Today in History - December 14
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872 Dec 14, Adrian II (~80), Italian Pope (867-72), the last married pope, died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1287 Dec 14, The Zuider Zee seawall collapsed with the loss of 50,000 lives.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1503 Dec 14, Nostradamus [Michel de Nostredame], prophet, was born in St. Remy, Provence, France. He predicted correctly French king Henri II's manner of death. Nostradamus was the author of a book of prophecies that many still believe foretold the future. He was also physician, an astrologer and a clairvoyant. He wrote in rhyming quatrains, accurately predicting the Great London Fire in 1666, Spain’s Civil War, and a Hitler that would lead Germany into war. He even correctly predicted his own death on July 2, 1566.
(HN, 12/14/99)(MC, 12/14/01)
1542 Dec 14, James V (b.1512), king of Scotland (1513-42), died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1546 Dec 14, Tycho Brahe (d.1601), astronomer, was born in Knudstrup, Denmark. He constructed the most precise astronomical instruments of his time.
(SCTS, p.136)(HN, 12/14/00)(MC, 12/14/01)
1591 Dec 14, San Juan de la Cruz (b.1542), Spanish poet, died. He is remembered for his treatise “Dark Night of the Soul."
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08480a.htm)
1656 Dec 14, Artificial pearls were 1st manufactured by M. Jacquin in Paris. They were made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1702 Dec 14, In Japan 47 samurai stormed the palace of a high-ranking lord in Edo and beheaded him. They were ordered to commit seppuku, a ritual suicide by disembowelment. Stone monuments at the Sengakuji temple marked the graves of the 47 ronin (samurai with no master).
(SFC, 1/14/15, p.A5)
1782 Dec 14, Charleston, SC, was evacuated by British.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1795 Dec 14, John Bloomfield Jarvis, civil engineer, was born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1798 Dec 14, David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a nut and bolt machine.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1799 Dec 14, George Washington (b.1732), the first president of the United States, died at his Mount Vernon, Va., home. Richard Brookhiser authored "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington." The Washingtons at this time had 317 slaves. His 5 stills in Virginia turned out some 12,000 gallons of corn whiskey a year. In 1993 Richard Norton Smith authored "George Washington and the New American Nation." In 2010 Ron Chernow authored “Washington: A Life."
(A&IP, ESM, p.16)(AP, 12/14/97)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W15)(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 12/11/99, p.B6)(WSJ, 2/22/00, p.A40)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.102)
1807 Dec 14, A number of meteorites fell onto Weston, Connecticut.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.122)
1812 Dec, 14, The last French units of Napoleon’s Grand Armeé crossed the Nieman River of Lithuania, leaving Russia.
(ON, 10/2010, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia)
1814 Dec 14, The steamboat Enterprise, designed by keelboat captain Henry Miller Shreve, arrived in New Orleans with guns and ammunition for Gen. Jackson. It was immediately commandeered for military service.
(ON, 7/02, p.9)
1819 Dec 14, Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1822 Dec 14, John Christie, English patron of music, was born. He founded the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1822 Dec 14, The Congress of Verona ended, ignoring the Greek war of independence.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1829 Dec 14, In France Joseph Niepce signed a 10-year partnership agreement with Louis Daguerre to perfect a new photographic imaging process discovered by Niepce.
(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1855 Dec 14, Ice hockey was played by 2 military teams in Canada. [see 1875]
(CFA, ‘96, p.60)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(http://library.thinkquest.org/10480/hockey.html)
1861 Dec 14, Prince Albert of England (42), husband of Queen Victoria and one of the Union’s strongest advocates, died in London. The book “Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert" was later written by Stanley Weintraub.
(WUD, 1994, p.34)(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)(AP, 12/14/98)(HN, 12/14/98)
1863 Dec 14, The widow of Confederate General B.H. Helm was given amnesty by President Lincoln after she swore allegiance to the Union. Mrs. Helm was the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1863 Dec 14, Gen. James Longstreet attacked Union troops at Bean’s Station, Tenn.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1866 Dec 14, Roger Fry, English art critic, was born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1877 Dec 14, Serbia joined Russia in war on Turkey.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1895 Dec 14, Britain’s King George VI (d.1952), was born. He rule from 1936-1952.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1896 Dec 14, James H. Doolittle, American Air Force general, was born. He commanded the first bombing mission over Japan. His Tokyo raid was a great boost for American war morale.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1900 Dec 14, Max Planck (1858-1947), German physicist, presented the quantum theory at the Physics Society in Berlin. Planck, demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize (1918) in Physics for his work on blackbody radiation.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1903 Dec 14, William Ennis became the 1st cop to die in electric chair.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1906 Dec 14, First U1 submarine was brought into service in Germany.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1908 Dec 14, The first truly representative Turkish Parliament opened.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1909 Dec 14, Edward L. Tatum, American molecular geneticist (Nobel 1958), was born.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1909 Dec 14, The Labor Conference in Pittsburgh ended with a "declaration of war" on U.S. Steel.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1911 Dec 14, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating an expedition led by Robert F. Scott. The best book on Scott and Amundsen is by Roland Huntford "Scott and Amundsen."
(AP, 12/14/97)(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.1,6)
1912 Dec 14, Louis Botha resigned as South Africa's premier.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1913 Dec 14, Greece formally annexed Crete.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1916 Dec 14, Shirley Jackson, novelist and short story writer (Life Among Savages, The Lottery), was born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1916 Dec 14, People of Denmark voted to sell Danish West Indies to United States for $25 million [see Aug 4]. This included the islands of St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix.
(AP, 12/14/02)(Econ, 7/16/16, World IF p.7)
1917 Dec 14, In the SF Bay Area Mrs. Anna Conners drowned after a shark she had hooked pulled her from a bluff at Moss Beach.
(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.50)
1918 Dec 14, Sinn Fein won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats in the Westminster parliament. It then used that mandate to declare an independent Irish republic.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_Irish_general_election)(Econ., 3/7/20, p.49)
1918 Dec 14, Sidonio Pais (b.1872), the 4th president of Portugal, was fatally wounded by the left-wing political activist José Júlio da Costa (1893-1946) at the Lisboa-Rossio Railway Station in Lisbon.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid%C3%B3nio_Pais)
1920 Dec 14, George Gipp (b.1895) died in Indiana from pneumonia and a strep infection during his senior year at Notre Dame. He was buried in northern Michigan. Gipp was the school's first All-American and set a school career rushing record that stood for more than 50 years. Ronald Reagan portrayed Gipp in the 1940 movie "Knute Rockne, All American," in which he made famous the phrase "win one for the Gipper."
(AP, 11/10/07)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1595)
1920 Dec 14, The League of Nations created a credit system to aid Europe; U.S. export trade was threatened.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1922 Dec 14, Don Hewitt, NYC, CBS news executive producer (60 Minutes), was born.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1925 Dec 14, Wozzeck, the first opera by Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), was first performed at the Berlin State Opera. It was composed between 1914 and 1922. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which the German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at his death. The Nazis consigned it to the dustbin of 'degenerate art' after 1933.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wozzeck)
1926 Dec 14, Theo van Rysselberghe (64), Belgian painter (pointillism), died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1927 Dec 14, China and Soviet Union broke relations.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1927 Dec 14, Iraq gained independence from Britain, but British troops remained.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1934 Dec 14, 1st streamlined steam locomotive was introduced in Albany, NY.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1937 Dec 14, Japanese troops conquered and plundered Nanjing. Japan established a puppet Chinese government at Peking, now called Beijing. In 1997 Iris Chang (1968-2004) authored "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WW II."
(AP, 12/14/02)(SFC, 11/11/04, p.A1)
1939 Dec 14, The Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations. [see Nov 30 attack on Finland]
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1941 Dec 14, US Treasury Sec. Henry Morgenthau asked his assistant Harry Dexter White to prepare a paper outlining the possibilities for coordinated monetary arrangements between the US and its allies. White’s proposal said the primary goal should be to stabilize the exchange rates of the Allied countries to encourage the flow of capital. The later led to the establishment of the gold standard at Bretton Woods, N.H., in 1944.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)
1941 Dec 14, U.S. Marines made a stand in battle for Wake Island.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1941 Dec 14, German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel ordered the construction of defensive positions along the European coastline.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1944 Dec 14, Congress established the rank of General of Army, the 5-star General.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1944 Dec 14, The former NYK liner Oryoku Maru left Manila with 1619 American POWs packed in the holds. U.S. Navy planes from the "Hornet" attacked, causing the Hell Ship to sink the following day. Only 200 of the men survived.
(Internet)(SSFC, 2/15/04, p.A29)
1945 Dec 14, Josef Kramer, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others were hanged in Hameln for crimes committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.
(AP, 12/14/05)
1946 Dec 14, Patty Duke, American actress, was born. She started her career at seven and won an Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker." He went on to star in television's "The Patty Duke Show."
(HN, 12/14/99)
1946 Dec 14, The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City. The UN adopted a disarmament resolution prohibiting the A-Bomb.
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1949 Dec 14, Bulgarian ex-Premier Traicho Kostov was sentenced to die for treason in Sofia.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1952 Dec 14, Eighty-four Korean Communist prisoners interned on Pongam Island were killed during a riot after attempting to escape.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1958 Dec 14, The United States, Britain and France rejected Soviet demands that they withdraw their troops from West Berlin and agreed to liquidate the Allied occupation in West Berlin.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1960 Dec 14, A U.S. B-52 bomber set a 10,000 mile non-stop record without refueling.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1962 Dec 14, The U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1962 Dec 14, North Rhodesia's first African-dominated government was formed under Kenneth Kaunda.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1963 Dec 14, The Baldwin Hills dam in Los Angeles, Ca., broke. The released water destroyed 65 homes and left 5 people dead.
(http://damsafety.water.ca.gov/about.htm)
1963 Dec 14, Dinah Washington (b.1924), known in the 50s as "Queen of the Harlem Blues," died of barbiturate poisoning in Detroit. In 2004 Nadine Cohodas authored “Queen: The Life and Times of Dinah Washington."
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.M1)
1967 Dec 14, DNA was created in a test tube.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1967 Dec 14, Israel submitted to the United Nations a five-year plan to solve the Arab refugee problem conditioned on a general peace settlement between Israel and the Arab states.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1970 Dec 14, In South Korea the Namyoung ferry sank killing 323 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Korean_ferry_disasters)
1972 Dec 14, Astronauts Schmitt and Cernan blasted off from the moon to join the command module America in lunar orbit, thus ending America’s manned lunar exploration for the 20th century. Apollo 17 astronauts blasted off from the moon after three days of exploration on lunar surface.
(HNQ, 7/21/99)(AP, 12/14/02)
1975 Dec 14, Six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1977 Dec 14, The film "Saturday Night Fever," starring John Travolta, premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Fever)
1977 Dec 14, The South African government eased job restrictions on blacks.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1978 Dec 14, In Northern Ireland John Murdie McTier, Belfast Prison officer, was driving home with two colleagues when a number of shots were fired from a passing car by the IRA. Both his passengers survived the attack but Mr. McTier died three days later from his wounds. He was survived by his wife and three small children.
(www.palacebarracksmemorialgarden.org/Northern%20Ireland%20Prison%20Service.htm)
1979 Dec 14, The Seminole Tribe opened a high-stakes bingo hall on their reservation at Hollywood, Florida, and the state tried immediately to shut it down. This was followed by a series of court battles leading to a final decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1981 “Seminole Tribe vs. Butterworth." The court ruled in favor of the Seminoles affirming their right to operate their bingo hall.
(http://500nations.com/news/Indian_Casinos/history.asp)
1979 Dec 14, The British punk group Clash released its “London Calling" album.
(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Calling)
1980 Dec 14, After four days of meetings, members of NATO warned the Soviets to stay out of the internal affairs of Poland, saying that intervention would effectively destroy the détente between East and West.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1980 Dec 14, Fans around the world paid tribute to John Lennon, six days after he was shot to death in New York City.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1981 Dec 14, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967. The parliament approved the annexation of the Golan Heights with legislation in one day.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(AP, 12/14/97)
1982 Dec 14, Edward Hagedorn (b.1902), graphic artist, died in Berkeley, Ca. He incised images into linoleum for sharp contrasts in black and white. His work included: "Self Portrait with Cigarette," "You," "Sword Swallower" and "The Rainbow."
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.E1,4)(www.rubylane.com/shops/bassfineart/item/0927d?gbase=1)
1984 Dec 14, Howard Cosell retired from Monday Night Football.
(http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/dec14.htm)
1984 Dec 14, The maiden flight of NASA’s X-29, a forward swept wing aircraft, took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.24)
1985 Dec 14, Roger Maris (51), HR hitter (61 in 61, NY Yankees), died of cancer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Maris)
1985 Dec 14, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1986 Dec 14, The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. The trip took nine days.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1987 Dec 14, US Supreme Court nominee Anthony M. Kennedy told his confirmation hearing he had no hidden agenda for abortion and privacy cases.
(AP 12/14/97)
1987 Dec 14, Chrysler pleaded no contest to federal charges of selling several thousand vehicles as new even though they'd been driven by employees with the odometer disconnected.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1988 Dec 14, In a dramatic policy shift, President Reagan authorized the United States to enter into a "substantive dialogue" with the Palestine Liberation Organization, after chairman Yasser Arafat said he was renouncing "all forms of terrorism."
(AP, 12/14/98)
1988 Dec 14, Sixty more survivors were pulled from rubble of earthquake that rocked Armenia.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1989 Dec 14, Opposition leader Patricio Aylwin, representing the left and center opposition alliance, was elected president in Chile's first free election since 1970. However the generals maintained great power that included the right to veto political decisions.
(AP, 12/14/02)(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-10)(http://web.mit.edu/17.508/www/week8.html)
1989 Dec 14, Nobel Peace laureate (1975) Andrei D. Sakharov died in Moscow at age 68.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1990 Dec 14, President Bush said he would nominate Lynn Martin to succeed Elizabeth H. Dole as labor secretary.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1990 Dec 14, President Bush prodded Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to agree to talks on the Persian Gulf crisis by January third.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1990 Dec 14, A Right to Die case permitted Nancy Cruzan of Missouri to have her feeding tube removed. She died 12 days later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Cruzan)
1990 Dec 14, In Hong Kong 10 Vietnamese boat people set fire to themselves to protest screening policy that could prevent them from settling in the West.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1990 Dec 14, Friedrich Durrenmatt (b.1921), Swiss author and playwright, died. In 2006 the Univ. of Chicago published a translation of his selected writings in 3 volumes. "What was once thought can never be unthought."
(AP, 11/15/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_D%C3%BCrrenmatt)
1991 Dec 14, President Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, meeting at Camp David, Md., renewed their commitment to conclude quickly the North American Free Trade Agreement.
(AP, 12/14/01)
1991 Dec 14, Sarah Yarborough (16) was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled to death after she arrived at her high school in Federal Way, just outside of Tacoma, to meet her drill team. In 2019 DNA evidence led to the arrest Patrick Nicholas (55).
(AP, 10/5/19)
1991 Dec 14-1991 Dec 15, At least 464 people were left dead or missing when an Egyptian-registered ferry sank in the Red Sea near the port of Safaga after coral reef tore a hole in a ferry's side.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)(AP, 2/3/06)
1991 Dec 14, Former East German leader Erich Honecker, facing extradition to Germany and trial on manslaughter charges, was offered asylum in North Korea.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1992 Dec 14, President-elect Clinton opened a two-day conference in Little Rock, Ark., on the nation's economic problems.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1992 Dec 14, Easing a 17-year trade embargo, the United States allowed its companies to sign contracts in Vietnam.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1992 Dec 14, Russian President Boris Yeltsin lost a battle with hard-liners as he was forced to abandon his reformist PM Yegor Gaidar, in favor of Communist-era technocrat Viktor Chernomyrdin (1938-2010).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Chernomyrdin)(AP, 12/14/97)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.109)
1993 Dec 14, A Colorado judge struck down the state's voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay rights laws, calling it unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Dec 14, The United Mine Workers approved a five-year contract, ending a strike that had reached seven US states and involved some of the nation's biggest coal operators.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Dec 14, The United States and European Community set aside a bitter fight over films, unlocking the door to the world's biggest-ever trade reform package.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1993 Dec 14, Actress Myrna Loy (88) died in NYC.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Dec 14, In Algeria a large group of armed terrorists attacked a work camp of a hydro-electric project in Tamezguida. Fourteen Croatian citizens were taken out of the camp. Twelve were murdered by having their throats slit, but two others escaped with injuries.
(www.milnet.com/state/chrono93.htm)
1994 Dec 14, A US federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking almost all of Proposition 187's bans affecting illegal immigrants in California.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1994 Dec 14, Bruce McNall, memorabilia dealer and former owner of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, pleaded guilty to fraud and was sent away to prison. He served 4 of 6 years. In 2003 he and Michael D'Antonio authored "Fun While it Lasted."
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.W14)(www.sportsbooks.com/news/sports_betting/78666.html)
1994 Dec 14, Former Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus, died at age 84. His refusal to let nine black students into Little Rock's Central High School in 1957 forced President Eisenhower to send in federal troops.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1994 Dec 14, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic asked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to mediate a lasting peace in Bosnia.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1995 Dec 14, Shelley Davis, historian for the IRS for the last 7 years, resigned in protest of the way the agency was handling its records. The IRS decided to eliminate the position of historian.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec 14, Microsoft and NBC announced a joint venture to create MSNBC, a cable channel and Web site devoted to breaking news. In 2005 NBC raised its stake to 82%.
(http://cbsnews.cbs.com/htdocs/microsoft/timeline1.html)
1995 Dec 14, AIDS patient Jeff Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon. The experimental procedure at a San Francisco hospital was criticized by animal rights activists. The transplant failed, but Getty survived.
(AP, 12/14/05)
1995 Dec 14, A way to genetically improve resistance to leaf blight in rice plants was reported found by scientists.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec 14, An agreement for peace in Bosnia, reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was formally signed. Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris. The agreement divided Bosnia into 2 autonomous territories and granted 51% of Bosnia to the Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Serbs (Republika Srpska). Elections were scheduled and a force of 60,000 Western troops was planned for deployment. A 3-member presidency and a national parliament was also part of the plan. The office of High Representative was created to oversee the implementation of the civilian aspects of the Peace Agreement.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A8)(SFC, 9/22/98, p.A8)(AP, 12/14/00)(www.ohr.int/)
1995 Dec 14, Heavy fighting erupts in Gudermes, Chechnya, when rebels disrupted Kremlin-imposed elections. At least 267 Chechen civilians were reported killed in the following 10 days.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1996 Dec 14, Teamsters President Ron Carey won election to a second term. Later, the results were overturned, and Carey was barred from a rerun vote by a court-appointed monitor who ruled that Carey had used union money for his campaign.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1996 Dec 14, In New Orleans, the 700-foot freighter, Bright Field, lost power on the Mississippi River, went out of control and slammed into a riverfront structure and then hit a crowded mall. No one was killed.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/97)
1996 Dec 14, Rwandan refugees, who previously refused to return home, began re-entering Rwanda after 2 1/2 years in Tanzania.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1997 Dec 14, Astronomers detected the brightest explosion ever detected in a galaxy 12 billion light-years away.
(USAT, 5/7/98, p.1A)
1997 Dec 14, Cuban President Fidel Castro declared Christmas 1997 an official holiday to ensure the success of Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit in Jan.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)(AP, 12/14/98)
1997 Dec 14, From India it was reported that Bombay film studios churn out 900 features a year in Hindi and other Indian languages at an average cost of $2.24 million.
(SFEC,12/14/97, DB p.62)
1997 Dec 14, Iran's new president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States -- a nation reviled by his predecessors as "The Great Satan."
(AP, 12/14/98)
1997 Dec 14, In Mexico the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies approved Pres. Zedillo’s $108.9 billion budget for 1988. The secret budget was reduced to $6.25 million.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)
1997 Dec 14, From Mexico it was reported that the Korean owners of the Han Young plant in Tijuana have agreed to cut ties with the government union and recognize the independent Unidad Obrera (Worker Unity) that was elected on Oct 6.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A22)
1998 Dec 14, Researchers reported that the protein IGF-1, insulin-like growth factor type1, was found to sustain muscle maintenance and repair when injected into muscle cells. The protein was packaged in the shell of a virus that causes no disease.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 14, The peak of the Geminid meteor shower.
(NH, 12/98, p.73)
1998 Dec 14, In Gaza City Pres. Clinton watched as hundreds of Palestinian leaders raised their hands to renounce a call for the destruction of Israel.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/99)
1998 Dec 14, In Algeria Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia resigned.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C2)
1998 Dec 14, In Angola UNITA rebels launched an offensive at Cuito and Huambo and claimed to have shot down a government jet.
(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 14, In Brazil legislators proposed to give themselves a 59% pay raise as the economy slipped into recession.
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A19)
1998 Dec 14, The British human rights group, Global Witness, reported that in Angola UNITA was selling diamonds to finance its battles against government forces.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C7)
1998 Dec 14, In China the armed forces completed the hand over of their commercial holdings to civilian control.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C7)
1998 Dec 14, In Guinea Lansana Conte was re-elected president to a 7-year term with 54.1% of the vote. The opposition rejected as flawed.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D9)(AP, 9/29/09)
1998 Dec 14, In Iran authorities arrested several suspects in the recent string of murders of opposition figures. Pirouz Davani, leader of the United Left, and Rostami Hamedani, an activist with Davani, were reported missing.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 14, In Mexico the Senate approved a new law that ended restrictions limiting foreign ownership of the nation’s top banks.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C2)
1998 Dec 14, In Kosovo Serbian border guards killed 31 ethnic Albanian guerrillas on the Albanian border.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 14, In Pec masked Albanian rebels opened fire in the Panda barroom and killed 6 young Kosovo Serbs.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.C2)(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D4)
1999 Dec 14, In Seattle Ahmed Ressam (32) was arrested after crossing the border at Port Angeles from Canada with a car trunk with over 150 pounds of bomb-making materials that included 200 pounds of urea, timing devices and a bottle of RDX, cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. Canadian authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Abdelmajed Dahoumane for possessing or making explosives. Dahoumane was arrested in Algeria In Oct, 2000. In 2001 Ressam admitted that he planned to detonate a bomb at the LA Int’l. Airport. Mokhtar Haouari provided fake ID and $3,000 to Ressam. Haouari was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2002. In 2005 Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/20/99, p.D3)(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A5)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A5)(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A12)(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A3)
1999 Dec 14, The New York City Board of Education identified nine employees, four regular teachers, two substitute teachers and three teachers' aides who were dismissed last week for helping students cheat on standardized tests.
(http://tinyurl.com/yz8ucj)
1999 Dec 14, US and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slave and forced laborers.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1999 Dec 14, Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts cartoon, announced that he would retire and that the last Peanuts cartoon would appear Feb 13, 2000.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 14, In Mission Viejo, Ca., a main water pipeline ruptured and cut supplies to 14 communities in south Orange County.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 14, In Germany the government and industry officials agreed to establish nearly $5.2 billion fund to compensate slave laborers of the Nazi regime.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 14, It was reported that Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa had recently announced a $3.75 billion environmental crusade in an effort to reduce pollution. An 80% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by 2005 was planned. Hong Kong's yearly emissions for sulfur dioxide was 80,000 tons. Guangdong Province on the Chinese mainland put out 630,000 tons.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A,12,14)
1999 Dec 14, In Jammu-Kashmir, India, at least 6 people were killed in clashes between secessionist guerrillas and security forces.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 14, In Mexico a passenger bus collided head-on with a gas truck and at least 26 people were killed near Salvatierra in Guanajuato.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 14, In Panama former US Pres. Jimmy Carter symbolically turned over the Panama Canal. The official ownership transfer date was Dec 31.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 14, In Romania Pres. Constantinescu fired Prime Minister Radu Vasile, though the constitution did not grant him that power. Alexandru Athanasiu, the Labor and Social Welfare minister, was named to replace Vasile. The average monthly salary was down to $89.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 14, In South Africa Clarence Mlokoti (69), co-founder of the Kaizer Chiefs soccer team, was killed during an attempted car-jacking in Soweto.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
2000 Dec 14, Pres. Clinton spoke in England and urged the US and other rich countries to end farm subsidies, spend money on fighting disease in the 3rd World and to cut emissions to thwart global warming.
(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D8)
2000 Dec 14, President-elect George W. Bush conferred by phone with congressional leaders of both parties and planned a goodwill tour of Washington, D.C.; he also received a flood of congratulatory calls from world leaders on his first full day as president-elect.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 14, U.S. businessman Edward Pope was pardoned and released by Russia after being convicted of espionage.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 14, The Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 14, In Wichita, Kansas, brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr abducted 5 people from a home, subjected them to sexual acts, and executed them. 4 of the 5 died: Aaron Sander (29), Heather Muller (25), Brad Heyka (27), and Jason Befort (26).
(SFC, 10/15/02, p.A4)
2000 Dec 14, Vladimir Putin, the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union, held talks with Fidel Castro in Havana.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2000 Dec 14, In the southern Philippines Muslim extremists killed 3 passengers on a motorcycle taxi.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.D11)
2000 Dec 14, In Zimbabwe Pres. Mugabe claimed that his government has no control over the economy and blamed the “white man" as the real enemy during an address to a Congress of the ruling Zanu-PF Party
(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D10)
2001 Dec 14, The US vetoed a UN Security council vote that condemned all “acts of terror" against Israelis and Palestinians.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 14, George O'Leary resigned as Notre Dame football coach five days after being hired, admitting he'd lied about his academic and athletic background.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2001 Dec 14, American and British commandos behind a screen of local Afghan fighters contained the last remnants of al Qaeda forces in the White Mountains of Tora Bora. American Marines occupied Kandahar airport.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A1,16)
2001 Dec 14, The US shipped a load of corn to Cuba, the 1st American food shipment there since 1963.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A8)
2001 Dec 14, European leaders agreed to send 4,000 troops to Afghanistan.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A16)
2001 Dec 14, European nations began distributing a “Eurokit" of euro coins in advance of the Jan 1 day when the euro becomes legal tender.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 14, The German parliament approved a plan to shut down all nuclear power plants within 20 years.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A8)
2001 Dec 14, W.G. Sebald (b.1944), German-born British author, died in a car accident. His books included "The Emigrants" (1996) and "The Rings of Saturn" (1998). His novel "Austerlitz" (2001) had just recently been awarded The National Books Critics Award for 2002.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.M4)(SFC, 3/12/02, p.A2)
2001 Dec 14, Israeli troops raided four Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, killing eight Palestinians and arresting dozens of suspected militants.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 14, Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, a Silicon Valley startup, to manage his own network of business contacts. The co-founders included Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish and Yan Pujante. In 2016 Microsoft agreed to acquire the company for $26.2 billion.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.76)(SFC, 6/14/16, p.A1)
2002 Dec 14, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the king of Bahrain, inaugurated the first parliament in nearly 30 years.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 14, Salman Raduyev (b.1967), the Chechen warlord who led a bloody 1996 raid on a Russian hospital that killed 78 people, died in a Russian hard labor camp while serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/15/02)
2002 Dec 14, Jordanian police announced the arrest of two alleged al-Qaida members in the October killing of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2002 Dec 14, The Norwegian Tricolor, a cargo ship carrying nearly 2,900 luxury cars capsized and sank after colliding with the Bahamas-registered Kariba cargo ship in the English Channel. Tricolor carried 2,862 cars, high-end BMWs, Volvos and Saabs, and 77 other items, mainly tractors and large crane parts.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of South Koreans railed against the U.S. military and mourned two girls killed by American soldiers in a road accident.
(Reuters, 12/14/02)
2003 Dec 14, Jeanne Crain (b.1925), film star, died in Santa Barbara.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A24)
2003 Dec 14, In Afghanistan a landmark constitutional convention began with solemn prayers.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Brazil's ruling Workers Party expelled four leftist lawmakers after they voted against the party on crucial legislation being sought by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 14, In southwestern England 2 dozen people suffered burns to their faces, hands and arms in a suspected acid attack at a pub in Bristol.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 14, Chad's government signed a cease-fire with rebel forces at the end of talks in Burkina Faso.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Elections in northern Cyprus ended in a deadlock with the pro-EU opposition and pro-government parties splitting the 50 parliamentary seats. EU members have said that Turkey must help reunite the island before it can realize its own membership aspirations.
(AP, 12/15/03)(WSJ, 12/15/03, p.A13)
2003 Dec 14, In Baghdad a suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb killing at least 17 people and wounding 35 others. A US soldier was killed trying to diffuse a roadside bomb. Ryan Manelick, A US contract worker for Ultra Services, was shot to death near Camp Anaconda. He was an associate of Kirk von Ackerman, who disappeared Oct 9. Manelick had told Army investigators kickbacks were being made to a US Army officer.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A15)(SSFC, 2/13/05, p.A14)
2003 Dec 14, Venice threw itself a party to celebrate the rebirth of the La Fenice, following a $90 million restoration, with a gala concert that drew the Italian president, European royalty and Italy's glitterati.
(AP, 12/15/03)(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 14, In Nepal Fighting between suspected rebels and security forces intensified over the weekend, killing at least 70 people in separate attacks across the Himalayan kingdom.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, In Pakistan Pres. Musharraf survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded on a bridge just after his motorcade crossed.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 14, Palestinians fired a barrage of mortars at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and Israeli troops killed a fugitive from the Islamic Jihad group in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2004 Dec 14, Pres. Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor to Gen. Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer, and George Tenet, for their efforts in the war in Iraq.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 14, The US Federal Reserve raised its federal funds rate .25% to 2.25%. The Commerce Dept. reported that the US trade deficit in October swelled to $55.5 billion. By the end of the year the US trade deficit stood at a record $2.5 trillion.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.C1,3)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.74)
2004 Dec 14, It was reported that air cargo planes used by American subcontractors in Iraq were linked to Victor bout, a reputed Russian arms trafficker. The 2005 film “Lord of War" was a loose portrayal of Bout’s exploits.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A3)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.65)
2004 Dec 14, Chile’s Congress passed a bill granting compensation, a monthly pension of $190, to some 28,000 former political prisoners from the dictatorship of Gen. Pinochet.
(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A27)
2004 Dec 14, Congo's government insisted that its forces were fighting Rwandan troops in the mineral-rich east of the country and not dissident units of the national army.
(Reuters, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) began with the Cuba-Venezuela Agreement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas)
2004 Dec 14, Egypt and Israel signed a first joint trade accord with the United States since their historic peace treaty 25 years ago.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In southern France a roadway bridge, hailed as the tallest in the world, was officially inaugurated.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, Shootouts erupted between residents of a slum outside Haiti's capital and UN troops after hundreds of international peacekeepers stormed the stronghold of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in an attempt to control flashpoints of violence. 4 people were killed.
(AP, 12/15/04)
2004 Dec 14, In northern India 2 passenger trains collided head-on, killing at least 27 people and injuring 60 in Punjab.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In India at least one person was killed and 50 wounded in a string of grenade attacks launched by separatist rebels across the volatile northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In Iraq a suicide car bomber killed seven people at a Green Zone checkpoint, the second attack in two days near the same gate.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, PM Shukri Ghanem said Libya is planning to open up its banking sector to Arab investors and is to privatize two major government banks.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, Palestinian leader Abbas called for an end to attacks on Israel as Israeli troops destroyed 7 Palestinian houses in Gaza.
(WSJ, 12/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 14, Fernando Poe (b.1939), former Philippine actor and presidential candidate, died from a stroke in Manila. Poe, a star in over 200 films, lost the recent elections to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by 1.1 million votes.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.B7)
2004 Dec 14, In Romania Pres.-elect Traian Basescu opened talks to form a coalition government with a party formerly allied with his opponent and one representing ethnic Hungarians.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, Russia opened talks to buy back $10 billion in sovereign debt. This would cover some 22% of its $45 billion debt to sovereign creditors.
(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A12)
2004 Dec 14, In northeastern Turkey an avalanche roared down on a town, killing six people, including a 10-month-old baby.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2005 Dec 14, President Bush defended his decision to wage the Iraq war, even as he acknowledged that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong." The House voted 251-174 to renew the USA Patriot Act.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2005 Dec 14, The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate for the 13th time a quarter point to 4.25%. it also indicated that it was close to ending the 18-month long increases.
(SFC, 12/14/05, p.C1)
2005 Dec 14, The US deported Junior Vinicio Abadio Carrillo (32), the son of Guatemala's former tax chief, to face charges of embezzling millions of public dollars.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, A US government watchdog group warned that Congress must enact a national system for recycling used electronic devices or the problem of e-waste will pose serious environmental risks.
(SFC, 12/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 14, DuPont Co. said it has agreed to pay $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million for environmental projects to settle allegations by the Environmental Protection Agency that the company hid information about the dangers of a toxic chemical used to make the non-stick coating Teflon.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, The Walt Disney Co. announced its first film production in China, adding to its efforts to break into the booming Chinese entertainment market.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, It was reported that Volkswagen AG was getting ready for the 2006 US launch of its $1 million Bugatti Veyron, a 2-seater with 1,001 horsepower.
(WSJ, 12/14/05, p.D1)
2005 Dec 14, In Boston 4 men were shot and killed in the basement of a home on Bourneside Street that was set up as a music studio. The killings pushed Boston homicides for the year to 71, the highest in a decade.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A6)
2005 Dec 14, Eliot Freidson (82), pioneer investigator of professions, died in SF. His 12 books included the landmark “Profession of Medicine" (1970).
(SFC, 12/27/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 14, In Mississippi John B. Nixon, Sr. (b.1928) was executed for the 1985 murder of Virginia Tucker. At 77 years old, he was the oldest person executed since 1976 and, according to the Espy File the oldest person executed since Joe Lee in Virginia at the age of 83 on April 21, 1916.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Nixon,_Sr.)
2005 Dec 14, Carlos Delgadillo Martinez died after losing his grip on an inner tube while trying to cross the Rio Grande near Laredo, Texas. In 2011 jurors acquitted helicopter pilot James Peters (41) of lying about his role in Delgadillo’s death.
(SFC, 9/3/11, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/3nzc2z7)
2005 Dec 14, In northern Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up near Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province. In Faizabad a donkey carrying a land mine exploded near a foreign aid agency's car.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Belarusian lawmakers passed legislation that would crack down on Internet dating and online spouse searches in the latest in a series of stringent government controls backed by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, In London 4 youths were convicted of manslaughter for beating to death a man who had survived the fatal nail-bombing of a British gay pub six years ago. Barman David Morley (37) was beaten to death by a gang of youths in central London in October 2004.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Rodney Whitaker (b.1931), popular writer aka Trevanian, died in the West Country of England. His thrillers included “The Eiger Sanction" (1972), which was made into a film with Clint Eastwood in 1975. He used at least 5 pseudonyms for his books on various subjects. These included Nicholas Seare, Benat LeCagot and Edoard Moran.
(SFC, 12/17/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 14, In Canada at least one shot fired through a door at police responding to a routine call in Laval, Quebec, left Valerie Gignac, a 25-year-old woman officer, dead and led to an eight-hour armed standoff that ended with the arrest of a paroled convict.
(CP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accepted an EU plan to pull troops from rebel territories to revive peace talks.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 14, The UN Security Council agreed to Eritrea's demand to withdraw Americans, Canadians and Europeans from the peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with Ethiopia.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, The French government said Eiffag SA, Vinci SA and Spain’s Abertis Infraestructuras SA will buy its stakes in 3 toll-road companies raising $17.7 billion to help cut France’s national debt.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 14, Iran's hard-line president lashed out with a new outburst at Israel on, calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth" used as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Irish Ferries and Ireland’s largest labor union reached a deal over plans to replace 543 Irish workers with lower paid EU employees. Irish Ferries will reflag ships to avoid the jurisdiction of Irish employment law.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 14, Israel’s the Defense Ministry said it has approved construction of hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements, confirming what would be a violation of the U.S.-backed peace plan.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, The Israeli military fired a missile at a car in northern Gaza it said was packed with militants about to carry out an attack. Four Palestinians were killed and four were wounded.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Japan’s space agency said the return of its Hayabusa probe would be delayed until June, 2010, due to a thruster problem.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A19)
2005 Dec 14, The 1st East Asia Summit was held successfully in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
(www.aseansec.org/18104.htm)(Econ, 12/17/05, p.40)
2005 Dec 14, Officials said Mexico and the US broke up a counterfeiting ring that printed an estimated $5 million in fake $100 bills in Mexico and sold them across the border.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, A Nepalese soldier in Nagarkot ended an argument with a group of villagers by spraying them with bullets, killing at least 11 people. 19 civilians were injured.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, In South Africa several hundred Sesotho-speaking Soweto orphans on a beach holiday clashed with police in Durban after officers failed to arrest several Zulu-speaking youths who accosted 4 girls and threatened rape.
(SFC, 12/17/05, p.A9)
2005 Dec 14, South Korean farmers clashed with police outside a World Trade Organization meeting for a second day as the US blamed the EU for holding up stalled global trade talks.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Tanzania voted for president and Parliament. Jakaya Kikwete took 80% of the vote. The ruling party of the Revolution (CCM) won 206 of 232 parliamentary seats.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A1)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.50)
2005 Dec 14, In the UAR Abu Dhabi overhauled business ownership laws allowing foreigners to own 100% of businesses in special economic zones.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2006 Dec 14, President George W. Bush named eight more countries to receive US assistance for malaria prevention and treatment in Africa, where the disease kills a million people a year, and asked Europeans to do more to help.
(Reuters, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, A US blue-ribbon panel on education recommended a radical overhaul that would include ending high school at Grade 10.
(WSJ, 12/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 14, Cisco Systems Inc. announced a $50 million investment in the newly public China Communications Services Corporation Ltd., making the US network-equipment maker the largest foreign investor in CCS.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Ahmet Ertegun (83), the founder of Atlantic Records, died. He helped define American music on the label that popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones. In 2011 Robert Greenfield authored “The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun."
(AP, 12/15/06)(SSFC, 11/27/11, p.F4)
2006 Dec 14, Actor Mike Evans (57), who'd played Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons," died in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2006 Dec 14, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded street near a police vehicle outside the city of Qalat, killing four civilians and wounding 25 people.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Australian flag carrier and national icon Qantas accepted an increased 11.1-billion-dollar (8.7 billion US) offer from a private equity group, a day after rejecting a lower bid.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Australia and France signed an agreement on military cooperation designed to enhance their ability to work together.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, The king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck (51), signed a royal decree giving charge of the kingdom to Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (26) at a special session of the Bhutanese Cabinet in the capital, Thimphu. This was more than a year ahead of schedule.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 14, Botswana's government accepted a court order to allow the Bushmen, the nation's last hunter-gatherers, to live on their ancestral lands. But at the same time, officials imposed tough conditions likely to prevent most or all from returning to the central Kalahari. In 2009 6 Bushmen were convicted of illegally hunting gemsbok and eland in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where no licenses have issued since 2001.
(AP, 12/14/06)(Econ, 8/8/09, p.44)
2006 Dec 14, A British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a 1997 Paris car crash were a "tragic accident" and that allegations of murder are unfounded. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced that it would be dropping its 2-year inquiry into bribes that may or may not have been paid by BAE Systems to secure contracts in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 12/14/06)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.18)
2006 Dec 14, In Egypt police arrested Mohammed Khayrat el-Shater, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood's chief strategist, and at least 140 others in a crackdown after a protest by uniformed students raised fears the Islamist political group is creating a military wing.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, In Georgia the last train carrying military hardware and property owned by units of the Group of Russian Troops left the Tbilisi garrison for Armenia. The last of Russia’s servicemen were to leave the next day. This ended a 200-year-old Russian presence in Tbilisi.
(www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11647105)
2006 Dec 14, In India a government minister said ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after. A recent UNICEF report said 7,000 fewer girls are born each day than population models would indicate due to sex-selected abortions and infanticides.
(Reuters, 12/14/06)(WSJ, 12/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 14, Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped 50-70 people from a major commercial area in central Baghdad, the second mass abduction in the capital in a month. Gunmen stormed a boys' school in the southwestern Alam neighborhood, killing a Shiite guard. 2 US Marines were reported killed in fighting in Anbar province. US-led forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader who was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and housed foreign fighters who carried out suicide bombings.
(AP, 12/14/06)(AP, 12/15/06)(AP, 12/20/06)
2006 Dec 14, Israel ordered the Rafah crossing closed to keep PM Haniyeh from bringing in an estimated $35 million he had collected abroad to help alleviate the Palestinian financial crisis. Israeli officials said Haniyeh could return to Gaza without the money, which it said was to be used for terror attacks. Haniyeh left the funds in Egypt. When Haniyeh finally crossed, unidentified men began firing toward him. One of his bodyguards was killed and his son and 26 others were wounded. Fatah-allied Palestinian security officers arrested a Hamas-linked militant in connection with the killing of a security chief's young children. Palestinian militants fired a rocket into Israel at dawn.
(AP, 12/14/06)(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 14, Myanmar's military junta has told Red Cross officials that the humanitarian group can reopen field offices that the government had ordered shut in October.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 14, In Pakistan government critics alleged that Pakistan was providing sanctuary to Taliban militants and had a policy to project Pakistan's power inside Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 14, South Africa’s cabinet released details of its newly approved codes of good practice for black economic development (BEE). They were mandatory only for government and state-owned companies, but pretty much required for anyone wanting to do business with the state.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.99)(www.dispute.co.za/)
2006 Dec 14, South Korea's Ban Ki-moon formally took the reins of the UN as the institution grappled with internal reforms, volatility in the Middle East and international standoffs over the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Anton Balasingham (68), the top peace negotiator for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, died at his home in London after a battle with cancer.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, In Tanzania Joseph Nzabirinda (49), a former youth organizer accused in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, pleaded guilty to one count of murder before a UN war crimes court, becoming only the seventh defendant to admit his guilt. Amnesty International expressed serious concern that the court has been one-sided in its prosecutions and decried its proposed transfer of cases to the Rwandan judicial system.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Tonga police said they have arrested more than 700 people in connection with a deadly riot that destroyed most of Tonga's capital in November.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2007 Dec 14, New Jersey became the first US state to require flu shots for preschoolers.
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 14, Maria Borrega, a former ticket agent for the Contra Costa County public transit system was extradited from Florida to California and charged with embezzling at least $184,000 from 2002 until her retirement in 2005.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B2)
2007 Dec 14, A man accused of being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in prison for the sexual assaults of two sisters. As of 2008 Mark Goudeau still faced trial for the slayings of eight women and a man in 2005-2006; he has pleaded not guilty.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2007 Dec 14, Frank Morgan (73), jazz alto saxophonist, died at his home in Minneapolis. In the 1960s he played in the storied “warden’s band" at San Quentin State Prison with other prominent musician-inmates that included Art Pepper and Dupree Bolton. In 1991 he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Best Alto Saxophonist.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 14, Australian PM Kevin Rudd and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon jetted into East Timor to lend support to the nation's efforts to stabilize and rebuild after violence last year. Rudd pledged to support the nation's ongoing security needs during the five-hour stop.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The leaders Belarus and Russia pledged closer cooperation on military, economic and foreign policy but gave no indication that the ex-Soviet neighbors were moving closer to a long-discussed full merger.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) confirmed a new case of the livestock disease bluetongue in a cow imported from Germany, two months after an earlier outbreak was said to have been contained.
(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Canada's national police force, criticized for excessive use of Tasers, said that, from now on, officers would only fire the electric stun guns at suspects who are combative or resisting arrest.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Diplomats from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda met in Kampala to discuss border tensions that have triggered deadly clashes on one of Africa's hottest frontiers in the search for oil. The UN said rival factions in Congo are forcibly recruiting hundreds of children and sending them to fight on the front lines of an escalating conflict in the east of the country.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Local newspapers reported that nearly 2,000 Egyptian civil servants have ended a sit-in outside government headquarters in Cairo after winning a battle to change their status and increase their salaries.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, EU leaders held a formal meeting in Brussels, where they agreed in principle to send 1,800 policemen, judges and officials to Kosovo. They also agreed to set up a reflection group to think about challenges facing the EU between 2020 and 2030.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.87)
2007 Dec 14, It was reported that German AIDS researchers have discovered a protein common in semen that boosts the infectious potential of HIV 100,000-fold.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 14, In northern India a bus collided with a train, killing at least 16 people, including nine children on their way to school.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Indonesia, the nation hardest hit by bird flu, announced its 93rd death due to the H5N1 virus. In China, the military in eastern Nanjing banned the sale of poultry this week after a father and son came down with the disease earlier this month. Health officials confirmed the 24-year-old man died from the virus a day before his father, 52, became sick. It was the country's 17th bird flu death. The WHO confirmed Myanmar's first human case of bird flu and praised the secretive country for its quick and open handling of the infection. State media reported a girl (7) was hospitalized on Nov. 27 and released on Dec. 12 in good condition after being treated with the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, In northern and central Iraq US forces targeting al-Qaida in Iraq detained 18 suspects and killed four.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 14, Ayo Fayose of southwestern Ekiti state gave, a Nigerian former state governor, turned himself in to police after more than a year on the run, vowing to defend himself in court against allegations of corruption. High Chief Ekpemupolo, an influential rebel commander in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta, ordered the suspension of peace talks with the government because of military incursions and the arrest of another commander.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, North and South Korea ended three days of talks without an agreement on creating a shared fishing zone to defuse tensions along their disputed sea border.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Hamas gunmen burst into the home of Omar Al-Ghoul, a top Fatah official in Gaza, and arrested him. He was the most senior Fatah politician to be detained since Hamas forces overtook the territory in June. In the West Bank, Abbas' security forces arrested 26 Hamas supporters. 3 people were killed in a mysterious explosion at a Fatah-organized funeral in Gaza City.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Mortar shells rained down on Mogadishu for a second day, killing at least five people. The African Union's new representative for Somalia said he expected more peacekeepers to arrive starting this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, South Korea brought home 195 army medics and engineers from Afghanistan, ending its five-year deployment to help rebuild the war-ravaged country at Washington's request.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Clashes between Sri Lankan soldiers and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the country's embattled north left 31 guerrillas and one soldier dead.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Asus Technology of Taiwan unveiled a $299 version of Eee PC, a 2-pound laptop for kids that stores data on flash memory.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D1)
2007 Dec 14, The UN refugee agency said more than 200 migrants are feared to have drowned at sea in separate incidents off Yemen, Turkey and the Canary Islands so far this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The World Bank convinced 45 countries to give over $25 billion to the world’s poorest state over the next 3 years.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.100)
2007 Dec 14, Zimbabwe reserve bank governor Gideon Gono on said President Robert Mugabe's cronies were fuelling the country's runaway inflation through illicit dealings. Amnesty International said Zimbabwean police are still beating and torturing human rights activists and opponents of the government despite mediation efforts launched by fellow African nations.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2008 Dec 14, Pres. George W. Bush visited Baghdad just 37 days before he hands the war off to President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. At the end of nearly two hours of meetings, Bush defended the war, now in its sixth year, as a reporter threw his shoes at him. The reporter was later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt. Bush then traveled to Afghanistan where he spoke to US soldiers and Marines at a hangar on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base. On March 12 shoe thrower was convicted of assaulting a foreign leader and sentenced to 3 years in prison. On April 7 the sentence was soon reduced to one year. In 2010 Muntadhar al-Zeidi published his first book, entitled "The Last Salute to President Bush."
(AP, 12/14/08)(AP, 12/15/08)(AP, 3/12/09)(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 12/14/10)
2008 Dec 14, It was reported that a 513-page draft version of “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," was circulating among technical reviewers in Baghdad and Washington. It was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction led by Stuart Bowen, a Republican lawyer, and detailed the blunders of reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.A24)
2008 Dec 14, in Afghanistan a bomb hidden in a wooden cart exploded in Kandahar, killing three police officers and wounding 11 people.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Orascom Telecom, an Egyptian company, said it will launch 3G mobile telephone service in North Korea on Dec 15, after winning the contract to build the advanced network in a country where private cell phones are banned.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Eva Habil (53) became Egypt's first female mayor. The Christian lawyer, beat five male candidates, including her younger brother, to become mayor of the predominantly Coptic Christian town of Komboha in southern Egypt.
(AFP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, An Egyptian bus crowded with passengers, many of them students, veered off the road into a canal south of Cairo, killing 59 passengers.
(AP, 12/14/08)(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel met with German ministers, business executives and labor leaders to chart a course through the financial crisis.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Gaza City an estimated 300,000 supporters of Hamas gathered to mark 21 years since the organization’s founding. Israel closed its crossing with Gaza to journalist in response to rocket fire over the weekend.
(SFC, 12/15/08, p.A14)
2008 Dec 14, In Mexico gunmen staged four attacks on police within a half-hour period, killing four officers in Ciudad Juarez, the border city overrun by drug violence.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 14, On the Niger-Mali border Tuareg rebels of the Front for the Forces of Redress (FFR) kidnapped Robert Fowler, a Canadian UN special envoy, and Louis Guay, a Canadian diplomat, along with their local driver. Days later the FFR made contradictory statements both claiming and condemning responsibility. On March, 2009, rebels released the driver. The Canadian diplomats were released in April, 2009.
(AP, 12/16/08)(http://tinyurl.com/djsmd7)(AP, 4/23/09)
2008 Dec 14, In the northeastern Philippines an overcrowded ferry capsized just short of its destination in rough seas, causing terrified passengers to leap into the sea. At least 30 people drowned.
(AP, 12/15/08)(AP, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Russia police thwarted an anti-Kremlin protest organized by Garry Kasparov's opposition group, seizing demonstrators and shoving them into trucks. They detained at least 25 people including the group's co-leader.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, It was reported that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns a double-decker "flying palace" and recently raised his bet on Citigroup, lost $4 billion in the past year.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Sudanese officials said several thousand civilians have fled the town of Abyei after renewed clashes in the disputed oil district where fighting this year raised fears of a return to civil war.
(AFP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Syria former US President Jimmy Carter met with Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, for the second time this year.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Voters in Turkmenistan cast ballots in a parliamentary election hailed by the government as an exercise in democracy but dismissed by critics as a sham.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo launched an offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army bases based in eastern Congo in an attempt to end one of the continent's longest and most brutal wars.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2009 Dec 14, Citigroup Inc. said it is repaying $20 billion in bailout money it received from the Treasury Department, freeing the banking giant from the close scrutiny and pay restrictions that came with the rescue program. The government will also sell its stake in the company. Hours later Wells Fargo announced plans to sell $10.4 billion in new stock to help repay all $25 billion in bailout aid.
(AP, 12/14/09)(SFC, 12/15/09, p.D1)
2009 Dec 14-2009 Dec 17, In northeastern Congo at least 321 civilians were killed in a massacre by the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army in the Makombo area. Villagers that escaped their LRA captors were sent back with their lips and ears cut off as a warning to others of what would happen if they tried to talk. News of the massacre was not made public until March 27, 2010.
(AP, 3/27/10)
2009 Dec 14, Exxon Mobil Corp. said it will buy XTO Energy Inc in an all-stock transaction valued at about $30 billion, in a bid that thrusts the oil giant to the forefront of North America's fast-growing natural gas industry.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Researchers from US Santa Barbara and the Univ. of Mich published a study describing their synthetic red blood cells, which are capable of delivering medicine, oxygen or MRI contrast agents throughout the body.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A28)
2009 Dec 14, Dr. Walter Stamm (b.1945), a pioneer in the treatment of urinary tract infections, died in Seattle. He demonstrated that many cases of PID are caused by Chlamydia trachomatis and developed a test for the organism.
(SSFC, 12/27/09, p.C8)
2009 Dec 14, In Afghanistan 16 policemen were killed in two separate attacks. 8 police were killed by militants in Baghlan province. Taliban fighters attacked an outpost in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, killing another 8 policemen.
(AP, 12/14/09)(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 14, Austria’s Finance Minister Josef Proell said Austria will nationalize the Hypo Group Alpe-Adria to prevent its collapse. The bank with assets across the Balkans went on to lose $634 million in the first half of 2010.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.63)
2009 Dec 14, In Bolivia’s presidential runner-up Manfred Reyes Villa crossed over the Peruvian border and then flew to the US the following day to escape election-fraud charges.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 14, Human Rights Watch said a UN-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a nine-month period.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Denmark China, India and other developing nations boycotted UN climate talks, bringing negotiations to a halt with their demand that rich countries discuss much deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. Representatives from 135 developing countries said they refused to participate in any formal working groups at the 192-nation summit until the issue was resolved. African nations agreed to resume UN climate talks in Copenhagen after a half-day suspension, accusing rich countries of trying to kill the existing Kyoto Protocol.
(AP, 12/14/09)(Reuters, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, The Dubai government said it will pay 4.1 billion dollars to cover maturing Islamic bonds issued by its Nakheel property developer after receiving a 10-billion-dollar handout from oil-rich Abu Dhabi.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Egypt a 2-day regional conference ended addressing for the first time the once taboo topic of sexual harassment. Activists said the sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world was driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 14, Cyclone Mick hit Fiji. Thousands of villagers fled to shelters as the tropical cyclone battered the South Pacific nation, causing flooding, damaging homes and power lines, and killing three people.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 14, India's inflation rate jumped to its highest level in 10 months, according to official data, raising pressure on the central bank to begin reversing deep interest rate cuts. The wholesale inflation rate climbed by a larger-than-expected 4.78% in November from a year earlier after rising by 1.34% in October.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed more anti-government protests as the authorities announced several arrests over a reported insult to Islamic revolution founder Ayatollah Khomeini.
(AF P, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Gulf leaders arrived in Kuwait for a two-day annual summit with the global recession's impact on their economies, fighting in Yemen and Iran's nuclear drive high on the agenda.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Morocco charged that Aminatou Haidar, a Sahrawi activist on hunger strike in Spain's Canary Islands, is part of a "systematic, methodical plot devised by Algeria." Haidar (42) has been on hunger strike for almost a month on Lanzarote, after being refused entry to the Western Sahara, which is territory occupied by and claimed by Morocco.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Nigeria 23 people burned to death when a bus carrying mourners to a funeral collided with a truck on a road in southwest Oyo state.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged downtown Gaza City to mark the 22nd anniversary of the group's founding. Hamas PM Ismail Haniya told tens of thousands of Hamas supporters his group remains committed to the elimination of Israel.
(AP, 12/14/09)(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Rwanda Valerie Bemeriki, a former journalist, was sentenced to life in prison for her role in inciting genocide, in the latest of a series of trials for the 1994 slaughter.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Somalia a community leader said an explosion of an old land mine has killed six children from the same family near the border with Ethiopia.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Spain’s National Court in Madrid found 11 men guilty of belonging to a terrorist organization and sentenced them to up to 14 years in prison. 9 were of Pakistani nationality or origin and 2 were from India. They had been accused of planning attacks in Barcelona.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 14, Sudanese police fired tear gas, used water cannons and rounded up dozens of opposition supporters in a bid to halt a pro-democracy rally outside parliament.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, The World Health Organization (WHO) said polio has re-emerged in several African countries where it had been eradicated, at the start of a conference on child immunization in Zimbabwe.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2010 Dec 14, The US Coast Guard named Rear. Adm. Sandra Stosz (50) to lead its academy at New London, Conn., beginning next summer.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A16)
2010 Dec 14, The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. to hand over private messages, billing addresses and connection records of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other alleged associates, including the US Army intelligence analyst suspected of handing classified information to the site and a high-profile Icelandic parliamentarian. A second document, dated Jan. 5, unsealed the court order.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2010 Dec 14, In Arizona a shootout between border patrol agents and bandits near the border with Mexico left American agent Brian A. Terry (40) dead and a suspect wounded. On May 6, 2011, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes of El Fuerte, Mexico, was indicted for 2nd degree murder. On July 9, 2012, a federal grand jury indictment named 6 people involved in Terry’s killing. A $1 million reward was offered to help track 4 fugitives in the case. On Feb 10, 2014 Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/16/10)(SFC, 5/7/11, p.A4)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A6)(SFC, 2/11/14, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In California a mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV was killed and six others were wounded in a gunbattle at a strip mall in south Sacramento. A 2nd victim, Marvion Barksdale (20), died at a hospital of his injuries.
(AP, 12/15/10)(SFC, 12/16/10, p.E3)
2010 Dec 14, In Florida gunman Clay A. Duke opened fire at a school board meeting in Panama City. He killed himself following an exchange of shots with a security guard.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 14, In Nevada an armed bandit escaped on a motorcycle after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips from the Bellagio resort. On Feb 3 police identified suspect Anthony M. Carleo (29) of Las Vegas as the bandit. Carleo was booked under the name Anthony M. Assad. On Aug 23, 2011, Carleo was sentenced to at least 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A7)(SFC, 8/24/11, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In Missouri Secret Santa II hit the streets in a long-standing Kansas City tradition of handing out $100 bills, sometimes several at a time, to unsuspecting strangers in thrift stores, food pantries and shelters.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A new US survey said about 6% of high school seniors reported smoking marijuana daily.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 14, San Jose, Ca., adopted the strictest ban on plastic bags in the state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.C3)
2010 Dec 14, In southern Afghanistan a NATO service member died from a roadside bomb. Jordanian-Palestinian militant Mahmoud Abu Reidah (38) was killed by US forces. An al-Qaida operative better known as Abu Rasmi, he was granted political asylum in Britain in 1998.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 14, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos started a historic first state visit to South Africa, a trip aimed at ending decades-long enmity between two of the region's major economies.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Bangladesh a devastating blaze raced through a garment factory near the capital, killing at least 29 people and injuring more than 100.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A report, "High and Dry," by the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organization and the Shan Women's Action Network, said local trade and transport on the river in northern Myanmar near a border trade crossing with China has been severely affected by unpredictable daily changes in the water level since the completion in mid-2010 of the 360-foot (110-m) tall Longjiang Dam about 19 miles (30 km) upstream.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said that Guillermo Farinas, whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of Cuban political dissidents, would be represented by an empty chair at the midweek ceremony to award the Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Amnesty International accused the European Union and Libya of cooperating to prevent migrants from Africa from reaching Europe.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Haiti Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, the popular singer-turned-presidential candidate, called for the electoral commission to be replaced and the vote redone with all the original candidates involved. His apparent loss in flawed elections helped spark days of rioting.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In India a bus carrying wedding guests plunged into a reservoir killing 29 people in Karnataka state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 14, Israel barred a group of Palestinian firefighters who helped battle the country's worst wildfire from attending a ceremony in their honor, the latest in a series of embarrassments over Israel's handling of the blaze.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Italy protesters set cars alight and hurled cobblestones at police in chaotic scenes in central Rome after PM Silvio Berlusconi won a crucial confidence vote in parliament. Over 100 people were injured including around police.
(AFP, 12/14/10)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.95)
2010 Dec 14, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi pushed again his dream for a sole African government and was backed by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade as he urged the creation of a single African army.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Mexico’s death toll in drug-related violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez rose to 3,000 this year after 2 men were shot dead on a street.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Nigerian official said Nigeria has negotiated a 250 million dollar settlement deal that would see it drop charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In the central Philippines suspected communist guerrillas killed 10 army soldiers returning to their camp after being recalled from combat two days before a Christmas cease-fire. A boy (9) also was killed in the crossfire when the New People's Army guerrillas detonated land mines then opened fire on the soldiers near where villagers were swimming in a river in Northern Samar province.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Sri Lanka official said security forces have stepped up a campaign to arrest some 50,000 military deserters, after reports that absent soldiers were increasingly involved in crime.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Sudanese authorities arrested about 30 women who tried to hold a protest in Khartoum against the brutal police whipping of a young woman shown in a video posted on YouTube and charged them with disrupting public order.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, The IMF said Togo's foreign debt will be slashed more than 80% after the African nation took steps to recover from economic crisis.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked congress to grant him special powers to enact laws by decree for one year, just before a new legislature takes office with a larger contingent of opposition lawmakers.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2011 Dec 14, A new US federal government report said one of every 15 high school students smokes marijuana on a near daily basis, as alcohol, cigarette and drug use continued a slow decline.
(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A9)
2011 Dec 14, Time Magazine named “The Protester" as the person of the year.
(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A1)
2011 Dec 14, In NYC advertising executive Suzanne Hart (41) was killed in a freak elevator mishap at 285 Madison Avenue. Hart was stepping onto the elevator on the first floor when either her foot or leg became caught in the closing doors. The car then rose abruptly, dragging her body into the shaft and killing her. Investigators later found that a key safety mechanism was turned off.
(AP, 12/15/11)(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A9)(SFC, 2/28/12, p.A5)
2011 Dec 14, In Afghanistan Massoud Khan, district chief of Khanishin, Helmand province, was killed in a roadside bombing along with two bodyguards.
(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 14, Algeria passed a media law that drew scorn from journalists, rights activists and opposition legislators who charged that it restricts freedom of expression. The law promises press freedom but also lists 12 areas in which journalists must tread carefully to avoid undermining Algeria's national identity, sovereignty and security and the country's economic interests.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Colombia's government and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime released a new study that said more than 3,000 square miles (800,000 hectares) of Colombia's woodlands have been cleared since 1981 in the planting and destruction of drug crops. According to the UN, Colombia had 240 square miles (62,000 hectares) of coca under cultivation last year.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, CongoDRC opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi's party called for mass protests to "protect" the victory he claims to have won in disputed presidential polls.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Egyptians turned out in large numbers to vote in the second round of parliamentary elections that have become a stiff competition between dominant Islamist parties likely to steer the country in a more religious direction. A military court sentenced a political activist to two years in prison after convicting him of criticizing the armed forces and publishing false information. Maikel Nabil Sanad was arrested in March and sentenced to three years, but the case was appealed and sent for retrial.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, European Parliament lawmakers blocked a deal allowing special access for EU fishermen to Moroccan waters, prompting Rabat to issue an immediate ban on European fishing boats. European lawmakers said they wanted to wait until the interests of Western Sahara trawlers were taken on board before agreeing to a 12-month extension.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Guyana a 34-year-old woman told reporters in the South American country that Chief Henry Greene took her to a hotel and raped her. She alleges the incident occurred in late November. The US revoked Greene's visa in 2006 over alleged links to drug trafficking. Greene was soon placed on leave and in January Jamaica sent a team of detectives to probe the rape allegations.
(AP, 12/15/11)(AP, 1/5/12)
2011 Dec 14, An Indian newspaper reported that plans were being finalized for a Taliban office in the Gulf state of Qatar.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, Israeli police detained six Jewish extremists following a series of attacks on mosques and Israeli military bases. Unknown arsonists torched an inactive Jerusalem mosque, provoking calls in Israel for a more effective crackdown on Jewish extremists.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Italian far-right author Gianluca Casseri (50) shot dead two Senegalese men and wounded three others before killing himself in a daylight shooting spree in Florence that prompted outpourings of grief.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Kashmiri shopkeeper Tariq Ahmad Bhat died two weeks after anti-India protesters allegedly beat him for refusing to close his store during a strike. Four people accused of beating him have been arrested.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Mexico 3 bodies were discovered in Guadalajara, two days after two college students in nearby Guerrero state were killed in a clash with police after student protesters hijacked buses, used them to block a highway and fought officers with rocks and sticks. The Jalisco state prosecutors office said it is investigating whether the bodies belong to any of five people who were reported missing after they complained last week that the student group was demanding protection money for allowing them to sell snacks outside a campus.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Romania two self-professed witches were detained on blackmail and extortion charges in a high-profile case involving a TV star and reportedly other public figures.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Russia a loyalist to PM Vladimir Putin who served as the speaker of parliament resigned in a move that appeared to be part of the government's effort to stem public anger over alleged fraud in this month's parliamentary election.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Russia Boris Chertok (99), a rocket designer who played a key role in engineering Soviet-era space programs, died in Moscow. He was closely involved in putting the world's first satellite in orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, and preparing the first human flight to space by Yuri Gagarin on April, 12 1961.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Somalia a rowdy parliament session degenerated into fistfights and kicks after disagreements over the sacking of speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan. Supporters of Sheikh Adan argued that his impeachment a day earlier did not follow procedure.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Amnesty International accused Spanish authorities of using racial and ethnic profiling, with police singling out people who are not white in order to meet quotas.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Sri Lanka thousands of produce traders protested for a third day, halting business at the capital's central market over a new rule demanding that fruit and vegetables be transported in plastic baskets rather than sacks.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Syrian Army defectors killed at least eight Syrian troops in an act of revenge after security forces shot dead five civilians.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, The Tanzania-based court said it has overturned several convictions against former Rwandan Ministry of Defense director Col. Theoneste Bagosora. The court reduced his life sentence to 35 years. Bagosora had been sentenced in 2008 at the age of 67. The court also reduced the life sentence of former military commander Anatole Nsengiyumva to 15 years and released him for time served.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, Tunisia's new president, Moncef Marzouki, asked the secretary general of the Islamist party that dominated last month's elections to form the next government. Hamadi Jebali has three weeks to form the next interim government.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2012 Dec 14, The Obama administration announced a new air pollution standard. This marked the first time that the EPA has tightened the soot standard since it was established in 1997.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A8)
2012 Dec 14, The Pentagon said the US will send two batteries of Patriot missiles and 400 troops to Turkey as part of a NATO force meant to protect Turkish territory from potential Syrian missile attack.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, The US DEA said over 2 dozen people have been charged in San Diego in a scheme to smuggle drugs into California from Mexico. The bust netted over 1,000 pouns of methamphetamine, 200 pounds of cocaine and 28 pound of heroin.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A7)
2012 Dec 14, Adam Lanza (20) killed 27 people, 18 of them small children, in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., about 65 miles northeast of New York City. He killed his mother at home before the rampage at the school. Lanza used a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle made by Remington.
(http://tinyurl.com/bun8wgb)(AP, 12/15/12)(SFC, 3/15/19, p.A8)
2012 Dec 14, In San Francisco Frederick Dozier Jr. (33), a school cafeteria worker, was sentenced to 373 years to life in prison for assaulting 3 women in the Mission District in 2011.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.C11)
2012 Dec 14, Oklahoma police arrested Sammie Eaglebear Chavez (18) on charges that he had plotted to shoot students at Bartlesville High School.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.A12)
2012 Dec 14, In Belgium twin 45-year-old men, whose names were not been made public, were legally put to death by lethal injection at the Brussels University Hospital in Jette. They were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again.
(abcNews, 1/14/13)
2012 Dec 14, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Canada will crack down on what it says is a wave of fake refugee claims from European Union nationals and deny the right of appeal to those deemed to be bogus applicants.
(Reuters, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Chile's government apologized to a lesbian judge who was denied custody of her three daughters in 2004 because she is gay. Chile said it will pay Magistrate Karen Atala $70,000 and grant her medical and psychological treatment.The ruling followed Chile's approval this year of an anti-discrimination law.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, China provided the United Nations with detailed claims to waters in the East China Sea, apparently padding out its legal argument in an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Chinese authorities said they have arrested a legislator found to have four wives. Li Junwen (43), an appointed representative from Xiaodian and the Communist Party head of the village of Xiquan, Shanxi province, also had 10 children, and had been detained on suspicion of document forgery.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In China Min Yongjun (36), a resident of Guangshan, burst into the home of an elderly woman and stabbed her with a kitchen knife. He then took a kitchen knife and hacked at more 22 children as they entered their rural Chenpeng Village Primary School. On Dec 13, 2013, Yongjun was sentenced to death.
(AP, 12/15/12)(AFP, 12/13/13)
2012 Dec 14, Egyptian Islamists clashed with opponents of a draft constitution in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria after an ultraconservative cleric called on worshippers to approve the charter in a referendum.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, French mountaineer Maurice Herzog died (93), six decades after his 1950 Annapurna climb made him a household name.
(AP, 12/15/12)
2012 Dec 14, A boat capsized early today off the northeastern island of Lesvos, near the Turkish coast. Greek coast guard officials found the bodies of 18 Asian people who were trying to cross illegally into Greece.
(AP, 12/15/12)
2012 Dec 14, Guinean authorities and trade unions agreed to give civil servants a pay raise of 50 percent over the next year. The raises would be applied in three phases of 10, 15 and 25 percent before the end of 2013.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 14, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced he is resigning a day after an indictment for breach of trust was filed against him by the country's attorney general.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev (72) announced a raft of reforms for this energy-rich, authoritarian state, ranging from having more direct local and regional elections to imposing the use of the Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Kenya’s government decided that all refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia must return to the large refugee camp complex known as Dadaab, a seemingly endless expanse of refugee housing on the sands of Kenya close to the Somali border. More than 400,000 refugees live in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, A magnitude 6.4 earthquake was recorded at 2:36 a.m. in the Pacific Ocean 167 miles west southwest of Rosarito, Mexico. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Russian investigators accused Alexei Navalny (36), a prominent opposition leader, and his brother of fraud and money-laundering, intensifying legal pressure on the anti-Kremlin protest movement as it prepares to hold its next big demonstration this weekend.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In Russia Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a former senior police officer, was found guilty for his role in the slaying of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A6)
2012 Dec 14, In Serbia a judge ordered Miroslav Miskovic (67), the country’s richest, man to be held in prison for 30 days pending trial on suspicion of corruption. Miskovic was arrested Dec 12 along with his son Marko and eight others in connection with the privatization of several Serbian road construction companies in 2005. The government hailed his arrest as proof that no one is above the law in the graft-plagued country.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In Somalia a suicide car bomb explosion in Mogadishu killed only the bomber. 3 bystanders were wounded.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Tunisia’s justice minister said Sakhr Materi, the son-in-law of former Pres. Zine al-Abidine Ban Ali, was arrested in the Seychelles on an int’l. warrant over the embezzlement of state funds last year.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 14, Envoys from nearly 90 nations signed the first new UN telecommunications treaty since the Internet age, but the US and other Western nations refused to join after claiming it endorses greater government control over cyberspace. The Int’l. Telecommunications Union (ITU) has no technical powers to change how the Internet operates or force countries to follow its nonbinding accords.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In Yemen 2 militants were killed in airstrikes in southern Abyan province. 4 militants died when the military shelled their positions in Marib province, to the east of Sanaa.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2013 Dec 14, In southern California 4 people died in a car crash in Compton as a car with 3 male occupants fled sheriff’s deputies and ran a red light striking another car driven by a woman in her 20s.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 14, Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in New Delhi he no longer "trusts" the United States, accusing the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in his troubled homeland.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Brazil was rocked by a fourth fatal World Cup stadium accident as a young construction worker fell to his death.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Peter O'Toole (b.1932), the star of "Lawrence of Arabia," died in London.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic a mob in Bangui hacked a Muslim motorcyclist to death in the Combattant district not far from the airport. Moments later residents brandished the man's cut-off hands.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Chinese state media said authorities have detained 1,300 people for producing and selling fake medicine as part of an intensified government crackdown.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, China successfully carried out the world's first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades. The Chang’E 3 deployed a small rover called Yutu (Jade Rabbit), which traveled for 114 meters before getting stuck.
(AP, 12/14/13)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.82)
2013 Dec 14, In CongoDRC unknown assailants over the last 24 hours killed people 21 in the villages of Musuku and Mwenda, in the eastern territory of Beni. The victims, including women and children, were found hacked to death and some were mutilated.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Egypt an Egyptian Copt was sentenced to life in prison as 10 others got jail terms from six months to 15 years over sectarian deaths in April.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Britain's MI6.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has canceled a planned $500 million loan to Pakistan to build part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Iraq bombings and a shooting killed 12 people around Baghdad.
(AP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Japan and Southeast Asian countries (ASEAN) called for freedom of the air and sea, as China's military assertiveness raises regional tensions.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Kenya a suspected grenade attack on a minibus in Nairobi killed 4 people near a Somali-dominated area of the city. 2 more died of their wounds the next day. One person was killed and three injured in a double explosion at a market in the town of Wajir.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mali a car bomb killed two UN Senegalese peacekeepers and destroyed the only operating bank in the northern town of Kidal, one day before a second round of parliamentary elections.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mexico 10 charred bodies were found in a burnt-out truck in southern Oaxaca state. Another corpse was found shot in the head a short distance away from the truck near the town of Santiago Juxtlahuaca.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Rescue workers evacuated more than 5,000 Gaza Strip residents from homes flooded by four days of heavy rain, using fishing boats and heavy construction equipment to pluck some of those trapped from upper floors.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Portugal a group of students plunged into the winter surf off Meco, a small village south of Lisbon where they had rented a house. Over the next 12 days their corpses were discovered one by one. Four women and two men perished, all aged between 21 and 24.
(AFP, 1/28/14)
2013 Dec 14, In Thailand leaders of the protest movement trying to overthrow the government outlined their aims at an armed forces seminar, but military leaders declined to take sides or say if a February election should take place.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tunisia's political parties chose Industry Minister Mehdi Jomaa (50) to head a government of independent figures aimed at pulling the country out of a months-long crisis.
(AFP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Dissident Ugandan General David Sejusa launched an opposition party in London and said it was time for President Yoweri Museveni to end his 28-year rule, a fresh challenge to a leader who is now among the longest serving in Africa.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Ukrainians rallied in support of President Viktor Yanukovich in central Kiev, separated by a line of riot police from anti-government protesters who have camped out for weeks in a nearby square. Authorities conceded to one of the demands of weeks-long protests, opening investigations against four top officials and suspending two of them from office over the violent police response to a small demonstration last month.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AP, 12/14/13)
2014 Dec 14, In Algeria 9 illegal migrants from Niger were killed when their bus and a truck collided in Ghardaia as they were being repatriated.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In China 10 miners were found dead hours after they were trapped underground in an explosion at a mine in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Egypt's stock market plunged by 22 billion Egyptian pounds (just over $3 billion) in a single day of trading as low oil prices dragged down regional economies.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Egypt gunmen killed 2 policemen in a drive-by shooting in El-Arish the Sinai Peninsula.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, An Egyptian fishing boat crashed into a container ship in the Gulf of Suez, killing 13 fishermen. The captain and first officer of the Kuwaiti container ship were soon detained.
(AP, 12/14/14)(Reuters, 12/16/14)
2014 Dec 14, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that French forces have either killed or captured nearly 200 jihadists in the Sahel region of west Africa in the past year.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Haiti’s PM Laurent Lamothe announced that he was resigning along with several ministers in the wake of violent anti-government protests and a commission's call for him to step down.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition cruised to a big election win, but record low turnout could weaken his claim of a mandate for reflationary policies to revive the economy.
(Reuters, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Lebanon scores of families, friends and supporters of some two dozen Lebanese police and soldiers held captive by militants continued to rally in central Beirut, calling for their quick release.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, The minister of oil in Libya's Tripoli-based government said the Sidra terminal, the country's largest oil shipping terminal, has been shut down due to clashes between rival militias.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Mauritius' president named veteran politician Sir Anerood Jugnauth as prime minister, after the 84-year old won a landslide victory taking nearly three-quarters of seats in parliament.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In northeastern Nigeria Islamic extremists killed 35 people and kidnapped at least 185 in an attack on Gumburi, 20 km from Chibok, the town where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped earlier this year.
(AP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 14, In North Korea US citizen Arturo Pierre Martinez (29) from El Paso, Texas, held a press conference in Pyongyang to denounce his own country's political and economic systems. He said he had crossed illegally into North Korea from China in November.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Norwegian police said they have warned politicians about possible eavesdropping of cellphone calls after several listening devices were reportedly found in central Oslo, including near government buildings and Parliament.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Peru about 190 nations agreed on the building blocks of a new-style global deal due in 2015 to combat climate change amid warnings that far tougher action will be needed to limit increases in global temperatures.
(Reuters, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, A Saudi security officer was killed in an operation to free three foreign laborers taken hostage by a gunman in Riyadh. The attacker was wounded and captured in the shoot-out. A Saudi policeman was shot and killed in the eastern town of al-Awamiya by an unidentified assailant.
(AP, 12/15/14)
2014 Dec 14, Sierra Leone confirmed that Dr. Victor Willoughby has tested positive for Ebola, the 12th local physician to become infected — 10 of whom have died.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In northwestern Syria rebels and al-Qaida militants took over at least three government checkpoints around a pair of military bases. At least 15 pro-government troops and 8 opposition fighters were killed in the clashes. Government forces killed at least 21 rebels in the Handarat area.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Turkish police arrested Ekrem Dumanli, the editor of the country's biggest selling newspaper (Zaman), and at least two dozen other media figures in a new crackdown on supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's exiled rival, Fethullah Gulen.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Uganda renegade four-star general David Sejusa was officially received by the head of Uganda's domestic security agency. He had sat on Uganda's military high command before fleeing last year to exile in London.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2015 Dec 14, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens" premiered in Los Angeles. It opened in US theaters on Dec 17. Box office revenues crossed the billion-dollar mark in 12 days.
(Econ, 12/19/15, p.25)(SFC, 12/25/15, p.A5)
2015 Dec 14, In Michigan the mayor of Flint declared a state of emergency, acknowledging that switches in the city's water sourcing have caused high lead levels in drinking water. In October, the city switched back to the Detroit system, but lead levels were still "well above" the acceptable federal level in many homes.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, Lillian Vernon (b.1927), founder of the Lillian Vernon catalog business, died in New York. In 1987 Lillian Vernon was the first company owned by a woman to be listed on the American Stock Exchange.
(SFC, 12/16/15, p.D8)
2015 Dec 14, In Afghanistan 8 family members, including 5 children aged from two months to five years, were found in the eastern province of Nangahar, each shot once in the head, apparently by three unknown men who had been guests of the family.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, In northern Argentina 43 police officers died and several more were injured when their bus drove off a bridge, plunging into a dry riverbed.
(AFP, 12/14/15)(SFC, 12/14/15, p.A3)
2015 Dec 14, Cameroon security forces armed with guns and arrows killed two young women wearing explosive vests in the northern town of Kolofata, the second raid there in days by suspected Boko Haram militants from neighboring Nigeria.
(Reuters, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic Maouloud Moussa, a spokesman and chief lieutenant for rebel leader Noureddine Adam, proclaimed the Republic of Logone in the town of Kaga-Bandoro. Adam, one of the main leaders of the Seleka rebel coalition, used intimidation in areas under his control to block voting on a crucial Dec 13 constitutional referendum. On Dec 22 Noureddine Adam dropped his opposition to the holding of pivotal elections.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)(Reuters, 12/22/15)
2015 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic Maouloud Moussa, a spokesman and chief lieutenant for rebel leader Noureddine Adam, proclaimed the Republic of Logone in the town of Kaga-Bandoro. Adam, one of the main leaders of the Seleka rebel coalition, used intimidation in areas under his control to block voting on a crucial Dec 13 constitutional referendum.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, The Colombian government and leftist FARC rebels said they have reached a deal on reparations for war victims and could be near a pact on the terms of confinement for ex-combatants who would be tried in special tribunals once a definitive peace agreement is reached.
(Reuters, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Ales Vesely (80), a Czech artist known for his monumental sculptures, was found dead in his Prague apartment.
(AP, 12/16/15)
2015 Dec 14, The Paris Club of creditor nations, led by France, announced a deal under which creditors will cancel $8.5 billion in overdue interest payments in exchange for a promise by Cuba to pay off $2.6 billion of the original debt over the next 18 years.
(SFC, 12/114/15, p.A3)
2015 Dec 14, In Iraq gunmen in Kirkuk shot dead a senior employee of the state-run North Oil Company (NOC), the third company official to be killed in the past four months.
(Reuters, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman was awarded this year's Genesis Prize, the "Jewish Nobel," for his accomplishments as a musician, teacher and advocate for the disabled, organizers of the $1 million prize.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Israel detained Mohammad Abu Sakha (23), a Palestinian circus performer and teacher. Three months later he was still detained without trial.
(AFP, 3/5/16)
2015 Dec 14, In Italy police in Rome said they had seized 3,500 fake Vatican parchments that were being sold to unsuspecting pilgrims taking part in Pope Francis' Holy Year celebrations.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Kosovo’s opposition lawmakers released tear gas in parliament as they once again tried to pressure the government into renouncing deals with Serbia and Montenegro.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Libyan news agencies said the Islamic State jihadist group has executed a woman for "witchcraft" and a man accused of spying in its Libyan stronghold.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Mexican authorities said illegal taps drilled into government pipelines by fuel thieves have risen 55% this year reaching almost 500 per month.
(SFC, 12/15/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 14, Nigerian prosecutors charged former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki (60) with corruption. He pleaded innocent to embezzling $2.1 billion meant to purchase arms to fight Boko Haram, and said some of the money was diverted on the order of former Pres. Goodluck Jonathan to try to get himself re-elected.
(AFP, 12/14/15)(AP, 12/14/15)(SFC, 12/15/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 14, Palestinian Abed Almohsin (21) drove a car into Israelis at a Jerusalem bus stop injuring eight people before being shot dead.
(AFP, 12/14/15)(SFC, 12/15/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 14, Romanian lawmakers voted to ban all advertising of prescription drugs and radio and television advertising of over-the-counter medicines in a bid to stop what they say is harmful self-diagnosis.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing Russia’s Constitutional Court to decide whether or not to implement rulings of international human rights courts.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, South Africa's third finance minister in less than a week reassured the country that the economy will be steadied, which saw the currency stabilize.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Spanish police wrapped up an operation in which they seized 3,000 kg (3.3 tons) of cocaine and arrested 11 people, including Spaniards, Britons and Dutch citizens.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2015 Dec 14, A Swedish court sentenced two men to life in prison on terrorism charges over their role in two "cruel and brutal" murders in Syria in 2013. Hassan al-Mandlawi (320 and Al-Amin Sultan (30) both Swedish nationals, were convicted after graphic videos showed them taking part in the killing of two men in the northern city of Aleppo.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Syrian troops recaptured Marj al-Sultan and its airport east of Damascus, more than three years after they were overrun by rebel groups.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In southeastern Turkey 2 protesters were killed in clashes with police in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir amid growing tensions over a days-long curfew.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In Tunisia a lawyer said a court last week sentenced six students to three years in jail each on charges of homosexuality in a judgment condemned by rights activists.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Turkey said it withdrew some of its soldiers from a camp in Iraq, days after Iraq had demanded that Turkish troops immediately leave its territory.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In Yemen fierce fighting was underway between forces loyal to the internationally recognized government and the country's Shiite rebels just hours before an agreed-on truce was supposed to start at midnight. Saudi Col. Abdullah Mohammed al-Sahyan and Emirati officer Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Ketbi were killed in Taiz.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2016 Dec 14, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would choose former Texas governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy, calling him "one of the most successful governors in modern history".
(CSM, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, US Pres. Barack Obama signed into law the Northern Border Security Review Act. It was introduced by Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.
(Econ 6/3/17, p.25)
2016 Dec 14, US and Polish defense officials said the United States has decided to accelerate the deployment of troops to Poland, the Baltic states and Romania as part of raising the security of the region.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A US think tank, citing new satellite imagery, reported that China appears to have installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven of the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to the range of 0.5% to 0.75%, its 2nd raise in the past decade.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C4)
2016 Dec 14, Joshua Samuel Aaron (32), implicated in the theft of details of more than 100 million American bank accounts, was arrested in New York after being extradited from Russia. He had moved to Russia in early 2015.
(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 14, California regulators approved the nation’s first energy-efficiency standards for computers.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.A1)
2016 Dec 14, Harold Gilliam (98), environmental journalist, died in San Francisco. His 1962 book “Island in Time" played an important role in the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
(SSFC, 12/18/16, p.C13)
2016 Dec 14, Alaska Airlines completed its purchase of Virgin America.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C1)
2016 Dec 14, Lucid Motors of Menlo Park, Ca., unveiled a prototype, luxury electric sedan in a ceremony at the company’s Fremont workshop. The car has been designed to challenge Tesla’s Model S.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C1)
2016 Dec 14, Bosnia’s office for expatriate affairs said Bosnia will expel more than 300 foreigners, most from the Gulf, as illegal residents after they bought property for investment on which they may have evaded taxes.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In Brazil Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns (95) died after a long struggle with lung and kidney problems. Arns, archbishop of Sao Paulo between 1970 and 1998, was one of the Catholic Church's most prominent pro-democracy voices in Latin America.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The Unite union said thousands of cabin crew working for British Airways have voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in a pay dispute and could walk out after Dec 21.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A court in eastern China sentenced Yang Weize, the former Communist Party chief of the major city of Nanjing, to 12-1/2 years in jail, after finding him guilty of corruption.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, China said it will seek the extradition of more than 200 of its citizens arrested in Spain in a crackdown on gangs that ran call centers that swindled 16 million euros ($17 million) from compatriots at home.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Chinese official warned the government could slap a penalty on an unnamed US automaker for monopolistic behavior sending shares downward of US automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The Czech Republic's defense minister said the country's military has decided to purchase Israeli-made radars for its military. The army will pay 2.9 billion koruna ($114 million) for a total of eight ELM 2084 MMR radars made by the Israeli state-run IAI Elta company.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In Ecuador indigenous Shuar protesters attacked the Chinese owned Exploracobres copper mine leaving at least one police officer dead.
(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 14, An Egyptian judicial official said authorities have ordered the assets frozen of the chief of a media company that releases two daily newspapers including the English-language Daily News, over allegations of belonging to the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Euro zone lenders put on hold the implementation of a short-term debt relief deal for Greece after the Greek government proposed to make a one-off payout to pensioners in December.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Two Finnish journalists quit public broadcaster Yleisradio (YLE), saying the company had suppressed critical reporting on politicians including PM Juha Sipila.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, French police detained dozens of Greenpeace protesters who were blocking the Paris headquarters of EDF, the public electricity company that operates the nuclear power plants in France.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In East Jerusalem a Palestinian youth wielding a screwdriver stabbed and lightly wounded two Israeli police officers before being shot and killed.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni won the backing of the fragmented Senate, allowing his government to formally take office as a new threat emerged to the legacy of predecessor Matteo Renzi.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The defense ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia renewed their call for a strong US engagement in the Baltic region amid concerns over the attitude of the incoming Trump administration.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Montenegro's defense minister said the small Balkan country will decide whether to join NATO in a parliamentary vote and not a popular referendum as sought by the opposition and Russia.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Dutch court ruled that a priceless collection of gold artifacts from Crimea that was on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia seized the peninsula must be returned to Ukraine and not Crimea.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Pakistan's military said it has successfully test-fired a revised version of a locally developed medium-range cruise missile, which can strike targets both on land and sea.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Palestinian court sentenced in absentia Mohammed Dahlan, a political foe of President Mahmoud Abbas, to three years in prison for allegedly embezzling $16 million as a Cabinet minister. Dahlan has lived in exile since falling out with Abbas in 2010.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza on the 29th anniversary of the founding of the militant Islamist group Hamas.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.A3)
2016 Dec 14, Spain's Constitutional Court blocked a resolution by the Catalan parliament to hold an independence referendum next September.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In Syria a cease-fire deal between rebels and the government in the city of Aleppo effectively collapsed, with fighter jets resuming deadly air raids over the opposition's densely crowded enclave in the east of the city.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The UN said that Islamic State extremists have destroyed the ancient site of Nimrud in Iraq almost beyond recognition.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 14, A team of UN investigators said South Sudan is "on the brink of an all-out ethnic civil war which could destabilize the entire region".
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The leader of Yemen's rebel Huthi government accused Britain of war crimes by supplying weapons that Saudi-led forces were using to "bomb the people".
(AFP, 12/14/16)
2017 Dec 14, The Republican-controlled US Federal Communications Commission repealed Obama-era rules requiring all web traffic to be treated equally.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, The US National Labor Relations Board overturned a key Obama-era precedent that had given workers significant leverage in challenging companies like fast-food and hotel chains over labor practices. The 3-2 vote along party lines restored a pre-2015 standard.
(SFC, 12/16/17, p.D4)
2017 Dec 14, Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, which closely tracks developments in the South China Sea, said China has built infrastructure covering 72 acres (28 hectares) in the Spratly and Paracel islands during 2017 to equip its larger outposts to be air and naval bases.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, It was reported that the United States is suspending food and fuel aid for most of Somalia's armed forces over corruption concerns, a blow to the military as African peacekeepers start to withdraw this month.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, California issued the first twenty state licenses for retailers to conduct recreational cannabis sales.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A1)
2017 Dec 14, In southern California the Thomas Fire overnight grew to the fourth-largest blaze of its kind on record, at 242,500 acres (98,140 hectares) burned. One firefighter was killed battling the blaze. Cal Fire said the Thomas Fire was 30 percent contained. The fire has destroyed more than 700 homes since it began on Dec. 4 and now threatened 18,000 structures.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)(SFC, 12/15/17, p.D1)
2017 Dec 14, In the SF Bay Area a Contra Costa jury convicted Fernando Maldonado, a Martinez pastor, of 23 counts of child sexual abuse after he failed to show up at his trail and apparently fled to Mexico with his wife and children. Maldonado had been charged in 2015 with sexual abuse of a girl in his parish. On April 3, 2018, Maldonado was deported from Mexico to face charges in Contra Costa County. On April 13 Maldonado was sentenced to 34 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.D2)(SFC, 4/5/18, p.D3)(SSFC, 4/15/18, p.C3)
2017 Dec 14, Bridgestone Americas celebrated the grand opening of its new Tennessee headquarters building. Bridgestone first moved its primary operation to Nashville from Akron, Ohio, in 1992, four years after completing its merger with Firestone Tire & Rubber.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Delta said that it will order 100 Airbus A321neo jets with a sticker price of $12.7 billion and take an option to buy another 100 jets.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Walt Disney Co. said it had reached a deal with Murdoch to buy 21st Century Fox, including its 39 percent stake in pay-TV giant Sky, for $52.4 billion (44.3 billion euros).
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Argentine police in Buenos Aires clashed with demonstrators protesting reforms to the retirement and pension system.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 14, The defense ministers of Cyprus, Egypt and Greece agreed to step up cooperation in combating drug, weapons and people trafficking in the east Mediterranean and to share information on countering the threat of terrorism.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, The new prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Poland vowed not to give any ground on the divisive issue of hosting refugees as they arrived in Brussels for their first summit of EU leaders.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia announced that they plan to spend around 35 million euros ($41 million) to beef up European Union borders as they come under pressure for refusing to accept refugee quotas.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, EU leaders formally endorsed a pact a pact to fund, develop and deploy armed forces together, known in EU jargon as the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO. Britain may be able to join in later on, but only on an exceptional basis if it provides funds and expertise.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, The EU extended sanctions against Russia because of the stalled peace process in the Ukraine.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 14, In southern France a regional train sliced open a school bus, killing four children aged 12 or 13 One more student died the next day. 18 other children and the bus driver were injured in the horrific crash at a crossing close to the Spanish border.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, It was reported that the Indonesia Asbestos Ban Network (INA-BAN) estimates at least 4,000 people are directly involved in the manufacturing of asbestos products, but that does not include contract and other non-permanent employees or construction workers.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Iraq hanged 38 Sunni jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences in Nasiriyah prison.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the world's largest generic drugmaker, said it would lay off over a quarter of its workforce as part of a global restructuring meant to salvage its ailing business. The company said 14,000 workers would be let go over the next two years.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Italy’s Senate gave final approval to a law allowing Italians to write living wills and refuse artificial nutrition and hydration, the latest step in the Roman Catholic nation's long-running and agonizing debate over euthanasia and end-of-life issues.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Italian police in Sicily searched the homes and businesses of known allies of mobster Matteo Messina Denaro (55), looking for hidden bunkers where the fugitive godfather may be hiding.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in late August.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, In the Netherlands a man (37) was arrested late today in a mosque in Maastricht shortly after a man and a woman were killed and two other people were injured.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, Nigerian state governors approved the release of $1 billion from the country's excess oil account to the government to help fight the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, In Northern Ireland Paul Golding, the leader of the Britain First, a far-right group, was detained along with his deputy Jayda Fransen. Golding was accompanying Fransen to a court appearance related to an anti-Islam speech last August. Britain First recently gained notoriety after US Pres. Donald Trump recirculated unverified anti-Muslim videos it had posted on social media
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 14, Officials speaking anonymously said Pakistan has ordered 21 foreign aid groups to wrap up their activities and prepare to leave after they failed to re-register under tough regulations introduced two years ago.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Poland's PM Mateusz Morawiecki said Poland will respect the ruling of the European Union's top court on whether the government can continue logging in the primeval forest of Bialowieza that is under an EU environment protection plan.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Poland's lawmakers approved much-criticized new rules for local elections that opponents say undermine the independence of the electoral bodies and fairness in voting.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, In Somalia an Islamic extremist suicide bomber disguised as a police officer killed at least 18 people at a police academy in Mogadishu.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, South Sudan's president gave top jobs to three generals facing UN sanctions over alleged violations during a four-year-old civil war.
(Reuters, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, Syria's government team at the UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva said that there will be no dialogue with the opposition as long as it insists on the removal of President Bashar Assad.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for urgent efforts to create conditions for talks on North Korea's growing missile and nuclear threat.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2018 Dec 14, US Pres. Donald Trump picked budget director Mick Mulvaney to be his next chief of staff.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 14, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese hackers have breached US Navy contractors to steal a raft of information, including missile plans, through what some officials describe as some of the most debilitating cyber campaigns linked to Beijing.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, The California Air Resources Board required all state buses to be emission free by 20140. New rules prohibited the purchase of any new gas or diesel-powered public transit buses by 2029.
(SFC, 12/17/18, p.C1)
2018 Dec 14, In Florida Gabino Peralta-Saucedo (43) of Michoacan, an organizer for multiple Mexican drug cartels, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge for his role in smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Mexico into the United States.
(AP, 12/15/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Hawaii ten Indonesian fishermen, who were arrested and charged with attempting to smuggle shark fins, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that they attempted to export the fins. A judge sentenced them to time they already served in jail.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Texas federal Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the US health care law known as Obamacare is unconstitutional -- a ruling that opposition Democrats vowed to appeal. On Dec. 30 O'Connor stayed his ruling to allow for appeals.
(AFP, 12/15/18)(SFC, 12/31/18, p.A5)
2018 Dec 14, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping package of Republican-written legislation that restricts early voting and weakens the incoming Democratic governor and attormey general.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 14, CBS pledged to give $20 million to 16 organizations dedicated to eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 14, Brazil launched the first of five navy attack submarines it is building under a $7.6-billion technology-sharing deal struck with France.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, British PM Theresa May left the EU summit exactly as she had arrived -- promising talks to extract reassuring words from EU leaders to help her sell the Brexit deal back home.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Cameroon released nearly 300 people who were arrested in connection with the anglophone crisis, a day after being pardoned by President Paul Biya.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, China announced a 90-day suspension of tariff hikes on $126 billion of US cars, trucks and auto parts following its cease-fire in a trade battle with Washington that threatens global economic growth.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared an "overwhelming victory" in his fight against graft within the ruling Chinese Communist Party, while still vowing that the campaign to weed out deep-seated corruption will continue, state media reported.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Chinese court jailed for 17 years businessman Zhang Tianming, who ran a 100 billion yuan pyramid scheme and organized a rare street protest in Beijing against police investigations into his activities. Nine other staff from his company, Shenzhen-based Shan Xin Hui, were also found guilty.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Egypt's state news agency said the Arab Parliament has urged the Arab League to reinstate Syria's membership, which was suspended seven years ago.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, EU leaders, except for Britain, took a step toward deeper euro zone integration to help prevent future crises, but deep disagreement over some key elements of the plan left issues like a euro zone budget or a deposit guarantee mechanism unresolved.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, EU leaders called for urgent action to combat fake news on the Internet at a summit, saying more needed to be done to safeguard next year's EU election against disinformation.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, It was reported that scientists in Finland have developed what they believe is the world's first vaccine to protect bees against disease, raising hopes for tackling the drastic decline in insect numbers which could cause a global food crisis.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, President Emmanuel Macron called for a return to calm in France after nearly a month of protests by the 'yellow vest' movement against his government's policies which have hit growth and caused widespread disruption.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In France a fourth person died following the Dec. 11 attack in Strasbourg.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Berlin court said the insolvency administrator for bankrupt airline Air Berlin has sued its former largest shareholder, UAE-based airline Etihad, for 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion) in damages.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, An Indonesian official vowed to do more to combat human trafficking after an investigation by the Associated Press revealed that scores of trafficked girls have quietly disappeared from one of the nation's poorest regions.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank as the army intensified a crackdown in response to a pair of deadly shootings believed to have been carried out by Hamas militants. An Israeli soldier was severely wounded by a Palestinian assailant who attacked him with a rock, while Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian demonstrators outside Ramallah. Palestinian Mahmoud Nakhla (18) was shot in the abdomen and died in Ramallah.
(AP, 12/14/18)(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 14, Japan's central government started main reclamation work at a disputed US military base relocation site on the southern island of Okinawa despite fierce local opposition.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Kosovo passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that has angered Serbia, which does not recognize the former province's independence.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced a $5.7-billion, two-year plan to revamp the country's health care system for the poor.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Amsterdam Appeals Court confirmed the maximum 10 years and eight months sentence imposed in March last year on the man identified by Dutch authorities as Aydin C., who was convicted of fraud and blackmail via the internet for the online abuse.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Nicaraguan authorities said they had seized the assets of 10 blacklisted organizations, dealing another blow to civil society after months of protests against President Daniel Ortega that were met with a heavy-handed crackdown.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Nicaragua nine police officers armed with rifles entered the offices of an opposition daily late today and started pushing people, beating others and making fun of reporters after journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro challenged them to take on his media outlet without a search warrant in his online daily Confidencial and news broadcasts Esta Semana and Esta Noche.
(AFP, 12/15/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Nigerian military accused United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) staff of spying for Islamist militants in northeast Nigeria, and suspended the agency's activities there. A new military statement hours later lifted a suspension of UNICEF's work in the extremist-threatened northeast. The reversal came after an emergency meeting with UNICEF representatives.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In southwestern Pakistan six security officials were killed and 14 others wounded in an attack when their convoy came under heavy firing in a mountainous area near the border with Iran. Some 30 militants attacked the Frontier Corps convoy. Four attackers were killed in the shootout.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)(AP, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Philippine court found 66 alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf guilty of kidnapping dozens of students, teachers and a Catholic priest in the south in 2000, in the largest single conviction involving the brutal Muslim militant group.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Poland a group of small islands and countries, particularly vulnerable to global warming threatened to block agreement at UN climate talks unless their demands are met. Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, head of the Alliance of Small Island States, said "we are deeply unhappy with the way the talks are going".
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Romanian court rejected a request by Turkey to extradite Kamil Demirkaya, a Turkish journalist it accuses of terrorism, after prosecutors said the case was political.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Somalia lawmaker Abdishakur Bule was killed in Baidoa in cross fire between security forces and supporters of former al Shabaab leader Mukhtar Robow.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Spain's government announced a plan to spend 7.3 billion euros ($8.2 billion) over the next 10 years on improving its military defense capabilities.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Spanish prosecutors charged pop music star Shakira with tax evasion, alleging she failed to pay more than 14.5 million euros ($16.3 million) between 2012 and 2014. Shakira listed the Bahamas as her official residence for tax purposes while living in Spain.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court rejected PM Mahinda Rajapaksa's bid for an injunction on a lower court's order that barred him and his cabinet from carrying out their roles in government. Rajapaksa planned to resign the next day.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In eastern Syria Kurdish-led forces seized the Islamic State's main hub of Hajin, a milestone in a massive and costly US-backed operation to eradicate the jihadists from Deir Ezzor province.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Syrian Kurdish parties said that Turkish threats to attack northern Syria amounted to a "declaration of war" and urged world powers to prevent an assault on the region.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Turkish military said it had killed eight militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in air strikes targeting the Zap, Hakurk and Haftanin regions of northern Iraq.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Huthi rebel delegation returned to Yemen's insurgent-controlled capital of Sanaa after wrapping up an initial round of breakthrough UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2019 Dec 14, Federal officials said two programmers in Las Vegas recently admitted to running two of the largest illegal television and movie streaming services in the country. An FBI investigation led officials to Darryl Polo (36) and Luis Villarino (40) who have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges for operating iStreamItAll, a subscription-based streaming site, and Jetflix, a large illegal TV streaming service.
(USA Today, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 14, Miami Beach parking enforcement Officer Dante Zirio (57) was arrested after police said he extorted a valet company for cash payments in exchange for not enforcing parking violations. He faced two counts each of extortion, bribery and accepting an unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior.
(AP, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 14, In Afghanistan at least one member of an Afghan militia opened fire on his fellow militiamen in central Ghazni province, killing nine people. The Taliban claimed this was a coordinated insurgent assault and that over over two dozen militiamen were killed.
(SSFC, 12/15/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 14, In Argentina Matthew Charles Gibbard (50), a British millionaire property magnate, was shot dead outside a five star hotel after being held up by armed robbers shortly after his arrival in the country. His stepson, Stefan Zone, 28, was shot in the thigh. The perpetrators escaped after the attack.
(AP, 12/15/19)
2019 Dec 14, Hong Kong police arrested three men for testing homemade explosives. Police said the explosives were intended for use during protests.
(SSFC, 12/15/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 14, Indonesian police arrested two men suspected of being part of a ring that poaches and trades in endangered animals and seized from them several lion and leopard cubs and dozens of turtles.
(AP, 12/15/19)
2019 Dec 14, In Iraq hundreds of demonstrators supporting a powerful Iran-backed militia group poured into a central Baghdad plaza, some burning American flags to protest recent US sanctions against key leaders.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, Libyan officials said fighting has raged over the 24-hour period between rebel Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter and an array of militias loosely allied with the UN-supported government based there. Hifter is backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, Libyan intelligence agents arrested journalist Reda Fhelboom at the airport outside the capital Tripoli after he arrived from neighboring Tunisia. Fhelboom is the founder of The Libyan Organization for Independent Media, which works to document rights violations against Libyan journalists, as well as to advocate for independent news media and to combat incitement of violence online. Libya's intelligence body acknowledged the detention four days after his disappearance.
(AP, 12/16/19)(AP, 12/19/19)
2019 Dec 14, New Zealand police said another person has died from their injuries in the deadly volcanic eruption on New Zealand's White Island, bringing the confirmed fatalities to 15.
(Good Morning America, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, Speaking at a conference in the Qatar Malaysia's PM Mahathir Mohamad said US economic sanctions against Iran are illegal and Malaysia does not support them.
(Bloomberg, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, In Sudan a court convicted former President Omar al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption, sentencing him to two years in a minimum security lockup. Al-Bashir is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and genocide linked to the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2020 Dec 14, Pres. Donald Trump tweeted that Attorney General Bill Barr will leave his post next week, after tension between the two men over Barr’s refusal to echo Trump’s falsehoods about voter fraud. Jeffrey Rosen, Barr’s deputy, will become the acting attorney general.
(NY Times, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The US Electoral College formally designated President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the election.
(NY Times, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, US officials announced that two members of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) would be sanctioned for their alleged role in the kidnapping and detention of former FBI agent Robert Levinson. The Treasury Department identified Mohammad Baseri and Ahmad Khazai as senior Iranian intel officials involved in Levinson’s kidnapping and disappearance. The Trump administration told family members in 2020 that Levinson had likely died in Iranian custody at some point prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(The Daily Beast, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The US Embassy in Khartoum said that President Donald Trump's administration has removed Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. President Donald Trump gave Congress the statutory 45-day notice of this move in October as part of a deal that involved Sudan paying $335m to US victims of terror attacks.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, California-based video games maker Electronic Arts said it had reached an agreement to buy Codemasters in a deal worth $1.2 billion, trumping an earlier agreement between the British company and rival Take-Two Interactive Software.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Zoox of Foster City, Ca., unveiled a next-generation robot taxi. Founded in 2014, Zoox is now owned by Amazon, which bought it in June for $1.2 billion.
(SFC, 12/15/20, p.C1)
2020 Dec 14, It was reported that San Francisco's historic Cliff House will close on Dec. 31. The feds bought the property in 1977 and have failed to renew a long-term lease. Dan and Mary Hountalas have run the restaurant since 1973.
(SFC, 12/14/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 14, California to date had 1,573,639 cases of coronavirus and 21,045 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 196,526 cases and 2,112 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 16,517,256 with the death toll at 300,477.
(sfist.com, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The US state of Georgia began early voting in a pair of US Senate races that will determine control of the chamber in a contest that ends on Jan. 5.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Wisconsin Republicans met at the state Capitol, the same day as 10 Democratic electors awarded their votes to Biden, who carried the battleground state by just under 21,000 votes. They forwarded their votes for Trump to the National Archives, arguing that they were trying to preserve Trump's legal options in case a court overturned Biden's win.
(AP, 6/21/22)
2020 Dec 14, Argentina said that it had now recorded 1.5 million cases of coronavirus, making it the ninth country in the world to reach the milestone. The Ministry of Health said there had been 1,503,222 people infected so far with COVID-19 and 41,041 deaths.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Brazil's health regulator Anvisa said China's health authorities are not transparent in their authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Britain reported that over 1,000 cases of a new coronavirus variant have been identified in the past few days in England, predominantly in the south of the country where it could be connected to a surge in cases. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the variant is more likely to cause serious disease, and the latest clinical advice is that it's highly unlikely that this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, A single-patient study conducted by British scientists has found that Gilead's antiviral drug remdesivir could be highly effective against COVID-19, raising questions about previous studies that found it had no impact on death rates from the disease.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Codagenix Inc and India's Serum Institute said they have received regulatory approval in the United Kingdom to begin an early-stage trial of their single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Canada kicked off its inoculation campaign against COVID-19 by injecting frontline healthcare workers, becoming just the third nation in the world to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Canadian fashion executive Peter Nygard (79) was arrested in Winnipeg at the request of the US. His arrest on sex trafficking, racketeering and related charges came after the FBI raided Nygard’s Manhattan offices earlier this year.
(AP, 12/15/20)
2020 Dec 14, It was reported that Chinese authorities have locked down an area near the Russian border after half a dozen coronavirus were confirmed in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang.
(SFC, 12/14/20, p.A7)
2020 Dec 14, The EU announced that an agreement has been reached on setting up the 27-nation bloc’s first ever fund to support defense research and development.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, German biotech firm CureVac said it has started a large Phase 2b/3 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, banking on the same technology that has allowed rivals BioNTech and Moderna to lead the development race.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of protesting Indian farmers called for a national farmers' strike, the second in a week, to press for the quashing of three new laws on agricultural reform that they say will drive down crop prices and devastate their earnings.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Indian ride-hailing firm Ola, backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, said it planned to invest 24 billion rupees ($326 million) to set up a factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu to produce electric scooters.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Two prominent Italian intellectuals announced they were returning their Legion of Honor awards to France to protest that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was given the prize despite his government's human rights abuses.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Italian police officers hailed their Albanian counterparts for their fight against drug production and trafficking in the western Balkan country.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Italy reported 491 coronavirus-related deaths against 484 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections declined to 12,030 from 17,938.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was inaugurated for a third term in office amid ongoing outcries from opposition parties.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Japan selected the "mitsu" kanji character, meaning "congested" or "dense" and used to encourage social distancing, as its defining symbol for 2020.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Japan said its worst bird flu outbreak on record has spread to new farms and now affects more than 20% of the country's 47 prefectures, with officials ordering cullings after more poultry deaths.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, A military court in Lebanon sentenced a political activist to three years of hard labor for collaborating with Israel. Kinda El-Khatib was sentenced for allegedly visiting Israel, contacting Israeli agents and providing them with security information.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Moroccan authorities dispersed a group of activists who tried to hold a protest outside the parliament building in the capital to denounce the country's recent decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Fatou Bensouda, the outgoing prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, hit out at sanctions slapped on her by the Trump Administration in her final speech to an annual gathering of the court's member states before she leaves office next year.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, PM Jacinda Ardern announced that the New Zealand government intends to establish a travel bubble with Australia in the first quarter of next year.
(NY Times, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russia successfully test-launched its heavy lift Angara A5 space rocket from the Plesetsk cosmodrome for the second time.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russian developers published fresh trial results for their Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine based on new data, and said the shot had again been found to be 91.4% effective in providing protection from COVID-19.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russian authorities said they are investigating the death of nearly 300 endangered seals, including pregnant females, that have been found washed up on the Caspian Sea shores of Dagestan since December 6. The Caspian seal was included in Russia’s Red Data Book of rare and endangered species this year.
(The Telegraph, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Singapore became the first Asian country to approve Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine and said it expects to start receiving shots by the end of the year.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, South Africa's pharmaceutical regulator SAHPRA said it has received its first application to register a COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, South Korea’s parliament approved contentious legislation criminalizing the flying of propaganda leaflets by balloon toward North Korea, despite fierce criticism that the country is sacrificing freedom of expression to improve ties with the rival North.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Human Rights Watch said South Sudan's security agency has used electric shocks, gang rapes, abductions and killings since the country gained independence in 2011. Acting army spokesman Santo Domic Chol dismissed the report.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The Swiss government acknowledged that authorities in the Alpine nation had failed to prevent the illegal adoptions of children from Sri Lanka up until the 1990s. Switzerland only recently acknowledged the suffering of Swiss children who were taken away mainly from poor families and single mothers, and were made to work on farms as late as the 1960s.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Swiss-based Novartis said a late-stage clinical trial of ruxolitinib on top of standard therapy showed no significant reduction in severe complications of COVID-19, including death, respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation or admission to the intensive care unit.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2021 Dec 14, US Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced more than $8.7 billion in capital investments in community development financial institutions and minority-owned banking firms to boost lending in disadvantaged areas.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, A US judge dismissed a bid by former President Donald Trump to keep his tax returns from a House of Representatives committee, ruling that Congress' legislative interest outweighed any deference Trump should receive as a former president.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, US passenger railroad Amtrak said it will temporarily suspend a vaccine mandate for employees and now no longer expects to be forced to cut some service in January.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 50,142,292 with the death toll at 798,942. The number of deaths compiled by Johns Hopkins Univ. topped 800,000.
(sfist.com, 12/15/21)(SFC, 12/15/21, p.A5)
2021 Dec 14, Rain drenched Southern California as a powerful storm slid down the drought-stricken state, snarling traffic as vehicles spun out and raising the threat of mudslides in areas scarred by wildfires.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The San Francisco Board of supervisors unanimously passed groundbreaking legislation to provide paid sick leave for cleaners, nannies, gardeners and other domestic workers.
(SFC, 12/16/21, p.C1)
2021 Dec 14, Ken Kragen (85), the founding president of USA for Africa, the foundation set up to administer the aid money raised by “We Are the World" (1985), died at his home in LA.
(NY Times, 12/16/21)
2021 Dec 14, A New York State ethics board ordered former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to turn over millions of dollars in profits from his coronavirus pandemic memoir, giving him 30 days to comply.
(NY Times, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Ricardo Martinelli, a son of the former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, pleaded guilty in NYC to a US money laundering charge linked to Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, becoming the second of his children to admit wrongdoing.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Scientists announced that NASA's Parker Solar Probe has officially “touched" the sun, plunging through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona. The probe actually flew through the corona in April during the spacecraft’s eighth close approach to the sun. Scientists said it took a few months to get the data back and then several more months to confirm.
(AP, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, A World Trade Organization panel ruled in favor of Brazil, Australia and Guatemala in their trade disputes with India over sugar subsidies and asked New Delhi to conform with global rules.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Afghanistan's central bank said it was working to ensure the stability of the afghani, a day after the currency lost almost 12% of its value against the dollar in a matter of hours amid a deepening economic crisis and soaring inflation.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Albania's Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Corruption and Organized Crime said Lefter Koka (57), environment minister, has been arrested following months of investigation and is accused of abuse of post, corruption and money laundering.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, A court in Belarus sentenced Syarhei Tsikhanouski (43), the opposition leader's husband, to 18 years in jail after he was arrested during an attempt to run for president against incumbent Alexander Lukashenko, a verdict his wife called political revenge.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Britain reported 59,610 new COVID-19 cases, the highest figure since early January, as it faces what PM Boris Johnson has called a "tidal wave" on infections from the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that Chinese social media platform Weibo Corp has been slapped with a 3 million yuan ($470,000) fine by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), China's internet regulator, for repeatedly publishing illegal information.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that multiple companies have suspended operations in Zhejiang province, one of China's biggest and busiest manufacturing hubs, as authorities double down to contain a COVID-19 outbreak, halting some production of goods from batteries and clothing to textile dyes and plastics.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, In Colombia a bombing at an airport in the northern city of Cucuta left three people dead.
(Reuters, 12/28/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that the Congolese rumba, now has Unesco-protected status. It is the culmination of campaigning by two countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Congo-Brazzaville.
(BBC, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling urging Russia to introduce measures tackling domestic violence against women, which it said is happening on a “staggering scale" amid “systematic problems in securing prosecutions and convictions".
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The European Court of Justice said a child with two mothers certified in one EU nation must also be recognized by the other EU members as such.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, French forces left the city of Timbuktu late today, the latest sign that the former colonial power is drawing down its presence in northern Mali nearly nine years after driving Islamic extremists from power there in a military intervention. The Malian military has occupied the former French military base.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, German supplier of chemicals and materials used in making semiconductors, Merck KGaA, announced it is to invest 500 million euros in Taiwan over the next five to seven years, primarily in semiconductor technologies.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, In Haiti more at least 75 were killed when a fuel truck exploded overnight in a street in the city of Cap-Haïtien.
(NY Times, 12/14/21)(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Indian troops killed a suspected militant during a gunbattle in the federally-controlled Jammu and Kashmir region.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Vaccine producer the Serum Institute of India (SII) and a government official said India is struggling to export its surplus of COVID-19 vaccines as logistical hurdles delay their use in many countries despite low levels of inoculation.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Japan pledged $3.4 billion in its largest contribution to the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, to ensure the recovery of low-income countries from the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Kenya Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told a press conference in the coastal city of Mombasa that the country had detected cases of the Omicron variant for the first time.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, A Kenyan court temporarily halted the government's plan to require COVID-19 vaccination for access to public services until a petition challenging it is heard and ruled upon.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that Lebanese officials have agreed that losses in the country's financial sector amount to between $68 billion and $69 billion as it seeks to negotiate an International Monetary Fund (IMF) support program.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that photographer Soe Naing, detained after an anti-coup protest in Myanmar's biggest city last week, has died while in custody.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Dutch broadcaster RTL said schools in the Netherlands will close a week early for Christmas this year as coronavirus infections remain high and hospitals struggle with a wave of COVID-19 patients.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The African Development Bank (AfDB) said it will lend Nigeria $210 million to support smallholder farmers producing strategic crops and livestock.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte withdrew his bid to become a senator, the same day his preferred successor quit the presidential race, adding to uncertainty about the mercurial leader's political future and the scope of his influence.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he wants "immediate" talks with the United States and NATO over security guarantees, as tensions soar between Moscow and the West over Ukraine.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Rwanda's health ministry said the small central African country had detected six cases of the Omicron variant as it pushed for people to get vaccinated.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Gulf Arab leaders gathered in Riyadh for an annual summit expected to stress cohesion after a deep rift, at a time of regional concern over Iran and rising economic rivalry within the oil-producing bloc.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Somali Islamists captured the town of Eldheere in the semi-autonomous central state of Galmudug, part of a string of incursions underscoring the group's gains amid divisions between the central government and its erstwhile allies in the region.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, South Korea's Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) posted 7,850 cases, with the number of patients in serious condition also reaching a fresh high at 964.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Spanish police arrested Moroccan national Fikri Amellah, an internationally wanted drug trafficker suspected of using the proceeds from importing tons of hashish and cocaine to splash out on luxury cars, yachts and high-end watches.
(Reuters, 12/17/21)
2021 Dec 14, The United Arab Emirates suspended talks on a $23 billion deal to purchase American-made F-35 planes, armed drones and other equipment. Emirati officials blamed an American insistence on restrictions on how and where the F-35s could be used and say they are a violation of the UAE's sovereignty.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The UN said more than 100 former Afghan national security forces and others have been killed since the Taliban takeover in August, most at the hands of the hardline Islamist group which is recruiting boy soldiers and quashing women's rights. The WFP said almost all Afghans do not have enough to eat.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The UN weather agency said it has certified a 38-degree Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) reading in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on June 20, 2020, as the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic.
(AP, 12/14/21)
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
872 Dec 14, Adrian II (~80), Italian Pope (867-72), the last married pope, died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1287 Dec 14, The Zuider Zee seawall collapsed with the loss of 50,000 lives.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1503 Dec 14, Nostradamus [Michel de Nostredame], prophet, was born in St. Remy, Provence, France. He predicted correctly French king Henri II's manner of death. Nostradamus was the author of a book of prophecies that many still believe foretold the future. He was also physician, an astrologer and a clairvoyant. He wrote in rhyming quatrains, accurately predicting the Great London Fire in 1666, Spain’s Civil War, and a Hitler that would lead Germany into war. He even correctly predicted his own death on July 2, 1566.
(HN, 12/14/99)(MC, 12/14/01)
1542 Dec 14, James V (b.1512), king of Scotland (1513-42), died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1546 Dec 14, Tycho Brahe (d.1601), astronomer, was born in Knudstrup, Denmark. He constructed the most precise astronomical instruments of his time.
(SCTS, p.136)(HN, 12/14/00)(MC, 12/14/01)
1591 Dec 14, San Juan de la Cruz (b.1542), Spanish poet, died. He is remembered for his treatise “Dark Night of the Soul."
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08480a.htm)
1656 Dec 14, Artificial pearls were 1st manufactured by M. Jacquin in Paris. They were made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1702 Dec 14, In Japan 47 samurai stormed the palace of a high-ranking lord in Edo and beheaded him. They were ordered to commit seppuku, a ritual suicide by disembowelment. Stone monuments at the Sengakuji temple marked the graves of the 47 ronin (samurai with no master).
(SFC, 1/14/15, p.A5)
1782 Dec 14, Charleston, SC, was evacuated by British.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1795 Dec 14, John Bloomfield Jarvis, civil engineer, was born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1798 Dec 14, David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a nut and bolt machine.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1799 Dec 14, George Washington (b.1732), the first president of the United States, died at his Mount Vernon, Va., home. Richard Brookhiser authored "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington." The Washingtons at this time had 317 slaves. His 5 stills in Virginia turned out some 12,000 gallons of corn whiskey a year. In 1993 Richard Norton Smith authored "George Washington and the New American Nation." In 2010 Ron Chernow authored “Washington: A Life."
(A&IP, ESM, p.16)(AP, 12/14/97)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W15)(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 12/11/99, p.B6)(WSJ, 2/22/00, p.A40)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.102)
1807 Dec 14, A number of meteorites fell onto Weston, Connecticut.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.122)
1812 Dec, 14, The last French units of Napoleon’s Grand Armeé crossed the Nieman River of Lithuania, leaving Russia.
(ON, 10/2010, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia)
1814 Dec 14, The steamboat Enterprise, designed by keelboat captain Henry Miller Shreve, arrived in New Orleans with guns and ammunition for Gen. Jackson. It was immediately commandeered for military service.
(ON, 7/02, p.9)
1819 Dec 14, Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1822 Dec 14, John Christie, English patron of music, was born. He founded the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1822 Dec 14, The Congress of Verona ended, ignoring the Greek war of independence.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1829 Dec 14, In France Joseph Niepce signed a 10-year partnership agreement with Louis Daguerre to perfect a new photographic imaging process discovered by Niepce.
(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1855 Dec 14, Ice hockey was played by 2 military teams in Canada. [see 1875]
(CFA, ‘96, p.60)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(http://library.thinkquest.org/10480/hockey.html)
1861 Dec 14, Prince Albert of England (42), husband of Queen Victoria and one of the Union’s strongest advocates, died in London. The book “Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert" was later written by Stanley Weintraub.
(WUD, 1994, p.34)(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)(AP, 12/14/98)(HN, 12/14/98)
1863 Dec 14, The widow of Confederate General B.H. Helm was given amnesty by President Lincoln after she swore allegiance to the Union. Mrs. Helm was the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1863 Dec 14, Gen. James Longstreet attacked Union troops at Bean’s Station, Tenn.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1866 Dec 14, Roger Fry, English art critic, was born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1877 Dec 14, Serbia joined Russia in war on Turkey.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1895 Dec 14, Britain’s King George VI (d.1952), was born. He rule from 1936-1952.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1896 Dec 14, James H. Doolittle, American Air Force general, was born. He commanded the first bombing mission over Japan. His Tokyo raid was a great boost for American war morale.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1900 Dec 14, Max Planck (1858-1947), German physicist, presented the quantum theory at the Physics Society in Berlin. Planck, demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize (1918) in Physics for his work on blackbody radiation.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1903 Dec 14, William Ennis became the 1st cop to die in electric chair.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1906 Dec 14, First U1 submarine was brought into service in Germany.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1908 Dec 14, The first truly representative Turkish Parliament opened.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1909 Dec 14, Edward L. Tatum, American molecular geneticist (Nobel 1958), was born.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1909 Dec 14, The Labor Conference in Pittsburgh ended with a "declaration of war" on U.S. Steel.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1911 Dec 14, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating an expedition led by Robert F. Scott. The best book on Scott and Amundsen is by Roland Huntford "Scott and Amundsen."
(AP, 12/14/97)(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.1,6)
1912 Dec 14, Louis Botha resigned as South Africa's premier.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1913 Dec 14, Greece formally annexed Crete.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1916 Dec 14, Shirley Jackson, novelist and short story writer (Life Among Savages, The Lottery), was born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1916 Dec 14, People of Denmark voted to sell Danish West Indies to United States for $25 million [see Aug 4]. This included the islands of St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix.
(AP, 12/14/02)(Econ, 7/16/16, World IF p.7)
1917 Dec 14, In the SF Bay Area Mrs. Anna Conners drowned after a shark she had hooked pulled her from a bluff at Moss Beach.
(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.50)
1918 Dec 14, Sinn Fein won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats in the Westminster parliament. It then used that mandate to declare an independent Irish republic.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_Irish_general_election)(Econ., 3/7/20, p.49)
1918 Dec 14, Sidonio Pais (b.1872), the 4th president of Portugal, was fatally wounded by the left-wing political activist José Júlio da Costa (1893-1946) at the Lisboa-Rossio Railway Station in Lisbon.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid%C3%B3nio_Pais)
1920 Dec 14, George Gipp (b.1895) died in Indiana from pneumonia and a strep infection during his senior year at Notre Dame. He was buried in northern Michigan. Gipp was the school's first All-American and set a school career rushing record that stood for more than 50 years. Ronald Reagan portrayed Gipp in the 1940 movie "Knute Rockne, All American," in which he made famous the phrase "win one for the Gipper."
(AP, 11/10/07)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1595)
1920 Dec 14, The League of Nations created a credit system to aid Europe; U.S. export trade was threatened.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1922 Dec 14, Don Hewitt, NYC, CBS news executive producer (60 Minutes), was born.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1925 Dec 14, Wozzeck, the first opera by Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), was first performed at the Berlin State Opera. It was composed between 1914 and 1922. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which the German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at his death. The Nazis consigned it to the dustbin of 'degenerate art' after 1933.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wozzeck)
1926 Dec 14, Theo van Rysselberghe (64), Belgian painter (pointillism), died.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1927 Dec 14, China and Soviet Union broke relations.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1927 Dec 14, Iraq gained independence from Britain, but British troops remained.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1934 Dec 14, 1st streamlined steam locomotive was introduced in Albany, NY.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1937 Dec 14, Japanese troops conquered and plundered Nanjing. Japan established a puppet Chinese government at Peking, now called Beijing. In 1997 Iris Chang (1968-2004) authored "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WW II."
(AP, 12/14/02)(SFC, 11/11/04, p.A1)
1939 Dec 14, The Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations. [see Nov 30 attack on Finland]
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1941 Dec 14, US Treasury Sec. Henry Morgenthau asked his assistant Harry Dexter White to prepare a paper outlining the possibilities for coordinated monetary arrangements between the US and its allies. White’s proposal said the primary goal should be to stabilize the exchange rates of the Allied countries to encourage the flow of capital. The later led to the establishment of the gold standard at Bretton Woods, N.H., in 1944.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)
1941 Dec 14, U.S. Marines made a stand in battle for Wake Island.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1941 Dec 14, German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel ordered the construction of defensive positions along the European coastline.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1944 Dec 14, Congress established the rank of General of Army, the 5-star General.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1944 Dec 14, The former NYK liner Oryoku Maru left Manila with 1619 American POWs packed in the holds. U.S. Navy planes from the "Hornet" attacked, causing the Hell Ship to sink the following day. Only 200 of the men survived.
(Internet)(SSFC, 2/15/04, p.A29)
1945 Dec 14, Josef Kramer, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others were hanged in Hameln for crimes committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.
(AP, 12/14/05)
1946 Dec 14, Patty Duke, American actress, was born. She started her career at seven and won an Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker." He went on to star in television's "The Patty Duke Show."
(HN, 12/14/99)
1946 Dec 14, The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City. The UN adopted a disarmament resolution prohibiting the A-Bomb.
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1949 Dec 14, Bulgarian ex-Premier Traicho Kostov was sentenced to die for treason in Sofia.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1952 Dec 14, Eighty-four Korean Communist prisoners interned on Pongam Island were killed during a riot after attempting to escape.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1958 Dec 14, The United States, Britain and France rejected Soviet demands that they withdraw their troops from West Berlin and agreed to liquidate the Allied occupation in West Berlin.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1960 Dec 14, A U.S. B-52 bomber set a 10,000 mile non-stop record without refueling.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1962 Dec 14, The U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1962 Dec 14, North Rhodesia's first African-dominated government was formed under Kenneth Kaunda.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1963 Dec 14, The Baldwin Hills dam in Los Angeles, Ca., broke. The released water destroyed 65 homes and left 5 people dead.
(http://damsafety.water.ca.gov/about.htm)
1963 Dec 14, Dinah Washington (b.1924), known in the 50s as "Queen of the Harlem Blues," died of barbiturate poisoning in Detroit. In 2004 Nadine Cohodas authored “Queen: The Life and Times of Dinah Washington."
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.M1)
1967 Dec 14, DNA was created in a test tube.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1967 Dec 14, Israel submitted to the United Nations a five-year plan to solve the Arab refugee problem conditioned on a general peace settlement between Israel and the Arab states.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1970 Dec 14, In South Korea the Namyoung ferry sank killing 323 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Korean_ferry_disasters)
1972 Dec 14, Astronauts Schmitt and Cernan blasted off from the moon to join the command module America in lunar orbit, thus ending America’s manned lunar exploration for the 20th century. Apollo 17 astronauts blasted off from the moon after three days of exploration on lunar surface.
(HNQ, 7/21/99)(AP, 12/14/02)
1975 Dec 14, Six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1977 Dec 14, The film "Saturday Night Fever," starring John Travolta, premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Fever)
1977 Dec 14, The South African government eased job restrictions on blacks.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1978 Dec 14, In Northern Ireland John Murdie McTier, Belfast Prison officer, was driving home with two colleagues when a number of shots were fired from a passing car by the IRA. Both his passengers survived the attack but Mr. McTier died three days later from his wounds. He was survived by his wife and three small children.
(www.palacebarracksmemorialgarden.org/Northern%20Ireland%20Prison%20Service.htm)
1979 Dec 14, The Seminole Tribe opened a high-stakes bingo hall on their reservation at Hollywood, Florida, and the state tried immediately to shut it down. This was followed by a series of court battles leading to a final decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1981 “Seminole Tribe vs. Butterworth." The court ruled in favor of the Seminoles affirming their right to operate their bingo hall.
(http://500nations.com/news/Indian_Casinos/history.asp)
1979 Dec 14, The British punk group Clash released its “London Calling" album.
(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Calling)
1980 Dec 14, After four days of meetings, members of NATO warned the Soviets to stay out of the internal affairs of Poland, saying that intervention would effectively destroy the détente between East and West.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1980 Dec 14, Fans around the world paid tribute to John Lennon, six days after he was shot to death in New York City.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1981 Dec 14, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967. The parliament approved the annexation of the Golan Heights with legislation in one day.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(AP, 12/14/97)
1982 Dec 14, Edward Hagedorn (b.1902), graphic artist, died in Berkeley, Ca. He incised images into linoleum for sharp contrasts in black and white. His work included: "Self Portrait with Cigarette," "You," "Sword Swallower" and "The Rainbow."
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.E1,4)(www.rubylane.com/shops/bassfineart/item/0927d?gbase=1)
1984 Dec 14, Howard Cosell retired from Monday Night Football.
(http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/dec14.htm)
1984 Dec 14, The maiden flight of NASA’s X-29, a forward swept wing aircraft, took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.24)
1985 Dec 14, Roger Maris (51), HR hitter (61 in 61, NY Yankees), died of cancer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Maris)
1985 Dec 14, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1986 Dec 14, The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. The trip took nine days.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1987 Dec 14, US Supreme Court nominee Anthony M. Kennedy told his confirmation hearing he had no hidden agenda for abortion and privacy cases.
(AP 12/14/97)
1987 Dec 14, Chrysler pleaded no contest to federal charges of selling several thousand vehicles as new even though they'd been driven by employees with the odometer disconnected.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1988 Dec 14, In a dramatic policy shift, President Reagan authorized the United States to enter into a "substantive dialogue" with the Palestine Liberation Organization, after chairman Yasser Arafat said he was renouncing "all forms of terrorism."
(AP, 12/14/98)
1988 Dec 14, Sixty more survivors were pulled from rubble of earthquake that rocked Armenia.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1989 Dec 14, Opposition leader Patricio Aylwin, representing the left and center opposition alliance, was elected president in Chile's first free election since 1970. However the generals maintained great power that included the right to veto political decisions.
(AP, 12/14/02)(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-10)(http://web.mit.edu/17.508/www/week8.html)
1989 Dec 14, Nobel Peace laureate (1975) Andrei D. Sakharov died in Moscow at age 68.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1990 Dec 14, President Bush said he would nominate Lynn Martin to succeed Elizabeth H. Dole as labor secretary.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1990 Dec 14, President Bush prodded Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to agree to talks on the Persian Gulf crisis by January third.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1990 Dec 14, A Right to Die case permitted Nancy Cruzan of Missouri to have her feeding tube removed. She died 12 days later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Cruzan)
1990 Dec 14, In Hong Kong 10 Vietnamese boat people set fire to themselves to protest screening policy that could prevent them from settling in the West.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1990 Dec 14, Friedrich Durrenmatt (b.1921), Swiss author and playwright, died. In 2006 the Univ. of Chicago published a translation of his selected writings in 3 volumes. "What was once thought can never be unthought."
(AP, 11/15/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_D%C3%BCrrenmatt)
1991 Dec 14, President Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, meeting at Camp David, Md., renewed their commitment to conclude quickly the North American Free Trade Agreement.
(AP, 12/14/01)
1991 Dec 14, Sarah Yarborough (16) was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled to death after she arrived at her high school in Federal Way, just outside of Tacoma, to meet her drill team. In 2019 DNA evidence led to the arrest Patrick Nicholas (55).
(AP, 10/5/19)
1991 Dec 14-1991 Dec 15, At least 464 people were left dead or missing when an Egyptian-registered ferry sank in the Red Sea near the port of Safaga after coral reef tore a hole in a ferry's side.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)(AP, 2/3/06)
1991 Dec 14, Former East German leader Erich Honecker, facing extradition to Germany and trial on manslaughter charges, was offered asylum in North Korea.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1992 Dec 14, President-elect Clinton opened a two-day conference in Little Rock, Ark., on the nation's economic problems.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1992 Dec 14, Easing a 17-year trade embargo, the United States allowed its companies to sign contracts in Vietnam.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1992 Dec 14, Russian President Boris Yeltsin lost a battle with hard-liners as he was forced to abandon his reformist PM Yegor Gaidar, in favor of Communist-era technocrat Viktor Chernomyrdin (1938-2010).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Chernomyrdin)(AP, 12/14/97)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.109)
1993 Dec 14, A Colorado judge struck down the state's voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay rights laws, calling it unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Dec 14, The United Mine Workers approved a five-year contract, ending a strike that had reached seven US states and involved some of the nation's biggest coal operators.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Dec 14, The United States and European Community set aside a bitter fight over films, unlocking the door to the world's biggest-ever trade reform package.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1993 Dec 14, Actress Myrna Loy (88) died in NYC.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Dec 14, In Algeria a large group of armed terrorists attacked a work camp of a hydro-electric project in Tamezguida. Fourteen Croatian citizens were taken out of the camp. Twelve were murdered by having their throats slit, but two others escaped with injuries.
(www.milnet.com/state/chrono93.htm)
1994 Dec 14, A US federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking almost all of Proposition 187's bans affecting illegal immigrants in California.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1994 Dec 14, Bruce McNall, memorabilia dealer and former owner of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, pleaded guilty to fraud and was sent away to prison. He served 4 of 6 years. In 2003 he and Michael D'Antonio authored "Fun While it Lasted."
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.W14)(www.sportsbooks.com/news/sports_betting/78666.html)
1994 Dec 14, Former Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus, died at age 84. His refusal to let nine black students into Little Rock's Central High School in 1957 forced President Eisenhower to send in federal troops.
(AP, 12/14/99)
1994 Dec 14, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic asked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to mediate a lasting peace in Bosnia.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1995 Dec 14, Shelley Davis, historian for the IRS for the last 7 years, resigned in protest of the way the agency was handling its records. The IRS decided to eliminate the position of historian.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec 14, Microsoft and NBC announced a joint venture to create MSNBC, a cable channel and Web site devoted to breaking news. In 2005 NBC raised its stake to 82%.
(http://cbsnews.cbs.com/htdocs/microsoft/timeline1.html)
1995 Dec 14, AIDS patient Jeff Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon. The experimental procedure at a San Francisco hospital was criticized by animal rights activists. The transplant failed, but Getty survived.
(AP, 12/14/05)
1995 Dec 14, A way to genetically improve resistance to leaf blight in rice plants was reported found by scientists.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec 14, An agreement for peace in Bosnia, reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was formally signed. Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris. The agreement divided Bosnia into 2 autonomous territories and granted 51% of Bosnia to the Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Serbs (Republika Srpska). Elections were scheduled and a force of 60,000 Western troops was planned for deployment. A 3-member presidency and a national parliament was also part of the plan. The office of High Representative was created to oversee the implementation of the civilian aspects of the Peace Agreement.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A8)(SFC, 9/22/98, p.A8)(AP, 12/14/00)(www.ohr.int/)
1995 Dec 14, Heavy fighting erupts in Gudermes, Chechnya, when rebels disrupted Kremlin-imposed elections. At least 267 Chechen civilians were reported killed in the following 10 days.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1996 Dec 14, Teamsters President Ron Carey won election to a second term. Later, the results were overturned, and Carey was barred from a rerun vote by a court-appointed monitor who ruled that Carey had used union money for his campaign.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1996 Dec 14, In New Orleans, the 700-foot freighter, Bright Field, lost power on the Mississippi River, went out of control and slammed into a riverfront structure and then hit a crowded mall. No one was killed.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/97)
1996 Dec 14, Rwandan refugees, who previously refused to return home, began re-entering Rwanda after 2 1/2 years in Tanzania.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1997 Dec 14, Astronomers detected the brightest explosion ever detected in a galaxy 12 billion light-years away.
(USAT, 5/7/98, p.1A)
1997 Dec 14, Cuban President Fidel Castro declared Christmas 1997 an official holiday to ensure the success of Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit in Jan.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)(AP, 12/14/98)
1997 Dec 14, From India it was reported that Bombay film studios churn out 900 features a year in Hindi and other Indian languages at an average cost of $2.24 million.
(SFEC,12/14/97, DB p.62)
1997 Dec 14, Iran's new president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States -- a nation reviled by his predecessors as "The Great Satan."
(AP, 12/14/98)
1997 Dec 14, In Mexico the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies approved Pres. Zedillo’s $108.9 billion budget for 1988. The secret budget was reduced to $6.25 million.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)
1997 Dec 14, From Mexico it was reported that the Korean owners of the Han Young plant in Tijuana have agreed to cut ties with the government union and recognize the independent Unidad Obrera (Worker Unity) that was elected on Oct 6.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A22)
1998 Dec 14, Researchers reported that the protein IGF-1, insulin-like growth factor type1, was found to sustain muscle maintenance and repair when injected into muscle cells. The protein was packaged in the shell of a virus that causes no disease.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 14, The peak of the Geminid meteor shower.
(NH, 12/98, p.73)
1998 Dec 14, In Gaza City Pres. Clinton watched as hundreds of Palestinian leaders raised their hands to renounce a call for the destruction of Israel.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/99)
1998 Dec 14, In Algeria Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia resigned.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C2)
1998 Dec 14, In Angola UNITA rebels launched an offensive at Cuito and Huambo and claimed to have shot down a government jet.
(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 14, In Brazil legislators proposed to give themselves a 59% pay raise as the economy slipped into recession.
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A19)
1998 Dec 14, The British human rights group, Global Witness, reported that in Angola UNITA was selling diamonds to finance its battles against government forces.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C7)
1998 Dec 14, In China the armed forces completed the hand over of their commercial holdings to civilian control.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C7)
1998 Dec 14, In Guinea Lansana Conte was re-elected president to a 7-year term with 54.1% of the vote. The opposition rejected as flawed.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D9)(AP, 9/29/09)
1998 Dec 14, In Iran authorities arrested several suspects in the recent string of murders of opposition figures. Pirouz Davani, leader of the United Left, and Rostami Hamedani, an activist with Davani, were reported missing.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 14, In Mexico the Senate approved a new law that ended restrictions limiting foreign ownership of the nation’s top banks.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C2)
1998 Dec 14, In Kosovo Serbian border guards killed 31 ethnic Albanian guerrillas on the Albanian border.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 14, In Pec masked Albanian rebels opened fire in the Panda barroom and killed 6 young Kosovo Serbs.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.C2)(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D4)
1999 Dec 14, In Seattle Ahmed Ressam (32) was arrested after crossing the border at Port Angeles from Canada with a car trunk with over 150 pounds of bomb-making materials that included 200 pounds of urea, timing devices and a bottle of RDX, cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. Canadian authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Abdelmajed Dahoumane for possessing or making explosives. Dahoumane was arrested in Algeria In Oct, 2000. In 2001 Ressam admitted that he planned to detonate a bomb at the LA Int’l. Airport. Mokhtar Haouari provided fake ID and $3,000 to Ressam. Haouari was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2002. In 2005 Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/20/99, p.D3)(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A5)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A5)(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A12)(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A3)
1999 Dec 14, The New York City Board of Education identified nine employees, four regular teachers, two substitute teachers and three teachers' aides who were dismissed last week for helping students cheat on standardized tests.
(http://tinyurl.com/yz8ucj)
1999 Dec 14, US and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slave and forced laborers.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1999 Dec 14, Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts cartoon, announced that he would retire and that the last Peanuts cartoon would appear Feb 13, 2000.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 14, In Mission Viejo, Ca., a main water pipeline ruptured and cut supplies to 14 communities in south Orange County.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 14, In Germany the government and industry officials agreed to establish nearly $5.2 billion fund to compensate slave laborers of the Nazi regime.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 14, It was reported that Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa had recently announced a $3.75 billion environmental crusade in an effort to reduce pollution. An 80% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by 2005 was planned. Hong Kong's yearly emissions for sulfur dioxide was 80,000 tons. Guangdong Province on the Chinese mainland put out 630,000 tons.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A,12,14)
1999 Dec 14, In Jammu-Kashmir, India, at least 6 people were killed in clashes between secessionist guerrillas and security forces.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 14, In Mexico a passenger bus collided head-on with a gas truck and at least 26 people were killed near Salvatierra in Guanajuato.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B3)
1999 Dec 14, In Panama former US Pres. Jimmy Carter symbolically turned over the Panama Canal. The official ownership transfer date was Dec 31.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 14, In Romania Pres. Constantinescu fired Prime Minister Radu Vasile, though the constitution did not grant him that power. Alexandru Athanasiu, the Labor and Social Welfare minister, was named to replace Vasile. The average monthly salary was down to $89.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 14, In South Africa Clarence Mlokoti (69), co-founder of the Kaizer Chiefs soccer team, was killed during an attempted car-jacking in Soweto.
(SFC, 12/16/99, p.C2)
2000 Dec 14, Pres. Clinton spoke in England and urged the US and other rich countries to end farm subsidies, spend money on fighting disease in the 3rd World and to cut emissions to thwart global warming.
(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D8)
2000 Dec 14, President-elect George W. Bush conferred by phone with congressional leaders of both parties and planned a goodwill tour of Washington, D.C.; he also received a flood of congratulatory calls from world leaders on his first full day as president-elect.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 14, U.S. businessman Edward Pope was pardoned and released by Russia after being convicted of espionage.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 14, The Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.
(AP, 12/14/01)
2000 Dec 14, In Wichita, Kansas, brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr abducted 5 people from a home, subjected them to sexual acts, and executed them. 4 of the 5 died: Aaron Sander (29), Heather Muller (25), Brad Heyka (27), and Jason Befort (26).
(SFC, 10/15/02, p.A4)
2000 Dec 14, Vladimir Putin, the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union, held talks with Fidel Castro in Havana.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2000 Dec 14, In the southern Philippines Muslim extremists killed 3 passengers on a motorcycle taxi.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.D11)
2000 Dec 14, In Zimbabwe Pres. Mugabe claimed that his government has no control over the economy and blamed the “white man" as the real enemy during an address to a Congress of the ruling Zanu-PF Party
(SFC, 12/15/00, p.D10)
2001 Dec 14, The US vetoed a UN Security council vote that condemned all “acts of terror" against Israelis and Palestinians.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 14, George O'Leary resigned as Notre Dame football coach five days after being hired, admitting he'd lied about his academic and athletic background.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2001 Dec 14, American and British commandos behind a screen of local Afghan fighters contained the last remnants of al Qaeda forces in the White Mountains of Tora Bora. American Marines occupied Kandahar airport.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A1,16)
2001 Dec 14, The US shipped a load of corn to Cuba, the 1st American food shipment there since 1963.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A8)
2001 Dec 14, European leaders agreed to send 4,000 troops to Afghanistan.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A16)
2001 Dec 14, European nations began distributing a “Eurokit" of euro coins in advance of the Jan 1 day when the euro becomes legal tender.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 14, The German parliament approved a plan to shut down all nuclear power plants within 20 years.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A8)
2001 Dec 14, W.G. Sebald (b.1944), German-born British author, died in a car accident. His books included "The Emigrants" (1996) and "The Rings of Saturn" (1998). His novel "Austerlitz" (2001) had just recently been awarded The National Books Critics Award for 2002.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.M4)(SFC, 3/12/02, p.A2)
2001 Dec 14, Israeli troops raided four Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, killing eight Palestinians and arresting dozens of suspected militants.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 14, Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, a Silicon Valley startup, to manage his own network of business contacts. The co-founders included Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish and Yan Pujante. In 2016 Microsoft agreed to acquire the company for $26.2 billion.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.76)(SFC, 6/14/16, p.A1)
2002 Dec 14, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the king of Bahrain, inaugurated the first parliament in nearly 30 years.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 14, Salman Raduyev (b.1967), the Chechen warlord who led a bloody 1996 raid on a Russian hospital that killed 78 people, died in a Russian hard labor camp while serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/15/02)
2002 Dec 14, Jordanian police announced the arrest of two alleged al-Qaida members in the October killing of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2002 Dec 14, The Norwegian Tricolor, a cargo ship carrying nearly 2,900 luxury cars capsized and sank after colliding with the Bahamas-registered Kariba cargo ship in the English Channel. Tricolor carried 2,862 cars, high-end BMWs, Volvos and Saabs, and 77 other items, mainly tractors and large crane parts.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of South Koreans railed against the U.S. military and mourned two girls killed by American soldiers in a road accident.
(Reuters, 12/14/02)
2003 Dec 14, Jeanne Crain (b.1925), film star, died in Santa Barbara.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A24)
2003 Dec 14, In Afghanistan a landmark constitutional convention began with solemn prayers.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Brazil's ruling Workers Party expelled four leftist lawmakers after they voted against the party on crucial legislation being sought by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 14, In southwestern England 2 dozen people suffered burns to their faces, hands and arms in a suspected acid attack at a pub in Bristol.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 14, Chad's government signed a cease-fire with rebel forces at the end of talks in Burkina Faso.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Elections in northern Cyprus ended in a deadlock with the pro-EU opposition and pro-government parties splitting the 50 parliamentary seats. EU members have said that Turkey must help reunite the island before it can realize its own membership aspirations.
(AP, 12/15/03)(WSJ, 12/15/03, p.A13)
2003 Dec 14, In Baghdad a suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb killing at least 17 people and wounding 35 others. A US soldier was killed trying to diffuse a roadside bomb. Ryan Manelick, A US contract worker for Ultra Services, was shot to death near Camp Anaconda. He was an associate of Kirk von Ackerman, who disappeared Oct 9. Manelick had told Army investigators kickbacks were being made to a US Army officer.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A15)(SSFC, 2/13/05, p.A14)
2003 Dec 14, Venice threw itself a party to celebrate the rebirth of the La Fenice, following a $90 million restoration, with a gala concert that drew the Italian president, European royalty and Italy's glitterati.
(AP, 12/15/03)(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 14, In Nepal Fighting between suspected rebels and security forces intensified over the weekend, killing at least 70 people in separate attacks across the Himalayan kingdom.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, In Pakistan Pres. Musharraf survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded on a bridge just after his motorcade crossed.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 14, Palestinians fired a barrage of mortars at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and Israeli troops killed a fugitive from the Islamic Jihad group in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2004 Dec 14, Pres. Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor to Gen. Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer, and George Tenet, for their efforts in the war in Iraq.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 14, The US Federal Reserve raised its federal funds rate .25% to 2.25%. The Commerce Dept. reported that the US trade deficit in October swelled to $55.5 billion. By the end of the year the US trade deficit stood at a record $2.5 trillion.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.C1,3)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.74)
2004 Dec 14, It was reported that air cargo planes used by American subcontractors in Iraq were linked to Victor bout, a reputed Russian arms trafficker. The 2005 film “Lord of War" was a loose portrayal of Bout’s exploits.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A3)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.65)
2004 Dec 14, Chile’s Congress passed a bill granting compensation, a monthly pension of $190, to some 28,000 former political prisoners from the dictatorship of Gen. Pinochet.
(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A27)
2004 Dec 14, Congo's government insisted that its forces were fighting Rwandan troops in the mineral-rich east of the country and not dissident units of the national army.
(Reuters, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) began with the Cuba-Venezuela Agreement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas)
2004 Dec 14, Egypt and Israel signed a first joint trade accord with the United States since their historic peace treaty 25 years ago.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In southern France a roadway bridge, hailed as the tallest in the world, was officially inaugurated.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, Shootouts erupted between residents of a slum outside Haiti's capital and UN troops after hundreds of international peacekeepers stormed the stronghold of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in an attempt to control flashpoints of violence. 4 people were killed.
(AP, 12/15/04)
2004 Dec 14, In northern India 2 passenger trains collided head-on, killing at least 27 people and injuring 60 in Punjab.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In India at least one person was killed and 50 wounded in a string of grenade attacks launched by separatist rebels across the volatile northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In Iraq a suicide car bomber killed seven people at a Green Zone checkpoint, the second attack in two days near the same gate.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, PM Shukri Ghanem said Libya is planning to open up its banking sector to Arab investors and is to privatize two major government banks.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, Palestinian leader Abbas called for an end to attacks on Israel as Israeli troops destroyed 7 Palestinian houses in Gaza.
(WSJ, 12/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 14, Fernando Poe (b.1939), former Philippine actor and presidential candidate, died from a stroke in Manila. Poe, a star in over 200 films, lost the recent elections to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by 1.1 million votes.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.B7)
2004 Dec 14, In Romania Pres.-elect Traian Basescu opened talks to form a coalition government with a party formerly allied with his opponent and one representing ethnic Hungarians.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, Russia opened talks to buy back $10 billion in sovereign debt. This would cover some 22% of its $45 billion debt to sovereign creditors.
(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A12)
2004 Dec 14, In northeastern Turkey an avalanche roared down on a town, killing six people, including a 10-month-old baby.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2005 Dec 14, President Bush defended his decision to wage the Iraq war, even as he acknowledged that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong." The House voted 251-174 to renew the USA Patriot Act.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2005 Dec 14, The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate for the 13th time a quarter point to 4.25%. it also indicated that it was close to ending the 18-month long increases.
(SFC, 12/14/05, p.C1)
2005 Dec 14, The US deported Junior Vinicio Abadio Carrillo (32), the son of Guatemala's former tax chief, to face charges of embezzling millions of public dollars.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, A US government watchdog group warned that Congress must enact a national system for recycling used electronic devices or the problem of e-waste will pose serious environmental risks.
(SFC, 12/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 14, DuPont Co. said it has agreed to pay $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million for environmental projects to settle allegations by the Environmental Protection Agency that the company hid information about the dangers of a toxic chemical used to make the non-stick coating Teflon.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, The Walt Disney Co. announced its first film production in China, adding to its efforts to break into the booming Chinese entertainment market.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, It was reported that Volkswagen AG was getting ready for the 2006 US launch of its $1 million Bugatti Veyron, a 2-seater with 1,001 horsepower.
(WSJ, 12/14/05, p.D1)
2005 Dec 14, In Boston 4 men were shot and killed in the basement of a home on Bourneside Street that was set up as a music studio. The killings pushed Boston homicides for the year to 71, the highest in a decade.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A6)
2005 Dec 14, Eliot Freidson (82), pioneer investigator of professions, died in SF. His 12 books included the landmark “Profession of Medicine" (1970).
(SFC, 12/27/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 14, In Mississippi John B. Nixon, Sr. (b.1928) was executed for the 1985 murder of Virginia Tucker. At 77 years old, he was the oldest person executed since 1976 and, according to the Espy File the oldest person executed since Joe Lee in Virginia at the age of 83 on April 21, 1916.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Nixon,_Sr.)
2005 Dec 14, Carlos Delgadillo Martinez died after losing his grip on an inner tube while trying to cross the Rio Grande near Laredo, Texas. In 2011 jurors acquitted helicopter pilot James Peters (41) of lying about his role in Delgadillo’s death.
(SFC, 9/3/11, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/3nzc2z7)
2005 Dec 14, In northern Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up near Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province. In Faizabad a donkey carrying a land mine exploded near a foreign aid agency's car.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Belarusian lawmakers passed legislation that would crack down on Internet dating and online spouse searches in the latest in a series of stringent government controls backed by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, In London 4 youths were convicted of manslaughter for beating to death a man who had survived the fatal nail-bombing of a British gay pub six years ago. Barman David Morley (37) was beaten to death by a gang of youths in central London in October 2004.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Rodney Whitaker (b.1931), popular writer aka Trevanian, died in the West Country of England. His thrillers included “The Eiger Sanction" (1972), which was made into a film with Clint Eastwood in 1975. He used at least 5 pseudonyms for his books on various subjects. These included Nicholas Seare, Benat LeCagot and Edoard Moran.
(SFC, 12/17/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 14, In Canada at least one shot fired through a door at police responding to a routine call in Laval, Quebec, left Valerie Gignac, a 25-year-old woman officer, dead and led to an eight-hour armed standoff that ended with the arrest of a paroled convict.
(CP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accepted an EU plan to pull troops from rebel territories to revive peace talks.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 14, The UN Security Council agreed to Eritrea's demand to withdraw Americans, Canadians and Europeans from the peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with Ethiopia.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, The French government said Eiffag SA, Vinci SA and Spain’s Abertis Infraestructuras SA will buy its stakes in 3 toll-road companies raising $17.7 billion to help cut France’s national debt.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 14, Iran's hard-line president lashed out with a new outburst at Israel on, calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth" used as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Irish Ferries and Ireland’s largest labor union reached a deal over plans to replace 543 Irish workers with lower paid EU employees. Irish Ferries will reflag ships to avoid the jurisdiction of Irish employment law.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 14, Israel’s the Defense Ministry said it has approved construction of hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements, confirming what would be a violation of the U.S.-backed peace plan.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, The Israeli military fired a missile at a car in northern Gaza it said was packed with militants about to carry out an attack. Four Palestinians were killed and four were wounded.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Japan’s space agency said the return of its Hayabusa probe would be delayed until June, 2010, due to a thruster problem.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A19)
2005 Dec 14, The 1st East Asia Summit was held successfully in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
(www.aseansec.org/18104.htm)(Econ, 12/17/05, p.40)
2005 Dec 14, Officials said Mexico and the US broke up a counterfeiting ring that printed an estimated $5 million in fake $100 bills in Mexico and sold them across the border.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, A Nepalese soldier in Nagarkot ended an argument with a group of villagers by spraying them with bullets, killing at least 11 people. 19 civilians were injured.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 14, In South Africa several hundred Sesotho-speaking Soweto orphans on a beach holiday clashed with police in Durban after officers failed to arrest several Zulu-speaking youths who accosted 4 girls and threatened rape.
(SFC, 12/17/05, p.A9)
2005 Dec 14, South Korean farmers clashed with police outside a World Trade Organization meeting for a second day as the US blamed the EU for holding up stalled global trade talks.
(AP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 14, Tanzania voted for president and Parliament. Jakaya Kikwete took 80% of the vote. The ruling party of the Revolution (CCM) won 206 of 232 parliamentary seats.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A1)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.50)
2005 Dec 14, In the UAR Abu Dhabi overhauled business ownership laws allowing foreigners to own 100% of businesses in special economic zones.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2006 Dec 14, President George W. Bush named eight more countries to receive US assistance for malaria prevention and treatment in Africa, where the disease kills a million people a year, and asked Europeans to do more to help.
(Reuters, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, A US blue-ribbon panel on education recommended a radical overhaul that would include ending high school at Grade 10.
(WSJ, 12/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 14, Cisco Systems Inc. announced a $50 million investment in the newly public China Communications Services Corporation Ltd., making the US network-equipment maker the largest foreign investor in CCS.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Ahmet Ertegun (83), the founder of Atlantic Records, died. He helped define American music on the label that popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones. In 2011 Robert Greenfield authored “The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun."
(AP, 12/15/06)(SSFC, 11/27/11, p.F4)
2006 Dec 14, Actor Mike Evans (57), who'd played Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons," died in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2006 Dec 14, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded street near a police vehicle outside the city of Qalat, killing four civilians and wounding 25 people.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Australian flag carrier and national icon Qantas accepted an increased 11.1-billion-dollar (8.7 billion US) offer from a private equity group, a day after rejecting a lower bid.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Australia and France signed an agreement on military cooperation designed to enhance their ability to work together.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, The king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck (51), signed a royal decree giving charge of the kingdom to Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (26) at a special session of the Bhutanese Cabinet in the capital, Thimphu. This was more than a year ahead of schedule.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 14, Botswana's government accepted a court order to allow the Bushmen, the nation's last hunter-gatherers, to live on their ancestral lands. But at the same time, officials imposed tough conditions likely to prevent most or all from returning to the central Kalahari. In 2009 6 Bushmen were convicted of illegally hunting gemsbok and eland in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where no licenses have issued since 2001.
(AP, 12/14/06)(Econ, 8/8/09, p.44)
2006 Dec 14, A British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a 1997 Paris car crash were a "tragic accident" and that allegations of murder are unfounded. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced that it would be dropping its 2-year inquiry into bribes that may or may not have been paid by BAE Systems to secure contracts in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 12/14/06)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.18)
2006 Dec 14, In Egypt police arrested Mohammed Khayrat el-Shater, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood's chief strategist, and at least 140 others in a crackdown after a protest by uniformed students raised fears the Islamist political group is creating a military wing.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, In Georgia the last train carrying military hardware and property owned by units of the Group of Russian Troops left the Tbilisi garrison for Armenia. The last of Russia’s servicemen were to leave the next day. This ended a 200-year-old Russian presence in Tbilisi.
(www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11647105)
2006 Dec 14, In India a government minister said ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after. A recent UNICEF report said 7,000 fewer girls are born each day than population models would indicate due to sex-selected abortions and infanticides.
(Reuters, 12/14/06)(WSJ, 12/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 14, Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped 50-70 people from a major commercial area in central Baghdad, the second mass abduction in the capital in a month. Gunmen stormed a boys' school in the southwestern Alam neighborhood, killing a Shiite guard. 2 US Marines were reported killed in fighting in Anbar province. US-led forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader who was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and housed foreign fighters who carried out suicide bombings.
(AP, 12/14/06)(AP, 12/15/06)(AP, 12/20/06)
2006 Dec 14, Israel ordered the Rafah crossing closed to keep PM Haniyeh from bringing in an estimated $35 million he had collected abroad to help alleviate the Palestinian financial crisis. Israeli officials said Haniyeh could return to Gaza without the money, which it said was to be used for terror attacks. Haniyeh left the funds in Egypt. When Haniyeh finally crossed, unidentified men began firing toward him. One of his bodyguards was killed and his son and 26 others were wounded. Fatah-allied Palestinian security officers arrested a Hamas-linked militant in connection with the killing of a security chief's young children. Palestinian militants fired a rocket into Israel at dawn.
(AP, 12/14/06)(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 14, Myanmar's military junta has told Red Cross officials that the humanitarian group can reopen field offices that the government had ordered shut in October.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 14, In Pakistan government critics alleged that Pakistan was providing sanctuary to Taliban militants and had a policy to project Pakistan's power inside Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 14, South Africa’s cabinet released details of its newly approved codes of good practice for black economic development (BEE). They were mandatory only for government and state-owned companies, but pretty much required for anyone wanting to do business with the state.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.99)(www.dispute.co.za/)
2006 Dec 14, South Korea's Ban Ki-moon formally took the reins of the UN as the institution grappled with internal reforms, volatility in the Middle East and international standoffs over the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Anton Balasingham (68), the top peace negotiator for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, died at his home in London after a battle with cancer.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, In Tanzania Joseph Nzabirinda (49), a former youth organizer accused in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, pleaded guilty to one count of murder before a UN war crimes court, becoming only the seventh defendant to admit his guilt. Amnesty International expressed serious concern that the court has been one-sided in its prosecutions and decried its proposed transfer of cases to the Rwandan judicial system.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 14, Tonga police said they have arrested more than 700 people in connection with a deadly riot that destroyed most of Tonga's capital in November.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2007 Dec 14, New Jersey became the first US state to require flu shots for preschoolers.
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 14, Maria Borrega, a former ticket agent for the Contra Costa County public transit system was extradited from Florida to California and charged with embezzling at least $184,000 from 2002 until her retirement in 2005.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B2)
2007 Dec 14, A man accused of being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in prison for the sexual assaults of two sisters. As of 2008 Mark Goudeau still faced trial for the slayings of eight women and a man in 2005-2006; he has pleaded not guilty.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2007 Dec 14, Frank Morgan (73), jazz alto saxophonist, died at his home in Minneapolis. In the 1960s he played in the storied “warden’s band" at San Quentin State Prison with other prominent musician-inmates that included Art Pepper and Dupree Bolton. In 1991 he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Best Alto Saxophonist.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 14, Australian PM Kevin Rudd and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon jetted into East Timor to lend support to the nation's efforts to stabilize and rebuild after violence last year. Rudd pledged to support the nation's ongoing security needs during the five-hour stop.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The leaders Belarus and Russia pledged closer cooperation on military, economic and foreign policy but gave no indication that the ex-Soviet neighbors were moving closer to a long-discussed full merger.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) confirmed a new case of the livestock disease bluetongue in a cow imported from Germany, two months after an earlier outbreak was said to have been contained.
(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Canada's national police force, criticized for excessive use of Tasers, said that, from now on, officers would only fire the electric stun guns at suspects who are combative or resisting arrest.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Diplomats from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda met in Kampala to discuss border tensions that have triggered deadly clashes on one of Africa's hottest frontiers in the search for oil. The UN said rival factions in Congo are forcibly recruiting hundreds of children and sending them to fight on the front lines of an escalating conflict in the east of the country.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Local newspapers reported that nearly 2,000 Egyptian civil servants have ended a sit-in outside government headquarters in Cairo after winning a battle to change their status and increase their salaries.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, EU leaders held a formal meeting in Brussels, where they agreed in principle to send 1,800 policemen, judges and officials to Kosovo. They also agreed to set up a reflection group to think about challenges facing the EU between 2020 and 2030.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.87)
2007 Dec 14, It was reported that German AIDS researchers have discovered a protein common in semen that boosts the infectious potential of HIV 100,000-fold.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 14, In northern India a bus collided with a train, killing at least 16 people, including nine children on their way to school.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Indonesia, the nation hardest hit by bird flu, announced its 93rd death due to the H5N1 virus. In China, the military in eastern Nanjing banned the sale of poultry this week after a father and son came down with the disease earlier this month. Health officials confirmed the 24-year-old man died from the virus a day before his father, 52, became sick. It was the country's 17th bird flu death. The WHO confirmed Myanmar's first human case of bird flu and praised the secretive country for its quick and open handling of the infection. State media reported a girl (7) was hospitalized on Nov. 27 and released on Dec. 12 in good condition after being treated with the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, In northern and central Iraq US forces targeting al-Qaida in Iraq detained 18 suspects and killed four.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 14, Ayo Fayose of southwestern Ekiti state gave, a Nigerian former state governor, turned himself in to police after more than a year on the run, vowing to defend himself in court against allegations of corruption. High Chief Ekpemupolo, an influential rebel commander in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta, ordered the suspension of peace talks with the government because of military incursions and the arrest of another commander.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, North and South Korea ended three days of talks without an agreement on creating a shared fishing zone to defuse tensions along their disputed sea border.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Hamas gunmen burst into the home of Omar Al-Ghoul, a top Fatah official in Gaza, and arrested him. He was the most senior Fatah politician to be detained since Hamas forces overtook the territory in June. In the West Bank, Abbas' security forces arrested 26 Hamas supporters. 3 people were killed in a mysterious explosion at a Fatah-organized funeral in Gaza City.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Mortar shells rained down on Mogadishu for a second day, killing at least five people. The African Union's new representative for Somalia said he expected more peacekeepers to arrive starting this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, South Korea brought home 195 army medics and engineers from Afghanistan, ending its five-year deployment to help rebuild the war-ravaged country at Washington's request.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Clashes between Sri Lankan soldiers and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the country's embattled north left 31 guerrillas and one soldier dead.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Asus Technology of Taiwan unveiled a $299 version of Eee PC, a 2-pound laptop for kids that stores data on flash memory.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D1)
2007 Dec 14, The UN refugee agency said more than 200 migrants are feared to have drowned at sea in separate incidents off Yemen, Turkey and the Canary Islands so far this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The World Bank convinced 45 countries to give over $25 billion to the world’s poorest state over the next 3 years.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.100)
2007 Dec 14, Zimbabwe reserve bank governor Gideon Gono on said President Robert Mugabe's cronies were fuelling the country's runaway inflation through illicit dealings. Amnesty International said Zimbabwean police are still beating and torturing human rights activists and opponents of the government despite mediation efforts launched by fellow African nations.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2008 Dec 14, Pres. George W. Bush visited Baghdad just 37 days before he hands the war off to President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. At the end of nearly two hours of meetings, Bush defended the war, now in its sixth year, as a reporter threw his shoes at him. The reporter was later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt. Bush then traveled to Afghanistan where he spoke to US soldiers and Marines at a hangar on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base. On March 12 shoe thrower was convicted of assaulting a foreign leader and sentenced to 3 years in prison. On April 7 the sentence was soon reduced to one year. In 2010 Muntadhar al-Zeidi published his first book, entitled "The Last Salute to President Bush."
(AP, 12/14/08)(AP, 12/15/08)(AP, 3/12/09)(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 12/14/10)
2008 Dec 14, It was reported that a 513-page draft version of “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," was circulating among technical reviewers in Baghdad and Washington. It was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction led by Stuart Bowen, a Republican lawyer, and detailed the blunders of reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.A24)
2008 Dec 14, in Afghanistan a bomb hidden in a wooden cart exploded in Kandahar, killing three police officers and wounding 11 people.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Orascom Telecom, an Egyptian company, said it will launch 3G mobile telephone service in North Korea on Dec 15, after winning the contract to build the advanced network in a country where private cell phones are banned.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Eva Habil (53) became Egypt's first female mayor. The Christian lawyer, beat five male candidates, including her younger brother, to become mayor of the predominantly Coptic Christian town of Komboha in southern Egypt.
(AFP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, An Egyptian bus crowded with passengers, many of them students, veered off the road into a canal south of Cairo, killing 59 passengers.
(AP, 12/14/08)(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel met with German ministers, business executives and labor leaders to chart a course through the financial crisis.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Gaza City an estimated 300,000 supporters of Hamas gathered to mark 21 years since the organization’s founding. Israel closed its crossing with Gaza to journalist in response to rocket fire over the weekend.
(SFC, 12/15/08, p.A14)
2008 Dec 14, In Mexico gunmen staged four attacks on police within a half-hour period, killing four officers in Ciudad Juarez, the border city overrun by drug violence.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 14, On the Niger-Mali border Tuareg rebels of the Front for the Forces of Redress (FFR) kidnapped Robert Fowler, a Canadian UN special envoy, and Louis Guay, a Canadian diplomat, along with their local driver. Days later the FFR made contradictory statements both claiming and condemning responsibility. On March, 2009, rebels released the driver. The Canadian diplomats were released in April, 2009.
(AP, 12/16/08)(http://tinyurl.com/djsmd7)(AP, 4/23/09)
2008 Dec 14, In the northeastern Philippines an overcrowded ferry capsized just short of its destination in rough seas, causing terrified passengers to leap into the sea. At least 30 people drowned.
(AP, 12/15/08)(AP, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Russia police thwarted an anti-Kremlin protest organized by Garry Kasparov's opposition group, seizing demonstrators and shoving them into trucks. They detained at least 25 people including the group's co-leader.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, It was reported that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns a double-decker "flying palace" and recently raised his bet on Citigroup, lost $4 billion in the past year.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Sudanese officials said several thousand civilians have fled the town of Abyei after renewed clashes in the disputed oil district where fighting this year raised fears of a return to civil war.
(AFP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Syria former US President Jimmy Carter met with Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, for the second time this year.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Voters in Turkmenistan cast ballots in a parliamentary election hailed by the government as an exercise in democracy but dismissed by critics as a sham.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo launched an offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army bases based in eastern Congo in an attempt to end one of the continent's longest and most brutal wars.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2009 Dec 14, Citigroup Inc. said it is repaying $20 billion in bailout money it received from the Treasury Department, freeing the banking giant from the close scrutiny and pay restrictions that came with the rescue program. The government will also sell its stake in the company. Hours later Wells Fargo announced plans to sell $10.4 billion in new stock to help repay all $25 billion in bailout aid.
(AP, 12/14/09)(SFC, 12/15/09, p.D1)
2009 Dec 14-2009 Dec 17, In northeastern Congo at least 321 civilians were killed in a massacre by the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army in the Makombo area. Villagers that escaped their LRA captors were sent back with their lips and ears cut off as a warning to others of what would happen if they tried to talk. News of the massacre was not made public until March 27, 2010.
(AP, 3/27/10)
2009 Dec 14, Exxon Mobil Corp. said it will buy XTO Energy Inc in an all-stock transaction valued at about $30 billion, in a bid that thrusts the oil giant to the forefront of North America's fast-growing natural gas industry.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Researchers from US Santa Barbara and the Univ. of Mich published a study describing their synthetic red blood cells, which are capable of delivering medicine, oxygen or MRI contrast agents throughout the body.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A28)
2009 Dec 14, Dr. Walter Stamm (b.1945), a pioneer in the treatment of urinary tract infections, died in Seattle. He demonstrated that many cases of PID are caused by Chlamydia trachomatis and developed a test for the organism.
(SSFC, 12/27/09, p.C8)
2009 Dec 14, In Afghanistan 16 policemen were killed in two separate attacks. 8 police were killed by militants in Baghlan province. Taliban fighters attacked an outpost in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, killing another 8 policemen.
(AP, 12/14/09)(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 14, Austria’s Finance Minister Josef Proell said Austria will nationalize the Hypo Group Alpe-Adria to prevent its collapse. The bank with assets across the Balkans went on to lose $634 million in the first half of 2010.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.63)
2009 Dec 14, In Bolivia’s presidential runner-up Manfred Reyes Villa crossed over the Peruvian border and then flew to the US the following day to escape election-fraud charges.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 14, Human Rights Watch said a UN-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a nine-month period.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Denmark China, India and other developing nations boycotted UN climate talks, bringing negotiations to a halt with their demand that rich countries discuss much deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. Representatives from 135 developing countries said they refused to participate in any formal working groups at the 192-nation summit until the issue was resolved. African nations agreed to resume UN climate talks in Copenhagen after a half-day suspension, accusing rich countries of trying to kill the existing Kyoto Protocol.
(AP, 12/14/09)(Reuters, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, The Dubai government said it will pay 4.1 billion dollars to cover maturing Islamic bonds issued by its Nakheel property developer after receiving a 10-billion-dollar handout from oil-rich Abu Dhabi.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Egypt a 2-day regional conference ended addressing for the first time the once taboo topic of sexual harassment. Activists said the sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world was driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 14, Cyclone Mick hit Fiji. Thousands of villagers fled to shelters as the tropical cyclone battered the South Pacific nation, causing flooding, damaging homes and power lines, and killing three people.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 14, India's inflation rate jumped to its highest level in 10 months, according to official data, raising pressure on the central bank to begin reversing deep interest rate cuts. The wholesale inflation rate climbed by a larger-than-expected 4.78% in November from a year earlier after rising by 1.34% in October.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed more anti-government protests as the authorities announced several arrests over a reported insult to Islamic revolution founder Ayatollah Khomeini.
(AF P, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Gulf leaders arrived in Kuwait for a two-day annual summit with the global recession's impact on their economies, fighting in Yemen and Iran's nuclear drive high on the agenda.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Morocco charged that Aminatou Haidar, a Sahrawi activist on hunger strike in Spain's Canary Islands, is part of a "systematic, methodical plot devised by Algeria." Haidar (42) has been on hunger strike for almost a month on Lanzarote, after being refused entry to the Western Sahara, which is territory occupied by and claimed by Morocco.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Nigeria 23 people burned to death when a bus carrying mourners to a funeral collided with a truck on a road in southwest Oyo state.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged downtown Gaza City to mark the 22nd anniversary of the group's founding. Hamas PM Ismail Haniya told tens of thousands of Hamas supporters his group remains committed to the elimination of Israel.
(AP, 12/14/09)(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Rwanda Valerie Bemeriki, a former journalist, was sentenced to life in prison for her role in inciting genocide, in the latest of a series of trials for the 1994 slaughter.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Somalia a community leader said an explosion of an old land mine has killed six children from the same family near the border with Ethiopia.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, Spain’s National Court in Madrid found 11 men guilty of belonging to a terrorist organization and sentenced them to up to 14 years in prison. 9 were of Pakistani nationality or origin and 2 were from India. They had been accused of planning attacks in Barcelona.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 14, Sudanese police fired tear gas, used water cannons and rounded up dozens of opposition supporters in a bid to halt a pro-democracy rally outside parliament.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 14, The World Health Organization (WHO) said polio has re-emerged in several African countries where it had been eradicated, at the start of a conference on child immunization in Zimbabwe.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2010 Dec 14, The US Coast Guard named Rear. Adm. Sandra Stosz (50) to lead its academy at New London, Conn., beginning next summer.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A16)
2010 Dec 14, The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. to hand over private messages, billing addresses and connection records of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other alleged associates, including the US Army intelligence analyst suspected of handing classified information to the site and a high-profile Icelandic parliamentarian. A second document, dated Jan. 5, unsealed the court order.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2010 Dec 14, In Arizona a shootout between border patrol agents and bandits near the border with Mexico left American agent Brian A. Terry (40) dead and a suspect wounded. On May 6, 2011, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes of El Fuerte, Mexico, was indicted for 2nd degree murder. On July 9, 2012, a federal grand jury indictment named 6 people involved in Terry’s killing. A $1 million reward was offered to help track 4 fugitives in the case. On Feb 10, 2014 Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/16/10)(SFC, 5/7/11, p.A4)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A6)(SFC, 2/11/14, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In California a mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV was killed and six others were wounded in a gunbattle at a strip mall in south Sacramento. A 2nd victim, Marvion Barksdale (20), died at a hospital of his injuries.
(AP, 12/15/10)(SFC, 12/16/10, p.E3)
2010 Dec 14, In Florida gunman Clay A. Duke opened fire at a school board meeting in Panama City. He killed himself following an exchange of shots with a security guard.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 14, In Nevada an armed bandit escaped on a motorcycle after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips from the Bellagio resort. On Feb 3 police identified suspect Anthony M. Carleo (29) of Las Vegas as the bandit. Carleo was booked under the name Anthony M. Assad. On Aug 23, 2011, Carleo was sentenced to at least 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A7)(SFC, 8/24/11, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In Missouri Secret Santa II hit the streets in a long-standing Kansas City tradition of handing out $100 bills, sometimes several at a time, to unsuspecting strangers in thrift stores, food pantries and shelters.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A new US survey said about 6% of high school seniors reported smoking marijuana daily.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 14, San Jose, Ca., adopted the strictest ban on plastic bags in the state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.C3)
2010 Dec 14, In southern Afghanistan a NATO service member died from a roadside bomb. Jordanian-Palestinian militant Mahmoud Abu Reidah (38) was killed by US forces. An al-Qaida operative better known as Abu Rasmi, he was granted political asylum in Britain in 1998.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 14, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos started a historic first state visit to South Africa, a trip aimed at ending decades-long enmity between two of the region's major economies.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Bangladesh a devastating blaze raced through a garment factory near the capital, killing at least 29 people and injuring more than 100.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A report, "High and Dry," by the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organization and the Shan Women's Action Network, said local trade and transport on the river in northern Myanmar near a border trade crossing with China has been severely affected by unpredictable daily changes in the water level since the completion in mid-2010 of the 360-foot (110-m) tall Longjiang Dam about 19 miles (30 km) upstream.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said that Guillermo Farinas, whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of Cuban political dissidents, would be represented by an empty chair at the midweek ceremony to award the Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Amnesty International accused the European Union and Libya of cooperating to prevent migrants from Africa from reaching Europe.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Haiti Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, the popular singer-turned-presidential candidate, called for the electoral commission to be replaced and the vote redone with all the original candidates involved. His apparent loss in flawed elections helped spark days of rioting.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In India a bus carrying wedding guests plunged into a reservoir killing 29 people in Karnataka state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 14, Israel barred a group of Palestinian firefighters who helped battle the country's worst wildfire from attending a ceremony in their honor, the latest in a series of embarrassments over Israel's handling of the blaze.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Italy protesters set cars alight and hurled cobblestones at police in chaotic scenes in central Rome after PM Silvio Berlusconi won a crucial confidence vote in parliament. Over 100 people were injured including around police.
(AFP, 12/14/10)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.95)
2010 Dec 14, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi pushed again his dream for a sole African government and was backed by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade as he urged the creation of a single African army.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Mexico’s death toll in drug-related violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez rose to 3,000 this year after 2 men were shot dead on a street.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Nigerian official said Nigeria has negotiated a 250 million dollar settlement deal that would see it drop charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In the central Philippines suspected communist guerrillas killed 10 army soldiers returning to their camp after being recalled from combat two days before a Christmas cease-fire. A boy (9) also was killed in the crossfire when the New People's Army guerrillas detonated land mines then opened fire on the soldiers near where villagers were swimming in a river in Northern Samar province.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Sri Lanka official said security forces have stepped up a campaign to arrest some 50,000 military deserters, after reports that absent soldiers were increasingly involved in crime.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Sudanese authorities arrested about 30 women who tried to hold a protest in Khartoum against the brutal police whipping of a young woman shown in a video posted on YouTube and charged them with disrupting public order.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, The IMF said Togo's foreign debt will be slashed more than 80% after the African nation took steps to recover from economic crisis.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked congress to grant him special powers to enact laws by decree for one year, just before a new legislature takes office with a larger contingent of opposition lawmakers.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2011 Dec 14, A new US federal government report said one of every 15 high school students smokes marijuana on a near daily basis, as alcohol, cigarette and drug use continued a slow decline.
(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A9)
2011 Dec 14, Time Magazine named “The Protester" as the person of the year.
(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A1)
2011 Dec 14, In NYC advertising executive Suzanne Hart (41) was killed in a freak elevator mishap at 285 Madison Avenue. Hart was stepping onto the elevator on the first floor when either her foot or leg became caught in the closing doors. The car then rose abruptly, dragging her body into the shaft and killing her. Investigators later found that a key safety mechanism was turned off.
(AP, 12/15/11)(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A9)(SFC, 2/28/12, p.A5)
2011 Dec 14, In Afghanistan Massoud Khan, district chief of Khanishin, Helmand province, was killed in a roadside bombing along with two bodyguards.
(SFC, 12/15/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 14, Algeria passed a media law that drew scorn from journalists, rights activists and opposition legislators who charged that it restricts freedom of expression. The law promises press freedom but also lists 12 areas in which journalists must tread carefully to avoid undermining Algeria's national identity, sovereignty and security and the country's economic interests.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Colombia's government and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime released a new study that said more than 3,000 square miles (800,000 hectares) of Colombia's woodlands have been cleared since 1981 in the planting and destruction of drug crops. According to the UN, Colombia had 240 square miles (62,000 hectares) of coca under cultivation last year.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, CongoDRC opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi's party called for mass protests to "protect" the victory he claims to have won in disputed presidential polls.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Egyptians turned out in large numbers to vote in the second round of parliamentary elections that have become a stiff competition between dominant Islamist parties likely to steer the country in a more religious direction. A military court sentenced a political activist to two years in prison after convicting him of criticizing the armed forces and publishing false information. Maikel Nabil Sanad was arrested in March and sentenced to three years, but the case was appealed and sent for retrial.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, European Parliament lawmakers blocked a deal allowing special access for EU fishermen to Moroccan waters, prompting Rabat to issue an immediate ban on European fishing boats. European lawmakers said they wanted to wait until the interests of Western Sahara trawlers were taken on board before agreeing to a 12-month extension.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Guyana a 34-year-old woman told reporters in the South American country that Chief Henry Greene took her to a hotel and raped her. She alleges the incident occurred in late November. The US revoked Greene's visa in 2006 over alleged links to drug trafficking. Greene was soon placed on leave and in January Jamaica sent a team of detectives to probe the rape allegations.
(AP, 12/15/11)(AP, 1/5/12)
2011 Dec 14, An Indian newspaper reported that plans were being finalized for a Taliban office in the Gulf state of Qatar.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, Israeli police detained six Jewish extremists following a series of attacks on mosques and Israeli military bases. Unknown arsonists torched an inactive Jerusalem mosque, provoking calls in Israel for a more effective crackdown on Jewish extremists.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Italian far-right author Gianluca Casseri (50) shot dead two Senegalese men and wounded three others before killing himself in a daylight shooting spree in Florence that prompted outpourings of grief.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Kashmiri shopkeeper Tariq Ahmad Bhat died two weeks after anti-India protesters allegedly beat him for refusing to close his store during a strike. Four people accused of beating him have been arrested.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Mexico 3 bodies were discovered in Guadalajara, two days after two college students in nearby Guerrero state were killed in a clash with police after student protesters hijacked buses, used them to block a highway and fought officers with rocks and sticks. The Jalisco state prosecutors office said it is investigating whether the bodies belong to any of five people who were reported missing after they complained last week that the student group was demanding protection money for allowing them to sell snacks outside a campus.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Romania two self-professed witches were detained on blackmail and extortion charges in a high-profile case involving a TV star and reportedly other public figures.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Russia a loyalist to PM Vladimir Putin who served as the speaker of parliament resigned in a move that appeared to be part of the government's effort to stem public anger over alleged fraud in this month's parliamentary election.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Russia Boris Chertok (99), a rocket designer who played a key role in engineering Soviet-era space programs, died in Moscow. He was closely involved in putting the world's first satellite in orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, and preparing the first human flight to space by Yuri Gagarin on April, 12 1961.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Somalia a rowdy parliament session degenerated into fistfights and kicks after disagreements over the sacking of speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan. Supporters of Sheikh Adan argued that his impeachment a day earlier did not follow procedure.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Amnesty International accused Spanish authorities of using racial and ethnic profiling, with police singling out people who are not white in order to meet quotas.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, In Sri Lanka thousands of produce traders protested for a third day, halting business at the capital's central market over a new rule demanding that fruit and vegetables be transported in plastic baskets rather than sacks.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, Syrian Army defectors killed at least eight Syrian troops in an act of revenge after security forces shot dead five civilians.
(AFP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 14, The Tanzania-based court said it has overturned several convictions against former Rwandan Ministry of Defense director Col. Theoneste Bagosora. The court reduced his life sentence to 35 years. Bagosora had been sentenced in 2008 at the age of 67. The court also reduced the life sentence of former military commander Anatole Nsengiyumva to 15 years and released him for time served.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 14, Tunisia's new president, Moncef Marzouki, asked the secretary general of the Islamist party that dominated last month's elections to form the next government. Hamadi Jebali has three weeks to form the next interim government.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2012 Dec 14, The Obama administration announced a new air pollution standard. This marked the first time that the EPA has tightened the soot standard since it was established in 1997.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A8)
2012 Dec 14, The Pentagon said the US will send two batteries of Patriot missiles and 400 troops to Turkey as part of a NATO force meant to protect Turkish territory from potential Syrian missile attack.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, The US DEA said over 2 dozen people have been charged in San Diego in a scheme to smuggle drugs into California from Mexico. The bust netted over 1,000 pouns of methamphetamine, 200 pounds of cocaine and 28 pound of heroin.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A7)
2012 Dec 14, Adam Lanza (20) killed 27 people, 18 of them small children, in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., about 65 miles northeast of New York City. He killed his mother at home before the rampage at the school. Lanza used a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle made by Remington.
(http://tinyurl.com/bun8wgb)(AP, 12/15/12)(SFC, 3/15/19, p.A8)
2012 Dec 14, In San Francisco Frederick Dozier Jr. (33), a school cafeteria worker, was sentenced to 373 years to life in prison for assaulting 3 women in the Mission District in 2011.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.C11)
2012 Dec 14, Oklahoma police arrested Sammie Eaglebear Chavez (18) on charges that he had plotted to shoot students at Bartlesville High School.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.A12)
2012 Dec 14, In Belgium twin 45-year-old men, whose names were not been made public, were legally put to death by lethal injection at the Brussels University Hospital in Jette. They were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again.
(abcNews, 1/14/13)
2012 Dec 14, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Canada will crack down on what it says is a wave of fake refugee claims from European Union nationals and deny the right of appeal to those deemed to be bogus applicants.
(Reuters, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Chile's government apologized to a lesbian judge who was denied custody of her three daughters in 2004 because she is gay. Chile said it will pay Magistrate Karen Atala $70,000 and grant her medical and psychological treatment.The ruling followed Chile's approval this year of an anti-discrimination law.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, China provided the United Nations with detailed claims to waters in the East China Sea, apparently padding out its legal argument in an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Chinese authorities said they have arrested a legislator found to have four wives. Li Junwen (43), an appointed representative from Xiaodian and the Communist Party head of the village of Xiquan, Shanxi province, also had 10 children, and had been detained on suspicion of document forgery.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In China Min Yongjun (36), a resident of Guangshan, burst into the home of an elderly woman and stabbed her with a kitchen knife. He then took a kitchen knife and hacked at more 22 children as they entered their rural Chenpeng Village Primary School. On Dec 13, 2013, Yongjun was sentenced to death.
(AP, 12/15/12)(AFP, 12/13/13)
2012 Dec 14, Egyptian Islamists clashed with opponents of a draft constitution in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria after an ultraconservative cleric called on worshippers to approve the charter in a referendum.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, French mountaineer Maurice Herzog died (93), six decades after his 1950 Annapurna climb made him a household name.
(AP, 12/15/12)
2012 Dec 14, A boat capsized early today off the northeastern island of Lesvos, near the Turkish coast. Greek coast guard officials found the bodies of 18 Asian people who were trying to cross illegally into Greece.
(AP, 12/15/12)
2012 Dec 14, Guinean authorities and trade unions agreed to give civil servants a pay raise of 50 percent over the next year. The raises would be applied in three phases of 10, 15 and 25 percent before the end of 2013.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 14, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced he is resigning a day after an indictment for breach of trust was filed against him by the country's attorney general.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev (72) announced a raft of reforms for this energy-rich, authoritarian state, ranging from having more direct local and regional elections to imposing the use of the Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Kenya’s government decided that all refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia must return to the large refugee camp complex known as Dadaab, a seemingly endless expanse of refugee housing on the sands of Kenya close to the Somali border. More than 400,000 refugees live in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, A magnitude 6.4 earthquake was recorded at 2:36 a.m. in the Pacific Ocean 167 miles west southwest of Rosarito, Mexico. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Russian investigators accused Alexei Navalny (36), a prominent opposition leader, and his brother of fraud and money-laundering, intensifying legal pressure on the anti-Kremlin protest movement as it prepares to hold its next big demonstration this weekend.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In Russia Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a former senior police officer, was found guilty for his role in the slaying of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A6)
2012 Dec 14, In Serbia a judge ordered Miroslav Miskovic (67), the country’s richest, man to be held in prison for 30 days pending trial on suspicion of corruption. Miskovic was arrested Dec 12 along with his son Marko and eight others in connection with the privatization of several Serbian road construction companies in 2005. The government hailed his arrest as proof that no one is above the law in the graft-plagued country.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In Somalia a suicide car bomb explosion in Mogadishu killed only the bomber. 3 bystanders were wounded.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, Tunisia’s justice minister said Sakhr Materi, the son-in-law of former Pres. Zine al-Abidine Ban Ali, was arrested in the Seychelles on an int’l. warrant over the embezzlement of state funds last year.
(SFC, 12/15/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 14, Envoys from nearly 90 nations signed the first new UN telecommunications treaty since the Internet age, but the US and other Western nations refused to join after claiming it endorses greater government control over cyberspace. The Int’l. Telecommunications Union (ITU) has no technical powers to change how the Internet operates or force countries to follow its nonbinding accords.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 14, In Yemen 2 militants were killed in airstrikes in southern Abyan province. 4 militants died when the military shelled their positions in Marib province, to the east of Sanaa.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2013 Dec 14, In southern California 4 people died in a car crash in Compton as a car with 3 male occupants fled sheriff’s deputies and ran a red light striking another car driven by a woman in her 20s.
(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A12)
2013 Dec 14, Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in New Delhi he no longer "trusts" the United States, accusing the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in his troubled homeland.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Brazil was rocked by a fourth fatal World Cup stadium accident as a young construction worker fell to his death.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Peter O'Toole (b.1932), the star of "Lawrence of Arabia," died in London.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic a mob in Bangui hacked a Muslim motorcyclist to death in the Combattant district not far from the airport. Moments later residents brandished the man's cut-off hands.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Chinese state media said authorities have detained 1,300 people for producing and selling fake medicine as part of an intensified government crackdown.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, China successfully carried out the world's first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades. The Chang’E 3 deployed a small rover called Yutu (Jade Rabbit), which traveled for 114 meters before getting stuck.
(AP, 12/14/13)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.82)
2013 Dec 14, In CongoDRC unknown assailants over the last 24 hours killed people 21 in the villages of Musuku and Mwenda, in the eastern territory of Beni. The victims, including women and children, were found hacked to death and some were mutilated.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Egypt an Egyptian Copt was sentenced to life in prison as 10 others got jail terms from six months to 15 years over sectarian deaths in April.
(AFP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has successfully sent a monkey into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Britain's MI6.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Iran said it has canceled a planned $500 million loan to Pakistan to build part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Islamic Republic.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Iraq bombings and a shooting killed 12 people around Baghdad.
(AP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Japan and Southeast Asian countries (ASEAN) called for freedom of the air and sea, as China's military assertiveness raises regional tensions.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Kenya a suspected grenade attack on a minibus in Nairobi killed 4 people near a Somali-dominated area of the city. 2 more died of their wounds the next day. One person was killed and three injured in a double explosion at a market in the town of Wajir.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AFP, 12/15/13)(AP, 12/15/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mali a car bomb killed two UN Senegalese peacekeepers and destroyed the only operating bank in the northern town of Kidal, one day before a second round of parliamentary elections.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Mexico 10 charred bodies were found in a burnt-out truck in southern Oaxaca state. Another corpse was found shot in the head a short distance away from the truck near the town of Santiago Juxtlahuaca.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Rescue workers evacuated more than 5,000 Gaza Strip residents from homes flooded by four days of heavy rain, using fishing boats and heavy construction equipment to pluck some of those trapped from upper floors.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, In Portugal a group of students plunged into the winter surf off Meco, a small village south of Lisbon where they had rented a house. Over the next 12 days their corpses were discovered one by one. Four women and two men perished, all aged between 21 and 24.
(AFP, 1/28/14)
2013 Dec 14, In Thailand leaders of the protest movement trying to overthrow the government outlined their aims at an armed forces seminar, but military leaders declined to take sides or say if a February election should take place.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tunisia's political parties chose Industry Minister Mehdi Jomaa (50) to head a government of independent figures aimed at pulling the country out of a months-long crisis.
(AFP, 12/14/13)(SSFC, 12/15/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 14, Dissident Ugandan General David Sejusa launched an opposition party in London and said it was time for President Yoweri Museveni to end his 28-year rule, a fresh challenge to a leader who is now among the longest serving in Africa.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Ukrainians rallied in support of President Viktor Yanukovich in central Kiev, separated by a line of riot police from anti-government protesters who have camped out for weeks in a nearby square. Authorities conceded to one of the demands of weeks-long protests, opening investigations against four top officials and suspending two of them from office over the violent police response to a small demonstration last month.
(Reuters, 12/14/13)(AP, 12/14/13)
2014 Dec 14, In Algeria 9 illegal migrants from Niger were killed when their bus and a truck collided in Ghardaia as they were being repatriated.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In China 10 miners were found dead hours after they were trapped underground in an explosion at a mine in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Egypt's stock market plunged by 22 billion Egyptian pounds (just over $3 billion) in a single day of trading as low oil prices dragged down regional economies.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Egypt gunmen killed 2 policemen in a drive-by shooting in El-Arish the Sinai Peninsula.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, An Egyptian fishing boat crashed into a container ship in the Gulf of Suez, killing 13 fishermen. The captain and first officer of the Kuwaiti container ship were soon detained.
(AP, 12/14/14)(Reuters, 12/16/14)
2014 Dec 14, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that French forces have either killed or captured nearly 200 jihadists in the Sahel region of west Africa in the past year.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Haiti’s PM Laurent Lamothe announced that he was resigning along with several ministers in the wake of violent anti-government protests and a commission's call for him to step down.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition cruised to a big election win, but record low turnout could weaken his claim of a mandate for reflationary policies to revive the economy.
(Reuters, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Lebanon scores of families, friends and supporters of some two dozen Lebanese police and soldiers held captive by militants continued to rally in central Beirut, calling for their quick release.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, The minister of oil in Libya's Tripoli-based government said the Sidra terminal, the country's largest oil shipping terminal, has been shut down due to clashes between rival militias.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Mauritius' president named veteran politician Sir Anerood Jugnauth as prime minister, after the 84-year old won a landslide victory taking nearly three-quarters of seats in parliament.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In northeastern Nigeria Islamic extremists killed 35 people and kidnapped at least 185 in an attack on Gumburi, 20 km from Chibok, the town where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped earlier this year.
(AP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 14, In North Korea US citizen Arturo Pierre Martinez (29) from El Paso, Texas, held a press conference in Pyongyang to denounce his own country's political and economic systems. He said he had crossed illegally into North Korea from China in November.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Norwegian police said they have warned politicians about possible eavesdropping of cellphone calls after several listening devices were reportedly found in central Oslo, including near government buildings and Parliament.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Peru about 190 nations agreed on the building blocks of a new-style global deal due in 2015 to combat climate change amid warnings that far tougher action will be needed to limit increases in global temperatures.
(Reuters, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, A Saudi security officer was killed in an operation to free three foreign laborers taken hostage by a gunman in Riyadh. The attacker was wounded and captured in the shoot-out. A Saudi policeman was shot and killed in the eastern town of al-Awamiya by an unidentified assailant.
(AP, 12/15/14)
2014 Dec 14, Sierra Leone confirmed that Dr. Victor Willoughby has tested positive for Ebola, the 12th local physician to become infected — 10 of whom have died.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In northwestern Syria rebels and al-Qaida militants took over at least three government checkpoints around a pair of military bases. At least 15 pro-government troops and 8 opposition fighters were killed in the clashes. Government forces killed at least 21 rebels in the Handarat area.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, Turkish police arrested Ekrem Dumanli, the editor of the country's biggest selling newspaper (Zaman), and at least two dozen other media figures in a new crackdown on supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's exiled rival, Fethullah Gulen.
(AFP, 12/14/14)
2014 Dec 14, In Uganda renegade four-star general David Sejusa was officially received by the head of Uganda's domestic security agency. He had sat on Uganda's military high command before fleeing last year to exile in London.
(AP, 12/14/14)
2015 Dec 14, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens" premiered in Los Angeles. It opened in US theaters on Dec 17. Box office revenues crossed the billion-dollar mark in 12 days.
(Econ, 12/19/15, p.25)(SFC, 12/25/15, p.A5)
2015 Dec 14, In Michigan the mayor of Flint declared a state of emergency, acknowledging that switches in the city's water sourcing have caused high lead levels in drinking water. In October, the city switched back to the Detroit system, but lead levels were still "well above" the acceptable federal level in many homes.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, Lillian Vernon (b.1927), founder of the Lillian Vernon catalog business, died in New York. In 1987 Lillian Vernon was the first company owned by a woman to be listed on the American Stock Exchange.
(SFC, 12/16/15, p.D8)
2015 Dec 14, In Afghanistan 8 family members, including 5 children aged from two months to five years, were found in the eastern province of Nangahar, each shot once in the head, apparently by three unknown men who had been guests of the family.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, In northern Argentina 43 police officers died and several more were injured when their bus drove off a bridge, plunging into a dry riverbed.
(AFP, 12/14/15)(SFC, 12/14/15, p.A3)
2015 Dec 14, Cameroon security forces armed with guns and arrows killed two young women wearing explosive vests in the northern town of Kolofata, the second raid there in days by suspected Boko Haram militants from neighboring Nigeria.
(Reuters, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic Maouloud Moussa, a spokesman and chief lieutenant for rebel leader Noureddine Adam, proclaimed the Republic of Logone in the town of Kaga-Bandoro. Adam, one of the main leaders of the Seleka rebel coalition, used intimidation in areas under his control to block voting on a crucial Dec 13 constitutional referendum. On Dec 22 Noureddine Adam dropped his opposition to the holding of pivotal elections.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)(Reuters, 12/22/15)
2015 Dec 14, In the Central African Republic Maouloud Moussa, a spokesman and chief lieutenant for rebel leader Noureddine Adam, proclaimed the Republic of Logone in the town of Kaga-Bandoro. Adam, one of the main leaders of the Seleka rebel coalition, used intimidation in areas under his control to block voting on a crucial Dec 13 constitutional referendum.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, The Colombian government and leftist FARC rebels said they have reached a deal on reparations for war victims and could be near a pact on the terms of confinement for ex-combatants who would be tried in special tribunals once a definitive peace agreement is reached.
(Reuters, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Ales Vesely (80), a Czech artist known for his monumental sculptures, was found dead in his Prague apartment.
(AP, 12/16/15)
2015 Dec 14, The Paris Club of creditor nations, led by France, announced a deal under which creditors will cancel $8.5 billion in overdue interest payments in exchange for a promise by Cuba to pay off $2.6 billion of the original debt over the next 18 years.
(SFC, 12/114/15, p.A3)
2015 Dec 14, In Iraq gunmen in Kirkuk shot dead a senior employee of the state-run North Oil Company (NOC), the third company official to be killed in the past four months.
(Reuters, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman was awarded this year's Genesis Prize, the "Jewish Nobel," for his accomplishments as a musician, teacher and advocate for the disabled, organizers of the $1 million prize.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Israel detained Mohammad Abu Sakha (23), a Palestinian circus performer and teacher. Three months later he was still detained without trial.
(AFP, 3/5/16)
2015 Dec 14, In Italy police in Rome said they had seized 3,500 fake Vatican parchments that were being sold to unsuspecting pilgrims taking part in Pope Francis' Holy Year celebrations.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Kosovo’s opposition lawmakers released tear gas in parliament as they once again tried to pressure the government into renouncing deals with Serbia and Montenegro.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Libyan news agencies said the Islamic State jihadist group has executed a woman for "witchcraft" and a man accused of spying in its Libyan stronghold.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Mexican authorities said illegal taps drilled into government pipelines by fuel thieves have risen 55% this year reaching almost 500 per month.
(SFC, 12/15/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 14, Nigerian prosecutors charged former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki (60) with corruption. He pleaded innocent to embezzling $2.1 billion meant to purchase arms to fight Boko Haram, and said some of the money was diverted on the order of former Pres. Goodluck Jonathan to try to get himself re-elected.
(AFP, 12/14/15)(AP, 12/14/15)(SFC, 12/15/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 14, Palestinian Abed Almohsin (21) drove a car into Israelis at a Jerusalem bus stop injuring eight people before being shot dead.
(AFP, 12/14/15)(SFC, 12/15/15, p.A2)
2015 Dec 14, Romanian lawmakers voted to ban all advertising of prescription drugs and radio and television advertising of over-the-counter medicines in a bid to stop what they say is harmful self-diagnosis.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing Russia’s Constitutional Court to decide whether or not to implement rulings of international human rights courts.
(Reuters, 12/15/15)
2015 Dec 14, South Africa's third finance minister in less than a week reassured the country that the economy will be steadied, which saw the currency stabilize.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Spanish police wrapped up an operation in which they seized 3,000 kg (3.3 tons) of cocaine and arrested 11 people, including Spaniards, Britons and Dutch citizens.
(AP, 1/5/16)
2015 Dec 14, A Swedish court sentenced two men to life in prison on terrorism charges over their role in two "cruel and brutal" murders in Syria in 2013. Hassan al-Mandlawi (320 and Al-Amin Sultan (30) both Swedish nationals, were convicted after graphic videos showed them taking part in the killing of two men in the northern city of Aleppo.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Syrian troops recaptured Marj al-Sultan and its airport east of Damascus, more than three years after they were overrun by rebel groups.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In southeastern Turkey 2 protesters were killed in clashes with police in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir amid growing tensions over a days-long curfew.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In Tunisia a lawyer said a court last week sentenced six students to three years in jail each on charges of homosexuality in a judgment condemned by rights activists.
(AFP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, Turkey said it withdrew some of its soldiers from a camp in Iraq, days after Iraq had demanded that Turkish troops immediately leave its territory.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2015 Dec 14, In Yemen fierce fighting was underway between forces loyal to the internationally recognized government and the country's Shiite rebels just hours before an agreed-on truce was supposed to start at midnight. Saudi Col. Abdullah Mohammed al-Sahyan and Emirati officer Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Ketbi were killed in Taiz.
(AP, 12/14/15)
2016 Dec 14, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would choose former Texas governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy, calling him "one of the most successful governors in modern history".
(CSM, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, US Pres. Barack Obama signed into law the Northern Border Security Review Act. It was introduced by Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.
(Econ 6/3/17, p.25)
2016 Dec 14, US and Polish defense officials said the United States has decided to accelerate the deployment of troops to Poland, the Baltic states and Romania as part of raising the security of the region.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A US think tank, citing new satellite imagery, reported that China appears to have installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven of the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to the range of 0.5% to 0.75%, its 2nd raise in the past decade.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C4)
2016 Dec 14, Joshua Samuel Aaron (32), implicated in the theft of details of more than 100 million American bank accounts, was arrested in New York after being extradited from Russia. He had moved to Russia in early 2015.
(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 14, California regulators approved the nation’s first energy-efficiency standards for computers.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.A1)
2016 Dec 14, Harold Gilliam (98), environmental journalist, died in San Francisco. His 1962 book “Island in Time" played an important role in the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
(SSFC, 12/18/16, p.C13)
2016 Dec 14, Alaska Airlines completed its purchase of Virgin America.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C1)
2016 Dec 14, Lucid Motors of Menlo Park, Ca., unveiled a prototype, luxury electric sedan in a ceremony at the company’s Fremont workshop. The car has been designed to challenge Tesla’s Model S.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.C1)
2016 Dec 14, Bosnia’s office for expatriate affairs said Bosnia will expel more than 300 foreigners, most from the Gulf, as illegal residents after they bought property for investment on which they may have evaded taxes.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In Brazil Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns (95) died after a long struggle with lung and kidney problems. Arns, archbishop of Sao Paulo between 1970 and 1998, was one of the Catholic Church's most prominent pro-democracy voices in Latin America.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The Unite union said thousands of cabin crew working for British Airways have voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in a pay dispute and could walk out after Dec 21.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A court in eastern China sentenced Yang Weize, the former Communist Party chief of the major city of Nanjing, to 12-1/2 years in jail, after finding him guilty of corruption.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, China said it will seek the extradition of more than 200 of its citizens arrested in Spain in a crackdown on gangs that ran call centers that swindled 16 million euros ($17 million) from compatriots at home.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Chinese official warned the government could slap a penalty on an unnamed US automaker for monopolistic behavior sending shares downward of US automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The Czech Republic's defense minister said the country's military has decided to purchase Israeli-made radars for its military. The army will pay 2.9 billion koruna ($114 million) for a total of eight ELM 2084 MMR radars made by the Israeli state-run IAI Elta company.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In Ecuador indigenous Shuar protesters attacked the Chinese owned Exploracobres copper mine leaving at least one police officer dead.
(SFC, 12/16/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 14, An Egyptian judicial official said authorities have ordered the assets frozen of the chief of a media company that releases two daily newspapers including the English-language Daily News, over allegations of belonging to the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Euro zone lenders put on hold the implementation of a short-term debt relief deal for Greece after the Greek government proposed to make a one-off payout to pensioners in December.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Two Finnish journalists quit public broadcaster Yleisradio (YLE), saying the company had suppressed critical reporting on politicians including PM Juha Sipila.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, French police detained dozens of Greenpeace protesters who were blocking the Paris headquarters of EDF, the public electricity company that operates the nuclear power plants in France.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In East Jerusalem a Palestinian youth wielding a screwdriver stabbed and lightly wounded two Israeli police officers before being shot and killed.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni won the backing of the fragmented Senate, allowing his government to formally take office as a new threat emerged to the legacy of predecessor Matteo Renzi.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The defense ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia renewed their call for a strong US engagement in the Baltic region amid concerns over the attitude of the incoming Trump administration.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Montenegro's defense minister said the small Balkan country will decide whether to join NATO in a parliamentary vote and not a popular referendum as sought by the opposition and Russia.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Dutch court ruled that a priceless collection of gold artifacts from Crimea that was on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia seized the peninsula must be returned to Ukraine and not Crimea.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Pakistan's military said it has successfully test-fired a revised version of a locally developed medium-range cruise missile, which can strike targets both on land and sea.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Palestinian court sentenced in absentia Mohammed Dahlan, a political foe of President Mahmoud Abbas, to three years in prison for allegedly embezzling $16 million as a Cabinet minister. Dahlan has lived in exile since falling out with Abbas in 2010.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza on the 29th anniversary of the founding of the militant Islamist group Hamas.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.A3)
2016 Dec 14, Spain's Constitutional Court blocked a resolution by the Catalan parliament to hold an independence referendum next September.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, In Syria a cease-fire deal between rebels and the government in the city of Aleppo effectively collapsed, with fighter jets resuming deadly air raids over the opposition's densely crowded enclave in the east of the city.
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The UN said that Islamic State extremists have destroyed the ancient site of Nimrud in Iraq almost beyond recognition.
(SFC, 12/15/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 14, A team of UN investigators said South Sudan is "on the brink of an all-out ethnic civil war which could destabilize the entire region".
(AP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 14, The leader of Yemen's rebel Huthi government accused Britain of war crimes by supplying weapons that Saudi-led forces were using to "bomb the people".
(AFP, 12/14/16)
2017 Dec 14, The Republican-controlled US Federal Communications Commission repealed Obama-era rules requiring all web traffic to be treated equally.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, The US National Labor Relations Board overturned a key Obama-era precedent that had given workers significant leverage in challenging companies like fast-food and hotel chains over labor practices. The 3-2 vote along party lines restored a pre-2015 standard.
(SFC, 12/16/17, p.D4)
2017 Dec 14, Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, which closely tracks developments in the South China Sea, said China has built infrastructure covering 72 acres (28 hectares) in the Spratly and Paracel islands during 2017 to equip its larger outposts to be air and naval bases.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, It was reported that the United States is suspending food and fuel aid for most of Somalia's armed forces over corruption concerns, a blow to the military as African peacekeepers start to withdraw this month.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, California issued the first twenty state licenses for retailers to conduct recreational cannabis sales.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A1)
2017 Dec 14, In southern California the Thomas Fire overnight grew to the fourth-largest blaze of its kind on record, at 242,500 acres (98,140 hectares) burned. One firefighter was killed battling the blaze. Cal Fire said the Thomas Fire was 30 percent contained. The fire has destroyed more than 700 homes since it began on Dec. 4 and now threatened 18,000 structures.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)(SFC, 12/15/17, p.D1)
2017 Dec 14, In the SF Bay Area a Contra Costa jury convicted Fernando Maldonado, a Martinez pastor, of 23 counts of child sexual abuse after he failed to show up at his trail and apparently fled to Mexico with his wife and children. Maldonado had been charged in 2015 with sexual abuse of a girl in his parish. On April 3, 2018, Maldonado was deported from Mexico to face charges in Contra Costa County. On April 13 Maldonado was sentenced to 34 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.D2)(SFC, 4/5/18, p.D3)(SSFC, 4/15/18, p.C3)
2017 Dec 14, Bridgestone Americas celebrated the grand opening of its new Tennessee headquarters building. Bridgestone first moved its primary operation to Nashville from Akron, Ohio, in 1992, four years after completing its merger with Firestone Tire & Rubber.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Delta said that it will order 100 Airbus A321neo jets with a sticker price of $12.7 billion and take an option to buy another 100 jets.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Walt Disney Co. said it had reached a deal with Murdoch to buy 21st Century Fox, including its 39 percent stake in pay-TV giant Sky, for $52.4 billion (44.3 billion euros).
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Argentine police in Buenos Aires clashed with demonstrators protesting reforms to the retirement and pension system.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 14, The defense ministers of Cyprus, Egypt and Greece agreed to step up cooperation in combating drug, weapons and people trafficking in the east Mediterranean and to share information on countering the threat of terrorism.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, The new prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Poland vowed not to give any ground on the divisive issue of hosting refugees as they arrived in Brussels for their first summit of EU leaders.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia announced that they plan to spend around 35 million euros ($41 million) to beef up European Union borders as they come under pressure for refusing to accept refugee quotas.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, EU leaders formally endorsed a pact a pact to fund, develop and deploy armed forces together, known in EU jargon as the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO. Britain may be able to join in later on, but only on an exceptional basis if it provides funds and expertise.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, The EU extended sanctions against Russia because of the stalled peace process in the Ukraine.
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 14, In southern France a regional train sliced open a school bus, killing four children aged 12 or 13 One more student died the next day. 18 other children and the bus driver were injured in the horrific crash at a crossing close to the Spanish border.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, It was reported that the Indonesia Asbestos Ban Network (INA-BAN) estimates at least 4,000 people are directly involved in the manufacturing of asbestos products, but that does not include contract and other non-permanent employees or construction workers.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Iraq hanged 38 Sunni jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences in Nasiriyah prison.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the world's largest generic drugmaker, said it would lay off over a quarter of its workforce as part of a global restructuring meant to salvage its ailing business. The company said 14,000 workers would be let go over the next two years.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Italy’s Senate gave final approval to a law allowing Italians to write living wills and refuse artificial nutrition and hydration, the latest step in the Roman Catholic nation's long-running and agonizing debate over euthanasia and end-of-life issues.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Italian police in Sicily searched the homes and businesses of known allies of mobster Matteo Messina Denaro (55), looking for hidden bunkers where the fugitive godfather may be hiding.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in late August.
(AFP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, In the Netherlands a man (37) was arrested late today in a mosque in Maastricht shortly after a man and a woman were killed and two other people were injured.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, Nigerian state governors approved the release of $1 billion from the country's excess oil account to the government to help fight the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, In Northern Ireland Paul Golding, the leader of the Britain First, a far-right group, was detained along with his deputy Jayda Fransen. Golding was accompanying Fransen to a court appearance related to an anti-Islam speech last August. Britain First recently gained notoriety after US Pres. Donald Trump recirculated unverified anti-Muslim videos it had posted on social media
(SFC, 12/15/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 14, Officials speaking anonymously said Pakistan has ordered 21 foreign aid groups to wrap up their activities and prepare to leave after they failed to re-register under tough regulations introduced two years ago.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Poland's PM Mateusz Morawiecki said Poland will respect the ruling of the European Union's top court on whether the government can continue logging in the primeval forest of Bialowieza that is under an EU environment protection plan.
(Reuters, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, Poland's lawmakers approved much-criticized new rules for local elections that opponents say undermine the independence of the electoral bodies and fairness in voting.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, In Somalia an Islamic extremist suicide bomber disguised as a police officer killed at least 18 people at a police academy in Mogadishu.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, South Sudan's president gave top jobs to three generals facing UN sanctions over alleged violations during a four-year-old civil war.
(Reuters, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 14, Syria's government team at the UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva said that there will be no dialogue with the opposition as long as it insists on the removal of President Bashar Assad.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 14, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for urgent efforts to create conditions for talks on North Korea's growing missile and nuclear threat.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2018 Dec 14, US Pres. Donald Trump picked budget director Mick Mulvaney to be his next chief of staff.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 14, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese hackers have breached US Navy contractors to steal a raft of information, including missile plans, through what some officials describe as some of the most debilitating cyber campaigns linked to Beijing.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, The California Air Resources Board required all state buses to be emission free by 20140. New rules prohibited the purchase of any new gas or diesel-powered public transit buses by 2029.
(SFC, 12/17/18, p.C1)
2018 Dec 14, In Florida Gabino Peralta-Saucedo (43) of Michoacan, an organizer for multiple Mexican drug cartels, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge for his role in smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Mexico into the United States.
(AP, 12/15/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Hawaii ten Indonesian fishermen, who were arrested and charged with attempting to smuggle shark fins, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that they attempted to export the fins. A judge sentenced them to time they already served in jail.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Texas federal Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the US health care law known as Obamacare is unconstitutional -- a ruling that opposition Democrats vowed to appeal. On Dec. 30 O'Connor stayed his ruling to allow for appeals.
(AFP, 12/15/18)(SFC, 12/31/18, p.A5)
2018 Dec 14, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping package of Republican-written legislation that restricts early voting and weakens the incoming Democratic governor and attormey general.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 14, CBS pledged to give $20 million to 16 organizations dedicated to eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace.
(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 14, Brazil launched the first of five navy attack submarines it is building under a $7.6-billion technology-sharing deal struck with France.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, British PM Theresa May left the EU summit exactly as she had arrived -- promising talks to extract reassuring words from EU leaders to help her sell the Brexit deal back home.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Cameroon released nearly 300 people who were arrested in connection with the anglophone crisis, a day after being pardoned by President Paul Biya.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, China announced a 90-day suspension of tariff hikes on $126 billion of US cars, trucks and auto parts following its cease-fire in a trade battle with Washington that threatens global economic growth.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared an "overwhelming victory" in his fight against graft within the ruling Chinese Communist Party, while still vowing that the campaign to weed out deep-seated corruption will continue, state media reported.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Chinese court jailed for 17 years businessman Zhang Tianming, who ran a 100 billion yuan pyramid scheme and organized a rare street protest in Beijing against police investigations into his activities. Nine other staff from his company, Shenzhen-based Shan Xin Hui, were also found guilty.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Egypt's state news agency said the Arab Parliament has urged the Arab League to reinstate Syria's membership, which was suspended seven years ago.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, EU leaders, except for Britain, took a step toward deeper euro zone integration to help prevent future crises, but deep disagreement over some key elements of the plan left issues like a euro zone budget or a deposit guarantee mechanism unresolved.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, EU leaders called for urgent action to combat fake news on the Internet at a summit, saying more needed to be done to safeguard next year's EU election against disinformation.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, It was reported that scientists in Finland have developed what they believe is the world's first vaccine to protect bees against disease, raising hopes for tackling the drastic decline in insect numbers which could cause a global food crisis.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, President Emmanuel Macron called for a return to calm in France after nearly a month of protests by the 'yellow vest' movement against his government's policies which have hit growth and caused widespread disruption.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In France a fourth person died following the Dec. 11 attack in Strasbourg.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Berlin court said the insolvency administrator for bankrupt airline Air Berlin has sued its former largest shareholder, UAE-based airline Etihad, for 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion) in damages.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, An Indonesian official vowed to do more to combat human trafficking after an investigation by the Associated Press revealed that scores of trafficked girls have quietly disappeared from one of the nation's poorest regions.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank as the army intensified a crackdown in response to a pair of deadly shootings believed to have been carried out by Hamas militants. An Israeli soldier was severely wounded by a Palestinian assailant who attacked him with a rock, while Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian demonstrators outside Ramallah. Palestinian Mahmoud Nakhla (18) was shot in the abdomen and died in Ramallah.
(AP, 12/14/18)(SFC, 12/15/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 14, Japan's central government started main reclamation work at a disputed US military base relocation site on the southern island of Okinawa despite fierce local opposition.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Kosovo passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that has angered Serbia, which does not recognize the former province's independence.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced a $5.7-billion, two-year plan to revamp the country's health care system for the poor.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Amsterdam Appeals Court confirmed the maximum 10 years and eight months sentence imposed in March last year on the man identified by Dutch authorities as Aydin C., who was convicted of fraud and blackmail via the internet for the online abuse.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Nicaraguan authorities said they had seized the assets of 10 blacklisted organizations, dealing another blow to civil society after months of protests against President Daniel Ortega that were met with a heavy-handed crackdown.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Nicaragua nine police officers armed with rifles entered the offices of an opposition daily late today and started pushing people, beating others and making fun of reporters after journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro challenged them to take on his media outlet without a search warrant in his online daily Confidencial and news broadcasts Esta Semana and Esta Noche.
(AFP, 12/15/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Nigerian military accused United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) staff of spying for Islamist militants in northeast Nigeria, and suspended the agency's activities there. A new military statement hours later lifted a suspension of UNICEF's work in the extremist-threatened northeast. The reversal came after an emergency meeting with UNICEF representatives.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In southwestern Pakistan six security officials were killed and 14 others wounded in an attack when their convoy came under heavy firing in a mountainous area near the border with Iran. Some 30 militants attacked the Frontier Corps convoy. Four attackers were killed in the shootout.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)(AP, 12/16/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Philippine court found 66 alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf guilty of kidnapping dozens of students, teachers and a Catholic priest in the south in 2000, in the largest single conviction involving the brutal Muslim militant group.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Poland a group of small islands and countries, particularly vulnerable to global warming threatened to block agreement at UN climate talks unless their demands are met. Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, head of the Alliance of Small Island States, said "we are deeply unhappy with the way the talks are going".
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Romanian court rejected a request by Turkey to extradite Kamil Demirkaya, a Turkish journalist it accuses of terrorism, after prosecutors said the case was political.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In Somalia lawmaker Abdishakur Bule was killed in Baidoa in cross fire between security forces and supporters of former al Shabaab leader Mukhtar Robow.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Spain's government announced a plan to spend 7.3 billion euros ($8.2 billion) over the next 10 years on improving its military defense capabilities.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Spanish prosecutors charged pop music star Shakira with tax evasion, alleging she failed to pay more than 14.5 million euros ($16.3 million) between 2012 and 2014. Shakira listed the Bahamas as her official residence for tax purposes while living in Spain.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court rejected PM Mahinda Rajapaksa's bid for an injunction on a lower court's order that barred him and his cabinet from carrying out their roles in government. Rajapaksa planned to resign the next day.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, In eastern Syria Kurdish-led forces seized the Islamic State's main hub of Hajin, a milestone in a massive and costly US-backed operation to eradicate the jihadists from Deir Ezzor province.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, Syrian Kurdish parties said that Turkish threats to attack northern Syria amounted to a "declaration of war" and urged world powers to prevent an assault on the region.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Turkish military said it had killed eight militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in air strikes targeting the Zap, Hakurk and Haftanin regions of northern Iraq.
(Reuters, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 14, A Huthi rebel delegation returned to Yemen's insurgent-controlled capital of Sanaa after wrapping up an initial round of breakthrough UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden.
(AFP, 12/14/18)
2019 Dec 14, Federal officials said two programmers in Las Vegas recently admitted to running two of the largest illegal television and movie streaming services in the country. An FBI investigation led officials to Darryl Polo (36) and Luis Villarino (40) who have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges for operating iStreamItAll, a subscription-based streaming site, and Jetflix, a large illegal TV streaming service.
(USA Today, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 14, Miami Beach parking enforcement Officer Dante Zirio (57) was arrested after police said he extorted a valet company for cash payments in exchange for not enforcing parking violations. He faced two counts each of extortion, bribery and accepting an unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior.
(AP, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 14, In Afghanistan at least one member of an Afghan militia opened fire on his fellow militiamen in central Ghazni province, killing nine people. The Taliban claimed this was a coordinated insurgent assault and that over over two dozen militiamen were killed.
(SSFC, 12/15/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 14, In Argentina Matthew Charles Gibbard (50), a British millionaire property magnate, was shot dead outside a five star hotel after being held up by armed robbers shortly after his arrival in the country. His stepson, Stefan Zone, 28, was shot in the thigh. The perpetrators escaped after the attack.
(AP, 12/15/19)
2019 Dec 14, Hong Kong police arrested three men for testing homemade explosives. Police said the explosives were intended for use during protests.
(SSFC, 12/15/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 14, Indonesian police arrested two men suspected of being part of a ring that poaches and trades in endangered animals and seized from them several lion and leopard cubs and dozens of turtles.
(AP, 12/15/19)
2019 Dec 14, In Iraq hundreds of demonstrators supporting a powerful Iran-backed militia group poured into a central Baghdad plaza, some burning American flags to protest recent US sanctions against key leaders.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, Libyan officials said fighting has raged over the 24-hour period between rebel Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter and an array of militias loosely allied with the UN-supported government based there. Hifter is backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, Libyan intelligence agents arrested journalist Reda Fhelboom at the airport outside the capital Tripoli after he arrived from neighboring Tunisia. Fhelboom is the founder of The Libyan Organization for Independent Media, which works to document rights violations against Libyan journalists, as well as to advocate for independent news media and to combat incitement of violence online. Libya's intelligence body acknowledged the detention four days after his disappearance.
(AP, 12/16/19)(AP, 12/19/19)
2019 Dec 14, New Zealand police said another person has died from their injuries in the deadly volcanic eruption on New Zealand's White Island, bringing the confirmed fatalities to 15.
(Good Morning America, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, Speaking at a conference in the Qatar Malaysia's PM Mahathir Mohamad said US economic sanctions against Iran are illegal and Malaysia does not support them.
(Bloomberg, 12/14/19)
2019 Dec 14, In Sudan a court convicted former President Omar al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption, sentencing him to two years in a minimum security lockup. Al-Bashir is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and genocide linked to the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.
(AP, 12/14/19)
2020 Dec 14, Pres. Donald Trump tweeted that Attorney General Bill Barr will leave his post next week, after tension between the two men over Barr’s refusal to echo Trump’s falsehoods about voter fraud. Jeffrey Rosen, Barr’s deputy, will become the acting attorney general.
(NY Times, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The US Electoral College formally designated President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the election.
(NY Times, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, US officials announced that two members of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) would be sanctioned for their alleged role in the kidnapping and detention of former FBI agent Robert Levinson. The Treasury Department identified Mohammad Baseri and Ahmad Khazai as senior Iranian intel officials involved in Levinson’s kidnapping and disappearance. The Trump administration told family members in 2020 that Levinson had likely died in Iranian custody at some point prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(The Daily Beast, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The US Embassy in Khartoum said that President Donald Trump's administration has removed Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. President Donald Trump gave Congress the statutory 45-day notice of this move in October as part of a deal that involved Sudan paying $335m to US victims of terror attacks.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, California-based video games maker Electronic Arts said it had reached an agreement to buy Codemasters in a deal worth $1.2 billion, trumping an earlier agreement between the British company and rival Take-Two Interactive Software.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Zoox of Foster City, Ca., unveiled a next-generation robot taxi. Founded in 2014, Zoox is now owned by Amazon, which bought it in June for $1.2 billion.
(SFC, 12/15/20, p.C1)
2020 Dec 14, It was reported that San Francisco's historic Cliff House will close on Dec. 31. The feds bought the property in 1977 and have failed to renew a long-term lease. Dan and Mary Hountalas have run the restaurant since 1973.
(SFC, 12/14/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 14, California to date had 1,573,639 cases of coronavirus and 21,045 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 196,526 cases and 2,112 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 16,517,256 with the death toll at 300,477.
(sfist.com, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The US state of Georgia began early voting in a pair of US Senate races that will determine control of the chamber in a contest that ends on Jan. 5.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Wisconsin Republicans met at the state Capitol, the same day as 10 Democratic electors awarded their votes to Biden, who carried the battleground state by just under 21,000 votes. They forwarded their votes for Trump to the National Archives, arguing that they were trying to preserve Trump's legal options in case a court overturned Biden's win.
(AP, 6/21/22)
2020 Dec 14, Argentina said that it had now recorded 1.5 million cases of coronavirus, making it the ninth country in the world to reach the milestone. The Ministry of Health said there had been 1,503,222 people infected so far with COVID-19 and 41,041 deaths.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Brazil's health regulator Anvisa said China's health authorities are not transparent in their authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Britain reported that over 1,000 cases of a new coronavirus variant have been identified in the past few days in England, predominantly in the south of the country where it could be connected to a surge in cases. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the variant is more likely to cause serious disease, and the latest clinical advice is that it's highly unlikely that this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, A single-patient study conducted by British scientists has found that Gilead's antiviral drug remdesivir could be highly effective against COVID-19, raising questions about previous studies that found it had no impact on death rates from the disease.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Codagenix Inc and India's Serum Institute said they have received regulatory approval in the United Kingdom to begin an early-stage trial of their single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Canada kicked off its inoculation campaign against COVID-19 by injecting frontline healthcare workers, becoming just the third nation in the world to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Canadian fashion executive Peter Nygard (79) was arrested in Winnipeg at the request of the US. His arrest on sex trafficking, racketeering and related charges came after the FBI raided Nygard’s Manhattan offices earlier this year.
(AP, 12/15/20)
2020 Dec 14, It was reported that Chinese authorities have locked down an area near the Russian border after half a dozen coronavirus were confirmed in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang.
(SFC, 12/14/20, p.A7)
2020 Dec 14, The EU announced that an agreement has been reached on setting up the 27-nation bloc’s first ever fund to support defense research and development.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, German biotech firm CureVac said it has started a large Phase 2b/3 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, banking on the same technology that has allowed rivals BioNTech and Moderna to lead the development race.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Tens of thousands of protesting Indian farmers called for a national farmers' strike, the second in a week, to press for the quashing of three new laws on agricultural reform that they say will drive down crop prices and devastate their earnings.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Indian ride-hailing firm Ola, backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, said it planned to invest 24 billion rupees ($326 million) to set up a factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu to produce electric scooters.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Two prominent Italian intellectuals announced they were returning their Legion of Honor awards to France to protest that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was given the prize despite his government's human rights abuses.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Italian police officers hailed their Albanian counterparts for their fight against drug production and trafficking in the western Balkan country.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Italy reported 491 coronavirus-related deaths against 484 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections declined to 12,030 from 17,938.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was inaugurated for a third term in office amid ongoing outcries from opposition parties.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Japan selected the "mitsu" kanji character, meaning "congested" or "dense" and used to encourage social distancing, as its defining symbol for 2020.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Japan said its worst bird flu outbreak on record has spread to new farms and now affects more than 20% of the country's 47 prefectures, with officials ordering cullings after more poultry deaths.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, A military court in Lebanon sentenced a political activist to three years of hard labor for collaborating with Israel. Kinda El-Khatib was sentenced for allegedly visiting Israel, contacting Israeli agents and providing them with security information.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Moroccan authorities dispersed a group of activists who tried to hold a protest outside the parliament building in the capital to denounce the country's recent decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Fatou Bensouda, the outgoing prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, hit out at sanctions slapped on her by the Trump Administration in her final speech to an annual gathering of the court's member states before she leaves office next year.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, PM Jacinda Ardern announced that the New Zealand government intends to establish a travel bubble with Australia in the first quarter of next year.
(NY Times, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russia successfully test-launched its heavy lift Angara A5 space rocket from the Plesetsk cosmodrome for the second time.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russian developers published fresh trial results for their Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine based on new data, and said the shot had again been found to be 91.4% effective in providing protection from COVID-19.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Russian authorities said they are investigating the death of nearly 300 endangered seals, including pregnant females, that have been found washed up on the Caspian Sea shores of Dagestan since December 6. The Caspian seal was included in Russia’s Red Data Book of rare and endangered species this year.
(The Telegraph, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Singapore became the first Asian country to approve Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine and said it expects to start receiving shots by the end of the year.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, South Africa's pharmaceutical regulator SAHPRA said it has received its first application to register a COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, South Korea’s parliament approved contentious legislation criminalizing the flying of propaganda leaflets by balloon toward North Korea, despite fierce criticism that the country is sacrificing freedom of expression to improve ties with the rival North.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Human Rights Watch said South Sudan's security agency has used electric shocks, gang rapes, abductions and killings since the country gained independence in 2011. Acting army spokesman Santo Domic Chol dismissed the report.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, The Swiss government acknowledged that authorities in the Alpine nation had failed to prevent the illegal adoptions of children from Sri Lanka up until the 1990s. Switzerland only recently acknowledged the suffering of Swiss children who were taken away mainly from poor families and single mothers, and were made to work on farms as late as the 1960s.
(AP, 12/14/20)
2020 Dec 14, Swiss-based Novartis said a late-stage clinical trial of ruxolitinib on top of standard therapy showed no significant reduction in severe complications of COVID-19, including death, respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation or admission to the intensive care unit.
(Reuters, 12/14/20)
2021 Dec 14, US Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced more than $8.7 billion in capital investments in community development financial institutions and minority-owned banking firms to boost lending in disadvantaged areas.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, A US judge dismissed a bid by former President Donald Trump to keep his tax returns from a House of Representatives committee, ruling that Congress' legislative interest outweighed any deference Trump should receive as a former president.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, US passenger railroad Amtrak said it will temporarily suspend a vaccine mandate for employees and now no longer expects to be forced to cut some service in January.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Total US COVID-19 cases reached over 50,142,292 with the death toll at 798,942. The number of deaths compiled by Johns Hopkins Univ. topped 800,000.
(sfist.com, 12/15/21)(SFC, 12/15/21, p.A5)
2021 Dec 14, Rain drenched Southern California as a powerful storm slid down the drought-stricken state, snarling traffic as vehicles spun out and raising the threat of mudslides in areas scarred by wildfires.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The San Francisco Board of supervisors unanimously passed groundbreaking legislation to provide paid sick leave for cleaners, nannies, gardeners and other domestic workers.
(SFC, 12/16/21, p.C1)
2021 Dec 14, Ken Kragen (85), the founding president of USA for Africa, the foundation set up to administer the aid money raised by “We Are the World" (1985), died at his home in LA.
(NY Times, 12/16/21)
2021 Dec 14, A New York State ethics board ordered former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to turn over millions of dollars in profits from his coronavirus pandemic memoir, giving him 30 days to comply.
(NY Times, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Ricardo Martinelli, a son of the former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, pleaded guilty in NYC to a US money laundering charge linked to Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, becoming the second of his children to admit wrongdoing.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Scientists announced that NASA's Parker Solar Probe has officially “touched" the sun, plunging through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona. The probe actually flew through the corona in April during the spacecraft’s eighth close approach to the sun. Scientists said it took a few months to get the data back and then several more months to confirm.
(AP, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, A World Trade Organization panel ruled in favor of Brazil, Australia and Guatemala in their trade disputes with India over sugar subsidies and asked New Delhi to conform with global rules.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Afghanistan's central bank said it was working to ensure the stability of the afghani, a day after the currency lost almost 12% of its value against the dollar in a matter of hours amid a deepening economic crisis and soaring inflation.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Albania's Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Corruption and Organized Crime said Lefter Koka (57), environment minister, has been arrested following months of investigation and is accused of abuse of post, corruption and money laundering.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, A court in Belarus sentenced Syarhei Tsikhanouski (43), the opposition leader's husband, to 18 years in jail after he was arrested during an attempt to run for president against incumbent Alexander Lukashenko, a verdict his wife called political revenge.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Britain reported 59,610 new COVID-19 cases, the highest figure since early January, as it faces what PM Boris Johnson has called a "tidal wave" on infections from the Omicron variant.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that Chinese social media platform Weibo Corp has been slapped with a 3 million yuan ($470,000) fine by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), China's internet regulator, for repeatedly publishing illegal information.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that multiple companies have suspended operations in Zhejiang province, one of China's biggest and busiest manufacturing hubs, as authorities double down to contain a COVID-19 outbreak, halting some production of goods from batteries and clothing to textile dyes and plastics.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, In Colombia a bombing at an airport in the northern city of Cucuta left three people dead.
(Reuters, 12/28/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that the Congolese rumba, now has Unesco-protected status. It is the culmination of campaigning by two countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Congo-Brazzaville.
(BBC, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling urging Russia to introduce measures tackling domestic violence against women, which it said is happening on a “staggering scale" amid “systematic problems in securing prosecutions and convictions".
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The European Court of Justice said a child with two mothers certified in one EU nation must also be recognized by the other EU members as such.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, French forces left the city of Timbuktu late today, the latest sign that the former colonial power is drawing down its presence in northern Mali nearly nine years after driving Islamic extremists from power there in a military intervention. The Malian military has occupied the former French military base.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, German supplier of chemicals and materials used in making semiconductors, Merck KGaA, announced it is to invest 500 million euros in Taiwan over the next five to seven years, primarily in semiconductor technologies.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, In Haiti more at least 75 were killed when a fuel truck exploded overnight in a street in the city of Cap-Haïtien.
(NY Times, 12/14/21)(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Indian troops killed a suspected militant during a gunbattle in the federally-controlled Jammu and Kashmir region.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Vaccine producer the Serum Institute of India (SII) and a government official said India is struggling to export its surplus of COVID-19 vaccines as logistical hurdles delay their use in many countries despite low levels of inoculation.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Japan pledged $3.4 billion in its largest contribution to the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, to ensure the recovery of low-income countries from the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Kenya Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told a press conference in the coastal city of Mombasa that the country had detected cases of the Omicron variant for the first time.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, A Kenyan court temporarily halted the government's plan to require COVID-19 vaccination for access to public services until a petition challenging it is heard and ruled upon.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that Lebanese officials have agreed that losses in the country's financial sector amount to between $68 billion and $69 billion as it seeks to negotiate an International Monetary Fund (IMF) support program.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, It was reported that photographer Soe Naing, detained after an anti-coup protest in Myanmar's biggest city last week, has died while in custody.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Dutch broadcaster RTL said schools in the Netherlands will close a week early for Christmas this year as coronavirus infections remain high and hospitals struggle with a wave of COVID-19 patients.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The African Development Bank (AfDB) said it will lend Nigeria $210 million to support smallholder farmers producing strategic crops and livestock.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte withdrew his bid to become a senator, the same day his preferred successor quit the presidential race, adding to uncertainty about the mercurial leader's political future and the scope of his influence.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he wants "immediate" talks with the United States and NATO over security guarantees, as tensions soar between Moscow and the West over Ukraine.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Rwanda's health ministry said the small central African country had detected six cases of the Omicron variant as it pushed for people to get vaccinated.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Gulf Arab leaders gathered in Riyadh for an annual summit expected to stress cohesion after a deep rift, at a time of regional concern over Iran and rising economic rivalry within the oil-producing bloc.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, Somali Islamists captured the town of Eldheere in the semi-autonomous central state of Galmudug, part of a string of incursions underscoring the group's gains amid divisions between the central government and its erstwhile allies in the region.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, South Korea's Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) posted 7,850 cases, with the number of patients in serious condition also reaching a fresh high at 964.
(Reuters, 12/15/21)
2021 Dec 14, Spanish police arrested Moroccan national Fikri Amellah, an internationally wanted drug trafficker suspected of using the proceeds from importing tons of hashish and cocaine to splash out on luxury cars, yachts and high-end watches.
(Reuters, 12/17/21)
2021 Dec 14, The United Arab Emirates suspended talks on a $23 billion deal to purchase American-made F-35 planes, armed drones and other equipment. Emirati officials blamed an American insistence on restrictions on how and where the F-35s could be used and say they are a violation of the UAE's sovereignty.
(AP, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The UN said more than 100 former Afghan national security forces and others have been killed since the Taliban takeover in August, most at the hands of the hardline Islamist group which is recruiting boy soldiers and quashing women's rights. The WFP said almost all Afghans do not have enough to eat.
(Reuters, 12/14/21)
2021 Dec 14, The UN weather agency said it has certified a 38-degree Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) reading in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on June 20, 2020, as the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic.
(AP, 12/14/21)
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