a drug-resistant "superbug" originating in South Asia, the first reported death from the bacteria. The superbug -- a bacterial gene called New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) -- was first identified last year in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.
(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, The Bosnia's war crimes court confirmed charges of genocide for 4 former Bosnian Serb army soldiers over the killing of at least 800 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in July, 1995. Franc Kos, Stanko Kojic, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja all served with the Bosnian Serb army's 10th commando unit.
(Reuters, 8/13/10)(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, In western Canada at least 450 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, on board the MV Sun Sea cargo ship, arrived at a naval base escorted by a naval frigate and police helicopters.
(Reuters, 8/13/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 13, In northwest China new landslides killed 24 people and left 24 missing in Gansu province as downpours threatened more devastation and made rescue work nearly impossible in a region where more than 1,100 people have died.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Egypt a gunbattle between Eritrean migrants and Bedouin traffickers demanding more money to take them to Israel left at least four people in the Sinai Desert. 2 others were shot dead by Egyptian police barring them from illegally crossing the border. A woman died of her injuries on Aug 15. Police later said as many as 10 migrants were killed and that dozens more could be lost in the desert.
(AP, 8/14/10)(Reuters, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 13, Guatemalan police arrested the former head of the national prison system, accusing him of orchestrating the executions of seven prisoners during a 2006 government raid on an infamous jail. Alejandro Giammattei, in charge of penitentiaries during the previous administration of President Oscar Berger, turned himself over to authorities after trying to seek asylum in the Honduran Embassy this week.
(Reuters, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Iran PJAK Kurdish rebels killed a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards and two Islamist militiamen in clashes near northwestern Orumieh city.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Kashmir tens of thousands staged angry street demonstrations after government forces killed four people and injured 31 others during the latest unrest against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Sri Lanka a military court convicted former Sri Lankan army chief and presidential candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka of involvement in politics while in service and stripped him of his rank and military honors.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, Turkish officials said police have raided a house used by people suspected of digging illegally for antiquities and discovered two tunnels leading to an underground tomb that housed an ancient marble coffin and frescoes. The tomb was believed to be that of Hecatomnus, satrap of Caria (391BC-377BC).
(AP, 8/13/10)(www.livius.org/he-hg/hecatomnids/hecatomnus.html)
2010 Aug 14, In California an off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at the California 200 race in the Mohave Desert, killing eight people and injuring 12 others.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 14, In New York a shooting outside a restaurant in downtown Buffalo left four people dead and four wounded. Keith Johnson (25) was arrested and charged with 4 counts of 2nd degree murder. Prosecutors soon dropped charges against Johnson following examination of surveillance video. On Aug 25 Riccardo McCray turned himself in and was charged 4 counts of 2nd degree murder.
(AP, 8/14/10)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A10)(SFC, 8/16/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A7)
2010 Aug 14, Abbey Lincoln (b.1930), jazz singer and actress, died in Manhattan. Her first album, “Affair… a Story of a Girl in Love" (1956) was made the same year in which she appeared in her first film “The Girl Can’t Help It." From 1962-1970 she was married to drummer Max Roach.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.C10)
2010 Aug 14, In Afghanistan the international coalition said more than 20 insurgents including Arab, Chechen and Pakistani fighters have been killed by NATO and Afghan forces who are ramping up operations in the east against a Taliban faction linked to al-Qaida. Four police were killed and four others wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Gereshk district in Helmand province. NATO and coalition troops killed two insurgents after a patrol came under small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire in Kunduz province. NATO forces killed two insurgents who attacked a police station by hitting their truck with an airstrike as they fled an area in northern Kunduz province. One police officer was reported killed in the fighting.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 14, China’s People's Daily reported that China will test a wider range of dairy products and even breast milk as authorities investigate claims that a brand of infant formula caused apparent breast growth in a small number of babies. State media have said the babies with apparent breast growth were found to have abnormal levels of the hormones estradiol and prolactin, which stimulate lactation, or the making of breast milk.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, The EU told military-run Myanmar that its Nov. 7 elections, the first in two decades, will not be considered legitimate in the eyes of the world unless it can ensure the vote is free and fair.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, Gabon signed contracts worth 4.5 billion dollars (3.5 billion euros) with Indian and Singaporean companies for infrastructure projects. The investments were expected to generate some 50,000 jobs.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Iraq two policemen were shot dead and their bodies set ablaze at a Baghdad checkpoint. A drive-by shooting killed 2 more police officers in Baghdad. An anti-Qaeda fighter was killed at a checkpoint manned by government-backed Sunni fighters in northeast Baghdad. A bomb attached to a police officer’s car in Baghdad blew up, killing the driver and wounding 2 passengers. Mohammed Ali al-Deen (34), who returned less than a month ago after completing a pharmacy course in Washington DC, was gunned down at his home in Noamaniyah in the central province of Wasit.
(AFP, 8/14/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 14, In Indian Kashmir fresh clashes erupted between anti-India protesters and security forces, where 55 demonstrators have died during two months of unrest.
(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Italy police in Sicily said they've hit at the heart of the financial empire of a convicted Mafia associate, seizing euro800 million (more than $1 billion) in property and businesses, including a clinic for cancer patients and a local soccer team. Local health mogul Michele Aiello (53) was convicted of Mafia association, corruption and fraud and sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, Lebanese intelligence agents killed two suspected members of an al-Qaida-inspired group in the Bekaa Valley. Local TV station Al-Jadeed reported that one of them was Abdul-Rahman Awad, a leader of the Fatah Islam group, and his aide, Ghazi Faysal Abdullah. They were heading to Iraq to join insurgents.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 14, Mexican authorities said that police in Ciudad Juarez have captured five alleged drug gang members suspected in the killings of two federal officers, including one whose body was hacked to pieces.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 14, Aid officials said Niger is now facing the worst hunger crisis in its history, with almost half the country's population in desperate need of food and up to one in six children suffering from acute malnutrition. Villagers described the situation as worse than in 2005, when aid organizations treated tens of thousands of children for malnutrition, and worse even than 1973, when thousands died.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In southwestern Pakistan gunmen targeted non-ethnic Baluchis traveling on a bus and painting a house in two attacks, killing 7 Taliban and 7 tribesmen and wounding eight.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 2/25/12)
2010 Aug 14, In Portugal more than 600 firefighters battled at least 26 serious wildfire outbreaks fanned by gusting winds in three separate areas.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Russia the number of wildfires in the Moscow region fell sharply overnight, but hundreds of blazes continued to rage in other areas of Russia, and officials warned that some of them are in hard-to-reach regions.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Singapore the inaugural Youth Olympic Games officially opened in a spectacular blaze of color, with Jacques Rogge hailing it as a new chapter in the Olympic movement. The Games, which feature athletes aged 14 to 18, are a project Rogge has championed since becoming IOC chief in 2001.
(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, South Korean Lee Dae-Ho broke a world record by scoring a home run for his ninth straight game.
(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Sudan's Darfur region two Jordanian peacekeepers, deployed with the joint United Nations-African Union mission, were kidnapped. On Aug 17 Jordanian and Sudanese officials said the peacekeepers have been freed.
(AP, 8/15/10)(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Thailand formed US Marine Dashawn Longfellow was beaten and stabbed to death following a brawl at a Phuket bar. In 2012 British kickboxer Lee Aldhouse was indicted for the stabbing.
(SFC, 12/27/12, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/dynf6av)
2010 Aug 15, In San Francisco the 2-day Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival drew close to 80,000 people to 4 concert stages in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 8/16/10, p.C1)
2010 Aug 15, James Kilpatrick (b.1920), columnist and longtime conservative 60 Minutes “Point Counterpoint" commentator, died in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 15, In Afghanistan Abu Baqir, a man described as a Taliban sub-commander and al Qaeda group leader, was killed, along with another insurgent, when an alliance aircraft fired on a truck in Kunduz province. Siddiqa (19) and her fiance Khayyam (25) were stoned to death in public in northern Kunduz over an alleged illicit love affair. They had tried to elope against their families’ wishes. The stoning was captured on video.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SFC, 2/1/11, p.A2)
2010 Aug 15, In Bahrain four leading Shiite activists were arrested as the kingdom's Sunni leaders try to end violent confrontations between Shiite protesters and anti-riot police. Shiites are a majority in Bahrain, but the oil-rich nation is ruled by a Sunni royal family.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, India's PM Manmohan Singh appealed to the people of Indian-controlled Kashmir to end violent protests and said his government is ready to hold talks to resolve their long-standing problems. An off-duty officer flung a shoe at Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Indian-controlled Kashmir's top elected official, during India's independence day ceremony.
(AP, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Iraq drive-by shootings and a spate of bombings killed 11 people and wounded dozens. Five of the dead were Iraqi police and security forces. 3 Sunni Muslims were gunned down as they left Abid Wais mosque in Jurf al-Sakhr, 50 km (30 miles) south of the capital in the mainly Shiite province of Babil. Three others, including an off-duty policeman, were killed when their minibus was struck by a bomb attack as it travelled to the centre of Baghdad from an eastern quarter. A traffic policeman and a civilian were also killed, and a police officer was wounded, when a roadside bomb exploded near Al-Shaab stadium in the east of the capital. Another person was killed and seven others wounded by three roadside bombs in northern Baghdad. In Mosul, one Iraqi soldier was killed and another wounded in a shooting at a security checkpoint in the east of the northern city.
(AP, 8/15/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, Israel's military said Hezbollah is moving fighters and weapons into the villages of south Lebanon, building up a secret network of arms warehouses, bunkers and command posts in preparation for war.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Mexico attackers shot 8 men to death and piled their bodies in a pickup truck in the southern state of Oaxaca. Gunmen kidnapped Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of the town Santiago, a city on the outskirts of Monterrey. His body was found on Aug 18. In Ciudad Juarez gunmen opened fire on the pool party in central Ciudad Juarez, killing 3 women and a man and wounding 5 other women, all of whom were wearing swimsuits. In an attack at a private house, gunmen riddled party-goers with bullets. 3 victims died at the scene, and another 3 in hospital. The bodies of four other men, "showing signs of torture with several shots through their heads," were found in other parts of the city. The city had more than 2,660 murders in 2009 and 1,850 so far this year. In Veracruz police found the bound, burned remains of a body with a federal police badge.
(AFP, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/16/10)(Reuters, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Mali 2 survivors of a failed journey said 12 African nationals trying to illegally enter Europe died from thirst and hunger in the Algerian desert.
(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Nigeria Royal Dutch Shell PLC warned that thieves in the oil-rich and restive southern delta are increasingly targeting the company's crude pipelines, including at least three incidents of sabotage this month alone.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Nigeria a fiery road crash outside the commercial capital of Lagos burned at least 15 people to death and injured 18 others.
(AFP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 15, Pakistani men took turns savagely beating the two teenage brothers with sticks, drawing blood before dragging and hanging their dead bodies from a nearby pole. None of the dozens of people watching tried to stop the attack, not even several police. The scene was caught on video and broadcast on news channels. The boys in Sialkot, a town in eastern Punjab province, may have been mistaken for robbers. At least 10 suspects were later arrested, including four police officers.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Saudi Arabia Ghazi Algosaibi (70), a consummate statesman and liberal writer, died after a long illness. Algosaibi was close to the kingdom's ruling family. But his writings, critical of Arab governments, were banned in the kingdom. Only last month, Saudi Culture Ministry lifted the ban on his writings citing his contributions to the nation.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, South Korea’s Pres. Lee Myung-bak proposed a 3-step plan to unify the Korean peninsula and a new tax to help his country absorb the enormous cost of integration.
(SFC, 8/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 15, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the world to quicken aid for up to 20 million people hit by Pakistan's worst humanitarian crisis as he flew in to visit areas ravaged by record floods.
(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 16, The US Justice Dept. dropped its 6-year investigation of former US House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex) and his interactions with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, The US Interior Dept. announced new rules for offshore drilling.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, US-based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network, one of the world's largest diamond trading networks, said it will expel members who knowingly trade Zimbabwean stones tainted by allegations of killings and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Sheriff’s deputies at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Ca., stunned inmate Martin Harrison (51) with Tasers as they tried to move him to another cell so that his could be cleaned. Harrison was in the midst of alcohol withdrawal and died two days later. In 2015 Alameda County and Corizon Health Inc. agreed to pay $8.3 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by his four adult children.
(http://tinyurl.com/ldo9487)(SFC, 2/11/15, p.D1)
2010 Aug 16, Shrimpers returned to Louisiana waters for the first commercial season since the Gulf oil disaster, uncertain what crude may still be in the water and what price they'll get for the catch if consumers worry about possible lingering effects from the massive BP spill.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In South Carolina Shaquan Duley suffocated her 2 sons, ages 3 years and 14 months, put their bodies into a car and rolled the car into the North Edisto River. On March 16, 2012, she pleaded guilty to murder charges.
(SFC, 3/17/12, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/75e5z3u)
2010 Aug 16, Mazda Motor Corp announced a recall of 215,000 Mazda 3 and Mazda 5 vehicles sold in the United States because of the risk that they could lose power steering without warning.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 16, Dell Inc. said it's buying 3Par Inc., a maker of enterprise data storage equipment, for about $1.13 billion cash or $18 per share. Hewlett Packard soon countered with a higher bid and a bidding war ensued raising the value of 3Par $2 billion, or $30/share. HP ended an 18-day battle with a $33 per share offer. On Sep 2 Dell refused to continue bidding and said it was entitled to a $72 million termination fee.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/29/10, p.A9)(SFC, 9/3/10, p.D4)
2010 Aug 16, Celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan (50), who made headlines for performing multiple surgeries on reality TV star Heidi Montag, died in a car crash in southern California. He was texting while driving and accidentally went over a cliff. Ryan opened his private practice in 1994, the same year he established his namesake charitable foundation that provides free removal of gang-related tattoos and hosts day and overnight camps for children at Malibu's Bony Pony Ranch.
(http://tinyurl.com/2fv4r8f)
2010 Aug 16, In South Carolina Shaquan Duley (29) suffocated her two boys (18 months and 2 years old) and rolled her car into the North Edisto River in an attempt to cover their murder. She confessed to their murder the next day.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, In Afghanistan 6 police officers in Kandahar province were poisoned by a cook who defected to the Taliban.
(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 16, Teams from Australia, Germany and Switzerland have set off from Geneva in electric vehicles for what they hope will be the first carbon neutral race around the world. The race set up by Swiss inventor Louis Palmer will pass through 150 cities including Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Cancun before returning to Geneva in January after 18,642 miles (30,000 km) on the road.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Bolivia protesters suspended road blockades and hunger strikes, saying government officials agreed to address their grievances after 19 days of demonstrations that paralyzed Bolivia's southern Potosi region. The government agreed to build a new airport and cement factory in the area to end the 3-weeks of roadblocks.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, In northeast China a massive explosion ripped through a fireworks factory, killing 19 workers, damaging nearby buildings and causing secondary blasts.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In China at least 36 more people have died and 23 others were missing in fresh flooding from torrential rains in Gansu province.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, A Boeing 737 jetliner with 131 passengers aboard crashed on landing and broke into three pieces at Colombia’s at San Andres Island in the Caribbean. The region's governor said it was a miracle that only one person died. On Sep 1 a girl (11) died from her injuries raising the death toll to two.
(AP, 8/16/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Greece Dimitrios Ioannidis (87), a feared security chief, died. He led the 1974 countercoup against Greece's military leaders and provoked Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. He was jailed in 1975 for life for his part in the 1967-74 dictatorship.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Iran said it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds, with construction on the first starting in March, in continuing defiance of international efforts to curb its nuclear development.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Iraq a car bomb killed four Iranian Shiite pilgrims and an Iraqi citizen travelling on a bus northeast of Baghdad with women among nine others wounded.
(AFP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant who the military said was planting a bomb along the border.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Mexico's Supreme Court voted to uphold a Mexico City law allowing adoptions by same-sex couples, drawing jubilant cheers from gay advocacy groups and angry protests from Roman Catholic Church representatives.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Mexico 4 inmates were found dead with their throats slashed at a prison in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Nigerian officials said a cholera outbreak has killed 87 people during the past month while 1,315 others have been infected.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Pakistan angry flood survivors blocked a highway to protest slow delivery of aid and heavy rain lashed makeshift housing as a forecast of more flooding increased the urgency of the massive international relief effort.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Peru American Lori Berenson apologized for aiding leftist rebels and asked a Peruvian court to let her remain free on parole after serving 15 years of her 20-year sentence behind bars.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Romania a fire at a Bucharest maternity hospital killed 3 babies. A 4th died the next day and seven remained in critical condition. The accident provoked a wave of public indignation, throwing light on Romania's poorly funded and understaffed health system.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Russia’s ruling party said it would not re-nominate Georgy Boos, the unpopular governor of Kaliningrad, for a new term.
(Reuters, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Russia Gabriel Grecu, first secretary in the political department of the Romanian Embassy in Moscow, was detained while trying to obtain secret military information from a Russian citizen. He was given 48 hours to leave the country.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Sudan lightning struck a religious school in the country's western Darfur region, killing seven children.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 17, A federal jury in Chicago deadlocked on all but one of 24 charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He was convicted of lying to federal agents. Prosecutors pledged to retry the case as soon as possible.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 17, In Los Angeles an abandoned trunk was found by two women clearing out an apartment building basement that was filled with items that accumulated during years of remodels. Two leather doctor bags contained the mummified remains of two infants. The trunk also contained ticket stubs from the 1932 KA Olympic games. DNA testing later linked the infants to Janet M. Barrie (1897-1995), an Irish immigrant who worked as a private live-in nurse for Mary Knapp, the wife of dentist George Knapp.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.C5)
2010 Aug 17, American oil company Anadarko said it has discovered offshore oil deposits in northern Mozambique, but it is unclear if the find will prove commercially viable.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Texas Patrick Gray Sharp (29) was killed in a shootout with police after he towed a trailer full of explosives in front of suburban Dallas police station and opened fire in an apparent attempt to lure people out to kill them.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 17, Texas executed Peter Anthony Cantu (35), a former gang member, for taking part in the rape and murder of 2 teenage girls in 1993.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 17, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree ordering that all private security firms in the country should be disbanded within four months.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Bahraini lawyer Mohammed al-Tajir said a total of 10 activists, including eight leading members of the opposition, have been detained since Aug 14.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Brazil police officers repeated shot a 14-year-old boy just outside his house in Manaus. The boy survived, but was seriously injured. On March 24, 2011, five police officers were detained after Brazilian television released amateur video that showed the shooting. A prosecutor said the officers allegedly involved in the shooting told him they were asking the minor about a gun used in a crime in the neighborhood.
(AP, 3/24/11)
2010 Aug 17, The “Great British Bake Off" (GBBO), a British television baking competition produced by Love Productions, began airing on BBC Two.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off)(Econ, 9/2/17, p.74)
2010 Aug 17, British retiree Christopher Tappin (63) insisted he is the innocent victim of entrapment by US customs agents. American authorities accuse him of plotting to sell missile components to Iran in a deal exposed in an undercover sting. Tappin told reporters at a news conference in London he had been duped by the customs agents, had no contacts with Iran and had stood to make only $500 from his role in the deal.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, A new British report said police detected more than 6,800 cannabis farms and factories in the UK in the last 12 months, more than double the number found in 2007-2008.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Canadian officials said a nuclear reactor responsible for production of about a third of the world's medical isotopes has resumed operation after more than a year-long shutdown. Atomic Energy of Canada said that after low-power testing on the Chalk River reactor in Ontario proved successful, the 53-year-old facility returned to full power for the first time since a heavy water leak forced it offline in May 2009.
(Reuters, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, At least 4 Tibetans were fatally shot and 30 others wounded when Chinese police opened fire on demonstrators protesting the expansion of a gold mine they blamed for causing environmental damage in southwestern China's Sichuan province not far from the border with Tibet. On Aug 30 the official Xinhua News Agency reported that a 47-year-old Tibetan named Babo died after being hit "by a stray bullet when police fired warning shots with an anti-riot shotgun."
(AP, 8/28/10)(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 17, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled that last year's agreement giving the US military access to more Colombian bases is unconstitutional because it wasn't approved by legislators.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, An Iranian fighter jet crashed in southern Iran near the country's nuclear power plant that is to start up over the weekend. The two pilots ejected safely.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Iraq a suicide bomber sat for hours among hundreds of army recruits before detonating nail-packed explosives strapped to his body, killing 61 people and casting new doubt on the ability of Iraqi forces as US troops head home.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Israel a Palestinian who broke into the Turkish Embassy trying to take hostages and demanding asylum was turned over to Israeli authorities. The next day his lawyer claimed that Nadim Injaz was a former Israeli informer who was seeking political asylum. 2 Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded by a mortar shell fired from Gaza. Later in the day Israeli warplanes struck targets including Hamas training facilities in five locations in Gaza. No one was hurt.
(AP, 8/17/10)(AP, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 17, Francesco Cossiga (1928-2010), former Italian premier (1979-1980) and president (1985-1992), died. He led Italy's fight against domestic terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s but resigned after failing to save the life of a politician kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
(AP, 8/17/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Cossiga)
2010 Aug 17, Lebanon's Parliament passed a law that for the first time grants the country's Palestinian refugees the right to work in any profession.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Amsterdam police found 7,000 kg of marijuana and hashish in a warehouse near Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, after arresting a 35-year-old man on suspicion of selling narcotics. The estimated street value was 40 million euros (32.8 million pounds).
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 17, A Human Rights Watch report said Nigerian police corruption has led officers to regularly detain innocent people to extort cash, with some tortured or allegedly killed in the process. The report was based on interviews with more than 145 victims of or witnesses to police corruption.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, North Korea rejected a new unification proposal from South Korea, calling it a "ridiculous" plan aimed at weakening the North in preparation for a US-assisted invasion.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, A North Korean military plane, what appeared to be a MiG-21 fighter jet, crashed in northeastern in Liaoning province. China’s official Xinhua News Agency later said it went down because of mechanical failure. The pilot reportedly died on the spot.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 17, The World Bank said it will redirect $900 million of its existing loans to Pakistan to help in flood recovery, as the UN warned that many of the 20 million people affected by the disaster have yet to receive any emergency aid.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In southern Russia a vehicle exploded outside a cafe, injuring at least 15 people in downtown Pyatigorsk, a city in Russia's North Caucasus. A suicide bomb attack earlier in the day in North Ossetia killed one police officer.
(AP, 8/17/10)(Reuters, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, A Russian scientist said several thousand Muscovites are thought to have died in July alone from this year's unprecedented heatwave and August could add more fatalities to the grim statistics.
(Reuters, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In South Africa media watchdogs slammed proposed media regulations as a "draconian" ploy to muzzle the press and protect corrupt officials.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Taiwan's parliament approved a historic but controversial trade deal with China which is expected to bring the two former rivals closer than ever before. Taiwan's Defense Ministry urged the US to sell the island advanced weapons systems, after a Pentagon report concluded that China's arms buildup is giving it a wider military advantage over Taiwan.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed a new law into effect that formalizes the exclusion of private brokerages from trading the local bolivar currency or public sector dollar-denominated debt.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 17, A Venezuelan court ordered one of the country’s leading newspapers to stop publishing photographs depicting blood, guns and other violent images and warned it could face a hefty fine for having published a photo of bodies in a morgue.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Vietnamese and US officials held their first defense talks as the two countries celebrated the 15th anniversary of normalizing relations.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 18, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the CIA is opening a counterproliferation center to combat the spread of dangerous weapons and technology, a move that comes as Iran is on the verge of fueling up a new nuclear power plant.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the US Army has expressed willingness to discuss the online whistleblower's request for help in reviewing classified documents from the Afghan war and removing information that could harm civilians. The Pentagon said it would not negotiate with WikiLeaks to create "a sanitized version" of a second batch of classified Afghan war documents the whistleblower website plans to release.
(AP, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, The US FDA said some 380 million eggs have been recalled nationwide due to salmonella contamination. Officials soon confirmed that over 2,000 people had been sickened by salmonella from May to July and over 500m eggs were recalled. The affected eggs were all traced back to two farms in Iowa.
(SFC, 8/19/10, p.C3)(Econ, 9/4/10, p.32)
2010 Aug 18, The North Carolina justice system shook as an audit commissioned by Attorney General Roy Cooper revealed that the State Bureau of Investigation withheld or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of potentially innocent men and women. 3 defendants in botched cases have been executed.
(SFC, 8/19/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 18, In Wisconsin the bodies of a couple, their 13-month-old daughter, and their three dogs were found dead at their home in Superior. Matthew Magdzas (23), an Iraq war veteran, apparently shot and killed his pregnant wife and young daughter before turning the gun on himself. He left behind no clues to explain what might have prompted the bloodshed.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed a car into a police vehicle, killing a district police chief, two other policemen and a civilian on a bridge leading into Kandahar city. An American service member was killed in fighting in the south. A joint Afghan and NATO force killed 12 insurgents in Puli Alam district of Logar province.
(AP, 8/18/10)(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton launched an enormous hostile takeover bid for Canada's Potash Corp which values the world's largest fertilizer producer at 40 billion dollars.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In the Democratic of Republic of Congo 3 Indian UN peacekeepers were killed in a surprise attack on their base by 50 fighters armed with machetes, spears and traditional weapons. The next day Congolese soldiers arrested two suspects in the killing of the Indian peacekeepers.
(Reuters, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Crowds of Egyptians angered by daily power outages at the height of a scorching summer blocked a major highway south of Cairo with barricades of burning tires.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Germany a former Rwandan mayor living in Germany was charged for allegedly organizing massacres and inciting killings during the African country's 1994 genocide. Prosecutors alleged that the former Hutu mayor, identified as Onesphore R. (53), called for pogroms against the Tutsi minority on three occasions. Prosecutors asserted that the man ordered and coordinated three massacres between April 11 and 15, 1994, in which at least 3,730 Tutsis were killed.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Indian tycoon Anil Ambani's Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd and CBS Studios International announced plans to launch three new television channels in India and South Asia.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In northern India a mudslide triggered by heavy rains demolished a school building, killing at least 18 children.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Iran took its case against the United States to the UN and strongly condemned the top US military chief for saying military action remains a possibility if the country develops nuclear weapons.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Iraq 3 farmers were killed and leaflets pinned to their bodies warning against cooperation with American and Iraqi forces in a brutal act of intimidation as thousands of US troops leave.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Officials with Nigeria's security services say they've intercepted 52 Kalashnikov rifles and tens of thousands of ammunition rounds heading for Kos, an area that has been the scene of religious violence. They said five men were arrested for trying to bring the weapons from neighboring Chad.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Shell in Nigeria said it has warned it may not meet contractual obligations on Bonny Light crude, after oil thieves sabotaged two pipelines in the country's south.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Pakistan militants exploiting the flooding chaos clashed with police overnight, as desperately needed international donations for the millions of victims picked up pace three weeks after the deluge began.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Peru American activist Lori Berenson, convicted of aiding leftist rebels, surrendered to police after a court struck down a decision granting her parole and ordered her to return to prison, where she is to remain with her 15-month-old son for the time being.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In the Philippines a packed passenger bus negotiating a downhill curve plunged off a Philippine mountain highway into a 100-foot (30-meter) ravine, killing 41 people.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offered Pakistan support in dealing with catastrophic floods as he hosted the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan for talks on efforts to stabilize the region.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In South Africa teachers left their classrooms and trials were postponed after court workers walked out when hundreds of thousands of civil servants went on strike for higher wages across the country.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Spain a bull leapt into the packed grandstands of a bullring at the Tafalla arena in the northern region of Navarra and ran amok, charging and trampling spectators and leaving 40 people injured.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Sudan's government confirmed it will expel a number of international aid workers from the restive western region of Darfur, without specifying how many.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, A leading Venezuelan newspaper replaced front-page photos with the word "censored" to protest a court's monthlong ban on the publication of information and photos about violence.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Yemen a woman was killed and two police officers wounded when a wanted southern militant fired at a security patrol which was attempting to arrest him in Al-Afar area of the Lahj province. Five policemen were wounded in an explosion when a masked biker hurled a hand grenade through the window of a police station in Zinjibar.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Neil P. Campbell, An Australian construction manager, was indicted Aug. 19 by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on the charge of receiving a bribe while working for an organization receiving US government funds. On Oct 13 he was detained in India for allegedly taking a $190,000 bribe to allow a subcontractor to build a hospital and college in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Aug 19, Authorities in eastern Arizona arrested John McCluskey (45) and his alleged accomplice Casslyn Welch (44) at a campsite in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. McCluskey fled July 30 with two other inmates from a private prison in northwest Arizona and evaded authorities in at least six states before being caught. On Oct 7, 2013, McCluskey was convicted of murder in the August, 2010, killings of Gary and Linda Haas.
(AP, 8/20/10)(SFC, 10/8/12, p.A5)
2010 Aug 19, In San Francisco the city’s Recreation and park Commission voted 6-1 to oust Stow Lake Corp., the 67-year vendor at the Stow Lake snack bar and boat rental, and replace it with an out-of-state vendor. 3 more public hearings were scheduled prior to a vote by the Board of Supervisors.
(SFC, 8/20/10, p.C1)
2010 Aug 19, Jonathan Lee of Ridgeland, Mississippi, returned from an 8-day visit to North Korea during which he was taken on a tour of the DMZ. He said officials there welcomed his idea for a "children's peace forest" in the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea, although they said it would only happen if the countries signed a peace treaty first.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Chipmaker Intel announced a deal to buy security software maker McAfee Inc. for $7.68 billion, or $48 per share, a 60% premium over the stock’s closing price.
{Computer, USA, M&A}
(SFC, 8/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 19, In Afghanistan one NATO soldier, several policemen and more than two dozen rebels were killed in attacks and counter-insurgency operations across the country. This day August 19 commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, which granted Afghanistan full independence from Britain. An American soldier was killed in the south. At least 7 members of a road construction crew were killed when they were attacked by insurgents in Helmand's volatile Sangin district. 25 security guards were killed in the clash with Taliban fighters with another 15 wounded. An assistant police chief was killed by a roadside bomb and three other policemen were injured when insurgents attacked a police post in the Dihrawud district of Uruzgan province. 3 civilians were killed in the same district by a bomb that was meant for another police official.
(AFP, 8/19/10)(AFP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/20/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 19, In Algeria storms left a trail of damage across the country killing at least seven people over the last 2 days.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, An Australian Muslim woman, who sought permission to keep her face and head covered while she gives evidence at an upcoming trial, was told by a judge she would have to remove her veil. She is a prosecution witness in a case against the director of a company that ran a Muslim women's college in Perth. The director, Anwar Sayed, is accused of inflating the number of students at the school in 2006 and 2007 to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grants.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In China an attacker riding a 3-wheeled vehicle struck a contingent of security volunteers killing seven people with 14 wounded in the far west region of Xinjiang, an area beset by ethnic conflict and separatist violence.
(AP, 8/19/10)(SFC, 8/20/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 19, France deported nearly 100 Gypsies, or Roma, to their native Romania as part of a very public effort by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy to dismantle Roma camps and sweep them out of the country.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, German federal prosecutors said they have charged two men with violating an arms embargo by working to export equipment that Iran wanted for its missile program. Heinz Ulrich K. (65) of Germany was charged with breaking export laws and Iranian Mohsen A. (52) with incitement to break them.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In Iraq insurgents kept up a relentless campaign against the country's institutions and security forces, killing five Iraqi government employees in roadside bombings and other attacks. The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, officially designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq under Obama's plan to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31, headed home.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In Indian Kashmir paramilitary soldiers fired live ammunition to disperse anti-India protesters and wounded 3 people after residents accused troops of attacking their homes.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, President Felipe Calderon said Mexico should consider appointing anonymous judges for drug trafficking trials, an unexpected proposal that he acknowledged contradicts the country's efforts to build a more open judicial system.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Nigeria’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said the death toll from a cholera outbreak in northern Nigerian has risen to 231 while 4,600 others have been infected.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In South Africa police fired rubber bullets on protesting teachers throwing bricks and stones and nurses tore down a gate at a hospital as a the 2nd day of a nationwide civil servants' strike for higher wages took hold.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, South Korea said it has blocked North Korea's new Twitter account from being accessed in the South, saying the tweets contain "illegal information" under the country's security laws.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Sri Lanka's ex-army chief called the government a "total dictatorship" and said that he will appeal his recent conviction by a military court, which he described as a political vendetta.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, The UN said more than 4 million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly 3 weeks of floods, making the critical task of securing greater amounts of aid more urgent.
(Reuters, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, The Yemeni Defense Ministry's weekly magazine said that Hazem al-Mujali had surrendered amid a government crackdown on the organization. Al-Mujali was accused of the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and imprisoned, but on his release apparently rejoined al-Qaida. He escaped a highly publicized raid late last year in northeast of San'a on al-Qaida cell suspected of plotting attacks.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 20, US regulators shut down 8 more banks including 4 in California, one in Chicago, one in Virginia and two in Florida. This brought the total number of failed US banks to 118 for the year thus far.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.D2)
2010 Aug 20, In Afghanistan 2 NATO soldiers died in a roadside bombing. A woman and two children died in an operation against Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in western Farah province. 6 insurgents were killed and several suspected insurgents were detained. 6 police officers were killed by men who approached their post posing as guests and then opened fire in Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand province. 3 Afghan police were apparently killed as a result of a NATO airstrike in Jowzjan province.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/21/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 20, Police in southeastern Brazil said Raimundo Gregorio da Silva, a school janitor, has confessed to killing two female students and dumping their bodies in an abandoned cesspool. Silva was arrested last week after the remains were found, and has confessed to killing Dimitria Vieira (16) in 2008 and another student, Iara Pacheco (19), reported missing since February.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, BHP Billiton Group announced commencement of all cash-offer to acquire Potash Corp. for $130 per share. On Nov 3 Canada blocked the Anglo-Australian mining giant’s $39 billion bid. The deal would have cost Saskatchewan an estimated C$200m a year in tax revenues.
(Reuters, 8/20/10)(Reuters, 11/3/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.50)
2010 Aug 20, Charles Haddon, the lead singer of the British electro-pop group Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, committed suicide after performing at a rock festival in Belgium.
(AFP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 19, Venezuelan Walid Makled Garcia (43), a prominent drug trafficking suspect who has been branded a major kingpin by the US government, was arrested in Colombia. He was implicated in Venezuela in two killings.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, The European Union's high court temporarily exempted Inuit hunters in Canada and Greenland from the bloc's new trade ban on seal products, while asking European Parliament and EU governments to justify the ban.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, France put about 100 Gypsies, or Roma, on a charter flight headed to their native Romania, the second day in a row that it has expelled Roma in a much criticized government crackdown.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Singer Wyclef Jean's high-profile bid for Haiti's presidency ended after election officials on the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation disqualified his candidacy. The singer has not lived in Haiti for the past five years as required.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, India's Cabinet cleared a nuclear liability bill, a crucial step on the path to bringing foreign companies into its potentially vast nuclear energy market. The bill caps the liability of foreign firms at $320 million in the case of an industrial accident.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Iran’s Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced that Iran has test fired a surface-to-surface missile, Qiam, a day before it is due to launch its Russian-built first nuclear power plant.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Indian Kashmir a teenager was shot dead by paramilitary forces in northern Sopore town. The death sparked further street protests in which a second man died in southern Bijbehara town.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, Kyrgyzstan's interim government suffered a humiliating blow as Osh Mayor Melis Myrzakmatov, a powerful opponent, refused to step down as mayor of the southern city devastated by deadly ethnic violence two months ago.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Mexico 6 city police officers were arrested in the killing of Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos. The suspects included the officer who guarded the house where Cavazos was kidnapped on Aug 15. A shootout in Santa Catalina, a suburb of Monterrey, left 3 security guards wounded. 2 slain guards were found the next day in the trunk of a car.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican prosecutors added tax evasion charges to drug counts pending against for Zhenli Ye Gon, a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is fighting extradition from the United States. Ye Gon was jailed in the US more than two years ago on charges of smuggling methamphetamines from Mexico to the US.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican police detained six suspects on the southern Pacific coast with 3,756 illegally harvested eggs from protected sea turtles.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Conny Mus (59), a veteran Dutch correspondent in the Middle East who covered conflicts from Romania's revolution to the wars in Iraq, died while on vacation in his home country.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In northern New Zealand 47 pilot whales died after they washed onto an isolated beach. Rescue volunteers' initial efforts to refloat some survivors failed. The next day rescuers refloated 11 beached pilot whales. Some of the survivors still appeared to be in trouble.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, Russia secured a long-term foothold in the energy-rich and unstable Caucasus region by signing a deal with Armenia that allows a Russian military base to operate until 2044 in exchange for a promise of new weaponry and fresh security guarantees.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, South African unions representing more than 1 million striking civil servants began talks with the government to end a stoppage that could damage Africa's largest economy if it drags on into next month.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, South Korean authorities arrested Rev. Han Sang-ryol, a religious activist, as he returned home across the heavily fortified border after an illegal trip to North Korea. South Korea’s government prohibits its citizens from joining pro-North Korean organizations or having unauthorized contact with the communist country. They also ban citizens from supporting or praising the North.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Sweden a prosecutor in Stockholm issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (39) on suspicion of rape. The move means police are ordered to seek his arrest as part of an investigation but doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges will be filed. Authorities the next day revoked the arrest warrant saying a rape accusation against him lacked substance.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, A Thai appeals court ordered the extradition of suspected Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout to the United States, angering Moscow but paving the way to put the man dubbed the "Merchant of Death" on trial.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych said he is taking control of the case of Vasyl Klymentyev, an investigative reporter who has been missing for a week. Klymentyev reportedly was threatened after refusing to accept a bribe to halt publication of a story about a regional prosecutor accused of accepting bribes to close criminal cases.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, UN agencies stepped up calls for donors to cash up pledges for Pakistan in order to prevent what UN chief Ban Ki-moon called a "slow-motion tsunami" from wrecking further catastrophe.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In southern Yemen clashes began between troops and “terrorist elements" at a market in Loder. 19 people were killed, including 11 soldiers, 3 civilians and 5 Al-Qaeda members. Authorities said Adel Saleh Hardaba (27), whom they described as the Al-Qaeda second-in-command in Loder, was among the dead.
(AFP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 21, Newly ubiquitous "Golden Girls" actress Betty White won the fifth Emmy of her career for hosting an episode of "Saturday Night Live," while fellow screen veteran Ann-Margret got a standing ovation after receiving her first statuette.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Alaska a float-plane carrying 4 people went missing 285 miles southwest of Anchorage. The passengers included 3 Katmai National Park rangers.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 21, Roland Haas (58), a Georgia-based former Army Reserve intelligence officer, was found dead from a gunshot wound that pierced his femoral artery. In 2007 Haas had authored “Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin." Several former CIA officials denounced the book as a hoax.
(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A10)
2010 Aug 21, It was reported that the cost of sustaining each American soldier in Afghanistan is about $1 million.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.33)
2010 Aug 21, In Afghanistan 2 foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban were killed in separate attacks. 5 civilians were killed in northern Afghanistan when an IED detonated. In the north insurgents, using a bomb detonated by remote control, destroyed the vehicle in which former guerrilla commander Salaam Pahlawan was traveling as he made his way to government offices in Faryab province's Al Mar district. The attack also killed two of Pahlawan's sons, ages 5 and 10, and two bodyguards. In Herat province insurgents ambushed a convoy carrying a provincial council member running for a seat in next month's elections for the national parliament, killing the man's brother. Insurgents in Kandahar province killed the head of a private security company, while one civilian was killed and five wounded by a land mine in Herat's Anjil district. At least 15 police officers were killed across the country. This included 6 killed while asleep at a checkpoint on ring Road in Helmand province.
(AFP, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 21, Australians voted between giving their first female prime minister her own election mandate and returning to a conservative government after just three years. The inconclusive election left the nation facing its first hung parliament since 1940. Both Labor and the Liberal-led coalition conceded that neither is likely to hold the 76 seats needed to form a government in the 150-seat lower chamber.
(Reuters, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Australia Ken Wyatt (b.1952) took office as the country’s first indigenous member of the House of Representatives. In 2017 he became Minister for Indigenous Health, the country’s first aboriginal minister.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wyatt)(Econ, 1/28/17, p.34)
2010 Aug 21, In Bangladesh at least 15 people died over the last 24 hours after drinking toxic home-brewed liquor in the northeast. They had consumed alcohol mixed with toxic methanol in the Sylhet district late Aug 18.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, gunmen engaged in a shootout with police took 30 people hostage at a luxury hotel popular with foreign tourists but within hours freed the captives and surrendered to police. One bystander was killed as she was getting out of a taxi.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In China the Yalu river, which marks the Chinese-North Korean border, breached its banks on both sides following torrential rains. Four people died and more than 94,000 were evacuated. In North Korea at least 5,150 people were evacuated as residents clambered on rooftops or took shelter on hilltops.
(AFP, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Egypt a Vincent Van Gogh painting, identified as "Poppy Flowers," was cut out of its frame in the Mahmoud Khalil museum after it opened in the morning. The painting was valued at 55 million dollars. The painting of the yellow and red flowers in a vase had been stolen before, in 1977, but was found the following year. None of the alarms and only seven out of 43 surveillance cameras were working at the Cairo museum where the painting was stolen. In October a court convicted 11 officials from the Culture Ministry of gross negligence and sentenced them to 3 years in prison, pending an appeal.
(AFP, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 21, Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow has promised to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, Israel and the Palestinians accepted a US call to restart direct peace talks but politicians on both sides have warned of the pitfalls ahead, saying talks will be stillborn unless Israel halts building in West Bank settlements. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accepted an invitation to attend the start of direct peace talks.
(AFP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Mexico a gunbattle erupted between police and gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, killing one person and prompting US authorities to close a highway that runs along the border in El Paso, Texas. The bodies of two security guards for Mexican bottling company FEMSA were found dead a day after a shootout in Santa Catalina, a suburb of Monterrey.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, A consortium of Mexican investors said they have acquired 95 percent of Mexicana de Aviacion airline, which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy protection. The Tenedora K group was formed "to capitalize" and "save" Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, the holding company that controls Mexicana de Aviacion and two domestic airlines, Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, About 150,000 Pakistanis were forced to move to higher ground over the last 24 hours as floodwaters from a freshly swollen Indus River submerged dozens more towns and villages in the south. The floods have affected about one-fifth of Pakistan's territory, straining its civilian government as it also struggles against al-Qaida and Taliban violence. At least 6 million people have been made homeless and 20 million affected overall. The economic cost is expected to run into billions of dollars.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Pakistan suspected US missiles fired from an unmanned drone killed six militants in a tribal region near the Afghan border.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, Laura Dekker, a 14-year-old Dutch sailor, departed in secrecy from Gibraltar on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, avoiding the media because her manager said she didn't want the attention.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In the Philippines communist guerrillas, the New People’s Army, killed a local council member in northern Samar province and then waited for police to arrive. They then killed 8 police officers.
(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 21, In Romania Gheorghe Apostol (b.1913), a veteran Communist politician, died. He gained international attention in 1989 by publicly criticizing Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Russia Madomedali Vagabov, the man suspected of organizing suicide bombings that killed 40 people on the Moscow subway in March, was killed in a shootout with Russian security forces. The National Antiterrorism Committee told Russian news agencies that Vagabov was effectively second in command in the separatist insurgency in Russia's mountainous North Caucasus region.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, Hundreds of residents of Kaliningrad, Russia's Baltic exclave, gathered on a central square to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's government.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Venezuela a soldier, identified as Jeffersson Jose Trujillo Vasquez, shot and killed two officers at the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas, setting off a gunfight that wounded six other soldiers. Trujillo Vasquez was arrested on Sep 21 in a slum in the city of Araure in the western state of Portuguesa.
(AP, 8/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, Thousands of fish turned up dead at the mouth of Mississippi River, prompting authorities to check whether oil was the cause of mass death. Crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout and red fish were among the species that turned up dead.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Louisa, Virginia, Charles Steadman (52) shot and killed his son and nephew and wounded 4 others in an apparent property dispute. Steadman then shot at officers arriving on the scene and was killed.
(SFC, 8/24/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 22, In Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai defended his decision to disband private security contractors, charging that they loot and steal, have links to criminal groups and might even fund insurgents. 2 US soldiers died in insurgent attacks in the east and 2 others died in separate incidents in the south. The second-in-command of security for the inter-provincial Kandahar-Uruzgan highway was shot dead by unidentified gunmen. At least 9 insurgents, including a commander, were killed in a joint 24-hour operation in Kandahar between NATO and Afghan security forces. 6 men, one woman, and one child were reportedly killed during a coalition raid in the village of Tergaran.
(AFP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 22, Australian PM Julia Gillard vowed to keep the country stable after a voter backlash produced a rare hung parliament, raising fears of political paralysis and economic pain. Gillard and Tony Abbott, leader of the conservative Liberal Party, said they had initiated talks with three independents in the House of Representatives as well as the Greens party in a bid to secure their votes in the House of Representatives.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, A Bangladesh lawyer said high court judges have passed an order directing that wearing religious attire should be the personal choice of the students or the employees. No one can be forced to wear them.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Chile an intense rescue effort finally reached 33 miners trapped since Aug 5. After weeks of missteps, new cave-ins and other false starts, it could take months to carve a tunnel big enough for them to get out.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Dagestan a Russian border guard was found killed and another who disappeared with him remained missing.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the country's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tehran, Iran, the headquarters of Sweden-based Oriflame, a direct-sales cosmetics firm, were "searched and sealed" and "four top managers were arrested on accusations of 250,000 cases of fraud" linked to a 70-million-dollar (55-million-euro) pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, In southern Iraq an American solider was killed in a rocket attack, marking the first American fatality since the last combat unit in Iraq pulled out of the country. A bomb struck a popular cafe in the capital's southwest. The explosion killed one person and wounded 15 people. A late night grenade attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint in Amariyah, a Sunni area in western Baghdad, killed one soldier and injured 2 others.
(AP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Mexico the decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge in Cuernavaca, a city besieged by fighting between two drug lords. Police found the body of a US citizen inside a car along the highway between the Pacific resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo. A Mexican soldier said that Joseph Proctor (32) attacked an army convoy with an AR-15 rifle and was killed when troops shot him in self-defense. Proctor had told his girlfriend he was popping out to a convenience store in Acapulco where the couple had just moved. The next morning the New York native was dead inside his crashed van on a road outside the town. Three soldiers were later charged with his killing.
(AP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Aug 22, Pakistani authorities evacuated tens of thousands from flood-threatened areas in the south, but insisted that the 2.5 million people of Hyderabad were safe from the nation's worst-ever inundation.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tajikistan a group of 25 Islamic militants serving time on terrorism charges escaped from a prison in Dushanbe after dramatic assaults that left at least five guards dead. The fugitives included Abdurasul Mirzoyev, the brother of a jailed former head of the presidential guards, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison last month on charges of involvement in a plot to overthrow the government. Among the others who escaped were some of the 46 people sentenced to lengthy prison terms last week for involvement with an illegal armed gang led by Mirzo Ziyoyev, a commander of the United Tajik Opposition, a rebel group in the civil war.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, A US district court issued a preliminary injunction stopping federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, in a slap to the Obama administration's new guidelines on the sensitive issue.
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, California Attorney Gen’l. Jerry Brown sued Roni Deutch for $34 million for allegedly swindling thousands of people. Deutch, who billed herself as the “tax lady," has appeared in nationwide TV ads to help people with tax problems.
(SFC, 8/24/10, p.C3)
2010 Aug 23, In Las Vegas Mexico's Jimena Navarrete (22) was crowned Miss Universe in an upset victory that stunned a pageant world which had predicted a winner to emerge from Ireland, Venezuela or the United States.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Afghanistan roadside bombs killed four members of the international security force in Afghanistan, including an American, two French marines, and a Hungarian soldier. US troops fired warning shots to disperse a protest near Bagram air base over the arrest of a religious leader suspected of a rocket attack.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Gareth Williams (31), an employee of code-breaking agency GCHQ, was found dead at a flat near the agency's headquarters in the upmarket Pimlico area of London. His naked and decomposing body was found inside a padlocked sports bag. Williams was working on attachment for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service MI6 when he died. In 2012 a coroner concluded at an inquest that another person was probably involved in Williams's death.
(Reuters, 8/25/10)(AP, 2/15/11)(AP, 3/30/12)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2010 Aug 23, China cut 13 non-violent crimes from the list of 64 offences punishable by death. State media said flooding has forced the evacuation of more than a quarter-million people in northern China along its border with North Korea.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.35)(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, President Raul Castro ordered Max Marambio, a Chilean businessman, to return to Cuba for questioning about bribery and fraud at Rio Zaza, which was shut down earlier this year. For years the company had enjoyed a near monopoly on sales of packaged fruit juice and milk. Marambio declined the offer.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.29)
2010 Aug 23, In Dagestan at least 3 people were wounded in other attacks, while four suspected militants died when explosives they were transporting by car unexpectedly blew up.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran media reported the suspension of three senior judiciary officials over last year's torture deaths of three imprisoned anti-government protesters. On Aug 30 they were identified as former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and two judges.
(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats, warning its enemies not to "play with fire" as it boosts security along its coastline.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Iraq unknown attackers in a speeding car threw a grenade in the mixed Sunni-Shiite eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad. The blast killed one policeman and wounded another.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Mexican police in the border city of Tijuana found two bodies on the outskirts of town and were searching for more. Baja California state prosecutors said recently arrested suspects told authorities at least four more bodies had been buried in the same area. A judge ordered the released of 13 Tijuana city police officers who were arrested by soldiers and sent to prison more than a year ago on charges of protecting drug traffickers. The judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, In the Netherlands the monumental chestnut tree that cheered Anne Frank while she was in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam was toppled by wind and heavy rain.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Officials said the United States has granted Nigerian airlines permission for direct US flights.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Pakistan 3 bomb attacks in the northwest killed at least 36 people. A bomb exploded inside a school during a meeting of elders in Kurram tribal region, killing seven people. An attack on the outskirts of Peshawar killed the leader of an anti-Taliban militia, Israr Khan, and two aides as he passed through a market in the village of Matni. The deadliest blast was a suicide attack at a mosque inside a religious school in South Waziristan that killed 26 people and injured 40 more.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Philippine police stormed a bus in downtown Manila after shots were heard from the hostage-taker of 15 Chinese tourists. Former Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza (55), armed with a M16 rifle, had seized the busload of Hong Kong tourists to demand his reinstatement in the force. 8 tourists were killed along with Mendoza. Ken Leung died trying to subdue the gunman, who then killed his two daughters, Doris (21) and Jessie (14). The only survivors were the mother, Amy, and son Jason (18), who fell into a coma after suffering a head wound. Jason awoke from his coma around mid October. On Dec 16 Manila said it will pay compensation to the families of 8 Hong Kong tourists killed during the botched hostage rescue.
(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/24/10)(AP, 10/20/10)(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Aug 23, Saudi low-cost private airline Sama, launched in 2007 to serve Gulf and other Arab states, said it is to suspend services from Aug 24 due to financial problems.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, South African President Jacob Zuma flew to China on a three-day trip aimed at strengthening business ties. Zuma was accompanied by a delegation of over 370 business representatives - the biggest ever for a South African leader's visit abroad.
(www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11067072)
2010 Aug 23, South Africa deployed soldiers to 37 hospitals to help keep basic health services running, as a nationwide strike by more than one million public workers entered its sixth day.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Two Spanish aid workers held by al Qaeda's North African wing were freed in Mali, ending a kidnapping that lasted nearly nine months, the longest period of captivity in the Sahara desert. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it seized Albert Vilalta and Roque Pascual while they were traveling through Mauritania with a relief aid convoy last November.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, The southern Sudan finance minister said the fledgling economy is being "deliberately" weakened by former civil war enemies in the north who are paying Juba's share of oil revenues in local currency.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 24, Attorneys general in 17 US states demanded in a joint letter that SF-based Craigslist remove its adult services section because the website cannot adequately block potentially illegal ads promoting prostitution and child trafficking.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 24, In SF the temperature hit a record 98 degrees. Records were broken across much of northern California.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.C2)
2010 Aug 24, Scientists reported that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has revealed a previously unknown type of oil-eating bacteria, which is suddenly flourishing. The dominant microbe in a studied deep water oil plume is a new species, closely related to members of Oceanospirillales.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 24, Scientists said they've identified a sun-like star with as many as seven different planets — including one that might be the smallest ever found outside the solar system. If confirmed, the planetary system around HD 10180, a star more than 100 light years distant, would be the richest ever discovered.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Eastport, Maine, the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) launched a $2.5 million prototype, tidal grid-compatible power system.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.48)(www.oceanrenewablepower.com/home.htm)
2010 Aug 24, In Afghan heavy fighting overnight was reported in the southwestern provinces of Nimroz and Uruzgan, adjoining the insurgent strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Numerous Taliban were reported killed. NATO said Afghan and international forces have killed an estimated 40 Taliban fighters east of Kabul as part of operations to provide security ahead of parliamentary elections next month. Two coalition servicemen, including one American, were reported killed in fighting in the south where the insurgency is most heavily entrenched.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, Authorities in Bahrain arrested a suspect in the case of Canadian singer Fatima Kama (28), whose body was found stuffed inside a suitcase at London's Heathrow Airport on Jul 17, 1999. The body was found when a member of the public spotted a black suitcase abandoned on the third floor of a Heathrow Airport parking lot.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, British Columbia signed an agreement that will see Canada's westernmost province share tax revenue from the mining industry with aboriginal groups, the first such deal in the mineral-rich region.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In China Zheng Shaodong, an assistant public security minister who led the country’s economic crimes investigation unit, was given a suspended death sentence for taking more than $1 million in bribes and abusing his position.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, A massive traffic jam in north China stretched for dozens of miles and hit its 10-day mark. It reportedly stemmed from road construction in Beijing that won't be finished until the middle of next month.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In China a Henan passenger plane with 91 passengers and crew overshot a runway in northeastern Hichun city. 43 people were killed and 53 injured.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 24, Researchers in Japan reported the creation of a highly accurate sensor that can detect smells and gases using genetically engineered frog eggs.
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, A Kenyan official said wildlife officers have seized two tons of elephant ivory and five rhino horns at the main airport that were to be illegally shipped to Malaysia.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Lebanon 3 Hezbollah members and a follower of the conservative Sunni al-Ahbash group were killed in the residential Bourj Abu Haider district, just outside Beirut's downtown, in running battles with fighters wielding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The most serious fighting in Beirut since 2008 appears to have been touched off by a traffic dispute that escalated into deadly, hours-long street battles.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 24, Mexican marines found the dumped bodies of 72 people at a ranch in northern Mexico following a shootout with suspected drug cartel gunmen that left one marine and three suspects dead. Two migrants survived the massacre and provided information in the investigation. 77 people were later said to be in the group and that a 3rd migrant had survived with 2 still missing. The dismembered bodies of 2 men were found hung from a bridge at the entrance to Chilpancingo, near Acapulco. DNA evidence later identified Wilmer Nunez as one of the 72 dead.
(AP, 8/25/10)(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/1/10)(AP, 9/5/10)(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A3)
2010 Aug 24, In Nepal an Agni Air plane heading to the Mount Everest region crashed in heavy rain outside Katmandu, killing all 14 people aboard, including 4 Americans, a Briton and a Japanese national.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Nigeria gunmen ambushed Soboma George, leader of the feared Outlaws Gang, in the oil town of Port Harcourt. The gunmen fired at George, and killed one woman and wounded another during a running shootout. George’s body was recovered Aug 27.
(AP, 8/25/10)(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 24, Senegal’s PM Souleymane Ndene Ndiaye said that those begging for money will be given a place to stay if they leave the streets of Dakar and other large cities to receive help from charities. The government soon began enforcing a 2005 ban on begging. Officials said they recently felt pressure to impose the law because the US and other donor countries had threatened to cut off aid if Senegal does not address human trafficking. Aid groups and human rights organizations estimated that as many as 100,000 children in Senegal, population 13.7 million, are forced to beg every day by religious teachers known as marabouts. Caught in the dragnet were handicapped adults who used to line their wheelchairs along a stretch of the boulevard leading to the presidential palace in downtown Dakar.
(AP, 9/5/10)(http://tinyurl.com/236esgh)
2010 Aug 24, In Somalia a suicide bomber and gunmen wearing military uniforms attacked a hotel near the presidential palace in Mogadishu, sparking a one-hour gun battle with security forces. At least 32 people were killed, including six Somali parliamentarians. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility.
(AP, 8/24/10)(AP, 10/6/11)
2010 Aug 24, The UN said some 80,000 people have been cut off by floods in Pakistan and that it needs at least 40 more helicopters to ferry aid to increasingly desperate people.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 24, In Vietnam at least 9 people were killed when Typhoon Mindulle struck the central coast.
(AFP, 10/17/10)(http://tinyurl.com/25z8plq)
2010 Aug 25, The United States said it will divert $50 million from a development package for Pakistan toward relief funds.
(Reuters, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, The California Energy Commission approved the Beacon Solar Energy Project, which a Florida company plans to build on the western edge of the Mojave Desert. This was the first in a series of large scale solar projects planned in California.
(SFC, 8/26/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 25, In northern California pot farmer Mikal Wilde killed Juarez Madrid, a hired migrant worker, and wounded another as a third fled. In June 3, 2015, Wilde was sentenced to life in prison plus 35 years.
(SFC, 6/5/15, p.D2)
2010 Aug 25, Pres. Karzai fired senior prosecutor Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar (72) after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations of more than 2 dozen senior Afghan officials. An Afghan driver for the Spanish police contingent opened fire during a training exercise, killing 2 Spanish officers and their interpreter in what appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks by infiltrators linked to the insurgency. 10 campaign workers were kidnapped while traveling in the western province of Herat. 3 Afghan civilians were killed by a homemade bomb in Kandahar's Arghandab district. 2 Taliban commanders were killed in fighting with a joint Afghan-Taliban force in Uruzgan province, along with 12 regular insurgent fighters. In Badakhshan province Afghan army commandos aided by US special forces discovered a major weapons cache in the remote village of Nawci. Weapons found included 78 rockets with launchers, 47 mortar rounds, more than 9,000 rounds of ammunition, and 24 rocket-propelled grenades. All were destroyed.
(AP, 8/25/10)(AP, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/27/10)(SSFC, 8/29/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 25, Cosan, Brazil’s biggest sugar and ethanol producer, signed a $12 billion joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s largest energy company.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.41)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell)
2010 Aug 25, Canadian police arrested two people in Ottowa in relation to what they called "terrorist offenses" and said they expect to make further arrests. A 3rd person was arrested the next day in London, Ontario. Police said they were plotting bomb attacks and had connections to a group fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 8/25/10)(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 25, Police in northeastern Congo said they have seized 116 elephant tusks and arrested two men following a truck crash.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In western Congo a passenger plane, operated by local airliner FILAIR, crashed, killing 19 people. Police said there were two survivors.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak announced plans for the government to start building the country's first nuclear power plant at a site on the Mediterranean coast, ending a year of controversy.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Grenada businessman Michael Raeburn-Delfish was reported missing. His severed head and limbs were found in three shallow pits on Sep 5, 2010. Suspect Ronald Michael Phillip (55), had been deported in 2000 from the United States to Granada the day after leaving a state prison in Uncasville, Connecticut, where he had spent more than six years. Phillip had been arrested in December 1993 on assault and drug charges.
(www.grenadabroadcast.com/content/view/9046/1/)(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Iran said that it has successfully test-fired an upgraded version of a short-range surface-to-surface missile. The third generation of the Fateh-110, which means "conqueror" in Farsi and Arabic, with an improved range of 250 km and better precision than previous models.
(AP, 8/25/10)(Reuters, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Iraq bombers and gunmen launched an apparently coordinated string of attacks against Iraqi government forces, killing at least 61 people, one day after the number of US troops fell below 50,000 for the first time since the start of the war. In the deadliest attacks a suicide bomber blew up a car inside a security barrier between a police station and the provincial government's headquarters in Kut, killing 20 people, 15 of them policemen. A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in a parking lot behind a police station in Baghdad killing 15 people, including six policemen.
(AFP, 8/25/10)(AP, 8/26/10)(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 25, A Mexican judge found Mario Bautista, former Michoacan state police director, innocent of charges he helped a drug gang. He was arrested by federal investigators in May 2009 along with 34 other local and state officials in Michoacan. 26 of them have already been set free for lack of evidence or after a judge found them innocent.
(AP, 8/26/10)(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Nigeria 2 motorcycle-riding gunmen shot and killed a police constable in Yobe state. Separately 2 policemen were shot and killed by 4 gunmen dressed in black and riding motorcycles in Maiduguri. The gunmen were suspected to be members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect.
(AFP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 25, Nigeria's worker union for the state-run power company called a general strike, a day before the nation's president is to announce his plans to privatize the industry.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Nigerian health officials warned that the whole country is at risk in a cholera epidemic that has killed 352 people in only three-months time.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Shell said it has shut down an oil facility in southern Nigeria due to protests by a group of local women, after a similar demonstration targeted a Chevron pipeline.
(AFP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in the capital of communist North Korea on a private, humanitarian mission to win the release of Aijalon Gomes (31) of Boston, an American sentenced to eight years' hard labor for trespassing.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Somalia fighting in Mogadishu flared for a third straight day, killing eight people and pushing the week's death toll past 80 as insurgents tried to force government troops back toward the presidential palace.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In South Africa a driver taking children to school went around a closed railroad crossing gate and was hit by an oncoming train that killed 10 pupils and injured 5 others. Driver Jacob Humphreys was convicted of murder in 2011 and in 2012 was sentenced to an effective 20 years in prison.
(AP, 8/25/10)(AFP, 2/28/12)
2010 Aug 25, A Ugandan court scrapped sedition legislation used to prosecute over a dozen journalists and politicians.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Yemeni authorities said the military had regained control of Loder. 33 people were reported killed in fighting that began Aug 20. This included 12 Al-Qaida militants. Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a military patrol in Zinjibar, killing 4 soldiers and wounding one.
(AFP, 8/25/10)(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Afghanistan more than 10 militants attacked a police checkpoint outside the northern city of Kunduz. Police suspected the attackers were jihadists from Russia's Chechnya region who are active in the surrounding province, also called Kunduz. The attack killed 8 Afghan police. A roadside blast tore through a crowded market, killing 3 police and 2 civilians in Archi town, Kunduz province. In eastern Ghazni province's Andar district, two Afghan guards working for a private security company were killed in a Taliban attack on a supply convoy. Two attackers were killed, including a senior regional commander, Mullah Mohmmadi.
(AP, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 26, Bolivia’s government said it has confiscated 280,000 more acres of allegedly fallow or ill-gotten land. The seizure included 51,000 acres from the ranching company of prominent opposition figure Osvaldo Monasterio.
(SFC, 8/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 26, Interpol said police have seized about 10 metric tons of counterfeit medicines and arrested 80 people in a sweep across eastern Africa. Authorities across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar took part in the bust.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Asil Nadir (69), a Turkish Cypriot businessman, returned to London to face charges of fraud. He had fled Britain almost two decades ago following the spectacular collapse of his business empire. Nadir fled the country in May of 1993, four months before he was scheduled to face trial.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Canada-based Research in Motion said it was willing to work with India to support the country's needs to lawfully access encrypted services on the company's Blackberry smartphone.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, The archbishop of Paris joined the tide of criticism over France's crackdown on Gypsies, calling it a "circus," while the EU's justice commissioner denounced French officials' discriminatory tone about the vulnerable minority.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Germany Nadja Benaissa (28), a member of girl group No Angels, broke down in tears after a German court handed her a two-year suspended sentence for infecting a former sex partner with the AIDS HIV virus.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Two Greek fighter jets crashed in mid-air during a training exercise south of the island of Crete, killing one of the three crew members and leaving the other two injured.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, An Iranian government newspaper reported that 5 rebels and 2 members of the Revolutionary Guards have been killed in clashes in Iran's Kordestan province near the Iraqi border.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Iraq insurgents killed six members of a government-allied Sunni militia using a roadside bomb and ambush near the town of Muqdadiyah.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, A Malaysian man was arrested after his bag bursting with 95 live boa constrictors broke open on a luggage conveyer belt at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Keng Liang "Anson" Wong (52), who had been previously convicted of wildlife trafficking in the United States, later pleaded guilty to wildlife smuggling.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Mexico at least 16 people were injured, some seriously, after a grenade was thrown into a crowded bar in the internationally-popular beach resort of Puerto Vallarta. 5 of the injured were detained as part of an investigation. Four of those detained each lost a leg in the explosion.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il was in China on his second visit this year to his country's biggest source of diplomatic and financial support.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan laid out plans to privatize most of the country's power sector, as corruption and mismanagement continued to cause daily outages in the oil-rich nation.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq claimed that the United States and other countries were not really focused on providing aid to flood victims but had other "intentions" he did not specify. The death toll in the floods stood around 1,500 people. Officials ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate towns as rising floods threaten further havoc.
(AP, 8/26/10)(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In the Philippines fire broke out late at night, possibly when gasoline a man was pouring into a container near an open stove caught alight, in two crowded villages in Navotas city, north of the capital Manila. 2 people were killed and thousands left homeless.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 26, Puerto Rican teachers walked off their jobs in a one-day strike over staff and funding levels, giving students a day off barely 3 weeks into the new academic year.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In South Africa thousands of civil servants took to the streets across the country in a peaceful demonstration for higher wages. Police management tried to bar officers from joining the nationwide strike entering its second week.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, A Sri Lankan housemaid, L. T. Ariyawathi (49), was admitted to a hospital and planned to undergo surgery to remove 24 nails embedded in her body. Ariyawathi said her employer in Saudi Arabia had inflicted the injuries on her as a punishment. The woman traveled to Saudi Arabia in March and returned home last week, complaining of abuse by her employer.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Venezuelan authorities seized more than 4.4 tons (4 metric tons) of cocaine at a ranch after F-16 fighter jets intercepted a plane that was flying to pick up the load.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Yemeni Shiite rebels signed an agreement with the government laying out a timetable for implementing previous accords. The agreement was signed in Doha, Qatar.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 27, Aijalon Gomes (31) hugged former US President Jimmy Carter and boarded a plane for Boston, seven months after his arrest in North Korea. The North's state news agency said Kim Yong Nam, the number two leader, has told former Carter that the reclusive state is committed to denuclearizing the peninsula and resuming six-way talks.
(AP, 8/27/10)(Reuters, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, The Washington Post reported that the CIA is making payments to a significant number of officials in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration. The Post also cited a former CIA official as saying that the CIA payments to Afghan officials were necessary because "the head of state is not going to tell you everything" and because Karzai often seems unaware of moves that members of his own government make.
(Reuters, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, US federal officials said they had arrested 370 illegal immigrants as part of a 3-day roundup in the Midwest.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 27, The US military said it is demanding to know what happened to $1.9 million worth of computers intended for Iraqi schoolchildren. The computers were allegedly auctioned off by Iraqi officials for less than $50,000.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 27, Scott Curley (23) shot and killed Utah Kane county Deputy Brian Harris (41) following an attempted robbery. Harris was shot near Fredonia, just south of the Utah border. Curley escaped into the desert area along the Utah-Arizona border.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 27, Homemade bombs killed 3 US troops in southern and eastern Afghanistan. 3 insurgents were reported killed and 3 detained in eastern Paktiya province by Afghan and coalition forces pursuing a Taliban sub-commander.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Australian police warned social networking sites to be alert to illegal child sex activity, after cracking an alleged pedophile porn ring operating on Facebook. Australian police said six arrests had been made in Britain, including the alleged head of the network, three in Australia and two in Canada.
(AFP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Bahrain's public prosecutor banned media from reporting on a prominent Shiite activist and scores of other opposition members detained in an ongoing crackdown ahead of October parliament elections.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Forensic experts in Bosnia said they have exhumed the remains of 54 Muslim civilians killed in the July, 1995, Srebrenica massacre. The skeletal remains were dug out of three mass graves buried under garbage at a dump site near Srebrenica.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, British researchers said they have decoded the genetic sequence of wheat.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Iraq gunmen killed three anti-Qaeda militiamen overnight in the latest revenge attack against the force credited with turning the tide against the jihadists.
(AFP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki signed a new constitution into law that institutes a US-style system of checks and balances and has been hailed as the most significant political event since Kenya's independence nearly a half century ago.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Mexico a car exploded in front of the offices of a major Mexican television station in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, where officials were investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Myanmar's junta carried out a major military reshuffle Friday that retired more than a dozen senior leaders, in an apparent move to prepare for November national elections.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Nigeria Jhalil Tafawa Balewa, a physician, businessman and son of the country's first prime minister, was abducted by gunmen and taken to a forest in Katampe area on the outskirts of Abuja. The next day police engaged the suspects and rescued the abductee.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 27, Some Nigerian women and girls are being forced into prostitution in neighboring Ivory Coast after being deceived with promises of a better life outside of their country, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis fled floodwaters after the surging River Indus smashed through levees in two places, but many refused to leave the danger zone while others took shelter in an ancient graveyard for Muslim saints.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Peru Police two Roman Catholic priests were stabbed to death inside the historic at the San Francisco monastery two blocks from Lima's main square. The victims are identified as Ananias Aguila of Peru and Linan Ruiz of Puerto Rico.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Russia 9 suspected militants were killed in two separate shootouts with police in the Kabardino-Balkariya republic. Separately 5 suspected militants and a police officer were killed in another shootout in the republic of Dagestan.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 27, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, for whom international arrest warrants have been issued over the Darfur conflict, returned home after a trip to Kenya.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Turkey overnight torrential rains triggered landslides and floods in Gundogdu, killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, The UN anti-racism panel called on Iran to counter racism and ethnic discrimination, including incitement to hatred by officials and "double discrimination suffered by women from minorities.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, A Venezuelan National Guard helicopter crashed during a counter-drug mission near the Colombian border, killing all 10 soldiers on board.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Yemen gunmen killed a soldier and wounded three others in an ambush in the southern province of Lahij.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King's message.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Arizona Brian Diez (26) shot 5 people including the mother of his 2 children and her boyfriend before fleeing with the children to southern California. Diez shot and killed himself the next day. 5 people died in the shootings at Lake Havasu.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 28, In California a drug task force found 47,800 marijuana plants hidden in an 8-acre cornfield in Atwater. 2 men were arrested.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 28, Afghanistan's presidential office condemned US media reports that Afghan government officials have received payments from the CIA in return for information. In eastern Afghanistan about 30 Taliban militants, at least some dressed in US military uniforms, were killed after launching pre-dawn attacks at NATO Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman. 2 Afghan soldiers were killed and 3 wounded in the fighting. In the southern provinces of Nimroz and Zabul, a total of seven Taliban were killed in fighting. Unidentified gunmen killed a candidate for Afghanistan's parliamentary elections in the west of the country, the fourth candidate to be killed ahead of the September 18 poll. NATO said one of its patrols mistakenly fired on a vehicle carrying private security contractors in Wardak province west of Kabul, killing two men. 48 schoolgirls, boys, and teachers were hospitalized in the second case this week of suspected poisoning caused by an unidentified chemical substance. 2 US soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in the south and 3 more in fighting in the east. in Herat, male parliamentary candidate Abdul Manan was shot and killed on his way to a mosque by an assassin traveling on the back of a motorcycle. Up to 15 insurgents were killed in joint Afghan-NATO operations in Paktiya province, including a Taliban commander, Naman, accused of coordinating roadside bomb attacks and the movement of ammunition, supplies and fighters. ISAF said 8 civilians were killed in a wave of attacks including a suicide bombing. 3 Oxfam workers were killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb suspected to have been set by Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 8/28/10)(AFP, 8/28/10)(Reuters, 8/28/10)(AP, 8/29/10)(AFP, 8/29/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 28, Algerian forces killed 8 al-Qaida insurgents during clashes in the Berrekmouche valley, a mountainous area considered a bastion for the terror network's North African branch. One soldier was killed. Helicopter bombardments continued into the next day.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Bolivia a touring French couple Fanny Blancho (23) and her partner Jeremy Bellanger (25) were last seen in the small city of Guayaramerin on the border with Brazil.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Britain 13 men were arrested in the ethnically-mixed city of Bradford as a far-right, anti-Islamist group clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators in the streets.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, An Egyptian security official said police in the Sinai desert have discovered two large caches of weapons that were to be smuggled to Gaza. The find included anti-aircraft weaponry.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In northern Greece break-ins over the last 24 hours at two fur farms near the city of Kastoria set more than 50,000 minks on the loose. The cost to the farm owners could pass euro1 million ($1.27 million).
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 28, Indian officials said at least 215 people, mostly children, have died in an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in an impoverished region of northern Indian and that the death toll is likely to soar.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Iran three people died in the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that shook the country's remote northeast. Forty others were injured.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, Saul de la Rosa (27), a US resident, was abducted along with two other people when he crossed into Ciudad Juarez. All three bodies were found Sept. 2. Documents found on De la Rosa indicated he was a US resident.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Aug 28, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il apparently headed home after a secretive and surprise trip that reportedly included a meeting with China's top leader to appeal for diplomatic and financial support for a succession plan involving his youngest son.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Pakistan floodwaters made another break in the levees protecting the southern Pakistani city of Thatta. Over 175,000 residents fled for high ground and left the city nearly empty.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, Sweden's financial supervisory authority said has revoked the license of investment bank HQ Bank AB, saying it breached Swedish legislation and demonstrated serious deficiencies in its trading operations.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Switzerland former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld hit out against the "corrupt" US judiciary which sent him to jail even though he was the whistleblower who led to the US tax fraud case against the bank. “Why am I the only one in prison when I had revealed everything?" Birkenfeld's revelations about the bank had led to US tax authorities' offensive against UBS in 2008. In a prosecution through US courts, the bank was forced to hand over 300 client names and pay a 780-million-dollar fine.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, Vietnam's president ordered 17,210 prisoners freed as part of the country's annual National Day amnesty.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Yemen 9 soldiers and a civilian were killed in an attack by suspected Al-Qaeda militants on an army post in the town of Jaar in southern Abyan province. The interior ministry called for tighter security at intelligence headquarters throughout the country and said it had put security units on alert.
(AFP, 8/28/10)(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Washington's war strategy for Afghanistan needed a rethink. In southern Afghanistan 2 American servicemen died in bombings. Officials found the bodies of five campaign aides, kidnapped on Aug 25, who worked for a female candidate in the western province of Herat. 2 suicide bombers attempted to climb over the back wall of a compound housing the governor of the far western province of Farah, but were spotted by guards and shot.
(AFP, 8/29/10)(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Britain 2 men and a woman were arrested in connection with allegations that Pakistani cricket players were involved in a betting scam.
(AFP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 29, Chechen police killed 12 rebels as they repulsed a raid on the Moscow-backed president's home village of Tsentoroi. 5 civilians and 2 policemen were also killed in the attack. An Islamist website, www.kavkazcenter.com, challenged the official data saying that at least 15 of Kadyrov's security officers were killed, while a total of 60 insurgents attacked the village. It said 5 rebels were killed.
(Reuters, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Ecuador a bus ran off a highway and overturned, killing at least 36 people. At least 12 others were badly hurt. The bus from the Turismo Oriental line had left the city of Cuenca with about 30 passengers and had picked up others along the way to Quito.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Hong Kong an estimated 80,000 people marched in honor of eight locals killed Aug 23 in a bus hijacking in Manila, denouncing the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Indonesia the Sinabung volcano on the island of Sumatra erupted for the first time in 400 years, spewing a vast cloud of smoke and ash into the air and sending thousands of people fleeing from their homes.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Mexico gunmen killed the mayor of a town in the border state of Tamaulipas. Hidalgo Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia was the second mayor to be assassinated in the past two weeks in the area.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Pakistan floodwaters inundated southern Sujawal town as authorities struggled to build new levees with clay and stone to prevent one of the area's biggest cities from suffering the same fate. Almost all of Sujawal's 250,000 residents fled the town before the water rushed in.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the Organization of The Islamic Conference, said Muslims have pledged nearly $1 billion in cash and relief supplies for Pakistan.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 29, In Russia scores of skinheads attacked a crowd of some 3,000 people at a rock concert in Miass. State new reported one girl (14) was killed.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 29, Gunmen in Sudan’s Darfur region kidnapped a Russian helicopter captain and 2 crew members working for a company transporting food for international peacekeepers. Security forces fought with the kidnappers the next night freeing 3 men.
(AFP, 8/30/10)(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 30, It was reported that over $5 billion in American aid to Iraq has been wasted on abandoned or incomplete projects. This was over 10% of US reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 30, The Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to pay $55 million to settle a Justice Dept. probe on overcharges in a kickback scheme. The settlement involved a False Claims Act lawsuit dating back to 2004.
(SFC, 8/31/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 30, Hurricane Earl lashed the northeastern Caribbean with heavy rain and strong winds, causing flooding in low-lying parts of the Leeward Islands as it rapidly intensified into a major Category 4 storm taking a path projected to menace the United States. Earl passed just north of the British Virgin Islands in the afternoon. By nighttime, the hurricane was pulling away from the Caribbean, but heavy downpours still threatened to cause flash floods and mudslides in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by drenching already saturated ground.
(AP, 8/30/10)(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Seattle, Wa., John Williams, a Native American homeless woodcarver, was shot and killed by police officer Ian Birk, who had ordered him to drop his small knife. The shooting was later ruled unjustified, but prosecutors said they would not file criminal charges.
(SFC, 2/28/11, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/4tdpxa3)
2010 Aug 30, In southern Afghanistan 7 US troops were killed in two Taliban-style bomb attacks. An 8th soldier, a 20-year-old Estonian, died of his injuries after insurgents set off an improvised explosive device (IED) in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand province. A bomb blast in Jalalabad killed a district chief and wounded up to five others. A French soldier was killed when the armored vehicle he was travelling in tumbled into a ravine.
(AFP, 8/30/10)(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 30, Chinese state media said North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il wants an early restart to stalled nuclear disarmament talks, ending official silence about Kim's secretive five-day trip ahead of a key congress.
(Reuters, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Premier Silvio Berlusconi marked a friendship treaty between their two countries amid increasing criticism here over Gadhafi's exhortation to Italians to convert to Islam.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Kashmir police opened fire with live rounds at rock-throwing Kashmiris, sparking violent street protests by hundreds in India's portion of the troubled Himalayan region. At least five people were wounded, one critically.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Mexican police captured a Texas-born fugitive known as "the Barbie." Edgar Valdez Villarreal (37) allegedly led a violent smuggling network. He became the third suspected drug lord to fall in Mexico in the past 10 months in a coup for Pres. Calderon's war on cartels. An anonymous caller tipped authorities off to the presence of 3 bodies in Tamaulipas state. Marines found the 3 bodies as well as the bodies of 2 women, not identified as culprits. A Honduran man who survived the Aug 24 slaughter identified the three men as having been among the killers of 72 migrants.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Nigeria unknown gunmen shot and killed a personal assistant to Bauchi state Gov. Malam Isa Yuguda, the son-in-law to the late Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua. A police guard for Yuguda was shot and seriously injured.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Russia's PM Vladimir Putin hinted he would return to the presidency in 2012 for six more years and said democracy protesters marching without permission deserved to be beaten.
(Reuters, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Russia a fire killed nine people at a nursing home in Vishny Volochek, 120 miles (200 km) north of Moscow, and investigators say it apparently started when an elderly resident doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Slovakia a gunman killed 7 people and wounded 14 in an attack at an apartment building in Bratislava, then committed suicide.
(AP, 8/30/10)(Econ, 9/4/10, p.55)
2010 Aug 30, In Somalia 4 Ugandan peacekeepers were killed in Mogadishu when al Shabaab Islamist rebels fired mortars at the presidential palace. Clashes pitting Islamist radicals against government troops backed by African Union forces killed at least six civilians and wounded 16.
(Reuters, 8/30/10)(AFP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, The government of Southern Sudan said it will purge child soldiers from the ranks of its former rebel army by year's end, a policy change that could see thousands of young troops pushed out of the military.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Venezuela Franklin Brito, a farmer who staged repeated hunger strikes to protest a government-sanctioned takeover of his farm, died in a military hospital in Caracas.
(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, President Barack Obama marked the symbolic end of US combat operations in Iraq. Vice President Joe Biden presided over the formal end to US combat operations in Iraq. Biden made a new appeal to Iraqi leaders, including PM Nouri al-Maliki, to end the political deadlock and seat a new government. Since the US invasion in March, 2003, almost 5,000 American and allied soldiers lost their lives as well as some 150,000 Iraqis. Over 2 million Iraqis fled the country.
(AFP, 8/31/10)(AP, 8/31/10)(Econ, 8/28/10, p.37)
2010 Aug 31, Police in Richmond, Ca., shot and killed Efren Valdemoro (38) following a high speed chase across the East Bay. At least 4 people were killed since Aug 25 in a tangle of violence centering on Valdemoro. A 5th person, Frederick Sales (35), was missing. On Sep 9 police found Frederick’s body at 1066 Crepe Myrtle Drive in Hercules, the site where Ricardo Sales (73), the father of Frederick Sales, was found on Aug 28.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/10, p.C3)(SSFC, 9/12/10, p.A16)
2010 Aug 31, In Arkansas a medical helicopter crashed in Van Burn County killing 3 crew members trying to reach a person injured in a traffic accident.
(SFC, 9/1/10, p.A7)
2010 Aug 31, In Afghanistan 6 US soldiers were killed, including 4 in an IED attack.
(AFP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, British aid group Oxfam said it had suspended operations in a northern Afghan region after two employees and a local volunteer were killed there on Aug 28.
(Reuters, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, Indonesian police killed five villagers as dozens of people ransacked a station in central Buol district to protest a person's death in custody. The protest followed a motorist's death in police custody on Aug 30. It was unclear why he was detained, but the protesters suspected he was tortured by police.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, Libya freed 37 prisoners, including at least one former detainee at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, who had been jailed for links to radical Islamist groups but have since renounced violence.
(Reuters, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, In Mexico 6 women and two men died in a fire at a bar frequented by locals in the resort of Cancun. Bar employees told police that unidentified men tossed gasoline bombs at the establishment. Police soon arrested six suspects, who said a drug gang hired them to throw gasoline bombs at the bar, presumably in an attempt at extortion.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Aug 31, Pakistani government airstrikes killed eight suspected insurgents in the Khyber tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Two intelligence officials confirmed the airstrikes but said 30 insurgents were killed.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, A West Bank gunman opened fire on a passing vehicle in Hebron, killing all four Israeli passengers inside, two men and two women from settlements in the area. The dead included a married couple with five children.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, Russian police detained Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov and several other people at a protest in Moscow in defense of the right to free assembly, which activists say is restricted by the Russian government.
(Reuters, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, South Africa’s public service ministry said it was increasing its salary hike offer from 7 to 7.5 percent and housing allowance from 700 rand ($96) to 800 rand ($110). Workers were demanding an 8.6 percent raise and 1,000 rand ($137) for housing.
(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, Spanish police said that for the first time they have broken up a human-trafficking gang that brought men to the country to work as prostitutes, providing them with Viagra, cocaine and other stimulant drugs to be available for sex with other men 24 hours a day. Authorities arrested 14 people, mainly Brazilians, on suspicion of running the organization and another 17 alleged prostitutes for being in Spain illegally.
(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, The army of Southern Sudan has been looting food convoys and carrying out other attacks on aid groups, officials of those groups alleged, and a top military officer warned that the humanitarian groups could be expelled if the complaints get too "harsh." South Sudan health officials said floods have forced nearly 60,000 people from their homes, warning that the situation could worsen.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AFP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug, Cairn Energy, a British petrochemicals company, announced the discovery of worthwhile oil deposits off the coast of Greenland. Its licensed acreage was estimated to hold some 4 billion barrels of oil.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.43)
2010 Aug, In China the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) oversaw 123 large centrally-owned companies. Based on the state-owned enterprise reconstruction plan, the SASAC directly-supervised SOE will be reduced to 80-100 by the ending of 2010 year. The small companies will be merged into big state-owned enterprise giants. In 2011 SASAC controlled some $3.7 trillion in assets.
(Econ, 11/12/11, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/88wjnsa)
2010 Aug, In CongoDRC rebel militants raped some 240 people over 4 days in the Walikale district of eastern Congo. At least 387 people were raped in the Walikale territory in late July and early, including men, children and a month-old baby boy. In 2011 survivors suffered reprisals and a judicial inquiry into the violence was suspended.
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.64)(AP, 7/6/11)
2010 Aug, In Cuba Manuel Garcia, the public face of the Cuban cigar industry, was jailed for masterminding graft on a grand scale.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.40)
2010 Aug, Yukiya Amano, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "invited Israel to consider to accede" signing up to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, during a low-key visit to the country.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 1, The United States changed commanders in Iraq, beginning the final phase of American military involvement in the country despite political uncertainty and persistent violence.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, The US government designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist group and accused its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, of involvement in a December suicide bombing that killed 7 Americans at a CIA post in eastern Afghanistan.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 1, In Maryland police shot and killed James J. Lee after he took 2 employees and a security officer hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel. Lee had demanded that the network ask “the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it." All 3 hostages escaped unharmed.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 1, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced Ping as the social network of music.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.D1)(http://venturebeat.com/tag/ping/)
2010 Sep 1, US newspapers reported that the Afghan central bank had replaced the bank's two top executives, Khalillulah Ferozi and chairman Sher Khan Farnud -- and ordered Farnud to hand over 160 million dollars' worth of luxury property purchased in Dubai for himself and for cronies. Anxious Afghan customers withdrew 80 million dollars.
(AFP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Afghanistan NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) reported September's first death, another American, in an insurgent attack in the south. A Muslim leader, Mohammad Hassan Taimuri, was killed in Kandahar city by a remote-detonated bomb hidden on a motorcycle that exploded in a downtown square. One other person was killed in the attack and two people were wounded. The Afghan Health Ministry said blood samples taken from Afghan schoolgirls who collapsed in apparent mass poisonings showed traces of toxic chemicals found in herbicides, pesticides and nerve gas.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Algeria 2 soldiers were killed and dozens injured after a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle packed with explosives by a military convoy near the capital Algiers.
(AFP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, A court in Botswana charged former defense minister Ramadeluka Seretse for failing to disclose his position as a shareholder in a company that was awarded a government contract. Seretse, a cousin of President Seretse Ian Khama, resigned Aug 30 after months of corruption allegations from opposition parties.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In southern China 44 people were missing after a landslide hit Wama village, Yunnan province, killing at least four people.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, In southern Colombia suspected leftist rebels killed 14 police officers and wounded seven in an ambush of a five-truck convoy.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 1, Gunmen in eastern Congo fired on a private plane carrying international aid workers who escaped into the forest. The aid workers were rescued later in the day by peacekeepers. A Congolese soldier and two militiamen were killed in the firefight. 2 pilots in another plane were captured after an attack by Mai Mai and Rwandan Hutu rebels shortly after landing at Kilambo. The pilots and 2 injured people were released on Sep 24.
(AP, 9/1/10)(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Greece a smoking ban went into effect outlawing smoking in enclosed public areas and prohibiting tobacco advertising. 42% of the Greek population over age 15 smoked, well above the European average of 29%.
(SFC, 9/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 1, India's government began allocating third-generation (3G) bandwidth for cellphone services to mobile operators after a multi-billion-dollar auction of licenses.
(AFP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In western India wave after wave of tar balls floated ashore on the renowned Goa beaches after a ship dumped tons of waste oil, about three days after officials believe a ship dumped burnt oil at sea.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, Mozambique's state utility company implemented a 13.4 percent rate increase, while the state water supplier has also raised prices in and around the capital. Police opened fire on stone-throwing mobs who were protesting rising prices. 6 people were killed and 288 wounded. Another person died the next day. The UN noted that international food prices have risen to their highest in two years, a level that could see unrest spread.
(AP, 9/1/10)(AFP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Pakistan 3 suicide bombs ripped through a Shiite Muslim religious procession in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 35 people and wounding 250.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, Palestinian security forces arrested more than 250 Hamas members in an overnight sweep throughout the West Bank after the Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for shooting dead four Israelis on the eve of new Mideast peace talks.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Senegal Television Futurs Medias (TFM), run by pop star Youssou N’dour (50), began broadcasting but only in Dakar and its immediate suburbs. Its government license, issued earlier this year, limited it to cultural programming and forbade the station from doing newscasts. A request to broadcast to the rest of the country has so far been denied.
(AP, 9/9/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2eh5yhm)
2010 Sep 1, A South Korean news report and an intelligence official said North Korea has changed the names of its trading companies and falsified trade documents to avoid international sanctions and continue exporting weapons.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, A senior Swedish prosecutor reopened a rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the latest twist to a puzzling case in which prosecutors of different ranks have overruled each other.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, Thailand long running high school gang violence was highlighted when students opened fire on a public bus in Bangkok. 4 stray bullets killed a boy (9), shaking parents and educators.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 2, Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Washington and cleared the first hurdle in what promises to be difficult negotiations, vowing to try to settle core differences within a year and meet every two weeks. Neither leader addressed the sensitive question of whether Israel would extend a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank due to expire on September 26. The next round of talks was set for September 14-15 in Egypt.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, A US federal indictment charged 6 recruiters from Global Horizons manpower Inc. of luring 400 laborers from Thailand to the US with promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports and failed to honor their employment contracts.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 2, The US Justice Dept. sued Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa county, for failing to turn over documents in an investigation of his aggressive operations against illegal immigrants.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 2, The US Postal Service issued a new 44 cent stamp recognizing Mother Teresa (1910-1997) for her humanitarian work.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 2, In California Robert Borrmann (91), founder of the R.E. Borrmann Steel Co., was killed along with his pilot and the pilot’s girlfriend when their small plane crashed in a lagoon in Redwood City shortly after takeoff from the San Carlos Airport.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 2, It was reported that Miami-based Burger King Holdings has agreed to be acquired by 3G Capital for $3.3 billion, or $24 per share. The NY investment firm was backed by Brazilian investors.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.D6)
2010 Sep 2, Afghan financial authorities and the owners of Afghanistan's biggest bank said that Kabul Bank was in no danger of collapsing, as people across the country rushed to withdraw their money. Over the next few days withdrawals drained over half of the bank’s $500 million in liquid cash. Authorities soon barred the sale of Kabul properties held by the bank’s principal owners, but excluded Mahmoud Karzai, Pres. Karzai’s brother. Mahmoud, the bank’s 3rd largest shareholder, had purchased a $5.5 million home in Dubai with Kabul Bank funds. Mahmoud Karzai had bought his 7% share in Kabul Bank with a $5 million loan from the bank.
(AFP, 9/2/10)(SFC, 9/6/10, p.A2)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.54)
2010 Sep 2, In Afghanistan 2 American troops died in fighting, while NATO and local officials said coalition and Afghan forces killed dozens of insurgents in a series of ground and air engagements. President Hamid Karzai said 10 Afghan civilians were killed in a NATO air strike on three vehicles carrying election campaign workers in the north. Candidate Abdul Wahid Khorasani was wounded and 10 relatives working on his campaign were killed in what appeared to be a mistaken NATO airstrike. Abdul Rahman, a candidate in this month's parliamentary elections, was wounded in a grenade attack in Ghazni.
(AP, 9/2/10)(AFP, 9/2/10)(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard edged closer to retaining power when an independent lawmaker said he would support her center-left Labor Party to form Australia's first minority government in almost seven decades.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, The London Times published extracts of a new book by the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in which he argues that God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. "The Grand Design" was co-authored with US physicist Leonard Mlodinow.
(Reuters, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Colombia two separate mine blasts over the last 24 hours killed four soldiers and wounded six more.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, El Salvador lawmakers approved a new law making gang membership punishable by four to six years in prison. Gang leaders would face up to 10 years. Police found an oil drum filled with money on a ranch in the town of Penitente Abajo, about 40 miles (62 km) from the capital. After three days counting the bundles of $100, $50 and $20 bills, authorities announced that it contained about $9 million in U.S. dollars. Another plastic drum was uncovered Sep 4 about 5 yards away, also crammed with money. A 3rd barrel was found on Sep 10 containing packets of $100 bills adding up to $4.2 million.
(AP, 9/2/10)(AP, 9/4/10)(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 2, An international maritime group urged Indonesia to increase patrols in the South China Sea after pirates attacked nine vessels in less than three weeks.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Iran pro-government militiamen attacked the home of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally the next day.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, Iraq signed an agreement to pay $400 million to Americans who say they were abused by Saddam Hussein's regime. The signing was made public on Sep 10. the money would be given to Americans who were affected by the Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990. Generally such agreements have to be approved by the Cabinet, but this settlement would likely be extremely unpopular among Iraqis who survived years under Saddam only to suffer vicious sectarian fighting after the American invasion.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Mexico soldiers killed at least 25 suspected cartel members in a raid and gunbattle in Tamaulipas state near the US border, that has become one of the most dangerous battlegrounds in the country's drug war.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, Serbia's justice minister said authorities have confiscated euro200 million ($256 million) in property from organized crime bosses since gaining the authority last year.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, South Africa's government said it is withdrawing the April, 2009, special status granted to illegal Zimbabwean immigrants who fled their country's economic meltdown and political violence. A government said South Africa will begin deportations after Dec 31.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, Striking South African state workers staged a protest march after rejecting a revised wage offer aimed at ending their three-week strike that has the government and the labor movement at loggerheads.
(Reuters, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, Typhoon Kompasu struck South Korea, killing 5 people and toppling trees, streetlights and scaffolding in what was called the strongest storm to hit the Seoul area in 15 years. In North Korea the typhoon killed dozens of people and destroyed roads, railways and thousands of homes.
(AP, 9/2/10)(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Sudan armed men attacked the settlement of Tabarat and reportedly killed 74 people in attacks on a busy market there and in surrounding villages in rebel-held territory of the Darfur region. Air force bombing continued to the next morning. The insurgent Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) accused the Sudanese army of attacking the settlements west of the town of Tawila in North Darfur state. The UNAMID force was later able to verify from eyewitnesses that 37 people were killed and 30 were injured.
(Reuters, 9/3/10)(AFP, 9/3/10)(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 3, A weakened Hurricane Earl delivered only a glancing blow to North Carolina's Outer Banks on its way up the East Coast, flooding roads on the narrow vacation islands and knocking out power but staying farther offshore than feared.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, BP Plc successfully replaced a failed blowout preventer from atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, SF-based Craigslist yielded to pressure and removed its controversial adult services section. On Sep 15 Craigslist said the shutdown was permanent. Backpage.com soon became the market leader in sex adverts.
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.A1)(AFP, 9/16/10)(Econ, 7/18/15, p.27)
2010 Sep 3, The Basel Committee of int’l. bank regulators agreed on a new set of rules, known as Basel 3, with requirements for banks liquidity and capital.
(Econ, 10/9/10, SR p.16)
2010 Sep 3, In Barbados 2 men burst into a clothing store in downtown Bridgetown and demanded money before setting the building on fire and killing at least 6 people. On Sep 13 Police said 2 men, Renaldo Anderson Alleyne (21) and Jamar Bynoe (19), had been arrested and charged with six counts of murder, aggravated burglary, and arson in the attack. The island has not executed anyone since 1984. On June 1, 2011, Alleyne pleaded guilty to six counts of manslaughter. Bynoe faced similar charges but his case had not yet gone to trial.
(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/13/10)(AP, 6/2/11)
2010 Sep 3, In Belarus the editor a popular opposition website was found dead amid an ongoing crackdown on government critics and independent media. The body of Oleg Bebenin (36) was found in his country house outside Minsk.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras unveiled a huge share offering which could raise 64 billion dollars to help finance new exploration projects in the country.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Britain and France announced they are talking about sharing the cost of military aircraft programs, but rejected reports that they plan to merge their aircraft carrier fleets.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In southern England cellist Mike Edwards (62), a founding member of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) band, died after the 600 kg (1,323 lb) bale rolled down a steep field in Devon, smashed through a hedge and careered on to the road.
(Reuters, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 3, Chad health officials said an outbreak of cholera in the Central African nation has killed at least 41 people.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, A UPS Boeing 747-400 cargo plane with two crew members on board crashed shortly after takeoff outside Dubai. The 2 crew members, Captain Doug Lampe (48) of Louisville, Kentucky, and First Officer Matthew Bell (38) of Sanford, Florida. were killed. On Nov 5 al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing claimed responsibility for the crash, even though the United Arab Emirates' civil aviation authority said that there was no evidence of an explosive device aboard the jet.
(AP, 9/4/10)(AP, 9/5/10)(Reuters, 11/5/10)
2010 Sep 3, A court in Essen, Germany, that has been overseeing months of wrangling over the rent to be paid for 120 Karstadt stores, agreed that investor Nicolas Berggruen (49) could snap up the iconic chain, saving it from bankruptcy and safeguarding 25,000 jobs.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Finland and Sweden urged the European Union to create an independent peace institute to broaden the scope of the bloc's peacekeeping efforts around the world.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Accra, Ghana, Standard Bank Africa announced at an agricultural forum a 100 million dollar scheme to reach some 750,000 small scale farmers in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda in a bid to boost output.
(AFP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, In eastern India police found the body of a policeman in a remote forested district 150 km (100 miles) from the Bihar state capital Patna. A handwritten note found near the body said: "We will kill the three other policemen and send their bodies soon." The rebels had seized 4 men during a raid on security forces last week that left 10 policemen dead.
(AFP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, The Iraqi National Alliance, a powerful Iranian-backed Shiite bloc, added a third man to the political wrangling by naming Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq's Shiite vice president, their candidate for the job.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Japan imposed new sanctions against Iran, including an assets freeze on people and entities linked to its contentious nuclear program and tighter restrictions on financial transactions.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Kenya allowed the International Criminal Court to open an office in the country, a development that comes after Kenya's commitment to the court came into question when the nation hosted Sudan's indicted leader last week.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In southern Lebanon explosions ripped through a building that might have been used to store weapons by the militant group Hezbollah.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Lesotho Thomas Maresco (24), a US Peace Corps volunteer, was shot and killed in an apparent robbery attempt.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Mexico five suspected cartel members were killed in Nuevo Leon state, during a shootout on a highway leading to the border.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Two members of Mexico’s Congress were among six people killed on when their private plane crashed near a popular Pacific beach resort. Guillermo Zavaleta and Juan Huerta, members of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, died in the crash in Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, Police in Mozambique fired rubber bullets and live ammunition to quell more demonstrations against rising food prices. The death toll from the unrest soon climbed to 13 with more than 440 injured. The government said the economy has lost more than $3 million because of the deadly riots, as state media reported new protests in two other towns.
(AFP, 9/3/10)(AFP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Pakistan a suicide bombing targeting religious minorities killed at least 65 people in Quetta. A suicide attack on a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect killed at least one person and wounded several others in the northwest town of Mardan. Suspected US missiles killed five people in a tribal region near the Afghan border. A bomb was detonated by remote control as officers patrolled in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
(AP, 9/3/10)(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, A Portuguese court found six men and one woman guilty of crimes relating to child sex abuse in a major trial that lasted nearly six years. All seven defendants were found guilty of crimes including sexually abusing minors and adolescents, raping children and running a pedophile ring at the Casa Pia, a state-run children's home in Lisbon during the 1990s.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 8 people have been killed and 400 houses set ablaze in the latest wave of the forest fires plaguing the country. The fires were most intense in the Volgograd region, where 380 houses were burned in 20 populated areas. In Saratov, 20 houses burned.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, An AU official said African Union peacekeepers have established nine new bases in Somalia's capital in recent months and will help develop Somali government forces to defeat al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgents.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Tajikistan a suicide car bomb blast tore through police offices in Khujand, the country’s second-largest city, killing one policeman and injuring 25 people.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 4, Hurricane Earl brushed past the Northeast US and dumped heavy, wind-driven rain on Cape Cod cottages and fishing villages, but caused little damage. It continued north and made landfall near Western Head, Nova Scotia. Earl lost its tropical storm status over Canada, but the storm still left one person dead and nearly one million people without power in the northeastern.
(AP, 9/4/10)(AFP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 4, Paul Conrad ((b.1924), LA Times political cartoonist, died. His 50 year career included 3 Pulitzer Prizes.
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.C9)
2010 Sep 4, President Hamid Karzai said an Afghan peace council to pursue talks with the Taliban has been set up, the latest step in a gradual move toward reconciliation with the Islamist insurgents.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, Bahrain state media released the photographs of 23 Shiites — ranging from opposition figures to professors and taxi drivers — accused of conspiring to overthrow the government. They include opposition leader Abdul-Jalil al-Singace, whose arrest on Aug. 13 marked the first salvo by officials against members of a Shiite majority, 60-70% of the population being cast as coup plotters who could open the door to Iranian influence.
(AP, 9/5/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.56)
2010 Sep 4, British tax collectors said a new computer system has revealed that almost 6 million people have paid the wrong amount of income tax, and 1.4 million will be told to repay an average of 1,500 pounds ($2,300) each.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, In southern Congo at least 200 people were feared dead after a boat engine caught fire and led the vessel to overturn on the Kasai River. Survivors who swam to safety said nearby fishermen refused to help drowning passengers in the dark of night, instead looting the goods aboard the burning vessel and beating people with oars. Earlier the same day, a boat on a river in northwest Equateur Province hit a rock and capsized. More than 70 people were believed dead among 100 estimated passengers.
(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 4, In France Roma migrants whose camp was bulldozed led a protest in Paris against the French government's security crackdown, with similar demonstrations taking place across the country and abroad.
(AFP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, In Guatemala torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides killed at least 48 people, most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.
(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 4, Thousands of Indonesian Muslims rallied outside the US Embassy in Jakarta to denounce an American church's plan to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by burning copies of the Quran. The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has said it will burn the Islamic holy book on Sep 11, the ninth anniversary of the NYC terror attacks.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper reported that security forces have killed four members of an outlawed Kurdish group in the western province of Kordestan. Nasrin Sotoudeh (45) was summoned by official notice to Tehran's Evin Prison, and did return home. She had represented opposition activists and political figures. State media reported in December that she was accused of spreading propaganda against the ruling system. On Jan 10, 2011, her husband said has been convicted of security offenses and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(AFP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/8/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Sep 4, In New Zealand chimneys and walls crumbled to the ground, roads cracked in half and residents were knocked off their feet as a powerful magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked the South Island. No one was killed.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, In New Zealand's Southern Alps a light aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in flames near a popular tourist spot, killing nine people including four foreign tourists.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, Two Palestinians were killed and another three were wounded in Israeli air strikes carried out after a rocket attack from Gaza. This was the first exchange of fire since the relaunch of Middle East peace talks last week. Two raids targeted smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt, causing a tunnel to collapse on the two men, and a third struck a former base used by the militant Hamas movement.
(AFP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 4, Philippine police commandos killed an Abu Sayyaf commander linked to last year's kidnapping of Red Cross workers and gunned down two other militants in a clash in the south. Gafur Jumdail and two of his men were killed near Maimbung town on Jolo island after clashing with commandos tracking a Malaysian militant and allied Filipino fighters.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 4, In Sudan a Darfur rebel group said 10 people were killed in clashes with Sudanese police in two camps for displaced people in West Darfur state. U.N.-African Union peacekeepers said 9 people were killed in the clashes.
(AFP, 9/4/10)(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 4, Yemeni police arrested 14 suspected members of al-Qaida in a raid on one of the group's alleged hideouts in Abyan province in the town of Lawder. Gunmen from a separatist movement attacked an army post in Rabwa near the town of Habalein and killed four soldiers. Two of the attackers died as well.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In southern California 7 people were shot at a house party in Lancaster, including a girl (14) who later died of her wounds. Manuel Jamines, a Guatemalan immigrant, was fatally shot by a Los Angeles police officer. His death led to several days of violent protests. Police and witnesses said Jamines was threatening people with a knife.
(SFC, 9/6/10, p.A4)(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 5, Afghanistan's Taliban said they would attempt to disrupt the Sep 18 elections and warned Afghans to boycott the vote, the first explicit threat against the poll by the hardline Islamists. A British soldier was killed by an exploding grenade. The death takes to 333 the British death toll in Afghanistan since 2001. Afghan journalist Sayed Hamid Noori was found outside his Kabul home covered in stab wounds. Noori had once been an anchor for state television and a newspaper editor. More recently, he held a leadership position in Afghanistan's Association of Independent Journalists and teacher of young journalists.
(Reuters, 9/5/10)(AFP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 5, Bangladesh issued a red alert over an outbreak of anthrax which has infected nearly 300 people and killed about 150 cattle in the north of the country in the past two weeks.
(Reuters, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, The Basque separatist militant group ETA declared a cease-fire in a video statement, suggesting it might turn to a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Dagestan a suicide car-bomber killed 3 soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a Russian military base. In Kabardino-Balkariya, another republic of the Caucasus region that includes Dagestan, a policeman was shot to death by a man whom he'd stopped for a document check.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Ecuador 15 people were killed and at least seven injured when a drunken Luis Alberto Hessmer Vargas drove an SUV into a crowded bus stop in the coastal city of Guayaquil.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Iraq a car bomb and suicide bombers hit a Baghdad military headquarters and killed 12 people, two weeks after an attack on the same site pointed to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security. Five soldiers were among the dead. American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In northern Mexico soldiers opened fire on a family's car when it allegedly failed to stop at a military checkpoint, killing a 15-year-old boy and his father. Relatives who were also in the car said they were shot at after they passed a military convoy. On Sep 12 the military announced that it filed charges against four troops for the shooting.
(AP, 9/6/10)(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 5, Mozambican authorities said five fishing boats have capsized in a storm off the country's central coast, killing at least 15 fishermen.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Nigeria more than a dozen vehicles including three fuel tankers and two mini-buses caught fire in a pile-up on a highway, site of a deadly multi-car crash three weeks ago. No death toll was immediately available. Three separate shootings occurred by motorcycle-riding gunmen, leaving a retired police officer dead. Another person reported wounded later died, and four others were injured.
(AFP, 9/5/10)(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, Pres. Obama called for a $50 billion boost in spending on the nation’s roads, runways and railroads in an effort to boost the sluggish US economy.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 6, The annual Labor Day Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon raised $58.9 million, down from a record $65 million in 2008.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 6, Oracle Corp. announced that it has hired Mark Hurd (53), former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, as a co-president.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 6, In Colorado a fire broke out near Boulder and over the next 6 days destroyed at least 169 homes.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A11)(SFC, 9/13/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 6, The Afghan central bank ordered frozen the assets of Kabulbank's former chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, and chief executive officer, Khalilullah Fruzi, together with those of several other shareholders and major borrowers. Farnood and Fruzi both own a 28 percent stake in Kabulbank.
(Reuters, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, In Afghanistan Nahrin district chief Rahmad Sror Joshan Pool was killed when rocket-propelled grenades hit his vehicle, setting it on fire. Pool's bodyguard was also killed in the attack. One militant died and two were wounded in the ensuing fire fight with police. 5 children were killed and five wounded in Yaya Khil district in the southern province of Paktika when an insurgent rocket fired at an Afghan army base hit a home. Kidnappers seized two electoral workers and their two drivers in the western province of Ghor. NATO reported the death of an American service member in an insurgent attack in the south.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, A British judge sentenced a Church of England minister to four years in jail for his part in a sham-marriage scam which saw hundreds of African men marry European women so they could stay in Britain.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, UNICEF said that over 300 people have died in Cameroon from the country’s worst outbreak of cholera in 20 years.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 6, In the Central African Republic rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began a 2-day attack the town of Ouandda Djalle. 16 people were killed including two civilians, and 5 rebels.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced one of the biggest battles of her time in office after announcing plans to put off the date when Europe's biggest economy abandons nuclear power. Merkel said the operation of the country’s 17 nuclear plants would be extended to promote energy security. Under current law the last nuclear plant was to be closed by 2022.
(AFP, 9/6/10)(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 6, The lawyer for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, said she was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper on Aug 28 ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A4)(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 6, Italy’s Balzan Foundation said its prize for the biology of stem cells has gone to a Japanese researcher for discovering a way to transform adult cells into cells with the characteristics of stem cells. The prize to Shinya Yamanaka is one of four — two for sciences, two in humanities. Brazilian mathematician Jacob Palis was cited for his work in dynamic systems. The humanities prizes went to Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, the father of micro-history, for his contributions to the study of ordinary people in Europe, and to German Manfred Bauneck for his history of the European theater.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, A Japanese court convicted two members of Greenpeace of stealing whale meat they claim was intended for illegal consumption, giving each suspended jail terms. Junichi Sato (33) and Toru Suzuki (43) were found guilty of stealing 50 pounds (23 kg) of whale meat from a delivery service company warehouse in April 2008. The meat came from whales killed during Japan's controversial government-backed research hunts.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In Kashmir Indian government forces fired on protesters hurling stones at them, killing three people and wounding at least 17 other demonstrators.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, A Kenyan court convicted and sentenced seven Somali pirates to five years in jail. A court in the Kenyan port town of Mombasa found the Somalis guilty of attacking a German naval supply ship in the Gulf of Aden on March 29 last year.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, Mexico’s Navy announced it had found a clandestine grave with two bodies in Tamaulipas, not far from the Aug 24 massacre site. It was unclear if the grave was related to the massacre of 72 migrants. Marines had arrested four suspects at the scene on Sept. 3. The bodies appeared to be those of a state detective and local police chief who disappeared while investigating the massacre.
(AP, 9/6/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 6, Mozambique state radio reported that nine people have been arrested over the last 24 hours, accused of incitement for sending cell phone messages calling for protests. The radio report said 3 of the 9 were arrested in Nampula for trying to spread the protests to that northern province.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In northwestern Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber detonated a car in an alley behind a police station in Lakki Marwat, killing at least 19 police and civilians in an explosion that shattered the station and neighboring homes. A US drone fired 2 missiles and killed 5 alleged militants in North Waziristan, home to the Haqqani network, a militant group battling US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 9/6/10)(AFP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, Philippine officials said the government has asked a court to outlaw the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist group under a 2007 anti-terrorism law and blacklist more than 200 of its Islamic fighters blamed for two decades of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, A South African labor leader said civil servants are suspending a 20-day nationwide strike for higher wages to give union members time to consider the government's offer.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, Oxford press said it has published a new Zulu-English dictionary, four decades after the last such reference book was released for one of South Africa's most widely spoken languages.
(AFP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, The Spanish government rejected a new ceasefire announcement by the separatist group ETA and ruled out negotiations on an independent Basque homeland, saying the militants have been decimated by arrests and are desperate to regroup and rearm.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In southwestern Spain a passenger train crashed into a heavy-duty dump truck, killing two people and injuring eight others.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In Swaziland armed police arrested 50 members the Swaziland Democracy Campaign as they prepared for a protest march in Mbabane. The umbrella group had been set up jointly with Cosatu, South Africa’s main union. South African participants were deported and Swazis were harshly interrogated. More people were arrested and beaten during the march the next day.
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.63)
2010 Sep 7, George Soros gave $100 million to Human Rights Watch.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.72)
2010 Sep 7, Hewlett-Packard filed a lawsuit to stop former CEO Mark Hurd from working at Oracle Corp. Hurd had signed several nondisclosure agreements at HP.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 7, In Michigan fires swept through 85 structures in at least 3 Detroit neighborhoods as 50 mph winds downed 62 power lines.
(SFC, 9/8/10, p.A6)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A10)
2010 Sep 7, The Rev. Lucius Walker (b.1930) died of a heart attack in New York. He headed the nonprofit Pastors for Peace, which since 1992 has brought tons of supplies to Cuba via Mexico and Canada in defiance of Washington's nearly half-century-old trade embargo.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard will lead the country's first minority government in 67 years after two independent lawmakers threw their support behind her center-left Labor Party, ending two weeks of uncertainty left by national elections that ended on a knife-edge.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Strikes hobbled public transit in London and across France, forcing tourists and commuters to alter their plans as they bore the brunt of a wave of discontent over government cost-cutting measures, a wave expected to soon prompt walkouts elsewhere on the continent. Some 1.2-2.7 million people in France took to the streets for the one-day strike.
(AP, 9/7/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 7, Two Chinese oil workers went missing but more than 30 others were rescued from a listing Sinopec rig off the northeast coast. The company insisted no oil was spilled.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, A Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands. On Nov 1 Japanese lawmakers said a coast guard video shows a Chinese trawler intentionally ramming Japanese vessels in the incident, which sparked the worst row in years between the Asian powers.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Sep 7, Police in southeastern Congo say they have arrested three men carrying six suitcases full of elephant tusks. 3 Chinese nationals were caught at Lumumbashi's airport while trying to fly to Nairobi, Kenya. The men said they bought the ivory from antique dealers.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, The EU condemned the stoning to death sentence passed against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, saying it was "barbaric."
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Germany police raided buildings used by the country’s largest neo-Nazi group in an effort to find evidence to support banning it. The sweep targeted 30 buildings and houses across the country belonging to members of the Aid Organization for National Political Victims and their Relatives (HNG).
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Honduras men armed with assault rifles burst into a shoe factory in San Pedro Sula and opened fire, killing at least 18 workers and wounding five. The massacre was apparently carried out as part of a turf battle between small-scale drug gangs.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung volcano shot a towering cloud of black ash high into the air, dusting villages 15 miles (25 km) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last week from four centuries of dormancy.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Iran said that it was within its rights to vet UN inspectors who monitor its nuclear facilities after the UN watchdog said its work was being hampered by the barring of some of its staff.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Iraq Riad al-Saray, a prominent state television anchorman, was shot dead as he was driving in the capital. Reporters Without Borders has tallied 230 cases of journalists and media staff killed in the country since the conflict broke out on 20 March 2003. An Iraqi soldier, Soran Rahman Saleh Wali, opened fire on a group of American troops protecting one of their commanders during a visit to an Iraqi army base. Two American soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in the attack. Wali was killed and his brother, who works as a policeman in Tuz Khurmatu, was arrested. A grenade attack on a US military convoy in the Salaheddin provincial capital Tikrit wounded two American soldiers and four Iraqi civilians. One of the attackers was killed.
(AFP, 9/7/10)(AP, 9/8/10)(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, A Health Ministry official said Japan has confirmed the nation's first case of a new gene in bacteria that allows the microorganisms to become drug-resistant superbugs, detected in a man who had medical treatment in India.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Mexico pieces of the dismembered bodies of two men were found scattered around a children's park in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. Gunmen attacked a vehicle in Ciudad Juarez carrying inmates from the city's prison, killing 2 guards and wounding a prisoner.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Mexico 7 women serving prison terms of up to 29 years for the death of their newborns were freed after a legal reform enacted in the state of Guanajuato lowered their sentences.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Mozambique Planning Minister Aiuba Cuereneia said that the 20 percent increase in the government-set price of bread — which had followed a year of steady increases on the staple in this impoverished country — that went into effect a day earlier would be reversed. He said an increase in the price of water also would be reversed, but that higher electricity tariffs were being maintained.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Myanmar’s ruling junta leader, Gen. Than Shwe, began a 4-day visit to China. This year alone China had already invested over $8 billion in Myanmar.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.52)
2010 Sep 7, Nigerian authorities banned night time use of motorcycles in a northern state after a spate of killings by bike-riding gunmen suspected of being Islamist sect members. The radical Boko Haram Muslim sect used assault rifles to launch a coordinated sunset raid on a prison in Bauchi, freeing over 700 prisoners including more than 100 followers and raising new fears about violence just months before elections. Five people, a soldier, a police officer, two prison guards and a civilian, died in the attack and six others were in critical condition.
(AFP, 9/7/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Pakistan at least 17 people were killed and more than 20 wounded in a bomb attack targeting a police headquarters in the northwestern city of Kohat.
(AFP, 9/7/10)(SFC, 9/8/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep 7, The UN said more than 10 million people have been left without shelter in Pakistan's floods for the past 6 weeks, in "one of the worst humanitarian disasters" in UN history.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Slovenia a government expert said a mass grave has been discovered containing bodies of about 700 victims killed by antifascists in the wake of World War II. Researchers examined a pit in a forest near the town of Prevalje in the country's northeast last week and discovered the bodies.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 8, The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, BP issued a report on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and listed the unfolding of the tragedy in 4 acts, each containing several errors.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.74)
2010 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Hermine swept north through Texas and into Oklahoma swamping city neighborhoods and killing 6 people, 5 in Texas and 1 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A7)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 8, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother said he made at least $800,000 by buying and then reselling a high-end Dubai villa using a loan provided by the chairman of the troubled Kabul Bank.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Australia a kangaroo was beaten to death with a metal pole in the Great Otway National Park in the southern state of Victoria. Three 8th grade pupils were later suspended from school as authorities investigated the beating.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 8, The head of a Bahraini human rights organization says the government has taken over his group and removed him from his post. The government said the group was "only serving one segment of society," referring to the country's majority Shiites.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Belgian police say 10 people have been arrested in raids across Europe against hackers who put illegal copies of movies and television series on the Internet. Police said 5 arrests were in Belgium and the other arrests were made in Poland, Norway and Sweden, where the alleged leaders of four computer piracy networks were being held.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, British mobile phone giant Vodafone lost a legal appeal against an Indian tax bill estimated at $2.0 billion relating to the group's 2007 purchase of local group Hutchison Essar.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Michael Lassen (61), English stained-glass artist, died in a hospital after falling from a ladder on Sep 3, while working on a widow at the Durham cathedral.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.124)
2010 Sep 8, The Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate for a third consecutive time, nudging the rate up 25 basis points to 1 percent, but said a weak US economy would hamper Canada's recovery.
(Reuters, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan escalated when Beijing called in Japan's ambassador for a second time after a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila ordered the indefinite suspension near the mining hub of Walikale, where more than 240 people were treated for rape last month.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 8, In East Timor Mario Viejas Carrascalao (73), a deputy prime minister, announced his resignation in a letter published in the national newspaper, Tempo Semanal. In a blow to his "personal dignity," he said PM Gusmao had screamed at him at a public meeting and called him dumb. Carrascalao outlined a long list of problems facing East Timor, accusing the government of failing to address and sometimes participating in corruption and nepotism, and increasing their own well-being while ordinary citizens continued to live in abject poverty.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the bravery of illustrator Kurt Westergaard (75), a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, at an award ceremony honoring his achievements for freedom of speech.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s foreign ministry said authorities have suspended the execution by stoning of a woman convicted of adultery. A judiciary official told Fars news agency that the woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published a picture showing her without a headscarf. Fars reported that Vahid Kazemzadeh, a member of the Iranian judiciary's Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he has met Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who also complained to him that she has never met her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie.
(AFP, 9/8/10)(Reuters, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s UN ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the UN General Assembly his country needs more international help to combat the narcotics trade which he said was the "main financial source" for militant groups in the region.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Iraqi 4 prisoners with links to al-Qaida have escaped from the US-controlled part of the Karkh maximum-security prison, formerly Camp Cropper, in Baghdad.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Ireland announced it plans to split its most troubled financial institution, Anglo Irish Bank, in two as part of wider efforts to reassure international lenders that the Irish are dealing with their debt crisis.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Israelis ushered in the Jewish new year, or Rosh Hashana, at sundown with a widespread sense of pessimism that a new round of US-sponsored Mideast talks can achieve peace.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Israel Tal (86), a decorated war hero and the creator of Israel's renowned "Merkava" tank, died in the Israeli town of Rehovot. In the 1970s Tal oversaw the design of the Merkava tank (Hebrew for "chariot") which is widely seen as one of the best of its time.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Mexico hooded gunmen burst into Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia's office in the northern Mexico state of San Luis Potosi and shot him to death. He was the third mayor slain in less than a month.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In southern Mexico tens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes to escape flooding from weeks of torrential rains, and forecasts are predicting even more rainfall. The flooding has affected all four of Mexico's southernmost states: Tabasco, Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In northern Morocco 9 Portuguese tourists were killed and 14 injured when their tour bus plunged into a ravine.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Pakistan 3 suspected US missile strikes in less than 12 hours hit militant targets in the northwest, an unusually intense barrage that follows four other such attacks in the last week. At least 14 suspected militants were killed.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, The Palestinian Authority said it has arrested an unspecified number of Hamas activists believed to be responsible for two shooting attacks in the West Bank last week, one of which left four Jewish settlers dead. Palestinian militants fired a mortar round from the Gaza Strip narrowly missing a kindergarten in a kibbutz in southern Israel.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Somali pirates hijacked the Malta flagged cargo ship MV Olib G and its crew of 15 Georgian and 3 Turkish sailors. The ship was just carrying ballast.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Somali pirates hijacked the German-owned Magellan Star, flagged under Antigua and Barbuda. The next day US Marine commandos stormed the cargo vessel off the Somalia coast, and reclaimed control of the ship, taking nine prisoners without firing a shot.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, South Korea said it will ban unauthorized financial dealings with Iran and impose other penalties as part of a US-led campaign to enforce sanctions against the country over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. South Korea listed 126 Iranian companies and individuals for the sanctions.
(AP, 9/8/10)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 8, Sri Lanka's Parliament voted to eliminate term limits for the president, a move critics say could lead to dictatorship. Sri Lanka’s 1978 Constitution was amended for the 18th time giving the president more power and removing the bar on his serving more that two 6-years terms.
(AP, 9/8/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.20)
2010 Sep 8, In Sudan a Darfur rebel group was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas. The group later said 2 small reconnaissance groups of about 20 young LRA rebels carrying light arms shot and killed one LJM soldier before retreating into dense forest in remote South Darfur.
(Reuters, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 8, The UN Children's Fund launched a scheme to provide 13 million textbooks to Zimbabwe's students, in a 50-million-dollar effort to revive the struggling school system.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 9, President Barack Obama exhorted Rev. Terry Jones, a Florida minister, to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest this weekend. The Rev. Terry Jones from the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, said he has decided to hold off a burning of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Jones said he won't follow through with the burning if he's able to meet on Sep 11 with the organizers behind a mosque planned near ground zero in New York.
(AP, 9/9/10)(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, A US federal judge in southern California ruled that the US military’s ban on openly gay service members is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Judge Virginia Phillips ruled for the plaintiffs, a group of gay activists know as the Log Cabin Republicans.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A9)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.40)
2010 Sep 9, A massive explosion, apparently triggered by a broken gas line, sent flames roaring through San Bruno, a neighborhood near San Francisco, Ca., destroying 37 homes and badly damaged 8 others. At least 7 people were killed and over 50 injured. On Sep 27 the death toll rose to 8 as another victim died of injuries from the blast.
(AP, 9/10/10)(SFC, 9/10/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 9/12/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.C5)(SFC, 9/29/10, p.C4)
2010 Sep 9, In Pennsylvania Kraft worker Yvonne Hiller of northeast Philadelphia shot and killed two co-workers after she was suspended from a Kraft Foods plant.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, An Afghan insurgent commander, who was allegedly planning bombings in Kabul on the eve of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, and two of his associates were killed in a NATO airstrike. Intelligence sources had tracked Nur Mohammed and two armed militants to a field in the remote Musahi district of Kabul province.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, Bangladesh's high court banned the lease of coastal land to ship-breaking yards, in a ruling welcomed by environmentalists who say the industry destroys fragile eco-systems. Dismantling old ships is a major industry in Bangladesh, providing more than two-thirds of domestic steel and creating tens of thousands of jobs.
(AFP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, The Belgium government said that an investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church can continue even though a June 24 raid on the archdiocese has been ruled illegal. The next day the commission looking into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy said it had received testimony from hundreds of victims and that witnesses’ widespread abuse over decades had led to at least 13 suicides.
(AP, 9/9/10)(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, British legislators authorized a sweeping inquiry into illicit snooping on politicians and celebrities by tabloids, as one lawmaker called for media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to testify over allegations one of his newspapers illegally hacked into cell phones.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, In China Chen Guangcheng (39), a blind, self-taught activist lawyer, was released from prison and promptly confined in his rural village with limited access to communication. He had documented forced abortions and other abuses.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Egypt 11 police recruits died and another four were injured when flames engulfed their barracks in a Cairo suburb.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, The European Parliament called on France to suspend its expulsion of gypsies. The rare criticism of an EU state was backed by 337 lawmakers meeting in Strasbourg, France, with 245 opposed and 51 abstentions. To date France had deported 8,000 people to Romania and Bulgaria this year alone.
(AP, 9/9/10)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.73)
2010 Sep 9, In Guinea 2 senior voting officials were charged with vote tampering and sentenced to one year in prison a week before a crucial presidential vote. Not even their lawyers were informed of the court proceeding.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, An Iranian opposition group claimed to have discovered a new uranium enrichment plant being built about 75 miles (120 km) west of Tehran and said it was 85 percent complete. The head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the country has no undeclared nuclear sites. A US government official also disputed the claim by the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, saying the site did not appear to have a nuclear role.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Mexico gunmen killed 25 people in a series of drug-gang attacks in Ciudad Juarez, marking the deadliest day in more than two years for the Mexican border city.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Pakistan a roadside bomb killed 10 people and wounded four in a tribal region on the Afghan border. A suicide bomber detonated himself inside the house of a government minister in the Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, killing three people. A suspected American missile strike killed five alleged militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Russia's North Caucasus a suicide car bomber hit the Vladikavkaz central market, North Ossetia, killing 19 people and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst attacks in the volatile region in years. On Oct 12 Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov said 3 organizers were arrested in late September in Ingushetia. He said two other suspects were killed by security forces.
(AP, 9/9/10)(Reuters, 9/10/10)(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Somalia at least 2 African Union troops, 3 civilians and 5 attackers were killed in a suicide raid on Mogadishu airport. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said the attack was aimed at a high-level meeting of UN, African Union and Somali officials at the airport.
(AFP, 9/9/10)(AP, 10/6/11)
2010 Sep 9, South Africa released new statistics indicating that its murder rate, one of the highest in the world, has dropped by 8.6 percent to its lowest level in nearly two decades.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, Spain gave final approval to labor market reforms designed to shake up a listless economy and help slash a bloated deficit that has prompted European-wide worries of another Greek-style debt crisis.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, A senior southern Sudan official said northern Sudan has resolved an angry dispute with the south by returning the payment of crucial oil revenues to hard currency.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 10, A US federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld a jury verdict clearing the Chevron Corp. of alleged human rights abuses during a violent 1998 protest on a company oil platform in Nigeria.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Washington state convicted killer Cal Coburn Brown (52) was executed for the 1991 rape, torture and murder of Holly Washa (21) of Seattle. This was the state’s first execution since 2001 and the 78th in the state’s history.
(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)(www.fejoe.com/cal-coburn-brown/)
2010 Sep 10, Afghan President Hamid Karzai used his traditional message marking the Eid Muslim holiday to call on the leader of the Taliban to stop fighting and join peace talks to end Afghanistan's long war. Meanwhile thousands of Afghans protested across the country after an evangelical pastor in the United States said he planned to burn copies of the Koran to mark the anniversary of the September 9, 2001 attacks on the New York and Washington. An Afghan was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run base in the northeast.
(AFP, 9/10/10)(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Colombia leftist rebels firing homemade mortars killed at least eight police officers and wounded four in a pre-dawn attack on a police barracks near the country's border with Ecuador.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Dagestan, Russia, clashes between police and alleged militants left six more people dead in the volatile North Caucasus. A police officer was gunned down on the outskirts of the regional capital, Makhachkala.
(AP, 9/10/10)(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, Danish police surrounded a suspect in Orsted Park near the Hotel Jorgensen following a small explosion in a bathroom at the hotel. A bomb squad removed a bag wrapped around his waist with remote controlled cutting pliers. The man was later identified as Lors Doukayev, a one-legged Chechen-born boxer living in Belgium. On May 3, 2011, Doukayev was charged with terrorism for allegedly preparing a letter bomb that had likely been intended for a newspaper known for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. On May 30, 2011, Doukayev was convicted of attempted terrorism. The next day he was sentenced to 12 years.
(Reuters, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/15/10)(AP, 5/3/11)(AP, 5/30/11)(Reuters, 5/31/11)
2010 Sep 10, Finland’s Nokia Corp. said it is replacing CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with top Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as the world's top handset maker aims to regain lost ground in the fiercely competitive smartphone market.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Ghana officials said 17 people have died after neighboring Burkina Faso opened the Bagre Dam's spillways that was filling amid heavy rains. Officials in Burkina Faso announced in August they would open the spillways and warned people.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, A Guatemalan court sentenced 6 Mexicans and 8 Guatemalans, all members of Mexico’s Zetas drug gang, to lengthy prison terms for the killing of 11 people two years ago.
(http://tinyurl.com/34zmpqn)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 10, In Ingushetia a policeman was killed. The gunmen shot and killed him outside an auto repair shop in the region's main city of Nazran.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, Iran’s Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told English-language Press TV that Sarah Shourd (31), one of the three US hikers currently held in Iran for more than a year, will be released on Sep 11. Iran’s judiciary abruptly halted plans to release Shourd, pointing to the internal rivalries within Iran's leadership.
(AFP, 9/10/10)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep 10, In Iran a gas pipeline exploded near the northeastern holy city of Mashhad and killed 6 people with another 20 people hurt.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Mexico 85 inmates scaled the walls of a prison in the border city of Reynosa and escaped in the country’s biggest jail break in recent memory. At least five people were killed in the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero, where various cartels are also fighting for territory.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, Myanmar's state media denounced people who advocate not voting in the upcoming elections as irresponsible and antidemocratic, even though critics say the military government is using the vote to cement its grip on power.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Militants in Gaza fired a projectile into southern Israel just hours after Israeli warplanes carried out a series of raids across the coastal strip. Overnight, two Gazans in the Hamas security forces were wounded in Gaza City when Israel launched a series of retaliatory air strikes after an earlier rocket attack.
(AFP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Spain 50 coal miners 1,640 feet (500 meters) underground entered the ninth day of a strike over unpaid wages and government aid.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Yemen Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula issued a statement threatening to kill 55 named policemen in Yemen's restive southern province of Abyan.
(AFP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Zimbabwean police arrested 6 health workers, including four US citizens and a New Zealand doctor, as well as a Zimbabwean doctor for allegedly operating a clinic without a license in Harare. All belonged to an int’l. church group that helps care for HIV and AIDS patients. All 6 were granted bail on Sep 13. Charges were dropped on Sep 22 as prosecutors conceded the health workers were "doing good work" for the Allen Temple Baptist Church of Oakland, Calif., which operates the Mother of Peace Orphanage outside Harare.
(AP, 9/11/10)(AFP, 9/12/10)(AFP, 9/13/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Kentucky Stanley Neace (47) stormed across several lawns in his pajamas and fired dozens of shots from a 12-gauge pump shotgun. When the rampage ended, Neace and his wife lay dead, along with the gunman's stepdaughter and three neighbors.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, American actor Kevin McCarthy (1914) died at a hospital in Cape Cod. He is best remembered for his role in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956).
(SFC, 9/13/10, p.C5)
2010 Sep 11, Afghans set fire to tires in the streets and shouted "Death to America" for a second day despite a decision by an American pastor to call off plans to burn copies of the Islamic holy book. Four protesters were wounded in Logar province. A Taliban commander who had been plotting rocket attacks on polling stations was killed in eastern Nangarhar province.
(AP, 9/11/10)(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard unveiled her new cabinet, with Wayne Swan retaining his treasury portfolio and former climate minister Penny Wong moved to the senior finance portfolio. Former PM Kevin Rudd was named as the country’s new foreign minister, a high-profile and coveted posting that will be seen as a consolation prize for being ousted from the leadership.
(Reuters, 9/11/10)(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, China detained 9 Vietnamese fishermen near the disputed Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam demanded their immediate release without conditions, but China refused until the captain paid a fine for having explosives aboard the boat. The fisherman returned home on Oct 26 after an ordeal that included a month of detention by China and a week lost on stormy seas.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Sep 11, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila extended indefinite mining suspensions to three more provinces in the volatile east.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, In southern Egypt a barge leaked some 100 tons of gasoline into the Nile River. Captain Yasser Hussein told police that low water levels caused the boat to tilt and partially submerge allowing the fuel to leak.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Finland Hossein Alizadeh (45), a senior official at the Iranian embassy, said that he has resigned from his post to join the political opposition against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Alizadeh's mission in Finland had ended on August 20.
(AP, 9/11/10)(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Guinea at least 24 people were injured when members of rival political parties began throwing rocks at each other following a campaign event.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In central Indonesia flash floods on Borneo Island killed 10 people and left 14 others missing.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, Japan launched a rocket carrying a satellite intended to improve global positioning systems.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Kashmir police fired warning shots and tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who attacked a police post and burned government offices, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Mexico’s central state of Morelos police discovered nine bodies in clandestine graves in the same area where four more were recently found. A phone tip led authorities to a dead body in a car in a shopping center parking lot in Ciudad Juarez. Police found a bomb in a second car at the site and carried out a controlled detonation. Federal authorities announced the arrest of two Colombian brothers, Dario Emilio Valencia and Victor Espinosa Valencia, alleged to have ties to Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal and belonging to a group responsible for buying cocaine in Colombia and smuggling it to the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, Serbia’s war crimes prosecutors' office said it has indicted nine ex-paramilitaries over the killing of 43 ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict. The men who served with a paramilitary unit known as The Jackals were indicted for the killing of the ethnic Albanian civilians in the Kosovo village of Cuska on May 14, 1999.
(Reuters, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Sudan a rare three-day meeting of 30 religious and community leaders as well as local government officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Uganda criticized the "lack of a coordinated and comprehensive strategy" to tackle the LRA rebels.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 12, The 2010 MTV Video Music Awards were presented in Los Angeles.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Afghanistan 2 protesters were shot and killed in Logar province and 4 were injured as Afghans protested for a third day against a plan by an American pastor to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, despite his decision to call off the action. A series of NATO airstrikes killed 14 insurgents after a joint patrol with Afghan soldiers came under fire in Uruzgan province. A rocket was fired by militants toward an Afghan army supply base in Jalalabad city, in eastern Nangarhar province. The rocket missed its target and slammed into a house, wounding nine civilians, including four children, all members of one family.
(Reuters, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Cameroon six hostages, four Ukrainians, a Croatian, and a Filipino, were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen off the port city of Douala. On Sep 30 the hostages were freed following a secret operation by Cameroon security forces.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 12, An Egyptian security official said 16 Russians and Moldovans, who killed an Egyptian smuggler, have handed themselves over to police. Some of the would-be migrants to Israel attacked and fatally stabbed smuggler Massud Salim (31) after he attempted to rape one of the female members of the group.
(AFP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Germany's top bank, Deutsche Bank, announced a rights issue worth around 10 billion euros ($13 billion), saying it sought fresh capital to take over retail bank Postbank.
(AFP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Conakry, Guinea, one person was killed and dozens were wounded in clashes between supporters of rival candidates just days before the country's historic presidential runoff vote.
(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Indonesia assailants stabbed Asia Sihombing, a Christian worshipper, in the stomach and pounded Rev. Luspida Simanjuntak in the head with a wooden plank when she tried to help him as they headed to morning prayers in Bekasi, 25 miles east of Jakarta.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, A senior Iranian prosecutor said that authorities will release Sarah Shourd, a jailed American woman, on $500,000 bail because of health problems, another sudden about-face by Iran in a case that has added to tension with the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his demand for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, in remarks ahead of a second round of US-backed peace talks. A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip struck Israel without causing any casualties or damage. A burst of Israeli tank fire killed three civilians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, a man (91), his grandson (17) and another man (20). A senior commander on Sep 14 said the killing was a mistake.
(AFP, 9/12/10)(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Indian-administered Kashmir hundreds of stone-throwing protesters defied a curfew and attacked security forces in two towns, injuring 9 police officers and 4 soldiers. The protests erupted hours after police formally accused Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key separatist leader, of treason for allegedly inciting participants in a massive rally to torch government offices a day earlier.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, The Venice film festival ended with an awards ceremony. Jury president Quentin Tarantino faced charges of favoritism after he handed out two major awards to his friends, including best picture to his ex partner Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere."
(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Kosovo a French Gendarme was shot and wounded during clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica as European Union police fired tear gas to disperse the violent crowd.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Mexican marines captured Sergio Villarreal Barragan (“the Child-eater"), a presumed leader of the embattled Beltran Leyva cartel, along with 2 accomplices in a raid in the central state of Puebla.
(AP, 9/12/10)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.53)
2010 Sep 12, In Pakistan a suspected US missile strike in North Waziristan killed at least five associates of warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who was fighting Western troops in Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Philippine authorities at Manila's airport found a newborn baby in a garbage bag that was apparently unloaded from an airplane that landed from the Middle East. On Sep 16 Rep. Lani Mercado said she met with the mother, who told her that she had been raped by her employer while working as a maid in Qatar and became pregnant.
(AP, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 12, Turks voted on whether to amend a military-era constitution in what the government says is a key step in Turkey's path to full democracy, despite opposition claims that the proposed reforms would shackle the independence of the courts. Some 58 percent of voters approved a package of 26 amendments to the constitution crafted after a 1980 military coup, making the military more accountable to civilian courts, backing gender equality and other citizens' rights and lifting immunity from prosecution of the coup leaders.
(AP, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The US government and the chocolate industry pledged $17 million to help end child labor — some of it forced and dangerous — in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where much of the world's cocoa is grown.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100913/wl_mcclatchy/3626030)
2010 Sep 13, US House members began an impeachment trial against Louisiana District Judge Thomas Porteous (63) on grounds of corruption.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 13, US health officials reported that an infectious-disease nightmare is unfolding: Bacteria that have been made resistant to nearly all antibiotics by an alarming new gene have sickened people in three states and are popping up all over the world.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, US EPA officials said that a leak in an oil pipeline in Reomeoville, Illinois, has stopped. The volume spilled in the Chicago suburb was unknown. The pipeline was owned by Enbridge Energy Partners.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 13, In California PG&E said it will spend as much as $100 million to help rebuild the San Bruno neighborhood recently devastated by the Sep 9 rupture of a gas line. The relief fund would be independent of legal claims and the cost of replacing homes damaged by fire.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 13, Hewlett-Packard announced a $1.5 billion deal to buy ArcSight Inc, a provider of computer network security.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 13, Photos of a Louisiana waterway, its surface completely covered with dead sea life were distributed to local media by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. This stretch of coastal Louisiana was hit hard this summer by oil from BP's busted Gulf well.
(http://tinyurl.com/2bhqnhe)
2010 Sep 13, William Coblentz (88), California power broker, died. He had served for 16 years as a regent of UC, including 2 years as chairman.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.93)
2010 Sep 13, Afghan and NATO troops killed 23 insurgents in southern Helmand province.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 13, The Belgian Roman Catholic church acknowledged widespread sexual abuse over years by its clergy and pleaded for time to set up a system to punish all abusers and provide closure for victims.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, British trade unions voted overwhelmingly to back rare coordinated strikes as they were urged to "stand up and fight" government austerity cuts at their congress.
(AFP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, A Canadian police study said human trafficking groups have exploited Canada's visa rules to bring victims from Europe and Asia to work in the illegal sex trade.
(Reuters, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The Cuban Workers Federation said Cuba will lay off more than 500,000 state employees by March and expand private employment to give them work in the biggest shift to the private sector since the 1960s.
(Reuters, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, India’s PM Manmohan Singh again voiced his willingness to talk to Kashmiris and to respond to their demands, but the government has not yet responded to a proposal by the separatists for peace talks. Indian forces killed 18 protesters and wounded scores of others in confrontations across Kashmir fueled in part by a report that a Quran was desecrated in the United States. A police officer was also killed.
(AP, 9/13/10)(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 13, In India Maoist guerrillas killed two policemen and five civilians as the rebels began a two-day shutdown across the east of the country.
(AFP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, In Indonesia Yusuf Sipakoly (52), a political prisoner being detained in Ambon, Maluku, died while under police custody. His family claimed that he was tortured by police.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/3533o26)
2010 Sep 13, Iran's internal battles over the handling of American detainee Sarah Shourd flared again as the mouthpiece of the powerful Revolutionary Guard led the backlash against a decision to free her on $500,000 bail.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Amnesty International said tens of thousands of detainees are being held without trial in Iraqi prisons and face violent and psychological abuse as well as other forms of mistreatment.
(AFP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Officials said Israel will begin deporting families of illegal migrants in coming weeks as an emotional debate rages over the ballooning numbers of foreign workers that some fear could threaten the country's Jewish identity.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Staff at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv went on strike, grounding all flights and leaving arriving passengers without their luggage.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Japan freed 14 crew members of a Chinese fishing ship nearly a week after their vessel and two Japanese patrol boats collided near disputed southern islets. But China lashed out at Tokyo's decision to keep the captain in custody.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, In Malaysia Tengku Muhammad Faris Petra was proclaimed the new sultan of northern Kelantan state following a decision by the Council of Succession, which determines who ascends to the throne. Faris has been embroiled in a public dispute with his brother, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry, since their father, Tengku Ismail Petra, fell ill more than a year ago. 9 of Malaysia's 13 states are ruled by hereditary royal families, who are widely respected among the Muslim Malay majority though their responsibilities are largely ceremonial. The executive power lies with elected state and national representatives.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Nicaragua celebrated a special national holiday called by the Sandinista Party. As the country was on vacation the party ordered the printing of a rewritten (but bogus) constitution.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/29lqnzq)
2010 Sep 13, In Nigeria unknown attackers brandishing machetes stormed the home of Garba Bello, a senior intelligence official, and hacked him and four members of his family to death in an apparent targeted killing.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 13, South African police fatally shot Nontsikelelo Anna Nokela (17) who was part of a group protesting that a teachers strike gave them insufficient time to prepare for exams. Investigators the next day arrested a police officer after determining "the shooting was premeditated." Investigators said the officer had earlier threatened to hurt the students if they protested.
(AP, 9/14/10)(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 13, South Korea announced plans to send 5,000 tons of rice and other aid to flood-stricken North Korea in a sign of easing tension between the divided countries.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The UN court that settles disputes among member states swore in 2 new female judges, one from the United States and one from China to join the 15-member bench. Russia's Yury Fedotov took office as the UN's new drugs and crime czar. He replaced Italy's Antonio Maria Costa as the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and will also oversee the UN office in the Austrian capital.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency warned that Iran's selective cooperation with his inspectors means that he cannot confirm that all of Tehran's atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, In eastern Venezuela a plane carrying 51 people crashed in a steel mill yard. 17 people on board were killed leaving 34 survivors.
(AP, 9/13/10)(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which filed for bankruptcy exactly two years ago, sued Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and dozens of other defendants to recover more than $3 billion of which it said it was deprived due to the bankruptcy filing.
(Reuters, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 14, In North Carolina Ariana Iacono (14) went back to school with her mother and her nose ring, after her first suspension for a nose piercing ended. She was suspended again for five days because her nose ring violated the Johnston County school system's dress code. If she comes back to school on Sept. 21 with the nose stud, she'll face a 10-day suspension or referral to "alternative schooling." A similar situation went to the courts in 2002, when a woman was fired from her job at a Costco store over her eyebrow ring. The woman was also a member of the Church of Body Modification, but the courts eventually ruled that her religious beliefs did not require her to always wear her jewelry.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 14, It was reported that only about 3,500 tigers worldwide were left in the wild, with less than a third of them breeding females. Most of the tigers were in India.
(SFC, 9/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 14, Afghan and NATO troops killed 3 insurgents in eastern Wardak province. Four Taliban were killed in southeastern Zabul province.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Assailants targeting security officials in Bahrain set off an explosion that damaged several parked cars in the first such attack since the country's Sunni-led rulers began a crackdown on suspected Shiite dissidents last month.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, The British embassy said Britain has offered to build 11 warships for Brazil, as Brazil hones a maritime defense contract to protect recently found vast offshore oil deposits.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 14, Colombian authorities reported the arrest of Javier Caceres (52), a veteran lawmaker and former president of Congress, on criminal conspiracy charges for alleged collusion with far-right militias.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, The European Commission threatened legal action against France over its crackdown on Roma minorities, drawing a parallel between their treatment and World War II-era deportations.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Nokia, the Finnish phone giant, unveiled of 3 new touchscreen smartphones.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100914/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc3609)
2010 Sep 14, France introduced a law against face-covering. It became commonly known as the burqa ban.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering)(Econ, 7/27/13, p.44)
2010 Sep 14, Indian police opened fire on stone-throwing protesters in Kashmir as small groups took to the streets in defiance of curfew orders.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Iran released Sarah Shourd (32), an American woman, on a bail of $500,000 more than a year after she was detained. Authorities said they were not considering the immediate release of two companions arrested with her.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Farzad Farhangian, a press attache at the Iranian embassy in Brussels, called for an uprising against the Tehran government, as he became the third Europe-based envoy to defect this year and announced he was seeking asylum in Norway.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Three Palestinians were wounded by Israeli tank fire in a clash along the volatile Gaza border. On Sep 25 Hamas reported that one died as the result of his wounds.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 14, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Kazakhstan's failure to improve media freedom has damaged its international standing and the situation is getting worse, not better.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, A Nigerian official said police over the weekend arrested 10 members of Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect accused of a recent spate of targeted killings of police officers and local officials. Police also arrested two more sect followers freed in a recent prison break. Pere Fiofori, Emmanuel Gladstone and Dobra Ogbe, aged between 30 and 35, were arrested in an hotel in Ondo town and handed over to the Rivers State police in connection with last month's murder of Soboma George, in Port Harcourt.
(AP, 9/14/10)(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 14, In Pakistan 2 US missile attacks hit alleged militant targets in a tribal area killing 15 alleged militants. They hit in a part of North Waziristan region dominated by the Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur networks of militants fighting US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/14/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 14, Peruvian President Alan Garcia chose Education Minister Jose Chang as the new prime minister and Ismael Benavides as economic chief in a widely expected cabinet shuffle to pave the way for his party to launch a candidate in next year's presidential election.
(Reuters, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland said their troops have surrounded up to 300 Ethiopian rebels who entered the territory illegally.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, The South Africa-based retailer Massmart confirmed that it was in negotiations to be acquired by Wal-Mart for $4.1 billion.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.68)
2010 Sep 14, A Venezuelan military helicopter crashed into a navy research boat and plunged into the sea, leaving two missing and five injured.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Zimbabwe's state airline said it has fired 40 striking pilots for failing to meet a deadline to return to their posts. The pilots said the indebted airline has not paid out operational allowances for nearly 20 months. They earned up to $2,500 a month, about one third of the international pay scale for airline pilots.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, The United States ordered oil and gas firms to permanently plug nearly 3,500 unused wells and dismantle hundreds of idle platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, in a bid to shore up industry safety after the disastrous BP spill.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, The US steel industry, Ohio lawmakers and two veteran US trade policy experts urged Congress to pass legislation to push back against China's "undervalued" currency by slapping duties on Chinese imports that threaten American jobs. The senior Republican on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee said a proposed bill to press China to revalue its currency would not address fundamental Chinese trade barriers.
(Reuters, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Microsoft Corp. unveiled the "beta" test version of Internet Explorer 9, the first of a new generation of Web browser programs that tap into the powerful processors on board newer computers to make websites load and run faster.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 15, California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued 8 current and former members of the city of Bell accusing them of defrauding taxpayers by granting themselves high salaries and bloated pensions. The suit demanded that officials return hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(SFC, 9/16/10, p.A10)
2010 Sep 15, In Afghanistan at least one person was killed when police fired into the air to disperse angry anti-US protesters in Kabul, highlighting security concerns three days before a parliamentary election. It was reported that printers in Peshawar, Pakistan, say they have produced thousands of fake voter registration cards at the request of Afghan politicians for use in that country's Sep 18 parliamentary elections. 8 insurgents who "actively" planned to execute attacks during the elections were killed in an airstrike and a follow-up ground operation against a Taliban district commander in northern Kunduz province. 2 campaign workers were gunned down in northern Balkh province.
(Reuters, 9/15/10)(AP, 9/15/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 15, Brazil's government unveiled plans to slow the deforestation and help halt the wildfires that destroy its tropical savanna. The government plans to spend $200 million in the next two years to combat illegal deforestation and prevent fires.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Greenpeace said China's coal-fired plants produce enough toxic ash to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two-and-a-half minutes, creating contaminants that travel far and wide.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi said his often drought-ravaged country would not need food aid after 2015 as he formally launched a five-year development program.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, France's National Assembly passed President Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial pension reform bill by 329 votes to 233 during a stormy session in the lower house. The measure would raise the minimum pension age to 62 by 2018. Unions have vowed to stage mass protests when the law goes before France's upper house, the Senate, on September 23.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, A French court rejected Kigali's request to extradite Rwandan doctor Eugene Rwamucyo, who is suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide, sparking Rwanda's ire.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Indian police opened fire on Muslim demonstrators in a town near Kashmir, killing four people and wounding 30 as leaders of India's main political parties debated how to end months of separatist protests in the region.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Iranian security forces raided the office of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the top opposition leader, and seized computers after days of intimidating visitors with a heavy force presence around the building.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Iran Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, whose stoning sentence for adultery was suspended in July, appeared on state TV to say she has not been whipped or tortured.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Iraqi and US forces launched a raid on the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing seven people including former Iraqi military commander Yasseen Kassar. 2 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the fight. 9 Iraqi soldiers were killed near Mosul when a bomb exploded on a bus as they left their base in Tal Afar for vacation. An American airman was killed and a soldier wounded in a controlled detonation at the US Joint Base Balad.
(AP, 9/15/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)(AP, 9/16/10)(SFC, 9/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 15, Israeli and Palestinian leaders held peace talks in Jerusalem with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A Qassam rocket and six mortar rounds hit southern Israel. Israeli jets bombed smuggling targets along the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas officials said one person was killed and four wounded.
(AP, 9/15/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Kyrgyzstan the Nooken District Court convicted Azimjon Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek, on charges including complicity in murder, participating in mass violence and hostage-taking during deadly ethnic unrest that roiled the south in June. Amnesty International condemned the life sentence saying Askarov had gathered evidence implicating police in the violence before being detained. On Jan 24, 2017, a Kyrgyzstan court upheld his life sentence.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 1/24/17)
2010 Sep 15, Mexico looked beyond its drug war to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional independence cry: "Viva Mexico!" A gunbattle between Mexican soldiers and suspected drug cartel members left 22 dead at ranch on the outskirts of Ciudad Mier near the US border.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 15, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said that his nation's intelligence services are willing to cooperate closer with Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants. Two separate US missile strikes targeting Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the northwest tribal belt killed 15 militants.
(AP, 9/15/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico a man, accused of dragging a stubborn horse last February alongside his truck, became the first person convicted by a local jury under an animal protection law enacted after dogs were thrown to their deaths from a bridge. On Nov 17 Georgenan Lopez (24) received a 12-year prison sentence, becoming the first person convicted by a jury under the animal cruelty law implemented in August 2008.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Sep 15, Russia and Norway ended a 40-year dispute in signing an Arctic border treaty which opens the door to offshore oil and gas exploration. President Dmitry Medvedev and Norway's PM Jens Stoltenberg presided over the signing in Murmansk.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, The Korea Communications Commission said there were 50 million mobile service subscribers in South Korea as of this month, more than the population of 48.8 million.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Uganda police arrested Al-Amin Kimathi of the Kenyan Muslim Human Rights Forum and lawyer Mbugua Mureithi as they arrived to attend the hearing of 34 people charged for allegedly taking part in the July 11 bomb attacks, that targeted large groups gathered to watch the televised World Cup final. Uganda's police said the two were with a wanted al-Shabab militant that police had been trailing for days before the arrests.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, US federal prosecutors in Newark, NJ, announced charges against 53 people stemming from an identity theft ring and fraud investigation. The group targeted Asian immigrants in New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and California and used Social Security numbers from legal immigrants working in American territories.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 16, In Maryland Paul Warren Pardus (50), distraught by his mother’s health condition, shot and wounded her surgeon, Dr. David Cohen, and then killed his mother and himself at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 16, Afghan election officials announced they will close about 300 additional voting centers because of security concerns, dropping the number of polling stations to 5,516. About 100 rock-throwing protesters moved toward a NATO military base in Chora district of Uruzgan in southwest Afghanistan. Provincial governor, Khudi Rahim, said one person was killed. A NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack in the south.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Thousands of young Argentines marched to the presidential palace to protest the quality of public education, joining a student rebellion that accuses politicians of neglecting schools and universities that were once the envy of Latin America.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Australian scientists said they had made a breakthrough in the fight to save the cancer-hit Tasmanian devil by mapping the species' genome for the first time.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Britain Imran Farooq (50), a founding member of Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a major political force in Karachi, was found with head injuries and stab wounds outside his home in north London. On Dec 9 British police arrested a 34-year-old man on suspicion of murdering Farooq. On Aug 27, 2014, British police arrested another man (30) in connection with the 2010 murder.
(AFP, 9/17/10)(AFP, 12/9/10)(AP, 8/27/14)
2010 Sep 16, Pope Benedict XVI, arrived in Edinburgh beginning a controversial visit to Britain. He acknowledged that the Catholic Church had failed to act decisively or quickly enough to deal with priests who rape and molest children. He said the church's top priority now was to help the victims heal.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Cambodia's UN-backed court said 4 top Khmer Rouge leaders will stand trial for crimes including genocide during the "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, China warned that the worst offenders of food safety rules would get the death penalty in a new crackdown on an industry that has spawned embarrassing and deadly scandals in products ranging from seafood to baby formula.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Germany's Jesuits announced a plan to pay the victims of sexual abuse in the order's schools a "symbolic compensation" of at least euro5,000 ($6,500) each, saying the gesture is meant to be "financially painful" to the Roman Catholic organization.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Germany's top security official said two former inmates of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay have arrived in the country to begin new lives there.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, The head of communication for Guinea's National Independent Electoral Commission says The Sep 19 presidential runoff will be postponed by at least two weeks.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Honduras a street vendor died from inhaling tear gas fired by police against hundreds of supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In the Indian portion of Kashmir protesters defied a round-the-clock curfew and attacked government forces with rocks, wounding six of them.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Iran assailants abducted six people, 5 soldiers and a bank clerk, in the southeast of the country. The Sunni militant group Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility and said those abducted were Revolutionary Guard forces. On Sep 18 the state news IRNA reported that Revolutionary Guard forces rescued five of the hostages and killed 3 gunmen. A sixth hostage died in the operation. Amir Bilchi Kangarlu, a man convicted of raping several young girls, was hanged in the town of Varamin, south of the capital Tehran.
(AFP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/18/10)(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, The Iraqi government said its Cabinet has unanimously approved a $400 million settlement for Americans who say they were abused by Saddam Hussein's regime.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the Jerusalem city government to provide more than $120,000 in funding for a prominent gay community center. It was reported that Israeli government offices, that provide a wide array of public services, are pulling the plug on online payments on the Jewish Sabbath and holidays, creating a potential new source of friction between the religious and secular in the Jewish state.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, The Israeli government said it has officially approved plans to buy American-made F-35 stealth fighter jets. Israel planned on buying 20 of the warplanes for nearly $3 billion and will begin receiving the jets by 2015.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the Jerusalem city government to provide more than $120,000 in funding for a prominent gay community center.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Mexico gunmen attacked two newspaper photographers in the drug war-torn border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing Luis Carlos Santiago (21) and seriously wounding Carlos Sanchez of the Diario de Juarez.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Niger armed AQIM assailants kidnapped 7 people, including 5 French nuclear experts, a person from Togo and a person from Madagascar, near the uranium mining town of Arlit, in the northern Sahara desert region. 3 of the hostages were released in February, 2011. Pierre Legrand, Thierry Dol, Marc Feret and Daniel Larribe were released on Oct 29, 2013. Some 20 to 25 million euros was paid to obtain their release.
(AP, 9/17/10)(SFC, 9/22/10, p.A2)(SFC, 2/26/11, p.A2)(AP, 10/30/13)
2010 Sep 16, North Korea said it proposed a joint probe with the US of the deadly March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship. An earlier international investigation blamed Pyongyang.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Poland Akhmed Zakayev (51), a senior Chechen separatist wanted in Russia for alleged murder, kidnapping and terrorism, was arrested in Warsaw where he was to attend a conference organized by the World Chechen Congress. Zakayev, who lives in Britain, was apprehended "without any trouble" on an international warrant issued by Russia. Zakayev was released the next day.
(AP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 16, Some of Russia's prominent opposition leaders have formed a coalition to challenge the rule of President Dmitry Medvedev and PM Vladimir Putin. Former deputy premier Boris Nemtsov said the coalition aims to compete in next year's parliamentary elections and field a presidential candidate in 2012.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Somalia mortar rounds fired by suspected Islamist insurgents hit the government complex in Mogadishu killing 3 soldiers triggering a counterattack that killed a dozen more people.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 16, In Sudan 37 people were killed and 26 injured when two buses collided in the northern state of White Nile.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was seeking closer commercial ties with Iran and aims to triple trade volumes in the next five years while still respecting the limits set by UN sanctions.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Turkey a roadside bomb attack killed 10 people traveling on a minibus near the village of Gecitli in the rugged Hakkari province, where Kurdish guerrillas have been fighting for autonomy for decades.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 17, President Obama announced that legal scholar Elizabeth Warren will lead the efforts to found the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the new financial reform law.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In New Mexico scientist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni (75) and his wife Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni (67), who both once worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, were arrested after an FBI sting operation. They were charged with offering to help develop a nuclear weapon for Venezuela.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, California’s budget stalemate officially became the longest in state history, surpassing the 78-day record of 2008.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 17, Chevron Corp. rejected new estimates of damages in the jungles of Ecuador that rose to a range of $40 to $90 billion. The suit stemmed from operations by Texaco from 1972-1990 when it managed a drilling consortium. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 17, Afghan officials said 19 election-related kidnappings have taken place in the country despite tightened security on the eve of a parliamentary poll the Taliban has vowed to disrupt. In northern Kunduz Afghan and NATO-led troops killed a Taliban commander who was planning election attacks. It was reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this week started distributing 20,000 free radio sets to Afghans, including those in distant mountain villages and refugee camps. The operation, which will last for several weeks, will cost $500,000.
(Reuters, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In southern Afghanistan Corporal Dipprasad Pun, a Nepalese soldier in the British army, fired more than 400 rounds, launched 17 grenades and detonated a mine to repel the Taliban assault on his checkpoint near Babaji in Helmand Province. In 2011 Pun was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross (CGC).
(http://xnepali.com/gurkha-the-queen-awarded-bravery-medal-to-dipprasad-pun/)
2010 Sep 17, Bat Khurts, a key figure in Mongolia's National Security Council, was detained as he flew into London's Heathrow airport, for allegedly abducting a Mongolian murder suspect in 2003. On Feb 18, 2011, a British judge ruled that Khurts can be extradited to Germany.
(AFP, 2/18/11)
2010 Sep 17, Cuba's Roman Catholic Church revealed the names of four more political prisoners to be released into exile in Spain, bringing to 36 the number freed and sent off the island under an agreement with President Raul Castro's government.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, India deployed soldiers on the streets of protest-hit Kashmir to restore order, as three more people were shot dead by security forces during violent demonstrations.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Israel reiterated its refusal to extend curbs on settlement building that expire this month, despite US pressure and Palestinian threats to walk out of peace talks. Israeli troops killed Abu Shilbaya (37), a Hamas militant and local leader of its armed wing, during a raid in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm. Some 3,000 Hamas loyalists gathered to march in Abu Shilbaya's funeral.
(AFP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Israel came to a virtual standstill at sundown as Jews began observing the start of the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, the 25 hours of fasting and contemplation known as Yom Kippur.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Japan's PM Naoto Kan named a new cabinet, including a hawkish foreign minister to handle an escalating row with China.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, The Mauritanian army launched an offensive against the North African branch of al-Qaida in neighboring Mali. At least 12 militants died and five Mauritanians were killed in the operation, which was launched inside northern Mali with permission.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Mexico gunmen burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and killed 6 men and a woman. Over 4,000 people have died in the city over the last 2 years as a turf war continued between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. Gunmen kidnapped 9 police officers investigating a death in the southern state of Guerrero. The headless bodies of two of the lawmen were found near El Revelado, the community where the police group was kidnapped. 6 more were found Sep 19 in a ravine. One survivor was located in Acapulco. Troops killed three suspected drug cartel gunmen in a gunbattle and also freed a kidnap victim near the industrial city of Monterrey.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, Hurricane Karl hit Mexico’s Gulf Coast. At least 16 people were killed after several days of flooding and mudslides.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A3)(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A6)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 17, New Zealand politician David Garrett (52), a lawmaker with the minor Act Party, resigned from his party after admitting he stole a dead baby's identity to obtain a false passport 26 years ago. Garrett said he never used the false passport and eventually destroyed it.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Nigeria’s Pres. Goodluck Jonathan, current chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), said Guinea-Bissau risks sliding into anarchy unless a security solution, including taming the military, is found in the coup-prone west African nation.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Nigeria’s national security adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan resigned to compete against his boss to become the ruling party's candidate in next year's presidential election.
(AFP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Pakistan 48 people died in a dispute over access to water in the Kurram region. Fighting near the border with Afghanistan between two tribes, one Sunni and the other Shia, has killed 102 people over the last two weeks.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, A Rwandan court sentenced an opposition leader to life in prison for recruiting rebels to fight President Paul Kagame's government. Deo Mushayidi, a former ruling party member, was also convicted of obtaining a passport through fraud and spreading rumors to incite civil disobedience for which he received shorter terms.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Spain approved a request to ask that South Africa extradite former Rwandan army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who is wanted on charges of genocide and for the murder of four Spaniards in Rwanda in the 1990s. Nyamwasa fled to South Africa in February after abandoning his post as Rwanda's envoy to India. Four months later he was shot in the stomach outside his home in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, A Sri Lankan military court convicted Sarath Fonseka, the former army chief who ran for president on the opposition ticket, of fraud. He could be sentenced to jail time. Three containers filled with explosives meant for road construction detonated outside a police station in eastern Sri Lanka, killing 25 people, most of them police officers. Police the next day said Improperly stored detonators likely triggered the dynamite explosion.
(AP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, On the island of St. Lucia a gunman walked into PM Stephenson King’s home-district office and killed a man who was waiting to see the government leader.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In St. Maarten two major parties expected to dominate the election of 15 parliamentary representatives who will lead the Dutch territory when it becomes an autonomous country next month. St. Maarten and Curacao will become countries within the Dutch kingdom when the Netherlands Antilles are dissolved Oct. 10. The islands of Saba, St. Eustatius and Bonaire will become special Dutch municipalities and respond directly to the Dutch government.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Sudan 13 people travelling to mourn victims of a bus crash drowned when their boat capsized in Sudan's White Nile state.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Zimbabwe about 300 civil servants marched through Harare demanding higher pay and benefits from money the state earned through recent diamond auctions.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 18, Afghans braved Taliban rockets and polling site bombings to vote for a new parliament in elections seen as a measure of the government's competence and commitment to democratic rule. The governor of Kandahar province survived a bomb attack. Insurgent leader in Shigal Wa Sheltan district in eastern Kunar province was killed in a precision airstrike as he was attempting to attack a polling site. A rocket in northern Baghlan province killed two civilians. Another civilian was killed by a rocket that hit a house in eastern Kunar province. In northern Kunduz province militants tried to disrupt security in Gortepa, near Kunduz city. In a preventive strike, Afghan security forces killed five militants, injured two and arrested one. Afghan election officials declared the elections a success despite widespread reports of fraud. 4.3 million ballots were cast. Attacks across the country killed at least 21 civilians and 9 police officers. Journalist, Hojatullah Mujadadi, a radio station manager in Kapisa province north of Kabul, was arrested by Afghan agents.
(AP, 9/18/10)(Reuters, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/23/10)(Econ, 9/25/10, p.55)
2010 Sep 18, In Britain Pope Benedict XVI said he was ashamed of the "unspeakable" sexual abuse of children by priests, issuing an apology to the British faithful even as thousands of people opposed to his visit marched in central London in the biggest protest of his five-year papacy.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, In China protesters in several cities marked a politically sensitive anniversary, the start of a brutal Japanese invasion in 1931, with anti-Japan chants and banners, as authorities tried to stop anger over a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants from getting out of control.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, Egyptian police killed a Sudanese man and wounded three others when they opened fire on would-be migrants trying to enter Israel.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, Frenchman Philippe Croizon (42), whose arms and legs were amputated, swam about 21 miles across the English Channel in 13½ hours using leg prostheses that have flippers attached.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Germany tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin against the government's proposal to extend the life of Germany's nuclear power plants for another decade or more.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, A Honduras military helicopter crashed during an exhibition for children and the pilot was killed.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Hungary Hacktivity 2010, the largest computer hackers' conference in eastern Europe, kicked off, with some 1,000 participants expected to attend the two-day event.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, Iranian media reported that Shiva Nazar Ahari, journalist and founder of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters in Tehran, has been to six years in prison on anti-government charges.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 18, Kashmir police fired on fresh anti-India demonstrations, killing 3 protesters and bringing the number of civilian deaths in an unprecedented wave of unrest to 102.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Mexico’s Guerrero state unidentified men traveling in two vehicles threw two human heads into a refreshment stand in Coyuca de Catalan. One of the heads was blindfolded with duct tape. They were later associated to 2 of 9 police officers abducted a day earlier. Authorities in Ciudad Juarez said police arrested two alleged leaders of the Aztecs gang linked to at least 10 murders, including the killing of a federal police officer last month.
(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 18, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan formally declared his bid for the 2011 presidential poll, three days after launching it on his Facebook page, ending months of doubts over his ambition.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 19, US officials finally declared BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico "dead", following a successful “bottom kill," five months after a deadly oil rig blast sparked one of the costliest and largest environmental disasters ever.
{USA, Louisiana}
(AFP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A16)
2010 Sep 19, Deputies searched a wide swath of Southern California for a break-off religious sect of 13 people that included children as young as three. They had left behind letters indicating they were awaiting an apocalyptic event and would soon see Jesus and their dead relatives in heaven. The group of El Salvadoran immigrants, led by Reyna Marisol Chicas (32) of Palmdale, was found just before noon at Jackie Robinson Park near Palmdale.
(AP, 9/19/10)(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, In Chicago Sami Samir Hassoun, a Lebanese immigrant and candy-store worker, shortly after midnight placed a backpack he believed contained a bomb near the Chicago Bulls baseball stadium. It was part of an FBI sting. In 2013 Hassoun (25) was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/lkj6aqq)(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A6)
2010 Sep 19, Researchers from Wake Forest Univ. Baptist Medical Center, NC, reported that spiriva, a drug already used to treat obstructive pulmonary disease, can provide significant relief symptoms for adult asthmatics who have difficulty obtaining relief with other drugs.
(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, In Texas 3 children were found shot dead at a Houston apartment building. Their father, Muhammed Goher (47), was charged with their murder and was hospitalized after surviving an apparent suicide attempt.
(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, The Utah Army National Guard ignited a fire at Camp Williams, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, while practicing with a .50 caliber machine gun. At least 3 homes were destroyed as the fire went out of control.
(SFC, 9/21/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, In Afghanistan the bodies of three election officials kidnapped during voting were found in northern Balkh province. The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan reported "extensive irregularities" ranging from the destruction of polling centers to ballot stuffing, erratic opening and closing times of polls and interference by candidates. Allegations of fraud and a low voter turnout overshadowed vote counting in the parliamentary election. 6 children were killed in an insurgent rocket attack in northern Kunduz province.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)(AFP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Britain Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman at an open-air Mass and marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain with a personal reflection on the evil of the Nazi regime, praising those who "courageously" resisted it.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Canada "The King's Speech" won the top award at the Toronto International Film Festival, giving the Tom Hooper-directed film some early momentum heading into Oscar awards season.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, China said it has suspended high-level contacts with Japan over the extended detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain arrested after a Sep 7 collision near disputed islands.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Colombia's military killed at least 27 rebels in an air raid and ensuing ground assault near the border with Ecuador. The dead included FARC commander Sixto Cabana and Domingo Biojo (55), who had spent half his life in the FARC. The next day Colombia's national police chief said three informants will divide a reward of up to $500,000 for leading authorities to the rebel camp.
(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 9/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 19, Egyptians officials said Mohammed Dababish, a top Hamas security official, was arrested at Cairo airport for using falsified travel documents.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In southwestern Germany a female attorney (41) went on a shooting spree in Loerrach killing her 5-year-old son, her estranged husband and a male nurse before killing herself in an exchange of fire with police.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, In northern India heavy monsoon rains and landslides swept the hilly areas. 24 people died as falling boulders crushed their homes in three villages in Almorah district in Uttrakhand state. Another 23 people were either swept away by floodwaters or died when homes collapsed in landslides in Pitthoragarh, Champawat and Uttarkashi regions over the weekend.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, In India gunmen on motorbikes shot at a tourist bus near the main mosque in New Delhi, wounding two Taiwanese visitors, weeks before the city hosts the Commonwealth Games.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Indian Kashmir 3 people wounded during recent protests against Indian rule died ahead of a visit by a delegation of lawmakers seeking ways to defuse months of civil unrest. A 22-year-old woman was killed in Sopore town by security forces.
(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, Iraq signed a deal with Turkey to extend for 15 years the use of the main pipeline linking its northern oilfields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. 3 car bombs tore through Baghdad and the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing at least 36 people. Al-Qaida's front group in Iraq later claimed responsibility for the two Baghdad bombings that killed at least 31 people at a government security agency and what it called an "evil" mobile phone provider.
(AFP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a front-page editorial by El Diario de Juarez asked warring drug cartels to say what they want from the newspaper, so it can continue its work without further death, injury or intimidation of its staff.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, Nigeria’s anti-narcotics agency said the United States has removed Nigeria from the list of major drug trafficking countries, describing the move as recognition of its fight against trafficking.
(AFP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Pakistan a suspected US missile strike killed five alleged militants in the North Waziristan tribal area. Weekend clashes during a two-day search operation on the outskirts of Peshawar killed 15 militants and two police officers and wounded two soldiers.
(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Peru hundreds of coca growers briefly seized control of a power plant in Aguaytia, cutting off electricity to the estimated 430,000 people who live in Ucayali province. Police moved in arresting 120 people and freeing 30 employees. Authorities said that coca growers were still blocking a main highway with dozens of disabled buses and trucks.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Philippine troops clashed with Abu Sayyaf gunmen in a southern coastal village and killed Abdukarim Sali, a long-wanted militant who helped in the 2001 kidnapping of three American and 17 Filipino tourists and the takeover of a hospital. Dozens of rebels from the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front attacked a village in Basilan's Lamitan town, killing one villager and wounding another.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov (74) left the country for what his spokesman said was a holiday in Austria, amid growing speculation that he could be dismissed from one of Russia's most powerful jobs. Luzhkov and his billionaire property mogul wife Yelena Baturina were viewed as having fallen out of favor.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Spain’s armed Basque separatist group ETA says it is willing to accept international mediation to help solve its long-running conflict with Spain's government. The statement came a day after the Spanish newspaper El Pais released a video on its website believed to have been filmed by ETA earlier this year as a training aid which shows a hooded gunman practicing assassination techniques by shooting into a car.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Swedes voted for a new parliament. Polls showed the center-right government heading for a historic second term unless an Islam-bashing far-right group spoils its majority. The ruling center-right coalition faced the prospect of forming a minority government after losing its majority in the election because of a surge in support for Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigrant party. PM Fredrik Reinfeldt was re-elected by moving his Moderate party to the center, vowing to overhaul but not dismantle the state.
(AP, 9/19/10)(Reuters, 9/20/10)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.56)
2010 Sep 19, Typhoon Fanapi made a direct hit on Taiwan, dumping more than 40 inches (one meter) of rain in some places. Two people were left dead along with tens of millions of dollars of damage. After crossing Taiwan, it slammed into southern China.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 19, In eastern Tajikistan heavily armed Islamic militants ambushed a military convoy, killing at least 26 soldiers. The attackers were said to include militants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia's volatile southern region of Chechnya, led by Mullo Abdullo (b.1950), a radical Islamic commander who took an active part in the civil war. Warlord Alovuddin Davlatov was also suspected to have taken part in the ambush.
(AP, 9/20/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Thailand thousands of anti-government "Red Shirt" protesters defied an ongoing state of emergency in Bangkok to stage their first major demonstration since their street protests were ended by a deadly military crackdown in May.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Zimbabwe 5 people were injured in the capital Harare when pro-Mugabe militants stoned a meeting meant to gather public opinion on a new constitution.
(AFP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Denver Bronco’s wide receiver Kenny McKinley (23) was found dead in his home in an apparent suicide.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, In New Jersey a woman from Togo was been sentenced to 27 years in prison after being convicted of running a human smuggling operation and forcing women to work at New Jersey hair braiding salons. Akouavi Afolabi ran a scheme to bring at least 20 girls and women ages 10 to 19 from West Africa to the US on fraudulent visas. Victims were made to work at the salons for no pay. Afolabi was also ordered to pay restitution totaling $3.9 million. Her ex-husband and son had already pleaded guilty. Her son received a 55-month prison term. Her ex-husband was sentenced to 24 years.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Australia a Fijian man died suddenly at a Sydney immigration center, with a protest breaking out in the compound after claims he had jumped from a rooftop fearing deportation.
(AFP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Afghan election observers urged President Hamid Karzai's government to allow an independent investigation into reports of widespread fraud during last weekend's parliamentary elections, including intimidation of voters and interference by powerful warlords. Britain's military handed the US responsibility for northern Sangin district in Helmand province. Afghan and NATO forces ended a 2-day operation to disrupt the Taliban's freedom of movement outside its heartland of Kandahar city, killing at least 11 insurgents and destroying several improvised explosive devices. The US military arrested Rahmatullah Naikzad, an Afghan journalist in the eastern region of Ghazni, saying it is investigating suspicions he may have been too close to Taliban militants.
(AP, 9/20/10)(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, Bahrain stripped Ayatollah Hussein al-Najati, a powerful Shiite cleric with close ties to Iraq, of his citizenship as authorities widened a crackdown against alleged dissidents ahead of next month's elections in the tiny Gulf nation.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Hurricane Igor swept past Bermuda, lashing at the Atlantic island with high winds and furious waves as power failed in many areas, plunging people hunkered down at home into darkness and leaving officials waiting for sunrise to assess damage.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In China JCRB.com, a legal issues website administered by China's Supreme Court, said a Jinfulai Dairy Company executive in Yangquan city of Shanxi province and six other people were arrested after authorities discovered 26 tons of milk powder tainted with a toxic chemical.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, French defense contractor Safran SA said it will pay $1.1 billion to buy Stamford, Connecticut-based security firm L-1 Identity Solutions Inc., to bolster its presence in the US homeland security market.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, A delegation of Indian lawmakers launched a mission in Kashmir to find ways of defusing months of deadly unrest, but their trip was immediately derided by the Himalayan region's separatists as a publicity stunt. Fresh protests erupted in Sopore town, a day after a 22-year-old woman was killed by security forces.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In central India a freight train on the wrong track slammed into a stationary passenger locomotive amid heavy rain at the Bhaderwah rail station, killing at least 21 people and injuring 53.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Kuwait revoked the citizenship of cleric Yasser al-Habib, a hard-line Shiite scholar, accusing him of trying to stir up discord among Muslims by describing the Prophet Muhammad's wife, Aisha, as an "enemy of God."
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Libya's daily Oea newspaper reported that Douglas O'Reilly, a Canadian man, was detained after meeting a US diplomat suspected of being a CIA agent. He was detained on suspicion of spying on a planned BP offshore drilling project. O'Reilly claimed to be an archaeologist seeking to warn of the BP project's potential impact on archaeological sites. O'Reilly was given freedom to leave Libya on Sep 22.
(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Mexico rocks and mud tumbled down a hill onto a highway in Villa Guerrero, south of Mexico City. Five bodies were pulled out, and an unknown number of people were missing. More than 70 people have died during the rainy season in Mexico, which has been one of the heaviest on record.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Pakistan suspected US drones fired missiles at militant targets in North Waziristan, killing six people in the 15th such attack this month.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council voted 62 to 56 against a memorandum of understanding on bilateral consultations with Denmark after several members expressed unhappiness over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, Venezuela deported two drug trafficking suspects to the US, including an alleged boss of the powerful Norte del Valle cartel in neighboring Colombia. The action came only days after the US criticized Venezuela's cooperation in fighting illegal narcotics.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Yemen a security official said thousands of people have fled Hawta village in the south where security forces were laying siege to some 120 al-Qaida militants. 3 militants were killed and 4 wounded in the fighting. In the capital four al-Qaida suspects, including a Yemeni-German teenager, were brought to trial on charges of plotting attacks on tourists, international institutions and security forces.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Zimbabwe 83 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) were arrested after marching to highlight concerns around community safety and police behavior. They were freed after 2 days in jail.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, In California police arrested 8 current and former officials of the city of Bell, including the mayor and ex-city manager, on charges of corruption. Mayor Rizzo was booked on 53 counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest.
(SFC, 9/22/10, p.C2)
2010 Sep 21, In Georgia lawyers for 2 men filed suit in DeKalb County against Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church of Lithonia alleging coercion into a sexual relationship. A 2nd suit was filed the next day by a 3rd man. A 4th suit was filed on Sep 24.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A13)(SFC, 9/24/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 21, Walter Breuning, a Montana resident believed to be the world's oldest man, celebrated his 114th birthday at a retirement home in Great Falls.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, AT&T started selling its first phone that includes a backstop for AT&T's own network, over a satellite. That means blanket coverage of the US, even in the wilderness or hundreds of miles offshore.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, The Lasker Foundation announced its Lasker Award winners. Dr. Napoleone Ferrara (54) of Genentech won the clinical medical research award for his discovery of a protein that led to the development of a drug to halt vision loss in age-related macular degeneration. The award for basic medical research went to Douglas Coleman (78) and Jeffrey Friedman (56) for discovering the hormone leptin. David Weatherall (77) won for his work in genetic diseases and clinical care for children with the genetic blood disorder thalassemia.
(SFC, 9/21/10, p.C3)
2010 Sep 21, Grace Bradley Boyd (b.1913), actress and widow of Western movie hero Hopalong Cassidy (d.1972), died southern California. As Grace Bradley she appeared in 35 films.
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.C7)
2010 Sep 21, In southern Afghanistan a NATO helicopter crashed killing 9 international troops in a region where forces are ramping up pressure on Taliban insurgents. It was the deadliest chopper crash for the coalition in four years. 5 Afghan road construction workers were killed and 4 wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Shinwari district of Parwan province. In Khost province insurgents attacked a NATO and Afghan army outpost near the Pakistan border and at least 25 of the militants were killed in the resulting skirmish.
(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Algeria a bomb exploded in the centre of Bordj Menaiel town, as a police patrol passed, killing two policemen and wounding three civilians.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Greenpeace said that its activists have climbed aboard a Chevron-operated ship to protest drilling operations in the deep waters off Britain's Shetland Islands.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Hurricane Igor hit Newfoundland, Canada. Provincial Premier Danny Williams said it caused tens of millions in damages and was the worst in recent memory.
(SFC, 9/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, Eighteen people have died and 48 are missing after Fanapi churned through southern China, while 65 people were killed in monsoon rain in India and 100,000 displaced after a lake burst in southern Pakistan. Two people went missing and thousands of homes flooded when a record rainstorm hit parts of South Korea during a national holiday.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, In India the Delhi Commonwealth Games were plunged into crisis 12 days from the start after the athletes' village was described as "uninhabitable" and a footbridge collapsed at the main stadium. An avalanche hit army mountaineers in northern India, killing two and injuring about 20.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported that three men, who were found guilty of drug trafficking, have been hanged in a prison in the central city of Yazd.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Iraq blast targeting an army patrol on the outskirts of Kirkuk killed 2 Iraqi soldiers.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Ireland sold euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in government bonds in a closely watched test of whether international investors would keep buying Irish treasuries despite the country's deficit, the biggest in debt-burdened Europe.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Israel’s nuclear chief Shaul Chorev said It is against Israel's interests to join a global anti-nuclear arms treaty and the UN atomic watchdog is overstepping its mandate in demanding it to do so.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Italian prosecutors launched an investigation into the Vatican bank's top executives for allegedly violating money laundering legislation, triggering a sharp rebuttal by the Vatican. The bank's top two officials were under investigation for suspected money laundering and police have frozen 23 million euros ($30.21 million) of its funds.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(Reuters, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, The International Criminal Court (ICC) said it will launch cases against as many as six suspected instigators of postelection violence in Kenya that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2007-08.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, A new report, "Mauritius: The trade in primates for research," said wild long-tailed monkeys sustain broken limbs and other injuries when trappers catch the primates and transfer them to breeding farms on the island nation of Mauritius. The report said Mauritius justifies the catching of wild monkeys on the grounds that the long-tailed macaque is not native, is a pest and is not deserving of conservation concerns.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Mexico a mob beat two alleged kidnappers to death in the northern border state of Chihuahua. The two men and three others were suspected in the kidnapping of a 17-year-old girl from Asencion.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In New Zealand a pod of 74-80 pilot whales stranded themselves on a remote northern beach, the second time in a month that a mass beaching has happened in the region. 25 of the animals were already dead when officials arrived at Spirits Bay beach. Only 24 of the stranded whales survived.
(AP, 9/22/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, In Pakistan-held Kashmir a van carrying at least 30 schoolchildren plunged into a river, and most of the passengers were confirmed or feared dead.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Somali PM Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke resigned as fighting rattled across Mogadishu. His resignation ended a dispute with Pres. Ahmed over a draft constitution.
(SFC, 9/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, South African police said 11 suspected members of an alleged rhino poaching syndicate have been arrested, as part of an ongoing investigation. The suspects included 2 veterinarians and a game farmer.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, In Turkey a gang of several dozen men with sticks and pepper spray moved methodically from one art gallery to the next, assaulting overflow crowds that had spilled into the streets during the joint opening of several exhibitions in the center of Istanbul. Half a dozen suspects were detained.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 21, The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said 40 young Europeans are murdered every day, with Russia, Albania and Kazakhstan having the highest homicide rates for people aged 10-29.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 22, A US official in Washington confirmed reports that the CIA is running an all-Afghan paramilitary group in Afghanistan that has been hunting al-Qaida, Taliban, and other militant targets for the agency. A security professional in Kabul familiar with the operation said the 3,000-strong force was set up in 2002 to capture targets for CIA interrogation. Al-Jazeera cameraman Mohammad Nadir was arrested in Kandahar. In Helmand province a Danish soldier was killed and another wounded by a homemade bomb.
(AP, 9/22/10)(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 22, NYC officials said 59 taxi drivers have been arrested for manipulating their meters to double the fare rate.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A11)
2010 Sep 22, In NYC Cesar Mercado (34), who had worked at the Nicaraguan consulate as acting consul general, was found dead in his apartment in the Bronx by the driver who went to pick him up to attend the meeting. On Oct 29 a medical examiner’s report said he had committed suicide.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Sep 22, San Francisco’s Recurrent Energy said it has agreed to be purchased by Sharp Corp., Japan’s biggest solar panel manufacturer for as much as $305 million.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 22, Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories said it is recalling millions of containers of its best-selling Similac infant formula that may be contaminated with insect parts.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, It was reported that North Dakota’s Devil’s Lake, called a slow-growing monster, has steadily expanded over the last 20 years, swallowing up thousands of acres, hundreds of buildings and at least two towns in its rising waters.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Rutgers Univ. freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. On Sep 19 his roommate and another student had used a webcam to view Clementi having sex with another man. Roommate Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei were soon charged with invasion of privacy. On April 20, 2011, Ravi was charged with a hate crime and accused of deleting tweets and texts to cover his tracks. On May 21, 2012, Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 3 years probation. Ravi was also ordered to get counseling and to pay $10,000 toward a program to help victims of bias crimes.
(SFC, 4/21/11, p.A9)(SFC, 2/25/12, p.A8)(SFC, 5/22/12, p.A6)
2010 Sep 22, Eddie Fisher (b.1928), American singer, died in Berkeley, Ca. His 32 hit songs included “Oh My Papa" (1953). His 5 wives included Debbie Reynolds (1955), Elizabeth Taylor (1959), Connie Stevens, Terry Richard and Betty Lin.
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.C6)(www.discogs.com/artist/Eddie+Fisher)
2010 Sep 22, In southern Afghanistan a Danish soldier was killed and another wounded by a homemade bomb in Helmand province.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Colombian government forces staged a bombing raid in the eastern La Macarena mountains that killed Victor Julio Suarez (aka Mono Jojoy), the senior commander of FARC. 20 guerrillas died in the attack. Computer hard drives and memory sticks were seized that later revealed data on gold mines under FARC control.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.42)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.36)
2010 Sep 22, In Egypt Coptic Bishop Bishoy said certain verses in the Quran were inserted after Muhammad's death by one of his successors. Muslim belief says the prophet received all verses through the archangel Gabriel during his lifetime. On Sep 25 Egypt's top Islamic institution criticized Bishoy, warning that the statement threatened Egypt's national unity. On Sep 26 Egypt's Coptic Christian leader Pope Shenouda III apologized in a television interview to any Muslims who were offended by Bishoy’s comments.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 22, The European Union Parliament approved new financial oversight institutions aimed at preventing another financial crisis like the one that led to massive bank bailouts at taxpayer expense.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp said it would freeze all new business with Iran with immediate effect and terminate existing contracts there as soon as possible in response to ever-harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In western Indonesia Muslim militants wearing black masks stormed the tiny police precinct and unloaded their assault rifles, riddling 3 officers with bullets and shining a spotlight on the country's changing face of terrorism.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Sep 22, Iran’s pro-reform Sharq daily said that Emadoddin Baghi (48), a human rights activist, was convicted of "spreading propaganda" against the ruling establishment as well as planning to "violate national security." He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Baghi has been on trial or in jail almost continually since 2000 over similar charges. In the northwest a bomb exploded at a military parade in Mahabad killing 12 people. One official blamed Kurdish separatists who have fought Iranian forces in the area for decades. In 2014 Iranian authorities detained three suspects over the deadly bombing in Mahabad.
(AP, 9/22/10)(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 5/18/14)
2010 Sep 22, Several dozen Iraqis who failed to gain asylum in Europe were returned to Iraq despite concerns the situation is still too dangerous.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, An Israeli guard shot dead a Palestinian after rocks were thrown at his car, setting off clashes with police. Crowds of Palestinian youths violently rampaged in a tense neighborhood in annexed Arab east Jerusalem following the shooting death of a local man. This clouded fragile peace efforts even as the Palestinian president signaled he may back away from threats to quit negotiations if Israel resumes West Bank settlement construction.
(AFP, 9/22/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Ivory Coast began paying former rebel soldiers who disarmed ahead of elections set for next month, bringing the West African nation a step closer to ending years of crisis.
(Reuters, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In Jamaica a top court ruled that Shahine Robinson, a lawmaker allied to PM Bruce Golding, is ineligible to sit in parliament because she also holds US citizenship.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Liberia's election commission said that Prince Johnson's National Union for Democratic Progress met the requirements for next year's poll. Johnson is best known for the torture and slaying of ousted president Samuel K. Doe in 1990. A videotape of the event shows Johnson drinking beer as he ordered his men to cut off Doe's ears.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon announced a plan to protect journalists, as violence against reporters has surged since the government launched a crackdown on drug traffickers nearly four years ago.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 22, A Thai national and 3 French employees of marine services company Bourbon were kidnapped overnight in an attack on one of its ships, the Bourbon Alexandre, in an oil field off Nigeria. The hostages “in poor health" were released on Nov 10.
(AP, 9/22/10)(AP, 11/10/10)(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Sep 22, In the Philippines Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, told local reporters that his group wanted a "substate" that he likened to a US state. He said it would not be independent and would be under a "unitary government.".
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 22, A Polish prosecutor said his office has opened an investigation into whether Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi man accused in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was mistreated in a prison that the CIA allegedly ran in Poland.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Russian news agencies reported that Russia has dropped plans to supply Iran with S-300 missiles because they are subject to international sanctions.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Swiss women for the first time captured most of the seats in the country's seven-member executive branch, brushing aside Switzerland's history as one of Europe's last nations to grant women full suffrage.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In Yemen Al-Qaida militants holed up in a village in the south fought off repeated attempts by government troops backed by tanks and heavy artillery to retake the besieged town. At least four al-Qaida fighters and a civilian have been killed since the fighting began on Sep 18.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In Zimbabwe supporter of PM Morgan Tsvangirai died, days after militants from President Robert Mugabe's rival party attacked a political meeting.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 23, Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiled their campaign agenda, a "Pledge to America" to create jobs, cut taxes and shrink government, as they head for big gains in November's congressional election.
(Reuters, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, A New York court sentenced Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist, to 86 years in prison. Siddiqui (38) was detained in Afghanistan in 2008. She was found guilty of seizing a weapon from one of her captors and trying to shoot US authorities who were interrogating her there.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Blockbuster Inc., once the dominant movie rental company in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, after reeling from mounting losses, rising debt and competitors that have better catered to Americans' changed media habits.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Seattle, Wa., Saroeun Phan shot and killed 3 members of her family and then killed herself. Relatives said she suffered from depression and schizophrenia.
(SFC, 9/25/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 23, The state of Virginia executed Teresa Lewis (41) by lethal injection. She had plotted the murder of her husband and stepson 8 years ago and hired 2 gunmen, one of whom became her lover, for the murder.
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 23, Afghan Pres. Karzai called for the quick release of 3 Afghan journalists. All 3 were picked up over the past week, two by a joint NATO and Afghan force and one by Afghan intelligence officials. Analysts said the arrests were reminiscent of a strategy the US military used in Iraq to detain local journalists as a way to disrupt insurgents' propaganda networks. Coalition forces conducted an airstrike in Kabul province, killing Qari Mansur, a senior Haqqani operator who was linked, along with five of his associates, to an attack against an Afghan National Police unit earlier in the week.
(AP, 9/23/10)(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva officially launched the sale of new shares in the state-run oil company Petrobras seen as the world's biggest capitalization, worth 67 billion dollars. This raised the government’s stake from 40% to 48%.
(AP, 9/24/10)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 23, Britain opened the world's largest offshore wind farm off its southeast coast, as part of a government's push to boost renewable energy.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Cambodia's main opposition party leader, Sam Rainsy, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a politically sensitive comment about a border dispute, in what critics said was another example of the government's intimidation of its opponents.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, China detained four Japanese citizens for allegedly videotaping at a military installation in Hebei province. 3 of the men were released on Sep 30. The 4th was held as investigations continued. The 4th Japanese contractor was freed on Oct 9.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A4)(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Sep 23, Colombia's military killed Jorge Briceno (57), the field marshal and No. 2 commander of FARC, the country's main leftist rebel group in the country's eastern plains. Briceno died in an operation in the rebel stronghold of La Macarena that began the previous night and involved special forces, air force and police intelligence.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In the Dominican Rep. 5 teenagers (ages 15 to 17), including two girls, were convicted and sentenced to 3-5 years in prison for killing 7 taxi drivers and seriously injuring two others by forcing most of them to drink drain cleaner. The teens used guns to assault the drivers in April and steal money from them.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, French trade unions staged their second 24-hour strike in a month against President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular pension reform, seeking to force him to scrap plans to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60.
(Reuters, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Indian officials said raging floodwaters triggered by heavy rain in the north have killed at least 17 people, washed away thousands of homes and forced some 2 million people to evacuate in a 24 hour period.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In eastern India a speeding freight train struck a herd of elephants overnight in a densely forested region, killing seven. India's wild elephant population was recently estimated at around 26,000.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Mohammed Sofyan Tsauri, a former Indonesian police officer, said he helped al-Qaida train 170 members of a new terror network in Aceh province soon after he left the police force in 2008. On Jan 19, 2011, Tsauri (34) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for supplying weapons to a terrorist cell allegedly plotting a series of attacks on foreigners.
(AP, 9/23/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 Sep 23, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said most people believe the US government staged the September 11 attacks, setting off a Western walk out at the UN.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Iraq a "verbal altercation" broke out among four American soldiers in Fallujah and suspect Spc. Neftaly Platero "allegedly took his weapon and began shooting the other soldiers." 2 soldiers died the next day and one was left wounded. On Oct 20 Platero (32) was charged with killing the 2 soldiers and wounding a third.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Italy Carabinieri investigators in southern Calabria said that an euro8 million winning ticket in the national Superenalotto numbers game was sold in a smokeshop owned by the father-in-law of a suspect jailed in a drug probe. The winner avoided taxes on interest due had the windfall been deposited in a bank. The mobsters got an excuse to open a mega-account. Italian law requires those making big deposits to prove the funds aren't illegal. Police seized millions of euros worth of assets from the jailed mob suspect.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Mexico gunmen killed Prisciliano Rodriguez Salinas, mayor of the town of Doctor Gonzalez, near Monterrey, as well as his personal assistant. He became the fourth mayor in northern Mexico to be murdered in little more than a month. Two men were later arrested for the killing because of a land dispute. They had been paid $6,000. An uncle of one of the two suspects had hired them a week before the assassination.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 23, The Palestinian militant Hamas group said its military court has convicted and sentenced Omar Kawari to death by a firing squad. The Gaza man was convicted on charges of spying for Israel.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In the Philippines President Benigno Aquino ordered a halt to the demolition of thousands of squatter shanties in Manila following violent street protests.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Russia turned over to Poland 20 new files from a probe into the 1940 Katyn massacre that could be key in proving that Soviet secret police carefully planned the killing of thousands of Poles.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Somalia heavy fighting between Islamist militants and pro-government troops raged in several parts of Mogadishu, killing at least 22 people and wounding nearly 78.
(AP, 9/23/10)(SFC, 9/24/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 23, In South Africa 8 prisoners, charged with murder and robbery, escaped from a court in Johannesburg. Police re-arrested seven but were still searching for one. 13 officers were arrested on charges of aiding the escape.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Zimbabwe's national airline said a crippling two-week strike by its 44 pilots has ended and regional and international flights will resume Sep 24.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Zimbabwe state media said a measles outbreak has claimed the lives of 70 children over the past two weeks, mostly among families from apostolic sects that shun vaccinations.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a $100 million donation to Newark, N.J., public schools in a move that could enhance his reputation just before the opening on an unflattering movie about him, "The Social Network."
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Florida 3 thieves in Coral Gables put an alleged bomb on a bank teller and ordered him to steal as much money as possible while they held his father as hostage.
(SFC, 9/25/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 24, The Texas State Board of Education adopted a resolution that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as social conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Three Afghan journalists (Hojatullah Mujadadi, Mohammad Nadir and Rahmatullah Naikzad), arrested by coalition forces over the past week, were released. NATO had said it had information linking the men to networks that act as a mouthpiece for the Taliban and spread insurgent propaganda. A suicide bomber in a car targeted a NATO convoy on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif city in Balkh province in the north. One child was killed and 28 people were wounded in a wedding party bus that was passing by. In Khost province and more than 30 insurgents died in an airstrike following an attack on an Afghan National Security Force outpost.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Agathon Rwasa, a former rebel chief in Burundi, appealed by letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon to intervene and prevent the east African nation from falling again into violent conflict. Rwasa headed the ex-rebel National Liberation Forces, which became a political party in 2009 after a peace deal ended Burundi's 13-year civil war.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Cambodia's opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, said he has filed a criminal lawsuit in the United States against PM Hun Sen, accusing him of being behind a deadly 1997 attack on a political rally.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, The Central African Republic's government in a broadcast statement accused main opposition leader and former prime minister Martin Ziguele of heading a rebel movement.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, A Chilean court froze all 9.7 million dollars in assets belonging to a troubled mining company to fund the huge rescue operation for 33 miners trapped below ground since early August.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, European coastal nations agreed to review rules for offshore drilling, but said each country should decide individually on how to improve safety oil rig safety to avoid disasters like the Gulf of Mexico spill.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Guyana a teenager (16) was reported missing. Police found her body Oct. 3 inside a suitcase that had been weighted down with dumbbells and tossed in a creek in the capital of Georgetown. On Oct 8 police charge the girl’s mother Bibi Sharmina Gopaul and her lover Jarvis Small with murder.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Haiti a freak storm blasted through the capital, killing at least five earthquake survivors as it tore down trees, billboards and tent homes.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters that Iran would consider ending higher level uranium enrichment, the most crucial part of its controversial nuclear activities, if world powers send Tehran nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Japan said it would free Zhan Qixiong (41), a Chinese fishing boat captain, whose arrest in disputed waters over two weeks ago sparked the worst row in years between the Asian giants.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Kuwait US Army Spc. Marc C. Whisenant (23) of Holly Hill, Fla., died in a military vehicle roll-over.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 24, A Malaysian political cartoonist said he has been arrested under the Sedition Act and his offices raided by police over his new book, "Cartoon-O-Phobia," just hours before its planned launch. Zulkifli Anwar Ulhaque, better known as Zunar, used cartoons to highlight contentious issues such as the sodomy trial of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and police shootings.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Mexico Ricardo Solis, the recently elected mayor of the small town of Gran Morelos' in the northern state of Chihuahua, was shot in the head and chest by gunmen who drove up in two SUVs. Soldiers near Monterrey came under fire when they went to look into a tip that a local ranch had been taken over by members of a drug gang. The soldiers fired back, killing two alleged assailants, and then seized 12 rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Mexican soldiers detained Jose Angel Fernandez, the Zetas drug cartel's alleged operations chief for the resort city of Cancun, along with three alleged accomplices. Fernandez was suspected in last month's fire-bombing of a bar that killed eight people.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Pakistan's PM Yousuf Raza Gilani called Aafia Siddiqui, a female scientist convicted of trying to kill US interrogators in Afghanistan, "the daughter of the nation" and vowed to campaign for her release from an American jail.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Peru hundreds of student protesters toppled a perimeter wall at Cuzco's airport, prompting flight suspensions and cancellations that stranded about 500 tourists. The students backed peasants who have been blocking roads in the region for nearly two weeks, protesting government plans to build a reservoir in the municipality of Espinar.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Romania some 6,000 police officers protested plans to cut their wages by 25 percent, part of government's austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit. Pres. Basescu asked the interior ministry to withdraw his police protection shortly after the protest.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Spain's government approved an "austere" budget for 2011 aimed at reassuring nervous markets over its ability to rein in a massive public deficit and fix its battered economy.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Sudan’s information minister said South Sudanese people will lose the right to be citizens in the north if their region votes for independence in a referendum, raising fears for southerners living in northern settlements.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, A Thai court ordered the ex-wife of deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra to return a valuable plot of land she bought from the government while her husband was the country's leader. The Civil Court ruled that the 2003 purchase by Potjaman na Pombejra was void because it violated an anti-corruption law.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, The UN atomic watchdog threw out an Arab-backed resolution urging Israel to accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency, on the last day of its annual general conference, voted against the resolution, with 51 votes against, 46 votes for and 23 abstentions.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Yemeni forces, backed by tanks and heavy artillery, drove al-Qaida militants from the town of Hawta in Shabwa province after five days of fighting.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, Investigators of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, who visited an animal reserve near the southern border town of Beit Bridge and the Limpopo river, reported that occupiers slaughtered 300 zebra for their skins in the last two months. 7 African antelope were killed this week.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 25, In New York US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met for a second day of talks, after failing to break the deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians. The talks were overshadowed by the end of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In NYC artworks held by Lehman Brothers and a former subsidiary were auctioned by Sotheby’s bringing in almost $12.3 million.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A14)
2010 Sep 25, In New Jersey a student was shot and killed at an off campus house party near Seton Hall Univ. 4 others were wounded.
(SFC, 9/27/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 25, In Afghan NATO said 3 service members were killed in two bomb blasts. A follow-up operation in Khost province left several more insurgents dead. 2 Afghan civilians riding a motorcycle were killed after failing to stop while approaching a security perimeter in Helmand province. Precision NATO bombing in Kunar province killed Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, leader of Al-Qaida affiliated Arab fighters, and Abu Atta al-Kuwaiti, an Al-Qaida explosives expert.
(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/26/10)(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2eo83mo)
2010 Sep 25, In Britain Ed Miliband (40) narrowly defeated brother David, the 45-year-old ex-foreign secretary, in a Labour Party leadership contest, winning a slender majority of 1.3 percent of votes. On Sep 29 former foreign secretary David Miliband said he was quitting front-line politics in the U.K. after losing to his younger brother in a battle for the leadership of the country's main opposition Labour Party.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 25, In Honduras Jesus Santos, the chief suspect in the massacre of 18 workers at a shoe factory earlier this month, was killed in a shootout with police.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, Tropical Storm Matthew roared over Central America, dumping heavy rains on disaster-prone parts of Honduras and Nicaragua and leading to the evacuation of thousands amid fears of flooding and mudslides.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, The Indian government said it will ask authorities to release hundreds of students and youths detained during months of civil unrest that has left at least 107 people dead in Kashmir and review the massive deployment of security forces there.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency says Iranian nuclear experts met this week to discuss how to remove the malicious computer code, dubbed Stuxnet, which can take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Japan refused to apologize for detaining a Chinese boat captain, showing no signs of softening in a dispute between the two economic powers after Japan gave ground and released him. China made a second call for an apology and compensation from Tokyo, demanding "practical steps" to resolve the diplomatic row.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak launched the country’s Economic Transformation Program, formulated as part of Malaysia's National Transformation Program.
(http://etp.pemandu.gov.my/[email protected]_of_ETP.aspx)
2010 Sep 25, Mexican authorities said they have arrested Margarito Soto Reyes (44), an alleged trafficker known as "The Tiger," who they say shipped a half-ton of drugs to the US each month and may have been poised to take over for a dead capo in the Sinaloa cartel. 8 alleged accomplices were also arrested near Guadalajara. Police in the northern state of Chihuahua announced they had found the bodies of six men piled in a sport utility vehicle on a roadside in a remote, southern area of the state. The men had all apparently been shot in the head. And in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, unidentified assailants dumped the hacked-up body of a man on a street.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Mexican authorities sighted the wreckage of a small plane in the mountains of Baja California believed to have taken off from Los Angeles, Ca., with four people on board.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Nigeria’s Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka attended an event in Lagos announcing the platform of the Democratic Front for a People's Federation. The party claims to be a "zero resource" party, a jab at oil-rich Nigeria's culture of government graft and corruption.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Nigerian officials said opened dams in Jigawa state have displaced some two million people in the north, adding to flood misery that has already washed away entire villages across a wide swathe of the region. The next day spokesman for the Hadejia-Jama'are River Basin Development Authority, said the dams, located in Kano state, which borders Jigawa, are never manually opened and simply empty automatically into a spillway once the reservoir fills. He said heavy rainfall almost everywhere in the country caused the flooding.
(AFP, 9/25/10)(AFP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, A Pakistani court acquitted three men charged over a deadly suicide car bomb attack near the Danish embassy in Islamabad in 2008. Prosecutors said they would appeal the verdict.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In northwestern Pakistan suspected US missiles targeted a vehicle, killing four alleged militants. It was the 17th such attack this month, the most intense barrage since the airstrikes began in 2004. The drone attack killed Sheikh Fateh, Al-Qaeda's operational chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The latest strike occurred some hours after gunmen killed two worshippers in Bahawalpur. NATO helicopters in eastern Afghanistan launched rare airstrikes into Pakistan, killing more 49 militants and prompting a protest from Islamabad. A second attack occurred when helicopters returned to the border area and were attacked by insurgents based in Pakistan. It killed at least four militants.
(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/27/10)(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 25, Hamas, in a statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said "Mahmud al-Ahmarine (21) has died as the result of wounds inflicted by an Israeli tank on September 14 east of Gaza City."
(AGFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, The MV Lugela, a cargo ship carrying steel bars and wires, sent a distress call to its Greek operator when pirates attacked it about 900 nautical miles east of the Somali pirate den of Eyl.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In Syria leaders of the two rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas held reconciliation talks in Damascus and said they wanted the discussions to continue.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In Yemen 2 al-Qaida militants ambushed a bus carrying security personnel in the capital, San’a, spraying the vehicle with gunfire and injuring 10 passengers. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) later claimed that 14 intelligence officers were killed in the attack.
(AP, 9/25/10)(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Sep 26, San Francisco held its 27th annual Folsom Street Fair, a celebration of fetishes and aggressive sexuality.
(SFC, 9/27/10, p.C1)
2010 Sep 26, It was reported that the Hilmar Cheese company in Merced County is the likely culprit in ruining at least 18 wells in and around Hilmar. Partially treated effluent from the 27-acre plant has been discharged onto land around the plant for years.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 26, Gloria Stuart (b.1910), film star, died. The 1930s Hollywood leading lady years later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee for her role as the spunky survivor in "Titanic." In her youth, Stuart was a blond beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones such as "The Invisible Man," Busby Berkeley's "Gold Diggers of 1935" and two Shirley Temple movies, "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." Her 1999 autobiography was titled “Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping."
(AP, 9/28/10)(SFC, 9/28/10, p.C4)
2010 Sep 26, Afghanistan's election commission ordered a recount of votes in some areas for recent parliamentary elections, raising further concerns of misconduct and fraud during the Sep 18 polls. NATO said 2 of its service members were killed in a bomb blast in the south. A female British aid worker and 3 Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in the country's northeastern Kunar province. NATO forces said one Afghan civilian was killed by a coalition service member in Laghman's Alishing district.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 26, Australian climate change activists closed down operations at the world's largest coal port after entering its three terminals and attaching themselves to loaders.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, British businessman James Heselden (62), who last year bought the company that makes the two-wheeled Segway personal transporter, died in an accident on one of the vehicles in the River Wharfe near Boston Spa. He had made a fortune through his firm Hesco Bastion which developed a system replacing sand bags to protect troops.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, Chinese authorities said five people have been sickened with pneumonic plague in Tibet and that the deadly disease has killed one of them.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, A boat carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Europe and the US set sail from Cyprus bound for Gaza, in a bid to run Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, In the Dominican Republic a Dominican foreman fatally shot a Haitian worker during an argument over pay, touching off racial clashes at a construction site that killed a Dominican worker and injured another.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, In Germany a Polish tour bus crashed on its way home from a Spanish holiday, killing 13 people. 32 remained hospitalized the next day.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iranian officials said the malicious Stuxnet computer worm has hit 30,000 industrial computers, but denied the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among those infected. The malware has infected as many as 45,000 computer systems around the world. 60% of the infected computers were in Iran, 18% in Indonesia, and less than 2% in the US. Two computer servers in Malaysia and Denmark, which controlled the malware, have been shut down.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_computer_attacks)(SFC, 9/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 26, Iran media said elite Revolutionary Guards said they had killed the "main elements" behind the Sep 22 bomb attack in the Mahabad. Gen. Abdolrasoul Mahmoudabadi of the elite Revolutionary Guards said the "terrorists" were killed the previous day in a clash "beyond the border" and that his forces were still in pursuit of two men who escaped the ambush.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iraq inaugurated the first in a fleet of new US-built patrol boats, part of efforts to boost its naval capacity and secure key oil platforms ahead of an American withdrawal at the end of next year. A car packed with explosives blew up near the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing 4 policemen in the latest sign that insurgents could be trying to win back old strongholds. Attacks elsewhere in the country killed at least 4 others.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, With a midnight deadline looming, Israel's PM Netanyahu called on West Bank settlers to "show restraint" following the end of a government-ordered construction slowdown. Settler leaders rejected Netanyahu's call, however, and vowed to proceed with a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony later in the day at Revava, a settlement deep inside the West Bank, marking the end of the construction restrictions.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Kashmiri separatist leaders rejected India's offer to release hundreds of young detainees and review the massive deployment of security forces in the Himalayan territory to defuse deadly civil unrest.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, In Pakistan 2 US drone strikes targeting vehicles killed 7 militants in North Waziristan, the rugged tribal region near the Afghan border.
(AFP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan returning 3 astronauts from a 6-month mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 26, The Saudi Gazette quoted Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as saying: "Saudi Arabia is tackling terrorism with all its might and authorities have so far been successful in foiling 230 of 240 terrorist attempts." The number covers the period from 2003 to the present.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, In Spain the Basque separatist group ETA said it is willing to declare a permanent cease-fire, verified by international observers, in a bid to settle the troubled region's long-running conflict with the Spanish government.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was seeking to hold on to his dominant control of congress in elections that put his popularity to a critical test. Chavez's allies won a strong majority in Venezuela's congress, but lost the two-thirds majority needed to carry out major changes on their own.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, President Barack Obama signed a $30 billion small business lending bill into law, claiming a victory on economic policy for his fellow Democrats ahead of November congressional elections.
(Reuters, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Sponsored by the US Department of Homeland Security, Cyber Storm III kicked off for a 3-day series of simulated events designed to exploit holes in the nation's cybersecurity system. It was Washington's first chance to test the new National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, which was set up last fall to act as a hub for coordinating cybersecurity.
(http://tinyurl.com/24jewsu)
2010 Sep 27, Six US Air Force officers and one researcher assembled at the prestigious National Press Club in Washington, DC, to give their intriguing testimony of personal involvement in a major UFO cover-up. The officers planned to discuss UFOs and nuclear missiles, including an alleged incident in March, 1967, at a Montana missile base where 10 Minuteman missiles were mysteriously deactivated as a UFO allegedly hovered overhead.
(http://www.wanttoknow.info/ufos/ufos_national_press_club_witness_testimony)
2010 Sep 27, In a videotaped statement US Spec. Jeremy Morlock (22) admitted involvement in a plan to kill 3 Afghan civilians in Kandahar between January and May this year. He sought to shift blame for the plot on his squad’s staff sergeant, who he said planted the idea. In March 2011 Morlock was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder, as well as conspiracy and other charges. He said the killings were part of a deliberate plan to murder Afghan civilians. Dan Krauss directed the documentary film “The Kill Team" (2014) featuring Adam Winfield, Andrew Holmes and Jeremy Morlock," the soldiers involved in the Maywand District murders of Afghan civilians.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A6)(AP, 3/30/11)
2010 Sep 27, Downtown Los Angeles, Ca., recorded a record 113 degrees.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 27, In Florida Patrick Dell (41) shot and killed his wife, Natasha Whyte-Dell (36) and 4 step children before killing himself. A 5th stepchild survived the rampage in Riviera Beach.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 27, In Georgia Brandon Joseph Rhode (31) was executed by lethal injection for the 1998 murders of a trucking company owner and his 2 children. He was convicted in 2000 of the killings of Steven Moss (37), his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin during a burglary of their Jones County home in central Georgia.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 27, George Blanda (83), former American football star, died. He played longer than anyone in pro football history and racked up the most points in a career that spanned four decades, mostly with the Chicago Bears and Oakland Raiders.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Afghanistan a Polish soldier died of injuries sustained when a land mine exploded under his patrol vehicle in the eastern province of Ghazni. US General David Petraeus said many small insurgent groups had already made "overtures" to NATO forces about quitting the fight.
(AP, 9/27/10)(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 27, Police in Brazil’s state of Rio Grande do Sul arrested Rev. Avelino Backes (70) after finding him in a hospital in the town of Santa Rosa. Backes disappeared in 2008 after being sentenced to seven years in jail for molesting girls aged 9 and 10 in the neighboring state of Santa Catarina in the 1990s.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 27, Cambodia laid out plans to tackle graft in one of the world's most corrupt nations, in an attempt to reassure foreign investors.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In eastern China 2 men were sentenced to death for abducting and trafficking 40 infants. They were sentenced for their involvement in a ring that abducted dozens of baby boys from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and sold them to villagers in neighboring Fujian for up to $6,000 each.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 27, Colombia's inspector general ousted Sen. Piedad Cordoba (55), an outspoken opposition senator, barring her from public service for 18 years for allegedly "promoting and collaborating" with Latin America's last remaining rebel army.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Colombia a mudslide swept over people changing from one bus to another because an earlier slide was blocking a mountain road, and at least 20 people were buried.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Indonesia and France served as co-chairs of the Group of 20 Working Group on Anti-corruption during a 2-day meeting in Jakarta. The WGAC was among the most significant outcomes of the G20 summit in Toronto in June 2010.
(www.deplu.go.id/Pages/PressRelease.aspx?IDP=1002&l=en)
2010 Sep 27, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerized industrial equipment in Iran where about 30,000 IP addresses have already been infected.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Iraqi police officials said a bomb exploded as Alaa Muhsen, a news anchor for Iraqiya television, drove through southern Baghdad.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Settlement building resumed across the West Bank just hours after a 10-month freeze expired, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held back on a threat to quit peace talks with Israel over the move. Abbas said he would wait at least a week before deciding whether to quit Mideast peace talks, giving US mediators precious time to broker a compromise.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Jamaica hundreds of medical technicians, nurse's aides and other support staff at major public hospitals went on strike to demand pay raises and allowances they say haven't been paid by the government.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Mexico the bodies of Tancitaro Mayor Gustavo Sanchez and city adviser Rafael Equihua were discovered in a pickup truck abandoned on a dirt road near the city of Uruapan, the fifth city leader to be slain in Mexico since mid-August. Also in Michoacan state, five gunmen and a marine were killed in a shootout in Coahuayana on the Pacific coast. Another gunbattle in the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas left eight gunmen and one marine dead in the border city of Reynosa. In the border state of Chihuahua, gunmen broke into a police complex, subdued the guards and stole at least 40 automatic rifles and 23 handguns.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Nigeria gunmen hijacked a school bus in Abia state and kidnapped 15 children on board in the oil-rich south. The next day they demanded a $130,000 ransom for their release. On Oct 1 a joint military and police taskforce "rescued" the children and no ransom was paid.
(AFP, 9/28/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 27, Pakistan was chosen to head the UN atomic agency's governing body, despite its refusal to accept the nonproliferation treaty and its link to the nuclear black marketer who supplied Iran and North Korea.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Pakistani intelligence officials said two NATO helicopters carried out a third strike inside Pakistani territory, killing five militants and wounding nine others. A suspected US missile strike killed four people near Mir Ali, North Waziristan. Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary said it had recovered a huge hoard of military equipment stolen from NATO supply convoys travelling to Afghanistan. The equipment was looted during the last five to six months.
(AP, 9/27/10)(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, The Romanian government was in an uproar over austerity protests. The interior minister resigned, the opposition demanded the prime minister go as well and top police officials held emergency talks with the president.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Serbia basketball player Miladin Kovacevic (23) pleaded guilty to beating a fellow American student into a coma in the case that has strained relations between the United States and Serbia. In November he was sentenced to two years and three months for the beating of Bryan Steinhauer (24) in May 2008 near Binghamton University in upstate New York.
(AP, 9/27/10)(AP, 1/21/11)
2010 Sep 27, Representatives of 45 nations and international bodies met in Madrid to consider plans to strengthen an African Union peacekeeping force in war-torn Somalia.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Sudan’s government promised to inject almost two billion dollars into conflict-stricken Darfur, but again demanded war crimes charges against its president be dropped.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, A boat with 85 African migrants capsized off Yemen drowning at least 13 people. It was being towed by the US Navy back to Somalia a day after being discovered.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2wxgqmv)
2010 Sep 28, President Barack Obama endorsed a plan to rehabilitate the Gulf of Mexico with some of the billions of dollars in water pollution fines expected from the companies responsible for the worst offshore oil spill in US history.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Pres. Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on 8 Iranian officials deemed responsible for serious human rights abuses.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 28, Mayor Octavio Garcia Von Borstel (29) of Nogales, Az., was arrested by FBI agents on multiple charges including bribery, theft, fraud and money laundering.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 28, AOL acquired SF-based TechCrunch, the operator of an influential network of technology news blogs, for an estimated $25 million.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 28, Amyris Biotechnologies (AMRS), an Emeryville, Ca., startup, went public on NASDAQ with 5.3 million shares. The IPO opened and closed at $16.50 per share. The company, founded by Prof. Jay Keasling, used genetically engineered organisms to turn plant sugars into a precursor of diesel.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.D1)(http://tinyurl.com/24uklyv)(Econ, 3/12/11, TQ p.22)(SFC, 9/13/12, p.C5)
2010 Sep 28, Seth Walsh (13), a California middle school student, died in the hospital, days after he attempted to take his own life after reportedly enduring relentless bullying.
(www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018025-504083.html)
2010 Sep 28, Arthur Penn (88), American film director, died at his home in Manhattan. His films included “Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) and “Little Big Man" (1970).
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.C6)
2010 Sep 28, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed Deputy Gov. Khazim Allayar and five others. Later, a tearful Pres. Karzai decried the violence, fretting that young people will choose to flee their country. The Afghan government announced who will sit on a 70-member peace council, formalizing efforts already underway to reconcile with top Taliban leaders and lure insurgent foot soldiers off the battlefield.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Australia’s new Parliament was sworn in and included Ed Husic, the country’s first elected Muslim, who was sworn in with his hand on his parents' Koran.
(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, An Australian mining company said it has discovered deposits in Mozambique of rare minerals with a variety of industrial uses. The minerals found included dysprosium, used to make laser materials and in components of nuclear reactors.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 28, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega warned in remarks reported from Sao Paulo that the world is in the grip of a currency "war," with leading nations using devaluation to solve economic problems.
(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, A Scotland Yard’s special crimes unit arrested 19 people suspected of draining millions of dollars from British banks by hacking into customers’ accounts.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 28, In Canada an Ontario court tossed out key provisions of Canada's anti-prostitution laws, saying they did more harm than good, following a constitutional challenge by three sex-trade workers. The ruling allowed sex workers to solicit customers openly.
(Reuters, 9/28/10)(SSFC, 10/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 28, An Iranian news website said a court has sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, a well-known Canadian-Iranian blogger, to more than 19 years in prison for cooperating with hostile states and insulting Islam. Derakhshan, who made trips to Israel and blogged in both English and Farsi, has been in prison since 2008. Iran banned two newspapers for insulting political and religious figures, in a continued crackdown on dissent more than a year after a disputed presidential election.
(AP, 9/28/10)(Reuters, 9/28/10)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.60)
2010 Sep 28, Iran offered the first official indication that Oman is playing a role in trying to secure the release of two American men imprisoned for more than a year.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Ireland's borrowing costs leapt again after two credit rating agencies warned its debt is at risk of further downgrades, piling pressure on the government to bring forward its budget.
(Reuters, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Irish Nobel laureate and peace activist Mairead Maguire (66) was detained after arriving in Israel because she had been deported in June for trying to reach Gaza by boat in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade. Airport officials told her she would not be allowed in to Israel for 10 years. Her appeal on Oct 1 was rejected. She was deported on Oct 5.
(AP, 10/1/10)(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Sep 28, Israeli naval forces intercepted a catamaran carrying nine Jewish activists toward the Gaza Strip, encountering no resistance as they took control of the sailboat and escorted it to shore.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Malaysia Kylie Tanti Marion (42), an Australian woman, fell to her death when her parachute failed to open after she jumped off the Alor Setar Tower to practice for the KL Tower International Jump on Oct. 7.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Mexico a hillside collapsed on the rural community of Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca state. Although hundreds of people were initially feared dead only 11 people were missing and likely dead.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 9/29/10)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Nepal an avalanche caught 3 Japanese climbers and a Sherpa guide. Dhaulagiri at 26,790 feet (8,167 meters) is the seventh highest mountain in the world. The body of Daisuke Honda (32) was recovered on Oct 12.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Sep 28, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il made his mysterious youngest son, Kim Jong Un, a four-star general in a promotion seen as the first step toward his ascent as the country’s next leader, extending the family dynasty in the reclusive totalitarian country to a third generation.
(AP, 9/28/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.47)
2010 Sep 28, In Pakistan a suspected American missile strike killed four militants in South Waziristan.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Russia's Pres. Medvedev fired defiant Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, ousting the man who gave the crumbling capital a modern facelift but was maligned for his wife's hold on construction projects and for staying on vacation while forest fires choked his city. Luzhkov's deputy, Vladimir Resin, was named acting mayor pending the appointment of a successor.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Somali pirates hijacked the Asphalt Venture, a cargo ship with 15 Indian crew on board, off East Africa.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 28, Spanish police arrested a US citizen of Algerian origin who is suspected of financing al-Qaida's North African affiliate. Mohamed Omar Dehbi (43) was arrested in the town of Esplugues de Llobregat, a Barcelona suburb. On Sep 30 a Spanish judge ordered Dehbi’s release, citing lack of evidence, but barred him from leaving Spain and ordered him to check in with police daily. Dehbi was cleared of suspicion on March 8, 2011.
(AP, 9/29/10)(AP, 9/30/10)(AP, 3/22/11)
2010 Sep 28, In southern Thailand suspected Muslim insurgents disguised as policemen killed five people in an attack on a warehouse in Pattani province.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, The World Trade Organization ruled that a US ban on Chinese poultry is illegal, giving Beijing a win in the first international commerce ruling against the administration of President Barack Obama.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, California officials put on hold executions until at least early 2011 in order to review procedures in its lethal injection system.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 29, Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles attorney who represents Meg Whitman's former maid, Nicky Diaz Santillan, said she would release evidence on Sep 30 showing Whitman, a candidate for governor of California, was aware of the maid's illegal status as far back as 2003, a claim Whitman denies.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Two American balloonists disappeared in rough weather off the Italian coast. Richard Abruzzo (47) and Carol Rymer-Davis (65) were participating in the 54th Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race, in which teams try to fly the farthest on a maximum of about 1,000 cubic meters (35,300 cubic feet) of gas. Searching was called off on Oct 4. On Dec 6 an Italian fishing boat pulled the remains of the two from the Adriatic Sea.
(AP, 9/30/10)(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A2)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Sep 29, American film actor Tony Curtis, born in the Bronx as Bernard Schwartz (1925), died at his home in Nevada. He shaped himself from a 1950s movie heartthrob into a respected actor, showing a determined streak that served him well in such films as "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Defiant Ones" and "Some Like It Hot." In 1977 he authored a novel, "Kid Cody and Julie Sparrow" and in 1993 he wrote "Tony Curtis: The Autobiography."
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Oscar-nominated actor Joe Mantell (94) died in Tarzana, Ca. He had more than 70 film and TV credits and received an Academy Award nomination in 1956 for his performance as Angie, the best friend of Ernest Borgnine in "Marty." In the film "Chinatown" he delivered one of movies' most famous lines: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, The Afghan government announced that it is investigating whether the relatives or close associates of high-ranking officials are receiving improper payments, kickbacks or bribes.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Bangladesh a speeding train plowed into two buses at a busy crossing in Dhaka, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Security sources and media reports said Western intelligence agencies have uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to launch attacks in Britain, France and Germany by extremists based in Pakistan.
(AFP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, China repeated promises of exchange rate flexibility but offered no new measures that might avert a possible vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on currency legislation.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In CongoDRC Armand Tungulu (30), a Congolese citizen living in Belgium, was taken into custody by Pres. Kabila's bodyguards after he threw rocks at the presidential motorcade. Witnesses said the guards beat Tungulu before arresting him. On Oct 4 a statement from the Congolese attorney general's office said Tungulu killed himself on the night of Oct 1 with a piece of cloth he had been using as a pillow. On October 14 the DR Congo refused to return to Belgium the body of a Tungulu.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Sep 29, The European Union decided to launch legal action against France over its expulsions of Gypsies, or Roma, to poorer EU nations.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Anti-austerity protests erupted across Europe. Greek doctors and railway employees walked out, Spanish workers shut down trains and buses, and one man even blocked the Irish parliament with a cement truck to decry the country's enormous bank bailouts.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, India began the massive task of issuing unique identification numbers to its 1.2 billion people, many of whom don't have documents establishing their identity. By 2017 the Aadhaar identification scheme covered 99% adults.
(AP, 9/29/10)(Econ, 2/4/17, p.8)
2010 Sep 29, India imposed a nationwide ban on bulk cell phone text messaging amid concerns that a potentially explosive court judgment on who should control a disputed holy site could spark unrest.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In northwest Ireland managers at Anderson's Mink Farm said that many of their cages and fences were cut and opened over the weekend, freeing an estimated 5,000 animals into the wilds of County Donegal. About 28,000 others declined to bolt for freedom.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Jamaica was hit by Tropical Storm Nicole causing flooding and mudslides that left at least 5 people dead and 14 missing.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Mexican officials announced that marines had captured 30 suspected Gulf cartel members and seized an arsenal of weapons during two days of raids in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Two federal police officers were slain at a downtown hotel in Ciudad Juarez. Attackers threw an explosive at city hall in Matamoros, injuring three people.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Mexico a landslide surged into a community in Chiapas state, killing 16 people and injuring 13, while another avalanche left three people missing in a nearby town.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, New Zealand rescuers cut free a humpback whale that had been entangled for at least two days in a heavy nylon rope that officials said would have caused its slow death.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Nigerian authorities said as many as 40,000 girls and women have been trafficked to nearby West African countries to serve as sex workers.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Puerto Rico 7 US Postal Service workers were indicted on charges they shipped thousands of parcels of heroin, cocaine and marijuana through the mail.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Puerto Rico police fatally shot William Malaret Pagan (77) after he opened fire at them, a killing that comes as Puerto Rico's law enforcement officers are under scrutiny for allegedly using excessive force. Pagan shot at officers when they tried to arrest his son on drug charges. The killing happened hours before Gov. Luis Fortuno publicly introduced an independent monitor he appointed to assist a federal investigation into allegations of excessive force and corruption among police.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, A Russian firm announced an ambitious bid to fill the vacuum in the space tourism market by stationing an orbiting hotel in the cosmos. Orbital Technologies wants to launch a seven-room station by 2016 but may increase or decrease that capacity based on customer demand.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Tanzania a hot air balloon carrying tourists over Serengeti National Park crashed, killing an American and a Danish tourist and wounding eight others.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 29, The UN Security Council lifted a 13-year-old arms embargo against Sierra Leone after being assured that the nation is sufficiently stable following the civil war that ended in 2002.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Venezuela’s attorney general's office said that psychiatrist Edmundo Chirinos has been convicted of killing Roxana Vargas (19). He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her body was found with a blow to the head in 2008 in a park on the outskirts of Caracas. Investigators had found some 1,200 photographs of nude female patients in his home. Chirinos was a fringe candidate for president in 1988, but came away with only a tiny fraction of the vote.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Venezuela fighting erupted between inmates feuding over control in Tocoron prison in north-central Aragua state. The rioting killed 16 inmates and injured 35.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, US federal prosecutors said over 50 people have been charged in int’l. schemes that used computer viruses to steal millions of dollars from bank accounts in the US and England. The cyberattacks included malware known as the “Zeus Trojan."
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 30, The US fiscal year ended. The budget deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, equal to 9% of GDP. Immigration and Customs officials removed 392,000 illegal immigrants over the fiscal year, an increase of 23,000 over 2009.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A6)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.29)
2010 Sep 30, US federal officials announced that Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. will pay $422.5 million in penalties for marketing an epilepsy medicine for unapproved uses and for paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe it and 5 other drugs.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 30, San Francisco officials secured a 4th in a series of injunctions against street gangs. a judge approved an order singling out 2 gangs whose bitter rivalry has left 10 people dead over the last 3 years in the Visitacion Valley area.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 30, Vandals in San Francisco severely damaged 3 golf course holes in Golden Gate Park. The struck again on Oct 4. Damages were estimated at $75k-$100 thousand.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 30, New Jersey police shot and killed Alfred Moton Sr. (54) after he charged officers with a handgun. Moton had already shot dead 2 sons, critically injured a third and set fire to their home in Pennsauken.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 30, Tiffany Hartley and her husband, David, were on Jet Skis on Falcon Lake, Texas, when men on three speedboats chased them, shooting her husband in the head. Authorities have not recovered his body. The alleged attack happened near the US-Mexican boundary of the lake, which is about 60 miles down the border from Laredo.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Sep 30, Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors elected Leo Apotheker, the former head of German business giant SAP AG, to replace mark Hurd as CEO.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 30, Researchers who used a remote-controlled helicopter to collect whale snot, documented bats having oral sex and showed that swearing makes you feel better when you stub a toe were among the winners of spoof IgNobel prizes.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated a bomb-laden sedan near an alliance convoy, killing three Afghan civilians nearby. NATO-led soldiers were killed in separate attacks, two in homemade bomb explosions and the third in a firefight with insurgents. Afghan and international forces captured a senior Taliban leader based in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Afghan and coalition security forces in Khost captured a Haqqani Network operative involved in indiscriminate explosive attacks and providing support to Taliban insurgents. Another Haqqani senior leader and 6 insurgents were also killed in an operation in Khost.
(AFP, 9/30/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, Algerian daily Al-Watan said spy chiefs from four north African countries (Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger) have set up a center for joint operations against Al Qaeda in the Sahel region during a meeting in Algiers.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The Arabic-language Al-Ittihad daily quoted Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan as saying he had "received two death threats based on the case of Hamas militant" Mahmud al-Mabhuh's assassination in a Dubai hotel on January 20.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Argentina granted asylum to Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leftist guerrilla, charged in his native Chile with assassinating right-wing Sen. Jaime Guzman and kidnapping businessman Christian Edwards del Rio in 1991. Apablaza, who requested asylum in 2004, was an ideological leader of a branch of Chile's Communist Party that took up arms against Pinochet.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The South China Morning Post quoted Derek Reveron, a cyber expert at the US Naval War School, as saying: "The Stuxnet worm is a wake-up call to governments around the world." China’s state media had reported this week that the Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc, infecting millions of computers around the country.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Denmark Flemming Rose's "The Tyranny of Silence," a book on the crisis sparked by a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed five years ago, hit stores in amid concerns over a backlash from the Muslim world.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Ecuador rebellious police threw the country into chaos. 8 people were killed including at least two police officers and a soldier. 247 were injured in the mayhem. Insurgents also paralyzed the nation with airport shutdowns and highway blockades. Pres. Correa (47) was trapped inside the hospital for hours before troops rescued him amid a blaze of gunfire. Police chief Freddy Martinez was not involved in the protests but failed to stop them, so he was the first senior officer to lose his job. Correa’s efforts to cut back spending had made him enemies, including some of the rank and file in the security forces.
(AP, 10/1/10)(Reuters, 10/1/10)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.54)
2010 Sep 30, Egyptian telecom giant Orascom Telecom said its Algeria unit has been hit with a $230 million preliminary tax reassessment, marking a new and increasingly acrimonious chapter in the company's relations with the North African nation.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Europe's debt crisis dumped more woe on Ireland's weary taxpayers, as the government said it needed to pour billions more of their money into a collapsed banking system.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, An Indian court ruled that a disputed holy site that sparked bloody riots in the past should now be divided between the Hindu and Muslim communities. The compromise ruling gave Hindus control over the area where the now-demolished Babri Mosque stood, and where a makeshift tent-shrine to the Hindu god Rama now rests. Some 2,000 people were killed in 1992 when Hindu hard-liners razed the Babri Mosque built on the site in 1528 by the Mughal emperor Babur.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Iraq a gang using bombs and automatic weapons tried to storm a bank in Baghdad in a failed robbery attempt that left three people dead, including two policemen.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Japanese researchers said they had developed a hybrid vehicle motor that is free of rare earths, the minerals that are now almost exclusively produced by China.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel group extended a ceasefire with Turkey by one month in a move it said is aimed at giving a chance to efforts to end a war that has killed 40,000 people.
(Reuters, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Mexico rescuers found more bodies buried by earlier landslides, raising the death toll from a series of slides in the south to at least 36. Another landslide in the town of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag in Oaxaca state buried an 80-year-old man and his 68-year-old wife.
(AFP, 9/30/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Mexico a group of 20 men in Acapulco, visiting from the western city of Morelia, were abducted by an armed gang as they looked for a place to stay. 2 fellow travelers had left the others to go a store and when they returned their companions were gone. On Nov 3 the bodies of the 18 men were found in a mass grave outside Acapulco.
(AP, 10/2/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Sep 30, Doctors Without Borders said Morocco has expelled hundreds of illegal immigrants, including women and children, to a no-man's-land without food or water after violent raids in several cities. The humanitarian group claimed 600 to 700 people were arrested during raids from Aug. 19 to Sept. 10 and abandoned near the Morocco-Algeria border.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Lawyers said courts in military-ruled Myanmar have given long prison sentences to 13 people, including a Buddhist monk, who were accused of planning bombings and other activities to disrupt upcoming elections.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Pakistani troops fired warning shots at the two NATO helicopters, which responded with a pair of missiles that destroyed the post, killed 2 of the soldiers and wounded the 4 others. Pakistan then blocked a vital supply route for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan in apparent retaliation for the alleged cross-border helicopter strike. On Oct 6 the US apologized for the deaths and wounding of the Pakistani paramilitary troops.
(AP, 9/30/10)(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 30, Puerto Rico police charged a couple with repeatedly raping their six children and forcing them to participate in drug-fueled orgies. Police said the alleged abuse occurred daily from 2001 to 2004. The three girls were 3, 5 and 7 years old at the time. The boys were 9, 10 and 11.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Sweden activists from Nepal, Nigeria, Brazil and Israel were named the winners of this year's Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "alternative Nobel," for work that included fighting to save the Amazon rain forest and bringing health care to Palestinians cut off from services. The recipients included Nigeria's Nnimmo Bassey (42), Catholic Bishop Erwin Kraeutler (71) of Brazil, Shrikrishna Upadhyay (65) of Nepal, and the organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The UN's drug agency said Afghanistan's opium production has fallen by almost half in 2010 due largely to the spread of a disease that damaged poppy plants, but the amount of land used for growing the crop remained the same after two years of declines.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Zimbabwe's Pres. Mugabe told foreign investors that they must accept black Zimbabweans as the major shareholders in their projects, or stay away from the southern African nation.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep, The FBI and its counterparts in Ukraine, the Netherlands and Britain took down a cyber-theft ring they first got wind of in May 2009 when a financial services firm tipped the bureau's Omaha, Neb., office to suspicious transactions. Since then, the FBI's Operation Trident Breach has uncovered losses of $14 million and counting.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Sep, In Croatia Mladen Barisic, a former treasurer of the ruling Croatia Democratic Union (HDZ) was arrested. He told investigators that he used to bring former PM Ivo Sanader large bags of cash channeled from public companies that the pair indirectly controlled.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.60)
2010 Sep, In India Kalamandalam Hemaletha danced for 123 hours in Thrissur, Kerala state. She had practiced an Indian classical dance for 10 hours a day and ran for 28 miles (45 km) to build her stamina. Guinness World Records confirmed the record on Jan 6, 2011.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2010 Sep, Italian police early this month arrested a Frenchman (28) of Algerian origin suspected of having links with Al-Qaida.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep, Kazakhstan completed a restructure of its banking system, brought on its banking crisis in Feb, 2009. The majority of creditors of BTA Bank shared the pain.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.82)
2010 Sep, In Pakistan grainy a nearly six-minute video clip came to light, believed to have been recorded in Swat, showing men in Pakistani military uniforms lining up six blindfolded men in civilian clothes, then shooting them. After a voice says "finish them one by one," one apparent soldier walks over to the men and shoots them again. The other, 53-second clip shows only the executions. An inquiry was ordered on Oct 8.
(AP, 10/2/12)
2010 Sep, Peruvian police officers raided a printing press in Lima's San Juan de Lurigancho district. The operation tallied six different currencies producing just above $27 million. Fake US $100 bills accounted for nearly one-third of the total, while euros accounted for another $4 million. The rest of the bills were Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Venezuelan currency.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101126/wl_time/08599203215200)
Go to Oct 2010
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
End of file
Return to home
2010 Jul 1, Pres. Obama signed into law new sanctions on Iran that, for the first time, will bar from the American market foreign companies that work with Iranian businesses charged with aiding Tehran’s nuclear program.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 1, US government mortgage agency Freddie Mac said that the average fixed-rate for a 30-year mortgage fell this week to 4.58%. This was the lowest since Freddie Mac started keeping track of mortgage rates in 1971.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, A US audit, commissioned by the Commerce Dept., found that the national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) fishery police misspent millions in federal fines on cars for managers, a luxury undercover boat and training in Norway.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 1, California began its fiscal year with no budget in place and a $19 billion deficit.
{California, Economics}
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, In the SF Bay Area most bridge tolls rose by $1 dollar with variable rates on the Bay Bridge depending on travel time.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, Boston researchers claimed they have hit upon genetic sequences that can predict whether you'll live to have "exceptional longevity." The scientists studied over 1,000 centenarians to develop a system of genetic analysis by which they can predict, with a 77-percent accuracy rate, whether someone has a strong chance of "exceptional longevity," according to findings published in the journal Science.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, D.light, a solar powered lantern that could provided light for up to 12 hours after charging in sunlight for one day, won the Ashden award for sustainable energy. It was designed by an Indian company in California and marketed successfully in India.
(www.dlightdesign.com/dataDoc/media/International_winners_Ashden2010_final.pdf)
2010 Jul 1, In Argentina a survivor of the former military junta detention centers was reported to have presented a list of 293 detainees, part of a trove of evidence he rescued from destruction decades ago and hid away. There, in neat columns typed by a police functionary, each "subversive delinquent" is listed alongside a terse decision on their fate, the letters "DF," military shorthand for "disposition final" — death. The 1976-1983 military junta killed at least 13,000 people, though human rights groups believe as many as 30,000 died during what Argentines call the "dirty war."
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Benin Investment Consultancy and Computering Services.(ICC) was forced to close, and more than a dozen of its employees were jailed. More than a hundred thousand people lost their savings in a Ponzi scheme run by the company that appeared to be publicly endorsed by the country's President Boni Yayi. In August the government said that more than 130,000 people gave their savings to the company and altogether lost more than $130 million.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Brazil a statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro was reinaugurated after a renovation costing nearly $4 million. The renovation of the Christ the Redeemer statue, which has towered over the city for nearly 80 years, was financed by Brazilian mining giant Vale and the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Rio.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, An Iranian military court convicted and sentenced to death two suspects charged with torturing and killing three anti-government protesters in prison.
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Iraq 2 soldiers and 2 members of a government-backed Sunni militia fighting Al-Qaida were killed in a day of attacks.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. said it's jumping into the battery business for electric vehicles in a development deal with Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Mexico a massive gun battle between rival drug and migrant trafficking gangs near the US border left 21 people dead near Nogales, Sonora state.
(AP, 7/1/10)(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, In Mexico the sprawling remains of Hurricane Alex drenched much of the north, paralyzing the major city of Monterrey. 12 people were killed.
(AP, 7/1/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A4)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.30)
2010 Jul 1, In Lahore, Pakistan, at least two suicide bombers attacked a popular Muslim shrine minutes apart killing 42 people with some 175 injured. Thousands of people were visiting Data Darbar shrine at the time of the attack. It contains the tomb of a famous Sufi saint and is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.
(AP, 7/1/10)(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, Somali and African Union troops launched a battle against an Al-Qaida-backed group in Mogadishu. A total of 17 people were killed including 16 killed and 45 wounded in the Karan neighborhood.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2, A8)
2010 Jul 1, Sudanese opposition leader Hassan Turabi said his 45-day detention and the shuttering of his party newspaper are proof that the country's historic elections haven't changed the regime's "oppressive" ways. Turabi was arrested in May after sharply criticizing Sudan's historic multiparty elections, saying they were marred by "shameful" fraud.
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, Sweden abolished compulsory military service for men during peacetime.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 1, The international court in Tanzania investigating Rwanda's 1994 genocide said it has sentenced Yussuf Munyakazi (75), a father of 13, to 25 years in jail for killing thousands of people. He was found guilty of "genocide and extermination" involving Tutsis who had sought refuge in Catholic churches.
(AFP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 1, The Turkish military said fighting near the border with Iraq killed 12 Kurdish guerrillas, 2 government soldiers and 3 government-paid village guards. Clashes erupted after rebels fired long range weapons and rockets at a military unit in Slirt province.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A10)
2010 Jul 1, Francisco Chavez Abarca of El Salvador, was arrested in Venezuela, traveling on a false passport, and quickly flown to Cuba to face charges in a 1990s bombing campaign. On Sep 27 Abarca said on state TV that he was hired to plant bombs by Luis Posada Carriles, an 80-year-old anti-Castro militant and former CIA operative.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Jul 2, An appeals court in Washington put government prosecutors on notice that they must show evidence that an Algerian detainee held at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years is actually "part of" al Qaida, or set him free. The decision reversed what had been a rare victory for the government since the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees had the right to contest their incarceration in US courts. Of the 50 cases that have been decided by district courts, the government has prevailed in only 14.
(McClatchy, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, The US Border Patrol in Washington State warned hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail they could face arrest, jail and a $5,000 fine if they cross the US-Canadian border improperly. The 2,650-mile trail stretches north from Mexico, crosses the US border in the Pasayten Wilderness and continues for about nine miles to Manning Provincial Park in British Columbia.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, In California a state appellate court sided with the Schwarzenegger administration in its attempt to temporarily impose the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage on tens of thousands of state workers.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/2/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 2, More than 180,000 people packed into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum over two days for a rave party. A suspected overdose led to the death of a girl (15). Scores of injuries resulted when people tried to force their way closer to the event's five stages.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, The Chicago City Council approved what city officials said is the strictest handgun ordnance in the US.
(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 2, In northern Afghanistan Taliban suicide attackers stormed a four-story house used by an American AID organization in Kunduz, killing four people before dying in a fierce, 6-hour gunbattle with Afghan security forces.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, Dame Beryl Bainbridge, English novelist, died. Her 18 novels included “Injury Time," for which she won the Whitbread Prize in 1977.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.90)
2010 Jul 2, It was reported that grenade attacks in Burundi have killed 8 people and wounded almost 50 over the last month.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In eastern Congo a fuel tanker overturned and burst into flames, sparking a massive fire that killed at least 230 villagers and wounded more than 200 — some of whom had rushed to siphon leaking liquid from the vehicle illegally. (AP, 7/3/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A5)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In junta-ruled Guinea electoral officials announced that a runoff vote would be needed to determine who wins the mineral-rich West African nation's first free election since independence.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 2, In India leading Naxalite Cherkuri Rajkumar, aka Azad, was killed security forces in Andhra Pradesh state.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.44)
2010 Jul 2, Jakarta's annual month-long flora and fauna expo opened. It included sales of the world's most threatened ploughshare tortoise and the critically endangered radiated tortoises, both from Madagascar. While the government has passed legislation banning such illegal trade, dealers continue to blatantly sell endangered species without fear of arrest or prosecution.
(AP, 7/3o/10)
2010 Jul 2, Kenyans expressed outrage after members of parliament this week recommended giving themselves a $175,000 annual pay package as farmworkers averaged $40 per month.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In Kosovo an explosion tore through a Serb protest in Mitrovica fatally injuring one man and leaving 11 others with shrapnel wounds.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, Mexican authorities said they have arrested Jesus Ernesto Chavez (41), a drug-cartel enforcer. Chavez said Lesley Enriquez, a woman who worked in the Mexican border's biggest US consulate, had helped a rival gang obtain American visas, and for that he ordered her killed. Employee Lesley Enriquez (35) and two other people connected to the US consulate in the city of Ciudad Juarez were killed March 13 in attacks that raised concerns that Americans were being caught up in drug-related border violence.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 2, A Panamanian court dropped money laundering charges against former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman. The court argued the charges against Aleman were similar to charges he has faced in Nicaragua.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 2, An unmanned Russian space capsule carrying supplies to the International Space Station failed in a docking attempt. The Progress space capsule was carrying more than two tons of food, water and other supplies for the orbiting laboratory. NASA said the failure was due to an antenna problem. Space station commander Alexander Skvortsov reported the Progress was "rotating uncontrollably" as it neared the space station. The capsule docked successfully with the ISS on July 4.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, In South Africa Jackie Selebi, former state police commissioner, was found guilty of corruption.
(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, The Geneva-based World Food Program declared its work in Niger an "emergency operation" after a survey found a sharp rise in malnutrition rates among young children. WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said 16.7 percent of children under 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition in the African country.
(AP, 7/2/10)
2010 Jul 3, The US government said it is handing out nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that President Barack Obama says will create thousands of jobs and increase the use of renewable energy sources.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In the Gulf of Mexico a Taiwanese converted tanker, dubbed "A Whale" and billed as the world's largest oil skimmer, arrived from Portugal in the Gulf of Mexico for testing. Officials hoped it would scrub 21 million gallons of oil-tainted seawater per day. The US Coast Guard later said it was too big to maneuver around the smaller patches and ribbons of oil.
(AP, 7/03/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A8)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 3, The US Drug Enforcement Administration said it has helped seize a submarine capable of transporting tons of cocaine. DEA officials said that the diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border. Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its maiden voyage. The sophisticated camouflaged vessel has a conning tower, periscope and air-conditioning system. It measured about nine-feet-high from the deck plates to the ceiling and stretched nearly a 100 feet long. The DEA says it was built for trans-oceanic drug trafficking.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, The British government said it has ordered many ministries to plan for spending cuts of up to 40%, far greater than announced in an emergency budget. As Britain bid to slash a record budget deficit, departments had been warned to expect spending cuts of about 25%, but many ministries have now been asked to identify where cuts of 40% could be made.
(AFP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Northumbria, England, Raoul Moat (37), a nightclub bouncer and bodybuilder, seriously injured a policeman and his ex-girlfriend and killed her new partner in and around Newcastle, before apparently fleeing to the nearby Northumbria National Park. One of Britain's biggest ever manhunts ended dramatically on July 10 when Raoul Moat shot himself dead after a six-hour stand-off with armed police.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 3, It was reported that checkpoints in Iraq, set up for fighting insurgents, have turned into shady customs stations where police demand a $9 bribe if a lorry driver’s papers are in order and multiples of that if not.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.46)
2010 Jul 3, In Kyrgyzstan Roza Otunbayeva was sworn in as president. She would hold office for 18 months and would be ineligible to stand for election.
(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A3)(Econ, 7/3/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 3, In Nigeria gunmen attacked two cargo vessels off the coast of the oil-producing Niger Delta, killing one crew member and kidnapping 12 foreign workers. The crew members were seized near Bonny in southern Rivers state. The military believe they were from eastern Europe. The workers were freed 2 days later along with three sailors taken hostage in May.
(Reuters, 7/3/10)(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Syria, Mohammed Oudeh (73), the key planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes, died.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 4, Joey Chestnut (26), of San Jose, Ca., ate 54 hot dogs capturing his 4th straight Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Int’l. Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, NYC.
(www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/04/MNSM1E9I2D.DTL)
2010 Jul 4, It was reported that 5 electricians working for the city of San Francisco spent years allegedly stealing from taxpayers, moonlighting on city time and fraudulently billing to pay for suburban life styles. 5 members of the Hetch Hetchy Power Crew were arrested in 2009. The spree had gone on for about 4 years ending in 2007.
(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 4, In Bellevue, Iowa, a pair of runaway horses, in harness to a wagon, crashed into a Fourth of July parade float and collapsed, ending a rampage that injured 24 people and killed wagon passenger Janet Steines.
(AP, 7/5/10)(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 4, In Texas an air ambulance crashed after takeoff in Alpine killing all 5 people on board including a patient and his wife.
(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 4, In Afghanistan a joint force in Kunduz province discovered rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and a roadside bomb near a mosque. A 2-day drug-sweeping operation ended in the south with security forces killing 63 smugglers and terrorists.
(AP, 7/7/10)(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 4, In the Bahamas fugitive Colton Harris-Moore (19), dubbed the "Barefoot Bandit," crash landed a stolen plane on Great Abaco Island, and eluded police. Harris-Moore, who grew up in the woods of Washington state's Camano Island, has been on the run since escaping from a halfway house more than two years ago. Colton Harris-Moore was arrested on July 11 in northern Eleuthera. He pleaded guilty on July 13 and was deported to face US charges. On June 17,2011, Colton pleaded guilty to 7 charges carrying a prison term of up to 6½ years. On Dec 16 Harris-Moore was sentenced to over 7½ years in prison. On Jan 27, 2012, a US district judge sentenced him to 6½ years in prison, to run concurrent with the December ruling.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/11/10)(AP, 7/13/10)(SFC, 6/18/11, p.A6)(SFC, 12/17/11, p.A7)(SFC, 1/27/12, p.A7)
2010 Jul 4, In Northumbria, England, Raoul Moat (37), a nightclub bouncer and bodybuilder, shot policeman David Rathband as he sat in his patrol car in Newcastle. Rathband lost his sight and was fitted with prosthetic eyes. On Feb 31, 2012, Rathband (44) was found dead at his home.
(AP, 3/1/12)
2010 Jul 4, In London Rafael Nadal reclaimed his Wimbledon title. The match lasted just two hours and 13 minutes before being concluded 6-3 7-5 6-4.
(AP, 7/4/10)
2010 Jul 4, In the Central African Republic Ugandan LRA rebels killed four people and took six hostages in an attack on the village of Mandabazouma.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 4, In central China a fire on a shuttle bus carrying steel factory workers killed 24 people and injured 19. State media later reported that Dong Chuansheng (57), an angry steel worker, had started the shuttle bus fire near Shanghai.
(AP, 7/4/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 4, In Japan Toyota started recalling more than 90,000 luxury Lexus and Crown vehicles over defective engines.
(AP, 7/4/10)
2010 Jul 4, In Lebanon Grand Ayatollah Mohammed-Hussein Fadlallah (b.1935), revered Shiite cleric and one-time mentor to Hezbollah, died in Beirut.
(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 4, Poland’s moderate conservative Bronislaw Komorowski narrowly won the presidential election. Komorowski won 52.6% of the vote, according to results based on 95% of the ballots. Right-wing rival Jaroslaw Kaczynski performed much better than expected.
(Reuters, 7/4/10)
2010 Jul 4, Russia’s NTV, a TV channel controlled by Gazprom, aired “Godfather," a documentary that portrayed Belarus Pres. Lukashenka as a brutal election-rigging, opposition-repressing tyrant.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.53)
2010 Jul 4, In Zimbabwe a collision involving 2 buses and a truck killed 18 people and injured 30 others 50 miles west of Harare.
(SFC, 7/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, US government estimates said the first stage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul would provide coverage to about 1 million uninsured Americans by next year. Many others, more than 100 million people, are getting new benefits that improve their existing coverage.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, The US deported Imam Ahmad Afzali to Saudi Arabia. He had admitted to lying to the FBI during an investigation into a suicide bomb plot against NYC subway stations in 2009.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 5, BP's costs for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill climbed nearly half a billion dollars in the past week, raising the oil giant's tab to just over $3 billion for work on cleaning and capping the gusher and payouts to individuals, businesses and governments. Tar balls from the Gulf oil spill found on a Texas beach were the first evidence that gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the Gulf states.
(AP, 7/06/10)
2010 Jul 5, Newspapers reported that at least $4.2 billion in cash have left Kabul airport in the past three-and-a-half years, raising fresh concerns about corruption in war-torn Afghanistan.
(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Australia's new leader launched a plan to make East Timor a hub for processing asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution across Asia while a debate rages in her country over illegal migration.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Australia Brendan Sokaluk pleaded not guilty to charges that he deliberately started one of the deadly wildfires that swept through southern Australia last year. The fires in Victoria state in February 2009 were Australia's deadliest, killing 173 people and destroying more than 2,000 homes. Brendan Sokaluk is accused of starting one blaze that investigators say killed 10 people.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Belarus signed a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.53)
2010 Jul 5, Brazil’s Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrapped up a state visit to Equatorial Guinea (Republica de Guinea Ecuatorial), which included the signing of multiple cooperation agreements, economic meetings, and festivities.
(PR Newswire, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Ottawa the operator of a dormant Canadian nuclear reactor that once supplied a third of the world's medical isotopes formally applied to restart the plant, saying it was safe again after lengthy repairs. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd shut down the aging Chalk River facility in eastern Ontario in May 2009 after discovering a leak of heavy water, used as a moderator and coolant in the reaction process.
(Reuters, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Canada a fire at a Toronto transformer station knocked out power to much of the city, snarling traffic in the midst of a blistering heatwave. The outage hit around 4:45 p.m. on the hottest day of the year so far in Toronto.
(Reuters, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, The Central African Republic said it has called on the United States for military support to help "neutralize" LRA rebels terrorizing the country.
(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In China Xue Feng (44), an American geologist detained and tortured by China's state security agents over an oil industry database, was sentenced in Beijing to 8 years in jail.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 5, In Cairo, Egypt, religious liberal Nasr Abu Zayd (66), a Koranic scholar declared an apostate for challenging mainstream Muslim views on the holy book, died.
(Reuters, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Authorities in Iceland exhumed the body of American chess champion Bobby Fischer to determine whether he is the father of a 9-year-old girl from the Philippines.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Tbilisi, Georgia, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged US support for the former Soviet state.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, It was reported that three decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings in Iraq have left as many as a million widows. More than 100,000 lost their husbands in the US-led invasion and violent aftermath. The struggling postwar government was of little help.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, Israel dropped its long-standing restrictions on allowing consumer goods into the Gaza Strip but retained limits on desperately needed construction materials. Thousands of marchers brought the cultural and financial capital to a standstill, urging the government to do whatever it takes to win freedom for a soldier captured four years ago by Gaza militants. Near Israel's border with Gaza, thousands more gathered for a concert led by a world-famous conductor to press Hamas to let the Red Cross visit the soldier for the first time.
(AP, 7/05/10)(AP, 7/06/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Kosovo a gunman wounded legislator Petar Miletic (35), a Serb member of Kosovo’s parliament, as he walked out of his home in Mitrovica.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for seven decades before voters threw it out a decade ago, gained some momentum in state elections where the dominant issue was the country's skyrocketing drug violence. Police found the decapitated bodies of three men inside a burned-out car in the drug gang-plagued Mexican state of Sinaloa. The heads had been put on the vehicle's hood.
(McClatchy, 7/05/10)(AP, 7/05/10)
2010 Jul 5, Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency ruled that it lacks sufficient evidence to criminally charge Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima (49) for marrying a 13-year-old Egyptian girl, the daughter of his driver, to whom Yerima allegedly paid a $100,000 dowry.
(AP, 5/11/10)(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, In Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a paramilitary base killing one soldier and wounding at least 7 others. The army said it killed Taliban commander Amir Ullah Mehsud during a clash in Miran Shah.
(SFC, 7/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 5, A Romanian military plane crashed near the Black Sea, killing 10 people and injuring three. The Antonov AN-2 plane with 13 people on board took off for parachuting training and crashed soon after takeoff.
(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 5, In Venezuela Carlos Alberto "Beto" Renteria (65), last remaining fugitive capo of Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel, was arrested after he traveled to Margarita Island. The next day Pres. Chavez announced that would be extradited to the US, which has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. The cartel is accused in a 2004 US indictment of shipping some 500 metric tons of cocaine to the US beginning in 1990.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, Pres. Obama met with Israel’s PM Netanyahu, who was accorded all the trappings of a visiting head of state. Obama and Netanyahu dismissed talk of a rift as wildly unfounded, and Netanyahu pledged concrete, "very robust" steps to revive sluggish Mideast peace efforts with the Palestinians. One of the main outcomes of the summit was the US push for a shift to direct talks with Palestinians.
(AP, 7/6/10)(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, The Obama administration sued Arizona to throw out the state's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law and keep other states from copying it. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix said the law, due to take effect July 29, usurps the federal government's "pre-eminent authority" under the Constitution to regulate immigration.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill extending voter approved mandates for the humane treatment of egg-laying hens in the state.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 6, In California it was reported that researchers have found fish in the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir of San Mateo County containing some of the highest mercury levels in the state. The lake collected rainwater and water from Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy reservoir to provide drinking water to 2.5 million people in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 6, The East Coast roasted under an unrelenting sun as record-setting temperatures soared past 100 from Virginia to Massachusetts, utility companies cranked up power to the limit to cool the sweating masses and railroad tracks were so hot commuter trains had to slow down. The temperature reached 100 in Philadelphia toppling a record set in 1999.
(AP, 7/6/10)(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 6, In New Orleans, Louisiana, oil from the ruptured well was reported to be seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Afghanistan 3 American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the south. A NATO airstrike in Paktika province killed several suspected insurgents and led to the arrest of several others. Coalition and Afghan special forces arrested a Taliban commander in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
(AP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 6, Algerian security forces killed three Islamist militants in a shoot-out southeast of the capital Algiers.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Australia's new PM Julia Gillard ended a three-month freeze on processing Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, and said a bar on Afghan claims was under review.
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain's Queen Elizabeth (84) addressed the UN for the first time since1957. The queen's 10-minute speech to a special session of the General Assembly was finished before Netherlands and Uruguay returned to their soccer match in Cape Town. Netherlands progressed to the finals after beating Uruguay 3-2.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain said it will hold a judge-led inquiry into allegations that its spies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects held by the US and other allies. The government also announced it will pay compensation to detainees found to have been mistreated in the global pursuit of terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain’s Guardian newspaper, citing unnamed political sources, said British troops will turn over responsibility for one of the deadliest districts in southern Afghanistan to Americans in a reconfiguration of NATO-led forces in the area, and that Britain would soon withdraw its 1,000 soldiers from the Sangin district of Helmand province, where they would be replaced by US troops who now outnumber them in Helmand. Britain’s Defense Secretary Liam Fox confirmed the announcement the next day.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, A Toronto man was convicted of attempting to illegally export nuclear-related technology to Iran, in the first Canadian criminal case resulting from UN sanctions against the Middle East nation. An Ontario judge found Mahmoud Yadegari guilty of attempting to export pressure transducers, which can be used in the building of both nuclear plants and weapons.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, China priced the IPO of Agricultural Bank of China and proceeded to raise $19.2 billion in one the world’s largest IPO to date.
(www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/business/global/07ipo.html)
2010 Jul 6, Chinese police found a Catholic priest and a nun murdered in northern China, but the motive was not immediately clear. Joseph Shulai Zhang (55) and Sister Mary Wei Yanhui (32) were apparently stabbed to death at the nursing home where they worked in the city of Wuhai in Inner Mongolia. Monk Zhang Wenping (43) was arrested on July 8 in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia region. Wenping told police that he had personal grudges against the priest and nun.
(AFP, 7/8/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Egypt Mahmoud Taha Swellem, a disgruntled employee of an Egyptian construction company, opened fire on his colleagues, killing six and wounding 16, before surrendering. Swellem, a driver, pulled over the company bus in western Cairo, whipped out an assault rifle and showered his passengers with bullets.
(AP, 7/6/10)(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 6, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Iran to stop the execution of three people including a woman who faces death by stoning for adultery. Ashton said she was "deeply concerned" about reports that the executions of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, who was sentenced to hang for a murder he committed when he was a minor, and the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, "may be imminent." She also renewed her call for Iran to drop the death sentence against Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurd who awaits execution for being an "enemy of God."
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, An EU lawmaker urged member governments to open their secret files on UFOs. Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of the European Parliament, said that the EU needs its own "X Files" archive where anyone can see information on UFOs, including data gathered by the military.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In France Pres. Sarkozy came under mounting pressure over allegations that he took illegal cash donations from Liliane Bettencourt, owner of the L’Oreal cosmetics firm and the richest woman in France.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 6, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, faced with a ballooning deficit in the health care system, decided to raise premiums and cut into the profits of doctors, dentists, hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The decision came after months of wrangling within Merkel's coalition over a fundamental overhaul of the system and after a series of political blows to the chancellor and plummeting support in the polls.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Iraq Army Specialist Bradley Manning, an American soldier suspected of leaking a military video of an attack on unarmed men, was charged with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data and putting national security at risk [see July 12, 2007]. 9 Shiite Muslims taking part in the pilgrimage in Baghdad were killed and dozens were wounded in mortar attacks and roadside bomb explosions.
(AP, 7/6/10)(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, The Israeli military indicted a soldier on a charge of manslaughter during last year's war in the Gaza Strip, the most serious criminal charge to come out of an internal investigation into the offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory. The soldier was among 3 troops, including a field commander, to face new disciplinary action stemming from their conduct during the offensive, which has drawn international condemnation for its civilian death toll.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Indian Kashmir one person was killed by drowning while fleeing security forces and a woman (25) was killed by a stray bullet at the window of her home.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 6, The bodyguard of a Mexican state governor was ordered jailed pending an investigation into allegations that he belongs to a drug cartel, one of a string of scandals that plagued weekend elections. Ismael Ortega Galicia, a bodyguard for Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez, was detained for questioning over the weekend after the newspaper Reforma reported he was on a US Treasury Department list of key members of the Gulf or Zetas gangs.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In northern Mexico about 18,000 people were evacuated from Ciudad Anahuac, where authorities feared a dam would overflow from rains that accompanied Hurricane Alex. The Venustiano Carranza dam, about 70 km (43 miles) away, reached capacity after days of heavy rains, including remnants of the hurricane, which slammed into Mexico's northern Gulf coast last week.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In South Africa Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that pupils will have the option of learning in their mother language in their first three years of schooling. Children were currently taught either in English or Afrikaans, both languages inherited from the eras of colonialism and apartheid.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In Pamplona, Spain, tens of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners jammed a historic city plaza and sprayed each other with wine as a firecracker rocket blasted off to launch the famed San Fermin bull-running festival. The 9-day street drinking party got under way at midday with the traditional shout from the city hall balcony of "Viva San Fermin!," followed seconds later by the firing of the firecracker known as the chupinazo.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, Sudan intelligence services imposed press censorship, which was lifted in September, six months ahead of a key referendum on independence for south Sudan.
(AFP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, A Tunisian appeals court upheld a prison sentence in absentia of four years and one month for journalist Fahem Boukaddous. He had covered protests that turned violent in 2008 over high unemployment in the Gafsa mining region.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 6, Venezuela announced plans to extradite a Salvadoran man wanted by Cuba as a suspect in a series of bombings. Cuba believes Chavez Abarca placed an explosive that damaged a hotel disco on April 2, 1997, and another bomb later that month that failed to explode on the 15th floor of the same hotel. Cuban officials also suspect him in a 1997 bombing of a Cuban government office.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 7, At a US military tribunal Ibrahim Gitmo detainee Ahmed Mahmoud, a Sudanese man who was said to have worked in Afghanistan as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard, driver, cook and paymaster, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.23)
2010 Jul 7, In Philadelphia, Pa., a 250-foot barge collided on the Delaware River with a stalled amphibious sightseeing boat. 2 visitors from Hungary were killed. In 2011 tug pilot Matt Devlin agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter following evidence that he was talking on a cell phone during the accident.
(AP, 7/9/10)(SFC, 7/15/11, p.A7)
2010 Jul 7, In Brazil Bruno Souza, a star goalkeeper and captain of defending club champion Flamengo, surrendered to police to face questioning in connection with the disappearance and suspected death of his ex-lover, Eliza Samudio, last seen alive on June 7. Police believed Bruno was in a home near Belo Horizonte home with Samudio at the time of her murder, and that her body was later cut into pieces, some of which were fed to dogs in a bid to cover the murder.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, Police in northeast England detained Abid Naseer (24), the alleged ringleader of an al-Qaida bomb plot, at the request of the US government. He was among 12 people arrested last year in raids across northern England. All were released without charge.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Britain scientists at a top research unit embroiled in a row over climate research were cleared of dishonesty, but their lack of openness was criticized. The Independent Climate Change Email Review found nothing in the emails to undermine reports from the United Nations' climate change panel.
(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, China executed the former top justice official in the southwestern city of Chongqing, the highest ranking person caught in a massive crackdown on violent gangs and corrupt officials who protect them. Wen Qiang (55), former director of the Chongqing Municipal Judicial Bureau, was convicted in April of corruption charges involving organized crime.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Cuba promised the Roman Catholic Church it will free 52 political prisoners, slashing the number held by nearly a third in what would be the communist-led island's largest release of dissidents since Pope John Paul II visited in 1998.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 7, East Timor's Pres. Jose Ramos Horta said he supports in principle an Australian plan to turn his country into a regional center for processing asylum seekers but does not want his tiny, impoverished nation to become an "island prison."
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, European Union lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to cap bankers' short-term cash bonuses from next year, a move that European leaders hope other parts of the world will follow.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, A French court convicted Manuel Noriega of money-laundering and sentenced Panama's former dictator to seven years in jail after he spent two decades in a US prison.
(AFP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Germany's interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said his country plans to take in two inmates from the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Iranian media reported that the Veil and Modesty Festival, a fashion organization, has issued a new list of culturally appropriate haircuts for men, possibly indicating a new crackdown on male attire after years of strict rules for women, Iranian media reported.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Iraq militants targeted the homes of security forces west of Baghdad, blowing them up and killing three family members despite heightened security around the capital for a Shiite religious occasion. In a separate attack in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora in southern Baghdad, police Maj. Abdul-Rahman Sobhi was killed when a bomb attached to his car detonated as he drove to work. Nearly 60 people were killed in attacks in and around Baghdad, including 35 by a suicide bomber who targeted pilgrims heading to a mosque in northern Baghdad. Two people were killed near Ramadi, when insurgents blew up the houses of three policemen.
(AP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 7, Israel said that its moves to ease its blockade on Gaza do not include relaxing regulations on Palestinians looking to travel out of the enclave. Israel's military released maps and aerial photographs showing what it described as a network of Hezbollah weapons depots and command centers inside villages in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border.
(AFP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, A Tokyo court convicted a New Zealand activist of assault and obstructing Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, and sentenced him to a suspended prison term. Peter Bethune (45) was also found guilty on three other charges: trespassing, vandalism and possession of a knife. Bethune was deported 2 days later.
(AP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Indian Kashmir 2 people were killed and anger increased when security forces beat people in funeral processions.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 7, In Mexico a judge acquitted Juan Llaca Diaz, a man charged with dealing in precursor drug chemicals and allegedly linked to the bust of a Chinese-Mexican businessman who hid $205 million at his Mexico City mansion.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, A Mexican air force helicopter crashed in the western state of Jalisco, killing three military personnel on board.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 7, Royal Dutch Shell said it has begun production at a major project in Nigeria that should eventually provide up to 70,000 barrels of oil per day and help boost electricity for the power-starved nation.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 7, The UN WHO said at least 2,000 lead-poisoning victims in northern Nigeria may require treatment to remove brain-damaging lead. The poisoning was believed to be related to the processing of lead-rich ore for the extraction of gold.
(SFC, 7/8/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 7, A Peruvian judge halted the expulsion of Paul McAuley (62), a British religious activist. He was accused by the government of inciting unrest among indigenous groups protesting environmental damage to the Amazon rain forest.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In the Philippines officials said Nicanor Faeldon (44), a rebel soldier accused of leading two failed coup attempts, has turned himself in to authorities after 3 years on the run. Faeldon, a former bomb making trainer with the marines, was accused of helping lead 300 soldiers in taking over the upscale Oakwood Hotel and a nearby shopping center in Manila's financial district of Makati in July 2003, rigging the area with bombs.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Poland Warsaw district court Judge Tomasz Calkiewicz ordered that Uri Brodsky, a Mossad agent, be extradited to Germany on charges of forgery. Brodsky was suspected of helping fake a German passport that was used by a member of a hit squad believed to be behind the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Thailand police said Russian pianist and composer Mikhail Vasilievich Pletnev, founder of the Russian National Orchestra, has been charged with raping a 14-year-old boy at a beach resort.
(SFC, 7/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 7, A Yemeni court convicted two al-Qaida militants for the killing of senior police and army officers and sentenced them to death. Mubarak el-Shabawni (23) and Mansour Salem (18), arrested last December, denounced the verdict and shouted 'God is Great' afterward.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 8, Cleveland Basketball star LeBron James said to a national TV audience. "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat." Once James shared his secret, fans poured out of the same downtown bars and restaurants that have thrived during these tough economic times. A few set fire to his No. 23 jersey while others threw rocks at the 10-story-tall billboard featuring James with his head tossed back and arms pointing skyward.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, US District Court Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bars the federal government from recognizing gay marriage, is unconstitutional.
(www.aolnews.com/tag/Joseph-Tauro/)
2010 Jul 8, In California a Los Angeles jury found BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The verdict sparked a riot in downtown Oakland, Ca., with at least 50-100 people arrested for smashing windows and looting.
(SFC, 7/9/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 8, The curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, which has offered mid-career Nieman fellowships since 1938, said that a consular official at the US Embassy in Bogota told him that Colombian journalist Hollman Morris has been ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the "Terrorist activities" section of the USA Patriot Act. Hollman has been highly critical of ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, Zap Inc., a Santa Rosa, Ca., electric vehicle manufacturer, announced a merger with China’s Jonway Automobile Co. Ltd. Zap Jonway will be 51% owned by Zap.
(SFC, 7/8/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 8, US federal researchers said that they have identified a pair of naturally occurring antibodies that are able to kill more than 90% of all strains of the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 7/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 8, In California Robert de Heer (b.1923), real estate broker, died in San Rafael. He created the Realty Bluebook, which became a standard for real estate people nationwide. He also devised a standard purchase order, which started with one page and grew to 7 to reflect changes in real estate law.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 8, Dr. Thomas Peebles (b.1921), measles researcher, died at his home in Port Charlotte, Fla. His work in the 1950s enabled researchers to develop a vaccine against measles.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.C5)
2010 Jul 8, In Afghanistan two international troops died in insurgent attacks as violence spiraled across the country. NATO forces overnight captured a suspected Taliban-linked supplier of bomb-making materials in Khost province.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Argentina some of the most notorious figures of Argentina's "dirty war" were convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 22 people at the beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. A judge handed down the sentences for Gen. Luciano Menendez and former police intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz: life in prison for crimes against humanity committed at a secret detention center in provincial Tucuman. Two former police officers, brothers Luis Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido, were sentenced to 18 and 3 years, respectively.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, Australian police investigated the mysterious mass poisoning of seven million tomato, eggplant and other crops which is expected to send prices soaring. Detectives probed whether vandals or a competitor with a grudge had put herbicide in sprinklers at a nursery near the northeastern city of Cairns, wiping out 16 million tons of produce, mostly tomatoes.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, A British court in London convicted Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan and Waheed Zaman of conspiracy to murder in a case linked to a 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic jet planes.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, Canada named David Johnston (69), president of the University of Waterloo, to become the country's next acting head of state, who will have the final say in settling constitutional disputes.
(Reuters, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Chile's Supreme Court upheld murder convictions for the dictatorship's former secret police chief and his top agents in the 1974 assassination of Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife. The court also reduced Manuel Contreras' life sentence to just 20 years in prison.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In northwest China local authorities said floods triggered by torrential rain in a remote part of Qinghai province have killed 25 people. According to the China News Service, the government has recorded 483 flood-related deaths in China so far this year, with 255 people still missing.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, The International Criminal Court at The Hague suspended Congolese militia chief Thomas Lubanga's trial and rapped prosecutors for abusing court processes and ignoring judges' orders.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Cuban opposition activist Guillermo Farinas ended his 134-day hunger strike, following signs the communist government is making good on its promise to release 52 political prisoners. The court also reduced Manuel Contreras' life sentence to just 20 years in prison, reflecting a compromise between the right and left over how to punish "dirty war" crimes.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In France exiled Darfur rebel leader Abdelwahid Nur announced his decision to join peace talks brokered by Qatar.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Iran at least two people were arrested in Tehran's grand bazaar, the third day of a major strike that has alarmed the authorities. A wave of anti-tax strikes by merchants in Tehran unsettled government authorities.
(http://tinyurl.com/24nw65k)(SFC, 7/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 8, In Iraq three separate roadside bombings in eastern and northern Baghdad left 14 people dead and at least 63 wounded. The attacks targeted the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who defied violence to take part in the final day of a Shiite religious holiday.
(AP, 7/8/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Israel police arrested overnight a pair of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men suspected of trying to smuggle $1 million of pure cocaine into Israel from Brazil. More than 15,000 Israelis marched into Jerusalem and rallied at a park downtown for the government to conclude a deal for the release of a captive soldier held by Palestinian militants.
(AP, 7/8/10)(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Libya said that it has granted some 400 Eritreans permission to stay after human rights group warnings that refugees and asylum seekers among them risked abuse if forcibly repatriated.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Mexico 4 suspects were killed in a shootout with police in the border state of Coahuila. 5 civilian bystanders were wounded.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, Mozambique’s transport minister said in a report that his country will overcome a shipping bottleneck to export its vast coal deposits by finding ways for barges to navigate the Zambezi River.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Norway 2 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested for what Norwegian and US officials said was a terrorist plot linked to similar plans to bomb New York's subway and blow up a shopping mall in England. A 3rd suspect was arrested in Germany. Authorities later said the ringleader of the plot is Mikael Davud (39), an Uighur who came to Norway in 1999 as part of a UN refugee program and then became a Norwegian citizen eight years later. Davud was arrested along with suspected accomplices Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd (37), and Uzbek national, David Jakobsen (31). Norwegian and Danish police later said the 3 were likely planning an attack against a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. Jakobsen was released on Oct 15 after prosecutors revealed that he had been a police informant in the case. Jakobsen still faced terrorism charges because the allegations against the group rely partly on events that took place before he approached police last year.
(AP, 7/8/10)(AP, 8/29/10)(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Jul 8, In western Panama striking banana plantation workers and police clashed, leaving one man dead and 100 people hurt. A 2nd man was killed by police on July 10.
(AP, 7/8/10)(Reuters, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 8, Rwandan authorities arrested Agnes Uwimana, director of Umurabyo, a privately owned newspaper, on charges of incitement, denial of the 1994 genocide and contempt of the head of state.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Switzerland an experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test flight successfully, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Uruguay 12 inmates burned to death in an overcrowded prison, just as the country’s congress debated a law to put the army in charge of prison security and relieve the pressure on civilian prisons by moving some inmates into military installations.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 9, The US and Russia orchestrated the largest spy swap since the Cold War, exchanging 10 spies arrested in the US for four convicted in Russia in a tightly choreographed diplomatic dance at Vienna's airport.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, US regulators shut down 2 banks in Maryland, bringing to 88 the number of failed US banks this year.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.D3)
2010 Jul 9, US Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal that included a call to end US aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 9, Google said China has renewed its license to operate a website, preserving the search giant's toehold in the most populous Internet market after it gave up an attempt to skirt Beijing's Web censorship.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In California scuba divers began killing invasive Asian clams in Lake Tahoe. Long rubber mats were laid over half an acre in a test effort starve the clams of oxygen.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.C2)
2010 Jul 9, Aid agency Oxfam warned that the food crisis gripping the Sahel region of Africa was reaching disastrous levels and called on governments and the international community to act now. The crisis stretched across the region taking in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and northern Nigeria.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Afghanistan an explosion ripped into a convoy of NATO and Afghan forces in eastern Nangarhar province, killing one civilian and wounding nine others. Australian Pvt. Nathan Bewes was killed just before midnight by a homemade bomb, the 6th Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan in just over a month.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Chinese state media said authorities have seized 76 tons of milk powder tainted with melamine, the same chemical responsible for the deaths of six babies two years ago.
(AFP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Iraq a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into an Iraqi army check point in western Baghdad, killing six people and injuring 20.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Italy's Fiat, which controls Chrysler Group LCC, said it will proceed with a euro700 million ($886 million) investment to move production of its new Panda compact from Poland to a plant near Naples despite an unresolved dispute with an Italian union.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Indian-ruled Kashmir thousands of residents defied a strict curfew prompting police to fire rubber bullets and lob tear gas as fresh rebel attacks injured two policemen. Government forces arrested dozens of suspected separatists in an attempt to stem civil unrest.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Libyan organizers said a charity headed by Saif Al-Islam Kadhafi, the second son of Libyan leader Moammar Kadhafi, is sending an aid boat from Greece to Gaza to break the Israeli "siege." Organizers of the initiative had earlier said the 25-year-old ship, owned by Piraeus-based ACA Shipping Corporation, was called Hope. The ship set sail from Greece on July 10 and headed for Egypt.
(AFP, 7/9/10)(AFP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 9, Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague cited Ratko Mladic's diaries, seized in a raid on his wife's Belgrade home in February, in a motion to reopen the trial of former Bosnian Croat political leader Jadranko Prlic and five other political and military Croat officials that ended two months ago.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Pakistan a pair of suicide bombers struck outside a government office in the Mohmand tribal region, killing 102 people and wounding 168 near the Yakaghund village office of Rasool Khan.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 9, In Puerto Rico hundreds of US drug agents and local police swept through public housing projects at dawn on the island's west coast in what officials described as the largest operation of its kind in the American territory.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, Slovakia’s Pres. Ovan Gasparovic appointed a new center-right government led by Iveta Radicova, the country’s first female prime minister.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 9, South Korean prosecutors raided the office of PM Chung Un-chan over allegations that its ethics officials illegally investigated a businessman two years ago over the posting of an Internet video critical of the president.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 9, South Sudan's army killed seven militia fighters in a raid on their camps. Youths led an SPLA division to two hideouts used by a militia loyal to Akol's SPLM- DC (Democratic Change) party in Upper Nile.
(Reuters, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, In the Gulf of Mexico hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil were allowed to spew into the fouled waters while BP engineers prepared to install a new containment system they hope will catch it all in the coming days.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, In Afghanistan 6 American service members and at least a dozen civilians died in attacks in the east and south. Afghan and int’l. forces in a combined commando unit killed a Taliban operative and captured 8 others in an overnight raid in Paktia province, though local villagers claimed the men were innocent civilians. In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, thousands of Afghan's staged an anti-US protest over another night raid that killed two security guards. Insurgents in Kunduz province overran a checkpoint near the northern border with Tajikistan, killing at least six of the nine border police stationed there. 3 border police stationed at the checkpoint were missing. In Kunduz militants killed Malem Nazir, the chief of Qala Zal district and his body guard by remotely detonating a bomb as he passed in his car. Five other police died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in northeastern Badakshan province, next to Kunduz. A joint Afghan-international force killed a Taliban commander, Malauwi Shahbuddin, along with several armed insurgents in the Shahjoy district of Zabul province. A provincial spokesman said 13 Taliban were killed in the attack.
(AP, 7/10/10)(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, It was reported that Amazon river dolphins were being killed by fishermen for bait and that the population was dropping 7 percent a year. The gentle and curious dolphins were easy targets for nets and harpoons as they swim fearlessly up to fishing boats.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, One of Britain's biggest ever manhunts ended dramatically when Raoul Moat shot himself dead after a six-hour stand-off with armed police in Rothbury, Northumberland.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)(AFP, 3/1/12)
2010 Jul 10, In Colombia 3 soldiers were killed after entering a minefield in the northeastern province of Arauca.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 10, Cuban church officials released the names of 12 more political prisoners who will be freed and sent into exile in the coming days under a landmark agreement with President Raul Castro's government, bringing to 17 the total number of jailed dissidents who have accepted asylum in Spain.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, Baghdad officials said 58,000 stray dogs have been killed in and around the Iraqi capital over the past three months as part of a campaign to combat dog attacks.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, In Jamaica Sugar Minott (b.1956), a smooth-voiced singer and producer who helped to popularize reggae music, died.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, Mexican marines raided a house in the Pacific resort of Acapulco and captured Gamaliel Aguirre Tavira (35), a suspected regional chief of a drug gang involved in a bloody turf war in the center and south of Mexico. Authorities said Tavira is a close ally of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a Texas-born gang boss known as "La Barbie" who leads one of the two factions fighting over control of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 10, Myanmar state media reported that a new party formed by renegade members of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's disbanded party has received a permit to participate in Myanmar's first elections in two decades.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, North Korea expressed willingness to return to international nuclear disarmament talks, a sign it is satisfied with the UN Security Council's decision to avoid directly blaming it for the sinking of a South Korean warship.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, Northern and southern Sudanese leaders said they would consider forming a confederation or a common market if southerners chose to declare independence in an upcoming referendum.
(Reuters, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, In Spain more than a million people gathered in northeastern Barcelona to demand greater regional autonomy for Catalonia and protest a recent court ruling forbidding this prosperous region from calling itself a nation.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 10, The Vatican said it had posted its 3rd straight annual financial loss, registering a 4.1 million euro ($5.2 million) deficit for 2009.
(SSFC, 7/11/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 11, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals presented a study that demonstrated a new brain scan to detect the brain plaques in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 11, A total solar eclipse drew an 11,000-km (6,800-mile) arc over the Pacific, plunging remote territories into darkness.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Afghanistan a US service member died following an insurgent attack.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In China new rules went into effect requiring officials in government and state companies to report personal details from assets to the whereabouts of spouses and children. The new regulations were similar to rules released in April governing senior Communist Party officials, but have been expanded to include everyone from midlevel officials and up. Nonparty members and those working for state-owned business would now also be required to submit their details.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Colombia 10 soldiers were killed after entering a minefield in the northeastern province of Arauca. Pres. Uribe said 12 rebels, part of the security cordon for rebel leader Alfonso Cano, were killed in the southwestern mountains.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, Iran said it has produced around 20 kg of 20% enriched uranium, in defiance of the world powers who want Tehran to suspend the controversial nuclear work.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Iran a judicial official said that the controversial death sentence by stoning for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery, will not be implemented for now. She was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband, for which a court in Tabriz, in northwestern Iran, sentenced her to 99 lashes. Later that year she was also convicted of adultery, despite having retracted a confession which she claims was made under duress.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, An Iraqi judge said a court has ordered the arrest of 39 members of members of the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), an exiled Iranian opposition group, accusing them of crimes against humanity in helping Saddam Hussein to crush a revolt almost two decades ago.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Japan the center-left government of new PM Naoto Kan lost its majority in parliament's upper house in elections, spelling the threat of legislative paralysis.
(AFP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Kashmir a rigid curfew was lifted from most of the country, but shops and businesses remained shut after separatists called for a strike to protest Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Nigeria gunmen kidnapped 4 journalists traveling through the country's oil-rich southern delta. The kidnappers made a ransom demand of $1.67 million. The journalists were freed on July 18 with no ransom paid.
(AP, 7/12/10)(AFP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 11, In South Africa President Jacob Zuma convened leaders from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Togo, Mozambique, the Netherlands and neighboring Zimbabwe at an education summit, before inviting them to join him at the World Cup final. The summit was the culmination of 1GOAL, a campaign supported by football's governing body FIFA to use the attention the World Cup commands to publicize the need to get more children into school.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In South Africa Spain beat Holland for soccer’s World Cup.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Sudan peacekeepers said a total of 221 people died in tribal fighting and other violence in Sudan's Darfur in June, as the region's two main rebel groups continued to shun peace talks.
(Reuters, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 11, In Uganda twin bombings in Kampala hit crowds watching the World Cup final killing 76 people. One of the targets was an Ethiopian restaurant, a nation despised by Somali al-Shabab militants. On July 30 three were charged with terrorism and murder. By Aug 17 had officials charged 32 people in connection with the bombings. One suspect, Haruna Luyima, was supposed to set off a bomb at the dance club but changed his mind at the last minute. Luyima told a news conference in August that he did so because he didn't want to kill innocent people. Police later found his discarded mobile phone, a huge lead that helped unravel the plot.
(AP, 7/12/10)(AP, 7/30/10)(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A2)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Jul 11, Yemen’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that police in Hadramut had arrested 10 militants suspected of being al-Qaida members.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 12, Shahram Amiri, a missing Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran claims was abducted by the US, took refuge at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and asked to return to his homeland. Amiri (32) disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Police in Los Angeles County discovered thousands of pounds of marijuana in a railroad car that entered this month from Mexico.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 12, In New Jersey Lassissi Afolabi (47), a man from the West African nation Togo, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for his role in the smuggling of girls and women who were forced to work at local hair braiding salons. He pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with his ex-wife and her son to commit forced labor.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, The American branch of the YMCA announced that it would become “The Y."
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 12, In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Robert E. Reza (37), angered by a child custody dispute, shot and wounded his girlfriend and killed 2 employees at her place of work before killing himself.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 12, BP Engineers worked to replace a cap over a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after reporting good progress in attempts to contain the worst environmental disaster in US history. Expected to take between four and seven days, the round-the-clock work began at midday on July 10 when the old, less efficient cap was ripped off a fractured pipe a mile down on the sea floor by robotic submarines.
(AFP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Utah a list of over 1,300 alleged illegal immigrants living in the state was received by law enforcement and politicians around the state. On Jul 16 the ACLU of Utah commended the swift action of Governor Gary Herbert and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in responding to the legitimate public outcry and widespread demand that they investigate the extraordinary breach of privacy by state employees, which became publicly known earlier this week. 2 women, working for the state’s main welfare agency, had recently sent the stolen names, addresses, Social Security numbers - and even the due dates of expectant mothers - of some 1,300 mostly Latino people whom they suspected of being in the state illegally, to newspapers along with a letter urging their immediate deportation.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vjl89x0)(Econ, 8/7/10, p.25)(http://tinyurl.com/334kjoh)
2010 Jul 12, Harvey Pekar (70), creator of the “American Splendor" comic book series, died. His friend R. Crumb helped him illustrate the first issue in the series in 1976. In 2003 it was made into an acclaimed film that starred Paul Giamatti as Mr. Pekar.
(SFC, 7/13/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 12, A Bangladesh government minister said 40 people, suspected of killings, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war, have been barred from leaving the country ahead of a planned war crimes trial.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Brazil Paulo Moura (77), clarinet jazz great and Latin Grammy winner, died after a fight against cancer.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Britain sentenced the three final conspirators in a plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners and kill thousands of people to at least 20 years each in prison, bringing a long-running legal saga to an end.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, The Church of England national assembly decided that women should be allowed to become bishops, making only minor concessions to theological conservatives who have threatened to break away over the issue.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, A Canada Steamship Lines vessel ran aground near the Cote Sainte-Catherine canal lock south of Montreal. The Montreal Gazette newspaper said the accident punctured the ship's fuel tank, leaking between 50 and 200 tons of oil into the surrounding waters.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, In China a strike began at the Atsumitec Co. in the city of Foshan, with about 90 of the plant's 200 workers stopping work to demand a nearly 60% pay increase. The plant supplied parts for Japan's Honda Motor. On July 14 nearly all of the remaining employees joined the stoppage in response to a threat from factory management to fire the strikers.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Honduras 4 people were killed and another injured following a week of heavy rains. 3 people died in various parts of the country after being hit by lightning last week.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Iran said it has reached a final agreement with merchants on raising taxes following protests that flared in Tehran's main bazaar earlier this week. The new rate would set a top tax bracket of around 17 percent. The strike continued into a 2nd week.
(AP, 7/12/10)(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 12, A group of 91 Israelis, wounded by Hezbollah rockets during the 2006 war, sued the Arab news network Al-Jazeera for $1.2 billion in a New York court for allegedly aiding the Lebanese guerrillas. The suit claimed the Qatar-based news network intentionally violated Israel's military censorship regulations and reported the precise locations of rocket strikes in Israel in live broadcasts during the monthlong 2006 war.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, Israeli archaeologists said a newly discovered clay fragment from the 14th century BC is the oldest example of writing ever found in antiquity-rich Jerusalem. Dig director Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University said the 2-centimeter-long fragment bears an ancient form of writing known as Akkadian wedge script.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Indian Kashmir shops, schools and offices were shut for a second day as politicians met to discuss how to end weeks of violent and deadly street protests against security forces.
(AFP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Mexico 3 assailants died in a shootout with soldiers in the border city of Reynosa. The soldiers reportedly came under fire while on patrol, returned fire and seized three rifles at the scene.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Northern Ireland more than 50,000 Protestants assembled at 18 marching locations across this British territory of 1.8 million. They paraded under banners depicting the July 12, 1690, victory of Protestant King William of Orange versus the forces of his rival for the British throne, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne south of Belfast. Some Protestant areas suffered violence early in the morning during eve-of-parade celebrations around hundreds of makeshift bonfires. 27 officers suffered mostly minor injuries during street clashes the previous evening with more than 200 masked Irish Catholics. Fresh rioting by Catholics opposed to Protestant marches in Belfast injured another 28 police officers.
(AP, 7/12/10)(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, In the Philippines when Canadian Geoffrey Alan Bennun (60) and his Filipino girlfriend were shot to death after a robber broke into their hotel room. Four days later, Briton James Bolton Porter (51) and his girlfriend were killed by a gunman in their house in Angeles' Malabanas village. About a week later a gunman killed American Albert Mitchell (70), a veteran of the US Air Force, along with his Filipino wife, Janet (53), and three Filipino staff inside their Angeles home [see July 27].
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 12, Polish priest Henryk Jankowski (73), who gained prominence in the 1980s by supporting Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement but who later saw his reputation marred by anti-Semitism and suspicions of pedophilia, died in Gdansk.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, Two Russian curators who angered the Russian Orthodox Church with an exhibition that included images of Jesus Christ portrayed as Mickey Mouse and Vladimir Lenin were convicted of inciting religious hatred and fined, but not sentenced to prison.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Russia's Dagestan region gunmen killed two policemen in separate shootings, including Lt. Rasul Magomedov, whose father, mother and sister died in previous attacks.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, The International Criminal Court charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in Darfur, a move that will pile further diplomatic pressure on his isolated regime.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, The Swiss government declared renowned film director Roman Polanski a free man after rejecting a US request to extradite him on a charge of having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl. The Swiss mostly blamed US authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about Polanski's sentencing procedure in 1977-1978.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Uganda investigators found an unexploded suicide vest with ball bearings in a disco hall in Kampala, suggesting that militants had planned a third bombing during the World Cup final. Four foreign suspects were arrested in connection with the find.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 12, In the US Virgin Islands a Puerto Rican tourist (14) was killed in front of her horrified family when she was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight attributed to warring gangs.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, Venezuelan intelligence agents detained Alejandro Pena Esclusa, a government opponent, on suspicion of links to a Salvadoran man accused of bombings in Cuba. His wife accused authorities of planting explosives while her husband was handcuffed and she was in another part of the apartment.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 12, A Zimbabwean high court released Farai Maguwu, a rights activist charged with endangering Zimbabwe's economic interests by highlighting abuses at diamond mines. He had been arrested on June 3.
(AFP, 7/12/10)(Econ, 6/26/10, p.48)
2010 Jul 13, A US federal appeals court struck down the government’s long-standing prohibition against indecency on broadcast television and radio ruling that the policy was unconstitutionally vague.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 13, The US Defense Department announced that Mohammed Odaini (26), a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, has been transferred to his homeland of Yemen. Odaini, also known as Mohammed Hassen, was 17 when he was first captured in Pakistan at an alleged al-Qaeda safe house in Faisalabad.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, US first-time adult passport fees rose to $135. Renewal fees rose to $100 from $75. The cost for an adult passport card rose to $55 from $45 for adults.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 13, A US law enforcement official said the FBI's investigation into a Russian spy ring that operated in the United States has resulted in another Russian being detained, and he soon will be deported.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Oakland, Ca., laid off 80 police officers after negotiations between city officials and union leaders failed to agree on job security.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 13, After securing a new, tight-fitting cap on top of the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, BP prepared to begin tests to see if it will hold and stop fresh oil from polluting the waters for the first time in nearly three months.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, George Steinbrenner (80), who rebuilt the NY Yankees into a sports empire with a mix of bluster and big bucks that polarized fans all across America, died in Tampa, Fl.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, A renegade Afghan soldier killed 3 British army Gurkha troops in a "suspected premeditated attack" in Helmand province. The attacker remained at large. A suicide attacker slammed a car bomb into the gate of the headquarters of the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police in Kandahar. Minutes later, insurgents opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Three US troops, an Afghan policeman and five civilians died in the attack. Insurgents manning a makeshift checkpoint pulled Saleh Mohammad, a member of a local tribal council in Khas Uruzgan district, out of his vehicle and shot him dead in the road.
(AFP, 7/13/10)(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 13, Australian police said they have seized 240 kg (530 pounds) of cocaine worth 84 million dollars ($73 million) which was stashed in paving stones. 4 men including an American, a Mexican and two Australians were arrested over the haul, Australia's fifth biggest cocaine seizure, which was discovered in two shipping containers sent to Melbourne from Mexico.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In western China landslides slammed into three mountain hamlets, killing 17 people and leaving 44 missing, while crews drained a fast-rising reservoir in another part of the country following heavy rains.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Seven former political prisoners from Cuba smiled and gave victory signs after they and their families arrived in Madrid, the first of 52 dissidents the Cuban government has promised to free in a historic policy shift.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, The Egyptian government released a Bedouin activist and blogger after three years of imprisonment as part of an effort to ease tensions in the Sinai Peninsula. Authorities detained Mosaad Suleiman Abu Fagr (41) in December 2007 and accused him of inciting Bedouins to protest against government discrimination.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Divers found bottles of champagne in a wreck near the Aland Islands between Finland and Sweden. 5 bottles of dark, foamy beer wee later recovered while salvaging the champagne. The shipwreck was believed to be from the early 19th century. In 2011 Finnish scientists said they hoped to re-brew an old ale after studying the ancient beer found in the shipwreck. On June 8, 2012, 11 bottles of the champagne were auctioned for over $156,000.
(http://tinyurl.com/4kawd2n)(AP, 2/8/11)(SFC, 6/9/12, p.D3)
2010 Jul 13, German government sources said industrial group Siemens has won a major contract from Russian Railways to be signed during a visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel this week. The 2.2-billion-euro (2.8-billion-dollar) sale of regional trains is the second major coup for Siemens in Russia this year.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Iraq 3 people were killed by a device which blew up in a mock coffin during a demonstration. In Yusifiyah, 25 km (15 miles) south of Baghdad, gunmen killed a leader of the Sahwa militia, which has sided with US forces against Al-Qaeda, and four family members in their home. Two bombs exploded near a petrol station in Baghdad’s central district of Muhandicin, killing two and wounding five others. A man was killed in the western city of Fallujah when a "sticky bomb" attached to his car blew up.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the cabinet had decided to summon representatives of the Kurdish regional government to discuss oil smuggling to Iran and "to put an end to it, as it harms Iraq's national and economic interests." Reports about the oil smuggling surfaced just over a week after the US imposed new sanctions barring the export of refined fuels to Iran.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Israeli bulldozers destroyed six buildings, including at least three homes, in contested east Jerusalem, resuming the demolition of Palestinian property after a halt aimed at encouraging peace talks.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, An Israeli military vessel confronted a Libyan aid ship trying to breach Israel's three-year-old Gaza blockade and ordered it to divert to an Egyptian port.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Italian police launched one of their biggest operations ever against the powerful 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, arresting 300 people including top bosses and seizing millions worth of property in pre-dawn raids.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Kazakhstan’s cabinet approved a crude-oil export tax of $20 per metric ton. Chevron, based in San Ramon, Ca., owns 50% of Tengiz Chevroil, which operates the biggest field in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 13, In Malaysia a police raid for stolen vehicles found 42 of them at a warehouse in Malaysia along with and hundreds of birds and other protected wildlife. Officers found some 700 birds and caged leopard cats, albino pygmy monkeys and other animals. They included about 20 protected species.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Mexico 3 dead bodies were found hanging from pedestrian bridges in the central city of Cuernavaca. The bodies were accompanied by threatening notes signed by a drug gang. The three men escaped from a state prison last month. Gunmen killed three state police officers in two ambush-style attacks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Another officer was seriously wounded.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Muzaffarabad, Kashmir, PM Raja Farooq Haider Khan, the top official in Pakistan-held Kashmir, vowed to fight India for control of the disputed territory in a speech to thousands of people assembled by a coalition of banned militant groups.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Nigeria the junior finance minister said the country’s corruption-ridden giant state oil firm NNPC is insolvent with debts of five billion dollars.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, In eastern Nigeria Christians and Muslims clashes, left eight people dead and 40 seriously wounded, with six mosques and one church also torched.
(AFP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Tanzanian lawyer Jwani Mwaikusa was shot in Dar es Salaam. He was a defense lawyer for a UN tribunal that tries suspects in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Police said his nephew and a neighbor were also killed.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 13, Turkey extradited a man identified only as Salih S. to Germany to face charges of supporting a terrorist organization and membership in a terrorist organization. The German citizen, a member of the radical Islamic Jihad Union, had trained at a terrorist camp in Pakistan. He was accused of procuring GPS devices, night vision goggles and other items for Adem Yilmaz, who was convicted with 3 others earlier this year of plotting a thwarted attack that a judge said could have killed large numbers of US soldiers and civilians in Germany.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe vowed that the country would go ahead with diamond sales that were banned earlier this year because of rights violations at its largest mines. He said his nation will sell its massive stores of diamonds despite not receiving authorization from the world's diamond control body.
(AFP, 7/13/10)(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 14, NYC unveiled its first electric car charging station.
(SFC, 7/15/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 14, After days of progress on the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, BP said that delays have temporarily stopped work beneath the water on both a stopgap solution and a permanent fix to the gusher.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Afghanistan 4 American troops were killed by a roadside bomb in the south, while one more US service member died the same day of wounds from a gunbattle. 9 Afghan civilians died in the south when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the volatile district of Marjah in Helmand province. Another homemade bomb killed 2 security guards traveling on a road in eastern Paktika province. 2 suspected Taliban also died in Helmand's Lashkar Gar district when the roadside bomb they were trying to plant exploded prematurely. Gunmen kidnapped five Health Ministry employees in Kandahar province while insurgents.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 14, Jornal do Brazil said it will end its print editions in September after 119 years, but will continue with a paid online edition.
(SFC, 7/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 14, British Airways and Iberia won the EU's regulatory approval to merge and to team up with American Airlines to share more of their lucrative trans-Atlantic routes.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Canada Violet (78) and Allen Large (75), who live in a modest home in Lower Turo, Nova Scotia, scooped the Lotto 649 jackpot winning $11.2 million. They proceeded to give most of the money away to charity.
(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40009180/ns/us_news-giving/)
2010 Jul 14, In Germany new statistics were released indicating the number of Germans with immigrant roots has reached more than 16 million, or nearly 20 percent of the population.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna arrived in Pakistan saying that he brought a message of "peace and friendship" but called on Islamabad to act decisively against terrorism.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, An Air India plane carrying more than 200 passengers from New York became the first commercial flight to land at New Delhi's new Terminal 3, part of a $2.7-billion airport upgrade.
(AFP, 7/14/10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 14, In India at least 92 people were sickened, eight of them critically, when they inhaled chlorine that leaked from a cylinder in an industrial part of Mumbai.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, Iran's Foreign Ministry said nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was on a flight home, traveling through the Gulf nation of Qatar and was expected to arrive in Tehran on July 15. A US official confirmed that Amiri left the United States. The Washington Post said that Amiri had been working for the CIA for more than a year. It said he was paid $5 million out of a secret program aimed at inducing scientists and others with information on Iran's nuclear program to defect.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 14, Iraq's deputy justice minister said that US has handed over 55 former members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, including the longtime int’l. face of the regime, Tariq Aziz. As of July 15, Iraqi security officials will control Camp Cropper, and the US will hand over roughly 1,600 Iraqi prisoners currently in American custody.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, A ship sent by a Libyan charity to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip changed course in the Mediterranean Sea and docked at an Egyptian port after agreeing to deliver its cargo of aid through Egyptian territory.
(AP, 7/14/10)(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Mexico gunmen shot and killed Mario Medina, the nephew of Chihuahua state governor-elect Cesar Duarte, in a botched kidnapping attempt.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 14, Northern Ireland police came under live fire during a third straight night of Belfast unrest. No officers were hit by gunfire, but police said several officers suffered minor injuries, adding to the 82 already wounded.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In the Philippines the first typhoon this year flooded parts of the capital, toppled power lines and killed at least 26 people, many of them trying to scramble to safety as the storm changed course. 38 people were missing. Typhoon Conson came ashore on the east coast of Luzon the previous night with winds of 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour).
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Rwanda Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, deputy president of the opposition Rwandan Democratic Green Party, was found nearly decapitated and dumped by a river. He was last seen a day earlier walking out of a bar in a southern district.
(AFP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, In southern Yemen suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen launched simultaneous attacks on the intelligence and security services headquarters in the southern town of Zinjibar, killing three policemen and wounding 11.
(AFP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 15, The US Senate approved a 2,300 page bill for financial overhaul. The House passed the bill last month and Pres. Obama was expected to sign it into law.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 15, Hassan Nemazee (60), a wealthy Manhattan investment banker and former top Democratic fundraiser, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million, some of which he donated to politicians including Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $550 million and change its business practices to settle US regulatory claims it misled investors in collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 15, Joe Jacob (54), venture capitalist, and Peter Gruber (68), chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, led a record $450 million investor group purchase of the Golden Gate Warriors basketball team based in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A13)
2010 Jul 15, BP finally stopped oil from spewing into the sea, for the first time since an April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and unleashed the spill 5,000 feet beneath the water's surface.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Afghanistan police said they have killed a local Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Dawood, in a gunbattle. A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban commander, alias Qari Latif, responsible for a suicide attack on a US aid program. 12 other insurgents were also killed in the attack in Kunduz. A raid killed insurgent, Mullah Akhtar, who smuggled in foreign fighters through Iran, along with several other insurgents in Farah province.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, Argentina legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in Latin America to grant gays and lesbians all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Australian scientists reported their discovery of bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometers below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Makhachkala, Dagestan, Artur Suleimanov, a bishop for the Russian evangelical denomination Osanna. was killed in a shooting. 2 militants were killed by police in a clash in the town of Khasavyurt the previous day.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, French oil firm Total SA said it has signed a deal to acquire Chevron Corp.'s stake in an offshore oil block near Nigeria's coastline.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met for talks and are expected to oversee the signing of an array of deals between German and Russian companies worth billions of dollars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, India unveiled a symbol for its rupee currency that it hopes will become as globally recognized as signs for the dollar, the yen, the pound and the euro. The symbol was designed by research student D Udaya Kumar, who earned $5,300 for his pains.
(AP, 7/15/10)(Econ, 7/24/10, p.43)
2010 Jul 15, In Iraq the US handed over the last detention facility under its control to Iraqi authorities, a milestone in Iraq's push for complete sovereignty. A car bomb in Tikrit and two other attacks killed 8 people, including 4 police officers, and wounded 14 others. A double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran killed 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard in the provincial capital Zahedan. The insurgent group, Jundallah, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In northern Iraq a fire in a five-story hotel killed 28 people, half of them foreigners, in a harrowing blaze that forced several victims to jump to their deaths to escape a building without fire escapes in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
{Iraq, Fire}
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, An Israeli lieutenant colonel and one of his soldiers were convicted in a 2008 shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian demonstrator. Video taken by a local resident showed the soldier firing a rubber-coated bullet from close range at the feet of the Palestinian man, whose hands were tied behind his back.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Lebanon arrested a third person in a widening probe into a suspected network of Israeli spies employed in the country's telecom sector.
(AFP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Mexico members of a northern drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical technician, and wounding nine people. The attack was said to be in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day. It was the first time a drug cartel has used a car bomb to attack Mexican security forces. On Oct 20 Fernando Contreras was arrested in Chihuahua along with 14 others, several weapons and drugs. Police said Contreras had detonated the car bomb.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Myanmar Win Htein, a former aide to Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from prison after 14 years behind bars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Pakistan an apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in the Swat Valley killed five people and wounded at least 58.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, North Korea's military renewed its call for its own investigation into the March deadly sinking of a South Korean warship as it met with the US-led UN Command for the first time since the incident raised tensions on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Pakistan and India sought to improve their strained relationship with high-level talks aimed at rebuilding trust that was fractured by the terrorist attacks that killed 166 people in the Indian city of Mumbai nearly two years ago.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, A last-minute deal at a meeting of the Kimberley Process certification scheme in Russia authorized Zimbabwe to sell two batches of diamonds under strict monitoring and regulation through Sept. 1.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Sudan aid officials said the government has issued expulsion orders against two top relief officials in Darfur after the International Criminal Court charged President Omar al-Beshir with genocide over the seven-year conflict there. When the ICC issued a warrant for Beshir's arrest for the other charges in March last year, the Sudanese government expelled 13 relief organizations from Darfur. Three journalists working for the opposition Rai al-Shaab newspaper were handed jail terms ranging from two to five years for publishing "false reports."
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Sudanese police said at least 33 people have been killed and several others were missing following powerful floods in eastern Sudan.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, The Vatican issued a new set of norms to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal. The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Vietnam’s state media reported that Vietnam has published the first issue of a human rights magazine to help counter what it calls "erroneous and hostile allegations."
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 16, Kendall Myers (73), a retired US intelligence analyst and great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, was sentenced to life in prison for spying for Cuba. His wife was sentenced to 5½ years.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 16, In the US 94 people, including several doctors and nurses, were charged in scams totaling $251 million. Authorities indicted 33 suspects in the Miami area, accused of charging Medicare for about $140 million in various scams. Busts were carried out this week in Miami, New York City, Detroit, Houston and Baton Rouge, La., Federal authorities, while touting the operation, cautioned the cases represent only a fraction of the estimated $60 billion to $90 billion in Medicare fraud absorbed by taxpayers each year.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, James Gammon (b.1940), TV and film actor, died in Orange County, Ca. His films included “Major League" (1989) and its 1994 sequel. His TV roles included the father on “Nash Bridges" (1996-2001).
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 16, In Afghanistan 2 NATO soldiers including one British and one American died in Taliban-style bomb attacks.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Brazil an 11-year-old boy in a school classroom was killed by a stray bullet from a shootout between police and suspected drug gang members in Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, Canada’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Canada will buy 65 new fighter jets from Lockheed Martin Corp for C$9 billion ($8.6 billion), one of the biggest arms deals in the nation's history.
(Reuters, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, A typhoon that left a trail of destruction and deaths in the Philippines hit southern China as emergency workers prepared for torrential rains and lashing winds, flights and ferries were canceled and tens of thousands of residents were evacuated.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Guyana the publisher of Kaieteur News vowed to fight a libel lawsuit filed by President Bharrat Jagdeo for a column that accused the president of racism and of hiring people to disrupt an academic conference. A June 28 column accused Jagdeo and his party, which is dominated by people of East Indian descent, of hiring "goons" to noisily disrupt a conference two days earlier.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Indian Kashmir hundreds of anti-India protesters clashed with police and paramilitary soldiers despite a rigid curfew being reimposed in most of Kashmir following weeks of unrest that has killed 15 people.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico 5 factory workers were gunned down when armed men burst into a party at a house in Ciudad Juarez. In other municipalities of Chihuahua, which shares a long border with Texas, there were four killings.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico Roberto Cabrera (38), with a mysterious bulge under his T-shirt, was stopped, searched and detained at Mexico City's international airport after arriving from Peru. Authorities found 18 tiny endangered monkeys in a girdle he was wearing. Two of the monkeys were dead.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Pakistan a powerful bomb blast ripped through a busy market in the Khyber tribal region, an area along the Afghan border, killing 10 people including children.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, The Sudanese army said it inflicted a series of defeats on Darfur's most powerful rebel group, killing and capturing hundreds in a series of clashes over the past few days. General Al-Tayeb al-Musbah Osman told the state news agency that the army killed at least 300 members of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement and captured another 86. The army said 75 of its troops were also killed.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, Turkey unveiled its first drone airplane, a surveillance craft able to fly for 24-hour stretches over the rugged mountains where Kurdish rebels are waging a deadly insurgency.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Afghanistan a British and an American soldier died in Taliban-style bomb attacks. Another NATO soldier was killed in a separate attack. 4 Afghan policemen died when insurgents attacked a checkpoint in Gereshk district of Helmand province. One Afghan soldier died and another was wounded in Sabari district of Khost province after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
(AFP, 7/17/10)(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Albania 14 people died and 12 others were injured, many of them seriously, when a bus fell off a cliff 140 km (87 miles) north of the capital, Tirana.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, In China 28 miners were killed when an electrical cable caught fire inside a coal shaft in northern Shaanxi province. There were no survivors. 8 coal miners died when a blaze engulfed a mine in central Henan province.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, Typhoon Conson weakened as it headed toward Vietnam, after passing over the Chinese island of Hainan where falling billboards killed at least two people.
(Reuters, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, In France rioters exchanged gunfire with police in Grenoble early in the day, setting fire to shops and cars after police shot dead a man accused of robbing a casino.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, Hong Kong adopted its first minimum wage law, but no rate was yet set
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.73)(http://tinyurl.com/2cx6os2)
2010 Jul 17, In Kenya Pastor John Kamau and accomplice Samuel Chege Gitau were arrested with a substance believed to be ammonium nitrate, a detonator and a safety fuse.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, Lithuania’s state-owned forests reportedly amounted to 830,000 hectares or 3204 square miles and were operated by 42 companies. Government plans called for a single forestry company charged with managing the industry on a commercial basis.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.57)
2010 Jul 17, In Mexico 4 policemen were shot dead by unknown assailants on a rural road near the port of Acapulco. Six other violent deaths were recorded in Ciudad Juarez including a man and his daughter were shot by gunmen who entered his home early in the day.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In central Nigeria Muslims attacked a Christian village, killing eight people with machetes and burning seven houses and a church in fresh religious violence.
(AFP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In northwest Pakistan suspected militants ambushed a convoy of vehicles being escorted by security forces, killing 18 people, including two women in the Kurram region. 6 people were injured when two bomb blasts hit a market in Lahore, damaging two Internet cafes. Jet fighters killed 18 militants in strikes on suspected hideouts in the Orakzai region.
(Reuters, 7/17/10)(AFP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, Gaza's Hamas rulers banned women from smoking water pipes in cafes, calling it a practice that destroys marriages and sullies the image of the Palestinian people.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Poland thousands of gays and lesbians from around Europe marched through Warsaw to demand equal rights and more tolerance toward homosexuals.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Puerto Rico US federal authorities arrested Jose Figueroa Agosto (45), a fugitive alleged drug kingpin, after a decade-long chase through the Caribbean marked by his narrow escapes and public taunting that he paid off police to remain free.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 18, Gitmo detainee Aziz Abdul Naji (35), held for over 8 years, was transferred to Algeria, despite his request to remain under US detention for fear of torture and death at home. On July 25 Naji was indicted in Algeria and placed under judicial supervision.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Oakland, Ca., Jinghong Kang (45) of Virginia was robbed of $17 and killed. George Huggins Jr. (24) and his girlfriend Althea Housley (33) were soon arrested for the robbery and murder. Huggins was charged with special-circumstances murder. On March 20, 2013, Huggins was convicted of first degree murder. The robbery had netted him $10.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.C2)(SFC, 2/21/13, p.A15)
2010 Jul 18, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber slipped through Kabul’s tight security ring, killing three civilians near a busy market two days before an international conference hosting representatives from about 60 nations. An American service member was killed by a roadside bomb in the south. The Taliban staged a brazen jailbreak in the western province of Farah, where a smuggled bomb exploded at a prison, allowing 11 inmates, including suspected insurgents, to escape from the facility that held about 350. In Kandahar city 2 police officers and a civilian died when a roadside bomb exploded near a hospital. A car bomb exploded near the largest US base in Afghanistan, but killed only the suicide attacker.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In England plane manufacturers, airlines, government ministers and military top brass gathered for the Farnborough International Airshow amid hopes that the two-year downturn in the aviation and defense industry is nearing a bottom.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In China 16 workers were inside the shaft when water gushed into the mine in Jinta, a county in Gansu province, and 3 men were safely lifted out. 2 bodies were found and 11 men remained trapped. An explosion at a coal mine in northeastern Liaoning province killed four workers and injured 13 others, who were in stable condition.
(AP, 7/18/10)(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, In southwestern China a bus plunged into a river, leaving 27 people on board missing and feared dead. Rescuers were able to save 11 others.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Germany some 3 million people sat at a 37-mile long table on the A40 between Dortmund and Bochum for a cultural celebration titled "Still Life."
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Iraq twin suicide bombings killed 48 people, including dozens from a government-backed, anti-al-Qaida militia lining up to collect their paychecks near a military base southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Mexico gunmen jumped from their cars and stormed a private party in Torreon. They simply opened fire killing 17 people with 18 wounded. On July 25 prosecutors said that guards and officials at a prison let inmates out, lent them guns and sent them off in official vehicles to carry out drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 in Torreon.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 18, Singapore arrested Alan Shadrake (75), a British author, as part of a criminal defamation investigation related to his book "Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock," on the city-state's death penalty policy. On Nov 3 Shadrake was found guilty of contempt of court. The Attorney-General argued that Shadrake be jailed for at least 12 weeks.
(AP, 7/19/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.55)(http://tinyurl.com/2gygpa7)
2010 Jul 18, Spain said 9 more Cuban political prisoners will fly this week to freedom in Madrid along with around 50 of their relatives.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, Syria announced a ban on the niqab, the face-covering Islamic veil, from the country's universities.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, Thai police arrested American Ronald John Fanelli (37) on charges of killing Wanpen Satienjai (33) and concealing the crime and cause of murder. Fanelli, who has lived on the southern resort island of Phuket for three years, told investigators he took the victim home from a bar on the morning of June 18 and stabbed her to death with a penknife.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Vietnam 17 people were left missing as the tail end of Typhoon Conson blew ashore after battering the Philippines and China and killing dozens.
(AP, 7/18/10)(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The US federal government allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite a seep in the sea floor after the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks underground, settling for the moment a rift between BP and the government.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tehran has used a small Iranian-owned bank in Germany to circumvent sanctions slapped on firms blacklisted for involvement in the Islamic republic's missile programs.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, Despite being rebuffed twice by the US Supreme Court, five states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania) filed suit with a lower court demanding tougher federal and municipal action to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes and decimating their fishing industry.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, Scientists reported that a vaginal gel containing Gilead Science Inc.’s AIDS drug Viread cut HIV infections by as much as 54% in a trial in South Africa. The gel was developed by Conrad, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization.
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 19, San Francisco welcomed Barcelona, Spain, as its newest sister city.
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 19, American companies TPG and Carlyle Group edged out KKK in a takeover battle for Healthscope, an Australian hospital chain with a bid of $1.7 billion.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.64)
2010 Jul 19, Physicist Gerson Goldhaber (b.1924) died at his home in Berkeley, Ca. He contributed to the 1955 discovery of the antiproton and to the discovery of the “charm" quark, later known as the J/psi particle (1974).
(SFC, 7/22/10, p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J/%CF%88_meson)
2010 Jul 19, In Tennessee Lorenzen Wright, a 13-year former NBA player, went missing. His body was found on July 28 in a wooded area of southeast Memphis. On Dec. 15, 2017, police arrested Lorenzen’s wife, Sheera Wright (46), and charged her with his murder.
(AFP, 7/29/10)(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.A8)
2010 Jul 19, Six Afghan policemen and two US troops were killed by roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition forces killed five insurgents and detained five more near Tatang in Nangarhar.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 19, David Warren (b.1925), an Australian scientist who invented the "black box" flight data recorder, died. He designed and constructed a black box prototype in 1956, but it took several years before officials understood just how valuable the device could be and began installing them in commercial airlines worldwide. In 2002, Warren was awarded the Order of Australia, among the nation's highest civilian honors, for his work.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, In England Boeing Co. and Airbus announced new orders worth almost $13 billion at the start of the Farnborough International Airshow, raising hopes that the aviation industry is on the way back up after a dire two-year slump.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The army in the Central African Republic claimed control of the northern town of Birao, following an attack by rebels on its military base there. At least 3 people were killed.
(AFP, 7/19/10)(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, China's Cabinet, the State Council, issued an order that said the black-market trade in food waste and used oil posed "serious potential food safety risks." It vowed to crack down on refined restaurant waste finding its way back to dinner tables through illegal channels.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, In China landslides triggered by flooding killed at least 37 people with 97 missing in the central province of Shaanxi. In nearby Sichuan province, a weekend of torrential rains left 23 dead and forced nearly 600,000 to evacuate their homes.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, One of China's biggest ports, Dalian, shut down after a pipeline explosion triggered a major offshore oil spill, forcing a refinery to cut processing and importers to divert cargoes elsewhere. The government later said 1,500 tons of oil were spilled. Others later estimated as much as 60-90 thousand tons.
(Reuters, 7/19/10)(SFC, 7/31/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 19, Egypt signed a significant agreement with BP to develop 2 offshore gas fields in the largest deal for the beleaguered oil giant since its drilling rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, Germany’s domestic intelligence service started a program for Islamic radicals who want to quit extremism.
(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 19, A Greek journalist was gunned down outside his home in Athens, in an attack police say is linked to a domestic terrorist group (Sect of Revolutionaries). Sokratis Giolias (37) died after being shot more than 15 times before dawn in the neighborhood of Ilioupoli.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In eastern India a powerful crash between two express trains at a station killed 63 people and injured scores more in West Bengal state.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Iraq a British national was killed in a car bomb attack on a convoy in the northern city of Mosul. A car bomb exploded near a restaurant in Baqouba, killing six people.
(AFP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 19, Israeli forces demolished a cluster of tents and shacks belonging to Palestinians in the northern West Bank.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Pakistan gunmen killed two Pakistani Christian brothers accused of blasphemy against Islam as they left a court in Faisalabad. The men were chained together when the attack took place.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, The upper house of Russia's parliament passed a bill (121-1) granting expanded powers to the country's main security agency, a move that critics say echoes the era of the Soviet KGB. The bill would allow the Federal Security Service to issue warnings to people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia's security.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Russia the Khamovniki District Court in Moscow said in a statement it has convicted Tariel Oniani (58) on extortion and abduction charges. The native of Georgia had been convicted seven times and is wanted in Spain since 2005 on money laundering charges.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Slovenia a cyber mastermind, suspected of creating a malicious software code that infected 12 million computers worldwide and orchestrating other huge cyber scams, was arrested and questioned. His arrest came about five months after Spanish police broke up the massive cyber scam, arresting three of the alleged ringleaders who operated the Mariposa botnet, which stole credit cards and online banking credentials. On July 28 the FBI later said that a 23-year old Slovene known as Iserdo was picked up in Maribor, after lengthy investigation by Slovenian police, FBI and Spanish authorities. The FBI also identified, for the first time, the three individuals arrested in connection with the case in Spain: Florencio Carro Ruiz, known as "Netkairo;" Jonathan Pazos Rivera, known as "Jonyloleante;" and Juan Jose Bellido Rios, known as "Ostiator.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Somalia at least 12 people, including two government soldiers, were killed in two days of battle between Islamist militants and government forces backed by African Union peacekeepers. Government forces launched a counterattack to recapture a government office they lost to al-Shabab a day earlier.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Suriname former dictator Desi Bouterse was elected president by parliament, following weeks of jostling by opponents who sought to stop a convicted drug trafficker and ex-strongman accused of killing political opponents from returning to power. The next day Bouterse said through a spokesman that he will not interfere in his ongoing trial for the massacre of 15 political opponents during his military regime.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/21/10)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.40)
2010 Jul 19, A Turkish court indicted 196 people, including four retired military commanders, of conspiring in 2003 to overthrow the Islamic-oriented government in an alleged plot that highlights tension between Turkey's pious leadership and its secular opponents.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, In Uganda the African Union summit opened in Kampala amid heightened security following twin bomb attacks a week earlier.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Oakland, Ca., City Council adopted regulations permitting industrial-scale marijuana farms.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 20, In northern Afghanistan 2 American civilians and an Afghan soldier were killed in a shooting on an Afghan military base. An Afghan soldier who trained others at the base outside Mazar-e-Sharif started shooting during a weapons exercise. The shooter was killed. The international community endorsed sweeping Afghan government plans to take responsibility for security by 2014, forge peace to end nine years of war and take greater control of aid projects. NATO forces detained a Taliban operative who had been in the final preparation stages for attacks against an int’l. conference.
(AP, 7/20/10)(AFP, 7/20/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 20, It was reported that at least 26 people have died in Argentina from exposure, carbon monoxide inhalation from heaters and other weather-related causes. A cold front across much of South America was linked to dozens of deaths, mounting losses for cattle ranchers and other hardships.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Australian Sex Party promised to spice up campaigning for next month's elections with a manifesto "unlike Australia had ever seen before." The party's policies include legalizing euthanasia, decriminalizing all drugs for personal use, and watering down strict anti-pornography laws.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, The Bank of Canada raised its key interest rate, as expected, but warned the domestic and global recovery will be slower than it had previously forecast, suggesting any further hikes may be gradual. Borrowing costs rose 25 basis points to 0.75%.
(Reuters, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Paris-based International Energy Agency said China has overtaken the United States as the world's largest energy consumer. The IE said China's 2009 consumption of energy sources ranging from oil and coal wind and solar power was equal to 2.265 billion tons of oil, compared to 2.169 billion tons for the US.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Guinea's top court announced final results from last month's presidential election and confirmed that the top two finishers will face each other in a runoff. Former PM Cellou Dalein Diallo garnered nearly 44 percent of the vote, short of the simple majority needed to avoid a second round. Longtime opposition politician Alpha Conde won just about 18 percent, while another ex-premier, Sidya Toure came in third place with close to 13 percent of the vote.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iran's parliament authorized tit-for-tat retaliation against countries that inspect cargo on Iranian ships and aircraft as part of new UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iranian newspapers reported the hanging of 3 men in a prison in Kerman and one in public in the city of Ahvaz after they were convicted of drug trafficking.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Iraqi officials discovered that 4 al-Qaida-linked detainees escaped from Karkh prison in the Baghdad area, which was handed over by the US to Iraqi authorities a week ago. The four men were officially listed in a security report as Mohammed Hamid, Qais Azmi, Malik Nazzal and Hussein Ahmed. A car bomb near a roadside restaurant just north of Baghdad killed one person and wounded seven Iranian pilgrims heading to Karbala.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 20, Israel canceled a warning to its people to avoid traveling to Turkey, citing an end to stormy protests over Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Italian engineers launched a 3-month, 8,000-mile test drive of a robotic vehicle from Parma to China.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 20, Pakistani army guards shot and killed three suspected suicide bombers and two other militants as they tried to enter a sprawling military firing range in the northwest.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Kurdish rebels killed six Turkish soldiers and wounded 15 in an overnight raid on a military outpost along the border with Iraq. Another soldier died in a separate attack.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Seoul's mass-circulation Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said Kwon Ho Ung, North Korea's chief delegate from 2004 to 2007 for high-level talks with the South's then liberal government, has been executed by firing squad.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, A Somali human rights group said at least 53 civilians were killed over the past week in clashes between government forces and Islamic militants.
(SFC, 7/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 20, Spain's Parliament rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Sudan expelled three top Chadian rebel chiefs on the eve of a visit to Chad by Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.
(AFP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Taiwan’s Pres. Ma Ying-jeou announced the formation of a new commission to battle corruption and vote buying. A week earlier 3 high court judges and a prosecutor were detained amid allegations that they took bribes to fix the outcome of a high profile case.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 20, Uganda's government defended the forced repatriation of 1,700 Rwandan refugees, action that the UN refugee agency condemned for being heavy-handed. Two people died while trying to escape the roundup. The Rwandans were forced out of Uganda on July 14 because they had no refugee status and had become a security risk.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would put a representative on the board of opposition television station Globovision, the leftist leader's boldest move yet against his fiercest media critic.
(Reuters, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 20, Yemeni tribal chief Sheikh Zaidan al-Moqannay, his son and four of his bodyguards were killed in a rebel ambush in Saada. Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam denied that the rebels ambushed Moqannay, claiming that he was killed in confrontations which also resulted in the death of three rebels. Rebels said they welcomed a Qatari offer to help consolidate a truce.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Pres. Obama signed major financial overhaul legislation named after Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass). The Volcker rule in the legislation only took effect on July 21 2015. This banned banks from proprietary trading and ties to hedge and private equity funds.
(SFC, 7/22/10, p.D1)(Econ, 7/25/15, p.60)
2010 Jul 21, The US Dodd-Frank Act, signed today, all but shut down artisanal mining in much of eastern Congo DRC as it attempted to stop rebels from selling gold and diamonds to fund wars.
(Econ, 8/27/16, p.36)
2010 Jul 21, The United States announced new sanctions against North Korea, targeted against its leadership, and warned of serious consequences if it again attacked the South.
(Reuters, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, A US federal judge ordered imprisoned former media baron Conrad Black released on $2 million bond, while she decides whether to throw out his 2007 conviction for defrauding shareholders. The Canadian-born Black, a British peer who once led the world's third-largest newspaper publisher, entered a Florida prison in March 2008. Black still faced numerous civil suits related to Hollinger, and US tax authorities have demanded $71 million from him for unpaid taxes.
(Reuters, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, A US federal jury found Beau Diamond of Sarasota, Fla., guilty of 18 counts of fraud and money laundering crimes in association with a $37 million Ponzi scheme between 2006 and 2009. In December Diamond was sentenced to over 15 years in federal prison.
(www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100722/ARTICLE/7221060)(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 21, Scientists said a huge ball of brightly burning gas in a neighboring galaxy may be the heaviest star ever discovered, hundreds of times more massive than the sun after working out its weight for the first time. The star, called R136a1, was identified at the center of a star cluster in the Tarantula Nebula, a sprawling cloud of gas and dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy about 165,000 light-years away from our own Milky Way.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Don Backer (66), UC astronomer and pioneer in the use of the radio telescope, died in Berkeley, Ca. In 1982 Don Backer led a group which discovered PSR B1937+21, a pulsar with a rotation period of just 1.6 milliseconds.
(SFC, 7/31/10, p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar)
2010 Jul 21, In northern Afghanistan insurgents beheaded six policemen after attacking their checkpoint in Baghlan province's Dahanah-ye Ghori district. A Danish service member was killed by an explosion in the south. In Kabul NATO and Afghan forces captured another suspected insurgent who had planned attacks against this week's international conference.
(AP, 7/21/10)(AP, 7/22/10)(SFC, 7/22/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 21, In Argentina Pres. Cristina Fernandez signed a new law making Argentina the first country in Latin America to legalize marriage for same-sex couples.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 21, Thet Sambat, Cambodian journalist, and Rob Lemkin, British director, premiered their documentary “Enemies of the People" in Cambodia. It features his conversations with Nuon Ceha, Pol Pot’s right hand man. In January it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.31)(http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/)
2010 Jul 21, The Central American Integration System readmitted Honduras.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.40)
2010 Jul 21, President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Chad, the first time Sudan's leader has been in a member state of the International Criminal Court. He arrived to take part in a summit of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. Human Rights Watch said that Chad should arrest al-Bashir or risk becoming the first ICC member state to harbor a suspected war criminal.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, China said flood waters this year have killed 701 people and left 347 missing. The overall damage thus far totaled 142.2 billion yuan ($21 billion).
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, China's largest reported oil spill had more than doubled, closing beaches on the Yellow Sea and prompting an environmental official to warn the sticky black crude posed a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality. The oil was spread over 165 square miles (430 square km) of water five days since a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, The leaders of Egypt and Turkey met in Cairo to discuss stuttering international efforts to coax Israeli and Palestinian leaders back to the negotiating table.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Iran's nuclear agency said it will conduct scientific studies for the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, an engineering challenge that no nation has yet overcome.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Southern Iran was shaken by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake killing one person.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Iraq a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque in Baqouba, Diyala province, killed 15 people, the third deadly attack in the region in as many days. A US soldier was killed in a separate bombing in the same province. Iraqi soldiers arrested Saleem Khalid al-Zawbayi, the minister of defense for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). Zawbayi was suspected of organizing a July 18 suicide bombing in the town of Radwaniyah.
(AP, 7/21/10)(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 21, Israel said it will restrict its use of white phosphorus munitions and seek to limit civilian casualties in future wars, in a report to the UN secretary general released this week. Israeli fire killed two Palestinians and wounded 10 in the northern Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Kyrgyzstan police detained Akhmat Bakiyev, a brother of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, in the latest effort to solidify control over the country's tense south and dismantle the former leader's entourage. International health and rights groups said that minority ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan are being deprived of medical treatment and opportunities to seek refuge in neighboring Uzbekistan.
(AP, 7/21/10)(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 21, Nigeria laid out plans to bail out its badly struggling banks by removing up to 21 billion dollars in deadbeat loans from their balance sheets.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Pakistan heavy monsoon rains killed at least 17 people and affected thousands more.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Romania forensic scientists exhumed what are believed to be the bodies of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena to solve the mystery of where they are truly buried.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In southern Russia 2 carloads of assailants attacked a hydroelectric station, killing two workers and setting off bombs in Kabardino-Balkariya.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, In Somalia 2 Ugandan soldiers were killed during clashes in Mogadishu's Bondhere district. Al-Shabab introduced 3 former members of the presidential guard, who said they had quit working for the government because it was protected by AU forces who were killing Somali civilians with indiscriminate shelling.
(AP, 7/23/10)(SFC, 7/23/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 21, It was reported that security forces from Somalia's semiautonomous northern region of Puntland were rounding up hundreds of southerners. Officials said they posed a security threat. Activist Khadija Dahir said about 500 people were deported. She called the move unacceptable and clear violation against innocent refugees.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Spain accepted a third former inmate from the US prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The inmate was originally from Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 21, Sudanese rebel group JEM signed a landmark deal with the UN, pledging to protect children caught up in the Darfur conflict.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Ugandan police said 10 people died after a boat they were traveling in capsized on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, Yemeni tribal and rebel sources said fighting in the mountainous north between Shiite rebels and army-backed tribes over the past four days have left at least 49 people dead, threatening a fragile truce.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 21, The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal ruled that Kosovo's former prime minister must be retried on murder and torture charges related to the country's 1998-99 war with Serbia, calling his acquittal two years ago "a miscarriage of justice." Tribunal President Patrick Robinson said the original trial for Ramush Haradinaj and two former Kosovo Liberation Army comrades was marred by intimidation that left two prosecution witnesses too scared to testify.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 22, Pres. Obama signed into law a restoration of benefits for people who have been out of work for 6 months or more.
(SFC, 7/23/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 22, The US said it was dropping a ban on ties with Indonesia's special forces, imposed over human rights abuses in the 1990s, a move that may eventually allow combat training of the once-notorious unit.
(Reuters, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The US Treasury Department added two companies owned by daughters of drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada to the list of sanctioned companies under the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The US Embassy in Mexico City said the two women, Maria Teresa Zambada Niebla and Midiam Patricia Zambada Niebla, served as "front persons" for their father's illicit transactions. The companies named to the list are Arte y Diseno de Culiacan SA de CV and Autotransportes JYM SA de CV.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The US Treasury Department sanctioned three insurgent leaders, including Nasiruddin Haqqani, an emissary for the Haqqani Network (Afghanistan-Pakistan) and brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani who leads the group with his father, Jalaluddin.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 22, In California a Greyhound bus crashed just outside downtown Fresno killing 6 people with 9 injured. It had struck an overturned SUV. 3 of the dead were women in the SUV. The driver (18) of the SUV was later found to have a .11% blood alcohol level.
(SFC, 7/23/10, p.C3)(SFC, 8/4/10, p.C4)
2010 Jul 22, In southern Afghanistan a helicopter crashed killing two US service members. The Taliban claimed it shot down the craft, but NATO said it was still investigating. Several Taliban figures, including a former spokesman for the insurgents, were captured in raids by coalition and Afghan forces across the country. In Uruzgan province the Taliban shot and killed the head of the Khas Uruzgan district development council and his assistant as they were leaving a house.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, Burundi was labeled as the most corrupt country in East Africa in a survey by Transparency International. Rwanda was found to be the least corrupt among the five countries in the region.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, In China Guangxi police uncovered a kidnapping ring during a three-month investigation and arrested seven people in coastal Fujian province. One of the suspects confessed to police the group had operated since 1989, kidnapping women and children from cities in Guangxi to sell in Fujian.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Jul 22, Egyptian security officials said smugglers who sneak consumer goods, cash and weapons into the blockaded Gaza Strip have cut hundreds of holes in an underground steel wall Egypt is building along the border to try to stop them.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, France and Mauritania carried out a military operation against al Qaeda's North African wing, believed to be holding Michel Germaneau, a 78-year-old French hostage in the desert Sahel region.
(Reuters, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, India unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, In Iraq 2 Ugandans and a Peruvian who worked as security contractors for the US government were killed during a rocket attack on the Green Zone. In Mosul a bombing and a series of drive-by shootings killed an Iraqi army brigadier general, a Sunni cleric, two policeman, a soldier and two civilians.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man entering a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, drawing a Palestinian accusation that soldiers are too quick to open fire.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, In Italy police carried out six arrests and charged that members of the Camorra mafia won contracts to rebuild the quake-hit city of L'Aquila with the help of four bank employees.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, Mexican soldiers fought gunbattles overnight with gangs who forced citizens from their cars and used the vehicles to block streets in Nuevo Laredo across the border from Texas. Witnesses reported that several gunmen were killed. 8 suspected drug gang gunmen died in a battle with Mexican soldiers in the remote mountains of northern Chihuahua state. Authorities began uncovering the remains of at least 51 people in a series of pits and scattered on the ground at a suspected drug-gang dumping site near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 22, In the northern Philippines an American man, Albert Mitchell, and four others were found shot dead at his rented home.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The UN Security Council pressed for effective actions to combat the growing threat of drug trafficking and organized crime in the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The UN's highest court said that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not break international law.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia, accusing the close US ally of fabricating reports that Colombian rebels find safe haven inside Venezuela.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 22, In southern Yemen Al-Qaida militants killed five soldiers in an ambush. Rebels in the north fought with army units and government-allied tribes killing at least 20 people in the latest series of clashes there.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 23, Jesus Quinonez, the international liaison for the Baja California state attorney general's office, was among 43 defendants named in a US federal racketeering complaint that alleges murder, kidnapping and other crimes. They were accused of working for Fernando Sanchez Arellano, widely considered the most-wanted drug kingpin in Tijuana. Quinonez (49) was arrested a day earlier in San Diego during a traffic stop.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 23, In Bell, Ca., 3 administrators whose huge salaries sparked outrage in this small blue-collar suburb of LA agreed to resign. Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo (56) was being paid $787,637 a year. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia made $376,288 a year, and Police Chief Randy Adams made $457,000. On July 26 the City Council voted to slash salaries by 90%. On April 14, 2014, Rizzo was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison on two counts of tax fraud. On April 16 Rizzo was sentenced to 12 years in state prison.
(AP, 7/23/10)(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A6)(SFC, 4/15/14, p.A6)(SFC, 4/17/14, p.A5)
2010 Jul 23, Work to permanently choke off BP's broken oil well stalled as Tropical Storm Bonnie raced toward the Gulf of Mexico and dozens of ships evacuated the area.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Daniel Schorr, veteran news reported died in Washington DC. In 1973 as a CBS reporter Schorr aired Pres. Nixon’s “enemies list," finding his own name as #17 of 20. Schorr’s book included “Clearing the Air" (1978).
(SFC, 7/24/10, p.C4)
2010 Jul 23, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb exploded inside a mosque, seriously wounding a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections and at least 16 other people. Two American service members left their compound in Kabul and failed to return. They were believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid later said the pair drove into an area of Logar province that is under insurgent control. He says that during a brief gunfight, one American was killed and the other was captured. The body of Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley (30) was found on July 25. On July 28 the body of the 2nd sailor, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove (25) was recovered. In southern Helmand province at least 45 civilians, many women and children, were killed in a rocket attack by the NATO-led foreign force. Alliance and Afghan troops came under attack about 6 miles (10 km) south of the village and responded with helicopter-borne strikes. Coalition forces reported six insurgents killed, including a Taliban commander.
(AP, 7/23/10)(Reuters, 7/24/10)(AP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/26/10)(AP, 7/28/10)(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A3)(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 23, The African Union said its forces battling Al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Mogadishu will be boosted by a battalion from Guinea and could further swell to reach 10,000 troops.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, A Chinese court sentenced a Uighur journalist to 15 years in jail for critical writings and comments he made to foreign media after last year's deadly ethnic riots in China's western Xinjiang region. Halaite Niyaze was found guilty of "endangering national security" and sentenced following a one-day trial in Urumqi.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Typhoon Chanthu killed three people before weakening into a tropical storm after making landfall in southern China's Guangdong province.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, In the Dominican Rep. 8 people who allegedly spent $170 million on apartments, cars and other goods using money from Jose Figueroa, the Caribbean's top drug trafficker, were formally charged with money laundering and other crimes.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Seven out of 91 banks failed European stress tests, which were organized in hope of reviving investor confidence in Europe's embattled banking sector. German state-owned lender Hypo Real Estate, five regional savings banks in Spain and ATEBank of Greece failed the test of whether they could resist a new financial shock. All have been ordered to recapitalize or take state aid.
(AFP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 23, EU police investigating corruption arrested Hashim Rexhepi, Kosovo’s central bank governor.
(www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b5155da-9666-11df-96a2-00144feab49a.html)
2010 Jul 23, In Indian Kashmir security forces fired teargas at stone-throwing protesters as fresh protests against Indian rule broke out. A minibus veered off a mountain road under construction and plunged into a river, killing at least 17 people.
(AP, 7/23/10)(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 23, The Marshall Islands region of Ebeye, which has the unflattering reputation as the "slum of the Pacific" has now been damned in a US Army report as a health threat to residents.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, A Dutch court slapped a one million euro fine on Trafigura, a Swiss-based company whose chartered ship dumped hazardous waste the Ivory Coast says killed 17 people on its soil. It was also found guilty of concealing what the charge sheet referred to as the "harmful nature" of the waste on board the Probo Koala ship that arrived at the port of Amsterdam on July 2, 2006, but was redirected to the Ivory Coast.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Pakistan’s government said 30 people had been killed in flash floods in Baluchistan province, mostly in Barkhan district.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, In South Africa a police helicopter crashed, killing seven officers on board, as it flew to the scene of a suspected hostage-taking northeast of Johannesburg.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Switzerland's popular Glacier Express tourist train derailed in the Alps, killing one person and injuring 42.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 23, Thailand’s Culture Ministry said Facebook and Twitter are causing deteriorating language skills among Thai students and authorities want them to return to the bygone tradition of letter-writing.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 24, In Iowa the Lake Delhi dam in Delaware County gave way under the rising Maquoketa River decimating the 9-mile long lake and adjacent property values.
(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 24, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard pledged 400 million dollars (360 million US) to take old cars off the road and vowed to impose tougher fuel standards as part of her election policy on climate change.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Congolese rebels took an Indian pilot hostage when they attacked an aircraft on a remote airstrip in a tin mining zone in the country's North Kivu province.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 24, French-backed Mauritanian military operations against al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara desert wound up after four days of hunting Islamists deep inside Mali.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, The German government said it is offering asylum to 50 Iranian dissidents who took part in the massive street protests that erupted after elections there last year.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In Germany a stampede at the Love Parade techno music festival in Duisberg ended with at least 19 young people dead and more than 300 injured. Within days the death toll rose to 21 as more died from their injuries.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)(http://tinyurl.com/27m7e9l)(Reuters, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 24, Theo Albrecht (88), the secretive co-founder of Germany's worldwide discount supermarket chain Aldi, a co-owner of Trader Joe's in the United States and one of Europe's richest men, died in Essen.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 24, India’s Chhattisgarh state, seen as a bastion of an increasingly deadly Maoist revolt, said it was seeking one billion dollars to counter the left-wing insurgency with a surge in development.
(AFP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran warned it would stop trading with countries that impose restrictions on its assets abroad in the face of tightening international sanctions over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear activities.
(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Iran hanged three drug traffickers identified only by their initials as A.A., S.Z. and S.M., in the city of Ahvaz in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 24, North Korea vowed to respond with "powerful nuclear deterrence" to joint US and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend, saying the drills amount to a provocation that would prompt "retaliatory sacred war."
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In northwest Pakistan gunmen killed the son of Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. US missiles hit a suspected militant hide-out, killing 12 insurgents in a compound in the Nazai Narai area of South Waziristan.
(AP, 7/24/10)(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 24, Russia said it plans its biggest sell-off of state assets since the early 1990s as it seeks to raise over $29 billion to plug budget gaps over the next three years.
(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In southern Russia gunmen opened fire on security guards at a provincial food market in the city of Samara, killing at least two and wounding at least five other people. 3 soldiers in Dagestan were killed when assailants attacked their convoy in a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, Ugandan forces imposed tight security in the capital as more than 30 heads of state began converging on Kampala for an African Union summit barely two weeks after deadly suicide attacks. The African Union said Africa must turn ever more to China for its development because conditions and checks often stalled the flow of funds from Western nations and the World Bank.
(AFP, 7/24/10)(Reuters, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 24, In Yemen tribal mediators succeeded in reaching a ceasefire between northern Shiite rebels and an army-backed tribe after days of fighting that killed at least 70 people.
(AFP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 25, The US and South Korea launched a major naval exercise involving a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan despite North Korea's threats of nuclear retaliation.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, Ships and workers moved back into BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico oil spill site as seas calmed, and BP could begin pumping mud into the blown-out well later this week in a bid to plug the gusher.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Washington DC a storm downed electrical lines and left 4 people dead.
(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A5)
2010 Jul 25, In Algeria a suicide bomber killed at least one person in the eastern Kabylie region by driving a car rigged with explosives into a building used by security forces. Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa soon claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Brazil about 300 Amazon Indians prevented workers from entering or leaving the construction site of a hydroelectric plant that protesters say is on an ancient burial ground. Native Indians took some 100 workers hostage at the construction site. Indians from eight tribes taking part in the protest demanded compensation for losses caused by construction of the Dardanelos plant in the southern Amazon city of Aripuana. The hostages were released the next day.
(AP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/25/10)(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 25, Former Nazi SS officer Erich Steidtmann (95), suspected but never convicted of involvement in World War II massacres, died from a heart attack at his home in Hannover. Steidtmann was investigated several times for his alleged involvement in killings at the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 and two massacres in the Polish city of Lublin.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 25, Iran's official news agency said an explosion at a petrochemical factory at its Kharg island oil terminal has killed four people.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, An Israeli military spokesman said Gaza-based militants fired four rockets into southern Israel over the weekend. None of them caused any casualties or damage.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Japan 5 people died when a rescue helicopter sent to help a party of climbers crashed in mountains near Tokyo.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Pakistan US missiles hit a compound in South Waziristan, killing four militants in a second drone attack in as many days in the region seen as al-Qaeda headquarters.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In the Philippines gunmen strafed the center of a southern township, killing an aide to Vice Mayor Rasul Sangki, a key witness to the Nov 23, 2009, mass killings.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 25, Puerto Rico's Gov. Luis Fortuno declared a state of emergency for 17 flooded communities in the US territory due to a weather system that later turned into Tropical Storm Bonnie.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Thailand a bomb at a bus stop in downtown Bangkok killed one person and wounded 11 shortly after polls closed in a parliamentary election that pitted a government candidate against a jailed leader of recent mass protests.
(AP, 7/25/10)(SFC, 7/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 25, In Turkey foreign ministers of Turkey and Brazil urged Iran to be flexible and open in dealings with the West over its atomic program as Iran renewed its readiness to resume frozen nuclear talks. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Iran has expressed willingness to have talks with the European Union on its nuclear program after the month of Ramadan ends in early September.
(AFP, 7/25/10)(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, Uganda's president urged African Union leaders at a summit in Kampala to "sweep the terrorists" out of Africa.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, In Yemen Al-Qaida militants attacked the patrol in the southern town of Aqla in Shabwa province with rocket propelled grenades and sprayed it with bullets killing 6 soldiers.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised that the release of some 91,000 secret US military documents on the Afghanistan war is just the beginning, adding that he still has thousands more Afghan files to post online. The files were mostly field reports and intelligence assessments from 2004-2009. Pakistan's most powerful spy agency on lashed out against a trove of leaked US intelligence reports that alleged close connections between it and Taliban militants fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan, calling the accusations malicious and unsubstantiated.
(AP, 7/26/10)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.28)
2010 Jul 26, The US FCC announced that it had made the controversial practice of “jailbreaking" your iPhone, or any other cell phone, legal. Jailbreaking, the practice of unlocking a phone (and particularly an iPhone) so it can be used on another network and/or run other applications than those approved by Apple, has technically been illegal for years.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Michigan an oil pipeline, owned by Canada-based Enbridge Inc., leaked over 800,000 gallons into Talmadge Creek and flowed to the Kalamazoo River coating fish and birds in Battle Creek and Emmet Township. The US government estimated the leak at over 1 million gallons. Enbridge later estimated cleanup costs at about $1.2 billion. In 2014 a settlement between the company and residents and landowners was said to be $6.25 million. On May 13, 2015, officials said Enbridge Energy and its affiliates will pay $75 million to settle the case.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A4)(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A7)(SFC, 12/25/14, p.A10)(Reuters, 5/13/15)
2010 Jul 26, The Plastiki sailboat, largely constructed from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles, docked in Sydney Harbor completing a 4-month journey across the Pacific Ocean meant to raise awareness about the perils of plastic waste.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, A special tribunal in Bangladesh issued arrest warrants against four senior leaders of the country's largest Islamic party ahead of a planned trial over alleged crimes against humanity during the nation's 1971 independence war.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Brazil gunmen used a pickup truck to block an air taxi from taking off at a small airport in the northeastern city of Caruaru and stole money and documents it was carrying for the country's federation of banks.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, Campaign group Global Witness said it was launching legal action against the British government for allegedly failing to refer companies trading Congolese "conflict minerals" for UN sanctions.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, The British culture department announced plans to abolish the UK Film Council, a body responsible for funding 900 British films since it was set up in 2000.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Cambodia a UN-backed court sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (67), a Khmer Rouge prison chief better known as Duch, to 30 years in jail for crimes against humanity over mass executions during Cambodia's "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, China’s Geely Holding Group received final government approval to acquire Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Co. in a $1.8 billion deal.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 26, The EU adopted tighter sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, with steps to block oil and gas investment and curtail Tehran's refining and natural gas capability.
(Reuters, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, France said it is upgrading its diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Territories to try to spur international efforts toward creating a Palestinian state.
(AP, 7/2610)
2010 Jul 26, French Defense Minister Herve Morin visited Vietnam marking the first time a French defense minister traveled to the country since Vietnam's 1954 surprise defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The next day Vietnam’s state media reported that Morin has agreed to help Vietnam modernize its military.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In northeast India gunmen ambushed a jeep In Assam state, killing four paramilitary soldiers and wounding another three in an attack blamed on separatist rebels.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Iraq a suicide bomber driving a minibus blew himself up in front of the Baghdad office of a Saudi-funded television channel, killing 4 people. Twin car bombs killed 21 people in the Shiite city of Karbala, while four people died in a suicide attack on a Saudi-funded television channel in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Mexico six men were found inside a car in the southwestern city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero state. Next to them lay a message reading: "This will happen to all rapists, extortionists and kidnappers. Attentively, the New Cartel of the Sierra." The bodies of four men were found dumped in a plaza in Nuevo Laredo. In Cuernavaca state investigators found the burned bodies of three men near a major highway. The victims had been bound before being burned. Painted on a nearby wall were the letters "CPS," an apparent reference to the Southern Pacific drug cartel. 4 journalists disappeared in the Laguna region, which includes Durango and areas of the neighboring state of Coahuila. A Milenio newspaper and TV network cameramen and three other journalists were abducted after covering a prison scandal in the northern state of Durango in which inmates are accused of being hired guns for a local cartel. The 4 were soon freed and 3 men working for the Sinaloa drug cartel were detained for participating in the kidnapping.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/29/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Nicaragua William Adolfo Cortez of Texas and his wife Jane, an American couple wanted in Panama in the March 21 death of a US woman, were arrested by the Nicaraguan army at the border with Costa Rica.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 26, Nigeria's drug enforcement agency seized nearly half a ton of cocaine and arrested two Chinese nationals and a Nigerian in connection with the seizure. The shipment originated from Chile and passed through Peru, Bolivia and Antwerp in Belgium before being shipped to Nigeria.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber struck near the home of a provincial minister whose only son was recently killed by the militants. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province and an outspoken critic of the Taliban, was the apparent target. 7 people were killed and 25 wounded.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In central Romania an Israeli helicopter crashed with no survivors among the six Israeli and one Romanian soldiers on board.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 26, The island nation of Seychelles said it has prosecuted and convicted Somali pirates for the first time. A Seychelles court sentenced 11 Somali pirates to 10 years in prison each for their attempt to hijack the Seychelles coast guard patrol boat Topaz last December.
(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Somalia African Union forces propping up government troops launched an offensive against Islamist rebels in Mogadishu, killing at least 11 people, mainly fighters.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Sudan a helicopter, which was assigned to the UN-AU force, disappeared while transporting three members of the rebel Liberation Justice Movement from peace negotiations with the government in Doha, Qatar, to locations in South Darfur. The Russian-owned helicopter, which landed in the wrong place in Darfur, was recovered the next day with all the passengers and crew except the Russian pilot. Pilot Yevgeny Mostovshchikov was returned to his UN peacekeepers' base on July 29.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 26, In north Yemen Shiite rebels took control of a strategic army post and captured some 70 soldiers, in the latest clash to endanger an increasingly fragile truce.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 27, An audit by the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction said the US Defense Department is unable to properly account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the US for rebuilding the war ravaged nation.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, BP said its much-criticized CEO Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley on Oct. 1, as it reported a record quarterly loss and set aside $32.2 billion to cover costs of the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, SF supervisors voted 10-1 to transform the abandoned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard into a new waterfront community.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 27, The Walt Disney Co. announced a deal to buy Playdom Inc. of Mountain View, Ca., a maker of social-networking games, in a deal valued at $563.2 million.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 27, In southern Afghanistan a US service member died. A NATO drone went down in a Taliban-held area of northern Afghanistan because of mechanical problems.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, Bangladesh raised the minimum wage for its millions of garment workers by 80 percent, following months of violent protests over pay and conditions.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Bolivian authorities arrested Valentin Mejillones (55), an Aymara priest who inaugurated President Evo Morales, in a bust that netted 530 pounds (240 kg) of liquid cocaine.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Brazil Wallace Souza (51), a former TV crime show host and state legislator accused of commissioning killings to boost ratings, died. He suffered from Budd Chiari syndrome, a rare disorder that causes clots to form in blood vessels in the liver.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, British PM David Cameron visited Turkey, saying the world needs Turkey's help in pushing Iran to address concerns about its nuclear program and harshly criticizing Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Canadian actor Maury Chaykin (b.1949) died at a Toronto hospital. Chaykin had roles in "Dances With Wolves," "The Postman," "Owning Mahoney," "Mystery, Alaska," "A Life Less Ordinary," and "The Adjuster."
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In southern China a landslide caused by rains left 21 people missing, adding to a growing death toll from China's worst flood season in a decade, which is expected to worsen with heavy rains forecast across the country.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In CongoDRC a boat ferrying about 200 passengers to Kinshasa capsized after hitting a rock. As many as 138 people were killed with 80 confirmed dead.
(Reuters, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Egypt armed and masked Bedouin tribe members hijacked a bus from an industrial area in the central Sinai peninsula. The bus was carrying 30 employees of Sinai Cement who were dumped before the hijackers fled with the vehicle.
(Reuters, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, French PM Francois Fillon said France is "at war" with al-Qaida and will step up efforts to fight its North African offshoot after it executed a French hostage in the Sahara.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of internationally-acclaimed family planning as ungodly and a Western import.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iran vowed to press ahead with its nuclear program even as it expressed readiness to resume talks on the thorny issue despite being slapped with tough new EU sanctions. Russia condemned new EU sanctions on Iran, tempering hopes of closer cooperation between Moscow and the West over Iran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Iraq mortars killed 7 people and wounded 46 in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, Japan and China agreed in Tokyo to seek an early conclusion to talks over plans to jointly exploit oil and gas fields in a disputed area of the East China Sea.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Kyrgyzstan's government appealed to an international donors conference for $1.2 billion in aid to rebuild the country after months of political and ethnic violence.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Mexico 3 federal police agents were shot to death on a highway in a confrontation with gunmen. A second cousin of Gov.-elect Cesar Duarte was shot to death by attackers in the city of Parral. The severed heads of eight men were found left in pairs along highways in the northern Mexico state of Durango. Rogelio Segovia Hernandez, a suspected drug cartel lieutenant with a quarter-million-dollar reward on his head, was captured in the border state of Chihuahua, where rival gangs are waging a bloody turf war.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, Dutch judges gave the green light for a teenage girl's bid to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo, thwarting a bid to have Laura Dekker (14) kept in child care.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, A former Pakistani spy, Sultan Amir Tarar, kidnapped by militants four months ago in northwestern Pakistan threatened in a video to expose the government's "weaknesses" unless it frees prisoners to secure his release as demanded by his captors.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Philippine police tracked down Mark Dizon (28), a suspect in a series of grisly robberies and killings, with the help of his Facebook account. He was accused of killing nine people, six Filipinos, an American, a Canadian and a Briton, in three different robberies at hotels and homes this month in Angeles city.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In central Russia a Tver city court sentenced Dmitry Orlov (22), a neo-Nazi leader, to life in jail and imprisoned 13 others for four hate killings and multiple assaults.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Iranian Shiite cleric Yasser Khalili was arrested in Saudi Arabia and put on trial on September 3 charged with "raising a shoe" at Prophet Mohammed's shrine. He was arrested while on pilgrimage by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice and "jailed for 38 days in handcuffs. A judge ordered him to be whipped 150 times in public in the prophet's shrine. The story was not made public until Jan 8, 2011.
(AFP, 1/8/11)
2010 Jul 27, Serb lawmakers passed a resolution vowing that their country will never recognize Kosovo as an independent state, despite a UN court ruling backing the independence declaration by the former Serbian province.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Somalia clashes in Mogadishu, pitting Islamist insurgents against government troops backed by African Union forces, killed at least 17 civilians.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 27, In South Africa 4 white former students pleaded guilty to charges surrounding a 2007 video they made humiliating black university employees at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. The video emerged in 2008 and the case prompted bitter protests that racism remains entrenched in South Africa more than a decade after the end of racist white rule. A court on July 30 ordered the 4 students to pay fines of nearly $3,000 each for making the video.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Uganda African Union leaders wrapping up a three-day summit in Kampala agreed to send thousands of extra troops to reinforce its military contingent battling Al Qaeda-linked insurgents in Somalia.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, Venezuela's justice ministry announced the capture of a purported Colombian drug trafficker, Gloria Esther Chavez Ceballos, alias "Gloria Amparo." Ceballos was alleged to lead a group of smugglers known as "Los Indios" that moves drugs to the Caribbean and Europe. Authorities said police have apprehended six alleged far-right paramilitary fighters from Colombia, including a militia leader wanted in the killing of a Venezuelan mayor near the border with Colombia.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 28, US District Judge Susan Bolton put most of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB1070, on hold in a key first-round victory for the federal government in a fight that may go to the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 7/29/10)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.25)
2010 Jul 28, In Arizona a medical helicopter crashed on a Tucson street killing all three people aboard.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul 28, California Gov. Schwarzenegger, citing an impending cash crises, ordered furloughs for 156,000 state employees, requiring them to take 3 unpaid days a month beginning on July 31. On Aug 12 a judge denied Schwarzenegger’s request pending a full hearing in September. On Aug 18 the state Supreme Court allowed the furlough program to resume as it continued to revue his authority to do so.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.C2)(SFC, 8/13/10, p.C1)(SFC, 8/19/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 28, SF arrested 2 Bay Area women and charged them with embezzlement for allegedly writing $2.6 million in bonus checks to themselves from Autonomy Inc.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 28, Aaron Cooper, an inmate at Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Va., was murdered by cellmate Robert Gleason. On Feb 11, 2011, Gleason (40), who already faced the death penalty for the May, 2009, murder of cellmate Harvey Watson Jr. (63), pleaded guilty to Cooper’s murder. Gleason was executed in the electric char on Jan 16, 2013.
(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A6)(SFC, 1/17/13, p.A6)
2010 Jul 28, In southern Afghanistan a packed bus hit a roadside bomb killing 25 people aboard. An Afghan villager, who was said to be carrying a rifle, was killed by US soldiers in the volatile Arghandab Valley, a strategic area near Kandahar City. In central Uruzgan province 3 Afghan soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb. German Army Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told reporters in Kabul that the Taliban's senior leadership ordered the assassination of multiple tribal elders in an area of Uruzgan.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Argentina and Uruguay held a signing ceremony in Buenos Aires on an agreement to a joint environmental monitoring program along the shared Uruguay River, ending a seven-year pollution controversy over a Finnish paper mill on the Uruguayan side.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Former Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic returned to Sarajevo and was greeted by hundreds of supporters a day after a British judge declared him a free man and rejected Serbia's request for his extradition to face war crimes charges.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, British PM David Cameron kicked off a much-hyped visit to India, pitching for investment and open trade to boost Britain's fragile post-recession recovery.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, British authorities found a suspect package "at a premises on Albert Embankment," the location of Britain's foreign intelligence agency. Another device was intercepted at a postal sorting office. Two men, aged 52 and 21, were later arrested in Wales on explosives charges and were being held on Aug 1 at a London police station.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Bulgaria archeologist Kazimir Popconstantinov found a box while digging under the alta of an early Christian church off the coast of Sozopol. The box bore an inscription with the name of St. John the Baptist and allegedly contained some of his bone fragments.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.43)
2010 Jul 28, In northeastern China floods caused by heavy rains stranded tens of thousands of residents without power, as the worst flooding in more than a decade continued to besiege many areas of the country.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In eastern China a powerful blast caused by a suspected gas leak rocked a plastics factory, killing at least 12 people and seriously injuring more than a dozen others.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, The Galapagos Islands, 620 miles (1,000 kms) off Ecuador's coast, were removed from the UNESCO list of sites endangered by environmental threats or overuse.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy ordered authorities to expel Gypsy illegal immigrants and to dismantle their camps.
(SFC, 7/29/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 28, In northern France Dominique Cottrez (46) and her husband, Pierre-Marie Cottrez, were detained after two corpses were discovered in plastic bags by new owners in the garden of a house that had belonged to the woman's father in the town of Villers-au-Tertre. Under questioning, the woman admitted that there were six other corpses and told investigators that they were in plastic bags in the garage of her home where they were found. On June 25, 2015, Cottrez (51), a mother of two grown daughters, went on trial in the city of Douai.
(AP, 7/29/10)(AP, 6/25/15)
2010 Jul 28, German prosecutors said Samuel Kunz (88) was informed last week of his indictment on charges including participation in the murder of 430,000 Jews at the Belzec death camp in occupied Poland, where he allegedly served as a guard from January 1942 to July 1943. Kunz (b.1921) was also charged with murder over "personal excesses" in which he allegedly shot a total of 10 Jews in two other incidents.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Iraq a sandstorm downed an Iraqi military helicopter, killing its five-man crew. Midmorning bombings in Baghdad killed 6 people.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Japan hanged two convicted killers, including a man who burned six women to death, in the country's first executions in a year. The justice minister said she wants renewed debate on whether to continue the punishment.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, Japan’s Nissan said is new car models will feature air conditioners that pump breathable vitamin C and stress-reducing seats.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Mexico 3 men and a woman were gunned down at a pizzeria in Mexico City.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 28, In the waters off Oman an explosion damaged an oil tanker carrying 270,000 tons of oil, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said the blast on its tanker M. Star caused one minor injury but did not cause an oil leak. Officials said the damage was caused by a freak wave. Japan's ministry said "A crew member saw light on the horizon just before the explosion, so (Mitsui O.S.K.) believes there is a possibility it was caused by an outside attack." On Aug 4 an obscure al-Qaida-linked group said one of its suicide bombers attacked the Japanese oil tanker, a claim that, if true, would be the first time the terror network has attacked the Japanese. On Aug 6 the Emirates' WAM news agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying the investigation revealed traces of homemade explosives on the hull of the tanker.
(AP, 7/28/10)(Reuters, 7/28/10)(AP, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Pakistan an Airbus A321 passenger jet, flight number ED202, crashed into the hills overlooking Islamabad amid poor weather, killing all 152 people on board and blazing a path of devastation strewn with body parts and twisted metal wreckage.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In northwest Pakistan flash floods and building collapses brought on by heavy rains killed 34 people.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Russia a band of 100 masked people staged a violent environmental protest in a quiet Moscow suburb, hurling Molotov cocktails and fireworks at city hall while objecting to plans for clearing a local forest for highway construction.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Spain a bullfighting ban, passed in Catalonia's parliament, provoked passionate reactions throughout the country.
(Reuters, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, South African wildlife authorities said poachers killed 152 endangered rhinoceros in the country so far this year, about 20 more than the number killed in the whole of 2009.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Sudan 3 people were killed during a gun battle between supporters of rival rebel groups in a camp for displaced people in west Darfur. 7 UNAMID peacekeepers on patrol in west Darfur were wounded when they were ambushed by unidentified armed individuals.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 28, A Turkish tour boat caught fire and sank in the Mediterranean. 18 tourists and five crew jumped into the water after flames engulfed the Kayhan-9 on its way from the Turkish resort of Marmaris to Fethiye. One Spanish tourist was missing.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, US House investigators accused New York Rep. Charles Rangel (80) of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards.
(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A10)
2010 Jul 29, The US Dept. of Justice filed a lawsuit against Oracle Corp. for overcharging the General services Administration from 1998-2006.
(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 29, The US Mint introduced a new quarter featuring Yosemite National Park. 3 other parks will be honored this year: Hot Springs, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.
(SFC, 7/30/10, p.C2)
2010 Jul 29, The X Prize foundation offered up a new $1.4 million prize for anyone who can come up with a faster way to clean oil spills from the ocean.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.79)
2010 Jul 29, Toyota Motor Corp said it would recall nearly 417,000 high-end passenger cars and SUVs in the United States and Canada to fix steering problems.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In southern Afghanistan 3 American service members died in two separate blasts.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 29, Australia said it will impose new sanctions against Iran, including restrictions for the first time on business dealings with that country's oil and gas sector.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran said it will suspend uranium enrichment to 20% if it acquires nuclear fuel for a research reactor.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Iran hanged Yousef Fardi, a convicted rapist, in the northern city of Qazvin.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Iraq militants flew an al-Qaida flag over a Baghdad neighborhood after killing 16 security officials and burning some of their bodies in a brazen afternoon attack that served as a grim reminder of continued insurgent strength in Iraq's capital. A suicide bomber drove a minibus into the main gate of an Iraqi army base near Tikrit, killing 4 soldiers and wounding 10. Two road side bombs, targeting Iraqi army patrols exploded in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 km) west of Baghdad, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding eight others. In Mosul a bomb attached to a police vehicle killed one policeman and injured two others.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Thousands of Israelis marched calmly in Jerusalem's longest gay pride parade despite opposition from anti-gay demonstrators.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Mexico soldiers killed Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel (56), a top leader of the Sinaloa cartel, in a raid on his posh hideout in the western city of Guadalajara. One soldier was killed and Francisco Quinones, his right-hand man, was arrested. Mexican federal troops found $7 million in cash at the site as well as jewelry, luxury watches, guns, two hand grenades and three expensive cars.
(AP, 7/30/10)(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 29, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI granted pardons or reduced sentences to nearly 1,000 people to mark his 11 years on the throne.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In northwest Pakistan the death toll rose to at least 60 people with hundreds of thousands stranded in the region's worst flooding in decades.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Qatar's PM Sheik Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani said the Arab nations have endorsed direct Palestinian talks with the Israelis but left the timing to the Palestinians themselves.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new security law which restored Soviet-era powers to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's main successor agency, a move that rights advocates fear could be used to stifle protests and intimidate the Kremlin's political opponents.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Sierra Leone 'Papa Jacques,' Montouroy (63), French legendary aid worker, died of complications from an ulcer. He spent 41 years as a humanitarian worker for Catholic Relief Services and was known for delivering food in parts of the world no one else dared enter.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Jul 29, A Spanish judge in Madrid reissued arrest warrants for three US servicemen over the death of a Spanish journalist killed by American tank fire in Iraq on April 8, 2003.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, President Jacob Zuma announced that South Africa would stop recognizing half the nation's traditional kings and queens, dismissing them as artificial creations of the apartheid regime. Leaders of the six kingships affected by the move have said they will challenge their demotion in court.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Sudan gunmen ambushed a UNAMID patrol in West Darfur state, leaving four peacekeepers slightly wounded. UNAMID soldiers repelled their assailants with heavy gunfire.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, Ugandan officials said an anthrax outbreak has killed 82 hippos in the last month and a half.
(AP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, The UN released $650 million in Iraqi compensation to Kuwait, the latest payment of a war reparation scheme that began in 1994. The payment brings the total sum of compensation paid to Kuwait to $30.15 billion. A further $22.3 billion is due to Kuwait.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 30, It was reported that Walt Disney Co. has agreed to sell Miramax, the studio behind such films as "Trainspotting" and "No Country for Old Men," for more than $660 million to Filmyard Holdings LLC, ending months of talks between the media group and a star-studded cast of bidders.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Arizona 3 convicted murderers escaped from a private prison. Daniel Renwick (36) was caught on Aug 1. Terry Province (42) and John McCluskey (45) remained at large. On Aug 4, the burned remains of Linda and Gary Haas (61) were found in a charred camper in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Province and McCluskey were linked to their killing as was Casslyn Welch (44), a woman who helped them escape. Province was captured on Aug 9 in Meeteetse, Wyoming. On Jan 20, 2012, Province and Welch agreed to plead guilty to charges of carjacking resulting in death, conspiracy and other charges.
(SFC, 8/2/10, p.A5)(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A5)(SFC, 1/21/12, p.A4)
2010 Jul 30, Patrick Joseph McCabe (74), a former Catholic priest, surrendered to US authorities in Alameda, Ca.. They sought to extradite him to Ireland to face sexual assault charges dating back from 1973-1981. On June 5, 2011, McCabe was handed over to Ireland’s national police service.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A1)(SFC, 6/8/11, p.C4)
2010 Jul 30, Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said "commercial fishing will reopen for finfish and shrimp in portions of state waters east of the Mississippi River."
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Oakland, Ca., a US District judge sentence Peter C. Son (38) of Danville to 15 years in federal prison for defrauding some 500 investors of $62 million in a Ponzi scheme from 2003-2008. His partner, Jin K. Chung (46) of Los Altos, was yet to be charged in criminal court.
(SFC, 7/31/10, p.C1)
2010 Jul 30, In Afghanistan an SUV, driven by US contract employees, was involved in a traffic accident. One Afghan died in the wreck and rioting followed. Kabul police later said the Afghan driver had caused the accident. A US service member died following an insurgent attack and two others were killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan. British and Afghan troops launched a new offensive in the Sayedebad area of Helmand to try to deny insurgents a base from which to launch attacks in Nad Ali and Marjah. 4 Afghan civilians were killed and 3 were injured when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Zabul province of southern Afghanistan. When police arrived at the scene, Taliban fighters opened fire. One insurgent was killed. In Kandahar, a candidate in September's parliamentary election escaped assassination when a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded. A woman and a child were killed and another child was wounded.
(AP, 7/30/10)(SFC, 8/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 30, The Australian government committed to expanding its fiber broadband Internet network to a further 300,000 homes across the vast island continent if re-elected at next month's polls.
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said his nation's ambassador would return to Honduras, but did not specify when.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, It was reported that China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In eastern CongoDRC rebels from the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu FDLR occupied Luvungi town, North Kivu, one day after beginning an attack there. Over the next 4 days they gang-raped scores of women. The rebels withdrew voluntarily on Aug 4. Later reports said there were over 500 systematic rapes.
(AP, 8/23/10)(Reuters, 9/1/10)(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Jul 30, In India separatist rebels triggered a land mine that killed at least five paramilitary soldiers and wounded 41 others in the remote northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Indian Kashmir paramilitary soldiers fired on thousands of demonstrators, killing three men and wounding at least 80 others as protests against Indian rule spread across the disputed region.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Iran said it was ready for immediate talks with the US, Russia and France over an exchange of nuclear fuel and added that it was also against stockpiling higher enriched uranium.
(AFP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In northeastern Iran an earthquake injured 274 people. A slightly stronger tremor struck central Iran the next day.
(Reuters, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Iraq the head of a five-member family was killed when a roadside bomb hit the car in which they were traveling. He was a local leader of a government-backed Sunni armed group known as an Awakening Council. The man, his wife and three children, two boys and a 4-year-old girl, were killed in the attack.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, The leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia, once bitter rivals, made an unprecedented show of cooperation, traveling together to Lebanon in hopes of preventing any violence if members of a militant group are indicted in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri. Saudi Arabia, which was close to the slain premier, holds sway with Lebanon's ruling alliance led by his son Saad, while Syria and Iran support a rival camp led by Hezbollah.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Liberia's government, still recovering from a 14-year civil war and previous decades of poverty and illiteracy, said it will now require all children to get birth certificates, a document most of them lack.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Mexico Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi signed a four-year cooperation accord with Mexico aimed at boosting political and economic ties.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Myanmar official talks between North Korea and Myanmar entered a second day. The US said it is carefully watching the budding secretive relationship between the 2 countries for signs of nuclear cooperation.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Pakistan the death toll from three days of flooding reached at least 430, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Gaza militants fired a rocket into the Israeli city of Ashkelon, a rare strike in a period of relative quiet.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Panama William Dathan Holbert, a jailed US man, admitted killing five other Americans so he could take over their businesses and other properties in a Panamanian resort area. Laura Michelle Reese, his wife, refused to talk. Holbert said his first killings in Panama occurred about three years ago, when he fatally shot a US citizen named Mike Brown, his wife and small son in the head.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Russia the Nashi movement, a Kremlin-backed youth organization, welcomed the resignation of Ella Pamfilova, President Dmitry Medvedev's human rights adviser. The group had threatened her with a libel suit for her harsh criticism. The Russian opposition has claimed Nashi activists have assaulted and intimidated its leaders.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, Forest fires swept across central Russia, killing at least 25 people and forcing the evacuation of thousands during the hottest summer since records began 130 years ago.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, A UN panel of experts called on Israel to fall in line with international norms on civil rights and to take action against targeted killings, torture and impunity for security forces.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, The UN Security Council extended the stay of peacekeepers in Sudan's western Darfur region by another year, telling the force to focus primarily on protecting civilians and aid deliveries.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, UNESCO added a region of mountainous forests in Sri Lanka and the Papahanaumokuakea archipelago off Hawaii to the World Heritage list. Florida's Everglades and Madagascar's tropical forest were added to the roll of endangered sites, which is meant to ring alarm bells and encourage protective measures.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mitch Miller (b.1911), musician, conductor and producer, died in New York. His TV show, “Sing Along With Mitch" aired from 1961-1964.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.C3)
2010 Jul 31, Afghanistan’s national disaster authority chief said flash floods have killed at least 65 people and affected more than 1,000 families.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, A Canadian waterbombing plane with 2 crew members crashed while fighting the blaze in British Columbia. 318 forest fires were burning across British Columbia, with the largest covering 25 square km (10 square miles).
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 31, In northern China an explosion ripped through a workers' dormitory area in Linfen city, Shanxi province, and killed at least 15 people at the Liugou mine, a coal mine notorious for mining disasters.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Across Indian Kashmir violence continued to rage with two people shot dead and five wounded after police in two towns opened fire on protesters who attacked their camps and pelted them with rocks.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, A senior Iranian official said China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, In Iraq a roadside bomb killed four people, including three army soldiers, and wounded 11 people south of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Israeli warplanes fired missiles killing Issa Batran (42), a senior commander of the Hamas military wing, and wounding 11 people in five targets hit across Gaza overnight. Hamas said 8 of its supporters and 3 civilians were also wounded in the overnight airstrikes and vowed revenge.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, In southern Italy an apartment building collapsed in Afragola, a small town near Naples. Rescue workers said they have pulled the bodies of 3 people from the wreckage, including a little girl.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mexican federal police rescued two kidnapped news cameramen in the northern city of Gomez Palacio, Coahuila state, five days after they were seized by drug traffickers in a bid to get their employers to broadcast cartel messages.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mexico said it will send its ambassador back to Honduras next week, recognizing the government of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo a year after his predecessor was ousted by a military-backed coup.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Pakistani officials said flooding has killed more than 800 people in a week as rescuers struggled to reach marooned victims and some evacuees showed signs of fever, diarrhea and other waterborne diseases.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Qatar's emir made a high-profile visit to south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and whose rebuilding the emirate is helping finance.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Russian police arrested a leading Kremlin opponent and dozens of fellow activists at a demonstration demanding freedom of assembly.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, In Russia raging wildfires spread across parts of western Russia, engulfing 30 percent more land in just 24 hours. PM Vladimir Putin described the situation as very difficult.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Land mines began washing up on South Korean shores, apparently swept down from North Korea by torrential rains. One killed a man and wounded another.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 31, The Tanzanian island of Zanzibar voted to form a unity government after October elections in an effort to avoid a repeat of previous electoral violence that killed dozens of people.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul 31, In Uganda more than 50 people died after a boat they were traveling in capsized on Lake Albert. The boat was carrying between 70 and 80 people, but only five survivors have been found and 17 bodies recovered.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Jul 31, UNESCO added seven cultural sites to its World Heritage List including Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, home to nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s. Also added to the list were the Turaif District in Saudi Arabia; Australia's penal colony sites; the Jantar Mantar astronomical observation site in India; a shrine in Ardabil in Iran; the Tabriz historic bazaar complex, also in Iran; and the historic villages of Hahoe and Yangdong in South Korea.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Jul, In a retirement rush New Jersey nearly 18,000 employees in the three biggest public worker pension funds had retired by the end of July or declared their intent to retire this year, up almost 50 percent over all of last year. Several union leaders and workers considering retirement said that possible pension changes were a factor.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Jul, US researchers, led by entomologist Michael Riehle at the Univ. of Arizona, reported that they have developed a genetically engineered breed of mosquito that cannot be infected by the malaria causing parasite.
(SFC, 7/17/10, p.A6)
2010 Jul, London, England, launched a bicycle-hire scheme with 5,000 bikes scattered around hundreds of docking stations in the center of the city.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.57)
\2010 Jul, In Derby, England, a group of Muslim men handed out leaflets calling for homosexuals to be "punished" and given the death sentence outside and near the Jamia Mosque in Rosehill Street. They also put the leaflets through people's letterboxes in the neighborhood. In 2012 Ihjaz Ali (42), Mehboob Hussain (45), Umar Javed (38), Razwan Javed (27), and Kabir Ahmed (28), are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, denied the charges.
(AFP, 1/10/12)
2010 Jul, In India SKS Microfinance went public in a $350 million offering that was 13 times oversubscribed. It had a $1.2 billion loan book.
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.65)
2010 Jul, Saudi Arabia’s population was estimated at 29.2 million.
(NYT 2011 Almanac, p.673)
2010 Aug 1, In Alaska a Fairchild C-123 registered to All West Freight of Delta Junction crashed in Denali National Park killing all 3 people on board.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100802/ap_on_re_us/us_alaska_plane_crash)
2010 Aug 1, Robert Boyle (b.1909), art director for Alfred Hitchcock, died.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.72)
2010 Aug 1, In southern Afghanistan a minibus full of civilians struck a roadside bomb in Kandahar, and six of those on board were killed. A NATO service member died after an insurgent attack in south.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told the country's banks they must use their first-half profits to start lending to businesses again.
(AFP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Chechnya, three unknown men armed with Kalashnikovs ambushed a police patrol in Grozny, the capital, and killed two officers.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In China a drunken Li Xianliang was finally subdued after he pulled an earthmover into the coal depot where he worked in Yuanshi county, Hebei province. The depot had been the place where Li had begun his murderous spree by killing his employer and 16 others. Li was taken into custody and faced the death penalty for murder.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 1, President Raul Castro said more Cubans will be allowed to work for themselves and hire their own workers as the government tries to create more productive employment.
(Reuters, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Dagestan 3 militants broke into the home of Lt. Col. Yunus Khulatayev, a senior investigator, and shot him dead after binding his wife and son with tape in the next room.
(AP, 8/1/10)(SFC, 8/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 1, In Greece an 8-day truck drivers' strike was called off as protesters agreed to enter talks with the government. The strike wreaked havoc, stranding thousands of tourists, destroying lucrative fruit exports and drying up fuel supplies nationwide.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.53)(http://tinyurl.com/2wrybtk)
2010 Aug 1, In northern India a truck carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a gorge in a mountainous region in Uttarakhand state, killing at least 20 people as rescuers searched for another seven who were missing.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Indian Kashmir two men and a girl were killed after security forces opened fire at thousands of protesters who defied a curfew, as pro-independence protests spread across the region.
(AFP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Israel approved new residency criteria that could result in the deportations of hundreds of children of migrant workers.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Dutch troops ended their mission in Afghanistan after four "proud" years, in a departure experts say signals the beginning of a drawdown of foreign forces that will leave a worrying void. Troops held a "change of command" ceremony at the main military base in central Uruzgan province where most of the country's 1,950 soldiers have been deployed. About 150 Dutch fighting forces were left in country, and they are set to leave next week.
(AFP, 8/1/10)(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded as army troops were clearing a road in the northwestern tribal region, killing two soldiers.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In northwestern Pakistan the death toll from massive floods rose to 1,100 as rescue workers struggled to save more than 27,000 people still trapped by the raging water.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Russia hundreds of new fires broke out in forests and fields that have been dried to a crisp by drought and record heat.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, In South Africa 22 elderly people died when a fire swept through their old age and frail care center outside of Johannesburg.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 1, In Thailand several hundred Red Shirt protesters defied a state of emergency in Bangkok to stage a symbolic protest, with hundreds of people sprawling on the ground and chanting, "People died here!"
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Turkish media reported that 4 civilians died when their vehicle hit a landmine that Kurdish rebels are suspected of planting in southeastern Turkey.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, UNESCO added five cultural sites to its World Heritage List, including the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi in Vietnam. The other new sites include the historic monuments of Dengfeng in China, the archaeological site Sarazm in Tajikistan, the Episcopal city of Albi in France and a 17th-century canal ring in Amsterdam.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, The United Arab Emirates said it plans to block some messaging and Web services on BlackBerry smart phones, days after it warned the device could pose a potential threat to national security and social values.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe lashed out at Western powers over sanctions imposed on his ZANU-PF party, saying the European Union and United States were simply bent on driving him out of power. Mugabe said Zimbabwe's diamonds should benefit the entire country, as he urged greedy politicians to blunt their appetite for individual wealth.
(Reuters, 8/1/10)(AFP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 2, President Barack Obama said the United States will end its combat mission in Iraq as scheduled on August 31 despite a recent flare-up in violence.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, said new US sanctions against North Korea will seek to strangle the narcotics trafficking, counterfeiting of U.S. dollars and other "illicit and deceptive" activities that provide the regime with the hard currency used for its nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, US Rep. Howard Berman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suspended assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying he cannot be sure the country's armed forces are not working with Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US government said BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil, making it the largest accidental oil spill of all time.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US House ethics committee said California Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, will face a trial for her 2009 role in steering federal funds to a bank she is personally connected.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 2, In Louisiana 6 Shreveport teenagers wading in the shallows of the Red River drowned in front of their horrified families after falling into deep water. None of the teens or nearby adults could swim.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In southern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to a police truck bringing an official to work, killing six children nearby. Militants attacked a second government official in the east the same day. In eastern Nuristan province, NATO and Afghan troops attacked two villages that had been held by Taliban fighters, killing more than 30 insurgents as they secured the Bachancha and Badmuk villages. Two Afghan soldiers were killed. In northern Balkh province 6 Afghan private security guards were poisoned and fatally stabbed during a bank robbery.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Australia publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk (25) sued Australia's poshest department store and its former head, Mark McInnes, for 33 million US dollars over alleged sexual misconduct that led to the disgraced chief executive's resignation. McInnes abruptly quit in June after claims of inappropriate behavior were made.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Bolivia’s deputy land minister Juan Manuel Pinto said that a local court has upheld a government decision to seize a ranch from US cattleman Ronal Larsen (65) and his family on the grounds they treated workers as virtual slaves. Larsen has owned the 58-square-mile (15,000-hectare) ranch nearly four decades. Pinto said the ranch and an adjacent 15-square-mile (3,790-hectare) spread owned by an unrelated family, the Chavezes, would be cleared by authorities and divided among 2,000 Guarani families.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Brazilian authorities said police have dismantled a kidnapping ring that scoured social networking sites for victims.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 2, China’s state media said thousands of tons of garbage washed down by recent torrential rain are threatening to jam the locks of the massive Three Gorges Dam, and is in places so thick people can stand on it.
(Reuters, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Chinese plainclothes officers detained Ye Haiyan, an activist for sex workers' rights, a few days after she publicly called for prostitution to be legalized.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, In China lethal gas leaked into a coal mine at the Sanyuandong Coal Mine in Dengfeng city, Henan province. No survivors were found among the 16 miners trapped by the lethal gas leak.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Colombia Orlando Sigifredo Ibarra Sarmiento, an Ecuadoran businessman (37), was seized in the border city of Ipiales. In 2012 a deserter from a guerrilla army led the hostage to freedom.
(AP, 9/10/12)
2010 Aug 2, In Iraq 2 bombings and a drive-by shooting killed eight people.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, A string of rockets was fired toward the Israeli resort city Eilat, and one hit in neighboring Jordan, killing one person and wounding four. On Aug 3 Jordan said it has evidence that the rocket attack originated from neighboring Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. After days of denials an Egyptian official said the deadly rocket attacks were carried out by the militant Palestinian Hamas group operating from Egypt.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 2, Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Indian Kashmir, held crisis talks on the "cycle of violence" afflicting the region, as five more protesters died, taking the death toll to 37 in two months.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Malaysia set itself a historic precedent as 2 female sharia judges began working for the first time.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.39)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 2, North Korea opened this year's massive dance and gymnastics performance known as the Arirang Festival, turning to propaganda to unite its people amid new US sanctions on the isolated country to squeeze its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Pakistani lawmaker Raza Haider (35) was killed in a drive-by shooting in downtown Karachi, where political and ethnic assassinations have fanned increasing tensions. Haider was a member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the political party that runs the city and represents mainly descendants of Urdu-speaking migrants from India who settled in Pakistan when it was created in 1947.
(AFP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Pakistan fears were growing for up to 2.5 million people affected by the worst floods in 80 years amid outbreaks of disease after monsoon rains killed up to 1,500 people.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, In the Philippines the 2010 winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards were announced. Winners included Tadatoshi Akiba, the three-term mayor of Hiroshima, who spearheaded a global campaign for nuclear disarmament, and photographer Huo Daishan (56), who documented river pollution in his native China. The awards are considered Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Other awardees were physicists Christopher Bernido and wife Maria Victoria Carpio-Bernido of the Philippines, who introduced a novel way of teaching science, and Bangladeshi A.H.M. Noman Khan, who set up service-and-training centers for helping persons with disabilities.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Romania's central bank issued a special coin commemorating Miron Cristea, a prime minister (1938-1939) and religious leader, who stripped Jews of their citizenship before World War II. The move prompted protest from Romanian Jews as well as a director at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, Russia declared a state of emergency in seven regions after wildfires killed at least 34 people and left thousands homeless in the worst heatwave since records began 130 years ago. Officials said wildfires were also destroying what was left of wheat crops, decimated by severe drought. Expectations of slashed exports sent wheat prices soaring.
(AP, 8/2/10)(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 2, In southern Somalia Islamist rebels ordered business people to donate cash and jewelry for a holy war against African Union peacekeeping troops and the Somali government.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Suez, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship with 23 crew onboard, during an early morning raid.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, A cattle raid in Southern Sudan possibly sparked by the region's high bride price, 100 cows or more, left 21 people dead.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 2, UN chief Ban Ki-moon announced a four-member panel, including an Israeli and a Turk, to probe Israel's deadly raid in May on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, UNESCO added 6 sites located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and the South Pacific nation of Kiribati to World Heritage status.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 3, Pres. Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act. It allowed judges to take mitigating factors into account when sentencing a prisoner.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.31)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act)
2010 Aug 3, Time magazine reported on that Haitian-American music star Wyclef Jean (37) will announce his bid for president of earthquake-ravaged Haiti this week. A three-time Grammy award-winner, Jean was a founding member of the hip-hop trio The Fugees and won wider fame for his collaboration with Colombian pop star Shakira. He released a song two years ago called "If I Was President". Haiti’s ruling Unity party nominated ousted ex-Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis to lead the earthquake-ravaged nation.
(Reuters, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Manchester, Connecticut, Omar Thornton (34), a black warehouse driver who was caught steeling beer, went on a shooting rampage at the Hartford Distributors warehouse after he was asked to quit, killing eight people before committing suicide.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 3, In San Francisco federal authorities announced the seizure of over 200,000 counterfeit retail items at Fisherman’s Wharf valued at $100 million. 11 people were charged with conspiracy and smuggling. The targeted network was accused of importing goods from China that imitated 70 national and int’l. brands. Estimates of sham goods were reported to account for as much as 7-8% of the world’s retail economy.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Aug 3, Intel and the FTC confirmed the settlement of an anti-trust case.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 3, In Afghanistan insurgents wearing suicide vests tried to storm NATO's largest base in the south, but did not breach its defenses. All of the attackers were killed in the fighting including "approximately four" people in suicide vests. New Zealand suffered its first combat fatality in Afghanistan when a soldier died in an ambush that left another two New Zealand soldiers and an Afghan interpreter wounded in central Bamiyan province. An Afghan operation began in a rugged region east of Kabul in Laghman province to flush out the Taliban. Commanders called for backup from foreign forces after at least 10 Afghan soldiers were killed and up to 20 captured.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 3, British MPs of Pakistani origin hit out at President Asif Ali Zardari, saying he should be back home sorting out the flooding disaster rather than launching his son's career.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, British oil giant BP said it will sell its Colombian business for a total of 1.9 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) to national oil company Ecopetrol and Talisman of Canada.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In eastern China Fang Jiantang (26), a knife-wielding man, went on a slashing rampage in a kindergarten, leaving 3 children and one teacher dead in Shandong province. About 20 children and staff members were injured. Police detained Jiantang.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, In China gas exploded at a coal mine in the southern province of Guizhou, killing 10 people and trapping 7.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Iraq a car bomb in Kut killed at least 15 people. Suspected al-Qaida militants killed 5 Iraqi soldiers in a brazen dawn attack at a western Baghdad checkpoint and planted the terror group's black banner before fleeing the scene. An Iraqi soldier and a policeman were killed and nine people were wounded in other attacks across Baghdad.
(AP, 8/3/10)(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 3, Israeli municipal officials confirmed the approval for the building of 40 apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem's disputed eastern sector.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Indian Kashmir 4 more demonstrators died as new protests erupted in defiance of pleas for calm from the region's chief minister.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire on the border in the most serious clashes since a fierce war four years ago. 3 Lebanese nationals, two soldiers and a journalist, and an Israeli soldier were killed in the shootout which saw both sides threatening retaliation if the shooting recurred. Israeli troops returned the next day to the site of the shootout and cut down a number of trees growing along the border, completing a task which had set off the confrontation.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AFP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon said he would consider a debate on legalizing drugs as his government announced that more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006. In 2014 the 28,000 estimate was reduced to 21,000.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 5/23/14)
2010 Aug 3, In Nigeria Islamic police smashed 80,000 bottles of beer in the city of Kano to enforce a sharia law ban on consumption of alcohol that exists in much of the country's north.
(AFP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Northern Ireland Irish Republican Army dissidents detonated a bomb in a hijacked taxi outside a police base in Londonderry, damaging buildings but wounding no one despite the attackers' inaccurate warning. On Jan 12, 2011, police charged Londonderry resident Martin McCloone with six criminal counts connected to the attack.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 1/12/11)
2010 Aug 3, In Pakistan gunmen killed at least 45 people Karachi after the assassination of a prominent lawmaker set off a cycle of revenge attacks. Dozens of vehicles and shops were set ablaze as security forces struggled to regain control of the city.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Pakistan floodwaters that devastated the mountainous northwest surged into the heartland, submerging dozens of villages along bloated rivers whose torrents have killed at least 1,500 people and put 100,000 at risk of disease. Fresh rains in the hardest-hit northwest threatened to overwhelm a major dam and unleash a new deluge.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, Authorities in Panama said they recovered three more bodies on property owned by a jailed US man who prosecutors say has confessed to killing five fellow Americans to get their money and property in a Panamanian resort area.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Peru at least one farmer died when police cleared a roadblock set by coca growers demanding the government halt efforts to eradicate coca plantations in the world's top producer of the leaf, used to make cocaine.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said some of the devastating wildfires sweeping western Russia are out of control. PM Putin said he would personally supervise the reconstruction of fire-ravaged homes via video cameras to be installed at each construction site.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Rwanda the French-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accused Kigali of "flouting democracy" ahead of elections as Rwanda's regulatory body suspended some 30 media organizations.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In northern Siberia a twin-engine Antonov-24 turboprop passenger plane crashed near Igarka, killing at least 11 of the 15 people on board.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In South Africa a judge sentenced former national police chief Jackie Selebi (60) to 15 years in prison on corruption charges, saying he was an embarrassment to the crime-plagued country and the police officers who had served under him.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, In Arusha, Tanzania, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), found Dominique Ntawukulilyayo (68) guilty of genocide and sentenced him to 25 years of imprisonment. Prosecutors said Ntawukulilyayo in 1994 had transported soldiers to a hill where thousands of refugee Tutsis had gathered after he promised to feed and protect them. The soldiers joined other assailants in an attack, leaving possibly thousands of Tutsis dead.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, The UN launched an appeal for 478 million dollars (362 million euros) in aid to Zimbabwe, 100 million dollars more than in 2009, saying the country was at crossroads.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 4, BP PLC reached what it called a significant milestone overnight when mud that was forced down the well held back the flow of crude. A government report said much of the spilled oil is gone, though what's left is still at least quadruple the amount that poured from the Exxon Valdez.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, A judge struck down California's same-sex marriage ban as an unconstitutional violation of gay couples' civil rights, but a pending appeal of the landmark ruling could prevent gay weddings from resuming in the state any time soon.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Afghanistan NATO operations killed as many as 26 civilians. 9 civilians travelling to collect voting cards were killed in southern Helmand province when their vehicle struck an insurgent-placed roadside bomb.
(AFP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, In China heavy rains hindered efforts by workers to repair reservoirs and place sandbags along breached riverbanks as the death toll from China's worst flooding in a decade climbed above 1,000.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, Indian police battled Maoist rebels who ambushed their patrol in dense jungle, as violence worsens in an insurgency that has seen bigger and bolder attacks on government forces this year. 5 people were killed when the rebels blasted a vehicle carrying security guards of a bank in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
(Reuters, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Indonesia the Trisal Pratama sank shortly after a collision with another cargo vessel near Selayar island off South Sumatra province. Rescuers saved 11 people, including a 1-year-old girl, but searched the next day for nine others still missing.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Iraq a judge said Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammadi, No. 54 out of 55 on a former US military list of most-wanted Saddam officials, has been released from prison after he was found innocent of helping the former regime punish opponents by draining the country's fabled marshlands. 3 traffic policemen were killed in drive-by shootings in western Baghdad while gunmen stormed the house of a policeman, killing him, his wife and a relative.
(AP, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 4, Israeli soldiers killed a Gaza Strip militant was killed. The Israeli military said soldiers saw a group of men approach Israel's border fence with Gaza and launched an airstrike against them before dawn. 3 other militants were wounded in the attack.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Kashmir tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims marched to a town where seven people were killed over the weekend, defying a curfew in another day of massive protests against Indian rule in the Himalayan region. The Indian government warned that further "mindless violence" in Indian Kashmir could only lead to more deaths after two months of unrest that has already claimed 45 lives.
(AP, 8/4/10)(AFP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, Kenyans formed long lines before sunrise across the country to vote on a new constitution that would reduce the powers of the presidency in the nation's first ballot since postelection violence left more than 1,000 dead. 67% of Kenyans backed the new constitution to replace a British colonial-era draft that inflated the powers of the president. The new constitution provided for a wider measure of devolution to 47 new counties.
(AP, 8/4/10)(AP, 8/6/10)(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A3)(Econ, 10/30/10, p.46)
2010 Aug 4, Mexican authorities said 7 bodies were found in a clandestine grave in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state. The bodies were found after an anonymous tip and showed signs of having been tortured prior to their death.
(SFC, 8/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 4, In Nigeria Erastus Akingbola, ex-chief executive of Intercontinental Bank, turned himself in after returning from Britain. He was accused of taking part in corruption blamed for helping cause a financial crisis. The central bank removed a list of executives from their jobs at financial institutions, including Akingbola, in 2009 in a bid to clean up the banking sector.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Pakistan a suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying the chief of a paramilitary police force in Peshawar, killing him and four others in an attack that ended a relative lull in violence in a city often targeted by the Taliban.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, Moscow was engulfed by the thickest blanket of smog yet this summer, an acrid, choking haze from wildfires that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, In Edinburgh, Scotland, the 3 children Theresa Riggi (46), an American mother, were found dead after a suspected gas explosion. On Aug 6 she was charged with murder. On March 7, 2010, California-born Theresa Riggi pled guilty to a charge of culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility at the High Court in Edinburgh. On April 27, 2011, Riggi was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A2)(AFP, 3/7/11)(AP, 4/27/11)
2010 Aug 4, In South Africa vigilantes used whistles and vuvuzelas, the deafening horns used by fans during the World Cup, to arouse a mob to assault and kill 3 suspected thieves in their neighborhood. The victims, suspected of stealing power cables in the Lenasia district of southern Johannesburg, were burned alive. 2 others were beaten to death for wearing stolen clothes.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 4, A Sudanese court sentenced 19 young Muslim men to 30 lashes and a fine for breaking moral codes by wearing women's clothes and makeup, a case exposing Sudanese sensitivity toward homosexuality.
(Reuters, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 5, The US Senate voted 63-37 to confirm Elena Kagan (b.1960) to the Supreme Court.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 5, US federal indictments were unsealed in Alabama, California and Minnesota charging 14 people with terrorism offenses for allegedly aiding the radical Islamist al-Shaba organization in Somalia.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 5, In Missouri 2 people, a pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on a bus, were killed and 38 others were injured in an accident on the interstate highway near Gray Summit. In 2011 it was reported that a pickup driver (19) was texting just before his pickup truck, two school buses and a tractor truck collided in the deadly pileup.
(AP, 12/12/11)
2010 Aug 5, A federal judge in Montana reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 5, The US Export-Import Bank unveiled a loan guarantee for Ford Motor Co that will finance $3.1 billion in exports of cars and trucks to customers in Canada and Mexico.
(Reuters, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Extreme temperatures in a large swath of the US left over a dozen people dead.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 5, Afghan Pres. Karzai departed to attend a summit held among the presidents of host country Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Following the summit Feda Hussein Maliki, Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, handed Umar Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff, a large plastic bag stuffed with euro bills. The money was part of a secret stream of Iranian cash to buy the loyalty of Daudzai and promote Iran’s interests in Afghanistan’s presidential palace. It was later reported that Daudzai owns at least 6 homes located in Dubai, in the UAR and in Vancouver, Canada.
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 5, In northern Afghanistan a suicide car bomber struck a convoy of NATO troops and Afghan police, killing seven police officers and wounding at least 11 people. 9 civilians were killed by a remote-controlled bomb in the Bar Kunar district of Kunar province. 3 civilians were killed and others were wounded in a different blast in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province. In the south, Malak Janan, a tribal chief in Kandahar province's Dand district, and his son were killed when gunmen entered their home and shot them. 10 members of a medical team were shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages.
(AP, 8/5/10)(AP, 8/6/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 5, Bolivia's leftist government said it has begun military training for civilians at army barracks in what the opposition called a first step toward creating pro-government militias.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In northern Chile the collapse of a small mine left 33 miners trapped, though they could have taken refuge in an underground shelter with oxygen and food. On Aug 9 Pres. Pinera pleaded for int’l. help to rescue the miners. Rescue efforts reached the miners on Aug 22, it could take months to carve a tunnel big enough for them to get out. On Feb 2, 2011, a congressional commission found gold and copper mine owners Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny responsible for the accident that left the miners trapped for 69 days. In 2014 Hector Tobar authored “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free."
(Reuters, 8/6/10)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)(SFC, 3/3/11, p.A2)(SSFC, 10/19/14, p.Q4)
2010 Aug 5, Haitian hip-hop star Wyclef Jean registered as a presidential contender, in a move into politics that generated an outburst of popular enthusiasm in his poor, earthquake-ravaged homeland.
(Reuters, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Iraq gunmen stormed a Baghdad money exchange and killed three people, the latest in recent brash daylight attacks on banks, financial and trade centers in the Iraqi capital, many of which have been blamed on insurgents.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Israel’s Shin Bet security service reported that two Druse Arabs living in the Golan Heights and an Arab citizen of Israel were charged with passing information to the enemy and plotting to kidnap a Syrian pilot who had defected to Israel.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Indian-controlled Kashmir the death toll from civil unrest rose to 48 after two more people were killed when paramilitary forces opened fire on demonstrators angry about decades of Indian rule over the Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Kyrgyzstan government forces fired into the air to disperse hundreds of anti-government forces and arrested Urmat Baryktabasov, leader of the Mekin-Tuu political party, backed by the family of former Pres. Bakiyev.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 5, In the Netherlands Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn't know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself. Campbell said that she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, intending he use them for charity.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Pakistan began evacuating half a million people from flood-risk areas in the south as the overall number hit by the country's worst floods in living memory rose to more than four million. US Army choppers flew their first relief missions in the flood-ravaged northwest.
(AFP, 8/5/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In the southern Philippines a powerful bombing killed a man and wounded about a dozen other people including a provincial governor at the Zamboanga city airport.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Russia wildfires were raging close to a shelter housing hundreds of dogs and retired circus animals, as the death toll from weeks of blazes across the country rose to 50.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 5, Somali pirates seized the Syria Star, a freighter with 22 Syrian and 2 Egyptian crew members in the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden, in the 2nd pirate capture this week.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 5, In Tanzania 20 school children were feared drowned and 20 rescued after a boat they were traveling in capsized on the Tanzanian side of Lake Victoria.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, The US for the first time attended a ceremony commemorating its atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 65 years after the Japanese city's obliteration rang in the nuclear age.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, It was reported that Adnan Shukrijumah (35), a suspected al-Qaida operative who lived for more than 15 years in the US, has taken over as chief of the terror network's global operations, a position once held by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, US Companies showed a lack of confidence about hiring for a third straight month in July, making it likely the economy will grow more slowly the rest of the year. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Mark Hurd, CEO at Hewlett Packard, resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment and faulty expense reports. Hurd was expected to get $12.2 million in severance payment and nearly $350,000 shares of HP stock at the Aug 6 closing price.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.D6)
2010 Aug 6, In Michigan investigators said a knife-wielding serial killer, possible motivated by racial hatred, has been attacking men in the region of Flint since May killing 5 people and wounding 8.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 6, Tony Judt (b.1948), British historian, died. His work included “Postwar" (2005), a look at the 44 years following the main fighting of WWII and the collapse of the Soviet empire.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.72)
2010 Aug 6, In northern Afghanistan the bodies 10 members of a medical team, including six Americans, were recovered. They had been shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages. The Taliban claimed the next day it killed them for being "Christian missionaries." The beheaded body of Parliamentary candidate Najibullah Gulistani, who was abducted 18 days ago, was found in Ghazni province.
(AFP, 8/7/10)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A5)(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 6, Australian scientists reported a study revealing that sea sponges share almost 70 percent of human genes.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Britain and Pakistan agreed to do more together to fight Islamist militancy, brushing aside a diplomatic spat that followed British criticism of Pakistani efforts to counter extremism. Visiting Pakistan's Pres. President Asif Ali Zardari held official talks with PM David Cameron, roughly a week after the British leader ignited a diplomatic row by accusing Pakistan of exporting terrorism during a trip to the country's nuclear rival, India.
(Reuters, 8/6/10)(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In China AIDS activist Tian Xi (24) was taken into custody after a run-in with an administrator at Xincai County No. 1 People's Hospital, where he had been given a tainted blood transfusion as a boy. He was inflected with HIV via blood transfusion in 1996, and has been struggling to get compensation and treatment from the government more or less ever since. On Feb 11, 2011, Tian Xi was sentenced to one year in prison.
(AP, 2/12/11)(http://tinyurl.com/2b9cey5)
2010 Aug 6, In Indian Kashmir at least 113 people were killed and hundreds injured after rare rainfall triggered flash floods in an area of Ladakh popular with foreign fans of high-altitude adventure sports.
(AFP, 8/6/10)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 6, In Indonesia the Mount Karangetang volcano erupted, sending lava and a searing gas cloud tumbling down its slopes. At least four family members were swept away and feared dead.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Iraq a drive-by shooting and a bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed three traffic policemen in Baghdad, taking to eight the number from the city's force killed this week.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In southern Israel 7 members of one family, including a pregnant woman and two children, were killed when the minibus they were traveling in ignored traffic signals and crossed the tracks right into the path of a speeding train near the town of Kiryat Gat.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Pakistan battled to contain flooding in its rich agricultural south, evacuating half a million people from risk areas as the UN warned of the "daunting" scale of the crisis.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Poland's new Pres. Bronislaw Komorowski was sworn in and pledged to serve as a unifying force and work closely with European allies.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Russia a choking smog from raging wildfires shrouded Moscow, grounding flights, plunging the city's iconic Red Square into a sea of dirty mist and stinging eyes and throats across the Russian capital.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, Saudi Arabia suspended BlackBerry messaging services, as concerns spread across the Middle East and parts of Asia over security issues with the popular smartphones.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Sudan humanitarian officials said all aid agencies have been denied access to Darfur's Kalma camp after five people were killed there and thousands fled when divisions over peace talks turned violent. UN-African Union peacekeepers (UNAMID) have been in a stand-off with South Darfur's government and Khartoum since five men and a woman sought refuge in their Kalma police base during the violence late last month.
(Reuters, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 6, In Sweden a gang of thieves staged a remarkable break-in near the Swedish royal family's residence in Stockholm, smashing display cases at a historic 18th-century Chinese-style landmark and getting away with artifacts that police called potentially priceless.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 7, Elena Kagan was sworn in as the 112th person to serve on the US Supreme Court.
(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.A7)
2010 Aug 7, San Francisco began charging a $7 fee for visitors to the arboretum in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 7, The last bus departed the San Francisco Transbay Terminal allowing demolition to soon begin of the 71-year-old terminal.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.C2)
2010 Aug 7, It was reported that an ice island measuring 100 square miles has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland.
(SFC, 8/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 7, The Panamanian-registered MSC Chitra smashed into the St. Kitts-registered MV-Khalijia-II near Mumbai's Jawahar Lal Nehru port. The environment minister of Maharashtra state told reporters the next day that about 2 tons of oil was pouring into the water every hour. Indian authorities plugged the fuel leak on Aug 9 after some 500 tons of oil had spewed into the Arabian Sea.
(AP, 8/9/10)(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 7, In Iraq explosions killed at least 20 people at Basra’s al-Ashaar market. 5 policemen were killed in an overnight shootout at a suspected bomb workshop in Baghdad. One policeman was shot dead at a checkpoint in Fallujah. A suicide bomber killed a policeman and injured 3 others on foot patrol in Mosul.
(SSFC, 8/8/10, p.A5)(AP, 8/7/10)
2010 Aug 8, In San Francisco German tourist Mechthild Schroer was killed by a stray bullet outside a comedy club at 414 Mason. On May 4, 2011, police arrested 7 of 8 young men accused of taking part in a gang gunbattle that left her dead. In 2014 four men indicted in the shooting pleaded guilty to lesser charges and were expected to serve five to nine years in state prison.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/11, p.C2)(SFC, 8/16/14, p.C1)
2010 Aug 8, Patricia Neal (84), American actress, died at her home in Massachusetts. Her films included “The Fountainhead" (1949), “The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), “Hud" (1963) and “A Face in the Crowd" (1957). Her 1988 autobiography was titled "As I Am."
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 8, Matthew Simmons (67), who rattled the energy industry by arguing the world was rapidly approaching peak oil production capacity, died at his home in North Haven, Maine. In his 2005 book "Twilight in the Desert," Simmons argued Saudi Arabia's oil reserves were nearing the highest levels of production they were capable of achieving, after which point the world's yearly oil supply would begin to decline.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 8, In Afghanistan Pres. Karzai said foreign security companies should all be replaced by Afghan police, the same day that the bodies of 10 members of a medical team, killed on Aug 5, were returned to Kabul. 52 companies employed about 30,000 people, most of them former military officers.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.E7)(http://tinyurl.com/34uqwfs)
2010 Aug 8, Arab League chief Amr Moussa signed a letter asking for backing of a resolution urging Washington and other powers to end support of Israel's nuclear secrecy and to push the Jewish state to allow international inspections of its program. Arab nations planned submit the request to the September assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 8, In China landslides in the northwestern province of Gansu left at least 337 people dead in the deadliest incident so far in the country's worst flooding in a decade. More than 1,148 were missing.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 8, In Iraq a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad and killed 8 people, mostly civilians. Gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles boarded 4 commercial ships in a two-hour time span in the vicinity of an oil terminal in the northern Persian Gulf. The assailants took computers, cell phones and money from crew members before fleeing. The interrogation of two Iraqis arrested after the incident indicated it was a robbery attempt without a larger agenda.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 8, Libya's government announced it will pay compensation to some people it had wrongfully imprisoned, the latest step in an effort to draw a line under a history of human rights abuses.
(Reuters, 8/8/10)
2010 Aug 8, Former Mexican Pres. Vincente Fox, who was a key US ally in the war on drugs, backed the legalization of drugs, saying prohibition has failed to curb Mexico's spiraling violence and corruption.
(Reuters 8/910)
2010 Aug 8, North Korean authorities seized a South Korean fishing boat and its 7-man crew. North Korea freed the crew on Sep 7.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Aug 8, South African journalists launched a campaign to fight what they say is an attempt to curtail media freedoms in a nation known for one of Africa's freest and most open constitutions.
(AP, 8/8/10)
2010 Aug 8, In Spain people began complaining of jellyfish attacks. Over the next three days some 700 people were stung at three beaches on the Costa Blanca near Elche, where normally just a handful get stung daily.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 8, Gunmen in south Sudan killed 23 people, including police officers, in an ambush on a truck in the key oil producing state of Unity, Koch county.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez rejected Larry Palmer as the US ambassador to Caracas citing comments by Palmer regarding low morale in Venezuela’s military.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 9, The US federal court in Hawaii found Noshir Gowadia (66), a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer, guilty of selling sensitive military technology to China. Gowadia was arrested in October 2005 and accused of communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it. Further charges were added on subsequent indictments issued up until 2007.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In San Francisco, Ca., a federal grand jury charged Samuel “Maoli" Cohen of Belvedere, Marin County, with 32 counts of wire fraud and money laundering related to defrauding over 55 victims of some $30 million. Cohen was convicted in November of 29 charges of fraud, money laundering and tax invasion. On April 30, 2012, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
(SFC, 8/9/10, p.D1)(SFC, 5/1/12, p.C2)
2010 Aug 9, BP made its first deposit, $3 billion, into the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster fund, while top executives were summoned to the White House to pledge their long-term commitment to restoring the region.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Skype SA, the Internet calling service that was controlled until last year by eBay Inc., filed for a US initial public offering.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Honda Motor Co said it was recalling more than 428,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada because of a defect that could cause the cars to roll away if they are parked incorrectly.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, In USA a tour bus crash killed 3 Japanese tourists. Driver Yasushi Mikuni (26) was later charged with 10 felony counts of negligent driving and one misdemeanor charge of having marijuana residue in his system.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A11)
2010 Aug 9, In Alaska a small plane crashed killing former US Sen. Ted Stevens (86) and 4 others at a mountainside on Bristol Bay. 4 others survived the crash of the 1957 De Havilland DHC-3T.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 9, Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan woman who said her nose and ears were sliced off last year to punish her for running away from her violent husband, gained worldwide attention when she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. She was sent to Los Angeles over the summer for reconstructive surgery. In November her father-in-law was arrested on charges of disfiguring Aisha and of being part of a Taliban network in Uruzgan province. The only suspect arrested in the case was released in July, 2011.
(AP, 12/8/10)(SFC, 7/12/11, p.A2)
2010 Aug 9, Brazil formally offered asylum to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death in Iran on an adultery conviction. On July 31 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested he would be willing to provide the woman refuge.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Brazil Ed Stafford (34), former British army captain, ended his 2 1/2-year journey as he planned, leaping into the sea as the first man known to walk the length of the Amazon River.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, A leading Chinese general urged closer ties with Australia's military, amid a continuing freeze on Beijing's contacts with the Pentagon.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In central Europe swollen rivers surged north after carving a swath of destruction across Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. At least 11 people were reported killed.
(AP, 8/9/10)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 9, in Guatemala 7 of 19 suspects were detained after a court issued arrest warrants for 19 people including a former interior minister and a top police official for allegedly participating in the killing of inmates during a 2005 prison escape and a 2007 uprising. Those arrested included two civilians, two former policeman and an officer still on the force.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 9, Indonesian police arrested top radical Islamist preacher Abu Bakar Bashir. He was accused of funding and training extremists who were planning a wave of attacks in Jakarta.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Indonesia the Hastina III sunk off East Nusatenggara province after a large wave slammed into the wooden ship, sending panicked passengers running to one side. It capsized between Adonara and Lembata islands. 10 people were killed with one missing.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Iran announced plans to get rid of its dollar and euro reserves in response to the latest UN sanctions over its contested nuclear program. The IAEA said Iran has activated equipment to enrich uranium more efficiently in a move that defies the UN Security Council.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Two Bahai activists said an Iranian court has sentenced seven leaders of their faith to 20 years in prison after charging them with espionage and engaging in propaganda against Islam.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Iraq a rush-hour bombing at a western Baghdad police precinct killed two traffic cops and one civilian. Iraqi traffic police began to arm themselves with high-powered weapons for the first time in two years following an escalation in attacks against the force.
(AP, 8/9/10)(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, Israeli photographer Rafael Rafram Chaddad, jailed by Libya for five months, returned home after an Austrian tycoon brokered a deal for his freedom that involved the delivery of 20 prefabricated homes from a Libyan charity to the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Paraguay a presidential doctor said that Fernando Lugo's lymphatic cancer is more advanced than initially thought, but the chemotherapy he will undergo should not affect his ability to do his job.
(Reuters, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 9, A top Russian health official said deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the city is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave. Some 830 forest fires were burning nationwide.
(AP, 8/9/10)(SFC, 8/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 9, Rwandans voted in large numbers after a presidential election campaign that rights groups said was marred by repression and violence against critics of incumbent Paul Kagame, who is expected to win by a landslide. The bush war veteran won 93 percent of the vote in more than a third of country's districts.
(Reuters, 8/9/10)(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 9, A Somali militant group with links to al-Qaida announced it had banned three Christian aid agencies from its territory, and one aid group said militants had occupied their offices in southern Somalia.
(AP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 9, In South Africa 4 miners were shot dead by mine guards in an abandoned gold mine near Johannesburg. Their bodies were found on Aug 12. The mine was owned by Zuma's nephew Khulubuse Zuma and Mandela's grandson Zondwa Mandela. Their company, Aurora Empowerment Systems, was embroiled in a pay dispute with mineworkers they inherited from several mines they bought from an insolvent company. In January, 2012, a court ordered Khulubuse Zuma to pay $1.25 million (955,000 euro) in debt.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AFP, 4/15/12)
2010 Aug 9, Sudan halted BBC broadcasts in Arabic on FM radio frequencies after suspending its agreement with the British public broadcaster for reasons it said had nothing to do with its newscasts.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 10, President Barack Obama signed a $26 billion bill would protect some 300,000 teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, A San Francisco judge ordered Wells Fargo to pay its customers $203 million for manipulating debit transactions to maximize overdraft fees.
(SFC, 8/12/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 10, In Ohio Roderick Davie (38) was executed by lethal injection for the murder of 2 co-workers at a pet supply company in 1991.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 10, In Afghanistan 2 gunmen with explosives strapped to them tried to storm the office of an international security company in Kabul. When guards fought back, the men detonated their explosives, killing two Afghan drivers. This followed a UN report that the number of civilians killed in the Afghan war jumped 25 percent in the first half of 2010 compared with the same period last year, with insurgents responsible for the spike.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Brazil signed on to UN sanctions against Iran despite misgivings over the measures following its efforts to negotiate a nuclear-swap deal with the Islamic state.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, The death toll from landslides in northwestern China more than doubled to 702, as crews in three countries across Asia struggled to reach survivors from flooding that has afflicted millions of people.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, China Kanghui Holdings, a maker of orthopedic implants, and its stockholders priced 6.7 million American depositary shares, representing 40.1 million ordinary shares, at $10.25 apiece. The stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "KH."
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, The leaders of Colombia and Venezuela re-established diplomatic relations, saying they are starting to repair confidence undermined by years of recriminations between the two countries. The announcement came after a four-hour meeting between Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez and Colombia's new leader, Juan Manuel Santos.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, In the Dominican Rep. over 30,000 truck drivers began a one-day strike to protest a government proposal to increase the fuel tax.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 10, Indonesia and the US launched a biodiversity research centre on the holiday island of Bali to further studies of the archipelago's rich and diverse species.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Iraq the leader of an anti-Qaeda militia was gunned down outside his home, while bombs killed three civilians in a series of attacks south of Baghdad.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Japan apologized to South Korea for its colonial rule over the country, seeking to strengthen ties between the two countries ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Japanese annexation of the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Lebanon criticized a US Congressman's decision to suspend $100 million of military aid over concerns that Iranian-backed Hezbollah may have influence over the Arab country's army and American-supplied weapons could be used to threaten neighboring Israel.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in the capital, though its decision does not force those states to begin marrying gay couples in their territory.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 10, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari returned to his flood-ravaged country, where he faced a storm of criticism for visiting Europe as his country was gripped by what his government called the nation's worst natural disaster. The UN said the Pakistan’ government's estimate of 13.8 million people affected by the country's worst-ever floods exceeded the combined total of three recent megadisasters, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Rescuers in mountainous Indian-controlled Kashmir raced to save dozens of stranded foreign trekkers and find 500 people still missing in flash floods that have killed 140.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Poland several thousand protestors rallied before Warsaw's presidential palace to seek the removal of a cross erected there after the April air crash death of president Lech Kaczynski.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Puerto Rico Coraly Campos feuded with her partner and told him he would never see the two children again. She then beat them, stabbed them with a kitchen knife and set the house afire. Her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son died in the attack in the city of Trujillo Alto. Campos also tried to kill herself. On March 11, 2011, Campos (21) was convicted of first-degree murder, child abuse, arson, domestic abuse and violation of weapons laws.
(AP, 3/12/11)
2010 Aug 10, Saudi Arabia's telecommunications regulator said it would allow BlackBerry messaging services to continue in the kingdom, citing "positive developments" with the device's Canadian manufacturer.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, Northern and southern Sudanese leaders resumed negotiations on the ramifications of possible southern independence early next year, such as the distribution of oil wealth.
(AFP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 10, In Turkey suspected Kurdish rebels blew up part of an Iraqi-Kurdish pipeline killing 2 people and cutting the flow of oil in Sirnak province.
(SFC, 8/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 11, The US Treasury Dept. said it is sending an additional $2 billion to what it calls the 17 “hardest hit" states to help unemployed homeowners pay their mortgages.
(SFC, 8/12/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 11, A US military tribunal sentenced Ibrahim al-Qosi (50), Osama bin Laden's former cook, to 14 years in prison, but he is expected to serve far less under a plea deal that remains secret. Al-Qosi has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years. In Feb, 2011, a US military legal official reduced the sentence, suspending all but two years. On July 11, 2012, al-Qosi was returned to Sudan.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)(AP, 2/9/11)(AP, 7/11/12)
2010 Aug 11, In Iowa 3 nights of heavy rainfall caused creeks and rivers to swell, forcing hundreds of residents from their homes and killing a 16-year-old girl when three cars were swept away by a torrent of water on a rural road.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Over a billion Muslims around the world began observing the holy month of Ramadan, with the dawn-to-dusk fast posing a particular challenge for the devout in the sweltering Middle East summer.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Dan Rostenkowski (b.1928), former US Rep. from Illinois (1959-1995), died at his home in Wisconsin. In 1996 he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and served 15 months in prison.
(SFC, 8/12/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 11, In Afghanistan about 350 of the country’s Islamic clerics, or ulema, ended a 3-day meeting with a declaration calling on President Hamid Karzai to enact sharia, or Islamic law, including punishments such as stonings, lashing, amputation and execution.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Researchers reported that plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide. This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli, in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Bosnian officials said they have so far found 60 partial skeletons in the muddy banks of the manmade Lake Perucac in eastern Bosnia since the water level was lowered for dam maintenance. The victims were killed at the beginning of the 1992-95 war, thrown into the Drina river, and lodged into the banks of the lake. In 2012 a mass funeral was held for 66 Muslim Bosnians killed in Visegrad.
(AP, 8/11/10)(AP, 5/26/12)
2010 Aug 11, Canada said a cargo ship that may be carrying as many 500 migrants from Sri Lanka was nearing its Pacific coast. The M.V. Sun Sea entered an economic zone within 200 miles of Vancouver Island and was being tracked by a Canadian navy warship.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, In the Central African Republic the local Red Cross said floods have killed three people and left more than a thousand homeless in the country's north.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Chinese rescuers raced against a potential new deluge in northwest Gansu province and hurried to drain an unstable lake formed by the country’s worst mudslides in decades. The mudslide left about 1500 people dead.
(AFP, 8/11/10)(AFP, 5/13/12)
2010 Aug 11, China launched its biggest relocation program since the Three Gorges Dam. The first group of 499 villagers was moved in central Hubei province and a total of 60,000 people were to be relocated by Sept. 30. The rest, for a total of 330,000, will be moved by 2014.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, In CongoDRC around 40 people were killed when an overloaded truck laden with passengers plowed into Lake Tanganyika, Africa's deepest lake.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, Indonesia's best-known radical cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, was charged with helping plan terrorist attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession by Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband. The Iranian woman had faced death by stoning for adultery. Ashtiani was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men following the death of her husband. The next day her lawyer told a British newspaper that she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband's death.
(AP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 11, In Iraq gunmen burst into a house in Sadiyah, Diyala province, killing three people and sending the surviving children to an Iraqi army checkpoint to lure soldiers to the residence. As the troops arrived at the booby-trapped house, it blew up, leaving 8 soldiers dead. Gunmen broke into the house of a senior female doctor in Baghdad and killed her. the gunmen used pistols fitted with silencers and stole 250 million Iraqi dinars (about $215,000).
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Toyota said it has suspended auto exports to Iran indefinitely in line with global sanctions against Tehran's nuclear program.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon questioned prosecutors and judges as to why so few people are caught and punished for violent crimes.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Morocco’s official media said security forces have broken up a radical Islamist cell that was planning attacks in Morocco and foreign assets there.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Nicaraguan Supreme Court justices, who support President Daniel Ortega, picked seven lawyers from Ortega's Sandinista party to replace opposition judges who have been boycotting court sessions.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, In Nigeria a condemned building collapsed in Abuja and killed 23 people. Squatters who lived there described jumping from two storeys up to escape. Russian sailors Igor Ivanov and Andrei Pukke were kidnapped in the southern delta. On Sep 9 they were reported to have been released by their captors following a $60,000 ransom.
(AFP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/14/10)(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Aug 11, Norway pledged to work for democracy in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy during a Norwegian-sponsored meeting held in South Africa and featuring diplomats and Swazi pro-democracy groups.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, The UN appealed for $459 million in aid for flood-hit Pakistan, warning of a second wave of death among sick, hungry survivors unless help arrived quickly.
(Reuters 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, The Islamist Hamas movement released 100 prisoners in its Gaza enclave, including members of the rival Fatah, in honor of the start of Ramadan.
(AFP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Russia said it has deployed high-precision air defense missiles in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, sending a defiant signal to Tblisi and the West two years after a war with Georgia.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, In Rwanda a grenade attack shook Kigali wounding at least seven people as Pres. Paul Kagame was declared winner of a much-criticized election devoid of real opposition. Two people later died of injuries sustained in the grenade blast.
(AFP, 8/12/10)(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 11, Turkey said it will support petrol sales by Turkish companies to Iran, despite US sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Zimbabwe auctioned 900,000 carats of rough diamonds that were mined from its Marange fields, an area where human rights groups say soldiers killed 200 people, raped women and forced children into hard labor.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 12, Officials in Atlanta, Georgia, arrested Elias Abuelazam (33), a suspect in a string of 18 stabbings that left 5 people dead, at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Int’l. airport as he was about to board an airplane to Tel Aviv. 14 of the stabbings had taken place in Flint, Michigan. Abuelazam was extradited to Michigan where he faced homicide charges. On June 25, 2012, Abuelazam was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/27/10, p.A6)(SFC, 6/26/12, p.A5)
2010 Aug 12, In Nevada 2 gold miners were killed in an accident at the Meikle mine.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A6)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A9)
2010 Aug 12, In Oregon a small plane crashed in the Steens Mountain killing 2 men, including prominent California horse breeder Frank Vessels (58).
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 12, In eastern Afghanistan a crowd of about 300 villagers yelled "Death to the United States" and blocked a main road as they swore that US forces had killed three innocent villagers. NATO forces rejected the claim, saying they had killed several suspected insurgents and detained a local Taliban commander in the overnight raid. Elders from Zarin Khil village said American troops stormed into a family's house and shot three brothers, all young men, and then took their father into custody. In nearby Paktiya province NATO and Afghan troops killed more than 20 armed insurgents in an ongoing operation to disrupt insurgents in the area around Dazadran district. US and Afghan forces stepped up operations against a Taliban faction linked to al-Qaida, arresting several key figures in the network in raids in two eastern provinces. A British serviceman, who was injured Aug 10 in an incident involving a helicopter at a patrol base in the Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand, died at a hospital in Britain.
(AP, 8/12/10)(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, Leicester City, the English Championship soccer club, announced that a consortium led by Thai businessman Aiyawatt Raksriaksorn has bought the organization.
(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, An Iranian man was arrested in Brazil on suspicion of 11 murders allegedly aimed at protecting his illegal electronics smuggling operation. Police in the northeastern state of Ceara say Farhad Marvizi (46) hired two rogue officers and other people to carry out the killings in the last two years.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, In China 10,276 people in Inner Mongolia set a new world record for the longest chain of human dominoes toppling a record set a decade earlier in Singapore by more than several hundred.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100813/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_china_life_dominoes)
2010 Aug 12, In Colombia a car bomb exploded outside a major radio station and banks in Bogota, shattering windows and injuring at least nine people. No deaths were reported.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, Egypt's religious ministry launched an ambitious project to, neighborhood by neighborhood, unify the timing and sound of the Islamic call to prayer across Cairo, a sprawling city of 18 million. System glitches and a communication breakdown delayed it by a day.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said that over 40 illegal gypsy camps have been dismantled around the country in the last two weeks and that 700 people among those in the camps will be returned to Bulgaria and Romania.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 12, India ordered telephone operators to allow security agencies access to BlackBerry services carried on their networks by the end of the month.
(AFP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In India Cindy Iannereli, an American from Cecil, Pa., was murdered near the Osian resort in Rajasthan state. Her son teenager Joncarlo Patton (15) was arrested as the prime suspect in the murder. On May 3, 2011, the boy was sentenced to serve three years in an Indian juvenile detention facility. On May 11, 2012, an Indian court overturned the conviction and Patton was released.
(http://tinyurl.com/3wtvvn5)(AP, 5/3/11)(AFP, 5/11/12)
2010 Aug 12, In Jamaica police shot and killed Cedric Murray, otherwise called ‘Doggie’, a senior member of the Montego Bay-based Stone Crusher gang, near the border of Clarendon and Manchester. He was on Jamaica’s ‘Most Wanted List’ for the past five years.
(www.jamaicasmostwanted.com/2008/05/03/cedric-murray/)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.48)
2010 Aug 12, In Malaysia gold coins came into circulation and could be purchased at various locations in Kelantan state. Their worth is currently about $180 per dinar and $4 per dirham. The gold dinar and silver dirham coins provide an alternative to Malaysia's currency, the ringgit, in northeastern Kelantan state, which is governed by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, a conservative opposition group that promotes religious policies in its rule.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, Guido De Marco (79), former president of Malta (1999-2004), died. He helped the island nation win European Union membership (2004).
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Mexico police found the bodies of six people in two locations. The bodies of four males, including two teenagers, were found with their hands and feet bound inside a car in the town of Tepalcatepec, Michoacan state. Minutes earlier police in Tepalcatepec found the body of a man and a woman alongside a road.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 12, Demonstrators in Morocco slapped a commercial blockade on Melilla, a Spanish enclave, allowing in only some trucks in a dispute over alleged police violence and racism against Moroccans entering the city. Besides a bustling commercial flow, about 35,000 Moroccans cross daily into Melilla, population 70,000, to work or shop.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Nigeria a senior official said a cholera outbreak has killed 40 people while 115 others have been infected in northern Nigeria's Borno State in the past week.
(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 12, President Dmitry Medvedev said drought has destroyed a quarter of Russia's grain crop this year, pushing some farmers to the brink of bankruptcy and hurting Russia's bid to expand food exports.
(Reuters, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Suriname Desi Bouterse (64), a former coup leader, convicted drug trafficker and accused murderer, was sworn in as president.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, Human Rights Watch group said Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels have abducted 697 people in central Africa in the past 18 months, killing at least 255 of them.
(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Zimbabwe a wounded buffalo, known as one of the most aggressive animals in the African bush, gored veteran Zimbabwean conservationist Steve Kok (71) to death, ending his years of dedication to saving wild animals from poachers' traps.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 13, President Barack Obama signed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border. The new law nearly doubled fees on visas for skilled workers brought in by companies whose employees are more than 50 percent foreign, a move that largely affects India's IT and outsourcing industries.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, Pres. Obama forcefully endorsed building a mosque near ground zero, saying the country’s founding principles demand no less.
(SFC, 8/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 13, The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the Palos Bank and Trust Co. based in Palos Heights, Illinois. It was the 110th US bank to go under this year.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.D3)
2010 Aug 13, Geral Rosen (71), American novelist, died in SF. His 7 books included “Blues for a Dying Nation" (1972) and his autobiography “Cold Eye, Warm Heart" (2009).
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.C8)
2010 Aug 13, In southern Afghanistan a member of the international coalition died after an insurgent attack. A British soldier was also killed by small-arms fire in the Sangin district of Helmand province. Three small children were killed and their mother was wounded when a civilian house was hit by an insurgent rocket in Khost city. Two private security guards and two militants were killed in a gunbattle in the Karukh district of Herat province, 12 other guards were wounded in the skirmish. 3 Afghan civilians were killed and another was wounded by insurgents in three separate incidents in Kandahar province.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Australia 2 men were gunned down in a popular Melbourne bar area, shortly after the killing of a known crime figure sparked fears of a new gang war in the city's notorious underworld.
(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, A Belgian man died from a drug-resistant "superbug" originating in South Asia, the first reported death from the bacteria. The superbug -- a bacterial gene called New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) -- was first identified last year in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.
(AFP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, The Bosnia's war crimes court confirmed charges of genocide for 4 former Bosnian Serb army soldiers over the killing of at least 800 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in July, 1995. Franc Kos, Stanko Kojic, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja all served with the Bosnian Serb army's 10th commando unit.
(Reuters, 8/13/10)(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, In western Canada at least 450 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, on board the MV Sun Sea cargo ship, arrived at a naval base escorted by a naval frigate and police helicopters.
(Reuters, 8/13/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 13, In northwest China new landslides killed 24 people and left 24 missing in Gansu province as downpours threatened more devastation and made rescue work nearly impossible in a region where more than 1,100 people have died.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Egypt a gunbattle between Eritrean migrants and Bedouin traffickers demanding more money to take them to Israel left at least four people in the Sinai Desert. 2 others were shot dead by Egyptian police barring them from illegally crossing the border. A woman died of her injuries on Aug 15. Police later said as many as 10 migrants were killed and that dozens more could be lost in the desert.
(AP, 8/14/10)(Reuters, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 13, Guatemalan police arrested the former head of the national prison system, accusing him of orchestrating the executions of seven prisoners during a 2006 government raid on an infamous jail. Alejandro Giammattei, in charge of penitentiaries during the previous administration of President Oscar Berger, turned himself over to authorities after trying to seek asylum in the Honduran Embassy this week.
(Reuters, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Iran PJAK Kurdish rebels killed a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards and two Islamist militiamen in clashes near northwestern Orumieh city.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Kashmir tens of thousands staged angry street demonstrations after government forces killed four people and injured 31 others during the latest unrest against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, In Sri Lanka a military court convicted former Sri Lankan army chief and presidential candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka of involvement in politics while in service and stripped him of his rank and military honors.
(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Aug 13, Turkish officials said police have raided a house used by people suspected of digging illegally for antiquities and discovered two tunnels leading to an underground tomb that housed an ancient marble coffin and frescoes. The tomb was believed to be that of Hecatomnus, satrap of Caria (391BC-377BC).
(AP, 8/13/10)(www.livius.org/he-hg/hecatomnids/hecatomnus.html)
2010 Aug 14, In California an off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at the California 200 race in the Mohave Desert, killing eight people and injuring 12 others.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 14, In New York a shooting outside a restaurant in downtown Buffalo left four people dead and four wounded. Keith Johnson (25) was arrested and charged with 4 counts of 2nd degree murder. Prosecutors soon dropped charges against Johnson following examination of surveillance video. On Aug 25 Riccardo McCray turned himself in and was charged 4 counts of 2nd degree murder.
(AP, 8/14/10)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A10)(SFC, 8/16/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A7)
2010 Aug 14, Abbey Lincoln (b.1930), jazz singer and actress, died in Manhattan. Her first album, “Affair… a Story of a Girl in Love" (1956) was made the same year in which she appeared in her first film “The Girl Can’t Help It." From 1962-1970 she was married to drummer Max Roach.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.C10)
2010 Aug 14, In Afghanistan the international coalition said more than 20 insurgents including Arab, Chechen and Pakistani fighters have been killed by NATO and Afghan forces who are ramping up operations in the east against a Taliban faction linked to al-Qaida. Four police were killed and four others wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Gereshk district in Helmand province. NATO and coalition troops killed two insurgents after a patrol came under small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire in Kunduz province. NATO forces killed two insurgents who attacked a police station by hitting their truck with an airstrike as they fled an area in northern Kunduz province. One police officer was reported killed in the fighting.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 14, China’s People's Daily reported that China will test a wider range of dairy products and even breast milk as authorities investigate claims that a brand of infant formula caused apparent breast growth in a small number of babies. State media have said the babies with apparent breast growth were found to have abnormal levels of the hormones estradiol and prolactin, which stimulate lactation, or the making of breast milk.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, The EU told military-run Myanmar that its Nov. 7 elections, the first in two decades, will not be considered legitimate in the eyes of the world unless it can ensure the vote is free and fair.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, Gabon signed contracts worth 4.5 billion dollars (3.5 billion euros) with Indian and Singaporean companies for infrastructure projects. The investments were expected to generate some 50,000 jobs.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Iraq two policemen were shot dead and their bodies set ablaze at a Baghdad checkpoint. A drive-by shooting killed 2 more police officers in Baghdad. An anti-Qaeda fighter was killed at a checkpoint manned by government-backed Sunni fighters in northeast Baghdad. A bomb attached to a police officer’s car in Baghdad blew up, killing the driver and wounding 2 passengers. Mohammed Ali al-Deen (34), who returned less than a month ago after completing a pharmacy course in Washington DC, was gunned down at his home in Noamaniyah in the central province of Wasit.
(AFP, 8/14/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Aug 14, In Indian Kashmir fresh clashes erupted between anti-India protesters and security forces, where 55 demonstrators have died during two months of unrest.
(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Italy police in Sicily said they've hit at the heart of the financial empire of a convicted Mafia associate, seizing euro800 million (more than $1 billion) in property and businesses, including a clinic for cancer patients and a local soccer team. Local health mogul Michele Aiello (53) was convicted of Mafia association, corruption and fraud and sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, Lebanese intelligence agents killed two suspected members of an al-Qaida-inspired group in the Bekaa Valley. Local TV station Al-Jadeed reported that one of them was Abdul-Rahman Awad, a leader of the Fatah Islam group, and his aide, Ghazi Faysal Abdullah. They were heading to Iraq to join insurgents.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 14, Mexican authorities said that police in Ciudad Juarez have captured five alleged drug gang members suspected in the killings of two federal officers, including one whose body was hacked to pieces.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 14, Aid officials said Niger is now facing the worst hunger crisis in its history, with almost half the country's population in desperate need of food and up to one in six children suffering from acute malnutrition. Villagers described the situation as worse than in 2005, when aid organizations treated tens of thousands of children for malnutrition, and worse even than 1973, when thousands died.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In southwestern Pakistan gunmen targeted non-ethnic Baluchis traveling on a bus and painting a house in two attacks, killing 7 Taliban and 7 tribesmen and wounding eight.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 2/25/12)
2010 Aug 14, In Portugal more than 600 firefighters battled at least 26 serious wildfire outbreaks fanned by gusting winds in three separate areas.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Russia the number of wildfires in the Moscow region fell sharply overnight, but hundreds of blazes continued to rage in other areas of Russia, and officials warned that some of them are in hard-to-reach regions.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Singapore the inaugural Youth Olympic Games officially opened in a spectacular blaze of color, with Jacques Rogge hailing it as a new chapter in the Olympic movement. The Games, which feature athletes aged 14 to 18, are a project Rogge has championed since becoming IOC chief in 2001.
(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, South Korean Lee Dae-Ho broke a world record by scoring a home run for his ninth straight game.
(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Sudan's Darfur region two Jordanian peacekeepers, deployed with the joint United Nations-African Union mission, were kidnapped. On Aug 17 Jordanian and Sudanese officials said the peacekeepers have been freed.
(AP, 8/15/10)(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 14, In Thailand formed US Marine Dashawn Longfellow was beaten and stabbed to death following a brawl at a Phuket bar. In 2012 British kickboxer Lee Aldhouse was indicted for the stabbing.
(SFC, 12/27/12, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/dynf6av)
2010 Aug 15, In San Francisco the 2-day Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival drew close to 80,000 people to 4 concert stages in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 8/16/10, p.C1)
2010 Aug 15, James Kilpatrick (b.1920), columnist and longtime conservative 60 Minutes “Point Counterpoint" commentator, died in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 15, In Afghanistan Abu Baqir, a man described as a Taliban sub-commander and al Qaeda group leader, was killed, along with another insurgent, when an alliance aircraft fired on a truck in Kunduz province. Siddiqa (19) and her fiance Khayyam (25) were stoned to death in public in northern Kunduz over an alleged illicit love affair. They had tried to elope against their families’ wishes. The stoning was captured on video.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SFC, 2/1/11, p.A2)
2010 Aug 15, In Bahrain four leading Shiite activists were arrested as the kingdom's Sunni leaders try to end violent confrontations between Shiite protesters and anti-riot police. Shiites are a majority in Bahrain, but the oil-rich nation is ruled by a Sunni royal family.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, India's PM Manmohan Singh appealed to the people of Indian-controlled Kashmir to end violent protests and said his government is ready to hold talks to resolve their long-standing problems. An off-duty officer flung a shoe at Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Indian-controlled Kashmir's top elected official, during India's independence day ceremony.
(AP, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Iraq drive-by shootings and a spate of bombings killed 11 people and wounded dozens. Five of the dead were Iraqi police and security forces. 3 Sunni Muslims were gunned down as they left Abid Wais mosque in Jurf al-Sakhr, 50 km (30 miles) south of the capital in the mainly Shiite province of Babil. Three others, including an off-duty policeman, were killed when their minibus was struck by a bomb attack as it travelled to the centre of Baghdad from an eastern quarter. A traffic policeman and a civilian were also killed, and a police officer was wounded, when a roadside bomb exploded near Al-Shaab stadium in the east of the capital. Another person was killed and seven others wounded by three roadside bombs in northern Baghdad. In Mosul, one Iraqi soldier was killed and another wounded in a shooting at a security checkpoint in the east of the northern city.
(AP, 8/15/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, Israel's military said Hezbollah is moving fighters and weapons into the villages of south Lebanon, building up a secret network of arms warehouses, bunkers and command posts in preparation for war.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Mexico attackers shot 8 men to death and piled their bodies in a pickup truck in the southern state of Oaxaca. Gunmen kidnapped Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of the town Santiago, a city on the outskirts of Monterrey. His body was found on Aug 18. In Ciudad Juarez gunmen opened fire on the pool party in central Ciudad Juarez, killing 3 women and a man and wounding 5 other women, all of whom were wearing swimsuits. In an attack at a private house, gunmen riddled party-goers with bullets. 3 victims died at the scene, and another 3 in hospital. The bodies of four other men, "showing signs of torture with several shots through their heads," were found in other parts of the city. The city had more than 2,660 murders in 2009 and 1,850 so far this year. In Veracruz police found the bound, burned remains of a body with a federal police badge.
(AFP, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/16/10)(Reuters, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Mali 2 survivors of a failed journey said 12 African nationals trying to illegally enter Europe died from thirst and hunger in the Algerian desert.
(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Nigeria Royal Dutch Shell PLC warned that thieves in the oil-rich and restive southern delta are increasingly targeting the company's crude pipelines, including at least three incidents of sabotage this month alone.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Nigeria a fiery road crash outside the commercial capital of Lagos burned at least 15 people to death and injured 18 others.
(AFP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 15, Pakistani men took turns savagely beating the two teenage brothers with sticks, drawing blood before dragging and hanging their dead bodies from a nearby pole. None of the dozens of people watching tried to stop the attack, not even several police. The scene was caught on video and broadcast on news channels. The boys in Sialkot, a town in eastern Punjab province, may have been mistaken for robbers. At least 10 suspects were later arrested, including four police officers.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Saudi Arabia Ghazi Algosaibi (70), a consummate statesman and liberal writer, died after a long illness. Algosaibi was close to the kingdom's ruling family. But his writings, critical of Arab governments, were banned in the kingdom. Only last month, Saudi Culture Ministry lifted the ban on his writings citing his contributions to the nation.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, South Korea’s Pres. Lee Myung-bak proposed a 3-step plan to unify the Korean peninsula and a new tax to help his country absorb the enormous cost of integration.
(SFC, 8/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 15, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the world to quicken aid for up to 20 million people hit by Pakistan's worst humanitarian crisis as he flew in to visit areas ravaged by record floods.
(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 16, The US Justice Dept. dropped its 6-year investigation of former US House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex) and his interactions with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, The US Interior Dept. announced new rules for offshore drilling.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, US-based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network, one of the world's largest diamond trading networks, said it will expel members who knowingly trade Zimbabwean stones tainted by allegations of killings and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Sheriff’s deputies at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Ca., stunned inmate Martin Harrison (51) with Tasers as they tried to move him to another cell so that his could be cleaned. Harrison was in the midst of alcohol withdrawal and died two days later. In 2015 Alameda County and Corizon Health Inc. agreed to pay $8.3 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by his four adult children.
(http://tinyurl.com/ldo9487)(SFC, 2/11/15, p.D1)
2010 Aug 16, Shrimpers returned to Louisiana waters for the first commercial season since the Gulf oil disaster, uncertain what crude may still be in the water and what price they'll get for the catch if consumers worry about possible lingering effects from the massive BP spill.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In South Carolina Shaquan Duley suffocated her 2 sons, ages 3 years and 14 months, put their bodies into a car and rolled the car into the North Edisto River. On March 16, 2012, she pleaded guilty to murder charges.
(SFC, 3/17/12, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/75e5z3u)
2010 Aug 16, Mazda Motor Corp announced a recall of 215,000 Mazda 3 and Mazda 5 vehicles sold in the United States because of the risk that they could lose power steering without warning.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 16, Dell Inc. said it's buying 3Par Inc., a maker of enterprise data storage equipment, for about $1.13 billion cash or $18 per share. Hewlett Packard soon countered with a higher bid and a bidding war ensued raising the value of 3Par $2 billion, or $30/share. HP ended an 18-day battle with a $33 per share offer. On Sep 2 Dell refused to continue bidding and said it was entitled to a $72 million termination fee.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/29/10, p.A9)(SFC, 9/3/10, p.D4)
2010 Aug 16, Celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan (50), who made headlines for performing multiple surgeries on reality TV star Heidi Montag, died in a car crash in southern California. He was texting while driving and accidentally went over a cliff. Ryan opened his private practice in 1994, the same year he established his namesake charitable foundation that provides free removal of gang-related tattoos and hosts day and overnight camps for children at Malibu's Bony Pony Ranch.
(http://tinyurl.com/2fv4r8f)
2010 Aug 16, In South Carolina Shaquan Duley (29) suffocated her two boys (18 months and 2 years old) and rolled her car into the North Edisto River in an attempt to cover their murder. She confessed to their murder the next day.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, In Afghanistan 6 police officers in Kandahar province were poisoned by a cook who defected to the Taliban.
(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 16, Teams from Australia, Germany and Switzerland have set off from Geneva in electric vehicles for what they hope will be the first carbon neutral race around the world. The race set up by Swiss inventor Louis Palmer will pass through 150 cities including Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Cancun before returning to Geneva in January after 18,642 miles (30,000 km) on the road.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Bolivia protesters suspended road blockades and hunger strikes, saying government officials agreed to address their grievances after 19 days of demonstrations that paralyzed Bolivia's southern Potosi region. The government agreed to build a new airport and cement factory in the area to end the 3-weeks of roadblocks.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, In northeast China a massive explosion ripped through a fireworks factory, killing 19 workers, damaging nearby buildings and causing secondary blasts.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In China at least 36 more people have died and 23 others were missing in fresh flooding from torrential rains in Gansu province.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, A Boeing 737 jetliner with 131 passengers aboard crashed on landing and broke into three pieces at Colombia’s at San Andres Island in the Caribbean. The region's governor said it was a miracle that only one person died. On Sep 1 a girl (11) died from her injuries raising the death toll to two.
(AP, 8/16/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Greece Dimitrios Ioannidis (87), a feared security chief, died. He led the 1974 countercoup against Greece's military leaders and provoked Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. He was jailed in 1975 for life for his part in the 1967-74 dictatorship.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Iran said it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds, with construction on the first starting in March, in continuing defiance of international efforts to curb its nuclear development.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Iraq a car bomb killed four Iranian Shiite pilgrims and an Iraqi citizen travelling on a bus northeast of Baghdad with women among nine others wounded.
(AFP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant who the military said was planting a bomb along the border.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Mexico's Supreme Court voted to uphold a Mexico City law allowing adoptions by same-sex couples, drawing jubilant cheers from gay advocacy groups and angry protests from Roman Catholic Church representatives.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Mexico 4 inmates were found dead with their throats slashed at a prison in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Nigerian officials said a cholera outbreak has killed 87 people during the past month while 1,315 others have been infected.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Pakistan angry flood survivors blocked a highway to protest slow delivery of aid and heavy rain lashed makeshift housing as a forecast of more flooding increased the urgency of the massive international relief effort.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Peru American Lori Berenson apologized for aiding leftist rebels and asked a Peruvian court to let her remain free on parole after serving 15 years of her 20-year sentence behind bars.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Romania a fire at a Bucharest maternity hospital killed 3 babies. A 4th died the next day and seven remained in critical condition. The accident provoked a wave of public indignation, throwing light on Romania's poorly funded and understaffed health system.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Russia’s ruling party said it would not re-nominate Georgy Boos, the unpopular governor of Kaliningrad, for a new term.
(Reuters, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Russia Gabriel Grecu, first secretary in the political department of the Romanian Embassy in Moscow, was detained while trying to obtain secret military information from a Russian citizen. He was given 48 hours to leave the country.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Sudan lightning struck a religious school in the country's western Darfur region, killing seven children.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 17, A federal jury in Chicago deadlocked on all but one of 24 charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He was convicted of lying to federal agents. Prosecutors pledged to retry the case as soon as possible.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 17, In Los Angeles an abandoned trunk was found by two women clearing out an apartment building basement that was filled with items that accumulated during years of remodels. Two leather doctor bags contained the mummified remains of two infants. The trunk also contained ticket stubs from the 1932 KA Olympic games. DNA testing later linked the infants to Janet M. Barrie (1897-1995), an Irish immigrant who worked as a private live-in nurse for Mary Knapp, the wife of dentist George Knapp.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.C5)
2010 Aug 17, American oil company Anadarko said it has discovered offshore oil deposits in northern Mozambique, but it is unclear if the find will prove commercially viable.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Texas Patrick Gray Sharp (29) was killed in a shootout with police after he towed a trailer full of explosives in front of suburban Dallas police station and opened fire in an apparent attempt to lure people out to kill them.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 17, Texas executed Peter Anthony Cantu (35), a former gang member, for taking part in the rape and murder of 2 teenage girls in 1993.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 17, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree ordering that all private security firms in the country should be disbanded within four months.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Bahraini lawyer Mohammed al-Tajir said a total of 10 activists, including eight leading members of the opposition, have been detained since Aug 14.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Brazil police officers repeated shot a 14-year-old boy just outside his house in Manaus. The boy survived, but was seriously injured. On March 24, 2011, five police officers were detained after Brazilian television released amateur video that showed the shooting. A prosecutor said the officers allegedly involved in the shooting told him they were asking the minor about a gun used in a crime in the neighborhood.
(AP, 3/24/11)
2010 Aug 17, The “Great British Bake Off" (GBBO), a British television baking competition produced by Love Productions, began airing on BBC Two.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off)(Econ, 9/2/17, p.74)
2010 Aug 17, British retiree Christopher Tappin (63) insisted he is the innocent victim of entrapment by US customs agents. American authorities accuse him of plotting to sell missile components to Iran in a deal exposed in an undercover sting. Tappin told reporters at a news conference in London he had been duped by the customs agents, had no contacts with Iran and had stood to make only $500 from his role in the deal.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, A new British report said police detected more than 6,800 cannabis farms and factories in the UK in the last 12 months, more than double the number found in 2007-2008.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Canadian officials said a nuclear reactor responsible for production of about a third of the world's medical isotopes has resumed operation after more than a year-long shutdown. Atomic Energy of Canada said that after low-power testing on the Chalk River reactor in Ontario proved successful, the 53-year-old facility returned to full power for the first time since a heavy water leak forced it offline in May 2009.
(Reuters, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, At least 4 Tibetans were fatally shot and 30 others wounded when Chinese police opened fire on demonstrators protesting the expansion of a gold mine they blamed for causing environmental damage in southwestern China's Sichuan province not far from the border with Tibet. On Aug 30 the official Xinhua News Agency reported that a 47-year-old Tibetan named Babo died after being hit "by a stray bullet when police fired warning shots with an anti-riot shotgun."
(AP, 8/28/10)(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 17, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled that last year's agreement giving the US military access to more Colombian bases is unconstitutional because it wasn't approved by legislators.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, An Iranian fighter jet crashed in southern Iran near the country's nuclear power plant that is to start up over the weekend. The two pilots ejected safely.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Iraq a suicide bomber sat for hours among hundreds of army recruits before detonating nail-packed explosives strapped to his body, killing 61 people and casting new doubt on the ability of Iraqi forces as US troops head home.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In Israel a Palestinian who broke into the Turkish Embassy trying to take hostages and demanding asylum was turned over to Israeli authorities. The next day his lawyer claimed that Nadim Injaz was a former Israeli informer who was seeking political asylum. 2 Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded by a mortar shell fired from Gaza. Later in the day Israeli warplanes struck targets including Hamas training facilities in five locations in Gaza. No one was hurt.
(AP, 8/17/10)(AP, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 17, Francesco Cossiga (1928-2010), former Italian premier (1979-1980) and president (1985-1992), died. He led Italy's fight against domestic terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s but resigned after failing to save the life of a politician kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
(AP, 8/17/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Cossiga)
2010 Aug 17, Lebanon's Parliament passed a law that for the first time grants the country's Palestinian refugees the right to work in any profession.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Amsterdam police found 7,000 kg of marijuana and hashish in a warehouse near Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, after arresting a 35-year-old man on suspicion of selling narcotics. The estimated street value was 40 million euros (32.8 million pounds).
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 17, A Human Rights Watch report said Nigerian police corruption has led officers to regularly detain innocent people to extort cash, with some tortured or allegedly killed in the process. The report was based on interviews with more than 145 victims of or witnesses to police corruption.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, North Korea rejected a new unification proposal from South Korea, calling it a "ridiculous" plan aimed at weakening the North in preparation for a US-assisted invasion.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, A North Korean military plane, what appeared to be a MiG-21 fighter jet, crashed in northeastern in Liaoning province. China’s official Xinhua News Agency later said it went down because of mechanical failure. The pilot reportedly died on the spot.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 17, The World Bank said it will redirect $900 million of its existing loans to Pakistan to help in flood recovery, as the UN warned that many of the 20 million people affected by the disaster have yet to receive any emergency aid.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In southern Russia a vehicle exploded outside a cafe, injuring at least 15 people in downtown Pyatigorsk, a city in Russia's North Caucasus. A suicide bomb attack earlier in the day in North Ossetia killed one police officer.
(AP, 8/17/10)(Reuters, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, A Russian scientist said several thousand Muscovites are thought to have died in July alone from this year's unprecedented heatwave and August could add more fatalities to the grim statistics.
(Reuters, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, In South Africa media watchdogs slammed proposed media regulations as a "draconian" ploy to muzzle the press and protect corrupt officials.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Taiwan's parliament approved a historic but controversial trade deal with China which is expected to bring the two former rivals closer than ever before. Taiwan's Defense Ministry urged the US to sell the island advanced weapons systems, after a Pentagon report concluded that China's arms buildup is giving it a wider military advantage over Taiwan.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed a new law into effect that formalizes the exclusion of private brokerages from trading the local bolivar currency or public sector dollar-denominated debt.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 17, A Venezuelan court ordered one of the country’s leading newspapers to stop publishing photographs depicting blood, guns and other violent images and warned it could face a hefty fine for having published a photo of bodies in a morgue.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 17, Vietnamese and US officials held their first defense talks as the two countries celebrated the 15th anniversary of normalizing relations.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 18, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the CIA is opening a counterproliferation center to combat the spread of dangerous weapons and technology, a move that comes as Iran is on the verge of fueling up a new nuclear power plant.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the US Army has expressed willingness to discuss the online whistleblower's request for help in reviewing classified documents from the Afghan war and removing information that could harm civilians. The Pentagon said it would not negotiate with WikiLeaks to create "a sanitized version" of a second batch of classified Afghan war documents the whistleblower website plans to release.
(AP, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, The US FDA said some 380 million eggs have been recalled nationwide due to salmonella contamination. Officials soon confirmed that over 2,000 people had been sickened by salmonella from May to July and over 500m eggs were recalled. The affected eggs were all traced back to two farms in Iowa.
(SFC, 8/19/10, p.C3)(Econ, 9/4/10, p.32)
2010 Aug 18, The North Carolina justice system shook as an audit commissioned by Attorney General Roy Cooper revealed that the State Bureau of Investigation withheld or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of potentially innocent men and women. 3 defendants in botched cases have been executed.
(SFC, 8/19/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 18, In Wisconsin the bodies of a couple, their 13-month-old daughter, and their three dogs were found dead at their home in Superior. Matthew Magdzas (23), an Iraq war veteran, apparently shot and killed his pregnant wife and young daughter before turning the gun on himself. He left behind no clues to explain what might have prompted the bloodshed.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed a car into a police vehicle, killing a district police chief, two other policemen and a civilian on a bridge leading into Kandahar city. An American service member was killed in fighting in the south. A joint Afghan and NATO force killed 12 insurgents in Puli Alam district of Logar province.
(AP, 8/18/10)(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton launched an enormous hostile takeover bid for Canada's Potash Corp which values the world's largest fertilizer producer at 40 billion dollars.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In the Democratic of Republic of Congo 3 Indian UN peacekeepers were killed in a surprise attack on their base by 50 fighters armed with machetes, spears and traditional weapons. The next day Congolese soldiers arrested two suspects in the killing of the Indian peacekeepers.
(Reuters, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Crowds of Egyptians angered by daily power outages at the height of a scorching summer blocked a major highway south of Cairo with barricades of burning tires.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Germany a former Rwandan mayor living in Germany was charged for allegedly organizing massacres and inciting killings during the African country's 1994 genocide. Prosecutors alleged that the former Hutu mayor, identified as Onesphore R. (53), called for pogroms against the Tutsi minority on three occasions. Prosecutors asserted that the man ordered and coordinated three massacres between April 11 and 15, 1994, in which at least 3,730 Tutsis were killed.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Indian tycoon Anil Ambani's Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd and CBS Studios International announced plans to launch three new television channels in India and South Asia.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In northern India a mudslide triggered by heavy rains demolished a school building, killing at least 18 children.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Iran took its case against the United States to the UN and strongly condemned the top US military chief for saying military action remains a possibility if the country develops nuclear weapons.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Iraq 3 farmers were killed and leaflets pinned to their bodies warning against cooperation with American and Iraqi forces in a brutal act of intimidation as thousands of US troops leave.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Officials with Nigeria's security services say they've intercepted 52 Kalashnikov rifles and tens of thousands of ammunition rounds heading for Kos, an area that has been the scene of religious violence. They said five men were arrested for trying to bring the weapons from neighboring Chad.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Shell in Nigeria said it has warned it may not meet contractual obligations on Bonny Light crude, after oil thieves sabotaged two pipelines in the country's south.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Pakistan militants exploiting the flooding chaos clashed with police overnight, as desperately needed international donations for the millions of victims picked up pace three weeks after the deluge began.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Peru American activist Lori Berenson, convicted of aiding leftist rebels, surrendered to police after a court struck down a decision granting her parole and ordered her to return to prison, where she is to remain with her 15-month-old son for the time being.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In the Philippines a packed passenger bus negotiating a downhill curve plunged off a Philippine mountain highway into a 100-foot (30-meter) ravine, killing 41 people.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offered Pakistan support in dealing with catastrophic floods as he hosted the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan for talks on efforts to stabilize the region.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In South Africa teachers left their classrooms and trials were postponed after court workers walked out when hundreds of thousands of civil servants went on strike for higher wages across the country.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Spain a bull leapt into the packed grandstands of a bullring at the Tafalla arena in the northern region of Navarra and ran amok, charging and trampling spectators and leaving 40 people injured.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Sudan's government confirmed it will expel a number of international aid workers from the restive western region of Darfur, without specifying how many.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, A leading Venezuelan newspaper replaced front-page photos with the word "censored" to protest a court's monthlong ban on the publication of information and photos about violence.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 18, In Yemen a woman was killed and two police officers wounded when a wanted southern militant fired at a security patrol which was attempting to arrest him in Al-Afar area of the Lahj province. Five policemen were wounded in an explosion when a masked biker hurled a hand grenade through the window of a police station in Zinjibar.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Neil P. Campbell, An Australian construction manager, was indicted Aug. 19 by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on the charge of receiving a bribe while working for an organization receiving US government funds. On Oct 13 he was detained in India for allegedly taking a $190,000 bribe to allow a subcontractor to build a hospital and college in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Aug 19, Authorities in eastern Arizona arrested John McCluskey (45) and his alleged accomplice Casslyn Welch (44) at a campsite in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. McCluskey fled July 30 with two other inmates from a private prison in northwest Arizona and evaded authorities in at least six states before being caught. On Oct 7, 2013, McCluskey was convicted of murder in the August, 2010, killings of Gary and Linda Haas.
(AP, 8/20/10)(SFC, 10/8/12, p.A5)
2010 Aug 19, In San Francisco the city’s Recreation and park Commission voted 6-1 to oust Stow Lake Corp., the 67-year vendor at the Stow Lake snack bar and boat rental, and replace it with an out-of-state vendor. 3 more public hearings were scheduled prior to a vote by the Board of Supervisors.
(SFC, 8/20/10, p.C1)
2010 Aug 19, Jonathan Lee of Ridgeland, Mississippi, returned from an 8-day visit to North Korea during which he was taken on a tour of the DMZ. He said officials there welcomed his idea for a "children's peace forest" in the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea, although they said it would only happen if the countries signed a peace treaty first.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Chipmaker Intel announced a deal to buy security software maker McAfee Inc. for $7.68 billion, or $48 per share, a 60% premium over the stock’s closing price.
{Computer, USA, M&A}
(SFC, 8/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 19, In Afghanistan one NATO soldier, several policemen and more than two dozen rebels were killed in attacks and counter-insurgency operations across the country. This day August 19 commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, which granted Afghanistan full independence from Britain. An American soldier was killed in the south. At least 7 members of a road construction crew were killed when they were attacked by insurgents in Helmand's volatile Sangin district. 25 security guards were killed in the clash with Taliban fighters with another 15 wounded. An assistant police chief was killed by a roadside bomb and three other policemen were injured when insurgents attacked a police post in the Dihrawud district of Uruzgan province. 3 civilians were killed in the same district by a bomb that was meant for another police official.
(AFP, 8/19/10)(AFP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/20/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 19, In Algeria storms left a trail of damage across the country killing at least seven people over the last 2 days.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, An Australian Muslim woman, who sought permission to keep her face and head covered while she gives evidence at an upcoming trial, was told by a judge she would have to remove her veil. She is a prosecution witness in a case against the director of a company that ran a Muslim women's college in Perth. The director, Anwar Sayed, is accused of inflating the number of students at the school in 2006 and 2007 to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grants.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In China an attacker riding a 3-wheeled vehicle struck a contingent of security volunteers killing seven people with 14 wounded in the far west region of Xinjiang, an area beset by ethnic conflict and separatist violence.
(AP, 8/19/10)(SFC, 8/20/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 19, France deported nearly 100 Gypsies, or Roma, to their native Romania as part of a very public effort by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy to dismantle Roma camps and sweep them out of the country.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, German federal prosecutors said they have charged two men with violating an arms embargo by working to export equipment that Iran wanted for its missile program. Heinz Ulrich K. (65) of Germany was charged with breaking export laws and Iranian Mohsen A. (52) with incitement to break them.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In Iraq insurgents kept up a relentless campaign against the country's institutions and security forces, killing five Iraqi government employees in roadside bombings and other attacks. The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, officially designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq under Obama's plan to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31, headed home.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In Indian Kashmir paramilitary soldiers fired live ammunition to disperse anti-India protesters and wounded 3 people after residents accused troops of attacking their homes.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, President Felipe Calderon said Mexico should consider appointing anonymous judges for drug trafficking trials, an unexpected proposal that he acknowledged contradicts the country's efforts to build a more open judicial system.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Nigeria’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said the death toll from a cholera outbreak in northern Nigerian has risen to 231 while 4,600 others have been infected.
(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, In South Africa police fired rubber bullets on protesting teachers throwing bricks and stones and nurses tore down a gate at a hospital as a the 2nd day of a nationwide civil servants' strike for higher wages took hold.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, South Korea said it has blocked North Korea's new Twitter account from being accessed in the South, saying the tweets contain "illegal information" under the country's security laws.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, Sri Lanka's ex-army chief called the government a "total dictatorship" and said that he will appeal his recent conviction by a military court, which he described as a political vendetta.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, The UN said more than 4 million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly 3 weeks of floods, making the critical task of securing greater amounts of aid more urgent.
(Reuters, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 19, The Yemeni Defense Ministry's weekly magazine said that Hazem al-Mujali had surrendered amid a government crackdown on the organization. Al-Mujali was accused of the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and imprisoned, but on his release apparently rejoined al-Qaida. He escaped a highly publicized raid late last year in northeast of San'a on al-Qaida cell suspected of plotting attacks.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 20, US regulators shut down 8 more banks including 4 in California, one in Chicago, one in Virginia and two in Florida. This brought the total number of failed US banks to 118 for the year thus far.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.D2)
2010 Aug 20, In Afghanistan 2 NATO soldiers died in a roadside bombing. A woman and two children died in an operation against Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in western Farah province. 6 insurgents were killed and several suspected insurgents were detained. 6 police officers were killed by men who approached their post posing as guests and then opened fire in Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand province. 3 Afghan police were apparently killed as a result of a NATO airstrike in Jowzjan province.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/21/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 20, Police in southeastern Brazil said Raimundo Gregorio da Silva, a school janitor, has confessed to killing two female students and dumping their bodies in an abandoned cesspool. Silva was arrested last week after the remains were found, and has confessed to killing Dimitria Vieira (16) in 2008 and another student, Iara Pacheco (19), reported missing since February.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, BHP Billiton Group announced commencement of all cash-offer to acquire Potash Corp. for $130 per share. On Nov 3 Canada blocked the Anglo-Australian mining giant’s $39 billion bid. The deal would have cost Saskatchewan an estimated C$200m a year in tax revenues.
(Reuters, 8/20/10)(Reuters, 11/3/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.50)
2010 Aug 20, Charles Haddon, the lead singer of the British electro-pop group Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, committed suicide after performing at a rock festival in Belgium.
(AFP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 19, Venezuelan Walid Makled Garcia (43), a prominent drug trafficking suspect who has been branded a major kingpin by the US government, was arrested in Colombia. He was implicated in Venezuela in two killings.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, The European Union's high court temporarily exempted Inuit hunters in Canada and Greenland from the bloc's new trade ban on seal products, while asking European Parliament and EU governments to justify the ban.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, France put about 100 Gypsies, or Roma, on a charter flight headed to their native Romania, the second day in a row that it has expelled Roma in a much criticized government crackdown.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Singer Wyclef Jean's high-profile bid for Haiti's presidency ended after election officials on the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation disqualified his candidacy. The singer has not lived in Haiti for the past five years as required.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, India's Cabinet cleared a nuclear liability bill, a crucial step on the path to bringing foreign companies into its potentially vast nuclear energy market. The bill caps the liability of foreign firms at $320 million in the case of an industrial accident.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Iran’s Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced that Iran has test fired a surface-to-surface missile, Qiam, a day before it is due to launch its Russian-built first nuclear power plant.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Indian Kashmir a teenager was shot dead by paramilitary forces in northern Sopore town. The death sparked further street protests in which a second man died in southern Bijbehara town.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, Kyrgyzstan's interim government suffered a humiliating blow as Osh Mayor Melis Myrzakmatov, a powerful opponent, refused to step down as mayor of the southern city devastated by deadly ethnic violence two months ago.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Mexico 6 city police officers were arrested in the killing of Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos. The suspects included the officer who guarded the house where Cavazos was kidnapped on Aug 15. A shootout in Santa Catalina, a suburb of Monterrey, left 3 security guards wounded. 2 slain guards were found the next day in the trunk of a car.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican prosecutors added tax evasion charges to drug counts pending against for Zhenli Ye Gon, a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is fighting extradition from the United States. Ye Gon was jailed in the US more than two years ago on charges of smuggling methamphetamines from Mexico to the US.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican police detained six suspects on the southern Pacific coast with 3,756 illegally harvested eggs from protected sea turtles.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Conny Mus (59), a veteran Dutch correspondent in the Middle East who covered conflicts from Romania's revolution to the wars in Iraq, died while on vacation in his home country.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In northern New Zealand 47 pilot whales died after they washed onto an isolated beach. Rescue volunteers' initial efforts to refloat some survivors failed. The next day rescuers refloated 11 beached pilot whales. Some of the survivors still appeared to be in trouble.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, Russia secured a long-term foothold in the energy-rich and unstable Caucasus region by signing a deal with Armenia that allows a Russian military base to operate until 2044 in exchange for a promise of new weaponry and fresh security guarantees.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, South African unions representing more than 1 million striking civil servants began talks with the government to end a stoppage that could damage Africa's largest economy if it drags on into next month.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, South Korean authorities arrested Rev. Han Sang-ryol, a religious activist, as he returned home across the heavily fortified border after an illegal trip to North Korea. South Korea’s government prohibits its citizens from joining pro-North Korean organizations or having unauthorized contact with the communist country. They also ban citizens from supporting or praising the North.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Sweden a prosecutor in Stockholm issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (39) on suspicion of rape. The move means police are ordered to seek his arrest as part of an investigation but doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges will be filed. Authorities the next day revoked the arrest warrant saying a rape accusation against him lacked substance.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 20, A Thai appeals court ordered the extradition of suspected Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout to the United States, angering Moscow but paving the way to put the man dubbed the "Merchant of Death" on trial.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych said he is taking control of the case of Vasyl Klymentyev, an investigative reporter who has been missing for a week. Klymentyev reportedly was threatened after refusing to accept a bribe to halt publication of a story about a regional prosecutor accused of accepting bribes to close criminal cases.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, UN agencies stepped up calls for donors to cash up pledges for Pakistan in order to prevent what UN chief Ban Ki-moon called a "slow-motion tsunami" from wrecking further catastrophe.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, In southern Yemen clashes began between troops and “terrorist elements" at a market in Loder. 19 people were killed, including 11 soldiers, 3 civilians and 5 Al-Qaeda members. Authorities said Adel Saleh Hardaba (27), whom they described as the Al-Qaeda second-in-command in Loder, was among the dead.
(AFP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 21, Newly ubiquitous "Golden Girls" actress Betty White won the fifth Emmy of her career for hosting an episode of "Saturday Night Live," while fellow screen veteran Ann-Margret got a standing ovation after receiving her first statuette.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Alaska a float-plane carrying 4 people went missing 285 miles southwest of Anchorage. The passengers included 3 Katmai National Park rangers.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 21, Roland Haas (58), a Georgia-based former Army Reserve intelligence officer, was found dead from a gunshot wound that pierced his femoral artery. In 2007 Haas had authored “Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin." Several former CIA officials denounced the book as a hoax.
(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A10)
2010 Aug 21, It was reported that the cost of sustaining each American soldier in Afghanistan is about $1 million.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.33)
2010 Aug 21, In Afghanistan 2 foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban were killed in separate attacks. 5 civilians were killed in northern Afghanistan when an IED detonated. In the north insurgents, using a bomb detonated by remote control, destroyed the vehicle in which former guerrilla commander Salaam Pahlawan was traveling as he made his way to government offices in Faryab province's Al Mar district. The attack also killed two of Pahlawan's sons, ages 5 and 10, and two bodyguards. In Herat province insurgents ambushed a convoy carrying a provincial council member running for a seat in next month's elections for the national parliament, killing the man's brother. Insurgents in Kandahar province killed the head of a private security company, while one civilian was killed and five wounded by a land mine in Herat's Anjil district. At least 15 police officers were killed across the country. This included 6 killed while asleep at a checkpoint on ring Road in Helmand province.
(AFP, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 21, Australians voted between giving their first female prime minister her own election mandate and returning to a conservative government after just three years. The inconclusive election left the nation facing its first hung parliament since 1940. Both Labor and the Liberal-led coalition conceded that neither is likely to hold the 76 seats needed to form a government in the 150-seat lower chamber.
(Reuters, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Australia Ken Wyatt (b.1952) took office as the country’s first indigenous member of the House of Representatives. In 2017 he became Minister for Indigenous Health, the country’s first aboriginal minister.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wyatt)(Econ, 1/28/17, p.34)
2010 Aug 21, In Bangladesh at least 15 people died over the last 24 hours after drinking toxic home-brewed liquor in the northeast. They had consumed alcohol mixed with toxic methanol in the Sylhet district late Aug 18.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, gunmen engaged in a shootout with police took 30 people hostage at a luxury hotel popular with foreign tourists but within hours freed the captives and surrendered to police. One bystander was killed as she was getting out of a taxi.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In China the Yalu river, which marks the Chinese-North Korean border, breached its banks on both sides following torrential rains. Four people died and more than 94,000 were evacuated. In North Korea at least 5,150 people were evacuated as residents clambered on rooftops or took shelter on hilltops.
(AFP, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Egypt a Vincent Van Gogh painting, identified as "Poppy Flowers," was cut out of its frame in the Mahmoud Khalil museum after it opened in the morning. The painting was valued at 55 million dollars. The painting of the yellow and red flowers in a vase had been stolen before, in 1977, but was found the following year. None of the alarms and only seven out of 43 surveillance cameras were working at the Cairo museum where the painting was stolen. In October a court convicted 11 officials from the Culture Ministry of gross negligence and sentenced them to 3 years in prison, pending an appeal.
(AFP, 8/21/10)(AP, 8/22/10)(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 21, Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow has promised to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, Israel and the Palestinians accepted a US call to restart direct peace talks but politicians on both sides have warned of the pitfalls ahead, saying talks will be stillborn unless Israel halts building in West Bank settlements. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accepted an invitation to attend the start of direct peace talks.
(AFP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Mexico a gunbattle erupted between police and gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, killing one person and prompting US authorities to close a highway that runs along the border in El Paso, Texas. The bodies of two security guards for Mexican bottling company FEMSA were found dead a day after a shootout in Santa Catalina, a suburb of Monterrey.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, A consortium of Mexican investors said they have acquired 95 percent of Mexicana de Aviacion airline, which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy protection. The Tenedora K group was formed "to capitalize" and "save" Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, the holding company that controls Mexicana de Aviacion and two domestic airlines, Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, About 150,000 Pakistanis were forced to move to higher ground over the last 24 hours as floodwaters from a freshly swollen Indus River submerged dozens more towns and villages in the south. The floods have affected about one-fifth of Pakistan's territory, straining its civilian government as it also struggles against al-Qaida and Taliban violence. At least 6 million people have been made homeless and 20 million affected overall. The economic cost is expected to run into billions of dollars.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Pakistan suspected US missiles fired from an unmanned drone killed six militants in a tribal region near the Afghan border.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, Laura Dekker, a 14-year-old Dutch sailor, departed in secrecy from Gibraltar on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, avoiding the media because her manager said she didn't want the attention.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In the Philippines communist guerrillas, the New People’s Army, killed a local council member in northern Samar province and then waited for police to arrive. They then killed 8 police officers.
(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 21, In Romania Gheorghe Apostol (b.1913), a veteran Communist politician, died. He gained international attention in 1989 by publicly criticizing Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Russia Madomedali Vagabov, the man suspected of organizing suicide bombings that killed 40 people on the Moscow subway in March, was killed in a shootout with Russian security forces. The National Antiterrorism Committee told Russian news agencies that Vagabov was effectively second in command in the separatist insurgency in Russia's mountainous North Caucasus region.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, Hundreds of residents of Kaliningrad, Russia's Baltic exclave, gathered on a central square to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's government.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Venezuela a soldier, identified as Jeffersson Jose Trujillo Vasquez, shot and killed two officers at the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas, setting off a gunfight that wounded six other soldiers. Trujillo Vasquez was arrested on Sep 21 in a slum in the city of Araure in the western state of Portuguesa.
(AP, 8/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, Thousands of fish turned up dead at the mouth of Mississippi River, prompting authorities to check whether oil was the cause of mass death. Crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout and red fish were among the species that turned up dead.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Louisa, Virginia, Charles Steadman (52) shot and killed his son and nephew and wounded 4 others in an apparent property dispute. Steadman then shot at officers arriving on the scene and was killed.
(SFC, 8/24/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 22, In Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai defended his decision to disband private security contractors, charging that they loot and steal, have links to criminal groups and might even fund insurgents. 2 US soldiers died in insurgent attacks in the east and 2 others died in separate incidents in the south. The second-in-command of security for the inter-provincial Kandahar-Uruzgan highway was shot dead by unidentified gunmen. At least 9 insurgents, including a commander, were killed in a joint 24-hour operation in Kandahar between NATO and Afghan security forces. 6 men, one woman, and one child were reportedly killed during a coalition raid in the village of Tergaran.
(AFP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 22, Australian PM Julia Gillard vowed to keep the country stable after a voter backlash produced a rare hung parliament, raising fears of political paralysis and economic pain. Gillard and Tony Abbott, leader of the conservative Liberal Party, said they had initiated talks with three independents in the House of Representatives as well as the Greens party in a bid to secure their votes in the House of Representatives.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, A Bangladesh lawyer said high court judges have passed an order directing that wearing religious attire should be the personal choice of the students or the employees. No one can be forced to wear them.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Chile an intense rescue effort finally reached 33 miners trapped since Aug 5. After weeks of missteps, new cave-ins and other false starts, it could take months to carve a tunnel big enough for them to get out.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Dagestan a Russian border guard was found killed and another who disappeared with him remained missing.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the country's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tehran, Iran, the headquarters of Sweden-based Oriflame, a direct-sales cosmetics firm, were "searched and sealed" and "four top managers were arrested on accusations of 250,000 cases of fraud" linked to a 70-million-dollar (55-million-euro) pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, In southern Iraq an American solider was killed in a rocket attack, marking the first American fatality since the last combat unit in Iraq pulled out of the country. A bomb struck a popular cafe in the capital's southwest. The explosion killed one person and wounded 15 people. A late night grenade attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint in Amariyah, a Sunni area in western Baghdad, killed one soldier and injured 2 others.
(AP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Mexico the decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge in Cuernavaca, a city besieged by fighting between two drug lords. Police found the body of a US citizen inside a car along the highway between the Pacific resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo. A Mexican soldier said that Joseph Proctor (32) attacked an army convoy with an AR-15 rifle and was killed when troops shot him in self-defense. Proctor had told his girlfriend he was popping out to a convenience store in Acapulco where the couple had just moved. The next morning the New York native was dead inside his crashed van on a road outside the town. Three soldiers were later charged with his killing.
(AP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Aug 22, Pakistani authorities evacuated tens of thousands from flood-threatened areas in the south, but insisted that the 2.5 million people of Hyderabad were safe from the nation's worst-ever inundation.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tajikistan a group of 25 Islamic militants serving time on terrorism charges escaped from a prison in Dushanbe after dramatic assaults that left at least five guards dead. The fugitives included Abdurasul Mirzoyev, the brother of a jailed former head of the presidential guards, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison last month on charges of involvement in a plot to overthrow the government. Among the others who escaped were some of the 46 people sentenced to lengthy prison terms last week for involvement with an illegal armed gang led by Mirzo Ziyoyev, a commander of the United Tajik Opposition, a rebel group in the civil war.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, A US district court issued a preliminary injunction stopping federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, in a slap to the Obama administration's new guidelines on the sensitive issue.
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, California Attorney Gen’l. Jerry Brown sued Roni Deutch for $34 million for allegedly swindling thousands of people. Deutch, who billed herself as the “tax lady," has appeared in nationwide TV ads to help people with tax problems.
(SFC, 8/24/10, p.C3)
2010 Aug 23, In Las Vegas Mexico's Jimena Navarrete (22) was crowned Miss Universe in an upset victory that stunned a pageant world which had predicted a winner to emerge from Ireland, Venezuela or the United States.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Afghanistan roadside bombs killed four members of the international security force in Afghanistan, including an American, two French marines, and a Hungarian soldier. US troops fired warning shots to disperse a protest near Bagram air base over the arrest of a religious leader suspected of a rocket attack.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Gareth Williams (31), an employee of code-breaking agency GCHQ, was found dead at a flat near the agency's headquarters in the upmarket Pimlico area of London. His naked and decomposing body was found inside a padlocked sports bag. Williams was working on attachment for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service MI6 when he died. In 2012 a coroner concluded at an inquest that another person was probably involved in Williams's death.
(Reuters, 8/25/10)(AP, 2/15/11)(AP, 3/30/12)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2010 Aug 23, China cut 13 non-violent crimes from the list of 64 offences punishable by death. State media said flooding has forced the evacuation of more than a quarter-million people in northern China along its border with North Korea.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.35)(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, President Raul Castro ordered Max Marambio, a Chilean businessman, to return to Cuba for questioning about bribery and fraud at Rio Zaza, which was shut down earlier this year. For years the company had enjoyed a near monopoly on sales of packaged fruit juice and milk. Marambio declined the offer.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.29)
2010 Aug 23, In Dagestan at least 3 people were wounded in other attacks, while four suspected militants died when explosives they were transporting by car unexpectedly blew up.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran media reported the suspension of three senior judiciary officials over last year's torture deaths of three imprisoned anti-government protesters. On Aug 30 they were identified as former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and two judges.
(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 23, Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats, warning its enemies not to "play with fire" as it boosts security along its coastline.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Iraq unknown attackers in a speeding car threw a grenade in the mixed Sunni-Shiite eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad. The blast killed one policeman and wounded another.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Mexican police in the border city of Tijuana found two bodies on the outskirts of town and were searching for more. Baja California state prosecutors said recently arrested suspects told authorities at least four more bodies had been buried in the same area. A judge ordered the released of 13 Tijuana city police officers who were arrested by soldiers and sent to prison more than a year ago on charges of protecting drug traffickers. The judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, In the Netherlands the monumental chestnut tree that cheered Anne Frank while she was in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam was toppled by wind and heavy rain.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Officials said the United States has granted Nigerian airlines permission for direct US flights.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Pakistan 3 bomb attacks in the northwest killed at least 36 people. A bomb exploded inside a school during a meeting of elders in Kurram tribal region, killing seven people. An attack on the outskirts of Peshawar killed the leader of an anti-Taliban militia, Israr Khan, and two aides as he passed through a market in the village of Matni. The deadliest blast was a suicide attack at a mosque inside a religious school in South Waziristan that killed 26 people and injured 40 more.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Philippine police stormed a bus in downtown Manila after shots were heard from the hostage-taker of 15 Chinese tourists. Former Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza (55), armed with a M16 rifle, had seized the busload of Hong Kong tourists to demand his reinstatement in the force. 8 tourists were killed along with Mendoza. Ken Leung died trying to subdue the gunman, who then killed his two daughters, Doris (21) and Jessie (14). The only survivors were the mother, Amy, and son Jason (18), who fell into a coma after suffering a head wound. Jason awoke from his coma around mid October. On Dec 16 Manila said it will pay compensation to the families of 8 Hong Kong tourists killed during the botched hostage rescue.
(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 8/24/10)(AP, 10/20/10)(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Aug 23, Saudi low-cost private airline Sama, launched in 2007 to serve Gulf and other Arab states, said it is to suspend services from Aug 24 due to financial problems.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, South African President Jacob Zuma flew to China on a three-day trip aimed at strengthening business ties. Zuma was accompanied by a delegation of over 370 business representatives - the biggest ever for a South African leader's visit abroad.
(www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11067072)
2010 Aug 23, South Africa deployed soldiers to 37 hospitals to help keep basic health services running, as a nationwide strike by more than one million public workers entered its sixth day.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, Two Spanish aid workers held by al Qaeda's North African wing were freed in Mali, ending a kidnapping that lasted nearly nine months, the longest period of captivity in the Sahara desert. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it seized Albert Vilalta and Roque Pascual while they were traveling through Mauritania with a relief aid convoy last November.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, The southern Sudan finance minister said the fledgling economy is being "deliberately" weakened by former civil war enemies in the north who are paying Juba's share of oil revenues in local currency.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 24, Attorneys general in 17 US states demanded in a joint letter that SF-based Craigslist remove its adult services section because the website cannot adequately block potentially illegal ads promoting prostitution and child trafficking.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 24, In SF the temperature hit a record 98 degrees. Records were broken across much of northern California.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.C2)
2010 Aug 24, Scientists reported that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has revealed a previously unknown type of oil-eating bacteria, which is suddenly flourishing. The dominant microbe in a studied deep water oil plume is a new species, closely related to members of Oceanospirillales.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 24, Scientists said they've identified a sun-like star with as many as seven different planets — including one that might be the smallest ever found outside the solar system. If confirmed, the planetary system around HD 10180, a star more than 100 light years distant, would be the richest ever discovered.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Eastport, Maine, the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) launched a $2.5 million prototype, tidal grid-compatible power system.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.48)(www.oceanrenewablepower.com/home.htm)
2010 Aug 24, In Afghan heavy fighting overnight was reported in the southwestern provinces of Nimroz and Uruzgan, adjoining the insurgent strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Numerous Taliban were reported killed. NATO said Afghan and international forces have killed an estimated 40 Taliban fighters east of Kabul as part of operations to provide security ahead of parliamentary elections next month. Two coalition servicemen, including one American, were reported killed in fighting in the south where the insurgency is most heavily entrenched.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, Authorities in Bahrain arrested a suspect in the case of Canadian singer Fatima Kama (28), whose body was found stuffed inside a suitcase at London's Heathrow Airport on Jul 17, 1999. The body was found when a member of the public spotted a black suitcase abandoned on the third floor of a Heathrow Airport parking lot.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, British Columbia signed an agreement that will see Canada's westernmost province share tax revenue from the mining industry with aboriginal groups, the first such deal in the mineral-rich region.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In China Zheng Shaodong, an assistant public security minister who led the country’s economic crimes investigation unit, was given a suspended death sentence for taking more than $1 million in bribes and abusing his position.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, A massive traffic jam in north China stretched for dozens of miles and hit its 10-day mark. It reportedly stemmed from road construction in Beijing that won't be finished until the middle of next month.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In China a Henan passenger plane with 91 passengers and crew overshot a runway in northeastern Hichun city. 43 people were killed and 53 injured.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 24, Researchers in Japan reported the creation of a highly accurate sensor that can detect smells and gases using genetically engineered frog eggs.
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, A Kenyan official said wildlife officers have seized two tons of elephant ivory and five rhino horns at the main airport that were to be illegally shipped to Malaysia.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Lebanon 3 Hezbollah members and a follower of the conservative Sunni al-Ahbash group were killed in the residential Bourj Abu Haider district, just outside Beirut's downtown, in running battles with fighters wielding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The most serious fighting in Beirut since 2008 appears to have been touched off by a traffic dispute that escalated into deadly, hours-long street battles.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 24, Mexican marines found the dumped bodies of 72 people at a ranch in northern Mexico following a shootout with suspected drug cartel gunmen that left one marine and three suspects dead. Two migrants survived the massacre and provided information in the investigation. 77 people were later said to be in the group and that a 3rd migrant had survived with 2 still missing. The dismembered bodies of 2 men were found hung from a bridge at the entrance to Chilpancingo, near Acapulco. DNA evidence later identified Wilmer Nunez as one of the 72 dead.
(AP, 8/25/10)(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/1/10)(AP, 9/5/10)(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A3)
2010 Aug 24, In Nepal an Agni Air plane heading to the Mount Everest region crashed in heavy rain outside Katmandu, killing all 14 people aboard, including 4 Americans, a Briton and a Japanese national.
(AP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Nigeria gunmen ambushed Soboma George, leader of the feared Outlaws Gang, in the oil town of Port Harcourt. The gunmen fired at George, and killed one woman and wounded another during a running shootout. George’s body was recovered Aug 27.
(AP, 8/25/10)(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 24, Senegal’s PM Souleymane Ndene Ndiaye said that those begging for money will be given a place to stay if they leave the streets of Dakar and other large cities to receive help from charities. The government soon began enforcing a 2005 ban on begging. Officials said they recently felt pressure to impose the law because the US and other donor countries had threatened to cut off aid if Senegal does not address human trafficking. Aid groups and human rights organizations estimated that as many as 100,000 children in Senegal, population 13.7 million, are forced to beg every day by religious teachers known as marabouts. Caught in the dragnet were handicapped adults who used to line their wheelchairs along a stretch of the boulevard leading to the presidential palace in downtown Dakar.
(AP, 9/5/10)(http://tinyurl.com/236esgh)
2010 Aug 24, In Somalia a suicide bomber and gunmen wearing military uniforms attacked a hotel near the presidential palace in Mogadishu, sparking a one-hour gun battle with security forces. At least 32 people were killed, including six Somali parliamentarians. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility.
(AP, 8/24/10)(AP, 10/6/11)
2010 Aug 24, The UN said some 80,000 people have been cut off by floods in Pakistan and that it needs at least 40 more helicopters to ferry aid to increasingly desperate people.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 24, In Vietnam at least 9 people were killed when Typhoon Mindulle struck the central coast.
(AFP, 10/17/10)(http://tinyurl.com/25z8plq)
2010 Aug 25, The United States said it will divert $50 million from a development package for Pakistan toward relief funds.
(Reuters, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, The California Energy Commission approved the Beacon Solar Energy Project, which a Florida company plans to build on the western edge of the Mojave Desert. This was the first in a series of large scale solar projects planned in California.
(SFC, 8/26/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 25, In northern California pot farmer Mikal Wilde killed Juarez Madrid, a hired migrant worker, and wounded another as a third fled. In June 3, 2015, Wilde was sentenced to life in prison plus 35 years.
(SFC, 6/5/15, p.D2)
2010 Aug 25, Pres. Karzai fired senior prosecutor Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar (72) after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations of more than 2 dozen senior Afghan officials. An Afghan driver for the Spanish police contingent opened fire during a training exercise, killing 2 Spanish officers and their interpreter in what appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks by infiltrators linked to the insurgency. 10 campaign workers were kidnapped while traveling in the western province of Herat. 3 Afghan civilians were killed by a homemade bomb in Kandahar's Arghandab district. 2 Taliban commanders were killed in fighting with a joint Afghan-Taliban force in Uruzgan province, along with 12 regular insurgent fighters. In Badakhshan province Afghan army commandos aided by US special forces discovered a major weapons cache in the remote village of Nawci. Weapons found included 78 rockets with launchers, 47 mortar rounds, more than 9,000 rounds of ammunition, and 24 rocket-propelled grenades. All were destroyed.
(AP, 8/25/10)(AP, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/27/10)(SSFC, 8/29/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 25, Cosan, Brazil’s biggest sugar and ethanol producer, signed a $12 billion joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s largest energy company.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.41)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell)
2010 Aug 25, Canadian police arrested two people in Ottowa in relation to what they called "terrorist offenses" and said they expect to make further arrests. A 3rd person was arrested the next day in London, Ontario. Police said they were plotting bomb attacks and had connections to a group fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 8/25/10)(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 25, Police in northeastern Congo said they have seized 116 elephant tusks and arrested two men following a truck crash.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In western Congo a passenger plane, operated by local airliner FILAIR, crashed, killing 19 people. Police said there were two survivors.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak announced plans for the government to start building the country's first nuclear power plant at a site on the Mediterranean coast, ending a year of controversy.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Grenada businessman Michael Raeburn-Delfish was reported missing. His severed head and limbs were found in three shallow pits on Sep 5, 2010. Suspect Ronald Michael Phillip (55), had been deported in 2000 from the United States to Granada the day after leaving a state prison in Uncasville, Connecticut, where he had spent more than six years. Phillip had been arrested in December 1993 on assault and drug charges.
(www.grenadabroadcast.com/content/view/9046/1/)(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Iran said that it has successfully test-fired an upgraded version of a short-range surface-to-surface missile. The third generation of the Fateh-110, which means "conqueror" in Farsi and Arabic, with an improved range of 250 km and better precision than previous models.
(AP, 8/25/10)(Reuters, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Iraq bombers and gunmen launched an apparently coordinated string of attacks against Iraqi government forces, killing at least 61 people, one day after the number of US troops fell below 50,000 for the first time since the start of the war. In the deadliest attacks a suicide bomber blew up a car inside a security barrier between a police station and the provincial government's headquarters in Kut, killing 20 people, 15 of them policemen. A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in a parking lot behind a police station in Baghdad killing 15 people, including six policemen.
(AFP, 8/25/10)(AP, 8/26/10)(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 25, A Mexican judge found Mario Bautista, former Michoacan state police director, innocent of charges he helped a drug gang. He was arrested by federal investigators in May 2009 along with 34 other local and state officials in Michoacan. 26 of them have already been set free for lack of evidence or after a judge found them innocent.
(AP, 8/26/10)(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Nigeria 2 motorcycle-riding gunmen shot and killed a police constable in Yobe state. Separately 2 policemen were shot and killed by 4 gunmen dressed in black and riding motorcycles in Maiduguri. The gunmen were suspected to be members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect.
(AFP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 25, Nigeria's worker union for the state-run power company called a general strike, a day before the nation's president is to announce his plans to privatize the industry.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Nigerian health officials warned that the whole country is at risk in a cholera epidemic that has killed 352 people in only three-months time.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Shell said it has shut down an oil facility in southern Nigeria due to protests by a group of local women, after a similar demonstration targeted a Chevron pipeline.
(AFP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in the capital of communist North Korea on a private, humanitarian mission to win the release of Aijalon Gomes (31) of Boston, an American sentenced to eight years' hard labor for trespassing.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In Somalia fighting in Mogadishu flared for a third straight day, killing eight people and pushing the week's death toll past 80 as insurgents tried to force government troops back toward the presidential palace.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, In South Africa a driver taking children to school went around a closed railroad crossing gate and was hit by an oncoming train that killed 10 pupils and injured 5 others. Driver Jacob Humphreys was convicted of murder in 2011 and in 2012 was sentenced to an effective 20 years in prison.
(AP, 8/25/10)(AFP, 2/28/12)
2010 Aug 25, A Ugandan court scrapped sedition legislation used to prosecute over a dozen journalists and politicians.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 25, Yemeni authorities said the military had regained control of Loder. 33 people were reported killed in fighting that began Aug 20. This included 12 Al-Qaida militants. Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a military patrol in Zinjibar, killing 4 soldiers and wounding one.
(AFP, 8/25/10)(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Afghanistan more than 10 militants attacked a police checkpoint outside the northern city of Kunduz. Police suspected the attackers were jihadists from Russia's Chechnya region who are active in the surrounding province, also called Kunduz. The attack killed 8 Afghan police. A roadside blast tore through a crowded market, killing 3 police and 2 civilians in Archi town, Kunduz province. In eastern Ghazni province's Andar district, two Afghan guards working for a private security company were killed in a Taliban attack on a supply convoy. Two attackers were killed, including a senior regional commander, Mullah Mohmmadi.
(AP, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 26, Bolivia’s government said it has confiscated 280,000 more acres of allegedly fallow or ill-gotten land. The seizure included 51,000 acres from the ranching company of prominent opposition figure Osvaldo Monasterio.
(SFC, 8/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 26, Interpol said police have seized about 10 metric tons of counterfeit medicines and arrested 80 people in a sweep across eastern Africa. Authorities across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar took part in the bust.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Asil Nadir (69), a Turkish Cypriot businessman, returned to London to face charges of fraud. He had fled Britain almost two decades ago following the spectacular collapse of his business empire. Nadir fled the country in May of 1993, four months before he was scheduled to face trial.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Canada-based Research in Motion said it was willing to work with India to support the country's needs to lawfully access encrypted services on the company's Blackberry smartphone.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, The archbishop of Paris joined the tide of criticism over France's crackdown on Gypsies, calling it a "circus," while the EU's justice commissioner denounced French officials' discriminatory tone about the vulnerable minority.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Germany Nadja Benaissa (28), a member of girl group No Angels, broke down in tears after a German court handed her a two-year suspended sentence for infecting a former sex partner with the AIDS HIV virus.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Two Greek fighter jets crashed in mid-air during a training exercise south of the island of Crete, killing one of the three crew members and leaving the other two injured.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, An Iranian government newspaper reported that 5 rebels and 2 members of the Revolutionary Guards have been killed in clashes in Iran's Kordestan province near the Iraqi border.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Iraq insurgents killed six members of a government-allied Sunni militia using a roadside bomb and ambush near the town of Muqdadiyah.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, A Malaysian man was arrested after his bag bursting with 95 live boa constrictors broke open on a luggage conveyer belt at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Keng Liang "Anson" Wong (52), who had been previously convicted of wildlife trafficking in the United States, later pleaded guilty to wildlife smuggling.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Mexico at least 16 people were injured, some seriously, after a grenade was thrown into a crowded bar in the internationally-popular beach resort of Puerto Vallarta. 5 of the injured were detained as part of an investigation. Four of those detained each lost a leg in the explosion.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il was in China on his second visit this year to his country's biggest source of diplomatic and financial support.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan laid out plans to privatize most of the country's power sector, as corruption and mismanagement continued to cause daily outages in the oil-rich nation.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq claimed that the United States and other countries were not really focused on providing aid to flood victims but had other "intentions" he did not specify. The death toll in the floods stood around 1,500 people. Officials ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate towns as rising floods threaten further havoc.
(AP, 8/26/10)(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In the Philippines fire broke out late at night, possibly when gasoline a man was pouring into a container near an open stove caught alight, in two crowded villages in Navotas city, north of the capital Manila. 2 people were killed and thousands left homeless.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 26, Puerto Rican teachers walked off their jobs in a one-day strike over staff and funding levels, giving students a day off barely 3 weeks into the new academic year.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In South Africa thousands of civil servants took to the streets across the country in a peaceful demonstration for higher wages. Police management tried to bar officers from joining the nationwide strike entering its second week.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, A Sri Lankan housemaid, L. T. Ariyawathi (49), was admitted to a hospital and planned to undergo surgery to remove 24 nails embedded in her body. Ariyawathi said her employer in Saudi Arabia had inflicted the injuries on her as a punishment. The woman traveled to Saudi Arabia in March and returned home last week, complaining of abuse by her employer.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Venezuelan authorities seized more than 4.4 tons (4 metric tons) of cocaine at a ranch after F-16 fighter jets intercepted a plane that was flying to pick up the load.
(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, Yemeni Shiite rebels signed an agreement with the government laying out a timetable for implementing previous accords. The agreement was signed in Doha, Qatar.
(AFP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 27, Aijalon Gomes (31) hugged former US President Jimmy Carter and boarded a plane for Boston, seven months after his arrest in North Korea. The North's state news agency said Kim Yong Nam, the number two leader, has told former Carter that the reclusive state is committed to denuclearizing the peninsula and resuming six-way talks.
(AP, 8/27/10)(Reuters, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, The Washington Post reported that the CIA is making payments to a significant number of officials in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration. The Post also cited a former CIA official as saying that the CIA payments to Afghan officials were necessary because "the head of state is not going to tell you everything" and because Karzai often seems unaware of moves that members of his own government make.
(Reuters, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, US federal officials said they had arrested 370 illegal immigrants as part of a 3-day roundup in the Midwest.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 27, The US military said it is demanding to know what happened to $1.9 million worth of computers intended for Iraqi schoolchildren. The computers were allegedly auctioned off by Iraqi officials for less than $50,000.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 27, Scott Curley (23) shot and killed Utah Kane county Deputy Brian Harris (41) following an attempted robbery. Harris was shot near Fredonia, just south of the Utah border. Curley escaped into the desert area along the Utah-Arizona border.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 27, Homemade bombs killed 3 US troops in southern and eastern Afghanistan. 3 insurgents were reported killed and 3 detained in eastern Paktiya province by Afghan and coalition forces pursuing a Taliban sub-commander.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Australian police warned social networking sites to be alert to illegal child sex activity, after cracking an alleged pedophile porn ring operating on Facebook. Australian police said six arrests had been made in Britain, including the alleged head of the network, three in Australia and two in Canada.
(AFP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Bahrain's public prosecutor banned media from reporting on a prominent Shiite activist and scores of other opposition members detained in an ongoing crackdown ahead of October parliament elections.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Forensic experts in Bosnia said they have exhumed the remains of 54 Muslim civilians killed in the July, 1995, Srebrenica massacre. The skeletal remains were dug out of three mass graves buried under garbage at a dump site near Srebrenica.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, British researchers said they have decoded the genetic sequence of wheat.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Iraq gunmen killed three anti-Qaeda militiamen overnight in the latest revenge attack against the force credited with turning the tide against the jihadists.
(AFP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki signed a new constitution into law that institutes a US-style system of checks and balances and has been hailed as the most significant political event since Kenya's independence nearly a half century ago.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Mexico a car exploded in front of the offices of a major Mexican television station in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, where officials were investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Myanmar's junta carried out a major military reshuffle Friday that retired more than a dozen senior leaders, in an apparent move to prepare for November national elections.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Nigeria Jhalil Tafawa Balewa, a physician, businessman and son of the country's first prime minister, was abducted by gunmen and taken to a forest in Katampe area on the outskirts of Abuja. The next day police engaged the suspects and rescued the abductee.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 27, Some Nigerian women and girls are being forced into prostitution in neighboring Ivory Coast after being deceived with promises of a better life outside of their country, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis fled floodwaters after the surging River Indus smashed through levees in two places, but many refused to leave the danger zone while others took shelter in an ancient graveyard for Muslim saints.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Peru Police two Roman Catholic priests were stabbed to death inside the historic at the San Francisco monastery two blocks from Lima's main square. The victims are identified as Ananias Aguila of Peru and Linan Ruiz of Puerto Rico.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Russia 9 suspected militants were killed in two separate shootouts with police in the Kabardino-Balkariya republic. Separately 5 suspected militants and a police officer were killed in another shootout in the republic of Dagestan.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 27, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, for whom international arrest warrants have been issued over the Darfur conflict, returned home after a trip to Kenya.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Turkey overnight torrential rains triggered landslides and floods in Gundogdu, killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, The UN anti-racism panel called on Iran to counter racism and ethnic discrimination, including incitement to hatred by officials and "double discrimination suffered by women from minorities.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 27, A Venezuelan National Guard helicopter crashed during a counter-drug mission near the Colombian border, killing all 10 soldiers on board.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 27, In Yemen gunmen killed a soldier and wounded three others in an ambush in the southern province of Lahij.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King's message.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Arizona Brian Diez (26) shot 5 people including the mother of his 2 children and her boyfriend before fleeing with the children to southern California. Diez shot and killed himself the next day. 5 people died in the shootings at Lake Havasu.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 28, In California a drug task force found 47,800 marijuana plants hidden in an 8-acre cornfield in Atwater. 2 men were arrested.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A5)
2010 Aug 28, Afghanistan's presidential office condemned US media reports that Afghan government officials have received payments from the CIA in return for information. In eastern Afghanistan about 30 Taliban militants, at least some dressed in US military uniforms, were killed after launching pre-dawn attacks at NATO Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman. 2 Afghan soldiers were killed and 3 wounded in the fighting. In the southern provinces of Nimroz and Zabul, a total of seven Taliban were killed in fighting. Unidentified gunmen killed a candidate for Afghanistan's parliamentary elections in the west of the country, the fourth candidate to be killed ahead of the September 18 poll. NATO said one of its patrols mistakenly fired on a vehicle carrying private security contractors in Wardak province west of Kabul, killing two men. 48 schoolgirls, boys, and teachers were hospitalized in the second case this week of suspected poisoning caused by an unidentified chemical substance. 2 US soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in the south and 3 more in fighting in the east. in Herat, male parliamentary candidate Abdul Manan was shot and killed on his way to a mosque by an assassin traveling on the back of a motorcycle. Up to 15 insurgents were killed in joint Afghan-NATO operations in Paktiya province, including a Taliban commander, Naman, accused of coordinating roadside bomb attacks and the movement of ammunition, supplies and fighters. ISAF said 8 civilians were killed in a wave of attacks including a suicide bombing. 3 Oxfam workers were killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb suspected to have been set by Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 8/28/10)(AFP, 8/28/10)(Reuters, 8/28/10)(AP, 8/29/10)(AFP, 8/29/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 28, Algerian forces killed 8 al-Qaida insurgents during clashes in the Berrekmouche valley, a mountainous area considered a bastion for the terror network's North African branch. One soldier was killed. Helicopter bombardments continued into the next day.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Bolivia a touring French couple Fanny Blancho (23) and her partner Jeremy Bellanger (25) were last seen in the small city of Guayaramerin on the border with Brazil.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Britain 13 men were arrested in the ethnically-mixed city of Bradford as a far-right, anti-Islamist group clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators in the streets.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, An Egyptian security official said police in the Sinai desert have discovered two large caches of weapons that were to be smuggled to Gaza. The find included anti-aircraft weaponry.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In northern Greece break-ins over the last 24 hours at two fur farms near the city of Kastoria set more than 50,000 minks on the loose. The cost to the farm owners could pass euro1 million ($1.27 million).
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 28, Indian officials said at least 215 people, mostly children, have died in an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in an impoverished region of northern Indian and that the death toll is likely to soar.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Iran three people died in the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that shook the country's remote northeast. Forty others were injured.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, Saul de la Rosa (27), a US resident, was abducted along with two other people when he crossed into Ciudad Juarez. All three bodies were found Sept. 2. Documents found on De la Rosa indicated he was a US resident.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Aug 28, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il apparently headed home after a secretive and surprise trip that reportedly included a meeting with China's top leader to appeal for diplomatic and financial support for a succession plan involving his youngest son.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Pakistan floodwaters made another break in the levees protecting the southern Pakistani city of Thatta. Over 175,000 residents fled for high ground and left the city nearly empty.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, Sweden's financial supervisory authority said has revoked the license of investment bank HQ Bank AB, saying it breached Swedish legislation and demonstrated serious deficiencies in its trading operations.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Switzerland former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld hit out against the "corrupt" US judiciary which sent him to jail even though he was the whistleblower who led to the US tax fraud case against the bank. “Why am I the only one in prison when I had revealed everything?" Birkenfeld's revelations about the bank had led to US tax authorities' offensive against UBS in 2008. In a prosecution through US courts, the bank was forced to hand over 300 client names and pay a 780-million-dollar fine.
(AFP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, Vietnam's president ordered 17,210 prisoners freed as part of the country's annual National Day amnesty.
(AP, 8/28/10)
2010 Aug 28, In Yemen 9 soldiers and a civilian were killed in an attack by suspected Al-Qaeda militants on an army post in the town of Jaar in southern Abyan province. The interior ministry called for tighter security at intelligence headquarters throughout the country and said it had put security units on alert.
(AFP, 8/28/10)(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Washington's war strategy for Afghanistan needed a rethink. In southern Afghanistan 2 American servicemen died in bombings. Officials found the bodies of five campaign aides, kidnapped on Aug 25, who worked for a female candidate in the western province of Herat. 2 suicide bombers attempted to climb over the back wall of a compound housing the governor of the far western province of Farah, but were spotted by guards and shot.
(AFP, 8/29/10)(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Britain 2 men and a woman were arrested in connection with allegations that Pakistani cricket players were involved in a betting scam.
(AFP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 29, Chechen police killed 12 rebels as they repulsed a raid on the Moscow-backed president's home village of Tsentoroi. 5 civilians and 2 policemen were also killed in the attack. An Islamist website, www.kavkazcenter.com, challenged the official data saying that at least 15 of Kadyrov's security officers were killed, while a total of 60 insurgents attacked the village. It said 5 rebels were killed.
(Reuters, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Ecuador a bus ran off a highway and overturned, killing at least 36 people. At least 12 others were badly hurt. The bus from the Turismo Oriental line had left the city of Cuenca with about 30 passengers and had picked up others along the way to Quito.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Hong Kong an estimated 80,000 people marched in honor of eight locals killed Aug 23 in a bus hijacking in Manila, denouncing the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Indonesia the Sinabung volcano on the island of Sumatra erupted for the first time in 400 years, spewing a vast cloud of smoke and ash into the air and sending thousands of people fleeing from their homes.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Mexico gunmen killed the mayor of a town in the border state of Tamaulipas. Hidalgo Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia was the second mayor to be assassinated in the past two weeks in the area.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Pakistan floodwaters inundated southern Sujawal town as authorities struggled to build new levees with clay and stone to prevent one of the area's biggest cities from suffering the same fate. Almost all of Sujawal's 250,000 residents fled the town before the water rushed in.
(AP, 8/29/10)
2010 Aug 29, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the Organization of The Islamic Conference, said Muslims have pledged nearly $1 billion in cash and relief supplies for Pakistan.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 29, In Russia scores of skinheads attacked a crowd of some 3,000 people at a rock concert in Miass. State new reported one girl (14) was killed.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 29, Gunmen in Sudan’s Darfur region kidnapped a Russian helicopter captain and 2 crew members working for a company transporting food for international peacekeepers. Security forces fought with the kidnappers the next night freeing 3 men.
(AFP, 8/30/10)(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 30, It was reported that over $5 billion in American aid to Iraq has been wasted on abandoned or incomplete projects. This was over 10% of US reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
(SFC, 8/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 30, The Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to pay $55 million to settle a Justice Dept. probe on overcharges in a kickback scheme. The settlement involved a False Claims Act lawsuit dating back to 2004.
(SFC, 8/31/10, p.D1)
2010 Aug 30, Hurricane Earl lashed the northeastern Caribbean with heavy rain and strong winds, causing flooding in low-lying parts of the Leeward Islands as it rapidly intensified into a major Category 4 storm taking a path projected to menace the United States. Earl passed just north of the British Virgin Islands in the afternoon. By nighttime, the hurricane was pulling away from the Caribbean, but heavy downpours still threatened to cause flash floods and mudslides in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by drenching already saturated ground.
(AP, 8/30/10)(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Seattle, Wa., John Williams, a Native American homeless woodcarver, was shot and killed by police officer Ian Birk, who had ordered him to drop his small knife. The shooting was later ruled unjustified, but prosecutors said they would not file criminal charges.
(SFC, 2/28/11, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/4tdpxa3)
2010 Aug 30, In southern Afghanistan 7 US troops were killed in two Taliban-style bomb attacks. An 8th soldier, a 20-year-old Estonian, died of his injuries after insurgents set off an improvised explosive device (IED) in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand province. A bomb blast in Jalalabad killed a district chief and wounded up to five others. A French soldier was killed when the armored vehicle he was travelling in tumbled into a ravine.
(AFP, 8/30/10)(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 30, Chinese state media said North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il wants an early restart to stalled nuclear disarmament talks, ending official silence about Kim's secretive five-day trip ahead of a key congress.
(Reuters, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Premier Silvio Berlusconi marked a friendship treaty between their two countries amid increasing criticism here over Gadhafi's exhortation to Italians to convert to Islam.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Kashmir police opened fire with live rounds at rock-throwing Kashmiris, sparking violent street protests by hundreds in India's portion of the troubled Himalayan region. At least five people were wounded, one critically.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Mexican police captured a Texas-born fugitive known as "the Barbie." Edgar Valdez Villarreal (37) allegedly led a violent smuggling network. He became the third suspected drug lord to fall in Mexico in the past 10 months in a coup for Pres. Calderon's war on cartels. An anonymous caller tipped authorities off to the presence of 3 bodies in Tamaulipas state. Marines found the 3 bodies as well as the bodies of 2 women, not identified as culprits. A Honduran man who survived the Aug 24 slaughter identified the three men as having been among the killers of 72 migrants.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Nigeria unknown gunmen shot and killed a personal assistant to Bauchi state Gov. Malam Isa Yuguda, the son-in-law to the late Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua. A police guard for Yuguda was shot and seriously injured.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Russia's PM Vladimir Putin hinted he would return to the presidency in 2012 for six more years and said democracy protesters marching without permission deserved to be beaten.
(Reuters, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Russia a fire killed nine people at a nursing home in Vishny Volochek, 120 miles (200 km) north of Moscow, and investigators say it apparently started when an elderly resident doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Slovakia a gunman killed 7 people and wounded 14 in an attack at an apartment building in Bratislava, then committed suicide.
(AP, 8/30/10)(Econ, 9/4/10, p.55)
2010 Aug 30, In Somalia 4 Ugandan peacekeepers were killed in Mogadishu when al Shabaab Islamist rebels fired mortars at the presidential palace. Clashes pitting Islamist radicals against government troops backed by African Union forces killed at least six civilians and wounded 16.
(Reuters, 8/30/10)(AFP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, The government of Southern Sudan said it will purge child soldiers from the ranks of its former rebel army by year's end, a policy change that could see thousands of young troops pushed out of the military.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, In Venezuela Franklin Brito, a farmer who staged repeated hunger strikes to protest a government-sanctioned takeover of his farm, died in a military hospital in Caracas.
(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, President Barack Obama marked the symbolic end of US combat operations in Iraq. Vice President Joe Biden presided over the formal end to US combat operations in Iraq. Biden made a new appeal to Iraqi leaders, including PM Nouri al-Maliki, to end the political deadlock and seat a new government. Since the US invasion in March, 2003, almost 5,000 American and allied soldiers lost their lives as well as some 150,000 Iraqis. Over 2 million Iraqis fled the country.
(AFP, 8/31/10)(AP, 8/31/10)(Econ, 8/28/10, p.37)
2010 Aug 31, Police in Richmond, Ca., shot and killed Efren Valdemoro (38) following a high speed chase across the East Bay. At least 4 people were killed since Aug 25 in a tangle of violence centering on Valdemoro. A 5th person, Frederick Sales (35), was missing. On Sep 9 police found Frederick’s body at 1066 Crepe Myrtle Drive in Hercules, the site where Ricardo Sales (73), the father of Frederick Sales, was found on Aug 28.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/10, p.C3)(SSFC, 9/12/10, p.A16)
2010 Aug 31, In Arkansas a medical helicopter crashed in Van Burn County killing 3 crew members trying to reach a person injured in a traffic accident.
(SFC, 9/1/10, p.A7)
2010 Aug 31, In Afghanistan 6 US soldiers were killed, including 4 in an IED attack.
(AFP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, British aid group Oxfam said it had suspended operations in a northern Afghan region after two employees and a local volunteer were killed there on Aug 28.
(Reuters, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, Indonesian police killed five villagers as dozens of people ransacked a station in central Buol district to protest a person's death in custody. The protest followed a motorist's death in police custody on Aug 30. It was unclear why he was detained, but the protesters suspected he was tortured by police.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, Libya freed 37 prisoners, including at least one former detainee at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, who had been jailed for links to radical Islamist groups but have since renounced violence.
(Reuters, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, In Mexico 6 women and two men died in a fire at a bar frequented by locals in the resort of Cancun. Bar employees told police that unidentified men tossed gasoline bombs at the establishment. Police soon arrested six suspects, who said a drug gang hired them to throw gasoline bombs at the bar, presumably in an attempt at extortion.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Aug 31, Pakistani government airstrikes killed eight suspected insurgents in the Khyber tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Two intelligence officials confirmed the airstrikes but said 30 insurgents were killed.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, A West Bank gunman opened fire on a passing vehicle in Hebron, killing all four Israeli passengers inside, two men and two women from settlements in the area. The dead included a married couple with five children.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 31, Russian police detained Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov and several other people at a protest in Moscow in defense of the right to free assembly, which activists say is restricted by the Russian government.
(Reuters, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, South Africa’s public service ministry said it was increasing its salary hike offer from 7 to 7.5 percent and housing allowance from 700 rand ($96) to 800 rand ($110). Workers were demanding an 8.6 percent raise and 1,000 rand ($137) for housing.
(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, Spanish police said that for the first time they have broken up a human-trafficking gang that brought men to the country to work as prostitutes, providing them with Viagra, cocaine and other stimulant drugs to be available for sex with other men 24 hours a day. Authorities arrested 14 people, mainly Brazilians, on suspicion of running the organization and another 17 alleged prostitutes for being in Spain illegally.
(AP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug 31, The army of Southern Sudan has been looting food convoys and carrying out other attacks on aid groups, officials of those groups alleged, and a top military officer warned that the humanitarian groups could be expelled if the complaints get too "harsh." South Sudan health officials said floods have forced nearly 60,000 people from their homes, warning that the situation could worsen.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AFP, 8/31/10)
2010 Aug, Cairn Energy, a British petrochemicals company, announced the discovery of worthwhile oil deposits off the coast of Greenland. Its licensed acreage was estimated to hold some 4 billion barrels of oil.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.43)
2010 Aug, In China the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) oversaw 123 large centrally-owned companies. Based on the state-owned enterprise reconstruction plan, the SASAC directly-supervised SOE will be reduced to 80-100 by the ending of 2010 year. The small companies will be merged into big state-owned enterprise giants. In 2011 SASAC controlled some $3.7 trillion in assets.
(Econ, 11/12/11, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/88wjnsa)
2010 Aug, In CongoDRC rebel militants raped some 240 people over 4 days in the Walikale district of eastern Congo. At least 387 people were raped in the Walikale territory in late July and early, including men, children and a month-old baby boy. In 2011 survivors suffered reprisals and a judicial inquiry into the violence was suspended.
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.64)(AP, 7/6/11)
2010 Aug, In Cuba Manuel Garcia, the public face of the Cuban cigar industry, was jailed for masterminding graft on a grand scale.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.40)
2010 Aug, Yukiya Amano, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "invited Israel to consider to accede" signing up to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, during a low-key visit to the country.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 1, The United States changed commanders in Iraq, beginning the final phase of American military involvement in the country despite political uncertainty and persistent violence.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, The US government designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist group and accused its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, of involvement in a December suicide bombing that killed 7 Americans at a CIA post in eastern Afghanistan.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 1, In Maryland police shot and killed James J. Lee after he took 2 employees and a security officer hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel. Lee had demanded that the network ask “the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it." All 3 hostages escaped unharmed.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 1, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced Ping as the social network of music.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.D1)(http://venturebeat.com/tag/ping/)
2010 Sep 1, US newspapers reported that the Afghan central bank had replaced the bank's two top executives, Khalillulah Ferozi and chairman Sher Khan Farnud -- and ordered Farnud to hand over 160 million dollars' worth of luxury property purchased in Dubai for himself and for cronies. Anxious Afghan customers withdrew 80 million dollars.
(AFP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Afghanistan NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) reported September's first death, another American, in an insurgent attack in the south. A Muslim leader, Mohammad Hassan Taimuri, was killed in Kandahar city by a remote-detonated bomb hidden on a motorcycle that exploded in a downtown square. One other person was killed in the attack and two people were wounded. The Afghan Health Ministry said blood samples taken from Afghan schoolgirls who collapsed in apparent mass poisonings showed traces of toxic chemicals found in herbicides, pesticides and nerve gas.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Algeria 2 soldiers were killed and dozens injured after a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle packed with explosives by a military convoy near the capital Algiers.
(AFP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, A court in Botswana charged former defense minister Ramadeluka Seretse for failing to disclose his position as a shareholder in a company that was awarded a government contract. Seretse, a cousin of President Seretse Ian Khama, resigned Aug 30 after months of corruption allegations from opposition parties.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In southern China 44 people were missing after a landslide hit Wama village, Yunnan province, killing at least four people.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, In southern Colombia suspected leftist rebels killed 14 police officers and wounded seven in an ambush of a five-truck convoy.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 1, Gunmen in eastern Congo fired on a private plane carrying international aid workers who escaped into the forest. The aid workers were rescued later in the day by peacekeepers. A Congolese soldier and two militiamen were killed in the firefight. 2 pilots in another plane were captured after an attack by Mai Mai and Rwandan Hutu rebels shortly after landing at Kilambo. The pilots and 2 injured people were released on Sep 24.
(AP, 9/1/10)(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Greece a smoking ban went into effect outlawing smoking in enclosed public areas and prohibiting tobacco advertising. 42% of the Greek population over age 15 smoked, well above the European average of 29%.
(SFC, 9/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 1, India's government began allocating third-generation (3G) bandwidth for cellphone services to mobile operators after a multi-billion-dollar auction of licenses.
(AFP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In western India wave after wave of tar balls floated ashore on the renowned Goa beaches after a ship dumped tons of waste oil, about three days after officials believe a ship dumped burnt oil at sea.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, Mozambique's state utility company implemented a 13.4 percent rate increase, while the state water supplier has also raised prices in and around the capital. Police opened fire on stone-throwing mobs who were protesting rising prices. 6 people were killed and 288 wounded. Another person died the next day. The UN noted that international food prices have risen to their highest in two years, a level that could see unrest spread.
(AP, 9/1/10)(AFP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Pakistan 3 suicide bombs ripped through a Shiite Muslim religious procession in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 35 people and wounding 250.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 1, Palestinian security forces arrested more than 250 Hamas members in an overnight sweep throughout the West Bank after the Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for shooting dead four Israelis on the eve of new Mideast peace talks.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, In Senegal Television Futurs Medias (TFM), run by pop star Youssou N’dour (50), began broadcasting but only in Dakar and its immediate suburbs. Its government license, issued earlier this year, limited it to cultural programming and forbade the station from doing newscasts. A request to broadcast to the rest of the country has so far been denied.
(AP, 9/9/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2eh5yhm)
2010 Sep 1, A South Korean news report and an intelligence official said North Korea has changed the names of its trading companies and falsified trade documents to avoid international sanctions and continue exporting weapons.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, A senior Swedish prosecutor reopened a rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the latest twist to a puzzling case in which prosecutors of different ranks have overruled each other.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 1, Thailand long running high school gang violence was highlighted when students opened fire on a public bus in Bangkok. 4 stray bullets killed a boy (9), shaking parents and educators.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 2, Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Washington and cleared the first hurdle in what promises to be difficult negotiations, vowing to try to settle core differences within a year and meet every two weeks. Neither leader addressed the sensitive question of whether Israel would extend a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank due to expire on September 26. The next round of talks was set for September 14-15 in Egypt.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, A US federal indictment charged 6 recruiters from Global Horizons manpower Inc. of luring 400 laborers from Thailand to the US with promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports and failed to honor their employment contracts.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 2, The US Justice Dept. sued Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa county, for failing to turn over documents in an investigation of his aggressive operations against illegal immigrants.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 2, The US Postal Service issued a new 44 cent stamp recognizing Mother Teresa (1910-1997) for her humanitarian work.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 2, In California Robert Borrmann (91), founder of the R.E. Borrmann Steel Co., was killed along with his pilot and the pilot’s girlfriend when their small plane crashed in a lagoon in Redwood City shortly after takeoff from the San Carlos Airport.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 2, It was reported that Miami-based Burger King Holdings has agreed to be acquired by 3G Capital for $3.3 billion, or $24 per share. The NY investment firm was backed by Brazilian investors.
(SFC, 9/3/10, p.D6)
2010 Sep 2, Afghan financial authorities and the owners of Afghanistan's biggest bank said that Kabul Bank was in no danger of collapsing, as people across the country rushed to withdraw their money. Over the next few days withdrawals drained over half of the bank’s $500 million in liquid cash. Authorities soon barred the sale of Kabul properties held by the bank’s principal owners, but excluded Mahmoud Karzai, Pres. Karzai’s brother. Mahmoud, the bank’s 3rd largest shareholder, had purchased a $5.5 million home in Dubai with Kabul Bank funds. Mahmoud Karzai had bought his 7% share in Kabul Bank with a $5 million loan from the bank.
(AFP, 9/2/10)(SFC, 9/6/10, p.A2)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.54)
2010 Sep 2, In Afghanistan 2 American troops died in fighting, while NATO and local officials said coalition and Afghan forces killed dozens of insurgents in a series of ground and air engagements. President Hamid Karzai said 10 Afghan civilians were killed in a NATO air strike on three vehicles carrying election campaign workers in the north. Candidate Abdul Wahid Khorasani was wounded and 10 relatives working on his campaign were killed in what appeared to be a mistaken NATO airstrike. Abdul Rahman, a candidate in this month's parliamentary elections, was wounded in a grenade attack in Ghazni.
(AP, 9/2/10)(AFP, 9/2/10)(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard edged closer to retaining power when an independent lawmaker said he would support her center-left Labor Party to form Australia's first minority government in almost seven decades.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, The London Times published extracts of a new book by the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in which he argues that God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. "The Grand Design" was co-authored with US physicist Leonard Mlodinow.
(Reuters, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Colombia two separate mine blasts over the last 24 hours killed four soldiers and wounded six more.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, El Salvador lawmakers approved a new law making gang membership punishable by four to six years in prison. Gang leaders would face up to 10 years. Police found an oil drum filled with money on a ranch in the town of Penitente Abajo, about 40 miles (62 km) from the capital. After three days counting the bundles of $100, $50 and $20 bills, authorities announced that it contained about $9 million in U.S. dollars. Another plastic drum was uncovered Sep 4 about 5 yards away, also crammed with money. A 3rd barrel was found on Sep 10 containing packets of $100 bills adding up to $4.2 million.
(AP, 9/2/10)(AP, 9/4/10)(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 2, An international maritime group urged Indonesia to increase patrols in the South China Sea after pirates attacked nine vessels in less than three weeks.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Iran pro-government militiamen attacked the home of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally the next day.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, Iraq signed an agreement to pay $400 million to Americans who say they were abused by Saddam Hussein's regime. The signing was made public on Sep 10. the money would be given to Americans who were affected by the Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990. Generally such agreements have to be approved by the Cabinet, but this settlement would likely be extremely unpopular among Iraqis who survived years under Saddam only to suffer vicious sectarian fighting after the American invasion.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Mexico soldiers killed at least 25 suspected cartel members in a raid and gunbattle in Tamaulipas state near the US border, that has become one of the most dangerous battlegrounds in the country's drug war.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, Serbia's justice minister said authorities have confiscated euro200 million ($256 million) in property from organized crime bosses since gaining the authority last year.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, South Africa's government said it is withdrawing the April, 2009, special status granted to illegal Zimbabwean immigrants who fled their country's economic meltdown and political violence. A government said South Africa will begin deportations after Dec 31.
(AP, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, Striking South African state workers staged a protest march after rejecting a revised wage offer aimed at ending their three-week strike that has the government and the labor movement at loggerheads.
(Reuters, 9/2/10)
2010 Sep 2, Typhoon Kompasu struck South Korea, killing 5 people and toppling trees, streetlights and scaffolding in what was called the strongest storm to hit the Seoul area in 15 years. In North Korea the typhoon killed dozens of people and destroyed roads, railways and thousands of homes.
(AP, 9/2/10)(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Sudan armed men attacked the settlement of Tabarat and reportedly killed 74 people in attacks on a busy market there and in surrounding villages in rebel-held territory of the Darfur region. Air force bombing continued to the next morning. The insurgent Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) accused the Sudanese army of attacking the settlements west of the town of Tawila in North Darfur state. The UNAMID force was later able to verify from eyewitnesses that 37 people were killed and 30 were injured.
(Reuters, 9/3/10)(AFP, 9/3/10)(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 3, A weakened Hurricane Earl delivered only a glancing blow to North Carolina's Outer Banks on its way up the East Coast, flooding roads on the narrow vacation islands and knocking out power but staying farther offshore than feared.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, BP Plc successfully replaced a failed blowout preventer from atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, SF-based Craigslist yielded to pressure and removed its controversial adult services section. On Sep 15 Craigslist said the shutdown was permanent. Backpage.com soon became the market leader in sex adverts.
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.A1)(AFP, 9/16/10)(Econ, 7/18/15, p.27)
2010 Sep 3, The Basel Committee of int’l. bank regulators agreed on a new set of rules, known as Basel 3, with requirements for banks liquidity and capital.
(Econ, 10/9/10, SR p.16)
2010 Sep 3, In Barbados 2 men burst into a clothing store in downtown Bridgetown and demanded money before setting the building on fire and killing at least 6 people. On Sep 13 Police said 2 men, Renaldo Anderson Alleyne (21) and Jamar Bynoe (19), had been arrested and charged with six counts of murder, aggravated burglary, and arson in the attack. The island has not executed anyone since 1984. On June 1, 2011, Alleyne pleaded guilty to six counts of manslaughter. Bynoe faced similar charges but his case had not yet gone to trial.
(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/13/10)(AP, 6/2/11)
2010 Sep 3, In Belarus the editor a popular opposition website was found dead amid an ongoing crackdown on government critics and independent media. The body of Oleg Bebenin (36) was found in his country house outside Minsk.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras unveiled a huge share offering which could raise 64 billion dollars to help finance new exploration projects in the country.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Britain and France announced they are talking about sharing the cost of military aircraft programs, but rejected reports that they plan to merge their aircraft carrier fleets.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In southern England cellist Mike Edwards (62), a founding member of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) band, died after the 600 kg (1,323 lb) bale rolled down a steep field in Devon, smashed through a hedge and careered on to the road.
(Reuters, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 3, Chad health officials said an outbreak of cholera in the Central African nation has killed at least 41 people.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, A UPS Boeing 747-400 cargo plane with two crew members on board crashed shortly after takeoff outside Dubai. The 2 crew members, Captain Doug Lampe (48) of Louisville, Kentucky, and First Officer Matthew Bell (38) of Sanford, Florida. were killed. On Nov 5 al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing claimed responsibility for the crash, even though the United Arab Emirates' civil aviation authority said that there was no evidence of an explosive device aboard the jet.
(AP, 9/4/10)(AP, 9/5/10)(Reuters, 11/5/10)
2010 Sep 3, A court in Essen, Germany, that has been overseeing months of wrangling over the rent to be paid for 120 Karstadt stores, agreed that investor Nicolas Berggruen (49) could snap up the iconic chain, saving it from bankruptcy and safeguarding 25,000 jobs.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Finland and Sweden urged the European Union to create an independent peace institute to broaden the scope of the bloc's peacekeeping efforts around the world.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Accra, Ghana, Standard Bank Africa announced at an agricultural forum a 100 million dollar scheme to reach some 750,000 small scale farmers in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda in a bid to boost output.
(AFP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, In eastern India police found the body of a policeman in a remote forested district 150 km (100 miles) from the Bihar state capital Patna. A handwritten note found near the body said: "We will kill the three other policemen and send their bodies soon." The rebels had seized 4 men during a raid on security forces last week that left 10 policemen dead.
(AFP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, The Iraqi National Alliance, a powerful Iranian-backed Shiite bloc, added a third man to the political wrangling by naming Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq's Shiite vice president, their candidate for the job.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Japan imposed new sanctions against Iran, including an assets freeze on people and entities linked to its contentious nuclear program and tighter restrictions on financial transactions.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Kenya allowed the International Criminal Court to open an office in the country, a development that comes after Kenya's commitment to the court came into question when the nation hosted Sudan's indicted leader last week.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In southern Lebanon explosions ripped through a building that might have been used to store weapons by the militant group Hezbollah.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Lesotho Thomas Maresco (24), a US Peace Corps volunteer, was shot and killed in an apparent robbery attempt.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Mexico five suspected cartel members were killed in Nuevo Leon state, during a shootout on a highway leading to the border.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Two members of Mexico’s Congress were among six people killed on when their private plane crashed near a popular Pacific beach resort. Guillermo Zavaleta and Juan Huerta, members of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, died in the crash in Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, Police in Mozambique fired rubber bullets and live ammunition to quell more demonstrations against rising food prices. The death toll from the unrest soon climbed to 13 with more than 440 injured. The government said the economy has lost more than $3 million because of the deadly riots, as state media reported new protests in two other towns.
(AFP, 9/3/10)(AFP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Pakistan a suicide bombing targeting religious minorities killed at least 65 people in Quetta. A suicide attack on a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect killed at least one person and wounded several others in the northwest town of Mardan. Suspected US missiles killed five people in a tribal region near the Afghan border. A bomb was detonated by remote control as officers patrolled in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
(AP, 9/3/10)(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, A Portuguese court found six men and one woman guilty of crimes relating to child sex abuse in a major trial that lasted nearly six years. All seven defendants were found guilty of crimes including sexually abusing minors and adolescents, raping children and running a pedophile ring at the Casa Pia, a state-run children's home in Lisbon during the 1990s.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 8 people have been killed and 400 houses set ablaze in the latest wave of the forest fires plaguing the country. The fires were most intense in the Volgograd region, where 380 houses were burned in 20 populated areas. In Saratov, 20 houses burned.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, An AU official said African Union peacekeepers have established nine new bases in Somalia's capital in recent months and will help develop Somali government forces to defeat al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgents.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Tajikistan a suicide car bomb blast tore through police offices in Khujand, the country’s second-largest city, killing one policeman and injuring 25 people.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 4, Hurricane Earl brushed past the Northeast US and dumped heavy, wind-driven rain on Cape Cod cottages and fishing villages, but caused little damage. It continued north and made landfall near Western Head, Nova Scotia. Earl lost its tropical storm status over Canada, but the storm still left one person dead and nearly one million people without power in the northeastern.
(AP, 9/4/10)(AFP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 4, Paul Conrad ((b.1924), LA Times political cartoonist, died. His 50 year career included 3 Pulitzer Prizes.
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.C9)
2010 Sep 4, President Hamid Karzai said an Afghan peace council to pursue talks with the Taliban has been set up, the latest step in a gradual move toward reconciliation with the Islamist insurgents.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, Bahrain state media released the photographs of 23 Shiites — ranging from opposition figures to professors and taxi drivers — accused of conspiring to overthrow the government. They include opposition leader Abdul-Jalil al-Singace, whose arrest on Aug. 13 marked the first salvo by officials against members of a Shiite majority, 60-70% of the population being cast as coup plotters who could open the door to Iranian influence.
(AP, 9/5/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.56)
2010 Sep 4, British tax collectors said a new computer system has revealed that almost 6 million people have paid the wrong amount of income tax, and 1.4 million will be told to repay an average of 1,500 pounds ($2,300) each.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, In southern Congo at least 200 people were feared dead after a boat engine caught fire and led the vessel to overturn on the Kasai River. Survivors who swam to safety said nearby fishermen refused to help drowning passengers in the dark of night, instead looting the goods aboard the burning vessel and beating people with oars. Earlier the same day, a boat on a river in northwest Equateur Province hit a rock and capsized. More than 70 people were believed dead among 100 estimated passengers.
(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 4, In France Roma migrants whose camp was bulldozed led a protest in Paris against the French government's security crackdown, with similar demonstrations taking place across the country and abroad.
(AFP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, In Guatemala torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides killed at least 48 people, most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.
(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 4, Thousands of Indonesian Muslims rallied outside the US Embassy in Jakarta to denounce an American church's plan to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by burning copies of the Quran. The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has said it will burn the Islamic holy book on Sep 11, the ninth anniversary of the NYC terror attacks.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper reported that security forces have killed four members of an outlawed Kurdish group in the western province of Kordestan. Nasrin Sotoudeh (45) was summoned by official notice to Tehran's Evin Prison, and did return home. She had represented opposition activists and political figures. State media reported in December that she was accused of spreading propaganda against the ruling system. On Jan 10, 2011, her husband said has been convicted of security offenses and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(AFP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/8/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Sep 4, In New Zealand chimneys and walls crumbled to the ground, roads cracked in half and residents were knocked off their feet as a powerful magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked the South Island. No one was killed.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, In New Zealand's Southern Alps a light aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in flames near a popular tourist spot, killing nine people including four foreign tourists.
(AP, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 4, Two Palestinians were killed and another three were wounded in Israeli air strikes carried out after a rocket attack from Gaza. This was the first exchange of fire since the relaunch of Middle East peace talks last week. Two raids targeted smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt, causing a tunnel to collapse on the two men, and a third struck a former base used by the militant Hamas movement.
(AFP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 4, Philippine police commandos killed an Abu Sayyaf commander linked to last year's kidnapping of Red Cross workers and gunned down two other militants in a clash in the south. Gafur Jumdail and two of his men were killed near Maimbung town on Jolo island after clashing with commandos tracking a Malaysian militant and allied Filipino fighters.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 4, In Sudan a Darfur rebel group said 10 people were killed in clashes with Sudanese police in two camps for displaced people in West Darfur state. U.N.-African Union peacekeepers said 9 people were killed in the clashes.
(AFP, 9/4/10)(AP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 4, Yemeni police arrested 14 suspected members of al-Qaida in a raid on one of the group's alleged hideouts in Abyan province in the town of Lawder. Gunmen from a separatist movement attacked an army post in Rabwa near the town of Habalein and killed four soldiers. Two of the attackers died as well.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In southern California 7 people were shot at a house party in Lancaster, including a girl (14) who later died of her wounds. Manuel Jamines, a Guatemalan immigrant, was fatally shot by a Los Angeles police officer. His death led to several days of violent protests. Police and witnesses said Jamines was threatening people with a knife.
(SFC, 9/6/10, p.A4)(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 5, Afghanistan's Taliban said they would attempt to disrupt the Sep 18 elections and warned Afghans to boycott the vote, the first explicit threat against the poll by the hardline Islamists. A British soldier was killed by an exploding grenade. The death takes to 333 the British death toll in Afghanistan since 2001. Afghan journalist Sayed Hamid Noori was found outside his Kabul home covered in stab wounds. Noori had once been an anchor for state television and a newspaper editor. More recently, he held a leadership position in Afghanistan's Association of Independent Journalists and teacher of young journalists.
(Reuters, 9/5/10)(AFP, 9/5/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 5, Bangladesh issued a red alert over an outbreak of anthrax which has infected nearly 300 people and killed about 150 cattle in the north of the country in the past two weeks.
(Reuters, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, The Basque separatist militant group ETA declared a cease-fire in a video statement, suggesting it might turn to a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Dagestan a suicide car-bomber killed 3 soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a Russian military base. In Kabardino-Balkariya, another republic of the Caucasus region that includes Dagestan, a policeman was shot to death by a man whom he'd stopped for a document check.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Ecuador 15 people were killed and at least seven injured when a drunken Luis Alberto Hessmer Vargas drove an SUV into a crowded bus stop in the coastal city of Guayaquil.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Iraq a car bomb and suicide bombers hit a Baghdad military headquarters and killed 12 people, two weeks after an attack on the same site pointed to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security. Five soldiers were among the dead. American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In northern Mexico soldiers opened fire on a family's car when it allegedly failed to stop at a military checkpoint, killing a 15-year-old boy and his father. Relatives who were also in the car said they were shot at after they passed a military convoy. On Sep 12 the military announced that it filed charges against four troops for the shooting.
(AP, 9/6/10)(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 5, Mozambican authorities said five fishing boats have capsized in a storm off the country's central coast, killing at least 15 fishermen.
(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Sep 5, In Nigeria more than a dozen vehicles including three fuel tankers and two mini-buses caught fire in a pile-up on a highway, site of a deadly multi-car crash three weeks ago. No death toll was immediately available. Three separate shootings occurred by motorcycle-riding gunmen, leaving a retired police officer dead. Another person reported wounded later died, and four others were injured.
(AFP, 9/5/10)(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, Pres. Obama called for a $50 billion boost in spending on the nation’s roads, runways and railroads in an effort to boost the sluggish US economy.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 6, The annual Labor Day Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon raised $58.9 million, down from a record $65 million in 2008.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 6, Oracle Corp. announced that it has hired Mark Hurd (53), former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, as a co-president.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 6, In Colorado a fire broke out near Boulder and over the next 6 days destroyed at least 169 homes.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A11)(SFC, 9/13/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 6, The Afghan central bank ordered frozen the assets of Kabulbank's former chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, and chief executive officer, Khalilullah Fruzi, together with those of several other shareholders and major borrowers. Farnood and Fruzi both own a 28 percent stake in Kabulbank.
(Reuters, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, In Afghanistan Nahrin district chief Rahmad Sror Joshan Pool was killed when rocket-propelled grenades hit his vehicle, setting it on fire. Pool's bodyguard was also killed in the attack. One militant died and two were wounded in the ensuing fire fight with police. 5 children were killed and five wounded in Yaya Khil district in the southern province of Paktika when an insurgent rocket fired at an Afghan army base hit a home. Kidnappers seized two electoral workers and their two drivers in the western province of Ghor. NATO reported the death of an American service member in an insurgent attack in the south.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, A British judge sentenced a Church of England minister to four years in jail for his part in a sham-marriage scam which saw hundreds of African men marry European women so they could stay in Britain.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, UNICEF said that over 300 people have died in Cameroon from the country’s worst outbreak of cholera in 20 years.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 6, In the Central African Republic rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began a 2-day attack the town of Ouandda Djalle. 16 people were killed including two civilians, and 5 rebels.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced one of the biggest battles of her time in office after announcing plans to put off the date when Europe's biggest economy abandons nuclear power. Merkel said the operation of the country’s 17 nuclear plants would be extended to promote energy security. Under current law the last nuclear plant was to be closed by 2022.
(AFP, 9/6/10)(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 6, The lawyer for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, said she was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper on Aug 28 ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her.
(SFC, 9/7/10, p.A4)(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 6, Italy’s Balzan Foundation said its prize for the biology of stem cells has gone to a Japanese researcher for discovering a way to transform adult cells into cells with the characteristics of stem cells. The prize to Shinya Yamanaka is one of four — two for sciences, two in humanities. Brazilian mathematician Jacob Palis was cited for his work in dynamic systems. The humanities prizes went to Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, the father of micro-history, for his contributions to the study of ordinary people in Europe, and to German Manfred Bauneck for his history of the European theater.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, A Japanese court convicted two members of Greenpeace of stealing whale meat they claim was intended for illegal consumption, giving each suspended jail terms. Junichi Sato (33) and Toru Suzuki (43) were found guilty of stealing 50 pounds (23 kg) of whale meat from a delivery service company warehouse in April 2008. The meat came from whales killed during Japan's controversial government-backed research hunts.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In Kashmir Indian government forces fired on protesters hurling stones at them, killing three people and wounding at least 17 other demonstrators.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, A Kenyan court convicted and sentenced seven Somali pirates to five years in jail. A court in the Kenyan port town of Mombasa found the Somalis guilty of attacking a German naval supply ship in the Gulf of Aden on March 29 last year.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 6, Mexico’s Navy announced it had found a clandestine grave with two bodies in Tamaulipas, not far from the Aug 24 massacre site. It was unclear if the grave was related to the massacre of 72 migrants. Marines had arrested four suspects at the scene on Sept. 3. The bodies appeared to be those of a state detective and local police chief who disappeared while investigating the massacre.
(AP, 9/6/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 6, Mozambique state radio reported that nine people have been arrested over the last 24 hours, accused of incitement for sending cell phone messages calling for protests. The radio report said 3 of the 9 were arrested in Nampula for trying to spread the protests to that northern province.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In northwestern Pakistan a Taliban suicide bomber detonated a car in an alley behind a police station in Lakki Marwat, killing at least 19 police and civilians in an explosion that shattered the station and neighboring homes. A US drone fired 2 missiles and killed 5 alleged militants in North Waziristan, home to the Haqqani network, a militant group battling US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 9/6/10)(AFP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, Philippine officials said the government has asked a court to outlaw the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist group under a 2007 anti-terrorism law and blacklist more than 200 of its Islamic fighters blamed for two decades of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, A South African labor leader said civil servants are suspending a 20-day nationwide strike for higher wages to give union members time to consider the government's offer.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, Oxford press said it has published a new Zulu-English dictionary, four decades after the last such reference book was released for one of South Africa's most widely spoken languages.
(AFP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, The Spanish government rejected a new ceasefire announcement by the separatist group ETA and ruled out negotiations on an independent Basque homeland, saying the militants have been decimated by arrests and are desperate to regroup and rearm.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In southwestern Spain a passenger train crashed into a heavy-duty dump truck, killing two people and injuring eight others.
(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Sep 6, In Swaziland armed police arrested 50 members the Swaziland Democracy Campaign as they prepared for a protest march in Mbabane. The umbrella group had been set up jointly with Cosatu, South Africa’s main union. South African participants were deported and Swazis were harshly interrogated. More people were arrested and beaten during the march the next day.
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.63)
2010 Sep 7, George Soros gave $100 million to Human Rights Watch.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.72)
2010 Sep 7, Hewlett-Packard filed a lawsuit to stop former CEO Mark Hurd from working at Oracle Corp. Hurd had signed several nondisclosure agreements at HP.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 7, In Michigan fires swept through 85 structures in at least 3 Detroit neighborhoods as 50 mph winds downed 62 power lines.
(SFC, 9/8/10, p.A6)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A10)
2010 Sep 7, The Rev. Lucius Walker (b.1930) died of a heart attack in New York. He headed the nonprofit Pastors for Peace, which since 1992 has brought tons of supplies to Cuba via Mexico and Canada in defiance of Washington's nearly half-century-old trade embargo.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard will lead the country's first minority government in 67 years after two independent lawmakers threw their support behind her center-left Labor Party, ending two weeks of uncertainty left by national elections that ended on a knife-edge.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Strikes hobbled public transit in London and across France, forcing tourists and commuters to alter their plans as they bore the brunt of a wave of discontent over government cost-cutting measures, a wave expected to soon prompt walkouts elsewhere on the continent. Some 1.2-2.7 million people in France took to the streets for the one-day strike.
(AP, 9/7/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 7, Two Chinese oil workers went missing but more than 30 others were rescued from a listing Sinopec rig off the northeast coast. The company insisted no oil was spilled.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, A Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands. On Nov 1 Japanese lawmakers said a coast guard video shows a Chinese trawler intentionally ramming Japanese vessels in the incident, which sparked the worst row in years between the Asian powers.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Sep 7, Police in southeastern Congo say they have arrested three men carrying six suitcases full of elephant tusks. 3 Chinese nationals were caught at Lumumbashi's airport while trying to fly to Nairobi, Kenya. The men said they bought the ivory from antique dealers.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, The EU condemned the stoning to death sentence passed against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, saying it was "barbaric."
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Germany police raided buildings used by the country’s largest neo-Nazi group in an effort to find evidence to support banning it. The sweep targeted 30 buildings and houses across the country belonging to members of the Aid Organization for National Political Victims and their Relatives (HNG).
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Honduras men armed with assault rifles burst into a shoe factory in San Pedro Sula and opened fire, killing at least 18 workers and wounding five. The massacre was apparently carried out as part of a turf battle between small-scale drug gangs.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung volcano shot a towering cloud of black ash high into the air, dusting villages 15 miles (25 km) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last week from four centuries of dormancy.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Iran said that it was within its rights to vet UN inspectors who monitor its nuclear facilities after the UN watchdog said its work was being hampered by the barring of some of its staff.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Iraq Riad al-Saray, a prominent state television anchorman, was shot dead as he was driving in the capital. Reporters Without Borders has tallied 230 cases of journalists and media staff killed in the country since the conflict broke out on 20 March 2003. An Iraqi soldier, Soran Rahman Saleh Wali, opened fire on a group of American troops protecting one of their commanders during a visit to an Iraqi army base. Two American soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in the attack. Wali was killed and his brother, who works as a policeman in Tuz Khurmatu, was arrested. A grenade attack on a US military convoy in the Salaheddin provincial capital Tikrit wounded two American soldiers and four Iraqi civilians. One of the attackers was killed.
(AFP, 9/7/10)(AP, 9/8/10)(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, A Health Ministry official said Japan has confirmed the nation's first case of a new gene in bacteria that allows the microorganisms to become drug-resistant superbugs, detected in a man who had medical treatment in India.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Mexico pieces of the dismembered bodies of two men were found scattered around a children's park in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. Gunmen attacked a vehicle in Ciudad Juarez carrying inmates from the city's prison, killing 2 guards and wounding a prisoner.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Mexico 7 women serving prison terms of up to 29 years for the death of their newborns were freed after a legal reform enacted in the state of Guanajuato lowered their sentences.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Mozambique Planning Minister Aiuba Cuereneia said that the 20 percent increase in the government-set price of bread — which had followed a year of steady increases on the staple in this impoverished country — that went into effect a day earlier would be reversed. He said an increase in the price of water also would be reversed, but that higher electricity tariffs were being maintained.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, Myanmar’s ruling junta leader, Gen. Than Shwe, began a 4-day visit to China. This year alone China had already invested over $8 billion in Myanmar.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.52)
2010 Sep 7, Nigerian authorities banned night time use of motorcycles in a northern state after a spate of killings by bike-riding gunmen suspected of being Islamist sect members. The radical Boko Haram Muslim sect used assault rifles to launch a coordinated sunset raid on a prison in Bauchi, freeing over 700 prisoners including more than 100 followers and raising new fears about violence just months before elections. Five people, a soldier, a police officer, two prison guards and a civilian, died in the attack and six others were in critical condition.
(AFP, 9/7/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Pakistan at least 17 people were killed and more than 20 wounded in a bomb attack targeting a police headquarters in the northwestern city of Kohat.
(AFP, 9/7/10)(SFC, 9/8/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep 7, The UN said more than 10 million people have been left without shelter in Pakistan's floods for the past 6 weeks, in "one of the worst humanitarian disasters" in UN history.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Slovenia a government expert said a mass grave has been discovered containing bodies of about 700 victims killed by antifascists in the wake of World War II. Researchers examined a pit in a forest near the town of Prevalje in the country's northeast last week and discovered the bodies.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 8, The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, BP issued a report on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and listed the unfolding of the tragedy in 4 acts, each containing several errors.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.74)
2010 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Hermine swept north through Texas and into Oklahoma swamping city neighborhoods and killing 6 people, 5 in Texas and 1 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A7)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 8, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother said he made at least $800,000 by buying and then reselling a high-end Dubai villa using a loan provided by the chairman of the troubled Kabul Bank.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Australia a kangaroo was beaten to death with a metal pole in the Great Otway National Park in the southern state of Victoria. Three 8th grade pupils were later suspended from school as authorities investigated the beating.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 8, The head of a Bahraini human rights organization says the government has taken over his group and removed him from his post. The government said the group was "only serving one segment of society," referring to the country's majority Shiites.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Belgian police say 10 people have been arrested in raids across Europe against hackers who put illegal copies of movies and television series on the Internet. Police said 5 arrests were in Belgium and the other arrests were made in Poland, Norway and Sweden, where the alleged leaders of four computer piracy networks were being held.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, British mobile phone giant Vodafone lost a legal appeal against an Indian tax bill estimated at $2.0 billion relating to the group's 2007 purchase of local group Hutchison Essar.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Michael Lassen (61), English stained-glass artist, died in a hospital after falling from a ladder on Sep 3, while working on a widow at the Durham cathedral.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.124)
2010 Sep 8, The Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate for a third consecutive time, nudging the rate up 25 basis points to 1 percent, but said a weak US economy would hamper Canada's recovery.
(Reuters, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan escalated when Beijing called in Japan's ambassador for a second time after a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila ordered the indefinite suspension near the mining hub of Walikale, where more than 240 people were treated for rape last month.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 8, In East Timor Mario Viejas Carrascalao (73), a deputy prime minister, announced his resignation in a letter published in the national newspaper, Tempo Semanal. In a blow to his "personal dignity," he said PM Gusmao had screamed at him at a public meeting and called him dumb. Carrascalao outlined a long list of problems facing East Timor, accusing the government of failing to address and sometimes participating in corruption and nepotism, and increasing their own well-being while ordinary citizens continued to live in abject poverty.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the bravery of illustrator Kurt Westergaard (75), a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, at an award ceremony honoring his achievements for freedom of speech.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s foreign ministry said authorities have suspended the execution by stoning of a woman convicted of adultery. A judiciary official told Fars news agency that the woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published a picture showing her without a headscarf. Fars reported that Vahid Kazemzadeh, a member of the Iranian judiciary's Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he has met Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who also complained to him that she has never met her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie.
(AFP, 9/8/10)(Reuters, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s UN ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the UN General Assembly his country needs more international help to combat the narcotics trade which he said was the "main financial source" for militant groups in the region.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Iraqi 4 prisoners with links to al-Qaida have escaped from the US-controlled part of the Karkh maximum-security prison, formerly Camp Cropper, in Baghdad.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Ireland announced it plans to split its most troubled financial institution, Anglo Irish Bank, in two as part of wider efforts to reassure international lenders that the Irish are dealing with their debt crisis.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Israelis ushered in the Jewish new year, or Rosh Hashana, at sundown with a widespread sense of pessimism that a new round of US-sponsored Mideast talks can achieve peace.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Israel Tal (86), a decorated war hero and the creator of Israel's renowned "Merkava" tank, died in the Israeli town of Rehovot. In the 1970s Tal oversaw the design of the Merkava tank (Hebrew for "chariot") which is widely seen as one of the best of its time.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Mexico hooded gunmen burst into Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia's office in the northern Mexico state of San Luis Potosi and shot him to death. He was the third mayor slain in less than a month.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In southern Mexico tens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes to escape flooding from weeks of torrential rains, and forecasts are predicting even more rainfall. The flooding has affected all four of Mexico's southernmost states: Tabasco, Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In northern Morocco 9 Portuguese tourists were killed and 14 injured when their tour bus plunged into a ravine.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Pakistan 3 suspected US missile strikes in less than 12 hours hit militant targets in the northwest, an unusually intense barrage that follows four other such attacks in the last week. At least 14 suspected militants were killed.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, The Palestinian Authority said it has arrested an unspecified number of Hamas activists believed to be responsible for two shooting attacks in the West Bank last week, one of which left four Jewish settlers dead. Palestinian militants fired a mortar round from the Gaza Strip narrowly missing a kindergarten in a kibbutz in southern Israel.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Somali pirates hijacked the Malta flagged cargo ship MV Olib G and its crew of 15 Georgian and 3 Turkish sailors. The ship was just carrying ballast.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Somali pirates hijacked the German-owned Magellan Star, flagged under Antigua and Barbuda. The next day US Marine commandos stormed the cargo vessel off the Somalia coast, and reclaimed control of the ship, taking nine prisoners without firing a shot.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, South Korea said it will ban unauthorized financial dealings with Iran and impose other penalties as part of a US-led campaign to enforce sanctions against the country over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. South Korea listed 126 Iranian companies and individuals for the sanctions.
(AP, 9/8/10)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 8, Sri Lanka's Parliament voted to eliminate term limits for the president, a move critics say could lead to dictatorship. Sri Lanka’s 1978 Constitution was amended for the 18th time giving the president more power and removing the bar on his serving more that two 6-years terms.
(AP, 9/8/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.20)
2010 Sep 8, In Sudan a Darfur rebel group was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas. The group later said 2 small reconnaissance groups of about 20 young LRA rebels carrying light arms shot and killed one LJM soldier before retreating into dense forest in remote South Darfur.
(Reuters, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 8, The UN Children's Fund launched a scheme to provide 13 million textbooks to Zimbabwe's students, in a 50-million-dollar effort to revive the struggling school system.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 9, President Barack Obama exhorted Rev. Terry Jones, a Florida minister, to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest this weekend. The Rev. Terry Jones from the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, said he has decided to hold off a burning of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Jones said he won't follow through with the burning if he's able to meet on Sep 11 with the organizers behind a mosque planned near ground zero in New York.
(AP, 9/9/10)(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, A US federal judge in southern California ruled that the US military’s ban on openly gay service members is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Judge Virginia Phillips ruled for the plaintiffs, a group of gay activists know as the Log Cabin Republicans.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A9)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.40)
2010 Sep 9, A massive explosion, apparently triggered by a broken gas line, sent flames roaring through San Bruno, a neighborhood near San Francisco, Ca., destroying 37 homes and badly damaged 8 others. At least 7 people were killed and over 50 injured. On Sep 27 the death toll rose to 8 as another victim died of injuries from the blast.
(AP, 9/10/10)(SFC, 9/10/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 9/12/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.C5)(SFC, 9/29/10, p.C4)
2010 Sep 9, In Pennsylvania Kraft worker Yvonne Hiller of northeast Philadelphia shot and killed two co-workers after she was suspended from a Kraft Foods plant.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, An Afghan insurgent commander, who was allegedly planning bombings in Kabul on the eve of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, and two of his associates were killed in a NATO airstrike. Intelligence sources had tracked Nur Mohammed and two armed militants to a field in the remote Musahi district of Kabul province.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, Bangladesh's high court banned the lease of coastal land to ship-breaking yards, in a ruling welcomed by environmentalists who say the industry destroys fragile eco-systems. Dismantling old ships is a major industry in Bangladesh, providing more than two-thirds of domestic steel and creating tens of thousands of jobs.
(AFP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, The Belgium government said that an investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church can continue even though a June 24 raid on the archdiocese has been ruled illegal. The next day the commission looking into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy said it had received testimony from hundreds of victims and that witnesses’ widespread abuse over decades had led to at least 13 suicides.
(AP, 9/9/10)(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, British legislators authorized a sweeping inquiry into illicit snooping on politicians and celebrities by tabloids, as one lawmaker called for media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to testify over allegations one of his newspapers illegally hacked into cell phones.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, In China Chen Guangcheng (39), a blind, self-taught activist lawyer, was released from prison and promptly confined in his rural village with limited access to communication. He had documented forced abortions and other abuses.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Egypt 11 police recruits died and another four were injured when flames engulfed their barracks in a Cairo suburb.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, The European Parliament called on France to suspend its expulsion of gypsies. The rare criticism of an EU state was backed by 337 lawmakers meeting in Strasbourg, France, with 245 opposed and 51 abstentions. To date France had deported 8,000 people to Romania and Bulgaria this year alone.
(AP, 9/9/10)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.73)
2010 Sep 9, In Guinea 2 senior voting officials were charged with vote tampering and sentenced to one year in prison a week before a crucial presidential vote. Not even their lawyers were informed of the court proceeding.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, An Iranian opposition group claimed to have discovered a new uranium enrichment plant being built about 75 miles (120 km) west of Tehran and said it was 85 percent complete. The head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the country has no undeclared nuclear sites. A US government official also disputed the claim by the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, saying the site did not appear to have a nuclear role.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Mexico gunmen killed 25 people in a series of drug-gang attacks in Ciudad Juarez, marking the deadliest day in more than two years for the Mexican border city.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Pakistan a roadside bomb killed 10 people and wounded four in a tribal region on the Afghan border. A suicide bomber detonated himself inside the house of a government minister in the Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, killing three people. A suspected American missile strike killed five alleged militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Russia's North Caucasus a suicide car bomber hit the Vladikavkaz central market, North Ossetia, killing 19 people and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst attacks in the volatile region in years. On Oct 12 Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov said 3 organizers were arrested in late September in Ingushetia. He said two other suspects were killed by security forces.
(AP, 9/9/10)(Reuters, 9/10/10)(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Somalia at least 2 African Union troops, 3 civilians and 5 attackers were killed in a suicide raid on Mogadishu airport. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said the attack was aimed at a high-level meeting of UN, African Union and Somali officials at the airport.
(AFP, 9/9/10)(AP, 10/6/11)
2010 Sep 9, South Africa released new statistics indicating that its murder rate, one of the highest in the world, has dropped by 8.6 percent to its lowest level in nearly two decades.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, Spain gave final approval to labor market reforms designed to shake up a listless economy and help slash a bloated deficit that has prompted European-wide worries of another Greek-style debt crisis.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 9, A senior southern Sudan official said northern Sudan has resolved an angry dispute with the south by returning the payment of crucial oil revenues to hard currency.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 10, A US federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld a jury verdict clearing the Chevron Corp. of alleged human rights abuses during a violent 1998 protest on a company oil platform in Nigeria.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Washington state convicted killer Cal Coburn Brown (52) was executed for the 1991 rape, torture and murder of Holly Washa (21) of Seattle. This was the state’s first execution since 2001 and the 78th in the state’s history.
(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)(www.fejoe.com/cal-coburn-brown/)
2010 Sep 10, Afghan President Hamid Karzai used his traditional message marking the Eid Muslim holiday to call on the leader of the Taliban to stop fighting and join peace talks to end Afghanistan's long war. Meanwhile thousands of Afghans protested across the country after an evangelical pastor in the United States said he planned to burn copies of the Koran to mark the anniversary of the September 9, 2001 attacks on the New York and Washington. An Afghan was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run base in the northeast.
(AFP, 9/10/10)(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Colombia leftist rebels firing homemade mortars killed at least eight police officers and wounded four in a pre-dawn attack on a police barracks near the country's border with Ecuador.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Dagestan, Russia, clashes between police and alleged militants left six more people dead in the volatile North Caucasus. A police officer was gunned down on the outskirts of the regional capital, Makhachkala.
(AP, 9/10/10)(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, Danish police surrounded a suspect in Orsted Park near the Hotel Jorgensen following a small explosion in a bathroom at the hotel. A bomb squad removed a bag wrapped around his waist with remote controlled cutting pliers. The man was later identified as Lors Doukayev, a one-legged Chechen-born boxer living in Belgium. On May 3, 2011, Doukayev was charged with terrorism for allegedly preparing a letter bomb that had likely been intended for a newspaper known for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. On May 30, 2011, Doukayev was convicted of attempted terrorism. The next day he was sentenced to 12 years.
(Reuters, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/15/10)(AP, 5/3/11)(AP, 5/30/11)(Reuters, 5/31/11)
2010 Sep 10, Finland’s Nokia Corp. said it is replacing CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with top Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as the world's top handset maker aims to regain lost ground in the fiercely competitive smartphone market.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Ghana officials said 17 people have died after neighboring Burkina Faso opened the Bagre Dam's spillways that was filling amid heavy rains. Officials in Burkina Faso announced in August they would open the spillways and warned people.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, A Guatemalan court sentenced 6 Mexicans and 8 Guatemalans, all members of Mexico’s Zetas drug gang, to lengthy prison terms for the killing of 11 people two years ago.
(http://tinyurl.com/34zmpqn)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 10, In Ingushetia a policeman was killed. The gunmen shot and killed him outside an auto repair shop in the region's main city of Nazran.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, Iran’s Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told English-language Press TV that Sarah Shourd (31), one of the three US hikers currently held in Iran for more than a year, will be released on Sep 11. Iran’s judiciary abruptly halted plans to release Shourd, pointing to the internal rivalries within Iran's leadership.
(AFP, 9/10/10)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep 10, In Iran a gas pipeline exploded near the northeastern holy city of Mashhad and killed 6 people with another 20 people hurt.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Mexico 85 inmates scaled the walls of a prison in the border city of Reynosa and escaped in the country’s biggest jail break in recent memory. At least five people were killed in the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero, where various cartels are also fighting for territory.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, Myanmar's state media denounced people who advocate not voting in the upcoming elections as irresponsible and antidemocratic, even though critics say the military government is using the vote to cement its grip on power.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Militants in Gaza fired a projectile into southern Israel just hours after Israeli warplanes carried out a series of raids across the coastal strip. Overnight, two Gazans in the Hamas security forces were wounded in Gaza City when Israel launched a series of retaliatory air strikes after an earlier rocket attack.
(AFP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Spain 50 coal miners 1,640 feet (500 meters) underground entered the ninth day of a strike over unpaid wages and government aid.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Yemen Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula issued a statement threatening to kill 55 named policemen in Yemen's restive southern province of Abyan.
(AFP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 10, Zimbabwean police arrested 6 health workers, including four US citizens and a New Zealand doctor, as well as a Zimbabwean doctor for allegedly operating a clinic without a license in Harare. All belonged to an int’l. church group that helps care for HIV and AIDS patients. All 6 were granted bail on Sep 13. Charges were dropped on Sep 22 as prosecutors conceded the health workers were "doing good work" for the Allen Temple Baptist Church of Oakland, Calif., which operates the Mother of Peace Orphanage outside Harare.
(AP, 9/11/10)(AFP, 9/12/10)(AFP, 9/13/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Kentucky Stanley Neace (47) stormed across several lawns in his pajamas and fired dozens of shots from a 12-gauge pump shotgun. When the rampage ended, Neace and his wife lay dead, along with the gunman's stepdaughter and three neighbors.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, American actor Kevin McCarthy (1914) died at a hospital in Cape Cod. He is best remembered for his role in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956).
(SFC, 9/13/10, p.C5)
2010 Sep 11, Afghans set fire to tires in the streets and shouted "Death to America" for a second day despite a decision by an American pastor to call off plans to burn copies of the Islamic holy book. Four protesters were wounded in Logar province. A Taliban commander who had been plotting rocket attacks on polling stations was killed in eastern Nangarhar province.
(AP, 9/11/10)(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard unveiled her new cabinet, with Wayne Swan retaining his treasury portfolio and former climate minister Penny Wong moved to the senior finance portfolio. Former PM Kevin Rudd was named as the country’s new foreign minister, a high-profile and coveted posting that will be seen as a consolation prize for being ousted from the leadership.
(Reuters, 9/11/10)(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, China detained 9 Vietnamese fishermen near the disputed Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam demanded their immediate release without conditions, but China refused until the captain paid a fine for having explosives aboard the boat. The fisherman returned home on Oct 26 after an ordeal that included a month of detention by China and a week lost on stormy seas.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Sep 11, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila extended indefinite mining suspensions to three more provinces in the volatile east.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, In southern Egypt a barge leaked some 100 tons of gasoline into the Nile River. Captain Yasser Hussein told police that low water levels caused the boat to tilt and partially submerge allowing the fuel to leak.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Finland Hossein Alizadeh (45), a senior official at the Iranian embassy, said that he has resigned from his post to join the political opposition against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Alizadeh's mission in Finland had ended on August 20.
(AP, 9/11/10)(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Guinea at least 24 people were injured when members of rival political parties began throwing rocks at each other following a campaign event.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In central Indonesia flash floods on Borneo Island killed 10 people and left 14 others missing.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, Japan launched a rocket carrying a satellite intended to improve global positioning systems.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Kashmir police fired warning shots and tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who attacked a police post and burned government offices, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Mexico’s central state of Morelos police discovered nine bodies in clandestine graves in the same area where four more were recently found. A phone tip led authorities to a dead body in a car in a shopping center parking lot in Ciudad Juarez. Police found a bomb in a second car at the site and carried out a controlled detonation. Federal authorities announced the arrest of two Colombian brothers, Dario Emilio Valencia and Victor Espinosa Valencia, alleged to have ties to Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal and belonging to a group responsible for buying cocaine in Colombia and smuggling it to the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 11, Serbia’s war crimes prosecutors' office said it has indicted nine ex-paramilitaries over the killing of 43 ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict. The men who served with a paramilitary unit known as The Jackals were indicted for the killing of the ethnic Albanian civilians in the Kosovo village of Cuska on May 14, 1999.
(Reuters, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In Sudan a rare three-day meeting of 30 religious and community leaders as well as local government officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Uganda criticized the "lack of a coordinated and comprehensive strategy" to tackle the LRA rebels.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 12, The 2010 MTV Video Music Awards were presented in Los Angeles.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Afghanistan 2 protesters were shot and killed in Logar province and 4 were injured as Afghans protested for a third day against a plan by an American pastor to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, despite his decision to call off the action. A series of NATO airstrikes killed 14 insurgents after a joint patrol with Afghan soldiers came under fire in Uruzgan province. A rocket was fired by militants toward an Afghan army supply base in Jalalabad city, in eastern Nangarhar province. The rocket missed its target and slammed into a house, wounding nine civilians, including four children, all members of one family.
(Reuters, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Cameroon six hostages, four Ukrainians, a Croatian, and a Filipino, were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen off the port city of Douala. On Sep 30 the hostages were freed following a secret operation by Cameroon security forces.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 12, An Egyptian security official said 16 Russians and Moldovans, who killed an Egyptian smuggler, have handed themselves over to police. Some of the would-be migrants to Israel attacked and fatally stabbed smuggler Massud Salim (31) after he attempted to rape one of the female members of the group.
(AFP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Germany's top bank, Deutsche Bank, announced a rights issue worth around 10 billion euros ($13 billion), saying it sought fresh capital to take over retail bank Postbank.
(AFP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Conakry, Guinea, one person was killed and dozens were wounded in clashes between supporters of rival candidates just days before the country's historic presidential runoff vote.
(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Indonesia assailants stabbed Asia Sihombing, a Christian worshipper, in the stomach and pounded Rev. Luspida Simanjuntak in the head with a wooden plank when she tried to help him as they headed to morning prayers in Bekasi, 25 miles east of Jakarta.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, A senior Iranian prosecutor said that authorities will release Sarah Shourd, a jailed American woman, on $500,000 bail because of health problems, another sudden about-face by Iran in a case that has added to tension with the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his demand for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, in remarks ahead of a second round of US-backed peace talks. A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip struck Israel without causing any casualties or damage. A burst of Israeli tank fire killed three civilians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, a man (91), his grandson (17) and another man (20). A senior commander on Sep 14 said the killing was a mistake.
(AFP, 9/12/10)(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Indian-administered Kashmir hundreds of stone-throwing protesters defied a curfew and attacked security forces in two towns, injuring 9 police officers and 4 soldiers. The protests erupted hours after police formally accused Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key separatist leader, of treason for allegedly inciting participants in a massive rally to torch government offices a day earlier.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, The Venice film festival ended with an awards ceremony. Jury president Quentin Tarantino faced charges of favoritism after he handed out two major awards to his friends, including best picture to his ex partner Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere."
(Reuters, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, In Kosovo a French Gendarme was shot and wounded during clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica as European Union police fired tear gas to disperse the violent crowd.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Mexican marines captured Sergio Villarreal Barragan (“the Child-eater"), a presumed leader of the embattled Beltran Leyva cartel, along with 2 accomplices in a raid in the central state of Puebla.
(AP, 9/12/10)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.53)
2010 Sep 12, In Pakistan a suspected US missile strike in North Waziristan killed at least five associates of warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who was fighting Western troops in Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Philippine authorities at Manila's airport found a newborn baby in a garbage bag that was apparently unloaded from an airplane that landed from the Middle East. On Sep 16 Rep. Lani Mercado said she met with the mother, who told her that she had been raped by her employer while working as a maid in Qatar and became pregnant.
(AP, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 12, Turks voted on whether to amend a military-era constitution in what the government says is a key step in Turkey's path to full democracy, despite opposition claims that the proposed reforms would shackle the independence of the courts. Some 58 percent of voters approved a package of 26 amendments to the constitution crafted after a 1980 military coup, making the military more accountable to civilian courts, backing gender equality and other citizens' rights and lifting immunity from prosecution of the coup leaders.
(AP, 9/12/10)(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The US government and the chocolate industry pledged $17 million to help end child labor — some of it forced and dangerous — in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where much of the world's cocoa is grown.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100913/wl_mcclatchy/3626030)
2010 Sep 13, US House members began an impeachment trial against Louisiana District Judge Thomas Porteous (63) on grounds of corruption.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 13, US health officials reported that an infectious-disease nightmare is unfolding: Bacteria that have been made resistant to nearly all antibiotics by an alarming new gene have sickened people in three states and are popping up all over the world.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, US EPA officials said that a leak in an oil pipeline in Reomeoville, Illinois, has stopped. The volume spilled in the Chicago suburb was unknown. The pipeline was owned by Enbridge Energy Partners.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 13, In California PG&E said it will spend as much as $100 million to help rebuild the San Bruno neighborhood recently devastated by the Sep 9 rupture of a gas line. The relief fund would be independent of legal claims and the cost of replacing homes damaged by fire.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 13, Hewlett-Packard announced a $1.5 billion deal to buy ArcSight Inc, a provider of computer network security.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 13, Photos of a Louisiana waterway, its surface completely covered with dead sea life were distributed to local media by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. This stretch of coastal Louisiana was hit hard this summer by oil from BP's busted Gulf well.
(http://tinyurl.com/2bhqnhe)
2010 Sep 13, William Coblentz (88), California power broker, died. He had served for 16 years as a regent of UC, including 2 years as chairman.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.93)
2010 Sep 13, Afghan and NATO troops killed 23 insurgents in southern Helmand province.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 13, The Belgian Roman Catholic church acknowledged widespread sexual abuse over years by its clergy and pleaded for time to set up a system to punish all abusers and provide closure for victims.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, British trade unions voted overwhelmingly to back rare coordinated strikes as they were urged to "stand up and fight" government austerity cuts at their congress.
(AFP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, A Canadian police study said human trafficking groups have exploited Canada's visa rules to bring victims from Europe and Asia to work in the illegal sex trade.
(Reuters, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The Cuban Workers Federation said Cuba will lay off more than 500,000 state employees by March and expand private employment to give them work in the biggest shift to the private sector since the 1960s.
(Reuters, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, India’s PM Manmohan Singh again voiced his willingness to talk to Kashmiris and to respond to their demands, but the government has not yet responded to a proposal by the separatists for peace talks. Indian forces killed 18 protesters and wounded scores of others in confrontations across Kashmir fueled in part by a report that a Quran was desecrated in the United States. A police officer was also killed.
(AP, 9/13/10)(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 13, In India Maoist guerrillas killed two policemen and five civilians as the rebels began a two-day shutdown across the east of the country.
(AFP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, In Indonesia Yusuf Sipakoly (52), a political prisoner being detained in Ambon, Maluku, died while under police custody. His family claimed that he was tortured by police.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/3533o26)
2010 Sep 13, Iran's internal battles over the handling of American detainee Sarah Shourd flared again as the mouthpiece of the powerful Revolutionary Guard led the backlash against a decision to free her on $500,000 bail.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Amnesty International said tens of thousands of detainees are being held without trial in Iraqi prisons and face violent and psychological abuse as well as other forms of mistreatment.
(AFP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Officials said Israel will begin deporting families of illegal migrants in coming weeks as an emotional debate rages over the ballooning numbers of foreign workers that some fear could threaten the country's Jewish identity.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Staff at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv went on strike, grounding all flights and leaving arriving passengers without their luggage.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Japan freed 14 crew members of a Chinese fishing ship nearly a week after their vessel and two Japanese patrol boats collided near disputed southern islets. But China lashed out at Tokyo's decision to keep the captain in custody.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, In Malaysia Tengku Muhammad Faris Petra was proclaimed the new sultan of northern Kelantan state following a decision by the Council of Succession, which determines who ascends to the throne. Faris has been embroiled in a public dispute with his brother, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry, since their father, Tengku Ismail Petra, fell ill more than a year ago. 9 of Malaysia's 13 states are ruled by hereditary royal families, who are widely respected among the Muslim Malay majority though their responsibilities are largely ceremonial. The executive power lies with elected state and national representatives.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, Nicaragua celebrated a special national holiday called by the Sandinista Party. As the country was on vacation the party ordered the printing of a rewritten (but bogus) constitution.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/29lqnzq)
2010 Sep 13, In Nigeria unknown attackers brandishing machetes stormed the home of Garba Bello, a senior intelligence official, and hacked him and four members of his family to death in an apparent targeted killing.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 13, South African police fatally shot Nontsikelelo Anna Nokela (17) who was part of a group protesting that a teachers strike gave them insufficient time to prepare for exams. Investigators the next day arrested a police officer after determining "the shooting was premeditated." Investigators said the officer had earlier threatened to hurt the students if they protested.
(AP, 9/14/10)(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 13, South Korea announced plans to send 5,000 tons of rice and other aid to flood-stricken North Korea in a sign of easing tension between the divided countries.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The UN court that settles disputes among member states swore in 2 new female judges, one from the United States and one from China to join the 15-member bench. Russia's Yury Fedotov took office as the UN's new drugs and crime czar. He replaced Italy's Antonio Maria Costa as the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and will also oversee the UN office in the Austrian capital.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency warned that Iran's selective cooperation with his inspectors means that he cannot confirm that all of Tehran's atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, In eastern Venezuela a plane carrying 51 people crashed in a steel mill yard. 17 people on board were killed leaving 34 survivors.
(AP, 9/13/10)(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which filed for bankruptcy exactly two years ago, sued Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and dozens of other defendants to recover more than $3 billion of which it said it was deprived due to the bankruptcy filing.
(Reuters, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 14, In North Carolina Ariana Iacono (14) went back to school with her mother and her nose ring, after her first suspension for a nose piercing ended. She was suspended again for five days because her nose ring violated the Johnston County school system's dress code. If she comes back to school on Sept. 21 with the nose stud, she'll face a 10-day suspension or referral to "alternative schooling." A similar situation went to the courts in 2002, when a woman was fired from her job at a Costco store over her eyebrow ring. The woman was also a member of the Church of Body Modification, but the courts eventually ruled that her religious beliefs did not require her to always wear her jewelry.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 14, It was reported that only about 3,500 tigers worldwide were left in the wild, with less than a third of them breeding females. Most of the tigers were in India.
(SFC, 9/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 14, Afghan and NATO troops killed 3 insurgents in eastern Wardak province. Four Taliban were killed in southeastern Zabul province.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Assailants targeting security officials in Bahrain set off an explosion that damaged several parked cars in the first such attack since the country's Sunni-led rulers began a crackdown on suspected Shiite dissidents last month.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, The British embassy said Britain has offered to build 11 warships for Brazil, as Brazil hones a maritime defense contract to protect recently found vast offshore oil deposits.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 14, Colombian authorities reported the arrest of Javier Caceres (52), a veteran lawmaker and former president of Congress, on criminal conspiracy charges for alleged collusion with far-right militias.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, The European Commission threatened legal action against France over its crackdown on Roma minorities, drawing a parallel between their treatment and World War II-era deportations.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Nokia, the Finnish phone giant, unveiled of 3 new touchscreen smartphones.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100914/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc3609)
2010 Sep 14, France introduced a law against face-covering. It became commonly known as the burqa ban.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering)(Econ, 7/27/13, p.44)
2010 Sep 14, Indian police opened fire on stone-throwing protesters in Kashmir as small groups took to the streets in defiance of curfew orders.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Iran released Sarah Shourd (32), an American woman, on a bail of $500,000 more than a year after she was detained. Authorities said they were not considering the immediate release of two companions arrested with her.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Farzad Farhangian, a press attache at the Iranian embassy in Brussels, called for an uprising against the Tehran government, as he became the third Europe-based envoy to defect this year and announced he was seeking asylum in Norway.
(AFP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Three Palestinians were wounded by Israeli tank fire in a clash along the volatile Gaza border. On Sep 25 Hamas reported that one died as the result of his wounds.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 14, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Kazakhstan's failure to improve media freedom has damaged its international standing and the situation is getting worse, not better.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, A Nigerian official said police over the weekend arrested 10 members of Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect accused of a recent spate of targeted killings of police officers and local officials. Police also arrested two more sect followers freed in a recent prison break. Pere Fiofori, Emmanuel Gladstone and Dobra Ogbe, aged between 30 and 35, were arrested in an hotel in Ondo town and handed over to the Rivers State police in connection with last month's murder of Soboma George, in Port Harcourt.
(AP, 9/14/10)(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 14, In Pakistan 2 US missile attacks hit alleged militant targets in a tribal area killing 15 alleged militants. They hit in a part of North Waziristan region dominated by the Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur networks of militants fighting US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/14/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 14, Peruvian President Alan Garcia chose Education Minister Jose Chang as the new prime minister and Ismael Benavides as economic chief in a widely expected cabinet shuffle to pave the way for his party to launch a candidate in next year's presidential election.
(Reuters, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland said their troops have surrounded up to 300 Ethiopian rebels who entered the territory illegally.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, The South Africa-based retailer Massmart confirmed that it was in negotiations to be acquired by Wal-Mart for $4.1 billion.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.68)
2010 Sep 14, A Venezuelan military helicopter crashed into a navy research boat and plunged into the sea, leaving two missing and five injured.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 14, Zimbabwe's state airline said it has fired 40 striking pilots for failing to meet a deadline to return to their posts. The pilots said the indebted airline has not paid out operational allowances for nearly 20 months. They earned up to $2,500 a month, about one third of the international pay scale for airline pilots.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, The United States ordered oil and gas firms to permanently plug nearly 3,500 unused wells and dismantle hundreds of idle platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, in a bid to shore up industry safety after the disastrous BP spill.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, The US steel industry, Ohio lawmakers and two veteran US trade policy experts urged Congress to pass legislation to push back against China's "undervalued" currency by slapping duties on Chinese imports that threaten American jobs. The senior Republican on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee said a proposed bill to press China to revalue its currency would not address fundamental Chinese trade barriers.
(Reuters, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Microsoft Corp. unveiled the "beta" test version of Internet Explorer 9, the first of a new generation of Web browser programs that tap into the powerful processors on board newer computers to make websites load and run faster.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 15, California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued 8 current and former members of the city of Bell accusing them of defrauding taxpayers by granting themselves high salaries and bloated pensions. The suit demanded that officials return hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(SFC, 9/16/10, p.A10)
2010 Sep 15, In Afghanistan at least one person was killed when police fired into the air to disperse angry anti-US protesters in Kabul, highlighting security concerns three days before a parliamentary election. It was reported that printers in Peshawar, Pakistan, say they have produced thousands of fake voter registration cards at the request of Afghan politicians for use in that country's Sep 18 parliamentary elections. 8 insurgents who "actively" planned to execute attacks during the elections were killed in an airstrike and a follow-up ground operation against a Taliban district commander in northern Kunduz province. 2 campaign workers were gunned down in northern Balkh province.
(Reuters, 9/15/10)(AP, 9/15/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 15, Brazil's government unveiled plans to slow the deforestation and help halt the wildfires that destroy its tropical savanna. The government plans to spend $200 million in the next two years to combat illegal deforestation and prevent fires.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Greenpeace said China's coal-fired plants produce enough toxic ash to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two-and-a-half minutes, creating contaminants that travel far and wide.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi said his often drought-ravaged country would not need food aid after 2015 as he formally launched a five-year development program.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, France's National Assembly passed President Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial pension reform bill by 329 votes to 233 during a stormy session in the lower house. The measure would raise the minimum pension age to 62 by 2018. Unions have vowed to stage mass protests when the law goes before France's upper house, the Senate, on September 23.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, A French court rejected Kigali's request to extradite Rwandan doctor Eugene Rwamucyo, who is suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide, sparking Rwanda's ire.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Indian police opened fire on Muslim demonstrators in a town near Kashmir, killing four people and wounding 30 as leaders of India's main political parties debated how to end months of separatist protests in the region.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Iranian security forces raided the office of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the top opposition leader, and seized computers after days of intimidating visitors with a heavy force presence around the building.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Iran Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, whose stoning sentence for adultery was suspended in July, appeared on state TV to say she has not been whipped or tortured.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Iraqi and US forces launched a raid on the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing seven people including former Iraqi military commander Yasseen Kassar. 2 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the fight. 9 Iraqi soldiers were killed near Mosul when a bomb exploded on a bus as they left their base in Tal Afar for vacation. An American airman was killed and a soldier wounded in a controlled detonation at the US Joint Base Balad.
(AP, 9/15/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)(AP, 9/16/10)(SFC, 9/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 15, Israeli and Palestinian leaders held peace talks in Jerusalem with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A Qassam rocket and six mortar rounds hit southern Israel. Israeli jets bombed smuggling targets along the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas officials said one person was killed and four wounded.
(AP, 9/15/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Kyrgyzstan the Nooken District Court convicted Azimjon Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek, on charges including complicity in murder, participating in mass violence and hostage-taking during deadly ethnic unrest that roiled the south in June. Amnesty International condemned the life sentence saying Askarov had gathered evidence implicating police in the violence before being detained. On Jan 24, 2017, a Kyrgyzstan court upheld his life sentence.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 1/24/17)
2010 Sep 15, Mexico looked beyond its drug war to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional independence cry: "Viva Mexico!" A gunbattle between Mexican soldiers and suspected drug cartel members left 22 dead at ranch on the outskirts of Ciudad Mier near the US border.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 15, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said that his nation's intelligence services are willing to cooperate closer with Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants. Two separate US missile strikes targeting Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the northwest tribal belt killed 15 militants.
(AP, 9/15/10)(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico a man, accused of dragging a stubborn horse last February alongside his truck, became the first person convicted by a local jury under an animal protection law enacted after dogs were thrown to their deaths from a bridge. On Nov 17 Georgenan Lopez (24) received a 12-year prison sentence, becoming the first person convicted by a jury under the animal cruelty law implemented in August 2008.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Sep 15, Russia and Norway ended a 40-year dispute in signing an Arctic border treaty which opens the door to offshore oil and gas exploration. President Dmitry Medvedev and Norway's PM Jens Stoltenberg presided over the signing in Murmansk.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, The Korea Communications Commission said there were 50 million mobile service subscribers in South Korea as of this month, more than the population of 48.8 million.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Uganda police arrested Al-Amin Kimathi of the Kenyan Muslim Human Rights Forum and lawyer Mbugua Mureithi as they arrived to attend the hearing of 34 people charged for allegedly taking part in the July 11 bomb attacks, that targeted large groups gathered to watch the televised World Cup final. Uganda's police said the two were with a wanted al-Shabab militant that police had been trailing for days before the arrests.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, US federal prosecutors in Newark, NJ, announced charges against 53 people stemming from an identity theft ring and fraud investigation. The group targeted Asian immigrants in New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and California and used Social Security numbers from legal immigrants working in American territories.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 16, In Maryland Paul Warren Pardus (50), distraught by his mother’s health condition, shot and wounded her surgeon, Dr. David Cohen, and then killed his mother and himself at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 16, Afghan election officials announced they will close about 300 additional voting centers because of security concerns, dropping the number of polling stations to 5,516. About 100 rock-throwing protesters moved toward a NATO military base in Chora district of Uruzgan in southwest Afghanistan. Provincial governor, Khudi Rahim, said one person was killed. A NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack in the south.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Thousands of young Argentines marched to the presidential palace to protest the quality of public education, joining a student rebellion that accuses politicians of neglecting schools and universities that were once the envy of Latin America.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Australian scientists said they had made a breakthrough in the fight to save the cancer-hit Tasmanian devil by mapping the species' genome for the first time.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Britain Imran Farooq (50), a founding member of Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a major political force in Karachi, was found with head injuries and stab wounds outside his home in north London. On Dec 9 British police arrested a 34-year-old man on suspicion of murdering Farooq. On Aug 27, 2014, British police arrested another man (30) in connection with the 2010 murder.
(AFP, 9/17/10)(AFP, 12/9/10)(AP, 8/27/14)
2010 Sep 16, Pope Benedict XVI, arrived in Edinburgh beginning a controversial visit to Britain. He acknowledged that the Catholic Church had failed to act decisively or quickly enough to deal with priests who rape and molest children. He said the church's top priority now was to help the victims heal.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Cambodia's UN-backed court said 4 top Khmer Rouge leaders will stand trial for crimes including genocide during the "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, China warned that the worst offenders of food safety rules would get the death penalty in a new crackdown on an industry that has spawned embarrassing and deadly scandals in products ranging from seafood to baby formula.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Germany's Jesuits announced a plan to pay the victims of sexual abuse in the order's schools a "symbolic compensation" of at least euro5,000 ($6,500) each, saying the gesture is meant to be "financially painful" to the Roman Catholic organization.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Germany's top security official said two former inmates of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay have arrived in the country to begin new lives there.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, The head of communication for Guinea's National Independent Electoral Commission says The Sep 19 presidential runoff will be postponed by at least two weeks.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Honduras a street vendor died from inhaling tear gas fired by police against hundreds of supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In the Indian portion of Kashmir protesters defied a round-the-clock curfew and attacked government forces with rocks, wounding six of them.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Iran assailants abducted six people, 5 soldiers and a bank clerk, in the southeast of the country. The Sunni militant group Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility and said those abducted were Revolutionary Guard forces. On Sep 18 the state news IRNA reported that Revolutionary Guard forces rescued five of the hostages and killed 3 gunmen. A sixth hostage died in the operation. Amir Bilchi Kangarlu, a man convicted of raping several young girls, was hanged in the town of Varamin, south of the capital Tehran.
(AFP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/18/10)(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, The Iraqi government said its Cabinet has unanimously approved a $400 million settlement for Americans who say they were abused by Saddam Hussein's regime.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the Jerusalem city government to provide more than $120,000 in funding for a prominent gay community center. It was reported that Israeli government offices, that provide a wide array of public services, are pulling the plug on online payments on the Jewish Sabbath and holidays, creating a potential new source of friction between the religious and secular in the Jewish state.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, The Israeli government said it has officially approved plans to buy American-made F-35 stealth fighter jets. Israel planned on buying 20 of the warplanes for nearly $3 billion and will begin receiving the jets by 2015.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the Jerusalem city government to provide more than $120,000 in funding for a prominent gay community center.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Mexico gunmen attacked two newspaper photographers in the drug war-torn border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing Luis Carlos Santiago (21) and seriously wounding Carlos Sanchez of the Diario de Juarez.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Niger armed AQIM assailants kidnapped 7 people, including 5 French nuclear experts, a person from Togo and a person from Madagascar, near the uranium mining town of Arlit, in the northern Sahara desert region. 3 of the hostages were released in February, 2011. Pierre Legrand, Thierry Dol, Marc Feret and Daniel Larribe were released on Oct 29, 2013. Some 20 to 25 million euros was paid to obtain their release.
(AP, 9/17/10)(SFC, 9/22/10, p.A2)(SFC, 2/26/11, p.A2)(AP, 10/30/13)
2010 Sep 16, North Korea said it proposed a joint probe with the US of the deadly March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship. An earlier international investigation blamed Pyongyang.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Poland Akhmed Zakayev (51), a senior Chechen separatist wanted in Russia for alleged murder, kidnapping and terrorism, was arrested in Warsaw where he was to attend a conference organized by the World Chechen Congress. Zakayev, who lives in Britain, was apprehended "without any trouble" on an international warrant issued by Russia. Zakayev was released the next day.
(AP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 16, Some of Russia's prominent opposition leaders have formed a coalition to challenge the rule of President Dmitry Medvedev and PM Vladimir Putin. Former deputy premier Boris Nemtsov said the coalition aims to compete in next year's parliamentary elections and field a presidential candidate in 2012.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Somalia mortar rounds fired by suspected Islamist insurgents hit the government complex in Mogadishu killing 3 soldiers triggering a counterattack that killed a dozen more people.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 16, In Sudan 37 people were killed and 26 injured when two buses collided in the northern state of White Nile.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was seeking closer commercial ties with Iran and aims to triple trade volumes in the next five years while still respecting the limits set by UN sanctions.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Turkey a roadside bomb attack killed 10 people traveling on a minibus near the village of Gecitli in the rugged Hakkari province, where Kurdish guerrillas have been fighting for autonomy for decades.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 17, President Obama announced that legal scholar Elizabeth Warren will lead the efforts to found the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the new financial reform law.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In New Mexico scientist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni (75) and his wife Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni (67), who both once worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, were arrested after an FBI sting operation. They were charged with offering to help develop a nuclear weapon for Venezuela.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, California’s budget stalemate officially became the longest in state history, surpassing the 78-day record of 2008.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 17, Chevron Corp. rejected new estimates of damages in the jungles of Ecuador that rose to a range of $40 to $90 billion. The suit stemmed from operations by Texaco from 1972-1990 when it managed a drilling consortium. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 17, Afghan officials said 19 election-related kidnappings have taken place in the country despite tightened security on the eve of a parliamentary poll the Taliban has vowed to disrupt. In northern Kunduz Afghan and NATO-led troops killed a Taliban commander who was planning election attacks. It was reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this week started distributing 20,000 free radio sets to Afghans, including those in distant mountain villages and refugee camps. The operation, which will last for several weeks, will cost $500,000.
(Reuters, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In southern Afghanistan Corporal Dipprasad Pun, a Nepalese soldier in the British army, fired more than 400 rounds, launched 17 grenades and detonated a mine to repel the Taliban assault on his checkpoint near Babaji in Helmand Province. In 2011 Pun was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross (CGC).
(http://xnepali.com/gurkha-the-queen-awarded-bravery-medal-to-dipprasad-pun/)
2010 Sep 17, Bat Khurts, a key figure in Mongolia's National Security Council, was detained as he flew into London's Heathrow airport, for allegedly abducting a Mongolian murder suspect in 2003. On Feb 18, 2011, a British judge ruled that Khurts can be extradited to Germany.
(AFP, 2/18/11)
2010 Sep 17, Cuba's Roman Catholic Church revealed the names of four more political prisoners to be released into exile in Spain, bringing to 36 the number freed and sent off the island under an agreement with President Raul Castro's government.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, India deployed soldiers on the streets of protest-hit Kashmir to restore order, as three more people were shot dead by security forces during violent demonstrations.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Israel reiterated its refusal to extend curbs on settlement building that expire this month, despite US pressure and Palestinian threats to walk out of peace talks. Israeli troops killed Abu Shilbaya (37), a Hamas militant and local leader of its armed wing, during a raid in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm. Some 3,000 Hamas loyalists gathered to march in Abu Shilbaya's funeral.
(AFP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Israel came to a virtual standstill at sundown as Jews began observing the start of the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, the 25 hours of fasting and contemplation known as Yom Kippur.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Japan's PM Naoto Kan named a new cabinet, including a hawkish foreign minister to handle an escalating row with China.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, The Mauritanian army launched an offensive against the North African branch of al-Qaida in neighboring Mali. At least 12 militants died and five Mauritanians were killed in the operation, which was launched inside northern Mali with permission.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Mexico gunmen burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and killed 6 men and a woman. Over 4,000 people have died in the city over the last 2 years as a turf war continued between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. Gunmen kidnapped 9 police officers investigating a death in the southern state of Guerrero. The headless bodies of two of the lawmen were found near El Revelado, the community where the police group was kidnapped. 6 more were found Sep 19 in a ravine. One survivor was located in Acapulco. Troops killed three suspected drug cartel gunmen in a gunbattle and also freed a kidnap victim near the industrial city of Monterrey.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, Hurricane Karl hit Mexico’s Gulf Coast. At least 16 people were killed after several days of flooding and mudslides.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A3)(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A6)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 17, New Zealand politician David Garrett (52), a lawmaker with the minor Act Party, resigned from his party after admitting he stole a dead baby's identity to obtain a false passport 26 years ago. Garrett said he never used the false passport and eventually destroyed it.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Nigeria’s Pres. Goodluck Jonathan, current chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), said Guinea-Bissau risks sliding into anarchy unless a security solution, including taming the military, is found in the coup-prone west African nation.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Nigeria’s national security adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan resigned to compete against his boss to become the ruling party's candidate in next year's presidential election.
(AFP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Pakistan 48 people died in a dispute over access to water in the Kurram region. Fighting near the border with Afghanistan between two tribes, one Sunni and the other Shia, has killed 102 people over the last two weeks.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, A Rwandan court sentenced an opposition leader to life in prison for recruiting rebels to fight President Paul Kagame's government. Deo Mushayidi, a former ruling party member, was also convicted of obtaining a passport through fraud and spreading rumors to incite civil disobedience for which he received shorter terms.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, Spain approved a request to ask that South Africa extradite former Rwandan army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who is wanted on charges of genocide and for the murder of four Spaniards in Rwanda in the 1990s. Nyamwasa fled to South Africa in February after abandoning his post as Rwanda's envoy to India. Four months later he was shot in the stomach outside his home in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, A Sri Lankan military court convicted Sarath Fonseka, the former army chief who ran for president on the opposition ticket, of fraud. He could be sentenced to jail time. Three containers filled with explosives meant for road construction detonated outside a police station in eastern Sri Lanka, killing 25 people, most of them police officers. Police the next day said Improperly stored detonators likely triggered the dynamite explosion.
(AP, 9/17/10)(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, On the island of St. Lucia a gunman walked into PM Stephenson King’s home-district office and killed a man who was waiting to see the government leader.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In St. Maarten two major parties expected to dominate the election of 15 parliamentary representatives who will lead the Dutch territory when it becomes an autonomous country next month. St. Maarten and Curacao will become countries within the Dutch kingdom when the Netherlands Antilles are dissolved Oct. 10. The islands of Saba, St. Eustatius and Bonaire will become special Dutch municipalities and respond directly to the Dutch government.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Sudan 13 people travelling to mourn victims of a bus crash drowned when their boat capsized in Sudan's White Nile state.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Zimbabwe about 300 civil servants marched through Harare demanding higher pay and benefits from money the state earned through recent diamond auctions.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 18, Afghans braved Taliban rockets and polling site bombings to vote for a new parliament in elections seen as a measure of the government's competence and commitment to democratic rule. The governor of Kandahar province survived a bomb attack. Insurgent leader in Shigal Wa Sheltan district in eastern Kunar province was killed in a precision airstrike as he was attempting to attack a polling site. A rocket in northern Baghlan province killed two civilians. Another civilian was killed by a rocket that hit a house in eastern Kunar province. In northern Kunduz province militants tried to disrupt security in Gortepa, near Kunduz city. In a preventive strike, Afghan security forces killed five militants, injured two and arrested one. Afghan election officials declared the elections a success despite widespread reports of fraud. 4.3 million ballots were cast. Attacks across the country killed at least 21 civilians and 9 police officers. Journalist, Hojatullah Mujadadi, a radio station manager in Kapisa province north of Kabul, was arrested by Afghan agents.
(AP, 9/18/10)(Reuters, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/23/10)(Econ, 9/25/10, p.55)
2010 Sep 18, In Britain Pope Benedict XVI said he was ashamed of the "unspeakable" sexual abuse of children by priests, issuing an apology to the British faithful even as thousands of people opposed to his visit marched in central London in the biggest protest of his five-year papacy.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, In China protesters in several cities marked a politically sensitive anniversary, the start of a brutal Japanese invasion in 1931, with anti-Japan chants and banners, as authorities tried to stop anger over a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants from getting out of control.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, Egyptian police killed a Sudanese man and wounded three others when they opened fire on would-be migrants trying to enter Israel.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, Frenchman Philippe Croizon (42), whose arms and legs were amputated, swam about 21 miles across the English Channel in 13½ hours using leg prostheses that have flippers attached.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Germany tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin against the government's proposal to extend the life of Germany's nuclear power plants for another decade or more.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, A Honduras military helicopter crashed during an exhibition for children and the pilot was killed.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Hungary Hacktivity 2010, the largest computer hackers' conference in eastern Europe, kicked off, with some 1,000 participants expected to attend the two-day event.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, Iranian media reported that Shiva Nazar Ahari, journalist and founder of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters in Tehran, has been to six years in prison on anti-government charges.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 18, Kashmir police fired on fresh anti-India demonstrations, killing 3 protesters and bringing the number of civilian deaths in an unprecedented wave of unrest to 102.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Mexico’s Guerrero state unidentified men traveling in two vehicles threw two human heads into a refreshment stand in Coyuca de Catalan. One of the heads was blindfolded with duct tape. They were later associated to 2 of 9 police officers abducted a day earlier. Authorities in Ciudad Juarez said police arrested two alleged leaders of the Aztecs gang linked to at least 10 murders, including the killing of a federal police officer last month.
(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 18, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan formally declared his bid for the 2011 presidential poll, three days after launching it on his Facebook page, ending months of doubts over his ambition.
(AFP, 9/18/10)
2010 Sep 19, US officials finally declared BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico "dead", following a successful “bottom kill," five months after a deadly oil rig blast sparked one of the costliest and largest environmental disasters ever.
{USA, Louisiana}
(AFP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A16)
2010 Sep 19, Deputies searched a wide swath of Southern California for a break-off religious sect of 13 people that included children as young as three. They had left behind letters indicating they were awaiting an apocalyptic event and would soon see Jesus and their dead relatives in heaven. The group of El Salvadoran immigrants, led by Reyna Marisol Chicas (32) of Palmdale, was found just before noon at Jackie Robinson Park near Palmdale.
(AP, 9/19/10)(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, In Chicago Sami Samir Hassoun, a Lebanese immigrant and candy-store worker, shortly after midnight placed a backpack he believed contained a bomb near the Chicago Bulls baseball stadium. It was part of an FBI sting. In 2013 Hassoun (25) was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/lkj6aqq)(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A6)
2010 Sep 19, Researchers from Wake Forest Univ. Baptist Medical Center, NC, reported that spiriva, a drug already used to treat obstructive pulmonary disease, can provide significant relief symptoms for adult asthmatics who have difficulty obtaining relief with other drugs.
(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, In Texas 3 children were found shot dead at a Houston apartment building. Their father, Muhammed Goher (47), was charged with their murder and was hospitalized after surviving an apparent suicide attempt.
(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, The Utah Army National Guard ignited a fire at Camp Williams, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City, while practicing with a .50 caliber machine gun. At least 3 homes were destroyed as the fire went out of control.
(SFC, 9/21/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 19, In Afghanistan the bodies of three election officials kidnapped during voting were found in northern Balkh province. The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan reported "extensive irregularities" ranging from the destruction of polling centers to ballot stuffing, erratic opening and closing times of polls and interference by candidates. Allegations of fraud and a low voter turnout overshadowed vote counting in the parliamentary election. 6 children were killed in an insurgent rocket attack in northern Kunduz province.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)(AFP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Britain Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman at an open-air Mass and marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain with a personal reflection on the evil of the Nazi regime, praising those who "courageously" resisted it.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Canada "The King's Speech" won the top award at the Toronto International Film Festival, giving the Tom Hooper-directed film some early momentum heading into Oscar awards season.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, China said it has suspended high-level contacts with Japan over the extended detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain arrested after a Sep 7 collision near disputed islands.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Colombia's military killed at least 27 rebels in an air raid and ensuing ground assault near the border with Ecuador. The dead included FARC commander Sixto Cabana and Domingo Biojo (55), who had spent half his life in the FARC. The next day Colombia's national police chief said three informants will divide a reward of up to $500,000 for leading authorities to the rebel camp.
(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 9/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 19, Egyptians officials said Mohammed Dababish, a top Hamas security official, was arrested at Cairo airport for using falsified travel documents.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In southwestern Germany a female attorney (41) went on a shooting spree in Loerrach killing her 5-year-old son, her estranged husband and a male nurse before killing herself in an exchange of fire with police.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, In northern India heavy monsoon rains and landslides swept the hilly areas. 24 people died as falling boulders crushed their homes in three villages in Almorah district in Uttrakhand state. Another 23 people were either swept away by floodwaters or died when homes collapsed in landslides in Pitthoragarh, Champawat and Uttarkashi regions over the weekend.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, In India gunmen on motorbikes shot at a tourist bus near the main mosque in New Delhi, wounding two Taiwanese visitors, weeks before the city hosts the Commonwealth Games.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Indian Kashmir 3 people wounded during recent protests against Indian rule died ahead of a visit by a delegation of lawmakers seeking ways to defuse months of civil unrest. A 22-year-old woman was killed in Sopore town by security forces.
(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, Iraq signed a deal with Turkey to extend for 15 years the use of the main pipeline linking its northern oilfields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. 3 car bombs tore through Baghdad and the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing at least 36 people. Al-Qaida's front group in Iraq later claimed responsibility for the two Baghdad bombings that killed at least 31 people at a government security agency and what it called an "evil" mobile phone provider.
(AFP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a front-page editorial by El Diario de Juarez asked warring drug cartels to say what they want from the newspaper, so it can continue its work without further death, injury or intimidation of its staff.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, Nigeria’s anti-narcotics agency said the United States has removed Nigeria from the list of major drug trafficking countries, describing the move as recognition of its fight against trafficking.
(AFP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Pakistan a suspected US missile strike killed five alleged militants in the North Waziristan tribal area. Weekend clashes during a two-day search operation on the outskirts of Peshawar killed 15 militants and two police officers and wounded two soldiers.
(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Peru hundreds of coca growers briefly seized control of a power plant in Aguaytia, cutting off electricity to the estimated 430,000 people who live in Ucayali province. Police moved in arresting 120 people and freeing 30 employees. Authorities said that coca growers were still blocking a main highway with dozens of disabled buses and trucks.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Philippine troops clashed with Abu Sayyaf gunmen in a southern coastal village and killed Abdukarim Sali, a long-wanted militant who helped in the 2001 kidnapping of three American and 17 Filipino tourists and the takeover of a hospital. Dozens of rebels from the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front attacked a village in Basilan's Lamitan town, killing one villager and wounding another.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov (74) left the country for what his spokesman said was a holiday in Austria, amid growing speculation that he could be dismissed from one of Russia's most powerful jobs. Luzhkov and his billionaire property mogul wife Yelena Baturina were viewed as having fallen out of favor.
(Reuters, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Spain’s armed Basque separatist group ETA says it is willing to accept international mediation to help solve its long-running conflict with Spain's government. The statement came a day after the Spanish newspaper El Pais released a video on its website believed to have been filmed by ETA earlier this year as a training aid which shows a hooded gunman practicing assassination techniques by shooting into a car.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, Swedes voted for a new parliament. Polls showed the center-right government heading for a historic second term unless an Islam-bashing far-right group spoils its majority. The ruling center-right coalition faced the prospect of forming a minority government after losing its majority in the election because of a surge in support for Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigrant party. PM Fredrik Reinfeldt was re-elected by moving his Moderate party to the center, vowing to overhaul but not dismantle the state.
(AP, 9/19/10)(Reuters, 9/20/10)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.56)
2010 Sep 19, Typhoon Fanapi made a direct hit on Taiwan, dumping more than 40 inches (one meter) of rain in some places. Two people were left dead along with tens of millions of dollars of damage. After crossing Taiwan, it slammed into southern China.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 19, In eastern Tajikistan heavily armed Islamic militants ambushed a military convoy, killing at least 26 soldiers. The attackers were said to include militants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia's volatile southern region of Chechnya, led by Mullo Abdullo (b.1950), a radical Islamic commander who took an active part in the civil war. Warlord Alovuddin Davlatov was also suspected to have taken part in the ambush.
(AP, 9/20/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Thailand thousands of anti-government "Red Shirt" protesters defied an ongoing state of emergency in Bangkok to stage their first major demonstration since their street protests were ended by a deadly military crackdown in May.
(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Zimbabwe 5 people were injured in the capital Harare when pro-Mugabe militants stoned a meeting meant to gather public opinion on a new constitution.
(AFP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Denver Bronco’s wide receiver Kenny McKinley (23) was found dead in his home in an apparent suicide.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, In New Jersey a woman from Togo was been sentenced to 27 years in prison after being convicted of running a human smuggling operation and forcing women to work at New Jersey hair braiding salons. Akouavi Afolabi ran a scheme to bring at least 20 girls and women ages 10 to 19 from West Africa to the US on fraudulent visas. Victims were made to work at the salons for no pay. Afolabi was also ordered to pay restitution totaling $3.9 million. Her ex-husband and son had already pleaded guilty. Her son received a 55-month prison term. Her ex-husband was sentenced to 24 years.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Australia a Fijian man died suddenly at a Sydney immigration center, with a protest breaking out in the compound after claims he had jumped from a rooftop fearing deportation.
(AFP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Afghan election observers urged President Hamid Karzai's government to allow an independent investigation into reports of widespread fraud during last weekend's parliamentary elections, including intimidation of voters and interference by powerful warlords. Britain's military handed the US responsibility for northern Sangin district in Helmand province. Afghan and NATO forces ended a 2-day operation to disrupt the Taliban's freedom of movement outside its heartland of Kandahar city, killing at least 11 insurgents and destroying several improvised explosive devices. The US military arrested Rahmatullah Naikzad, an Afghan journalist in the eastern region of Ghazni, saying it is investigating suspicions he may have been too close to Taliban militants.
(AP, 9/20/10)(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, Bahrain stripped Ayatollah Hussein al-Najati, a powerful Shiite cleric with close ties to Iraq, of his citizenship as authorities widened a crackdown against alleged dissidents ahead of next month's elections in the tiny Gulf nation.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Hurricane Igor swept past Bermuda, lashing at the Atlantic island with high winds and furious waves as power failed in many areas, plunging people hunkered down at home into darkness and leaving officials waiting for sunrise to assess damage.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In China JCRB.com, a legal issues website administered by China's Supreme Court, said a Jinfulai Dairy Company executive in Yangquan city of Shanxi province and six other people were arrested after authorities discovered 26 tons of milk powder tainted with a toxic chemical.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, French defense contractor Safran SA said it will pay $1.1 billion to buy Stamford, Connecticut-based security firm L-1 Identity Solutions Inc., to bolster its presence in the US homeland security market.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, A delegation of Indian lawmakers launched a mission in Kashmir to find ways of defusing months of deadly unrest, but their trip was immediately derided by the Himalayan region's separatists as a publicity stunt. Fresh protests erupted in Sopore town, a day after a 22-year-old woman was killed by security forces.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In central India a freight train on the wrong track slammed into a stationary passenger locomotive amid heavy rain at the Bhaderwah rail station, killing at least 21 people and injuring 53.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Kuwait revoked the citizenship of cleric Yasser al-Habib, a hard-line Shiite scholar, accusing him of trying to stir up discord among Muslims by describing the Prophet Muhammad's wife, Aisha, as an "enemy of God."
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Libya's daily Oea newspaper reported that Douglas O'Reilly, a Canadian man, was detained after meeting a US diplomat suspected of being a CIA agent. He was detained on suspicion of spying on a planned BP offshore drilling project. O'Reilly claimed to be an archaeologist seeking to warn of the BP project's potential impact on archaeological sites. O'Reilly was given freedom to leave Libya on Sep 22.
(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Mexico rocks and mud tumbled down a hill onto a highway in Villa Guerrero, south of Mexico City. Five bodies were pulled out, and an unknown number of people were missing. More than 70 people have died during the rainy season in Mexico, which has been one of the heaviest on record.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Pakistan suspected US drones fired missiles at militant targets in North Waziristan, killing six people in the 15th such attack this month.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council voted 62 to 56 against a memorandum of understanding on bilateral consultations with Denmark after several members expressed unhappiness over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 20, Venezuela deported two drug trafficking suspects to the US, including an alleged boss of the powerful Norte del Valle cartel in neighboring Colombia. The action came only days after the US criticized Venezuela's cooperation in fighting illegal narcotics.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Yemen a security official said thousands of people have fled Hawta village in the south where security forces were laying siege to some 120 al-Qaida militants. 3 militants were killed and 4 wounded in the fighting. In the capital four al-Qaida suspects, including a Yemeni-German teenager, were brought to trial on charges of plotting attacks on tourists, international institutions and security forces.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Zimbabwe 83 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) were arrested after marching to highlight concerns around community safety and police behavior. They were freed after 2 days in jail.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, In California police arrested 8 current and former officials of the city of Bell, including the mayor and ex-city manager, on charges of corruption. Mayor Rizzo was booked on 53 counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest.
(SFC, 9/22/10, p.C2)
2010 Sep 21, In Georgia lawyers for 2 men filed suit in DeKalb County against Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church of Lithonia alleging coercion into a sexual relationship. A 2nd suit was filed the next day by a 3rd man. A 4th suit was filed on Sep 24.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A13)(SFC, 9/24/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 21, Walter Breuning, a Montana resident believed to be the world's oldest man, celebrated his 114th birthday at a retirement home in Great Falls.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, AT&T started selling its first phone that includes a backstop for AT&T's own network, over a satellite. That means blanket coverage of the US, even in the wilderness or hundreds of miles offshore.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, The Lasker Foundation announced its Lasker Award winners. Dr. Napoleone Ferrara (54) of Genentech won the clinical medical research award for his discovery of a protein that led to the development of a drug to halt vision loss in age-related macular degeneration. The award for basic medical research went to Douglas Coleman (78) and Jeffrey Friedman (56) for discovering the hormone leptin. David Weatherall (77) won for his work in genetic diseases and clinical care for children with the genetic blood disorder thalassemia.
(SFC, 9/21/10, p.C3)
2010 Sep 21, Grace Bradley Boyd (b.1913), actress and widow of Western movie hero Hopalong Cassidy (d.1972), died southern California. As Grace Bradley she appeared in 35 films.
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.C7)
2010 Sep 21, In southern Afghanistan a NATO helicopter crashed killing 9 international troops in a region where forces are ramping up pressure on Taliban insurgents. It was the deadliest chopper crash for the coalition in four years. 5 Afghan road construction workers were killed and 4 wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Shinwari district of Parwan province. In Khost province insurgents attacked a NATO and Afghan army outpost near the Pakistan border and at least 25 of the militants were killed in the resulting skirmish.
(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Algeria a bomb exploded in the centre of Bordj Menaiel town, as a police patrol passed, killing two policemen and wounding three civilians.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Greenpeace said that its activists have climbed aboard a Chevron-operated ship to protest drilling operations in the deep waters off Britain's Shetland Islands.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Hurricane Igor hit Newfoundland, Canada. Provincial Premier Danny Williams said it caused tens of millions in damages and was the worst in recent memory.
(SFC, 9/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, Eighteen people have died and 48 are missing after Fanapi churned through southern China, while 65 people were killed in monsoon rain in India and 100,000 displaced after a lake burst in southern Pakistan. Two people went missing and thousands of homes flooded when a record rainstorm hit parts of South Korea during a national holiday.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, In India the Delhi Commonwealth Games were plunged into crisis 12 days from the start after the athletes' village was described as "uninhabitable" and a footbridge collapsed at the main stadium. An avalanche hit army mountaineers in northern India, killing two and injuring about 20.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported that three men, who were found guilty of drug trafficking, have been hanged in a prison in the central city of Yazd.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Iraq blast targeting an army patrol on the outskirts of Kirkuk killed 2 Iraqi soldiers.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Ireland sold euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in government bonds in a closely watched test of whether international investors would keep buying Irish treasuries despite the country's deficit, the biggest in debt-burdened Europe.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Israel’s nuclear chief Shaul Chorev said It is against Israel's interests to join a global anti-nuclear arms treaty and the UN atomic watchdog is overstepping its mandate in demanding it to do so.
(AFP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Italian prosecutors launched an investigation into the Vatican bank's top executives for allegedly violating money laundering legislation, triggering a sharp rebuttal by the Vatican. The bank's top two officials were under investigation for suspected money laundering and police have frozen 23 million euros ($30.21 million) of its funds.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(Reuters, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, The International Criminal Court (ICC) said it will launch cases against as many as six suspected instigators of postelection violence in Kenya that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2007-08.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, A new report, "Mauritius: The trade in primates for research," said wild long-tailed monkeys sustain broken limbs and other injuries when trappers catch the primates and transfer them to breeding farms on the island nation of Mauritius. The report said Mauritius justifies the catching of wild monkeys on the grounds that the long-tailed macaque is not native, is a pest and is not deserving of conservation concerns.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Mexico a mob beat two alleged kidnappers to death in the northern border state of Chihuahua. The two men and three others were suspected in the kidnapping of a 17-year-old girl from Asencion.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In New Zealand a pod of 74-80 pilot whales stranded themselves on a remote northern beach, the second time in a month that a mass beaching has happened in the region. 25 of the animals were already dead when officials arrived at Spirits Bay beach. Only 24 of the stranded whales survived.
(AP, 9/22/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, In Pakistan-held Kashmir a van carrying at least 30 schoolchildren plunged into a river, and most of the passengers were confirmed or feared dead.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, Somali PM Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke resigned as fighting rattled across Mogadishu. His resignation ended a dispute with Pres. Ahmed over a draft constitution.
(SFC, 9/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, South African police said 11 suspected members of an alleged rhino poaching syndicate have been arrested, as part of an ongoing investigation. The suspects included 2 veterinarians and a game farmer.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 21, In Turkey a gang of several dozen men with sticks and pepper spray moved methodically from one art gallery to the next, assaulting overflow crowds that had spilled into the streets during the joint opening of several exhibitions in the center of Istanbul. Half a dozen suspects were detained.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 21, The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said 40 young Europeans are murdered every day, with Russia, Albania and Kazakhstan having the highest homicide rates for people aged 10-29.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 22, A US official in Washington confirmed reports that the CIA is running an all-Afghan paramilitary group in Afghanistan that has been hunting al-Qaida, Taliban, and other militant targets for the agency. A security professional in Kabul familiar with the operation said the 3,000-strong force was set up in 2002 to capture targets for CIA interrogation. Al-Jazeera cameraman Mohammad Nadir was arrested in Kandahar. In Helmand province a Danish soldier was killed and another wounded by a homemade bomb.
(AP, 9/22/10)(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 22, NYC officials said 59 taxi drivers have been arrested for manipulating their meters to double the fare rate.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.A11)
2010 Sep 22, In NYC Cesar Mercado (34), who had worked at the Nicaraguan consulate as acting consul general, was found dead in his apartment in the Bronx by the driver who went to pick him up to attend the meeting. On Oct 29 a medical examiner’s report said he had committed suicide.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Sep 22, San Francisco’s Recurrent Energy said it has agreed to be purchased by Sharp Corp., Japan’s biggest solar panel manufacturer for as much as $305 million.
(SFC, 9/23/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 22, Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories said it is recalling millions of containers of its best-selling Similac infant formula that may be contaminated with insect parts.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, It was reported that North Dakota’s Devil’s Lake, called a slow-growing monster, has steadily expanded over the last 20 years, swallowing up thousands of acres, hundreds of buildings and at least two towns in its rising waters.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Rutgers Univ. freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. On Sep 19 his roommate and another student had used a webcam to view Clementi having sex with another man. Roommate Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei were soon charged with invasion of privacy. On April 20, 2011, Ravi was charged with a hate crime and accused of deleting tweets and texts to cover his tracks. On May 21, 2012, Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 3 years probation. Ravi was also ordered to get counseling and to pay $10,000 toward a program to help victims of bias crimes.
(SFC, 4/21/11, p.A9)(SFC, 2/25/12, p.A8)(SFC, 5/22/12, p.A6)
2010 Sep 22, Eddie Fisher (b.1928), American singer, died in Berkeley, Ca. His 32 hit songs included “Oh My Papa" (1953). His 5 wives included Debbie Reynolds (1955), Elizabeth Taylor (1959), Connie Stevens, Terry Richard and Betty Lin.
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.C6)(www.discogs.com/artist/Eddie+Fisher)
2010 Sep 22, In southern Afghanistan a Danish soldier was killed and another wounded by a homemade bomb in Helmand province.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Colombian government forces staged a bombing raid in the eastern La Macarena mountains that killed Victor Julio Suarez (aka Mono Jojoy), the senior commander of FARC. 20 guerrillas died in the attack. Computer hard drives and memory sticks were seized that later revealed data on gold mines under FARC control.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.42)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.36)
2010 Sep 22, In Egypt Coptic Bishop Bishoy said certain verses in the Quran were inserted after Muhammad's death by one of his successors. Muslim belief says the prophet received all verses through the archangel Gabriel during his lifetime. On Sep 25 Egypt's top Islamic institution criticized Bishoy, warning that the statement threatened Egypt's national unity. On Sep 26 Egypt's Coptic Christian leader Pope Shenouda III apologized in a television interview to any Muslims who were offended by Bishoy’s comments.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 22, The European Union Parliament approved new financial oversight institutions aimed at preventing another financial crisis like the one that led to massive bank bailouts at taxpayer expense.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp said it would freeze all new business with Iran with immediate effect and terminate existing contracts there as soon as possible in response to ever-harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
(Reuters, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In western Indonesia Muslim militants wearing black masks stormed the tiny police precinct and unloaded their assault rifles, riddling 3 officers with bullets and shining a spotlight on the country's changing face of terrorism.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Sep 22, Iran’s pro-reform Sharq daily said that Emadoddin Baghi (48), a human rights activist, was convicted of "spreading propaganda" against the ruling establishment as well as planning to "violate national security." He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Baghi has been on trial or in jail almost continually since 2000 over similar charges. In the northwest a bomb exploded at a military parade in Mahabad killing 12 people. One official blamed Kurdish separatists who have fought Iranian forces in the area for decades. In 2014 Iranian authorities detained three suspects over the deadly bombing in Mahabad.
(AP, 9/22/10)(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 5/18/14)
2010 Sep 22, Several dozen Iraqis who failed to gain asylum in Europe were returned to Iraq despite concerns the situation is still too dangerous.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, An Israeli guard shot dead a Palestinian after rocks were thrown at his car, setting off clashes with police. Crowds of Palestinian youths violently rampaged in a tense neighborhood in annexed Arab east Jerusalem following the shooting death of a local man. This clouded fragile peace efforts even as the Palestinian president signaled he may back away from threats to quit negotiations if Israel resumes West Bank settlement construction.
(AFP, 9/22/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Ivory Coast began paying former rebel soldiers who disarmed ahead of elections set for next month, bringing the West African nation a step closer to ending years of crisis.
(Reuters, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In Jamaica a top court ruled that Shahine Robinson, a lawmaker allied to PM Bruce Golding, is ineligible to sit in parliament because she also holds US citizenship.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Liberia's election commission said that Prince Johnson's National Union for Democratic Progress met the requirements for next year's poll. Johnson is best known for the torture and slaying of ousted president Samuel K. Doe in 1990. A videotape of the event shows Johnson drinking beer as he ordered his men to cut off Doe's ears.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon announced a plan to protect journalists, as violence against reporters has surged since the government launched a crackdown on drug traffickers nearly four years ago.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 22, A Thai national and 3 French employees of marine services company Bourbon were kidnapped overnight in an attack on one of its ships, the Bourbon Alexandre, in an oil field off Nigeria. The hostages “in poor health" were released on Nov 10.
(AP, 9/22/10)(AP, 11/10/10)(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Sep 22, In the Philippines Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, told local reporters that his group wanted a "substate" that he likened to a US state. He said it would not be independent and would be under a "unitary government.".
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 22, A Polish prosecutor said his office has opened an investigation into whether Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi man accused in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was mistreated in a prison that the CIA allegedly ran in Poland.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Russian news agencies reported that Russia has dropped plans to supply Iran with S-300 missiles because they are subject to international sanctions.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, Swiss women for the first time captured most of the seats in the country's seven-member executive branch, brushing aside Switzerland's history as one of Europe's last nations to grant women full suffrage.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In Yemen Al-Qaida militants holed up in a village in the south fought off repeated attempts by government troops backed by tanks and heavy artillery to retake the besieged town. At least four al-Qaida fighters and a civilian have been killed since the fighting began on Sep 18.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 22, In Zimbabwe supporter of PM Morgan Tsvangirai died, days after militants from President Robert Mugabe's rival party attacked a political meeting.
(AFP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 23, Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiled their campaign agenda, a "Pledge to America" to create jobs, cut taxes and shrink government, as they head for big gains in November's congressional election.
(Reuters, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, A New York court sentenced Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist, to 86 years in prison. Siddiqui (38) was detained in Afghanistan in 2008. She was found guilty of seizing a weapon from one of her captors and trying to shoot US authorities who were interrogating her there.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Blockbuster Inc., once the dominant movie rental company in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, after reeling from mounting losses, rising debt and competitors that have better catered to Americans' changed media habits.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Seattle, Wa., Saroeun Phan shot and killed 3 members of her family and then killed herself. Relatives said she suffered from depression and schizophrenia.
(SFC, 9/25/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 23, The state of Virginia executed Teresa Lewis (41) by lethal injection. She had plotted the murder of her husband and stepson 8 years ago and hired 2 gunmen, one of whom became her lover, for the murder.
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 23, Afghan Pres. Karzai called for the quick release of 3 Afghan journalists. All 3 were picked up over the past week, two by a joint NATO and Afghan force and one by Afghan intelligence officials. Analysts said the arrests were reminiscent of a strategy the US military used in Iraq to detain local journalists as a way to disrupt insurgents' propaganda networks. Coalition forces conducted an airstrike in Kabul province, killing Qari Mansur, a senior Haqqani operator who was linked, along with five of his associates, to an attack against an Afghan National Police unit earlier in the week.
(AP, 9/23/10)(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva officially launched the sale of new shares in the state-run oil company Petrobras seen as the world's biggest capitalization, worth 67 billion dollars. This raised the government’s stake from 40% to 48%.
(AP, 9/24/10)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 23, Britain opened the world's largest offshore wind farm off its southeast coast, as part of a government's push to boost renewable energy.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Cambodia's main opposition party leader, Sam Rainsy, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a politically sensitive comment about a border dispute, in what critics said was another example of the government's intimidation of its opponents.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, China detained four Japanese citizens for allegedly videotaping at a military installation in Hebei province. 3 of the men were released on Sep 30. The 4th was held as investigations continued. The 4th Japanese contractor was freed on Oct 9.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A4)(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Sep 23, Colombia's military killed Jorge Briceno (57), the field marshal and No. 2 commander of FARC, the country's main leftist rebel group in the country's eastern plains. Briceno died in an operation in the rebel stronghold of La Macarena that began the previous night and involved special forces, air force and police intelligence.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In the Dominican Rep. 5 teenagers (ages 15 to 17), including two girls, were convicted and sentenced to 3-5 years in prison for killing 7 taxi drivers and seriously injuring two others by forcing most of them to drink drain cleaner. The teens used guns to assault the drivers in April and steal money from them.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, French trade unions staged their second 24-hour strike in a month against President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular pension reform, seeking to force him to scrap plans to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60.
(Reuters, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Indian officials said raging floodwaters triggered by heavy rain in the north have killed at least 17 people, washed away thousands of homes and forced some 2 million people to evacuate in a 24 hour period.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In eastern India a speeding freight train struck a herd of elephants overnight in a densely forested region, killing seven. India's wild elephant population was recently estimated at around 26,000.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Mohammed Sofyan Tsauri, a former Indonesian police officer, said he helped al-Qaida train 170 members of a new terror network in Aceh province soon after he left the police force in 2008. On Jan 19, 2011, Tsauri (34) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for supplying weapons to a terrorist cell allegedly plotting a series of attacks on foreigners.
(AP, 9/23/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 Sep 23, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said most people believe the US government staged the September 11 attacks, setting off a Western walk out at the UN.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Iraq a "verbal altercation" broke out among four American soldiers in Fallujah and suspect Spc. Neftaly Platero "allegedly took his weapon and began shooting the other soldiers." 2 soldiers died the next day and one was left wounded. On Oct 20 Platero (32) was charged with killing the 2 soldiers and wounding a third.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Italy Carabinieri investigators in southern Calabria said that an euro8 million winning ticket in the national Superenalotto numbers game was sold in a smokeshop owned by the father-in-law of a suspect jailed in a drug probe. The winner avoided taxes on interest due had the windfall been deposited in a bank. The mobsters got an excuse to open a mega-account. Italian law requires those making big deposits to prove the funds aren't illegal. Police seized millions of euros worth of assets from the jailed mob suspect.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Mexico gunmen killed Prisciliano Rodriguez Salinas, mayor of the town of Doctor Gonzalez, near Monterrey, as well as his personal assistant. He became the fourth mayor in northern Mexico to be murdered in little more than a month. Two men were later arrested for the killing because of a land dispute. They had been paid $6,000. An uncle of one of the two suspects had hired them a week before the assassination.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 23, The Palestinian militant Hamas group said its military court has convicted and sentenced Omar Kawari to death by a firing squad. The Gaza man was convicted on charges of spying for Israel.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In the Philippines President Benigno Aquino ordered a halt to the demolition of thousands of squatter shanties in Manila following violent street protests.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Russia turned over to Poland 20 new files from a probe into the 1940 Katyn massacre that could be key in proving that Soviet secret police carefully planned the killing of thousands of Poles.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Somalia heavy fighting between Islamist militants and pro-government troops raged in several parts of Mogadishu, killing at least 22 people and wounding nearly 78.
(AP, 9/23/10)(SFC, 9/24/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 23, In South Africa 8 prisoners, charged with murder and robbery, escaped from a court in Johannesburg. Police re-arrested seven but were still searching for one. 13 officers were arrested on charges of aiding the escape.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 23, Zimbabwe's national airline said a crippling two-week strike by its 44 pilots has ended and regional and international flights will resume Sep 24.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, Zimbabwe state media said a measles outbreak has claimed the lives of 70 children over the past two weeks, mostly among families from apostolic sects that shun vaccinations.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a $100 million donation to Newark, N.J., public schools in a move that could enhance his reputation just before the opening on an unflattering movie about him, "The Social Network."
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Florida 3 thieves in Coral Gables put an alleged bomb on a bank teller and ordered him to steal as much money as possible while they held his father as hostage.
(SFC, 9/25/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 24, The Texas State Board of Education adopted a resolution that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as social conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Three Afghan journalists (Hojatullah Mujadadi, Mohammad Nadir and Rahmatullah Naikzad), arrested by coalition forces over the past week, were released. NATO had said it had information linking the men to networks that act as a mouthpiece for the Taliban and spread insurgent propaganda. A suicide bomber in a car targeted a NATO convoy on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif city in Balkh province in the north. One child was killed and 28 people were wounded in a wedding party bus that was passing by. In Khost province and more than 30 insurgents died in an airstrike following an attack on an Afghan National Security Force outpost.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Agathon Rwasa, a former rebel chief in Burundi, appealed by letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon to intervene and prevent the east African nation from falling again into violent conflict. Rwasa headed the ex-rebel National Liberation Forces, which became a political party in 2009 after a peace deal ended Burundi's 13-year civil war.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Cambodia's opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, said he has filed a criminal lawsuit in the United States against PM Hun Sen, accusing him of being behind a deadly 1997 attack on a political rally.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, The Central African Republic's government in a broadcast statement accused main opposition leader and former prime minister Martin Ziguele of heading a rebel movement.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, A Chilean court froze all 9.7 million dollars in assets belonging to a troubled mining company to fund the huge rescue operation for 33 miners trapped below ground since early August.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, European coastal nations agreed to review rules for offshore drilling, but said each country should decide individually on how to improve safety oil rig safety to avoid disasters like the Gulf of Mexico spill.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Guyana a teenager (16) was reported missing. Police found her body Oct. 3 inside a suitcase that had been weighted down with dumbbells and tossed in a creek in the capital of Georgetown. On Oct 8 police charge the girl’s mother Bibi Sharmina Gopaul and her lover Jarvis Small with murder.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Haiti a freak storm blasted through the capital, killing at least five earthquake survivors as it tore down trees, billboards and tent homes.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters that Iran would consider ending higher level uranium enrichment, the most crucial part of its controversial nuclear activities, if world powers send Tehran nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Japan said it would free Zhan Qixiong (41), a Chinese fishing boat captain, whose arrest in disputed waters over two weeks ago sparked the worst row in years between the Asian giants.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Kuwait US Army Spc. Marc C. Whisenant (23) of Holly Hill, Fla., died in a military vehicle roll-over.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 24, A Malaysian political cartoonist said he has been arrested under the Sedition Act and his offices raided by police over his new book, "Cartoon-O-Phobia," just hours before its planned launch. Zulkifli Anwar Ulhaque, better known as Zunar, used cartoons to highlight contentious issues such as the sodomy trial of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and police shootings.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Mexico Ricardo Solis, the recently elected mayor of the small town of Gran Morelos' in the northern state of Chihuahua, was shot in the head and chest by gunmen who drove up in two SUVs. Soldiers near Monterrey came under fire when they went to look into a tip that a local ranch had been taken over by members of a drug gang. The soldiers fired back, killing two alleged assailants, and then seized 12 rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Mexican soldiers detained Jose Angel Fernandez, the Zetas drug cartel's alleged operations chief for the resort city of Cancun, along with three alleged accomplices. Fernandez was suspected in last month's fire-bombing of a bar that killed eight people.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Pakistan's PM Yousuf Raza Gilani called Aafia Siddiqui, a female scientist convicted of trying to kill US interrogators in Afghanistan, "the daughter of the nation" and vowed to campaign for her release from an American jail.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Peru hundreds of student protesters toppled a perimeter wall at Cuzco's airport, prompting flight suspensions and cancellations that stranded about 500 tourists. The students backed peasants who have been blocking roads in the region for nearly two weeks, protesting government plans to build a reservoir in the municipality of Espinar.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Romania some 6,000 police officers protested plans to cut their wages by 25 percent, part of government's austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit. Pres. Basescu asked the interior ministry to withdraw his police protection shortly after the protest.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Spain's government approved an "austere" budget for 2011 aimed at reassuring nervous markets over its ability to rein in a massive public deficit and fix its battered economy.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Sudan’s information minister said South Sudanese people will lose the right to be citizens in the north if their region votes for independence in a referendum, raising fears for southerners living in northern settlements.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, A Thai court ordered the ex-wife of deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra to return a valuable plot of land she bought from the government while her husband was the country's leader. The Civil Court ruled that the 2003 purchase by Potjaman na Pombejra was void because it violated an anti-corruption law.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, The UN atomic watchdog threw out an Arab-backed resolution urging Israel to accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency, on the last day of its annual general conference, voted against the resolution, with 51 votes against, 46 votes for and 23 abstentions.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 24, Yemeni forces, backed by tanks and heavy artillery, drove al-Qaida militants from the town of Hawta in Shabwa province after five days of fighting.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 24, Investigators of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, who visited an animal reserve near the southern border town of Beit Bridge and the Limpopo river, reported that occupiers slaughtered 300 zebra for their skins in the last two months. 7 African antelope were killed this week.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 25, In New York US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met for a second day of talks, after failing to break the deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians. The talks were overshadowed by the end of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In NYC artworks held by Lehman Brothers and a former subsidiary were auctioned by Sotheby’s bringing in almost $12.3 million.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A14)
2010 Sep 25, In New Jersey a student was shot and killed at an off campus house party near Seton Hall Univ. 4 others were wounded.
(SFC, 9/27/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 25, In Afghan NATO said 3 service members were killed in two bomb blasts. A follow-up operation in Khost province left several more insurgents dead. 2 Afghan civilians riding a motorcycle were killed after failing to stop while approaching a security perimeter in Helmand province. Precision NATO bombing in Kunar province killed Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, leader of Al-Qaida affiliated Arab fighters, and Abu Atta al-Kuwaiti, an Al-Qaida explosives expert.
(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/26/10)(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2eo83mo)
2010 Sep 25, In Britain Ed Miliband (40) narrowly defeated brother David, the 45-year-old ex-foreign secretary, in a Labour Party leadership contest, winning a slender majority of 1.3 percent of votes. On Sep 29 former foreign secretary David Miliband said he was quitting front-line politics in the U.K. after losing to his younger brother in a battle for the leadership of the country's main opposition Labour Party.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 25, In Honduras Jesus Santos, the chief suspect in the massacre of 18 workers at a shoe factory earlier this month, was killed in a shootout with police.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, Tropical Storm Matthew roared over Central America, dumping heavy rains on disaster-prone parts of Honduras and Nicaragua and leading to the evacuation of thousands amid fears of flooding and mudslides.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, The Indian government said it will ask authorities to release hundreds of students and youths detained during months of civil unrest that has left at least 107 people dead in Kashmir and review the massive deployment of security forces there.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency says Iranian nuclear experts met this week to discuss how to remove the malicious computer code, dubbed Stuxnet, which can take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Japan refused to apologize for detaining a Chinese boat captain, showing no signs of softening in a dispute between the two economic powers after Japan gave ground and released him. China made a second call for an apology and compensation from Tokyo, demanding "practical steps" to resolve the diplomatic row.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak launched the country’s Economic Transformation Program, formulated as part of Malaysia's National Transformation Program.
(http://etp.pemandu.gov.my/[email protected]_of_ETP.aspx)
2010 Sep 25, Mexican authorities said they have arrested Margarito Soto Reyes (44), an alleged trafficker known as "The Tiger," who they say shipped a half-ton of drugs to the US each month and may have been poised to take over for a dead capo in the Sinaloa cartel. 8 alleged accomplices were also arrested near Guadalajara. Police in the northern state of Chihuahua announced they had found the bodies of six men piled in a sport utility vehicle on a roadside in a remote, southern area of the state. The men had all apparently been shot in the head. And in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, unidentified assailants dumped the hacked-up body of a man on a street.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Mexican authorities sighted the wreckage of a small plane in the mountains of Baja California believed to have taken off from Los Angeles, Ca., with four people on board.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Nigeria’s Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka attended an event in Lagos announcing the platform of the Democratic Front for a People's Federation. The party claims to be a "zero resource" party, a jab at oil-rich Nigeria's culture of government graft and corruption.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Nigerian officials said opened dams in Jigawa state have displaced some two million people in the north, adding to flood misery that has already washed away entire villages across a wide swathe of the region. The next day spokesman for the Hadejia-Jama'are River Basin Development Authority, said the dams, located in Kano state, which borders Jigawa, are never manually opened and simply empty automatically into a spillway once the reservoir fills. He said heavy rainfall almost everywhere in the country caused the flooding.
(AFP, 9/25/10)(AFP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, A Pakistani court acquitted three men charged over a deadly suicide car bomb attack near the Danish embassy in Islamabad in 2008. Prosecutors said they would appeal the verdict.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In northwestern Pakistan suspected US missiles targeted a vehicle, killing four alleged militants. It was the 17th such attack this month, the most intense barrage since the airstrikes began in 2004. The drone attack killed Sheikh Fateh, Al-Qaeda's operational chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The latest strike occurred some hours after gunmen killed two worshippers in Bahawalpur. NATO helicopters in eastern Afghanistan launched rare airstrikes into Pakistan, killing more 49 militants and prompting a protest from Islamabad. A second attack occurred when helicopters returned to the border area and were attacked by insurgents based in Pakistan. It killed at least four militants.
(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/27/10)(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 25, Hamas, in a statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said "Mahmud al-Ahmarine (21) has died as the result of wounds inflicted by an Israeli tank on September 14 east of Gaza City."
(AGFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, The MV Lugela, a cargo ship carrying steel bars and wires, sent a distress call to its Greek operator when pirates attacked it about 900 nautical miles east of the Somali pirate den of Eyl.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In Syria leaders of the two rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas held reconciliation talks in Damascus and said they wanted the discussions to continue.
(AFP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, In Yemen 2 al-Qaida militants ambushed a bus carrying security personnel in the capital, San’a, spraying the vehicle with gunfire and injuring 10 passengers. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) later claimed that 14 intelligence officers were killed in the attack.
(AP, 9/25/10)(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Sep 26, San Francisco held its 27th annual Folsom Street Fair, a celebration of fetishes and aggressive sexuality.
(SFC, 9/27/10, p.C1)
2010 Sep 26, It was reported that the Hilmar Cheese company in Merced County is the likely culprit in ruining at least 18 wells in and around Hilmar. Partially treated effluent from the 27-acre plant has been discharged onto land around the plant for years.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 26, Gloria Stuart (b.1910), film star, died. The 1930s Hollywood leading lady years later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee for her role as the spunky survivor in "Titanic." In her youth, Stuart was a blond beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones such as "The Invisible Man," Busby Berkeley's "Gold Diggers of 1935" and two Shirley Temple movies, "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." Her 1999 autobiography was titled “Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping."
(AP, 9/28/10)(SFC, 9/28/10, p.C4)
2010 Sep 26, Afghanistan's election commission ordered a recount of votes in some areas for recent parliamentary elections, raising further concerns of misconduct and fraud during the Sep 18 polls. NATO said 2 of its service members were killed in a bomb blast in the south. A female British aid worker and 3 Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in the country's northeastern Kunar province. NATO forces said one Afghan civilian was killed by a coalition service member in Laghman's Alishing district.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 26, Australian climate change activists closed down operations at the world's largest coal port after entering its three terminals and attaching themselves to loaders.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, British businessman James Heselden (62), who last year bought the company that makes the two-wheeled Segway personal transporter, died in an accident on one of the vehicles in the River Wharfe near Boston Spa. He had made a fortune through his firm Hesco Bastion which developed a system replacing sand bags to protect troops.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, Chinese authorities said five people have been sickened with pneumonic plague in Tibet and that the deadly disease has killed one of them.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, A boat carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Europe and the US set sail from Cyprus bound for Gaza, in a bid to run Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, In the Dominican Republic a Dominican foreman fatally shot a Haitian worker during an argument over pay, touching off racial clashes at a construction site that killed a Dominican worker and injured another.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, In Germany a Polish tour bus crashed on its way home from a Spanish holiday, killing 13 people. 32 remained hospitalized the next day.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iranian officials said the malicious Stuxnet computer worm has hit 30,000 industrial computers, but denied the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among those infected. The malware has infected as many as 45,000 computer systems around the world. 60% of the infected computers were in Iran, 18% in Indonesia, and less than 2% in the US. Two computer servers in Malaysia and Denmark, which controlled the malware, have been shut down.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_computer_attacks)(SFC, 9/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 26, Iran media said elite Revolutionary Guards said they had killed the "main elements" behind the Sep 22 bomb attack in the Mahabad. Gen. Abdolrasoul Mahmoudabadi of the elite Revolutionary Guards said the "terrorists" were killed the previous day in a clash "beyond the border" and that his forces were still in pursuit of two men who escaped the ambush.
(Reuters, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Iraq inaugurated the first in a fleet of new US-built patrol boats, part of efforts to boost its naval capacity and secure key oil platforms ahead of an American withdrawal at the end of next year. A car packed with explosives blew up near the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing 4 policemen in the latest sign that insurgents could be trying to win back old strongholds. Attacks elsewhere in the country killed at least 4 others.
(AFP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, With a midnight deadline looming, Israel's PM Netanyahu called on West Bank settlers to "show restraint" following the end of a government-ordered construction slowdown. Settler leaders rejected Netanyahu's call, however, and vowed to proceed with a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony later in the day at Revava, a settlement deep inside the West Bank, marking the end of the construction restrictions.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Kashmiri separatist leaders rejected India's offer to release hundreds of young detainees and review the massive deployment of security forces in the Himalayan territory to defuse deadly civil unrest.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, In Pakistan 2 US drone strikes targeting vehicles killed 7 militants in North Waziristan, the rugged tribal region near the Afghan border.
(AFP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan returning 3 astronauts from a 6-month mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 26, The Saudi Gazette quoted Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as saying: "Saudi Arabia is tackling terrorism with all its might and authorities have so far been successful in foiling 230 of 240 terrorist attempts." The number covers the period from 2003 to the present.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 26, In Spain the Basque separatist group ETA said it is willing to declare a permanent cease-fire, verified by international observers, in a bid to settle the troubled region's long-running conflict with the Spanish government.
(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 26, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was seeking to hold on to his dominant control of congress in elections that put his popularity to a critical test. Chavez's allies won a strong majority in Venezuela's congress, but lost the two-thirds majority needed to carry out major changes on their own.
(AP, 9/26/10)(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, President Barack Obama signed a $30 billion small business lending bill into law, claiming a victory on economic policy for his fellow Democrats ahead of November congressional elections.
(Reuters, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Sponsored by the US Department of Homeland Security, Cyber Storm III kicked off for a 3-day series of simulated events designed to exploit holes in the nation's cybersecurity system. It was Washington's first chance to test the new National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, which was set up last fall to act as a hub for coordinating cybersecurity.
(http://tinyurl.com/24jewsu)
2010 Sep 27, Six US Air Force officers and one researcher assembled at the prestigious National Press Club in Washington, DC, to give their intriguing testimony of personal involvement in a major UFO cover-up. The officers planned to discuss UFOs and nuclear missiles, including an alleged incident in March, 1967, at a Montana missile base where 10 Minuteman missiles were mysteriously deactivated as a UFO allegedly hovered overhead.
(http://www.wanttoknow.info/ufos/ufos_national_press_club_witness_testimony)
2010 Sep 27, In a videotaped statement US Spec. Jeremy Morlock (22) admitted involvement in a plan to kill 3 Afghan civilians in Kandahar between January and May this year. He sought to shift blame for the plot on his squad’s staff sergeant, who he said planted the idea. In March 2011 Morlock was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder, as well as conspiracy and other charges. He said the killings were part of a deliberate plan to murder Afghan civilians. Dan Krauss directed the documentary film “The Kill Team" (2014) featuring Adam Winfield, Andrew Holmes and Jeremy Morlock," the soldiers involved in the Maywand District murders of Afghan civilians.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A6)(AP, 3/30/11)
2010 Sep 27, Downtown Los Angeles, Ca., recorded a record 113 degrees.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 27, In Florida Patrick Dell (41) shot and killed his wife, Natasha Whyte-Dell (36) and 4 step children before killing himself. A 5th stepchild survived the rampage in Riviera Beach.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 27, In Georgia Brandon Joseph Rhode (31) was executed by lethal injection for the 1998 murders of a trucking company owner and his 2 children. He was convicted in 2000 of the killings of Steven Moss (37), his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin during a burglary of their Jones County home in central Georgia.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 27, George Blanda (83), former American football star, died. He played longer than anyone in pro football history and racked up the most points in a career that spanned four decades, mostly with the Chicago Bears and Oakland Raiders.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Afghanistan a Polish soldier died of injuries sustained when a land mine exploded under his patrol vehicle in the eastern province of Ghazni. US General David Petraeus said many small insurgent groups had already made "overtures" to NATO forces about quitting the fight.
(AP, 9/27/10)(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 27, Police in Brazil’s state of Rio Grande do Sul arrested Rev. Avelino Backes (70) after finding him in a hospital in the town of Santa Rosa. Backes disappeared in 2008 after being sentenced to seven years in jail for molesting girls aged 9 and 10 in the neighboring state of Santa Catarina in the 1990s.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 27, Cambodia laid out plans to tackle graft in one of the world's most corrupt nations, in an attempt to reassure foreign investors.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In eastern China 2 men were sentenced to death for abducting and trafficking 40 infants. They were sentenced for their involvement in a ring that abducted dozens of baby boys from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and sold them to villagers in neighboring Fujian for up to $6,000 each.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 27, Colombia's inspector general ousted Sen. Piedad Cordoba (55), an outspoken opposition senator, barring her from public service for 18 years for allegedly "promoting and collaborating" with Latin America's last remaining rebel army.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Colombia a mudslide swept over people changing from one bus to another because an earlier slide was blocking a mountain road, and at least 20 people were buried.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Indonesia and France served as co-chairs of the Group of 20 Working Group on Anti-corruption during a 2-day meeting in Jakarta. The WGAC was among the most significant outcomes of the G20 summit in Toronto in June 2010.
(www.deplu.go.id/Pages/PressRelease.aspx?IDP=1002&l=en)
2010 Sep 27, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerized industrial equipment in Iran where about 30,000 IP addresses have already been infected.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Iraqi police officials said a bomb exploded as Alaa Muhsen, a news anchor for Iraqiya television, drove through southern Baghdad.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Settlement building resumed across the West Bank just hours after a 10-month freeze expired, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held back on a threat to quit peace talks with Israel over the move. Abbas said he would wait at least a week before deciding whether to quit Mideast peace talks, giving US mediators precious time to broker a compromise.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Jamaica hundreds of medical technicians, nurse's aides and other support staff at major public hospitals went on strike to demand pay raises and allowances they say haven't been paid by the government.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Mexico the bodies of Tancitaro Mayor Gustavo Sanchez and city adviser Rafael Equihua were discovered in a pickup truck abandoned on a dirt road near the city of Uruapan, the fifth city leader to be slain in Mexico since mid-August. Also in Michoacan state, five gunmen and a marine were killed in a shootout in Coahuayana on the Pacific coast. Another gunbattle in the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas left eight gunmen and one marine dead in the border city of Reynosa. In the border state of Chihuahua, gunmen broke into a police complex, subdued the guards and stole at least 40 automatic rifles and 23 handguns.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Nigeria gunmen hijacked a school bus in Abia state and kidnapped 15 children on board in the oil-rich south. The next day they demanded a $130,000 ransom for their release. On Oct 1 a joint military and police taskforce "rescued" the children and no ransom was paid.
(AFP, 9/28/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 27, Pakistan was chosen to head the UN atomic agency's governing body, despite its refusal to accept the nonproliferation treaty and its link to the nuclear black marketer who supplied Iran and North Korea.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Pakistani intelligence officials said two NATO helicopters carried out a third strike inside Pakistani territory, killing five militants and wounding nine others. A suspected US missile strike killed four people near Mir Ali, North Waziristan. Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary said it had recovered a huge hoard of military equipment stolen from NATO supply convoys travelling to Afghanistan. The equipment was looted during the last five to six months.
(AP, 9/27/10)(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, The Romanian government was in an uproar over austerity protests. The interior minister resigned, the opposition demanded the prime minister go as well and top police officials held emergency talks with the president.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Serbia basketball player Miladin Kovacevic (23) pleaded guilty to beating a fellow American student into a coma in the case that has strained relations between the United States and Serbia. In November he was sentenced to two years and three months for the beating of Bryan Steinhauer (24) in May 2008 near Binghamton University in upstate New York.
(AP, 9/27/10)(AP, 1/21/11)
2010 Sep 27, Representatives of 45 nations and international bodies met in Madrid to consider plans to strengthen an African Union peacekeeping force in war-torn Somalia.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, Sudan’s government promised to inject almost two billion dollars into conflict-stricken Darfur, but again demanded war crimes charges against its president be dropped.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 27, A boat with 85 African migrants capsized off Yemen drowning at least 13 people. It was being towed by the US Navy back to Somalia a day after being discovered.
(SFC, 9/28/10, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2wxgqmv)
2010 Sep 28, President Barack Obama endorsed a plan to rehabilitate the Gulf of Mexico with some of the billions of dollars in water pollution fines expected from the companies responsible for the worst offshore oil spill in US history.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Pres. Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on 8 Iranian officials deemed responsible for serious human rights abuses.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 28, Mayor Octavio Garcia Von Borstel (29) of Nogales, Az., was arrested by FBI agents on multiple charges including bribery, theft, fraud and money laundering.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.A7)
2010 Sep 28, AOL acquired SF-based TechCrunch, the operator of an influential network of technology news blogs, for an estimated $25 million.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 28, Amyris Biotechnologies (AMRS), an Emeryville, Ca., startup, went public on NASDAQ with 5.3 million shares. The IPO opened and closed at $16.50 per share. The company, founded by Prof. Jay Keasling, used genetically engineered organisms to turn plant sugars into a precursor of diesel.
(SFC, 9/29/10, p.D1)(http://tinyurl.com/24uklyv)(Econ, 3/12/11, TQ p.22)(SFC, 9/13/12, p.C5)
2010 Sep 28, Seth Walsh (13), a California middle school student, died in the hospital, days after he attempted to take his own life after reportedly enduring relentless bullying.
(www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018025-504083.html)
2010 Sep 28, Arthur Penn (88), American film director, died at his home in Manhattan. His films included “Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) and “Little Big Man" (1970).
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.C6)
2010 Sep 28, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed Deputy Gov. Khazim Allayar and five others. Later, a tearful Pres. Karzai decried the violence, fretting that young people will choose to flee their country. The Afghan government announced who will sit on a 70-member peace council, formalizing efforts already underway to reconcile with top Taliban leaders and lure insurgent foot soldiers off the battlefield.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Australia’s new Parliament was sworn in and included Ed Husic, the country’s first elected Muslim, who was sworn in with his hand on his parents' Koran.
(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, An Australian mining company said it has discovered deposits in Mozambique of rare minerals with a variety of industrial uses. The minerals found included dysprosium, used to make laser materials and in components of nuclear reactors.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 28, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega warned in remarks reported from Sao Paulo that the world is in the grip of a currency "war," with leading nations using devaluation to solve economic problems.
(AFP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, A Scotland Yard’s special crimes unit arrested 19 people suspected of draining millions of dollars from British banks by hacking into customers’ accounts.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 28, In Canada an Ontario court tossed out key provisions of Canada's anti-prostitution laws, saying they did more harm than good, following a constitutional challenge by three sex-trade workers. The ruling allowed sex workers to solicit customers openly.
(Reuters, 9/28/10)(SSFC, 10/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 28, An Iranian news website said a court has sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, a well-known Canadian-Iranian blogger, to more than 19 years in prison for cooperating with hostile states and insulting Islam. Derakhshan, who made trips to Israel and blogged in both English and Farsi, has been in prison since 2008. Iran banned two newspapers for insulting political and religious figures, in a continued crackdown on dissent more than a year after a disputed presidential election.
(AP, 9/28/10)(Reuters, 9/28/10)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.60)
2010 Sep 28, Iran offered the first official indication that Oman is playing a role in trying to secure the release of two American men imprisoned for more than a year.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Ireland's borrowing costs leapt again after two credit rating agencies warned its debt is at risk of further downgrades, piling pressure on the government to bring forward its budget.
(Reuters, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Irish Nobel laureate and peace activist Mairead Maguire (66) was detained after arriving in Israel because she had been deported in June for trying to reach Gaza by boat in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade. Airport officials told her she would not be allowed in to Israel for 10 years. Her appeal on Oct 1 was rejected. She was deported on Oct 5.
(AP, 10/1/10)(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Sep 28, Israeli naval forces intercepted a catamaran carrying nine Jewish activists toward the Gaza Strip, encountering no resistance as they took control of the sailboat and escorted it to shore.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Malaysia Kylie Tanti Marion (42), an Australian woman, fell to her death when her parachute failed to open after she jumped off the Alor Setar Tower to practice for the KL Tower International Jump on Oct. 7.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Mexico a hillside collapsed on the rural community of Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca state. Although hundreds of people were initially feared dead only 11 people were missing and likely dead.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 9/29/10)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Nepal an avalanche caught 3 Japanese climbers and a Sherpa guide. Dhaulagiri at 26,790 feet (8,167 meters) is the seventh highest mountain in the world. The body of Daisuke Honda (32) was recovered on Oct 12.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Sep 28, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il made his mysterious youngest son, Kim Jong Un, a four-star general in a promotion seen as the first step toward his ascent as the country’s next leader, extending the family dynasty in the reclusive totalitarian country to a third generation.
(AP, 9/28/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.47)
2010 Sep 28, In Pakistan a suspected American missile strike killed four militants in South Waziristan.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Russia's Pres. Medvedev fired defiant Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, ousting the man who gave the crumbling capital a modern facelift but was maligned for his wife's hold on construction projects and for staying on vacation while forest fires choked his city. Luzhkov's deputy, Vladimir Resin, was named acting mayor pending the appointment of a successor.
(AP, 9/28/10)
2010 Sep 28, Somali pirates hijacked the Asphalt Venture, a cargo ship with 15 Indian crew on board, off East Africa.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 28, Spanish police arrested a US citizen of Algerian origin who is suspected of financing al-Qaida's North African affiliate. Mohamed Omar Dehbi (43) was arrested in the town of Esplugues de Llobregat, a Barcelona suburb. On Sep 30 a Spanish judge ordered Dehbi’s release, citing lack of evidence, but barred him from leaving Spain and ordered him to check in with police daily. Dehbi was cleared of suspicion on March 8, 2011.
(AP, 9/29/10)(AP, 9/30/10)(AP, 3/22/11)
2010 Sep 28, In southern Thailand suspected Muslim insurgents disguised as policemen killed five people in an attack on a warehouse in Pattani province.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, The World Trade Organization ruled that a US ban on Chinese poultry is illegal, giving Beijing a win in the first international commerce ruling against the administration of President Barack Obama.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, California officials put on hold executions until at least early 2011 in order to review procedures in its lethal injection system.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 29, Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles attorney who represents Meg Whitman's former maid, Nicky Diaz Santillan, said she would release evidence on Sep 30 showing Whitman, a candidate for governor of California, was aware of the maid's illegal status as far back as 2003, a claim Whitman denies.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Two American balloonists disappeared in rough weather off the Italian coast. Richard Abruzzo (47) and Carol Rymer-Davis (65) were participating in the 54th Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race, in which teams try to fly the farthest on a maximum of about 1,000 cubic meters (35,300 cubic feet) of gas. Searching was called off on Oct 4. On Dec 6 an Italian fishing boat pulled the remains of the two from the Adriatic Sea.
(AP, 9/30/10)(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A2)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Sep 29, American film actor Tony Curtis, born in the Bronx as Bernard Schwartz (1925), died at his home in Nevada. He shaped himself from a 1950s movie heartthrob into a respected actor, showing a determined streak that served him well in such films as "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Defiant Ones" and "Some Like It Hot." In 1977 he authored a novel, "Kid Cody and Julie Sparrow" and in 1993 he wrote "Tony Curtis: The Autobiography."
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Oscar-nominated actor Joe Mantell (94) died in Tarzana, Ca. He had more than 70 film and TV credits and received an Academy Award nomination in 1956 for his performance as Angie, the best friend of Ernest Borgnine in "Marty." In the film "Chinatown" he delivered one of movies' most famous lines: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, The Afghan government announced that it is investigating whether the relatives or close associates of high-ranking officials are receiving improper payments, kickbacks or bribes.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Bangladesh a speeding train plowed into two buses at a busy crossing in Dhaka, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Security sources and media reports said Western intelligence agencies have uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to launch attacks in Britain, France and Germany by extremists based in Pakistan.
(AFP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, China repeated promises of exchange rate flexibility but offered no new measures that might avert a possible vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on currency legislation.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In CongoDRC Armand Tungulu (30), a Congolese citizen living in Belgium, was taken into custody by Pres. Kabila's bodyguards after he threw rocks at the presidential motorcade. Witnesses said the guards beat Tungulu before arresting him. On Oct 4 a statement from the Congolese attorney general's office said Tungulu killed himself on the night of Oct 1 with a piece of cloth he had been using as a pillow. On October 14 the DR Congo refused to return to Belgium the body of a Tungulu.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Sep 29, The European Union decided to launch legal action against France over its expulsions of Gypsies, or Roma, to poorer EU nations.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Anti-austerity protests erupted across Europe. Greek doctors and railway employees walked out, Spanish workers shut down trains and buses, and one man even blocked the Irish parliament with a cement truck to decry the country's enormous bank bailouts.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, India began the massive task of issuing unique identification numbers to its 1.2 billion people, many of whom don't have documents establishing their identity. By 2017 the Aadhaar identification scheme covered 99% adults.
(AP, 9/29/10)(Econ, 2/4/17, p.8)
2010 Sep 29, India imposed a nationwide ban on bulk cell phone text messaging amid concerns that a potentially explosive court judgment on who should control a disputed holy site could spark unrest.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In northwest Ireland managers at Anderson's Mink Farm said that many of their cages and fences were cut and opened over the weekend, freeing an estimated 5,000 animals into the wilds of County Donegal. About 28,000 others declined to bolt for freedom.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Jamaica was hit by Tropical Storm Nicole causing flooding and mudslides that left at least 5 people dead and 14 missing.
(SFC, 9/30/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Mexican officials announced that marines had captured 30 suspected Gulf cartel members and seized an arsenal of weapons during two days of raids in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Two federal police officers were slain at a downtown hotel in Ciudad Juarez. Attackers threw an explosive at city hall in Matamoros, injuring three people.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Mexico a landslide surged into a community in Chiapas state, killing 16 people and injuring 13, while another avalanche left three people missing in a nearby town.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, New Zealand rescuers cut free a humpback whale that had been entangled for at least two days in a heavy nylon rope that officials said would have caused its slow death.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Nigerian authorities said as many as 40,000 girls and women have been trafficked to nearby West African countries to serve as sex workers.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Puerto Rico 7 US Postal Service workers were indicted on charges they shipped thousands of parcels of heroin, cocaine and marijuana through the mail.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Puerto Rico police fatally shot William Malaret Pagan (77) after he opened fire at them, a killing that comes as Puerto Rico's law enforcement officers are under scrutiny for allegedly using excessive force. Pagan shot at officers when they tried to arrest his son on drug charges. The killing happened hours before Gov. Luis Fortuno publicly introduced an independent monitor he appointed to assist a federal investigation into allegations of excessive force and corruption among police.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, A Russian firm announced an ambitious bid to fill the vacuum in the space tourism market by stationing an orbiting hotel in the cosmos. Orbital Technologies wants to launch a seven-room station by 2016 but may increase or decrease that capacity based on customer demand.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Tanzania a hot air balloon carrying tourists over Serengeti National Park crashed, killing an American and a Danish tourist and wounding eight others.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 29, The UN Security Council lifted a 13-year-old arms embargo against Sierra Leone after being assured that the nation is sufficiently stable following the civil war that ended in 2002.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 29, Venezuela’s attorney general's office said that psychiatrist Edmundo Chirinos has been convicted of killing Roxana Vargas (19). He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her body was found with a blow to the head in 2008 in a park on the outskirts of Caracas. Investigators had found some 1,200 photographs of nude female patients in his home. Chirinos was a fringe candidate for president in 1988, but came away with only a tiny fraction of the vote.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Venezuela fighting erupted between inmates feuding over control in Tocoron prison in north-central Aragua state. The rioting killed 16 inmates and injured 35.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, US federal prosecutors said over 50 people have been charged in int’l. schemes that used computer viruses to steal millions of dollars from bank accounts in the US and England. The cyberattacks included malware known as the “Zeus Trojan."
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 30, The US fiscal year ended. The budget deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, equal to 9% of GDP. Immigration and Customs officials removed 392,000 illegal immigrants over the fiscal year, an increase of 23,000 over 2009.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A6)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.29)
2010 Sep 30, US federal officials announced that Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. will pay $422.5 million in penalties for marketing an epilepsy medicine for unapproved uses and for paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe it and 5 other drugs.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 30, San Francisco officials secured a 4th in a series of injunctions against street gangs. a judge approved an order singling out 2 gangs whose bitter rivalry has left 10 people dead over the last 3 years in the Visitacion Valley area.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 30, Vandals in San Francisco severely damaged 3 golf course holes in Golden Gate Park. The struck again on Oct 4. Damages were estimated at $75k-$100 thousand.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 30, New Jersey police shot and killed Alfred Moton Sr. (54) after he charged officers with a handgun. Moton had already shot dead 2 sons, critically injured a third and set fire to their home in Pennsauken.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep 30, Tiffany Hartley and her husband, David, were on Jet Skis on Falcon Lake, Texas, when men on three speedboats chased them, shooting her husband in the head. Authorities have not recovered his body. The alleged attack happened near the US-Mexican boundary of the lake, which is about 60 miles down the border from Laredo.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Sep 30, Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors elected Leo Apotheker, the former head of German business giant SAP AG, to replace mark Hurd as CEO.
(SFC, 10/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Sep 30, Researchers who used a remote-controlled helicopter to collect whale snot, documented bats having oral sex and showed that swearing makes you feel better when you stub a toe were among the winners of spoof IgNobel prizes.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated a bomb-laden sedan near an alliance convoy, killing three Afghan civilians nearby. NATO-led soldiers were killed in separate attacks, two in homemade bomb explosions and the third in a firefight with insurgents. Afghan and international forces captured a senior Taliban leader based in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Afghan and coalition security forces in Khost captured a Haqqani Network operative involved in indiscriminate explosive attacks and providing support to Taliban insurgents. Another Haqqani senior leader and 6 insurgents were also killed in an operation in Khost.
(AFP, 9/30/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, Algerian daily Al-Watan said spy chiefs from four north African countries (Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger) have set up a center for joint operations against Al Qaeda in the Sahel region during a meeting in Algiers.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The Arabic-language Al-Ittihad daily quoted Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan as saying he had "received two death threats based on the case of Hamas militant" Mahmud al-Mabhuh's assassination in a Dubai hotel on January 20.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Argentina granted asylum to Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leftist guerrilla, charged in his native Chile with assassinating right-wing Sen. Jaime Guzman and kidnapping businessman Christian Edwards del Rio in 1991. Apablaza, who requested asylum in 2004, was an ideological leader of a branch of Chile's Communist Party that took up arms against Pinochet.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The South China Morning Post quoted Derek Reveron, a cyber expert at the US Naval War School, as saying: "The Stuxnet worm is a wake-up call to governments around the world." China’s state media had reported this week that the Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc, infecting millions of computers around the country.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Denmark Flemming Rose's "The Tyranny of Silence," a book on the crisis sparked by a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed five years ago, hit stores in amid concerns over a backlash from the Muslim world.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Ecuador rebellious police threw the country into chaos. 8 people were killed including at least two police officers and a soldier. 247 were injured in the mayhem. Insurgents also paralyzed the nation with airport shutdowns and highway blockades. Pres. Correa (47) was trapped inside the hospital for hours before troops rescued him amid a blaze of gunfire. Police chief Freddy Martinez was not involved in the protests but failed to stop them, so he was the first senior officer to lose his job. Correa’s efforts to cut back spending had made him enemies, including some of the rank and file in the security forces.
(AP, 10/1/10)(Reuters, 10/1/10)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.54)
2010 Sep 30, Egyptian telecom giant Orascom Telecom said its Algeria unit has been hit with a $230 million preliminary tax reassessment, marking a new and increasingly acrimonious chapter in the company's relations with the North African nation.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Europe's debt crisis dumped more woe on Ireland's weary taxpayers, as the government said it needed to pour billions more of their money into a collapsed banking system.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, An Indian court ruled that a disputed holy site that sparked bloody riots in the past should now be divided between the Hindu and Muslim communities. The compromise ruling gave Hindus control over the area where the now-demolished Babri Mosque stood, and where a makeshift tent-shrine to the Hindu god Rama now rests. Some 2,000 people were killed in 1992 when Hindu hard-liners razed the Babri Mosque built on the site in 1528 by the Mughal emperor Babur.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Iraq a gang using bombs and automatic weapons tried to storm a bank in Baghdad in a failed robbery attempt that left three people dead, including two policemen.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Japanese researchers said they had developed a hybrid vehicle motor that is free of rare earths, the minerals that are now almost exclusively produced by China.
(AFP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel group extended a ceasefire with Turkey by one month in a move it said is aimed at giving a chance to efforts to end a war that has killed 40,000 people.
(Reuters, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Mexico rescuers found more bodies buried by earlier landslides, raising the death toll from a series of slides in the south to at least 36. Another landslide in the town of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag in Oaxaca state buried an 80-year-old man and his 68-year-old wife.
(AFP, 9/30/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Mexico a group of 20 men in Acapulco, visiting from the western city of Morelia, were abducted by an armed gang as they looked for a place to stay. 2 fellow travelers had left the others to go a store and when they returned their companions were gone. On Nov 3 the bodies of the 18 men were found in a mass grave outside Acapulco.
(AP, 10/2/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Sep 30, Doctors Without Borders said Morocco has expelled hundreds of illegal immigrants, including women and children, to a no-man's-land without food or water after violent raids in several cities. The humanitarian group claimed 600 to 700 people were arrested during raids from Aug. 19 to Sept. 10 and abandoned near the Morocco-Algeria border.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Lawyers said courts in military-ruled Myanmar have given long prison sentences to 13 people, including a Buddhist monk, who were accused of planning bombings and other activities to disrupt upcoming elections.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Pakistani troops fired warning shots at the two NATO helicopters, which responded with a pair of missiles that destroyed the post, killed 2 of the soldiers and wounded the 4 others. Pakistan then blocked a vital supply route for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan in apparent retaliation for the alleged cross-border helicopter strike. On Oct 6 the US apologized for the deaths and wounding of the Pakistani paramilitary troops.
(AP, 9/30/10)(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 30, Puerto Rico police charged a couple with repeatedly raping their six children and forcing them to participate in drug-fueled orgies. Police said the alleged abuse occurred daily from 2001 to 2004. The three girls were 3, 5 and 7 years old at the time. The boys were 9, 10 and 11.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Sweden activists from Nepal, Nigeria, Brazil and Israel were named the winners of this year's Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "alternative Nobel," for work that included fighting to save the Amazon rain forest and bringing health care to Palestinians cut off from services. The recipients included Nigeria's Nnimmo Bassey (42), Catholic Bishop Erwin Kraeutler (71) of Brazil, Shrikrishna Upadhyay (65) of Nepal, and the organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, The UN's drug agency said Afghanistan's opium production has fallen by almost half in 2010 due largely to the spread of a disease that damaged poppy plants, but the amount of land used for growing the crop remained the same after two years of declines.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, Zimbabwe's Pres. Mugabe told foreign investors that they must accept black Zimbabweans as the major shareholders in their projects, or stay away from the southern African nation.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep, The FBI and its counterparts in Ukraine, the Netherlands and Britain took down a cyber-theft ring they first got wind of in May 2009 when a financial services firm tipped the bureau's Omaha, Neb., office to suspicious transactions. Since then, the FBI's Operation Trident Breach has uncovered losses of $14 million and counting.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Sep, In Croatia Mladen Barisic, a former treasurer of the ruling Croatia Democratic Union (HDZ) was arrested. He told investigators that he used to bring former PM Ivo Sanader large bags of cash channeled from public companies that the pair indirectly controlled.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.60)
2010 Sep, In India Kalamandalam Hemaletha danced for 123 hours in Thrissur, Kerala state. She had practiced an Indian classical dance for 10 hours a day and ran for 28 miles (45 km) to build her stamina. Guinness World Records confirmed the record on Jan 6, 2011.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2010 Sep, Italian police early this month arrested a Frenchman (28) of Algerian origin suspected of having links with Al-Qaida.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Sep, Kazakhstan completed a restructure of its banking system, brought on its banking crisis in Feb, 2009. The majority of creditors of BTA Bank shared the pain.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.82)
2010 Sep, In Pakistan grainy a nearly six-minute video clip came to light, believed to have been recorded in Swat, showing men in Pakistani military uniforms lining up six blindfolded men in civilian clothes, then shooting them. After a voice says "finish them one by one," one apparent soldier walks over to the men and shoots them again. The other, 53-second clip shows only the executions. An inquiry was ordered on Oct 8.
(AP, 10/2/12)
2010 Sep, Peruvian police officers raided a printing press in Lima's San Juan de Lurigancho district. The operation tallied six different currencies producing just above $27 million. Fake US $100 bills accounted for nearly one-third of the total, while euros accounted for another $4 million. The rest of the bills were Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Venezuelan currency.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101126/wl_time/08599203215200)
Go to Oct 2010
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
End of file
