Today in History - December 17
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1399 Dec 17, Tamerlane's Mongols destroyed the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1538 Dec 17, Pope Paul III excommunicated England's King Henry VIII. [see Aug 31, 1535]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1679 Dec 17, Don Juan, ruler of Spain, died.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1745 Dec 17, Bonnie Prince Charlie's army retreated to Scotland. [see Dec 6]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1750 Dec 17, Deborah Sampson, was born. She fought in the American Revolution as a man under the alias Robert Shurtleff. In 1797 she authored a memoir. In 2004 Alfred F. Young authored "Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier.
(MC, 12/17/01)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M4)
1770 Dec 17, Johann Friedrich Schubert, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1777 Dec 17, France recognized American independence.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1778 Dec 17, Humphrey Davy (d.1829), English chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of laughing gas (1799), was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)(ON, 12/01, p.7)
1790 Dec 17, An Aztec calendar stone was discovered in Mexico City.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(MC, 12/17/01)
1791 Dec 17, NYC traffic regulation created the 1st 1-way street.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1797 Dec 17, Joseph Henry, US scientist, inventor, pioneer of electromagnetism, was born. [see Dec 18]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1798 Dec 17, The 1st impeachment trial against a US senator, William Blount of Ten., began.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1807 Dec 17, John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, was born in Haverhill, Mass. He was an abolitionist, reformer and founder of the Liberal Party.
(HN, 12/17/99)(AP, 12/17/07)
1821 Dec 17, Kentucky abolished debtor’s prisons.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1830 Dec 17, Simon Bolivar (b.1783), South American leader for national independence, died of TB in Santa Marta, in Colombia. In 2006 John Lynch authored “Simon Bolivar: A Life."
(AHD, p.148)(AP, 12/17/97)(Econ, 7/1/06, p.77)
1850 Dec 17, In California some 500 Indians in the Yosemite region attacked a store on the Fresno River owned by James Savage. A clerk and two other whites were killed and the $25,000 in cash and goods were taken. This marked the beginning of the Mariposa Indian War. Savage had employed some 500 Yokut Indians to pan for gold.
(SFC, 5/16/15, p.C2)
1861 Dec 17, The Stonewall Brigade began to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal near Martinsburg, W.Va.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1862 Dec 17, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11 designed to combat a Civil War black market in cotton. Grant believed the trade was run primarily by Jewish traders and ordered Jews expelled in his military district. Pres. Lincoln rescinded the order on Jan. 4, 1863. In 2012 Jonathan D. Sarna authored “When General Grant Expelled the Jews."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862))(SSFC, 4/22/12, p.F3)
1875 Dec 17, Violent bread riots took place in Montreal.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1886 Dec 17, At a Christmas party, Sam Belle shot his old enemy Frank West, but was fatally wounded himself.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1894 Dec 17, Arthur Fiedler, conductor (Boston Pops), was born in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1895 Dec 17, Anti-Saloon League of America was formed in Washington, DC.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1900 Dec 17, Ellis Island immigration center re-opened following an 1897 fire.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T10)
1903 Dec 17, Erskine Caldwell, U.S. novelist, was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The plane used an aluminum engine designed by their Dayton mechanic Charlie Taylor. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the 605-pound plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The day’s events received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American Experience." In 2015 David McCullough authored “the Wright Brothers."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD, 12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.78)(Econ, 1/2/16, p.59)
1907 Dec 17, A Bhutan royal dynasty was founded. Gongsa Ugyen Wangchuck became the first hereditary king of Bhutan.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T6)(SSFC, 12/14/14, p.N3)
1907 Dec 17, William Thompson (b.1824), Belfast-born mathematical physicist and engineer, (aka Lord Kelvin), died in Scotland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin)
1908 Dec 17, Willard Frank Libby, American chemist who won a Nobel Prize (1960) for his part in creating the carbon-14 method in dating ancient findings, was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)(MC, 12/17/01)
1910 Dec 17, In San Francisco 25 men were arrested for spitting on sidewalks. It cost them $5 to regain their liberty.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, DB p.46)
1914 Dec 17, Jews were expelled from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1916 Dec 17, Gregory Rasputin (45), the Russian monk and confidant to Czarina Alexandra, died after he was shot by Prince Yussoupov (Youssoupoff). The monk, who had wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen. He was fed cakes and wine laced with cyanide, then shot a number of times and finally drowned. In 1957 Youssoupoff (d.1967) authored a memoir in France that in 2003 was translated into English: Lost Splendor: The Amazing Memoirs of the Man Who Killed Rasputin." A TV version of Rasputin was made for HBO in 1996 [see Dec. 30].
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)(AP, 12/16/97)(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.M4)
1925 Dec 17, Col. William "Billy" Mitchell (d.1936) was convicted of insubordination at his court-martial. He was found guilty of conduct prejudicial to the good of the armed services and was suspended from active duty. His recently published book “Winged Defense," had poked fun at the Sec. of War. Mitchell was awarded the Medal of Honor 20 years after his death. In 2004 Douglas Waller authored “A Question of Loyalty."
(WSJ, 9/7/04, p.D8)(AP, 12/17/08)
1926 Dec17, The military right-wing opposition executed a coup d’etat in Lithuania and a dictatorship was established under Antanas Smetona, who remained president until the country was annexed by the USSR in 1940.
(Compuserve, Online Encyclopedia)(DrEE, 10/5/96, p.5)
1927 Dec 17, U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg suggested a worldwide pact renouncing war.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1933 Dec 17, In the first world championship football game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants, 23-21, at Wrigley Field.
(AP, 12/17/08)
1933 Dec 17, Thubten Gyatso (b.1876), Tibet’s 13th Dalai Lama, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Dalai_Lama)(Econ., 3/21/15, p.38)
1935 Dec 17, Venezuela’s military strongman Juan Vicente Gomez died. He had lorded over Venezuela since 1908.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Vicente_G%C3%B3mez)(AP, 5/22/14)
1938 Dec 17, Italy declared the 1935 pact with France invalid, because ratification's had not been exchanged. France denied the argument.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1941 Dec 17, German troops led by Rommel began to retreat in North Africa.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1943 Dec 17, The Magnuson Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943, was signed into law. The immigration legislation was proposed by US Representative (later Senator) Warren G. Magnuson of Washington.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson_Act)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.28)
1943 Dec 17, U.S. forces invaded New Britain Island in New Guinea.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1944 Dec 17, The U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1944 Dec 17, A US B-24 Liberator bomber crashed into the Adriatic Sea near the Croatian island of Vis. Three members of the 10-man crew were killed. Wreckage of the plane was found in 2010. In 2017 divers located human bones near the wreckage.
(AP, 7/10/17)
1944 Dec 17, The Germans renewed their attack on the Belgian town of Losheimergraben against the American Army during the Battle of the Bulge.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1948 Dec 17, The Smithsonian Institution accepted the Wright brothers' plane, the Kitty Hawk.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1950 Dec 17, French named Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny to command their troops in Vietnam.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1952 Dec 17, Yugoslavia broke relations with the Vatican.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1953 Dec 17, FCC approved RCA's black & white-compatible color TV specifications. Temporary approval of the mechanical CBS color model was rescinded.
(MC, 12/17/01)(SFC, 3/18/04, p.E1)
1957 Dec 17, The United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1958 Dec 17, Howard Hickey (41) was named coach of the SF 49ers to replaced Frank Albert, who had retired unexpectedly.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.54)
1962 Dec 17, Thomas Mitchell (70), US, actor (Outlaw), died of cancer.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1965 Dec 17, Ending an election campaign marked by bitterness and violence, Ferdinand Marcos was declared president of the Philippines.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1969 Dec 17, An estimated 50 million TV viewers watched singer Tiny Tim marry his fiancée, Miss Vicky, on NBC's "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1969 Dec 17, The U.S. Air Force closed its Project "Blue Book" by finding no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1970 Dec 17, In Poland riot police under orders from defense minister Gen'l. Wojciech Jaruzelski opened fire on workers protesting food price increases and 44 people were killed in Gdansk, Gdynia, Szczecin, and Elblag. A case against Jaruzelski was opened in 1996 and in 1999 a court ruled that medical reasons would not exempt him from trial. The Jaruzelski trial began in 2001.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A14)(SFC, 5/16/01, p.D3)
1971 Dec 17, A cease fire began between India and Pakistan in East Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1975 Dec 17, Lynette Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1979 Dec 17, In a case that aggravated racial tensions, Arthur McDuffie, a black insurance executive, was fatally beaten after a police chase in Miami. Four white police officers were later acquitted of charges stemming from McDuffie's death.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1980 Dec 17, Milton Obote (1924-2005) began serving a 2nd term as president of Uganda.
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote)
1981 Dec 17, Red Brigade terrorists kidnapped Brigadier General James Dozier, the highest-ranking US NATO officer in southern Europe, from his home in Verona, Italy. Dozier was rescued 42 days later.
(HN, 12/17/98)(AP, 12/17/04)
1982 Dec 17, In Venezuela Hugo Chavez (b.1954) and other junior officers formed a secret group, the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200 (MBR-200), and vowed to change their society. They made their 1st coup attempt in 1992.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez)(WSJ, 6/12/03, p.A10)
1983 Dec 17, There was an IRA bombing near Harrods department store in London. Six people were killed and 90 injured.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/bu225)
1983 Dec 17, An Economic cooperation agreement between the Community and the Andean Pact countries was signed in Cartagena, Colombia.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1983/index_en.htm)
1984 Dec 17, Gerd Heinrich (b.1896), recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the subfamily Ichneumoninae (wasps), died. In 2007 his son Bernd Heinrich authored “The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology."
(www.zsm.mwn.de/hym/e/gishym_ich.htm)
1986 Dec 17, A federal jury in Detroit cleared automaker John DeLorean of all 15 charges in his fraud and racketeering trial.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1986-12/1986-12-17-ABC-11.html)
1986 Dec 17, Eugene Hasenfus, the American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to the Contras, was pardoned, then released.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1986 Dec 17, Richard Kuklinsky, a Mafia hitman known as the Iceman, was arrested in New Jersey. He was found guilty of all charges May 25, 1988. Anthony Bruno later authored “The Iceman."
(www.crimelibrary.com)
1986 Dec 17, In Colombia Guillermo Cano (b.1925), publisher of the Bogota newspaper El Espectador, was assassinated by drug cartel hitmen hired by Pablo Escobar.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Cano_Isaza)
1987 Dec 17, With election results showing him the winner, South Korea's president-elect, Roh Tae-woo, appealed for "national harmony" while his opponents claimed he had won through fraud.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1988 Dec 17, In his first public statement since the US decided to open direct talks with the PLO, Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir expressed shock, calling the US decision a "painful" blow.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1989 Dec 17, More than 100,000 Soviet citizens turned out to honor the late human rights advocate Andrei D. Sakharov, a day before he was buried in Moscow.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1990 Dec 17, President Bush pledged “no negotiation for one inch" of Kuwaiti territory would take place as he repeated his demand for Iraq’s complete withdrawal.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1990 Dec 17, President Bush nominated former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander to be secretary of education, succeeding Lauro Cavazos.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1990 Dec 17, In the SF Bay Area authorities discovered Jack Upton (30) dead in his apartment at 38780 Tyson Lane in Fremont. In 2019 police arrested Russell Anthony Guerrero of Tempe, Arizona, following a DNA match in the killing.
(SFC, 1/25/19, p.C1)
1991 Dec 17, In an about-face the US White House used the word "recession" to characterize the state of the economy, although spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the administration did not believe there was a recession in a technical sense.
(AP, 12/17/01)
1991 Dec 17, Joey Smallwood (b.1900), Canadian politician and the first premier of Newfoundland (1949-1972), died.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Smallwood)
1991 Dec 17, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union by the new year.
(AP, 12/17/01)
1991 Dec 17, Patrick Manning (1926-2016) began serving his first term as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago and continued to 1995.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Manning)
1992 Dec 17, President-elect Clinton tapped former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros to be Secretary of Housing.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1992 Dec 17, President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1992 Dec 17, Israel ordered the deportation of 418 suspected Muslim fundamentalists from the occupied territories.
(AP, 12/17/02)
1993 Dec 17, Fox Television outbid CBS for the National Football Conference TV package.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1993 Dec 17, So-called "suicide doctor" Jack Kevorkian was released from jail in Oakland County, Mich., after promising not to help anyone end their lives for the time being.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1994 Dec 17, Six shots were fired at the White House by an unidentified gunman.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1994 Dec 17, In Bahrain Hani al-Wasti (25) and Hani Khamees (26) were the first of more than 40 people killed in the political upheaval among the Shiites.
(AP, 12/17/02)
1994 Dec 17, North Korea shot down a U.S. Army helicopter which had strayed north of the demilitarized zone -- the co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, was killed; the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Hall, was captured and held for nearly two weeks.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1995 Dec 17, This year's British Booker Prize in literature was awarded to Pat Barker for "The Ghost Road," the third novel of a trilogy (1991-1995) that work focused on psychologist W.H.R. Rivers and poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) set during WW I.
(www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth15)(WSJ, 10/15/97, p.A21)(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A12)
1995 Dec 17 Eritrea used its warships to try to seize a disputed island in the mouth of the Red Sea from Yemen. Yemen sent warplanes to counter the attack.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec 17, Angry voters handed Russian President Boris Yeltsin a stinging rebuff as Communists and right-wing nationalists scored big wins in parliamentary elections on a platform of rolling back democratic reforms. Communists led in early returns in elections for the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament. The party was led by Gennady Zyuganov. The CP pulled in 21.9% of the vote with 11.1% for the party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-1,10) (WSJ, 12/19/95, p.A-13)(AP, 12/17/00)
1995 Dec 17, Isa Yusuf Alptekin (b.1901), exiled Uighur head of the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China), died in Turkey.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isa_Alptekin)
1996 Dec 17, Kofi Annan of Ghana was elected by acclamation as the 7th Secretary-General of the UN. His 5-year term will start Jan 1.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, Six Red Cross workers were slain in their sleep and a 7th was wounded by as many as 15 attackers in Chechnya. The Red Cross immediately suspended all operations in Chechnya.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, The Chinese stock market continued to tumble and authorities deployed plainclothes police to keep order among angry investors outside security brokerage houses in the major cities. The drop started when the official People’s Daily newspaper warned that the stock market was overvalued.
(WSJ, 12/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Dec 17, Sun Yaoting (b.1902), China’s last known eunuch, died.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B6)
1996 Dec 17, In Peru guerrillas took over a party at the house of the Japanese ambassador in Lima. They identified themselves as members of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla movement and demanded the release of imprisoned guerrillas. Nestor Cerpa Cartolini was later identified as the leader of the 20 or so guerrillas. Cerpa’s common-law wife, Nancy Gilvonio, was one of the imprisoned guerrillas whom he demanded be released. Pres. Fujimori’s brother was one of the hostages. All but 72 hostages were later released; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one hostage.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 1/17/96, p.A12)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, The Russian Booker Prize for literature, inaugurated in 1992, was awarded to Andrei Sergeyev for his book "Stamp Album."
(www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/1996/12/17/004.html)
1996 Dec 17, In Russia an AN-12 military transport crashed and killed all 17 people onboard shortly after takeoff from St. Petersburg. Colonel General Sergei Seleznyov, commander of the Leningrad military district, was among the dead.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 17, In Somalia militia fighters of Ali Mahdi Mohamed attacked the headquarters of Hussein Aidid in the 5th consecutive day of fighting that brought the number of dead up to 135.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 17, In Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko stage a triumphal home.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)
1997 Dec 17, President Clinton's panel on race relations met at Annandale High School in Virginia.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1997 Dec 17, The US and 33 other countries signed a convention in Paris aimed at eradicating bribery in international business. Turkey was one of 34 signatories of the OECD’s anti-corruption convention.
(AP, 12/17/98)(Econ, 3/19/05, Survey p.14)
1997 Dec 17, A new Montana law, effective today, made the entire state an offshore banking center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash. Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was required.
(SFC, 12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 Dec 17, In New Jersey a settlement was reached that allows gay and unmarried couples to adopt children.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 17, A US court ordered Cuba to pay $187.6 million for three men killed when their planes were shot down in 1996 by MiG fighters.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 17, In France Salima Ghezali, Algerian human rights campaigner, received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.
(SFC, 12/18/97, p.C12)
1997 Dec 17, In Chiapas, Mexico, a young man from an Indian hamlet near Acteal was killed in an ambush by masked gunmen. Antonio Vazquez Secum summoned a band of gunmen and dispatched them to Acteal for revenge.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A15)
1997 Dec 17, A Ukrainian jetliner from Odessa, a Yakoviev 42, was missing as it approached the Greek city of Salonica with 70-71 people onboard. The wreckage was located near Fotina, Greece, on Dec 20, as a Greek military plane, searching for the wreckage, crashed north of Athens. All five people aboard the C-130 transport plane were killed.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)(www.cnn.com/WORLD/9712/20/greece.plane.pm/)
1998 Dec 17, Republicans advanced the impeachment case against President Clinton to the House floor for a debate the following day.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1998 Dec 17, House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston shocked fellow Republicans by admitting he'd had extramarital affairs.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1998 Dec 17, US and British forces launched more missiles on the 2nd day of attacks against Iraq. The strikes included some 100 cruise missiles with 2,000 pound warheads. At least 25 people were killed and 75 injured over 2 days. Pres. Boris Yeltsin withdrew the Russian ambassador from Washington and demanded an immediate end to military action. France and Italy expressed strong opposition while Germany rallied to support the US and Britain. A stray US missile hit Khorramshahr, Iran. The US later apologized.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.A1,3)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A20)
1998 Dec 17, In Alagoas state, Brazil, congresswoman Ceci Cunha was killed with her husband and 2 in-laws in an apparent political assassination. Talvane Albuquerque, who lost re-election in October, assumed her seat in the Chamber of Deputies. He was charged with ordering the murder of Cunha, but was immune from criminal prosecution while in office.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D2)(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A1)
1998 Dec 17, In Britain the high court set aside its ruling against Gen’l Pinochet because one member failed to disclose close ties with Amnesty Int’l. A new panel will rehear Pinochet’s claim of immunity.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.A18)
1998 Dec 17, In China dissidents Wang Youcai in Hangzhou and Qin Yongmin in Wuhan, arrested for subversion, pleaded their cases for forming the China Democracy Party. Youcai was released in 2004 and sent to the US.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D3)(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A3)
1998 Dec 17, A boatload of Cubans capsized off Elliot Key, Fla., during an immigrant-smuggling attempt and at least 8 people were drowned.
(SFC, 12/19/98, p.A7)
1998 Dec 17, In Gabon Karen Phillips (37), a US Peace Corps worker from Philadelphia, was raped and stabbed to death in Oyem. 3 people were arrested in connection with her death.
(SFEC, 12/20/98, p.C10)
1998 Dec 17, In Indonesia some 4,000 students attempted to storm the parliament in Jakarta in a 2nd day of riots. They were stopped by police riot squads.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D2)
1998 Dec 17, Serbian police attacked a suspected rebel-controlled village in Kosovo. Two ethnic Albanian fighters were killed and 34 were arrested in Glodjane.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D4)
1999 Dec 17, President Clinton signed a law letting millions of disabled Americans retain their government-funded health coverage when they take a job.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1999 Dec 17, Grover Washington Jr., jazz saxophonist, died at age 56 during a TV taping session in NYC.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.C5)
1999 Dec 17, The UN Security Council (Resolution 1284) ended a yearlong deadlock and voted to create a new inspection team (UNMOVIC) to complete the disarmament of Iraq.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/00)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
2000 Dec 17, President-elect Bush was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2000 Dec 17, Pres.-elect Bush named Condoleeza Rice (46) of Stanford to be his national security advisor and Texas Supreme Court Justice Alberto Gonzales as White House counsel.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/01)
2000 Dec 17, In Chechnya a rebel attack killed 3 Russian soldiers. A shootout with rebels in Grozny left 2 police officers and 2 rebels dead.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B4)(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 17, In Colombia gunmen killed 11 people in the village of Chipaque. Leftist rebels were suspected.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B2)
2000 Dec 17, Cuba and Russia agreed to abandon the nuclear power plant at Juragua. Pres. Putin pushed Castro to recognize a small portion of the Soviet-era debt, estimated at $20 billion.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 17, Israeli and Palestinian officials agreed to hold talks in Washington prior to the departure of Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E2)
2000 Dec 17, In Mexico thousands were ordered to evacuate the area around the Popocatepetl volcano due to the formation of a lava dome.
(WSJ, 12/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 17, In northern Italy at least 10 climbers and skiers were killed after ice formed overnight in the Alps.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E2)
2001 Dec 17, The Bush administration announced that the anthrax attacks most likely originated from a domestic source.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 17, Space shuttle Endeavour returned to Cape Canaveral following A 12-day mission for a crew change at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 17, US Marines raised the Stars and Stripes over the long-abandoned American Embassy in Kabul, inaugurating what U.S. envoy James F. Dobbins promised would be a long commitment to the rebuilding.
(AP, 12/17/02)
2001 Dec 17, In Afghanistan US Delta forces pursued some 300 al Qaeda fighters in the White Mountains. Mullah Omar was reported to have retreated to the mountains near Baghran.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A1,14)
2001 Dec 17, In Haiti 33 gunmen, ex-members of the disbanded military, attacked the national penitentiary, were rebuffed and moved on to the National Palace. At least 10 people were killed. Opposition buildings were attacked in response. Pres. Aristide called the attack a failed coup. Opposition called the attack a staged event to crush dissent. A captured former soldier later said the attack was a coup attempt and that fellow conspirators included a former colonel and 2 former police chiefs. Former Col. Guy Francois was accused of helping plot the attack and spent two years in prison for his alleged role despite maintaining his innocence.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/19/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/21/01, p.A3)(AP, 12/17/02)(AP, 9/15/06)
2001 Dec 17, Israel continued military sweeps as Hamas and the Popular Front rejected Arafat’s call to end attacks.
(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2002 Dec 17, U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the military to begin deploying a national missile defense system with land- and sea-based interceptor rockets to be operational starting in 2004.
(Reuters, 12/17/02)(SFC, 12/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 17, In New York Gov. George Pataki signed a bill extending civil rights protections to gays and lesbians in the state.
(SFC, 12/18/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 17, Insurance and finance company Conseco Incorporated filed for Chapter Eleven protection in the third-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2002 Dec 17, Playwright Frederick Knott (86), who wrote "Dial M For Murder" and "Wait Until Dark," died in NYC.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2002 Dec 17, Congo's government, rebels and political opposition signed a power-sharing agreement after four years of war and 2.5 million lives lost.
(AP, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 17, Iraqi exiles in London declared they want to build a "new Iraq" and agreed on a power-sharing plan that for the first time recognizes the political clout of Shiite Muslims, a majority in a nation long controlled by Sunni Muslims such as Saddam Hussein. Some delegates walked out of the London meeting warning of possible civil war if they were sidelined in any new government.
(AP, 12/17/02)(Reuters, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 17, Mohammed Jawad allegedly attacked US troops with a grenade. He was arrested and later transferred to Guantanamo Bay. US authorities claimed he was at least 16-years old at the time of his arrest, but it later emerged he may have been as young as 12.
(SFC, 7/31/09, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Jawad)
2002 Dec 17, Malaysia won control of two tiny palm-fringed islands when the World Court ruled in its favor in a long-running dispute with Indonesia.
(Reuters, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 17, The Interfax news agency reported that Russia has lost 4,705 soldiers, officers and policemen in Chechnya since 1999.
(AP, 12/18/02)
2003 Dec 17, The US CDC reported that the average age of US women for their 1st child was 25.1 years, up from 21.4 in 1970.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, The Bush administration reached a free-trade deal with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua for immediate duty-free access to half of all US farm exports and 80% of consumer goods.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, George Ryan, former governor of Illinois, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of racketeering. Ryan was alter convicted and sentenced to 6 1/2-years in federal prison sentence for racketeering.
(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A2)(AP, 12/17/08)
2003 Dec 17, Wally Hedrick (75), Beat-era artist, died at his home in Sonoma County, Ca.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A16)
2003 Dec 17, In Britain Ian Huntley, a former school caretaker, was convicted of murdering two 10-year-old girls in 2002. He had previously been investigated for sex crimes. Huntley was sentenced to two life terms.
(AP, 12/17/03)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.53)
2003 Dec 17, The British government announced the first reported case of a person dying from the human form of mad cow disease after a blood transfusion from an infected donor.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2003 Dec 17, China Life, China's biggest life insurer, debuted on the NY stock exchange.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.104)
2003 Dec 17, The fifth outbreak in two years of the deadly Ebola virus in the Republic of Congo has so far killed 29 people.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In France Pres. Jacques Chirac announced his decision to pass a law banning Islamic head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols in public schools.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Greece a court handed multiple life sentences to the leader, chief assassin and three other members of the November 17 terror organization. Dimitris Koufodinas was sentenced to 11 life terms.
(AP, 12/17/03)(AP, 6/14/18)
2003 Dec 17, Haiti police stormed and shut down a pro-opposition radio station, smashing studio equipment in what they said was a search for weapons.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Baghdad an explosives-laden truck speeding toward a police station slammed into a bus and blew up before dawn, killing at least 10 Iraqis.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Iraq guerrillas ambushed a U.S. military patrol with small arms fire, killing one soldier at al-Karmah in northwest Baghdad. The soldier's death brings the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat to 314 since the war started on March 20.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, Suspected followers of Saddam Hussein shot to death Muhannad al-Hakim a representative of a major Shiite political party and a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, South Korea agreed to send 3,000 troops to Iraq in 2004.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, NATO's Secretary General Lord Robertson ended a tumultuous four-year term.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In the Ukraine a bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a deep ditch on the Crimean peninsula, killing 17 people and injuring 19 others.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2004 Dec 17, President Bush signed into law the largest overhaul of US intelligence-gathering in 50 years.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2004 Dec 17, The FDA approved a Harvard proposal to test the benefits of 3-4 methylenedioxtmethamphetamine (MDMA). In Nov. researchers in North Carolina gained government approval to test the drug "Ecstasy" as a treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder for the first time since the drug was criminalized in 1985.
(www.maps.org/mdma/)(WP, 11/6/04)
2004 Dec 17, Pfizer, maker of a popular pain reliever, admitted Celebrex appears to increase the risk of heart attack in users, but has no plans to remove it from the market.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, Tom Wesselman (73), NYC pop artist, died. He was known for his “bedroom still lifes."
(SFC, 12/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Dec 17, Afghan forces retook control of Pul-e-Charkhi, the country's largest jail, following a day-long standoff. 4 inmates and 4 guards were killed in the violence.
(AP, 12/17/04)(SFC, 12/18/04, p.A8)
2004 Dec 17, Bhutan began to enforce a total ban on tobacco sales and smoking in public. The royal National Assembly passed the resolution in July.
(SFC, 11/30/04, p.A2)
2004 Dec 17, Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic resigned, one day after the international community imposed sanctions against Bosnian Serb police and officials for allegedly helping fugitive war crimes suspects evade justice.
(AFP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that China paid out $15 billion per month to keep the yuan fixed at 8.277 to the US dollar.
(WSJ, 12/17/04, p.A14)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that China’s growing power industry was causing global concern over mercury accumulation in the world’s water and food supply.
(WSJ, 12/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 17, Colombian authorities revealed that they had lost track in June of three IRA-linked men, convicted this week of training Marxist rebels in terrorist tactics.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, The UN said foreign troops have crossed into Congo and called on outside forces to stop giving weapons and reinforcements to renegade soldiers battling army loyalists.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, Dissident forces attacked the village of Buramba, Congo, targeting civilians suspected of sympathizing with pro-government militiamen. At least 30 civilians were killed in the massacre believed to have been a reprisal for the killing of 3 renegade soldiers by a pro-government militia.
(AP, 1/7/05)
2004 Dec 17, Three days of trade talks ended in Havana. Cuba agreed to buy about $125 million in farm goods from attending U.S. companies.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, European Union leaders and Turkey agreed on a compromise formula to overcome differences over Turkish recognition of Cyprus' government as a condition for opening EU membership talks.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, The US completely forgave $4.1 billion in debt Iraq owed it and urged other nations not part of an international debt relief agreement to follow suit.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, Gunmen attacked a car in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing four male passengers, and witnesses said three of the victims were foreigners.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, Israeli troops raided a Gaza refugee camp in retaliation for a deadly Palestinian mortar fire, sparking fighting that killed 8 Palestinians and wounded 24 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier.
(AP, 12/17/04)(SFC, 12/18/04, p.A14)
2004 Dec 17, Italy's interior ministry said 181 people had been arrested in the past three months in a crackdown on the Camorra in Naples whose turf warfare now overshadows that of the Sicilian mafia.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that the AIDS drug nevirapine failed to meet int’l. standards in Uganda. The drug was used to protect babies from HIV infection, but that infected women could develop resistance.
(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A23)
2005 Dec 17, President George W. Bush acknowledged he signed a secret order after the September 11, 2001, attacks to allow the surveillance of people in the United States.
(Reuters, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, John Ruiz lost the WBA heavyweight title, dropping a disputed majority decision to Nikolay Valuev of Russia in Berlin.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2005 Dec 17, Jack Anderson (83), Pulitzer Prize-winning muckraking columnist, died at his home in Maryland. Washington Post columnist Drew Pearson hired Anderson in 1947 and Anderson took over his column after Pearson’s death in 1969.
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.B5)
2005 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan men on a motorcycle opened fire on students leaving school in Lashkargah, killing a pupil and a janitor.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan 4 policemen and 3 suspected Taliban fighters were killed and an Afghan interpreter were wounded in attacks.
(AFP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Bosnia the reconstructed Stari Most, a bridge that came to symbolize the senseless brutality of the Bosnian war, took its place on the UN's list of protected World Heritage Sites.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, Hundreds of fighters from three rebel armies united to attack the village of San Marino in western Colombia. The bold assault that killed at least five police officers.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, EU leaders agreed on a 7-year spending plan for the 25-nation bloc, a hard-won deal seen as key to shaping the future of an enlarged EU and to restoring faith in its unity.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Hong Kong hundreds of protesters wielding bamboo sticks broke through police lines and tried to storm the convention center hosting global trade talks. Security forces scattered the crowd with tear gas. Police said 41 people were injured and 900 were detained.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, India and Pakistan agreed to begin work by 2007 on a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran, moving ahead with the project despite US disapproval. Iran hoped to break ground this year on a 1,700 mile, $4 billion natural gas pipeline to deliver gas across Pakistan to India. The US opposed the line and threatened sanctions under the 1996 Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) law.
(AP, 12/18/05)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.A4)
2005 Dec 17, The chief UN investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in published remarks that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, Macedonia moved a step closer to realizing its dream of EU membership when the bloc's leaders gave their blessing for it to start membership talks.
(AFP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, The Mexican government slammed the US Congress for approving an immigration bill that would tighten border controls and make it harder for undocumented immigrants to get jobs.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Mexico 6 people were stabbed or battered to death during a prison gang fight in Ciudad Juarez, across the US border from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, Forty drunken Santas rampaged through central Auckland, NZ, stealing from stores and assaulting security guards in a protest against the commercialization of Christmas.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip killed a militant who fired homemade rockets at Israel and wounded three other people.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, A first group of southern Sudanese refugees began their journey home after two decades of living in a camp in Kenya.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Trinidad Randy Depoo, a former political officer at the US Embassy in Trinidad, paid $1,000 for the release of his kidnapped son. The kidnappers originally sought nearly $32,000 but released the youth within hours of the abduction for the lower amount.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Dec 17, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the EU of trying to pressure Turkish courts in the trial of the country's best-known novelist. Orhan Pamuk is being tried for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it."
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Vietnam disaster officials said floods and landslides have claimed at least 47 lives in central Vietnam in the past two weeks.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2006 Dec 17, In Kirksville, Missouri, a 911 call reporting a "strange odor" from a duplex apartment led police to the bodies of seven people.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, In Ohio a plane crashed in a field killing Paul and Lillian Martin of Austin, Texas, and their two children.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, Kelly James of Dallas, one of 3 missing climbers, was found dead in a snow cave on Mount Hood.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Afghan officials replaced Helmand Gov. Mohammad Daud with Asadullah Wafa. Daud led the province that grows more than a third of the world's opium. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the appointment of Wafa would help increase security in Helmand, but insisted the increase in poppy cultivation had nothing to do with the change. In eastern Afghanistan a suicide bomber drove up to an American convoy and blew himself up, leaving one Afghan civilian dead and two others wounded. France said it is going to withdraw its 200-strong special forces from Afghanistan, all of its ground troops engaged in the US anti-terror operation there.
(AP, 12/17/06)(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, In eastern Chad marauding fighters killed and mutilated 20 civilians. The government blamed the atrocities on militias backed by neighbouring Sudan. Government forces who battled the attackers after their raids on the refugee camp and two other nearby villages also saw eight of their soldiers killed and the victims' eyes gouged out. The army killed nine fighters in return and took four prisoners.
(AFP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 17, Indian officials said a killer elephant, named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers, was killed by sharpshooters. The animal was blamed for 14 deaths in the northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Britain’s PM Blair and his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki, discussed preparations by British military units in Basra, the main city in southern Iraq, to turn over security to Iraqi forces. Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms burst into Red Crescent offices and kidnapped more than two dozen people at the humanitarian organization in the latest sign of the country's growing lawlessness. Others killed in violence included two policeman, an Iraqi soldier and a municipal official in Baghdad; and a police officer in Kut. Former Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samaraie, a dual US-Iraqi citizen and the country's only postwar Cabinet minister to be convicted of corruption, escaped police custody in Baghdad for a second time.
(AP, 12/17/06)(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, Nigeria's ruling party chose a reclusive Muslim state governor, Umaru Yar'Adua, to be its candidate to succeed Olusegun Obasanjo as president of Africa's most populous nation in elections next year.
(Reuters, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Gunmen attacked the convoy of the Palestinian foreign minister and raided a training base for an elite security forces unit, stepping up factional violence over a decision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to end nine months of Hamas leadership and call early elections. A 19-year-old woman and a Palestinian security officer were killed in the chaos. Earlier in the day dozens of gunmen raided a training camp of Abbas' Presidential Guard near the president's residence, killing a member of the elite force.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Scores of migrants who spent days at sea were missing and feared dead after their boat wrecked off Senegal's coast.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Zimbabwe's ruling party recommended that President Robert Mugabe's term be extended by two years, to 2010, delaying a showdown between rival factions over the choice of his successor. Opposition and rights groups vowed to stage mass street protests against plans by Mugabe's supporters to extend the veteran ruler's term by another two years.
(AP, 12/17/06)(AFP, 12/18/06)
2007 Dec 17, President George W. Bush, addressing a Rotary Club meeting, tried to reassure an edgy public that the economy is "pretty good" despite the mix of a failing housing market, a national credit crunch and surging energy costs.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2007 Dec 17, A US judge ruled that the White House visitor logs are public, a blow to Pres. Bush, who didn’t want to disclose visits by religious conservatives.
(WSJ, 12/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 17, In Washington, DC, a military judge said the US must hold court hearings to determine whether suspected terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay are prisoners of war or unlawful enemy combatants in a ruling that could delay war crimes trials.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 17, US trade officials said the US has reached a deal with the EU, Japan and Canada to keep its Internet gambling market closed to foreign companies, but is continuing talks with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau and Costa Rica.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed into law a measure that abolished the death penalty, making New Jersey the first US state in over decades reject capital punishment.
(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 17, It was reported that the US was investigation allegations that Public Warehousing Co. owned by Kuwait’s Sultan Al-Essa family, had solicited as much as $80 million in kickbacks under cover as discounts from US suppliers.
(WSJ, 12/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 17, The World Trade Organization (WTO) launched an investigation into Washington's multi-billion-dollar farm subsidies that Brazil and Canada say break international trading rules.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, The Int’l. Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank, unveiled a $1 billion health-care strategy for Africa.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.121)
2007 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan several militants were killed in airstrikes and a subsequent operation by US-led coalition troops.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Much of eastern and central Canada was digging out after a massive storm dumped up to 50 cm (20 inches) of snow in places, shocking Canadians who had become accustomed to milder winters.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Grozny, Chechnya, a roadside bomb killed a prison guard and wounded four other people as they drove in a van transporting suspected criminals.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Dubai ruling Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum pardoned 377 inmates of Dubai prisons this week on the eve of Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic holiday. The pardon included Bert Tatham, a Canadian UN official who advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops. Tatham (35) was granted amnesty, six months after being sentenced to four years in prison on a drug smuggling conviction. Tatham was arrested April 23 during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai International Airport, after being caught with a half a gram of hashish, and two poppy bulbs.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Nine Egyptians were killed and seven injured when a car crashed into a group of people celebrating a religious festival on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said the first nuclear fuel shipment for the Bushehr atomic power plant has arrived in Iran from Russia. Aghazadeh said the Bushehr plant was 95 percent complete and would begin operations next year.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Al-Qaida's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri warned of "traitors" among insurgents in Iraq and called on Iraqi Sunni Arab tribes to purge those who help the Americans in a new videotape posted on the Web.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Defense officials said Israel will allow the Palestinians to set up a new cell phone network, part of warming relations between the sides. The world rallied to the support of the embattled Palestinian government, and the co-chairman of a donors' conference said he was confident they could meet a $5.6 billion target in aid.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Japan and the United Arab Emirates signed an accord to strengthen economic ties, including a deal for Japanese banks to extend a multibillion-dollar loan to a state-owned Abu Dhabi oil firm.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Japan began sending warnings to an estimated 8.5 million people that their pension data may have gone missing, as the government seeks to clean up a scandal that has damaged its credibility.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, A Nicaraguan appeals court overturned the conviction of Eric Volz, a US man sentenced to 30 years in prison in the killing of his Nicaraguan girlfriend. Volz (28) was freed on Dec 21 and quickly left Nicaragua.
(AP, 12/18/07)(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 17, Nigeria's main militant group urged all armed factions in the restive southern oil heartland to join together and cripple Africa's biggest petroleum industry.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Pakistan the Election Commission rejected former PM Nawaz Sharif’s appeal against the rejection of his nomination for next month's parliamentary elections. Police used batons and fired tear gas in a clash with protesters who hurled rocks and bricks at them in Islamabad. A suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Pakistani army recruits returning from a soccer game in northwestern Pakistan, killing nine of them. The attacker struck near an army communications center in Kohat, about 30 miles from the city of Peshawar.
(AFP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was ready to become prime minister if his close ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep a grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Saudi Arabia a gang-rape victim who was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man not related to her was pardoned by the Saudi king after the case sparked rare criticism from the United States, the kingdom's top ally.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Somalia mortar shells slammed into Mogadishu, killing at least 12 people, including a mother and her three children, and wounding dozens in an increasingly ferocious Islamic insurgency.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In northern Sri Lanka renewed violence between Tamil rebels and government forces left at least 33 people dead.
(AFP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Uruguay's last military dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, was charged with the forced disappearance of political prisoners, cheering human rights activists who have long campaigned for his prosecution.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2008 Dec 17, Microsoft said will release an emergency patch today to fix a perilous software flaw allowing hackers to hijack Internet Explorer browsers and take over computers.
(AFP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Minnesota two freight trains collided sending an engineer and some cars into the Mississippi River.
(WSJ, 12/18/08, p.A1)
2008 Dec 17, OPEC, meeting in Algeria, said it is cutting 2.2 million barrels a day from its output, the largest ever at one time, to stem crude prices that have plummeted over 70% from summer highs of nearly $150. Members among the 13-nation organization were officially producing a daily 29.045 million barrels in September.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Algerian news reports said Raked Brahim (28) was convicted and jailed for three years for traveling to Iraq in 2007 to take part in attacks against US forces. He was detained in Syria and later deported back to Algeria.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Australian Aborigines won a court fight against Anglo-Swiss mining giant Xstrata's plans to divert a river and expand one of the world's biggest zinc mines.
(AFP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Two Australian women were killed when their light aircraft slammed into a suburban house in Sydney after a mid-air collision between two flying school planes.
(AFP, 12/18/08)
2008 Dec 17, British PM Gordon Brown said his country's troops will leave Iraq by May 31, ending a mission that provided the second-largest military presence in Iraq after the United States. Police said a double-bombing in Baghdad targeting traffic police left at least 18 people dead and 52 others wounded. The US military reported nine killed and 43 wounded.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, A London judge sentenced Bilal Abdulla (29) to at least 32 years in prison for his role in the June 29, 2007, attempted car bombs in London and an attack at Glasgow Airport the following day.
(SFC, 12/18/08, p.A17)
2008 Dec 17, Bulgaria's last 155 troops stationed in Iraq returned home. 13 Bulgarian soldiers and six civilians have died in Iraq since 2003. Bulgaria also has troops in international military missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Beijing the presidents of China and Angola signed a series of agreements as the oil rich African nation sought greater Chinese participation in its energy and infrastructure development.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, The European Parliament gave a jailed Chinese dissident a one-minute standing ovation as it honored him in absentia with its top human rights award.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Gaza militants fired nine rockets at Israel just two days before militants say a truce along the Gaza border is to expire. The rockets were fired by three small militant groups and caused no injuries. Israel says there's no expiration date.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Indian Kashmir thousands of security forces patrolled towns to protect voters in state elections. Muslim separatists urged residents to boycott the vote and called for a general strike.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, The Russian ruble suffered its largest drop in three months after the Central Bank signaled it would accelerate the devaluation of the national currency.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, An international anti-piracy force thwarted the attempted takeover of a Chinese cargo ship off the Somali coast, sending in attack helicopters that fired on the bandits and forced them to abandon the ship they had boarded. The Indian navy handed over 23 pirates, caught at sea on Dec 13, to authorities in Yemen.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said Zimbabwe's neighbors will launch an urgent humanitarian campaign in the hope of saving the country from economic collapse and a cholera epidemic. Motlanthe also said South Africa would not join international calls for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to step down, saying it was "not for us" to do so.
(AP, 12/17/08)(AFP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, A South Korean court found one of the country's most famous actresses guilty of adultery, months after she tried but failed to have a law that makes extramarital affairs a crime ruled unconstitutional. Ok So-ri was handed a suspended jail term.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Sri Lankan fighter jets and attack helicopters pummeled rebel fortifications across the north, as government forces pushed ahead with their offensive against the Tamil Tigers' northern stronghold in the face of punishing seasonal rains and stiff rebel resistance.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, The UN said it will double the budget of its Afghan mission next year, taking on hundreds of new staff and opening more offices to meet more "complex" challenges. The UN’s chief in Afghanistan called for international military forces to revise their agreement with the Afghan government to include practices that will better safeguard civilians.
(AFP, 12/17/08)(AP, 12/17/08)
2009 Dec 17, The Obama administration handed out the first $182 million of a $7.2 billion pot of stimulus money that will go toward building high-speed Internet networks and encouraging more Americans to use them.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared that attempts over the past two years to save the endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon had failed. An isolated population of the species lives along a stretch of the Kootenai that passes through Montana, northern Idaho and southern British Columbia. Fewer than 500 of the bottom-feeding behemoths survive. It's been 35 years since they successfully spawned due to the 1974 construction of Libby Dam.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 17, SF Mayor Newsom delivered a list of midyear cuts totaling $45 million. He still faced a $522 million deficit for 2010.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A15)
2009 Dec 17, In California the Sonoma Land Trust completed the $36 million purchase of 5,630 acres of coastal grasslands and redwood forest known as the Jenner Headlands.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A1)
2009 Dec 17, Xcor Aerospace of Mohave, Ca., the developer of a rocket plane for space tourism, said it has been selected to supply launch services to the Yecheon Astro Space Center, a nonprofit organization in South Korea.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A21)
2009 Dec 17, Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry (26) died in North Carolina, a day after falling out of the back of a pickup truck during what police said was a domestic dispute with his fiancee.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Kansas City, Mo., Chester Harvey Jr. (38), of Laddonia, and his son Chad Michael Harvey (19), of Eolia, tortured and killed James William Boyd McNeely (20) of Ohio in the trucker's basement with the help of several other people. On Dec 30 prosecutors filed for first-degree murder and other charges against the men.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 17, John Hummel stabbed his wife, Joy Hummel, 35 times, then beat to death his 5-year-old daughter Jodi Hummel and wheelchair-bound father-in-law Clyde Bedford with a baseball bat in the Fort Worth suburb of Kennedale. On June 30, 2021, Hummel was executed by lethal injection at the Texas state penitentiary in Huntsville.
(https://tinyurl.com/fev5uxwh)(SFC, 7/2/21, p.A4)
2009 Dec 17, Jennifer Jones (90), film actress, died. She starred in over 2 dozen films and won an academy award for her 1943 film “The Song of Bernadette."
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A24)
2009 Dec 17, In Afghanistan a key conference on corruption ended with delegates suggesting the government end immunity for corrupt officials and intensify the fight against graft. A suicide attacker wounded 5 Afghan soldiers and 4 tribal leaders in the central province of Uruzgan.
(AFP, 12/17/09)(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In the Bahamas 2 US pilots were the only people aboard the small jet when it crashed in an unpopulated area of Great Inagua shortly after taking off from the Dominican Republic en route to Miami. The Jet Falcon was owned by a trust for which the San Francisco, California-based Wells Fargo company acts as trustee.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 17, Oxfam said some areas of East Africa had received less than 5% of the normal November rains and that many people are malnourished in Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. It was the sixth failed rainy season for war-ravaged Somalia and the worst drought there for 20 years. The European Commission announced that it would immediately release an extra $75 million to fund emergency relief for drought-stricken areas of East Africa. It estimated that 16 million people will need aid in the coming months.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Bolivia's leftist government was reported to have seized another big ranch from a top opposition figure. It said the 2,500-hectare (10-square-mile) spread will go to landless Indians. President Morales' government also confiscated a 500-hectare parcel from Osvaldo Monasterio, a banker and agribusinessman who owns the Unitel TV network.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Brazil a 2-year-old boy with 42 sewing needles stuck in him was airlifted to another hospital in northeastern Bahia state because two of the needles were close to his heart. A police official said Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, the boy's stepfather, had been arrested, that he had confessed to sticking the needles into the boy with the help of a woman and that authorities were investigating whether black magic was involved. On Dec 18 doctors removed 4 of the most life-threatening needles.
(AP, 12/17/09)(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A5)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 17, Canada put its Candu nuclear division up for sale, saying the operation needed outside investors to boost its chances for growth at a time of expanding nuclear power generation and also help cut the cost to taxpayers.
(Reuters, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Copenhagen US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to put new life into flagging UN climate talks by announcing the US would join others in raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with global warming.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Ingushetia, Russia, a suicide car bomber attacked a group of police and soldiers in Nazran, wounding at least 23 people. Also in Nazran 2 security officers were killed in a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Iranian forces took control of Well 4, a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border in Maysan province. Well 4 lies in the Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of fields Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. There have been a number of meetings in recent years aimed at reaching agreement on border fields, so far without success.
(AFP, 12/18/09)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Iraq a car bomb exploded outside a popular restaurant in central Baghdad, killing 3 people and wounding 16 as diners were out enjoying the start to their weekend.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Off the coast of Lebanon a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship carrying thousands of sheep and other livestock went down in heavy rain. At least 9 crew members were killed and dozens were missing.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 17, Hannibal Kadhafi, the son of the Libyan leader, filed a civil lawsuit for "protection of personality" against the Swiss canton of Geneva and a local newspaper over the publication of police mugshots taken when he was arrested in Switzerland in July, 2008.
(AFP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 17, Malaysian marine police rescued 62 pangolins. 2 days later Malaysian wildlife authorities said they rescued 130 pangolins and arrested two men attempting to smuggle the protected species. They were expected to be illegally exported to China, Japan and Hong Kong, where animal's meat is considered a delicacy with medicinal qualities.
(AFP, 12/20/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin)
2009 Dec 17, In Mexico four suspected drug traffickers and two local policemen were killed in a shootout with soldiers in General Zuazua. Soldiers found a list with names of local policemen who may have been on the payroll of the drug gang. They also found more than 1,320 pounds (600 kg) of marijuana and several guns at the scene.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 17, In New Zealand a church billboard was erected showing an apparently naked Virgin Mary and Joseph in bed together and quickly sparked the ire of conservative Christians. On the poster a sad-looking Joseph lies next to Mary, whose face is turned heavenwards under the words: "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow." St Matthews' vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, said the billboard was meant to challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived.
(AFP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, A Nigerian judge dismissed a 170-count indictment that accused former Delta state governor James Ibori, of corruption and money laundering. Ibori was also a financial backer of President Umaru Yar'Adua.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Pakistan's defense minister was blocked from leaving the country along with nearly 250 other top officials, following the Supreme Court's decision to strike down an amnesty for hundreds of Pakistani officials charged with corruption. 2 separate US missile strikes killed 16 people in North Waziristan including Al-Qaida commander Zuhaib al-Zahibi.
(AP, 12/18/09)(AFP, 12/17/09)(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A11)
2009 Dec 17, Former Syrian President Amin Hafez (b.1920) died. He was brought to power by a military coup only to be overthrown three years later. Hafez became president in a 1963 coup, but Baath Party radicals drove him from power three years later.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The Vatican said Bishop Donal Murray (69), a Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland, has resigned after a probe of child sex abuse by clergymen accused him of ignoring reports of crimes by priests in his diocese from 1982-1996.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The Vatican said it has stripped charismatic Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of his priestly duties because he defiantly continues to ordain bishops despite already being excommunicated. Milingo angered the Vatican when he got married in 2001 to a South Korean woman by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church. He was excommunicated in 2006 after installing four married men as bishops.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Yemen security forces struck several al-Qaida hideouts and training sites in Abyan province, killing up to 34 suspected militants, including four would-be suicide bombers who planned attacks at home and abroad. At least 17 suspected militants were arrested. Civilians were caught up in the government offensive, with several homes destroyed in the airstrikes and others stormed by troops who mistook them for al-Qaida hideouts.
(AP, 12/17/09)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.35)
2010 Dec 17, Pres. Obama signed into law a tax bill extending cuts for all Americans. The $858 billion package included 13 months of extended benefits to the unemployed and a boost for renewable power companies.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A12)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 17, The states of Arizona and Nevada sued Bank of America Corp., accusing the largest US bank of routinely misleading consumers about home loan modifications.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, The widow of Jeffrey Picower (d.2009), a Florida philanthropist, agreed to return $7.2 billion that her husband reaped from the giant Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 17, The Archdiocese of New York announced that a Roman Catholic tribunal has defrocked former monsignor Charles Kavanagh (73) for molesting a teenage student in the 1980s. Kavanagh denied the accusation.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 17, Don Van Vliet (69), American musician and artist, died in California. He had performed as Captain Beefheart and was best known for his 1969 album “Trout Mask Replica" released by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band."
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 17, In Afghanistan kidnappers killed a Bangladeshi working for a South Korean firm and held 3 road workers hostage after storming their camp at gunpoint between the northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan. Haitham Mohammed al-Khayat (26), a prominent Jordanian-Palestinian militant better known in extremist circles as Abu Kandahar al-Zarqawi, was killed by US forces. He was an administrator of the online jihadi forum, Al-Hesbah, according to Islamist militant websites.
(AFP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 17, British landscape architect Joanna Yeates (25) went missing following a night out. Her body was found in the Failand area of Bristol on Christmas Day. She had been strangled. On Jan 20, 2011, Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak (32) was detained after police uncovered fresh evidence. On Oct 28 Tabak was found guilty of murder.
(AFP, 1/4/11)(AFP, 1/22/11)(Reuters, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 17, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a rare visit to Pakistan aimed at expanding trade ties and the flow of Chinese investment into the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, A French court convicted 13 former officials who served under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for roles in the disappearance of 4 French nationals. It sentenced two to life in prison: Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who at the time headed Pinochet's political police, and Octavio Espinoza Bravo, an army colonel. All 14 of the defendants were tried in absentia.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Iraq a roadside bomb in southeast Baghdad exploded as Shiite pilgrims were returning home from Karbala, after final ceremonies ended for Ashura, the Shiite Muslims' most solemn religious event of the year. Eight pilgrims were wounded. The UN refugee agency said an "exodus" of thousands of Iraqi Christians was taking place following a deadly church attack in Baghdad carried out by Al-Qaeda militants at the end of October.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Israel Christine Luken (44), female American tourist, was stabbed to death. Her body was found on Dec 19 bound and with multiple stab wounds near a road outside Jerusalem. Her friend, Kaye Susan Wilson, told police the two had been hiking in a nearby forest when they were assaulted by two Arab men. She, too, was bound and stabbed, but managed to escape her assailants. On Jan 26, 2011, Palestinians Kifah Ghneimat and Iyad Fatafa were indicted for Luken’s murder. Ghneimat was convicted on Sep 25.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 1/26/11)(AP, 9/26/11)
2010 Dec 17, Ivory Coast police were out in force in Abidjan as supporters of the internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's presidential election vowed to try once again to seize state institutions after a similar attempt the day before resulted in up to 30 deaths.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Kyrgyzstan's fractious parliament named a new prime minister and formed a government, ending weeks of political uncertainty. Social Democrat Party leader Almazbek Atambayev was named premier with 92 out of 114 votes.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Maltese Foreign Minister Tonio Borg promised during a visit to the Gaza Strip to donate funds to the United Nations agency caring for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Mexico 141 inmates, a number later raised to 153, escaped from a state prison in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. Authorities said the breakout was probably helped by prison employees. More than 40 prison guards were later charged with helping 153 inmates escape from the prison. 11 men were reported abducted from a bar in Acapulco. Two of the abducted men were later found dead. Their hands and feet had been cut off. On Dec 27 police in Acapulco found the decapitated bodies of two more men in front of the same bar.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 17, A Nigerian court sentenced 15 Muslim herdsmen to 10 years each over sectarian violence in the country's central region that left hundreds dead this year. Nigerian tanker drivers suspended petrol deliveries to Lagos and other areas to protest the firing of 2,500 members, sparking long queues at filling stations.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigerian NDLF militants attacked three pipelines operated by the US oil giant Chevron and Italian firm Agip in the key oil producing state of Delta.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigeria dropped charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal allegedly involving Halliburton after a reported settlement of 250 million dollars. On Dec 21 Halliburton said it had agreed to pay 32.5 million dollars to the Nigerian government, plus 2.5 million dollars in costs.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, North Korea said it would strike again at the South if a live-firing drill by Seoul on a disputed island went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month's shelling that killed four people. Russia urged South Korea to halt plans for the artillery drill.
(AP, 12/17/10)(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Pakistan 3 American missile attacks killed 54 people in the villages of Spin Drag and Shandana in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber region, an area that has seen few such strikes in the past, possibly signaling an expansion of the CIA-led covert war inside the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Sudan's army clashed with Darfur rebels for a third time in a week. UN officials said clashes between the Sudanese army and former rebels who signed a peace treaty with Khartoum have forced the displacement of more than 12,000 people in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Tunisia Mohamed Bouazizi (26), a university graduate without a steady job and trying to support his family, burned himself after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he sold without a permit. His self-immolation left him in intensive care and sparked protests over unemployment that led to at least three deaths. Bouazizi died on Jan 4.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 17, Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc. Officials and troops began seizing 47 private ranches as pres. Chavez pushed ahead to take over big swaths of agricultural land in western Venezuela.
(AP, 12/18/10)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 17, In Vietnam Southeast Asia's largest hydroelectric power station began operating to help ease an electricity shortage. The first of six turbines at the Son La station was connected to the national power grid.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Yemen gunmen killed three soldiers and wounded seven others when they opened fire on a military base in the southern province of Abyan.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Zimbabwe's Pres. Mugabe said the power-sharing government is not working and must end, putting him on a collision course with PM Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe told his party conference that British and US companies in Zimbabwe will be nationalized unless sanctions against the country are dropped.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2011 Dec 17, Deloris Gillespie (64) burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail. The next day Jerome Isaac (47) told police he set her on fire because she owed him $2,000 for some work he had done for her.
(AP, 12/18/11)(AP, 12/19/11)
2011 Dec 17, In Afghanistan international troops exchanged gunfire with guards at a house in Paktia province, and detained a counternarcotics chief and two of his sons. An Afghan woman and another member of the counternarcotics chief's family were killed and three other women were injured. Three policemen were killed when their patrol vehicle was caught in the blast from a roadside bomb on the main highway between Farah and Nimroz provinces.
(AP, 12/17/11)(AFP, 12/18/11)
2011 Dec 17, In Afghanistan the US military began testing Kaman K-MAX helicopters, a revolutionary new drone for its arsenal. The pilotless helicopters will fly cargo missions to remote outposts where frequent roadside bombs threaten access by road convoys.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2011 Dec 17, Opposition supporters in Bahrain clashed with police for a third straight day along a main highway west of the capital.
(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora (70), nicknamed the "barefoot diva", died in a hospital in her native country. Her 1992 album, “Miss Perfumado," earned her 5 gold records.
(AFP, 12/17/11)(Econ, 1/7/12, p.86)
2011 Dec 17, In Egypt violence raged for a second day in the administrative heart of Cairo as troops and police deployed in force. The count continued in the second stage of elections for the lower house of parliament.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Gabon held legislative elections. Voters were expected to hand a resounding victory to President Ali Bongo's party in the face of a boycott by some opposition groups. Some 746,000 people were registered to vote in the country of 1.5 million inhabitants, sub-Saharan Africa's fourth largest oil producer.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, An overcrowded ship of asylum seekers sank off the island of Java. Indonesian rescuers battled high waves as they searched for survivors. Nearly 250 people fleeing economic and political hardship in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey were trying to reach Australia in search of a better life when their fiberglass ship broke apart. Only 47 people survived.
(AP, 12/18/11)(AFP, 12/20/11)
2011 Dec 17, The secular Iraqiya bloc, which won most of the votes of Iraq's disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, walked out of parliament sparking a political crisis days after US forces ended their mission.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev imposed a three-week state of emergency in the oil town of Zhanaozen, where at least 15 people were killed a day earlier in a clash between police and demonstrators. In the southwest police opened fire on rioters in the town of Shetpe, leaving one person dead and 11 wounded. Two days of rioting left 16 people dead.
(AP, 12/17/11)(AP, 12/18/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.26)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 17, In Nigeria an explosion at a house allegedly used to make home-made bombs in the northeastern city of Maiduguri killed three suspected Islamist sect members. Police shot rifles and fired tear gas at protesters who were demonstrating against toll roads in Lagos.
(AFP, 12/17/11)(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (b.1941) died of a heart attack. His third son, Kim Jong Un, was expected to succeed his father.
(AP, 12/19/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.74)
2011 Dec 17, It was reported that North Korea has agreed to suspend its enriched-uranium nuclear weapons program, a key United States demand for the resumption of disarmament talks, as Washington agreed to provide the North with up to 240,000 tons of food aid.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Tropical storm Washi whipped the southern Philippines, unleashing mammoth floods across vast areas that left 440 people dead and nearly 200 missing.
(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, In Russia about 1,000 demonstrators demanding a rerun of parliamentary elections gathered in central Moscow for a second weekend of protests against the recent fraud-tainted vote.
(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Former Miss Venezuela Eva Ekvall (28), whose struggle with breast cancer was closely followed by Venezuelans, died at a hospital in Houston. Ekvall was crowned Miss Venezuela at age 17 in 2000, and the following year she was third runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico.
(AP, 12/19/11)
2012 Dec 17, NASA space probes EBB and Flow expired as they crashed into a lunar mountainside. They were initially named “GRAIL A" and “GRAIL B," but were renamed by a calss of schoolchildren in bozeman, Montana.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.124)
2012 Dec 17, Sen. Daniel Inouye (88) of Hawaii died at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Maryland.
(SFC, 12/18/12, p.A9)
2012 Dec 17, In Afghanistan a car bomb outside a compound housing a US military contractor on the outskirts of Kabul killed at least two Afghan workers and wounded more than a dozen other people. In Nangarhar province a British-made anti-tank mine, left over from the time of the Soviet invasion, killed ten girls ages 9-11.
(AP, 12/17/12)(SFC, 12/18/12, p.A3)
2012 Dec 17, Argentina's government told Grupo Clarin, the country's largest media conglomerate, that it has begun a process to break up the company and auction off its media licenses.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Security forces in Bahrain fired tear gas and stun grenades to break up protest marchers after calls by anti-government groups to snarl the Gulf nation's capital with demonstrators to mark an annual commemoration for two protesters killed in 1994.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Benin officials said at least 19 people drowned after a boat capsized on a river near a village in the south.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Brazilian prosecutors said Chevron Corp. has offered to pay $150 million to settle two civil lawsuits stemming from a Nov 2011 offshore oil spill. The lawsuits sought $20 billion in damages.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Brazil the Supreme Court trial of the mensalao (big monthly stipend), a scheme for buying votes, ended. 25 of 38 defendants were found guilty of charges including corruption, money-laundering and misuse of public funds.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.51)
2012 Dec 17, British energy regulator Ofgem approved 24.4 billion pounds of investment by energy companies to overhaul the country's gas and electricity grid, reducing initial overall spending plans by 16% to 2021.
(Reuters, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, A Cameroon appeals court upheld a three-year sentence against a man found guilty of homosexual conduct for sending a text message to another man saying: "I'm very much in love with you."
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Iraq a wave of bombings across the country hit a number of targets, including residents of ethnically disputed areas, killing 25 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Italy's government said an Italian technician and two other employees at a Syrian steel plant near Latakia have been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, A Milan court fined Moroccan woman Karima el-Mahroug, also known as Ruby, for failing to appear as a witness twice at the former premier's trial. It ordered her to testify in January. She is at the center of Silvio Berlusconi's sex-for-hire scandal €500 ($650).
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Gunmen stormed the SP Brussels tanker ship off the coast of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, ransacking the vessel and kidnapping five Indian sailors in the latest attack targeting foreign workers in the volatile region. On Jan 26 the Indian sailors were reported freed. Separately gunmen abducted four South Koreans and a Nigerian working for Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. at a construction site in the Brass area of Bayelsa state.
(AP, 12/19/12)(AP, 1/26/13)
2012 Dec 17, In northwest Nigeria 27 people riding atop a truck carrying livestock were killed when it tipped over and crashed.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Nigeria a pipeline explosion took place in Ije Ododo, in a swampy mangrove forest in the western fringe of Lagos when locals tapped into the pipeline to steal the refined gasoline moving through it. Flames continued thru Dec 20.
(AP, 12/21/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Pakistan a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal area, killing 17 people and wounding more than 40 others. In the southwest attackers shot dead Khadim Hussain Noori in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. He was the provincial spokesman and also a Shiite Muslim.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Pakistan a person working on the anti-polio campaign, a male volunteer, was gunned down in Karachi. Taliban militants also killed three soldiers in an ambush of an army convoy escorting a vaccination team in the northwest.
(AP, 12/18/12)
2012 Dec 17, Philippine legislators passed a landmark bill that would provide government funding for contraceptives and sexuality classes in schools despite strong opposition by the dominant Roman Catholic Church and its followers. Pres. Aquino III signed the legislation on Dec 21.
(AP, 12/17/12)(SSFC, 12/30/12, p.A6)
2012 Dec 17, Syria's longtime vice president Farouk al-Sharaa said the army cannot defeat the rebels fighting to topple the regime, the first admission by a top government official that a victory by President Bashar Assad is unlikely.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2013 Dec 17, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden offered to help Brazil defeat US spying, but in an open letter said he needs permanent political asylum to do so.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The Mega Millions lottery and its jackpot of $648 million went to two winners. One ticket was sold in San Jose, Ca., and the other in Atlanta, Georgia.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 17, In California ex-firefighter Zane Wallace Peterson (29) of Shasta County was taken into custody for setting wildfires, including the massive Clover Fire that broke out on Sep 9.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.C3)
2013 Dec 17, In Reno, Nevada, a gunman opened fire at the Center for Advanced Medicine killing one person and wounding two others before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 17, Christie’s in New York auctioned one edition of Jeff Koons’ “Balloon Dog" for $58.4 million, a record amount for a living artist. The 10-foot steel orange edition was one of five, each a different color.
(Econ, 12/21/13, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/ng83bhm)
2013 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan an aircraft crash killed six American soldiers.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Egypt's security forces clashed with supporters of the former Islamist president at several universities across the country, as an explosive device detonated in a residential area of the capital but caused no injuries or damage.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The European Union said it has warned Israel against any new West Bank settlement construction following an upcoming Palestinian prisoner release, saying it will be held responsible for any resulting failure of the ongoing peace talks.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In France Claude Gueant, the former right-hand man of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, was arrested for questioning about alleged misuse of public funds when he served the conservative leader at the interior ministry.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, French troops took on armed Christian militias in Bangui, Central African Republic, where the UN said 210,000 people had been uprooted in two weeks of deadly sectarian violence.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Greek authorities said an oil tanker came under armed attack overnight about 35 nautical miles south of Nigeria, and the ship's Ukrainian captain and Greek first engineer have been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Guinea-Bissau's Interior Minister Antonio Suka Ntchama became the second minister to step down in the tiny West African country amid an investigation into how 74 Syrians boarded a flight to Portugal with fake passports.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 17, Indian authorities removed security barriers in front of the US embassy in New Delhi apparently in retaliation for the arrest and alleged heavy-handed treatment of an Indian diplomat in New York. Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was arrested last week for allegedly underpaying her nanny and committing visa fraud to get her into the United States.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Iraq bombings in and near Baghdad killed 10 Shiite pilgrims as they were making their way on foot to Karbala.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Israel some 200 African migrants and Israeli activists ended a two-day march with a rally denouncing Israel's policy of detaining those illegally in the country.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Japan approved a plan to increase defense spending by 5% over the next five years to purchase its first surveillance drones, more jet fighters and naval destroyers in the face of China's military expansion.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In eastern Lebanon a car bomb exploded at dawn near a Hezbollah position, causing an unknown number of casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Russian and Ukrainian officials signed a series of agreements in Moscow to boost trade and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Saudi authorities beheaded a Syrian man convicted of smuggling drugs to the ultra-conservative kingdom.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Sicily eruptions at Mount Etna volcano died down, allowing the nearby airport of Catania to re-open after a two-day stoppage that disrupted dozens of flights.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Syria 2 children were among at least 18 people killed in new air strikes on a rebel-held district of Aleppo. The 3-day assault has left over 100 dead.
(AFP, 12/17/13)(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 17, Turkish police detained the sons of three cabinet ministers and several well-known businessmen as part of investigations into alleged corruption. Police seized shoeboxes stashed with $4.5 million in cash at the home of Suleyman Aslan, a state-owned bank's chief executive. Police arrested some 50 people altogether on suspicion of tender rigging, covert gold transfers to Iran and bribery.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)(AP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.37)
2014 Dec 17, The United States slapped sanctions on Dutch and Swiss oil trading firms for their dealings with the Syrian government. This put Netherlands-based Staroil B.V. as well as two Swiss-based firms, Rixo International Trading Ltd and Bluemarine SA, on its list of sanctioned entities, which effectively cuts them off from the US financial system.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, US officials said the United States is planning to open an embassy in Cuba as part of its plan to open talks and normalize relations with the island nation. Cuba released Rolando Sarraff (51), a US spy who's been imprisoned in for nearly 20 years, in exchange for the last three of five Cuban spies convicted in 2001. Cuba also released 53 other prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)(AP, 12/17/14)(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A17)(SFC, 12/19/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 17, Sony Pictures Entertainment pulled its planned release of “The Interview," a comedy about a fictional assassination plot against North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, amid threats by cyberterrorists to bomb any theater that showed the film.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A1)
2014 Dec 17, Edward O’Donnell, a former Countrywide Financial executive, reached an agreement with the government that enables him to collect over $57 million for helping federal prosecutors force Bank of America to pay a record $16.65 billion penalty in connection with its role in churning out shoddy mortgage securities.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 17, Arizona’s sheriff’s office anounced a decision to disband its criminal employment squad. Sheriff Joe Arpaio used the squad to target immigrants usng fake or stolen IDs to get jobs. The decision was made after courts shelved certain state immigration laws.
(SFC, 12/19/14, p.A14)
2014 Dec 17, In southern California Margo Bronstein (56) slammed into a crowd outside a church in Redondo Beach killing 3 women. The son (6) of one of the women died of injuries the next day. Bronstein was charged with driving under the influence of a drug and vehicular manslaughter.
(SFC, 12/20/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 17, A Florida judge granted the state’s first formal divorce for a gay couple. The Broward County judge used the case to join other judges in declaring the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 17, In Massachusetts fourteen people connected to a coumpounding pharmacy were indicted on charges stemming from a 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 17, In Montana Markus Kaarma (30), who shot and killed German exchange student Diren Dede (17) caught trespassing in his garage last April 27, was convicted of deliberate homicide.
(AP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, Afghan insurgents stormed a bank in Lashgar Gah, Helmand province, killing at least 10 people including three policemen. Attackers in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, attached explosives to police vehicles, killing a police officer and wounding four others when they detonated.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, The Church of England named Libby Lane, a saxophone-playing vicar with a taste for football, as its first female bishop in a move hailed as an important step towards greater equality.
(AFP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Cameroon army troops reportedly killed 116 Nigerian fighters from the Islamist Boko Haram group at its northern army base in Amchide on the border with Nigeria.
(AFP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, In China Ji Jianye, a former mayor of Nanjing, was indicted on corruption charges amid a widening anti-graft crackdown.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, China secured a deal to construct a high-speed train link between the Belgrade and Budapest that will cut travel time between the Serbian and Hungarian capitals from eight hours to less than three.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, An EU court ruled that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas should be removed from the EU terrorist list, saying the decision to include it was based on media reports not considered analysis.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, German prosecutors arrested three Turkish men accused of spying on compatriots in Germany for Turkish intelligence.
(AP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, Low-cost Indian airline SpiceJet grounded all flights after oil companies stopped supplies of jet fuel to the financially beleaguered carrier.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, In Kenya 6 people died and 11 were injured in a central Nairobi building collapse, with fears that the toll could rise as crews continued to dig through the rubble.
(AFP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, Kurdish forces launched an operation to retake the town of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq after heavy coalition air strikes on Islamic State positions in the area overnight.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, In Myanmar a prominent former official with the main opposition party was detained and faced charges of insulting religion, which stemmed from a speech intended to discourage extremist interpretations of Buddhism.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Nigeria sentenced 54 soldiers to death for mutiny, cowardice and refusing to fight Islamic extremists. The soldiers had refused to deploy last August to recapture three towns seized by Boko Haram.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 17, Philippine communist rebels declared cease-fire periods for the Christmas holidays and for the visit of Pope Francis next month.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Sierra Leone Ebola surveillance teams fanned out in Freetown in a house to house search for sick people, as the president imposed new restrictions on movement and gatherings in a bid to stop the disease's spread.
(AP, 12/17/14)(Econ, 1/3/15, p.33)
2014 Dec 17, In Geneva the international community delivered a stinging rebuke to Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying the practice violates its responsibilities as an occupying power in a declaration adopted by consensus among 126 of the 196 parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, The UN Security Council renewed for 12 months its authorization for humanitarian access without Syrian government consent into rebel-held areas of Syria at four border crossings from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Yemen's powerful Shiite rebels shut down a strategic Red Sea port, and stormed the offices of the country's main state newspaper.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2015 Dec 17, The United States and Cuba said they have agreed to restore scheduled commercial airline service between the two countries, the first anniversary of the Cold War foes' announcement they would normalize relations. The deal would allow as many as 110 regular flights a day.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A8)
2015 Dec 17, The United States and its allies conducted 22 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 Dec 17, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter acknowledged making a "mistake" when he used his personal email for government business in the early part of his tenure.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Los Angeles the FBI arrested Enrique Marquez (24) on charges of conspiring with Syed Rizwan Farook to commit terrorist attacks in 2011 and 2012. Marquez was also charged with illegally purchasing two assault rifles used by Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, to kill 14 people on Dec 2. On Feb 16, 2017, Marquez pleaded guilty and faced up to 25 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A9)(SFC, 2/17/17, p.A5)
2015 Dec 17, In Louisiana the New Orleans City Council voted to remove prominent Confederate monuments along some of its busiest streets.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A12)
2015 Dec 17, In Syracuse, NY, Stephen Howells (40) and girlfriend Nicole Vaisey (26) were sentenced to 580 years in prison for sexually abusing six children.
(SFC, 12/31/15, p.A12)
2015 Dec 17, In Albania anti-government protesters pelted police with tomatoes, eggs, and smoke flares during a rally near parliament. The opposition has launched a protest campaign against Socialist PM Edi Rama's government, accusing it of corruption and ineffective leadership.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Argentina's currency sharply devalued against the US dollar as the new administration lifted deeply unpopular limits on the buying of foreign currencies.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Austria’s Univ. of Salzburg said it has posthumously stripped 1973 Nobel Prize-winning scientist Konrad Lorenz of his honorary doctorate due to his fervent embrace of Nazism.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Brazil's Supreme Court ordered the release of billionaire financier André Esteves, who has been in jail since Nov. 25 on suspicion he sought to obstruct a corruption investigation.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The popular WhatsApp smartphone messaging application came back to life in Brazil as a court threw out a two-day suspension that had infuriated millions of users. A judge had suspended it because the Facebook-owned service failed to disclose information requested by prosecutors as part of a criminal investigation.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, British Judges upheld a ruling that Britain's Mirror Group Newspapers must pay record damages to phone-hacking victims, saying the papers' staff engaged in "disgraceful conduct."
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Britain cut more renewable energy subsidies, putting jobs at risk and drawing criticism for losing credibility in tackling climate change.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, A Quebec court upheld Canada's first assisted dying law, ruling against doctors who argued it conflicts with federal criminal law an could see doctors jailed for helping someone die.
(AFP, 12/22/15)
2015 Dec 17, China’s environment ministry said police have detained 10 company officials for fabricating pollution data, as the government steps up inspections of businesses amid growing public discontent over pollution.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, China's biggest airline said it is buying more than a hundred Boeing 737 jets in a deal worth about $10 billion that comes just months after the US plane maker announced plans to build a Chinese finishing plant for the aircraft type.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The Danish cargo ship Thorco Cloud collided with the chemical tanker Stolt Commitment and sank off western Indonesia. Six Filipino crewmen were missing.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, A legal source said International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde has been ordered to stand trial over her handling of a massive state payout to French tycoon Bernard Tapie during her time as finance minister.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Hong Kong the film “Ten Years" was released. Its five vignettes portrayed how China has explicitly or overtly taken control of Hong Kong, where autonomy had been guaranteed for 50 years in 1997.
(Econ, 3/5/15, p.42)
2015 Dec 17, Indian defense ministry sources said the Defense Acquisition Council has cleared the purchase of five S-400 air defense systems from Russia.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu signed a major natural gas deal with a consortium, that includes US firm Noble Energy, aimed at tapping large deposits in the Mediterranean, but a court challenge was expected over the contentious agreement.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Israel's most famous model Bar Refaeli (30) was arrested and questioned for allegedly evading taxes on millions of dollars of income from abroad by lying about her residency.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in the West Bank after he charged at them with a knife.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Mali a gunman killed 3 people outside a Christian radio station in the city of Timbuktu. Radio host Joel Dicko, a local contractor with the UN and a student were killed. Authorities later arrested two people in connection with the shooting.
(AFP, 12/18/15)(AP, 12/21/15)
2015 Dec 17, Montenegro police detained Svetozar Marovic (60), who served as president of Serbia-Montenegro before Montenegro split from the union in 2006, on suspicion of abuse of power and embezzlement of millions of euros.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In the Moroccan coastal town of Skhirat delegates from Libya's warring factions signed a UN-brokered agreement to form the Government of National Accord (GNA), a deal that Western powers hope will bring stability and help fight a growing Islamic State presence.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)(Econ, 4/9/15, p.47)
2015 Dec 17, Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou said several arrests had been made in the army ranks and of a former chief of staff because of a coup attempt.
(AP, 12/20/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Nigeria insurgents killed 14 people, some of whom were decapitated, when they raided Kamuya village.
(AP, 12/19/15)
2015 Dec 17, Rwandans abroad voted in a referendum to amend the constitution allowing President Paul Kagame to rule until 2034, a day ahead of the main vote inside the country.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Residents in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles voted on the second day of three days of polls. Incumbent president James Michel (71) faced the first serious challenge to his decade-long rule. President James Michel won a third term in power by the narrowest of margins of just 193 votes.
(AFP, 12/17/15)(AFP, 12/19/15)
2015 Dec 17, National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the electric vehicle company born out of the ashes of Swedish automaker Saab, said it has inked a $12 billion deal with Chinese leasing firm Panda New Energy Co.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The Syrian opposition hosted by Saudi Arabia elected former PM Riad Hijab as a coordinator of a body that is expected to lead future peace talks.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Tanzania sentenced four Chinese men to 20 years in jail each after they were convicted of smuggling rhino horns.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 Dec 17, Turkey said its security forces have killed 25 Kurdish militants this week as they battle suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the two flashpoint towns of Cizre and Silopi.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Finance ministers from the 15 UN Security Council nations adopted a plan aimed at disrupting outside revenue that the Islamic State extremist group gets from oil and antiquities sales, ransom payments and other criminal activities.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The UN Security Council's Central African Republic (CAR) sanctions committee added Haroun Gaye and Eugene Barret Ngaikosset to a UN blacklist for attempting to undermine the transitional government. They are now subject to an international travel ban and assets freeze.
(Reuters, 12/22/15)
2015 Dec 17, Participants at Yemeni peace talks hosted by the United Nations in Switzerland agreed on the full resumption of humanitarian aid to the city of Taiz.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2016 Dec 17, In the US freezing wet snow and rain left at least nine people dead in the Midwest and East Coast. Hundreds of accidents were blamed on slick roads.
(SSFC, 12/18/16, p.A10)
2016 Dec 17, In Little Rock, Arkansas, Gary Eugene Holmes (33) fired into another driver's car and killed Acen King (3), who was sitting in the back seat. In 2018 Holmes was sentenced to 50 years in prison without a chance for parole.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6wh5w96)(SFC, 8/23/18, p.A5)
2016 Dec 17, In Afghanistan five female guards working in the airport in southern Kandahar were killed along with their driver by unknown gunmen as they were on their way to work.
(AP, 12/17/16)(SSFC, 12/18/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 17, BP PLC signed a $2.22-billion deal restoring its share of an onshore oil block in Abu Dhabi by agreeing to give the emirate stock in the company worth 2 percent of the oil giant's overall value.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Beijing's city government ordered 1,200 factories near the Chinese capital, including a major oil refinery run by state oil giant Sinopec, to shut or cut output after authorities issued the highest possible air pollution alert.
(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Croatian police found a van crammed with 67 people, including children, mainly from Afghanistan. 42 migrants were hospitalized and some treated for carbon-monoxide poisoning. Some said they hadn't eaten for five days.
(AP, 12/18/16)
2016 Dec 17, Security officials at Cairo International Airport denied entry to the country to Omar bin Laden, son of the former leader of al-Qaida Osama bin Laden. Both were allowed to leave for Turkey.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Rome's Mayor Virginia Raggi was stripped by her populist Five Star Movement (M5S) party of the power to make "important decisions" after a close advisor was arrested for suspected corruption.
(AfP, 12/18/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Kashmir militants attacked an Indian army convoy, killing 3 soldiers.
(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Montenegro dozens of people in Podgorica participated in a gay pride event in the highly conservative state where authorities have promised to boost gay rights as part of efforts to join the European Union.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Nigeria African leaders at the 50th summit of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called for a swift resolution of the political impasse in Gambia after disputed elections in which long-term president Yahya Jammeh is refusing to concede defeat.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, A major 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea, but no immediate casualties were reported.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to terminate a pact that allows US troops to visit the Philippines, saying "bye-bye America" as he reacted with rage to what he thought was a US decision to scrap a major aid package over human rights concerns.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Poland several thousand people protested outside the presidential palace in Warsaw over alleged vote fraud and the rightwing government's plans to impose new restrictions on media coverage of parliament.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In South Korea supporters of impeached President Park Geun-hye clashed with anti-Park protesters, as large crowds of demonstrators again gathered in Seoul to demand the scandal-ridden leader's immediate ouster.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Syrian rebels blamed Iran and its Shi'ite-backed militias of holding up a deal to evacuate civilians trapped in the remaining rebel bastion in Aleppo. Trapped civilians and rebels waited desperately for evacuations to resume as the Red Cross pleaded for a deal to "save thousands of lives".
(Reuters, 12/17/16)(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Turkey a suicide car bomber set off an explosion that demolished a public bus transporting off-duty soldiers in the central province of Kayseri, killing 13 troops and wounding 56 others. In response dozens of nationalist protestors stormed the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Kayseri. Turkish authorities detained seven people and searched for another five in relation to the attack.
(AP, 12/17/16)(AFP, 12/17/16)(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Turkey’s military said its warplanes have pounded Islamic State targets in northern Syria in the last 24 hours, killing at least 20 militants.
(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suspended the elimination of the country's largest denomination bill, which had sparked cash shortages and nationwide unrest, saying the bill could continue in use until January 2.
(Reuters, 12/18/16)(SFC, 12/19/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 17, In Zimbabwe the ruling ZANU-PF endorsed President Robert Mugabe (92) for a 2018 election run.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2017 Dec 17, In southern California the Thomas Fire was 40 percent contained despite hot Santa Ana winds that have powered its expansion. The third-largest wildfire in California's history has burned 267,500 acres.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, A fire caused an 11-hour power outage at Atlanta’s airport in Georgia leading to the cancellation of more than 1,500 flights.
(SFC, 12/20/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 17, In Afghanistan Taliban insurgents attacked checkpoints in the southern Helmand province early today, killing 11 police in Lashkar Gah. In southern Kandahar province, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of foreign forces, killing an Afghan woman and wounding five other civilian bystanders.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Chile held its 2nd round of presidential elections. Former billionaire President Sebastian Pinera (68), who won 36.6 percent in the first round, faced Sen. Alejandro Guillier (64), a center-left former journalist who got 22.7 percent. With nearly all ballots counted former President Sebastian Pinera won 54.6 percent of the votes to 45.4 percent for former journalist and center-left Sen. Alejandro Guillier.
(AP, 12/17/17)(AP, 12/18/17)
2017 Dec 17, China announced a five-year plan to convert northern Chinese cities to clean heating during the winter through to 2021, amid a deepening heating crisis.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, A second prototype of China's home-built C919 passenger jet took off for a test flight in Shanghai, another step forward in the country's ambitions to muscle in to the global jet market.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, French sailor Francois Gabart broken the record for sailing around the world alone, circumnavigating the planet in just 42 days and 16 hours. This was more than six days faster than last year’s record, set by fellow Frenchman Thomas Coville.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Indonesia Muslim clerics in Jakarta called for a boycott of American products in the country’s largest protest against President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. An estimated 80,000 people rallied in the capital of the world's largest Muslim nation in the 10th straight day of protests.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Iran shut primary schools in Tehran and other parts of the country due to choking levels of air pollution. In the northwestern cities of Tabriz and Urmia, schools remained closed for the second day straight.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Israel's national trade union held a half-day nationwide strike to protest generic drugmaker Teva's decision to lay off a quarter of its workforce, snarling traffic and shuttering key services across the country.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Israeli police arrested a Palestinian carrying an explosive device as he approached a military court in the occupied West Bank.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, The remains of Victor Emmanuel III, who reigned as Italy's king through two world wars and died in exile in 1947, were flown back from Egypt for reburial at a family mausoleum near Turin.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts from Russia, Japan and the US blasted off for a two-day trip to the Int’l. Space Station. Anton Shkaplerov, Norishige Kanai and Scott Tingle will join Russia's Alexander Misurkin and Joe Acaba and Mark Vandde Hei of NASA, who have been aboard since September.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Libya Mohamad Eshtewi, the mayor of Misrata, was killed by unidentified assailants who abducted him as he returned from an official trip overseas.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Pakistan thousands of Islamists rallied in two major cities to condemn US President Donald Trump for declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Pakistan two suicide bombers struck a church in the city of Quetta killing nine people and wounding over 50 others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.
(AP, 12/17/17)(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte expressed his support for same-sex unions, after previously declaring his opposition to gay marriage, in an about-face that may displease bishops in the mainly Roman Catholic country.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Philippines authorities said at least 26 people have been killed while several residents were missing on Biliran Island after tropical storm Kai-tak brought heavy rains that triggered landslides.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Russian security operatives killed three suspected militants in a raid in the village of Gubden, Dagestan province.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Sabih al Masri, a Palestinian billionaire and Jordan's most influential businessman, was released after several days of detention in Saudi Arabia. Masri said that he would be returning to Jordan after finishing business meetings in Riyadh in the next two days. Masri was reportedly freed after reaching a settlement to return an unspecified amount of money.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)(Reuters, 12/19/17)
2017 Dec 17, In South Sudan six aid workers were missing after clashes broke out between government and opposition soldiers near the northwestern town of Raga. An opposition spokesman said four aid workers were found when fighting a government-allied militia, during which they killed 35 militia fighters between the towns of Wau and Raga in Western Bahr el Ghazal state.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In South Sudan President Salva Kiir's troops attacked the town of Lasu in Central Equatoria State, which has served as the headquarters for Riek Machar's SPLA-IO, the country’s main opposition movement.
(AFP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Sri Lanka 50 Chinese couples were married at a mass ceremony in Colombo to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries and to promote the island nation as a tourist destination.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Turkey's president slammed a US-backed Syrian Kurdish militant group and said he'll clear his country's border with Syria of "terrorists".
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Ukraine about 5,000 supporters of opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili rallied in Kiev, pushing for the ouster of the nation's president and briefly attempting to seize a public building.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Yemen an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition struck a wedding procession, killing 10 women as they marched to a village in Maarib province.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2018 Dec 17, US plane maker Boeing and Brazil's Embraer said they have approved the terms of a partnership to create a joint venture now worth $5.26 billion -- more than when they first announced it in July.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Taliban held "another" meeting with US officials, this time in the United Arab Emirates and also involving Saudi, Pakistani and Emirati representatives in the latest attempt to bring a negotiated end to Afghanistan's 17-year war.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Penny Marshall (b.1943), co-star of the "Laverne and Shirley" sitcom (1976-1983), died at her home in Los Angeles. Following the sitcom whe went on to direct such films as "A League of Their Own" (1992), "Renaissance Man" (1994), "The Preacher's Wife" (1996) and "Riding in Cars With Boys" (2001).
(SFC, 12/19/18, p.C3)(SFC, 12/21/18, p.E2)
2018 Dec 17, Two Chicago police officers were fatally struck by a train as they investigated a report of gunshots on the city's far South Side.
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 17, Google said it will spend more than $1 billion to build a new office complex in NYC allowing it to double its current 7,000 now employed there.
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.D2)
2018 Dec 17, Astronomers announced the discovery of the farthest known object in our solar system. The cosmic body, located about 11 billion miles away, was nicknamed "Farout".
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 17, The head of Albania's top court was removed after he failed to account for his income. The nine-member court is currently unable to function as eight of its judges have been removed from duty in the vetting process. Albania is vetting some 800 judges and prosecutors to root out bribery and ensure they are independent from politics.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Bangladesh's main opposition group promised to remove curbs on free speech and the media and to rein in the police if it unseats PM Sheikh Hasina from her decade-long rule in this month's national election.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, A Belgian court ruled that a Roman Catholic priest cannot use the secrecy of confession as a defense when it convicted a clergyman in Bruges of failing to seek help for a man who went on to commit suicide. The court handed Alexan der Stroobandt a suspended one month jail term and ordered him to pay the widow a symbolic euro in damages.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Brazil a fire began late today in the low-income Educandos neighborhood of Manaus and was extinguished several hours later. At least 600 wooden houses were destroyed.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, Britain's PM Theresa May warned MPs against supporting a second Brexit referendum, as calls mounted for a public vote to break the political impasse over the deal she has struck with the EU.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen inaugurated the 400-megawatt Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in the northeastern province of Stung Treng. It was built over four years at a cost of nearly $800 million and is a joint venture of China's Hydrolancang International Energy, which has a 51 percent stake.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, China and the United States clashed again over their respective trade policies at the WTO in Geneva as the two countries are tried to iron out their differences so further US tariffs are not imposed on Chinese goods.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In China the wife of detained Chinese lawyer Wang Quanzhang and three supporters shaved their heads and attempted to submit to a Beijing court a petition protesting her husband's indefinite detention.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Colombia's armed forces rescued Melissa Martinez Garcia (34), a relative of late Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez who won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. She was seized at the end of August by a group of armed men who intercepted her vehicle near the northern city of Santa Marta. They demanded a ransom of $5 million for her release.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Colombia's ELN Marxist guerrilla group announced a Christmas ceasefire as peace talks with the country's government have been on hold since August.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Colombia six men were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a rural area of Mapiripan, southeastern Meta province, an area known for cocaine trafficking.
(Reuters, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Czech Rep.'s National Cyber and Information Security Agency warned that the hardware and software made by Huawei and another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE, pose a security threat.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Egypt two roadside bombs hit a police convoy in northern Sinai, killing two conscripts. The bombs struck two armored vehicles that were part of a convoy on a search-and-destroy mission in an area west of Rafah.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, France's Alliance police labor union urged the government to invest in rebuilding the country's police forces and called for a work slowdown to protest planned cuts in the national police budget.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In France two people weredetained as part of the terrorism investigation in the Dec. 11 attack that killed five people. They were suspected of provinding the firearm used by Cherif Chekatt.
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 17, German authorities said five Frankfurt police officers are under investigation over allegations they shared far-right images, videos and texts in a chat group with one another.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Greece a bomb blast early today damaged a building in Athens housing the headquarters of the private radio and television network Skai, but there were no casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Hungary security forces physically ejected opposition lawmakers from the headquarters of the state broadcaster MTVA in Budapest early today. A group of 10 lawmakers had entered the building, insisting on the right to read five demands live on air, including the revocation of a new labor law, passed last week in parliament.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, PM Narendra Modi said India will give financial assistance of $1.4 billion to the Maldives, the biggest aid yet to the Indian Ocean island nation that is grappling with debt from a Chinese building spree.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, An Indian court jailed for life Sajjan Kumar, a leader of the main opposition Congress party, for his role in anti-Sikh riots that erupted after the 1984 murder of the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, and killed nearly 3,000 people.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In India at least six people died and 129 others were injured in a fire that broke out in the five-story government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital in the suburban Andheri area of Mumbai. The death toll soon rose to eight.
(AP, 12/17/18)(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Israeli military partially demolished the home of Ashraf Naalweh, a Palestinian accused of killing two Israelis in an attack two months ago. Israeli troops killed Naalweh in an arrest raid last week after a two-month manhunt.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Lebanese soldiers went on alert after Israeli troops rolled out barbed wire along the border, as tensions remained high two weeks after Israel launched an operation to identify and destroy Hezbollah tunnels.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs and two former executives for their role in the alleged multibillion-dollar ransacking of state investment fund 1MDB.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Morocco two Scandinavian women were found dead in the High Atlas mountains. Hikers Louisa Vesterager Jespersen (24) of Denmark and Maren Ueland (28) of Norway were found dead with cuts to their necks. One suspect was arrested the next day and other suspects were being sought. On Dec. 20 authorities arrested three more suspects.
(AFP, 12/18/18)(AP, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Myanmar Private Aung Kyaw Thet went missing after his patrol was fired on from the Bangladesh side of the border. His body was found on Dec. 21 with gunshot wounds in his face, arm and leg. The identity of the attackers was unknown and police were still investigating
(Reuters, 12/23/18)
2018 Dec 17, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammad Faisal, said that Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari is being repatriated to New Delhi after serving a three-year prison sentence for spying.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Poland's Pres. Andrzej Duda, an ally of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, signed into law amendments to contentious legislation that will allow some Supreme Court judges to remain in their posts after having been forced into early retirement.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, Russia said it had built new barracks for troops on a disputed chain of islands near Japan and would build more facilities for armored vehicles, a move likely to anger Tokyo after it urged Moscow to reduce its military activity there.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Serbia reported that two men have frozen to death as a cold spell throughout the Balkan region slowed down traffic, disrupted power supplies and closed down schools in some areas.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Sierra Leone health ministry said late today it had agreed a timeline with doctors to respond to their demands, announcing the agreement in a statement signed by the heads of two doctors' associations.
(Reuters, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Singapore a gay man won the right to adopt a child he fathered via a surrogate in the United States, in a landmark court ruling for the conservative city-state.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Switzerland and Britain signed an agreement guaranteeing that flights between the two countries can continue uninterrupted even if London opts to leave the European Union without a deal with Brussels.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Thailand Catriona Gray (24) of the Philippines was named Miss Universe 2018 in the 67th competition held in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Thailand Sului Piew (2), a son of migrant workers from Myanmar, went missing when he went out to play near the sugarcane plantation where his parents work. A 3-year-old friend told her parents that she saw Sului being abducted. Piew's body was found on Dec. 25 in a sugarcane plantation a few miles from where he disappeared.
(AP, 12/24/18)(AP, 12/26/18)
2018 Dec 17, The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority appealed for $350 million in aid for Palestinians next year, saying much more was needed but they had to be realistic after a year of funding cuts.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Vatican's criminal tribunal convicted Italian builder Angelo Proietti of using his accounts in the Vatican bank to launder money, and sentenced him to 2˝ years in prison. The decision was announced on Dec. 27. This marked the first time the Vatican court had handed down a money-laundering verdict since the city state criminalized the offense in 2010 as part of its financial reform efforts.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2019 Dec 17, On the eve of his likely impeachment, President Trump sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a scathing, insult-filled letter calling the articles drawn up against him “a completely disingenuous, baseless and meritless invention of your imagination," among other things.
(Yahoo News, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a rare order to the FBI and Department of Justice, demanding they spell out a series of planned reforms following a damning report from the DOJ's inspector general that scrutinized surveillance of a former aide to President Donald Trump's campaign. The court gave the FBI a Jan. 10 deadline to come up with a proposal.
(ABC News, 12/18/19)(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A6)
2019 Dec 17, The US government proposed new rules overhauling parts of the nation's transplant system to make sure organs from the dead no longer go to waste — and to make it easier for the living to donate.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A small group of President Donald Trump's fiercest conservative critics, including the husband of the president's own chief adviser, launched a super PAC designed to fight Trump's reelection and punish congressional Republicans deemed his “enablers." The new organization, known as the Lincoln Project, represents a formal step forward for the so-called Never Trump movement.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A US federal judge sentenced GOP operative Rick Gates to 45 days of weekend jail time and three years of probation. This followed his cooperation with prosecutors investigating President Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign.
(Politico, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A bulletin issued by the US Navy showed up on a Facebook page serving military members, saying users of government issued mobile devices who had TikTok and did not remove the app would be blocked from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet. Last month US army cadets were instructed not to use TikTok, after Senator Chuck Schumer raised security concerns about the army using TikTok in their recruiting.
(Reuters, 12/20/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, had withdrawn more than $10 billion from the company during the past dozen years. Purdue's OxyContin opioid drug was approved in 1995. The company now faced more than 2,800 lawsuits related to the nation's opioid crisis.
(SFC, 12/18/19, p.D4)
2019 Dec 17, In eastern Kentucky at least 15 horses were found fatally shot at a strip mine site along US 23 near the Floyd-Pike County line.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, A winning Mega Millions ticket worth $372 million was sold at a Giant Eagle supermarket in Mentor, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The winning numbers drawn today, just eight days before Christmas, were: 22-30-53-55-56 +16.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, The US government sued CVS Health Corp and its Omnicare unit for fraudulently billing Medicare and other programs for drugs for older and disabled people without valid prescriptions.
(Reuters, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A new report said fewer than 30 people were executed in the United States and under 50 new death sentences were imposed for the fifth straight year, part of a continuing decline in capital punishment that saw only a few states carry out executions.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that a new study by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that waters off the California coast are acidifying twice as fast as the global average.
(SFC, 12/17/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 17, An early morning shooting at a Montana casino in Great Falls left three people dead and another person injured and the suspect was later tracked down and killed by police.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that scientists are working quickly to discover the cause of a massive fresh water mussel die-off on the Clinch River in Tennessee and understand whether it is related to similar die-offs on at least five US rivers and another in Spain.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Australia experienced its hottest day on record and temperatures were expected to soar even higher as heatwave conditions embrace most of the country. The average temperature across the country of 40.9 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit) beat the record of 40.3 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) from Jan. 7, 2013.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, China's second aircraft carrier, named the Shandong, entered service, adding major firepower to its military ambitions as it faces tensions with self-ruled Taiwan as well as the US and regional neighbors around the disputed South China Sea.
(AFP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Shanghai's Fudan University removed references to "freedom of thought" from its charter, triggering a rare act of student defiance. The Ministry of Education announced similar pro-government changes for Nanjing University in eastern China, and Shaanxi Normal University in the north earlier this month.
(AFP, 12/19/19)
2019 Dec 17, In France hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country to protest Pres. Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reform plans.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, Iranian media reported that two labor activists in southern Khuzestan province have been sentenced to five-year prison term each for taking part in a January protest over several months of owed back pay. A third worker from the same region was also given a five-year sentence for supporting a workers' strike last year.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Kuwait media reported that a new government has been formed after the previous Cabinet was dissolved amid a dispute among powerful members of the country's ruling family. The new Cabinet is led by PM Sabah al-Khalid Al Sabah, formerly the foreign minister in the previous government.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In Lebanon assailants attacked several protest camps in the north and south, demolishing tents and burning down others as anger boiled over in the capital following a video deemed offensive to the country’s Shiites.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In Mexico seven gunmen and a National Guard officer were killed in a shootout near the city of Irapuato, Guanajuato state. Gangs in the state have unleashed a campaign of extortion and violence as the government cracked down on pipeline fuel steeling.
(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 17, A Pakistani court sentenced former military dictator Perve Musharraf to death in a treason case for subverting the country's Constitution in 2007 when he imposed a state of emergency in an attempt to thwart politiacl opposition. Musharraf (76) was currently in self-imposed exile in Dubai.
(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 17, In Panama at least 12 people were killed and another 13 were injured during a shootout among inmates at La Joyita prison near Panama City.
(Reuters, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reiterated her plan to demand the right to hold another independence referendum.
(Bloomberg, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In northwestern Syria airstrikes and artillery shelling killed at least 16 civilians, including six members of the same family, amid intensified violence in rebel-held areas. The bombardments hit three villages in Idlib province.
(AP, 12/17/19)(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 17, The UN urged governments, businesses and others to “reboot" the world's response to refugees as the number of people fleeing their homes rises along with hostility to migrants.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Pope Francis abolished the use of the Vatican's highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases, responding to mounting criticism that the rule of “pontifical secrecy" has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2020 Dec 17, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said nearly 6 million doses of Moderna Inc's experimental COVID-19 vaccine were poised to ship nationwide as soon as it secures Food and Drug Administration approval.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, US federal prosecutors charged Cholo Abdi Abdullah (30) of Kenya with plotting to hijack an airplane and crash it into a building in the US and said he was an operative for the Shabab, a Qaeda branch in East Africa. Mr. Abdullah was arrested by the Philippine authorities last year and was brought to the United States on Dec. 15.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The federal government granted Florida’s request for wider authority over wetland development, a move that came under immediate fire by environmentalist who worry that the country's largest network of wetlands could be at risk of being further destroyed.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, It was reported that the federal government must pay some landowners along the lower Missouri River for flooding damage caused by changes the Army Corps of Engineers made to the river to protect endangered species, according to a ruling this week.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The US Securities and Exchange Commission said that Robinhood, a fast-growing financial app, had misled its customers about how it was paid by Wall Street firms for passing along customer trades and that the start-up had made money at the expense of its customers. Robinhood agreed to pay a $65 million fine to settle the charges, without admitting or denying guilt.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, NASA and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) pledging cooperation in areas of science and technology to support the peaceful use of outer space.
(PR Newswire, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, The organizers of the Grammy awards launched an initiative to elevate Black voices at all levels of the music industry and ensure that Black artists are fairly compensated for their work.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Technology shares pushed the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record highs as optimism grew over a coronavirus stimulus bill.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that runs the early education TV show “Sesame Street" and operates in more than 150 countries, unveiled Aziz and Noor as the latest Muppets in their cast of characters. The six-year-old twins Noor and Aziz are Rohingya Muslims and live in the largest refugee camp in the world.
(NY Times, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 17, California to date had 1,699,276 cases of coronavirus and 21,887 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 205,549 cases and 2,206 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 17,176,796 with the death toll at 310,291.
(sfist.com, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A British man was jailed for two-and-a-half years in Florida for attempting to smuggle industrial equipment to Iran against a US embargo. Colin Fisher (45) pleaded guilty at Pensacola federal court in September to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
(The Telegraph, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, In Florida a fire early today killed as many as 240,000 chickens at a farm operated by operated by Mississippi-based Cal-Maine, one of the nation's largest egg producers.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A winter storm piled historic amounts of snow onto parts of the US Northeast and wreaked havoc throughout the region. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker encouraged drivers to stay off the road.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Cpl. Hayden Allen Harris (20), a Fort Drum soldier, was meeting someone in Watertown, N.Y., “for some type of vehicle transaction" when he was last heard from. Authorities said his body was found in a remote part of New Jersey and that Pfc. Jamaal Mellish (23) was arrested in Jefferson County, N.Y., over the weekend in connection with the death. Private Jamaal Mellish (23) and a 16-year-old were later charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and second-degree weapons charges.
(NY Times, 12/20/20)(The Independent, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 17, Alphabet's Google won EU antitrust approval for its $2.1 billion bid for Fitbit after agreeing restrictions on how it will use customers' health related data.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Afghanistan's telecoms regulator banned "Player-Unknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG), a popular video game, after the Ministry of Haj and Religious Affairs declared it harmful to mental health.
(Econ., 1/16/21, p.30)
2020 Dec 17, It was reported that the UN has reached an agreement with the Taliban leadership to set up thousands of schools inside Afghanistan's insurgent-controlled territory.
(The Telegraph, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, It was reported that Austrian scientist Josef Aschbacher has been appointed to head the European Space Agency as the organization grapples with the fallout from Brexit and the rise of commercial rivals outside of Europe.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A politician in Belgium published the price per dose of COVID-19 vaccines ordered by the country. The Belgian government paid 12 euros ($14.7) per dose to buy about five million shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The Belgian price does not factor in unrefundable downpayments of hundreds of millions of euros that the EU has made to many vaccine makers to secure their shots.
(Reuters, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, The British government extended its salary support program by another month through to the end of April as it tries to keep a lid on unemployment as coronavirus restrictions slam businesses.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Oxford University said its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, licensed to AstraZeneca, has a better immune response when a two full-dose regimen is used rather than a full-dose followed by a half-dose booster.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A Chinese capsule returned to Earth landing in Inner Mongolia with about 4.4 pounds of fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon.
(SFC, 12/17/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 17, Human Rights Watch accused Egyptian authorities of making modifications to a notorious Cairo prison, known as “Scorpion Prison," that amount to “collective punishment" of inmates following an escape attempt that left four policemen dead.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, An Egyptian criminal court acquitted three Muslim men accused of stripping naked an elderly Coptic Christian woman (70) and parading her through the streets of a village in southern Egypt in May 2016.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, In Egypt two roadside bombs exploded in restive northern Sinai Peninsula late today killing three members of the security forces and wounding 10 others.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, The European Parliament has issued a three-day ultimatum to Brexit negotiators to strike a trade deal, warning that MEPs won't have time to ratify an agreement this year unless it is ready by the end of Dec 20.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU imposed a new round of sanctions on Belarus, targeting dozens more officials over their role in the security crackdown launched after the contested presidential elections in August.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU formally prolonged for six months economic sanctions against Russia over the country's failure to live up to commitments to the peace agreement in Ukraine.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU's top court upheld a Belgian law requiring animals to be stunned before slaughter, rejecting challenges from Jewish and Muslim groups and opening the way for other countries to bring in similar restrictions.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU’s top court ruled that Hungary has failed to respect EU law by denying people entering the country without authorization the right to apply for asylum and unlawfully detaining them in “transit zones" on its border with Serbia.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU said it has concluded preliminary talks with US firm Novavax to secure up to 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The French presidency said President Emmanuel Macron (42) has tested positive for the coronavirus.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A French court convicted Ayoub El Khazzani, a Morocco-born Islamic State operative, to life in prison, with 22 years guaranteed behind bars. Five years ago his train attack was foiled by three American passengers. Clint Eastwood turned the incident into a movie, "The 15:17 to Paris" (2018).
(SFC, 12/18/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 17, A plane carrying 88 asylum-seekers, including 19 sick children, arrived in Germany as part of the country's pledge to take in migrants from camps in Greece.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, German firm BioNTech's chief medical officer said Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine has been given to 140,000 people in Britain, and the feedback on side effects and tolerability has been reassuring.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A leaked draft of Iraq's state budget sent Iraqis into a panic as it confirmed the government's intentions to devalue the national currency, the Iraqi dinar, and cut salaries to cope with the impacts of a severe economic crisis.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The Italian government announced that 18 Italian fisherman, who were seized in September by Libyan authorities in a fishing dispute, have been freed.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, In Nigeria the governor of Katsina state announced that all of the boys, abducted on Dec. 11, had been released, and would be reunited with their parents the next day. The governor of Katsina has insisted bandits were responsible for the recent attack.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)(BBC, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, Panamanian health authorities reported 3,348 new coronavirus cases and 42 deaths, a daily record for both new infections and deaths.
(Reuters, 12/19/20)
2020 Dec 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin (68) said that he has yet to receive the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine because it has not yet been approved for anyone over 65. He also brushed off accusations that the Russian state was behind the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny earlier this year.
(NBC News, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A South Korean man who spent 20 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit cleared his name in court after one of the country’s most notorious serial killers confessed to the 1988 rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. Yoon Seong-yeo (53) had been sentenced to life in prison and was released on parole in 2009.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, Switzerland’s postal supervisory authority, PostCom, announced that food delivery service Uber Eats counts as a postal service provider, and needs to be regulated as such.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A Swiss court cut Russia’s four-year doping ban from global sports in half. Russia’s teams will still miss the 2021 and 2022 Olympics.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Turkey recorded 27,515 new coronavirus cases. The death toll hit a record high of 243 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total so far to 17,364. The country has registered 1,955,680 COVID-19 infections since the beginning of the pandemic in March.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The UN announced a $35.6 million emergency aid package for civilians caught up in fighting in Ethiopia's Tigray region.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Pope Francis urged world leaders to divert funds used for armaments to confront problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure vaccines reach the poor and most vulnerable nations.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com 1399 Dec 17, Tamerlane's Mongols destroyed the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1538 Dec 17, Pope Paul III excommunicated England's King Henry VIII. [see Aug 31, 1535]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1679 Dec 17, Don Juan, ruler of Spain, died.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1745 Dec 17, Bonnie Prince Charlie's army retreated to Scotland. [see Dec 6]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1750 Dec 17, Deborah Sampson, was born. She fought in the American Revolution as a man under the alias Robert Shurtleff. In 1797 she authored a memoir. In 2004 Alfred F. Young authored "Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier.
(MC, 12/17/01)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M4)
1770 Dec 17, Johann Friedrich Schubert, composer, was born.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1777 Dec 17, France recognized American independence.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1778 Dec 17, Humphrey Davy (d.1829), English chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of laughing gas (1799), was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)(ON, 12/01, p.7)
1790 Dec 17, An Aztec calendar stone was discovered in Mexico City.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(MC, 12/17/01)
1791 Dec 17, NYC traffic regulation created the 1st 1-way street.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1797 Dec 17, Joseph Henry, US scientist, inventor, pioneer of electromagnetism, was born. [see Dec 18]
(MC, 12/17/01)
1798 Dec 17, The 1st impeachment trial against a US senator, William Blount of Ten., began.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1807 Dec 17, John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, was born in Haverhill, Mass. He was an abolitionist, reformer and founder of the Liberal Party.
(HN, 12/17/99)(AP, 12/17/07)
1821 Dec 17, Kentucky abolished debtor’s prisons.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1830 Dec 17, Simon Bolivar (b.1783), South American leader for national independence, died of TB in Santa Marta, in Colombia. In 2006 John Lynch authored “Simon Bolivar: A Life."
(AHD, p.148)(AP, 12/17/97)(Econ, 7/1/06, p.77)
1850 Dec 17, In California some 500 Indians in the Yosemite region attacked a store on the Fresno River owned by James Savage. A clerk and two other whites were killed and the $25,000 in cash and goods were taken. This marked the beginning of the Mariposa Indian War. Savage had employed some 500 Yokut Indians to pan for gold.
(SFC, 5/16/15, p.C2)
1861 Dec 17, The Stonewall Brigade began to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal near Martinsburg, W.Va.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1862 Dec 17, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11 designed to combat a Civil War black market in cotton. Grant believed the trade was run primarily by Jewish traders and ordered Jews expelled in his military district. Pres. Lincoln rescinded the order on Jan. 4, 1863. In 2012 Jonathan D. Sarna authored “When General Grant Expelled the Jews."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862))(SSFC, 4/22/12, p.F3)
1875 Dec 17, Violent bread riots took place in Montreal.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1886 Dec 17, At a Christmas party, Sam Belle shot his old enemy Frank West, but was fatally wounded himself.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1894 Dec 17, Arthur Fiedler, conductor (Boston Pops), was born in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1895 Dec 17, Anti-Saloon League of America was formed in Washington, DC.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1900 Dec 17, Ellis Island immigration center re-opened following an 1897 fire.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T10)
1903 Dec 17, Erskine Caldwell, U.S. novelist, was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The plane used an aluminum engine designed by their Dayton mechanic Charlie Taylor. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the 605-pound plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The day’s events received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American Experience." In 2015 David McCullough authored “the Wright Brothers."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD, 12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.78)(Econ, 1/2/16, p.59)
1907 Dec 17, A Bhutan royal dynasty was founded. Gongsa Ugyen Wangchuck became the first hereditary king of Bhutan.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T6)(SSFC, 12/14/14, p.N3)
1907 Dec 17, William Thompson (b.1824), Belfast-born mathematical physicist and engineer, (aka Lord Kelvin), died in Scotland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin)
1908 Dec 17, Willard Frank Libby, American chemist who won a Nobel Prize (1960) for his part in creating the carbon-14 method in dating ancient findings, was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)(MC, 12/17/01)
1910 Dec 17, In San Francisco 25 men were arrested for spitting on sidewalks. It cost them $5 to regain their liberty.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, DB p.46)
1914 Dec 17, Jews were expelled from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1916 Dec 17, Gregory Rasputin (45), the Russian monk and confidant to Czarina Alexandra, died after he was shot by Prince Yussoupov (Youssoupoff). The monk, who had wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen. He was fed cakes and wine laced with cyanide, then shot a number of times and finally drowned. In 1957 Youssoupoff (d.1967) authored a memoir in France that in 2003 was translated into English: Lost Splendor: The Amazing Memoirs of the Man Who Killed Rasputin." A TV version of Rasputin was made for HBO in 1996 [see Dec. 30].
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)(AP, 12/16/97)(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.M4)
1925 Dec 17, Col. William "Billy" Mitchell (d.1936) was convicted of insubordination at his court-martial. He was found guilty of conduct prejudicial to the good of the armed services and was suspended from active duty. His recently published book “Winged Defense," had poked fun at the Sec. of War. Mitchell was awarded the Medal of Honor 20 years after his death. In 2004 Douglas Waller authored “A Question of Loyalty."
(WSJ, 9/7/04, p.D8)(AP, 12/17/08)
1926 Dec17, The military right-wing opposition executed a coup d’etat in Lithuania and a dictatorship was established under Antanas Smetona, who remained president until the country was annexed by the USSR in 1940.
(Compuserve, Online Encyclopedia)(DrEE, 10/5/96, p.5)
1927 Dec 17, U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg suggested a worldwide pact renouncing war.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1933 Dec 17, In the first world championship football game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants, 23-21, at Wrigley Field.
(AP, 12/17/08)
1933 Dec 17, Thubten Gyatso (b.1876), Tibet’s 13th Dalai Lama, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Dalai_Lama)(Econ., 3/21/15, p.38)
1935 Dec 17, Venezuela’s military strongman Juan Vicente Gomez died. He had lorded over Venezuela since 1908.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Vicente_G%C3%B3mez)(AP, 5/22/14)
1938 Dec 17, Italy declared the 1935 pact with France invalid, because ratification's had not been exchanged. France denied the argument.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1941 Dec 17, German troops led by Rommel began to retreat in North Africa.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1943 Dec 17, The Magnuson Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943, was signed into law. The immigration legislation was proposed by US Representative (later Senator) Warren G. Magnuson of Washington.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson_Act)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.28)
1943 Dec 17, U.S. forces invaded New Britain Island in New Guinea.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1944 Dec 17, The U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1944 Dec 17, A US B-24 Liberator bomber crashed into the Adriatic Sea near the Croatian island of Vis. Three members of the 10-man crew were killed. Wreckage of the plane was found in 2010. In 2017 divers located human bones near the wreckage.
(AP, 7/10/17)
1944 Dec 17, The Germans renewed their attack on the Belgian town of Losheimergraben against the American Army during the Battle of the Bulge.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1948 Dec 17, The Smithsonian Institution accepted the Wright brothers' plane, the Kitty Hawk.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1950 Dec 17, French named Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny to command their troops in Vietnam.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1952 Dec 17, Yugoslavia broke relations with the Vatican.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1953 Dec 17, FCC approved RCA's black & white-compatible color TV specifications. Temporary approval of the mechanical CBS color model was rescinded.
(MC, 12/17/01)(SFC, 3/18/04, p.E1)
1957 Dec 17, The United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1958 Dec 17, Howard Hickey (41) was named coach of the SF 49ers to replaced Frank Albert, who had retired unexpectedly.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.54)
1962 Dec 17, Thomas Mitchell (70), US, actor (Outlaw), died of cancer.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1965 Dec 17, Ending an election campaign marked by bitterness and violence, Ferdinand Marcos was declared president of the Philippines.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1969 Dec 17, An estimated 50 million TV viewers watched singer Tiny Tim marry his fiancée, Miss Vicky, on NBC's "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1969 Dec 17, The U.S. Air Force closed its Project "Blue Book" by finding no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1970 Dec 17, In Poland riot police under orders from defense minister Gen'l. Wojciech Jaruzelski opened fire on workers protesting food price increases and 44 people were killed in Gdansk, Gdynia, Szczecin, and Elblag. A case against Jaruzelski was opened in 1996 and in 1999 a court ruled that medical reasons would not exempt him from trial. The Jaruzelski trial began in 2001.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A14)(SFC, 5/16/01, p.D3)
1971 Dec 17, A cease fire began between India and Pakistan in East Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1975 Dec 17, Lynette Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1979 Dec 17, In a case that aggravated racial tensions, Arthur McDuffie, a black insurance executive, was fatally beaten after a police chase in Miami. Four white police officers were later acquitted of charges stemming from McDuffie's death.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1980 Dec 17, Milton Obote (1924-2005) began serving a 2nd term as president of Uganda.
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Obote)
1981 Dec 17, Red Brigade terrorists kidnapped Brigadier General James Dozier, the highest-ranking US NATO officer in southern Europe, from his home in Verona, Italy. Dozier was rescued 42 days later.
(HN, 12/17/98)(AP, 12/17/04)
1982 Dec 17, In Venezuela Hugo Chavez (b.1954) and other junior officers formed a secret group, the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200 (MBR-200), and vowed to change their society. They made their 1st coup attempt in 1992.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez)(WSJ, 6/12/03, p.A10)
1983 Dec 17, There was an IRA bombing near Harrods department store in London. Six people were killed and 90 injured.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/bu225)
1983 Dec 17, An Economic cooperation agreement between the Community and the Andean Pact countries was signed in Cartagena, Colombia.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1983/index_en.htm)
1984 Dec 17, Gerd Heinrich (b.1896), recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the subfamily Ichneumoninae (wasps), died. In 2007 his son Bernd Heinrich authored “The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology."
(www.zsm.mwn.de/hym/e/gishym_ich.htm)
1986 Dec 17, A federal jury in Detroit cleared automaker John DeLorean of all 15 charges in his fraud and racketeering trial.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1986-12/1986-12-17-ABC-11.html)
1986 Dec 17, Eugene Hasenfus, the American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to the Contras, was pardoned, then released.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1986 Dec 17, Richard Kuklinsky, a Mafia hitman known as the Iceman, was arrested in New Jersey. He was found guilty of all charges May 25, 1988. Anthony Bruno later authored “The Iceman."
(www.crimelibrary.com)
1986 Dec 17, In Colombia Guillermo Cano (b.1925), publisher of the Bogota newspaper El Espectador, was assassinated by drug cartel hitmen hired by Pablo Escobar.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Cano_Isaza)
1987 Dec 17, With election results showing him the winner, South Korea's president-elect, Roh Tae-woo, appealed for "national harmony" while his opponents claimed he had won through fraud.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1988 Dec 17, In his first public statement since the US decided to open direct talks with the PLO, Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir expressed shock, calling the US decision a "painful" blow.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1989 Dec 17, More than 100,000 Soviet citizens turned out to honor the late human rights advocate Andrei D. Sakharov, a day before he was buried in Moscow.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1990 Dec 17, President Bush pledged “no negotiation for one inch" of Kuwaiti territory would take place as he repeated his demand for Iraq’s complete withdrawal.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1990 Dec 17, President Bush nominated former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander to be secretary of education, succeeding Lauro Cavazos.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1990 Dec 17, In the SF Bay Area authorities discovered Jack Upton (30) dead in his apartment at 38780 Tyson Lane in Fremont. In 2019 police arrested Russell Anthony Guerrero of Tempe, Arizona, following a DNA match in the killing.
(SFC, 1/25/19, p.C1)
1991 Dec 17, In an about-face the US White House used the word "recession" to characterize the state of the economy, although spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the administration did not believe there was a recession in a technical sense.
(AP, 12/17/01)
1991 Dec 17, Joey Smallwood (b.1900), Canadian politician and the first premier of Newfoundland (1949-1972), died.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Smallwood)
1991 Dec 17, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union by the new year.
(AP, 12/17/01)
1991 Dec 17, Patrick Manning (1926-2016) began serving his first term as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago and continued to 1995.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Manning)
1992 Dec 17, President-elect Clinton tapped former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros to be Secretary of Housing.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1992 Dec 17, President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1992 Dec 17, Israel ordered the deportation of 418 suspected Muslim fundamentalists from the occupied territories.
(AP, 12/17/02)
1993 Dec 17, Fox Television outbid CBS for the National Football Conference TV package.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1993 Dec 17, So-called "suicide doctor" Jack Kevorkian was released from jail in Oakland County, Mich., after promising not to help anyone end their lives for the time being.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1994 Dec 17, Six shots were fired at the White House by an unidentified gunman.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1994 Dec 17, In Bahrain Hani al-Wasti (25) and Hani Khamees (26) were the first of more than 40 people killed in the political upheaval among the Shiites.
(AP, 12/17/02)
1994 Dec 17, North Korea shot down a U.S. Army helicopter which had strayed north of the demilitarized zone -- the co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, was killed; the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Hall, was captured and held for nearly two weeks.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1995 Dec 17, This year's British Booker Prize in literature was awarded to Pat Barker for "The Ghost Road," the third novel of a trilogy (1991-1995) that work focused on psychologist W.H.R. Rivers and poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) set during WW I.
(www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth15)(WSJ, 10/15/97, p.A21)(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A12)
1995 Dec 17 Eritrea used its warships to try to seize a disputed island in the mouth of the Red Sea from Yemen. Yemen sent warplanes to counter the attack.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec 17, Angry voters handed Russian President Boris Yeltsin a stinging rebuff as Communists and right-wing nationalists scored big wins in parliamentary elections on a platform of rolling back democratic reforms. Communists led in early returns in elections for the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament. The party was led by Gennady Zyuganov. The CP pulled in 21.9% of the vote with 11.1% for the party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-1,10) (WSJ, 12/19/95, p.A-13)(AP, 12/17/00)
1995 Dec 17, Isa Yusuf Alptekin (b.1901), exiled Uighur head of the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China), died in Turkey.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isa_Alptekin)
1996 Dec 17, Kofi Annan of Ghana was elected by acclamation as the 7th Secretary-General of the UN. His 5-year term will start Jan 1.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, Six Red Cross workers were slain in their sleep and a 7th was wounded by as many as 15 attackers in Chechnya. The Red Cross immediately suspended all operations in Chechnya.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, The Chinese stock market continued to tumble and authorities deployed plainclothes police to keep order among angry investors outside security brokerage houses in the major cities. The drop started when the official People’s Daily newspaper warned that the stock market was overvalued.
(WSJ, 12/18/96, p.A16)
1996 Dec 17, Sun Yaoting (b.1902), China’s last known eunuch, died.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B6)
1996 Dec 17, In Peru guerrillas took over a party at the house of the Japanese ambassador in Lima. They identified themselves as members of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla movement and demanded the release of imprisoned guerrillas. Nestor Cerpa Cartolini was later identified as the leader of the 20 or so guerrillas. Cerpa’s common-law wife, Nancy Gilvonio, was one of the imprisoned guerrillas whom he demanded be released. Pres. Fujimori’s brother was one of the hostages. All but 72 hostages were later released; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one hostage.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A12)(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 1/17/96, p.A12)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 17, The Russian Booker Prize for literature, inaugurated in 1992, was awarded to Andrei Sergeyev for his book "Stamp Album."
(www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/1996/12/17/004.html)
1996 Dec 17, In Russia an AN-12 military transport crashed and killed all 17 people onboard shortly after takeoff from St. Petersburg. Colonel General Sergei Seleznyov, commander of the Leningrad military district, was among the dead.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 17, In Somalia militia fighters of Ali Mahdi Mohamed attacked the headquarters of Hussein Aidid in the 5th consecutive day of fighting that brought the number of dead up to 135.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 17, In Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko stage a triumphal home.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)
1997 Dec 17, President Clinton's panel on race relations met at Annandale High School in Virginia.
(AP, 12/17/98)
1997 Dec 17, The US and 33 other countries signed a convention in Paris aimed at eradicating bribery in international business. Turkey was one of 34 signatories of the OECD’s anti-corruption convention.
(AP, 12/17/98)(Econ, 3/19/05, Survey p.14)
1997 Dec 17, A new Montana law, effective today, made the entire state an offshore banking center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash. Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was required.
(SFC, 12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 Dec 17, In New Jersey a settlement was reached that allows gay and unmarried couples to adopt children.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 17, A US court ordered Cuba to pay $187.6 million for three men killed when their planes were shot down in 1996 by MiG fighters.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 17, In France Salima Ghezali, Algerian human rights campaigner, received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.
(SFC, 12/18/97, p.C12)
1997 Dec 17, In Chiapas, Mexico, a young man from an Indian hamlet near Acteal was killed in an ambush by masked gunmen. Antonio Vazquez Secum summoned a band of gunmen and dispatched them to Acteal for revenge.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A15)
1997 Dec 17, A Ukrainian jetliner from Odessa, a Yakoviev 42, was missing as it approached the Greek city of Salonica with 70-71 people onboard. The wreckage was located near Fotina, Greece, on Dec 20, as a Greek military plane, searching for the wreckage, crashed north of Athens. All five people aboard the C-130 transport plane were killed.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)(www.cnn.com/WORLD/9712/20/greece.plane.pm/)
1998 Dec 17, Republicans advanced the impeachment case against President Clinton to the House floor for a debate the following day.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1998 Dec 17, House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston shocked fellow Republicans by admitting he'd had extramarital affairs.
(AP, 12/17/99)
1998 Dec 17, US and British forces launched more missiles on the 2nd day of attacks against Iraq. The strikes included some 100 cruise missiles with 2,000 pound warheads. At least 25 people were killed and 75 injured over 2 days. Pres. Boris Yeltsin withdrew the Russian ambassador from Washington and demanded an immediate end to military action. France and Italy expressed strong opposition while Germany rallied to support the US and Britain. A stray US missile hit Khorramshahr, Iran. The US later apologized.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.A1,3)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A20)
1998 Dec 17, In Alagoas state, Brazil, congresswoman Ceci Cunha was killed with her husband and 2 in-laws in an apparent political assassination. Talvane Albuquerque, who lost re-election in October, assumed her seat in the Chamber of Deputies. He was charged with ordering the murder of Cunha, but was immune from criminal prosecution while in office.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D2)(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A1)
1998 Dec 17, In Britain the high court set aside its ruling against Gen’l Pinochet because one member failed to disclose close ties with Amnesty Int’l. A new panel will rehear Pinochet’s claim of immunity.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.A18)
1998 Dec 17, In China dissidents Wang Youcai in Hangzhou and Qin Yongmin in Wuhan, arrested for subversion, pleaded their cases for forming the China Democracy Party. Youcai was released in 2004 and sent to the US.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D3)(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A3)
1998 Dec 17, A boatload of Cubans capsized off Elliot Key, Fla., during an immigrant-smuggling attempt and at least 8 people were drowned.
(SFC, 12/19/98, p.A7)
1998 Dec 17, In Gabon Karen Phillips (37), a US Peace Corps worker from Philadelphia, was raped and stabbed to death in Oyem. 3 people were arrested in connection with her death.
(SFEC, 12/20/98, p.C10)
1998 Dec 17, In Indonesia some 4,000 students attempted to storm the parliament in Jakarta in a 2nd day of riots. They were stopped by police riot squads.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D2)
1998 Dec 17, Serbian police attacked a suspected rebel-controlled village in Kosovo. Two ethnic Albanian fighters were killed and 34 were arrested in Glodjane.
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.D4)
1999 Dec 17, President Clinton signed a law letting millions of disabled Americans retain their government-funded health coverage when they take a job.
(AP, 12/17/00)
1999 Dec 17, Grover Washington Jr., jazz saxophonist, died at age 56 during a TV taping session in NYC.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.C5)
1999 Dec 17, The UN Security Council (Resolution 1284) ended a yearlong deadlock and voted to create a new inspection team (UNMOVIC) to complete the disarmament of Iraq.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/00)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
2000 Dec 17, President-elect Bush was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2000 Dec 17, Pres.-elect Bush named Condoleeza Rice (46) of Stanford to be his national security advisor and Texas Supreme Court Justice Alberto Gonzales as White House counsel.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/01)
2000 Dec 17, In Chechnya a rebel attack killed 3 Russian soldiers. A shootout with rebels in Grozny left 2 police officers and 2 rebels dead.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B4)(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 17, In Colombia gunmen killed 11 people in the village of Chipaque. Leftist rebels were suspected.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B2)
2000 Dec 17, Cuba and Russia agreed to abandon the nuclear power plant at Juragua. Pres. Putin pushed Castro to recognize a small portion of the Soviet-era debt, estimated at $20 billion.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 17, Israeli and Palestinian officials agreed to hold talks in Washington prior to the departure of Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E2)
2000 Dec 17, In Mexico thousands were ordered to evacuate the area around the Popocatepetl volcano due to the formation of a lava dome.
(WSJ, 12/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 17, In northern Italy at least 10 climbers and skiers were killed after ice formed overnight in the Alps.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E2)
2001 Dec 17, The Bush administration announced that the anthrax attacks most likely originated from a domestic source.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 17, Space shuttle Endeavour returned to Cape Canaveral following A 12-day mission for a crew change at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 17, US Marines raised the Stars and Stripes over the long-abandoned American Embassy in Kabul, inaugurating what U.S. envoy James F. Dobbins promised would be a long commitment to the rebuilding.
(AP, 12/17/02)
2001 Dec 17, In Afghanistan US Delta forces pursued some 300 al Qaeda fighters in the White Mountains. Mullah Omar was reported to have retreated to the mountains near Baghran.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A1,14)
2001 Dec 17, In Haiti 33 gunmen, ex-members of the disbanded military, attacked the national penitentiary, were rebuffed and moved on to the National Palace. At least 10 people were killed. Opposition buildings were attacked in response. Pres. Aristide called the attack a failed coup. Opposition called the attack a staged event to crush dissent. A captured former soldier later said the attack was a coup attempt and that fellow conspirators included a former colonel and 2 former police chiefs. Former Col. Guy Francois was accused of helping plot the attack and spent two years in prison for his alleged role despite maintaining his innocence.
(SFC, 12/18/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/19/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/21/01, p.A3)(AP, 12/17/02)(AP, 9/15/06)
2001 Dec 17, Israel continued military sweeps as Hamas and the Popular Front rejected Arafat’s call to end attacks.
(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2002 Dec 17, U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the military to begin deploying a national missile defense system with land- and sea-based interceptor rockets to be operational starting in 2004.
(Reuters, 12/17/02)(SFC, 12/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 17, In New York Gov. George Pataki signed a bill extending civil rights protections to gays and lesbians in the state.
(SFC, 12/18/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 17, Insurance and finance company Conseco Incorporated filed for Chapter Eleven protection in the third-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2002 Dec 17, Playwright Frederick Knott (86), who wrote "Dial M For Murder" and "Wait Until Dark," died in NYC.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2002 Dec 17, Congo's government, rebels and political opposition signed a power-sharing agreement after four years of war and 2.5 million lives lost.
(AP, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 17, Iraqi exiles in London declared they want to build a "new Iraq" and agreed on a power-sharing plan that for the first time recognizes the political clout of Shiite Muslims, a majority in a nation long controlled by Sunni Muslims such as Saddam Hussein. Some delegates walked out of the London meeting warning of possible civil war if they were sidelined in any new government.
(AP, 12/17/02)(Reuters, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 17, Mohammed Jawad allegedly attacked US troops with a grenade. He was arrested and later transferred to Guantanamo Bay. US authorities claimed he was at least 16-years old at the time of his arrest, but it later emerged he may have been as young as 12.
(SFC, 7/31/09, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Jawad)
2002 Dec 17, Malaysia won control of two tiny palm-fringed islands when the World Court ruled in its favor in a long-running dispute with Indonesia.
(Reuters, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 17, The Interfax news agency reported that Russia has lost 4,705 soldiers, officers and policemen in Chechnya since 1999.
(AP, 12/18/02)
2003 Dec 17, The US CDC reported that the average age of US women for their 1st child was 25.1 years, up from 21.4 in 1970.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, The Bush administration reached a free-trade deal with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua for immediate duty-free access to half of all US farm exports and 80% of consumer goods.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, George Ryan, former governor of Illinois, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of racketeering. Ryan was alter convicted and sentenced to 6 1/2-years in federal prison sentence for racketeering.
(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A2)(AP, 12/17/08)
2003 Dec 17, Wally Hedrick (75), Beat-era artist, died at his home in Sonoma County, Ca.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A16)
2003 Dec 17, In Britain Ian Huntley, a former school caretaker, was convicted of murdering two 10-year-old girls in 2002. He had previously been investigated for sex crimes. Huntley was sentenced to two life terms.
(AP, 12/17/03)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.53)
2003 Dec 17, The British government announced the first reported case of a person dying from the human form of mad cow disease after a blood transfusion from an infected donor.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2003 Dec 17, China Life, China's biggest life insurer, debuted on the NY stock exchange.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.104)
2003 Dec 17, The fifth outbreak in two years of the deadly Ebola virus in the Republic of Congo has so far killed 29 people.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In France Pres. Jacques Chirac announced his decision to pass a law banning Islamic head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols in public schools.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Greece a court handed multiple life sentences to the leader, chief assassin and three other members of the November 17 terror organization. Dimitris Koufodinas was sentenced to 11 life terms.
(AP, 12/17/03)(AP, 6/14/18)
2003 Dec 17, Haiti police stormed and shut down a pro-opposition radio station, smashing studio equipment in what they said was a search for weapons.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Baghdad an explosives-laden truck speeding toward a police station slammed into a bus and blew up before dawn, killing at least 10 Iraqis.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Iraq guerrillas ambushed a U.S. military patrol with small arms fire, killing one soldier at al-Karmah in northwest Baghdad. The soldier's death brings the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat to 314 since the war started on March 20.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, Suspected followers of Saddam Hussein shot to death Muhannad al-Hakim a representative of a major Shiite political party and a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, South Korea agreed to send 3,000 troops to Iraq in 2004.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, NATO's Secretary General Lord Robertson ended a tumultuous four-year term.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In the Ukraine a bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a deep ditch on the Crimean peninsula, killing 17 people and injuring 19 others.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2004 Dec 17, President Bush signed into law the largest overhaul of US intelligence-gathering in 50 years.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2004 Dec 17, The FDA approved a Harvard proposal to test the benefits of 3-4 methylenedioxtmethamphetamine (MDMA). In Nov. researchers in North Carolina gained government approval to test the drug "Ecstasy" as a treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder for the first time since the drug was criminalized in 1985.
(www.maps.org/mdma/)(WP, 11/6/04)
2004 Dec 17, Pfizer, maker of a popular pain reliever, admitted Celebrex appears to increase the risk of heart attack in users, but has no plans to remove it from the market.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, Tom Wesselman (73), NYC pop artist, died. He was known for his “bedroom still lifes."
(SFC, 12/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Dec 17, Afghan forces retook control of Pul-e-Charkhi, the country's largest jail, following a day-long standoff. 4 inmates and 4 guards were killed in the violence.
(AP, 12/17/04)(SFC, 12/18/04, p.A8)
2004 Dec 17, Bhutan began to enforce a total ban on tobacco sales and smoking in public. The royal National Assembly passed the resolution in July.
(SFC, 11/30/04, p.A2)
2004 Dec 17, Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic resigned, one day after the international community imposed sanctions against Bosnian Serb police and officials for allegedly helping fugitive war crimes suspects evade justice.
(AFP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that China paid out $15 billion per month to keep the yuan fixed at 8.277 to the US dollar.
(WSJ, 12/17/04, p.A14)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that China’s growing power industry was causing global concern over mercury accumulation in the world’s water and food supply.
(WSJ, 12/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 17, Colombian authorities revealed that they had lost track in June of three IRA-linked men, convicted this week of training Marxist rebels in terrorist tactics.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, The UN said foreign troops have crossed into Congo and called on outside forces to stop giving weapons and reinforcements to renegade soldiers battling army loyalists.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, Dissident forces attacked the village of Buramba, Congo, targeting civilians suspected of sympathizing with pro-government militiamen. At least 30 civilians were killed in the massacre believed to have been a reprisal for the killing of 3 renegade soldiers by a pro-government militia.
(AP, 1/7/05)
2004 Dec 17, Three days of trade talks ended in Havana. Cuba agreed to buy about $125 million in farm goods from attending U.S. companies.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, European Union leaders and Turkey agreed on a compromise formula to overcome differences over Turkish recognition of Cyprus' government as a condition for opening EU membership talks.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, The US completely forgave $4.1 billion in debt Iraq owed it and urged other nations not part of an international debt relief agreement to follow suit.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, Gunmen attacked a car in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing four male passengers, and witnesses said three of the victims were foreigners.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2004 Dec 17, Israeli troops raided a Gaza refugee camp in retaliation for a deadly Palestinian mortar fire, sparking fighting that killed 8 Palestinians and wounded 24 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier.
(AP, 12/17/04)(SFC, 12/18/04, p.A14)
2004 Dec 17, Italy's interior ministry said 181 people had been arrested in the past three months in a crackdown on the Camorra in Naples whose turf warfare now overshadows that of the Sicilian mafia.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that the AIDS drug nevirapine failed to meet int’l. standards in Uganda. The drug was used to protect babies from HIV infection, but that infected women could develop resistance.
(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A23)
2005 Dec 17, President George W. Bush acknowledged he signed a secret order after the September 11, 2001, attacks to allow the surveillance of people in the United States.
(Reuters, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, John Ruiz lost the WBA heavyweight title, dropping a disputed majority decision to Nikolay Valuev of Russia in Berlin.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2005 Dec 17, Jack Anderson (83), Pulitzer Prize-winning muckraking columnist, died at his home in Maryland. Washington Post columnist Drew Pearson hired Anderson in 1947 and Anderson took over his column after Pearson’s death in 1969.
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.B5)
2005 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan men on a motorcycle opened fire on students leaving school in Lashkargah, killing a pupil and a janitor.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan 4 policemen and 3 suspected Taliban fighters were killed and an Afghan interpreter were wounded in attacks.
(AFP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Bosnia the reconstructed Stari Most, a bridge that came to symbolize the senseless brutality of the Bosnian war, took its place on the UN's list of protected World Heritage Sites.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, Hundreds of fighters from three rebel armies united to attack the village of San Marino in western Colombia. The bold assault that killed at least five police officers.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, EU leaders agreed on a 7-year spending plan for the 25-nation bloc, a hard-won deal seen as key to shaping the future of an enlarged EU and to restoring faith in its unity.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Hong Kong hundreds of protesters wielding bamboo sticks broke through police lines and tried to storm the convention center hosting global trade talks. Security forces scattered the crowd with tear gas. Police said 41 people were injured and 900 were detained.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, India and Pakistan agreed to begin work by 2007 on a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran, moving ahead with the project despite US disapproval. Iran hoped to break ground this year on a 1,700 mile, $4 billion natural gas pipeline to deliver gas across Pakistan to India. The US opposed the line and threatened sanctions under the 1996 Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) law.
(AP, 12/18/05)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.A4)
2005 Dec 17, The chief UN investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in published remarks that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, Macedonia moved a step closer to realizing its dream of EU membership when the bloc's leaders gave their blessing for it to start membership talks.
(AFP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, The Mexican government slammed the US Congress for approving an immigration bill that would tighten border controls and make it harder for undocumented immigrants to get jobs.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Mexico 6 people were stabbed or battered to death during a prison gang fight in Ciudad Juarez, across the US border from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, Forty drunken Santas rampaged through central Auckland, NZ, stealing from stores and assaulting security guards in a protest against the commercialization of Christmas.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip killed a militant who fired homemade rockets at Israel and wounded three other people.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 17, A first group of southern Sudanese refugees began their journey home after two decades of living in a camp in Kenya.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Trinidad Randy Depoo, a former political officer at the US Embassy in Trinidad, paid $1,000 for the release of his kidnapped son. The kidnappers originally sought nearly $32,000 but released the youth within hours of the abduction for the lower amount.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Dec 17, Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the EU of trying to pressure Turkish courts in the trial of the country's best-known novelist. Orhan Pamuk is being tried for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it."
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Vietnam disaster officials said floods and landslides have claimed at least 47 lives in central Vietnam in the past two weeks.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2006 Dec 17, In Kirksville, Missouri, a 911 call reporting a "strange odor" from a duplex apartment led police to the bodies of seven people.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, In Ohio a plane crashed in a field killing Paul and Lillian Martin of Austin, Texas, and their two children.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, Kelly James of Dallas, one of 3 missing climbers, was found dead in a snow cave on Mount Hood.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Afghan officials replaced Helmand Gov. Mohammad Daud with Asadullah Wafa. Daud led the province that grows more than a third of the world's opium. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the appointment of Wafa would help increase security in Helmand, but insisted the increase in poppy cultivation had nothing to do with the change. In eastern Afghanistan a suicide bomber drove up to an American convoy and blew himself up, leaving one Afghan civilian dead and two others wounded. France said it is going to withdraw its 200-strong special forces from Afghanistan, all of its ground troops engaged in the US anti-terror operation there.
(AP, 12/17/06)(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, In eastern Chad marauding fighters killed and mutilated 20 civilians. The government blamed the atrocities on militias backed by neighbouring Sudan. Government forces who battled the attackers after their raids on the refugee camp and two other nearby villages also saw eight of their soldiers killed and the victims' eyes gouged out. The army killed nine fighters in return and took four prisoners.
(AFP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 17, Indian officials said a killer elephant, named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers, was killed by sharpshooters. The animal was blamed for 14 deaths in the northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Britain’s PM Blair and his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki, discussed preparations by British military units in Basra, the main city in southern Iraq, to turn over security to Iraqi forces. Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms burst into Red Crescent offices and kidnapped more than two dozen people at the humanitarian organization in the latest sign of the country's growing lawlessness. Others killed in violence included two policeman, an Iraqi soldier and a municipal official in Baghdad; and a police officer in Kut. Former Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samaraie, a dual US-Iraqi citizen and the country's only postwar Cabinet minister to be convicted of corruption, escaped police custody in Baghdad for a second time.
(AP, 12/17/06)(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 17, Nigeria's ruling party chose a reclusive Muslim state governor, Umaru Yar'Adua, to be its candidate to succeed Olusegun Obasanjo as president of Africa's most populous nation in elections next year.
(Reuters, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Gunmen attacked the convoy of the Palestinian foreign minister and raided a training base for an elite security forces unit, stepping up factional violence over a decision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to end nine months of Hamas leadership and call early elections. A 19-year-old woman and a Palestinian security officer were killed in the chaos. Earlier in the day dozens of gunmen raided a training camp of Abbas' Presidential Guard near the president's residence, killing a member of the elite force.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Scores of migrants who spent days at sea were missing and feared dead after their boat wrecked off Senegal's coast.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 17, Zimbabwe's ruling party recommended that President Robert Mugabe's term be extended by two years, to 2010, delaying a showdown between rival factions over the choice of his successor. Opposition and rights groups vowed to stage mass street protests against plans by Mugabe's supporters to extend the veteran ruler's term by another two years.
(AP, 12/17/06)(AFP, 12/18/06)
2007 Dec 17, President George W. Bush, addressing a Rotary Club meeting, tried to reassure an edgy public that the economy is "pretty good" despite the mix of a failing housing market, a national credit crunch and surging energy costs.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2007 Dec 17, A US judge ruled that the White House visitor logs are public, a blow to Pres. Bush, who didn’t want to disclose visits by religious conservatives.
(WSJ, 12/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 17, In Washington, DC, a military judge said the US must hold court hearings to determine whether suspected terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay are prisoners of war or unlawful enemy combatants in a ruling that could delay war crimes trials.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 17, US trade officials said the US has reached a deal with the EU, Japan and Canada to keep its Internet gambling market closed to foreign companies, but is continuing talks with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau and Costa Rica.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed into law a measure that abolished the death penalty, making New Jersey the first US state in over decades reject capital punishment.
(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 17, It was reported that the US was investigation allegations that Public Warehousing Co. owned by Kuwait’s Sultan Al-Essa family, had solicited as much as $80 million in kickbacks under cover as discounts from US suppliers.
(WSJ, 12/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 17, The World Trade Organization (WTO) launched an investigation into Washington's multi-billion-dollar farm subsidies that Brazil and Canada say break international trading rules.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, The Int’l. Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank, unveiled a $1 billion health-care strategy for Africa.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.121)
2007 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan several militants were killed in airstrikes and a subsequent operation by US-led coalition troops.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Much of eastern and central Canada was digging out after a massive storm dumped up to 50 cm (20 inches) of snow in places, shocking Canadians who had become accustomed to milder winters.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Grozny, Chechnya, a roadside bomb killed a prison guard and wounded four other people as they drove in a van transporting suspected criminals.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Dubai ruling Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum pardoned 377 inmates of Dubai prisons this week on the eve of Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic holiday. The pardon included Bert Tatham, a Canadian UN official who advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops. Tatham (35) was granted amnesty, six months after being sentenced to four years in prison on a drug smuggling conviction. Tatham was arrested April 23 during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai International Airport, after being caught with a half a gram of hashish, and two poppy bulbs.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Nine Egyptians were killed and seven injured when a car crashed into a group of people celebrating a religious festival on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said the first nuclear fuel shipment for the Bushehr atomic power plant has arrived in Iran from Russia. Aghazadeh said the Bushehr plant was 95 percent complete and would begin operations next year.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Al-Qaida's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri warned of "traitors" among insurgents in Iraq and called on Iraqi Sunni Arab tribes to purge those who help the Americans in a new videotape posted on the Web.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Defense officials said Israel will allow the Palestinians to set up a new cell phone network, part of warming relations between the sides. The world rallied to the support of the embattled Palestinian government, and the co-chairman of a donors' conference said he was confident they could meet a $5.6 billion target in aid.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Japan and the United Arab Emirates signed an accord to strengthen economic ties, including a deal for Japanese banks to extend a multibillion-dollar loan to a state-owned Abu Dhabi oil firm.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Japan began sending warnings to an estimated 8.5 million people that their pension data may have gone missing, as the government seeks to clean up a scandal that has damaged its credibility.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, A Nicaraguan appeals court overturned the conviction of Eric Volz, a US man sentenced to 30 years in prison in the killing of his Nicaraguan girlfriend. Volz (28) was freed on Dec 21 and quickly left Nicaragua.
(AP, 12/18/07)(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 17, Nigeria's main militant group urged all armed factions in the restive southern oil heartland to join together and cripple Africa's biggest petroleum industry.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Pakistan the Election Commission rejected former PM Nawaz Sharif’s appeal against the rejection of his nomination for next month's parliamentary elections. Police used batons and fired tear gas in a clash with protesters who hurled rocks and bricks at them in Islamabad. A suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Pakistani army recruits returning from a soccer game in northwestern Pakistan, killing nine of them. The attacker struck near an army communications center in Kohat, about 30 miles from the city of Peshawar.
(AFP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was ready to become prime minister if his close ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep a grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Saudi Arabia a gang-rape victim who was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man not related to her was pardoned by the Saudi king after the case sparked rare criticism from the United States, the kingdom's top ally.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Somalia mortar shells slammed into Mogadishu, killing at least 12 people, including a mother and her three children, and wounding dozens in an increasingly ferocious Islamic insurgency.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In northern Sri Lanka renewed violence between Tamil rebels and government forces left at least 33 people dead.
(AFP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Uruguay's last military dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, was charged with the forced disappearance of political prisoners, cheering human rights activists who have long campaigned for his prosecution.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2008 Dec 17, Microsoft said will release an emergency patch today to fix a perilous software flaw allowing hackers to hijack Internet Explorer browsers and take over computers.
(AFP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Minnesota two freight trains collided sending an engineer and some cars into the Mississippi River.
(WSJ, 12/18/08, p.A1)
2008 Dec 17, OPEC, meeting in Algeria, said it is cutting 2.2 million barrels a day from its output, the largest ever at one time, to stem crude prices that have plummeted over 70% from summer highs of nearly $150. Members among the 13-nation organization were officially producing a daily 29.045 million barrels in September.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Algerian news reports said Raked Brahim (28) was convicted and jailed for three years for traveling to Iraq in 2007 to take part in attacks against US forces. He was detained in Syria and later deported back to Algeria.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Australian Aborigines won a court fight against Anglo-Swiss mining giant Xstrata's plans to divert a river and expand one of the world's biggest zinc mines.
(AFP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Two Australian women were killed when their light aircraft slammed into a suburban house in Sydney after a mid-air collision between two flying school planes.
(AFP, 12/18/08)
2008 Dec 17, British PM Gordon Brown said his country's troops will leave Iraq by May 31, ending a mission that provided the second-largest military presence in Iraq after the United States. Police said a double-bombing in Baghdad targeting traffic police left at least 18 people dead and 52 others wounded. The US military reported nine killed and 43 wounded.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, A London judge sentenced Bilal Abdulla (29) to at least 32 years in prison for his role in the June 29, 2007, attempted car bombs in London and an attack at Glasgow Airport the following day.
(SFC, 12/18/08, p.A17)
2008 Dec 17, Bulgaria's last 155 troops stationed in Iraq returned home. 13 Bulgarian soldiers and six civilians have died in Iraq since 2003. Bulgaria also has troops in international military missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Beijing the presidents of China and Angola signed a series of agreements as the oil rich African nation sought greater Chinese participation in its energy and infrastructure development.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, The European Parliament gave a jailed Chinese dissident a one-minute standing ovation as it honored him in absentia with its top human rights award.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Gaza militants fired nine rockets at Israel just two days before militants say a truce along the Gaza border is to expire. The rockets were fired by three small militant groups and caused no injuries. Israel says there's no expiration date.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Indian Kashmir thousands of security forces patrolled towns to protect voters in state elections. Muslim separatists urged residents to boycott the vote and called for a general strike.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, The Russian ruble suffered its largest drop in three months after the Central Bank signaled it would accelerate the devaluation of the national currency.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, An international anti-piracy force thwarted the attempted takeover of a Chinese cargo ship off the Somali coast, sending in attack helicopters that fired on the bandits and forced them to abandon the ship they had boarded. The Indian navy handed over 23 pirates, caught at sea on Dec 13, to authorities in Yemen.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said Zimbabwe's neighbors will launch an urgent humanitarian campaign in the hope of saving the country from economic collapse and a cholera epidemic. Motlanthe also said South Africa would not join international calls for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to step down, saying it was "not for us" to do so.
(AP, 12/17/08)(AFP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, A South Korean court found one of the country's most famous actresses guilty of adultery, months after she tried but failed to have a law that makes extramarital affairs a crime ruled unconstitutional. Ok So-ri was handed a suspended jail term.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, Sri Lankan fighter jets and attack helicopters pummeled rebel fortifications across the north, as government forces pushed ahead with their offensive against the Tamil Tigers' northern stronghold in the face of punishing seasonal rains and stiff rebel resistance.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 17, The UN said it will double the budget of its Afghan mission next year, taking on hundreds of new staff and opening more offices to meet more "complex" challenges. The UN’s chief in Afghanistan called for international military forces to revise their agreement with the Afghan government to include practices that will better safeguard civilians.
(AFP, 12/17/08)(AP, 12/17/08)
2009 Dec 17, The Obama administration handed out the first $182 million of a $7.2 billion pot of stimulus money that will go toward building high-speed Internet networks and encouraging more Americans to use them.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared that attempts over the past two years to save the endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon had failed. An isolated population of the species lives along a stretch of the Kootenai that passes through Montana, northern Idaho and southern British Columbia. Fewer than 500 of the bottom-feeding behemoths survive. It's been 35 years since they successfully spawned due to the 1974 construction of Libby Dam.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 17, SF Mayor Newsom delivered a list of midyear cuts totaling $45 million. He still faced a $522 million deficit for 2010.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A15)
2009 Dec 17, In California the Sonoma Land Trust completed the $36 million purchase of 5,630 acres of coastal grasslands and redwood forest known as the Jenner Headlands.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A1)
2009 Dec 17, Xcor Aerospace of Mohave, Ca., the developer of a rocket plane for space tourism, said it has been selected to supply launch services to the Yecheon Astro Space Center, a nonprofit organization in South Korea.
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A21)
2009 Dec 17, Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry (26) died in North Carolina, a day after falling out of the back of a pickup truck during what police said was a domestic dispute with his fiancee.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Kansas City, Mo., Chester Harvey Jr. (38), of Laddonia, and his son Chad Michael Harvey (19), of Eolia, tortured and killed James William Boyd McNeely (20) of Ohio in the trucker's basement with the help of several other people. On Dec 30 prosecutors filed for first-degree murder and other charges against the men.
(AP, 12/31/09)
2009 Dec 17, John Hummel stabbed his wife, Joy Hummel, 35 times, then beat to death his 5-year-old daughter Jodi Hummel and wheelchair-bound father-in-law Clyde Bedford with a baseball bat in the Fort Worth suburb of Kennedale. On June 30, 2021, Hummel was executed by lethal injection at the Texas state penitentiary in Huntsville.
(https://tinyurl.com/fev5uxwh)(SFC, 7/2/21, p.A4)
2009 Dec 17, Jennifer Jones (90), film actress, died. She starred in over 2 dozen films and won an academy award for her 1943 film “The Song of Bernadette."
(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A24)
2009 Dec 17, In Afghanistan a key conference on corruption ended with delegates suggesting the government end immunity for corrupt officials and intensify the fight against graft. A suicide attacker wounded 5 Afghan soldiers and 4 tribal leaders in the central province of Uruzgan.
(AFP, 12/17/09)(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In the Bahamas 2 US pilots were the only people aboard the small jet when it crashed in an unpopulated area of Great Inagua shortly after taking off from the Dominican Republic en route to Miami. The Jet Falcon was owned by a trust for which the San Francisco, California-based Wells Fargo company acts as trustee.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 17, Oxfam said some areas of East Africa had received less than 5% of the normal November rains and that many people are malnourished in Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. It was the sixth failed rainy season for war-ravaged Somalia and the worst drought there for 20 years. The European Commission announced that it would immediately release an extra $75 million to fund emergency relief for drought-stricken areas of East Africa. It estimated that 16 million people will need aid in the coming months.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Bolivia's leftist government was reported to have seized another big ranch from a top opposition figure. It said the 2,500-hectare (10-square-mile) spread will go to landless Indians. President Morales' government also confiscated a 500-hectare parcel from Osvaldo Monasterio, a banker and agribusinessman who owns the Unitel TV network.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Brazil a 2-year-old boy with 42 sewing needles stuck in him was airlifted to another hospital in northeastern Bahia state because two of the needles were close to his heart. A police official said Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, the boy's stepfather, had been arrested, that he had confessed to sticking the needles into the boy with the help of a woman and that authorities were investigating whether black magic was involved. On Dec 18 doctors removed 4 of the most life-threatening needles.
(AP, 12/17/09)(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A5)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 17, Canada put its Candu nuclear division up for sale, saying the operation needed outside investors to boost its chances for growth at a time of expanding nuclear power generation and also help cut the cost to taxpayers.
(Reuters, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Copenhagen US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to put new life into flagging UN climate talks by announcing the US would join others in raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with global warming.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Ingushetia, Russia, a suicide car bomber attacked a group of police and soldiers in Nazran, wounding at least 23 people. Also in Nazran 2 security officers were killed in a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Iranian forces took control of Well 4, a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border in Maysan province. Well 4 lies in the Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of fields Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. There have been a number of meetings in recent years aimed at reaching agreement on border fields, so far without success.
(AFP, 12/18/09)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 17, In Iraq a car bomb exploded outside a popular restaurant in central Baghdad, killing 3 people and wounding 16 as diners were out enjoying the start to their weekend.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Off the coast of Lebanon a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship carrying thousands of sheep and other livestock went down in heavy rain. At least 9 crew members were killed and dozens were missing.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 17, Hannibal Kadhafi, the son of the Libyan leader, filed a civil lawsuit for "protection of personality" against the Swiss canton of Geneva and a local newspaper over the publication of police mugshots taken when he was arrested in Switzerland in July, 2008.
(AFP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 17, Malaysian marine police rescued 62 pangolins. 2 days later Malaysian wildlife authorities said they rescued 130 pangolins and arrested two men attempting to smuggle the protected species. They were expected to be illegally exported to China, Japan and Hong Kong, where animal's meat is considered a delicacy with medicinal qualities.
(AFP, 12/20/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin)
2009 Dec 17, In Mexico four suspected drug traffickers and two local policemen were killed in a shootout with soldiers in General Zuazua. Soldiers found a list with names of local policemen who may have been on the payroll of the drug gang. They also found more than 1,320 pounds (600 kg) of marijuana and several guns at the scene.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 17, In New Zealand a church billboard was erected showing an apparently naked Virgin Mary and Joseph in bed together and quickly sparked the ire of conservative Christians. On the poster a sad-looking Joseph lies next to Mary, whose face is turned heavenwards under the words: "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow." St Matthews' vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, said the billboard was meant to challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived.
(AFP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, A Nigerian judge dismissed a 170-count indictment that accused former Delta state governor James Ibori, of corruption and money laundering. Ibori was also a financial backer of President Umaru Yar'Adua.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Pakistan's defense minister was blocked from leaving the country along with nearly 250 other top officials, following the Supreme Court's decision to strike down an amnesty for hundreds of Pakistani officials charged with corruption. 2 separate US missile strikes killed 16 people in North Waziristan including Al-Qaida commander Zuhaib al-Zahibi.
(AP, 12/18/09)(AFP, 12/17/09)(SFC, 12/18/09, p.A11)
2009 Dec 17, Former Syrian President Amin Hafez (b.1920) died. He was brought to power by a military coup only to be overthrown three years later. Hafez became president in a 1963 coup, but Baath Party radicals drove him from power three years later.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The Vatican said Bishop Donal Murray (69), a Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland, has resigned after a probe of child sex abuse by clergymen accused him of ignoring reports of crimes by priests in his diocese from 1982-1996.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The Vatican said it has stripped charismatic Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of his priestly duties because he defiantly continues to ordain bishops despite already being excommunicated. Milingo angered the Vatican when he got married in 2001 to a South Korean woman by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church. He was excommunicated in 2006 after installing four married men as bishops.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, Yemen security forces struck several al-Qaida hideouts and training sites in Abyan province, killing up to 34 suspected militants, including four would-be suicide bombers who planned attacks at home and abroad. At least 17 suspected militants were arrested. Civilians were caught up in the government offensive, with several homes destroyed in the airstrikes and others stormed by troops who mistook them for al-Qaida hideouts.
(AP, 12/17/09)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.35)
2010 Dec 17, Pres. Obama signed into law a tax bill extending cuts for all Americans. The $858 billion package included 13 months of extended benefits to the unemployed and a boost for renewable power companies.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A12)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 17, The states of Arizona and Nevada sued Bank of America Corp., accusing the largest US bank of routinely misleading consumers about home loan modifications.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, The widow of Jeffrey Picower (d.2009), a Florida philanthropist, agreed to return $7.2 billion that her husband reaped from the giant Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 17, The Archdiocese of New York announced that a Roman Catholic tribunal has defrocked former monsignor Charles Kavanagh (73) for molesting a teenage student in the 1980s. Kavanagh denied the accusation.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 17, Don Van Vliet (69), American musician and artist, died in California. He had performed as Captain Beefheart and was best known for his 1969 album “Trout Mask Replica" released by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band."
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 17, In Afghanistan kidnappers killed a Bangladeshi working for a South Korean firm and held 3 road workers hostage after storming their camp at gunpoint between the northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan. Haitham Mohammed al-Khayat (26), a prominent Jordanian-Palestinian militant better known in extremist circles as Abu Kandahar al-Zarqawi, was killed by US forces. He was an administrator of the online jihadi forum, Al-Hesbah, according to Islamist militant websites.
(AFP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 17, British landscape architect Joanna Yeates (25) went missing following a night out. Her body was found in the Failand area of Bristol on Christmas Day. She had been strangled. On Jan 20, 2011, Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak (32) was detained after police uncovered fresh evidence. On Oct 28 Tabak was found guilty of murder.
(AFP, 1/4/11)(AFP, 1/22/11)(Reuters, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 17, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a rare visit to Pakistan aimed at expanding trade ties and the flow of Chinese investment into the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, A French court convicted 13 former officials who served under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for roles in the disappearance of 4 French nationals. It sentenced two to life in prison: Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who at the time headed Pinochet's political police, and Octavio Espinoza Bravo, an army colonel. All 14 of the defendants were tried in absentia.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Iraq a roadside bomb in southeast Baghdad exploded as Shiite pilgrims were returning home from Karbala, after final ceremonies ended for Ashura, the Shiite Muslims' most solemn religious event of the year. Eight pilgrims were wounded. The UN refugee agency said an "exodus" of thousands of Iraqi Christians was taking place following a deadly church attack in Baghdad carried out by Al-Qaeda militants at the end of October.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Israel Christine Luken (44), female American tourist, was stabbed to death. Her body was found on Dec 19 bound and with multiple stab wounds near a road outside Jerusalem. Her friend, Kaye Susan Wilson, told police the two had been hiking in a nearby forest when they were assaulted by two Arab men. She, too, was bound and stabbed, but managed to escape her assailants. On Jan 26, 2011, Palestinians Kifah Ghneimat and Iyad Fatafa were indicted for Luken’s murder. Ghneimat was convicted on Sep 25.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 1/26/11)(AP, 9/26/11)
2010 Dec 17, Ivory Coast police were out in force in Abidjan as supporters of the internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's presidential election vowed to try once again to seize state institutions after a similar attempt the day before resulted in up to 30 deaths.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Kyrgyzstan's fractious parliament named a new prime minister and formed a government, ending weeks of political uncertainty. Social Democrat Party leader Almazbek Atambayev was named premier with 92 out of 114 votes.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Maltese Foreign Minister Tonio Borg promised during a visit to the Gaza Strip to donate funds to the United Nations agency caring for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Mexico 141 inmates, a number later raised to 153, escaped from a state prison in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. Authorities said the breakout was probably helped by prison employees. More than 40 prison guards were later charged with helping 153 inmates escape from the prison. 11 men were reported abducted from a bar in Acapulco. Two of the abducted men were later found dead. Their hands and feet had been cut off. On Dec 27 police in Acapulco found the decapitated bodies of two more men in front of the same bar.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 17, A Nigerian court sentenced 15 Muslim herdsmen to 10 years each over sectarian violence in the country's central region that left hundreds dead this year. Nigerian tanker drivers suspended petrol deliveries to Lagos and other areas to protest the firing of 2,500 members, sparking long queues at filling stations.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigerian NDLF militants attacked three pipelines operated by the US oil giant Chevron and Italian firm Agip in the key oil producing state of Delta.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigeria dropped charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal allegedly involving Halliburton after a reported settlement of 250 million dollars. On Dec 21 Halliburton said it had agreed to pay 32.5 million dollars to the Nigerian government, plus 2.5 million dollars in costs.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, North Korea said it would strike again at the South if a live-firing drill by Seoul on a disputed island went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month's shelling that killed four people. Russia urged South Korea to halt plans for the artillery drill.
(AP, 12/17/10)(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Pakistan 3 American missile attacks killed 54 people in the villages of Spin Drag and Shandana in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber region, an area that has seen few such strikes in the past, possibly signaling an expansion of the CIA-led covert war inside the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Sudan's army clashed with Darfur rebels for a third time in a week. UN officials said clashes between the Sudanese army and former rebels who signed a peace treaty with Khartoum have forced the displacement of more than 12,000 people in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Tunisia Mohamed Bouazizi (26), a university graduate without a steady job and trying to support his family, burned himself after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he sold without a permit. His self-immolation left him in intensive care and sparked protests over unemployment that led to at least three deaths. Bouazizi died on Jan 4.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 17, Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc. Officials and troops began seizing 47 private ranches as pres. Chavez pushed ahead to take over big swaths of agricultural land in western Venezuela.
(AP, 12/18/10)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 17, In Vietnam Southeast Asia's largest hydroelectric power station began operating to help ease an electricity shortage. The first of six turbines at the Son La station was connected to the national power grid.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Yemen gunmen killed three soldiers and wounded seven others when they opened fire on a military base in the southern province of Abyan.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Zimbabwe's Pres. Mugabe said the power-sharing government is not working and must end, putting him on a collision course with PM Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe told his party conference that British and US companies in Zimbabwe will be nationalized unless sanctions against the country are dropped.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2011 Dec 17, Deloris Gillespie (64) burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail. The next day Jerome Isaac (47) told police he set her on fire because she owed him $2,000 for some work he had done for her.
(AP, 12/18/11)(AP, 12/19/11)
2011 Dec 17, In Afghanistan international troops exchanged gunfire with guards at a house in Paktia province, and detained a counternarcotics chief and two of his sons. An Afghan woman and another member of the counternarcotics chief's family were killed and three other women were injured. Three policemen were killed when their patrol vehicle was caught in the blast from a roadside bomb on the main highway between Farah and Nimroz provinces.
(AP, 12/17/11)(AFP, 12/18/11)
2011 Dec 17, In Afghanistan the US military began testing Kaman K-MAX helicopters, a revolutionary new drone for its arsenal. The pilotless helicopters will fly cargo missions to remote outposts where frequent roadside bombs threaten access by road convoys.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2011 Dec 17, Opposition supporters in Bahrain clashed with police for a third straight day along a main highway west of the capital.
(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora (70), nicknamed the "barefoot diva", died in a hospital in her native country. Her 1992 album, “Miss Perfumado," earned her 5 gold records.
(AFP, 12/17/11)(Econ, 1/7/12, p.86)
2011 Dec 17, In Egypt violence raged for a second day in the administrative heart of Cairo as troops and police deployed in force. The count continued in the second stage of elections for the lower house of parliament.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Gabon held legislative elections. Voters were expected to hand a resounding victory to President Ali Bongo's party in the face of a boycott by some opposition groups. Some 746,000 people were registered to vote in the country of 1.5 million inhabitants, sub-Saharan Africa's fourth largest oil producer.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, An overcrowded ship of asylum seekers sank off the island of Java. Indonesian rescuers battled high waves as they searched for survivors. Nearly 250 people fleeing economic and political hardship in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey were trying to reach Australia in search of a better life when their fiberglass ship broke apart. Only 47 people survived.
(AP, 12/18/11)(AFP, 12/20/11)
2011 Dec 17, The secular Iraqiya bloc, which won most of the votes of Iraq's disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, walked out of parliament sparking a political crisis days after US forces ended their mission.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev imposed a three-week state of emergency in the oil town of Zhanaozen, where at least 15 people were killed a day earlier in a clash between police and demonstrators. In the southwest police opened fire on rioters in the town of Shetpe, leaving one person dead and 11 wounded. Two days of rioting left 16 people dead.
(AP, 12/17/11)(AP, 12/18/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.26)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 17, In Nigeria an explosion at a house allegedly used to make home-made bombs in the northeastern city of Maiduguri killed three suspected Islamist sect members. Police shot rifles and fired tear gas at protesters who were demonstrating against toll roads in Lagos.
(AFP, 12/17/11)(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (b.1941) died of a heart attack. His third son, Kim Jong Un, was expected to succeed his father.
(AP, 12/19/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.74)
2011 Dec 17, It was reported that North Korea has agreed to suspend its enriched-uranium nuclear weapons program, a key United States demand for the resumption of disarmament talks, as Washington agreed to provide the North with up to 240,000 tons of food aid.
(AFP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Tropical storm Washi whipped the southern Philippines, unleashing mammoth floods across vast areas that left 440 people dead and nearly 200 missing.
(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, In Russia about 1,000 demonstrators demanding a rerun of parliamentary elections gathered in central Moscow for a second weekend of protests against the recent fraud-tainted vote.
(AP, 12/17/11)
2011 Dec 17, Former Miss Venezuela Eva Ekvall (28), whose struggle with breast cancer was closely followed by Venezuelans, died at a hospital in Houston. Ekvall was crowned Miss Venezuela at age 17 in 2000, and the following year she was third runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico.
(AP, 12/19/11)
2012 Dec 17, NASA space probes EBB and Flow expired as they crashed into a lunar mountainside. They were initially named “GRAIL A" and “GRAIL B," but were renamed by a calss of schoolchildren in bozeman, Montana.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.124)
2012 Dec 17, Sen. Daniel Inouye (88) of Hawaii died at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Maryland.
(SFC, 12/18/12, p.A9)
2012 Dec 17, In Afghanistan a car bomb outside a compound housing a US military contractor on the outskirts of Kabul killed at least two Afghan workers and wounded more than a dozen other people. In Nangarhar province a British-made anti-tank mine, left over from the time of the Soviet invasion, killed ten girls ages 9-11.
(AP, 12/17/12)(SFC, 12/18/12, p.A3)
2012 Dec 17, Argentina's government told Grupo Clarin, the country's largest media conglomerate, that it has begun a process to break up the company and auction off its media licenses.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Security forces in Bahrain fired tear gas and stun grenades to break up protest marchers after calls by anti-government groups to snarl the Gulf nation's capital with demonstrators to mark an annual commemoration for two protesters killed in 1994.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Benin officials said at least 19 people drowned after a boat capsized on a river near a village in the south.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Brazilian prosecutors said Chevron Corp. has offered to pay $150 million to settle two civil lawsuits stemming from a Nov 2011 offshore oil spill. The lawsuits sought $20 billion in damages.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Brazil the Supreme Court trial of the mensalao (big monthly stipend), a scheme for buying votes, ended. 25 of 38 defendants were found guilty of charges including corruption, money-laundering and misuse of public funds.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.51)
2012 Dec 17, British energy regulator Ofgem approved 24.4 billion pounds of investment by energy companies to overhaul the country's gas and electricity grid, reducing initial overall spending plans by 16% to 2021.
(Reuters, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, A Cameroon appeals court upheld a three-year sentence against a man found guilty of homosexual conduct for sending a text message to another man saying: "I'm very much in love with you."
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Iraq a wave of bombings across the country hit a number of targets, including residents of ethnically disputed areas, killing 25 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Italy's government said an Italian technician and two other employees at a Syrian steel plant near Latakia have been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, A Milan court fined Moroccan woman Karima el-Mahroug, also known as Ruby, for failing to appear as a witness twice at the former premier's trial. It ordered her to testify in January. She is at the center of Silvio Berlusconi's sex-for-hire scandal €500 ($650).
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, Gunmen stormed the SP Brussels tanker ship off the coast of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, ransacking the vessel and kidnapping five Indian sailors in the latest attack targeting foreign workers in the volatile region. On Jan 26 the Indian sailors were reported freed. Separately gunmen abducted four South Koreans and a Nigerian working for Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. at a construction site in the Brass area of Bayelsa state.
(AP, 12/19/12)(AP, 1/26/13)
2012 Dec 17, In northwest Nigeria 27 people riding atop a truck carrying livestock were killed when it tipped over and crashed.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Nigeria a pipeline explosion took place in Ije Ododo, in a swampy mangrove forest in the western fringe of Lagos when locals tapped into the pipeline to steal the refined gasoline moving through it. Flames continued thru Dec 20.
(AP, 12/21/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Pakistan a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal area, killing 17 people and wounding more than 40 others. In the southwest attackers shot dead Khadim Hussain Noori in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. He was the provincial spokesman and also a Shiite Muslim.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2012 Dec 17, In Pakistan a person working on the anti-polio campaign, a male volunteer, was gunned down in Karachi. Taliban militants also killed three soldiers in an ambush of an army convoy escorting a vaccination team in the northwest.
(AP, 12/18/12)
2012 Dec 17, Philippine legislators passed a landmark bill that would provide government funding for contraceptives and sexuality classes in schools despite strong opposition by the dominant Roman Catholic Church and its followers. Pres. Aquino III signed the legislation on Dec 21.
(AP, 12/17/12)(SSFC, 12/30/12, p.A6)
2012 Dec 17, Syria's longtime vice president Farouk al-Sharaa said the army cannot defeat the rebels fighting to topple the regime, the first admission by a top government official that a victory by President Bashar Assad is unlikely.
(AP, 12/17/12)
2013 Dec 17, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden offered to help Brazil defeat US spying, but in an open letter said he needs permanent political asylum to do so.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The Mega Millions lottery and its jackpot of $648 million went to two winners. One ticket was sold in San Jose, Ca., and the other in Atlanta, Georgia.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.A1)
2013 Dec 17, In California ex-firefighter Zane Wallace Peterson (29) of Shasta County was taken into custody for setting wildfires, including the massive Clover Fire that broke out on Sep 9.
(SFC, 12/19/13, p.C3)
2013 Dec 17, In Reno, Nevada, a gunman opened fire at the Center for Advanced Medicine killing one person and wounding two others before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 17, Christie’s in New York auctioned one edition of Jeff Koons’ “Balloon Dog" for $58.4 million, a record amount for a living artist. The 10-foot steel orange edition was one of five, each a different color.
(Econ, 12/21/13, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/ng83bhm)
2013 Dec 17, In southern Afghanistan an aircraft crash killed six American soldiers.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Egypt's security forces clashed with supporters of the former Islamist president at several universities across the country, as an explosive device detonated in a residential area of the capital but caused no injuries or damage.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, The European Union said it has warned Israel against any new West Bank settlement construction following an upcoming Palestinian prisoner release, saying it will be held responsible for any resulting failure of the ongoing peace talks.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In France Claude Gueant, the former right-hand man of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, was arrested for questioning about alleged misuse of public funds when he served the conservative leader at the interior ministry.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, French troops took on armed Christian militias in Bangui, Central African Republic, where the UN said 210,000 people had been uprooted in two weeks of deadly sectarian violence.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Greek authorities said an oil tanker came under armed attack overnight about 35 nautical miles south of Nigeria, and the ship's Ukrainian captain and Greek first engineer have been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Guinea-Bissau's Interior Minister Antonio Suka Ntchama became the second minister to step down in the tiny West African country amid an investigation into how 74 Syrians boarded a flight to Portugal with fake passports.
(Reuters, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 17, Indian authorities removed security barriers in front of the US embassy in New Delhi apparently in retaliation for the arrest and alleged heavy-handed treatment of an Indian diplomat in New York. Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was arrested last week for allegedly underpaying her nanny and committing visa fraud to get her into the United States.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Iraq bombings in and near Baghdad killed 10 Shiite pilgrims as they were making their way on foot to Karbala.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Israel some 200 African migrants and Israeli activists ended a two-day march with a rally denouncing Israel's policy of detaining those illegally in the country.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Japan approved a plan to increase defense spending by 5% over the next five years to purchase its first surveillance drones, more jet fighters and naval destroyers in the face of China's military expansion.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In eastern Lebanon a car bomb exploded at dawn near a Hezbollah position, causing an unknown number of casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Russian and Ukrainian officials signed a series of agreements in Moscow to boost trade and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, Saudi authorities beheaded a Syrian man convicted of smuggling drugs to the ultra-conservative kingdom.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Sicily eruptions at Mount Etna volcano died down, allowing the nearby airport of Catania to re-open after a two-day stoppage that disrupted dozens of flights.
(AFP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 17, In Syria 2 children were among at least 18 people killed in new air strikes on a rebel-held district of Aleppo. The 3-day assault has left over 100 dead.
(AFP, 12/17/13)(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A5)
2013 Dec 17, Turkish police detained the sons of three cabinet ministers and several well-known businessmen as part of investigations into alleged corruption. Police seized shoeboxes stashed with $4.5 million in cash at the home of Suleyman Aslan, a state-owned bank's chief executive. Police arrested some 50 people altogether on suspicion of tender rigging, covert gold transfers to Iran and bribery.
(Reuters, 12/17/13)(AP, 12/18/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.37)
2014 Dec 17, The United States slapped sanctions on Dutch and Swiss oil trading firms for their dealings with the Syrian government. This put Netherlands-based Staroil B.V. as well as two Swiss-based firms, Rixo International Trading Ltd and Bluemarine SA, on its list of sanctioned entities, which effectively cuts them off from the US financial system.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, US officials said the United States is planning to open an embassy in Cuba as part of its plan to open talks and normalize relations with the island nation. Cuba released Rolando Sarraff (51), a US spy who's been imprisoned in for nearly 20 years, in exchange for the last three of five Cuban spies convicted in 2001. Cuba also released 53 other prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)(AP, 12/17/14)(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A17)(SFC, 12/19/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 17, Sony Pictures Entertainment pulled its planned release of “The Interview," a comedy about a fictional assassination plot against North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, amid threats by cyberterrorists to bomb any theater that showed the film.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A1)
2014 Dec 17, Edward O’Donnell, a former Countrywide Financial executive, reached an agreement with the government that enables him to collect over $57 million for helping federal prosecutors force Bank of America to pay a record $16.65 billion penalty in connection with its role in churning out shoddy mortgage securities.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 17, Arizona’s sheriff’s office anounced a decision to disband its criminal employment squad. Sheriff Joe Arpaio used the squad to target immigrants usng fake or stolen IDs to get jobs. The decision was made after courts shelved certain state immigration laws.
(SFC, 12/19/14, p.A14)
2014 Dec 17, In southern California Margo Bronstein (56) slammed into a crowd outside a church in Redondo Beach killing 3 women. The son (6) of one of the women died of injuries the next day. Bronstein was charged with driving under the influence of a drug and vehicular manslaughter.
(SFC, 12/20/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 17, A Florida judge granted the state’s first formal divorce for a gay couple. The Broward County judge used the case to join other judges in declaring the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 17, In Massachusetts fourteen people connected to a coumpounding pharmacy were indicted on charges stemming from a 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 17, In Montana Markus Kaarma (30), who shot and killed German exchange student Diren Dede (17) caught trespassing in his garage last April 27, was convicted of deliberate homicide.
(AP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, Afghan insurgents stormed a bank in Lashgar Gah, Helmand province, killing at least 10 people including three policemen. Attackers in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, attached explosives to police vehicles, killing a police officer and wounding four others when they detonated.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, The Church of England named Libby Lane, a saxophone-playing vicar with a taste for football, as its first female bishop in a move hailed as an important step towards greater equality.
(AFP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Cameroon army troops reportedly killed 116 Nigerian fighters from the Islamist Boko Haram group at its northern army base in Amchide on the border with Nigeria.
(AFP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, In China Ji Jianye, a former mayor of Nanjing, was indicted on corruption charges amid a widening anti-graft crackdown.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, China secured a deal to construct a high-speed train link between the Belgrade and Budapest that will cut travel time between the Serbian and Hungarian capitals from eight hours to less than three.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, An EU court ruled that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas should be removed from the EU terrorist list, saying the decision to include it was based on media reports not considered analysis.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, German prosecutors arrested three Turkish men accused of spying on compatriots in Germany for Turkish intelligence.
(AP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, Low-cost Indian airline SpiceJet grounded all flights after oil companies stopped supplies of jet fuel to the financially beleaguered carrier.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, In Kenya 6 people died and 11 were injured in a central Nairobi building collapse, with fears that the toll could rise as crews continued to dig through the rubble.
(AFP, 12/18/14)
2014 Dec 17, Kurdish forces launched an operation to retake the town of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq after heavy coalition air strikes on Islamic State positions in the area overnight.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, In Myanmar a prominent former official with the main opposition party was detained and faced charges of insulting religion, which stemmed from a speech intended to discourage extremist interpretations of Buddhism.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Nigeria sentenced 54 soldiers to death for mutiny, cowardice and refusing to fight Islamic extremists. The soldiers had refused to deploy last August to recapture three towns seized by Boko Haram.
(SFC, 12/18/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 17, Philippine communist rebels declared cease-fire periods for the Christmas holidays and for the visit of Pope Francis next month.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Sierra Leone Ebola surveillance teams fanned out in Freetown in a house to house search for sick people, as the president imposed new restrictions on movement and gatherings in a bid to stop the disease's spread.
(AP, 12/17/14)(Econ, 1/3/15, p.33)
2014 Dec 17, In Geneva the international community delivered a stinging rebuke to Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying the practice violates its responsibilities as an occupying power in a declaration adopted by consensus among 126 of the 196 parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, The UN Security Council renewed for 12 months its authorization for humanitarian access without Syrian government consent into rebel-held areas of Syria at four border crossings from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 17, Yemen's powerful Shiite rebels shut down a strategic Red Sea port, and stormed the offices of the country's main state newspaper.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2015 Dec 17, The United States and Cuba said they have agreed to restore scheduled commercial airline service between the two countries, the first anniversary of the Cold War foes' announcement they would normalize relations. The deal would allow as many as 110 regular flights a day.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A8)
2015 Dec 17, The United States and its allies conducted 22 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 Dec 17, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter acknowledged making a "mistake" when he used his personal email for government business in the early part of his tenure.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Los Angeles the FBI arrested Enrique Marquez (24) on charges of conspiring with Syed Rizwan Farook to commit terrorist attacks in 2011 and 2012. Marquez was also charged with illegally purchasing two assault rifles used by Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, to kill 14 people on Dec 2. On Feb 16, 2017, Marquez pleaded guilty and faced up to 25 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A9)(SFC, 2/17/17, p.A5)
2015 Dec 17, In Louisiana the New Orleans City Council voted to remove prominent Confederate monuments along some of its busiest streets.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A12)
2015 Dec 17, In Syracuse, NY, Stephen Howells (40) and girlfriend Nicole Vaisey (26) were sentenced to 580 years in prison for sexually abusing six children.
(SFC, 12/31/15, p.A12)
2015 Dec 17, In Albania anti-government protesters pelted police with tomatoes, eggs, and smoke flares during a rally near parliament. The opposition has launched a protest campaign against Socialist PM Edi Rama's government, accusing it of corruption and ineffective leadership.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Argentina's currency sharply devalued against the US dollar as the new administration lifted deeply unpopular limits on the buying of foreign currencies.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Austria’s Univ. of Salzburg said it has posthumously stripped 1973 Nobel Prize-winning scientist Konrad Lorenz of his honorary doctorate due to his fervent embrace of Nazism.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Brazil's Supreme Court ordered the release of billionaire financier André Esteves, who has been in jail since Nov. 25 on suspicion he sought to obstruct a corruption investigation.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The popular WhatsApp smartphone messaging application came back to life in Brazil as a court threw out a two-day suspension that had infuriated millions of users. A judge had suspended it because the Facebook-owned service failed to disclose information requested by prosecutors as part of a criminal investigation.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, British Judges upheld a ruling that Britain's Mirror Group Newspapers must pay record damages to phone-hacking victims, saying the papers' staff engaged in "disgraceful conduct."
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Britain cut more renewable energy subsidies, putting jobs at risk and drawing criticism for losing credibility in tackling climate change.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, A Quebec court upheld Canada's first assisted dying law, ruling against doctors who argued it conflicts with federal criminal law an could see doctors jailed for helping someone die.
(AFP, 12/22/15)
2015 Dec 17, China’s environment ministry said police have detained 10 company officials for fabricating pollution data, as the government steps up inspections of businesses amid growing public discontent over pollution.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, China's biggest airline said it is buying more than a hundred Boeing 737 jets in a deal worth about $10 billion that comes just months after the US plane maker announced plans to build a Chinese finishing plant for the aircraft type.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The Danish cargo ship Thorco Cloud collided with the chemical tanker Stolt Commitment and sank off western Indonesia. Six Filipino crewmen were missing.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, A legal source said International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde has been ordered to stand trial over her handling of a massive state payout to French tycoon Bernard Tapie during her time as finance minister.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Hong Kong the film “Ten Years" was released. Its five vignettes portrayed how China has explicitly or overtly taken control of Hong Kong, where autonomy had been guaranteed for 50 years in 1997.
(Econ, 3/5/15, p.42)
2015 Dec 17, Indian defense ministry sources said the Defense Acquisition Council has cleared the purchase of five S-400 air defense systems from Russia.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu signed a major natural gas deal with a consortium, that includes US firm Noble Energy, aimed at tapping large deposits in the Mediterranean, but a court challenge was expected over the contentious agreement.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Israel's most famous model Bar Refaeli (30) was arrested and questioned for allegedly evading taxes on millions of dollars of income from abroad by lying about her residency.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in the West Bank after he charged at them with a knife.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Mali a gunman killed 3 people outside a Christian radio station in the city of Timbuktu. Radio host Joel Dicko, a local contractor with the UN and a student were killed. Authorities later arrested two people in connection with the shooting.
(AFP, 12/18/15)(AP, 12/21/15)
2015 Dec 17, Montenegro police detained Svetozar Marovic (60), who served as president of Serbia-Montenegro before Montenegro split from the union in 2006, on suspicion of abuse of power and embezzlement of millions of euros.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, In the Moroccan coastal town of Skhirat delegates from Libya's warring factions signed a UN-brokered agreement to form the Government of National Accord (GNA), a deal that Western powers hope will bring stability and help fight a growing Islamic State presence.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)(Econ, 4/9/15, p.47)
2015 Dec 17, Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou said several arrests had been made in the army ranks and of a former chief of staff because of a coup attempt.
(AP, 12/20/15)
2015 Dec 17, In Nigeria insurgents killed 14 people, some of whom were decapitated, when they raided Kamuya village.
(AP, 12/19/15)
2015 Dec 17, Rwandans abroad voted in a referendum to amend the constitution allowing President Paul Kagame to rule until 2034, a day ahead of the main vote inside the country.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Residents in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles voted on the second day of three days of polls. Incumbent president James Michel (71) faced the first serious challenge to his decade-long rule. President James Michel won a third term in power by the narrowest of margins of just 193 votes.
(AFP, 12/17/15)(AFP, 12/19/15)
2015 Dec 17, National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the electric vehicle company born out of the ashes of Swedish automaker Saab, said it has inked a $12 billion deal with Chinese leasing firm Panda New Energy Co.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The Syrian opposition hosted by Saudi Arabia elected former PM Riad Hijab as a coordinator of a body that is expected to lead future peace talks.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Tanzania sentenced four Chinese men to 20 years in jail each after they were convicted of smuggling rhino horns.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 Dec 17, Turkey said its security forces have killed 25 Kurdish militants this week as they battle suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the two flashpoint towns of Cizre and Silopi.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, Finance ministers from the 15 UN Security Council nations adopted a plan aimed at disrupting outside revenue that the Islamic State extremist group gets from oil and antiquities sales, ransom payments and other criminal activities.
(AP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 17, The UN Security Council's Central African Republic (CAR) sanctions committee added Haroun Gaye and Eugene Barret Ngaikosset to a UN blacklist for attempting to undermine the transitional government. They are now subject to an international travel ban and assets freeze.
(Reuters, 12/22/15)
2015 Dec 17, Participants at Yemeni peace talks hosted by the United Nations in Switzerland agreed on the full resumption of humanitarian aid to the city of Taiz.
(Reuters, 12/17/15)
2016 Dec 17, In the US freezing wet snow and rain left at least nine people dead in the Midwest and East Coast. Hundreds of accidents were blamed on slick roads.
(SSFC, 12/18/16, p.A10)
2016 Dec 17, In Little Rock, Arkansas, Gary Eugene Holmes (33) fired into another driver's car and killed Acen King (3), who was sitting in the back seat. In 2018 Holmes was sentenced to 50 years in prison without a chance for parole.
(http://tinyurl.com/y6wh5w96)(SFC, 8/23/18, p.A5)
2016 Dec 17, In Afghanistan five female guards working in the airport in southern Kandahar were killed along with their driver by unknown gunmen as they were on their way to work.
(AP, 12/17/16)(SSFC, 12/18/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 17, BP PLC signed a $2.22-billion deal restoring its share of an onshore oil block in Abu Dhabi by agreeing to give the emirate stock in the company worth 2 percent of the oil giant's overall value.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Beijing's city government ordered 1,200 factories near the Chinese capital, including a major oil refinery run by state oil giant Sinopec, to shut or cut output after authorities issued the highest possible air pollution alert.
(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Croatian police found a van crammed with 67 people, including children, mainly from Afghanistan. 42 migrants were hospitalized and some treated for carbon-monoxide poisoning. Some said they hadn't eaten for five days.
(AP, 12/18/16)
2016 Dec 17, Security officials at Cairo International Airport denied entry to the country to Omar bin Laden, son of the former leader of al-Qaida Osama bin Laden. Both were allowed to leave for Turkey.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Rome's Mayor Virginia Raggi was stripped by her populist Five Star Movement (M5S) party of the power to make "important decisions" after a close advisor was arrested for suspected corruption.
(AfP, 12/18/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Kashmir militants attacked an Indian army convoy, killing 3 soldiers.
(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Montenegro dozens of people in Podgorica participated in a gay pride event in the highly conservative state where authorities have promised to boost gay rights as part of efforts to join the European Union.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Nigeria African leaders at the 50th summit of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called for a swift resolution of the political impasse in Gambia after disputed elections in which long-term president Yahya Jammeh is refusing to concede defeat.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, A major 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea, but no immediate casualties were reported.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to terminate a pact that allows US troops to visit the Philippines, saying "bye-bye America" as he reacted with rage to what he thought was a US decision to scrap a major aid package over human rights concerns.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Poland several thousand people protested outside the presidential palace in Warsaw over alleged vote fraud and the rightwing government's plans to impose new restrictions on media coverage of parliament.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In South Korea supporters of impeached President Park Geun-hye clashed with anti-Park protesters, as large crowds of demonstrators again gathered in Seoul to demand the scandal-ridden leader's immediate ouster.
(AP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Syrian rebels blamed Iran and its Shi'ite-backed militias of holding up a deal to evacuate civilians trapped in the remaining rebel bastion in Aleppo. Trapped civilians and rebels waited desperately for evacuations to resume as the Red Cross pleaded for a deal to "save thousands of lives".
(Reuters, 12/17/16)(AFP, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, In Turkey a suicide car bomber set off an explosion that demolished a public bus transporting off-duty soldiers in the central province of Kayseri, killing 13 troops and wounding 56 others. In response dozens of nationalist protestors stormed the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Kayseri. Turkish authorities detained seven people and searched for another five in relation to the attack.
(AP, 12/17/16)(AFP, 12/17/16)(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Turkey’s military said its warplanes have pounded Islamic State targets in northern Syria in the last 24 hours, killing at least 20 militants.
(Reuters, 12/17/16)
2016 Dec 17, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suspended the elimination of the country's largest denomination bill, which had sparked cash shortages and nationwide unrest, saying the bill could continue in use until January 2.
(Reuters, 12/18/16)(SFC, 12/19/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 17, In Zimbabwe the ruling ZANU-PF endorsed President Robert Mugabe (92) for a 2018 election run.
(AFP, 12/17/16)
2017 Dec 17, In southern California the Thomas Fire was 40 percent contained despite hot Santa Ana winds that have powered its expansion. The third-largest wildfire in California's history has burned 267,500 acres.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, A fire caused an 11-hour power outage at Atlanta’s airport in Georgia leading to the cancellation of more than 1,500 flights.
(SFC, 12/20/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 17, In Afghanistan Taliban insurgents attacked checkpoints in the southern Helmand province early today, killing 11 police in Lashkar Gah. In southern Kandahar province, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of foreign forces, killing an Afghan woman and wounding five other civilian bystanders.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Chile held its 2nd round of presidential elections. Former billionaire President Sebastian Pinera (68), who won 36.6 percent in the first round, faced Sen. Alejandro Guillier (64), a center-left former journalist who got 22.7 percent. With nearly all ballots counted former President Sebastian Pinera won 54.6 percent of the votes to 45.4 percent for former journalist and center-left Sen. Alejandro Guillier.
(AP, 12/17/17)(AP, 12/18/17)
2017 Dec 17, China announced a five-year plan to convert northern Chinese cities to clean heating during the winter through to 2021, amid a deepening heating crisis.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, A second prototype of China's home-built C919 passenger jet took off for a test flight in Shanghai, another step forward in the country's ambitions to muscle in to the global jet market.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, French sailor Francois Gabart broken the record for sailing around the world alone, circumnavigating the planet in just 42 days and 16 hours. This was more than six days faster than last year’s record, set by fellow Frenchman Thomas Coville.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Indonesia Muslim clerics in Jakarta called for a boycott of American products in the country’s largest protest against President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. An estimated 80,000 people rallied in the capital of the world's largest Muslim nation in the 10th straight day of protests.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Iran shut primary schools in Tehran and other parts of the country due to choking levels of air pollution. In the northwestern cities of Tabriz and Urmia, schools remained closed for the second day straight.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Israel's national trade union held a half-day nationwide strike to protest generic drugmaker Teva's decision to lay off a quarter of its workforce, snarling traffic and shuttering key services across the country.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Israeli police arrested a Palestinian carrying an explosive device as he approached a military court in the occupied West Bank.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, The remains of Victor Emmanuel III, who reigned as Italy's king through two world wars and died in exile in 1947, were flown back from Egypt for reburial at a family mausoleum near Turin.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts from Russia, Japan and the US blasted off for a two-day trip to the Int’l. Space Station. Anton Shkaplerov, Norishige Kanai and Scott Tingle will join Russia's Alexander Misurkin and Joe Acaba and Mark Vandde Hei of NASA, who have been aboard since September.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Libya Mohamad Eshtewi, the mayor of Misrata, was killed by unidentified assailants who abducted him as he returned from an official trip overseas.
(AFP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Pakistan thousands of Islamists rallied in two major cities to condemn US President Donald Trump for declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Pakistan two suicide bombers struck a church in the city of Quetta killing nine people and wounding over 50 others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.
(AP, 12/17/17)(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte expressed his support for same-sex unions, after previously declaring his opposition to gay marriage, in an about-face that may displease bishops in the mainly Roman Catholic country.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Philippines authorities said at least 26 people have been killed while several residents were missing on Biliran Island after tropical storm Kai-tak brought heavy rains that triggered landslides.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Russian security operatives killed three suspected militants in a raid in the village of Gubden, Dagestan province.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Sabih al Masri, a Palestinian billionaire and Jordan's most influential businessman, was released after several days of detention in Saudi Arabia. Masri said that he would be returning to Jordan after finishing business meetings in Riyadh in the next two days. Masri was reportedly freed after reaching a settlement to return an unspecified amount of money.
(Reuters, 12/17/17)(Reuters, 12/19/17)
2017 Dec 17, In South Sudan six aid workers were missing after clashes broke out between government and opposition soldiers near the northwestern town of Raga. An opposition spokesman said four aid workers were found when fighting a government-allied militia, during which they killed 35 militia fighters between the towns of Wau and Raga in Western Bahr el Ghazal state.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In South Sudan President Salva Kiir's troops attacked the town of Lasu in Central Equatoria State, which has served as the headquarters for Riek Machar's SPLA-IO, the country’s main opposition movement.
(AFP, 12/21/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Sri Lanka 50 Chinese couples were married at a mass ceremony in Colombo to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries and to promote the island nation as a tourist destination.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, Turkey's president slammed a US-backed Syrian Kurdish militant group and said he'll clear his country's border with Syria of "terrorists".
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Ukraine about 5,000 supporters of opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili rallied in Kiev, pushing for the ouster of the nation's president and briefly attempting to seize a public building.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2017 Dec 17, In Yemen an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition struck a wedding procession, killing 10 women as they marched to a village in Maarib province.
(AP, 12/17/17)
2018 Dec 17, US plane maker Boeing and Brazil's Embraer said they have approved the terms of a partnership to create a joint venture now worth $5.26 billion -- more than when they first announced it in July.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Taliban held "another" meeting with US officials, this time in the United Arab Emirates and also involving Saudi, Pakistani and Emirati representatives in the latest attempt to bring a negotiated end to Afghanistan's 17-year war.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Penny Marshall (b.1943), co-star of the "Laverne and Shirley" sitcom (1976-1983), died at her home in Los Angeles. Following the sitcom whe went on to direct such films as "A League of Their Own" (1992), "Renaissance Man" (1994), "The Preacher's Wife" (1996) and "Riding in Cars With Boys" (2001).
(SFC, 12/19/18, p.C3)(SFC, 12/21/18, p.E2)
2018 Dec 17, Two Chicago police officers were fatally struck by a train as they investigated a report of gunshots on the city's far South Side.
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 17, Google said it will spend more than $1 billion to build a new office complex in NYC allowing it to double its current 7,000 now employed there.
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.D2)
2018 Dec 17, Astronomers announced the discovery of the farthest known object in our solar system. The cosmic body, located about 11 billion miles away, was nicknamed "Farout".
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 17, The head of Albania's top court was removed after he failed to account for his income. The nine-member court is currently unable to function as eight of its judges have been removed from duty in the vetting process. Albania is vetting some 800 judges and prosecutors to root out bribery and ensure they are independent from politics.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Bangladesh's main opposition group promised to remove curbs on free speech and the media and to rein in the police if it unseats PM Sheikh Hasina from her decade-long rule in this month's national election.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, A Belgian court ruled that a Roman Catholic priest cannot use the secrecy of confession as a defense when it convicted a clergyman in Bruges of failing to seek help for a man who went on to commit suicide. The court handed Alexan der Stroobandt a suspended one month jail term and ordered him to pay the widow a symbolic euro in damages.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Brazil a fire began late today in the low-income Educandos neighborhood of Manaus and was extinguished several hours later. At least 600 wooden houses were destroyed.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, Britain's PM Theresa May warned MPs against supporting a second Brexit referendum, as calls mounted for a public vote to break the political impasse over the deal she has struck with the EU.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen inaugurated the 400-megawatt Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in the northeastern province of Stung Treng. It was built over four years at a cost of nearly $800 million and is a joint venture of China's Hydrolancang International Energy, which has a 51 percent stake.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, China and the United States clashed again over their respective trade policies at the WTO in Geneva as the two countries are tried to iron out their differences so further US tariffs are not imposed on Chinese goods.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In China the wife of detained Chinese lawyer Wang Quanzhang and three supporters shaved their heads and attempted to submit to a Beijing court a petition protesting her husband's indefinite detention.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Colombia's armed forces rescued Melissa Martinez Garcia (34), a relative of late Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez who won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. She was seized at the end of August by a group of armed men who intercepted her vehicle near the northern city of Santa Marta. They demanded a ransom of $5 million for her release.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Colombia's ELN Marxist guerrilla group announced a Christmas ceasefire as peace talks with the country's government have been on hold since August.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Colombia six men were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a rural area of Mapiripan, southeastern Meta province, an area known for cocaine trafficking.
(Reuters, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Czech Rep.'s National Cyber and Information Security Agency warned that the hardware and software made by Huawei and another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE, pose a security threat.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Egypt two roadside bombs hit a police convoy in northern Sinai, killing two conscripts. The bombs struck two armored vehicles that were part of a convoy on a search-and-destroy mission in an area west of Rafah.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, France's Alliance police labor union urged the government to invest in rebuilding the country's police forces and called for a work slowdown to protest planned cuts in the national police budget.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In France two people weredetained as part of the terrorism investigation in the Dec. 11 attack that killed five people. They were suspected of provinding the firearm used by Cherif Chekatt.
(SFC, 12/18/18, p.A4)
2018 Dec 17, German authorities said five Frankfurt police officers are under investigation over allegations they shared far-right images, videos and texts in a chat group with one another.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Greece a bomb blast early today damaged a building in Athens housing the headquarters of the private radio and television network Skai, but there were no casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Hungary security forces physically ejected opposition lawmakers from the headquarters of the state broadcaster MTVA in Budapest early today. A group of 10 lawmakers had entered the building, insisting on the right to read five demands live on air, including the revocation of a new labor law, passed last week in parliament.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, PM Narendra Modi said India will give financial assistance of $1.4 billion to the Maldives, the biggest aid yet to the Indian Ocean island nation that is grappling with debt from a Chinese building spree.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, An Indian court jailed for life Sajjan Kumar, a leader of the main opposition Congress party, for his role in anti-Sikh riots that erupted after the 1984 murder of the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, and killed nearly 3,000 people.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In India at least six people died and 129 others were injured in a fire that broke out in the five-story government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital in the suburban Andheri area of Mumbai. The death toll soon rose to eight.
(AP, 12/17/18)(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Israeli military partially demolished the home of Ashraf Naalweh, a Palestinian accused of killing two Israelis in an attack two months ago. Israeli troops killed Naalweh in an arrest raid last week after a two-month manhunt.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Lebanese soldiers went on alert after Israeli troops rolled out barbed wire along the border, as tensions remained high two weeks after Israel launched an operation to identify and destroy Hezbollah tunnels.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs and two former executives for their role in the alleged multibillion-dollar ransacking of state investment fund 1MDB.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Morocco two Scandinavian women were found dead in the High Atlas mountains. Hikers Louisa Vesterager Jespersen (24) of Denmark and Maren Ueland (28) of Norway were found dead with cuts to their necks. One suspect was arrested the next day and other suspects were being sought. On Dec. 20 authorities arrested three more suspects.
(AFP, 12/18/18)(AP, 12/20/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Myanmar Private Aung Kyaw Thet went missing after his patrol was fired on from the Bangladesh side of the border. His body was found on Dec. 21 with gunshot wounds in his face, arm and leg. The identity of the attackers was unknown and police were still investigating
(Reuters, 12/23/18)
2018 Dec 17, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammad Faisal, said that Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari is being repatriated to New Delhi after serving a three-year prison sentence for spying.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Poland's Pres. Andrzej Duda, an ally of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, signed into law amendments to contentious legislation that will allow some Supreme Court judges to remain in their posts after having been forced into early retirement.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, Russia said it had built new barracks for troops on a disputed chain of islands near Japan and would build more facilities for armored vehicles, a move likely to anger Tokyo after it urged Moscow to reduce its military activity there.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Serbia reported that two men have frozen to death as a cold spell throughout the Balkan region slowed down traffic, disrupted power supplies and closed down schools in some areas.
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Sierra Leone health ministry said late today it had agreed a timeline with doctors to respond to their demands, announcing the agreement in a statement signed by the heads of two doctors' associations.
(Reuters, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Singapore a gay man won the right to adopt a child he fathered via a surrogate in the United States, in a landmark court ruling for the conservative city-state.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, Switzerland and Britain signed an agreement guaranteeing that flights between the two countries can continue uninterrupted even if London opts to leave the European Union without a deal with Brussels.
(AFP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Thailand Catriona Gray (24) of the Philippines was named Miss Universe 2018 in the 67th competition held in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries
(AP, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, In Thailand Sului Piew (2), a son of migrant workers from Myanmar, went missing when he went out to play near the sugarcane plantation where his parents work. A 3-year-old friend told her parents that she saw Sului being abducted. Piew's body was found on Dec. 25 in a sugarcane plantation a few miles from where he disappeared.
(AP, 12/24/18)(AP, 12/26/18)
2018 Dec 17, The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority appealed for $350 million in aid for Palestinians next year, saying much more was needed but they had to be realistic after a year of funding cuts.
(Reuters, 12/17/18)
2018 Dec 17, The Vatican's criminal tribunal convicted Italian builder Angelo Proietti of using his accounts in the Vatican bank to launder money, and sentenced him to 2˝ years in prison. The decision was announced on Dec. 27. This marked the first time the Vatican court had handed down a money-laundering verdict since the city state criminalized the offense in 2010 as part of its financial reform efforts.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2019 Dec 17, On the eve of his likely impeachment, President Trump sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a scathing, insult-filled letter calling the articles drawn up against him “a completely disingenuous, baseless and meritless invention of your imagination," among other things.
(Yahoo News, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a rare order to the FBI and Department of Justice, demanding they spell out a series of planned reforms following a damning report from the DOJ's inspector general that scrutinized surveillance of a former aide to President Donald Trump's campaign. The court gave the FBI a Jan. 10 deadline to come up with a proposal.
(ABC News, 12/18/19)(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A6)
2019 Dec 17, The US government proposed new rules overhauling parts of the nation's transplant system to make sure organs from the dead no longer go to waste — and to make it easier for the living to donate.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A small group of President Donald Trump's fiercest conservative critics, including the husband of the president's own chief adviser, launched a super PAC designed to fight Trump's reelection and punish congressional Republicans deemed his “enablers." The new organization, known as the Lincoln Project, represents a formal step forward for the so-called Never Trump movement.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A US federal judge sentenced GOP operative Rick Gates to 45 days of weekend jail time and three years of probation. This followed his cooperation with prosecutors investigating President Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign.
(Politico, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A bulletin issued by the US Navy showed up on a Facebook page serving military members, saying users of government issued mobile devices who had TikTok and did not remove the app would be blocked from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet. Last month US army cadets were instructed not to use TikTok, after Senator Chuck Schumer raised security concerns about the army using TikTok in their recruiting.
(Reuters, 12/20/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, had withdrawn more than $10 billion from the company during the past dozen years. Purdue's OxyContin opioid drug was approved in 1995. The company now faced more than 2,800 lawsuits related to the nation's opioid crisis.
(SFC, 12/18/19, p.D4)
2019 Dec 17, In eastern Kentucky at least 15 horses were found fatally shot at a strip mine site along US 23 near the Floyd-Pike County line.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, A winning Mega Millions ticket worth $372 million was sold at a Giant Eagle supermarket in Mentor, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The winning numbers drawn today, just eight days before Christmas, were: 22-30-53-55-56 +16.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, The US government sued CVS Health Corp and its Omnicare unit for fraudulently billing Medicare and other programs for drugs for older and disabled people without valid prescriptions.
(Reuters, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, A new report said fewer than 30 people were executed in the United States and under 50 new death sentences were imposed for the fifth straight year, part of a continuing decline in capital punishment that saw only a few states carry out executions.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that a new study by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that waters off the California coast are acidifying twice as fast as the global average.
(SFC, 12/17/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 17, An early morning shooting at a Montana casino in Great Falls left three people dead and another person injured and the suspect was later tracked down and killed by police.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, It was reported that scientists are working quickly to discover the cause of a massive fresh water mussel die-off on the Clinch River in Tennessee and understand whether it is related to similar die-offs on at least five US rivers and another in Spain.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Australia experienced its hottest day on record and temperatures were expected to soar even higher as heatwave conditions embrace most of the country. The average temperature across the country of 40.9 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit) beat the record of 40.3 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) from Jan. 7, 2013.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, China's second aircraft carrier, named the Shandong, entered service, adding major firepower to its military ambitions as it faces tensions with self-ruled Taiwan as well as the US and regional neighbors around the disputed South China Sea.
(AFP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Shanghai's Fudan University removed references to "freedom of thought" from its charter, triggering a rare act of student defiance. The Ministry of Education announced similar pro-government changes for Nanjing University in eastern China, and Shaanxi Normal University in the north earlier this month.
(AFP, 12/19/19)
2019 Dec 17, In France hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country to protest Pres. Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reform plans.
(AP, 12/18/19)
2019 Dec 17, Iranian media reported that two labor activists in southern Khuzestan province have been sentenced to five-year prison term each for taking part in a January protest over several months of owed back pay. A third worker from the same region was also given a five-year sentence for supporting a workers' strike last year.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Kuwait media reported that a new government has been formed after the previous Cabinet was dissolved amid a dispute among powerful members of the country's ruling family. The new Cabinet is led by PM Sabah al-Khalid Al Sabah, formerly the foreign minister in the previous government.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In Lebanon assailants attacked several protest camps in the north and south, demolishing tents and burning down others as anger boiled over in the capital following a video deemed offensive to the country’s Shiites.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In Mexico seven gunmen and a National Guard officer were killed in a shootout near the city of Irapuato, Guanajuato state. Gangs in the state have unleashed a campaign of extortion and violence as the government cracked down on pipeline fuel steeling.
(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 17, A Pakistani court sentenced former military dictator Perve Musharraf to death in a treason case for subverting the country's Constitution in 2007 when he imposed a state of emergency in an attempt to thwart politiacl opposition. Musharraf (76) was currently in self-imposed exile in Dubai.
(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 17, In Panama at least 12 people were killed and another 13 were injured during a shootout among inmates at La Joyita prison near Panama City.
(Reuters, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reiterated her plan to demand the right to hold another independence referendum.
(Bloomberg, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, In northwestern Syria airstrikes and artillery shelling killed at least 16 civilians, including six members of the same family, amid intensified violence in rebel-held areas. The bombardments hit three villages in Idlib province.
(AP, 12/17/19)(SFC, 12/18/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 17, The UN urged governments, businesses and others to “reboot" the world's response to refugees as the number of people fleeing their homes rises along with hostility to migrants.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2019 Dec 17, Pope Francis abolished the use of the Vatican's highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases, responding to mounting criticism that the rule of “pontifical secrecy" has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.
(AP, 12/17/19)
2020 Dec 17, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said nearly 6 million doses of Moderna Inc's experimental COVID-19 vaccine were poised to ship nationwide as soon as it secures Food and Drug Administration approval.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, US federal prosecutors charged Cholo Abdi Abdullah (30) of Kenya with plotting to hijack an airplane and crash it into a building in the US and said he was an operative for the Shabab, a Qaeda branch in East Africa. Mr. Abdullah was arrested by the Philippine authorities last year and was brought to the United States on Dec. 15.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The federal government granted Florida’s request for wider authority over wetland development, a move that came under immediate fire by environmentalist who worry that the country's largest network of wetlands could be at risk of being further destroyed.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, It was reported that the federal government must pay some landowners along the lower Missouri River for flooding damage caused by changes the Army Corps of Engineers made to the river to protect endangered species, according to a ruling this week.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The US Securities and Exchange Commission said that Robinhood, a fast-growing financial app, had misled its customers about how it was paid by Wall Street firms for passing along customer trades and that the start-up had made money at the expense of its customers. Robinhood agreed to pay a $65 million fine to settle the charges, without admitting or denying guilt.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, NASA and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) pledging cooperation in areas of science and technology to support the peaceful use of outer space.
(PR Newswire, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, The organizers of the Grammy awards launched an initiative to elevate Black voices at all levels of the music industry and ensure that Black artists are fairly compensated for their work.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Technology shares pushed the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record highs as optimism grew over a coronavirus stimulus bill.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that runs the early education TV show “Sesame Street" and operates in more than 150 countries, unveiled Aziz and Noor as the latest Muppets in their cast of characters. The six-year-old twins Noor and Aziz are Rohingya Muslims and live in the largest refugee camp in the world.
(NY Times, 12/20/20)
2020 Dec 17, California to date had 1,699,276 cases of coronavirus and 21,887 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 205,549 cases and 2,206 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 17,176,796 with the death toll at 310,291.
(sfist.com, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A British man was jailed for two-and-a-half years in Florida for attempting to smuggle industrial equipment to Iran against a US embargo. Colin Fisher (45) pleaded guilty at Pensacola federal court in September to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
(The Telegraph, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, In Florida a fire early today killed as many as 240,000 chickens at a farm operated by operated by Mississippi-based Cal-Maine, one of the nation's largest egg producers.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A winter storm piled historic amounts of snow onto parts of the US Northeast and wreaked havoc throughout the region. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker encouraged drivers to stay off the road.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Cpl. Hayden Allen Harris (20), a Fort Drum soldier, was meeting someone in Watertown, N.Y., “for some type of vehicle transaction" when he was last heard from. Authorities said his body was found in a remote part of New Jersey and that Pfc. Jamaal Mellish (23) was arrested in Jefferson County, N.Y., over the weekend in connection with the death. Private Jamaal Mellish (23) and a 16-year-old were later charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and second-degree weapons charges.
(NY Times, 12/20/20)(The Independent, 12/31/20)
2020 Dec 17, Alphabet's Google won EU antitrust approval for its $2.1 billion bid for Fitbit after agreeing restrictions on how it will use customers' health related data.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Afghanistan's telecoms regulator banned "Player-Unknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG), a popular video game, after the Ministry of Haj and Religious Affairs declared it harmful to mental health.
(Econ., 1/16/21, p.30)
2020 Dec 17, It was reported that the UN has reached an agreement with the Taliban leadership to set up thousands of schools inside Afghanistan's insurgent-controlled territory.
(The Telegraph, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, It was reported that Austrian scientist Josef Aschbacher has been appointed to head the European Space Agency as the organization grapples with the fallout from Brexit and the rise of commercial rivals outside of Europe.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A politician in Belgium published the price per dose of COVID-19 vaccines ordered by the country. The Belgian government paid 12 euros ($14.7) per dose to buy about five million shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The Belgian price does not factor in unrefundable downpayments of hundreds of millions of euros that the EU has made to many vaccine makers to secure their shots.
(Reuters, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, The British government extended its salary support program by another month through to the end of April as it tries to keep a lid on unemployment as coronavirus restrictions slam businesses.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Oxford University said its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, licensed to AstraZeneca, has a better immune response when a two full-dose regimen is used rather than a full-dose followed by a half-dose booster.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A Chinese capsule returned to Earth landing in Inner Mongolia with about 4.4 pounds of fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon.
(SFC, 12/17/20, p.A2)
2020 Dec 17, Human Rights Watch accused Egyptian authorities of making modifications to a notorious Cairo prison, known as “Scorpion Prison," that amount to “collective punishment" of inmates following an escape attempt that left four policemen dead.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, An Egyptian criminal court acquitted three Muslim men accused of stripping naked an elderly Coptic Christian woman (70) and parading her through the streets of a village in southern Egypt in May 2016.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, In Egypt two roadside bombs exploded in restive northern Sinai Peninsula late today killing three members of the security forces and wounding 10 others.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, The European Parliament has issued a three-day ultimatum to Brexit negotiators to strike a trade deal, warning that MEPs won't have time to ratify an agreement this year unless it is ready by the end of Dec 20.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU imposed a new round of sanctions on Belarus, targeting dozens more officials over their role in the security crackdown launched after the contested presidential elections in August.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU formally prolonged for six months economic sanctions against Russia over the country's failure to live up to commitments to the peace agreement in Ukraine.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU's top court upheld a Belgian law requiring animals to be stunned before slaughter, rejecting challenges from Jewish and Muslim groups and opening the way for other countries to bring in similar restrictions.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU’s top court ruled that Hungary has failed to respect EU law by denying people entering the country without authorization the right to apply for asylum and unlawfully detaining them in “transit zones" on its border with Serbia.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The EU said it has concluded preliminary talks with US firm Novavax to secure up to 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The French presidency said President Emmanuel Macron (42) has tested positive for the coronavirus.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A French court convicted Ayoub El Khazzani, a Morocco-born Islamic State operative, to life in prison, with 22 years guaranteed behind bars. Five years ago his train attack was foiled by three American passengers. Clint Eastwood turned the incident into a movie, "The 15:17 to Paris" (2018).
(SFC, 12/18/20, p.A6)
2020 Dec 17, A plane carrying 88 asylum-seekers, including 19 sick children, arrived in Germany as part of the country's pledge to take in migrants from camps in Greece.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, German firm BioNTech's chief medical officer said Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine has been given to 140,000 people in Britain, and the feedback on side effects and tolerability has been reassuring.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A leaked draft of Iraq's state budget sent Iraqis into a panic as it confirmed the government's intentions to devalue the national currency, the Iraqi dinar, and cut salaries to cope with the impacts of a severe economic crisis.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The Italian government announced that 18 Italian fisherman, who were seized in September by Libyan authorities in a fishing dispute, have been freed.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, In Nigeria the governor of Katsina state announced that all of the boys, abducted on Dec. 11, had been released, and would be reunited with their parents the next day. The governor of Katsina has insisted bandits were responsible for the recent attack.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)(BBC, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, Panamanian health authorities reported 3,348 new coronavirus cases and 42 deaths, a daily record for both new infections and deaths.
(Reuters, 12/19/20)
2020 Dec 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin (68) said that he has yet to receive the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine because it has not yet been approved for anyone over 65. He also brushed off accusations that the Russian state was behind the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny earlier this year.
(NBC News, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A South Korean man who spent 20 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit cleared his name in court after one of the country’s most notorious serial killers confessed to the 1988 rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. Yoon Seong-yeo (53) had been sentenced to life in prison and was released on parole in 2009.
(AP, 12/18/20)
2020 Dec 17, Switzerland’s postal supervisory authority, PostCom, announced that food delivery service Uber Eats counts as a postal service provider, and needs to be regulated as such.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, A Swiss court cut Russia’s four-year doping ban from global sports in half. Russia’s teams will still miss the 2021 and 2022 Olympics.
(NY Times, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Turkey recorded 27,515 new coronavirus cases. The death toll hit a record high of 243 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total so far to 17,364. The country has registered 1,955,680 COVID-19 infections since the beginning of the pandemic in March.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, The UN announced a $35.6 million emergency aid package for civilians caught up in fighting in Ethiopia's Tigray region.
(AP, 12/17/20)
2020 Dec 17, Pope Francis urged world leaders to divert funds used for armaments to confront problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure vaccines reach the poor and most vulnerable nations.
(Reuters, 12/17/20)
Go to December 18
