Today in History - December 4
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749 Dec 4, John of Damascus (b.~676), a Christian Arab theologian, died at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. He is considered "the last of the Fathers" of the Eastern Orthodox church and is best known for his strong defense of icons.
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.80)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Damascus)
771 Dec 4, With the death of his brother Carloman, Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Frankish Empire.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1110 Dec 4, Syria harbor city of Saida (Sidon) surrendered to the Crusaders.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1197 Dec 4, Crusaders wounded Rabbi Elezar ben Judah.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1371 Dec 4, Reinald III (38), ("The Fat,") duke of Gelre (1343-61), died.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1514 Dec 4, Richard Hunne, English "heretic", allegedly committed suicide.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1534 Dec 4, Turkish sultan Suleiman occupied Baghdad.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1584 Dec 4, John Cotton, English-born Puritan clergyman who wrote “The Way of the Church of Christ in New England," was born.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1619 Dec 4, A group of settlers from Bristol, England, arrived at Berkeley Hundred in present-day Charles City County, Va., where they held a service thanking God for their safe arrival. Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving in America, ahead of the Pilgrims' arrival in Massachusetts.
(AP, 12/4/08)
1642 Dec 4, Cardinal Armand-Jean Duplessis Richelieu (57), French statesman and bishop of Luzon, died. "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." "He did too much harm to be praised, and too much good to be damned."
(MC, 12/4/01)(WSJ, 9/24/02, p.D8)(Econ, 1/24/04, p.75)
1665 Dec 4, Jean Racine's "Alexandre le Grand," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1679 Dec 4, Thomas Hobbes (b.1588), English philosopher, died. "The reputation of power IS power." Hobbes sought to separate politics from religion. In his book “Leviathan" he argues that the only way to secure civil society is through universal submission to the absolute authority of a sovereign.
(WSJ, 7/30/03, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.W10)(www.thefreedictionary.com/Hobbesian)
1688 Dec 4, General strategist John Churchill (later Duke of Marlborough) joined with William III.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1674 Dec 4, Father Marquette built the 1st dwelling at what is now Chicago.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1732 Dec 4, John Gay (47), English poet (Beggar's Opera), died.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1745 Dec 4, Bonnie Prince Charles reached Derby.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1783 Dec 4, Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in NYC. In 2003 Stanley Weintraub authored "General Washington's Christmas Farewell."
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)(WSJ, 12/10/03, p.D8)
1791 Dec 4, Britain's Observer, oldest Sunday newspaper in world, was 1st published.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1795 Dec 4, Thomas Carlyle (d.1881), English (Scot) essayist, critic and historian, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born. His work included “The French Revolution" and “Sartor Resartus." “A man doesn’t know what he knows, until he knows what he doesn’t know." "No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
(V.D.-H.K.p.400)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 7/2/98)(HN, 12/4/00)
1798 Dec 4, Luigi Galvani (61), Italian anatomist and physicist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galvani)
1812 Dec 4, Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pa., patented a horse-drawn mower.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1816 Dec 4, James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States. He defeated Federalist Rufus King.
(AP, 12/4/97)(MC, 12/4/01)
1822 Dec 4, Frances Crabbe, English feminist and founder of the Anti-Vivisection Society, was born.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1829 Dec 4, British colonial rulers abolished "suttee" (Sati) in India. This was the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre.
(http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/p/103.html)(Reuters, 9/21/06)
1833 Dec 4, American Anti-Slavery Society was formed by Arthur Tappan in Phila.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1835 Dec 4, Samuel Butler (d.1902), English writer and painter, was born. His work included “Erewhon" and “The Way of All Flesh." “There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule." “A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg." “Life is one long process of getting tired."
(AP, 4/25/97)(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 4/22/98)(HN, 12/4/00)
1839 Dec 4, The Whig Party opened a national convention in Harrisburg, Pa., where delegates nominated William Henry Harrison for president. Soon after the Whigs constructed a 10-foot ball of twine, wood and tin, covered with Whig slogans, and rolled it from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio, and across the country. This was later deemed the first modern presidential and led to the expression "Keep the ball rolling."
(AP, 12/4/99)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.D6)(Econ, 12/5/15, p.35)
1843 Dec 4, Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 Dec 4, Robert Schumann's "Das Paradied und die Peri," premiered in Leipzig.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1844 Dec 4, James K. Polk was elected 11th president of US. His wife, Sarah, recognized that James was insufficiently impressive to draw attention on appearance and therefore began the tradition of having “Hail to the Chief" played when he made a public showing.
(HFA, ‘96, p.46)(SFC, 7/14/96, Z 1 p.2)(MC, 12/4/01)
1861 Dec 4, Lillian Russell, singer and actress, was born Helen Louise Leonard in Clinton, Iowa. She performed in burlesque and light opera, debuting in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore in 1879. Russell was praised for her voluptuous beauty and was frequently photographed. Women everywhere tried to emulate her plump physique by buying potions and corsets to accentuate their curves. Although Russell was the ideal beauty of her time, her 186-pound figure--which she kept by eating without restraint--would be quite a departure from today's standard of beauty. Russell later wrote a newspaper column on health, beauty and love, and she died in 1922.
(HNPD, 12/3/98)
1861 Dec 4, The Federal Senate, voting 36 to 0, expelled Senator John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky because he joined the Confederate Army.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1861 Dec 4, Queen Victoria of Britain forbade the export of gunpowder, firearms and all materials for their production.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1862 Dec 4, Winchester, Va., fell into Union hands, resulting in the capture of 145 Southern soldiers.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1863 Dec 4, Seven solid days of bombardment ended at Charleston, S.C. The Union fired some 1,307 rounds.
(HN, 12/4/99)
1864 Dec 4, Battle of Waynesborough (Brier Creek) Ga.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1864 Dec 4, Romanian Jews were forbidden to practice law.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1865 Dec 4, Edith Cavell, English nurse who tended to friend and foe alike during World War I, was born.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1866 Dec 4, Wassily Kandinsky (d.1944), Russian artist, was born. He is credited with the invention of abstract art.
(WUD, 1994, p.778)(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.W10)(HN, 12/4/00)
1867 Dec 4, The Order of Patrons of Husbandry, more commonly known as the National Grange, was founded by Oliver Kelley, a traveling clerk with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The original purpose of the Grange was to provide enrichment opportunities for isolated farm families, but its purpose quickly became economic and political. Farmers, particularly in the Midwest and South, were frequently victimized by railroad monopolies that charged exorbitant rates and storage fees. By 1872, 14 states had Grange chapters and membership had risen to about 800,000. Grangers took the lead in organizing farmers' cooperatives to successfully distribute their own produce and in just a few years, Grangers had won enough political support to influence national legislation regulating railroads. The Grange was succeeded by the Farmers' Alliances and in 1891, farmers and labor organizers formed the influential People's Party, or the Populist Party.
(HFA, ‘96, p.44)(WUD, 1994, p.615)(HNPD, 12/4/98)
1875 Rainer Maria Rilke (d.1926), German-Austrian poet, was born. He was born in Prague to German-speaking parents. His works include New Poems (1907), his autobiographical novel: “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge," and his masterpieces the “Duino Elegies" and “The Sonnets to Orpheus." His mistress was Lou Andreas-Salome, a novelist, essayist and clinical psychologist. Ralph Freedman wrote a biography of Rilke titled Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke in 1996. His complete works were published in 1966 and an annotated edition in 1996. In 1997 his early work was published: “Diaries of a Young Poet," translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. On the new year day: “And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things."
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/15/97, p.A20)(AP, 1/1/98)
1875 Dec 4, William Marcy Tweed (d.1878), the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled the country. He went to Cuba and then Spain were he was identified from cartoons by Thomas Nast and returned to prison.
(AP, 12/4/97)(Arch, 7/02, p.24)
1890 Dec 4, Ben Tillman (1847-1918) began serving as the 84th governor of South Carolina and continued to 1894. From 1895 he served as a United States Senator until his death. Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the US Senate, he frequently ridiculed blacks, and boasted of having helped to kill them during that campaign.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tillman)
1892 Dec 4, Francisco Franco (y Bahamonde), Spanish general and dictator (1936-75), was born. He came to power as a result of the Spanish Civil War.
(HN, 12/4/00)(MC, 12/4/01)
1900 Dec 4, The French National Assembly, successor to the States-General, rejected Nationalist General Mercier’s proposal to plan an invasion of England.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1903 Dec 4, Alfred Leslie Rowse (d. 10/3/97), Shakespeare scholar and authority on Tudor England, was born in St. Austell, England. He authored 90 volumes of history, poetry and biography. His best seller was “A Cornish Childhood." He asserted that the “Dark Lady" in Shakespeare’s sonnets was the Italian poet Emilis Bassano Lanier.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D10)(MC, 12/4/01)
1911 Dec 4, The US Supreme Court in Grigbsy v. Russell established the policy owner’s right to transfer an insurance policy.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/nj4pe5)
1914 Dec 4, The first Seaplane Unit formed by the German Navy officially came into existence and began operations from Zeebrugge, Belgium.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1915 Dec 4, Ku Klux Klan received a charter from Fulton County, Ga.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1918 Dec 4, President Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. He was the 1st chief executive to travel outside US while in office.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1918 Dec 4, France cancelled trade treaties in order to compete in postwar economic battle.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1922 Dec 4, Gerard Philipe, actor (Caligula, Le Diable au Corps), was born in Cannes, France.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1923 Dec 4, Cecil B. DeMille's 1st version of "Ten Commandments" premiered.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1924 Dec 4, Frank Press, geophysicist, was born.
(HN, 12/4/00)
1927 Dec 4, Duke Ellington opened at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1930 Dec 4, Vatican approved the rhythm method for birth control.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1931 Dec 4, "Frankenstein" opened at Mayfair.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1933 Dec 4, Jack Kirkland's "Tobacco Road," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1935 Dec 4, 1,200 at St Joseph's College, Philadelphia, enrolled in an anticommunism class.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1941 Dec 4, The Chicago Tribune and the Washington Herald published FDR's top secret plan to invade Europe in 1943.
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.E1)
1941 Dec 4, In Yreka, Ca., the new state of Jefferson elected John C. Childs (71) as its 1st governor.
(AH, 2/05, p.22)
1941 Dec 4, Nazi ordinances placed the Jews of Poland outside protection of courts.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1941 Dec 4, Operation Taifun (Typhoon), which was launched by the German armies on October 2, 1941 as a prelude to taking Moscow, was halted because of freezing temperatures and lack of serviceable aircraft. Temperatures near Moscow fell to 40 degrees below zero the breech-blocks of German rifles froze solid. The engines of their vehicles would not start. The Soviets began a counter-attack with 17 armies and their T-34 tanks that included 25 Siberian divisions and the Nazis were forced to retreat in panic.
(SFC, 10/29/97, p.A23)(HN, 12/4/98)
1942 Dec 4, President Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1942 Dec 4, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland and Naples for the first time in World War II.
(AP, 12/4/97)(HN, 12/4/98)
1945 Dec 4, The Senate approved U.S. participation in the United Nations.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1947 Dec 4, Tennessee William's play “A Streetcar Named Desire" premiered on Broadway starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. [see Dec 3]
(HN, 12/4/00)
1948 Dec 4, SS Kiangya hit a mine in Whangpoo River, China. It sank and 2,750 were killed. [see Dec 3]
(MC, 12/4/01)
1950 Dec 4, The Feres doctrine was set by the US Supreme Court in a ruling that barred active-duty military personnel from suing for injuries sustained while on active duty and not on furlough and resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feres_v._United_States)(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A2)(SFC, 2/7/18, p.D4)
1950 Dec 4, University of Tennessee defied court rulings by rejecting five Negro applicants.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1950 Dec 4, In North Korea the US Navy's first black pilot, Ensign Jesse Brown, was downed in his fighter plane in the Jangjin Reservoir. Wing man Lt. j.g. Thomas Hudner crashed landed his plane in a failed attempt to save Brown. In 2013 Hudner returned to the site of the crash.
(AP, 7/19/13)
1951 Dec 4, Copland-Robbins' "Pied Piper," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1951 Dec 4, Superheated gases rolled down Mount Catarman (Philippines), killing 500.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1952 Dec 4, The Grumman XS2F-1 made its first flight.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1959 Dec 4, Peking pardoned Pu Yi, ex-emperor of China and of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Aisingyoro Henry Puyi, the last emperor, Xuantong, was declared rehabilitated and released as “citizen" Puyi. He settled down as a gardener and wrote the book “From Emperor to Citizen."
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(HN, 12/4/98)
1960 Dec 4, The USSR vetoed Mauritania's application for UN membership.
(EWH, 4th ed., p.1233)
1963 Dec 4, In Brazil Sen. Arnon de Mello (1911-1983), the father of future president Fernando Collor, shot and killed Senator Joseph Kairala of Acre in the Senate, but was never tried. The intended victim was Mello’s political enemy Senator Silvestre Pericles.
(Econ, 7/28/12, p.31)(http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnon_Afonso_de_Farias_Melo)
1965 Dec 4, The United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Comdr. James A. Lovell aboard.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1965 Dec 4, The Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) was founded as the official opposition party to the supporters of military rule gathered under the National Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) umbrella.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Democratic_Movement_Party)
1967 Dec 4, Bert Lahr (72), [Irving Lahrheim], US comic (Wizard of Oz), died.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1968 Dec 4, The US stock market began an 18 month decline of 44%.
(www.stockmarketcycles.com/sign_of_the_bear.htm)
1969 Dec 4, In Chicago police stormed an apartment on the West Side and killed 2 Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Panther defense minister Bobby Rush had left the site just hours earlier.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA4)
1972 Dec 4, Kenneth Parnell (1931-2008), convicted sex offender, kidnapped Steven Stayner (7) in Merced, Ca. Parnell had already served 3 years for molesting an 8-year-old boy in Bakersfield in 1952. Stayner (14) escaped in 1980 along with Timmy White (5) of Ukiah, Parnell was again sent to prison and was paroled in 1985. In 2004 Parnell returned to prison after trying to procure an African American boy.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Parnell)
1974 Dec 4, Pioneer II made its closest approach to Jupiter.
(www.astronautix.com/project/pioneer.htm)
1975 Dec 4, Ramos Horta helped form an independent East Timor government but was forced to flee 3 days before Indonesia invaded.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.A22)
1975 Dec 4, Hannah Arendt (b.1906), German-born American historian and philosopher, died. Her books included "The Origins of Totalitarianism." In 2001 Lotte Kohler edited "Within Four Walls: The Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blucher 1936-1938."
(WSJ, 8/31/99, p.A22)(SSFC, 4/15/01, BR p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt)
1976 Dec 4, Benjamin Britten (b.1913), English composer, died. Paul Kildea later authored “Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century" (2013). Neil Powell authored Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music" (2013).
(WSJ, 7/26/99, p.A21)(Econ, 3/2/13, p.79)
1977 Dec 4, Neil Simon's "Chapter Two," premiered in NYC.
(http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/simon.html)(http://tinyurl.com/yvtv65)
1977 Dec 4, Jean-Bedel Bokassa (1921-1996), ruler of the Central African Empire, crowned himself emperor in a ceremony duplicating the coronation of Napoleon. It was believed to have cost more than $100 ($25) million. Bokassa was deposed in 1979.
(AP, 12/4/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-B%C3%A9del_Bokassa)
1978 Dec 4, San Francisco got its first female mayor. The Board of Supervisors voted 6-2 for Dianne Feinstein to replace the assassinated George Moscone. The Board voted unanimously to rename Yerba Buena Convention Center after Moscone and to name a new gay community center after Harvey Milk.
(AP, 12/4/98)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.E10)
1979 Dec 4, The Jeremiah O’Brien Liberty ship was guided into dry dock at the Bethlehem Yard in SF for a $1 million project to memorialize it as one of the last WW II Liberty Ships. The project was led by Rear Admiral Thomas J. Patterson (1924-2008).
(SFC, 12/3/04, p.F8)(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.B7)
1979 Dec 4, In Saudi Arabia security forces overran the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which had been seized on Nov 16. One of two African-American converts, who had participated in the take-over of the mosque, was killed. The other was later released and returned to the US. In 2007 Yaroslav Trofinov authored “The Siege of Mecca."
(WSJ, 9/18/07, p.A8)
1980 Dec 4, In El Salvador the bodies of four American nuns slain two days earlier were unearthed. Colonel Edgardo Casanova was the military commander of the area at the time. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder and sentenced in May 1984 to 30 years in prison. In 1998 the guardsmen admitted that they were acting on orders from above. In 1993 a UN Truth Commission report concluded that Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, director of the National Guard and brother of Edgardo, and Gen’l. Jose Guillermo Garcia, the minister of defense, had organized an official cover-up. Both men were granted residence in the US. 3 of the 5 convicted guardsmen were released in 1998 due to prison overcrowding. In 1999 families of the victims filed suit against Casanova and Garcia who were living in Florida. In 2000 a federal jury cleared the 2 retired generals. In 2002 a Florida jury found Casanova and Garcia responsible for torture and ordered payment of $54.6 million to 3 victims living in Florida.
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A10) (SFC, 7/23/98, p.C2)(SFC, 5/13/99, p.C3)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A3)(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A12)
1981 Dec 4, "Falcon Crest" premiered on CBS-TV and ran to 1990.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0081858/)
1981 Dec 4, President Reagan broadened the power of the CIA by allowing spying in the U.S. This was Executive Order on Intelligence No 12,333. The order also barred assassinations.
(HN, 12/4/98)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.57)(www.tscm.com/EO12333.html)
1982 Dec 4, Guatemalan Pres. Rios Montt met with US Pres. Ronald Reagan in Honduras. Reagan dismissed reports of human rights abuses in the region and lifted an arms embargo to resume sales to military rulers.
(SSFC, 2/14/04, p.M3)(www.consortiumnews.com/2007/012907.html)
1982 Dec 4, A new version of China’s constitution dropped the worker’s right to strike.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China)
1983 Dec 4, US jet fighters struck Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for Syrian-backed attacks on the US peacekeeping force. The Syrian anti-air defense shut down two American airplanes and a pilot was captured. The positions of the Marines at the Beirut International Airport were bombarded. Eight Marines were killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/35ek6z)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)
1984 Dec 4, A five-day hijack drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1985 Dec 4, Robert McFarland resigned as US National Security Advisor. Admiral John Poindexter was named to succeed.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1985 Dec 4, In SF, Ca., Barbara Martz (28) was raped and stabbed to death when she walked in on a robbery at her Potrero Hill home. In 2007 DNA evidence linked John Davis, already in prison at Pelican Bay, to her murder. On Aug 27 Davis was convicted of murder. On Dec 17 he sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 8/16/07, p.B3)(SFC, 8/28/07, p.B1)(SFC, 12/18/07, p.B3)
1986 Dec 4, Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4434)
1986 Dec 4, Both houses of US Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.
(AP, 12/4/06)
1987 Dec 4, Cuban inmates at a federal prison in Atlanta freed their 89 hostages, peacefully ending an 11-day uprising. The agreement provided for a nationwide moratorium on deportations of Mariel detainees.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1988 Dec 4, The government of Argentina announced that hundreds of heavily armed soldiers had ended a four-day military revolt.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1988 Dec 4, In Venezuela, former President Carlos Andres Perez was declared the winner of the country's presidential election.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1989 Dec 4, President Bush briefed NATO leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on the just-concluded Malta summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
(AP, 12/4/99)
1990 Dec 4, President Bush, on a five-nation South American tour, said in Uruguay he was not convinced that “sanctions alone" would bring Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “to his senses" about invading Kuwait.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1990 Dec 4, Due to Persian Gulf crisis gas prices hit $1.60 per gallon in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/s8h6r)
1990 Dec 4, Eric Larrabee (68), magazine editor, author, arts administrator, teacher and champion of the arts, died at his home in Manhattan. His books included “Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War" (1987).
(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/2j2tkr)
1990 Dec 4, Iraq promised to release 3300 Soviet citizens it was holding.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1991 Dec 4, The Judds’ final concert took place in Nashville.
(www.wynonna.com/?em653=22855_0__0_~0_-1_3_2006_0_0&content=judds)
1991 Dec 4, Charles Keating, Arizona land developer and chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, was convicted on 17 counts of securities fraud in state court. Keating was one of the most controversial figures in the savings and loan scandals of the late 1980s. Keating's sales personnel persuaded depositors to put their money into high-risk junk bonds.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A3)(MC, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Patricia Bowman testified at William Kennedy Smith's trial in West Palm Beach, Fla., that Smith had raped her the previous Easter weekend.
(AP, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Pan American World Airways ceased operations. However, a new, smaller version of Pan Am was later formed.
(AP, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest held of Western hostages in Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years in captivity. The last American hostages in Lebanon were released.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)(AP, 12/4/97)(HN, 12/4/01)
1992 Dec 4, President Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1993 Dec 4, Astronauts aboard space shuttle Endeavour captured the near-sighted Hubble Space Telescope for repairs.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1993 Dec 4, Authorities found the body of 12-year-old kidnap victim Polly Klaas in a wooded area of Cloverdale, Calif.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1993 Dec 4, Frank Zappa (52), rock musician and composer, died in Los Angeles. In 2004 Barry Miles authored “Frank Zappa: A Biography."
(AP, 12/4/98)(SFC, 12/25/04, p.E2)
1994 Dec 4, Bosnian Serbs released 53 of some 400 U.N. peacekeepers held as insurance against further NATO airstrikes.
(AP, 12/4/99)
1995 Dec 4, In a near-freezing drizzle, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1996 Dec 4, Judge Kevin Chang put a stay on the order that Hawaii allow gay marriages pending a ruling by the state Supreme Court.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.A3)
1996 Dec 4, The Mars Pathfinder [delayed from Dec 2] was launched from Cape Canaveral on a 310 million-mile odyssey to explore the planet's surface. It had a remote-controlled 22-pound, 6-wheel, roving vehicle to sample Martian soil and rock and send data back beginning on Jul 4, 1997.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A6)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)(SFC, 12/4/96, p.A4)(AP, 12/4/97)
1996 Dec 4, In South Africa a new constitution was given final approval. It would go into full effect in 1999.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 4, In Tajikistan government troops repulsed an attack by Islamic rebels. Pres. Emomali Rakhmonov was to meet with the Muslim opposition. Russia had 25,000 troops guarding the 900-mile border with Afghanistan where the rebels had bases.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1996 Dec 4, In Zaire government troops went on a rampage of looting and raping in Kisangani. Rebels announced the capture of Kindu 250 miles south of Kisangani.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1997 Dec 4, The National Basketball Association suspended All-Star Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, three days earlier. An arbitrator later reduced the suspension and reinstated Sprewell to the Warriors, which had terminated his contract.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1997 Dec 4, In Santa Claus, Ga., Jerry Scott Heidler (20) was arrested for the murder of a couple and their two children and the kidnapping of three foster children.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 4, In Canada postal workers ended their strike under threat of heavy fines with a 5.15% wage increase over 3 years.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B5)
1997 Dec 4, The EU banned tobacco advertising and gave cigarette makers until 2006 to end sponsorship of major sports and cultural events. Governments get 3 years to enact the ban beginning Oct 1988 on all advertising except at stores that sell cigarettes.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B2)
1997 Dec 4, From France it was reported that Paul Cezanne graces the new 100 franc bill. He replaced Eugene Delacroix, who was on the old bill with his painting depicting the French Revolution and its topless symbol Marianne.
(SFC, 12/4/97, p.C5)
1997 Dec 4, In Indonesia some 2,000 Dole farmworkers on Mindanao went on strike protesting low wages.
(SFC, 2/16/98, p.A10)
1997 Dec 4, In Liberia Samuel Dokie, an opposition politician, was found slain in Bong County with his wife and bodyguard. He had been reported missing after being arrested by security men in Pres. Taylor’s stronghold of Gbarnga.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B5)
1997 Dec 4, UNESCO designated additional places as World Heritage sites at a conference in Naples. Prior to the addition there were 506 sites designated over the last 25 years.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B7)
1998 Dec 4, It was reported that an informant known as CS-1 confessed that he participated in a bin Laden-inspired plot to attack American military facilities around the world.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec 4, The first PC for the car, made by Clarion Co., went on sale for $1,299. It use a Microsoft operating system and responded to voice commands to change radio stations and CDs, check e-mail, and use global positioning.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.D1)
1998 Dec 4, The shuttle Endeavour was launched with a crew of 6 from Cape Canaveral. It contained the 2nd component of the new int’l. space station.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 4, The London Guardian was cited in a report that 3 high security officials in Libya, were convicted and sentenced to prison for dereliction of duty. Abdullah Senussi, Musa Koussa and Mohammed al-Misrati were thought to be the superiors of the men wanted for the 1988Lockerbie Pan Am bombing.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec 4, Britain and France signed an agreement for greater cooperation in crises management and military operations. At the Anglo-French summit in St Malo, the leaders of the UK and France decided on the need for a "capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces." This led to the establishment of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP).
(www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/bg2053.cfm)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 4, In Cambodia the last Khmer Rouge fighting force surrendered, but 3 leaders refused to give up.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 4, In China Lin Hai (30), a software entrepreneur, was arrested for inciting subversion by providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to “hostile foreign organizations.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 4, From Egypt it was reported that a new 3rd party, named “Wasat" or middle party, was emerging. It was an alternative to the fundamentalist Islamic regime and the secular state.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 4, Honduras declared a national alert because of epidemics. 20,000 people were reported to have cholera and 31,000 suffered from malaria. Diarrhea was affecting some 208,000.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1999 Dec 4, NASA scientists continued to wait in vain for a signal from the Mars Polar Lander, raising questions about the whereabouts of NASA’s $165 million probe. It’s believed the spacecraft was destroyed after it plunged toward the Red Planet.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1999 Dec 4, In New Mexico 13 people were killed when a van carrying 17 crashed into a tractor-trailer on an icy stretch of I-40 35 miles east of Albuquerque. The victims were undocumented workers from Mexico.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 4, In Utah 8 teenagers taking part in a wilderness program for troubled youths beat one counselor and tied another to a tree and fled into the desert. They were all rounded up within days and 7 of 8 accepted plea bargains.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, Rose Bird (b.1936), 25th Chief Justice of the California’s highest court, died of cancer. She had taught criminal and consumer law at Stanford Law School (1972-1974). In 1977 she was appointed as chief justice by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. She left office in January 1987. As Chief Justice she was chair of the Judicial Council of California, the constitutional body responsible for improving state court administration.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A1)(www.law.stanford.edu/library/wlhbp/articles/RoseBird120699.htm)
1999 Dec 4, In Austria 5 people died and 25 injured when a barrier gave way in a stampede at snow-boarding event in Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 4, In Belgium Prince Philippe married Mathilde d'Udekem.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A2)
1999 Dec 4, In Chechnya Russian troops pillaged the Alkhan-Yurt village 10 miles southwest of Grozny and killed 17 civilians.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, In Indonesia soldiers shot and wounded at least 12 protestors in Aceh province on the 23rd anniversary of an independence movement. In Irian Jaya province an estimated 20,000 people protested for independence in Nabire, 400 miles west of the capital Jayapura.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
2000 Dec 4, Pres. Clinton set aside 84 million underwater acres along the northwestern stretch of the Hawaiian Islands as a nature reservation.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 4, In Florida Judge Sauls denied Al Gore’s request for a recount. The US Supreme Court set aside the decision by the Florida Supreme Court to extend the vote counting deadline and sent the case back to the Florida court. A Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/4/01)
2000 Dec 4, PepsiCo agreed to pay $13.4 billion to acquire Quaker Oats.
(AP, 12/4/01)
2000 Dec 4, Scientists reported that the Novartis leukemia drug STI-571 brought cancer into remission in most patients in clinical trials.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A13)
2000 Dec 4, Scientists found a deep-sea garden of hot springs and towering spires that they called the “Lost City" over 3,200 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.A2)
2000 Dec 4, In southern Congo over 10,000 refugees were driven into northern Zambia due to renewed fighting over the last 12 days.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 4, It was reported that a mutated oral polio vaccine infected at least 3 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. That standard vaccine appeared to work against the mutated strain.
(SFC, 12/4/00, p.E2)
2000 Dec 4, European Union farm ministers approved a six-month ban on animal products in fodder, part of an extraordinary plan to stem growing panic over mad cow disease.
(AP, 12/4/01)
2000 Dec 4, In India the military was attacked twice by suspected Islamic guerrillas and at least 5 people were killed. In Kashmir a bus carrying police officers fell into a gorge at Baithi Chashma in the Donda district and at least 27 officers were killed.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2000 Dec 4, Israeli soldiers wounded 25 people in the West Bank village of Husan.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A14)
2000 Dec 4, In the Ivory Coast protestors clashed with riot police in Abidjan. The city was paralyzed and least 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2000 Dec 4, Pakistan said it won’t insist to being party to Indian peace talks with Kashmiri separatists but that it must be a party to the final settlement.
(WSJ, 12/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 4, The Turkey stock market fell 8% and marked a 2-week drop of 40% as interest rates soared to 1,200%. Officials began talks with the IMF for a $5 billion loan.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2001 Dec 4, Pres. Bush announced the seizure of assets and records of the Holy Land foundation for Relief and Development based in Richardson, Texas, due to suspected ties with Hamas.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A16)
2001 Dec 4, The Bush administration ordered tons of PCBs removed from the upper Hudson River. Dredging was expected to cost GE $500 million.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 4, The US Postal Service reported a $1.7 billion loss for fiscal 2001.
(WSJ, 12/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 4, The Olympic flame began a 46-state, two-month journey from Atlanta, host city of the 1996 Summer Games, to the opening ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2001 Dec 4, A. Alfred Taubman of Sotheby’s auction house was convicted of conspiracy with his counterpart at Christie’s in a scheme that netted them some $400 million over the years.
(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D8)
2001 Dec 4, The “Goner" computer worm was reported spreading worldwide disguised as a screen saver.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 4, Edwin Huffine, US forensic scientist, launched a new DNA ID software program developed with a team of Bosnian experts at the Sarajevo-based Int’l. Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP). The program used kinship analysis.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 4, In Afghanistan US bombing continued at Kandahar and Tora Bora. Baglan and Balkh were noted as a pockets of resistance with up to 3,500 Taliban militiamen. An interim government was scheduled to take power Dec 22.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A14)
2001 Dec 4, Israeli troops moved into Palestinian-controlled territory in Ramallah and Nablus and closed off 7 West Bank cities. Israeli warplanes and helicopters bombed at least 8 targets in 5 cities and towns including a police building near Arafat’s headquarters. A police officer and a 15-year-old boy were killed.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A12)(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A1,16)
2001 Dec 4, In South Africa Marike de Klerk (64), former wife of former Pres. F.W. de Klerk, was found stabbed and strangled in her luxury apartment near Cape Town. Police arrested Luyanda Mboniswa (21), a security guard, on Dec 5. The guard confessed Dec 7. In 2003 DNA evidence linked him to the murder.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A6)(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A6)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)(AP, 4/8/03)
2001 Dec 4, In Sri Lanka the death toll reached 45, since Oct 21, as elections began for a new 225-seat Parliament. Poll violence killed 10 and an army blockade kept some 130,000 minority Tamils from casting ballots. The opposition United National Party won.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A7)(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 4, The Zimbabwe high court reversed a previous decision and ruled that seizures of white-owned farms are legal. Pres. Mugabe had expanded the court and replaced many of the justices.
(WSJ, 12/5/01, p.A1)
2002 Dec 3, The US Supreme Court justices heard arguments on whether federal laws intended to combat organized crime and corruption could be used against anti-abortion demonstrators. In Feb, 2003, the court ruled that such laws were improperly used to punish abortion opponents.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2002 Dec 4, A US federal board rejected a 1.8 billion loan guarantee for United Airlines.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 4, The governor of Mississippi signed legislation capping punitive damage awards at $20 million.
(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 4, John Weaver, historian, died in Las Vegas. His books included "Los Angeles: The Enormous Village" (1980).
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A25)
2002 Dec 4, Jesus Antonio Nunez, mayor of the western Colombian town of Ambalema, was assassinated, apparently after going to a meeting with the country's main rebel group. He was the 13th mayor killed this year.
(AP, 12/5/02)
2002 Dec 4, Security forces fired on student protesters in the East Timorese capital, killing two people and prompting angry mobs to loot shops and set fire to several buildings, including the prime minister's house.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Iraqi forces shot at allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone and U.S. planes retaliated by bombing part of the country's air defense system.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Israeli soldiers killed two suspected Islamic militants in a gun battle in a West Bank village, and Israeli helicopters fired missiles on a Palestinian government complex in the Gaza Strip, killing a security guard and injuring five people.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Kurdish militiamen of the PUK battled Islamic militants (Ansar al-Islam) believed to be linked to al-Qaida in northern Iraq, and as many as 30 militiamen were killed or wounded.
(AP, 12/4/02)(SFC, 12/6/02, p.A18)
2002 Dec 4, Separatists in Indonesia's Aceh province commemorated the 26th anniversary of their fight with at least one military flag-raising ceremony and vows to keep fighting Jakarta's rule.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Thailand released thousands of prisoners, including many jailed for minor narcotics offences, to mark the 75th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest reigning monarch.
(Reuters, 12/4/02)
2003 Dec 4, Pres. Bush lifted tariffs on imported steel and averted a trade war with Europe.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A20)
2003 Dec 4, It was reported that some 29 million Americans selected "none" for their religious affiliation in recent polls.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Barry Bonds, SF homerun star, told a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by BALCO, but that he never thought they were steroids. The SF Chronicle obtained a transcript of his testimony in 2004.
(SFC, 12/3/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Toy seller FAO Schwartz filed for bankruptcy.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.B2)
2003 Dec 4, It was reported that scientists saw 2003 set to become the 3rd hottest year since modern temperature records began. The warmest since 1880 was 1998 followed by 2002.
(WSJ, 12/4/03, p.A10)
2003 Dec 4, Federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was attacked after leaving his office in Baltimore around midnight. His body was found 6 hours later, stabbed 36 times apparently in a furious fight for his life before drowning in a Pennsylvania creek. Luna was involved in the prosecution of rapper Deon Lionel Smith (32) and Walter Oriley Poindexter.
(AP, 12/5/03)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 4, In eastern Kosovo Sgt. Daryl Brooks (43), a US peacekeeper, was found dead with a gunshot wound in a concrete bunker inside the U.S. military base Camp Monteith.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 4, The Australian government said it will join a U.S. program to build a missile defense system, calling the threat of ballistic missiles too grave to ignore.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Congo health officials were investigating the poison deaths of 64 people, allegedly from a potion used to ward off evil spirits. A Roman Catholic priest, who allegedly administered the drink, fled the village of Bosobe early last week after people started falling ill.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 4, In India election results showed the ruling Hindu nationalist party wrested control from the opposition in three of four state legislatures.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, In Kisumu, Kenya, Tommy Thompson, US Sec. of Health and Human Services, dedicated a new $6.4 million field laboratory to be operated by the CDC. It was the largest of its kind in Africa. The local TB and malaria rates were among the highest in the world.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 4, South Korea's parliament, for the first time in 49 years, overrode a presidential veto to clear the way for an independent investigation into corruption allegations against three former aides of President Roh Moo-hyun.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, El Salvador's government ignores and sometimes contributes to widespread labor abuses, Human Rights watch said in a new report.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Palestinians opened formal talks in Egypt aimed at forging a cease-fire they hope will induce Israel to halt its attacks on militants and lead to renewed peace negotiations.
(AP, 12/4/03)(WSJ, 12/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Interpol put ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor on its most-wanted list, issuing a "red notice" calling for his arrest on war crimes charges in Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2004 Dec 4, President Bush received the president of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in the Oval Office; afterward, Bush pronounced himself "very pleased" with Pakistan's efforts to flush out terrorists.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2004 Dec 4, The euro closed at a record $1.3460. Over the next few years “it seems an excellent bet that there will be a large drop in the dollar."
(SFC, 12/7/04, p.D3)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.71)
2004 Dec 4, Miss Peru, Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia, an aspiring high school teacher, was crowned Miss World 2004 In Southern China.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Colombian drug kingpin Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela was flown to the US, becoming the most powerful Colombian trafficker ever extradited to face US justice.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Suicide attackers carried out a string of car bombings against Iraqi policemen in Baghdad and Kurdish militiamen in the north, killing 14 people and wounding at least 59.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Two US soldiers were killed and four wounded when their patrol came under attack in the northwestern city of Mosul.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Russia said India should become a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council if the top decision-making body is enlarged to reflect post-Cold War realities.
(Reuters, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Zimbabwe's ruling party elected longtime cabinet minister Joyce Mujuru as the country's first woman vice-president at the end of a party congress, putting her on course to succeed Mugabe when he eventually retires in 2008.
(AFP, 12/4/04)
2005 Dec 4, Members of the former Sept. 11 commission said the US was at great risk for more terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House had failed to enact several strong security measures.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, In Washington, D.C. Robert Redford, Tina Turner, Tony Bennett, Julie Harris and ballerina Suzanne Farrell headlined the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, Film producer Gregg Hoffman (42), who developed an eight-minute film into the horror hit "Saw" and its gory successor "Saw II," died unexpectedly after complaining of pain.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated explosives on a street in the southern city of Kandahar, killing himself and a civilian and wounding two passers-by.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in France for a four-day visit. The Chinese government and the European aircraft manufacturing consortium Airbus signed a cooperation agreement at a public ceremony in Toulouse that may pave the way for the opening of an aircraft assembly plant in China.
(AFP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Croatia won its first Davis Cup title.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Hong Kong to pressure the government to speed up political reforms that would allow voters to pick the territory's leader and entire legislature.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Unidentified gunmen killed a parliamentary candidate and an Iraqi police commander in separate attacks while a bomb that detonated as a police patrol passed through central Baghdad killed three civilians.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at an abandoned building and a rocket launching ground in the northern Gaza Strip in the first aerial attack on Gaza in more than a month.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Oil-rich Kazakhstan voted in a presidential election widely expected to give Nursultan Nazarbayev another seven-year term.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Mali at a weekend Franco-African summit President Jacques Chirac called upon the US to remove the subsidies to their cotton producers. Chirac also urged rich countries to double development aid, as African leaders warned tackling poverty was crucial to stem a growing tide of illegal immigration.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Russia, the snow-covered roof of an indoor swimming pool collapsed onto parents and children in Chusovoi, a Ural Mountains town, killing 14 people, including 10 children.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Sri Lanka a land mine killed 6 Sri Lankan soldiers with 3 wounded in a northern area that is home to most of the country's Tamil minority. A government soldier near the northern city of Jaffna. The military blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels for attacks.
(AP, 12/04/05)(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, Syrian security forces clashed with militants planning to launch terror attacks in the northern city of Aleppo. Five people were wounded, including two militants.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej publicly rebuked PM Thaksin for pursuing lawsuits against media outlets that oppose his policies.
(www.bangkokpost.net/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=69917)
2006 Dec 4, The White House, unable to win Senate confirmation, said UN Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (55), leader of Iraq's largest political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), spoke with Pres. Bush for more than an hour at the White House. He became leader of the SCIRI when his brother and party founder Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was killed in a bombing in August 2003. Al-Hakim had ties to Iran and the officially disbanded Badr militia.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Truck driver Tyrone Williams was convicted in Houston of the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in May 2003.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2006 Dec 4, In Jena, La., six black students (the Jena Six) beat a white schoolmate in an altercation that stemmed from the hanging of nooses in August in a tree on school grounds under which white students regularly gathered. The black teenagers were initially charged with attempted murder, but later dropped to aggravated second-degree battery in 4 cases. In September, 2007, charges against Mychal Bell were moved to juvenile court following huge civil rights protests. It was later reported that 7 black students were involved in the Dec 4 beating. On Dec 3, 2007, Bell pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of 2nd degree battery in return for an 18-month sentence. On June 26, 2009, 5 members of the Jena 6 pleaded no contests to misdemeanor simple battery with no jail time.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A3)(SFC, 9/28/07, p.A3)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.33)(SFC, 12/4/07, p.A3)(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A5)
2006 Dec 4, Bank of New York Co. agreed to take over Mellon Financial Corp. in a $16.5 billion all-stock deal that will create the world's largest securities servicing company and one of the biggest asset managers.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Chipmaker LSI Logic Corp. and Agere Systems reached a $4 billion stock swap deal. LSI closed down 14% to $9.12 per share. LSI CEO Abhi Talwalkar offered the equivalent of $22.81 per share for Agere.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.C1)
2006 Dec 4, Station Casinos of Las Vegas said it received a $4.7 billion buyout offer from its founding family and affiliate of Colony Capital LLC, a private equity firm.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.C3)
2006 Dec 4, Shares of Pfizer Inc. fell 15.6% in opening trade, wiping out nearly $30 billion of market value, after the world's biggest drugmaker scrapped development of its most important experimental medicine. Pfizer halted work on torcetrapib, which was designed to raise levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, because of increased deaths and heart problems among patients given the product in a late-stage trial.
(Reuters, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, An E. coli outbreak that sickened at least 58 people, two of them seriously, was linked by health investigators to three Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey. The outbreak, initially believed to stem from green onions, was later believed to have come from lettuce.
(AP, 12/4/06)(SFC, 12/14/06, p.A6)
2006 Dec 4, NASA announced plans to begin building a permanent base on the moon by 2024, with the first teams landing in 2020.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.A2)
2006 Dec 4, In Afghanistan 2 journalists, whose identities and media organization were not identified, reportedly went missing in Kandahar province.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, Insurance Australia Group (IAG) announced it will buy British motor insurer Equity Insurance Group for 570 million pounds.
(AFP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Tomma Abts (38) became the first female painter in the 22-year history of Britain's $ 49,000 Turner Prize to win the controversial modern art award.
(AFP, 12/4/06)(SFC, 12/5/06, p.F8)
2006 Dec 4, PM Tony Blair has announced plans for Britain to retain its nuclear deterrent but promised to cut the number of nuclear warheads by 20%. Blair also launched plans for a new multibillion-dollar submarine-based nuclear missile defense system, warning lawmakers the future may hold perilous threats from rogue regimes and state-sponsored terrorists.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, China’s state media said Ying Fuming, a manager at the Fanchang Grease Factory in Taizhou in east China, has been arrested for using grease from swill, sewage, pesticides and recycled industrial oil to make lard for human consumption. 6 children died of possible food poisoning at a boarding school at the school in Nanyao, a village in northern Shanxi province.
(AP, 12/4/06)(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 4, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said police had arrested an American, 11 Europeans and several others from Arab countries for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Middle Eastern countries including Iraq.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, The Estlink cable connected power grids of the Baltic States with Finland. The cost of Estlink, which measures 100 kilometers (60 miles), was around 110 million euros (132 million dollars). It was built by Swiss-Swedish group ABB.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Fiji soldiers moved against at least two police compounds, seizing weapons in the apparent first step toward taking over the South Pacific island nation.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Haiti as many as 30 inmates escaped through a small hole in a prison wall in the latest of several breakouts from the overcrowded National Penitentiary.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 4, Police in eastern India were alerted that a container, packed with radioactive material, had been stolen from a fortified research facility, prompting a major hunt and fears of contamination. It carried uranium and radiation and could have an adverse effect in an area of 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mile).
(AFP, 12/23/06)
2006 Dec 4, Drive-by shootings and a suicide car bomber killed at least seven Iraqis and wounded five. American forces killed two militants and destroyed a vehicle packed with explosives. A US helicopter went down in Lake Qadisiyah west of the Iraqi capital, killing one Marine and leaving three missing in Anbar province. An insurgent attack on an American military patrol in Baghdad killed Pfc. Ross McGinnis and wounded five. Another US serviceman died in southern Iraq in an accident involving his vehicle. In 2008 Pres. Bush awarded the Medal of Honor to McGinnis, who had placed his body between a grenade and 4 comrades.
(AP, 12/4/06)(AP, 12/5/06)(WSJ, 6/3/08, p.A4)(www.iraqwarheroes.org/mcginnisra.htm)
2006 Dec 4, The Israeli army killed a Palestinian and arrested 17 militants in raids across the West Bank, despite a decision by the military to scale back such operations in order to bolster a shaky truce with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, Against a backdrop of protests, the defense minister gave citations to Dutch troops who served in the UN peacekeeping force that failed to prevent the slaughter of Muslims in the Srebrenica enclave during the Bosnian war.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Pakistan at least eight people were killed in torrential rains and flooding, which blocked roads and caused widespread disruption in several cities.
(AFP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Peru a bus speeding through the fog on a twisting mountain road in the Andes fell 1,320 feet into a ravine, killing 45 people.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was convicted in the Philippines of raping a Filipino woman and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2006 Dec 4, Rescuers in the Philippines all but gave up hope of finding survivors in mudslide-swamped villages on the slopes of the Mayon volcano, five days after Typhoon Durian killed an estimated 1,000 people.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Russia's atomic energy agency declined to comment on Japanese news reports that North Korea had offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits in exchange for support at six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Russia gave a frosty welcome to a team of British counter-terror officers probing the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, and laid down some strict ground rules for their work in Moscow.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Sudan militias entered El Fasher, the main town in the Darfur region and started looting the market. Militias there fought members of a former rebel group in clashes which the rebels said left up to seven people dead.
(AP, 12/4/06)(Reuters, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Turkish security forces clashed with an angry crowd trying to lynch a man accused of raping several girls and killing two of them in southeastern Turkey. One person was killed in the violence, and at least 22 were injured.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2007 Dec 4, Defending his credibility, President George W. Bush said Iran was dangerous and needed to be squeezed by international pressure despite a blockbuster intelligence finding that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program four years earlier. The intelligence report on Iran figured in a Democratic debate on National Public Radio as rivals assailed front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton for voting in favor of a Senate resolution designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2007 Dec 4, The governors of Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency after a severe storm smacked the region with hurricane-force winds and several inches of rain. At least four people were killed by the storm.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Pimp C (33), born as Chad Butler, was found dead in an upscale hotel in Los Angeles. He had spun searing tales of Texas street life into a key role in the rise of Southern hip-hop.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Kabul US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was pushing the world's countries for more commitment to Afghanistan's fight against growing extremist violence. A suicide car bomber targeted a NATO convoy in Kabul, wounding 22 civilians passing nearby. An explosion struck a patrol of NATO-led troops, leaving one soldier dead and two others wounded.
(AP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, Sen. Renan Calheiros, president of Brazil's Senate, resigned while fighting allegations of corruption. Calheiros, a key ally of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, retained his position as a senator. A legislative commission voted 17-3 last week to recommend his expulsion after finding evidence that he used third parties to illegally acquire two radio stations and a newspaper.
(AP, 12/4/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.43)
2007 Dec 4, New census data said one in five people in Canada last year was born in another country, the highest proportion since the 1930s. The Bank of Canada cut its key overnight interest rate by one-quarter point to 4.25 percent, saying it expects US subprime mortgage woes and financial market fallout to last longer than anticipated.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, The Chadian army fought heavy battles against rebel forces in the east of the country near the border with Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, France and Algeria agreed to cooperate on civilian nuclear technologies. French oil group Total said it had signed a deal to invest about 1.5 billion dollars in a new 3.0-billion-dollar (2.0 billion euros) petrochemical plant in Algeria.
(AFP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Greece and Turkey agreed to joint military measures aimed at easing tensions and improving ties.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 4, Police in northern India broke up a major tiger poaching ring, arresting an alleged kingpin and 15 others.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 4, Iran's foreign minister welcomed the US decision to "correct" its claim that Tehran has an active nuclear weapons program, while Israel's defense minister said Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop an atomic weapon.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iran Makwan Moloudzadeh, a man convicted of raping three boys when he was 13 years old, was hanged despite a chief justice's order that the case be reviewed.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iraq Sunni Arab lawmakers ended a yearlong boycott of politics in Kirkuk, after the Kurdish majority agreed to allot one-third of government jobs to Arabs and appoint an Arab as deputy governor. A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police station in Jalula, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 30. Kidnappers of five Britons, seized on May 29, demanded that Britain pull all its forces from Iraq, according to a new video broadcast made on Nov 18. The US military said 40 senior al Qaeda in Iraq members were either captured or killed in November, including a senior adviser to the Sunni Islamist group's leader. Three US soldiers were killed in a "complex attack" involving a roadside bomb and small arms fire north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, Israel said it is seeking bids to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing Palestinian condemnations that the move is undermining the newly revived peace talks.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Italy Vincenzo Santapaola, a suspected Mafia boss, and scores of alleged mobsters were arrested during raids in Catania, Sicily. Police also seized weapons and drugs, and found a book that listed extortion fees and salaries of the people working for the family.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Mexico gunmen shot and killed a deputy police chief inside his house in the border city of Tecate.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, State media said Myanmar's military junta has completed the release of 8,585 prisoners, but it was unclear if any of those released were among those detained during the crackdown.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In southern Nigeria pirates attacked a vessel operated by oil major ExxonMobil in the Niger Delta, killing a crew member and injuring another.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Former PM Nawaz Sharif said that Pakistan's major opposition parties will demand the end of emergency rule and the release of former Supreme Court judges as a condition for their participation in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Tens of thousands of mineworkers downed tools in South Africa in a one-day strike over safety standards, accusing their bosses of putting lives at risk for the sake of profits.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, UN human rights experts said Sudanese forces and allied militia have killed several hundred civilians in ground attacks and aerial bombardments on villages in Darfur in the past six months.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In southern Thailand a bomb killed six people and injured 20 in one of the deadliest attacks in recent months.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, American officials confirmed that Vietnam is holding four US citizens, hours after gaining their first consular access to two of the detainees, both Vietnamese-born pro-democracy activists.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2008 Dec 4, AT&T Inc. joined the recession's parade of layoffs by announcing plans to cut 12,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its work force.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Afghanistan 2 Danish soldiers serving with NATO's force were killed in southern Helmand province. The governor of Afghanistan's key southern Kandahar province said he was sacked by the central government and complained that powerful people in his region had been sabotaging his work. US-led troops killed four militants in Helmand province, after the insurgents fired on a joint US-Afghan patrol.
(AFP, 12/4/08)(AP, 12/4/08)(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Afghanistan eight prisoners were killed at Kabul's Pol-i-charki Prison, during a clash between guards and prisoners.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 4, The Bank of England cut its base interest rate from 3% to 2%, a rate last seen in 1951.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.74)
2008 Dec 4, In Burundi a summit was held in Bujumbura stating the position of the Great Lakes region on the implementation of the peace agreements signed at the Dar es Salaam summit of 2006 in Tanzania.
(http://allafrica.com/stories/200812040216.html)
2008 Dec 4, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper won a rare suspension of Parliament, managing to avoid being ousted by opposition parties angry over the minority Conservative government's economic plans and an attempt to cut off party financing.
(Reuters, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, In eastern China a fire at the dormitory of a seafood company killed 11 workers and injured 10 others.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, The Danish navy intercepted and sunk a suspected pirate vessel drifting off Somalia. 7 men were handed over to authorities in Yemen but were not immediately suspected of any crime.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 4, Europe's top human rights court ruled that storing DNA from people with no criminal record is in breach of their rights, a landmark decision that could force Britain to destroy the samples of nearly 1 million people on its database.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, In France armed robbers, some disguised as women, snatched €85 million ($108 million) worth of diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a Harry Winston boutique on a posh Paris avenue in one of the largest jewel heists in history. In June, 2009, French police arrested 25 suspects in connection with the robbery and recovered some of the jewelry. In 2011 investigators found jewels valued at $25 million in a plastic container set in a cement mold inside a sewer at a home in the Paris suburb of Seine-St. Denis. The house belonged to one of the 9 people charged in the heist. On Feb 27, 2015, eight were convicted on charges including armed robbery over the heist and another a year earlier at the same store.
(AP, 12/5/08)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A4)(AP, 2/28/15)
2008 Dec 4, The Luxembourg-based European Court of First Instance said EU governments "violated the rights of defense" of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), and that the EU nations have not provided sufficient proof to blacklist the group.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Iraq's presidential council approved a security pact that sets out a three-year timeframe for US troops to leave, the final step for the agreement to replace a UN mandate that expires Dec. 31. Two suicide bombers in explosives-laden trucks took aim at police stations in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 100. A suicide car bomber killed two US soldiers and wounded nine Iraqi civilians near a checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul. A bomb in Baquba killed 3 people.
(AP, 12/4/08)(SFC, 12/5/08, p.A23)
2008 Dec 4, Rioting by Jewish settlers spread in the West Bank after Israeli soldiers forcibly removed about 250 extremists from a disputed house in the center of Hebron. Banks in the Gaza Strip shut down to count their dwindling cash. Israel lifted a four-week-old ban on international journalists entering the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Pirates attacked an oil-services vessel before dawn off the coast of Nigeria and kidnapped two foreign workers.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Drug agents in Peru seized 3 tons of cocaine mixed into a shipment of guano bound for Spain. Four Peruvians and a Colombian were arrested.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Somalia 20 men and women graduated from medical school in Mogadishu, something that nobody in Somalia has done in nearly two decades.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Sweden’s central bank cuts its benchmark interest rate from 3.75% to 2% saying monetary policy was less effective than usual.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.92)
2008 Dec 4, Zimbabwe declared a national emergency over a cholera epidemic and the collapse of its health care system, as the government sought more international help to pay for food and drugs to combat the crisis.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2009 Dec 4, The New York Times reported that the White House has authorized the CIA to expand the use of unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan to track down and strike suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda members.
(AFP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, GM and its Chinese partner SAIC announced a joint venture to produce small cars in India.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.72)
2009 Dec 4, Afghan troops and US Marines launched the first offensive since President Barack Obama announced an American troop surge, striking against Taliban communications and supply lines in Helmand province. About 1,000 Marines as well as Afghan troops were taking part in the operation, known as "Cobra's Anger."
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, NATO said 25 countries had pledged a total of around 7,000 more troops to support the US-led war in Afghanistan, following President Barack Obama's commitment of 30,000 extra US troops.
(Reuters, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In northern Bangladesh an overcrowded passenger boat capsized after being hit by a small ferry, leaving at least 46 people dead. 18 Bangladesh fishermen were assaulted in the Bay of Bengal off the southern coast of Bangladesh after pirates attacked by a band of 25-30 pirates. The survivors said the pirates severely beat them and slashed some of the fishermen with knives before throwing them all overboard. 16 fishermen remained missing.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 4, In southern Brazil at least 20 people were reported dead in mudslides triggered by heavy rains as rivers rose to rooftops and thousands were left homeless.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, China sentenced three more people to death for murder and other crimes committed in riots in the western region of Xinjiang in July.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In China the file-sharing site BTCHINA, a major source of overseas movies, television shows and games in the country, was closed. Another site, VeryCD.com, was down on Dec 9 and a report in the Southern Metropolis Daily said other file sharing sites would be closed in the coming days. The closures were said to be a fight against copyright infringement, but could be seen as another measure aimed at controlling what content the country's Web users can find online.
(AP, 12/9/09)
2009 Dec 4, A leading Ethiopian newspaper said it had closed down as a result of months of government "persecution and harassment" against its staff. The weekly Addis Neger newspaper, often critical of government policies, published its last edition on Dec 5 before some of its staff fled the country for fear of arrest.
(AFP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Major European public financial institutions launched a pan-European equity fund to boost key EU policies in areas such as climate change, energy security and transport networks.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Guatemala retired Col. Marco Antonio Sanchez was convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison in the forced disappearance of civilians during Guatemala's civil war. The convictions for the 1981 abductions at the village of El Jute were the first ever under charges of failing to respect the rights of civilians.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Indian officials said Arabinda Rajkhowa, the commander of a powerful rebel movement in the remote northeast, was arrested along with a top deputy. Security officials said the chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, was actually arrested days earlier in Bangladesh, where he had long been thought to be hiding.
(AP, 12/4/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.47)
2009 Dec 4, A jailed Mafia hitman linked Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi to the Cosa Nostra, telling a court that a godfather convicted for a 1993 bombing campaign had boasted of his links to the media mogul.
(Reuters, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Italy Amanda Knox of Seattle, Wa., was convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher (21), her British roommate on Nov 1, 2007. The conviction was announced at around midnight after 13 hours of deliberations. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison. The court also convicted Knox's co-defendant and former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, and gave him a 25-year jail term for the murder. Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast citizen, had already been convicted in the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Fazal Haque Qureshi (64), an Indian Kashmiri separatist leader who supports talks with New Delhi over the restive region's future, was critically wounded by unknown attackers.
(AFP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Kenyan health officials said a cholera epidemic was sweeping across the country with 4,700 cases reported in the past month along with 119 deaths.
(SFC, 12/5/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 4, In northern Mexico a pair of shootouts between troops and gunmen killed 13 people in a suburb of Monterrey, including a bystander and a drug trafficker linked to the killing of a retired army officer. Almanza Morales, killed in the attack, was accused of working for the Zetas, drug traffickers who also serve as enforcers for the Mexican Gulf cartel, and of killing army Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza and his four bodyguards in a November attack.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a Cabinet meeting amid Mount Everest's frigid, thin air to highlight the danger global warming poses to glaciers. Landless laborers in the far west, backed by Maoists, claimed tracts of government owned forest for themselves. National security forces opened fire and burned squatter’s huts. 3 people died in the clashes.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/5/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.46)
2009 Dec 4, Amsterdam City councilwoman Marijke Vos planted a sapling, in the Amsterdamse Bos park. It was derived from a 150-year-old chestnut tree that once cheered Anne Frank as her family hid from the Nazis. 149 Others will be planted around the world.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, North Korea made an unlikely foray into designer denim as the "Noko Jeans" label was launched in Sweden. The brand is Swedish but the black jeans are manufactured in North Korea, an experiment its creators described as a way to open doors to the reclusive communist country. The next day Stockholm’s PUB department store removed the new line of designer jeans from its shelves, saying it wants to avoid courting controversy through ties with the isolated communist nation. Noko Jeans founders said they will continue to sell the jeans on their Web site and that retailer Aplace will continue to sell them on their Web site.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Pakistan militants stormed a mosque in Rawalpindi near Pakistan's army headquarters, killing at least 37 people, including 6 army officers and 3 soldiers. They attacked during prayers spraying gunfire and throwing grenades before blowing themselves up.
(AP, 12/4/09)(SFC, 12/5/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 4, Philippine security forces raided four compounds belonging to a powerful clan suspected in the massacre of 57 people in the Philippines' worst political violence. Soldiers using metal detectors, sniffer dogs and an excavator dug up more than a dozen crates of bullets in the mansion of a local mayor linked to last week's massacre.
(AP, 12/4/09)(Reuters, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Sudan gunmen killed three Rwandan soldiers in an ambush in the northern town of Saraf Umra in the western Darfur region.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Switzerland Roman Polanski took refuge at his snowbound chalet after being granted bail under house arrest, while he fights extradition to the US on a child sex case.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2010 Dec 4, President Barack Obama signed legislation giving the lame-duck Congress two more weeks to try to pass a legislation funding the government for the rest of the budget year, through September.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 4, Mill Valley, Ca., resident John Nuzzo (65) died of an apparent heart attack. He was better know to legions of fans as John Leslie, an adult film actor who appeared in over 300 movies before becoming a prolific director.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.C5)
2010 Dec 4, In southwestern China an explosion caused by illegally stored chemicals killed seven people and injured 37 at an Internet café.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, The Colombian Red Cross said the toll from weeks of heavy rains across Colombia has risen to 174 people dead and over 1.5 million homeless.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Haiti 17 people died when a group taxi slammed into a truck on a blind curve in the southern peninsula town of Aquin.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Iraq bombs killed 17 people across Baghdad, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighborhood market.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Israel said it was disappointed by Brazil's decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was sworn in for a new term even though the UN and world leaders maintain his opponent won the disputed election, which was the West African nation's first since a civil war.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northern Israel a massive fire was still consuming swathes of land, with little sign Israeli and foreign firefighters were winning the battle to contain it.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Jamaica an oil spill was discovered in Kingston Harbor. Authorities were still investigating a Nov 22 spill in the capital's harbor, the 7th-largest natural harbor in the world.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northeastern Nigeria a shootout between suspected members of a radical Muslim sect and security forces killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Russia a Dagestan Airlines passenger jet, carrying at least 155 people, made an emergency landing at a snowy Moscow airport after its engines failed. It skidded off the runway and slammed into buildings, killing two people and injuring around 40.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, It was reported that South African gangsters were stealing supplies of the antiretroviral drug Stocrin. They were mixing it with cannabis, rat poison and some other ingredients to make a lethal new drug called whoonga (wunga), used to produce a cheap high.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.60)
2011 Dec 4, In southeast Georgia 4 Army soldiers based at Fort Stewart killed Michael Roark (19), a former comrade, and his girlfriend, Tiffany York (17), to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks. On Aug 27, 2012, Pfc. Michael Burnett (26) gave testimony and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, illegal gang activity and other charges. He made a deal to cooperate with prosecutors against the three other soldiers.
(AP, 8/27/12)
2011 Dec 4, Washington DC police detained over 30 people in a standoff at the Occupy DC campaign in McPherson Square.
(SFC, 12/5/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 4, It was reported that final preparations were underway for the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM. The high-end price tag estimate of $5.8 billion is almost $1 billion more than New Mexico's annual state budget and more than double the lab's annual budget.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Australia’s Labor party passed PM Julia Gillard's proposal with 206 votes to 185, reversing a decades-old policy excluding New Delhi from Australia's uranium trade because it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Brazil Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira (57), footballer and political agitator, died. In 2007 he authored “Football Philosophy."
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.106)
2011 Dec 4, Black Mirror, a British science fiction television anthology series, was released. It was created by Charlie Brooker and centered around dark and satirical themes that examine modern society, particularly with regard to the unanticipated consequences of new technologies.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror)(Econ, 2/11/17, SR p.6)
2011 Dec 4, Croatians voted in a parliamentary election expected to unseat long-dominant conservatives and empower a center-left coalition. The vote for 151-seat parliament pits the governing center-right Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, against a coalition of left-leaning parties. The latter has led recent opinion polls.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, DR Congo President Joseph Kabila led chief rival Etienne Tshisekedi 49 percent to 34 with about half of polling centers counted.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In the Dominican Rep. Sonia Pierre (48), a human rights activist who bravely fought discrimination against poor Dominicans of Haitian descent, died.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Egypt initial election results showed that Islamist parties won 65% of all votes cast for parties in the first round of parliamentary polls. The secular liberals, who played a key part in the January-February uprising, managed just 13.4%.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In eastern India a landmine attack by Maoist rebels struck the convoy of a senior politician, killing ten policemen and a young boy in Jharkhand state.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Indonesia 11 people were killed when a high concrete wall collapsed in a housing complex during a heavy downpour in Makassar, Sulawesi island.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian armed forces have brought down an unmanned US spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border. Iran said it used advanced electronic warfare measures to detect, hack and bring down an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel drone. It suffered minor damage and was now in possession of Iran's armed forces." Footage of the drone was aired on Dec 8.
(AP, 12/4/11)(SSFC, 12/11/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 4, In Iraq explosions killed six people, including a father and son who were assembling a makeshift bomb that accidentally detonated inside their home in Kirkuk. In Baghdad a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi military convoy in the capital's western suburb of Abu Ghraib. 4 soldiers were killed.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Srinagar, Kashmir, authorities used batons, tear gas and water canons to break up Muslim religious processions held in defiance of a strict curfew.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Kazakhstan prosecutors said a clash outside the commercial capital of Almaty has left five militants and two government troops dead. The fighting occurred as security services cornered suspects wanted in the murder last month of two policemen in Almaty.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Pilots at Lebanese national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) ended a five-day strike in protest at the dismissal of a cancer-stricken colleague which grounded dozens of flights at Beirut airport.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, The Mexican army said that it has seized a total of at least 167 antennas, 155 repeaters, 166 power sources, 71 pieces of computer equipment and 1,446 radios. The equipment was taken down in several cities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and the northern states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas. The network was built around 2006 by the Gulf cartel, a narcotics-trafficking gang that employed a group of enforcers known as the Zetas, who had defected from Mexican army special forces.
(AP, 12/26/11)
2011 Dec 4, Morocco's main leftwing party said it had decided not to take part in a government coalition led by the country's moderate Islamists.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, The Kathmandu-based Int’l. Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) published reports showing that Nepal's glaciers have shrunk by 21 percent and Bhutan's by 22 percent over the last 30 years.
(AFP, 12/5/11)
2011 Dec 4, In northern Nigeria gunmen from a radical Muslim sect raided Azari town, Bauchi state, bombing police stations and robbing banks in an attack that killed at least six people.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Peru’s President Ollanta Humala declared a state of emergency in the northern department of Cajamarca following weeks of protests against the Minas Conga mining project.
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.42)
2011 Dec 4, Russians cast their ballots with muted enthusiasm in parliamentary elections. Several parties complained of extensive election violations aimed at boosting the vote count of United Russia, the party of PM Vladimir Putin. An election official later described how he had manipulated the vote at his polling station to give Putin's party the desired 65 percent, when in fact it had won no more than 25 percent.
(AP, 12/4/11)(AP, 3/4/12)
2011 Dec 4, In Singapore hundreds of people gathered at a park to protest sexual violence against women as part of the global "SlutWalk" movement, in a rare public demonstration in the tightly controlled city state.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Slovenians voted in an early election expected to bring conservatives back to power, where they will have to tackle the country's mounting debt, unemployment and a looming recession. President Danilo Turk said that "the most important task of the new government will be to restart economy." The outgoing center-left government of PM Borut Pahor has failed to push through pension and labor reform requested by the EU. The center-left Positive Slovenia party won with 28.5% of the ballots.
(AP, 12/4/11)(AP, 12/13/11)
2011 Dec 4, Syria signaled it still might be willing to comply with the Arab League's plan, saying its objections were simply a matter of details. In central Syria new violence killed at least six people, including a female university professor and a father and his three children.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Yemeni officials said clashes between the army and tribal fighters in Taiz have left at least 28 people dead over the last 3 days. Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi formed a military commission under the Gulf Cooperation Council agreement to oversee the restructuring of the security forces, many of which are controlled by Saleh's relatives.
(SFC, 12/5/11, p.A2)(AFP, 12/6/11)
2012 Dec 4, A ban on nudity in San Francisco was given final approval by the city’s Board of Supervisors in a raucous meeting at which several people stripped naked in board chambers.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.C1)
2012 Dec 4, It was reported that conservationsists have saved some 3,000 acres in California’s Sierra Nevada. The Truckee Donner land Trust and Trust for Public Land closed an $8 million deal to buy Webber Lake and Lacey Meadows at the headwaters of the Little Truckee River.
(SFC, 12/4/12, p.A1)
2012 Dec 4, Researchers at Duke University reported that the lions of Africa's savannahs have lost as much as 75% of their habitat in the last 50 years as humans overtake their land and the lion population dwindles.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Branislav Milinkovic (52), Serbia's ambassador to NATO, was chatting and joking with colleagues in a multistory parking garage at Brussels Airport when he suddenly strolled to a barrier, climbed over and flung himself to the ground below.
(AP, 12/5/12)
2012 Dec 4, The British government said Chancellor George Osborne will invest 5 billion pounds in schools, science and transport projects.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, A top official of the World Wide Fund for Nature said that despite armed guards, Cameroon's dwindling elephant population is being decimated by heavily armed gangs of international poachers.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, In southern China a fire in a clothing factory apparently caused by arson killed 14 people in Shantou city, Guangdong province. The victims were all women aged 18-20. The next day suspect Liu Shuangyun said he started the fire due a longtime dispute over less than $500 in unpaid wages.
(AP, 12/4/12)(SFC, 12/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 4, Thousands of Egyptians massed in Cairo for a march to the presidential palace to protest the assumption by the nation's Islamist president of nearly unrestricted powers and a draft constitution hurriedly adopted by his allies. Several independent Egyptian newspapers suspended publication. The media protest involved at least eight influential dailies and was part of a planned campaign of civil disobedience.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Iran claimed it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, but the US Navy said all its unmanned aircraft in the region were "fully accounted for."
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, In Iraq gunmen broke into a house in eastern Baghdad, killing six members of an Iraqi family.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Eamon Kelly (65), a senior figure in Ireland's criminal underworld, was chased down the street and shot to death near his Dublin home, two years after surviving a similar assassination bid. The Real IRA paramilitary group was suspected of being behind the hit. Real IRA figures in recent years have demanded a slice of the gangsters' drug-trafficking profits in exchange for not killing them or burning down their business fronts.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Israel said it is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn't halt such construction.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Tuareg rebels of northern Mali agreed to stop pursuing a separate state during talks with Mali’s government in Burkina Faso.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 4, Namibia's President Hifikepunye Pohamba said that Hage Geingob will return to serve as the nation's prime minister as part of a major cabinet reshuffle. Geingob's elevation came after he was confirmed Dec 2 as SWAPO's vice president.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, In the southern Philippines at least 78 villagers and soldiers drowned when torrents of water dumped by a powerful typhoon cascaded down a mountain, engulfing emergency shelters and an army truck in Andap village. The deaths toll from Typhoon Bopha (aka Typhoon Pablo), one of the strongest storms to hit the country this year, reached nearly 600 with another 600 missing.
(AP, 12/4/12)(AP, 12/5/12)(AP, 12/8/12)(SSFC, 12/9/12, p.A4)
2012 Dec 4, In northeastern Somalia militants attacked an army post, killing 12 soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks in recent months by the al-Qaida-linked group.
(AP, 12/5/12)
2012 Dec 4, Syrian state media said a mortar slammed into a school in the Damascus suburbs, killing 29 students and a teacher. Syrian forces fired artillery at rebel targets in and around the capital. The international community grew increasingly alarmed about the regime's chemical weapons stocks. Naji Assaad, a journalist for the state-run Tishrin newspaper, was killed near his home in al-Tadhamon, a suburb of Damascus.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Off the coast of Istanbul a cargo ship sank in a severe storm in the Black Sea and a Turkish rescue boat searching for its missing crew hit nearby rocks and also went down. At least three people were killed and 10 others were missing in the two sinkings.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Vietnam said it would begin new patrols in the South China Sea after it accused a Chinese fishing boat of cutting a seismic cable attached to one of its vessels exploring for oil and gas. India also said it would consider sending navy vessels to protect its interests in the area.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.A3)
2012 Dec 4, Amnesty International charged in a new report that Al-Qaida committed "horrific" rights abuses during its 16 months in power in southern Yemen.
(AP, 12/4/12)
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)
2014 Dec 4, Stuart Jones, America's new Ambassador to Iraq, said the US government has come to an agreement with Baghdad on "privileges and immunities" for US troops based in the country.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In the SF Bay Area swarms of protesters swept through Oakland and San Francisco for a 2nd straight night to castigate authorities for the killings of unarmed black men by police triggered by recent events in Missouri and NYC.
(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A18)
2014 Dec 4, In Kansas City, Mo., SUV driver Ahmed Aden (34), a local Somali of Chriostian faith, ran over a Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein (15) and drove away. Aden was charged with murder on Dec 5. Locals said he had been harassing the community with anti-Islamic taunts and violent threats.
(http://tinyurl.com/lu84xv8)(SFC, 12/6/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 4, Australia for the first time exercised sweeping new security powers allowing it to block citizens from traveling to overseas conflict zones such as those in Iraq and Syria, where dozens of Australians have joined Islamist militant groups.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, The Bosnia-based Int’l. Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), established in 1996, said it will become a permanent global body to help track missing persons around the globe.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, pA20)
2014 Dec 4, Canada’s Indsutry Minister James Moore signed off on the takeover of US-based Burger King by Ontario-based Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops.
(SFC, 12/5/14, p.C2)
2014 Dec 4, In Chechnya gunmen stormed a building in Grozny killing some 19 people, including 10 police. 6 gunmen were reported killed.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A8)
2014 Dec 4, China marked its first Constitution Day as part of President Xi Jinping's drive to show that the country embraces rule of law while ensuring that the ruling Communist Party holds on to its unrivaled authority.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Hungary's economy minister says the state has signed a preliminary deal to buy Budapest Bank, the country’s 8th largest bank by assets, from General Electric by June 30.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In northern India 5 children were killed when a train crashed into their school van at the unmanned Mahaso railroad crossing, Uttar Pradesh state.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In Iraq a string of car bombs killed at least 37 people in Baghdad and Kirkuk.
(AP, 12/4/14)(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 4, In Italy Ignazio Marino, the mayor of Rome, ordered a review of city contracts after a police investigation revealed a web of corrupt relationships between politicians and criminals in the Italian capital.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In Kenya two men were reported jailed for gang raping children after Kenya's high court in 2013 ordered the police to re-open 10 cases where officers had yelled at, demanded bribes from and even locked up girls who tried to report rape to them.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, A Kenyan military aircraft crashed in the region of the southern Somali city of Kismayu due to technical problems after a combat mission.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Kurdish sources said a second group of 150 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces has entered the Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey to replace a first group helping Kurdish forces fight off a siege by Islamic State militants.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, The Philippine anti-corruption prosecutor ordered the suspension of the country's top police officer in connection with a contract with a courier company to deliver gun licenses.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said money collected in one of the country’s two "rainy day" funds should be used to support domestic banks, as he set out efforts to help Moscow counteract Western sanctions and overcome its economic woes. Putin also proposed an amnesty for those returning capital to Russia, indicating they would not face tax or other penalties.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Slovakia's PM Robert Fico said his government is terminating the lease of a major state-owned hydro power plant to Enel, an Italian energy company. Enel owns a 66 percent stake in Slovakia's major power producer, Slovenske elektrarne, and is currently trying to sell its share. The government owns the remaining 34 percent.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In Syria at least 19 government soldiers and militiamen were reported killed after Islamic State launched an overnight attack on one of the government's last remaining strongholds in Deir al-Zor province. 7 IS fighters were reported killed.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Yemeni and Western sources said Saudi Arabia has suspended most of its financial aid to Yemen, in a clear indication of its dissatisfaction with the growing political power of Shi'ite Houthi fighters friendly with Riyadh's regional rival, Iran.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Al Qaeda's Yemen branch published a video purporting to show an American hostage and threatened to kill him if unspecified demands were not met. Journalist Luke Somers (33) was kidnapped in Sanaa in September 2013.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe (90) purged VP Joice Mujuru (59) seen just months ago as his most likely successor, denouncing her before party loyalists as leader of a "treacherous cabal" bent on removing him from power.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2015 Dec 4, The Spike Lee musical film “Chi-Raq" was released. It was about gang violence on Chicago’s South Side. It was a contemporary take on Lysistrata, the 411BC Greek comedy by Aristophanes.
(Econ, 12/12/15, p.32)
2015 Dec 4, The United States and its allies targeted Islamic State with 12 strikes in Iraq and 11 in Syria.
(Reuters, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, The US Center for Disease Control said that seven additional people in three more states have been sickened in an E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle.
(SFC, 12/5/15, p.D4)
2015 Dec 4, In Oakland, Ca., Jack Lewis (16) was killed when a tree limb that he was climbing broke and hit him on the head near Lake Merritt. In 2018 the Oakland City Council approved a $1.75 million payment to his family.
(SFC, 10/4/18, p.C5)
2015 Dec 4, In Connecticut Amador Medina (32) was arrested in Hartford on a charge of being a fugitive from justice from Worcester, Massachusetts, where authorities allege he stole the remains two months ago from a family mausoleum that dates to 1903. Medina told police he was a Santeria priest and wanted the human bones for religious and healing ceremonies.
(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Tennessee skilled-trades workers at the Volkswagen's lone US plant voted to be represented by the United Auto Workers, marking the union's first victory at a foreign-owned automaker in the South.
(AP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, American actor Robert Loggia (b.1930) died at his home in Los Angeles. His films included “Scarface" (1983), “Prizzi’s Honor" (9185) “Lost Highway" (1997) and “Big" (1988).
(SFC, 12/5/15, p.A11)
2015 Dec 4, In Afghanistan a mortar attack by government troops killed at least 8 civilians and wounded two others near a mosque in a district south of Kabul.
(Reuters, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Azerbaijan 29 workers were missing after a platform in Azerbaijan’s Guneshli oil field, operated by state energy company SOCAR, caught fire in the Caspian Sea. 33 people were rescued. 6 bodies were soon recovered and 23 remained missing.
(AFP, 12/5/15)(AP, 12/6/15)(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 4, British bombers made their second round of strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria late today, again hitting oil fields.
(Reuters, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, Aravindan Balakrishnan (75), a cult leader who led a secretive Maoist commune in London, was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting his female followers and imprisoning his own daughter for 30 years.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Burundi police shot dead 3 attackers and arrested three others when they foiled an attempt to ambush and assassinate a top police officer in the capital.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Canada said posted its 14th consecutive monthly trade deficit in October, as exports to its key trading partner the United States fell.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, It was reported that Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has signed a decree that removes marijuana from the country's list of hard drugs.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking at a summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in South Africa, told African leaders his country would pump $60 billion into development projects, cancel some debt and boost agriculture under a three-year plan that will extend Beijing's influence in the continent.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Costa Rica said it has asked Belize to accept nearly 3,000 Cuban migrants who have been stuck at the Costa Rican border with Nicaragua for weeks.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Egypt a Molotov cocktail hurled at a Cairo restaurant killed 16 people and wounded two. The attacker was said to be a fired employee.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, The European Union agreed on a system to share airline passenger information, paving the way for closer scrutiny of extremists.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Georgia stripped former leader and reformer Mikheil Saakashvili of his citizenship as he had acquired a Ukrainian passport to serve as governor of the strategic Odessa region.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Germany's lower house of parliament approved government plans to join the military campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Guatemalan prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Brayan Jimenez, president of the country's football federation, who is accused in a widening bribery investigation into FIFA.
(AP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, In southern India rains eased in the flood-hit city of Chennai, raising hopes that rescue efforts could pick up, after the death of 18 patients at a private hospital added to the official toll of 280 confirmed killed in the disaster. The death toll from the flooding was later raised to some 450.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)(Econ, 12/12/15, p.40)
2015 Dec 4, Veteran Israeli dove Yossi Sarid (75), who championed the cause of a Palestinian state over a political career spanning three decades, died in Tel Aviv.
(AFP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Nigeria at least 3 people were killed and six others injured in suicide attacks in northeastern Borno state blamed on Boko Haram Islamists.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Two Palestinians stabbed an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron overnight, moderately wounding him before they were shot dead by soldiers. A Palestinian driver ran over and injured two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank before being shot dead.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Peru the former head of the Peruvian football federation, Manuel Burga, was arrested in the growing FIFA bribery probe.
(AP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, Philippine security forces arrested Kadaffy Muktadil, a suspect in the kidnappings of two Malaysian hostages last May. Malaysian Bernard Then Ted Fen was beheaded last month. Thien Nyuk Fun was freed on Nov 8.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Russian prosecutors declared the US-Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law (USRF) an "undesirable" organization, the fourth entity to be banned under a controversial law targeting foreign groups accused of political meddling in the country.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, South African authorities issued a warrant of arrest for Oscar Pistorius (29), a day after the Paralympic champion was convicted on appeal of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, South Africa-based MTN announced that its fine by Nigeria's communications agency had been reduced to 674 billion naira ($3.4 billion). Spokesman Tony Ojobo said there was a typo and the actual amount is 780 billion naira ($3.9 billion).
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Syria at least 35 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in a series of regime raids on a rebel stronghold east of Damascus.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, The New York Times decried limits on media freedom in Thailand after its local printer refused to publish articles about the Southeast Asian country for a third time.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Turkish media said authorities have rounded up in the past four days nearly 3,000 migrants planning to cross the Aegean Sea to EU member Greece.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Turkish media said more than 100 Turkish soldiers have been deployed to an area near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which is under Islamic State control, to replace a unit providing training to Iraqi troops.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2016 Dec 4, The US Pentagon announced the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Shawqi Awad Balzuhair. The low level militant was sent to the West African nation of Cape Verde for resettlement. This lowered the number of prisoners held at the US base in Cuba to 59. Twenty of those remaining have been approved for release.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, The US Army Corps of Engineers turned down the request for an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to build under the Missouri River, after months of protests from Native American and climate activists. ETP said it will continue to fight for the line.
(Reuters, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Texas Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara (69) was killed and two others were injured when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio.
(SFC, 12/6/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 4, The Cell Atlas database was launched. It records which proteins are found in which organelles.
(Econ, 12/10/16, p.77)
2016 Dec 4, Austria's Freedom Party conceded defeat in its bid to elect Europe's first far-right president, as projections showed its candidate Norbert Hofer lagging behind in a bitterly fought election re-run. Green leader Van der Bellen (72) led with 53.5 percent of the vote over Hofer with 46.4 percent.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Brazil demonstrators marched in major cities across the country, protesting government corruption and a recent vote in Congress that was widely perceived as an effort to intimidate judges and prosecutors currently leading graft probes.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Dubai a bus carrying 20 migrant workers hit a truck, killing four people at the scene. A fifth person died after being rushed to the hospital.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In France Japanese student Narumi Kurosaki (21) disappeared in the city of Besancon after having dinner with her ex, Nicolas Zepeda. In 2018 a prosecutor said she was probably suffocated in her university room by her fugitive Chilean ex-boyfriend. Her body has not been found despite extensive searches of a nearby forested area. Zepeda, a teaching assistant aged in his mid-twenties, left France and returned to Chile shortly after Kurosaki was last seen.
(AFP, 11/19/18)
2016 Dec 4, In Iraq two militants tried to attack army barracks in Anbar province. Police and army sources said the attackers were killed before they reached the base. Iraqi commanders say they have killed at least 1,000 Islamic State fighters. A government adviser estimated the jihadist group now had about 4,000 fighters in Mosul.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Human Rights Watch said Kurdish restrictions on the movement of goods are harming the recovery of Iraq's Yazidi minority, which was targeted for genocide by the Islamic State group.
(AFP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Israel was embroiled in fresh controversy over its purchase of submarines from German company ThyssenKrupp after reports that the country's arch-enemy Iran holds a stake in the firm.
(AFP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Millions of Italians voted in a knife-edge constitutional referendum that left PM Matteo Renzi sweating on his future and the rest of Europe braced for the fallout if he is forced to quit. PM Renzi won just over 40 percent of the vote in the referendum, a far worse result than polls had predicted.
(AFP, 12/4/16)(Reuters, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 4, In northern Lebanon a soldier was fatally shot and a second was wounded at a military installation. On Dec 7 four people, said to belong to an Islamic State cell, were arrested in dawn raids in Beqaa Safrin, where the attack had taken place.
(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 4, Palestinian emergency workers said they have recovered the bodies of three men who went missing in a smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt. The tunnel caved in after the Egyptian military flooded it with water. One person remained missing.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Russia at least 12 people, including nine members of a children's acrobatics team, were killed in a road collision in eastern Siberia.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Syria suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.
(AFP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, A coalition air strike in Raqa, Syria, killed three Islamic State leaders involved in plotting foreign attacks. Salah-Eddine Gourmat and Sammy Djedou -- were involved in facilitating the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people died. Walid Hamman was a suicide-attack planner who was convicted in absentia in Belgium for a terror plot disrupted in 2015.
(AFP, 12/13/16)
2016 Dec 4, Uzbekistan held a tightly controlled presidential election, the first vote since the death of authoritarian leader Islam Karimov who ruled the country for 27 years. Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who spent 13 years as Karimov's prime minister, was favored to win. Mirziyoyev garnered 88.61 percent of the vote.
(AP, 12/4/16)(AP, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 4, Venezuela’s central bank said it will introduce six new notes and three new coins starting in mid-December to help alleviate practical problems in doing business with the world's most inflationary currency. The nation's largest note is worth just 2 US cents on the black market.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Vietnam’s government said floods brought by torrential rain since late November have killed at least 13 people while more heavy rain is expected in coming days.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2017 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump visited Utah to announce big cuts to the state's sprawling wilderness national monuments. Bears Ears National Monument will shrink to 220,000 acres from 1.35 million, and Grand Staircase Escalante will be cut to about half its current size. The move triggered legal challenges from tribes and environmental groups.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump endorsed Roy Moore, Alabama’s candidate for the US Senate. Moore has been accused of making unwanted sexual advances on teenage girls. Beverly Young Nelson, one of the women who accused Moore of groping her when she was sixteen, later admitted to adding notes to her yearbook beneath Moore’s inscription to remind herself of where and when Moore signed her yearbook. She was one of nine women who claimed Moore had made unwanted advances when they were teenagers.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A5)(SFC, 12/9/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 4, The US Supreme Court ruled that Pres. Trump may put his full travel ban into effect while legal appeals are being weighed in lower courts. The ban blocks visitors and immigrants from Chad, Iran, Libya Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 4, A US federal judge ordered Energy Transfer Partners LP to coordinate with local tribes and the Army Corps of Engineers to create an oil-spill response plan for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline by next April, a decision he said will allow oil to keep flowing and prevent spills.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In southern California a 31,000-acre wildfire, known as the Thomas Fire, erupted this evening. Some 27,000 people in Ventura County, about 70 miles (115 km) northwest of Los Angeles, were told to leave. One motorist was killed fleeing the blaze.
(Reuters, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Florida former US Rep. Corrine Brown (71) was sentenced to five years in prison followed by three years of probation for fraud and other charges related to a purported charity that she used as a personal slush fund. In 2020 Brown was released from federal prison over coronavirus concerns.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 4/26/20, p.A4)
2017 Dec 4, Fugitive Kentucky lawyer Eric Conn, who disappeared six months ago before facing a prison sentence for his central role in a massive Social Security fraud case, was captured in Honduras and will be returned to the US.
(AP, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, Ride-hailing app Uber said it was joining the International Association of Public Transportation (UITP), a global public transport association, to improve mobility in the cities it operates in and to connect more people to public transport.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In London Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya (61) insisted he was innocent of money-laundering accusations after the evacuation of a London court building forced him to face a swarm of journalists he had sought to avoid.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Christine Keeler (b.1942), the British model involved in the 1963 Profumo scandal, died in southern England.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A4)
2017 Dec 4, In Cambodia Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina met with her counterpart, Hun Sen, during an official visit to the Southeast Asian country. Several agreements on trade, economic and technical cooperation were signed by officials. Hasina said she asked for Hun Sen's support in helping to find a durable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau began a 4-day visit to China.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 4, Corsican nationalists seeking greater autonomy from France ruled out an imminent independence bid but demanded greater freedoms for the island after winning the first round of regional elections.
(AFP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Ragia Omran, a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer, was among 15 rights defenders from around the world to receive the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, for her work representing political prisoners and torture victims as well as advocating for women's rights.
(http://tinyurl.com/y9acyam7)(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 4, The Eurozone elected Portuguese Finance Minister Mario Centeno to become the top official of the 19-country group. He will succeed Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 4, A Greek court ordered the detention of nine Turkish citizens pending trial for terrorism-related offences, including links to a banned militant group behind a series of suicide bombings in Turkey.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Honduras Pres. Juan Orlando Hernandez held on to a lead of more than 52,000 votes in the disputed presidential race as the long-delayed count wrapped up. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal said the final ballot count showed Hernandez with 42.98 percent of the vote, barely ahead of Nasralla with 41.39 percent. But it declined to name an election winner, saying appeals could yet be lodged. The political crisis deepened after hundreds of police revolted against an order to impose a curfew.
(AP, 12/4/17)(AFP, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, Irish government sources said Britain has agreed to keep Northern Ireland in "regulatory alignment" with the EU after Brexit, raising hopes PM Theresa May can strike a deal in Brussels to start free trade talks. The Northern Irish party that props up PM Theresa May told the British government that its Brexit terms were unacceptable.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)(Reuters, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez held on to a lead of more than 52,000 votes in the hotly-disputed presidential race as the long-delayed count wrapped up.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In India Shashi Kapoor (79), a leading Bollywood actor and producer from the 1970s and '80s, died after a long illness. Kapoor acted in more than 100 Hindi films and was also a key theater personality.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Indonesian authorities detained Australian Isaac Emmanuel Roberts (35) at Bali's airport for carrying 19.9 grams (0.7 ounces) of methamphetamine and 6.2 grams (0.2 ounces) of the party drug ecstasy.
(AP, 12/19/17)
2017 Dec 4, In northern Japan three bodies of people believed to be North Koreans were recovered, two days after authorities found a dilapidated empty boat.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Jordan a state security court sentenced one Syrian militant to death and handed life sentences to three others for their role in a suicide bombing attack on a Jordanian military border post that killed seven guards last year.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Ten Maltese suspects were arrested over the Oct. 16 car bomb murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, A Spanish judge decided that Catalonia's sacked vice president Oriol Junqueras and three other separatist leaders will remain in prison during a probe over their role in the region's independence drive. Six other former ministers, who were also remanded in custody last month, will be released on bail of 100,000 euros ($119,000).
(AFP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Switzerland released a national plan to prevent violent extremism, including training teachers and coaches to recognize warning signs and re-integrating people who have already been radicalized.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Syria jets believed to be Syrian and Russian struck heavily crowded residential areas in Hamoriya, a besieged rebel enclave near Damascus, killing at least 17 people and injuring dozens in the third week of a stepped-up assault. Four other civilians were killed in the town of Arbin and 6 others from strikes on Misraba and Harasta.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, The UN voiced alarm over the spread of HIV in Egypt, where new cases were growing by up to 40% a years. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A3)
2017 Dec 4, The Vatican said Pope Francis has donated 25,000 euros ($30,000) to help feed the South Sudan’s most vulnerable citizens ahead of the upcoming dry season. The money was given to the United Nations' agricultural arm.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Yemen Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck at Houthi militia positions in Sanaa for a second day in support of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Fighting in Sanaa intensified, with the known toll from three hospitals reaching at least 125 killed and 238 wounded in the past six days.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Yemen former president and party leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was reported killed outside Sanaa, in what sources in the Houthi group said was an RPG and gun attack. Saleh was killed south Sanaa along with the assistant secretary-general of the GPC, Yasser al-Awadi.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2018 Dec 4, In Washington DC a sentencing recommendation late today from Russia probe head Robert Mueller, that Flynn spend no time in jail, explained that the retired three-star general had given "substantial assistance" to his and other secret, high-level investigations.
(AFP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, US federal authorities announced a raft of conspiracy and tax fraud charges against four men in the first US prosecution related to the so-called Panama Papers.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 4, The US Department of Agriculture says a unit of Brazil's JBS is now recalling a total of more than 12 million pounds of raw beef that was shipped around the country because it may be contaminated with salmonella. JBS Tolleson in Arizona already recalled about 7 million pounds of beef in October.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In the SF Bay Area Damani Chadly (17) was shot dead and a friend (19) wounded in a marijauna sale gone wrong in Fremont. Police took Christian Lucas Kelling into custody on Dec. 12 after finding him in Pflugerville, Texas.
(SFC, 12/20/18, p.C6)
2018 Dec 4, Texas executed Joseph Garcia (47), a member of the "Texas 7" gang of escaped prisoners, for the fatal shooting of a Dallas police officer on Christmas Eve in 2000. He was the 22nd inmate put to death in the US this year and the 12th in Texas.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 4, The DJIA fell about 800 points on trade jitters over a potential US-China trade war.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A1)
2018 Dec 4, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ordered an investigation after the Guardian reported that members of the national women's soccer team were sexually and physically abused by men from the country's football federation.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In Armenia an Su-25 two-seat combat jet crashed during a regular training mission. The Su-25 is a twin-engine ground attack aircraft designed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Austrian police found 22 asylum-seekers from Iraq and Syria in a Romanian-registered van near the country's eastern border.
(AP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, Brazil's Supreme Court said it had authorized a federal investigation into allegations that Onyx Lorenzoni, the incoming chief of staff for far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, had taken illegal campaign donations.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Portugal or a two-day visit to boost economic ties, despite concern in some EU capitals over China's growing influence across the continent.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, An Egyptian survivor said 15 migrants have died in a boat off the Libyan coast after spending 12 days at sea without food or water. Only 10 migrants from the capsized boat survived.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, A senior European Union legal adviser said Britain had the right to withdraw its Brexit notice, opening a new front in a battle over PM Theresa May's plans to leave the bloc, which could be rejected in parliament next week.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, French PM Edouard Philippe announced in a live televised address that the planned increases set for January would be postponed until summer. Demonstrations continued around the country.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Germany's top human rights official said she has been denied entry to China's Xinjiang region, where the UN estimates that up to one million Muslims are being held in detention camps.
(AFP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, Authorities in northern India said they have arrested four people for their alleged involvement in an attack on police over rumors of cow slaughter that left two people dead, including a police official, a day earlier. A case was filed against 28 people who allegedly set a police outpost on fire and killed a local police inspector.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Angry Iraqi lawmakers disrupted a parliamentary session meant to include a vote on the remainder of PM Adel Abdul Mahdi's cabinet, banging tables and shouting "illegitimate" in opposition to his proposed candidates.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Israel said it had launched an operation to "expose and thwart" cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon dug by the Iran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man early today during a military operation in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. Tulkarem governor Isam Abu Baker said that Mohammed Habali (22) was shot in the head "without posing any threat to the soldiers".
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Thousands of Israeli women protested against domestic violence in a nationwide strike, calling for more action and state funding to deal with the problem.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, It was reported that Italy's health minister Giulia Grillo has removed 30 doctors and scientists from the ministry's public health advisory committee as part of the "government of change" promised by the 5-Star Movement and League, which opposes the previous Democratic Party-led government's move to increase the number of mandatory vaccinations to 10.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Italian police arrested new Mafia boss Settimino Mineo and dozens of other suspects in a major swoop against a resurgent Cosa Nostra.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen opened fire overnight on a vehicle in Peshawar carrying local TV journalist Noor-ul-Hassan, killing him and wounding his cameraman.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Poland's PM Mateusz Morawieck said the country, which has some of Europe's most polluted cities, will invest between 3-4 billion euros ($3.4-$ 4.5 billion) in low-emissions public transport.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In Poland negotiators at the UN climate talks got down to the nitty-gritty task of finalizing the rules for the 2015 Paris accord, a landmark agreement by countries three years ago to curb global warming. Five international banks pledged to use the billions at their disposal to steer clients away from businesses that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Serbia sought support from allies Russia and China in opposing the formation of a Kosovo army, warning that a military in its former province could lead to renewed clashes in the Balkans.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Doctors in Sierra Leone's public hospitals began a strike to protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Nurses said they may follow suit.
(Reuters, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, Singapore said it has lodged a "strong protest" with Malaysia over its plan to extend the limits of a port in Malaysia's southern-most state, saying it encroached into the territorial waters of the city-state.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Slovakia's general prosecutor ordered the release of 12 Greenpeace activists who were detained last week after climbing a tower during a protest at a coal mine that supplies one of the country's most polluting power plants. The order overturned the decision of a Slovak court on Dec. 2 to keep the activists in custody until trial.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Syria's President Bashar Assad received North Korea's foreign minister Ri Yong Ho, who said his country and Syria face the same "enemy" and called for increased cooperation between them. Assad responded by identifying the United States as a hostile country to Syria and North Korea.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In Thailand Islam's guiding council introduced new regulations requiring that marriages of children under age 17 be approved by a religious committee.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 4, A Turkish appeals court has upheld the terror propaganda conviction of Selahattin Demirtas, the former head of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Ukraine said it had resumed grain shipments from the Azov Sea, blocked for around 10 days after a military standoff with Russia in the Kerch Strait off Crimea.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, The UN said it was seeking $738 million in 2019 to help neighboring countries cope with the inflow of millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants, who have "no prospect for return in the short to medium term".
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, The UN warned of a "severe increase" in Yemen's hunger rate and cautioned the situation would deteriorate further in 2019, when four million more people are expected to need food aid.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived in Russia, looking for support amid a spiraling economic crisis.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, A Houthi delegation left for Sweden for UN-sponsored Yemen peace talks, the first since 2016, as Western nations pressed for an end to the war and the United Nations warned of a looming economic disaster.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2019 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump cancelled his scheduled news conference at the end of the NATO summit in Britain, saying he had briefed the media many times during his two-day trip.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, TV producer Leonard Goldberg (85) died in Los Angeles. He and Aaron Spelling co-produced "Charlie's Angels" and "Fantasy Island" in the 1970s. Goldberg and Spelling produced 35 movies for television. He later conceived the hit police drama "Blue Bloods" (2010), which continued running for a 10th season in 2019.
(SSFC, 12/15/19, p.B10)
2019 Dec 4, In Colorado Alec McKinney (16) was ordered along with Devon Erickson (19) to stand trial on first-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges in the May 7 shooting rampage at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, in which one student was killed and eight others wounded.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that fourteen women, ranging in age from 30 to 56 and nearly all first-time offenders, have banded together to sue the United States, not under pseudonyms but under their real names, over the abuse they say they’ve endured at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida. Seven of the women are still incarcerated.
(Miami Herald, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Georgia's Rep. Gov. Brian Kemp formally announced his selection of Kelly Loeffler, pushing aside intense criticism from hard-core Trump advocates who wanted Kemp to appoint Rep. Doug Collins, one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Hawaii an active duty US sailor, whose submarine was docked at Pearl Harbor, opened fire on three civilian employees, killing two and then taking his own life just days before dignitaries and veterans descend on the base for the 78th anniversary of the Japanese attack.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Chicago Ernesto Godinez, a purported “chief" of the Almighty Latin Saints, was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison. He was convicted earlier this year of shooting and wounding a plainclothes federal agent he mistook for a rival gang member.
(AP, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, Former United Auto Workers vice president Joseph Ashton pleaded guilty in Detroit to conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud as part of a wide-ranging federal corruption probe into the union.
(AP, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, In New York state Bishop Richard Malone (73) of Buffalo resigned, forced to step aside amid mounting calls for his ouster from his staff, priests and public over his handling of allegations of clergy sexual misconduct.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, The Northeast began digging out from a monster nor'easter that dumped over two feet of snow onto towns in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont.
(Good Morning America, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Charlotte resident Arlando M. Henderson (29), a former Wells Fargo employee, was arrested in San Diego, of stealing more than $88,000 in cash from the vault of a bank in North Carolina. An indictment unsealed later alleged Henderson took the cash from customer deposits on at least 18 occasions throughout 2019 and then rigged the books to try to hide his actions.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 4, Oil prices surged 4% on expectations that OPEC and allied producers would extend production curbs, and as US government data showed a large drop in domestic crude stockpiles.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that a drug that curbs delusions in Parkinson's patients did the same for people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in a study that was stopped early because the benefit seemed clear. Pimavanserin, a daily pill sold as Nuplazid by Acadia Pharmaceuticals, was approved for Parkinson's-related psychosis in 2016 and is thought to work by blocking a brain chemical that seems to spur delusions.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Scientists released the first results from NASA's sun-skimming spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe. They observed bursts of energetic particles never seen before on such a small scale as well as switchback-like reversals in the out-flowing solar magnetic field that seem to whip up the solar wind.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Armenia's special investigation service said it is investigating former president Serzh Sarksyan on suspicion of exceeding his authority and embezzling of around $1 million in state funds.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Australia's conservative government repealed a contentious law that allowed ill asylum-seekers languishing in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru to travel to the country for medical treatment. More than 460 people remain in limbo in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Chile thousands of women, blindfolded and dressed in black, descended on Santiago chanting what has now become their rallying cry: “El violador eres tu", or, “The rapist is you".
(The Independent, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that Chinese startup AutoX, backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, has applied to test self-driving vehicles without an in-car backup driver in California, the first challenger to Alphabet Inc's autonomous driving venture Waymo to say it has done so.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, The Czech Republic's top state attorney said Andrej Babis will be investigated further for fraud in a case involving EU subsidies, reversing an earlier decision to drop the matter.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Colombian unions and student groups held a third national strike amid fraught talks between protest leaders and the government over President Ivan Duque's social and economic policies.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen said her country would provide four more planes to NATO after holding "positive" talks with US President Trump at an alliance summit in London.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Ethiopia armed men abducted students from Dembi Dollo University in the Oromiya region. An unknown group of people blocked a bus and kidnapped students on board who were leaving for home. The students, mostly ethnic Amharas, were fleeing ethnic violence and threats in the university. 17 of the students went missing as one managed to escape. The government later said that the army had rescued 21 of the students, but at least 12 others remained missing.
(Reuters, 2/1/20)(BBC, 3/15/20)
2019 Dec 4, The European Environment Agency warned that Europe faces extreme heat waves every two years over the coming decades as the effects of climate change drive up global temperatures. The EU also said that it will likely miss its target for reducing greenhouse gases by 2030.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/19)(SFC, 12/5/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 4, President Emmanuel Macron demanded West African leaders of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania to dismiss growing anti-French sentiment across the region if they wanted France's military to continue its operations against Islamist militants.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, The French government said it is creating a national anti-hate crime office following the discovery of anti-Semitic graffiti at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France.
(SFC, 12/5/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 4, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats as it opened a formal investigation into suspicions the Kremlin was behind the killing of a man in central Berlin. Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian national, was shot dead in a Berlin park in August.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Deutsche Telekom said it has put all deals to buy 5G network equipment on hold, as it awaits the resolution of a debate in Germany over whether to bar Chinese vendor Huawei on security grounds.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Hungary's foreign minister said Budapest would block Ukraine's membership in NATO until Kiev restored the rights that ethnic Hungarians had before a language law curbed minorities' access to education in their mother tongues.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for those detained in recent gasoline price protests to be treated with “Islamic mercy" even after authorities acknowledged government forces shot and killed demonstrators nationwide in unrest that reportedly killed over 200 people. President Hassan Rouhani said Iran is willing to return to the negotiating table if the United States first drops sanctions, after a fuel price hike sparked deadly violence ahead of elections.
(AP, 12/4/19)(AFP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, An expose by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan found that the military “doubled or even tripled" the number of ultra-Orthodox men drafted for the past several years. In recent years the army has said ultra-Orthodox draft figures have surged.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government will seek to strengthen cooperation with the United States to control the flow of "arms and dollars" during meetings this week with US Attorney General William Barr.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Loss-making budget airline Norwegian Air said it is selling its Argentinian subsidiary Norwegian Air Argentina (NAA) to JetSMART Airlines for an undisclosed sum.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Poland's agriculture minister said an outbreak of African swine fever near the German border has killed 21 wild boar.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the United States was rapidly developing its military forces for potential operations in space and that Washington openly viewed space as a potential theatre of war.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Bulgaria of deliberately delaying the implementation of Russia's TurkStream natural gas pipeline on its territory and said that Moscow could find ways to bypass Bulgaria if needed.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Russian media reported that authorities have arrested a man accused of building a fake border with Finland and charging four South Asian migrants more than 10,000 euros, or $11,000, to help them cross into what they believed was the European Union.
(Insider, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that the United Nations human rights office is urging Tanzania to reconsider its decision barring individuals and non-governmental groups from filing cases against it at the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. The continental court is based in the East African nation.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2020 Dec 4, US Judge Nicholas Garaufis directed the Trump administration to fully restore the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which was designed during the Obama administration to protect younger undocumented immigrants from deportation.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, A US federal appeals court ruled that a lower court was wrong to bar the Trump administration from taking $3.6 billion from military construction projects for a border wall.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The Pentagon announced that it will remove all troops from Somalia by Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said the suspension of federal student loans payments and accruing interest set to end on Dec. 31 will be extended another month as the pandemic presents financial challenges to borrowers.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to always wear masks indoors when they're not in their homes. It's the first time the CDC has made this recommendation.
(The Week, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 4, Courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin ruled against President Trump and his allies in several lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.
(The Week, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 4, California certified its presidential election and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she and political leaders across the Bay Area were imposing new lockdown orders and business restrictions in the face of a surge in COVID-19 infections.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, California to date had 1,302,561 cases of coronavirus and 19,729 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 161,534 cases and 2,020 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 14,337,640 with the death toll at 278,594.
(sfist.com, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, David Lander (73), the actor best known for his role as Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman on the sitcom Laverne & Shirley, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after battling multiple sclerosis for many years.
(The Week, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 4, In NYC fugitive Andre Sterling (35), who shot a Massachusetts state trooper in the hand during a traffic stop two weeks ago, was killed early today during a gunfight with US marshals in the Bronx that left two of the officers wounded.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In Ohio a Franklin County sheriff's deputy shot and killed Casey Goodson (23), a black man. Goodson's family said he was shot three times in the back. Law enforcement alleged he was waving a gun, but the family said Goodson was only holding a sandwich from Subway.
(Insider, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 4, Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co and insurer UnitedHealth Group said they have partnered to conduct a study of Lilly's COVID-19 antibody treatment bamlanivimab in high-risk Medicare patients.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Former Austrian finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser was sentenced to eight years in prison in the country’s biggest corruption trial since World War Two. He and two co-defendants were convicted of accepting kickbacks of €9.6m (£8.6m) for passing insider information on the privatization of public housing.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Three of Austria's nine provinces kicked off a national effort to test as much of the population as possible before Christmas, to limit infections when families meet.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The island kingdom of Bahrain said it has become the second nation in the world to grant an emergency-use authorization for the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Britain's government reported the highest daily number of new COVID cases since Nov. 26, after the number of new positive test reports rose to 16,298 from 14,879 the day before.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson (62) was arrested on suspicion of witness intimidation and conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with a long-running police investigation into fraud in the city. Merseyside Police said five men had been arrested as part of an investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Hargobind Tahilramani (41) of Indonesia, suspected of being the "Con Queen of Hollywood", appeared in court in London. He was arrested last week and is alleged to have swindled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of hopeful actors. The US has made a provisional application for his extradition.
(BBC, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In China at least 18 coal miners were killed by high levels of carbon monoxide in the Diaoshidong mine in Chongqing.
(SFC, 12/5/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 4, China's Clover Biopharmaceuticals said its two coronavirus vaccine candidates triggered strong immune responses in an early-stage human trial and appeared to be safe. The vaccine candidates, one containing an adjuvant from GlaxoSmithKline and the other from Dynavax, induced strong immune responses including neutralizing antibodies and cell-mediated immunity in a Phase 1 clinical trial.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In France the latest case of H5N8 bird fly discovered at a farm of about 6,000 ducks due to be force-fed - a technique used to make foie gras - in the town of Benesse-Maremne, near the city of Biarritz and the Spanish border. France has already detected the H5N8 virus on birds sold in three pet stores.
(Reuters, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 4, Luxury brand Gucci, owned by French group Kering, said it will give at least $500,000 to UNICEF to help supply and distribute COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable people around the world.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Veteran German diplomat Helga Schmid, a key behind-the-scenes negotiator of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, was named as the new administrative head of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Hungary reported 189 new COVID-19 deaths, the highest daily toll since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the total death toll to 5,513.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, India's daily coronavirus cases rose by less than 40,000 for the fifth straight day, with 36,595 new infections reported in the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In Indonesia torrential rains in Medan, south Sumatra province, caused four rivers to overflow killing at least five people.
(SFC, 12/5/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 4, It was reported that Iran has told the UN nuclear watchdog it plans to install three more cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-2m centrifuges at its underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Israeli police arrested a Jewish man after he poured out a “flammable liquid" inside the Catholic Church of All Nations, built on the traditional site of the Garden of Gethsemane, in what they described as a "criminal" incident.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank killed Ali Abu Alia (13) in the Almugayer village, where the Palestinian youth was hit in the stomach and died later at a hospital.
(AP, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 4, Italy reported 814 coronavirus-related deaths, against a record 993, and 24,099 new infections, up from 23,225 the day before.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga pledged a 2 trillion yen ($19 billion) fund to promote ecological businesses and innovation to achieve his goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's office said Kazakhstan will start producing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the novel coronavirus this month and begin a mass vaccination campaign next year.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Montenegro’s parliament voted to approve a new conservative, pro-Serb coalition government, which will succeed a pro-Western party that has ruled the small Balkan nation for almost three decades.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In southern Nicaragua an unregulated gold mine collapsed killing two miners and trapping as many as 13 others.
(SSFC, 12/6/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 4, In the Philippines Lt. Gen. Cesar Binag announced that the new, one-meter rattan sticks being issued to the national Police will be used for enforcement, for measuring, or for hitting those that are hard-headed.
(Econ., 12/12/20, p.41)
2020 Dec 4, In South Africa seven people were hospitalized after an early-morning explosion and fire at an oil refinery near the harbor in the city of Durban.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, South Korea's capital, Seoul, announced unprecedented restrictions shuttering most establishments and shops at 9 p.m. and cutting back public transportation operations by 30% in the evenings, as daily coronavirus cases hit a nine-month high. South Korea recorded 62 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours bringing its total to 36,332 and 536 deaths.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)(SFC, 12/5/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 4, Switzerland said it has approved an agreement to allow free movement of service workers between the country and Britain after Brexit.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The UN said continued fighting in many parts of Ethiopia's Tigray region is hindering efforts to deliver aid.
(BBC, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The UN World Food Program (WFP) said Southern Madagascar is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The UN refugee agency said Rohingya refugees must be able to make free and informed decisions about relocating to Bangladesh's Bhasan Char island, as naval vessels began carrying 1,642 refugees towards the remote site, where CCTV cameras monitor all the streets..
(Reuters, 12/4/20)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.44)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.44)
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
749 Dec 4, John of Damascus (b.~676), a Christian Arab theologian, died at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. He is considered "the last of the Fathers" of the Eastern Orthodox church and is best known for his strong defense of icons.
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.80)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Damascus)
771 Dec 4, With the death of his brother Carloman, Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Frankish Empire.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1110 Dec 4, Syria harbor city of Saida (Sidon) surrendered to the Crusaders.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1197 Dec 4, Crusaders wounded Rabbi Elezar ben Judah.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1371 Dec 4, Reinald III (38), ("The Fat,") duke of Gelre (1343-61), died.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1514 Dec 4, Richard Hunne, English "heretic", allegedly committed suicide.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1534 Dec 4, Turkish sultan Suleiman occupied Baghdad.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1584 Dec 4, John Cotton, English-born Puritan clergyman who wrote “The Way of the Church of Christ in New England," was born.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1619 Dec 4, A group of settlers from Bristol, England, arrived at Berkeley Hundred in present-day Charles City County, Va., where they held a service thanking God for their safe arrival. Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving in America, ahead of the Pilgrims' arrival in Massachusetts.
(AP, 12/4/08)
1642 Dec 4, Cardinal Armand-Jean Duplessis Richelieu (57), French statesman and bishop of Luzon, died. "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." "He did too much harm to be praised, and too much good to be damned."
(MC, 12/4/01)(WSJ, 9/24/02, p.D8)(Econ, 1/24/04, p.75)
1665 Dec 4, Jean Racine's "Alexandre le Grand," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1679 Dec 4, Thomas Hobbes (b.1588), English philosopher, died. "The reputation of power IS power." Hobbes sought to separate politics from religion. In his book “Leviathan" he argues that the only way to secure civil society is through universal submission to the absolute authority of a sovereign.
(WSJ, 7/30/03, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.W10)(www.thefreedictionary.com/Hobbesian)
1688 Dec 4, General strategist John Churchill (later Duke of Marlborough) joined with William III.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1674 Dec 4, Father Marquette built the 1st dwelling at what is now Chicago.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1732 Dec 4, John Gay (47), English poet (Beggar's Opera), died.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1745 Dec 4, Bonnie Prince Charles reached Derby.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1783 Dec 4, Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in NYC. In 2003 Stanley Weintraub authored "General Washington's Christmas Farewell."
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)(WSJ, 12/10/03, p.D8)
1791 Dec 4, Britain's Observer, oldest Sunday newspaper in world, was 1st published.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1795 Dec 4, Thomas Carlyle (d.1881), English (Scot) essayist, critic and historian, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born. His work included “The French Revolution" and “Sartor Resartus." “A man doesn’t know what he knows, until he knows what he doesn’t know." "No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
(V.D.-H.K.p.400)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 7/2/98)(HN, 12/4/00)
1798 Dec 4, Luigi Galvani (61), Italian anatomist and physicist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galvani)
1812 Dec 4, Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pa., patented a horse-drawn mower.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1816 Dec 4, James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States. He defeated Federalist Rufus King.
(AP, 12/4/97)(MC, 12/4/01)
1822 Dec 4, Frances Crabbe, English feminist and founder of the Anti-Vivisection Society, was born.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1829 Dec 4, British colonial rulers abolished "suttee" (Sati) in India. This was the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre.
(http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/p/103.html)(Reuters, 9/21/06)
1833 Dec 4, American Anti-Slavery Society was formed by Arthur Tappan in Phila.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1835 Dec 4, Samuel Butler (d.1902), English writer and painter, was born. His work included “Erewhon" and “The Way of All Flesh." “There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule." “A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg." “Life is one long process of getting tired."
(AP, 4/25/97)(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 4/22/98)(HN, 12/4/00)
1839 Dec 4, The Whig Party opened a national convention in Harrisburg, Pa., where delegates nominated William Henry Harrison for president. Soon after the Whigs constructed a 10-foot ball of twine, wood and tin, covered with Whig slogans, and rolled it from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio, and across the country. This was later deemed the first modern presidential and led to the expression "Keep the ball rolling."
(AP, 12/4/99)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.D6)(Econ, 12/5/15, p.35)
1843 Dec 4, Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 Dec 4, Robert Schumann's "Das Paradied und die Peri," premiered in Leipzig.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1844 Dec 4, James K. Polk was elected 11th president of US. His wife, Sarah, recognized that James was insufficiently impressive to draw attention on appearance and therefore began the tradition of having “Hail to the Chief" played when he made a public showing.
(HFA, ‘96, p.46)(SFC, 7/14/96, Z 1 p.2)(MC, 12/4/01)
1861 Dec 4, Lillian Russell, singer and actress, was born Helen Louise Leonard in Clinton, Iowa. She performed in burlesque and light opera, debuting in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore in 1879. Russell was praised for her voluptuous beauty and was frequently photographed. Women everywhere tried to emulate her plump physique by buying potions and corsets to accentuate their curves. Although Russell was the ideal beauty of her time, her 186-pound figure--which she kept by eating without restraint--would be quite a departure from today's standard of beauty. Russell later wrote a newspaper column on health, beauty and love, and she died in 1922.
(HNPD, 12/3/98)
1861 Dec 4, The Federal Senate, voting 36 to 0, expelled Senator John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky because he joined the Confederate Army.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1861 Dec 4, Queen Victoria of Britain forbade the export of gunpowder, firearms and all materials for their production.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1862 Dec 4, Winchester, Va., fell into Union hands, resulting in the capture of 145 Southern soldiers.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1863 Dec 4, Seven solid days of bombardment ended at Charleston, S.C. The Union fired some 1,307 rounds.
(HN, 12/4/99)
1864 Dec 4, Battle of Waynesborough (Brier Creek) Ga.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1864 Dec 4, Romanian Jews were forbidden to practice law.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1865 Dec 4, Edith Cavell, English nurse who tended to friend and foe alike during World War I, was born.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1866 Dec 4, Wassily Kandinsky (d.1944), Russian artist, was born. He is credited with the invention of abstract art.
(WUD, 1994, p.778)(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.W10)(HN, 12/4/00)
1867 Dec 4, The Order of Patrons of Husbandry, more commonly known as the National Grange, was founded by Oliver Kelley, a traveling clerk with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The original purpose of the Grange was to provide enrichment opportunities for isolated farm families, but its purpose quickly became economic and political. Farmers, particularly in the Midwest and South, were frequently victimized by railroad monopolies that charged exorbitant rates and storage fees. By 1872, 14 states had Grange chapters and membership had risen to about 800,000. Grangers took the lead in organizing farmers' cooperatives to successfully distribute their own produce and in just a few years, Grangers had won enough political support to influence national legislation regulating railroads. The Grange was succeeded by the Farmers' Alliances and in 1891, farmers and labor organizers formed the influential People's Party, or the Populist Party.
(HFA, ‘96, p.44)(WUD, 1994, p.615)(HNPD, 12/4/98)
1875 Rainer Maria Rilke (d.1926), German-Austrian poet, was born. He was born in Prague to German-speaking parents. His works include New Poems (1907), his autobiographical novel: “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge," and his masterpieces the “Duino Elegies" and “The Sonnets to Orpheus." His mistress was Lou Andreas-Salome, a novelist, essayist and clinical psychologist. Ralph Freedman wrote a biography of Rilke titled Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke in 1996. His complete works were published in 1966 and an annotated edition in 1996. In 1997 his early work was published: “Diaries of a Young Poet," translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. On the new year day: “And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things."
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/15/97, p.A20)(AP, 1/1/98)
1875 Dec 4, William Marcy Tweed (d.1878), the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled the country. He went to Cuba and then Spain were he was identified from cartoons by Thomas Nast and returned to prison.
(AP, 12/4/97)(Arch, 7/02, p.24)
1890 Dec 4, Ben Tillman (1847-1918) began serving as the 84th governor of South Carolina and continued to 1894. From 1895 he served as a United States Senator until his death. Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the US Senate, he frequently ridiculed blacks, and boasted of having helped to kill them during that campaign.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tillman)
1892 Dec 4, Francisco Franco (y Bahamonde), Spanish general and dictator (1936-75), was born. He came to power as a result of the Spanish Civil War.
(HN, 12/4/00)(MC, 12/4/01)
1900 Dec 4, The French National Assembly, successor to the States-General, rejected Nationalist General Mercier’s proposal to plan an invasion of England.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1903 Dec 4, Alfred Leslie Rowse (d. 10/3/97), Shakespeare scholar and authority on Tudor England, was born in St. Austell, England. He authored 90 volumes of history, poetry and biography. His best seller was “A Cornish Childhood." He asserted that the “Dark Lady" in Shakespeare’s sonnets was the Italian poet Emilis Bassano Lanier.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D10)(MC, 12/4/01)
1911 Dec 4, The US Supreme Court in Grigbsy v. Russell established the policy owner’s right to transfer an insurance policy.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/nj4pe5)
1914 Dec 4, The first Seaplane Unit formed by the German Navy officially came into existence and began operations from Zeebrugge, Belgium.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1915 Dec 4, Ku Klux Klan received a charter from Fulton County, Ga.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1918 Dec 4, President Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. He was the 1st chief executive to travel outside US while in office.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1918 Dec 4, France cancelled trade treaties in order to compete in postwar economic battle.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1922 Dec 4, Gerard Philipe, actor (Caligula, Le Diable au Corps), was born in Cannes, France.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1923 Dec 4, Cecil B. DeMille's 1st version of "Ten Commandments" premiered.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1924 Dec 4, Frank Press, geophysicist, was born.
(HN, 12/4/00)
1927 Dec 4, Duke Ellington opened at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1930 Dec 4, Vatican approved the rhythm method for birth control.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1931 Dec 4, "Frankenstein" opened at Mayfair.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1933 Dec 4, Jack Kirkland's "Tobacco Road," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1935 Dec 4, 1,200 at St Joseph's College, Philadelphia, enrolled in an anticommunism class.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1941 Dec 4, The Chicago Tribune and the Washington Herald published FDR's top secret plan to invade Europe in 1943.
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.E1)
1941 Dec 4, In Yreka, Ca., the new state of Jefferson elected John C. Childs (71) as its 1st governor.
(AH, 2/05, p.22)
1941 Dec 4, Nazi ordinances placed the Jews of Poland outside protection of courts.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1941 Dec 4, Operation Taifun (Typhoon), which was launched by the German armies on October 2, 1941 as a prelude to taking Moscow, was halted because of freezing temperatures and lack of serviceable aircraft. Temperatures near Moscow fell to 40 degrees below zero the breech-blocks of German rifles froze solid. The engines of their vehicles would not start. The Soviets began a counter-attack with 17 armies and their T-34 tanks that included 25 Siberian divisions and the Nazis were forced to retreat in panic.
(SFC, 10/29/97, p.A23)(HN, 12/4/98)
1942 Dec 4, President Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1942 Dec 4, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland and Naples for the first time in World War II.
(AP, 12/4/97)(HN, 12/4/98)
1945 Dec 4, The Senate approved U.S. participation in the United Nations.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1947 Dec 4, Tennessee William's play “A Streetcar Named Desire" premiered on Broadway starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. [see Dec 3]
(HN, 12/4/00)
1948 Dec 4, SS Kiangya hit a mine in Whangpoo River, China. It sank and 2,750 were killed. [see Dec 3]
(MC, 12/4/01)
1950 Dec 4, The Feres doctrine was set by the US Supreme Court in a ruling that barred active-duty military personnel from suing for injuries sustained while on active duty and not on furlough and resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feres_v._United_States)(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A2)(SFC, 2/7/18, p.D4)
1950 Dec 4, University of Tennessee defied court rulings by rejecting five Negro applicants.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1950 Dec 4, In North Korea the US Navy's first black pilot, Ensign Jesse Brown, was downed in his fighter plane in the Jangjin Reservoir. Wing man Lt. j.g. Thomas Hudner crashed landed his plane in a failed attempt to save Brown. In 2013 Hudner returned to the site of the crash.
(AP, 7/19/13)
1951 Dec 4, Copland-Robbins' "Pied Piper," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1951 Dec 4, Superheated gases rolled down Mount Catarman (Philippines), killing 500.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1952 Dec 4, The Grumman XS2F-1 made its first flight.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1959 Dec 4, Peking pardoned Pu Yi, ex-emperor of China and of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Aisingyoro Henry Puyi, the last emperor, Xuantong, was declared rehabilitated and released as “citizen" Puyi. He settled down as a gardener and wrote the book “From Emperor to Citizen."
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(HN, 12/4/98)
1960 Dec 4, The USSR vetoed Mauritania's application for UN membership.
(EWH, 4th ed., p.1233)
1963 Dec 4, In Brazil Sen. Arnon de Mello (1911-1983), the father of future president Fernando Collor, shot and killed Senator Joseph Kairala of Acre in the Senate, but was never tried. The intended victim was Mello’s political enemy Senator Silvestre Pericles.
(Econ, 7/28/12, p.31)(http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnon_Afonso_de_Farias_Melo)
1965 Dec 4, The United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Comdr. James A. Lovell aboard.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1965 Dec 4, The Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) was founded as the official opposition party to the supporters of military rule gathered under the National Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) umbrella.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Democratic_Movement_Party)
1967 Dec 4, Bert Lahr (72), [Irving Lahrheim], US comic (Wizard of Oz), died.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1968 Dec 4, The US stock market began an 18 month decline of 44%.
(www.stockmarketcycles.com/sign_of_the_bear.htm)
1969 Dec 4, In Chicago police stormed an apartment on the West Side and killed 2 Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Panther defense minister Bobby Rush had left the site just hours earlier.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA4)
1972 Dec 4, Kenneth Parnell (1931-2008), convicted sex offender, kidnapped Steven Stayner (7) in Merced, Ca. Parnell had already served 3 years for molesting an 8-year-old boy in Bakersfield in 1952. Stayner (14) escaped in 1980 along with Timmy White (5) of Ukiah, Parnell was again sent to prison and was paroled in 1985. In 2004 Parnell returned to prison after trying to procure an African American boy.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Parnell)
1974 Dec 4, Pioneer II made its closest approach to Jupiter.
(www.astronautix.com/project/pioneer.htm)
1975 Dec 4, Ramos Horta helped form an independent East Timor government but was forced to flee 3 days before Indonesia invaded.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.A22)
1975 Dec 4, Hannah Arendt (b.1906), German-born American historian and philosopher, died. Her books included "The Origins of Totalitarianism." In 2001 Lotte Kohler edited "Within Four Walls: The Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blucher 1936-1938."
(WSJ, 8/31/99, p.A22)(SSFC, 4/15/01, BR p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt)
1976 Dec 4, Benjamin Britten (b.1913), English composer, died. Paul Kildea later authored “Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century" (2013). Neil Powell authored Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music" (2013).
(WSJ, 7/26/99, p.A21)(Econ, 3/2/13, p.79)
1977 Dec 4, Neil Simon's "Chapter Two," premiered in NYC.
(http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/simon.html)(http://tinyurl.com/yvtv65)
1977 Dec 4, Jean-Bedel Bokassa (1921-1996), ruler of the Central African Empire, crowned himself emperor in a ceremony duplicating the coronation of Napoleon. It was believed to have cost more than $100 ($25) million. Bokassa was deposed in 1979.
(AP, 12/4/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-B%C3%A9del_Bokassa)
1978 Dec 4, San Francisco got its first female mayor. The Board of Supervisors voted 6-2 for Dianne Feinstein to replace the assassinated George Moscone. The Board voted unanimously to rename Yerba Buena Convention Center after Moscone and to name a new gay community center after Harvey Milk.
(AP, 12/4/98)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.E10)
1979 Dec 4, The Jeremiah O’Brien Liberty ship was guided into dry dock at the Bethlehem Yard in SF for a $1 million project to memorialize it as one of the last WW II Liberty Ships. The project was led by Rear Admiral Thomas J. Patterson (1924-2008).
(SFC, 12/3/04, p.F8)(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.B7)
1979 Dec 4, In Saudi Arabia security forces overran the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which had been seized on Nov 16. One of two African-American converts, who had participated in the take-over of the mosque, was killed. The other was later released and returned to the US. In 2007 Yaroslav Trofinov authored “The Siege of Mecca."
(WSJ, 9/18/07, p.A8)
1980 Dec 4, In El Salvador the bodies of four American nuns slain two days earlier were unearthed. Colonel Edgardo Casanova was the military commander of the area at the time. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder and sentenced in May 1984 to 30 years in prison. In 1998 the guardsmen admitted that they were acting on orders from above. In 1993 a UN Truth Commission report concluded that Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, director of the National Guard and brother of Edgardo, and Gen’l. Jose Guillermo Garcia, the minister of defense, had organized an official cover-up. Both men were granted residence in the US. 3 of the 5 convicted guardsmen were released in 1998 due to prison overcrowding. In 1999 families of the victims filed suit against Casanova and Garcia who were living in Florida. In 2000 a federal jury cleared the 2 retired generals. In 2002 a Florida jury found Casanova and Garcia responsible for torture and ordered payment of $54.6 million to 3 victims living in Florida.
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A10) (SFC, 7/23/98, p.C2)(SFC, 5/13/99, p.C3)(SFC, 11/3/00, p.A3)(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A12)
1981 Dec 4, "Falcon Crest" premiered on CBS-TV and ran to 1990.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0081858/)
1981 Dec 4, President Reagan broadened the power of the CIA by allowing spying in the U.S. This was Executive Order on Intelligence No 12,333. The order also barred assassinations.
(HN, 12/4/98)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.57)(www.tscm.com/EO12333.html)
1982 Dec 4, Guatemalan Pres. Rios Montt met with US Pres. Ronald Reagan in Honduras. Reagan dismissed reports of human rights abuses in the region and lifted an arms embargo to resume sales to military rulers.
(SSFC, 2/14/04, p.M3)(www.consortiumnews.com/2007/012907.html)
1982 Dec 4, A new version of China’s constitution dropped the worker’s right to strike.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China)
1983 Dec 4, US jet fighters struck Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for Syrian-backed attacks on the US peacekeeping force. The Syrian anti-air defense shut down two American airplanes and a pilot was captured. The positions of the Marines at the Beirut International Airport were bombarded. Eight Marines were killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/35ek6z)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)
1984 Dec 4, A five-day hijack drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1985 Dec 4, Robert McFarland resigned as US National Security Advisor. Admiral John Poindexter was named to succeed.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1985 Dec 4, In SF, Ca., Barbara Martz (28) was raped and stabbed to death when she walked in on a robbery at her Potrero Hill home. In 2007 DNA evidence linked John Davis, already in prison at Pelican Bay, to her murder. On Aug 27 Davis was convicted of murder. On Dec 17 he sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 8/16/07, p.B3)(SFC, 8/28/07, p.B1)(SFC, 12/18/07, p.B3)
1986 Dec 4, Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4434)
1986 Dec 4, Both houses of US Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.
(AP, 12/4/06)
1987 Dec 4, Cuban inmates at a federal prison in Atlanta freed their 89 hostages, peacefully ending an 11-day uprising. The agreement provided for a nationwide moratorium on deportations of Mariel detainees.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1988 Dec 4, The government of Argentina announced that hundreds of heavily armed soldiers had ended a four-day military revolt.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1988 Dec 4, In Venezuela, former President Carlos Andres Perez was declared the winner of the country's presidential election.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1989 Dec 4, President Bush briefed NATO leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on the just-concluded Malta summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
(AP, 12/4/99)
1990 Dec 4, President Bush, on a five-nation South American tour, said in Uruguay he was not convinced that “sanctions alone" would bring Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “to his senses" about invading Kuwait.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1990 Dec 4, Due to Persian Gulf crisis gas prices hit $1.60 per gallon in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/s8h6r)
1990 Dec 4, Eric Larrabee (68), magazine editor, author, arts administrator, teacher and champion of the arts, died at his home in Manhattan. His books included “Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War" (1987).
(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/2j2tkr)
1990 Dec 4, Iraq promised to release 3300 Soviet citizens it was holding.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1991 Dec 4, The Judds’ final concert took place in Nashville.
(www.wynonna.com/?em653=22855_0__0_~0_-1_3_2006_0_0&content=judds)
1991 Dec 4, Charles Keating, Arizona land developer and chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, was convicted on 17 counts of securities fraud in state court. Keating was one of the most controversial figures in the savings and loan scandals of the late 1980s. Keating's sales personnel persuaded depositors to put their money into high-risk junk bonds.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A3)(MC, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Patricia Bowman testified at William Kennedy Smith's trial in West Palm Beach, Fla., that Smith had raped her the previous Easter weekend.
(AP, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Pan American World Airways ceased operations. However, a new, smaller version of Pan Am was later formed.
(AP, 12/4/01)
1991 Dec 4, Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest held of Western hostages in Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years in captivity. The last American hostages in Lebanon were released.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)(AP, 12/4/97)(HN, 12/4/01)
1992 Dec 4, President Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1993 Dec 4, Astronauts aboard space shuttle Endeavour captured the near-sighted Hubble Space Telescope for repairs.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1993 Dec 4, Authorities found the body of 12-year-old kidnap victim Polly Klaas in a wooded area of Cloverdale, Calif.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1993 Dec 4, Frank Zappa (52), rock musician and composer, died in Los Angeles. In 2004 Barry Miles authored “Frank Zappa: A Biography."
(AP, 12/4/98)(SFC, 12/25/04, p.E2)
1994 Dec 4, Bosnian Serbs released 53 of some 400 U.N. peacekeepers held as insurance against further NATO airstrikes.
(AP, 12/4/99)
1995 Dec 4, In a near-freezing drizzle, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1996 Dec 4, Judge Kevin Chang put a stay on the order that Hawaii allow gay marriages pending a ruling by the state Supreme Court.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.A3)
1996 Dec 4, The Mars Pathfinder [delayed from Dec 2] was launched from Cape Canaveral on a 310 million-mile odyssey to explore the planet's surface. It had a remote-controlled 22-pound, 6-wheel, roving vehicle to sample Martian soil and rock and send data back beginning on Jul 4, 1997.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A6)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)(SFC, 12/4/96, p.A4)(AP, 12/4/97)
1996 Dec 4, In South Africa a new constitution was given final approval. It would go into full effect in 1999.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 4, In Tajikistan government troops repulsed an attack by Islamic rebels. Pres. Emomali Rakhmonov was to meet with the Muslim opposition. Russia had 25,000 troops guarding the 900-mile border with Afghanistan where the rebels had bases.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1996 Dec 4, In Zaire government troops went on a rampage of looting and raping in Kisangani. Rebels announced the capture of Kindu 250 miles south of Kisangani.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C5)
1997 Dec 4, The National Basketball Association suspended All-Star Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, three days earlier. An arbitrator later reduced the suspension and reinstated Sprewell to the Warriors, which had terminated his contract.
(AP, 12/4/98)
1997 Dec 4, In Santa Claus, Ga., Jerry Scott Heidler (20) was arrested for the murder of a couple and their two children and the kidnapping of three foster children.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 4, In Canada postal workers ended their strike under threat of heavy fines with a 5.15% wage increase over 3 years.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B5)
1997 Dec 4, The EU banned tobacco advertising and gave cigarette makers until 2006 to end sponsorship of major sports and cultural events. Governments get 3 years to enact the ban beginning Oct 1988 on all advertising except at stores that sell cigarettes.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B2)
1997 Dec 4, From France it was reported that Paul Cezanne graces the new 100 franc bill. He replaced Eugene Delacroix, who was on the old bill with his painting depicting the French Revolution and its topless symbol Marianne.
(SFC, 12/4/97, p.C5)
1997 Dec 4, In Indonesia some 2,000 Dole farmworkers on Mindanao went on strike protesting low wages.
(SFC, 2/16/98, p.A10)
1997 Dec 4, In Liberia Samuel Dokie, an opposition politician, was found slain in Bong County with his wife and bodyguard. He had been reported missing after being arrested by security men in Pres. Taylor’s stronghold of Gbarnga.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B5)
1997 Dec 4, UNESCO designated additional places as World Heritage sites at a conference in Naples. Prior to the addition there were 506 sites designated over the last 25 years.
(SFC, 12/5/97, p.B7)
1998 Dec 4, It was reported that an informant known as CS-1 confessed that he participated in a bin Laden-inspired plot to attack American military facilities around the world.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec 4, The first PC for the car, made by Clarion Co., went on sale for $1,299. It use a Microsoft operating system and responded to voice commands to change radio stations and CDs, check e-mail, and use global positioning.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.D1)
1998 Dec 4, The shuttle Endeavour was launched with a crew of 6 from Cape Canaveral. It contained the 2nd component of the new int’l. space station.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 4, The London Guardian was cited in a report that 3 high security officials in Libya, were convicted and sentenced to prison for dereliction of duty. Abdullah Senussi, Musa Koussa and Mohammed al-Misrati were thought to be the superiors of the men wanted for the 1988Lockerbie Pan Am bombing.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec 4, Britain and France signed an agreement for greater cooperation in crises management and military operations. At the Anglo-French summit in St Malo, the leaders of the UK and France decided on the need for a "capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces." This led to the establishment of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP).
(www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/bg2053.cfm)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 4, In Cambodia the last Khmer Rouge fighting force surrendered, but 3 leaders refused to give up.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 4, In China Lin Hai (30), a software entrepreneur, was arrested for inciting subversion by providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to “hostile foreign organizations.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 4, From Egypt it was reported that a new 3rd party, named “Wasat" or middle party, was emerging. It was an alternative to the fundamentalist Islamic regime and the secular state.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 4, Honduras declared a national alert because of epidemics. 20,000 people were reported to have cholera and 31,000 suffered from malaria. Diarrhea was affecting some 208,000.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A10)
1999 Dec 4, NASA scientists continued to wait in vain for a signal from the Mars Polar Lander, raising questions about the whereabouts of NASA’s $165 million probe. It’s believed the spacecraft was destroyed after it plunged toward the Red Planet.
(AP, 12/4/00)
1999 Dec 4, In New Mexico 13 people were killed when a van carrying 17 crashed into a tractor-trailer on an icy stretch of I-40 35 miles east of Albuquerque. The victims were undocumented workers from Mexico.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 4, In Utah 8 teenagers taking part in a wilderness program for troubled youths beat one counselor and tied another to a tree and fled into the desert. They were all rounded up within days and 7 of 8 accepted plea bargains.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, Rose Bird (b.1936), 25th Chief Justice of the California’s highest court, died of cancer. She had taught criminal and consumer law at Stanford Law School (1972-1974). In 1977 she was appointed as chief justice by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. She left office in January 1987. As Chief Justice she was chair of the Judicial Council of California, the constitutional body responsible for improving state court administration.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A1)(www.law.stanford.edu/library/wlhbp/articles/RoseBird120699.htm)
1999 Dec 4, In Austria 5 people died and 25 injured when a barrier gave way in a stampede at snow-boarding event in Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 4, In Belgium Prince Philippe married Mathilde d'Udekem.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A2)
1999 Dec 4, In Chechnya Russian troops pillaged the Alkhan-Yurt village 10 miles southwest of Grozny and killed 17 civilians.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, In Indonesia soldiers shot and wounded at least 12 protestors in Aceh province on the 23rd anniversary of an independence movement. In Irian Jaya province an estimated 20,000 people protested for independence in Nabire, 400 miles west of the capital Jayapura.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
2000 Dec 4, Pres. Clinton set aside 84 million underwater acres along the northwestern stretch of the Hawaiian Islands as a nature reservation.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 4, In Florida Judge Sauls denied Al Gore’s request for a recount. The US Supreme Court set aside the decision by the Florida Supreme Court to extend the vote counting deadline and sent the case back to the Florida court. A Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/4/01)
2000 Dec 4, PepsiCo agreed to pay $13.4 billion to acquire Quaker Oats.
(AP, 12/4/01)
2000 Dec 4, Scientists reported that the Novartis leukemia drug STI-571 brought cancer into remission in most patients in clinical trials.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A13)
2000 Dec 4, Scientists found a deep-sea garden of hot springs and towering spires that they called the “Lost City" over 3,200 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.A2)
2000 Dec 4, In southern Congo over 10,000 refugees were driven into northern Zambia due to renewed fighting over the last 12 days.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 4, It was reported that a mutated oral polio vaccine infected at least 3 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. That standard vaccine appeared to work against the mutated strain.
(SFC, 12/4/00, p.E2)
2000 Dec 4, European Union farm ministers approved a six-month ban on animal products in fodder, part of an extraordinary plan to stem growing panic over mad cow disease.
(AP, 12/4/01)
2000 Dec 4, In India the military was attacked twice by suspected Islamic guerrillas and at least 5 people were killed. In Kashmir a bus carrying police officers fell into a gorge at Baithi Chashma in the Donda district and at least 27 officers were killed.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2000 Dec 4, Israeli soldiers wounded 25 people in the West Bank village of Husan.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A14)
2000 Dec 4, In the Ivory Coast protestors clashed with riot police in Abidjan. The city was paralyzed and least 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2000 Dec 4, Pakistan said it won’t insist to being party to Indian peace talks with Kashmiri separatists but that it must be a party to the final settlement.
(WSJ, 12/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 4, The Turkey stock market fell 8% and marked a 2-week drop of 40% as interest rates soared to 1,200%. Officials began talks with the IMF for a $5 billion loan.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2001 Dec 4, Pres. Bush announced the seizure of assets and records of the Holy Land foundation for Relief and Development based in Richardson, Texas, due to suspected ties with Hamas.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A16)
2001 Dec 4, The Bush administration ordered tons of PCBs removed from the upper Hudson River. Dredging was expected to cost GE $500 million.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 4, The US Postal Service reported a $1.7 billion loss for fiscal 2001.
(WSJ, 12/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 4, The Olympic flame began a 46-state, two-month journey from Atlanta, host city of the 1996 Summer Games, to the opening ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2001 Dec 4, A. Alfred Taubman of Sotheby’s auction house was convicted of conspiracy with his counterpart at Christie’s in a scheme that netted them some $400 million over the years.
(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D8)
2001 Dec 4, The “Goner" computer worm was reported spreading worldwide disguised as a screen saver.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 4, Edwin Huffine, US forensic scientist, launched a new DNA ID software program developed with a team of Bosnian experts at the Sarajevo-based Int’l. Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP). The program used kinship analysis.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 4, In Afghanistan US bombing continued at Kandahar and Tora Bora. Baglan and Balkh were noted as a pockets of resistance with up to 3,500 Taliban militiamen. An interim government was scheduled to take power Dec 22.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A14)
2001 Dec 4, Israeli troops moved into Palestinian-controlled territory in Ramallah and Nablus and closed off 7 West Bank cities. Israeli warplanes and helicopters bombed at least 8 targets in 5 cities and towns including a police building near Arafat’s headquarters. A police officer and a 15-year-old boy were killed.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A12)(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A1,16)
2001 Dec 4, In South Africa Marike de Klerk (64), former wife of former Pres. F.W. de Klerk, was found stabbed and strangled in her luxury apartment near Cape Town. Police arrested Luyanda Mboniswa (21), a security guard, on Dec 5. The guard confessed Dec 7. In 2003 DNA evidence linked him to the murder.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A6)(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A6)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)(AP, 4/8/03)
2001 Dec 4, In Sri Lanka the death toll reached 45, since Oct 21, as elections began for a new 225-seat Parliament. Poll violence killed 10 and an army blockade kept some 130,000 minority Tamils from casting ballots. The opposition United National Party won.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A7)(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 4, The Zimbabwe high court reversed a previous decision and ruled that seizures of white-owned farms are legal. Pres. Mugabe had expanded the court and replaced many of the justices.
(WSJ, 12/5/01, p.A1)
2002 Dec 3, The US Supreme Court justices heard arguments on whether federal laws intended to combat organized crime and corruption could be used against anti-abortion demonstrators. In Feb, 2003, the court ruled that such laws were improperly used to punish abortion opponents.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2002 Dec 4, A US federal board rejected a 1.8 billion loan guarantee for United Airlines.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 4, The governor of Mississippi signed legislation capping punitive damage awards at $20 million.
(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 4, John Weaver, historian, died in Las Vegas. His books included "Los Angeles: The Enormous Village" (1980).
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A25)
2002 Dec 4, Jesus Antonio Nunez, mayor of the western Colombian town of Ambalema, was assassinated, apparently after going to a meeting with the country's main rebel group. He was the 13th mayor killed this year.
(AP, 12/5/02)
2002 Dec 4, Security forces fired on student protesters in the East Timorese capital, killing two people and prompting angry mobs to loot shops and set fire to several buildings, including the prime minister's house.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Iraqi forces shot at allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone and U.S. planes retaliated by bombing part of the country's air defense system.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Israeli soldiers killed two suspected Islamic militants in a gun battle in a West Bank village, and Israeli helicopters fired missiles on a Palestinian government complex in the Gaza Strip, killing a security guard and injuring five people.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Kurdish militiamen of the PUK battled Islamic militants (Ansar al-Islam) believed to be linked to al-Qaida in northern Iraq, and as many as 30 militiamen were killed or wounded.
(AP, 12/4/02)(SFC, 12/6/02, p.A18)
2002 Dec 4, Separatists in Indonesia's Aceh province commemorated the 26th anniversary of their fight with at least one military flag-raising ceremony and vows to keep fighting Jakarta's rule.
(AP, 12/4/02)
2002 Dec 4, Thailand released thousands of prisoners, including many jailed for minor narcotics offences, to mark the 75th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest reigning monarch.
(Reuters, 12/4/02)
2003 Dec 4, Pres. Bush lifted tariffs on imported steel and averted a trade war with Europe.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A20)
2003 Dec 4, It was reported that some 29 million Americans selected "none" for their religious affiliation in recent polls.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Barry Bonds, SF homerun star, told a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by BALCO, but that he never thought they were steroids. The SF Chronicle obtained a transcript of his testimony in 2004.
(SFC, 12/3/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Toy seller FAO Schwartz filed for bankruptcy.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.B2)
2003 Dec 4, It was reported that scientists saw 2003 set to become the 3rd hottest year since modern temperature records began. The warmest since 1880 was 1998 followed by 2002.
(WSJ, 12/4/03, p.A10)
2003 Dec 4, Federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was attacked after leaving his office in Baltimore around midnight. His body was found 6 hours later, stabbed 36 times apparently in a furious fight for his life before drowning in a Pennsylvania creek. Luna was involved in the prosecution of rapper Deon Lionel Smith (32) and Walter Oriley Poindexter.
(AP, 12/5/03)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 4, In eastern Kosovo Sgt. Daryl Brooks (43), a US peacekeeper, was found dead with a gunshot wound in a concrete bunker inside the U.S. military base Camp Monteith.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 4, The Australian government said it will join a U.S. program to build a missile defense system, calling the threat of ballistic missiles too grave to ignore.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Congo health officials were investigating the poison deaths of 64 people, allegedly from a potion used to ward off evil spirits. A Roman Catholic priest, who allegedly administered the drink, fled the village of Bosobe early last week after people started falling ill.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 4, In India election results showed the ruling Hindu nationalist party wrested control from the opposition in three of four state legislatures.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, In Kisumu, Kenya, Tommy Thompson, US Sec. of Health and Human Services, dedicated a new $6.4 million field laboratory to be operated by the CDC. It was the largest of its kind in Africa. The local TB and malaria rates were among the highest in the world.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 4, South Korea's parliament, for the first time in 49 years, overrode a presidential veto to clear the way for an independent investigation into corruption allegations against three former aides of President Roh Moo-hyun.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, El Salvador's government ignores and sometimes contributes to widespread labor abuses, Human Rights watch said in a new report.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Palestinians opened formal talks in Egypt aimed at forging a cease-fire they hope will induce Israel to halt its attacks on militants and lead to renewed peace negotiations.
(AP, 12/4/03)(WSJ, 12/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Interpol put ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor on its most-wanted list, issuing a "red notice" calling for his arrest on war crimes charges in Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2004 Dec 4, President Bush received the president of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in the Oval Office; afterward, Bush pronounced himself "very pleased" with Pakistan's efforts to flush out terrorists.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2004 Dec 4, The euro closed at a record $1.3460. Over the next few years “it seems an excellent bet that there will be a large drop in the dollar."
(SFC, 12/7/04, p.D3)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.71)
2004 Dec 4, Miss Peru, Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia, an aspiring high school teacher, was crowned Miss World 2004 In Southern China.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Colombian drug kingpin Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela was flown to the US, becoming the most powerful Colombian trafficker ever extradited to face US justice.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Suicide attackers carried out a string of car bombings against Iraqi policemen in Baghdad and Kurdish militiamen in the north, killing 14 people and wounding at least 59.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Two US soldiers were killed and four wounded when their patrol came under attack in the northwestern city of Mosul.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Russia said India should become a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council if the top decision-making body is enlarged to reflect post-Cold War realities.
(Reuters, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 4, Zimbabwe's ruling party elected longtime cabinet minister Joyce Mujuru as the country's first woman vice-president at the end of a party congress, putting her on course to succeed Mugabe when he eventually retires in 2008.
(AFP, 12/4/04)
2005 Dec 4, Members of the former Sept. 11 commission said the US was at great risk for more terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House had failed to enact several strong security measures.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, In Washington, D.C. Robert Redford, Tina Turner, Tony Bennett, Julie Harris and ballerina Suzanne Farrell headlined the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, Film producer Gregg Hoffman (42), who developed an eight-minute film into the horror hit "Saw" and its gory successor "Saw II," died unexpectedly after complaining of pain.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated explosives on a street in the southern city of Kandahar, killing himself and a civilian and wounding two passers-by.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in France for a four-day visit. The Chinese government and the European aircraft manufacturing consortium Airbus signed a cooperation agreement at a public ceremony in Toulouse that may pave the way for the opening of an aircraft assembly plant in China.
(AFP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Croatia won its first Davis Cup title.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Hong Kong to pressure the government to speed up political reforms that would allow voters to pick the territory's leader and entire legislature.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Unidentified gunmen killed a parliamentary candidate and an Iraqi police commander in separate attacks while a bomb that detonated as a police patrol passed through central Baghdad killed three civilians.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at an abandoned building and a rocket launching ground in the northern Gaza Strip in the first aerial attack on Gaza in more than a month.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Oil-rich Kazakhstan voted in a presidential election widely expected to give Nursultan Nazarbayev another seven-year term.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Mali at a weekend Franco-African summit President Jacques Chirac called upon the US to remove the subsidies to their cotton producers. Chirac also urged rich countries to double development aid, as African leaders warned tackling poverty was crucial to stem a growing tide of illegal immigration.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Russia, the snow-covered roof of an indoor swimming pool collapsed onto parents and children in Chusovoi, a Ural Mountains town, killing 14 people, including 10 children.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Sri Lanka a land mine killed 6 Sri Lankan soldiers with 3 wounded in a northern area that is home to most of the country's Tamil minority. A government soldier near the northern city of Jaffna. The military blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels for attacks.
(AP, 12/04/05)(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, Syrian security forces clashed with militants planning to launch terror attacks in the northern city of Aleppo. Five people were wounded, including two militants.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej publicly rebuked PM Thaksin for pursuing lawsuits against media outlets that oppose his policies.
(www.bangkokpost.net/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=69917)
2006 Dec 4, The White House, unable to win Senate confirmation, said UN Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (55), leader of Iraq's largest political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), spoke with Pres. Bush for more than an hour at the White House. He became leader of the SCIRI when his brother and party founder Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was killed in a bombing in August 2003. Al-Hakim had ties to Iran and the officially disbanded Badr militia.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Truck driver Tyrone Williams was convicted in Houston of the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in May 2003.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2006 Dec 4, In Jena, La., six black students (the Jena Six) beat a white schoolmate in an altercation that stemmed from the hanging of nooses in August in a tree on school grounds under which white students regularly gathered. The black teenagers were initially charged with attempted murder, but later dropped to aggravated second-degree battery in 4 cases. In September, 2007, charges against Mychal Bell were moved to juvenile court following huge civil rights protests. It was later reported that 7 black students were involved in the Dec 4 beating. On Dec 3, 2007, Bell pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of 2nd degree battery in return for an 18-month sentence. On June 26, 2009, 5 members of the Jena 6 pleaded no contests to misdemeanor simple battery with no jail time.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A3)(SFC, 9/28/07, p.A3)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.33)(SFC, 12/4/07, p.A3)(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A5)
2006 Dec 4, Bank of New York Co. agreed to take over Mellon Financial Corp. in a $16.5 billion all-stock deal that will create the world's largest securities servicing company and one of the biggest asset managers.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Chipmaker LSI Logic Corp. and Agere Systems reached a $4 billion stock swap deal. LSI closed down 14% to $9.12 per share. LSI CEO Abhi Talwalkar offered the equivalent of $22.81 per share for Agere.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.C1)
2006 Dec 4, Station Casinos of Las Vegas said it received a $4.7 billion buyout offer from its founding family and affiliate of Colony Capital LLC, a private equity firm.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.C3)
2006 Dec 4, Shares of Pfizer Inc. fell 15.6% in opening trade, wiping out nearly $30 billion of market value, after the world's biggest drugmaker scrapped development of its most important experimental medicine. Pfizer halted work on torcetrapib, which was designed to raise levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, because of increased deaths and heart problems among patients given the product in a late-stage trial.
(Reuters, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, An E. coli outbreak that sickened at least 58 people, two of them seriously, was linked by health investigators to three Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey. The outbreak, initially believed to stem from green onions, was later believed to have come from lettuce.
(AP, 12/4/06)(SFC, 12/14/06, p.A6)
2006 Dec 4, NASA announced plans to begin building a permanent base on the moon by 2024, with the first teams landing in 2020.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.A2)
2006 Dec 4, In Afghanistan 2 journalists, whose identities and media organization were not identified, reportedly went missing in Kandahar province.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, Insurance Australia Group (IAG) announced it will buy British motor insurer Equity Insurance Group for 570 million pounds.
(AFP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Tomma Abts (38) became the first female painter in the 22-year history of Britain's $ 49,000 Turner Prize to win the controversial modern art award.
(AFP, 12/4/06)(SFC, 12/5/06, p.F8)
2006 Dec 4, PM Tony Blair has announced plans for Britain to retain its nuclear deterrent but promised to cut the number of nuclear warheads by 20%. Blair also launched plans for a new multibillion-dollar submarine-based nuclear missile defense system, warning lawmakers the future may hold perilous threats from rogue regimes and state-sponsored terrorists.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, China’s state media said Ying Fuming, a manager at the Fanchang Grease Factory in Taizhou in east China, has been arrested for using grease from swill, sewage, pesticides and recycled industrial oil to make lard for human consumption. 6 children died of possible food poisoning at a boarding school at the school in Nanyao, a village in northern Shanxi province.
(AP, 12/4/06)(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 4, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said police had arrested an American, 11 Europeans and several others from Arab countries for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Middle Eastern countries including Iraq.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, The Estlink cable connected power grids of the Baltic States with Finland. The cost of Estlink, which measures 100 kilometers (60 miles), was around 110 million euros (132 million dollars). It was built by Swiss-Swedish group ABB.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Fiji soldiers moved against at least two police compounds, seizing weapons in the apparent first step toward taking over the South Pacific island nation.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Haiti as many as 30 inmates escaped through a small hole in a prison wall in the latest of several breakouts from the overcrowded National Penitentiary.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 4, Police in eastern India were alerted that a container, packed with radioactive material, had been stolen from a fortified research facility, prompting a major hunt and fears of contamination. It carried uranium and radiation and could have an adverse effect in an area of 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mile).
(AFP, 12/23/06)
2006 Dec 4, Drive-by shootings and a suicide car bomber killed at least seven Iraqis and wounded five. American forces killed two militants and destroyed a vehicle packed with explosives. A US helicopter went down in Lake Qadisiyah west of the Iraqi capital, killing one Marine and leaving three missing in Anbar province. An insurgent attack on an American military patrol in Baghdad killed Pfc. Ross McGinnis and wounded five. Another US serviceman died in southern Iraq in an accident involving his vehicle. In 2008 Pres. Bush awarded the Medal of Honor to McGinnis, who had placed his body between a grenade and 4 comrades.
(AP, 12/4/06)(AP, 12/5/06)(WSJ, 6/3/08, p.A4)(www.iraqwarheroes.org/mcginnisra.htm)
2006 Dec 4, The Israeli army killed a Palestinian and arrested 17 militants in raids across the West Bank, despite a decision by the military to scale back such operations in order to bolster a shaky truce with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, Against a backdrop of protests, the defense minister gave citations to Dutch troops who served in the UN peacekeeping force that failed to prevent the slaughter of Muslims in the Srebrenica enclave during the Bosnian war.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Pakistan at least eight people were killed in torrential rains and flooding, which blocked roads and caused widespread disruption in several cities.
(AFP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Peru a bus speeding through the fog on a twisting mountain road in the Andes fell 1,320 feet into a ravine, killing 45 people.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was convicted in the Philippines of raping a Filipino woman and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2006 Dec 4, Rescuers in the Philippines all but gave up hope of finding survivors in mudslide-swamped villages on the slopes of the Mayon volcano, five days after Typhoon Durian killed an estimated 1,000 people.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Russia's atomic energy agency declined to comment on Japanese news reports that North Korea had offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits in exchange for support at six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Russia gave a frosty welcome to a team of British counter-terror officers probing the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, and laid down some strict ground rules for their work in Moscow.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Sudan militias entered El Fasher, the main town in the Darfur region and started looting the market. Militias there fought members of a former rebel group in clashes which the rebels said left up to seven people dead.
(AP, 12/4/06)(Reuters, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 4, Turkish security forces clashed with an angry crowd trying to lynch a man accused of raping several girls and killing two of them in southeastern Turkey. One person was killed in the violence, and at least 22 were injured.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2007 Dec 4, Defending his credibility, President George W. Bush said Iran was dangerous and needed to be squeezed by international pressure despite a blockbuster intelligence finding that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program four years earlier. The intelligence report on Iran figured in a Democratic debate on National Public Radio as rivals assailed front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton for voting in favor of a Senate resolution designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2007 Dec 4, The governors of Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency after a severe storm smacked the region with hurricane-force winds and several inches of rain. At least four people were killed by the storm.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Pimp C (33), born as Chad Butler, was found dead in an upscale hotel in Los Angeles. He had spun searing tales of Texas street life into a key role in the rise of Southern hip-hop.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Kabul US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was pushing the world's countries for more commitment to Afghanistan's fight against growing extremist violence. A suicide car bomber targeted a NATO convoy in Kabul, wounding 22 civilians passing nearby. An explosion struck a patrol of NATO-led troops, leaving one soldier dead and two others wounded.
(AP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, Sen. Renan Calheiros, president of Brazil's Senate, resigned while fighting allegations of corruption. Calheiros, a key ally of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, retained his position as a senator. A legislative commission voted 17-3 last week to recommend his expulsion after finding evidence that he used third parties to illegally acquire two radio stations and a newspaper.
(AP, 12/4/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.43)
2007 Dec 4, New census data said one in five people in Canada last year was born in another country, the highest proportion since the 1930s. The Bank of Canada cut its key overnight interest rate by one-quarter point to 4.25 percent, saying it expects US subprime mortgage woes and financial market fallout to last longer than anticipated.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, The Chadian army fought heavy battles against rebel forces in the east of the country near the border with Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, France and Algeria agreed to cooperate on civilian nuclear technologies. French oil group Total said it had signed a deal to invest about 1.5 billion dollars in a new 3.0-billion-dollar (2.0 billion euros) petrochemical plant in Algeria.
(AFP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Greece and Turkey agreed to joint military measures aimed at easing tensions and improving ties.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 4, Police in northern India broke up a major tiger poaching ring, arresting an alleged kingpin and 15 others.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 4, Iran's foreign minister welcomed the US decision to "correct" its claim that Tehran has an active nuclear weapons program, while Israel's defense minister said Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop an atomic weapon.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iran Makwan Moloudzadeh, a man convicted of raping three boys when he was 13 years old, was hanged despite a chief justice's order that the case be reviewed.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iraq Sunni Arab lawmakers ended a yearlong boycott of politics in Kirkuk, after the Kurdish majority agreed to allot one-third of government jobs to Arabs and appoint an Arab as deputy governor. A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police station in Jalula, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 30. Kidnappers of five Britons, seized on May 29, demanded that Britain pull all its forces from Iraq, according to a new video broadcast made on Nov 18. The US military said 40 senior al Qaeda in Iraq members were either captured or killed in November, including a senior adviser to the Sunni Islamist group's leader. Three US soldiers were killed in a "complex attack" involving a roadside bomb and small arms fire north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, Israel said it is seeking bids to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing Palestinian condemnations that the move is undermining the newly revived peace talks.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Italy Vincenzo Santapaola, a suspected Mafia boss, and scores of alleged mobsters were arrested during raids in Catania, Sicily. Police also seized weapons and drugs, and found a book that listed extortion fees and salaries of the people working for the family.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Mexico gunmen shot and killed a deputy police chief inside his house in the border city of Tecate.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, State media said Myanmar's military junta has completed the release of 8,585 prisoners, but it was unclear if any of those released were among those detained during the crackdown.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In southern Nigeria pirates attacked a vessel operated by oil major ExxonMobil in the Niger Delta, killing a crew member and injuring another.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Former PM Nawaz Sharif said that Pakistan's major opposition parties will demand the end of emergency rule and the release of former Supreme Court judges as a condition for their participation in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Tens of thousands of mineworkers downed tools in South Africa in a one-day strike over safety standards, accusing their bosses of putting lives at risk for the sake of profits.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, UN human rights experts said Sudanese forces and allied militia have killed several hundred civilians in ground attacks and aerial bombardments on villages in Darfur in the past six months.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In southern Thailand a bomb killed six people and injured 20 in one of the deadliest attacks in recent months.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, American officials confirmed that Vietnam is holding four US citizens, hours after gaining their first consular access to two of the detainees, both Vietnamese-born pro-democracy activists.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2008 Dec 4, AT&T Inc. joined the recession's parade of layoffs by announcing plans to cut 12,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its work force.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Afghanistan 2 Danish soldiers serving with NATO's force were killed in southern Helmand province. The governor of Afghanistan's key southern Kandahar province said he was sacked by the central government and complained that powerful people in his region had been sabotaging his work. US-led troops killed four militants in Helmand province, after the insurgents fired on a joint US-Afghan patrol.
(AFP, 12/4/08)(AP, 12/4/08)(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Afghanistan eight prisoners were killed at Kabul's Pol-i-charki Prison, during a clash between guards and prisoners.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 4, The Bank of England cut its base interest rate from 3% to 2%, a rate last seen in 1951.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.74)
2008 Dec 4, In Burundi a summit was held in Bujumbura stating the position of the Great Lakes region on the implementation of the peace agreements signed at the Dar es Salaam summit of 2006 in Tanzania.
(http://allafrica.com/stories/200812040216.html)
2008 Dec 4, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper won a rare suspension of Parliament, managing to avoid being ousted by opposition parties angry over the minority Conservative government's economic plans and an attempt to cut off party financing.
(Reuters, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, In eastern China a fire at the dormitory of a seafood company killed 11 workers and injured 10 others.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, The Danish navy intercepted and sunk a suspected pirate vessel drifting off Somalia. 7 men were handed over to authorities in Yemen but were not immediately suspected of any crime.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 4, Europe's top human rights court ruled that storing DNA from people with no criminal record is in breach of their rights, a landmark decision that could force Britain to destroy the samples of nearly 1 million people on its database.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, In France armed robbers, some disguised as women, snatched €85 million ($108 million) worth of diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a Harry Winston boutique on a posh Paris avenue in one of the largest jewel heists in history. In June, 2009, French police arrested 25 suspects in connection with the robbery and recovered some of the jewelry. In 2011 investigators found jewels valued at $25 million in a plastic container set in a cement mold inside a sewer at a home in the Paris suburb of Seine-St. Denis. The house belonged to one of the 9 people charged in the heist. On Feb 27, 2015, eight were convicted on charges including armed robbery over the heist and another a year earlier at the same store.
(AP, 12/5/08)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A4)(AP, 2/28/15)
2008 Dec 4, The Luxembourg-based European Court of First Instance said EU governments "violated the rights of defense" of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), and that the EU nations have not provided sufficient proof to blacklist the group.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Iraq's presidential council approved a security pact that sets out a three-year timeframe for US troops to leave, the final step for the agreement to replace a UN mandate that expires Dec. 31. Two suicide bombers in explosives-laden trucks took aim at police stations in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 100. A suicide car bomber killed two US soldiers and wounded nine Iraqi civilians near a checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul. A bomb in Baquba killed 3 people.
(AP, 12/4/08)(SFC, 12/5/08, p.A23)
2008 Dec 4, Rioting by Jewish settlers spread in the West Bank after Israeli soldiers forcibly removed about 250 extremists from a disputed house in the center of Hebron. Banks in the Gaza Strip shut down to count their dwindling cash. Israel lifted a four-week-old ban on international journalists entering the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Pirates attacked an oil-services vessel before dawn off the coast of Nigeria and kidnapped two foreign workers.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Drug agents in Peru seized 3 tons of cocaine mixed into a shipment of guano bound for Spain. Four Peruvians and a Colombian were arrested.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Somalia 20 men and women graduated from medical school in Mogadishu, something that nobody in Somalia has done in nearly two decades.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 4, Sweden’s central bank cuts its benchmark interest rate from 3.75% to 2% saying monetary policy was less effective than usual.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.92)
2008 Dec 4, Zimbabwe declared a national emergency over a cholera epidemic and the collapse of its health care system, as the government sought more international help to pay for food and drugs to combat the crisis.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2009 Dec 4, The New York Times reported that the White House has authorized the CIA to expand the use of unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan to track down and strike suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda members.
(AFP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, GM and its Chinese partner SAIC announced a joint venture to produce small cars in India.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.72)
2009 Dec 4, Afghan troops and US Marines launched the first offensive since President Barack Obama announced an American troop surge, striking against Taliban communications and supply lines in Helmand province. About 1,000 Marines as well as Afghan troops were taking part in the operation, known as "Cobra's Anger."
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, NATO said 25 countries had pledged a total of around 7,000 more troops to support the US-led war in Afghanistan, following President Barack Obama's commitment of 30,000 extra US troops.
(Reuters, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In northern Bangladesh an overcrowded passenger boat capsized after being hit by a small ferry, leaving at least 46 people dead. 18 Bangladesh fishermen were assaulted in the Bay of Bengal off the southern coast of Bangladesh after pirates attacked by a band of 25-30 pirates. The survivors said the pirates severely beat them and slashed some of the fishermen with knives before throwing them all overboard. 16 fishermen remained missing.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 4, In southern Brazil at least 20 people were reported dead in mudslides triggered by heavy rains as rivers rose to rooftops and thousands were left homeless.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, China sentenced three more people to death for murder and other crimes committed in riots in the western region of Xinjiang in July.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In China the file-sharing site BTCHINA, a major source of overseas movies, television shows and games in the country, was closed. Another site, VeryCD.com, was down on Dec 9 and a report in the Southern Metropolis Daily said other file sharing sites would be closed in the coming days. The closures were said to be a fight against copyright infringement, but could be seen as another measure aimed at controlling what content the country's Web users can find online.
(AP, 12/9/09)
2009 Dec 4, A leading Ethiopian newspaper said it had closed down as a result of months of government "persecution and harassment" against its staff. The weekly Addis Neger newspaper, often critical of government policies, published its last edition on Dec 5 before some of its staff fled the country for fear of arrest.
(AFP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Major European public financial institutions launched a pan-European equity fund to boost key EU policies in areas such as climate change, energy security and transport networks.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Guatemala retired Col. Marco Antonio Sanchez was convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison in the forced disappearance of civilians during Guatemala's civil war. The convictions for the 1981 abductions at the village of El Jute were the first ever under charges of failing to respect the rights of civilians.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Indian officials said Arabinda Rajkhowa, the commander of a powerful rebel movement in the remote northeast, was arrested along with a top deputy. Security officials said the chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, was actually arrested days earlier in Bangladesh, where he had long been thought to be hiding.
(AP, 12/4/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.47)
2009 Dec 4, A jailed Mafia hitman linked Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi to the Cosa Nostra, telling a court that a godfather convicted for a 1993 bombing campaign had boasted of his links to the media mogul.
(Reuters, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Italy Amanda Knox of Seattle, Wa., was convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher (21), her British roommate on Nov 1, 2007. The conviction was announced at around midnight after 13 hours of deliberations. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison. The court also convicted Knox's co-defendant and former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, and gave him a 25-year jail term for the murder. Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast citizen, had already been convicted in the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Fazal Haque Qureshi (64), an Indian Kashmiri separatist leader who supports talks with New Delhi over the restive region's future, was critically wounded by unknown attackers.
(AFP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Kenyan health officials said a cholera epidemic was sweeping across the country with 4,700 cases reported in the past month along with 119 deaths.
(SFC, 12/5/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 4, In northern Mexico a pair of shootouts between troops and gunmen killed 13 people in a suburb of Monterrey, including a bystander and a drug trafficker linked to the killing of a retired army officer. Almanza Morales, killed in the attack, was accused of working for the Zetas, drug traffickers who also serve as enforcers for the Mexican Gulf cartel, and of killing army Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza and his four bodyguards in a November attack.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a Cabinet meeting amid Mount Everest's frigid, thin air to highlight the danger global warming poses to glaciers. Landless laborers in the far west, backed by Maoists, claimed tracts of government owned forest for themselves. National security forces opened fire and burned squatter’s huts. 3 people died in the clashes.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/5/09)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.46)
2009 Dec 4, Amsterdam City councilwoman Marijke Vos planted a sapling, in the Amsterdamse Bos park. It was derived from a 150-year-old chestnut tree that once cheered Anne Frank as her family hid from the Nazis. 149 Others will be planted around the world.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, North Korea made an unlikely foray into designer denim as the "Noko Jeans" label was launched in Sweden. The brand is Swedish but the black jeans are manufactured in North Korea, an experiment its creators described as a way to open doors to the reclusive communist country. The next day Stockholm’s PUB department store removed the new line of designer jeans from its shelves, saying it wants to avoid courting controversy through ties with the isolated communist nation. Noko Jeans founders said they will continue to sell the jeans on their Web site and that retailer Aplace will continue to sell them on their Web site.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Pakistan militants stormed a mosque in Rawalpindi near Pakistan's army headquarters, killing at least 37 people, including 6 army officers and 3 soldiers. They attacked during prayers spraying gunfire and throwing grenades before blowing themselves up.
(AP, 12/4/09)(SFC, 12/5/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 4, Philippine security forces raided four compounds belonging to a powerful clan suspected in the massacre of 57 people in the Philippines' worst political violence. Soldiers using metal detectors, sniffer dogs and an excavator dug up more than a dozen crates of bullets in the mansion of a local mayor linked to last week's massacre.
(AP, 12/4/09)(Reuters, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Sudan gunmen killed three Rwandan soldiers in an ambush in the northern town of Saraf Umra in the western Darfur region.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 4, In Switzerland Roman Polanski took refuge at his snowbound chalet after being granted bail under house arrest, while he fights extradition to the US on a child sex case.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2010 Dec 4, President Barack Obama signed legislation giving the lame-duck Congress two more weeks to try to pass a legislation funding the government for the rest of the budget year, through September.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 4, Mill Valley, Ca., resident John Nuzzo (65) died of an apparent heart attack. He was better know to legions of fans as John Leslie, an adult film actor who appeared in over 300 movies before becoming a prolific director.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.C5)
2010 Dec 4, In southwestern China an explosion caused by illegally stored chemicals killed seven people and injured 37 at an Internet café.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, The Colombian Red Cross said the toll from weeks of heavy rains across Colombia has risen to 174 people dead and over 1.5 million homeless.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Haiti 17 people died when a group taxi slammed into a truck on a blind curve in the southern peninsula town of Aquin.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Iraq bombs killed 17 people across Baghdad, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighborhood market.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Israel said it was disappointed by Brazil's decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was sworn in for a new term even though the UN and world leaders maintain his opponent won the disputed election, which was the West African nation's first since a civil war.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northern Israel a massive fire was still consuming swathes of land, with little sign Israeli and foreign firefighters were winning the battle to contain it.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Jamaica an oil spill was discovered in Kingston Harbor. Authorities were still investigating a Nov 22 spill in the capital's harbor, the 7th-largest natural harbor in the world.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northeastern Nigeria a shootout between suspected members of a radical Muslim sect and security forces killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Russia a Dagestan Airlines passenger jet, carrying at least 155 people, made an emergency landing at a snowy Moscow airport after its engines failed. It skidded off the runway and slammed into buildings, killing two people and injuring around 40.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, It was reported that South African gangsters were stealing supplies of the antiretroviral drug Stocrin. They were mixing it with cannabis, rat poison and some other ingredients to make a lethal new drug called whoonga (wunga), used to produce a cheap high.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.60)
2011 Dec 4, In southeast Georgia 4 Army soldiers based at Fort Stewart killed Michael Roark (19), a former comrade, and his girlfriend, Tiffany York (17), to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks. On Aug 27, 2012, Pfc. Michael Burnett (26) gave testimony and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, illegal gang activity and other charges. He made a deal to cooperate with prosecutors against the three other soldiers.
(AP, 8/27/12)
2011 Dec 4, Washington DC police detained over 30 people in a standoff at the Occupy DC campaign in McPherson Square.
(SFC, 12/5/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 4, It was reported that final preparations were underway for the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM. The high-end price tag estimate of $5.8 billion is almost $1 billion more than New Mexico's annual state budget and more than double the lab's annual budget.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Australia’s Labor party passed PM Julia Gillard's proposal with 206 votes to 185, reversing a decades-old policy excluding New Delhi from Australia's uranium trade because it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Brazil Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira (57), footballer and political agitator, died. In 2007 he authored “Football Philosophy."
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.106)
2011 Dec 4, Black Mirror, a British science fiction television anthology series, was released. It was created by Charlie Brooker and centered around dark and satirical themes that examine modern society, particularly with regard to the unanticipated consequences of new technologies.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror)(Econ, 2/11/17, SR p.6)
2011 Dec 4, Croatians voted in a parliamentary election expected to unseat long-dominant conservatives and empower a center-left coalition. The vote for 151-seat parliament pits the governing center-right Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, against a coalition of left-leaning parties. The latter has led recent opinion polls.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, DR Congo President Joseph Kabila led chief rival Etienne Tshisekedi 49 percent to 34 with about half of polling centers counted.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In the Dominican Rep. Sonia Pierre (48), a human rights activist who bravely fought discrimination against poor Dominicans of Haitian descent, died.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Egypt initial election results showed that Islamist parties won 65% of all votes cast for parties in the first round of parliamentary polls. The secular liberals, who played a key part in the January-February uprising, managed just 13.4%.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In eastern India a landmine attack by Maoist rebels struck the convoy of a senior politician, killing ten policemen and a young boy in Jharkhand state.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Indonesia 11 people were killed when a high concrete wall collapsed in a housing complex during a heavy downpour in Makassar, Sulawesi island.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian armed forces have brought down an unmanned US spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border. Iran said it used advanced electronic warfare measures to detect, hack and bring down an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel drone. It suffered minor damage and was now in possession of Iran's armed forces." Footage of the drone was aired on Dec 8.
(AP, 12/4/11)(SSFC, 12/11/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 4, In Iraq explosions killed six people, including a father and son who were assembling a makeshift bomb that accidentally detonated inside their home in Kirkuk. In Baghdad a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi military convoy in the capital's western suburb of Abu Ghraib. 4 soldiers were killed.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, In Srinagar, Kashmir, authorities used batons, tear gas and water canons to break up Muslim religious processions held in defiance of a strict curfew.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Kazakhstan prosecutors said a clash outside the commercial capital of Almaty has left five militants and two government troops dead. The fighting occurred as security services cornered suspects wanted in the murder last month of two policemen in Almaty.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Pilots at Lebanese national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) ended a five-day strike in protest at the dismissal of a cancer-stricken colleague which grounded dozens of flights at Beirut airport.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, The Mexican army said that it has seized a total of at least 167 antennas, 155 repeaters, 166 power sources, 71 pieces of computer equipment and 1,446 radios. The equipment was taken down in several cities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and the northern states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas. The network was built around 2006 by the Gulf cartel, a narcotics-trafficking gang that employed a group of enforcers known as the Zetas, who had defected from Mexican army special forces.
(AP, 12/26/11)
2011 Dec 4, Morocco's main leftwing party said it had decided not to take part in a government coalition led by the country's moderate Islamists.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, The Kathmandu-based Int’l. Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) published reports showing that Nepal's glaciers have shrunk by 21 percent and Bhutan's by 22 percent over the last 30 years.
(AFP, 12/5/11)
2011 Dec 4, In northern Nigeria gunmen from a radical Muslim sect raided Azari town, Bauchi state, bombing police stations and robbing banks in an attack that killed at least six people.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Peru’s President Ollanta Humala declared a state of emergency in the northern department of Cajamarca following weeks of protests against the Minas Conga mining project.
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.42)
2011 Dec 4, Russians cast their ballots with muted enthusiasm in parliamentary elections. Several parties complained of extensive election violations aimed at boosting the vote count of United Russia, the party of PM Vladimir Putin. An election official later described how he had manipulated the vote at his polling station to give Putin's party the desired 65 percent, when in fact it had won no more than 25 percent.
(AP, 12/4/11)(AP, 3/4/12)
2011 Dec 4, In Singapore hundreds of people gathered at a park to protest sexual violence against women as part of the global "SlutWalk" movement, in a rare public demonstration in the tightly controlled city state.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Slovenians voted in an early election expected to bring conservatives back to power, where they will have to tackle the country's mounting debt, unemployment and a looming recession. President Danilo Turk said that "the most important task of the new government will be to restart economy." The outgoing center-left government of PM Borut Pahor has failed to push through pension and labor reform requested by the EU. The center-left Positive Slovenia party won with 28.5% of the ballots.
(AP, 12/4/11)(AP, 12/13/11)
2011 Dec 4, Syria signaled it still might be willing to comply with the Arab League's plan, saying its objections were simply a matter of details. In central Syria new violence killed at least six people, including a female university professor and a father and his three children.
(AP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 4, Yemeni officials said clashes between the army and tribal fighters in Taiz have left at least 28 people dead over the last 3 days. Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi formed a military commission under the Gulf Cooperation Council agreement to oversee the restructuring of the security forces, many of which are controlled by Saleh's relatives.
(SFC, 12/5/11, p.A2)(AFP, 12/6/11)
2012 Dec 4, A ban on nudity in San Francisco was given final approval by the city’s Board of Supervisors in a raucous meeting at which several people stripped naked in board chambers.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.C1)
2012 Dec 4, It was reported that conservationsists have saved some 3,000 acres in California’s Sierra Nevada. The Truckee Donner land Trust and Trust for Public Land closed an $8 million deal to buy Webber Lake and Lacey Meadows at the headwaters of the Little Truckee River.
(SFC, 12/4/12, p.A1)
2012 Dec 4, Researchers at Duke University reported that the lions of Africa's savannahs have lost as much as 75% of their habitat in the last 50 years as humans overtake their land and the lion population dwindles.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Branislav Milinkovic (52), Serbia's ambassador to NATO, was chatting and joking with colleagues in a multistory parking garage at Brussels Airport when he suddenly strolled to a barrier, climbed over and flung himself to the ground below.
(AP, 12/5/12)
2012 Dec 4, The British government said Chancellor George Osborne will invest 5 billion pounds in schools, science and transport projects.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, A top official of the World Wide Fund for Nature said that despite armed guards, Cameroon's dwindling elephant population is being decimated by heavily armed gangs of international poachers.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, In southern China a fire in a clothing factory apparently caused by arson killed 14 people in Shantou city, Guangdong province. The victims were all women aged 18-20. The next day suspect Liu Shuangyun said he started the fire due a longtime dispute over less than $500 in unpaid wages.
(AP, 12/4/12)(SFC, 12/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 4, Thousands of Egyptians massed in Cairo for a march to the presidential palace to protest the assumption by the nation's Islamist president of nearly unrestricted powers and a draft constitution hurriedly adopted by his allies. Several independent Egyptian newspapers suspended publication. The media protest involved at least eight influential dailies and was part of a planned campaign of civil disobedience.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Iran claimed it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, but the US Navy said all its unmanned aircraft in the region were "fully accounted for."
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, In Iraq gunmen broke into a house in eastern Baghdad, killing six members of an Iraqi family.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Eamon Kelly (65), a senior figure in Ireland's criminal underworld, was chased down the street and shot to death near his Dublin home, two years after surviving a similar assassination bid. The Real IRA paramilitary group was suspected of being behind the hit. Real IRA figures in recent years have demanded a slice of the gangsters' drug-trafficking profits in exchange for not killing them or burning down their business fronts.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Israel said it is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn't halt such construction.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Tuareg rebels of northern Mali agreed to stop pursuing a separate state during talks with Mali’s government in Burkina Faso.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 4, Namibia's President Hifikepunye Pohamba said that Hage Geingob will return to serve as the nation's prime minister as part of a major cabinet reshuffle. Geingob's elevation came after he was confirmed Dec 2 as SWAPO's vice president.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, In the southern Philippines at least 78 villagers and soldiers drowned when torrents of water dumped by a powerful typhoon cascaded down a mountain, engulfing emergency shelters and an army truck in Andap village. The deaths toll from Typhoon Bopha (aka Typhoon Pablo), one of the strongest storms to hit the country this year, reached nearly 600 with another 600 missing.
(AP, 12/4/12)(AP, 12/5/12)(AP, 12/8/12)(SSFC, 12/9/12, p.A4)
2012 Dec 4, In northeastern Somalia militants attacked an army post, killing 12 soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks in recent months by the al-Qaida-linked group.
(AP, 12/5/12)
2012 Dec 4, Syrian state media said a mortar slammed into a school in the Damascus suburbs, killing 29 students and a teacher. Syrian forces fired artillery at rebel targets in and around the capital. The international community grew increasingly alarmed about the regime's chemical weapons stocks. Naji Assaad, a journalist for the state-run Tishrin newspaper, was killed near his home in al-Tadhamon, a suburb of Damascus.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Off the coast of Istanbul a cargo ship sank in a severe storm in the Black Sea and a Turkish rescue boat searching for its missing crew hit nearby rocks and also went down. At least three people were killed and 10 others were missing in the two sinkings.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 4, Vietnam said it would begin new patrols in the South China Sea after it accused a Chinese fishing boat of cutting a seismic cable attached to one of its vessels exploring for oil and gas. India also said it would consider sending navy vessels to protect its interests in the area.
(SFC, 12/5/12, p.A3)
2012 Dec 4, Amnesty International charged in a new report that Al-Qaida committed "horrific" rights abuses during its 16 months in power in southern Yemen.
(AP, 12/4/12)
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)
2014 Dec 4, Stuart Jones, America's new Ambassador to Iraq, said the US government has come to an agreement with Baghdad on "privileges and immunities" for US troops based in the country.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In the SF Bay Area swarms of protesters swept through Oakland and San Francisco for a 2nd straight night to castigate authorities for the killings of unarmed black men by police triggered by recent events in Missouri and NYC.
(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A18)
2014 Dec 4, In Kansas City, Mo., SUV driver Ahmed Aden (34), a local Somali of Chriostian faith, ran over a Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein (15) and drove away. Aden was charged with murder on Dec 5. Locals said he had been harassing the community with anti-Islamic taunts and violent threats.
(http://tinyurl.com/lu84xv8)(SFC, 12/6/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 4, Australia for the first time exercised sweeping new security powers allowing it to block citizens from traveling to overseas conflict zones such as those in Iraq and Syria, where dozens of Australians have joined Islamist militant groups.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, The Bosnia-based Int’l. Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), established in 1996, said it will become a permanent global body to help track missing persons around the globe.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, pA20)
2014 Dec 4, Canada’s Indsutry Minister James Moore signed off on the takeover of US-based Burger King by Ontario-based Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops.
(SFC, 12/5/14, p.C2)
2014 Dec 4, In Chechnya gunmen stormed a building in Grozny killing some 19 people, including 10 police. 6 gunmen were reported killed.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A8)
2014 Dec 4, China marked its first Constitution Day as part of President Xi Jinping's drive to show that the country embraces rule of law while ensuring that the ruling Communist Party holds on to its unrivaled authority.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Hungary's economy minister says the state has signed a preliminary deal to buy Budapest Bank, the country’s 8th largest bank by assets, from General Electric by June 30.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In northern India 5 children were killed when a train crashed into their school van at the unmanned Mahaso railroad crossing, Uttar Pradesh state.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In Iraq a string of car bombs killed at least 37 people in Baghdad and Kirkuk.
(AP, 12/4/14)(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 4, In Italy Ignazio Marino, the mayor of Rome, ordered a review of city contracts after a police investigation revealed a web of corrupt relationships between politicians and criminals in the Italian capital.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In Kenya two men were reported jailed for gang raping children after Kenya's high court in 2013 ordered the police to re-open 10 cases where officers had yelled at, demanded bribes from and even locked up girls who tried to report rape to them.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, A Kenyan military aircraft crashed in the region of the southern Somali city of Kismayu due to technical problems after a combat mission.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Kurdish sources said a second group of 150 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces has entered the Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey to replace a first group helping Kurdish forces fight off a siege by Islamic State militants.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, The Philippine anti-corruption prosecutor ordered the suspension of the country's top police officer in connection with a contract with a courier company to deliver gun licenses.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said money collected in one of the country’s two "rainy day" funds should be used to support domestic banks, as he set out efforts to help Moscow counteract Western sanctions and overcome its economic woes. Putin also proposed an amnesty for those returning capital to Russia, indicating they would not face tax or other penalties.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Slovakia's PM Robert Fico said his government is terminating the lease of a major state-owned hydro power plant to Enel, an Italian energy company. Enel owns a 66 percent stake in Slovakia's major power producer, Slovenske elektrarne, and is currently trying to sell its share. The government owns the remaining 34 percent.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, In Syria at least 19 government soldiers and militiamen were reported killed after Islamic State launched an overnight attack on one of the government's last remaining strongholds in Deir al-Zor province. 7 IS fighters were reported killed.
(AP, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Yemeni and Western sources said Saudi Arabia has suspended most of its financial aid to Yemen, in a clear indication of its dissatisfaction with the growing political power of Shi'ite Houthi fighters friendly with Riyadh's regional rival, Iran.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Al Qaeda's Yemen branch published a video purporting to show an American hostage and threatened to kill him if unspecified demands were not met. Journalist Luke Somers (33) was kidnapped in Sanaa in September 2013.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2014 Dec 4, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe (90) purged VP Joice Mujuru (59) seen just months ago as his most likely successor, denouncing her before party loyalists as leader of a "treacherous cabal" bent on removing him from power.
(Reuters, 12/4/14)
2015 Dec 4, The Spike Lee musical film “Chi-Raq" was released. It was about gang violence on Chicago’s South Side. It was a contemporary take on Lysistrata, the 411BC Greek comedy by Aristophanes.
(Econ, 12/12/15, p.32)
2015 Dec 4, The United States and its allies targeted Islamic State with 12 strikes in Iraq and 11 in Syria.
(Reuters, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, The US Center for Disease Control said that seven additional people in three more states have been sickened in an E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle.
(SFC, 12/5/15, p.D4)
2015 Dec 4, In Oakland, Ca., Jack Lewis (16) was killed when a tree limb that he was climbing broke and hit him on the head near Lake Merritt. In 2018 the Oakland City Council approved a $1.75 million payment to his family.
(SFC, 10/4/18, p.C5)
2015 Dec 4, In Connecticut Amador Medina (32) was arrested in Hartford on a charge of being a fugitive from justice from Worcester, Massachusetts, where authorities allege he stole the remains two months ago from a family mausoleum that dates to 1903. Medina told police he was a Santeria priest and wanted the human bones for religious and healing ceremonies.
(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Tennessee skilled-trades workers at the Volkswagen's lone US plant voted to be represented by the United Auto Workers, marking the union's first victory at a foreign-owned automaker in the South.
(AP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, American actor Robert Loggia (b.1930) died at his home in Los Angeles. His films included “Scarface" (1983), “Prizzi’s Honor" (9185) “Lost Highway" (1997) and “Big" (1988).
(SFC, 12/5/15, p.A11)
2015 Dec 4, In Afghanistan a mortar attack by government troops killed at least 8 civilians and wounded two others near a mosque in a district south of Kabul.
(Reuters, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Azerbaijan 29 workers were missing after a platform in Azerbaijan’s Guneshli oil field, operated by state energy company SOCAR, caught fire in the Caspian Sea. 33 people were rescued. 6 bodies were soon recovered and 23 remained missing.
(AFP, 12/5/15)(AP, 12/6/15)(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 4, British bombers made their second round of strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria late today, again hitting oil fields.
(Reuters, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, Aravindan Balakrishnan (75), a cult leader who led a secretive Maoist commune in London, was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting his female followers and imprisoning his own daughter for 30 years.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Burundi police shot dead 3 attackers and arrested three others when they foiled an attempt to ambush and assassinate a top police officer in the capital.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Canada said posted its 14th consecutive monthly trade deficit in October, as exports to its key trading partner the United States fell.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, It was reported that Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has signed a decree that removes marijuana from the country's list of hard drugs.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking at a summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in South Africa, told African leaders his country would pump $60 billion into development projects, cancel some debt and boost agriculture under a three-year plan that will extend Beijing's influence in the continent.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Costa Rica said it has asked Belize to accept nearly 3,000 Cuban migrants who have been stuck at the Costa Rican border with Nicaragua for weeks.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Egypt a Molotov cocktail hurled at a Cairo restaurant killed 16 people and wounded two. The attacker was said to be a fired employee.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, The European Union agreed on a system to share airline passenger information, paving the way for closer scrutiny of extremists.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Georgia stripped former leader and reformer Mikheil Saakashvili of his citizenship as he had acquired a Ukrainian passport to serve as governor of the strategic Odessa region.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Germany's lower house of parliament approved government plans to join the military campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Guatemalan prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Brayan Jimenez, president of the country's football federation, who is accused in a widening bribery investigation into FIFA.
(AP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, In southern India rains eased in the flood-hit city of Chennai, raising hopes that rescue efforts could pick up, after the death of 18 patients at a private hospital added to the official toll of 280 confirmed killed in the disaster. The death toll from the flooding was later raised to some 450.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)(Econ, 12/12/15, p.40)
2015 Dec 4, Veteran Israeli dove Yossi Sarid (75), who championed the cause of a Palestinian state over a political career spanning three decades, died in Tel Aviv.
(AFP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Nigeria at least 3 people were killed and six others injured in suicide attacks in northeastern Borno state blamed on Boko Haram Islamists.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Two Palestinians stabbed an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron overnight, moderately wounding him before they were shot dead by soldiers. A Palestinian driver ran over and injured two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank before being shot dead.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Peru the former head of the Peruvian football federation, Manuel Burga, was arrested in the growing FIFA bribery probe.
(AP, 12/5/15)
2015 Dec 4, Philippine security forces arrested Kadaffy Muktadil, a suspect in the kidnappings of two Malaysian hostages last May. Malaysian Bernard Then Ted Fen was beheaded last month. Thien Nyuk Fun was freed on Nov 8.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Russian prosecutors declared the US-Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law (USRF) an "undesirable" organization, the fourth entity to be banned under a controversial law targeting foreign groups accused of political meddling in the country.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, South African authorities issued a warrant of arrest for Oscar Pistorius (29), a day after the Paralympic champion was convicted on appeal of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
(Reuters, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, South Africa-based MTN announced that its fine by Nigeria's communications agency had been reduced to 674 billion naira ($3.4 billion). Spokesman Tony Ojobo said there was a typo and the actual amount is 780 billion naira ($3.9 billion).
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, In Syria at least 35 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in a series of regime raids on a rebel stronghold east of Damascus.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, The New York Times decried limits on media freedom in Thailand after its local printer refused to publish articles about the Southeast Asian country for a third time.
(AP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Turkish media said authorities have rounded up in the past four days nearly 3,000 migrants planning to cross the Aegean Sea to EU member Greece.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2015 Dec 4, Turkish media said more than 100 Turkish soldiers have been deployed to an area near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which is under Islamic State control, to replace a unit providing training to Iraqi troops.
(AFP, 12/4/15)
2016 Dec 4, The US Pentagon announced the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Shawqi Awad Balzuhair. The low level militant was sent to the West African nation of Cape Verde for resettlement. This lowered the number of prisoners held at the US base in Cuba to 59. Twenty of those remaining have been approved for release.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, The US Army Corps of Engineers turned down the request for an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to build under the Missouri River, after months of protests from Native American and climate activists. ETP said it will continue to fight for the line.
(Reuters, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Texas Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara (69) was killed and two others were injured when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio.
(SFC, 12/6/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 4, The Cell Atlas database was launched. It records which proteins are found in which organelles.
(Econ, 12/10/16, p.77)
2016 Dec 4, Austria's Freedom Party conceded defeat in its bid to elect Europe's first far-right president, as projections showed its candidate Norbert Hofer lagging behind in a bitterly fought election re-run. Green leader Van der Bellen (72) led with 53.5 percent of the vote over Hofer with 46.4 percent.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Brazil demonstrators marched in major cities across the country, protesting government corruption and a recent vote in Congress that was widely perceived as an effort to intimidate judges and prosecutors currently leading graft probes.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Dubai a bus carrying 20 migrant workers hit a truck, killing four people at the scene. A fifth person died after being rushed to the hospital.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In France Japanese student Narumi Kurosaki (21) disappeared in the city of Besancon after having dinner with her ex, Nicolas Zepeda. In 2018 a prosecutor said she was probably suffocated in her university room by her fugitive Chilean ex-boyfriend. Her body has not been found despite extensive searches of a nearby forested area. Zepeda, a teaching assistant aged in his mid-twenties, left France and returned to Chile shortly after Kurosaki was last seen.
(AFP, 11/19/18)
2016 Dec 4, In Iraq two militants tried to attack army barracks in Anbar province. Police and army sources said the attackers were killed before they reached the base. Iraqi commanders say they have killed at least 1,000 Islamic State fighters. A government adviser estimated the jihadist group now had about 4,000 fighters in Mosul.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Human Rights Watch said Kurdish restrictions on the movement of goods are harming the recovery of Iraq's Yazidi minority, which was targeted for genocide by the Islamic State group.
(AFP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Israel was embroiled in fresh controversy over its purchase of submarines from German company ThyssenKrupp after reports that the country's arch-enemy Iran holds a stake in the firm.
(AFP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Millions of Italians voted in a knife-edge constitutional referendum that left PM Matteo Renzi sweating on his future and the rest of Europe braced for the fallout if he is forced to quit. PM Renzi won just over 40 percent of the vote in the referendum, a far worse result than polls had predicted.
(AFP, 12/4/16)(Reuters, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 4, In northern Lebanon a soldier was fatally shot and a second was wounded at a military installation. On Dec 7 four people, said to belong to an Islamic State cell, were arrested in dawn raids in Beqaa Safrin, where the attack had taken place.
(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 4, Palestinian emergency workers said they have recovered the bodies of three men who went missing in a smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt. The tunnel caved in after the Egyptian military flooded it with water. One person remained missing.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Russia at least 12 people, including nine members of a children's acrobatics team, were killed in a road collision in eastern Siberia.
(AP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, In Syria suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.
(AFP, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, A coalition air strike in Raqa, Syria, killed three Islamic State leaders involved in plotting foreign attacks. Salah-Eddine Gourmat and Sammy Djedou -- were involved in facilitating the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people died. Walid Hamman was a suicide-attack planner who was convicted in absentia in Belgium for a terror plot disrupted in 2015.
(AFP, 12/13/16)
2016 Dec 4, Uzbekistan held a tightly controlled presidential election, the first vote since the death of authoritarian leader Islam Karimov who ruled the country for 27 years. Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who spent 13 years as Karimov's prime minister, was favored to win. Mirziyoyev garnered 88.61 percent of the vote.
(AP, 12/4/16)(AP, 12/5/16)
2016 Dec 4, Venezuela’s central bank said it will introduce six new notes and three new coins starting in mid-December to help alleviate practical problems in doing business with the world's most inflationary currency. The nation's largest note is worth just 2 US cents on the black market.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2016 Dec 4, Vietnam’s government said floods brought by torrential rain since late November have killed at least 13 people while more heavy rain is expected in coming days.
(Reuters, 12/4/16)
2017 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump visited Utah to announce big cuts to the state's sprawling wilderness national monuments. Bears Ears National Monument will shrink to 220,000 acres from 1.35 million, and Grand Staircase Escalante will be cut to about half its current size. The move triggered legal challenges from tribes and environmental groups.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump endorsed Roy Moore, Alabama’s candidate for the US Senate. Moore has been accused of making unwanted sexual advances on teenage girls. Beverly Young Nelson, one of the women who accused Moore of groping her when she was sixteen, later admitted to adding notes to her yearbook beneath Moore’s inscription to remind herself of where and when Moore signed her yearbook. She was one of nine women who claimed Moore had made unwanted advances when they were teenagers.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A5)(SFC, 12/9/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 4, The US Supreme Court ruled that Pres. Trump may put his full travel ban into effect while legal appeals are being weighed in lower courts. The ban blocks visitors and immigrants from Chad, Iran, Libya Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 4, A US federal judge ordered Energy Transfer Partners LP to coordinate with local tribes and the Army Corps of Engineers to create an oil-spill response plan for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline by next April, a decision he said will allow oil to keep flowing and prevent spills.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In southern California a 31,000-acre wildfire, known as the Thomas Fire, erupted this evening. Some 27,000 people in Ventura County, about 70 miles (115 km) northwest of Los Angeles, were told to leave. One motorist was killed fleeing the blaze.
(Reuters, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Florida former US Rep. Corrine Brown (71) was sentenced to five years in prison followed by three years of probation for fraud and other charges related to a purported charity that she used as a personal slush fund. In 2020 Brown was released from federal prison over coronavirus concerns.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 4/26/20, p.A4)
2017 Dec 4, Fugitive Kentucky lawyer Eric Conn, who disappeared six months ago before facing a prison sentence for his central role in a massive Social Security fraud case, was captured in Honduras and will be returned to the US.
(AP, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, Ride-hailing app Uber said it was joining the International Association of Public Transportation (UITP), a global public transport association, to improve mobility in the cities it operates in and to connect more people to public transport.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In London Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya (61) insisted he was innocent of money-laundering accusations after the evacuation of a London court building forced him to face a swarm of journalists he had sought to avoid.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Christine Keeler (b.1942), the British model involved in the 1963 Profumo scandal, died in southern England.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A4)
2017 Dec 4, In Cambodia Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina met with her counterpart, Hun Sen, during an official visit to the Southeast Asian country. Several agreements on trade, economic and technical cooperation were signed by officials. Hasina said she asked for Hun Sen's support in helping to find a durable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau began a 4-day visit to China.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 4, Corsican nationalists seeking greater autonomy from France ruled out an imminent independence bid but demanded greater freedoms for the island after winning the first round of regional elections.
(AFP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Ragia Omran, a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer, was among 15 rights defenders from around the world to receive the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, for her work representing political prisoners and torture victims as well as advocating for women's rights.
(http://tinyurl.com/y9acyam7)(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 4, The Eurozone elected Portuguese Finance Minister Mario Centeno to become the top official of the 19-country group. He will succeed Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 4, A Greek court ordered the detention of nine Turkish citizens pending trial for terrorism-related offences, including links to a banned militant group behind a series of suicide bombings in Turkey.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Honduras Pres. Juan Orlando Hernandez held on to a lead of more than 52,000 votes in the disputed presidential race as the long-delayed count wrapped up. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal said the final ballot count showed Hernandez with 42.98 percent of the vote, barely ahead of Nasralla with 41.39 percent. But it declined to name an election winner, saying appeals could yet be lodged. The political crisis deepened after hundreds of police revolted against an order to impose a curfew.
(AP, 12/4/17)(AFP, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, Irish government sources said Britain has agreed to keep Northern Ireland in "regulatory alignment" with the EU after Brexit, raising hopes PM Theresa May can strike a deal in Brussels to start free trade talks. The Northern Irish party that props up PM Theresa May told the British government that its Brexit terms were unacceptable.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)(Reuters, 12/5/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez held on to a lead of more than 52,000 votes in the hotly-disputed presidential race as the long-delayed count wrapped up.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In India Shashi Kapoor (79), a leading Bollywood actor and producer from the 1970s and '80s, died after a long illness. Kapoor acted in more than 100 Hindi films and was also a key theater personality.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Indonesian authorities detained Australian Isaac Emmanuel Roberts (35) at Bali's airport for carrying 19.9 grams (0.7 ounces) of methamphetamine and 6.2 grams (0.2 ounces) of the party drug ecstasy.
(AP, 12/19/17)
2017 Dec 4, In northern Japan three bodies of people believed to be North Koreans were recovered, two days after authorities found a dilapidated empty boat.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Jordan a state security court sentenced one Syrian militant to death and handed life sentences to three others for their role in a suicide bombing attack on a Jordanian military border post that killed seven guards last year.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Ten Maltese suspects were arrested over the Oct. 16 car bomb murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, A Spanish judge decided that Catalonia's sacked vice president Oriol Junqueras and three other separatist leaders will remain in prison during a probe over their role in the region's independence drive. Six other former ministers, who were also remanded in custody last month, will be released on bail of 100,000 euros ($119,000).
(AFP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, Switzerland released a national plan to prevent violent extremism, including training teachers and coaches to recognize warning signs and re-integrating people who have already been radicalized.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Syria jets believed to be Syrian and Russian struck heavily crowded residential areas in Hamoriya, a besieged rebel enclave near Damascus, killing at least 17 people and injuring dozens in the third week of a stepped-up assault. Four other civilians were killed in the town of Arbin and 6 others from strikes on Misraba and Harasta.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, The UN voiced alarm over the spread of HIV in Egypt, where new cases were growing by up to 40% a years. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
(SFC, 12/5/17, p.A3)
2017 Dec 4, The Vatican said Pope Francis has donated 25,000 euros ($30,000) to help feed the South Sudan’s most vulnerable citizens ahead of the upcoming dry season. The money was given to the United Nations' agricultural arm.
(AP, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Yemen Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck at Houthi militia positions in Sanaa for a second day in support of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Fighting in Sanaa intensified, with the known toll from three hospitals reaching at least 125 killed and 238 wounded in the past six days.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2017 Dec 4, In Yemen former president and party leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was reported killed outside Sanaa, in what sources in the Houthi group said was an RPG and gun attack. Saleh was killed south Sanaa along with the assistant secretary-general of the GPC, Yasser al-Awadi.
(Reuters, 12/4/17)
2018 Dec 4, In Washington DC a sentencing recommendation late today from Russia probe head Robert Mueller, that Flynn spend no time in jail, explained that the retired three-star general had given "substantial assistance" to his and other secret, high-level investigations.
(AFP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, US federal authorities announced a raft of conspiracy and tax fraud charges against four men in the first US prosecution related to the so-called Panama Papers.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 4, The US Department of Agriculture says a unit of Brazil's JBS is now recalling a total of more than 12 million pounds of raw beef that was shipped around the country because it may be contaminated with salmonella. JBS Tolleson in Arizona already recalled about 7 million pounds of beef in October.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In the SF Bay Area Damani Chadly (17) was shot dead and a friend (19) wounded in a marijauna sale gone wrong in Fremont. Police took Christian Lucas Kelling into custody on Dec. 12 after finding him in Pflugerville, Texas.
(SFC, 12/20/18, p.C6)
2018 Dec 4, Texas executed Joseph Garcia (47), a member of the "Texas 7" gang of escaped prisoners, for the fatal shooting of a Dallas police officer on Christmas Eve in 2000. He was the 22nd inmate put to death in the US this year and the 12th in Texas.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 4, The DJIA fell about 800 points on trade jitters over a potential US-China trade war.
(SFC, 12/5/18, p.A1)
2018 Dec 4, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ordered an investigation after the Guardian reported that members of the national women's soccer team were sexually and physically abused by men from the country's football federation.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In Armenia an Su-25 two-seat combat jet crashed during a regular training mission. The Su-25 is a twin-engine ground attack aircraft designed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Austrian police found 22 asylum-seekers from Iraq and Syria in a Romanian-registered van near the country's eastern border.
(AP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, Brazil's Supreme Court said it had authorized a federal investigation into allegations that Onyx Lorenzoni, the incoming chief of staff for far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, had taken illegal campaign donations.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Portugal or a two-day visit to boost economic ties, despite concern in some EU capitals over China's growing influence across the continent.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, An Egyptian survivor said 15 migrants have died in a boat off the Libyan coast after spending 12 days at sea without food or water. Only 10 migrants from the capsized boat survived.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, A senior European Union legal adviser said Britain had the right to withdraw its Brexit notice, opening a new front in a battle over PM Theresa May's plans to leave the bloc, which could be rejected in parliament next week.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, French PM Edouard Philippe announced in a live televised address that the planned increases set for January would be postponed until summer. Demonstrations continued around the country.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Germany's top human rights official said she has been denied entry to China's Xinjiang region, where the UN estimates that up to one million Muslims are being held in detention camps.
(AFP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, Authorities in northern India said they have arrested four people for their alleged involvement in an attack on police over rumors of cow slaughter that left two people dead, including a police official, a day earlier. A case was filed against 28 people who allegedly set a police outpost on fire and killed a local police inspector.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Angry Iraqi lawmakers disrupted a parliamentary session meant to include a vote on the remainder of PM Adel Abdul Mahdi's cabinet, banging tables and shouting "illegitimate" in opposition to his proposed candidates.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Israel said it had launched an operation to "expose and thwart" cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon dug by the Iran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man early today during a military operation in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. Tulkarem governor Isam Abu Baker said that Mohammed Habali (22) was shot in the head "without posing any threat to the soldiers".
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Thousands of Israeli women protested against domestic violence in a nationwide strike, calling for more action and state funding to deal with the problem.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, It was reported that Italy's health minister Giulia Grillo has removed 30 doctors and scientists from the ministry's public health advisory committee as part of the "government of change" promised by the 5-Star Movement and League, which opposes the previous Democratic Party-led government's move to increase the number of mandatory vaccinations to 10.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Italian police arrested new Mafia boss Settimino Mineo and dozens of other suspects in a major swoop against a resurgent Cosa Nostra.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen opened fire overnight on a vehicle in Peshawar carrying local TV journalist Noor-ul-Hassan, killing him and wounding his cameraman.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Poland's PM Mateusz Morawieck said the country, which has some of Europe's most polluted cities, will invest between 3-4 billion euros ($3.4-$ 4.5 billion) in low-emissions public transport.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In Poland negotiators at the UN climate talks got down to the nitty-gritty task of finalizing the rules for the 2015 Paris accord, a landmark agreement by countries three years ago to curb global warming. Five international banks pledged to use the billions at their disposal to steer clients away from businesses that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Serbia sought support from allies Russia and China in opposing the formation of a Kosovo army, warning that a military in its former province could lead to renewed clashes in the Balkans.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Doctors in Sierra Leone's public hospitals began a strike to protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Nurses said they may follow suit.
(Reuters, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 4, Singapore said it has lodged a "strong protest" with Malaysia over its plan to extend the limits of a port in Malaysia's southern-most state, saying it encroached into the territorial waters of the city-state.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Slovakia's general prosecutor ordered the release of 12 Greenpeace activists who were detained last week after climbing a tower during a protest at a coal mine that supplies one of the country's most polluting power plants. The order overturned the decision of a Slovak court on Dec. 2 to keep the activists in custody until trial.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Syria's President Bashar Assad received North Korea's foreign minister Ri Yong Ho, who said his country and Syria face the same "enemy" and called for increased cooperation between them. Assad responded by identifying the United States as a hostile country to Syria and North Korea.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, In Thailand Islam's guiding council introduced new regulations requiring that marriages of children under age 17 be approved by a religious committee.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 4, A Turkish appeals court has upheld the terror propaganda conviction of Selahattin Demirtas, the former head of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Ukraine said it had resumed grain shipments from the Azov Sea, blocked for around 10 days after a military standoff with Russia in the Kerch Strait off Crimea.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, The UN said it was seeking $738 million in 2019 to help neighboring countries cope with the inflow of millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants, who have "no prospect for return in the short to medium term".
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, The UN warned of a "severe increase" in Yemen's hunger rate and cautioned the situation would deteriorate further in 2019, when four million more people are expected to need food aid.
(AFP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived in Russia, looking for support amid a spiraling economic crisis.
(AP, 12/4/18)
2018 Dec 4, A Houthi delegation left for Sweden for UN-sponsored Yemen peace talks, the first since 2016, as Western nations pressed for an end to the war and the United Nations warned of a looming economic disaster.
(Reuters, 12/4/18)
2019 Dec 4, US President Donald Trump cancelled his scheduled news conference at the end of the NATO summit in Britain, saying he had briefed the media many times during his two-day trip.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, TV producer Leonard Goldberg (85) died in Los Angeles. He and Aaron Spelling co-produced "Charlie's Angels" and "Fantasy Island" in the 1970s. Goldberg and Spelling produced 35 movies for television. He later conceived the hit police drama "Blue Bloods" (2010), which continued running for a 10th season in 2019.
(SSFC, 12/15/19, p.B10)
2019 Dec 4, In Colorado Alec McKinney (16) was ordered along with Devon Erickson (19) to stand trial on first-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges in the May 7 shooting rampage at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, in which one student was killed and eight others wounded.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that fourteen women, ranging in age from 30 to 56 and nearly all first-time offenders, have banded together to sue the United States, not under pseudonyms but under their real names, over the abuse they say they’ve endured at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida. Seven of the women are still incarcerated.
(Miami Herald, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Georgia's Rep. Gov. Brian Kemp formally announced his selection of Kelly Loeffler, pushing aside intense criticism from hard-core Trump advocates who wanted Kemp to appoint Rep. Doug Collins, one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Hawaii an active duty US sailor, whose submarine was docked at Pearl Harbor, opened fire on three civilian employees, killing two and then taking his own life just days before dignitaries and veterans descend on the base for the 78th anniversary of the Japanese attack.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Chicago Ernesto Godinez, a purported “chief" of the Almighty Latin Saints, was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison. He was convicted earlier this year of shooting and wounding a plainclothes federal agent he mistook for a rival gang member.
(AP, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, Former United Auto Workers vice president Joseph Ashton pleaded guilty in Detroit to conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud as part of a wide-ranging federal corruption probe into the union.
(AP, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, In New York state Bishop Richard Malone (73) of Buffalo resigned, forced to step aside amid mounting calls for his ouster from his staff, priests and public over his handling of allegations of clergy sexual misconduct.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, The Northeast began digging out from a monster nor'easter that dumped over two feet of snow onto towns in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont.
(Good Morning America, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Charlotte resident Arlando M. Henderson (29), a former Wells Fargo employee, was arrested in San Diego, of stealing more than $88,000 in cash from the vault of a bank in North Carolina. An indictment unsealed later alleged Henderson took the cash from customer deposits on at least 18 occasions throughout 2019 and then rigged the books to try to hide his actions.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 4, Oil prices surged 4% on expectations that OPEC and allied producers would extend production curbs, and as US government data showed a large drop in domestic crude stockpiles.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that a drug that curbs delusions in Parkinson's patients did the same for people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in a study that was stopped early because the benefit seemed clear. Pimavanserin, a daily pill sold as Nuplazid by Acadia Pharmaceuticals, was approved for Parkinson's-related psychosis in 2016 and is thought to work by blocking a brain chemical that seems to spur delusions.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Scientists released the first results from NASA's sun-skimming spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe. They observed bursts of energetic particles never seen before on such a small scale as well as switchback-like reversals in the out-flowing solar magnetic field that seem to whip up the solar wind.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Armenia's special investigation service said it is investigating former president Serzh Sarksyan on suspicion of exceeding his authority and embezzling of around $1 million in state funds.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Australia's conservative government repealed a contentious law that allowed ill asylum-seekers languishing in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru to travel to the country for medical treatment. More than 460 people remain in limbo in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Chile thousands of women, blindfolded and dressed in black, descended on Santiago chanting what has now become their rallying cry: “El violador eres tu", or, “The rapist is you".
(The Independent, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that Chinese startup AutoX, backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, has applied to test self-driving vehicles without an in-car backup driver in California, the first challenger to Alphabet Inc's autonomous driving venture Waymo to say it has done so.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, The Czech Republic's top state attorney said Andrej Babis will be investigated further for fraud in a case involving EU subsidies, reversing an earlier decision to drop the matter.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Colombian unions and student groups held a third national strike amid fraught talks between protest leaders and the government over President Ivan Duque's social and economic policies.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen said her country would provide four more planes to NATO after holding "positive" talks with US President Trump at an alliance summit in London.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, In Ethiopia armed men abducted students from Dembi Dollo University in the Oromiya region. An unknown group of people blocked a bus and kidnapped students on board who were leaving for home. The students, mostly ethnic Amharas, were fleeing ethnic violence and threats in the university. 17 of the students went missing as one managed to escape. The government later said that the army had rescued 21 of the students, but at least 12 others remained missing.
(Reuters, 2/1/20)(BBC, 3/15/20)
2019 Dec 4, The European Environment Agency warned that Europe faces extreme heat waves every two years over the coming decades as the effects of climate change drive up global temperatures. The EU also said that it will likely miss its target for reducing greenhouse gases by 2030.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/19)(SFC, 12/5/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 4, President Emmanuel Macron demanded West African leaders of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania to dismiss growing anti-French sentiment across the region if they wanted France's military to continue its operations against Islamist militants.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, The French government said it is creating a national anti-hate crime office following the discovery of anti-Semitic graffiti at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France.
(SFC, 12/5/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 4, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats as it opened a formal investigation into suspicions the Kremlin was behind the killing of a man in central Berlin. Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian national, was shot dead in a Berlin park in August.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Deutsche Telekom said it has put all deals to buy 5G network equipment on hold, as it awaits the resolution of a debate in Germany over whether to bar Chinese vendor Huawei on security grounds.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Hungary's foreign minister said Budapest would block Ukraine's membership in NATO until Kiev restored the rights that ethnic Hungarians had before a language law curbed minorities' access to education in their mother tongues.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for those detained in recent gasoline price protests to be treated with “Islamic mercy" even after authorities acknowledged government forces shot and killed demonstrators nationwide in unrest that reportedly killed over 200 people. President Hassan Rouhani said Iran is willing to return to the negotiating table if the United States first drops sanctions, after a fuel price hike sparked deadly violence ahead of elections.
(AP, 12/4/19)(AFP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, An expose by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan found that the military “doubled or even tripled" the number of ultra-Orthodox men drafted for the past several years. In recent years the army has said ultra-Orthodox draft figures have surged.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government will seek to strengthen cooperation with the United States to control the flow of "arms and dollars" during meetings this week with US Attorney General William Barr.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Loss-making budget airline Norwegian Air said it is selling its Argentinian subsidiary Norwegian Air Argentina (NAA) to JetSMART Airlines for an undisclosed sum.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Poland's agriculture minister said an outbreak of African swine fever near the German border has killed 21 wild boar.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the United States was rapidly developing its military forces for potential operations in space and that Washington openly viewed space as a potential theatre of war.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Bulgaria of deliberately delaying the implementation of Russia's TurkStream natural gas pipeline on its territory and said that Moscow could find ways to bypass Bulgaria if needed.
(Reuters, 12/4/19)
2019 Dec 4, Russian media reported that authorities have arrested a man accused of building a fake border with Finland and charging four South Asian migrants more than 10,000 euros, or $11,000, to help them cross into what they believed was the European Union.
(Insider, 12/5/19)
2019 Dec 4, It was reported that the United Nations human rights office is urging Tanzania to reconsider its decision barring individuals and non-governmental groups from filing cases against it at the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. The continental court is based in the East African nation.
(AP, 12/4/19)
2020 Dec 4, US Judge Nicholas Garaufis directed the Trump administration to fully restore the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which was designed during the Obama administration to protect younger undocumented immigrants from deportation.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, A US federal appeals court ruled that a lower court was wrong to bar the Trump administration from taking $3.6 billion from military construction projects for a border wall.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The Pentagon announced that it will remove all troops from Somalia by Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said the suspension of federal student loans payments and accruing interest set to end on Dec. 31 will be extended another month as the pandemic presents financial challenges to borrowers.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to always wear masks indoors when they're not in their homes. It's the first time the CDC has made this recommendation.
(The Week, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 4, Courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin ruled against President Trump and his allies in several lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.
(The Week, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 4, California certified its presidential election and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she and political leaders across the Bay Area were imposing new lockdown orders and business restrictions in the face of a surge in COVID-19 infections.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, California to date had 1,302,561 cases of coronavirus and 19,729 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 161,534 cases and 2,020 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 14,337,640 with the death toll at 278,594.
(sfist.com, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, David Lander (73), the actor best known for his role as Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman on the sitcom Laverne & Shirley, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after battling multiple sclerosis for many years.
(The Week, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 4, In NYC fugitive Andre Sterling (35), who shot a Massachusetts state trooper in the hand during a traffic stop two weeks ago, was killed early today during a gunfight with US marshals in the Bronx that left two of the officers wounded.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In Ohio a Franklin County sheriff's deputy shot and killed Casey Goodson (23), a black man. Goodson's family said he was shot three times in the back. Law enforcement alleged he was waving a gun, but the family said Goodson was only holding a sandwich from Subway.
(Insider, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 4, Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co and insurer UnitedHealth Group said they have partnered to conduct a study of Lilly's COVID-19 antibody treatment bamlanivimab in high-risk Medicare patients.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Former Austrian finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser was sentenced to eight years in prison in the country’s biggest corruption trial since World War Two. He and two co-defendants were convicted of accepting kickbacks of €9.6m (£8.6m) for passing insider information on the privatization of public housing.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Three of Austria's nine provinces kicked off a national effort to test as much of the population as possible before Christmas, to limit infections when families meet.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The island kingdom of Bahrain said it has become the second nation in the world to grant an emergency-use authorization for the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Britain's government reported the highest daily number of new COVID cases since Nov. 26, after the number of new positive test reports rose to 16,298 from 14,879 the day before.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson (62) was arrested on suspicion of witness intimidation and conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with a long-running police investigation into fraud in the city. Merseyside Police said five men had been arrested as part of an investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool.
(The Telegraph, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Hargobind Tahilramani (41) of Indonesia, suspected of being the "Con Queen of Hollywood", appeared in court in London. He was arrested last week and is alleged to have swindled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of hopeful actors. The US has made a provisional application for his extradition.
(BBC, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In China at least 18 coal miners were killed by high levels of carbon monoxide in the Diaoshidong mine in Chongqing.
(SFC, 12/5/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 4, China's Clover Biopharmaceuticals said its two coronavirus vaccine candidates triggered strong immune responses in an early-stage human trial and appeared to be safe. The vaccine candidates, one containing an adjuvant from GlaxoSmithKline and the other from Dynavax, induced strong immune responses including neutralizing antibodies and cell-mediated immunity in a Phase 1 clinical trial.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In France the latest case of H5N8 bird fly discovered at a farm of about 6,000 ducks due to be force-fed - a technique used to make foie gras - in the town of Benesse-Maremne, near the city of Biarritz and the Spanish border. France has already detected the H5N8 virus on birds sold in three pet stores.
(Reuters, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 4, Luxury brand Gucci, owned by French group Kering, said it will give at least $500,000 to UNICEF to help supply and distribute COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable people around the world.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Veteran German diplomat Helga Schmid, a key behind-the-scenes negotiator of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, was named as the new administrative head of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Hungary reported 189 new COVID-19 deaths, the highest daily toll since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the total death toll to 5,513.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, India's daily coronavirus cases rose by less than 40,000 for the fifth straight day, with 36,595 new infections reported in the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In Indonesia torrential rains in Medan, south Sumatra province, caused four rivers to overflow killing at least five people.
(SFC, 12/5/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 4, It was reported that Iran has told the UN nuclear watchdog it plans to install three more cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-2m centrifuges at its underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Israeli police arrested a Jewish man after he poured out a “flammable liquid" inside the Catholic Church of All Nations, built on the traditional site of the Garden of Gethsemane, in what they described as a "criminal" incident.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank killed Ali Abu Alia (13) in the Almugayer village, where the Palestinian youth was hit in the stomach and died later at a hospital.
(AP, 12/5/20)
2020 Dec 4, Italy reported 814 coronavirus-related deaths, against a record 993, and 24,099 new infections, up from 23,225 the day before.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga pledged a 2 trillion yen ($19 billion) fund to promote ecological businesses and innovation to achieve his goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's office said Kazakhstan will start producing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the novel coronavirus this month and begin a mass vaccination campaign next year.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, Montenegro’s parliament voted to approve a new conservative, pro-Serb coalition government, which will succeed a pro-Western party that has ruled the small Balkan nation for almost three decades.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, In southern Nicaragua an unregulated gold mine collapsed killing two miners and trapping as many as 13 others.
(SSFC, 12/6/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 4, In the Philippines Lt. Gen. Cesar Binag announced that the new, one-meter rattan sticks being issued to the national Police will be used for enforcement, for measuring, or for hitting those that are hard-headed.
(Econ., 12/12/20, p.41)
2020 Dec 4, In South Africa seven people were hospitalized after an early-morning explosion and fire at an oil refinery near the harbor in the city of Durban.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, South Korea's capital, Seoul, announced unprecedented restrictions shuttering most establishments and shops at 9 p.m. and cutting back public transportation operations by 30% in the evenings, as daily coronavirus cases hit a nine-month high. South Korea recorded 62 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours bringing its total to 36,332 and 536 deaths.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)(SFC, 12/5/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 4, Switzerland said it has approved an agreement to allow free movement of service workers between the country and Britain after Brexit.
(Reuters, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The UN said continued fighting in many parts of Ethiopia's Tigray region is hindering efforts to deliver aid.
(BBC, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The UN World Food Program (WFP) said Southern Madagascar is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
(AP, 12/4/20)
2020 Dec 4, The UN refugee agency said Rohingya refugees must be able to make free and informed decisions about relocating to Bangladesh's Bhasan Char island, as naval vessels began carrying 1,642 refugees towards the remote site, where CCTV cameras monitor all the streets..
(Reuters, 12/4/20)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.44)(Econ., 12/12/20, p.44)
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