Today in History - December 6
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1160 Dec 6, Jean Bodel's "Jeu de St Nicholas," premiered in Arras, France.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1240 Dec 6, Mongols under Batu Khan occupied and destroyed Kiev.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1421 Dec 6, Henry VI, the youngest king of England, was born. He acceded the thrown at 269 days of age.
(HN, 12/6/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_of_England)
1424 Dec 6, Don Alfonso V of Aragon granted Barcelona the right to exclude Jews.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1527 Dec 6, Pope Clemens VII fled to Orvieto.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1531 Dec 6, John Volkertsz Trimaker, Dutch Anabaptist leader, was beheaded.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1534 Dec 6, Quito, Ecuador, was founded by Spanish.
(http://worldfacts.us/Ecuador-Quito.htm)
1608 Dec 6, George Monck (Monk), English general and gov. of Scotland, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1631 Dec 6, The 1st predicted transit of Venus took place. It had been predicted by Kepler, but he died a year before the event.
(MC, 12/6/01)(Econ, 5/29/04, p.78)
1640 Dec 6, Matthijs Elsevier (75), Flemish-Dutch book publisher and merchant, died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1648 Dec 6, Pride's Purge: Thomas Pride prevented 96 Presbyterians from sitting in English Parliament.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1732 Dec 6, Warren Hastings, England, 1st governor-General of India (1773-84), was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1741 Dec 6, Russian princess Elisabeth Petrovna (1709-1762) seized power with the help of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Petrovna (31), the daughter of Peter the Great, and her husband led a coup d’etat, deposed the infant Czar Ivan VI, had him imprisoned and reigned until her death in 1762.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Russia)(PCh, 1992, p.294)
1743 Dec 6, Franz Nikolaus Novotny, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1745 Dec 6, Bonnie Prince Charlie's army retreated to Scotland.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1756 Dec 6, British troops under Robert Clive occupied Fulta, India.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1741 Dec 6, In Russia Elizabeth Petrovna (31), the daughter of Peter the Great, and her husband led a coup d’etat. She deposed the infant Czar Ivan VI, had him imprisoned and reigned until her death in 1762.
(PCh, 1992, p.294)
1763 Dec 6, The British government case against journalist John Wilkes was decided in favor of Wilkes and a general warrant for his arrest was declared illegal.
(ON, 12/11, p.8)
1775 Dec 6, Nicolas Isouard, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1779 Dec 6, Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (b.1699), French painter, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-Sim%C3%A9on_Chardin)
1790 Dec 6, Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1793 Dec 6, Marie Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry, flamboyant mistress of Louis XV, was guillotined in Paris.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1805 Dec 6, Nicholas-Jacques Conti (b.1755), French pencil maker, died in Paris. He created the number system used to rate pencil lead hardness: the higher the number, the harder the graphite.
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.C2)
1806 Dec 6, The African Meeting House was dedicated in Boston. It was later used by Frederick Douglass and other prominent abolitionists to rail against slavery. In 1974 it was named as a National History Landmark. In 2011 a $9 million restoration was completed.
(SFC, 11/28/11, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Meeting_House)
1812 Dec 6, The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggered into Vilnius, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign. An estimated 50,000 soldiers reached Lithuania and as many as 20,000 died there. As many as 450,000 soldiers from France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Germany and at least 15 other countries died in the Russian campaign.
(HN, 12/6/99)(Arch, 9/02, p.41)
1820 Dec 6, James Monroe, the 5th US president, was elected for a 2nd term.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1822 Dec 6, John Eberhard was born. He built the 1st large-scale pencil factory in US.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1833 Dec 6, John Singleton Mosby (d.1916), lawyer and Col. ("Grey Ghost" of Confederate Army), was born. He later gave riding lessons to young George Patton.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1833 Dec 6, HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin departed Rio de la Plata.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1841 Dec 6, Robert Schumann's 4th Symphony in D, premiered.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1846 Dec 6, Mounted Californio lancers overwhelmed the troops of Gen. Steven Kearny at the Battle of San Pasqual (San Diego). This was the worst defeat suffered by US troops in the California campaign of the Mexican-American War.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Pasqual)(SFC, 9/1/18, p.C1)
1846 Dec 6, Hector Berlioz' opera "La Damnation de Faust" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 12/6/01)(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1849 Dec 6, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1861 Dec 6, Union General George G. Meade led a foraging expedition to Gunnell’s farm near Dranesville, Va.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1862 Dec 6, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They were to be hanged on Dec. 26. The Dakota Indians were going hungry when food and money from the federal government was not distributed as promised. They led a massacre that left over 400 white people dead. The uprising was put down and 300 Indians were sentenced to death. Pres. Lincoln reduced the number to 39, who were hanged. The government then nullified the 1851 treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)(HN, 12/6/98)
1863 Dec 6, The monitor Weehawken sank in the Charleston Harbor.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1866 Dec 6, Chicago’s water supply tunnel into Lake Michigan was completed.
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.C12)(http://tinyurl.com/7zmyr6v)
1867 Dec 6, Giovanni Pacini (71), composer, died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1876 Dec 6, US Electoral College picked Republican Hayes as president, although Tilden won the popular election. A questionable vote count in Florida ended and Hayes was ahead by 924 votes. The Democratic attorney general validated the Tilden electors.
(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes)
1876 Dec 6, The 1st US crematorium began operation in Washington, Penn.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1876 Dec 6, Jack McCall was convicted for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and sentenced to hang.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 Dec 6, Washington Post published its 1st edition.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1877 Dec 6, Thomas A. Edison made the first sound-recording when he recited “Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1882 Dec 6, Anthony Trollope (b.1815), English writer, died. His autobiography “An Autobiography," was published in 1883. He wrote harshly about his mother and made her out to be a second-rate writer.
(WUD, 1994 p.1517)(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W17)(MC, 12/6/01)
1884 Dec 6, The Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers 101 years after George Washington himself approved the location halfway between the proposed sites of the Capitol and the White House. Construction did not begin on the 555-foot Egyptian obelisk until July 4, 1848, when a private citizens' group, the Washington National Monument Society, raised enough money to begin the project. The original design called for the familiar obelisk surrounded by a large building with a statue of Washington driving a Roman chariot on top. Construction was halted in 1854 when the money ran out and for 22 years the monument stood embarrassingly unfinished, looking, as Mark Twain put it, like "a factory chimney with the top broken off." In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant authorized the funds to complete the construction--but without the ornate building and classical statue. When the final capstone and 9-inch aluminum pyramid were set in place in 1884, the Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world.
(AP, 12/6/97)(HNPD, 12/6/98)
1886 Dec 6, Joyce Kilmer (d.1918), American poet best known for his poem "Trees," was born. Kilmer was killed by a sniper in WW I.
(HN, 12/6/98)(WUD, 1994 p.786)
1898 Dec 6, Alfred Eisenstaedt, photojournalist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1898 Dec 6, Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1889 Dec 6, Jefferson Davis (81), the first and only president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865), died in New Orleans. In 2001 William J. Cooper Jr. authored “Jefferson Davis, American."
(AP, 12/6/97)(SSFC, 1/28/01, Par p.12)(MC, 12/6/01)
1892 Dec 6, E. Werner von Siemens (75), German industrialist (Siemens AG), died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1896 Dec 6, Ira Gershwin (d.1983), lyricist ('S Wonderful, I Got Rhythm), was born. Together with his brother, George, he wrote 14 Broadway musicals. Many of his 700 songs were written with other composers.
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.E1)(SFC, 5/10/97, p.E1)
1898 Dec 6, Alfred Eisenstaedt, photojournalist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/02)
1898 Dec 6, Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1901 Dec 6, Eliot Porter, nature photographer, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1904 Dec 6, Theodore Roosevelt confirmed the Monroe-doctrine (Roosevelt Corollary).
(MC, 12/6/01)
1906 Dec 6, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge flew a powered, man-carrying kite that carried him 168 feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1907 Dec 6, The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
(AP, 12/6/07)
1908 Dec 6, First flight of the Silverdart with Canadian JAD McCurdy at the controls.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1913 Dec 6, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act into law. It authorized SF rights to dam the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park for water-collection and power-generation facilities.
(www.sfwater.org/)
1914 Dec 6, German troops over ran Lodz.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1917 Dec 6, Finland declared independence from the Russian Empire (National Day).
(SFEM, 8/8/99, p.44)(AP, 12/6/17)
1917 Dec 6, Former Czar Nicholas II and family were made prisoners by the Bolsheviks in Tobolsk.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1917 Dec 6, In Nova Scotia some 2000 people were killed and thousands wounded following an explosion in Halifax harbor. The Imo, a Norwegian freighter ship, had collided with the French munitions ship Mont Blanc and a fire soon caused a massive explosion. A local court found Captain Le Medec of the Mont Blanc and other defendants guilty of the collision. Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that the captains of both ships were equally to blame. A Privy Council in London ruled that Le Medec had done nothing illegal.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.1054)(ON, 7/05, p.7)(AP, 12/6/07)
1918 Dec 6, Harold Horace Hopkins, inventor (Endoscope), was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1920 Dec 6, Dave Brubeck, jazz pianist and composer, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1920 Dec 6, In Boston, Mass., a dog with spectacles was shown at the annual fair of the Animal Rescue League.
(http://tinyurl.com/5hbur6)
1921 Dec 6, James Showan, a wealthy NY shipbuilder, was arrested after his palatial yacht was seized off the California coast with more than 100 cases of whiskey.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)
1921 Dec 6, British and Irish representatives signed a treaty in London providing for creation of an Irish Free State a year later on the same date. The partition created Northern Ireland. [see Jul 8] Ireland’s 26 southern counties became independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.
(HN, 12/6/00)(AP, 12/6/06)
1922 Dec 6, The Irish Free State came into being under terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
(AP, 12/6/08)
1922 Dec 6, Mussolini threatened the Italian newspapers with censorship if they kept reporting "false" information.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1923 Dec 6, A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1928 Dec 6, The Colombian army killed a number of banana workers of the United Fruit Co. in Cienaga near Santa Marta. Estimates of the dead, taken by train and cast into the sea, ranged from 47 to as high as 2,000. The exact number of casualties has never been confirmed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.90)
1929 Dec 6, Turkey introduced female suffrage.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1933 Dec 6, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1933 Dec 6, The US ban on James Joyce' "Ulysses" was lifted.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1934 Dec 6, American Ambassador Davis said Japan was a grave security threat in the Pacific.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1935 Dec 6, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that rats now exceeded city’s population of people by a factor of 3 to 1.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, DB p.50)
1938 Dec 6, France and Germany signed a treaty of friendship.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1939 Dec 6, The Cole Porter musical comedy "Du Barry Was a Lady" opened on Broadway.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1939 Dec 6, Britain agreed to send arms to Finland.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1940 Dec 6, The Gestapo arrested Helen Ernst, German resistance fighter and poster artist.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, John Nelson, conductor (Les Troyens of Berlioz), was born in San Jose, Costa Rica.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, Richard Speck, mass murderer (killed 8 student nurses in 1966), was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1941 Dec 6, NYC Council agreed to build Idlewild (Kennedy) Airport in Queens.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, Dutch and British pilots saw Japanese invasion fleet at Singapore.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1942 Dec 6, Peter Handke, playwright and poet, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1944 Dec 6, US 95th Infantry division reached Westwall.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1945 Dec 6, U.S. extended a $3 billion loan to Britain to help compensate for the termination of Lend-Lease.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1947 Dec 6, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1948 Dec 6, The "Pumpkin spy papers" were found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers. They became evidence that State Department employee Alger Hiss was spying for the Soviet Union.
(HN, 12/6/01)
1949 Dec 6, Leadbelly (64), [Huddie William Ledbetter], blues singer, died. He was born January 29, 1885, on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana.
(http://leadbelly.lanl.gov/leadbelly.html)
1953 Dec 6, Thomas Hulce, actor (Amadeus, Equus, Echo Park), was born Plymouth, Mi.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1955 Dec 6, NY psychologist Joyce Brothers (28) won the CBS "$64,000 Question," by answering 7 questions on boxing.
(SFC, 12/2/05, p.F2)
1956 Dec 6, B.R. Ambedkar (b.1891), a Dalit and chief architect of India’s 1949 constitution, died. “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.60)
1956 Dec 6, In Hungary civilians were shot dead during protests in Budapest. A communist party committee directly governed the leading body of a militia, the so called Military Council, responsible for the shooting. Party committee member Bela Biszku was named interior minister in 1957.
(AP, 3/18/14)
1956 Dec 6, Nelson Mandela and 156 others were arrested for political activities in South Africa. They were charged with treason for supporting the Freedom Charter, which called for a non-racial and socialist-based economy.
(MC, 12/6/01)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A18)
1957 Dec 6, AFL-CIO members voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union had been expelled because of racketeering by its executives, including union president Dave Beck and vice president James R. Hoffa. The criminal activity was disclosed during a special Senate committee investigation of racketeering and organized crime in labor-management relations. The Teamsters were readmitted in Oct, 1987, but disaffiliated themselves from the AFL-CIO in 2005.
(HNQ, 1/8/99)(AP, 12/6/07)
1957 Dec 6, America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose only about four feet off a Cape Canaveral, Fla., launch pad before crashing back down and exploding.
(AP, 12/6/08)
1967 Dec 6, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz (1918-2008) performed the first US human heart transplant on a baby in Brooklyn, who died 6 hours later.
(SFC, 11/21/08, p.B6)
1968 Dec 6, The original Malian constitution was abrogated after a military coup d'etat and replaced by a new fundamental law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mali)
1969 Dec 6, The Rolling Stones staged a rock concert at the Altamount Speedway in Livermore, Ca. for some 300,000 fans. The Stones hired the Hells Angels for security. Fans were beaten and one person, Meredith Hunter, was stamped and stabbed to death by a Hell's Angel during the show. Alan Passaro (21) was tried and found not guilty because Hunter was carrying a gun. One man drowned in a nearby canal and2 people were crushed to death by a runaway car. The 1970 documentary film “Gimme Shelter" was about the Rolling Stones concert at Altamount.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.4)(AP, 12/6/99)(SFC, 6/10/00, p.B5)(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B2)
1971 Dec 6, The US Senate confirmed Lewis Franklin Powell as a Supreme Court justice.
(www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/bowers/bonews03.htm)
1971 Dec 6, Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan following a 9-month war in a struggle led by Sheik Mujibar Rahman. Sheik Rahman was nominated as president on Dec 20 and released from prison on Dec 22; he returned to Bangladesh Jan 10.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-10)
1971 Dec 6, India recognized the Democratic Republic of Bangladesh and Pakistan broke off diplomatic relations. Bangladesh later accused Pakistan of war atrocities that led to the death of some 3 million people during the 9-month war.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1973 Dec 6, House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew. Agnew, vice president to President Richard M. Nixon, resigned from his office and pleaded no contest to one charge of income tax evasion in return for the dropping of all other charges. Agnew, the only US Vice President to resign in disgrace, was fined $10,000 and given three year's probation.
(AP, 12/6/97)(SFC, 12/27/06, p.A11)
1975 Dec 6, US President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger met with Indonesian President Suharto and explicitly approved Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor. This information was only made public in 2005.
(AFP, 12/02/05)(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/)
1975 Dec 6, The US Congress authorized a $2.3 billion emergency loan to save New York City from bankruptcy.
(http://tinyurl.com/6axxe2)
1975 Dec 6, Robert Dole (b.1923) of Kansas, Republican presidential candidate in 1996, married Mary Elizabeth Hanford.
(www.medaloffreedom.com/BobDole.htm)
1976 Dec 6, Democrat Tip O’Neill was elected speaker of the House of Representatives. He went on to serve the longest consecutive term as speaker.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1976 Dec 6, Joao Goulart (b.1919), former president of Brazil (1961-1964), died in Argentina. He was ousted in a 1964 coup and went into exile in Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Goulart)(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A4)
1976 Dec 6, Dutch War criminal Pieter Menten (1899-1987) was arrested in Switzerland after fleeing there in November.
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Menten)
1977 Dec 6, SF FBI agents arrested James “Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno (64), a reportedly leading West Coast Mafia figure.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.E16)
1981 Dec 6, Harry Harlow (b.1905), psychologist, died. He spent his entire professional career teaching at the University of Wisconsin from 1930-1974. His focus of research was on the learning abilities in primates and he observed the phenomenon of 'learning to learn.' His work with infant monkeys and their surrogate mothers (terrycloth dummies) demonstrated the importance of bonding between primate mothers and infants for emotional health and growth. In 2003 Deborah Blum authored "Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection."
(CW, 6/03, p.51)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow)
1982 Dec 6, In Northern Ireland 11 soldiers and six civilians were killed when a bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1982 Dec 6-1982 Dec 8, In Guatemala a government massacre wiped out the village of Dos Erres. In 2000 two witnesses gave evidence that some 300 men, women and children were killed, tortured and raped by specialists called kaibiles. In 2011 Pedro Pimentel Rios (54), a former member of an elite Guatemalan military force suspected of carrying out the massacre, was extradited from the United States back to Guatemala.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C14)(AP, 7/12/11)
1983 Dec 6, The SF Golden Gate Bridge closed for the 2nd December in a row as winds at the toll plaza measured 77.2 mph.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, DB p. 58)
1983 Dec 6, A bomb planted on a bus in Jerusalem exploded and killed 6 Israelis.
(http://preview.tinyurl.com/3a3tyk)
1985 Dec 6, The San Francisco Chronicle described a “super cocaine," known on the streets as crack, rock or base, which was being smoked in a pipe to produce an intense euphoria. Crack cocaine was first discovered in use in New York City.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, DB p.50)(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A5)
1986 Dec 6, Annette Thur (17) of Santa Cruz County was kidnapped, raped and killed following a party in Boulder Creek. A tourist found her body off Skyline Drive in San Mateo County. In 2012 DNA evidence linked registered sex offender John William Kelley (49) of Placerville to her murder and he was arrested.
(SFC, 8/17/12, p.C5)
1987 Dec 6, In Moscow security agents roughed up Jewish activists and journalists during demonstrations over Kremlin policy one day before the arrival of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the US, where hundreds of thousands of demonstrators pressing for free emigration of Soviet Jews marched in Washington.
(AP 12/6/97)
1987 Dec 6, In Missouri 3 Satanist teenagers bludgeoned Steven Newberry (19), a learning-disabled youth, to death and blamed the incident on heavy metal inspired Satanism.
(http://tinyurl.com/k36su)(www.creationism.org/csshs/v15n1p03.htm)
1987 Dec 6, In Moscow security agents roughed up Jewish activists and journalists during rival demonstrations over Kremlin policy.
(AP 12/6/97)
1988 Dec 6, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev arrived for his second U.S. visit to address the United Nations and meet with President Reagan and President-elect Bush.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1988 Dec 6, The space shuttle Atlantis landed in California.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1988 Dec 6, Rock-and-roll pioneer Roy Orbison died near Nashville, Tenn., at age 52.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1988 Dec 6, Arafat met prominent American Jews in Stockholm, Sweden.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1988-12/1988-12-06-NBC-15.html)
1989 Dec 6, In Canada 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal's school of engineering by Marc Lepine, who then took his own life.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1989 Dec 6, Egon Krenz resigned as leader of East Germany. In 1997 Krenz was convicted with 2 colleagues of manslaughter for the shooting deaths of those who tried to flee across the Berlin Wall prior to its demise.
(WSJ, 11/9/99, p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/akpba)
1990 Dec 6, Shoeless Joe Jackson's signature was sold for $23,100.
(www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/J/Jackson_Joe.stm)
1990 Dec 6, In Bangladesh an opposition campaign led by Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina forced Pres. Hossain Mohammad Ershad to resign.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossain_Mohammad_Ershad)
1990 Dec 6, Iraq announced that it would release all its hostages, saying foreigners could begin leaving in two days.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1991 Dec 6, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., testifying at the trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, denied hearing screams the night Patricia Bowman said she was raped by Smith at the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP, 12/6/01)
1991 Dec 6, Gen. Pavle Strugar led the Yugoslav attack on Dubrovnik. At least 43 civilians were killed in the attack. Serbs had opened bombardment of the Croatian port of Dubrovnik in early October. In 2001 Strugar (68) turned himself into the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. In 2005 Strugar was convicted of two counts of willful destruction of Dubrovnik and attacking civilians. In 2008 appeals judges added two more convictions for unjustified devastation of the town and attacking civilian sites. They also cut his original sentence from eight years to seven and a half years because of his deteriorating health.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B1)(AP, 7/17/08)
1992 Dec 6, Bowing to anti-foreigner sentiment, Germany's main political parties agreed to tighten postwar asylum laws.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1992 Dec 6, In Uttar Pradesh, India, thousands of Hindu kar sevaks, soldiers of the Ram Temple movement, destroyed the Babri Mosque and 4 people were killed. This set off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives. Attackers set off 13 bomb blasts in Bombay that destroyed skyscrapers and killed 600 people. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) inspired Hindus to raze a 16th century mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya. The demolition caused Hindu-Muslim riots across India and 3,000 people were killed. Hindus believe that the site was the birthplace of the god Ram and that Mogul invaders tore down a temple at the site to build the Babri Mosque. In 1998 the Congress Party apologized for the mosque destruction. In 2009 an inquired into the destruction of the Babri Mosque concluded that senior members of the opposition Bharatatiya Janata Party (BJP) were complicit in the vandalism.
(WSJ, 5/6/96, p.A-9)(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-14)(AP, 12/6/97)(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A20)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A16)(Econ, 11/28/09, p.43)
1993 Dec 6, Don Ameche (85), actor (Cocoon), died in Scottsdale, Ariz., of prostate cancer.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1993 Dec 6, A judge in New Bedford, Mass., sentenced former priest James R. Porter, who'd admitted molesting 28 children in the 1960s, to 18 to 20 years in prison for sexual assault.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1993 Dec 6, In South Africa crimes committed up to this date became eligible for amnesty as set up by special constitutional legislation that set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A 1996 extension was requested to move the deadline to May 10, 1994.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A10)
1994 Dec 6, Former US Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell pleaded guilty to defrauding his former law partners and clients of nearly $400,000.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 6, US Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen announced his resignation.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 6, The Maltese Falcon film statuette was auctioned for $398,590.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1994 Dec 6, Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion. Orange County, Ca., filed bankruptcy after losing nearly $1.7 billion on risky investments [derivatives]. In 1997 a former ass’t. treasurer, Matthew Raabe, was sentenced to 3 years in prison for diverting $88.5 million in public funds to conceal investment schemes that led to the nation’s biggest municipal bankruptcy.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, Z1 p.1)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A7)(AP, 12/6/99)
1995 Dec 6, President Clinton vetoed a seven-year Republican budget-balancing plan.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1995 Dec 6, The US House ethics committee sent a highly critical letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, saying he had committed three ethics violations.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1995 Dec 6, New York Times columnist James Reston died in Washington at age 86.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1995 Dec 6, Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (67), ex-Soviet soldier and historian, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-vo.htm)
1996 Dec 6, Stock markets around the world plunged after comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan were taken to mean that U.S. stock prices were too high.
(AP, 12/6/06)
1996 Dec 6, Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle died in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., at age 70.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1997 Dec 6, An asteroid was discovered by J.V. Scotti at the Univ. of Arizona. It was recognized as one of 108 potentially hazardous asteroids.
(NH, 10/98, p.88)
1997 Dec 6, In Siberia a Russian Antonov-124 jet cargo aircraft crashed seconds after takeoff on the edge of Irkutsk into an apartment building and killed at least 62 (68-69) people.
(SFEC, 12/797, p.A19)(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/98)(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
1998 Dec 6, The astronauts of the Endeavour space shuttle attached Node 1 of the new space station to the cargo block Zarya.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 6, Clayton “Peg Leg" Bates, a tap dancer who lost a leg in childhood, died at age 91.
(WSJ, 12/8/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, In Gabon Pres. Omar Bongo (63) won the election for a new 7-year term. He received 66% of the vote with clear ballot stuffing.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.B8)(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D2)
1998 Dec 6, In Nigeria it was reported that 14 people died in poll-related violence.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel started a hunger strike and demanded to be freed.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 6, In Sierra Leone at least 51 rebels were killed in fierce fighting north of Freetown.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, In Taiwan the ruling Nationalists enlarged their legislative majority and captured the mayoralty in Taipei.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, Venezuela held national presidential elections. Hugo Chavez, a former army officer who staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, won with 56% of the vote. He faced a $22 billion foreign debt and planned a constitutional assembly to replace the Congress and to rewrite the constitution.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/99)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.24)
1999 Dec 6, The Supreme Court, reconsidering its landmark Miranda ruling, agreed to decide whether police still must warn criminal suspects that they have a “right to remain silent." The justices upheld that right the following June.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 6, SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. Eight of the nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 6, AT&T agreed in principle to give competing Internet providers access to its high-speed cable lines.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Oklahoma a boy (13) opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun and injured 4 classmates at Fort Gibson Middle School.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Chechnya Russian planes dropped leaflets warning civilians in Grozny to leave or face heavy air and artillery strikes on Dec 11.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 6, In Tanzania a UN court convicted Georges Rutaganda on 3 of 8 charges of genocide against Tutsis committed when he was vice president of the Interhamwe death squads in Rwanda in 1994.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.B2)
2000 Dec 6, Pres. Clinton gave the US Presidential Medal of Freedom to Alexander Aris, the son of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, on behalf of his mother who was held under house arrest.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)
2000 Dec 6, Florida Republican leaders announced the Legislature would convene in special session to appoint its own slate of electors in the state's contested presidential race; Democrats denounced the action as unnecessary.
(AP, 12/6/01)
2000 Dec 6, A Pentagon investigation concluded in a 168-page report that 3 top Army Corps of Engineers officials manipulated a study to justify a construction binge on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 6, Iridium Satellite won a 1-year, $36 million Pentagon contract for unlimited use.
(WSJ, 12/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 6, Actor Werner Klemperer died in New York at age 80.
(AP, 12/6/01)
2000 Dec 6, A European Union summit began in Nice to prepare for expansion to 27 or more members.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.C5)
2000 Dec 6, The IMF agreed to grant Turkey $7.5 billion in emergency loans.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C12)
2000 Dec 6, In Colombia a FARC attack in Granada left at least 29 dead.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec 6, The Israeli Betselem human-rights group condemned the Israeli army for excessive force in combating the Palestinian intifada.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 6, A Russian court found Edmond Pope (54) guilty of espionage. Pope was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a Moscow court for espionage; however, he was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and released eight days after his sentencing.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/01)
2000 Dec 6, In Ukraine the last working reactor at Chernobyl was shut down due to a malfunction 9 days before a scheduled permanent shut down.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)
2000 Dec 6, The World Bank approved a $12 million grant to help Palestinians.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A12)
2001 Dec 6, President George W. Bush dedicated the national Christmas tree to those who died on Sept. 11 and to GIs who died in the line of duty.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2001 Dec 6, The House of Representatives, by a one-vote margin, gave President Bush more power to negotiate global trade deals.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2001 Dec 6, Anthrax tainted mail turned up at a sorting site outside the Federal building in Washington DC. It had been received Dec 5.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 6, In Indiana Robert L. Wissman, an employee of the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork plant on the edge of Goshen killed manager Greg Oswald, wounded 6 others, and then killed himself. A love triangle was later aid to be the cause.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)
2001 Dec 6, In Afghanistan Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, vowed to surrender Kandahar.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 6, An int’l. team of doctors flew to Congo to investigate the deaths of 17 people with Ebola-like symptoms in Dekese. Ebola was confirmed in Gabon on Dec 9.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 6, Japan went into recession officially for the 4th time in 10 years as the GDP shrank 0.5%.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A14)(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D8)
2001 Dec 6, In Nepal the anti-rebel campaign was reported to have left 250 dead since rebel attacks began Nov 23.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 6, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat continued a roundup of Hamas militants based on a list of 36 suspects provided by Israel. His crackdown on Islamic militants met angry resistance as 1,500 Hamas supporters battled Palestinian riot police outside the home of the group's leader. Israeli warplanes bombed a Gaza police station and 15 Palestinians were wounded.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 6, President Bush pushed Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and economic adviser Larry Lindsey from their jobs in a Cabinet shakeup as the unemployment rate hit 6%.
(AP, 12/6/02)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 6, Actress Winona Ryder was sentenced to community service as part of a probationary term for stealing more than $5,500 worth of merchandise from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, Calif.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2002 Dec 6, Philip Berrigan (79), former Catholic priest, died in Baltimore. He helped galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 6, In Brazil South American leaders set a timetable for creating a free trade agreement to cover South America and possibly the Caribbean.
(AP, 12/7/02)
2002 Dec 6, The EU agreed to ban single-hull tankers, likely to be effective in 2010.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A15)
2002 Dec 6, Ten Palestinians, including two U.N. employees, were killed in chaotic battles that erupted when Israeli troops, tanks and helicopter gunships poured into a Gaza Strip refugee camp, searching for a fugitive militant allegedly involved in a fatal bombing.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 6, A U.N. envoy wrapped up an inspection of Uzbekistan's prisons by saying he found signs of systematic torture despite being denied full access to two of the most notorious jails.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 6, In Venezuela at least one gunman opened fire on a Caracas square packed with opponents of Pres. Hugo Chavez, killing three people as strikers trying to force a change of government. Captains and officers of 12 of the nation's 13 oil tankers joined the strike.
(Reuters, 12/6/02)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A1)
2003 Dec 6, Army became the first team to finish 0-13 in major college history after a 34-6 loss to Navy.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2003 Dec 6, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met with senior American commanders in Iraq, and was assured that a recent switch to more aggressive anti-insurgency tactics had begun to pay off.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2003 Dec 6, The Northeast's first major snowstorm of the season threatened near whiteout conditions from Pennsylvania to Maine after piling up nearly a foot of snow, delaying flights and creating hazardous driving conditions blamed for at least 10 deaths.
(AP, 12/6/03)(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 6, In Kandahar, Afghanistan, a bomb exploded in a bazaar, wounding about 20 people, at least three seriously, in an attack that a Taliban spokesman said targeted, but missed, American soldiers who shop there.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, In eastern Afghanistan a US air strike apparently killed 9 children and a suspected militant near the village of Hutala.
(AP, 12/7/03)(SFC, 12/8/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 6, In the beach resort of Sanya, China, Miss Ireland, 19-year-old Rosanna Davison, won the Miss World competition. Second place went to Miss Canada, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, while the host country's Miss China, Guan Qi, took third.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, The Europe and North Africa summit ended a 2-day meeting in Tunisia. The group, formed in 1990, gathered leaders from North Africa — Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya — with leaders from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Malta.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Paul Louis Halley (b.1934) French founder of Promodes (later Carrefour SA), died in a light plane crash.
(WSJ, 4/15/08, p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Louis_Halley)
2003 Dec 6, Guatemala former president and Gen. Carlos Arana Osorio (85), a hard-line conservative who ruled from 1970 to 1974, died in a Guatemala City military hospital.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Hundreds of thousands of people marched through Rome to protest government plans to reform Italy's pension system, which economists say can no longer sustain itself.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia issued the names and photos of its 26 most wanted terrorist suspects and increased protection around Western housing compounds in the capital.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 6, Sudan's vice president and the leader of rebels fighting a 20-year civil war resumed their talks on a comprehensive peace deal, boosted by a landmark visit by rebels to the capital, Khartoum.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2004 Dec 6, Ohio certified President Bush's victory over John Kerry, even as the Kerry campaign and third-party candidates prepared to demand a statewide recount. Bush won Ohio by 118,600 votes.
(AP, 12/06/05)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.31)
2004 Dec 6, Mediaweek reported that 99.8% of indecency complaints to the FCC came from one group, the Parents Television Council.
(SFC, 12/13/04, p.E1)
2004 Dec 6, Arson fires hit a new housing development in Charles County, Md., 25 miles south of Washington, DC. 14 homes, priced from $400-500k, were damaged. A security guard and 5 others were later arrested on arson charges. Damages were estimated at $10 million. On Sep 2, 2005, Patrick Walsh (21) was found guilty of masterminding the fires.
(SFC, 12/8/04, p.A2)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A3)(SFC, 12/21/04, p.A3)(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2004 Dec 6, China and Germany signed contracts worth $2.1 billion for Airbus jets and other industrial goods. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called for an end to a 15-year-old European arms embargo on China.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 6, A Beijing newspaper reported that 9 out of 10 Chinese calling into a suicide-prevention hotline in the capital are getting the busy tone, adding that nationwide four people were killing themselves every minute.
(Reuters, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 6, The Dubai Int’l. Film Festival (DIFF) opened its first season.
(www.dubaifilmfest.com/en/about-diff/diff-facts-figures.html)
2004 Dec 6, In Haiti gunfire erupted in a stronghold of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide overnight, leaving at least three dead.
(AP, 12/7/04)
2004 Dec 6, In Iraq 5 U.S. troops were reported killed in separate clashes in a volatile western province. Insurgents blew up part of a domestic oil pipeline in northern Iraq.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 6, President Vicente Fox fired Mexico City's police chief for allegedly bungling the response to a mob attack that killed two federal police officers.
(AP, 12/6/04)(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia Islamic militants threw explosives at the gate of the heavily guarded US consulate in Jiddah in a bold assault, then forced their way into the building, prompting a gunbattle that left 9 people dead and several injured. In 2005 two AK-47 assault rifles used in the attack were later traced to Yemen’s Ministry of Defense.
(AP, 10/12/05)(AP, 12/06/05)
2004 Dec 6, In Spain bombs injured at least 18 people in 7 cities following warnings from callers claiming to represent the Basque separatist group ETA.
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
2005 Dec 6, US Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice signed an agreement with Romania to open US military bases there. One site was identified by Human Rights Watch as the site for a clandestine prison.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6, Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida professor accused of helping lead a terrorist group that carried out suicide bombings against Israel, was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him by a federal court jury in Tampa, Fla.; the jury deadlocked on the other charges.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, Philadelphia won the first NHL scoreless game that was decided by a shootout, beating Calgary 1-0.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, The NYSE voted to acquire Archipelago Holdings in a $9 billion transaction that would transform the Big Board into a for-profit company with new, high-tech trading capabilities.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.C1)
2005 Dec 6, SF hired Nathaniel Ford Sr. to run the Municipal Transportation Agency (MUNI) for a 5-year contract with a base salary of $298,000. Ford was enticed away from the Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority where his base was $205,000.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 6, In SF police officer Andrew Cohen (39) was suspended for producing department videos that mocked minorities. 24 other officers were soon suspended for their involvement in the video productions. In 2006 18 officers filed a $20 million lawsuit against SF for defamation and discrimination.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A1,16)(SFC, 12/10/05, p.A11)(SFC, 8/11/06, p.B7)
2005 Dec 6, In Spokane, Wash., voters said Mayor James E. West (1951-2006) must leave office this month in a special election sparked by allegations he used a city computer to woo gay men over the Internet. Certification of the vote was expected on Dec 16.
(AP, 12/07/05)(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.B6)
2005 Dec 6, Afghan government forces killed nine Taliban insurgents and arrested six others in a raid on a rebel camp in a volatile southern province.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Microsoft Corp. said it would set up 30 new innovation centers around the world, adding to its existing 60, in partnership with local governments, academic institutions and industry organizations.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, A German man filed a lawsuit in Virginia claiming he was held captive and tortured by US government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Khaled El-Masri said he was arrested Dec 31, 2003 while attempting to enter Macedonia for a holiday trip and flown to Afghanistan. During five months in captivity he was subjected to "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Britain's Conservative Party crowned David Cameron (39) as its new leader, hoping to end an election losing streak as PM Tony Blair's power and popularity sag.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Canada’s central bank raised interest rates for the 3rd time in a row by a quarter point to 3.25%, its highest point in nearly 2½ years.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6-2005 Dec 7, In southern China police allegedly killed as many as 10-20 protesters in a dispute over land use in Dongzhou. Villagers were angry over land confiscations and plans to construct a wind power plant. Armed police sealed off the village following the violent clashes. State news later reported 3 villagers killed and 8 wounded.
(AP, 12/09/05)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A15)(SSFC, 12/11/05, p.A2)
2005 Dec 6, China reported that a 10-year old girl in the Guangxi region had tested positive for bird flu, its 4th case of the deadly H5N1 strain.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 6, Indonesia’s central bank raised interest rates by one-half percentage point to 12.75% signaling a continuation of its tight monetary policy.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6, The World Wildlife Fund said a catlike creature photographed by camera traps on Borneo Island is likely to be a new species of carnivore.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 6, A C-130 Iranian military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building as it was trying to make an emergency landing, ripping open the top of the structure and igniting a huge fire. At least 115 people were killed including 21 on the ground in the Azadi suburb of Tehran.
(AP, 12/06/05)(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 6, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers struck Baghdad's police academy, killing at least 43 people and wounding at least 72 more. Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video claiming to have kidnapped a US security consultant.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, Israel clamped an open-ended closure on the West Bank and Gaza, banning virtually all Palestinians from Israel, and arrested 15 Palestinian militants in a first response to the suicide bombing that killed five Israelis outside a shopping mall.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Japan's Cabinet approved measures to demolish buildings designed using falsified earthquake safety data and to relocate residents amid a widening construction scandal. Some 60 of over 200 hotels and condominium complexes designed by Hidetsugu Aneha were ordered to be pulled down due to faked earthquake-resistance data.
(AP, 12/06/05)(Econ, 12/10/05, p.46)
2005 Dec 6, Kyodo News said Japan plans to extend its humanitarian military mission to Iraq into 2006 but could pull its ground forces in the middle of the year if the British and Australian troops guarding them leave.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Morocco's national airline completed an order for four Boeing Co. 787 jets and took out an option for one more.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Separatist radicals faced off against heavily-armed Nigerian police in eastern cities as a protest to demand an independent homeland for the 40-million-strong Igbo people entered its second day.
(AFP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia representatives of Islamic countries met ahead of a two-day summit, with delegates saying the world's largest Islamic organization must reform to face new challenges.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, South Africa charged ex-Deputy Pres. Jacob Zuma with rape.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(Econ, 12/10/05, p.56)
2005 Dec 6, In Sri Lanka a land mine blast killed 6 soldiers in the northern city of Jaffna.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, The UN top election official, Carina Perelli of Uruguay, vowed to fight her dismissal over sexual harassment charges, which she rejected as false and complained that she was being denied due process.
(AFP, 12/07/05)
2006 Dec 6, The US Senate confirmed Robert Gates as the new secretary of defense.
(WSJ, 12/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 6, The top-level bipartisan Baker-Hamilton panel, the Iraq Study Group (ISG), called for a complete overhaul of US policy in Iraq. This included talks with Iran and Syria, a withdrawal of most combat troops by 2008, and threats to press Iraqi leaders to quell violence.
(AFP, 12/6/06)(WSJ, 12/7/06, p.A1)(Econ, 12/9/06, p.31)
2006 Dec 6, The US indicted Charles McArthur Emmanuel (29), son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with committing torture in Liberia. This was the Justice Department's first case under a 12-year-old anti-torture law. The indictment came the day before Emmanuel, He currently in federal custody was scheduled to be sentenced on the passport fraud charges in Miami.
(Reuters, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Cisco CEO John Chambers Network said equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. will set up a center in India to support all aspects of its worldwide operations.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, NASA scientists reported evidence of water at 2 Martian craters.
(SFC, 12/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 6, James Kim, a San Francisco man who struck out alone to find help for his family after their car got stuck on a snowy, remote road in Oregon was found dead, bringing an end to what authorities called an extraordinary effort to stay alive.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, In California the inaugural class to the state Hall of Fame included: Ronald Reagan, Cesar Chavez, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Clint Eastwood, Frank Gehry, David D. Ho, M.D., Billie Jean King, John Muir, Sally K. Ride, Ph.D., Alice Walker and the Hearst and Packard Families.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Hall_of_Fame)
2006 Dec 6, In Wisconsin a propane gas leak led to a huge explosion in a west side Milwaukee industrial area, killing three people at the Falk Corp. transmission parts plant. 46 others were injured.
(SFC, 12/7/06, p.A3)
2006 Dec 6, A suicide bomber killed two Americans and five Afghans outside a security contractor's southern Afghan compound.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Australia's Parliament lifted a four-year ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell research despite opposition from the prime minister and other party leaders.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Britain’s PM Tony Blair has conceded that US-led forces are not winning the war in Iraq, as he headed for Washington to discuss strategic options in the war-scarred country.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Scotland Yard announced it was treating the death of former spy Alexander Litvinenko as a homicide. British investigators spoke with Dmitry Kovtun, one of at least two Russians who met Litvinenko in a London hotel on November 1. Litvinenko died on November 23 from radiation poisoning caused by polonium 210. Andrei Lugovoi, hospitalized in Moscow and being tested for possible polonium contamination, was scheduled to be interviewed by British investigators, but the interview was postponed. British officials said traces of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 have been detected at a London stadium that hosted a soccer game attended by Lugovoi.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Reuters, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Lawmakers in Bulgaria adopted a much-delayed law to open the archives of its former communist secret service, but also voted to keep a small portion of the files secret for "national security reasons."
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, In Chad an association of radio broadcasters said private radio stations began a three-day protest of government censorship of their reporting on Chad's volatile east.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Far-right paramilitary groups pulled out of a peace process with the Colombian government following a decision by President Alvaro Uribe's administration to transfer jailed militia leaders to a maximum security prison.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Congo inaugurated Joseph Kabila as its first freely elected president in more than four decades.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Hector Palacios, a well-known dissident jailed in a Cuban government crackdown on the opposition three years ago, was unexpectedly released from prison.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Egypt’s Pres. Hosni Mubarak arrived in Dublin at the start of a five-day European tour that will also include France and Germany. He said renewing the Middle East peace process is top of his agenda.
(AFP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, the military ruler who led a coup against Fiji's elected government, forcibly dissolved the South Pacific island's parliament, installed a new prime minister and warned that he could use force against dissenters.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, France went head-to-head with CNN and the BBC with the launch of its state-funded 24/7 news channel, part of President Jacques Chirac's efforts to make his country's voice heard. The France 24 news channel was a joint venture between TF1, a private firm, and the state-owned France Televisions.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.63)
2006 Dec 6, In Iraq a mortar attack killed at least eight people and wounded dozens in a secondhand goods market in a shelling in the Sadr City Shiite district of Baghdad. Soon after a suicide bomber on a bus in Sadr City detonated explosives hidden in his clothing, killing two people and wounding 15. A bomb also exploded near a shop in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 12. Drive-by shootings and mortar attacks north and south of the capital killed four Iraqis and wounded five. US ground and air forces conducted a raid targeting foreign insurgents near the Iranian border, killing a militant who opened fire on an aircraft. At least 75 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, including 48 whose bullet-riddled bodies were found in different parts of Baghdad. 11 US troops were killed in 5 separate incidents in Iraq. An Iraqi court sentenced a Libyan member of al-Qaida in Iraq to death after he admitted taking part in eight attacks on US-led coalition forces and Iraqi targets.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 6, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, said that Iran will face UN sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear program but that major world powers remain divided over their extent.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, A US serviceman fatally shot a civilian at the US air base in Kyrgyzstan "in response to a threat."
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, A conference on bird flu opened in Mali. Experts were increasingly concerned for Africa as an international conference heard that Egypt, Nigeria, and Sudan continued to record outbreaks of the deadly disease.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon announced a program to help Mexico's 100 poorest communities, responding to leftist critics who accuse the conservative leader of wanting to help only the rich.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Cardinal Jozef Glemp (76) stepped down after more than 25 years as archbishop of Warsaw. He headed Poland's powerful Roman Catholic Church through the dark days of martial law and the country's later jump to free-market democracy.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, In Doha, Qatar, Midway through day five of the Asian Games, China had 67 gold medals to Japan's 18 and South Korea's 14. Kazakhstan, thanks to its shooters and weightlifters, had 10.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill dropping a minimal turnout threshold in polls, which critics say will make them less fair, despite a plea by his human rights adviser not to do so.
(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia said it had fired a security adviser who wrote in The Washington Post that the world's top oil exporter would intervene in Iraq once the United States withdraws troops. Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani citizen and his daughter for smuggling heroin into the kingdom. The kingdom beheaded 83 people in 2005 and 35 people in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, In Somalia Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, an Islamic courts official in Bulo Burto, said residents who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, adding the edict will be implemented in three days. Hoping to head off a regional proxy war, the UN Security Council came to the aid of Somalia's virtually powerless government, authorizing hundreds of East African troops to train and protect the interim administration in its conflict with an Islamic militia.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, South Korea mobilized 45,000 riot police to thwart banned protests as crucial talks on forging a free trade agreement with the United States faltered. The US and South Korea reached agreement on sharing costs for the deployment of US troops on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Sudanese newspapers reported that Salva Kiir, Sudan's first vice president, demanded the arrest of two pro-Khartoum generals involved in deadly clashes in the southern town of Malakal last month. Pro-government janjaweed militiamen in the Darfur region killed 2 students in El Fasher, a day after another student was killed. Rebel groups massed nearby in preparation for a possible attack against the forces.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, A Ugandan army spokesman said at least 12,000 refugees fleeing fighting in eastern Congo DRC have crossed over the border into southwest Uganda.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2007 Dec 6, It was reported that the Bush administration has developed a voluntary plan to freeze interest rates for five years for thousands of strapped homeowners whose mortgages were scheduled to rise in the coming months. The plan called for a 5-year freeze for mortgages made from Jan 2005 to July 30, 2007.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 12/6/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 6, CIA Director Michael Hayden revealed the agency had videotaped its interrogations of two terror suspects in 2002 and destroyed the tapes three years later out of fear they would leak to the public and compromise the identities of US questioners.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2007 Dec 6, Republican Mitt Romney said his Mormon faith should neither help nor hinder his quest for the White House and vowed to serve the interests of the nation, not the church, if elected president.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2007 Dec 6, Former CEO William McGuire of UnitedHealth Group Inc agreed to forfeit more than $400 million in stock options and other compensation and pay a $7 million fine to settle an investigation into the health insurer's options practices.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, A gas blast at mine in northern China killed at least 105 people.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A French anti-terrorist judge filed preliminary charges against Guillaume Dasquie, an investigative journalist and author, accused of publishing defense secrets.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A parcel bomb exploded at a lawyer's office in central Paris, killing a secretary and seriously injuring an attorney, but a motive was not immediately clear.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, India overturned a 1914 law that banned women from tending bar in New Delhi. A ruling in New Delhi in January said women could do bar work in hotels and restaurants, ended a 92-year-old law barring their employment. In August the Delhi government sought a ban on such jobs for women. Each of India’s 29 states has its own laws governing the sale of alcohol, and many restrict women working behind the bar.
(SFC, 12/22/07, p.A15)(http://in.news.yahoo.com/071206/211/6o422.html)
2007 Dec 6, In Indonesia American climate negotiators refused to back down in their opposition to mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, even as a US Senate panel endorsed sharp reductions in pollution blamed for global warming.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Iraq suspended parliamentary sessions for the year. Drive-by shootings killed at least two people in separate attacks in Baghdad and Muqdadiyah. In Muqdadiyah suspects gunned down a US-backed security volunteer. Clashes broke out between Kurdish peshmerga soldiers and alleged al-Qaida gunmen who attacked a Kurdish checkpoint near Khanaqin, close to the Iranian border. A peshmerga spokesman said 8 Kurdish troops were killed and 5 wounded. 3 militants also died. The US military said its troops killed three suspected insurgents and captured 19 in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq along the Tigris River valley. US forces raided a house in the al-Hayy area south of Kut, killing two suspects and wounding two others. Two men were killed in Mosul, one who, wielding a knife, lunged at American soldiers as they entered a building, and another who was wrapped in blanket with wires protruding from it.
(AP, 12/6/07)(WSJ, 12/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 6, In southern Mexico Jose Luis Aquino (33), a trumpet player, was found dead with his hands and feet bound and a nylon bag over his head, in what authorities said was apparently the country's third murder of a musician in less than a week.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A New Zealand judge sentenced two Chinese students to 18 1/2 years in prison for the ransom kidnapping and slaying of a fellow student, saying the two fell into "cyber sloth" and greed during their studies abroad.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Thousands of lawyers boycotted courts across Pakistan while police blocked former PM Nawaz Sharif and his supporters from marching to the heavily guarded home of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, In the Philippines 14 Muslim Abu Sayyaf were sentenced to life in prison for the 2001 kidnapping of a US missionary couple and 18 others in a yearlong jungle ordeal that prompted US-backed offensives against the guerrillas.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 12/7/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 6, The 24th Southeast Asian Games officially opened in Korat, Thailand.
(AFP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe arrived in Lisbon for an EU-Africa summit, which British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is boycotting because he would not "sit down at the same table" as him.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2008 Dec 6, Indicted Democratic US Rep. William Jefferson was ousted from his New Orleans area district, while Republicans narrowly held on to the seat vacated by a retiring incumbent. Republican attorney Anh "Joseph" Cao won 50% of the vote to Jefferson's 47% and will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress.
(AP, 12/7/08)
2008 Dec 6, A Montana state judge ruled that doctor assisted suicides are legal in the state.
(SSFC, 12/7/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 6, The Univ. of Hawaii activated the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (PS1) to search for dangerous asteroids.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.100)
2008 Dec 6, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow (b.1932), daughter of utilities tycoon George Crawford, died in New York. The heiress spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband. In 19082 Claus von Bulow was convicted of trying twice to kill her by injecting her with insulin at their estate in Newport, R.I. That verdict was thrown out on appeal, and he was acquitted at a second trial in 1985.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Okay Airways, China's first private airline, began a planned one-month suspension of passenger service 10 days early after skittish airports insisted on cash to refuel its planes. The airline suffered from financial and management woes.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, In Denmark "Gomorra," a movie by Italian director Matteo Garrone about Naples' criminal underworld, won the best film prize at the 21st annual European Film Awards.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Greek police shot and killed Alexis Grigoropoulos (15). His death sparked two weeks of the worst rioting the country has seen in decades. In 2010 a court sentenced a police officer to life in prison for Grigoropoulos' death, and a second officer to 10 years.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2008 Dec 6, India’s central bank cuts its benchmark short term lending and borrowing rates by one percentage point. The next day the government unveiled a stimulus package that included increased spending and easing of some taxes.
(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A8)
2008 Dec 6, A series of attacks targeted Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and in the north, killing at least six people, including a senior member of an anti-al-Qaida group.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, The Irish government ordered the recall of all pig meat products made in the Republic of Ireland after dioxins were discovered in slaughtered pigs thought to have eaten contaminated feed.
(AFP, 12/7/08)
2008 Dec 6, Mexican soldiers found at least eight bodies buried in a shallow grave in Michoacan state.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 6, Amsterdam unveiled plans to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Palestinians packed into cars to leave the West Bank city of Nablus after Israel eased restrictions on residents leaving the town in vehicles for the first time in six years.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, In the Philippines gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades fired on police officers who were tailing them, leaving at least 17 people dead in a fierce shootout in a Manila suburb.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, In Moscow, Russia, ultranationalist attacked 2 migrant workers, one of whom escaped. On Dec 10 the severed head of Salekh Azizov (20), the other Tajik migrant worker, was found in a trash bin. A group calling itself the Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists claimed responsibility. For the year some 85 people were reported killed by violent nationalists.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.A25)
2008 Dec 6, Sri Lanka's military captured a rebel-held village, bringing half of a main highway leading to the rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi under government control.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe came under fresh international pressure over his country's economic collapse as his government announced plans to introduce a 200 million dollar bill.
(AFP, 12/6/08)
2009 Dec 6, The Kennedy Center Honors, the top US arts awards, were presented by Pres. Obama to rock star Bruce Springsteen (60), actor Robert De Niro (66), comedian Mel Brooks (83), jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck (89) and opera singer Grace Bumbry (72).
(SFC, 12/7/09, p.A11)
2009 Dec 6, The play “Race," by David Mamet, opened on Broadway.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.95)
2009 Dec 6, In Pennsylvania parolee Ronald Robinson (32) fatally shot a man in Penn Hills over a $500 drug debt and then shot and killed police officer Michael Crawshaw (32).
(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 6, In eastern Afghanistan a NATO airstrike killed six militants who were planting bombs along a road in Laghman province. A group of militants attacked a police convoy on a main road. Mullah Amiruddin, a key Taliban leader in northern Faryab province's Ghormach district. 4 police officers were killed in the gunbattle.
(AP, 12/6/09)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 6, In southwestern Bangladesh two passenger buses collided head-on, leaving 21 people dead and 50 injured.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Belarus men appearing to be law enforcement officers abducted four opposition activists in an attempt to scare them away from political activity in the repressive former Soviet republic. The activists were held for several hours in an imitation execution, before being released in the woods dozens of miles (km) from the capital, Minsk.
(AP, 12/9/09)
2009 Dec 6, Bolivia held elections. President Evo Morales, a coca-grower at odds with Washington but hugely popular at home for empowering the long-suppressed indigenous majority, easily won re-election.
(AP, 12/6/09)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 6, Brazilian thieves tunneled their way to a money transport firm in Sao Paulo and made off with nearly $6 million. A day later 6 men were arrested for the robbery.
(AP, 12/7/09)(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Greece masked youths hurled firebombs and jagged chunks of marble at police as violence erupted during a march in Athens to mark the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager whose death sparked massive riots.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Guatemala a mob in Panahachel beat a suspected criminal to death and threatened to burn three women who were with the victim. It was Guatemala's fifth vigilante killing in three days.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, Iranian authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests on Dec 7, to deny the opposition a vital means of communication. Authorities also ordered journalists working for foreign media organizations not to leave their offices to cover the demonstrations.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Iraq gunmen killed four policemen at a checkpoint west of Baghdad in an early morning attack.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, Israeli settlers blocked roads, scuffled with police and pelted officers with eggs, in the most aggressive display of resistance yet to the government's ban on new housing construction in West Bank settlements.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Mexico thousands of people dressed in white demanded soldiers leave Ciudad Juarez, the country's most violent city, accusing troops of provoking a surge in drug-war killings and running protection rackets.
(Reuters, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Nepal Maoists imposed a strict nationwide strike in protest of the killing of 3 landless laborers on Dec 4.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.46)
2009 Dec 6, Pakistani police commandos acting on a tip killed one militant and arrested five others in a raid against a bombing cell accused in recent attacks around the northwest city of Peshawar. A roadside bomb killed two elders in the Bajur tribal region and left two other tribesmen wounded. Pakistani security forces killed 13 suspected militants, including a prominent commander identified as Gul Maula, in gunbattles in two other parts of the northwest over the weekend.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, The Palestinian Authority signed an agreement with the World Bank and other donors for $64 million to help it prepare for statehood.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, Philippine troops arrested 62 people and discovered another major weapons cache after martial law was imposed in southern Maguindanao province following the country's worst political massacre on Nov 23. About 20-30 armed followers of the Ampatuan clan, the main suspect in massacre, opened fire on police commandos while they were patrolling Datu Unsay township, near the site of the massacre. Government negotiators were trying to convince the gunmen to surrender to avoid bloodshed that could harm civilians.
(AP, 12/6/09)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 6, Romanians voted in a presidential run-off hoping to put an end to a political standoff holding up crucial international aid to the recession-wracked EU member. Center-right President Traian Basescu, a former sea captain promising tough state reforms, faced Social-Democrat Mircea Geoana, an ex-diplomat who has pledged to maintain jobs and "reunite Romania" after years of political squabbling. Basescu won with 50.33% of the vote. Supporters of Geoana charged that the election was marred by fraud. The final result was determined by Romanians abroad who favored Basescu by 78%.
(AFP, 12/6/09)(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A4)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.60)
2010 Dec 6, The US, South Korea and Japan all urged China to help rein in its ally North Korea and vowed solidarity in defending Seoul from any further attacks from the North.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, The US government provided estimates showing the US population grew to somewhere between 306 million and 313 million over the past decade.
(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 6, Internet giant Google fielded a new champion on the mobile phone market battlefield, a "Nexus S" smartphone made by South Korea's Samsung. It included built-in support for Near Field Communication, a wireless standard that enables customers to make payments over an electronic reader.
(AP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, It was reported that Fiji Water, owned by billionaire Stewart Resnick, will acquire Justin Vineyards and Winery in Paso Robles, Ca.
(SFC, 12/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, In Virginia the body of Tina Smith (41) was found slain in her home near Salem. Her daughter Brittany Mae Smith (12) was missing as well was the suspected killed Jeffrey Scott Easley (32). He had been living with the Smiths since meeting tina online last October. On Dec 9 police in California arrested Easley in San Francisco and rescued the girl.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 6, The African Union appointed Guinea's interim president Sekouba Konate to drive forward plans for an African military force which had been due to be operational by this year.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, Argentina announced that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Belgium's central bank chief, Guy Quaden, urged the rudderless country's divided politicians to speedily form a government to allay financial market fears about its future.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, British researchers said they may have found a way to reverse damage in the central nervous system caused by multiple sclerosis, in a study hailed by campaigners as a major breakthrough.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Cuba’s Supreme Court, for the second time this month, commuted the death sentence of a Salvadoran man convicted of plotting a series of Havana hotel bombings in 1997, leaving just one person left on the island's death row. Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena's sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, European nations wrestled over whether to commit more money to help stabilize the euro, as finance ministers gathered in Brussels to find ways to fight the debt crisis that has rocked the currency bloc.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, A coalition of Egyptian rights groups urged President Hosni Mubarak to nullify the results of the country's parliamentary election because of widespread vote rigging. Election monitors charged that Egypt's polls were marked by widespread fraud, as Mubarak's party prepared to take almost 100-percent control of parliament.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Haitian medical sources said fully 140 people have died of cholera in recent days in the southwest, a region that had been largely spared the epidemic. Officials raised the death toll to over 2,000 since the outbreak began in October.
(AFP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 6, A motorboat overloaded with mostly Haitian migrants slammed into a reef off the British Virgin Islands and capsized as it tried to evade authorities. At least 8 people were killed, including two infants. 25 people were rescued. Police in St. Maarten arrested three Haitians and said they will be charged with human smuggling in the case.
(AP, 12/7/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, India and France signed a multibillion agreement to build two nuclear power plants in India as French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked to drum up business for his nation during his four-day visit.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Ireland Tony Walsh (56) was convicted of raping 3 boys over a 5-year period three decades earlier. Investigators had concluded that Walsh actually raped and molested hundreds of boys and girls while serving as a Dublin priest from 1978 to 1996. Investigators also reported that the Vatican had tried to stop the Dublin church from defrocking Walsh.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 6, Israel's top policewoman, who had clung to life for four days after her patrol car was trapped in a burning Israel forest, died of her wounds as the last of the flames subsided in the worst fire in Israel's history.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, New Zealand officials attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at the Ohau Point colony, one of the country’s most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals. Oahu Point was only reoccupied for breeding in 1990, and about 600 fur seal pups were born there in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Nigeria's Niger Delta a militant faction said it had ruptured an oil pipeline in response to what it said was the killing of innocent civilians during a military offensive last week.
(Reuters, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Pakistan twin suicide bombers in police uniform killed 43 people in Ghalanai, the main town in the tribal district of Mohmand, attacking an anti-Taliban militia and pro-government elders near the Afghan border. US drone missile strikes killed 7 people in the tribal region.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, Poland's parliament got notice of its first ever African lawmaker, a teacher and Christian pastor from Nigeria who has lived in Poland for 17 years and proven himself a popular local leader. John Abraham Godson (40), a councilman in the central city of Lodz, will fill a seat in the national parliament vacated by a fellow lawmaker from the Civic Platform party.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Russia Yegor Sviridov (28) was shot dead with rubber bullets during a fight in northwest Moscow. A suspect arrested in the shooting was from Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus. Russian media later said Sviridov was a member of the Spartak Ultras, a group linked to soccer fan violence in the past. In Oct 2011 a jury at Moscow City Court convicted Aslan Cherkesov of premeditated murder. The court's Judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Five other people who took part in the brawl were sentenced to five years in jail each for hooliganism and inflicting light bodily injury.
(AP, 12/11/10)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)(AP, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar (75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Somalia 18 people were reported killed in weekend fighting. Mogadishu ambulance service chief Ali Muse said that 66 civilians were also wounded in the fighting. In central Somalia clashes between rival Majerteen and the Sa'ad clans killed at least 20 people.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, A South African newspaper, The New Age, debuted with denials it is an agent of the governing African National Congress. The owners, members of the Gupta family, which has mining, computer and other businesses in South Africa and India, was seen as close to President Jacob Zuma.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Sudan aircraft from the northern Sudanese military began 3 days of bombings in western Bahr el Ghazal state. No casualties were reported. They follow multiple bombing runs by the north in November in a disputed region on the border between neighboring northern Bahr el Ghazal state and southern Darfur state. A committee with representatives from the UN mission in Sudan and the northern and southern Sudanese militaries later found that the bombings violated the 2005 agreement that ended more than 20 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Switzerland six world powers held their first meeting in 14 months with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, sounding out Tehran's intentions after it claimed to have taken a new step in making fissile material.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down a life sentence to Ildephonse Hategekimana, a lieutenant from the former Rwandan army, after finding him guilty of genocide, murder and rape in the 1994 massacre of Tutsis.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Venezuelan soldiers took charge at several privately owned hotels to help accommodate some of the thousands of people who have been forced from their homes by flooding and mudslides following weeks of torrential rains.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2011 Dec 6, US top FAA administrator Randy Babbitt (65) resigned following his weekend arrest in Virginia on charges of drunken driving.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A10)
2011 Dec 6, The Occupy movement entered a new phase with a day of marches and rallies in over 20 cities nationwide. Oakland protesters reclaimed some foreclosed properties, shouted down foreclosure auctions, waved banners outside banks and held several marches and rallies.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Dec 6, SF BART officials said thefts of copper are impacting train traffic. Vallejo Public Works said thieves have stripped $200,000 worth of copper wiring from street lights and signalized intersections since May.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Dec 6, Facebook started making its Timeline feature available to the approximately two million Facebook users living in New Zealand. The new application takes everything you’ve ever done on Facebook and creates a digital scrapbook that is simultaneously eye-pleasing and addicting.
(http://tinyurl.com/42y7nsq)
2011 Dec 6, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber struck a crowd of Shiite worshippers at a mosque in Kabul, killing at least 56 people in the deadliest of two attacks on a Shiite holy day. 4 other Shiites were killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when a bomb strapped to a bicycle exploded as a convoy of Afghan Shiites was driving down the road. The Taliban strongly condemned the two attacks. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Pakistan-based group, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The death toll in the attacks was soon raised to at least 80. On June 19, 2012, authorities in Kabul announced that two men have been charged in connection with the suicide bombing.
(AP, 12/6/11)(AP, 12/7/11)(AP, 12/11/11)(AP, 6/19/12)
2011 Dec 6, Antigua-based LIAT airline said all of its pilots have called in sick, likely disrupting all flights. The pilots were protesting the firing of a captain for undisclosed reasons.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, A Chinese court jailed Australian businessman Matthew Ng for 13 years on bribery and embezzlement charges. Ng, an executive working for travel services group Et-China in southern China, was arrested last November. Chinese media have said the case against Ng relates to his role in Et-China's battle with a Guangzhou government-owned travel company for control of domestic travel agency GZL.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Colombia Samuel Moreno (51), a former mayor of Bogota, was charged with receiving illegal kickbacks for public works contracts.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Tens of thousands marched across Colombia to repudiate last month's execution of soldiers and police by leftist rebels, who had held them for more than a decade as political bargaining chips.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Greek students hurled rocks and bottles during clashes with police at a rally to mark the third anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager in central Athens.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Guyana police fired tear gas and rubber pellets to disperse about 500 protesters demanding an election recount, a day after the home of a ruling party politician was reportedly firebombed.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, India’s police said Maoist rebels have raided police posts, engaged in shootouts and bombed government buildings and railway lines in eastern India in a two-day campaign of violence protesting their leader's killing on Nov 24.
(AP, 12/6/11)
\2011 Dec 6, In Italy an emergency budget under new PM Mario Monti came into force.
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.57)
2011 Dec 6, In Ivory Coast 3 journalists from a newspaper loyal to ousted president Laurent Gbagbo were released from jail after being acquitted on charges of insulting his successor. Cesar Etou, publication director at the daily Notre Voie, political service head Boga Sivori and chief editor Didier Depry, arrested on November 24, were found not guilty.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Japan's whaling fleet left port for the country's annual hunt in Antarctica.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said it believes 150 liters (40 US gallons) of waste water including highly harmful strontium, linked with bone cancers, has spread to the open ocean. The announcement came a day after TEPCO said it found 45 tons of waste water pooled around the leaky water-treatment system at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. In the weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the plant, TEPCO dumped 10,000 tons of lower-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Kuwait's ruler, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, dissolved parliament and set the Gulf nation toward elections, citing "deteriorating conditions" amid an increasingly bitter political showdown over alleged high-level corruption.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Kenya’s military reported a large battle over the weekend (Dec 3-4) in which it said 11 Somali government soldiers and more than 40 al-Shabab fighters were killed.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Libya's government gave its firm support to a 2-week deadline for militias to quit Tripoli, backing up a threat from the capital's council to lock down the city if they fail to do so.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Human Rights Watch said in a report that between 20,000 and 40,000 children work in artisanal gold mines in Mali, Africa's third-largest producer of the precious metal.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Niger 2 days of clashes began between demonstrators and police leaving two people dead in Zinder where opposition politician Aboubacar Mahamadou was on trial for "preparing protest demonstrations" on November 28 against President Mahamadou Issoufou. Mahamadou was acquitted on Dec 7. Six top police chiefs were sacked in the wake of clashes.
(AFP, 12/10/11)
2011 Dec 6, A Nigerian court convicted a man accused of being one of several spokesmen for the Boko Haram radical Muslim sect, responsible for hundreds of killings this year. Ali Sanda Umar Konduga was sentenced to three years in prison.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In North Korea 6 American volunteers, affiliated with the Fuller Center for Housing, arrived to kick off a project to build 50 homes for families working at a tree farm outside Pyongyang.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia sentenced an Australian man to 500 lashes and a year in jail after being found guilty of blasphemy. Reports said Mansor Almaribe (45) was detained in Medina on November 14 while making the hajj pilgrimage and accused of insulting companions of the prophet Mohammed. The father-of-five from Shepparton in Victoria state, who could not afford a lawyer, suffers from diabetes and heart disease.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Dec 6, Somali police appeared to make a deadly error by returning a suspected suicide car bomber they had arrested to his bomb-laden vehicle, where the suspect then detonated a blast that killed four people.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, The South African National Parks authority said rhino poaching has climbed to a record for a 2nd year. As many as 405 rhinos have been killed so far this year, 22% more than in 2010.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 6, Syrian activists said a surge in violence in Homs has killed up to 50 people in the past 24 hours, leaving dozens of bodies in the streets.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Taiwan's state-owned CPC Corporation signed a 20-year contract with Qatar's RasGas to buy 1.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Tibet 12 people were killed and five were missing after their bus plunged into a river.
(AP, 12/10/11)
2011 Dec 6, Animal Asia, an animal protection group, said 14 Asiatic black bears have been rescued from a bear bile farm in Vietnam after their owner decided to renounce the illegal trade.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Yemen a civilian was killed when a shell, fired by troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, hit a bus in Taez.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2012 Dec 6, The US Senate voted to approve a bill to grant permanent normal trade relations with Russia. Pres. Obama said he will sign it.
(SFC, 12/7/12, p.A12)
2012 Dec 6, A US federal grand jury indicted Trenton, NJ, Mayor Tony Mack (46), his borther Ralphiel Mack (40) and friend Joseph Giorgianni (63) on bribery and fraud charges in a scheme to help individuals acquire a city-owned lot to build a parking garage.
(SFC, 12/7/12, p.A8)
2012 Dec 6, A US District Judge ruled that snakes, frogs and fairways can coexist at the San Francisco-owned Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica.
(SFC, 12/8/12, p.C6)
2012 Dec 6, In Washington state hundreds of marijuana enthusiasts huddled near Seattle's famed Space Needle tower with pipes, bongs and hand-rolled joints to celebrate Washington's new status as the first state in the nation to legalize pot for adult recreational use.
(Reuters, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 6, In Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber posing as a messenger of peace blew himself up near Asadullah Khalid, the newly appointed intelligence chief, seriously wounding him. 5 children were killed and two others were wounded by a mine in Sangin district, Helmand province, while collecting scrap items they hoped to sell.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, A treaty that African nations hope will lead to the fair and humane treatment of people displaced in their own countries went into force today, more than three years after it was conceived by the African Union. 15 African nations have ratified the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, A Bosnian court convicted Mevlid Jasarevic, who opened fire on the US embassy on Oct 28, 2011, of terrorism and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. Alleged accomplices Emrah Fojnica and Munib Ahmetspahic were acquitted.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, British police arrested prominent publicist Max Clifford (69) in connection to the broad investigation into child sex abuse spurred by the Jimmy Savile case.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Nearly 2,000 Chadian refugees, who fled a 2008 civil war between rebels and government forces into Cameroon, began leaving their camp to return to their home country.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Egypt's Republican Guard ordered protesters supporting and opposing President Mohammed Morsi to leave the area around the presidential palace after overnight clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist leader killed at least five people.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, French Polynesia created a 1.5 million square mile shark sanctuary.
(SFC, 12/19/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 6, German federal prosecutors charged 2 Iranian men with allegedly smuggling dozens of German-made aircraft motors to Iran to be used in its Ababil III surveillance and attack drone.
(AP, 2/20/13)
2012 Dec 6, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki said Baghdad and leaders of the Kurds' self-ruled autonomous region have agreed that units will be formed from local ethnic and sectarian groups to replace Iraqi and Kurdish forces currently in the disputed areas, claimed by Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, In Iraq gunmen killed five policemen in an attack on a checkpoint south of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, NATO moved forward with its plan to place Patriot missiles and troops along Syria's border with Turkey to protect against potential attacks.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, In New Zealand an unusually destructive tornado swept through neighborhoods around Auckland, killing three people and forcing 250 more to evacuate damaged and powerless homes.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Northern Ireland police rammed a car and seized an Irish Republican Army bomb late today, hours ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a one-day trip being overshadowed by an upsurge in sectarian passions. Police arrested three men in the disabled car and a fourth suspect nearby.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 6, In Pakistan a US drone fired a pair of missiles at a house in North Waziristan, killing three suspected militants. Sheik Khalid bin Abdel Rehman al-Hussainan, also known as Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, was among the dead. He had appeared in many videos released by al-Qaida's media wing, Al-Sahab, and was presented as a religious scholar for the group.
(AP, 12/6/12)(AP, 12/9/12)
2012 Dec 6, Syria's state television said a booby trapped car has exploded in a neighborhood of the capital, Damascus, killing one person.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Thai law enforcement authorities announced that they will file murder charges against former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva and his deputy in the first prosecutions of officials for their roles in a deadly 2010 crackdown on anti-government protests. On Aug 28, 2014, a Thai court dismissed the murder charges against Abhisit Vejjajiva and his ex-deputy.
(AP, 12/6/12)(AFP, 8/28/14)
2013 Dec 6, US FDA said it has approved a new hepatitis C drug. The Sovaldi pills from Gilead Sciences was approved for use in combination with older drugs to treat the main forms of hepatitis C in the US. The US health industry soon complained as the US price was the drug was set at $1,000 a daily pill, or $84,000 for a 12-week treatment.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.D3)(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.A1)
2013 Dec 6, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in introduced Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on the meme of a smiling Shiba Inu dog. It quickly developed its own online community reaching a market capitalization of US $5,382,875,000 on January 28, 2021. Marcus and Palmer ended their affiliation with the enterprise in 2015.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin)(SFC, 2/15/21, p.C1)
2013 Dec 6, In Texas Jerald Cobbs, a former top executive of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), was indicted over an improperly awarded $11 million taxpayer funded grant.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 6, A winter storm that some forecasters say is the worst to hit the United States in years slammed the nation's midsection early today, snarling travel and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands. At least two deaths were reported on roads in Texas and Missouri.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In London three members of a self-styled "Muslim patrol" who harassed passers-by for wearing short skirts, holding hands and drinking alcohol were jailed for up to 16 months after admitting a variety of public order and assault charges.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to 6 when high winds hurled a tree limb against a car, killing 3 people in Poland. Britain and Denmark had already reported 3 deaths. Thousands of people in Britain faced a second day of flooding as the country confronted its worst tidal surge in 60 years after Xaver roared across northern Europe.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In CAR 19 members of the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, defected in the Central African Republic where the rebels are being pursued by African Union forces backed by American advisers.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 6, In China authorities in Shanghai ordered schoolchildren indoors and a halt to construction as the city, shrouded in yellow haze, suffered its worst bouts of air pollution.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 6, In China a woman died of the H10N8 strain of bird flu, the first ever reported human case of the virus.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian police used tear gas to end clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, kidnapped as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, was convicted in absentia by an Italian court of decade-old terror charges and sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, French President Francois Hollande told some 40 African leaders at a Paris summit that the continent must "ensure its own security" in order to "take charge of its destiny."
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Hong Kong reported its second human case of H7N9 bird flu just days after the first, raising fears that the virus is spreading beyond mainland China.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Indian-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to open a £240-million manufacturing plant in Brazil.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Japan enacted a state-secrets law toughening penalties for leaks, despite public protests and criticism that it will muzzle the media and help cover up official misdeeds.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Mexican officials said 6 people tested for possible radiation exposure have been released from hospital but remain under detention as suspects in the theft of a truck carrying highly radioactive cobalt-60.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In Mexico Guerrero state officials found the dismembered bodies of 8 family members who had been kidnapped a day earlier in the town of Teloloapan. Three other members of the same family had also been kidnapped, including an eight-year-old girl. But their whereabouts were unknown.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 6, The Norwegian oil company Statoil announced the discovery of a major gas deposit with its US partner ExxonMobil off the coast of Tanzania.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In eastern Pakistan gunmen riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a vehicle carrying Shamsur Rehman, a leader of a hard-line Sunni group, killing him and wounding a passer-by before fleeing in Lahore.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Romania's Interior Ministry said Adrian Procop (21), a Romanian man accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum, was arrested in Britain after months on the run. Procop entered the Kunsthal museum at night in Oct 2012 with a friend, Radu Dogaru, and stole artworks worth 18 million euros ($24 million).
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Serbian police say they have detained hundreds of people in a massive sweep against drug traffickers throughout the Balkan country.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Somali lawmaker Feisal Warsame Mohamed was killed when a car bomb blew up his vehicle outside the prime minister's office in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Key leaders of South Sudan's ruling party charged President Salva Kiir with "dictatorial" behaviour Friday, warning of instability threatening the young nation in a deeply controversial challenge to his rule.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In southeastern Turkey two Kurdish protesters, aged 34 and 32, were shot dead in a violent confrontation with police. The clashes were sparked by claims that Kurdish rebel cemeteries had been destroyed.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich flew to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin, seeking aid to shore up a creaking economy as protesters back home, opposed to his U-turn away from Europe, defied police.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, The UN called for an urgent investigation into allegations in a Reuters report that Thai immigration officials moved Myanmar refugees into human trafficking rings.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2014 Dec 6, In Berkeley, Ca., police used tear gas to break up an evening long protest by demonstrators marching against recent incidents of police violence against blacks.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A8)
2014 Dec 6, New Mexico levied over $54 million in penalties against the US Dept. of Energy for violations that resulted in indefinite closure of the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A8)
2014 Dec 6, Ralph Baer, video game pioneer, died at his home in Manchester, New Hampshire. He created both the precursor to "Pong" and the electronic memory game "Simon" and had led the team that developed the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console.
(AP, 12/8/14)
2014 Dec 6, A fourth consecutive night of protest against police brutality got off to a slow start in New York City, after mourners held an interment for a black man shot dead by a white cop in a Brooklyn apartment house.
(Reuters, 12/7/14)
2014 Dec 6, In North Carolina a fire in an oceanfront condominium killed Mary Cochran (72) and Darlene Maslar (43). In 2016 Marshall Doran (24) pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and arson and was sentenced to life in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/juaddjb)(SFC, 8/5/16, p.A5)
2014 Dec 6, Australian court documents revealed that a boy (18) raped his best buddy’s sixty-two year old mom at knife point after she invited him into her home in Sydney. The boy pleaded guilty last week to aggravated sexual assault.
(http://tinyurl.com/n7bvb3g)
2014 Dec 6, Bahrain and Britain said they planned to open a new military camp in Bahrain. This would be Britain’s 1st permanent camp in the Middle East region since it officially pulled out from the area in 1971.
(http://tinyurl.com/lz2apn3)
2014 Dec 6, French President Francois Hollande met with Russian President Putin in Moscow.
(Reuters, 12/6/2014)
2014 Dec 6, The CEO of SAP, a German software maker, confirmed that the company will remain an autonomous corporation in the long term.
(Reuters, 12/6/2014)
2014 Dec 6, The leaders of Greece and Turkey glossed over key differences between the nations and expressed support for close affairs between the often irritable neighbors.
(http://tinyurl.com/nbyw5o6)
2014 Dec 6, An Iranian court charged Jason Rezaian, a reporter for the Washington Post jailed since last July. He was not told the charges.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 6, In central Nigeria gunmen freed over 200 prisoners in Tunga, Niger state.
(SFC, 12/8/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 6, Pakistani soldiers killed Adnan Shukrijumah, a top al-Qaida operative, along with two other suspected militants in South Waziristan. Shukrijumah (39) had been indicted in the US for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the NYC subway system.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 6, In the Philippines more than 650,000 people fled villages and the armed force went on complete alert to brace for Typhoon Hagupit.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 6, In the Philippines Lorenzo Vinciguerra (49), a Swiss hostage for over two years, was shot and wounded while escaping from Abu Sayyaf extremists in Sulu province.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Dec 6, Somali PM Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, who has been at odds with the president for several months, lost a confidence vote in parliament, amid warnings that the political turmoil and power struggles could spoil efforts to -establish the war-torn country.
(http://tinyurl.com/pds4axm)
2014 Dec 6, Rebels in southern Syria signed an agreement toward unity that may attract more support from their Western and Arab backers, forging a joint defense pact to help shield them from government forces and Islamic State. It followed an agreement among the southern groups on a transition plan for Syria.
(Reuters, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 6, In Yemen Luke Somers (33), an American photojournalist, was killed along with South African teacher Pierre Korkie during a failed US-led raid to free them from al-Qaida affiliated rebels in Shabwa province.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A4)
2015 Dec 6, Holly Woodlawn (69), a transgender Puerto Rican woman featured in two Andy Warhol films, died in Los Angeles County. She was the woman described by Lou Reed in his song “Walk on the Wild Side" (1972).
(SFC, 12/8/15, p.C3)
2015 Dec 6, In Florida an unmanned Atlas V rocket lifted off carrying the Orbital ATK capsule to supply astronauts at the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 12/7/15, p.A4)
2015 Dec 6, The Texas Legislature adopted legislation allowing guns to be carried on university campuses. It was the 8th US state to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/q5q9njz)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.26)
2015 Dec 6, Armenia held a referendum on proposed constitutional changes that would give more powers to the prime minister and parliament at the expense of the president, who would become largely a figurehead. Armenians voted to curb presidential powers in the disputed referendum.
(AP, 12/6/15)(AFP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, Authorities in Burkina Faso said they have charged General Gilbert Diendere, who led a failed coup in September, with complicity in the 1987 assassination of President Thomas Sankara.
(Reuters, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Cambodia 6 people died after eating the barbequed carcass of a dog that had died for unknown reasons. 4 others died on Dec 8 after drinking rice wine.
(AP, 12/11/15)
2015 Dec 6, In western China some 100 masked men attacked a government office, smashing vehicles and equipment and leaving 13 people injured in a regional dispute over farmland. The attack was part of a disagreement between residents of Gansu province and the vast Inner Mongolia region it borders to the north.
(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, France's far-right National Front was tipped for historic gains as regional polls were held under a state of emergency just three weeks after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris. Marine Le Pen's anti-immigration National Front chalked up scores that reached 40 percent of the vote in several regions.
(AFP, 12/6/15)(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, The top security officials from India and Pakistan held talks in Thailand's capital, signaling a resumption of the rival countries' on-again, off-again peace dialogue.
(AP, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Indonesia a commuter train slammed into a passenger minibus at a railroad crossing in Jakarta, killing at least 18 people and seriously injuring six others.
(AP, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, The Israeli Ofer military court near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank sentenced Khalida Jarrar, a senior member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a well-known political figure, to 15 months in jail. She had been arrested in April on a series of charges, including encouraging attacks against Israel and violating a travel ban.
(AFP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, Israel's state-owned electric utility said Egyptian natural gas companies will pay it compensation of $1.76 billion plus interest for halting gas supplies in 2012.
(AP, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia Israa al-Ghomgham and her husband were arrested in a night raid on their home. She was accused of encouraging demonstrations for greater rights for the Shiite Muslim minority in Eastern province.
(SFC, 8/23/18, p.A4)
2015 Dec 6, At least 32 Islamic State fighters were killed and 40 more wounded in Syria's Raqqa province, in a series of air strikes believed to be carried out by a US-led coalition targeting the jihadists.
(Reuters, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, Venezuelans voted in tense elections that could see the opposition seize legislative power from the socialist government and risk sparking violence in the oil-rich, cash-poor nation. The opposition Democratic Unity coalition won 112 of 167 of the National Assembly seats. The ruling Socialists and its allies got 55 seats.
(AFP, 12/6/15)(Reuters, 12/7/15)(SFC, 12/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 6, In Yemen General Jaafar Mohammed Saad, the governor of Aden, was killed by a car bomb in the port city. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack that also killed at least 6 members of Saad's entourage.
(Reuters, 12/6/15)
2016 Dec 6, US President-elect Donald Trump said costs for a new Air Force One - one of the most prominent symbols of the US presidency - were out of control, and urged the government to cancel a contract with Boeing Co for the jet.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, The US and Japan said that Washington will give nearly 10,000 acres of land on Okinawa back to the Japanese government. The land had been used by Marines for jungle warfare training and the giveback will be completed by Dec 22.
(SFC, 12/7/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 6, The US Supreme Court ruled that sharing corporate secrets with friends or relatives is illegal even if the insider providing the tip doesn’t receive anything of value in return.
(SFC, 12/7/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 6, In Bahrain top officials from six Gulf Arab nations gathered for talks expected to focus on regional security and cooperation. The GCC bloc includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Belgian federal prosecutors said authorities have searched houses and detained eight people for questioning on suspicion of supporting Islamic State financially and through the recruitment of fighters for the Syrian civil war.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Brazil's currency and stocks seesawed as a Supreme Court decision to remove Senate president Renan Calheiros because he has been indicted on embezzlement charges raised doubts about upcoming votes on the government's austerity agenda.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A British man was found guilty of providing cash to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings in a case that linked England to the Islamic State group attacks in Europe. Zakaria Boufassil was convicted of "engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism" by providing 3,000 pounds ($3,700) to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in Birmingham, England.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Danish police arrested a man (26) suspected of seriously wounding one of its officers by shooting him in the head outside a police station in a Copenhagen suburb earlier in the day. The dog squad officer (43) died the next day.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)(AP, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 6, Danish toymaker Lego said it is appointing its first foreign CEO and will give its family owners a bigger role in developing the Lego brand under an organizational shake-up that will see incumbent Jorgen Vig Knudstorp step down by the end of the year. Briton Bali Padda, currently chief operations officer, will replace Knudstorp.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Egyptian security forces in the southern province of Assiut killed three gunmen in a raid on a hideout used by what it described as an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Egypt's official anti-corruption body said it has uncovered a network for human organ trafficking, including physicians whom it said exploited the victims' poverty in persuading them to sell their organs.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, In France former interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve took over as prime minister, replacing Manuel Valls who resigned to fight for the Socialist party nomination in presidential elections next year.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel won a new two-year term as leader of her Christian Democratic Union. She called for a ban on full-face Muslim veils "wherever legally possible".
(SFC, 12/7/16, p.A5)(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 6, A Greek court agreed to extradite three Turkish servicemen who were part of an eight-person helicopter crew that fled to Greece after a failed military coup, a decision that came a day after it refused to send three others back to Turkey.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Iran's state TV reported that a rescue helicopter carrying eight people has crashed into a lake in western Tehran, killing two people.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Iraqi army units surged towards the center of Mosul in an attack from the city's southeastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the seven-week-old battle for Islamic State's Iraqi stronghold.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, In Israel sculptor Itay Zalait placed a four meter (13 foot) tall effigy of Netanyahu on a white pedestal in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, adjacent to city hall, to test the limits of freedom of expression. The gilded statue was toppled by an onlooker after a brief public appearance.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A dozen Lebanese women, dressed as brides in white wedding dresses stained with fake blood and bandages, gathered outside government buildings in Beirut to protest a law, in place since the late 1940s, that allows a rapist to get away with his crime if he marries the survivor.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, In central Mali five suspected Islamist militants freed 93 prisoners during an attack on a jail in the town of Niono. Ninety prisoners remained at large after three were captured.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Poland's Supreme Court confirmed that the country would refuse to detain and extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski to the US.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A Saudi court sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom's rival Iran, in a move likely to heighten regional tensions.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, The Program for Int’l. Student Assessment (PISA), run by the OECD, released its latest results and showed students from Singapore roughly three years ahead of American students in math.
(Econ, 12/10/16, p.20)
2016 Dec 6, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that granted a man the right to medically-assisted death and could have opened the way to legalize euthanasia.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Syrian government forces and allied militias captured Aleppo's centrally located al-Shaar neighborhood from rebels as the government and its ally Russia rejected a cease-fire for the war-torn city.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Thailand’s interior ministry said severe flooding due to heavy rain in southern Thailand has killed 14 people, including five students. Six days of floods have affected 582,345 people in 11 of the country’s 76 provinces.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Several thousand Tunisian lawyers demonstrated in front of the prime minister's office, with some demanding his resignation as they escalated a protest against widely unpopular new taxes that will hit them and other high-end professions.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Venezuela's opposition withdrew from the latest round of crisis negotiations with authorities, insisting the government first release prisoners and allow a vote on the volatile country's political future.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A Yemen ferry sank 40 km (25 miles) northwest of the island of Socotra. At least 35 of the 64 people on the ship were soon rescued.
(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2017 Dec 6, US President Donald Trump reversed decades of US policy and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, The Trump administration announced it will restrict visas for Cambodians "undermining democracy" in the Southeast Asian nation following the dissolution of the main opposition party and a crackdown on independent media.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, California state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said claims from the October fires in the wine country have jumped to $9 billion.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A9)
2017 Dec 6, In California Frederick Darren Berg escaped from federal prison in Atwater. He was serving an 18-year prison term for masterminding a $100 million Ponzi scheme. In 2019 federal agents said he may have fled to South America.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3xgsb9e)(SFC, 4/6/19, p.A6)
2017 Dec 6, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed regulations that will limit companies to three robots each and limit the city to nine robots total. The robots would also be confined to industrial areas.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.C1)
2017 Dec 6, Time Magazine named “The Silence Breakers" as its 2017 Person of the Year, recognizing the women (and some men) who have come forward with stories of sexual harassment and assault.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 6, US health insurer United Health Group said its Optum unit is buying Da Vita Medical Group, the physician group of Da Vita dialysis centers.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.C6)
2017 Dec 6, Brazilian police and soldiers captured Rogerio Avelino da Silva, aka Rogerio 157, one of Rio de Janeiro's most wanted alleged drug trafficking bosses.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, British think tank Chatham House released a report saying hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to be illegally detained every year by hospitals in poor countries worldwide for nonpayment of bills.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A3)
2017 Dec 6, Czech billionaire businessman Andrej Babis was appointed prime minister after his ANO party came first in an October election, and he must now focus on securing parliamentary backing for a minority administration.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, French President Emmanuel Macron made his first official visit to Algeria, announcing that he came as a "friend" despite France's historically prickly relationship with its former colony.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, French rock star Johnny Hallyday (b.1943) died in Paris. His power ballads and colorful personal life made him a national treasure, loved by everyone from rebellious teens in the 1960s to modern-day presidents.
(AP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Greek police fired teargas at youths marching in Athens to mark the ninth anniversary of the killing of a teenager by police, an incident that sparked Greece's worst riots for decades. Alexandros Grigoropoulos (15) was shot dead in 2008.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Bela Kovacs, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament and a member of the nationalist opposition Jobbik party, was indicted for allegedly spying on the European Union. Charges also included fraud totaling 21,076 euros ($24,900) stemming from the fictitious employment of interns in the EU parliament in 2012 to 2013.
(AP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, In Italy Mattia Del Zotto (27) was arrested on suspicion he poisoned his entire family with a chemical once used to kill rodents, leading to the deaths of his grandparents and an aunt, and the hospitalization of five others.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced he would seek re-election in March 2018, a contest opinion polls show he will win comfortably.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government will allow Russians to compete as neutral athletes at the upcoming games in South Korea. The International Olympic Committee has banned the Russian team from games as punishment for doping violations at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
(AP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Employees at Slovenia's state intelligence agency went on strike, demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, The Swiss parliament elected Alain Berset (45) to become the country’s president next year, succeeding Pres. Doris Leuthard.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 6, Taiwan lawmakers approved a law requiring the removal of public statues honoring Chiang Kai-shek, a dictator who governed from the late 1940s until his death in 1975. In addition, Chiang’s name will be replaced on many schools and roads.
(CSM, 12/8/17)
2017 Dec 6, Two Ugandan musicians were released on bail after being charged with disturbing the peace of veteran President Yoweri Museveni for a song suggesting he should retire.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, In Ukraine sixteen people were injured in clashes in central Kiev as police sought to arrest ex-Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, a staunch foe of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, A UN study said the area under opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar has shrunk by a quarter in the last two years, as demand for opiates eases and methamphetamine use surges.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, In Yemen a Saudi-led coalition stepped up air strikes on the Houthis as the Iran-allied armed movement tightened its grip on Sanaa a day after the son of slain former president Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed revenge for his father's death. Local fighters captured an area on the Red Sea coast from Houthi rebels.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that the Trump administration has separated 81 migrant children from their families at the US-Mexico border since the June executive order that stopped the general practice amid a crackdown on illegal crossings.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A girl (7) from Guatemala was found near Lordsburg, New Mexico, by US Border Patrol agents. Jackeline Caal was in custody for about eight hours before she began having seizures. Emergency medical technicians discovered the girl's fever was 105.7 degrees Fahrenheit (40.9 degrees Celsius), and she was airlifted to an El Paso, Texas, hospital, where she later died. The girl was traveling with a group of 163 people, who approached agents to turn themselves in.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that a North Carolina court has struck down more legislation Republicans approved for their lame-duck governor's signature to erode powers of an incoming Democrat.
(SFC, 12/6/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 6, Tennessee inmate David Earl Miller (61) was executed in an electric chair for the 1981 killing of Lee Standifer (23), a mentally handicapped woman. He was the 2nd person to choose the electric chair over lethal injection in the past month.
(SFC, 12/7/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 6, An Australian appeal court overturned a conviction against Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson (68), the most senior Roman Catholic cleric ever found guilty of covering up child sex abuse.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, OPEC countries were gathered in Austria to find a way to support the falling price of oil, with analysts predicting the cartel and key ally Russia would agree to cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Bolivia Jorge Roca Suarez (67), one of South America's leading drug traffickers in the 1980s who served 28 years in prison in the United States before returning to Bolivia earlier this year, fled a medical clinic where he was receiving treatment.
(AP, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that Britain will suspend its top tier investor visas, which require 2 million pounds ($2.55 million) in investment, as part of a drive to crack down on organized crime and money laundering.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, China demanded Canada release a Huawei Technologies executive who was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1. Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, faced possible extradition to the United States on suspicion of trying to evade US trade curbs on Iran.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Chile's Constitutional Court threw out a regulation that prohibited some private hospitals and clinics from refusing to perform legal abortions.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, In eastern CongoDRC suspected militiamen killed at least 18 civilians, near the town of Beni, the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak. Congo's health ministry announced 13 new confirmed cases.
(Reuters, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, Cuba began offering its citizens full internet access for mobile phones over its 3G network.
(SFC, 12/6/18, p.A5)
2018 Dec 6, Dominican authorities called on the Coast Guard for assistance when seven of 28 migrants went missing after a boat capsized southeast of the Dominican Republic. They were believed to be Dominicans who were headed east to Puerto Rico.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, The 28-nation EU's interior ministers approved a declaration recognizing a common definition of anti-Semitism and acknowledging Jewish concerns given the prevalence of attacks in recent years.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The European Union and France said their total investment in development funding aimed at preventing terrorism in the G5 African Sahel countries (Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger) would rise to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion), as the region struggles with jihadism and lawlessness.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, France's PM Edouard Philippe said he was open to new measures to benefit workers on the lowest salaries, as the government scrambled to head off another round of 'yellow vest' protests in Paris this weekend.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Around 200 French high schools were blocked or disrupted by students protesting a raft of education overhauls, on a fourth day of action called to coincide with anti-government demonstrations which have rocked the country in recent weeks.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In France aid groups Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee said they have been forced to end the migrant rescue operations of the Aquarius ship in the Mediterranean Sea.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, Demonstrators in Greece threw firebombs and pelted police with rocks as marches on the 10th anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager degenerated into violence.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In southeastern Iran a suicide car bombing followed by an armed assault killed at least two policemen and wounding 42 people outside police headquarters in the port city of Chabahar. The city lies in Sistan-Baluchistan province which has long been a flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and Sunni Muslim extremists carrying out cross-border attacks targeting the Shiite authorities. Security forces soon detained 10 people suspected of links to the attack.
(AFP, 12/6/18)(Reuters, 12/6/18)(AP, 12/8/18)(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 6, A US F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet and a KC-130 Hercules refueling aircraft collided during training off Japan's coast. One of two crew members recovered was dead and five others remain missing.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Dutch court gave the go-ahead for a cull of hundreds of red deer in a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, in a wildlife management case that has sparked fierce opposition from animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Pakistan hundreds of supporters of opposition leader, Shahbaz Sharif, clashed with police in the eastern city of Lahore, leaving dozens of protesters hurt. The violence erupted when riot police used batons to prevent Sharif's supporters from reaching an anti-graft tribunal.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that Pakistan is kicking out 18 international charities after rejecting their final appeal to stay in the country. The majority of the shuttered aid groups are US-based, while the rest are from Britain and the European Union.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Palestinian court extended the detention of hunger-striking Palestinian-American activist Suha Jbara, a US citizen born in Panama, who claims she was tortured in captivity.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Philippine immigration authorities said they have arrested an American Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting altar boys was arrested in a church in Naval town on the island province of Biliran. Rev. Kenneth Bernard Hendricks (77) has been indicted in Ohio for alleged illicit sexual conduct in the Philippines.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Polish court ruled that Lech Walesa, the anti-communist dissident and former president of Poland, must apologize to Jaroslaw Kaczynsk, the head of Poland's ruling party in a slander case.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Rwandan court found dissident politician Diane Rwigara (37) not guilty of forgery and inciting insurrection, charges that saw her imprisoned for over a year and highlighted a crackdown on opposition in the country.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In northern Sudan three miners were killed in Qabqaba when a gold mine they were working at collapsed. 10 others were trapped underground.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, Meeting in Sweden Yemen's warring sides agreed to free thousands of prisoners, in what a UN mediator called a hopeful start to the first peace talks in years to end a war that has pushed millions of people on the verge of starvation.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Geneva two days of UN talks on Western Sahara ended with all sides promising to meet again for a similar "round table" in the first quarter of 2019, UN envoy Horst Koehler told reporters after the meeting ended unexpectedly early.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Syrian Democratic Forces commander said the US-backed Syrian fighters (SDF) had managed to break into the pocket and wrest part of its main town from IS in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. Over the last 3 days 34 jihadists including three suicide bombers, and 17 SDF fighters have been killed in the fighting.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Turkish journalist Kamil Demirkaya, accused by Turkey of terrorism, said he has applied for political asylum in Romania after Turkey sought his extradition.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The Ukrainian parliament voted to withdraw from a wide-ranging treaty on friendship with Russia, the latest step in escalating tensions between the two neighbors.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, UAE-based global port operator DP World says it has acquired Danish logistics firm Unifeeder for $748 million, about 660 million euros, helping the Dubai-owned company expand its foothold through the largest feeder and shortsea network in Europe.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The UN's human rights office said Burundi's government has asked it to leave, months after the outgoing UN rights chief called the country one of the "most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times".
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The UN World Food Program said a survey of food security in Yemen has found more than 15 million people are in a "crisis" or "emergency" situation and that number could hit 20 million without sustained food aid.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Venezuela former baseball major league players Luis Valbuena (33) and Jose Castillo (37) were killed in a car crash as they were heading to the city of Barquisimeto after a game in Caracas.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2019 Dec 6, US President Donald Trump called for the World Bank to stop loaning money to China, one day after the institution adopted a lending plan to Beijing over Washington's objections.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The United States imposed sanctions on three Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary leaders over a deadly crackdown on protests in the country, as it warned Tehran to stay out of its neighbor's affairs.
(AFP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The US Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from restarting federal executions next week after a 16-year break.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, US Food and Drug Administration staffers reviewing Correvio Pharma Corp's heart drug said they did not believe the benefits of the therapy outweighed its risks, sending the company's shares down nearly 38%.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders promised to invest $150 billion to bring high-speed internet to “every household in America" while breaking up and better regulating monopolies he says currently limit access to drive up their profits.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, A Los Angeles jury acquitted Elon Musk, Tesla Inc's outspoken chief executive, of defamation over a 2018 Twitter message describing British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth as "pedo guy".
(Reuters, 12/6/19)(SFC, 12/7/19, p.D1)
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, An Alabama police officer was killed during a drug-related shooting. The suspect was captured after a short foot chase.
(SFC, 12/7/19, p.A5)
2019 Dec 6, California's bankrupt power producer PG&E Corp said it had reached a $13.5 billion settlement with victims of some of most devastating wildfires in the state's modern history.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Florida a shooter opened fire at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola in an attack that left four people dead including the assailant, and multiple people injured. The gunfire prompted a massive law enforcement response to the base, which was locked down. The shooter as soon identified as aviation student Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force. The New York Times later reported that six other Saudi nationals were being questioned by investigators in Florida, three of whom were seen filming the incident.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia ordered the suspension of a policy that allows prison officials to strip-search children after an 8-year-old girl was told to remove her clothes before being allowed to see her imprisoned father on Nov. 24.
(NY Times, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Tens of thousands of Algerians took to the streets, making a show of strength of their last weekly protest before a presidential election next week that they have rejected as meaningless.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Australian firefighters said a giant bushfire on the edge of Sydney, which has blanketed the city in smoke causing a spike in respiratory illnesses and the cancellation of outdoor sports, will take weeks to control but will not be extinguished without heavy rains.
(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Austria The remaining signatories to the faltering Iran nuclear deal began crunch talks in Vienna with questions over the survival of the landmark agreement after Tehran vowed to continue to breach the deal's limits on its nuclear program. Envoys from Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran took part in the meeting,
(AFP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Oil-rich Azerbaijan planted more than half a million trees to celebrate 14th century poet Seyid Imadeddin Nesimi, an initiative the government said would help tackle climate change but some environmental activists called "a waste of money." Elsewhere in the country, thousands of hectares of bushlands and forests were being cleared to make way for hazelnut plantations and farms.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Bosnian authorities, bowing to international pressure, agreed to dismantle the makeshift Vucjak refugee camp of freezing snow-covered tents, but some migrants living there have been refusing food in protest at being resettled.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he had a confidential government report which showed there would be customs checks between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain under a Brexit deal negotiated by PM Boris Johnson.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Social news and aggregation firm Reddit Inc. banned 61 accounts under its policies against “vote manipulation" ahead of Britain’s general election on Dec. 12. The accounts, which were used to draw attention to the trade documents, were “part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia," according to Reddit.
(Bloomberg, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, A multi-million pound prosecution by Scotland Yard's war crimes unit against Agnes Reeves-Taylor (54), a former wife of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, collapsed after her lawyers won a bid to have the case discontinued.
(The Telegraph, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, State-run Xinhua News Agency reported that China’s leaders have vowed to avoid systemic financial risks next year and keep growth in a “reasonable range," citing a Politburo meeting in Beijing, as the economy stutters with its slowest growth in decades.
(Bloomberg, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The Republic of Djibouti announced, in New York, that it is starting its official campaign for election as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
(PRNewswire, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, French PM Edouard Philippe said he was sticking with plans to reform the country's pension system but insisted change would be gradual and "not brutal".
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, French unions continued to bring rail, bus and metro systems to a standstill in protest over the government's planned pension reforms. Railways company SNCF said it expected rail traffic would continue to be heavily disrupted through the weekend and Dec. 9, based on statements from transport unions.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Germany an off-duty firefighter (49) was killed in an altercation between two couples and a group of youths in the southern city of Augsburg. Two teenagers were soon arrested after surveillance cameras enabled investigators to identify the suspects.
(AP, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, Greece said it was expelling the Libyan ambassador, angered by an accord between Libya and Turkey signed on Nov. 27 that maps out a sea boundary between the two countries close to the Greek island of Crete. Libya called the move unacceptable. Turkey dismissed it as outrageous.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The World Food Program (WFPP issued an appeal for $62 million in emergency food assistance in Haiti, where a protracted political and economic crises are fanning a humanitarian disaster.
(Miami Herald, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Hungary a government spokesman confirmed that the government is seeking a greater say in the operation of theaters that it partly funds. He said a recent sexual harassment case at a Budapest theater made the changes necessary as the government currently has no power to sack the director of the theatre involved.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In southern India police fatally shot four men being held on suspicion of raping and killing a woman after investigators took them to the crime scene, drawing both praise and condemnation in a case that has sparked protests across the country. The suspects had reportedly seized some weapons from policemen who had taken them there and started firing.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In India a 23-year-old rape victim set on fire by a gang of men, which included her alleged rapists, died in a New Delhi hospital. A day earlier the woman was on her way to board a train in Unnao district of northern Uttar Pradesh state to attend a court hearing over her rape when she was doused with kerosene and set on fire. Her death prompted protests from opposition leaders who blamed the ruling party for failing to check incidents of violence against women.
(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Iraq the casualty toll rose to 25 dead and 130 wounded as attacks by unknown gunmen targeted anti-government demonstrators in Baghdad continued into the night.
(AP, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Kenya at least ten people were killed and 30 injured when a residential building collapsed in Nairobi. Rescue workers struggled to free a woman who was screaming from under the rubble. 20 people remained missing.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 6, Kenyan police officers were among those killed when gunmen suspected to be from Islamist militant group al Shabaab attacked a bus near the border with Somalia. Police said 10 people were killed and that the attackers had specifically targeted non-Somalis after flagging down the bus.
(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Kosovo's Pres. Hashim Thaci accused the European Union maintaining double standards for blocking a visa-free travel deal with his country but opening new chapters in Serbia's integration process despite its affiliation with Russia.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Lebanon's outgoing PM Saad Hariri called on several Arab and world leaders to help his country secure credit lines for imports from friendly nations as the tiny Mediterranean country passes through its worst economic and financial crisis in decades.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, A three-month-old Malaysian infant was diagnosed with polio, the first case reported in the country in nearly three decades.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, Lawyers for the Nigerian government filed "new and substantive" allegations of fraud with a British court in an ongoing fight against an arbitration award now worth some $10 billion. The government has been fighting efforts by British Virgin Islands-based Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) to enforce the award for a failed gas project and is also seeking to overturn the underlying award.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported the recent launch of the "Treatment Tourism Exchange Corporation", aimed at capitalizing on the "rising demand for tourism, including medical care, in line with an international trend".
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated along the Gaza-Israel frontier as the territory’s Hamas rulers resumed the regular protests after a three-week pause. 14 Palestinians were reported wounded by Israeli fire, four of them with live gunshots.
(AP, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Russia Moscow student Yegor Zhukov (21) stepped out of a courthouse, effectively free after a judge handed down a three-year suspended sentence. Zhukov, a student at the liberal Higher School of Economics, spent a month in pre-trial detention in August before rioting charges against him were dropped amid a public campaign, supported by many Russian celebrities.
(The Telegraph, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia and Russia spearheaded a deal in which OPEC and its allies committed to some of the deepest oil output cuts this decade aiming to avert oversupply and support prices.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, It was reported that Slovak police have charged former president Andrej Kiska with tax fraud, stirring up the political scene ahead of an election due in February.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In eastern Slovakia a gas explosion in an apartment building in Presov killed at least five people and injured more than 40. Firefighters rescued people trapped in the building, which officials said is still in danger of collapse. The death toll soon rose to least seven people. Police soon charged three people with putting the public in danger over the gas explosion. One person remained missing.
(AP, 12/6/19)(Reuters, 12/7/19)(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, In South Africa four mineworkers were killed and one was seriously injured after a rock fall at a gold mine trapped five workers underground. The collapse at the Village Main Reef's Tau Lekoa gold mine in North West province followed at least one earth tremor.
(AP, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Spain climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in Madrid to join thousands of other young people in a march to demand world leaders take real action against climate change.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2020 Dec 6, President Donald Trump said his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus, making him the latest in Trump's inner circle to contract the disease that is now surging across the US.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, President-elect Joe Biden chose California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his secretary of health and human services. If confirmed, Becerra would be the first Latino to run the department.
(NY Times, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, warned that some governors and local officials were ignoring coronavirus mitigation efforts that are proven to work, putting residents in danger.
(The Week, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 6, SpaceX launched a newer, bigger version of its Dragon supply ship to the Int'l. Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
(SFC, 12/7/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 6, Individual US states scrambled to impose lockdowns to stem coronavirus spikes amid a lack of national leadership on how to curb infections until vaccines are widely available in the spring.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, A long-awaited report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that has been obtained by news organizations has found that the mysterious neurological symptoms American diplomats experienced in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, making it the most likely cause behind the illnesses that first struck people working at the US embassy in Havana in 2016.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, California reported more than 25,000 new confirmed COVID-19 infections, the state's highest number since the pandemic began. Hospitalizations also hit a record high with more than 10,200. Tens of millions of Southern California and San Joaquin Valley residents will be under stay-at-home orders beginning this evening after intensive care units in the two state regions, which include Los Angeles and San Diego, fell below 15 percent capacity amid the coronavirus pandemic.
(The Week, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, California to date had 1,351,199 cases of coronavirus and 19,938 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 166,764 cases and 2,028 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 14,610,367 with the death toll at 281,347.
(sfist.com, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Former US Sen. Paul Sarbanes (87) died in Baltimore. He represented Maryland for 30 years in the Senate as a leader of financial regulatory reform and drafted the first article of impeachment against Republican President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal as a congressman.
(AP, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 6, Japan retrieved a capsule of asteroid dust from Australia's remote outback after a six-year mission that may help uncover more about the origins of the planets and water. The capsule lit up on re-entry into the atmosphere early today and landed in the Woomera restricted area, about 460 km (285 miles) north of Adelaide.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, In Belarus more than 300 people were detained in Minsk, where crowds of people took to the streets for the 18th consecutive weekend, demanding the ouster of the country's authoritarian leader who won a sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, British negotiators arrived in Brussels for a last-ditch attempt to strike a Brexit trade deal with the European Union and avert a chaotic parting of ways at the end of the year.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, An Egyptian court upheld a prosecutors’ decision to freeze the assets of Abdel-Razek, Karim Ennarah and Mohammed Basheer, one of the country’s most prominent human rights groups. The EIPR rights workers were freed on Dec 3 after being arrested last month and slapped with terrorism-related charges.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Ethiopian troops shot at and detained UN staff after they drove through check-points in the conflict-hit northern Tigray region. The UN team had reportedly ignored instructions not to be in the area.
(BBC, 12/8/20)
2020 Dec 6, It was reported that Bayer AG has struck a deal with Atara Biotherapeutics to jointly work on Atara's CAR-T cell anti-tumor treatments, as the German group firms up its commitment to build a specialist cell and gene therapy development platform.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Indonesia's anti-corruption commission formally detained Juliari Batubara, the country's social affairs minister, after he surrendered in Jakarta to face charges of taking $1.2 million in bribes related to the government's COVID-19 aid distribution.
(SFC, 12/7/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 6, In Japan Shoko Arai, the only female assembly member in the town of Kusatsu, was voted out of office in a recall election orchestrated by the mayor and other assembly members. Last November she had accused mayor Nobutada Kuroiva of forcing her into sexual relation in 2015.
(SFC, 12/10/20, p.A4)
2020 Dec 6, In Mexico Bryan Celaya Alvarado disappeared, becoming of the country's 87,855 "disappeared" people. His wife, Aranza Ramos, spent over a year searching for him before she was killed in Sonora on July 15, 2021. Multiple cartels have been fighting for control of Sonora and its valuable trafficking routes to the US.
(SFC, 7/24/21, p.A3)
2020 Dec 6, Thousands of Moldovans protested outside the parliament building in Chisinau demanding the resignation of the country’s Russia-backed government and a new election.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Romania held elections.
(Reuters, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 6, Russia reported a record daily increase of 29,039 new cases, taking the national total to 2,460,770 since the pandemic began, while the official national death toll rose to 43,141. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said his city wants to vaccinate up to seven million people.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, The main opposition party in Tanzania's semiautonomous Zanzibar archipelago announced it will join a coalition government with the islands' ruling party, after a disputed poll in October in which some of its supporters were allegedly killed and its leaders arrested.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Uruguay's first socialist president, Tabaré Vásquez (80), a popular figure who was returned to office for a second term, died of cancer, a disease the oncologist dedicated much of his life to fighting.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Venezuelans headed to the polls, with President Nicolás Maduro and his loyalists reportedly set to take back control of the National Assembly after the opposition won a majority of seats in 2015. Opposition supporters, many of whom are planning to boycott the voting booth, have called it fraudulent.
(NY Times, 12/6/20)
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For Asian History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
1160 Dec 6, Jean Bodel's "Jeu de St Nicholas," premiered in Arras, France.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1240 Dec 6, Mongols under Batu Khan occupied and destroyed Kiev.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1421 Dec 6, Henry VI, the youngest king of England, was born. He acceded the thrown at 269 days of age.
(HN, 12/6/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_of_England)
1424 Dec 6, Don Alfonso V of Aragon granted Barcelona the right to exclude Jews.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1527 Dec 6, Pope Clemens VII fled to Orvieto.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1531 Dec 6, John Volkertsz Trimaker, Dutch Anabaptist leader, was beheaded.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1534 Dec 6, Quito, Ecuador, was founded by Spanish.
(http://worldfacts.us/Ecuador-Quito.htm)
1608 Dec 6, George Monck (Monk), English general and gov. of Scotland, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1631 Dec 6, The 1st predicted transit of Venus took place. It had been predicted by Kepler, but he died a year before the event.
(MC, 12/6/01)(Econ, 5/29/04, p.78)
1640 Dec 6, Matthijs Elsevier (75), Flemish-Dutch book publisher and merchant, died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1648 Dec 6, Pride's Purge: Thomas Pride prevented 96 Presbyterians from sitting in English Parliament.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1732 Dec 6, Warren Hastings, England, 1st governor-General of India (1773-84), was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1741 Dec 6, Russian princess Elisabeth Petrovna (1709-1762) seized power with the help of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Petrovna (31), the daughter of Peter the Great, and her husband led a coup d’etat, deposed the infant Czar Ivan VI, had him imprisoned and reigned until her death in 1762.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Russia)(PCh, 1992, p.294)
1743 Dec 6, Franz Nikolaus Novotny, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1745 Dec 6, Bonnie Prince Charlie's army retreated to Scotland.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1756 Dec 6, British troops under Robert Clive occupied Fulta, India.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1741 Dec 6, In Russia Elizabeth Petrovna (31), the daughter of Peter the Great, and her husband led a coup d’etat. She deposed the infant Czar Ivan VI, had him imprisoned and reigned until her death in 1762.
(PCh, 1992, p.294)
1763 Dec 6, The British government case against journalist John Wilkes was decided in favor of Wilkes and a general warrant for his arrest was declared illegal.
(ON, 12/11, p.8)
1775 Dec 6, Nicolas Isouard, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1779 Dec 6, Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (b.1699), French painter, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-Sim%C3%A9on_Chardin)
1790 Dec 6, Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1793 Dec 6, Marie Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry, flamboyant mistress of Louis XV, was guillotined in Paris.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1805 Dec 6, Nicholas-Jacques Conti (b.1755), French pencil maker, died in Paris. He created the number system used to rate pencil lead hardness: the higher the number, the harder the graphite.
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.C2)
1806 Dec 6, The African Meeting House was dedicated in Boston. It was later used by Frederick Douglass and other prominent abolitionists to rail against slavery. In 1974 it was named as a National History Landmark. In 2011 a $9 million restoration was completed.
(SFC, 11/28/11, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Meeting_House)
1812 Dec 6, The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggered into Vilnius, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign. An estimated 50,000 soldiers reached Lithuania and as many as 20,000 died there. As many as 450,000 soldiers from France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Germany and at least 15 other countries died in the Russian campaign.
(HN, 12/6/99)(Arch, 9/02, p.41)
1820 Dec 6, James Monroe, the 5th US president, was elected for a 2nd term.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1822 Dec 6, John Eberhard was born. He built the 1st large-scale pencil factory in US.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1833 Dec 6, John Singleton Mosby (d.1916), lawyer and Col. ("Grey Ghost" of Confederate Army), was born. He later gave riding lessons to young George Patton.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1833 Dec 6, HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin departed Rio de la Plata.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1841 Dec 6, Robert Schumann's 4th Symphony in D, premiered.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1846 Dec 6, Mounted Californio lancers overwhelmed the troops of Gen. Steven Kearny at the Battle of San Pasqual (San Diego). This was the worst defeat suffered by US troops in the California campaign of the Mexican-American War.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Pasqual)(SFC, 9/1/18, p.C1)
1846 Dec 6, Hector Berlioz' opera "La Damnation de Faust" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 12/6/01)(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1849 Dec 6, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1861 Dec 6, Union General George G. Meade led a foraging expedition to Gunnell’s farm near Dranesville, Va.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1862 Dec 6, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They were to be hanged on Dec. 26. The Dakota Indians were going hungry when food and money from the federal government was not distributed as promised. They led a massacre that left over 400 white people dead. The uprising was put down and 300 Indians were sentenced to death. Pres. Lincoln reduced the number to 39, who were hanged. The government then nullified the 1851 treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)(HN, 12/6/98)
1863 Dec 6, The monitor Weehawken sank in the Charleston Harbor.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1866 Dec 6, Chicago’s water supply tunnel into Lake Michigan was completed.
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.C12)(http://tinyurl.com/7zmyr6v)
1867 Dec 6, Giovanni Pacini (71), composer, died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1876 Dec 6, US Electoral College picked Republican Hayes as president, although Tilden won the popular election. A questionable vote count in Florida ended and Hayes was ahead by 924 votes. The Democratic attorney general validated the Tilden electors.
(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes)
1876 Dec 6, The 1st US crematorium began operation in Washington, Penn.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1876 Dec 6, Jack McCall was convicted for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and sentenced to hang.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 Dec 6, Washington Post published its 1st edition.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1877 Dec 6, Thomas A. Edison made the first sound-recording when he recited “Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1882 Dec 6, Anthony Trollope (b.1815), English writer, died. His autobiography “An Autobiography," was published in 1883. He wrote harshly about his mother and made her out to be a second-rate writer.
(WUD, 1994 p.1517)(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W17)(MC, 12/6/01)
1884 Dec 6, The Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers 101 years after George Washington himself approved the location halfway between the proposed sites of the Capitol and the White House. Construction did not begin on the 555-foot Egyptian obelisk until July 4, 1848, when a private citizens' group, the Washington National Monument Society, raised enough money to begin the project. The original design called for the familiar obelisk surrounded by a large building with a statue of Washington driving a Roman chariot on top. Construction was halted in 1854 when the money ran out and for 22 years the monument stood embarrassingly unfinished, looking, as Mark Twain put it, like "a factory chimney with the top broken off." In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant authorized the funds to complete the construction--but without the ornate building and classical statue. When the final capstone and 9-inch aluminum pyramid were set in place in 1884, the Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world.
(AP, 12/6/97)(HNPD, 12/6/98)
1886 Dec 6, Joyce Kilmer (d.1918), American poet best known for his poem "Trees," was born. Kilmer was killed by a sniper in WW I.
(HN, 12/6/98)(WUD, 1994 p.786)
1898 Dec 6, Alfred Eisenstaedt, photojournalist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1898 Dec 6, Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1889 Dec 6, Jefferson Davis (81), the first and only president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865), died in New Orleans. In 2001 William J. Cooper Jr. authored “Jefferson Davis, American."
(AP, 12/6/97)(SSFC, 1/28/01, Par p.12)(MC, 12/6/01)
1892 Dec 6, E. Werner von Siemens (75), German industrialist (Siemens AG), died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1896 Dec 6, Ira Gershwin (d.1983), lyricist ('S Wonderful, I Got Rhythm), was born. Together with his brother, George, he wrote 14 Broadway musicals. Many of his 700 songs were written with other composers.
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.E1)(SFC, 5/10/97, p.E1)
1898 Dec 6, Alfred Eisenstaedt, photojournalist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/02)
1898 Dec 6, Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1901 Dec 6, Eliot Porter, nature photographer, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1904 Dec 6, Theodore Roosevelt confirmed the Monroe-doctrine (Roosevelt Corollary).
(MC, 12/6/01)
1906 Dec 6, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge flew a powered, man-carrying kite that carried him 168 feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1907 Dec 6, The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
(AP, 12/6/07)
1908 Dec 6, First flight of the Silverdart with Canadian JAD McCurdy at the controls.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1913 Dec 6, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act into law. It authorized SF rights to dam the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park for water-collection and power-generation facilities.
(www.sfwater.org/)
1914 Dec 6, German troops over ran Lodz.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1917 Dec 6, Finland declared independence from the Russian Empire (National Day).
(SFEM, 8/8/99, p.44)(AP, 12/6/17)
1917 Dec 6, Former Czar Nicholas II and family were made prisoners by the Bolsheviks in Tobolsk.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1917 Dec 6, In Nova Scotia some 2000 people were killed and thousands wounded following an explosion in Halifax harbor. The Imo, a Norwegian freighter ship, had collided with the French munitions ship Mont Blanc and a fire soon caused a massive explosion. A local court found Captain Le Medec of the Mont Blanc and other defendants guilty of the collision. Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that the captains of both ships were equally to blame. A Privy Council in London ruled that Le Medec had done nothing illegal.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.1054)(ON, 7/05, p.7)(AP, 12/6/07)
1918 Dec 6, Harold Horace Hopkins, inventor (Endoscope), was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1920 Dec 6, Dave Brubeck, jazz pianist and composer, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1920 Dec 6, In Boston, Mass., a dog with spectacles was shown at the annual fair of the Animal Rescue League.
(http://tinyurl.com/5hbur6)
1921 Dec 6, James Showan, a wealthy NY shipbuilder, was arrested after his palatial yacht was seized off the California coast with more than 100 cases of whiskey.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)
1921 Dec 6, British and Irish representatives signed a treaty in London providing for creation of an Irish Free State a year later on the same date. The partition created Northern Ireland. [see Jul 8] Ireland’s 26 southern counties became independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.
(HN, 12/6/00)(AP, 12/6/06)
1922 Dec 6, The Irish Free State came into being under terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
(AP, 12/6/08)
1922 Dec 6, Mussolini threatened the Italian newspapers with censorship if they kept reporting "false" information.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1923 Dec 6, A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1928 Dec 6, The Colombian army killed a number of banana workers of the United Fruit Co. in Cienaga near Santa Marta. Estimates of the dead, taken by train and cast into the sea, ranged from 47 to as high as 2,000. The exact number of casualties has never been confirmed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.90)
1929 Dec 6, Turkey introduced female suffrage.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1933 Dec 6, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1933 Dec 6, The US ban on James Joyce' "Ulysses" was lifted.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1934 Dec 6, American Ambassador Davis said Japan was a grave security threat in the Pacific.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1935 Dec 6, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that rats now exceeded city’s population of people by a factor of 3 to 1.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, DB p.50)
1938 Dec 6, France and Germany signed a treaty of friendship.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1939 Dec 6, The Cole Porter musical comedy "Du Barry Was a Lady" opened on Broadway.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1939 Dec 6, Britain agreed to send arms to Finland.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1940 Dec 6, The Gestapo arrested Helen Ernst, German resistance fighter and poster artist.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, John Nelson, conductor (Les Troyens of Berlioz), was born in San Jose, Costa Rica.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, Richard Speck, mass murderer (killed 8 student nurses in 1966), was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1941 Dec 6, NYC Council agreed to build Idlewild (Kennedy) Airport in Queens.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec 6, Dutch and British pilots saw Japanese invasion fleet at Singapore.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1942 Dec 6, Peter Handke, playwright and poet, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1944 Dec 6, US 95th Infantry division reached Westwall.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1945 Dec 6, U.S. extended a $3 billion loan to Britain to help compensate for the termination of Lend-Lease.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1947 Dec 6, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1948 Dec 6, The "Pumpkin spy papers" were found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers. They became evidence that State Department employee Alger Hiss was spying for the Soviet Union.
(HN, 12/6/01)
1949 Dec 6, Leadbelly (64), [Huddie William Ledbetter], blues singer, died. He was born January 29, 1885, on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana.
(http://leadbelly.lanl.gov/leadbelly.html)
1953 Dec 6, Thomas Hulce, actor (Amadeus, Equus, Echo Park), was born Plymouth, Mi.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1955 Dec 6, NY psychologist Joyce Brothers (28) won the CBS "$64,000 Question," by answering 7 questions on boxing.
(SFC, 12/2/05, p.F2)
1956 Dec 6, B.R. Ambedkar (b.1891), a Dalit and chief architect of India’s 1949 constitution, died. “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.60)
1956 Dec 6, In Hungary civilians were shot dead during protests in Budapest. A communist party committee directly governed the leading body of a militia, the so called Military Council, responsible for the shooting. Party committee member Bela Biszku was named interior minister in 1957.
(AP, 3/18/14)
1956 Dec 6, Nelson Mandela and 156 others were arrested for political activities in South Africa. They were charged with treason for supporting the Freedom Charter, which called for a non-racial and socialist-based economy.
(MC, 12/6/01)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A18)
1957 Dec 6, AFL-CIO members voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union had been expelled because of racketeering by its executives, including union president Dave Beck and vice president James R. Hoffa. The criminal activity was disclosed during a special Senate committee investigation of racketeering and organized crime in labor-management relations. The Teamsters were readmitted in Oct, 1987, but disaffiliated themselves from the AFL-CIO in 2005.
(HNQ, 1/8/99)(AP, 12/6/07)
1957 Dec 6, America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit failed as Vanguard TV3 rose only about four feet off a Cape Canaveral, Fla., launch pad before crashing back down and exploding.
(AP, 12/6/08)
1967 Dec 6, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz (1918-2008) performed the first US human heart transplant on a baby in Brooklyn, who died 6 hours later.
(SFC, 11/21/08, p.B6)
1968 Dec 6, The original Malian constitution was abrogated after a military coup d'etat and replaced by a new fundamental law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mali)
1969 Dec 6, The Rolling Stones staged a rock concert at the Altamount Speedway in Livermore, Ca. for some 300,000 fans. The Stones hired the Hells Angels for security. Fans were beaten and one person, Meredith Hunter, was stamped and stabbed to death by a Hell's Angel during the show. Alan Passaro (21) was tried and found not guilty because Hunter was carrying a gun. One man drowned in a nearby canal and2 people were crushed to death by a runaway car. The 1970 documentary film “Gimme Shelter" was about the Rolling Stones concert at Altamount.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.4)(AP, 12/6/99)(SFC, 6/10/00, p.B5)(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B2)
1971 Dec 6, The US Senate confirmed Lewis Franklin Powell as a Supreme Court justice.
(www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/bowers/bonews03.htm)
1971 Dec 6, Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan following a 9-month war in a struggle led by Sheik Mujibar Rahman. Sheik Rahman was nominated as president on Dec 20 and released from prison on Dec 22; he returned to Bangladesh Jan 10.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-10)
1971 Dec 6, India recognized the Democratic Republic of Bangladesh and Pakistan broke off diplomatic relations. Bangladesh later accused Pakistan of war atrocities that led to the death of some 3 million people during the 9-month war.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1973 Dec 6, House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew. Agnew, vice president to President Richard M. Nixon, resigned from his office and pleaded no contest to one charge of income tax evasion in return for the dropping of all other charges. Agnew, the only US Vice President to resign in disgrace, was fined $10,000 and given three year's probation.
(AP, 12/6/97)(SFC, 12/27/06, p.A11)
1975 Dec 6, US President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger met with Indonesian President Suharto and explicitly approved Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor. This information was only made public in 2005.
(AFP, 12/02/05)(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/)
1975 Dec 6, The US Congress authorized a $2.3 billion emergency loan to save New York City from bankruptcy.
(http://tinyurl.com/6axxe2)
1975 Dec 6, Robert Dole (b.1923) of Kansas, Republican presidential candidate in 1996, married Mary Elizabeth Hanford.
(www.medaloffreedom.com/BobDole.htm)
1976 Dec 6, Democrat Tip O’Neill was elected speaker of the House of Representatives. He went on to serve the longest consecutive term as speaker.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1976 Dec 6, Joao Goulart (b.1919), former president of Brazil (1961-1964), died in Argentina. He was ousted in a 1964 coup and went into exile in Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Goulart)(SSFC, 11/17/13, p.A4)
1976 Dec 6, Dutch War criminal Pieter Menten (1899-1987) was arrested in Switzerland after fleeing there in November.
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Menten)
1977 Dec 6, SF FBI agents arrested James “Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno (64), a reportedly leading West Coast Mafia figure.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.E16)
1981 Dec 6, Harry Harlow (b.1905), psychologist, died. He spent his entire professional career teaching at the University of Wisconsin from 1930-1974. His focus of research was on the learning abilities in primates and he observed the phenomenon of 'learning to learn.' His work with infant monkeys and their surrogate mothers (terrycloth dummies) demonstrated the importance of bonding between primate mothers and infants for emotional health and growth. In 2003 Deborah Blum authored "Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection."
(CW, 6/03, p.51)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow)
1982 Dec 6, In Northern Ireland 11 soldiers and six civilians were killed when a bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1982 Dec 6-1982 Dec 8, In Guatemala a government massacre wiped out the village of Dos Erres. In 2000 two witnesses gave evidence that some 300 men, women and children were killed, tortured and raped by specialists called kaibiles. In 2011 Pedro Pimentel Rios (54), a former member of an elite Guatemalan military force suspected of carrying out the massacre, was extradited from the United States back to Guatemala.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C14)(AP, 7/12/11)
1983 Dec 6, The SF Golden Gate Bridge closed for the 2nd December in a row as winds at the toll plaza measured 77.2 mph.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, DB p. 58)
1983 Dec 6, A bomb planted on a bus in Jerusalem exploded and killed 6 Israelis.
(http://preview.tinyurl.com/3a3tyk)
1985 Dec 6, The San Francisco Chronicle described a “super cocaine," known on the streets as crack, rock or base, which was being smoked in a pipe to produce an intense euphoria. Crack cocaine was first discovered in use in New York City.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, DB p.50)(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A5)
1986 Dec 6, Annette Thur (17) of Santa Cruz County was kidnapped, raped and killed following a party in Boulder Creek. A tourist found her body off Skyline Drive in San Mateo County. In 2012 DNA evidence linked registered sex offender John William Kelley (49) of Placerville to her murder and he was arrested.
(SFC, 8/17/12, p.C5)
1987 Dec 6, In Moscow security agents roughed up Jewish activists and journalists during demonstrations over Kremlin policy one day before the arrival of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the US, where hundreds of thousands of demonstrators pressing for free emigration of Soviet Jews marched in Washington.
(AP 12/6/97)
1987 Dec 6, In Missouri 3 Satanist teenagers bludgeoned Steven Newberry (19), a learning-disabled youth, to death and blamed the incident on heavy metal inspired Satanism.
(http://tinyurl.com/k36su)(www.creationism.org/csshs/v15n1p03.htm)
1987 Dec 6, In Moscow security agents roughed up Jewish activists and journalists during rival demonstrations over Kremlin policy.
(AP 12/6/97)
1988 Dec 6, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev arrived for his second U.S. visit to address the United Nations and meet with President Reagan and President-elect Bush.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1988 Dec 6, The space shuttle Atlantis landed in California.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1988 Dec 6, Rock-and-roll pioneer Roy Orbison died near Nashville, Tenn., at age 52.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1988 Dec 6, Arafat met prominent American Jews in Stockholm, Sweden.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1988-12/1988-12-06-NBC-15.html)
1989 Dec 6, In Canada 14 women were shot to death at the University of Montreal's school of engineering by Marc Lepine, who then took his own life.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1989 Dec 6, Egon Krenz resigned as leader of East Germany. In 1997 Krenz was convicted with 2 colleagues of manslaughter for the shooting deaths of those who tried to flee across the Berlin Wall prior to its demise.
(WSJ, 11/9/99, p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/akpba)
1990 Dec 6, Shoeless Joe Jackson's signature was sold for $23,100.
(www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/J/Jackson_Joe.stm)
1990 Dec 6, In Bangladesh an opposition campaign led by Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina forced Pres. Hossain Mohammad Ershad to resign.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossain_Mohammad_Ershad)
1990 Dec 6, Iraq announced that it would release all its hostages, saying foreigners could begin leaving in two days.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1991 Dec 6, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., testifying at the trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, denied hearing screams the night Patricia Bowman said she was raped by Smith at the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP, 12/6/01)
1991 Dec 6, Gen. Pavle Strugar led the Yugoslav attack on Dubrovnik. At least 43 civilians were killed in the attack. Serbs had opened bombardment of the Croatian port of Dubrovnik in early October. In 2001 Strugar (68) turned himself into the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. In 2005 Strugar was convicted of two counts of willful destruction of Dubrovnik and attacking civilians. In 2008 appeals judges added two more convictions for unjustified devastation of the town and attacking civilian sites. They also cut his original sentence from eight years to seven and a half years because of his deteriorating health.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B1)(AP, 7/17/08)
1992 Dec 6, Bowing to anti-foreigner sentiment, Germany's main political parties agreed to tighten postwar asylum laws.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1992 Dec 6, In Uttar Pradesh, India, thousands of Hindu kar sevaks, soldiers of the Ram Temple movement, destroyed the Babri Mosque and 4 people were killed. This set off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives. Attackers set off 13 bomb blasts in Bombay that destroyed skyscrapers and killed 600 people. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) inspired Hindus to raze a 16th century mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya. The demolition caused Hindu-Muslim riots across India and 3,000 people were killed. Hindus believe that the site was the birthplace of the god Ram and that Mogul invaders tore down a temple at the site to build the Babri Mosque. In 1998 the Congress Party apologized for the mosque destruction. In 2009 an inquired into the destruction of the Babri Mosque concluded that senior members of the opposition Bharatatiya Janata Party (BJP) were complicit in the vandalism.
(WSJ, 5/6/96, p.A-9)(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-14)(AP, 12/6/97)(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A20)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A16)(Econ, 11/28/09, p.43)
1993 Dec 6, Don Ameche (85), actor (Cocoon), died in Scottsdale, Ariz., of prostate cancer.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1993 Dec 6, A judge in New Bedford, Mass., sentenced former priest James R. Porter, who'd admitted molesting 28 children in the 1960s, to 18 to 20 years in prison for sexual assault.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1993 Dec 6, In South Africa crimes committed up to this date became eligible for amnesty as set up by special constitutional legislation that set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A 1996 extension was requested to move the deadline to May 10, 1994.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A10)
1994 Dec 6, Former US Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell pleaded guilty to defrauding his former law partners and clients of nearly $400,000.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 6, US Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen announced his resignation.
(AP, 12/6/99)
1994 Dec 6, The Maltese Falcon film statuette was auctioned for $398,590.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1994 Dec 6, Orange County, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion. Orange County, Ca., filed bankruptcy after losing nearly $1.7 billion on risky investments [derivatives]. In 1997 a former ass’t. treasurer, Matthew Raabe, was sentenced to 3 years in prison for diverting $88.5 million in public funds to conceal investment schemes that led to the nation’s biggest municipal bankruptcy.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, Z1 p.1)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A7)(AP, 12/6/99)
1995 Dec 6, President Clinton vetoed a seven-year Republican budget-balancing plan.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1995 Dec 6, The US House ethics committee sent a highly critical letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, saying he had committed three ethics violations.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1995 Dec 6, New York Times columnist James Reston died in Washington at age 86.
(AP, 12/6/00)
1995 Dec 6, Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (67), ex-Soviet soldier and historian, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-vo.htm)
1996 Dec 6, Stock markets around the world plunged after comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan were taken to mean that U.S. stock prices were too high.
(AP, 12/6/06)
1996 Dec 6, Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle died in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., at age 70.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1997 Dec 6, An asteroid was discovered by J.V. Scotti at the Univ. of Arizona. It was recognized as one of 108 potentially hazardous asteroids.
(NH, 10/98, p.88)
1997 Dec 6, In Siberia a Russian Antonov-124 jet cargo aircraft crashed seconds after takeoff on the edge of Irkutsk into an apartment building and killed at least 62 (68-69) people.
(SFEC, 12/797, p.A19)(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/98)(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
1998 Dec 6, The astronauts of the Endeavour space shuttle attached Node 1 of the new space station to the cargo block Zarya.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 6, Clayton “Peg Leg" Bates, a tap dancer who lost a leg in childhood, died at age 91.
(WSJ, 12/8/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, In Gabon Pres. Omar Bongo (63) won the election for a new 7-year term. He received 66% of the vote with clear ballot stuffing.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.B8)(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D2)
1998 Dec 6, In Nigeria it was reported that 14 people died in poll-related violence.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel started a hunger strike and demanded to be freed.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 6, In Sierra Leone at least 51 rebels were killed in fierce fighting north of Freetown.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, In Taiwan the ruling Nationalists enlarged their legislative majority and captured the mayoralty in Taipei.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 6, Venezuela held national presidential elections. Hugo Chavez, a former army officer who staged a bloody coup attempt against the government six years earlier, won with 56% of the vote. He faced a $22 billion foreign debt and planned a constitutional assembly to replace the Congress and to rewrite the constitution.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/99)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.24)
1999 Dec 6, The Supreme Court, reconsidering its landmark Miranda ruling, agreed to decide whether police still must warn criminal suspects that they have a “right to remain silent." The justices upheld that right the following June.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 6, SabreTech, an aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. Eight of the nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 6, AT&T agreed in principle to give competing Internet providers access to its high-speed cable lines.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Oklahoma a boy (13) opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun and injured 4 classmates at Fort Gibson Middle School.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Chechnya Russian planes dropped leaflets warning civilians in Grozny to leave or face heavy air and artillery strikes on Dec 11.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 6, In Tanzania a UN court convicted Georges Rutaganda on 3 of 8 charges of genocide against Tutsis committed when he was vice president of the Interhamwe death squads in Rwanda in 1994.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.B2)
2000 Dec 6, Pres. Clinton gave the US Presidential Medal of Freedom to Alexander Aris, the son of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, on behalf of his mother who was held under house arrest.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)
2000 Dec 6, Florida Republican leaders announced the Legislature would convene in special session to appoint its own slate of electors in the state's contested presidential race; Democrats denounced the action as unnecessary.
(AP, 12/6/01)
2000 Dec 6, A Pentagon investigation concluded in a 168-page report that 3 top Army Corps of Engineers officials manipulated a study to justify a construction binge on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 6, Iridium Satellite won a 1-year, $36 million Pentagon contract for unlimited use.
(WSJ, 12/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 6, Actor Werner Klemperer died in New York at age 80.
(AP, 12/6/01)
2000 Dec 6, A European Union summit began in Nice to prepare for expansion to 27 or more members.
(SFC, 12/6/00, p.C5)
2000 Dec 6, The IMF agreed to grant Turkey $7.5 billion in emergency loans.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C12)
2000 Dec 6, In Colombia a FARC attack in Granada left at least 29 dead.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec 6, The Israeli Betselem human-rights group condemned the Israeli army for excessive force in combating the Palestinian intifada.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 6, A Russian court found Edmond Pope (54) guilty of espionage. Pope was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a Moscow court for espionage; however, he was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and released eight days after his sentencing.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/01)
2000 Dec 6, In Ukraine the last working reactor at Chernobyl was shut down due to a malfunction 9 days before a scheduled permanent shut down.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)
2000 Dec 6, The World Bank approved a $12 million grant to help Palestinians.
(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A12)
2001 Dec 6, President George W. Bush dedicated the national Christmas tree to those who died on Sept. 11 and to GIs who died in the line of duty.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2001 Dec 6, The House of Representatives, by a one-vote margin, gave President Bush more power to negotiate global trade deals.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2001 Dec 6, Anthrax tainted mail turned up at a sorting site outside the Federal building in Washington DC. It had been received Dec 5.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 6, In Indiana Robert L. Wissman, an employee of the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork plant on the edge of Goshen killed manager Greg Oswald, wounded 6 others, and then killed himself. A love triangle was later aid to be the cause.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)
2001 Dec 6, In Afghanistan Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, vowed to surrender Kandahar.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 6, An int’l. team of doctors flew to Congo to investigate the deaths of 17 people with Ebola-like symptoms in Dekese. Ebola was confirmed in Gabon on Dec 9.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 6, Japan went into recession officially for the 4th time in 10 years as the GDP shrank 0.5%.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A14)(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D8)
2001 Dec 6, In Nepal the anti-rebel campaign was reported to have left 250 dead since rebel attacks began Nov 23.
(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 6, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat continued a roundup of Hamas militants based on a list of 36 suspects provided by Israel. His crackdown on Islamic militants met angry resistance as 1,500 Hamas supporters battled Palestinian riot police outside the home of the group's leader. Israeli warplanes bombed a Gaza police station and 15 Palestinians were wounded.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/7/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 6, President Bush pushed Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and economic adviser Larry Lindsey from their jobs in a Cabinet shakeup as the unemployment rate hit 6%.
(AP, 12/6/02)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 6, Actress Winona Ryder was sentenced to community service as part of a probationary term for stealing more than $5,500 worth of merchandise from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, Calif.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2002 Dec 6, Philip Berrigan (79), former Catholic priest, died in Baltimore. He helped galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 6, In Brazil South American leaders set a timetable for creating a free trade agreement to cover South America and possibly the Caribbean.
(AP, 12/7/02)
2002 Dec 6, The EU agreed to ban single-hull tankers, likely to be effective in 2010.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A15)
2002 Dec 6, Ten Palestinians, including two U.N. employees, were killed in chaotic battles that erupted when Israeli troops, tanks and helicopter gunships poured into a Gaza Strip refugee camp, searching for a fugitive militant allegedly involved in a fatal bombing.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 6, A U.N. envoy wrapped up an inspection of Uzbekistan's prisons by saying he found signs of systematic torture despite being denied full access to two of the most notorious jails.
(AP, 12/6/02)
2002 Dec 6, In Venezuela at least one gunman opened fire on a Caracas square packed with opponents of Pres. Hugo Chavez, killing three people as strikers trying to force a change of government. Captains and officers of 12 of the nation's 13 oil tankers joined the strike.
(Reuters, 12/6/02)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A1)
2003 Dec 6, Army became the first team to finish 0-13 in major college history after a 34-6 loss to Navy.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2003 Dec 6, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met with senior American commanders in Iraq, and was assured that a recent switch to more aggressive anti-insurgency tactics had begun to pay off.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2003 Dec 6, The Northeast's first major snowstorm of the season threatened near whiteout conditions from Pennsylvania to Maine after piling up nearly a foot of snow, delaying flights and creating hazardous driving conditions blamed for at least 10 deaths.
(AP, 12/6/03)(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 6, In Kandahar, Afghanistan, a bomb exploded in a bazaar, wounding about 20 people, at least three seriously, in an attack that a Taliban spokesman said targeted, but missed, American soldiers who shop there.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, In eastern Afghanistan a US air strike apparently killed 9 children and a suspected militant near the village of Hutala.
(AP, 12/7/03)(SFC, 12/8/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 6, In the beach resort of Sanya, China, Miss Ireland, 19-year-old Rosanna Davison, won the Miss World competition. Second place went to Miss Canada, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, while the host country's Miss China, Guan Qi, took third.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, The Europe and North Africa summit ended a 2-day meeting in Tunisia. The group, formed in 1990, gathered leaders from North Africa — Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya — with leaders from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Malta.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Paul Louis Halley (b.1934) French founder of Promodes (later Carrefour SA), died in a light plane crash.
(WSJ, 4/15/08, p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Louis_Halley)
2003 Dec 6, Guatemala former president and Gen. Carlos Arana Osorio (85), a hard-line conservative who ruled from 1970 to 1974, died in a Guatemala City military hospital.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Hundreds of thousands of people marched through Rome to protest government plans to reform Italy's pension system, which economists say can no longer sustain itself.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia issued the names and photos of its 26 most wanted terrorist suspects and increased protection around Western housing compounds in the capital.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 6, Sudan's vice president and the leader of rebels fighting a 20-year civil war resumed their talks on a comprehensive peace deal, boosted by a landmark visit by rebels to the capital, Khartoum.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2004 Dec 6, Ohio certified President Bush's victory over John Kerry, even as the Kerry campaign and third-party candidates prepared to demand a statewide recount. Bush won Ohio by 118,600 votes.
(AP, 12/06/05)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.31)
2004 Dec 6, Mediaweek reported that 99.8% of indecency complaints to the FCC came from one group, the Parents Television Council.
(SFC, 12/13/04, p.E1)
2004 Dec 6, Arson fires hit a new housing development in Charles County, Md., 25 miles south of Washington, DC. 14 homes, priced from $400-500k, were damaged. A security guard and 5 others were later arrested on arson charges. Damages were estimated at $10 million. On Sep 2, 2005, Patrick Walsh (21) was found guilty of masterminding the fires.
(SFC, 12/8/04, p.A2)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A3)(SFC, 12/21/04, p.A3)(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2004 Dec 6, China and Germany signed contracts worth $2.1 billion for Airbus jets and other industrial goods. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called for an end to a 15-year-old European arms embargo on China.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 6, A Beijing newspaper reported that 9 out of 10 Chinese calling into a suicide-prevention hotline in the capital are getting the busy tone, adding that nationwide four people were killing themselves every minute.
(Reuters, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 6, The Dubai Int’l. Film Festival (DIFF) opened its first season.
(www.dubaifilmfest.com/en/about-diff/diff-facts-figures.html)
2004 Dec 6, In Haiti gunfire erupted in a stronghold of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide overnight, leaving at least three dead.
(AP, 12/7/04)
2004 Dec 6, In Iraq 5 U.S. troops were reported killed in separate clashes in a volatile western province. Insurgents blew up part of a domestic oil pipeline in northern Iraq.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 6, President Vicente Fox fired Mexico City's police chief for allegedly bungling the response to a mob attack that killed two federal police officers.
(AP, 12/6/04)(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia Islamic militants threw explosives at the gate of the heavily guarded US consulate in Jiddah in a bold assault, then forced their way into the building, prompting a gunbattle that left 9 people dead and several injured. In 2005 two AK-47 assault rifles used in the attack were later traced to Yemen’s Ministry of Defense.
(AP, 10/12/05)(AP, 12/06/05)
2004 Dec 6, In Spain bombs injured at least 18 people in 7 cities following warnings from callers claiming to represent the Basque separatist group ETA.
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
2005 Dec 6, US Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice signed an agreement with Romania to open US military bases there. One site was identified by Human Rights Watch as the site for a clandestine prison.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6, Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida professor accused of helping lead a terrorist group that carried out suicide bombings against Israel, was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him by a federal court jury in Tampa, Fla.; the jury deadlocked on the other charges.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, Philadelphia won the first NHL scoreless game that was decided by a shootout, beating Calgary 1-0.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, The NYSE voted to acquire Archipelago Holdings in a $9 billion transaction that would transform the Big Board into a for-profit company with new, high-tech trading capabilities.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.C1)
2005 Dec 6, SF hired Nathaniel Ford Sr. to run the Municipal Transportation Agency (MUNI) for a 5-year contract with a base salary of $298,000. Ford was enticed away from the Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority where his base was $205,000.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 6, In SF police officer Andrew Cohen (39) was suspended for producing department videos that mocked minorities. 24 other officers were soon suspended for their involvement in the video productions. In 2006 18 officers filed a $20 million lawsuit against SF for defamation and discrimination.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A1,16)(SFC, 12/10/05, p.A11)(SFC, 8/11/06, p.B7)
2005 Dec 6, In Spokane, Wash., voters said Mayor James E. West (1951-2006) must leave office this month in a special election sparked by allegations he used a city computer to woo gay men over the Internet. Certification of the vote was expected on Dec 16.
(AP, 12/07/05)(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.B6)
2005 Dec 6, Afghan government forces killed nine Taliban insurgents and arrested six others in a raid on a rebel camp in a volatile southern province.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Microsoft Corp. said it would set up 30 new innovation centers around the world, adding to its existing 60, in partnership with local governments, academic institutions and industry organizations.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, A German man filed a lawsuit in Virginia claiming he was held captive and tortured by US government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Khaled El-Masri said he was arrested Dec 31, 2003 while attempting to enter Macedonia for a holiday trip and flown to Afghanistan. During five months in captivity he was subjected to "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Britain's Conservative Party crowned David Cameron (39) as its new leader, hoping to end an election losing streak as PM Tony Blair's power and popularity sag.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Canada’s central bank raised interest rates for the 3rd time in a row by a quarter point to 3.25%, its highest point in nearly 2½ years.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6-2005 Dec 7, In southern China police allegedly killed as many as 10-20 protesters in a dispute over land use in Dongzhou. Villagers were angry over land confiscations and plans to construct a wind power plant. Armed police sealed off the village following the violent clashes. State news later reported 3 villagers killed and 8 wounded.
(AP, 12/09/05)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A15)(SSFC, 12/11/05, p.A2)
2005 Dec 6, China reported that a 10-year old girl in the Guangxi region had tested positive for bird flu, its 4th case of the deadly H5N1 strain.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 6, Indonesia’s central bank raised interest rates by one-half percentage point to 12.75% signaling a continuation of its tight monetary policy.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6, The World Wildlife Fund said a catlike creature photographed by camera traps on Borneo Island is likely to be a new species of carnivore.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 6, A C-130 Iranian military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building as it was trying to make an emergency landing, ripping open the top of the structure and igniting a huge fire. At least 115 people were killed including 21 on the ground in the Azadi suburb of Tehran.
(AP, 12/06/05)(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 6, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers struck Baghdad's police academy, killing at least 43 people and wounding at least 72 more. Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video claiming to have kidnapped a US security consultant.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, Israel clamped an open-ended closure on the West Bank and Gaza, banning virtually all Palestinians from Israel, and arrested 15 Palestinian militants in a first response to the suicide bombing that killed five Israelis outside a shopping mall.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Japan's Cabinet approved measures to demolish buildings designed using falsified earthquake safety data and to relocate residents amid a widening construction scandal. Some 60 of over 200 hotels and condominium complexes designed by Hidetsugu Aneha were ordered to be pulled down due to faked earthquake-resistance data.
(AP, 12/06/05)(Econ, 12/10/05, p.46)
2005 Dec 6, Kyodo News said Japan plans to extend its humanitarian military mission to Iraq into 2006 but could pull its ground forces in the middle of the year if the British and Australian troops guarding them leave.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Morocco's national airline completed an order for four Boeing Co. 787 jets and took out an option for one more.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Separatist radicals faced off against heavily-armed Nigerian police in eastern cities as a protest to demand an independent homeland for the 40-million-strong Igbo people entered its second day.
(AFP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia representatives of Islamic countries met ahead of a two-day summit, with delegates saying the world's largest Islamic organization must reform to face new challenges.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, South Africa charged ex-Deputy Pres. Jacob Zuma with rape.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(Econ, 12/10/05, p.56)
2005 Dec 6, In Sri Lanka a land mine blast killed 6 soldiers in the northern city of Jaffna.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, The UN top election official, Carina Perelli of Uruguay, vowed to fight her dismissal over sexual harassment charges, which she rejected as false and complained that she was being denied due process.
(AFP, 12/07/05)
2006 Dec 6, The US Senate confirmed Robert Gates as the new secretary of defense.
(WSJ, 12/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 6, The top-level bipartisan Baker-Hamilton panel, the Iraq Study Group (ISG), called for a complete overhaul of US policy in Iraq. This included talks with Iran and Syria, a withdrawal of most combat troops by 2008, and threats to press Iraqi leaders to quell violence.
(AFP, 12/6/06)(WSJ, 12/7/06, p.A1)(Econ, 12/9/06, p.31)
2006 Dec 6, The US indicted Charles McArthur Emmanuel (29), son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with committing torture in Liberia. This was the Justice Department's first case under a 12-year-old anti-torture law. The indictment came the day before Emmanuel, He currently in federal custody was scheduled to be sentenced on the passport fraud charges in Miami.
(Reuters, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Cisco CEO John Chambers Network said equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. will set up a center in India to support all aspects of its worldwide operations.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, NASA scientists reported evidence of water at 2 Martian craters.
(SFC, 12/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 6, James Kim, a San Francisco man who struck out alone to find help for his family after their car got stuck on a snowy, remote road in Oregon was found dead, bringing an end to what authorities called an extraordinary effort to stay alive.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, In California the inaugural class to the state Hall of Fame included: Ronald Reagan, Cesar Chavez, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Clint Eastwood, Frank Gehry, David D. Ho, M.D., Billie Jean King, John Muir, Sally K. Ride, Ph.D., Alice Walker and the Hearst and Packard Families.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Hall_of_Fame)
2006 Dec 6, In Wisconsin a propane gas leak led to a huge explosion in a west side Milwaukee industrial area, killing three people at the Falk Corp. transmission parts plant. 46 others were injured.
(SFC, 12/7/06, p.A3)
2006 Dec 6, A suicide bomber killed two Americans and five Afghans outside a security contractor's southern Afghan compound.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Australia's Parliament lifted a four-year ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell research despite opposition from the prime minister and other party leaders.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Britain’s PM Tony Blair has conceded that US-led forces are not winning the war in Iraq, as he headed for Washington to discuss strategic options in the war-scarred country.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Scotland Yard announced it was treating the death of former spy Alexander Litvinenko as a homicide. British investigators spoke with Dmitry Kovtun, one of at least two Russians who met Litvinenko in a London hotel on November 1. Litvinenko died on November 23 from radiation poisoning caused by polonium 210. Andrei Lugovoi, hospitalized in Moscow and being tested for possible polonium contamination, was scheduled to be interviewed by British investigators, but the interview was postponed. British officials said traces of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 have been detected at a London stadium that hosted a soccer game attended by Lugovoi.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Reuters, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Lawmakers in Bulgaria adopted a much-delayed law to open the archives of its former communist secret service, but also voted to keep a small portion of the files secret for "national security reasons."
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, In Chad an association of radio broadcasters said private radio stations began a three-day protest of government censorship of their reporting on Chad's volatile east.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Far-right paramilitary groups pulled out of a peace process with the Colombian government following a decision by President Alvaro Uribe's administration to transfer jailed militia leaders to a maximum security prison.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Congo inaugurated Joseph Kabila as its first freely elected president in more than four decades.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Hector Palacios, a well-known dissident jailed in a Cuban government crackdown on the opposition three years ago, was unexpectedly released from prison.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Egypt’s Pres. Hosni Mubarak arrived in Dublin at the start of a five-day European tour that will also include France and Germany. He said renewing the Middle East peace process is top of his agenda.
(AFP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, the military ruler who led a coup against Fiji's elected government, forcibly dissolved the South Pacific island's parliament, installed a new prime minister and warned that he could use force against dissenters.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, France went head-to-head with CNN and the BBC with the launch of its state-funded 24/7 news channel, part of President Jacques Chirac's efforts to make his country's voice heard. The France 24 news channel was a joint venture between TF1, a private firm, and the state-owned France Televisions.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.63)
2006 Dec 6, In Iraq a mortar attack killed at least eight people and wounded dozens in a secondhand goods market in a shelling in the Sadr City Shiite district of Baghdad. Soon after a suicide bomber on a bus in Sadr City detonated explosives hidden in his clothing, killing two people and wounding 15. A bomb also exploded near a shop in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 12. Drive-by shootings and mortar attacks north and south of the capital killed four Iraqis and wounded five. US ground and air forces conducted a raid targeting foreign insurgents near the Iranian border, killing a militant who opened fire on an aircraft. At least 75 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, including 48 whose bullet-riddled bodies were found in different parts of Baghdad. 11 US troops were killed in 5 separate incidents in Iraq. An Iraqi court sentenced a Libyan member of al-Qaida in Iraq to death after he admitted taking part in eight attacks on US-led coalition forces and Iraqi targets.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 6, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, said that Iran will face UN sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear program but that major world powers remain divided over their extent.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, A US serviceman fatally shot a civilian at the US air base in Kyrgyzstan "in response to a threat."
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, A conference on bird flu opened in Mali. Experts were increasingly concerned for Africa as an international conference heard that Egypt, Nigeria, and Sudan continued to record outbreaks of the deadly disease.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon announced a program to help Mexico's 100 poorest communities, responding to leftist critics who accuse the conservative leader of wanting to help only the rich.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Cardinal Jozef Glemp (76) stepped down after more than 25 years as archbishop of Warsaw. He headed Poland's powerful Roman Catholic Church through the dark days of martial law and the country's later jump to free-market democracy.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, In Doha, Qatar, Midway through day five of the Asian Games, China had 67 gold medals to Japan's 18 and South Korea's 14. Kazakhstan, thanks to its shooters and weightlifters, had 10.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill dropping a minimal turnout threshold in polls, which critics say will make them less fair, despite a plea by his human rights adviser not to do so.
(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia said it had fired a security adviser who wrote in The Washington Post that the world's top oil exporter would intervene in Iraq once the United States withdraws troops. Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani citizen and his daughter for smuggling heroin into the kingdom. The kingdom beheaded 83 people in 2005 and 35 people in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, In Somalia Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, an Islamic courts official in Bulo Burto, said residents who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, adding the edict will be implemented in three days. Hoping to head off a regional proxy war, the UN Security Council came to the aid of Somalia's virtually powerless government, authorizing hundreds of East African troops to train and protect the interim administration in its conflict with an Islamic militia.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, South Korea mobilized 45,000 riot police to thwart banned protests as crucial talks on forging a free trade agreement with the United States faltered. The US and South Korea reached agreement on sharing costs for the deployment of US troops on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Sudanese newspapers reported that Salva Kiir, Sudan's first vice president, demanded the arrest of two pro-Khartoum generals involved in deadly clashes in the southern town of Malakal last month. Pro-government janjaweed militiamen in the Darfur region killed 2 students in El Fasher, a day after another student was killed. Rebel groups massed nearby in preparation for a possible attack against the forces.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, A Ugandan army spokesman said at least 12,000 refugees fleeing fighting in eastern Congo DRC have crossed over the border into southwest Uganda.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2007 Dec 6, It was reported that the Bush administration has developed a voluntary plan to freeze interest rates for five years for thousands of strapped homeowners whose mortgages were scheduled to rise in the coming months. The plan called for a 5-year freeze for mortgages made from Jan 2005 to July 30, 2007.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 12/6/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 6, CIA Director Michael Hayden revealed the agency had videotaped its interrogations of two terror suspects in 2002 and destroyed the tapes three years later out of fear they would leak to the public and compromise the identities of US questioners.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2007 Dec 6, Republican Mitt Romney said his Mormon faith should neither help nor hinder his quest for the White House and vowed to serve the interests of the nation, not the church, if elected president.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2007 Dec 6, Former CEO William McGuire of UnitedHealth Group Inc agreed to forfeit more than $400 million in stock options and other compensation and pay a $7 million fine to settle an investigation into the health insurer's options practices.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, A gas blast at mine in northern China killed at least 105 people.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A French anti-terrorist judge filed preliminary charges against Guillaume Dasquie, an investigative journalist and author, accused of publishing defense secrets.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A parcel bomb exploded at a lawyer's office in central Paris, killing a secretary and seriously injuring an attorney, but a motive was not immediately clear.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, India overturned a 1914 law that banned women from tending bar in New Delhi. A ruling in New Delhi in January said women could do bar work in hotels and restaurants, ended a 92-year-old law barring their employment. In August the Delhi government sought a ban on such jobs for women. Each of India’s 29 states has its own laws governing the sale of alcohol, and many restrict women working behind the bar.
(SFC, 12/22/07, p.A15)(http://in.news.yahoo.com/071206/211/6o422.html)
2007 Dec 6, In Indonesia American climate negotiators refused to back down in their opposition to mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, even as a US Senate panel endorsed sharp reductions in pollution blamed for global warming.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Iraq suspended parliamentary sessions for the year. Drive-by shootings killed at least two people in separate attacks in Baghdad and Muqdadiyah. In Muqdadiyah suspects gunned down a US-backed security volunteer. Clashes broke out between Kurdish peshmerga soldiers and alleged al-Qaida gunmen who attacked a Kurdish checkpoint near Khanaqin, close to the Iranian border. A peshmerga spokesman said 8 Kurdish troops were killed and 5 wounded. 3 militants also died. The US military said its troops killed three suspected insurgents and captured 19 in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq along the Tigris River valley. US forces raided a house in the al-Hayy area south of Kut, killing two suspects and wounding two others. Two men were killed in Mosul, one who, wielding a knife, lunged at American soldiers as they entered a building, and another who was wrapped in blanket with wires protruding from it.
(AP, 12/6/07)(WSJ, 12/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 6, In southern Mexico Jose Luis Aquino (33), a trumpet player, was found dead with his hands and feet bound and a nylon bag over his head, in what authorities said was apparently the country's third murder of a musician in less than a week.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A New Zealand judge sentenced two Chinese students to 18 1/2 years in prison for the ransom kidnapping and slaying of a fellow student, saying the two fell into "cyber sloth" and greed during their studies abroad.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Thousands of lawyers boycotted courts across Pakistan while police blocked former PM Nawaz Sharif and his supporters from marching to the heavily guarded home of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, In the Philippines 14 Muslim Abu Sayyaf were sentenced to life in prison for the 2001 kidnapping of a US missionary couple and 18 others in a yearlong jungle ordeal that prompted US-backed offensives against the guerrillas.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 12/7/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 6, The 24th Southeast Asian Games officially opened in Korat, Thailand.
(AFP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe arrived in Lisbon for an EU-Africa summit, which British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is boycotting because he would not "sit down at the same table" as him.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2008 Dec 6, Indicted Democratic US Rep. William Jefferson was ousted from his New Orleans area district, while Republicans narrowly held on to the seat vacated by a retiring incumbent. Republican attorney Anh "Joseph" Cao won 50% of the vote to Jefferson's 47% and will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress.
(AP, 12/7/08)
2008 Dec 6, A Montana state judge ruled that doctor assisted suicides are legal in the state.
(SSFC, 12/7/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 6, The Univ. of Hawaii activated the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (PS1) to search for dangerous asteroids.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.100)
2008 Dec 6, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow (b.1932), daughter of utilities tycoon George Crawford, died in New York. The heiress spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband. In 19082 Claus von Bulow was convicted of trying twice to kill her by injecting her with insulin at their estate in Newport, R.I. That verdict was thrown out on appeal, and he was acquitted at a second trial in 1985.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Okay Airways, China's first private airline, began a planned one-month suspension of passenger service 10 days early after skittish airports insisted on cash to refuel its planes. The airline suffered from financial and management woes.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, In Denmark "Gomorra," a movie by Italian director Matteo Garrone about Naples' criminal underworld, won the best film prize at the 21st annual European Film Awards.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Greek police shot and killed Alexis Grigoropoulos (15). His death sparked two weeks of the worst rioting the country has seen in decades. In 2010 a court sentenced a police officer to life in prison for Grigoropoulos' death, and a second officer to 10 years.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2008 Dec 6, India’s central bank cuts its benchmark short term lending and borrowing rates by one percentage point. The next day the government unveiled a stimulus package that included increased spending and easing of some taxes.
(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A8)
2008 Dec 6, A series of attacks targeted Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and in the north, killing at least six people, including a senior member of an anti-al-Qaida group.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, The Irish government ordered the recall of all pig meat products made in the Republic of Ireland after dioxins were discovered in slaughtered pigs thought to have eaten contaminated feed.
(AFP, 12/7/08)
2008 Dec 6, Mexican soldiers found at least eight bodies buried in a shallow grave in Michoacan state.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 6, Amsterdam unveiled plans to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Palestinians packed into cars to leave the West Bank city of Nablus after Israel eased restrictions on residents leaving the town in vehicles for the first time in six years.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, In the Philippines gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades fired on police officers who were tailing them, leaving at least 17 people dead in a fierce shootout in a Manila suburb.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, In Moscow, Russia, ultranationalist attacked 2 migrant workers, one of whom escaped. On Dec 10 the severed head of Salekh Azizov (20), the other Tajik migrant worker, was found in a trash bin. A group calling itself the Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists claimed responsibility. For the year some 85 people were reported killed by violent nationalists.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.A25)
2008 Dec 6, Sri Lanka's military captured a rebel-held village, bringing half of a main highway leading to the rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi under government control.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 6, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe came under fresh international pressure over his country's economic collapse as his government announced plans to introduce a 200 million dollar bill.
(AFP, 12/6/08)
2009 Dec 6, The Kennedy Center Honors, the top US arts awards, were presented by Pres. Obama to rock star Bruce Springsteen (60), actor Robert De Niro (66), comedian Mel Brooks (83), jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck (89) and opera singer Grace Bumbry (72).
(SFC, 12/7/09, p.A11)
2009 Dec 6, The play “Race," by David Mamet, opened on Broadway.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.95)
2009 Dec 6, In Pennsylvania parolee Ronald Robinson (32) fatally shot a man in Penn Hills over a $500 drug debt and then shot and killed police officer Michael Crawshaw (32).
(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 6, In eastern Afghanistan a NATO airstrike killed six militants who were planting bombs along a road in Laghman province. A group of militants attacked a police convoy on a main road. Mullah Amiruddin, a key Taliban leader in northern Faryab province's Ghormach district. 4 police officers were killed in the gunbattle.
(AP, 12/6/09)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 6, In southwestern Bangladesh two passenger buses collided head-on, leaving 21 people dead and 50 injured.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Belarus men appearing to be law enforcement officers abducted four opposition activists in an attempt to scare them away from political activity in the repressive former Soviet republic. The activists were held for several hours in an imitation execution, before being released in the woods dozens of miles (km) from the capital, Minsk.
(AP, 12/9/09)
2009 Dec 6, Bolivia held elections. President Evo Morales, a coca-grower at odds with Washington but hugely popular at home for empowering the long-suppressed indigenous majority, easily won re-election.
(AP, 12/6/09)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 6, Brazilian thieves tunneled their way to a money transport firm in Sao Paulo and made off with nearly $6 million. A day later 6 men were arrested for the robbery.
(AP, 12/7/09)(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Greece masked youths hurled firebombs and jagged chunks of marble at police as violence erupted during a march in Athens to mark the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager whose death sparked massive riots.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Guatemala a mob in Panahachel beat a suspected criminal to death and threatened to burn three women who were with the victim. It was Guatemala's fifth vigilante killing in three days.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, Iranian authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests on Dec 7, to deny the opposition a vital means of communication. Authorities also ordered journalists working for foreign media organizations not to leave their offices to cover the demonstrations.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Iraq gunmen killed four policemen at a checkpoint west of Baghdad in an early morning attack.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, Israeli settlers blocked roads, scuffled with police and pelted officers with eggs, in the most aggressive display of resistance yet to the government's ban on new housing construction in West Bank settlements.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Mexico thousands of people dressed in white demanded soldiers leave Ciudad Juarez, the country's most violent city, accusing troops of provoking a surge in drug-war killings and running protection rackets.
(Reuters, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Nepal Maoists imposed a strict nationwide strike in protest of the killing of 3 landless laborers on Dec 4.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.46)
2009 Dec 6, Pakistani police commandos acting on a tip killed one militant and arrested five others in a raid against a bombing cell accused in recent attacks around the northwest city of Peshawar. A roadside bomb killed two elders in the Bajur tribal region and left two other tribesmen wounded. Pakistani security forces killed 13 suspected militants, including a prominent commander identified as Gul Maula, in gunbattles in two other parts of the northwest over the weekend.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, The Palestinian Authority signed an agreement with the World Bank and other donors for $64 million to help it prepare for statehood.
(AP, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 6, Philippine troops arrested 62 people and discovered another major weapons cache after martial law was imposed in southern Maguindanao province following the country's worst political massacre on Nov 23. About 20-30 armed followers of the Ampatuan clan, the main suspect in massacre, opened fire on police commandos while they were patrolling Datu Unsay township, near the site of the massacre. Government negotiators were trying to convince the gunmen to surrender to avoid bloodshed that could harm civilians.
(AP, 12/6/09)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Dec 6, Romanians voted in a presidential run-off hoping to put an end to a political standoff holding up crucial international aid to the recession-wracked EU member. Center-right President Traian Basescu, a former sea captain promising tough state reforms, faced Social-Democrat Mircea Geoana, an ex-diplomat who has pledged to maintain jobs and "reunite Romania" after years of political squabbling. Basescu won with 50.33% of the vote. Supporters of Geoana charged that the election was marred by fraud. The final result was determined by Romanians abroad who favored Basescu by 78%.
(AFP, 12/6/09)(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A4)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.60)
2010 Dec 6, The US, South Korea and Japan all urged China to help rein in its ally North Korea and vowed solidarity in defending Seoul from any further attacks from the North.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, The US government provided estimates showing the US population grew to somewhere between 306 million and 313 million over the past decade.
(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 6, Internet giant Google fielded a new champion on the mobile phone market battlefield, a "Nexus S" smartphone made by South Korea's Samsung. It included built-in support for Near Field Communication, a wireless standard that enables customers to make payments over an electronic reader.
(AP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, It was reported that Fiji Water, owned by billionaire Stewart Resnick, will acquire Justin Vineyards and Winery in Paso Robles, Ca.
(SFC, 12/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, In Virginia the body of Tina Smith (41) was found slain in her home near Salem. Her daughter Brittany Mae Smith (12) was missing as well was the suspected killed Jeffrey Scott Easley (32). He had been living with the Smiths since meeting tina online last October. On Dec 9 police in California arrested Easley in San Francisco and rescued the girl.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 6, The African Union appointed Guinea's interim president Sekouba Konate to drive forward plans for an African military force which had been due to be operational by this year.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, Argentina announced that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Belgium's central bank chief, Guy Quaden, urged the rudderless country's divided politicians to speedily form a government to allay financial market fears about its future.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, British researchers said they may have found a way to reverse damage in the central nervous system caused by multiple sclerosis, in a study hailed by campaigners as a major breakthrough.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Cuba’s Supreme Court, for the second time this month, commuted the death sentence of a Salvadoran man convicted of plotting a series of Havana hotel bombings in 1997, leaving just one person left on the island's death row. Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena's sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, European nations wrestled over whether to commit more money to help stabilize the euro, as finance ministers gathered in Brussels to find ways to fight the debt crisis that has rocked the currency bloc.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, A coalition of Egyptian rights groups urged President Hosni Mubarak to nullify the results of the country's parliamentary election because of widespread vote rigging. Election monitors charged that Egypt's polls were marked by widespread fraud, as Mubarak's party prepared to take almost 100-percent control of parliament.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Haitian medical sources said fully 140 people have died of cholera in recent days in the southwest, a region that had been largely spared the epidemic. Officials raised the death toll to over 2,000 since the outbreak began in October.
(AFP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 6, A motorboat overloaded with mostly Haitian migrants slammed into a reef off the British Virgin Islands and capsized as it tried to evade authorities. At least 8 people were killed, including two infants. 25 people were rescued. Police in St. Maarten arrested three Haitians and said they will be charged with human smuggling in the case.
(AP, 12/7/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, India and France signed a multibillion agreement to build two nuclear power plants in India as French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked to drum up business for his nation during his four-day visit.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Ireland Tony Walsh (56) was convicted of raping 3 boys over a 5-year period three decades earlier. Investigators had concluded that Walsh actually raped and molested hundreds of boys and girls while serving as a Dublin priest from 1978 to 1996. Investigators also reported that the Vatican had tried to stop the Dublin church from defrocking Walsh.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 6, Israel's top policewoman, who had clung to life for four days after her patrol car was trapped in a burning Israel forest, died of her wounds as the last of the flames subsided in the worst fire in Israel's history.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, New Zealand officials attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at the Ohau Point colony, one of the country’s most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals. Oahu Point was only reoccupied for breeding in 1990, and about 600 fur seal pups were born there in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Nigeria's Niger Delta a militant faction said it had ruptured an oil pipeline in response to what it said was the killing of innocent civilians during a military offensive last week.
(Reuters, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Pakistan twin suicide bombers in police uniform killed 43 people in Ghalanai, the main town in the tribal district of Mohmand, attacking an anti-Taliban militia and pro-government elders near the Afghan border. US drone missile strikes killed 7 people in the tribal region.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, Poland's parliament got notice of its first ever African lawmaker, a teacher and Christian pastor from Nigeria who has lived in Poland for 17 years and proven himself a popular local leader. John Abraham Godson (40), a councilman in the central city of Lodz, will fill a seat in the national parliament vacated by a fellow lawmaker from the Civic Platform party.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Russia Yegor Sviridov (28) was shot dead with rubber bullets during a fight in northwest Moscow. A suspect arrested in the shooting was from Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus. Russian media later said Sviridov was a member of the Spartak Ultras, a group linked to soccer fan violence in the past. In Oct 2011 a jury at Moscow City Court convicted Aslan Cherkesov of premeditated murder. The court's Judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Five other people who took part in the brawl were sentenced to five years in jail each for hooliganism and inflicting light bodily injury.
(AP, 12/11/10)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)(AP, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar (75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Somalia 18 people were reported killed in weekend fighting. Mogadishu ambulance service chief Ali Muse said that 66 civilians were also wounded in the fighting. In central Somalia clashes between rival Majerteen and the Sa'ad clans killed at least 20 people.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, A South African newspaper, The New Age, debuted with denials it is an agent of the governing African National Congress. The owners, members of the Gupta family, which has mining, computer and other businesses in South Africa and India, was seen as close to President Jacob Zuma.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Sudan aircraft from the northern Sudanese military began 3 days of bombings in western Bahr el Ghazal state. No casualties were reported. They follow multiple bombing runs by the north in November in a disputed region on the border between neighboring northern Bahr el Ghazal state and southern Darfur state. A committee with representatives from the UN mission in Sudan and the northern and southern Sudanese militaries later found that the bombings violated the 2005 agreement that ended more than 20 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Switzerland six world powers held their first meeting in 14 months with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, sounding out Tehran's intentions after it claimed to have taken a new step in making fissile material.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down a life sentence to Ildephonse Hategekimana, a lieutenant from the former Rwandan army, after finding him guilty of genocide, murder and rape in the 1994 massacre of Tutsis.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Venezuelan soldiers took charge at several privately owned hotels to help accommodate some of the thousands of people who have been forced from their homes by flooding and mudslides following weeks of torrential rains.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2011 Dec 6, US top FAA administrator Randy Babbitt (65) resigned following his weekend arrest in Virginia on charges of drunken driving.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A10)
2011 Dec 6, The Occupy movement entered a new phase with a day of marches and rallies in over 20 cities nationwide. Oakland protesters reclaimed some foreclosed properties, shouted down foreclosure auctions, waved banners outside banks and held several marches and rallies.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Dec 6, SF BART officials said thefts of copper are impacting train traffic. Vallejo Public Works said thieves have stripped $200,000 worth of copper wiring from street lights and signalized intersections since May.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Dec 6, Facebook started making its Timeline feature available to the approximately two million Facebook users living in New Zealand. The new application takes everything you’ve ever done on Facebook and creates a digital scrapbook that is simultaneously eye-pleasing and addicting.
(http://tinyurl.com/42y7nsq)
2011 Dec 6, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber struck a crowd of Shiite worshippers at a mosque in Kabul, killing at least 56 people in the deadliest of two attacks on a Shiite holy day. 4 other Shiites were killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when a bomb strapped to a bicycle exploded as a convoy of Afghan Shiites was driving down the road. The Taliban strongly condemned the two attacks. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Pakistan-based group, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The death toll in the attacks was soon raised to at least 80. On June 19, 2012, authorities in Kabul announced that two men have been charged in connection with the suicide bombing.
(AP, 12/6/11)(AP, 12/7/11)(AP, 12/11/11)(AP, 6/19/12)
2011 Dec 6, Antigua-based LIAT airline said all of its pilots have called in sick, likely disrupting all flights. The pilots were protesting the firing of a captain for undisclosed reasons.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, A Chinese court jailed Australian businessman Matthew Ng for 13 years on bribery and embezzlement charges. Ng, an executive working for travel services group Et-China in southern China, was arrested last November. Chinese media have said the case against Ng relates to his role in Et-China's battle with a Guangzhou government-owned travel company for control of domestic travel agency GZL.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Colombia Samuel Moreno (51), a former mayor of Bogota, was charged with receiving illegal kickbacks for public works contracts.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Tens of thousands marched across Colombia to repudiate last month's execution of soldiers and police by leftist rebels, who had held them for more than a decade as political bargaining chips.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Greek students hurled rocks and bottles during clashes with police at a rally to mark the third anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager in central Athens.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Guyana police fired tear gas and rubber pellets to disperse about 500 protesters demanding an election recount, a day after the home of a ruling party politician was reportedly firebombed.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, India’s police said Maoist rebels have raided police posts, engaged in shootouts and bombed government buildings and railway lines in eastern India in a two-day campaign of violence protesting their leader's killing on Nov 24.
(AP, 12/6/11)
\2011 Dec 6, In Italy an emergency budget under new PM Mario Monti came into force.
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.57)
2011 Dec 6, In Ivory Coast 3 journalists from a newspaper loyal to ousted president Laurent Gbagbo were released from jail after being acquitted on charges of insulting his successor. Cesar Etou, publication director at the daily Notre Voie, political service head Boga Sivori and chief editor Didier Depry, arrested on November 24, were found not guilty.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Japan's whaling fleet left port for the country's annual hunt in Antarctica.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said it believes 150 liters (40 US gallons) of waste water including highly harmful strontium, linked with bone cancers, has spread to the open ocean. The announcement came a day after TEPCO said it found 45 tons of waste water pooled around the leaky water-treatment system at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. In the weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the plant, TEPCO dumped 10,000 tons of lower-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Kuwait's ruler, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, dissolved parliament and set the Gulf nation toward elections, citing "deteriorating conditions" amid an increasingly bitter political showdown over alleged high-level corruption.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Kenya’s military reported a large battle over the weekend (Dec 3-4) in which it said 11 Somali government soldiers and more than 40 al-Shabab fighters were killed.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Libya's government gave its firm support to a 2-week deadline for militias to quit Tripoli, backing up a threat from the capital's council to lock down the city if they fail to do so.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Human Rights Watch said in a report that between 20,000 and 40,000 children work in artisanal gold mines in Mali, Africa's third-largest producer of the precious metal.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Niger 2 days of clashes began between demonstrators and police leaving two people dead in Zinder where opposition politician Aboubacar Mahamadou was on trial for "preparing protest demonstrations" on November 28 against President Mahamadou Issoufou. Mahamadou was acquitted on Dec 7. Six top police chiefs were sacked in the wake of clashes.
(AFP, 12/10/11)
2011 Dec 6, A Nigerian court convicted a man accused of being one of several spokesmen for the Boko Haram radical Muslim sect, responsible for hundreds of killings this year. Ali Sanda Umar Konduga was sentenced to three years in prison.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In North Korea 6 American volunteers, affiliated with the Fuller Center for Housing, arrived to kick off a project to build 50 homes for families working at a tree farm outside Pyongyang.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia sentenced an Australian man to 500 lashes and a year in jail after being found guilty of blasphemy. Reports said Mansor Almaribe (45) was detained in Medina on November 14 while making the hajj pilgrimage and accused of insulting companions of the prophet Mohammed. The father-of-five from Shepparton in Victoria state, who could not afford a lawyer, suffers from diabetes and heart disease.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Dec 6, Somali police appeared to make a deadly error by returning a suspected suicide car bomber they had arrested to his bomb-laden vehicle, where the suspect then detonated a blast that killed four people.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, The South African National Parks authority said rhino poaching has climbed to a record for a 2nd year. As many as 405 rhinos have been killed so far this year, 22% more than in 2010.
(SFC, 12/7/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 6, Syrian activists said a surge in violence in Homs has killed up to 50 people in the past 24 hours, leaving dozens of bodies in the streets.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, Taiwan's state-owned CPC Corporation signed a 20-year contract with Qatar's RasGas to buy 1.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Tibet 12 people were killed and five were missing after their bus plunged into a river.
(AP, 12/10/11)
2011 Dec 6, Animal Asia, an animal protection group, said 14 Asiatic black bears have been rescued from a bear bile farm in Vietnam after their owner decided to renounce the illegal trade.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 6, In Yemen a civilian was killed when a shell, fired by troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, hit a bus in Taez.
(AFP, 12/6/11)
2012 Dec 6, The US Senate voted to approve a bill to grant permanent normal trade relations with Russia. Pres. Obama said he will sign it.
(SFC, 12/7/12, p.A12)
2012 Dec 6, A US federal grand jury indicted Trenton, NJ, Mayor Tony Mack (46), his borther Ralphiel Mack (40) and friend Joseph Giorgianni (63) on bribery and fraud charges in a scheme to help individuals acquire a city-owned lot to build a parking garage.
(SFC, 12/7/12, p.A8)
2012 Dec 6, A US District Judge ruled that snakes, frogs and fairways can coexist at the San Francisco-owned Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica.
(SFC, 12/8/12, p.C6)
2012 Dec 6, In Washington state hundreds of marijuana enthusiasts huddled near Seattle's famed Space Needle tower with pipes, bongs and hand-rolled joints to celebrate Washington's new status as the first state in the nation to legalize pot for adult recreational use.
(Reuters, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 6, In Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber posing as a messenger of peace blew himself up near Asadullah Khalid, the newly appointed intelligence chief, seriously wounding him. 5 children were killed and two others were wounded by a mine in Sangin district, Helmand province, while collecting scrap items they hoped to sell.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, A treaty that African nations hope will lead to the fair and humane treatment of people displaced in their own countries went into force today, more than three years after it was conceived by the African Union. 15 African nations have ratified the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, A Bosnian court convicted Mevlid Jasarevic, who opened fire on the US embassy on Oct 28, 2011, of terrorism and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. Alleged accomplices Emrah Fojnica and Munib Ahmetspahic were acquitted.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, British police arrested prominent publicist Max Clifford (69) in connection to the broad investigation into child sex abuse spurred by the Jimmy Savile case.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Nearly 2,000 Chadian refugees, who fled a 2008 civil war between rebels and government forces into Cameroon, began leaving their camp to return to their home country.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Egypt's Republican Guard ordered protesters supporting and opposing President Mohammed Morsi to leave the area around the presidential palace after overnight clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist leader killed at least five people.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, French Polynesia created a 1.5 million square mile shark sanctuary.
(SFC, 12/19/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 6, German federal prosecutors charged 2 Iranian men with allegedly smuggling dozens of German-made aircraft motors to Iran to be used in its Ababil III surveillance and attack drone.
(AP, 2/20/13)
2012 Dec 6, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki said Baghdad and leaders of the Kurds' self-ruled autonomous region have agreed that units will be formed from local ethnic and sectarian groups to replace Iraqi and Kurdish forces currently in the disputed areas, claimed by Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, In Iraq gunmen killed five policemen in an attack on a checkpoint south of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, NATO moved forward with its plan to place Patriot missiles and troops along Syria's border with Turkey to protect against potential attacks.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, In New Zealand an unusually destructive tornado swept through neighborhoods around Auckland, killing three people and forcing 250 more to evacuate damaged and powerless homes.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Northern Ireland police rammed a car and seized an Irish Republican Army bomb late today, hours ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a one-day trip being overshadowed by an upsurge in sectarian passions. Police arrested three men in the disabled car and a fourth suspect nearby.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 6, In Pakistan a US drone fired a pair of missiles at a house in North Waziristan, killing three suspected militants. Sheik Khalid bin Abdel Rehman al-Hussainan, also known as Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, was among the dead. He had appeared in many videos released by al-Qaida's media wing, Al-Sahab, and was presented as a religious scholar for the group.
(AP, 12/6/12)(AP, 12/9/12)
2012 Dec 6, Syria's state television said a booby trapped car has exploded in a neighborhood of the capital, Damascus, killing one person.
(AP, 12/6/12)
2012 Dec 6, Thai law enforcement authorities announced that they will file murder charges against former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva and his deputy in the first prosecutions of officials for their roles in a deadly 2010 crackdown on anti-government protests. On Aug 28, 2014, a Thai court dismissed the murder charges against Abhisit Vejjajiva and his ex-deputy.
(AP, 12/6/12)(AFP, 8/28/14)
2013 Dec 6, US FDA said it has approved a new hepatitis C drug. The Sovaldi pills from Gilead Sciences was approved for use in combination with older drugs to treat the main forms of hepatitis C in the US. The US health industry soon complained as the US price was the drug was set at $1,000 a daily pill, or $84,000 for a 12-week treatment.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.D3)(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.A1)
2013 Dec 6, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in introduced Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on the meme of a smiling Shiba Inu dog. It quickly developed its own online community reaching a market capitalization of US $5,382,875,000 on January 28, 2021. Marcus and Palmer ended their affiliation with the enterprise in 2015.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin)(SFC, 2/15/21, p.C1)
2013 Dec 6, In Texas Jerald Cobbs, a former top executive of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), was indicted over an improperly awarded $11 million taxpayer funded grant.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 6, A winter storm that some forecasters say is the worst to hit the United States in years slammed the nation's midsection early today, snarling travel and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands. At least two deaths were reported on roads in Texas and Missouri.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In London three members of a self-styled "Muslim patrol" who harassed passers-by for wearing short skirts, holding hands and drinking alcohol were jailed for up to 16 months after admitting a variety of public order and assault charges.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to 6 when high winds hurled a tree limb against a car, killing 3 people in Poland. Britain and Denmark had already reported 3 deaths. Thousands of people in Britain faced a second day of flooding as the country confronted its worst tidal surge in 60 years after Xaver roared across northern Europe.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In CAR 19 members of the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, defected in the Central African Republic where the rebels are being pursued by African Union forces backed by American advisers.
(AP, 12/11/13)
2013 Dec 6, In China authorities in Shanghai ordered schoolchildren indoors and a halt to construction as the city, shrouded in yellow haze, suffered its worst bouts of air pollution.
(SFC, 12/7/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 6, In China a woman died of the H10N8 strain of bird flu, the first ever reported human case of the virus.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian police used tear gas to end clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of ousted Pres. Mohamed Morsi.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, kidnapped as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, was convicted in absentia by an Italian court of decade-old terror charges and sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, French President Francois Hollande told some 40 African leaders at a Paris summit that the continent must "ensure its own security" in order to "take charge of its destiny."
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Hong Kong reported its second human case of H7N9 bird flu just days after the first, raising fears that the virus is spreading beyond mainland China.
(AP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Indian-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to open a £240-million manufacturing plant in Brazil.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Japan enacted a state-secrets law toughening penalties for leaks, despite public protests and criticism that it will muzzle the media and help cover up official misdeeds.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Mexican officials said 6 people tested for possible radiation exposure have been released from hospital but remain under detention as suspects in the theft of a truck carrying highly radioactive cobalt-60.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In Mexico Guerrero state officials found the dismembered bodies of 8 family members who had been kidnapped a day earlier in the town of Teloloapan. Three other members of the same family had also been kidnapped, including an eight-year-old girl. But their whereabouts were unknown.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Dec 6, The Norwegian oil company Statoil announced the discovery of a major gas deposit with its US partner ExxonMobil off the coast of Tanzania.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In eastern Pakistan gunmen riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a vehicle carrying Shamsur Rehman, a leader of a hard-line Sunni group, killing him and wounding a passer-by before fleeing in Lahore.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Romania's Interior Ministry said Adrian Procop (21), a Romanian man accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum, was arrested in Britain after months on the run. Procop entered the Kunsthal museum at night in Oct 2012 with a friend, Radu Dogaru, and stole artworks worth 18 million euros ($24 million).
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Serbian police say they have detained hundreds of people in a massive sweep against drug traffickers throughout the Balkan country.
(AP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Somali lawmaker Feisal Warsame Mohamed was killed when a car bomb blew up his vehicle outside the prime minister's office in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, Key leaders of South Sudan's ruling party charged President Salva Kiir with "dictatorial" behaviour Friday, warning of instability threatening the young nation in a deeply controversial challenge to his rule.
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, In southeastern Turkey two Kurdish protesters, aged 34 and 32, were shot dead in a violent confrontation with police. The clashes were sparked by claims that Kurdish rebel cemeteries had been destroyed.
(AFP, 12/7/13)
2013 Dec 6, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich flew to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin, seeking aid to shore up a creaking economy as protesters back home, opposed to his U-turn away from Europe, defied police.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2013 Dec 6, The UN called for an urgent investigation into allegations in a Reuters report that Thai immigration officials moved Myanmar refugees into human trafficking rings.
(Reuters, 12/6/13)
2014 Dec 6, In Berkeley, Ca., police used tear gas to break up an evening long protest by demonstrators marching against recent incidents of police violence against blacks.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A8)
2014 Dec 6, New Mexico levied over $54 million in penalties against the US Dept. of Energy for violations that resulted in indefinite closure of the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A8)
2014 Dec 6, Ralph Baer, video game pioneer, died at his home in Manchester, New Hampshire. He created both the precursor to "Pong" and the electronic memory game "Simon" and had led the team that developed the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console.
(AP, 12/8/14)
2014 Dec 6, A fourth consecutive night of protest against police brutality got off to a slow start in New York City, after mourners held an interment for a black man shot dead by a white cop in a Brooklyn apartment house.
(Reuters, 12/7/14)
2014 Dec 6, In North Carolina a fire in an oceanfront condominium killed Mary Cochran (72) and Darlene Maslar (43). In 2016 Marshall Doran (24) pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and arson and was sentenced to life in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/juaddjb)(SFC, 8/5/16, p.A5)
2014 Dec 6, Australian court documents revealed that a boy (18) raped his best buddy’s sixty-two year old mom at knife point after she invited him into her home in Sydney. The boy pleaded guilty last week to aggravated sexual assault.
(http://tinyurl.com/n7bvb3g)
2014 Dec 6, Bahrain and Britain said they planned to open a new military camp in Bahrain. This would be Britain’s 1st permanent camp in the Middle East region since it officially pulled out from the area in 1971.
(http://tinyurl.com/lz2apn3)
2014 Dec 6, French President Francois Hollande met with Russian President Putin in Moscow.
(Reuters, 12/6/2014)
2014 Dec 6, The CEO of SAP, a German software maker, confirmed that the company will remain an autonomous corporation in the long term.
(Reuters, 12/6/2014)
2014 Dec 6, The leaders of Greece and Turkey glossed over key differences between the nations and expressed support for close affairs between the often irritable neighbors.
(http://tinyurl.com/nbyw5o6)
2014 Dec 6, An Iranian court charged Jason Rezaian, a reporter for the Washington Post jailed since last July. He was not told the charges.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 6, In central Nigeria gunmen freed over 200 prisoners in Tunga, Niger state.
(SFC, 12/8/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 6, Pakistani soldiers killed Adnan Shukrijumah, a top al-Qaida operative, along with two other suspected militants in South Waziristan. Shukrijumah (39) had been indicted in the US for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the NYC subway system.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 6, In the Philippines more than 650,000 people fled villages and the armed force went on complete alert to brace for Typhoon Hagupit.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 6, In the Philippines Lorenzo Vinciguerra (49), a Swiss hostage for over two years, was shot and wounded while escaping from Abu Sayyaf extremists in Sulu province.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Dec 6, Somali PM Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, who has been at odds with the president for several months, lost a confidence vote in parliament, amid warnings that the political turmoil and power struggles could spoil efforts to -establish the war-torn country.
(http://tinyurl.com/pds4axm)
2014 Dec 6, Rebels in southern Syria signed an agreement toward unity that may attract more support from their Western and Arab backers, forging a joint defense pact to help shield them from government forces and Islamic State. It followed an agreement among the southern groups on a transition plan for Syria.
(Reuters, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 6, In Yemen Luke Somers (33), an American photojournalist, was killed along with South African teacher Pierre Korkie during a failed US-led raid to free them from al-Qaida affiliated rebels in Shabwa province.
(SSFC, 12/7/14, p.A4)
2015 Dec 6, Holly Woodlawn (69), a transgender Puerto Rican woman featured in two Andy Warhol films, died in Los Angeles County. She was the woman described by Lou Reed in his song “Walk on the Wild Side" (1972).
(SFC, 12/8/15, p.C3)
2015 Dec 6, In Florida an unmanned Atlas V rocket lifted off carrying the Orbital ATK capsule to supply astronauts at the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 12/7/15, p.A4)
2015 Dec 6, The Texas Legislature adopted legislation allowing guns to be carried on university campuses. It was the 8th US state to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/q5q9njz)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.26)
2015 Dec 6, Armenia held a referendum on proposed constitutional changes that would give more powers to the prime minister and parliament at the expense of the president, who would become largely a figurehead. Armenians voted to curb presidential powers in the disputed referendum.
(AP, 12/6/15)(AFP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, Authorities in Burkina Faso said they have charged General Gilbert Diendere, who led a failed coup in September, with complicity in the 1987 assassination of President Thomas Sankara.
(Reuters, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Cambodia 6 people died after eating the barbequed carcass of a dog that had died for unknown reasons. 4 others died on Dec 8 after drinking rice wine.
(AP, 12/11/15)
2015 Dec 6, In western China some 100 masked men attacked a government office, smashing vehicles and equipment and leaving 13 people injured in a regional dispute over farmland. The attack was part of a disagreement between residents of Gansu province and the vast Inner Mongolia region it borders to the north.
(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, France's far-right National Front was tipped for historic gains as regional polls were held under a state of emergency just three weeks after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris. Marine Le Pen's anti-immigration National Front chalked up scores that reached 40 percent of the vote in several regions.
(AFP, 12/6/15)(AP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, The top security officials from India and Pakistan held talks in Thailand's capital, signaling a resumption of the rival countries' on-again, off-again peace dialogue.
(AP, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Indonesia a commuter train slammed into a passenger minibus at a railroad crossing in Jakarta, killing at least 18 people and seriously injuring six others.
(AP, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, The Israeli Ofer military court near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank sentenced Khalida Jarrar, a senior member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a well-known political figure, to 15 months in jail. She had been arrested in April on a series of charges, including encouraging attacks against Israel and violating a travel ban.
(AFP, 12/7/15)
2015 Dec 6, Israel's state-owned electric utility said Egyptian natural gas companies will pay it compensation of $1.76 billion plus interest for halting gas supplies in 2012.
(AP, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia Israa al-Ghomgham and her husband were arrested in a night raid on their home. She was accused of encouraging demonstrations for greater rights for the Shiite Muslim minority in Eastern province.
(SFC, 8/23/18, p.A4)
2015 Dec 6, At least 32 Islamic State fighters were killed and 40 more wounded in Syria's Raqqa province, in a series of air strikes believed to be carried out by a US-led coalition targeting the jihadists.
(Reuters, 12/6/15)
2015 Dec 6, Venezuelans voted in tense elections that could see the opposition seize legislative power from the socialist government and risk sparking violence in the oil-rich, cash-poor nation. The opposition Democratic Unity coalition won 112 of 167 of the National Assembly seats. The ruling Socialists and its allies got 55 seats.
(AFP, 12/6/15)(Reuters, 12/7/15)(SFC, 12/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 6, In Yemen General Jaafar Mohammed Saad, the governor of Aden, was killed by a car bomb in the port city. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack that also killed at least 6 members of Saad's entourage.
(Reuters, 12/6/15)
2016 Dec 6, US President-elect Donald Trump said costs for a new Air Force One - one of the most prominent symbols of the US presidency - were out of control, and urged the government to cancel a contract with Boeing Co for the jet.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, The US and Japan said that Washington will give nearly 10,000 acres of land on Okinawa back to the Japanese government. The land had been used by Marines for jungle warfare training and the giveback will be completed by Dec 22.
(SFC, 12/7/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 6, The US Supreme Court ruled that sharing corporate secrets with friends or relatives is illegal even if the insider providing the tip doesn’t receive anything of value in return.
(SFC, 12/7/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 6, In Bahrain top officials from six Gulf Arab nations gathered for talks expected to focus on regional security and cooperation. The GCC bloc includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Belgian federal prosecutors said authorities have searched houses and detained eight people for questioning on suspicion of supporting Islamic State financially and through the recruitment of fighters for the Syrian civil war.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Brazil's currency and stocks seesawed as a Supreme Court decision to remove Senate president Renan Calheiros because he has been indicted on embezzlement charges raised doubts about upcoming votes on the government's austerity agenda.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A British man was found guilty of providing cash to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings in a case that linked England to the Islamic State group attacks in Europe. Zakaria Boufassil was convicted of "engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism" by providing 3,000 pounds ($3,700) to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in Birmingham, England.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Danish police arrested a man (26) suspected of seriously wounding one of its officers by shooting him in the head outside a police station in a Copenhagen suburb earlier in the day. The dog squad officer (43) died the next day.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)(AP, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 6, Danish toymaker Lego said it is appointing its first foreign CEO and will give its family owners a bigger role in developing the Lego brand under an organizational shake-up that will see incumbent Jorgen Vig Knudstorp step down by the end of the year. Briton Bali Padda, currently chief operations officer, will replace Knudstorp.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Egyptian security forces in the southern province of Assiut killed three gunmen in a raid on a hideout used by what it described as an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Egypt's official anti-corruption body said it has uncovered a network for human organ trafficking, including physicians whom it said exploited the victims' poverty in persuading them to sell their organs.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, In France former interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve took over as prime minister, replacing Manuel Valls who resigned to fight for the Socialist party nomination in presidential elections next year.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel won a new two-year term as leader of her Christian Democratic Union. She called for a ban on full-face Muslim veils "wherever legally possible".
(SFC, 12/7/16, p.A5)(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 6, A Greek court agreed to extradite three Turkish servicemen who were part of an eight-person helicopter crew that fled to Greece after a failed military coup, a decision that came a day after it refused to send three others back to Turkey.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Iran's state TV reported that a rescue helicopter carrying eight people has crashed into a lake in western Tehran, killing two people.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Iraqi army units surged towards the center of Mosul in an attack from the city's southeastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the seven-week-old battle for Islamic State's Iraqi stronghold.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, In Israel sculptor Itay Zalait placed a four meter (13 foot) tall effigy of Netanyahu on a white pedestal in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, adjacent to city hall, to test the limits of freedom of expression. The gilded statue was toppled by an onlooker after a brief public appearance.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A dozen Lebanese women, dressed as brides in white wedding dresses stained with fake blood and bandages, gathered outside government buildings in Beirut to protest a law, in place since the late 1940s, that allows a rapist to get away with his crime if he marries the survivor.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, In central Mali five suspected Islamist militants freed 93 prisoners during an attack on a jail in the town of Niono. Ninety prisoners remained at large after three were captured.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Poland's Supreme Court confirmed that the country would refuse to detain and extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski to the US.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A Saudi court sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom's rival Iran, in a move likely to heighten regional tensions.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, The Program for Int’l. Student Assessment (PISA), run by the OECD, released its latest results and showed students from Singapore roughly three years ahead of American students in math.
(Econ, 12/10/16, p.20)
2016 Dec 6, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that granted a man the right to medically-assisted death and could have opened the way to legalize euthanasia.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Syrian government forces and allied militias captured Aleppo's centrally located al-Shaar neighborhood from rebels as the government and its ally Russia rejected a cease-fire for the war-torn city.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Thailand’s interior ministry said severe flooding due to heavy rain in southern Thailand has killed 14 people, including five students. Six days of floods have affected 582,345 people in 11 of the country’s 76 provinces.
(AP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Several thousand Tunisian lawyers demonstrated in front of the prime minister's office, with some demanding his resignation as they escalated a protest against widely unpopular new taxes that will hit them and other high-end professions.
(Reuters, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, Venezuela's opposition withdrew from the latest round of crisis negotiations with authorities, insisting the government first release prisoners and allow a vote on the volatile country's political future.
(AFP, 12/6/16)
2016 Dec 6, A Yemen ferry sank 40 km (25 miles) northwest of the island of Socotra. At least 35 of the 64 people on the ship were soon rescued.
(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2017 Dec 6, US President Donald Trump reversed decades of US policy and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, The Trump administration announced it will restrict visas for Cambodians "undermining democracy" in the Southeast Asian nation following the dissolution of the main opposition party and a crackdown on independent media.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, California state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said claims from the October fires in the wine country have jumped to $9 billion.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A9)
2017 Dec 6, In California Frederick Darren Berg escaped from federal prison in Atwater. He was serving an 18-year prison term for masterminding a $100 million Ponzi scheme. In 2019 federal agents said he may have fled to South America.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3xgsb9e)(SFC, 4/6/19, p.A6)
2017 Dec 6, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed regulations that will limit companies to three robots each and limit the city to nine robots total. The robots would also be confined to industrial areas.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.C1)
2017 Dec 6, Time Magazine named “The Silence Breakers" as its 2017 Person of the Year, recognizing the women (and some men) who have come forward with stories of sexual harassment and assault.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 6, US health insurer United Health Group said its Optum unit is buying Da Vita Medical Group, the physician group of Da Vita dialysis centers.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.C6)
2017 Dec 6, Brazilian police and soldiers captured Rogerio Avelino da Silva, aka Rogerio 157, one of Rio de Janeiro's most wanted alleged drug trafficking bosses.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, British think tank Chatham House released a report saying hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to be illegally detained every year by hospitals in poor countries worldwide for nonpayment of bills.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A3)
2017 Dec 6, Czech billionaire businessman Andrej Babis was appointed prime minister after his ANO party came first in an October election, and he must now focus on securing parliamentary backing for a minority administration.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, French President Emmanuel Macron made his first official visit to Algeria, announcing that he came as a "friend" despite France's historically prickly relationship with its former colony.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, French rock star Johnny Hallyday (b.1943) died in Paris. His power ballads and colorful personal life made him a national treasure, loved by everyone from rebellious teens in the 1960s to modern-day presidents.
(AP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Greek police fired teargas at youths marching in Athens to mark the ninth anniversary of the killing of a teenager by police, an incident that sparked Greece's worst riots for decades. Alexandros Grigoropoulos (15) was shot dead in 2008.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Bela Kovacs, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament and a member of the nationalist opposition Jobbik party, was indicted for allegedly spying on the European Union. Charges also included fraud totaling 21,076 euros ($24,900) stemming from the fictitious employment of interns in the EU parliament in 2012 to 2013.
(AP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, In Italy Mattia Del Zotto (27) was arrested on suspicion he poisoned his entire family with a chemical once used to kill rodents, leading to the deaths of his grandparents and an aunt, and the hospitalization of five others.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced he would seek re-election in March 2018, a contest opinion polls show he will win comfortably.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government will allow Russians to compete as neutral athletes at the upcoming games in South Korea. The International Olympic Committee has banned the Russian team from games as punishment for doping violations at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
(AP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, Employees at Slovenia's state intelligence agency went on strike, demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 6, The Swiss parliament elected Alain Berset (45) to become the country’s president next year, succeeding Pres. Doris Leuthard.
(SFC, 12/7/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 6, Taiwan lawmakers approved a law requiring the removal of public statues honoring Chiang Kai-shek, a dictator who governed from the late 1940s until his death in 1975. In addition, Chiang’s name will be replaced on many schools and roads.
(CSM, 12/8/17)
2017 Dec 6, Two Ugandan musicians were released on bail after being charged with disturbing the peace of veteran President Yoweri Museveni for a song suggesting he should retire.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, In Ukraine sixteen people were injured in clashes in central Kiev as police sought to arrest ex-Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, a staunch foe of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, A UN study said the area under opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar has shrunk by a quarter in the last two years, as demand for opiates eases and methamphetamine use surges.
(AFP, 12/6/17)
2017 Dec 6, In Yemen a Saudi-led coalition stepped up air strikes on the Houthis as the Iran-allied armed movement tightened its grip on Sanaa a day after the son of slain former president Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed revenge for his father's death. Local fighters captured an area on the Red Sea coast from Houthi rebels.
(Reuters, 12/6/17)(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that the Trump administration has separated 81 migrant children from their families at the US-Mexico border since the June executive order that stopped the general practice amid a crackdown on illegal crossings.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A girl (7) from Guatemala was found near Lordsburg, New Mexico, by US Border Patrol agents. Jackeline Caal was in custody for about eight hours before she began having seizures. Emergency medical technicians discovered the girl's fever was 105.7 degrees Fahrenheit (40.9 degrees Celsius), and she was airlifted to an El Paso, Texas, hospital, where she later died. The girl was traveling with a group of 163 people, who approached agents to turn themselves in.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that a North Carolina court has struck down more legislation Republicans approved for their lame-duck governor's signature to erode powers of an incoming Democrat.
(SFC, 12/6/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 6, Tennessee inmate David Earl Miller (61) was executed in an electric chair for the 1981 killing of Lee Standifer (23), a mentally handicapped woman. He was the 2nd person to choose the electric chair over lethal injection in the past month.
(SFC, 12/7/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 6, An Australian appeal court overturned a conviction against Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson (68), the most senior Roman Catholic cleric ever found guilty of covering up child sex abuse.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, OPEC countries were gathered in Austria to find a way to support the falling price of oil, with analysts predicting the cartel and key ally Russia would agree to cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Bolivia Jorge Roca Suarez (67), one of South America's leading drug traffickers in the 1980s who served 28 years in prison in the United States before returning to Bolivia earlier this year, fled a medical clinic where he was receiving treatment.
(AP, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that Britain will suspend its top tier investor visas, which require 2 million pounds ($2.55 million) in investment, as part of a drive to crack down on organized crime and money laundering.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, China demanded Canada release a Huawei Technologies executive who was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1. Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, faced possible extradition to the United States on suspicion of trying to evade US trade curbs on Iran.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Chile's Constitutional Court threw out a regulation that prohibited some private hospitals and clinics from refusing to perform legal abortions.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, In eastern CongoDRC suspected militiamen killed at least 18 civilians, near the town of Beni, the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak. Congo's health ministry announced 13 new confirmed cases.
(Reuters, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, Cuba began offering its citizens full internet access for mobile phones over its 3G network.
(SFC, 12/6/18, p.A5)
2018 Dec 6, Dominican authorities called on the Coast Guard for assistance when seven of 28 migrants went missing after a boat capsized southeast of the Dominican Republic. They were believed to be Dominicans who were headed east to Puerto Rico.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, The 28-nation EU's interior ministers approved a declaration recognizing a common definition of anti-Semitism and acknowledging Jewish concerns given the prevalence of attacks in recent years.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The European Union and France said their total investment in development funding aimed at preventing terrorism in the G5 African Sahel countries (Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger) would rise to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion), as the region struggles with jihadism and lawlessness.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, France's PM Edouard Philippe said he was open to new measures to benefit workers on the lowest salaries, as the government scrambled to head off another round of 'yellow vest' protests in Paris this weekend.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Around 200 French high schools were blocked or disrupted by students protesting a raft of education overhauls, on a fourth day of action called to coincide with anti-government demonstrations which have rocked the country in recent weeks.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In France aid groups Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee said they have been forced to end the migrant rescue operations of the Aquarius ship in the Mediterranean Sea.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, Demonstrators in Greece threw firebombs and pelted police with rocks as marches on the 10th anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager degenerated into violence.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In southeastern Iran a suicide car bombing followed by an armed assault killed at least two policemen and wounding 42 people outside police headquarters in the port city of Chabahar. The city lies in Sistan-Baluchistan province which has long been a flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and Sunni Muslim extremists carrying out cross-border attacks targeting the Shiite authorities. Security forces soon detained 10 people suspected of links to the attack.
(AFP, 12/6/18)(Reuters, 12/6/18)(AP, 12/8/18)(Reuters, 12/9/18)
2018 Dec 6, A US F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet and a KC-130 Hercules refueling aircraft collided during training off Japan's coast. One of two crew members recovered was dead and five others remain missing.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Dutch court gave the go-ahead for a cull of hundreds of red deer in a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, in a wildlife management case that has sparked fierce opposition from animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Pakistan hundreds of supporters of opposition leader, Shahbaz Sharif, clashed with police in the eastern city of Lahore, leaving dozens of protesters hurt. The violence erupted when riot police used batons to prevent Sharif's supporters from reaching an anti-graft tribunal.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, It was reported that Pakistan is kicking out 18 international charities after rejecting their final appeal to stay in the country. The majority of the shuttered aid groups are US-based, while the rest are from Britain and the European Union.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Palestinian court extended the detention of hunger-striking Palestinian-American activist Suha Jbara, a US citizen born in Panama, who claims she was tortured in captivity.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Philippine immigration authorities said they have arrested an American Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting altar boys was arrested in a church in Naval town on the island province of Biliran. Rev. Kenneth Bernard Hendricks (77) has been indicted in Ohio for alleged illicit sexual conduct in the Philippines.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Polish court ruled that Lech Walesa, the anti-communist dissident and former president of Poland, must apologize to Jaroslaw Kaczynsk, the head of Poland's ruling party in a slander case.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Rwandan court found dissident politician Diane Rwigara (37) not guilty of forgery and inciting insurrection, charges that saw her imprisoned for over a year and highlighted a crackdown on opposition in the country.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In northern Sudan three miners were killed in Qabqaba when a gold mine they were working at collapsed. 10 others were trapped underground.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2018 Dec 6, Meeting in Sweden Yemen's warring sides agreed to free thousands of prisoners, in what a UN mediator called a hopeful start to the first peace talks in years to end a war that has pushed millions of people on the verge of starvation.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Geneva two days of UN talks on Western Sahara ended with all sides promising to meet again for a similar "round table" in the first quarter of 2019, UN envoy Horst Koehler told reporters after the meeting ended unexpectedly early.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Syrian Democratic Forces commander said the US-backed Syrian fighters (SDF) had managed to break into the pocket and wrest part of its main town from IS in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. Over the last 3 days 34 jihadists including three suicide bombers, and 17 SDF fighters have been killed in the fighting.
(AFP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, Turkish journalist Kamil Demirkaya, accused by Turkey of terrorism, said he has applied for political asylum in Romania after Turkey sought his extradition.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The Ukrainian parliament voted to withdraw from a wide-ranging treaty on friendship with Russia, the latest step in escalating tensions between the two neighbors.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, UAE-based global port operator DP World says it has acquired Danish logistics firm Unifeeder for $748 million, about 660 million euros, helping the Dubai-owned company expand its foothold through the largest feeder and shortsea network in Europe.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The UN's human rights office said Burundi's government has asked it to leave, months after the outgoing UN rights chief called the country one of the "most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times".
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, The UN World Food Program said a survey of food security in Yemen has found more than 15 million people are in a "crisis" or "emergency" situation and that number could hit 20 million without sustained food aid.
(Reuters, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 6, In Venezuela former baseball major league players Luis Valbuena (33) and Jose Castillo (37) were killed in a car crash as they were heading to the city of Barquisimeto after a game in Caracas.
(AP, 12/7/18)
2019 Dec 6, US President Donald Trump called for the World Bank to stop loaning money to China, one day after the institution adopted a lending plan to Beijing over Washington's objections.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The United States imposed sanctions on three Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary leaders over a deadly crackdown on protests in the country, as it warned Tehran to stay out of its neighbor's affairs.
(AFP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The US Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from restarting federal executions next week after a 16-year break.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, US Food and Drug Administration staffers reviewing Correvio Pharma Corp's heart drug said they did not believe the benefits of the therapy outweighed its risks, sending the company's shares down nearly 38%.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders promised to invest $150 billion to bring high-speed internet to “every household in America" while breaking up and better regulating monopolies he says currently limit access to drive up their profits.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, A Los Angeles jury acquitted Elon Musk, Tesla Inc's outspoken chief executive, of defamation over a 2018 Twitter message describing British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth as "pedo guy".
(Reuters, 12/6/19)(SFC, 12/7/19, p.D1)
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, An Alabama police officer was killed during a drug-related shooting. The suspect was captured after a short foot chase.
(SFC, 12/7/19, p.A5)
2019 Dec 6, California's bankrupt power producer PG&E Corp said it had reached a $13.5 billion settlement with victims of some of most devastating wildfires in the state's modern history.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Florida a shooter opened fire at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola in an attack that left four people dead including the assailant, and multiple people injured. The gunfire prompted a massive law enforcement response to the base, which was locked down. The shooter as soon identified as aviation student Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force. The New York Times later reported that six other Saudi nationals were being questioned by investigators in Florida, three of whom were seen filming the incident.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia ordered the suspension of a policy that allows prison officials to strip-search children after an 8-year-old girl was told to remove her clothes before being allowed to see her imprisoned father on Nov. 24.
(NY Times, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Tens of thousands of Algerians took to the streets, making a show of strength of their last weekly protest before a presidential election next week that they have rejected as meaningless.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Australian firefighters said a giant bushfire on the edge of Sydney, which has blanketed the city in smoke causing a spike in respiratory illnesses and the cancellation of outdoor sports, will take weeks to control but will not be extinguished without heavy rains.
(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Austria The remaining signatories to the faltering Iran nuclear deal began crunch talks in Vienna with questions over the survival of the landmark agreement after Tehran vowed to continue to breach the deal's limits on its nuclear program. Envoys from Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran took part in the meeting,
(AFP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Oil-rich Azerbaijan planted more than half a million trees to celebrate 14th century poet Seyid Imadeddin Nesimi, an initiative the government said would help tackle climate change but some environmental activists called "a waste of money." Elsewhere in the country, thousands of hectares of bushlands and forests were being cleared to make way for hazelnut plantations and farms.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Bosnian authorities, bowing to international pressure, agreed to dismantle the makeshift Vucjak refugee camp of freezing snow-covered tents, but some migrants living there have been refusing food in protest at being resettled.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he had a confidential government report which showed there would be customs checks between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain under a Brexit deal negotiated by PM Boris Johnson.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Social news and aggregation firm Reddit Inc. banned 61 accounts under its policies against “vote manipulation" ahead of Britain’s general election on Dec. 12. The accounts, which were used to draw attention to the trade documents, were “part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia," according to Reddit.
(Bloomberg, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, A multi-million pound prosecution by Scotland Yard's war crimes unit against Agnes Reeves-Taylor (54), a former wife of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, collapsed after her lawyers won a bid to have the case discontinued.
(The Telegraph, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, State-run Xinhua News Agency reported that China’s leaders have vowed to avoid systemic financial risks next year and keep growth in a “reasonable range," citing a Politburo meeting in Beijing, as the economy stutters with its slowest growth in decades.
(Bloomberg, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The Republic of Djibouti announced, in New York, that it is starting its official campaign for election as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
(PRNewswire, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, French PM Edouard Philippe said he was sticking with plans to reform the country's pension system but insisted change would be gradual and "not brutal".
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, French unions continued to bring rail, bus and metro systems to a standstill in protest over the government's planned pension reforms. Railways company SNCF said it expected rail traffic would continue to be heavily disrupted through the weekend and Dec. 9, based on statements from transport unions.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Germany an off-duty firefighter (49) was killed in an altercation between two couples and a group of youths in the southern city of Augsburg. Two teenagers were soon arrested after surveillance cameras enabled investigators to identify the suspects.
(AP, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, Greece said it was expelling the Libyan ambassador, angered by an accord between Libya and Turkey signed on Nov. 27 that maps out a sea boundary between the two countries close to the Greek island of Crete. Libya called the move unacceptable. Turkey dismissed it as outrageous.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, The World Food Program (WFPP issued an appeal for $62 million in emergency food assistance in Haiti, where a protracted political and economic crises are fanning a humanitarian disaster.
(Miami Herald, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Hungary a government spokesman confirmed that the government is seeking a greater say in the operation of theaters that it partly funds. He said a recent sexual harassment case at a Budapest theater made the changes necessary as the government currently has no power to sack the director of the theatre involved.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In southern India police fatally shot four men being held on suspicion of raping and killing a woman after investigators took them to the crime scene, drawing both praise and condemnation in a case that has sparked protests across the country. The suspects had reportedly seized some weapons from policemen who had taken them there and started firing.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In India a 23-year-old rape victim set on fire by a gang of men, which included her alleged rapists, died in a New Delhi hospital. A day earlier the woman was on her way to board a train in Unnao district of northern Uttar Pradesh state to attend a court hearing over her rape when she was doused with kerosene and set on fire. Her death prompted protests from opposition leaders who blamed the ruling party for failing to check incidents of violence against women.
(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Iraq the casualty toll rose to 25 dead and 130 wounded as attacks by unknown gunmen targeted anti-government demonstrators in Baghdad continued into the night.
(AP, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Kenya at least ten people were killed and 30 injured when a residential building collapsed in Nairobi. Rescue workers struggled to free a woman who was screaming from under the rubble. 20 people remained missing.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 6, Kenyan police officers were among those killed when gunmen suspected to be from Islamist militant group al Shabaab attacked a bus near the border with Somalia. Police said 10 people were killed and that the attackers had specifically targeted non-Somalis after flagging down the bus.
(Reuters, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Kosovo's Pres. Hashim Thaci accused the European Union maintaining double standards for blocking a visa-free travel deal with his country but opening new chapters in Serbia's integration process despite its affiliation with Russia.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Lebanon's outgoing PM Saad Hariri called on several Arab and world leaders to help his country secure credit lines for imports from friendly nations as the tiny Mediterranean country passes through its worst economic and financial crisis in decades.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, A three-month-old Malaysian infant was diagnosed with polio, the first case reported in the country in nearly three decades.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, Lawyers for the Nigerian government filed "new and substantive" allegations of fraud with a British court in an ongoing fight against an arbitration award now worth some $10 billion. The government has been fighting efforts by British Virgin Islands-based Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) to enforce the award for a failed gas project and is also seeking to overturn the underlying award.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported the recent launch of the "Treatment Tourism Exchange Corporation", aimed at capitalizing on the "rising demand for tourism, including medical care, in line with an international trend".
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated along the Gaza-Israel frontier as the territory’s Hamas rulers resumed the regular protests after a three-week pause. 14 Palestinians were reported wounded by Israeli fire, four of them with live gunshots.
(AP, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Russia Moscow student Yegor Zhukov (21) stepped out of a courthouse, effectively free after a judge handed down a three-year suspended sentence. Zhukov, a student at the liberal Higher School of Economics, spent a month in pre-trial detention in August before rioting charges against him were dropped amid a public campaign, supported by many Russian celebrities.
(The Telegraph, 12/7/19)
2019 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia and Russia spearheaded a deal in which OPEC and its allies committed to some of the deepest oil output cuts this decade aiming to avert oversupply and support prices.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, It was reported that Slovak police have charged former president Andrej Kiska with tax fraud, stirring up the political scene ahead of an election due in February.
(Reuters, 12/6/19)
2019 Dec 6, In eastern Slovakia a gas explosion in an apartment building in Presov killed at least five people and injured more than 40. Firefighters rescued people trapped in the building, which officials said is still in danger of collapse. The death toll soon rose to least seven people. Police soon charged three people with putting the public in danger over the gas explosion. One person remained missing.
(AP, 12/6/19)(Reuters, 12/7/19)(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, In South Africa four mineworkers were killed and one was seriously injured after a rock fall at a gold mine trapped five workers underground. The collapse at the Village Main Reef's Tau Lekoa gold mine in North West province followed at least one earth tremor.
(AP, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 6, In Spain climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in Madrid to join thousands of other young people in a march to demand world leaders take real action against climate change.
(AP, 12/6/19)
2020 Dec 6, President Donald Trump said his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus, making him the latest in Trump's inner circle to contract the disease that is now surging across the US.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, President-elect Joe Biden chose California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his secretary of health and human services. If confirmed, Becerra would be the first Latino to run the department.
(NY Times, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, warned that some governors and local officials were ignoring coronavirus mitigation efforts that are proven to work, putting residents in danger.
(The Week, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 6, SpaceX launched a newer, bigger version of its Dragon supply ship to the Int'l. Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
(SFC, 12/7/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 6, Individual US states scrambled to impose lockdowns to stem coronavirus spikes amid a lack of national leadership on how to curb infections until vaccines are widely available in the spring.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, A long-awaited report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that has been obtained by news organizations has found that the mysterious neurological symptoms American diplomats experienced in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, making it the most likely cause behind the illnesses that first struck people working at the US embassy in Havana in 2016.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, California reported more than 25,000 new confirmed COVID-19 infections, the state's highest number since the pandemic began. Hospitalizations also hit a record high with more than 10,200. Tens of millions of Southern California and San Joaquin Valley residents will be under stay-at-home orders beginning this evening after intensive care units in the two state regions, which include Los Angeles and San Diego, fell below 15 percent capacity amid the coronavirus pandemic.
(The Week, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, California to date had 1,351,199 cases of coronavirus and 19,938 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 166,764 cases and 2,028 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 14,610,367 with the death toll at 281,347.
(sfist.com, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Former US Sen. Paul Sarbanes (87) died in Baltimore. He represented Maryland for 30 years in the Senate as a leader of financial regulatory reform and drafted the first article of impeachment against Republican President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal as a congressman.
(AP, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 6, Japan retrieved a capsule of asteroid dust from Australia's remote outback after a six-year mission that may help uncover more about the origins of the planets and water. The capsule lit up on re-entry into the atmosphere early today and landed in the Woomera restricted area, about 460 km (285 miles) north of Adelaide.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, In Belarus more than 300 people were detained in Minsk, where crowds of people took to the streets for the 18th consecutive weekend, demanding the ouster of the country's authoritarian leader who won a sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, British negotiators arrived in Brussels for a last-ditch attempt to strike a Brexit trade deal with the European Union and avert a chaotic parting of ways at the end of the year.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, An Egyptian court upheld a prosecutors’ decision to freeze the assets of Abdel-Razek, Karim Ennarah and Mohammed Basheer, one of the country’s most prominent human rights groups. The EIPR rights workers were freed on Dec 3 after being arrested last month and slapped with terrorism-related charges.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Ethiopian troops shot at and detained UN staff after they drove through check-points in the conflict-hit northern Tigray region. The UN team had reportedly ignored instructions not to be in the area.
(BBC, 12/8/20)
2020 Dec 6, It was reported that Bayer AG has struck a deal with Atara Biotherapeutics to jointly work on Atara's CAR-T cell anti-tumor treatments, as the German group firms up its commitment to build a specialist cell and gene therapy development platform.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Indonesia's anti-corruption commission formally detained Juliari Batubara, the country's social affairs minister, after he surrendered in Jakarta to face charges of taking $1.2 million in bribes related to the government's COVID-19 aid distribution.
(SFC, 12/7/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 6, In Japan Shoko Arai, the only female assembly member in the town of Kusatsu, was voted out of office in a recall election orchestrated by the mayor and other assembly members. Last November she had accused mayor Nobutada Kuroiva of forcing her into sexual relation in 2015.
(SFC, 12/10/20, p.A4)
2020 Dec 6, In Mexico Bryan Celaya Alvarado disappeared, becoming of the country's 87,855 "disappeared" people. His wife, Aranza Ramos, spent over a year searching for him before she was killed in Sonora on July 15, 2021. Multiple cartels have been fighting for control of Sonora and its valuable trafficking routes to the US.
(SFC, 7/24/21, p.A3)
2020 Dec 6, Thousands of Moldovans protested outside the parliament building in Chisinau demanding the resignation of the country’s Russia-backed government and a new election.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Romania held elections.
(Reuters, 12/7/20)
2020 Dec 6, Russia reported a record daily increase of 29,039 new cases, taking the national total to 2,460,770 since the pandemic began, while the official national death toll rose to 43,141. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said his city wants to vaccinate up to seven million people.
(Reuters, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, The main opposition party in Tanzania's semiautonomous Zanzibar archipelago announced it will join a coalition government with the islands' ruling party, after a disputed poll in October in which some of its supporters were allegedly killed and its leaders arrested.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Uruguay's first socialist president, Tabaré Vásquez (80), a popular figure who was returned to office for a second term, died of cancer, a disease the oncologist dedicated much of his life to fighting.
(AP, 12/6/20)
2020 Dec 6, Venezuelans headed to the polls, with President Nicolás Maduro and his loyalists reportedly set to take back control of the National Assembly after the opposition won a majority of seats in 2015. Opposition supporters, many of whom are planning to boycott the voting booth, have called it fraudulent.
(NY Times, 12/6/20)
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