Timeline 2013 October - December
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2013 Oct 1, Obamacare, Pres. Obama’s health insurance exchanges, were launched. The launch was plagued with glitches.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.38)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.30)
2013 Oct 1, The US Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown as a protracted dispute over President Barack Obama's signature health care law reached a boiling point, forcing some 800,000 federal workers off the job. Obama readied a midday statement to the nation as Democrats and Republicans maintained a blame-each-other duel on Capitol Hill.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Three Venezuelan diplomats were ordered out of the United States in response to their government's decision to boot three US officials from Venezuela, including the highest-ranking US envoy in the country.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, California’s Safer Consumer Products Regulations law went into effect. It was designed to educate consumers about harmful chemicals in products.
(SFC, 9/28/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 1, Colorado teenager Austin Reed Sigg (18), who confessed to abducting, killing and dismembering a 10-year-old girl last year, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault and also to the botched kidnapping of a female jogger months before the killing.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Michigan finalized a deal to lease Detroit’s 983-acre Bell Isle park for 30 years.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.32)
2013 Oct 1, The 70-year-old NYC Opera announced it was shutting down and would file for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.34)
2013 Oct 1, Wells Fargo, the largest US home lender, said it has agreed to an $869 million settlement with Freddie Mac to resolved disputes over faulty loans before January 2009.
(SFC, 10/2/13, p.C1)
2013 Oct 1, A Bangladesh court sentenced to death a top opposition MP for genocide. Salauddin Quader Chowdhury became the first lawmaker to be convicted of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Dagestan 4 suspected militants, 3 policemen and 3 mountain guides were killed in a shootout during a random patrol some 50 km south of Makhachkala.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 1, A judge in Ecuador ordered the arrest of three retired senior military officers and the house arrest of seven more on charges of committing crimes against humanity almost 30 years ago.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Officers with France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency arrested a Paris woman (21) suspected of possible links to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed five police in in Tikrit, as an Al-Qaeda front group claimed a wave of deadly bombings.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Italian police arrested five Syrians and two Egyptians suspected of throwing overboard 13 asylum-seekers who drowned while attempting to swim ashore off Italy's coast.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, The International Criminal Court at The Hague unsealed a warrant for the arrest of Charles Ble Goude (40), ex-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo's youth leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity amid a bloody election standoff some three years ago.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe declared that he would raise the consumption tax in Arpil from 5% to 8%.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.43)
2013 Oct 1, In western Libya a gas pipeline supplying several power stations was cut for the third day running by Berber activists demanding constitutional rights.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Myanmar security forces raced to contain deadly violence in Rakhine state, after mobs torched Muslim homes and Buddhist villagers were attacked in a third day of unrest in a region plagued by intractable sectarian tensions. At least 7 people were killed, 5 of them Muslims. Mobs burned down at least 100 homes and shops in Thandwe city.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)(SFC, 10/2/13, p.A2)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 1, A judge in Qatar ordered an American couple, Matthew and Grace Huang, to remain jailed pending trial on charges of starving to death their 8-year-old adopted daughter. The couple claims the girl died in January from medical problems complicated by anorexia-like bouts.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, An advance group of international inspectors arrived in Syria to begin the ambitious task of overseeing the destruction of President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons program. Heavy clashes between Syrian troops and al-Qaida-linked fighters in northern Damascus killed at least 12 soldiers and pro-government militiamen.
(AP, 10/1/13)(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Russia Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, an imprisoned member of the punk band Pussy Riot, ended her 9-day hunger strike to protest working conditions at the women’s prison where she is serving 2-year sentence.
(SFC, 10/2/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 1, Tajikistan's parliament ratified a deal with Russia to extend by three decades Moscow's military presence in the Central Asian nation. A forthcoming vote in the docile upper house is seen as a formality in Tajikistan, where Pres. Imomali Rakhmon wields vast powers.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, A Thai court sentenced Sondhi Limthongkul, the founder of a pro-royalist protest movement, to 2 years in jail for insulting the monarchy by repeating comments deemed offensive made by a political rival.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Thailand authorities said flooding over the last two weeks has killed 23 people. 32 of the country’s 77 provinces were affected.
(SFC, 10/2/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 1, The Vatican bank, dogged for decades by scandals and opaque dealings, published the first annual report in its 125-year history.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Vietnam authorities said Typhoon Wutip has left a trail of destruction with at least 5 people dead, dozens of fishermen missing in the South China Sea and thousands of homes damaged.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Yemen al-Qaeda gunmen were still holding hostages at an army headquarters in Mukalla, a day after the army was said to have recaptured the building.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 2, The US government shutdown entered a 2nd day with no end in sight to the funding row in Congress that triggered it. President Obama met with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress to try to break a budget deadlock that has shut wide swaths of the federal government, but there was no breakthrough and both sides blamed each other.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, The United States and South Korea signed a new pact to deter North Korea's potential use of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction amid growing threats from Pyongyang.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, FBI agents in San Francisco arrested Ross William Ulbricht (29) at the Glen Park library and accused him of being the “Dread Prince Roberts," the once-anonymous mastermind behind an online drug marketplace known as Silk Road. Ulbricht used Bitcoin virtual currency for transactions and was indicted in Manhattan on Feb 4, 2014.
(SFC, 10/3/13, p.A1)(SFC, 2/5/14, p.A8)
2013 Oct 2, H. Ty Warner (69), billionaire creator of the Beanie Babies, pleaded guilty to a tax evasion charge in a Chicago court.
(SFC, 10/3/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 2, Tom Clancy (b.1947), best-selling author of military thrillers, died in Baltimore. His career took off with the publication of “The Hunt for Red October" (1985).
(SFC, 10/3/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 2, Three Afghan army soldiers died and four were wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Helmand province.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Albania said it has signed on former British PM Tony Blair as an adviser and lobbyist in its uphill struggle to join the 28-nation EU.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Brazilian police used pepper spray to stop hundreds of protesting Indians from storming Congress, clamping down on the second day of indigenous rights marches.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Egypt's interim government decided that insulting the flag and refusing to stand for the national anthem is an offense punishable by law. A high school student was killed when opponents and supporters of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi clashed in the city of Suez.
(AP, 10/2/13)(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, The Gambian government announced that the former British colony is pulling out of the Commonwealth with immediate effect, saying it would "never be a member of any neo-colonial institution."
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission (KPK) detained Akil Mochtar, the chief justice of the contitutional court, and seized almost $260,000 in cash. KPK said the money was a bribe to rig a court ruling over a disputed district election.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.52)
2013 Oct 2, In Iraq gunmen downed at dawn a military helicopter north of Baghdad during clashes, killing its 5-member crew. 4 militants were killed in the gunbattle outside the city of Tikrit. In Kirkuk a car bomb went off in a commercial area, killing one civilian and wounding 13 others.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Italy Silvio Berlusconi acknowledged defeat and announced he would support the government of Premier Enrico Letta in a confidence vote, a stunning about-face after defections in his party robbed him of the backing he needed to bring down the government.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, The International Criminal Court said it has issued an arrest warrant for Walter Barasa, a Kenyan journalist in Deputy President William Ruto’s political stronghold of Eldoret, for trying to bribe witnesses to withdraw testimony against Ruto.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Gunmen shot dead a Libyan marine colonel in city of Benghazi where militants have increasingly targeted security forces in a challenge to central government control.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Libya security guards fired shots to disperse a group of about 60 people who tried to storm the Russian embassy. One of the attackers was killed by the gunfire. Unconfirmed reports said that a Russian woman had murdered a Libyan.
(AP, 10/2/13)(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Lithuania’s foreign minister said his country could block Russia's road and rail access to its enclave of Kaliningrad if Moscow keeps pressuring its neighbors over their ties to the European Union.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Mali freed 23 prisoners arrested in clashes in the north, as part of a deal signed between the government and rebels in June.
(AFP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Mexico protesters clashed with riot police in Mexico City, leaving dozens injured as thousands of people marched to mark the anniversary of a massacre of students in 1968.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Pakistan two soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb near Awaran, a town near the Sep 24 quake epicenter. The military said they were there to distribute humanitarian aid. A separatist commander in Baluchistan threatened o step up attacks on security forces. Rebels have accused the central government of stealing the province's rich mineral deposits and the security forces of widespread human rights abuses.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Masked executioners in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip hanged a man who was convicted of stabbing to death an acquaintance over money, ignoring protests by human rights activists who say the territory's legal system is flawed.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Polish police said they have located Rev. Wojciech Gil, a priest sought by Interpol on suspicion he sexually abused children in the Dominican Republic, where he led a parish in the mountain town of Juncalito for eight years.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Russian investigators charged 14 Greenpeace campaigners with piracy over an open-sea protest against Arctic oil drilling.
(AFP, 10/2/13)(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Ukrainian police fired tear gas to disperse protesters trying to enter the city council building in the capital Kiev. Thousands of opposition protesters had gathered to rally against what they say is an illegitimate council session.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, The UN refugee agency said 17 countries including the United States, France and Australia have agreed to receive quotas of refugees fleeing the bloody conflict in Syria.
(AFP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, A Vietnam court jailed Le Quoc Quan, a prominent human rights activist, for two and a half years after finding him guilty on tax evasion charges supporters say were aimed at muzzling critics of the Communist Party.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, A Yemeni court jailed five Al-Qaeda militants for up to 10 years for plotting a suicide bombing that killed 86 soldiers and wounded 171 others last year. Yemeni forces announced they had retaken control of army headquarters in Mukalla, killing the Al-Qaeda gunmen holed up there. At least 10 people including 3 soldiers were killed in the offensive.
(AFP, 10/2/13)(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, The United States and Japan agreed to modernize their defense alliance for the first time in 16 years to address growing concerns about North Korea's nuclear program, global terrorism, cyber intrusions and other 21st century threats.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, The US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins said North Korea’s main nuclear complex was discharging hot wastewater in a further sign that the country has restarted its Soviet-era nuclear reactor.
(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 3, The United States slapped sanctions on Rwanda over the use of child soldiers by rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo which Kigali is accused of backing.
(AFP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Washington DC a dramatic car chase through the streets near the White House to the US Capitol ended in gunfire when law enforcement officers shot and killed the driver as lawmakers and aides huddled in a lockdown. The car involved in the chase was registered to Miriam Carey (34) of Connecticut. A one-year-old girl in the car was unhurt.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 3, Bill Eppridge (b.1938)), American photo-journalist, died in Connecticut. His work included the book: “A Time It Was – Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties" (2008).
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.C11)
2013 Oct 3, A Bahrain court jailed four Shiites for life after convicting them of detonating a bomb targeting police that wounded an Asian man.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, China’s state media said swarms of hornets have killed 42 people in the northwest in recent months. Hua Baozhen, a professor of entomology at Northwest Agriculture Forestry University, attributed the attacks mostly to a decrease in the number of the hornets' natural enemies, such as spiders and birds, due to ecological changes.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party, was sent to jail pending trial on criminal charges, the first time an elected party chief has been put behind bars since a military coup nearly five decades ago.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)(Econ, 10/5/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 3, Hong Kong officials said customs agents have seized 189 elephant tusks, valued at about $1.5 million, in the city’s 3rd biggest bust of endangered species products in three months.
(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 3, An Indian court sentenced Lalu Prasad Yadav, a powerful ally of the ruling Congress party, to five years in jail for siphoning off state funds, underlining that a wave of public disgust with rampant corruption is finally catching up with the nation's politicians.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Iraq a bomb exploded near a football field, killing 5 people and wounding at least 11 in Madain.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, A smuggler's boat, carrying migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia, capsized off Italy’s southern island of Lampedusa. 160 bodies were soon recovered and 155 people rescued. 366 lives were lost. On Nov 8 police said dozens of the asylum-seekers had been raped and tortured in Libya before starting their journey. Three traffickers were under arrest.
(AP, 10/3/13)(AP, 10/4/13)(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Kenya Sheikh Ibrahim Omar was shot dead in Mombasa. He preached at a mosque that has in the past been linked to the Somali al Shabaab Islamists who claimed responsibility for the shopping center attack.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 3, Madagascar police said a crowd burned two Europeans and a local man alive on the Nosy Be tourist island because they suspected them of trafficking human organs after a dead child was found on a beach. 26 people were soon arrested in the case.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)(AFP, 10/5/13)(AFP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Nigeria a chartered airplane nosedived into the ground and burst into flames meters from tanks of aviation fuel, killing 11 people shortly after taking off from Lagos. The plane was carrying mourners and the body of former Ondo state Gov. Olusegun Agagu, who died on Sep 13. The next day Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority suspended all the operations of Lagos-based Associated Airline.
(AP, 10/3/13)(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 3, Pakistan said it has scrapped plans to reinstate the death penalty, following threats by Taliban militants to step up attacks in retaliation. At least 15 people were killed in an attack on a pro-government militia commander in the Orakzai tribal area.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 3, Palestinian farmers, after a long court battle, reclaimed land they lost to an Israeli settlement in the 1970s. Israel had dismantled Homesh and three other West Bank settlements in 2005, in connection with a wider withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but refused to let the original Palestinian landowners return.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, Officials said Portugal has passed the latest test of its compliance with the terms of its bailout and qualified for around 5.5 billion euros ($7.5 billion) in further funding from creditors.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, Russian investigators charged 16 more crew members of a Greenpeace ship with piracy for a protest at a Russian oil platform in the Arctic. All 30 crew members from 17 countries now faced 15-year prison terms if convicted.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Syria experts tasked with implementing the UN resolution ordering the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal began work, as the world body demanded access to civilians trapped by the conflict.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Syria six of the most powerful rebel factions issued a joint statement telling an Al-Qaeda front group (ISIL) to withdraw from the northern town of Azaz bordering Turkey. In a separate statement, rebels in central Syria also called on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to leave Homs province.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 4, In San Francisco the 13th edition of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival began its 3-day run in Golden Gate Park.
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A11)
2013 Oct 4, In NYC Avonte Oquendo (14), an autistic boy, walked away from his school in Queens. His body was found in parts in the East River in January. On Jan 26 NY Senator Chuck Schumer proposed legislation to fund voluntary tracking devices for children with autism.
(SFC, 1/27/14, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/m3kcsg7)
2013 Oct 4, In Washington DC a man set himself on fire in the National Mall. Passers-by rushed over to douse the flames. John Constantino (64) had suffered from mental illness and died of his burns at a hospital.
(SFC, 10/5/13, p.A6)(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A10)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 4, China and Malaysia agreed elevate bilateral ties to a "comprehensive strategic partnership", aiming to boost military cooperation and nearly triple two-way trade to $160 billion by 2017.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Egypt thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, defying a crackdown, marched through a Cairo suburb. Hundreds of supporters of Egypt's deposed President Mohamed Mursi clashed with their opponents as they tried to enter Tahrir Square in central Cairo, and police fired tear gas to disperse them. Masked gunmen fired on a military vehicle near Ismailiya, killing one soldier and wounding an officer and another soldier.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)(AFP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Guinea's political opposition demanded that the results from last weekend's legislative election be invalidated, citing fraud and irregularities.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Ireland held a nationwide referendum to abolish the country's Senate. Proponents said the upper house wields no essential powers and its closure could save taxpayers 20 million euros ($27 million) annually. Voters rejected the referendum with a 51.7% no vote.
(AP, 10/5/13)(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 4, Israel condemned a pronouncement by a European advisory council against male ritual circumcision, a practice that Jewish leaders consider central to their faith. In a non-binding resolution this week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said circumcision was "a violation of the physical integrity of children."
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Kenya young Muslims set fire to a church, burned tires and clashed with police in the main port city of Mombasa, after the killing of an Islamic cleric his followers blamed on security forces.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Norway said will slightly reduce its aid to Afghanistan from next year, signaling to Kabul that it has not done enough to combat corruption and violence against women.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Poland's Catholic Church said it will not pay compensation to victims of priests who sexually abused children. Rev. Jozef Kloch said in comments aired by Polish Radio 1 that the responsibility for compensation lies with the perpetrator.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Russia's Investigative Committee said it has confiscated 57,000 diamonds and 19 kg (42 pounds) of jewelry from Yevgenia Vasilyeva, a former defense ministry official, in an ongoing investigation into corruption charges. Vasilyeva was charged in 2012 with fraud related to the sale of military assets.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Syria al-Qaida militants battled fighters linked to the Western-backed opposition along with Kurdish gunmen in towns along the Turkish border, in clashes that killed at least 19 people.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Vietnam Vo Nguyen Giap (102), a brilliant and ruthless self-taught general, died in Hanoi. He drove the French out of Vietnam to free it from colonial rule and later forced the Americans to abandon their grueling effort to save the country from communism.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, The World Health Organization said the global number of infections with the deadly MERS virus has risen to 136, after hard-hit Saudi Arabia confirmed six new cases.
(AFP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 5, Thomas Momson, head of the Mormon Church, said that worldwide membership in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints has reached 15 million.
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 5, Latif Mehsud, a senior Pakistani Taliban commander, was arrested by American forces in eastern Logar province's district of Mohammad Agha. The Washington Post reported on Oct 11 that he was forcibly snatched from an Afghan government convoy in Logar province several weeks ago as Afghan officials were trying to recruit him to launch peace talks.
(AP, 10/11/13)(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 5, In southern Afghanistan a gunman, possibly a private security guard, shot dead a member of the US-led international coalition before himself being killed.
(AP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez (60) was told by doctors to take a month off because of a subdural hematoma on her brain, forcing her to abandon campaigning for important congressional elections taking place later this month.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Colombia a twin-engine turboprop plane crashed while on a US counter-drug mission, killing 3 American contractors and a Panamanian aboard. It had been tracking a suspected smuggling vessel over the western Caribbean when it lost radio contact.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Iraq attacks across the country killed 56 people. This included two television journalists, killed by unidentified gunmen, as they were filming in the northern city of Mosul. The journalists worked for television channel al-Sharqiya News, which is often critical of the government and is popular among the Sunni minority. 51 people were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad.
(AP, 10/5/13)(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 5, Italian state news media reported that filmmaker Carlo Lizzani (91), a much-lauded protagonist of Italian Neorealism, has died. The Academy of Italian Cinema awarded him best director for his 1968 film "The Violent Four" about a manhunt for bank robbers.
(AP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Libya gunmen attacked a military post near Bani Walid, a former stronghold of supporters of Muammar Gaddafi, killing 16 soldiers.
(AFP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Libya the US Army’s Delta Force seized Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai (1964-2015), aka Abu Anas al-Libi, outside his Tripoli home and whisked him out of the country. The senior al-Qaida militant is accused by the US of involvement in the Aug 7, 1998, bombings of two American embassies in Africa.
(AP, 10/6/13)(SSFC, 1/3/15, p.A5)
2013 Oct 5, In Mali Tuareg separatists said they were rejoining the peace process in northern Mali, just over a week after they pulled out and accused Bamako of not respecting the terms of a truce signed in June.
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Mexico at least 8 people, including 3 children, were killed and 79 were wounded when a monster truck careened into a crowd at a show at the El Rejon dam on the outskirts of Chihuahua.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Nigeria suspected Islamic militants lured the faithful to a mosque then gunned them down. The gunmen killed at least 7 people before being attacked by soldiers guarding Damboa village. 15 attackers were reported killed.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 5, Russia shrugged off Dutch legal action over its detention and prosecution of Greenpeace activists for piracy, saying the group's protest at an Arctic oil platform had been "pure provocation."
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Somalia a commando unit from the US Navy’s Seal Team Six carried out a pre-dawn strike against foreign fighters in Barawe. The US troops were faced with heavier-than-expected return fire, and pulled out to avoid civilian casualties. The raid’s target was Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, a Kenyan of Somali origin who is a foreign fighter commander for the Islamist Shebab group.
(AP, 10/5/13)(AP, 10/6/13)(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Spain tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a crackdown on an association that aids jailed members of armed Basque separatist group ETA.
(AFP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, Syrian government forces shelled al-Mitras, a vulnerable Sunni community in a coastal province dominated by President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, raising fears that residents of the isolated town could face mass killings by pro-Damascus militias. Government forces reached an agreement with local officials to stop the shelling of Mitras in exchange for the surrender of dozens of opposition fighters.
(AP, 10/5/13)(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A8)
2013 Oct 6, In southern Afghanistan 4 US soldiers were killed by an IED during a NATO operation.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)(SFC, 10/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 6, In Afghanistan Germany handed control of a key military base in the country's northern province of Kunduz to Afghan security forces. German troops had spent almost a decade there as part of the international effort to combat Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, CAR officials said 14 people have been killed in violent clashes that began last week between Christians and Muslims in the isolated town of Bangassou.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In China about 60 people were injured when security forces fired into a crowd of Tibetan residents who were demanding the release of a fellow villager detained for protesting orders to display the national flag. Police also fired tear gas at those protesting in Biru county in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Egypt dozens of people were killed in clashes across the country between security forces and supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. 48 people died in Cairo and 9 in other parts of the country.
(AFP, 10/6/13)(Reuters, 10/7/13)(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 6, Iran's nuclear chief said that authorities arrested four workers in an alleged sabotage plot involving one of the country's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In northern Iraq suicide car bombers attacked an elementary school and a police station in Qabak, a small Shiite Turkomen village. The dead included 12 children, the school principal and 2 policemen. Another on foot detonated his payload among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. Attacks altogether killed at least 33 people.
(AP, 10/6/13)(SFC, 10/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 6, In Morocco thousands of unemployed graduates marched through Rabat demanding jobs in the public sector, weeks before parliament is due to debate planned budget cuts.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Syria at least 8 people were killed by mortar fire that hit a Christian neighbourhood in central Damascus. Government forces reopened a key road leading to the embattled northern city of Aleppo after heavy fighting with rebels that left casualties on both sides.
(AFP, 10/6/13)(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Syria international inspectors began the enormous task of destroying Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons and the machinery used to create it.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Yemen gunmen shot dead a German security guard employed by the German embassy as he was leaving a market in Sanaa.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 7, Two Americans and a German-American won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering how key substances are transported within cells, a process involved in such important activities as brain cell communication and the release of insulin. James Rothman (62) of Yale University, Randy Schekman (64) of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dr. Thomas Sudhof (57) of Stanford University shared the $1.2 million prize for their research on how tiny bubbles called vesicles act as cargo carriers inside cells.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, SF announced that Marc Benioff, head of Salesforce.com, will donate $2.7 million to the city’s 12 middle schools.
(SFC, 10/7/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 7, A record-breaking storm dropped 4 feet of snow in parts of South Dakota and left over 22,000 homes and businesses without electricity. Tens of thousands of cattle died in South Dakota. The storm also buried parts of Wyoming and Colorado and spawned tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa. At least 4 people died due to the storm.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 7, Bahrain sentenced nine people to life in prison after trial on charges of bomb-making in the restive Gulf nation.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Brazil thousands marched in Rio de Janeiro to support teachers seeking pay hikes before masked anarchists turned to violence, setting fires, breaking into buildings and smashing a City Hall gate.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, Britain launched its new National Crime Agency (NCA) and unveiled a revamped strategy to combat serious organized crime, which it says costs the country 24 billion pounds ($38.6 billion) and represents a threat to national security.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In the Central Africa Republic self-defence groups began attacking the village of Garga, leaving 3 dead and a dozen injured.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, Typhoon Fitow barrelled into China's east coast, packing winds of more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) an hour, after hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and bullet train services were suspended.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, Colombia imposed temporary tariffs and quotas on imports of potatoes, onions, beans, tomatoes, powdered milk, fresh cheese, milk and whey to help alleviate protests by farmers over expensive fertilizers and free trade deals.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 7, Colombia's state oil company Ecopetrol said its second most important oil pipeline, the Cano Limon-Covenas, has been temporarily shut down after three bomb attacks. Security forces attributed the attacks to leftist guerrillas.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Cyprus an independent judicial inquiry said former communist president, Demetris Christofias, and his government bear chief blame for the island's financial meltdown in March after they failed to control spending and behaved in an imperious manner.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Egypt suspected militants killed 6 soldiers near the Suez Canal and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a state satellite station in Cairo. A car bombing hit the security headquarters in el-Tor near the tourist resorts of southern Sinai, killing 3 policemen and wounding dozens.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, A French oceanographic vessel rescued 29 Syrian refugees, part of a group of 363 asylum-seekers that have landed in Italy in the past 24 hours.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In France Patrice Chereau (68), a celebrated actor and director in film, theater and opera, died. He was renowned for cutting-edge productions.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Greece Akis Tsochadzopoulos (73), former Greek defense minister, was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty o money laundering. 16 of 18 co-defendants were also found guilty.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 7, In Hong Kong a 118-carat white diamond, discovered in the rough in 2011 in southern Africa, sold at auction for $30.6 million.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 7, The 2-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit opened in Bali, Indonesia. At its end leaders agreed that that the Doha round of global trade talks were at an impasse and urged trade ministers to reconvene in December to get negotiations back on track.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A4)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 7, In Libya dozens of unarmed soldiers occupied the prime minister's office in Tripoli to demand unpaid wages.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, The Maldives Supreme Court annulled the results of the September 7 presidential election and scheduled a fresh vote for October 20 after a candidate challenged the outcome, citing irregularities. Earlier in the day masked men burst into the Raajje TV studio in Male, stabbed a security guard and set the place ablaze. Raajje was alligned with the oppposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).
(Reuters, 10/7/13)(Econ, 10/12/13, p.52)
2013 Oct 7, In northern Mali suspected radical Islamic militants fired a series of mortar shells on Gao, marking the first such attack in months after the French-led military operation drove the jihadists from power. Suspected Islamic militants set off explosions at two bridges near Ansongo.
(AP, 10/7/13)(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, Dutch coastguards scrambled helicopters and divers to search for three sailors missing in the North Sea after their ship sank following a collision with a fishing trawler.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Pakistan a bomb exploded next to a van carrying security guards tasked with protecting workers involved in an anti-polio drive in the village of Malikhel, about 20 km outside Peshawar, killing 2 people.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, Russia suspended imports of dairy products from neighboring Lithuania, turning up trade pressure on the European Union member weeks before it hosts a summit that could pull former Soviet republics further from Moscow's orbit.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, UN leader Ban Ki-moon said about 100 international experts will have to spend up to a year in Syria destroying its chemical weapons in a mission of unprecedented danger.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, A new US $100 note went into circulation with new features to fight back against counterfeiters.
(SFC, 9/25/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 8, In San Francisco an engineering staff member discovered the body of Lynne Spalding (57), during a quarterly check of a stairwell, 17 days after she went missing at SF General Hospital. In December 2014 San Francisco and the Univ. of California tentatively agreed to pay a total of $3 million to settle a claim by her family.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A1)(SFC, 12/13/14, p.C4)
2013 Oct 8, Albanian police seized more than 1,000 stolen religious and secular pieces of art dating from the 15th to the mid-20th century, and arrested two men suspected of planning to sell them abroad.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 8, Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics for their theory on how the most basic building blocks of the universe acquire mass.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In Argentina doctors drilled into President Cristina Fernandez's skull to siphon out blood that is pressuring her brain two months after she suffered an unexplained head injury.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, British pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline said it would seek regulatory approval next year for RTS,S, a vaccine that has shown positive results against malaria in children.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.94)
2013 Oct 8, In the Central Africa Republic at least 30 people died and dozens more were injured in clashes between ex-rebels of the Seleka coalition and local self-defence groups in Garga.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In China Akong Tulku Rinpoche, a prominent monk who fled Tibet in 1959 and co-founded the West's first Tibetan monastery (Samye Ling in Scotland), was killed along with two other people in Chengdu. Police said three Tibetan men visited a house where the trio were staying and stabbed them to death in an argument over money. In 2016 a Chinese court sentenced two men to death for killing Rinpoche.
(AFP, 10/9/13)(AP, 1/31/16)
2013 Oct 8, European lawmakers approved sweeping new regulations governing the multibillion-dollar tobacco market, including bigger warnings on cigarette packs and a ban on menthol and other flavorings in a bid to further curb smoking. They stopped short, however, of tough limits on electronic cigarettes.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In India blackouts hit emergency services and industry in parts of Andhra Pradesh state, the third day of a strike by public workers protesting against a government decision to split the southern state in two.
(Reuters, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In Iran Mahdi Khazali (48), a surgeon, blogger and veteran activist, said a court has sentenced him to six years in prison over security charges.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, Divers in Italy recovered 18 more bodies, bringing the total to 250, from the Oct 3 shipwreck in which only 155 of the estimated 500 African asylum seekers, most if not all from Eritrea, survived.
(AFP, 10/7/13)(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 8, Kenyan customs officers seized 2 tons of elephant ivory in a shipments bound for Turkey. This followed a similar seizure on Oct 4.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 8, The Maldives government urged all parties to support fresh elections after the Supreme Court annulled last month's results, even though international observers had said those polls were free and fair.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, Myanmar’s Pres. Thein Sein pardoned 56 political prisoner, after the country vowed to release all prisoners of conscience by the end of the year.
(AFP, 10/8/13)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 8, A Saudi court sentenced a preacher convicted of raping his five-year-old daughter and torturing her to death to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. The court also ordered Fayhan al-Ghamdi to pay his ex-wife, the girl's mother, one million riyals ($270,000) in "blood money." Ghamdi's second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, It was reported that fighting in Sudan between rival tribes over the Jebel Amer gold mine, that stretches for some 10 km (six miles) beneath the sandy hills of North Darfur, has killed more than 800 people and displaced some 150,000 others since January.
(Reuters, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, Turkey lifted a 90-year-old ban on Islamic headscarves in the civil service as part of wide-ranging reforms driven by the Islamic-rooted government.
(AFP, 10/8/13)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 9, Three US-based scientists won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing powerful computer models that researchers use to understand complex chemical interactions and create new drugs. Research in the 1970s by Martin Karplus (83), Michael Levitt (66) and Arieh Warshel (72) has led to programs that unveil chemical processes such as how exhaust fumes are purified or how photosynthesis takes place in green leaves.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, US President Barack Obama nominated economist Janet Yellen to lead the Federal Reserve in a move expected to sustain the central bank's easy money policies and efforts to curb joblessness.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, The US said it is poised stopped shipments of some large-scale military systems as well as halting $260 million in cash aid to Egyptian military leaders, who ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi in July.
(AFP, 10/10/13)(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 9, In the US 2 men were executed, one in Arizona and the other in Texas, with a drug not yet approved by federal authorities, after the Supreme Court denied one of the inmate's final appeal.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that expands the definition of who can provide abortions to include nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and physician assistants.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 9, Stanley Kaufman (97), film and theater critic for the New Republic, died in Manhattan.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 9, In West Virginia Thomas J. Piccard (55), an ex-police officer, was shot dead after he peppered a courthouse in Wheeling with gunfire.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 9, In southern Afghanistan a suicide car bombing killed four people, 2 civilians and 2 policemen in Helmand province.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann's Social Democrats (SPO) got the task of forming a new government and hoped to rebuild their alliance with the conservatives to stave off the eurosceptic far right.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Azerbaijan held elections. An exit poll showed President Ilham Aliyev (51) was on track to easily win a third term with 84% of the vote in the oil-exporting ex-Soviet republic. His main opponent said the election was marred by violations. Official results the next day showed Aliyev winning nearly 85% of the vote.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Bangladesh a huge fire at a factory in Sriput, whose workers were making clothes and fabrics for top Western labels, killed at least 9 people in the latest disaster to blight the country's garment industry.
(AFP, 10/9/13)(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Sex workers in the legendary London district of Soho demonstrated in carnival masks and negligees against evictions they claim threaten their safety and the unique nature of the area.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Brunei the leaders of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (APEC) met for their annual 2-day East Asia Summit. Members first gathered together before holding group discussions with non-member partners, including the US, China, Japan, South Korea and India.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Canada Paul Desmarais Sr. (88), one of the country’s richest and most influential men, died. The self-made billionaire transformed an ailing family-owned bus company into a $271 billion global conglomerate, and was a friend to four Canadian prime ministers.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In the Central African Republic government forces arrested Mahamat Amine, a rogue ex-rebel commander, and six of his men. Another ex-Seleka warlord known as "Colonel Abdallah," who had been ruling over the eastern town of Bangassou, was arrested together with four of his lieutenants and transferred to Bangui.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 9, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for a South China Sea of "peace, friendship and cooperation" as he extended a hand in Brunei to APEC leaders wary of Beijing's territorial claims in the strategic waters.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, International observers said irregularities took place in a number of districts in Guinea's parliamentary election last month, possibly harming the credibility of the results.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, The head of the European Commission announced during a visit to Lampedusa that Italy would receive an additional 30 million euros ($40 million) in EU funds to help settle and receive new refugees, after the sinking of a migrant boat off the Sicilian island killed at least 302 people.
(AP, 10/9/13)(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In France Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-year-old Roma girl, was taken off a school bus and deported with her family to Kosovo.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.60)
2013 Oct 9, In Israel residents of Jaloud, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, said masked Jewish settlers burst into a school, vandalized cars and torched olive trees during a rampage that forced schoolchildren to remain locked in classrooms to keep safe.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Kuwait newspapers said a court has sentenced an online activist to two years in prison for insulting the Gulf nation's ruler, in the first case since a blanket pardon for similar offenses last summer.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, The Dutch foreign minister apologized to Moscow for the detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague, saying his right to diplomatic immunity had been violated. Dutch child protection services said earlier they were investigating a complaint from neighbors of diplomat Dmitry Borodin about his treatment of his children.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Nigeria's military raided a bomb factory where Islamic extremists were plotting attacks on the northern city of Kano. At the same time Abubakar Sheka, the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist network, threatened in a video more assaults "soon" using heavy weapons he said were seized in battles against the Nigerian military.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Shell Nigeria said new leaks have forced it to close the Trans-Niger Pipeline that carries 150,000 barrels of crude daily, 10 days after the pipeline was reopened following repairs for leaks.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 9, The Philippines justice minister said fugitive Muslim leader Nur Misuari has been charged with rebellion following deadly attacks by hundreds of his armed followers on Zamboanga. At least 244 people were killed in the three weeks of fighting.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Russian investigators said several of the 30 Greenpeace activists already charged with piracy over an open-sea protest were set to face new charges for "other grave crimes" after finding drugs on their ship.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Credit Suisse reported that a staggering 35% of household wealth in Russia is owned by just 110 people, the highest level of inequality in the world barring a few small Caribbean islands.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Turkey’s Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 237 military officers accused of plotting to overthrow the government in 2003.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 9, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the global development lender will seek to halve extreme poverty by 2020, an interim goal as the bank seeks to fulfill its poverty-fighting targets.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 10, California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued Corinthian Colleges, the owners of Everest, Heald, WyoTech and other facilites accusing them of lying about job-placement rates and misrepresenting programs.
(http://tinyurl.com/q4ou5z7)(SFC, 6/20/14, p.D3)
2013 Oct 10, In Michigan former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in prison for corruption.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 10, Scott Carpenter (88), the 2nd American astronaut to orbit the Earth (1962), died in Denver.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 10, In southeastern Virginia 4 people from Florida were killed when their small plane crashed in the Great Dismal Swamp.
(SSFC, 10/13/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 10, More than 700 Australian police swooped on the Hells Angels in a series of heavily-armed raids, seizing guns, drugs and cash, as authorities intensify a crackdown on biker gangs linked to organized crime.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, A Bahraini court sentenced 18 Shiites to between five and seven years in prison after they were convicted of attacking a police station.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Former Belgian PM Wilfried Martens (77) died overnight. Martens was prime minister from April 1979 to April 1981 and from December 1981 to March 1992, leading a total of nine governments. He was one of the architects of Belgium's federal division and a long-time leading figure in the European Parliament.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Britain confirmed that Liberia's former president and warlord Charles Taylor is to serve out his 50-year prison sentence for war crimes in a British jail.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Short story master Alice Munro (82), who captures the everyday lives and epiphanies of men and women in rural Canada with elegant and precise prose, won the Nobel Prize in literature.
(AP, 10/10/13)(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 10, In Egypt a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into a checkpoint outside el-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula and detonated it, killing 3 soldiers and a policeman.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In western Finland Thursday a 16-year-old boy stabbed and seriously injured four people at a vocational training college in Oulu. Three of the victims were women under the age of 20 and the fourth was the school's caretaker, a 21-year-old man.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In Germany pressure grew on Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (53) of Limburg in Hesse state, a German-Romanian Catholic bishop under fire for building an extravagant multi-million-euro residential complex when prosecutors alleged that he also lied under oath.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In India cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, one of the world’s richest sportsmen, announced his retirement.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.48)
2013 Oct 10, Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency said an armed group has killed five members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a Kurdish area near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Iraq's prime minister said his country has signed a $6 billion contract with Swiss company Satarem to build and run an oil refinery in the southern province of Maysan.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 10, The Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague published an arrest warrant for a fifth suspect in the 2005 bombing on the Beirut waterfront that killed Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others, almost tipping the country into civil war. The court said judges had secretly indicted Hassan Habib Merhi on July 31 but had given the Lebanese government time to attempt to arrest the suspect before making the warrant public.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Iraq’s justice ministry said 42 "terrorism" convicts were executed over the past week, defying international condemnation of its extensive use of the death penalty.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Kenyans demanded justice after three men accused of brutally gang raping a school girl (16) and dumping her in a pit latrine were ordered to cut grass as punishment.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Libyan PM Ali Zidan was abducted by gunmen who snatched him from his hotel and held him for several hours in apparent retaliation for a US special forces raid that captured an al-Qaida suspect in the capital last weekend.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Myanmar took a long-coveted role as chairman of ASEAN, the regional grouping of Southeast Asia.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In Nigeria armed gunmen, suspected to be cattle rustlers, killed 10 members of one family before six of the gunmen were shot dead by security forces in central Plateau state.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, North Korea’s sate media confirmed the removal of a hard-line general as its military chief.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 10, Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for education for girls, won the European Union's annual human rights award, beating fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In southwestern Pakistan a bomb exploded outside a police station in a crowded market in Quetta, killing at least 6 people.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, A retrospective of the art of Damien Hirst opened in Doha, Qatar featuring 93 works.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.86)
2013 Oct 10, Saudi authorities beheaded a citizen in the western province of Taif after he was convicted of shooting dead another man.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In Syria fighting flared between Syrian Sunni rebels and foreign militias on the southern edge of Damascus.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 10, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan for the last time before it hands over total responsibility for security to Afghan forces at the end of 2014.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 10, The Venezuelan navy detained the crew of an oil exploration vessel operated by US-based Anadarko Petroleum in waters disputed by the Guyana and Venezuela. The RV Teknik Perdana and its crew were released on Oct 15.
(AP, 10/11/13)(Reuters, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 11, The US Air Force fired Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, the senior officer in charge of its nuclear missiles. A pending investigation was said to be related to alcohol use.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 11, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown approved 11 firearms measures designed to tighten controls on ownership, storage and types of weapons and ammunition available in the state. They included a ban on lead hunting ammunition.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 11, In the SF Bay Area Hayward police arrested 13 people and seized nearly $4 million worth of marijuana after raiding homes in San Leandro, Hayward and San Lorenzo.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.C4)
2013 Oct 11, In Michigan Bobby Ferguson, a friend of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for his role in widespread corruption.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.A9)
2013 Oct 11, Two Utah Boy Scout leaders pushed a large rock off a rock formation at Goblin Valley State Park. Glenn Taylor and Dave Hall said it was loose and feared it was dangerous. They soon faced possible criminal charges and were removed from their posts a Boy Scout leaders.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 11, In Brazil an official report disclosed that the powerful PCC prison gang runs a nationwide criminal business worth $60 million a year with operations extending into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Shares in newly-privatized Royal Mail soared on their stock market debut, bolstering criticism that the company — which traces its five-century history back to King Henry VIII — was undervalued by the British government.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Central African Republic clashes broke out between security forces sent from Bangui to Bomboro, and the 'anti-balaka' self-defence group," leaving 6 dead among the ranks of the vigilante.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, The Egyptian coast guard rescued 72 Palestinians, 40 Syrians and 4 Egyptians when a boat carrying illegal migrants and Syrian refugees sank off Egypt's northern coast. 12 people died.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, France's constitutional council upheld a ban on the energy extraction process known as fracking, two days after the European Parliament voted to require full environmental reports from companies that want to establish hydraulic fracturing sites.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, A French court convicted 26 members of three Croatian Roma families of forcing children to carry out more than 100 robberies in European countries.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In India tens of thousands fled their homes in eastern coastal areas and moved to shelters, bracing for Cyclone Phailin.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Alitalia’s board of directors approved a €500m salvage package. €300m would come from fresh capital and €200m from new credit lines. The government planned to involve the state-owned postal service in the rescue.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 11, In Italy Erich Priebke (100), a former Nazi SS captain, died. He had been sentenced to life in prison for his role in in the 1944 massacre of 335 civilians by Nazi forces at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome.
(AP, 10/11/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.102)
2013 Oct 11, In Japan a fire ripped through a hospital as patients slept killing 10 elderly people. This prompted government demands for safety reviews across the country.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Lebanese singer and composer Wadih Safi (92) died. His strong, clear voice propelled him to fame throughout the Arab world.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In central Mali a boat carrying hundreds of passengers along the Niger River capsized. Only 210 survivors, of an estimated 400 people aboard, were counted. By Oct 19 the body count reached 72.
(AP, 10/12/13)(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 11, An overloaded migrant boat went down off Malta. The next day about 200 shocked survivors were plucked from the sea. Over 30 lives were lost in the latest deadly migrant tragedy to hit the Mediterranean.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In central Nigeria 17 people died and 10 others were injured when the buses in which they were travelling collided with a tanker lorry.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as the global watchdog worked to destroy Syria's stockpiles of nerve gas and other poisonous agents.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Suspected Palestinian militants bludgeoned to death retired army colonel Sarya Ofer in the third killing of Israelis in the West Bank within as many weeks. Three suspects were arreted the next day.
(AFP, 10/11/13)(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 11, A Panamanian official said two Cuban fighter jets seized from a North Korean ship in July were in perfect condition to operate and the 15 plane engines that were found along with them were relatively new and could be used as replacements.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In southeastern Peru a makeshift bus carrying 51 Quechua Indians back from a party plunged off a cliff into a river, killing everyone on board, including 14 children.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Spain former Formula 1 reserve driver Maria de Villota (33) was found dead in a hotel room in Seville.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Sudan some 150 pro-democracy activists and Islamists protested outside Khartoum's Grand Mosque after Friday prayers in the latest of a wave of anti-government demonstrations.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Sudan a Zambian military observer with UNAMID was killed by unidentified assailants in El Fasher, North Darfur state.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, Syrian air force warplanes bombarded rebel-held targets close to a major chemical weapons facility in fighting that highlights the perils facing an international mission to eliminate President Bashar al-Assad's chemical arsenal.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Tunisian security forces and suspected jihadists clashed near Mount Chaambi, a stronghold of militants linked to Al-Qaeda, in the Kasserine area near the Algerian border.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In southern Yemen a suspected al Qaeda militant blew himself up in a market in Lahj province, killing himself and wounding 4. Security officials said militants on a motorcycle have shot and killed an army colonel in the eastern town of Mukalla.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 12, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced they had reached preliminary agreement on a bilateral security pact that now depends on the approval of Afghanistan's tribal leaders.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Oklahoma 5 people were shot at a Hmong New year’s festival in Tulsa. Meng Lee (19) and Boonmlee (21) fled the scene, but were arrested the next day.
(SFC, 10/13/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 12, Oscar Hijuelos (b.1951), Pulitzer Prize winner (1990), died in Manhattan. His 1989 novel “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" became a best seller.
(SFC, 10/15/13, p.C3)
2013 Oct 12, In Azerbaijan thousands gathered in Baku to protest the re-election of President Ilham Aliyev in a vote widely criticized by international election monitors.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Belgium Somali pirate Mohamed Abdi Hassan, better known as "Afweyne" or "Big Mouth", was detained at Brussels airport when he stepped off a flight from Nairobi. He was lured to Brussels on promises of shooting a documentary movie about his life on the high seas.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Colombia a 22-story apartment building collapsed in Medellin. 11 people were reported missing. The building was evacuated after cracks appeared a day earlier.
(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 12, In Ethiopia foreign ministers of the 54-member African Union agreed that sitting heads of state should not be tried by the International Criminal Court where Kenya's leaders are in the dock. They also called for deferring the cases of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto.
(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, Honduras police clashed with local residents during the arrest of Carlos Peralta (22), a man believed responsible for decapitating a 7-year-old boy in the rural town of San Francisco de la Paz. The boy's body was found a day earlier in the town in the Olancho region.
(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, India detained an armed ship operated by a US maritime security company and the 35 people on board for failing to produce papers authorizing it to carry weapons and ammunition in Indian waters. The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Seaman Guard Ohio belongs to Virginia-based AdvanFort, a maritime security firm that specializes in anti-piracy operations.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In India the massive Cyclone Phailin hammered the eastern coastline of Orissa state with heavy rains and destructive winds, as hundreds of thousands of people living in the region moved inland and took shelter. The storm left at least 17 people dead.
(AP, 10/12/13)(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Iraq a pickup truck packed with explosives blew up at an Iraqi vegetable market, killing 17 and wounding dozens.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Italy divers found an additional 20 bodies off the island of Lampedusa, bringing the still provisional death toll from an October 3 shipwreck to 359.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Niger thousands of people protested against French nuclear firm Areva, which has been mining uranium in the impoverished country for nearly 50 years.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, Typhoon Nari pounded the northern Philippines, killing 13 people, ripping roofs off thousands of buildings, and leaving more than two million without power.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, Russian police arrested 67 people after a fight broke out between gay rights activists and their opponents at a demonstration in St. Petersburg.
(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Spain thousands of people gathered in Barcelona to demonstrate against a proposed Catalonia split away from Spain.
(SSFC, 10/13/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 12, In Syria two mortar rounds slammed into the central Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood of Damascus, killing a child and wounding 11 people. Tank shells fired by Syrian government forces slammed into a building in the southern city of Daraa, killing at least 11 people, including women and children.
(AFP, 10/12/13)(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Vietnam a blast at a fireworks factory killed at least 24 people. Police blamed other explosives stored at the site for the accident which also left many injured at the Z121 military facility north of Hanoi.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Yemen thousands of separatists demanding secession took to the streets of Aden to mark the anniversary in 1967 of the independence of former South Yemen.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 13, In eastern Afghanistan an Afghan man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot at US soldiers, killing at least one serviceman. The so-called "insider attack" in Paktika province was the 4th in under a month.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, A detachment of Angolan troops crossed into neighboring Congo Republic and detained a group of Congolese soldiers. The incident highlights tensions around Angola's oil-rich Cabinda enclave, which is separated from the rest of Angola and surrounded by Congo Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo. 55 soldiers of the Republic of Congo were released on Oct 18.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 13, Brazilian officials said at least 12 people were killed and six left missing when a boat carrying Catholic pilgrims capsized on the Amazon River.
(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 13, China’s PM Li Keqiang arrived in Vietnam for a 3-day visit.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.49)
2013 Oct 13, Companies involved in a $1.27 billion project to develop a business district around Britain’s Manchester airpor announced that Chinese construction giant Beijing Construction Engineering Group (BCEG) has signed a deal with British firms to develop the area.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Dubai 3 workers were killed when a crane collapsed at a construction site near the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, An Egyptian army MiG-21 aircraft crashed near the southern city of Luxor, leaving one person dead and three others injured on the ground after the crew ejected.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, Egyptian security officials said James Henry (66), a retired US citizen detained in August for violating curfew in Sinai, was found dead in his jail cell after he used his belt and shoe laces to hang himself.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Ethiopia an explosion killed two people and impacted a home used by US Embassy personnel in Addis Ababa. Two Somali suicide bombers, who had planned to kill soccer fans during Ethiopia's World Cup qualifying match against Nigeria, blew themselves up accidentally.
(AP, 10/13/13)(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, In India at least 115 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede after a bridge collapsed near a remote Hindu temple in Ithe central state of Madhya Pradesh.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)(AP, 10/14/13)(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Iraq a series of bombs killed at least 31 people in mostly Shi'ite Muslim provinces ahead of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. Altogether 11 bombs were detonated by remote control.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, Israel displayed what it called a Palestinian "terror tunnel" running into its territory from the Gaza Strip and said it was subsequently freezing the transfer of building material to the enclave.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In a report published by The Lancet Swiss radiation experts confirmed they found traces of polonium on clothing used by Yasser Arafat (d.2004) supporting the possibility the Palestinian leader was poisoned.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, A number of North Korean officers and sailors died while a submarine chaser was performing "combat duties." At least 19 sailors were believed killed. Photos of stone markers released by state media on Nov 2 showed "Oct. 13" inscribed on them.
(AP, 11/4/13)(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Romania thousands marched across the country to protest against a Canadian company's plans to open a gold mine seen as a threat to the environment, and called for the government's resignation.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Russia a mob of nationalists, joined by locals and pensioners in the Moscow suburb of Biryulyovo, smashed up a vegetable market over the murder of an ethnic Russian by a Caucasian migrant.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.58)
2013 Oct 13, In Saudi Arabia Muslims from across the world poured into a sprawling tent city in the Saudi desert before the start of the annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage. The number of the pilgrims this year has been reduced in part by concerns over a respiratory virus centered in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In South Africa Julius Malema, former head of the ANC’s Youth League, launched his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party in Marikana.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.54)
2013 Oct 13, In Sudan 3 Senegalese UNAMID peacekeepers were killed and one injured in an attack by unidentified gunmen in West Darfur.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, In northwest Syria gunmen kidnapped 7 Red Cross workers after opening fire on their vehicles. 3 ICRC and a Red Crescent colleague were soon released.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, The Vatican beatified 522 people — mostly priests and nuns — who were killed in the turmoil that led to Spain's 1936-39 civil war.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Yemen Faisal al-Mikhlafi, a college professor and brother of a prominent tribal leader, was gunned down in Taiz.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.53)
2013 Oct 14, Three Americans won the Nobel prize for economics for developing methods to study trends in stock, bond and house prices. Eugene Fama (74) showed in the 1960s how hard it is to predict markets in the short run; Robert Shiller (67) two decades later showed how it can be done in the long run; Lars Peter Hansen (60) developed a statistical method to test theories of asset pricing.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, It was announced that the $5 million Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, the world's biggest individual prize, has no winner for the fourth time in five years.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, Antigua and Barbuda PM Baldwin Spencer said citizenship will be sold to int’l. investors. Applications were already being accepted.
(SFC, 10/15/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 14, Australia’s Rio Tinto said the annual sale of its rare pink-hued diamonds attracted unprecedented interest with at least two of the stones fetching record prices of over $2 million.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, China said it would give rewards amounting to 5 billion yuan ($816.91 million) for curbing air pollution in six regions where the problem is serious, underscoring government concern about a source of public anger.
(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, French President Francois Hollande, on a visit to South Africa, announced the signing with South Africa of a $2-billion pact for a thermal power plant in South Africa.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, French authorities detained Davit Kezerashvili, a former Georgian defence minister, wanted in his homeland on corruption charges. Kezerashvili, who also headed the financial police, was charged in January with taking a bribe of $12 million (nine million euros) to facilitate alcohol smuggling in the ex-Soviet nation.
(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 14, Germany blocked the introduction of tougher EU emissions rules for cars. A week earlier Chancellor Angela Merkel's party received a large donation from three major BMW shareholders.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 14, The Indian coast guard rescued 17 sailors whose cargo ship sank during Cyclone Phailin. At least 43 people were killed by the storm.
(AP, 10/14/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 14, A large blast exploded near a Libyan Islamist stronghold east of Tripoli, killing at least two people.
(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, A Malaysian court ruled that a Christian newspaper may not use the word "Allah" to refer to God, a landmark decision on an issue that has fanned religious tension and raised questions over minority rights in the mainly Muslim country.
(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, In the Philippines more than 1.5 million people converged on Manila for a powerful Christian sect's evangelical event, causing traffic chaos that shut down large parts of the megacity. The gathering of the secretive and politically influential Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) forced all schools and some government offices to close.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, Russian police swept through a vegetable warehouse earlier targeted by rioters, rounding up over a thousand migrant workers, checking their documents and loading them onto waiting vans to be investigated for criminal activity on the southern outskirts of Moscow.
(AP, 10/1413)
2013 Oct 14, In Saudi Arabia some 2 million Muslims from nearly 200 countries gathered around Mount Arafat at the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, In Syria a car bombing in Darkoush, a rebel-held northwestern town, killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens, setting cars on fire and sending people running in panic.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, In Syria a 40-foot bronze statue of Jesus went up on the Cherubim mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country's civil war.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 15, Pres. Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to former US Army Capt. William Swenson (34) for his actions to save fellow troops during a lengthy battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2009.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A9)
2013 Oct 15, The city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, agreed to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit with Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee of Omaha, who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 25 years for the 1977 shooting of retired police captain John Schweer.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/9xeb75v)
2013 Oct 15, In Louisiana former Halliburton employee Anthony Badalamenti (62) pleaded guilty to destroying evidence in the aftermath of the 2010 deadly rig explosion that spawned BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 15, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb planted inside a mosque microphone killed Logar province Gov. Arsallah Jamal (47) as he was delivering a speech to worshippers to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. 15 people were wounded. A British soldier was shot whilde on patrol in Helmand Province and died from his injuries at the scene.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Mining magnate Andrew Forrest pledged to give 65 million Australian dollars ($62 million) to university education in his home state in one of Australia's largest philanthropic donations.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, An Australian naval team in the Indian Ocean captured nine suspected pirates sought after attacks on a supertanker 500 miles off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 15, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborn, announced a deal with China intended to make Britain the main offshore hub for trading in China’s currency and bonds and for foreign institutions investing in China. In exchange China’s banks would be allowed to enter Britain as branches of the their parents rather than as subsidiaries.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.62)
2013 Oct 15, The European Space Agency said it has developed a technology that allows metal parts for spacecraft and nuclear reactors to be "printed" as a single piece.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Iranian negotiators put forward what they called a potential breakthrough plan at the long-stalled talks in Geneva on easing fears that Tehran wants atomic arms.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In northern Iraq a bomb ripped through a crowd of Sunni worshippers coming out of a mosque after prayers at the start of a major Muslim holiday, killing 12 people and wounding 24 in Kirkuk. A study put the death toll in the war-torn country at nearly half a million since the US-led 2003 invasion.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Israel's military destroyed a second tunnel dug from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. The military said the tunnel was packed with explosives and stretched dozens of meters (yards) into Israel.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Eurocrats and transport industry folk began a two day train ride from Vilnius to Talinn. Rail Baltica, an idea to build a proper rail way connection from Helsinki to Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw and continuing on to Berlin was on the agenda in a conference onboard the train.
(www.balticsea-region-strategy.eu/item/486861)(Econ, 10/19/13, p.60)
2013 Oct 15, Malawi President Joyce Banda named Maxwell Mkwezalamba, a former African Union economic commissioner, as finance minister in a cabinet reshuffle triggered by a graft scandal that started with the shooting of the national budget director.
(Reuters, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Dutch police said a total of 15 people have been arrested since July, related to cocaine packages stashed aboard planes arriving from Latin America. Seven of them employed by the same company at Schiphol.
(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, New Zealand author Eleanor Catton (28) became the youngest winner of the Man Booker Prize for fiction, claiming the award for her novel "The Luminaries."
(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 15, Amnesty International said hundreds of people are dying in military detention as Nigeria's security forces crack down on an Islamic uprising in the northeast. More than 950 people died in military custody in the first six months of this year. The rights group said said some people are shot outright, some starve and others suffocate to death.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In the central Philippines a powerful earthquake measuring 7.2 struck islands popular with tourists. At least 171 people were killed, mostly on Bohol island.
(AP, 10/15/13)(AFP, 10/16/13)(Reuters, 10/17/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 15, In Russia unknown attackers posing as electricians broke into the apartment of a Dutch diplomat, forced him to the ground, hit him and drew a heart containing the letters LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) on a mirror in pink lipstick.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 15, In South Africa the bodies of 2 girls, two and three years old, were discovered in the Diepsloot area north of Johannesburg after being reported missing on the weekend. 2 other toddlers were found dead in Katlehong, east of Johannesburg. Police suspect they were poisoned. The killings in Diepsloot fueled angry accusations from residents that police were failing to provide security.
(AP, 10/16/13)1
2013 Oct 15, The Church of Sweden elected the country's first female archbishop. Antje Jackelen (58) will join a growing number of female church leaders around the world.
(AP, 10/15/13)(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 15, Syrian warplanes bombed several rebel-held areas and opposition fighters fired mortar rounds and homemade rockets at Damascus on the first day of a major Muslim holiday.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Turkey for the first time fired four artillery rounds against a position near the town of Azaz, Syria, held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," an Al-Qaeda affiliated group, in retaliation for a mortar round that fell on Turkish territory.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 15, Typhoon Nari knocked down trees and damaged hundreds of houses in central Vietnam, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
(Reuters, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In Yemen suspected al-Qaida militants killed 2 security guards and wounded four others in a drive-by shooting in Lahj province.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 16, The US Congress, with hours to go before the government reached its $16.7 trillion debt limit, approved a deal to end a government shutdown, but only permits the Treasury to borrow through Feb 7 and fund government through Jan 15. The 16-day shutdown of US National Parks cost the parks and surrounding communities an estimated $44 million in lost visitor spending. A 2014 report said five states lost over $20 million in the shutdown.
(AP, 10/17/13)(SFC, 3/5/14, p.A6)
2013 Oct 16, Newark, NJ, Democratic Mayor Cory Booker (44) won a special election to represent the state in the US Senate.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 16, A boat with more than dozen people, including Jamaicans and Haitians, capsized off the coast of South Florida. 4 women died and 11 people were taken into custody. On May 15 Bahamian national Naaman Davis pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to charges of smuggling. He was paid to drive the migrant-filled boat and was drinking rum and smoking crack-cocaine the night it capsized.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A7)(AP, 5/16/14)
2013 Oct 16, Washington became the 2nd state to adopt rules for the recreational sale of marijuana. Initiative 522, a measure requiring retail outlets to label genetically modified (GM) food, failed. A $15 minimum wage was approved in SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A12)(http://tinyurl.com/o7zmnsa)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.35)
2013 Oct 16, Chinese state media reported that an Australian tourist and 3 Tibetans died in an avalanche on Mt. Everest.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 16, Indian police in the holiday resort state of Goa arrested Gary Baird (45), a British man, after their biggest ever drugs seizure, worth 20.5 million rupees (330,000 dollars, 205,000 pounds). Baird was arrested for illegally possessing more than four kg of amphetamine.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 16, In Japan Typhoon Wipha caused deadly mudslides that buried people and destroyed homes on Izu Oshima island leaving at least 24 people dead. A woman from Tokyo died after falling into a river and being washed 10 km downriver to Yokohama.
(AP, 10/16/13)(AP, 10/17/13)(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 16, Kenya wildlife officials said they will place microchips in the horn of every rhino in the country in a bid to stamp out a surge in poaching the threatened animals.
(AFP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, A Lao Airlines flight from Vientiane to Pakse in southern Laos crashed and killed all 49 aboard.
(AP, 10/16/13)(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 16, In northwestern Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 8 people in Dera Ismail Khan, including a provincial government minister.
(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 struck off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, A Russian court suspended a five-year prison sentence for top opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but upheld his conviction for theft that will prevent him from running in future elections.
(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, In Russia a migrant worker was found stabbed to death in a Moscow neighborhood rocked this week by race riots, in what a community leader suggested was a revenge attack for the killing of an ethnic Russian.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, In Syria 21, including 4 children and 6 women, were killed when a minibus hit a mine in the southern town of Noa. Syrian activists said that two days of heavy clashes between Kurdish fighters and al-Qaida-linked rebels in the northeast have killed at least 41 on both sides.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 17, Florida Congressman Bill Young (82) died after 42 years of service. He had channeled hundreds of million of dollars via earmarks to his district and state.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.29)(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, A global index on modern slavery said some 30 million people are enslaved worldwide, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labour, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude. Almost half were in India.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The first ladies of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast sealed an agreement to fight the growing child trafficking trade between the two west African nations.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Canadian police arrested at least 40 protesters opposed to shale gas development in New Brunswick after vehicles were set ablaze and a shot was fired.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In France hundreds of pupils blocked high schools in the Paris region and joined protests after Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-year-old girl, was taken off a school bus on Oct 9 and deported to Kosovo.
(AP, 10/16/13)(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Indonesian police shot dead Suardi, a suspected militant, and arrested two others, in an ongoing clampdown on terrorism. All three were said to be part of a network led by Abu Uswah, who allegedly taught bomb-making and was shot dead in a raid in January.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car among houses in the Shabak village of al-Mouafaqiyah near Mosul, killing at least 15 people. Attacks on Shi'ite Muslims killed at least 61 people across the country.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Moroccan police drove back 400 African migrants who tried to rush across the country's border into the Spanish territory of Ceuta.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Mozambique government forces killed two fighters from rebel group Renamo in clashes on the first anniversary of their leader's return to the bush.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Pakistani officials said a Pakistani Ranger was killed by "unprovoked firing" by Indian troops along the disputed northwestern India-Pakistan border. An Indian Border Security Force officer said their forces retaliated after being fired on by the Pakistani side. Another Pakistani soldier was killed by militants in South Waziristan.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In Saudi Arabia some 1.4 million Muslim pilgrims from 188 countries started to leave Mecca at the end of what authorities hailed as a successful and incident-free hajj. The hajj now brings in $16.5 billion, about 3% of Saudi GDP.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(Econ, 10/12/13, p.74)
2013 Oct 17, In South Africa a senior union official at a Lonmin mine in Marikana was shot dead.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In South Sudan 5 people including four children were killed in a market when explosives left over from decades of civil war were accidentally set off on the outskirts of Juba.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Spanish police said they have arrested 17 people for their role in stealing watches worth 23 million euros ($31 million) in Dec 2012, resolving one of the country's biggest jewelry heists.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The Syrian government said it has turned over to the United Nations Carl Campeau, a Canadian staffer, who went missing eight months ago in the Golan Heights, accusing rebels of having kidnapped him. Gen. Jameh Jameh, a top military intelligence officer was killed in clashes in Deir al-Zou.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(AP, 10/18/13)(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 17, In Tunisia Islamist militants killed two policemen in clashes in the northeastern city of Goubellat.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The UN General Assembly elected five new members to the Security Council. The uncontested seats included Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 18, SF Bay Area BART workers went on strike leaving hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters scrambling for ways to get to work.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 18, New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled to uphold a lower court order that gay weddings must start on Oct 21.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 18, In Ohio a police cruiser crashed into a car at an intersection in Upper Arlington killing 6 members of a family of Iraqi immigrants, whose car had stopped in the middle of the intersection.
(SFC, 10/18/1e, p.A6)
2013 Oct 18, Tom Foley (b.1929), former US House Speaker, died. The Democrat from Spokane, Wa., had served 30 years in the House before he was booted from office in 1994 as Republicans seized control of Congress.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 18, In Afghanistan a complex attack involving a car bomb followed by gunfire was launched on an international compound in eastern Kabul and was still under way. A Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car in Kabul outside a compound where many foreign workers are based, killing at least two local civilians.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Australia nearly 100 wildfires raged across New South Wales state, killing one person, destroying dozens of houses and forcing hundreds of evacuations as the nation's annual fire season got off to an unusually early start.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Brazil a fire destroyed up to 300,000 tons of sugar and much of the Santos Port warehouses owned by Copersucar, the world's largest trader of the sweetener.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Canada and the EU struck a tentative Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) meant to boost growth and employment.
(AP, 10/18/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.18)
2013 Oct 18, Canada’s Supreme Court, in the case of a severely-brain damaged man, ruled that family, not doctors, should decide when to cut off life support.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In China Professor Xia Yeliang (53), a liberal economist who had been an outspoken critic of China's ruling Communist Party, was told that professors and school leaders had voted to end his contract. He had drawn the ire of school officials for his blog posts calling for democratic reforms and rule of law in China. Yeliang was a signatory to Charter 08, a 2008 petition calling for sweeping political change.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)(Econ, 2/15/14, p.40)
2013 Oct 18, In Egypt suspected militants killed a police officer in the Sinai Peninsula.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Ethiopia unveiled the first phase of a space exploration program, which includes East Africa's largest observatory designed to promote astronomy research in the region.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, France's constitutional court ruled that mayors cannot refuse to carry out same-sex marriages just because they oppose them.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, A French court sentenced three Somali pirates to nine years in prison each for the 2009 hijacking off the Somali coast of a French yacht that led to the death of its skipper.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, French osteopath Pierre Pallardy (72) was sentenced to 10 years in jail for raping and sexually assaulting female patients. His list of famous clients included Pablo Picasso and Rudolf Nureyev.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Guinea's electoral commission announced that the ruling party and its allies have won legislative elections. Pres. Alpha Conde’s Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) won with 53 seats. The opposition said it would not recognise the official results.
(AFP, 10/18/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 18, Indian police arrested and questioned 33 people aboard a ship operated by a US anti-piracy firm for carrying guns and ammunition in Indian waters without proper permits. The captain and the chief engineer were not among those arrested. The ship was detained on Oct 12. India charged the 33 men for failing to produce papers authorizing them to carry weapons in Indian waters
(AFP, 10/18/13)(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Iraq a car bomb near an ice-cream shop in Baghdad killed 12 people, while 7 died in other attacks.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Kenya officials identified Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow (b.1990), a Norwegian-Somali, as one of the four attackers of the Westgate Mall on Sep 21. Charred body parts taken from a collapsed portion of the shopping center still awaited forensics analysis to determine if they were the remains of the assailants.
(AP, 10/18/13)(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 18, In Libya gunmen killed Col. Ahmed Mostafa el-Barghathy, the head of the regional military police in the eastern city of Benghazi, as he was headed to a mosque to attend Friday prayers.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In northwest Mexico Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix (63), a former head of the Tijuana cartel, was killed by a man in a clown outfit during a party in a hotel in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.
(AFP, 10/19/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 18, The Netherlands Supreme Court said municipalities are entitled to to tax dog ownership because they have to pick up the bill for keeping public parks and streets clean.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 18, In Panama the 23rd Ibero-American summit opened. Half the presidents of member nations failed to show for the 2-day meeting, revealing the foundering direction of the annual forum. At the close instead of meeting annually, they decided to get together every other year instead.
(AP, 10/19/13)(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 18, Saudi Arabia, in an unprecedented show of anger at the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues, said it would not take up its seat on the UN Security Council.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, South African police fired rubber bullets to disperse thousands of people who rioted after five people were arrested for the rape and murder of two toddlers in a shantytown.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Spain Luis Barcenas, the jailed former financial chief of the ruling Popular Party, said he personally handed thousands of euros to the party's current secretary general as part of an off-the-books payment scheme he acknowledges he ran.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Swiss customs agents said they have seized one million fake tablets of anti-anxiety drug Xanax at the Zurich airport, which were destined for Egypt. The counterfeit tablets, packed in four crates and weighing 400kg, had originated in China, according to Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Syria regime forces and rebels fighting for control of Tel Aran, a small but strategic town in the northern province of Aleppo, killed at least 20 people. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels killed at least 30 Syrian soldiers, including ten who were executed after they were captured in in Deir al-Zou.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Tunisia protesting security forces drove top leaders from a memorial ceremony for two policeman killed by militants a day earlier.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In southern Yemen a suicide bomber killed at least 5 soldiers in a suspected Islamist militant attack on a military base. Two gunmen on a motorcycle fired at Col. Mohammed Abdullah al-Habshi's car in Sayoun, Hadramawt province. The driver died instantly and the colonel died three hours later in hospital.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, The Obama administration announced it was releasing over $1.6 billion in economic and military assistance to Pakistan.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 19, In northern California BART train workers Laurence Daniels (66) and Christopher Sheppard (58) were killed near the Walnut Creek BART station a day after BART workers went on strike. BART said the train was on a maitenance run. A transit insider later said the train was on a strike-related training run. In 2018 The California Public Utilities Commission fined BART $1.3 million for safety violations in the case.
(SFC, 10/21/13, p.C2)(SFC, 10/12/18, p.A9)
2013 Oct 19, In Pennsylvania an SUV crossed a center line and ran into two motocycles. 4 people on the motorcycles and one person in the SUV were killed in Franklin County.
(SFC, 10/21/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 19, In Argentina at least 99 people were hurt, some seriously, in a train crash at the same Buenos Aires commuter rail stop where a deadly accident killed dozens just last year.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Belgium a plane carrying 10 skydivers, including one making her maiden jump for her birthday, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing everyone on board and the pilot.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Belarus freed Paval Sevyarynets (36), a leading opposition politician. He had served three years forced labour for protesting against the iron-fisted rule of President Alexander Lukashenko.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In southeastern Brazil animal rights activist clashed with police in front of a laboratory in Sao Roque that used dogs for drug tests.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, The violin played by the Titanic's bandmaster as the ship sank beneath the waves sold at a London auction for £900,000 ($1.45 million, 1.06 million euros), a world record for memorabilia from the doomed liner.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, British actor and musician Noel Harrison (79), suffered a heart attack in Devon and died in a hospital. He sang the Academy Award-winning ballad "The Windmills of Your Mind," by French composer Michel Legrand and American lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Canada a train carrying crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas derailed west of Edmonton, Alberta, causing a fire, but no injuries.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Colombia’s army said government troops have captured six rebels including Freddy Chona Payare, a member of the security team of the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Egypt a car bomb exploded near a military intelligence compound in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, wounding six soldiers.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, French Socialist Pres. Francois Hollande, under fire from the far left and members of his own party, said that a 15-year-old girl who was detained in front of her classmates and expelled as an illegal immigrant can return to France. But the rest of the family cannot come with her.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Police in India said at least 32 people have died in Adampur village in Uttar Pradesh state after drinking toxic bootleg liquor.
(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 19, In Iraq a car bomb on a commercial street in northern Baghdad killed 3 people.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Italy a Milan appeals court set Silvio Berlusconi's political ban in his tax fraud conviction at two years. Demonstrators clashed with police as tens of thousands marched through Rome to protest against unemployment, government cuts and big construction projects they say take money away from social services.
(AP, 10/19/13)(Reuters, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 19, The Maldives sank further into political disarray when police blocked officials from conducting a presidential revote, saying that holding the election would violate a Supreme Court order.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Hamas, its Gaza Strip stronghold cut off by the new military-backed government in Egypt, called upon rival Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to end their six-year schism and form a unity government.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Thousands of Portuguese protested against new wage and pension cuts in the country's 2014 budget and demanded the resignation of the government.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Thousands of Romanians protested against plans by US energy group Chevron to explore for shale gas in a poor eastern region and a Canadian company's project to set up Europe's biggest open cast gold mine in a Carpathian town.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Somalia a suicide bomber killed at least 16 people, including 4 Ethiopian soldiers, in an attack on a cafe in Beledweyne, a town close to the Ethiopian border frequented by local and foreign soldiers fighting al Qaeda-linked rebels.
(AFP, 10/19/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 19, Syrian rebels assaulted a checkpoint in a suburb of Damascus, setting off a suicide car bomb that killed 16 soldiers. More than 30 combatants from both sides died in the blast and ensuing clashes.
(AP, 10/19/13)(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In southern Thailand bombings and drive-by shootings killed 5 people and injured 13 others including 8 soldiers and 5 journalists.
(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 19, Tunisia said government forces have killed 9 "terrorists" and seized two tons of explosives in the north of the country where policemen died this week in a jihadist attack.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Bolivia 8 soldiers were taken hostage by suspected coca growers after a firefight that left two security officers dead and 17 wounded.
(AFP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Egyptian security forces fired bird shot and teargas to prevent supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi from marching to the site of a protest camp that was destroyed two months ago. An attack outside a Coptic church in Cairo killed 4 people, including an 8-year-old girl.
(Reuters, 10/20/13)(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Iraq 8 suicide bombers targeted police and local officials in Rawa, northwest of Baghdad, killing 8 people. In southwestern Baghdad 41 people were killed and 65 were wounded in a crowded cafe in the primarily Shiite neighborhood of Amil, bringing the death toll from violence across Iraq to 51.
(AFP, 10/20/13)(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 20, Kenya's biggest selling newspaper “The Nation" reported that security camera footage showed soldiers appearing to loot goods during last month's Nairobi shopping mall siege.
(Reuters, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Kenya 2 Christian clerics were found killed in separate attacks.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 20, Luxembourgers voted for a new government with a possibility of keeping PM Jean-Claude Juncker in power after a spying scandal forced early elections. The conservative Christian Social People's Party (CSV) of PM Jean-Claude Juncker led the field with 33.7% of the vote -- against 38% four years ago.
(AP, 10/20/13)(AFP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Mohamed Nasheed, the leading candidate in the Maldives' troubled presidential election, demanded that Pres. Mohamed Waheed Hassan resign and allow the parliamentary speaker to take over the government and oversee a fresh poll.
(AP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Montenegro police used tear gas against dozens of rock-throwing opponents of a gay pride march in Podgorica.
(AP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif arrived in Washington on a 4-day trip. He was scheduled to meet with Pres. Obama on Oct 23.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 20, In the Philippines Sultan Jamalul Kiram III (75) died. His armed followers invaded Sabah state earlier this year sparking a security crises that left dozens of people dead.
(SFC, 10/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 20, In South Sudan 79 people were killed in attacks on villages in Twic East county, Jonglei state. Authorities blamed fighters loyal to anti-government rebel leader David Yau Yau.
(AP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Syria a suicide bomber blew up a truck packed with explosives at an army checkpoint in the central city of Hama, killing at least 31 people.
(AFP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Western Sahara bloody clashes erupted between police and pro-independence protesters as a UN envoy wrapped up his latest visit to the disputed territory.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Pres. Obama urged American to buy health insurance by phone, mail and in person because the website for Obamacare was not working.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.33)
2013 Oct 21, US authorites said nearly two dozen current and former members of Arizona’s Air National Guard have been indicted on charges including theft and money laundering in a $1.4 million scam to defraud the federal government. The 8 officers and 13 enlisted men and women had been resposible for remotely operating drones to support troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 21, San Francisco Bay Area BART workers ended their strike with a tentative agreement between the transit agency and its two largest unions. Trains began running Oct 22. Workers scored a 15.4% pay raises over four years as well as other benefits.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A1)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Oct 21, In Nevada a boy (12) opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic Ruger handgun at Sparks Middle School killing math teacher Michael Landsberry (45) and critically wounding two students before killing himself.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A6)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A6)
2013 Oct 21, New Jersey became the 14th US state to allow same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 21, In Afghanistan a bomb stuck onto a car killed a civilian in downtown Kabul. Authorities are unclear as to the motives for the attack.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Brazil said a consortium including Shell, Total, two Chinese firms and Brazil's state-run petroleum company Petrobras won the right to develop an offshore field that could hold up to 12 billion barrels of oil.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, A disciplinary body of China’s Communist Party said anti-graft authorities have punished 8 people at a state-owned rail construction firm for spending more than $100 million on hospitality last year.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In China visibility shrank to less than half a football field and small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard in the northern city of Harbin as the region entered its high-smog season.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In Egypt thousands of students from the al-Azhar University staged a third day of protests, in one of the boldest challenges to the army since it toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Europe's top human rights court ordered Spain to release a Basque separatist militant, saying her extended detention was illegal, a ruling victims groups warned would let dozens of prisoners walk free. Ines del Rio was jailed in 1989 for her role in 23 assassinations and car bombings carried out by the Basque independence movement ETA.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, A Le Monde newspaper report said the US National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period and offered new details of the massive scope of a surveillance operation that has angered some of the country's closest allies.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In India heavy rains began falling in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states. 39 people were reported dead from flooding by Oct 26.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 21, In Iraq militants attacked police and electricity headquarters in Fallujah, killing 7 police officers.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Israel recognized NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the first ever recipient of the $1 million Genesis Prize, an award popularly dubbed the "Jewish Nobel Prize."
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Mozambique ex-rebel group Renamo declared the end of a peace deal signed 21 years ago after the army seized its military base.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Nigerian troops killed 37 Boko Haram Islamist militants in combined air and ground strikes on one of their northeast bases.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 21, Nigerian officials said cholera has killed 50 people in the northwest in the past week.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In southwest Pakistan at least 5 passengers were killed and 16 wounded when a train was bombed and derailed.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In Russia female suicide bomber Naida Asiyalova (30) struck a passenger bus in the southern city of Volgograd, killing 6 people and injuring 32 others. The suspected bomber was from Dagestan.
(AP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/22/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 21, South African prosecutors said a man arrested on suspicion of raping and murdering two toddlers in a Johannesburg slum has confessed, after the case sparked violent riots last week.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Spain's oil company Repsol announced a high quality light oil find in Libya's Sahara Desert.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In Syria government warplanes launched strikes on areas southeast of Damascus after rebels seized key regime positions there. Residents of Moadamiyeh issued an urgent plea for the int’l. community to save them from starvation and constant bombardment after efforts to evacuate civilians from the area collapsed. Yasser al-Abboud, a prominent army defector who became a rebel leader, was killed during fighting in the town of Tafas.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/21/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 21, The party of Ukraine's jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko (52) rejected President Viktor Yanukovich's terms for her release and European envoys said time was running out to solve a row threatening agreements with the EU.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said more than 300 elephants and other animals died in July of cyanide poisoning by poachers in Hwange, Zimbabwe's largest game park. Three elephants attacked a park ranger and trampled him to death during an anti-poaching patrol in the Hwange nature reserve.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, Amnesty International called on the US to investigate reports of civilians killed and wounded by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan in a report that provided new details about the alleged victims of the attacks, including a 68-year-old grandmother hit on Oct 24, 2012, while farming with her grandchildren.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Greenpeace said consumer products such as Oreo cookies and Gilette shaving cream were among an array of products driving the destruction of Indonesia’s forests. Greenpeace accused Singapore-based Wilmar Int’l. for destroying forests in Indonesia to produce palm oil.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 22, A federal judge ordered US marshals to lock up TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau (50) for failing to pay a $37 million civil judgement. The FTC had won the judgement after accusing Trudeau of hoodwinking viewers about his weight-loss books.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 22, Police in Sonoma County, Ca., shot and killed Andy Lopez Cruz (13) as he walked near his home with a toy rifle that resembled a genuine AK-47. In 2018 Sonoma County agreed to pay $3 million to the Lopez family.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A1)(SFC, 12/19/18, p.C1)
2013 Oct 22, In Massachusetts Danvers High School math teacher Colleen Ritzer (24) was reported missing. Her body was found the next day in the woods behind her school. Student Philip Chism (14) was arrested and suspected of beating her to death. Chism was convicted of murder and armed robbery on Dec 15, 2015.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A8)(SFC, 12/16/15, p.A6)
2013 Oct 22, In Tennessee a medical helicopter crashed killing 2 hospital workers and a pilot.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 22, Finland-based Nokia showed off its first tablet in Abu Dhabi, the Lumia 2520, at its last launch party as much of the company faced acquisition by Microsoft.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.73)
2013 Oct 22, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) cut the number of candidates to 10, saying 16 disqualified candidates had either retained citizenship of another country or failed to provide evidence of enough support. The Afghan intelligence service said it has sacked 65 officers after discovering they were addicted to heroin.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, The Australian Capital Territory became the first jurisdiction in Australia to legalize same-sex marriage with a bill passing the ACT parliament by just one vote.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Bahrain a teenager was killed when an explosive device he was carrying detonated prematurely as he attempted to stage an attack in the tense Gulf nation.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Brazil prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro charged an additional 15 state police officers in the torture and death of Amarildo Dias de Souza (42), a bricklayer who disappeared from a city slum in July. Ten officers were charged earlier this month.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Brunei’s sovereign Hassanal Bolkiah (67) said Brunei will begin enforcing sharia criminal law next year. Possible punishments will include stoning to death for adultery and flogging for drinking alcohol.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Chinese state media reported that China has convicted nearly 150,000 people for corruption since 2008, citing figures from the state prosecutor which underlined the scale of graft in the country.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Western countries accused China of arresting activists, curbing Internet use and suppressing ethnic minorities, as the United Nations formally reviewed its rights record for the first time since Xi Jinping became president.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Egypt militants ambushed a military convoy in northern Sinai early, killing a soldier and a civilian bystander.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Greek lawmakers voted to suspend state funding for political parties accused of criminal activities, a measure targeting the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn group.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, A top Greek prosecutor ordered an emergency nationwide investigation into birth certificates issued in the past six years after a girl was discovered living with alleged abductors at a gypsy camp.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Iraq gunmen killed 5 people in and around Mosul. Anbar province was hit by a series of attacks that killed 28 people.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, Israeli troops killed Mohamed Aatzi, an Islamic Jihad militant said to be behind the 2012 bombing of a Tel Aviv bus. The Palestinian radical movement confirmed his death.
(AFP, 10/22/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 22, In Lebanon a child (13) was killed and 11 other people wounded in a gunfight in Tripoli between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(AFP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, A source close to Saudi policy said Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief has said the kingdom will make a "major shift" in relations with the United States in protest at its perceived inaction over the Syria war and its overtures to Iran.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Spanish judges ordered ETA prisoner Ines del Rio freed after Europe's rights court ruled against her prolonged detention, opening the way to the release of dozens of other violent Basque separatists.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, The Syrian government released 13 jailed women, a move that may be part of an ambitious regional prisoner exchange. Government forces battled with al-Qaida-linked rebels trying to capture an ancient Christian town north of Damascus. Mortar shells struck a pro-government suburb on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 2 people.
(AP, 10/22/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Washington Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif urged US President Barack Obama to end drone strikes in Pakistan. Obama and Sharif pledged cooperation on the security issues that have strained ties between their nations.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, A Nevada jury found Saudi Arabian air force Sgt. Mazen Alotaibi guilty of sexually assaulting a boy (13) at the Circu Circus hotel in las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 23, In Afghanistan a nighttime Taliban attack on a security outpost killed 4 policemen in the Bla Murghab district of Badghis province.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, Argentine local experts and a government source said its agricultural soils are being depleted by lack of crop rotation as soy farming encroaches on areas once used for corn, wheat and cattle grazing.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Australian investigators said a military training exercise ignited the largest of the wildfires that have ravaged its most populous state over the past week.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, British sculptor Anthony Caro (89), whose abstract metal sculptures were shown around the world, died of a heart attack.
(AFP, 10/24/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.98)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of Cambodia opposition supporters staged a demonstration over disputed elections that extended strongman PM Hun Sen's near three-decade rule, under a heavy security presence after bloody clashes last month.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Beijing China’s PM Li Keqiang and India’s PM Manmohan Singh sounded a new optimistic tone in their relationship as they oversaw the signing of 9 agreements including a Defense Cooperation Agreement.
(AP, 10/23/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.47)
2013 Oct 23, Wang Qishan, China's top official battling deeply-ingrained corruption, warned staff their jobs were on the line if they failed to root out abuses, telling them to "shock and awe" their targets.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, China’s state-run New Express tabloid printed a front-page commentary begging police in the south-central city of Changsha to set reporter Chen Yongzhou free under the headline: "Please release him." Chen was detained after writing more than a dozen stories criticizing the finances of Zoomlion, a major state-owned construction equipment maker.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.54)
2013 Oct 23, Chinese police officers were injured in clashes with villagers in southwestern Yunnan province. Some 200 residents in Guangji village near the provincial capital Kunming stopped 11 officers on a highway after police had summoned two people a day earlier for alleged crimes.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In China 2 children were killed and another four injured after a wall at their primary school collapsed in Yunnan province.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, India accused Pakistani troops of firing guns and mortars on at least 50 Indian border posts overnight in disputed Kashmir, calling it the most serious cease-fire violation between the nuclear-armed neighbors in a decade.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Iraq gunmen killed 6 people in the northern city of Mosul. In Baghdad a roadside bomb in the Ghazaliyah area killed at least 3 people and wounded 11. Another roadside bomb killed 4 people and wounded at least nine in Madain. 2 Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters were kidnapped and killed in the northern province of Kirkuk.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, The Israeli incumbent Mayor Nir Barkat of Jerusalem won re-election in a hotly contested race that dealt a political blow to his challenger's main backers, former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, A Kenya court sentenced 4 Somali pirates sentenced to seven years each in prison after they were found guilty of hijacking a fishing dhow in the Indian Ocean in 2010.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Mali a suicide bomber killed two Chadian troops from the UN peacekeeping mission and injured six others in an attack on a checkpoint at the entry to the northern town of Tessalit.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Pirates near the coast of Nigeria attacked a commercial ship, named C-Retriever, and kidnapped two US mariners.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, Russia said it will boycott maritime court hearings sought by the Netherlands in a bid to free 30 crew members of a Greenpeace ship who were detained during a protest against Arctic oil drilling. Russia dropped piracy charges against 30 people involved in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling, replacing them with lesser offences and cutting the maximum jail sentence they face to seven years from 15.
(AFP, 10/23/13)(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Sudan carjackers killed a Sudanese aid worker in the country's Darfur region, bringing to four the number of humanitarian staff killed this year in the region's worsening unrest.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 23, Swiss-based petrochemical firm Ineos said it would close its Grangemouth plant in Scotland with the loss of hundreds of jobs after failing to resolve a bitter labor dispute.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, A Swiss Air Force F/A-18 jet went down near a military airport in Alpnach in the Lake Lucerne region.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Syrian activists said the army has sealed the few remaining smuggling routes into the besieged Eastern Ghouta region of suburbs of Damascus. Aid workers in Damascus, who negotiated a truce to get out thousands of residents from the town, said that locals had resorted to eating leaves and grass.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of Tunisians marched through Tunis chanting for their government to step down. Ruling Islamists and opposition leaders prepared to start talks aimed at end months of political crisis. PM Ali Larayedh said his government was committed in "principle" to resigning to pave a way out of the crisis. Clashes between security forces and gunmen rocked the central Sidi Bouzid region, leaving at least six policemen dead.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon requested the deployment of 250 troops to protect the global body's personnel and facilities in the strife-torn Central African Republic.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, The UN said extreme floods across vast parts of remote and impoverished South Sudan have affected over 156,000 people.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, Pope Francis temporarily expelled German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (53) from his diocese because of a scandal over a 31-million-euro project to build a new residence complex, but refused calls to remove him permanently.
(AP, 10/23/13)(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 23, Yemeni police said a father has burned his 15-year-old daughter to death for keeping in touch with her fiance, sparking further outrage after an eight-year girl died from internal bleeding on her wedding night a month ago.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 24, California state investigators announced a record $1 million fine against two Arizona nonprofits, the Center to Protect Patient’s Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, for attempting to secretly sway California voters in 2012 in support of Prop 32 and in opposition to prop 30.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 24, In San Francisco Faith Petric (b.1915), folk singer, died at a hospice house. In 1962 she became the headd of the San Francisco Folk Club and began hosting live jam sessions at her Clayton Street home.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.C2)
2013 Oct 24, In Ohio Ali Salim (44), a former doctor, pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the 2012 deaths of Deanna Ballman (23) and her unborn child. He had injected her with heroin.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 24, Tennessee Nat’l. Guardsman Sgt. 1st Class Amos Patton shot and wounded three fellow Guard members at an armory in Millington just after he was relieved of duty because of alleged misconduct.
(SFC, 10/26/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 24, In western Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed six Afghan soldiers in Herat province. Soldiers killed 10 Taliban fighters during an operation in Helmand province. A tractor hit a road mine in the Jani Khil district of Paktika province, killing one person and wounding four.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, In Australia a plane dousing wildfires in bushland south of Australia's biggest city, Sydney, crashed into a national park, killing the pilot and sparking a new fire to add to 55 still burning across the state of New South Wales.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, An Austrian student group fighting for online privacy in Europe got the go-ahead for a legal challenge in Ireland's High Court over the transfer of personal data to a US spy agency.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, In Egypt suspected Islamists militants killed a policeman in a drive-by shooting in the Sinai Peninsula, where troops are battling to contain near daily violence. Egypt’s Cabinet said its nighttime curfew will be shortened to four hours, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., six days a week.
(AFP, 10/24/13)(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Germany's Foreign Ministry summoned the US ambassador following allegations that American intelligence may have targeted Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone. Merkel said she had made it clear to US President Barack Obama that spying on allies is not acceptable.
(AP, 10/24/13)(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Greenland's parliament agreed to remove a 25-year-old ban on uranium mining, paving the way for an industrial boom that the Arctic island hopes will help it gain independence from former colonial master Denmark.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, Indian and Pakistani troops fired machine guns and mortar shells over the border in Kashmir, wounding at least 12 people — including children.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, In India retail prices of onions were reported to have quadrupled in three months - now costing over 100 rupees ($1.62) a kilo, which is what a third of the population live on per day - as a supply squeeze caused by wet weather has hampered harvests.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Indonesian police probing the murder of a young woman at a luxury villa stumbled upon a secret collection of exotic animals, including a cross-breed of a lion and tiger. The woman (23) had allegedly had her throat slit by a maintenance worker at the property south of the capital Jakarta after she refused his sexual advances.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 24, Italian weekly L'Espresso reported that US and British intelligence services have monitored Italian telecoms networks, targeting the government and companies as well as suspected terrorist groups.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Italian Augusto Odone (80), a former World Bank economist, died in Acqui Terme. defied skeptical scientists to invent a treatment (Lorenzo’s Oil) to try to save the life of his little boy (d.2008), wasting away from a neurological disease (ADL. The film “Lorenzo’s Oil" (1992) was based on Odone’s efforts to save his son.
(AP, 10/25/13)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.98)
2013 Oct 24, Kenya's media said the police chief has threatened journalists with arrest after they reported on looting and disarray among security forces during the massacre in Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Lebanese security officials said at least 6 people have been killed and 50 wounded in fighting in Tripoli over the past four days.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, A Libyan court indicted around 30 Moamer Kadhafi aides, including the slain dictator's son Seif al-Islam, for a raft of alleged offences during the 2011 revolt. A Libyan air force colonel was killed in Benghazi.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Hundreds of Malaysian tribespeople blockaded the construction site of a new dam which is set to force them from their homes in Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Malaysia’s HELP University faced public criticism for awarding an honorary doctorate degree in economics earlier this month to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 24, In Mali the French military said it has engaged with UN and Malian forces in a major operation aimed at preventing a resurgence of Islamist rebels in Mali.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Mexican officials said Juan Pablo Vazquez (20) has admitted to killing 45 people, and is being investigated for 34 more. Vazquez was caught earlier this month in Monterrey where he was allegedly selling drugs.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Mexico issued a decree banning slot machines and limiting the ability of casino permit holders to rent out or cede their permits to other operators.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 24, Nigeria's army reportedly killed suspected Boko Haram fighters in a raid on insurgent camps in restive Borno state. The attack continued for a 2nd day and bodies in military uniform were soon brought to the morgue in Damaturu. At least 95 militants, 23 soldiers and 8 police officers were killed.
(AP, 10/25/13)(AFP, 10/28/13)(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 24, Portuguese authorities said prosecutors have ordered police to reopen their investigation into the six-year-old disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann after a review of the evidence found new leads.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Saudi Arabia warned it will take measures against activists who go ahead with a planned weekend campaign to defy a ban on women drivers in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Sudanese journalist Faisal Mohammed Salih (53 vowed to keep up efforts to report freely despite "difficult and harsh" conditions as he received the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, Syrian forces seized a suburb of Damascus from rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a push that has shored up government control of the capital's outskirts. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Assad’s government had freed 61 women over the past two days.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Thailand’s top Buddhist leader, Supreme Patriarch Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara (100), died.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, Protesters in Tunisia torched the office of the ruling Islamists in the town of Kef, where a policeman killed in fighting with suspected jihadists was to be buried.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 25, The US FDA approved Zohydro, an extended-release capsule that contains up to five times the amount of narcotic hydrocodone previously available in pills. Sales began in March 2014.
(http://tinyurl.com/o3qzkzv)
2013 Oct 25, Hal Needham (b.1931), former stuntman and action-movie director, died in Los Angeles. His films included “Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) and “The Cannonball Run" (1981).
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.C12)
2013 Oct 25, In Bangladesh 3 demonstrators were killed as more than 100,000 opposition activists rallied in the Dhaka to demand that PM Sheikh Hasina quit and order polls under a caretaker government.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Brazilian police said a group of hit men shot to death 7 people at a house in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro.
(SFC, 10/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 25, In Brazil protesters went on a rampage in Sao Paulo, smashing windows and teller machines and battling riot police in violence blamed on the "Black Bloc" anarchist group. The protests began as a peaceful march to demand free public transportation for students before turning violent. Police fired tear gas and arrested 92 people.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 25, Britain’s PM David Cameron accused US whistleblower Edward Snowden and unnamed newspapers of assisting Britain's enemies by helping them avoid surveillance by its intelligence services.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, British police appeared to downplay a raid after claiming to have seized suspected 3D-printed gun parts from a shop in Manchester. Some observers pointed out that the images released by police resembled printer parts.
(AFP, 10/25/13)(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, British police freed a Malaysian woman (69), an Irishwoman (57) and a 30-year-old Briton. A man and a woman, both 69, were arrested following an investigation on slavery at a house in London. Police announced the release on Nov 21 and said the women had been held for at least 30 years.
(AFP, 11/21/13)(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 25, Some 20,000 Cambodian opposition supporters wrapped up a three-day demonstration to petition foreign embassies and the UN for intervention in what they claim was a rigged election.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In China ousted politician Bo Xilai lost his appeal against a life sentence for corruption in his final public appearance before prison.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In CongoDRC fighting resumed between the army and rebels in the northeast, just days after the latest effort at peace talks fell apart. Rwanda said Congolese army shells had landed on its territory.
(AFP, 10/25/13)(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Czechs went to the polls in an election that will swing the nation toward the left after unpopular budget cuts and graft scandals felled a center-right government.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Leaders of the 15-nation west African bloc ECOWAS met in Dakar, Senegal, for a special summit focused on moving the region towards a common market and a single currency by 2020.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In Egypt thousands of supporters of ousted Pres. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood group marched in Cairo to keep pressure on the military-backed leadership as it tries to stabilize a country.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Ethiopia banned domestic workers from moving overseas for employment, following an "exodus" of workers leaving the country through illegal placement agencies.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, French President Francois Hollande said he will stick to a government tax plan to impose a super-levy on soccer players' salaries despite the threat of the nation's pro clubs to scrap games one weekend next month.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Greek authorities said DNA tests have confirmed that Sasha Ruseva, a Bulgarian Roma woman (35), is the mother of a mysterious girl in Greece known as Maria.
(AP, 10/25/13)(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 25, Greek police said they have arrested a childless couple in Athens on suspicion of buying an 8-month-old Roma girl and trying to register her as their own, amid international uproar over another little girl who was found living with unrelated Gypsies in Greece.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Iran's Revolutionary Guard killed 3 rebels and arrested three others in Baneh, a Kurdish populated region in northwestern Iran.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 25, A senior Iraqi security official said the Baghdad government wants the immediate delivery of US drones and F-16 fighter jets in order to combat al Qaeda insurgents. Bombings in central Iraq that targeted a market, a cafe and the homes of police officers killed 13 people.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Italian vessels rescued another 700 migrants while the two-day EU summit was going on. EU leaders failed to take new action to ease the plight of thousands of boat refugees trying to cross from North Africa.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Japanese media said Mizuho Bank will punish more than 30 executives over revelations that the lender made loans to underworld figures in the latest chapter of a headline-grabbing scandal.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Luxembourg’s royal palace said Xavier Bettel, the mayor of Luxembourg City, has been asked to form the next government, sidelining long-serving PM Jean Claude Juncker.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Madagascar residents voted in a presidential election they hope will restore security, improve lives and mark the end of political and economic turmoil brought about by a 2009 coup.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, North Korea repatriated six South Korean citizens and a corpse at a heavily defended border crossing.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Norway rejected a US request to help destroy Syria's chemical arms, arguing that the Nordic nation was an unsuitable site because it lacked suitable staff, equipment and regulations.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, A Pakistani court extended the custody of former dictator Pervez Musharraf, dampening hopes he would be able to leave the country any time soon following months under house arrest and legal wrangling over his fate.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, South African official figures showed poachers have killed more than 100 rhinos over the past four weeks, pushing the death toll so far this year towards 800.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, A South Sudan army spokesman said ten soldiers were imprisoned for human rights abuses perpetrated during a 2012 campaign to disarm fighters from warring communities.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In Syria a car bomb explosion killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens more near a mosque in the Damascus province town of Suq Wadi Barada. Government troops ambushed rebels near Damascus, killing at least 40 opposition fighters.
(AFP, 10/25/13)(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Arizona 5 people and 2 dogs were found shot to death at a Phoenix apartment complex in what appeared to be a murder-homicide. Michael Guzzo (56) killed himself after shooting four members of a family that lived next door.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A8)(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 26, In New Mexico a gunman opened fire on police in Albuquerque and wounded three officers before he was shot and killed.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In NYC a woman and her 4 children were stabbed to death in their Brooklyn home. A cousin, Chinese immigrant Mingdong Chen (25), was arrested the next day.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 26, Wisconsin’s Milwaukee-based Garden-Fresh Foods recalled 50 more tons of chicken and ham products over concern of possible listeria contamination. The company first recalled 9 tons of food on Sep 25.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A8)
2013 Oct 26, In Afghanistan a gunman in Afghan uniform opened fire on ISAF coalition personnel before being killed on the outskirts of Kabul.
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Algeria's energy minister said a new oil field containing an estimated 1.3 billion barrels has been discovered in the southern region of Hassi Messaoud. He said state oil company, Sonatrach, will rely on unconventional techniques to extract 50 percent of the reserves, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Austrian authorities seized 500 kg (about 1,100 pounds) of cannabis during a routine check on a camping van entering southern Austria from Slovenia. Two Italian men were arrested.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina phoned Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition, and requested that national strike be called off. This was their first conversation in many years. The strike continued.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.48)
2013 Oct 26, In Manchester, England, Ray Teret (72), the former driver for disgraced late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile appeared in court to face charges including multiple counts of raping girls younger than 16.
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In western Central African Republic hundreds of vigilantes armed with machetes and firearms attacked the town of Bouar, forcing civilians to flee the area.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Chinese journalist Chen Yongzhou, arrested over a series of articles criticizing a partly state-owned firm, appeared on public television to apologize, with state media saying he admitted the articles were "unverified and false."
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In eastern CongoDRC fighting raged between soldiers and rebels for a second day.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, The center-left Social Democrats led the vote in the Czech parliamentary election with around 95% of polling stations across the country reporting. Party leader Bohuslav Sobotka faced the difficult task of cobbling together a majority after seven parties won seats in the election.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)(Reuters, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Ethiopia Africa's biggest wind farm began production, aiding efforts to diversify electricity generation from hydropower plants and help the country become a major regional exporter of energy.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, The Press Trust of India reported that torrential rains have claimed as many as 48 lives in eastern India. Up to 45 people were killed in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states and 3 in West Bengal.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Iranian media said 14 border guards were killed overnight and three others captured by "bandits" on the southeastern frontier with Pakistan. Jaish-ul Adl, a Sunni rebel group formed last year, claimed responsibility for the attack. In response the Iranian judiciary executed 16 people it said were elements of "terrorist" groups.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 26, Attacks in Iraq killed 10 people, 7 of them from the same family.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Kurdish militants seized a Syrian border post on the frontier with Iraq, after three days of clashes with an al Qaeda-linked group which had held the crossing since March.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Lebanon 3 more people died overnight in Tripoli in clashes between supporters and opponents of Syria's regime.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In central Mozambique armed gunmen attacked a civilian convoy including a passenger bus, killing one and wounding at least ten.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Nepalese police arrested Ram Chandra Pyashi Kushbah, a UML politician, and two other men over the fatal drive-by shooting of Mohammad Alam, a candidate slated to run in national elections. Alam, of the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party, died in hospital after being shot in the head in Kathmandu earlier this month.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, North Korea detained Merrill Newman (85), an American retiree and Korean War veteran, who was on an organized tour. Friends and relatives later said it was due to a "misunderstanding," but after 3 weeks they had not heard any reasons for the detention. Former members of a South Korean guerrilla group later said six decades earlier Newman had supervised the group during the Korean War, and that they were perhaps the most hated and feared fighters in the North.
(AFP, 11/21/13)(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Oct 26, Panama granted asylum to an Ecuadoran opposition politician sentenced to prison last month for his role in a multiple homicide case, finding that he was subjected to political persecution. Tito Galo Lara Yepez (45) was convicted on Sep 2 as an accomplice in the murder of an Ecuadoran couple and their four-year-old child and sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Saudi activists said more than 60 women claimed to have answered their call to get behind the wheel in a rare show of defiance against a ban on female driving. At least 16 Saudi women received fines for taking the wheel in defiance of the traditional ban on female driving.
(AP, 10/26/13)(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, erupted, sending up a towering plume of ash visible in much of eastern Sicily.
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Somali security forces shut down one of the country’s most respected independent radio stations in Mogadishu, accusing it of illegally occupying a government building. Journalist Mohamed Mohamud (26) died in hospital after being attacked by gunmen, bringing to 7 the number of journalists killed in Somalia this year. Unidentified gunmen in a car shot at Mohamud as he drove to work on Oct 22 in the Wadajir district of Mogadishu.
(AFP, 10/26/13)(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Syria's jihadist Al-Nusra Front said in a statement that its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, was in good health, a day after state television had reported his death.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Taiwan tens of thousands of people rallied in Asia's largest gay parade, as the island's parliament was set to review a bill on same-sex marriages.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 27, Leonard Herzenberg (80), a Stanford geneticist, died at Stanford Univ. Hospital. He won Japan’s Kyoto Prize in 2006 for his invention of a cell sorter instrument, the fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS).
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.D3)
2013 Oct 27, Lou Reed (b.1942), rock guitarist and singer, died in Southampton, NY. He formed and led the Velvet Underground from 1965-1970. His songs included “Walk on the Wild Side." He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A10)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.98)
2013 Oct 27, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed 18 people, mostly women, who were travelling to a wedding party by minibus.
(Reuters, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Argentine held midterm elections. President Cristina Kirchner's Front for Victory (FPV) won 33% of the vote for the lower house of Congress and narrowly retained a majority in both houses.
(AFP, 10/28/13)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.40)
2013 Oct 27, In Bangladesh police and backers of the ruling party clashed with opposition supporters, leaving at least 5 people dead and scores injured in different parts of the country as opposition parties tried to enforce a three-day nationwide general strike.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, The Congolese army said it had recaptured two more towns and was heading for the rebel stronghold of Rutshuru in a third day of fighting. A Tanzanian officer with UN forces operating alongside government troops was killed in fighting with rebels.
(Reuters, 10/27/13)(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Dubai opened passenger operations at its second airport, Al-Maktoum International, touted to be the world's largest once it is completed.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Georgia voted for a new president in an election that will bring the curtain down on Mikheil Saakashvili's decade-long rule but is unlikely to end political uncertainty in the former Soviet republic. Former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili won 62% of the vote.
(Reuters, 10/27/13)(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 27, In India a series of small bomb blasts killed 6 people and injured dozens in Patna, Bihar state, just before a speech by Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party at a campaign rally. Investigators believed the Indian Mujahedeen, an outlawed Islamic group, was responsible.
(AP, 10/27/13)(AFP, 10/28/13)(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, In Iraq a new wave of car bombs hit Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and a suicide bomber targeted soldiers in Mosul in attacks that killed at least 66 across the country.
(AP, 10/27/13)(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 27, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe warned China against forcibly changing the regional balance of power, as reports said Tokyo had scrambled fighter jets in response to Chinese military aircraft flying near Okinawa.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, In Mexico 5 men were killed and power was cut to hundreds of thousands following clashes between vigilantes and the Knights Templar drug cartel in Michoacan state.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, Police in the Philippines said at least 22 candidates and political supporters have been killed in election-related violence over the last month. Balloting was set to begin on Oct 28.
(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, In Romania thousands of ethnic Hungarians held rallies in 14 communities of Transylvania to demand autonomy in the areas where they live.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, In Russia some 5 thousand people marched through central Moscow in a new protest at President Vladimir Putin's rule and a judicial crackdown against opponents.
(AFP, 10/27/13)(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, Saudi police detained Tariq al-Mubarak, a columnist who supported ending his country's ban on women driving.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 27, In Spain several thousand people gathered in downtown Madrid to protest the release from jail of Basque separatists, convicted of attacks but freed under a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Hundreds of Sudanese in the disputed border region of Abyei voted in a referendum that they hope will decide whether they join Sudan or South Sudan. Voting ended on Oct 29. Abyei residents chose overwhelmingly to join South Sudan in the unofficial referendum. Only one of the two ethnic groups (the Ngok Dinka) living in the area voted in the poll, which is not recognized by either Khartoum or Juba.
(AP, 10/27/13)(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 27, In central Syria a rocket smashed into the home of a family in the embattled Christian town of Sadad, killing 5 people as al-Qaida-linked rebels and soldiers clashed for control.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Okot Odhiambo, an alleged deputy army commander in the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army, died. He was indicted in 2005 on 10 charges including murder, enslavement and using child soldiers. DNA evidence later confirmed his identity.
(AP, 9/10/15)
2013 Oct 28, The Obama administration granted a 6-week extension until March 31 for Americans to sign up for health care coverage and avoid tax penalties.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 28, The governors of California, Oregon and Washington states along with the premier of British Columbia agreed to coordinate greenhouse gas reduction goals.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 28, Los Angeles police said body parts believed to be from the same woman have been found at two water treatment plants in the LA area.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Scientists said they have documented for the first time that an Asian carp species has successfully reproduced within the Great Lakes watershed, an ominous development in the struggle to slam the door on the hungry invaders that could threaten native fish.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 28, A US federal judge determined that new Texas abortion restrictions place an unconstitutional burden on women seeking to end a pregnancy, a ruling that keeps open dozens of abortion clinics across the state while officials appeal.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Texas 5 people were killed during a rapid series of attacks in Terrell. Charles Everett Brownlow Jr. (36), the son of one of the victims, was arrested early the next day.
(AP, 10/29/13)(SFC, 10/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 28, Bangladesh police said at least 15 people have been killed and hundreds wounded as the 2nd day of an opposition strike demanded elections be held under a non-partisan administration.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Brazil one person was injured and 90 detained while trucks and buses were torched in Sao Paulo late today in renewed violence after police fatally shot a 17-year-old boy.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, British security group G4S denied that its workers had electrocuted and drugged prisoners at South Africa's Mangaung prison, the maximum security facility it ran before the government stepped in to restore order earlier this month.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, A major storm, dubbed the St Jude storm, lashed southern Britain, the Netherlands and parts of France, knocking down trees, flooding low areas and causing travel chaos. 5 deaths were reported.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In China a sport utility vehicle plowed through a crowd in Tiananmen Square before crashing and catching fire, killing the 3 occupants and 2 tourists and injuring 38 visitors and security officers. The SUV was driven by Usmen Hasan, a man whose name suggested he is an ethnic Uighur. His wife and mother were also with him in the car, along with devices filled with gasoline. China blamed the attack on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Eight people connected with the incident were soon arrested with help from the Xinjiang government.
(AP, 10/28/13)(Reuters, 10/29/13)(AP, 10/30/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.50)(SSFC, 6/1/14, p.A5)
2013 Oct 28, The Congolese army, who one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on in taking back Rumangabo, the fifth, rebel-held town.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Egypt gunmen killed 3 policemen at a security checkpoint north of Cairo.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, A Georgian court convicted former defense minister Bacho Akhalaia and ordered him sent to prison, in another blow for outgoing President Mikhail Saakashvili the day after a presidential election that was won by his rival.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Israeli warplanes raided the northern Gaza Strip after militants fired rockets over the border. Israel readied to free a new batch of long-term Palestinian prisoners.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Kenya a petition campaign demanding justice topped a million signatures after three men accused of brutally gang raping a Kenyan schoolgirl in June were ordered to cut grass as punishment.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Lebanon's army began deploying in Tripoli following a week of bloodshed in which 14 have people died and more than 80 were wounded. Two more people died Tripoli in fighting between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese army.
(AFP, 10/28/13)(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Libya gunmen stole over $50 million after attacking a van belonging to the Central Bank on a road along the Mediterranean coast.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 28, Niger police said dozens of migrants to Algeria from Niger died of thirst in the desert south of the Sahara after their vehicle broke down. 19 reportedly survived.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Pakistani police said a young man has stabbed at least 25 women since Oct 6 in the small town of Chichawatni, Punjab province. Many women and girls were afraid to leave their homes.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Poland Tadeusz Mazowiecki (b.1927), Eastern Europe's first democratic prime minister after communism, died. He was a key adviser to Poland's Solidarity freedom movement and UN human rights envoy to Bosnia in the 1990s.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Saudi Arabia said one more person has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 52 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Somalia Ibrahim Ali Abdi (aka Anta-Anta), a top suicide bomb-maker for Shebab rebels, was among 3 people killed in a drone strike on a vehicle.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 28, A South African court began sentencing 20 right-wing extremists convicted of high treason for a plot to kill Nelson Mandela and drive blacks out of the country.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, A Spanish newspaper published a document that it said shows the US National Security Agency spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone — the latest revelation about alleged massive US spying on allies.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In northern Spain 6 miners died and five others were injured after a gas leak at a coal mine at the Santa Lucia mine near the town of Pola de Gordon.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Sudan 9 university professors, many of them activists, were detained during a campus raid, hours after President Omar al-Bashir spoke of political dialogue and reform. They were all released the next day.
(AFP, 10/29/13)(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 28, Syrian government forces retook Sadad, a Christian town north of Damascus, from al-Qaida-linked rebels who seized control of part of it a week ago, touching off fierce clashes.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Thailand rubber farmers took to the streets again to demand that the government buy their produce at prices higher than the market, rejecting a subsidy offered last month and threatening violence if their demands are not met.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Turkish police fired water cannon and teargas to break up a protest by around 2,000 people outside an Ankara court over the handling of the trial of a policeman accused of killing a demonstrator earlier this year. Officer Ahmet Sahbaz is accused of killing Ethem Sarisuluk, shot dead June 1 during a wave of nationwide anti-government demonstrations.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 29, Conrad Murray (60), the doctor conficted of killing Michael Jackson with an overdose of a powerful anesthetic, was released from prison in LA after serving about half of his maximum sentence.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 29, The SF Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a bill banning the possession of large-capacity magazines for guns.
(SFC, 10/30/13, p.D3)
2013 Oct 29, Bangladesh police opened fire at protesters on a remote island, killing 2 and bringing to 20 the death toll in demonstrations aimed at forcing the premier to make way for a caretaker government ahead of elections.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In CongoDRC 6 people were killed in clashes between military police and a group of separatist attackers at a munitions depot in the southwestern city of Lubumbashi.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Iranian media reported that a court has sentenced Pegah Ahangarani (24), an actress known for her reformist political activism, to 18 months in prison on security charges.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Iraq's PM Nuri al-Maliki travelled to the United States to press for urgent help and arms to combat the worst upsurge of violence in years.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers killed 12 military and police officers and wounded 19 late today by blowing themselves up outside a Sunni militia leader's house in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad. In a village outside Mosul, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint leading to a police station, killing 3 policemen and 4 civilians. When an ambulance rushed to the scene, gunmen opened fire on its crew, killing one and wounding three.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 29, Italian police arrested 17 suspected gangsters thanks to information on brutal gang wars that a mafia informant had provided before being murdered.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Kenyan police said they are holding five people over last month's attack on Nairobi's Westgate mall, while two soldiers were court martialed for looting during the attack.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In Libya attackers in Benghazi opened fire on a five-man sit-in, killing 2 and wounding three. The men were protesting the 2011 assassination of former army chief Abdel-Fatah Younis.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Niger said it has accepted a controversial $1 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank) to finance development projects.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In southwest Pakistan a gunmen killed a pro-government tribal elder and six members of his family in Baluchistan province.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Peru's PM Juan Jimenez said he is leaving President Ollanta Humala's government and that other cabinet changes will soon be announced by his successor, Cesar Villanueva, the regional president of the northern department of San Martin.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will ask Ukraine to start pre-paying for gas supplies in case Ukraine doesn't settle outstanding debts. He was reacting to a complaint of Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian gas giant Gazprom, who said Ukraine owes Russia $882 million for the August deliveries and was due to pay for it by Oct 1.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Russian investigators announced new theft and money laundering charges against opposition politician Alexei Navalny, increasing pressure against one of Pres. Putin's biggest domestic critics.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In South Africa Mike du Toit, the mastermind behind the 2002 right-wing extremist plot to kill former President Nelson Mandela and drive blacks out of the country, was sentenced along with four others to 35 years in jail. The rest of the 20 militia members on trial received 10 and 30 years sentences depending on their degree of involvement in the plot. The judge suspended 10 years of the sentences for some and took into account the time behind bars during the trial.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, South Africa signed an agreement to buy over half of the power generated by the first phase of the Grand Inga hydroelectric project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sacked Vice Premier Qadri Jamil saying the official had been absent without leave and carried out unauthorized meetings abroad. Jamil had met with the US pointman for Syria Robert Ford on Oct 26 to discuss proposed Geneva peace talks. Some 800 women, children and elderly civilians trapped in the besieged town of Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of Damascus, were evacuated.
(AFP, 10/29/13)(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 29, Turkey opened its Marmaray tunnel, the world's first underwater rail link connecting Asia and Europe. The 8.5 mile tunnel allowed PM Tayyip Erdogan to realize a project dreamed up by Ottoman sultans more than a century ago.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)(SFC, 10/30/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 29, The UN's health agency said it has confirmed 10 polio cases in northeast Syria, the first confirmed outbreak of the highly contagious disease in the country in 14 years, and a top UN official urged warring sides to grant health workers access to 500,000 children who have never received immunization.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 30, US federal authorites said a $34 million settlement with Infosys, an Indian technology outsourcing firm, fixes systemic issues. The case targeted major visa fraud and immigration abuse.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 30, Authorities in San Diego, Ca., shut down a tunnel, nealy 600 yards long, designed to smuggle drugs from Tijuana.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 30, The NYC Council voted to raise the minimum age for purchasing cigarettes and electronic-vapor cigarettes from 18-21.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 30, In South Carolina Bryan Sweatt (27) shot and killed his one-time girlfriend, her parents and two children befor killing himself.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 30, Riot police in Bahrain stormed an exhibition dedicated to the Arab Spring-inspired uprising. The raid came two days after the opening of the museum-style hall, which included scenes depicting Bahrain's 32-month unrest, such as protesters killed in clashes, alleged torture inside prisons and demonstrators running from tear gas.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Electronica singer-songwriter James Blake (25) won Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize for his second album, "Overgrown."
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Egyptian police fired teargas at protesting students at Cairo's al-Azhar university hours after authorities announced the detention of Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Erian.
(Reuters, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In India a Nigerian man was found stabbed to death in Goa. Goan police arrested 53 Nigerians after around 200 of them staged a protest against the killing. On Oct 5 police detained a man in north Goa, accused of being part of a gang who stabbed the Nigerian to death.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Oct 30, In southern India a packed bus crashed into a highway barrier and burst into flames, killing 45 passengers who were locked inside the cabin in Andhra Pradesh state. The driver, a bus cleaner and five passengers managed to escape through a window in the front of the overnight bus.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that four people accused of sabotaging one of the country's sensitive nuclear sites were only thieves.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Israel announced plans to build 1,500 new homes in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Israel reportedly targeted a shipment of surface-to-surface missiles in latakia, Syria, destined for Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement fighting alongside the regime.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 30, Japan’s financial watchdog said it would inspect the Mizuho Bank and two other big banks for to hunt for loans to yakuza (gangsters).
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.79)
2013 Oct 30, In Kenya a train crashed into a passenger bus as it passed through a rail crossing in the capital, Nairobi, killing at least 11 people.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Norway the residents of Rjukan received faint rays from the winter sun in the town’s market square for the first time following the construction of three 183-square-foot mirrors on a nearby mountain. The town was built 100 years ago to provide workers for a hydroelectric plant in Telemark County.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 30, Oman said it has discovered the first case of the MERS coronavirus in the Gulf sultanate, a 68-year-old Omani man.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, The Pakistani government said that 3% of the people killed in US drone strikes since 2008 were civilians. A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in South Waziristan.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Bomb blasts in shops in Russia's volatile North Caucasus province of Dagestan killed one person and injured several others.
(Reuters, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In South Africa thousands of angry demonstrators took the streets of central Cape Town, looting shops to protest against poor public services.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Tunisia a man blew himself up in front of a popular seaside hotel at Sousse. The attack was believed to be the country's first suicide bombing. Authorities in Monastir foiled a possibly related assault at the mausoleum of Habib Bourguiba, modern Tunisia's secular founder.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Uzbekistan Gulnara Karimova (41), the eldest daughter of President Islam Karimov, acknowledged for the first time that the authorities had closed television channels she is believed to control, further stoking rumours of a rift in the ruling family.
(AFP, 10/30/13)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 30, In Yemen at least 4 people were killed when a rocket hit a mosque in the Salafi-controlled northern town of Damaj.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Zimbabwe's highest court scrapped a law against insulting the president that has been used to arrest opponents and critics of veteran leader Robert Mugabe.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Zimbabwe 21 people were killed, many burnt beyond recognition, after a fuel tanker and a truck ferrying mourners collided.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 31, The nation’s largest landfill, a 630-acre site 20 miles east of LA, closed as a permit for the sited expired. Garbage from the county’s 88 cities will eventually be put on trains and taken to an abandoned gold mine over 200 miles away.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 31, A US federal appeals court ruled that most of Texas’ tough new abortion restrictions can take effect immediately.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 31, In central Texas flash floods following heavy rains killed two men in the Austin area.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 31, In Britain television cameras were allowed into one of the highest courts for the first time, hailed as a landmark move towards open justice while still protecting the rights of vulnerable witnesses.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Brazil oil giant OGX, once the jewel in the EBX crown, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection after debt-restructuring talks with its creditors failed. Eike Batista's debt-ridden EBX empire appeared to be on its last legs as the Brazilian magnate desperately tried to sell assets and lure investment to keep his sinking ship afloat.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 30, Barclays, Britain's second-largest bank, revealed that it was the subject of an investigation by regulators in Britain and other countries over "possible attempts to manipulate certain benchmark currency exchange rates." Six traders were soon suspended amid an investigation into whether international currency markets were rigged.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In London Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif told British Deputy PM Nick Clegg that his country had started talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Calls for the resignation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford intensified after police said they had obtained a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe, discovered in a massive surveillance operation of a friend who is suspected of supplying the mayor with drugs.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Chinese state media said the last county in China to be accessible by modern land transport was finally linked up to the rest of the country with a new 117-km road that has taken decades to build. The 19,000 people of deeply isolated Medog in southeastern Tibet have until now had to depend on horses for land travel and trade.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Ghana immigration official said 46 more foreigners, suspected of illegal gold mining, have been arreested in the last week, including 43 Chinese, two Indians and an American.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Greece thousands of protesters clogged Athens to demonstrate against a new property tax. The anger was registered across society, with retirees, disabled groups, shipyard workers and high school teachers among those taking part.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Indonesia tens of thousands of workers went on strike across the country as its citizens seek a greater share of the spoils from stellar growth.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Iraq twin car bombs north of Baghdad killed 6 people, while attacks elsewhere in the country left 6 others dead.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported the government is planning to move ahead with another 3,360 new settler homes in the West Bank, quoting an MP from the ruling rightwing Likud party.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Italian police said they have busted an international ring of former special forces agents hired to "recover" children involved in custody battles who were spirited across borders by one of their parents.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenya MPs voted to set up and appoint a new Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal with the teeth to impose penalties of up to 20 million Kenyan shillings (173,000 euros, $234,000) on offenders and even bar journalists from working.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenyan warplanes destroyed a Shebab rebel camp in southern Somalia used to train gunmen who attacked Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in September.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a campaign against the country’s obesity epidemic, urging his countrymen to exercise more as Congress passed special taxes on junk food and sodas. Mexico's Congress passed a package of measures aimed at bolstering the country's weak tax revenues, but only after watering down a plan that is expected to have a moderate impact at best.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Niger authorities said rescuers have found the bodies of 92 migrants, most of them women and children, strewn across the Sahara desert after their vehicles broke down and they died of thirst.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Nigeria dozens of Boko Haram gunmen riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks stormed Bama town in Borno state, killing 27 people and razing some 300 homes.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Pakistan a US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed 3 insurgents in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Palestinian security sources said Israel's army arrested four suspects from the Islamic Jihad movement overnight, in the second such arrest operation this week. A Palestinian rock thrower was killed as Israeli troops entered Qabatiya in northern West Bank.
(AFP, 10/31/13)(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 31, Peru's President Ollanta Humala swore in Cesar Villanueva, a widely praised regional politician, as his 4th prime minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, but retained his finance minister despite rumors he might quit.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Portugal Lisbon subway workers walked off the job for the fifth time this year to protest government austerity measures being enacted in return for Portugal's 2011 bailout.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Moscow court revoked the registration of web-based news agency Rosbalt for posting videos it said contained profane language, including a clip by punk band Pussy Riot.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Sudan the pan-Arab satellite channel Sky News Arabia reopened its bureau in Khartoum after a one-month suspension that authorities imposed during anti-regime protests.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria has destroyed critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and poison gas munitions. Fierce clashes raged in the north, close to one of the sites where toxic agents are believed to be stored.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Thai anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Bangkok as parliament debated a political amnesty which opponents fear will "whitewash" past abuses and allow ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Venezuela seized control of two oil rigs owned by a unit of Houston-based Superior Energy Services after the company shut them down because the state oil monopoly was months behind on payments.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In northern Yemen the death toll from a Houthi Shi'ite attack on a mountain town held by their Salafi Sunni Muslim rivals rose to 24 as the two sides fought for a second day in Damaj. Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen shot dead two soldiers and a civilian in an attack on an army checkpoint in the southern province of Abyan.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct, In Myanmar a blast at the Trader's Hotel, later known as the Sule Shangri-La, in the heart of Yangon, ripped apart a guest's room and wounded an American woman (43). On July 3, 2015, a court convicted Saw Myint Lwin (26) on three charges related to the bombing and sentenced him to life imprisonment and hard labor. Two others were acquitted and the alleged mastermind, said to be a member of the Karen National Union ethnic rebel group, remained at large.
(AP, 7/3/15)
2013 Oct, In Qatar Lauren Patterson (24), a British teacher, was stabbed to death and her body burned in the Qatari desert. In 2014 Badr Hashim Khamis Abdallah al-Jabr was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Jabr's accomplice Mohamed Abdallah Hassan Abdul Aziz, who helped to burn the body, was sentenced to three years in jail.
(AFP, 4/30/17)
2013 Oct, In Spain all the factories of appliance-maker Fagor ceased operations. Fagor was part of Mondragon, the world’s biggest group of worker-owned co-operatives.
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.72)
2013 Oct, Thailand’s Supreme Court sentenced former Deputy Interior Minister Pracha Maleenont to 12 years imprisonment and a Bangkok fire department chief to 10 years in jail for malfeasance in public office and price fixing. The pair fled and are the subjects of arrest warrants.
(AP, 4/30/14)
2013 Nov 1, The US Federal Aviation Administration said it is relaxing restrictions on the use of smartphones and other electronics inside flights by American carriers.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In California Paul Ciancia (23) walked into LAX’s terminal 3 near the security checkpoint and began shooting, sending thousands of passengers scattering onto tarmacs other parts of the airport. TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez (39) was killed. Ciancia was hospitalized after being shot 4 times.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)(SFC, 11/4/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, In Nevada Lee Hosey Jr. (25) was sentenced to 24-80 years in prison for a drunken driving crash in Las Vegas on Sep 13, 2012, that left 4 people dead and several injured.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, In Rhode Island Ralph Mariano (55), was sentenced to 10 years in prison as the mastermind of a kickback scheme that cost the Navy $18 million.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, Genentech won federal approval for its Gazyva drug for patients with leukemia.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.D2)
2013 Nov 1, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is ready to talk with German prosecutors in Russia, his lawyer said, after the fugitive met a German lawmaker over his evidence that Washington spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Bulgaria's ruling alliance asked the country's top court to quash a widely criticized ban on arable land acquisitions by foreigners to avert infringement action by the EU.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, China jailed for life Tian Xueren, a former vice governor of the northeastern province of Jilin and former banker, for taking more than $3 million in bribes, in the government's latest move to crack down on deep-rooted corruption.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In China 11 people died and 17 were injured by an explosion in a fireworks factory in Guangxi province. Police detained two people.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Egypt controversial satirist Bassem Youssef's television channel suspended his program, a week after he returned from a four-month break and fired barbs at the country's military. Thousands supporting ousted Pres. Morsi marched in street protests across the country, ramping up pressure on the military-backed interim government ahead of his coming trial next week.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Greece two members of the far-right Golden Dawn party were killed and a third wounding. The gun used in the attack had not been used in previous terrorist attacks.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Indonesia tens of thousands of workers went on strike across the country for a second straight day, calling for huge salary hikes as Southeast Asia's top economy enjoys a prolonged boom.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Iran said it has launched its first submarine for tourists in the Persian Gulf waters, an all-Iranian-made undersea vehicle. The submarine, dubbed Morvarid (Pearl in Farsi), will serve tourists in Kish Island, Iran's prime tourist spot in the Gulf.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, An Israeli air strike killed 3 militants in the Gaza Strip after an overnight clash that killed a fourth Palestinian gunman and wounded five Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted a tunnel used by militants to facilitate attacks on Israelis.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Kenya's media reacted with shock and outrage after parliament voted through a bill that could see journalists and outlets slapped with huge fines for violating a code of conduct.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Dutch PM Mark Rutte said the Netherlands will send 380 soldiers and four Apache attack helicopters to war-torn Mali following an appeal for more UN peacekeepers.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Nigeria formally scrapped its inefficient and graft-ridden electricity firm and handed its assets to private investors in a bid expected to improve power supplies.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In northwest Pakistan Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud was killed by a US drone aircraft in Miranshah. He had a $5 million US bounty on his head. 3 others were also killed.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 1, Hamas said a shortage of fuel halted the production of electricity across the Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Russia a man facing an assault charge detonated a grenade in a courthouse, killing himself and a court officer and wounding two other people in the Ural Mountains city of Kurgan.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Tanzania’s parliament suspended an anti-poaching campaign, amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino, to allow investigation of reported seizure of property, torture and killing of suspects.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Tasmania int’l. negotiations ended after China, Russia and Ukraine scuttled plans to create the world's largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctica. The sanctuary plans were led by the Antarctic Ocean Alliance which campaigns for protecting the Antarctic seas. For the sanctuary proposals to pass, they needed backing from all 200 delegates from 25 member countries, many of which have conflicting interests.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 1, State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland announced plans to create an internal 'bad bank' to run down £38 billion of high-risk assets and accelerate its return to the private sector.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, A South African court sentenced Johannes Kana, a man convicted of raping and murdering Anene Booysen (17) in a gruesome case that shocked the country, has been sentenced to two life terms in jail.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Syrian troops heavily shelled rebel-held areas of southern Damascus as part of a bid to completely cut them off from rear bases in the countryside. State media said government forces have captured Safira, a northern town located near a chemical weapons site after days of heavy fighting.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Tanzania’s parliament suspended an anti-poaching campaign, amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino, to allow investigation of reported seizure of property, torture and killing of suspects.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 1, Thailand's Parliament moved a step closer to granting amnesty to people involved in a wrenching political conflict that has divided the country for almost a decade, prompting thousands to protest in the streets and renewing fears of violence. The bill was aimed to bring back Thaksin Shinawatra, the elder brother of PM Yingluck Thinawatra.
(AP, 11/1/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.44)
2013 Nov 1, Tunisia's party leaders met to choose a new premier to be tasked with replacing an Islamist-led government and steering the country out of a months-long political crisis.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Yemen Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels backed by tanks launched a fresh attack Damaj, a town held by their Sunni Muslim Salafi rivals, bringing the total death toll in three days of sectarian clashes to 40.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Dozens of Zambian separatists appeared in court on charges of treason for trying to create a new state called Barotseland in the west of the country. A total of 84 defendants, mostly from the Lozi tribe, were rounded up in a recent crackdown on those protesting for Barotseland.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 2, Clifford Nass (b.1958), a Standfor Univ. sociologist, died following a hike near Lake Tahoe. He had warned of chronic multitasking following his experiences as a freshman, residence hall dorm dad.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.D7)
2013 Nov 2, In Georgia, the burned body of Emani Moss, a 10-year-old girl, was found in a trash can at an apartment complex near Atlanta. Her father, Eman Moss, and stepmother, Tiffany Moss, were soon charged with felony murder.
(SSFC, 11/3/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 2, In Michigan Theodore Wafer (54) of Dearborn Heights shot and killed Renisha McBride (19), a black woman, as she apparently knocked his door following a car accident. On Nov 15 Wafer was charged with 2nd degree murder. On Aug 7 he was convicted of 2nd degree murder.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A7)(SFC, 8/8/14, p.A8)
2013 Nov 2, Jacqui Park, an Australian media rights activist, accused Sri Lankan officials of a "witch-hunt" against local journalists as she arrived back in Sydney after being detained in Colombo for two days.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Brazil’s O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper said President Dilma Rousseff will allow state-run oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA to increase domestic fuel prices "two or three times" a year through the use of a formula without triggering significant consumer price gains.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that spy agencies in Germany, France, Spain and Sweden are carrying out mass surveillance of online and phone traffic in collaboration with Britain, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, China, the only country that still systematically takes organs from executed prisoners for use in transplant operations, said it plans to end the controversial practice by the middle of next year.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Cuba closed dozens of home-based movie theaters and reaffirmed its plans to end the private sale of imported goods as communist authorities pressed for "order, discipline and obedience" in the growing small business sector.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Europe's heaviest-ever cargo carrier to the International Space Station burned up in Earth's atmosphere in a controlled manoeuver after a five-month mission. It was filled with about six tons of garbage and waste produced on board the ISS.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, French riot police fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators in the north-west, after some protesters hurled stones and iron bars at them in a rally against a controversial green tax and layoffs.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Georgia's PM Bidzina Ivanishvili named Interior Minister Irakly Garibashvili (31) as his successor. Under changes to the constitution that will this month transfer many of the president's responsibilities to the prime minister, Garibashvili will become the country's most powerful politician.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In southern India a train struck and killed 8 people in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SSFC, 11/3/13, p.A3)
2013 Nov 2, Iran arrested the head of reformist daily Bahar, Saeed Pourazizi, for publishing an article seen by critics as questioning the beliefs of Shia Islam.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, An Iranian media website said China has agreed to finance $20 billion in development projects in Iran using oil money not transferred to the Islamic Republic because of international sanctions.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In northern Iraq militants bombed a major oil pipeline in Nineveh province, disabling it and forcing pumping to be suspended.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Meeting in Tokyo Japan and Russia held their first joint defense and foreign ministers' meeting and agreed to boost security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific as they both warily watch neighboring China's rising influence. Japan and Russia have never signed a treaty to mark the end of World War II because of a territorial dispute.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Kenya's chief justice said he has ordered "immediate action" over a case where men accused of brutally gang raping a schoolgirl last June were ordered to cut grass as punishment.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In Libya a soldier was killed by a mine in Benghazi.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, In Mali two French journalists were snatched by gunmen in the northern town of Kidal. Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon of Radio France Internationale were grabbed by armed men in a 4x4 just after finishing an interview with the acting head of the rebel National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (NMLA). Their bodies were dumped a dozen km outside the town.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)(AP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, Niger said it has detained 100 migrants crossing the Sahara to Algeria, in a crackdown on illegal migration after 92 people died trying to make the same journey.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In northeast Nigeria suspected Islamic militants attacked a wedding convoy and killed more than 30 people including the groom.
(AP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, In eastern Nigeria at least 24 people died during a stampede at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Uke, Anambra state.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, The Pakistani Taliban voted to promote their number two commander, Khan Said, also known as Sajna, to replace leader Hakimullah Mehsud who was killed in a strike by a US drone.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Syria's air force struck Sbeineh south of Damascus, as loyalists pressed a fierce bid to crush rebel bastions around the capital. Rebels launched a counteroffensive in Aleppo.
(AP, 11/2/13)(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A9)
2013 Nov 2, In northern Yemen Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels pressed their offensive against Damaj held by their Sunni Muslim Salafi rivals, bringing the total death toll in four days of sectarian clashes to 55.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 3, Bill Schumacher (b.1937), former Mayor of Daly City, Ca. (1978-1979), died in Palm Desert, Ca.
(http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/bill_schumacher/homepage.aspx)
2013 Nov 3, Hackers claiming links to international activist group Anonymous (Anonymous Indonesia and Anonymous Philippines) defaced dozens of websites belonging to Australian businesses and Philippine government agencies.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, The head of Bahrain's main opposition group, Ali Salman, was charged with insulting authorities through an exhibition that showed alleged abuses against anti-government protesters. A court sentenced four Shi'ite Muslims to life and six others to 15 years in jail on charges of setting up a militant cell linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard that aimed at assassinating public figures in Bahrain.
(AP, 11/3/13)(Reuters, 11/4/13)(SFC, 11/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 3, A Bangladesh war crimes court convicted and sentenced to death in absentia two men accused of committing atrocities during the country's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971. Britain-based Muslim leader Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a US citizen, were found guilty of the torture and murder of 18 intellectuals during the war.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, A Bolivian plane carrying 18 people crashed while trying to land during bad weather in Riberalta, killing 8 passengers and injuring the others on board.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, China's ruling Communist Party announced the removal of the military chief of restive Xinjiang from the region's governing council, following an Oct 28 car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square blamed on Islamist militants from Xinjiang.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, Colombia police said US and Colombian anti-drugs agents cooperated in a massive bust in the southern Caribbean that led to the confiscation of 1,450 kilos of cocaine. Four Venezuelans and a Colombian were detained in the case.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 rebels declared a ceasefire in their fight with the army, in a move they hope will advance peace talks with the government.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Egypt gunmen killed two policemen near Ismailia on the west bank of the Suez Canal.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, The Greek government backed away from allowing retailers to trade on any Sunday after opposition from small retailers and the Orthodox Church. The government says more Sunday shopping would boost retail sales in a country struggling to pull itself out of a six-year recession.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung volcano erupted for the third time in as many months on the western island of Sumatra, forcing hundreds of villagers to evacuate.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Kosovo violence and low turnout in elections underscored the deep divisions in the territory and dealt a blow to Belgrade, which had sought to further its EU membership bid by urging ethnic Serbs to vote peacefully.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that a Kuwaiti woman was arrested in Saudi Arabia for trying to drive her father to hospital.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Libya 16 people were wounded in clashes at a prison in Kuafiya prison, Benghazi.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Mexico 13 people were killed in shootouts around the northeastern city of Matamoros in one of the worst recent outbreaks of violence in an area ravaged by drug gangs.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, A boat carrying at least 70 Muslim Rohingya capsized and sank off the western coast of Myanmar. Only eight survivors were found.
(AP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, North Korea publicly executed around 80 people, many for watching smuggled South Korean TV shows. A South Korean newspaper reported the executions on Nov 11.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 3, In South Africa 6 people were killed when residents of a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg attacked a group of suspected gang members. Attackers gunned down a former senior union official at platinum producer Lonmin, stoking political and industrial tensions in the nation’s volatile platinum belt.
(AFP, 11/3/13)(Reuters, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Thailand at least 6 passengers including three foreigners died after a tourist ferry sank off the Thai resort of Pattaya.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In northern Yemen at least 3 people were killed in fighting between rival Muslim clans, bringing the death toll from five days of clashes to 58 as the government tried to broker a ceasefire.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 4, US federal prosecutors said SAC Capital Advisors, a Connecticut-based hedge fund led by billionaire Steven A. Cohen, would plead guilty to five counts of fraud and pay a record fine of $1.8 billion.
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.79)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that scientists are struggling to find the trigger for a disease that appears to be ravaging starfish in record numbers along the US West Coast. The deadly syndrome, known as "star wasting disease," caused the sea creatures to lose their limbs and turn to slime in a matter of days. The disease was first detected in tide pools this summer along the coast of Monterey, Ca.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 4, In New Jersey Richard Shoop (20) fired shots into a ceiling at Garden State Palaza in Paramus and then killed himself.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 4, Astronomers at NASA’s Ames research center said the Milky Way may have 11 billion Earth-like planets based on data from the Kepler spacecraft, now crippled and no longer providing new data.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.C3)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.84)
2013 Nov 4, In Vienna 7 Austrian neo-Nazis were sentenced to up to six years in prison. The members of the so-called Objekt 21, which witnesses linked to an illegal prostitution network, were convicted of "re-engagement with National Socialism" - a crime in Austria since 1947.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, The British Co-operative Group announced plans to close around 50 of its bank branches as part of a £1.5 billion rescue plan that will give investors majority control of the lender.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that Britain's biggest retailer Tesco plans to install screens at its petrol stations that scan customers' faces so that advertising can be tailored to their age and gender.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Canada-based BlackBerry abandoned hopes of finding a buyer, and instead pegged its future on a $1 billion cash infusion and new management, after the sudden departure of its chief executive.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Democratic Republic of Congo troops drove M23 rebels from one of their key hilltop positions in the east of the country, pushing on with their assault despite calls for a truce. Mortar shells fell on a market in eastern Congo, killing 4 people as fighting intensified between government soldiers and the M23 fighters.
(AFP, 11/4/13)(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Egypt's deposed Islamist president defiantly rejected a court's authority to try him, saying he was the country's "legitimate" leader and those that overthrew him should face charges instead.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Interpol and the Stolen Asset Recovery Project released a report on how Somali pircay is financed. “Pirate Trails: Tracking the Illicit Financial Flows from Pirate Activities off the Horn of Africa" was backed by the UN and World Bank.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.53)
2013 Nov 4, In Iran tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets outside the former US Embassy in Tehran in the biggest anti-American rally in years, a show of support for hard-line opponents of President Hassan Rouhani's historic outreach to Washington.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Iranian Mehr news agency reported that commander Mohammad Jamalizade of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was recently killed in Syria after volunteering to defend a Shi'ite shrine in Damascus.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Iraq a double suicide bombing and other attacks killed 12 people. Legislators passed a law laying the groundwork for next year's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, A Kenyan court charged four Somali men with terrorist offences for helping al Qaeda-linked militants carry out an attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi that killed 67 people.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Mali French forces, who found the bodies of two radio journalists kidnapped and shot to death, followed the abductor's tracks in the sand and arrested about a half-dozen suspects. 4 people were killed when their truck hit a landmine in the Gao region.
(AP, 11/4/13)(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Mexican armed forces took control of Lazaro Cardenas, a major Pacific port in Michoacan, as part of militarized efforts to contain drug cartel violence in the western state.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, New Zealand police said they were investigating a gang of young males who boasted online about stupefying underage girls with alcohol then having group sex with them. The case has raised concerns about how to police online bullying.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Nigeria's army shot dead 7 suspected Boko Haram fighters during a raid in a northeastern area where the Islamist rebels have killed dozens in the last week.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Lagos, Nigeria, 4 people were crushed to death and 25 rescued when a four-story building under construction collapsed.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, In rural Norway a knife-wielding man hijacked a bus and killed the driver and two passengers before he was detained by authorities. A South Sudanese man suspected in the hijacking and killing was a failed asylum seeker who was about to be deported.
(AP, 11/4/13)(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, A Pakistani court granted former President Pervez Musharraf bail in a case related to the death of a radical cleric, paving the way for an end to his more than six-month house arrest.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Some ten thousand Russian nationalists rallied in Moscow, venting against the migrants they accuse of pushing up the crime rate and taking their jobs.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Saudi authorities began a clampdown on illegal immigrants after the end of an amnesty that gave overstayers and workers a grace period to leave or legalize their status.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, South Korea's spy agency said that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralyzing military electronic equipment south of the border.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, A Spanish court impounded a luxury villa and other properties belonging to the son-in-law of Spanish King Juan Carlos in a corruption case. The court in Mallorca ordered the seizure of properties owned by Inaki Urdangarin, husband of the king's daughter Cristina. The court is investigating accusations that Urdangarin, an ex-Olympic handball player, and his former business partner Diego Torres embezzled six million euros in public funds.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Spain a rubbish strike began in Madrid and continued for 12 days. It ended after private maintenance companies cancelled plans to lay off a fifth of the Spanish capital's street cleaners.
(http://tinyurl.com/mkyut77)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.58)
2013 Nov 4, In central Syria a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck in the Shiite village of Sabtiyeh near Homs, killing six.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Thailand thousands of people emptied onto the streets of Bangkok to protest an amnesty bill passed by the lower house of parliament in the dead of night three days earlier. The opposition People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) was led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.44)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.42)(Econ, 5/17/14, p.39)
2013 Nov 4, Tunisia's ruling Islamists and opposition parties suspended talks over forming a new caretaker government to end the country's crisis after the two sides failed to agree on naming a prime minister.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Venezuelan air force warplanes forced a small executive jet with a Mexican license number to land in the state of Apure, near the border with Colombia. Venezuela’s air force released images of the plane fuselage still in flames. President Nicolas Maduro later said the plane was full of cocaine.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 4, Yemeni Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims fighters agreed to a ceasefire after days of clashes in Damaj killed at least 100 people. Saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline in southern Yemen that pumps crude oil to an export terminal on the Gulf of Aden.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 5, It was reported that US Navy Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz had passed confidential information on ship routes to Malaysian defense contractor Leonard Francis, who in turn overcharged the Navy millions in suplies and services.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 5, SF voters rejected Prop C, a referendum that would have allowed construction of a waterfront high-rise, the 8 Washington project for 134 luxury condos.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A1)
2013 Nov 5, The SF Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 to close city parks from midnight to 5am.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 5, Colorado voters approved a tax rate for marijuana.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A4)(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, Portland, Maine, legalized marijuana for people over 21, joining other cities which have done so.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In Michigan business executive Mike Duggan was elected as the next mayor of Detroit, a city on the brink of bankruptcy. He is known for saving Detroit Medical Center, the city’s largest employer, from near insolvency. Duggan defeated Wayne Ct. Sheriff Benny Napoleon 55-45%
(SFC, 11/7/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 5, New Jersey held elections for governor. Republican Governor Chris Christie handily defeated his Democrat challenger, earning a second four-year term.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A4)(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Millions of New Yorkers went to the polls to elect a new mayor. Democrats retook New York's city hall with left-wing progressive Bill de Blasio replacing billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Virginia held elections for governor. Democrat Terry McAuliffe won in the otherwise strongly Republican state.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A4)(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, In Abu Dhabi 30 Emiratis and Egyptians went on trial accused of setting up an illegal branch of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood in the United Arab Emirates.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, A Bangladesh court sentenced 152 soldiers, of the now defunct Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), to death for the February, 2009, mutiny by disgruntled border guards who killed dozens of military commanders during a brutal, two-day uprising. Of the 846 accused of killing 74 people in the mutiny 161 were handed life sentences, over 250 received prison terms of up to 10 years and over 270 were acquitted.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A3)(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 5, In Bangladesh 2 people died and scores were injured as protesters demanded the government step aside ahead of January elections.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 5, Hundreds of Anonymous protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks protested outside Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II's London home, as part of a global demonstration against austerity.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said a soldier from the 3rd Battalion, the Mercian Regiment, was killed "as a result of an explosion during a vehicle-born suicide attack" near Lashkar Gah, Helmand province.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, Britain signed an information-sharing agreement with the Cayman Islands, one of its overseas territories, to help British authorities improve tax collection.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Canada's Senate effectively expelled three of their own for what an audit revealed were "troubling" expense claims, as a federal police probe intensified.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, China's state media said the People's Liberation Army has discovered in a corruption probe that its troops "illicitly kept" more than 8,000 apartments and 25,000 vehicles.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, A leader of the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo said his movement is ending its rebellion after more than a year and a half of fighting as the Congolese military seized the last two hills that had been held by the fighters.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In Ethiopia 4 people were killed in a bomb blast on a bus near the Sudanese border. Security forces were on high alert following attack warnings.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 5, The European Union resumed membership talks with Turkey. They were stalled for 3½ years mainly because of the country's ongoing dispute with Cyprus.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Lyon-based Interpol said it was waiting for information from Dutch authorities after a rights group said it had identified 1,000 paedophiles by offering online sex with a computer-generated girl (10).
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In India separatist militants of the Garo tribe killed 5 police officers in a shootout in Meghalaya state.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 5, India launched its Mngalyaan (Mars Vehicle), its first spacecraft bound for Mars.
(AP, 11/5/13)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.46)
2013 Nov 5, Israeli and Palestinian officials said the three-month-old peace talks pressed on them by Washington are going nowhere.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported that a group of Italian computer boffins have launched a new website, Mafialeaks, aimed at encouraging victims of organised crime and former gangsters to spill the beans.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Mozambique's revived rebel movement Renamo spurned the government's invite for high level face-to-face talks to end destabilising military skirmishes. Opposition fighters killed 4 soldiers in two separate attacks amid escalating violence in the central part of the country.
(AFP, 11/5/13)(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, Saudi media said authorities have rounded up over four thousand of illegal foreign workers at the start of a nationwide crackdown ultimately aimed at creating more jobs for locals.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 5, Somali money transfer company Dahabshiil welcomed a temporary injunction by a British court allowing its lifeline services to continue, transferring funds dwarfing levels of foreign aid to the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, South African police fired rubber bullets to disperse a protest march organized by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), headed by Julius Malema, and arrested four people.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, The United Nations that 40 percent of all Syrians are now in need in need of humanitarian aid.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In northern Yemen sectarian fighting reignited between Shiite Huthi rebels and Sunni Islamists, shortly after a ceasefire allowed the evacuation of the critically wounded.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 6, US federal authorities in Florida arrested a 3rd senior Navy official, Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, in connection with an extensive bribvery scheme in Asia involving prostitutes and luxury travel.
(SFC, 11/7/13, p.A1)
2013 Nov 6, William Potts (56), a former US militant who hijacked a plane to Cuba in 1984, flew home to the United States where he faced federal charges for air piracy. On July 16, 2014, Potts was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence effectively gave him credit for serving 13 years in Cuba making him eligile for parole in 7 years.
(AP, 11/6/13)(SFC, 7/18/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 6, In Michigan 3 men were killed in a back gambling room at Al’s Barbershop on Detroit’s east side. 6 others were wounded.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 6, Scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, Twitter priced its IPO at $26 per share. TWTR closed at $44.90 per share, up 73%.
(SFC, 11/7/13, p.A1)(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 6, Afghan police found the bodies of 7 soldiers, believed to have been killed by their Taliban captors in Zabul province.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, British energy firm Centrica said it has signed a deal to supply British homes with Qatari liquefied natural gas in a tie-up worth £4.4 billion and lasting until 2018.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Britain’s BAE Systems said it will axe 1,775 shipbuilding jobs and close a historic yard as a government austerity drive hits demand.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Cameroonian author Leonora Miano scooped France's Femina literary prize and used her acceptance speech to denounce racist insults directed at the French justice minister.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, In China supporters of jailed politician Bo Xilai established a new political party, the Zhi Xian Party, to support the former high-ranking official who was handed a life sentence for corruption in September.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 6, In China a series of bombs packed with ball bearings exploded outside a provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party, killing at least one person in Taiyuan, Shanxi province.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, A court in Egypt upheld an earlier ruling that banned the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets confiscated.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, It was reported that a total of 20 dead whales have been discovered along Ghana's coastline in the last four years, including at least eight since September. Environmental groups said they are concerned, given the proximity of the discoveries to the country's new offshore petroleum industry.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Greek schools shut and flights were disrupted as workers held a general strike to protest austerity imposed by foreign lenders.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Iran gunman ambushed and killed Musa Nouri, a state prosecutor, in a restive southeastern region near the Pakistani border. Sunni Islamist Baluch militants claimed responsibility for killing the prosecutor in revenge for a decision to hang 16 prisoners following a cross-border attack by the group two weeks ago.
(AP, 11/6/13)(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Iraq a suicide bomber detonated an oil tanker rigged with explosives at a police station north of Baghdad, killing 7 policemen. Attacks elsewhere left 8 dead.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, An Israeli court found former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman innocent of all charges in a graft trial, clearing the way for one of Israel's most powerful and polarizing figures to return to his post as the nation's top diplomat.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, An Ivory Coast court sentenced 15 former top cocoa sector officials to up to 20 years in prison for corruption under ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, in a bid to clean up the industry in the world's top cocoa grower.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, Japan's hotels, restaurants and food shops were being warned over dishonest labelling amid a growing scandal that is threatening to undermine the country's reputation for safe, high-quality produce.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan asked lawmakers to extend a state of emergency declared in the northeast in May for an additional six months, saying the Islamist insurgency had not yet been contained.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, A Qatari court released Matthew and Grace Huang, a US couple, on trial for allegedly causing the death of their eight-year-old adopted daughter to sell her body parts.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, A Saudi-owned newspaper reported that authorities have detained more than 16,000 migrant workers in the first 48 hours of a security sweep targeting foreigners working illegally in the kingdom.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani man in the eastern Qatif province after he was convicted of drug trafficking in the kingdom.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Syria a car bomb killed at least 8 security personnel in a rare attack on a military intelligence headquarters in the southern city of Suweida. A bomb exploded in a central square of Damascus, killing 8 people and wounding several others.
(Reuters, 11/6/13)(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, his only serious rival disqualified, headed for re-election in a Central Asian country beset by poverty and facing security threats from neighboring Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, The UN weather agency said world carbon dioxide pollution levels in the atmosphere are accelerating and reached a record high in 2012.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 7, Pres. Obama apologized to people who were forced off their health insurance plans by the Affordable Care Act despite his assurances to the contrary.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A12)
2013 Nov 7, The IRS said is issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax returns last year to people using stolen identities. 655 went to a single address in Lithuania, 343 to a lone adress in Shanghai. Miami topped city destinations in the US.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 7, The US National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, NY, inducted the rubber duck and the game of chess.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 7, Britain's spy chiefs gave public, televised testimony to British lawmakers for the first time ever amid a fierce debate over intelligence tactics following allegations of spying on other governments.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Former long-serving BBC political editor John Cole (b.1927) died in Surrey after a long illness.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, A new video surfaced showing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford threatening to "murder" someone and "poke his eyes out" in a rambling rage, deepening concerns among both critics and allies that he is no longer fit to lead Canada's largest city.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, China’s Vice Premier Wang Yang said China will provide a concessionary loan of up to $1 billion to Pacific island nations to support construction projects in a part of the world where Beijing and Taiwan compete for influence. He made the announcement at a forum with Pacific island nations in Guangzhou at a meeting attended by representatives from Micronesia, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue and Fiji.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, The EU’s top court ruled that refugees facing imprisonment in their home country because they are gay may have grounds to be granted asylum in the European Union.
(AP, 11/7/13)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.59)
2013 Nov 7, The European Central Bank startled investors with a surprise cut in its benchmark interest rate aimed at boosting a hesitant recovery in the 17 countries that use the euro.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Greek riot police stormed the headquarters of former public broadcaster ERT in a pre-dawn raid, forcibly removing employees who had been occupying the site since its shock shutdown five months ago.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Iran and six world powers began a new two day round of negotiations with broad discussions about a nuclear deal. Iran’s chief negotiator said a plan to cap some of its atomic activities in exchange for selective relief from crippling economic sanctions has been accepted by six world powers and a deal could be imminent.
(AP, 11/7/13)(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 7, Attacks in Iraq, including a car bomb targeting Shiite Muslims, killed 30 people.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian near Jerusalem. Police said Anas al-Atrash (23) was shot dead when he ran at an officer with a knife at a checkpoint between the West Bank.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, In Mexico the body of Ygnacio Lopez Mendota, the mayor of Santa Ana Maya in Michoacan state, was found. He had complained that cartel members were regularly demanding a chunk of federal money meant for public works projects.
(http://tinyurl.com/qaoz4r7)(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 7, Nigerian lawmakers approved a request by the country's president to prolong emergency rule in the restive northeast by a further six months to try to quell a bloody Islamist insurgency.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, North Korea's security agency said it has arrested a South Korean spy in Pyongyang who intended to rally anti-government forces, a claim that intelligence officials in Seoul quickly called ridiculous and groundless.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, The Pakistani Taliban chose the man who planned the attack on teenage activist Malala Yousafzai as the group's new leader. The new leader, Maulana Fazlullah, has served as the Pakistani Taliban's leader in the northwest Swat Valley but is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, In Russia concern for jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova mounted on her 24th birthday, after her husband said she could not be found in the Russian prison colony where authorities reportedly sent her in October.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Hackers claiming links to international hacking group Anonymous defaced Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong's official website, one day after he said authorities would spare no effort to track them down.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Swiss scientists confirmed that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ingested lethal radioactive polonium before his death in 2004 and had high levels of it in his body that could not have been accidental. Palestinian officials have alleged from the start that Israel poisoned Arafat.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and other pro-regime militiamen retook a major rebel enclave south of Damascus, severing a key opposition supply line.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Tanzania's opposition said a proposed tightening of the country's media law was an "attack against the press" and demanded a complete overhaul of existing legislation. Police said 6 people have been killed and eight others wounded in days of clashes between farmers and herders in the central Morogoro region.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Turkish riot police fired tear gas to disperse Kurdish protesters demonstrating against government plans to build a wall along part of the border with Syria.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Uganda’s military said Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 guerrillas, including rebel chief Sultani Makenga, have surrendered en masse in Uganda, signalling the end of an 18-month insurgency.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Jim Wyss, the Miami Herald’s Andean bureau chief, was detained by Venezuela’s National Guard in San Cristobal, a western city near the border with Colombia that is the center of a vibrant black market by Venezuelans seeking to circumvent rigid currency controls. Wyss was released on Nov 9.
(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 7, In southern Yemen 5 suspected al Qaeda fighters were killed by two drone strikes in Abyan province.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow after the US automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world's cultural agency.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, US prosecutors said a son of Suriname's president invited people he thought were from the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah to set up a base in his country to attack Americans in exchange for millions of US dollars.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a bus in Zabul province, killing 9 people, including five women. In Kandahar province another roadside bomb killed 3 people.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, A British court martial board convicted a royal marine of murder following the execution of an injured insurgent in Afghanistan. The board ruled that Marine A, was guilty of killing the man in cold blood in Helmand Province more than two years ago. Sergeant Alexander Blackman was named on Dec 5, after a judge dismissed his claim that his identity should be protected for his own safety. On Dec 6 Blackman was sen tneced to at least 10 years in prison.
(AP, 11/8/13)(AP, 12/5/13)(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Nov 8, Merlin, an entertainment group, successfully floated shares on the London stock market. A year earlier it had opened a Legoland theme park in Malaysia.
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.72)
2013 Nov 8, In Chile forensic test results showed no chemical agents in the bones of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. His family and driver were not satisfied and said they'll request more proof.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Denmark said it would provide transport and security for the international effort to destroy Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons, after receiving a request from the UN.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, A European Union prosecutor indicted 15 former ethnic Albanian rebels suspected of torturing, mistreating and murdering civilians detained in central Kosovo during the 1998-99 war against Serbia.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Egypt a child and another person died in clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's ousted president in Cairo.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Ghana's Pres. John Dramani Mahama fired his deputy communications minister, Victoria Hammah, after she was recorded saying that she would stay in politics only until she had made one million dollars.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Greek authorities detained a cargo ship carrying large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Iraq a double bombing targeting a Sunni mosque in Baghdad and other attacks around the country killed at least 19 people.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Libya at least 4 people died in overnight clashes between militias in the center of Tripoli.
(AFP, 11/8/13)(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 8, Libyan protesters prevented a tanker from loading 600,000 barrels of crude bound for Italy at the eastern port of Hariga, blocked by a strike for more than two months.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Madagascar officials said the presidential race will go to a run-off vote next month between two candidates linked to the island's main political rivals, after an inconclusive first round.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Malawi police said they have arrested axed justice minister Ralph Kasambara over a failed assassination attempt in September on a corruption-busting treasury official.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In northern Mali 3 people were killed during clashes between the MNLA Tuareg separatist group and the Malian army.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms on record, slammed into six central Philippine islands. As many as 10,000 people were believed dead just in Tacloban, Leyte Island, as one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes. The death toll was later put at about 6,000 with about 1,800 missing. A 2015 study showed that climate change contributed to the high wind speeds of Haiyan.
(AP, 11/8/13)(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/10/13)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.65)(Econ, 7/27/19, p.68)
2013 Nov 8, In Portugal a 24-hour strike by government workers disrupted public services as labor groups continue their battle against pay and pension cuts and the loss of entitlements.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Somalia a huge blast outside a top hotel in Mogadishu killed at least 4 people. Al Shabaab rebels soon claimed responsibility.
(AP, 11/9/13)(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 8, South Africa's government took to the courts to delay the release of an investigation into a $19 million taxpayer-funded upgrade of President Jacob Zuma's private residence at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal province. Police said 14 police officers and tax officials have been arrested since last month as part of a crackdown on crimes committed by police or people impersonating police officials.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, A Spanish court ordered nine imprisoned members of the Basque militant group ETA freed to comply with a controversial European rights ruling made last month.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Syria forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad backed by a dawn barrage of artillery fire and airstrikes drove rebels from a strategic military base near the disputed northern city of Aleppo.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has ordered the disbanding of the main jihadist faction in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in an audio message aired on Al-Jazeera. He said the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is to be abolished, while the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) remains functioning.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Uganda's Pres. Yoweri Museveni tested for HIV in public to encourage millions of untested people to check their status, a critical step to stemming the spread of the virus in the East African country.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, The UN said emergency plans are under way to vaccinate more than 20 million children in the Middle East after polio resurfaced in war-torn Syria.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Venezuela's Pres. Nicolas Maduro ordered the "occupation" of the Daka chain of electronic goods stores in a crackdown on what the government views as price-gouging hobbling the country's economy. The annual rate was now at 54 percent.
(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, The American navy christened a new aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, a colossal ship plagued by equally huge cost overruns, at a time of growing budget pressures.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Texas at least two people were killed and 22 hurt in a shooting at a house party packed with young adults in Cypress, a suburb of Houston. On Nov 11 Willie Young (21) and Randy Stewart (18) were arrested in relation to the shootings.
(AFP, 11/10/13)(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 9, The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) announced another 84-hour nationwide strike, starting Nov 10, after police arrested BNP leaders, triggering violent protests across the country.
(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, China's ruling Communist Party began its Third Plenum, a key 4-day meeting to dictate the direction of the world's second-biggest economy for the next decade.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea said it would block an agreement between central African countries to allow people from the region to circulate freely, due to fears it would be flooded with immigrants.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Indonesia 13 people died when an Indonesian army helicopter carrying construction workers to build a military outpost crashed in the jungles of Borneo.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, World powers and Iran held a third day of crunch talks on Tehran's nuclear program. France's foreign minister said Iran's refusal to suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium was standing in the way of an interim agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for easing of sanctions.
(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Libya gunmen shot dead 2 policemen in Benghazi and state attorney Mohammed Khalifa al-Naas was killed when a bomb blew up his car in Darna, an Islamist militant stronghold.
(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, The Maldives voted to elect a new leader for their budding democracy. Mohamed Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected leader who first came to power in 2008 after 30 years of one-man rule, won the first round of voting but failed to win a clear majority.
(AP, 11/9/13)(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, Niger’s PM Brigi Rafini said about one million of his people were facing severe food shortages due to poor harvests after a drought and flooding.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, In central Nigeria gunmen attacked five farming villages in Benue State. Police the next day said Fulani cattle herdsmen killing six Tiv people and burned many houses. Local media said 36 people were killed in the mayhem. In the north shootouts killed 2 soldiers and 5 suspected Islamic extremist insurgents in Kano.
(AFP, 11/10/13)(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Russia Gabriela Isler (25) of Venezuela was crowned in the Miss Universe pageant at an exhibition hall on Moscow's outskirts.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, A tropical cyclone hit Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. As many as 300 people were feared dead. Hundreds remained unaccounted for as the government and declared a natural disaster emergency.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 9, About 2,000 South African mineworkers staged an underground sit-in at Northam Platinum's Dechaba mine, saying they will not leave until a fired union leader is reinstated. The strikers were safely brought to the surface on Sunday night, Nov 10.
(Reuters, 11/10/13)(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Syria Islamist rebels retook most of a military base in the north from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad after two days of fighting in which at least 60 people have been killed.
(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Bulgaria several thousand people protested in Sofia to demand that the nation's Socialist-backed government step down to make way for early elections.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Burundi officials said police have discovered dozens of human skulls during a search of the home of an Italian expatriate. Giuseppe Favaro, has been in custody since late October after he was caught trying to export two skulls to Thailand.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Canada 5 people died in a plane crash near Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 10, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran will not abandon its nuclear rights, including uranium enrichment, a day after a fresh round of talks with world powers. Iran and world powers failed to clinch a long-sought deal despite marathon talks in Geneva.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Iran Safdar Rahmat Abadi, a deputy minister of industry, was shot in the head and chest as he got into his car in Tehran. A suspect was soon arrested. Officials later said the killer was inside the car and talked with Abadi before shooting him.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 10, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would do all it could to keep world powers from striking a "bad and dangerous" deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, The Israeli cabinet approved the return of far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister after his acquittal on corruption charges.
(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, The governments of Kenya and Somalia signed a deal with the UN’s High Commission for Refugees to facilitate voluntary returns.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.48)
2013 Nov 10, In Libya supporters of a federal system have set up a company to sell oil from terminals they have seized in the east, in the latest challenge to the government. The announcement was made by the Cyrenaica Political Bureau, an autonomous group that set up in October its own government in the east in a move that angered the central authorities.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 10, The Maldives' top court again delayed holding the second round of the country's presidential poll. The Supreme Court delayed it until Nov 16, in line with demands from Mohamed Nasheed's two biggest rivals.
(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, NATO’s anti-piracy force arrested 9 suspected pirates on suspicion of trying to hijack a Danish refined oil and chemical carrier in the Indian Ocean. The TORM KANSAS, owned by the Danish shipping company Torm A/S, was en route from Sikka in India to Mossel Bay in South Africa when the pirates opened fire as it passed east of Tanzania.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 10, Pakistani education officials said that they have banned teenage activist Malala Yousafzai's book from private schools across the country, claiming it doesn't show enough respect for Islam and calling her a tool of the West.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Pakistan Nasiruddin Haqqani (36), the chief fundraiser of the Haqqani militant network, was shot dead on the edge of Islamabad by attackers with automatic weapons. The Pakistani Taliban vowed to take revenge and accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of killing him.
(AFP, 11/11/13)(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 10, In Saudi Arabia thousands of illegal migrants targeted in a nationwide crackdown surrendered to police. In Riyadh 2 people were killed when a police raid targeting Ethiopian residents sparked a minor riot.
(AFP, 11/10/13)(SFC, 11/11/13, p.A2)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.52)
2013 Nov 10, Saudi Arabia announced another fatality from the MERS virus, taking its toll to 53, as neighbouring Oman recorded its first death from the respiratory disease.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Spanish police said they have busted a gang of 25 Nigerians who were engaged in human trafficking for sexual exploitation, Internet fraud and money laundering.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky nailed his genitals to the ground outside Moscow's Red Square in protest over Russia's "police state" as the country marked national police day.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 10, Syrian government officials and rebels reached a deal to ease a weeks-long blockade on a rebel-held town of Qudsaya near Damascus, allowing food to reach civilians there for the first time in weeks. State television said govern ment troops have regained full control of a key base in northern Aleppo province near its international airport.
(AP, 11/10/13)(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, The main Western-backed Syrian opposition began the 2nd day of a two-day meeting in Istanbul to decide whether they will attend a proposed peace conference the US and Russia are trying to convene in Geneva by the end of this year.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Turkey and Iraq pledged greater cooperation on trade and counter-terrorism while admitting to disagreements over Syria's war during a landmark visit to Baghdad by the Turkish foreign minister.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro announced an extension of price controls and limits on profits as he extends attempts to curb the galloping inflation that is eroding support for his rule. Maduro's government announced arrests of both store managers and looters as part of what it calls an "economic war" in Venezuela between the socialist state and unscrupulous businessmen.
(AP, 11/11/13)(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Pennsylvania Troy LaFerrara was stabbed to death. His body was found the next day in an alley in Sunbury. He had responded to an online ad for companionship in exchange for money and was stabbed to death a day earlier. On Dec 6 Elytte Barbour (22) and wife Miranda (18) were arrested. The couple, married for three weeks, said they had wanted to kill someone together. On Sep 18, 2014, the Barbours were sentenced to life in prison.
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A12)(SFC, 9/19/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 11, In Texas 3 people were killed when their single-engine plane crashed into a lakebed near Amarillo.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 11, Drugs group Shire, based in Scotland, said that it has agreed to buy US-based rare disease specialist ViroPharma for about $4.2 billion (3.1 billion euros) in cash.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Britain said it has revived diplomatic relations with Iran and appointed a non-resident charge d'affaires, two years after an angry mob ransacked the British embassy in Tehran. Iran appointed a new charge d'affaires to Britain to revive diplomatic ties.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Struggling low-cost British airline Flybe said it plans to axe another 500 jobs as it pursues a round of cost-cutting measures.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Cambodian police arrested Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky (40) for the second time this year and said they planned to extradite him at Moscow's request to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The International Court of Justice said a 1962 ruling by its judges gave Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear promontory and Thailand is now obligated to withdraw any military or police forces stationed there. Cambodia thus held sovereignty over a 1,000-year-old Khmer temple on the disputed promontory.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The EU and United States began a second round of talks on the world's largest free-trade accord despite damaging revelations of US spying on its allies.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The European Space Agency says one of its research satellites re-entered the Earth's atmosphere early today on an orbit that passed over Siberia, the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean and Antarctica. The Gravity field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) was launched in 2009. Most of the 2,425 lb satellite disintegrated, but about 25% slammed into the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles from the Falkland Islands.
(AP, 11/11/13)(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 11, French authorities filed preliminary charges against Bob Dylan over a 2012 interview in which he is quoted comparing Croatians to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Nov 11, Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog agreed on a "roadmap for cooperation" over Tehran's controversial atomic drive, as the US accused Iran of scuttling efforts to end the deadlock.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Iraq attacks north of Baghdad killed 5 people. Police found two corpses bearing signs of torture, a scene reminiscent of the country's all-out sectarian war. Gunmen seized a power plant in Anbar province, handcuffed the guards and bombed the facility, leaving the surrounding town of Kubaisa without electricity. In Fallujah police shot dead 2 militants wearing suicide vests, including one who was driving a vehicle rigged with explosives, at the entrance to a police station.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Liberian officials said their Drug Enforcement Agency has arrested the head of the presidential motorcade over the weekend for allegedly using an official vehicle to smuggle 297 kg (654 pounds) of marijuana into Liberia from neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Mexican officials said authorities have detained a former US soldier (32) accused of leading a gang of kidnappers in northern Mexico. He carried two identities -- Luis Ricardo Gonzalez Garcia and Javier Aguirre Cardenas, and was accused of ordering the September 25 kidnapping of Jorge Luis Martinez Martinez, the 70-year-old father of the mayor of the town of Zuazua.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Morocco unveiled details of an "exceptional operation" to give official papers to some of its 25,000-40,000 illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, many of whom hope to reach Europe.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Hamas marine forces in Gaza foiled an attempt by residents to smuggle a car from Egypt, signaling a new area of illicit trade as the Egyptian army cracks down on border tunnels.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Authorities in the Philippines said at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces were affected by Typhoon Haiyan, aka Typhoon Yolanda. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said "we pray" that the death toll is less than 10,000.
(AP, 11/11/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.46)
2013 Nov 11, In Poland thousands of delegates from nations and environment organizations from around the world opened two weeks of United Nations climate talks meant to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Violence marred Polish independence day as ultra-nationalist rioters went on the rampage outside the Russian embassy in Warsaw, igniting a diplomatic row with Moscow.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 11, A Russian space capsule carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station in a flawless landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Senegalese police detained five women accused of violating the country's anti-gay law, highlighting increased pressure on suspected lesbians in the deeply conservative West African nation. The five women were soon charged under the country's anti-gay law that imposes prison sentences of up to five years for homosexual acts.
(AP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 11, In South Africa 29 people died and several others were injured after a bus collided with a truck in eastern Mpumalanga province.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Spain cartons, plastic bottles and other litter piled up in the streets of Madrid as an open-ended strike by street-sweepers against layoffs and pay cuts entered the seventh day.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Syria's main opposition grouping said it was willing to attend peace talks on the condition that President Bashar al-Assad transfer power and be excluded from any transition process. 5 children were killed and 27 people wounded when mortar rounds hit a school in Damascus.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Tunisia a man (32) from a poor neighbourhood of Tunis set himself on fire outside a government building and was rushed to a specialist medical clinic. The man was reportedly a victim of deprived social circumstances, suffered psychological problems, and had tried to kill himself late last month by leaping from an electricity pylon.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Vietnam a weakened Typhoon Haiyan landed in the northern province of Quang Ninh. Some 14 people were killed, but all of them during the course of storm preparations.
(http://tinyurl.com/q5f34kr)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.44)
2013 Nov 12, In NYC a 1969 painting by Francis Bacon set a world record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at a Christie’s auction. “Three Studies of Lucian Freud" sold for $142,405,000.
(SFC, 11/13/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 12, In Bangladesh riot police fired tear gas to battle thousands of stone-throwing garment workers who rampaged through two industrial towns during a protest over wages that closed at least 200 factories and left dozens of people injured.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Mavis Batey (b.1921), a renowned British code-breaker during WWII, died.
(SFC, 11/29/13, p.C4)
2013 Nov 12, British composer John Tavener (69) died. His spiritually inspired music was performed at the funeral of Princess Diana. He was best known for works including "The Whale", which was released in the late 1960s by the Beatles' record label Apple.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, Bulgaria's premier and president issued a joint appeal against xenophobia following a number of racist incidents as the EU's poorest country struggles with an influx of Syrian refugees. Protesters tried to blockade the parliament, clashing with police as they demanded the country's left-leaning government resign and early elections be called.
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cambodia a woman was shot dead and several people injured as riot police used live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas in clashes with protesting garment workers.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, A company owned by Canada's Gabriel Resources said it still hopes to start digging for gold in Romania in 2014, despite a negative vote by a parliamentary committee.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Mylene Paquette (35) of Quebec, Canada, made history by becoming the first North American to make a west-to-east solo crossing of the Atlantic by rowboat.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, China's Communist Party promised to deepen economic reforms to give the market a "decisive" role in allocating resources at the end of a closely-watched meeting. A document on reforms was approved but not made public until Nov 15.
(AFP, 11/12/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.47)
2013 Nov 12, China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia won seats on the UN Human Rights Council, despite fierce international criticism of their records.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cyprus the largest haul of looted, centuries-old church icons, frescoes and mosaics ever repatriated were officially welcomed after a nearly four-decade journey. Police discovered the religious treasures in a 1997 raid on the apartment of Turkish art dealer Aydin Dikmen in Munich, Germany.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Egypt's 3-month-old state of emergency ended today after a court ruling. Military and security officials held off from impleneting the ruling amid worries of protests by supporters of deposed Pres. Morsi. Egyptian police fired tear gas at student supporters of Morsi, who were protesting at the university in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura.
(AP, 11/12/13)(Reuters, 11/12/13)(SFC, 11/13/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 12, The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, a leading human rights body, urged President Vladimir Putin to overhaul Russia's creaking judicial system, long criticized as vulnerable to political meddling and as an obstacle to business.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Settlement watchdog Peace Now said Israel plans to build 20,000 new settler homes in the West Bank. PM Netanyahu publicly forced Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who had approved the plans, to back down after drawing US condemnation for a settlement project the Palestinians warned would end a fragile peace process
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, Jordan's largest daily, the government-owned Al-Rai, and its sister newspaper suspended publication after staff held a one-day strike in protest at state "interference."
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Lebanon Sunni sheikh Saadeddine Ghiyeh, a cleric close to the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, was shot dead in the northern town of Tripoli.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Philippine troops killed two armed insurgents who attacked an aid convoy en route to typhoon-devastated Tacloban. Thousands of typhoon survivors swarmed the Tacloban airport seeking a flight out, but only a few hundred made it. Mobs overran a rice warehouse 24 km from Tacloban, setting off a wall collapse that killed 8 people and carting off thousands of sacks of the grain.
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, A Russian court in Moscow froze the assets of protest leader Alexei Navalny as part of an investigation into alleged fraud and money laundering by him and his brother Oleg.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, The Sao Tome government and Chinese representatives signed an agreement to open a trade mission to promote projects in Sao Tome and Principe, 16 years after it broke off relations over the tiny Central African island nation's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 12, Saudi media said 3 Eritrean military officers have asked for political asylum in Saudi Arabia after Saudi air force jets forced their aircraft to land in the southern part of the kingdom.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Saudi Arabia thousands of Africans, mostly Ethiopians, surrendered to authorities for a second day Ethiopia announced the death of three citizens during clashes in the Gulf kingdom.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Singapore charged a 35-year-old man suspected of hacking a website linked to the prime minister.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Thousands of Sudanese demanded the removal of a local police chief, on the third day of unrest sparked by an attack on a female student. Unrest began Nov 10 after an attack on the young woman, which led crowds to burn the local market.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Syrian troops clashed with rebels on the southern outskirts of Damascus. The Syrian National Coalition named a provisional government for rebel-held areas.
(AP, 11/12/13)(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra appealed for anti-government groups to end ongoing street protests after the parliamentary defeat of an amnesty bill failed to defuse political tensions.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Tunisia special forces units from the National Guard killed a suspected militant and arrested eight others in an early morning operation deep in the desert south of the country.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, A new report by the UN Development Program said Latin America is the most unsafe region in the world.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 12, Yemen convicted nine men for arms smuggling after their ship was intercepted in the country's territorial waters in January, sentencing them with up to 10 years in prison for smuggling Iranian-made weapons. Ringleader, identified as Hameed Dahash, was tried in absentia and sentenced to 10 years.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 13, The US State Department said it has designated two Nigerian militant groups, Boko Haram and Ansaru, as foreign terrorist organizations to help US and other law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute suspects associated with the two extremist networks.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In California 4 Marines were killed at Camp Pendleton during a training exercise. A grenade was later believed to have set off an explosion of unexploded rounds in a demolition pit.
(SFC, 3/7/14, p.D4)
2013 Nov 13, NYSE Euronext became part of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a 13-year-old outfit based in Atlanta, Georgia.
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.79)
2013 Nov 13, Hawaii’s Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a bill legalyzing same-sex marriage one day after the state Senate approved the bill with a 19-to-4 vote.
(SFC, 11/13/13, p.A6)(SFC, 11/14/13, p.A9)
2013 Nov 13, A prized 1963 Andy Warhol painting, titled “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)," sold for $105 million at an acution in NYC. This was a new record for a Warhol painting.
(SFC, 11/14/13, p.A9)
2013 Nov 13, Fugitive eco-activist Paul Watson (62) said in France that green warriors were being classed as "terrorists" and accused Japan of coercing other countries into making demands for his arrest. The Canadian-born founder of Sea Shepherd, a marine conservation organisation, arrived in California on October 28, more than a year after fleeing arrest in Germany. Watson said he was in talks to seek refuge in France, the only country apart from the United States where he said he expects a fair trial.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Afghanistan roadside bombings in the restive south and west killed 3 boys.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Afrobarometer survey, a poll of Africans in 34 countries across the continent, found that nearly one-third of people have been forced to pay bribes including for medical treatment. Sierra Leone fared the worst overall when it came to bribes, with 63 percent of respondents saying they'd paid up at least once in the previous year. Morocco and Guinea came next, each with 57 percent.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd announced an end to his chequered political career, quitting politics two months after being ousted from office by Tony Abbott.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Bangladesh violent protests shuttered some 250 garment factories near the capital Dhaka, as thousands of workers demanded higher wages.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Brazil the remains of Joao Goulart, ousted as president ahead of the 1964-85 military dictatorship, were exhumed to determine if he was poisoned.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Bank of England said Britain's economic recovery "has finally taken hold," as it upgraded its growth forecasts despite headwinds from the eurozone debt crisis.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Gunmen in Cameroon kidnapped Georges Vandenbeusch, a French priest working in the lawless northern region. Vandenbeusch was released on Dec 31.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Nov 13, Deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said, in a leter read by his lawyer, that he was kidnapped by the Republican Guard on July 2, the day before the army announced his removal, and was later held at a naval base for four months. Morsi accused the military chief who deposed him of treason. A police armored personnel carrier ran over a pro-Mursi student who was protesting outside a state-run university in the southern city of Assiut. A court sentenced 12 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to 17 years in prison for taking part in a violent student-led protest.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)(AP, 11/13/13)(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Iraq at least 27 people were killed in bomb attacks targeting Iraqi police and pilgrims. Gunmen in Fallujah assassinated the city’s mayor.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(SFC, 11/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 13, Israeli soldier Eden Atias (19) died after a Palestinian youth (16) stabbed him on board a bus in the north of the country.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Japan's finance minister pledged to crack down on lenders that fail to sever links with organized crime as lawmakers grilled him over mob loans by banks and other financial institutions.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Kuwait said it has discovered its first case of the MERS coronavirus for a citizen who is in "critical condition." Later in the day Kuwait reported its 2nd case for a man who just returned from abroad.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said his peace negotiators had resigned over the lack of progress in US-brokered statehood talks clouded by Israeli settlement building.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said Hamas has arrested and tortured dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks on political grounds. One of the blockaded enclave's largest waste water treatment plants stopped for lack of fuel.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 8, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms on record, slammed into six central Philippine islands. As many as 10,000 people were believed dead just in Tacloban, Leyte Island, as one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes. The death toll was later put at about 6,00 with about 1,800 missing.
(AP, 11/8/13)(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/10/13)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.65)
2013 Nov 13, In Russia protesters threw firecrackers at the Polish embassy in Moscow in response to a similar attack on the Russian mission in Warsaw, further straining ties between countries with a history of troubled relations.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Saudi Arabia Ethiopia’s ambassador in Riyadh said some 23,000 Ethiopians have handed themselves in since Saudi authorities clamped down on illegal foreign workers 10 days ago. A Sudanese man was killed in a second flare of clashes since Nov 9 between Saudi riot police, citizens and foreign workers in Riyadh.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Sri Lanka British television journalists, who have reported on war crimes allegations in Sri Lanka, were stopped from reaching the north of the country by some 100 pro-government demonstrators who blocked their train.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Switzerland an enormous diamond known as "The Pink Star" sold for more than $83 million at auction in Geneva. Sotheby's said the sale is the highest price ever paid for a gemstone at auction.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Syria forces loyal to President Assad captured a suburb of Damascus, part of a broader advance that has brought him major gains south of the capital before proposed international peace talks. A mortar round slammed into a mainly-Christian sector of Damascus killing 2 people and wounding seven. Activists said Kurdish militias have seized another seven villages in the northeast.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Turkey's parliament lifted a ban on women lawmakers wearing trousers in the assembly, in a further liberalization of dress rules following a landmark decision to allow female deputies to wear the Islamic headscarf.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, More than one-half of the editorial staff at the Ukrainian edition of Forbes quit to protest what they say is censorship imposed by the new management. They resigned after the new chief editor rejected a previously approved project to investigate a top government official, First Deputy PM Serhiy Arbuzov, an ally of the president.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The UN said opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has reached a record high as farmers seek to "insure" themselves ahead of NATO forces' withdrawal next year.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The WHO said some 21 nations in the Middle East and nearby regions have jointly made the eradication of polio an emergency priority and recognized that Pakistan is a key part of the problem.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Zambia's anti-graft police said they had arrested a regional police chief who is suspected of receiving illicit gifts from a gemstone mining company. Copperbelt Province police boss Mary Tembo (53) was accused of receiving a Toyota Coroll from Grizzly Mining Limited and registering it in her name earlier this year.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 14, Pres. Barack Obama admitted he deserved to be "slapped around" over the chaotic debut of his health care law, and pledged to work hard to restore confidence in his reeling presidency.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Donald Sachtleben (55), a former FBI agent, was sentenced to more than three years in prison for disclosing confidential national security information about a foiled bomb plot to an Associated Press reporter. He had worked for the FBI from 1983 until 2008 as a bomb technician and, after his retirement, was hired as a security contractor.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, US officials in Colorado destroyed over six tons of confiscated ivory tusks, carvings and jewelry, accumulated over the last 25 years at the National Wildlife Property Repository.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 14, A Boston, Mass., judge sentenced gangster James “Whitey" Bulger to two consecutive life terms plus five years for an array of crimes including murder and racketeering.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 14, In Ohio a jury convicted Bobby Thompson (67) on all 23 counts in a $100 million, cross-country Navy veterans charity fraud case. Authorities said he is Harvard trained attorney John Donald Cody, who disappeared in 2010 and was arrested last year in Portland, Ore.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 14, Google Inc and private equity firm KKR & Co LP said they are investing $400 million in six solar power plants in California and Arizona.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A 20-year program to convert highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for US power plants ended with the final shipment loaded at the port of St. Petersburg, Russia.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 14, Albania's government faced a growing chorus of opposition to a US request that it take on the job of dismantling Syria's chemical weapons.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Bangladeshi garment factory owners said they had agreed to a proposed 77 percent rise in the minimum wage, but police used teargas and rubber bullets to break up new protests by stone-throwing workers calling for a bigger increase.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Brazilian government figures showed that deforestation in the Amazon increased by nearly a third over the past year.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Egypt's foreign minister sought to downplay speculation of a major foreign policy shift, saying during a rare top-level Russian visit that Cairo wants to boost ties with Moscow and not replace the United States as its key ally. The defence ministers of Russia and Egypt held discussions on military collaboration between their countries.
(AP, 11/14/13)(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In El Salvador armed men broke into the offices of the Probusqueda Association for Missing Children, a nonprofit agency that works to locate children missing from the country’s civil war, and set fire to the group's archives. Probusqueda said earlier this year that it had documented at least a dozen cases of children stolen by members the military during the 1980-92 war between the Salvadoran government and leftist guerrillas.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, EU officials welcomed the end of bailout support for Spain and Ireland, saying that showed the effectiveness of more than four years of efforts to cut excessive government debt.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A French commercial court ordered TUeV Rheinland, a German product-testing company, to pay damages to more than 1,600 women and six distributors after ruling that it failed to properly check silicone breast implants that turned out to be prone to leakage.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Gambia’s Pres. Yahya Jammeh announced a break off of diplomatic relations with Taiwan after 18 years. The move was greeted with "shock and regret" by Taipei, which is now recognised by just 22 nations.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 14, Christian Wulff became Germany's first post-war president to go on trial, charged with corruption for accepting some 700 euros for a hotel stay and meals during an Oktoberfest beer festival when he was a state premier.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Karlheinz Schreiber (70), a Canadian-German arms industry lobbyist, was convicted in Berlin of tax evasion and sentenced to six and half years. He played a role in a scandal that propelled Chancellor Angela Merkel to power.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Iraq a suicide attacker and twin bomb blasts targeted Shiites marking a somber religious ritual, killing 47 people and wounded more than 100. This included 32 people killed by a suicide bomber at an Ashura event in al-Saadiyah.
(AP, 11/14/13)(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 14, Israeli aircraft bombed two rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip, hours after Palestinian militants had fired mortars into Israel.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A new poll in Kenya found that 67 percent of 2,060 Kenyans surveyed think that President Uhuru Kenyatta should attend his trial at the International Criminal Court. Kenyatta faces charges related to accusations he helped orchestrate the country's 2007-08 postelection violence that saw more than 1,000 people killed.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Lebanon Hassan Nasralla, the leader of the militant Hezbollah group, showed up at a Shiite religious ceremony in southern Beirut, vowing to keep his fighters in neighboring Syria as long as needed to shore up President Bashar Assad's struggle against Syria's rebels.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Libya attacks in Benghazi killed an air force chaplain, a former police officer and a soldier.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Morocco foreign ministers from countries across the Sahel and Maghreb gathered in Rabat to look for ways to boost border security and confront Islamist linked-violence plaguing the vast desert region.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Nigerian forces reportedly killed 9 militants in the Damboa region of Borno state.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 14, In the Philippines a US aircraft carrier "strike group" started unloading food and water to the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines, as President Benigno Aquino faced mounting pressure to speed up the distribution of supplies.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Serbia Miroslav Miskovi, one of the Balkans' richest men, went on trial in a high-profile case. He faced up to 10 years in jail if found guilty on charges of fraud and tax evasion.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Singapore for the first time lifted the death penalty given to a drug trafficker, commuting his sentence to life in prison and 15 strokes of the cane.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A Sri Lanka court banned protests in Colombo until the end of the Commonwealth summit, explaining that the move was intended to prevent traffic jams. Pres. Mahinda Rajapaks lashed out at reporters and critics who questioned his nation's human rights record.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Sudan friendly fire killed five members of the Sudanese security forces in South Kordofan state, as troops battled an insurgency.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Sudan a number of Chadian troops in a joint force with Sudan were killed battling tribal fighters in the troubled Darfur region.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Syria twin bombings and mortar fire killed 3 people and wounded 22 near the famed Ummayad mosque in Damascus. A Syrian rebel commander in a main Islamist brigade was killed and two others were injured in an air strike by Assad's forces on Aleppo.
(AFP, 11/14/13)(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A video posted on the Internet showed two members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holding up a bearded man's head before a crowd in Aleppo in northern Syria. ISIL later admitted the rebel had been killed by mistake and said it had arrested one of its men, a Tunisian, for decapitating him.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 14, A Uganda government tribunal declared Erias Lukwago, the lord mayor of Kampala, guilty of abuse of office, incompetence and misconduct. He faced being kicked out office. Lukwago is a political opponent of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has controlled Uganda since 1986, and the mayor linked the president to his conviction.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that authorities had arrested more than 100 "bourgeois" businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging since the weekend. Venezuela's legislature gave initial backing to a measure granting extraordinary powers over the economy to President Maduro.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, The Washington Post reported that agents and supervisors of the US Secret Service have engaged in misconduct in 17 countries in recent years. It quoted accounts given by whistleblowers to a Senate committee that oversees the Secret Service.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Alabama the Southern Museum of Flight opened in Birmingham. It featured prints of artworks that were only displayed at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A15)
2013 Nov 15, San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee presented Batkid, aka Miles Scott (5), with the key to the city for his heroic deed in saving Gotham. The Make-a-Wish Foundation arranged the extravaganza for Scott as he fought off leukemia.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A11)
2013 Nov 15, In Los Angeles former third grade teacher Mark Berndt (62) pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was accused of blindfolding students and feeding them semen-laced cookies.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 15, In NYC hacker Jeremy Hammond (b.1983) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally accessing computer systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors. Hammond said his goal was to expose injustices by the private intelligence industry.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 15, In Ohio six horses were killed on rural roads after over three dozen escaped from a farm near Covington. Three people injured in the road accidents.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 15, Sony released its PlayStation 4 video game player, one week ahead of Microsoft’s new Xbox One.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.C1)
2013 Nov 15, Albania’s PM Edi Rama rejected a plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons, following a direct US request.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Brazil’s Supreme Court Pres. Joaquim Barbosa issued warrants for the arrest of Jose Dirceau, the former chief of staff to Pres. Lula da Silva in 2003-05, and eleven others for charges including bribery and conspiracy in the “mensalao" (big monthly stipend) case. They were among 25 found guilty in the case last year.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.39)
2013 Nov 15, The British government gave the green light for oil firm EnQuest to invest £4.0 billion in a North Sea oil field scheme that will support an estimated 20,000 jobs.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Toronto police said a global investigation into a Canadian child porn website has led to the arrest of 341 people including teachers, doctors and police officers, and the rescue of 386 sexually abused children.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Canada the city councillors of Toronto voted to limit their hell-raising mayor's powers after Rob Ford’s latest obscene outburst.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, The final overview of China’s “third plenum" was published. China’s ruling Communist Party said it will loosen family planning rules that limit many couples to a single child in the first substantial change to the unpopular policy in nearly three decades, as leaders seek to address a rapidly aging population. It also said the country's much-criticized labor camp system would be abolished. Leaders pledged to open state-dominated industries wider to private competition and ease limits on foreign investment in e-commerce and other businesses in a sweeping reform plan aimed at rejuvenating a slowing economy.
(AP, 11/15/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.16)
2013 Nov 15, Cyprus’ former Pres. Glafcos Clerides (b.1919) died. He was widely regarded as a world-class statesman who guided Cyprus into the EU.
(AP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, The EU executive said it had found no proof of British claims that Spain had violated European Union rules on border and customs checks at Gibraltar's border.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In western Greece 12 migrants, believed to be Syrians, were found dead after a plastic boat still tied to rocks capsized in calm weather. 15 people survived the incident.
(AP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Guinea's Supreme Court rejected all the complaints lodged against the results of a September 28 parliamentary election in which President Alpha Conde's RPG party won the most seats.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Japan said it was dramatically scaling back its greenhouse gas reduction target after the Fukushima nuclear accident forced the country to turn to fossil-fuel burning energy sources, a move denounced by climate campaigners.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Libya 43 people were killed and more than 450 people wounded in Tripoli when militiamen from Misrata opened fire on hundreds of protesters who had marched on their brigade headquarters to demand that they leave the capital.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Mozambique suspected Renamo ex-rebels ambushed a convoy of cars killing one person and wounding 10 others along a key highway in the latest of low-intensity attacks gripping the country.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Myanmar released 69 political prisoners in an amnesty the government described as an act of "loving kindness" in line with President Thein Sein's promise to free all prisoners of conscience by year-end.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, A Nigerian court sentenced suspected Islamist Umaru Umaru Mustapha (34) to life imprisonment for the bombing of a complex housing several newspapers that killed four people in the April 2012 bombing in the northern city of Kaduna. Nigerian troops said they had killed 20 suspected members of Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram in a gunfight in the country's northeast.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Pakistan 8 people were killed when gunmen opened fire on a Shi'ite Muslim religious procession in Rawalpindi. In another version Shiite Muslims staging a procession killed 7 Sunnis from an Islamic seminary for insulting them as they passed.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 15, In the Philippines the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan, one of the world's most powerful typhoons, surged to over 4,000.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Sri Lanka Britain's Prince Charles formally opened a Commonwealth summit in Colombo. Its build-up has been dogged by a dispute over rights abuses at the end of Sri Lanka's ethnic war. Britain's PM David Cameron landed in the war-torn Jaffna region to meet victims of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict after leaving the Commonwealth summit.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN's new envoy to Baghdad, said Iraq's security forces require "massive amounts of re-training" in human rights to better conduct operations and combat the country's deadliest violence since 2008.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said China will build power plants in Yemen with total output capacity of 5,000 megawatts and expand the Arab country's main container ports.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, The governing body on the Hawaiian island of Kauai voted to override their mayor's veto of a bill that seeks to reign in widespread pesticide use and the testing of new genetically modified crops.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In North Dakota Craig Cobb was arrested along with Kynan Dutton over accusations they were brandishing firearms and sticks and threatening residents in the town of Leith. The white supremacists were charged on Nov 18 with terrorizing residents of Leith, where Cobb had sought to create a white enclave. On April 29, 2014, a state judge sentenced Cobb to four years probation but no additional jail time.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 16, In Texas Franklin Davis of the Dallas area was sentenced to death for the killing his children’s babysitter, Shania Gray (16), to prevent her from testifying that he had raped her.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 16, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Afghan army vehicle providing security for a compound in Kabul where political and tribal elites are due to gather next week to debate a security pact with the US. 12 people were killed and 22 wounded.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)(AP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Brazil Jose Genoino, the former chairman of the ruling Workers' Party, surrendered to police after a court ruled that those convicted in a corruption scandal should serve their terms immediately.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Brazil the 12th edition of the Games of the Indigenous People ended in Cuiba, Mato Grosso state.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 16, PM David Cameron announced that Britain was providing a further 30 million pounds to help the relief effort after the devastating typhoon in the Philippines.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Britain's PM David Cameron threatened to push for an independent international inquiry into allegations of war crimes at the climax of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war if the island nation does not conduct its own probe by March 2014.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Bulgaria tens of thousands of supporters of the main political parties gathered in Sofia and Plovdiv at pro- and anti-government rallies, reflecting the division that has paralyzed the nation for months.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In China 9 attackers and 2 auxiliary police officers were killed in an attack on a police station in Serikbuya township, near the historic Silk Road city of Kashgar, Xinjiang province. The clash reportedly erupted after a Uighur youth was shot dead, with 8 others subsequently being killed.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Dagestan Dmitri Sokolov, the husband of suicide bomber Naida Asiyalova, died after a stand-off with police. The Oct 21 Volgograd bombing killed six people on a bus.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Egypt a Muslim Brotherhood-led alliance said it is ready for a national dialogue to end the political standoff in the country, in an announcement that did not demand the return of the nation's toppled president to power.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In France between 2,000 and 4,000 freight trucks have closed off major highways and slowed traffic to a crawl on nine roadways to protest a proposed environmental tax on heavy loads.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Germany some 20,000 people marched through central Berlin to demand the government lift its 20-year ban on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Guinea anti-government demonstrators barricaded roads and threw stones in Conakry in protest at a Supreme Court ruling handing September's controversial elections to the president's governing party.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Iraq a series of attacks in Baghdad and north Iraq left 4 policemen dead and a dozen people wounded.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, called on Turkey's Kurds to back a flagging peace process with Ankara, making his first visit to southeastern Turkey in two decades in a show of support for PM Tayyip Erdogan.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, "Tir," by director Alberto Fasulo, an Italian film about a truck driver's travels across Europe, took the top award of best film at the Rome film festival.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Italy thousands of families marched in Naples to demand a quick cleanup of toxic waste that has been dumped by the local Camorra crime syndicate for decades.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, A local official said thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into Lebanon over the past two days as fighting between government forces and rebels has flared near the border.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Libya fresh clashes erupted in Tripoli leaving 4 people dead. The weak, post-revolutionary government appealed for restraint.
(AFP, 11/16/13)(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 16, Libya's National Oil Company said Berber protesters have ended their occupation of a gas terminal in western Libya that prompted the shutdown of an export pipeline to Italy.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, The Maldives held runoff elections. Abdulla Yameen, the half brother of former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, defeated former president Mohamed Nasheed, securing 51.3% of the popular vote.
(AFP, 11/16/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.41)
2013 Nov 16, In Mexico local media reported that the bodies of 7 people were found buried in several hidden graves in a rural area near the resort city of Acapulco. Six other bodies were found on Nov 14 in hidden graves in El Salto, another small town in the rural area outside of Acapulco. 18 bodies were found on Nov 15 buried in several buildings in Michoacan, which borders Guerrero to the north.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Niger said it has arrested around 30 people, including defense and security personnel, as part of a crackdown on human traffickers after the bodies of dozens of migrants were found in the Sahara desert last month.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Pakistan called in its army to quell sectarian unrest in three cities, after 9 people were killed and nearly 90 wounded in violent attacks across the country. The government imposed a rare curfew in Rawalpindi.
(AFP, 11/16/13)(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Russia handed over a $2.3 billion aircraft carrier to India after years of delays, extending India's maritime reach in the Indian Ocean as it looks to counter China's assertive presence in the region.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In South Korea a helicopter belonging to LG Electronics crashed after its propeller clipped the side of a 38-story apartment building. Its 2 pilots were killed.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 16, Sudan state radio reported that heavy fighting in a border region of Darfur has killed 100 people.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Syrian forces went on the offensive against rebels positioned along a major highway linking the capital with the coast, a strategic road that is likely to be used to extract chemical weapons from the country.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Tajikistan's long-running President Emomali Rakhmon was inaugurated for a fourth term, as he promised to alleviate the grinding poverty in the former Soviet country.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Vietnam’s state media said flooding has killed at least 28 people over the last 24 hours, with 9 others missing and nearly 80,000 people displaced in Quang Ngai province.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 17, A series of tornadoes pounded the Midwestern United States, killing six people across Illinois and flattening Washington, a city of 15,000 people. The storm killed one person in Washington and destroyed 250 to 500 houses.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, In San Francisco Melquiesha Warren (23) was killed and her friend Danisha Bean was wounded after Michael Green opened fire on them following a fender bender in a South of Market neighborhood. In 2017 Green (28) was sentenced to 82 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/7/17, p.D3)
2013 Nov 17, In Colorado two workers were killed in a mining accident at the Star Mine Operations near Ouray. The powder-smoke incident also injured 20 workers.
(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 17, Afghan villagers discovered the beheaded bodies of six men in Kandahar province. The next day they were identified as policemen who had disappeared days earlier from Zabul province. NATO said an international service member was killed by a roadside bomb.
(AP, 11/17/13)(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, Doris Lessing (b.1919), the Nobel prize-winning, free-thinking, world-traveling and often-polarizing British author, died. Her work included "The Golden Notebook" (1962) and dozens of other novels that reflected her own improbable journey across the former British empire.
(AP, 11/17/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.90)
2013 Nov 17, In the Central African Republic Seleka rebels assassinated magistrate Modeste Martineau Bria and his aide-de-camp. 2 people were killed and others suffered gunshot wounds as residents protested the killing in Bangui.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Chile held presidential elections. Michelle Bachelet (62), a former president (2006-2010), nearly doubled her conservative rival's votes in the first round of the election, but her center-left coalition fell short of the gains in Congress needed to keep many of her promises.
(AP, 11/17/13)(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, The Dubai Airshow took off with huge aircraft orders and commitments worth around $100 billion for Boeing and $40 billion for Airbus from Gulf carriers.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 17, In Egypt gunmen shot dead Mohamed Mabruk, an officer in charge of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood file at the interior ministry's national security agency.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Israel for a visit and said France will never tolerate nuclear proliferation. The visit will also see him traveling to the Palestinian territories to discuss Middle East peace talks which have been limping along for three months with little signs of progress.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Georgia inaugurated philosopher and former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili (44) as the new president. He pledged to strengthen ties with the West and maintain its commitment to NATO.
(AP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, In a Der Spiegel interview last week Cornelius Gurlitt (80), a German recluse who hid hundreds of paintings believed looted by the Nazis in his Munich flat, said he will not give up the works without a fight, quashing hopes of a quick settlement. The collection was put together by Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, one of the few dealers chosen by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda chief, to sell confiscated art.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.56)
2013 Nov 17, In Guinea a teenager was killed and five other civilians injured during clashes with police after a pro-opposition journalist claimed he risked being kidnapped by the security forces.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, Iraqi authorities executed a dozen "terrorism" convicts, defying widespread international condemnation of Baghdad's use of the death penalty as violence nationwide has surged. Attacks across Iraq killed at least 10 people.
(AP, 11/17/13)(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, In Kenya poachers infiltrated the privately owned Lewa Wildlife Conservancy during the full moon and killed Meluaya," a 17-year-old black rhino suspected to have been heavily pregnant and with a two-year-old calf.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 17, In Kosovo NATO soldiers and EU police secured polling stations in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica for a re-run election central to a Western-sponsored plan to end the country's ethnic partition.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Arab and African foreign ministers met in Kuwait hoping to accelerate a strategy to bolster economic cooperation, investment and trade ahead of a summit this week. The Third Africa Arab Summit on Nov 19-20 will be the first meeting of its kind since 2010.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Libya's deputy intelligence chief Mustafa Nuh was abducted in Tripoli shortly after his arrival from a trip abroad. Residents of Tripoli began a three-day general strike against militia violence and to mourn dozens killed in clashes at an anti-militia protest over the weekend.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 17, In Mexico investigators found the bodies of 8 people bound and stabbed at a home in Ciudad Juarez. The killers had gone to the home Romero Sanchez a month ago trying to collect a debt that was owed by Sanchez for a $115 stud fee for a dog. Authorities arrested two suspects on Nov 19 after investigators found traces of blood on their clothing.
(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 17, Commonwealth leaders meeting in Sri Lanka agreed on steps to tackle high debt and poverty as they staged a show of unity after a summit dominated by a bitter dispute over war crimes.
(AP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Sudanese rebels struck a town near the border of troubled South Kordofan state, where witnesses confirmed fighting was underway.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, The head of Syria's General Foreign Trade Organization (GFTO) said Syrian bank accounts frozen abroad are gradually being freed up for use to fund food purchases, with France being the most committed to releasing the money.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Syrian forces besieged Qara, a key town in the Qalamoun mountains, a region used by rebels to cross from Lebanon and which links the capital to government strongholds along the coast.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, In northern Yemen 3 people were killed when Shi'ite Houthi rebels shelled a school in Damaj where sectarian fighting has killed more than 100 people.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 18, In NYC five people were arrested following a global "cyber heist" in which hackers stole $45 million by overriding the cash withdrawal limits of prepaid debit cards. Officials said the cyber-ring managed to steal $45 million in late 2012 and early 2013 by manipulating the limits of prepaid debit cards from Abu Dhabi-based National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah and Bank Muscat of Oman.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 18, Almost 800,000 homes and businesses in the US Midwest and Ontario, Canada, were without power following severe thunderstorms. Michigan was the hardest-hit state with more than 540,000 customers out.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, NASA launched the MAVEN spacecraft (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) atop an Atlas V-41 rocket at Cape Canaveral.
(SFC, 11/19/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 18, In Afghanistan two separate roadside bombs killed 9 children. Police stopped a tractor hauling roadside bombs near the border with Pakistan. A shooting set off the bombs, killing the driver and a second person on the tractor.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Britain's Labour Party suspended Paul Flowers, the former chairman of Co-operative bank, after a video emerged in which he is allegedly caught buying illegal drugs.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In London female serial killer Joanna Dennehy (30) admitted murdering three men and dumping their bodies in ditches. Their bodies were found in March and April riddled with stab wounds.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Canada the City Council of Toronto stripped Mayor Rob Ford (44) of his meaningful powers following a heated debate.
(SFC, 11/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 18, Egypt's interim PM Hazem el-Beblawi inaugurated the start of what is to be a memorial to protesters killed in the country's revolutionary turmoil in the center of famed Tahrir Square.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Egypt a train slammed into at least three vehicles, including a truck, crossing the tracks near the village of Dahshur. 26 people were killed and 28 remained hospitalized.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Paris, France, a gunman opened fire in the lobby of the Liberation newspaper office, gravely wounding a photographer's assistant before fleeing. Soon afterward, shots were fired at the headquarters of a major French bank west of Paris, and a gunman briefly took a man hostage nearby. Suspect Abdelhakim Dekhar (48) was found Nov 19 after a tipoff. Police found him in a "semi-conscious state" after an attempt to kill himself with medication.
(AP, 11/18/13)(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 18, A German court said the embattled "bling bishop" Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has settled a case over lying under oath with a 20,000-euro ($27,000) payment.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, A German probe into the July 23, 1944, reprisal attack at Chlaniow, Poland, implicated Michael Karkoc (94), a retired Minnesota carpenter, as commander of the Nazi SS-led unit in the attack. In 2014 Germany’s highest court ruled that Germany has jurisdiction in the case.
(AP, 6/14/13)(http://tinyurl.com/kk5e6s3)(AP, 11/18/13)(SFC, 5/23/14, p.A2)
2013 Nov 18, In Haiti police fired tear gas in the two main cities to disperse thousands of protesters demanding better living conditions and the resignation of President Michel Martelly.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Iran unveiled its Fotros drone, a missile-equipped drone with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and a flight time of 16 to 30 hours.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Attacks across Iraq killed 8 people.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Israel's fraud squad questioned former chief Ashkenazi rabbi Yona Metzger on charges of taking bribes, fraud, breach of trust, obstructing justice and witness tampering. Police said the national fraud unit put the sums related to the suspected felonies at millions of shekels.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Israeli court documents disclosed the government has secretly detained Samer al-Baraq, a suspected al-Qaeda biological weapons expert, for more than three years, after the man appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to free him.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Twitter users in Kuwait and the UAE received prison terms, in the latest sign of widening crackdowns in the region on social media for posts considered offensive or against state security.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Libya convoys of the military deployed in the capital city of Tripoli to force out militiamen from Misrata. Deputy intelligence chief Mustafa Nuh was freed by his abductors a day after they seized him near Tripoli airport.
(AP, 11/18/13)(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Mauritanian police crushed a protest by hundreds of youths demanding a boycott of upcoming elections, wounding several.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 18, Pakistan moved to put former military dictator Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason for suspending the constitution and declaring a state of emergency while he was in power. Sectarian violence spread after clashes between minority Shi'ite and majority Sunni Muslims near Islamabad prompted the government to impose a curfew and block mobile phone services over the weekend.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Russia hosted Syrian and Iranian delegations for separate rounds of talks in a renewed diplomatic push for a Syrian peace conference in which Moscow says Tehran must also play a role.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, A Russian court in Saint Petersburg released on bail one of the 30 Greenpeace crewmembers arrested for an Arctic protest, the first of the activists to be freed. Yekaterina Zaspa, a Russian doctor with the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker, was released. Two courts in the city said bail would be granted to three Russian activists but ordered Australian activist Colin Russell to remain in pre-trial detention until February 24.
(AFP, 11/18/13)(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 18, The head of Russia's state-controlled industrial holding company said Moscow has signed a deal to provide Egypt with air defense missile systems.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, A Tatarstan airlines flight from Moscow crashed in Kazan, killing all 44 passengers and six crew in a blaze that left little of the Boeing 737 plane.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Syrian rebel leader Abdul-Qadir Saleh (34), founder of the Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade, died in Turkey of wounds sustained during a strike by government forces last week. Clashes continued around Qara.
(AP, 11/18/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.51)
2013 Nov 18, Uganda police arrested Kampala Mayor Erias Lukwago for disobeying orders to cancel a public rally of supporters.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 19, JPMorgan Chase reached a $13 billion deal with the US Justice Dept. ending a probe into the bank’s sale of mortgage bonds.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.C2)
2013 Nov 19, The US National Rifle Association (NRA) sued San Francisco claiming the city violated the constitutional right to possess guns for self defense with a new ordnance banning possession of magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.D3)
2013 Nov 19, Florida Rep. Henry Radel (37) was charged with cocaine possession following a “buy and bust" operation. The next day Radel pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession and was sentenced to a year of probation. He admitted to purchasing 3.5 grams of cocaine from an undercover officer Oct. 29 in Washington. Radel resigned on Jan 27, 2014.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A6)(AP, 1/27/14)
2013 Nov 19, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation banning the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 19, Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds (55) suffered stab wounds at his home inflicted by his son, Gus Deeds (24), who was found dead from apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 19, Orbital Sciences launched a rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia carrying 29 small satellites and launched them into a low-Earth orbit. Thirty hours later Kosmotros, a Russian-joint venture, carried 32 satellites into a similar orbit.
(Econ, 6/7/14, TQ p.18)
2013 Nov 19, Celebrations for Algeria's victory over Burkina Faso that sent the country's soccer team to the 2014 World Cup finals left 12 people dead and some 240 injured.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, Bosnia's state war crimes court said it had freed 10 convicted war criminals and would give them new trials after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled their legal rights had been violated.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Britain’s Oxford Univ. Press declared “selfie," a smart phone self-pportrait, the 2013 word of the year. Use of the word dated back to at least 2002.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A3)
2013 Nov 19, British biochemist Frederick Sanger (b.1918) died. He twice won the Nobel Prize in chemistry (1958 & 1980) and was a pioneer of genome sequencing.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, In the Central African Republic heavy fighting erupted near Bouca between the Muslim Seleka rebels who have carried out attacks and massacres throughout the northwest in recent months and members of Christian self-defense militias that have arisen amid the violence. About 2,000 people have sought refuge in a Catholic mission in the area.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, Hundreds of Egyptians gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to commemorate the deaths of protesters killed two years ago and call for the army-backed government to adopt reforms.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, The European Union's parliament finally approved the first spending cut in the history of the 28-nation group.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, France, Germany and other European countries formed a "drone users club" to develop a rival to the US and Israeli pilotless aircraft that dominate the field.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In France a small plane crashed in the central Burgundy region, killing six people.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Ghanaian authorities impounded the Guyana-registered MV ATIYAH and arrested the five when they discovered it was carrying 400 kilos (880 pounds) of cocaine worth around $50 million. On Nov 22 four citizens of Guyana and one Ghanaian pleaded guilty to charges related to the seizure of a ship.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 19, In northeastern Guinea at least 12 illegal miners were killed and several left missing after a landslide at a goldmine owned by the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 19, Hundreds of Iranians including university students and members of the country's Jewish community rallied in support of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program on the eve of the resumption of talks with world powers.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Italian declared authorities declared a state of emergency in Sardinia as Cyclone Cleopatra dropped 450mm of rain in an hour and a half overnight. 16 people were reported dead.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)(AFP, 11/19/13)(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Lebanon 2 suicide bombers detonated explosions outside the Iranian Embassy in a mainly Shiite district of Beirut, killing 23 people, including the Iranian cultural attaché, apparently in retaliation for the Lebanese group Hezbollah's support of Syrian President Assad.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Libyan protesters again took to the streets of Tripoli, repeating their call for the country's recalcitrant militias to leave the capital after a militia attack on a similar protest killed 47 and wounded more than 500 last week.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Mexican journalist and author Elena Poniatowska won the 2013 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honor.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Millions of Nepalis defied low expectations and threats of violence to vote in elections seen as crucial in stabilising the country and breaking its political deadlock seven years after a civil war ended. The Nepali Congress led by Sushil Koirala narrowly won the elections. A bombing in Kathmandu injured three children.
(AFP, 11/19/13)(Econ, 3/8/14, p.44)
2013 Nov 19, Norway's military intelligence chief said his country carries out surveillance on millions of phone calls in conflict areas around the world and shares that data with allies, including the United States.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Pakistan a Shi'ite professor at the University of Gujrat and his driver were shot dead in the latest incident in a wave of spiraling sectarian violence in the nuclear-armed country.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Poland 18 people were detained on suspicion of large scale corruption. They included current and former state officials.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 19, In Somalia al-Qaida-linked Shebab militants detonated a car bomb at the entrance to a police station in Beledweyne near the Somalia-Ethiopia border, then opened fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, an attack that left at least 28 people dead.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Russian courts granted bail to seven foreign Greenpeace activists detained for an oil drilling protest, bringing to 10 the number released over the last days and raising hopes of a solution to a case which has raised global concern.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In South Africa a shopping mall under construction partially collapsed, killing one person and injuring 29 in Tongaat, near Durban.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, Spain's National Court said it has issued arrest orders for former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and four other Chinese officials as part of a probe into alleged genocide by China against Tibet.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Syrian government troops captured Qara, a key town near the Lebanese border from rebels, days after launching a broad offensive in the mountainous western region.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Vietnam officials said the death toll from flooding, due to heavy rains that began Nov 14, has risen to 41.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 19, In Yemen a suspected US airstrike killed 3 alleged al-Qaida militants in Hadramawt province. Two men from Australia and New Zealand were also killed in the strike.
(AP, 11/19/13)(AP, 4/15/14)
2013 Nov 20, Pres. Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 recipients including Gloria Steinem.
(http://tinyurl.com/j5ml52r)(Econ, 11/21/15, p.77)
2013 Nov 20, Members of Congress took part in a ceremony bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal to honor 33 tribes tribes for their WWI and WWII contributions as code talkers. Today’s ceremony was for tribes not included in the initial 2008 Gold Medal awards.
(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 20, Serafin Zambada (23), the son of one of the world's most-wanted drug lords, was arrested at an Arizona border crossing to face drug-trafficking charges in the United States.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 20, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation allowing same-sex marriages starting June 1, 2014.
(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A5)(SSFC, 6/1/14, p.A11)
2013 Nov 20, In New Jersey Jose Katz (69) was sentenced to 6½ years in federal prison for fraudulently diagnosing patients with heart ailments and ordering tests. The fraud cost Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers some $19 million.
(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 20, In Missouri Joseph Paul Franklin (b.1950), a white supremacist who targeted blacks and Jews, was executed. He had admitted to shooting and wounding civil rights leader Vernon Jordan (1980) and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt (1978).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Paul_Franklin)(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 20, Animal rights group PETA urged shoppers to boycott products made from angora rabbit fur, after it released footage of fur being plucked from the skins of live rabbits on Chinese farms.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Senior Afghan officials arrived in Pakistan to initiate peace talks with the Afghan Taliban following a breakthrough in negotiations during last month's summit in Britain. A powerful explosion killed 3 people at a restaurant in the southern city of Kandahar. A Taliban ambush took place in Helmand province killing Marjah police chief, Hajji Tooryalai Jan. A suicide car bombing has killed two paramilitary soldiers in near the Afghan border in the Shawa area of North Waziristan.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, The Church of England's ruling body voted overwhelmingly for proposals that could see the ordination of women bishops next year.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, About 4,000 Bulgarian workers rallied against low wages and a lack of jobs, in a possible sign that opposition to the Socialist-led cabinet may be spreading beyond daily protests staged mostly by students.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, China confirmed the deployment of a state-of-the-art hospital ship to the Philippines following foreign and domestic criticism that it was slow and less than generous in its response to one of the world's biggest typhoons, which killed at least 4,000 people.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, In Egypt a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into one of two buses carrying off-duty soldiers in northern Sinai, killing 11 and wounding 37. A bomb attack on a checkpoint in Cairo wounded four policemen including a major.
(AP, 11/20/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, European Union lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to meet only in Brussels and avoid costly monthly treks to Strasbourg, France. The proposal must be approved by the 28 EU governments and France is certain to nix any change under the current conditions.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, The European Commission said Austria should pay a daily fine of more than 40,000 euros ($54,000) for breaking EU policy on renewable energy.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, In France Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai was handed the EU's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize in recognition of her crusade for the right of all children, girls and boys, to an education.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Nuclear talks resumed between Iran and world powers. Iran's supreme leader voiced support for the negotiations over his country's nuclear program, but insisted there are limits to the concessions Iran will make in exchange for an easing of the sanctions choking its economy.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A rights group said Iran is forcefully deporting Afghans by the thousands in violation of its international obligation to protect refugees.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Iraqi officials said flooding in central and southern Iraq has killed at least 11 people as rising waters swamped city streets and toppled buildings, sparking anger over the dilapidated sewage system. A wave of attacks hit commercial areas in Baghdad, killing 37 people and wounding over 80 in mostly Shiite areas.
(AFP, 11/20/13)(AP, 11/20/13)(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 20, In Jordan Raed Hijazi, also known as Abu Ahmad, was arrested. He had been convicted of plotting al-Qaida terror attacks during New Year 2000 celebrations. Initially, he was sentenced to death in absentia. He was later captured and extradited from Syria and sentenced to 20 years, but was set free two years ago by Jordan's king to give him what was described as another chance to repent.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Nov 20, In Kuwait Arab and African leaders wound up their first summit since the region's uprisings in 2011 by calling for closer economic and security cooperation.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A Madagascar government statement showed changes to 10 of the Indian Ocean island's 22 regions. Three generals and five colonels assumed control of eight regions while two civilians headed the remaining two. This raised concern that the run-off vote in December will be rigged.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 20, Mexico’s El Heraldo reported that the National Human Rights Commission has found that visits to the country’s 101 most populous prisons indicated that 65 are run by inmates.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 20, Mozambique held local elections. Preliminary results from the largely peaceful elections pointed to a comprehensive victory for the ruling Frelimo party and a potential shake-up among the country's opposition parties.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 20, The International Criminal Court's vexed relationship with Africa took center stage on the opening day of the annual summit of its 122 member states at The Hague.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Poland’s PM Donald Tusk reshuffled his Cabinet. Jacek Rostowski, the man who has led the country’s economy since 2007, was among those sacked.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.56)
2013 Nov 20, At UN talks in Poland the governments of Norway, Britain and the United States said they will allocate $280 million of their multi-billion dollar climate change finances to a new initiative aimed at halting deforestation.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, In Russia six more Greenpeace activists arrested by Russian coast guards during a protest against Arctic oil drilling were granted bail on Wednesday, including the US captain of their ship. Eighteen of the 30 people detained on September 18 have now been granted bail this week.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Saudi health authorities announced a new MERS death, raising to 54 the number of people killed by the coronavirus.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A Senegal judge said there is insufficient evidence to convict four women accused of violating the country's law banning homosexual acts. The four women were freed. A fifth woman arrested in the same raid on Nov 11 is a minor and will be tried separately.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Suicide bombers targeted Syrian troops and a hospital in the rugged Qalamoun hills north of Damascus killing at least 7 soldiers, as rebels struggled to reverse government gains that threatened to cut one of their chief supply lines.
(AP, 11/20/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Tunisia signed a $500 million loan agreement with energy-rich Qatar to help bolster its currency reserves.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 21, President Obama, in a letter to President Karzai, said the United States will continue to respect "Afghan sovereignty" under a new security agreement. Karzai added a wrinkle to the process when he told the Loya Jirga that if they and the parliament approve the agreement, it should be signed after next spring's elections in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, US Senate Democrats voted 52-48 to undercut filibuster rules on presidential appointees. In 1975 a two-thirds requirement for cutting off filibusters was lowered to 60 votes. The new rule would require a simple majority.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 21, The city of Oakland, Ca., won a record $15.1 million civil suit against American Legal Services for preying on vulnerable families as they sought legal residency in the US. The owners of the company failed to show up in court and their whereabouts was unknown.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.D8)
2013 Nov 21, In San Francisco BART directors voted to reject an agreement with unions unless a provision granting six weeks of paid famiy medical leave was removed.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A1)
2013 Nov 21, The San Francisco area was hammered by strong winds that knocked down trees and power lines, leaving at least 2 people dead and more than 50,000 without power in the state.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 21, Composer Conrad Susa (b.1935) died at his home in San Francisco. His work included the opera “Transformations" (1973) and “The Dangerous Liaisons" (1994), which was based on a 1782 novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.C10)
2013 Nov 21, Federal agents raided an unknown number of marijuana dispensaries and growing sites in Colorado, confiscating piles of marijuana plants and cartons of cannabis-infused drinks just weeks before the state allows sellers of recreational marijuana to open their doors.
(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Connecticut Michael Skakel (53), a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, was released on bail pending a new trial in the 1975 slaying neighbor Martha Moxley.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A12)
2013 Nov 21, In Minnesota Marion Guerrido (23) veered off a suburban Minneapolis highway ramp. She escaped the car but 5 children were trapped and submerged in a pond. The children were soon freed, but two died and three others remained hospitalized.
(SFC, 11/23/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 21, The Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) closed at a record 16,009, its first close above 16,000.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.C3)
2013 Nov 21, Chad's PM Joseph Djimrangar Dadnadji offered his resignation to Pres. Idriss Deby after his party proposed a motion of no confidence in him, accusing him of ordering arbitrary arrests of his deputies.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, China’s highest court issued demands that judges bar confessions abtained through torture and avoid the death penalty when the evidence is shaky.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 21, Cyprus' biggest private university said it will start accepting the digital currency Bitcoin as an alternative way to pay tuition fees.
(AP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 21, An Egyptian police officer was shot dead in a Nile Delta town while trying to arrest suspects wanted in connection with the killing of a security official.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Indonesia's military halted training with Australia as a decision to suspend cooperation due to spying claims took effect, while angry demonstrators in Jakarta declared they were "ready for war" with Canberra.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In northeastern Iraq a car bomb exploded in a busy market in Sadiyah, killing at least 31 people and wounding more than 30. A wave of attacks across the country left a total of at least 48 people dead.
(AP, 11/21/13)(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 21, In Japan thousands of people protested in Tokyo against a proposed secrets act that critics say would stifle information on issues such as the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Latvia a Maxima supermarket collapsed in a suburb of Riga. 54 people were killed in the Baltic state's worst disaster in decades.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)(AP, 11/23/13)(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 21, Security sources said French special forces have killed Hacene Ould Khalill the second-in-command of the veteran Islamist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar in an operation in Mali's northern region of Tessalit. The Mauritanian, known by his nickname Jouleibib, was deputy commander of Belmokhtar's "Those Who Sign in Blood" Brigade, formed when the Algerian jihadist split with al Qaeda's North African wing.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Myanmar rejected a UN resolution urging it to grant citizenship to the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority group, and accused the United Nations of impinging on its sovereignty.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Nepal's powerful Maoist leader and former guerrilla chief Prachanda said he did not accept the results of an election his party appeared to be losing, throwing the nation into a fresh political crisis.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In northeastern Nigeria militants screaming "God is great!" killed at least 12 civilians and set homes ablaze as they rampaged through Sandiya village in an area that has been attacked several times.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 21, In northwest Pakistan a drone strike killed 9 people, including Ahmad Jan, a deputy of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader of the militant Haqqani network; Gul Sher, leader of the Afghan Taliban in Paktia Province; and Maulvi Hamidullah, leader of the Afghan Taliban in Khost Province. The strike targeted a madrassa, or Islamic seminary, outside the tribal areas that borders Afghanistan. This was only the second such strike outside the country's lawless tribal districts.
(AFP, 11/21/13)(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 21, In Poland around 800 people from environmental groups, including Greenpeace and WWF, walked out of UN climate talks in Warsaw in protest at what they see as a lack of progress towards a global deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Russia three more of the 30 people arrested during a Greenpeace protest walked free on bail. 24 of those detained on September 18 have been granted bail this week.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Saudi local media reported that religious police have arrested two young men in Riyadh for offering a "free hug" to passers-by.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, The UN in Somalia called for a "proper investigation" after police arrested an alleged rape victim and the journalists who reported her story for defamation.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In South Africa 8 construction workers were killed when lightning struck their tent northeast of Johannesburg.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 21, A Spanish court sentenced the town mayor of Marinaleda and four others to seven months in prison for occupying unused military land they wanted to be loaned to farmers hard hit by the economic crisis.
(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Syria fighting for a key military base outside the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 15 pro-government militiamen. Troops also pressed an offensive against the last rebel-held districts of Homs where at least 12 people were killed in the exchange of fire.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Syria Jihadists cut down a 150-year-old oak tree in Atme, on Syria's border with Turkey, after they accused locals of worshipping it.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 21, The Ukrainian government announced it was suspending its preparations for the signing of a landmark agreement with the EU. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said that Russia welcomed Kiev's desire to improve trade ties with Moscow, signaling satisfaction with the Ukrainian government decision.
(AP, 11/21/13)(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Ukraine's parliament rejected draft laws that would allow jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to go to Germany for medical treatment.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 22, President Barack Obama praised the "leadership" of Morocco's King Mohammed VI after holding wide-ranging talks with the North African monarch for the first time at the White House.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, US regulators approved the use of Johnson & Johnson's Olysio, also known as simeprevir, as a treatment for chronic infection with the liver-destroying hepatitis C virus.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Microsoft crowed that more than a million Xbox One consoles were snapped up within 24 hours in 13 countries after hitting shelves for the first time in the morning.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Afghanistan rebuffed a US demand to sign a highly anticipated security pact as soon as possible, insisting the document must wait until after next year's presidential election.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The disgraced ex-chairman of Britain's Co-op Bank, Paul Flowers (63), was arrested in a probe into the supplying of drugs in a scandal that has fast become a political row.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In the Central African Republic more than 100 judges and lawyers took to the streets of Bangui to protest the Nov 17 slaying of a colleague Modeste Martineau Bria.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In China an oil pipeline exploded in the coastal city of Qingdao killing 47 people.
(AFP, 11/22/13)(Reuters, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Egypt a young boy and a man were killed as supporters and opponents of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi clashed.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an international maritime tribunal, ordered Russia to release a Greenpeace ship and 30 people arrested in a protest against Russian Arctic oil drilling.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In India hundreds of thousands were evacuated as Cyclone Helen slammed into Andhra Pradesh and the eastern state of Orissa., packing strong winds and torrential rains and killing at least two people.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In India Magnus Carlsen (22) of Norway defeated Viswanathan Anand of India in the chess world championship, becoming the first Western player since Bobby Fischer to hold the title. The match in Chennai, which began Nov. 9, has been shown live on TV in both Norway and India, with millions more watching online.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Iraq attacks mostly targeting Sunni-majority areas killed at least 23 people. The minority community shuttered countless mosques nationwide complaining that security forces were failing to provide adequate protection. The death toll from flooding across the country rose to 13.
(AP, 11/22/13)(AFP, 11/22/13)(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Libya residents of Tripoli turned out again to press militias remaining in the city to follow others and withdraw, aiming to keep up the momentum following deadly clashes last weekend.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, New Zealand held a referendum on whether the people support the government’s sale of up to 49% of its share in four energy companies and the national airline. With a 45% turnout 67.3% said no.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.43)
2013 Nov 22, In Pakistan a lawyer said Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden, has been charged with murder over a 2006 surgery he performed, raising new doubts whether the physician will regain his freedom.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Philippine officials said the death toll from the Nov 8 Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest, on record has risen above 5,200 and is likely to climb further. Recovery efforts were beginning to take hold.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Poland UN negotiators agreed rules on financing forest projects in developing nations, paving the way for multi-billion dollar investments from governments, funding agencies and private firms in schemes to halt deforestation.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Qatar health authorities said an expatriate (48) has died of MERS, bringing to four the number of deaths in the Gulf state from the coronavirus.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Russia concluded bail hearings and ruled to release all but one of the 30 Greenpeace crew members who have spent more than two months in prison over a protest against Arctic drilling.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Russia's space agency successfully launched three European Space Agency's satellites intended to study Earth's magnetic field. A Rokot booster rocket at the Plesetsk launchpad in northwestern Russia put the three Swarm satellites into their designated orbits.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In South Africa global diamond watchdog, the Kimberley Process, gave its backing for the lifting of a 2005 UN embargo on diamond sales from Ivory Coast.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In South Africa Radovan Krejcir (b.1968), a Czech businessman and fugitive, was arrested on charges of kidnapping and assault in connection with a botched 24 million rand ($2.3 million) crystal meth deal.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziKDb6f3yfI)
2013 Nov 22, The six largest Islamist rebel factions in Syria declared a new Islamic Front, forming the largest alliance of opposition fighters yet in the 2-1/2-year conflict. The merger undermined the secular Free Syrian Army (FSA) leadership, once seen as a symbolic umbrella leadership for all the rebels but weakened by infighting and defections. A fierce battle for control of Syria’s military Base 17 near Raqqa, an opposition-held city, left 24 rebels dead so far, but the government troops have managed to hold on to the complex.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Thousands of protesters poured into Kiev's Independence Square, the center of Ukraine's pro-Western Orange Revolution, to demand that the government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the EU.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, A senior UN official said up to 6,000 children have been enrolled by warring militias in the Central African Republic, issuing a stark warning about the country's spiralling crisis.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The UN refugee agency confirmed that 52 refugees of Syrian and Palestinian origin had refused to receive food delivered by a UNHCR-funded charity to the police station where they are held in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The UN Committee against Torture said torture is rife in prisons and police stations in Uzbekistan, where activists are rounded up and routinely mistreated.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Yemen MP Abdel Karim Jadban, who represented Zaidi Shiite rebels known as Huthis at a national dialogue, was assassinated in Sanaa.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Santa Cruz, Ca., Google executive Forrest Timothy Hayes (51) died on his 50-foot yacht following a heroin injection given by Alix Catherine Tichelman (26), a high-priced call girl. The action was caught on video. Tichelman was arrested on July 4, 2014, and became a suspect in the death of her boyfriend Dean Riopelle, who died of a heroin overdose two months earlier in Atlanta. On May 19, 2015, Tichelman was sentenced to six years in County Jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and administering illicit drugs.
(SFC, 7/10/14, p.A1)(SFC, 7/11/14, p.D1)(SFC, 5/20/15, p.D1)
2013 Nov 23, In Oklahoma 4 people were slain and a 5th wounded after being shot at a residence in Tulsa. Police said the home was the scene of several drug arrests.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 23, Angolan security forces shot and killed Manuel Ganga, one of eight members of Angola's second-biggest opposition party CASA-CE, as he tried to flee detention hours ahead of protests across the country where police detained 292 people. Police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters demonstrating in the capital against the disappearance and possible murder of two anti-government activists. Prosecutors said last week that Isaias Cassule and Antonio Alves Camulingui, who were involved in organizing protests by former presidential guards to demand payment of wage arrears, had been kidnapped and possibly murdered in May 2012.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Australia a surfer was fatally mauled by a shark on the west coast near Gracetown.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 23, China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) bolstering its claim to islands that Japan says it owns. The zone also included a reef know as Ieodo, claimed by China and South Korea. China warned that it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that failed to identify themselves properly in airspace over them.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.12)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.42)
2013 Nov 23, Egypt said it was expelling Turkey's ambassador and accused Ankara of backing organizations bent on spreading instability - an apparent reference to the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, Iraqi Sunni religious leaders said that they have decided to close down the sect's mosques in Baghdad indefinitely to protest attacks targeting clerics and worshippers, highlighting the country's deepening sectarian rift. In the north a car bomb and a suicide bomber killed at least nine people and wounded 54 in Tuz Khurmato.
(AP, 11/23/13)(Reuters, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 23, Lebanese authorities said they have identified the two men who launched a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy this week which killed 25 people in Hezbollah's southern Beirut bastion.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In eastern Libya gunmen in Derna shot dead Fares al-Zarruk, a former member of Moamer Kadhafi's security services.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, Mauritanians voted in nationwide elections overshadowed by a widespread boycott of opposition parties, with all eyes on the performance of an Islamist party allowed to take part for the first time.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Pakistan thousands of right-wing activists led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan staged a protest against US drone strikes, threatening to block NATO supply routes if strikes continue.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Poland UN negotiators reached consensus on some of the foundations for an ambitious, global climate pact, modifying wording in a document that had threatened to derail talks in Warsaw. The Conference of the parties (COP) agreed that countries would make contributions to climate change reduction.
(AFP, 11/23/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.59)
2013 Nov 23, In Syria Islamist rebels led by al Qaeda-linked fighters seized the al-Omar oil field in the eastern Deir al-Zor province, cutting off President Assad's access to almost all local crude reserves. Air strikes around Aleppo killed at least 44 people, most of them civilians.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)(AP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Venezuela thousands of opponents of Pres. Nicolas Maduro took to the streets to express outrage over the country’s deepening economic crisis.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 24, US media reported that a major winter storm that has dumped freezing rain and snow in the US southwest has killed at least 13 people in Arizona (1), California (3), Oklahoma (4), New Mexico (1) and Texas (4).
(AFP, 11/245/13)
2013 Nov 24, An Afghan grand assembly endorsed a crucial security agreement allowing some US troops to stay on after 2014, although President Hamid Karzai set conditions for signing the deal.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, A Bahraini court sentenced 12 Shiites to 10-year jail terms after convicting them of trying to kill policemen in a village near the capital. State media said authorities have arrested two Gulf citizens who were former Guantanamo detainees on suspicion of preparing a "terrorist act."
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Dominican Rep. soldiers expelled 244 Haitians following the deaths of 3 people killed near the border.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 24, Egypt's interim Pres. Adly Mansour signed a new bill into law restricting rallies and other public gatherings, a move likely to raise fresh questions about the army-backed government's democratic credentials.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In France thousands of riding enthusiasts protested a sales tax increase. France planed to nearly triple the value added tax on riding schools as of January, 2014.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 24, Honduras held elections. Ruling National Party's candidate Juan Hernandez, the head of Congress and considered to be Honduras' most powerful politician, faced deposed Pres. Manuel Zelaya's wife, Xiomara Castro (54). Honduran voters gave the ruling National Party four more years in the presidency.
(Reuters, 11/24/13)(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 24, In India gay rights activists paraded through New Delhi to demand an end to the stigmatization of gays.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 24, Iran struck a historic deal with the United States and five other world powers, agreeing to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program in the most significant agreement between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades of estrangement.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Israel's PM Netanyahu harshly condemned the international community's nuclear deal with Iran.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Japan warned of the danger of "unpredictable events" and South Korea voiced regret following China's unilateral declaration of an air defence zone over areas claimed by Tokyo and Seoul.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Macao Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines defeated American Brandon Rios for the World Boxing welter-weight title fight. The Filipino Court of Tax Appeals soon ordered Pacquiao’s bank deposits frozen saying he owed the government $50 million in back taxes.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 24, Mali held legislative elections. In the north ballot boxes were reportedly stolen in the Timbuktu region, including one by armed men and several by a politician, in the first sign of disruption in parliamentary polls. In preliminary results announced on Dec 18, Pres. Keita's RPM party finished first after the second of two legs, securing 61 of a total of 147 seats in parliament.
(AFP, 11/24/13)(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Northern Ireland masked men wearing boiler suits hijacked a car, loaded it with a bomb containing about 60 kg (130 pounds) of home-made explosives and told the terrified driver to go to a shopping center. He left his vehicle near the mall car park and raised the alarm, causing police to evacuate the area. As army disposal experts began to disable the bomb the detonator exploded, but failed to trigger the rest of the device, damaging only the empty car.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 24, Pakistani demonstrators protesting US drone strikes roughed up drivers as they sought to stop trucks carrying NATO troop supplies and equipment from passing through northwest Pakistan.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Saudi press said a court has sentenced a man to death and 19 others to prison terms of up to 25 years in connection with the 2004 armed assault on the US Consulate in Jiddah that killed five employees in an attack blamed on al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Saudi Arabia said one more person has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 55 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Sudan attackers killed a Rwandan peacekeeper in an ambush on a UN convoy in conflict-stricken Darfur.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Syria fierce fighting to the east of Damascus has killed more than 160 people in the past two days as rebels struggled to break a months-long blockade by forces loyal to President Assad.
(Reuters, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, The Oxford Research Group said more than 11,000 children have died in Syria's civil war, including 128 killed by chemical weapons in a notorious attack and hundreds targeted by snipers.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Thailand police estimated that about 90,000 opponents of PM Yingluck Shinawatra and her crisis-hit administration had gathered in three sites in Bangkok, calling for her government to be toppled.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Some 50,000 Ukrainians, bearing EU flags and chanting "Down with the gang!", marched through Kiev in a pro-Europe rally denouncing President Yanukovich's U-turn in policy back towards Russia.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Yemen Huda al-Niran (22), a young Saudi woman, urged a court to let her stay in Yemen and marry the man she loves, defying norms in both deeply conservative countries. On Nov 26 a Yemeni judge decided to release Niran into the custody of the UNHCR for a period of three months during which she should be able to obtain the refugee status.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, US national security advisor Susan Rice told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that a delay in signing a troubled security deal risked the US pulling troops out of the country completely next year.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Chuck Blazer, a FIFA executive committee member, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges. Blazer said he and others had agreed to receive bribes in the votes for the hosts of the 1998 and 2010 World Cups. This became public in a 40-page US federal indictment unveiled on June 3, 2015.
(SFC, 6/3/15, p.A6)
2013 Nov 25, A federal judge in Arkansas approved a settlement that pays $84.9 million to 5,500 trucking companies that were cheated out of promised rebates by Pilot Flying J, the nation's largest diesel retailer.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, In NYC a statuette of the the bird made for the 1941 film “Maltese Falcon" sold for $4.085 million. It was one of two cast, but the only one confirmed by Warner Bros. archives.
(SFC, 11/26/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 25, Chico Hamilton (b.1921), drummer and jazz master, died in NYC. His music included the sound track for Roman Polanski’s film “Repulsion" (1965).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Hamilton)(SFC, 11/27/13, p.E2)
2013 Nov 25, In Washington DC 10 former players filed a federal lawsuit against the National Hockey League over concussions.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, A sailboat passing through the southern Bahamas islands with about 150 Haitian migrants on board capsized after running aground, killing up to 30 people and leaving the rest clinging to the vessel for hours.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 25, Egyptian security forces fired tear-gas and dispersed university students who had defied a law passed a day earlier that restricts demonstrations.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, The EU expressed strong disapproval of Russian pressure on Ukraine to reject an EU trade deal, while police fired tear gas at pro-Europe protesters in the former Soviet republic.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, France offered weapons, training and intelligence cooperation to help Iraq combat worsening violence amid fears the country is on the verge of returning to all-out sectarian bloodshed.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Leftist Honduran presidential candidate Xiomara Castro refused to accept partial official results that show her conservative rival on course to win elections, setting the stage for a drawn-out conflict.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, In Iraq a double bombing at a market and other attacks killed at least 27 in and around Baghdad.
(AP, 11/25/13)(SFC, 11/26/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 25, Israel approved plans to build more than 800 settler homes on occupied land, in a move Palestinians said was aimed at venting Israeli anger toward a historic deal Western powers have struck with Iran over its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Libyan troops struggling to establish control across the country clashed with militants in the eastern city of Benghazi and at least 9 people were killed in the fighting.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, The Pakistani military deployed its first fleet of domestically developed drones, as police cracked down on a protest by demonstrators angry at the US for using similar aircraft to attack Islamic militants in the country.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Two Sudanese health ministry workers helping to vaccinate children in the Darfur region were killed. They were part of a team inoculating vulnerable children against measles in West Darfur state.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 25, Thailand PM Yingluck Shinawatra invoked an emergency security law in large parts of Bangkok and surrounding areas to cope with escalating protests against her government. Anti-government protesters forced their way inside the Finance Ministry and burst through the gates of the Foreign Ministry compound, in an escalating bid to overthrow PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
(AP, 11/25/13)(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Ugandan police lobbed tear gas to disperse protesters angered by the ouster of Kampala mayor Erias Lukwago, who is a fierce critic of longtime President Yoweri Museveni.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, The UN said Syria's government and opposition will hold their first peace talks on Jan. 22 in Geneva, in an attempt to halt the nearly 3-year-old civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 26, In China the Xinjiang Daily reported that students in western Xinjiang region will not graduate unless their political views are approved, as the country wages what school administrators called an ideological war against separatism.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Egyptian police fired a water cannon to disperse dozens of protesters near the Ministry of Interior after they defied a new law that restricts demonstrations. Egyptian troops killed a leader of an al-Qaida inspired group in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Mohammed Hussein Muhareb and his son were killed after troops closed in on his motorcade and a firefight ensued.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Egyptian security sources said police in Cairo are investigating the disappearance of an Egyptian-born German author and critic of Islam, months after a cleric declared him an infidel and called for his death. Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of "The Downfall of the Islamic World: A Prognosis", went missing in recent days.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, France said it would send hundreds of extra troops to the strife-torn Central African Republic after the UN warned the country was descending into "complete chaos."
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 25, Guinea’s government said Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala and Dubai Aluminium (DUBAL) have signed a five-billion-dollar deal with Guinea that should secure resources for UAE aluminium makers.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 26, An Indian court sentenced dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar to life in prison for the murder of their 14-year-old daughter and a Nepalese servant in 2008.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Libya shops and schools closed across Benghazi as residents responded to calls for civil disobedience to protest deadly clashes between radical Islamists and the army.
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Archeologists in Nepal said they have discovered traces of a wooden structure dating from the sixth century BC inside the sacred Mayadevi Temple in Lumbini. They believed this is the world's oldest Buddhist shrine.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Gunmen in central Nigeria's Plateau state killed 37 people in a pre-dawn raid. The area has been gripped by a decade-long sectarian conflict between Muslim herdsmen and Christian agriculturalists.
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif ceremonially broke ground on a $9.59 billion nuclear power complex to be built in Karachi with China’s help. China National Nuclear Cooperation (CNNC) promised to grant a loan of at least $6.5 billion to finance the project which will have two reactors with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts each.
(SFC, 11/27/13, p.A2)(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Pakistan militants released 11 teachers who had been kidnapped in the lawless northwest during a polio vaccination campaign last week.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond launched an independence campaing and unveiled a 667-page plan for independence. A referendum was scheduled for September, 2014.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.55)
2013 Nov 26, In Switzerland the director-general of the World Trade Organization said negotiators have failed to craft the first global trade deal in more than a decade, which could have given the world economy a $1 trillion boost.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Syria a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at a bus stop west of Damascus, killing at least 15 people. An Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria announced the execution of two soldiers and three "collaborators" with President Bashar al-Assad's regime near Damascus. Syria's main opposition group in exile said it had not made a final decision yet on whether it would participate in a peace conference to be held in Geneva. The commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) said his group would not join a planned peace conference in Switzerland in January and would pursue its fight to topple President Bashar al-Assad regardless.
(AFP, 11/26/13)(AP, 11/26/13)(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, The World Health Organization said it has discovered two additional cases of the highly contagious polio virus in Syria, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 17.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra fought a two-front political war, fending off attacks during a parliamentary no-confidence debate while protesters besieged and occupied several ministries in their attempt to topple her from power.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Ukraine several thousand students ditched classes and joined protests in the center of Kiev against the government's abrupt move to freeze integration with the West and tilt toward Moscow.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Pope Francis issued the mission statement for his papacy, outlining how the Catholic Church and the papacy itself must be reformed to create a more missionary and merciful church that gets its hands dirty as it seeks out the poor and oppressed. The Pope denounced the global financial system that excludes the poor as he issued “Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel).
(AP, 11/26/13)(SFC, 11/27/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 26, In Yemen unknown gunmen killed a foreign military expert and wounded his colleague in a drive-by shooting in Sanaa. The two were Belarussian citizens who were working "on private contract."
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, A Zimbabwean court freed prominent rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, who had faced charges of obstructing the course of justice during a police raid.
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Colorado 3 people were found dead in a burned home in Rye. On Dec 28 Harry Carl Mapps (59) was arrested in a motel in Roland, Ok. He was suspected of stealing check, killing 3 people and setting fire to their home in Rye, Colorado.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, Two Chicago women became the first same-sex couple to marry in Illinois after a federal judge granted an expedited marriage license because of one of the women’s failing health.
(SFC, 11/28/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, In Afghanistan Taliban militants gunned down and killed six people working working for the French aid group ACTED in the northern province of Faryab.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Australia Simon Gittany was found guilty of throwing his Canadian girlfriend, former ballerina Lisa Harnum, off the balcony of their high-rise Sydney apartment.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Brazil a giant crane collapsed at the construction site of Sao Paulo's Itaquerao stadium killing two workers. An engineer reportedly warned his supervisor that it appeared the ground was not stable enough to support the 500-ton piece of roofing.
(AP, 11/29/13)(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, In England a businessman who stabbed a Chinese family of four to death at their home on April 29, 2011, was found guilty of murdering them. Du Anxiang (54), a Chinese citizen, was convicted by a jury at Northampton Crown Court in central England.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, The first autopsies in Europe to take place without bodies being cut open are to take place after a new machine was unveiled in Sheffield. This will enable many post-mortem examinations to be carried out digitally, saving the body from being cut open with a scalpel.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Egypt's prosecutor general ordered 24 detained activists to be held for four days for protesting a newly passed law criminalizing demonstrations without permits. Nearly two dozen Islamist women and girls, some as young as 15, were handed heavy prison sentences for protesting in a court ruling that came a day after police beat and terrorized prominent female activists in a crackdown on secular demonstrators under a tough new anti-protest law. On Dec 7 a court reduced the sentences of 14 young women to one year. The sentences of seven teenage girls were reduced to three months. All 21 were freed under suspended sentences.
(AP, 11/27/13)(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Germany authorities in Dresden arrested a policeman on suspicion of killing and chopping up a man he met on the Internet who apparently fantasized about being killed and eaten. Officer Detlev Guenzel had met a willing victim in an Internet chat forum devoted to cannibalism fetishists. In 2015 Guenzel was convicted of murdering Wojciech Stempniewicz and chopping him up in an S&M chamber. Guenzel was again convicted in a 2016 re-trial.
(AP, 11/29/13)(AP, 4/1/15)(AFP, 12/13/16)
2013 Nov 27, In Iraq police around found the corpses of 19 men around Baghdad with gunshot wounds to their heads, as other attacks in the country killed at least 27.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Italy three-time former Premier Silvio Berlusconi was ousted from Parliament after two decades as a lawmaker. Losing parliamentary immunity he defiantly calling it "a day of mourning for democracy" and pledged to continue in politics.
(AP, 11/28/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.51)
2013 Nov 27, Japan’s Upper House passed into law a Japanese version of the US National Security Council.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, Latvia’s prime minister resigned after accepting political responsibility for the collapse of a supermarket roof in the capital that killed 54 people.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Libya's army clashed with Islamist militants in the eastern city of Benghazi and three soldiers were shot dead.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Niger said it has deactivated a third of its mobile phone connections to curb anonymous phone calls used for criminal activity.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Nigeria Islamic police shouted "God is great" as an earthmover shattered 240,000 bottles of beer in a widening crackdown in the northern city of Kano. Alcohol was banned under Shariah law imposed here in 2001 but authorities had turned a blind eye to its consumption in hotels and the Sabon Gari Christian quarter.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 27, Five key governors said they have defected to Nigeria’s new coalition opposition in a blow to President Goodluck Jonathan’s governing party and its chances for re-election in 2015.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Northern Ireland Liam Adams (58), the brother of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, was jailed for 16 years for raping his own daughter in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when she was between 4 and 9 years old.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Panama said it is freeing most of the 35 North Korean crew members it detained more than four months ago for smuggling Cuban weapons aboard a ship.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Russian security forces detained 15 suspected Islamist militants in Moscow after confiscating improvised bombs and other weapons in a raid on an apartment.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, The Syrian government said it will participate in UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending the country's civil war, but insisted that it is not going to the conference to hand over power.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Syria a nephew of Lebanon's agriculture minister was killed along with three other Hezbollah fighters in the Qalamoun region north of Damascus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 27, Thousands of demonstrators massed outside four Thai government ministries, a major state office complex and 24 provincial halls in a widening effort to cripple the administration and oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Tunisia angry protesters set fire to the office of the ruling Islamist party in the neglected Gafsa region, as strikes were observed in areas amid rising discontent and political deadlock. Fifty policeman were injured in clashes with protesters in the marginalised town of Siliana where a general strike degenerated into violence.
(AFP, 11/27/13)(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 27, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a package of landmark contracts that will see the semi-autonomous region's oil and gas exported via pipelines through Turkey.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 27, In the Ukraine thousands of people demonstrated in central Kiev for a fifth straight day to protest the government’s decision not to sign an agreement with the EU but to restore ties with Russia instead.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 28, The comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), first spotted in April 2012 by Russian astronomers, made contact with the sun’s fiery corona. It was named after the Int’l. Scientific Optical Network. Astronomers were unsure if the comet survived.
(SFC, 11/28/13, p.D2)(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A15)
2013 Nov 28, In California Itzcoatl Ocampo (25), convicted in 2012 for killing homeless men in southern California, died after ingesting Ajax cleaning powder.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 28, Doctors in Texas declared Marlise Munoz (33) brain dead due to a blood clot suffered two days earlier. She was 14-weeks pregnant at the time and the hospital said it could not withdraw life sustaining treatment due to a 1999 state law. Life support was withdrawn on Jan 26, 2014, following an order by a Fort Worth judge.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.25)
2013 Nov 28, In Afghanistan two roadside bombs killed six civilians in the country's eastern Nangarhar province. A coalition airstrike killed a child and injured two women, leading to a condemnation of the attack by the country's president. The ISAF strike also killed an insurgent in Helmand province. The top US commander in Afghanistan apologized to President Hamid Karzai for the drone strike earlier in the day that killed a child and NATO promised an investigation.
(AP, 11/28/13)(AP, 11/29/13)(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 28, In Bangladesh a teenager was killed and 17 people suffered burn injuries after a suspected opposition supporter hurled a petrol bomb into a crowded bus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, London Mayor Boris Johnson stated in so many words that inequality is in the nature of capitalism because those with a low IQ are ill-equipped to spread opportunity to all who can compete for its spoils.
(Econ, 12/7/13, p.61)
2013 Nov 28, England's High Court overturned a decision to grant bail to an Italian mafia boss who was arrested in London after two decades on the run. Domenico Rancadore was wanted in Italy to serve a seven-year jail term for his role in the Sicilian mafia and authorities are seeking his extradition.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In London Rakesh Bhayani (41) was sentenced for the murder of Carole Waugh, a wealthy London woman whose body was found stuffed in a car trunk months after her disappearance. Nicholas Kutner (48), was ordered to serve 13 years in prison after he admitted conspiracy to commit fraud.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, British energy provider Npower, a subsidiary of German giant RWE, announced plans to cut about 1,460 jobs in Britain and outsource customer service operations to India.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In the Central African Republic Ugandan foces killed Col. Samuel Kangul, a senior commander of the Lord's Resistance Army and 13 of his rebel fighters.
(AP, 12/1/13)
2013 Nov 28, Chinese media said authorities have broken up six rings that smuggled around $164 million worth of cars into the country over the past three years, including more than 80 top-end models such as BMWs and Rolls-Royces.
(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, The Colombian government and leftist FARC rebels resumed peace talks amid differences over coca cultivation, blamed by political leaders for drug-linked violence and killings.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, EU leaders meeting in Vilnius sought to revive a stalled agreement with Ukraine after the former Soviet republic shocked the 28-country bloc last week by opting for closer ties with Russia instead.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Iran a 5.7 magnitude earthquake on the Gulf coast near the country’s sole nuclear power plant killed eight people and injured 190.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Iraq three car bombs exploded at outdoor markets and on a street full of shops near Baghdad, the deadliest of a series of attacks across the country that killed at least 29 people.
(AP, 11/28/13)(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 28, An Israeli court jailed six Israeli Arab citizens over the mob killing in 2005 of Jewish gunman Eden Nathan-Zaada (19) after he went on a deadly rampage on a bus in their town.
(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Kenya launched construction of a Chinese-funded 13.8 billion dollar (10-billion euro) flagship railway project, hoping to dramatically increase trade and boost Kenya's position as a regional economic powerhouse.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Libya gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Benghazi killing a soldier. More than 40 people were killed in an explosion at an army depot in southern Libya after locals tried to steal ammunition.
(AFP, 11/28/13)(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Mali Tuareg demonstrators occupied an airport runway to prevent PM Oumar Tatam Ly visiting the rebel-controlled northeastern town of Kidal. Protesters said Malian soldiers shot and wounded three of the demonstrators, but the Malian army denied that.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Nigeria's government stepped in to stop a long-running strike by university lecturers, ordering an immediate end to the dispute and vowing to sack teachers who refused to cooperate. 17 people died in a an attack when gunmen in pick-up trucks torched more than 100 shops and vehicles in the Sabon Gari area of the Damboa district. 7 fishermen were ambushed and killed in another attack in Baga, a fishing community on Lake Chad.
(AFP, 11/28/13)(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Russia criminal charges were filed against Anatoly Serdyukov, a former defense minister (2007-2012). He was accused of using servicemen and government funds to build a road to a vacation home and do landscaping work on the property.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, A Russian court granted bail to the last Greenpeace activist still in custody over a protest against offshore oil drilling in the Arctic. Greenpeace said Australian Colin Russell (59) will be released from pre-trial detention in St. Petersburg when 2-million-rouble ($60,000) bail is posted.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In South Korea a "safety-related action" automatically shut down one of the country’s 23 nuclear reactors, bringing the tally of those closed to six and hiking the chances of power blackouts this winter.
(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, South Korean and Japanese flights through China's new maritime air defense zone added to the international defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in East China Sea but that neighbors and the US have vowed to ignore.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, The Syrian army recaptured the strategic town of Deir Attiyeh, less than a week after losing it, taking the advantage in its bid to crush rebels just north of Damascus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Thailand's embattled PM Yingluck Shinawatra Thailand's begged protesters to call off their sustained anti-government demonstrations and negotiate an end to the nation's latest crisis. Shinawatra easily won a no-confidence vote in parliament, but failed to pacify anti-government protesters who rejected calls for talks and massed by the thousands in the capital.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, A Thai court sentenced British kickboxer Lee Aldhouse to 25 years in prison for the 2010 murder of former US Marine Dashawn Longfellow (23) following a bar fight on the island of Phuket. The sentence was reduced from life imprisonment because Aldhouse pleaded guilty to the stabbing death.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Vietnam passed a revised Constitution that reaffirmed the dominant political and economic role of the Communist Party.
(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 29, Images from spacecraft showed a light streak continuing past the sun indicating that at least part of comet ISON remained on one piece.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 29, Officials said the Obama administration has decided to tell US commercial airlines to comply with China’s deamnds to be notified of any flights through a broad swath of int’l. airspace that China has claimed as part of an air defense zone.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 29, The US Department of Treasury said in a statement that the Cayman Islands, a British territory, will share tax information about US account holders with the US Internal Revenue Service.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In southwest Alaska a Hageland Aviation Cessna 208 turboprop crashed near St. Marys. 4 people were killed and six injured. Melanie Coffee (25) left her 5-month-old baby to reach St. Marys and direct rescuers back to the crash site. Her baby died.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A15)
2013 Nov 29, Abu Dhabi authorities said two new cases of the potentially deadly MERS respiratory virus, including a heavily pregnant woman, have been reported in the United Arab Emirates.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Bangladesh a devastating fire ripped through a garment factory supplying major Western retailers, in a blaze set by workers angered over rumors of a colleague's death in police firing.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Colombia's FARC rebels acknowledged that they collected taxes from coca cultivators but rejected accusations of "narco-terrorism."
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Cuba was hit by torrential rains that caused multiple buildings to collapse in Havana. 2 people were killed.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 29, In Egypt hundreds of Islamist demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the country, days after a disputed protest law was adopted and police forcefully broke up unauthorized gatherings.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Georgia and Moldova signed important agreements on political cooperation, reform and free trade with the EU at the summit of EU leaders in Vilnius.
(http://tinyurl.com/nq8ouy4)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.56)
2013 Nov 29, Thousands of young Haitians demonstrated in several cities demanding that President Michel Martelly step down.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Honduras ppposition candidate Xiomara Castro announced that she won't recognize the result of the presidential election because of alleged voter fraud and called on her supporters to protest the win by the ruling party candidate.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 29, Iraqi police discovered the bodies of 18 men who were abducted from their homes and shot in the head in a town near Baghdad, the deadliest this year in a spate of execution-style killings across Iraq. A wave of violence killed 52 people across the country, most of whom were kidnapped and shot dead with their corpses abandoned.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe named the country's first ever female aide to the prime minister, just weeks after Caroline Kennedy arrived as the first woman US ambassador to Tokyo.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Libya 40 inmates have escaped from a prison in the southern city of Sabha after it came under attack by unknown gunmen.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 29, In northern Mali separatist Tuareg rebels said they were ending a five-month-old ceasefire with the government and taking up arms following violence in the northern city of Kidal.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, A Mozambique Airlines plane carrying 33 people crashed in a Namibian national park, killing all on board. On Dec 21 a preliminary investigation reported that the captain had a "clear intention" to crash.
(AP, 11/30/13)(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Nov 29, Standard & Poor's stripped the Netherlands of its triple-A credit rating, saying that the country's growth prospects have deteriorated and it is not performing as well as peers.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Pakistan a suspected US drone strike killed an alleged militant in North Waziristan overnight, the latest indication Washington has no intention of throttling back its unmanned aircraft attacks despite increasing tension with Pakistan over the attacks.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Russian poet Natalia Gorbanevskaya (77) died in Paris. She was among the eight demonstrators arrested in in 1968 in Moscow’s Red Square for protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(Econ, 12/7/13, p.94)
2013 Nov 29, In Scotland a police helicopter crashed onto a crowded Glasgow pub. 10 people were killed with more than two dozen injured.
(AP, 11/30/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/2/13)(AP, 2/14/14)
2013 Nov 29, Swaziland's Senate chief said lawmakers should not divorce to avoid embarrassing the country's polygamous king, who has declared that only death can undo marriages.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Syria a mortar round fell in front of a historical mosque in Damascus, killing 4 people and wounding 26. Six Syrians died and nine others were rescued after a boat sank off the coast of Turkey while trying to cross to the Greek island of Lesbos.
(AP, 11/29/13)(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Thailand about 1,500 anti-government protesters forced their way into the compound of the army headquarters, the latest escalation in a city-wide demonstration seeking to topple PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Ukraine thousands protested in Kiev, demanding the president's resignation after he shelved a landmark agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 30, The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the US has offered to help destroy some of the most lethal parts of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile at an offshore facility.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Rev. Paul Crouch (b.1934), co-founder with his wife, Janice, of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (1973), died in southern California. TBN currently ran on 84 satellite channels and over 18,000 TV and cable affiliates.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.D2)
2013 Nov 30, Actor Paul Walker (40), a star in the “Fast and Furious" film series, died in a fiery crash north of Los Angeles. Roger Rodas, his friend and financial advisor, drove the 2005 Porsche and was also killed. His daughter (15) became the sole beneficiery of his estimated $25 million estate.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A10)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A12)(SFC, 2/6/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 30, In New Mexico a freight train derailed near Bayard killing 3 locomotive operators of Southwest Railroad Inc.
(SFC, 12/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 30, Five east African countries signed a protocol to establish a monetary union, in a first step towards creating a single currency. At a summit in Kampala, leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda inked the framework to set up a single market modelled after the eurozone.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Australia a shark attack killed Zach Young (19) as he body boarded near the northern New South Wales city of Coffs Harbor in the nation's second deadly attack this month.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Britain said it is giving 10 million pounds ($16.4 million) in aid to Central African Republic amid a dramatic escalation in the former French colony's humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, China urged India not to aggravate problems on the border shared by the two nations, a day after the Indian president toured a disputed region and called it an integral part of the country.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, The Dominican Republic in a presidential decree announced details of a special naturalization process for undocumented "foreigners" and their children born in the Dominican Republic.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Egypt Ahmad Maher, a symbol of the popular uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, turned himself in to the authorities after an order for his arrest was made for defying a tough new law restricting demonstrations. Security forces fired volleys of tear gas to disperse stone-throwing protesters in central Cairo.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, The French parliament backed a reform of the country's prostitution law that will impose a 1,500-euro fine on anyone paying for sex. The bill will give France some of the toughest legislation on prostitution in Europe, similar to that of Sweden.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Greece about 1,000 supporters of the Golden Dawn party gathered outside parliament to protest against the pre-trial detention of their leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos on charges of forming a criminal organization.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Honduras election officials said that conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez defeated rival leftist presidential hopeful Xiomara Castro by eight percentage points. Hernandez of the ruling National Party won 36.80% of the vote in the Nov 24 election against 28.79% for Castro.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Nov 30, In India Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal (50) was taken into custody for allegedly assaulting a female colleague in the elevator of a hotel in Goa. Tejpal was charged on Feb 17, 2014, for sexual assault and rape. Tehelka magazine was one that pushed Indian society to confront corruption and sexual violence.
(SFC, 2/18/14, p.A2)
2013 Nov 30, In Iraq a car bomb killed 4 people and wounded seven near a bus stop in Mahmoudiya, a town just south of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, An Israeli policeman shot dead a Palestinian in the town of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv after he tried to attack the arresting force. A paramilitary Border Police unit was searching for Palestinians who did not have a permit to stay in Israel when one of them tried to stab a policeman.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Israel large protests over a plan to resettle nomadic Bedouin Arabs in the southern Negev desert caused injuries and led to some arrests as well as condemnation from PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Lebanon clashes between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government killed 4 people in the northern city of Tripoli.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Libya unidentified assailants overnight gunned down a soldier outside his home and attacked a special forces base in Benghazi.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, North Korea state media claimed that US tourist Merrill Newman (85), detained for more than a month, has apologized for alleged crimes during the Korean War and for "hostile acts" against the state during a recent trip. A video of the apology was dated Nov 9.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif promised Afghanistan that he would help arrange further meetings between Afghan officials and a former Taliban commander as part of renewed efforts to revive a defunct peace process.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Pakistan gunmen fired on police officers protecting a team of polio workers on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing one and wounding another.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Thousands of South Africans called online for the impeachment of President Jacob Zuma, after a newspaper revealed a government document detailing the use of public funds for lavish upgrades to his private home.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In South Africa dozens of Indonesian fishermen, who spent months stranded in Cape Town's harbor, sleeping in cramped and suffocating quarters, were taken ashore to a repatriation center after being stuck at sea on Taiwanese vessels for years without pay.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Nov 30, Sudanese media said more than 11,000 Sudanese workers have returned voluntarily from Saudi Arabia after an amnesty for foreign employees to legalise their status.
(AFP, 11/31/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Syria government shelling of a market in al-Baba near Aleppo killed at least six people.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Thailand tensions escalated in Bangkik as opposition protesters tried to force their way into PM Yingluck Shinawatra's heavily guarded offices and attacked a bus carrying her supporters.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Ukrainian police in Kiev broke up a large anti-government demonstration in the city center before dawn, swinging truncheons and injuring many. Protesters took refuge inside the walls of a central Kiev monastery. The opposition demanded that authorities call early presidential and parliamentary polls.
(AP, 11/30/13)(AFP, 11/30/13)(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Yemen thousands demonstrated in Aden to demand a return to independence a day after President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi said only autonomy was on the table.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov, The US Postal Service unveiled plans to open 84 post offices in Staples stores around the country, but they would not be staffed by USPS union members.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.D5)
2013 Nov, The price of a Bitcoin, a digital currency, soared to over $1000 this month, from less than $15 in January.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.13)
2013 Nov, Bitly, popular site for shortening Web addresses, got caught in the crossfire of Venezuela's polarized politics shortly after President Nicolas Maduro decided to block access to sites such as www.dolartoday.com that publish the black market rate for the bolivar, which is now 10 times the official rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Nov, Chinese officials signed two agreements to import 500,000 cattle and three million pigs from Romania over the next few years.
(AP, 11/31/13)
2013 Nov, An unpublished report by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s public prosecutor’s office said the country is owed an estimated $3.7 billion in unpaid customs duties and fines by companies operating in its copper-rich Katanga province between 2008 and 2013. News of the draft document was only made public in Jan, 2014.
(Reuters, 1/30/14)
2013 Nov, Iran signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million. Public notice of the deal was only made public in Feb 2014.
(Reuters, 2/24/14)
2013 Nov, In Italy Francesco Bidognetti, a top Camorra boss, was convicted of poisoning the water table in the town of Gugliano with toxic waste and received a 20-year sentence. Camorra mobsters since 1991 have systematically dumped, burned or buried nearly 10 million tons of waste, almost all of it coming from factories that either don't seek to know where the waste ends up or are complicit in the crimes.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Nov, North Korea executed two deputies of Jang Song Thaek, an uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, on charges of corruption and anti-party activities.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 1, A single engine plane carrying 5 people disappeared in Idaho on its way from Oregon to Montana. It was piloted by Dale Smith, co-founder of Serialtek, a San Jose, Ca., hardware and software company.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A14)
2013 Dec 1, In Missouri a man died and three people were taken in for questioning after an altercation in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium as the Kansas City Chiefs played the Denver Broncos.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, In NYC a Manhattan-bound commuter train ran off the tracks while rounding a sharp curve in the Bronx. The seven-car train derailment killed 4 people and injured 11 critically. The train went into a curve at 82 mph and engineer William Rockefeller later said he had “nodded" while at the controls.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 1, Two Australian scientists and their pilot were injured when their helicopter made an emergency landing in Antarctica, leaving them stranded overnight on the ice.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Angelo Houssou, a Benin judge who angered the president of the West African nation, said he fled the country over the weekend and is seeking political asylum in the United States.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Brazil Ambrosio Vilhalva, a Guarani tribal elder, was stabbed to death at the entrance of his community known as Guyra Roka, Mato Grosso do Sul state. The indigenous leader had decades fought for his people's right to live on their ancestral lands.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 1, Canadian police said a naval engineer has been arrested and charged for taking steps to transmit sensitive information to China related to shipbuilding procurement strategy.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Croats voted overwhelmingly in favor of defining marriage in the constitution as a "union of man and woman," after conservative groups, backed by the Roman Catholic Church, demanded that the country's constitution define the matrimony as a union of a man and a woman.
(AP, 12/1/13)(Reuters, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, Egypt's constitution-drafting panel approved a charter that preserves the military's wide-ranging powers, including the ability to try civilians, as police fired tear gas to disperse Islamists in Tahrir Square.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Honduras' defeated leftist presidential candidate, the wife of ousted former leader Manuel Zelaya, led thousands of supporters onto the streets of Tegucigalpa to protest the election results.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, Iran said it is in talks with Russia to build another nuclear plant at Bushehr, with construction set to begin in 2014.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral procession of a Sunni Muslim tribal sheikh, killing at least 10 people and wounding 25. Attacks across the country killed 28 people.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Italy at least 7 people died and three injured when the illegal Chinese-owned Teresa Moda garment factory in an industrial zone in the town of Prato, outside Florence, burned down.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)(SSFC, 10/19/14, p.A20)
2013 Dec 1, In Lebanon 3 people were killed overnight in fighting in the northern city of Tripoli. A security source said 10 people, including a woman and an off-duty soldier, have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon linked to the war in neighbouring Syria.
(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Mexico Some 40,000 teachers, union members and anarchist activists took to Mexico City's streets in a demonstration on the first anniversary of President Enrique Pena Nieto's inauguration.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Germany Heinrich Boere (92), who murdered Dutch civilians as part of a Nazi Waffen SS hit squad during World War II but avoided justice for six decades, died in a prison hospital while serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, A senior Palestinian source said security forces have arrested 20 Salafists, after a Gaza-based group affiliated with Al-Qaeda confirmed it was operating in the West Bank for the first time. The source denied that any of those arrested in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank had ties to the global jihadist group set up by the late Osama Bin-Laden.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Syrian government helicopters dropped makeshift bombs on Al-Bab, rebel-held town near Aleppo. At least 20 people, including four children, were killed in a second day of deadly air strikes there.
(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, Thailand police fought off mobs of rock-throwing protesters armed with petrol bombs who tried to battle their way into the government's heavily-fortified headquarters in Bangkok. PM Shinawatra fled a police complex during the sharpest escalation yet of the country's latest crisis.
(AP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Ukraine some 300,000 demonstrators chased away police to rally in the center of Kiev, defying a government ban on protests on Independence Square over the president's refusal to sign an agreement with the EU. Opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, addressing hundreds of thousands of protesters, called on President Viktor Yanukovich and his government to resign. The protests turned violent when a group of demonstrators besieged the president's office and police drove them back with truncheons, tear gas and flash grenades.
(AP, 12/1/13)(Reuters, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, The UN said Ivory Coast sent hit squads to Ghana to kill followers of former strongman Laurent Gbagbo and paid Liberian mercenaries not to stage cross-border attacks for Gbagbo.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Yemen Al-Qaeda suspects on a bike shot dead an army colonel and his son when he stopped his car at a roundabout in al-Qatan. Yemen began enforcing a temporary ban on motorbikes in the capital to prevent "shoot and scoot" attacks.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, US Pres. Obama announced a $100 million initiative in pursuit of a cure for HIV at a White House event marking World Aids Day.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 2, NASA said solar observatories saw something emerge from around the sun following the comet ISON’s close approach.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 2, In Hawaii a shark attack killed a kayak fisherman off Maui.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 2, The Satanic Temple, a New York-based group, launched a campaign to donate a monument to stand next to Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma City.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2013 Dec 2, In Afghanistan a suicide truck bombing killed 4 police officers in Wardak province.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Armenia some 500 people marched through Yerevan to denounce visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and to protest against plans to join a Moscow-led customs union.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Australia a class action over birth defects linked to the morning sickness drug thalidomide was settled in a court, with the British distributor agreeing to pay victims Aus$89 million (US$81 million).
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, China government said it has punished almost 20,000 officials in the last year for breaching rules to cut down on bureaucracy as well as pomp and ceremony.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, A producer for China's state broadcaster CCTV said that he had been fired after he criticized the network's role in a controversial crackdown on online rumors. Wang Qinglei made the statement in an open letter, which has since been scrubbed from Chinese social media.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Zhang Yimou (62), one of China's top movie directors, admitted having three children with his current wife, according to a studio media posting, apologising after months of speculation he broke the country's controversial family planning laws.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, China launched Chang’e-3, its first moon rover mission, the latest step in an ambitious space program seen as a symbol of its rising global stature.
(AFP, 12/2/13)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.82)
2013 Dec 2, Egyptian police fired tear gas as more than two thousand students backing ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi entered Cairo's Tahrir Square to demonstrate against July's military "coup."
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, French police arrested 45 people in a vast sweep against international arms traffickers.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Indonesia's anti-graft agency questioned the energy minister over a corruption scandal that has ensnared top oil officials and threatened to tarnish President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's final year in office.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Iraq bombings near the homes of government employees killed 3 people in a Sunni suburb west of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Lebanon’s government authorized the army to take control of Tripoli following three days of sectarian clashes that left 12 dead.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 2, Mexican authorities said a total of 64 bodies have been found in mass graves in the western state of Jalisco, as they wrapped up a probe of alleged victims of a drug cartel.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Mexico a truck carrying cobalt-60, used for radiotherapy treatment to combat cancer, was stolen. The IAEA later said the heist occurred in Tepojaco, a town near Mexico City, and described the load as "extremely dangerous" if damaged or removed from its protective shielding. The truck was found abandoned on Dec 4. The highly radioactive material had been removed from its container and was found near the truck.
(AP, 12/4/13)(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 2, In northeastern Nigeria hundreds of Islamic militants in trucks and a stolen armored personnel carrier attacked an air force base on the outskirts of Maiduguri before dawn. 24 insurgents were reported killed along with 2 air force personnel. Authorities imposed a 24-hour curfew following the attack.
(AP, 12/2/13)(Reuters, 12/2/13)(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 2, At a ceremoney in Lomndonderry, Northern Ireland, French artist Laure Prouvost won Britain's Turner prize for contemporary art for her video installation set among a mock-tea party setting entitled "Wantee."
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 2, In central Poland a priest (49) was sentenced to more than eight years after being convicted of sexually abusing five boys.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Somalia's parliament voted to sack PM Abdi Farah Shirdon and his Cabinet in a no-confidence vote, after a row with the president that has paralyzed the state and threatened a shaky recovery from war.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 2, In Syria opposition fighters abducted 12 nuns from Maaloula, a predominantly Christian village near the capital that was overrun by rebels. The nuns were reported freed on March 9.
(AP, 12/3/13)(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2013 Dec 2, Thailand's PM Shinawatra said she is willing to do anything it takes to end violent protests against her government and restore peace, but cannot accept the opposition's "unconstitutional" demand to hand power to an unelected council.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Turkey said it stood by a bilateral oil deal with Iraq's Kurdistan region that bypassed central government but sought to appease Baghdad by drawing it into the arrangement.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Ukraine about 1,000 protesters blocked off the government's main headquarters and surrounding streets, preventing employees getting to work, in further protests at Kiev's policy U-turn away from integration with Europe.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Venezuela's second massive power outage of the year plunged much of the nation into darkness, prompting renewed talk of sabotage from President Nicolas Maduro's government and cries of incompetence from its foes.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In southern Yemen suspected al-Qaida militants attacked a military checkpoint in Hadramawt province sparking a clash that left 3 militants and 2 soldiers dead.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 3, The US voiced solidarity with Japan against China's claim to airspace over disputed islands, vowing not to tolerate the aggressive move as VP Joe Biden prepared to deliver that message personally to Beijing.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In California El Centro police officers pulled over Charlie Sampson (57) under suspicion of his being a drug dealer. Police repeatedly ignored signs of his medical distress and Sampson died hours later. An edited video of the arrest was released on October 8, 2015.
(AP, 10/9/15)
2013 Dec 3, In Florida a number of pilot whales were spotted in extremely shallow water in the Everglades park south of Naples. 22 whales died after a pod of 51 was first spotted.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A12)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 3, The Illinois Legislature approved a historic plan to eliminate the state’s $100 billion pension shortfall. Gov. Pat Quinn said he will sign it.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 3, US Federal Judge Steven Rhodes ruled that Detroit is eligible to proceed with its Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the largest public US bankruptcy to date.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A9)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.29)
2013 Dec 3, In southern Afghanistan roadside bombs killed 9 people, including six civilians, as insurgents pressed forward with a relentless campaign against the government and its security forces.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Belgium more than 130 vehicles were involved in three pileups in a dense morning fog. At least one person was killed.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 3, Ida Pollock (b.1908), romance novelist, died in southwest England. Her more than 120 books included some 70 "bodice-rippers" for romance publisher Mills & Boon, the British arm of Harlequin Enterprises.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 3, In the Central African Republic UN officials said at least 12 people of the Peuhl Muslim minority, including children and a pregnant woman, have been killed by Christian vigilantes.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, Prominent Egyptian youth leader Ahmed Duma was arrested for participating in a protest, the third pro-democracy activist to be detained within a week.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm (84), renowned for his revolutionary poetry and outspoken criticism of Arab political leaders, died. He became recognized as a voice of protest in 1967 when he wrote poems on the Arab-Israeli war, which were highly acclaimed.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a published interview that France will allow private security forces to protect its shipping fleet against the threat of piracy.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Retired French general Paul Aussaresses (b.1918) died. He led a "death squadron" that tortured people during Algeria's 1954-1962 war of independence. In 2004 he was fined 7,500 euros ($10,200) for defending torture and had his membership of the prestigious Order of the Legion d'Honneur removed by then President Jacques Chirac.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, French experts released findings that ruled out the poisoning theory of Yasser Arafat and went in the sense of a natural death. This differed significantly from those of Swiss scientists, who said last month their research offered some support for the suggestion Arafat was killed by polonium poisoning.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, Hong Kong officials said they will quarantine 17 people after the city confirmed its first human case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Indonesia top trade officials began talks that will either produce an eleventh hour deal that could boost the global economy by $1 trillion or possibly spell the end of the World Trade Organization's relevance as a forum for negotiations.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Iran's foreign ministry asked Afghanistan not to sign a security deal with the US that could keep thousands of American and allied forces in its neighboring country for another decade.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Iraq attacks mostly targeting Sunni Arab areas of Baghdad as well as northern and western Iraq killed at least 23 people.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Italian PM Enrico Letta announced measures to try to combat a fresh rubbish emergency in the area around the southern city of Naples where organized crime and widespread abuse have created a chronic environmental crisis.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Mali excavation began on a mass grave containing 21 skulls near the Kati military barracks, formerly the fief of Gen. Amadou Haya Sanogo. The spot where the remains were found matches the place where witnesses said around 20 soldiers were shot and killed by troops loyal to Sanogo in May 2012.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, Mexico's Senate overwhelmingly approved an electoral reform demanded by the opposition, helping pave the way for Congress to focus on an energy bill at the center of President Enrique Pena Nieto's economic agenda.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it has completed building the hull of the world's largest floating facility, which has been constructed to process natural gas off the coast of western Australia.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Nigerian university lecturers vowed to press on with their five-month strike over pay and conditions, on the eve of a government ultimatum to go back to work or be sacked.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Peru prosecutors said the remains of 54 people, mostly women and children, have been found in 19 graves in the town of Chungui. Experts believed the victims were killed perhaps in 1986 during the first term of president Alan García (1985-1990).
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Russia Bolshoi star dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko was sentenced to six years in prison over an acid attack on the ballet's director that exposed vicious backstage bickering and intrigue at the renowned theater.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, South Africa's government launched a widely unpopular road toll around the economic hub of Johannesburg, a move likely to heighten tensions with its union allies and alienate some voters in the run-up to next year's elections.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, South Korean lawmakers said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is believed to have dismissed Jang Song Thaek, a powerful uncle and a man key to his rise to power, from his posts.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 3, Syria's state TV reported that a suicide attacker blew himself up in central Damascus, killing 4 and wounding 17 others. Syria's Greek Orthodox patriarch appealed for the quick release of 12 nuns abducted by opposition forces a day earlier.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Thailand's government ordered police to stop confronting protesters demanding the resignation of the prime minister, raising hope that days of political violence may end, but the leader of the campaign said the fight would go on.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Ukraine's opposition failed to force out the government with a parliamentary no-confidence vote, leaving the country's political tensions unresolved with calls for more mass protests.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, UN forces in Democratic Republic of Congo launched unmanned aircraft to monitor the volatile border with Rwanda and Uganda, the first time UN peacekeepers have deployed surveillance drones. The UN announced its peacekeeping troops will go after other armed groups in the DRC, after helping to defeat the M23 rebel force.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 4, A Norman Rockwell painting titled “Saying Grace" sold for a record $46 million at a Sotheby’s auction in NYC.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 4, In Florida the former Miami Art Museum opened as the $131 Perez Art Museum Miami.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.P3)
2013 Dec 4, Scientists reported mitochondrial DNA results from a human thighbone found in Spain estimated to be 400,000 years old. The DNA showed a closer relation to Denisovans who lived in Siberia than to Neanderthals.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 4, Algerian army helicopters killed a top al-Qaida leader and four associates as they sped through the southern Algerian desert. Khalil Ould Addah, aka Abu Bassen, a regional leader from the Sahara branch.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Argentina violence in Cordoba left at least 3 people dead as a police sit-in prompted hours of looting, robberies, injuries and vigilante mobs trying to protect their neighborhoods. The violence ended when police agreed to a 52% pay increase.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 4, It was reported that Argentina’s Riachuelo river flowing through the La Boca district of Buenos Aires has been named one of the planet's 10 dirtiest places.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, OPEC leaders meeting in Austria agreed to hold its crude production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day despite oversupply concerns and competition from cheaper shale oil.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Botswana the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said key states, where the illegal ivory trade flourishes, have pledged to take urgent measures to try to halt the illicit trade and secure elephant populations across Africa.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, British PM David Cameron faced demands for the return of priceless artefacts looted from Beijing in the 19th century, the last day of his visit to China.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, China accused Washington of taking Japan's side in a tense clash over disputed islands in the East China Sea, underscoring rising regional friction as visiting Vice President Joe Biden met with Beijing's leaders.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, In eastern China hazardous air pollution forced schools to shut or suspend outdoor activities in at least two cities, where residents complained of the yellow skies and foul smells that are symptomatic of the country's crippling smog crisis.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, The European Commission fined a group of major global banks a total of 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) for colluding to profit from the manipulation of key interest rates. The banks named as participating in cartels were Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale, Credit Agricole, HSBC, JPMorgan, UBS and Citigroup.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, German officials said hundreds of unsolved killings and attempted killings in the country over the last two decades may have been committed by far-right extremists.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 4, In Iraq a car bomb exploded at the gate of the Police Intelligence Department in the religiously-mixed city of Kirkuk. Later, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a police intelligence headquarters and a nearby shopping mall in a coordinated attack in Kirkuk, killing 11 people and wounding 70.
(AP, 12/4/13)(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Lebanon Hassan al-Laqis (53), a senior Hezbollah leader, was killed overnight upon returning home from work in Beirut. Hezbollah accused Israel for the assassination.
(AP, 12/4/13)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 4, Libya's national assembly voted to make sharia, Islamic law, the basis of all legislation and for state institutions in a decision that may impact banking, criminal and financial laws.
(Reuters, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Morocco a Cameroonian immigrant plunged to his death when police raided his fourth-floor apartment in Tangiers, raising tensions in the city after a similar death in October.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, Nicaragua police said 6 suspected robbers and 4 police officers were killed in a shootout in a remote rural part of the northwest.
(Reuters, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, Nigerian police said that they raided a home and freed 16 pregnant girls and young women allegedly being forced to have babies to be sold.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, Scientists reported mitochondrial DNA results from a human thighbone found in Spain estimated to be 400,000 years old. The DNA showed a closer relation to Denisovans who lived in Siberia than to Neanderthals.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 4, In Syria fighters linked to Al-Qaeda executed Yasser Faysal al-Joumaili (32), an Iraqi freelance cameraman. He was kidnapped by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) while on his way out of Syria and executed in the northwestern border province of Idlib.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, Tunisia's southern Tozeur region ground to a halt, as the latest in a growing number of strikes around the country was called to protest a lack of development.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, Ukraine's PM Mykola Azarov warned protesters trying to blockade government buildings they would be punished for any "illegal acts", as officials went to Moscow seeking aid to avoid a financial meltdown. Thousands of people continued to rally in Kiev against the decision to freeze ties with the EU and get closer to Russia.
(Reuters, 12/4/13)(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, The Green Climate Fund, designed as the UN’s most important funding body in the battle on climate change in developing nations, launched its headquarters in South Korea.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 5, The US Defense Department said Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane and Bensayah Belkecem, two Algerian detainees at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, have been repatriated despite protest from the prisoners who feared persecution.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In the US fast food workers held some 100 rallies across the country calling for an increase in the minimum wage from the current $7.25/hr.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.C7)
2013 Dec 5, A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said water pollution at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina has been linked to increased risk of birth defects and childhood cancers.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 5, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed landmark legislation to reform the state’s underfunded pension system. The reforms cut benefits for most employees and retirees. Unions immediately threatened a lawsuit. On may 8, 2015, the state Supreme Court struck down the legislation saying it would leave pension promises diminished or impaired.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A10)(SFC, 5/9/15, p.A5)
2013 Dec 5, Australia and Indonesia announced that they would set up a hotline as part of efforts to repair relations following media reports last month that Canberra had spied on top Indonesian officials.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Heavy gunfire erupted in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. French troops killed several rebels who were bearing down on them in a pickup truck. Ex-Seleka fighters stormed Amite Hospital and abducted at least nine patients by gunpoint in front of horrified medical staff. The bodies of 11 young men were later found just outside the hospital. Over 280 people were killed in the violence in Bangui.
(AP, 12/5/13)(AP, 12/6/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 5, Ethiopia said it has repatriated over 100,000 citizens from Saudi Arabia, following a violent crackdown against illegal immigrants in the oil-rich kingdom.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Iraq gunmen shot dead magazine editor Kawa Ahmed Germyani (32). He was investigating corruption in the autonomous Kurdistan region. Police stormed a mall in Kirkuk killing 3 militants. Attacks elsewhere in the country left 7 dead.
(AFP, 12/6/13)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 5, Kenyan lawmakers adopted amendments to a controversial media bill despite an opposition walk out and international concern about press freedom.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Libya unknown assailants shot an American teacher to death as he was jogging in Benghazi.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Moldova’s Constitutional Court ruled that Romanian is now the official language. The language, basically the same as Romanian, had been renamed Moldovan under Soviet rule.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 5, Myanmar’s Rangoon Univ. reopened to undergraduates. It had been closed since 1988 following failed student uprisings.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 5, In southwest Pakistan a bomb exploded outside a mosque in Chaman, the main border town in southwestern Baluchistan, killing at least one person.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Russia said it has begun a criminal inquiry into suspected child trafficking in the US following a Reuters investigation which found that adopted children, some born in Russia, were being traded via the Internet.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Hurricane-force gusts hit Scotland, causing a fatal truck accident, halting all trains and leaving tens of thousands of homes without electricity.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Somalia at least 8 people were killed when a suicide car bomber rammed a convoy in the northern port of Bossasso, a Puntland region harboring Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents where tensions are high ahead of elections in January.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In South Africa former President and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela (b.1918) died. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 5, The South African Cabinet ordered that an inter-ministerial task team report on the funding of controversial security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma's private home be released to the public.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Sudan a tribal dispute on the border of the Darfur region killed 38 people including 16 Maaliya and 22 Hamar tribesmen.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 5, Sweden's public broadcaster said it has obtained secret documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden suggesting a Swedish spy agency has been a key supplier of intelligence on Russian leaders to the NSA.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jihadists in northern Syria have kidnapped more than 50 Kurds in the past three days.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Yemen a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car at the Defense Ministry in Sanaa, killing 18 soldiers and wounding at least 40. Officials said 11 gunmen also were killed in a firefight between troops and a carload of attackers who arrived after the blast. Gunmen shot and killed a Western doctor and a Filipina nurse in front of their colleagues in a hospital inside the compound of the defense ministry. Most of the attackers were Saudi nationals. Yemen’s branch of al-Qaida took responsibility and on Dec 21 apologized for the attack on the hospital that killed 52 people.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)(Reuters, 12/6/13)(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A4)(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 6, US FDA said it has approved a new hepatitis C drug. The Sovaldi pills from Gilead Sciences was approved for use in combination with older drugs to treat the main forms of hepatitis C in the US. The US health industry soon complained as the US price was the drug was set at $1,000 a daily pill, or $84,000 for a 12-week treatment.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.D3)(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.A1)
2013 Dec 6, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in introduced Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on the meme of a smiling Shiba Inu dog. It quickly developed its own online community reaching a market capitalization of US $5,382,875,000 on January 28, 2021. Marcus and Palmer ended their affiliation with the enterprise in 2015.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin)(SFC, 2/15/21, p.C1)
2013 Dec 6, In Texas Jerald Cobbs, a former top executive of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), was indicted over an improperly awarded $11 million taxpayer funded grant.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 6, A winter storm that some forecasters say is the worst to hit the United States in years slammed the nation's midsection early today, snarling travel and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands. At least two deaths were reported on roads in Texas and Missouri.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In London three members of a self-styled "Muslim patrol" who harassed passers-by for wearing short skirts, holding hands and drinking alcohol were jailed for up to 16 months after admitting a variety of public order and assault charges.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to 6 when high winds hurled a tree limb against a car, killing 3 people in Poland. Britain and Denmark had already reported 3 deaths. Thousands of people in Britain faced a second day of flooding as the country confronted its worst tidal surge in 60 years after Xaver roared across northern Europe.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In CAR 19 members of the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, defected in the Central African Republic where the rebels are being pursued by African Union forces backed by American advisers.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 6, In China authorities in Shanghai ordered schoolchildren indoors and a halt to construction as the city, shrouded in yellow haze, suffered its worst bouts of air pollution.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 6, In China a woman died of the H10N8 strain of bird flu, the first ever reported human case of the virus.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian police used tear gas to end clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, kidnapped as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, was convicted in absentia by an Italian court of decade-old terror charges and sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, French President Francois Hollande told some 40 African leaders at a Paris summit that the continent must "ensure its own security" in order to "take charge of its destiny."
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Hong Kong reported its second human case of H7N9 bird flu just days after the first, raising fears that the virus is spreading beyond mainland China.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Indian-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to open a £240-million manufacturing plant in Brazil.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Japan enacted a state-secrets law toughening penalties for leaks, despite public protests and criticism that it will muzzle the media and help cover up official misdeeds.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Mexican officials said 6 people tested for possible radiation exposure have been released from hospital but remain under detention as suspects in the theft of a truck carrying highly radioactive cobalt-60.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In Mexico Guerrero state officials found the dismembered bodies of 8 family members who had been kidnapped a day earlier in the town of Teloloapan. Three other members of the same family had also been kidnapped, including an eight-year-old girl. But their whereabouts were unknown.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 6, The Norwegian oil company Statoil announced the discovery of a major gas deposit with its US partner ExxonMobil off the coast of Tanzania.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In eastern Pakistan gunmen riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a vehicle carrying Shamsur Rehman, a leader of a hard-line Sunni group, killing him and wounding a passer-by before fleeing in Lahore.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Romania's Interior Ministry said Adrian Procop (21), a Romanian man accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum, was arrested in Britain after months on the run. Procop entered the Kunsthal museum at night in Oct 2012 with a friend, Radu Dogaru, and stole artworks worth 18 million euros ($24 million).
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Serbian police say they have detained hundreds of people in a massive sweep against drug traffickers throughout the Balkan country.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Somali lawmaker Feisal Warsame Mohamed was killed when a car bomb blew up his vehicle outside the prime minister's office in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Key leaders of South Sudan's ruling party charged President Salva Kiir with "dictatorial" behaviour Friday, warning of instability threatening the young nation in a deeply controversial challenge to his rule.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In southeastern Turkey two Kurdish protesters, aged 34 and 32, were shot dead in a violent confrontation with police. The clashes were sparked by claims that Kurdish rebel cemeteries had been destroyed.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich flew to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin, seeking aid to shore up a creaking economy as protesters back home, opposed to his U-turn away from Europe, defied police.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, The UN called for an urgent investigation into allegations in a Reuters report that Thai immigration officials moved Myanmar refugees into human trafficking rings.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 7, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said that Afghanistan's defense minister reassured him that a security agreement with the US will be signed in a timely manner.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, A cold snap in the US led to at least 6 weather-related deaths in traffic accidents. Over 100,000 people in the Dallas area were without power as were thousands in other states.
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 7, Australia's first gay marriages were celebrated in the national capital Canberra, despite the prospect of a High Court decision ruling against the unions later this week.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, In Colombia 8 people were killed in a bombing blamed on FARC rebels currently engaged in peace talks with the government. 6 soldiers and 2 civilians died when a vehicle loaded with explosives blew up in the small town of Inza.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, An Egyptian court acquitted 155 people arrested during deadly clashes in the capital between Islamist protesters and police in October.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, French President Francois Hollande said France will increase its troop deployment in Central African Republic to 1,600 soldiers by this evening. The African Union agreed to increase its troops there to 6,000.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Dec 7, In Bali, Indonesia, WTO leaders, ending a 4-day meeting, reached a deal to boost global trade. The Trade Facilitation Agreement was approved by the 159 member economies for the first time in nearly two decades, keeping alive the possibility that a broader agreement to create a level playing field for rich and poor countries can be reached in the future.
(AP, 12/7/13)(Econ, 2/4/17, p.64)
2013 Dec 7, In Iraq a bomb went off inside an outdoor market in the northern city of Mosul, killing two shoppers and wounding 15 others. An hour later 2 people were killed and seven others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded on a road frequently used by military convoys in Mishahda village, just north of Baghdad. Attacks nationwide killed 16 people, nine of whom were shot dead at alcohol shops in Baghdad.
(AP, 12/7/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, The Italian foreign ministry said Marcello Rizzo (55) has been kidnapped in the Niger felta of Nigeria. Rizzo was said to have disappeared several days earlier.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, Two Japanese whaling ships and a surveillance vessel left for the annual hunt in the Antarctic Sea. The three ships departed from the western port of Shimonoseki to join other ships to hunt up to 935 Antarctic minke whales and up to 50 fin whales through March.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, In northern Kenya more than 10 people were killed in fighting in the town of Moyale where troops have been sent to stop a week of fighting between rival ethnic groups that has sent thousands fleeing into Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, Moroccan police violently suppressed a peaceful protest in the Western Sahara against a planned EU fishing accord with Rabat that covers the disputed territory's waters.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, North Korea freed Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old US veteran of the Korean War, after a weekslong detention.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, Pakistan's Supreme Court identified six 'missing persons' who relatives say were disappeared by the country's army from a detention center and ordered the defence ministry to produce them.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, A Palestinian boy, Wajih Wajdi Al-Ramah (15), died of a gunshot wound in the occupied West Bank. His father and two friends blamed Israeli troops guarding a nearby settlement for the shooting. The father said the boy had left a grocery store when he was shot from the nearby settlement, about 300 meters away.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, Polish authorities said icy winter storms with hurricane-force winds battering northern Europe have claimed four more lives in Poland, where some 350,000 homes remained without power. This brought the reported death toll from the storms across north Europe to 14.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, In northeastern Romania Chevron Oil Co. suspended exploration for shale gas after hundreds of anti-fracking protesters tore down fences.
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Dec 7, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced the resignation of First Vice President Ali Taha. Taha was replaced by Lieutenant General Bakri Hassan Saleh.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, Syria’s largest Islamist rebel force seized arms depots belonging to the mainstream Western-backed Free Syrian Army. The Observatory said the arms had been brought across the border from Turkey and that five fighters were killed. Government aircraft pounded Raqqa, a rebel-held city in the country's northeast, killing at least 18 people including five children.
(AFP, 12/7/13)(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra ruled out a political comeback for her influential self-exiled brother and said an unpopular amnesty bill that would have allowed him to return has been scrapped.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Washington DC the Kennedy Center Honors were awarded to Carlos Santana, Billy Joel, Herbie Hancock, Martina Arroyo and Shirley McClaine for their impact on Amereican culture.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 8, In Connecticut a man shot and killed 3 women and then killed himself in front of police officers at an apartment complex in Manchester.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 8, A Bangladesh court ordered authorities to hang Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla (65), months after he was sentenced to death, raising fears of a new wave of clashes. On Dec 10 a late-night reprieve saved his life just hours before he was to be hanged.
(AFP, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 8, British MPs lined up to condemn plans by an independent body to grant them an 11-percent pay rise, embarrassed at how such largesse will be perceived at a time of deep public spending cuts.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested three people following fresh allegations of match-fixing at English non-league games.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, The mostly Muslim fighters who control Central African Republic patrolled neighborhoods across Bangui despite an order to return to their barracks, reflecting the sectarian tensions still rippling across the impoverished nation. The French foreign minister said violence had killed at least 394 people in the past few days.
(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, India's Congress party headed for a bruising defeat in key state elections, in early results underlining the struggle it will face to cling to power in a national election due by May. The main Hindu nationalist party trounced the nationally ruling Congress in four heartland states and knocked them out of New Delhi in a ballot contest closely watched for clues to next year's general election.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Iraq a series of bombings across the country, including 14 blasts in and around Baghdad, killed 39 people and wounded over 130.
(AP, 12/8/13)(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, North Korea’s state TV showed Jang Song Thaek, the uncle of Kim Jong Un, being stripped of all his titles at a party meeting led by Kim Jong Un.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, The Philippine government and the MILF, the main Muslim rebel group, signed a crucial power-sharing accord, paving the way for a final peace agreement.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Chevron said it has resumed activities to build its first shale gas exploration well in Romania, a day after protests forced the US energy giant to suspend work.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, Saudi authorities beheaded Mohammed Zayer Khan Qol, a Pakistani man, after he was convicted of smuggling drugs into the ultra-conservative Gulf state. An AFP count put this as no. 73.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Singapore an hour-long fracas was triggered when an Indian construction worker was struck and killed by a private bus in the Little India district. The rampage that left 39 police and civil defence staff injured, and 25 vehicles -- including 16 police cars -- damaged or torched.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, South Korea said it has extended its air defense zone to partially overlap with a similar zone declared by China two weeks ago that has sharply raised regional tensions.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir replaced his two vice-presidents and unveiled a new cabinet after urgent calls for reform in the 24-year-old regime.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, The Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) launched attacks in Bau district of Blue Nile state. Insurgents later said one rebel fighter was reported killed and three wounded during attacks against military convoys that also left several government troops dead.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 8, Syrian regime forces made gains in the key town of Nabuk, one of the last rebel-held areas in the Qalamoun region bordering Lebanon. Ali Bazzi, a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander, was killed in a combat zone.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra proposed a referendum on her future and promised to resign if that was what the people wanted, as anti-government protesters prepared for a final push to try to force her from power. Thailand's main opposition party resigned from Parliament.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, UN inspectors visited an Iranian plant linked to a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel, taking up an initial offer by Tehran to open its disputed nuclear program to greater scrutiny.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Several hundred thousand Ukrainians occupied a central square in the capital, denouncing President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to turn away from Europe and align with Russia. Protesters in the square knocked down a 3.4 meter statue of Vladimir Lenin, erected in 1946.
(AP, 12/8/13)(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Venezuela held municipal elections. The opposition saw this as a referendum on Pres. Maduro’s performance amid soaring crime, high inflation, and shortages of basic household items. Early results gave Socialists and their allies 49 percent of votes, compared to 43 percent for the opposition coalition and its partners.
(AFP, 12/8/13)(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Yemen gunmen in car ambushes shot dead the head of security of the presidential palace in Taiz, Brigadier General Saddam Hussein al-Dhahri. In a separate incident Police Colonel Abdullah Gaithallah was similarly killed in the southern province of al-Baida.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 9, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the US military to transport troops from Burundi into the Central African Republic to help quell the latest upsurge in violence there.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 9, The US remained in the grip of Arctic air. 1,650 flights were cancelled and tens of thousands of people were without power.
(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 9, Major technology companies, stung by poor publicity for having helped the US government access personal data, issued an open letter to Pres. Barack Obama asking for tighter controls on surveillance.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In southern California charges were announced after 16 of 18 LA County current and former sheriff’s deputies were arrested for corruption and civil rights abuses.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 9, Los Angeles MTA officials began a crackdown on homeless people sleeping at Union Station under a program that limits seats in the hub to ticketed passengers.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 9, In southern California Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city manager of Bell, was convicted of corruption. She had given herself huge raises as most city residents lived in poverty.
(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 9, In southern California Bob Filner, the former mayor of San Diego, was sentenced to three months of home confinement and three years of probation for harassing women while serving as mayor.
(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 9, California pledged to restore 80,000 acres of the depleted Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as part of a massive project to send fresh water from mountain streams in the north to farmers and residents in the parched south.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Oakland, Ca., Jahi McMath (13) suffered a cardiac arrest during a tonsil operation at Children’s Hospital. On Dec 12 doctors pronounced her brain dead. Her family contended she was still alive and kept her connected to breathing and feeding tubes. The family kept her on life support at a New Jersey hospital until June 22, 2018.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A10)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.C4)(SFC, 6/29/18, p.A1)
2013 Dec 9, American film actress Eleanor Parker (b.1922) died in Palm Springs. He Oscar nominations included “Caged" (1950), “Detective Story" (1951) and “Interrupted Melody" (1955).
(SFC, 12/11/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 9, In Florida one suspected Cuban migrant was found dead, and two others were missing and feared drowned, after a homemade raft with a sole survivor on board was found floating in Biscayne Bay.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Two Damien Hirst (48) signed prints, "Pyronin Y" and "Oleoylsarcosin," were taken from the Exhibitionist Gallery in west London in the early hours by a thief who forced the gallery doors.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 9, Canada signalled intentions to claim the North Pole and surrounding Arctic waters while announcing the filing of a UN application seeking to vastly expand its Atlantic sea boundary.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Colombia Gustavo Petro (53), the leftist mayor of Bogota, was removed from his post for the mismanagement of garbage collection and banned from holding office for 15 years, a blow to the nation's left as peace talks continue with Marxist FARC rebels.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, An Egyptian court sentenced three supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to life imprisonment, in the latest tough ruling against opponents of the army-backed interim government.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Water ministers from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan held talks on an Ethiopian dam project, after Egypt's objections delayed formation of a committee to implement expert advice.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, A Paris auction of sacred objects from the Hopi and San Carlos Apache Native American tribes kicked off despite objections from the US and activists. The auction fetched more than 550,000 euros. On Dec 11 a US charitable foundation said that it was the anonymous bidder that paid $530,000 for 24 Native American masks in the auction and will return them to the Hopi Nation in Arizona and the San Carlos Apache tribe
(AFP, 12/9/13)(AFP, 12/10/13)(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 9, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party backed a deal to form a new German government with its center-left rivals, putting aside concerns over concessions that include a national minimum wage and a move to make it easier for some people to retire early.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Indonesia a crowded commuter train crashed into a fuel tanker on the outskirts of Jakarta, killing at least 10 people in a huge explosion and injuring scores.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Iraq a car bomb near a cafe in Buhruz, Diyala province, killed 11 people. A roadside bomb also exploded near a market in the Besmaya area southeast of Baghdad, killing at least 2 people and wounding at least eight. In the Suwaib area of south Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed 2 Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters and wounded at least two others. A blast in Madain killed at least one soldier and wounded at least two. At least 21 people were killed across the country.
(AFP, 12/9/13)(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Israel's parliament moved to ensure African migrants who enter the country illegally can be held without charge, despite a Supreme Court ruling that had struck down a previous detention law.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 9, Representatives of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians signed a "historic" agreement to link the Red Sea with the shrinking Dead Sea.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Kurdish rebels freed four Turkish soldiers abducted in the southeast of the country in the worst flareup of violence since a fragile ceasefire nine months ago.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, A Kuwait court acquitted 70 people, including nine former lawmakers, of storming the parliament in 2011 in an unprecedented protest against the then prime minister, a senior member of the ruling family.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Libya gunmen killed senior police officer Col. Ramadan al-Turouk in Sirte, the hometown of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, President Vladimir Putin tightened his control over Russia's media by dissolving the main state news agency and replacing it with an organization that is to promote Moscow's image abroad. Putin appointed Dmitry Kiselyov to head the resources of the former RIA Novosti, which was renamed Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today).
(Reuters, 12/9/13)(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 9, A Somali court sentenced to jail a woman (19) who said she was raped and two journalists who broadcast her story, saying they were guilty of defamation and insulting state institutions. The woman, who is also a journalist, was handed a suspended six-month jail sentence for defamation and lying, during which time she will be confined to her home.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Syrian troops captured a western town near the country's main north-south highway as the government forged ahead with a punishing offensive in a mountainous region near the border with Lebanon.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Syria Razan Zaitouneh (36), a well-known rights activists, her husband and two colleagues were abducted by gunmen from her office in Douma, a rebel-held town on the outskirts of Damascus. Five years later her fate remained unknown.
(AP, 8/13/18)
2013 Dec 9, Thailand's PM Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved the lower house of Parliament and called for early elections.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Ukraine hundreds of police in full riot gear flooded into the center of Kiev as mass anti-government protests gripped the capital for yet another week. Heavily armed riot troops broke into the offices of a top opposition party in Kiev and seized its servers.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, The World Health Organisation and UNICEF announced the launch of a polio vaccination campaign for 23 million children in the Middle East after 17 cases were discovered in Syria.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 10, Key members of the US Congress reached a modest budget agreement to restore $63 billion in automatic cuts from programs ranging from parks to the Pentagon.
(SFC, 12/11/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 10, Five American financial regulators approved the Volcker rule. It prohibits deposit taking banks from trading on their own account.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.21)
2013 Dec 10, Fresh winter snow moved into the US mid-Atlantic region, shutting schools and offices in the nation's capital and elsewhere as the mid-section of the country remained in the grip of Arctic air.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In northern Argentina 7 people died overnight in looting sparked by a police strike. At least 10 deaths were blamed on police since their job action began a week ago.
(AFP, 12/10/13)(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 10, China's cabinet, the State Council, announced that it was removing 82 powers from a number of central government ministries, including the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Environmental Protection. The Ministry of Human Resources said the retirement age, currently at 60 for men and 55 for female white collar workers, would be gradually raised.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A20)
2013 Dec 10, In China a dozen residents of Wuhan, Hubei province, drank pesticide in Beijing to protest the demolition of their homes. All 12 survived and were treated for poisoning.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 10, In Egypt police fired tear gas to prevent students of the Islamic Al-Azhar University from taking protests outside their campus, in the third straight day of unrest there.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, French businessman Jean-Claude Ma, who sold tens of thousands of breast implants filled with industrial-grade silicone and prone to leaks, was convicted of fraud and sentenced to the maximum four years in prison.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Two French soldiers were killed in overnight fighting in the Central African Republic, France's first casualties in an operation to restore stability in its former colony.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 19 at the Abu Idris shrine in Baquba.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Jamaica the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission identified eight nations that should work with regional governments to address slavery reparations. Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden were added to a list that already included Britain, France and the Netherlands.
(SFC, 12/11/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 10, In Kenya gunmen killed 8 people including 5 policemen and wounded at least two others in an ambush in the Garissa region close to war-torn Somalia.
(AFP, 12/10/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Kuwait leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) gathered for a 2-day meeting to discuss plans to boost economic integration as well as defence and security coordination.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Mexican authorities said police have arrested a man accused of ordering and participating in the murders of more than 200 people, including kidnap victims, rival gang members and drug dealers. Felipe Viveros Garcia (30) was detained in the western state of Jalisco along with two other suspects, Jose Bernabe Lopez Alcaraz (43) and Froylan Barrera Morales (40).
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered the military to step up its presence in the Arctic after Canada signalled its intention to claim the North Pole and surrounding waters.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, A Saudi court jailed an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist for 16 years for plotting to kill the kingdom's grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, and other clerics. The sentence which includes 40 lashes and a 16-year travel ban.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Singapore the US and 11 other nations negotiating a free trade zone stretching from Chile to Japan failed to reach a final agreement, but indicated they were closing in on a landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Singapore filed charges against 24 Indian nationals who allegedly took part in its first riot for over 40 years, as officials and activists warned against inciting racial hatred over the incident.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In South Africa world leaders, family, friends and thousands of mourners paid tribute to South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. Thousands attending the commemoration booed and jeered President Jacob Zuma. President Barack Obama was cheered and shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro in a simple gesture stoked talk of a possible rapprochement between the leaders of two Cold War foes.
(AP, 12/10/13)(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 10, Nobel Prize winners collected their awards in Sweden amd Norway.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Syrian government troops pounded a rebel stronghold near the Lebanese border, with airstrikes and artillery hitting Yabroud in the mountainous region where they believe opposition fighters are holding a group of nuns. In the north fighters belonging to rival Islamic rebel groups battled each other, killing at least 12.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra pleaded for anti-government protesters to clear the streets after she called a snap election, but protests leaders said she should step down within 24 hours. Elections were scheduled for Feb 2.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Officials in Istanbul, Turkey, said they plan to introduce floating car parks to try to resolve the chronic traffic problems. They will use out-of-service ferries anchored in the Bosphorus to create multi-storey lots near traffic hotspots.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Ukraine about 2,000 pro-Europe protesters huddled by braziers in their main tented camp in snowbound Kiev, in defiance of riot police who herded them away from government buildings overnight.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, The UN said it would for the first time begin airlifting food and other aid items across the border from Iraq to Syria after receiving the go-ahead from both governments.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, The UN command and Congolese troops launched an offensive in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo against against the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a Rwandan rebel group linked to the 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 10, Uruguay gave congressional approval for the legalization of marijuana. President Jose Mujica was expected to sign it.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, The United States and Britain suspended all non-lethal aid to the opposition in northern Syria after Islamist rebels seized key bases and warehouses belonging to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, The US FDA said it will begin curbing the use of some medically important antibiotics commonly fed to animals to fatten them up for market. A 3-year plan to implement this was called the Veterinary Feed Directive.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 11, Time magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year, saying the Catholic Church's new leader has changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, A small plain crashed off of Molokai, Hawaii, killing Loretta Fuddy, the director of the state health dept. Eight other people survived.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 11, In Illinois inmate Stanley Wrice (59) was freed from prison after spending 30 years behind bars for confessing under torture to a rape that he did not commit. He had confessed to the 1982 sexual assault after two officers under former Lt. Jon Burge beat him in the groin and face.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 11, A $122 million Powerball lottery draw went to two winners, a couple in Nebraska and a couple in Massachusetts.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A6)
2013 Dec 11, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of German troops near the international airport in Kabul. The attacker was killed and there were no ISAF casualties to report.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, A Bahraini court sentenced 12 Shiite Muslims to 15-year jail terms for attacking a car warehouse during unrest in the Sunni-ruled kingdom in February 2012.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, In Bangladesh deposed military dictator Hussein Mohammad Ershad was detained by Rab (Rapid Action Battalion). The hybrid crime-fighting force picked the Jatiya Party chief up from his residence in Dhaka.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=53FlO_0EuR8)
2013 Dec 11, British regulators announced a record £28 million fines against state-rescued Lloyds Banking Group after finding staff were at risk of selling unsuitable products amid the lure of bonuses.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, G8 health ministers met in London to tackle what experts warn is a dementia time-bomb, with cases set to soar as the world's population ages.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Canada's postal service said it will phase out door-to-door mail delivery in response to falling mail volumes and big financial losses. Canadians will instead have to collect their mail from corner community mailboxes that are to be set up in cities nationwide.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Air Canada announced it had placed a firm $6.5 billion order for 61 Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body aircraft, with options on 18 more planes and purchase rights for 30 others.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Chinese sources said authorities have put Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful politicians of the last decade, under virtual house arrest while the ruling Communist Party investigates accusations of corruption against him.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, The trial of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood chief and his deputies on charges related to protest deaths came to an abrupt end when the judges quit in protest at chaos in the dock.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Germany police said a sapling cloned from the tree that lifted Anne Frank's spirits while she hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam was felled and stolen over the weekend from outside a school in Frankfurt bearing the name of the Jewish teenage diarist.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, In western Germany a building crane collapsed onto a supermarket, killing one person and injuring at least five others in Bad Homburg.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, India's Supreme Court struck down a 2009 lower court decision to decriminalize homosexuality, dealing a blow to gay activists who have fought for years for the chance to live openly in India's deeply conservative society. The court said only lawmakers can change a colonial era law that bans same-sex relations. Gay sex was reinstated as a criminal offense, punishable up to 10 years in prison.
(AP, 12/11/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A20)(Reuters, 9/6/18)
2013 Dec 11, Iran released the last two of eight Slovak paragliders arrested for allegedly spying after PM Robert Fico and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak flew in to secure their release.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 11, Italian PM Enrico Letta won a parliamentary confidence vote triggered by the fall of Silvio Berlusconi, promising to push through a pro-European reform agenda and fight populism.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Myanmar freed 41 political detainees, bringing the country close to fulfilling a pledge by President Thein Sein to release all prisoners of conscience by the end of the year.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbors wrapped up a summit meeting in Kuwait by agreeing to establish a joint military command, paving the way for tighter security coordination.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, In Syria 32 people were killed in the town of Adra northeast of Damascus after an al-Qaida-linked rebel faction attack. The dead were primarily members the Alawite sect, as well as a few Druse and Shiite Muslims.
(Reuters, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 11, Ukrainian police pulled back as protesters claimed victory after an overnight face-off in which authorities removed barricades and tents and scuffled with demonstrators occupying Kiev's main square.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 12, The Obama adminsitration announced an expanded list of Iranian companies and individuals that it said it would target to block their trading activities around the world due to sanctions violations.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A11)
2013 Dec 12, US authorities said three Chinese nationals have been charged in two separate cases of trying to steal seed-technology, trade secrets under development in the United States.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, USAID acting Mission Director Christopher Cushing said a decision to leave Ecuador by Sep 2014 comes as a result of Ecuador’s decision to prohibit approval of new USAID assistance programs.
(CSM, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 12, US federal bus regulators said they have shut down over 50 motor coach companies in a nationwide crackdown on unsafe outfits.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 11, In Minnesota Keith Michael Novak (25) was put under federal custody following fraud charges in connection with the ID theft of some 400 members of his former Army unit in Fort Bragg, NC.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A17)
2013 Dec 12, In NYC Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general, was arrested and strip searched for allegedly underpaying her nanny and committing visa fraud to get her into the United States.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 12, World stock markets extended losses after an apparent budget deal in the US Congress reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve will cut its monetary stimulus as early as next week.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Afghanistan a large bomb accidentally exploded inside a weapons depot in downtown Kabul, but no one was hurt.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Australia's top court struck down gay marriage in the nation's capital, ruling that parliament must decide on same-sex unions.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Bangladesh's Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution of Abdul Quader Molla, an opposition leader convicted of war crimes, rejecting a last-minute appeal in a case that threatens to spark fresh violence ahead of national elections next month. Abdul Quader Molla was sent to the gallows at a prison in Dhaka late today.
(AP, 12/12/13)(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Britain’s Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which sets MPs' pay, recommended an 11 percent pay rise despite a public outcry and PM David Cameron plus other top politicians rejecting the plan.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In the Central African Republic 27 Muslims were killed by so-called self-defense militias, known as anti-Balaka, in the western village of Bohong. Fighting and sectarian violence has killed 450 people in Bangui and 160 elsewhere in the country in the past week alone.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Congo and the so-called M23 rebels signed a peace agreement that will see the insurgent group demobilize its fighters and transform itself into a political party.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, India's ruling party slammed the Supreme Court for reinstating a ban on gay sex, taking an unexpectedly bold stance ahead of elections in the religiously conservative nation.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, A senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said new sanctions by the US on Iranian companies and individuals violate the spirit of a deal made between Tehran and the West over its nuclear program.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Iraq signed a $1.1 billion deal to buy 24 multi-role light fighters from South Korea. Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) said it would deliver the T-50IQ, a variant of its T-50 supersonic aircraft, to Baghdad between 2015 and 2016.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Italy grass roots protests dubbed the Pitchfork Protests continued for a 4th day in cities and towns reflecting the pain of a continuing recession.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 12, Mexico's Congress overwhelmingly voted to open up the country's oil and gas sector to private investment in the biggest overhaul of the industry since it was nationalized in 1938.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, In North Korea Jang Song Thaek (67), the uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, was tried for treason by a special military tribunal and executed. State media accused Jang of destroying the economy for his personal benefit and blamed him for masterminding the 2009 currency revaluation that sparked rare protests in North Korea.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin used his state-of-the-nation address to defend conservative values, referring obliquely to his government's anti-gay stance as he chided the West for treating "good and evil" equally. Putin also made a new attempt to woo Ukraine after the EU and US stepped up efforts to pull Kiev out of its former Soviet master's orbit. He also announced a set of initiatives to crack down on Russian companies who register and pay taxes in offshore jurisdictions.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam, condemned suicide bombings as grave crimes, reiterating his stance in unusually strong language in the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Spain separatist parties in the northeastern Catalonia region agreed the wording of an independence referendum on November 9, 2014, but the Spanish government said the vote was illegal and would not happen.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Syria's Western-backed opposition said it had invited Islamist fighters to secure its depots on the Turkish frontier after an attack by al Qaeda militants. Islamist rebels killed at least 15 civilians from the minority Alawite and Druze sects in the central Syrian city of Adra over the last 48 hours.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Thailand protesters cut off electricity to the prime minister's office compound and demanded that police abandon the premises, piling fresh pressure on Thailand's government in a political crisis that has dragged on for weeks.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Pope Francis said in the first peace message of his pontificate that huge salaries and bonuses are symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Yemen a drone strike on a wedding convoy in Radda killed 17 people, mostly civilians. Two of the dead, Saleh al-Tays and Abdullah al-Tays, had figured in the past on Yemeni government lists of wanted Al-Qaeda suspects. On Feb 20, 2014, a Human Rights Watch report listed the names and ages of 12 men who witnesses said were killed by four Hellfire missiles.
(AFP, 12/13/13)(AP, 2/20/14)
2013 Dec 13, In southern California Brian Beaird (51), a National Guard veteran, was shot and killed following a police chase for reckless driving. The shooting was captured on live television and showed Beaird being shot after he stepped out of his car with his hands raised. In 2014 the LA City Council voted to pay $5 million to Beaird’s family.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.D2)
2013 Dec 13, In the SF Bay Area the Sonoma Land Trust in a complicated $8.3 million deal acquired 4,400 acres of dry land on Skaggs Island with plans to restore it back to a functioning marsh.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.D1)
2013 Dec 13, Colorado schoolboy Karl Pierson (18), armed with a shotgun, opened fire and wounded two fellow students at Arapahoe High School in Centennial before killing himself. Student Claire Davis (17), shot in the face, died on Dec 21 after eight days on life support. Pierson had been demoted from captain of the debate team and was believed to have been targeting the team coach.
(AP, 12/14/13)(AFP, 12/22/13)(SSFC, 8/17/14, p.A7)
2013 Dec 13, In Kansas airport worker Terry Lee Loewen (58) was arrested at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Regional Airport as part of an FBI sting. He planned to attack the airport with what he thought were explosives loaded in a car in as plot aiming to support al-Qaida. On June 8, 2015, Loewen admitted to plotting a suicide bomb attack.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A7)(SFC, 6/9/15, p.A6)
2013 Dec 13, A US federal judge struck down parts of Utah’s anti-polygamy law as unconstitutional. Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that part of the state law prohibiting cohabitation violated the First amendment. He left standing the state’s ability to prohibit multiple marriages.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 13, Bangladesh was rocked by a new wave of deadly violence as Islamist supporters went on the rampage to vent their fury at the execution of Abdul Quader Molla for war crimes. 3 protesters were killed and 2 activists from the ruling Awami League were hacked to death. An Islamist became the latest fatality after he was shot dead during clashes with ruling party activists in the southern town of Sonaimuri.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Prince Harry became the first member of Britain's royal family to reach the South Pole after a three-week charity trek with injured military veterans from Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, China formally charged Xu Zhiyong, a prominent campaigner for officials to reveal their wealth, after police accused him of breaking the law by organizing demonstrations. Zhiyong, who has also pushed for greater civil rights, was arrested in August in a case that exposed shortcomings in the government's drive against deep-rooted corruption.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, In western China a gas explosion at a coal mine killed 21 workers in Xinjiang region's Changji prefecture.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 13, Egyptian security forces fired tear gas to disperse dozens of Islamist demonstrators marching across the country to demand the release of detained student protesters. Two young men were killed in the clashes.
(AP, 12/13/13)(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 13, The European Union Rule of Law Missio said a suspected mass grave has been discovered at the Rudnica quarry in Serbia believed to contain bodies of ethnic Albanians who were killed during the 1998-99 war between Serbia and Kosovo.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Europe's second-highest court said it has overturned a decision by the European Commission to allow the cultivation and sale of a genetically modified potato developed by German chemicals group BASF.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Iran quit nuclear talks with world powers, accusing Washington of going against the spirit of a landmark agreement reached last month by expanding its sanctions blacklist.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Twenty-two Iraqi suspects facing terrorism charges escaped from a prison in northern Baghdad after killing a security guard, but most were rearrested later in the day. Masked gunmen killed 18 people, most of them Iranians, working on a gas pipeline outside the northeastern town of Muqdadiya. Violence across the country killed 37 people.
(AP, 12/13/13)(Reuters, 12/13/13)(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Italian police said they have arrested 30 people linked to Matteo Messina Denaro, the head of Cosa Nostra, including his sister and several cousins in western Sicily.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, A Malawi Catholic rights group accused President Joyce Banda of being "part and parcel" of a massive fraud scandal that has rocked her government this year.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Mexico's Senate passed the most dramatic political reform in decades that would allow re-election of some public officials, create new electoral oversight and make the Attorney General's office independent from the executive.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Nigerian air raids in the northeast reportedly killed scores of fighters attending the burial of fellow insurgents.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 13, In northwest Pakistan attacks on polio teams killed a polio worker and two policemen assigned to protect one of the teams.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Philippine officials said the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan that struck on Nov 8 has passed 6,000 with nearly 1,800 people missing.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Rwanda's supreme court extended the jail term of Victoire Ingabire, an opposition politician, to 15 years from eight after she sought to overturn her initial conviction for trying to undermine the state and minimizing the 1994 genocide. Human Rights Watch said some of the charges were politically motivated and the trial raised questions about the independence of the judiciary.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that authorities have freed for "humanitarian reasons" 366 detainees from Aleppo prison in the north of the country which is under rebel siege. Islamist rebels linked to al Qaeda kidnapped at least 120 Kurdish civilians from a village near the Turkish border in Aleppo province.
(AFP, 12/13/13)(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich made few concessions in crisis talks with the opposition, his first direct attempt to defuse weeks of unrest over a policy swerve to Russia away from Europe. A Ukrainian court released all those arrested during a violent police dispersal of demonstrators near the presidential administration building, one of the demands of the opposition that has conducted three weeks of large protests.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, A UN inquiry published today said chemical weapons were likely used in five out of seven attacks investigated by UN experts in Syria, where a 2 1/2-year civil war has killed more than 100,000 people.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said an arsenal of weapons have been found by UN peacekeepers, including heavy caliber arms and enough ammunition to last a year, at the site of the last stand by M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 14, In southern California 4 people died in a car crash in Compton as a car with 3 male occupants fled sheriff’s deputies and ran a red light striking another car driven by a woman in her 20s.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 14, Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in New Delhi he no longer "trusts" the United States, accusing the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in his troubled homeland.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Brazil was rocked by a fourth fatal World Cup stadium accident as a young construction worker fell to his death.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Peter O'Toole (b.1932), the star of "Lawrence of Arabia," died in London.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic a mob in Bangui hacked a Muslim motorcyclist to death in the Combattant district not far from the airport. Moments later residents brandished the man's cut-off hands.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Chinese state media said authorities have detained 1,300 people for producing and selling fake medicine as part of an intensified government crackdown.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, China successfully carried out the world's first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades. The Chang’E 3 deployed a small rover called Yutu (Jade Rabbit), which traveled for 114 meters befor getting stuck.
(AP, 12/14/13)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.82)
2013 Dec 14, In CongoDRC unknown assailants over the last 24 hours killed people 21 in the villages of Musuku and Mwenda, in the eastern territory of Beni. The victims, including women and children, were found hacked to death and some were mutilated.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Egypt an Egyptian Copt was sentenced to life in prison as 10 others got jail terms from six months to 15 years over sectarian deaths in April.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Britain's MI6.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has canceled a planned $500 million loan to Pakistan to build part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Iraq bombings and a shooting killed 12 people around Baghdad.
(AP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Japan and Southeast Asian countries (ASEAN) called for freedom of the air and sea, as China's military assertiveness raises regional tensions.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Kenya a suspected grenade attack on a minibus in Nairobi killed 4 people near a Somali-dominated area of the city. 2 more died of their wounds the next day. One person was killed and three injured in a double explosion at a market in the town of Wajir.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mali a car bomb killed two UN Senegalese peacekeepers and destroyed the only operating bank in the northern town of Kidal, one day before a second round of parliamentary elections.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mexico 10 charred bodies were found in a burnt-out truck in southern Oaxaca state. Another corpse was found shot in the head a short distance away from the truck near the town of Santiago Juxtlahuaca.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Rescue workers evacuated more than 5,000 Gaza Strip residents from homes flooded by four days of heavy rain, using fishing boats and heavy construction equipment to pluck some of those trapped from upper floors.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Portugal a group of students plunged into the winter surf off Meco, a small village south of Lisbon where they had rented a house. Over the next 12 days their corpses were discovered one by one. Four women and two men perished, all aged between 21 and 24.
(AFP, 1/28/14)
2013 Dec 14, In Thailand leaders of the protest movement trying to overthrow the government outlined their aims at an armed forces seminar, but military leaders declined to take sides or say if a February election should take place.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tunisia's political parties chose Industry Minister Mehdi Jomaa (50) to head a government of independent figures aimed at pulling the country out of a months-long crisis.
(AFP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Dissident Ugandan General David Sejusa launched an opposition party in London and said it was time for President Yoweri Museveni to end his 28-year rule, a fresh challenge to a leader who is now among the longest serving in Africa.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Ukrainians rallied in support of President Viktor Yanukovich in central Kiev, separated by a line of riot police from anti-government protesters who have camped out for weeks in a nearby square. Authorities conceded to one of the demands of weeks-long protests, opening investigations against four top officials and suspending two of them from office over the violent police response to a small demonstration last month.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 15, In California a wildfire erupted in a scenic stretch of the central coastline late today. It destroyed at least 15 homes in Big Sur and forced many residents to evacuate.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Jacob Ostreicher, a New York businessman, snuck across the Peruvian border and flew to the United States from Lima. He had been under house arrest for alleged money laundering and connections to drug traffickers related to his purchase of a rice farm in 2008.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 15, In New Jersey a man was shot in front of his wife outside The Mall at Short Hills Assailants drove off in his Range Rover, which was found the next day. On Dec 21 police said 4 men have been arrested on charges of murder in the carjacking.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 15, In Ohio Jerrod Metsker (24) was arrested for the murder of Reann Murphy (9). The girl was last seen playing a day earlier at a mobile home park where she lived in Smithville. Her body was found about 5 hours after she was reported missing.
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 15, Filmstar Joan Fontaine (b.1917), the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, died in Carmel, Ca. Her films included “Rebecca" (1940) and “Suspicion" (1941).
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 15, In Bangladesh 6 more people were today killed and 7 overnight in continuing protests sparked by the execution of top Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla. PM Sheikh Hasina warned of strong action against the rioters.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Chileans voted in a runoff election. President Michelle Bachelet won 62 percent of the vote in a runoff against the center-right's candidate, Evelyn Matthei.
(Reuters, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, In China 16 people, including 2 police officers, were killed in a clash in the Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Colombia's FARC rebels begin a 30-day unilateral ceasefire as peace talks continue with the government to try to end Latin America's longest insurgency.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed that 19 armed Islamists had been killed in a French-led military operation this week targeting Al Qaeda-linked rebels in restive northern Mali.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, In northern Iraq gunmen in Mosul murdered Nawras al-Nuaimi, a female TV presenter, making her the sixth journalist to be killed in the country since October.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Ireland formally exited its three-year bailout program, becoming the first eurozone nation to do so, but authorities warned of further austerity to ensure economic recovery.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Israeli soldier Sgt Shlomi Cohen (31) was killed by a Lebanese soldier along the border. Israeli troops searching the area fired towards two suspects who were standing on the other side of the border, hitting one of them.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Prominent Pakistani Shi'ite Muslim cleric Allama Nasir Abbas was shot dead in Lahore in what Taliban militants said was a reprisal attack for the killing of Sunni Muslims a month ago. He was the leader of Tehreek Nifaz Fiqah-e-Jafaria, a banned Shi'ite organization.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, In the Philippines a gang of hammer-wielding robbers looted a jewelry store at a popular suburban Manila shopping mall. The suspects were believed to have used baseball caps to hide their identities.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 15, The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) held a party congress. President Paul Kagame was re-elected to head the ruling party by an overwhelming majority of 99.5 percent.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, In South Sudan violence erupted when the presidential guard attempted to disarm fellow guard members who belong to the Nuer ethnic group.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 15, Swedish police arrested 28 people after a group of neo-Nazis attacked an anti-Nazi demonstration in a Stockholm suburb.
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 15, Syrian government helicopters pounded the neighborhoods of Haidariya, Ard al-Hamra and Sukhour with barrel bombs filled with explosives. Aircraft dropped barrel bombs on the contested northern city of Aleppo. The airstrikes killed at least 76 people.
(AFP, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Thailand's military offered to help the politically polarized country hold a "fair and clean" election next year, suggesting the armed forces may play a role in a vote aimed at ending protests seeking to topple the government.
(Reuters, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Turkmenistan held its first multi-party legislative elections, but with no opposition to trouble the dominance of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Amnesty Int’l. called it a sham.
(AFP, 12/15/13)(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 15, In Ukraine about 200,000 anti-government protesters converged on the central square of Kiev in a dramatic show of morale after nearly four weeks of daily protests. The EU said it has suspended association talks with Ukraine until it receives a firmer commitment from Yanukovych that Ukraine was serious about the deal.
(AP, 12/15/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, The first UN aid flight from Iraq landed in northeastern Syria with badly needed supplies, after a winter storm delayed it for several days.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Yemen's parliament, dominated by the party of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Islamist Islah party, voted in favor of halting US drone attacks. Experts say lawmakers have limited powers and their vote is unlikely to impact Washington's bid to crush Al-Qaeda militants.
(AFP, 12/167/13)
2013 Dec 15, In Yemen assailants stabbed a Japanese diplomat five times after dragging him from his car in Sanaa.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 16, A US judge struck a first blow against the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records, ruling it breaches citizens' privacy to an "almost Orwellian" degree that is probably unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States will boost maritime security assistance to the countries of Southeast Asia amid rising tensions with Beijing.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, US officials said two Saudis from Guantanamo have been transferred to the custody of their own government after a security review. The men are Saad Muhammad Husayn Qahtani (35) and Hamood Abdulla Hamood (48).
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the US National Marines Fisheries Service to demand that it force the Navy to consider alternatives to its 5-year plan that will intensify sonar use off southern California and Hawaii. The Navy had already estimated that its activitescould kill hundreds of whales and dolphins.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 16, Researchers reported that the molten rock beneath Yellowstone National Park is 2.5 times larger than previously estimated.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 16, In Ohio Bobby Thompson (67), aka John Donald Cody, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for masterminding a $100 million Navy veteran’s charity fraud across the US.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 16, Ray Price (b.1926), American country singer, died in Texas. His more than 100 hits included his 1970 version of “For the Good Times," written by Kris Kristofferson.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A11)
2013 Dec 16, Australia’s PM Tony Abbott said Australian combat troops have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, marking the end of the nation's longest war which left 40 of its soldiers dead.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Bangladesh police opened fire on bomb-throwing Islamist protesters as five more people died in clashes sparked by the execution of an Islamist leader for war crimes.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, British Petroleum said it has won official approval to develop a key shale gas project in Oman at a cost of $16 billion (11.6 billion euros).
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Sources said China’s Pres. Xi Jinping and other party leaders have authorized a corruption probe against Zhou Yongkang, a former head of the domestic security apparatus.
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 16, Heavy gunfire rocked the capital of the Republic of Congo, soon after Congolese security forces encircled the home of Col. Marcel Tsourou recently charged with complicity in a military arms depot fire and explosion that claimed 200 lives.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Egyptian security forces fired tear gas at dozens of university students outside their Cairo campus in an attempt to prevent their protest from reaching the nearby defense ministry. Egypt's military killed Silmi Mohammed Masbah, a jihadist suspected of involvement in an ambush that left 16 Egyptian soldiers killed near the border with Israel last year.
(AP, 12/16/13)(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 16, European Union foreign ministers pledged "unprecedented" amounts of political, financial and security support for Israel and the Palestinians if they come to a peace agreement.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, More than 50 top European and US scientists wrote to the European Commission President urging him to press ahead with a plan to label tar sands as more polluting than other forms of oil, in defiance of intensive lobbying from Canada.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 16, French police made 21 arrests as part of an investigation into claims that meat from horses used to produce anti-rabies and other serums got into the food chain.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Germany-based Siemens said it has won an order to supply 448 wind turbines with a total capacity of 1,050 megawatts (MW) to US-based MidAmerican Energy, which the engineering group said was the largest single order for onshore wind power ever awarded.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Indonesia Canadian activist Jeremy Ball visited jailed independence supporters in Papua at the end of a six-month bicycle tour to highlight human rights concerns about the restive eastern region.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Iraq militants attacked and temporarily occupied a city council headquarters in Tikrit and assaulted a police station in Baiji, as violence across the country killed at least 54 people.
(AFP, 12/16/13)(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Moncler, a luxury goods manufaturer, made its debut on the Italian stock exchange at €10.20 per share. On Dec 30 its shares closed at €15.80 making its boss Remo Ruffini a paper billionaire.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.48)
2013 Dec 16, In Mali four more bodies of soldiers were discovered, bringing to 25 the number of troops believed to have been killed by the country's coup leader.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Mexico hundreds of people were evacuated after an explosion and fire that was caused by thieves trying to tap into a natural gas pipeline of state oil and gas company Pemex on the outskirts of Mexico City. Seven people were reported injured.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Pakistan a roadside bomb killed three members of a bomb disposal team who were on their way to defuse another bomb elsewhere in the city of Peshawar.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In the Philippines at least 22 people were killed when a speeding commuter bus crashed off an elevated motorway onto a delivery van in Manila.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reported that Russia has deployed Iskander missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometers in its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Russia said its security forces have killed four alleged militants including the leader of a group suspected of carrying out attacks on tourists and ski facilities in the North Caucasus. The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the dead men included Arsen Khandokhov, described as the leader of a militant cell suspected of crimes including the killing of two tourists and attacks on a ski lift.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In South Africa a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled outside the government complex in Pretoria, a day after his funeral. It was later revealed that sculptors Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren had added a small rabbit inside one ear, said to be a discreet signature on their work. Officials soon ordered the rabbit removed.
(AP, 1/22/14)
2013 Dec 16, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir declared a curfew in the capital Juba after overnight clashes between rival factions of soldiers followed months of tension between Kiir and his sacked deputy. Kiir said disgruntled soldiers and politicians led by ousted VP Riek Macha had attempted to overthrow the government.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Syrian government aircraft pounded opposition areas in the northern city of Aleppo and near the southern border with Jordan.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reported that Turkey has shipped 47 tons of weapons to Syrian rebels since June despite repeated government denials.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Turkey signed a long-awaited deal with the European Union to send back people who enter the bloc illegally from its territory in exchange for talks on visa-free travel for its citizens.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Ukraine's ruling party demanded a sweeping cabinet reshuffle in a sign the leadership was seeking to placate the opposition in a bitter standoff over a rejected EU pact.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, The UN appealed for a record $6.5 billion for Syria and its neighbors to help 16 million people, many of them hungry or homeless victims of a conflict that has lasted 33 months with no end in sight.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Vietnam Duong Chi Dung (b.1957), former director of the Vietnam Maritime Bureau, former Chairman of the Board Members Maritime Corporation Vietnam (Vinalines), Standing Member of the Party of business, was sentenced to death on charges of embezzlement and 28 years in prison for intentionally violating state regulations on economic management causing serious consequences.
(http://tinyurl.com/lg7xobd)
2013 Dec 17, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden offered to help Brazil defeat US spying, but in an open letter said he needs permanent political asylum to do so.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The Mega Millions lottery and its jackpot of $648 million went to two winners. One ticket was sold in San Jose, Ca., and the other in Atlanta, Georgia.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 17, In California ex-firefighter Zane Wallace Peterson (29) of Shasta County was taken into custody for setting wildfires, including the massive Clover Fire that broke out on Sep 9.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.C3)
2013 Dec 17, In Reno, Nevada, a gunman opened fire at the Center for Advanced Medicine killing one person and wounding two others before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 17, Christie’s in New York auctioned one edition of Jeff Koons’ “Balloon Dog" for $58.4 million, a record amount for a living artist. The 10-foot steel orange edition was one of five, each a different color.
(Econ, 12/21/13, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/ng83bhm)
2013 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan an aircraft crash killed six American soldiers.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Egypt's security forces clashed with supporters of the former Islamist president at several universities across the country, as an explosive device detonated in a residential area of the capital but caused no injuries or damage.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The European Union said it has warned Israel against any new West Bank settlement construction following an upcoming Palestinian prisoner release, saying it will be held responsible for any resulting failure of the ongoing peace talks.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In France Claude Gueant, the former right-hand man of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, was arrested for questioning about alleged misuse of public funds when he served the conservative leader at the interior ministry.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, French troops took on armed Christian militias in Bangui, Central African Republic, where the UN said 210,000 people had been uprooted in two weeks of deadly sectarian violence.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Greek authorities said an oil tanker came under armed attack overnight about 35 nautical miles south of Nigeria, and the ship's Ukrainian captain and Greek first engineer have been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Guinea-Bissau's Interior Minister Antonio Suka Ntchama became the second minister to step down in the tiny West African country amid an investigation into how 74 Syrians boarded a flight to Portugal with fake passports.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 17, Indian authorities removed security barriers in front of the US embassy in New Delhi apparently in retaliation for the arrest and alleged heavy-handed treatment of an Indian diplomat in New York. Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was arrested last week for allegedly underpaying her nanny and committing visa fraud to get her into the United States.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Iraq bombings in and near Baghdad killed 10 Shiite pilgrims as they were making their way on foot to Karbala.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Israel some 200 African migrants and Israeli activists ended a two-day march with a rally denouncing Israel's policy of detaining those illegally in the country.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Japan approved a plan to increase defense spending by 5% over the next five years to purchase its first surveillance drones, more jet fighters and naval destroyers in the face of China's military expansion.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In eastern Lebanon a car bomb exploded at dawn near a Hezbollah position, causing an unknown number of casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Russian and Ukrainian officials signed a series of agreements in Moscow to boost trade and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Saudi authorities beheaded a Syrian man convicted of smuggling drugs to the ultra-conservative kingdom.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Sicily eruptions at Mount Etna volcano died down, allowing the nearby airport of Catania to re-open after a two-day stoppage that disrupted dozens of flights.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Syria 2 children were among at least 18 people killed in new air strikes on a rebel-held district of Aleppo. The 3-day assault has left over 100 dead.
(AFP, 12/17/13)(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 17, Turkish police detained the sons of three cabinet ministers and several well-known businessmen as part of investigations into alleged corruption. Police seized shoeboxes stashed with $4.5 million in cash at the home of Suleyman Aslan, a state-owned bank's chief executive. Police arrested some 50 people altogether on suspicion of tender rigging, covert gold transfers to Iran and bribery.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)(AP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.37)
2013 Dec 18, A US presidential advisory panel on government surveillance was released. It recommended sweeping limits on the government's surveillance programs, including requiring a court to sign off on individual searches of phone records and stripping the National Security Agency of its ability to store that data from Americans.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The United States voiced regret to India over the treatment of a diplomat whose account of being stripped and cavity-searched triggered outrage.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The US Federal Reserve decided to reduce its stimulus program and trim its $85 billion a month in bond purchases by $10 billion starting in January.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.D3)
2013 Dec 18, A New Orleans jury convicted Kurt Mix (52), a BP drilling engineer, of obstruction of justice in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Mix had deleted a string of text messages to and from his supervisor.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A14)
2013 Dec 18, The NY Times reported that Target was investigating a security breach on point of sale systems at its retail stores that is believed to have begun the day after Thanksgiving. Target disclosed the breach on Dec 19. On August 18, 2015, Target and Visa confirmed an agreement for Target to pay Visa up to $67 million to settle claims.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A11)(SFC, 8/19/15, p.C6)
2013 Dec 18, In Austria a wave of protests against the new government escalated as tens of thousands of civil servants demonstrated in Vienna for better pay and an end to a hiring freeze.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Bolivia accused the United States of helping Jacob Ostreicher (54), a New York businessman, escape from the South American country where he had spent 18 months in prison and was under house arrest for alleged money laundering. Washington denied having a hand in Ostreicher's flight.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Brazil’s defense minister said Sweden's Saab has edged out French and US rivals to win a multi-billion-dollar contract to supply Brazil's air force with 36 new fighter jets.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Bank of England said it will issue plastic banknotes for the first time in its history, with Winston Churchill gracing the first run. The note, carrying a value of £5 ($8.2, 6.0 euro), is to be released in 2016.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, A British judge sentenced the former lead singer of the rock band Lostprophets to 29 years in jail, saying that Ian Watkins had "plumbed new depths of depravity" in committing a string of sexual offenses against very young children.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs (84), part of a gang of at least 12 men that robbed a Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train on Aug 8, 1963, died.
(AP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.74)
2013 Dec 18, China's foreign minister paid a rare visit to Israel, reflecting the burgeoning trade ties between the two countries. But the trip was clouded by fresh accusations that Israel's prime minister had compromised the global war on terrorism under heavy Chinese pressure.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Egyptian prosecutors announced a new trial of ousted President Mohammed Morsi and the top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood, accusing them of conspiring with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran's Revolutionary Guard and militant groups to carry out a wave of terrorism to destabilize the country.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Egyptian police raided the offices of an NGO affiliated with a leftist former presidential candidate, arresting three employees and confiscating computers. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, founded by former candidate Khaled Ali, has supported striking factory workers and defended activists at trials.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 18, EU finance ministers reached a banking union accord which will hand Brussels unprecedented new powers to prevent failing banks from wrecking the economy.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Gambia jailed United Democratic Party treasurer Amadou Sanneh, a leading opposition politician, for sedition after he helped two supporters planning to flee to Finland.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, in south-east Iran 3 military personnel were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, An Iraqi policeman gave his own life in an attempt to protect pilgrims, embracing a suicide bomber just moments before an attack to shield others from the blast. The bomber struck in Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 10. Attacks across the country killed 11 people, including 3 Pakistani Shiite pilgrims.
(AFP, 12/18/13)(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Israeli army shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded others in clashes that erupted following military activity in the northern West Bank.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In Italy frustrated and angry, thousands of students, jobless and tax-weary workers have moved their days-long protest against "useless politicians" to Rome.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In northern Mexico 5 men were killed in a gunbattle with police and military personnel in the Gulf of California resort of Puerto Penasco. Government helicopters fire on at least 10 vehicles as they tried to escape. Sinaloa cartel operator Gonzalo Inzunza was the target, but his body was not among those killed.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A2)(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 18, In Morocco a visiting group of UN experts said Morocco must put an end to the practice of convicting detainees on the basis of confessions obtained through torture.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Nigeria's faction-ridden ruling party lost its majority in the House of Representatives as 37 legislators defected to a new opposition coalition, in a major blow to President Goodluck Jonathan.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In Pakistan a suicide bomb attack on a checkpoint in North Waziristan killed at least 3 soldiers and wounded 32 people.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Iyad Sarraj (70), an award-winning Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights campaigner who championed peace with Israel, died in an Israeli hospital overnight of cancer.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Romanian media reported that some 26 police officers and ambulance employees have been charged with calling undertakers to tell them that someone had died, or in some cases were not yet dead, in exchange for money.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Russia's parliament passed an amnesty bill that will likely apply to the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship detained after an Arctic protest, but it wasn't immediately clear if and when the activists would be allowed to leave the country.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In Somalia fighters shot dead 3 Syrian doctors and their 3 Somali colleagues as they travelled to a hospital outside Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, South Sudan said at least 500 people, most of them soldiers, have been killed since Dec 15. The clashes apparently were pitting soldiers from the majority Dinka tribe of President Salva Kiir against those from ousted Vice President Riek Machar's Nuer ethnic group. Fighting spread to Jonglei, the largest state in South Sudan.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In South Sudan fighting between workers in two oil fields killed at least 16 people but the government regained in control and oil production was not affected.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Swiss government said it has decided to keep 760 million Swiss francs ($858 million) in Egyptian and Tunisian assets frozen for three more years.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Syrian government forces pummeled opposition-held neighborhoods in Aleppo for a 4th day, leveling apartment buildings, flooding hospitals with casualties and killing nearly 200 people. Syria said that British doctor Abbas Khan, alleged to have been effectively murdered in custody, had hanged himself after being arrested for "unauthorized activities." On Oct 27, 2014, a British jury found that the regime of Bashar Assad had deliberately and intentionally killed Dr. Khan.
(AP, 12/18/13)(AFP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.51)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.51)
2013 Dec 18, Turkey's PM Tayyip Erdogan denounced a corruption crackdown on his allies months ahead of elections as a "dirty operation" to smear his administration and undermine the country's progress.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The heads of the UN and European Union aid agencies called for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in Syria to allow convoys to deliver help to areas that aid workers cannot reach.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 19, The California Public Utilities Commission fined Pacific Gas & Electric more than $14 million for the utility’s “delay and obfuscation" in revealing that its records for a natural gas pipeline in San Carlos failed to show potentially risky welds.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 19, In San Francisco nudism activist Gypsy Taub (44) married Jaymz Smith (20) and both promptly went naked in front of City Hall.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.D1)
2013 Dec 19, In Fresno, Ca., four teenage boys shot and injured teacher Steven Guerrero after he fought back during an attempted robbery at Edison High School. Four Norteno gang members, ages 16-17, were soon arrested.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 19, In New Jersey a Chinese citizen, the admitted ringleader of an international smuggling operation that trafficked in $4.5 million worth of rhinoceros horns, ivory cups and trinkets, pleaded guilty in federal court.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, New Mexico’s Supreme Court legalized gay marriages in the state.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.21)
2013 Dec 19, The NYC Council voted to ban electronic cigarettes in indoor public places.
(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 19, Al Goldstein (77), the publisher of Screw magazine, died at a Brooklyn hospice. He and Jim Buckley co-founded the magazine in 1968 and it continued to 2003.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.D9)
2013 Dec 19, Former NBA star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea to help train the national team and renew his friendship with the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, A jury at London's Old Bailey criminal court decided unanimously that Michael Adebolajo (29) and Michael Adebowale (22) were guilty of murdering Lee Rigby (25), an Afghan war veteran, on May 22 but not guilty of the attempted murder of a police officer.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Hunks of plaster and dust rained down on a packed audience when the ceiling of London’s Apollo Theater partially collapsed. More than 75 people were injured — seven seriously.
(AP, 12/20/13)(SFC, 12/20/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 19, Cuba announced it will allow unrestricted car imports for the first time in half a century, marking the end of an era that made icons of the island's vintage automobiles. Cubans soon found that imported cars were priced far beyond what an average salary could afford.
(AFP, 12/19/13)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.30)
2013 Dec 19, Danish lawmakers approved sending a cargo ship and a warship to pick up Syria's most dangerous chemical weapons.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, An Egyptian court acquitted former leader Hosni Mubarak's two sons and his last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, of corruption charges.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, The European Space Agency launched its star-surveying satellite Gaia into space, hoping to produce the most accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way and to better understand the evolution of our galaxy.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, German media and officials in Berlin said about 200 cars stolen in Germany have been tracked down in Tajikistan, where most are now driven by family and friends of President Emomali Rakhmon.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Honduras President Porfirio Lobo fired Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla, the national police chief, who has long faced accusations he ran death squads when he was a lower-level officer and whose force has been hit with frequent abuse claims.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Iraq suicide bombings targeting Shiite pilgrims around Baghdad on their way to Karbala and other violence across the country killed at least 36 people.
(AP, 12/19/13)(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, Iraq received 75 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles from the US to help combat operations against the country’s branch of al-Qaida.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 19, The Israeli military killed a Palestinian gunman during an arrest raid in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, The Tokyo governor who helped his city secure the 2020 Olympics resigned after revelations that he received 50 million yen ($480,200) from a hospital company.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Mexico Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo (79), a drug czar disgraced by his arrest and conviction for aiding a powerful drug cartel, died after a long bout of prostate cancer.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said he will pardon jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The move, along with an amnesty for the two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band and the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship, appears designed to assuage international criticism of Russia's rights record ahead of February's Winter Olympics in Sochi.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hayat newspaper reported that a Saudi court has jailed a man for 15 years after convicting him of recruiting 14 nationals to join Al-Qaeda's affiliate in neighbouring Yemen.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Africa's government dismissed criticisms that a $21 million state-funded security upgrade of Pres. Jacob Zuma's private home was extravagant. The upgrades included a swimming pool, chicken coop and cattle pen.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Africa’s environmental ministry said the country has lost nearly 1,000 rhinos this year in a poaching surge to feed the black-market demand for their horns.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Sudan said that the government no longer controls Bor, the capital of Jonglei, its largest and most populous state. Two UN peacekeepers from India were killed and a third wounded when a UN base was overrun by armed youths in Jonglei State. Two dozen Dinka officials were killed during the attack in Akobo.
(AP, 12/19/13)(AP, 12/20/13)(Reuters, 12/20/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.36)
2013 Dec 19, Spanish police searched the headquarters of the ruling People's Party (PP) for 14 hours as part of a corruption investigation that earlier this year threatened to destabilize the government of PM Rajoy.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, Amnesty Int’l. accused an al-Qaida-linked rebel group that controls large parts of northern Syria of running secret prisons in which torture and summary killings are common.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, The last Sudanese prisoners to be released from US detention at Guantanamo Bay arrived home, as US President Barack Obama tried to speed up repatriations and close the controversial facility. Mohammed Noor Uthman (51) and Ibrahim Othman Ibrahim Idris (52) were both considered by the US military to be members of Al-Qaeda.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Togo freed two Indian sailors imprisoned since July after India appealed to President Faure Gnassingbe for their release on compassionate grounds.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Turkey Istanbul's most senior police official was dismissed, days after police launched raids that detained dozens of people.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Turkmenistan official election results said the ruling party won the most seats in the Dec 15 legislative elections, while a new party set up to diversify politics in the ultra-controlled state won its first-ever mandates.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, A UN panel probing war crimes in Syria reported that people around the country are systematically vanishing without a trace as part of a widespread campaign of terror against civilians.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, A 52-year-old Italian man set himself on fire in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican and suffered serious burns.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 20, President Barack Obama said the United States has deployed 45 military personnel to volatile South Sudan to protect the embassy and US government employees there.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, The United States said it is pledging up to $100 million to help support African Union efforts in the Central African Republic.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, The US Senate voted to confirm John Koskinen (74), a retired turnaround specialist, to head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a 5-year term.
(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 20, In Florida 17 teams competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge at a speedway track near Miami. Only one robot, SCHAFT, made it to the top of a nine-step aluminum ladder. It was created by a Japanese startup owned by Google.
(Econ, 3/29/14, SR p.3)(http://tinyurl.com/lsbfd5n)
2013 Dec 20, In Illinois an off-duty sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot while trying to break up an armed robbery in suburban Chicago.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 20, A US federal judge scrapped Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. The ban was approved by 66% of state voters in 2004.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.21)
2013 Dec 20, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead said his state will challenge a US government ruling that more than one million acres of the western state's land still legally belongs to two Native American tribes.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, Bolivia launched its first telecom satellite.
(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, The British government said it has agreed to destroy part of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile at a commercial facility.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Canada's highest court struck down the country's anti-prostitution laws, a victory for sex workers who had argued that a ban on brothels and other measures made their profession more dangerous.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In the Central African Republic more than 30 people, including a Chadian peacekeeper, were killed overnight in a fresh outbreak of brutal sectarian violence.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, China's ruling Communist Party said it was investigating Li Dongsheng, a vice minister of public security, for alleged disciplinary violations, the latest official to be targeted in a high-profile campaign to root out corruption. state media said Cao Jianliao, a top official in Guangdong province, is being investigated for "serious discipline violations", which is often a euphemism for corruption.
(AFP, 12/20/13)(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Cuba’s VP Marino Murillo told parliament that the peso pegged to the dollar, known as the CUC, would disappear, the first time the government has explicitly said that. He promised that savings in the convertible pesos would retain their value until the change took place.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Cuba lawmaker Mariela Castro cast a no vote to a workers’ rights bill that she felt did not go far enough to prevent discrimination against people with HIV or with unconventional gender identities. This appeared to be the first no vote ever in the 612-seat post-revolution National Assembly.
(SFC, 8/20/14, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, In Egypt an army raid in the Sinai peninsula led to a firefight the left at least 2 soldiers and 3 militants dead. Police in Cairo clashed with protesters demanding the reinstatement of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
(AFP, 12/20/13)(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, In France a helicopter went down carrying Lam Kok, a Chinese tea tycoon, overflying his newly-purchased vineyard. The body of Kok's 12-year-old son was pulled out of the Dordogne River. French winemaker James Gregoire, the helicopter pilot and owner of Chateau de la Riviere, and their interpreter were also killed.
(AFP, 12/21/13)(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, India's government petitioned the Supreme Court urging it to reverse a ban on gay sex, saying individual rights must be respected.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Indian protesters ransacked a Dominos Pizza outlet in a Mumbai suburb, demanding a ban on US goods as officials from the two countries struggled to defuse a row over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Bombings in Iraq, including two in a market and a third at a cemetery where victims of the earlier attack were to be buried killed 14 people.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Italy's justice minister has announced that Bartolomeo Gagliano, a serial killer who failed to return to prison after a two-day good-behavior pass, has been recaptured in France.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Italian authorities said that the Camorra syndicate's mobsters have expanded their multibillion-euro toxic-waste disposal racket to Tuscany and beyond Italian borders to eastern Europe.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, backed by the legislature, decided to send officers to aid UN peacekeeping missions next year for the first time since independence in 1991.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Libya the head of military intelligence in Benghazi was shot dead during a visit to his family in nearby Derna. 3 tribesman and 5 soldiers were killed in fighting that grew out of disputes between army units under conflicting orders over who controls key resources in the east.
(AFP, 12/20/13)(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 20, Madagascar residents went to the polls for a second round of presidential and legislative elections. On Jan 3, 2014, Hery Rajaonarimampianina was declared the winner with 53.5% of the vote.
(AP, 12/20/13)(Reuters, 1/3/14)
2013 Dec 20, In Nigeria a Federal High Court sentenced Kabiru Sokoto (30), the alleged mastermind of a 2011 Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic Church, to life in prison for "facilitating the commission of terrorist acts" in northern Sokoto state between 2007 and 2012, including last year's bombing of the police headquarters in Sokoto city.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Nigeria Boko Haram Islamist sect fighters, armed with anti-aircraft guns and grenade launchers, attacked a barracks in Bama in the volatile northeast and battled soldiers for several hours.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, In the Philippines a gunman attacked Labangan Mayor Ukol Talumpa as he left the Manila main airport along with crowds of Christmas travelers, killing him, his wife, a child and another man.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Russia closed a deal to buy Ukraine's newly-issued $3 billion Eurobond, part of a $15 billion bailout of its smaller neighbor.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Russia oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been pardoned by Pres. Putin, left jail after 10 years and left for Germany.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Saudi Arabia beheaded another drug trafficker. 77 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year, according to an AFP count.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, South Africa’s biggest trade union called for President Jacob Zuma to resign and said it will not support the ANC in next year's elections.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Spain's government approved a tightening of the abortion law that would overturn women's right to abort freely up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Molhem Barakat, a Syrian photographer who took pictures for Reuters on a freelance basis, was killed while covering fighting in Aleppo.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete sacked four ministers following accusations of abuses committed by security forces during a huge operation against wildlife poaching.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, Turkey’s PM Tayyip Erdogan pressed a widening purge of the police command, tackling the biggest challenge of his rule from what he describes as a foreign-backed conspiracy to undermine him and create a state within a state.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Ugandan lawmakers passed an anti-gay bill that calls for life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality," drawing criticism from rights campaigners who called it draconian and unnecessary in a country where homosexuality has long been criminalized.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, The United Nations says 34,000 people in South Sudan are seeking refuge at UN bases in three locations across the country.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In northern Yemen 9 people were killed in ongoing sectarian fighting between Shiite Huthi rebels and Sunni Islamists backed by local tribes.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 21, At least two people were killed as wild storms and suspected tornadoes tore through parts of Mississippi and Arkansas.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute said annual manatee deaths topped 800 for the first time since record-keeping began in the 1970s.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 21, Edgar Bronfman Sr. (84), the former Seagram liquor company executive and ex-World Jewish Congress head, died at his home in New York. He had helped obtain restitution for Holocaust victims from Swiss banks.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 21, Cuba’s President Raul Castro warned his country could remain estranged from the United States for decades if Washington does not drop political demands.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Egypt's deposed Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and 129 others including members of Hamas and Hezbollah, were referred to trial on murder and other charges related to a mass jail break during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, The mayor of Georgia's capital Tbilisi was suspended from office after he was charged with misspending public funds in a case he and his opposition colleagues said was a witch-hunt against supporters of former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 21, Greece's coalition government pushed through parliament a new property tax required under the country's international bailout obligations, but saw its majority dwindle in the process.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Iraq 5 senior officers, including a divisional commander, and 10 soldiers were killed in a raid on an Al-Qaeda hideout in Anbar province. Violence elsewhere killed 5 policemen, including the police chief of Al-Sharqat district northwest of Baghdad.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian man in the southern Gaza Strip. Witnesses said the shooting happened when several young Palestinians who were hunting birds approached the security fence separating the territory from Israel and came under fire. Israel said terrorists had attempted to conceal an explosive device in order to attack IDF soldiers.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Italy 9 detained illegal immigrants stitched their lips together with thread from their bedsheets in a protest to demand their release.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Lebanon Hezbollah fighters ambushed a group of Syrian rebels as they infiltrated through a smuggler route outside Nahle. About 30 rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 21, Madagascar's presidential candidates both claimed victory in run-off polls, each accusing the other of rigging the run-off as results started to trickle in.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Mauritania held runoff elections. The ruling party secured a majority of seats in round two of the parliamentary election. The decisive victory for the Union of the Republic party assured that President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who came to power in a 2008 coup, will retain complete control of the organs of state.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Niger up to 1,000 demonstrators marched in Niamey to protest their country's "unbalanced" partnership with nuclear firm Areva as the French giant negotiates a new uranium mining agreement with the government.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen attacked an anti-polio vaccination center in the Khyber tribal region, killing a medic on duty.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Saudi Arabia said one more person has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 56 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Somalia's parliament approved as the new prime minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, a political newcomer and economist who faces tough challenges in the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In South Sudan rebel gunfire hit a US military aircraft trying to evacuate American citizens caught in a Bor, a battle ground between the country's military and renegade troops. Four US service members were wounded, one critically.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Sudan's military said it has "liberated" several areas of war-torn South Kordofan state, but rebels dismissed the claim as propaganda, saying a government offensive achieved nothing.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Vandals in Sweden burned down a giant straw goat meant to symbolize Christmas spirit. This was the 27th time it was burned down since 1966, when the Yule symbol was first erected.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Thailand's main opposition party announced it would boycott an election in February, deepening uncertainty about the poll and fuelling a campaign to overthrow PM Yingluck Shinawatra's government.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Turkey’s PM Tayyip Erdogan denounced "international groups" and "dark alliances" for entangling Turkey in a corruption scandal that has exposed deep rifts between him and Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim cleric who helped him rise to power.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In southern Yemen several cities were virtually paralyzed by a second day of confrontations between militants and security forces in which 11 people were wounded. Fighting raged in the north as the Sunni Islamist Al-Islah party accused Zaidi Shiite rebels known as Huthis of abducting one of its members. In the eastern province of Marib saboteurs blew up two sections of an oil pipeline.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 22, A band of severe weather from tornadoes to icy blasts left at least 7 people dead as winter storms and severe weather pushed up the East Coast, bringing record high temperatures to Philadelphia and NYC. The storm system brought freezing rain across much of Eastern Canada, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and wreaking havoc on holiday plans at one of the busiest travel times of the year.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, Louisiana’s Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne said the “Duck Dynasty" reality TV show is important to state tourism and that he could connect the Robertson family to new producers if they cannot reach an agreement with the A&E network. Patriarch Phil Robertson was suspended last week for telling GQ magazine that gays are sinners akin to adulterers and swindlers.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 22, NY-based Tiffany & Co. said it was ordered to pay Swatch Group AG about 402 million Swiss francs ($449 million) in compensation over a contractual dispute. The Netherlands Arbitration Institute also required Tiffany to pay more than $9 million for the Swiss watchmaker's legal fees and the cost of arbitration.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, Apple announced that it has finalized a deal to sell the iPhone through China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone carrier.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 22, Australia announced an aerial Customs and Border Protection mission to the Southern Ocean as a showdown looms between Japan's whaling fleet and Sea Shepherd activists, saying it would send a message to both sides that the world was watching.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Bangladesh security forces arrested 37 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals after raiding an illegal Internet telephone operation they were allegedly running in an upscale Dhaka neighborhood.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Bangladesh police charged the owners and 11 others over the nation's worst garment factory fire that killed 111 people, after wrapping up an investigation on the Nov 24, 2012, tragedy.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Brazil 14 people died when a bus drove off a road and plunged into a ravine in Sao Paulo state.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Central African Republic former Seleka rebels and their Muslim supporters blocked a route near Bangui's airport to protest against French troops conducting a disarmament operation, accusing them of killing 3 fighters in clashes.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Egypt 3 leading figures of the 2011 uprising were jailed for three years each for their role in recent protests, as the army-backed authorities intensified a crackdown on dissent.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Germany Mikhail Khodorkovsky vowed to do all he can to ensure the release of other political prisoners in Russia.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Honduras Nedenia Post Dye (46), a great-granddaughter of Marjorie Merriweather Post, was found slain at her luxury spa on Roatan island. Police arrested suspect Lenin Roberto Arana, a local singer that to quit drugs.
(SSFC, 12/29/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 22, India's anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal vowed to clean up "dirty politics" in a fiery speech suggesting that his Aam Aadmi will team up with the Congress party to form a state government in Delhi.
(AFP, 12/22/13)(Econ, 12/14/13, p.49)
2013 Dec 22, In Libya a suicide car bomb attack on a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Benghazi killed 13 people.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Saudi Arabia's official news agency says King Abdullah has appointed his son, Prince Mishaal, as the new governor of Mecca.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In South Korea hundreds of riot police stormed into a labor umbrella group's head office in a bid to arrest union leaders. They detained about 130 strikers and confederation members. Workers with the state-run Korea Railroad had walked off the job in protest against a decision to set up a unit to run a high-speed bullet train, which they say will lead to privatization and layoffs.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, South Sudan's central government lost control of Bentiu, the capital of key oil-producing Unity state. Renegade forces loyal to a former deputy president seized more territory in fighting that has raised fears of full-blown civil war in the world's newest country.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Spain millions were glued to their televisions as 2.5 billion in euros was distributed in the country’s Christmas lottery during a 4-hour TV show. For the first time 20% of winnings over 2,500 euros was taxed.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 22, A Sudanese court acquitted award-winning journalist Faisal Mohammed Salih of publishing lies in a column he wrote about an activist's allegation of rape in custody.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Sweden thousands took to the streets of Stockholm in a protest against racism following a neo-Nazi attack on a similar but much smaller rally last weekend.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Syrian aircraft pummeled an opposition neighborhood in Aleppo, killing at least 65 people and extending the government's furious aerial bombardment of the rebel-held half of the divided city to an eighth consecutive day. A suicide bomber detonated his bomb-rigged truck near a primary school in the Shiite town of Umm al-Amed, killing at least 12 people, half of them children.
(AFP, 12/22/13)(AP, 12/22/13)(CSM, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Thailand tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators massed peacefully across Bangkok in their latest bid to topple PM Yingluck Shinawatra before a February election the main opposition party will boycott.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Turkish media reported that authorities have removed another 25 police chiefs from their posts, widening a crackdown on the force since it launched a corruption investigation that PM Tayyip Erdogan has called a "dirty operation" against his rule. Turkey's interior minister said he has offered his resignation to PM Erdogan over a corruption scandal that has resulted in his son's arrest. Police in Istanbul clashed with protesters denouncing Erdogan's government over a corruption and bribery scandal targeting his allies.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Ukrainian opposition leaders urged supporters at a rally to stay on Kiev's main square through New Year and Christmas, as street protests appeared to be losing momentum.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 23, Yuseef Lateef (93), grammy-winning jazz musician and composer, died at his home in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.D2)
2013 Dec 23, In Mississippi a bank robber killed Tupelo police officer Kevin Stauffer (38) and injured another as he escaped. In Dec 28 Arizona police in Phoenix shot and killed Mario Edward Garnett (40) following an attempted bank robbery. He is believed to be the same man accused in the Dec 23 killing of Tupelo police officer Kevin Stauffer.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A7)(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 23, A federal judge ordered Ohio authorities to recognize same-sex marriages on death certificates.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 23, Over 390,000 homes and businesses were without power in Michigan, New York and northern New England. In Maine over 78,000 people were without power. The weekend storm left at least 11 people dead.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 23, In Afghanistan two NATO service members were killed in separate attacks in the east and south. One was a British soldier killed by enemy fire.
(AP, 12/23/13)(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, A Bahrain court acquitted two police officers accused of torturing doctors who were detained while treating wounded Shiite protesters in 2011. Sheikha Noura bint Ibrahim al-Khalifa (29), a Bahraini princess, was one of the two police officers acquitted.
(AP, 12/23/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Belgium Andras Pandy (86), a serial killers dubbed the "Devil's Pastor", died overnight in a jail in northwestern Bruges.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Britain's disgraced former Europe minister Denis MacShane (65) was jailed for six months after admitting he falsely claimed thousands of pounds in parliamentary expenses.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, British retailer Marks & Spencer faced criticism after it emerged that it allows Muslim staff to refuse to sell customers pork and alcohol.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Central African Republic former Seleka rebels and their Muslim supporters blocked a route near Bangui's airport to protest against French troops conducting a disarmament operation, accusing them of killing 3 fighters in clashes. An African Union peacekeeper from the Republic of Congo was killed by the anti-balaka, a Christian militia.
(AFP, 12/22/13)(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, China's ruling Communist Party told the already tightly monitored state media that they should not be reporting on "wrong points of view" and instead cover positive stories that promote "socialist values."
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Dubai Shezanne Cassim (29), a US citizen man detained for months, and seven co-defendants were fined and sentenced to jail after being convicted in connection to a satirical video about youth culture. Officials charged that the film spoofing would-be Dubai "gangstas" ran afoul of a 2012 cybercrimes law.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Dubai media reported that police have made a record drug seizure of some 4.6 million Captagon pills, an amphetamine-like stimulant, worth more than $31 million (23 million euros).
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Egypt more than 450 imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood members launched a hunger strike to protest their "inhuman treatment" after being jailed following the military's overthrow of Pres. Morsi.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, The European Union banned the export of arms and the sending of mercenaries to Central African Republic.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, India's anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal announced he would head a state government for New Delhi in a stunning breakthrough for his fledgling party just months before a general election.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Iraq suicide bombers in Tikrit assaulted a television station headquarters, killing 5 journalists in the latest in a series of attacks against the media. Two of the bombers blew themselves up and security forces killed the other two when they stormed the building. Other violence in the country killed 17 people.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Kuwait's Cabinet resigned ahead of a reshuffle and plans by some legislators to submit a number of ministers to parliamentary grilling.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Libya's interim parliament voted to extend the country's post-revolutionary transition, giving itself an extra year to oversee the writing of a constitution and the holding of new elections.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, The Moroccan-flagged fuel tanker "Silver" hit rocks near the Atlantic port of Tan Tan during a storm, and there were fears of an ecological disaster. Over the next two weeks the cargo was offloaded to fuel trucks.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2013 Dec 23, Nigeria's military reportedly killed at least 50 Islamist rebels fleeing towards Cameroon in a battle in which 15 of its own soldiers and five civilians also died.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, Nearly half Pakistan's lawmakers reported they paid no taxes, according to a study released today, findings that may endanger billions of dollars in IMF and other loans and aid that shore up a faltering economy.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Residents of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun region of North Waziristan accused government troops of killing dozens of civilians during a military operation against Taliban insurgents. Military officials said more than 30 militants, most of them ethnic Uzbeks, had been killed in a military operation that began after a December 18 suicide bomb attack.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Police in the Philippine capital banned the wearing of caps and sunglasses in shopping malls to stop criminals concealing their identity from security cameras.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Russia two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot were released following an amnesty law that both described as a Kremlin public relations stunt ahead of the Winter Olympics.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Russia said it has sent 25 armored trucks and 50 other vehicles to Syria to help transport toxins that are to be destroyed under an international agreement to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Russia bought $3 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds, the first batch of a promised $15 billion, in a bid to support its neighbor's economy.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, Russia’s Mikhail Kalashnikov (b.1919), the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, died in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic.
(AP, 12/23/13)(SFC, 12/25/13, p.D4)
2013 Dec 23, A Saudi court sentenced a citizen to 30 years in prison for leading demonstrations in 2011 against a crackdown on Shiite Muslims in neighboring Bahrain.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, South Sudan's government said it will start a major offensive to retake two strategic towns controlled by rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, deepening fears that the conflict is provoking broader ethnic bloodletting. Some 3,000 foreigners were trapped in Bor as the city experienced bouts of heavy machine gun fire.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Syrian government forces widened a northern bombing campaign striking Azaz and killing 15 people.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 23, In Thailand anti-government protesters determined to unseat PM Shinawatra surrounded a Bangkok sports stadium in an unsuccessful attempt to block political parties from registering for February elections.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, President Jose Mujica of Uruguay quietly signed into law the government's plan to create a regulated, legal market for marijuana. Bureaucrats now have until April 9 to write the fine print for regulating every aspect of the marijuana market, from growing to selling in a network of pharmacies.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 23, Yemeni political parties signed a document pledging a "just solution" that would grant some autonomy to the south in the face of secessionist demands.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, Zambia's defense minister Geoffrey Mwamba resigned after admitting that he met a traditional leader who is blackballed by the country's president.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 24, US postal regulators approved a temporary two-year increase of 3 cents for the first class stamp. The 49 cent rate will be effective as of Jan 26, 2014.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 24, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown granted clemency to 127 convicted criminals. All the people involved had completed their sentences.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.D3)
2013 Dec 24, In southern California Steven Keith (58) collapsed and died in a holding cell after his arrest by Border Patrol agents for allegedly carrying three pounds of marijuana.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 24, In upstate New York 2 firefighters were killed in an ambush after William Spengler Jr. shot his sister and set fire to his West Webster home. Spengler wounded two other firefighters before committing suicide. In 2014 Dawn Nguyen was sentenced to eight years in prison for buying the guns for Spengler.
(SFC, 9/18/14, p.A6)
2013 Dec 24, A US federal appeals court ruled that same-sex marriages can continue in Utah, denying a request from the state to halt them.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 24, NASA astronauts wrapped up successful repairs at the International Space Station after a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk to fix an equipment cooling system. Rick Mastracchi (53) and Mike Hopkins (44) floated outside the orbiting lab for seven and a half hours to replace an ammonia pump whose internal control valve failed on December 11.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 24, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff flew over the flood-hit southeastern state of Espirito Santo, where at least 14 people have died in days of torrential rain. 47 cities in Espirito Santo, which borders Rio de Janeiro state, were affected by the flooding.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Hurricane-force winds and torrential rain disrupted transport networks and cut power supplies in Britain and France, one of the busiest travel days of the year just before Christmas, pushing the death toll to at least 6 people.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Britain posthumously pardoned Alan Turing (1912-1954) for a 1952 gay sex conviction which tarnished the brilliant career of the code breaker credited with helping win the war against Nazi Germany and laying the foundation for the computer age.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, In Chile Nicolesa Quintreman (73), a Mapuche Indian leader, was found floating in a reservoir she spent a decade trying to prevent from being created. With her sister Berta, Quintreman became a national figure in Chile during protests against the construction of a hydroelectric dam on tribal land in the forested mountains of southern Chile.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 24, China's top legislative committee voted to abolish "re-education through labor" camps introduced more than half a century ago, saying they had served their purpose.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, In Egypt multiple explosions at the security headquarters in Mansoura killed 16 and injured more than 100.
(AP, 12/24/13)(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 24, Egyptian state television reported the arrest of Hesham Kandil, the country's former prime minister, to serve a one-year prison sentence. He had served under the nation's toppled Islamist president.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Egypt's football league resumed following repeated suspensions for almost two years after a deadly stadium riot and political unrest in the country.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, In Iraq a bomb struck the acting Iraqi defense minister's convoy west of Baghdad, wounding two of his guards.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Israeli air and ground forces launched a series of attacks on targets across the Gaza Strip, killing a young girl and wounding 10 in response to the deadly shooting of an Israeli civilian by a Palestinian sniper. Palestinian officials reported at least 16 Israeli attacks.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, A Libyan soldier was shot dead and a civilian wounded by a bomb under his car in separate attacks in the eastern city of Benghazi.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, The Malian Ministry of Defense said that Aliou Mahamar Toure, the former head of the Islamic Police in Gao, has been captured. Toure had presided over a 10-month reign of terror.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Russian news agency RIA reported that Russia is preparing to lift a suspension it imposed on the import of Lithuanian dairy products on October 7.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Syrian government air raids on rebel-held areas of Aleppo killed at least 15 people, including three children.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul sought to salve furor over a high-level corruption case by assuring the public there would be no cover-up and that the courts were free to investigate.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, The UN office of the Commissioner for Human Rights said a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of 75 ethnic Dinka soldiers has been found in South Sudan. Later the office revised that figure to 34 bodies and 75 people feared missing. The UN mission in South Sudan said the erroneous report was an inflation of a "skirmish" in which 15 people were killed. The UN Security Council approved plans to increase number of peacekeepers in South Sudan to 12,500 troops and 1,323 police.
(AP, 12/24/13)(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, The Zambia Wildlife Authority said it has arrested two people in possession of more than 115 kg (250 pounds) of ivory.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Arizona police found Aniarael Macias (13) dead at the home of Connie Villa (35) in Casa Grande. Villa had tried to poison her three other children and had just stabbed her ex-husband who called 911 as he drove to a hospital. Connie Villa was arrested on Dec 29 after being released from a hospital.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 25, United Van Lines released its 37th annual migration study. New Jersey repeated as the state with the highest outbound moves. Migration out of Michigan slowed to a virtual halt after 16 straight years of outbound moves.
(AP, 12/25/13)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 25, In Irvington, NJ, 3 men were killed at Slick’s Go Go Bar when a man tried to enter with a gun. On Jan 12, 2014, Anthony Fields (19) of Newark, the suspected gunman, was arrested in Florida.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A8)(SFC, 1/13/14, p.A4)
2013 Dec 25, Attacks in Afghanistan killed at least 6 people. The US Embassy in Kabul was hit by indirect fire before dawn but no Americans were hurt.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Argentina an attack by a school of palometas, a carnivorous type of piranha, injured 70 people bathing in the Parana River in Rosario, including seven children who lost parts of their fingers or toes.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Brazil angry farmers, convinced that Tenharim tribesmen in Amazonas state had kidnapped three local men nine days earlier, torched several Tenharim huts and the offices of the federal indigenous affairs agency, as well as several of its vehicles and river boats.
(AP, 2/5/14)
2013 Dec 25, Tens of thousands of Britons remained without electricity after torrential rainfall flooded homes and hurricane-force winds battered the country.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In the Central African Republic a spokesman for MISCA, the peacekeeping force, said Chadian troops will be redeployed from Bangui amid charges they were siding with a former rebel group. 5 Chadian peacekeepers died in clashes in Bangui.
(AFP, 12/25/13)(AFP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, China's ruling Communist Party unveiled a five-year plan to fight pervasive graft, with particular attention on corruption that triggers protests or happens in the course of economic reforms.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Chinese media reported the arrest of Chu Jian, a vice president of a prestigious university, for "suspected economic problems." He was appointed in 2005 as vice president of Zhejiang University in the eastern city of Hangzhou.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In eastern CongoDRC at least 40 civilians were killed by the Ugandan ADF-NALU rebel group attack on a village in North Kivu province. A special UN force in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo used helicopters to fire on the rebels and help government troops retake the town of Kamango.
(AFP, 12/25/13)(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, Egypt’s PM Hazem el-Beblawi designated the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist" organization after multiple explosions at the security headquarters in Mansoura killed 16 and injured more than 100. The al-Qaida-inspired group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or the Champions of Jerusalem, said it had carried out the attack.
(AP, 12/25/13)(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Ethiopia Asfaw Berhanu, a former contributor to the private paper The Reporter, was convicted of charges stemming from a news story he wrote saying three government officials had been removed from their posts. An Ethiopian court sentenced him to two years and nine months in jail.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 25, Powerful winds and torrential rain swept southern France, grounding flights and cutting off power to tens of thousands of homes.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, A boat capsized off the Turks and Caicos islands and 17 Haitian suspected illegal migrants died. 33 people were rescued.
(AFP, 12/25/13)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 25, Hundreds of Indonesian Christians held a Christmas service in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta to protest at the closure of their churches due to pressure by Muslim hardliners.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Iraq at least 34 people were killed in three bombings in Christian areas of Baghdad, including a car bomb that exploded as worshippers were leaving a Christmas service. Attacks killed at least 44 people across the country.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Pakistan a suspected American drone fired two missiles just before midnight at a home in North Waziristan, killing at least three foreign militants.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, Russia's Supreme Court said it will review two convictions against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, including a ruling the Kremlin critic said was preventing him from returning to Russia despite a presidential pardon.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Russia’s Pres. Putin announced $2 billion in loans to Belarus next year following talks with Belarus Pres. Alexander Lukashenko.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 25, Greenpeace said Russian investigators have dropped charges against all but one of the 30 crew, who were accused of hooliganism following a protest outside a Russian oil rig in the Arctic. Cristian d'Alessandro of Italy failed to get his criminal case closed due to the lack of an interpreter and will have to visit the St. Petersburg branch of Russia's Investigative Committee again Dec 26.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, South Sudan's army battled rebel forces in Malakal while troops flushed out insurgents in Bor after its recapture.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Syria’s government signed a major oil and gas exploration deal with a Russian company in Damascus, which will allow for exploration in a section of Syrian waters.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Thailand's PM Yingluck Shinawatra proposed a "national reform council" to seek a way out of the political crisis gripping the kingdom, following weeks of mass street protests against her government.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Turkey three Cabinet ministers resigned, days after their sons were taken into custody in a sweeping corruption and bribery scandal that has targeted PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan's allies in one of the worst political crises of his more than 10 years in power.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Ukrainian opposition activist and journalist Tetyana Chornovil (34), known for her investigations into corruption among senior state officials, was beaten up by unknown attackers. Chornovil was assaulted near Kiev hours after an article she wrote on the assets of top government officials was published. Opposition activists quickly gathered outside the Interior Ministry in Kiev and demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 26, In Louisiana Ben Freeman (38), a nurse embroiled in a custody fight, attacked his former in-laws, his onetime boss and his current wife leaving 3 dead before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 26, Bangladesh's opposition accused authorities of placing their leader under virtual house arrest, as tens of thousands of troops were deployed across the country ahead of general elections next month.
(AFP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Brazilian officials said at least 44 people have died and more than 60,000 have been left homeless following torrential rain in the southeast over the past few weeks.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Central African Republic Red Cross workers said they have recovered 44 bodies from the streets of Bangui after inter-religious fighting in the last two days. 2 African Union peacekeepers were shot dead in night time fighting. Assailants also attempted to attack the presidential palace, but were pushed back.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, Egypt escalated its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, detaining at least 38 of the group's supporters on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization the day after it was declared one by the government. A bomb exploded in a busy intersection near schools in Cairo, hitting a bus and wounding five people.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In France a surprise strike by Lufthansa workers at the main Paris airport prompted flight cancellations and brought a new headache to holiday travel. Lufthansa said in statement that only two flights were officially canceled, and that travel was resuming in the afternoon.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Guinea a 2-year-old boy in the remote village of Meliandou fell ill with a mysterious illness characterized by fever, black stools, and vomiting. He died 2 days later. He was later identified as patient zero in the current outbreak of Ebola, which was not recognized until March.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meliandou)(Econ, 12/13/14, p.49)
2013 Dec 26, In Iraq a barrage of rockets were fired on Camp Liberty, home to members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the militant wing of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based group opposed to Iran's cleric-led government. 3 residents were killed and over 50 wounded.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe paid his respects at the Yasukuni shrine honoring Japan's war dead in an unexpected visit that drew sharp rebukes from China and South Korea.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Dozens of Libyan militiamen briefly blocked the entrance to the central bank, demanding the resignation of PM Ali Zeidan.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Russian probe into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said it has found no trace of radioactive poisoning.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Russian authorities issued visas to seven of 30 members of a Greenpeace ship crew that allow them to leave the country after dropping criminal charges against them over a protest outside an Arctic oil rig.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Russian plane crashed in Siberia, killing nine people. The Soviet-built Antonov An-12 plane belonging to an aircraft factory in Novosibirsk was carrying six crew and three others on a flight to another factory in Irkutsk.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Saudi Arabia a 73-year-old man died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 57 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In South Sudan heavy fighting raged in the key oil-producing north. Neighbors Kenya and Ethiopia said they had made "good progress" in efforts to broker an end to the civil war.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Thailand's government rejected a call from the Election Commission (EC) to postpone a February vote. Violence erupted when protesters tried to storm a venue where a draw for election ballot numbers was being held and police fired teargas and rubber bullets to keep the rock-throwing crowd back. A policeman was killed and three were wounded by gunshots from an unknown attacker.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Thailand a bus carrying New Year travelers plunged off one of the country’s highest bridges around midnight in the kingdom's northeast, leaving at least 29 people dead.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Turkish prosecutor said he had been prevented from expanding a corruption investigation that has touched the heart of the government, alleging pressure on the judiciary.
(AFP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In eastern Yemen tribesmen seized an oil ministry building in Hadramout province and exchanged gunfire with a pro-government tribe seeking to regain control of the premises.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 27, The A&E channel said it is reversing its decision to drop “Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson from the show set in Louisiana for his remarks on gays.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Los Angeles Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen (24) pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges after admitting that he attempted to assist al-Qaida by providing weapons training in Syria.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Colorado the first batch of Denver businesses approved to sell recreational marijuana received their licenses.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Afghanistan 3 NATO personnel were killed in a Taliban suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy in Kabul.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, China’s environment ministry said it will raise standards for the production of cement, batteries, leather and heavy metals as part of its efforts to cut air, water and soil pollution.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, A Chinese court in Hunan province sentenced four municipal security officers to prison for a clash that left Deng, a watermelon seller, dead and triggered a public outcry.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Danish drugmaker Lundbeck said it has received marketing authorization from the European Commission for its antidepressant Brintellix following approval in the United States in September.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police clashed across the country, leaving at least 5 dead in protests after the army-backed government declared the group a terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Henri Rechatin (82), aka Henry’s, the celebrated French tightrope walker who balanced above high the Alps, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, died.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Indonesia Ambar Arianto Mulyo (59), a Bali Hyatt hotel security employee, was strangled to death after he tried to capture a 15-foot python.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, In Iraq violence across the country left six people dead.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, An Israeli official said Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Japan the governor of Okinawa gave the go-ahead for land reclamation to begin for a new US military base, advancing the effort to consolidate the massive US troop presence on the southern Japanese island but also making protests from residents likely.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Lebanon a powerful car bomb tore through a business district in the center of Beirut killing Mohammed Chatah (Shatah), a former finance minister and senior aide to former PM Saad Hariri. 7 others were also killed in the blast. Hariri blamed Hezbollah for the assassination. A Lebanese teenager seen posing for a group "selfie" in front of the bomb-laden car moments before it exploded died of his injuries the next day.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.34)
2013 Dec 27, In Libya 3 gunmen shot to death Maj. Mohammed Faraj al-Ziwi from the military's air defense unit in the al-Salam district of Benghazi.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Montenegro an overnight bomb blast shook the offices of the leading daily Vijesti in the latest attack on a newspaper known for its criticism of the authorities under long-term leader Milo Djukanovic.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Morocco and Qatar signed an aid deal worth $1.25 billion, part of a five-year package of financial assistance extended by wealthy Gulf states to the North African kingdom to help it weather 'Arab Spring' protests.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, Lack of fuel from Israel brought Gaza's lone power plant to a halt, days after it was fired back to life following a seven-week shutdown.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Two Russian astronauts began a spacewalk to install cameras and perform other work on the International Space Station. This was the third spacewalk in a week at the orbiting laboratory.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Russia at least two people were killed in the explosion of an automobile in Pyatigorsk in the restive North Caucasus region.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, An oil platform belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco sank as it was being used to carry out maintenance work at an oil well in Safaniya. The bodies of 3 Asian workers who went missing were recovered over the next 24 hours.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Somalia at least 10 people were killed in an explosion in a restaurant in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, Regional leaders said South Sudan's government has agreed to end hostilities, at the end of a crisis summit, raising hopes for a potential breakthrough in efforts to cease violence that has displaced more than 120,000 people in the world's newest country. An army spokesman said South Sudanese rebels loyal to former VP Riek Machar have been defeated in Malakal, the capital of major oil producing Upper Nile state, after four days of intense fighting.
(AP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Syrian state TV and opposition activists say government forces have ambushed members of an al-Qaida-linked group, killing dozens of the Nusra Front rebels near Maaloula, a historic Christian village north of Damascus. A monitoring group said 5 people, including an elderly man, a woman and a disabled man, have died of hunger in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp south of Damascus.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, The Thai government appealed to the military to provide security for February elections after violent clashes between police and opposition protesters left two people dead and more than 150 wounded.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Turkey three lawmakers, including a former minister, resigned from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). A Turkish court blocked a government attempt to force police to disclose investigations to their superiors.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Yemen an army tank shelled a funeral tent erected by the Southern Movement at a school in Sanah, Daleh province, killing 19 people, including 4 children.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In the US the most recent extension of unemployment insurance expired leaving some 1.3 million Americans suddenly cut off from federally funded benefits.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.19)
2013 Dec 28, In Alabama Kimberle Johnson (21) and Glenn Thomas (22) died in an early morning shooting in Montgomery. Six others were wounded. Thomas was an up-and-coming rapper known as Doe B. Jason Quan Williams (25) was arrested after turning himself in to police.
(SSFC, 12/29/13, p.A14)(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 28, Arizona police in Phoenix shot and killed Mario Edward Garnett (40) following an attempted bank robbery. He is believed to be the same man accused in the Dec 23 killing of a police officer in Tupelo, Miss.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 28, In Oklahoma Harry Carl Mapps (59) was arrested in a motel in Roland. He was suspected of killing 3 people and setting fire to a home in Colorado on Nov 27.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 28, Harold Simmons (82), Dallas billionaire and major GOP political donor, died. He had made his fortune in buying drugstores and as an investor in publicly traded companies.
(SFC, 1/1/14, p.E5)
2013 Dec 28, Australian media reported that Jacqueline Zwambila, Zimbabwe's ambassador to Australia, has asked for political asylum just days before her term ends saying she fears for her safety at home.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Bahrain’s police arrested Ali Salman (48), head of the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq that has spearheaded protests against the authorities in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. Salman was freed the next day but he was forbidden from any travel.
(AFP, 12/28/13)(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, China formally allowed couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child, the first major easing of its 3-decade-old restrictive birth policy.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, China's national legislature voted to abolish a much-criticized penal system that allowed police to lock up people for up to four years without due process.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Chinese state media said 512 lawmakers in Hengyang city, Huana province, have resigned after being implicated in a bribery scandal, while another 56 provincial legislators have been sacked. Xinhua said the total amount of the bribes was more than 110 million yuan ($18.1 million) and the money was used to swing the results of elections.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Colombia the bodies of 5 men were found at the mouth of the Atrato River. Police believed the men had traveled from a Caribbean island in an attempt to reach Central America.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 28, Croatia state prosecutors said some 300 doctors and pharmacists are among 364 suspects who have been charged with offering and taking bribes in exchange for prescribing certain drugs. The operation, code-named Hippocratus, was launched by the USKOSK anti-graft police in November 2012.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Egypt riot police moved into eastern Cairo's Al-Azhar campus, claiming that striking students were disrupting end-of-term exams. They fired tear gas and battled demonstrators in a melee that left one protester dead and an administration building torched.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In India tens of thousands of jubilant supporters watched as Arvind Kejriwal, a mild-mannered former tax official, was anointed chief minister of Delhi. Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, or AAP, has emerged as a force to be reckoned with barely a year since it was created.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In southern India a fire engulfed a coach of an express train, killing at least 26 passengers.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Iraqi security forces raided the Ramadi home of Sunni MP Ahmed al-Alwani, who backs anti-government protesters, arresting him and sparking clashes that killed his brother and five guards. An Iraqi soldier was also killed in the raid.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Malawi a lightning bolt struck a Seventh Day Adventist church, killing 8 worshippers and injuring several others in Lilongwe. It was not immediately clear whether they were injured by the lightning or in the panic to escape.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, Mexican authorities found 5 decapitated bodies in two locations in Michoacan state, with letters left with the corpses purportedly signed by a drug cartel.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Nigeria few voters straggled to polls to elect local councils in northeastern Yobe state battling Islamic militants who say democracy in corruption-riddled Nigeria is an enemy of the people. The opposition All Progressives Congress swept every seat in the Yobe state elections. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead 8 people and injured five more in an attack on a wedding party in Tashan Alade village, Borno state. Nigerian government forces reportedly killed at least 56 Islamist Boko Haram fighters in a combined air and ground offensive in the northeast Alafa forest.
(AP, 12/28/13)(AP, 12/30/13)(AFP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 28, In northwest Pakistan gunmen attacked an anti-polio vaccination center on the outskirts of Peshawar and killed a medic on duty, then fled the scene.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Saudi police pulled over a woman minutes after she got behind the wheel in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after activists called for a new challenge to a driving ban.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In South Sudan some 25,000 young men, who make up a tribal militia known as the "White Army," began marching on Bor. The youths are from the Lou Nuer sub-clan — the same tribe as opposition leader former VP Riek Machar. Nuer community leaders in Jonglei state soon persuaded the "White Army" fighters to go home.
(AP, 12/28/13)(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, A Syrian army air strike on a vegetable market in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 25 people.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Thailand gunmen killed an anti-government activist and wounded two others in Bangkok, while protesters elsewhere blocked candidates from registering for upcoming elections.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Yemeni tribesmen blew up a pipeline in the eastern Hadramout province, disrupting oil flow two days after they seized an oil ministry building in the region.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 29, Bangladesh police barred opposition leader Khaleda Zia from leaving home to lead a banned march in protest at an upcoming election. Two people were killed in battles between her supporters and security forces.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Belgian police seized thousands of marijuana plants discovered by firefighters during an overnight blaze, but found no immediate trace of the growers.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, British police said they have arrested two men after a suspected arson attack last evening on the MS King Seaways, a ferry in the North Sea carrying more than 1,000 people from Newcastle in England to Amsterdam.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Cambodia tens of thousands of opposition supporters, backed by striking garment-factory workers, rallied to demand long-serving PM Hun Sen step down and call an election.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Central African Republic a medical charity said more than 100,000 people displaced by inter-religious violence are sheltering at a makeshift camp at Bangui airport.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Chinese police seized nearly three metric tons (3.3 tons) of the drug crystal methamphetamine and arrested 182 people in raids on Boshe village, Guangdong province, notorious for producing narcotics.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)(SFC, 1/4/14, p.A2)
2013 Dec 29, Egyptian authorities arrested four Al Jazeera journalists after the Interior Ministry accused the Qatar-based channel of broadcasting illegally from a hotel suite with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Egypt a bomb exploded outside a military intelligence building northeast of Cairo, wounding four people and damaging the structure as protests and security scares roil the country just weeks before a key vote.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, El Salvador authorities evacuated an area around the Chaparrastique volcano after the peak shot a cloud of gas and ash about 3 miles (5 km) into the air.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Saudi Arabia for a visit aimed at boosting prospects of commercial cooperation between the countries and addressing escalating tensions in the Middle East.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, France's Constitutional Council gave the green light on to a 'millionaire's tax', to be levied on companies that pay salaries of more than 1 million euros ($1.38 million) a year.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Iraq a drive-by shooting and a bomb killed at least six people.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Israel's cabinet approved a Finance Ministry proposal to tighten spending limits on the government's budget starting in 2015.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, The Israeli military fired a barrage of shells into southern Lebanon in retaliation after five Katyusha-style rockets were launched against the Jewish state. The attacks struck uninhabited areas of both Israel and Lebanon without causing any casualties or damage.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Jordan the criminal court in Amman sentenced two Jordanian men, aged 20 and 23, to death for killing their sister in June "to cleanse the family’s honour."
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman said Saudi Arabia is giving the Lebanese army $3 billion to buy equipment from France, calling it the largest grant ever given to the country's armed forces.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)(SSFC, 1/5/14, p.A5)
2013 Dec 29, In Nigeria suspected Islamic extremists killed four people in the Christian Kwajffa village, Borno state.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, The Gaza Strip's only power plant returned to life after Israel resumed fuel deliveries.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Poland Wojciech Kilar (b.1932), pianist and composer of classical music and scores for many films, including Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning "The Pianist" (2002) and Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), died in his hometown of Katowice.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In southern Russia 18 people were killed and scores were wounded as a female suicide bomber struck at a railway station in Volgograd, heightening concern about terrorism ahead of February's Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
(AP, 12/29/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, South Sudan's army fought with "White Army" ethnic militia, accusing rebels of mobilizing the force despite its offer of a truce to end the conflict in the new country.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, In eastern Syria at least 19 rebels were killed in clashes for control of Deir Ezzor military air base. The government evacuated some 5,000 people from an embattled industrial town near Damascus where al-Qaida-linked rebels have been battling government troops for more than two weeks.
(AFP, 12/29/13)(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, A Tanzanian official said the country has been hit by a sharp upsurge in poaching, with at least 60 elephants killed in the two months since the government was forced to halt a controversial crackdown.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, Tunisian police arrested seven Salafists in the western town of Kasserine, as authorities feared radical Islamists may be planning attacks during New Year celebrations.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Ukraine some 20,000 people protested in Kiev, maintaining more than a month of rallies opposing the government's decision to shelve a key deal with the European Union.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Yemen a Sanaa court sentenced to death Ahmad Kadiri Ahmad Turki, a Yemeni Al-Qaeda suspect, for his role in a deadly attack on a security headquarters in Aden in 2011.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, The United Nations said that it has completed the first aid airlift from Iraq to Syria, providing much-needed supplies to a difficult-to-access region of the war-torn country.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 30, The US FAA selected six states (Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia) to test how drones can be more widely used in US airspace. 24 states had competed for selection.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 30, In North Dakota a mile-long train carrying crude oil derailed 5 miles from Casselton. As many as 20 cars caught fire.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 30, Afghanistan rejected as baseless a US intelligence forecast that the gains the United States and allies have made in the past three years will be significantly rolled back by 2017.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Bahraini authorities said they have seized a boat smuggling explosives made in Iran and Syria into the Sunni-ruled kingdom, which quashed a Shiite-led uprising in 2011.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Central African Republic heavy weapons fire rang out in the north of Bangui early today in what the government said were clashes with Christian militias.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, China published results of an August-September audit on local government liabilities. It show a total local debt of $1.8 trillion at the end of June. The addition of explicit and implict debt guarantees raised the total to $2.95 trillion, about a third of the country’s GDP.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.32)
2013 Dec 30, Chinese police shot dead eight people during a "terrorist attack" in the western region of Xinjiang, raising the death toll from violent clashes there to at least 35 since November.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Congolese security forces repelled a wave of coordinated attacks against symbols of power in the capital Kinshasa and other cities, leaving dozens of assailants dead in a day of fierce gunbattles. Congo's army clashed with followers of religious leader Paul Joseph Mukungubila Mutombo in the eastern mining city of Lubumbashi. The clashes left over 100 people dead and Mutombo went on the run.
(AFP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, An Egyptian court sentenced 139 Islamist supporters of ousted Pres. Morsi to two years in jail over violence that erupted in July. Egyptian security arrested Anas Beltagi, the son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, along with two other on charges of inciting violence.
(AFP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Greece unidentified assailants opened fire on the German ambassador's residence in Athens with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in an attack seen as an attempt to sour relations between debt-laden Greece and its biggest creditor nation. Michalis Liapis (62), a former transport minister, received a four-year suspended sentence for driving an uninsured luxury car with fake license plates in an apparent tax dodge.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Indonesia Islamic police in the sharia stronghold of Banda Aceh seized thousands of firecrackers and cardboard trumpets after the city administration banned New Year's Eve celebrations for the first time.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, Iraqi security forces killed 10 gunmen in clashes that broke out in the Ramadi area as they tore down a year-old Sunni Arab protest camp. Iraqi forces battled militants in Fallujah as clashes spread after an anti-government protest camp was demolished.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Lebanese forces fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace, the first time they have done so since Syria's uprising broke out three years ago.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Libyan forces in Misrata captured Saifallah Benahssine, the leader of Tunisia's Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia. Benahssine had declared loyalty to al Qaeda and was accused of inciting an attack on the US embassy in Tunisia in September 2012.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Madagascar, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, the candidate supported by strongman Andry Rajoelina, held a seemingly unassailable 53% lead in the island's run-off presidential poll, with ballots from over 96% of the voting stations in.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, A Mauritania judicial committee, chaired by President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, met and decided to create a court to try crimes of slavery.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, Myanmar's reformist President Thein Sein granted a pardon to people convicted of or charged with a variety of political offenses. It wasn't immediately clear how many people are covered by the pardon.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Pakistan's national sharia court, which hears cases under the country's Islamic legislation, appointed a female judge for the first time in its 33-year history. Ashraf Jehan (56) made history as she took the oath in Karachi.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Russia a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded trolleybus in the southern city of Volgograd, killing 15 people. It was the second bloody terrorist attack to hit Volgograd in as many days and the third in recent months.
(AP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Senegal Sidy Lamine Niass, founder and CEO of Walfadjri, one of the country’s largest media groups, was detained after accusing President Macky Sall of building up wealth through corruption.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, Disarmament teams returned Scandinavian escort vessels to port as they accepted an end-of-year deadline for the removal of Syrian chemical weapons could no longer be met. Norway and Denmark were providing ships to transfer the the chemical weapons to the Cape Ray, an American-owned ship fitted with equipment to break down lethal chemical agents to an industrial toxic waste.
(AFP, 12/31/13)(Econ, 12/14/13, p.58)
2013 Dec 30, Thai police staged a protest to show their frustration after weeks of dealing with aggressive and often violent anti-government demonstrators, with officers saying that the order for them to show restraint has left them vulnerable and humiliated.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, The UN appealed for the Syrian army and rebel fighters to allow urgent aid to reach a Palestinian district of southern Damascus where it said 15 people have died of malnutrition in recent months.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In southern Yemen 5 soldiers and 3 militants were killed during an attack on an army position in which the assailants also abducted four troops.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Venezuela’s Pres. Nicolas Maduro acknowledged that annual inflation had hit 56%.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 30, In Zimbabwe the owners of mainly small businesses selling cheap consumer goods said they were informed of a weekend statement by empowerment minister Francis Nhema that they have been allowed to continue trading as authorities reversed an ultimatum for them to close their businesses by Jan 1.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 31, President Obama’s besieged Affordable Care Act suffered another setback with a US Supreme Court justice issuing a temporary injunction late today preventing enforcement of the law’s contraception mandate against a group of Roman Catholic nuns who provide care to low-income elderly patients.
(SFC, 1/2/14, p.2)
2013 Dec 31, In San Francisco Uber driver Syed Muzaffar of Union City fatally struck Sophia Liu (6) at a crosswalk on Polk Street near the Civic Center. In 2018 Muzaffar was found guilty of manslaughter.
(SFC, 8/3/18, p.D1)
2013 Dec 31, US officials said Slovakia has accepted three Uighur prisoners from Guantanamo Bay who had posed a difficult resettlement challenge.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In northern Afghanistan gunshots erupted during a rally in Samangan province where a group was protesting the selection of candidates for the 2014 elections, killing 2 people and wounding eight.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A cyclone ripped across northwest Australia, closing ports and threatening mining operations in the sparsely populated Pilbara region.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In the Central African Republic Christian militiamen attacked an army base in Bangui, as French and African soldiers struggled to contain sectarian violence. Thousands of angry people flooded the runway of the international airport in Bangui, shouting slogans against Michel Djotodia, the nation's Muslim president, who grabbed power in a coup nine months ago.
(AFP, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In China six herders who tried to defend grazing land from expropriation by a forestry firm were sentenced in the resource-rich Inner Mongolia region. The case has sparked protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Egypt unknown assailants attacked a natural gas pipeline in the Sinai.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In India a pregnant girl (16) died in Kolkata following severe burn injuries. She had been raped two times On Oct 25-26 and ended up in a hospital on Dec 23 with sever burn injuries. Her family said she was set on fire by associates of those who had gang raped her.
(AP, 1/7/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Indonesia more than 19,000 people were displaced by the Mount Sinabung volcano on Sumatra that has been erupting for months and shot lava into the air nine times overnight.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Indonesian police shot dead six suspected terrorists and arrested another in a New Year's Eve raid near Jakarta that broke out into an hours-long gun battle.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A senior Iranian official said six world powers and Iran have made good progress in expert talks in Geneva on how to roll out last month's landmark nuclear deal which obliges Tehran to suspend its most sensitive atom work.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Iraq clashes between security forces and gunmen killed four more people in Ramadi, a day after the closure of a sprawling anti-government protest site.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, days before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due back in the Middle East to press the two sides to reach a framework peace deal. This release was the third of four groups to go free.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A Jordanian security official said British resident Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian-Palestinian critic of Jordan's monarchy, has been charged with incitement and insulting the king after calling for revolt on social media.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Myanmar freed five prisoners and more were expected to be released next week as part of a pledge by the country's president to free all political prisoners by the end of 2013.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Marathon talks between the leaders of Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities broke down without agreement to ease tensions that have led to one of the worst years of rioting in the British province for a decade.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, South Sudan's warring factions agreed to attend peace talks in Ethiopia. Government troops fought renegade forces loyal to former VP Riek Machar as well as a pro-Machar tribal militia known as the "White Army," as rebels tried to retake Bor.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Syria a missile struck a bus in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, setting it on fire and killing at least 10 people. State media reported that a rebel-fired mortar shell killed 3 people in Homs. ISIS fighters returned the torture-marked corpse of a doctor-cum-commander with Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist rebel group which had hitherto been an ally.
(AP, 12/31/13)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.39)
2013 Dec 31, In Turkey another lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced his resignation amid a high-level bribery and corruption probe. Hasan Hami Yildirim had criticised the government forfor exerting pressure on the judiciary over the corruption.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In southern Yemen armed men including a suicide bomber tried to storm police headquarters in Aden. Two guards were killed and at least 6 people wounded. Two suspects were arrested.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec, Chikungunya fever, a mosquito-born virus common in Africa and Asia, was first detected in the Caribbean region on St. Martin and soon spread across across the region and onto South and Central America.
(Econ, 5/10/14, p.35)
2013 Dec, In Afghanistan a single shot from a British sniper killed six Taliban insurgents when the bullet hit the trigger switch of a would-be suicide bomber's device in in Kakaran, Helmand province.
(AFP, 4/1/14)
2013 Dec, Ercan Findikoglu was arrested at Frankfurt Airport. US authorities accused him of masterminding a group that carried out the online heists between 2011 and 2013 and stealing almost $60 million in a series of hacking raids against credit card companies.
(AP, 12/2/14)
2013 Dec, In Nigeria two private letters to Pres. Jonathan were leaked. One by central bank governor Lamido Sanusi accused the state oil company of failing to account for $50 billion in oil sales. The 2nd by former president Obasanjo slammed Pres. Jonathan’s poor performance and told him not to stand for re-election.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.78)
2013 Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel authored “Big Data as a Lens On Human Culture."
(SSFC, 12/29/13, p.F2)
2013 Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell authored “Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever."
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.85)
2013 Reza Aslan authored “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth."
(SSFC, 7/28/13, p.F1)
2013 Michael Axworthy authored “Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic."
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.78)
2013 Radley Balko authored “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces."
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.73)
2013 Karima Bennoune authored “Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories From the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism."
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.72)
2013 Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin authored “The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness – 751 Books to Cure What Ails You."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.97)
2013 Jagdish Bhagwati authored “Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries.
(Econ, 4/20/13, p.88)
2013 Lee Billings, American science journalist, authored “Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars."
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.88)
2013 Nick Bilton authored “Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal."
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.F3)
2013 Joshua Bloom authored “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party."
(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.F1)
2013 Max Boot authored “Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present."
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.80)
2013 Joshua Bloom authored “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party."
(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.F1)
2013 Matthew Morse Booker authored “Down By the Bay: San Francisco’s History Between the Tides."
(SSFC, 6/23/13, p.F5)
2013 Bill Bryson authored “One Summer: America, 1927."
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.F4)
2013 Oliver Bullough authored “The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation." The book “traces the life of Father Dmitry Dudko, an Orthodox priest who exemplified both resistance to Soviet rule and defeat at its hands."
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.82)
2013 Robert Calderisi authored “Earthly Mission: The Catholic Church and World Development."
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.81)
2013 Rory Carroll authored “Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela."
(Econ, 3/9/13, p.83)
2013 Christian Caryl authored “Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century.
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.82)
2013 Napoleon Chagnon authored “Noble Savages: My Life Among the Two Dangerous Tribes – the Yanomamo and the Anthropologists."
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.80)
2013 Christopher Clark authored “Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914."
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.86)
2013 T.J. Clark authored “Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica."
(SSFC, 9/1/13, p.F6)
2013 Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt authored “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business."
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.F1)
2013 Paul Collier authored “How Migration Is changing Our World."
(Econ, 9/28/13, p.78)
2013 Alfredo Corchado authored “Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter’s Journey through a Country’s Descent Into Darkness."
(SSFC, 6/16/13, p.F4)
2013 David Day authored “Antarctica: A Biography.
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.81)
2013 Angus Deaton authored “The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.100)
2013 Michael Deibert authored “Congo: Between Hope and Despair."
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.54)
2013 Daniel Dennett authored “Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking."
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.81)
2013 Swiss novelist Joel Dicker authored “The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair." In 2014 the popular novel was published in English.
(Econ, 4/19/14, p.78)
2013 Frank Dikotter authored “The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1945-57."
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.80)
2013 Toby Dodge authored: “Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism."
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.84)
2013 Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey authored “The Great Indian Phone Book: How Cheap Mobile Phones Change Business, Politics and Daily Life."
(Econ, 3/23/13, p.88)
2013 Barbara Dreyfus authored “Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street’s Largest Hedge-Fund Disaster," the story of the collapse of the Amaranth hedge fund.
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.86)
2013 Susan Dunn authored “1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler-the Election amid the Storm."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.39)
2013 Greg Easterbrook authored “The King of Sports: Football’s Impact on America."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.92)
2013 Charles Ellis authored “What It Takes: Seven Secrets of Success from the World’s Greatest Professional Firms."
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.86)
2013 Shereen El Feki authored “Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World."
(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.F1)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.81)
2013 Charles Emerson authored “1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.85)
2013 Lara Feigel authored “The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War." Her narrative traces the tempestuous experiences of five writers (Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Rose Macaulay, Hilde Spiel and the novelist Henry Green) through five years in London and Ireland, followed by postwar Vienna and Berlin.
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.74)(www.amazon.com/dp/1608199843)
2013 Noah Feldman authored “Cool War: The Future of Global Competition."
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.80)
2013 James Fergusson authored “The World’s Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.87)
2013 Gavin Francis authored “Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins."
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.89)
2013 Estelle B. Freedman authored “Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation."
(SSFC, 9/15/13, p.F7)
2013 Chrystia Freeland authored “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else."
(Econ, 3/15/14, p.57)
2013 Lawrence Friedman authored “Strategy: A History."
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.88)
2013 Malcolm Gladwell authored “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants."
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.F3)
2013 Robert Gellately authored “Stalin’s Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War."
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.82)
2013 Charles Glass authored “The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II."
(SSFC, 6/16/13, p.F1)
2013 Vic Gatrell authored “The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London’s Golden Age."
(Econ, 9/28/13, p.79)
2013 Malcolm Gladwell authored “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants."
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.89)
2013 Doris Kearns Goodwin authored “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism."
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.85)
2013 David Graeber author “The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement."
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.F3)
2013 A.C. Grayling authored “The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism."
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.98)
2013 Clive Hamilton authored “Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.80)
2013 Kai Hammerich and Richard Lewis authored “Fish Can’t See Water: How National Cultures Can make of Break Your Corporate Strategy."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.99)
2013 Jarle Hansen authored “Al-Shabab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.87)
2013 Jason Healy edited “A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace, 1986-2012."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.75)
2013 Mark Huband and I.B. Tauris authored “Trading Secrets: Spies And Intelligence in an Age of Terror.
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.82)
2013 Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane authored “Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.75)
2013 Douglas Hurd authored “Disraeli: or The Two Lives," a biography of British PM Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881).
(Econ, 8/3/13, p.71)
2013 Sheila Miyoshi Jager authored “Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea."
(Econ, 7/27/13, p.68)
2013 Steven Johnson authored “Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age."
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.72)
2013 The 400-page, 7th edition of the “World Atlas of Wine" by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson was published.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.G1)
2013 Paul Kennedy authored “Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War."
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.79)
2013 Roger Knight authored “Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.82)
2013 Amana Fontanella-Khan authored “Pink Sari Revolution: A Tale of Women and Power in India."
(SSFC, 9/1/13, p.F2)
2013 Eric Klinenberg authored “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone."
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.83)
2013 A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin authored “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works."
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.73)
2013 Jaron Lanier authored “Who Owns the Future."
(http://tinyurl.com/y7zo7bpj)(SSFC, 5/12/13, p.F1)
2013 Andrei Lankov authored “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia."
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.86)
2013 Charlie LeDuff authored “Detroit: An American Autopsy."
(SSFC, 2/10/13, p.F3)
2013 Michael Levi authored “The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity and the Battle for America’s Future."
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.82)
2013 Diarmaid MacCulloch authored “Silence: A Christian History."
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.80)
2013 Jonathan Macey authored “The Death of Corporate Reputation: How Integrity Has Been Destroyed on Wall Street."
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.76)
2013 Kishore Mahbubani, former Singaporean diplomat, authored “The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World."
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.80)
2013 David Marsh authored “Europe’s Deadlock: How the Euro crisis Could Be Solved – And Why It Won’t Happen."
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.73)
2013 Felix Martin authored “Money: The Unauthorized Biography."
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.88)
2013 Mark Mazzetti authored “The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.
(SSFC, 4/14/13, p.F1)
2013 Chuck McFadden authored “Trailblazer: A Biography of Jerry Brown."
(SSFC, 5/5/13, p.F1)
2013 Margaret MacMillan authored “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914."
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.86)
2013 Mariana Mazzucato authored "The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking public vs. private sector myths." Here she argued that American technological prowess is owed in large part to the strong influence of the federal government.
(Econ., 1/16/21, p.69)
2013 Catherine Merridale authored “Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.81)
2013 Charles Moore authored “Margaret Thatcher – The Authorized Biography, Volume I: From Grantham to the Falklands."
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.81)
2013 Evgeny Morozov authored “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism."
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.D1)
2013 Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir authored “Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much."
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.71)
2013 Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow authored “The Story of Spanish.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.80)
2013 Robin Nagle authored “Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks With the Sanitation Workers of New York City."
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.F5)
2013 Victor S. Navasky authored “The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power."
(SSFC, 8/25/13, p.F4)
2013 Robert M. Neer authored “Napalm: An American Biography."
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.F1)
2013 Gavin Newsom with Lisa Dickey authored “Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government."
(SSFC, 3/3/13, p.F1)
2013 Lynne Olson authored “Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.39)(http://lynneolson.com/those-angry-days/)
2013 Jerry Oppenheimer authored “Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty."
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.71)
2013 George Packer authored “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.85)
2013 Mark Pendergrast authored “For God, Country & Coca-Cola."
(http://markpendergrast.com/coca-cola)
2013 Nathaniel Philbrick authored “Bunker Hill, A City, a Siege, a Revolution." The battle was fought on June 17, 1775 near Boston.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.77)
2013 Claudia Roth Pierpont authored “Roth Unbound: A Writer and His Books," a biography of Philip Roth (b.1933).
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.88)
2013 Thomas Piketty, an economist at the Paris School of Economics, authored “Capital in the Twenty-First Century." An English version was published in 2014. Piketty argued that wealth naturally accumulates and concentrates, so that familial riches are ever more critical to determining an individual’s success or failure.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.60)(Econ, 5/3/14, p.12)(Econ 5/20/17, p.68)
2013 Paul Polak and Mal Warwick authored “The Business Solution to Poverty: Designing Products and Services for Three Billion New Customers."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.101)
2013 Kenneth Pollack authored “Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb and American Strategy."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.89)
2013 Michael Pollan, food intellectual, authored “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation."
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.76)
2013 Anita Raghavan authored “The Billionaire’s Apprentice: The Rise of the Indian-American Elite and the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund."
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.81)
2013 Alexandra Richie authored “Warsaw 1944: Hitler and the Warsaw Uprising."
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.83)
2013 Thomas Rid authored “Cyberwar Will Not Take Place."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.75)
2013 Bruce Riedel authored “Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the Brink and Back."
(Econ, 5/25/13, p.85)
2013 Stein Ringen authored “Nation of Devils: Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Obedience."
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.87)
2013 Amanda Ripley authored “The Smartest Kids in the World: and How They Got That Way."
(Econ, 8/17/13, p.69)
2013 Mary Roach authored “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal."
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.82)
2013 David Runciman authored “The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present."
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.87)
2013 Rudiger Safranski authored “Goethe - Kunstwerk des Lebens “ (Goethe: Life as a Work of Art). In 2017 David Dollenmayer translated it from German to English.
(Econ 6/17/17, p.76)
2013 David Sainsbury authored “Progressive Capitalism: How to Achieve Economic Growth, Liberty and Social Justice."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.87)
2013 Sheryl Sandberg authored “Lean In: Women and the Will To Lead."
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.82)
2013 Ian Sansom authored “Paper: An Elegy."
(SSFC, 5/26/13, p.F5)
2013 Peter Savodnik authored “The Interloper" Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union." Oswald (1939-1963), the assassin of President Kennedy (1963), spent 1959-1962 in the Soviet Union.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.87)
2013 Orville Schell and John Delury authored “Wealth and Power" China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century."
(SSFC, 8/4/13, p.F3)
2013 Phillip Schewe authored “Maverick Genius: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson."
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.81)
2013 Eric Schlosser authored “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety."
(SSFC, 9/22/13, p.F1)
2013 Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy authored “The Siege: Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj." This covered the Nov 26, 2008, terrorist attack in Mumbai, India.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.81)
2013 Lynne Segal authored “Out of Time: the Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing."
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.86)
2013 Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze authored “An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.74)
2013 Marci Shore authored “The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe."
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.80)
2013 Earl Shorris authored “The Art of Freedom: Teaching the Humanities to the Poor."
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.F4)
2013 Russell Shorto authored “Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City."
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.95)
2013 Mona Siddiqui authored “Christians, Muslims and Jesus."
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.70)
2013 Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker authored “Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas," an ensemble of essays n the city by a range of contributors.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.F4)
2013 David Stockman authored “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America."
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.82)
2013 Brad Stone authored “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon."
(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.F2)
2013 Joe Studwell authored “How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region."
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.72)
2013 John Sweeney authored “The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology."
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.79)
2013 Frederick Taylor authored “The Downfall of Money: Germany’s Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.91)
2013 Jeremy Treglown authored “Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936."
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.71)
2013 Nick Turse authored “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam."
(SSFC, 2/10/13, p.F5)
2013 Avi Tuschman authored “Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us."
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.74)
2013 Fred Vogelstein authored “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution."
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.F5)
2013 Franz de Waal authored “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates."
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.98)
2013 Steven Watts authored “Self-Help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America."
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.90)
2013 Robert Wilson authored “Matthew Brady: Portraits of a Nation." Brady’s images of the American civil war were the first detailed photographic chronology of a major conflict.
(SSFC, 8/25/13, p.F5)(Econ, 8/10/13, p.72)
2013 Lawrence Wright authored “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief."
(SSFC, 1/20/13, p.F1)
2013 Liao Yiwu, exiled Chinese poet, authored his memoir “For a Song and a Hundred Sons: A Poet’s Journey Through a Chinese Prison."
(SSFC, 7/7/13, p.F4)
2013 Gordon Young, former resident of Flint, Michigan, authored “Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City."
(SFC, 11/26/14, p.C4)
2013 Malala Yousafzai (16), the Pakistani girl shot in the head in 2012 by the Taliban, authored “I Am Malala."
(SSFC, 10/13/13, p.A4)
2013 Juan Zarate authored “Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare."
(Econ, 4/19/14, p.22)
2013 The film "The Purge" was released. It centers on the emergence of a totalitarian political party dubbed “the New Founding Fathers of America", who sanction an annual “purge" each year in which all crime, including murder, arson, theft and rape are legal.
(AP, 5/29/20)
2013 "Parts Unknown," hosted by Anthony Bourdain (1957-2018), began airing on CNN. Each trip was an adventure, part travelogue, part history lesson, part love letter to exotic foods. There had been nothing quite like it on the staid news network, and it became an immediate hit.
(AP, 6/8/18)
2013 Aileen Lee, the founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined the term Unicorn to represent startups valued over $1 billion and the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn_(finance))
2013 The US Labor Dept., celebrating its 100 year anniversary, embarked on its “Books that Shaped Work in America" project. The reading list began with 92 books, but additions continued.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.D1)(http://www.dol.gov/)
2013 Arkansas passed legislation that allows public schools to offer an elective course on the Bible, but doesn't require schools to do so.
(SFC, 3/21/19, p.A6)
2013 The SF Presidio by federal law was to be self sufficient by this time.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.A22)
2013 In San Francisco Bill Bowes (d.2016), biotech investor, donated $46.4 million to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts was expected to open in 2020.
(SFC, 4/26/18, p.D1)
2013 DoorDash Inc., a San Francisco–based on-demand food delivery service, was founded by Stanford students Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, Tony Xu and Evan Moor.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoorDash)
2013 In Kansas Robert Vicino (59) began developing his $25 million Vivos Survival Shelter inside a former limestone mine in Atchinson. He offered families RV space for $25,000 and guaranteed a year’s worth of food, water and generator fuel in the event of some dire calamity.
(SSFC, 9/15/13, p.A17)
2013 The 141-year-old police force in Camden, New Jersey, was disbanded and reconstituted as a county-wide force. Most of its laid-off officers were hired back at lower salaries and with fewer benefits.
(Econ., 7/6/20, p.18)
2013 Panasonic moved its North American headquarters to Newark, New Jersey.
(Econ, 9/23/17, p.26)
2013 John-Paul Hodnett, a graduate student, unearthed the first fossils of 300-million-year-old shark’s teeth at a dig east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He later named the 6.7-foot (2 meter) monster Dracopristis hoffmanorum, or Hoffman’s Dragon Shark, in honor of the New Mexico family that owns the land in the Manzano Mountains where the fossils were found. Eastern New Mexico back then was covered by a seaway that extended deep into North America.
(AP, 4/16/21)
2013 The mobile phone app Yik Yak was created by Tyler Droll (24) and Brooks Buffington (24), recent graduates of South Carolina’s Furman Univ.
(SSFC, 3/15/15, p.D2)
2013 Seattle-based Juno Therapeutics, a biotech firm focused on immuno-oncology, was founded through a collaboration of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and pediatrics partner Seattle Children's Research Institute.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Therapeutics)(Econ, 10/22/16, p.57)
2013 Heroin use in America reached 680,000 this year as compared to 370,000 in 2007.
(Econ, 11/22/14, p.25)
2013 A synthetic, designer drug called flakka, aka gravel, appeared in the US for $5 or less per vial. It could be snorted, injected of swallowed and led to heightened awareness followed by severe paranoia.
(SFC, 5/1/15, p.A11)
2013 Civilian casualties in Afghanistan were estimated by the UN at 2,959 for this year.
(SSFC, 2/9/14, p.A5)
2013 The World Bank ranked Algeria 152nd in its global index of business friendliness.
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.49)
2013 In Argentina the local government of Buenos Aires conferred formal status on “cartoneros," workers who comb the city for cardboard and plastic to sell to recyclers.
(Econ., 4/25/15, p.36)
2013 Argentina became the first country to be censured by the IMF for misrepresenting GDP and prices.
(Econ, 2/13/15, p.29)
2013 The Catholic Univ. of Argentina put the number of poor people in the country at 10 million. The government said 1.2 million.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.32)
2013 Rosario, Argentina’s third largest city with 1.3 million people, had the country’s highest murder rate.
(Econ, 11/28/15, p.32)
2013 Austrian researchers announced that they had coaxed pluripotent stem cells made from skin cells into differentiating and growing into objects known as organoids.
(Econ, 11/1/14, p.74)
2013 In Azerbaijan Ilgar Mammadov, the leader of a rights group called Republican Alternative (ReAl), was convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail for organizing and taking part in demonstrations in the northern town of Ismailli against a provincial leader. He was released in 2018.
(Reuters, 8/13/18)
2013 In Bangladesh some 500 people were killed this year in political clashes, making it one of the most violent years since independence.
(Econ, 1/11/14, p.31)
2013 British historian Peter Hart authored “The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War."
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.88)
2013 Chris Sheldrick founded the British firm What3Words. The company created a geocoding system for the simple communication of locations with a resolution of three meters.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words)(Econ, 7/2/16, p.71)
2013 The British Virgin Islands with 30,000 inhabitants pulled in $92 billion in foreign direct investment this year.
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.38)
2013 The Chinese adventure film “Journey to the West" was released. It grossed over $205 million.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.105)
2013 The Chinese firm DJI introduce the Phantom drone. It brought professional quality aerial photography within the reach of general users.
(Econ, 9/26/15, p.80)
2013 China’s Pres. Xi Jinping first spoke of a new Silk Road during a visit to Kazakhstan this year. The first contracts bearing the name OBOR (One Belt, One Road) followed in 2014.
(Econ, 7/2/16, p.38)
2013 China reported that inspectors had found nearly half the rice tested in restaurants and canteens in the southern city of Guangzhou was laced with cadmium.
(Econ 6/10/17, p.18)
2013 Miniso, a Chinese home-goods store, was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Ye Guofu and Japanese designer Junya Miyake.
(Econ 6/24/17, p.59)
2013 Khaled Mohieddin, Egyptian leftist opposition leader, was awarded the Nile medal, Egypt's highest honor.
(Reuters, 5/6/18)
2013 In Ethiopia Fikru Maru, an Ethiopian-born Swedish doctor, was arrested after a years-long dispute over equipment for his cardiology clinic in Addis Ababa. A terrorism charge came years later after he and others were accused of starting a deadly fire in the Qilinto prison where they were held. Maru was released in 2018.
(AP, 5/11/18)
2013 French judges started tapping Sarkozy's phones after opening a formal investigation into allegations that the late former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi helped finance his 2007 election campaign. This only was made public on March 7, 2014.
(AFP, 3/7/14)
2013 In France Xavier Niel, telecom entrepreneur, co-founded “42," a computer programming school with a capacity of 2,500 students that charges no tuition fees. The number is the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything," from the sci-fi classic "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.57)(Econ, 9/30/17, SR p.8)
2013 In Germany economist Bernd Lucke founded the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In 2015 he was ousted by Frauke Petry. In 2017 she was ousted by Alexander Gauland.
(Econ, 10/8/16, p.48)(Econ, 4/29/17, p.40)
2013 In Germany nuclear power accounted for 16% of the country’s power.
(Econ, 6/15/13, SR p.11)
2013 The population of Grenada was about 100,000.
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.78)
2013 The population of Guam was about 180,000.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Guatemala declared a national emergency regarding its coffee production. Officials estimated that coffee rust had affected 70 percent of the nation's crop.
(AP, 5/31/14)
2013 Honduras passed a law adding employment and economic development zones (ZEDES) to municipalities and departments as units of the republic.
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.25)
2013 Kishore Biyani (b.1961) founded the Future Group, an Indian conglomerate based in Mumbai.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Group)(Econ., 9/5/20, p.55)
2013 In India an investigation began in Madhya Pradesh state with the arrest of 20 people accused of impersonating candidates in technical examinations. By 2015 investigators believed that $3 billion in kickbacks over five years took place from students and their families and about 50 people connected to the Vyapam scam had turned up dead.
(Econ, 8/1/15, p.35)
2013 Iran arrested Babak Zanjani (38) as part of a crackdown on alleged corruption during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2016 he was sentenced to death. His fortune was estimated at $14 billion.
(AP, 12/3/16)
2013 Iran’s population was about 77 million.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.11)
2013 Iraqi deaths due to sectarian strife left some 9000 dead this year.
(Econ, 3/22/14, p.49)
2013 Waze, an Israeli car navigation service sold itself to Google for $966 million.
(Econ, 12/13/14, p.70)
2013 Wix, an Israeli software company that helps people create websites, went public.
(Econ, 12/13/14, p.70)
2013 In Japan “Yo-kai," a word meaning supernatural spirits, began as a cartoon series. It was later adopted for TV and made into a hit video game after which toy maker Banda Namco won merchandise rights.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.56)
2013 Japan passed an anti-bullying law that required schools to report cases of bullying. This led to a sharp rise in the number of known cases. 224,450 were reported in 2015.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.35)
2013 Kazakhstan began producing oil from the Kashagan oilfield in the northern Caspian Sea. The project was eight years behind schedule and at $43 billion was $30 billion over budget. Production lasted only a few weeks due to leaks of poisonous gas. A restart was hoped for in 2016.
(Econ, 10/11/14, p.73)
2013 In Kenya biometrics were introduced to the refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaab. This led to a steep drop in their recorded populations saving the World Food Program some $1.4 million a month.
(Econ, 2/11/17, p.50)
2013 Teachers in Kenya, according to a World Bank report, were absent from classrooms about half the time.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.42)
2013 The population of Kiribati was about 103,248.
(SFC, 6/14/13, p.A8)
2013 The Kurds were granted the ".krd" domain name by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a US-based non-profit organization that manages internet addresses.
(Reuters, 4/14/16)
2013 A third of Laos was still contaminated by unexploded American ordnance dating from the Vietnam war.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.50)
2013 The American government offered $1 million for information that would help dismantle a wildlife trafficking network, which it believed was headed by Vixay Keosavang, a former soldier in the Lao People’s Army. Keosavang operated from a walled compound in the Laos province of Bolikhamxay.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.49)
2013 In Liberia Katie Meyler, an American woman, founded the More Than Me Academy at West Point in Monrovia. It was the first of 18 schools that the US charity opened in the the country. The charity founded the school specifically to empower and educate local girls to save them from prostitution and sexual coercion. In 2018 the US investigative site ProPublica described how girls were systematically raped at the West Point school.
(AFP, 10/16/18)(AP, 4/21/19)
2013 In Lithuania the book “Raudonoji Dalia" (Red Dalia) was published and caused major controversy. It accused Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite of having worked for Russia’s Soviet-era spy agency.
(http://daliagrybauskaite.blogspot.com/2014/04/red-dalia-hidden-pages-of-dalia.html)
2013 The population of the Maldives archipelago was about 400,000.
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.38)
2013 Mauritania imposed a ban on plastic bags, saying an estimated 70% of cattle and sheep in the capital of Nouakchatt were dying from ingesting plastic bags.
(SFC, 5/30/15, p.A2)
2013 Mexico’s state of Sonora banned bullfighting.
(Econ., 4/4/15, p.33)
2013 Mexico this year registered over 62,000 cases of Dengue fever, a mosquito-born tropical disease.
(SSFC, 5/4/14, p.A4)
2013 Moldova’s population was about 3.6 million.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.56)
2013 The population Monaco was about 36,000. Its per capital income was over 150,000 and the unemployment rate stood at zero. Many big projects were connected to the Societe des Bains de Mer de Monaco, which was 69% owned by Prince Albert II (55).
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A22)
2013 Authorities in the Netherlands discovered that Bulgarian scammers were collecting fraudulent payments for chile care. A number of Bulgarian citizens were encouraged by a gang to briefly register at an address in the Netherlands and to retroactively apply for a €6,000–8,000 health care and housing allowance.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal)(Econ., 1/23/21, p.42)
2013 Nigeria created the 7th Division to defend Maiduguri, but it was poorly equipped, disillusioned and dwindled due to desertion and losses.
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.47)
2013 Nigeria’s population stood at about 170 million.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.55)
2013 Pakistan established its National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA).
(AP, 6/3/17)
2013 The government of Papua New Guinea repealed a law that criminalized sorcery and allowed accusations of witchcraft as a defense in murder cases.
(Econ 7/15/17, p.35)
2013 The Pitcairn Islands, home to 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, hoped to establish a marine protected area of some 830,000 square km in its exclusive economic zone.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.50)
2013 Puerto Rico handled 40% of all the cocaine entering the US.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.36)
2013 Puerto Rico’s current debt stood between $52 billion and $70 billion, depending on how it was measured.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.84)
2013 A change in Romanian legislation allowed convicts to claim 30 days off their sentences for every work they publish while in prison.
(Econ, 10/24/15, p.50)
2013 In Romania's a law that came into effect that made it illegal for lawmakers to employ close relatives to work in their parliamentary offices.
(AP, 6/22/16)
2013 Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, adopted a master plan carving up the city into zones defined by the types of activities allowed in each.
(Econ, 3/4/17, p.37)
2013 Singapore writer Kevin Kwan authored “Crazy Rich Asians." It became the first in a trilogy and was tuned into a movie in 2017.
(SFC, 3/31/17, p.E17)
2013 Singapore overtook Tokyo and became the world’s third biggest trading center for foreign exchange.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.69)
2013 Stephen Ellis authored “External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990."
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.75)
2013 In South Africa Mzukisi Qobo and Prince Mashele authored “The Fall of the ANC: What Next?"
(http://tinyurl.com/ycy87fgk)(Econ 5/20/17, p.40)
2013 In South Africa 1,004 rhinos were poached in the country this year, a 50 percent increase from 2012.
(AFP, 1/17/14)
2013 The South Korean film “A Wedding Invitation," made by a subsidiary of CJ Corp., became a hit. It was made for the Chinese market with Chinese actors but a Korean crew.
(SFC, 5/9/16, p.68)
2013 South Korea signed the Hague Adoption Convention, which says that children should preferably be adopted by families in their own country.
(Econ, 5/23/15, p.31)
2013 South Korea began to pay child-care allowances and nursery-school fees to all parents regardless of income.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.14)
2013 In Sri Lanka a report published by the World Health Organization found kidney disease in 15 percent of adults across three affected districts. By 2015 the disease killed up to 20,000 people over the past 20 years and sickened another 70,000 to 400,000. Research has failed to determine the cause.
(AP, 1/18/15)
2013 Sweden’s population was about 9.5 million. 67% were members of the Lutheran Church of Sweden.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Basel Rajoub, Syrian composer and saxophone player, and his ensemble Soriana launched their first CD, a meld of jazz and Middle Eastern improvisation.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.85)
2013 Istanbul’s celebrated Haydarpasa railway station stopped seeing train traffic after being shut for restoration work and a major upgrade of Turkey's railway network.
(AFP, 2/15/18)
2013 An ATM in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card, or touched a button. Kaspersky Lab later discovered that the bank’s internal computers had been penetrated by malware that allowed cybercriminals to record their every move. The scope of this attack on more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations could make it one of the largest bank thefts ever. The theft was discovered when mules of the Carbanak gang, named after the malware used, were seen picking up cash apparently being randomly dispensed in Kiev.
(http://tinyurl.com/oq4jfxu)(Econ, 7/16/16, World IF p.8)
2013 The UN forecast a population rise from 7.2 billion today to 9.6 billion in 2050.
(Econ, 6/22/13, p.64)
2013 In Vietnam the Son Doong caves, discovered in 1991 and said to be the world’s largest, opened to visitors in Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Bố Trạch District, Quảng Bình Province.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_S%C6%A1n_%C4%90o%C3%B2ng)(Econ, 2/18/17, p.36)
2013 - 2015 The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone killed more than 11,000 people.
(Econ, 4/18/20, p.13)
Go to January 2014 : http://www.timelines.ws/21stcent/2014_1.HTML
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
End of file
Return to home
2013 Oct 1, Obamacare, Pres. Obama’s health insurance exchanges, were launched. The launch was plagued with glitches.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.38)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.30)
2013 Oct 1, The US Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown as a protracted dispute over President Barack Obama's signature health care law reached a boiling point, forcing some 800,000 federal workers off the job. Obama readied a midday statement to the nation as Democrats and Republicans maintained a blame-each-other duel on Capitol Hill.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Three Venezuelan diplomats were ordered out of the United States in response to their government's decision to boot three US officials from Venezuela, including the highest-ranking US envoy in the country.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, California’s Safer Consumer Products Regulations law went into effect. It was designed to educate consumers about harmful chemicals in products.
(SFC, 9/28/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 1, Colorado teenager Austin Reed Sigg (18), who confessed to abducting, killing and dismembering a 10-year-old girl last year, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault and also to the botched kidnapping of a female jogger months before the killing.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Michigan finalized a deal to lease Detroit’s 983-acre Bell Isle park for 30 years.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.32)
2013 Oct 1, The 70-year-old NYC Opera announced it was shutting down and would file for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.34)
2013 Oct 1, Wells Fargo, the largest US home lender, said it has agreed to an $869 million settlement with Freddie Mac to resolved disputes over faulty loans before January 2009.
(SFC, 10/2/13, p.C1)
2013 Oct 1, A Bangladesh court sentenced to death a top opposition MP for genocide. Salauddin Quader Chowdhury became the first lawmaker to be convicted of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Dagestan 4 suspected militants, 3 policemen and 3 mountain guides were killed in a shootout during a random patrol some 50 km south of Makhachkala.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 1, A judge in Ecuador ordered the arrest of three retired senior military officers and the house arrest of seven more on charges of committing crimes against humanity almost 30 years ago.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Officers with France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency arrested a Paris woman (21) suspected of possible links to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed five police in in Tikrit, as an Al-Qaeda front group claimed a wave of deadly bombings.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Italian police arrested five Syrians and two Egyptians suspected of throwing overboard 13 asylum-seekers who drowned while attempting to swim ashore off Italy's coast.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, The International Criminal Court at The Hague unsealed a warrant for the arrest of Charles Ble Goude (40), ex-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo's youth leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity amid a bloody election standoff some three years ago.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe declared that he would raise the consumption tax in Arpil from 5% to 8%.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.43)
2013 Oct 1, In western Libya a gas pipeline supplying several power stations was cut for the third day running by Berber activists demanding constitutional rights.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Myanmar security forces raced to contain deadly violence in Rakhine state, after mobs torched Muslim homes and Buddhist villagers were attacked in a third day of unrest in a region plagued by intractable sectarian tensions. At least 7 people were killed, 5 of them Muslims. Mobs burned down at least 100 homes and shops in Thandwe city.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)(SFC, 10/2/13, p.A2)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 1, A judge in Qatar ordered an American couple, Matthew and Grace Huang, to remain jailed pending trial on charges of starving to death their 8-year-old adopted daughter. The couple claims the girl died in January from medical problems complicated by anorexia-like bouts.
(AP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, An advance group of international inspectors arrived in Syria to begin the ambitious task of overseeing the destruction of President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons program. Heavy clashes between Syrian troops and al-Qaida-linked fighters in northern Damascus killed at least 12 soldiers and pro-government militiamen.
(AP, 10/1/13)(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Russia Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, an imprisoned member of the punk band Pussy Riot, ended her 9-day hunger strike to protest working conditions at the women’s prison where she is serving 2-year sentence.
(SFC, 10/2/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 1, Tajikistan's parliament ratified a deal with Russia to extend by three decades Moscow's military presence in the Central Asian nation. A forthcoming vote in the docile upper house is seen as a formality in Tajikistan, where Pres. Imomali Rakhmon wields vast powers.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, A Thai court sentenced Sondhi Limthongkul, the founder of a pro-royalist protest movement, to 2 years in jail for insulting the monarchy by repeating comments deemed offensive made by a political rival.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Thailand authorities said flooding over the last two weeks has killed 23 people. 32 of the country’s 77 provinces were affected.
(SFC, 10/2/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 1, The Vatican bank, dogged for decades by scandals and opaque dealings, published the first annual report in its 125-year history.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, Vietnam authorities said Typhoon Wutip has left a trail of destruction with at least 5 people dead, dozens of fishermen missing in the South China Sea and thousands of homes damaged.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 1, In Yemen al-Qaeda gunmen were still holding hostages at an army headquarters in Mukalla, a day after the army was said to have recaptured the building.
(AFP, 10/1/13)
2013 Oct 2, The US government shutdown entered a 2nd day with no end in sight to the funding row in Congress that triggered it. President Obama met with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress to try to break a budget deadlock that has shut wide swaths of the federal government, but there was no breakthrough and both sides blamed each other.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, The United States and South Korea signed a new pact to deter North Korea's potential use of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction amid growing threats from Pyongyang.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, FBI agents in San Francisco arrested Ross William Ulbricht (29) at the Glen Park library and accused him of being the “Dread Prince Roberts," the once-anonymous mastermind behind an online drug marketplace known as Silk Road. Ulbricht used Bitcoin virtual currency for transactions and was indicted in Manhattan on Feb 4, 2014.
(SFC, 10/3/13, p.A1)(SFC, 2/5/14, p.A8)
2013 Oct 2, H. Ty Warner (69), billionaire creator of the Beanie Babies, pleaded guilty to a tax evasion charge in a Chicago court.
(SFC, 10/3/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 2, Tom Clancy (b.1947), best-selling author of military thrillers, died in Baltimore. His career took off with the publication of “The Hunt for Red October" (1985).
(SFC, 10/3/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 2, Three Afghan army soldiers died and four were wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Helmand province.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Albania said it has signed on former British PM Tony Blair as an adviser and lobbyist in its uphill struggle to join the 28-nation EU.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Brazilian police used pepper spray to stop hundreds of protesting Indians from storming Congress, clamping down on the second day of indigenous rights marches.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Egypt's interim government decided that insulting the flag and refusing to stand for the national anthem is an offense punishable by law. A high school student was killed when opponents and supporters of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi clashed in the city of Suez.
(AP, 10/2/13)(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, The Gambian government announced that the former British colony is pulling out of the Commonwealth with immediate effect, saying it would "never be a member of any neo-colonial institution."
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission (KPK) detained Akil Mochtar, the chief justice of the contitutional court, and seized almost $260,000 in cash. KPK said the money was a bribe to rig a court ruling over a disputed district election.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.52)
2013 Oct 2, In Iraq gunmen downed at dawn a military helicopter north of Baghdad during clashes, killing its 5-member crew. 4 militants were killed in the gunbattle outside the city of Tikrit. In Kirkuk a car bomb went off in a commercial area, killing one civilian and wounding 13 others.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Italy Silvio Berlusconi acknowledged defeat and announced he would support the government of Premier Enrico Letta in a confidence vote, a stunning about-face after defections in his party robbed him of the backing he needed to bring down the government.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, The International Criminal Court said it has issued an arrest warrant for Walter Barasa, a Kenyan journalist in Deputy President William Ruto’s political stronghold of Eldoret, for trying to bribe witnesses to withdraw testimony against Ruto.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Gunmen shot dead a Libyan marine colonel in city of Benghazi where militants have increasingly targeted security forces in a challenge to central government control.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Libya security guards fired shots to disperse a group of about 60 people who tried to storm the Russian embassy. One of the attackers was killed by the gunfire. Unconfirmed reports said that a Russian woman had murdered a Libyan.
(AP, 10/2/13)(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Lithuania’s foreign minister said his country could block Russia's road and rail access to its enclave of Kaliningrad if Moscow keeps pressuring its neighbors over their ties to the European Union.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Mali freed 23 prisoners arrested in clashes in the north, as part of a deal signed between the government and rebels in June.
(AFP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Mexico protesters clashed with riot police in Mexico City, leaving dozens injured as thousands of people marched to mark the anniversary of a massacre of students in 1968.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, In Pakistan two soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb near Awaran, a town near the Sep 24 quake epicenter. The military said they were there to distribute humanitarian aid. A separatist commander in Baluchistan threatened o step up attacks on security forces. Rebels have accused the central government of stealing the province's rich mineral deposits and the security forces of widespread human rights abuses.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Masked executioners in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip hanged a man who was convicted of stabbing to death an acquaintance over money, ignoring protests by human rights activists who say the territory's legal system is flawed.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Polish police said they have located Rev. Wojciech Gil, a priest sought by Interpol on suspicion he sexually abused children in the Dominican Republic, where he led a parish in the mountain town of Juncalito for eight years.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, Russian investigators charged 14 Greenpeace campaigners with piracy over an open-sea protest against Arctic oil drilling.
(AFP, 10/2/13)(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 2, Ukrainian police fired tear gas to disperse protesters trying to enter the city council building in the capital Kiev. Thousands of opposition protesters had gathered to rally against what they say is an illegitimate council session.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, The UN refugee agency said 17 countries including the United States, France and Australia have agreed to receive quotas of refugees fleeing the bloody conflict in Syria.
(AFP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, A Vietnam court jailed Le Quoc Quan, a prominent human rights activist, for two and a half years after finding him guilty on tax evasion charges supporters say were aimed at muzzling critics of the Communist Party.
(Reuters, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 2, A Yemeni court jailed five Al-Qaeda militants for up to 10 years for plotting a suicide bombing that killed 86 soldiers and wounded 171 others last year. Yemeni forces announced they had retaken control of army headquarters in Mukalla, killing the Al-Qaeda gunmen holed up there. At least 10 people including 3 soldiers were killed in the offensive.
(AFP, 10/2/13)(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, The United States and Japan agreed to modernize their defense alliance for the first time in 16 years to address growing concerns about North Korea's nuclear program, global terrorism, cyber intrusions and other 21st century threats.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, The US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins said North Korea’s main nuclear complex was discharging hot wastewater in a further sign that the country has restarted its Soviet-era nuclear reactor.
(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 3, The United States slapped sanctions on Rwanda over the use of child soldiers by rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo which Kigali is accused of backing.
(AFP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Washington DC a dramatic car chase through the streets near the White House to the US Capitol ended in gunfire when law enforcement officers shot and killed the driver as lawmakers and aides huddled in a lockdown. The car involved in the chase was registered to Miriam Carey (34) of Connecticut. A one-year-old girl in the car was unhurt.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 3, Bill Eppridge (b.1938)), American photo-journalist, died in Connecticut. His work included the book: “A Time It Was – Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties" (2008).
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.C11)
2013 Oct 3, A Bahrain court jailed four Shiites for life after convicting them of detonating a bomb targeting police that wounded an Asian man.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, China’s state media said swarms of hornets have killed 42 people in the northwest in recent months. Hua Baozhen, a professor of entomology at Northwest Agriculture Forestry University, attributed the attacks mostly to a decrease in the number of the hornets' natural enemies, such as spiders and birds, due to ecological changes.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party, was sent to jail pending trial on criminal charges, the first time an elected party chief has been put behind bars since a military coup nearly five decades ago.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)(Econ, 10/5/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 3, Hong Kong officials said customs agents have seized 189 elephant tusks, valued at about $1.5 million, in the city’s 3rd biggest bust of endangered species products in three months.
(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 3, An Indian court sentenced Lalu Prasad Yadav, a powerful ally of the ruling Congress party, to five years in jail for siphoning off state funds, underlining that a wave of public disgust with rampant corruption is finally catching up with the nation's politicians.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Iraq a bomb exploded near a football field, killing 5 people and wounding at least 11 in Madain.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, A smuggler's boat, carrying migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia, capsized off Italy’s southern island of Lampedusa. 160 bodies were soon recovered and 155 people rescued. 366 lives were lost. On Nov 8 police said dozens of the asylum-seekers had been raped and tortured in Libya before starting their journey. Three traffickers were under arrest.
(AP, 10/3/13)(AP, 10/4/13)(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Kenya Sheikh Ibrahim Omar was shot dead in Mombasa. He preached at a mosque that has in the past been linked to the Somali al Shabaab Islamists who claimed responsibility for the shopping center attack.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 3, Madagascar police said a crowd burned two Europeans and a local man alive on the Nosy Be tourist island because they suspected them of trafficking human organs after a dead child was found on a beach. 26 people were soon arrested in the case.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)(AFP, 10/5/13)(AFP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Nigeria a chartered airplane nosedived into the ground and burst into flames meters from tanks of aviation fuel, killing 11 people shortly after taking off from Lagos. The plane was carrying mourners and the body of former Ondo state Gov. Olusegun Agagu, who died on Sep 13. The next day Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority suspended all the operations of Lagos-based Associated Airline.
(AP, 10/3/13)(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 3, Pakistan said it has scrapped plans to reinstate the death penalty, following threats by Taliban militants to step up attacks in retaliation. At least 15 people were killed in an attack on a pro-government militia commander in the Orakzai tribal area.
(Reuters, 10/3/13)(SFC, 10/4/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 3, Palestinian farmers, after a long court battle, reclaimed land they lost to an Israeli settlement in the 1970s. Israel had dismantled Homesh and three other West Bank settlements in 2005, in connection with a wider withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but refused to let the original Palestinian landowners return.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, Officials said Portugal has passed the latest test of its compliance with the terms of its bailout and qualified for around 5.5 billion euros ($7.5 billion) in further funding from creditors.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, Russian investigators charged 16 more crew members of a Greenpeace ship with piracy for a protest at a Russian oil platform in the Arctic. All 30 crew members from 17 countries now faced 15-year prison terms if convicted.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Syria experts tasked with implementing the UN resolution ordering the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal began work, as the world body demanded access to civilians trapped by the conflict.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 3, In Syria six of the most powerful rebel factions issued a joint statement telling an Al-Qaeda front group (ISIL) to withdraw from the northern town of Azaz bordering Turkey. In a separate statement, rebels in central Syria also called on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to leave Homs province.
(AFP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 4, In San Francisco the 13th edition of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival began its 3-day run in Golden Gate Park.
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A11)
2013 Oct 4, In NYC Avonte Oquendo (14), an autistic boy, walked away from his school in Queens. His body was found in parts in the East River in January. On Jan 26 NY Senator Chuck Schumer proposed legislation to fund voluntary tracking devices for children with autism.
(SFC, 1/27/14, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/m3kcsg7)
2013 Oct 4, In Washington DC a man set himself on fire in the National Mall. Passers-by rushed over to douse the flames. John Constantino (64) had suffered from mental illness and died of his burns at a hospital.
(SFC, 10/5/13, p.A6)(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A10)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 4, China and Malaysia agreed elevate bilateral ties to a "comprehensive strategic partnership", aiming to boost military cooperation and nearly triple two-way trade to $160 billion by 2017.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Egypt thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, defying a crackdown, marched through a Cairo suburb. Hundreds of supporters of Egypt's deposed President Mohamed Mursi clashed with their opponents as they tried to enter Tahrir Square in central Cairo, and police fired tear gas to disperse them. Masked gunmen fired on a military vehicle near Ismailiya, killing one soldier and wounding an officer and another soldier.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)(AFP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Guinea's political opposition demanded that the results from last weekend's legislative election be invalidated, citing fraud and irregularities.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Ireland held a nationwide referendum to abolish the country's Senate. Proponents said the upper house wields no essential powers and its closure could save taxpayers 20 million euros ($27 million) annually. Voters rejected the referendum with a 51.7% no vote.
(AP, 10/5/13)(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 4, Israel condemned a pronouncement by a European advisory council against male ritual circumcision, a practice that Jewish leaders consider central to their faith. In a non-binding resolution this week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said circumcision was "a violation of the physical integrity of children."
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Kenya young Muslims set fire to a church, burned tires and clashed with police in the main port city of Mombasa, after the killing of an Islamic cleric his followers blamed on security forces.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Norway said will slightly reduce its aid to Afghanistan from next year, signaling to Kabul that it has not done enough to combat corruption and violence against women.
(Reuters, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Poland's Catholic Church said it will not pay compensation to victims of priests who sexually abused children. Rev. Jozef Kloch said in comments aired by Polish Radio 1 that the responsibility for compensation lies with the perpetrator.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, Russia's Investigative Committee said it has confiscated 57,000 diamonds and 19 kg (42 pounds) of jewelry from Yevgenia Vasilyeva, a former defense ministry official, in an ongoing investigation into corruption charges. Vasilyeva was charged in 2012 with fraud related to the sale of military assets.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Syria al-Qaida militants battled fighters linked to the Western-backed opposition along with Kurdish gunmen in towns along the Turkish border, in clashes that killed at least 19 people.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, In Vietnam Vo Nguyen Giap (102), a brilliant and ruthless self-taught general, died in Hanoi. He drove the French out of Vietnam to free it from colonial rule and later forced the Americans to abandon their grueling effort to save the country from communism.
(AP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 4, The World Health Organization said the global number of infections with the deadly MERS virus has risen to 136, after hard-hit Saudi Arabia confirmed six new cases.
(AFP, 10/4/13)
2013 Oct 5, Thomas Momson, head of the Mormon Church, said that worldwide membership in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints has reached 15 million.
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 5, Latif Mehsud, a senior Pakistani Taliban commander, was arrested by American forces in eastern Logar province's district of Mohammad Agha. The Washington Post reported on Oct 11 that he was forcibly snatched from an Afghan government convoy in Logar province several weeks ago as Afghan officials were trying to recruit him to launch peace talks.
(AP, 10/11/13)(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 5, In southern Afghanistan a gunman, possibly a private security guard, shot dead a member of the US-led international coalition before himself being killed.
(AP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez (60) was told by doctors to take a month off because of a subdural hematoma on her brain, forcing her to abandon campaigning for important congressional elections taking place later this month.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Colombia a twin-engine turboprop plane crashed while on a US counter-drug mission, killing 3 American contractors and a Panamanian aboard. It had been tracking a suspected smuggling vessel over the western Caribbean when it lost radio contact.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Iraq attacks across the country killed 56 people. This included two television journalists, killed by unidentified gunmen, as they were filming in the northern city of Mosul. The journalists worked for television channel al-Sharqiya News, which is often critical of the government and is popular among the Sunni minority. 51 people were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad.
(AP, 10/5/13)(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 5, Italian state news media reported that filmmaker Carlo Lizzani (91), a much-lauded protagonist of Italian Neorealism, has died. The Academy of Italian Cinema awarded him best director for his 1968 film "The Violent Four" about a manhunt for bank robbers.
(AP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Libya gunmen attacked a military post near Bani Walid, a former stronghold of supporters of Muammar Gaddafi, killing 16 soldiers.
(AFP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Libya the US Army’s Delta Force seized Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai (1964-2015), aka Abu Anas al-Libi, outside his Tripoli home and whisked him out of the country. The senior al-Qaida militant is accused by the US of involvement in the Aug 7, 1998, bombings of two American embassies in Africa.
(AP, 10/6/13)(SSFC, 1/3/15, p.A5)
2013 Oct 5, In Mali Tuareg separatists said they were rejoining the peace process in northern Mali, just over a week after they pulled out and accused Bamako of not respecting the terms of a truce signed in June.
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Mexico at least 8 people, including 3 children, were killed and 79 were wounded when a monster truck careened into a crowd at a show at the El Rejon dam on the outskirts of Chihuahua.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Nigeria suspected Islamic militants lured the faithful to a mosque then gunned them down. The gunmen killed at least 7 people before being attacked by soldiers guarding Damboa village. 15 attackers were reported killed.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 5, Russia shrugged off Dutch legal action over its detention and prosecution of Greenpeace activists for piracy, saying the group's protest at an Arctic oil platform had been "pure provocation."
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, In Somalia a commando unit from the US Navy’s Seal Team Six carried out a pre-dawn strike against foreign fighters in Barawe. The US troops were faced with heavier-than-expected return fire, and pulled out to avoid civilian casualties. The raid’s target was Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, a Kenyan of Somali origin who is a foreign fighter commander for the Islamist Shebab group.
(AP, 10/5/13)(AP, 10/6/13)(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 5, In northern Spain tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a crackdown on an association that aids jailed members of armed Basque separatist group ETA.
(AFP, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, Syrian government forces shelled al-Mitras, a vulnerable Sunni community in a coastal province dominated by President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, raising fears that residents of the isolated town could face mass killings by pro-Damascus militias. Government forces reached an agreement with local officials to stop the shelling of Mitras in exchange for the surrender of dozens of opposition fighters.
(AP, 10/5/13)(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.A8)
2013 Oct 6, In southern Afghanistan 4 US soldiers were killed by an IED during a NATO operation.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)(SFC, 10/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 6, In Afghanistan Germany handed control of a key military base in the country's northern province of Kunduz to Afghan security forces. German troops had spent almost a decade there as part of the international effort to combat Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, CAR officials said 14 people have been killed in violent clashes that began last week between Christians and Muslims in the isolated town of Bangassou.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In China about 60 people were injured when security forces fired into a crowd of Tibetan residents who were demanding the release of a fellow villager detained for protesting orders to display the national flag. Police also fired tear gas at those protesting in Biru county in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Egypt dozens of people were killed in clashes across the country between security forces and supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. 48 people died in Cairo and 9 in other parts of the country.
(AFP, 10/6/13)(Reuters, 10/7/13)(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 6, Iran's nuclear chief said that authorities arrested four workers in an alleged sabotage plot involving one of the country's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In northern Iraq suicide car bombers attacked an elementary school and a police station in Qabak, a small Shiite Turkomen village. The dead included 12 children, the school principal and 2 policemen. Another on foot detonated his payload among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. Attacks altogether killed at least 33 people.
(AP, 10/6/13)(SFC, 10/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 6, In Morocco thousands of unemployed graduates marched through Rabat demanding jobs in the public sector, weeks before parliament is due to debate planned budget cuts.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Syria at least 8 people were killed by mortar fire that hit a Christian neighbourhood in central Damascus. Government forces reopened a key road leading to the embattled northern city of Aleppo after heavy fighting with rebels that left casualties on both sides.
(AFP, 10/6/13)(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Syria international inspectors began the enormous task of destroying Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons and the machinery used to create it.
(AP, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 6, In Yemen gunmen shot dead a German security guard employed by the German embassy as he was leaving a market in Sanaa.
(Reuters, 10/6/13)
2013 Oct 7, Two Americans and a German-American won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering how key substances are transported within cells, a process involved in such important activities as brain cell communication and the release of insulin. James Rothman (62) of Yale University, Randy Schekman (64) of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dr. Thomas Sudhof (57) of Stanford University shared the $1.2 million prize for their research on how tiny bubbles called vesicles act as cargo carriers inside cells.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, SF announced that Marc Benioff, head of Salesforce.com, will donate $2.7 million to the city’s 12 middle schools.
(SFC, 10/7/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 7, A record-breaking storm dropped 4 feet of snow in parts of South Dakota and left over 22,000 homes and businesses without electricity. Tens of thousands of cattle died in South Dakota. The storm also buried parts of Wyoming and Colorado and spawned tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa. At least 4 people died due to the storm.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 7, Bahrain sentenced nine people to life in prison after trial on charges of bomb-making in the restive Gulf nation.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Brazil thousands marched in Rio de Janeiro to support teachers seeking pay hikes before masked anarchists turned to violence, setting fires, breaking into buildings and smashing a City Hall gate.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, Britain launched its new National Crime Agency (NCA) and unveiled a revamped strategy to combat serious organized crime, which it says costs the country 24 billion pounds ($38.6 billion) and represents a threat to national security.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In the Central Africa Republic self-defence groups began attacking the village of Garga, leaving 3 dead and a dozen injured.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, Typhoon Fitow barrelled into China's east coast, packing winds of more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) an hour, after hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and bullet train services were suspended.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, Colombia imposed temporary tariffs and quotas on imports of potatoes, onions, beans, tomatoes, powdered milk, fresh cheese, milk and whey to help alleviate protests by farmers over expensive fertilizers and free trade deals.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 7, Colombia's state oil company Ecopetrol said its second most important oil pipeline, the Cano Limon-Covenas, has been temporarily shut down after three bomb attacks. Security forces attributed the attacks to leftist guerrillas.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Cyprus an independent judicial inquiry said former communist president, Demetris Christofias, and his government bear chief blame for the island's financial meltdown in March after they failed to control spending and behaved in an imperious manner.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Egypt suspected militants killed 6 soldiers near the Suez Canal and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a state satellite station in Cairo. A car bombing hit the security headquarters in el-Tor near the tourist resorts of southern Sinai, killing 3 policemen and wounding dozens.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, A French oceanographic vessel rescued 29 Syrian refugees, part of a group of 363 asylum-seekers that have landed in Italy in the past 24 hours.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In France Patrice Chereau (68), a celebrated actor and director in film, theater and opera, died. He was renowned for cutting-edge productions.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Greece Akis Tsochadzopoulos (73), former Greek defense minister, was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty o money laundering. 16 of 18 co-defendants were also found guilty.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 7, In Hong Kong a 118-carat white diamond, discovered in the rough in 2011 in southern Africa, sold at auction for $30.6 million.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 7, The 2-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit opened in Bali, Indonesia. At its end leaders agreed that that the Doha round of global trade talks were at an impasse and urged trade ministers to reconvene in December to get negotiations back on track.
(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A4)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 7, In Libya dozens of unarmed soldiers occupied the prime minister's office in Tripoli to demand unpaid wages.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, The Maldives Supreme Court annulled the results of the September 7 presidential election and scheduled a fresh vote for October 20 after a candidate challenged the outcome, citing irregularities. Earlier in the day masked men burst into the Raajje TV studio in Male, stabbed a security guard and set the place ablaze. Raajje was alligned with the oppposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).
(Reuters, 10/7/13)(Econ, 10/12/13, p.52)
2013 Oct 7, In northern Mali suspected radical Islamic militants fired a series of mortar shells on Gao, marking the first such attack in months after the French-led military operation drove the jihadists from power. Suspected Islamic militants set off explosions at two bridges near Ansongo.
(AP, 10/7/13)(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 7, Dutch coastguards scrambled helicopters and divers to search for three sailors missing in the North Sea after their ship sank following a collision with a fishing trawler.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, In Pakistan a bomb exploded next to a van carrying security guards tasked with protecting workers involved in an anti-polio drive in the village of Malikhel, about 20 km outside Peshawar, killing 2 people.
(AP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, Russia suspended imports of dairy products from neighboring Lithuania, turning up trade pressure on the European Union member weeks before it hosts a summit that could pull former Soviet republics further from Moscow's orbit.
(Reuters, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 7, UN leader Ban Ki-moon said about 100 international experts will have to spend up to a year in Syria destroying its chemical weapons in a mission of unprecedented danger.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, A new US $100 note went into circulation with new features to fight back against counterfeiters.
(SFC, 9/25/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 8, In San Francisco an engineering staff member discovered the body of Lynne Spalding (57), during a quarterly check of a stairwell, 17 days after she went missing at SF General Hospital. In December 2014 San Francisco and the Univ. of California tentatively agreed to pay a total of $3 million to settle a claim by her family.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A1)(SFC, 12/13/14, p.C4)
2013 Oct 8, Albanian police seized more than 1,000 stolen religious and secular pieces of art dating from the 15th to the mid-20th century, and arrested two men suspected of planning to sell them abroad.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 8, Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics for their theory on how the most basic building blocks of the universe acquire mass.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In Argentina doctors drilled into President Cristina Fernandez's skull to siphon out blood that is pressuring her brain two months after she suffered an unexplained head injury.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, British pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline said it would seek regulatory approval next year for RTS,S, a vaccine that has shown positive results against malaria in children.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.94)
2013 Oct 8, In the Central Africa Republic at least 30 people died and dozens more were injured in clashes between ex-rebels of the Seleka coalition and local self-defence groups in Garga.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In China Akong Tulku Rinpoche, a prominent monk who fled Tibet in 1959 and co-founded the West's first Tibetan monastery (Samye Ling in Scotland), was killed along with two other people in Chengdu. Police said three Tibetan men visited a house where the trio were staying and stabbed them to death in an argument over money. In 2016 a Chinese court sentenced two men to death for killing Rinpoche.
(AFP, 10/9/13)(AP, 1/31/16)
2013 Oct 8, European lawmakers approved sweeping new regulations governing the multibillion-dollar tobacco market, including bigger warnings on cigarette packs and a ban on menthol and other flavorings in a bid to further curb smoking. They stopped short, however, of tough limits on electronic cigarettes.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In India blackouts hit emergency services and industry in parts of Andhra Pradesh state, the third day of a strike by public workers protesting against a government decision to split the southern state in two.
(Reuters, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, In Iran Mahdi Khazali (48), a surgeon, blogger and veteran activist, said a court has sentenced him to six years in prison over security charges.
(AP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, Divers in Italy recovered 18 more bodies, bringing the total to 250, from the Oct 3 shipwreck in which only 155 of the estimated 500 African asylum seekers, most if not all from Eritrea, survived.
(AFP, 10/7/13)(SFC, 10/8/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 8, Kenyan customs officers seized 2 tons of elephant ivory in a shipments bound for Turkey. This followed a similar seizure on Oct 4.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 8, The Maldives government urged all parties to support fresh elections after the Supreme Court annulled last month's results, even though international observers had said those polls were free and fair.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, Myanmar’s Pres. Thein Sein pardoned 56 political prisoner, after the country vowed to release all prisoners of conscience by the end of the year.
(AFP, 10/8/13)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 8, A Saudi court sentenced a preacher convicted of raping his five-year-old daughter and torturing her to death to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. The court also ordered Fayhan al-Ghamdi to pay his ex-wife, the girl's mother, one million riyals ($270,000) in "blood money." Ghamdi's second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes.
(AFP, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, It was reported that fighting in Sudan between rival tribes over the Jebel Amer gold mine, that stretches for some 10 km (six miles) beneath the sandy hills of North Darfur, has killed more than 800 people and displaced some 150,000 others since January.
(Reuters, 10/8/13)
2013 Oct 8, Turkey lifted a 90-year-old ban on Islamic headscarves in the civil service as part of wide-ranging reforms driven by the Islamic-rooted government.
(AFP, 10/8/13)(SFC, 10/9/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 9, Three US-based scientists won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing powerful computer models that researchers use to understand complex chemical interactions and create new drugs. Research in the 1970s by Martin Karplus (83), Michael Levitt (66) and Arieh Warshel (72) has led to programs that unveil chemical processes such as how exhaust fumes are purified or how photosynthesis takes place in green leaves.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, US President Barack Obama nominated economist Janet Yellen to lead the Federal Reserve in a move expected to sustain the central bank's easy money policies and efforts to curb joblessness.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, The US said it is poised stopped shipments of some large-scale military systems as well as halting $260 million in cash aid to Egyptian military leaders, who ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi in July.
(AFP, 10/10/13)(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 9, In the US 2 men were executed, one in Arizona and the other in Texas, with a drug not yet approved by federal authorities, after the Supreme Court denied one of the inmate's final appeal.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that expands the definition of who can provide abortions to include nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and physician assistants.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 9, Stanley Kaufman (97), film and theater critic for the New Republic, died in Manhattan.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 9, In West Virginia Thomas J. Piccard (55), an ex-police officer, was shot dead after he peppered a courthouse in Wheeling with gunfire.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 9, In southern Afghanistan a suicide car bombing killed four people, 2 civilians and 2 policemen in Helmand province.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann's Social Democrats (SPO) got the task of forming a new government and hoped to rebuild their alliance with the conservatives to stave off the eurosceptic far right.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Azerbaijan held elections. An exit poll showed President Ilham Aliyev (51) was on track to easily win a third term with 84% of the vote in the oil-exporting ex-Soviet republic. His main opponent said the election was marred by violations. Official results the next day showed Aliyev winning nearly 85% of the vote.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Bangladesh a huge fire at a factory in Sriput, whose workers were making clothes and fabrics for top Western labels, killed at least 9 people in the latest disaster to blight the country's garment industry.
(AFP, 10/9/13)(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Sex workers in the legendary London district of Soho demonstrated in carnival masks and negligees against evictions they claim threaten their safety and the unique nature of the area.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Brunei the leaders of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (APEC) met for their annual 2-day East Asia Summit. Members first gathered together before holding group discussions with non-member partners, including the US, China, Japan, South Korea and India.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Canada Paul Desmarais Sr. (88), one of the country’s richest and most influential men, died. The self-made billionaire transformed an ailing family-owned bus company into a $271 billion global conglomerate, and was a friend to four Canadian prime ministers.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In the Central African Republic government forces arrested Mahamat Amine, a rogue ex-rebel commander, and six of his men. Another ex-Seleka warlord known as "Colonel Abdallah," who had been ruling over the eastern town of Bangassou, was arrested together with four of his lieutenants and transferred to Bangui.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 9, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for a South China Sea of "peace, friendship and cooperation" as he extended a hand in Brunei to APEC leaders wary of Beijing's territorial claims in the strategic waters.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, International observers said irregularities took place in a number of districts in Guinea's parliamentary election last month, possibly harming the credibility of the results.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, The head of the European Commission announced during a visit to Lampedusa that Italy would receive an additional 30 million euros ($40 million) in EU funds to help settle and receive new refugees, after the sinking of a migrant boat off the Sicilian island killed at least 302 people.
(AP, 10/9/13)(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, In France Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-year-old Roma girl, was taken off a school bus and deported with her family to Kosovo.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.60)
2013 Oct 9, In Israel residents of Jaloud, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, said masked Jewish settlers burst into a school, vandalized cars and torched olive trees during a rampage that forced schoolchildren to remain locked in classrooms to keep safe.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Kuwait newspapers said a court has sentenced an online activist to two years in prison for insulting the Gulf nation's ruler, in the first case since a blanket pardon for similar offenses last summer.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, The Dutch foreign minister apologized to Moscow for the detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague, saying his right to diplomatic immunity had been violated. Dutch child protection services said earlier they were investigating a complaint from neighbors of diplomat Dmitry Borodin about his treatment of his children.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Nigeria's military raided a bomb factory where Islamic extremists were plotting attacks on the northern city of Kano. At the same time Abubakar Sheka, the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist network, threatened in a video more assaults "soon" using heavy weapons he said were seized in battles against the Nigerian military.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Shell Nigeria said new leaks have forced it to close the Trans-Niger Pipeline that carries 150,000 barrels of crude daily, 10 days after the pipeline was reopened following repairs for leaks.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 9, The Philippines justice minister said fugitive Muslim leader Nur Misuari has been charged with rebellion following deadly attacks by hundreds of his armed followers on Zamboanga. At least 244 people were killed in the three weeks of fighting.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Russian investigators said several of the 30 Greenpeace activists already charged with piracy over an open-sea protest were set to face new charges for "other grave crimes" after finding drugs on their ship.
(AFP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Credit Suisse reported that a staggering 35% of household wealth in Russia is owned by just 110 people, the highest level of inequality in the world barring a few small Caribbean islands.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 9, Turkey’s Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 237 military officers accused of plotting to overthrow the government in 2003.
(SFC, 10/10/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 9, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the global development lender will seek to halve extreme poverty by 2020, an interim goal as the bank seeks to fulfill its poverty-fighting targets.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 10, California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued Corinthian Colleges, the owners of Everest, Heald, WyoTech and other facilites accusing them of lying about job-placement rates and misrepresenting programs.
(http://tinyurl.com/q4ou5z7)(SFC, 6/20/14, p.D3)
2013 Oct 10, In Michigan former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in prison for corruption.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 10, Scott Carpenter (88), the 2nd American astronaut to orbit the Earth (1962), died in Denver.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 10, In southeastern Virginia 4 people from Florida were killed when their small plane crashed in the Great Dismal Swamp.
(SSFC, 10/13/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 10, More than 700 Australian police swooped on the Hells Angels in a series of heavily-armed raids, seizing guns, drugs and cash, as authorities intensify a crackdown on biker gangs linked to organized crime.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, A Bahraini court sentenced 18 Shiites to between five and seven years in prison after they were convicted of attacking a police station.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Former Belgian PM Wilfried Martens (77) died overnight. Martens was prime minister from April 1979 to April 1981 and from December 1981 to March 1992, leading a total of nine governments. He was one of the architects of Belgium's federal division and a long-time leading figure in the European Parliament.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Britain confirmed that Liberia's former president and warlord Charles Taylor is to serve out his 50-year prison sentence for war crimes in a British jail.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Short story master Alice Munro (82), who captures the everyday lives and epiphanies of men and women in rural Canada with elegant and precise prose, won the Nobel Prize in literature.
(AP, 10/10/13)(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 10, In Egypt a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into a checkpoint outside el-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula and detonated it, killing 3 soldiers and a policeman.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In western Finland Thursday a 16-year-old boy stabbed and seriously injured four people at a vocational training college in Oulu. Three of the victims were women under the age of 20 and the fourth was the school's caretaker, a 21-year-old man.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In Germany pressure grew on Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (53) of Limburg in Hesse state, a German-Romanian Catholic bishop under fire for building an extravagant multi-million-euro residential complex when prosecutors alleged that he also lied under oath.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In India cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, one of the world’s richest sportsmen, announced his retirement.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.48)
2013 Oct 10, Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency said an armed group has killed five members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a Kurdish area near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Iraq's prime minister said his country has signed a $6 billion contract with Swiss company Satarem to build and run an oil refinery in the southern province of Maysan.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 10, The Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague published an arrest warrant for a fifth suspect in the 2005 bombing on the Beirut waterfront that killed Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others, almost tipping the country into civil war. The court said judges had secretly indicted Hassan Habib Merhi on July 31 but had given the Lebanese government time to attempt to arrest the suspect before making the warrant public.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Iraq’s justice ministry said 42 "terrorism" convicts were executed over the past week, defying international condemnation of its extensive use of the death penalty.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Kenyans demanded justice after three men accused of brutally gang raping a school girl (16) and dumping her in a pit latrine were ordered to cut grass as punishment.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Libyan PM Ali Zidan was abducted by gunmen who snatched him from his hotel and held him for several hours in apparent retaliation for a US special forces raid that captured an al-Qaida suspect in the capital last weekend.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, Myanmar took a long-coveted role as chairman of ASEAN, the regional grouping of Southeast Asia.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In Nigeria armed gunmen, suspected to be cattle rustlers, killed 10 members of one family before six of the gunmen were shot dead by security forces in central Plateau state.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, North Korea’s sate media confirmed the removal of a hard-line general as its military chief.
(SFC, 10/11/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 10, Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for education for girls, won the European Union's annual human rights award, beating fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In southwestern Pakistan a bomb exploded outside a police station in a crowded market in Quetta, killing at least 6 people.
(AP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, A retrospective of the art of Damien Hirst opened in Doha, Qatar featuring 93 works.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.86)
2013 Oct 10, Saudi authorities beheaded a citizen in the western province of Taif after he was convicted of shooting dead another man.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Oct 10, In Syria fighting flared between Syrian Sunni rebels and foreign militias on the southern edge of Damascus.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 10, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan for the last time before it hands over total responsibility for security to Afghan forces at the end of 2014.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 10, The Venezuelan navy detained the crew of an oil exploration vessel operated by US-based Anadarko Petroleum in waters disputed by the Guyana and Venezuela. The RV Teknik Perdana and its crew were released on Oct 15.
(AP, 10/11/13)(Reuters, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 11, The US Air Force fired Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, the senior officer in charge of its nuclear missiles. A pending investigation was said to be related to alcohol use.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 11, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown approved 11 firearms measures designed to tighten controls on ownership, storage and types of weapons and ammunition available in the state. They included a ban on lead hunting ammunition.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 11, In the SF Bay Area Hayward police arrested 13 people and seized nearly $4 million worth of marijuana after raiding homes in San Leandro, Hayward and San Lorenzo.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.C4)
2013 Oct 11, In Michigan Bobby Ferguson, a friend of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for his role in widespread corruption.
(SFC, 10/12/13, p.A9)
2013 Oct 11, Two Utah Boy Scout leaders pushed a large rock off a rock formation at Goblin Valley State Park. Glenn Taylor and Dave Hall said it was loose and feared it was dangerous. They soon faced possible criminal charges and were removed from their posts a Boy Scout leaders.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 11, In Brazil an official report disclosed that the powerful PCC prison gang runs a nationwide criminal business worth $60 million a year with operations extending into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Shares in newly-privatized Royal Mail soared on their stock market debut, bolstering criticism that the company — which traces its five-century history back to King Henry VIII — was undervalued by the British government.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Central African Republic clashes broke out between security forces sent from Bangui to Bomboro, and the 'anti-balaka' self-defence group," leaving 6 dead among the ranks of the vigilante.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, The Egyptian coast guard rescued 72 Palestinians, 40 Syrians and 4 Egyptians when a boat carrying illegal migrants and Syrian refugees sank off Egypt's northern coast. 12 people died.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, France's constitutional council upheld a ban on the energy extraction process known as fracking, two days after the European Parliament voted to require full environmental reports from companies that want to establish hydraulic fracturing sites.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, A French court convicted 26 members of three Croatian Roma families of forcing children to carry out more than 100 robberies in European countries.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In India tens of thousands fled their homes in eastern coastal areas and moved to shelters, bracing for Cyclone Phailin.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Alitalia’s board of directors approved a €500m salvage package. €300m would come from fresh capital and €200m from new credit lines. The government planned to involve the state-owned postal service in the rescue.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 11, In Italy Erich Priebke (100), a former Nazi SS captain, died. He had been sentenced to life in prison for his role in in the 1944 massacre of 335 civilians by Nazi forces at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome.
(AP, 10/11/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.102)
2013 Oct 11, In Japan a fire ripped through a hospital as patients slept killing 10 elderly people. This prompted government demands for safety reviews across the country.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Lebanese singer and composer Wadih Safi (92) died. His strong, clear voice propelled him to fame throughout the Arab world.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In central Mali a boat carrying hundreds of passengers along the Niger River capsized. Only 210 survivors, of an estimated 400 people aboard, were counted. By Oct 19 the body count reached 72.
(AP, 10/12/13)(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 11, An overloaded migrant boat went down off Malta. The next day about 200 shocked survivors were plucked from the sea. Over 30 lives were lost in the latest deadly migrant tragedy to hit the Mediterranean.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In central Nigeria 17 people died and 10 others were injured when the buses in which they were travelling collided with a tanker lorry.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as the global watchdog worked to destroy Syria's stockpiles of nerve gas and other poisonous agents.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Suspected Palestinian militants bludgeoned to death retired army colonel Sarya Ofer in the third killing of Israelis in the West Bank within as many weeks. Three suspects were arreted the next day.
(AFP, 10/11/13)(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 11, A Panamanian official said two Cuban fighter jets seized from a North Korean ship in July were in perfect condition to operate and the 15 plane engines that were found along with them were relatively new and could be used as replacements.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In southeastern Peru a makeshift bus carrying 51 Quechua Indians back from a party plunged off a cliff into a river, killing everyone on board, including 14 children.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Spain former Formula 1 reserve driver Maria de Villota (33) was found dead in a hotel room in Seville.
(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Sudan some 150 pro-democracy activists and Islamists protested outside Khartoum's Grand Mosque after Friday prayers in the latest of a wave of anti-government demonstrations.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Sudan a Zambian military observer with UNAMID was killed by unidentified assailants in El Fasher, North Darfur state.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, Syrian air force warplanes bombarded rebel-held targets close to a major chemical weapons facility in fighting that highlights the perils facing an international mission to eliminate President Bashar al-Assad's chemical arsenal.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 11, Tunisian security forces and suspected jihadists clashed near Mount Chaambi, a stronghold of militants linked to Al-Qaeda, in the Kasserine area near the Algerian border.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 11, In southern Yemen a suspected al Qaeda militant blew himself up in a market in Lahj province, killing himself and wounding 4. Security officials said militants on a motorcycle have shot and killed an army colonel in the eastern town of Mukalla.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)(AP, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 12, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced they had reached preliminary agreement on a bilateral security pact that now depends on the approval of Afghanistan's tribal leaders.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Oklahoma 5 people were shot at a Hmong New year’s festival in Tulsa. Meng Lee (19) and Boonmlee (21) fled the scene, but were arrested the next day.
(SFC, 10/13/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 12, Oscar Hijuelos (b.1951), Pulitzer Prize winner (1990), died in Manhattan. His 1989 novel “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" became a best seller.
(SFC, 10/15/13, p.C3)
2013 Oct 12, In Azerbaijan thousands gathered in Baku to protest the re-election of President Ilham Aliyev in a vote widely criticized by international election monitors.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Belgium Somali pirate Mohamed Abdi Hassan, better known as "Afweyne" or "Big Mouth", was detained at Brussels airport when he stepped off a flight from Nairobi. He was lured to Brussels on promises of shooting a documentary movie about his life on the high seas.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Colombia a 22-story apartment building collapsed in Medellin. 11 people were reported missing. The building was evacuated after cracks appeared a day earlier.
(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 12, In Ethiopia foreign ministers of the 54-member African Union agreed that sitting heads of state should not be tried by the International Criminal Court where Kenya's leaders are in the dock. They also called for deferring the cases of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto.
(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, Honduras police clashed with local residents during the arrest of Carlos Peralta (22), a man believed responsible for decapitating a 7-year-old boy in the rural town of San Francisco de la Paz. The boy's body was found a day earlier in the town in the Olancho region.
(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, India detained an armed ship operated by a US maritime security company and the 35 people on board for failing to produce papers authorizing it to carry weapons and ammunition in Indian waters. The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Seaman Guard Ohio belongs to Virginia-based AdvanFort, a maritime security firm that specializes in anti-piracy operations.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In India the massive Cyclone Phailin hammered the eastern coastline of Orissa state with heavy rains and destructive winds, as hundreds of thousands of people living in the region moved inland and took shelter. The storm left at least 17 people dead.
(AP, 10/12/13)(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Iraq a pickup truck packed with explosives blew up at an Iraqi vegetable market, killing 17 and wounding dozens.
(AP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Italy divers found an additional 20 bodies off the island of Lampedusa, bringing the still provisional death toll from an October 3 shipwreck to 359.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Niger thousands of people protested against French nuclear firm Areva, which has been mining uranium in the impoverished country for nearly 50 years.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, Typhoon Nari pounded the northern Philippines, killing 13 people, ripping roofs off thousands of buildings, and leaving more than two million without power.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, Russian police arrested 67 people after a fight broke out between gay rights activists and their opponents at a demonstration in St. Petersburg.
(Reuters, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Spain thousands of people gathered in Barcelona to demonstrate against a proposed Catalonia split away from Spain.
(SSFC, 10/13/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 12, In Syria two mortar rounds slammed into the central Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood of Damascus, killing a child and wounding 11 people. Tank shells fired by Syrian government forces slammed into a building in the southern city of Daraa, killing at least 11 people, including women and children.
(AFP, 10/12/13)(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Vietnam a blast at a fireworks factory killed at least 24 people. Police blamed other explosives stored at the site for the accident which also left many injured at the Z121 military facility north of Hanoi.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 12, In Yemen thousands of separatists demanding secession took to the streets of Aden to mark the anniversary in 1967 of the independence of former South Yemen.
(AFP, 10/12/13)
2013 Oct 13, In eastern Afghanistan an Afghan man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot at US soldiers, killing at least one serviceman. The so-called "insider attack" in Paktika province was the 4th in under a month.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, A detachment of Angolan troops crossed into neighboring Congo Republic and detained a group of Congolese soldiers. The incident highlights tensions around Angola's oil-rich Cabinda enclave, which is separated from the rest of Angola and surrounded by Congo Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo. 55 soldiers of the Republic of Congo were released on Oct 18.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 13, Brazilian officials said at least 12 people were killed and six left missing when a boat carrying Catholic pilgrims capsized on the Amazon River.
(SFC, 10/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 13, China’s PM Li Keqiang arrived in Vietnam for a 3-day visit.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.49)
2013 Oct 13, Companies involved in a $1.27 billion project to develop a business district around Britain’s Manchester airpor announced that Chinese construction giant Beijing Construction Engineering Group (BCEG) has signed a deal with British firms to develop the area.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Dubai 3 workers were killed when a crane collapsed at a construction site near the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, An Egyptian army MiG-21 aircraft crashed near the southern city of Luxor, leaving one person dead and three others injured on the ground after the crew ejected.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, Egyptian security officials said James Henry (66), a retired US citizen detained in August for violating curfew in Sinai, was found dead in his jail cell after he used his belt and shoe laces to hang himself.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Ethiopia an explosion killed two people and impacted a home used by US Embassy personnel in Addis Ababa. Two Somali suicide bombers, who had planned to kill soccer fans during Ethiopia's World Cup qualifying match against Nigeria, blew themselves up accidentally.
(AP, 10/13/13)(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, In India at least 115 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede after a bridge collapsed near a remote Hindu temple in Ithe central state of Madhya Pradesh.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)(AP, 10/14/13)(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Iraq a series of bombs killed at least 31 people in mostly Shi'ite Muslim provinces ahead of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. Altogether 11 bombs were detonated by remote control.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, Israel displayed what it called a Palestinian "terror tunnel" running into its territory from the Gaza Strip and said it was subsequently freezing the transfer of building material to the enclave.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In a report published by The Lancet Swiss radiation experts confirmed they found traces of polonium on clothing used by Yasser Arafat (d.2004) supporting the possibility the Palestinian leader was poisoned.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, A number of North Korean officers and sailors died while a submarine chaser was performing "combat duties." At least 19 sailors were believed killed. Photos of stone markers released by state media on Nov 2 showed "Oct. 13" inscribed on them.
(AP, 11/4/13)(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Romania thousands marched across the country to protest against a Canadian company's plans to open a gold mine seen as a threat to the environment, and called for the government's resignation.
(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Russia a mob of nationalists, joined by locals and pensioners in the Moscow suburb of Biryulyovo, smashed up a vegetable market over the murder of an ethnic Russian by a Caucasian migrant.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.58)
2013 Oct 13, In Saudi Arabia Muslims from across the world poured into a sprawling tent city in the Saudi desert before the start of the annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage. The number of the pilgrims this year has been reduced in part by concerns over a respiratory virus centered in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In South Africa Julius Malema, former head of the ANC’s Youth League, launched his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party in Marikana.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.54)
2013 Oct 13, In Sudan 3 Senegalese UNAMID peacekeepers were killed and one injured in an attack by unidentified gunmen in West Darfur.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, In northwest Syria gunmen kidnapped 7 Red Cross workers after opening fire on their vehicles. 3 ICRC and a Red Crescent colleague were soon released.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 13, The Vatican beatified 522 people — mostly priests and nuns — who were killed in the turmoil that led to Spain's 1936-39 civil war.
(AP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In Yemen Faisal al-Mikhlafi, a college professor and brother of a prominent tribal leader, was gunned down in Taiz.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.53)
2013 Oct 14, Three Americans won the Nobel prize for economics for developing methods to study trends in stock, bond and house prices. Eugene Fama (74) showed in the 1960s how hard it is to predict markets in the short run; Robert Shiller (67) two decades later showed how it can be done in the long run; Lars Peter Hansen (60) developed a statistical method to test theories of asset pricing.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, It was announced that the $5 million Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, the world's biggest individual prize, has no winner for the fourth time in five years.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, Antigua and Barbuda PM Baldwin Spencer said citizenship will be sold to int’l. investors. Applications were already being accepted.
(SFC, 10/15/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 14, Australia’s Rio Tinto said the annual sale of its rare pink-hued diamonds attracted unprecedented interest with at least two of the stones fetching record prices of over $2 million.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, China said it would give rewards amounting to 5 billion yuan ($816.91 million) for curbing air pollution in six regions where the problem is serious, underscoring government concern about a source of public anger.
(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, French President Francois Hollande, on a visit to South Africa, announced the signing with South Africa of a $2-billion pact for a thermal power plant in South Africa.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, French authorities detained Davit Kezerashvili, a former Georgian defence minister, wanted in his homeland on corruption charges. Kezerashvili, who also headed the financial police, was charged in January with taking a bribe of $12 million (nine million euros) to facilitate alcohol smuggling in the ex-Soviet nation.
(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 14, Germany blocked the introduction of tougher EU emissions rules for cars. A week earlier Chancellor Angela Merkel's party received a large donation from three major BMW shareholders.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 14, The Indian coast guard rescued 17 sailors whose cargo ship sank during Cyclone Phailin. At least 43 people were killed by the storm.
(AP, 10/14/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 14, A large blast exploded near a Libyan Islamist stronghold east of Tripoli, killing at least two people.
(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, A Malaysian court ruled that a Christian newspaper may not use the word "Allah" to refer to God, a landmark decision on an issue that has fanned religious tension and raised questions over minority rights in the mainly Muslim country.
(Reuters, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, In the Philippines more than 1.5 million people converged on Manila for a powerful Christian sect's evangelical event, causing traffic chaos that shut down large parts of the megacity. The gathering of the secretive and politically influential Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) forced all schools and some government offices to close.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, Russian police swept through a vegetable warehouse earlier targeted by rioters, rounding up over a thousand migrant workers, checking their documents and loading them onto waiting vans to be investigated for criminal activity on the southern outskirts of Moscow.
(AP, 10/1413)
2013 Oct 14, In Saudi Arabia some 2 million Muslims from nearly 200 countries gathered around Mount Arafat at the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage.
(AP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, In Syria a car bombing in Darkoush, a rebel-held northwestern town, killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens, setting cars on fire and sending people running in panic.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 14, In Syria a 40-foot bronze statue of Jesus went up on the Cherubim mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country's civil war.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 15, Pres. Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to former US Army Capt. William Swenson (34) for his actions to save fellow troops during a lengthy battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2009.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A9)
2013 Oct 15, The city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, agreed to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit with Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee of Omaha, who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 25 years for the 1977 shooting of retired police captain John Schweer.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/9xeb75v)
2013 Oct 15, In Louisiana former Halliburton employee Anthony Badalamenti (62) pleaded guilty to destroying evidence in the aftermath of the 2010 deadly rig explosion that spawned BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 15, In eastern Afghanistan a bomb planted inside a mosque microphone killed Logar province Gov. Arsallah Jamal (47) as he was delivering a speech to worshippers to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. 15 people were wounded. A British soldier was shot whilde on patrol in Helmand Province and died from his injuries at the scene.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Mining magnate Andrew Forrest pledged to give 65 million Australian dollars ($62 million) to university education in his home state in one of Australia's largest philanthropic donations.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, An Australian naval team in the Indian Ocean captured nine suspected pirates sought after attacks on a supertanker 500 miles off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 15, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborn, announced a deal with China intended to make Britain the main offshore hub for trading in China’s currency and bonds and for foreign institutions investing in China. In exchange China’s banks would be allowed to enter Britain as branches of the their parents rather than as subsidiaries.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.62)
2013 Oct 15, The European Space Agency said it has developed a technology that allows metal parts for spacecraft and nuclear reactors to be "printed" as a single piece.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Iranian negotiators put forward what they called a potential breakthrough plan at the long-stalled talks in Geneva on easing fears that Tehran wants atomic arms.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In northern Iraq a bomb ripped through a crowd of Sunni worshippers coming out of a mosque after prayers at the start of a major Muslim holiday, killing 12 people and wounding 24 in Kirkuk. A study put the death toll in the war-torn country at nearly half a million since the US-led 2003 invasion.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Israel's military destroyed a second tunnel dug from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. The military said the tunnel was packed with explosives and stretched dozens of meters (yards) into Israel.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Eurocrats and transport industry folk began a two day train ride from Vilnius to Talinn. Rail Baltica, an idea to build a proper rail way connection from Helsinki to Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw and continuing on to Berlin was on the agenda in a conference onboard the train.
(www.balticsea-region-strategy.eu/item/486861)(Econ, 10/19/13, p.60)
2013 Oct 15, Malawi President Joyce Banda named Maxwell Mkwezalamba, a former African Union economic commissioner, as finance minister in a cabinet reshuffle triggered by a graft scandal that started with the shooting of the national budget director.
(Reuters, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Dutch police said a total of 15 people have been arrested since July, related to cocaine packages stashed aboard planes arriving from Latin America. Seven of them employed by the same company at Schiphol.
(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, New Zealand author Eleanor Catton (28) became the youngest winner of the Man Booker Prize for fiction, claiming the award for her novel "The Luminaries."
(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 15, Amnesty International said hundreds of people are dying in military detention as Nigeria's security forces crack down on an Islamic uprising in the northeast. More than 950 people died in military custody in the first six months of this year. The rights group said said some people are shot outright, some starve and others suffocate to death.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In the central Philippines a powerful earthquake measuring 7.2 struck islands popular with tourists. At least 171 people were killed, mostly on Bohol island.
(AP, 10/15/13)(AFP, 10/16/13)(Reuters, 10/17/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 15, In Russia unknown attackers posing as electricians broke into the apartment of a Dutch diplomat, forced him to the ground, hit him and drew a heart containing the letters LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) on a mirror in pink lipstick.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 15, In South Africa the bodies of 2 girls, two and three years old, were discovered in the Diepsloot area north of Johannesburg after being reported missing on the weekend. 2 other toddlers were found dead in Katlehong, east of Johannesburg. Police suspect they were poisoned. The killings in Diepsloot fueled angry accusations from residents that police were failing to provide security.
(AP, 10/16/13)1
2013 Oct 15, The Church of Sweden elected the country's first female archbishop. Antje Jackelen (58) will join a growing number of female church leaders around the world.
(AP, 10/15/13)(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 15, Syrian warplanes bombed several rebel-held areas and opposition fighters fired mortar rounds and homemade rockets at Damascus on the first day of a major Muslim holiday.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, Turkey for the first time fired four artillery rounds against a position near the town of Azaz, Syria, held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," an Al-Qaeda affiliated group, in retaliation for a mortar round that fell on Turkish territory.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 15, Typhoon Nari knocked down trees and damaged hundreds of houses in central Vietnam, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
(Reuters, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In Yemen suspected al-Qaida militants killed 2 security guards and wounded four others in a drive-by shooting in Lahj province.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 16, The US Congress, with hours to go before the government reached its $16.7 trillion debt limit, approved a deal to end a government shutdown, but only permits the Treasury to borrow through Feb 7 and fund government through Jan 15. The 16-day shutdown of US National Parks cost the parks and surrounding communities an estimated $44 million in lost visitor spending. A 2014 report said five states lost over $20 million in the shutdown.
(AP, 10/17/13)(SFC, 3/5/14, p.A6)
2013 Oct 16, Newark, NJ, Democratic Mayor Cory Booker (44) won a special election to represent the state in the US Senate.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 16, A boat with more than dozen people, including Jamaicans and Haitians, capsized off the coast of South Florida. 4 women died and 11 people were taken into custody. On May 15 Bahamian national Naaman Davis pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to charges of smuggling. He was paid to drive the migrant-filled boat and was drinking rum and smoking crack-cocaine the night it capsized.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A7)(AP, 5/16/14)
2013 Oct 16, Washington became the 2nd state to adopt rules for the recreational sale of marijuana. Initiative 522, a measure requiring retail outlets to label genetically modified (GM) food, failed. A $15 minimum wage was approved in SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A12)(http://tinyurl.com/o7zmnsa)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.35)
2013 Oct 16, Chinese state media reported that an Australian tourist and 3 Tibetans died in an avalanche on Mt. Everest.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 16, Indian police in the holiday resort state of Goa arrested Gary Baird (45), a British man, after their biggest ever drugs seizure, worth 20.5 million rupees (330,000 dollars, 205,000 pounds). Baird was arrested for illegally possessing more than four kg of amphetamine.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 16, In Japan Typhoon Wipha caused deadly mudslides that buried people and destroyed homes on Izu Oshima island leaving at least 24 people dead. A woman from Tokyo died after falling into a river and being washed 10 km downriver to Yokohama.
(AP, 10/16/13)(AP, 10/17/13)(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 16, Kenya wildlife officials said they will place microchips in the horn of every rhino in the country in a bid to stamp out a surge in poaching the threatened animals.
(AFP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, A Lao Airlines flight from Vientiane to Pakse in southern Laos crashed and killed all 49 aboard.
(AP, 10/16/13)(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 16, In northwestern Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 8 people in Dera Ismail Khan, including a provincial government minister.
(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 struck off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, A Russian court suspended a five-year prison sentence for top opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but upheld his conviction for theft that will prevent him from running in future elections.
(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, In Russia a migrant worker was found stabbed to death in a Moscow neighborhood rocked this week by race riots, in what a community leader suggested was a revenge attack for the killing of an ethnic Russian.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 16, In Syria 21, including 4 children and 6 women, were killed when a minibus hit a mine in the southern town of Noa. Syrian activists said that two days of heavy clashes between Kurdish fighters and al-Qaida-linked rebels in the northeast have killed at least 41 on both sides.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)(AP, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 17, Florida Congressman Bill Young (82) died after 42 years of service. He had channeled hundreds of million of dollars via earmarks to his district and state.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.29)(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, A global index on modern slavery said some 30 million people are enslaved worldwide, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labour, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude. Almost half were in India.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The first ladies of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast sealed an agreement to fight the growing child trafficking trade between the two west African nations.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Canadian police arrested at least 40 protesters opposed to shale gas development in New Brunswick after vehicles were set ablaze and a shot was fired.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In France hundreds of pupils blocked high schools in the Paris region and joined protests after Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-year-old girl, was taken off a school bus on Oct 9 and deported to Kosovo.
(AP, 10/16/13)(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Indonesian police shot dead Suardi, a suspected militant, and arrested two others, in an ongoing clampdown on terrorism. All three were said to be part of a network led by Abu Uswah, who allegedly taught bomb-making and was shot dead in a raid in January.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car among houses in the Shabak village of al-Mouafaqiyah near Mosul, killing at least 15 people. Attacks on Shi'ite Muslims killed at least 61 people across the country.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Moroccan police drove back 400 African migrants who tried to rush across the country's border into the Spanish territory of Ceuta.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Mozambique government forces killed two fighters from rebel group Renamo in clashes on the first anniversary of their leader's return to the bush.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Pakistani officials said a Pakistani Ranger was killed by "unprovoked firing" by Indian troops along the disputed northwestern India-Pakistan border. An Indian Border Security Force officer said their forces retaliated after being fired on by the Pakistani side. Another Pakistani soldier was killed by militants in South Waziristan.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, In Saudi Arabia some 1.4 million Muslim pilgrims from 188 countries started to leave Mecca at the end of what authorities hailed as a successful and incident-free hajj. The hajj now brings in $16.5 billion, about 3% of Saudi GDP.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(Econ, 10/12/13, p.74)
2013 Oct 17, In South Africa a senior union official at a Lonmin mine in Marikana was shot dead.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 17, In South Sudan 5 people including four children were killed in a market when explosives left over from decades of civil war were accidentally set off on the outskirts of Juba.
(AFP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, Spanish police said they have arrested 17 people for their role in stealing watches worth 23 million euros ($31 million) in Dec 2012, resolving one of the country's biggest jewelry heists.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The Syrian government said it has turned over to the United Nations Carl Campeau, a Canadian staffer, who went missing eight months ago in the Golan Heights, accusing rebels of having kidnapped him. Gen. Jameh Jameh, a top military intelligence officer was killed in clashes in Deir al-Zou.
(AFP, 10/17/13)(AP, 10/18/13)(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 17, In Tunisia Islamist militants killed two policemen in clashes in the northeastern city of Goubellat.
(Reuters, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 17, The UN General Assembly elected five new members to the Security Council. The uncontested seats included Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 10/17/13)
2013 Oct 18, SF Bay Area BART workers went on strike leaving hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters scrambling for ways to get to work.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 18, New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled to uphold a lower court order that gay weddings must start on Oct 21.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 18, In Ohio a police cruiser crashed into a car at an intersection in Upper Arlington killing 6 members of a family of Iraqi immigrants, whose car had stopped in the middle of the intersection.
(SFC, 10/18/1e, p.A6)
2013 Oct 18, Tom Foley (b.1929), former US House Speaker, died. The Democrat from Spokane, Wa., had served 30 years in the House before he was booted from office in 1994 as Republicans seized control of Congress.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 18, In Afghanistan a complex attack involving a car bomb followed by gunfire was launched on an international compound in eastern Kabul and was still under way. A Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car in Kabul outside a compound where many foreign workers are based, killing at least two local civilians.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Australia nearly 100 wildfires raged across New South Wales state, killing one person, destroying dozens of houses and forcing hundreds of evacuations as the nation's annual fire season got off to an unusually early start.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Brazil a fire destroyed up to 300,000 tons of sugar and much of the Santos Port warehouses owned by Copersucar, the world's largest trader of the sweetener.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Canada and the EU struck a tentative Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) meant to boost growth and employment.
(AP, 10/18/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.18)
2013 Oct 18, Canada’s Supreme Court, in the case of a severely-brain damaged man, ruled that family, not doctors, should decide when to cut off life support.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In China Professor Xia Yeliang (53), a liberal economist who had been an outspoken critic of China's ruling Communist Party, was told that professors and school leaders had voted to end his contract. He had drawn the ire of school officials for his blog posts calling for democratic reforms and rule of law in China. Yeliang was a signatory to Charter 08, a 2008 petition calling for sweeping political change.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)(Econ, 2/15/14, p.40)
2013 Oct 18, In Egypt suspected militants killed a police officer in the Sinai Peninsula.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Ethiopia unveiled the first phase of a space exploration program, which includes East Africa's largest observatory designed to promote astronomy research in the region.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, France's constitutional court ruled that mayors cannot refuse to carry out same-sex marriages just because they oppose them.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, A French court sentenced three Somali pirates to nine years in prison each for the 2009 hijacking off the Somali coast of a French yacht that led to the death of its skipper.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, French osteopath Pierre Pallardy (72) was sentenced to 10 years in jail for raping and sexually assaulting female patients. His list of famous clients included Pablo Picasso and Rudolf Nureyev.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Guinea's electoral commission announced that the ruling party and its allies have won legislative elections. Pres. Alpha Conde’s Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) won with 53 seats. The opposition said it would not recognise the official results.
(AFP, 10/18/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.56)
2013 Oct 18, Indian police arrested and questioned 33 people aboard a ship operated by a US anti-piracy firm for carrying guns and ammunition in Indian waters without proper permits. The captain and the chief engineer were not among those arrested. The ship was detained on Oct 12. India charged the 33 men for failing to produce papers authorizing them to carry weapons in Indian waters
(AFP, 10/18/13)(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Iraq a car bomb near an ice-cream shop in Baghdad killed 12 people, while 7 died in other attacks.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Kenya officials identified Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow (b.1990), a Norwegian-Somali, as one of the four attackers of the Westgate Mall on Sep 21. Charred body parts taken from a collapsed portion of the shopping center still awaited forensics analysis to determine if they were the remains of the assailants.
(AP, 10/18/13)(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 18, In Libya gunmen killed Col. Ahmed Mostafa el-Barghathy, the head of the regional military police in the eastern city of Benghazi, as he was headed to a mosque to attend Friday prayers.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In northwest Mexico Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix (63), a former head of the Tijuana cartel, was killed by a man in a clown outfit during a party in a hotel in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.
(AFP, 10/19/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 18, The Netherlands Supreme Court said municipalities are entitled to to tax dog ownership because they have to pick up the bill for keeping public parks and streets clean.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 18, In Panama the 23rd Ibero-American summit opened. Half the presidents of member nations failed to show for the 2-day meeting, revealing the foundering direction of the annual forum. At the close instead of meeting annually, they decided to get together every other year instead.
(AP, 10/19/13)(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 18, Saudi Arabia, in an unprecedented show of anger at the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues, said it would not take up its seat on the UN Security Council.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, South African police fired rubber bullets to disperse thousands of people who rioted after five people were arrested for the rape and murder of two toddlers in a shantytown.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Spain Luis Barcenas, the jailed former financial chief of the ruling Popular Party, said he personally handed thousands of euros to the party's current secretary general as part of an off-the-books payment scheme he acknowledges he ran.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, Swiss customs agents said they have seized one million fake tablets of anti-anxiety drug Xanax at the Zurich airport, which were destined for Egypt. The counterfeit tablets, packed in four crates and weighing 400kg, had originated in China, according to Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Syria regime forces and rebels fighting for control of Tel Aran, a small but strategic town in the northern province of Aleppo, killed at least 20 people. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels killed at least 30 Syrian soldiers, including ten who were executed after they were captured in in Deir al-Zou.
(AP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In Tunisia protesting security forces drove top leaders from a memorial ceremony for two policeman killed by militants a day earlier.
(AFP, 10/18/13)
2013 Oct 18, In southern Yemen a suicide bomber killed at least 5 soldiers in a suspected Islamist militant attack on a military base. Two gunmen on a motorcycle fired at Col. Mohammed Abdullah al-Habshi's car in Sayoun, Hadramawt province. The driver died instantly and the colonel died three hours later in hospital.
(Reuters, 10/18/13)(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, The Obama administration announced it was releasing over $1.6 billion in economic and military assistance to Pakistan.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 19, In northern California BART train workers Laurence Daniels (66) and Christopher Sheppard (58) were killed near the Walnut Creek BART station a day after BART workers went on strike. BART said the train was on a maitenance run. A transit insider later said the train was on a strike-related training run. In 2018 The California Public Utilities Commission fined BART $1.3 million for safety violations in the case.
(SFC, 10/21/13, p.C2)(SFC, 10/12/18, p.A9)
2013 Oct 19, In Pennsylvania an SUV crossed a center line and ran into two motocycles. 4 people on the motorcycles and one person in the SUV were killed in Franklin County.
(SFC, 10/21/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 19, In Argentina at least 99 people were hurt, some seriously, in a train crash at the same Buenos Aires commuter rail stop where a deadly accident killed dozens just last year.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Belgium a plane carrying 10 skydivers, including one making her maiden jump for her birthday, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing everyone on board and the pilot.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Belarus freed Paval Sevyarynets (36), a leading opposition politician. He had served three years forced labour for protesting against the iron-fisted rule of President Alexander Lukashenko.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In southeastern Brazil animal rights activist clashed with police in front of a laboratory in Sao Roque that used dogs for drug tests.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, The violin played by the Titanic's bandmaster as the ship sank beneath the waves sold at a London auction for £900,000 ($1.45 million, 1.06 million euros), a world record for memorabilia from the doomed liner.
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, British actor and musician Noel Harrison (79), suffered a heart attack in Devon and died in a hospital. He sang the Academy Award-winning ballad "The Windmills of Your Mind," by French composer Michel Legrand and American lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Canada a train carrying crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas derailed west of Edmonton, Alberta, causing a fire, but no injuries.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Colombia’s army said government troops have captured six rebels including Freddy Chona Payare, a member of the security team of the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
(AFP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Egypt a car bomb exploded near a military intelligence compound in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, wounding six soldiers.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, French Socialist Pres. Francois Hollande, under fire from the far left and members of his own party, said that a 15-year-old girl who was detained in front of her classmates and expelled as an illegal immigrant can return to France. But the rest of the family cannot come with her.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Police in India said at least 32 people have died in Adampur village in Uttar Pradesh state after drinking toxic bootleg liquor.
(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 19, In Iraq a car bomb on a commercial street in northern Baghdad killed 3 people.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Italy a Milan appeals court set Silvio Berlusconi's political ban in his tax fraud conviction at two years. Demonstrators clashed with police as tens of thousands marched through Rome to protest against unemployment, government cuts and big construction projects they say take money away from social services.
(AP, 10/19/13)(Reuters, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 19, The Maldives sank further into political disarray when police blocked officials from conducting a presidential revote, saying that holding the election would violate a Supreme Court order.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Hamas, its Gaza Strip stronghold cut off by the new military-backed government in Egypt, called upon rival Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to end their six-year schism and form a unity government.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Thousands of Portuguese protested against new wage and pension cuts in the country's 2014 budget and demanded the resignation of the government.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, Thousands of Romanians protested against plans by US energy group Chevron to explore for shale gas in a poor eastern region and a Canadian company's project to set up Europe's biggest open cast gold mine in a Carpathian town.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In Somalia a suicide bomber killed at least 16 people, including 4 Ethiopian soldiers, in an attack on a cafe in Beledweyne, a town close to the Ethiopian border frequented by local and foreign soldiers fighting al Qaeda-linked rebels.
(AFP, 10/19/13)(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 19, Syrian rebels assaulted a checkpoint in a suburb of Damascus, setting off a suicide car bomb that killed 16 soldiers. More than 30 combatants from both sides died in the blast and ensuing clashes.
(AP, 10/19/13)(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 19, In southern Thailand bombings and drive-by shootings killed 5 people and injured 13 others including 8 soldiers and 5 journalists.
(SSFC, 10/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 19, Tunisia said government forces have killed 9 "terrorists" and seized two tons of explosives in the north of the country where policemen died this week in a jihadist attack.
(AP, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Bolivia 8 soldiers were taken hostage by suspected coca growers after a firefight that left two security officers dead and 17 wounded.
(AFP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Egyptian security forces fired bird shot and teargas to prevent supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi from marching to the site of a protest camp that was destroyed two months ago. An attack outside a Coptic church in Cairo killed 4 people, including an 8-year-old girl.
(Reuters, 10/20/13)(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Iraq 8 suicide bombers targeted police and local officials in Rawa, northwest of Baghdad, killing 8 people. In southwestern Baghdad 41 people were killed and 65 were wounded in a crowded cafe in the primarily Shiite neighborhood of Amil, bringing the death toll from violence across Iraq to 51.
(AFP, 10/20/13)(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 20, Kenya's biggest selling newspaper “The Nation" reported that security camera footage showed soldiers appearing to loot goods during last month's Nairobi shopping mall siege.
(Reuters, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Kenya 2 Christian clerics were found killed in separate attacks.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 20, Luxembourgers voted for a new government with a possibility of keeping PM Jean-Claude Juncker in power after a spying scandal forced early elections. The conservative Christian Social People's Party (CSV) of PM Jean-Claude Juncker led the field with 33.7% of the vote -- against 38% four years ago.
(AP, 10/20/13)(AFP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Mohamed Nasheed, the leading candidate in the Maldives' troubled presidential election, demanded that Pres. Mohamed Waheed Hassan resign and allow the parliamentary speaker to take over the government and oversee a fresh poll.
(AP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Montenegro police used tear gas against dozens of rock-throwing opponents of a gay pride march in Podgorica.
(AP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif arrived in Washington on a 4-day trip. He was scheduled to meet with Pres. Obama on Oct 23.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 20, In the Philippines Sultan Jamalul Kiram III (75) died. His armed followers invaded Sabah state earlier this year sparking a security crises that left dozens of people dead.
(SFC, 10/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 20, In South Sudan 79 people were killed in attacks on villages in Twic East county, Jonglei state. Authorities blamed fighters loyal to anti-government rebel leader David Yau Yau.
(AP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Syria a suicide bomber blew up a truck packed with explosives at an army checkpoint in the central city of Hama, killing at least 31 people.
(AFP, 10/20/13)
2013 Oct 20, In Western Sahara bloody clashes erupted between police and pro-independence protesters as a UN envoy wrapped up his latest visit to the disputed territory.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Pres. Obama urged American to buy health insurance by phone, mail and in person because the website for Obamacare was not working.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.33)
2013 Oct 21, US authorites said nearly two dozen current and former members of Arizona’s Air National Guard have been indicted on charges including theft and money laundering in a $1.4 million scam to defraud the federal government. The 8 officers and 13 enlisted men and women had been resposible for remotely operating drones to support troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 21, San Francisco Bay Area BART workers ended their strike with a tentative agreement between the transit agency and its two largest unions. Trains began running Oct 22. Workers scored a 15.4% pay raises over four years as well as other benefits.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A1)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Oct 21, In Nevada a boy (12) opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic Ruger handgun at Sparks Middle School killing math teacher Michael Landsberry (45) and critically wounding two students before killing himself.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A6)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A6)
2013 Oct 21, New Jersey became the 14th US state to allow same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 21, In Afghanistan a bomb stuck onto a car killed a civilian in downtown Kabul. Authorities are unclear as to the motives for the attack.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Brazil said a consortium including Shell, Total, two Chinese firms and Brazil's state-run petroleum company Petrobras won the right to develop an offshore field that could hold up to 12 billion barrels of oil.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, A disciplinary body of China’s Communist Party said anti-graft authorities have punished 8 people at a state-owned rail construction firm for spending more than $100 million on hospitality last year.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In China visibility shrank to less than half a football field and small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard in the northern city of Harbin as the region entered its high-smog season.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In Egypt thousands of students from the al-Azhar University staged a third day of protests, in one of the boldest challenges to the army since it toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Europe's top human rights court ordered Spain to release a Basque separatist militant, saying her extended detention was illegal, a ruling victims groups warned would let dozens of prisoners walk free. Ines del Rio was jailed in 1989 for her role in 23 assassinations and car bombings carried out by the Basque independence movement ETA.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, A Le Monde newspaper report said the US National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period and offered new details of the massive scope of a surveillance operation that has angered some of the country's closest allies.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In India heavy rains began falling in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states. 39 people were reported dead from flooding by Oct 26.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 21, In Iraq militants attacked police and electricity headquarters in Fallujah, killing 7 police officers.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Israel recognized NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the first ever recipient of the $1 million Genesis Prize, an award popularly dubbed the "Jewish Nobel Prize."
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Mozambique ex-rebel group Renamo declared the end of a peace deal signed 21 years ago after the army seized its military base.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Nigerian troops killed 37 Boko Haram Islamist militants in combined air and ground strikes on one of their northeast bases.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 21, Nigerian officials said cholera has killed 50 people in the northwest in the past week.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In southwest Pakistan at least 5 passengers were killed and 16 wounded when a train was bombed and derailed.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In Russia female suicide bomber Naida Asiyalova (30) struck a passenger bus in the southern city of Volgograd, killing 6 people and injuring 32 others. The suspected bomber was from Dagestan.
(AP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/22/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 21, South African prosecutors said a man arrested on suspicion of raping and murdering two toddlers in a Johannesburg slum has confessed, after the case sparked violent riots last week.
(AFP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, Spain's oil company Repsol announced a high quality light oil find in Libya's Sahara Desert.
(AP, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, In Syria government warplanes launched strikes on areas southeast of Damascus after rebels seized key regime positions there. Residents of Moadamiyeh issued an urgent plea for the int’l. community to save them from starvation and constant bombardment after efforts to evacuate civilians from the area collapsed. Yasser al-Abboud, a prominent army defector who became a rebel leader, was killed during fighting in the town of Tafas.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/21/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 21, The party of Ukraine's jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko (52) rejected President Viktor Yanukovich's terms for her release and European envoys said time was running out to solve a row threatening agreements with the EU.
(Reuters, 10/21/13)
2013 Oct 21, The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said more than 300 elephants and other animals died in July of cyanide poisoning by poachers in Hwange, Zimbabwe's largest game park. Three elephants attacked a park ranger and trampled him to death during an anti-poaching patrol in the Hwange nature reserve.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, Amnesty International called on the US to investigate reports of civilians killed and wounded by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan in a report that provided new details about the alleged victims of the attacks, including a 68-year-old grandmother hit on Oct 24, 2012, while farming with her grandchildren.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Greenpeace said consumer products such as Oreo cookies and Gilette shaving cream were among an array of products driving the destruction of Indonesia’s forests. Greenpeace accused Singapore-based Wilmar Int’l. for destroying forests in Indonesia to produce palm oil.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 22, A federal judge ordered US marshals to lock up TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau (50) for failing to pay a $37 million civil judgement. The FTC had won the judgement after accusing Trudeau of hoodwinking viewers about his weight-loss books.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 22, Police in Sonoma County, Ca., shot and killed Andy Lopez Cruz (13) as he walked near his home with a toy rifle that resembled a genuine AK-47. In 2018 Sonoma County agreed to pay $3 million to the Lopez family.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A1)(SFC, 12/19/18, p.C1)
2013 Oct 22, In Massachusetts Danvers High School math teacher Colleen Ritzer (24) was reported missing. Her body was found the next day in the woods behind her school. Student Philip Chism (14) was arrested and suspected of beating her to death. Chism was convicted of murder and armed robbery on Dec 15, 2015.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A8)(SFC, 12/16/15, p.A6)
2013 Oct 22, In Tennessee a medical helicopter crashed killing 2 hospital workers and a pilot.
(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 22, Finland-based Nokia showed off its first tablet in Abu Dhabi, the Lumia 2520, at its last launch party as much of the company faced acquisition by Microsoft.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.73)
2013 Oct 22, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) cut the number of candidates to 10, saying 16 disqualified candidates had either retained citizenship of another country or failed to provide evidence of enough support. The Afghan intelligence service said it has sacked 65 officers after discovering they were addicted to heroin.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, The Australian Capital Territory became the first jurisdiction in Australia to legalize same-sex marriage with a bill passing the ACT parliament by just one vote.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Bahrain a teenager was killed when an explosive device he was carrying detonated prematurely as he attempted to stage an attack in the tense Gulf nation.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Brazil prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro charged an additional 15 state police officers in the torture and death of Amarildo Dias de Souza (42), a bricklayer who disappeared from a city slum in July. Ten officers were charged earlier this month.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Brunei’s sovereign Hassanal Bolkiah (67) said Brunei will begin enforcing sharia criminal law next year. Possible punishments will include stoning to death for adultery and flogging for drinking alcohol.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Chinese state media reported that China has convicted nearly 150,000 people for corruption since 2008, citing figures from the state prosecutor which underlined the scale of graft in the country.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Western countries accused China of arresting activists, curbing Internet use and suppressing ethnic minorities, as the United Nations formally reviewed its rights record for the first time since Xi Jinping became president.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Egypt militants ambushed a military convoy in northern Sinai early, killing a soldier and a civilian bystander.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Greek lawmakers voted to suspend state funding for political parties accused of criminal activities, a measure targeting the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn group.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, A top Greek prosecutor ordered an emergency nationwide investigation into birth certificates issued in the past six years after a girl was discovered living with alleged abductors at a gypsy camp.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, In Iraq gunmen killed 5 people in and around Mosul. Anbar province was hit by a series of attacks that killed 28 people.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 22, Israeli troops killed Mohamed Aatzi, an Islamic Jihad militant said to be behind the 2012 bombing of a Tel Aviv bus. The Palestinian radical movement confirmed his death.
(AFP, 10/22/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 22, In Lebanon a child (13) was killed and 11 other people wounded in a gunfight in Tripoli between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(AFP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, A source close to Saudi policy said Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief has said the kingdom will make a "major shift" in relations with the United States in protest at its perceived inaction over the Syria war and its overtures to Iran.
(Reuters, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, Spanish judges ordered ETA prisoner Ines del Rio freed after Europe's rights court ruled against her prolonged detention, opening the way to the release of dozens of other violent Basque separatists.
(AP, 10/22/13)
2013 Oct 22, The Syrian government released 13 jailed women, a move that may be part of an ambitious regional prisoner exchange. Government forces battled with al-Qaida-linked rebels trying to capture an ancient Christian town north of Damascus. Mortar shells struck a pro-government suburb on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 2 people.
(AP, 10/22/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Washington Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif urged US President Barack Obama to end drone strikes in Pakistan. Obama and Sharif pledged cooperation on the security issues that have strained ties between their nations.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, A Nevada jury found Saudi Arabian air force Sgt. Mazen Alotaibi guilty of sexually assaulting a boy (13) at the Circu Circus hotel in las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 23, In Afghanistan a nighttime Taliban attack on a security outpost killed 4 policemen in the Bla Murghab district of Badghis province.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, Argentine local experts and a government source said its agricultural soils are being depleted by lack of crop rotation as soy farming encroaches on areas once used for corn, wheat and cattle grazing.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Australian investigators said a military training exercise ignited the largest of the wildfires that have ravaged its most populous state over the past week.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, British sculptor Anthony Caro (89), whose abstract metal sculptures were shown around the world, died of a heart attack.
(AFP, 10/24/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.98)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of Cambodia opposition supporters staged a demonstration over disputed elections that extended strongman PM Hun Sen's near three-decade rule, under a heavy security presence after bloody clashes last month.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Beijing China’s PM Li Keqiang and India’s PM Manmohan Singh sounded a new optimistic tone in their relationship as they oversaw the signing of 9 agreements including a Defense Cooperation Agreement.
(AP, 10/23/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.47)
2013 Oct 23, Wang Qishan, China's top official battling deeply-ingrained corruption, warned staff their jobs were on the line if they failed to root out abuses, telling them to "shock and awe" their targets.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, China’s state-run New Express tabloid printed a front-page commentary begging police in the south-central city of Changsha to set reporter Chen Yongzhou free under the headline: "Please release him." Chen was detained after writing more than a dozen stories criticizing the finances of Zoomlion, a major state-owned construction equipment maker.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.54)
2013 Oct 23, Chinese police officers were injured in clashes with villagers in southwestern Yunnan province. Some 200 residents in Guangji village near the provincial capital Kunming stopped 11 officers on a highway after police had summoned two people a day earlier for alleged crimes.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In China 2 children were killed and another four injured after a wall at their primary school collapsed in Yunnan province.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, India accused Pakistani troops of firing guns and mortars on at least 50 Indian border posts overnight in disputed Kashmir, calling it the most serious cease-fire violation between the nuclear-armed neighbors in a decade.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Iraq gunmen killed 6 people in the northern city of Mosul. In Baghdad a roadside bomb in the Ghazaliyah area killed at least 3 people and wounded 11. Another roadside bomb killed 4 people and wounded at least nine in Madain. 2 Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters were kidnapped and killed in the northern province of Kirkuk.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, The Israeli incumbent Mayor Nir Barkat of Jerusalem won re-election in a hotly contested race that dealt a political blow to his challenger's main backers, former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, A Kenya court sentenced 4 Somali pirates sentenced to seven years each in prison after they were found guilty of hijacking a fishing dhow in the Indian Ocean in 2010.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Mali a suicide bomber killed two Chadian troops from the UN peacekeeping mission and injured six others in an attack on a checkpoint at the entry to the northern town of Tessalit.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Pirates near the coast of Nigeria attacked a commercial ship, named C-Retriever, and kidnapped two US mariners.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, Russia said it will boycott maritime court hearings sought by the Netherlands in a bid to free 30 crew members of a Greenpeace ship who were detained during a protest against Arctic oil drilling. Russia dropped piracy charges against 30 people involved in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling, replacing them with lesser offences and cutting the maximum jail sentence they face to seven years from 15.
(AFP, 10/23/13)(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, In Sudan carjackers killed a Sudanese aid worker in the country's Darfur region, bringing to four the number of humanitarian staff killed this year in the region's worsening unrest.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 23, Swiss-based petrochemical firm Ineos said it would close its Grangemouth plant in Scotland with the loss of hundreds of jobs after failing to resolve a bitter labor dispute.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, A Swiss Air Force F/A-18 jet went down near a military airport in Alpnach in the Lake Lucerne region.
(AP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Syrian activists said the army has sealed the few remaining smuggling routes into the besieged Eastern Ghouta region of suburbs of Damascus. Aid workers in Damascus, who negotiated a truce to get out thousands of residents from the town, said that locals had resorted to eating leaves and grass.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of Tunisians marched through Tunis chanting for their government to step down. Ruling Islamists and opposition leaders prepared to start talks aimed at end months of political crisis. PM Ali Larayedh said his government was committed in "principle" to resigning to pave a way out of the crisis. Clashes between security forces and gunmen rocked the central Sidi Bouzid region, leaving at least six policemen dead.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon requested the deployment of 250 troops to protect the global body's personnel and facilities in the strife-torn Central African Republic.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 23, The UN said extreme floods across vast parts of remote and impoverished South Sudan have affected over 156,000 people.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 23, Pope Francis temporarily expelled German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (53) from his diocese because of a scandal over a 31-million-euro project to build a new residence complex, but refused calls to remove him permanently.
(AP, 10/23/13)(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 23, Yemeni police said a father has burned his 15-year-old daughter to death for keeping in touch with her fiance, sparking further outrage after an eight-year girl died from internal bleeding on her wedding night a month ago.
(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 24, California state investigators announced a record $1 million fine against two Arizona nonprofits, the Center to Protect Patient’s Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, for attempting to secretly sway California voters in 2012 in support of Prop 32 and in opposition to prop 30.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 24, In San Francisco Faith Petric (b.1915), folk singer, died at a hospice house. In 1962 she became the headd of the San Francisco Folk Club and began hosting live jam sessions at her Clayton Street home.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.C2)
2013 Oct 24, In Ohio Ali Salim (44), a former doctor, pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the 2012 deaths of Deanna Ballman (23) and her unborn child. He had injected her with heroin.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 24, Tennessee Nat’l. Guardsman Sgt. 1st Class Amos Patton shot and wounded three fellow Guard members at an armory in Millington just after he was relieved of duty because of alleged misconduct.
(SFC, 10/26/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 24, In western Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed six Afghan soldiers in Herat province. Soldiers killed 10 Taliban fighters during an operation in Helmand province. A tractor hit a road mine in the Jani Khil district of Paktika province, killing one person and wounding four.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, In Australia a plane dousing wildfires in bushland south of Australia's biggest city, Sydney, crashed into a national park, killing the pilot and sparking a new fire to add to 55 still burning across the state of New South Wales.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, An Austrian student group fighting for online privacy in Europe got the go-ahead for a legal challenge in Ireland's High Court over the transfer of personal data to a US spy agency.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, In Egypt suspected Islamists militants killed a policeman in a drive-by shooting in the Sinai Peninsula, where troops are battling to contain near daily violence. Egypt’s Cabinet said its nighttime curfew will be shortened to four hours, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., six days a week.
(AFP, 10/24/13)(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Germany's Foreign Ministry summoned the US ambassador following allegations that American intelligence may have targeted Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone. Merkel said she had made it clear to US President Barack Obama that spying on allies is not acceptable.
(AP, 10/24/13)(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Greenland's parliament agreed to remove a 25-year-old ban on uranium mining, paving the way for an industrial boom that the Arctic island hopes will help it gain independence from former colonial master Denmark.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, Indian and Pakistani troops fired machine guns and mortar shells over the border in Kashmir, wounding at least 12 people — including children.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, In India retail prices of onions were reported to have quadrupled in three months - now costing over 100 rupees ($1.62) a kilo, which is what a third of the population live on per day - as a supply squeeze caused by wet weather has hampered harvests.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Indonesian police probing the murder of a young woman at a luxury villa stumbled upon a secret collection of exotic animals, including a cross-breed of a lion and tiger. The woman (23) had allegedly had her throat slit by a maintenance worker at the property south of the capital Jakarta after she refused his sexual advances.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 24, Italian weekly L'Espresso reported that US and British intelligence services have monitored Italian telecoms networks, targeting the government and companies as well as suspected terrorist groups.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Italian Augusto Odone (80), a former World Bank economist, died in Acqui Terme. defied skeptical scientists to invent a treatment (Lorenzo’s Oil) to try to save the life of his little boy (d.2008), wasting away from a neurological disease (ADL. The film “Lorenzo’s Oil" (1992) was based on Odone’s efforts to save his son.
(AP, 10/25/13)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.98)
2013 Oct 24, Kenya's media said the police chief has threatened journalists with arrest after they reported on looting and disarray among security forces during the massacre in Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Lebanese security officials said at least 6 people have been killed and 50 wounded in fighting in Tripoli over the past four days.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, A Libyan court indicted around 30 Moamer Kadhafi aides, including the slain dictator's son Seif al-Islam, for a raft of alleged offences during the 2011 revolt. A Libyan air force colonel was killed in Benghazi.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Hundreds of Malaysian tribespeople blockaded the construction site of a new dam which is set to force them from their homes in Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Malaysia’s HELP University faced public criticism for awarding an honorary doctorate degree in economics earlier this month to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 24, In Mali the French military said it has engaged with UN and Malian forces in a major operation aimed at preventing a resurgence of Islamist rebels in Mali.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Mexican officials said Juan Pablo Vazquez (20) has admitted to killing 45 people, and is being investigated for 34 more. Vazquez was caught earlier this month in Monterrey where he was allegedly selling drugs.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Mexico issued a decree banning slot machines and limiting the ability of casino permit holders to rent out or cede their permits to other operators.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 24, Nigeria's army reportedly killed suspected Boko Haram fighters in a raid on insurgent camps in restive Borno state. The attack continued for a 2nd day and bodies in military uniform were soon brought to the morgue in Damaturu. At least 95 militants, 23 soldiers and 8 police officers were killed.
(AP, 10/25/13)(AFP, 10/28/13)(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 24, Portuguese authorities said prosecutors have ordered police to reopen their investigation into the six-year-old disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann after a review of the evidence found new leads.
(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Saudi Arabia warned it will take measures against activists who go ahead with a planned weekend campaign to defy a ban on women drivers in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Sudanese journalist Faisal Mohammed Salih (53 vowed to keep up efforts to report freely despite "difficult and harsh" conditions as he received the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, Syrian forces seized a suburb of Damascus from rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a push that has shored up government control of the capital's outskirts. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Assad’s government had freed 61 women over the past two days.
(Reuters, 10/24/13)(AP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 24, Thailand’s top Buddhist leader, Supreme Patriarch Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara (100), died.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 24, Protesters in Tunisia torched the office of the ruling Islamists in the town of Kef, where a policeman killed in fighting with suspected jihadists was to be buried.
(AFP, 10/24/13)
2013 Oct 25, The US FDA approved Zohydro, an extended-release capsule that contains up to five times the amount of narcotic hydrocodone previously available in pills. Sales began in March 2014.
(http://tinyurl.com/o3qzkzv)
2013 Oct 25, Hal Needham (b.1931), former stuntman and action-movie director, died in Los Angeles. His films included “Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) and “The Cannonball Run" (1981).
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.C12)
2013 Oct 25, In Bangladesh 3 demonstrators were killed as more than 100,000 opposition activists rallied in the Dhaka to demand that PM Sheikh Hasina quit and order polls under a caretaker government.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Brazilian police said a group of hit men shot to death 7 people at a house in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro.
(SFC, 10/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 25, In Brazil protesters went on a rampage in Sao Paulo, smashing windows and teller machines and battling riot police in violence blamed on the "Black Bloc" anarchist group. The protests began as a peaceful march to demand free public transportation for students before turning violent. Police fired tear gas and arrested 92 people.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 25, Britain’s PM David Cameron accused US whistleblower Edward Snowden and unnamed newspapers of assisting Britain's enemies by helping them avoid surveillance by its intelligence services.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, British police appeared to downplay a raid after claiming to have seized suspected 3D-printed gun parts from a shop in Manchester. Some observers pointed out that the images released by police resembled printer parts.
(AFP, 10/25/13)(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, British police freed a Malaysian woman (69), an Irishwoman (57) and a 30-year-old Briton. A man and a woman, both 69, were arrested following an investigation on slavery at a house in London. Police announced the release on Nov 21 and said the women had been held for at least 30 years.
(AFP, 11/21/13)(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Oct 25, Some 20,000 Cambodian opposition supporters wrapped up a three-day demonstration to petition foreign embassies and the UN for intervention in what they claim was a rigged election.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In China ousted politician Bo Xilai lost his appeal against a life sentence for corruption in his final public appearance before prison.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In CongoDRC fighting resumed between the army and rebels in the northeast, just days after the latest effort at peace talks fell apart. Rwanda said Congolese army shells had landed on its territory.
(AFP, 10/25/13)(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Czechs went to the polls in an election that will swing the nation toward the left after unpopular budget cuts and graft scandals felled a center-right government.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Leaders of the 15-nation west African bloc ECOWAS met in Dakar, Senegal, for a special summit focused on moving the region towards a common market and a single currency by 2020.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In Egypt thousands of supporters of ousted Pres. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood group marched in Cairo to keep pressure on the military-backed leadership as it tries to stabilize a country.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Ethiopia banned domestic workers from moving overseas for employment, following an "exodus" of workers leaving the country through illegal placement agencies.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, French President Francois Hollande said he will stick to a government tax plan to impose a super-levy on soccer players' salaries despite the threat of the nation's pro clubs to scrap games one weekend next month.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Greek authorities said DNA tests have confirmed that Sasha Ruseva, a Bulgarian Roma woman (35), is the mother of a mysterious girl in Greece known as Maria.
(AP, 10/25/13)(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 25, Greek police said they have arrested a childless couple in Athens on suspicion of buying an 8-month-old Roma girl and trying to register her as their own, amid international uproar over another little girl who was found living with unrelated Gypsies in Greece.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Iran's Revolutionary Guard killed 3 rebels and arrested three others in Baneh, a Kurdish populated region in northwestern Iran.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 25, A senior Iraqi security official said the Baghdad government wants the immediate delivery of US drones and F-16 fighter jets in order to combat al Qaeda insurgents. Bombings in central Iraq that targeted a market, a cafe and the homes of police officers killed 13 people.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Italian vessels rescued another 700 migrants while the two-day EU summit was going on. EU leaders failed to take new action to ease the plight of thousands of boat refugees trying to cross from North Africa.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Japanese media said Mizuho Bank will punish more than 30 executives over revelations that the lender made loans to underworld figures in the latest chapter of a headline-grabbing scandal.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Luxembourg’s royal palace said Xavier Bettel, the mayor of Luxembourg City, has been asked to form the next government, sidelining long-serving PM Jean Claude Juncker.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Madagascar residents voted in a presidential election they hope will restore security, improve lives and mark the end of political and economic turmoil brought about by a 2009 coup.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, North Korea repatriated six South Korean citizens and a corpse at a heavily defended border crossing.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, Norway rejected a US request to help destroy Syria's chemical arms, arguing that the Nordic nation was an unsuitable site because it lacked suitable staff, equipment and regulations.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, A Pakistani court extended the custody of former dictator Pervez Musharraf, dampening hopes he would be able to leave the country any time soon following months under house arrest and legal wrangling over his fate.
(Reuters, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, South African official figures showed poachers have killed more than 100 rhinos over the past four weeks, pushing the death toll so far this year towards 800.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, A South Sudan army spokesman said ten soldiers were imprisoned for human rights abuses perpetrated during a 2012 campaign to disarm fighters from warring communities.
(AFP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 25, In Syria a car bomb explosion killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens more near a mosque in the Damascus province town of Suq Wadi Barada. Government troops ambushed rebels near Damascus, killing at least 40 opposition fighters.
(AFP, 10/25/13)(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Arizona 5 people and 2 dogs were found shot to death at a Phoenix apartment complex in what appeared to be a murder-homicide. Michael Guzzo (56) killed himself after shooting four members of a family that lived next door.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A8)(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 26, In New Mexico a gunman opened fire on police in Albuquerque and wounded three officers before he was shot and killed.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In NYC a woman and her 4 children were stabbed to death in their Brooklyn home. A cousin, Chinese immigrant Mingdong Chen (25), was arrested the next day.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 26, Wisconsin’s Milwaukee-based Garden-Fresh Foods recalled 50 more tons of chicken and ham products over concern of possible listeria contamination. The company first recalled 9 tons of food on Sep 25.
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.A8)
2013 Oct 26, In Afghanistan a gunman in Afghan uniform opened fire on ISAF coalition personnel before being killed on the outskirts of Kabul.
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Algeria's energy minister said a new oil field containing an estimated 1.3 billion barrels has been discovered in the southern region of Hassi Messaoud. He said state oil company, Sonatrach, will rely on unconventional techniques to extract 50 percent of the reserves, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Austrian authorities seized 500 kg (about 1,100 pounds) of cannabis during a routine check on a camping van entering southern Austria from Slovenia. Two Italian men were arrested.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina phoned Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition, and requested that national strike be called off. This was their first conversation in many years. The strike continued.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.48)
2013 Oct 26, In Manchester, England, Ray Teret (72), the former driver for disgraced late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile appeared in court to face charges including multiple counts of raping girls younger than 16.
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In western Central African Republic hundreds of vigilantes armed with machetes and firearms attacked the town of Bouar, forcing civilians to flee the area.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Chinese journalist Chen Yongzhou, arrested over a series of articles criticizing a partly state-owned firm, appeared on public television to apologize, with state media saying he admitted the articles were "unverified and false."
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In eastern CongoDRC fighting raged between soldiers and rebels for a second day.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, The center-left Social Democrats led the vote in the Czech parliamentary election with around 95% of polling stations across the country reporting. Party leader Bohuslav Sobotka faced the difficult task of cobbling together a majority after seven parties won seats in the election.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)(Reuters, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Ethiopia Africa's biggest wind farm began production, aiding efforts to diversify electricity generation from hydropower plants and help the country become a major regional exporter of energy.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, The Press Trust of India reported that torrential rains have claimed as many as 48 lives in eastern India. Up to 45 people were killed in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states and 3 in West Bengal.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Iranian media said 14 border guards were killed overnight and three others captured by "bandits" on the southeastern frontier with Pakistan. Jaish-ul Adl, a Sunni rebel group formed last year, claimed responsibility for the attack. In response the Iranian judiciary executed 16 people it said were elements of "terrorist" groups.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 26, Attacks in Iraq killed 10 people, 7 of them from the same family.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Kurdish militants seized a Syrian border post on the frontier with Iraq, after three days of clashes with an al Qaeda-linked group which had held the crossing since March.
(Reuters, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Lebanon 3 more people died overnight in Tripoli in clashes between supporters and opponents of Syria's regime.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In central Mozambique armed gunmen attacked a civilian convoy including a passenger bus, killing one and wounding at least ten.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Nepalese police arrested Ram Chandra Pyashi Kushbah, a UML politician, and two other men over the fatal drive-by shooting of Mohammad Alam, a candidate slated to run in national elections. Alam, of the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party, died in hospital after being shot in the head in Kathmandu earlier this month.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, North Korea detained Merrill Newman (85), an American retiree and Korean War veteran, who was on an organized tour. Friends and relatives later said it was due to a "misunderstanding," but after 3 weeks they had not heard any reasons for the detention. Former members of a South Korean guerrilla group later said six decades earlier Newman had supervised the group during the Korean War, and that they were perhaps the most hated and feared fighters in the North.
(AFP, 11/21/13)(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Oct 26, Panama granted asylum to an Ecuadoran opposition politician sentenced to prison last month for his role in a multiple homicide case, finding that he was subjected to political persecution. Tito Galo Lara Yepez (45) was convicted on Sep 2 as an accomplice in the murder of an Ecuadoran couple and their four-year-old child and sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Saudi activists said more than 60 women claimed to have answered their call to get behind the wheel in a rare show of defiance against a ban on female driving. At least 16 Saudi women received fines for taking the wheel in defiance of the traditional ban on female driving.
(AP, 10/26/13)(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, erupted, sending up a towering plume of ash visible in much of eastern Sicily.
(AP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, Somali security forces shut down one of the country’s most respected independent radio stations in Mogadishu, accusing it of illegally occupying a government building. Journalist Mohamed Mohamud (26) died in hospital after being attacked by gunmen, bringing to 7 the number of journalists killed in Somalia this year. Unidentified gunmen in a car shot at Mohamud as he drove to work on Oct 22 in the Wadajir district of Mogadishu.
(AFP, 10/26/13)(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 26, Syria's jihadist Al-Nusra Front said in a statement that its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, was in good health, a day after state television had reported his death.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 26, In Taiwan tens of thousands of people rallied in Asia's largest gay parade, as the island's parliament was set to review a bill on same-sex marriages.
(AFP, 10/26/13)
2013 Oct 27, Leonard Herzenberg (80), a Stanford geneticist, died at Stanford Univ. Hospital. He won Japan’s Kyoto Prize in 2006 for his invention of a cell sorter instrument, the fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS).
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.D3)
2013 Oct 27, Lou Reed (b.1942), rock guitarist and singer, died in Southampton, NY. He formed and led the Velvet Underground from 1965-1970. His songs included “Walk on the Wild Side." He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A10)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.98)
2013 Oct 27, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed 18 people, mostly women, who were travelling to a wedding party by minibus.
(Reuters, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Argentine held midterm elections. President Cristina Kirchner's Front for Victory (FPV) won 33% of the vote for the lower house of Congress and narrowly retained a majority in both houses.
(AFP, 10/28/13)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.40)
2013 Oct 27, In Bangladesh police and backers of the ruling party clashed with opposition supporters, leaving at least 5 people dead and scores injured in different parts of the country as opposition parties tried to enforce a three-day nationwide general strike.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, The Congolese army said it had recaptured two more towns and was heading for the rebel stronghold of Rutshuru in a third day of fighting. A Tanzanian officer with UN forces operating alongside government troops was killed in fighting with rebels.
(Reuters, 10/27/13)(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Dubai opened passenger operations at its second airport, Al-Maktoum International, touted to be the world's largest once it is completed.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Georgia voted for a new president in an election that will bring the curtain down on Mikheil Saakashvili's decade-long rule but is unlikely to end political uncertainty in the former Soviet republic. Former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili won 62% of the vote.
(Reuters, 10/27/13)(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 27, In India a series of small bomb blasts killed 6 people and injured dozens in Patna, Bihar state, just before a speech by Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party at a campaign rally. Investigators believed the Indian Mujahedeen, an outlawed Islamic group, was responsible.
(AP, 10/27/13)(AFP, 10/28/13)(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, In Iraq a new wave of car bombs hit Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and a suicide bomber targeted soldiers in Mosul in attacks that killed at least 66 across the country.
(AP, 10/27/13)(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 27, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe warned China against forcibly changing the regional balance of power, as reports said Tokyo had scrambled fighter jets in response to Chinese military aircraft flying near Okinawa.
(AFP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, In Mexico 5 men were killed and power was cut to hundreds of thousands following clashes between vigilantes and the Knights Templar drug cartel in Michoacan state.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, Police in the Philippines said at least 22 candidates and political supporters have been killed in election-related violence over the last month. Balloting was set to begin on Oct 28.
(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, In Romania thousands of ethnic Hungarians held rallies in 14 communities of Transylvania to demand autonomy in the areas where they live.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, In Russia some 5 thousand people marched through central Moscow in a new protest at President Vladimir Putin's rule and a judicial crackdown against opponents.
(AFP, 10/27/13)(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, Saudi police detained Tariq al-Mubarak, a columnist who supported ending his country's ban on women driving.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 27, In Spain several thousand people gathered in downtown Madrid to protest the release from jail of Basque separatists, convicted of attacks but freed under a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Hundreds of Sudanese in the disputed border region of Abyei voted in a referendum that they hope will decide whether they join Sudan or South Sudan. Voting ended on Oct 29. Abyei residents chose overwhelmingly to join South Sudan in the unofficial referendum. Only one of the two ethnic groups (the Ngok Dinka) living in the area voted in the poll, which is not recognized by either Khartoum or Juba.
(AP, 10/27/13)(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 27, In central Syria a rocket smashed into the home of a family in the embattled Christian town of Sadad, killing 5 people as al-Qaida-linked rebels and soldiers clashed for control.
(AP, 10/27/13)
2013 Oct 27, Okot Odhiambo, an alleged deputy army commander in the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army, died. He was indicted in 2005 on 10 charges including murder, enslavement and using child soldiers. DNA evidence later confirmed his identity.
(AP, 9/10/15)
2013 Oct 28, The Obama administration granted a 6-week extension until March 31 for Americans to sign up for health care coverage and avoid tax penalties.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 28, The governors of California, Oregon and Washington states along with the premier of British Columbia agreed to coordinate greenhouse gas reduction goals.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A1)
2013 Oct 28, Los Angeles police said body parts believed to be from the same woman have been found at two water treatment plants in the LA area.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Scientists said they have documented for the first time that an Asian carp species has successfully reproduced within the Great Lakes watershed, an ominous development in the struggle to slam the door on the hungry invaders that could threaten native fish.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 28, A US federal judge determined that new Texas abortion restrictions place an unconstitutional burden on women seeking to end a pregnancy, a ruling that keeps open dozens of abortion clinics across the state while officials appeal.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Texas 5 people were killed during a rapid series of attacks in Terrell. Charles Everett Brownlow Jr. (36), the son of one of the victims, was arrested early the next day.
(AP, 10/29/13)(SFC, 10/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 28, Bangladesh police said at least 15 people have been killed and hundreds wounded as the 2nd day of an opposition strike demanded elections be held under a non-partisan administration.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Brazil one person was injured and 90 detained while trucks and buses were torched in Sao Paulo late today in renewed violence after police fatally shot a 17-year-old boy.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, British security group G4S denied that its workers had electrocuted and drugged prisoners at South Africa's Mangaung prison, the maximum security facility it ran before the government stepped in to restore order earlier this month.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, A major storm, dubbed the St Jude storm, lashed southern Britain, the Netherlands and parts of France, knocking down trees, flooding low areas and causing travel chaos. 5 deaths were reported.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In China a sport utility vehicle plowed through a crowd in Tiananmen Square before crashing and catching fire, killing the 3 occupants and 2 tourists and injuring 38 visitors and security officers. The SUV was driven by Usmen Hasan, a man whose name suggested he is an ethnic Uighur. His wife and mother were also with him in the car, along with devices filled with gasoline. China blamed the attack on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Eight people connected with the incident were soon arrested with help from the Xinjiang government.
(AP, 10/28/13)(Reuters, 10/29/13)(AP, 10/30/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.50)(SSFC, 6/1/14, p.A5)
2013 Oct 28, The Congolese army, who one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on in taking back Rumangabo, the fifth, rebel-held town.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Egypt gunmen killed 3 policemen at a security checkpoint north of Cairo.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, A Georgian court convicted former defense minister Bacho Akhalaia and ordered him sent to prison, in another blow for outgoing President Mikhail Saakashvili the day after a presidential election that was won by his rival.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Israeli warplanes raided the northern Gaza Strip after militants fired rockets over the border. Israel readied to free a new batch of long-term Palestinian prisoners.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Kenya a petition campaign demanding justice topped a million signatures after three men accused of brutally gang raping a Kenyan schoolgirl in June were ordered to cut grass as punishment.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Lebanon's army began deploying in Tripoli following a week of bloodshed in which 14 have people died and more than 80 were wounded. Two more people died Tripoli in fighting between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese army.
(AFP, 10/28/13)(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Libya gunmen stole over $50 million after attacking a van belonging to the Central Bank on a road along the Mediterranean coast.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 28, Niger police said dozens of migrants to Algeria from Niger died of thirst in the desert south of the Sahara after their vehicle broke down. 19 reportedly survived.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Pakistani police said a young man has stabbed at least 25 women since Oct 6 in the small town of Chichawatni, Punjab province. Many women and girls were afraid to leave their homes.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Poland Tadeusz Mazowiecki (b.1927), Eastern Europe's first democratic prime minister after communism, died. He was a key adviser to Poland's Solidarity freedom movement and UN human rights envoy to Bosnia in the 1990s.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Saudi Arabia said one more person has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 52 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Somalia Ibrahim Ali Abdi (aka Anta-Anta), a top suicide bomb-maker for Shebab rebels, was among 3 people killed in a drone strike on a vehicle.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 28, A South African court began sentencing 20 right-wing extremists convicted of high treason for a plot to kill Nelson Mandela and drive blacks out of the country.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, A Spanish newspaper published a document that it said shows the US National Security Agency spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone — the latest revelation about alleged massive US spying on allies.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In northern Spain 6 miners died and five others were injured after a gas leak at a coal mine at the Santa Lucia mine near the town of Pola de Gordon.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, In Sudan 9 university professors, many of them activists, were detained during a campus raid, hours after President Omar al-Bashir spoke of political dialogue and reform. They were all released the next day.
(AFP, 10/29/13)(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 28, Syrian government forces retook Sadad, a Christian town north of Damascus, from al-Qaida-linked rebels who seized control of part of it a week ago, touching off fierce clashes.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Thailand rubber farmers took to the streets again to demand that the government buy their produce at prices higher than the market, rejecting a subsidy offered last month and threatening violence if their demands are not met.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 28, Turkish police fired water cannon and teargas to break up a protest by around 2,000 people outside an Ankara court over the handling of the trial of a policeman accused of killing a demonstrator earlier this year. Officer Ahmet Sahbaz is accused of killing Ethem Sarisuluk, shot dead June 1 during a wave of nationwide anti-government demonstrations.
(Reuters, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 29, Conrad Murray (60), the doctor conficted of killing Michael Jackson with an overdose of a powerful anesthetic, was released from prison in LA after serving about half of his maximum sentence.
(SFC, 10/29/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 29, The SF Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a bill banning the possession of large-capacity magazines for guns.
(SFC, 10/30/13, p.D3)
2013 Oct 29, Bangladesh police opened fire at protesters on a remote island, killing 2 and bringing to 20 the death toll in demonstrations aimed at forcing the premier to make way for a caretaker government ahead of elections.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In CongoDRC 6 people were killed in clashes between military police and a group of separatist attackers at a munitions depot in the southwestern city of Lubumbashi.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Iranian media reported that a court has sentenced Pegah Ahangarani (24), an actress known for her reformist political activism, to 18 months in prison on security charges.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Iraq's PM Nuri al-Maliki travelled to the United States to press for urgent help and arms to combat the worst upsurge of violence in years.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers killed 12 military and police officers and wounded 19 late today by blowing themselves up outside a Sunni militia leader's house in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad. In a village outside Mosul, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint leading to a police station, killing 3 policemen and 4 civilians. When an ambulance rushed to the scene, gunmen opened fire on its crew, killing one and wounding three.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 29, Italian police arrested 17 suspected gangsters thanks to information on brutal gang wars that a mafia informant had provided before being murdered.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Kenyan police said they are holding five people over last month's attack on Nairobi's Westgate mall, while two soldiers were court martialed for looting during the attack.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In Libya attackers in Benghazi opened fire on a five-man sit-in, killing 2 and wounding three. The men were protesting the 2011 assassination of former army chief Abdel-Fatah Younis.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Niger said it has accepted a controversial $1 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank) to finance development projects.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In southwest Pakistan a gunmen killed a pro-government tribal elder and six members of his family in Baluchistan province.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Peru's PM Juan Jimenez said he is leaving President Ollanta Humala's government and that other cabinet changes will soon be announced by his successor, Cesar Villanueva, the regional president of the northern department of San Martin.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will ask Ukraine to start pre-paying for gas supplies in case Ukraine doesn't settle outstanding debts. He was reacting to a complaint of Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian gas giant Gazprom, who said Ukraine owes Russia $882 million for the August deliveries and was due to pay for it by Oct 1.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Russian investigators announced new theft and money laundering charges against opposition politician Alexei Navalny, increasing pressure against one of Pres. Putin's biggest domestic critics.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, In South Africa Mike du Toit, the mastermind behind the 2002 right-wing extremist plot to kill former President Nelson Mandela and drive blacks out of the country, was sentenced along with four others to 35 years in jail. The rest of the 20 militia members on trial received 10 and 30 years sentences depending on their degree of involvement in the plot. The judge suspended 10 years of the sentences for some and took into account the time behind bars during the trial.
(AFP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, South Africa signed an agreement to buy over half of the power generated by the first phase of the Grand Inga hydroelectric project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
(Reuters, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 29, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sacked Vice Premier Qadri Jamil saying the official had been absent without leave and carried out unauthorized meetings abroad. Jamil had met with the US pointman for Syria Robert Ford on Oct 26 to discuss proposed Geneva peace talks. Some 800 women, children and elderly civilians trapped in the besieged town of Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of Damascus, were evacuated.
(AFP, 10/29/13)(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 29, Turkey opened its Marmaray tunnel, the world's first underwater rail link connecting Asia and Europe. The 8.5 mile tunnel allowed PM Tayyip Erdogan to realize a project dreamed up by Ottoman sultans more than a century ago.
(Reuters, 10/29/13)(SFC, 10/30/13, p.A3)
2013 Oct 29, The UN's health agency said it has confirmed 10 polio cases in northeast Syria, the first confirmed outbreak of the highly contagious disease in the country in 14 years, and a top UN official urged warring sides to grant health workers access to 500,000 children who have never received immunization.
(AP, 10/29/13)
2013 Oct 30, US federal authorites said a $34 million settlement with Infosys, an Indian technology outsourcing firm, fixes systemic issues. The case targeted major visa fraud and immigration abuse.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 30, Authorities in San Diego, Ca., shut down a tunnel, nealy 600 yards long, designed to smuggle drugs from Tijuana.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 30, The NYC Council voted to raise the minimum age for purchasing cigarettes and electronic-vapor cigarettes from 18-21.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 30, In South Carolina Bryan Sweatt (27) shot and killed his one-time girlfriend, her parents and two children befor killing himself.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 30, Riot police in Bahrain stormed an exhibition dedicated to the Arab Spring-inspired uprising. The raid came two days after the opening of the museum-style hall, which included scenes depicting Bahrain's 32-month unrest, such as protesters killed in clashes, alleged torture inside prisons and demonstrators running from tear gas.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Electronica singer-songwriter James Blake (25) won Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize for his second album, "Overgrown."
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Egyptian police fired teargas at protesting students at Cairo's al-Azhar university hours after authorities announced the detention of Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Erian.
(Reuters, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In India a Nigerian man was found stabbed to death in Goa. Goan police arrested 53 Nigerians after around 200 of them staged a protest against the killing. On Oct 5 police detained a man in north Goa, accused of being part of a gang who stabbed the Nigerian to death.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Oct 30, In southern India a packed bus crashed into a highway barrier and burst into flames, killing 45 passengers who were locked inside the cabin in Andhra Pradesh state. The driver, a bus cleaner and five passengers managed to escape through a window in the front of the overnight bus.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that four people accused of sabotaging one of the country's sensitive nuclear sites were only thieves.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Israel announced plans to build 1,500 new homes in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Israel reportedly targeted a shipment of surface-to-surface missiles in latakia, Syria, destined for Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement fighting alongside the regime.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 30, Japan’s financial watchdog said it would inspect the Mizuho Bank and two other big banks for to hunt for loans to yakuza (gangsters).
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.79)
2013 Oct 30, In Kenya a train crashed into a passenger bus as it passed through a rail crossing in the capital, Nairobi, killing at least 11 people.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Norway the residents of Rjukan received faint rays from the winter sun in the town’s market square for the first time following the construction of three 183-square-foot mirrors on a nearby mountain. The town was built 100 years ago to provide workers for a hydroelectric plant in Telemark County.
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A4)
2013 Oct 30, Oman said it has discovered the first case of the MERS coronavirus in the Gulf sultanate, a 68-year-old Omani man.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, The Pakistani government said that 3% of the people killed in US drone strikes since 2008 were civilians. A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in South Waziristan.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Bomb blasts in shops in Russia's volatile North Caucasus province of Dagestan killed one person and injured several others.
(Reuters, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In South Africa thousands of angry demonstrators took the streets of central Cape Town, looting shops to protest against poor public services.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Tunisia a man blew himself up in front of a popular seaside hotel at Sousse. The attack was believed to be the country's first suicide bombing. Authorities in Monastir foiled a possibly related assault at the mausoleum of Habib Bourguiba, modern Tunisia's secular founder.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Uzbekistan Gulnara Karimova (41), the eldest daughter of President Islam Karimov, acknowledged for the first time that the authorities had closed television channels she is believed to control, further stoking rumours of a rift in the ruling family.
(AFP, 10/30/13)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.44)
2013 Oct 30, In Yemen at least 4 people were killed when a rocket hit a mosque in the Salafi-controlled northern town of Damaj.
(AP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 30, Zimbabwe's highest court scrapped a law against insulting the president that has been used to arrest opponents and critics of veteran leader Robert Mugabe.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Zimbabwe 21 people were killed, many burnt beyond recognition, after a fuel tanker and a truck ferrying mourners collided.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 31, The nation’s largest landfill, a 630-acre site 20 miles east of LA, closed as a permit for the sited expired. Garbage from the county’s 88 cities will eventually be put on trains and taken to an abandoned gold mine over 200 miles away.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.D5)
2013 Oct 31, A US federal appeals court ruled that most of Texas’ tough new abortion restrictions can take effect immediately.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 31, In central Texas flash floods following heavy rains killed two men in the Austin area.
(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A10)
2013 Oct 31, In Britain television cameras were allowed into one of the highest courts for the first time, hailed as a landmark move towards open justice while still protecting the rights of vulnerable witnesses.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 30, In Brazil oil giant OGX, once the jewel in the EBX crown, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection after debt-restructuring talks with its creditors failed. Eike Batista's debt-ridden EBX empire appeared to be on its last legs as the Brazilian magnate desperately tried to sell assets and lure investment to keep his sinking ship afloat.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 30, Barclays, Britain's second-largest bank, revealed that it was the subject of an investigation by regulators in Britain and other countries over "possible attempts to manipulate certain benchmark currency exchange rates." Six traders were soon suspended amid an investigation into whether international currency markets were rigged.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In London Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif told British Deputy PM Nick Clegg that his country had started talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Calls for the resignation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford intensified after police said they had obtained a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe, discovered in a massive surveillance operation of a friend who is suspected of supplying the mayor with drugs.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Chinese state media said the last county in China to be accessible by modern land transport was finally linked up to the rest of the country with a new 117-km road that has taken decades to build. The 19,000 people of deeply isolated Medog in southeastern Tibet have until now had to depend on horses for land travel and trade.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Ghana immigration official said 46 more foreigners, suspected of illegal gold mining, have been arreested in the last week, including 43 Chinese, two Indians and an American.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Greece thousands of protesters clogged Athens to demonstrate against a new property tax. The anger was registered across society, with retirees, disabled groups, shipyard workers and high school teachers among those taking part.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Indonesia tens of thousands of workers went on strike across the country as its citizens seek a greater share of the spoils from stellar growth.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Iraq twin car bombs north of Baghdad killed 6 people, while attacks elsewhere in the country left 6 others dead.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported the government is planning to move ahead with another 3,360 new settler homes in the West Bank, quoting an MP from the ruling rightwing Likud party.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Italian police said they have busted an international ring of former special forces agents hired to "recover" children involved in custody battles who were spirited across borders by one of their parents.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenya MPs voted to set up and appoint a new Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal with the teeth to impose penalties of up to 20 million Kenyan shillings (173,000 euros, $234,000) on offenders and even bar journalists from working.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Kenyan warplanes destroyed a Shebab rebel camp in southern Somalia used to train gunmen who attacked Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in September.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Oct 31, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a campaign against the country’s obesity epidemic, urging his countrymen to exercise more as Congress passed special taxes on junk food and sodas. Mexico's Congress passed a package of measures aimed at bolstering the country's weak tax revenues, but only after watering down a plan that is expected to have a moderate impact at best.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Niger authorities said rescuers have found the bodies of 92 migrants, most of them women and children, strewn across the Sahara desert after their vehicles broke down and they died of thirst.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Nigeria dozens of Boko Haram gunmen riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks stormed Bama town in Borno state, killing 27 people and razing some 300 homes.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Pakistan a US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed 3 insurgents in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Palestinian security sources said Israel's army arrested four suspects from the Islamic Jihad movement overnight, in the second such arrest operation this week. A Palestinian rock thrower was killed as Israeli troops entered Qabatiya in northern West Bank.
(AFP, 10/31/13)(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 31, Peru's President Ollanta Humala swore in Cesar Villanueva, a widely praised regional politician, as his 4th prime minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, but retained his finance minister despite rumors he might quit.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Portugal Lisbon subway workers walked off the job for the fifth time this year to protest government austerity measures being enacted in return for Portugal's 2011 bailout.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, A Moscow court revoked the registration of web-based news agency Rosbalt for posting videos it said contained profane language, including a clip by punk band Pussy Riot.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, In Sudan the pan-Arab satellite channel Sky News Arabia reopened its bureau in Khartoum after a one-month suspension that authorities imposed during anti-regime protests.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria has destroyed critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and poison gas munitions. Fierce clashes raged in the north, close to one of the sites where toxic agents are believed to be stored.
(AP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Thai anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Bangkok as parliament debated a political amnesty which opponents fear will "whitewash" past abuses and allow ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct 31, Venezuela seized control of two oil rigs owned by a unit of Houston-based Superior Energy Services after the company shut them down because the state oil monopoly was months behind on payments.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Oct 31, In northern Yemen the death toll from a Houthi Shi'ite attack on a mountain town held by their Salafi Sunni Muslim rivals rose to 24 as the two sides fought for a second day in Damaj. Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen shot dead two soldiers and a civilian in an attack on an army checkpoint in the southern province of Abyan.
(Reuters, 10/31/13)(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Oct, In Myanmar a blast at the Trader's Hotel, later known as the Sule Shangri-La, in the heart of Yangon, ripped apart a guest's room and wounded an American woman (43). On July 3, 2015, a court convicted Saw Myint Lwin (26) on three charges related to the bombing and sentenced him to life imprisonment and hard labor. Two others were acquitted and the alleged mastermind, said to be a member of the Karen National Union ethnic rebel group, remained at large.
(AP, 7/3/15)
2013 Oct, In Qatar Lauren Patterson (24), a British teacher, was stabbed to death and her body burned in the Qatari desert. In 2014 Badr Hashim Khamis Abdallah al-Jabr was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Jabr's accomplice Mohamed Abdallah Hassan Abdul Aziz, who helped to burn the body, was sentenced to three years in jail.
(AFP, 4/30/17)
2013 Oct, In Spain all the factories of appliance-maker Fagor ceased operations. Fagor was part of Mondragon, the world’s biggest group of worker-owned co-operatives.
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.72)
2013 Oct, Thailand’s Supreme Court sentenced former Deputy Interior Minister Pracha Maleenont to 12 years imprisonment and a Bangkok fire department chief to 10 years in jail for malfeasance in public office and price fixing. The pair fled and are the subjects of arrest warrants.
(AP, 4/30/14)
2013 Nov 1, The US Federal Aviation Administration said it is relaxing restrictions on the use of smartphones and other electronics inside flights by American carriers.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In California Paul Ciancia (23) walked into LAX’s terminal 3 near the security checkpoint and began shooting, sending thousands of passengers scattering onto tarmacs other parts of the airport. TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez (39) was killed. Ciancia was hospitalized after being shot 4 times.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)(SFC, 11/4/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, In Nevada Lee Hosey Jr. (25) was sentenced to 24-80 years in prison for a drunken driving crash in Las Vegas on Sep 13, 2012, that left 4 people dead and several injured.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, In Rhode Island Ralph Mariano (55), was sentenced to 10 years in prison as the mastermind of a kickback scheme that cost the Navy $18 million.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, Genentech won federal approval for its Gazyva drug for patients with leukemia.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.D2)
2013 Nov 1, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is ready to talk with German prosecutors in Russia, his lawyer said, after the fugitive met a German lawmaker over his evidence that Washington spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Bulgaria's ruling alliance asked the country's top court to quash a widely criticized ban on arable land acquisitions by foreigners to avert infringement action by the EU.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, China jailed for life Tian Xueren, a former vice governor of the northeastern province of Jilin and former banker, for taking more than $3 million in bribes, in the government's latest move to crack down on deep-rooted corruption.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In China 11 people died and 17 were injured by an explosion in a fireworks factory in Guangxi province. Police detained two people.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Egypt controversial satirist Bassem Youssef's television channel suspended his program, a week after he returned from a four-month break and fired barbs at the country's military. Thousands supporting ousted Pres. Morsi marched in street protests across the country, ramping up pressure on the military-backed interim government ahead of his coming trial next week.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Greece two members of the far-right Golden Dawn party were killed and a third wounding. The gun used in the attack had not been used in previous terrorist attacks.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Indonesia tens of thousands of workers went on strike across the country for a second straight day, calling for huge salary hikes as Southeast Asia's top economy enjoys a prolonged boom.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Iran said it has launched its first submarine for tourists in the Persian Gulf waters, an all-Iranian-made undersea vehicle. The submarine, dubbed Morvarid (Pearl in Farsi), will serve tourists in Kish Island, Iran's prime tourist spot in the Gulf.
(AP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, An Israeli air strike killed 3 militants in the Gaza Strip after an overnight clash that killed a fourth Palestinian gunman and wounded five Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted a tunnel used by militants to facilitate attacks on Israelis.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Kenya's media reacted with shock and outrage after parliament voted through a bill that could see journalists and outlets slapped with huge fines for violating a code of conduct.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Dutch PM Mark Rutte said the Netherlands will send 380 soldiers and four Apache attack helicopters to war-torn Mali following an appeal for more UN peacekeepers.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Nigeria formally scrapped its inefficient and graft-ridden electricity firm and handed its assets to private investors in a bid expected to improve power supplies.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In northwest Pakistan Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud was killed by a US drone aircraft in Miranshah. He had a $5 million US bounty on his head. 3 others were also killed.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 1, Hamas said a shortage of fuel halted the production of electricity across the Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Russia a man facing an assault charge detonated a grenade in a courthouse, killing himself and a court officer and wounding two other people in the Ural Mountains city of Kurgan.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Tanzania’s parliament suspended an anti-poaching campaign, amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino, to allow investigation of reported seizure of property, torture and killing of suspects.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Tasmania int’l. negotiations ended after China, Russia and Ukraine scuttled plans to create the world's largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctica. The sanctuary plans were led by the Antarctic Ocean Alliance which campaigns for protecting the Antarctic seas. For the sanctuary proposals to pass, they needed backing from all 200 delegates from 25 member countries, many of which have conflicting interests.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 1, State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland announced plans to create an internal 'bad bank' to run down £38 billion of high-risk assets and accelerate its return to the private sector.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, A South African court sentenced Johannes Kana, a man convicted of raping and murdering Anene Booysen (17) in a gruesome case that shocked the country, has been sentenced to two life terms in jail.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Syrian troops heavily shelled rebel-held areas of southern Damascus as part of a bid to completely cut them off from rear bases in the countryside. State media said government forces have captured Safira, a northern town located near a chemical weapons site after days of heavy fighting.
(AFP, 11/1/13)(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Tanzania’s parliament suspended an anti-poaching campaign, amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino, to allow investigation of reported seizure of property, torture and killing of suspects.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 1, Thailand's Parliament moved a step closer to granting amnesty to people involved in a wrenching political conflict that has divided the country for almost a decade, prompting thousands to protest in the streets and renewing fears of violence. The bill was aimed to bring back Thaksin Shinawatra, the elder brother of PM Yingluck Thinawatra.
(AP, 11/1/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.44)
2013 Nov 1, Tunisia's party leaders met to choose a new premier to be tasked with replacing an Islamist-led government and steering the country out of a months-long political crisis.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, In Yemen Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels backed by tanks launched a fresh attack Damaj, a town held by their Sunni Muslim Salafi rivals, bringing the total death toll in three days of sectarian clashes to 40.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, Dozens of Zambian separatists appeared in court on charges of treason for trying to create a new state called Barotseland in the west of the country. A total of 84 defendants, mostly from the Lozi tribe, were rounded up in a recent crackdown on those protesting for Barotseland.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 2, Clifford Nass (b.1958), a Standfor Univ. sociologist, died following a hike near Lake Tahoe. He had warned of chronic multitasking following his experiences as a freshman, residence hall dorm dad.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.D7)
2013 Nov 2, In Georgia, the burned body of Emani Moss, a 10-year-old girl, was found in a trash can at an apartment complex near Atlanta. Her father, Eman Moss, and stepmother, Tiffany Moss, were soon charged with felony murder.
(SSFC, 11/3/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 2, In Michigan Theodore Wafer (54) of Dearborn Heights shot and killed Renisha McBride (19), a black woman, as she apparently knocked his door following a car accident. On Nov 15 Wafer was charged with 2nd degree murder. On Aug 7 he was convicted of 2nd degree murder.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A7)(SFC, 8/8/14, p.A8)
2013 Nov 2, Jacqui Park, an Australian media rights activist, accused Sri Lankan officials of a "witch-hunt" against local journalists as she arrived back in Sydney after being detained in Colombo for two days.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Brazil’s O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper said President Dilma Rousseff will allow state-run oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA to increase domestic fuel prices "two or three times" a year through the use of a formula without triggering significant consumer price gains.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that spy agencies in Germany, France, Spain and Sweden are carrying out mass surveillance of online and phone traffic in collaboration with Britain, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, China, the only country that still systematically takes organs from executed prisoners for use in transplant operations, said it plans to end the controversial practice by the middle of next year.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Cuba closed dozens of home-based movie theaters and reaffirmed its plans to end the private sale of imported goods as communist authorities pressed for "order, discipline and obedience" in the growing small business sector.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Europe's heaviest-ever cargo carrier to the International Space Station burned up in Earth's atmosphere in a controlled manoeuver after a five-month mission. It was filled with about six tons of garbage and waste produced on board the ISS.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, French riot police fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators in the north-west, after some protesters hurled stones and iron bars at them in a rally against a controversial green tax and layoffs.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Georgia's PM Bidzina Ivanishvili named Interior Minister Irakly Garibashvili (31) as his successor. Under changes to the constitution that will this month transfer many of the president's responsibilities to the prime minister, Garibashvili will become the country's most powerful politician.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In southern India a train struck and killed 8 people in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SSFC, 11/3/13, p.A3)
2013 Nov 2, Iran arrested the head of reformist daily Bahar, Saeed Pourazizi, for publishing an article seen by critics as questioning the beliefs of Shia Islam.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, An Iranian media website said China has agreed to finance $20 billion in development projects in Iran using oil money not transferred to the Islamic Republic because of international sanctions.
(AP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In northern Iraq militants bombed a major oil pipeline in Nineveh province, disabling it and forcing pumping to be suspended.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Meeting in Tokyo Japan and Russia held their first joint defense and foreign ministers' meeting and agreed to boost security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific as they both warily watch neighboring China's rising influence. Japan and Russia have never signed a treaty to mark the end of World War II because of a territorial dispute.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Kenya's chief justice said he has ordered "immediate action" over a case where men accused of brutally gang raping a schoolgirl last June were ordered to cut grass as punishment.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In Libya a soldier was killed by a mine in Benghazi.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, In Mali two French journalists were snatched by gunmen in the northern town of Kidal. Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon of Radio France Internationale were grabbed by armed men in a 4x4 just after finishing an interview with the acting head of the rebel National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (NMLA). Their bodies were dumped a dozen km outside the town.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)(AP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, Niger said it has detained 100 migrants crossing the Sahara to Algeria, in a crackdown on illegal migration after 92 people died trying to make the same journey.
(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, In northeast Nigeria suspected Islamic militants attacked a wedding convoy and killed more than 30 people including the groom.
(AP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, In eastern Nigeria at least 24 people died during a stampede at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Uke, Anambra state.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 2, The Pakistani Taliban voted to promote their number two commander, Khan Said, also known as Sajna, to replace leader Hakimullah Mehsud who was killed in a strike by a US drone.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 2, Syria's air force struck Sbeineh south of Damascus, as loyalists pressed a fierce bid to crush rebel bastions around the capital. Rebels launched a counteroffensive in Aleppo.
(AP, 11/2/13)(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A9)
2013 Nov 2, In northern Yemen Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels pressed their offensive against Damaj held by their Sunni Muslim Salafi rivals, bringing the total death toll in four days of sectarian clashes to 55.
(Reuters, 11/2/13)
2013 Nov 3, Bill Schumacher (b.1937), former Mayor of Daly City, Ca. (1978-1979), died in Palm Desert, Ca.
(http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/bill_schumacher/homepage.aspx)
2013 Nov 3, Hackers claiming links to international activist group Anonymous (Anonymous Indonesia and Anonymous Philippines) defaced dozens of websites belonging to Australian businesses and Philippine government agencies.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, The head of Bahrain's main opposition group, Ali Salman, was charged with insulting authorities through an exhibition that showed alleged abuses against anti-government protesters. A court sentenced four Shi'ite Muslims to life and six others to 15 years in jail on charges of setting up a militant cell linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard that aimed at assassinating public figures in Bahrain.
(AP, 11/3/13)(Reuters, 11/4/13)(SFC, 11/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 3, A Bangladesh war crimes court convicted and sentenced to death in absentia two men accused of committing atrocities during the country's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971. Britain-based Muslim leader Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a US citizen, were found guilty of the torture and murder of 18 intellectuals during the war.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, A Bolivian plane carrying 18 people crashed while trying to land during bad weather in Riberalta, killing 8 passengers and injuring the others on board.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, China's ruling Communist Party announced the removal of the military chief of restive Xinjiang from the region's governing council, following an Oct 28 car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square blamed on Islamist militants from Xinjiang.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, Colombia police said US and Colombian anti-drugs agents cooperated in a massive bust in the southern Caribbean that led to the confiscation of 1,450 kilos of cocaine. Four Venezuelans and a Colombian were detained in the case.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 rebels declared a ceasefire in their fight with the army, in a move they hope will advance peace talks with the government.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Egypt gunmen killed two policemen near Ismailia on the west bank of the Suez Canal.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, The Greek government backed away from allowing retailers to trade on any Sunday after opposition from small retailers and the Orthodox Church. The government says more Sunday shopping would boost retail sales in a country struggling to pull itself out of a six-year recession.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung volcano erupted for the third time in as many months on the western island of Sumatra, forcing hundreds of villagers to evacuate.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Kosovo violence and low turnout in elections underscored the deep divisions in the territory and dealt a blow to Belgrade, which had sought to further its EU membership bid by urging ethnic Serbs to vote peacefully.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 3, A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that a Kuwaiti woman was arrested in Saudi Arabia for trying to drive her father to hospital.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Libya 16 people were wounded in clashes at a prison in Kuafiya prison, Benghazi.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Mexico 13 people were killed in shootouts around the northeastern city of Matamoros in one of the worst recent outbreaks of violence in an area ravaged by drug gangs.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, A boat carrying at least 70 Muslim Rohingya capsized and sank off the western coast of Myanmar. Only eight survivors were found.
(AP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, North Korea publicly executed around 80 people, many for watching smuggled South Korean TV shows. A South Korean newspaper reported the executions on Nov 11.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 3, In South Africa 6 people were killed when residents of a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg attacked a group of suspected gang members. Attackers gunned down a former senior union official at platinum producer Lonmin, stoking political and industrial tensions in the nation’s volatile platinum belt.
(AFP, 11/3/13)(Reuters, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 3, In Thailand at least 6 passengers including three foreigners died after a tourist ferry sank off the Thai resort of Pattaya.
(AFP, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 3, In northern Yemen at least 3 people were killed in fighting between rival Muslim clans, bringing the death toll from five days of clashes to 58 as the government tried to broker a ceasefire.
(Reuters, 11/3/13)
2013 Nov 4, US federal prosecutors said SAC Capital Advisors, a Connecticut-based hedge fund led by billionaire Steven A. Cohen, would plead guilty to five counts of fraud and pay a record fine of $1.8 billion.
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.79)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that scientists are struggling to find the trigger for a disease that appears to be ravaging starfish in record numbers along the US West Coast. The deadly syndrome, known as "star wasting disease," caused the sea creatures to lose their limbs and turn to slime in a matter of days. The disease was first detected in tide pools this summer along the coast of Monterey, Ca.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 4, In New Jersey Richard Shoop (20) fired shots into a ceiling at Garden State Palaza in Paramus and then killed himself.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 4, Astronomers at NASA’s Ames research center said the Milky Way may have 11 billion Earth-like planets based on data from the Kepler spacecraft, now crippled and no longer providing new data.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.C3)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.84)
2013 Nov 4, In Vienna 7 Austrian neo-Nazis were sentenced to up to six years in prison. The members of the so-called Objekt 21, which witnesses linked to an illegal prostitution network, were convicted of "re-engagement with National Socialism" - a crime in Austria since 1947.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, The British Co-operative Group announced plans to close around 50 of its bank branches as part of a £1.5 billion rescue plan that will give investors majority control of the lender.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that Britain's biggest retailer Tesco plans to install screens at its petrol stations that scan customers' faces so that advertising can be tailored to their age and gender.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Canada-based BlackBerry abandoned hopes of finding a buyer, and instead pegged its future on a $1 billion cash infusion and new management, after the sudden departure of its chief executive.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Democratic Republic of Congo troops drove M23 rebels from one of their key hilltop positions in the east of the country, pushing on with their assault despite calls for a truce. Mortar shells fell on a market in eastern Congo, killing 4 people as fighting intensified between government soldiers and the M23 fighters.
(AFP, 11/4/13)(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Egypt's deposed Islamist president defiantly rejected a court's authority to try him, saying he was the country's "legitimate" leader and those that overthrew him should face charges instead.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Interpol and the Stolen Asset Recovery Project released a report on how Somali pircay is financed. “Pirate Trails: Tracking the Illicit Financial Flows from Pirate Activities off the Horn of Africa" was backed by the UN and World Bank.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.53)
2013 Nov 4, In Iran tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets outside the former US Embassy in Tehran in the biggest anti-American rally in years, a show of support for hard-line opponents of President Hassan Rouhani's historic outreach to Washington.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Iranian Mehr news agency reported that commander Mohammad Jamalizade of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was recently killed in Syria after volunteering to defend a Shi'ite shrine in Damascus.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Iraq a double suicide bombing and other attacks killed 12 people. Legislators passed a law laying the groundwork for next year's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, A Kenyan court charged four Somali men with terrorist offences for helping al Qaeda-linked militants carry out an attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi that killed 67 people.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Mali French forces, who found the bodies of two radio journalists kidnapped and shot to death, followed the abductor's tracks in the sand and arrested about a half-dozen suspects. 4 people were killed when their truck hit a landmine in the Gao region.
(AP, 11/4/13)(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Mexican armed forces took control of Lazaro Cardenas, a major Pacific port in Michoacan, as part of militarized efforts to contain drug cartel violence in the western state.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, New Zealand police said they were investigating a gang of young males who boasted online about stupefying underage girls with alcohol then having group sex with them. The case has raised concerns about how to police online bullying.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Nigeria's army shot dead 7 suspected Boko Haram fighters during a raid in a northeastern area where the Islamist rebels have killed dozens in the last week.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Lagos, Nigeria, 4 people were crushed to death and 25 rescued when a four-story building under construction collapsed.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, In rural Norway a knife-wielding man hijacked a bus and killed the driver and two passengers before he was detained by authorities. A South Sudanese man suspected in the hijacking and killing was a failed asylum seeker who was about to be deported.
(AP, 11/4/13)(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 4, A Pakistani court granted former President Pervez Musharraf bail in a case related to the death of a radical cleric, paving the way for an end to his more than six-month house arrest.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Some ten thousand Russian nationalists rallied in Moscow, venting against the migrants they accuse of pushing up the crime rate and taking their jobs.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Saudi authorities began a clampdown on illegal immigrants after the end of an amnesty that gave overstayers and workers a grace period to leave or legalize their status.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, South Korea's spy agency said that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralyzing military electronic equipment south of the border.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, A Spanish court impounded a luxury villa and other properties belonging to the son-in-law of Spanish King Juan Carlos in a corruption case. The court in Mallorca ordered the seizure of properties owned by Inaki Urdangarin, husband of the king's daughter Cristina. The court is investigating accusations that Urdangarin, an ex-Olympic handball player, and his former business partner Diego Torres embezzled six million euros in public funds.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Spain a rubbish strike began in Madrid and continued for 12 days. It ended after private maintenance companies cancelled plans to lay off a fifth of the Spanish capital's street cleaners.
(http://tinyurl.com/mkyut77)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.58)
2013 Nov 4, In central Syria a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck in the Shiite village of Sabtiyeh near Homs, killing six.
(AP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, In Thailand thousands of people emptied onto the streets of Bangkok to protest an amnesty bill passed by the lower house of parliament in the dead of night three days earlier. The opposition People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) was led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.44)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.42)(Econ, 5/17/14, p.39)
2013 Nov 4, Tunisia's ruling Islamists and opposition parties suspended talks over forming a new caretaker government to end the country's crisis after the two sides failed to agree on naming a prime minister.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, Venezuelan air force warplanes forced a small executive jet with a Mexican license number to land in the state of Apure, near the border with Colombia. Venezuela’s air force released images of the plane fuselage still in flames. President Nicolas Maduro later said the plane was full of cocaine.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 4, Yemeni Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims fighters agreed to a ceasefire after days of clashes in Damaj killed at least 100 people. Saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline in southern Yemen that pumps crude oil to an export terminal on the Gulf of Aden.
(Reuters, 11/4/13)(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 5, It was reported that US Navy Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz had passed confidential information on ship routes to Malaysian defense contractor Leonard Francis, who in turn overcharged the Navy millions in suplies and services.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 5, SF voters rejected Prop C, a referendum that would have allowed construction of a waterfront high-rise, the 8 Washington project for 134 luxury condos.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A1)
2013 Nov 5, The SF Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 to close city parks from midnight to 5am.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 5, Colorado voters approved a tax rate for marijuana.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A4)(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, Portland, Maine, legalized marijuana for people over 21, joining other cities which have done so.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In Michigan business executive Mike Duggan was elected as the next mayor of Detroit, a city on the brink of bankruptcy. He is known for saving Detroit Medical Center, the city’s largest employer, from near insolvency. Duggan defeated Wayne Ct. Sheriff Benny Napoleon 55-45%
(SFC, 11/7/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 5, New Jersey held elections for governor. Republican Governor Chris Christie handily defeated his Democrat challenger, earning a second four-year term.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A4)(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Millions of New Yorkers went to the polls to elect a new mayor. Democrats retook New York's city hall with left-wing progressive Bill de Blasio replacing billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Virginia held elections for governor. Democrat Terry McAuliffe won in the otherwise strongly Republican state.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A4)(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, In Abu Dhabi 30 Emiratis and Egyptians went on trial accused of setting up an illegal branch of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood in the United Arab Emirates.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, A Bangladesh court sentenced 152 soldiers, of the now defunct Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), to death for the February, 2009, mutiny by disgruntled border guards who killed dozens of military commanders during a brutal, two-day uprising. Of the 846 accused of killing 74 people in the mutiny 161 were handed life sentences, over 250 received prison terms of up to 10 years and over 270 were acquitted.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A3)(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 5, In Bangladesh 2 people died and scores were injured as protesters demanded the government step aside ahead of January elections.
(SFC, 11/5/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 5, Hundreds of Anonymous protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks protested outside Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II's London home, as part of a global demonstration against austerity.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said a soldier from the 3rd Battalion, the Mercian Regiment, was killed "as a result of an explosion during a vehicle-born suicide attack" near Lashkar Gah, Helmand province.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, Britain signed an information-sharing agreement with the Cayman Islands, one of its overseas territories, to help British authorities improve tax collection.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Canada's Senate effectively expelled three of their own for what an audit revealed were "troubling" expense claims, as a federal police probe intensified.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, China's state media said the People's Liberation Army has discovered in a corruption probe that its troops "illicitly kept" more than 8,000 apartments and 25,000 vehicles.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, A leader of the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo said his movement is ending its rebellion after more than a year and a half of fighting as the Congolese military seized the last two hills that had been held by the fighters.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In Ethiopia 4 people were killed in a bomb blast on a bus near the Sudanese border. Security forces were on high alert following attack warnings.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 5, The European Union resumed membership talks with Turkey. They were stalled for 3½ years mainly because of the country's ongoing dispute with Cyprus.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Lyon-based Interpol said it was waiting for information from Dutch authorities after a rights group said it had identified 1,000 paedophiles by offering online sex with a computer-generated girl (10).
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In India separatist militants of the Garo tribe killed 5 police officers in a shootout in Meghalaya state.
(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 5, India launched its Mngalyaan (Mars Vehicle), its first spacecraft bound for Mars.
(AP, 11/5/13)(Econ, 11/2/13, p.46)
2013 Nov 5, Israeli and Palestinian officials said the three-month-old peace talks pressed on them by Washington are going nowhere.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported that a group of Italian computer boffins have launched a new website, Mafialeaks, aimed at encouraging victims of organised crime and former gangsters to spill the beans.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, Mozambique's revived rebel movement Renamo spurned the government's invite for high level face-to-face talks to end destabilising military skirmishes. Opposition fighters killed 4 soldiers in two separate attacks amid escalating violence in the central part of the country.
(AFP, 11/5/13)(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 5, Saudi media said authorities have rounded up over four thousand of illegal foreign workers at the start of a nationwide crackdown ultimately aimed at creating more jobs for locals.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)(SFC, 11/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 5, Somali money transfer company Dahabshiil welcomed a temporary injunction by a British court allowing its lifeline services to continue, transferring funds dwarfing levels of foreign aid to the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, South African police fired rubber bullets to disperse a protest march organized by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), headed by Julius Malema, and arrested four people.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, The United Nations that 40 percent of all Syrians are now in need in need of humanitarian aid.
(AP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 5, In northern Yemen sectarian fighting reignited between Shiite Huthi rebels and Sunni Islamists, shortly after a ceasefire allowed the evacuation of the critically wounded.
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 6, US federal authorities in Florida arrested a 3rd senior Navy official, Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, in connection with an extensive bribvery scheme in Asia involving prostitutes and luxury travel.
(SFC, 11/7/13, p.A1)
2013 Nov 6, William Potts (56), a former US militant who hijacked a plane to Cuba in 1984, flew home to the United States where he faced federal charges for air piracy. On July 16, 2014, Potts was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence effectively gave him credit for serving 13 years in Cuba making him eligile for parole in 7 years.
(AP, 11/6/13)(SFC, 7/18/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 6, In Michigan 3 men were killed in a back gambling room at Al’s Barbershop on Detroit’s east side. 6 others were wounded.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 6, Scientists in Utah unveiled the bones of a dinosaur discovered in 2009. It was named Lythronax argestes, or "king of gore," for its large teeth and apparent dominance as a predator. They dated it to about 80 million BC.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, Twitter priced its IPO at $26 per share. TWTR closed at $44.90 per share, up 73%.
(SFC, 11/7/13, p.A1)(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 6, Afghan police found the bodies of 7 soldiers, believed to have been killed by their Taliban captors in Zabul province.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, British energy firm Centrica said it has signed a deal to supply British homes with Qatari liquefied natural gas in a tie-up worth £4.4 billion and lasting until 2018.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Britain’s BAE Systems said it will axe 1,775 shipbuilding jobs and close a historic yard as a government austerity drive hits demand.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Cameroonian author Leonora Miano scooped France's Femina literary prize and used her acceptance speech to denounce racist insults directed at the French justice minister.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, In China supporters of jailed politician Bo Xilai established a new political party, the Zhi Xian Party, to support the former high-ranking official who was handed a life sentence for corruption in September.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 6, In China a series of bombs packed with ball bearings exploded outside a provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party, killing at least one person in Taiyuan, Shanxi province.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, A court in Egypt upheld an earlier ruling that banned the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets confiscated.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, It was reported that a total of 20 dead whales have been discovered along Ghana's coastline in the last four years, including at least eight since September. Environmental groups said they are concerned, given the proximity of the discoveries to the country's new offshore petroleum industry.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Greek schools shut and flights were disrupted as workers held a general strike to protest austerity imposed by foreign lenders.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Iran gunman ambushed and killed Musa Nouri, a state prosecutor, in a restive southeastern region near the Pakistani border. Sunni Islamist Baluch militants claimed responsibility for killing the prosecutor in revenge for a decision to hang 16 prisoners following a cross-border attack by the group two weeks ago.
(AP, 11/6/13)(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Iraq a suicide bomber detonated an oil tanker rigged with explosives at a police station north of Baghdad, killing 7 policemen. Attacks elsewhere left 8 dead.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, An Israeli court found former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman innocent of all charges in a graft trial, clearing the way for one of Israel's most powerful and polarizing figures to return to his post as the nation's top diplomat.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, An Ivory Coast court sentenced 15 former top cocoa sector officials to up to 20 years in prison for corruption under ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, in a bid to clean up the industry in the world's top cocoa grower.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 6, Japan's hotels, restaurants and food shops were being warned over dishonest labelling amid a growing scandal that is threatening to undermine the country's reputation for safe, high-quality produce.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan asked lawmakers to extend a state of emergency declared in the northeast in May for an additional six months, saying the Islamist insurgency had not yet been contained.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, A Qatari court released Matthew and Grace Huang, a US couple, on trial for allegedly causing the death of their eight-year-old adopted daughter to sell her body parts.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, A Saudi-owned newspaper reported that authorities have detained more than 16,000 migrant workers in the first 48 hours of a security sweep targeting foreigners working illegally in the kingdom.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani man in the eastern Qatif province after he was convicted of drug trafficking in the kingdom.
(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, In Syria a car bomb killed at least 8 security personnel in a rare attack on a military intelligence headquarters in the southern city of Suweida. A bomb exploded in a central square of Damascus, killing 8 people and wounding several others.
(Reuters, 11/6/13)(AFP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, his only serious rival disqualified, headed for re-election in a Central Asian country beset by poverty and facing security threats from neighboring Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 6, The UN weather agency said world carbon dioxide pollution levels in the atmosphere are accelerating and reached a record high in 2012.
(AP, 11/6/13)
2013 Nov 7, Pres. Obama apologized to people who were forced off their health insurance plans by the Affordable Care Act despite his assurances to the contrary.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A12)
2013 Nov 7, The IRS said is issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax returns last year to people using stolen identities. 655 went to a single address in Lithuania, 343 to a lone adress in Shanghai. Miami topped city destinations in the US.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 7, The US National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, NY, inducted the rubber duck and the game of chess.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 7, Britain's spy chiefs gave public, televised testimony to British lawmakers for the first time ever amid a fierce debate over intelligence tactics following allegations of spying on other governments.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Former long-serving BBC political editor John Cole (b.1927) died in Surrey after a long illness.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, A new video surfaced showing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford threatening to "murder" someone and "poke his eyes out" in a rambling rage, deepening concerns among both critics and allies that he is no longer fit to lead Canada's largest city.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, China’s Vice Premier Wang Yang said China will provide a concessionary loan of up to $1 billion to Pacific island nations to support construction projects in a part of the world where Beijing and Taiwan compete for influence. He made the announcement at a forum with Pacific island nations in Guangzhou at a meeting attended by representatives from Micronesia, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue and Fiji.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, The EU’s top court ruled that refugees facing imprisonment in their home country because they are gay may have grounds to be granted asylum in the European Union.
(AP, 11/7/13)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.59)
2013 Nov 7, The European Central Bank startled investors with a surprise cut in its benchmark interest rate aimed at boosting a hesitant recovery in the 17 countries that use the euro.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Greek riot police stormed the headquarters of former public broadcaster ERT in a pre-dawn raid, forcibly removing employees who had been occupying the site since its shock shutdown five months ago.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Iran and six world powers began a new two day round of negotiations with broad discussions about a nuclear deal. Iran’s chief negotiator said a plan to cap some of its atomic activities in exchange for selective relief from crippling economic sanctions has been accepted by six world powers and a deal could be imminent.
(AP, 11/7/13)(SFC, 11/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 7, Attacks in Iraq, including a car bomb targeting Shiite Muslims, killed 30 people.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian near Jerusalem. Police said Anas al-Atrash (23) was shot dead when he ran at an officer with a knife at a checkpoint between the West Bank.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, In Mexico the body of Ygnacio Lopez Mendota, the mayor of Santa Ana Maya in Michoacan state, was found. He had complained that cartel members were regularly demanding a chunk of federal money meant for public works projects.
(http://tinyurl.com/qaoz4r7)(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A13)
2013 Nov 7, Nigerian lawmakers approved a request by the country's president to prolong emergency rule in the restive northeast by a further six months to try to quell a bloody Islamist insurgency.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, North Korea's security agency said it has arrested a South Korean spy in Pyongyang who intended to rally anti-government forces, a claim that intelligence officials in Seoul quickly called ridiculous and groundless.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, The Pakistani Taliban chose the man who planned the attack on teenage activist Malala Yousafzai as the group's new leader. The new leader, Maulana Fazlullah, has served as the Pakistani Taliban's leader in the northwest Swat Valley but is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, In Russia concern for jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova mounted on her 24th birthday, after her husband said she could not be found in the Russian prison colony where authorities reportedly sent her in October.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Hackers claiming links to international hacking group Anonymous defaced Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong's official website, one day after he said authorities would spare no effort to track them down.
(Reuters, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Swiss scientists confirmed that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ingested lethal radioactive polonium before his death in 2004 and had high levels of it in his body that could not have been accidental. Palestinian officials have alleged from the start that Israel poisoned Arafat.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and other pro-regime militiamen retook a major rebel enclave south of Damascus, severing a key opposition supply line.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Tanzania's opposition said a proposed tightening of the country's media law was an "attack against the press" and demanded a complete overhaul of existing legislation. Police said 6 people have been killed and eight others wounded in days of clashes between farmers and herders in the central Morogoro region.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Turkish riot police fired tear gas to disperse Kurdish protesters demonstrating against government plans to build a wall along part of the border with Syria.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Uganda’s military said Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 guerrillas, including rebel chief Sultani Makenga, have surrendered en masse in Uganda, signalling the end of an 18-month insurgency.
(AFP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 7, Jim Wyss, the Miami Herald’s Andean bureau chief, was detained by Venezuela’s National Guard in San Cristobal, a western city near the border with Colombia that is the center of a vibrant black market by Venezuelans seeking to circumvent rigid currency controls. Wyss was released on Nov 9.
(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 7, In southern Yemen 5 suspected al Qaeda fighters were killed by two drone strikes in Abyan province.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow after the US automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world's cultural agency.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, US prosecutors said a son of Suriname's president invited people he thought were from the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah to set up a base in his country to attack Americans in exchange for millions of US dollars.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a bus in Zabul province, killing 9 people, including five women. In Kandahar province another roadside bomb killed 3 people.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, A British court martial board convicted a royal marine of murder following the execution of an injured insurgent in Afghanistan. The board ruled that Marine A, was guilty of killing the man in cold blood in Helmand Province more than two years ago. Sergeant Alexander Blackman was named on Dec 5, after a judge dismissed his claim that his identity should be protected for his own safety. On Dec 6 Blackman was sen tneced to at least 10 years in prison.
(AP, 11/8/13)(AP, 12/5/13)(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Nov 8, Merlin, an entertainment group, successfully floated shares on the London stock market. A year earlier it had opened a Legoland theme park in Malaysia.
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.72)
2013 Nov 8, In Chile forensic test results showed no chemical agents in the bones of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. His family and driver were not satisfied and said they'll request more proof.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Denmark said it would provide transport and security for the international effort to destroy Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons, after receiving a request from the UN.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, A European Union prosecutor indicted 15 former ethnic Albanian rebels suspected of torturing, mistreating and murdering civilians detained in central Kosovo during the 1998-99 war against Serbia.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Egypt a child and another person died in clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's ousted president in Cairo.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Ghana's Pres. John Dramani Mahama fired his deputy communications minister, Victoria Hammah, after she was recorded saying that she would stay in politics only until she had made one million dollars.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Greek authorities detained a cargo ship carrying large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Iraq a double bombing targeting a Sunni mosque in Baghdad and other attacks around the country killed at least 19 people.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Libya at least 4 people died in overnight clashes between militias in the center of Tripoli.
(AFP, 11/8/13)(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 8, Libyan protesters prevented a tanker from loading 600,000 barrels of crude bound for Italy at the eastern port of Hariga, blocked by a strike for more than two months.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Madagascar officials said the presidential race will go to a run-off vote next month between two candidates linked to the island's main political rivals, after an inconclusive first round.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Malawi police said they have arrested axed justice minister Ralph Kasambara over a failed assassination attempt in September on a corruption-busting treasury official.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In northern Mali 3 people were killed during clashes between the MNLA Tuareg separatist group and the Malian army.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms on record, slammed into six central Philippine islands. As many as 10,000 people were believed dead just in Tacloban, Leyte Island, as one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes. The death toll was later put at about 6,000 with about 1,800 missing. A 2015 study showed that climate change contributed to the high wind speeds of Haiyan.
(AP, 11/8/13)(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/10/13)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.65)(Econ, 7/27/19, p.68)
2013 Nov 8, In Portugal a 24-hour strike by government workers disrupted public services as labor groups continue their battle against pay and pension cuts and the loss of entitlements.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Somalia a huge blast outside a top hotel in Mogadishu killed at least 4 people. Al Shabaab rebels soon claimed responsibility.
(AP, 11/9/13)(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 8, South Africa's government took to the courts to delay the release of an investigation into a $19 million taxpayer-funded upgrade of President Jacob Zuma's private residence at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal province. Police said 14 police officers and tax officials have been arrested since last month as part of a crackdown on crimes committed by police or people impersonating police officials.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, A Spanish court ordered nine imprisoned members of the Basque militant group ETA freed to comply with a controversial European rights ruling made last month.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, In Syria forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad backed by a dawn barrage of artillery fire and airstrikes drove rebels from a strategic military base near the disputed northern city of Aleppo.
(Reuters, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has ordered the disbanding of the main jihadist faction in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in an audio message aired on Al-Jazeera. He said the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is to be abolished, while the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) remains functioning.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Uganda's Pres. Yoweri Museveni tested for HIV in public to encourage millions of untested people to check their status, a critical step to stemming the spread of the virus in the East African country.
(AP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, The UN said emergency plans are under way to vaccinate more than 20 million children in the Middle East after polio resurfaced in war-torn Syria.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 8, Venezuela's Pres. Nicolas Maduro ordered the "occupation" of the Daka chain of electronic goods stores in a crackdown on what the government views as price-gouging hobbling the country's economy. The annual rate was now at 54 percent.
(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, The American navy christened a new aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, a colossal ship plagued by equally huge cost overruns, at a time of growing budget pressures.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Texas at least two people were killed and 22 hurt in a shooting at a house party packed with young adults in Cypress, a suburb of Houston. On Nov 11 Willie Young (21) and Randy Stewart (18) were arrested in relation to the shootings.
(AFP, 11/10/13)(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 9, The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) announced another 84-hour nationwide strike, starting Nov 10, after police arrested BNP leaders, triggering violent protests across the country.
(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, China's ruling Communist Party began its Third Plenum, a key 4-day meeting to dictate the direction of the world's second-biggest economy for the next decade.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea said it would block an agreement between central African countries to allow people from the region to circulate freely, due to fears it would be flooded with immigrants.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Indonesia 13 people died when an Indonesian army helicopter carrying construction workers to build a military outpost crashed in the jungles of Borneo.
(AFP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, World powers and Iran held a third day of crunch talks on Tehran's nuclear program. France's foreign minister said Iran's refusal to suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium was standing in the way of an interim agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for easing of sanctions.
(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Libya gunmen shot dead 2 policemen in Benghazi and state attorney Mohammed Khalifa al-Naas was killed when a bomb blew up his car in Darna, an Islamist militant stronghold.
(AP, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 9, The Maldives voted to elect a new leader for their budding democracy. Mohamed Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected leader who first came to power in 2008 after 30 years of one-man rule, won the first round of voting but failed to win a clear majority.
(AP, 11/9/13)(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, Niger’s PM Brigi Rafini said about one million of his people were facing severe food shortages due to poor harvests after a drought and flooding.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, In central Nigeria gunmen attacked five farming villages in Benue State. Police the next day said Fulani cattle herdsmen killing six Tiv people and burned many houses. Local media said 36 people were killed in the mayhem. In the north shootouts killed 2 soldiers and 5 suspected Islamic extremist insurgents in Kano.
(AFP, 11/10/13)(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Russia Gabriela Isler (25) of Venezuela was crowned in the Miss Universe pageant at an exhibition hall on Moscow's outskirts.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 9, A tropical cyclone hit Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. As many as 300 people were feared dead. Hundreds remained unaccounted for as the government and declared a natural disaster emergency.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 9, About 2,000 South African mineworkers staged an underground sit-in at Northam Platinum's Dechaba mine, saying they will not leave until a fired union leader is reinstated. The strikers were safely brought to the surface on Sunday night, Nov 10.
(Reuters, 11/10/13)(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 9, In Syria Islamist rebels retook most of a military base in the north from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad after two days of fighting in which at least 60 people have been killed.
(Reuters, 11/9/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Bulgaria several thousand people protested in Sofia to demand that the nation's Socialist-backed government step down to make way for early elections.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Burundi officials said police have discovered dozens of human skulls during a search of the home of an Italian expatriate. Giuseppe Favaro, has been in custody since late October after he was caught trying to export two skulls to Thailand.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Canada 5 people died in a plane crash near Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 10, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran will not abandon its nuclear rights, including uranium enrichment, a day after a fresh round of talks with world powers. Iran and world powers failed to clinch a long-sought deal despite marathon talks in Geneva.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Iran Safdar Rahmat Abadi, a deputy minister of industry, was shot in the head and chest as he got into his car in Tehran. A suspect was soon arrested. Officials later said the killer was inside the car and talked with Abadi before shooting him.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 10, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would do all it could to keep world powers from striking a "bad and dangerous" deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, The Israeli cabinet approved the return of far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister after his acquittal on corruption charges.
(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, The governments of Kenya and Somalia signed a deal with the UN’s High Commission for Refugees to facilitate voluntary returns.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.48)
2013 Nov 10, In Libya supporters of a federal system have set up a company to sell oil from terminals they have seized in the east, in the latest challenge to the government. The announcement was made by the Cyrenaica Political Bureau, an autonomous group that set up in October its own government in the east in a move that angered the central authorities.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 10, The Maldives' top court again delayed holding the second round of the country's presidential poll. The Supreme Court delayed it until Nov 16, in line with demands from Mohamed Nasheed's two biggest rivals.
(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, NATO’s anti-piracy force arrested 9 suspected pirates on suspicion of trying to hijack a Danish refined oil and chemical carrier in the Indian Ocean. The TORM KANSAS, owned by the Danish shipping company Torm A/S, was en route from Sikka in India to Mossel Bay in South Africa when the pirates opened fire as it passed east of Tanzania.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 10, Pakistani education officials said that they have banned teenage activist Malala Yousafzai's book from private schools across the country, claiming it doesn't show enough respect for Islam and calling her a tool of the West.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, In Pakistan Nasiruddin Haqqani (36), the chief fundraiser of the Haqqani militant network, was shot dead on the edge of Islamabad by attackers with automatic weapons. The Pakistani Taliban vowed to take revenge and accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of killing him.
(AFP, 11/11/13)(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 10, In Saudi Arabia thousands of illegal migrants targeted in a nationwide crackdown surrendered to police. In Riyadh 2 people were killed when a police raid targeting Ethiopian residents sparked a minor riot.
(AFP, 11/10/13)(SFC, 11/11/13, p.A2)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.52)
2013 Nov 10, Saudi Arabia announced another fatality from the MERS virus, taking its toll to 53, as neighbouring Oman recorded its first death from the respiratory disease.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Spanish police said they have busted a gang of 25 Nigerians who were engaged in human trafficking for sexual exploitation, Internet fraud and money laundering.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky nailed his genitals to the ground outside Moscow's Red Square in protest over Russia's "police state" as the country marked national police day.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 10, Syrian government officials and rebels reached a deal to ease a weeks-long blockade on a rebel-held town of Qudsaya near Damascus, allowing food to reach civilians there for the first time in weeks. State television said govern ment troops have regained full control of a key base in northern Aleppo province near its international airport.
(AP, 11/10/13)(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, The main Western-backed Syrian opposition began the 2nd day of a two-day meeting in Istanbul to decide whether they will attend a proposed peace conference the US and Russia are trying to convene in Geneva by the end of this year.
(AP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Turkey and Iraq pledged greater cooperation on trade and counter-terrorism while admitting to disagreements over Syria's war during a landmark visit to Baghdad by the Turkish foreign minister.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 10, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro announced an extension of price controls and limits on profits as he extends attempts to curb the galloping inflation that is eroding support for his rule. Maduro's government announced arrests of both store managers and looters as part of what it calls an "economic war" in Venezuela between the socialist state and unscrupulous businessmen.
(AP, 11/11/13)(Reuters, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Pennsylvania Troy LaFerrara was stabbed to death. His body was found the next day in an alley in Sunbury. He had responded to an online ad for companionship in exchange for money and was stabbed to death a day earlier. On Dec 6 Elytte Barbour (22) and wife Miranda (18) were arrested. The couple, married for three weeks, said they had wanted to kill someone together. On Sep 18, 2014, the Barbours were sentenced to life in prison.
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A12)(SFC, 9/19/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 11, In Texas 3 people were killed when their single-engine plane crashed into a lakebed near Amarillo.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 11, Drugs group Shire, based in Scotland, said that it has agreed to buy US-based rare disease specialist ViroPharma for about $4.2 billion (3.1 billion euros) in cash.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Britain said it has revived diplomatic relations with Iran and appointed a non-resident charge d'affaires, two years after an angry mob ransacked the British embassy in Tehran. Iran appointed a new charge d'affaires to Britain to revive diplomatic ties.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Struggling low-cost British airline Flybe said it plans to axe another 500 jobs as it pursues a round of cost-cutting measures.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Cambodian police arrested Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky (40) for the second time this year and said they planned to extradite him at Moscow's request to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The International Court of Justice said a 1962 ruling by its judges gave Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear promontory and Thailand is now obligated to withdraw any military or police forces stationed there. Cambodia thus held sovereignty over a 1,000-year-old Khmer temple on the disputed promontory.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The EU and United States began a second round of talks on the world's largest free-trade accord despite damaging revelations of US spying on its allies.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The European Space Agency says one of its research satellites re-entered the Earth's atmosphere early today on an orbit that passed over Siberia, the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean and Antarctica. The Gravity field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) was launched in 2009. Most of the 2,425 lb satellite disintegrated, but about 25% slammed into the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles from the Falkland Islands.
(AP, 11/11/13)(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 11, French authorities filed preliminary charges against Bob Dylan over a 2012 interview in which he is quoted comparing Croatians to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Nov 11, Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog agreed on a "roadmap for cooperation" over Tehran's controversial atomic drive, as the US accused Iran of scuttling efforts to end the deadlock.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Iraq attacks north of Baghdad killed 5 people. Police found two corpses bearing signs of torture, a scene reminiscent of the country's all-out sectarian war. Gunmen seized a power plant in Anbar province, handcuffed the guards and bombed the facility, leaving the surrounding town of Kubaisa without electricity. In Fallujah police shot dead 2 militants wearing suicide vests, including one who was driving a vehicle rigged with explosives, at the entrance to a police station.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Liberian officials said their Drug Enforcement Agency has arrested the head of the presidential motorcade over the weekend for allegedly using an official vehicle to smuggle 297 kg (654 pounds) of marijuana into Liberia from neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Mexican officials said authorities have detained a former US soldier (32) accused of leading a gang of kidnappers in northern Mexico. He carried two identities -- Luis Ricardo Gonzalez Garcia and Javier Aguirre Cardenas, and was accused of ordering the September 25 kidnapping of Jorge Luis Martinez Martinez, the 70-year-old father of the mayor of the town of Zuazua.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Morocco unveiled details of an "exceptional operation" to give official papers to some of its 25,000-40,000 illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, many of whom hope to reach Europe.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Hamas marine forces in Gaza foiled an attempt by residents to smuggle a car from Egypt, signaling a new area of illicit trade as the Egyptian army cracks down on border tunnels.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Authorities in the Philippines said at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces were affected by Typhoon Haiyan, aka Typhoon Yolanda. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said "we pray" that the death toll is less than 10,000.
(AP, 11/11/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.46)
2013 Nov 11, In Poland thousands of delegates from nations and environment organizations from around the world opened two weeks of United Nations climate talks meant to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Violence marred Polish independence day as ultra-nationalist rioters went on the rampage outside the Russian embassy in Warsaw, igniting a diplomatic row with Moscow.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 11, A Russian space capsule carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station in a flawless landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Senegalese police detained five women accused of violating the country's anti-gay law, highlighting increased pressure on suspected lesbians in the deeply conservative West African nation. The five women were soon charged under the country's anti-gay law that imposes prison sentences of up to five years for homosexual acts.
(AP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 11, In South Africa 29 people died and several others were injured after a bus collided with a truck in eastern Mpumalanga province.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Spain cartons, plastic bottles and other litter piled up in the streets of Madrid as an open-ended strike by street-sweepers against layoffs and pay cuts entered the seventh day.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, Syria's main opposition grouping said it was willing to attend peace talks on the condition that President Bashar al-Assad transfer power and be excluded from any transition process. 5 children were killed and 27 people wounded when mortar rounds hit a school in Damascus.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Tunisia a man (32) from a poor neighbourhood of Tunis set himself on fire outside a government building and was rushed to a specialist medical clinic. The man was reportedly a victim of deprived social circumstances, suffered psychological problems, and had tried to kill himself late last month by leaping from an electricity pylon.
(AFP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, In Vietnam a weakened Typhoon Haiyan landed in the northern province of Quang Ninh. Some 14 people were killed, but all of them during the course of storm preparations.
(http://tinyurl.com/q5f34kr)(Econ, 11/16/13, p.44)
2013 Nov 12, In NYC a 1969 painting by Francis Bacon set a world record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at a Christie’s auction. “Three Studies of Lucian Freud" sold for $142,405,000.
(SFC, 11/13/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 12, In Bangladesh riot police fired tear gas to battle thousands of stone-throwing garment workers who rampaged through two industrial towns during a protest over wages that closed at least 200 factories and left dozens of people injured.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Mavis Batey (b.1921), a renowned British code-breaker during WWII, died.
(SFC, 11/29/13, p.C4)
2013 Nov 12, British composer John Tavener (69) died. His spiritually inspired music was performed at the funeral of Princess Diana. He was best known for works including "The Whale", which was released in the late 1960s by the Beatles' record label Apple.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, Bulgaria's premier and president issued a joint appeal against xenophobia following a number of racist incidents as the EU's poorest country struggles with an influx of Syrian refugees. Protesters tried to blockade the parliament, clashing with police as they demanded the country's left-leaning government resign and early elections be called.
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cambodia a woman was shot dead and several people injured as riot police used live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas in clashes with protesting garment workers.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, A company owned by Canada's Gabriel Resources said it still hopes to start digging for gold in Romania in 2014, despite a negative vote by a parliamentary committee.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Mylene Paquette (35) of Quebec, Canada, made history by becoming the first North American to make a west-to-east solo crossing of the Atlantic by rowboat.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, China's Communist Party promised to deepen economic reforms to give the market a "decisive" role in allocating resources at the end of a closely-watched meeting. A document on reforms was approved but not made public until Nov 15.
(AFP, 11/12/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.47)
2013 Nov 12, China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia won seats on the UN Human Rights Council, despite fierce international criticism of their records.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cyprus the largest haul of looted, centuries-old church icons, frescoes and mosaics ever repatriated were officially welcomed after a nearly four-decade journey. Police discovered the religious treasures in a 1997 raid on the apartment of Turkish art dealer Aydin Dikmen in Munich, Germany.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Egypt's 3-month-old state of emergency ended today after a court ruling. Military and security officials held off from impleneting the ruling amid worries of protests by supporters of deposed Pres. Morsi. Egyptian police fired tear gas at student supporters of Morsi, who were protesting at the university in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura.
(AP, 11/12/13)(Reuters, 11/12/13)(SFC, 11/13/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 12, The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, a leading human rights body, urged President Vladimir Putin to overhaul Russia's creaking judicial system, long criticized as vulnerable to political meddling and as an obstacle to business.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Settlement watchdog Peace Now said Israel plans to build 20,000 new settler homes in the West Bank. PM Netanyahu publicly forced Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who had approved the plans, to back down after drawing US condemnation for a settlement project the Palestinians warned would end a fragile peace process
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, Jordan's largest daily, the government-owned Al-Rai, and its sister newspaper suspended publication after staff held a one-day strike in protest at state "interference."
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Lebanon Sunni sheikh Saadeddine Ghiyeh, a cleric close to the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, was shot dead in the northern town of Tripoli.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Philippine troops killed two armed insurgents who attacked an aid convoy en route to typhoon-devastated Tacloban. Thousands of typhoon survivors swarmed the Tacloban airport seeking a flight out, but only a few hundred made it. Mobs overran a rice warehouse 24 km from Tacloban, setting off a wall collapse that killed 8 people and carting off thousands of sacks of the grain.
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/12/13)(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 12, A Russian court in Moscow froze the assets of protest leader Alexei Navalny as part of an investigation into alleged fraud and money laundering by him and his brother Oleg.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, The Sao Tome government and Chinese representatives signed an agreement to open a trade mission to promote projects in Sao Tome and Principe, 16 years after it broke off relations over the tiny Central African island nation's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 12, Saudi media said 3 Eritrean military officers have asked for political asylum in Saudi Arabia after Saudi air force jets forced their aircraft to land in the southern part of the kingdom.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Saudi Arabia thousands of Africans, mostly Ethiopians, surrendered to authorities for a second day Ethiopia announced the death of three citizens during clashes in the Gulf kingdom.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Singapore charged a 35-year-old man suspected of hacking a website linked to the prime minister.
(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Thousands of Sudanese demanded the removal of a local police chief, on the third day of unrest sparked by an attack on a female student. Unrest began Nov 10 after an attack on the young woman, which led crowds to burn the local market.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Syrian troops clashed with rebels on the southern outskirts of Damascus. The Syrian National Coalition named a provisional government for rebel-held areas.
(AP, 11/12/13)(Reuters, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra appealed for anti-government groups to end ongoing street protests after the parliamentary defeat of an amnesty bill failed to defuse political tensions.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Tunisia special forces units from the National Guard killed a suspected militant and arrested eight others in an early morning operation deep in the desert south of the country.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 12, A new report by the UN Development Program said Latin America is the most unsafe region in the world.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 12, Yemen convicted nine men for arms smuggling after their ship was intercepted in the country's territorial waters in January, sentencing them with up to 10 years in prison for smuggling Iranian-made weapons. Ringleader, identified as Hameed Dahash, was tried in absentia and sentenced to 10 years.
(AP, 11/12/13)
2013 Nov 13, The US State Department said it has designated two Nigerian militant groups, Boko Haram and Ansaru, as foreign terrorist organizations to help US and other law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute suspects associated with the two extremist networks.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In California 4 Marines were killed at Camp Pendleton during a training exercise. A grenade was later believed to have set off an explosion of unexploded rounds in a demolition pit.
(SFC, 3/7/14, p.D4)
2013 Nov 13, NYSE Euronext became part of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a 13-year-old outfit based in Atlanta, Georgia.
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.79)
2013 Nov 13, Hawaii’s Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a bill legalyzing same-sex marriage one day after the state Senate approved the bill with a 19-to-4 vote.
(SFC, 11/13/13, p.A6)(SFC, 11/14/13, p.A9)
2013 Nov 13, A prized 1963 Andy Warhol painting, titled “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)," sold for $105 million at an acution in NYC. This was a new record for a Warhol painting.
(SFC, 11/14/13, p.A9)
2013 Nov 13, Fugitive eco-activist Paul Watson (62) said in France that green warriors were being classed as "terrorists" and accused Japan of coercing other countries into making demands for his arrest. The Canadian-born founder of Sea Shepherd, a marine conservation organisation, arrived in California on October 28, more than a year after fleeing arrest in Germany. Watson said he was in talks to seek refuge in France, the only country apart from the United States where he said he expects a fair trial.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Afghanistan roadside bombings in the restive south and west killed 3 boys.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Afrobarometer survey, a poll of Africans in 34 countries across the continent, found that nearly one-third of people have been forced to pay bribes including for medical treatment. Sierra Leone fared the worst overall when it came to bribes, with 63 percent of respondents saying they'd paid up at least once in the previous year. Morocco and Guinea came next, each with 57 percent.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd announced an end to his chequered political career, quitting politics two months after being ousted from office by Tony Abbott.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Bangladesh violent protests shuttered some 250 garment factories near the capital Dhaka, as thousands of workers demanded higher wages.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Brazil the remains of Joao Goulart, ousted as president ahead of the 1964-85 military dictatorship, were exhumed to determine if he was poisoned.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Bank of England said Britain's economic recovery "has finally taken hold," as it upgraded its growth forecasts despite headwinds from the eurozone debt crisis.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Gunmen in Cameroon kidnapped Georges Vandenbeusch, a French priest working in the lawless northern region. Vandenbeusch was released on Dec 31.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Nov 13, Deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said, in a leter read by his lawyer, that he was kidnapped by the Republican Guard on July 2, the day before the army announced his removal, and was later held at a naval base for four months. Morsi accused the military chief who deposed him of treason. A police armored personnel carrier ran over a pro-Mursi student who was protesting outside a state-run university in the southern city of Assiut. A court sentenced 12 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to 17 years in prison for taking part in a violent student-led protest.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)(AP, 11/13/13)(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Iraq at least 27 people were killed in bomb attacks targeting Iraqi police and pilgrims. Gunmen in Fallujah assassinated the city’s mayor.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(SFC, 11/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 13, Israeli soldier Eden Atias (19) died after a Palestinian youth (16) stabbed him on board a bus in the north of the country.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Japan's finance minister pledged to crack down on lenders that fail to sever links with organized crime as lawmakers grilled him over mob loans by banks and other financial institutions.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Kuwait said it has discovered its first case of the MERS coronavirus for a citizen who is in "critical condition." Later in the day Kuwait reported its 2nd case for a man who just returned from abroad.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said his peace negotiators had resigned over the lack of progress in US-brokered statehood talks clouded by Israeli settlement building.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said Hamas has arrested and tortured dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks on political grounds. One of the blockaded enclave's largest waste water treatment plants stopped for lack of fuel.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 8, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms on record, slammed into six central Philippine islands. As many as 10,000 people were believed dead just in Tacloban, Leyte Island, as one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes. The death toll was later put at about 6,00 with about 1,800 missing.
(AP, 11/8/13)(AFP, 11/9/13)(AP, 11/10/13)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.65)
2013 Nov 13, In Russia protesters threw firecrackers at the Polish embassy in Moscow in response to a similar attack on the Russian mission in Warsaw, further straining ties between countries with a history of troubled relations.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Saudi Arabia Ethiopia’s ambassador in Riyadh said some 23,000 Ethiopians have handed themselves in since Saudi authorities clamped down on illegal foreign workers 10 days ago. A Sudanese man was killed in a second flare of clashes since Nov 9 between Saudi riot police, citizens and foreign workers in Riyadh.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Sri Lanka British television journalists, who have reported on war crimes allegations in Sri Lanka, were stopped from reaching the north of the country by some 100 pro-government demonstrators who blocked their train.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Switzerland an enormous diamond known as "The Pink Star" sold for more than $83 million at auction in Geneva. Sotheby's said the sale is the highest price ever paid for a gemstone at auction.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, In Syria forces loyal to President Assad captured a suburb of Damascus, part of a broader advance that has brought him major gains south of the capital before proposed international peace talks. A mortar round slammed into a mainly-Christian sector of Damascus killing 2 people and wounding seven. Activists said Kurdish militias have seized another seven villages in the northeast.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Turkey's parliament lifted a ban on women lawmakers wearing trousers in the assembly, in a further liberalization of dress rules following a landmark decision to allow female deputies to wear the Islamic headscarf.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, More than one-half of the editorial staff at the Ukrainian edition of Forbes quit to protest what they say is censorship imposed by the new management. They resigned after the new chief editor rejected a previously approved project to investigate a top government official, First Deputy PM Serhiy Arbuzov, an ally of the president.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The UN said opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has reached a record high as farmers seek to "insure" themselves ahead of NATO forces' withdrawal next year.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The WHO said some 21 nations in the Middle East and nearby regions have jointly made the eradication of polio an emergency priority and recognized that Pakistan is a key part of the problem.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Zambia's anti-graft police said they had arrested a regional police chief who is suspected of receiving illicit gifts from a gemstone mining company. Copperbelt Province police boss Mary Tembo (53) was accused of receiving a Toyota Coroll from Grizzly Mining Limited and registering it in her name earlier this year.
(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 14, Pres. Barack Obama admitted he deserved to be "slapped around" over the chaotic debut of his health care law, and pledged to work hard to restore confidence in his reeling presidency.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Donald Sachtleben (55), a former FBI agent, was sentenced to more than three years in prison for disclosing confidential national security information about a foiled bomb plot to an Associated Press reporter. He had worked for the FBI from 1983 until 2008 as a bomb technician and, after his retirement, was hired as a security contractor.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, US officials in Colorado destroyed over six tons of confiscated ivory tusks, carvings and jewelry, accumulated over the last 25 years at the National Wildlife Property Repository.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 14, A Boston, Mass., judge sentenced gangster James “Whitey" Bulger to two consecutive life terms plus five years for an array of crimes including murder and racketeering.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 14, In Ohio a jury convicted Bobby Thompson (67) on all 23 counts in a $100 million, cross-country Navy veterans charity fraud case. Authorities said he is Harvard trained attorney John Donald Cody, who disappeared in 2010 and was arrested last year in Portland, Ore.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 14, Google Inc and private equity firm KKR & Co LP said they are investing $400 million in six solar power plants in California and Arizona.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A 20-year program to convert highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for US power plants ended with the final shipment loaded at the port of St. Petersburg, Russia.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 14, Albania's government faced a growing chorus of opposition to a US request that it take on the job of dismantling Syria's chemical weapons.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Bangladeshi garment factory owners said they had agreed to a proposed 77 percent rise in the minimum wage, but police used teargas and rubber bullets to break up new protests by stone-throwing workers calling for a bigger increase.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Brazilian government figures showed that deforestation in the Amazon increased by nearly a third over the past year.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Egypt's foreign minister sought to downplay speculation of a major foreign policy shift, saying during a rare top-level Russian visit that Cairo wants to boost ties with Moscow and not replace the United States as its key ally. The defence ministers of Russia and Egypt held discussions on military collaboration between their countries.
(AP, 11/14/13)(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In El Salvador armed men broke into the offices of the Probusqueda Association for Missing Children, a nonprofit agency that works to locate children missing from the country’s civil war, and set fire to the group's archives. Probusqueda said earlier this year that it had documented at least a dozen cases of children stolen by members the military during the 1980-92 war between the Salvadoran government and leftist guerrillas.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, EU officials welcomed the end of bailout support for Spain and Ireland, saying that showed the effectiveness of more than four years of efforts to cut excessive government debt.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A French commercial court ordered TUeV Rheinland, a German product-testing company, to pay damages to more than 1,600 women and six distributors after ruling that it failed to properly check silicone breast implants that turned out to be prone to leakage.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Gambia’s Pres. Yahya Jammeh announced a break off of diplomatic relations with Taiwan after 18 years. The move was greeted with "shock and regret" by Taipei, which is now recognised by just 22 nations.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 14, Christian Wulff became Germany's first post-war president to go on trial, charged with corruption for accepting some 700 euros for a hotel stay and meals during an Oktoberfest beer festival when he was a state premier.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Karlheinz Schreiber (70), a Canadian-German arms industry lobbyist, was convicted in Berlin of tax evasion and sentenced to six and half years. He played a role in a scandal that propelled Chancellor Angela Merkel to power.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Iraq a suicide attacker and twin bomb blasts targeted Shiites marking a somber religious ritual, killing 47 people and wounded more than 100. This included 32 people killed by a suicide bomber at an Ashura event in al-Saadiyah.
(AP, 11/14/13)(SFC, 11/15/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 14, Israeli aircraft bombed two rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip, hours after Palestinian militants had fired mortars into Israel.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A new poll in Kenya found that 67 percent of 2,060 Kenyans surveyed think that President Uhuru Kenyatta should attend his trial at the International Criminal Court. Kenyatta faces charges related to accusations he helped orchestrate the country's 2007-08 postelection violence that saw more than 1,000 people killed.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Lebanon Hassan Nasralla, the leader of the militant Hezbollah group, showed up at a Shiite religious ceremony in southern Beirut, vowing to keep his fighters in neighboring Syria as long as needed to shore up President Bashar Assad's struggle against Syria's rebels.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Libya attacks in Benghazi killed an air force chaplain, a former police officer and a soldier.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Morocco foreign ministers from countries across the Sahel and Maghreb gathered in Rabat to look for ways to boost border security and confront Islamist linked-violence plaguing the vast desert region.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Nigerian forces reportedly killed 9 militants in the Damboa region of Borno state.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 14, In the Philippines a US aircraft carrier "strike group" started unloading food and water to the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines, as President Benigno Aquino faced mounting pressure to speed up the distribution of supplies.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Serbia Miroslav Miskovi, one of the Balkans' richest men, went on trial in a high-profile case. He faced up to 10 years in jail if found guilty on charges of fraud and tax evasion.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Singapore for the first time lifted the death penalty given to a drug trafficker, commuting his sentence to life in prison and 15 strokes of the cane.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A Sri Lanka court banned protests in Colombo until the end of the Commonwealth summit, explaining that the move was intended to prevent traffic jams. Pres. Mahinda Rajapaks lashed out at reporters and critics who questioned his nation's human rights record.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Sudan friendly fire killed five members of the Sudanese security forces in South Kordofan state, as troops battled an insurgency.
(AFP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Sudan a number of Chadian troops in a joint force with Sudan were killed battling tribal fighters in the troubled Darfur region.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 14, In Syria twin bombings and mortar fire killed 3 people and wounded 22 near the famed Ummayad mosque in Damascus. A Syrian rebel commander in a main Islamist brigade was killed and two others were injured in an air strike by Assad's forces on Aleppo.
(AFP, 11/14/13)(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, A video posted on the Internet showed two members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holding up a bearded man's head before a crowd in Aleppo in northern Syria. ISIL later admitted the rebel had been killed by mistake and said it had arrested one of its men, a Tunisian, for decapitating him.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 14, A Uganda government tribunal declared Erias Lukwago, the lord mayor of Kampala, guilty of abuse of office, incompetence and misconduct. He faced being kicked out office. Lukwago is a political opponent of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has controlled Uganda since 1986, and the mayor linked the president to his conviction.
(AP, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 14, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that authorities had arrested more than 100 "bourgeois" businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging since the weekend. Venezuela's legislature gave initial backing to a measure granting extraordinary powers over the economy to President Maduro.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, The Washington Post reported that agents and supervisors of the US Secret Service have engaged in misconduct in 17 countries in recent years. It quoted accounts given by whistleblowers to a Senate committee that oversees the Secret Service.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Alabama the Southern Museum of Flight opened in Birmingham. It featured prints of artworks that were only displayed at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A15)
2013 Nov 15, San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee presented Batkid, aka Miles Scott (5), with the key to the city for his heroic deed in saving Gotham. The Make-a-Wish Foundation arranged the extravaganza for Scott as he fought off leukemia.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A11)
2013 Nov 15, In Los Angeles former third grade teacher Mark Berndt (62) pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was accused of blindfolding students and feeding them semen-laced cookies.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 15, In NYC hacker Jeremy Hammond (b.1983) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally accessing computer systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors. Hammond said his goal was to expose injustices by the private intelligence industry.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 15, In Ohio six horses were killed on rural roads after over three dozen escaped from a farm near Covington. Three people injured in the road accidents.
(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 15, Sony released its PlayStation 4 video game player, one week ahead of Microsoft’s new Xbox One.
(SFC, 11/15/13, p.C1)
2013 Nov 15, Albania’s PM Edi Rama rejected a plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons, following a direct US request.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Brazil’s Supreme Court Pres. Joaquim Barbosa issued warrants for the arrest of Jose Dirceau, the former chief of staff to Pres. Lula da Silva in 2003-05, and eleven others for charges including bribery and conspiracy in the “mensalao" (big monthly stipend) case. They were among 25 found guilty in the case last year.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.39)
2013 Nov 15, The British government gave the green light for oil firm EnQuest to invest £4.0 billion in a North Sea oil field scheme that will support an estimated 20,000 jobs.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Toronto police said a global investigation into a Canadian child porn website has led to the arrest of 341 people including teachers, doctors and police officers, and the rescue of 386 sexually abused children.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Canada the city councillors of Toronto voted to limit their hell-raising mayor's powers after Rob Ford’s latest obscene outburst.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, The final overview of China’s “third plenum" was published. China’s ruling Communist Party said it will loosen family planning rules that limit many couples to a single child in the first substantial change to the unpopular policy in nearly three decades, as leaders seek to address a rapidly aging population. It also said the country's much-criticized labor camp system would be abolished. Leaders pledged to open state-dominated industries wider to private competition and ease limits on foreign investment in e-commerce and other businesses in a sweeping reform plan aimed at rejuvenating a slowing economy.
(AP, 11/15/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.16)
2013 Nov 15, Cyprus’ former Pres. Glafcos Clerides (b.1919) died. He was widely regarded as a world-class statesman who guided Cyprus into the EU.
(AP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, The EU executive said it had found no proof of British claims that Spain had violated European Union rules on border and customs checks at Gibraltar's border.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In western Greece 12 migrants, believed to be Syrians, were found dead after a plastic boat still tied to rocks capsized in calm weather. 15 people survived the incident.
(AP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Guinea's Supreme Court rejected all the complaints lodged against the results of a September 28 parliamentary election in which President Alpha Conde's RPG party won the most seats.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Japan said it was dramatically scaling back its greenhouse gas reduction target after the Fukushima nuclear accident forced the country to turn to fossil-fuel burning energy sources, a move denounced by climate campaigners.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Libya 43 people were killed and more than 450 people wounded in Tripoli when militiamen from Misrata opened fire on hundreds of protesters who had marched on their brigade headquarters to demand that they leave the capital.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Mozambique suspected Renamo ex-rebels ambushed a convoy of cars killing one person and wounding 10 others along a key highway in the latest of low-intensity attacks gripping the country.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Myanmar released 69 political prisoners in an amnesty the government described as an act of "loving kindness" in line with President Thein Sein's promise to free all prisoners of conscience by year-end.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, A Nigerian court sentenced suspected Islamist Umaru Umaru Mustapha (34) to life imprisonment for the bombing of a complex housing several newspapers that killed four people in the April 2012 bombing in the northern city of Kaduna. Nigerian troops said they had killed 20 suspected members of Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram in a gunfight in the country's northeast.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Pakistan 8 people were killed when gunmen opened fire on a Shi'ite Muslim religious procession in Rawalpindi. In another version Shiite Muslims staging a procession killed 7 Sunnis from an Islamic seminary for insulting them as they passed.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)(SFC, 11/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 15, In the Philippines the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan, one of the world's most powerful typhoons, surged to over 4,000.
(Reuters, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, In Sri Lanka Britain's Prince Charles formally opened a Commonwealth summit in Colombo. Its build-up has been dogged by a dispute over rights abuses at the end of Sri Lanka's ethnic war. Britain's PM David Cameron landed in the war-torn Jaffna region to meet victims of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict after leaving the Commonwealth summit.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN's new envoy to Baghdad, said Iraq's security forces require "massive amounts of re-training" in human rights to better conduct operations and combat the country's deadliest violence since 2008.
(AFP, 11/15/13)
2013 Nov 15, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said China will build power plants in Yemen with total output capacity of 5,000 megawatts and expand the Arab country's main container ports.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, The governing body on the Hawaiian island of Kauai voted to override their mayor's veto of a bill that seeks to reign in widespread pesticide use and the testing of new genetically modified crops.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In North Dakota Craig Cobb was arrested along with Kynan Dutton over accusations they were brandishing firearms and sticks and threatening residents in the town of Leith. The white supremacists were charged on Nov 18 with terrorizing residents of Leith, where Cobb had sought to create a white enclave. On April 29, 2014, a state judge sentenced Cobb to four years probation but no additional jail time.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 16, In Texas Franklin Davis of the Dallas area was sentenced to death for the killing his children’s babysitter, Shania Gray (16), to prevent her from testifying that he had raped her.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 16, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Afghan army vehicle providing security for a compound in Kabul where political and tribal elites are due to gather next week to debate a security pact with the US. 12 people were killed and 22 wounded.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)(AP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Brazil Jose Genoino, the former chairman of the ruling Workers' Party, surrendered to police after a court ruled that those convicted in a corruption scandal should serve their terms immediately.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Brazil the 12th edition of the Games of the Indigenous People ended in Cuiba, Mato Grosso state.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 16, PM David Cameron announced that Britain was providing a further 30 million pounds to help the relief effort after the devastating typhoon in the Philippines.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Britain's PM David Cameron threatened to push for an independent international inquiry into allegations of war crimes at the climax of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war if the island nation does not conduct its own probe by March 2014.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Bulgaria tens of thousands of supporters of the main political parties gathered in Sofia and Plovdiv at pro- and anti-government rallies, reflecting the division that has paralyzed the nation for months.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In China 9 attackers and 2 auxiliary police officers were killed in an attack on a police station in Serikbuya township, near the historic Silk Road city of Kashgar, Xinjiang province. The clash reportedly erupted after a Uighur youth was shot dead, with 8 others subsequently being killed.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Dagestan Dmitri Sokolov, the husband of suicide bomber Naida Asiyalova, died after a stand-off with police. The Oct 21 Volgograd bombing killed six people on a bus.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Egypt a Muslim Brotherhood-led alliance said it is ready for a national dialogue to end the political standoff in the country, in an announcement that did not demand the return of the nation's toppled president to power.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In France between 2,000 and 4,000 freight trucks have closed off major highways and slowed traffic to a crawl on nine roadways to protest a proposed environmental tax on heavy loads.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Germany some 20,000 people marched through central Berlin to demand the government lift its 20-year ban on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Guinea anti-government demonstrators barricaded roads and threw stones in Conakry in protest at a Supreme Court ruling handing September's controversial elections to the president's governing party.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Iraq a series of attacks in Baghdad and north Iraq left 4 policemen dead and a dozen people wounded.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, called on Turkey's Kurds to back a flagging peace process with Ankara, making his first visit to southeastern Turkey in two decades in a show of support for PM Tayyip Erdogan.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, "Tir," by director Alberto Fasulo, an Italian film about a truck driver's travels across Europe, took the top award of best film at the Rome film festival.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Italy thousands of families marched in Naples to demand a quick cleanup of toxic waste that has been dumped by the local Camorra crime syndicate for decades.
(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, A local official said thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into Lebanon over the past two days as fighting between government forces and rebels has flared near the border.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In Libya fresh clashes erupted in Tripoli leaving 4 people dead. The weak, post-revolutionary government appealed for restraint.
(AFP, 11/16/13)(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 16, Libya's National Oil Company said Berber protesters have ended their occupation of a gas terminal in western Libya that prompted the shutdown of an export pipeline to Italy.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, The Maldives held runoff elections. Abdulla Yameen, the half brother of former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, defeated former president Mohamed Nasheed, securing 51.3% of the popular vote.
(AFP, 11/16/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.41)
2013 Nov 16, In Mexico local media reported that the bodies of 7 people were found buried in several hidden graves in a rural area near the resort city of Acapulco. Six other bodies were found on Nov 14 in hidden graves in El Salto, another small town in the rural area outside of Acapulco. 18 bodies were found on Nov 15 buried in several buildings in Michoacan, which borders Guerrero to the north.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Niger said it has arrested around 30 people, including defense and security personnel, as part of a crackdown on human traffickers after the bodies of dozens of migrants were found in the Sahara desert last month.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Pakistan called in its army to quell sectarian unrest in three cities, after 9 people were killed and nearly 90 wounded in violent attacks across the country. The government imposed a rare curfew in Rawalpindi.
(AFP, 11/16/13)(AP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Russia handed over a $2.3 billion aircraft carrier to India after years of delays, extending India's maritime reach in the Indian Ocean as it looks to counter China's assertive presence in the region.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, In South Korea a helicopter belonging to LG Electronics crashed after its propeller clipped the side of a 38-story apartment building. Its 2 pilots were killed.
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 16, Sudan state radio reported that heavy fighting in a border region of Darfur has killed 100 people.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Syrian forces went on the offensive against rebels positioned along a major highway linking the capital with the coast, a strategic road that is likely to be used to extract chemical weapons from the country.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Tajikistan's long-running President Emomali Rakhmon was inaugurated for a fourth term, as he promised to alleviate the grinding poverty in the former Soviet country.
(AFP, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 16, Vietnam’s state media said flooding has killed at least 28 people over the last 24 hours, with 9 others missing and nearly 80,000 people displaced in Quang Ngai province.
(Reuters, 11/16/13)
2013 Nov 17, A series of tornadoes pounded the Midwestern United States, killing six people across Illinois and flattening Washington, a city of 15,000 people. The storm killed one person in Washington and destroyed 250 to 500 houses.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, In San Francisco Melquiesha Warren (23) was killed and her friend Danisha Bean was wounded after Michael Green opened fire on them following a fender bender in a South of Market neighborhood. In 2017 Green (28) was sentenced to 82 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/7/17, p.D3)
2013 Nov 17, In Colorado two workers were killed in a mining accident at the Star Mine Operations near Ouray. The powder-smoke incident also injured 20 workers.
(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 17, Afghan villagers discovered the beheaded bodies of six men in Kandahar province. The next day they were identified as policemen who had disappeared days earlier from Zabul province. NATO said an international service member was killed by a roadside bomb.
(AP, 11/17/13)(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, Doris Lessing (b.1919), the Nobel prize-winning, free-thinking, world-traveling and often-polarizing British author, died. Her work included "The Golden Notebook" (1962) and dozens of other novels that reflected her own improbable journey across the former British empire.
(AP, 11/17/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.90)
2013 Nov 17, In the Central African Republic Seleka rebels assassinated magistrate Modeste Martineau Bria and his aide-de-camp. 2 people were killed and others suffered gunshot wounds as residents protested the killing in Bangui.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Chile held presidential elections. Michelle Bachelet (62), a former president (2006-2010), nearly doubled her conservative rival's votes in the first round of the election, but her center-left coalition fell short of the gains in Congress needed to keep many of her promises.
(AP, 11/17/13)(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, The Dubai Airshow took off with huge aircraft orders and commitments worth around $100 billion for Boeing and $40 billion for Airbus from Gulf carriers.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 17, In Egypt gunmen shot dead Mohamed Mabruk, an officer in charge of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood file at the interior ministry's national security agency.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Israel for a visit and said France will never tolerate nuclear proliferation. The visit will also see him traveling to the Palestinian territories to discuss Middle East peace talks which have been limping along for three months with little signs of progress.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Georgia inaugurated philosopher and former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili (44) as the new president. He pledged to strengthen ties with the West and maintain its commitment to NATO.
(AP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, In a Der Spiegel interview last week Cornelius Gurlitt (80), a German recluse who hid hundreds of paintings believed looted by the Nazis in his Munich flat, said he will not give up the works without a fight, quashing hopes of a quick settlement. The collection was put together by Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, one of the few dealers chosen by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda chief, to sell confiscated art.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.56)
2013 Nov 17, In Guinea a teenager was killed and five other civilians injured during clashes with police after a pro-opposition journalist claimed he risked being kidnapped by the security forces.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, Iraqi authorities executed a dozen "terrorism" convicts, defying widespread international condemnation of Baghdad's use of the death penalty as violence nationwide has surged. Attacks across Iraq killed at least 10 people.
(AP, 11/17/13)(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 17, In Kenya poachers infiltrated the privately owned Lewa Wildlife Conservancy during the full moon and killed Meluaya," a 17-year-old black rhino suspected to have been heavily pregnant and with a two-year-old calf.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 17, In Kosovo NATO soldiers and EU police secured polling stations in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica for a re-run election central to a Western-sponsored plan to end the country's ethnic partition.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Arab and African foreign ministers met in Kuwait hoping to accelerate a strategy to bolster economic cooperation, investment and trade ahead of a summit this week. The Third Africa Arab Summit on Nov 19-20 will be the first meeting of its kind since 2010.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Libya's deputy intelligence chief Mustafa Nuh was abducted in Tripoli shortly after his arrival from a trip abroad. Residents of Tripoli began a three-day general strike against militia violence and to mourn dozens killed in clashes at an anti-militia protest over the weekend.
(AFP, 11/17/13)(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 17, In Mexico investigators found the bodies of 8 people bound and stabbed at a home in Ciudad Juarez. The killers had gone to the home Romero Sanchez a month ago trying to collect a debt that was owed by Sanchez for a $115 stud fee for a dog. Authorities arrested two suspects on Nov 19 after investigators found traces of blood on their clothing.
(SFC, 11/18/13, p.A2)(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 17, Commonwealth leaders meeting in Sri Lanka agreed on steps to tackle high debt and poverty as they staged a show of unity after a summit dominated by a bitter dispute over war crimes.
(AP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Sudanese rebels struck a town near the border of troubled South Kordofan state, where witnesses confirmed fighting was underway.
(AFP, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, The head of Syria's General Foreign Trade Organization (GFTO) said Syrian bank accounts frozen abroad are gradually being freed up for use to fund food purchases, with France being the most committed to releasing the money.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, Syrian forces besieged Qara, a key town in the Qalamoun mountains, a region used by rebels to cross from Lebanon and which links the capital to government strongholds along the coast.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 17, In northern Yemen 3 people were killed when Shi'ite Houthi rebels shelled a school in Damaj where sectarian fighting has killed more than 100 people.
(Reuters, 11/17/13)
2013 Nov 18, In NYC five people were arrested following a global "cyber heist" in which hackers stole $45 million by overriding the cash withdrawal limits of prepaid debit cards. Officials said the cyber-ring managed to steal $45 million in late 2012 and early 2013 by manipulating the limits of prepaid debit cards from Abu Dhabi-based National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah and Bank Muscat of Oman.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 18, Almost 800,000 homes and businesses in the US Midwest and Ontario, Canada, were without power following severe thunderstorms. Michigan was the hardest-hit state with more than 540,000 customers out.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, NASA launched the MAVEN spacecraft (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) atop an Atlas V-41 rocket at Cape Canaveral.
(SFC, 11/19/13, p.A7)
2013 Nov 18, In Afghanistan two separate roadside bombs killed 9 children. Police stopped a tractor hauling roadside bombs near the border with Pakistan. A shooting set off the bombs, killing the driver and a second person on the tractor.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Britain's Labour Party suspended Paul Flowers, the former chairman of Co-operative bank, after a video emerged in which he is allegedly caught buying illegal drugs.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In London female serial killer Joanna Dennehy (30) admitted murdering three men and dumping their bodies in ditches. Their bodies were found in March and April riddled with stab wounds.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Canada the City Council of Toronto stripped Mayor Rob Ford (44) of his meaningful powers following a heated debate.
(SFC, 11/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 18, Egypt's interim PM Hazem el-Beblawi inaugurated the start of what is to be a memorial to protesters killed in the country's revolutionary turmoil in the center of famed Tahrir Square.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Egypt a train slammed into at least three vehicles, including a truck, crossing the tracks near the village of Dahshur. 26 people were killed and 28 remained hospitalized.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Paris, France, a gunman opened fire in the lobby of the Liberation newspaper office, gravely wounding a photographer's assistant before fleeing. Soon afterward, shots were fired at the headquarters of a major French bank west of Paris, and a gunman briefly took a man hostage nearby. Suspect Abdelhakim Dekhar (48) was found Nov 19 after a tipoff. Police found him in a "semi-conscious state" after an attempt to kill himself with medication.
(AP, 11/18/13)(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 18, A German court said the embattled "bling bishop" Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has settled a case over lying under oath with a 20,000-euro ($27,000) payment.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, A German probe into the July 23, 1944, reprisal attack at Chlaniow, Poland, implicated Michael Karkoc (94), a retired Minnesota carpenter, as commander of the Nazi SS-led unit in the attack. In 2014 Germany’s highest court ruled that Germany has jurisdiction in the case.
(AP, 6/14/13)(http://tinyurl.com/kk5e6s3)(AP, 11/18/13)(SFC, 5/23/14, p.A2)
2013 Nov 18, In Haiti police fired tear gas in the two main cities to disperse thousands of protesters demanding better living conditions and the resignation of President Michel Martelly.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Iran unveiled its Fotros drone, a missile-equipped drone with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and a flight time of 16 to 30 hours.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Attacks across Iraq killed 8 people.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Israel's fraud squad questioned former chief Ashkenazi rabbi Yona Metzger on charges of taking bribes, fraud, breach of trust, obstructing justice and witness tampering. Police said the national fraud unit put the sums related to the suspected felonies at millions of shekels.
(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Israeli court documents disclosed the government has secretly detained Samer al-Baraq, a suspected al-Qaeda biological weapons expert, for more than three years, after the man appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to free him.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Twitter users in Kuwait and the UAE received prison terms, in the latest sign of widening crackdowns in the region on social media for posts considered offensive or against state security.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, In Libya convoys of the military deployed in the capital city of Tripoli to force out militiamen from Misrata. Deputy intelligence chief Mustafa Nuh was freed by his abductors a day after they seized him near Tripoli airport.
(AP, 11/18/13)(AFP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Mauritanian police crushed a protest by hundreds of youths demanding a boycott of upcoming elections, wounding several.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 18, Pakistan moved to put former military dictator Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason for suspending the constitution and declaring a state of emergency while he was in power. Sectarian violence spread after clashes between minority Shi'ite and majority Sunni Muslims near Islamabad prompted the government to impose a curfew and block mobile phone services over the weekend.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Russia hosted Syrian and Iranian delegations for separate rounds of talks in a renewed diplomatic push for a Syrian peace conference in which Moscow says Tehran must also play a role.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, A Russian court in Saint Petersburg released on bail one of the 30 Greenpeace crewmembers arrested for an Arctic protest, the first of the activists to be freed. Yekaterina Zaspa, a Russian doctor with the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker, was released. Two courts in the city said bail would be granted to three Russian activists but ordered Australian activist Colin Russell to remain in pre-trial detention until February 24.
(AFP, 11/18/13)(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 18, The head of Russia's state-controlled industrial holding company said Moscow has signed a deal to provide Egypt with air defense missile systems.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, A Tatarstan airlines flight from Moscow crashed in Kazan, killing all 44 passengers and six crew in a blaze that left little of the Boeing 737 plane.
(Reuters, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 18, Syrian rebel leader Abdul-Qadir Saleh (34), founder of the Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade, died in Turkey of wounds sustained during a strike by government forces last week. Clashes continued around Qara.
(AP, 11/18/13)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.51)
2013 Nov 18, Uganda police arrested Kampala Mayor Erias Lukwago for disobeying orders to cancel a public rally of supporters.
(AP, 11/18/13)
2013 Nov 19, JPMorgan Chase reached a $13 billion deal with the US Justice Dept. ending a probe into the bank’s sale of mortgage bonds.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.C2)
2013 Nov 19, The US National Rifle Association (NRA) sued San Francisco claiming the city violated the constitutional right to possess guns for self defense with a new ordnance banning possession of magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.D3)
2013 Nov 19, Florida Rep. Henry Radel (37) was charged with cocaine possession following a “buy and bust" operation. The next day Radel pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession and was sentenced to a year of probation. He admitted to purchasing 3.5 grams of cocaine from an undercover officer Oct. 29 in Washington. Radel resigned on Jan 27, 2014.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A6)(AP, 1/27/14)
2013 Nov 19, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation banning the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 19, Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds (55) suffered stab wounds at his home inflicted by his son, Gus Deeds (24), who was found dead from apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 19, Orbital Sciences launched a rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia carrying 29 small satellites and launched them into a low-Earth orbit. Thirty hours later Kosmotros, a Russian-joint venture, carried 32 satellites into a similar orbit.
(Econ, 6/7/14, TQ p.18)
2013 Nov 19, Celebrations for Algeria's victory over Burkina Faso that sent the country's soccer team to the 2014 World Cup finals left 12 people dead and some 240 injured.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, Bosnia's state war crimes court said it had freed 10 convicted war criminals and would give them new trials after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled their legal rights had been violated.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Britain’s Oxford Univ. Press declared “selfie," a smart phone self-pportrait, the 2013 word of the year. Use of the word dated back to at least 2002.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A3)
2013 Nov 19, British biochemist Frederick Sanger (b.1918) died. He twice won the Nobel Prize in chemistry (1958 & 1980) and was a pioneer of genome sequencing.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, In the Central African Republic heavy fighting erupted near Bouca between the Muslim Seleka rebels who have carried out attacks and massacres throughout the northwest in recent months and members of Christian self-defense militias that have arisen amid the violence. About 2,000 people have sought refuge in a Catholic mission in the area.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, Hundreds of Egyptians gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to commemorate the deaths of protesters killed two years ago and call for the army-backed government to adopt reforms.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, The European Union's parliament finally approved the first spending cut in the history of the 28-nation group.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, France, Germany and other European countries formed a "drone users club" to develop a rival to the US and Israeli pilotless aircraft that dominate the field.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In France a small plane crashed in the central Burgundy region, killing six people.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Ghanaian authorities impounded the Guyana-registered MV ATIYAH and arrested the five when they discovered it was carrying 400 kilos (880 pounds) of cocaine worth around $50 million. On Nov 22 four citizens of Guyana and one Ghanaian pleaded guilty to charges related to the seizure of a ship.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 19, In northeastern Guinea at least 12 illegal miners were killed and several left missing after a landslide at a goldmine owned by the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 19, Hundreds of Iranians including university students and members of the country's Jewish community rallied in support of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program on the eve of the resumption of talks with world powers.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Italian declared authorities declared a state of emergency in Sardinia as Cyclone Cleopatra dropped 450mm of rain in an hour and a half overnight. 16 people were reported dead.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)(AFP, 11/19/13)(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Lebanon 2 suicide bombers detonated explosions outside the Iranian Embassy in a mainly Shiite district of Beirut, killing 23 people, including the Iranian cultural attaché, apparently in retaliation for the Lebanese group Hezbollah's support of Syrian President Assad.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Libyan protesters again took to the streets of Tripoli, repeating their call for the country's recalcitrant militias to leave the capital after a militia attack on a similar protest killed 47 and wounded more than 500 last week.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Mexican journalist and author Elena Poniatowska won the 2013 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honor.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Millions of Nepalis defied low expectations and threats of violence to vote in elections seen as crucial in stabilising the country and breaking its political deadlock seven years after a civil war ended. The Nepali Congress led by Sushil Koirala narrowly won the elections. A bombing in Kathmandu injured three children.
(AFP, 11/19/13)(Econ, 3/8/14, p.44)
2013 Nov 19, Norway's military intelligence chief said his country carries out surveillance on millions of phone calls in conflict areas around the world and shares that data with allies, including the United States.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Pakistan a Shi'ite professor at the University of Gujrat and his driver were shot dead in the latest incident in a wave of spiraling sectarian violence in the nuclear-armed country.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In Poland 18 people were detained on suspicion of large scale corruption. They included current and former state officials.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 19, In Somalia al-Qaida-linked Shebab militants detonated a car bomb at the entrance to a police station in Beledweyne near the Somalia-Ethiopia border, then opened fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, an attack that left at least 28 people dead.
(Reuters, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Russian courts granted bail to seven foreign Greenpeace activists detained for an oil drilling protest, bringing to 10 the number released over the last days and raising hopes of a solution to a case which has raised global concern.
(AFP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, In South Africa a shopping mall under construction partially collapsed, killing one person and injuring 29 in Tongaat, near Durban.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 19, Spain's National Court said it has issued arrest orders for former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and four other Chinese officials as part of a probe into alleged genocide by China against Tibet.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Syrian government troops captured Qara, a key town near the Lebanese border from rebels, days after launching a broad offensive in the mountainous western region.
(AP, 11/19/13)
2013 Nov 19, Vietnam officials said the death toll from flooding, due to heavy rains that began Nov 14, has risen to 41.
(SFC, 11/20/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 19, In Yemen a suspected US airstrike killed 3 alleged al-Qaida militants in Hadramawt province. Two men from Australia and New Zealand were also killed in the strike.
(AP, 11/19/13)(AP, 4/15/14)
2013 Nov 20, Pres. Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 recipients including Gloria Steinem.
(http://tinyurl.com/j5ml52r)(Econ, 11/21/15, p.77)
2013 Nov 20, Members of Congress took part in a ceremony bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal to honor 33 tribes tribes for their WWI and WWII contributions as code talkers. Today’s ceremony was for tribes not included in the initial 2008 Gold Medal awards.
(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 20, Serafin Zambada (23), the son of one of the world's most-wanted drug lords, was arrested at an Arizona border crossing to face drug-trafficking charges in the United States.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 20, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation allowing same-sex marriages starting June 1, 2014.
(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A5)(SSFC, 6/1/14, p.A11)
2013 Nov 20, In New Jersey Jose Katz (69) was sentenced to 6½ years in federal prison for fraudulently diagnosing patients with heart ailments and ordering tests. The fraud cost Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers some $19 million.
(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 20, In Missouri Joseph Paul Franklin (b.1950), a white supremacist who targeted blacks and Jews, was executed. He had admitted to shooting and wounding civil rights leader Vernon Jordan (1980) and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt (1978).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Paul_Franklin)(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 20, Animal rights group PETA urged shoppers to boycott products made from angora rabbit fur, after it released footage of fur being plucked from the skins of live rabbits on Chinese farms.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Senior Afghan officials arrived in Pakistan to initiate peace talks with the Afghan Taliban following a breakthrough in negotiations during last month's summit in Britain. A powerful explosion killed 3 people at a restaurant in the southern city of Kandahar. A Taliban ambush took place in Helmand province killing Marjah police chief, Hajji Tooryalai Jan. A suicide car bombing has killed two paramilitary soldiers in near the Afghan border in the Shawa area of North Waziristan.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, The Church of England's ruling body voted overwhelmingly for proposals that could see the ordination of women bishops next year.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, About 4,000 Bulgarian workers rallied against low wages and a lack of jobs, in a possible sign that opposition to the Socialist-led cabinet may be spreading beyond daily protests staged mostly by students.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, China confirmed the deployment of a state-of-the-art hospital ship to the Philippines following foreign and domestic criticism that it was slow and less than generous in its response to one of the world's biggest typhoons, which killed at least 4,000 people.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, In Egypt a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into one of two buses carrying off-duty soldiers in northern Sinai, killing 11 and wounding 37. A bomb attack on a checkpoint in Cairo wounded four policemen including a major.
(AP, 11/20/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, European Union lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to meet only in Brussels and avoid costly monthly treks to Strasbourg, France. The proposal must be approved by the 28 EU governments and France is certain to nix any change under the current conditions.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, The European Commission said Austria should pay a daily fine of more than 40,000 euros ($54,000) for breaking EU policy on renewable energy.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, In France Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai was handed the EU's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize in recognition of her crusade for the right of all children, girls and boys, to an education.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Nuclear talks resumed between Iran and world powers. Iran's supreme leader voiced support for the negotiations over his country's nuclear program, but insisted there are limits to the concessions Iran will make in exchange for an easing of the sanctions choking its economy.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A rights group said Iran is forcefully deporting Afghans by the thousands in violation of its international obligation to protect refugees.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Iraqi officials said flooding in central and southern Iraq has killed at least 11 people as rising waters swamped city streets and toppled buildings, sparking anger over the dilapidated sewage system. A wave of attacks hit commercial areas in Baghdad, killing 37 people and wounding over 80 in mostly Shiite areas.
(AFP, 11/20/13)(AP, 11/20/13)(SFC, 11/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 20, In Jordan Raed Hijazi, also known as Abu Ahmad, was arrested. He had been convicted of plotting al-Qaida terror attacks during New Year 2000 celebrations. Initially, he was sentenced to death in absentia. He was later captured and extradited from Syria and sentenced to 20 years, but was set free two years ago by Jordan's king to give him what was described as another chance to repent.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Nov 20, In Kuwait Arab and African leaders wound up their first summit since the region's uprisings in 2011 by calling for closer economic and security cooperation.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A Madagascar government statement showed changes to 10 of the Indian Ocean island's 22 regions. Three generals and five colonels assumed control of eight regions while two civilians headed the remaining two. This raised concern that the run-off vote in December will be rigged.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 20, Mexico’s El Heraldo reported that the National Human Rights Commission has found that visits to the country’s 101 most populous prisons indicated that 65 are run by inmates.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 20, Mozambique held local elections. Preliminary results from the largely peaceful elections pointed to a comprehensive victory for the ruling Frelimo party and a potential shake-up among the country's opposition parties.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 20, The International Criminal Court's vexed relationship with Africa took center stage on the opening day of the annual summit of its 122 member states at The Hague.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Poland’s PM Donald Tusk reshuffled his Cabinet. Jacek Rostowski, the man who has led the country’s economy since 2007, was among those sacked.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.56)
2013 Nov 20, At UN talks in Poland the governments of Norway, Britain and the United States said they will allocate $280 million of their multi-billion dollar climate change finances to a new initiative aimed at halting deforestation.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, In Russia six more Greenpeace activists arrested by Russian coast guards during a protest against Arctic oil drilling were granted bail on Wednesday, including the US captain of their ship. Eighteen of the 30 people detained on September 18 have now been granted bail this week.
(Reuters, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Saudi health authorities announced a new MERS death, raising to 54 the number of people killed by the coronavirus.
(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, A Senegal judge said there is insufficient evidence to convict four women accused of violating the country's law banning homosexual acts. The four women were freed. A fifth woman arrested in the same raid on Nov 11 is a minor and will be tried separately.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Suicide bombers targeted Syrian troops and a hospital in the rugged Qalamoun hills north of Damascus killing at least 7 soldiers, as rebels struggled to reverse government gains that threatened to cut one of their chief supply lines.
(AP, 11/20/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 20, Tunisia signed a $500 million loan agreement with energy-rich Qatar to help bolster its currency reserves.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 21, President Obama, in a letter to President Karzai, said the United States will continue to respect "Afghan sovereignty" under a new security agreement. Karzai added a wrinkle to the process when he told the Loya Jirga that if they and the parliament approve the agreement, it should be signed after next spring's elections in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, US Senate Democrats voted 52-48 to undercut filibuster rules on presidential appointees. In 1975 a two-thirds requirement for cutting off filibusters was lowered to 60 votes. The new rule would require a simple majority.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 21, The city of Oakland, Ca., won a record $15.1 million civil suit against American Legal Services for preying on vulnerable families as they sought legal residency in the US. The owners of the company failed to show up in court and their whereabouts was unknown.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.D8)
2013 Nov 21, In San Francisco BART directors voted to reject an agreement with unions unless a provision granting six weeks of paid famiy medical leave was removed.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A1)
2013 Nov 21, The San Francisco area was hammered by strong winds that knocked down trees and power lines, leaving at least 2 people dead and more than 50,000 without power in the state.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 21, Composer Conrad Susa (b.1935) died at his home in San Francisco. His work included the opera “Transformations" (1973) and “The Dangerous Liaisons" (1994), which was based on a 1782 novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.C10)
2013 Nov 21, Federal agents raided an unknown number of marijuana dispensaries and growing sites in Colorado, confiscating piles of marijuana plants and cartons of cannabis-infused drinks just weeks before the state allows sellers of recreational marijuana to open their doors.
(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Connecticut Michael Skakel (53), a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, was released on bail pending a new trial in the 1975 slaying neighbor Martha Moxley.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A12)
2013 Nov 21, In Minnesota Marion Guerrido (23) veered off a suburban Minneapolis highway ramp. She escaped the car but 5 children were trapped and submerged in a pond. The children were soon freed, but two died and three others remained hospitalized.
(SFC, 11/23/13, p.A10)
2013 Nov 21, The Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) closed at a record 16,009, its first close above 16,000.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.C3)
2013 Nov 21, Chad's PM Joseph Djimrangar Dadnadji offered his resignation to Pres. Idriss Deby after his party proposed a motion of no confidence in him, accusing him of ordering arbitrary arrests of his deputies.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, China’s highest court issued demands that judges bar confessions abtained through torture and avoid the death penalty when the evidence is shaky.
(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 21, Cyprus' biggest private university said it will start accepting the digital currency Bitcoin as an alternative way to pay tuition fees.
(AP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 21, An Egyptian police officer was shot dead in a Nile Delta town while trying to arrest suspects wanted in connection with the killing of a security official.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Indonesia's military halted training with Australia as a decision to suspend cooperation due to spying claims took effect, while angry demonstrators in Jakarta declared they were "ready for war" with Canberra.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In northeastern Iraq a car bomb exploded in a busy market in Sadiyah, killing at least 31 people and wounding more than 30. A wave of attacks across the country left a total of at least 48 people dead.
(AP, 11/21/13)(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 21, In Japan thousands of people protested in Tokyo against a proposed secrets act that critics say would stifle information on issues such as the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Latvia a Maxima supermarket collapsed in a suburb of Riga. 54 people were killed in the Baltic state's worst disaster in decades.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)(AP, 11/23/13)(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 21, Security sources said French special forces have killed Hacene Ould Khalill the second-in-command of the veteran Islamist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar in an operation in Mali's northern region of Tessalit. The Mauritanian, known by his nickname Jouleibib, was deputy commander of Belmokhtar's "Those Who Sign in Blood" Brigade, formed when the Algerian jihadist split with al Qaeda's North African wing.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Myanmar rejected a UN resolution urging it to grant citizenship to the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority group, and accused the United Nations of impinging on its sovereignty.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Nepal's powerful Maoist leader and former guerrilla chief Prachanda said he did not accept the results of an election his party appeared to be losing, throwing the nation into a fresh political crisis.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In northeastern Nigeria militants screaming "God is great!" killed at least 12 civilians and set homes ablaze as they rampaged through Sandiya village in an area that has been attacked several times.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 21, In northwest Pakistan a drone strike killed 9 people, including Ahmad Jan, a deputy of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader of the militant Haqqani network; Gul Sher, leader of the Afghan Taliban in Paktia Province; and Maulvi Hamidullah, leader of the Afghan Taliban in Khost Province. The strike targeted a madrassa, or Islamic seminary, outside the tribal areas that borders Afghanistan. This was only the second such strike outside the country's lawless tribal districts.
(AFP, 11/21/13)(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 21, In Poland around 800 people from environmental groups, including Greenpeace and WWF, walked out of UN climate talks in Warsaw in protest at what they see as a lack of progress towards a global deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Russia three more of the 30 people arrested during a Greenpeace protest walked free on bail. 24 of those detained on September 18 have been granted bail this week.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Saudi local media reported that religious police have arrested two young men in Riyadh for offering a "free hug" to passers-by.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, The UN in Somalia called for a "proper investigation" after police arrested an alleged rape victim and the journalists who reported her story for defamation.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In South Africa 8 construction workers were killed when lightning struck their tent northeast of Johannesburg.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 21, A Spanish court sentenced the town mayor of Marinaleda and four others to seven months in prison for occupying unused military land they wanted to be loaned to farmers hard hit by the economic crisis.
(AP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Syria fighting for a key military base outside the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 15 pro-government militiamen. Troops also pressed an offensive against the last rebel-held districts of Homs where at least 12 people were killed in the exchange of fire.
(AFP, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, In Syria Jihadists cut down a 150-year-old oak tree in Atme, on Syria's border with Turkey, after they accused locals of worshipping it.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 21, The Ukrainian government announced it was suspending its preparations for the signing of a landmark agreement with the EU. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said that Russia welcomed Kiev's desire to improve trade ties with Moscow, signaling satisfaction with the Ukrainian government decision.
(AP, 11/21/13)(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 21, Ukraine's parliament rejected draft laws that would allow jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to go to Germany for medical treatment.
(Reuters, 11/21/13)
2013 Nov 22, President Barack Obama praised the "leadership" of Morocco's King Mohammed VI after holding wide-ranging talks with the North African monarch for the first time at the White House.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, US regulators approved the use of Johnson & Johnson's Olysio, also known as simeprevir, as a treatment for chronic infection with the liver-destroying hepatitis C virus.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Microsoft crowed that more than a million Xbox One consoles were snapped up within 24 hours in 13 countries after hitting shelves for the first time in the morning.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Afghanistan rebuffed a US demand to sign a highly anticipated security pact as soon as possible, insisting the document must wait until after next year's presidential election.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The disgraced ex-chairman of Britain's Co-op Bank, Paul Flowers (63), was arrested in a probe into the supplying of drugs in a scandal that has fast become a political row.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In the Central African Republic more than 100 judges and lawyers took to the streets of Bangui to protest the Nov 17 slaying of a colleague Modeste Martineau Bria.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In China an oil pipeline exploded in the coastal city of Qingdao killing 47 people.
(AFP, 11/22/13)(Reuters, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Egypt a young boy and a man were killed as supporters and opponents of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi clashed.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an international maritime tribunal, ordered Russia to release a Greenpeace ship and 30 people arrested in a protest against Russian Arctic oil drilling.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In India hundreds of thousands were evacuated as Cyclone Helen slammed into Andhra Pradesh and the eastern state of Orissa., packing strong winds and torrential rains and killing at least two people.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In India Magnus Carlsen (22) of Norway defeated Viswanathan Anand of India in the chess world championship, becoming the first Western player since Bobby Fischer to hold the title. The match in Chennai, which began Nov. 9, has been shown live on TV in both Norway and India, with millions more watching online.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Iraq attacks mostly targeting Sunni-majority areas killed at least 23 people. The minority community shuttered countless mosques nationwide complaining that security forces were failing to provide adequate protection. The death toll from flooding across the country rose to 13.
(AP, 11/22/13)(AFP, 11/22/13)(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Libya residents of Tripoli turned out again to press militias remaining in the city to follow others and withdraw, aiming to keep up the momentum following deadly clashes last weekend.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, New Zealand held a referendum on whether the people support the government’s sale of up to 49% of its share in four energy companies and the national airline. With a 45% turnout 67.3% said no.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.43)
2013 Nov 22, In Pakistan a lawyer said Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden, has been charged with murder over a 2006 surgery he performed, raising new doubts whether the physician will regain his freedom.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Philippine officials said the death toll from the Nov 8 Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest, on record has risen above 5,200 and is likely to climb further. Recovery efforts were beginning to take hold.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Poland UN negotiators agreed rules on financing forest projects in developing nations, paving the way for multi-billion dollar investments from governments, funding agencies and private firms in schemes to halt deforestation.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Qatar health authorities said an expatriate (48) has died of MERS, bringing to four the number of deaths in the Gulf state from the coronavirus.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Russia concluded bail hearings and ruled to release all but one of the 30 Greenpeace crew members who have spent more than two months in prison over a protest against Arctic drilling.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Russia's space agency successfully launched three European Space Agency's satellites intended to study Earth's magnetic field. A Rokot booster rocket at the Plesetsk launchpad in northwestern Russia put the three Swarm satellites into their designated orbits.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In South Africa global diamond watchdog, the Kimberley Process, gave its backing for the lifting of a 2005 UN embargo on diamond sales from Ivory Coast.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In South Africa Radovan Krejcir (b.1968), a Czech businessman and fugitive, was arrested on charges of kidnapping and assault in connection with a botched 24 million rand ($2.3 million) crystal meth deal.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziKDb6f3yfI)
2013 Nov 22, The six largest Islamist rebel factions in Syria declared a new Islamic Front, forming the largest alliance of opposition fighters yet in the 2-1/2-year conflict. The merger undermined the secular Free Syrian Army (FSA) leadership, once seen as a symbolic umbrella leadership for all the rebels but weakened by infighting and defections. A fierce battle for control of Syria’s military Base 17 near Raqqa, an opposition-held city, left 24 rebels dead so far, but the government troops have managed to hold on to the complex.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, Thousands of protesters poured into Kiev's Independence Square, the center of Ukraine's pro-Western Orange Revolution, to demand that the government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the EU.
(AP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, A senior UN official said up to 6,000 children have been enrolled by warring militias in the Central African Republic, issuing a stark warning about the country's spiralling crisis.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The UN refugee agency confirmed that 52 refugees of Syrian and Palestinian origin had refused to receive food delivered by a UNHCR-funded charity to the police station where they are held in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, The UN Committee against Torture said torture is rife in prisons and police stations in Uzbekistan, where activists are rounded up and routinely mistreated.
(Reuters, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 22, In Yemen MP Abdel Karim Jadban, who represented Zaidi Shiite rebels known as Huthis at a national dialogue, was assassinated in Sanaa.
(AFP, 11/22/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Santa Cruz, Ca., Google executive Forrest Timothy Hayes (51) died on his 50-foot yacht following a heroin injection given by Alix Catherine Tichelman (26), a high-priced call girl. The action was caught on video. Tichelman was arrested on July 4, 2014, and became a suspect in the death of her boyfriend Dean Riopelle, who died of a heroin overdose two months earlier in Atlanta. On May 19, 2015, Tichelman was sentenced to six years in County Jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and administering illicit drugs.
(SFC, 7/10/14, p.A1)(SFC, 7/11/14, p.D1)(SFC, 5/20/15, p.D1)
2013 Nov 23, In Oklahoma 4 people were slain and a 5th wounded after being shot at a residence in Tulsa. Police said the home was the scene of several drug arrests.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 23, Angolan security forces shot and killed Manuel Ganga, one of eight members of Angola's second-biggest opposition party CASA-CE, as he tried to flee detention hours ahead of protests across the country where police detained 292 people. Police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters demonstrating in the capital against the disappearance and possible murder of two anti-government activists. Prosecutors said last week that Isaias Cassule and Antonio Alves Camulingui, who were involved in organizing protests by former presidential guards to demand payment of wage arrears, had been kidnapped and possibly murdered in May 2012.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Australia a surfer was fatally mauled by a shark on the west coast near Gracetown.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 23, China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) bolstering its claim to islands that Japan says it owns. The zone also included a reef know as Ieodo, claimed by China and South Korea. China warned that it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that failed to identify themselves properly in airspace over them.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.12)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.42)
2013 Nov 23, Egypt said it was expelling Turkey's ambassador and accused Ankara of backing organizations bent on spreading instability - an apparent reference to the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, Iraqi Sunni religious leaders said that they have decided to close down the sect's mosques in Baghdad indefinitely to protest attacks targeting clerics and worshippers, highlighting the country's deepening sectarian rift. In the north a car bomb and a suicide bomber killed at least nine people and wounded 54 in Tuz Khurmato.
(AP, 11/23/13)(Reuters, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 23, Lebanese authorities said they have identified the two men who launched a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy this week which killed 25 people in Hezbollah's southern Beirut bastion.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In eastern Libya gunmen in Derna shot dead Fares al-Zarruk, a former member of Moamer Kadhafi's security services.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, Mauritanians voted in nationwide elections overshadowed by a widespread boycott of opposition parties, with all eyes on the performance of an Islamist party allowed to take part for the first time.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Pakistan thousands of right-wing activists led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan staged a protest against US drone strikes, threatening to block NATO supply routes if strikes continue.
(AFP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Poland UN negotiators reached consensus on some of the foundations for an ambitious, global climate pact, modifying wording in a document that had threatened to derail talks in Warsaw. The Conference of the parties (COP) agreed that countries would make contributions to climate change reduction.
(AFP, 11/23/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.59)
2013 Nov 23, In Syria Islamist rebels led by al Qaeda-linked fighters seized the al-Omar oil field in the eastern Deir al-Zor province, cutting off President Assad's access to almost all local crude reserves. Air strikes around Aleppo killed at least 44 people, most of them civilians.
(Reuters, 11/23/13)(AP, 11/23/13)
2013 Nov 23, In Venezuela thousands of opponents of Pres. Nicolas Maduro took to the streets to express outrage over the country’s deepening economic crisis.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 24, US media reported that a major winter storm that has dumped freezing rain and snow in the US southwest has killed at least 13 people in Arizona (1), California (3), Oklahoma (4), New Mexico (1) and Texas (4).
(AFP, 11/245/13)
2013 Nov 24, An Afghan grand assembly endorsed a crucial security agreement allowing some US troops to stay on after 2014, although President Hamid Karzai set conditions for signing the deal.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, A Bahraini court sentenced 12 Shiites to 10-year jail terms after convicting them of trying to kill policemen in a village near the capital. State media said authorities have arrested two Gulf citizens who were former Guantanamo detainees on suspicion of preparing a "terrorist act."
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Dominican Rep. soldiers expelled 244 Haitians following the deaths of 3 people killed near the border.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 24, Egypt's interim Pres. Adly Mansour signed a new bill into law restricting rallies and other public gatherings, a move likely to raise fresh questions about the army-backed government's democratic credentials.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In France thousands of riding enthusiasts protested a sales tax increase. France planed to nearly triple the value added tax on riding schools as of January, 2014.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 24, Honduras held elections. Ruling National Party's candidate Juan Hernandez, the head of Congress and considered to be Honduras' most powerful politician, faced deposed Pres. Manuel Zelaya's wife, Xiomara Castro (54). Honduran voters gave the ruling National Party four more years in the presidency.
(Reuters, 11/24/13)(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 24, In India gay rights activists paraded through New Delhi to demand an end to the stigmatization of gays.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 24, Iran struck a historic deal with the United States and five other world powers, agreeing to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program in the most significant agreement between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades of estrangement.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Israel's PM Netanyahu harshly condemned the international community's nuclear deal with Iran.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Japan warned of the danger of "unpredictable events" and South Korea voiced regret following China's unilateral declaration of an air defence zone over areas claimed by Tokyo and Seoul.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Macao Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines defeated American Brandon Rios for the World Boxing welter-weight title fight. The Filipino Court of Tax Appeals soon ordered Pacquiao’s bank deposits frozen saying he owed the government $50 million in back taxes.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 24, Mali held legislative elections. In the north ballot boxes were reportedly stolen in the Timbuktu region, including one by armed men and several by a politician, in the first sign of disruption in parliamentary polls. In preliminary results announced on Dec 18, Pres. Keita's RPM party finished first after the second of two legs, securing 61 of a total of 147 seats in parliament.
(AFP, 11/24/13)(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Northern Ireland masked men wearing boiler suits hijacked a car, loaded it with a bomb containing about 60 kg (130 pounds) of home-made explosives and told the terrified driver to go to a shopping center. He left his vehicle near the mall car park and raised the alarm, causing police to evacuate the area. As army disposal experts began to disable the bomb the detonator exploded, but failed to trigger the rest of the device, damaging only the empty car.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 24, Pakistani demonstrators protesting US drone strikes roughed up drivers as they sought to stop trucks carrying NATO troop supplies and equipment from passing through northwest Pakistan.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Saudi press said a court has sentenced a man to death and 19 others to prison terms of up to 25 years in connection with the 2004 armed assault on the US Consulate in Jiddah that killed five employees in an attack blamed on al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Saudi Arabia said one more person has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 55 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Sudan attackers killed a Rwandan peacekeeper in an ambush on a UN convoy in conflict-stricken Darfur.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Syria fierce fighting to the east of Damascus has killed more than 160 people in the past two days as rebels struggled to break a months-long blockade by forces loyal to President Assad.
(Reuters, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, The Oxford Research Group said more than 11,000 children have died in Syria's civil war, including 128 killed by chemical weapons in a notorious attack and hundreds targeted by snipers.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Thailand police estimated that about 90,000 opponents of PM Yingluck Shinawatra and her crisis-hit administration had gathered in three sites in Bangkok, calling for her government to be toppled.
(AFP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, Some 50,000 Ukrainians, bearing EU flags and chanting "Down with the gang!", marched through Kiev in a pro-Europe rally denouncing President Yanukovich's U-turn in policy back towards Russia.
(AP, 11/24/13)
2013 Nov 24, In Yemen Huda al-Niran (22), a young Saudi woman, urged a court to let her stay in Yemen and marry the man she loves, defying norms in both deeply conservative countries. On Nov 26 a Yemeni judge decided to release Niran into the custody of the UNHCR for a period of three months during which she should be able to obtain the refugee status.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, US national security advisor Susan Rice told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that a delay in signing a troubled security deal risked the US pulling troops out of the country completely next year.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Chuck Blazer, a FIFA executive committee member, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges. Blazer said he and others had agreed to receive bribes in the votes for the hosts of the 1998 and 2010 World Cups. This became public in a 40-page US federal indictment unveiled on June 3, 2015.
(SFC, 6/3/15, p.A6)
2013 Nov 25, A federal judge in Arkansas approved a settlement that pays $84.9 million to 5,500 trucking companies that were cheated out of promised rebates by Pilot Flying J, the nation's largest diesel retailer.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, In NYC a statuette of the the bird made for the 1941 film “Maltese Falcon" sold for $4.085 million. It was one of two cast, but the only one confirmed by Warner Bros. archives.
(SFC, 11/26/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 25, Chico Hamilton (b.1921), drummer and jazz master, died in NYC. His music included the sound track for Roman Polanski’s film “Repulsion" (1965).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Hamilton)(SFC, 11/27/13, p.E2)
2013 Nov 25, In Washington DC 10 former players filed a federal lawsuit against the National Hockey League over concussions.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, A sailboat passing through the southern Bahamas islands with about 150 Haitian migrants on board capsized after running aground, killing up to 30 people and leaving the rest clinging to the vessel for hours.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 25, Egyptian security forces fired tear-gas and dispersed university students who had defied a law passed a day earlier that restricts demonstrations.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, The EU expressed strong disapproval of Russian pressure on Ukraine to reject an EU trade deal, while police fired tear gas at pro-Europe protesters in the former Soviet republic.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, France offered weapons, training and intelligence cooperation to help Iraq combat worsening violence amid fears the country is on the verge of returning to all-out sectarian bloodshed.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Leftist Honduran presidential candidate Xiomara Castro refused to accept partial official results that show her conservative rival on course to win elections, setting the stage for a drawn-out conflict.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, In Iraq a double bombing at a market and other attacks killed at least 27 in and around Baghdad.
(AP, 11/25/13)(SFC, 11/26/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 25, Israel approved plans to build more than 800 settler homes on occupied land, in a move Palestinians said was aimed at venting Israeli anger toward a historic deal Western powers have struck with Iran over its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Libyan troops struggling to establish control across the country clashed with militants in the eastern city of Benghazi and at least 9 people were killed in the fighting.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, The Pakistani military deployed its first fleet of domestically developed drones, as police cracked down on a protest by demonstrators angry at the US for using similar aircraft to attack Islamic militants in the country.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Two Sudanese health ministry workers helping to vaccinate children in the Darfur region were killed. They were part of a team inoculating vulnerable children against measles in West Darfur state.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 25, Thailand PM Yingluck Shinawatra invoked an emergency security law in large parts of Bangkok and surrounding areas to cope with escalating protests against her government. Anti-government protesters forced their way inside the Finance Ministry and burst through the gates of the Foreign Ministry compound, in an escalating bid to overthrow PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
(AP, 11/25/13)(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, Ugandan police lobbed tear gas to disperse protesters angered by the ouster of Kampala mayor Erias Lukwago, who is a fierce critic of longtime President Yoweri Museveni.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 25, The UN said Syria's government and opposition will hold their first peace talks on Jan. 22 in Geneva, in an attempt to halt the nearly 3-year-old civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
(AP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 26, In China the Xinjiang Daily reported that students in western Xinjiang region will not graduate unless their political views are approved, as the country wages what school administrators called an ideological war against separatism.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Egyptian police fired a water cannon to disperse dozens of protesters near the Ministry of Interior after they defied a new law that restricts demonstrations. Egyptian troops killed a leader of an al-Qaida inspired group in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Mohammed Hussein Muhareb and his son were killed after troops closed in on his motorcade and a firefight ensued.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Egyptian security sources said police in Cairo are investigating the disappearance of an Egyptian-born German author and critic of Islam, months after a cleric declared him an infidel and called for his death. Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of "The Downfall of the Islamic World: A Prognosis", went missing in recent days.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, France said it would send hundreds of extra troops to the strife-torn Central African Republic after the UN warned the country was descending into "complete chaos."
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 25, Guinea’s government said Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala and Dubai Aluminium (DUBAL) have signed a five-billion-dollar deal with Guinea that should secure resources for UAE aluminium makers.
(AFP, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 26, An Indian court sentenced dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar to life in prison for the murder of their 14-year-old daughter and a Nepalese servant in 2008.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Libya shops and schools closed across Benghazi as residents responded to calls for civil disobedience to protest deadly clashes between radical Islamists and the army.
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Archeologists in Nepal said they have discovered traces of a wooden structure dating from the sixth century BC inside the sacred Mayadevi Temple in Lumbini. They believed this is the world's oldest Buddhist shrine.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Gunmen in central Nigeria's Plateau state killed 37 people in a pre-dawn raid. The area has been gripped by a decade-long sectarian conflict between Muslim herdsmen and Christian agriculturalists.
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif ceremonially broke ground on a $9.59 billion nuclear power complex to be built in Karachi with China’s help. China National Nuclear Cooperation (CNNC) promised to grant a loan of at least $6.5 billion to finance the project which will have two reactors with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts each.
(SFC, 11/27/13, p.A2)(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Pakistan militants released 11 teachers who had been kidnapped in the lawless northwest during a polio vaccination campaign last week.
(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond launched an independence campaing and unveiled a 667-page plan for independence. A referendum was scheduled for September, 2014.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.55)
2013 Nov 26, In Switzerland the director-general of the World Trade Organization said negotiators have failed to craft the first global trade deal in more than a decade, which could have given the world economy a $1 trillion boost.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Syria a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at a bus stop west of Damascus, killing at least 15 people. An Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria announced the execution of two soldiers and three "collaborators" with President Bashar al-Assad's regime near Damascus. Syria's main opposition group in exile said it had not made a final decision yet on whether it would participate in a peace conference to be held in Geneva. The commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) said his group would not join a planned peace conference in Switzerland in January and would pursue its fight to topple President Bashar al-Assad regardless.
(AFP, 11/26/13)(AP, 11/26/13)(Reuters, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, The World Health Organization said it has discovered two additional cases of the highly contagious polio virus in Syria, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 17.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra fought a two-front political war, fending off attacks during a parliamentary no-confidence debate while protesters besieged and occupied several ministries in their attempt to topple her from power.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, In Ukraine several thousand students ditched classes and joined protests in the center of Kiev against the government's abrupt move to freeze integration with the West and tilt toward Moscow.
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, Pope Francis issued the mission statement for his papacy, outlining how the Catholic Church and the papacy itself must be reformed to create a more missionary and merciful church that gets its hands dirty as it seeks out the poor and oppressed. The Pope denounced the global financial system that excludes the poor as he issued “Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel).
(AP, 11/26/13)(SFC, 11/27/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 26, In Yemen unknown gunmen killed a foreign military expert and wounded his colleague in a drive-by shooting in Sanaa. The two were Belarussian citizens who were working "on private contract."
(AP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 26, A Zimbabwean court freed prominent rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, who had faced charges of obstructing the course of justice during a police raid.
(AFP, 11/26/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Colorado 3 people were found dead in a burned home in Rye. On Dec 28 Harry Carl Mapps (59) was arrested in a motel in Roland, Ok. He was suspected of stealing check, killing 3 people and setting fire to their home in Rye, Colorado.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, Two Chicago women became the first same-sex couple to marry in Illinois after a federal judge granted an expedited marriage license because of one of the women’s failing health.
(SFC, 11/28/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, In Afghanistan Taliban militants gunned down and killed six people working working for the French aid group ACTED in the northern province of Faryab.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Australia Simon Gittany was found guilty of throwing his Canadian girlfriend, former ballerina Lisa Harnum, off the balcony of their high-rise Sydney apartment.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Brazil a giant crane collapsed at the construction site of Sao Paulo's Itaquerao stadium killing two workers. An engineer reportedly warned his supervisor that it appeared the ground was not stable enough to support the 500-ton piece of roofing.
(AP, 11/29/13)(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, In England a businessman who stabbed a Chinese family of four to death at their home on April 29, 2011, was found guilty of murdering them. Du Anxiang (54), a Chinese citizen, was convicted by a jury at Northampton Crown Court in central England.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, The first autopsies in Europe to take place without bodies being cut open are to take place after a new machine was unveiled in Sheffield. This will enable many post-mortem examinations to be carried out digitally, saving the body from being cut open with a scalpel.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Egypt's prosecutor general ordered 24 detained activists to be held for four days for protesting a newly passed law criminalizing demonstrations without permits. Nearly two dozen Islamist women and girls, some as young as 15, were handed heavy prison sentences for protesting in a court ruling that came a day after police beat and terrorized prominent female activists in a crackdown on secular demonstrators under a tough new anti-protest law. On Dec 7 a court reduced the sentences of 14 young women to one year. The sentences of seven teenage girls were reduced to three months. All 21 were freed under suspended sentences.
(AP, 11/27/13)(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Germany authorities in Dresden arrested a policeman on suspicion of killing and chopping up a man he met on the Internet who apparently fantasized about being killed and eaten. Officer Detlev Guenzel had met a willing victim in an Internet chat forum devoted to cannibalism fetishists. In 2015 Guenzel was convicted of murdering Wojciech Stempniewicz and chopping him up in an S&M chamber. Guenzel was again convicted in a 2016 re-trial.
(AP, 11/29/13)(AP, 4/1/15)(AFP, 12/13/16)
2013 Nov 27, In Iraq police around found the corpses of 19 men around Baghdad with gunshot wounds to their heads, as other attacks in the country killed at least 27.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Italy three-time former Premier Silvio Berlusconi was ousted from Parliament after two decades as a lawmaker. Losing parliamentary immunity he defiantly calling it "a day of mourning for democracy" and pledged to continue in politics.
(AP, 11/28/13)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.51)
2013 Nov 27, Japan’s Upper House passed into law a Japanese version of the US National Security Council.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 27, Latvia’s prime minister resigned after accepting political responsibility for the collapse of a supermarket roof in the capital that killed 54 people.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Libya's army clashed with Islamist militants in the eastern city of Benghazi and three soldiers were shot dead.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Niger said it has deactivated a third of its mobile phone connections to curb anonymous phone calls used for criminal activity.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Nigeria Islamic police shouted "God is great" as an earthmover shattered 240,000 bottles of beer in a widening crackdown in the northern city of Kano. Alcohol was banned under Shariah law imposed here in 2001 but authorities had turned a blind eye to its consumption in hotels and the Sabon Gari Christian quarter.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 27, Five key governors said they have defected to Nigeria’s new coalition opposition in a blow to President Goodluck Jonathan’s governing party and its chances for re-election in 2015.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Northern Ireland Liam Adams (58), the brother of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, was jailed for 16 years for raping his own daughter in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when she was between 4 and 9 years old.
(AFP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Panama said it is freeing most of the 35 North Korean crew members it detained more than four months ago for smuggling Cuban weapons aboard a ship.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, Russian security forces detained 15 suspected Islamist militants in Moscow after confiscating improvised bombs and other weapons in a raid on an apartment.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, The Syrian government said it will participate in UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending the country's civil war, but insisted that it is not going to the conference to hand over power.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Syria a nephew of Lebanon's agriculture minister was killed along with three other Hezbollah fighters in the Qalamoun region north of Damascus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 27, Thousands of demonstrators massed outside four Thai government ministries, a major state office complex and 24 provincial halls in a widening effort to cripple the administration and oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
(Reuters, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 27, In Tunisia angry protesters set fire to the office of the ruling Islamist party in the neglected Gafsa region, as strikes were observed in areas amid rising discontent and political deadlock. Fifty policeman were injured in clashes with protesters in the marginalised town of Siliana where a general strike degenerated into violence.
(AFP, 11/27/13)(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 27, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a package of landmark contracts that will see the semi-autonomous region's oil and gas exported via pipelines through Turkey.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 27, In the Ukraine thousands of people demonstrated in central Kiev for a fifth straight day to protest the government’s decision not to sign an agreement with the EU but to restore ties with Russia instead.
(AP, 11/27/13)
2013 Nov 28, The comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), first spotted in April 2012 by Russian astronomers, made contact with the sun’s fiery corona. It was named after the Int’l. Scientific Optical Network. Astronomers were unsure if the comet survived.
(SFC, 11/28/13, p.D2)(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A15)
2013 Nov 28, In California Itzcoatl Ocampo (25), convicted in 2012 for killing homeless men in southern California, died after ingesting Ajax cleaning powder.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 28, Doctors in Texas declared Marlise Munoz (33) brain dead due to a blood clot suffered two days earlier. She was 14-weeks pregnant at the time and the hospital said it could not withdraw life sustaining treatment due to a 1999 state law. Life support was withdrawn on Jan 26, 2014, following an order by a Fort Worth judge.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.25)
2013 Nov 28, In Afghanistan two roadside bombs killed six civilians in the country's eastern Nangarhar province. A coalition airstrike killed a child and injured two women, leading to a condemnation of the attack by the country's president. The ISAF strike also killed an insurgent in Helmand province. The top US commander in Afghanistan apologized to President Hamid Karzai for the drone strike earlier in the day that killed a child and NATO promised an investigation.
(AP, 11/28/13)(AP, 11/29/13)(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 28, In Bangladesh a teenager was killed and 17 people suffered burn injuries after a suspected opposition supporter hurled a petrol bomb into a crowded bus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, London Mayor Boris Johnson stated in so many words that inequality is in the nature of capitalism because those with a low IQ are ill-equipped to spread opportunity to all who can compete for its spoils.
(Econ, 12/7/13, p.61)
2013 Nov 28, England's High Court overturned a decision to grant bail to an Italian mafia boss who was arrested in London after two decades on the run. Domenico Rancadore was wanted in Italy to serve a seven-year jail term for his role in the Sicilian mafia and authorities are seeking his extradition.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In London Rakesh Bhayani (41) was sentenced for the murder of Carole Waugh, a wealthy London woman whose body was found stuffed in a car trunk months after her disappearance. Nicholas Kutner (48), was ordered to serve 13 years in prison after he admitted conspiracy to commit fraud.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, British energy provider Npower, a subsidiary of German giant RWE, announced plans to cut about 1,460 jobs in Britain and outsource customer service operations to India.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In the Central African Republic Ugandan foces killed Col. Samuel Kangul, a senior commander of the Lord's Resistance Army and 13 of his rebel fighters.
(AP, 12/1/13)
2013 Nov 28, Chinese media said authorities have broken up six rings that smuggled around $164 million worth of cars into the country over the past three years, including more than 80 top-end models such as BMWs and Rolls-Royces.
(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, The Colombian government and leftist FARC rebels resumed peace talks amid differences over coca cultivation, blamed by political leaders for drug-linked violence and killings.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, EU leaders meeting in Vilnius sought to revive a stalled agreement with Ukraine after the former Soviet republic shocked the 28-country bloc last week by opting for closer ties with Russia instead.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Iran a 5.7 magnitude earthquake on the Gulf coast near the country’s sole nuclear power plant killed eight people and injured 190.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Iraq three car bombs exploded at outdoor markets and on a street full of shops near Baghdad, the deadliest of a series of attacks across the country that killed at least 29 people.
(AP, 11/28/13)(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 28, An Israeli court jailed six Israeli Arab citizens over the mob killing in 2005 of Jewish gunman Eden Nathan-Zaada (19) after he went on a deadly rampage on a bus in their town.
(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Kenya launched construction of a Chinese-funded 13.8 billion dollar (10-billion euro) flagship railway project, hoping to dramatically increase trade and boost Kenya's position as a regional economic powerhouse.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Libya gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Benghazi killing a soldier. More than 40 people were killed in an explosion at an army depot in southern Libya after locals tried to steal ammunition.
(AFP, 11/28/13)(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Mali Tuareg demonstrators occupied an airport runway to prevent PM Oumar Tatam Ly visiting the rebel-controlled northeastern town of Kidal. Protesters said Malian soldiers shot and wounded three of the demonstrators, but the Malian army denied that.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Nigeria's government stepped in to stop a long-running strike by university lecturers, ordering an immediate end to the dispute and vowing to sack teachers who refused to cooperate. 17 people died in a an attack when gunmen in pick-up trucks torched more than 100 shops and vehicles in the Sabon Gari area of the Damboa district. 7 fishermen were ambushed and killed in another attack in Baga, a fishing community on Lake Chad.
(AFP, 11/28/13)(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 28, In Russia criminal charges were filed against Anatoly Serdyukov, a former defense minister (2007-2012). He was accused of using servicemen and government funds to build a road to a vacation home and do landscaping work on the property.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, A Russian court granted bail to the last Greenpeace activist still in custody over a protest against offshore oil drilling in the Arctic. Greenpeace said Australian Colin Russell (59) will be released from pre-trial detention in St. Petersburg when 2-million-rouble ($60,000) bail is posted.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, In South Korea a "safety-related action" automatically shut down one of the country’s 23 nuclear reactors, bringing the tally of those closed to six and hiking the chances of power blackouts this winter.
(Reuters, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, South Korean and Japanese flights through China's new maritime air defense zone added to the international defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in East China Sea but that neighbors and the US have vowed to ignore.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, The Syrian army recaptured the strategic town of Deir Attiyeh, less than a week after losing it, taking the advantage in its bid to crush rebels just north of Damascus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Thailand's embattled PM Yingluck Shinawatra Thailand's begged protesters to call off their sustained anti-government demonstrations and negotiate an end to the nation's latest crisis. Shinawatra easily won a no-confidence vote in parliament, but failed to pacify anti-government protesters who rejected calls for talks and massed by the thousands in the capital.
(AP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, A Thai court sentenced British kickboxer Lee Aldhouse to 25 years in prison for the 2010 murder of former US Marine Dashawn Longfellow (23) following a bar fight on the island of Phuket. The sentence was reduced from life imprisonment because Aldhouse pleaded guilty to the stabbing death.
(AFP, 11/28/13)
2013 Nov 28, Vietnam passed a revised Constitution that reaffirmed the dominant political and economic role of the Communist Party.
(SFC, 11/29/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 29, Images from spacecraft showed a light streak continuing past the sun indicating that at least part of comet ISON remained on one piece.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 29, Officials said the Obama administration has decided to tell US commercial airlines to comply with China’s deamnds to be notified of any flights through a broad swath of int’l. airspace that China has claimed as part of an air defense zone.
(SFC, 11/30/13, p.A2)
2013 Nov 29, The US Department of Treasury said in a statement that the Cayman Islands, a British territory, will share tax information about US account holders with the US Internal Revenue Service.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In southwest Alaska a Hageland Aviation Cessna 208 turboprop crashed near St. Marys. 4 people were killed and six injured. Melanie Coffee (25) left her 5-month-old baby to reach St. Marys and direct rescuers back to the crash site. Her baby died.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A15)
2013 Nov 29, Abu Dhabi authorities said two new cases of the potentially deadly MERS respiratory virus, including a heavily pregnant woman, have been reported in the United Arab Emirates.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Bangladesh a devastating fire ripped through a garment factory supplying major Western retailers, in a blaze set by workers angered over rumors of a colleague's death in police firing.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Colombia's FARC rebels acknowledged that they collected taxes from coca cultivators but rejected accusations of "narco-terrorism."
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Cuba was hit by torrential rains that caused multiple buildings to collapse in Havana. 2 people were killed.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A4)
2013 Nov 29, In Egypt hundreds of Islamist demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the country, days after a disputed protest law was adopted and police forcefully broke up unauthorized gatherings.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Georgia and Moldova signed important agreements on political cooperation, reform and free trade with the EU at the summit of EU leaders in Vilnius.
(http://tinyurl.com/nq8ouy4)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.56)
2013 Nov 29, Thousands of young Haitians demonstrated in several cities demanding that President Michel Martelly step down.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Honduras ppposition candidate Xiomara Castro announced that she won't recognize the result of the presidential election because of alleged voter fraud and called on her supporters to protest the win by the ruling party candidate.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 29, Iraqi police discovered the bodies of 18 men who were abducted from their homes and shot in the head in a town near Baghdad, the deadliest this year in a spate of execution-style killings across Iraq. A wave of violence killed 52 people across the country, most of whom were kidnapped and shot dead with their corpses abandoned.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe named the country's first ever female aide to the prime minister, just weeks after Caroline Kennedy arrived as the first woman US ambassador to Tokyo.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Libya 40 inmates have escaped from a prison in the southern city of Sabha after it came under attack by unknown gunmen.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 29, In northern Mali separatist Tuareg rebels said they were ending a five-month-old ceasefire with the government and taking up arms following violence in the northern city of Kidal.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, A Mozambique Airlines plane carrying 33 people crashed in a Namibian national park, killing all on board. On Dec 21 a preliminary investigation reported that the captain had a "clear intention" to crash.
(AP, 11/30/13)(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Nov 29, Standard & Poor's stripped the Netherlands of its triple-A credit rating, saying that the country's growth prospects have deteriorated and it is not performing as well as peers.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Pakistan a suspected US drone strike killed an alleged militant in North Waziristan overnight, the latest indication Washington has no intention of throttling back its unmanned aircraft attacks despite increasing tension with Pakistan over the attacks.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, Russian poet Natalia Gorbanevskaya (77) died in Paris. She was among the eight demonstrators arrested in in 1968 in Moscow’s Red Square for protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(Econ, 12/7/13, p.94)
2013 Nov 29, In Scotland a police helicopter crashed onto a crowded Glasgow pub. 10 people were killed with more than two dozen injured.
(AP, 11/30/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/2/13)(AP, 2/14/14)
2013 Nov 29, Swaziland's Senate chief said lawmakers should not divorce to avoid embarrassing the country's polygamous king, who has declared that only death can undo marriages.
(AFP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Syria a mortar round fell in front of a historical mosque in Damascus, killing 4 people and wounding 26. Six Syrians died and nine others were rescued after a boat sank off the coast of Turkey while trying to cross to the Greek island of Lesbos.
(AP, 11/29/13)(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Thailand about 1,500 anti-government protesters forced their way into the compound of the army headquarters, the latest escalation in a city-wide demonstration seeking to topple PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
(Reuters, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 29, In Ukraine thousands protested in Kiev, demanding the president's resignation after he shelved a landmark agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Nov 30, The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the US has offered to help destroy some of the most lethal parts of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile at an offshore facility.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Rev. Paul Crouch (b.1934), co-founder with his wife, Janice, of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (1973), died in southern California. TBN currently ran on 84 satellite channels and over 18,000 TV and cable affiliates.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.D2)
2013 Nov 30, Actor Paul Walker (40), a star in the “Fast and Furious" film series, died in a fiery crash north of Los Angeles. Roger Rodas, his friend and financial advisor, drove the 2005 Porsche and was also killed. His daughter (15) became the sole beneficiery of his estimated $25 million estate.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.A10)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A12)(SFC, 2/6/14, p.A6)
2013 Nov 30, In New Mexico a freight train derailed near Bayard killing 3 locomotive operators of Southwest Railroad Inc.
(SFC, 12/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 30, Five east African countries signed a protocol to establish a monetary union, in a first step towards creating a single currency. At a summit in Kampala, leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda inked the framework to set up a single market modelled after the eurozone.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Australia a shark attack killed Zach Young (19) as he body boarded near the northern New South Wales city of Coffs Harbor in the nation's second deadly attack this month.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Britain said it is giving 10 million pounds ($16.4 million) in aid to Central African Republic amid a dramatic escalation in the former French colony's humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, China urged India not to aggravate problems on the border shared by the two nations, a day after the Indian president toured a disputed region and called it an integral part of the country.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, The Dominican Republic in a presidential decree announced details of a special naturalization process for undocumented "foreigners" and their children born in the Dominican Republic.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Egypt Ahmad Maher, a symbol of the popular uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, turned himself in to the authorities after an order for his arrest was made for defying a tough new law restricting demonstrations. Security forces fired volleys of tear gas to disperse stone-throwing protesters in central Cairo.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, The French parliament backed a reform of the country's prostitution law that will impose a 1,500-euro fine on anyone paying for sex. The bill will give France some of the toughest legislation on prostitution in Europe, similar to that of Sweden.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Greece about 1,000 supporters of the Golden Dawn party gathered outside parliament to protest against the pre-trial detention of their leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos on charges of forming a criminal organization.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Honduras election officials said that conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez defeated rival leftist presidential hopeful Xiomara Castro by eight percentage points. Hernandez of the ruling National Party won 36.80% of the vote in the Nov 24 election against 28.79% for Castro.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Nov 30, In India Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal (50) was taken into custody for allegedly assaulting a female colleague in the elevator of a hotel in Goa. Tejpal was charged on Feb 17, 2014, for sexual assault and rape. Tehelka magazine was one that pushed Indian society to confront corruption and sexual violence.
(SFC, 2/18/14, p.A2)
2013 Nov 30, In Iraq a car bomb killed 4 people and wounded seven near a bus stop in Mahmoudiya, a town just south of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, An Israeli policeman shot dead a Palestinian in the town of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv after he tried to attack the arresting force. A paramilitary Border Police unit was searching for Palestinians who did not have a permit to stay in Israel when one of them tried to stab a policeman.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Israel large protests over a plan to resettle nomadic Bedouin Arabs in the southern Negev desert caused injuries and led to some arrests as well as condemnation from PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Lebanon clashes between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government killed 4 people in the northern city of Tripoli.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Libya unidentified assailants overnight gunned down a soldier outside his home and attacked a special forces base in Benghazi.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, North Korea state media claimed that US tourist Merrill Newman (85), detained for more than a month, has apologized for alleged crimes during the Korean War and for "hostile acts" against the state during a recent trip. A video of the apology was dated Nov 9.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif promised Afghanistan that he would help arrange further meetings between Afghan officials and a former Taliban commander as part of renewed efforts to revive a defunct peace process.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Pakistan gunmen fired on police officers protecting a team of polio workers on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing one and wounding another.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Thousands of South Africans called online for the impeachment of President Jacob Zuma, after a newspaper revealed a government document detailing the use of public funds for lavish upgrades to his private home.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In South Africa dozens of Indonesian fishermen, who spent months stranded in Cape Town's harbor, sleeping in cramped and suffocating quarters, were taken ashore to a repatriation center after being stuck at sea on Taiwanese vessels for years without pay.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Nov 30, Sudanese media said more than 11,000 Sudanese workers have returned voluntarily from Saudi Arabia after an amnesty for foreign employees to legalise their status.
(AFP, 11/31/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Syria government shelling of a market in al-Baba near Aleppo killed at least six people.
(AP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Thailand tensions escalated in Bangkik as opposition protesters tried to force their way into PM Yingluck Shinawatra's heavily guarded offices and attacked a bus carrying her supporters.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, Ukrainian police in Kiev broke up a large anti-government demonstration in the city center before dawn, swinging truncheons and injuring many. Protesters took refuge inside the walls of a central Kiev monastery. The opposition demanded that authorities call early presidential and parliamentary polls.
(AP, 11/30/13)(AFP, 11/30/13)(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov 30, In Yemen thousands demonstrated in Aden to demand a return to independence a day after President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi said only autonomy was on the table.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Nov, The US Postal Service unveiled plans to open 84 post offices in Staples stores around the country, but they would not be staffed by USPS union members.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.D5)
2013 Nov, The price of a Bitcoin, a digital currency, soared to over $1000 this month, from less than $15 in January.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.13)
2013 Nov, Bitly, popular site for shortening Web addresses, got caught in the crossfire of Venezuela's polarized politics shortly after President Nicolas Maduro decided to block access to sites such as www.dolartoday.com that publish the black market rate for the bolivar, which is now 10 times the official rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Nov, Chinese officials signed two agreements to import 500,000 cattle and three million pigs from Romania over the next few years.
(AP, 11/31/13)
2013 Nov, An unpublished report by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s public prosecutor’s office said the country is owed an estimated $3.7 billion in unpaid customs duties and fines by companies operating in its copper-rich Katanga province between 2008 and 2013. News of the draft document was only made public in Jan, 2014.
(Reuters, 1/30/14)
2013 Nov, Iran signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million. Public notice of the deal was only made public in Feb 2014.
(Reuters, 2/24/14)
2013 Nov, In Italy Francesco Bidognetti, a top Camorra boss, was convicted of poisoning the water table in the town of Gugliano with toxic waste and received a 20-year sentence. Camorra mobsters since 1991 have systematically dumped, burned or buried nearly 10 million tons of waste, almost all of it coming from factories that either don't seek to know where the waste ends up or are complicit in the crimes.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Nov, North Korea executed two deputies of Jang Song Thaek, an uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, on charges of corruption and anti-party activities.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 1, A single engine plane carrying 5 people disappeared in Idaho on its way from Oregon to Montana. It was piloted by Dale Smith, co-founder of Serialtek, a San Jose, Ca., hardware and software company.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A14)
2013 Dec 1, In Missouri a man died and three people were taken in for questioning after an altercation in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium as the Kansas City Chiefs played the Denver Broncos.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, In NYC a Manhattan-bound commuter train ran off the tracks while rounding a sharp curve in the Bronx. The seven-car train derailment killed 4 people and injured 11 critically. The train went into a curve at 82 mph and engineer William Rockefeller later said he had “nodded" while at the controls.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 1, Two Australian scientists and their pilot were injured when their helicopter made an emergency landing in Antarctica, leaving them stranded overnight on the ice.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Angelo Houssou, a Benin judge who angered the president of the West African nation, said he fled the country over the weekend and is seeking political asylum in the United States.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Brazil Ambrosio Vilhalva, a Guarani tribal elder, was stabbed to death at the entrance of his community known as Guyra Roka, Mato Grosso do Sul state. The indigenous leader had decades fought for his people's right to live on their ancestral lands.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 1, Canadian police said a naval engineer has been arrested and charged for taking steps to transmit sensitive information to China related to shipbuilding procurement strategy.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Croats voted overwhelmingly in favor of defining marriage in the constitution as a "union of man and woman," after conservative groups, backed by the Roman Catholic Church, demanded that the country's constitution define the matrimony as a union of a man and a woman.
(AP, 12/1/13)(Reuters, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, Egypt's constitution-drafting panel approved a charter that preserves the military's wide-ranging powers, including the ability to try civilians, as police fired tear gas to disperse Islamists in Tahrir Square.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Honduras' defeated leftist presidential candidate, the wife of ousted former leader Manuel Zelaya, led thousands of supporters onto the streets of Tegucigalpa to protest the election results.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, Iran said it is in talks with Russia to build another nuclear plant at Bushehr, with construction set to begin in 2014.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In northern Iraq a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral procession of a Sunni Muslim tribal sheikh, killing at least 10 people and wounding 25. Attacks across the country killed 28 people.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)(AFP, 11/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Italy at least 7 people died and three injured when the illegal Chinese-owned Teresa Moda garment factory in an industrial zone in the town of Prato, outside Florence, burned down.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)(SSFC, 10/19/14, p.A20)
2013 Dec 1, In Lebanon 3 people were killed overnight in fighting in the northern city of Tripoli. A security source said 10 people, including a woman and an off-duty soldier, have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon linked to the war in neighbouring Syria.
(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Mexico Some 40,000 teachers, union members and anarchist activists took to Mexico City's streets in a demonstration on the first anniversary of President Enrique Pena Nieto's inauguration.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Germany Heinrich Boere (92), who murdered Dutch civilians as part of a Nazi Waffen SS hit squad during World War II but avoided justice for six decades, died in a prison hospital while serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, A senior Palestinian source said security forces have arrested 20 Salafists, after a Gaza-based group affiliated with Al-Qaeda confirmed it was operating in the West Bank for the first time. The source denied that any of those arrested in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank had ties to the global jihadist group set up by the late Osama Bin-Laden.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 1, Syrian government helicopters dropped makeshift bombs on Al-Bab, rebel-held town near Aleppo. At least 20 people, including four children, were killed in a second day of deadly air strikes there.
(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, Thailand police fought off mobs of rock-throwing protesters armed with petrol bombs who tried to battle their way into the government's heavily-fortified headquarters in Bangkok. PM Shinawatra fled a police complex during the sharpest escalation yet of the country's latest crisis.
(AP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Ukraine some 300,000 demonstrators chased away police to rally in the center of Kiev, defying a government ban on protests on Independence Square over the president's refusal to sign an agreement with the EU. Opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, addressing hundreds of thousands of protesters, called on President Viktor Yanukovich and his government to resign. The protests turned violent when a group of demonstrators besieged the president's office and police drove them back with truncheons, tear gas and flash grenades.
(AP, 12/1/13)(Reuters, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, The UN said Ivory Coast sent hit squads to Ghana to kill followers of former strongman Laurent Gbagbo and paid Liberian mercenaries not to stage cross-border attacks for Gbagbo.
(AFP, 12/1/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Yemen Al-Qaeda suspects on a bike shot dead an army colonel and his son when he stopped his car at a roundabout in al-Qatan. Yemen began enforcing a temporary ban on motorbikes in the capital to prevent "shoot and scoot" attacks.
(Reuters, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, US Pres. Obama announced a $100 million initiative in pursuit of a cure for HIV at a White House event marking World Aids Day.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 2, NASA said solar observatories saw something emerge from around the sun following the comet ISON’s close approach.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 2, In Hawaii a shark attack killed a kayak fisherman off Maui.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 2, The Satanic Temple, a New York-based group, launched a campaign to donate a monument to stand next to Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma City.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2013 Dec 2, In Afghanistan a suicide truck bombing killed 4 police officers in Wardak province.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Armenia some 500 people marched through Yerevan to denounce visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and to protest against plans to join a Moscow-led customs union.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Australia a class action over birth defects linked to the morning sickness drug thalidomide was settled in a court, with the British distributor agreeing to pay victims Aus$89 million (US$81 million).
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, China government said it has punished almost 20,000 officials in the last year for breaching rules to cut down on bureaucracy as well as pomp and ceremony.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, A producer for China's state broadcaster CCTV said that he had been fired after he criticized the network's role in a controversial crackdown on online rumors. Wang Qinglei made the statement in an open letter, which has since been scrubbed from Chinese social media.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Zhang Yimou (62), one of China's top movie directors, admitted having three children with his current wife, according to a studio media posting, apologising after months of speculation he broke the country's controversial family planning laws.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, China launched Chang’e-3, its first moon rover mission, the latest step in an ambitious space program seen as a symbol of its rising global stature.
(AFP, 12/2/13)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.82)
2013 Dec 2, Egyptian police fired tear gas as more than two thousand students backing ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi entered Cairo's Tahrir Square to demonstrate against July's military "coup."
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, French police arrested 45 people in a vast sweep against international arms traffickers.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Indonesia's anti-graft agency questioned the energy minister over a corruption scandal that has ensnared top oil officials and threatened to tarnish President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's final year in office.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Iraq bombings near the homes of government employees killed 3 people in a Sunni suburb west of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Lebanon’s government authorized the army to take control of Tripoli following three days of sectarian clashes that left 12 dead.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 2, Mexican authorities said a total of 64 bodies have been found in mass graves in the western state of Jalisco, as they wrapped up a probe of alleged victims of a drug cartel.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Mexico a truck carrying cobalt-60, used for radiotherapy treatment to combat cancer, was stolen. The IAEA later said the heist occurred in Tepojaco, a town near Mexico City, and described the load as "extremely dangerous" if damaged or removed from its protective shielding. The truck was found abandoned on Dec 4. The highly radioactive material had been removed from its container and was found near the truck.
(AP, 12/4/13)(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 2, In northeastern Nigeria hundreds of Islamic militants in trucks and a stolen armored personnel carrier attacked an air force base on the outskirts of Maiduguri before dawn. 24 insurgents were reported killed along with 2 air force personnel. Authorities imposed a 24-hour curfew following the attack.
(AP, 12/2/13)(Reuters, 12/2/13)(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 2, At a ceremoney in Lomndonderry, Northern Ireland, French artist Laure Prouvost won Britain's Turner prize for contemporary art for her video installation set among a mock-tea party setting entitled "Wantee."
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 2, In central Poland a priest (49) was sentenced to more than eight years after being convicted of sexually abusing five boys.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Somalia's parliament voted to sack PM Abdi Farah Shirdon and his Cabinet in a no-confidence vote, after a row with the president that has paralyzed the state and threatened a shaky recovery from war.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 2, In Syria opposition fighters abducted 12 nuns from Maaloula, a predominantly Christian village near the capital that was overrun by rebels. The nuns were reported freed on March 9.
(AP, 12/3/13)(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2013 Dec 2, Thailand's PM Shinawatra said she is willing to do anything it takes to end violent protests against her government and restore peace, but cannot accept the opposition's "unconstitutional" demand to hand power to an unelected council.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Turkey said it stood by a bilateral oil deal with Iraq's Kurdistan region that bypassed central government but sought to appease Baghdad by drawing it into the arrangement.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In Ukraine about 1,000 protesters blocked off the government's main headquarters and surrounding streets, preventing employees getting to work, in further protests at Kiev's policy U-turn away from integration with Europe.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, Venezuela's second massive power outage of the year plunged much of the nation into darkness, prompting renewed talk of sabotage from President Nicolas Maduro's government and cries of incompetence from its foes.
(Reuters, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 2, In southern Yemen suspected al-Qaida militants attacked a military checkpoint in Hadramawt province sparking a clash that left 3 militants and 2 soldiers dead.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 3, The US voiced solidarity with Japan against China's claim to airspace over disputed islands, vowing not to tolerate the aggressive move as VP Joe Biden prepared to deliver that message personally to Beijing.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In California El Centro police officers pulled over Charlie Sampson (57) under suspicion of his being a drug dealer. Police repeatedly ignored signs of his medical distress and Sampson died hours later. An edited video of the arrest was released on October 8, 2015.
(AP, 10/9/15)
2013 Dec 3, In Florida a number of pilot whales were spotted in extremely shallow water in the Everglades park south of Naples. 22 whales died after a pod of 51 was first spotted.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A12)(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 3, The Illinois Legislature approved a historic plan to eliminate the state’s $100 billion pension shortfall. Gov. Pat Quinn said he will sign it.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 3, US Federal Judge Steven Rhodes ruled that Detroit is eligible to proceed with its Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the largest public US bankruptcy to date.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A9)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.29)
2013 Dec 3, In southern Afghanistan roadside bombs killed 9 people, including six civilians, as insurgents pressed forward with a relentless campaign against the government and its security forces.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Belgium more than 130 vehicles were involved in three pileups in a dense morning fog. At least one person was killed.
(SFC, 12/4/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 3, Ida Pollock (b.1908), romance novelist, died in southwest England. Her more than 120 books included some 70 "bodice-rippers" for romance publisher Mills & Boon, the British arm of Harlequin Enterprises.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 3, In the Central African Republic UN officials said at least 12 people of the Peuhl Muslim minority, including children and a pregnant woman, have been killed by Christian vigilantes.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, Prominent Egyptian youth leader Ahmed Duma was arrested for participating in a protest, the third pro-democracy activist to be detained within a week.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm (84), renowned for his revolutionary poetry and outspoken criticism of Arab political leaders, died. He became recognized as a voice of protest in 1967 when he wrote poems on the Arab-Israeli war, which were highly acclaimed.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a published interview that France will allow private security forces to protect its shipping fleet against the threat of piracy.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Retired French general Paul Aussaresses (b.1918) died. He led a "death squadron" that tortured people during Algeria's 1954-1962 war of independence. In 2004 he was fined 7,500 euros ($10,200) for defending torture and had his membership of the prestigious Order of the Legion d'Honneur removed by then President Jacques Chirac.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, French experts released findings that ruled out the poisoning theory of Yasser Arafat and went in the sense of a natural death. This differed significantly from those of Swiss scientists, who said last month their research offered some support for the suggestion Arafat was killed by polonium poisoning.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, Hong Kong officials said they will quarantine 17 people after the city confirmed its first human case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Indonesia top trade officials began talks that will either produce an eleventh hour deal that could boost the global economy by $1 trillion or possibly spell the end of the World Trade Organization's relevance as a forum for negotiations.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Iran's foreign ministry asked Afghanistan not to sign a security deal with the US that could keep thousands of American and allied forces in its neighboring country for another decade.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Iraq attacks mostly targeting Sunni Arab areas of Baghdad as well as northern and western Iraq killed at least 23 people.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Italian PM Enrico Letta announced measures to try to combat a fresh rubbish emergency in the area around the southern city of Naples where organized crime and widespread abuse have created a chronic environmental crisis.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Mali excavation began on a mass grave containing 21 skulls near the Kati military barracks, formerly the fief of Gen. Amadou Haya Sanogo. The spot where the remains were found matches the place where witnesses said around 20 soldiers were shot and killed by troops loyal to Sanogo in May 2012.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 3, Mexico's Senate overwhelmingly approved an electoral reform demanded by the opposition, helping pave the way for Congress to focus on an energy bill at the center of President Enrique Pena Nieto's economic agenda.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it has completed building the hull of the world's largest floating facility, which has been constructed to process natural gas off the coast of western Australia.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Nigerian university lecturers vowed to press on with their five-month strike over pay and conditions, on the eve of a government ultimatum to go back to work or be sacked.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Peru prosecutors said the remains of 54 people, mostly women and children, have been found in 19 graves in the town of Chungui. Experts believed the victims were killed perhaps in 1986 during the first term of president Alan García (1985-1990).
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, In Russia Bolshoi star dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko was sentenced to six years in prison over an acid attack on the ballet's director that exposed vicious backstage bickering and intrigue at the renowned theater.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, South Africa's government launched a widely unpopular road toll around the economic hub of Johannesburg, a move likely to heighten tensions with its union allies and alienate some voters in the run-up to next year's elections.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, South Korean lawmakers said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is believed to have dismissed Jang Song Thaek, a powerful uncle and a man key to his rise to power, from his posts.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 3, Syria's state TV reported that a suicide attacker blew himself up in central Damascus, killing 4 and wounding 17 others. Syria's Greek Orthodox patriarch appealed for the quick release of 12 nuns abducted by opposition forces a day earlier.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Thailand's government ordered police to stop confronting protesters demanding the resignation of the prime minister, raising hope that days of political violence may end, but the leader of the campaign said the fight would go on.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, Ukraine's opposition failed to force out the government with a parliamentary no-confidence vote, leaving the country's political tensions unresolved with calls for more mass protests.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 3, UN forces in Democratic Republic of Congo launched unmanned aircraft to monitor the volatile border with Rwanda and Uganda, the first time UN peacekeepers have deployed surveillance drones. The UN announced its peacekeeping troops will go after other armed groups in the DRC, after helping to defeat the M23 rebel force.
(Reuters, 12/3/13)(AFP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 4, A Norman Rockwell painting titled “Saying Grace" sold for a record $46 million at a Sotheby’s auction in NYC.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 4, In Florida the former Miami Art Museum opened as the $131 Perez Art Museum Miami.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.P3)
2013 Dec 4, Scientists reported mitochondrial DNA results from a human thighbone found in Spain estimated to be 400,000 years old. The DNA showed a closer relation to Denisovans who lived in Siberia than to Neanderthals.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 4, Algerian army helicopters killed a top al-Qaida leader and four associates as they sped through the southern Algerian desert. Khalil Ould Addah, aka Abu Bassen, a regional leader from the Sahara branch.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Argentina violence in Cordoba left at least 3 people dead as a police sit-in prompted hours of looting, robberies, injuries and vigilante mobs trying to protect their neighborhoods. The violence ended when police agreed to a 52% pay increase.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 4, It was reported that Argentina’s Riachuelo river flowing through the La Boca district of Buenos Aires has been named one of the planet's 10 dirtiest places.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, OPEC leaders meeting in Austria agreed to hold its crude production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day despite oversupply concerns and competition from cheaper shale oil.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Botswana the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said key states, where the illegal ivory trade flourishes, have pledged to take urgent measures to try to halt the illicit trade and secure elephant populations across Africa.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, British PM David Cameron faced demands for the return of priceless artefacts looted from Beijing in the 19th century, the last day of his visit to China.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, China accused Washington of taking Japan's side in a tense clash over disputed islands in the East China Sea, underscoring rising regional friction as visiting Vice President Joe Biden met with Beijing's leaders.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, In eastern China hazardous air pollution forced schools to shut or suspend outdoor activities in at least two cities, where residents complained of the yellow skies and foul smells that are symptomatic of the country's crippling smog crisis.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, The European Commission fined a group of major global banks a total of 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) for colluding to profit from the manipulation of key interest rates. The banks named as participating in cartels were Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale, Credit Agricole, HSBC, JPMorgan, UBS and Citigroup.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, German officials said hundreds of unsolved killings and attempted killings in the country over the last two decades may have been committed by far-right extremists.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 4, In Iraq a car bomb exploded at the gate of the Police Intelligence Department in the religiously-mixed city of Kirkuk. Later, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a police intelligence headquarters and a nearby shopping mall in a coordinated attack in Kirkuk, killing 11 people and wounding 70.
(AP, 12/4/13)(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Lebanon Hassan al-Laqis (53), a senior Hezbollah leader, was killed overnight upon returning home from work in Beirut. Hezbollah accused Israel for the assassination.
(AP, 12/4/13)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 4, Libya's national assembly voted to make sharia, Islamic law, the basis of all legislation and for state institutions in a decision that may impact banking, criminal and financial laws.
(Reuters, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, In Morocco a Cameroonian immigrant plunged to his death when police raided his fourth-floor apartment in Tangiers, raising tensions in the city after a similar death in October.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, Nicaragua police said 6 suspected robbers and 4 police officers were killed in a shootout in a remote rural part of the northwest.
(Reuters, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, Nigerian police said that they raided a home and freed 16 pregnant girls and young women allegedly being forced to have babies to be sold.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, Scientists reported mitochondrial DNA results from a human thighbone found in Spain estimated to be 400,000 years old. The DNA showed a closer relation to Denisovans who lived in Siberia than to Neanderthals.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 4, In Syria fighters linked to Al-Qaeda executed Yasser Faysal al-Joumaili (32), an Iraqi freelance cameraman. He was kidnapped by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) while on his way out of Syria and executed in the northwestern border province of Idlib.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 4, Tunisia's southern Tozeur region ground to a halt, as the latest in a growing number of strikes around the country was called to protest a lack of development.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, Ukraine's PM Mykola Azarov warned protesters trying to blockade government buildings they would be punished for any "illegal acts", as officials went to Moscow seeking aid to avoid a financial meltdown. Thousands of people continued to rally in Kiev against the decision to freeze ties with the EU and get closer to Russia.
(Reuters, 12/4/13)(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 4, The Green Climate Fund, designed as the UN’s most important funding body in the battle on climate change in developing nations, launched its headquarters in South Korea.
(AP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 5, The US Defense Department said Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane and Bensayah Belkecem, two Algerian detainees at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, have been repatriated despite protest from the prisoners who feared persecution.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In the US fast food workers held some 100 rallies across the country calling for an increase in the minimum wage from the current $7.25/hr.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.C7)
2013 Dec 5, A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said water pollution at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina has been linked to increased risk of birth defects and childhood cancers.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 5, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed landmark legislation to reform the state’s underfunded pension system. The reforms cut benefits for most employees and retirees. Unions immediately threatened a lawsuit. On may 8, 2015, the state Supreme Court struck down the legislation saying it would leave pension promises diminished or impaired.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A10)(SFC, 5/9/15, p.A5)
2013 Dec 5, Australia and Indonesia announced that they would set up a hotline as part of efforts to repair relations following media reports last month that Canberra had spied on top Indonesian officials.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Heavy gunfire erupted in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. French troops killed several rebels who were bearing down on them in a pickup truck. Ex-Seleka fighters stormed Amite Hospital and abducted at least nine patients by gunpoint in front of horrified medical staff. The bodies of 11 young men were later found just outside the hospital. Over 280 people were killed in the violence in Bangui.
(AP, 12/5/13)(AP, 12/6/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 5, Ethiopia said it has repatriated over 100,000 citizens from Saudi Arabia, following a violent crackdown against illegal immigrants in the oil-rich kingdom.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Iraq gunmen shot dead magazine editor Kawa Ahmed Germyani (32). He was investigating corruption in the autonomous Kurdistan region. Police stormed a mall in Kirkuk killing 3 militants. Attacks elsewhere in the country left 7 dead.
(AFP, 12/6/13)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 5, Kenyan lawmakers adopted amendments to a controversial media bill despite an opposition walk out and international concern about press freedom.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Libya unknown assailants shot an American teacher to death as he was jogging in Benghazi.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Moldova’s Constitutional Court ruled that Romanian is now the official language. The language, basically the same as Romanian, had been renamed Moldovan under Soviet rule.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 5, Myanmar’s Rangoon Univ. reopened to undergraduates. It had been closed since 1988 following failed student uprisings.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 5, In southwest Pakistan a bomb exploded outside a mosque in Chaman, the main border town in southwestern Baluchistan, killing at least one person.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Russia said it has begun a criminal inquiry into suspected child trafficking in the US following a Reuters investigation which found that adopted children, some born in Russia, were being traded via the Internet.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, Hurricane-force gusts hit Scotland, causing a fatal truck accident, halting all trains and leaving tens of thousands of homes without electricity.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Somalia at least 8 people were killed when a suicide car bomber rammed a convoy in the northern port of Bossasso, a Puntland region harboring Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents where tensions are high ahead of elections in January.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In South Africa former President and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela (b.1918) died. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 5, The South African Cabinet ordered that an inter-ministerial task team report on the funding of controversial security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma's private home be released to the public.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Sudan a tribal dispute on the border of the Darfur region killed 38 people including 16 Maaliya and 22 Hamar tribesmen.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 5, Sweden's public broadcaster said it has obtained secret documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden suggesting a Swedish spy agency has been a key supplier of intelligence on Russian leaders to the NSA.
(AP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jihadists in northern Syria have kidnapped more than 50 Kurds in the past three days.
(AFP, 12/5/13)
2013 Dec 5, In Yemen a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car at the Defense Ministry in Sanaa, killing 18 soldiers and wounding at least 40. Officials said 11 gunmen also were killed in a firefight between troops and a carload of attackers who arrived after the blast. Gunmen shot and killed a Western doctor and a Filipina nurse in front of their colleagues in a hospital inside the compound of the defense ministry. Most of the attackers were Saudi nationals. Yemen’s branch of al-Qaida took responsibility and on Dec 21 apologized for the attack on the hospital that killed 52 people.
(Reuters, 12/5/13)(Reuters, 12/6/13)(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A4)(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 6, US FDA said it has approved a new hepatitis C drug. The Sovaldi pills from Gilead Sciences was approved for use in combination with older drugs to treat the main forms of hepatitis C in the US. The US health industry soon complained as the US price was the drug was set at $1,000 a daily pill, or $84,000 for a 12-week treatment.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.D3)(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.A1)
2013 Dec 6, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in introduced Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on the meme of a smiling Shiba Inu dog. It quickly developed its own online community reaching a market capitalization of US $5,382,875,000 on January 28, 2021. Marcus and Palmer ended their affiliation with the enterprise in 2015.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin)(SFC, 2/15/21, p.C1)
2013 Dec 6, In Texas Jerald Cobbs, a former top executive of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), was indicted over an improperly awarded $11 million taxpayer funded grant.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 6, A winter storm that some forecasters say is the worst to hit the United States in years slammed the nation's midsection early today, snarling travel and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands. At least two deaths were reported on roads in Texas and Missouri.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In London three members of a self-styled "Muslim patrol" who harassed passers-by for wearing short skirts, holding hands and drinking alcohol were jailed for up to 16 months after admitting a variety of public order and assault charges.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to 6 when high winds hurled a tree limb against a car, killing 3 people in Poland. Britain and Denmark had already reported 3 deaths. Thousands of people in Britain faced a second day of flooding as the country confronted its worst tidal surge in 60 years after Xaver roared across northern Europe.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In CAR 19 members of the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, defected in the Central African Republic where the rebels are being pursued by African Union forces backed by American advisers.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 6, In China authorities in Shanghai ordered schoolchildren indoors and a halt to construction as the city, shrouded in yellow haze, suffered its worst bouts of air pollution.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 6, In China a woman died of the H10N8 strain of bird flu, the first ever reported human case of the virus.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian police used tear gas to end clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, kidnapped as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, was convicted in absentia by an Italian court of decade-old terror charges and sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, French President Francois Hollande told some 40 African leaders at a Paris summit that the continent must "ensure its own security" in order to "take charge of its destiny."
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Hong Kong reported its second human case of H7N9 bird flu just days after the first, raising fears that the virus is spreading beyond mainland China.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Indian-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to open a £240-million manufacturing plant in Brazil.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Japan enacted a state-secrets law toughening penalties for leaks, despite public protests and criticism that it will muzzle the media and help cover up official misdeeds.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Mexican officials said 6 people tested for possible radiation exposure have been released from hospital but remain under detention as suspects in the theft of a truck carrying highly radioactive cobalt-60.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In Mexico Guerrero state officials found the dismembered bodies of 8 family members who had been kidnapped a day earlier in the town of Teloloapan. Three other members of the same family had also been kidnapped, including an eight-year-old girl. But their whereabouts were unknown.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 6, The Norwegian oil company Statoil announced the discovery of a major gas deposit with its US partner ExxonMobil off the coast of Tanzania.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In eastern Pakistan gunmen riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a vehicle carrying Shamsur Rehman, a leader of a hard-line Sunni group, killing him and wounding a passer-by before fleeing in Lahore.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Romania's Interior Ministry said Adrian Procop (21), a Romanian man accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum, was arrested in Britain after months on the run. Procop entered the Kunsthal museum at night in Oct 2012 with a friend, Radu Dogaru, and stole artworks worth 18 million euros ($24 million).
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Serbian police say they have detained hundreds of people in a massive sweep against drug traffickers throughout the Balkan country.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Somali lawmaker Feisal Warsame Mohamed was killed when a car bomb blew up his vehicle outside the prime minister's office in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Key leaders of South Sudan's ruling party charged President Salva Kiir with "dictatorial" behaviour Friday, warning of instability threatening the young nation in a deeply controversial challenge to his rule.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In southeastern Turkey two Kurdish protesters, aged 34 and 32, were shot dead in a violent confrontation with police. The clashes were sparked by claims that Kurdish rebel cemeteries had been destroyed.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich flew to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin, seeking aid to shore up a creaking economy as protesters back home, opposed to his U-turn away from Europe, defied police.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, The UN called for an urgent investigation into allegations in a Reuters report that Thai immigration officials moved Myanmar refugees into human trafficking rings.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 7, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said that Afghanistan's defense minister reassured him that a security agreement with the US will be signed in a timely manner.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, A cold snap in the US led to at least 6 weather-related deaths in traffic accidents. Over 100,000 people in the Dallas area were without power as were thousands in other states.
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 7, Australia's first gay marriages were celebrated in the national capital Canberra, despite the prospect of a High Court decision ruling against the unions later this week.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, In Colombia 8 people were killed in a bombing blamed on FARC rebels currently engaged in peace talks with the government. 6 soldiers and 2 civilians died when a vehicle loaded with explosives blew up in the small town of Inza.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, An Egyptian court acquitted 155 people arrested during deadly clashes in the capital between Islamist protesters and police in October.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, French President Francois Hollande said France will increase its troop deployment in Central African Republic to 1,600 soldiers by this evening. The African Union agreed to increase its troops there to 6,000.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Dec 7, In Bali, Indonesia, WTO leaders, ending a 4-day meeting, reached a deal to boost global trade. The Trade Facilitation Agreement was approved by the 159 member economies for the first time in nearly two decades, keeping alive the possibility that a broader agreement to create a level playing field for rich and poor countries can be reached in the future.
(AP, 12/7/13)(Econ, 2/4/17, p.64)
2013 Dec 7, In Iraq a bomb went off inside an outdoor market in the northern city of Mosul, killing two shoppers and wounding 15 others. An hour later 2 people were killed and seven others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded on a road frequently used by military convoys in Mishahda village, just north of Baghdad. Attacks nationwide killed 16 people, nine of whom were shot dead at alcohol shops in Baghdad.
(AP, 12/7/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, The Italian foreign ministry said Marcello Rizzo (55) has been kidnapped in the Niger felta of Nigeria. Rizzo was said to have disappeared several days earlier.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, Two Japanese whaling ships and a surveillance vessel left for the annual hunt in the Antarctic Sea. The three ships departed from the western port of Shimonoseki to join other ships to hunt up to 935 Antarctic minke whales and up to 50 fin whales through March.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, In northern Kenya more than 10 people were killed in fighting in the town of Moyale where troops have been sent to stop a week of fighting between rival ethnic groups that has sent thousands fleeing into Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, Moroccan police violently suppressed a peaceful protest in the Western Sahara against a planned EU fishing accord with Rabat that covers the disputed territory's waters.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, North Korea freed Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old US veteran of the Korean War, after a weekslong detention.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, Pakistan's Supreme Court identified six 'missing persons' who relatives say were disappeared by the country's army from a detention center and ordered the defence ministry to produce them.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, A Palestinian boy, Wajih Wajdi Al-Ramah (15), died of a gunshot wound in the occupied West Bank. His father and two friends blamed Israeli troops guarding a nearby settlement for the shooting. The father said the boy had left a grocery store when he was shot from the nearby settlement, about 300 meters away.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, Polish authorities said icy winter storms with hurricane-force winds battering northern Europe have claimed four more lives in Poland, where some 350,000 homes remained without power. This brought the reported death toll from the storms across north Europe to 14.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 7, In northeastern Romania Chevron Oil Co. suspended exploration for shale gas after hundreds of anti-fracking protesters tore down fences.
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.A4)
2013 Dec 7, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced the resignation of First Vice President Ali Taha. Taha was replaced by Lieutenant General Bakri Hassan Saleh.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, Syria’s largest Islamist rebel force seized arms depots belonging to the mainstream Western-backed Free Syrian Army. The Observatory said the arms had been brought across the border from Turkey and that five fighters were killed. Government aircraft pounded Raqqa, a rebel-held city in the country's northeast, killing at least 18 people including five children.
(AFP, 12/7/13)(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 7, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra ruled out a political comeback for her influential self-exiled brother and said an unpopular amnesty bill that would have allowed him to return has been scrapped.
(Reuters, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Washington DC the Kennedy Center Honors were awarded to Carlos Santana, Billy Joel, Herbie Hancock, Martina Arroyo and Shirley McClaine for their impact on Amereican culture.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 8, In Connecticut a man shot and killed 3 women and then killed himself in front of police officers at an apartment complex in Manchester.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 8, A Bangladesh court ordered authorities to hang Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla (65), months after he was sentenced to death, raising fears of a new wave of clashes. On Dec 10 a late-night reprieve saved his life just hours before he was to be hanged.
(AFP, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 8, British MPs lined up to condemn plans by an independent body to grant them an 11-percent pay rise, embarrassed at how such largesse will be perceived at a time of deep public spending cuts.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested three people following fresh allegations of match-fixing at English non-league games.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, The mostly Muslim fighters who control Central African Republic patrolled neighborhoods across Bangui despite an order to return to their barracks, reflecting the sectarian tensions still rippling across the impoverished nation. The French foreign minister said violence had killed at least 394 people in the past few days.
(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, India's Congress party headed for a bruising defeat in key state elections, in early results underlining the struggle it will face to cling to power in a national election due by May. The main Hindu nationalist party trounced the nationally ruling Congress in four heartland states and knocked them out of New Delhi in a ballot contest closely watched for clues to next year's general election.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Iraq a series of bombings across the country, including 14 blasts in and around Baghdad, killed 39 people and wounded over 130.
(AP, 12/8/13)(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, North Korea’s state TV showed Jang Song Thaek, the uncle of Kim Jong Un, being stripped of all his titles at a party meeting led by Kim Jong Un.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, The Philippine government and the MILF, the main Muslim rebel group, signed a crucial power-sharing accord, paving the way for a final peace agreement.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Chevron said it has resumed activities to build its first shale gas exploration well in Romania, a day after protests forced the US energy giant to suspend work.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, Saudi authorities beheaded Mohammed Zayer Khan Qol, a Pakistani man, after he was convicted of smuggling drugs into the ultra-conservative Gulf state. An AFP count put this as no. 73.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Singapore an hour-long fracas was triggered when an Indian construction worker was struck and killed by a private bus in the Little India district. The rampage that left 39 police and civil defence staff injured, and 25 vehicles -- including 16 police cars -- damaged or torched.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, South Korea said it has extended its air defense zone to partially overlap with a similar zone declared by China two weeks ago that has sharply raised regional tensions.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir replaced his two vice-presidents and unveiled a new cabinet after urgent calls for reform in the 24-year-old regime.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, The Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) launched attacks in Bau district of Blue Nile state. Insurgents later said one rebel fighter was reported killed and three wounded during attacks against military convoys that also left several government troops dead.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 8, Syrian regime forces made gains in the key town of Nabuk, one of the last rebel-held areas in the Qalamoun region bordering Lebanon. Ali Bazzi, a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander, was killed in a combat zone.
(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra proposed a referendum on her future and promised to resign if that was what the people wanted, as anti-government protesters prepared for a final push to try to force her from power. Thailand's main opposition party resigned from Parliament.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, UN inspectors visited an Iranian plant linked to a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel, taking up an initial offer by Tehran to open its disputed nuclear program to greater scrutiny.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Several hundred thousand Ukrainians occupied a central square in the capital, denouncing President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to turn away from Europe and align with Russia. Protesters in the square knocked down a 3.4 meter statue of Vladimir Lenin, erected in 1946.
(AP, 12/8/13)(AFP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Venezuela held municipal elections. The opposition saw this as a referendum on Pres. Maduro’s performance amid soaring crime, high inflation, and shortages of basic household items. Early results gave Socialists and their allies 49 percent of votes, compared to 43 percent for the opposition coalition and its partners.
(AFP, 12/8/13)(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Yemen gunmen in car ambushes shot dead the head of security of the presidential palace in Taiz, Brigadier General Saddam Hussein al-Dhahri. In a separate incident Police Colonel Abdullah Gaithallah was similarly killed in the southern province of al-Baida.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 9, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the US military to transport troops from Burundi into the Central African Republic to help quell the latest upsurge in violence there.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 9, The US remained in the grip of Arctic air. 1,650 flights were cancelled and tens of thousands of people were without power.
(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 9, Major technology companies, stung by poor publicity for having helped the US government access personal data, issued an open letter to Pres. Barack Obama asking for tighter controls on surveillance.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In southern California charges were announced after 16 of 18 LA County current and former sheriff’s deputies were arrested for corruption and civil rights abuses.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 9, Los Angeles MTA officials began a crackdown on homeless people sleeping at Union Station under a program that limits seats in the hub to ticketed passengers.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 9, In southern California Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city manager of Bell, was convicted of corruption. She had given herself huge raises as most city residents lived in poverty.
(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 9, In southern California Bob Filner, the former mayor of San Diego, was sentenced to three months of home confinement and three years of probation for harassing women while serving as mayor.
(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 9, California pledged to restore 80,000 acres of the depleted Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as part of a massive project to send fresh water from mountain streams in the north to farmers and residents in the parched south.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Oakland, Ca., Jahi McMath (13) suffered a cardiac arrest during a tonsil operation at Children’s Hospital. On Dec 12 doctors pronounced her brain dead. Her family contended she was still alive and kept her connected to breathing and feeding tubes. The family kept her on life support at a New Jersey hospital until June 22, 2018.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A10)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.C4)(SFC, 6/29/18, p.A1)
2013 Dec 9, American film actress Eleanor Parker (b.1922) died in Palm Springs. He Oscar nominations included “Caged" (1950), “Detective Story" (1951) and “Interrupted Melody" (1955).
(SFC, 12/11/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 9, In Florida one suspected Cuban migrant was found dead, and two others were missing and feared drowned, after a homemade raft with a sole survivor on board was found floating in Biscayne Bay.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Two Damien Hirst (48) signed prints, "Pyronin Y" and "Oleoylsarcosin," were taken from the Exhibitionist Gallery in west London in the early hours by a thief who forced the gallery doors.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 9, Canada signalled intentions to claim the North Pole and surrounding Arctic waters while announcing the filing of a UN application seeking to vastly expand its Atlantic sea boundary.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Colombia Gustavo Petro (53), the leftist mayor of Bogota, was removed from his post for the mismanagement of garbage collection and banned from holding office for 15 years, a blow to the nation's left as peace talks continue with Marxist FARC rebels.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, An Egyptian court sentenced three supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to life imprisonment, in the latest tough ruling against opponents of the army-backed interim government.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Water ministers from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan held talks on an Ethiopian dam project, after Egypt's objections delayed formation of a committee to implement expert advice.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, A Paris auction of sacred objects from the Hopi and San Carlos Apache Native American tribes kicked off despite objections from the US and activists. The auction fetched more than 550,000 euros. On Dec 11 a US charitable foundation said that it was the anonymous bidder that paid $530,000 for 24 Native American masks in the auction and will return them to the Hopi Nation in Arizona and the San Carlos Apache tribe
(AFP, 12/9/13)(AFP, 12/10/13)(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 9, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party backed a deal to form a new German government with its center-left rivals, putting aside concerns over concessions that include a national minimum wage and a move to make it easier for some people to retire early.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Indonesia a crowded commuter train crashed into a fuel tanker on the outskirts of Jakarta, killing at least 10 people in a huge explosion and injuring scores.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Iraq a car bomb near a cafe in Buhruz, Diyala province, killed 11 people. A roadside bomb also exploded near a market in the Besmaya area southeast of Baghdad, killing at least 2 people and wounding at least eight. In the Suwaib area of south Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed 2 Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters and wounded at least two others. A blast in Madain killed at least one soldier and wounded at least two. At least 21 people were killed across the country.
(AFP, 12/9/13)(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Israel's parliament moved to ensure African migrants who enter the country illegally can be held without charge, despite a Supreme Court ruling that had struck down a previous detention law.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 9, Representatives of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians signed a "historic" agreement to link the Red Sea with the shrinking Dead Sea.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Kurdish rebels freed four Turkish soldiers abducted in the southeast of the country in the worst flareup of violence since a fragile ceasefire nine months ago.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, A Kuwait court acquitted 70 people, including nine former lawmakers, of storming the parliament in 2011 in an unprecedented protest against the then prime minister, a senior member of the ruling family.
(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Libya gunmen killed senior police officer Col. Ramadan al-Turouk in Sirte, the hometown of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, President Vladimir Putin tightened his control over Russia's media by dissolving the main state news agency and replacing it with an organization that is to promote Moscow's image abroad. Putin appointed Dmitry Kiselyov to head the resources of the former RIA Novosti, which was renamed Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today).
(Reuters, 12/9/13)(SFC, 12/10/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 9, A Somali court sentenced to jail a woman (19) who said she was raped and two journalists who broadcast her story, saying they were guilty of defamation and insulting state institutions. The woman, who is also a journalist, was handed a suspended six-month jail sentence for defamation and lying, during which time she will be confined to her home.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, Syrian troops captured a western town near the country's main north-south highway as the government forged ahead with a punishing offensive in a mountainous region near the border with Lebanon.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Syria Razan Zaitouneh (36), a well-known rights activists, her husband and two colleagues were abducted by gunmen from her office in Douma, a rebel-held town on the outskirts of Damascus. Five years later her fate remained unknown.
(AP, 8/13/18)
2013 Dec 9, Thailand's PM Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved the lower house of Parliament and called for early elections.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, In Ukraine hundreds of police in full riot gear flooded into the center of Kiev as mass anti-government protests gripped the capital for yet another week. Heavily armed riot troops broke into the offices of a top opposition party in Kiev and seized its servers.
(AP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 9, The World Health Organisation and UNICEF announced the launch of a polio vaccination campaign for 23 million children in the Middle East after 17 cases were discovered in Syria.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 10, Key members of the US Congress reached a modest budget agreement to restore $63 billion in automatic cuts from programs ranging from parks to the Pentagon.
(SFC, 12/11/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 10, Five American financial regulators approved the Volcker rule. It prohibits deposit taking banks from trading on their own account.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.21)
2013 Dec 10, Fresh winter snow moved into the US mid-Atlantic region, shutting schools and offices in the nation's capital and elsewhere as the mid-section of the country remained in the grip of Arctic air.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In northern Argentina 7 people died overnight in looting sparked by a police strike. At least 10 deaths were blamed on police since their job action began a week ago.
(AFP, 12/10/13)(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 10, China's cabinet, the State Council, announced that it was removing 82 powers from a number of central government ministries, including the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Environmental Protection. The Ministry of Human Resources said the retirement age, currently at 60 for men and 55 for female white collar workers, would be gradually raised.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A20)
2013 Dec 10, In China a dozen residents of Wuhan, Hubei province, drank pesticide in Beijing to protest the demolition of their homes. All 12 survived and were treated for poisoning.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 10, In Egypt police fired tear gas to prevent students of the Islamic Al-Azhar University from taking protests outside their campus, in the third straight day of unrest there.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, French businessman Jean-Claude Ma, who sold tens of thousands of breast implants filled with industrial-grade silicone and prone to leaks, was convicted of fraud and sentenced to the maximum four years in prison.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Two French soldiers were killed in overnight fighting in the Central African Republic, France's first casualties in an operation to restore stability in its former colony.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 19 at the Abu Idris shrine in Baquba.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Jamaica the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission identified eight nations that should work with regional governments to address slavery reparations. Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden were added to a list that already included Britain, France and the Netherlands.
(SFC, 12/11/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 10, In Kenya gunmen killed 8 people including 5 policemen and wounded at least two others in an ambush in the Garissa region close to war-torn Somalia.
(AFP, 12/10/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Kuwait leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) gathered for a 2-day meeting to discuss plans to boost economic integration as well as defence and security coordination.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Mexican authorities said police have arrested a man accused of ordering and participating in the murders of more than 200 people, including kidnap victims, rival gang members and drug dealers. Felipe Viveros Garcia (30) was detained in the western state of Jalisco along with two other suspects, Jose Bernabe Lopez Alcaraz (43) and Froylan Barrera Morales (40).
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered the military to step up its presence in the Arctic after Canada signalled its intention to claim the North Pole and surrounding waters.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, A Saudi court jailed an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist for 16 years for plotting to kill the kingdom's grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, and other clerics. The sentence which includes 40 lashes and a 16-year travel ban.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Singapore the US and 11 other nations negotiating a free trade zone stretching from Chile to Japan failed to reach a final agreement, but indicated they were closing in on a landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Singapore filed charges against 24 Indian nationals who allegedly took part in its first riot for over 40 years, as officials and activists warned against inciting racial hatred over the incident.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In South Africa world leaders, family, friends and thousands of mourners paid tribute to South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. Thousands attending the commemoration booed and jeered President Jacob Zuma. President Barack Obama was cheered and shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro in a simple gesture stoked talk of a possible rapprochement between the leaders of two Cold War foes.
(AP, 12/10/13)(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 10, Nobel Prize winners collected their awards in Sweden amd Norway.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Syrian government troops pounded a rebel stronghold near the Lebanese border, with airstrikes and artillery hitting Yabroud in the mountainous region where they believe opposition fighters are holding a group of nuns. In the north fighters belonging to rival Islamic rebel groups battled each other, killing at least 12.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra pleaded for anti-government protesters to clear the streets after she called a snap election, but protests leaders said she should step down within 24 hours. Elections were scheduled for Feb 2.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, Officials in Istanbul, Turkey, said they plan to introduce floating car parks to try to resolve the chronic traffic problems. They will use out-of-service ferries anchored in the Bosphorus to create multi-storey lots near traffic hotspots.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, In Ukraine about 2,000 pro-Europe protesters huddled by braziers in their main tented camp in snowbound Kiev, in defiance of riot police who herded them away from government buildings overnight.
(Reuters, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, The UN said it would for the first time begin airlifting food and other aid items across the border from Iraq to Syria after receiving the go-ahead from both governments.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 10, The UN command and Congolese troops launched an offensive in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo against against the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a Rwandan rebel group linked to the 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 10, Uruguay gave congressional approval for the legalization of marijuana. President Jose Mujica was expected to sign it.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, The United States and Britain suspended all non-lethal aid to the opposition in northern Syria after Islamist rebels seized key bases and warehouses belonging to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, The US FDA said it will begin curbing the use of some medically important antibiotics commonly fed to animals to fatten them up for market. A 3-year plan to implement this was called the Veterinary Feed Directive.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 11, Time magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year, saying the Catholic Church's new leader has changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, A small plain crashed off of Molokai, Hawaii, killing Loretta Fuddy, the director of the state health dept. Eight other people survived.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 11, In Illinois inmate Stanley Wrice (59) was freed from prison after spending 30 years behind bars for confessing under torture to a rape that he did not commit. He had confessed to the 1982 sexual assault after two officers under former Lt. Jon Burge beat him in the groin and face.
(SFC, 12/12/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 11, A $122 million Powerball lottery draw went to two winners, a couple in Nebraska and a couple in Massachusetts.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A6)
2013 Dec 11, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of German troops near the international airport in Kabul. The attacker was killed and there were no ISAF casualties to report.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, A Bahraini court sentenced 12 Shiite Muslims to 15-year jail terms for attacking a car warehouse during unrest in the Sunni-ruled kingdom in February 2012.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, In Bangladesh deposed military dictator Hussein Mohammad Ershad was detained by Rab (Rapid Action Battalion). The hybrid crime-fighting force picked the Jatiya Party chief up from his residence in Dhaka.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=53FlO_0EuR8)
2013 Dec 11, British regulators announced a record £28 million fines against state-rescued Lloyds Banking Group after finding staff were at risk of selling unsuitable products amid the lure of bonuses.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, G8 health ministers met in London to tackle what experts warn is a dementia time-bomb, with cases set to soar as the world's population ages.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Canada's postal service said it will phase out door-to-door mail delivery in response to falling mail volumes and big financial losses. Canadians will instead have to collect their mail from corner community mailboxes that are to be set up in cities nationwide.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Air Canada announced it had placed a firm $6.5 billion order for 61 Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body aircraft, with options on 18 more planes and purchase rights for 30 others.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Chinese sources said authorities have put Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful politicians of the last decade, under virtual house arrest while the ruling Communist Party investigates accusations of corruption against him.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, The trial of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood chief and his deputies on charges related to protest deaths came to an abrupt end when the judges quit in protest at chaos in the dock.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Germany police said a sapling cloned from the tree that lifted Anne Frank's spirits while she hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam was felled and stolen over the weekend from outside a school in Frankfurt bearing the name of the Jewish teenage diarist.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, In western Germany a building crane collapsed onto a supermarket, killing one person and injuring at least five others in Bad Homburg.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, India's Supreme Court struck down a 2009 lower court decision to decriminalize homosexuality, dealing a blow to gay activists who have fought for years for the chance to live openly in India's deeply conservative society. The court said only lawmakers can change a colonial era law that bans same-sex relations. Gay sex was reinstated as a criminal offense, punishable up to 10 years in prison.
(AP, 12/11/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A20)(Reuters, 9/6/18)
2013 Dec 11, Iran released the last two of eight Slovak paragliders arrested for allegedly spying after PM Robert Fico and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak flew in to secure their release.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 11, Italian PM Enrico Letta won a parliamentary confidence vote triggered by the fall of Silvio Berlusconi, promising to push through a pro-European reform agenda and fight populism.
(AFP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Myanmar freed 41 political detainees, bringing the country close to fulfilling a pledge by President Thein Sein to release all prisoners of conscience by the end of the year.
(Reuters, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbors wrapped up a summit meeting in Kuwait by agreeing to establish a joint military command, paving the way for tighter security coordination.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 11, In Syria 32 people were killed in the town of Adra northeast of Damascus after an al-Qaida-linked rebel faction attack. The dead were primarily members the Alawite sect, as well as a few Druse and Shiite Muslims.
(Reuters, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 11, Ukrainian police pulled back as protesters claimed victory after an overnight face-off in which authorities removed barricades and tents and scuffled with demonstrators occupying Kiev's main square.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 12, The Obama adminsitration announced an expanded list of Iranian companies and individuals that it said it would target to block their trading activities around the world due to sanctions violations.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A11)
2013 Dec 12, US authorities said three Chinese nationals have been charged in two separate cases of trying to steal seed-technology, trade secrets under development in the United States.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, USAID acting Mission Director Christopher Cushing said a decision to leave Ecuador by Sep 2014 comes as a result of Ecuador’s decision to prohibit approval of new USAID assistance programs.
(CSM, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 12, US federal bus regulators said they have shut down over 50 motor coach companies in a nationwide crackdown on unsafe outfits.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 11, In Minnesota Keith Michael Novak (25) was put under federal custody following fraud charges in connection with the ID theft of some 400 members of his former Army unit in Fort Bragg, NC.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A17)
2013 Dec 12, In NYC Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general, was arrested and strip searched for allegedly underpaying her nanny and committing visa fraud to get her into the United States.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 12, World stock markets extended losses after an apparent budget deal in the US Congress reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve will cut its monetary stimulus as early as next week.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Afghanistan a large bomb accidentally exploded inside a weapons depot in downtown Kabul, but no one was hurt.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Australia's top court struck down gay marriage in the nation's capital, ruling that parliament must decide on same-sex unions.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Bangladesh's Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution of Abdul Quader Molla, an opposition leader convicted of war crimes, rejecting a last-minute appeal in a case that threatens to spark fresh violence ahead of national elections next month. Abdul Quader Molla was sent to the gallows at a prison in Dhaka late today.
(AP, 12/12/13)(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Britain’s Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which sets MPs' pay, recommended an 11 percent pay rise despite a public outcry and PM David Cameron plus other top politicians rejecting the plan.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In the Central African Republic 27 Muslims were killed by so-called self-defense militias, known as anti-Balaka, in the western village of Bohong. Fighting and sectarian violence has killed 450 people in Bangui and 160 elsewhere in the country in the past week alone.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Congo and the so-called M23 rebels signed a peace agreement that will see the insurgent group demobilize its fighters and transform itself into a political party.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, India's ruling party slammed the Supreme Court for reinstating a ban on gay sex, taking an unexpectedly bold stance ahead of elections in the religiously conservative nation.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, A senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said new sanctions by the US on Iranian companies and individuals violate the spirit of a deal made between Tehran and the West over its nuclear program.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Iraq signed a $1.1 billion deal to buy 24 multi-role light fighters from South Korea. Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) said it would deliver the T-50IQ, a variant of its T-50 supersonic aircraft, to Baghdad between 2015 and 2016.
(AFP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Italy grass roots protests dubbed the Pitchfork Protests continued for a 4th day in cities and towns reflecting the pain of a continuing recession.
(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 12, Mexico's Congress overwhelmingly voted to open up the country's oil and gas sector to private investment in the biggest overhaul of the industry since it was nationalized in 1938.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, In North Korea Jang Song Thaek (67), the uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, was tried for treason by a special military tribunal and executed. State media accused Jang of destroying the economy for his personal benefit and blamed him for masterminding the 2009 currency revaluation that sparked rare protests in North Korea.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin used his state-of-the-nation address to defend conservative values, referring obliquely to his government's anti-gay stance as he chided the West for treating "good and evil" equally. Putin also made a new attempt to woo Ukraine after the EU and US stepped up efforts to pull Kiev out of its former Soviet master's orbit. He also announced a set of initiatives to crack down on Russian companies who register and pay taxes in offshore jurisdictions.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam, condemned suicide bombings as grave crimes, reiterating his stance in unusually strong language in the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Spain separatist parties in the northeastern Catalonia region agreed the wording of an independence referendum on November 9, 2014, but the Spanish government said the vote was illegal and would not happen.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Syria's Western-backed opposition said it had invited Islamist fighters to secure its depots on the Turkish frontier after an attack by al Qaeda militants. Islamist rebels killed at least 15 civilians from the minority Alawite and Druze sects in the central Syrian city of Adra over the last 48 hours.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Thailand protesters cut off electricity to the prime minister's office compound and demanded that police abandon the premises, piling fresh pressure on Thailand's government in a political crisis that has dragged on for weeks.
(AP, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, Pope Francis said in the first peace message of his pontificate that huge salaries and bonuses are symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap.
(Reuters, 12/12/13)
2013 Dec 12, In Yemen a drone strike on a wedding convoy in Radda killed 17 people, mostly civilians. Two of the dead, Saleh al-Tays and Abdullah al-Tays, had figured in the past on Yemeni government lists of wanted Al-Qaeda suspects. On Feb 20, 2014, a Human Rights Watch report listed the names and ages of 12 men who witnesses said were killed by four Hellfire missiles.
(AFP, 12/13/13)(AP, 2/20/14)
2013 Dec 13, In southern California Brian Beaird (51), a National Guard veteran, was shot and killed following a police chase for reckless driving. The shooting was captured on live television and showed Beaird being shot after he stepped out of his car with his hands raised. In 2014 the LA City Council voted to pay $5 million to Beaird’s family.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.D2)
2013 Dec 13, In the SF Bay Area the Sonoma Land Trust in a complicated $8.3 million deal acquired 4,400 acres of dry land on Skaggs Island with plans to restore it back to a functioning marsh.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.D1)
2013 Dec 13, Colorado schoolboy Karl Pierson (18), armed with a shotgun, opened fire and wounded two fellow students at Arapahoe High School in Centennial before killing himself. Student Claire Davis (17), shot in the face, died on Dec 21 after eight days on life support. Pierson had been demoted from captain of the debate team and was believed to have been targeting the team coach.
(AP, 12/14/13)(AFP, 12/22/13)(SSFC, 8/17/14, p.A7)
2013 Dec 13, In Kansas airport worker Terry Lee Loewen (58) was arrested at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Regional Airport as part of an FBI sting. He planned to attack the airport with what he thought were explosives loaded in a car in as plot aiming to support al-Qaida. On June 8, 2015, Loewen admitted to plotting a suicide bomb attack.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A7)(SFC, 6/9/15, p.A6)
2013 Dec 13, A US federal judge struck down parts of Utah’s anti-polygamy law as unconstitutional. Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that part of the state law prohibiting cohabitation violated the First amendment. He left standing the state’s ability to prohibit multiple marriages.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A13)
2013 Dec 13, Bangladesh was rocked by a new wave of deadly violence as Islamist supporters went on the rampage to vent their fury at the execution of Abdul Quader Molla for war crimes. 3 protesters were killed and 2 activists from the ruling Awami League were hacked to death. An Islamist became the latest fatality after he was shot dead during clashes with ruling party activists in the southern town of Sonaimuri.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Prince Harry became the first member of Britain's royal family to reach the South Pole after a three-week charity trek with injured military veterans from Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, China formally charged Xu Zhiyong, a prominent campaigner for officials to reveal their wealth, after police accused him of breaking the law by organizing demonstrations. Zhiyong, who has also pushed for greater civil rights, was arrested in August in a case that exposed shortcomings in the government's drive against deep-rooted corruption.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, In western China a gas explosion at a coal mine killed 21 workers in Xinjiang region's Changji prefecture.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 13, Egyptian security forces fired tear gas to disperse dozens of Islamist demonstrators marching across the country to demand the release of detained student protesters. Two young men were killed in the clashes.
(AP, 12/13/13)(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 13, The European Union Rule of Law Missio said a suspected mass grave has been discovered at the Rudnica quarry in Serbia believed to contain bodies of ethnic Albanians who were killed during the 1998-99 war between Serbia and Kosovo.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Europe's second-highest court said it has overturned a decision by the European Commission to allow the cultivation and sale of a genetically modified potato developed by German chemicals group BASF.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Iran quit nuclear talks with world powers, accusing Washington of going against the spirit of a landmark agreement reached last month by expanding its sanctions blacklist.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Twenty-two Iraqi suspects facing terrorism charges escaped from a prison in northern Baghdad after killing a security guard, but most were rearrested later in the day. Masked gunmen killed 18 people, most of them Iranians, working on a gas pipeline outside the northeastern town of Muqdadiya. Violence across the country killed 37 people.
(AP, 12/13/13)(Reuters, 12/13/13)(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Italian police said they have arrested 30 people linked to Matteo Messina Denaro, the head of Cosa Nostra, including his sister and several cousins in western Sicily.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, A Malawi Catholic rights group accused President Joyce Banda of being "part and parcel" of a massive fraud scandal that has rocked her government this year.
(AFP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Mexico's Senate passed the most dramatic political reform in decades that would allow re-election of some public officials, create new electoral oversight and make the Attorney General's office independent from the executive.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Nigerian air raids in the northeast reportedly killed scores of fighters attending the burial of fellow insurgents.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 13, In northwest Pakistan attacks on polio teams killed a polio worker and two policemen assigned to protect one of the teams.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Philippine officials said the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan that struck on Nov 8 has passed 6,000 with nearly 1,800 people missing.
(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Rwanda's supreme court extended the jail term of Victoire Ingabire, an opposition politician, to 15 years from eight after she sought to overturn her initial conviction for trying to undermine the state and minimizing the 1994 genocide. Human Rights Watch said some of the charges were politically motivated and the trial raised questions about the independence of the judiciary.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that authorities have freed for "humanitarian reasons" 366 detainees from Aleppo prison in the north of the country which is under rebel siege. Islamist rebels linked to al Qaeda kidnapped at least 120 Kurdish civilians from a village near the Turkish border in Aleppo province.
(AFP, 12/13/13)(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich made few concessions in crisis talks with the opposition, his first direct attempt to defuse weeks of unrest over a policy swerve to Russia away from Europe. A Ukrainian court released all those arrested during a violent police dispersal of demonstrators near the presidential administration building, one of the demands of the opposition that has conducted three weeks of large protests.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)(AP, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, A UN inquiry published today said chemical weapons were likely used in five out of seven attacks investigated by UN experts in Syria, where a 2 1/2-year civil war has killed more than 100,000 people.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 13, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said an arsenal of weapons have been found by UN peacekeepers, including heavy caliber arms and enough ammunition to last a year, at the site of the last stand by M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 12/13/13)
2013 Dec 14, In southern California 4 people died in a car crash in Compton as a car with 3 male occupants fled sheriff’s deputies and ran a red light striking another car driven by a woman in her 20s.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 14, Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in New Delhi he no longer "trusts" the United States, accusing the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in his troubled homeland.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Brazil was rocked by a fourth fatal World Cup stadium accident as a young construction worker fell to his death.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Peter O'Toole (b.1932), the star of "Lawrence of Arabia," died in London.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic a mob in Bangui hacked a Muslim motorcyclist to death in the Combattant district not far from the airport. Moments later residents brandished the man's cut-off hands.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Chinese state media said authorities have detained 1,300 people for producing and selling fake medicine as part of an intensified government crackdown.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, China successfully carried out the world's first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades. The Chang’E 3 deployed a small rover called Yutu (Jade Rabbit), which traveled for 114 meters befor getting stuck.
(AP, 12/14/13)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.82)
2013 Dec 14, In CongoDRC unknown assailants over the last 24 hours killed people 21 in the villages of Musuku and Mwenda, in the eastern territory of Beni. The victims, including women and children, were found hacked to death and some were mutilated.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Egypt an Egyptian Copt was sentenced to life in prison as 10 others got jail terms from six months to 15 years over sectarian deaths in April.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Britain's MI6.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has canceled a planned $500 million loan to Pakistan to build part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Iraq bombings and a shooting killed 12 people around Baghdad.
(AP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Japan and Southeast Asian countries (ASEAN) called for freedom of the air and sea, as China's military assertiveness raises regional tensions.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Kenya a suspected grenade attack on a minibus in Nairobi killed 4 people near a Somali-dominated area of the city. 2 more died of their wounds the next day. One person was killed and three injured in a double explosion at a market in the town of Wajir.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mali a car bomb killed two UN Senegalese peacekeepers and destroyed the only operating bank in the northern town of Kidal, one day before a second round of parliamentary elections.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mexico 10 charred bodies were found in a burnt-out truck in southern Oaxaca state. Another corpse was found shot in the head a short distance away from the truck near the town of Santiago Juxtlahuaca.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Rescue workers evacuated more than 5,000 Gaza Strip residents from homes flooded by four days of heavy rain, using fishing boats and heavy construction equipment to pluck some of those trapped from upper floors.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Portugal a group of students plunged into the winter surf off Meco, a small village south of Lisbon where they had rented a house. Over the next 12 days their corpses were discovered one by one. Four women and two men perished, all aged between 21 and 24.
(AFP, 1/28/14)
2013 Dec 14, In Thailand leaders of the protest movement trying to overthrow the government outlined their aims at an armed forces seminar, but military leaders declined to take sides or say if a February election should take place.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tunisia's political parties chose Industry Minister Mehdi Jomaa (50) to head a government of independent figures aimed at pulling the country out of a months-long crisis.
(AFP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Dissident Ugandan General David Sejusa launched an opposition party in London and said it was time for President Yoweri Museveni to end his 28-year rule, a fresh challenge to a leader who is now among the longest serving in Africa.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Ukrainians rallied in support of President Viktor Yanukovich in central Kiev, separated by a line of riot police from anti-government protesters who have camped out for weeks in a nearby square. Authorities conceded to one of the demands of weeks-long protests, opening investigations against four top officials and suspending two of them from office over the violent police response to a small demonstration last month.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 15, In California a wildfire erupted in a scenic stretch of the central coastline late today. It destroyed at least 15 homes in Big Sur and forced many residents to evacuate.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Jacob Ostreicher, a New York businessman, snuck across the Peruvian border and flew to the United States from Lima. He had been under house arrest for alleged money laundering and connections to drug traffickers related to his purchase of a rice farm in 2008.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 15, In New Jersey a man was shot in front of his wife outside The Mall at Short Hills Assailants drove off in his Range Rover, which was found the next day. On Dec 21 police said 4 men have been arrested on charges of murder in the carjacking.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 15, In Ohio Jerrod Metsker (24) was arrested for the murder of Reann Murphy (9). The girl was last seen playing a day earlier at a mobile home park where she lived in Smithville. Her body was found about 5 hours after she was reported missing.
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 15, Filmstar Joan Fontaine (b.1917), the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, died in Carmel, Ca. Her films included “Rebecca" (1940) and “Suspicion" (1941).
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 15, In Bangladesh 6 more people were today killed and 7 overnight in continuing protests sparked by the execution of top Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla. PM Sheikh Hasina warned of strong action against the rioters.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Chileans voted in a runoff election. President Michelle Bachelet won 62 percent of the vote in a runoff against the center-right's candidate, Evelyn Matthei.
(Reuters, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, In China 16 people, including 2 police officers, were killed in a clash in the Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Colombia's FARC rebels begin a 30-day unilateral ceasefire as peace talks continue with the government to try to end Latin America's longest insurgency.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed that 19 armed Islamists had been killed in a French-led military operation this week targeting Al Qaeda-linked rebels in restive northern Mali.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, In northern Iraq gunmen in Mosul murdered Nawras al-Nuaimi, a female TV presenter, making her the sixth journalist to be killed in the country since October.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Ireland formally exited its three-year bailout program, becoming the first eurozone nation to do so, but authorities warned of further austerity to ensure economic recovery.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Israeli soldier Sgt Shlomi Cohen (31) was killed by a Lebanese soldier along the border. Israeli troops searching the area fired towards two suspects who were standing on the other side of the border, hitting one of them.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Prominent Pakistani Shi'ite Muslim cleric Allama Nasir Abbas was shot dead in Lahore in what Taliban militants said was a reprisal attack for the killing of Sunni Muslims a month ago. He was the leader of Tehreek Nifaz Fiqah-e-Jafaria, a banned Shi'ite organization.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, In the Philippines a gang of hammer-wielding robbers looted a jewelry store at a popular suburban Manila shopping mall. The suspects were believed to have used baseball caps to hide their identities.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 15, The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) held a party congress. President Paul Kagame was re-elected to head the ruling party by an overwhelming majority of 99.5 percent.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, In South Sudan violence erupted when the presidential guard attempted to disarm fellow guard members who belong to the Nuer ethnic group.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 15, Swedish police arrested 28 people after a group of neo-Nazis attacked an anti-Nazi demonstration in a Stockholm suburb.
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 15, Syrian government helicopters pounded the neighborhoods of Haidariya, Ard al-Hamra and Sukhour with barrel bombs filled with explosives. Aircraft dropped barrel bombs on the contested northern city of Aleppo. The airstrikes killed at least 76 people.
(AFP, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 15, Thailand's military offered to help the politically polarized country hold a "fair and clean" election next year, suggesting the armed forces may play a role in a vote aimed at ending protests seeking to topple the government.
(Reuters, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Turkmenistan held its first multi-party legislative elections, but with no opposition to trouble the dominance of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Amnesty Int’l. called it a sham.
(AFP, 12/15/13)(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 15, In Ukraine about 200,000 anti-government protesters converged on the central square of Kiev in a dramatic show of morale after nearly four weeks of daily protests. The EU said it has suspended association talks with Ukraine until it receives a firmer commitment from Yanukovych that Ukraine was serious about the deal.
(AP, 12/15/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, The first UN aid flight from Iraq landed in northeastern Syria with badly needed supplies, after a winter storm delayed it for several days.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 15, Yemen's parliament, dominated by the party of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Islamist Islah party, voted in favor of halting US drone attacks. Experts say lawmakers have limited powers and their vote is unlikely to impact Washington's bid to crush Al-Qaeda militants.
(AFP, 12/167/13)
2013 Dec 15, In Yemen assailants stabbed a Japanese diplomat five times after dragging him from his car in Sanaa.
(AFP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 16, A US judge struck a first blow against the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records, ruling it breaches citizens' privacy to an "almost Orwellian" degree that is probably unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States will boost maritime security assistance to the countries of Southeast Asia amid rising tensions with Beijing.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, US officials said two Saudis from Guantanamo have been transferred to the custody of their own government after a security review. The men are Saad Muhammad Husayn Qahtani (35) and Hamood Abdulla Hamood (48).
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the US National Marines Fisheries Service to demand that it force the Navy to consider alternatives to its 5-year plan that will intensify sonar use off southern California and Hawaii. The Navy had already estimated that its activitescould kill hundreds of whales and dolphins.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 16, Researchers reported that the molten rock beneath Yellowstone National Park is 2.5 times larger than previously estimated.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 16, In Ohio Bobby Thompson (67), aka John Donald Cody, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for masterminding a $100 million Navy veteran’s charity fraud across the US.
(SFC, 12/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 16, Ray Price (b.1926), American country singer, died in Texas. His more than 100 hits included his 1970 version of “For the Good Times," written by Kris Kristofferson.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A11)
2013 Dec 16, Australia’s PM Tony Abbott said Australian combat troops have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, marking the end of the nation's longest war which left 40 of its soldiers dead.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Bangladesh police opened fire on bomb-throwing Islamist protesters as five more people died in clashes sparked by the execution of an Islamist leader for war crimes.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, British Petroleum said it has won official approval to develop a key shale gas project in Oman at a cost of $16 billion (11.6 billion euros).
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Sources said China’s Pres. Xi Jinping and other party leaders have authorized a corruption probe against Zhou Yongkang, a former head of the domestic security apparatus.
(SFC, 12/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 16, Heavy gunfire rocked the capital of the Republic of Congo, soon after Congolese security forces encircled the home of Col. Marcel Tsourou recently charged with complicity in a military arms depot fire and explosion that claimed 200 lives.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Egyptian security forces fired tear gas at dozens of university students outside their Cairo campus in an attempt to prevent their protest from reaching the nearby defense ministry. Egypt's military killed Silmi Mohammed Masbah, a jihadist suspected of involvement in an ambush that left 16 Egyptian soldiers killed near the border with Israel last year.
(AP, 12/16/13)(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 16, European Union foreign ministers pledged "unprecedented" amounts of political, financial and security support for Israel and the Palestinians if they come to a peace agreement.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, More than 50 top European and US scientists wrote to the European Commission President urging him to press ahead with a plan to label tar sands as more polluting than other forms of oil, in defiance of intensive lobbying from Canada.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 16, French police made 21 arrests as part of an investigation into claims that meat from horses used to produce anti-rabies and other serums got into the food chain.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Germany-based Siemens said it has won an order to supply 448 wind turbines with a total capacity of 1,050 megawatts (MW) to US-based MidAmerican Energy, which the engineering group said was the largest single order for onshore wind power ever awarded.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Indonesia Canadian activist Jeremy Ball visited jailed independence supporters in Papua at the end of a six-month bicycle tour to highlight human rights concerns about the restive eastern region.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Iraq militants attacked and temporarily occupied a city council headquarters in Tikrit and assaulted a police station in Baiji, as violence across the country killed at least 54 people.
(AFP, 12/16/13)(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Moncler, a luxury goods manufaturer, made its debut on the Italian stock exchange at €10.20 per share. On Dec 30 its shares closed at €15.80 making its boss Remo Ruffini a paper billionaire.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.48)
2013 Dec 16, In Mali four more bodies of soldiers were discovered, bringing to 25 the number of troops believed to have been killed by the country's coup leader.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Mexico hundreds of people were evacuated after an explosion and fire that was caused by thieves trying to tap into a natural gas pipeline of state oil and gas company Pemex on the outskirts of Mexico City. Seven people were reported injured.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Pakistan a roadside bomb killed three members of a bomb disposal team who were on their way to defuse another bomb elsewhere in the city of Peshawar.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In the Philippines at least 22 people were killed when a speeding commuter bus crashed off an elevated motorway onto a delivery van in Manila.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reported that Russia has deployed Iskander missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometers in its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Russia said its security forces have killed four alleged militants including the leader of a group suspected of carrying out attacks on tourists and ski facilities in the North Caucasus. The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the dead men included Arsen Khandokhov, described as the leader of a militant cell suspected of crimes including the killing of two tourists and attacks on a ski lift.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In South Africa a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled outside the government complex in Pretoria, a day after his funeral. It was later revealed that sculptors Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren had added a small rabbit inside one ear, said to be a discreet signature on their work. Officials soon ordered the rabbit removed.
(AP, 1/22/14)
2013 Dec 16, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir declared a curfew in the capital Juba after overnight clashes between rival factions of soldiers followed months of tension between Kiir and his sacked deputy. Kiir said disgruntled soldiers and politicians led by ousted VP Riek Macha had attempted to overthrow the government.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Syrian government aircraft pounded opposition areas in the northern city of Aleppo and near the southern border with Jordan.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reported that Turkey has shipped 47 tons of weapons to Syrian rebels since June despite repeated government denials.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Turkey signed a long-awaited deal with the European Union to send back people who enter the bloc illegally from its territory in exchange for talks on visa-free travel for its citizens.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, Ukraine's ruling party demanded a sweeping cabinet reshuffle in a sign the leadership was seeking to placate the opposition in a bitter standoff over a rejected EU pact.
(AFP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, The UN appealed for a record $6.5 billion for Syria and its neighbors to help 16 million people, many of them hungry or homeless victims of a conflict that has lasted 33 months with no end in sight.
(Reuters, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 16, In Vietnam Duong Chi Dung (b.1957), former director of the Vietnam Maritime Bureau, former Chairman of the Board Members Maritime Corporation Vietnam (Vinalines), Standing Member of the Party of business, was sentenced to death on charges of embezzlement and 28 years in prison for intentionally violating state regulations on economic management causing serious consequences.
(http://tinyurl.com/lg7xobd)
2013 Dec 17, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden offered to help Brazil defeat US spying, but in an open letter said he needs permanent political asylum to do so.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The Mega Millions lottery and its jackpot of $648 million went to two winners. One ticket was sold in San Jose, Ca., and the other in Atlanta, Georgia.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 17, In California ex-firefighter Zane Wallace Peterson (29) of Shasta County was taken into custody for setting wildfires, including the massive Clover Fire that broke out on Sep 9.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.C3)
2013 Dec 17, In Reno, Nevada, a gunman opened fire at the Center for Advanced Medicine killing one person and wounding two others before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 17, Christie’s in New York auctioned one edition of Jeff Koons’ “Balloon Dog" for $58.4 million, a record amount for a living artist. The 10-foot steel orange edition was one of five, each a different color.
(Econ, 12/21/13, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/ng83bhm)
2013 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan an aircraft crash killed six American soldiers.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Egypt's security forces clashed with supporters of the former Islamist president at several universities across the country, as an explosive device detonated in a residential area of the capital but caused no injuries or damage.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The European Union said it has warned Israel against any new West Bank settlement construction following an upcoming Palestinian prisoner release, saying it will be held responsible for any resulting failure of the ongoing peace talks.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In France Claude Gueant, the former right-hand man of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, was arrested for questioning about alleged misuse of public funds when he served the conservative leader at the interior ministry.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, French troops took on armed Christian militias in Bangui, Central African Republic, where the UN said 210,000 people had been uprooted in two weeks of deadly sectarian violence.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Greek authorities said an oil tanker came under armed attack overnight about 35 nautical miles south of Nigeria, and the ship's Ukrainian captain and Greek first engineer have been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Guinea-Bissau's Interior Minister Antonio Suka Ntchama became the second minister to step down in the tiny West African country amid an investigation into how 74 Syrians boarded a flight to Portugal with fake passports.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 17, Indian authorities removed security barriers in front of the US embassy in New Delhi apparently in retaliation for the arrest and alleged heavy-handed treatment of an Indian diplomat in New York. Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was arrested last week for allegedly underpaying her nanny and committing visa fraud to get her into the United States.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Iraq bombings in and near Baghdad killed 10 Shiite pilgrims as they were making their way on foot to Karbala.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Israel some 200 African migrants and Israeli activists ended a two-day march with a rally denouncing Israel's policy of detaining those illegally in the country.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Japan approved a plan to increase defense spending by 5% over the next five years to purchase its first surveillance drones, more jet fighters and naval destroyers in the face of China's military expansion.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In eastern Lebanon a car bomb exploded at dawn near a Hezbollah position, causing an unknown number of casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Russian and Ukrainian officials signed a series of agreements in Moscow to boost trade and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Saudi authorities beheaded a Syrian man convicted of smuggling drugs to the ultra-conservative kingdom.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Sicily eruptions at Mount Etna volcano died down, allowing the nearby airport of Catania to re-open after a two-day stoppage that disrupted dozens of flights.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Syria 2 children were among at least 18 people killed in new air strikes on a rebel-held district of Aleppo. The 3-day assault has left over 100 dead.
(AFP, 12/17/13)(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 17, Turkish police detained the sons of three cabinet ministers and several well-known businessmen as part of investigations into alleged corruption. Police seized shoeboxes stashed with $4.5 million in cash at the home of Suleyman Aslan, a state-owned bank's chief executive. Police arrested some 50 people altogether on suspicion of tender rigging, covert gold transfers to Iran and bribery.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)(AP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.37)
2013 Dec 18, A US presidential advisory panel on government surveillance was released. It recommended sweeping limits on the government's surveillance programs, including requiring a court to sign off on individual searches of phone records and stripping the National Security Agency of its ability to store that data from Americans.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The United States voiced regret to India over the treatment of a diplomat whose account of being stripped and cavity-searched triggered outrage.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The US Federal Reserve decided to reduce its stimulus program and trim its $85 billion a month in bond purchases by $10 billion starting in January.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.D3)
2013 Dec 18, A New Orleans jury convicted Kurt Mix (52), a BP drilling engineer, of obstruction of justice in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Mix had deleted a string of text messages to and from his supervisor.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A14)
2013 Dec 18, The NY Times reported that Target was investigating a security breach on point of sale systems at its retail stores that is believed to have begun the day after Thanksgiving. Target disclosed the breach on Dec 19. On August 18, 2015, Target and Visa confirmed an agreement for Target to pay Visa up to $67 million to settle claims.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A11)(SFC, 8/19/15, p.C6)
2013 Dec 18, In Austria a wave of protests against the new government escalated as tens of thousands of civil servants demonstrated in Vienna for better pay and an end to a hiring freeze.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Bolivia accused the United States of helping Jacob Ostreicher (54), a New York businessman, escape from the South American country where he had spent 18 months in prison and was under house arrest for alleged money laundering. Washington denied having a hand in Ostreicher's flight.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Brazil’s defense minister said Sweden's Saab has edged out French and US rivals to win a multi-billion-dollar contract to supply Brazil's air force with 36 new fighter jets.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Bank of England said it will issue plastic banknotes for the first time in its history, with Winston Churchill gracing the first run. The note, carrying a value of £5 ($8.2, 6.0 euro), is to be released in 2016.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, A British judge sentenced the former lead singer of the rock band Lostprophets to 29 years in jail, saying that Ian Watkins had "plumbed new depths of depravity" in committing a string of sexual offenses against very young children.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs (84), part of a gang of at least 12 men that robbed a Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train on Aug 8, 1963, died.
(AP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.74)
2013 Dec 18, China's foreign minister paid a rare visit to Israel, reflecting the burgeoning trade ties between the two countries. But the trip was clouded by fresh accusations that Israel's prime minister had compromised the global war on terrorism under heavy Chinese pressure.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Egyptian prosecutors announced a new trial of ousted President Mohammed Morsi and the top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood, accusing them of conspiring with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran's Revolutionary Guard and militant groups to carry out a wave of terrorism to destabilize the country.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Egyptian police raided the offices of an NGO affiliated with a leftist former presidential candidate, arresting three employees and confiscating computers. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, founded by former candidate Khaled Ali, has supported striking factory workers and defended activists at trials.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 18, EU finance ministers reached a banking union accord which will hand Brussels unprecedented new powers to prevent failing banks from wrecking the economy.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Gambia jailed United Democratic Party treasurer Amadou Sanneh, a leading opposition politician, for sedition after he helped two supporters planning to flee to Finland.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, in south-east Iran 3 military personnel were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, An Iraqi policeman gave his own life in an attempt to protect pilgrims, embracing a suicide bomber just moments before an attack to shield others from the blast. The bomber struck in Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, killing 5 people and wounding 10. Attacks across the country killed 11 people, including 3 Pakistani Shiite pilgrims.
(AFP, 12/18/13)(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Israeli army shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded others in clashes that erupted following military activity in the northern West Bank.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In Italy frustrated and angry, thousands of students, jobless and tax-weary workers have moved their days-long protest against "useless politicians" to Rome.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In northern Mexico 5 men were killed in a gunbattle with police and military personnel in the Gulf of California resort of Puerto Penasco. Government helicopters fire on at least 10 vehicles as they tried to escape. Sinaloa cartel operator Gonzalo Inzunza was the target, but his body was not among those killed.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A2)(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 18, In Morocco a visiting group of UN experts said Morocco must put an end to the practice of convicting detainees on the basis of confessions obtained through torture.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Nigeria's faction-ridden ruling party lost its majority in the House of Representatives as 37 legislators defected to a new opposition coalition, in a major blow to President Goodluck Jonathan.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In Pakistan a suicide bomb attack on a checkpoint in North Waziristan killed at least 3 soldiers and wounded 32 people.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Iyad Sarraj (70), an award-winning Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights campaigner who championed peace with Israel, died in an Israeli hospital overnight of cancer.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Romanian media reported that some 26 police officers and ambulance employees have been charged with calling undertakers to tell them that someone had died, or in some cases were not yet dead, in exchange for money.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Russia's parliament passed an amnesty bill that will likely apply to the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship detained after an Arctic protest, but it wasn't immediately clear if and when the activists would be allowed to leave the country.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In Somalia fighters shot dead 3 Syrian doctors and their 3 Somali colleagues as they travelled to a hospital outside Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, South Sudan said at least 500 people, most of them soldiers, have been killed since Dec 15. The clashes apparently were pitting soldiers from the majority Dinka tribe of President Salva Kiir against those from ousted Vice President Riek Machar's Nuer ethnic group. Fighting spread to Jonglei, the largest state in South Sudan.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, In South Sudan fighting between workers in two oil fields killed at least 16 people but the government regained in control and oil production was not affected.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Swiss government said it has decided to keep 760 million Swiss francs ($858 million) in Egyptian and Tunisian assets frozen for three more years.
(AP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Syrian government forces pummeled opposition-held neighborhoods in Aleppo for a 4th day, leveling apartment buildings, flooding hospitals with casualties and killing nearly 200 people. Syria said that British doctor Abbas Khan, alleged to have been effectively murdered in custody, had hanged himself after being arrested for "unauthorized activities." On Oct 27, 2014, a British jury found that the regime of Bashar Assad had deliberately and intentionally killed Dr. Khan.
(AP, 12/18/13)(AFP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.51)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.51)
2013 Dec 18, Turkey's PM Tayyip Erdogan denounced a corruption crackdown on his allies months ahead of elections as a "dirty operation" to smear his administration and undermine the country's progress.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, The heads of the UN and European Union aid agencies called for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in Syria to allow convoys to deliver help to areas that aid workers cannot reach.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 19, The California Public Utilities Commission fined Pacific Gas & Electric more than $14 million for the utility’s “delay and obfuscation" in revealing that its records for a natural gas pipeline in San Carlos failed to show potentially risky welds.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 19, In San Francisco nudism activist Gypsy Taub (44) married Jaymz Smith (20) and both promptly went naked in front of City Hall.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.D1)
2013 Dec 19, In Fresno, Ca., four teenage boys shot and injured teacher Steven Guerrero after he fought back during an attempted robbery at Edison High School. Four Norteno gang members, ages 16-17, were soon arrested.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 19, In New Jersey a Chinese citizen, the admitted ringleader of an international smuggling operation that trafficked in $4.5 million worth of rhinoceros horns, ivory cups and trinkets, pleaded guilty in federal court.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, New Mexico’s Supreme Court legalized gay marriages in the state.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.21)
2013 Dec 19, The NYC Council voted to ban electronic cigarettes in indoor public places.
(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 19, Al Goldstein (77), the publisher of Screw magazine, died at a Brooklyn hospice. He and Jim Buckley co-founded the magazine in 1968 and it continued to 2003.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.D9)
2013 Dec 19, Former NBA star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea to help train the national team and renew his friendship with the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, A jury at London's Old Bailey criminal court decided unanimously that Michael Adebolajo (29) and Michael Adebowale (22) were guilty of murdering Lee Rigby (25), an Afghan war veteran, on May 22 but not guilty of the attempted murder of a police officer.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Hunks of plaster and dust rained down on a packed audience when the ceiling of London’s Apollo Theater partially collapsed. More than 75 people were injured — seven seriously.
(AP, 12/20/13)(SFC, 12/20/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 19, Cuba announced it will allow unrestricted car imports for the first time in half a century, marking the end of an era that made icons of the island's vintage automobiles. Cubans soon found that imported cars were priced far beyond what an average salary could afford.
(AFP, 12/19/13)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.30)
2013 Dec 19, Danish lawmakers approved sending a cargo ship and a warship to pick up Syria's most dangerous chemical weapons.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, An Egyptian court acquitted former leader Hosni Mubarak's two sons and his last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, of corruption charges.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, The European Space Agency launched its star-surveying satellite Gaia into space, hoping to produce the most accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way and to better understand the evolution of our galaxy.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, German media and officials in Berlin said about 200 cars stolen in Germany have been tracked down in Tajikistan, where most are now driven by family and friends of President Emomali Rakhmon.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Honduras President Porfirio Lobo fired Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla, the national police chief, who has long faced accusations he ran death squads when he was a lower-level officer and whose force has been hit with frequent abuse claims.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Iraq suicide bombings targeting Shiite pilgrims around Baghdad on their way to Karbala and other violence across the country killed at least 36 people.
(AP, 12/19/13)(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, Iraq received 75 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles from the US to help combat operations against the country’s branch of al-Qaida.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 19, The Israeli military killed a Palestinian gunman during an arrest raid in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, The Tokyo governor who helped his city secure the 2020 Olympics resigned after revelations that he received 50 million yen ($480,200) from a hospital company.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Mexico Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo (79), a drug czar disgraced by his arrest and conviction for aiding a powerful drug cartel, died after a long bout of prostate cancer.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said he will pardon jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The move, along with an amnesty for the two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band and the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship, appears designed to assuage international criticism of Russia's rights record ahead of February's Winter Olympics in Sochi.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hayat newspaper reported that a Saudi court has jailed a man for 15 years after convicting him of recruiting 14 nationals to join Al-Qaeda's affiliate in neighbouring Yemen.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Africa's government dismissed criticisms that a $21 million state-funded security upgrade of Pres. Jacob Zuma's private home was extravagant. The upgrades included a swimming pool, chicken coop and cattle pen.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Africa’s environmental ministry said the country has lost nearly 1,000 rhinos this year in a poaching surge to feed the black-market demand for their horns.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, South Sudan said that the government no longer controls Bor, the capital of Jonglei, its largest and most populous state. Two UN peacekeepers from India were killed and a third wounded when a UN base was overrun by armed youths in Jonglei State. Two dozen Dinka officials were killed during the attack in Akobo.
(AP, 12/19/13)(AP, 12/20/13)(Reuters, 12/20/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.36)
2013 Dec 19, Spanish police searched the headquarters of the ruling People's Party (PP) for 14 hours as part of a corruption investigation that earlier this year threatened to destabilize the government of PM Rajoy.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 19, Amnesty Int’l. accused an al-Qaida-linked rebel group that controls large parts of northern Syria of running secret prisons in which torture and summary killings are common.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, The last Sudanese prisoners to be released from US detention at Guantanamo Bay arrived home, as US President Barack Obama tried to speed up repatriations and close the controversial facility. Mohammed Noor Uthman (51) and Ibrahim Othman Ibrahim Idris (52) were both considered by the US military to be members of Al-Qaeda.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, Togo freed two Indian sailors imprisoned since July after India appealed to President Faure Gnassingbe for their release on compassionate grounds.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Turkey Istanbul's most senior police official was dismissed, days after police launched raids that detained dozens of people.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, In Turkmenistan official election results said the ruling party won the most seats in the Dec 15 legislative elections, while a new party set up to diversify politics in the ultra-controlled state won its first-ever mandates.
(AFP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, A UN panel probing war crimes in Syria reported that people around the country are systematically vanishing without a trace as part of a widespread campaign of terror against civilians.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 19, A 52-year-old Italian man set himself on fire in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican and suffered serious burns.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 20, President Barack Obama said the United States has deployed 45 military personnel to volatile South Sudan to protect the embassy and US government employees there.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, The United States said it is pledging up to $100 million to help support African Union efforts in the Central African Republic.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, The US Senate voted to confirm John Koskinen (74), a retired turnaround specialist, to head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a 5-year term.
(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 20, In Florida 17 teams competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge at a speedway track near Miami. Only one robot, SCHAFT, made it to the top of a nine-step aluminum ladder. It was created by a Japanese startup owned by Google.
(Econ, 3/29/14, SR p.3)(http://tinyurl.com/lsbfd5n)
2013 Dec 20, In Illinois an off-duty sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot while trying to break up an armed robbery in suburban Chicago.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 20, A US federal judge scrapped Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. The ban was approved by 66% of state voters in 2004.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.21)
2013 Dec 20, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead said his state will challenge a US government ruling that more than one million acres of the western state's land still legally belongs to two Native American tribes.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, Bolivia launched its first telecom satellite.
(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, The British government said it has agreed to destroy part of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile at a commercial facility.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Canada's highest court struck down the country's anti-prostitution laws, a victory for sex workers who had argued that a ban on brothels and other measures made their profession more dangerous.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In the Central African Republic more than 30 people, including a Chadian peacekeeper, were killed overnight in a fresh outbreak of brutal sectarian violence.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, China's ruling Communist Party said it was investigating Li Dongsheng, a vice minister of public security, for alleged disciplinary violations, the latest official to be targeted in a high-profile campaign to root out corruption. state media said Cao Jianliao, a top official in Guangdong province, is being investigated for "serious discipline violations", which is often a euphemism for corruption.
(AFP, 12/20/13)(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Cuba’s VP Marino Murillo told parliament that the peso pegged to the dollar, known as the CUC, would disappear, the first time the government has explicitly said that. He promised that savings in the convertible pesos would retain their value until the change took place.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Cuba lawmaker Mariela Castro cast a no vote to a workers’ rights bill that she felt did not go far enough to prevent discrimination against people with HIV or with unconventional gender identities. This appeared to be the first no vote ever in the 612-seat post-revolution National Assembly.
(SFC, 8/20/14, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, In Egypt an army raid in the Sinai peninsula led to a firefight the left at least 2 soldiers and 3 militants dead. Police in Cairo clashed with protesters demanding the reinstatement of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
(AFP, 12/20/13)(SFC, 12/21/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, In France a helicopter went down carrying Lam Kok, a Chinese tea tycoon, overflying his newly-purchased vineyard. The body of Kok's 12-year-old son was pulled out of the Dordogne River. French winemaker James Gregoire, the helicopter pilot and owner of Chateau de la Riviere, and their interpreter were also killed.
(AFP, 12/21/13)(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 20, India's government petitioned the Supreme Court urging it to reverse a ban on gay sex, saying individual rights must be respected.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Indian protesters ransacked a Dominos Pizza outlet in a Mumbai suburb, demanding a ban on US goods as officials from the two countries struggled to defuse a row over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Bombings in Iraq, including two in a market and a third at a cemetery where victims of the earlier attack were to be buried killed 14 people.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Italy's justice minister has announced that Bartolomeo Gagliano, a serial killer who failed to return to prison after a two-day good-behavior pass, has been recaptured in France.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Italian authorities said that the Camorra syndicate's mobsters have expanded their multibillion-euro toxic-waste disposal racket to Tuscany and beyond Italian borders to eastern Europe.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, backed by the legislature, decided to send officers to aid UN peacekeeping missions next year for the first time since independence in 1991.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Libya the head of military intelligence in Benghazi was shot dead during a visit to his family in nearby Derna. 3 tribesman and 5 soldiers were killed in fighting that grew out of disputes between army units under conflicting orders over who controls key resources in the east.
(AFP, 12/20/13)(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 20, Madagascar residents went to the polls for a second round of presidential and legislative elections. On Jan 3, 2014, Hery Rajaonarimampianina was declared the winner with 53.5% of the vote.
(AP, 12/20/13)(Reuters, 1/3/14)
2013 Dec 20, In Nigeria a Federal High Court sentenced Kabiru Sokoto (30), the alleged mastermind of a 2011 Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic Church, to life in prison for "facilitating the commission of terrorist acts" in northern Sokoto state between 2007 and 2012, including last year's bombing of the police headquarters in Sokoto city.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Nigeria Boko Haram Islamist sect fighters, armed with anti-aircraft guns and grenade launchers, attacked a barracks in Bama in the volatile northeast and battled soldiers for several hours.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, In the Philippines a gunman attacked Labangan Mayor Ukol Talumpa as he left the Manila main airport along with crowds of Christmas travelers, killing him, his wife, a child and another man.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Russia closed a deal to buy Ukraine's newly-issued $3 billion Eurobond, part of a $15 billion bailout of its smaller neighbor.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Russia oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been pardoned by Pres. Putin, left jail after 10 years and left for Germany.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Saudi Arabia beheaded another drug trafficker. 77 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year, according to an AFP count.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, South Africa’s biggest trade union called for President Jacob Zuma to resign and said it will not support the ANC in next year's elections.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Spain's government approved a tightening of the abortion law that would overturn women's right to abort freely up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Molhem Barakat, a Syrian photographer who took pictures for Reuters on a freelance basis, was killed while covering fighting in Aleppo.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete sacked four ministers following accusations of abuses committed by security forces during a huge operation against wildlife poaching.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 20, Turkey’s PM Tayyip Erdogan pressed a widening purge of the police command, tackling the biggest challenge of his rule from what he describes as a foreign-backed conspiracy to undermine him and create a state within a state.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, Ugandan lawmakers passed an anti-gay bill that calls for life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality," drawing criticism from rights campaigners who called it draconian and unnecessary in a country where homosexuality has long been criminalized.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, The United Nations says 34,000 people in South Sudan are seeking refuge at UN bases in three locations across the country.
(AP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 20, In northern Yemen 9 people were killed in ongoing sectarian fighting between Shiite Huthi rebels and Sunni Islamists backed by local tribes.
(AFP, 12/20/13)
2013 Dec 21, At least two people were killed as wild storms and suspected tornadoes tore through parts of Mississippi and Arkansas.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute said annual manatee deaths topped 800 for the first time since record-keeping began in the 1970s.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A9)
2013 Dec 21, Edgar Bronfman Sr. (84), the former Seagram liquor company executive and ex-World Jewish Congress head, died at his home in New York. He had helped obtain restitution for Holocaust victims from Swiss banks.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 21, Cuba’s President Raul Castro warned his country could remain estranged from the United States for decades if Washington does not drop political demands.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Egypt's deposed Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and 129 others including members of Hamas and Hezbollah, were referred to trial on murder and other charges related to a mass jail break during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, The mayor of Georgia's capital Tbilisi was suspended from office after he was charged with misspending public funds in a case he and his opposition colleagues said was a witch-hunt against supporters of former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 21, Greece's coalition government pushed through parliament a new property tax required under the country's international bailout obligations, but saw its majority dwindle in the process.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Iraq 5 senior officers, including a divisional commander, and 10 soldiers were killed in a raid on an Al-Qaeda hideout in Anbar province. Violence elsewhere killed 5 policemen, including the police chief of Al-Sharqat district northwest of Baghdad.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian man in the southern Gaza Strip. Witnesses said the shooting happened when several young Palestinians who were hunting birds approached the security fence separating the territory from Israel and came under fire. Israel said terrorists had attempted to conceal an explosive device in order to attack IDF soldiers.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Italy 9 detained illegal immigrants stitched their lips together with thread from their bedsheets in a protest to demand their release.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Lebanon Hezbollah fighters ambushed a group of Syrian rebels as they infiltrated through a smuggler route outside Nahle. About 30 rebels were reported killed.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 21, Madagascar's presidential candidates both claimed victory in run-off polls, each accusing the other of rigging the run-off as results started to trickle in.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Mauritania held runoff elections. The ruling party secured a majority of seats in round two of the parliamentary election. The decisive victory for the Union of the Republic party assured that President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who came to power in a 2008 coup, will retain complete control of the organs of state.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 21, In Niger up to 1,000 demonstrators marched in Niamey to protest their country's "unbalanced" partnership with nuclear firm Areva as the French giant negotiates a new uranium mining agreement with the government.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen attacked an anti-polio vaccination center in the Khyber tribal region, killing a medic on duty.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Saudi Arabia said one more person has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 56 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Somalia's parliament approved as the new prime minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, a political newcomer and economist who faces tough challenges in the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In South Sudan rebel gunfire hit a US military aircraft trying to evacuate American citizens caught in a Bor, a battle ground between the country's military and renegade troops. Four US service members were wounded, one critically.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Sudan's military said it has "liberated" several areas of war-torn South Kordofan state, but rebels dismissed the claim as propaganda, saying a government offensive achieved nothing.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Vandals in Sweden burned down a giant straw goat meant to symbolize Christmas spirit. This was the 27th time it was burned down since 1966, when the Yule symbol was first erected.
(AP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Thailand's main opposition party announced it would boycott an election in February, deepening uncertainty about the poll and fuelling a campaign to overthrow PM Yingluck Shinawatra's government.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, Turkey’s PM Tayyip Erdogan denounced "international groups" and "dark alliances" for entangling Turkey in a corruption scandal that has exposed deep rifts between him and Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim cleric who helped him rise to power.
(Reuters, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 21, In southern Yemen several cities were virtually paralyzed by a second day of confrontations between militants and security forces in which 11 people were wounded. Fighting raged in the north as the Sunni Islamist Al-Islah party accused Zaidi Shiite rebels known as Huthis of abducting one of its members. In the eastern province of Marib saboteurs blew up two sections of an oil pipeline.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 22, A band of severe weather from tornadoes to icy blasts left at least 7 people dead as winter storms and severe weather pushed up the East Coast, bringing record high temperatures to Philadelphia and NYC. The storm system brought freezing rain across much of Eastern Canada, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and wreaking havoc on holiday plans at one of the busiest travel times of the year.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, Louisiana’s Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne said the “Duck Dynasty" reality TV show is important to state tourism and that he could connect the Robertson family to new producers if they cannot reach an agreement with the A&E network. Patriarch Phil Robertson was suspended last week for telling GQ magazine that gays are sinners akin to adulterers and swindlers.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 22, NY-based Tiffany & Co. said it was ordered to pay Swatch Group AG about 402 million Swiss francs ($449 million) in compensation over a contractual dispute. The Netherlands Arbitration Institute also required Tiffany to pay more than $9 million for the Swiss watchmaker's legal fees and the cost of arbitration.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, Apple announced that it has finalized a deal to sell the iPhone through China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone carrier.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 22, Australia announced an aerial Customs and Border Protection mission to the Southern Ocean as a showdown looms between Japan's whaling fleet and Sea Shepherd activists, saying it would send a message to both sides that the world was watching.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Bangladesh security forces arrested 37 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals after raiding an illegal Internet telephone operation they were allegedly running in an upscale Dhaka neighborhood.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Bangladesh police charged the owners and 11 others over the nation's worst garment factory fire that killed 111 people, after wrapping up an investigation on the Nov 24, 2012, tragedy.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Brazil 14 people died when a bus drove off a road and plunged into a ravine in Sao Paulo state.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Central African Republic former Seleka rebels and their Muslim supporters blocked a route near Bangui's airport to protest against French troops conducting a disarmament operation, accusing them of killing 3 fighters in clashes.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Egypt 3 leading figures of the 2011 uprising were jailed for three years each for their role in recent protests, as the army-backed authorities intensified a crackdown on dissent.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Germany Mikhail Khodorkovsky vowed to do all he can to ensure the release of other political prisoners in Russia.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Honduras Nedenia Post Dye (46), a great-granddaughter of Marjorie Merriweather Post, was found slain at her luxury spa on Roatan island. Police arrested suspect Lenin Roberto Arana, a local singer that to quit drugs.
(SSFC, 12/29/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 22, India's anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal vowed to clean up "dirty politics" in a fiery speech suggesting that his Aam Aadmi will team up with the Congress party to form a state government in Delhi.
(AFP, 12/22/13)(Econ, 12/14/13, p.49)
2013 Dec 22, In Libya a suicide car bomb attack on a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Benghazi killed 13 people.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Saudi Arabia's official news agency says King Abdullah has appointed his son, Prince Mishaal, as the new governor of Mecca.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In South Korea hundreds of riot police stormed into a labor umbrella group's head office in a bid to arrest union leaders. They detained about 130 strikers and confederation members. Workers with the state-run Korea Railroad had walked off the job in protest against a decision to set up a unit to run a high-speed bullet train, which they say will lead to privatization and layoffs.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, South Sudan's central government lost control of Bentiu, the capital of key oil-producing Unity state. Renegade forces loyal to a former deputy president seized more territory in fighting that has raised fears of full-blown civil war in the world's newest country.
(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Spain millions were glued to their televisions as 2.5 billion in euros was distributed in the country’s Christmas lottery during a 4-hour TV show. For the first time 20% of winnings over 2,500 euros was taxed.
(SFC, 12/23/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 22, A Sudanese court acquitted award-winning journalist Faisal Mohammed Salih of publishing lies in a column he wrote about an activist's allegation of rape in custody.
(AFP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Sweden thousands took to the streets of Stockholm in a protest against racism following a neo-Nazi attack on a similar but much smaller rally last weekend.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Syrian aircraft pummeled an opposition neighborhood in Aleppo, killing at least 65 people and extending the government's furious aerial bombardment of the rebel-held half of the divided city to an eighth consecutive day. A suicide bomber detonated his bomb-rigged truck near a primary school in the Shiite town of Umm al-Amed, killing at least 12 people, half of them children.
(AFP, 12/22/13)(AP, 12/22/13)(CSM, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Thailand tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators massed peacefully across Bangkok in their latest bid to topple PM Yingluck Shinawatra before a February election the main opposition party will boycott.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Turkish media reported that authorities have removed another 25 police chiefs from their posts, widening a crackdown on the force since it launched a corruption investigation that PM Tayyip Erdogan has called a "dirty operation" against his rule. Turkey's interior minister said he has offered his resignation to PM Erdogan over a corruption scandal that has resulted in his son's arrest. Police in Istanbul clashed with protesters denouncing Erdogan's government over a corruption and bribery scandal targeting his allies.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)(AP, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 22, Ukrainian opposition leaders urged supporters at a rally to stay on Kiev's main square through New Year and Christmas, as street protests appeared to be losing momentum.
(Reuters, 12/22/13)
2013 Dec 23, Yuseef Lateef (93), grammy-winning jazz musician and composer, died at his home in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.D2)
2013 Dec 23, In Mississippi a bank robber killed Tupelo police officer Kevin Stauffer (38) and injured another as he escaped. In Dec 28 Arizona police in Phoenix shot and killed Mario Edward Garnett (40) following an attempted bank robbery. He is believed to be the same man accused in the Dec 23 killing of Tupelo police officer Kevin Stauffer.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A7)(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 23, A federal judge ordered Ohio authorities to recognize same-sex marriages on death certificates.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 23, Over 390,000 homes and businesses were without power in Michigan, New York and northern New England. In Maine over 78,000 people were without power. The weekend storm left at least 11 people dead.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 23, In Afghanistan two NATO service members were killed in separate attacks in the east and south. One was a British soldier killed by enemy fire.
(AP, 12/23/13)(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, A Bahrain court acquitted two police officers accused of torturing doctors who were detained while treating wounded Shiite protesters in 2011. Sheikha Noura bint Ibrahim al-Khalifa (29), a Bahraini princess, was one of the two police officers acquitted.
(AP, 12/23/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Belgium Andras Pandy (86), a serial killers dubbed the "Devil's Pastor", died overnight in a jail in northwestern Bruges.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Britain's disgraced former Europe minister Denis MacShane (65) was jailed for six months after admitting he falsely claimed thousands of pounds in parliamentary expenses.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, British retailer Marks & Spencer faced criticism after it emerged that it allows Muslim staff to refuse to sell customers pork and alcohol.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 22, In Central African Republic former Seleka rebels and their Muslim supporters blocked a route near Bangui's airport to protest against French troops conducting a disarmament operation, accusing them of killing 3 fighters in clashes. An African Union peacekeeper from the Republic of Congo was killed by the anti-balaka, a Christian militia.
(AFP, 12/22/13)(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, China's ruling Communist Party told the already tightly monitored state media that they should not be reporting on "wrong points of view" and instead cover positive stories that promote "socialist values."
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Dubai Shezanne Cassim (29), a US citizen man detained for months, and seven co-defendants were fined and sentenced to jail after being convicted in connection to a satirical video about youth culture. Officials charged that the film spoofing would-be Dubai "gangstas" ran afoul of a 2012 cybercrimes law.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Dubai media reported that police have made a record drug seizure of some 4.6 million Captagon pills, an amphetamine-like stimulant, worth more than $31 million (23 million euros).
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Egypt more than 450 imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood members launched a hunger strike to protest their "inhuman treatment" after being jailed following the military's overthrow of Pres. Morsi.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, The European Union banned the export of arms and the sending of mercenaries to Central African Republic.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, India's anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal announced he would head a state government for New Delhi in a stunning breakthrough for his fledgling party just months before a general election.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Iraq suicide bombers in Tikrit assaulted a television station headquarters, killing 5 journalists in the latest in a series of attacks against the media. Two of the bombers blew themselves up and security forces killed the other two when they stormed the building. Other violence in the country killed 17 people.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Kuwait's Cabinet resigned ahead of a reshuffle and plans by some legislators to submit a number of ministers to parliamentary grilling.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Libya's interim parliament voted to extend the country's post-revolutionary transition, giving itself an extra year to oversee the writing of a constitution and the holding of new elections.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, The Moroccan-flagged fuel tanker "Silver" hit rocks near the Atlantic port of Tan Tan during a storm, and there were fears of an ecological disaster. Over the next two weeks the cargo was offloaded to fuel trucks.
(AP, 1/5/14)
2013 Dec 23, Nigeria's military reportedly killed at least 50 Islamist rebels fleeing towards Cameroon in a battle in which 15 of its own soldiers and five civilians also died.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, Nearly half Pakistan's lawmakers reported they paid no taxes, according to a study released today, findings that may endanger billions of dollars in IMF and other loans and aid that shore up a faltering economy.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Residents of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun region of North Waziristan accused government troops of killing dozens of civilians during a military operation against Taliban insurgents. Military officials said more than 30 militants, most of them ethnic Uzbeks, had been killed in a military operation that began after a December 18 suicide bomb attack.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Police in the Philippine capital banned the wearing of caps and sunglasses in shopping malls to stop criminals concealing their identity from security cameras.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, In Russia two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot were released following an amnesty law that both described as a Kremlin public relations stunt ahead of the Winter Olympics.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Russia said it has sent 25 armored trucks and 50 other vehicles to Syria to help transport toxins that are to be destroyed under an international agreement to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Russia bought $3 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds, the first batch of a promised $15 billion, in a bid to support its neighbor's economy.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, Russia’s Mikhail Kalashnikov (b.1919), the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, died in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic.
(AP, 12/23/13)(SFC, 12/25/13, p.D4)
2013 Dec 23, A Saudi court sentenced a citizen to 30 years in prison for leading demonstrations in 2011 against a crackdown on Shiite Muslims in neighboring Bahrain.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, South Sudan's government said it will start a major offensive to retake two strategic towns controlled by rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, deepening fears that the conflict is provoking broader ethnic bloodletting. Some 3,000 foreigners were trapped in Bor as the city experienced bouts of heavy machine gun fire.
(Reuters, 12/23/13)(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, Syrian government forces widened a northern bombing campaign striking Azaz and killing 15 people.
(SFC, 12/24/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 23, In Thailand anti-government protesters determined to unseat PM Shinawatra surrounded a Bangkok sports stadium in an unsuccessful attempt to block political parties from registering for February elections.
(AP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 23, President Jose Mujica of Uruguay quietly signed into law the government's plan to create a regulated, legal market for marijuana. Bureaucrats now have until April 9 to write the fine print for regulating every aspect of the marijuana market, from growing to selling in a network of pharmacies.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 23, Yemeni political parties signed a document pledging a "just solution" that would grant some autonomy to the south in the face of secessionist demands.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 23, Zambia's defense minister Geoffrey Mwamba resigned after admitting that he met a traditional leader who is blackballed by the country's president.
(AFP, 12/23/13)
2013 Dec 24, US postal regulators approved a temporary two-year increase of 3 cents for the first class stamp. The 49 cent rate will be effective as of Jan 26, 2014.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 24, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown granted clemency to 127 convicted criminals. All the people involved had completed their sentences.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.D3)
2013 Dec 24, In southern California Steven Keith (58) collapsed and died in a holding cell after his arrest by Border Patrol agents for allegedly carrying three pounds of marijuana.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 24, In upstate New York 2 firefighters were killed in an ambush after William Spengler Jr. shot his sister and set fire to his West Webster home. Spengler wounded two other firefighters before committing suicide. In 2014 Dawn Nguyen was sentenced to eight years in prison for buying the guns for Spengler.
(SFC, 9/18/14, p.A6)
2013 Dec 24, A US federal appeals court ruled that same-sex marriages can continue in Utah, denying a request from the state to halt them.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A10)
2013 Dec 24, NASA astronauts wrapped up successful repairs at the International Space Station after a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk to fix an equipment cooling system. Rick Mastracchi (53) and Mike Hopkins (44) floated outside the orbiting lab for seven and a half hours to replace an ammonia pump whose internal control valve failed on December 11.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 24, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff flew over the flood-hit southeastern state of Espirito Santo, where at least 14 people have died in days of torrential rain. 47 cities in Espirito Santo, which borders Rio de Janeiro state, were affected by the flooding.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Hurricane-force winds and torrential rain disrupted transport networks and cut power supplies in Britain and France, one of the busiest travel days of the year just before Christmas, pushing the death toll to at least 6 people.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Britain posthumously pardoned Alan Turing (1912-1954) for a 1952 gay sex conviction which tarnished the brilliant career of the code breaker credited with helping win the war against Nazi Germany and laying the foundation for the computer age.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, In Chile Nicolesa Quintreman (73), a Mapuche Indian leader, was found floating in a reservoir she spent a decade trying to prevent from being created. With her sister Berta, Quintreman became a national figure in Chile during protests against the construction of a hydroelectric dam on tribal land in the forested mountains of southern Chile.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 24, China's top legislative committee voted to abolish "re-education through labor" camps introduced more than half a century ago, saying they had served their purpose.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, In Egypt multiple explosions at the security headquarters in Mansoura killed 16 and injured more than 100.
(AP, 12/24/13)(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 24, Egyptian state television reported the arrest of Hesham Kandil, the country's former prime minister, to serve a one-year prison sentence. He had served under the nation's toppled Islamist president.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Egypt's football league resumed following repeated suspensions for almost two years after a deadly stadium riot and political unrest in the country.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, In Iraq a bomb struck the acting Iraqi defense minister's convoy west of Baghdad, wounding two of his guards.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Israeli air and ground forces launched a series of attacks on targets across the Gaza Strip, killing a young girl and wounding 10 in response to the deadly shooting of an Israeli civilian by a Palestinian sniper. Palestinian officials reported at least 16 Israeli attacks.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, A Libyan soldier was shot dead and a civilian wounded by a bomb under his car in separate attacks in the eastern city of Benghazi.
(AFP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, The Malian Ministry of Defense said that Aliou Mahamar Toure, the former head of the Islamic Police in Gao, has been captured. Toure had presided over a 10-month reign of terror.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Russian news agency RIA reported that Russia is preparing to lift a suspension it imposed on the import of Lithuanian dairy products on October 7.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Syrian government air raids on rebel-held areas of Aleppo killed at least 15 people, including three children.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul sought to salve furor over a high-level corruption case by assuring the public there would be no cover-up and that the courts were free to investigate.
(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, The UN office of the Commissioner for Human Rights said a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of 75 ethnic Dinka soldiers has been found in South Sudan. Later the office revised that figure to 34 bodies and 75 people feared missing. The UN mission in South Sudan said the erroneous report was an inflation of a "skirmish" in which 15 people were killed. The UN Security Council approved plans to increase number of peacekeepers in South Sudan to 12,500 troops and 1,323 police.
(AP, 12/24/13)(Reuters, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 24, The Zambia Wildlife Authority said it has arrested two people in possession of more than 115 kg (250 pounds) of ivory.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Arizona police found Aniarael Macias (13) dead at the home of Connie Villa (35) in Casa Grande. Villa had tried to poison her three other children and had just stabbed her ex-husband who called 911 as he drove to a hospital. Connie Villa was arrested on Dec 29 after being released from a hospital.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 25, United Van Lines released its 37th annual migration study. New Jersey repeated as the state with the highest outbound moves. Migration out of Michigan slowed to a virtual halt after 16 straight years of outbound moves.
(AP, 12/25/13)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 25, In Irvington, NJ, 3 men were killed at Slick’s Go Go Bar when a man tried to enter with a gun. On Jan 12, 2014, Anthony Fields (19) of Newark, the suspected gunman, was arrested in Florida.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A8)(SFC, 1/13/14, p.A4)
2013 Dec 25, Attacks in Afghanistan killed at least 6 people. The US Embassy in Kabul was hit by indirect fire before dawn but no Americans were hurt.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Argentina an attack by a school of palometas, a carnivorous type of piranha, injured 70 people bathing in the Parana River in Rosario, including seven children who lost parts of their fingers or toes.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Brazil angry farmers, convinced that Tenharim tribesmen in Amazonas state had kidnapped three local men nine days earlier, torched several Tenharim huts and the offices of the federal indigenous affairs agency, as well as several of its vehicles and river boats.
(AP, 2/5/14)
2013 Dec 25, Tens of thousands of Britons remained without electricity after torrential rainfall flooded homes and hurricane-force winds battered the country.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In the Central African Republic a spokesman for MISCA, the peacekeeping force, said Chadian troops will be redeployed from Bangui amid charges they were siding with a former rebel group. 5 Chadian peacekeepers died in clashes in Bangui.
(AFP, 12/25/13)(AFP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, China's ruling Communist Party unveiled a five-year plan to fight pervasive graft, with particular attention on corruption that triggers protests or happens in the course of economic reforms.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Chinese media reported the arrest of Chu Jian, a vice president of a prestigious university, for "suspected economic problems." He was appointed in 2005 as vice president of Zhejiang University in the eastern city of Hangzhou.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In eastern CongoDRC at least 40 civilians were killed by the Ugandan ADF-NALU rebel group attack on a village in North Kivu province. A special UN force in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo used helicopters to fire on the rebels and help government troops retake the town of Kamango.
(AFP, 12/25/13)(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, Egypt’s PM Hazem el-Beblawi designated the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist" organization after multiple explosions at the security headquarters in Mansoura killed 16 and injured more than 100. The al-Qaida-inspired group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or the Champions of Jerusalem, said it had carried out the attack.
(AP, 12/25/13)(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Ethiopia Asfaw Berhanu, a former contributor to the private paper The Reporter, was convicted of charges stemming from a news story he wrote saying three government officials had been removed from their posts. An Ethiopian court sentenced him to two years and nine months in jail.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 25, Powerful winds and torrential rain swept southern France, grounding flights and cutting off power to tens of thousands of homes.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, A boat capsized off the Turks and Caicos islands and 17 Haitian suspected illegal migrants died. 33 people were rescued.
(AFP, 12/25/13)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 25, Hundreds of Indonesian Christians held a Christmas service in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta to protest at the closure of their churches due to pressure by Muslim hardliners.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Iraq at least 34 people were killed in three bombings in Christian areas of Baghdad, including a car bomb that exploded as worshippers were leaving a Christmas service. Attacks killed at least 44 people across the country.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Pakistan a suspected American drone fired two missiles just before midnight at a home in North Waziristan, killing at least three foreign militants.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 25, Russia's Supreme Court said it will review two convictions against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, including a ruling the Kremlin critic said was preventing him from returning to Russia despite a presidential pardon.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Russia’s Pres. Putin announced $2 billion in loans to Belarus next year following talks with Belarus Pres. Alexander Lukashenko.
(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 25, Greenpeace said Russian investigators have dropped charges against all but one of the 30 crew, who were accused of hooliganism following a protest outside a Russian oil rig in the Arctic. Cristian d'Alessandro of Italy failed to get his criminal case closed due to the lack of an interpreter and will have to visit the St. Petersburg branch of Russia's Investigative Committee again Dec 26.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, South Sudan's army battled rebel forces in Malakal while troops flushed out insurgents in Bor after its recapture.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Syria’s government signed a major oil and gas exploration deal with a Russian company in Damascus, which will allow for exploration in a section of Syrian waters.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Thailand's PM Yingluck Shinawatra proposed a "national reform council" to seek a way out of the political crisis gripping the kingdom, following weeks of mass street protests against her government.
(AFP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, In Turkey three Cabinet ministers resigned, days after their sons were taken into custody in a sweeping corruption and bribery scandal that has targeted PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan's allies in one of the worst political crises of his more than 10 years in power.
(AP, 12/25/13)
2013 Dec 25, Ukrainian opposition activist and journalist Tetyana Chornovil (34), known for her investigations into corruption among senior state officials, was beaten up by unknown attackers. Chornovil was assaulted near Kiev hours after an article she wrote on the assets of top government officials was published. Opposition activists quickly gathered outside the Interior Ministry in Kiev and demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko.
(Reuters, 12/25/13)(SFC, 12/26/13, p.A3)
2013 Dec 26, In Louisiana Ben Freeman (38), a nurse embroiled in a custody fight, attacked his former in-laws, his onetime boss and his current wife leaving 3 dead before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 26, Bangladesh's opposition accused authorities of placing their leader under virtual house arrest, as tens of thousands of troops were deployed across the country ahead of general elections next month.
(AFP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Brazilian officials said at least 44 people have died and more than 60,000 have been left homeless following torrential rain in the southeast over the past few weeks.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Central African Republic Red Cross workers said they have recovered 44 bodies from the streets of Bangui after inter-religious fighting in the last two days. 2 African Union peacekeepers were shot dead in night time fighting. Assailants also attempted to attack the presidential palace, but were pushed back.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, Egypt escalated its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, detaining at least 38 of the group's supporters on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization the day after it was declared one by the government. A bomb exploded in a busy intersection near schools in Cairo, hitting a bus and wounding five people.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In France a surprise strike by Lufthansa workers at the main Paris airport prompted flight cancellations and brought a new headache to holiday travel. Lufthansa said in statement that only two flights were officially canceled, and that travel was resuming in the afternoon.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Guinea a 2-year-old boy in the remote village of Meliandou fell ill with a mysterious illness characterized by fever, black stools, and vomiting. He died 2 days later. He was later identified as patient zero in the current outbreak of Ebola, which was not recognized until March.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meliandou)(Econ, 12/13/14, p.49)
2013 Dec 26, In Iraq a barrage of rockets were fired on Camp Liberty, home to members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the militant wing of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based group opposed to Iran's cleric-led government. 3 residents were killed and over 50 wounded.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe paid his respects at the Yasukuni shrine honoring Japan's war dead in an unexpected visit that drew sharp rebukes from China and South Korea.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Dozens of Libyan militiamen briefly blocked the entrance to the central bank, demanding the resignation of PM Ali Zeidan.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Russian probe into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said it has found no trace of radioactive poisoning.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Russian authorities issued visas to seven of 30 members of a Greenpeace ship crew that allow them to leave the country after dropping criminal charges against them over a protest outside an Arctic oil rig.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Russian plane crashed in Siberia, killing nine people. The Soviet-built Antonov An-12 plane belonging to an aircraft factory in Novosibirsk was carrying six crew and three others on a flight to another factory in Irkutsk.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Saudi Arabia a 73-year-old man died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 57 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In South Sudan heavy fighting raged in the key oil-producing north. Neighbors Kenya and Ethiopia said they had made "good progress" in efforts to broker an end to the civil war.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, Thailand's government rejected a call from the Election Commission (EC) to postpone a February vote. Violence erupted when protesters tried to storm a venue where a draw for election ballot numbers was being held and police fired teargas and rubber bullets to keep the rock-throwing crowd back. A policeman was killed and three were wounded by gunshots from an unknown attacker.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In Thailand a bus carrying New Year travelers plunged off one of the country’s highest bridges around midnight in the kingdom's northeast, leaving at least 29 people dead.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Turkish prosecutor said he had been prevented from expanding a corruption investigation that has touched the heart of the government, alleging pressure on the judiciary.
(AFP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 26, In eastern Yemen tribesmen seized an oil ministry building in Hadramout province and exchanged gunfire with a pro-government tribe seeking to regain control of the premises.
(Reuters, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 27, The A&E channel said it is reversing its decision to drop “Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson from the show set in Louisiana for his remarks on gays.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Los Angeles Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen (24) pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges after admitting that he attempted to assist al-Qaida by providing weapons training in Syria.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Colorado the first batch of Denver businesses approved to sell recreational marijuana received their licenses.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Afghanistan 3 NATO personnel were killed in a Taliban suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy in Kabul.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, China’s environment ministry said it will raise standards for the production of cement, batteries, leather and heavy metals as part of its efforts to cut air, water and soil pollution.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, A Chinese court in Hunan province sentenced four municipal security officers to prison for a clash that left Deng, a watermelon seller, dead and triggered a public outcry.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Danish drugmaker Lundbeck said it has received marketing authorization from the European Commission for its antidepressant Brintellix following approval in the United States in September.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police clashed across the country, leaving at least 5 dead in protests after the army-backed government declared the group a terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Henri Rechatin (82), aka Henry’s, the celebrated French tightrope walker who balanced above high the Alps, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, died.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Indonesia Ambar Arianto Mulyo (59), a Bali Hyatt hotel security employee, was strangled to death after he tried to capture a 15-foot python.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, In Iraq violence across the country left six people dead.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, An Israeli official said Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Japan the governor of Okinawa gave the go-ahead for land reclamation to begin for a new US military base, advancing the effort to consolidate the massive US troop presence on the southern Japanese island but also making protests from residents likely.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Lebanon a powerful car bomb tore through a business district in the center of Beirut killing Mohammed Chatah (Shatah), a former finance minister and senior aide to former PM Saad Hariri. 7 others were also killed in the blast. Hariri blamed Hezbollah for the assassination. A Lebanese teenager seen posing for a group "selfie" in front of the bomb-laden car moments before it exploded died of his injuries the next day.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.34)
2013 Dec 27, In Libya 3 gunmen shot to death Maj. Mohammed Faraj al-Ziwi from the military's air defense unit in the al-Salam district of Benghazi.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Montenegro an overnight bomb blast shook the offices of the leading daily Vijesti in the latest attack on a newspaper known for its criticism of the authorities under long-term leader Milo Djukanovic.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Morocco and Qatar signed an aid deal worth $1.25 billion, part of a five-year package of financial assistance extended by wealthy Gulf states to the North African kingdom to help it weather 'Arab Spring' protests.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, Lack of fuel from Israel brought Gaza's lone power plant to a halt, days after it was fired back to life following a seven-week shutdown.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Two Russian astronauts began a spacewalk to install cameras and perform other work on the International Space Station. This was the third spacewalk in a week at the orbiting laboratory.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Russia at least two people were killed in the explosion of an automobile in Pyatigorsk in the restive North Caucasus region.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, An oil platform belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco sank as it was being used to carry out maintenance work at an oil well in Safaniya. The bodies of 3 Asian workers who went missing were recovered over the next 24 hours.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Somalia at least 10 people were killed in an explosion in a restaurant in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, Regional leaders said South Sudan's government has agreed to end hostilities, at the end of a crisis summit, raising hopes for a potential breakthrough in efforts to cease violence that has displaced more than 120,000 people in the world's newest country. An army spokesman said South Sudanese rebels loyal to former VP Riek Machar have been defeated in Malakal, the capital of major oil producing Upper Nile state, after four days of intense fighting.
(AP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Syrian state TV and opposition activists say government forces have ambushed members of an al-Qaida-linked group, killing dozens of the Nusra Front rebels near Maaloula, a historic Christian village north of Damascus. A monitoring group said 5 people, including an elderly man, a woman and a disabled man, have died of hunger in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp south of Damascus.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, The Thai government appealed to the military to provide security for February elections after violent clashes between police and opposition protesters left two people dead and more than 150 wounded.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Turkey three lawmakers, including a former minister, resigned from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). A Turkish court blocked a government attempt to force police to disclose investigations to their superiors.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Yemen an army tank shelled a funeral tent erected by the Southern Movement at a school in Sanah, Daleh province, killing 19 people, including 4 children.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In the US the most recent extension of unemployment insurance expired leaving some 1.3 million Americans suddenly cut off from federally funded benefits.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.19)
2013 Dec 28, In Alabama Kimberle Johnson (21) and Glenn Thomas (22) died in an early morning shooting in Montgomery. Six others were wounded. Thomas was an up-and-coming rapper known as Doe B. Jason Quan Williams (25) was arrested after turning himself in to police.
(SSFC, 12/29/13, p.A14)(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 28, Arizona police in Phoenix shot and killed Mario Edward Garnett (40) following an attempted bank robbery. He is believed to be the same man accused in the Dec 23 killing of a police officer in Tupelo, Miss.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 28, In Oklahoma Harry Carl Mapps (59) was arrested in a motel in Roland. He was suspected of killing 3 people and setting fire to a home in Colorado on Nov 27.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 28, Harold Simmons (82), Dallas billionaire and major GOP political donor, died. He had made his fortune in buying drugstores and as an investor in publicly traded companies.
(SFC, 1/1/14, p.E5)
2013 Dec 28, Australian media reported that Jacqueline Zwambila, Zimbabwe's ambassador to Australia, has asked for political asylum just days before her term ends saying she fears for her safety at home.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Bahrain’s police arrested Ali Salman (48), head of the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq that has spearheaded protests against the authorities in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. Salman was freed the next day but he was forbidden from any travel.
(AFP, 12/28/13)(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, China formally allowed couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child, the first major easing of its 3-decade-old restrictive birth policy.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, China's national legislature voted to abolish a much-criticized penal system that allowed police to lock up people for up to four years without due process.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Chinese state media said 512 lawmakers in Hengyang city, Huana province, have resigned after being implicated in a bribery scandal, while another 56 provincial legislators have been sacked. Xinhua said the total amount of the bribes was more than 110 million yuan ($18.1 million) and the money was used to swing the results of elections.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Colombia the bodies of 5 men were found at the mouth of the Atrato River. Police believed the men had traveled from a Caribbean island in an attempt to reach Central America.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 28, Croatia state prosecutors said some 300 doctors and pharmacists are among 364 suspects who have been charged with offering and taking bribes in exchange for prescribing certain drugs. The operation, code-named Hippocratus, was launched by the USKOSK anti-graft police in November 2012.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Egypt riot police moved into eastern Cairo's Al-Azhar campus, claiming that striking students were disrupting end-of-term exams. They fired tear gas and battled demonstrators in a melee that left one protester dead and an administration building torched.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In India tens of thousands of jubilant supporters watched as Arvind Kejriwal, a mild-mannered former tax official, was anointed chief minister of Delhi. Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, or AAP, has emerged as a force to be reckoned with barely a year since it was created.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In southern India a fire engulfed a coach of an express train, killing at least 26 passengers.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Iraqi security forces raided the Ramadi home of Sunni MP Ahmed al-Alwani, who backs anti-government protesters, arresting him and sparking clashes that killed his brother and five guards. An Iraqi soldier was also killed in the raid.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Malawi a lightning bolt struck a Seventh Day Adventist church, killing 8 worshippers and injuring several others in Lilongwe. It was not immediately clear whether they were injured by the lightning or in the panic to escape.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, Mexican authorities found 5 decapitated bodies in two locations in Michoacan state, with letters left with the corpses purportedly signed by a drug cartel.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Nigeria few voters straggled to polls to elect local councils in northeastern Yobe state battling Islamic militants who say democracy in corruption-riddled Nigeria is an enemy of the people. The opposition All Progressives Congress swept every seat in the Yobe state elections. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead 8 people and injured five more in an attack on a wedding party in Tashan Alade village, Borno state. Nigerian government forces reportedly killed at least 56 Islamist Boko Haram fighters in a combined air and ground offensive in the northeast Alafa forest.
(AP, 12/28/13)(AP, 12/30/13)(AFP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 28, In northwest Pakistan gunmen attacked an anti-polio vaccination center on the outskirts of Peshawar and killed a medic on duty, then fled the scene.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Saudi police pulled over a woman minutes after she got behind the wheel in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after activists called for a new challenge to a driving ban.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In South Sudan some 25,000 young men, who make up a tribal militia known as the "White Army," began marching on Bor. The youths are from the Lou Nuer sub-clan — the same tribe as opposition leader former VP Riek Machar. Nuer community leaders in Jonglei state soon persuaded the "White Army" fighters to go home.
(AP, 12/28/13)(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 28, A Syrian army air strike on a vegetable market in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 25 people.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, In Thailand gunmen killed an anti-government activist and wounded two others in Bangkok, while protesters elsewhere blocked candidates from registering for upcoming elections.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 28, Yemeni tribesmen blew up a pipeline in the eastern Hadramout province, disrupting oil flow two days after they seized an oil ministry building in the region.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 29, Bangladesh police barred opposition leader Khaleda Zia from leaving home to lead a banned march in protest at an upcoming election. Two people were killed in battles between her supporters and security forces.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Belgian police seized thousands of marijuana plants discovered by firefighters during an overnight blaze, but found no immediate trace of the growers.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, British police said they have arrested two men after a suspected arson attack last evening on the MS King Seaways, a ferry in the North Sea carrying more than 1,000 people from Newcastle in England to Amsterdam.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Cambodia tens of thousands of opposition supporters, backed by striking garment-factory workers, rallied to demand long-serving PM Hun Sen step down and call an election.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Central African Republic a medical charity said more than 100,000 people displaced by inter-religious violence are sheltering at a makeshift camp at Bangui airport.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Chinese police seized nearly three metric tons (3.3 tons) of the drug crystal methamphetamine and arrested 182 people in raids on Boshe village, Guangdong province, notorious for producing narcotics.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)(SFC, 1/4/14, p.A2)
2013 Dec 29, Egyptian authorities arrested four Al Jazeera journalists after the Interior Ministry accused the Qatar-based channel of broadcasting illegally from a hotel suite with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Egypt a bomb exploded outside a military intelligence building northeast of Cairo, wounding four people and damaging the structure as protests and security scares roil the country just weeks before a key vote.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, El Salvador authorities evacuated an area around the Chaparrastique volcano after the peak shot a cloud of gas and ash about 3 miles (5 km) into the air.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Saudi Arabia for a visit aimed at boosting prospects of commercial cooperation between the countries and addressing escalating tensions in the Middle East.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, France's Constitutional Council gave the green light on to a 'millionaire's tax', to be levied on companies that pay salaries of more than 1 million euros ($1.38 million) a year.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Iraq a drive-by shooting and a bomb killed at least six people.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Israel's cabinet approved a Finance Ministry proposal to tighten spending limits on the government's budget starting in 2015.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, The Israeli military fired a barrage of shells into southern Lebanon in retaliation after five Katyusha-style rockets were launched against the Jewish state. The attacks struck uninhabited areas of both Israel and Lebanon without causing any casualties or damage.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Jordan the criminal court in Amman sentenced two Jordanian men, aged 20 and 23, to death for killing their sister in June "to cleanse the family’s honour."
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman said Saudi Arabia is giving the Lebanese army $3 billion to buy equipment from France, calling it the largest grant ever given to the country's armed forces.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)(SSFC, 1/5/14, p.A5)
2013 Dec 29, In Nigeria suspected Islamic extremists killed four people in the Christian Kwajffa village, Borno state.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, The Gaza Strip's only power plant returned to life after Israel resumed fuel deliveries.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Poland Wojciech Kilar (b.1932), pianist and composer of classical music and scores for many films, including Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning "The Pianist" (2002) and Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), died in his hometown of Katowice.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In southern Russia 18 people were killed and scores were wounded as a female suicide bomber struck at a railway station in Volgograd, heightening concern about terrorism ahead of February's Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
(AP, 12/29/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, South Sudan's army fought with "White Army" ethnic militia, accusing rebels of mobilizing the force despite its offer of a truce to end the conflict in the new country.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, In eastern Syria at least 19 rebels were killed in clashes for control of Deir Ezzor military air base. The government evacuated some 5,000 people from an embattled industrial town near Damascus where al-Qaida-linked rebels have been battling government troops for more than two weeks.
(AFP, 12/29/13)(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, A Tanzanian official said the country has been hit by a sharp upsurge in poaching, with at least 60 elephants killed in the two months since the government was forced to halt a controversial crackdown.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 29, Tunisian police arrested seven Salafists in the western town of Kasserine, as authorities feared radical Islamists may be planning attacks during New Year celebrations.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Ukraine some 20,000 people protested in Kiev, maintaining more than a month of rallies opposing the government's decision to shelve a key deal with the European Union.
(AP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Yemen a Sanaa court sentenced to death Ahmad Kadiri Ahmad Turki, a Yemeni Al-Qaeda suspect, for his role in a deadly attack on a security headquarters in Aden in 2011.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 29, The United Nations said that it has completed the first aid airlift from Iraq to Syria, providing much-needed supplies to a difficult-to-access region of the war-torn country.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 30, The US FAA selected six states (Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia) to test how drones can be more widely used in US airspace. 24 states had competed for selection.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 30, In North Dakota a mile-long train carrying crude oil derailed 5 miles from Casselton. As many as 20 cars caught fire.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 30, Afghanistan rejected as baseless a US intelligence forecast that the gains the United States and allies have made in the past three years will be significantly rolled back by 2017.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Bahraini authorities said they have seized a boat smuggling explosives made in Iran and Syria into the Sunni-ruled kingdom, which quashed a Shiite-led uprising in 2011.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Central African Republic heavy weapons fire rang out in the north of Bangui early today in what the government said were clashes with Christian militias.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, China published results of an August-September audit on local government liabilities. It show a total local debt of $1.8 trillion at the end of June. The addition of explicit and implict debt guarantees raised the total to $2.95 trillion, about a third of the country’s GDP.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.32)
2013 Dec 30, Chinese police shot dead eight people during a "terrorist attack" in the western region of Xinjiang, raising the death toll from violent clashes there to at least 35 since November.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Congolese security forces repelled a wave of coordinated attacks against symbols of power in the capital Kinshasa and other cities, leaving dozens of assailants dead in a day of fierce gunbattles. Congo's army clashed with followers of religious leader Paul Joseph Mukungubila Mutombo in the eastern mining city of Lubumbashi. The clashes left over 100 people dead and Mutombo went on the run.
(AFP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, An Egyptian court sentenced 139 Islamist supporters of ousted Pres. Morsi to two years in jail over violence that erupted in July. Egyptian security arrested Anas Beltagi, the son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, along with two other on charges of inciting violence.
(AFP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Greece unidentified assailants opened fire on the German ambassador's residence in Athens with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in an attack seen as an attempt to sour relations between debt-laden Greece and its biggest creditor nation. Michalis Liapis (62), a former transport minister, received a four-year suspended sentence for driving an uninsured luxury car with fake license plates in an apparent tax dodge.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Indonesia Islamic police in the sharia stronghold of Banda Aceh seized thousands of firecrackers and cardboard trumpets after the city administration banned New Year's Eve celebrations for the first time.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, Iraqi security forces killed 10 gunmen in clashes that broke out in the Ramadi area as they tore down a year-old Sunni Arab protest camp. Iraqi forces battled militants in Fallujah as clashes spread after an anti-government protest camp was demolished.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Lebanese forces fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace, the first time they have done so since Syria's uprising broke out three years ago.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Libyan forces in Misrata captured Saifallah Benahssine, the leader of Tunisia's Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia. Benahssine had declared loyalty to al Qaeda and was accused of inciting an attack on the US embassy in Tunisia in September 2012.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Madagascar, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, the candidate supported by strongman Andry Rajoelina, held a seemingly unassailable 53% lead in the island's run-off presidential poll, with ballots from over 96% of the voting stations in.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, A Mauritania judicial committee, chaired by President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, met and decided to create a court to try crimes of slavery.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, Myanmar's reformist President Thein Sein granted a pardon to people convicted of or charged with a variety of political offenses. It wasn't immediately clear how many people are covered by the pardon.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Pakistan's national sharia court, which hears cases under the country's Islamic legislation, appointed a female judge for the first time in its 33-year history. Ashraf Jehan (56) made history as she took the oath in Karachi.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Russia a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded trolleybus in the southern city of Volgograd, killing 15 people. It was the second bloody terrorist attack to hit Volgograd in as many days and the third in recent months.
(AP, 12/30/13)(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In Senegal Sidy Lamine Niass, founder and CEO of Walfadjri, one of the country’s largest media groups, was detained after accusing President Macky Sall of building up wealth through corruption.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 30, Disarmament teams returned Scandinavian escort vessels to port as they accepted an end-of-year deadline for the removal of Syrian chemical weapons could no longer be met. Norway and Denmark were providing ships to transfer the the chemical weapons to the Cape Ray, an American-owned ship fitted with equipment to break down lethal chemical agents to an industrial toxic waste.
(AFP, 12/31/13)(Econ, 12/14/13, p.58)
2013 Dec 30, Thai police staged a protest to show their frustration after weeks of dealing with aggressive and often violent anti-government demonstrators, with officers saying that the order for them to show restraint has left them vulnerable and humiliated.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, The UN appealed for the Syrian army and rebel fighters to allow urgent aid to reach a Palestinian district of southern Damascus where it said 15 people have died of malnutrition in recent months.
(Reuters, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, In southern Yemen 5 soldiers and 3 militants were killed during an attack on an army position in which the assailants also abducted four troops.
(AFP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 30, Venezuela’s Pres. Nicolas Maduro acknowledged that annual inflation had hit 56%.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 30, In Zimbabwe the owners of mainly small businesses selling cheap consumer goods said they were informed of a weekend statement by empowerment minister Francis Nhema that they have been allowed to continue trading as authorities reversed an ultimatum for them to close their businesses by Jan 1.
(AP, 12/30/13)
2013 Dec 31, President Obama’s besieged Affordable Care Act suffered another setback with a US Supreme Court justice issuing a temporary injunction late today preventing enforcement of the law’s contraception mandate against a group of Roman Catholic nuns who provide care to low-income elderly patients.
(SFC, 1/2/14, p.2)
2013 Dec 31, In San Francisco Uber driver Syed Muzaffar of Union City fatally struck Sophia Liu (6) at a crosswalk on Polk Street near the Civic Center. In 2018 Muzaffar was found guilty of manslaughter.
(SFC, 8/3/18, p.D1)
2013 Dec 31, US officials said Slovakia has accepted three Uighur prisoners from Guantanamo Bay who had posed a difficult resettlement challenge.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Utah officials said an unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in the state and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In northern Afghanistan gunshots erupted during a rally in Samangan province where a group was protesting the selection of candidates for the 2014 elections, killing 2 people and wounding eight.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A cyclone ripped across northwest Australia, closing ports and threatening mining operations in the sparsely populated Pilbara region.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In the Central African Republic Christian militiamen attacked an army base in Bangui, as French and African soldiers struggled to contain sectarian violence. Thousands of angry people flooded the runway of the international airport in Bangui, shouting slogans against Michel Djotodia, the nation's Muslim president, who grabbed power in a coup nine months ago.
(AFP, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In China six herders who tried to defend grazing land from expropriation by a forestry firm were sentenced in the resource-rich Inner Mongolia region. The case has sparked protests.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Egypt unknown assailants attacked a natural gas pipeline in the Sinai.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In India a pregnant girl (16) died in Kolkata following severe burn injuries. She had been raped two times On Oct 25-26 and ended up in a hospital on Dec 23 with sever burn injuries. Her family said she was set on fire by associates of those who had gang raped her.
(AP, 1/7/14)
2013 Dec 31, In Indonesia more than 19,000 people were displaced by the Mount Sinabung volcano on Sumatra that has been erupting for months and shot lava into the air nine times overnight.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Indonesian police shot dead six suspected terrorists and arrested another in a New Year's Eve raid near Jakarta that broke out into an hours-long gun battle.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A senior Iranian official said six world powers and Iran have made good progress in expert talks in Geneva on how to roll out last month's landmark nuclear deal which obliges Tehran to suspend its most sensitive atom work.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Iraq clashes between security forces and gunmen killed four more people in Ramadi, a day after the closure of a sprawling anti-government protest site.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, days before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due back in the Middle East to press the two sides to reach a framework peace deal. This release was the third of four groups to go free.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, A Jordanian security official said British resident Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian-Palestinian critic of Jordan's monarchy, has been charged with incitement and insulting the king after calling for revolt on social media.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Myanmar freed five prisoners and more were expected to be released next week as part of a pledge by the country's president to free all political prisoners by the end of 2013.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, Marathon talks between the leaders of Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities broke down without agreement to ease tensions that have led to one of the worst years of rioting in the British province for a decade.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, South Sudan's warring factions agreed to attend peace talks in Ethiopia. Government troops fought renegade forces loyal to former VP Riek Machar as well as a pro-Machar tribal militia known as the "White Army," as rebels tried to retake Bor.
(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In Syria a missile struck a bus in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, setting it on fire and killing at least 10 people. State media reported that a rebel-fired mortar shell killed 3 people in Homs. ISIS fighters returned the torture-marked corpse of a doctor-cum-commander with Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist rebel group which had hitherto been an ally.
(AP, 12/31/13)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.39)
2013 Dec 31, In Turkey another lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced his resignation amid a high-level bribery and corruption probe. Hasan Hami Yildirim had criticised the government forfor exerting pressure on the judiciary over the corruption.
(AFP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec 31, In southern Yemen armed men including a suicide bomber tried to storm police headquarters in Aden. Two guards were killed and at least 6 people wounded. Two suspects were arrested.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)(AP, 12/31/13)
2013 Dec, Chikungunya fever, a mosquito-born virus common in Africa and Asia, was first detected in the Caribbean region on St. Martin and soon spread across across the region and onto South and Central America.
(Econ, 5/10/14, p.35)
2013 Dec, In Afghanistan a single shot from a British sniper killed six Taliban insurgents when the bullet hit the trigger switch of a would-be suicide bomber's device in in Kakaran, Helmand province.
(AFP, 4/1/14)
2013 Dec, Ercan Findikoglu was arrested at Frankfurt Airport. US authorities accused him of masterminding a group that carried out the online heists between 2011 and 2013 and stealing almost $60 million in a series of hacking raids against credit card companies.
(AP, 12/2/14)
2013 Dec, In Nigeria two private letters to Pres. Jonathan were leaked. One by central bank governor Lamido Sanusi accused the state oil company of failing to account for $50 billion in oil sales. The 2nd by former president Obasanjo slammed Pres. Jonathan’s poor performance and told him not to stand for re-election.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.78)
2013 Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel authored “Big Data as a Lens On Human Culture."
(SSFC, 12/29/13, p.F2)
2013 Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell authored “Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever."
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.85)
2013 Reza Aslan authored “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth."
(SSFC, 7/28/13, p.F1)
2013 Michael Axworthy authored “Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic."
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.78)
2013 Radley Balko authored “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces."
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.73)
2013 Karima Bennoune authored “Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories From the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism."
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.72)
2013 Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin authored “The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness – 751 Books to Cure What Ails You."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.97)
2013 Jagdish Bhagwati authored “Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries.
(Econ, 4/20/13, p.88)
2013 Lee Billings, American science journalist, authored “Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars."
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.88)
2013 Nick Bilton authored “Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal."
(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.F3)
2013 Joshua Bloom authored “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party."
(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.F1)
2013 Max Boot authored “Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present."
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.80)
2013 Joshua Bloom authored “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party."
(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.F1)
2013 Matthew Morse Booker authored “Down By the Bay: San Francisco’s History Between the Tides."
(SSFC, 6/23/13, p.F5)
2013 Bill Bryson authored “One Summer: America, 1927."
(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.F4)
2013 Oliver Bullough authored “The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation." The book “traces the life of Father Dmitry Dudko, an Orthodox priest who exemplified both resistance to Soviet rule and defeat at its hands."
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.82)
2013 Robert Calderisi authored “Earthly Mission: The Catholic Church and World Development."
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.81)
2013 Rory Carroll authored “Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela."
(Econ, 3/9/13, p.83)
2013 Christian Caryl authored “Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century.
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.82)
2013 Napoleon Chagnon authored “Noble Savages: My Life Among the Two Dangerous Tribes – the Yanomamo and the Anthropologists."
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.80)
2013 Christopher Clark authored “Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914."
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.86)
2013 T.J. Clark authored “Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica."
(SSFC, 9/1/13, p.F6)
2013 Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt authored “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business."
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.F1)
2013 Paul Collier authored “How Migration Is changing Our World."
(Econ, 9/28/13, p.78)
2013 Alfredo Corchado authored “Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter’s Journey through a Country’s Descent Into Darkness."
(SSFC, 6/16/13, p.F4)
2013 David Day authored “Antarctica: A Biography.
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.81)
2013 Angus Deaton authored “The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.100)
2013 Michael Deibert authored “Congo: Between Hope and Despair."
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.54)
2013 Daniel Dennett authored “Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking."
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.81)
2013 Swiss novelist Joel Dicker authored “The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair." In 2014 the popular novel was published in English.
(Econ, 4/19/14, p.78)
2013 Frank Dikotter authored “The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1945-57."
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.80)
2013 Toby Dodge authored: “Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism."
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.84)
2013 Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey authored “The Great Indian Phone Book: How Cheap Mobile Phones Change Business, Politics and Daily Life."
(Econ, 3/23/13, p.88)
2013 Barbara Dreyfus authored “Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street’s Largest Hedge-Fund Disaster," the story of the collapse of the Amaranth hedge fund.
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.86)
2013 Susan Dunn authored “1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler-the Election amid the Storm."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.39)
2013 Greg Easterbrook authored “The King of Sports: Football’s Impact on America."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.92)
2013 Charles Ellis authored “What It Takes: Seven Secrets of Success from the World’s Greatest Professional Firms."
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.86)
2013 Shereen El Feki authored “Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World."
(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.F1)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.81)
2013 Charles Emerson authored “1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.85)
2013 Lara Feigel authored “The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War." Her narrative traces the tempestuous experiences of five writers (Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Rose Macaulay, Hilde Spiel and the novelist Henry Green) through five years in London and Ireland, followed by postwar Vienna and Berlin.
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.74)(www.amazon.com/dp/1608199843)
2013 Noah Feldman authored “Cool War: The Future of Global Competition."
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.80)
2013 James Fergusson authored “The World’s Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.87)
2013 Gavin Francis authored “Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins."
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.89)
2013 Estelle B. Freedman authored “Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation."
(SSFC, 9/15/13, p.F7)
2013 Chrystia Freeland authored “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else."
(Econ, 3/15/14, p.57)
2013 Lawrence Friedman authored “Strategy: A History."
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.88)
2013 Malcolm Gladwell authored “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants."
(SSFC, 10/6/13, p.F3)
2013 Robert Gellately authored “Stalin’s Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War."
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.82)
2013 Charles Glass authored “The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II."
(SSFC, 6/16/13, p.F1)
2013 Vic Gatrell authored “The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London’s Golden Age."
(Econ, 9/28/13, p.79)
2013 Malcolm Gladwell authored “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants."
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.89)
2013 Doris Kearns Goodwin authored “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism."
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.85)
2013 David Graeber author “The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement."
(SSFC, 4/28/13, p.F3)
2013 A.C. Grayling authored “The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism."
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.98)
2013 Clive Hamilton authored “Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.80)
2013 Kai Hammerich and Richard Lewis authored “Fish Can’t See Water: How National Cultures Can make of Break Your Corporate Strategy."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.99)
2013 Jarle Hansen authored “Al-Shabab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.87)
2013 Jason Healy edited “A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace, 1986-2012."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.75)
2013 Mark Huband and I.B. Tauris authored “Trading Secrets: Spies And Intelligence in an Age of Terror.
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.82)
2013 Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane authored “Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.75)
2013 Douglas Hurd authored “Disraeli: or The Two Lives," a biography of British PM Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881).
(Econ, 8/3/13, p.71)
2013 Sheila Miyoshi Jager authored “Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea."
(Econ, 7/27/13, p.68)
2013 Steven Johnson authored “Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age."
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.72)
2013 The 400-page, 7th edition of the “World Atlas of Wine" by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson was published.
(SSFC, 12/1/13, p.G1)
2013 Paul Kennedy authored “Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War."
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.79)
2013 Roger Knight authored “Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.82)
2013 Amana Fontanella-Khan authored “Pink Sari Revolution: A Tale of Women and Power in India."
(SSFC, 9/1/13, p.F2)
2013 Eric Klinenberg authored “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone."
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.83)
2013 A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin authored “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works."
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.73)
2013 Jaron Lanier authored “Who Owns the Future."
(http://tinyurl.com/y7zo7bpj)(SSFC, 5/12/13, p.F1)
2013 Andrei Lankov authored “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia."
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.86)
2013 Charlie LeDuff authored “Detroit: An American Autopsy."
(SSFC, 2/10/13, p.F3)
2013 Michael Levi authored “The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity and the Battle for America’s Future."
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.82)
2013 Diarmaid MacCulloch authored “Silence: A Christian History."
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.80)
2013 Jonathan Macey authored “The Death of Corporate Reputation: How Integrity Has Been Destroyed on Wall Street."
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.76)
2013 Kishore Mahbubani, former Singaporean diplomat, authored “The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World."
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.80)
2013 David Marsh authored “Europe’s Deadlock: How the Euro crisis Could Be Solved – And Why It Won’t Happen."
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.73)
2013 Felix Martin authored “Money: The Unauthorized Biography."
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.88)
2013 Mark Mazzetti authored “The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.
(SSFC, 4/14/13, p.F1)
2013 Chuck McFadden authored “Trailblazer: A Biography of Jerry Brown."
(SSFC, 5/5/13, p.F1)
2013 Margaret MacMillan authored “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914."
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.86)
2013 Mariana Mazzucato authored "The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking public vs. private sector myths." Here she argued that American technological prowess is owed in large part to the strong influence of the federal government.
(Econ., 1/16/21, p.69)
2013 Catherine Merridale authored “Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.81)
2013 Charles Moore authored “Margaret Thatcher – The Authorized Biography, Volume I: From Grantham to the Falklands."
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.81)
2013 Evgeny Morozov authored “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism."
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.D1)
2013 Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir authored “Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much."
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.71)
2013 Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow authored “The Story of Spanish.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.80)
2013 Robin Nagle authored “Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks With the Sanitation Workers of New York City."
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.F5)
2013 Victor S. Navasky authored “The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power."
(SSFC, 8/25/13, p.F4)
2013 Robert M. Neer authored “Napalm: An American Biography."
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.F1)
2013 Gavin Newsom with Lisa Dickey authored “Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government."
(SSFC, 3/3/13, p.F1)
2013 Lynne Olson authored “Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.39)(http://lynneolson.com/those-angry-days/)
2013 Jerry Oppenheimer authored “Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty."
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.71)
2013 George Packer authored “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.85)
2013 Mark Pendergrast authored “For God, Country & Coca-Cola."
(http://markpendergrast.com/coca-cola)
2013 Nathaniel Philbrick authored “Bunker Hill, A City, a Siege, a Revolution." The battle was fought on June 17, 1775 near Boston.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.77)
2013 Claudia Roth Pierpont authored “Roth Unbound: A Writer and His Books," a biography of Philip Roth (b.1933).
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.88)
2013 Thomas Piketty, an economist at the Paris School of Economics, authored “Capital in the Twenty-First Century." An English version was published in 2014. Piketty argued that wealth naturally accumulates and concentrates, so that familial riches are ever more critical to determining an individual’s success or failure.
(Econ, 1/4/14, p.60)(Econ, 5/3/14, p.12)(Econ 5/20/17, p.68)
2013 Paul Polak and Mal Warwick authored “The Business Solution to Poverty: Designing Products and Services for Three Billion New Customers."
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.101)
2013 Kenneth Pollack authored “Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb and American Strategy."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.89)
2013 Michael Pollan, food intellectual, authored “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation."
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.76)
2013 Anita Raghavan authored “The Billionaire’s Apprentice: The Rise of the Indian-American Elite and the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund."
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.81)
2013 Alexandra Richie authored “Warsaw 1944: Hitler and the Warsaw Uprising."
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.83)
2013 Thomas Rid authored “Cyberwar Will Not Take Place."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.75)
2013 Bruce Riedel authored “Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the Brink and Back."
(Econ, 5/25/13, p.85)
2013 Stein Ringen authored “Nation of Devils: Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Obedience."
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.87)
2013 Amanda Ripley authored “The Smartest Kids in the World: and How They Got That Way."
(Econ, 8/17/13, p.69)
2013 Mary Roach authored “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal."
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.82)
2013 David Runciman authored “The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present."
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.87)
2013 Rudiger Safranski authored “Goethe - Kunstwerk des Lebens “ (Goethe: Life as a Work of Art). In 2017 David Dollenmayer translated it from German to English.
(Econ 6/17/17, p.76)
2013 David Sainsbury authored “Progressive Capitalism: How to Achieve Economic Growth, Liberty and Social Justice."
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.87)
2013 Sheryl Sandberg authored “Lean In: Women and the Will To Lead."
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.82)
2013 Ian Sansom authored “Paper: An Elegy."
(SSFC, 5/26/13, p.F5)
2013 Peter Savodnik authored “The Interloper" Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union." Oswald (1939-1963), the assassin of President Kennedy (1963), spent 1959-1962 in the Soviet Union.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.87)
2013 Orville Schell and John Delury authored “Wealth and Power" China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century."
(SSFC, 8/4/13, p.F3)
2013 Phillip Schewe authored “Maverick Genius: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson."
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.81)
2013 Eric Schlosser authored “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety."
(SSFC, 9/22/13, p.F1)
2013 Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy authored “The Siege: Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj." This covered the Nov 26, 2008, terrorist attack in Mumbai, India.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.81)
2013 Lynne Segal authored “Out of Time: the Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing."
(Econ, 11/16/13, p.86)
2013 Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze authored “An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions."
(Econ, 6/29/13, p.74)
2013 Marci Shore authored “The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe."
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.80)
2013 Earl Shorris authored “The Art of Freedom: Teaching the Humanities to the Poor."
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.F4)
2013 Russell Shorto authored “Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City."
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.95)
2013 Mona Siddiqui authored “Christians, Muslims and Jesus."
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.70)
2013 Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker authored “Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas," an ensemble of essays n the city by a range of contributors.
(SSFC, 11/24/13, p.F4)
2013 David Stockman authored “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America."
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.82)
2013 Brad Stone authored “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon."
(SSFC, 11/10/13, p.F2)
2013 Joe Studwell authored “How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region."
(Econ, 7/13/13, p.72)
2013 John Sweeney authored “The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology."
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.79)
2013 Frederick Taylor authored “The Downfall of Money: Germany’s Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class."
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.91)
2013 Jeremy Treglown authored “Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936."
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.71)
2013 Nick Turse authored “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam."
(SSFC, 2/10/13, p.F5)
2013 Avi Tuschman authored “Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us."
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.74)
2013 Fred Vogelstein authored “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution."
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.F5)
2013 Franz de Waal authored “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates."
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.98)
2013 Steven Watts authored “Self-Help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America."
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.90)
2013 Robert Wilson authored “Matthew Brady: Portraits of a Nation." Brady’s images of the American civil war were the first detailed photographic chronology of a major conflict.
(SSFC, 8/25/13, p.F5)(Econ, 8/10/13, p.72)
2013 Lawrence Wright authored “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief."
(SSFC, 1/20/13, p.F1)
2013 Liao Yiwu, exiled Chinese poet, authored his memoir “For a Song and a Hundred Sons: A Poet’s Journey Through a Chinese Prison."
(SSFC, 7/7/13, p.F4)
2013 Gordon Young, former resident of Flint, Michigan, authored “Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City."
(SFC, 11/26/14, p.C4)
2013 Malala Yousafzai (16), the Pakistani girl shot in the head in 2012 by the Taliban, authored “I Am Malala."
(SSFC, 10/13/13, p.A4)
2013 Juan Zarate authored “Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare."
(Econ, 4/19/14, p.22)
2013 The film "The Purge" was released. It centers on the emergence of a totalitarian political party dubbed “the New Founding Fathers of America", who sanction an annual “purge" each year in which all crime, including murder, arson, theft and rape are legal.
(AP, 5/29/20)
2013 "Parts Unknown," hosted by Anthony Bourdain (1957-2018), began airing on CNN. Each trip was an adventure, part travelogue, part history lesson, part love letter to exotic foods. There had been nothing quite like it on the staid news network, and it became an immediate hit.
(AP, 6/8/18)
2013 Aileen Lee, the founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined the term Unicorn to represent startups valued over $1 billion and the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn_(finance))
2013 The US Labor Dept., celebrating its 100 year anniversary, embarked on its “Books that Shaped Work in America" project. The reading list began with 92 books, but additions continued.
(SFC, 12/14/13, p.D1)(http://www.dol.gov/)
2013 Arkansas passed legislation that allows public schools to offer an elective course on the Bible, but doesn't require schools to do so.
(SFC, 3/21/19, p.A6)
2013 The SF Presidio by federal law was to be self sufficient by this time.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.A22)
2013 In San Francisco Bill Bowes (d.2016), biotech investor, donated $46.4 million to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts was expected to open in 2020.
(SFC, 4/26/18, p.D1)
2013 DoorDash Inc., a San Francisco–based on-demand food delivery service, was founded by Stanford students Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, Tony Xu and Evan Moor.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoorDash)
2013 In Kansas Robert Vicino (59) began developing his $25 million Vivos Survival Shelter inside a former limestone mine in Atchinson. He offered families RV space for $25,000 and guaranteed a year’s worth of food, water and generator fuel in the event of some dire calamity.
(SSFC, 9/15/13, p.A17)
2013 The 141-year-old police force in Camden, New Jersey, was disbanded and reconstituted as a county-wide force. Most of its laid-off officers were hired back at lower salaries and with fewer benefits.
(Econ., 7/6/20, p.18)
2013 Panasonic moved its North American headquarters to Newark, New Jersey.
(Econ, 9/23/17, p.26)
2013 John-Paul Hodnett, a graduate student, unearthed the first fossils of 300-million-year-old shark’s teeth at a dig east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He later named the 6.7-foot (2 meter) monster Dracopristis hoffmanorum, or Hoffman’s Dragon Shark, in honor of the New Mexico family that owns the land in the Manzano Mountains where the fossils were found. Eastern New Mexico back then was covered by a seaway that extended deep into North America.
(AP, 4/16/21)
2013 The mobile phone app Yik Yak was created by Tyler Droll (24) and Brooks Buffington (24), recent graduates of South Carolina’s Furman Univ.
(SSFC, 3/15/15, p.D2)
2013 Seattle-based Juno Therapeutics, a biotech firm focused on immuno-oncology, was founded through a collaboration of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and pediatrics partner Seattle Children's Research Institute.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Therapeutics)(Econ, 10/22/16, p.57)
2013 Heroin use in America reached 680,000 this year as compared to 370,000 in 2007.
(Econ, 11/22/14, p.25)
2013 A synthetic, designer drug called flakka, aka gravel, appeared in the US for $5 or less per vial. It could be snorted, injected of swallowed and led to heightened awareness followed by severe paranoia.
(SFC, 5/1/15, p.A11)
2013 Civilian casualties in Afghanistan were estimated by the UN at 2,959 for this year.
(SSFC, 2/9/14, p.A5)
2013 The World Bank ranked Algeria 152nd in its global index of business friendliness.
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.49)
2013 In Argentina the local government of Buenos Aires conferred formal status on “cartoneros," workers who comb the city for cardboard and plastic to sell to recyclers.
(Econ., 4/25/15, p.36)
2013 Argentina became the first country to be censured by the IMF for misrepresenting GDP and prices.
(Econ, 2/13/15, p.29)
2013 The Catholic Univ. of Argentina put the number of poor people in the country at 10 million. The government said 1.2 million.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.32)
2013 Rosario, Argentina’s third largest city with 1.3 million people, had the country’s highest murder rate.
(Econ, 11/28/15, p.32)
2013 Austrian researchers announced that they had coaxed pluripotent stem cells made from skin cells into differentiating and growing into objects known as organoids.
(Econ, 11/1/14, p.74)
2013 In Azerbaijan Ilgar Mammadov, the leader of a rights group called Republican Alternative (ReAl), was convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail for organizing and taking part in demonstrations in the northern town of Ismailli against a provincial leader. He was released in 2018.
(Reuters, 8/13/18)
2013 In Bangladesh some 500 people were killed this year in political clashes, making it one of the most violent years since independence.
(Econ, 1/11/14, p.31)
2013 British historian Peter Hart authored “The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War."
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.88)
2013 Chris Sheldrick founded the British firm What3Words. The company created a geocoding system for the simple communication of locations with a resolution of three meters.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words)(Econ, 7/2/16, p.71)
2013 The British Virgin Islands with 30,000 inhabitants pulled in $92 billion in foreign direct investment this year.
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.38)
2013 The Chinese adventure film “Journey to the West" was released. It grossed over $205 million.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.105)
2013 The Chinese firm DJI introduce the Phantom drone. It brought professional quality aerial photography within the reach of general users.
(Econ, 9/26/15, p.80)
2013 China’s Pres. Xi Jinping first spoke of a new Silk Road during a visit to Kazakhstan this year. The first contracts bearing the name OBOR (One Belt, One Road) followed in 2014.
(Econ, 7/2/16, p.38)
2013 China reported that inspectors had found nearly half the rice tested in restaurants and canteens in the southern city of Guangzhou was laced with cadmium.
(Econ 6/10/17, p.18)
2013 Miniso, a Chinese home-goods store, was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Ye Guofu and Japanese designer Junya Miyake.
(Econ 6/24/17, p.59)
2013 Khaled Mohieddin, Egyptian leftist opposition leader, was awarded the Nile medal, Egypt's highest honor.
(Reuters, 5/6/18)
2013 In Ethiopia Fikru Maru, an Ethiopian-born Swedish doctor, was arrested after a years-long dispute over equipment for his cardiology clinic in Addis Ababa. A terrorism charge came years later after he and others were accused of starting a deadly fire in the Qilinto prison where they were held. Maru was released in 2018.
(AP, 5/11/18)
2013 French judges started tapping Sarkozy's phones after opening a formal investigation into allegations that the late former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi helped finance his 2007 election campaign. This only was made public on March 7, 2014.
(AFP, 3/7/14)
2013 In France Xavier Niel, telecom entrepreneur, co-founded “42," a computer programming school with a capacity of 2,500 students that charges no tuition fees. The number is the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything," from the sci-fi classic "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.57)(Econ, 9/30/17, SR p.8)
2013 In Germany economist Bernd Lucke founded the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In 2015 he was ousted by Frauke Petry. In 2017 she was ousted by Alexander Gauland.
(Econ, 10/8/16, p.48)(Econ, 4/29/17, p.40)
2013 In Germany nuclear power accounted for 16% of the country’s power.
(Econ, 6/15/13, SR p.11)
2013 The population of Grenada was about 100,000.
(Econ, 11/9/13, p.78)
2013 The population of Guam was about 180,000.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Guatemala declared a national emergency regarding its coffee production. Officials estimated that coffee rust had affected 70 percent of the nation's crop.
(AP, 5/31/14)
2013 Honduras passed a law adding employment and economic development zones (ZEDES) to municipalities and departments as units of the republic.
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.25)
2013 Kishore Biyani (b.1961) founded the Future Group, an Indian conglomerate based in Mumbai.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Group)(Econ., 9/5/20, p.55)
2013 In India an investigation began in Madhya Pradesh state with the arrest of 20 people accused of impersonating candidates in technical examinations. By 2015 investigators believed that $3 billion in kickbacks over five years took place from students and their families and about 50 people connected to the Vyapam scam had turned up dead.
(Econ, 8/1/15, p.35)
2013 Iran arrested Babak Zanjani (38) as part of a crackdown on alleged corruption during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2016 he was sentenced to death. His fortune was estimated at $14 billion.
(AP, 12/3/16)
2013 Iran’s population was about 77 million.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.11)
2013 Iraqi deaths due to sectarian strife left some 9000 dead this year.
(Econ, 3/22/14, p.49)
2013 Waze, an Israeli car navigation service sold itself to Google for $966 million.
(Econ, 12/13/14, p.70)
2013 Wix, an Israeli software company that helps people create websites, went public.
(Econ, 12/13/14, p.70)
2013 In Japan “Yo-kai," a word meaning supernatural spirits, began as a cartoon series. It was later adopted for TV and made into a hit video game after which toy maker Banda Namco won merchandise rights.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.56)
2013 Japan passed an anti-bullying law that required schools to report cases of bullying. This led to a sharp rise in the number of known cases. 224,450 were reported in 2015.
(Econ, 4/15/17, p.35)
2013 Kazakhstan began producing oil from the Kashagan oilfield in the northern Caspian Sea. The project was eight years behind schedule and at $43 billion was $30 billion over budget. Production lasted only a few weeks due to leaks of poisonous gas. A restart was hoped for in 2016.
(Econ, 10/11/14, p.73)
2013 In Kenya biometrics were introduced to the refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaab. This led to a steep drop in their recorded populations saving the World Food Program some $1.4 million a month.
(Econ, 2/11/17, p.50)
2013 Teachers in Kenya, according to a World Bank report, were absent from classrooms about half the time.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.42)
2013 The population of Kiribati was about 103,248.
(SFC, 6/14/13, p.A8)
2013 The Kurds were granted the ".krd" domain name by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a US-based non-profit organization that manages internet addresses.
(Reuters, 4/14/16)
2013 A third of Laos was still contaminated by unexploded American ordnance dating from the Vietnam war.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.50)
2013 The American government offered $1 million for information that would help dismantle a wildlife trafficking network, which it believed was headed by Vixay Keosavang, a former soldier in the Lao People’s Army. Keosavang operated from a walled compound in the Laos province of Bolikhamxay.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.49)
2013 In Liberia Katie Meyler, an American woman, founded the More Than Me Academy at West Point in Monrovia. It was the first of 18 schools that the US charity opened in the the country. The charity founded the school specifically to empower and educate local girls to save them from prostitution and sexual coercion. In 2018 the US investigative site ProPublica described how girls were systematically raped at the West Point school.
(AFP, 10/16/18)(AP, 4/21/19)
2013 In Lithuania the book “Raudonoji Dalia" (Red Dalia) was published and caused major controversy. It accused Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite of having worked for Russia’s Soviet-era spy agency.
(http://daliagrybauskaite.blogspot.com/2014/04/red-dalia-hidden-pages-of-dalia.html)
2013 The population of the Maldives archipelago was about 400,000.
(Econ, 2/23/13, p.38)
2013 Mauritania imposed a ban on plastic bags, saying an estimated 70% of cattle and sheep in the capital of Nouakchatt were dying from ingesting plastic bags.
(SFC, 5/30/15, p.A2)
2013 Mexico’s state of Sonora banned bullfighting.
(Econ., 4/4/15, p.33)
2013 Mexico this year registered over 62,000 cases of Dengue fever, a mosquito-born tropical disease.
(SSFC, 5/4/14, p.A4)
2013 Moldova’s population was about 3.6 million.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.56)
2013 The population Monaco was about 36,000. Its per capital income was over 150,000 and the unemployment rate stood at zero. Many big projects were connected to the Societe des Bains de Mer de Monaco, which was 69% owned by Prince Albert II (55).
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A22)
2013 Authorities in the Netherlands discovered that Bulgarian scammers were collecting fraudulent payments for chile care. A number of Bulgarian citizens were encouraged by a gang to briefly register at an address in the Netherlands and to retroactively apply for a €6,000–8,000 health care and housing allowance.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal)(Econ., 1/23/21, p.42)
2013 Nigeria created the 7th Division to defend Maiduguri, but it was poorly equipped, disillusioned and dwindled due to desertion and losses.
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.47)
2013 Nigeria’s population stood at about 170 million.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.55)
2013 Pakistan established its National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA).
(AP, 6/3/17)
2013 The government of Papua New Guinea repealed a law that criminalized sorcery and allowed accusations of witchcraft as a defense in murder cases.
(Econ 7/15/17, p.35)
2013 The Pitcairn Islands, home to 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, hoped to establish a marine protected area of some 830,000 square km in its exclusive economic zone.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.50)
2013 Puerto Rico handled 40% of all the cocaine entering the US.
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.36)
2013 Puerto Rico’s current debt stood between $52 billion and $70 billion, depending on how it was measured.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.84)
2013 A change in Romanian legislation allowed convicts to claim 30 days off their sentences for every work they publish while in prison.
(Econ, 10/24/15, p.50)
2013 In Romania's a law that came into effect that made it illegal for lawmakers to employ close relatives to work in their parliamentary offices.
(AP, 6/22/16)
2013 Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, adopted a master plan carving up the city into zones defined by the types of activities allowed in each.
(Econ, 3/4/17, p.37)
2013 Singapore writer Kevin Kwan authored “Crazy Rich Asians." It became the first in a trilogy and was tuned into a movie in 2017.
(SFC, 3/31/17, p.E17)
2013 Singapore overtook Tokyo and became the world’s third biggest trading center for foreign exchange.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.69)
2013 Stephen Ellis authored “External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990."
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.75)
2013 In South Africa Mzukisi Qobo and Prince Mashele authored “The Fall of the ANC: What Next?"
(http://tinyurl.com/ycy87fgk)(Econ 5/20/17, p.40)
2013 In South Africa 1,004 rhinos were poached in the country this year, a 50 percent increase from 2012.
(AFP, 1/17/14)
2013 The South Korean film “A Wedding Invitation," made by a subsidiary of CJ Corp., became a hit. It was made for the Chinese market with Chinese actors but a Korean crew.
(SFC, 5/9/16, p.68)
2013 South Korea signed the Hague Adoption Convention, which says that children should preferably be adopted by families in their own country.
(Econ, 5/23/15, p.31)
2013 South Korea began to pay child-care allowances and nursery-school fees to all parents regardless of income.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.14)
2013 In Sri Lanka a report published by the World Health Organization found kidney disease in 15 percent of adults across three affected districts. By 2015 the disease killed up to 20,000 people over the past 20 years and sickened another 70,000 to 400,000. Research has failed to determine the cause.
(AP, 1/18/15)
2013 Sweden’s population was about 9.5 million. 67% were members of the Lutheran Church of Sweden.
(SFC, 10/16/13, p.A2)
2013 Basel Rajoub, Syrian composer and saxophone player, and his ensemble Soriana launched their first CD, a meld of jazz and Middle Eastern improvisation.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.85)
2013 Istanbul’s celebrated Haydarpasa railway station stopped seeing train traffic after being shut for restoration work and a major upgrade of Turkey's railway network.
(AFP, 2/15/18)
2013 An ATM in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card, or touched a button. Kaspersky Lab later discovered that the bank’s internal computers had been penetrated by malware that allowed cybercriminals to record their every move. The scope of this attack on more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations could make it one of the largest bank thefts ever. The theft was discovered when mules of the Carbanak gang, named after the malware used, were seen picking up cash apparently being randomly dispensed in Kiev.
(http://tinyurl.com/oq4jfxu)(Econ, 7/16/16, World IF p.8)
2013 The UN forecast a population rise from 7.2 billion today to 9.6 billion in 2050.
(Econ, 6/22/13, p.64)
2013 In Vietnam the Son Doong caves, discovered in 1991 and said to be the world’s largest, opened to visitors in Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Bố Trạch District, Quảng Bình Province.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_S%C6%A1n_%C4%90o%C3%B2ng)(Econ, 2/18/17, p.36)
2013 - 2015 The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone killed more than 11,000 people.
(Econ, 4/18/20, p.13)
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