Timeline 2007 January-March
Return to home
2007 Jan 1, The
9th-ranked Boise State Broncos completed a perfect season with a 43-42
overtime victory over No. 7 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. Southern
California beat Michigan 32-18 in the Rose Bowl.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, In SF the minimum wage
rose 3.6% to $9.14 per hour following a mandatory 2003 requirement for
annual cost of living adjustments. SF police reported a decline in
homicides to 85 in 2006, down from 96 in 2005.
(SFC, 1/2/07, p.E1)
2007 Jan 1, In Washington DC a
smoking ban passed in 2005 was extended to bars and nightclubs. The ban
for smoking in restaurants and offices had taken effect in April 2006.
(SFC, 1/2/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 1, In Denver, Colorado,
Broncos football player Darrent Williams was killed in a drive-by
shooting in the early morning and two people with him were injured. On
October 8, 2008, Willie D. Clark (25) was indicted for the murder.
(Reuters, 1/1/07)(AP, 10/9/08)
2007 Jan 1, Tillie Olsen (94),
writer and SF labor activist, died. In 1961 she won the O. Henry Award
for best short story for her “Tell me Riddle.” In 2008 Ann Hershey
completed her documentary “Tillie Olsen: A Heart in Action.”
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.E1)
2007 Jan 1, Grand Ole Opry star
Del Reeves died at age 74.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Jan 1, The government of
President Evo Morales approved a decree requiring US citizens to obtain
visas to enter Bolivia. Morales said the decree was "a matter of
reciprocity." The US government requires Bolivians to obtain visas to
enter the United States.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, In Brazil Sergio
Cabral took office as governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The
state’s economy was valued at around $130 billion, about the same as
that of Venezuela.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.50)
2007 Jan 1, Bulgaria and Romania
joined the EU. Some 30,000 Israelis gained EU citizenship due to their
dual registration in Romania.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A11)(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, China’s government
began requiring all companies listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock
markets to prepare their accounts according to Int’l. Financial
Reporting Standards (IFRS). The initial decision had been made in Nov
2005. New rules came into effect that allowed foreign reporters to go
more or less where they pleased.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.13, 63)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.18)
2007 Jan 1, Li Zhaoxing, China's
foreign minister, signed a string of accords in Benin as part of a
whistle-stop tour of seven African nations as Beijing bolsters economic
ties on the continent. From Benin Li flew to Equatorial Guinea ahead of
visits in the coming days to Guinea-Bissau, Chad, the Central African
Republic, Eritrea and Botswana.
(AFP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 1, In Germany a
government plan to encourage working couples to have children went into
effect with benefits worth up to 25,200 euros (17,000 pounds).
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 1, Hong Kong became a
mostly smoke-free city as a ban on smoking in many public places went
into effect.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 1, Flight KI-574, an
Indonesian passenger plane carrying 102 people, disappeared in stormy
weather off Sulawesi island. Rescue teams were sent to search in the
area where the Boeing 737-400 sent out a distress signal. In 2008
investigators said the pilots had accidentally disconnecting the
plane's autopilot. A speed boat capsized in poor weather off the coast
of Borneo island, killing 15 people.
(AP, 1/1/07)(AP, 1/2/07)(AFP, 3/25/08)
2007 Jan 1, Iraqi authorities
reported that 16,273 Iraqis, including 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police
and 627 soldiers died violent deaths in 2006. Iraqi police reported
finding the 40 handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-riddled bodies in
Baghdad. The US military killed six Iraqis during a raid on the offices
of a prominent Sunni political figure, where American forces believed
al-Qaida fighters had taken refuge. A US soldier was killed by a
roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad. The blast wounded three others,
including an interpreter, as they talked with local residents about
sectarian violence.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 1, A photographer for the
French news agency Agence France Presse was kidnapped in Gaza City just
before sundown.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, Somali government
troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and fighter jets captured the last
major stronghold of a militant Islamic movement, while hundreds of
Islamic fighters, many of them Arabs and South Asians, fled the town.
PM Ali Mohamed Gedi set a 3-day deadline for gun collection.
(AP, 1/1/07)(SFC, 1/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 1, South Korean diplomat
Ban Ki-moon became the UN’s eighth secretary-general.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, Slovenia adopted the
euro, becoming the 13th EU nation to use the single European currency.
The transition to the euro included a 14-day period for dual use of the
euro and Slovene tolar.
(WSJ, 12/30/06, p.A4)(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 2, The Wall Street
Journal introduced a new print format.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, Jim Gibbons, former
Republican Representative in Congress, was sworn in as governor of
Nevada. He soon faced FBI investigations over unreported gifts while
serving on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, US markets and federal
agencies closed in respect for funeral rites for former Pres. Gerald
Ford. Ford’s body was flown to Michigan for burial following services
in the National Cathedral.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, New York City commuter
Wesley Autrey Sr. saved a 19-year-old student who had fallen onto
subway tracks by leaping down and pulling the teen and himself into the
trough between the tracks as a train passed over them.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Garry Betty (49),
chief executive of EarthLink Inc., died of cancer. Betty had led the
company from 1995, one year after Sky Dayton founded the Internet
service provider.
(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 2, An Australian
Aborigine tribe was granted joint management rights over several state
and national parks under a deal that recognizes its traditional
ownership of the land.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, In Brazil an explosion
in Sao Paulo ripped through a state police warehouse used to store guns
and ammunition, killing one officer and injuring five.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, China's foreign
minister continued his whistle-stop African tour in Equatorial Guinea,
where he cancelled debt, promised aid and opened a new Chinese-built
media centre.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Ethiopian helicopters
pursuing Somali Islamists missed their target and bombed a Kenyan
border post, prompting Kenyan fighter planes to rush to the area. The
gun collection program in Mogadishu began with little response. 2
Ethiopian soldiers were shot dead.
(AFP, 1/2/07)(SFC, 1/3/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.41)
2007 Jan 2, Gunmen attacked the
car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad, killing the
official and three relatives. A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi
civilians and wounded seven others in eastern Baghdad. US troops killed
a suspected al-Qaida weapons dealer and two other people in Baghdad
raids. Police found 15 bodies dumped in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Teddy Kollek (b.1911),
the legendary mayor of Jerusalem, died. He was born in Hungary, but was
brought up mostly in Vienna. Kollek arrived in Palestine in 1934 and in
1965 was elected mayor of Jerusalem and served to 1993. He presided
over the reunification of the city after the 1967 Mideast war and tried
to balance the needs of its split Jewish and Arab populations.
(AP, 1/2/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.78)
2007 Jan 2, Mexico said it is
sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight drug
gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has become a
major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine entering the
United States.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 2, In South Africa Oprah
Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged girls south of Johannesburg,
fulfilling a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela six
years ago and giving more than 150 students a chance for a better
future. The school later became embroiled in allegations of abuse;
Winfrey apologized and promised an overhaul.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Tamilnet.com said at
least 15 civilians were killed and dozens more wounded when Sri Lankan
air force jets "carpet bombed" territory held by the Tamil Tigers.
(AFP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, New UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of work
over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the United
Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital punishment
should be a decision of individual countries.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, A UN official said the
UN will investigate a report of allegations of sexual abuse and child
rape by peacekeepers operating in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Rival gangs battled
for control of Uribana Prison in eastern Venezuela, killing 16 inmates
and injuring 13. National Guard troops restored order after the riot
broke out overnight. The death toll in riots this week rose to 22.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Hundreds of hay bales
fell from the sky across Colorado's rangeland as military helicopter
and cargo plane crews delivered food to cattle that have been stranded
by heavy snow and high drifts for a week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, Bob Nardelli abruptly
resigned as chairman and chief executive of The Home Depot Inc. after a
six-year tenure that saw the world's largest home improvement store
chain post big profits but left investors disheartened by poor stock
performance. He left with a severance package of $210 million. He was
succeeded by Frank Blake.
(AP, 1/3/07)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.C1)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 3, C. William Verity Jr.
(89), former US Commerce Secretary, died in Beaufort, SC.
(AP, 1/3/08)
2007 Jan 3, Afghanistan’s the
interior ministry said Afghan and NATO troops killed 17 rebels,
including two commanders, in a sweep of a Taliban stronghold in
southern Afghanistan. In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed
five Afghan security forces and wounded four as they patrolled with
NATO troops.
(AFP, 1/3/07)(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, A key political
alliance announced it would boycott this month's general elections in
Bangladesh, deepening a political crisis that has crippled the South
Asian country for months.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Belarus vowed to
charge fees for transshipped oil.
(WSJ, 1/4/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 3, Mike Perham (14), a
British teenager, became the youngest person to sail solo across the
Atlantic Ocean, reaching the Caribbean island of Antigua after a
six-week voyage. Perham was trailed by his father in another boat.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, It was reported that
more than a million Chinese die each year of smoking related diseases.
The toll was expected to double by 2025. A roadside bomb in southern
China killed two children who found the explosive wrapped in a package
and began playing with it in Shenzhen.
(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A1)(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, China's Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing arrived in the central African nation of
Guinea-Bissau for cooperation talks. His 7-nation tour reflected
Chinese interest in Africa.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, In northern India
ash-smeared and naked Hindu saints led millions of devotees in a
pre-dawn holy dip at the meeting of three major rivers, starting a
weeks-long pilgrimage to wash away their sins.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Iraq arrested 3 men
who were present at Saddam Hussein's execution, including the person
believed to have recorded the event on a cell phone camera. US troops
detained 23 people suspected of ties to senior al-Qaida leaders in
raids in western Iraq. Police in Baghdad found 27 bodies, most of them
with gunshot wounds to the head. Four Americans and an Austrian
abducted in southern Iraq spoke briefly and appeared uninjured in a
video.
(AP, 1/3/07)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/4/07,
p.A1)(AP, 1/3/08)
2007 Jan 3, Kenya sent extra
troops to its border with Somalia to keep Islamic militants from
entering the country after Ethiopian helicopters attacked a Kenyan
border post by mistake while pursuing suspected fighters.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Myanmar's military
government freed nearly 3,000 convicts, but key political prisoners
were not among those released.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, A Nigerian militant
group said it had seized $545,000 sent by Italian oil firm Agip to
obtain the release of 4 foreign workers kidnapped on Dec 7 but had kept
the men hostage.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, In the northern
Philippines a minibus carrying partygoers from a beach collided with a
cargo truck, killing eight people and injuring 17.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 3, In Saudi Arabia
Muslims circled the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, for a final time,
bringing to a close what may have been the largest hajj pilgrimage ever.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, South Korea’s official
media reported that Paek Nam Sun, North Korea's foreign minister and
the country's top diplomat for nearly 10 years, has died at the age of
78.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, In Tunisia at least 14
people, including two security forces, were killed in the shootout in
Soliman, 25 miles south of the capital, Tunis. Fifteen people were
arrested. On Jan 12 the interior minister said nearly 30 Islamic
extremists involved in a deadly gunbattle with police had blueprints of
foreign embassies and documents naming foreign envoys.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 3, Turkmenistan's acting
president, in his first campaign statement for next month's election,
called for wider Internet access in the country and for improving
pensions that were slashed last year.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, The 110th Congress
convened with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate for the
first time in a dozen years. "Today we make history. Today we change
the direction of our country," exulted Rep. Nancy Pelosi, poised to
become the first woman speaker in history. The House of
Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership, voted
to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets and accepting gifts and
meals from lobbyists. Keith Ellison of Minnesota's 5th District became
the first Muslim member of Congress.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, The US Federal Trade
Commission fined the marketers of four weight loss pills $25 million
for making false advertising claims ranging from rapid weight loss to
reducing the risk of cancer.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Harriet Miers resigned
as White House counsel.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, Vincent Sardi Jr.
(91), owner of Sardi's restaurant, the legendary Broadway watering
hole, died in Berlin, Vt.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, NATO and Afghan forces
fought a three-hour ground battle with suspected Taliban militants in
southern Afghan mountains, killing 15 of them. 3 suspected Taliban died
when a land mine they were planting on a highway in Grieshk district
exploded prematurely.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, US officials said
Colombia has extradited to the US a police officer and a former
policeman charged with helping smuggle more than 2 tons of cocaine into
the US on cargo flights in 2005 and 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Pieces of a spent
Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming,
showering parts of the western United States with space debris.
(Reuters, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, John W. Simpson
(1914-2007), former president of Westinghouse (1969-1977), died. He had
worked with Adm. Rickover to create a nuclear US Navy.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 4, Victor Ramirez (27), a
day laborer from El Salvador, was gunned down by 2 black teenagers in
Richmond, Ca. Ramirez was taken off life support after 2 weeks and died
Jan 19.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 4, Overshadowed by an
Israeli raid into the Palestinian territories, a summit between Israel
and Egypt achieved little in reviving the long-stalled Mideast peace
process, highlighting instead the disagreements between Israel and its
Arab neighbors.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Two car bombs exploded
near a fuel station, killing 13 people and wounding 25 amid a relative
downturn in violence in Baghdad during an Islamic holiday that ended
this week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Israeli troops and
Palestinian gunmen exchanged heavy fire in downtown Ramallah after
undercover Israeli forces tried to arrest fugitives in the city's
vegetable market. Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded. Pres.
Abbas demanded $5 million in compensation for the damage to shops and
cars in Ramallah. Fatah Col. Mohammed Ghayeb and six of his bodyguards
were killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Musir Salem Jawher
(28) from Bahrain won the 30th International Tiberias Marathon, around
the Sea of Galilee. The Kenyan runner (Leonard Mucheru), adopted by
Bahrain 4 years earlier, faced anger from Bahrain for running in an
Israeli marathon.
(WSJ, 4/16/07, p.A1)(www.tiberias-marathon.co.il/en/)
2007 Jan 4, Kenya said it has
closed its border with Somalia in an apparent effort to keep Islamic
militants and refugees from entering the country.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Jorge Bajos Valverde,
a Mexican state legislator, was gunned down in the center of Acapulco
on his way to an interview at a radio and TV station.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Nigeria’s President
Olusegun Obasanjo said Nigeria has repaid 1.4 billion dollars (1.12
billion euros) to the so-called London Club of private creditors and
that the rest of the debt will be cleared by March. At least 3 people
were killed in violent clashes between farmers and nomads in the
northwestern state of Zamfara. A 4th died in hospital the next day.
(AFP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Authorities lifted a
ban on kite-flying in Pakistan’s Punjab province after the sport was
forbidden last year following a series of deaths caused by glass-coated
or metal reinforced kite strings. The ban was lifted ahead of Basant,
Feb 25, an annual festival that heralds spring.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Polish newspapers
reported that Stanislaw Wielgus (67), who is poised to be sworn in as
archbishop of Warsaw, was a "secret and conscious" collaborator with
Poland's hated communist-era security forces from 1973-1978.
(AFP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, A Somali government
spokesman said government troops, backed by Ethiopian soldiers, were
fighting about 600 Islamic militiamen in the south.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Marais Viljoen (91),
former president of South Africa (1979-1984), died. The post of
president in the then apartheid state was largely ceremonial during his
term.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Police in the Basque
region said they had found a bomb in northern Spain, five days after a
Madrid car bombing, blamed on the separatist group ETA, killed 2 people.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Sudan described the
alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan as
"outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into the
affair.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, In Uzbekistan Elena
Urlayeva, a prominent human rights advocate, was attacked and beaten by
a group of women she said were sent by police. Urlayeva has accused the
tightly controlled ex-Soviet state of abuse and torture.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Pres. Bush nominated
Michael McConnell, a retired US Navy vice admiral, to be the next
director of national intelligence (DNI). He would follow John
Negroponte, who served 18 months as the 1st head over 16 intelligence
agencies.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 5, The White House
announced a planned shuffling of military leaders in the Iraq war. Adm.
William Fallon ended up replacing Gen. John Abizaid as top US commander
in the Middle East; Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus succeeded Gen. George
Casey as top American general in Iraq; Casey replaced retiring Gen.
Peter Schoomaker as Army chief of staff.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2007 Jan 5, US House Democrats
approved new budget rules that required new spending or tax cuts to be
paid for by other spending cuts or tax increases. The new rules also
required lawmakers to disclose which spending items (earmarks), they
have added to bills.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, SF signed a contract
with EarthLink and Google to install and operate a free wireless
Internet service across the city.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced the
1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 5, Momofuko Ando
(b.1910), inventor of instant noodles (1958), died in Japan.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.94)
2007 Jan 5, In eastern Afghanistan
a suicide bomber in a car wounded four soldiers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Australia’s Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer said Australia and China have ratified a
nuclear agreement clearing the way for the export of uranium to feed
Beijing's giant nuclear power program.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Bangladesh police over
the last 2 days detained about 1,500 activists ahead of a two-day
nationwide general strike aimed at forcing electoral reform and the
postponement of a general election this month.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese police raided
an alleged terrorist camp in a western mountain region near the border
with Pakistan, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 at a training camp
run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Critics accused
Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on
peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing met with Pres. Bozize of the Central African
Republic. Zhaoxing was set to sign a series of accords as part of
seven-nation tour highlighting China's increasing interest in the
African continent.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In central Congo a
diamond mine collapsed in Tshikapa. 2 people were soon rescued and 15
bodies were later pulled from the mine. Further rescue efforts were
abandoned. The group appeared to have been teenagers who hoped that
recent rains had uncovered diamonds in the community mine.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Leon Febres Cordero,
Former President of Ecuador (1984-1988), resigned from Congress and
political life, citing unspecified medical problems. His center-right
Social Christian Party long dominated Ecuadorian politics.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Nicolas Cocaigne, a
French prisoner in Rouen, confessed to killing his cellmate and then
eating part of the man's body. Thierry Baudry's mutilated body was
found Jan 3 by a guard at the prison. A third cellmate who claimed he
slept though the attack was charged with complicity in homicide.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, A prominent Sunni Arab
group charged that some officials in the Iraqi government have links
with Shiite militias involved in sectarian violence and said
authorities should be held responsible for any attacks by the armed
groups. Mortar rounds killed four civilians on Baghdad's outskirts, and
gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint north of the capital, killing
four soldiers. Police in the southern city of Basra reported that an
American contractor and two Iraqis were abducted. The 2 Iraqis were
later found dead. The body of Ahmed Hadi Naji (28), an Associated Press
employee, was found in Baghdad shot in the back of the head, 6 days
after he was last seen by his family leaving for work. A US soldier
died from combat wounds sustained in Iraq's Anbar province.
(AP, 1/5/07)(AP, 1/6/07)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A5)(AP,
1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Mexican officials in
Michoacan state said they had found nine bodies in a shallow grave in
the city of Uruapan.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In southern Nigeria
gunmen kidnapped five Chinese workers fixing overhead telephone lines.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, The Norwegian
Directorate of Fisheries warned that some 790,000 salmon and trout
escaped from Norwegian fish farms in 2006, up 10% on the previous year
and a trend that poses a serious threat to wild salmon.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Pakistan's part of
Kashmir a landslide triggered by recent heavy rains swamped a minibus
and a car on a narrow mountainous road, killing 15 people and injuring
three others.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Gaza Adel Nasar, an
anti-Hamas cleric, was shot by men in a car after he delivered a sermon
warning that God would punish those responsible for seven killings the
previous day.
(AP, 1/5/07)(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Stanislaw Wielgus,
Warsaw's incoming archbishop, admitted he had cooperated with the
Communist-era secret police and said he was leaving his fate in the
hands of Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Sri Lanka an
explosion inside a passenger bus killed 6 people in Nittambuwa.
Officials blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, but the group denied any
involvement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Sudanese aircraft
carried out strikes on Bamina and Gadir in North Darfur state near the
border with Chad, endangering a fragile ceasefire.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 5, Taiwan's high-speed
rail system welcomed its 1st paying passengers amid lingering safety
concerns and embarrassing ticketing glitches. Construction of the
system began in 2000 with an original launch date of October 2005, but
a delay in the completion of the project's core electrical systems
forced a postponement to October 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania's Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro to
the deputy secretary-general post at the UN, calling her a highly
respected leader and outstanding manager who has championed the
developing world. A senior UN official said the United Nations has
investigated more than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions for
alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and
more than half were fired or sent home.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Senior doctors at
Zimbabwe's state hospitals joined junior doctors in a strike over pay
that has left patients stranded at the country's major medical centers.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told state radio meanwhile that he
had met with representatives of the striking doctors and that they had
agreed to return to work.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 6, New Orleans considered
a curfew as 8 slayings took place in the 1st week of the new year.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.A10)
2007 Jan 6, In Colorado a huge
snow slide knocked two cars off the road in a high pass and buried them.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, The body of Calvin
Jenks (24), a Tennessee state trooper, was found beside his patrol car
near the intersection of state highways 14 and 54. He was shot during a
traffic stop. The next day police arrested two people they believed
were responsible for the killing.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Knoxville, Tenn.,
Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were last seen as they left a
friend’s apartment. Newsom’s shot and burned body was found the next
day along some railroad tracks. Christian’s body was discovered 2 days
later in a trash can at a house rented by one of the suspects. Both had
been sexually assaulted. 4 black suspects and an accessory faced murder
trials.
(SFC, 5/19/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 6, The body of Cha Vang
(30), a Hmong man, was found hidden under a log in a Wisconsin wild
life refuge. Vang had been shot and stabbed 5 times. On Nov 28 James
Nichols (29) was sentenced to 69 years in prison for Vang’s murder.
(SFC, 11/29/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 6, Pete Kleinow, film
effects artist and guitarist for the Flying Burrito Brothers, died in
Petaluma, Ca.
(SFC, 1/16/07, p.B5)
2007 Jan 6, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a NATO vehicle, wounding one soldier.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Bangladesh at least
41 people were burned to death after fire engulfed a bus packed with
migrant workers.
(AFP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Belarus stepped up its
dispute with Russia over energy sales by announcing Saturday it has
started a customs case against Transneft, Russia's pipeline operator.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, In southeastern Brazil
officials said mudslides and flash floods triggered by torrential
downpours killed at least 31 people and drove thousands from their
homes during the past five days.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, David Whelan (60) and
his son Andrew (35) trawled through a farmer's field near Harrogate, in
northern England, when their metal detector squealed. The pair
discovered a Viking trove of coins and jewelry was buried more than
1,000 years ago, a collection of items from Ireland, France, Russia and
Scandinavia that testified to the raiders' international reach.
(AP, 7/1907)
2007 Jan 6, China unveiled its
Jian-10 multi-role indigenous fighter jet, marking a "historic leap
forward" and narrowing a technological gap with major military powers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Cardinal Frederic
Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi (b.1930), Congo's top Roman Catholic prelate,
died in a Belgian hospital. He had warned of what he called
international meddling in the country's recent landmark elections.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Cindy Sheehan,
American "peace mom," called for the closure of the US military prison
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She and other activists arrived to draw
attention to the nearly 400 terror suspects held at the remote site.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Riots erupted
overnight in a maximum-security prison in western El Salvador, leaving
21 inmates dead.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Hong Kong reported
that a wild bird found a few days earlier had tested positive for the
H5N1 strain of bird flu.
(WSJ, 1/8/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 6, In northeast India
suspected separatist rebels fatally shot 13 sleeping migrant workers
before dawn, adding to a string of attacks over two days that killed a
total of 48 people and wounded at least 19.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, The Iraqi army
reported killing 30 militants in a Sunni insurgent stronghold in the
center of Baghdad. In Baghdad two car bombs killed four civilians.
Across the country at least 8 more people were reported killed or found
dead as a result of sectarian violence. 27 bodies were discovered in a
heavily Sunni district just north of the Green Zone. Most of the
victims showed signs of torture. A US soldier died after coming under
fire in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/6/07)(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Mexican federal and
state police manned checkpoints within Tijuana’s city limits as local
police suspended their patrols because soldiers sent to crack down on
drug gangs and corruption seized most of their guns on suspicion they
aided traffickers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas declared Hamas' paramilitary militia in the Gaza Strip
illegal, raising the stakes in his standoff with the Islamic movement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Philippine troops
killed six members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group, including
one wanted by the US for involvement in the kidnapping of Americans.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Seven people were
killed in shootings across Puerto Rico, prompting the US territory's
police chief to plead for tougher gun laws.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Somalia's interim
government indefinitely postponed plans to forcibly disarm Mogadishu as
hundreds of people burned tires, looted vehicles and said they wouldn't
give up their guns. Two people were reported killed and at 17 people
wounded.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Meetiyagoda, Sri
Lanka, an explosion inside a passenger bus killed 15 people. Officials
blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, but the group denied any involvement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 7, Newly elected House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation," said
Democrats running Congress would not give President Bush a blank check
to wage war in Iraq.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2007 Jan 7, The North American
Int’l. Auto Show opened in Detroit. China’s Changfeng Group Co., made
its first appearance at the international auto show in Detroit, Mich.
China numbered over 100 automakers and industry consolidation was
expected.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.54)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 7, Bobby Hamilton (49),
NASCAR driver, died. He had won the 2001 Talladega 500.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2007 Jan 7, In eastern Afghanistan
a roadside bomb ripped through a vehicle, killing a woman, her two
newborn twin babies and the children's grandmother.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Activists and police
clashed in Bangladesh, injuring at least 50 people at the start of a
three-day transport blockade aimed at derailing upcoming general
elections.
(Reuters, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Staff at a logistics
company in Qingdao, in China's eastern Shandong province, found a human
torso in a box seeping blood but marked as carrying medicine. Two days
later, police in Beijing and Jiangyin, in eastern Jiangsu province,
found a man's head and arms. On Jan 15 state media said Chinese police
have detained a man and a woman suspected of killing a man and posting
his body parts to three different cities.
(Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 7, A helicopter crashed
into the garden terrace of a restaurant in southeastern France, killing
three people on the ground and severely injuring a fourth.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Suspected separatists
fatally shot eight people in India's northeast as army, police and
paramilitary forces swept through a remote corner of the region after
earlier militant attacks killed dozens.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Three US airmen died
in a car bombing in Baghdad, among at least 17 people killed in
violence across Iraq as Iraqi troops launched a fresh battle to oust
militias and pacify the capital. Two American soldiers were killed
north of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/7/07)(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 7, In Israel former PM
Ehud Barak announced his political comeback, saying he will run for the
leadership of the Labor Party in a first step toward a possible bid at
regaining the country's top office.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, In Jamaica the
Accompong Maroons, descendants of freed African slaves, vowed to fight
any plans for bauxite mining in the forested region where they have
lived in semiautonomy for centuries. Sydney Peddie, the group's leader,
said opening up the territory to mining would breach a treaty signed
between the Maroons and the British in 1739, which gave the group
nearly 25,000 acres in Cockpit Country, an inhospitable terrain of
rocky cliffs and limestone towers.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 7, A senior Kenyan health
official said about 75 people have died of Rift Valley fever
(hemorrhagic fever) during the past three weeks and another 183 are
infected with it. The last outbreak of the disease in East Africa was
between 1997-1998, when 478 people died in Somalia and Kenya. Currently
there was no human vaccine.
(AP, 1/8/07)(WSJ, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 7, Tens of thousands of
Fatah supporters packed Gaza's main soccer stadium in a show of
strength to boost the movement in its increasingly violent struggle
against the Islamic militant group Hamas.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Stanislaw Wielgus,
Warsaw's new archbishop, resigned over his involvement with the
communist-era secret police. The Vatican said his past actions had
"gravely compromised his authority."
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Russia stopped pumping
oil into a pipeline network that crossed Belarus. The line
delivered 12.5% of the EU’s oil needs.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.44)
2007 Jan 7, An American AC-130
gunship began attacking suspected al-Qaida positions in southern
Somalia. The US airstrikes were the first offensive in the African
country since 18 US troops were killed there in 1993. The main target
was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on
the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed
225 people.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A4)(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 7, Eight Taiwanese banks
took charge of a failing subsidiary of the country's Rebar
conglomerate, just a day after the financial regulator rescued a
private bank owned by the same group.
(AFP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 8, USS Newport News
nuclear-powered submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker in the
Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil supplies
travel. The bow of the submarine was traveling submerged when it hit
the stern of the supertanker Mogamigawa. Damage was light.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger proposed to extend medical insurance to all
Californians, including illegal immigrants. He said the $12 billion
cost would be spread among employers, individuals, insurers, government
and health care providers.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 8, Ron Dellums was sworn
in as Oakland’s 48th mayor.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 8, A wildfire destroyed 5
multimillion dollar homes in Malibu, Ca.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.B10)
2007 Jan 8, In NYC an unidentified
rotten-egg smell wafted over the city.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 8, In Texas police shut
down 10 blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown Austin after
dozens of birds were found dead.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, General Electric Co.
it agreed to buy oil services company Vetco Gray for $1.9 billion from
a group of private equity funds.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The San Francisco
Hyatt Regency, opened in 1973, was sold by Strategic Hotel Capital LLC
to Dune Capital Management and DiNapoli Capital Partners, privately
held investment funds in a deal pegged at over $200 million.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.E3)
2007 Jan 8, Yvonne De Carlo (84),
TV and film star, died. She played Moses' wife in "The Ten
Commandments," but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The
Munsters" (1964-1966). In her 1987 book, "Yvonne: An Autobiography,"
she listed 22 of her lovers, who included Howard Hughes, Burt
Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and an
Iranian prince.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 8, Iwao Takamoto (81),
creator of the Scooby-Doo cartoon character, died in Los Angeles. He
also assisted in the designs of some of the biggest animated features
and television shows, including "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," "Lady and
the Tramp" and "The Flintstones."
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Austria's two main
political parties, the Social Democrats and the People's Party, agreed
to form a new coalition government.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Bangladesh riot
police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to disperse thousands
of stone-throwing protesters in Dhaka, who are demanding postponement
of this month's elections and electoral reforms.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Backers of leftist
Bolivian President Evo Morales set fire to the Cochabamba state capitol
in a protest to demand the resignation of state Gov. Manfred Reyes
Villa, who is allied with the conservative opposition.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Finland 2 newspaper
editors were fined for publishing a letter that said violence against
Jews was justified and that the Holocaust was acceptable.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Germany Mounir el
Motassadeq, a Moroccan man convicted of aiding three of the four
suicide pilots who committed the Sept. 11 attacks, was sentenced to the
maximum of 15 years in prison for his role in the terror plot.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Thousands of poor
migrant laborers fled India's remote northeast despite a government
promise of protection after dozens were massacred at the weekend by a
powerful rebel group.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Iraq 9 workers,
primarily Shiite, were killed in an ambush near Baghdad's airport. 6
bodies found in a largely Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Israeli police
arrested Yigal Saar, the US representative of the Israel Tax Authority,
as part of a bribery and influence-peddling probe that has so far
questioned the authority's top officials and an aide to Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Daniyal Akhmetov, the
PM of oil-rich Kazakhstan, resigned in the wake of criticism of his
performance by the heavy-handed president of the Central Asian country.
Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan as president since its
independence in 1991, regularly replaced his prime ministers as he
tried to secure his position and balance interests of various powerful
elite groups.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The Nigerian
government withdrew a suit seeking to sack Vice President Atiku
Abubakar for defecting to a party other than the one in which he was
elected.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Fatah gunmen released
the deputy mayor of Nablus unharmed, two days after kidnapping him.
Fatah militants torched stores of Hamas supporters in Ramallah and shot
at the house of a top Hamas official. Agence France-Presse expressed
gratitude for the release of a photographer who had been held hostage
by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Rev. Janusz Bielanski,
head priest of Krakow's prestigious Wawel Cathedral, left his
post amid allegations he collaborated with secret services of the
communist era, a day after Warsaw's newly-appointed archbishop resigned
in a scandal that shocked the nation.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, A senior Russian
official said that Russia has been forced to stop delivering oil to
Europe via Belarus after disruptions to the flow of exports it blamed
on Minsk.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Hugo
Chavez announced plans to nationalize power and telecommunications
companies and make other bold changes to increase state control as he
promised a more radical push toward socialism. Chavez stated that he
had been a “communist” since at least 2002.
(AP, 1/9/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.34)
2007 Jan 9, The Bush
administration barred Bank Sepah, Iran’s oldest bank, from doing any
future business in the US, accusing it of transferring Iranian missile
payments to North Korea. Germany’s Commerzbank AG said it will stop
handling dollar transactions for Iran at its new York branch by Jan 31.
(AP, 1/10/07)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 9, Pres. Bush lifted a
ban on oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Bristol area.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 9, Mike Beebe, Democrat,
was sworn in as the 45th Governor of the State of Arkansas.
(www.governor.arkansas.gov/gov_biography.html)
2007 Jan 9, The National Park
Service announced that it signed a 60-year lease with San Francisco
developer to restore Fort Baker and build a hotel called “Cavallo
Point, the Lodge at the Golden Gate.”
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 9, Steve Jobs introduced
the iPhone at the annual Macworld Expo in SF. The 4GB version would be
sold for $499 starting in June. A television set add-on called Apple TV
was planned to hit stores in February for $299. Apple dropped the word
“Computer” from its name.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.C1)(Econ,
1/13/07, p.57)
2007 Jan 9, Rex Farrance (59), a
longtime editor for PC World, was shot to death during a robbery at his
home in Pittsburg, Ca. Farrance had let his son grow medical marijuana.
In September Tremaine Amos (25), Darryl Hudson (23) and Montrell Hall
(23) were charged with murder in the commission of a robbery. In 2009
Hudson was convicted of murder, robbery and assault. Amos pleaded no
contest to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for testifying against
Hall and Hudson. A mistrial was declared in Hall’s case. In a retrial
Hall was convicted on Oct 9, 2009, of murder, assault, robbery and
burglary.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A1)(SFC, 9/26/07, p.B1)(SSFC,
6/21/09, p.B2)(SFC, 10/12/09, p.C4)
2007 Jan 9, An Australian zoo put
a group of humans on display to raise awareness about primate
conservation, with the proviso that they don't get up to any monkey
business.
(Reuters, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Dhaka, Bangladesh,
turned into a battlefield as protesters, demanding the scrapping of
national elections, hurled bombs and rocks at police who responded by
firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The parties demanded the
postponement of January 22 elections, alleging that they cannot be fair
without massive changes to the voter list.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9 Britain’s Royal Mail
released a set of six stamps depicting the iconic Beatles' album covers.
(Reuters, 12/28/06)
2007 Jan 9, Freddy Munoz, a
reporter for a state-controlled television network in Venezuela, was
released from a Colombian jail, 52 days after his arrest on accusations
of plotting bomb attacks with leftist rebels.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Mikhail Prokhorov
(41), chief executive of Russian mining giant OAO Norilsk Nickel, was
detained in France for questioning as part of a crackdown on a
suspected prostitution ring at an upscale ski resort.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 9, A landslide in a
western Indonesian village killed up to 13 people, burying several
homes and a small mosque.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Iraqi and US soldiers,
backed by American warplanes, battled suspected insurgents for hours in
central Baghdad, and 50 militant fighters were killed. A cargo plane
carrying Turkish construction workers crashed during landing at an
airport near Baghdad, killing 32 people and injuring two. 4 members of
a family died when their house in Baghdad's Sadr City section was
destroyed. Police initially said the attack was from two mortar shells,
but later a police official and witnesses said the home was fired on by
US aircraft.
(AP, 1/9/07)(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert arrived in China for a visit centered around boosting trade
ties and discussions on Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Carlo Ponti (b.1912),
Italian film producer and longtime husband of Sophia Loren, died in
Geneva. His productions included such films as “La Strada” and
“Blowup.” In 1965 he joined with David Lean to produce “Doctor
Zhivago.” Ponti first married Sophia Loren using lawyers in a proxy
marriage in Mexico in 1957. They remarried again in France in 1966.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.B5)
2007 Jan 9, Japan launched its
first full-fledged defense ministry since World War II as part of Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to build a more assertive nation.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Jordanian police
killed one suspected al-Qaida member and detained a second in a
crackdown that foiled a terrorist plot against Jordan.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, In Mexico Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has refused to accept his slim loss to
President Felipe Calderon in July's election, launched a weekly TV show
mocking the government's battle against crime and unemployment and
promising to promote a law targeting Mexico's monopolies.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, Nigeria started paying
more than 1,000 Biafran police pensioners, 37 years after the west
African country ended a bloody civil war.
(AFP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, More than 100 Indian
fishermen left for home after Pakistan set them free in a goodwill
gesture to its longtime rival.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Philippine troops
killed Binang Sali, a senior al-Qaida-linked militant, who allegedly
led an urban terror unit of the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, In Somalia US AC-130
strikes were reported to have killed 10 al-Qaida suspects. Local
officials said the toll was much higher and included civilians.
(AP, 1/9/07)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 9, Armed Basque
separatist group ETA claimed responsibility for the bomb attack at
Madrid airport that killed 2 people last week but said its ceasefire
still held and it wanted peace.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, St. Lucian lawmakers
made history in the Caribbean island when they selected two women to
lead Parliament.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 10, Pres. Bush said that
an additional 21,500 US troops will head to Iraq soon to try improve
the security situation mainly in Baghdad and the western province of
Anbar. Bush’s plan became known as “the surge.”
(AP, 1/15/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.11)
2007 Jan 10, The
Democratic-controlled US House voted 315-116 to increase the federal
minimum wage to $7.25 per hour.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2007 Jan 10, The US Postal Service
honored Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), the First Lady of Song, with her
own postage stamp.
(AP, 1/10/07)(SFC, 1/10/07, p.E8)
2007 Jan 10, California State
coastal regulators voted to impose restrictions on the US Navy's use of
sonar, which has been linked to harmful effects on whales and other
marine mammals.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger released a proposed $143.4 billion budget.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 11, NATO forces overnight
fought two large groups of suspected Taliban militants crossing the
border from Pakistan, and scores of insurgents were killed. Some 150
militants under Jalaluddin Haqqani were killed by the US 10th Mountain
Division.
(AP, 1/11/07)(WSJ, 11/7/07, p.A16)
2007 Jan 10, Belarus lifted a duty
it had imposed on Russian fuel transiting the country.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A7)
2007 Jan 10, Bolivian President
Evo Morales renewed his pledge to nationalize his country's mining
industry, saying he would complete the task this year.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Bosnia's state court
jailed a Swede, a Turk and a Bosnian for up to 15 years four months for
planning a suicide attack in Europe. All 3 men were Muslims and wanted
to pressure Bosnia and European governments to withdraw forces from
Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In England 2 RAF
training helicopters collided in mid-air in Shropshire, with some
reports claiming that one person was killed and three injured.
(AFP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, China said 2006 its
global trade surplus jumped nearly 75% from the previous year to a
record $177.5 billion. Lan Chengzhang, who worked for the China Trade
News, was beaten while visiting a mine in Hunyuan county in the
northern province of Shanxi and died of an apparent brain hemorrhage
the next day. His death sparked a media outcry and a police
investigation. On June 27 the Intermediate People's Court of Linfen
city in Shanxi province convicted Hou Zhenrun, the head of a small
unlicensed mine outside the northern city of Datong, for organizing a
gang of five men to beat reporter. Zhenrun sentenced to life in prison.
The five men who beat the reporters received jail terms of 5-15 years.
A sixth was sentenced to a year in jail for harboring the suspects.
(AP, 1/10/07)(Reuters, 1/17/07)(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jan 10, Cuban dissident
Manuel Valdes Tamayo (50) died. He was one of 75 activists jailed in a
massive crackdown in 2003 and released a year later for health reasons.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Guinea shop,
government and business workers held a general strike, heeding a union
call for protests after President Lansana Conte decided to free two
corruption suspects. Unions demanded that Mamadou Sylla and Fode
Soumah, who have been charged with embezzling public funds and
imprisoned in Conakry on December 6, be put back in jail. The strike
threatened the world’s surplus of alumina, used to make aluminum.
Guinea accounted for 10% of the world’s bauxite exports and 30% of its
reserves.
(AFP, 1/10/07)(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.A13)
2007 Jan 10, Former Guinea-Bissau
PM Carlos Gomes Jr. sought asylum at the local UN office, three days
after he said President Vieira was behind the assassination of an
ex-military commander last week.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In northern Indian a
4-story building under construction in Allahabad collapsed, killing 10
workers and injuring at least 25.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, A 14-year-old
Indonesian boy died from bird flu, just days after being hospitalized.
It was the first H5N1 fatality in the country in six weeks.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In central Iran a
truck smashed into a bus, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, Bombings and
shootings across Iraq killed at least 99 people, including a US soldier
who died from a gunshot wound in Diyala province. A suicide bomber
killed four civilians in a crowd outside a police station in the
northern city of Tal Afar.
(AP, 1/10/07)(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A15)
2007 Jan 10, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert, midway through an official visit to Beijing, said he received a
candid assurance from China that it opposes Iran having a nuclear
arsenal.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Lebanese trade unions
threatened to escalate protests unless the government drops plans to
raise taxes, adding to troubles for Lebanon's US-backed prime minister
amid an opposition campaign to bring him down.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, A new report alleged
that Myanmar's military junta is allowing gold mines to pollute the
world's largest wild tiger reserve and has promoted development that is
destroying ethnic Kachin communities.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Nicaragua former
revolutionary Daniel Ortega took office in a ceremony attended by more
than a dozen world leaders.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Khaled Meshaal, the
leader of Hamas, said Hamas acknowledges the existence of Israel but
formal recognition by the group will only be considered when a
Palestinian state has been created.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Russia Liana
Askerova said she was detained as part of the investigation into the
killing of Andrei Kozlov, the Central Bank first deputy chairman who
was shot point-blank on Sept. 13 as he left a soccer game in Moscow.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 10, Militants kidnapped
nine South Korean oil workers and one local worker in the Niger Delta
region of southern Nigeria, bringing the total number of foreigners
currently held hostage there to 18.
(AFP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, US forces launched a
third day of airstrikes in southern Somalia. At least four separate
strikes were reported around Ras Kamboni, on the Somali coast near the
Kenyan border. Unknown insurgents attacked a transitional government
barracks and soldiers responded by sealing portions of Mogadishu and
searching house to house for guns.
(AP, 1/10/07)(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 10, In the southern
Philippines a bomb exploded across the street from a public market,
killing six people and wounding 22 others. A second blast in the region
hours later wounded two people near a police outpost.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Sudan and rebel
groups, prodded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, agreed on a
60-day ceasefire, plus diplomatic efforts by the UN and African Union,
to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, Zimbabwe’s central
statistics office (CSO) said inflation had hit a new record high of
1,281%, puncturing government hopes of reining in the galloping rate
which has left households struggling to make ends meet.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 11, President Bush's plan
to send more troops to Iraq ran into a wall of criticism on Capitol
Hill as administration officials drew confrontational challenges from
both Democrats and Republicans.
(AP, 1/11/08)
2007 Jan 11, The US government
said Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden
inside were found planted on US contractors with classified security
clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005
and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, A US federal judge
ruled that the Vatican can be sued for damages by US victims of
clerical sex abuse.
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 11, The Pentagon said it
has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required
to serve on active duty, a major change that reflects an Army stretched
thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 11, Fourteen members of
an advisory board to Jimmy Carter's human rights organization resigned
to protest his new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which has
been attacked as unfairly critical of Israel and riddled with
inaccuracies.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, NATO forces overnight
fought two large groups of suspected Taliban militants crossing the
border from Pakistan, and scores of insurgents were killed.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, An Argentine judge
ordered the arrest of the third wife of former political strongman Juan
Domingo Peron, saying he has questions about her chaotic 20-month rule,
a time when shadowy right-wing violence destabilized Argentina ahead of
her political downfall. Isabel Peron has lived in exile in Spain since
1981.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 11, Iajuddin Ahmed, the
president of Bangladesh, declared a state of emergency following weeks
of violent protests and threats by a political alliance to disrupt
general elections. Gen. Masud Uddin Chowdhury led a coup and forced the
president to cancel elections and declare a state of emergency. Dr.
Fakhruddin Ahmed was sworn in as head of Interim government.
(http://tinyurl.com/6zr23k)AP, 1/11/07)(Econ,
6/7/08, p.54)(Econ, 11/8/08, p.58)
2007 Jan 11, Protesters seeking
the ouster of a Bolivian state governor for his opposition to leftist
President Evo Morales battled with the governor's supporters in clashes
that left two dead and more than 60 injured.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Brazilian prosecutors
sought the extradition of two church leaders arrested in the United
States on money smuggling charges.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, The Bank of England
(BoE) raised British interest rates by a quarter of a point to 5.25
percent to fight inflation.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, China destroyed its
Feng Yun 1-C, an aging weather satellite launched in 1999, with a
ballistic missile 537 miles above the Earth. The impact created about
28% of the junk currently floating in space. The US halted such tests
in 1985 for fear of creating debris deadly to spacecraft.
(WSJ, 1/19/07, p.A1)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.38)(Econ,
1/19/08, p.26)
2007 Jan 11, Former Ethiopian
dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was sentenced to life imprisonment,
ending his 12-year trial in absentia for genocide and other crimes
committed during his iron-fisted rule (1974-1991). Mariam lived
comfortably in exile in Zimbabwe, where Pres. Robert Mugabe has said he
won't deport Mengistu if he refrains from political activity.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Indonesian police
raided a house on Sulawesi Island where several alleged Islamic
militants were staying, sparking a fierce gun and bomb battle that left
one suspected terrorist dead.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, In Iraq US-led
multinational forces detained six Iranians at Tehran's diplomatic
mission in the northern city of Irbil. A suicide truck bomber hit the
house of the head of the municipal council in Samarra, killing three
people and wounding 33. Gunmen killed a professor driving home from the
University of Mosul. Suspected Sunni insurgents set fire to a large oil
pipeline in northern Iraq, interrupting the flow from the Kirkuk oil
fields.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert ended a visit to China after talks with Chinese leaders on
Iran's nuclear program and efforts to boost trade and economic ties.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, The Nigerian military
said it has recovered the body of an officer who was abducted last week
in the country's southern oil producing region.
(AFP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Oil flowed again
through the main pipeline from Russia to Europe after Moscow and
Belarus agreed to settle a dispute that has hurt Russia's reputation as
an energy supplier.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, South Korean
officials said that the bird flu virus had been transmitted to a human
during a recent outbreak among poultry, but the person showed no
symptoms of disease.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, The UN Security
Council said it backs the speedy deployment of African troops to
Somalia and strongly urges a dialogue among all political players, in
addition to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the country.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Vietnam became the
150th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a milestone
expected to launch an era of radical change as the communist nation
enters the global economic mainstream.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, Pres. Bush signed a
bill into law that made it a crime to lie to obtain telephone records
of private citizens, a procedure known as pretexting, following a 2006
case at Hewlett-Packard.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 12, Durham County, N.C.,
District Attorney Mike Nifong asked to be removed from the Duke
lacrosse rape investigation. State prosecutors later exonerated three
suspects.
(AP, 1/12/08)
2007 Jan 12, Francisco Javier
Dominguez-Rivera (22) of Puebla, Mexico, was killed in a confrontation
with the unidentified agent north of the US-Mexico border in Arizona
between Bisbee and Douglas. On Jan 16 the Mexican government sent a
diplomatic note to the United States protesting the fatal shooting.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 12, In California the
Fresno-based Westlands Water District purchased 3,000 acres on the
McCloud River for $35 million. They planned to sell the land to the
federal government if officials and lawmakers decide to raise the
nearby Shasta Dam.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 12, Jennifer Strange (28)
of Rancho Cordova, Ca., died after guzzling a large quantity of water
as part of a Sacramento KDND-FM radio show contest. In 2009 Entercom
Sacramento LLC was found negligent and ordered to pay nearly $16.6
million to the family of Jennifer Strange.
(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A1)(SFC, 10/30/09, p.A8)
2007 Jan 12, In Missouri 2 missing
boys were found at the suburban St. Louis home of Michael Devlin (41).
William Ownby (13) had been missing for 5 days; Shawn Hornbeck (15) had
been missing since Oct 2002. In October Devlin was sentenced to
multiple life terms for kidnapping and sexual assault.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A5)(SFC, 10/9/07, p.A6)(AP, 1/12/08)
2007 Jan 12, Larry Stewart (58),
known as “Secret Santa” for the millions he passed out with no strings
attached to people in need, died at St. Lukes Hospital in Kansas City,
Missouri of esophageal cancer. Stewart, from the Kansas City suburb of
Lee's Summit, made his millions in cable television and long-distance
telephone service.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243578,00.html)
2007 Jan 12, A suicide bomber
rammed his explosives-filled car into a two-vehicle convoy carrying
foreigners south of Kabul, wounding at least one Afghan civilian.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Fakhruddin Ahmed, a
former Bangladesh central bank governor, was sworn in as head of the
country's new interim government.
(AFP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Bolivia’s President
Evo Morales proposed a new law to allow recall votes against elected
officials, a move that would give protesters demanding the resignation
of an opposition-aligned state governor a way to remove him from office.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, In Sao Paulo, Brazil,
a hole being excavated for a new subway station collapsed, opening a
huge crater that swallowed cars and dump trucks. A missing minibus was
feared under the dirt.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, Severe gales and
heavy rains powered by an Atlantic storm left at least one person dead
and eight missing, sunk two fishing trawlers and disrupted travel
across Britain and Ireland.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Canada unveiled plans
to spend more than $368 million over the next five years to protect its
border from terrorist, economic and environmental threats.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, State media said
China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in
less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the
country's tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced. In northern
China an underground gas explosion struck the Niuxinhui Coal Mine in
the province of Shanxi killing 13 people with 9 injured. Police in
southern China arrested 10 farmers in Botang in the impoverished region
of Guangxi embroiled in a dispute with a paper mill over pollution they
say is killing their crops and fouling their water sources.
(AP, 1/12/07)(AP, 1/13/07)(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 12, China and Russia
blocked the Security Council from demanding an end to political
repression and human rights violations in military-ruled Myanmar,
rejecting a resolution proposed by the United States. South Africa
sided with China and Russia.
(AP, 1/13/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.47)
2007 Jan 12, East Timor and France
signed non-aggression treaties with ASEAN member countries on the
sidelines of the annual ASEAN summit in the Philippine resort city of
Cebu. Both countries looked to strengthen ties with a bloc
representing a sixth of the world's people.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, French authorities
freed Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire, following four days of
questioning in connection with an investigation into a suspected
prostitution ring at the swank Alpine ski resort of Courchevel.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, The US Embassy in
Athens came under fire from a rocket that exploded inside the modern
glass-front building but caused no casualties in an attack police
suspect was the work of Greek leftists.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, An American man
dubbed by local media the "butcher of New York" was sentenced to 38
years in prison for killing and dismembering his Honduran wife. Andrew
Gole (49) of Long Island, NY, confessed to strangling and cutting up
his wife, Martha Isabel Moncada (28) with an electric saw in May 2003.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 12, In Iraq at least 19
people were reported killed or dead including 10 bullet-riddled bodies
found in Baghdad and Khudr Younis al-Obaidi, an Iraqi journalist killed
in a drive-by shooting in Mosul.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A9)
2007 Jan 12, In Nigeria 9 South
Korean pipeline workers and a Nigerian kidnapped in southern Nigeria
were released with the help of a youth group.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Roman Abramovich,
Russian oil magnate, was reported to have ordered a new yacht called
the Eclipse. It was under construction in Germany and was
expected to measure over 525 feet, making it the largest privately
owned yacht in the world.
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.W1)
2007 Jan 12, Russia reportedly
agreed to slash the duty on oil exports to Belarus by 70% and Belarus
will share with Moscow a substantial amount of profits from the refined
oil products it sells to Europe.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, A government official
said Somalia's warlords have agreed to disarm and join a new national
army. Violence in the capital brought home the challenge of restoring
order in this fractious and heavily armed country.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, In the tea growing
region of central Sri Lanka at least 18 people were killed in
landslides. The National Disaster Management Center said at least three
people were killed and another 61,000 made homeless in south and
central Sri Lanka in flash floods caused by heavy monsoon rains.
(AP, 1/12/07)(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 12, A Darfur rebel group
denied that it agreed to a cease-fire with the Sudanese government
during a meeting this week with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Ugandan rebels pulled
out of peace talks with the government, dealing a blow to already
faltering negotiations aimed at ending one of Africa's most brutal
conflicts.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 13, The North Carolina
state attorney general's office agreed to take over the sexual assault
case against three Duke University lacrosse players at the request of
embattled Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong. All three
players were later exonerated.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 13, In SF the Muni Metro
T-Third line began operations.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported that
Kink, a Web-based pornography distributor, had purchased the 1912 old
armory building on Mission St. in San Francisco for $14.5 million.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 13, In Huntington, W.Va,
9 people were killed in an apartment building fire.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 13, In McDowell County,
W.Va., 2 miners were killed when a roof collapsed inside the Brooks Run
Mining Company's Cucumber coal mine.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported that
the Asian vulture had declined by up to 99% in the last decade due to
poisoning from diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug for cattle. In
2006 India, Pakistan and Nepal banned the making and importing of the
drug.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 13, In Afghanistan
British marines, supported by Dutch and British attack helicopters,
staged a pre-dawn attack on a mud-brick compound atop a barren hill
where insurgents were thought hiding, setting off a battle that killed
16 suspected militants and one marine in Helmand province. US warplanes
dropped 500-pound bombs.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, ASEAN leaders meeting
in the Philippines signed an agreement to regulate migrant workers.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported that
thousands of birds had dropped dead over the past 3 weeks in Western
Australia.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Jan 13, Bangladeshi police
and soldiers arrested more than 2,500 people overnight and raided the
homes of several political leaders after a new caretaker government was
sworn in to quell unrest ahead of elections.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, A Bolivian air force
plane crashed in a southern state, killing all eight people on board.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, In Canada
groundbreaking took place in Calgary on the 58-story Encana tower, The
Bow. In Dec 2008 construction was halted due to falling oil prices.
(Econ, 1/17/09,
p.40)(http://highriseconstruction.wordpress.com/2008/07/)
2007 Jan 13, China said Wang
You-theng, founder of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group, left China for the
US. You-theng had vanished earlier this month amid accusations he stole
millions of dollars from his Taiwan company.
(Reuters, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 13, Pranab Mukherjee,
India’s foreign minister, visited Islamabad to discuss Sir Creek and
other disputes. 2 days later Indian and Pakistani surveyors began
mapping the creek in preparation for settling their maritime border
there.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.52)
2007 Jan 13, In Iraq at least 11
people were killed or found dead, including a Sunni cleric who was shot
to death near his home in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad and five
who were slain in separate attacks in northern Iraq.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, An Italian military
tribunal gave life sentences in absentia to 10 German former SS men for
massacring about 800 Italian villagers in 1944. They had laid waste to
the villages of Marzabotto, Grizzana and Vado di Monzuno near Bologna,
as the Germans retreated before Allied troops.
(Reuters, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported that
swarms of locusts had descended on the Mexican state of Yucatan and
threatened over 12,000 acres of vegetation.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Jan 13, Suspected avian
influenza was recorded in northern Nigeria's Sokoto State, a day after
the disease reportedly infected 5,000 birds in nearby Kastina state.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, Somali lawmakers
authorized the government to declare martial law as the country's
internationally recognized leaders struggled to assert their authority
after battling an Islamic movement that had controlled much of southern
Somalia.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, In southern Thailand
a Buddhist man and his wife were working at a rubber plantation in Yala
province when a group attacked them, shooting the man three times in
the chest before beheading him and killing his wife. Another Buddhist
was killed in a drive-by shooting in a separate attack in Yala. The
Islamic insurgency, that flared in January 2004, has killed more than
1,900 people.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, President Bush,
facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops
to Iraq, said on CBS' "60 Minutes" that he had the authority to act no
matter what Congress wanted. On "Fox News Sunday," Vice President Dick
Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism would not influence Bush's
plans and he dismissed any effort to "run a war by committee."
(AP, 1/14/08)
2007 Jan 14, In Oklahoma a minivan
carrying 12 people skidded off an icy highway and slammed into an
oncoming tractor-trailer, killing seven.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Scientists said they
have pinpointed a new gene (SORL1) linked to Alzheimer's disease, the
incurable brain disorder that is the top cause of dementia in the
elderly.
(Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, Darlene Conley (72),
a veteran stage, film and television actress, died in Los Angeles. She
entertained daytime audiences for nearly two decades as the feisty
fashion mogul Sally Spectra on "The Bold and the Beautiful."
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 14, Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton ate breakfast with soldiers from New York and Indiana at the
main US base in Afghanistan before meeting with the top American
general in Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. After leaving
Kabul, Clinton went to Lahore, Pakistan, where she met with the
Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. A suicide bomber blew
himself up near a convoy of foreign construction workers and Afghan
soldiers in southern Afghanistan, wounding one civilian.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, ASEAN leaders meeting
in the Philippines signed an agreement to liberalize the trade in
services between China and ASEAN countries.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 14, Australia's
Environment Minister Ian Campbell told national radio that Japanese
whaling ships on their annual hunt in the Antarctic are banned from
docking in Australia and should use restraint in looming clashes with
protesters.
(AFP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, Belarus held local
elections. Government loyalists appeared to sweep the local elections,
as President Alexander Lukashenko retained a firm grip over the former
Soviet nation. Belarus opposition and human rights activists denounced
the vote as rigged, and the United States and the European Union said
it failed to meet democratic standards.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, France's interior
minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, formally clinched the ruling conservatives'
presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Guatemala's Pres.
Oscar Berger declined to read his state-of-the nation speech to
Congress, instead sending a written version to lawmakers after violent
clashes erupted between protesting teachers and police outside the
legislative building.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, The US military said
5 Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected to an
Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in
Iraq. At least 78 people were reported killed or found dead, including
41 bullet-riddled bodies discovered in Baghdad. The US military also
said two American soldiers died from roadside bombs in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/14/07)(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, A court convicted
Sheik Talal Nasser Al Sabah, a member of Kuwait's ruling family, for
drug trafficking and condemned him to death.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, Gunmen burst into the
home of Jaime Meraz Martinez, a political leader in the northern
Mexican state of Durango, and fatally shot him, two family members and
an employee.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, In Nicaragua Iran's
Pres. Ahmadinejad, touring Latin America in search of an alliance of
"revolutionary countries," said the US is trying to hide its failures
in Iraq by accusing his nation of funding insurgents there.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, In Nigeria 12 chiefs
from various delta communities were killed overnight when assailants
attacked their boat.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 14, Hurricane-strength
winds whipped across southwestern Sweden, leaving more than 100,000
households without power and causing major disruptions in train and
boat traffic across Scandinavia.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, An African Union
delegation was in Somalia's capital to discuss the deployment of
peacekeepers, as the government struggled to disarm Mogadishu residents
reluctant to give up their guns after years of fending for themselves
amid chaos.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Two passenger trains
collided near a beach resort town south of Bangkok, killing three
people and injuring more than 100 others.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Gulbakhor Turayeva,
an Uzbek doctor and rights advocate, was arrested for allegedly
possessing banned literature. She claimed to have seen hundreds of
bodies in the bloody crackdown of the 2005 Andijan uprising.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 15, In the 64th Golden
Globe Awards the film "Babel" won for best dramatic film; "Dreamgirls"
was named best musical or comedy; "Grey’s Anatomy" won best dramatic
television series, while "Ugly Betty" won for best TV musical or comedy
series. Forest Whitaker won the film actor award for “The Last King of
Scotland; Helen Mirren won the film actress award for “The Queen.”
(SFC, 1/16/07, p.E1)(AP, 1/15/08)
2007 Jan 15, California’s top
agricultural official said 3 days of freezing temperatures had ruined
as much as 70% of the state’s citrus crop.
(SFC, 1/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 15, The death toll from a
powerful winter storm rose to 36 across six states as utility crews
labored to restore service to hundreds of thousands of Missouri
households and businesses enduring cold weather without electricity for
heat and lights.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Richard Musgrave
(b.1910), German-born American economist and Harvard professor
(1965-1981), died in Santa Cruz, Ca. His books included the classic
textbook: “The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy.”
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.B4)
2007 Jan 15, In southern
Afghanistan NATO troops attacked a militant base in an operation that
left one Western soldier dead and several wounded. 13 suspected Taliban
militants were killed and 17 others were wounded during the clash with
NATO troops. Gunmen in the east killed a deputy provincial council
chief. Afghan agents arrested Abul Haq Haqiq, aka Dr. Mohammad Hanif,
one of two spokesmen who often contacted journalists on behalf of the
Taliban, in eastern Afghanistan. He said that fugitive leader Mullah
Mohammad Omar is under the protection of the ISI in Quetta. (ISI is
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Quetta is a city in
southwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.) Afghan
officials have alleged some of the Taliban's leadership may be based
there.
(AP, 1/15/07)(AP, 1/16/07)(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 15, A British prosecutor
told a jury that 6 men plotted to kill London subway and bus passengers
with bombs made from hydrogen peroxide and flour on July 21, 2005, two
weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters in the city. The
devices failed to explode.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, It was reported that
a team at the British institute that cloned Dolly the sheep have made a
genetically engineered chicken that produces cancer drugs in its eggs.
The proteins they chose were miR24, a monoclonal antibody with
potential for treating melanoma, and human interferon b-1a, an immune
system protein from a family of proteins that attacks tumors and
viruses.
(Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, More than 100 rebels
attacked a northwestern town in the Central African Republic, sparking
the first fighting with government troops in more than a month.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Anti-government
rebels in Chad said they have captured a new location in the far north
of the central African country after ending a truce at the weekend.
Chadian defense minister, General Bichara Issa Djadallah, denied the
rebel claim.
(AFP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, More than 500 armed
militants in Chechnya and other parts of Russia's troubled North
Caucasus surrendered to authorities as part of an amnesty that expired
at day’s end.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Bo Yibo (b.1908), one
of China's first Communist revolutionaries and a member of the post-Mao
circle of leaders known as the "eight immortals," died in Beijing.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 15, In Colombia Eugenio
Montoya Sanchez (37), believed by authorities to be a leader of the
Norte del Valle drug cartel, was captured following a shootout, ending
a years-long hunt for a man wanted by American officials for allegedly
smuggling tons of cocaine into the US. 2 cold-storage tanks owned by a
Nestle supplier outside the town of San Vicente de Caguan were blown up
in an attack also attributed to the FARC. Salvatore Mancuso became the
1st senior paramilitary leader to make a voluntary confession of his
involvement in kidnappings and mass murders. Sanchez was later
extradited to the US and in 2009 pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. He
was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 1/16/07)(AP, 1/19/07)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.48)(SFC,
4/29/09, p.A4)
2007 Jan 15, In Ecuador
nationalist Rafael Correa was sworn in as president. He pledged to
fight a political establishment widely discredited as corrupt. He
signed a decree calling a referendum for a Constituent Assembly and
doubled a monthly welfare payment to $30 for some 1.3 million of the
poorest people.
(AP, 1/15/07)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.48)(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.39)
2007 Jan 15, In India hundreds of
Hindu holy men, naked but for the ash smeared on their bodies and an
occasional marigold garland, led a sea of humanity to the waters of the
Ganges River to wash away their sins at the apex of a weekslong
pilgrimage.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Two top aides to
Saddam Hussein were hanged before dawn, and the head of one of them,
the former Iraqi dictator's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, was severed
from his body during the execution. 3 policemen were killed and two
hurt when a roadside bomb targeted their car in a southeastern section
of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, The Israeli
government published plans to build 44 homes in Israel's largest West
Bank settlement, violating a pledge to the US as Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice was in the region on a peace-seeking mission.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, An Israeli court
ruled that a dead soldier's family can have his sperm impregnated into
the body of a woman he never met.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 15, Kyrgyzstan Pres.
Bakiyev signed into law constitutional amendments strengthening his
powers that he had pushed through after threatening to dissolve
parliament.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, President Felipe
Calderon launched a program to create jobs for young Mexicans and curb
the flow of millions of migrants to the United States.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, The editor and a
journalist at a Moroccan news weekly that published jokes relating to
Islam were convicted of insulting the religion. The court gave
three-year suspended sentences to Driss Ksikes, editor of Nichane, and
to journalist Sanaa al-Aji. Both were barred from journalistic activity
with Nichane for two months and the independent Arab-language magazine
was suspended for two months. They were fined $9,280 each.
(AP, 1/15/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 15, Nepal’s Parliament
was dissolved and replaced by an interim legislature including former
communist rebels, a major step to co-opt the ex-guerrillas into
mainstream Nepalese politics after they agreed to end their decade-long
insurgency.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Some 2,000 ethnic
Pashtun tribesmen rallied in this Pakistani border town near
Afghanistan to condemn the Pakistani government for new border control
measures.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Russian authorities
began cracking down on millions of illegal migrants throughout Russia
as new rules tightening government control of migration came into
effect, prompting concerns that the country could face serious
shortages of low-wage laborers.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, A cargo ship and a
commuter hydrofoil collided near the entrance to the Sicilian port of
Messina, killing four people and leaving dozens of passengers injured.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 15, Somali troops and
allied Ethiopian soldiers conducted house-to-house searches, pursuing
gunmen who carried out an attack in the northeastern part of the
capital.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, In South Korea
unionized workers at Hyundai Motor Co. began a promised partial strike
amid a dispute with management over bonuses.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 16, The US Senate voted
to shine more light on thousands of expensive pet projects buried in
legislation after the new Democratic majority bowed to a successful
push by Republicans to make new disclosure rules even tougher than
originally planned.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Sen. Barack Obama
(D-Ill.) launched his bid for the White House.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2007 Jan 16, Ron Carey (b.1935),
TV and film actor, died in Los Angeles. He played Officer Carl Levitt
in the Barney Miller (1976-1982) TV sitcom. His 15 movies included
“High Anxiety” (1977) and “History of the World: Part I” (1981), both
with Mel Brooks.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.B4)
2007 Jan 16 Pookie Hudson (72),
lead singer for the Spaniels doo-wop group, died in Capitol Heights, Md.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2007 Jan 16, In southern
Afghanistan NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent
Taliban commander during a raid on a compound.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 16, Canadian Trade
Minister David Emerson signed a technology deal with China, on a visit
aimed at reinvigorating relations with the Asian superpower that have
been dented by Canada's blunt talk on human rights.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Chinese search engine
Baidu.com and EMI Music launched an Internet venture that will let
users listen to streaming music for free, adding to Baidu's growing
entertainment business.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Colombian police
found about $19 million belonging to a drug trafficking group buried
under a house in the southwestern city of Cali. On Jan 12 police found
$16 million hidden in a modest house in Cali.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, The European
Parliament elected German conservative Hans-Gert Poettering as
president of the chamber to replace outgoing Spanish Socialist Josep
Borrell.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh reiterated his government's offer for talks with separatist
rebels in restive northeast Assam state after recent violence left 73
people dead.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, An Indonesian
passenger train jumped its tracks, sending a crowded rail car plunging
nearly 20 feet near the central Javanese town of Purwokerto. Five
people were reported killed and more than 250 injured.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Baghdad was struck by
two bombings apparently targeting Shiite neighborhoods one near a
university as students were leaving classes for the day that killed at
least 31, and another at a used motorcycle marketplace that killed at
least 15 people. The death toll across Iraq approached 150 including
four who died when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in a
predominantly Shiite area of downtown Baghdad. Gianni Magazzeni, the
chief of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq in Baghdad, said 34,452
civilians were killed and 36,685 were wounded last year.
(AP, 1/16/07)(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 16, In Kenya deaths due
to Rift Valley fever (hemorrhagic fever) had climbed to at least 95 for
the past month.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Pedro Diaz Parada, a
drug cartel leader, was arrested in the southern state of Oaxaca and
taken to Mexico City. This was the first major drug arrest under the
administration of President Felipe Calderon.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 16, King Mohammed VI of
Morocco launched work on a major road linking Fez to the Algerian
border as part of construction on a north African highway stretching
from Mauritania to Libya. Construction of the 328-kilometer road
(204-mile) from Fez to the eastern city of Oudja, on the border with
Algeria, is expected to cost 820 million euros (one billion dollars).
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 16, Royal Dutch Shell
evacuated staff from two oil installations in southern Nigeria and the
military boosted troop levels in the volatile area after a dozen
village elders were killed in a riverboat attack.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Pakistan's army
destroyed suspected al-Qaida hideouts in an airstrike near the Afghan
border, killing 10 people. A resident said the slain men were Afghan
laborers.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, In the Philippines
Jainal Antel Sali Jr. (41), popularly known as Abu Sulaiman, a top
al-Qaida-linked militant, was killed. He was accused of kidnapping
three Americans in 2001 and of masterminding one of Southeast Asia's
worst terror attacks three years later. DNA evidence soon confirmed
Sulaiman’s death.
(AP, 1/17/07)(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 16, Russia said it had
delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and would consider
further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Spanish court
officials said Spain has issued an international arrest warrant for
three US soldiers after reopening a murder investigation into the
killing of Spanish television cameraman Jose Couso in Iraq on Apr 18,
2003.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, In Sri Lanka fierce
clashes for control of a stretch of rebel-held-land in eastern
Batticaloa district left at least 16 dead. The military said it lost
four soldiers and that 29 more were wounded during the battle. A
pro-rebel Web site said only 12 guerrillas died. TamilNet said 40 Sri
Lankan soldiers were killed.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 16, Rebels said Sudanese
government planes bombed Darfur rebel areas despite a declared truce.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Benon Sevan (69) of
Cyprus, former UN oil-for-food chief, was charged with taking a
$160,000 bribe to influence who could buy Iraqi oil during the $64
billion program that ran from 1996-2003. This brought to 14 the number
of people charged in the case.
(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.A6)
2007 Jan 17, A year after
disclosure of a domestic spying program that President Bush maintained
was within his authority to operate, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
announced the administration had shifted its position and would seek
the approval of an independent panel of federal judges.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2007 Jan 17, Alaska’s newly
elected Gov. Sarah Palin (42) delivered her 1st state speech.
(http://community.adn.com/?q=adn/node/104605)
2007 Jan 17, The Doomsday Clock,
created in 1947 and run by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, was
nudged forward to 11:55 due to moves by Iran and North Korea. It
reached 11:58 in 1953 and moved back to 11:43 in 1991.
(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A10)
2007 Jan 17, In Texas James
Waller, who spent 10 years behind bars for the rape of a boy, became
the 12th person in Dallas County to be cleared by DNA evidence.
(AP, 1/19/07)(http://tinyurl.com/27evec)
2007 Jan 17, A US snow and ice
storm was blamed for at least 64 deaths in nine states. These included
20 deaths in Oklahoma, 9 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New York, 5 in
Texas, 4 in Michigan, 3 in Arkansas, and 1 each in Maine and Indiana.
(AP, 1/17/07)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 17, The SF Police
Commission approved Mayor Newsom’s request to add surveillance cameras
at 8 additional high-crime locations.
(SFC, 1/18/07, p.B3)
2007 Jan 17, Art Buchwald (81),
columnist and author, died. For over four decades he chronicled the
life and times of Washington DC with an infectious wit and endeared
himself to many with his never-say-die battle with failing kidneys.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, In southern Australia
firefighters battled to contain a wildfire that razed a number of homes
amid soaring temperatures and warnings that the worst was yet to come.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Britain’s Guardian
reported that senior executives at defense manufacturer BAE Systems
have been named as suspects in a corruption inquiry being conducted by
the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into contracts with South Africa.
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Chadian rebels
captured the small town of Ade on the border with Sudan, the latest in
a series of raids in the lawless east of the central African country.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In southern Colombia
a pickup truck carrying 660 pounds of explosives destroyed a dairy
plant owned by Swiss food giant Nestle SA, an attack police attributed
to leftist rebels.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, Conservationists said
rebels in eastern Congo, loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda, have killed
and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park.
Congo’s army said Nkunda agreed two weeks ago to stop fighting
government forces in exchange for a government promise not to pursue
war crimes charges against him.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Greece protesters
torched cars, broke bank windows and clashed with riot police during a
student demonstration against plans to allow private universities to
operate.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Honduras a
concrete wall collapsed at a coffee warehouse in Villanueva, crushing
six workers under tons of bagged coffee beans.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, A suicide car bomb
struck a market in the Shiite district of Sadr City and police said 17
people died. Another suicide car bomb exploded earlier at a checkpoint
in the city of Kirkuk after guards opened fire as the driver approached
a police station. The blast killed eight people and injured dozens. A
mortar attack on a residential area in Iskandariyah killed a woman and
injured 10 people. Police found the body of an Iraqi policeman whose
hands and legs had been bound hanging by electric wire, two days after
he was kidnapped while going to his home in the same area. Gunmen in a
car also opened fire on two brothers, aged 30 and 35, on their way to
work as construction workers in Mahaweel, 35 miles south of Baghdad.
One was killed and the other was wounded. In Baghdad, a civilian was
killed in a drive-by shooting and police found 5 unidentified bodies.
An attack in Baghdad on a convoy of a Western democracy institute
killed a 28-year-old Ohio woman and three security contractors.
(AP, 1/17/07)(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 17, Alice Lakwena, a
Ugandan warrior priestess who led an insurgency in the 1980s, died at a
Kenyan refugee camp. She was known as Alice Auma and claimed to have
been possessed by a spirit called Lakwena, which gave her spiritual
powers to protect her fighters from bullets by anointing them with oil.
Her cousin, Joseph Kony, is the messianic leader of the Lord's
Resistance Army.
(AP, 1/18/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.87)
2007 Jan 17, Nepal's former
communist guerrillas began an orderly handover of weapons to UN
monitors, putting in motion a landmark peace deal that calls for
thousands of fighters to disarm and be confined to camps.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Nigeria rebels
released 5 Chinese telecommunications workers and an Italian oil worker
abducted in the southern delta region. A female (22) in Lagos died from
bird flu. This was Nigeria’s first confirmed fatality from Avian
Influenza. Tests on 3 other deaths were inconclusive.
(AP, 1/18/07)(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 17, Russian prosecutors
charged Alexei Frenkel, a bank officer, with organizing the murder of a
senior Central Bank official who sought to clean up Russia's banking
industry. Charges were formally entered against Frenkel in connection
with the killing of Andrei Kozlov, who was shot at point-blank range on
Sept. 13 as he left a soccer game in Moscow.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Russian lawmakers
sharply criticized Estonia for possible plans to remove a 1947 statue
that honors Red Army soldiers who helped drive Nazi forces from the
Baltic nation. Last week the Estonian president signed into law a bill
allowing for the removal of the statue. The monument upset many in the
country that suffered five decades of Soviet occupation.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, A top Somali lawmaker
closely associated with the recently ousted Islamic movement was voted
out as speaker by parliament, a move that could undermine
reconciliation efforts in the restive country.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Thailand suspected
separatist rebels shot dead two Buddhist villagers in the
Muslim-majority south. The insurgency there has killed more than 1,800
people in three years.
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Yevgeny Kushnaryov
(55), described as "the right-hand man" to Ukraine's pro-Russian PM,
Viktor Yanukovych, died from his wounds one day after being shot by one
of his hunting companions.
(www.alertnet.org/thenews/pictures/MOS11.htm)
2007 Jan 17, Morgan Tsvangirai,
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, urged mass protests against
President Robert Mugabe's nearly 27-year-rule.
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 18, The United States
criticized China for conducting an anti-satellite weapons test in which
an old Chinese weather satellite was destroyed by a ballistic missile
on Jan 11.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the US Congress that failure to take
action soon to deal with the budgetary strains posed by an aging US
population could lead to serious economic harm.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Truck driver Tyrone
Williams was spared the death penalty and sentenced in Houston to life
in prison for his role in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants crammed
in a sweltering tractor-trailer.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2007 Jan 18, The heated
controversy at ABC's top show, "Grey's Anatomy," boiled over as the
network rebuked co-star Isaiah Washington for an anti-gay comment and
Washington issued a lengthy apology.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2007 Jan 18, A suicide bomber
detonated his explosives next to Afghan soldiers in an eastern Afghan
market, killing one soldier and wounding three.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, South America's most
prominent leaders met in Rio for a two-day summit of the fractured
Mercosur economic bloc. Leaders sought to refocus Mercosur on the needs
of the region's poor as Venezuela's outspoken president called for
remaking Mercosur to fit his vision of "21st century socialism."
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, In China hundreds of
riot police clashed with villagers protesting against an alleged land
grab by officials in the southern province of Guangdong.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 18, In Dubai a high-rise
apartment building under construction caught fire, injuring up to 25
workers and trapping others in thick smoke as rescue crews scrambled to
reach them.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, East Timor and the UN
launched an appeal for $16.6 million to help resettle and reintegrate
about 100,000 people displaced by violence which wracked the country
last year.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, India prepared to
send 125 of its crack policewomen to Liberia to act as UN peacekeepers,
the first time the world body has deployed an all-female unit.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, In India a boat
carrying people to a religious festival sank on the Krishna River. As
many as 66 pilgrims were feared drowned.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 18, In Iraq at least 59
people were killed or found dead. 3 car bombs detonated within minutes
of each other in front of a wholesale vegetable market near a Shiite
enclave on the edge the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora in
southern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 30. The US
military acknowledged that coalition forces had searched the Sudanese
Embassy in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/18/07)(SFC, 1/19/07, p.A10)
2007 Jan 18, President Felipe
Calderon signed an accord with businesses to curb soaring tortilla
prices and protect Mexico's poor from speculative sellers and a surge
in the cost of corn driven by the US ethanol industry.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Truck driver Albano
Ramirez Santos tried to commit suicide by throwing himself onto the
tracks of the Mexico City subway and was later beaten to death by
police. Santos was reportedly despondent over the theft of his truck.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 18, Myanmar’s state media
accused pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi of evading taxes by
spending her money from the 1991 Nobel Peace prize and other awards
overseas.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, A Philippine Marines
platoon battled about 30 extremists under Abu Sayyaf veteran Radullan
Sahiron in the Jolo town of Patikul. Ten Abu Sayyaf members and three
government troops died in the hour-long fight, while three militants
were captured.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, President Vladimir
Putin ordered Russia's ambassador to Georgia to return to the Georgian
capital after recalling him four months ago, saying that the two
countries must "normalize" badly strained ties.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, South Korean
regulators fined the Hyundai Motor Co. 23 billion won ($24.5 million)
for violating competition rules.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.67)
2007 Jan 18, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's foreign minister, accused the Cabinet of PM Yanukovych of
cutting off funds to his ministry, leaving it unable to pay its
employees or contribute dues to international organizations.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 18, Venezuelan lawmakers
gave initial approval to a bill granting President Hugo Chavez the
power to rule by decree for 18 months so that he can impose sweeping
economic, social and political change.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, US deputy ambassador
Mark Wallace charged that the UNDP operated "in blatant violation of UN
rules" for years in North Korea. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
responded quickly to the accusations, calling on all UN funds and
programs to conduct an urgent outside investigation into their
operations.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Former Ohio Rep. Bob
Ney was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison for
trading political favors for gifts and campaign donations from lobbyist
Jack Abramoff.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, North Carolina’s Gov.
Mike Easley said Google will invest up to $600 million to build a data
center in his state.
(SFC, 1/20/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 19, CNL Hotel &
Resorts agreed to sell a collection of 8 resorts, including the
Claremont Resort & Spa in Berkeley, Ca., to Morgan Stanley Real
Estate for $6.6 billion.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.D4)
2007 Jan 19, The so-called "Storm
Worm" swept into US email systems, cutting a wider swath of American
email systems than within Europe.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/199062)
2007 Jan 19, Denny Doherty (66),
one-quarter of the 1960s folk-rock group the Mamas and the Papas, died
at his home in Ontario, Canada. The group was known for their soaring
harmony on hits like "California Dreamin’" (1966) and "Monday, Monday."
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Belgian lawyers
confirmed that a group of Belgian newspapers had asked Yahoo! Inc. to
remove links to their archived stories from its Web search service,
claiming they infringe copyright laws.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, British foreign
secretary Margaret Beckett admitted that her government was aware of a
secret CIA prison network before Pres. Bush acknowledged its existence
in September.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Europeans labored to
restore services across the continent after hurricane-force winds
toppled trees, brought down power lines and damaged buildings, killing
at least 47 people and disrupting travel for tens of thousands.
(AP, 1/19/07)(SFC, 1/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 19, An Egyptian woman
died from bird flu after six days in hospital.
(Reuters, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, The EU said it has
donated an additional 3.95 million euros ($5 million) to support the
implementation of the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary demarcation project.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, In Guinea 2 people
were killed when police and troops opened fire on thousands of
demonstrators, raising the death toll to five since a general strike
was launched in the west African nation this month.
(AFP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Iraqi and US forces
arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr's top aides in Baghdad as pressure
increased on the radical Shiite cleric's militia ahead of a planned
security crackdown in the capital. Al-Sadr said in an interview with an
Italian newspaper that the crackdown had already begun and that 400 of
his men had been arrested. A US Marine died from wounds due to enemy
action in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province. Another was
killed by a roadside bomb while conducting combat operations in Ninevah
province.
(AP, 1/19/07)(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Israel said it had
paid $100 million in frozen tax funds to the Palestinians and rescinded
a contentious decision for a new West Bank settlement, strengthening
the hand of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of crucial weekend
talks in Damascus with his Hamas rivals.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Jordan's King
Abdullah II told an Israeli newspaper that his country wants its own
nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Mexico extradited
four major drug traffickers to the US, including Osiel Cardenas, head
of the so-called Gulf Cartel. President Felipe Calderon announced that
7,600 soldiers have massed in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero to go
after drug gangs that have committed beheadings and other violence in
the resort city of Acapulco in recent months.
(AP, 1/19/07)(AP, 1/20/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.p33)
2007 Jan 19, Five Moroccans sent
home from the Guantanamo US military camp in 2004 were acquitted of
terrorism charges leveled at them on their return.
(Reuters, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Mozambique officials
said 4 people have died, hundreds of homes destroyed and more than
6,000 affected by torrential rains over the last two days.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, North Korea said it
reached an agreement with the US during talks this week on its nuclear
program, and the top US nuclear envoy expressed optimism that progress
could be made when wider arms negotiations reconvene.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Pakistan's president
discussed the "deteriorating situation" in the Middle East with his
Iranian counterpart ahead of his tour of the region.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, A Polish court
convicted two doctors and two ambulance workers of participating in a
scheme in which 14 patients were allowed to die, or in some cases
killed with muscle relaxants, in return for kickbacks from funeral
homes. All received prison sentences, ranging from five years to life.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Rwanda's government
said it has approved plans to scrap the death penalty, in a step which
could remove a major obstacle to the transfer back home of defendants
facing trial over the 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, The African Union
agreed to deploy a long-discussed peacekeeping force in Somalia.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Sri Lankan troops
captured the main rebel bastion in the island's east. After weeks of
fighting, at least 45 security forces and 331 Tiger rebels were killed
in the battle for Vakarai.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Hrant Dink (53), a
Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot to death at the entrance
to his newspaper's offices. The journalist had faced constant threats
and legal proceedings as one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's
shrinking Armenian community.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 20, Democratic Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton embarked on a widely anticipated campaign for
the White House. The former first lady, intent on becoming the first
female president, said on her Web site: "I'm in and I'm in to win."
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, Kansas Sen. Sam
Brownback began a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential
nomination. He withdrew in October.
(AP, 1/20/08)
2007 Jan 20, George Smathers
(b.1913), former 3-term US Senator from Florida, died. He helped pass
bills to create Medicare, the Small Business Administration and
Everglades National Park. He also pushed for federal holidays to be
moved to Mondays and ardently supported the war in Vietnam.
(SSFC, 1/21/07, p.A15)
2007 Jan 20, Richard Vollenweider
(1922-2007), Swiss scientist, died. He developed methods for
quantifying the eutrophication of freshwater. His methods were used to
save Lake Erie and helped form the basis of the 1972 Great Lakes Water
Quality Act.
(http://tinyurl.com/ygrc3p)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A8)
2007 Jan 20, The Taliban's
governing body said it has decided to open schools in the areas
controlled by the militants in Afghanistan.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 20, Anselmo Oliveira
Magalhaes (32), a man accused of helping steal more than $70 million in
cash from a branch of Brazil's central bank in 2005, was found dead
with a broken neck and his hands and feet tied inside a 75-foot well at
a ranch in Santa Izabel. The bodies of two other men were found in the
well, but it wasn't immediately clear whether they had any connection
to the bank heist.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 20, The London Times said
police had tracked down the man, who was introduced to former Russian
spy Alexander Litvinenko and his associates as "Vladislav", using
details that the ex-agent recounted on his deathbed.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, The UN’s food agency
said some 800,000 Burundians face a serious food crisis after
devastating floods ravaged several regions of the tiny central African
nation.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, Czech PM Mirek
Topolanek said the US wants to build a radar base in the Czech Republic
as part of its global missile defense system. Poland was also mentioned
as a potential site. Russia in response warned of an arms race.
(AP, 1/20/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 20, Elite Iraqi police
forces dropped off by US helicopters staged a raid against an
al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group, killing 15 insurgents and
capturing five others. At least 25 American service members were killed
in military operations in the deadliest day for US forces in two years,
including 13 who died in a helicopter crash and five slain in an attack
by militia fighters in Karbala. An American general later said Iranian
forces helped plan the Karbala raid in which gunmen posed as an
American security team and launched an attack that killed five US
soldiers. Laith al-Khazali, a key member of a group called Asaib Ahl
al-Haq (League of the Righteous), and his brother Qais, were later
accused of organizing the Karbala raid. Laith al-Khazali was released
in June, 2009, as part of national reconciliation efforts by the Iraqi
government. 4 US soldiers and a Marine were killed during combat in
Anbar province. In 2009 Shiite militant Laith al-Khazali, accused of
being involved in the killings at Karbala, was released as part of "the
wider Iraqi government reconciliation process of reaching out to groups
that are willing to set aside violence in favor of taking part in the
political process." In January, 2010, Qais al-Khazali was released by
the Iraqi government.
(AP, 1/20/07)(AP, 1/21/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)(AP,
7/2/07)(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 8/4/09, p.A2)(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A3)
2007 Jan 20, In Nairobi, Kenya,
more than 80,000 people from around the globe descended on the massive
Kibera shanty-town, home for at least 700,000 of Kenya's poorest, to
kick-off the seventh annual World Social Forum.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, The Russian
population was reported to be shrinking by some 750,000 people per
year. New rules put severe restrictions on foreign workers in retail
operations. Russia planned to make available 6 million work permits for
migrants from poor ex-Soviet republics.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.61)
2007 Jan 20, Konstantin Borovko
(25), a Russian television journalist, was beaten to death in
Vladivostok. Colleagues said they did not think the killing was related
to his work.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 20, The last major
warlord in Somalia surrendered his weapons and 200 militiamen to the
army, while an Islamic leader claimed responsibility for a string of
guerrilla attacks and promised there would be more until the government
agreed to talks. An Ethiopian military convoy was ambushed in a new
round of deadly violence in the Somali capital Mogadishu, hours after
the African Union agreed to send peacekeepers to the war-torn country.
Kenya handed over 34 Islamic militiamen to Somalia's transitional
government. A Somali government spokesman said that some of them may be
senior leaders of the country's Islamic movement.
(AP, 1/20/07)(AFP, 1/20/07)(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 20, Istanbul police
arrested Ogun Samast, a teenage boy (16-17), for the fatal shooting of
Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist. Samast confessed to the
murder.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, New Mexico’s Gov.
Bill Richardson entered the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 21, Lovie Smith became
the first black head coach to make it to the Super Bowl when his
Chicago Bears won the NFC championship, beating the New Orleans Saints
39-14; Tony Dungy became the second when his Indianapolis Colts took
the AFC title over the New England Patriots, 38-34.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2007 Jan 21, More than a foot of
snow fell on parts of northern Arizona, while children as far south as
Tucson got a rare chance to play in the snow.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Zdzislaw Rurarz, a
former Polish ambassador to Japan, died of cancer in Virginia. He
humiliated Poland's communist regime by defecting to the US in 1981 to
protest its imposition of martial law.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 21, Louis Malcolm Boyd
(b.1927), aka L.M. Boyd, master gatherer of random facts, died at his
home in Seattle, Wa. He began his column in 1963 at the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer using the pen name Mike Mailway. In SF the column
was titled Grab Bag.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.B3)
2007 Jan 21, Oil leaked from the
Napoli, stricken freighter beached on the England’s southwest coast,
Two containers of hazardous chemicals fell into the sea as salvage
crews struggled to operate.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Canada announced it
will spend $25 million to protect, the Great Bear Rainforest, a
16-million-acre preserve that stretches 250 miles along British
Columbia's rugged Pacific coastline, one of the largest intact
temperate rainforests left in the world.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met with Pres. Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of
Sochi for talks set to focus on securing guarantees for energy supplies
to the EU. Putin promised to smooth energy flow to Europe.
(AP, 1/21/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 21, Embattled Guinean
President Lansana Conte called on his country's armed forces to stand
united in the face of a crippling general strike that has claimed 10
lives as pressure mounted for him to resign. The African Union called
on Pres. Conte to pursue talks with trade union leaders to ease a
12-day-old strike.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, In India at least one
person was killed and eight wounded in two separate explosions in the
insurgency-hit northeastern state of Assam.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, A major 6.5-magnitude
undersea earthquake has rocked Indonesia's northern Sulawesi province.
The earthquake left four people dead and four injured.
(AFP, 1/21/07)(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc announced it is lifting its political boycott,
some seven weeks after it began to protest the Iraqi prime minister's
summit with President Bush. A bomb struck a small bus in Baghdad as it
headed to a predominantly Shiite area, killing six passengers and
wounding 10. Two US Marines were killed in separate attacks in the
Anbar province. Another US soldier was killed in fighting south of
Baghdad.
(AP, 1/21/07)(AP, 1/22/07)(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 21, Islamic Jihad
militants launched homemade rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip in
retaliation for Israel's continuing military operations against their
group in the West Bank.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Russian border police
seized a Japanese fishing boat and its six crew members in disputed
waters between the two countries, prompting the Japanese government to
protest. The No. 38 Zuisho Maru was captured off Kunashiri Island, one
of four disputed islands in a group the Japanese call the Northern
Territories and the Russians call the Kurils.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Serbs voted in
parliamentary elections that could determine whether the troubled
Balkan nation will continue with pro-Western reform or return to its
nationalist past.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Sheik Sharif Sheik
Ahmed, a top leader of Somalia's ousted Islamic movement seen by the US
as a potential key to preventing a widespread insurgency, surrendered
to authorities and went under police protection in Nairobi.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, In Sri Lanka's
northern waters Tiger rebels rammed an explosives-laden boat against a
private merchant vessel operated by foreign crew, sparking a land, sea
and air battle.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Darfur rebels accused
the Sudanese government of bombing its areas for two days, killing at
least 17 civilians, in an attempt to delay a conference of rebel
leaders.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez told US officials to "Go to hell, gringos!" and called
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "missy" on his weekly radio and TV
show, lashing out at Washington for what he called unacceptable
meddling in his country's affairs.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2007 Jan 22, The US Supreme Court
struck down a California sentencing law because it allowed judges to
add years to a prison term based on their own fact finding. The court
said juries must rule on any evidence used to justify longer prison
terms.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 22, It was reported that
federal officials had arrested 119 people in Contra Costa County, Ca.,
in a weeklong immigration crackdown that was part of “Operation Return
to Sender.” Immigration officials arrested over 750 illegals in the Los
Angeles area. The operation has arrested 13,000 nationwide people since
June 2006.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.B8)(WSJ, 1/24/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 22, Intel and Sun
Microsystems announced a major partnership under which Sun would begin
selling business computers running on Intel’s Xeon microprocessors,
while Intel will endorse and support sun’s Solaris operating system.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.D3)
2007 Jan 22, Nickel prices surged
to an all-time peak above $37,000 per ton in London trading owing to
concerns over dwindling stockpiles of the metal.
(AFP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Scientists warned
that glaciers will all but disappear from the Alps by 2050, and that
most would be gone by 2037.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 22, Brazil’s government
announced a growth acceleration package.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.34)
2007 Jan 22, Hundreds of
scavengers swooped onto a beach in southwest England and carted away
motorcycles, wine barrels, car parts and tennis shoes spilling from a
container ship damaged in recent storms and listing about a mile off
shore.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, The EU threatened
Sudan with sanctions if it refused to allow UN peacekeepers into
war-torn Darfur, but rights groups and analysts said the warning was
not enough to stop the killings.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Abbe Pierre (b.1912),
a French priest praised as a living legend for devoting his life to
helping the homeless, using prayer and provocation to tackle misery,
died in Paris. He founded the international Emmaus Community for the
poor. Abbe Pierre, born as Henry Groues, served as a spokesman
for France's conscience since the 1950s when he persuaded parliament to
pass a law, still on the books, forbidding landlords to expel tenants
during winter months.
(AP, 1/22/07)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.87)
2007 Jan 22, In Guinea security
forces fired on protesters marching on the presidential palace. At
least 30 people were killed and over a hundred injured.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.48)
2007 Jan 22, In Indonesia 16
people, including a policeman, were shot dead and others wounded in a
shootout with residents on Sulawesi, as police searched for suspected
militants in the restive town of Poso.
(AFP, 1/22/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.42)
2007 Jan 22, Iran barred 38
nuclear inspectors on a UN list from entering the country in what
appeared to be retaliation for the UN sanctions imposed last month.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, A suicide bomber
crashed his car into a central Baghdad market crowded with Shiites just
seconds after another car bomb tore through the stalls where vendors
were hawking DVDs and used clothing, leaving 88 dead in the bloodiest
attack in two months. An Egyptian embassy worker was kidnapped in
Baghdad while on a trip outside the compound. 137 people were killed or
found dead across Iraq. Two US soldiers were killed in Iraq, one in
fighting in Anbar province and the other in a roadside bombing.
(AP, 1/22/07)(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, Leftist Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega, who took power earlier this month, said that
he was slashing his salary and those of Cabinet members.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, In Northern Ireland a
report was published that detailed how some in the old Royal Ulster
Constabulary (RUC) protected a band of loyalist paramilitary killers.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.56)
2007 Jan 22, Pakistan's military
lodged a protest saying US-led forces in Afghanistan mistakenly fired
at a Pakistani border post and killed a soldier. A suicide car bomber
attacked a military convoy in northwestern Pakistan, killing himself
and at least four soldiers.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Rosoboronexport chief
Sergei Chemezov said Russia had fulfilled a contract to sell air
defense missiles to Iran. This included 29 sophisticated missile
systems under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, Voting results in
Serbia indicated that the ultra-nationalist Radicals won the most votes
in parliamentary elections, but several pro-democratic groups collected
enough seats to form a new government if they can unite.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Klas Bergenstrand
(61), the head of Sweden's intelligence agency, died from an apparent
heart attack.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, In Turkey police said
Yasin Hayal, a nationalist militant convicted of bombing a McDonald's
restaurant in 2004, had confessed to inciting the killing of an ethnic
Armenian journalist last week. Hayal said he provided a gun and money
to the teenager who is suspected of carrying out the Jan 19 shooting.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, In northern Uganda a
minibus with 21 people collided with a truck. The dead included 6
foreign missionaries, an American couple, a Dutch couple and two
Kenyans.
(Reuters, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon announced that an external audit would be conducted of the
UN Development Program in North Korea after the US alleged the program
had funneled millions of dollars to Kim Jong Il's regime.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 23, President Bush won
cautious kudos in Europe and Asia for urging reduced dependence on oil
and backing alternative energy sources in his State of the Union
address, but his push for more troops in Iraq was widely derided. Bush
called for 20% cut in gasoline consumption over the next decade.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 1/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 23, US customs rules went
into effect calling for passports for US citizens returning by air from
any country including Canada, Mexico and Caribbean nations.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 23, Two US inmates, a
convicted rapist in Georgia and a man who was unjustly convicted of
murder in New York but helped find the real killer from his prison
cell, were granted their freedom after DNA tests proved their innocence.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, E. Howard Hunt
(b.1918), leader of the 1972 Watergate break-in, died in Florida. He
described the affair in his book “Under Cover: Memoirs of an American
secret agent” (1974).
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.B7)
2007 Jan 23, In eastern
Afghanistan a bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of workers outside a
US military base, killing as many as 10 and wounding more than a dozen
others in the deadliest suicide attack in four months.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Brazil said it had
requested the US extradite two leaders of an evangelical church (Reborn
in Christ) who allegedly used their followers' donations to buy
mansions, a horse farm and apartments in Brazil and the US. Estevam
Hernandes Filho (52) and his wife, Sonia Haddad Moraes Hernandes (48)
were arrested by US customs agents in Miami earlier this month on
charges of carrying a large sum of undeclared cash. The couple was
sentenced to five months in prison, five months of house arrest and a
probation period for failing to declare they were carrying more than
$10,000 into the United States. They were also fined $60,000. Both
returned to Brazil on Aug 1, 2009.
(AP, 1/24/07)(AP, 8/2/09)
2007 Jan 23, British police
arrested five men under anti-terror laws, in dawn raids reportedly
linked to the escape of a terror suspect and the distribution of
Islamist propaganda.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, British police set up
roadblocks to try to hinder scavengers who descended on a southwest
England beach to pick through shipping containers that washed ashore
from a stranded cargo vessel.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, China Central
Television banned all images and spoken references to pigs in order to
avoid offending Muslims. The Year of the Pig was set to begin in
February.
(WSJ, 1/25/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 23, Ethiopian troops who
helped Somalia's government drive out a radical Islamic militia began
withdrawing in military trucks and tanks.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, A special committee
of the European Parliament approved a report alleging EU nations
including Britain, Poland, Germany and Italy were aware of secret CIA
flights over Europe and the abduction of terror suspects by US agents
into clandestine detention centers.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, French doctors said
that they had performed the world’s third partial face transplant on a
man whose face was disfigured by severe tumors.
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 23, In northeast India
suspected separatist rebels set off a large bomb in a crowded market in
Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, killing at least one person and
wounding 12.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, The UN refugee agency
said that men allegedly wearing uniforms of the Iraqi security forces
abducted a group of 17 Palestinian refugees from a building rented by
the agency in Baghdad. Two bombs struck separate Shiite targets in
Baghdad, killing five people. A Blackwater USA security helicopter
crashed in a Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad and 5 men were shot
execution style in the back of the head.
(AP, 1/23/07)(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, Bertie Ahern,
taoiseach of Ireland, launched a $238 billion national-development plan
for the economy over the next 7 years.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 23, A Jordanian man
fatally shot his 17-year-old daughter whom he suspected of having sex
despite a medical exam that proved her chastity. The man surrendered to
police hours after the killing, saying he had done it for family honor.
On average, about 20 women in the country are killed by their relatives
in such cases each year.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 23, Hezbollah-led
protesters paralyzed Lebanon, clashing with government supporters and
burning tires and cars on roads in and around the capital to enforce a
general strike aimed at toppling US-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
Three people were killed and more than 170 wounded.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, Mozambique’s National
Institute for Disaster Management said torrential rains in central
Mozambique had claimed five lives and rendered more than 3,500 homeless
since the weekend.
(AFP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, In southern Nigeria
unidentified assailants seized oil engineers, an American and a Briton,
in the latest kidnapping.
(Reuters, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Dozens of masked
gunmen claiming to be members of al-Qaida stormed an empty Gaza Strip
beach resort and blew up a reception hall, saying they were sending a
message to an ally of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Ryszard Kapuscinski
(b.1932), Belarus-born Polish writer and journalist, died following
heart surgery. He gained international acclaim for his books
chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the Middle East and
other parts of the world. His books included "The Emperor" (1978), a
chronicle of the decline of Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia. In
1981 he published "Shah of Shahs," a book about the 1979 Islamic
revolution that toppled Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His last
book “Travels With Herodotus” was published shortly after his death.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.M1)
2007 Jan 23, In northern Sri Lanka
2 roadside bombs exploded in Jaffna town, killing a government soldier
and three civilians.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Hundreds of
Venezuelans protested against a congressional measure that would grant
President Hugo Chavez the power to pass laws by decree in areas from
the economy to defense.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 24, The
Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed
President Bush's plans for a troop buildup in Iraq as "not in the
national interest" of the United States.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2007 Jan 24, Ecuador's first
female defense minister died in a collision of two helicopters that
also killed her daughter and five members of the military.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, Egyptian security
forces arrested seven members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood north of
Cairo in a widening crackdown on the country's largest opposition
movement.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, Jean-Francois Deniau
(b.1928), a former French government minister, diplomat, sailor and
novelist, died. His novel "Un Hero Tres Discret" (A Very Discreet Hero)
told of an ordinary man who reinvented himself as a hero of the World
War II Resistance. The book was adapted into a movie by director
Jacques Audiard and given the English-language title "A Self Made Hero."
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In Haiti UN troops
traded gunfire with armed gangs after seizing an abandoned primary
school that had been used to stage attacks on the peacekeepers.
Witnesses said one person died and five were injured.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, India and Russia
agreed two arms deals meant to bring bilateral military ties into a new
era, a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrival for a
two-day summit.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In India some 18,000
rickshaw operators went on strike in Kolkata to protest a ban on
rickshaws by the Communist government of West Bengal.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.43)
2007 Jan 24, Iraqi and US troops
clashed with gunmen in a Sunni insurgent stronghold north of the
heavily fortified Green Zone. As many as 30 militants were killed and
27 captured.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, Israeli President
Moshe Katsav, facing charges of rape and abuse of power, asked
parliament to temporarily remove him from office in an effort to blunt
growing calls for his resignation. Israeli troops shot dead a
Palestinian and arrested two others, as the men tried to sneak into
Israel from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, A study released
about the trade in Malaysia found that catches of some grouper species
and the endangered Napoleon wrasse fell by as much as 99% between 1995
to 2003, a period coinciding with soaring economic growth in countries
where the exotic fish are a delicacy.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In southern Mexico a
bus plunged into a ravine in remote mountains, killing at least 29
people.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, Nicaraguan lawmakers
approved a bill backed by President Daniel Ortega to create "people's
councils" that some fear will resemble the defense committees that
operated under the Sandinista government of the 1980s.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In Somalia gunmen
launched several mortars at Mogadishu International Airport, killing at
least two people and wounding several others.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, A hijacker seized a
Sudanese passenger plane carrying 103 people and forced the pilot to
fly to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, where he surrendered. The gunman
wanted the plane to be flown to Britain but when told there was
insufficient fuel agreed to go to the capital of neighbouring Chad. He
said he wanted to draw attention to the Darfur conflict.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, Some 2,400 registered
participants gathered at Davos, Switzerland, for the 4-day World
Economic Forum, whose theme this year was: "The Shifting Power
Equation."
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 25, A rare late work by
Rembrandt depicting the Apostle James in prayer was sold in NYC for
$25.8 million.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Ford Motor Co. lost
$5.8 billion in the fourth quarter amid slumping sales and huge
restructuring costs, pushing the automaker's deficit for the year to
$12.7 billion, the largest in its 103-year history.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, Scientists reported
that they had built the densest memory chip to date. It measured about
100 million bits per square centimeter, about 40 times as much as
current memory chips. The chip was about the size of a white blood cell
and held about 160,000 bits.
(SFC, 1/25/07, p.C2)
2007 Jan 25, Officials said
Afghanistan's heroin-producing poppies will not be sprayed with
herbicide this year despite a record crop in 2006 and US pressure to
allow the tactic. In southern Afghanistan a NATO airstrike destroyed a
Taliban command post, killing a suspected senior militant leader. In
eastern Afghanistan border police clashed with suspected militants in
Gomal district in Paktika province, leaving 10 suspected Taliban and
one police dead.
(AP, 1/25/07)(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 25, Australia’s PM John
Howard announced multibillion-dollar water reforms aimed at easing
Australia's record drought.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, China reported that
its sizzling economy grew at 10.7% in 2006, its fastest rate in a
decade, as the government struggled to contain the strains of an
export-driven boom.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Guinea’s Health
Ministry said battles between security forces and protesters earlier
this week killed at least 59 people, almost double the toll previously
reported.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Guyana's president
hired former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik as a state
security adviser despite criticism in this South American country over
his record of alleged ethics violations.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 25, In India an angry
crowd severely beat up two suspects who are accused of sexually
assaulting and killing up to 20 children and women. The crowd pounced
upon the two as they were being taken to a lockup by police after a
court in Ghaziabad, a town on the outskirts of New Delhi, sent them to
police custody for 15 days.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Iraq's prime minister
told parliament that the coming US-Iraqi security sweep in Baghdad,
dubbed "Operation Imposing Law," would not be the last battle against
militants. A suicide car bomber struck a predominantly Shiite
neighborhood in central Baghdad, killing at least 19 people and
wounding 23. At least 3 policemen were among the dead.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Israel’s President
Moshe Katsav, who insists he is the victim of a conspiracy, stepped
aside after a parliamentary committee voted 13-11 to grant his request
to do so. He preserved his immunity by taking a leave rather than
resigning.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, International donors
pledged $7.6 billion in aid and loans at a conference to raise money
for Lebanon's U.S.-backed prime minister and his economic reform
program. The US pledged to more than triple its economic aid to $770
million including $220 million in military aid. Government and
opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus. At least 3
people were reported killed.
(AP, 1/25/07)(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 25, Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi chaired a meeting of African presidents and other top officials
to prepare for an African Union summit as conflicts rage on the
continent.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, In southern Nigeria
gunmen stormed the local offices of a major Chinese oil company,
abducting seven Chinese employees and stealing a large amount of cash.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Nigeria divested
24.87% of its equity in the ailing Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN),
while the French government also conceded to shed 30% interest in the
company, which was turned over to ASD Motors Nigeria.
(AFP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 25, In northwestern
Pakistan a car bomb exploded in the shopping district of Hangu, killing
at least two passers-by and wounding four other people.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Russian President
Vladimir Putin arrived in India, hoping to use the two nations'
decades-long friendship to push for deals in civilian nuclear
cooperation, military hardware and trade expansion. Putin sealed a deal
to construct more nuclear power plants in India.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, In southern Somalia
gunmen attacked Ethiopian soldiers stationed there, killing one and
wounding another.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Ukraine’s PM
Yanukovych said that he is working to completed a pipeline to carry
Caspian-region oil directly to the EU.
(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A4)
2007 Jan 25, Uruguay’s left-wing
government under Pres. Tabare Vazquez signed a trade and investment
“framework agreement” with the US.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 25, Pope Benedict XVI met
with Vietnam's PM Nguyen Tan Dung. Their talks marked an important step
toward establishing diplomatic relations following decades of tension.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 26, The White House said
President Bush had authorized US forces in Iraq to take whatever
actions were necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a threat to
American troops or the public at large. Defense Secretary Robert Gates
told a news conference that a congressional resolution opposing
President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq undercut US commanders and
emboldened the enemy.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2007 Jan 26, The United States
issued a formal rule banning exports of luxury items to North Korea,
including jet skis, I-pods, jewelry and fancy cars, in an effort to put
pressure on the communist leadership in Pyongyang.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Maine Legislature
overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real ID Act of
2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses
and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national
databases. Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia,
Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked
at Real ID. Idaho approved a similar bill on March 8.
(AP, 2/4/07)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.36)
2007 Jan 26, Intel said it will
begin using a new material on its next generation of chips making them
more energy efficient. IBM also announced changes in its chip-making
processes.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported that
Dr. Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has
come up with a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter
taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two
cups of coffee.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Scientists reported
that damage to one area of the brain was found to curb a smoker’s urge
to smoke.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, A US Navy helicopter
crashed during a training mission in the ocean about 50 miles off the
southeastern coast of California. One sailor was reported dead and 3
missing.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 26, In Afghanistan an
assailant gunned down lawmaker Maulavi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi. He was
the Taliban's governor of Bamiyan province and had overseen the
destruction of two Buddha statues carved into a cliff under the former
Taliban regime. In 2005 Mohammadi said: "It was foreigners like
Chechens and Arabs with the Taliban who made the decision. They were
crazy people. Even though I was governor, I had no power." A suicide
bomber blew himself up outside the offices of an aid group in the
capital of Helmand province, Lashkar Gah. A policeman and two civilians
were wounded.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, The last Islamic
militant group still fighting in the 16-year-old civil war against
Algeria's government said in an Internet statement posted that it had
changed its name to highlight its allegiance to the Al-Qaeda network.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) said that it was
changing its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb
(northwest Africa) on the orders of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
(AFP, 1/26/07)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.38)
2007 Jan 26, Argentina authorized
officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in human rights
trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of atrocities committed
during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, British and American
television stations reported that British police have concluded that a
former Russian spy was poisoned by a lethal dose of radioactive
Polonium-210 added to his tea at a London hotel.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Canada apologized to
software engineer Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria by US agents
after Canadian police mistakenly labeled him an Islamic extremist, and
paid him C$10.5 million ($8.9 million) in compensation.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, China’s state media
said police in northern China have detained three men for the deaths of
two women last year whose corpses were sold as "ghost brides" to
accompany dead men in the afterlife. The ghost bride tradition, called
"minghun" or afterlife marriage, is common in the Loess Plateau region
of northern China.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Germany Peter
Hartz, Volkswagen human resources executive, was fined $750,000 and
given a 2-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to funding an
account that provided special travel perks for employees.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/volk-j27.shtml)
2007 Jan 26, Inmates rioted at a
prison on the outskirts of Guatemala City, leaving at least one person
dead before 3,000 riot police and soldiers stormed the penitentiary.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In western India a
four-story boarding school collapsed, killing at least 11 girls and
injuring 14. The school in Tichakpura, a village in Gujarat, served
tribespeople in the area.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, An Iranian opposition
group based in France claimed Iran has thousands of paid operatives
working in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha, both vocal war critics, were in the
Iraqi capital at the head of a delegation of House members on a
fact-finding mission. A bomb hidden in a box holding pigeons tore
through a crowded pet and livestock market in Baghdad, killed 15 people
and wounded dozens. 38 bullet-riddled bodies were found in Baghdad. A
former member of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath Party and an interpreter
who works for the US military were killed in two separate drive-by
shootings in Kut. The body of a well-known Shiite boxer was found in
central Baghdad near the dangerous street where he was kidnapped
several days ago. A US Marine was killed in fighting in Anbar province.
(AP, 1/26/07)(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A9)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported that
scientists in Japan have developed a new technique for detecting
explosives such as TNT in landmines or luggage using radio waves. The
scientists created a device called superconducting quantum interference
device (SQUID), which has a very sensitive magnetic field sensor that
detects nitrogen, an element found in many explosives, including TNT.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Kenya a regional
director for the aid agency CARE was killed.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Jan 26, Six federal police
officers involved in President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug operation
were being investigated for extortion after they were videotaped taking
money from a driver in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Jim Anderton, New
Zealand’s agriculture minister, declared Feb. 15 "National Lamb Day.”
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials at Davos,
Switz., said Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, now depends 100
percent on imports of petroleum products due to the closure of its
three refineries and canalization of pipelines.
(AFP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, William James Fulton,
a Protestant extremist was convicted on 48 terror counts and sentenced
to 28 years in prison, following the longest criminal trial in Northern
Ireland's history. The court found him guilty of killing a grandmother
with a pipe bomb, wounding four police officers with a grenade,
possessing firearms used for other killings, smuggling drugs and a host
of other crimes.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, A Pakistani security
guard died when he blocked a suicide bomber outside the Marriott Hotel
in Islamabad. At least seven other people were wounded.
(AP, 1/26/07)(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, Hamas gunmen stormed
the home of a militant from the rival Fatah movement, sparking a deadly
gunbattle and capping a day of factional violence across the Gaza Strip
that killed 16 people, including a 2-year-old boy.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Martin Ngoga,
Rwanda’s chief prosecutor, said Rwanda will release another 8,000
prisoners convicted or awaiting trial over the central African nation's
1994 genocide, raising fears among survivors of a fresh round of
bloodletting.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Singapore executed
two Africans on drug trafficking charges despite pleas for clemency by
Nigeria's president.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Somalia a spate of
gunfire and mortar attacks in Mogadishu killed five people overnight
and injured at least four others.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In South Africa
historian David Rattray (48) was found shot dead at his home in the
eastern Kwa-Zulu Natal province. On Feb 5 a court handed Sethe
Nkwanyana (23) a 25-year prison term for armed robbery and the murder
of Rattray. Nkwanyana said in court that Banozi Ndlovu shot Rattray.
(AFP, 2/5/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.91)
2007 Jan 26, Darfur rebels said
they would refuse peace talks and would fight African Union
peacekeepers on the ground if Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
became chairman of the pan-African body. In southern Sudan gunmen
killed an Indian peacekeeper and wounded 2 others.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Swedish
government announced an agreement with suborbital space-tourism company
Virgin Galactic that Swedish officials believe will lead to midsummer
and mid-winter flights of Virgin's SpaceshipTwo vehicle to observe the
Aurora Borealis from Sweden.
(www.space.com/news/070128_sweden_virgin.html)
2007 Jan 26, Suspected Muslim
separatists ambushed police patrols and torched a school as PM Surayud
Chulanont returned to southern Thailand for a third attempt at ending
the bloody insurgency.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, The UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the denial of the Holocaust,
with only Iran rejecting it as an attempt by the United States and
Israel to exploit the atrocity for their political interests.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials said Jody
Williams, the US anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
will lead a team of United Nations investigators to probe killings,
rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 27, Sundance Film
Festival's grand-jury prize for best US drama went to "Padre Nuestro,"
an immigrant saga about a Mexican teen's heartbreaking search for his
father in America.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, In Washington DC tens
of thousands converged on the National Mall to oppose Pres. Bush’s plan
for a troop increase in Iraq. Thousands marched in San Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A15)
2007 Jan 27, In Oregon the new $57
million Portland Aerial Tram officially began operations. Two
78-passenger cabins carried commuters from the Banks of the Willamette
to the campus of the Oregon Health and Sciences Univ. on Marquam Hill.
(SFC, 1/29/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 27, In China a gas
explosion in the Yile Coal Mine in the southern town of Shuitang in
Guizhou province killed at least 15 miners.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 27, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon held up Congo's first elections in 46 years as a sign of
hope for the rest of Africa, praising the country's fragile democracy
on his first tour of the continent.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Two car bombs in
quick succession struck a market in a mainly Shiite district in
Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 40. US
airstrikes killed 14 terror suspects and destroyed a safe house for
foreign fighters during a raid south of Baqouba that also led to the
capture of two other suspects. At least one rocket struck Baghdad's
heavily fortified Green Zone, and two people suffered minor injuries.
Two mortar shells slammed into a residential district in the western
Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing two people and wounding seven
others. Armed men who wore commando uniforms and drove cars with
license plates commonly used by the Interior Ministry stormed a
computer company and kidnapped seven people, including shoppers, in the
mainly Christian neighborhood of Sina'a. A taxi driver was shot to
death after he was caught in the crossfire during clashes in the
northern city of Mosul. The bodies of five men were pulled from the
Tigris River in Suwayrah. A US Marine died from wounds suffered in
fighting in Anbar province, and two soldiers were fatally injured in
separate bombings in the Baghdad area.
(AP, 1/27/07)(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, Guinea's union
leaders ended a deadly 17-day strike after the president agreed to name
a new prime minister with boosted powers.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Gunmen carjacked a US
Embassy vehicle on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital and killed two
women in the car.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Police in Tijuana,
Mexico, got their guns back three weeks after they were forced to turn
over weapons to federal authorities because of allegations they were
colluding with drug traffickers.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, The Netherlands'
government extradited Iraqi-born Wesam al Delaema (32), a naturalized
Dutch citizen, to the US. He was charged with involvement in terror
attacks on US troops in Iraq. In 2009 Delaema was sentenced in
Washington DC to 25 years in prison. His actual term was up to the
Netherlands.
(AP, 1/28/07)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)
2007 Jan 27, A Belgian man working
for a building materials company was murdered in the oil city of Warri,
in Nigeria's Niger Delta. 2 suspects were arrested. Carjackers with
AK-47s shot dead two women in a US embassy vehicle in Nairobi's western
outskirts, and police killed two of the fleeing gunmen during a
shootout in the nearby bush.
(Reuters, 1/27/07)(Reuters, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, Nancy Pelosi, the
speaker of the US House of Representatives, held talks with Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf focusing on the fight against terror. A bomb
went off near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city
of Peshawar, killing 15 people and wounding 35.
(AFP, 1/27/07)(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, A Belgian man working
for a building materials company was murdered in the oil city of Warri,
in Nigeria's Niger Delta. 2 suspects were arrested. Carjackers with
AK-47s shot dead two women in a US embassy vehicle in Nairobi's western
outskirts. Police killed two of the fleeing gunmen during a shootout in
the nearby bush.
(Reuters, 1/27/07)(Reuters, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, Andrei Lugovoi, the
man reported by British media to be a suspect in the murder of a former
Russian agent in London hit out at "lies, provocation and government
propaganda," denying any role in the radiation poisoning death of
Alexander Litvinenko.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, In Switzerland major
powers at Davos agreed to resume global free trade talks. A meeting of
the world's top commercial powers yielded only a vague pledge of
commitment to global trade liberalization efforts, a disappointment
after business and political leaders called for progress in the World
Trade Organization talks.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, In Yemen 6 security
forces were killed and 20 others were injured in clashes with followers
of Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi in Saada.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, The comedy "Little
Miss Sunshine" won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Forest Whitaker won for his portrayal of Uganda's brutal dictator Idi
Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" and Helen Mirren won for her
performance as Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen."
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 28, Jim Gray (63), an
acclaimed computer scientist, was last heard from shortly after he set
out from San Francisco for the shark-infested waters of the Farallon
Islands, about 25 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 28, Rev. Robert Drinan
(b.1920), former Jesuit congressman from Massachusetts (1971-1981),
died.
(SFC, 1/30/07,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drinan)
2007 Jan 28, Afghan Pres. Karzai
told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that his security forces need to be
stronger as the two discussed possible US troop increases.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Officials said India
will set up an aerospace defense command to shield itself against
possible attacks from outer space.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, US-backed Iraqi
forces killed 263 militants in a daylong battle near Najaf against a
group called the Jund al-Samaa, or Soldiers of Heaven. The group's
leader and foreign fighters were among the dead. The US military
confirmed a report that a helicopter crashed during the battle and that
the two crew members were killed. Mortar shells rained down on a girls'
secondary school in a mostly Sunni area of western Baghdad, killing
five pupils and wounding 20. At least seven other people died in a
series of bombings and shootings across the capital, mostly in Shiite
areas. Drive-by shooters killed a high-ranking Shiite official at the
Iraqi industry and mines ministry, along with his 27-year-old daughter
and two other people. Two car bombs exploded within a half-hour of each
other in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing a total of 11 people
and wounding 34. US troops captured 21 suspected terrorists including
an al-Qaida courier in a series of raids in Baghdad and Sunni areas
north and west of the capital. At least 61 people were killed and
scores wounded across Iraq. Ghanim al-Qureyshi, the provincial police
chief of Diyala province, said the mayor of Baqouba and 1,500
provincial police officers have been fired in a bid to end the raging
violence.
(AFP, 1/28/07)(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 28, The Israeli
government approved the appointment of Raleb Majadele, the country's
first Muslim Cabinet member.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Some 50 Nigerian
rebels attacked a city centre police station in the Niger Delta and
freed George Sobomabo, a top commander, arrested earlier that day.
Militants released 125 inmates when they stormed the police station in
Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 1/28/07)(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 28, Sinn Fein members
overwhelmingly voted to begin cooperating with the Northern Ireland
police, formally abandoning their decades-old hostility to legal law
and order in the British territory.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, In southern Pakistan
dozens of people sitting on the roof of a crowded passenger train were
by hit by an overhead power line. At least 15 people were killed and 40
were injured.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Hamas and Fatah
gunmen battled each other in the streets in an increasingly bloody
power struggle that left more than two dozen Palestinians dead over the
weekend. Palestinian gunmen shot dead a member of a Hamas police force
and a senior Fatah intelligence official was abducted in Gaza as Saudi
Arabia called for talks to end the spiraling violence.
(AP, 1/28/07)(AFP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, In Somalia gunmen
attacked a police station in Mogadishu, sparking an hour-long battle
that killed two people just hours after two other stations were hit
with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 29, Deeply distrustful of
Iran, President Bush said "we will respond firmly" if Tehran escalated
its military actions in Iraq and threatened American forces or Iraqi
citizens.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Lauren Nelson, an
aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America, the second year in a
row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Bayer said the US
Food and Drug Administration has approved a new use of Bayer Schering
Pharma AG's drug YAZ to allow it to be used to treat moderate acne in
women who also want to use an oral contraceptive for birth control.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Kentucky Derby winner
Barbaro was euthanized because of medical complications eight months
after his gruesome breakdown at the Preakness.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Australia’s
Queensland state planned to introduce recycled sewage to its drinking
water as a record drought threatens water supplies around the nation.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, An official said at
least 33,000 people have been arrested in Bangladesh by the army,
police and security forces since a state of emergency was imposed
earlier this month.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Paris City Hall
announced it has selected French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux SA
to operate a new free bicycle service in the capital.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, The African Union
chose Ghana to head the 53-member bloc, turning aside Sudan's bid for
the second year in a row because of the worsening bloodshed in Darfur.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, The International
Criminal Court (ICC) ruled there was enough evidence against Thomas
Lubanga, a Congolese militiaman accused of recruiting child soldiers,
to launch the new court's first trial.
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, In Iraq a prominent
Shiite leader said that setting up federal regions in Iraq would solve
the country's problems, adding that Shiites are being subjected to mass
killings but they should not retaliate by using violence. Bombings and
mortar attacks targeting Shiites killed at least 15 people. A parked
car bomb struck a bus carrying Shiites to a holy shrine in northern
Baghdad, killing at least four people. Mortar rounds rained down on a
Shiite neighborhood in the Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar. 10
people were killed, including three children and four women, and five
other people were wounded. A US Marine was killed in fighting in Anbar
province and an American soldier died in an accident northwest of
Nasiriyah.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Libya will not
execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to
death last month, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in a
newspaper interview, calling their trial "unfair."
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, A truck crashed in
northern Nigeria's Yobe state killing at least 35 people and seriously
injuring another 37. A burst tire caused the truck loaded with cement
as well as 72 people to veer off the road.
(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, In northwestern
Pakistan 2 rockets exploded near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the city of
Bannu, wounding 11 people, two seriously. A suicide bomber killed a
police officer protecting a Shiite Muslim procession. In eastern
Pakistan 2 brothers beat to death their sister and her lover with
bricks for bringing shame upon the family with their out-of-wedlock
affair. The woman had lived with her brothers in the village of Donga
Bonga, Punjab province.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 29, A Palestinian suicide
bomber attacked a bakery in Eilat, a southern Israeli resort town,
killing three people and himself. The Palestinian who blew himself up
was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby daughter and
driven to avenge his best friend's killing by Israeli troops. Hamas and
Fatah gunmen battled each other across the Gaza Strip, attacking
security compounds, knocking out an electrical transformer and
kidnapping several local commanders in some of the most extensive
factional fighting in recent weeks.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Saudi Arabia said it
would begin a 158,000 barrel-a-day cut in oil production effective Feb
1.
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 29, Turkish police
arrested 46 suspected Islamic militants in operations in five provinces
across the country.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 30, The Windows Vista
computer operating system from Microsoft went on sale in the consumer
retail market.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 30, The draft of a new
global climate report said rising temperatures will leave millions more
people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and
Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Florida 2 people
shot and killed a sheriff's wife and a deputy before officers killed
the suspects at the sheriff's home in Jackson County.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, A propane tank
explosion leveled the Little General Store in Ghent, W.Va., killing
four people.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2007 Jan 30, Jeanne Kane, a member
of the 1960s singing group the Kane Triplets, was shot and killed by
her ex-husband John Galtieri, a retired NYC police officer. In 2009
Galtieri was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/lhbevm)(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2007 Jan 30, Gordon S. Macklin
(79), a founder of the Nasdaq stock exchange (1971) and a board member
for Worldcom during its notorious accounting fraud, died of unknown
causes.
(http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070131/obit_macklin.html?.v=1)(WSJ, 2/3/07,
p.A8)
2007 Jan 30, Sidney Sheldon (89),
American writer, died. He won awards in three careers, Broadway
theater, movies and television, then at age 50 turned to writing
best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world
of ruthless men.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Britain shut down
Northern Ireland's legislature and planned a new election to determine
the fate of power-sharing, the central goal of the peace accord.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Manchester was chosen
as the site for Britain's first Las Vegas-style supercasino.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao set out on an eight-nation tour of Africa. Foreign ministry
spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: “On the arms exports to Africa, China takes
a cautious and responsible attitude.”
(AP, 1/30/07)(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Colombia’s Supreme
Court opened preliminary investigations into four more politicians for
alleged ties to illegal right-wing militias after it was revealed they
signed a 2001 letter of understanding with the paramilitary groups.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Supporters of
Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa armed with sticks and stones
fought their way into the Congress building, demanding lawmakers call a
referendum on whether the country's constitution should be rewritten.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, The African Union
summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ended with a proposed peacekeeping
force for Somalia still lacking firm commitments for thousands of
troops.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Thousands of German
workers took part in protests against a government plan to raise the
retirement age to 67.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, The United Nations
said it will send 350 more peacekeepers to Haiti in the latest effort
to flush out armed gangs from the capital's slums.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Hong Kong Cheng
Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress, told the Financial Times in an interview: "There is a bubble
going on. Investors should be concerned about the risks." He said 70%
of the domestically traded companies were worthless and should be
delisted.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/2ubmjk)
2007 Jan 30, Reliance Industries
opened 9 shops in and around Delhi. They were among the first
supermarkets to appear in India.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.64)
2007 Jan 30, Assailants struck
Shiite worshippers in three Iraqi cities, killing at least 39 people in
bombings and ambushes during the climax of ceremonies marking Ashoura,
the holiest day in the Shiite calendar. Mortar shells slammed into
predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad hours later, killing at
least five people and wounding 20. Bloodshed killed at least 58 people
despite heightened security surrounding Ashoura ceremonies. A morgue
official in the city of Kut said his facility received six more bodies
from previously unreported Ashoura-related violence. Two US soldiers
and one Marine died of wounds sustained due to enemy action in Anbar
province.
(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Another outbreak of
bird flu was suspected in southern Japan after 23 chickens were found
dead at a farm.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, The first all-female
UN peacekeeping unit, made up of 103 women from India, arrived in
Liberia to help the West African nation recover from 14 years of
on-and-off civil war.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Jamal Khalifa, a
Saudi citizen married to a sister of Osama bin Laden, was killed when
gunmen broke into his house in village in Madagascar in an apparent
robbery.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Nigeria's Vice
President Atiku Abubakar accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of buying
arms to suppress unrest in the oil-rich Niger delta rather than
pacifying the region with development.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Pakistan's PM
Musharraf appealed to the European Union to help repatriate some 3
million Afghan refugees, a move he said would help clear his country of
militants blamed for attacks in border regions. A rocket or a grenade
exploded at a Shiite procession, sparking violence in Hangu in which
two Sunni Muslims were fatally shot and 13 other people were wounded,
many of them policemen.
(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Palestinian PM Ismail
Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinians to prevent a resurgence in the
internal violence that killed 36 people in recent days as a tenuous
cease-fire took hold in the Gaza Strip. Gunmen killed a Hamas militant,
but the cease-fire seemed to hold.
(AP, 1/30/07)(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 30, The Saudi foreign
minister said Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together to try to calm
the crises in Iraq and Lebanon.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Somalia's president
agreed to a national reconciliation conference to try to end 16 years
of anarchy in the war-ravaged country.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Researchers said
South Africa's AIDS epidemic, often regarded by health workers as a
disease of the poor, is in fact spreading quickly among the country's
richest and best educated people.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Sweden former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad
Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize for their work to protect human
rights.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's pro-Western foreign minister, resigned saying a monthlong
struggle between him and the government dominated by a Russia-leaning
party risked damaging the country's international reputation.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Venezuela said it
plans to obtain air defense missiles to guard strategic sites such as
oil refineries and major bridges against any air strike.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 31, President Bush,
visiting Wall Street, delivered his "State of the Economy" speech in
which he took aim at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate
executives.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2007 Jan 31, Delaware Sen. Joe
Biden formally launched his bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2007 Jan 31, The New York Stock
Exchange announced a cooperative agreement with the Tokyo Stock
Exchange.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, The Ziff Davis Games
Group handed out the 4th annual 1Up Awards for computer games.
Nintendo’s “Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” won the top prize as
selected by 13 million Ziff Davis users.
(SFC, 2/2/07, p.C3)
2007 Jan 31, A special committee,
invited by IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato, proposed new ways for
the IMF to fund itself. A loan to Turkey at this time accounted for
two-thirds of the IMF’s outstanding credit.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.75)
2007 Jan 31, Molly Ivins (b.1944),
political columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, died of breast
cancer.
(SFC, 2/1/07, p.B7)
2006 Jan 31, Jennifer Merritt (31)
was shot in the arm and head while riding a bicycle in the San
Francisco Ingleside Heights neighborhood. She died from her wounds on
Feb 11. Police had no explanation.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.E6)
2007 Jan 31, The Afghan Parliament
voted for an amnesty for leaders accused of war crimes during a
quarter-century of fighting, arguing that it would help heal deep
divisions.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, A senior AU official
said 3 battalions of peacekeepers from Uganda and Nigeria are ready to
be deployed in Somalia and will be airlifted in as soon as possible.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, The caretaker
government of Bangladesh approved a deal with an Indian company to
build a 240MW power station.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 31, British
counterterrorism police arrested nine men in an alleged kidnapping
plot. The plan reportedly involved torturing and beheading a British
Muslim soldier and broadcasting the killing on the Internet.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Canada's former
Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human
rights lawyer David Matas released a report saying China's military is
harvesting organs from prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners,
for large scale transplants including for foreign recipients.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Cameroon to begin his second African tour to boost
ties with a continent that has many of the oil and commodity reserves
the Asian giant needs for its ballooning economy.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 1, Zhengzhou city
authorities put Gao Yaojie under house arrest to stop her from
traveling to Washington to be honored by a charity backed by Sen.
Hillary Clinton. The retired Chinese doctor helped expose blood-buying
schemes that infected thousands with HIV.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Congo at least 37
people were killed in clashes between security forces and opposition
supporters protesting against the results of governorship polls in
western Bas-Congo province.
(Reuters, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, Tata Steel said its
$11.3 billion offer to acquire European steel maker Corus (formerly
British Steel) is strategic to its global ambitions, even as the
winning bid raised concerns that the deal's high cost could undermine
the combined company's financial health.
(AP, 1/31/07)(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.C3)
2007 Jan 31, Unidentified gunmen
opened fire on a car carrying the chief Muslim leader in Ingushetia,
seriously wounding the mufti and his son.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, A series of car bombs
struck mostly Shiite areas in Baghdad, killing eight people, while a
mortar attack on a Sunni neighborhood killed four in more retaliatory
sectarian violence. The bodies of three Sunni professors and a student
also turned up in the morgue, three days after they were abducted by
gunmen from a law school in a predominantly Shiite area in northern
Baghdad. A suicide bomber driving an oil truck blew himself up after he
was stopped at a checkpoint near an Iraqi army headquarters north of
Baghdad, wounding 9 soldiers. A parked car bomb also struck a police
patrol in the northern city of Mosul killing one policeman and wounding
two others. In the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi at least eight bodies
were found with their hands and legs bound and showing signs of torture.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Mexico City some
75,000 unionists, farmers and leftists marched to protest price
increases in basic foodstuffs like tortillas, a direct challenge to the
new president's market-oriented economic policies blamed by some for
widening the gulf between rich and poor.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Mexico a lesbian
couple registered what officials called Mexico's first gay civil union
in the northern city of Saltillo.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, A human rights group
said its study of one of Nigeria's oil-producing states found that
officials squandered or stole public money, some hospitals required
patients to bring their own beds, and schools were running out of chalk.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, In a northwestern
Pakistan a mortar round struck a home in Hangu, killing two men and
wounding another amid sectarian tensions.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Two Spanish men, both
charged with providing explosives for Islamist train bombings in Madrid
in 2004, were given jail sentences in a separate trial for selling
explosives in 2001. The court in Asturias said it jailed former miner
Jose Emilio Suarez-Trashorras and his brother-in-law, Antonio Toro, for
10 and 11-1/2 years respectively on charges of drugs and explosives
trafficking.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, In eastern Sri Lanka
suspected separatist Tamil rebels detonated a roadside bomb, killing
six policemen and one civilian.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, A Congress wholly
loyal to President Hugo Chavez met at a downtown plaza to give the
Venezuelan leader authority to enact sweeping measures by presidential
decree.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Officials said
Vietnam's ruling Communist Party and the military will relinquish
control of dozens of companies, ranging from hotels to telecoms, as
part of an ongoing government overhaul. An oil spill from an
unidentified source hit Vietnam's central coast, blackening popular
resort beaches as thousands of local people help with the cleanup.
(AP, 1/31/07)(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, Zimbabwe's central
bank chief Gideon Gono unveiled a battery of belt-tightening measures
which include slashing the money supply and state spending to put the
brakes on four-digit inflation. The Zimbabwe dollar traded at 250
against the greenback on the official market while fetching up to 4,200
on the black market.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan, In California
construction began on new execution chambers at San Quentin State
Prison. Lawmakers did not learn of the project until April because it
fell just under a $400,000 mark that would have required legislative
approval. Construction was halted in April pending legislative
approval. $725,000 was already spent on the new room.
(SFC, 4/14/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan, Carl Malamud of
Sebastopol, Ca., introduced www.public.resource.org, a web site
offering a variety of public code manuals free online.
(SFC, 9/27/08, p.B1)(www.public.resource.org)
2007 Jan, The culinary workers’
union in Nevada numbered some 51,000 members representing hotel and
casino workers.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.30)
2007 Jan, Kashmir Khan, Taliban
commander in Konar and Nuristan provinces, met for an interview
with a Western journalist. He noted that Taliban enlistees get paid
some $140 per month as compared to $100 paid by the Afghan National
Army.
(SSFC, 1/21/07, p.A12)
2007 Jan, In Antarctica the South
Pole Telescope (SPT) opened to search signs of dark energy.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.87)
2007 Jan, In Barbados the George
Washington House and Museum was completed following an 8-year
restoration project. The site stood just outside Bridgetown.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.G2)
2007 Jan, In Brazil the Mato
Grosso do Sul state government stopped distributing food baskets to
some 11,000 Guarani-Kaiowa Indians on the Dourados reservation, about
800 miles west of Rio de Janeiro when a new government was elected. The
suspension worsened malnutrition among thousands of Indians, and at
least two young children died.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Jan, In eastern England a
16-year-old girl lost nearly all her fingers after she put her hands in
a bucket of plaster of Paris during an art lesson. She was attempting
to make a sculpture of her own hands. In 2009 Giles School, in Boston,
was ordered to pay 19,000 pounds ($30,140) for breaching health and
safety regulations and also failing to report the incident to the
Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
(Reuters, 10/12/09)
2007 Jan, In Bulgaria 2
Chernobyl-era nuclear energy units were shut down at Kozloduy as an
accession to Bulgaria’s joining the EU. This led to a cut in energy
exports and to soaring energy prices in the Balkans.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.51)
2007 Jan, Song Tiantang was
arrested and confessed to killing 6 women and selling their bodies to
buyers of ghost brides. In the late 1990s he had been arrested for
supplying the ghost bride market by just robbing graves.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.44)
2007 Jan, Guinea-Bissau officials
learned that Whoopi Goldberg (51) had taken a DNA test that indicated
her ancestors came from the indigenous Papel and Bayote tribes. They
soon extended to her a formal invitation to visit.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan, Police in India’s Jammu
& Kashmir state turned up 5 bodies of Kashmiris buried as Pakistani
militants. 8 police officers in the Ganderbal district were arrested
including Hansraj Parihar, Ganderbal’s top policeman.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.44)
2007 Jan, In Kazakhstan police
arrested a manager of the Atyrau Balyk cannery, charging him and 3
colleagues, who had fled to Russia, with poaching. The cannery had a
monopoly in exporting Kazakhstan’s CITES-approved quota of sturgeon. An
expert estimated that poaching on the Ural River could eliminate the
sturgeon in 5-10 years.
(SFC, 6/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan, The film “Bamako,” by
Mauritanian-born director Abderrahmane Sissako, opened in West Africa
after premiering at the 2006 Cannes film festival. It took its broadest
swipe at the "structural adjustment programs" championed by the World
Bank and IMF during the world recession of the late 1970s and early
1980s.
(Reuters, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan, Russia's Supreme Court
upheld a lower court's ruling that the Russian-Chechen Friendship
Society must close its doors. Rights advocates denounced the ruling,
charging it was a Kremlin attempt to silence criticism of its conduct
in the violence-wracked Chechnya region. The group has campaigned
against the Russian government's war on separatists in Chechnya, and
published reports alleging torture, abductions and killings of
civilians by Russian forces and their pro-Moscow Chechen allies.
(AP, 9/14/07)
2007 Jan, The World Bank called
itself the "Knowledge Bank," and employed 10,000 people.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.67)
2007 Feb 1, The departing top US
commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, told the Senate Armed Services
Committee that improving security in Baghdad would take fewer than half
as many extra troops as President Bush had chosen to commit.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2007 Feb 1, The National Academy
of Engineering announced that the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for
Sustainability would go to Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor at George
Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He had developed an inexpensive,
easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic from well water, and planned
to use most of the $1 million engineering prize to distribute the
filters to needy communities around the world.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 1, Montana sued Wyoming
in the Supreme Court saying its neighbor takes more Tongue- and Powder-
River water that it is entitled to.
(WSJ, 2/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 1, In SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom admitted to having an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, his
campaign manager’s wife.
(SFC, 2/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 1, Coca-Cola announced
that it had signed an agreement to acquire Fuze Beverage LLC in a deal
estimated at $225-250 million. Fuze was launched in 2001.
(WSJ, 2/2/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 1, Oil giant Exxon Mobil
topped its own record for the biggest annual profit by a US company
last year, racking up earnings that amounted to $4.5 million an hour
for the world's largest publicly traded oil company.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Whitney Balliett (80),
jazz chronicler writer for the New Yorker magazine, died.
(WSJ, 2/6/07, p.D5)
2007 Feb 1, John Bryan,
underground press writer and editor, died in SF. He had started the
Open City Press, San Francisco’s 1st alternative paper, in 1964.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.B7)
2007 Feb 1, The United States
presented hundreds of armored vehicles and trucks and thousands of
weapons to the Afghan army as Afghanistan braces for renewed fighting
with Taliban-led insurgents. In southern Afghanistan Taliban militants
overran Musa Qala, where a contentious peace agreement was negotiated
last fall, roaming through the town center, burning its government
compound and threatening elders. In eastern Paktika province coalition
aircraft dropped two bombs, killing as many as seven militants.
(AP, 2/1/07)(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 1, Defense Secretary Des
Browne said Britain will increase its military presence in southern
Afghanistan by about 800 troops to 5,800 this summer.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Chadian rebels
fighting to overthrow President Idriss Deby attacked the eastern border
town of Adre on the main road route into Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao arrived in Liberia. He held talks with Liberian Pres. Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf and address the parliament, before meeting some 500
Chinese peacekeepers. Jintao was also due to visit Sudan, Zambia,
Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and the Seychelles during his 12-day
tour.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In Colombia President
Alvaro Uribe ordered the seizure of assets belonging to demobilized
paramilitary leaders after the killing of a woman who was leading a
campaign to reclaim land stolen by the illegal
militias.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Ahmed Abu Laban (60),
Denmark's most prominent Muslim leader and a central figure in last
year's uproar over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, died from cancer.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 1, Ecuador’s government
named Lorena Escudero (41) to be defense minister, to take over after
the first female to hold the office was killed in a helicopter accident.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, A Lebanese publisher
said the Egyptian government had censored several Egyptian and foreign
titles at its annual book fair, including the classic novel "Zorba the
Greek" as well as books by Czech author Milan
Kundera.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In France top global
warming experts huddled for a last day of talks with bureaucrats from
more than 100 countries on a closely watched global warming report that
could influence government and business policy worldwide.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In France a ban on
smoking in public spaces came into effect.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, A suicide attack in
Hillah killed at least 73 people with 163 wounded. Mortar rounds
slammed into a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad for the third day in a
row, killing at least three people and wounding 10. At least 9 people
were killed in Baghdad as a bomb tore through a minibus in a
predominantly Shiite commercial district and mortars hit a Sunni area.
A US soldier died of wounds sustained in fighting in Anbar province.
(AP, 2/1/07)(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 1, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad launched anniversary celebrations for Iran's Islamic
Revolution with a defiant promise to push ahead with the country's
controversial nuclear program.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2007 Feb 1, Israeli troops killed
two Palestinian gunmen in an exchange of fire in Nablus.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Gian Carlo Menotti
(b.1911), Italian composer and Pulitzer Prize winner, died in Monaco.
His operas included “The Medium” (1946) and “Amahl and the Night
Visitors” (1951).
(SFC, 2/2/07, p.B7)
2007 Feb 1, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon praised a new law that obligates federal and local
authorities to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women,
and he promised a "relentless" fight against gender-related
abuse.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, A Nigerian oil worker
abducted 2 days earlier from a facility operated by Addax Petroleum in
southern Nigeria was found dead.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Palestinian gunmen
opened fire at Hamas officials in separate attacks, marring efforts to
shore up a truce that brought relative quiet to Gaza after days of
deadly factional violence.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Romanian President
Traian Basescu told Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that pirated
Microsoft software helped Romania to build a vibrant technology
industry.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Russia's Emergency
Ministry planned to fly a chemical laboratory to the Omsk region in
southern Siberia to analyze oily yellow and orange snow which has
covered an area home to 27,000 people. Omsk is a heavily industrial
city with a number of oil and gas refineries.
(Reuters, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 1, In South Africa 20
people, including four children, were killed in a car accident in
Mpumalanga province.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Radhika Coomaraswamy,
the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and
Armed Conflict, said child soldiers are increasingly being used in the
war-torn region of Darfur, even as their use is on the decline
elsewhere in Sudan.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 2, Scientists from 113
countries issued a report saying they have little doubt global warming
is caused by man, and predicting that hotter temperatures and rises in
sea level will "continue for centuries" no matter how much humans
control their pollution. The 4th report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in Paris.
(AP, 2/2/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.86)
2007 Feb 2, Gov. Rick Perry issued
an order making Texas the 1st state to require schoolgirls get
vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical
cancer.
(SFC, 2/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 2, Storms blew through
central Florida, killing 21 people, flattening dozens of homes and a
church and lifting a tractor trailer into the air.
(AP, 2/3/07)(AP, 2/2/08)
2007 Feb 2, Ivan Santos (15) was
shot and killed in San Pablo, Ca. On Mar 22-23 Police arrested Ramon
Alejandre (30), Roberto Garcia (21) and a boy (17) for shooting Santos,
who was allegedly dressed like a rival gang member.
(SFC, 3/24/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 2, Joe Hunter (79),
Motown’s first bandleader, died in Detroit, Mich.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.B6)
2007 Feb 2, Billy Henderson (67),
singer in the band called the Spinners, died in Florida. His songs
included “I’ll Be Around” (1972) and other hits. The 5-member band had
formed in 1954 in Ferndale, Mich.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.B6)
2007 Feb 2, Eric von Schmidt (75),
guitarist and painter, died in Connecticut. He was a mentor for Bob
Dylan, who wrote the liner notes for Schmidt’s 1969 album: “Who Knocked
the Brains Out of the Sky.”
(SFC, 2/5/07, p.B4)
2007 Feb 2, In Bolivia a high
court ruled in favor of a Amauris Sanmartino, a Cuban dissident who was
recently deported from Bolivia for criticizing President Evo Morales,
saying a law prohibiting foreigners from involvement in the Andean
country's politics is unconstitutional. Sanmartino went to Colombia and
planned to relocate to Norway.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 2, US Peace Corps
volunteers flew to Cambodia to teach English at rural schools, marking
the 45-year-old organization's first mission there.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Abdoulaye Miskine, the
head of one of the Central African Republic's main rebel groups, inked
in Libya a peace deal described as "historic" by the government. Under
the deal, which CAR's other main rebel factions are expected to sign up
to, there will be an immediate ceasefire and Miskine's rebels will be
integrated into civilian life or absorbed into the army. Rebel
prisoners are to be freed.
(AFP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 2, A mine explosion in
China’s Henan province killed 24 coal miners at the Xing'an coal mine.
Newspapers later reported that mining officials had said that seven
miners had died in the blast, and that mine owner Fu Faming ordered
miners back into the shaft to seal it with earth in an attempt to bury
evidence of the deaths.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 2, Ecuador’s President
Rafael Correa dismissed the country's army commander, just over a week
after a military helicopter crash killed Ecuador's first female defense
minister.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, A French court
convicted dozens of people in a baby-trafficking case involving the
sale of nearly two dozen Bulgarian infants over two years.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, In northern India a
crowded bus veered off a steep mountain road and fell into a gorge,
killing at least 10 people and injuring 17 others.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Iran said it will
allow UN surveillance cameras at its Natanz nuclear complex.
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 2, US forces killed 18
insurgents in fighting overnight after insurgents opened fire on the
Americans from several positions in Ramadi. A roadside bomb struck a
police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing one officer. A US
military helicopter went down near Taji and 2 crew members were
killed.
(AP, 2/2/07)(SFC, 2/3/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 2, UN envoy Martti
Ahtisaari unveiled his long-awaited plan for Kosovo, a proposal
recommending internationally supervised statehood for the contested
province where separatists fought a bloody war with Serbia in the late
1990s.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Lebanon's top Sunni
Muslim clerics published a religious edict prohibiting Muslims from
killing their fellow countrymen, particularly other Muslims.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Fatah fighters stormed
a Hamas-affiliated university for the second time, hours before the two
political factions grappling for control of the Palestinian government
said they had agreed on a new cease-fire. 17 people, including four
children, were killed in renewed fighting before the
announcement.
(AP, 2/2/07)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 2, Malaysia said it is
ready to halt free trade talks with the United States after a US
lawmaker called for a suspension in protest over an energy deal with
Iran signed in January.
(AFP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf said Pakistan will erect fencing to reinforce parts of its
porous mountain border with Afghanistan, acknowledging for the first
time that some outgunned Pakistani frontier guards have allowed
militants to cross. The United States handed over eight Cobra attack
helicopters to Pakistan, which is under growing pressure to stop
Taliban guerrillas crossing into Afghanistan to fight NATO
forces.
(AP, 2/2/07)(Reuters, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Suspected Muslim
guerrillas stormed a Philippine jail and blasted a hole through a wall,
freeing three alleged bombers and dozens of other inmates. In the
southern Philippines 50 people were killed and 65 others injured when a
tanker truck exploded as it was negotiating a downhill mountain
road.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 2, In Somalia an
explosion at an Islamic school for women and girls in Mogadishu wounded
at least seven people. At least three mortar attacks were launched
overnight in the city by unknown attackers.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Chinese President Hu
Jintao offered Sudan assistance for the peaceful resolution of the
Darfur conflict but ignored Western pressure to make future aid
conditional on the progress made. Jintao agreed on closer economic
cooperation with Sudan after sealing talks with a series of trade
agreements. Jintao told Sudan's leader he must give the United Nations
a bigger role in trying to resolve the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, A ruling by
Switzerland's highest court opened up the possibility that people with
serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own
lives.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 3, President Bush
designated four central Florida counties disaster areas in the wake of
tornadoes that ripped through the region, leaving 21 dead.
(AP, 2/3/08)
2007 Feb 3, Britain scrambled to
contain its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird
flu in domestic poultry after the virus was found at a farm run by
Europe's biggest turkey producer. Some 2,500 turkeys had died since Feb
1 at the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft in eastern England. Over
160,000 were culled over the next few days.
(AP, 2/3/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.59)
2007 Feb 3, In Chile a fire swept
through a small hotel in Punta Arenas, killing 10 foreign tourists,
including two children, as they slept in their rooms. A large gas
explosion rocked a historic area in the port city of Valparaiso,
killing at least one person, injuring 11 more and causing extensive
damage over three city blocks.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, In southern China a
tour bus traveling in the wrong lane on a highway plowed into an
oncoming bus in Hechi, killing 13 passengers and injuring 75.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, Police said they found
$19 million in cash under the floorboards of a house in Cali. The loot
likely belonged to Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, among a dozen alleged
top drug kingpins whom US authorities targeted for arrest using a $5
million reward for information. In the northeast an explosion
tore through a makeshift coal mine, killing 32 miners.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, In Congo officials
said clashes last week between security forces and demonstrators
claiming electoral fraud left 97 people dead in several southwestern
towns.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, In India at least 19
laborers were crushed to death when a wall they were building collapsed
near Mumbai.
(AFP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, Indonesia’s
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said Indonesia will pursue its
plans to develop nuclear power as part of efforts to find alternative
energy sources to address its growing needs. Officials said flooding
has killed at least 44 people and left more than 340,000 others
homeless in Jakarta, as neck-high waters submerged large sections of
the city.
(AP, 2/3/07)(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 3, Iraq's top Shiite
cleric called for Muslim unity and an end to sectarian conflict, his
first public statement in months on the worsening security crisis. A
suicide truck bomber struck a market in a predominantly Shiite area of
Baghdad, killing 137 people among the crowd buying food for evening
meals, the most devastating strike in the capital in more than two
months. A series of car bombs struck the oil-rich northern city of
Kirkuk in a 2-hour span, killing at least 2 people and wounding 30. 5
US soldiers died, 4 in fighting and one of an apparent heart attack.
(AP, 2/3/07)(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, Maize reportedly
occupied 90% of the cultivated land in Malawi.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 3, In Mexico thousands of
protesters marched in Oaxaca to demand the resignation of the state
governor. A man's chopped up body was discovered in Acapulco dumped in
plastic garbage bags.
(AP, 2/3/07)(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 3, The Mahadhesi ethnic
community in southeastern Nepal demanded that the region be turned into
an autonomous state to end two weeks of unrest that has claimed at
least 13 lives.
(AFP, 2/3/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.43)
2007 Feb 3, Fatah and Hamas
clashed at Cabinet ministries, universities and security headquarters
in defiance of a truce that was to have calmed the seething Gaza Strip.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, In northwest Pakistan
a suspected Islamic militant rammed his explosive-laden car into a
Pakistan army convoy near Tank, killing two soldiers and wounding six
others.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, The interior ministry
spokesman said Saudi police have arrested 10 people who are accused of
collecting donations and recruiting on behalf of militant groups.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, Tens of thousands of
people marched in Madrid to reject any negotiations with the Basque
separatist group ETA, whose car bombing in the capital a month ago
shattered a nascent peace process.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, In northern Vietnam 5
miners were killed when a large rock fell on them as they worked to
extract zinc ore.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, Chinese President Hu
Jintao brought his eight-nation African tour to Zambia, a copper-rich
country where China's growing clout has prompted charges of
exploitation and emerged as a volatile political issue.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 4, Peyton Manning added
the missing ingredient to his Hall of Fame credentials by leading the
Indianapolis Colts to a 29-17 victory over the Chicago Bears in Super
Bowl XLI.
(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 4, Barbara McNair, black
singer and actress, died in Los Angeles. Her films included “Change of
Habit” (1969). She hosted the TV Barbara McNair Show from 1969-1972.
(SFC, 2/5/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 4, Gen. Dan McNeill, the
highest-ranking US general to lead troops in Afghanistan, took command
of 35,500 strong NATO-led force, putting an American face on the
international mission after nine months of British command under Gen.
David Richards. A NATO airstrike killed a senior Taliban leader riding
in a car near Musa Qala.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, Bangladeshi security
forces used emergency powers to detain 13 senior politicians and former
government ministers. Some 3 million Muslim devotees raised their hands
in prayer for global peace, putting aside their country's sometimes
violent struggle with political corruption and Islamic extremists, at
one of the world's largest religious gatherings. The annual World
Congregation of Muslims, or "Bishwa Ijtema," has been held each year
since 1966 on the banks of the River Turag in Tongi, just north of the
capital, Dhaka.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In eastern China a
fire swept through a two-story building of shops and apartments,
killing at least 17 people in Zhejiang province's Taizhou city.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, Armed kidnappers
seized an American missionary as he left his church near Haiti's
capital and have demanded a ransom for his release.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Iraq at least 103
people were killed or found dead, mostly in Baghdad. A roadside bomb
struck a police patrol in a predominantly Sunni area in Baghdad,
killing 4 policemen and wounding 3. The US command said it has ordered
changes in helicopter flight operations. 4 had been shot down in the
last 2 weeks. Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms seized Jalal Sharafi,
the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy, as he drove through
central Baghdad. Iran said it held the United States responsible for
the diplomat's "safety and life."
(AP, 2/4/07)(SFC, 2/5/07, p.A8)(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Kenya a top Kenyan
AIDS researcher was killed and an American woman traveling with him was
shot in the face.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Feb 4, In Nigeria officials
said 9 Chinese oil workers, abducted last month by militants in an
armed attack in the southern delta, were released.
(Reuters, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In eastern Pakistan a
passenger train crushed to death a group of six young boys as they
played on a railway track.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, Hamas gunmen attacked
bases of Fatah-allied troops with mortars and rocket-propelled
grenades, part of a four-day campaign by the Islamic militants to
weaken the security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Nepal police opened
fire on protesters in two towns, killing at least three people and
wounding several more.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, A Philippine marine
general and 19 others were released from a Muslim rebel camp where they
were held for two days by guerrillas demanding more benefits under a
1996 peace accord.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, A Saudi newspaper
reported that a Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive
lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of
attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Turkmenistan an
eight-story building collapsed in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir
killing 5 people. A 15-year-old boy was rescued 36 hours later.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Zambia China’s
President Hu Jintao pledged $800 million in investments, debt
write-offs and a "showcase" free trade zone as he ended a tour there.
Beijing's economic juggernaut has sparked tensions in Zambia.
(AFP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 5, President Bush sent a
$2.9 trillion spending plan to a Democratic-controlled Congress,
proposing to spend billions more to fight the war in Iraq while
squeezing the rest of government to meet his goal of eliminating the
deficit in five years.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, The US insisted that
Nicaragua destroy hundreds of Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles after
President Daniel Ortega said the weapons were needed for the country's
defense.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, NASA astronaut Lisa
Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Fla., accused of trying to kidnap a
perceived rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot.
(AP, 2/5/08)
2007 Feb 5, Britain pressed ahead
with a cull of 160,000 turkeys after the nation's first outbreak of a
deadly strain of bird flu in farmed poultry as Russia and Japan banned
British poultry imports.
(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, A Cold War-era Soviet
submarine that was being towed to Thailand sank off northwestern
Denmark. The Soviet Union built more than 200 Whiskey-class submarines
during the Cold War, many of which are now being offered for sale by
private companies.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 5, In northern Germany 3
men and 3 women were found shot dead in a Chinese restaurant in the
early hours in Sittensen. A 7th person died a day later. German police
soon arrested two Vietnamese men in connection with the killings.
(AFP, 2/5/07)(AP, 2/6/07)(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 5, In India a fire gutted
a garment factory in eastern India, killing seven workers in Howrah, a
suburb of Calcutta.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, Violence raked Baghdad
as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the
capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks, initial
steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with
American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed. At least 29 people died in
bomb and mortar attacks across the city, 15 of them as they waited to
refill propane cooking tanks when two car bombs blew up in quick
succession in south Baghdad. A soldier killed in a roadside bombing in
Basra was the 100th British death attributed to hostile action since
the US-led invasion in 2003. A US Marine was killed in fighting in the
volatile Anbar province. US forces shot and killed Donald Tolfree of
Owosso, Mich., a civilian contract truck driver at Camp Anaconda, the
huge air base north of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/5/07)(AP, 2/6/07)(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 5, China’s president Hu
Jintao brought his eight-nation African tour to Namibia, a sparsely
populated, mineral-rich desert country that hopes to benefit from an
influx of Chinese investment and tourists.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, A home-made bomb
ripped through a train station in Spain's Basque region. Police said it
appeared to have been the work of Basque independence street gangs,
rather than armed separatists ETA.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, Syria’s President
Bashar Assad said cooperation, and negotiations, between Syria and the
US could be the "last chance" to avoid full-scale civil war in Iraq.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, In Hanoi, Vietnam,
international aid experts from the World Bank, UN and other development
agencies and 40 nations met for the Third International Roundtable on
Managing For Development Results, a four-day conference aimed at making
global development efforts more effective.
(AFP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, Teachers across
Zimbabwe began an indefinite industrial action to press for better
salaries and better working conditions.
(AFP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 6, Defense Secretary
Robert Gates announced to the Senate Armed Services Committee that
President George W. Bush had given authority to create the new African
Command. US Navy Rear Admiral Robert Moeller was named as Executive
Director, head of the transition team for AFRICOM, with initial
quarters in Germany.
(AP, 2/6/07)(Econ, 6/16/07,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Africa_Command)
2007 Feb 6, An official said Lisa
Marie Nowak (43), a NASA astronaut accused of trying to kidnap a
romantic rival for a space shuttle pilot's affections, will remain in
jail because authorities planned to charge her with attempted
first-degree murder.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, The San Mateo, Ca.,
Board of Supervisors adopted a ban on smoking at 17 parks, trails and a
beach managed by the county.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 6, It was reported that
thieves have long targeted car stereos, air bags, high-intensity
headlights, even pocket change from the ashtrays. But now they are
slithering under vehicles and cutting away the catalytic converters.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Kentucky a fire
engulfed a home in Bardstown killing 10 people.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 6, Frankie Laine (1913),
pop singer born as Francesco Paolo LoVecchio in Chicago, died in San
Diego. His songs included “Mule Train,” Cool Water” and the theme song
for “Rawhide.” He had started in jazz but was sidetracked by arranger
Mitch Miller.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 6, More than 20,000
miners from across Bolivia marched into the capital, tossing sticks of
dynamite that sent booming explosions echoing through the streets in a
protest of President Evo Morales' plans for a steep hike in mining
taxes.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Sao Paulo, Brazil,
suspected gang members torched 3 buses and shot at police, raising
concerns the violence could mushroom into a repeat of last year's crime
wave.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, An underground
explosion in a central Colombia coal mine killed eight workers, just
days after a similar blast in the nation's northeast killed 32 miners.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, Church officials said
The Episcopal Church has named a woman as bishop in Cuba, the first
such appointment by the church in the developing world.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, In France nearly 60
nations pledged not to use children to wage war and to disarm and
rehabilitate underage soldiers. The Paris Commitments agreement was
seen as a strong moral step against the problem, though it carried no
legal weight. They also signed a treaty that bans governments from
holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of
its key European allies were not among them.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Honduras 3
Americans on a charity mission were killed and 17 other people were
injured in a traffic accident.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, Iraqi and US forces
set up more checkpoints in preparation for a security sweep in Baghdad
amid complaints that the operation was moving too slowly.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Mexico more than a
dozen armed assailants staged and videotaped simultaneous attacks
against two offices of the state attorney general in Acapulco, killing
five agents and two secretaries.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, Dutch media reported
that the parties of the incoming centre-left Dutch government agreed to
grant amnesty for some 30,000 failed asylum seekers who came to the
Netherlands before April 2001.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Pakistan a suicide
attacker detonated a bomb in a parking area at the international
airport in Rawalpindi, which serves Pakistan's capital, wounding at
least two police and killing himself.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, China’s President Hu
Jintao vowed to forge a partnership of equals with South Africa as he
held talks with his counterpart Thabo Mbeki.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Washington Post
reported that President George W. Bush has approved plans for the US
Treasury Department to block US commercial bank transactions connected
to Sudan's government, including those involving oil revenue.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) announced its approval of sales of Alli, a
reduced-strength version of the prescription diet drug Xenical. The
first diet pill for over the counter sale hit stores June 15.
(AP, 2/8/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 7, Indictments were filed
in New Jersey against 3 US Army Reserve officers for taking part in a
bid-rigging scam that steered millions of dollars for Iraq
reconstruction to a contractor in exchange for cash, luxury cars and
jewelry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A12)
2007 Feb 7, In SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom met with Lithuania’s Pres. Valdas Adamkus at the Fairmont Hotel
following an address at the World Affairs Council. Pres. Adamkus,
accompanied by a Lithuanian business delegation, was here for a one
week visit seeking US trade opportunities and potential investors.
(www.president.lt/en/news.full/7476)
2007 Feb 7, Blowing snow and
intense cold was blamed for two more deaths, a total of 13 nationwide
since the cold settled in, and kept schools closed for a second and in
some cases a third day across much of Ohio and West Virginia.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Chicago Equity
Office Properties (EOP), America’s largest commercial landlord,
accepted a cash offer from The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm
that valued the company at nearly $39 billion (including debt).
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 7, Austrian authorities
said they have uncovered a major international child pornography ring
involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, including
hundreds in the United States, who paid to view videos of young
children being sexually abused.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, A twin-engine plane
crashed in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, killing all six people aboard.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Six people were hurt
by a third letter bomb in three days aimed at British motoring-related
organizations and police are investigating if the attacks are part of a
coordinated campaign.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Aron Groiss, director
of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, presented
a study in London saying textbooks used in Iran's schools are
instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United
States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in a global holy war
against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Canada’s Nortel
Networks Corp. said it will slash 2,900 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its
workforce, over the next two years and shift another 1,000 employees to
lower-cost locations like China, India and Mexico as North America's
biggest maker of telephone equipment struggles to shore up its profits.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In central China an
overcrowded passenger vehicle returning from a wedding party plunged
off a cliff, killing 16 members of an extended family.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Colombia's top court
ruled that gay couples, who have lived together for more than 2 years,
should have the same rights to shared assets as heterosexual couples.
The decision by the Constitutional Court marked the first recognition
of gay couples' rights in Colombia.
(AP, 2/9/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.34)
2007 Feb 7, Georgia signed a
regional cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan and Turkey which
included plans for a railway connecting the three countries.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/2gbbgg)
2007 Feb 7, At least 15 people
were killed in attacks across Iraq, including two employees of the
government-funded Iraqi Media Network in Baghdad. A female census
worker was shot to death while she was riding to work with her husband
in the northern city of Mosul. A Sea Knight CH-46 helicopter went
down northwest of Baghdad, the fifth helicopter lost in Iraq in just
over two weeks. All 7 aboard were killed. Four US Marines were killed
in fighting in Anbar province from wounds sustained due to enemy action
in two separate incidents. Another 3 US soldiers were killed in
fighting Anbar province.
(AP, 2/7/07)(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 7, An Italian judge
ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal
shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad on
March 4, 2005.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Michel Niaucel, a
French diplomat with the European Union in Ivory Coast, was shot to
death in his home overnight. Niaucel was in charge of West Africa
security operations for the EU.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe
pledged to regain four disputed northern islands from Russia, saying it
was time to end the bickering between Tokyo and Moscow over the prime
fishing grounds.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Embassy issued
a travel advisory saying violent crime was on the increase in Kenya.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Feb 7, The Mozambique
government said floods have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands of
homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the country in
the past two weeks.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Gunmen seized a French
oil worker in Nigeria's restive southern petroleum-producing region.
Kidnappers there also seized a woman from the Philippines. Kidnappers
released a British oil-worker after the man taken in a raid last month
fell ill. President Olusegun Obasanjo called for a high-level meeting
to address the violence.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Russia's defense
minister laid out an ambitious plan for building new intercontinental
ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Saudi Arabia rival
Palestinian leaders began open-ended talks in Mecca optimistic that
they could reach an agreement to end their bloody street battles and
resume the peace process with Israel.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Somalia doctors
said a cholera outbreak has killed more than 115 people and
hospitalized 724 in towns where people were forced to use contaminated
water from a flooded river.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In South Africa Chin’s
President Hu Jintao promised to increase imports from Africa,
responding to fears about the trade deficit that increased as China
pumped unprecedented aid, investment and loans into the poor but
resource-rich continent.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Spanish Civil
Guard said authorities have arrested 52 people in a major crackdown on
a suspected ring of antiquities looters from dozens of sites in
southern Spain.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka Selliah
Parameswar, a Hindu priest who welcomed President Mahinda Rajapakse to
a former guerrilla bastion, was dragged out of his house in Batticaloa
district and killed by a group of unidentified gunmen. The Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed a breakaway group allegedly linked
to government forces.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Officials in Venezuela
confirmed that Venezuela will buy whatever legal products Bolivia can
make from coca leaf as part of an effort to wean farmers from the
cocaine industry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 7, Zimbabwe’s President
Robert Mugabe, under mounting pressure over a world record-busting
inflation rate and escalating strike action in the public sector,
sacked his finance minister. A union chief said 60 Zimbabwean junior
doctors have been sacked from Harare's main hospital after going on
strike in December demanding salary hikes.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 8, A federal judge in
Fargo, N.D., sentenced Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. to death for the slaying
of college student Dru Sjodin.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2007 Feb 8, The Museum for African
Art unveiled plans for a new home in Manhattan, becoming the first
major addition to New York's Museum Mile in 50 years.
(Reuters, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Anna Nicole Smith
(b.1967), former Playboy centerfold (Miss May 1992) and wife of former
oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II (1905-1995), died in Florida.
Authorities later said Smith died of an accidental drug overdose of
nine prescription medications, but an extensive six-week investigation
found no signs of foul play.
(AP, 2/8/07)(SFC, 2/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 3/26/07)
2007 Feb 8, Joe Edwards (85),
comics artist, died at his home in NY. He worked on the 1942 debut
issue of Archie comics and later created the character Li'l Jinx.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 8, Benin, Nigeria, and
Togo formed a new regional body aimed at fast-tracking the integration
of their economies. The body, known as the Co-Prosperity Alliance Zone
(COPAZ), was formally inaugurated following a mini-summit of Nigeria’s
President Olusegun Obasanjo, Benin’s President Boni Yayi and Togo’s
President Faure Gnassingbe.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, In Cape Verde 3
Italian women, aged 17-33, were brutally attacked while vacationing,
dragged into the woods, pelted with stones and left for dead at the
bottom of a hole. One woman survived. 3 local men were arrested.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 8, State media said
officials in eastern China plan to name and shame rich families who
ignore the country's strict one-child policy and simply pay the fine
for having a second or third baby. China executed Ismail Semed, an
ethnic Muslim and member of the Uighur minority group in Xinjiang, for
alleged separatist activities. Human rights groups condemned because
they said the prosecution's case against him lacked evidence and his
confession may have been coerced.
(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, Cuba deported reputed
drug kingpin Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante to Colombia, which plans to
extradite him to the United States to face trafficking and money
laundering charges.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, In France teachers,
tax collectors, railway workers and other public servants went on
strike to protest job losses and demand higher pay.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, India’s air force
chief S.P. Tyagi told reporters at the Bangalore air show that the
government expects to sign a contract to buy 40 Russian Sukhoi-30
aircraft by the end of the fiscal year March 31.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, An object fell from
the sky and killed 3 nomads in northern India’s Rajasthan state. The
impact left a crater and the object was believed to have been a meteor.
(SFC, 2/17/07, p.B6)
2007 Feb 8, In Indonesia fresh
rains triggered more flooding, compounding the misery for hundreds of
thousands forced from their homes. Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel
leader, was inaugurated as governor of Aceh province, cementing a peace
deal to end 29 years of fighting that killed more than 15,000 people.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Iraqi forces detained
a senior Health Ministry official accused of corruption and helping to
funnel millions of dollars to Shiite militiamen blamed for much of the
recent sectarian violence in the capital. A parked car bomb exploded at
a meat market in the predominantly Shiite town of Aziziyah killing 20
people and wounding 45. Car bombs struck Shiite targets in Baghdad and
south of the capital. Gunmen burst into two houses belonging to Sunni
Muslims northeast of Baghdad and killed at least 10 males after pushing
the women and children aside. In northern Iraq a late night US
airstrike hit a Kurdish position in Mosul, killing at least eight
Kurdish troops and wounding six. The US military said it was looking
into the report. A separate US airstrike killed eight suspected
terrorists and destroyed a building south of Baghdad. A US airstrike
killed 13 insurgents in a volatile area west of Baghdad. Local
officials said 45 civilians, including women and children, died in the
attack.
(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, China’s President Hu
Jintao arrived in Mozambique on the penultimate stop in his 8-nation
African tour.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Nepal's government
decided to replace the image of embattled King Gyanendra with an image
of Everest, the world's highest mountain, on 10 rupee (13 cent) bills.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, North Korea agreed in
principle to take initial steps toward dismantling its nuclear programs
at the start of international talks seeking the first concrete progress
on disarming Pyongyang.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Welding equipment
touched off an explosion at a West Bank gas station, killing at least
eight people and wounded 17.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, A Fatah official in
Saudi Arabia said that rival Palestinian factions had reached an
agreement on how to divide up Cabinet posts in a power-sharing
government.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, South Africa, burdened
with one of the world's major HIV/AIDS epidemics, unveiled plans for
its biggest AIDS vaccine trial.
(Reuters, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, President Chen
Shui-bian said the name 'Taiwan' would soon replace 'China' on the
island's stamps, a move likely to anger Beijing.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, President Hugo
Chavez's government moved to nationalize Venezuela's largest private
electric company, signing an agreement to buy a controlling stake in
Electricidad de Caracas from its US-based owner, AES Corp.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 9, US Defense Secretary
Robert Gates told reporters in Munich, Germany, that serial numbers and
other markings on bombs suggested that Iranians were linked to deadly
explosives used by Iraqi militants.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2007 Feb 9, Fred Everts (36), the
former roommate of Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller (one of the nation's most
prolific child molesters), was sentenced in San Jose, Ca., to at least
800 years in prison for sexually abusing three boys.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, Fortress Investment
Group LLC, became the 1st private equity group to go public. Shares
were issued on the NYSE at $18.50 and closed at $31.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 9, It was reported that
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have overcome
a major obstacle in harnessing the full power and speed of the light
waves for Internet fiber-optic networks.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Taliban militants
ambushed a truck full of Afghan police in southern Afghanistan, killing
four officers and injuring three. A separate gunfight left 11 Taliban
fighters dead.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo
Morales declared the Vinto tin smelter to be nationalized. Glencore,
the Swiss based owner, demanded compensation saying the seizure
violated a 1991 bilateral agreement between Bolivia and Switzerland.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.40)
2007 Feb 9, In London airline
tycoon Richard Branson announced a $25 million prize for the first
person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the
atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, British government
scientists said the avian flu strain that hit the farm in Suffolk owned
by poultry giant Bernard Matthews appeared to be identical to that
found in Hungary, where Matthews owns local company Saga Foods.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, British bus and train
operator FirstGroup PLC said it agreed to buy US-based bus company
Laidlaw International Inc. in a 1.9 billion pound ($2.7 billion) deal.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Ian Richardson
(b.1934), Scottish-born film and TV actor, died in London. He played
the evil Francis Urquhart in 3 TV miniseries “House of Cards” (1990),
“To Play the King” (1993) and “The final Cut” (1995).
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.B7)
2007 Feb 9, In Cambodia the
American navy's USS Gary docked at Sihanoukville, becoming the first US
military craft to visit the former communist country in more than 30
years.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, China’s state Food and
Drug Administration vowed to probe up to 170,000 medicines produced by
manufacturers, which allegedly bribed its sacked head Zheng Xiaoyu for
production licenses. The top drug safety official was being
investigated for bribery after a number of deaths and scandals were
linked to shoddy medicines.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In China envoys to
international talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program
struggled to find a compromise as differences emerged over a Chinese
proposal on how to begin the disarmament process.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, A French appeals court
ruled that Pierre Pinoncelli (78), who attacked Marcel Duchamp's famed
porcelain urinal (fountain) with a hammer last year, does not have to
pay $260,000 in damages. Pinoncelli urinated on "Fountain" during a
1993 exhibition in Nimes in southern France, and cut off his own finger
as an expression of solidarity with Colombian-French politician Ingrid
Betancourt, held hostage by leftist guerrillas in Colombia since 2002.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In France
Alcatel-Lucent SA said it plans to cut another 3,500 jobs after it
swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, the first for which the telecom
equipment maker reported combined earnings.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In Guinea President
Lansana Conte named Eugene Camara, a recently appointed cabinet member,
as prime minister. The move was apparently aimed at appeasing union
leaders who led a crippling two-week strike. Under an agreement signed
by the two sides, the new PM cannot have previously served in the
government.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Hundreds of UN
peacekeepers raided Haiti's largest and most violent slum, seizing a
portion of it in a six-hour gunbattle that left a gang member dead and
two soldiers wounded.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, The UN atomic monitor
suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a
symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only
North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Gunmen dressed in
Iraqi army uniforms swept into a village south of Baghdad, kidnapping
13 civilians and killing at least 11 of them. A British soldier was
killed and three others were hurt in a roadside bomb attack in southern
Iraq. 3 US soldiers died in an explosion in volatile Diyala province
northeast of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/9/07)(AFP, 2/9/07)(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, Israeli police stormed
the grounds of Islam's third-holiest shrine, firing stun grenades and
tear gas to disperse thousands of Muslim worshippers who hurled stones,
bottles and trash in an eruption of outrage over Israeli renovation
nearby.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Nichiro Corp., a
Japanese food company, recalled nearly 5 million cans of tuna after a
customer found part of a box cutter blade in a can. The small piece of
blade was found in a can of tuna produced in Vietnam in February 2006
and imported to Japan by a third company for sale by Nichiro.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, An official said
flooding in central Mozambique threatened some 285,000 people.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Gazans rejoiced in the
streets to celebrate a Hamas-Fatah power-sharing deal they hope will
avert civil war, but Palestinian officials preached patience, saying
implementing the agreement would be a challenge.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, The Kremlin said oil
tycoon and Chelsea soccer club owner Abramovich will stay on as
governor of the Chukotka region in northeastern Russia. Abramovich had
submitted his resignation in December.
(www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/4542629.html)
2007 Feb 9, In Vietnam the US
ambassador said the US government will give Vietnam $400,000 toward
cleaning up a former US military base contaminated by Agent Orange, its
biggest step yet toward resolving one of the most contentious legacies
of the Vietnam War.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, The United Nations
agreed to a Serbian request to delay final talks on the fate of
breakaway Kosovo province by a week to give Belgrade time to appoint
delegates.
(Reuters, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 10, Democrat Barack Obama
announced in Illinois that he is running for the White House in 2008.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a NATO convoy outside
Kandahar city, killing himself but hurting no one else.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, Azerbaijan’s
population, at about 8 million, was mostly Shia Muslim.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 10, It was reported that
researchers in Bolivia had found that the more education a Tsimane
villager had, the longer he was willing to delay gratification in
return for a bigger reward.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.86)
2007 Feb 10, Canadian National
Railway Co. said that 2,800 of its conductors and yard-service workers
at its operations in Canada began a strike, a work stoppage that could
affect the country's key shipments of grain, timber and other
commodities.
(Reuters, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, A group of scientists
and nature lovers exploring tunnels on Tenerife in the Canary Islands
became trapped underground and at least 6 of them died after apparently
inhaling toxic gases.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Guinea at least
four people were killed in Conakry as protesters rioted against the
president's decision to appoint a political ally as prime minister.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Indian Kashmir 2
suspected Muslim rebels and a civilian died in a gunbattle with troops
when militants opened fire on an army patrol.
(AFP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, The death toll from
massive flooding in Indonesia rose to 80.
(AFP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Iraq Gen. David
Petraeus (b.1952) took command of the 135,000-strong US force. Gunmen
ambushed two Shiite houses south of Baghdad, killing three members of
one family and wounding two of their neighbors. Gunmen killed eight new
recruits for the police border forces as they were returning to their
homes near the border with Syria.
(AP, 2/10/07)(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 10, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, while visiting Munich for a security conference, warned
that the increased use of military force by the US is creating a new
arms race, with smaller nations turning toward developing nuclear
weapons.
(AP, 2/10/07)(WSJ, 2/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 10, In Somalia mortar
attacks in a residential area and on a hotel in Mogadishu killed five
people and injured 10. In Kismayo two people were killed after an
explosion hit a rally in support of foreign peacekeepers, prompting
government troops to fire into a crowd of thousands.
(AP, 2/10/07)(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 10, UN police in Kosovo
fired teargas and rubber bullets during clashes with ethnic Albanians
protesting against a UN plan on the fate of the breakaway Serbian
province.
(Reuters, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In South Korea a fire
at a detention center killed 10 people and injured 17 others, mostly
Chinese, who were waiting deportation for illegal entry to the country.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, The Dixie Chicks won
five Grammys in a defiant comeback after being shunned over their
anti-President Bush comments about the Iraq war.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 11, Harvard Univ.
appointed Drew Gilpin Faust as its 28th and first female president.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a
new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip
scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion
mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use
would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb 11, Scientists reported
in the journal Nature that they had successfully prevented cleft
palates in embryonic mice using a technique called chemical genetics.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 11, Helmand’s provincial
governor said an estimated 700 foreign fighters are operating in a
southern Afghan province where Taliban fighters overran a town earlier
this month. Asserting a right to self-defense the commander of US
forces in the region said American forces in eastern Afghanistan have
launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who
attack remote US outposts. A US service member died of a gunshot wound
in northern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Muhammad Yunus,
Bangladesh's "banker to the poor" and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
formally announced his willingness to form a new political party to
take part in forthcoming elections. In May Yunus reversed his decision
to enter politics.
(AFP, 2/11/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.46)
2007 Feb 11, In Egypt Osama Hassan
Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was released. The Egyptian Muslim
preacher had been allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents off the streets of
Milan, Italy, on Feb 17, 2003, and taken to Egypt. It was reported that
since the end of December seven women have been stabbed by a
dark-skinned man in his 20s in Cairo’s Maadi suburb, whose richer areas
are home to numerous embassies and many foreigners.
(AP, 2/12/07)(AFP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 11, In France socialist
presidential candidate Segolene Royal unveiled a long-awaited platform
that promised to boost the minimum wage and pension payments.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution, vowed his country would not give up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 11, A suicide truck
bomber slammed into a crowd of police lining up for duty near Tikrit,
collapsing the station and killing at least 30 people and wounding 50.
21 of the 30 killed were policemen. Minutes later, a roadside bomb
struck a car on a highway on the western outskirts of Tikrit killing
two civilians and wounding two others. A suicide bomber blew himself up
next to a police patrol in the religiously mixed neighborhood of Ilam
in southwestern Baghdad, killing one policeman. A parked car bomb
exploded near an intersection, killing two people and wounding three in
Mansour. A US soldier was killed after coming under small-arms fire
northeast of Baghdad. A senior US intelligence officer said high-tech
roadside bombs, that have proved particularly deadly to American
soldiers, are manufactured in Iran and delivered to Iraq on orders from
the "highest levels" of the Iranian government. Another US soldier was
killed in fighting in Anbar province.
(AP, 2/11/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 11, Israel successfully
conducted its first nighttime test of the Arrow anti-missile system
after sundown.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Indian Kashmir was
hit by clashes between police and protesters as separatists held a
general strike marking the anniversary of the execution of a prominent
rebel.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, In Kosovo 2
protesters injured the previous day in violent clashes with police died
of their wounds.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Stanley Ho’s casino
and restaurants within Grand Lisboa opened in Macao. The hotel was
expected to be completed in 2008.
(Econ, 7/5/08,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Lisboa)
2007 Feb 11, Portugal held a
national referendum on whether to discard its strict abortion law, a
battle that pits the Socialist government against conservative parties
and the Catholic Church. Almost 60% of voters approved the referendum
allowing women to opt for abortions up to the 10th week of pregnancy,
however the turnout was only 44%.
(AP, 2/11/07)(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 11, President Vladimir
Putin, making the first visit by a Russian leader to Saudi Arabia, met
King Abdullah and other senior officials for talks that touched on
regional tensions including Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, A Syrian court
sentenced Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a man believed to have known the
Sept. 11 hijackers, to 12 years in prison for membership in the banned
Muslim Brotherhood organization.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Voters cast ballots
as Turkmenistan, ruled for more than two decades by an eccentric
autocrat, held its first presidential election with more than one
candidate, but still only one party.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, In Venezuela
officials said President Hugo Chavez's government has drafted a decree
allowing officials to take control of food distribution chains,
including supermarkets and storage depots, if services are interrupted.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Washington DC
Lithuania’s Pres. Valdas Adamkus met with Pres. Bush ahead of an
address at the National Press Club. He was accompanied by a Lithuanian
business delegation seeking US trade opportunities and potential
investors.
(http://eupolitics.einnews.com/news/valdas-adamkus)
2007 Feb 12, In SF John Konstin,
owner of John’s Grill on Ellis St., reported the weekend theft of his
Maltese Falcon, a copy of the statuette used in the 1941 eponymous film.
(SFC, 2/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 12, In California the
Berkeley City Council passed a new Public Commons Initiative to deal
with myriad issues facing those living on the streets.
(SFC, 6/14/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 12, In upstate New York
intense lake-effect snow squalls that buried communities along eastern
Lake Ontario for nine straight days started up again. Unofficially, the
squalls have dumped 12 feet, 2 inches of snow at Redfield.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Philadelphia,
Penn., 3 men were shot to death in a marketing company conference room
and another was critically injured by a gunman who killed himself as
police closed in. The gunman had put a gig sum in a failed venture.
(AP, 2/13/07)(WSJ, 2/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 12, In Salt Lake City,
Utah, Sulejmen Talovic (18) opened fire on shoppers, killing five and
wounding four others before police fatally shot him at the Trolley
Square shopping mall. Talovic was armed with several rounds of
ammunition and carried two guns. Ken Hammond, an off-duty officer,
cornered Talovic and prevented further loss of life.
(AP, 2/13/07)(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A6)
2007 Feb 12, Peter Ellenshaw (93),
special effects artist for Walt Disney, died. He made it possible for
Mary Poppins to fly and for 50 chimney sweeps to dance on London
rooftops.
(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 12, Helmand Governor
Asadullah Wafa said at least 700 Taliban fighters have crossed from
Pakistan into Afghanistan to reinforce guerrillas attacking the key
Kajaki dam, a major source of electricity and irrigation. Several
Taliban fighters were killed in an attack targeting a senior guerrilla
leader. NATO and Afghan forces killed 22 Taliban fighters in separate
clashes over the last 3 days in the Kajaki district of Helmand province.
(Reuters, 2/12/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, China's General
Administration of Customs said surging trade surplus jumped 67% in
January from the same month last year to $15.88 billion.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, EU foreign ministers
approved plans for implementing UN sanctions against Iran, a move that
is meant to punish Tehran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Guatemala
Rigoberta Menchu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced the formation of
an Indian-led political movement whose primary aim is to back her
probable bid for the presidency this fall.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, An Iraqi court raised
the sentence against Saddam Hussein's vice president to death by
hanging for the killings of Shiites in the town of Dujail. Thunderous
explosions and dense black smoke swirled through central Baghdad when 3
car bombs tore through a crowded marketplace, setting off secondary
blasts and killing 81 people with 172 wounded.
(AP, 2/12/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, Police conducted
raids across northern Italy, breaking up a leftist militant group that
was allegedly planning kidnappings or kneecappings of victims to
finance its plots. The group traced back to the Red Brigades. Police
said they arrested 15 suspects accused of belonging to the
Politico-military Communist Party (PCPM) in Milan, Turin, Padua and
other northern Italian cities. Police in 7 locations across Italy
arrested 17 men, including four alleged arms traffickers: Massimo
Bettinotti (39), Gianluca Squarzolo (39), Ermete Moretti (55), and
Serafino Rossi (64). A 5th member, Vittorio Dordi, was believed to be
in Congo, apparently involved in the diamond trade. The luggage of
Squarzolo had yielded the original clue to the arms deal. They were
involved in a $64 million deal negotiated with Libyan officials for
some 500,000 Chinese-made assault rifles. Iraqi and Italian partners
had haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic
weapons into Iraq.
(AP, 2/12/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.54)(AP, 8/13/07)(WSJ,
12/13/07, p.A18)(AP, 4/12/08)
2007 Feb 12, A Japanese whaling
ship issued a distress signal from Antarctic waters, after it collided
with a protest boat trying to save whales from slaughter.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Mozambique officials
said soldiers and relief workers using helicopters and canoes have
evacuated some 60,000 people from the flooded Zambezi River Valley in
central Mozambique, where more than 100,000 others are at risk.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, A report issued by a
human rights group accused Myanmar's military of killing, raping and
torturing ethnic Karen women as part of its battle against the minority
group over the past 25 years.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Portugal's prime
minister said he will enact more liberal abortion laws in the
conservative Roman Catholic country even though his proposal to relax
restrictions failed to win complete endorsement in a referendum.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Qatar Russia’s
Putin and Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani announced they
would explore the creation of a natural gas cartel to represent the
interests of producer countries. Qatar sits atop the world's single
largest gas field.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Russian military
prosecutors pledged to investigate allegations that young conscripts
were forced into prostitution by fellow soldiers, the latest claim of
rampant abuse in the nation's armed forces.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Somalia a mortar
slammed into a home in Mogadishu, killing a father and his 6-year-old
son as they slept and wounding four people.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, A vessel smuggling
120 people across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia to Yemen capsized as it
approached the coast. At least 30 Somali and Ethiopian migrants trying
to reach the Arabian peninsula drowned.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, South Africa said it
will build a second nuclear power plant generating more than 1,000
megawatts of electricity.
(AFP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Sri Lanka's navy said
it destroyed a boat of the separatist Tamil Tiger movement and killed
at least eight rebels off the country's east coast.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Ma Ying-jeou,
chairman of Taiwan’s main opposition party (KMT), was indicted for
embezzlement. He then defiantly announced he was running for president.
(AFP, 2/13/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.44)
2007 Feb 12, Thailand, which has
upset big drug companies by issuing patent-overriding licenses for
generic versions of heart and HIV/AIDS pills, said it would issue more
unless the firms cut prices.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, A state official said
Turkmenistan planned to open its first public Internet cafes, signaling
at least some liberalization under Interim President Gurbanguli
Berdymukhamedov, the presumed winner of its presidential election.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Ugandan army raids in
the northeast allegedly killed up to 66 children who were shot or
crushed by armored vehicles and stampeding animals. Save the Children
later called for an independent, international investigation into the
reports.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Feb 12, Venezuela signed a
preliminary agreement to purchase Verizon Communications Inc.'s stake
in the country's largest telecommunications company, the latest move by
President Hugo Chavez toward nationalizing strategic sectors of the
economy.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Zimbabwe's central
statistics office reported that the inflation rate, already the highest
in the world, had soared again by more than 300 points to 1,593% in
January.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 13, With Democrats in
control, House members debated Iraq in an emotional and historic
faceoff over a war that Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned as a commitment
with "no end in sight."
(AP, 2/13/08)
2007 Feb 13, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said the US plans to cancel $391 million in
outstanding debt owed by Liberia, and she urged others to help the
struggling West African nation.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, The US Commerce
Department reported that the gap between what America sells abroad and
what it imports rose to a record $763.6 billion last year, a 6.5%
increase from the previous record of $716.7 billion set in 2005.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Brent Wilkes, a
former CIA official, was indicted on corruption charges related to
ex-Congressman Randy Cunningham and defense contractors.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, David Passaro, a
former CIA contract employee, was sentenced to 8 ½ years in
prison for beating Afghan detainee Abdul Wali in July, 2003. Wali died
48 hours after interrogation.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, Mitt Romney, former
one-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, officially entered the
2008 presidential race. In what amounted to a made-for-TV coming-out
tour, Romney announced his candidacy in Michigan, the place of his
birth. His father George Romney, a Michigan governor in the 1960s and
an AMC chief executive, made a short-lived attempt at the presidency
four decades ago.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, A powerful storm and
likely a tornado hit the New Orleans area killing an elderly woman,
injuring at least 15 other people.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Richmond, Ca., Luz
Maria Aguilar-Bucio (32), mother of 3, was killed with her fetus at
home by shots from a high-powered assault rifle. In December Robert
Valentino Hernandez III (19) and Robert Joe Leyva (22) were charged
with her murder.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 13, Charles Norwood
(b.1941), tobacco-chewing conservative Georgia congressman, died of
cancer and lung disease.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.B9)
2007 Feb 13, In Algeria 7 bombs
went off almost simultaneously, killing six people east of the capital
Algiers in an elaborate assault by suspected Islamist rebels. The
Salafist group Call and Command claimed responsibility under its new
name: al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa.
(Reuters, 2/13/07)(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, A Belgian court ruled
that Google may not reproduce extracts from a variety of Belgian
newspapers, imperiling one of the web search leader's most popular
services if other courts follow suit.
(Reuters, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Belgium a
government-backed report blamed Belgian authorities and the ruling
elite for collaborating with the Nazi persecution of Jews during World
War II.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Brazil 2 students,
who endured more than 60 hours without food and water, were rescued
after being robbed and thrown into an abandoned well. Police entered a
Rio slum and clashed with drug gangs in shootouts that killed six
people, including at least four suspected gang members.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Canada D-Wave
Systems, based in Burnaby near Vancouver, announced the existence of
the world’s first practical quantum computer.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.81)
2007 Feb 13, Police and troops in
Bangui, CAR, used live ammunition to disperse residents angered at the
killing of two of their number by officers of the anti-banditry squad.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, Gan Yisheng, a senior
party discipline and oversight official, said nearly 100,000 members of
China's ruling Communist Party were punished last year for corruption,
and that eradicating graft in the near future remains a huge challenge.
A Chinese business executive was sentenced to death for swindling $385
million from investors in a bogus ant-breeding scheme. Wang Zhendong,
chairman of Yingkou Donghua Trading Group Co., had promised returns of
up to 60% for buying kits of ants and breeding equipment.
(AFP, 2/13/07)(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 13, In south-east Congo a
freight train derailed and at least 20 people were killed.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, Ecuador's Congress
approved holding a referendum on whether to create an assembly to
rewrite the constitution, bowing to demands by the new leftist
president who is seeking to weaken traditional political parties.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Ethiopia federal
police said weekend clashes between Garbo and Borena nomads in the
southeastern Oromia region with least 16 people killed. The clashes
erupted after cattle were stolen from a rival group, sparking fresh
revenge attacks.
(AFP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Guinea citizens
were banned from leaving their homes as a strict curfew took effect in
this West African country after the president instituted martial law
following days of deadly protests.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, India's central bank
tightened monetary policy for a second time in two weeks to fight
accelerating inflation, hiking the amount of cash commercial banks must
keep on deposit. Inflation at 6.73% hit a 2-year high, despite 5
interest rate hikes in the past year. Italian PM Romano Prodi led a
jumbo-sized trade delegation to India and called for closer ties for
companies from his country with Indian industry in farming and
manufacturing.
(AP, 2/13/07)(AFP, 2/13/07)(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 13, A suicide truck
bomber blew himself up near a college and a ration office in a mainly
Shiite area of the capital, killing at least 15 people with 27 wounded.
Police discovered a booby-trapped ambulance about 500 yards away, but
the explosives were defused. Hours later, a parked car bomb exploded
near a bakery in another predominantly Shiite area in southeastern
Baghdad, killing four people and wounding four. Iraq said it will close
its borders with Syria and Iran for 72 hours as part of the drive to
secure and pacify Baghdad.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Officials in the
Ivory Coast said that Trafigura, a Dutch-based oil trading company,
agreed to pay $197 million to secure the release of three executives
from an Ivory Coast prison and settle claims that it dumped toxic waste
that killed at least 10 people in the West African nation.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, Japan opened an
international whaling conference by blasting a boycott by dozens of
anti-whaling nations, saying their absence would block much-needed
reforms of the commission that sets regulations.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Jordan's King
Abdullah II and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a stronger
international push for lasting Mideast peace and urged for a diplomatic
solution to Iran's nuclear standoff.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Lebanon bombs
packed with metal pellets tore through two commuter buses in a mainly
Christian area, a day before the second anniversary of former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination. At least 3 people were killed
and 20 wounded in the coordinated attack.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Nigeria gunmen
released 24 Filipino sailors taken hostage in the lawless southern
oil-producing region.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, North Korea agreed to
shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its atomic
weapons program in exchange for millions of dollars in aid. The
agreement reached in Beijing said North Korea would close its nuclear
plants within 60 days in return for aid and other inducements. North
Korean state media said the pact required only a temporary suspension
of the country's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 2/13/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.28)
2007 Feb 13, Pakistan's ruling
party introduced a bill to outlaw forced marriages, including under an
ancient tribal custom in which women are married off in order to settle
feuds.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Jun 13, Fierce battles over
key security positions spread to central Gaza, with Hamas fighters
wresting control of the coastal strip's main north-south road, and
putting themselves in position to cut off reinforcements to beleaguered
Fatah forces. At least 20 Palestinians died across Gaza.
(AP, 6/13/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, In Geneva the US
clashed with China and Russia during a disarmament debate over how to
prevent an arms race in outer space, and Washington criticized Beijing
for its recent test of an anti-satellite missile. Russia and China, in
turn, condemned the "one state" that refuses to consider a treaty
banning space weapons, a reference to the US.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Military officials
said clashes between the Yemeni army and followers of a Shiite rebel
leader have killed 16 troops and 69 guerrillas during the past three
days.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 14, Challenged on the
accuracy of US intelligence, President Bush told a news conference
there was no doubt the Iranian government was providing armor-piercing
weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq, and he said he would fight
any attempt by the Democratic-controlled Congress to cut off money for
the war.
(AP, 2/14/08)
2007 Feb 14, Former New York City
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, acclaimed for his leadership after the
September 11 attacks, confirmed he is running for US president in 2008,
eliminating any lingering doubt about his candidacy.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 14, The Milton Friedman
Foundation said each high school dropout costs Texas $3,168 a year in
lost revenue, plus Medicaid and prison expenses.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 14, Sleet stung the faces
of pedestrians in New York and snow and ice coated windshields and
streets as a Valentine's Day blizzard roared out of the Midwest and
shut down parts of the Northeast.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, ConAgra recalled all
Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter made at a Georgia plant because
of a salmonella outbreak.
(AP, 2/14/08)
2007 Feb 14, German-US auto giant
DaimlerChrysler said it planned to axe 13,000 jobs at its loss-making
Chrysler subsidiary as part of a broad restructuring plan aimed at
returning the US unit to profitability by 2009. The bulk of the job
losses will affect union workers, with 9,000 hourly jobs eliminated in
the United States and 2,000 in Canada.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, NATO officials said
warplanes struck a Taliban compound in southern Afghanistan with
"precision munitions," killing an area commander and about 10 of his
men. Villagers said the raid in the southern province of Helmand also
killed civilians. NATO said Taliban fighters used children as human
shields to flee heavy fighting this week during an operation by foreign
and Afghan forces to clear rebels from around a key hydro-electric dam.
In eastern Afghanistan US-led troops killed a suspected militant and
detained 6 others, including one with alleged links to fugitive Taliban
leader Mullah Omar.
(AFP, 2/14/07)(Reuters, 2/14/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 14, Brazil’s President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Bolivian President Evo Morales reached a
deal late on how much Brazil will pay for Bolivian natural gas,
apparently resolving an issue that has deeply divided the neighboring
nations for a year.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, In Brazil violence
cast a shadow over Rio's famed Carnival when gunmen killed Guaracy Paes
Falcao (42), a leader of one of the premiere samba band groups. Falcao
was with an unidentified woman who was also shot dead.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, In Ethiopia US former
president Jimmy Carter announced distribution of thousands of
insecticide-treated mosquito nets, in a drive that could save up to
100,000 lives annually.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, The European
Parliament approved a controversial report accusing Britain, Germany,
Italy and other European nations of turning a blind eye to CIA flights
transporting terrorism suspects to secret prisons in an apparent breach
of EU human rights standards.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, Deutsche Boerse,
operator of the Frankfurt stock exchange, said it has agreed to buy
five percent of the Mumbai stock exchange for 42.7 million dollars
(32.8 million euros).
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, A car loaded with
explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing 11 of them and
wounding 31. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group reportedly claimed
responsibility. Within a week Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi was convicted and
executed for the bombing.
(AP, 2/14/07)(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 14, The Iraqi government
formally launched a long-awaited security crackdown in Baghdad. A
parked car bomb struck a predominantly Shiite district elsewhere in
central Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding 10. In Mosul a
suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi army patrol, killing one soldier
and four civilians and wounding 20 other people.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, Mexican immigration
agents allegedly locked 10 Guatemalan and two Salvadoran migrants in a
trailer after they refused to pay a bribe against of $110 each. In late
2008 the country's National Human Rights Commission called for a
government investigation.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2007 Feb 14, Serbia's parliament
overwhelmingly rejected a UN plan that would give virtual independence
to the breakaway province of Kosovo.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, In Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania, a conference of Anglican leaders opened as the 77
million-member church struggled with a potentially disastrous fight
over the Bible and sexuality.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, Gurbanguli
Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan's new president, took office a few
minutes after the head of the central elections commission announced he
had won Sunday's election with nearly 90 percent of the vote. He
pledged to follow the ways of longtime autocrat Saparmurat Niyazov, but
also promised changes in a country ruled for decades in an
all-encompassing cult of personality. He also promised "development of
private ownership and entrepreneurship," educational reforms, and more
doctors and hospitals.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, UNICEF issued report
on child well-being. Of 21 OECD countries the US and Britain ranked at
the bottom.
(www.tsunamigeneration.org/media/media_38299.html)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.57)
2007 Feb 15, Top US auditors told
Congress that over $10 billion paid to military contractors for Iraq
reconstruction and troop support was either excessive or unsupported by
documents.
(SFC, 2/16/07, p.A13)
2007 Feb 15, A US federal judge
ordered a trial for a suit seeking $105 million from Sudan for aid to
al-Qaeda in the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 in 2000.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, Jim Black (72), US
House speaker from North Carolina, pleaded guilty to illegally taking
thousands of dollars from chiropractors while pushing their legislative
agenda. Black was sentenced to 5 years in prison for political
corruption.
(SFC, 7/31/07,
p.A3)(http://preview.tinyurl.com/369jo9)
2007 Feb 15, A new version of the
US $1 coin, paying tribute to American presidents, went into general
circulation. A unknown number were mistakenly struck without their edge
inscription “In God We Trust.” George Washington appeared on the first
coin.
(AP, 2/15/07)(SFC, 3/8/07, p.A2)(AH, 4/07, p.10)
2007 Feb 15, Hundreds of drivers
became stranded on a stretch of eastern Pennsylvania that had been hit
by a monster storm. The National Guard was called in to deliver food
and other necessities to a 50-mile line of vehicles trapped on I-78.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)(AP, 2/16/08)
2007 Feb 15, Hershey Co. said it
would cut about 11 percent of its workforce and reduce the number of
production lines it operates by more than a third as it spends as much
as $575 million to overhaul its manufacturing. The Chicago-based US
chocolate maker also said it will build a new, cost-efficient
manufacturing plant in Monterrey, Mexico.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, JetBlue Airways Corp.
tried to calm a maelstrom of criticism, after passengers were left
waiting on planes at a NY airport for as long as 11 hours during a snow
and ice storm.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Government scientists
struggled to pinpoint the source of the first US salmonella outbreak
linked to peanut butter. Nearly 300 people in 39 states have fallen ill
since August, and federal health investigators said they strongly
suspect Peter Pan peanut butter and certain batches of Wal-Mart's Great
Value house brand, both manufactured by ConAgra Foods. By June the
number of cases grew to over 600 in 47 states.
(AP, 2/16/07)(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Feb 15, Scientists gathered
in Atlanta, Ga., to find a way to stop a fungus killing the world’s
frogs. Up to 170 species have gone extinct in the past decade.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, Robert Adler (93),
co-inventor of the TV remote control, died in Boise, Idaho. He and
Eugene Polley invented the Zenith Space Command remote control in 1956.
(SFC, 2/17/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 15, Ray Evans (b.1915),
songwriter and longtime partner with Jay Livingston (d.2001), died.
Their songs included “Whatever Will be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” and
“Mona Lisa,” as well as the themes for the TV series “Bonanza” and “Mr.
Ed.”
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.D7)
2007 Feb 15, A summit of African
leaders opened in Cannes on the French Riviera. The crisis in Darfur
and violence in Guinea overshadowed the summit, as well as perennial
issues of poverty, development and AIDS. France won agreement from
three involved African nations (Sudan, Chad and Central African
Republic) that they would not support armed rebel movements on each
other's territories.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Officials warned of a
potential environmental disaster in Antarctica after fire erupted on a
Japanese whaling ship, as the search continued for a missing crewmen
from the crippled ship. The next day Japanese officials said the ship
posed no environmental threat.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Australian
government said it was negotiating with the US on a plan to build a
military satellite communications facility in Perth. Defense Minister
Brendan Nelson said the two nations had negotiated for two years to
build a number of ground-based communications systems around Australia.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, It was reported that
shooting ranges continued to operate in Cambodia despite
government cancellation of licenses in 1997. Tourists were able
to fire 30 rounds with an AK-47 for $30. Other offers included tossing
grenades at chickens for $200 and killing a cow with a rocket-propelled
grenade for $555.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.14)
2007 Feb 15, A fast-thinking pilot
with passengers in cahoots fooled hijacker Mohamed Abderraman, a
32-year-old Mauritanian, by braking hard upon landing in Gran Canaria,
then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell, flight
attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people pounced
on him.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Five Colombian
congressmen, including the brother of the foreign minister, were
arrested in a widening scandal linking the country's political class
and far-right militias drew closer to the president.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Security Council
voted unanimously to extend the nearly 18,000-strong UN peacekeeping
force in Congo for two months to give the secretary-general time to
recommend possible changes in its mandate following last year's
successful elections.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, In Egypt police
arrested 80 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, in what appeared to be a
pre-emptive strike against the country's largest Islamic group ahead of
elections and a key parliamentary debate.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Nadia Abdel Hafez, an
Egyptian woman (37), died of bird flu in a Cairo hospital and a boy, 5,
became the 22nd Egyptian to test positive for the deadly disease.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Estonian lawmakers
narrowly approved a bill calling for the removal of a Soviet war
memorial from their capital, ignoring Moscow's warning of "irreversible
consequences" for relations between the two countries.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Nokia, the world's
leading maker of mobile phones, said it would shed some 700 jobs, with
Finland taking the brunt of the cuts.
(AFP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, In Germany Ernst
Zundel (b.1939), a far-right activist, was convicted of incitement and
sentenced to the maximum five years in prison for anti-Semitic
activities, including contributing to a Web site dedicated to Holocaust
denial.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, An adviser to Iraq's
prime minister said that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in
Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during an escalating
security crackdown.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Iraqi and US troops
moved into a Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad, while insurgents
struck back with car bombs that killed seven people. In southern Iraq,
British troops sealed off the border with Iran to prevent weapons
smuggling. Terror leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub
al-Masri, was wounded and an aide killed in a clash with Iraqi forces
near Balad, north of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Assailants shot dead
four police officers in the western Mexican city of Aguascalientes, the
latest in a wave of slayings of law enforcement officers across Mexico.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Palestine’s PM Ismail
Haniyeh and his government resigned and President Mahmoud Abbas of
Fatah appointed him to form the new team, based on last week's
agreement in the Muslim holy city of Mecca to split power between the
two rivals.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, A leftist student
leader was murdered in the central Philippines, amid plans to set up
special tribunals to try people suspected of carrying out extrajudicial
killings. Farly Alcantara (22) was head of the League of Filipino
Students at Camarines Norte State College.
(AFP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin dismissed Alu Alkhanov, the president of the republic of
Chechnya, and named its widely feared PM Ramzan Kadyrov as acting
president.
(AP, 2/16/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.62)
2007 Feb 15, President Paul Kagame
said in an interview published in The Times that Rwanda wants to join
the Commonwealth, the 53-nation grouping of former British colonies, in
what will be seen as a rebuke to France.
(AFP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 16, The US House of
Representatives voted 246-182 for a non-binding resolution opposing
Pres. Bush’s plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. 17 Republicans
voted in favor.
(SFC, 2/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 16, An annual survey
released Forbes.com said Raleigh, North Carolina, topped the list of
the best US cities for getting a job.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, US coffee giant
Starbucks, locked in a trademark tussle with Ethiopia, said it will not
oppose Addis Ababa's bid to brand its coffee in America and pledged to
pursue dialogue over the matter.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, A rebel commander
said the Taliban have deployed 10,000 fighters for a spring offensive
of "bloody attacks" against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, The ritual sacrifice
of a snow-white llama symbolically marked President Evo Morales'
nationalization of Bolivia's lone operating tin smelter.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 16, French President
Jacques Chirac said US cotton subsidies were scandalous and immoral
because they hurt African farmers.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, A spokesperson said
the UN has allocated $2.35 million from an emergency fund to provide
humanitarian aid to Guinea, which is in the midst of a tense nationwide
strike.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, The number of Iraqi
civilians killed in Baghdad's sectarian violence fell drastically
overnight. 10 bodies were reported by the morgue in the capital,
compared to an average of 40 to 50 per day. A US Marine was killed
during combat operations in western Anbar province.
(AP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 16, An Italian judge
indicted 26 Americans and five Italians in the abduction of an Egyptian
terror suspect on a Milan street in what would be the first criminal
trial stemming from the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. The
proceedings were later suspended pending a ruling on the Italian
government's request to throw out the indictments.
(AP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/16/08)
2007 Feb 16, Japan's Cabinet
approved sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program under UN
Security Council guidelines.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, Abdul Ghani, a
Pakistani health official in charge of a campaign to inoculate children
against polio, was killed in a bomb blast following rumors the
vaccination was a US plot to sterilize them. Police in southern
Pakistan announced they had arrested five suspected militants from the
southern city of Karachi and Rawalpindi, a garrison city near
Islamabad, and that the suspects were planning suicide attacks on
foreigners and minority Shiite Muslims. Police also arrested three
Islamic militants who were planning suicide attacks to take place at
forthcoming Shiite Muslim gatherings in Sindh province.
(AFP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 16, Peru’s President Alan
Garcia said that he is selling the presidential airplane in an effort
to curb "frivolous" expenses in his administration.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, In Poland Antoni
Macierewicz (b.1948), vice-minister of national defense, authored a
report on the recently disbanded WSI (military intelligence service)
that named dozens of current and former agents.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.63)(www.warsawvoice.pl/view/13967)
2007 Feb 16, Russian prosecutors
released more details on new theft and money laundering charges against
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a jailed former oil tycoon, and increased by $2
billion the amount of money they say he and his partner stole from
subsidiaries of OAS Yukos.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, In Serbia Slobodan
Milosevic's paramilitary commander, his secret police chief and five
others were convicted of killing four people in an attack against a
prominent opposition leader who survived.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, BBVA, Spain's number
two bank, said it has reached an agreement to buy US bank Compass
Bancshares for around 9.6 billion US dollars (7.4 billion euros) in the
latest major foreign acquisition by a Spanish firm.
(AFP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, Sri Lanka's navy said
it destroyed two Tamil Tiger rebel boats as the craft were hauling
hundreds of thousands of steel balls often used in bombs. Four rebel
fighters were believed killed. Tamil Tiger rebels accused Sri Lankan
security forces of killing 39 civilians and blamed them for the
disappearance of 39 others in the last two weeks.
(AFP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, In Sudan heavy
fighting took place between the Targem and Rezegat Maharia tribes in
South Darfur state. Unconfirmed reports suggested that between 70 to
100 tribesmen were killed and 14 injured.
(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 16, A Turkish court
sentenced seven suspected al-Qaida militants to life in prison for a
pair of 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people,
attacks prosecutors said were ordered by Osama bin Laden.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, A Yemeni official
said a boat loaded with Somali and Ethiopian migrants capsized in the
Gulf of Aden during a night crossing in which at least 112 people died.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 17, US Senate Republicans
foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate President Bush's deployment of
21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
(AP, 2/17/08)
2007 Feb 17, At Camp Pendleton,
Calif., Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington was sentenced to 8 years
in military prison for his role in the kidnapping and killing of an
Iraqi civilian.
(AP, 2/17/08)
2007 Feb 17, In Cape Canaveral,
Florida, a rocket carried 5 satellites into orbit as part of the THEMIS
mission to study magnetic storms in the Earth’s atmosphere.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 17, In North Dakota More
than 8,900 people flapped their arms and legs on the state Capitol
grounds in an attempt to reclaim the record, which was snatched away
about a year ago in Michigan. The snow angel category was created in
2002 when 1,791 people made snow angels on the Capitol grounds in North
Dakota.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Chicago 3 women
were found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in two apartments on the
city's far North Side. Police had a suspect in custody. All were
Assyrian Christians, and recent immigrants to the US.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In southwestern
Pennsylvania fire swept through a house in Waynesburg, killing six
young children and a woman and injuring one other person.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, NATO-led forces in
southern Afghanistan shot to death an Afghan civilian mistaken for a
suicide bomber because of twine and straps protruding from his jacket.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Rio de Janeiro the
Black Ball band, which has played carnival since 1918, opened the first
full day of Carnival.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, About 40 prisoners
escaped from a jail in East Timor, adding to security concerns as it
prepares for elections following political turmoil and violence last
year.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Ecuador’s new leftist
President Rafael Correa said he will resign if his supporters do not
win control of an assembly to rewrite Ecuador's constitution.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, President Jacques
Chirac awarded the Legion d'Honneur order to actor and director Clint
Eastwood (76), calling his latest films lessons in humanity. Chirac
said Eastwood's latest films "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from
Iwo Jima" showed the impasse that can follow from the blind use of
force.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Maurice Papon (96), a
former French Cabinet minister, died. He was convicted of complicity in
crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War
II and became a symbol of France’s collaboration with the Nazis.
(AP, 2/17/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.99)
2007 Feb 17, Police in the central
Indian state of Madhya Pradesh recovered 390 pieces of bones of newly
born babies or fetuses from the backyard of a Christian missionary
hospital. Last December, the government said 10 million girls had been
killed by their parents in the past 20 years either before they were
born or immediately after.
(Reuters, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Iraq a suicide car
bomber rammed into a crowded market in Kirkuk moments after a
booby-trapped vehicle exploded, killing at least nine people and
injuring 60. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced
stop in Baghdad before heading for scheduled talks in Israel. Iraqi
authorities foiled a potential suicide bomber near Karbala. A minivan
came under fire after the driver failed to slowdown at a checkpoint,
and then detonated the explosives and was killed in the blast. A US
soldier in Baghdad was killed when an insurgent hurled a grenade at his
vehicle. Another soldier died when a patrol came under fire north of
Baghdad. A US Marine died in western Iraq.
(AP, 2/17/07)(AP, 2/18/07)(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 17, Some 70 thousand
Italians under heavy police guard protested against the expansion of a
US military base in Vicenza that has divided the center-left government.
(Reuters, 2/17/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.61)
2007 Feb 17, Lesotho held
elections. The ruling party, which has brought stability to the
mountain kingdom, faced a new rival set up on a platform of change.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Former Nicaraguan
President Arnoldo Aleman acknowledged for the first time that he spent
$1.8 million in government money on jewelry and meals, mostly while he
was abroad seeking aid following the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in
1998.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, Nigerian hostage
takers released an American oil worker in Port Harcourt.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In southwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 15 people, including a judge, after
blowing himself up inside a courtroom in Quetta.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, A US human rights
watchdog that recently sent a team to Saudi Arabia to investigate
abuses said in a new report the kingdom keeps thousands of prisoners in
jail without charge, sentences children to death and oppresses women.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, Syrian President
Bashar Assad arrived in Iran to discuss Iraq and other Middle East
issues with President Mahmoud Ahmadinajed.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, James Morris, the
head of the UN food agency, said some 18,000 children die every day
because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed
every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world in
2007."
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 18, The United States
sent eight more US F-22 stealth fighter planes to the southern Japanese
island of Okinawa in their first full deployment overseas.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Scientists at a
symposium on the neurobiology of chocolate reported that flavanols, a
chemical found in cocoa beans, could be good for memory. They noted
that chocolate usually looses its flavanols during processing.
(SFC, 2/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 18, A US military
helicopter crashed in southeastern Afghanistan after its pilot reported
engine failure, killing eight American troops and wounding 14. A
roadside bomb killed four officers involved in opium poppy eradication
in Farah province. In western Ghor province a clash between poppy
farmers and police involved in eradication left one civilian dead and
two wounded.
(AP, 2/18/07)(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, Albanians went to the
polls in municipal elections. Allegations of vote-rigging flared within
a few hours of polls opening, as the opposition accused PM Sali
Berisha's Democratic Party of releasing false identity documents to
allow some supporters to vote repeatedly. In Tirana Interior Minister
Sokol Olldashi (34) faced Socialist Party leader and city mayor, Edi
Rama (42).
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, A Bangladesh
anti-graft body named 50 people for having wealth that did not match
their income. 30 arrests soon included 11 former ministers, lawmakers
and businessmen with party links.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 18, British PM Tony Blair
announced plans to overhaul gun laws after three teenage boys were shot
dead in south London this month, prompting a national debate about guns
and gangs among youths.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, The Chinese flocked
to temples, parks and Disneyland to pray, play, eat, and celebrate the
first day of the Lunar New Year, ushering in the Year of the Pig. The
celebrations extended to March 4.
(AP, 2/18/07)(WSJ, 3/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 18, Egyptian authorities
arrested Mohammed Sayed Saber (35), an Egyptian engineer from the
country's nuclear energy agency, for spying for Israel, but the arrest
was not announced until April 17.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Feb 18, Fierce inter-clan
fighting killed at least 43 people in Ethiopia's southeastern Ogaden
region, inhabited mainly by ethnic Somalis.
(AFP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, India’s federal
minister for women and child development said the government plans to
open centers where people can abandon unwanted daughters in a bid to
tackle the abortion of female fetuses and infanticide.
(AFP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18 In northern India 2
bombs exploded on a train headed from India to Pakistan, sparking a
fire that swept through two coaches and killed at least 68 people. Most
of the dead were Pakistani. Officials said the attack was aimed at
undermining the peace process between the rivals.
(AP, 2/19/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.47)
2007 Feb 18, Twin landslides hit
Indonesia's Java island, killing at least 12 people after they were
buried under mounds of earth.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Israel and the US
agreed ahead of a three-way meeting with the Palestinians to shun any
new Palestinian government that does not renounce violence, recognize
Israel and accept existing peace agreements.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Japanese researchers
said they had grown normal-looking teeth from single cells in lab
dishes, and transplanted them into mice.
(Reuters, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Officials said the
Mexican government will expand its anti-drug raids to two states across
the border from Texas, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers, sailors and
federal police.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, In Nigeria gunmen
seized three Croatian workers. The men were abducted in the region's
main city of Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, In the southern
Philippines an unidentified gunman fatally shot Hernani Pastolero (64),
the editor of a weekly newspaper in front of his home in the village of
Bulalo.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, an explosion hit a McDonald's restaurant in the city center,
injuring at least six people.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, In Thailand 29
bombings and 20 other attacks rocked the country's four southernmost
provinces. Most of the attacks took place in a span of 45 minutes.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, A bus and a truck
carrying goods collided head-on in Uganda, killing 7 people and
injuring 20. Police said 2,000 Ugandans die in road accidents on
average each year.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, Zimbabwe riot police
crushed an opposition rally amid government fears of a new street
campaign against President Robert Mugabe. Morgan Tsvangirai cancelled a
planned mass rally in Harare after police blocked supporters from
attending the gathering in defiance of a court order.
(AFP, 2/18/07)(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, New Jersey became the
3rd US state to offer civil unions for gay couples.
(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 19, XM Satellite Radio
Holdings and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. announced an agreement to
merge as equals. Sirius planned to XM shareholders $4.57 billion in
stock.
(SFC, 2/20/07, p.C1)
2007 Feb 19, Actress Janet Blair
(85) died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2007 Feb 19, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban insurgents briefly captured Bakwa, a small town in
Farah province after police abandoned their posts.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, An official said
Algeria has translated the Koran into the Berber language, Tamazight,
for the first time, to promote Islam among a community that has long
campaigned for more language and cultural rights.
(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, British police
arrested a man near Cambridge in connection with a series of letter
bombs sent to offices linked to traffic enforcement. On Feb 22 Miles
Cooper (22), a primary school caretaker, was charged with 12 offences
under the Explosive Substances Act and the Offences Against the Person
Act.
(AP, 2/19/07)(AFP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 19, Canada unexpectedly
granted permanent resident status to Amir Kazemian (41), an Iranian,
man who spent nearly three years in sanctuary in a Vancouver church
before being arrested over the weekend. The Citizenship and Immigration
officials granted him residency on humanitarian and compassionate
grounds.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Maria Consuelo
Araujo, Colombia’s foreign minister, resigned as a growing scandal
linking the political establishment and far-right paramilitaries
claimed its first member of President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet. 4 days
earlier her brother, a senator, was jailed on charges of colluding with
the paramilitaries and the kidnapping of a potential political rival. 2
clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their
performance of Circo del Sol de Cali, a traveling circus, in the
eastern town of Cucuta.
(AP, 2/19/07)(Reuters, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 19, Police found the
charred bodies of three Salvadoran representatives to the Central
American Parliament and their driver on a rural road outside Guatemala
City.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 19, In Iraq gunmen
ambushed a minivan on the main highway from Baghdad to Anbar. The
attackers accused the 13 aboard of opposing al-Qaida in Iraq. All 13
were executed, including an elderly woman and two boys. A string of car
bombings and other attacks claimed more than 40 civilian lives in
Baghdad and elsewhere. Insurgents launched a brazen coordinated attack
on a US combat post near Tarmiyah, sending in a suicide bomber and
clashing with American troops. Six US service members were killed.
(AP, 2/19/07)(AP, 2/20/07)(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 19, Three-way talks
between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli and Palestinian
leaders, initially billed as a new US push to restart peace efforts,
ended with little progress other than a commitment to meet again.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2007 Feb 19, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon announced that soldiers waging an offensive against
drug traffickers will get a pay hike of 45 percent this year in a bid
to insulate them from corruption. This coincided with a decision to
lower his own pay by 10% and abolish pensions for Mexican presidents.
(AP, 2/19/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A7)
2007 Feb 19, In Pakistan suspected
Islamic militants killed an Afghan refugee they accused of spying for
the US and dumped his beheaded body by a road in North Waziristan.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 19, Daniel Petru
Corogeanu, a Romanian priest, was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In
2005 he had led a dayslong exorcism ritual with 4 nuns for Maricica
Irina Cornici (23), a young nun, that ended with the woman's death. One
of the nuns, Nicoleta Arcalianu, was sentenced to eight years in
prison, and the other three, Adina Cepraga, Elena Otel and Simona
Bardanas, received five-year sentences.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Gen. Nikolai
Solovtsov, a top Russian general, warned that Poland and the Czech
Republic risk being targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to host
a proposed US missile defense system.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Rwanda released 8,000
prisoners accused of involvement in the country's 1994 genocide,
prompting anger from survivors of the slaughter who fear new ethnic
killings.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, A Saudi court ordered
the bodies of four Sri Lankans to be displayed in a public square after
being beheaded for armed robbery.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 19, Anglican leaders in
Tanzania demanded that the US Episcopal Church unequivocally bar
official prayers for gay couples and the consecration of more gay
bishops to undo the damage that North Americans have caused the
Anglican family.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 19, In Thailand violence
continued as bombs exploded at four locations in the south, killing an
army major and wounding two soldiers, three policemen and 13 civilians.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Military officials
said ongoing clashes between the Yemeni army and followers of a Shiite
rebel leader in the north of the country have killed more than 100
people in the past five days.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, The EU extended
sanctions on Zimbabwe for another year including an arms embargo,
travel ban and asset freeze on President Robert Mugabe and other top
officials.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 20, In a victory for
President Bush, a divided federal appeals court ruled that Guantanamo
Bay detainees could not use the U.S. court system to challenge their
indefinite imprisonment.
(AP, 2/20/08)
2007 Feb 20, In New Orleans,
thousands of hurricane-weary residents joined with rowdy visitors to
celebrate the second Mardi Gras since Katrina.
(AP, 2/20/08)
2007 Feb 20, Vice President Dick
Cheney arrived in Japan for a meeting with the emperor, dinner with the
PM and a pep rally for US troops aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, It was reported that
Jerry Yang (38), co-founder of Yahoo, will donate $75 million to
Stanford Univ. Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo in March, 1995.
(WSJ, 2/20/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 20, Three men from
Canada, Taiwan and the United States completed a 4,000 mile run across
the Sahara Desert over 111 days to draw attention to the lack of access
to water in many countries they crossed.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide attacker disguised as a health worker blew
himself up at a hospital opening ceremony, wounding at least 6 US
soldiers. An official said Afghan authorities raided dozens of
guesthouses suspected of illegally serving alcohol and arrested 14
people, including five foreigners, in a crackdown on vice in this
Islamic country.
(AP, 2/20/07)(WSJ, 2/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 20, Claiming a world
first for a national government, Australia’s Environment Minister
Malcolm Turnbull said incandescent lightbulbs would be phased out by
2010 in favor of the more fuel-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Britain’s PM Tony
Blair said its 7,100 man force in Iraq would be cut to 5,500 over the
next few months.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.68)
2007 Feb 20, In Britain Ken
Livingstone, London's socialist mayor, signed an agreement with
Venezuela's state-owned oil company to provide discounted oil for the
city's iconic red buses.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, The Canadian
government and Bill Gates announced an initiative to establish a
research institute to develop an AIDS vaccine, committing a total of
$119 million to the project.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, Congo’s army and UN
officials said days of clashes between the army and Rwandan and
Congolese militias in eastern Congo have killed at least 23 combatants
and forced thousands to flee.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, EU ministers agreed
to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below their 1990 level by 2020.
(SFC, 2/21/07, p.C5)
2007 Feb 20, In southern India a
river boat carrying children on a school trip capsized, and at least 18
children and four teachers drowned, a local official said. Sixteen
children were missing.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, A car bomb and a
suicide attacker killed at least 11 people across Baghdad. Later in the
day a suicide bomber in Baghdad had struck a funeral procession and
killed at least seven people. Outside Baghdad nearly 150 people were
hospitalized complaining of breathing problems, vomiting and other
ailments after a truck carrying a chlorine-based substance was hit by a
roadside bomb north of Baghdad. The attack left 7 dead. A government
statement said 3 officers of the Shiite-dominated police force have
been cleared of allegations that they raped a Sunni woman in their
custody. A raid on the car bomb factory near Karmah, in Anbar,
uncovered a pickup truck and three other vehicles that were being
prepared as car bombs.
(AP, 2/20/07)(AFP, 2/22/07)(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 20, Nigeria's court of
appeal ruled that President Olusegun Obasanjo had no legal power to
sack of his deputy president for having joined an opposition party.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Pakistani authorities
shut down a zoo in Islamabad and slaughtered dozens of birds after the
deadly H5N1 flu virus was found in peacocks and geese. This marked the
fourth case of the virus detected in Pakistan this month.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Mohammad Sarwar, a
suspected Islamist zealot, shot dead Zil-e-Huma (37), social welfare
minister of the Punjab government, because he believed women should not
be in politics. Sarwar was immediately arrested.
(Reuters, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, In Somalia mortar
rounds and rockets hit Mogadishu in a series of attacks that killed 15
people, including a 4-year-old boy, and wounded more than 40 others.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to authorize an African Union
force to help stabilize Somalia.
(AP, 2/20/07)(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Sri Lankan military
aircraft bombed rebel-held territory, killing at least two villagers,
as the military reported four more deaths.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, South Africa's
environment minister announced long-awaited restrictions on hunting,
declaring he was sickened by wealthy tourists shooting tame lions from
the back of a truck and felling rhinos with a bow and arrow.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 21, The government
reported that US consumer prices jumped in January, a week after
Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke warned that inflation remains the
central bank's top concern.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Mayor Newsom and
Philip Mangano, the government’s head of homelessness, announced that
SF had received $19.7 million in federal funds to help fight
homelessness.
(SFC, 2/22/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 21, The SF Police
Commission approved a computerized system to track problematic
behaviour by police officers.
(SFC, 2/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 21, Food retailer Asda,
owned by US group Wal-Mart, said it would create 8,000 jobs and build
18 new supermarkets across Britain this year.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, PM Tony Blair said
Britain will withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq in the coming
months and aims to further cut its 7,100-strong contingent by late
summer if Iraqi forces can secure the country's south.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Ottawa took the first
step to end a strike by Canadian National Railway workers that has
spurred demands for government intervention by a chorus of shippers as
well as an internecine union battle.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, A land mine killed
five Colombian soldiers after a patrol chasing leftist rebels stumbled
in to a mine field.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Costa Rica an
American senior citizen (70) killed an alleged mugger with his bare
hands. His traveling companions aboard a tour bus fended off two other
assailants in the Atlantic coast city of Limon. The tourists left on
their Carnival cruise ship after the incident and authorities did not
plan to press charges against them.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 21, Denmark’s PM
Rasmussen said that his country will withdraw its 460-member contingent
from southern Iraq by August and transfer security responsibilities to
Iraqi forces.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Security officials
said Egyptian border and security authorities had arrested 23
Palestinians and Egyptians in the Sinai region, including one who was
wearing an explosives belt and had crossed from Gaza to Egypt in an
underground tunnel.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Ethiopia the UN
humanitarian office said that 684 people have died in a diarrhea
epidemic and that neighboring countries were also affected. Ethiopia’s
government has refused to declare the phenomenon as a cholera epidemic,
preferring to refer to it as "acute watery diarrhea."
(AFP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, Europol said Police
in seven European countries have broken up a network that carried out
more than 200 carefully choreographed armed robberies of jewelry
stores, and channeled $53 million in loot into drugs and real estate.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Nobel Peace Prize
winner Rigoberta Menchu announced that she will run for the presidency
of Guatemala in the country's September elections, a move likely fuel
talk about an Indian resurgence in Latin American politics.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, India said it has
banned the export to Iran of all material, equipment and technology
which could contribute to Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, India and Pakistan
signed a deal to reduce the risk of a nuclear arms accident in a show
of cooperation and defiance against terror attacks that killed 68
people from both countries.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, A suicide car bomber
struck a police checkpoint in the Shiite city of Najaf, killing at 13
people in the spiritual heartland of the militia factions led by
Muqtada al-Sadr. A car bomb in the western Baghdad district of Bayya
killed at least two and injured 31. Later, a car bomb in the
neighborhood killed at least three people. The area is mixed between
Sunni and Shiites. PM Nouri al-Maliki fired a top Sunni official who
had called for an international investigation into the rape allegations
leveled by a Sunni Arab woman against three members of the
Shiite-dominated security forces. A tank truck carrying chlorine
exploded killing 3 people and wounding at least 25. In Ramadi a
six-hour battle broke out after insurgents armed with rocket-propelled
grenades attacked US troops from nearby buildings. A Marine spokesman
said 12 insurgents were killed and there were no civilian casualties
reported. Iraqi authorities said the dead included women and children.
(AP, 2/21/07)(AFP, 2/22/07)(SFC, 2/22/07, p.A10)(AP,
2/23/07)
2007 Feb 21, Israeli troops
fatally shot a West Bank leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group who
was involved in an attempted bombing near Tel Aviv. 93.6 RAM FM began
broadcasting 20 independent news bulletins a day from studios in
Jerusalem and the West Bank to a target audience of half a million
English-speakers on both sides of the divide in the Holy Land.
(AFP, 2/20/07)(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Italy Premier
Romano Prodi stepped down following an embarrassing parliamentary
defeat of his government's proposed foreign policy program. His
center-left government had been in power for just 9 months.
(AP, 2/22/07)(SFC, 2/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 21, The Bank of Japan
voted to raise interest rates by a quarter of a point to 0.5%.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.85)
2007 Feb 21, Lebanese
anti-aircraft guns fired at Israeli warplanes over southern Lebanon,
indicating that Lebanon's army is taking a new assertiveness toward
Israel.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, At a regional meeting
in Libya the leaders of Sudan and Chad said they agreed to redouble
efforts to end violence spilling over their border from Darfur.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Human Rights Watch
condemned Malaysia's plan to introduce tough laws that curb the
movements of migrant employees and allow employers "to lock up workers."
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Montenegro police
arrested Smail Tulja (67) in his home in Montenegro's capital,
Podgorica, on an international arrest warrant that the authorities
received from FBI and Interpol agents. He was wanted for the killing
and dismemberment of an elderly woman in New York City in 1990 and is
also suspected in similar slayings of women throughout Europe.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Nigeria a Lebanese
hostage abducted along with three Italians in southern Nigeria was
freed after being held for more than 10 weeks. MEND said the men
guarding Saliba had been bribed to allow his escape. Two of the
Italians abducted with Saliba were still being held by MEND. The third
was freed on January 18 because of health problems. Gunmen killed two
soldiers and wounded a third in the southern Niger delta.
(AFP, 2/21/07)(AP, 2/22/07)(AFP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 21, Finance Minster
Alexei Kudrin said that a new domestic offering for shares in Russia's
largest state-controlled bank had brought in $8.8 billion.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Seven Saudis released
from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay returned home and were promptly
detained to see if they had terrorist connections.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Somalia gunmen
fatally shot two local government officials in Mogadishu.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, South Africa's
finance minister painted an upbeat picture of the economy, forecasting
five-percent annual growth to the end of the decade as he posted the
first budget surplus in recent memory. Two people were arrested over
the theft of jewelry worth more than 500,000 dollars from the home of
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of South Africa's
anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Thailand police said
suspected Islamic separatists had set ablaze Thailand's biggest rubber
warehouse and shot dead four people in fresh attacks across the
Muslim-majority southern provinces. A top economic aide to ousted PM
Thaksin Shinawatra resigned from his position in the current
military-appointed government following sharp criticism from
pro-democracy groups.
(AFP, 2/21/07)(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, A 5.7 magnitude
earthquake shook southeastern Turkey. A five-story apartment building
collapsed in Istanbul, killing at least two people and injuring more
than two dozen others.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 22, The Bush
administration announced its plan to have US inspectors oversee Mexican
trucking companies that carry cargo across the border. Mexico
responded to the US announcement by saying it will allow trucks from
100 US companies to travel across the border. The news that Mexican
trucks will be allowed to haul freight deeper into the US drew an angry
reaction the next day from labor leaders, safety advocates and members
of Congress.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, The US General
Accountability Office said it will cost at least $ 12 billion to clean
up contamination from tens of thousands of gasoline storage tanks that
were leaking underground.
(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb 22, A US federal judge
ordered Microsoft to pay $1.52 billion to Alcatel-Lucent SA for
infringing a patent on a fundamental technology for digital music.
(WSJ, 2/23/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 22, Tongsun Park (71), a
South Korean businessman, was sentenced in NY to 5 years in prison for
accepting at least $2 million to work on Iraq’s behalf to influence the
UN oil-for-food program.
(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 22, Police clashed with
demonstrators protesting the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney hours
before he arrived in Australia to thank one of Washington's staunchest
supporters in the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, Female tennis stars
hailed an announcement that women would receive the same prize money as
men at this year's Wimbledon tennis championships after years of dogged
campaigning.
(AFP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, Britain's Ministry of
Defense announced that Prince Harry, a second lieutenant in the British
army, would be deployed to Iraq. Officials later reversed the decision
because of insurgent threats.
(AP, 2/22/08)
2007 Feb 22, In Colombia Jorge
Noguera, a former director of the secret police under President Alvaro
Uribe, was arrested and charged in connection with the murders of labor
leaders and academics while collaborating with far-right militias
responsible for some of Colombia's worst massacres. In Cali, Colombia,
confused hit men on the lookout for two men in a white sedan gun down
the wrong people. Then they spot their intended targets, in the same
traffic jam 20 yards away. And killed them, too. It was all caught on a
traffic camera.
(AP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 22, Estonia's president
vetoed legislation calling for the removal of a Soviet war memorial,
averting at least temporarily a confrontation with Russia. Estonia
chose Baltic herring over the pike in a government-sponsored contest to
find a fish suitable to join the blue, black and white flag, the blue
cornflower, limestone, and chimney swallow as national symbols.
(AP, 2/22/07)(http://tinyurl.com/2l7acu)
2007 Feb 22, Abdel Kareem Nabil
(22), an Egyptian blogger, was convicted of insulting Islam and
President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced to four years in prison in
Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger. Nabil was convicted for calling
Islam a brutal religion in a piece he wrote in 2005 after Muslim
worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria. In 2009
an Appeals court upheld his 4-year sentence.
(AP, 2/22/07)(AP, 12/22/09)
2007 Feb 22, Gambia expelled
Fadzai Gwaradzimba, the UN chief representative in the country, after
she expressed doubts over President Yahya Jammeh's claims to cure AIDS.
Jammeh had claimed to have mystical powers and herbs to treat HIV/AIDS
and asthma within three days.
(www.aegis.com/news/afp/2007/AF070285.html)(Econ,
4/28/07, p.54)
2007 Feb 22, Lothar-Guenther
Buchheim (89), the German author and art collector best known for his
1973 autobiographical novel, "Das Boot," died. In 1981, the book was
turned into an acclaimed German film starring Juergen Prochnow that
detailed the hopelessness of war and its effect on sailors living in
the cramped confines of their submarine.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, In Guatemala a top
police official and three other officers were arrested in the killings
of three Central American Parliament members, including the son of the
alleged founder of El Salvador's death squads.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, A fire broke out on
an Indonesian ferry carrying 300 passengers. The number of dead, soon
climbed to 49. Scores of passengers jumped into the sea and 120 people
remained missing.
(AFP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 22, The UN nuclear
watchdog agency said Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to
freeze uranium enrichment, and instead had expanded its program by
setting up hundreds of centrifuges.
(AP, 2/22/08)
2007 Feb 22, An official said 4
Iraqi soldiers have been accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni woman on
Feb 8 and the attempted rape of her two daughters in the second
allegation of sexual assault leveled against Iraqi forces this week.
Issa Abdul-Razzaq Ahmed (22), a suspected al-Qaida-linked insurgent
leader accused of financing attacks and recruiting fighters, was
captured in southern Iraq. 3 US soldiers were killed in combat in Anbar
province.
(AP, 2/22/07)(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, The Israeli daily
Haaretz reported that Syria has embarked on an "unprecedented" effort
to bolster its armed forces with Iranian and Russian help.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, A court ordered
Malaysia's government to pay a 69-year-old British man $857,000 for
seizing his passport and preventing him from leaving the country in
Dec, 1981.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, In Mozambique roofs
were blown off, trees uprooted and power lines cut by the force of a
tropical cyclone which slammed into coastal regions. The storm killed
four people and injured at least 70 in the resort town of Vilanculos,
where thousands of homes were destroyed along with the hospital and
power grid.
(AFP, 2/22/07)(Reuters, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, Russia’s government
approved a five-year financing plan aimed to decrease mortality from
diseases including diabetes, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cancer. The
news came as the state statistics agency said Russia's population
dropped by more than 560,000 last year to 142.2 million, a new
post-Soviet low.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, Sam Hinga Norman
(67), a former government minister on trial for allegedly overseeing a
militia accused of torturing and mutilating civilians during Sierra
Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, died at a Senegalese hospital.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, Extremists in Somalia
threatened to carry out suicide attacks against African Union
peacekeepers who are to begin deploying in the coming days.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN mission in East Timor for a
year and beef up the international police force ahead of upcoming
elections.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 23, A Mississippi grand
jury refused to bring any new charges in the 1955 slaying of Emmett
Till, a black teenager who was beaten and shot after whistling at a
white woman, declining to indict the woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, for
manslaughter. Democrat Tom Vilsack abandoned his bid for the presidency.
(AP, 2/23/08)
2007 Feb 23, Democrat Tom Vilsack
abandoned his bid for the presidency.
(AP, 2/23/08)
2007 Feb 23, Phoenix Sky Harbor
International Airport became the first in the United States to begin
testing new X-ray screening technology that can see through people's
clothes.
(AP, 2/23/08)
2007 Feb 23, In Kabul some 25,000
people, including top government figures and former fighters, rallied
to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war crimes.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, An Australian soldier
opened fire on a group of East Timorese attacking him with steel
arrows, killing one of the youths and critically wounding two.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In northern England
one commuter died and five were seriously injured when the high-speed
London to Glasgow Virgin train, packed with 120 passengers and staff,
derailed in the county of Cumbria.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, Canada's Supreme
Court struck down the government's right to detain foreign terrorism
suspects indefinitely and without trial, ruling that the system
violates the country's bill of rights.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Chadian PM Pascal
Yoadimnadji (56) died at a Paris hospital following a brain hemorrhage.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, It was reported that
China had established clinics to treat teens addicted to the Internet.
(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A16)
2007 Feb 23, It was reported that
Cuban press authorities have told certain Havana correspondents for the
Chicago Tribune, the BBC and a major Mexican newspaper that they can no
longer report from the island.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Egyptian security
forces discovered approximately 1 ton of explosives hidden underground
near Egypt's border with Gaza.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Guatemala a
330-foot-deep sinkhole killed two teenage siblings when it swallowed
about a dozen homes and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in
a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. A 3rd body was found the next
day.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, In India the Toxics
Link environmental group said India has generated 150,000 tons of
electronic waste each year for the last 3 years, with no laws to
regulate its disposal.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Iraq US troops
arrested Amar al-Hakim, the son of Iraq's top Shiite politician, as he
returned to the country from Iran. He was later released and US
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a rapid apology.
(AP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, A fire raced through
a home for the elderly and disabled in western Latvia leaving 25 people
dead or missing.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Myanmar at least
five protesters who took part in a rare demonstration that urged the
ruling military junta to improve health care, education and economic
conditions were taken into custody.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Nigeria gunmen
shot dead a Lebanese engineer and kidnapped two Italians in two
separate incidents in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt.
(Reuters, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, North Korea asked the
chief UN atomic inspector to visit four years after expelling his
experts and dropping out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Norway 46 of 49
nations adopted a declaration calling for a 2008 treaty banning cluster
bombs, saying the weapons kill and maim long after conflicts end and
inflict "unacceptable harm" on civilians, particularly children. Some
key arms makers including the US, Russia, Israel and China, snubbed the
conference of 49 nations. Of those attending, Poland, Romania and Japan
did not approve the final text.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Pakistan successfully
test-fired a new version of its long-range nuclear-capable missile, two
days after Pakistani and Indian officials signed an agreement in New
Delhi to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war between them.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23-2007 Feb 24, In Gaza
City Mohammed Ghelban, a 28-year-old commander from Hamas' military
wing, was killed in a drive-by shooting outside his home. A 22-year-old
man from a Fatah family, Hazem Karouah, was killed several hours later,
as was 75-year-old Ismail Sabah, who was caught in the cross-fire.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, A Somali official
said Uganda's top military officials promised to help train a national
army for Somalia and help provide security for its government.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, European cease-fire
monitors said that nearly 4,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka in the
past 15 months and they emphasized the importance that the government
and the rebels adhere to the cease-fire.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Turkey Hilmi
Aydogdu, leader of the Democratic Society Party's branch in the mainly
Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, was charged with inciting hatred and
threatening public safety after suggesting that fellow Kurds would rise
against the state and fight if Turkey ever attacked their Kurdish
brethren in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Uganda's army said
that 400 rebel Lord's Resistance Army fighters and their leaders have
moved into the Central African Republic, dashing hopes of a renewal of
stalled peace talks.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Teachers across
Zimbabwe called off a 3-week strike for better wages and working
conditions after the government agreed to a near four-fold increase in
their pay.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 24, In the 27th annual
Razzie Awards the film “Basic Instinct 2” was named worst picture of
the year.
(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 24, The Virginia General
Assembly, meeting in Richmond on the grounds of the former Confederate
Capitol, voted unanimously to express "profound regret" for the state's
role in slavery.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Arkansas tornado
winds injured 40 people and damaged dozens of homes and businesses.
Much of the town of Dumas was destroyed. The Midwest storm system was
blamed for 8 traffic deaths, 7 in Wisconsin and one in Kansas.
(SFC, 2/26/07, p.A4)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.30)
2007 Feb 24, Herman Brix (b.1906),
Olympic medalist (1928) and former film star, died. His film work
included playing Tarzan in “The News Adventures of Tarzan” (1935). In
his later film roles he worked under the name Bruce Bennet.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 24, Broncos running back
Damien Nash (24) collapsed and died after a charity basketball game in
suburban St. Louis, less than two months after the slaying of teammate
Darrent Williams.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 24, Paul Secon (b.1916),
co-founder of Pottery Barn, died. He and his brother Morris opened
their first store in Manhattan in 1950. Pottery Barn was later acquired
by Williams-Sonoma.
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 24, Bermuda was cited as
the world’s richest country with a GDP per person estimated at $70,000.
(Econ, 2/24/07, SR p.4)
2007 Feb 24, Thousands of anti-war
protesters converged on London, calling on PM Tony Blair to withdraw
all of Britain's troops from Iraq and voicing fears over a potential
conflict with Iran.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Burkina Faso the
Fespaco film festival began. Hundreds of films made by Africans and
people of African descent competed for the Yennenga stallion, a golden
statue of a prancing horse.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.54)
2007 Feb 24, A tentative deal was
reached to end a two-week-old strike by about 2,800 Canadian National
Railway Co. employees that had provoked a threat of government
intervention.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 24, The Cayman Islands
were cited as the world’s 5-th largest banking center with $1.4
trillion in assets.
(Econ, 2/24/07, SR p.4)
2007 Feb 24, Eq. Guinea was cited
as the world’s 3rd richest country with a GDP per person estimated at
$50,000.
(Econ, 2/24/07, SR p.4)
2007 Feb 24, In India 16 police
officers were killed when suspected rebels ambushed their patrol in
northeast Manipur. In eastern India an ill Sabita Behera (30), was
beaten to death by her in-laws. They suspected she had AIDS and feared
she would infect the rest of the family.
(Reuters, 2/26/07)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.50)
2007 Feb 24, Thousands of Shiites
rallied in Najaf to protest the nearly 12-hour detention of the eldest
son of Iraq's most influential Shiite politician as he crossed back
from Iran. Iraqi commandos backed by US aircraft raided a Sunni
insurgent base north of Baghdad, killing dozens. Local authorities said
six children and their father were among the dead. Attacks in Baghdad
killed at least seven civilians. A suicide truck bombing in Anbar
province left 52 dead and 74 injured. The attack was on worshippers
leaving a mosque in Habbaniyah. An arsenal was discovered north of
Baghdad containing components for so-called EFPs, explosively formed
projectiles that fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating
armored vehicles. The weapons cache contained more than two dozen
mortars and 15 rockets. There were enough metal disks to make 130 EFPs.
(AP, 2/24/07)(AP, 2/25/07)(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 24, Israel denied a
report in a British daily that it is seeking permission from the United
States to fly its bombers over Iraq to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
(AFP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, Italy's president
asked Romano Prodi to stay on as premier and put his center-left
government to a new vote of confidence in parliament.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, In southern Nepal
police arrested at least 14 people after violence broke out between
Maoists and supporters of ethnic groups.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, The foreign ministers
of seven key Muslim nations started arriving in Pakistan for talks on a
collective push to end the turmoil in the Middle East. Three Islamic
militants died in eastern Pakistan when a powerful bomb they were
carrying on a bicycle accidentally exploded in Cheecha Watni, Punjab
province. Pakistani police arrested two men in southern Sindh province
and accused them of hacking two young women to death for allegedly
having sex outside marriage.
(AP, 2/24/07)(AFP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas ended his European tour without persuading any country to
end crippling economic sanctions based on his power-sharing deal with
the rival Islamic militant Hamas.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Spain thousands of
people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags protested in Madrid against
a court ruling that shortened the prison sentence for one of the Basque
separatist group ETA's most notorious killers.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Martin Scorsese's mob
epic "The Departed" won best picture at the Academy Awards and earned
the filmmaker the directing prize that had eluded him throughout his
illustrious career. Forest Whittaker won for best actor in "The Last
King of Scotland" and Helen Mirren took the best actress trophy
for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen." Alan Arkin won
the best supporting actor award for his role in “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Jennifer Hudson won the best supporting actress award for her role in
“Dreamgirls.”
(AP, 2/26/07)(SFC, 2/26/07, p.D1)
2007 Feb 25, In Detroit Nation of
Islam leader Louis Farrakhan stressed religious unity during what was
billed as his final major speech, saying the world was at war because
Christians and Muslims were divided.
(AP, 2/25/08)
2007 Feb 25, In Bangladesh at
least six prominent political figures were arrested as they appeared
before an anti-corruption panel to explain how they amassed wealth far
in excess of their income.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, In Brazil gunmen
killed five people in a Sao Paulo slum in what police suspect was a
drug-related crime, bringing to 21 the death toll from attacks this
month in South America's biggest city.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, State news media
reported that Cuba has opened an experimental wind farm, hoping
alternative energy sources can one day ease occasional power shortages
while reducing the island's dependence on oil.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, PM Jose Ramos-Horta
of East Timor told a cheering crowd in his hometown that he will run in
April's presidential elections, vowing to help return peace and
stability to the troubled nation.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Four imprisoned
Guatemalan policemen were killed in their cells, days after being
arrested in connection with the deaths of three Salvadoran politicians.
Rioting inmates also took the warden and other prison officials hostage.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 25, Guinea's powerful
union chiefs called off a crippling strike after the president agreed
to appoint a new prime minister in an attempt to end simmering unrest
that has killed scores of people this year. Conte later appointed
Lansana Kouyate as prime minister, from a list approved by union
leaders.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AP, 9/29/09)
2007 Feb 25, In India a 6-day
national meeting of Indian sex workers started in the city of Kolkata
to press demands for labor rights and legal recognition as
entertainment workers.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Levina 1, a charred
Indonesian ferry, sank while investigators and journalists were on
board inspecting the damage from a fire last week. At least one
cameraman drowned and three other people were missing. The death toll
from the Feb 22 fire continued to rise.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Iran’s Pres. Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said his country would proceed with its nuclear program,
comparing its nuclear drive to a train that has no reverse gear or
brakes. Iran said it had successfully launched its first rocket into
space for research purposes. The rocket reached an altitude of 150
kilometers (93 miles) but did not stay in orbit.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, A suicide bomber
struck outside a college campus in Baghdad, killing at least 41 people
and injuring dozens. Earlier, two Katyusha rockets hit a Shiite enclave
in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10, and a bomb near the fortified
Green Zone claimed two lives. A separate car bombing in a Shiite
district in central Baghdad killed at least one person and injured
four. In Mosul US troops killed two gunmen in a raid and captured a
suspected local leader of the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq. Iraqi
and US troops killed 10 militants and seized six weapons stashes in
raids in Diyala province.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 25, Dozens of Israeli
jeeps and armored vehicles poured into Nablus overnight, placing large
areas of the city under curfew and conducting house-to-house arrest
raids in one of the largest West Bank military operations in months.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, It was reported that
Libya, 30 years after officially proclaiming itself socialist, is
gradually opening up its banking system with a string of privatizations
in the works and the establishment of foreign banks. In late January,
the Central Bank of Libya announced its intention to sell a minority
stake in one of the north African country's five state-owned commercial
banks, Sahara Bank, to a "leading international financial institution."
(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Heavy rains from a
cyclone sparked more flooding in Mozambique, worsening a humanitarian
crisis that has already killed 45 people and forced 140,000 from their
homes.
(Reuters, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, In Nigeria riot
police were deployed to quell communal clashes that have claimed
several lives in the southern oil-rich Ogoniland.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Thieves in Oslo,
Norway, stole a work of art by Jan Christensen called "Relative Value."
It had pasted bills worth $16,300 on a sprawling 7-by-13 foot canvas.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 25, Pakistan PM Shaukat
Aziz told foreign ministers from seven key Muslim states meeting in
Islamabad that a joint push by the Islamic world is needed to end the
turmoil in the Middle East.
(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, In eastern Pakistan
at least 11 people were killed and more than 100 people injured by
sharpened kite strings, stray bullets and other accidents at the annual
two-day Basant kite-flying festival. Five of those who died were hit by
stray bullets, including a 6-year-old boy who was struck in the head.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 25, Senegal held
elections. President Abdoulaye Wade, seeking another five years in
office, declared he was confident of winning the election outright and
would avoid a runoff in the ballot to decide who will lead one of
Africa's most stable democracies.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Pirates hijacked a
cargo ship delivering UN food aid to northeastern Somalia, at least the
third time since 2005 that a vessel contracted to the United Nations
has been hijacked off the country's dangerous coast.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Vietnamese officials
and state media said police have accused Nguyen Van Ly, a prominent
dissident Catholic priest, of disseminating propaganda intended to
undermine the communist government. Van Ly founded Bloc 8406, which
called for democracy, in 2006.
(AP, 2/25/07)(Econ, 3/31/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 26, A independent US
Postal Regulatory Commission recommended a new “forever” stamp good for
first class letters no matter how much rates go up. The panel also
recommended a 2-cent increase in first-class rates to 41 cents.
(SFC, 2/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 26, Former US Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the American economy might
slip into recession by year's end.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, A US Treasury
Department delegation was in Macau discussing with local officials how
to resolve sanctions on a bank that allegedly was involved in North
Korean money laundering and counterfeiting.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Five Western US
states (Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington) announced
an agreement to create a regional effort to lower greenhouse gas
emissions.
(SFC, 2/27/07, p.A7)
2007 Feb 26, The SEC sued Blue
Bottle, a Hong Kong firm, alleging they hacked into computer systems to
get corporate news releases early and traded on that information,
making a profit of $2.7 million.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.71)
2007 Feb 26, Texas' largest
electricity producer, said it has agreed to be sold to a group of
private-equity firms for about $32 billion in what would be the largest
private buyout in US corporate history if shareholders go along.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, A storm that pounded
the US Midwest brought snow and sleet across the Northeast, closing
schools, turning highways sloppy and slowing air travelers. JetBlue
canceled 68 flights because of snow.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, The World Vision
humanitarian group said that more than 50% of children in refugee camps
around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced some form of
sexual abuse. The data, collected in camps in the Burundi, Congo (DRC),
Tanzania, northern Uganda and Rwanda, said widespread poverty made
children vulnerable to abuses.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Bangladesh a fire
swept through a building that housed two private TV stations and a
newspaper in Dhaka, killing at least three people and injuring scores.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Bolivia police
said the body of Simon Matthew Boily (23), a Canadian cyclist, has been
found in a mountain ravine more than a month after he set out on the
"Highway of Death" from the La Paz on Jan 21.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, the concrete awning of a hotel in the Copacabana beach district
collapsed, killing two people and injuring six.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 26, Coordinated
international efforts led to the capture in Brazil of Manuel Juan
Cordero (67) a retired Uruguayan colonel wanted in "dirty war" probes
in both Argentina and Uruguay. He was detained in Santana do
Livramento, a town near the Uruguayan border where he was living.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 26, In London Abu Qatada,
a radical Muslim cleric and suspected key Al-Qaeda figure, lost an
appeal against deportation from Britain to Jordan.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, China’s state media
said falling water levels in the Yangtze River have left 1 million
people short of drinking water.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Costa Rica tens of
thousands of union members, farmers and political activists marched
through San Jose to protest a free-trade pact with the US they say will
be harmful to local businesses.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Indonesian engineers
dropped several large concrete balls into Lusi, a volcano, to try to
stem a gushing mud eruption that has engulfed hundreds of homes and
displaced 11,000 people. Over the next few weeks, authorities plan to
drop nearly 1,500 balls, each weighing up to 88 pounds, into the crater
that started spewing mud at a gas drilling field on Java island nine
months ago.
(AP, 2/26/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.79)
2007 Feb 26, The Iraqi Cabinet
approved a draft law to manage the country's vast oil industry and
distribute its wealth among the population, a major breakthrough in US
efforts to press the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups to
reach agreements to achieve stability. Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq's Shiite
vice president, escaped an apparent assassination attempt after a bomb
exploded in municipal offices where he was making a speech, knocking
him down with the force of the blast that left at least 10 people dead.
A statement from the US military said that 63 weapons caches have been
discovered during major US-Iraqi security sweeps around Baghdad that
began Feb. 14. The arsenals included anti-aircraft weapons,
armor-piercing bullets, bomb components and mortar rounds.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Israeli troops sealed
off the center of Nablus' old city with cement blocks and trash
containers, and searched apartments for seven Palestinian fugitives
whose names the army broadcast over local TV and radio stations.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Officials said that
after nearly a decade of trying, Japan has succeeded in establishing a
network of spy satellites that can peer at any point on the globe.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Audrius Bruzga
(b.1966) became ambassador of Lithuania to the United States.
(www.washdiplomat.com/ambprof/Lithuania.html)
2007 Feb 26, Malawi's vice
president pleaded innocent to charges of treason and conspiring to
murder the president at the start of his trial.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Malaysia's securities
watchdog said it has frozen two local bank accounts, shut down two Web
sites and questioned several people suspected to be involved in a
global Internet investment scam. In March 3 men were indicted by the US
for securities fraud. The indictment named Jaisankar Marimuthu (32) of
India, Thirugnanam Ramanathan (34), an Indian residing in Malaysia, and
Chockalingam Ramanathan (33) of Chennai, India. The 1st two were
arrested in Hong Kong, while the 3rd remained at large.
(AP, 2/26/07)(WSJ, 3/13/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 26, Four Mexican soldiers
were arrested and accused of raping and murdering a 73-year-old woman a
day earlier in a case that outraged Indian groups in Soledad Atzompa in
Veracruz state. In May a special prosecutor found no evidence that
soldiers beat and raped Ernestina Ascensio Rosario. An autopsy on
Ascensio's body showed that she died of acute anemia from internal
bleeding in her digestive tract.
(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Feb 26, Nepal’s Cabinet
appointed Gopal Man Shrestha to head the three-member committee, which
will have a month to investigate, locate, seize and nationalize King
Gyanendra's property.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 26, Pakistani security
forces in Quetta reportedly captured Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the
former Taliban defense minister. US VP Cheney, accompanied by CIA
deputy director Steve Kappes, made an unannounced stop in Pakistan en
route to Afghanistan. Cheney held detailed talks with Pres. Musharraf,
including a one-on-one lunch.
(AP, 3/2/07)(www.nysun.com/article/49331)
2007 Feb 26, In Poland a new book,
"Priests In The Face Of The Security Services" by Rev. Tadeusz
Isakowicz-Zaleski, dredged up more painful allegations from Poland's
Communist era, naming some 30 Roman Catholic priests, including several
bishops, as registered informants with the secret police.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Three Frenchmen who
lived in Saudi Arabia were killed by gunmen on the side of a desert
road leading to the holy city of Medina in an area restricted to
Muslims only. Soon after a 4th died from his wounds. An investigation
later revealed that Waleed bin Mutlaq al-Radadi, among the kingdom's
most wanted terrorists, was the mastermind and one of the triggermen in
the shooting. Al-Radadi was killed on April 6 in a gunbattle with Saudi
forces.
(AP, 2/26/07)(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Feb 26, Sudan rejected the
legitimacy of the International Criminal Court in pressing charges over
the conflict in Darfur, still ravaged by war and famine four years
after the violence erupted.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, The United Nations'
highest court exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for the mass
slaughter of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica during the 1992-95 Bosnia
war, but ruled that it failed to prevent genocide.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, President Hugo Chavez
ordered by decree the takeover of oil projects run by foreign oil
companies in Venezuela's Orinoco River region.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Dow Jones
industrial average dropped 416.02 points, the worst drop since the 2001
terrorist attacks.
(AP, 2/27/08)
2007 Feb 27, Chicago’s Mayor Daly
won a 6th term despite a City Hall corruption scandal.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 27, CompUSA said it will
close 126 retail stores by the end of May. The restructure would leave
103 stores and include a $440 million cash infusion from parent company
US Commercial Corp., a holding company in Mexico City controlled by
Carlos Slim.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.C3)
2007 Feb 27, Federated Dept.
Stores posted a 4.9% rise in 4th quarter profit and said it will change
its name to Macy’s Group Inc.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 27, In SF a 75-foot wide
chunk of Telegraph Hill slid down a granite and sandstone slope above
Broadway following recent rains. 120 residents were forced to leave
their homes pending repair of the hillside, which could take months.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 27, A suicide bomber
attacked the entrance to the main US military base in Afghanistan
during a visit by VP Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding
20. In Kandahar a suicide attacker targeting Afghan police blew himself
up, wounding three people. Suspected Islamic militants captured and
beheaded an Afghan teacher whom they accused of being a spy for the US.
The man's body was found in a large sack dumped by a road near Jandola,
a town in the South Waziristan tribal district.
(AP, 2/27/07)(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Brazil 3 French
nationals who ran a nonprofit group that helps poor children were
stabbed to death at their headquarters near Rio's Copacabana beach and
authorities arrested three suspects. The slayings that left one of the
victims decapitated were part of a botched scheme to protect a
Brazilian accountant, Tarsio Wilson Ramires (25), accused of stealing
money from the group.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Cambodia the US
ambassador said direct US aid to support Cambodian government projects
will resume following the lifting of a decade-old ban by Washington.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Canadian
parliament voted to end two anti-terror measures adopted in the wake of
the Sept. 11 terror attacks, one that allowed for preventive arrests
and another that permitted forced testimony.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, In China stocks sold
off sending the Shanghai composite index down 8.8% as rumors circulated
that the government was considering new measures to tame speculation.
The plunge, assisted by order routing problems on the NYSE, led to a
416 point drop in the DJIA.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.C8)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.11)(Econ,
3/10/07, p.70)
2007 Feb 27, China’s state media
said scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling
the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, At least 2 Picasso
paintings ("Maya and the Doll" and "Portrait of Jacqueline"), worth a
total of nearly $66 million, were stolen overnight from the artist's
granddaughter's house in Paris. The paintings were recovered August 7
and police took 3 people into custody.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Feb 27, DaimlerChrysler AG,
seeking to cut costs and boost sales in North America, said it will
start selling Chinese-made cars in that market and western Europe as it
tries to meet demand for smaller, more economical vehicles.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Iraqi and US forces
staged raids in Baghdad's main Shiite militant stronghold as part of
politically sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr. At the popular Kabab Abu Ali restaurant, a bomb left in a
plastic bag exploded during the busy lunch hours, killing at least
three people and injuring 13. About the same time, a suicide bomber
struck an area filled with restaurants and ice cream parlors. At least
five people were killed and 13 injured. Earlier, a bomb-rigged car
exploded in a parking lot, killing at least two people. Near Mosul a
suicide bomber struck a factory, killing at least four people. A
separate suicide car bombing in Mosul killed at least six policemen and
injured 38 police and civilians. Three US soldiers were killed in a
roadside bomb blast southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Israeli army
pulled its troops and armored vehicles out of the West Bank city of
Nablus after a three-day operation targeting Palestinians militants.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, A report said
Malaysian environmental and residents' groups are joining forces to buy
swathes of forest in a desperate bid to save them from developers.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that the armed forces cannot kick out HIV-positive members
because doing so is discriminatory and unconstitutional. Mexico's head
of migration pledged to improve the agency's detention centers in
response to criticism that Mexico fails to give Central American
immigrants the same respect it demands for its own citizens in the
United States.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, In southwestern Nepal
at least two people were killed in a clash between former Maoist rebels
and ethnic activists. A bus veered off a mountain highway and plunged
into a river, killing at least 13 people and injuring another 25.
(AP, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, The International
Criminal Court's prosecutor in Netherlands named Ahmed Muhammed Harun,
a former Sudanese junior minister, and Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahmann
(aka Ali Kushayb), a janjaweed leader, as suspects in war crimes and
crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Sudan rejected the
legitimacy of the ICC, insisting it would try Darfur war criminals.
(Reuters, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.55)
2007 Feb 27, Pakistani officials
said police are seeking 10 men, including several tribal elders,
accused of pressuring a Pakistani woman to hand over her teenage
daughter as payment for a 16-year-old poker debt.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Peru's Congress
passed a new law stiffening penalties for attacks on tourists, making
the maximum sentence for murdering or severely injuring a tourist life
in prison.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Feb 27, The UN said Somali
authorities have arrested four suspects in the hijacking of a
UN-chartered cargo ship delivering food aid. The MV Rozen, however, was
still under the control of four pirates who remained aboard with 12
crew members as hostage. Attackers in Mogadishu killed Yusuf Mohamed
Dhisow, the brother-in-law of Somalia's prime minister.
(AP, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Sri Lanka the US
and Italian ambassadors were wounded when their helicopters came under
fire from ethnic Tamil rebels who said they mistook them for a military
target.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, In central Sweden 2
crowded commuter buses collided on a slippery road, killing six people
and injuring nearly 50.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Pridiyathorn
Devakula, Thailand’s finance minister and deputy prime minister, quit.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 28, The US government
said the nation has 754,000 homeless people, filling emergency shelters
through the year and spilling into special seasonal shelters in the
coldest months.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A federal judge in
Miami ruled that suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla was
competent to stand trial on terrorism support charges, rejecting
arguments that he was severely damaged by 3 1/2 years of interrogation
and isolation in a military brig.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2007 Feb 28, Sen. John McCain made
it official that he is seeking the 2008 Republican presidential
nomination and said he plans a formal announcement in April.
(Reuters, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A US military court
in Florida sentenced Air Force Capt. Devery L. Taylor to 50 years in
prison for raping 4 men and attempted rape of 2 others. A day earlier
the court had found him guilty of drugging and kidnapping servicemen he
had picked up in bars.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 28, Albert Facchiano
(96), a Genovese family mobster, pleaded guilty in Florida to
racketeering conspiracy. His arrest record dated back 75 years.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 28, A group of 12 North
Korean refugees has arrived in the United States to seek asylum, the
largest group from the communist nation to have recently defected there.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Michigan Thomas
Katona, a former county treasurer of a Lake Huron vacation community,
was ordered to stand trial on charges that he looted $186,500 in public
funds for a Nigerian investment scam. Katona was treasurer of Alcona
County from 1993 until his dismissal late in 2006. On June 12 Katona
(56) was sentenced for up to 14 years in prison.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 6/12/07)
2007 Feb 28, Wall Street rebounded
fitfully from the previous session's 416-point plunge in the Dow
industrials as investors took comfort from comments by Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke that he still expected moderate economic growth.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2007 Feb 28, A US study said more
than one-third of American women are infected with human papilloma
virus (HPV) by the time they are 24 years old. Overall about
one-quarter of women under age 60 are infected at any given time.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb 28, Arthur M. Schlesinger
Jr. (89), the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and "court philosopher"
of the Kennedy administration, died in NY. He remained a proud liberal
even as others dared not use the word. In 2007 Penguin Press published
his “Journals: 1952-2000.”
(AP, 3/1/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.85)(Econ, 10/20/07,
p.116)
2007 Feb 28, Martin Metal (88), a
Berkeley sculptor, musician and poet, died.
(SFC, 3/17/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 28, In Belgium a mother
killed her five children, then tried to commit suicide at the family's
home. The four girls and a boy, aged between 4 and 14, were stabbed
with a knife. The woman called emergency services, then tried to kill
herself.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Bolivia’s President
Evo Morales officially declared months of deadly flooding a national
disaster, committing some $50 million to the crisis that killed 35
people and affected some 72,000 families.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, The Church of
England's assembly affirmed existing teaching that homosexuality is no
bar to full participation in the church but avoided the fractious
debate within the Anglican Communion about accepting gay sexual
relationships.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Lord Charles Forte
(b.1908), Italian-born British businessman, died. He had parlayed a
London soda shop in 1934 into one of the world’s largest hospitality
businesses. He was knighted in 1970 and in 1982 PM Margaret Thatcher
made him Baron of Ripley. He authored an autobiography in 1986.
(WSJ, 3/3/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 28, Burundi said that it
will send 1,700 peacekeepers to Somalia as part of an 8,000-strong
African Union force, while the first Ugandan contingent prepared to
leave for the war-torn nation.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Djidda Moussa Outman,
Chad's minister of foreign affairs, said that Chad had never accepted
the idea of a military force of "whatever nature" on its eastern border.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, An official report
said China's population grew by almost 7 million people last year.
China's National Bureau of Statistics said that the country's
population was 1,314,480,000 at the end of 2006, an increase of 6.92
million people. Numbers also showed that China will overtake the US
this year or in 2008 as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
(AP, 2/28/07)(SFC, 3/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 28, Chinese stocks
recovered following their worst plunge in a decade as regulators
shifted into damage control, denying rumors of plans for a 20 percent
capital gains tax on stock investments. A sandstorm with
hurricane-strength wind gusts derailed a train in the far west, killing
at least four people and injuring another 30.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, An Egyptian court
ordered a freeze on the assets of 29 known financiers of the Muslim
brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful opposition movement. An Egyptian
with Canadian citizenship on trial for spying for Israel shouted from
his courtroom cage that a confession had been extracted under torture.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, European airliner
maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and
switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some
10,000 jobs.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A boat carrying
Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of the Dominican Republic,
leaving at least eight passengers dead and 44 missing.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, The fifth of six
former Guatemalan police officers suspected in the killings of three
Salvadoran politicians and their driver turned himself. Prosecutors
said the ex-officer allegedly bought the gasoline used to burn the
victims.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Honduras named its
first ambassador to Cuba in 45 years, completing the restoration of
diplomatic ties with communist-run island that were severed during the
Cold War.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Kashmir Indian
officials charged 7 policemen in Srinagar with murdering a man and
claiming he was an Islamic militant, the first charges in an alleged
plot by officers to kill innocent people and earn rewards.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In India finance
minister Palaniappan Chidambaram presented his annual budget speech. As
inflation approached 7% he increased funds for education by 34% and
money for health and family welfare by 22%. Defense spending was set to
increase 7.8%.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 28, French author
Dominique Lapierre opened the first of 15 schools planned in India with
money raised by auctioning an iconic dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in
"Breakfast at Tiffany's."
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Indonesia said it is
planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than 10
years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of crashes
and accidents.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum, for talks with
his Sudanese opposite number Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A car bomb killed at
least 10 people packed into a Baghdad market. US forces killed eight
suspected militants in a raid north of the city, and captured six
others in separate operations around Baghdad. Guards outside the Bab
al-Sheik police station in central Baghdad fired on a suicide truck
bomber as he approached them. The bomber changed course and crashed
into a cement barrier, detonating his explosives. Two civilians were
killed and two policemen and another civilian were wounded in the blast
and exchange of gunfire. Two brothers of a leading Sunni lawmaker were
gunned down in Muqdadiyah. In Mosul a high-ranking officer and his
driver were killed in a drive-by shooting. The tortured body of another
senior police officer was discovered in central Baghdad, about two
months after the man disappeared. A US Marine was killed in the western
Anbar province. 80 al-Qaida members were killed and 50 captured in
fierce clashes between al-Qaida and residents of the village of
Amiriyat near Fallujah, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west of Baghdad. The
US military could not confirm the report.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Feb 28, Syria said it would
participate in a Baghdad-organized conference of Iraq's neighbors that
the US plans to attend. Iran said it was considering whether to take
part.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Israeli troops shot
and killed three Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Jenin
and raided the nearby city of Nablus for the second time this week,
placing tens of thousands of people under curfew.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Italian Premier
Romano Prodi kept his fractious center-left coalition together to win a
confidence vote in the Senate, ensuring the immediate survival of his
nine-month-old government.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Japan and Russia
looked to expand trade despite rocky relations as they agreed to
cooperate on nuclear energy and in preventing disasters in disputed
islands.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Officials said Japan
has decided to pull its whaling fleet out of the Antarctic and end this
year's whale hunt early after a deadly fire crippled its mother ship.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Namibia hundreds
of people protested a visit by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe,
holding signs reading, "Go home dictator." The local National Society
for Human Rights called Mugabe's three-day state visit an insult to
Namibia.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Nigeria at least
50 people were feared dead when a ferry sank on the Nun River in the
southern state of Bayelsa.
(AFP, 3/2/07)
2007 Feb 28, An air force
helicopter crashed in Peru's highlands, killing 3 military personnel
and injuring an army general who commanded a military base in the area.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, Vladimir Nikolayev,
the mayor of Vladivostok, was stripped of his authority amid a criminal
investigation into suspect land deals and embezzlement in the latest
bout of corruption to hit the long-troubled Pacific port.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Sri Lanka escalated
sea and land attacks against Tamil Tigers and killed at least 18 people.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A Swiss court
acquitted seven men of providing logistical support to a Saudi terror
cell in the first Swiss trial of alleged al-Qaida associates.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, It was reported that
international developers planned a $4 billion resort and casino complex
in Vietnam. The project, dubbed Ho Tram, would be on the South China
Sea, a 2-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb, In SF Workers began
moving into the new federal building at Seventh and Mission. The $144
million structure was designed by Thom Mayne.
(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb, Coca-Cola and Nestle
introduced Enviga, a new health drink containing green-tea extracts,
caffeine and plant micronutrients.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.52)(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb, Santiago, Chile,
launched an overhaul of its public-transport system. For a year the
program created a nightmare for the city’s commuters.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.40)
2007 Feb, In Colombia Pres.
Uribe's administration started banning the sale of coca products
outside the reservations where Indians have a constitutional right to
grow the plant. Many Indians in the Andes, where coca is revered as a
sacred plant and a matter of national pride in several countries, are
angry that the US is importing coca leaves legally while their own coca
products are banned. A loophole in a 1961 treaty allows coca leaves to
be sold internationally if they are later distilled of their cocaine
alkaloid to produce a "flavoring agent." Stepan Co., based in
Northfield, Ill., buys about 55 tons of Peruvian coca leaves each year
under a US Drug Enforcement Administration license.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 Feb, In Finland "The Prime
Minister's Bride," a book by Susan Kuronen (36), a twice-divorced
mother of three and the former girlfriend of PM Matti Vanhanen, was
released as parliamentary campaigning began. It immediately hit the
country's nonfiction best seller list.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Feb, In Cologne, Germany,
Mina Ahadi, an Iranian-born woman, set up Europe’s first Muslim atheist
group: The National Council of Ex-Muslims.
(WSJ, 4/1207, p.A11)
2007 Feb, Ghana’s health budget
per person was about $31 per year as calculated by the World Health
Organization (WHO). Some 45% of the people lived on less than $1 per
day, 79% on less than $2 per day, yet funerals tended to cost between
$2,000 and $3,500.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.22)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.49)
2007 Feb, Mexican customs agent
Jorge Santillan seized a truck crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to
Matamoros, Mexico, carrying a grenade launcher and 17 grenades along
with 18 rifles and 17 pistols. Days later, the agent was shot to death
with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
(AP, 8/15/07)
2007 Feb, In South Africa 6 US
nationals employed by the embassy in Pretoria were forced at gunpoint
to lie on the floor during a raid on their home during which a gang
stole thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb, In Brazil 21 political
parties were represented in the 513-seat Congress.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.36)
2007 Feb, China's top leaders
approved a program to build large commercial aircraft, lending crucial
government support to plans to challenge the domination of Boeing and
Airbus in the country's fast-growing aviation market. State-owned China
Aviation Industry Corporation I, or AVIC I, planned to start making
large aircraft by 2020.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Feb, An Egyptian publisher
recalled copies of a book written by a controversial feminist after
discovering it "offends religion." Nawal al Saadawi (b.1931), one of
Egypt’s most renowned feminists, authored her play “God Resigns in the
Summit Meeting.” Religious leaders attacked the script without reading
it on the grounds that Islam does not allow criticism of “God’s work.”
In 1965 she lost her job in Egypt’s Ministry of Health because of her
political views. In 1981 she created the Arab Women’s Solidarity
Association, the nation’s first independent women’s organization.
(SSFC, 5/6/07,
p.F3)(http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/02/07/10102478.html)
2007 Feb, In Iraq American forces
began a serious crackdown on oil smuggling.
(WSJ, 3/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb, Saudi Arabia arrested 10
intellectuals for signing a polite petition suggesting it was time for
the kingdom to consider a transition to constitutional monarchy.
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.54)
2007 Feb, A UN report said all
lowland forests on Indonesia’s Borneo and Sumatra islands could be lost
by 2022 at current logging rates of 2.8 million hectares a year.
(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb, In Western Sahara
Muhammad Abdelaziz, leader of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab
Democratic Republic, marked the 31st birthday of his would-be state. An
estimated 165,000 Sahrawi refugees languished in Algeria subsisting on
foreign aid.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.43)
2007 Mar 1, The US Department of
Defense notified Congress that it plans to sell Taiwan missiles worth
$421 million dollars.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, The US Army general in
charge of Walter Reed Army Medical Center was relieved of command after
disclosures about dilapidated buildings and inadequate treatment of
wounded soldiers.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2007 Mar 1, An independent
commission concluded the US National Guard and Reserves weren't getting
enough money or equipment.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2007 Mar 1, The US military
announced that it has sent home two Afghans and three Tajikistani
detainees at Guantanamo Bay, leaving fewer that 400 prisoners at the
naval base.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Deborah Palfrey (50)
of Vallejo, Ca., was indicted in Washington DC for running a $2 million
prostitution ring. She threatened to sell detailed phone records of her
clients to pay for her defense. At least 132 women were employed by her
firm in the Washington area from 1993-2006. On April 15, 2008, Palfrey
was convicted of racketeering and other charges.
(SFC, 3/3/07, p.B1)(SFC, 4/16/08, p.A2)
2007 Mar 1, Paul Joyal (53), a US
expert on Russian intelligence, was hit several times as he returned
home in Washington DC. The shooting came four days after Joyal alleged
in a major television network interview that the government of Russian
President Vladimir Putin was involved in the radiation poisoning of a
former KGB agent in London.
(AFP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 1, A violent storm system
ripped apart an Alabama high school as students hunkered inside and
later tore through Georgia, hitting a hospital and raising the death
toll to at least 20 across the Midwest and Southeast. Eight students
died when a tornado struck Alabama’s Enterprise High School.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, NASA said the Cassini
spacecraft has snapped never-before-seen images of Saturn showing the
planet from perspectives above and below its ring system.
(Reuters, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In western Afghanistan
a bomb targeting a provincial police chief's vehicle killed two people
and wounded 53. Authorities in Helmand province found the
bullet-riddled body of a kidnapped doctor.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner trumpeted his government's performance on the economy
and human rights during his state-of-the-nation address, and also
defended his ties to Venezuelan leftist Hugo Chavez. Argentina under
Kirchner had begun doctoring inflation statistics to keep them in
single digits while the true rate this year rose to around 25%. The
government was able to save some $500 million in payments on bonds
linked to the consumer price index, but destroyed its credibility.
(AP, 3/1/07)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.49)
2007 Mar 1, Belarus dismissed new
financial sanctions imposed by the United States as politically
senseless. President Alexander Lukashenko said his country was ready to
normalize relations with Washington.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Belgian firefighters
clashed with police, trading barrages from water cannons during a
chaotic demonstration near the nation's parliament, injuring six
people. The firefighters sought better working conditions, earlier
retirement and better compensation when they are injured.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Brazil Slovenian
Martin Strel approached the halfway point of his attempt to swim the
entire length of the Amazon river, trying to avoid severe burns,
alligators and the dreaded bloodsucking toothpick fish.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Britain confirmed it
will withdraw its more than 600 remaining troops from Bosnia as
concerns about security in the Balkan state ease.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Cynthia Carroll (49),
former head of Canada’s Alcan Primary Metal Group, replaced Tony Trahar
as CEO of Anglo American, the world’s 2nd biggest mining conglomerate.
(Econ, 6/30/07,
p.77)(www.miningmx.com/mining_fin/318860.htm)
2007 Mar 1, In Colombia a car bomb
exploded in the southern city of Neiva, injuring 8 people in an
apparent assassination attempt of the town's pro-government mayor by
leftist rebels.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Denmark dozens of
people were arrested after angry protesters threw cobblestones at
police when an anti-terror squad started a disputed eviction of
squatters from a building in downtown Copenhagen.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In northern Ethiopia
15 European tourists were kidnapped in the Afar desert. The ARDUF has
been fighting for years against Ethiopia and Eritrea over lands
inhabited by ethnic Afar.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, EU officials launched
the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, an effort to stamp out
intolerance in the 27-nation bloc under a crush of immigrants.
(SFC, 3/2/07, p.A14)
2007 Mar 1, In France, Germany and
Spain workers at Airbus revolted against massive cutbacks, planning a
strike next week in a warning to the company that its recovery strategy
is in for a long, tough haul.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, The environment
ministry in the state of Lower Saxony said a German man had obtained
enriched uranium and buried it in his garden, raising concerns about
the security of Germany's nuclear reactors.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, India’s government
approved a proposal to merge 4 state-owned air-carriers in order to
make them more competitive.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 1, Surender Koli, an
Indian servant, confessed to killing and sexually assaulting at least
19 children and women and stuffing their dismembered remains into a
storm drain outside the house where he worked.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Iraq one person
killed in a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Up to 5 guests were killed and 10
injured when a car bomb exploded at a police officer’s wedding in
Fallujah. An American Marine was killed in combat in Anbar province.
(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 3/2/07)(SFC, 3/2/07, p.A8)
2007 Mar 1, PM Shinzo Abe said
there was no evidence Japan coerced Asian women into working as sex
slaves during World War II, backtracking from a landmark 1993 statement
in which the government acknowledged that it set up and ran brothels
for its troops. A passenger train derailed in northern Japan after
slamming into a truck, leaving dozens injured including 25 high school
students.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Avalanches and
landslides in Kashmir forced Indian security teams to airlift thousands
of people to safe areas, while at least eight Pakistani soldiers were
feared dead after they were buried under a snowslide near the Afghan
border.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, Morocco’s King
Mohammed VI pardoned 8,836 prisoners to celebrate the birth of his baby
girl. Princess Lalla Salma gave birth to a baby girl a day earlier. The
king also reduced the sentences of 24,218 other prisoners.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 1, North Korea's No. 2
leader pledged his country's commitment to giving up its nuclear
program amid intensifying diplomacy aimed at implementing Pyongyang's
pledge to disarm.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Paraguay declared a
state of emergency following a wave of dengue fever cases as concerns
over the mosquito-borne illness rise across Latin America. Health
officials have reported some 14,000 cases of the disease this year,
with four deaths.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Peru church bells
rang and a sea of confetti fluttered through Lima's historical central
plaza at the stroke of noon, alerting Peruvians to synchronize their
watches at the start of a nationwide campaign to promote punctuality.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Puerto Rico the US
attorney's office in San Juan announced that a US federal grand jury
indicted seven people in a case where terminally ill cancer patients
were allegedly injected with a bogus cure made from the patients' own
blood.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, President Vladimir
Putin nominated Ramzan Kadyrov, a widely feared security chief, as the
new president of Chechnya. Europe's human rights chief denounced
torture and other rampant abuses in the war-battered region. Kadyrov,
who previously had served as Chechnya's prime minister, has run a
security force that is accused of abducting and abusing suspected
rebels and civilians believed to be connected to them.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Senegal officials said
President Abdoulaye Wade received 56 percent of the vote to avoid a
runoff and easily win re-election in this West African nation.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Singapore’s American
Chamber of Commerce said trade between Singapore and the United States
rose 19 percent in 2006 from the year before, the second fastest growth
rate among Washington's major trading partners.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, An advance team of an
African peacekeeping force to Somalia arrived unannounced into the
country.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Zambia's Lands
Minister Gladys Nyirongo acknowledged at a major conference on graft in
Africa that "Corruption is everywhere, in the villages, wherever."
Hours later she was sacked. President Levy Mwanawasa said: "She gave
land to herself, her two daughters, her sons and her husband."
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 1, Zimbabwe's central
bank introduced two new bank notes as it battles a four figure rate of
inflation that is rapidly eroding the value of the local currency.
Zimbabwe state media reported that the government has admitted that
state agents are jamming radio broadcasts by foreign stations deemed
hostile to President Robert Mugabe's government.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 2, US Defense Secretary
Robert Gates fired Army Secretary Francis Harvey as the Bush
administration scrambled to respond to an outcry over poor treatment
for veterans at the Army's top hospital.
(Reuters, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, The US Energy and
Defense departments chose Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to
design the country’s first new nuclear warhead since the Cold War.
(SFC, 3/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 2, A charter bus carrying
a college baseball team from Ohio’s Mennonite-affiliated Bluffton
University plunged off a highway ramp in Georgia and slammed into the
pavement below, killing six people, injuring 29 and scattering sports
equipment across the road. A 7th player died from his injuries on Mar 9.
(AP, 3/2/07)(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 2, Checkpoint Systems
Inc. said it will provide Reno GmbH with RFID (radio frequency
identification) tags and store tagging systems. Reno GmbH plans to
embed wireless chips in shoes sold at hundreds of stores across the
continent.
(http://tinyurl.com/2cpo45)
2007 Mar 2, Scientists scanning
the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water
reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the
Arctic Ocean.
(www.livescience.com/environment/070228_beijing_anomoly.html)
2007 Mar 2, In western Afghanistan
insurgents attacked a police post, leaving one police officer dead and
two wounded. A mortar round landed on a US military outpost in the same
Herat province, wounding 12 civilian Afghan workers and two Afghan
soldiers.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 2, Brazilian police
arrested 18 people accused of allowing illegal logging in the Amazon
rain forest and were searching for 19 others, including environmental
protection agents.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, The British
Broadcasting Corp. said that it has signed a deal with Google Inc.'s
YouTube that will allow the popular Web site to show excerpts of the
broadcaster's news and entertainment programs.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Bulgaria's
Socialist-led government survived a no-confidence on a motion filed by
the opposition, claiming that the government was unable to cope with a
health care crisis.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Chechnya's parliament
approved Ramzan Kadyrov, a widely feared former security chief as
president of the war-battered Russian republic in a nearly unanimous
vote.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, China demanded the
United States scrap a planned sale of hundreds of missiles to Taiwan,
warning the deal would harm regional stability and bilateral ties.
(AFP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Colombia
prosecutors ordered the arrest of Alvaro Araujo Noguera, a prominent
political boss, for alleged involvement in a kidnapping at the heart of
a scandal tying the country’s political elite to right-wing
paramilitary groups.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Henri Troyat (95),
French writer, died. He fled Russia's revolution as a child and went on
to become one of France's most prolific, popular and respected authors.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 2, An al-Qaida-linked
Sunni group said that it kidnapped 18 government workers and soldiers
in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by members of the
Shiite-dominated police force. Hours later, the government said the
bodies of 14 security officers had been found. In Baghdad, a pair of
car bombs killed 11 people in separate attacks.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Italy Premier
Romano Prodi won a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament,
formally ending Italy's political crisis.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Moammar Gadhafi said
in an unusual debate that it was time for his long-isolated nation to
open up to the world and that one day Libya won't need him as leader.
Still, he insisted that the ruling ideology he has entrenched here for
three decades is superior to Western democracy.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Morocco 12 Islamic
militants were convicted of terrorism-related charges, including eight
with alleged ties to al-Qaida who had volunteered to fight in Iraq.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Nigeria 7 people
were shot dead and 10 others were seriously wounded when gunmen opened
fire in a crowded district of Port Harcourt.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 2, In eastern Pakistan a
bomb rigged to a bicycle exploded near a car carrying a judge,
seriously wounding him and killing at least three people in Multan.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, People caught smoking
in bars and restaurants in Puerto Rico faced fines as a ban on lighting
up in enclosed public spaces took effect.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Ivan Safronov, a
Russian military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant, fell to his
death from a fifth-story window in Moscow. On Mar 6 his newspaper said
he had received threats while gathering material for a report claiming
Russia planned to provide sophisticated weapons to Syria and Iran.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 2, An explosion in a
Slovakian ammunition factory killed two people, left six missing and
injured 45, five seriously.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Somalia 4 mortar
explosions rocked Mogadishu, wounding six people, including two
children.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, South Korea delayed a
full resumption of aid shipments to North Korea until the communist
regime shuts down its main atomic reactor under an international
agreement to take steps toward abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
A South Korean activist said 80 North Korean refugees are hiding in
various Asian countries and preparing to seek asylum in the United
States. North and South Korea agreed to resume reunions of families
that have been separated by their divided border.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In the jungles of
southern Thailand soldiers killed five suspected Muslim insurgents
during a raid on a weapons training camp.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Venezuela accused US
anti-drug agents of collaborating with traffickers and rejected
Washington's allegations that rampant corruption has allowed illegal
drug smuggling to thrive in the South American country.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Oklahoma Cherokee
Nation members voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated
2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, Warren Alpert
(b.1920), philanthropist, died in NYC. In 1950 he formed Warren
Equities Inc., which became one of the largest independent gasoline and
convenience store marketers and one of the leading independent
wholesale petroleum marketers in the Northeast. In 1986 Alpert
founded the Warren Alpert Foundation, a philanthropic effort devoted to
supporting medical research and health care. On Jan 29 it was announced
that he had donated $100 million to Rhode Island’s Brown Medical school.
(WSJ, 3/5/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/25gd5v)
2007 Mar 3, A bomb blast in
western Afghanistan killed two Afghan civilians and wounded 17 others.
In southern Afghanistan 2 British soldiers were killed during a NATO
combat operation.
(AP, 3/3/07)(AFP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Algeria 4 workers
from Russia and Ukraine and three Algerians were killed in a bomb
attack on a bus near the town of Ain Defla, south of the capital
Algiers.
(AFP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Brazil gunmen
killed five people in Rio de Janeiro's poor outskirts in an attack
blamed on rival drug gangs.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, Britain sent a crisis
team to Ethiopia in an effort to obtain the release of five British
embassy workers or their relatives who were kidnapped along with a
group of French while on a trip to remote northeastern Ethiopia. An
Ethiopian administrator accused Eritrean forces of kidnapping a group
of five Europeans and 13 Ethiopians in a remote part of Ethiopia, and
taking them to a military camp near the Eritrean border. Several
Ethiopians who were kidnapped along with five Britons touring the
African country's remote northeast were found.
(AP, 3/3/07)(Reuters, 3/3/07)(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, CAR rebel and
government military sources said rebels in the Central African Republic
have attacked the northeastern town of Birao, which they had occupied
for a month in November.
(AFP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Colombia 4 police
officers and a civilian were killed as officers moved a powerful bomb
allegedly planted by leftist rebels as part of an attempt to kill a
city mayor.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In eastern Indonesian
a bomb packed with nails exploded at a port in the city of Ambon,
wounding 12 people. Landslides triggered by days of heavy rain killed
at least 40 people in eastern Indonesia, and nearly 30 more were
believed to be buried under the mud.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Gunmen stormed the
home of a Sunni family threatened with death for meeting with local
Shiites, separating out the women and children and executing six men.
American warplanes bombed an area near Taji, on Baghdad's northern
outskirts, killing "key terrorists" who were using anti-aircraft
artillery to fire at military helicopters. In a separate raid in the
Taji area, nine suspected insurgents were captured, including two
believed to be responsible for recruiting and helping foreign militants
join the insurgency in Baghdad. At least 7 other people wee killed in
shootings and roadside bombs.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In central Japan an
annual hunt for as many as 20,000 dolphins drew to a close. Herded
since October the youngest and most attractive dolphins were put up for
sale to theme parks for as much as $100,000.
(SFC, 3/3/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 3, In Kuwait a criminal
court acquitted two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners of joining al-Qaida
or the Taliban.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In southern Mexico
gunmen killed two members of Mexico's former ruling party in the
mountain city of Tlapa in Guerrero state.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In northern Morocco a
bus skidded off a treacherous mountain road, killing nine people and
injuring 45 others.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Officials said
Mozambican marines rescued more than 1,700 people, including 900
children, from flooding in central Mozambique.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Pakistan successfully
test-fired a short-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Pope Benedict named
Kazimierz Nycz, a bishop with a spotless record, as archbishop of
Warsaw to replace a prelate who resigned in disgrace after admitting he
spied for the communist police.
(Reuters, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Russian police
violently broke up an unauthorized opposition rally in St. Petersburg,
clubbing dozens of activists before dragging them into waiting buses.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Saudi Arabia's king
personally welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad upon his
arrival, a rapprochement many hope will help calm sectarian tensions
threatening the Middle East. The leaders pledged to fight the spread of
sectarian strife in the Middle East, which they said was the biggest
danger facing the region.
(AP, 3/3/07)(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, A Yemen official said
a hundred jailed Muslim extremists, including some who allegedly fought
for al-Qaida in Iraq, had been released. Some had completed serving
their sentences, while some of the others were acquitted for lack of
evidence.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, NAACP President Bruce
S. Gordon announced he was quitting the civil rights organization after
just 19 months at the helm, citing growing strain with board members
over the group's management style and future operations.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2007 Mar 4, Stephen Grant (37) of
Mount Clemens, suspected of killing and dismembering his wife, was
captured as he fled searchers, running through snow in northern
Michigan. Tara Grant (34) was last seen on Feb 9. Stephen Grant
reported her missing five days later.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In NYC a videotape
captured Rose Morat (101) as she repulsed an attack by a mugger in the
vestibule of her apartment. A suspect was later arrested.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 4, Thomas Eagleton
(b.1929), former US Senator from Missouri, died. In 1972 he served as
George McGovern’s nominee for vice-president until it was revealed that
he had been hospitalized for psychiatric depression.
(SFC, 3/5/07, p.D5)
2007 Mar 4, In eastern Afghanistan
a suicide attack by an explosives-filled minivan hit an American
convoy. US Marine Special Forces fleeing a militant ambush opened fire
on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in Nangarhar
province. As many as 19 people were killed and 34 wounded in the
violence. The marine unit involved was soon ordered to leave
Afghanistan. The attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of
Hezb-e-Islami that was once led by Younis Khalis, a former mujahedeen
commander who died last year. The group is now believed to be led by a
son of Khalis. A US-led coalition airstrike destroyed a mud-brick home,
killing nine people from four generations of an Afghan family during a
clash between Western troops and militants. On May 23, 2008, Lt. Gen.
Samuel Helland, the commander of US Marine Corps Forces, Central
Command, decided not to bring charges after reviewing the findings of a
special tribunal.
(AP, 3/4/07)(AP, 3/5/07)(SFC, 3/24/07, p.A8)(SFC,
1/9/08, p.A13)(AP, 5/24/08)
2007 Mar 4, In Algeria suspected
Islamic militants attacked a police checkpoint with rocket-propelled
grenades and machine guns, killing five officers and wounding three
others.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In the Central African
Republic French fighter jets destroyed several rebel vehicles in
retaliation for an attack on French troops.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Chad named the former
rebel leader Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim as its new defense minister in a
major reshuffle of the volatile central African country's government.
(AFP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, China said it will
boost military spending by 17.8% this year, continuing more than a
decade of double-digit annual increases that have raised concerns among
the United States and China's neighbors.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Copenhagen police
arrested dozens of people in a third straight day of unrest triggered
by the eviction of squatters from a disputed youth center.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In East Timor
International security forces backed by helicopters raided a rebel
hide-out and killed four suspected insurgents, though their leader
Alfredo Reinado escaped.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Voting stations opened
in Estonia's first Parliamentary election since joining the EU. PM
Andrus Ansip's center-right Reform Party narrowly won parliamentary
elections. Ansip's party had 27.8% of the votes, ahead of the
left-leaning Center Party led by political veteran Edgar Savisaar,
which had 26.1%. Ansip pledged to preserve the market-friendly policies
credited with the Baltic nation's impressive growth. President Toomas
Hendrik Ilves likely will ask Ansip to form the next government of the
country of 1.3 million.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In Ethiopia a group of
French tourists who had also been missing since March 1 arrived in
Mekele, the Afar region's capital, and said they had not been
kidnapped, as was previously believed. Eritrea denied accusations that
it was behind the disappearance of five kidnapped Britons.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In eastern India
suspected communist rebels assassinated lawmaker Sunil Mahato as he
watched a soccer game being played. Two bodyguards and a civilian also
were killed.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, Hundreds of US
soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in the first major
push into the area since an American-led security sweep began last
month around Baghdad. US troops raided a mosque in Baghdad and captured
three suspected insurgents hiding inside. At least 10 people died in
violence, including three women and a child, all Shiite pilgrims
heading to the holy city of Karbala, killed in a roadside bombing in
Hillah. Two policemen were killed and three hurt in clashes the
northern Iraqi city of Mosul. A British-Iraqi raid on a police
intelligence headquarters in southern Iraq found 30 prisoners with
signs of torture and an alleged death squad leader was captured.
(AP, 3/4/07)(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, Ivory Coast's Pres.
Laurent Gbagbo signed a peace accord with Guillaume Soro, the country's
main rebel leader, calling for a new government to hold elections by
the year's end, and for the dismantling of a vast buffer zone
separating the two sides. The latest deal is the result of meetings
between the two camps that started in early February under the
oversight of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, An aide said PM Shinzo
Abe will stand by Japan's 1993 apology over forcing Asian women to have
sex with Japanese troops in the last century, after the leader's denial
that Tokyo used coercion caused an international uproar.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Officials said
Kuwait's Cabinet has resigned in a widely expected move that pre-empts
a vote of no-confidence in the health minister, who is a member of the
ruling family. Kuwaiti governments have previously pre-empted votes of
no-confidence by resigning and Cabinet reshuffles. Such moves have even
led to dissolving parliament.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Avalanches killed at
least five skiers in the Swiss and French Alps following days of heavy
snow.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, Thirty-six Yemenis
with alleged ties to al-Qaida went on trial on charges they planned to
take part in foiled suicide attacks on oil and gas installations in the
country.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 5, President Bush, facing
criticism he'd been ignoring Latin America, said the US would spend
tens of millions of dollars to improve education, housing and health
care across the region.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2007 Mar 5, In SF Richard Aicardi
(19) and Brian Dwyer (19) were charged with felony assault and battery
in the Jan 1 assault on members of Baker’s Dozen, a Yale singing group.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 5, In Hayward, Ca., 3
children, aged 3-4, were shot in a drive-by shooting at their home on
the 27700 block of Seminole Way. Two 4-year-old sisters were left
clinging to life. Datasha Wilson (4) died Mar 8.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.D1)(SFC, 3/10/07, p.B1)(SFC,
11/17/09, p.C2)
2007 Mar 5, In southern
Afghanistan NATO-led troops launched an offensive, dubbed Operation
Achilles, against Taliban militants Helmand province where hundreds of
militant fighters have massed in recent months. The UN drug agency
chief said a "cancer of insurgency" in southern Afghanistan could drive
the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, African Union
commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare urged Guinea's President Lansana
Conte to step down as he voiced solidarity with recent protests against
the veteran leader.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, in Austria a
helicopter and a small plane collided in the air and crashed near a ski
slope, killing all eight people aboard the two aircraft.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Brazil Bishop Ivo
Lorscheiter (79), a prominent critic of the former military regime,
died in Santa Maria. Lorscheiter, a leading advocate of liberation
theology, had also squared off with the Vatican over his progressive
beliefs.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen
publicly rebuked members in the upper ranks of his Cambodian People’s
Party for dodgy land deals as small farmers and slum-dwellers fell
victim to land-grabbing.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 5, In Copenhagen,
Denmark, demolition crews started tearing down a graffiti-sprayed brick
building, prompting tears and cries of protest from youths whose
eviction from the makeshift cultural center led to three nights of
rioting. The Youth House served since 1982 as a popular cultural center
for anarchists, punk rockers and left-wing groups. The squatters
considered it free public housing, but courts ordered them out after
the city sold the building to a Christian congregation. Ruth Evensen,
leader of the small congregation that bought the Youth House in 2001,
said the four-story structure had to be torn down because it was "a
total wreck" and posed a fire hazard.
(AP, 3/5/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.48)
2007 Mar 5, Badri
Patarkatsishvili, one of the most famous Georgian oligarchs, left
Georgia. His departure was announced in London as the relocation of his
activities of "Georgia in the West," underscoring the desire to leave
the country definitively. The millionaire, who holds first-rank
influence in both finances and the media, co-holds one of the most
important Georgian media concerns, Imedi, which includes a radio
station and a television station.
(www.caucaz.com/home_eng/breve_contenu.php?id=307)
2007 Mar 5, A suicide car bomber
shattered a relative lull in Baghdad's violence, killing at least 38
people in a blast that touched off raging fires and a blizzard of
bloodstained paper from a popular book market. Gunmen opened fire on
Shiite pilgrims in several places around Baghdad, killing at least
seven people. Six US soldiers died when a bomb exploded near their
vehicles during a combat operation in Salahuddin province. Another
three US soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack in Diyala province.
(AP, 3/5/07)(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, A Tokyo paper said
Japan, the United States and India will carry out a joint military
drill in the Pacific off Japan's coast amid concerns about China's
military build-up.
(AFP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, Kosovo's former PM
Ramush Haradinaj went on trial in the Netherlands at the UN tribunal on
war crimes charges related to his time as a guerrilla leader in the war
against Serb forces between 1998-99. Haradinaj, a former regional
commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), resigned as prime
minister in 2005 after being indicted for murder, rape and torture
allegedly committed by forces under his command.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, The bodies of two
Pakistani tribesmen, accused of being US informers, were found near the
Afghan border shot dead by suspected pro-Taliban militants.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, A daylong gunbattle
between rival Palestinian factions raged in the streets of Gaza City as
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniyeh again failed
to agree on the formation of a unity government.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Somalia gunmen shot
dead five people in two separate attacks in the lawless capital of
Mogadishu in an escalation of killings ahead of the planned deployment
of African Union peacekeepers.
(AFP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Sudan gunmen killed
two African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded a third in the
western Darfur region.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 5, In central Turkey a
rock fall caused the roof of a hillside nightclub to collapse in the
Cappadocia area, killing three people.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, John Holmes, the new
UN humanitarian chief, said the UN plans to open an office in Jordan to
deal with the increasingly serious humanitarian problems posed by 1.8
million Iraqis who have fled to neighboring countries and a similar
number who have fled their homes and are still inside Iraq.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Democratic lawmakers
accused the Bush administration of carrying out a political purge by
firing at least 8 US attorneys.
(SFC, 3/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 6, Former US White House
aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing an
investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. Sentencing
was scheduled for June.
(AP, 3/7/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.27)
2007 Mar 6, More than 30 Vermont
towns passed resolutions seeking to impeach President Bush, while at
least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on Washington to
withdraw US troops from Iraq.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, US Army medic Spc.
Agustin Aguayo, who refused to return to Iraq because of his opposition
to the war, was convicted in Germany of desertion at his court martial.
He was sentenced to eight months in prison, far short of the maximum
seven-year sentence.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, It was reported that
Myers Development Co. of SF planned to start construction next month on
its $428 million Mandalay Terrace project on the west side of San Bruno
Mountain in South San Francisco. It included 12 and 21-story office
towers.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 6, Researchers reported
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that pollution
from Asia is helping generate stronger storms over the North Pacific,
according to new research. Satellite measurements have shown an
increase in tiny particles generated from coal burning in China and
India in recent decades.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Ernest Gallo (97), who
parlayed $5,900 and a wine recipe from a public library into the
world's largest winemaking empire, died at his home in Modesto, Ca.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, In southern
Afghanistan a remote-control bomb targeting a police vehicle on killed
one policeman and wounded another in the Murja district of Helmand
province. Afghan soldiers caught Mullah Mahmood, a senior Taliban
commander at a checkpoint in Kandahar province. He was wearing a burqa,
the all-encompassing Islamic veil worn by women. One British soldier
and four Taliban fighters were killed. A Canadian soldier died from a
gunshot wound to the chest. Enemy action was ruled out as the cause.
The Taliban claimed that it had kidnapped 4 journalists, including a
Briton and an Italian.
(AP, 3/6/07)(AP, 3/7/07)(WSJ, 3/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 6, A fire raged through a
congested slum in southeastern Bangladesh, killing at least 21 people,
including 10 children.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Central African
Republic forces (FACA) peacefully took back control of the airfield at
Birao that they had abandoned following rebel attacks at the weekend.
(AFP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, The government of Chad
refused to allow the UN to send an advance mission to prepare for the
possible deployment of UN peacekeepers, a setback to plans to help
thousands of civilians caught in the spillover of the Darfur conflict
in neighboring Sudan.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, An explosion at a coal
mine in south China killed at least 15 workers.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, Fortunat Lumu, the
head of Congo's atomic energy commission, was arrested along with an
aide on suspicion of illegally selling uranium.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 6, In eastern Ethiopia 2
US troops were reported killed and another injured in a single-vehicle
traffic accident.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, France and the United
Arab Emirates signed an agreement to open a branch of the Louvre museum
in Abu Dhabi, despite criticism that the French government is peddling
the country's artistic treasures.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Jean Baudrillard
(b.1929), French philosopher and social theorist, died. He was best
known for his writings on gender relations and consumerism.
(Econ, 3/17/07,
p.93)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard)
2007 Mar 6, In Ghana singer Stevie
Wonder introduced pianist Kofi Vordzorgbe (13) to dignitaries
celebrating 50 years of independence from British rule. Kofi was later
brought to San Francisco, Ca., to continue his music studies.
(SFC, 6/6/09, p.E1)
2007 Mar 6, Volkswagen's new chief
executive Martin Winterkorn has been nominated as chairman of Swedish
truck maker Scania in a new phase in the plans for a three-way tie-up
with German group MAN. VW is Scania's biggest shareholder with a voting
stake of 34 percent and traditionally holds the chair of the Swedish
truck maker's supervisory board.
(AFP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Guatemala's president
ordered the national police to clean out corrupt officers and upgrade
training after six members of the force were accused of killing three
Central American Parliament members.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, In western India
wildlife officials said poachers had killed three highly endangered
Asiatic lions in their only remaining sanctuary, removing their claws
and bones and raising fears for the future of these rare cats. Tiger
numbers in India had collapsed to around 1,800 in the wild, about half
the world’s total.
(AP, 3/6/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.41)
2007 Mar 6, In western Indonesia a
6.3 earthquake crumpled houses across a large swath of Sumatra Island,
killing over 70 people and injuring hundreds.
(AP, 3/7/07)(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 6, Iran said its former
deputy defense minister was missing while on a private trip to
neighboring Turkey, and its top police chief accused Western
intelligence services of possibly kidnapping the official.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, In Iraq 2 suicide
bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims streaming
toward a shrine at Hillah, at least 120 people and wounding about 190.
In the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora gunmen pumped bullets into a
minibus, killing all eight passengers inside. A car bomb nearby killed
at least 7 people.
(AP, 3/6/07)(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, Italian prosecutors
cleared a physician who disconnected the respirator of a paralyzed man
who had asked to die.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, In Mexico gunmen
wounded Gen. Francisco Fernandez, the top security official in the Gulf
coast state of Tabasco, and killed his driver.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, Moroccan officials
arrested Saad Houssaini, an alleged member of a terrorist group that is
believed linked to the 2004 Madrid bombings and 2003 attacks in
Casablanca.
(AFP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 6, Dutch judges ruled
that a chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang is not a criminal
organization, rejecting prosecutors' attempts to have the group
outlawed.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, In northwestern
Pakistan armed tribesmen attacked suspected Uzbek militants, triggering
a battle in which 15 people were killed.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Philippine President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed into law a package of anti-terror
measures that has drawn protests as a threat to civil liberties.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Interfax news agency
said 2 American women were hospitalized in Moscow for treatment of
thallium poisoning. The women became ill Feb. 24 and were being treated
at Moscow's Sklifosovsky clinic.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, In Somalia mortar
rounds slammed into Mogadishu's airport during a ceremony welcoming the
arrival of peacekeepers. At least 3 people were killed when a firefight
erupted between unidentified insurgents and Ethiopian troops near a
military base in Mogadishu.
(AP, 3/6/07)(AFP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Sudan said it will try
three Sudanese for crimes committed in Darfur, including a member of
the country's security forces who is being sought by an international
war crimes court.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Thailand's
military-installed government took over the country's only independent
television station and said it would be temporarily pulled off the air
after it failed to pay millions of dollars in unpaid license fees.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Venezuelan authorities
arrested, Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila, a retired National Guard general,
on accusations that he plotted to overthrow President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, In Zimbabwe at least
34 people were killed when a train collided with a minibus at rail
crossing on the outskirts of the capital Harare.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 7, At least two people
woke on their way to becoming millionaires. Someone bought a winning
ticket for the record $370 million Mega Millions jackpot in Dalton,
Ga., and another winning ticket was purchased in Woodbine, N.J. Ed
Nabors (52), a Georgia truck driver, stepped forward to claim half of a
$390 million jackpot, the richest lottery prize in US history. He
elected to take his winnings in a lump sum instead of annual
installments, and will get over $80 million after taxes.
(AP, 3/7/07)(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 7, Sex offender John
Evander Couey was found guilty in Miami of kidnapping, raping and
murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was buried alive.
(AP, 3/7/08)
2007 Mar 7, In NYC 9 people,
including 8 children, died inside their burning Bronx house. Another
child died the next day.
(AP, 3/8/07)(SFC, 3/9/07, p.A8)(SSFC, 3/11/07,
p.A2)(AP, 3/7/08)
2007 Mar 7, In Afghanistan NATO
forces fought Taliban militants in the second day of the alliance's
largest-ever offensive. Mullah Abdul Qassim, a top Taliban commander in
Helmand province told The Associated Press that his group has 4,000
fighters bracing to rebuff NATO's largest-ever offensive in southern
Afghanistan. Suicide bombers are ready, land mines have been planted
and helicopters will be targeted.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, Britain’s House of
Commons voted 337-224 to introduce elections to the House of Lords.
(SFC, 3/8/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 7, In China a government
directive said all pet dogs will be killed in a district of the
southwestern city of Chongqing as part of an anti-rabies campaign.
Residents of the city's Wanzhou district had until March 15 to hand
over their dogs.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, Ecuador’s highest
electoral court voted to dismiss 57 congressmen for allegedly
interfering with a referendum on whether to rewrite the constitution,
in an escalating fight over Ecuador's charter.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, In France a new law
took effect that makes it a crime for anyone, who is not a professional
journalist, to film real-world violence and distribute the images on
the Internet. Critics call it a clumsy effort by authorities to battle
"happy slapping," the youth fad of filming violent acts, which most
often they have provoked, and spreading the images on the Web or
between mobile phones.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, A packed Garuda
Indonesia jetliner crash-landed and erupted in flames at Yogyakarta
airport, killing 22 people trapped inside the burning wreckage. More
than 115 others escaped through emergency exits as black smoke billowed
behind them.
(AP, 3/7/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.40)
2007 Mar 7, In Iraq at least 11
Shiite pilgrims were killed by bombs and gunfire as they streamed
toward a Muslim shrine ahead of a weekend holiday. Three American
soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb. An Iraqi TV cameraman working
for a privately owned Shiite station was among 22 people killed in a
car bombing at a police checkpoint in south Baghdad. A suspected
financier of insurgents was captured in Kirkuk province. A suicide
attacker blew himself up in a cafe northeast of Baghdad, killing 30
people.
(AP, 3/7/07)(AP, 3/8/07)(AP, 3/11/07)(AP, 3/7/08)
2007 Mar 7, In Indian-controlled
Kashmir cable operators said 4 foreign television channels have been
pulled from the air after Islamic militant groups demanded cable
companies stop airing "obscene" shows.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, Israeli troops raided
the Palestinian military headquarters in Ramallah and arrested 18
fugitives who had sought shelter there.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, The Israeli air force
unveiled its newest unmanned aircraft, saying the plane can fly longer,
faster and higher than any other surveillance aircraft.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, A Nigerian court
cleared Vice President Atiku Abubakar to take part in next month's
presidential poll, overturning a decision by the electoral commission
to disqualify him.
(AFP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 7, North Korea reported
that it has slaughtered hundreds of cows and pigs after an outbreak of
foot and mouth disease. The report said the sickened cows had been
imported from Tieling, China.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 7, In Pakistan senior
officials from India and Pakistan wrapped up the first meeting of a
joint panel on counterterrorism set up in September under a peace
process begun in 2004. They pledged to share information and help each
other prevent terrorism. In southwestern Pakistan a bomb attached to a
motorcycle exploded near a vehicle carrying pro-government tribal
elders, killing one of them and wounding 12 others.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, Russian nuclear energy
officials hosted an Iranian delegation for talks on the construction of
a Russian-built plant that has fallen behind schedule because of what
Moscow said were delays in payments by Tehran.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, In Russia Vladimir
Nikolayev, the mayor of Vladivostok, was ordered arrested amid a
criminal investigation into suspect land deals and embezzlement in the
latest bout of corruption to hit the long-troubled port.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, In Somalia a gunman
shot dead two policemen south of Mogadishu, close to the airport where
hundreds of African Union peacekeepers have begun deploying.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, Han Myung-sook,
South Korea's prime minister, stepped down saying she would think about
running for the nation's top job. Han was the first woman to hold the
government's No. 2 position, although the job is largely ceremonial in
a country where power is concentrated around the president.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 7, In Timor-Leste a
three-judge panel found Rogerio Lobato, a former interior minister,
guilty of fueling violence a year ago that ultimately led to the
downfall of the government and sentenced him to 7 1/2 years in prison.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, Turk Telekom blocked
access to Google's YouTube video-sharing site after a court ruling over
videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern
Turkey.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 8, President Bush opened
a weeklong tour of Latin America in Brazil. Police clashed with
students, environmentalists and left-leaning Brazilians protesting
Bush’s visit and his push for an ethanol energy alliance. Local news
media said at least 18 people were hurt and news photographs showed
injured people being carried away.
(AP, 3/8/07)(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, House Democrats
unveiled legislation that would require the withdrawal of US combat
troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008; the White House said President
Bush would veto it.
(AP, 3/8/08)
2007 Mar 8, In his first news
conference since taking over command of US forces in Iraq, Gen. David
Petraeus said insurgents were seeking to intensify attacks and that
additional US forces would be sent to areas where militant groups were
regrouping.
(AP, 3/8/08)
2007 Mar 8, Winners were announced
for the annual Ted Prize at the annual TED conference in Monterey, Ca.,
where attendees examined technology, entertainment and design.
(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.D1)(www.ted.com/ted2007/)
2007 Mar 8, Dr. Martin Wikelski of
Princeton Univ. along with colleagues proposed a satellite tracking
system, the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space
(ICARUS), based on one gram transmitters for the study of animal
behaviour.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.80)
2007 Mar 8, In Hawaii a tour
helicopter crashed at an airport on the island of Kauai, killing four
people and critically injuring three.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, Fugitive Afghan rebel
leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar used a video to tell The Associated Press
that his forces have ended cooperation with the Taliban and suggested
that he was open to talks with embattled President Hamid Karzai. In
northern Afghanistan gunmen killed a German aid worker and robbed his
three Afghan colleagues. A suicide bomber targeting a NATO convoy
wounded five civilians in the country's south.
(AP, 3/8/07)(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Argentina a federal
judge ordered former de facto president Reynaldo Bignone arrested in
connection with human rights abuses stemming from the 1976-83
dictatorship.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, At least two people
were killed when a cyclone slammed into Australia's northwest coast,
paralyzing mining operations and leaving a trail of destruction in its
wake.
(AFP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Austria delegates
to a 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency
approved the suspension of nearly two dozen nuclear technical aid
programs to Iran as part of UN sanctions imposed because its nuclear
defiance.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, The security forces of
Bangladesh's emergency interim government arrested six politicians over
corruption allegations. They included Tarique Rahman, the son of former
prime minister Khaleda Zia, dubbed “Mr Ten Per Cent” for his alleged
cut in almost any deal done by his mother’s government.
(AP, 3/8/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.39)
2007 Mar 8, The British government
bowed to pressure to improve conditions for Nepalese Gurkha soldiers
who have served in the British armed forces for two centuries, granting
them full pensions and other rights. Gurkhas began serving as part of
the Indian army in British-run India in 1815. Since Indian independence
in 1947, Gurkha pensions have been linked to those who served in the
Indian army, not those in the British army.
(AFP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, British actor John
Inman (71), best known for his role as camp shop assistant Mr Humphries
in the long-running BBC comedy "Are You Being Served?" died.
(Reuters, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, The first regularly
scheduled civilian passenger flight in six years arrived at Chechnya's
main airport, in what officials say is yet another sign that normalcy
has returned to the war-wracked Russian region.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Chinese lawmakers
formally introduced a hotly debated law to protect private property,
saying that personal wealth in an increasingly prosperous China
requires legal safeguards.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, The European Central
Bank raised its key interest rate a quarter percentage point to 3.75%,
a move aimed at keeping growth from moving too quickly.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Greece rioters
protesting education reforms battled police for more than three hours,
hurling Molotov cocktails and vandalizing businesses in central Athens,
leaving more than 40 people injured.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, PM Shinzo Abe said
that ruling party lawmakers will conduct a fresh investigation into the
Japanese military's forced sexual slavery of women during World War II.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Lebanese parliamentary
leaders met for the first time in four months in an effort to end a
power struggle that has divided the government and paralyzed the nation.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Malawi Garnet
Halliday (50), a senior Australian mining executive in charge of
the development of a new uranium mine, died with his pilot when his
chartered light aircraft crashed.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Moroccan officials
arrested Saad Houssaini, an alleged member of a terrorist group that is
believed linked to the 2004 Madrid bombings and 2003 attacks in
Casablanca.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, The Netherlands said
it has ratified an accord to open to a long-secret archive of Nazi
death camp records in Germany, another step toward giving scholars
access to a vast collection of historically invaluable Holocaust
documents.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Palestinians desperate
to cross into Egypt from Gaza surged toward a border terminal, throwing
stones as security personnel fired their weapons to maintain control.
Seven people were injured.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Portugal's parliament
voted overwhelmingly to legalize abortion up until the 10th week of
pregnancy, a major step in bringing this small Roman Catholic nation in
line with most of its European neighbors.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Somalia insurgents
ambushed a convoy of African Union peacekeepers sent to help stabilize
Mogadishu, setting off a gunfight that killed at least 12 civilians.
(AFP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, South Africa launched
a new national plan to combat one of the world's highest rates of
domestic violence on International Woman's Day.
(AFP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 8, Syria’s Pres. Bashar
Assad inaugurated the first stage of a joint Syrian-Iranian auto
factory, test-driving one of the new cars and declaring that the
project will boost cooperation between the allies.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, President Bush
heralded a new ethanol agreement with Brazil as a way to boost
alternative fuels production across the Americas. One roadblock in the
Bush-Silva ethanol talks is a 54-cent tariff the United States has
imposed on every gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Bush said it's
not up for discussion.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller acknowledged the
FBI improperly used the Patriot Act to secretly pry out personal
information about Americans; they apologized and vowed to prevent
further illegal intrusions.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2007 Mar 9, The US began a series
of secret hearings to determine whether 14 alleged terrorist leaders at
its prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be declared "enemy
combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military
tribunals.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, A US appeals court
overturned a District of Columbia handgun ban.
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 9, Xinhua Finance Media
shares made their debut on the NYSE raising $300 million. Fredy Bush
(49), a US-born entrepreneur, served as CEO of Xinhua Finance Ltd., the
Shanghai-based parent of the US listed company.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 9, A report by the Police
Executive Research Forum said slayings since 2004 have jumped over 10%
among dozens of large US cities.
(SFC, 3/9/07, p.A6)
2007 Mar 9, Brad Delp (55), lead
singer of the rock band Boston, died at his home in New Hampshire. The
group’s self-titled debut album in 1976 was one of the fastest selling
I rock history.
(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 9, In Afghanistan a
remote-controlled roadside bomb ripped through the vehicle of Mullah
Naqeeb, an influential pro-government tribal elder, injuring him and
nine others. 6 people died after being wounded in the bombing of the
armored vehicle. The Afghan elder played a key role in dealing with the
Taliban. Police detained five men in connection with the killing of a
German aid worker in northern Afghanistan. The five were detained in
the province of Sari Pul, where Dieter Ruebling, 65, worked for aid
group German Agro Action. Two gunmen killed Ruebling and robbed his
three Afghan colleagues after stopping their two vehicles near the
village of Mirza Wolang in Sayyad district.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Nearly 20,000 fans
gathered at a stadium in Buenos Aires, not to watch soccer but to hear
Hugo Chavez bash George W. Bush.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Finance Minister Jin
Renqing said China is creating an investment company to make more
profitable use of its $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves, in a
move that could change the flow of billions of dollars in global
markets.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Greek Cypriots
demolished a wall along the boundary that for decades has split
Europe's last divided capital, a dramatic gesture that officials hope
will kick-start reconciliation on the Mediterranean island. Plastic and
metal screens replaced the wall.
(AP, 3/9/07)(SFC, 3/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 9, Ethiopia's foreign
minister said 5 European tourists who went missing last week in
northeastern Ethiopia are being held by kidnappers in a remote tribal
region.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, EU leaders agreed on a
bold set of measures to fight global warming, pledging that a fifth of
the bloc's energy will come from green power sources such as wind
turbines and solar panels by 2020 and that 10% of European cars will
run on biofuels.
(AP, 3/9/07)(Econ, 3/17/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 9, US forces killed a
suspected militant and captured 16 others in raids across Iraq.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, In Japan Aeon
supermarket chain said it will take a 15% stake in troubled Daiei for
46.2 billion yen, or $393.5 million. The alliance would create Japan's
biggest retail grouping.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, President Felipe
Calderon proposed sweeping reforms to Mexico's justice system,
including US-style trials and a unified criminal code. Mexican federal
police detained 81 Chinese immigrants and 22 immigration agents after
the Chinese were discovered hiding in the Cancun airport terminal,
possibly with the protection of Mexican immigration officers.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, The UN Special
Rapporteur on Torture said Nigerian police routinely torture suspects,
shooting them in the legs, beating them and hanging them from the
ceiling for long periods. Royal Dutch Shell said that it has
successfully contained a major oil spill in a production facility in
southern Nigeria but yet to regain output loss of 187,000 barrels per
day.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AFP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, In Northern Ireland
substantial election results showed the polar extremes of politics have
strengthened their grip on the province's legislature, ensuring they
will control any future Catholic-Protestant administration. Anna Lo
(56), a Hong Kong native who has lived in Northern Ireland for 32
years, became the first ethnic minority to be elected to political
office. Lo was one of seven people elected to the 108-member Northern
Ireland Assembly from the Alliance Party, which seeks to draw support
from all sides of the community.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Pakistan's state media
reported that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf replaced Iftikhar
Chaudhry, the Islamic nation's chief justice, for "misuse of
authority." Chaudhry refused to resign and mass demonstrations for his
support soon followed.
(AP, 3/9/07)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.23)
2007 Mar 9, Thousands of people
across Spain took part in rallies called by the right wing opposition
to protest the Socialists government's decision to allow a
hunger-striking Basque separatist serve out his jail term under house
arrest.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, The Sri Lanka Defense
Ministry said ground troops, backed by artillery, had captured three
Tamil Tiger bases in the northeast in a major military operation.
Anti-insurgency commandos overran a rebel base in eastern Sri Lanka,
killing at least 20 guerrillas. Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels shot dead
four security personnel and four park officials inside a wildlife
sanctuary as fighting escalated elsewhere on the island.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AFP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, A prominent Turkish
politician was convicted of breaching Swiss anti-racism laws by saying
that the early 20th-century killing of Armenians could not be described
as genocide. Perincek was charged with breaking Swiss law by denying
during a visit to Switzerland in 2005 that the World War I-era killings
of up to 1.5 million Armenians amounted to genocide. He was ordered to
pay a fine of $2,450 and was given a suspended penalty of $7,360.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Thailand's junta chief
urged people living in restive Muslim-majority provinces to act as
informants for security forces trying to quell three years of
separatist unrest.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Turkey lifted its ban
on YouTube two days after a court ordered the Web site blocked because
of videos that allegedly insulted the founder of modern Turkey.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Zimbabwe state media
said authorities have sealed off the eastern Marange diamond fields as
part of measures to prevent plundering of the site.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 10, President Bush in
Uruguay said the FBI has addressed the problems that led to illegal
prying into personal information on people in the US, but "there's more
work to be done." Bush with President Tabare Vazquez who said he wanted
to expand trade with the United States and increase scientific,
technical and cultural exchanges. Bush also asked Congress for $3.2
billion to pay for 8,200 more U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan and
Iraq on top of the 21,500-troop buildup he had announced in January
2007.
(AP, 3/10/07)(AP, 3/10/08)
2007 Mar 10, Some 22,000
evangelical teenagers attended the BattleCry rally at AT&T Park in
SF, where organizer Ron Luce (45) urged they become stalkers of god.
Together with his wife Katie, Luce founded the Texas-based Teen Mania
Ministries in 1986 in his van.
(SSFC, 3/11/07,
p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Luce)
2007 Mar 10, In Texas Valerie
Lopez (19), the mother of two young children whose decomposing bodies
were found wrapped in plastic bags beneath a house this week, was
arrested and charged with capital murder.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 10, Richard Jeni (49), a
standup comedian who played to sold-out crowds, was a regular on the
"Tonight Show" and appeared in movies, died of a gunshot wound in an
apparent suicide in West Hollywood.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0420732/)
2007 Mar 10, Afghanistan's lower
house of parliament voted into law a revised resolution calling for an
amnesty for groups suspected of perpetrating war crimes during a
quarter century of fighting, but also recognizing the rights of victims
to seek justice. A top Taliban commander issued a chilling threat,
promising to kill a kidnapped Italian journalist unless the movement's
arrested spokesmen were freed and a date was set for the withdrawal of
Italian troops from Afghanistan. In southern Afghanistan clashes
between Afghan police and Taliban militants killed eight officers and
two Taliban. In Zabul Taliban militants attacked police on the main
highway between Kabul and Kandahar. A ½ hour gunfight left 2
Taliban dead and 4 wounded.
(AP, 3/10/07)(AFP, 3/10/07)(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 10, In a Web statement
Islamic militants threatened to attack Germany and Austria unless the
two European nations break ranks with the US and withdraw their
personnel from Afghanistan. A separate, previously unknown Iraqi
insurgent group released a video on the Web threatening to kill a
German woman and her son kidnapped in Iraq unless Germany withdrew its
troops from Afghanistan within 10 days.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 10, A flash flood killed
six people in southern Algeria when torrential rains caused wadis to
overflow, while high winds brought down trees and walls.
(AFP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, In Colombia the US
Embassy confirmed that American and Colombian soldiers had conducted a
joint operation in the southern stronghold of leftist rebels who are
holding three US military contractors, captured in Feb, 2004.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, In Iraq US and
Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the
country's crisis at a one-day international conference that some hoped
would help end their 27-year diplomatic freeze. 69 delegates
represented 13 countries and consented to form committees to address
Iraq’s problems. A suicide blast at a checkpoint in Sadr City killed 20
people, including at least six Iraqi soldiers as international envoys
met in the Iraqi capital to talk about stabilizing the
violence-shattered country. Iraq's prime minister appealed for
international help to sever networks aiding extremists and warned
envoys from neighbors and world powers that Iraq's growing sectarian
bloodshed could spill across the Middle East. US and Iraqi forces
captured three suspected members of a bomb-making cell north in
Tarmiyah north of Baghdad.
(AP, 3/10/07)(AP, 3/11/07)(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.A15)
2007 Mar 10, An Iraqi insurgent
group threatened to kill a German woman and her son kidnapped in Iraq
unless Germany withdrew its troops from Afghanistan within 10 days,
according to a video posted by the group.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, In Italy thousands of
supporters of legislation that would grant legal rights to unmarried
couples including gays rallied in Rome to urge lawmakers to resist
Vatican pressure against the measure.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, In northern Mexico 8
people were killed and 11 were injured when a bus slammed into a
tractor trailer carrying aluminum beams.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, Pakistani security
forces killed three suspected Islamist militants in a clash in the
North Waziristan region on the Afghan border.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, The Hamas-run
Education Ministry rescinded its decision to pull an anthology of
Palestinian folk tales from school libraries and destroy copies,
reportedly over mild sexual innuendo, following a widespread public
outcry.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, Serbia called on the
United Nations to reject a Western-backed proposal for the independence
of Kosovo as Serbs and Albanians ended a year of talks in Austria on
the fate of the breakaway province.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, The South African
government took possession of the first farm to be expropriated, in a
move designed to silence criticism it is dragging its feet over land
reform. Local people had been forced off Pniel Farm near Kimberley and
into a shantytown in 1967.
(AFP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, In South Korea riot
police used a water cannon to break up a noisy but peaceful street
protest in downtown Seoul against a proposed free trade agreement
between South Korea and the United States.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, The number of
refugees in eastern Sri Lanka climbed past 100,000 after heavy fighting
in rebel-held parts of the island forced thousands of civilians to flee
their homes in recent days.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 10, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez visited flood-ravaged Bolivia to show off the fact that his
country has pledged 10 times more aid than the Bush administration. But
local leaders gave him a cool reception, accusing him of meddling in
Bolivian politics.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 11, The US national debt
was reported to be approaching $9 trillion. Some $240 billion would be
spent this year paying interest on the half that’s held by public
creditors, of which China and Japan are the largest.
(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.D1)
2007 Mar 11, Most of the US
switched to daylight saving time a few weeks earlier than usual.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 11, Halliburton CEO Dave
Lesar announced that his oil services company will soon shift its
corporate headquarters from Houston to the Mideast financial powerhouse
of Dubai.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 11, In Hawaii a tour
helicopter crashed on Kauai and one person was killed. This was the 2nd
fatal copter crash on the island in 4 days.
(SFC, 3/12/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 11, Betty Hutton
(b.1921), film star, died in Palm Springs. Her films included “Annie
Get Your Gun