Today in History - December 27
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418 Dec 27, Zosimus, Greek Pope (417-8), died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
537 Dec 27, The Haghia Sophia Byzantine cathedral in Constantinople was consecrated. St. Sophia (meaning "the holy wisdom" in Greek) was built by Emperor Justinian. It remained a symbol of Byzantine grandeur until Istanbul was conquered by Muslim armies.
(Sky, 4/97, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
1512 Dec 27, The laws of Burgos gave New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorized Negro slavery.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1571 Dec 27, Johannes Kepler (d.1630), German astronomer known as the “father of modern astronomy," was born. Working with the data gathered by Tycho Brahe, he established the three laws of planetary motion:
a) The planets do not travel in concentric circles, but in ellipses, with the sun at one of the two foci of the ellipse.
b) A radius vector joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
c) The third law asserted a mathematical relation between the periods of revolution of the planets and their distance from the sun.
(V.D.-H.K.p.199)(HN, 12/27/98)
1603 Dec 27, Thomas Cartwright (~68), English Presbyterian publicist, died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1773 Dec 27, George Cayley, founder of the science of aerodynamics, was born in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1794 Dec 27, The Portuguese slave ship Sao Jose--Paquete de Africa sank off the coast of South Africa’s Cape Town. Some 400-500 African slaves from Mozambique were on board the vessel bound for Brazil. About half of them perished. Wreckage of the ship was found in 2015.
(http://tinyurl.com/q9xyg73)(AP, 6/2/15)
1822 Dec 27, Louis Pasteur (d.1895), French chemist and microbiologist, was born in Dole, France. One of his several monumental contributions to science and industry was pasteurization, the process of heating wine, beer and milk to kill microorganisms that cause fermentation and disease. Pasteur also developed important vaccines and his work on molecular asymmetry led to the science of stereochemistry. He was the first to vaccinate animals for anthrax and chicken cholera, and in 1885 he proved that his rabies vaccine could be used successfully on humans when he saved the life of a 9-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The Pasteur Institute was formed in Paris in 1888 for research on rabies. Pasteur ran the institute until his death in 1895.
(WUD, 1994, p.1055)(AP, 12/27/97) (HNPD, 12/27/98)
1825 Dec 27, The 1st public railroad using steam locomotive was completed in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1829 Dec 27, Hinton Helper, southern abolitionist, was born. He wrote "The Impending Crisis," the most stinging indictment of slavery.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1831 Dec 27, HMS Beagle departed from Plymouth. Naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin's discoveries during the voyage helped formed the basis of his theories on evolution.
(HN, 12/27/98)(AP, 12/27/97)
1834 Dec 27, Charles Lamb (b.1775), English critic, poet, essayist, died. "No one ever regarded the first of January with indifference. It is the nativity of our common Adam."
(AP, 12/31/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lamb)
1836 Dec 27, Stephen Fuller Austin (43), founder of state of Texas, died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1845 Dec 27, Ether was 1st used in childbirth in US at Jefferson, Ga.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1855 Dec 27, Paul Ehrenreich, German ethnologist and mythologist, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1862 Dec 27, Rosecrans’ army moved slowly toward General Bragg at Murfreesboro.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1862 Dec 27, Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, Miss. (Chickasaw Bayou), began.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1862 Dec 27, Battle of Elizabethtown, KY.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1871 Dec 27, World's 1st cat show took place at the Crystal Palace, London.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1887 Dec 27, Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of Blue Carbuncle."
(MC, 12/27/01)
1888 Dec 27, Tito Schipa (d.1965), tenor (La Rondine), was born in Italy. His birthday was recorded as January 2, 1889 for military conscription purposes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito_Schipa)
1900 Dec 27, Militant prohibitionist Carry Nation carried out her first public smashing of a bar, at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan. She published the Smasher in Topeka. Advertisers boycotted and the paper failed.
(AP, 12/27/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1901 Dec 27, Marlene Dietrich (d.1992), German-born singer and actress best known for her roles in "Shanghai Express" and "Witness for the Prosecution," was born. “I’m a realist and so I think regretting is a useless occupation. You help no one with it. But you can’t live without illusions even if you must fight for them, such as ‘love conquers all.’ It isn’t true, but I would like it to be."
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.D-2)(HN, 12/27/98)(AP, 11/23/00)
1904 Dec 27, Duke of York Theatre opened in London with the 1st performance “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up," a dream-play written by J.M. Barrie.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.D1)(www.amrep.org/past/peter/peter1.html)
1906 Dec 27, Oscar Levant, American composer and actor, was born in Pittsburgh.
(AP, 12/27/06)
1913 Dec 27, In San Francisco over 25,000 people gathered at Lotta’s Fountain to celebrate the postponed Christmas Eve festival.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, DB p.42)
1913 Dec 27, Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, was shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1915 Dec 27, William Howell Masters, sex author and physician, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1915 Dec 27, In Ohio, iron and steel workers went on strike for an eight hour day and higher wages.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1923 Dec 27, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (b.1832), engineer (Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty), died in Paris.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Eiffel)
1925 Dec 27, In Los Angeles Hilario Camino Moncado founded the Filipino Federation of America (FFA), one of the country’s first and largest Filipino organizations.
(http://tinyurl.com/oz42xnz)
1927 Dec 27, The musical play "Show Boat," with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein the Second, opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1927 Dec 27, Stalin's faction won All-Union Congress in USSR. Trotsky was expelled.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1932 Dec 27, Radio City Music Hall was opened in New York City. The new acoustics proved unpopular. In 2002 Emily Thompson authored “The Soundscape of Modernity," a look at the early era of modern acoustics.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 12/27/97)(WSJ, 4/24/02, p.D9)
1933 Dec 27, Josef Stalin called tensions with Japan a grave danger.
(HN, 12/27/01)
1934 Dec 27, The 1st youth US hostel opened at Northfield, Mass.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1936 Dec 27, Lee Salk, doctor (CBS TV), was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1937 Dec 27, Mae West performed an Adam and Eve skit that got her banned from NBC radio.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1938 Dec 27, Osip Mandelstam (b.1891), Russian poet born in Poland to Jewish parents, died while in transit to a labor camp. In 1998 Emma Gerstein authored “Moscow Memoirs: Memories of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Literary Russia Under Stalin." An English translation by John Crowfoot became available in 2004.
(SSFC, 9/11/04, p.M3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
1939 Dec 26-27, In Turkey a series of vicious earthquakes in Erzincan province, magnitude 7.9, took some 33,000 lives in Turkey.
(HN, 12/27/98)(MC, 12/27/01)(SFEC, 8/22/99, p.A17)(AP, 6/22/02)
1941 Dec 27, Japanese bombers attacked Manila, despite its claim as an open city.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1942 Dec 27, The 1st Japanese women camp at Ambarawa went into use.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1943 Dec 27, Cokie Roberts, American political broadcaster for NPR and ABC, was born.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1943 Dec 27, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Army to take temporary possession of all railroads in order to prevent a strike by railway workers. The action was taken under the wartime Labor Disputes Act. The railroads were returned to private management on January 18, 1944.
(HNQ, 7/16/98)
1944 Dec 27, General Patton’s Third Army, spearheaded by the 4th Armored Division, relieved the surrounded city of Bastogne in Belgium.
(HN, 12/27/00)
1944 Dec 27, Sister Sara Salkahazi was killed by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian allies of the Nazis, for hiding Jews in a Budapest building used by her religious order, the Sisters of Social Service. In 2006 she was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 9/18/06)
1945 Dec 27, Arthur Laurent's "Home of the Brave," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1945 Dec 27, Foreign ministers from the former Allied nations of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones and to govern the nation for five years.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1945 Dec 27, The International Monetary Fund and the Int’l. Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) were created. 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank. The IMF was created to promote healthy international trade and began transactions in 1947. The World Bank was designed by Englishman John Maynard Keynes and American Harry Dexter White. The IMF and WB were originally intended to part of the UN, but this link was abandoned under American pressure. WB chronology @ (http://tinyurl.com/2f6tgw).
(AP, 12/27/97)(HN, 12/27/98)(HNQ, 12/27/00)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.63)(Econ, 6/22/13, p.18)
1945 Dec 27, The Dutch formally relinquished sovereignty to Indonesia.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.B4)
1947 Dec 27, Buffalo Bob Smith (1917-1998) and puppet Howdy Doody starred on the first nationally broadcast children’s TV show. It ran to Sep. 30, 1960. The children’s television program “Howdy Doody," hosted by Bob Smith, made its debut on NBC. The show was produced by Martin Stone. The characters Clarabell the Clown (Bob Keeshan later Captain Kangaroo), Chief Thunderthud, Princess Summerfall, Phineas T. Bluster and Flub-a-Dub were featured. The theme song was based on the French ditty: “Ta-ra-ra-Boom-der-e."
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A18)(AP, 12/27/97)(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B6)(SFC, 7/31/98, p.D7)
1947 Dec 27, The new Italian constitution was promulgated in Rome.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1948 Dec 27, Gerard Depardieu, actor (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Danton, Green Card), was born in France.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1949 Dec 27, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted sovereignty to Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule. The Netherlands retained control of Irian Jaya, inhabited by Melanesians, until 1963.
(EWH, 1968, p.1168)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(AP, 12/27/99)
1950 Dec 27, U.S. and Spain resumed relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
(HN, 12/27/00)
1954 Dec 27, Gian Carlo Menotti's opera "Saint of Bleecker Street" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1956 Dec 27, Segregation on Tallahassee, Fla., buses was outlawed.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1960 Dec 27, France exploded a 3rd atom bomb in the Sahara Desert, code-named Gerboise Rouge (“red gerboa").
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerboise_Bleue)
1961 Dec 27, Styne-Comden-Green musical "Subways are for Sleeping," premiered.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1961 Dec 27, Tony Bennett, starring in the Venetian Room of the SF Fairmont Hotel, made his 1st solo public performance of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco." The song was written by George Cory and Douglass Cross in 1954 and had languished in obscurity for years.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.F1)(SFC, 1/25/12, p.A11)(SFC, 2/16/12, p.A13)
1967 Dec 27, Singer Bob Dylan (b.1941 as Robert Allen Zimmerman) released his "John Wesley Harding" album.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Harding_(album))
1968 Dec 27, The US agreed to sell fifty F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1968 Dec 27, Apollo 8, the 1st manned mission to the moon, and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
(AP, 12/27/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1970 Dec 27, "Hello, Dolly!" closed at the St. James Theater on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.
(AP, 12/27/97)(www.nodanw.com/shows_h/hello_dolly.htm)
1974 Dec 27, Amy Vanderbilt (b.1908), American etiquette expert, died. "One face to the world, another at home makes for misery." In 1952 she published the best selling book Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette.
(AP, 5/12/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Vanderbilt)
1978 Dec 27, Algerian President Houari Boumediene, one of the Third World's most prominent and outspoken leaders, died after 40 days in a coma.
(AP, 12/27/03)
1978 Dec 27, King Juan Carlos ratified Spain's 1st democratic constitution. A parliamentary monarchy was established with power in the hands of the legislative branch. Many powers centralized under Franco were devolved to the 17 autonomous regions. Manuel Fraga (1922-2012) helped write the country's post-Franco, democratic Constitution. Catalonia was granted more self-government than almost any other part of Europe.
(www.igsap.map.es/cia/dispo/ce_ingles_index.htm)(Econ, 1/14/06, p.17)(AP, 1/16/12)(Econ, 1/7/17, p.44)
1978 Dec 27, The Basque Country's fiscal privileges, granted during the 19th century and then partially abolished during General Francisco Franco's 1939-75 dictatorship, were finally restored this year in Spain’s democratic constitution.
(AFP, 9/25/17)
1978 Dec 27, In South Yemen the Supreme Council elected a new president. He reversed moves toward reconciliation with North Yemen and acquiesced to a continued Soviet military buildup.
(PC, 1992, p.1065)
1979 Dec 27, "Knots Landing," premiered on CBS-TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0078638/)
1979 Dec 27, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan after a 2nd leftist coup. The Soviet backed coup ousted leftists and put a more pro-Moscow regime in power in Kabul. Babrak Karmal (1929-1996) became the new puppet leader and Soviet troops bolstered his rule against Muslim resistance fighters. Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown, was executed and replaced by Babrak Karmal. Some 15,000 Soviet soldiers reportedly died along with 1 million Afghans.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1) (WA, 1997,p.737) (AP, 12/27/97)(http://web.mit.edu/cascon/cases/case_afg.html)
1981 Dec 27, Hoagy Carmichael (b.1899), US actor, songwriter (Stardust), died in California at age 82. His songs included "Stardust" and over 600 other melodies.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/25/99, p.C22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagy_Carmichael)
1983 Dec 27, President Reagan took all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines on Oct 23.
(www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/02/b37879.html)
1983 Dec 27, Pope John Paul II pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot him. The Pope visited Mehmet Ali Agca at Rome’s Rebibbia prison and personally pardoned him for the 1981 assassination attempt.
(SFC, 6/14/00, p.A14)(http://preview.tinyurl.com/pddl)
1983 Dec 27, A propane gas fire devastated 16 blocks of Buffalo, NY. The fire killed five firefighters, two civilians, destroyed about a million in fire equipment, and leveled several city blocks, as well as the infamous fire alarm box # 29 also known as the Hoodoo Box.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Fire_Historical_Museum)
1984 Dec 27, Geologist Roberta Score found the Martian meteorite labeled Allan Hills (ALH) 84001 while snowmobiling in the Antarctic. The 4.5 billion year old rock was knocked of Mars by an asteroid some 16 million years earlier and landed in Antarctica some 13,000 years before Score’s find.
(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.29)(SSFC, 2/19/06, p.M6)
1984 Dec 27, Four Polish officers were tried for the slaying of Reverend Jerzy Popieluszko.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1985 Dec 27, Palestinian guerrillas opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; a total of twenty people were killed, including five of the attackers, who were slain by police and security personnel. Abu Nidal was considered responsible. President Reagan blamed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
(AP, 12/27/97)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A6)(NYT, 10/8/04, p.A12)
1985 Dec 27, American naturalist Dian Fossey, who had studied gorillas in the wild, was found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.
(AP, 12/27/05)
1987 Dec 27, Scores of Palestinian prisoners appeared before Israeli military courts in the first trials of several hundred protesters arrested in the "intefadeh," or uprising, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1988 Dec 27, Bulgaria stopped jamming Radio Free Europe after more than 3 decades.
(http://tinyurl.com/jh6vq)
1988 Dec 27, Hundreds of residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, paid silent tribute to five of the Americans killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, as coffins containing victims' remains began the journey home.
(AP, 12/27/98)
1989 Dec 27, President Bush, on a visit to Beeville, Texas, said he was determined to bring deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to justice "for poisoning the children of the United States" with illegal drugs.
(AP, 12/27/99)
1991 Dec 27, The United States and the Philippines announced that the United States would abandon the Subic Bay naval base by the end of 1992.
(AP, 12/27/01)
1991 Dec 27, Muslim fundamentalists in Algeria won a major victory in free legislative elections; however, the military ended up canceling the election results.
(AP, 12/27/01)
1992 Dec 27, The United States shot down an Iraqi fighter jet during what the Pentagon described as a confrontation between a pair of Iraqi warplanes and U.S. F-16 jets in U.N.-restricted airspace over southern Iraq.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1993 Dec 27, U.S. officials said that Strobe Talbott, who had served as the Clinton administration's chief Russia policy architect, would take over the number-two spot at the State Department.
(AP, 12/27/98)
1993 Dec 27, In Egypt, a gun and bomb attack on a tourist bus in old Cairo wounded 8 Austrians and 8 Egyptians. The militant group Gama’a al-Islamiya claimed responsibility.
(WSJ, 10/11/04, p.A17)
1995 Dec 27, France set off a fifth nuclear bomb at a South Pacific Atoll.
(WSJ, 12/28/95, p. A-1)
1995 Dec 27, Israeli jeeps sped out of the West Bank town of Ramallah, capping a seven-week pullout giving Yasser Arafat control over 90 percent of the West Bank's 1 million Palestinian residents and one-third of its land.
(AP, 12/27/05)
1996 Dec 27, Officials of NBC and Panasonic activated the new 891 sq. foot Astrovision screen near the base of One Times Square, New York.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 27, Officials in Las Vegas announced that the 12-story, 900-room, 10-year-old Hacienda Hotel would be blown up on New Year’s Eve. A new 4,000 room resort owned by Circus Circus would replace it.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 27, In South Bend, Ind., Annie Fulford was shot and killed during a drug-related robbery. Her boyfriend, Leif O’Connell, began a rampage and after 2 months began drive-by shootings of black men that left 1 dead and five injured. He and accomplice, Jerred Kahlenbeck, faced murder and attempted murder charges.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A2)
1996 Dec 27, In France the foreign ministry said that it would no longer participate in the Operation Provide Comfort after the end of the year. The operation was a multi-national air reconnaissance effort to safeguard Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, In Peru Pres. Fujimori declared a 60-day state of emergency.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, Russia and China agreed to remove troops along their border and to build a nuclear power plant in eastern China’s Jiangsu province with a $2.5 billion loan from Russia.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, Some 300 people were trapped in the Roksky Pass tunnel in the Caucasus between North Ossetia and the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. Also Alexander Lebed announced the new Russian Popular Republican Party.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, In Rwanda the first trial was held in connection with the 1994 genocide. Deo Bizimana was accused of killing 20 people and ordering the massacre of thousands of others.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, In Tibet Ngawang Choepel, a musician on a Fullbright scholarship, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage. He had arrived as a Chinese citizen in 1995 to make a documentary on folk music and dance.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 27, The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), led by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, recognized the Yugoslavia opposition victories in the Nov 17 local elections.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 27, In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, about 60,000 opposition supporters defied riot police and rallied in celebration of an international report backing their triumph over Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in recent local elections.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1997 Dec 27, Lower level talks between Turkish and Greek Cypriot officials were suspended by the Turkish Cypriots to protest the inclusion of the Greek side in EU membership.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A22)
1997 Dec 27, In Egypt Hussein Khalifa was sentenced to death for the 1993-94 murders of 26 policemen and 8 Romanian nationals. Rifaat Zeidan and Abdul-Hamid Othman, all members of al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, were sentenced to death in absentia.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A17)
1997 Dec 27, In Italy Some 825 illegal immigrants, mostly Kurds, were rescued by Italian tugboats from the Turkish ship Ararat. They were attempting to smuggle into Italy from Turkey.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A19)
1997 Dec 27, The Laos kip plunged to about half its value since July when the Thai baht was devalued.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A15)
1997 Dec 27, In Mexico authorities charged Jacinto Arias Cruz, the mayor of Chenalho, and 23 supporters with murder of the villagers in Acteal.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A13)
1997 Dec 27, In Northern Ireland inmate Billy Wright (37), aka King Rat and Northern Ireland's most notorious Protestant militant, was shot and killed by another inmate of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an IRA splinter group at the Maze prison. In 1998 3 Irish extremists, Christopher McWilliams, John Kennaway and John Glennon, were sentenced to life in prison for the killing.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)(AP, 12/27/98)
1997 Dec 27, In Northern Ireland masked killers shot and killed Seamus Dillon (45), a Catholic security guard at the Glengannon Hotel. Two other bouncers and a 14-year-old bar worker were wounded. The attack was a response to the killing of Billy Wright.
(SFC, 12/29/97, p.A6)
1998 Dec 27, Six inmates, including four convicted killers, escaped from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee. All were recaptured by the end of next day.
(AP, 12/27/99)
1998 Dec 27, A vaccine for AIDS by VaxGen Inc. of South San Francisco was reported to be in Phase III clinical trials. It was derived from g-120, a genetically engineered protein copied from a protein found in the HIV virus. Other vaccines were also under development.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 27, In Michigan 6 children of Femeeka O'Steen (27) died of smoke inhalation in Detroit as their mother recovered in a hospital after giving birth.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 27, A week after she was born weighing just 10.3 ounces, the smallest of the Houston Chukwu octuplets, Chijindu Chidera, died.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A1) (AP, 12/27/99)
1998 Dec 27, In Algeria armed groups attacked 2 villages and killed at least 30 people at Khenis Miliana and Ain N'Sour.
(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A8)
1998 Dec 27, In China a 4th dissident for democracy received a 10 year prison sentence for speaking to a reported by telephone about farmer's protests.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Dec 27, In Colombia a natural gas pipeline exploded in Arroyo de Piedra and killed 12 people.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 29, In Colombia rebels claimed to have killed a right-wing paramilitary leader in a weekend capture of his northern stronghold.
(WSJ, 12/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 27, In the Congo Republic troops from Angola, allied to Pres. Sassou-Nguesso, killed dozens of people in a weekend attack on Nkayi.
(WSJ, 12/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 27, Iraq said it would reject any extension of a UN monitored food program and would require monitors to leave.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Dec 27, In Mexico 2 Huichol Indians, Juan Chivarrer Lopez and Miguel Hernandez de la Cruz, were arrested for the murder of reporter Philip True.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 27, In Russia the first group of 10 solid-fuel Topol-M missiles was to be inaugurated by Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev. They were designed to replace the multiple warhead missiles banned by START II.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A20)
1998 Dec 27, In Sierra Leone Nigerian jets killed some 50 rebels in Makeni and ECOMOG forces took control following fierce fighting.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 27, In Tonga Cyclone Cora hit the islands and destroyed all the banana trees.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1999 Dec 27, Six inmates, including four convicted killers, escaped from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee. All were recaptured by the end of next day.
(AP, 12/27/00)
1999 Dec 27, A week after she was born weighing just ten-point-three ounces, the smallest of the Houston octuplets (Chijindu Chidera) died from heart and lung failure.
(AP, 12/27/00)
1999 Dec 27, Space shuttle Discovery landed at Cape Canaveral, Fla., following a successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 27, In Indonesia rival mobs of Muslims and Christians clashed in Maluku province and at least 39 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Dec 27, In northeast Pakistan Salamat Shah, a Shiite Muslim, opened fire and killed 12 members of a rival Sunni Muslim group, Sipa-e-Sahaba, during a funeral procession in Sikunder Pur.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
2000 Dec 27, Pres. Clinton appointed Roger Gregory as the 1st African American judge to the US Court of appeals in Richmond, Va.
(SFC, 12/28/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 27, Software engineer Michael McDermott pleaded innocent to 7 counts of murder in the shooting deaths of seven co-workers the day before at an Internet consulting company in Wakefield, Mass. McDermott was later convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2001 Dec 27, Pres. Bush permanently normalized trade relations with China.
(WSJ, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, The US announced plans to hold Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, US warplanes destroyed a compound in eastern Afghanistan believed used by a Taliban intelligence chief. Local villagers said as many as 40 civilians were killed. Qari Ahmadullah (40), former Taliban chief of intelligence, was killed while fleeing US bombardment near Naka village in Paktia province.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A22)(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, In NYC a van lurched out of control in Herald Square at 34th ST. and 6th Ave. and killed 6 pedestrians. A 7th died the next day.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/29/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 27, In El Salvador forensic scientists found human bones buried under the national police headquarters. The were believed to belong to people who disappeared during the 1980s civil war.
(WSJ, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, India banned Pakistan’s national airline from entering its airspace and ordered Pakistan to withdraw half of its diplomats from New Delhi. Pakistan followed suite.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(AP, 12/27/02)
2001 Dec 27, In Israel defense minister Gen. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (65) took over leadership of the Labor Party. Israeli troops raided Palestinian territory for a 2nd day and arrested 7 suspected militants.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 27, Zambia held national elections. Early returns showed a virtual tie between Levy Mwanawasa of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy and Anderson Mazoka of the United Party for National Development. Mwanawasa won the elections with 29% of the vote.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A21)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.43)
2002 Dec 27, Gov. Engler of Michigan signed a bill eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.
(WSJ, 12/30/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 27, The hamlet of Bridgeville on Highway 36 in Humboldt County, Ca., was sold on Ebay for $1.77 million. The Ebay deal failed and in 2004 Southern California investor purchased the 82-acre town for $700,000.
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/21/04, p.B3)
2002 Dec 27, George Roy Hill (81), film director, died. His films included "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 27, Argentine lawmakers approved the 2003 budget and ratified a new central bank chief, helping President Eduardo Duhalde's efforts to secure an aid agreement with the IMF.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, Chechen rebel suicide bombers rammed vehicles packed with a ton of explosives into the local government headquarters in Grozny, gutting the building and killing at least 83 people.
(Reuters, 12/27/02)(AP, 12/28/02)(SFC, 12/31/02, p.A7)
2002 Dec 27, In Indonesia at least 9 people including two children were killed and 50 injured when heavy rain triggered a mud slide on Sumatra island.
(Reuters, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, Palestinian gunmen killed 4 Israelis at the Otniel religious community near Hebron.
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A9)
2002 Dec 27, In Kenya political veteran Mwai Kibaki (71), head of an opposition alliance that promised to fight corruption and revive Kenya's ailing economy, won the elections over Uhuru Kenyatta 62% to 31%. The opposition alliance won 125 of 210 elective seats in the National Assembly, breaking the ruling party's 39-year grip on power. Kibaki promised to curb corruption.
(AP, 12/28/02)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A11)(AP, 1/2/03)(Econ, 12/18/04, p.65)
2002 Dec 27, In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 7 people were killed and 26 injured when a container of fireworks exploded, detonating a gas tank in the Dordoi market.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, A defiant North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart a laboratory capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors were "staying put" for the time being.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2002 Dec 27, Poland announced it will buy 48 U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters from Lockheed Martin for $3.5 billion to upgrade its air force to NATO standards
(AP, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, Russia said it will no longer accept US Peace Corps volunteers, after suggesting the workers were spying.
(AP, 12/27/02)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A11)
2002 Dec 27, Uruguay's Congress approved a plan to merge 3 major banks verging on insolvency amid the country's economic crisis.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2003 Dec 27, In Afghanistan suspected al Qaeda fighters ambushed Afghan security forces near the Pakistani border. A senior Afghan intelligence official was killed along with 6 attackers.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A14)
2003 Dec 27, Alan Bates (69), British stage and film actor, died. His films included "Zorba the Greek" and "Georgy Girl."
(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 27, China announced its first suspected SARS case since July.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, An Indonesian army tank accidentally ran over a public minibus on Java island, killing 18 people and injuring at least five.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, Governments around the world rushed medical experts, rescue teams, water-purification systems and tea to the earthquake-ravaged Iranian city of Bam.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, In Iraq insurgents launched 3 coordinated attacks in the southern city of Karbala, killing 13 people, including six Iraqi police officers, 2 Thai soldiers and 5 Bulgarians.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/29/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/04)
2003 Dec 27, Israeli troop staged a huge raid in Nablus that left a Palestinian teenager dead and 17 others wounded.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 27, Juan Garcia Ponce (71), a renowned Mexican art critic, translator and prize-winning novelist, died. Ponce was born in Merida, the capital of Yucatan state, on Sept. 22, 1932. The author of at least 50 books, Ponce wrote novels, plays, screenplays and essays and was considered a master of erotic literature.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 27, Russia removed all Soviet-built anti-aircraft missiles from its vast arms depots in a Moldova province to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. The missiles were flown from Transdniestria Province to Moscow.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2004 Dec 27, In southern Asia the death toll from the Dec 26 earthquake-tsunami catastrophe rose to more than 23,000.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, The Central Africa Republic (CAR) established a new Constitution.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2004 Dec 27, The euro reached an intraday high of $1.364.
(WSJ, 12/28/04, p.C2)
2004 Dec 27, A massive burst of energy from a neutron star, SGR 1806-20, was detected in the constellation Sagittarius. It was the equivalent of what the sun emits every 150,000 years.
(SFC, 2/19/05, p.A2)
2004 Dec 27, Honduras' security minister pledged to eliminate violent youth gangs, nine of whose members have been charged with homicide in connection with a Dec. 23 shooting attack on a public bus that killed 28 people.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, The foreign secretaries of nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan began two-day talks that will include their first formal dialogue on disputed Kashmir since they launched a peace process a year ago.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, In an audiotape, a man purported to be Osama bin Laden endorsed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and called for a boycott of January's elections in the country.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2004 Dec 27, A suicide bomber detonated his car at the gate of the home of the leader of Iraq's biggest political party and most powerful Shiite political group, killing 15 people and injuring dozens. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's, was unharmed.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, The Iraqi Islamic Party, the biggest Sunni political group, pulled out of the Jan. 30 elections citing the deteriorating security situation.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Poisonous liquor sold by an illegal alcohol bar in India's financial capital killed at least 51 people and sent nearly 100 others to hospital over two days, prompting citywide raids on alcohol vendors.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Israel released 159 Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, Jordan's military court on acquitted 13 Muslim militants, including three Saudi fugitives, of conspiring to commit terror attacks against U.S. targets in Jordan, but sentenced 11 of them to prison terms ranging from six to 15 years for possessing explosives.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, In western Sudan rebel forces attacked the market town of Ghubaysh and the government retaliated. The UN World Food Program suspended food convoys to the Darfur region following the attacks.
(AP, 12/29/04)
2004 Dec 27, Ukraine election officials said opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko won 51.99 percent to 44.19 percent for Moscow-backed PM Viktor Yanukovych. Supporters of the pro-Russian PM vowed to challenge the results in court.
(AFP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Ukrainian Transport Minister Heorhiy Kirpa, a supporter of the trailing candidate in the presidential election, was found dead in his house from a gunshot wound. Opposition figures claimed that Kirpa allocated trains to ferry Yanukovych supporters to vote at multiple polling sites in Nov. 21 presidential balloting that eventually was annulled by the Ukraine Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2005 Dec 27, The US State Dept. announced sanctions against 9 foreign companies, 6 Chinese, for selling missile and chemical-arms goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 12/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 27, In NYC the executive board of the transit workers approved a tentative contract that included a 10.9% raise over 3 years and a requirement for workers to contribute to their health care plans.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 27, A reported inversion with long-term interest rates dropping below short-term rates prompted a sell-off on Wall Street. The trend often precedes an economic downturn.
(WSJ, 12/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 27, Grass fires burned in drought-stricken Texas and Oklahoma. Over three days, nearly 200 homes were lost and the fires blamed for at least four deaths.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2005 Dec 27, A close aide said Bolivia’s President-elect Evo Morales will reject US economic and military aid if the US requires continued coca-eradication efforts to get the money.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Inmates at a prison in Brazil's remote Amazon jungle held more than 200 people hostage, demanding the return of their leader from another prison. Authorities agreed to bring him back, but both sides remained at an impasse, waiting for the other to make the first move.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, In China Tian Fengshan, former minister of land and resources, was sentenced to life in prison on charges of taking $545,000 in bribes from 1995-2003.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, US financial services giant Citigroup Inc. said it plans to increase its stake in China's Shanghai Pudong Development Bank to 19.9 percent, the maximum legal holding for a single foreign bank in a local lender.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Leftist rebels ambushed a group of soldiers who were protecting civilians in southern Colombia, killing 28.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, East Timor's president formally opened a consulate in Indonesia's neighbouring West Timor province in an effort to strengthen relations between the two nations.
(AFP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, A conference underlining the gravity of Egypt's landmines problem kicked off in Cairo, with delegates appealing for international support in the mine clearing effort. Egypt is one of the most heavily-mined regions in the world, a legacy of World War II and the Arab-Israeli wars, which left the northwestern desert infested with an estimated 22 million mines and other unexploded ordnance (UXOs).
(AFP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Indonesia a year after the tsunami destroyed their battlefield, Aceh rebels formally disbanded their armed wing, effectively ending their 30-year separatist insurgency.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi police in Baghdad, killing two policemen and two bystanders. South of Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two officers, and gunmen in southern Baghdad killed another. Gunmen southeast of Kirkuk, killed one police officer.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, The Israeli military fired a barrage of artillery and missiles at the Gaza Strip, hitting two offices of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and a bridge the army said was used by militants to reach areas where they fire rockets.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Three rockets landed in a residential area of a northern Israeli town near the Lebanese border, damaging some property but causing no injuries.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, The Japanese government endorsed measures that would put more women in top government posts and provide more support for working mothers at a time when the country is facing low birth rates and a looming labor shortage.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Kuwait 6 men were convicted and sentenced to death on charges they belonged to a terrorist group that planned to attack US troops in Kuwait. They were among 37 Kuwaitis and other nationals accused of joining the Lions of the Peninsula, a group the prosecution claims was planning attacks. The defendants were captured after clashing with Kuwaiti police in January 2005.
(AP, 12/27/05)(AP, 3/9/06)
2005 Dec 27, Abdel-Qadar Abdel Qader, a Syrian, was arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of Gibran Tueni, the anti-Syrian general manager and columnist of Lebanon's leading newspaper.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Philippine prosecutors charged four US Marines with rape in what is seen as a test case for a bilateral accord allowing American troops to train here.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Andrei Illarionov, an outspoken economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced that he was resigning, saying he could no longer work in a government that had done away with political freedoms.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Saudi police arrested Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Mohammed al-Suwailmi, a terror suspect on the country's list of most wanted militants.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Spain a new law that took effect ordering government ministries to close no later than 6 p.m., part of a broad package of measures that are geared to help Spaniards juggle their jobs and families.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Sri Lanka a land mine killed at least 10 soldiers on the northern Jaffna peninsula. A police officer patrolling the eastern town of Kalmunai was killed. Tiger rebels were blamed.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.A5)
2005 Dec 27, Official Syrian news reported that Syria has signed a $2.7 billion memorandum of understanding with a Russian company for construction of a refinery and petrochemical plant in northeast Syria.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Turkey reported an outbreak of avian influenza in chickens in the eastern area of Igdir, less than a month after declaring its territory free of the virus, and said it had culled 359 birds as a precautionary measure.
(Reuters, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, Ukraine and Bulgaria said all their troops had left Iraq. Poland said it would remain but reduce its number of troops by 600 next year.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2006 Dec 27 Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards jumped into the presidential race a day earlier than he had planned after his campaign accidentally went live with his election Web site a day before his scheduled announcement.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2006 Dec 27, A Florida doctor pleaded guilty to securities fraud in connection with a life insurance scam that cost 28,000 investors nearly $1 billion. Clark Mitchell, the former director of a prominent AIDS clinic who was arrested more than five years ago on insurance fraud charges, agreed to be responsible for restitution of $367 million to investors in Mutual Benefits Corp., a Fort Lauderdale company that sought investors in life insurance policies held by elderly or ill people.
(Reuters, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Ohio’s state Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Gov. Bob Taft for his ethics violations in office, a black mark that will stay on his permanent record as an attorney.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, It was reported that the SF Dept. of Parking and Traffic had begun a 90-day test run using cameras to scan license plates in search of cars with unpaid citations. Metal boots were immediately attached to cars with at least 5 outstanding tickets.
(SFC, 12/27/06, p.B1)
2006 Dec 27, A 2-day storm with 60 mph winds hit the SF Bay Area. In Marin County the main hall of Manka’s Inverness Lodge, built in 1917, burned down when wind knocked a tree into a water heater. A woman was killed when a tree crashed through her cottage in Lagunitas.
(SFC, 12/28/06, p.A1, B1)
2006 Dec 27, In southern Afghanistan a bomb explosion caused a NATO vehicle to crash, killing one British soldier and wounding three.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, Angry protesters attacked government offices and damaged vehicles in northern Bangladesh after authorities rejected applications by former army ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad to contest next month's elections.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Belarus issued an implicit threat that it could stop Russian gas deliveries through its pipelines to western Europe unless Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom relented on demands Minsk pay steep price increases in 2007.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Brazilian travelers incensed about an overbooked flight stormed a runway to prevent a commercial jet from taking off. A tourism industry leader said two months of chronic flight delays have been a "disaster" for tourism.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, A helicopter carrying natural gas workers crashed off the northwest English coast, killing six people and leaving the only other person aboard missing.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, Central African President Francois Bozize ordered the army to set fire to the homes of two leaders of a dissident Baptist church, after they did the same to a pastor's house, to teach them a lesson.
(AFP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, China’s state media reported that temperatures in China will rise significantly in coming decades and water shortages will worsen, citing the government's first national assessment of global climate change.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Colombia's second-largest rebel group (ELN) released two police officers taken hostage earlier this month, a move that could revive slow-moving peace talks with the government. Gunmen shot and killed Jaime Andres Angarita (33), a paramilitary leader, as he was dining at a restaurant in the western city of Medellin. Angarita was considered the right-hand man of warlord Salvatore Mancuso, the architect of a 2003 peace deal with the government that has led to the demobilization of 31,000 militia fighters.
(AP, 12/27/06)(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, Fighting broke out in eastern Congo between government troops and forces loyal to a dissident general, killing at least 19 people. A group of Congolese soldiers went on trial for war crimes, a month after UN investigators found mass graves inside their eastern army camp with some 30 bodies including women and children.
(AP, 12/27/06)(Reuters, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, A 26-year-old Egyptian man died of bird flu, the third member of his extended family to die of the virus.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Ethiopian and Somali government troops drove Islamic fighters out of the last major town on the road to Mogadishu, the Islamist-held capital.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Gabon's Constitutional Court confirmed President Omar Bongo Ondimba's camp as official winner of the nation's general elections held December 17 and 24.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, A new report said a third of India’s rural population, or more than 200 million people, still live on 12 rupees (26 cents) a day or less.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Saddam Hussein's Baath Party threatened to retaliate if the ousted Iraqi leader is executed, warning in an Internet posting it would target US interests anywhere. Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to embrace "brotherly coexistence" and not to hate U.S.-led foreign troops in a goodbye letter posted on a Web site a day after Iraq's highest court upheld his death sentence. A car bomb explosion killing 8 civilians and wounding 10 near an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad. Police found the bodies of 51 people apparent victims of sectarian killings. US and Iraqi troops in Najaf killed Sahib al-Amiri, a top deputy of Muqtada al-Sadr. 2 Latvian soldiers were killed and 3 were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded under their Humvee in Diwaniyah. 3 US soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in and around Baghdad.
(AP, 12/27/06)(AP, 12/28/06)(SFC, 12/28/06, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/28/06, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/07)
2006 Dec 27, Israel decided to resume pinpoint attacks against Palestinian rocket-launching cells in Gaza, jeopardizing what is already a shaky, month-old truce with Gaza militants.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, A Taiwanese court convicted Chao Chien-min, the son-in-law of President Chen Shui-bian, of insider trading and sentenced him to six years in prison.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Telephone lines and Internet service went dead across much of Asia after two powerful earthquakes off Taiwan damaged undersea cables used by several countries to route calls and online traffic.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Yemeni authorities opened fire on boats filled with refugees fleeing the fighting in Somalia and at least 17 people drowned when one of the vessels capsized.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2007 Dec 27, Bayron Jimenez Castaneda (44), suspected Colombian cocaine trafficker, was arrested in Orlando, Florida, for the kidnapping of an undercover US agent. Three other suspects in the kidnapping of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Dec. 14, 2005 remain at large. Traffickers initially demanded a $2 million ransom, but released him after half a day when they realized he was a US government agent.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Richmond, Ca., 2 gunmen shot and killed Ravinder (30) and Paramjit (42) Kalsi as they closed their restaurant. In 2009 police named Rajesh Kumar of Fiji, as a suspect in the case. Kumar was wanted for allegedly defrauding a woman connected to the restaurant.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.B2)
2007 Dec 27, Steven Florio (b.1949), former CEO of Conde Nast, died in NYC.
(SFC, 12/29/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 27, The Afghan government expelled UN advisor Mervyn Patterson and EU official Michael Semple, on accusations they held unauthorized meetings with Taliban militants. A spokesman for the UN mission said the diplomats had traveled to Musa Qala, a former Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand province on Dec 24, where they met with local leaders.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Bahrain more than a dozen people detained during recent Shiite protests were charged with attempted murder, illegal assembly and rioting.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Chechnya unidentified gunmen shot and killed a police officer in Grozny.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, Shawn Wang, the chief financial officer of leading Chinese search engine Baidu.com, died in an accident while on holiday.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 27, In eastern India Hindu extremists burned down the house of a prominent Christian politician, as violence by gangs from both sides continued despite a curfew imposed after two days of attacks against Christians by Hindu hard-liners. In Orissa state at least three people were killed when they opened fire on a group of hard-line Hindus who set fire to a police station during ongoing clashes between Hindus and Christians.
(AP, 12/27/07)(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Ingushetia several militants ambushed a border guards' vehicle, killing two officers and wounding two other servicemen.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Iraq a bomb left inside a bus in eastern Baghdad exploded and killed two passengers and wounded 12 others. US troops allegedly killed 11 members of a Mahdi Army splinter group in Kut. A local official said 4 people were killed and that they were innocent. Kut police said 6 suspected militiamen were killed. The military announced that it had detained two more suspects in the capture of 3 US soldiers on May 12. The US military said in a statement that troops killed 12 suspected al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists and detained 37 others during a Dec 22-25 operation near Muqdadiyah.
(AP, 12/27/07)(AP, 12/28/07)(SFC, 12/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 27, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held their first summit since they agreed last month to renew peace talks, seeking to resolve a dispute over planned Israeli construction in east Jerusalem.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, Kenya held elections. President Mwai Kibaki tried to fend off fiery opposition leader Raila Odinga. In Nairobi monitors from the EU saw tens of thousands of votes pinched for Kibaki. In 2009 Philip Alston, a UN investigator, published a report documenting around 500 death-squad executions in the months leading up the elections. Post-election violence eventually left some 1,400 people dead.
(AP, 12/27/07)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.37)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.49)(Econ, 8/19/17, p.42)
2007 Dec 27, Nigeria reported that Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was being forced to resign in order to attend a one year course at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies at Jos.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.38)
2007 Dec 27, Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi that also killed at least 20 others at the end of a campaign rally. Doctors reported that Bhutto died from a bullet wound. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif announced his party was boycotting next month's elections following the assassination. He demanded that President Pervez Musharraf resign immediately. Within hours Sindhis began to rampage. After the 1st frenzy over 50 people were killed and damages were later estimated at $200 million. In February, 2008, her book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West," was published. In it she alleged that Qari Saifullah Akhtar was involved in an October bombing in Karachi that killed some 150 people.
(AP, 12/27/07)(SFC, 12/31/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.22)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.93)(AP, 8/6/08)
2007 Dec 27, In northern Sri Lanka Air force jets destroyed a Tamil naval base.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, South Sudanese former rebels rejoined the national government, two months after walking out because of disputes over the implementation of a peace deal that ended two decades of war.
(AFP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Thailand officials said deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra would be arrested if he returns home from a self-imposed exile as planned, even if his victorious allies form a government following last weekend's general election.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In southern Zimbabwe floodwaters swept a truck down a raging river, killing 7 people. Their deaths bring the number of drownings in Zimbabwe to 21 in the past month.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2008 Dec 27, It was reported that the mountain pine beetle was expected to kill virtually every mature lodgepole pine in Colorado. The beetle had already destroyed pine forests from Mexico to Canada.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 27, Sculptor Robert Graham (b.1938) died in Santa Monica, Ca. His massive bronze works mark civic monuments across America, included the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington.
(AP, 12/28/08)(SFC, 12/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 27, In northern Nevada a 13 rail cars containing grain were involved in a derailment along the Humboldt River. The derailment triggered the collapse of a 102-year-old bridge spanning the river.
(SSFC, 12/28/08, p.B2)
2008 Dec 27, In southern Afghanistan a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb at a police checkpoint, killing three policemen and two civilian men on a motorbike. 2 Canadian soldiers were killed in a blast in southern Kandahar province. An Afghan policeman and an interpreter also died in the attack in Panjwayi district, a Taliban stronghold about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Kandahar city. A member of the Kandahar provincial council was shot dead in a mosque. US troops killed five militants and detained six in operations against extremist networks.
(AP, 12/27/08)(AFP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 27, An explosion in central China's Henan province killed 15 people and injured nine others. Explosives, used for small-scale demolition, were illegally stored at a home when they ignited, destroying more than 10 neighboring houses. At least 17 workers were killed and one seriously injured when an elevator suddenly dropped to the ground at a construction site in central Hunan province.
(AP, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 27, Guinea's coup leader said he would allow the opposition and union leaders to help choose a prime minister. The military junta was boosted by the endorsement of neighboring Senegal as it attempted to garner international backing, and, after meeting political parties, promised to stamp out the burgeoning drugs trade.
(AP, 12/27/08)(Reuters, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 27, In Iraq a bomb tore through a busy square in Baghdad at midday, killing at least 24 people and wounding 54. A suspected al-Qaida in Iraq fugitive was killed in a gun battle with police in the western city of Ramadi. He was one of four suspected al-Qaida in Iraq members who escaped during a jailbreak and ensuing riot at a Ramadi police station a day earlier that left six policemen and seven insurgents dead. An Iraqi soldier and two other people were killed when a car bomb exploded as they were trying to defuse it in Musayyib. Police in the northern city of Kirkuk also arrested six suspected insurgents, including the former driver of Hassan al-Majid — Saddam Hussein's cousin who is also known as "Chemical Ali."
(AP, 12/27/08)(SSFC, 12/28/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 27, Israel began “Operation Cast Lead" as its warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in waves of airstrikes, killing nearly 200 people and wounding 270 others in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years. Gaza militants fired 30 rockets and mortars after the air offensive began. A missile hit the town of Netivot, killing an Israeli man and wounding four people.
(AP, 12/27/08)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.24)
2008 Dec 27, In Malaysia Tuanku Ja'afar Tuanku Abdul Rahman (86), a royal state ruler, died. He became Malaysia's king for five years (1994-1999) under the country's unique monarchal system.
(AP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 27, Turkey's parliament reduced the budget allocations of most ministries by up to 16 percent to cut overall spending as the country seeks a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund.
(AP, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 27-2009 Jan 21, In Egypt security forces arrested at least 860 activists of the Muslim Brotherhood as public demonstrations mounted during the Israeli assault on Gaza.
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.48)
2009 Dec 27, The New York Times reported that the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against the Al-Qaeda terror network in Yemen. The paper said the Pentagon will be spending more than 70 million dollars over the next 18 months, and using teams of special forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces.
(AFP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Afghanistan 10 civilians, including 8 students, were killed in fighting involving international forces in eastern Kunar province. Pres. Karzai condemned the deaths and called for an investigation. Afghan and international security forces captured militants in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan and in Wardak and Khost provinces in the east. On Dec 30 Asadullah Wafa, a senior adviser to Pres. Karzai, said that 8 schoolchildren between the ages of 12 and 14 were among the dead discovered in a village house in the Narang district of Kunar province.
(AP, 12/28/09)(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dec 27, Croatians went to the polls amid a deepening economic crisis and concerns over high-level corruption to elect a president to steer the Balkans country into the EU. Centrist Stipe Mesic (75) stands down in February after serving the maximum two five-year terms and successfully transforming the country from a nationalist autocracy into a parliamentary democracy. Social Democrat lawmaker Ivo Josipovic garnered 32.4% of votes and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic, who ran as independent candidate, got 14.8% of votes. The top two finishers will face each other in a Jan. 10 runoff.
(AFP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran Ali Mousavi, a nephew of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, was killed in fighting between protesters and security forces. Security forces fired on anti-government protesters in Tehran, killing 8 people in the fiercest clashes in months.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran authorities detained two German diplomats and accused them of playing a role in organizing deadly anti-government protests. Iran's state media only reported this on Jan 27, 2010. Germany's Foreign Ministry said it had no knowledge about any diplomats being detained and dismissed accusations that German officials had a hand in the demonstrations and clashes that left eight people dead.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2009 Dec 27, In northeast Iraq a bomb killed five Shiite pilgrims in a procession in the town of Tuz Khormato. Blasts in Baghdad killed 2 more pilgrims as millions of people marched to commemorate Ashoura, the most important Shiite religious observance. The 10-day religious ceremonies culminated today with huge processions.
(AP, 12/27/09)(SFC, 12/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Dec 27, Italian officials said 7 people, including a German teenager, have been killed by weekend avalanches in northern Italy.
(AP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 27, Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama arrived in India on a three-day visit aimed at strengthening economic and security cooperation with the emerging giant.
(AFP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Lebanon Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on Egypt to stop building a steel wall along the Gaza border that could obstruct tunnels which provide a lifeline for the blockaded enclave.
(Reuters, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Malawi officials arrested 2 men for celebrating their engagement to each other in a ceremony on Dec 26. Stevem Monjeza (26) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga (20) were charged with indecency and could get 5 to 14 years in jail if convicted.
(SFC, 12/30/09, p.A2)(SFC, 1/19/10, p.A2)
2009 Dec 27, In Pakistan a suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a large gathering of Shiite Muslims in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, killing five people and wounding 80. Another blast in Karachi wounded 30, but it was attributed to a buildup of gas in a sewage pipe.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/29/09)
2009 Dec 27, Isaac Schwartz (b.1923), Russian composer, died at his home just outside St. Petersburg. His music adorned some of the most popular movies of the Soviet era. Schwartz wrote the music for a total of 110 movies and 35 theatrical performances.
(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, Sudan, angling to become Africa's leading exporter of ethanol, sent out its first shipment of the bio-fuel to the Netherlands. Kenana's plant, located in the White Nile State south of Khartoum, was built by the Brazilian ethanol supplier Dedini.
(AFP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, Syrian security agents detained Tal al-Mallohi (19), a high school student blogger, after summoning her for questioning. Authorities have not allowed al-Mallohi's family to communicate with her since she was picked up. On Sep 20, 2010, The New York-based Human Rights Watch called for her immediate release. On Feb 14, 2011, she was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of spying for a foreign country.
(AP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 2/15/11, p.A2)
2009 Dec 27, Human rights groups warned that the Thai government's planned expulsion of 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos could turn violent.
(AP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 26, Turkey's military arrested eight of its officers in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Bulent Arinc, the country's deputy prime minister.
(http://tinyurl.com/yhgzlkp)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.38)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93), US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions" (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban car bomb targeted a bank where police queued for salaries in Kandahar, killing three people. NATO said one of its service members was killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/27/10)(AFP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In China 14 children died when the vehicle taking them to school plunged into a creek in the central province of Hunan. In Guizhou province 7 people died and 15 were injured after a truck crashed into a gas station in fog, causing a pileup involving more than 100 cars.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, An Egyptian Ministry of Health official said a resurgent H1N1 swine flu virus has infected 1,172 people in Egypt and killed 56 since October 8.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Guatemala men claiming to belong to the Zetas drug gang forced radio stations to broadcast a threat of war in a northern Guatemalan province where the government declared a state of siege last week.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing nine people at the government compound in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province. 43 people were injured by the blasts. 3 members of the same family were killed when a roadside bomb hit their car outside the town of Dujail, 50 miles (80km) north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old. The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Italy bomb squad experts defused a package bomb that was delivered to the Greek Embassy in Rome, four days after similar mail bombs exploded at two other embassies, wounding two people.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Mexico police in Guerrero state found the remains of three people in a clandestine grave in the town Teloloapan. A police report said the three unknown people were believed to have been killed about four months ago. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz one policeman was killed, and a local police commander was wounded when a man opened fire on municipal offices in the town of Otatitlan. The Defense Department said troops patrolling the mountainous area of Tamazula, Durango, discovered a cache of weapons and 770 kg (1,697 pounds) of marijuana in 191 bales.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Morocco’s interior ministry said security forces have arrested six Moroccans suspected of planning attacks in the country and abroad.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Pakistan intelligence officials and tribal elders say the Pakistani Taliban have kidnapped 23 tribesmen who recently met the army chief in South Waziristan. Suspected US missiles struck two vehicles in a Taliban stronghold on Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan, killing 25 suspected militants.
(AP, 12/27/10)(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 27, In the Philippines US Lt. Cmdr. Scintar Buenviaje Mejia (35) died of head injuries after jumping from a second-floor staircase while a security guard escorted him to the bathroom. He was arrested a day earlier with what was thought to be cocaine. Tests later showed the white powder wasn't an illegal drug.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Russia jailed ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of money laundering and theft of billions of dollars at a trial that has renewed doubts about the Kremlin's commitment to the rule of law.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Serbia a series of explosions damaged the Sloboda ammunition factory in Cacak.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.51)
2010 Dec 27, Somali pirates seized a ship with eight crew onboard. The MV EMS River was seized approximately 175 miles (280 km) northeast of the port of Salalah, Oman.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Venezuela said it has detained 12,376 people for drug-related crimes this year, about 40 percent more than in 2009.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2011 Dec 27, Sears Holdings Corp. said it will close up to 120 stores in its Kmart and namesake chains, blaming poor sales of consumer electronics so far this holiday season and saying it would focus its energy on its better performing stores.
(Reuters, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, China announced a cut in its rare earths export quota as it tries to shore up sagging prices for the exotic metals used in mobile phones and other high-tech goods.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Colombian FARC rebels announced plans to release six hostages who have been held captive for more than a decade. They included police officers Jorge Trujillo, Jorge Romero and Jose Libardo Forero, who were kidnapped in southern Colombia on July 11, 1999.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, An Egyptian court ordered the Egyptian army to stop forced virginity tests on female detainees, months after the practice sparked a national outcry and stained the ruling military's reputation.
(AFP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Guinea Bissau's army clashed with renegade forces overnight, leaving at least two dead as they combed the capital for suspects after thwarting an alleged coup attempt. Navy Chief Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, who has previously been accused of involvement in coup plans and in the drugs trade, was arrested for plotting a coup. Tchuto and 18 other co-accused were released on June 20, 2012.
(AFP, 12/27/11)(AFP, 6/21/12)
2011 Dec 27, UN human rights officials in Haiti issued a report accusing the national police department of excessive force, saying there is evidence officers may have killed at least nine people in the capital.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Hungarian media officials say two employees, who have been on hunger strike for over two weeks in protest at alleged political meddling with journalists' work in state-funded media, have been fired. The state Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA, said that Balazs Nagy Navarro and Aranka Szavuly were dismissed because their fast — in which they have only been ingesting liquids since Dec. 10 — is illegal and a "provocation" of their employer.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, India and Pakistan tentatively agreed to renew an agreement designed to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war.
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 27, In eastern Indonesia mudflows streaming from a volcano killed four villagers and about 1,000 others have fled their homes. Mount Gamalama in the Molucca Islands sprang to life this month with a powerful, non-fatal eruption.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2011 Dec 27, Iran warned that it would block the Strait of Hormuz if Western powers attempt to impose an embargo on Iranian petroleum exports in their effort to isolate the country over its suspect nuclear energy program.
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 27, In Iraq a car bomb exploded near a police station in the town of Hawija, 150 miles (240 km) north of Baghdad, killing two civilians and injuring another.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Israeli strikes overnight killed a Palestinian and wounded 10 others, as the military struck what it described as "global jihad" targets who were planning cross-border attacks on southern Israel from the Egyptian Sinai.
(AFP, 12/29/11)(AFP, 12/30/11)
2011 Dec 27, Kuwait's public prosecutor released 32 stateless people on bail after holding them for nine days for taking part in a protest to demand citizenship.
(AFP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Mexican police in the northern state of Nuevo Leon said that information provided by arrested members of a kidnapping gang has led them to at least seven bodies found buried in shallow graves or dumped in a well. The Attorney General's Office said that former regional police security coordinator Herrera Valles, arrested in 2008 for aiding the Sinaloa drug cartel, has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Federal police detained one of the United States' most-wanted drug traffickers, Luis Rodriguez Olivera, aka "Blondie," at Mexico City's international airport.
(AP, 12/27/11)(AP, 12/28/11)
2011 Dec 27, In southern Nigeria attackers threw homemade explosives inside an Islamic school in a predominantly Christian city where some 50 children had gathered for an Arabic class, wounding six pupils and a teacher in Delta state. Gunmen in a late night attack shot dead a three-year-old girl and her parents near the volatile central city of Jos. The attackers were suspected to be Fulani tribesmen, a mostly Muslim group which has been blamed for previous raids on the village.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2011 Dec 27, The governor of Puerto Rico signed 4 laws that he said will help track suspects and provide aid to crime victims as the island struggles with a record number of killings.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Somali pirates hijacked the Enrica Ievoli, an Italian ship carrying 15,000 tons of caustic soda from Iran to Turkey. A ransom was paid on April 22, 2012, and the 18 crew members and ship were freed.
(AP, 5/1/12)
2011 Dec 27, Syria's army suspended days of attacks on the restive city of Homs and began withdrawing its tanks just as Arab League monitors visited the area. The Sudanese head of the mission to Syria, Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, was leading the team of at least 12 observers to Homs. Security forces shot dead two people in the Damascus suburb of Douma, one in the southern province of Daraa and one in the northwestern province of Idlib. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) said 23 people were killed, including six in Homs. A student at Damascus University opened fire with a pistol inside a classroom at the medical department killing one student and wounding four. He was said to be a former anti-regime detainee who had been recently beaten by the pro-regime students, including the one he shot dead.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2012 Dec 27, In NYC Sunando Sen (46) was shoved in ront of a subway train and crushed to death in Queens. On Dec 30 Erika Menendez (31) was charged in the death. Menendez said she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought he was one.
(AP, 12/30/12)
2012 Dec 27, Retired US Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf (b.1934) died in Tampa, Fl. He topped an illustrious military career by commanding the US-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991 but kept a low public profile in controversies over the second Gulf War against Iraq.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Former Argentine economy minister Felisa Miceli was sentenced to four years in prison for corruption. Miceli was forced to quit in 2007 when a bag of money holding $32,000 was found in her office toilet.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, In Colombia Lorena Henao, the sister of Orlando Henao (d.1998), founder of the Northern Valley drug cartel, was shot to death by gunmen on the outskirts Armenia. 4 suspects were arrested in the attack.
(SFC, 12/28/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 27, Egypt's chief prosecutor ordered an investigation into the leaders of the country's opposition after a lawyer accused them of incitement to overthrow the regime of newly elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Iranian state TV reported that the country's president has dismissed the health minister after her ministry put out a statement criticizing authorities for not providing money to import medicine.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Mexican authorities discovered a sophisticated smuggling tunnel, as long as a football field, equipped with electricity and ventilation not far from the Nogales port of entry into Arizona.
(AP, 12/28/12)
2012 Dec 27, In northwest Pakistan dozens of militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two tribal police posts in the town of Darra Adam Khel, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two policemen. 21 other policemen were missing and presumed kidnapped.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he will sign a controversial bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children, as the Kremlin's children's rights advocate recommended extending the ban to the rest of the world.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Russia and Lakhdar Brahimi, UN envoy for Syria, both said that they want to revive a long-shelved peace initiative that would call for a transitional government to run the country until elections can be held.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, In Saudi Arabia a man was killed in clashes with police in an oil-rich eastern region, where the country's Shiite minority has been holding protests against the Sunni ruling monarchy.
(AP, 12/28/12)
2012 Dec 27, In Thailand leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy, also known as the Yellow Shirts, were indicted for storming the prime minister's office compound and sealing off Parliament during massive anti-government rallies in 2008 at the height of political turmoil, which left the country deeply divided to this day.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Vietnamese police detained Le Quoc Quan (41), a well-known dissident lawyer, escalating a crackdown on those who speak out against the country's one-party, authoritarian rule.
(AP, 12/28/12)
2013 Dec 27, The A&E channel said it is reversing its decision to drop “Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson from the show set in Louisiana for his remarks on gays.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Los Angeles Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen (24) pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges after admitting that he attempted to assist al-Qaida by providing weapons training in Syria.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Colorado the first batch of Denver businesses approved to sell recreational marijuana received their licenses.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Afghanistan 3 NATO personnel were killed in a Taliban suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy in Kabul.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, China’s environment ministry said it will raise standards for the production of cement, batteries, leather and heavy metals as part of its efforts to cut air, water and soil pollution.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, A Chinese court in Hunan province sentenced four municipal security officers to prison for a clash that left Deng, a watermelon seller, dead and triggered a public outcry.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Danish drugmaker Lundbeck said it has received marketing authorization from the European Commission for its antidepressant Brintellix following approval in the United States in September.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police clashed across the country, leaving at least 5 dead in protests after the army-backed government declared the group a terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Henri Rechatin (82), aka Henry’s, the celebrated French tightrope walker who balanced above high the Alps, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, died.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Indonesia Ambar Arianto Mulyo (59), a Bali Hyatt hotel security employee, was strangled to death after he tried to capture a 15-foot python.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, In Iraq violence across the country left six people dead.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, An Israeli official said Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Japan the governor of Okinawa gave the go-ahead for land reclamation to begin for a new US military base, advancing the effort to consolidate the massive US troop presence on the southern Japanese island but also making protests from residents likely.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Lebanon a powerful car bomb tore through a business district in the center of Beirut killing Mohammed Chatah (Shatah), a former finance minister and senior aide to former PM Saad Hariri. 7 others were also killed in the blast. Hariri blamed Hezbollah for the assassination. A Lebanese teenager seen posing for a group "selfie" in front of the bomb-laden car moments before it exploded died of his injuries the next day.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.34)
2013 Dec 27, In Libya 3 gunmen shot to death Maj. Mohammed Faraj al-Ziwi from the military's air defense unit in the al-Salam district of Benghazi.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Montenegro an overnight bomb blast shook the offices of the leading daily Vijesti in the latest attack on a newspaper known for its criticism of the authorities under long-term leader Milo Djukanovic.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Morocco and Qatar signed an aid deal worth $1.25 billion, part of a five-year package of financial assistance extended by wealthy Gulf states to the North African kingdom to help it weather 'Arab Spring' protests.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, Lack of fuel from Israel brought Gaza's lone power plant to a halt, days after it was fired back to life following a seven-week shutdown.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Two Russian astronauts began a spacewalk to install cameras and perform other work on the International Space Station. This was the third spacewalk in a week at the orbiting laboratory.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Russia at least two people were killed in the explosion of an automobile in Pyatigorsk in the restive North Caucasus region.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, An oil platform belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco sank as it was being used to carry out maintenance work at an oil well in Safaniya. The bodies of 3 Asian workers who went missing were recovered over the next 24 hours.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Somalia at least 10 people were killed in an explosion in a restaurant in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, Regional leaders said South Sudan's government has agreed to end hostilities, at the end of a crisis summit, raising hopes for a potential breakthrough in efforts to cease violence that has displaced more than 120,000 people in the world's newest country. An army spokesman said South Sudanese rebels loyal to former VP Riek Machar have been defeated in Malakal, the capital of major oil producing Upper Nile state, after four days of intense fighting.
(AP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Syrian state TV and opposition activists say government forces have ambushed members of an al-Qaida-linked group, killing dozens of the Nusra Front rebels near Maaloula, a historic Christian village north of Damascus. A monitoring group said 5 people, including an elderly man, a woman and a disabled man, have died of hunger in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp south of Damascus.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, The Thai government appealed to the military to provide security for February elections after violent clashes between police and opposition protesters left two people dead and more than 150 wounded.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Turkey three lawmakers, including a former minister, resigned from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). A Turkish court blocked a government attempt to force police to disclose investigations to their superiors.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Yemen an army tank shelled a funeral tent erected by the Southern Movement at a school in Sanah, Daleh province, killing 19 people, including 4 children.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)
2014 Dec 27, In Arizona police officer Tyler J. Stewart (24) died in Flagstaff after he was shot multiple times by Robert W. Smith (28), a domestic violence suspect. Smith walked away and fatally shot himself.
(SFC, 12/29/14, p.A7)
2014 Dec 27, In Maryland bicyclist Tom Palermo (41), a father of two, was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Episcopal Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook (58) was later charged with manslaughter and drunken driving.
(SFC, 1/10/15, p.A4)
2014 Dec 27, Bahrain's main opposition movement Al-Wefaq handed its leader, Sheikh Ali Salman (49), a new four-year stint at the helm of the Shiite group. Wefaq activities have been banned in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
(AFP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Belarus' authoritarian president replaced his prime minister, the head of the national bank and an array of other top officials as the country weathers economic troubles.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In southeastern Brazil at least 8 people were killed after a passenger bus plunged into a ravine while trying to avoid an oncoming truck in Espirito Santo state.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Brazil a helicopter crashed in marshland near the coastal city of Bertioga, Sao Paulo state, killing 5 people.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Snow and icy weather swept through parts of Europe, stranding drivers overnight and leaving thousands of homes without power in Britain.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, China's capital received its first flows from the South-North Water Diversion Project, one of the most ambitious engineering projects in Chinese history.
(AFP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Egypt gunmen on a motorbike killed a policeman and wounded another in a drive-by shooting in Cairo.
(AFP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, An Egyptian appeals court reduced the sentences of eight men convicted on charges of "inciting debauchery" for taking part in an alleged same-sex wedding party from three years to one year in prison.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In India a fire broke out in a timber shop on the outskirts of Mumbai early today, burning eight people to death.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Iran's army said it has deployed a suicide drone for the first time in massive ongoing military drills near the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Japan's Cabinet approved 3.5 trillion yen ($29 billion) in fresh stimulus for the ailing economy.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Libya said it has called on Italy to send firefighters to prevent a fire spreading out of control at Es Sider, the country's biggest oil port. The fire had spread to a total of five oil tanks. The fire was reported extinguished on Jan 2.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)(Reuters, 1/2/15)
2014 Dec 27, North Korea's Internet and 3G mobile networks were paralyzed again this evening. North Korea called US President Barack Obama a "monkey" and blamed Washington for Internet outages that it has experienced during a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of the film studio Sony Pictures.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Russia said it has agreed on a new deal to supply coal and electricity to Ukraine, which is struggling with a lack of raw fuel for power plants due to a separatist conflict in the industrial east.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, A Somali government source said Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi, a leader of Somali Islamist group al Shabaab with a $3 million US bounty on his head, has surrendered.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Sweden's mainstream parties reached a deal that will allow the minority center-left government to remain in office and sideline the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who hold the balance of power in parliament.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Turkey 3 people, including a teenager (15), died and three others were wounded in clashes between Islamists and Kurdish youths in the southeastern town of Cizre.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)(Reuters, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 27, Vietnamese police detained Nguyen Dinh Ngoc (48), the third blogger in a month in the latest crackdown on dissent in the communist country.
(AP, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Yemen 12 people were killed in clashes between tribesmen and Shiite rebels north of the capital Sanaa.
(AP, 12/28/14)
2015 Dec 27, The United States and its allies conducted 37 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Ellsworth Kelley (b.1923), American abstract painter, sculptor and printmaker, died in Spencertown, NY.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Kelly)
2015 Dec 27, Meadowlark Lemon (83), “clown prince" of the Harlem Globetrotters, died in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(SFC, 12/25/15, p.C2)
2015 Dec 27, An Afghan official said the local Islamic State affiliate and a rival militia controlled by a prominent lawmaker have killed 8 fighters from both sides, captured a day earlier, in a brutal killing spree in the eastern border province of Nangarhar.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In western Australia a train was carrying around 200,000 liters (53,000 gallons) of the sulfuric acid when it derailed near the small town of Julia Creek in Queensland state.
(AP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Burkina Faso said authorities have arrested around 20 soldiers for plotting to free from prison a prominent general who has been charged with staging a coup.
(Reuters, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Rival Burundi factions traveled to Uganda ahead of talks aimed at ending months of violence, as the African Union pushed the government to accept a peacekeeping force.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China officially ended its one child policy with the signing into law of a bill allowing all married couples to have a second child as it attempts to cope with an ageing population and shrinking workforce.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China's rubber-stamp national legislature approved the country's first anti-terrorism law, amid concerns that its requirements that tech companies share information with the government could hurt business interests and further infringe upon human rights.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China’s ruling Communist Party announced that Chang Xiaobing, chair of China Telecom, has been placed under investigation on suspicion of corruption.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China's legislature approved the country’s first national anti-domestic violence law. It will take effect in March.
(AP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, In China Xu Yuan'an, head of the City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau for Shenzhen's Guangming New District, where a Dec 20 huge landslide left scores of people missing, killed himself.
(AFP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, An Egyptian military spokesman says that security forces chased two militants as they fled on a motorcycle, killing one and injuring another in the provincial capital of el-Arish. In another incident military forces pursued a third militant near Mount Halal, leading to his death amid a gunfight.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Egypt an explosion in Cairo's twin city of Giza killed 3 people, including a senior judge, and injured 11 believed to be the result of a gas leak.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, France banned demonstrations in part of the Corsican capital Ajaccio following two days of anti-Arab protests and sectarian tensions.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Indonesia a group of about 15 gunmen attacked a police station in Sinak town, Papua province, killing 3 officers and wounding two others.
(AP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Iran postponed two premier league football matches, as air pollution more than twice the acceptable level persisted in Tehran.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, Iraqi forces took control of the government complex in central Ramadi, the last Islamic State stronghold in the western city.
(Reuters, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, Israeli ministers endorsed contentious draft legislation to toughen rules on rights groups receiving funds from abroad. Left-wing NGOs called the move a witch-hunt.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians who stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In northeastern Kenya gunmen killed 2 policemen and wounded two others in Mandera County.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In northeastern Nigeria an attack blamed on Boko Haram killed 21 people in Maiduguri, Borno state.
(AFP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Turkey 3 soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the town of Cizre in the Kurdish majority southeast.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Turkey Naji Jerf, a Syrian journalist and filmmaker who documented atrocities by the Islamic State, was killed in Gaziantep. On Jan 10 state media reported the arrest of three people in relation to the killing.
(SFC, 12/25/15, p.A2)(AFP, 1/10/16)
2015 Dec 27, Ukraine said at least 3 people were killed over the last 24 hours as government forces and pro-Russian separatists clashed in the first violation of a holiday truce.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2016 Dec 27, US President-elect Donald Trump announced that Thomas Bossert, former deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, would be his White House adviser on security and counterterrorism issues.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In Hawaii Japanese PM Shinzo Abe met with President Obama to pay their respects at the site of the surprise Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor over 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War II.
(CSM, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 27, US electric car maker Tesla and Japanese electronics company Panasonic said they plan to begin production of solar cells at a factory in Buffalo, NY.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Carrie Fisher (b.1956), the 1977 "Star Wars" character Princess Leia, died in Los Angeles following a massive heart attack. An autopsy later revealed that Fisher had cocaine and other drugs in her system.
(AP, 12/28/16)(SFC, 6/20/17, p.A5)
2016 Dec 27, In Argentina former Pres. Cristina Fernandez was indicted in a corruption case involving public works. Two aides and businessman Lazaro Baez were also named.
(SFC, 12/28/16, p.A4)
2016 Dec 27, The British government announced plans to crack down on voter fraud by requiring voters to show official identification at polling stations, tightening rules on absentee ballots and preventing political activists from handling absentee ballots.
(SFC, 12/28/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 27, Research led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said the Cheetah, the world's fastest land animal, is in danger of extinction because it is running out of space. The study said there are now just 7,100 cheetahs in the world.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Brazil's Foreign Ministry said it's trying to find Brazilian migrants who disappeared during an attempt to reach the United States by way of the Bahamas. Families of the missing migrants lost contact with them on Nov 6, and reported the issue to authorities on Nov 15.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, A court in Cambodia sentenced the exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to five years in prison after finding him guilty of conspiring to incite chaos by posting misleading documents on his Facebook page.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In southwestern Congo floods triggered by two days of heavy rains and a river bursting its banks killed at least 50 people and left thousands more homeless.
(AP, 12/29/16)
2016 Dec 27, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi approved a law, passed a day earlier, to set up a council headed by his appointees that oversees the media and ensures compliance with "national security" requirements.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In Estonia US Sen. John McCain pledged US support to the security of Russia's three Baltic neighbors amid worries that the US may not be fully committed to the defense of NATO allies following statements by President-elect Donald Trump.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Iran’s media said Mehdi Karroubi (79), a leading member of the opposition National Trust, announced he is quitting his party. He has been under house arrest for almost six years.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Iraqi journalist Afrah Sawqi al-Qaisi was kidnapped after gunmen broke into her Baghdad home. The veteran journalist and employee of the Iraqi Culture Ministry is a leading critic of the country's endemic corruption. Al-Qaisi was released on Jan 3.
(AP, 12/27/16)(AP, 1/4/17)
2016 Dec 27, In Iraq an air strike disabled the last bridge linking eastern and western Mosul, a city Iraqi forces are fighting to retake from jihadists.
(AFP, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 27, Israel's foreign ministry said the country was "reducing" ties with nations that voted for last week's UN Security Council resolution demanding a halt to settlement building in Palestinian territory.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Mozambique's opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama said Renamo will cease all military operations against government forces for the next seven days to allow the public to enjoy New Year festivities.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Nigerian minister Mohamed Bazoum said 31 young people from Diffa, who were enrolled a few years ago in Boko Haram, have decided to surrender.
(Reuters, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 27, Pakistan reported that at least 31 people have died from drinking tainted liquor over the Christmas holiday. A total of 19 people died today, and 12 a day earlier in eastern Punjab province.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Philippine authorities said they have seized about 6 billion pesos ($120 million) worth of methamphetamines in a series of anti-narcotics operations this month that have yielded the biggest haul in the country's history. The anti-narcotics operations have led to the arrest of 10 suspects, including three Chinese nationals.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Romania's president sparked fresh political turmoil after blocking a proposal by the leftist Social Democrats (PSD) party that won elections this month to appoint Sevil Shhaideh (52), as the EU country's first female and first Muslim prime minister.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Representatives of Russia, China and Pakistan met in Moscow and warned that the influence of Islamic State (IS) was growing in Afghanistan and that the security situation there was deteriorating.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Russian rescuers the clock found the main black box from the Syria-bound military plane that crashed Dec 25 into the Black Sea with 92 people on board.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Russia activated a pipeline carrying Russian gas to Crimea with President Vladimir Putin hailing it as a step that would power economic growth on a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Russia said that a US decision to ease restrictions on arming Syrian rebels had opened the way for deliveries of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, a move it said would directly threaten Russian forces in Syria.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Somalia swore in new lawmakers after weeks of voting in a complex political process seen as its most democratic election in nearly five decades, despite significant flaws.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, South Korea said 26 million head of poultry will be culled over the next 24 hours after the H5N6 strain of avian influenza was found in farms and parks.
(SFC, 12/28/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 27, In Syria a US-backed alliance of militias said it has made unexpectedly rapid gains against Islamic State near its Syrian headquarters in Raqqa, advancing to within a few kilometers of a major dam.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Thai police put more pressure on the wealthy, politically influential Buddhist Dhammakaya temple where the leader is wanted for alleged money laundering and related crimes involving millions of dollars of embezzled funds.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Ukrainian female combat pilot Nadya Savchenko, who served time in a Russian prison, launched her own opposition movement: RUNA, an acronym for the Movement of Ukraine's Active People. She said the movement would be transformed into a political party when the time was right. Ukraine's pro-Moscow insurgents released two women they had held captive thanks to the intervention of Nadya Savchenko.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In southern Yemen at least 28 Huthi insurgents and 12 Yemeni soldiers were killed in Shabwa province as government forces pushed to capture a rebel enclave.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2017 Dec 27, The United States-led international coalition fighting ISIS, the hardline Sunni militant group, said fewer than 1,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, a third of the estimated figure only three weeks ago.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, American neuroscientist Ben Barres (63), a brain cell pioneer and advocate for equal opportunity, died at his home in Palo Alto. Bares had transitioned from female to male in 1997.
(SFC, 1/1/18, p.C2)
2017 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban car bomb carried out by a suicide bomber went off near a military base in the southern city of Lashkar Gah, wounding 15 people.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Argentina an explosion at a grains terminal owned by China's COFCO International killed one employee, injured others and affected shipping activities from one of the world's top food suppliers.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Bosnia's war crimes court convicted Azra Basic, a former fighter of crimes committed against Bosnian Serb civilians during the country's 1992-95 war. It comes a year after she was extradited from the US, where she had become a naturalized citizen. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stabbing a man in the neck.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen vowed to extend his more than 30 years in power by at least another decade, weeks after the highest court dissolved the main opposition party ahead of a 2018 general election.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Cameroon arrested 38 heavily-armed men on the border with Equatorial Guinea. On Jan. 3 Equatorial Guinea said it had thwarted "a coup" in late December mounted by mercenaries who sought to attack President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2017 Dec 27, Cameroon released New York Stony Brook University literature Professor Patrice Nganang (37). He had been held in the Central African nation since early this month for writing an article that criticized the government.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China's parliament said part of a high-speed railway station being built in Hong Kong would be regarded as mainland territory governed by mainland laws, an unprecedented move that critics say further erodes the city's autonomy.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China’s Xinhua news agency said the government will bring its paramilitary police force, the People's Armed Police, under the control of the Central Military Commission which controls the country's armed forces from January 1.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China’s State Council said it will allow local government to keep all the environment tax revenues raised from polluting firms, in an attempt to encourage local authorities to enforce environmental protection measures.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China’s Geely Holding Group, the owner of Sweden's Volvo Cars, said it is buying an 8.2% stake in truck manufacturer AB Volvo from Cevian Capital, a fund manager. Geely will get 15.6 percent of voting rights.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Officials said the Congolese army has stepped up arrests of South Sudanese refugees and tightened the border in a bid to block rebels from seeking sanctuary in its country.
(AFP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Germany an Afghan asylum-seeker (15) fatally stabbed his ex-girlfriend, a German of the same age, in a drugstore in Kandel. The suspect was taken into custody on suspicion of manslaughter.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 27, Tehran's police chief said Iranian police are taking a softer approach to breaches of Islamic rules, opting for education over punishment. Police will no longer arrest women for failing to observe the Islamic dress code imposed since 1979. Violators will be made to attend classes.
(AFP, 12/27/17)(SFC, 12/29/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 27, A Dutch court said that the government could not be accused of doing too little to improve the quality of the air, although emissions in various parts of the country are in breach of European rules.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Russia opposition leader Alexei Navalny announced a series of rallies across the country in January to press home his call for a boycott of next year's presidential election, a move likely to draw a sharp response from the Kremlin and police.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Russia said it will supply Turkey with four batteries of S-400 surface-to-air missiles for $2.5 billion under a deal that is almost complete. The deal has caused concern in the West because Turkey is a member of NATO, but the Russian missile system cannot be integrated into NATO's military architecture.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Russia an explosion injured 18 people in a branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain. Investigators opened a criminal case into the blast, which they say was caused by a homemade bomb packed with pieces of metal.
(Reuters, 12/28/17)(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.A4)
2017 Dec 27, In Russia Ilya Averyanov, a factory's former director, opened fire in the Moscow pastry factory, wounding a guard. He reportedly shot in self defence to stop people taking the factory from him. Averyanov fled the scene but was arrested the next day.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)(Reuters, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 27, Russia’s RIA news agency reported that Moscow will limit the scope of US military observation flights over Russia from Jan. 1 next year in retaliation for US curbs on similar Russian flights over the United States.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Syria a dozen more patients and their families were evacuated from eastern Ghouta, a besieged rebel-held suburb of Damascus.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 27, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad a terrorist and said it was impossible for Syrian peace efforts to continue with him.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Turkish prosecutors said they will review legal cases against 11,480 people after finding they had been re-directed unwittingly to the ByLock messaging app linked to suspects in last year's failed coup.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said police had arrest warrants for a total of 171 academics and staff from Istanbul's former Fatih University, which was regarded as having close ties to US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Uganda’s military said its forces have killed more than 100 rebels in eastern Congo accused of carrying out the Dec. 7 attack on a UN base.
(SFC, 12/28/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 27, Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels swapped hundreds of prisoners in the war-torn east of Ukraine, one of the largest such exchanges since the outbreak of an insurgency almost four years ago. The Ukrainian army reported the death of one soldier in the renewed fighting, the first casualty after the latest Christmas ceasefire came in force on December 23.
(AFP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Uzbekistan's state news agency UzA reported that the Finance Ministry has sacked 562 employees after President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered it to root out inefficiency and get rid of what he had called "rats" tarnishing its reputation.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, A Vietnamese court sentenced 15 people to multiple years in jail for plotting to bomb the country's biggest airport in the southern city of Ho Chi Minh.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Zimbabwe state media reported that new President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed Constantino Chiwenga. the country's former military commander, as one of his two vice presidents.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2018 Dec 27, In Brazil Gen. Walter Souza Braga Netto, the man in charge of military intervention into Rio de Janeiro's public security, called the operation an unmitigated success with all its objectives reached. The operation officially ends Dec. 31.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, China's former deputy intelligence chief was sentenced to life in prison for corruption. Ma Jian was found guilty of crimes including accepting bribes and insider trading. He was also ordered to pay more than 50 million yuan ($7.26 million) in penalties.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Security forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo fired live rounds and tear gas to scatter demonstrators who burned tires and attacked Ebola centers in protest at their exclusion from the presidential election. 24 patients fled an Ebola treatment center in Beni when it came under attack by people protesting the cancellation of Sunday's presidential election in the eastern city.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Egyptian authorities released Amal Fathy, a prominent activist who had criticized the government and decried sexual harassment, after more than seven months of detention.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Egypt a German man (23) was detained at Cairo airport. On Jan. 7 German news agency dpa reported that he still had not been heard from.
(AP, 1/7/19)
2018 Dec 27, French conglomerate Vinci said it had bought control of Gatwick airport, Britain's second-busiest, for nearly three billion pounds only months before Brexit.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, German authorities said customs officials in the Hamburg area destroyed nine tons of drugs last week with an estimated total street value of about 520 million euros ($592 million).
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In southern Iceland an SUV carrying seven members of a British family plunged off a high bridge, killing three people and critically injuring four others.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, India's lower house of Parliament approved a bill to implement the Supreme Court's ruling that found the Muslim practice of instant divorce was unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Iraqi lawmakers demanded US forces leave the country in the wake of a surprise visit by President Donald Trump that politicians denounced as arrogant and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Former Israeli armed forces chief Benny Gantz, who opinion polls show poses the toughest challenge to PM Benjamin Netanyahu's bid for reelection next year, formally established the Israel Resilience Party.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In southern Libya a Chadian armed group attacked a military camp of forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, killing one and injuring 13 others near Traghen, about 400 km north of the border with Chad.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, The Madagascar electoral commission said former president Andry Rajoelina (44) has beaten his rival and predecessor Marc Ravalomanana in the Dec. 19 election beset by allegations of fraud from both sides. Results showed that Rajoelina had won 55.66 percent of the vote against 44.34 percent for Ravalomanana.
(AFP, 12/27/18)(AFP, 12/29/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Mongolia some 25 thousand people took to the streets to protest against corruption in the top echelons of politics, braving temperatures that dropped below minus 20 degrees Celsius in the capital, Ulaanbaatar.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In southwestern Niger a French air raid mounted by French and Nigerian fighters and Tiger attack helicopters struck" jihadists gathered near Tongo Tongo. Some 15 suspected jihadists were reported killed.
(AFP, 12/30/18)
2018 Dec 27, Pakistan announced a travel ban on former President Asif Ali Zardari and 171 other individuals while authorities complete an investigation into alleged money laundering.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Saudi Arabia's King Salman ordered a sweeping government reshuffle, replacing key security and political figures including the foreign minister, as the kingdom grapples with the international fallout over critic Jamal Khashoggi's murder.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, A network of Sudanese journalists went on strike in the wake of deadly protests sparked by a hike in bread prices, while opposition groups called for further rallies.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11,500 people have fled the Islamic State group's last stronghold in eastern Syria since Kurdish-led forces broke IS defenses and took the jihadists' main hub of Hajin two weeks ago.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Thousands of Taiwanese, taking a page from France's yellow vest movement, protested for the third time in a week to demand lower taxes and the fair handling of tax disputes.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, It was reported that Thailand investigators have found Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, the deputy prime minister, innocent of failing to declare assets a year after he was discovered to have several luxury watches that would have been out of reach of his government salary.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Tunisia protesters clashed with police for a third consecutive night in six different towns including Kasserine, where journalist Abderrazak Zorgui set himself ablaze earlier this week.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Turkey detained Adnan Sutcu (56) of Germany shortly after his arrival in Ankara to attend his mother's funeral. He was barred from leaving Turkey after the authorities accused him of supporting a terrorist organization on social media.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 27, The United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus, the latest sign of efforts to bring the Syrian government back into the Arab fold.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Venezuela a magnitude 5.5 earthquake jolted people from their sleep early today, forcing residents in the capital to evacuate buildings in their pajamas before sunrise. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2019 Dec 27, A US federal judge denied an attempt to restore about 98,000 voters in Georgia to the state's electoral rolls after they were removed earlier this month upon being classified as "inactive".
(Reuters, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, A US federal appeals court said that a 17-year sentence for a New York City man who sought to aid the Islamic State group by trying to kill an FBI agent is “shockingly low," as it ordered a judge to re-sentence him. Fareed Mumuni (25), a US-born citizen, was sentenced in April 2018 after pleading guilty to charges that he planned to aid the extremist organization and tried to kill the agent who was searching his Staten Island home.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In southern California a fire in an apartment in Riverside County killed Juan Moreno and two daughters. Moreno had gotten his wife and two children out of the apartment and then returned to save his other children. An injured son (8) died the next day.
(SFC, 12/31/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 27, In the SF Bay Area Phillip Carl Jablonski (73), a serial killer whose five victims included two wives, was found unresponsive in his San Quentin State Prison cell and pronounced dead within minutes. A San Mateo County jury sentenced him to death in 1994 for the first-degree murders of his wife, Carol Spadoni (46) and her mother, Eva Petersen (72).
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 27, It was reported that Pennsylvania's Roman Catholic dioceses have paid nearly $84 million to 564 victims of sexual abuse. The tally was expected to grow as backlog claims are processed.
(SFC, 12/27/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 27, US disc jockey Don Imus (b.1940) died in Texas. His radio stardom crashed in April 2007 after describing the mostly black Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos." He was yanked 8 days later by CBS Radio, but reportedly collected a multimillion dollar settlement of his five-year contract with the company.
(SFC, 12/28/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban attack on an army checkpoint in southern Helmand province killed at least 10 soldiers.
(SSFC, 12/29/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 27, In Australia the temperature in Adelaide hit 108º F prompting the South Australian government to declare a code red alert.
(SFC, 12/28/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 27, A court in Bosnia sentenced Bosnian man Ibro Cufurovic (24) to four years in prison for fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria. Some 260 Bosnian citizens remain in the camps in Syria, including approximately 100 men and 160 women and children.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In Chile clashes between protesters and police left one man dead, raising the death toll during protests that started in October to 27. The man was electrocuted after falling into a pit in Plaza Italia, Santiago.
(SFC, 12/30/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 27, China, Iran and Russia started four days of joint naval drills in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman.
(The Telegraph, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, It was reported that Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the world’s longest-serving ruler, should declare his assets before the nation receives more financial support, according to the International Monetary Fund. Under a program agreed to last week, the state will be required to increase transparency, improve governance and implement reforms to fight corruption.
(Bloomberg, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In India a group of protesters in New Delhi was beaten and shoved into buses by police as they attempted to demonstrate against a new citizenship law that has triggered nationwide protests in recent weeks.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, A rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk killed an American contractor and wounded several US and Iraqi military personnel.
(Bloomberg, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, Japan approved a contentious plan to send its naval troops to the Middle East to ensure the safety of Japanese ships transporting oil to the energy-poor country that heavily depends on imports from the region.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In Kazakhstan a jetliner with 98 people aboard struggled to get airborne and crashed shortly after departing from Almaty, killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Montenegro’s Parliament adopted a contested law on religious rights after chaotic scenes that saw the detention of all pro-Serb opposition lawmakers. The government pushed through parliament a bill that requires religious groups to prove ownership over land and places of worship they had before 1918, or see the property become state-owned.
(AP, 12/27/19)(Bloomberg, 3/7/20)
2019 Dec 27, Nigeria's government condemned extremists linked to the Islamic State group after a video circulated of 11 hostages, most of them Christians, being executed. They were thought to be killed on Christmas Day.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Russia's defense minister reported that a new intercontinental weapon that can fly 27 times the speed of sound became operational, bolstering the country's nuclear strike capability. Pres. Putin has described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview broadcast on Russian state television that Russia and Ukraine are withdrawing all of their lawsuits against each other after they agreed on a gas transit deal last week.
(The Telegraph, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, A Syrian opposition leader called on the international community to help millions of civilians in the country's last rebel-held stronghold amid a crushing government offensive, calling it a "disaster area".
(AP, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, A Turkish court convicted six journalists and one other employee of an independent newspaper of aiding the network of a US-based cleric who is accused of masterminding the failed coup in 2016. The seven were accused of supporting the coup through their work for the newspaper Sozcu, which has been extremely critical of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Turkey unveiled its first fully domestically-produced car, saying it aimed to eventually produce up to 175,000 a year of the electric vehicle in a project expected to cost 22 billion lira ($3.7 billion) over 13 years. The vehicle sported the TOGG label of the consortium that is building them.
(Reuters, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, The UN General Assembly approved a Russian-led resolution that will start the process of drafting a new international treaty to combat cybercrime over objections from the European Union, the United States and other countries.
(AP, 12/27/19)(AFP, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, The UN General Assembly approved a resolution strongly condemning human rights abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and deaths in detention.
(AP, 12/28/19)
2020 Dec 27, Pres. Donald Trump urged senior Justice Dept. officials to declare the 2020 election results "corrupt." Notes of the call were released on July 30, 2021.
(SFC, 7/31/21, p.A6)
2020 Dec 27, Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet lapsed overnight as President Donald Trump refused to signed an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sudden objections. Trump continued to demand larger COVID relief checks and complained about “pork" spending. Late today Trump signed the coronavirus stimulus package and a massive spending measure needed to prevent a government shutdown just ahead of a Dec. 28 deadline.
(AP, 12/27/20)(Reuters, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, The FBI identified the Nashville bombing suspect as Anthony Q. Warner (63) and said he died in the blast, which damaged more than 40 businesses in the downtown area.
(AP, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, Warner Bros. announced that Wonder Woman 1984 brought in $16.7 million at the box office in the US and Canada over weekend.
(The Week, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, California to date had 2,048,213 cases of coronavirus and 24,224 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 246,923 cases and 2,432 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 19,132,446 with the death toll at 333,118.
(sfist.com, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, New Mexico began providing COVID-19 vaccinations to 15,000 people who work or live at long-term care facilities.
(SFC, 12/28/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 27, Azerbaijan army units were reportedly attacked by “an illegal Armenian armed group" in Nagorno-Karabakh, killing one Azerbaijani serviceman and wounding another.
(AP, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, Hurricane-force winds reaching up to 106 mph (170 kph) and heavy rainstorms battered parts of Britain, disrupting train services and stranding drivers in floodwaters.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, The head of drugmaker AstraZeneca, which is developing a coronavirus vaccine widely expected to be approved by UK authorities this week, said that researchers believe the shot will be effective against a new variant of the virus driving a rapid surge in infections in Britain.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, In Cameroon more than 37 people were killed and 18 others seriously injured after a bus crash early today in the western village of Nemale.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Central African Republic held presidential and legislative elections amid fears of violence after a campaign period marked by fighting between rebels and government forces.. President Faustin-Archange Touadera is seeking a second term in office and has accused his predecessor, François Bozizé, of fomenting a coup with rebel groups.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Beijing tightened COVID-19 curbs over concerns that China's mass travel during the holiday period could cause cases to spike in the capital, as it reported locally transmitted cases for a fourth straight day.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that China has lowered the age of criminal responsibility for murder and some other serious crimes from 14 to 12 after some high-profile killings by children.
(The Telegraph, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that drugmakers have agreed to cut prices by around 50% on average for more than 100 medicines in order to have them included in China's state medical insurance scheme from March, potentially heralding a massive leap in sales.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Cyprus started vaccinating its population against COVID-19 as part of a concerted drive across the EU. Cyprus has reported 19,391 cases and 111 deaths.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Czech PM Andrej Babis became the first person in the country to be given a vaccine against the new coronavirus.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Europe rolled out a huge COVID-19 vaccination drive to try to rein in the coronavirus pandemic but many Europeans are skeptical about the speed at which the vaccines have been tested and approved and reluctant to have the shot.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that BMW wants roughly every fifth car it sells to be powered by an electric engine by 2023. Chief Executive Oliver Zipse said 15,000 private and about 1,300 public charging points would have to be put into operation every week as of today.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Iran informed Iraq’s electricity ministry that it plans to cut gas shipments further to three million cubic meters. Iran reduced gas exports to Iraq to five million cubic meters from 50 million cubic meters two weeks ago citing unpaid bills.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Israel became the first country to enter a third coronavirus lockdown as officials ramped up vaccinations to a pace PM Benjamin Netanyahu said may allow an emergence from the pandemic by March.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)(Econ., 1/2/21, p.34)
2020 Dec 27, Italy vaccinated the first residents against COVID-19 as it reported 298 coronavirus-related deaths up from 261 the day before. The daily tally of new infections was 8,913 down from 10,407 the day before, taking the total number of cases since Italy's epidemic began to 2,047,696.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, said his group now has twice as many precision-guided missiles as it had a year ago, saying Israel's efforts to prevent it from acquiring them have failed.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Niger held presidential and legislative elections that could see the West African country's first democratic transition of power since independence amid a growing threat from jihadists in the region. President Mahamadou Issoufou, who has served two terms, is stepping down, paving the way for the first peaceful transfer of power between two elected presidents since Niger became independent from France in 1960. None of the 28 candidates won a majority. Former foreign affairs minister Mohamed Bazoum of the ruling party will face off against former president Mahamane Ousmane on Feb. 21.
(AP, 12/27/20)(SSFC, 1/3/21, p.A4)
2020 Dec 27, Norway's Institute of Public Health said that the new variant of the coronavirus circulating in Britain has been detected in two people who came to Norway from the UK.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that nearly 1,000 girls from religious minorities are forced to convert to Islam in Pakistan each year, largely to pave the way for marriages that are under the legal age and non-consensual.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, The regional civil protection authority of Portugal's Madeira Island said the new variant was "detected in travelers who arrived in Madeira from the United Kingdom" but it did not specify how many people were infected or when the cases were found. Portugal has reported 6,619 deaths and a total of 394,573 infections.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, South Africa confirmed 1,004,413 Covid-19 infections and 26,735 deaths since the outbreak began in March.
(BBC, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, South Korea said it will extend social distancing measures introduced to try to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic for another six days, to Jan. 3, even as it continues to report near-record numbers of new cases each day.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, In Sudan Abdel-Rahman Nour-el-Daem al-Tom, the governor Blue Nile province, was killed in a car crash in the country's southeast that also injured four others.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Thailand confirmed 121 new infections of the novel coronavirus, up from the 103 cases reported earlier in the day. the new cases included 94 domestic transmissions and 18 in migrant workers connected to an outbreak at a seafood market in Samut Sakhon, a province southwest of Bangkok. Infections connected to this cluster have spread to 38 provinces. Thailand has reported a total of 6,141 cases and 60 deaths.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Turkey’s parliament approved a law that would increase government monitoring of civil society groups, which rights groups have warned would violate the freedom of association.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, In Uganda a bodyguard for Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine was killed and two journalists injured amid violent confrontations between security forces and followers of the singer and lawmaker who is challenging the country’s long-time leader.
(AP, 12/27/20)
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
418 Dec 27, Zosimus, Greek Pope (417-8), died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
537 Dec 27, The Haghia Sophia Byzantine cathedral in Constantinople was consecrated. St. Sophia (meaning "the holy wisdom" in Greek) was built by Emperor Justinian. It remained a symbol of Byzantine grandeur until Istanbul was conquered by Muslim armies.
(Sky, 4/97, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
1512 Dec 27, The laws of Burgos gave New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorized Negro slavery.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1571 Dec 27, Johannes Kepler (d.1630), German astronomer known as the “father of modern astronomy," was born. Working with the data gathered by Tycho Brahe, he established the three laws of planetary motion:
a) The planets do not travel in concentric circles, but in ellipses, with the sun at one of the two foci of the ellipse.
b) A radius vector joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
c) The third law asserted a mathematical relation between the periods of revolution of the planets and their distance from the sun.
(V.D.-H.K.p.199)(HN, 12/27/98)
1603 Dec 27, Thomas Cartwright (~68), English Presbyterian publicist, died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1773 Dec 27, George Cayley, founder of the science of aerodynamics, was born in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1794 Dec 27, The Portuguese slave ship Sao Jose--Paquete de Africa sank off the coast of South Africa’s Cape Town. Some 400-500 African slaves from Mozambique were on board the vessel bound for Brazil. About half of them perished. Wreckage of the ship was found in 2015.
(http://tinyurl.com/q9xyg73)(AP, 6/2/15)
1822 Dec 27, Louis Pasteur (d.1895), French chemist and microbiologist, was born in Dole, France. One of his several monumental contributions to science and industry was pasteurization, the process of heating wine, beer and milk to kill microorganisms that cause fermentation and disease. Pasteur also developed important vaccines and his work on molecular asymmetry led to the science of stereochemistry. He was the first to vaccinate animals for anthrax and chicken cholera, and in 1885 he proved that his rabies vaccine could be used successfully on humans when he saved the life of a 9-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The Pasteur Institute was formed in Paris in 1888 for research on rabies. Pasteur ran the institute until his death in 1895.
(WUD, 1994, p.1055)(AP, 12/27/97) (HNPD, 12/27/98)
1825 Dec 27, The 1st public railroad using steam locomotive was completed in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1829 Dec 27, Hinton Helper, southern abolitionist, was born. He wrote "The Impending Crisis," the most stinging indictment of slavery.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1831 Dec 27, HMS Beagle departed from Plymouth. Naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin's discoveries during the voyage helped formed the basis of his theories on evolution.
(HN, 12/27/98)(AP, 12/27/97)
1834 Dec 27, Charles Lamb (b.1775), English critic, poet, essayist, died. "No one ever regarded the first of January with indifference. It is the nativity of our common Adam."
(AP, 12/31/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lamb)
1836 Dec 27, Stephen Fuller Austin (43), founder of state of Texas, died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1845 Dec 27, Ether was 1st used in childbirth in US at Jefferson, Ga.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1855 Dec 27, Paul Ehrenreich, German ethnologist and mythologist, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1862 Dec 27, Rosecrans’ army moved slowly toward General Bragg at Murfreesboro.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1862 Dec 27, Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, Miss. (Chickasaw Bayou), began.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1862 Dec 27, Battle of Elizabethtown, KY.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1871 Dec 27, World's 1st cat show took place at the Crystal Palace, London.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1887 Dec 27, Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of Blue Carbuncle."
(MC, 12/27/01)
1888 Dec 27, Tito Schipa (d.1965), tenor (La Rondine), was born in Italy. His birthday was recorded as January 2, 1889 for military conscription purposes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito_Schipa)
1900 Dec 27, Militant prohibitionist Carry Nation carried out her first public smashing of a bar, at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan. She published the Smasher in Topeka. Advertisers boycotted and the paper failed.
(AP, 12/27/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1901 Dec 27, Marlene Dietrich (d.1992), German-born singer and actress best known for her roles in "Shanghai Express" and "Witness for the Prosecution," was born. “I’m a realist and so I think regretting is a useless occupation. You help no one with it. But you can’t live without illusions even if you must fight for them, such as ‘love conquers all.’ It isn’t true, but I would like it to be."
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.D-2)(HN, 12/27/98)(AP, 11/23/00)
1904 Dec 27, Duke of York Theatre opened in London with the 1st performance “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up," a dream-play written by J.M. Barrie.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.D1)(www.amrep.org/past/peter/peter1.html)
1906 Dec 27, Oscar Levant, American composer and actor, was born in Pittsburgh.
(AP, 12/27/06)
1913 Dec 27, In San Francisco over 25,000 people gathered at Lotta’s Fountain to celebrate the postponed Christmas Eve festival.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, DB p.42)
1913 Dec 27, Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, was shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1915 Dec 27, William Howell Masters, sex author and physician, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1915 Dec 27, In Ohio, iron and steel workers went on strike for an eight hour day and higher wages.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1923 Dec 27, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (b.1832), engineer (Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty), died in Paris.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Eiffel)
1925 Dec 27, In Los Angeles Hilario Camino Moncado founded the Filipino Federation of America (FFA), one of the country’s first and largest Filipino organizations.
(http://tinyurl.com/oz42xnz)
1927 Dec 27, The musical play "Show Boat," with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein the Second, opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1927 Dec 27, Stalin's faction won All-Union Congress in USSR. Trotsky was expelled.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1932 Dec 27, Radio City Music Hall was opened in New York City. The new acoustics proved unpopular. In 2002 Emily Thompson authored “The Soundscape of Modernity," a look at the early era of modern acoustics.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 12/27/97)(WSJ, 4/24/02, p.D9)
1933 Dec 27, Josef Stalin called tensions with Japan a grave danger.
(HN, 12/27/01)
1934 Dec 27, The 1st youth US hostel opened at Northfield, Mass.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1936 Dec 27, Lee Salk, doctor (CBS TV), was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1937 Dec 27, Mae West performed an Adam and Eve skit that got her banned from NBC radio.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1938 Dec 27, Osip Mandelstam (b.1891), Russian poet born in Poland to Jewish parents, died while in transit to a labor camp. In 1998 Emma Gerstein authored “Moscow Memoirs: Memories of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Literary Russia Under Stalin." An English translation by John Crowfoot became available in 2004.
(SSFC, 9/11/04, p.M3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
1939 Dec 26-27, In Turkey a series of vicious earthquakes in Erzincan province, magnitude 7.9, took some 33,000 lives in Turkey.
(HN, 12/27/98)(MC, 12/27/01)(SFEC, 8/22/99, p.A17)(AP, 6/22/02)
1941 Dec 27, Japanese bombers attacked Manila, despite its claim as an open city.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1942 Dec 27, The 1st Japanese women camp at Ambarawa went into use.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1943 Dec 27, Cokie Roberts, American political broadcaster for NPR and ABC, was born.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1943 Dec 27, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Army to take temporary possession of all railroads in order to prevent a strike by railway workers. The action was taken under the wartime Labor Disputes Act. The railroads were returned to private management on January 18, 1944.
(HNQ, 7/16/98)
1944 Dec 27, General Patton’s Third Army, spearheaded by the 4th Armored Division, relieved the surrounded city of Bastogne in Belgium.
(HN, 12/27/00)
1944 Dec 27, Sister Sara Salkahazi was killed by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian allies of the Nazis, for hiding Jews in a Budapest building used by her religious order, the Sisters of Social Service. In 2006 she was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 9/18/06)
1945 Dec 27, Arthur Laurent's "Home of the Brave," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1945 Dec 27, Foreign ministers from the former Allied nations of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones and to govern the nation for five years.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1945 Dec 27, The International Monetary Fund and the Int’l. Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) were created. 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank. The IMF was created to promote healthy international trade and began transactions in 1947. The World Bank was designed by Englishman John Maynard Keynes and American Harry Dexter White. The IMF and WB were originally intended to part of the UN, but this link was abandoned under American pressure. WB chronology @ (http://tinyurl.com/2f6tgw).
(AP, 12/27/97)(HN, 12/27/98)(HNQ, 12/27/00)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.63)(Econ, 6/22/13, p.18)
1945 Dec 27, The Dutch formally relinquished sovereignty to Indonesia.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.B4)
1947 Dec 27, Buffalo Bob Smith (1917-1998) and puppet Howdy Doody starred on the first nationally broadcast children’s TV show. It ran to Sep. 30, 1960. The children’s television program “Howdy Doody," hosted by Bob Smith, made its debut on NBC. The show was produced by Martin Stone. The characters Clarabell the Clown (Bob Keeshan later Captain Kangaroo), Chief Thunderthud, Princess Summerfall, Phineas T. Bluster and Flub-a-Dub were featured. The theme song was based on the French ditty: “Ta-ra-ra-Boom-der-e."
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A18)(AP, 12/27/97)(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B6)(SFC, 7/31/98, p.D7)
1947 Dec 27, The new Italian constitution was promulgated in Rome.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1948 Dec 27, Gerard Depardieu, actor (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Danton, Green Card), was born in France.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1949 Dec 27, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted sovereignty to Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule. The Netherlands retained control of Irian Jaya, inhabited by Melanesians, until 1963.
(EWH, 1968, p.1168)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(AP, 12/27/99)
1950 Dec 27, U.S. and Spain resumed relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
(HN, 12/27/00)
1954 Dec 27, Gian Carlo Menotti's opera "Saint of Bleecker Street" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1956 Dec 27, Segregation on Tallahassee, Fla., buses was outlawed.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1960 Dec 27, France exploded a 3rd atom bomb in the Sahara Desert, code-named Gerboise Rouge (“red gerboa").
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerboise_Bleue)
1961 Dec 27, Styne-Comden-Green musical "Subways are for Sleeping," premiered.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1961 Dec 27, Tony Bennett, starring in the Venetian Room of the SF Fairmont Hotel, made his 1st solo public performance of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco." The song was written by George Cory and Douglass Cross in 1954 and had languished in obscurity for years.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.F1)(SFC, 1/25/12, p.A11)(SFC, 2/16/12, p.A13)
1967 Dec 27, Singer Bob Dylan (b.1941 as Robert Allen Zimmerman) released his "John Wesley Harding" album.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Harding_(album))
1968 Dec 27, The US agreed to sell fifty F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1968 Dec 27, Apollo 8, the 1st manned mission to the moon, and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
(AP, 12/27/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1970 Dec 27, "Hello, Dolly!" closed at the St. James Theater on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.
(AP, 12/27/97)(www.nodanw.com/shows_h/hello_dolly.htm)
1974 Dec 27, Amy Vanderbilt (b.1908), American etiquette expert, died. "One face to the world, another at home makes for misery." In 1952 she published the best selling book Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette.
(AP, 5/12/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Vanderbilt)
1978 Dec 27, Algerian President Houari Boumediene, one of the Third World's most prominent and outspoken leaders, died after 40 days in a coma.
(AP, 12/27/03)
1978 Dec 27, King Juan Carlos ratified Spain's 1st democratic constitution. A parliamentary monarchy was established with power in the hands of the legislative branch. Many powers centralized under Franco were devolved to the 17 autonomous regions. Manuel Fraga (1922-2012) helped write the country's post-Franco, democratic Constitution. Catalonia was granted more self-government than almost any other part of Europe.
(www.igsap.map.es/cia/dispo/ce_ingles_index.htm)(Econ, 1/14/06, p.17)(AP, 1/16/12)(Econ, 1/7/17, p.44)
1978 Dec 27, The Basque Country's fiscal privileges, granted during the 19th century and then partially abolished during General Francisco Franco's 1939-75 dictatorship, were finally restored this year in Spain’s democratic constitution.
(AFP, 9/25/17)
1978 Dec 27, In South Yemen the Supreme Council elected a new president. He reversed moves toward reconciliation with North Yemen and acquiesced to a continued Soviet military buildup.
(PC, 1992, p.1065)
1979 Dec 27, "Knots Landing," premiered on CBS-TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0078638/)
1979 Dec 27, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan after a 2nd leftist coup. The Soviet backed coup ousted leftists and put a more pro-Moscow regime in power in Kabul. Babrak Karmal (1929-1996) became the new puppet leader and Soviet troops bolstered his rule against Muslim resistance fighters. Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown, was executed and replaced by Babrak Karmal. Some 15,000 Soviet soldiers reportedly died along with 1 million Afghans.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A9)(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1) (WA, 1997,p.737) (AP, 12/27/97)(http://web.mit.edu/cascon/cases/case_afg.html)
1981 Dec 27, Hoagy Carmichael (b.1899), US actor, songwriter (Stardust), died in California at age 82. His songs included "Stardust" and over 600 other melodies.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/25/99, p.C22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagy_Carmichael)
1983 Dec 27, President Reagan took all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines on Oct 23.
(www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/02/b37879.html)
1983 Dec 27, Pope John Paul II pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot him. The Pope visited Mehmet Ali Agca at Rome’s Rebibbia prison and personally pardoned him for the 1981 assassination attempt.
(SFC, 6/14/00, p.A14)(http://preview.tinyurl.com/pddl)
1983 Dec 27, A propane gas fire devastated 16 blocks of Buffalo, NY. The fire killed five firefighters, two civilians, destroyed about a million in fire equipment, and leveled several city blocks, as well as the infamous fire alarm box # 29 also known as the Hoodoo Box.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Fire_Historical_Museum)
1984 Dec 27, Geologist Roberta Score found the Martian meteorite labeled Allan Hills (ALH) 84001 while snowmobiling in the Antarctic. The 4.5 billion year old rock was knocked of Mars by an asteroid some 16 million years earlier and landed in Antarctica some 13,000 years before Score’s find.
(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.29)(SSFC, 2/19/06, p.M6)
1984 Dec 27, Four Polish officers were tried for the slaying of Reverend Jerzy Popieluszko.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1985 Dec 27, Palestinian guerrillas opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; a total of twenty people were killed, including five of the attackers, who were slain by police and security personnel. Abu Nidal was considered responsible. President Reagan blamed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
(AP, 12/27/97)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A6)(NYT, 10/8/04, p.A12)
1985 Dec 27, American naturalist Dian Fossey, who had studied gorillas in the wild, was found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.
(AP, 12/27/05)
1987 Dec 27, Scores of Palestinian prisoners appeared before Israeli military courts in the first trials of several hundred protesters arrested in the "intefadeh," or uprising, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1988 Dec 27, Bulgaria stopped jamming Radio Free Europe after more than 3 decades.
(http://tinyurl.com/jh6vq)
1988 Dec 27, Hundreds of residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, paid silent tribute to five of the Americans killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, as coffins containing victims' remains began the journey home.
(AP, 12/27/98)
1989 Dec 27, President Bush, on a visit to Beeville, Texas, said he was determined to bring deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to justice "for poisoning the children of the United States" with illegal drugs.
(AP, 12/27/99)
1991 Dec 27, The United States and the Philippines announced that the United States would abandon the Subic Bay naval base by the end of 1992.
(AP, 12/27/01)
1991 Dec 27, Muslim fundamentalists in Algeria won a major victory in free legislative elections; however, the military ended up canceling the election results.
(AP, 12/27/01)
1992 Dec 27, The United States shot down an Iraqi fighter jet during what the Pentagon described as a confrontation between a pair of Iraqi warplanes and U.S. F-16 jets in U.N.-restricted airspace over southern Iraq.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1993 Dec 27, U.S. officials said that Strobe Talbott, who had served as the Clinton administration's chief Russia policy architect, would take over the number-two spot at the State Department.
(AP, 12/27/98)
1993 Dec 27, In Egypt, a gun and bomb attack on a tourist bus in old Cairo wounded 8 Austrians and 8 Egyptians. The militant group Gama’a al-Islamiya claimed responsibility.
(WSJ, 10/11/04, p.A17)
1995 Dec 27, France set off a fifth nuclear bomb at a South Pacific Atoll.
(WSJ, 12/28/95, p. A-1)
1995 Dec 27, Israeli jeeps sped out of the West Bank town of Ramallah, capping a seven-week pullout giving Yasser Arafat control over 90 percent of the West Bank's 1 million Palestinian residents and one-third of its land.
(AP, 12/27/05)
1996 Dec 27, Officials of NBC and Panasonic activated the new 891 sq. foot Astrovision screen near the base of One Times Square, New York.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 27, Officials in Las Vegas announced that the 12-story, 900-room, 10-year-old Hacienda Hotel would be blown up on New Year’s Eve. A new 4,000 room resort owned by Circus Circus would replace it.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 27, In South Bend, Ind., Annie Fulford was shot and killed during a drug-related robbery. Her boyfriend, Leif O’Connell, began a rampage and after 2 months began drive-by shootings of black men that left 1 dead and five injured. He and accomplice, Jerred Kahlenbeck, faced murder and attempted murder charges.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A2)
1996 Dec 27, In France the foreign ministry said that it would no longer participate in the Operation Provide Comfort after the end of the year. The operation was a multi-national air reconnaissance effort to safeguard Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, In Peru Pres. Fujimori declared a 60-day state of emergency.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, Russia and China agreed to remove troops along their border and to build a nuclear power plant in eastern China’s Jiangsu province with a $2.5 billion loan from Russia.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, Some 300 people were trapped in the Roksky Pass tunnel in the Caucasus between North Ossetia and the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. Also Alexander Lebed announced the new Russian Popular Republican Party.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12,13)
1996 Dec 27, In Rwanda the first trial was held in connection with the 1994 genocide. Deo Bizimana was accused of killing 20 people and ordering the massacre of thousands of others.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 27, In Tibet Ngawang Choepel, a musician on a Fullbright scholarship, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage. He had arrived as a Chinese citizen in 1995 to make a documentary on folk music and dance.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 27, The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), led by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, recognized the Yugoslavia opposition victories in the Nov 17 local elections.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 27, In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, about 60,000 opposition supporters defied riot police and rallied in celebration of an international report backing their triumph over Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in recent local elections.
(AP, 12/27/97)
1997 Dec 27, Lower level talks between Turkish and Greek Cypriot officials were suspended by the Turkish Cypriots to protest the inclusion of the Greek side in EU membership.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A22)
1997 Dec 27, In Egypt Hussein Khalifa was sentenced to death for the 1993-94 murders of 26 policemen and 8 Romanian nationals. Rifaat Zeidan and Abdul-Hamid Othman, all members of al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, were sentenced to death in absentia.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A17)
1997 Dec 27, In Italy Some 825 illegal immigrants, mostly Kurds, were rescued by Italian tugboats from the Turkish ship Ararat. They were attempting to smuggle into Italy from Turkey.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A19)
1997 Dec 27, The Laos kip plunged to about half its value since July when the Thai baht was devalued.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A15)
1997 Dec 27, In Mexico authorities charged Jacinto Arias Cruz, the mayor of Chenalho, and 23 supporters with murder of the villagers in Acteal.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A13)
1997 Dec 27, In Northern Ireland inmate Billy Wright (37), aka King Rat and Northern Ireland's most notorious Protestant militant, was shot and killed by another inmate of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an IRA splinter group at the Maze prison. In 1998 3 Irish extremists, Christopher McWilliams, John Kennaway and John Glennon, were sentenced to life in prison for the killing.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)(AP, 12/27/98)
1997 Dec 27, In Northern Ireland masked killers shot and killed Seamus Dillon (45), a Catholic security guard at the Glengannon Hotel. Two other bouncers and a 14-year-old bar worker were wounded. The attack was a response to the killing of Billy Wright.
(SFC, 12/29/97, p.A6)
1998 Dec 27, Six inmates, including four convicted killers, escaped from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee. All were recaptured by the end of next day.
(AP, 12/27/99)
1998 Dec 27, A vaccine for AIDS by VaxGen Inc. of South San Francisco was reported to be in Phase III clinical trials. It was derived from g-120, a genetically engineered protein copied from a protein found in the HIV virus. Other vaccines were also under development.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 27, In Michigan 6 children of Femeeka O'Steen (27) died of smoke inhalation in Detroit as their mother recovered in a hospital after giving birth.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 27, A week after she was born weighing just 10.3 ounces, the smallest of the Houston Chukwu octuplets, Chijindu Chidera, died.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A1) (AP, 12/27/99)
1998 Dec 27, In Algeria armed groups attacked 2 villages and killed at least 30 people at Khenis Miliana and Ain N'Sour.
(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A8)
1998 Dec 27, In China a 4th dissident for democracy received a 10 year prison sentence for speaking to a reported by telephone about farmer's protests.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Dec 27, In Colombia a natural gas pipeline exploded in Arroyo de Piedra and killed 12 people.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 29, In Colombia rebels claimed to have killed a right-wing paramilitary leader in a weekend capture of his northern stronghold.
(WSJ, 12/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 27, In the Congo Republic troops from Angola, allied to Pres. Sassou-Nguesso, killed dozens of people in a weekend attack on Nkayi.
(WSJ, 12/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 27, Iraq said it would reject any extension of a UN monitored food program and would require monitors to leave.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Dec 27, In Mexico 2 Huichol Indians, Juan Chivarrer Lopez and Miguel Hernandez de la Cruz, were arrested for the murder of reporter Philip True.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 27, In Russia the first group of 10 solid-fuel Topol-M missiles was to be inaugurated by Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev. They were designed to replace the multiple warhead missiles banned by START II.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A20)
1998 Dec 27, In Sierra Leone Nigerian jets killed some 50 rebels in Makeni and ECOMOG forces took control following fierce fighting.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 27, In Tonga Cyclone Cora hit the islands and destroyed all the banana trees.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)
1999 Dec 27, Six inmates, including four convicted killers, escaped from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee. All were recaptured by the end of next day.
(AP, 12/27/00)
1999 Dec 27, A week after she was born weighing just ten-point-three ounces, the smallest of the Houston octuplets (Chijindu Chidera) died from heart and lung failure.
(AP, 12/27/00)
1999 Dec 27, Space shuttle Discovery landed at Cape Canaveral, Fla., following a successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 27, In Indonesia rival mobs of Muslims and Christians clashed in Maluku province and at least 39 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Dec 27, In northeast Pakistan Salamat Shah, a Shiite Muslim, opened fire and killed 12 members of a rival Sunni Muslim group, Sipa-e-Sahaba, during a funeral procession in Sikunder Pur.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A10)
2000 Dec 27, Pres. Clinton appointed Roger Gregory as the 1st African American judge to the US Court of appeals in Richmond, Va.
(SFC, 12/28/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 27, Software engineer Michael McDermott pleaded innocent to 7 counts of murder in the shooting deaths of seven co-workers the day before at an Internet consulting company in Wakefield, Mass. McDermott was later convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2001 Dec 27, Pres. Bush permanently normalized trade relations with China.
(WSJ, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, The US announced plans to hold Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, US warplanes destroyed a compound in eastern Afghanistan believed used by a Taliban intelligence chief. Local villagers said as many as 40 civilians were killed. Qari Ahmadullah (40), former Taliban chief of intelligence, was killed while fleeing US bombardment near Naka village in Paktia province.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A22)(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, In NYC a van lurched out of control in Herald Square at 34th ST. and 6th Ave. and killed 6 pedestrians. A 7th died the next day.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/29/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 27, In El Salvador forensic scientists found human bones buried under the national police headquarters. The were believed to belong to people who disappeared during the 1980s civil war.
(WSJ, 12/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 27, India banned Pakistan’s national airline from entering its airspace and ordered Pakistan to withdraw half of its diplomats from New Delhi. Pakistan followed suite.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(AP, 12/27/02)
2001 Dec 27, In Israel defense minister Gen. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (65) took over leadership of the Labor Party. Israeli troops raided Palestinian territory for a 2nd day and arrested 7 suspected militants.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 27, Zambia held national elections. Early returns showed a virtual tie between Levy Mwanawasa of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy and Anderson Mazoka of the United Party for National Development. Mwanawasa won the elections with 29% of the vote.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A21)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.43)
2002 Dec 27, Gov. Engler of Michigan signed a bill eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.
(WSJ, 12/30/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 27, The hamlet of Bridgeville on Highway 36 in Humboldt County, Ca., was sold on Ebay for $1.77 million. The Ebay deal failed and in 2004 Southern California investor purchased the 82-acre town for $700,000.
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/21/04, p.B3)
2002 Dec 27, George Roy Hill (81), film director, died. His films included "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 27, Argentine lawmakers approved the 2003 budget and ratified a new central bank chief, helping President Eduardo Duhalde's efforts to secure an aid agreement with the IMF.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, Chechen rebel suicide bombers rammed vehicles packed with a ton of explosives into the local government headquarters in Grozny, gutting the building and killing at least 83 people.
(Reuters, 12/27/02)(AP, 12/28/02)(SFC, 12/31/02, p.A7)
2002 Dec 27, In Indonesia at least 9 people including two children were killed and 50 injured when heavy rain triggered a mud slide on Sumatra island.
(Reuters, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, Palestinian gunmen killed 4 Israelis at the Otniel religious community near Hebron.
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A9)
2002 Dec 27, In Kenya political veteran Mwai Kibaki (71), head of an opposition alliance that promised to fight corruption and revive Kenya's ailing economy, won the elections over Uhuru Kenyatta 62% to 31%. The opposition alliance won 125 of 210 elective seats in the National Assembly, breaking the ruling party's 39-year grip on power. Kibaki promised to curb corruption.
(AP, 12/28/02)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A11)(AP, 1/2/03)(Econ, 12/18/04, p.65)
2002 Dec 27, In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 7 people were killed and 26 injured when a container of fireworks exploded, detonating a gas tank in the Dordoi market.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, A defiant North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart a laboratory capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors were "staying put" for the time being.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2002 Dec 27, Poland announced it will buy 48 U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters from Lockheed Martin for $3.5 billion to upgrade its air force to NATO standards
(AP, 12/27/02)
2002 Dec 27, Russia said it will no longer accept US Peace Corps volunteers, after suggesting the workers were spying.
(AP, 12/27/02)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A11)
2002 Dec 27, Uruguay's Congress approved a plan to merge 3 major banks verging on insolvency amid the country's economic crisis.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2003 Dec 27, In Afghanistan suspected al Qaeda fighters ambushed Afghan security forces near the Pakistani border. A senior Afghan intelligence official was killed along with 6 attackers.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A14)
2003 Dec 27, Alan Bates (69), British stage and film actor, died. His films included "Zorba the Greek" and "Georgy Girl."
(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 27, China announced its first suspected SARS case since July.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, An Indonesian army tank accidentally ran over a public minibus on Java island, killing 18 people and injuring at least five.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, Governments around the world rushed medical experts, rescue teams, water-purification systems and tea to the earthquake-ravaged Iranian city of Bam.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, In Iraq insurgents launched 3 coordinated attacks in the southern city of Karbala, killing 13 people, including six Iraqi police officers, 2 Thai soldiers and 5 Bulgarians.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/29/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/04)
2003 Dec 27, Israeli troop staged a huge raid in Nablus that left a Palestinian teenager dead and 17 others wounded.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 27, Juan Garcia Ponce (71), a renowned Mexican art critic, translator and prize-winning novelist, died. Ponce was born in Merida, the capital of Yucatan state, on Sept. 22, 1932. The author of at least 50 books, Ponce wrote novels, plays, screenplays and essays and was considered a master of erotic literature.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 27, Russia removed all Soviet-built anti-aircraft missiles from its vast arms depots in a Moldova province to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. The missiles were flown from Transdniestria Province to Moscow.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2004 Dec 27, In southern Asia the death toll from the Dec 26 earthquake-tsunami catastrophe rose to more than 23,000.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, The Central Africa Republic (CAR) established a new Constitution.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2004 Dec 27, The euro reached an intraday high of $1.364.
(WSJ, 12/28/04, p.C2)
2004 Dec 27, A massive burst of energy from a neutron star, SGR 1806-20, was detected in the constellation Sagittarius. It was the equivalent of what the sun emits every 150,000 years.
(SFC, 2/19/05, p.A2)
2004 Dec 27, Honduras' security minister pledged to eliminate violent youth gangs, nine of whose members have been charged with homicide in connection with a Dec. 23 shooting attack on a public bus that killed 28 people.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, The foreign secretaries of nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan began two-day talks that will include their first formal dialogue on disputed Kashmir since they launched a peace process a year ago.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, In an audiotape, a man purported to be Osama bin Laden endorsed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and called for a boycott of January's elections in the country.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2004 Dec 27, A suicide bomber detonated his car at the gate of the home of the leader of Iraq's biggest political party and most powerful Shiite political group, killing 15 people and injuring dozens. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's, was unharmed.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, The Iraqi Islamic Party, the biggest Sunni political group, pulled out of the Jan. 30 elections citing the deteriorating security situation.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Poisonous liquor sold by an illegal alcohol bar in India's financial capital killed at least 51 people and sent nearly 100 others to hospital over two days, prompting citywide raids on alcohol vendors.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Israel released 159 Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, Jordan's military court on acquitted 13 Muslim militants, including three Saudi fugitives, of conspiring to commit terror attacks against U.S. targets in Jordan, but sentenced 11 of them to prison terms ranging from six to 15 years for possessing explosives.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, In western Sudan rebel forces attacked the market town of Ghubaysh and the government retaliated. The UN World Food Program suspended food convoys to the Darfur region following the attacks.
(AP, 12/29/04)
2004 Dec 27, Ukraine election officials said opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko won 51.99 percent to 44.19 percent for Moscow-backed PM Viktor Yanukovych. Supporters of the pro-Russian PM vowed to challenge the results in court.
(AFP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 27, Ukrainian Transport Minister Heorhiy Kirpa, a supporter of the trailing candidate in the presidential election, was found dead in his house from a gunshot wound. Opposition figures claimed that Kirpa allocated trains to ferry Yanukovych supporters to vote at multiple polling sites in Nov. 21 presidential balloting that eventually was annulled by the Ukraine Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2005 Dec 27, The US State Dept. announced sanctions against 9 foreign companies, 6 Chinese, for selling missile and chemical-arms goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 12/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 27, In NYC the executive board of the transit workers approved a tentative contract that included a 10.9% raise over 3 years and a requirement for workers to contribute to their health care plans.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 27, A reported inversion with long-term interest rates dropping below short-term rates prompted a sell-off on Wall Street. The trend often precedes an economic downturn.
(WSJ, 12/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 27, Grass fires burned in drought-stricken Texas and Oklahoma. Over three days, nearly 200 homes were lost and the fires blamed for at least four deaths.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2005 Dec 27, A close aide said Bolivia’s President-elect Evo Morales will reject US economic and military aid if the US requires continued coca-eradication efforts to get the money.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Inmates at a prison in Brazil's remote Amazon jungle held more than 200 people hostage, demanding the return of their leader from another prison. Authorities agreed to bring him back, but both sides remained at an impasse, waiting for the other to make the first move.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, In China Tian Fengshan, former minister of land and resources, was sentenced to life in prison on charges of taking $545,000 in bribes from 1995-2003.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, US financial services giant Citigroup Inc. said it plans to increase its stake in China's Shanghai Pudong Development Bank to 19.9 percent, the maximum legal holding for a single foreign bank in a local lender.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Leftist rebels ambushed a group of soldiers who were protecting civilians in southern Colombia, killing 28.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, East Timor's president formally opened a consulate in Indonesia's neighbouring West Timor province in an effort to strengthen relations between the two nations.
(AFP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, A conference underlining the gravity of Egypt's landmines problem kicked off in Cairo, with delegates appealing for international support in the mine clearing effort. Egypt is one of the most heavily-mined regions in the world, a legacy of World War II and the Arab-Israeli wars, which left the northwestern desert infested with an estimated 22 million mines and other unexploded ordnance (UXOs).
(AFP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Indonesia a year after the tsunami destroyed their battlefield, Aceh rebels formally disbanded their armed wing, effectively ending their 30-year separatist insurgency.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi police in Baghdad, killing two policemen and two bystanders. South of Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two officers, and gunmen in southern Baghdad killed another. Gunmen southeast of Kirkuk, killed one police officer.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, The Israeli military fired a barrage of artillery and missiles at the Gaza Strip, hitting two offices of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and a bridge the army said was used by militants to reach areas where they fire rockets.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Three rockets landed in a residential area of a northern Israeli town near the Lebanese border, damaging some property but causing no injuries.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, The Japanese government endorsed measures that would put more women in top government posts and provide more support for working mothers at a time when the country is facing low birth rates and a looming labor shortage.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Kuwait 6 men were convicted and sentenced to death on charges they belonged to a terrorist group that planned to attack US troops in Kuwait. They were among 37 Kuwaitis and other nationals accused of joining the Lions of the Peninsula, a group the prosecution claims was planning attacks. The defendants were captured after clashing with Kuwaiti police in January 2005.
(AP, 12/27/05)(AP, 3/9/06)
2005 Dec 27, Abdel-Qadar Abdel Qader, a Syrian, was arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of Gibran Tueni, the anti-Syrian general manager and columnist of Lebanon's leading newspaper.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Philippine prosecutors charged four US Marines with rape in what is seen as a test case for a bilateral accord allowing American troops to train here.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Andrei Illarionov, an outspoken economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced that he was resigning, saying he could no longer work in a government that had done away with political freedoms.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Saudi police arrested Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Mohammed al-Suwailmi, a terror suspect on the country's list of most wanted militants.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Spain a new law that took effect ordering government ministries to close no later than 6 p.m., part of a broad package of measures that are geared to help Spaniards juggle their jobs and families.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Sri Lanka a land mine killed at least 10 soldiers on the northern Jaffna peninsula. A police officer patrolling the eastern town of Kalmunai was killed. Tiger rebels were blamed.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.A5)
2005 Dec 27, Official Syrian news reported that Syria has signed a $2.7 billion memorandum of understanding with a Russian company for construction of a refinery and petrochemical plant in northeast Syria.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Turkey reported an outbreak of avian influenza in chickens in the eastern area of Igdir, less than a month after declaring its territory free of the virus, and said it had culled 359 birds as a precautionary measure.
(Reuters, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 27, Ukraine and Bulgaria said all their troops had left Iraq. Poland said it would remain but reduce its number of troops by 600 next year.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2006 Dec 27 Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards jumped into the presidential race a day earlier than he had planned after his campaign accidentally went live with his election Web site a day before his scheduled announcement.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2006 Dec 27, A Florida doctor pleaded guilty to securities fraud in connection with a life insurance scam that cost 28,000 investors nearly $1 billion. Clark Mitchell, the former director of a prominent AIDS clinic who was arrested more than five years ago on insurance fraud charges, agreed to be responsible for restitution of $367 million to investors in Mutual Benefits Corp., a Fort Lauderdale company that sought investors in life insurance policies held by elderly or ill people.
(Reuters, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Ohio’s state Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Gov. Bob Taft for his ethics violations in office, a black mark that will stay on his permanent record as an attorney.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, It was reported that the SF Dept. of Parking and Traffic had begun a 90-day test run using cameras to scan license plates in search of cars with unpaid citations. Metal boots were immediately attached to cars with at least 5 outstanding tickets.
(SFC, 12/27/06, p.B1)
2006 Dec 27, A 2-day storm with 60 mph winds hit the SF Bay Area. In Marin County the main hall of Manka’s Inverness Lodge, built in 1917, burned down when wind knocked a tree into a water heater. A woman was killed when a tree crashed through her cottage in Lagunitas.
(SFC, 12/28/06, p.A1, B1)
2006 Dec 27, In southern Afghanistan a bomb explosion caused a NATO vehicle to crash, killing one British soldier and wounding three.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, Angry protesters attacked government offices and damaged vehicles in northern Bangladesh after authorities rejected applications by former army ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad to contest next month's elections.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Belarus issued an implicit threat that it could stop Russian gas deliveries through its pipelines to western Europe unless Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom relented on demands Minsk pay steep price increases in 2007.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Brazilian travelers incensed about an overbooked flight stormed a runway to prevent a commercial jet from taking off. A tourism industry leader said two months of chronic flight delays have been a "disaster" for tourism.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, A helicopter carrying natural gas workers crashed off the northwest English coast, killing six people and leaving the only other person aboard missing.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, Central African President Francois Bozize ordered the army to set fire to the homes of two leaders of a dissident Baptist church, after they did the same to a pastor's house, to teach them a lesson.
(AFP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, China’s state media reported that temperatures in China will rise significantly in coming decades and water shortages will worsen, citing the government's first national assessment of global climate change.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Colombia's second-largest rebel group (ELN) released two police officers taken hostage earlier this month, a move that could revive slow-moving peace talks with the government. Gunmen shot and killed Jaime Andres Angarita (33), a paramilitary leader, as he was dining at a restaurant in the western city of Medellin. Angarita was considered the right-hand man of warlord Salvatore Mancuso, the architect of a 2003 peace deal with the government that has led to the demobilization of 31,000 militia fighters.
(AP, 12/27/06)(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, Fighting broke out in eastern Congo between government troops and forces loyal to a dissident general, killing at least 19 people. A group of Congolese soldiers went on trial for war crimes, a month after UN investigators found mass graves inside their eastern army camp with some 30 bodies including women and children.
(AP, 12/27/06)(Reuters, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 27, A 26-year-old Egyptian man died of bird flu, the third member of his extended family to die of the virus.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Ethiopian and Somali government troops drove Islamic fighters out of the last major town on the road to Mogadishu, the Islamist-held capital.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Gabon's Constitutional Court confirmed President Omar Bongo Ondimba's camp as official winner of the nation's general elections held December 17 and 24.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, A new report said a third of India’s rural population, or more than 200 million people, still live on 12 rupees (26 cents) a day or less.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Saddam Hussein's Baath Party threatened to retaliate if the ousted Iraqi leader is executed, warning in an Internet posting it would target US interests anywhere. Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to embrace "brotherly coexistence" and not to hate U.S.-led foreign troops in a goodbye letter posted on a Web site a day after Iraq's highest court upheld his death sentence. A car bomb explosion killing 8 civilians and wounding 10 near an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad. Police found the bodies of 51 people apparent victims of sectarian killings. US and Iraqi troops in Najaf killed Sahib al-Amiri, a top deputy of Muqtada al-Sadr. 2 Latvian soldiers were killed and 3 were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded under their Humvee in Diwaniyah. 3 US soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in and around Baghdad.
(AP, 12/27/06)(AP, 12/28/06)(SFC, 12/28/06, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/28/06, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/07)
2006 Dec 27, Israel decided to resume pinpoint attacks against Palestinian rocket-launching cells in Gaza, jeopardizing what is already a shaky, month-old truce with Gaza militants.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, A Taiwanese court convicted Chao Chien-min, the son-in-law of President Chen Shui-bian, of insider trading and sentenced him to six years in prison.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Telephone lines and Internet service went dead across much of Asia after two powerful earthquakes off Taiwan damaged undersea cables used by several countries to route calls and online traffic.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 27, Yemeni authorities opened fire on boats filled with refugees fleeing the fighting in Somalia and at least 17 people drowned when one of the vessels capsized.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2007 Dec 27, Bayron Jimenez Castaneda (44), suspected Colombian cocaine trafficker, was arrested in Orlando, Florida, for the kidnapping of an undercover US agent. Three other suspects in the kidnapping of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Dec. 14, 2005 remain at large. Traffickers initially demanded a $2 million ransom, but released him after half a day when they realized he was a US government agent.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Richmond, Ca., 2 gunmen shot and killed Ravinder (30) and Paramjit (42) Kalsi as they closed their restaurant. In 2009 police named Rajesh Kumar of Fiji, as a suspect in the case. Kumar was wanted for allegedly defrauding a woman connected to the restaurant.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.B2)
2007 Dec 27, Steven Florio (b.1949), former CEO of Conde Nast, died in NYC.
(SFC, 12/29/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 27, The Afghan government expelled UN advisor Mervyn Patterson and EU official Michael Semple, on accusations they held unauthorized meetings with Taliban militants. A spokesman for the UN mission said the diplomats had traveled to Musa Qala, a former Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand province on Dec 24, where they met with local leaders.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Bahrain more than a dozen people detained during recent Shiite protests were charged with attempted murder, illegal assembly and rioting.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Chechnya unidentified gunmen shot and killed a police officer in Grozny.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, Shawn Wang, the chief financial officer of leading Chinese search engine Baidu.com, died in an accident while on holiday.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 27, In eastern India Hindu extremists burned down the house of a prominent Christian politician, as violence by gangs from both sides continued despite a curfew imposed after two days of attacks against Christians by Hindu hard-liners. In Orissa state at least three people were killed when they opened fire on a group of hard-line Hindus who set fire to a police station during ongoing clashes between Hindus and Christians.
(AP, 12/27/07)(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Ingushetia several militants ambushed a border guards' vehicle, killing two officers and wounding two other servicemen.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Iraq a bomb left inside a bus in eastern Baghdad exploded and killed two passengers and wounded 12 others. US troops allegedly killed 11 members of a Mahdi Army splinter group in Kut. A local official said 4 people were killed and that they were innocent. Kut police said 6 suspected militiamen were killed. The military announced that it had detained two more suspects in the capture of 3 US soldiers on May 12. The US military said in a statement that troops killed 12 suspected al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists and detained 37 others during a Dec 22-25 operation near Muqdadiyah.
(AP, 12/27/07)(AP, 12/28/07)(SFC, 12/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 27, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held their first summit since they agreed last month to renew peace talks, seeking to resolve a dispute over planned Israeli construction in east Jerusalem.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, Kenya held elections. President Mwai Kibaki tried to fend off fiery opposition leader Raila Odinga. In Nairobi monitors from the EU saw tens of thousands of votes pinched for Kibaki. In 2009 Philip Alston, a UN investigator, published a report documenting around 500 death-squad executions in the months leading up the elections. Post-election violence eventually left some 1,400 people dead.
(AP, 12/27/07)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.37)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.49)(Econ, 8/19/17, p.42)
2007 Dec 27, Nigeria reported that Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was being forced to resign in order to attend a one year course at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies at Jos.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.38)
2007 Dec 27, Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi that also killed at least 20 others at the end of a campaign rally. Doctors reported that Bhutto died from a bullet wound. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif announced his party was boycotting next month's elections following the assassination. He demanded that President Pervez Musharraf resign immediately. Within hours Sindhis began to rampage. After the 1st frenzy over 50 people were killed and damages were later estimated at $200 million. In February, 2008, her book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West," was published. In it she alleged that Qari Saifullah Akhtar was involved in an October bombing in Karachi that killed some 150 people.
(AP, 12/27/07)(SFC, 12/31/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.22)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.93)(AP, 8/6/08)
2007 Dec 27, In northern Sri Lanka Air force jets destroyed a Tamil naval base.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, South Sudanese former rebels rejoined the national government, two months after walking out because of disputes over the implementation of a peace deal that ended two decades of war.
(AFP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Thailand officials said deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra would be arrested if he returns home from a self-imposed exile as planned, even if his victorious allies form a government following last weekend's general election.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In southern Zimbabwe floodwaters swept a truck down a raging river, killing 7 people. Their deaths bring the number of drownings in Zimbabwe to 21 in the past month.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2008 Dec 27, It was reported that the mountain pine beetle was expected to kill virtually every mature lodgepole pine in Colorado. The beetle had already destroyed pine forests from Mexico to Canada.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 27, Sculptor Robert Graham (b.1938) died in Santa Monica, Ca. His massive bronze works mark civic monuments across America, included the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington.
(AP, 12/28/08)(SFC, 12/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 27, In northern Nevada a 13 rail cars containing grain were involved in a derailment along the Humboldt River. The derailment triggered the collapse of a 102-year-old bridge spanning the river.
(SSFC, 12/28/08, p.B2)
2008 Dec 27, In southern Afghanistan a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb at a police checkpoint, killing three policemen and two civilian men on a motorbike. 2 Canadian soldiers were killed in a blast in southern Kandahar province. An Afghan policeman and an interpreter also died in the attack in Panjwayi district, a Taliban stronghold about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Kandahar city. A member of the Kandahar provincial council was shot dead in a mosque. US troops killed five militants and detained six in operations against extremist networks.
(AP, 12/27/08)(AFP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 27, An explosion in central China's Henan province killed 15 people and injured nine others. Explosives, used for small-scale demolition, were illegally stored at a home when they ignited, destroying more than 10 neighboring houses. At least 17 workers were killed and one seriously injured when an elevator suddenly dropped to the ground at a construction site in central Hunan province.
(AP, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 27, Guinea's coup leader said he would allow the opposition and union leaders to help choose a prime minister. The military junta was boosted by the endorsement of neighboring Senegal as it attempted to garner international backing, and, after meeting political parties, promised to stamp out the burgeoning drugs trade.
(AP, 12/27/08)(Reuters, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 27, In Iraq a bomb tore through a busy square in Baghdad at midday, killing at least 24 people and wounding 54. A suspected al-Qaida in Iraq fugitive was killed in a gun battle with police in the western city of Ramadi. He was one of four suspected al-Qaida in Iraq members who escaped during a jailbreak and ensuing riot at a Ramadi police station a day earlier that left six policemen and seven insurgents dead. An Iraqi soldier and two other people were killed when a car bomb exploded as they were trying to defuse it in Musayyib. Police in the northern city of Kirkuk also arrested six suspected insurgents, including the former driver of Hassan al-Majid — Saddam Hussein's cousin who is also known as "Chemical Ali."
(AP, 12/27/08)(SSFC, 12/28/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 27, Israel began “Operation Cast Lead" as its warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in waves of airstrikes, killing nearly 200 people and wounding 270 others in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years. Gaza militants fired 30 rockets and mortars after the air offensive began. A missile hit the town of Netivot, killing an Israeli man and wounding four people.
(AP, 12/27/08)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.24)
2008 Dec 27, In Malaysia Tuanku Ja'afar Tuanku Abdul Rahman (86), a royal state ruler, died. He became Malaysia's king for five years (1994-1999) under the country's unique monarchal system.
(AP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 27, Turkey's parliament reduced the budget allocations of most ministries by up to 16 percent to cut overall spending as the country seeks a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund.
(AP, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 27-2009 Jan 21, In Egypt security forces arrested at least 860 activists of the Muslim Brotherhood as public demonstrations mounted during the Israeli assault on Gaza.
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.48)
2009 Dec 27, The New York Times reported that the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against the Al-Qaeda terror network in Yemen. The paper said the Pentagon will be spending more than 70 million dollars over the next 18 months, and using teams of special forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces.
(AFP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Afghanistan 10 civilians, including 8 students, were killed in fighting involving international forces in eastern Kunar province. Pres. Karzai condemned the deaths and called for an investigation. Afghan and international security forces captured militants in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan and in Wardak and Khost provinces in the east. On Dec 30 Asadullah Wafa, a senior adviser to Pres. Karzai, said that 8 schoolchildren between the ages of 12 and 14 were among the dead discovered in a village house in the Narang district of Kunar province.
(AP, 12/28/09)(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dec 27, Croatians went to the polls amid a deepening economic crisis and concerns over high-level corruption to elect a president to steer the Balkans country into the EU. Centrist Stipe Mesic (75) stands down in February after serving the maximum two five-year terms and successfully transforming the country from a nationalist autocracy into a parliamentary democracy. Social Democrat lawmaker Ivo Josipovic garnered 32.4% of votes and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic, who ran as independent candidate, got 14.8% of votes. The top two finishers will face each other in a Jan. 10 runoff.
(AFP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran Ali Mousavi, a nephew of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, was killed in fighting between protesters and security forces. Security forces fired on anti-government protesters in Tehran, killing 8 people in the fiercest clashes in months.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Iran authorities detained two German diplomats and accused them of playing a role in organizing deadly anti-government protests. Iran's state media only reported this on Jan 27, 2010. Germany's Foreign Ministry said it had no knowledge about any diplomats being detained and dismissed accusations that German officials had a hand in the demonstrations and clashes that left eight people dead.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2009 Dec 27, In northeast Iraq a bomb killed five Shiite pilgrims in a procession in the town of Tuz Khormato. Blasts in Baghdad killed 2 more pilgrims as millions of people marched to commemorate Ashoura, the most important Shiite religious observance. The 10-day religious ceremonies culminated today with huge processions.
(AP, 12/27/09)(SFC, 12/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Dec 27, Italian officials said 7 people, including a German teenager, have been killed by weekend avalanches in northern Italy.
(AP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 27, Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama arrived in India on a three-day visit aimed at strengthening economic and security cooperation with the emerging giant.
(AFP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Lebanon Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on Egypt to stop building a steel wall along the Gaza border that could obstruct tunnels which provide a lifeline for the blockaded enclave.
(Reuters, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 27, In Malawi officials arrested 2 men for celebrating their engagement to each other in a ceremony on Dec 26. Stevem Monjeza (26) and Tiwonge Chimbalanga (20) were charged with indecency and could get 5 to 14 years in jail if convicted.
(SFC, 12/30/09, p.A2)(SFC, 1/19/10, p.A2)
2009 Dec 27, In Pakistan a suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a large gathering of Shiite Muslims in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, killing five people and wounding 80. Another blast in Karachi wounded 30, but it was attributed to a buildup of gas in a sewage pipe.
(AP, 12/27/09)(AP, 12/29/09)
2009 Dec 27, Isaac Schwartz (b.1923), Russian composer, died at his home just outside St. Petersburg. His music adorned some of the most popular movies of the Soviet era. Schwartz wrote the music for a total of 110 movies and 35 theatrical performances.
(AP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, Sudan, angling to become Africa's leading exporter of ethanol, sent out its first shipment of the bio-fuel to the Netherlands. Kenana's plant, located in the White Nile State south of Khartoum, was built by the Brazilian ethanol supplier Dedini.
(AFP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 27, Syrian security agents detained Tal al-Mallohi (19), a high school student blogger, after summoning her for questioning. Authorities have not allowed al-Mallohi's family to communicate with her since she was picked up. On Sep 20, 2010, The New York-based Human Rights Watch called for her immediate release. On Feb 14, 2011, she was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of spying for a foreign country.
(AP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 2/15/11, p.A2)
2009 Dec 27, Human rights groups warned that the Thai government's planned expulsion of 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos could turn violent.
(AP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 26, Turkey's military arrested eight of its officers in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Bulent Arinc, the country's deputy prime minister.
(http://tinyurl.com/yhgzlkp)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.38)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93), US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions" (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban car bomb targeted a bank where police queued for salaries in Kandahar, killing three people. NATO said one of its service members was killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/27/10)(AFP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In China 14 children died when the vehicle taking them to school plunged into a creek in the central province of Hunan. In Guizhou province 7 people died and 15 were injured after a truck crashed into a gas station in fog, causing a pileup involving more than 100 cars.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, An Egyptian Ministry of Health official said a resurgent H1N1 swine flu virus has infected 1,172 people in Egypt and killed 56 since October 8.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Guatemala men claiming to belong to the Zetas drug gang forced radio stations to broadcast a threat of war in a northern Guatemalan province where the government declared a state of siege last week.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing nine people at the government compound in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province. 43 people were injured by the blasts. 3 members of the same family were killed when a roadside bomb hit their car outside the town of Dujail, 50 miles (80km) north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old. The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Italy bomb squad experts defused a package bomb that was delivered to the Greek Embassy in Rome, four days after similar mail bombs exploded at two other embassies, wounding two people.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Mexico police in Guerrero state found the remains of three people in a clandestine grave in the town Teloloapan. A police report said the three unknown people were believed to have been killed about four months ago. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz one policeman was killed, and a local police commander was wounded when a man opened fire on municipal offices in the town of Otatitlan. The Defense Department said troops patrolling the mountainous area of Tamazula, Durango, discovered a cache of weapons and 770 kg (1,697 pounds) of marijuana in 191 bales.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Morocco’s interior ministry said security forces have arrested six Moroccans suspected of planning attacks in the country and abroad.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Pakistan intelligence officials and tribal elders say the Pakistani Taliban have kidnapped 23 tribesmen who recently met the army chief in South Waziristan. Suspected US missiles struck two vehicles in a Taliban stronghold on Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan, killing 25 suspected militants.
(AP, 12/27/10)(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 27, In the Philippines US Lt. Cmdr. Scintar Buenviaje Mejia (35) died of head injuries after jumping from a second-floor staircase while a security guard escorted him to the bathroom. He was arrested a day earlier with what was thought to be cocaine. Tests later showed the white powder wasn't an illegal drug.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Russia jailed ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of money laundering and theft of billions of dollars at a trial that has renewed doubts about the Kremlin's commitment to the rule of law.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Serbia a series of explosions damaged the Sloboda ammunition factory in Cacak.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.51)
2010 Dec 27, Somali pirates seized a ship with eight crew onboard. The MV EMS River was seized approximately 175 miles (280 km) northeast of the port of Salalah, Oman.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Venezuela said it has detained 12,376 people for drug-related crimes this year, about 40 percent more than in 2009.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2011 Dec 27, Sears Holdings Corp. said it will close up to 120 stores in its Kmart and namesake chains, blaming poor sales of consumer electronics so far this holiday season and saying it would focus its energy on its better performing stores.
(Reuters, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, China announced a cut in its rare earths export quota as it tries to shore up sagging prices for the exotic metals used in mobile phones and other high-tech goods.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Colombian FARC rebels announced plans to release six hostages who have been held captive for more than a decade. They included police officers Jorge Trujillo, Jorge Romero and Jose Libardo Forero, who were kidnapped in southern Colombia on July 11, 1999.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, An Egyptian court ordered the Egyptian army to stop forced virginity tests on female detainees, months after the practice sparked a national outcry and stained the ruling military's reputation.
(AFP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Guinea Bissau's army clashed with renegade forces overnight, leaving at least two dead as they combed the capital for suspects after thwarting an alleged coup attempt. Navy Chief Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, who has previously been accused of involvement in coup plans and in the drugs trade, was arrested for plotting a coup. Tchuto and 18 other co-accused were released on June 20, 2012.
(AFP, 12/27/11)(AFP, 6/21/12)
2011 Dec 27, UN human rights officials in Haiti issued a report accusing the national police department of excessive force, saying there is evidence officers may have killed at least nine people in the capital.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Hungarian media officials say two employees, who have been on hunger strike for over two weeks in protest at alleged political meddling with journalists' work in state-funded media, have been fired. The state Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA, said that Balazs Nagy Navarro and Aranka Szavuly were dismissed because their fast — in which they have only been ingesting liquids since Dec. 10 — is illegal and a "provocation" of their employer.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, India and Pakistan tentatively agreed to renew an agreement designed to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war.
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 27, In eastern Indonesia mudflows streaming from a volcano killed four villagers and about 1,000 others have fled their homes. Mount Gamalama in the Molucca Islands sprang to life this month with a powerful, non-fatal eruption.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2011 Dec 27, Iran warned that it would block the Strait of Hormuz if Western powers attempt to impose an embargo on Iranian petroleum exports in their effort to isolate the country over its suspect nuclear energy program.
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 27, In Iraq a car bomb exploded near a police station in the town of Hawija, 150 miles (240 km) north of Baghdad, killing two civilians and injuring another.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Israeli strikes overnight killed a Palestinian and wounded 10 others, as the military struck what it described as "global jihad" targets who were planning cross-border attacks on southern Israel from the Egyptian Sinai.
(AFP, 12/29/11)(AFP, 12/30/11)
2011 Dec 27, Kuwait's public prosecutor released 32 stateless people on bail after holding them for nine days for taking part in a protest to demand citizenship.
(AFP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Mexican police in the northern state of Nuevo Leon said that information provided by arrested members of a kidnapping gang has led them to at least seven bodies found buried in shallow graves or dumped in a well. The Attorney General's Office said that former regional police security coordinator Herrera Valles, arrested in 2008 for aiding the Sinaloa drug cartel, has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Federal police detained one of the United States' most-wanted drug traffickers, Luis Rodriguez Olivera, aka "Blondie," at Mexico City's international airport.
(AP, 12/27/11)(AP, 12/28/11)
2011 Dec 27, In southern Nigeria attackers threw homemade explosives inside an Islamic school in a predominantly Christian city where some 50 children had gathered for an Arabic class, wounding six pupils and a teacher in Delta state. Gunmen in a late night attack shot dead a three-year-old girl and her parents near the volatile central city of Jos. The attackers were suspected to be Fulani tribesmen, a mostly Muslim group which has been blamed for previous raids on the village.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2011 Dec 27, The governor of Puerto Rico signed 4 laws that he said will help track suspects and provide aid to crime victims as the island struggles with a record number of killings.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2011 Dec 27, Somali pirates hijacked the Enrica Ievoli, an Italian ship carrying 15,000 tons of caustic soda from Iran to Turkey. A ransom was paid on April 22, 2012, and the 18 crew members and ship were freed.
(AP, 5/1/12)
2011 Dec 27, Syria's army suspended days of attacks on the restive city of Homs and began withdrawing its tanks just as Arab League monitors visited the area. The Sudanese head of the mission to Syria, Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, was leading the team of at least 12 observers to Homs. Security forces shot dead two people in the Damascus suburb of Douma, one in the southern province of Daraa and one in the northwestern province of Idlib. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) said 23 people were killed, including six in Homs. A student at Damascus University opened fire with a pistol inside a classroom at the medical department killing one student and wounding four. He was said to be a former anti-regime detainee who had been recently beaten by the pro-regime students, including the one he shot dead.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2012 Dec 27, In NYC Sunando Sen (46) was shoved in ront of a subway train and crushed to death in Queens. On Dec 30 Erika Menendez (31) was charged in the death. Menendez said she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought he was one.
(AP, 12/30/12)
2012 Dec 27, Retired US Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf (b.1934) died in Tampa, Fl. He topped an illustrious military career by commanding the US-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991 but kept a low public profile in controversies over the second Gulf War against Iraq.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Former Argentine economy minister Felisa Miceli was sentenced to four years in prison for corruption. Miceli was forced to quit in 2007 when a bag of money holding $32,000 was found in her office toilet.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, In Colombia Lorena Henao, the sister of Orlando Henao (d.1998), founder of the Northern Valley drug cartel, was shot to death by gunmen on the outskirts Armenia. 4 suspects were arrested in the attack.
(SFC, 12/28/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 27, Egypt's chief prosecutor ordered an investigation into the leaders of the country's opposition after a lawyer accused them of incitement to overthrow the regime of newly elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Iranian state TV reported that the country's president has dismissed the health minister after her ministry put out a statement criticizing authorities for not providing money to import medicine.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Mexican authorities discovered a sophisticated smuggling tunnel, as long as a football field, equipped with electricity and ventilation not far from the Nogales port of entry into Arizona.
(AP, 12/28/12)
2012 Dec 27, In northwest Pakistan dozens of militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two tribal police posts in the town of Darra Adam Khel, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two policemen. 21 other policemen were missing and presumed kidnapped.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he will sign a controversial bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children, as the Kremlin's children's rights advocate recommended extending the ban to the rest of the world.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Russia and Lakhdar Brahimi, UN envoy for Syria, both said that they want to revive a long-shelved peace initiative that would call for a transitional government to run the country until elections can be held.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, In Saudi Arabia a man was killed in clashes with police in an oil-rich eastern region, where the country's Shiite minority has been holding protests against the Sunni ruling monarchy.
(AP, 12/28/12)
2012 Dec 27, In Thailand leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy, also known as the Yellow Shirts, were indicted for storming the prime minister's office compound and sealing off Parliament during massive anti-government rallies in 2008 at the height of political turmoil, which left the country deeply divided to this day.
(AP, 12/27/12)
2012 Dec 27, Vietnamese police detained Le Quoc Quan (41), a well-known dissident lawyer, escalating a crackdown on those who speak out against the country's one-party, authoritarian rule.
(AP, 12/28/12)
2013 Dec 27, The A&E channel said it is reversing its decision to drop “Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson from the show set in Louisiana for his remarks on gays.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Los Angeles Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen (24) pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges after admitting that he attempted to assist al-Qaida by providing weapons training in Syria.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Colorado the first batch of Denver businesses approved to sell recreational marijuana received their licenses.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A7)
2013 Dec 27, In Afghanistan 3 NATO personnel were killed in a Taliban suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy in Kabul.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, China’s environment ministry said it will raise standards for the production of cement, batteries, leather and heavy metals as part of its efforts to cut air, water and soil pollution.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, A Chinese court in Hunan province sentenced four municipal security officers to prison for a clash that left Deng, a watermelon seller, dead and triggered a public outcry.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Danish drugmaker Lundbeck said it has received marketing authorization from the European Commission for its antidepressant Brintellix following approval in the United States in September.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police clashed across the country, leaving at least 5 dead in protests after the army-backed government declared the group a terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Henri Rechatin (82), aka Henry’s, the celebrated French tightrope walker who balanced above high the Alps, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, died.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Indonesia Ambar Arianto Mulyo (59), a Bali Hyatt hotel security employee, was strangled to death after he tried to capture a 15-foot python.
(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, In Iraq violence across the country left six people dead.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, An Israeli official said Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Japan the governor of Okinawa gave the go-ahead for land reclamation to begin for a new US military base, advancing the effort to consolidate the massive US troop presence on the southern Japanese island but also making protests from residents likely.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Lebanon a powerful car bomb tore through a business district in the center of Beirut killing Mohammed Chatah (Shatah), a former finance minister and senior aide to former PM Saad Hariri. 7 others were also killed in the blast. Hariri blamed Hezbollah for the assassination. A Lebanese teenager seen posing for a group "selfie" in front of the bomb-laden car moments before it exploded died of his injuries the next day.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.34)
2013 Dec 27, In Libya 3 gunmen shot to death Maj. Mohammed Faraj al-Ziwi from the military's air defense unit in the al-Salam district of Benghazi.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Montenegro an overnight bomb blast shook the offices of the leading daily Vijesti in the latest attack on a newspaper known for its criticism of the authorities under long-term leader Milo Djukanovic.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Morocco and Qatar signed an aid deal worth $1.25 billion, part of a five-year package of financial assistance extended by wealthy Gulf states to the North African kingdom to help it weather 'Arab Spring' protests.
(Reuters, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, Lack of fuel from Israel brought Gaza's lone power plant to a halt, days after it was fired back to life following a seven-week shutdown.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Two Russian astronauts began a spacewalk to install cameras and perform other work on the International Space Station. This was the third spacewalk in a week at the orbiting laboratory.
(AP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Russia at least two people were killed in the explosion of an automobile in Pyatigorsk in the restive North Caucasus region.
(AP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, An oil platform belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco sank as it was being used to carry out maintenance work at an oil well in Safaniya. The bodies of 3 Asian workers who went missing were recovered over the next 24 hours.
(AFP, 12/28/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Somalia at least 10 people were killed in an explosion in a restaurant in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, Regional leaders said South Sudan's government has agreed to end hostilities, at the end of a crisis summit, raising hopes for a potential breakthrough in efforts to cease violence that has displaced more than 120,000 people in the world's newest country. An army spokesman said South Sudanese rebels loyal to former VP Riek Machar have been defeated in Malakal, the capital of major oil producing Upper Nile state, after four days of intense fighting.
(AP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, Syrian state TV and opposition activists say government forces have ambushed members of an al-Qaida-linked group, killing dozens of the Nusra Front rebels near Maaloula, a historic Christian village north of Damascus. A monitoring group said 5 people, including an elderly man, a woman and a disabled man, have died of hunger in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp south of Damascus.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/27/13)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Dec 27, The Thai government appealed to the military to provide security for February elections after violent clashes between police and opposition protesters left two people dead and more than 150 wounded.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Turkey three lawmakers, including a former minister, resigned from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). A Turkish court blocked a government attempt to force police to disclose investigations to their superiors.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, In Yemen an army tank shelled a funeral tent erected by the Southern Movement at a school in Sanah, Daleh province, killing 19 people, including 4 children.
(AFP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)
2014 Dec 27, In Arizona police officer Tyler J. Stewart (24) died in Flagstaff after he was shot multiple times by Robert W. Smith (28), a domestic violence suspect. Smith walked away and fatally shot himself.
(SFC, 12/29/14, p.A7)
2014 Dec 27, In Maryland bicyclist Tom Palermo (41), a father of two, was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Episcopal Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook (58) was later charged with manslaughter and drunken driving.
(SFC, 1/10/15, p.A4)
2014 Dec 27, Bahrain's main opposition movement Al-Wefaq handed its leader, Sheikh Ali Salman (49), a new four-year stint at the helm of the Shiite group. Wefaq activities have been banned in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
(AFP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Belarus' authoritarian president replaced his prime minister, the head of the national bank and an array of other top officials as the country weathers economic troubles.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In southeastern Brazil at least 8 people were killed after a passenger bus plunged into a ravine while trying to avoid an oncoming truck in Espirito Santo state.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Brazil a helicopter crashed in marshland near the coastal city of Bertioga, Sao Paulo state, killing 5 people.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Snow and icy weather swept through parts of Europe, stranding drivers overnight and leaving thousands of homes without power in Britain.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, China's capital received its first flows from the South-North Water Diversion Project, one of the most ambitious engineering projects in Chinese history.
(AFP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Egypt gunmen on a motorbike killed a policeman and wounded another in a drive-by shooting in Cairo.
(AFP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, An Egyptian appeals court reduced the sentences of eight men convicted on charges of "inciting debauchery" for taking part in an alleged same-sex wedding party from three years to one year in prison.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In India a fire broke out in a timber shop on the outskirts of Mumbai early today, burning eight people to death.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Iran's army said it has deployed a suicide drone for the first time in massive ongoing military drills near the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Japan's Cabinet approved 3.5 trillion yen ($29 billion) in fresh stimulus for the ailing economy.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Libya said it has called on Italy to send firefighters to prevent a fire spreading out of control at Es Sider, the country's biggest oil port. The fire had spread to a total of five oil tanks. The fire was reported extinguished on Jan 2.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)(Reuters, 1/2/15)
2014 Dec 27, North Korea's Internet and 3G mobile networks were paralyzed again this evening. North Korea called US President Barack Obama a "monkey" and blamed Washington for Internet outages that it has experienced during a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of the film studio Sony Pictures.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Russia said it has agreed on a new deal to supply coal and electricity to Ukraine, which is struggling with a lack of raw fuel for power plants due to a separatist conflict in the industrial east.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, A Somali government source said Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi, a leader of Somali Islamist group al Shabaab with a $3 million US bounty on his head, has surrendered.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, Sweden's mainstream parties reached a deal that will allow the minority center-left government to remain in office and sideline the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who hold the balance of power in parliament.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Turkey 3 people, including a teenager (15), died and three others were wounded in clashes between Islamists and Kurdish youths in the southeastern town of Cizre.
(Reuters, 12/27/14)(Reuters, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 27, Vietnamese police detained Nguyen Dinh Ngoc (48), the third blogger in a month in the latest crackdown on dissent in the communist country.
(AP, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 27, In Yemen 12 people were killed in clashes between tribesmen and Shiite rebels north of the capital Sanaa.
(AP, 12/28/14)
2015 Dec 27, The United States and its allies conducted 37 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Ellsworth Kelley (b.1923), American abstract painter, sculptor and printmaker, died in Spencertown, NY.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Kelly)
2015 Dec 27, Meadowlark Lemon (83), “clown prince" of the Harlem Globetrotters, died in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(SFC, 12/25/15, p.C2)
2015 Dec 27, An Afghan official said the local Islamic State affiliate and a rival militia controlled by a prominent lawmaker have killed 8 fighters from both sides, captured a day earlier, in a brutal killing spree in the eastern border province of Nangarhar.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In western Australia a train was carrying around 200,000 liters (53,000 gallons) of the sulfuric acid when it derailed near the small town of Julia Creek in Queensland state.
(AP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Burkina Faso said authorities have arrested around 20 soldiers for plotting to free from prison a prominent general who has been charged with staging a coup.
(Reuters, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Rival Burundi factions traveled to Uganda ahead of talks aimed at ending months of violence, as the African Union pushed the government to accept a peacekeeping force.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China officially ended its one child policy with the signing into law of a bill allowing all married couples to have a second child as it attempts to cope with an ageing population and shrinking workforce.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China's rubber-stamp national legislature approved the country's first anti-terrorism law, amid concerns that its requirements that tech companies share information with the government could hurt business interests and further infringe upon human rights.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China’s ruling Communist Party announced that Chang Xiaobing, chair of China Telecom, has been placed under investigation on suspicion of corruption.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, China's legislature approved the country’s first national anti-domestic violence law. It will take effect in March.
(AP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, In China Xu Yuan'an, head of the City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau for Shenzhen's Guangming New District, where a Dec 20 huge landslide left scores of people missing, killed himself.
(AFP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, An Egyptian military spokesman says that security forces chased two militants as they fled on a motorcycle, killing one and injuring another in the provincial capital of el-Arish. In another incident military forces pursued a third militant near Mount Halal, leading to his death amid a gunfight.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Egypt an explosion in Cairo's twin city of Giza killed 3 people, including a senior judge, and injured 11 believed to be the result of a gas leak.
(AP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, France banned demonstrations in part of the Corsican capital Ajaccio following two days of anti-Arab protests and sectarian tensions.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Indonesia a group of about 15 gunmen attacked a police station in Sinak town, Papua province, killing 3 officers and wounding two others.
(AP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, Iran postponed two premier league football matches, as air pollution more than twice the acceptable level persisted in Tehran.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, Iraqi forces took control of the government complex in central Ramadi, the last Islamic State stronghold in the western city.
(Reuters, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, Israeli ministers endorsed contentious draft legislation to toughen rules on rights groups receiving funds from abroad. Left-wing NGOs called the move a witch-hunt.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians who stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In northeastern Kenya gunmen killed 2 policemen and wounded two others in Mandera County.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In northeastern Nigeria an attack blamed on Boko Haram killed 21 people in Maiduguri, Borno state.
(AFP, 12/28/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Turkey 3 soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the town of Cizre in the Kurdish majority southeast.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2015 Dec 27, In Turkey Naji Jerf, a Syrian journalist and filmmaker who documented atrocities by the Islamic State, was killed in Gaziantep. On Jan 10 state media reported the arrest of three people in relation to the killing.
(SFC, 12/25/15, p.A2)(AFP, 1/10/16)
2015 Dec 27, Ukraine said at least 3 people were killed over the last 24 hours as government forces and pro-Russian separatists clashed in the first violation of a holiday truce.
(AFP, 12/27/15)
2016 Dec 27, US President-elect Donald Trump announced that Thomas Bossert, former deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, would be his White House adviser on security and counterterrorism issues.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In Hawaii Japanese PM Shinzo Abe met with President Obama to pay their respects at the site of the surprise Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor over 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War II.
(CSM, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 27, US electric car maker Tesla and Japanese electronics company Panasonic said they plan to begin production of solar cells at a factory in Buffalo, NY.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Carrie Fisher (b.1956), the 1977 "Star Wars" character Princess Leia, died in Los Angeles following a massive heart attack. An autopsy later revealed that Fisher had cocaine and other drugs in her system.
(AP, 12/28/16)(SFC, 6/20/17, p.A5)
2016 Dec 27, In Argentina former Pres. Cristina Fernandez was indicted in a corruption case involving public works. Two aides and businessman Lazaro Baez were also named.
(SFC, 12/28/16, p.A4)
2016 Dec 27, The British government announced plans to crack down on voter fraud by requiring voters to show official identification at polling stations, tightening rules on absentee ballots and preventing political activists from handling absentee ballots.
(SFC, 12/28/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 27, Research led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said the Cheetah, the world's fastest land animal, is in danger of extinction because it is running out of space. The study said there are now just 7,100 cheetahs in the world.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Brazil's Foreign Ministry said it's trying to find Brazilian migrants who disappeared during an attempt to reach the United States by way of the Bahamas. Families of the missing migrants lost contact with them on Nov 6, and reported the issue to authorities on Nov 15.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, A court in Cambodia sentenced the exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to five years in prison after finding him guilty of conspiring to incite chaos by posting misleading documents on his Facebook page.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In southwestern Congo floods triggered by two days of heavy rains and a river bursting its banks killed at least 50 people and left thousands more homeless.
(AP, 12/29/16)
2016 Dec 27, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi approved a law, passed a day earlier, to set up a council headed by his appointees that oversees the media and ensures compliance with "national security" requirements.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In Estonia US Sen. John McCain pledged US support to the security of Russia's three Baltic neighbors amid worries that the US may not be fully committed to the defense of NATO allies following statements by President-elect Donald Trump.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Iran’s media said Mehdi Karroubi (79), a leading member of the opposition National Trust, announced he is quitting his party. He has been under house arrest for almost six years.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Iraqi journalist Afrah Sawqi al-Qaisi was kidnapped after gunmen broke into her Baghdad home. The veteran journalist and employee of the Iraqi Culture Ministry is a leading critic of the country's endemic corruption. Al-Qaisi was released on Jan 3.
(AP, 12/27/16)(AP, 1/4/17)
2016 Dec 27, In Iraq an air strike disabled the last bridge linking eastern and western Mosul, a city Iraqi forces are fighting to retake from jihadists.
(AFP, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 27, Israel's foreign ministry said the country was "reducing" ties with nations that voted for last week's UN Security Council resolution demanding a halt to settlement building in Palestinian territory.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Mozambique's opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama said Renamo will cease all military operations against government forces for the next seven days to allow the public to enjoy New Year festivities.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Nigerian minister Mohamed Bazoum said 31 young people from Diffa, who were enrolled a few years ago in Boko Haram, have decided to surrender.
(Reuters, 12/28/16)
2016 Dec 27, Pakistan reported that at least 31 people have died from drinking tainted liquor over the Christmas holiday. A total of 19 people died today, and 12 a day earlier in eastern Punjab province.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Philippine authorities said they have seized about 6 billion pesos ($120 million) worth of methamphetamines in a series of anti-narcotics operations this month that have yielded the biggest haul in the country's history. The anti-narcotics operations have led to the arrest of 10 suspects, including three Chinese nationals.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Romania's president sparked fresh political turmoil after blocking a proposal by the leftist Social Democrats (PSD) party that won elections this month to appoint Sevil Shhaideh (52), as the EU country's first female and first Muslim prime minister.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Representatives of Russia, China and Pakistan met in Moscow and warned that the influence of Islamic State (IS) was growing in Afghanistan and that the security situation there was deteriorating.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Russian rescuers the clock found the main black box from the Syria-bound military plane that crashed Dec 25 into the Black Sea with 92 people on board.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Russia activated a pipeline carrying Russian gas to Crimea with President Vladimir Putin hailing it as a step that would power economic growth on a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Russia said that a US decision to ease restrictions on arming Syrian rebels had opened the way for deliveries of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, a move it said would directly threaten Russian forces in Syria.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Somalia swore in new lawmakers after weeks of voting in a complex political process seen as its most democratic election in nearly five decades, despite significant flaws.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, South Korea said 26 million head of poultry will be culled over the next 24 hours after the H5N6 strain of avian influenza was found in farms and parks.
(SFC, 12/28/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 27, In Syria a US-backed alliance of militias said it has made unexpectedly rapid gains against Islamic State near its Syrian headquarters in Raqqa, advancing to within a few kilometers of a major dam.
(Reuters, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Thai police put more pressure on the wealthy, politically influential Buddhist Dhammakaya temple where the leader is wanted for alleged money laundering and related crimes involving millions of dollars of embezzled funds.
(AP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, Ukrainian female combat pilot Nadya Savchenko, who served time in a Russian prison, launched her own opposition movement: RUNA, an acronym for the Movement of Ukraine's Active People. She said the movement would be transformed into a political party when the time was right. Ukraine's pro-Moscow insurgents released two women they had held captive thanks to the intervention of Nadya Savchenko.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2016 Dec 27, In southern Yemen at least 28 Huthi insurgents and 12 Yemeni soldiers were killed in Shabwa province as government forces pushed to capture a rebel enclave.
(AFP, 12/27/16)
2017 Dec 27, The United States-led international coalition fighting ISIS, the hardline Sunni militant group, said fewer than 1,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, a third of the estimated figure only three weeks ago.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, American neuroscientist Ben Barres (63), a brain cell pioneer and advocate for equal opportunity, died at his home in Palo Alto. Bares had transitioned from female to male in 1997.
(SFC, 1/1/18, p.C2)
2017 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban car bomb carried out by a suicide bomber went off near a military base in the southern city of Lashkar Gah, wounding 15 people.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Argentina an explosion at a grains terminal owned by China's COFCO International killed one employee, injured others and affected shipping activities from one of the world's top food suppliers.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Bosnia's war crimes court convicted Azra Basic, a former fighter of crimes committed against Bosnian Serb civilians during the country's 1992-95 war. It comes a year after she was extradited from the US, where she had become a naturalized citizen. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stabbing a man in the neck.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen vowed to extend his more than 30 years in power by at least another decade, weeks after the highest court dissolved the main opposition party ahead of a 2018 general election.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Cameroon arrested 38 heavily-armed men on the border with Equatorial Guinea. On Jan. 3 Equatorial Guinea said it had thwarted "a coup" in late December mounted by mercenaries who sought to attack President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader.
(AFP, 1/3/18)
2017 Dec 27, Cameroon released New York Stony Brook University literature Professor Patrice Nganang (37). He had been held in the Central African nation since early this month for writing an article that criticized the government.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China's parliament said part of a high-speed railway station being built in Hong Kong would be regarded as mainland territory governed by mainland laws, an unprecedented move that critics say further erodes the city's autonomy.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China’s Xinhua news agency said the government will bring its paramilitary police force, the People's Armed Police, under the control of the Central Military Commission which controls the country's armed forces from January 1.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China’s State Council said it will allow local government to keep all the environment tax revenues raised from polluting firms, in an attempt to encourage local authorities to enforce environmental protection measures.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, China’s Geely Holding Group, the owner of Sweden's Volvo Cars, said it is buying an 8.2% stake in truck manufacturer AB Volvo from Cevian Capital, a fund manager. Geely will get 15.6 percent of voting rights.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Officials said the Congolese army has stepped up arrests of South Sudanese refugees and tightened the border in a bid to block rebels from seeking sanctuary in its country.
(AFP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Germany an Afghan asylum-seeker (15) fatally stabbed his ex-girlfriend, a German of the same age, in a drugstore in Kandel. The suspect was taken into custody on suspicion of manslaughter.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 27, Tehran's police chief said Iranian police are taking a softer approach to breaches of Islamic rules, opting for education over punishment. Police will no longer arrest women for failing to observe the Islamic dress code imposed since 1979. Violators will be made to attend classes.
(AFP, 12/27/17)(SFC, 12/29/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 27, A Dutch court said that the government could not be accused of doing too little to improve the quality of the air, although emissions in various parts of the country are in breach of European rules.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Russia opposition leader Alexei Navalny announced a series of rallies across the country in January to press home his call for a boycott of next year's presidential election, a move likely to draw a sharp response from the Kremlin and police.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Russia said it will supply Turkey with four batteries of S-400 surface-to-air missiles for $2.5 billion under a deal that is almost complete. The deal has caused concern in the West because Turkey is a member of NATO, but the Russian missile system cannot be integrated into NATO's military architecture.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Russia an explosion injured 18 people in a branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain. Investigators opened a criminal case into the blast, which they say was caused by a homemade bomb packed with pieces of metal.
(Reuters, 12/28/17)(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.A4)
2017 Dec 27, In Russia Ilya Averyanov, a factory's former director, opened fire in the Moscow pastry factory, wounding a guard. He reportedly shot in self defence to stop people taking the factory from him. Averyanov fled the scene but was arrested the next day.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)(Reuters, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 27, Russia’s RIA news agency reported that Moscow will limit the scope of US military observation flights over Russia from Jan. 1 next year in retaliation for US curbs on similar Russian flights over the United States.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, In Syria a dozen more patients and their families were evacuated from eastern Ghouta, a besieged rebel-held suburb of Damascus.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2017 Dec 27, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad a terrorist and said it was impossible for Syrian peace efforts to continue with him.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Turkish prosecutors said they will review legal cases against 11,480 people after finding they had been re-directed unwittingly to the ByLock messaging app linked to suspects in last year's failed coup.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said police had arrest warrants for a total of 171 academics and staff from Istanbul's former Fatih University, which was regarded as having close ties to US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Uganda’s military said its forces have killed more than 100 rebels in eastern Congo accused of carrying out the Dec. 7 attack on a UN base.
(SFC, 12/28/17, p.A2)
2017 Dec 27, Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels swapped hundreds of prisoners in the war-torn east of Ukraine, one of the largest such exchanges since the outbreak of an insurgency almost four years ago. The Ukrainian army reported the death of one soldier in the renewed fighting, the first casualty after the latest Christmas ceasefire came in force on December 23.
(AFP, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Uzbekistan's state news agency UzA reported that the Finance Ministry has sacked 562 employees after President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered it to root out inefficiency and get rid of what he had called "rats" tarnishing its reputation.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, A Vietnamese court sentenced 15 people to multiple years in jail for plotting to bomb the country's biggest airport in the southern city of Ho Chi Minh.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Dec 27, Zimbabwe state media reported that new President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed Constantino Chiwenga. the country's former military commander, as one of his two vice presidents.
(AP, 12/27/17)
2018 Dec 27, In Brazil Gen. Walter Souza Braga Netto, the man in charge of military intervention into Rio de Janeiro's public security, called the operation an unmitigated success with all its objectives reached. The operation officially ends Dec. 31.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, China's former deputy intelligence chief was sentenced to life in prison for corruption. Ma Jian was found guilty of crimes including accepting bribes and insider trading. He was also ordered to pay more than 50 million yuan ($7.26 million) in penalties.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Security forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo fired live rounds and tear gas to scatter demonstrators who burned tires and attacked Ebola centers in protest at their exclusion from the presidential election. 24 patients fled an Ebola treatment center in Beni when it came under attack by people protesting the cancellation of Sunday's presidential election in the eastern city.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Egyptian authorities released Amal Fathy, a prominent activist who had criticized the government and decried sexual harassment, after more than seven months of detention.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Egypt a German man (23) was detained at Cairo airport. On Jan. 7 German news agency dpa reported that he still had not been heard from.
(AP, 1/7/19)
2018 Dec 27, French conglomerate Vinci said it had bought control of Gatwick airport, Britain's second-busiest, for nearly three billion pounds only months before Brexit.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, German authorities said customs officials in the Hamburg area destroyed nine tons of drugs last week with an estimated total street value of about 520 million euros ($592 million).
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In southern Iceland an SUV carrying seven members of a British family plunged off a high bridge, killing three people and critically injuring four others.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, India's lower house of Parliament approved a bill to implement the Supreme Court's ruling that found the Muslim practice of instant divorce was unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Iraqi lawmakers demanded US forces leave the country in the wake of a surprise visit by President Donald Trump that politicians denounced as arrogant and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Former Israeli armed forces chief Benny Gantz, who opinion polls show poses the toughest challenge to PM Benjamin Netanyahu's bid for reelection next year, formally established the Israel Resilience Party.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In southern Libya a Chadian armed group attacked a military camp of forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, killing one and injuring 13 others near Traghen, about 400 km north of the border with Chad.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, The Madagascar electoral commission said former president Andry Rajoelina (44) has beaten his rival and predecessor Marc Ravalomanana in the Dec. 19 election beset by allegations of fraud from both sides. Results showed that Rajoelina had won 55.66 percent of the vote against 44.34 percent for Ravalomanana.
(AFP, 12/27/18)(AFP, 12/29/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Mongolia some 25 thousand people took to the streets to protest against corruption in the top echelons of politics, braving temperatures that dropped below minus 20 degrees Celsius in the capital, Ulaanbaatar.
(Reuters, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In southwestern Niger a French air raid mounted by French and Nigerian fighters and Tiger attack helicopters struck" jihadists gathered near Tongo Tongo. Some 15 suspected jihadists were reported killed.
(AFP, 12/30/18)
2018 Dec 27, Pakistan announced a travel ban on former President Asif Ali Zardari and 171 other individuals while authorities complete an investigation into alleged money laundering.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Saudi Arabia's King Salman ordered a sweeping government reshuffle, replacing key security and political figures including the foreign minister, as the kingdom grapples with the international fallout over critic Jamal Khashoggi's murder.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, A network of Sudanese journalists went on strike in the wake of deadly protests sparked by a hike in bread prices, while opposition groups called for further rallies.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11,500 people have fled the Islamic State group's last stronghold in eastern Syria since Kurdish-led forces broke IS defenses and took the jihadists' main hub of Hajin two weeks ago.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Thousands of Taiwanese, taking a page from France's yellow vest movement, protested for the third time in a week to demand lower taxes and the fair handling of tax disputes.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, It was reported that Thailand investigators have found Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, the deputy prime minister, innocent of failing to declare assets a year after he was discovered to have several luxury watches that would have been out of reach of his government salary.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Tunisia protesters clashed with police for a third consecutive night in six different towns including Kasserine, where journalist Abderrazak Zorgui set himself ablaze earlier this week.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, Turkey detained Adnan Sutcu (56) of Germany shortly after his arrival in Ankara to attend his mother's funeral. He was barred from leaving Turkey after the authorities accused him of supporting a terrorist organization on social media.
(Reuters, 12/31/18)
2018 Dec 27, The United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus, the latest sign of efforts to bring the Syrian government back into the Arab fold.
(AFP, 12/27/18)
2018 Dec 27, In Venezuela a magnitude 5.5 earthquake jolted people from their sleep early today, forcing residents in the capital to evacuate buildings in their pajamas before sunrise. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
(AP, 12/27/18)
2019 Dec 27, A US federal judge denied an attempt to restore about 98,000 voters in Georgia to the state's electoral rolls after they were removed earlier this month upon being classified as "inactive".
(Reuters, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, A US federal appeals court said that a 17-year sentence for a New York City man who sought to aid the Islamic State group by trying to kill an FBI agent is “shockingly low," as it ordered a judge to re-sentence him. Fareed Mumuni (25), a US-born citizen, was sentenced in April 2018 after pleading guilty to charges that he planned to aid the extremist organization and tried to kill the agent who was searching his Staten Island home.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In southern California a fire in an apartment in Riverside County killed Juan Moreno and two daughters. Moreno had gotten his wife and two children out of the apartment and then returned to save his other children. An injured son (8) died the next day.
(SFC, 12/31/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 27, In the SF Bay Area Phillip Carl Jablonski (73), a serial killer whose five victims included two wives, was found unresponsive in his San Quentin State Prison cell and pronounced dead within minutes. A San Mateo County jury sentenced him to death in 1994 for the first-degree murders of his wife, Carol Spadoni (46) and her mother, Eva Petersen (72).
(AP, 12/31/19)
2019 Dec 27, It was reported that Pennsylvania's Roman Catholic dioceses have paid nearly $84 million to 564 victims of sexual abuse. The tally was expected to grow as backlog claims are processed.
(SFC, 12/27/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 27, US disc jockey Don Imus (b.1940) died in Texas. His radio stardom crashed in April 2007 after describing the mostly black Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos." He was yanked 8 days later by CBS Radio, but reportedly collected a multimillion dollar settlement of his five-year contract with the company.
(SFC, 12/28/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban attack on an army checkpoint in southern Helmand province killed at least 10 soldiers.
(SSFC, 12/29/19, p.A4)
2019 Dec 27, In Australia the temperature in Adelaide hit 108º F prompting the South Australian government to declare a code red alert.
(SFC, 12/28/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 27, A court in Bosnia sentenced Bosnian man Ibro Cufurovic (24) to four years in prison for fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria. Some 260 Bosnian citizens remain in the camps in Syria, including approximately 100 men and 160 women and children.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In Chile clashes between protesters and police left one man dead, raising the death toll during protests that started in October to 27. The man was electrocuted after falling into a pit in Plaza Italia, Santiago.
(SFC, 12/30/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 27, China, Iran and Russia started four days of joint naval drills in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman.
(The Telegraph, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, It was reported that Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the world’s longest-serving ruler, should declare his assets before the nation receives more financial support, according to the International Monetary Fund. Under a program agreed to last week, the state will be required to increase transparency, improve governance and implement reforms to fight corruption.
(Bloomberg, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In India a group of protesters in New Delhi was beaten and shoved into buses by police as they attempted to demonstrate against a new citizenship law that has triggered nationwide protests in recent weeks.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, A rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk killed an American contractor and wounded several US and Iraqi military personnel.
(Bloomberg, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, Japan approved a contentious plan to send its naval troops to the Middle East to ensure the safety of Japanese ships transporting oil to the energy-poor country that heavily depends on imports from the region.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, In Kazakhstan a jetliner with 98 people aboard struggled to get airborne and crashed shortly after departing from Almaty, killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Montenegro’s Parliament adopted a contested law on religious rights after chaotic scenes that saw the detention of all pro-Serb opposition lawmakers. The government pushed through parliament a bill that requires religious groups to prove ownership over land and places of worship they had before 1918, or see the property become state-owned.
(AP, 12/27/19)(Bloomberg, 3/7/20)
2019 Dec 27, Nigeria's government condemned extremists linked to the Islamic State group after a video circulated of 11 hostages, most of them Christians, being executed. They were thought to be killed on Christmas Day.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Russia's defense minister reported that a new intercontinental weapon that can fly 27 times the speed of sound became operational, bolstering the country's nuclear strike capability. Pres. Putin has described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview broadcast on Russian state television that Russia and Ukraine are withdrawing all of their lawsuits against each other after they agreed on a gas transit deal last week.
(The Telegraph, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, A Syrian opposition leader called on the international community to help millions of civilians in the country's last rebel-held stronghold amid a crushing government offensive, calling it a "disaster area".
(AP, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, A Turkish court convicted six journalists and one other employee of an independent newspaper of aiding the network of a US-based cleric who is accused of masterminding the failed coup in 2016. The seven were accused of supporting the coup through their work for the newspaper Sozcu, which has been extremely critical of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
(AP, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, Turkey unveiled its first fully domestically-produced car, saying it aimed to eventually produce up to 175,000 a year of the electric vehicle in a project expected to cost 22 billion lira ($3.7 billion) over 13 years. The vehicle sported the TOGG label of the consortium that is building them.
(Reuters, 12/27/19)
2019 Dec 27, The UN General Assembly approved a Russian-led resolution that will start the process of drafting a new international treaty to combat cybercrime over objections from the European Union, the United States and other countries.
(AP, 12/27/19)(AFP, 12/28/19)
2019 Dec 27, The UN General Assembly approved a resolution strongly condemning human rights abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and deaths in detention.
(AP, 12/28/19)
2020 Dec 27, Pres. Donald Trump urged senior Justice Dept. officials to declare the 2020 election results "corrupt." Notes of the call were released on July 30, 2021.
(SFC, 7/31/21, p.A6)
2020 Dec 27, Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet lapsed overnight as President Donald Trump refused to signed an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sudden objections. Trump continued to demand larger COVID relief checks and complained about “pork" spending. Late today Trump signed the coronavirus stimulus package and a massive spending measure needed to prevent a government shutdown just ahead of a Dec. 28 deadline.
(AP, 12/27/20)(Reuters, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, The FBI identified the Nashville bombing suspect as Anthony Q. Warner (63) and said he died in the blast, which damaged more than 40 businesses in the downtown area.
(AP, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, Warner Bros. announced that Wonder Woman 1984 brought in $16.7 million at the box office in the US and Canada over weekend.
(The Week, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, California to date had 2,048,213 cases of coronavirus and 24,224 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 246,923 cases and 2,432 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 19,132,446 with the death toll at 333,118.
(sfist.com, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, New Mexico began providing COVID-19 vaccinations to 15,000 people who work or live at long-term care facilities.
(SFC, 12/28/20, p.A5)
2020 Dec 27, Azerbaijan army units were reportedly attacked by “an illegal Armenian armed group" in Nagorno-Karabakh, killing one Azerbaijani serviceman and wounding another.
(AP, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, Hurricane-force winds reaching up to 106 mph (170 kph) and heavy rainstorms battered parts of Britain, disrupting train services and stranding drivers in floodwaters.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, The head of drugmaker AstraZeneca, which is developing a coronavirus vaccine widely expected to be approved by UK authorities this week, said that researchers believe the shot will be effective against a new variant of the virus driving a rapid surge in infections in Britain.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, In Cameroon more than 37 people were killed and 18 others seriously injured after a bus crash early today in the western village of Nemale.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Central African Republic held presidential and legislative elections amid fears of violence after a campaign period marked by fighting between rebels and government forces.. President Faustin-Archange Touadera is seeking a second term in office and has accused his predecessor, François Bozizé, of fomenting a coup with rebel groups.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Beijing tightened COVID-19 curbs over concerns that China's mass travel during the holiday period could cause cases to spike in the capital, as it reported locally transmitted cases for a fourth straight day.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that China has lowered the age of criminal responsibility for murder and some other serious crimes from 14 to 12 after some high-profile killings by children.
(The Telegraph, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that drugmakers have agreed to cut prices by around 50% on average for more than 100 medicines in order to have them included in China's state medical insurance scheme from March, potentially heralding a massive leap in sales.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Cyprus started vaccinating its population against COVID-19 as part of a concerted drive across the EU. Cyprus has reported 19,391 cases and 111 deaths.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Czech PM Andrej Babis became the first person in the country to be given a vaccine against the new coronavirus.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Europe rolled out a huge COVID-19 vaccination drive to try to rein in the coronavirus pandemic but many Europeans are skeptical about the speed at which the vaccines have been tested and approved and reluctant to have the shot.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that BMW wants roughly every fifth car it sells to be powered by an electric engine by 2023. Chief Executive Oliver Zipse said 15,000 private and about 1,300 public charging points would have to be put into operation every week as of today.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Iran informed Iraq’s electricity ministry that it plans to cut gas shipments further to three million cubic meters. Iran reduced gas exports to Iraq to five million cubic meters from 50 million cubic meters two weeks ago citing unpaid bills.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Israel became the first country to enter a third coronavirus lockdown as officials ramped up vaccinations to a pace PM Benjamin Netanyahu said may allow an emergence from the pandemic by March.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)(Econ., 1/2/21, p.34)
2020 Dec 27, Italy vaccinated the first residents against COVID-19 as it reported 298 coronavirus-related deaths up from 261 the day before. The daily tally of new infections was 8,913 down from 10,407 the day before, taking the total number of cases since Italy's epidemic began to 2,047,696.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, said his group now has twice as many precision-guided missiles as it had a year ago, saying Israel's efforts to prevent it from acquiring them have failed.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Niger held presidential and legislative elections that could see the West African country's first democratic transition of power since independence amid a growing threat from jihadists in the region. President Mahamadou Issoufou, who has served two terms, is stepping down, paving the way for the first peaceful transfer of power between two elected presidents since Niger became independent from France in 1960. None of the 28 candidates won a majority. Former foreign affairs minister Mohamed Bazoum of the ruling party will face off against former president Mahamane Ousmane on Feb. 21.
(AP, 12/27/20)(SSFC, 1/3/21, p.A4)
2020 Dec 27, Norway's Institute of Public Health said that the new variant of the coronavirus circulating in Britain has been detected in two people who came to Norway from the UK.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, It was reported that nearly 1,000 girls from religious minorities are forced to convert to Islam in Pakistan each year, largely to pave the way for marriages that are under the legal age and non-consensual.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, The regional civil protection authority of Portugal's Madeira Island said the new variant was "detected in travelers who arrived in Madeira from the United Kingdom" but it did not specify how many people were infected or when the cases were found. Portugal has reported 6,619 deaths and a total of 394,573 infections.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, South Africa confirmed 1,004,413 Covid-19 infections and 26,735 deaths since the outbreak began in March.
(BBC, 12/28/20)
2020 Dec 27, South Korea said it will extend social distancing measures introduced to try to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic for another six days, to Jan. 3, even as it continues to report near-record numbers of new cases each day.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, In Sudan Abdel-Rahman Nour-el-Daem al-Tom, the governor Blue Nile province, was killed in a car crash in the country's southeast that also injured four others.
(Reuters, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Thailand confirmed 121 new infections of the novel coronavirus, up from the 103 cases reported earlier in the day. the new cases included 94 domestic transmissions and 18 in migrant workers connected to an outbreak at a seafood market in Samut Sakhon, a province southwest of Bangkok. Infections connected to this cluster have spread to 38 provinces. Thailand has reported a total of 6,141 cases and 60 deaths.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, Turkey’s parliament approved a law that would increase government monitoring of civil society groups, which rights groups have warned would violate the freedom of association.
(AP, 12/27/20)
2020 Dec 27, In Uganda a bodyguard for Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine was killed and two journalists injured amid violent confrontations between security forces and followers of the singer and lawmaker who is challenging the country’s long-time leader.
(AP, 12/27/20)
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