Return to home2007 Oct 1,
The DJIA rose 191.92 to a record 14,087.55, surpassing a mid-July
closing record of 14,000.41. Nasdaq rose 39.49 to 2,740.
(SFC, 10/2/07, p.C1)(AP, 10/1/08)
2007 Oct 1, The Shakespeare
Theater Company opened the new Sidney Harman Hall, a 775-seat
theater in downtown Washington, DC.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.34)
2007 Oct 1, The US military
launched a new "Most Wanted" campaign offering rewards of up to
$200,000 for information leading to the capture of 12 Taliban and
al-Qaida leaders. Three men driving trucks to supply foreign
soldiers in the central province of Wardak were kidnapped.
(AP, 10/1/07)(AFP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Teradata
Corporation, a hardware and software vendor specializing in data
warehousing and analytic applications, was spun off from NCR Corp.
As of 2010 the former division of NCR is the largest company in
Dayton, Ohio, with headquarters in Miamisburg, Ohio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradata)
2007 Oct 1, Al Oerter (b.1936),
4-time Olympic gold medal winner in the discus throw, died in Fort
Myers, Fla.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Oerter)
2007 Oct 1, The African Union
began probing an unprecedented attack on one of its bases in Sudan's
war-ravaged Darfur that left 10 peacekeepers dead and 40 missing,
vowing to punish those responsible.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, The Bosnian Serb
parliament approved Igor Radojcic, the government's candidate, as
interim president following the death of President Milan Jelic.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Britain’s Racial
and Religious Hatred Act came into force. This made it a crime for
anyone to use threatening words or behavior with the intention of
stirring up religious hatred. Britain’s Equality and Human Rights
Commission (EHRC) was created to succeed the Commission for Racial
Equality.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.67)(Econ, 6/27/09,
p.61)(www.out-law.com/page-8512)
2007 Oct 1, The London Stock
Exchange completed its purchase of Borsa Italiana, cementing its
position as Europe's biggest equity market.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, The British
Broadcasting Corp. said it bought a 75-percent stake in the Lonely
Planet travel guides.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, A Canadian judge
acquitted three doctors, a New Jersey company and a former Red Cross
official of criminal charges in a tainted-blood scandal that
infected thousands of Canadians with HIV or hepatitis and resulted
in more than 3,000 deaths.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Ecuador’s Pres.
Rafael Correa announced a plan to wipe out the party system and
tighten government control of the economy after appearing to win a
free hand to overhaul the constitution.
(WSJ, 10/2/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 1, Nokia Corp. said it
is buying US navigation-software maker Navteq Corp. for around $8.1
billion as the world's largest mobile phone maker continues to
expand services and content.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, A suicide car
bomber detonated his explosives just outside the gates of Mosul
University, killing an agriculture professor. An umbrella group for
al-Qaida in Iraq confirmed the death of Abu Osama al-Tunisi, a
senior Tunisian leader linked to the kidnapping and killings of US
soldiers last year. He was killed in a US airstrike south of
Baghdad.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Japan began a
1-year process of privatizing its postal system, recognized as the
world’s largest bank with over $2 trillion in assets.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.82)
2007 Oct 1, In Lebanon Nasser
Ismail, a suspected senior commander of the Fatah Islam militant
group, was captured by Palestinian refugees and turned over to the
Lebanese military after he spent weeks in hiding.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Myanmar's junta
leader stalled a UN envoy for yet another day, delaying his chance
to present international demands for an end to the crackdown on the
largest protests in two decades. A Norway-based dissident news
organization, the Democratic Voice of Burma, said pro-democracy
activists estimate 138 people were killed in the recent protests.
Shari Villarosa, the top US diplomat in Myanmar, said her staff had
visited up to 15 monasteries around Yangon and every single one was
empty. She put the number of arrested demonstrators, monks and
civilians, in the thousands.
(AP, 10/1/07)(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, A burqa-clad woman
blew herself up and killed at least 16 people at a crowded police
checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan. It was believed to be the first
time a female suicide bomber has struck inside the country.
Pakistan's top court ordered three officials suspended over a
crackdown that wounded dozens of journalists and lawyers during
protests against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's re-election bid.
(AP, 10/1/07)(AFP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Dozens of freed
Palestinian prisoners kissed the ground at this West Bank checkpoint
after Israel released them in a gesture to President Mahmoud Abbas
ahead of a US-sponsored Mideast peace conference. Israeli troops
killed two Hamas militants in Gaza in a gunbattle.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, President Vladimir
Putin said he would lead the dominant party's ticket in December
parliamentary elections and suggested he could become prime
minister, the strongest sign yet that he will try to keep power
after he leaves office.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Fighting broke out
between Somaliland and Puntland in the disputed Sool region and at
least 10 people were killed in a battle for control of Las Anod.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.56)
2007 Oct 1, Sudan's Pres. Omar
Hassan al-Bashir, during talks with members of a visiting group of
elder statesmen, promised to pay $300 million in compensation to the
country's war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge. This
was made public 2 days later by former US President Jimmy Carter,
one of the visiting elders.
(Reuters, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 1, Swiss banking giant
UBS warned that the crisis in the US housing market had cost it
around 4.0 billion Swiss francs, as it announced a major management
shakeup and plans to cut 1,500 jobs.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Syria began
requiring visas for Iraqis entering the country, hoping to stem the
flow of refugees fleeing violence in their homeland.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 1, Zimbabwe's central
bank chief warned of "dangers" in a bill approved by legislators
which says that locals must own a majority of foreign-run firms.
(AFP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, A draft report by
the Government Accountability Office said Federal employees wasted
at least $146 million over a one-year period on business- and
first-class airline tickets, in some cases simply because they felt
entitled to the perk.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, Blackwater chairman
Erik Prince, testifying before the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee, vigorously rejected charges that guards from his
private security firm acted recklessly while protecting State
Department personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2007 Oct 2, A federal jury in
New York ordered the owners of the New York Knicks to pay $11.6
million to former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders, concluding
she'd been sexually harassed and fired out of spite.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2007 Oct 2, Nasdaq agreed to
acquire the Boston stock Exchange for about $61 million.
(WSJ, 10/3/07, p.C3)
2007 Oct 2, In Colorado 5
workers trapped at least 1,500 feet underground survived an initial
chemical fire at a hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, but died
before emergency workers could rescue them.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, The new $800
million MGM Grand Casino opened in downtown Detroit. Across the
street the old MGM Grand, which had opened in 1999, closed on Sep
30.
(WSJ, 9/26/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 2, George Grizzard
(79), Tony Award-winning actor, died in New York.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2007 Oct 2, James Michaels
(86), innovative editor of Forbes magazine (1961-1999), died.
(www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/business/04michaels.html)(WSJ, 10/6/07,
p.A17)
2007 Oct 2, In Afghan a mother
and her two children boarded a police bus in Kabul only seconds
before a suicide bomber detonated his payload inside, an attack that
killed 13 police and civilians. Taliban militants killed two
policemen and destroyed a remote government office in central
Afghanistan, as five Dutch troops were wounded in a clash in the
country's south.
(AP, 10/2/07)(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, Australia’s
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said that over the past two years
the intake of Africans has been cut from 70% of the total of 13,000
refugees to just 30%.
(AFP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Magda Pniewska
(26), a Polish woman, was shot in the head and died after being
caught in the cross-fire between two gunmen in a residential street
in London. On April 22, 2008, Armel Gnango (17) was convicted of
murder for being involved in the gunfight.
(AFP, 10/3/07)(AFP, 5/22/08)
2007 Oct 2, Canada’s Justice
Minister Rob Nicholson said the government plans to criminalize
identity theft to give police the ability to stop such activity
before any fraud has actually been carried out.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao kicked off the 2007 Special Olympics in Shanghai as 7,500
athletes from over 165 countries entered the stadium before a crowd
of 80,000.
(WSJ, 10/3/07, p.B3A)
2007 Oct 2, Colombia's navy
seized 2 tons of cocaine, most destined for the United States, in
small packages labeled with the British flag from a truck on the
country's Caribbean coast.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 2, The United Iraqi
Alliance, the Shiite bloc of PM al-Maliki, demanded that the US
military abandon its recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi
police force. Britain's PM Brown arrived in Iraq to meet troops and
lawmakers and announced plans to withdraw more than 1,000 troops
from Iraq by year's end, and Iraq said it will take over security
from British forces in the southern Basra province within two
months. 11 people were killed, including two women, a child and four
police officers, in five separate attacks, including a suicide car
bombing at a police checkpoint near Khalis, 50 miles north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 10/2/07)(SFC, 10/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 2, Israel completed
the release of 86 Palestinian prisoners and soldiers briefly opened
fire as family members rushed toward the prisoners at the Erez
crossing in the Gaza Strip. 2 people were wounded. A blast in Gaza
killed four people, including three Fatah activists and a bystander.
Hamas accused Fatah of having tried to attack the security compound,
saying explosives in the car apparently blew up prematurely.
(SFC, 10/3/07, p.A12)(AP, 10/3/07)(WSJ, 10/3/07,
p.A1)
2007 Oct 2, Myanmar's reclusive
junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, finally granted an audience to
a UN envoy hoping to broker an end to Myanmar's crackdown on
pro-democracy protesters.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il showed scant enthusiasm for the visiting South Korean
president, while orchestrated crowds of thousands cheered the start
of the second summit between the divided Koreas since World War II.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Pakistan agreed to
grant ex-premier Benazir Bhutto an amnesty on corruption charges.
Opposition legislators resigned to undercut President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf's re-election bid, but the Pakistani leader pushed ahead
with plans for an expected victory, naming Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, a
former spymaster, to head the military in his place.
(AP, 10/2/07)(AFP, 10/2/07)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.48)
2007 Oct 2, A group of elder
statesmen, including former President Carter and Nobel peace
laureate Desmond Tutu, began a tour of Darfur to promote a political
solution to the region's conflict.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Thailand's coup
leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin was officially named a deputy
prime minister, but he denied that his appointment to the cabinet
was an attempt to cling to power.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Shop owners said
Zimbabwe's supermarkets have run out of bread after bakers were
forced to suspend their operations due to a critical shortage of
wheat.
(AFP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 3, President Bush, in
a sharp confrontation with Congress, vetoed a bipartisan bill to
reauthorize and dramatically expand SCHIP, a children's health
insurance begun in 1997.
(AP, 10/3/07)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.34)
2007 Oct 3, US federal
authorities said they had rounded up more than 1,300 illegal
immigrants in Southern California during the past two weeks in the
largest sweep of its kind.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Tony Ryan (b.1936),
Irish-born aviation entrepreneur and co-founder of Ryanair (1985),
died.
(WSJ, 10/6/07,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
2007 Oct 3, Afghan troops
backed by NATO-led forces clashed with suspected Taliban fighters in
southern Afghanistan, leaving 20 militants dead.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 3, Four former
officials of Albania's state-controlled oil company, Albpetrol, were
arrested on suspicion of theft and abuse of office.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 3, PM John
Howard said Australia will not take any more refugees from Africa
until at least the middle of next year. He said Australia's
13,000-a-year refugee intake was being "rebalanced" from Africa to
the Middle East and Asia where the need was more acute.
(AFP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Li Heping, an
outspoken Chinese lawyer, said he was abducted and beaten for hours
on Sep 29, and accused of causing unrest by representing clients
with complaints of official corruption and police abuse. Li said he
wasn't sure if he would be able to continue working. He returned to
his office the day after the attack and found his lawyer's license
was missing. A portable hard drive and his computer memory had been
wiped clean.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Police in East
Timor arrested Vicente "Railos" da Conciecao, the suspected head of
a hit squad. He was linked with Rogerio Lobato, a former interior
minister convicted of giving weapons to civilians during a wave of
violence last year.
(Reuters, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel arrived in Ethiopia overnight at the start of a tour
of African countries that will also take in South Africa and
Liberia.
(AFP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, In India at least
13 elderly women traveling to a Hindu festival were trampled to
death and 42 others were injured in a northern railway station when
two trains arrived on adjacent platforms in Mughalsarai.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 3, Nearly two dozen
previously unknown Iraqi insurgent groups announced a new coalition
to fight foreign occupation but it also set conditions for talks
with the US in a statement on a Web site affiliated with the
country's deposed Baath party. The 22 groups said their leader is
Izzat al-Douri, the highest ranking member of Saddam Hussein's
former ruling party. The Polish ambassador to Iraq was slightly
wounded and two civilians, including a bodyguard, were killed in a
roadside bomb attack in downtown Baghdad. About 900 Polish troops
are stationed training Iraqi personnel and 21 have died during the
conflict. The US military said it had discovered a list of some 500
al Qaeda militants recruited to fight in Iraq from a range of
European, Middle East and north African countries. The WHO said the
toll of people in Iraq infected with cholera has risen to 3,315.
(AP, 10/3/07)(Reuters, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Soldiers said they
were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar's largest city and
the top US diplomat in the country said military police had pulled
people out of their homes during the night. The European Union
agreed in principle to punish the junta with sanctions.
(AP, 10/3/07)(AFP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, A Dutch court
rejected a prosecution appeal against the release of Philippine
communist leader Jose Maria Sison, accused of being involved in
murders in the Philippines.
(AFP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Local media said
police in southwest Nigeria have arrested five politicians for
allegedly raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl. The suspects, all members
of the west African giant's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP),
were arrested for the offence in Ilesha. An opposition Action
Congress (AC) spokesman said the rape victim was among eight
supporters of the party who were abducted two weeks ago in the town.
At least 38 people were killed and 48 reported missing after two
ferries collided on a river in northern Nigeria's Kebbi State.
(AP, 10/3/07)(AFP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 3, An Islamic court in
northern Nigeria banned a play written by a civil rights activist
which satirizes the implementation of Sharia law in 12 mainly Muslim
states. The upper Sharia court in the Tudun Wada neighborhood of the
northern city of Kaduna issued the order restraining Shehu Sani from
selling or circulating his play, "Phantom Crescent."
(AFP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 3, The six nations
involved in disarmament talks said North Korea agreed to provide a
complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities at
its main reactor complex by Dec. 31, 2007. However, North Korea has
since said it would move to restore its nuclear reactor, saying the
United States had failed to follow through with promised incentives.
(AP, 10/3/07)(AP, 10/3/08)
2007 Oct 3, In Russia workers
rebuilding a 19th century Moscow house dug up the remains of nearly
three dozen people. An estimated 34 people were found. Some of the
remains, which were found under a basement of a house on the estate,
had gunshot wounds to the skull and appeared to date back to the
1930s. Sergei Buluchevsky, a government investigator, later said
preliminary forensic findings indicated the remains were at least a
century old and that there were no signs of violent death.
(AP, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 3, Russian and US
space chiefs signed agreements in Moscow to cooperate on unmanned
missions that would search for potential water deposits beneath the
surface of the moon and Mars.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, A pressurized air
pipe snapped at the mine near Johannesburg and tumbled down a shaft,
causing extensive damage to an elevator and stranding 3,200 miners
more than a mile underground. More than 2,000 trapped gold miners
were rescued in a dramatic all-night operation, and efforts gathered
speed to bring hundreds more to the surface. By the next night all
the miners had emerged safely.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 3, President Viktor
Yushchenko ordered Ukraine's feuding parties to strike a deal on a
post-election government, a move likely to aggravate a political
deadlock that has stalled economic reforms. With more than 99% of
the vote counted, Regions Party had 34.3% and its Communist Party
ally 5.4. The Tymoshenko bloc had polled 30.8 and Our Ukraine 14.2%.
(Reuters, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, The UN General
Assembly's ministerial meeting that saw an international outcry over
military repression in Myanmar, new killings in Darfur and Iran's
nuclear program, closed in NYC with a call for global action on
climate change, poverty and terrorism.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 3, President Hugo
Chavez accused the US of trying to spur a military rebellion, saying
the CIA is behind the distribution of leaflets inside army barracks
calling for his ouster.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Disaster officials
began evacuating 400,000 people as a typhoon approached Vietnam's
central coast, packing winds up to 83 mph. Typhoon Lekima slammed
into Vietnam's central coast, killing two people, destroying
hundreds of houses and unleashing floods in one of the country's
poorest regions.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 3, Teachers at state
schools across inflation-ravaged Zimbabwe began an indefinite strike
to press for better salaries.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 4, US marshals posing
as supporters arrested convicted tax-evaders Ed and Elaine Brown at
their rural, fortress-like home in New Hampshire. They had engaged
in a 9-month standoff with authorities. They were convicted in
January of scheming to avoid federal income taxes by hiding $1.9
million of income between 1996 and 2003 and were sentenced in April.
In 2010 Brown (67) was sentenced 37 years in prison.
(AP, 10/5/07)(SFC, 1/12/10, p.A4)
2007 Oct 4, The recording
industry won a major fight in its effort to stop illegal music
downloading with a US jury decision to impose $222,000 damages
against a Minnesota woman who used a Web service to share music.
(Reuters, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Idaho Sen. Larry
Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office despite losing
a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men's room sex
sting.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2007 Oct 4, Former city
maintenance worker John Ashley shot five people in a law office in
Alexandria, La., killing two of them; Ashley was shot and killed by
police following a standoff.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2007 Oct 4, In Philadelphia
Mustafa Ali (36), a convicted bank robber, shot and killed two
armored car guards servicing an ATM outside a bank. Several schools
were locked down amid a massive manhunt for the gunman, who was
arrested the next day.
(AP, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 4, Microsoft outlined
its vision, dubbed HealthVault, in which a person can view, from one
place, their complete health records.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.74)(http://tinyurl.com/2fop6p)
2007 Oct 4, A British soldier
was killed in an explosion about 19 miles west of Kandahar city. 82
British personnel, including 57 soldiers, have been killed in
Afghanistan since operations began there in November 2001.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, The Australian
government approved plans for a controversial multi-billion-dollar
pulp mill in Tasmania despite objections it could ruin one of the
country's most pristine environments.
(AFP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper vowed to crack down on illegal drugs, saying the Conservative
government would propose mandatory prison time for serious drug
offenses.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Health Canada said
that it has stopped the sale of Novartis Pharmaceuticals
anti-inflammatory drug Prexige and will cancel its market
authorization due to the risk for serious liver-related effects
including hepatitis.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Canada became the
first country to notify the World Trade Organization that it has
agreed to allow a Canadian company to make generic medicines for
export to Rwanda.
(AFP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 4, In Chile the widow
and five children of Gen. Augusto Pinochet were among 23 people
indicted on charges of corruption related to the dictator's US bank
accounts.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, In Congo a cargo
plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near the main airport in
Kinshasa, plowing into homes and killing at least 52 people. The
next day Congolese President Joseph Kabila sacked Transport Minister
Remy Henri Kuseyo Gatanga.
(AP, 10/4/07)(Reuters, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Egypt sent a
high-level protest to dozens of European nations expressing
"astonishment and regret" at their refusal to endorse Cairo's call
for a Middle East nuclear free zone at a conference last month. At
last month's IAEA session, 25 of the 27 EU nations abstained as did
other countries hoping to join the union. In all, 47 nations
abstained. Israeli objections forced a vote in which 53 countries,
Muslim states and their supporters from the developing world, backed
the proposal.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 4, Ethiopia pledged
5,000 troops to a future UN-African Union peacekeeping mission for
Darfur.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, In northeast France
dozens of hooded youths attacked two police vehicles with metal
bars, set fire to more than a dozen parked cars and torched a
community center in Saint-Dizier.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Siemens, one of the
world’s biggest electrical engineering firms, accepted a $285
million fine imposed by a court in Munich for bribery by its
communications division. CEO Peter Loscher announced a
re-organization that included reducing its 9 divisions to three and
downsizing the 11-man executive board. The ruling named officials in
Nigeria, Libya and Russia as recipients of 77 bribes totaling some
$17.5 million.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.70)(WSJ, 11/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 4, The Wai Wai, an
indigenous group in Guyana, backed by government decree and a
US-based conservation organization, said it has banned miners and
loggers from its section of the Amazon jungle and pledged to pursue
an economic strategy based on ecotourism, research and traditional
crafts.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Iranian state
television reported that Iran and Syria have signed an agreement for
Tehran to export a billion dollars worth of gas every year to its
chief regional ally.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, President Jalal
Talabani said Iraq has ordered light military equipment from China
worth $100 million because the United States is unable to meet
Baghdad's requirements. A government minister said the official
Iraqi investigation into the Blackwater shooting last month
recommended that the security guards face trial in Iraqi courts and
that the company compensate the victims. Abbas Hassan Hamza, the
mayor of the religiously mixed town of Iskandariyah, was killed
along with four of his guards in a roadside bomb attack. Hamza
belonged to Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party. In Baghdad, a car
bomb exploded near people on line at a gas station, killing four
civilians and wounding eight others. 3 civilians were shot by
American troops near a checkpoint in Abu Lukah set up by Iraqis who
have joined forces against extremists. A US soldier was killed by
small-arms fire during operations in a southern section of Baghdad.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, It was reported
that in Kuwait the nomadic Bedouin, Arabic for "without," numbered
about 100,000 people and have been refused what they feel is their
birthright: citizenship.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Dutch authorities
said their customs officers had found 100 dead beetles stuffed with
cocaine whilst examining a parcel from Peru.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Officials said the
Nigerian central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate MPR
from eight to nine percent because of rising inflation.
(AFP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pledged
to seek a peace treaty to replace the Korean War's 1953 cease-fire
and expand projects to reduce tension across the world's last Cold
War frontier.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Militants holding
some 230 Pakistani troops killed three of the captive soldiers
before dawn in apparent retaliation for army raids on guerrilla
hide-outs near the Afghan border.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Philippine
President Gloria Arroyo called for increased trade with India at the
start of a three-day visit.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, The government of
Somalia announced a crackdown on Islamic militants.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 4, The head of South
Africa's main union body stood down from his office pending the
outcome of an investigation into the disappearance of a large cash
donation.
(AFP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Spanish police
arrested almost the entire leadership of Batasuna as the banned
party held a meeting in the Basque town of Segura. The operation
confirmed the hard line against ETA by the Socialist government of
PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero since the armed group officially
ended a 15-month-old ceasefire in June.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Prominent world
figures led by former President Carter and Desmond Tutu of South
Africa said they were shocked by the suffering in Darfur and
criticized Sudan's government in exceptionally harsh terms.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, A union official
said Zimbabwean teachers have called off a strike for better wages
after reaching a deal with the government.
(AFP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 5, It was reported
that approval ratings for Pres. George Bush had dropped to 31%.
Approval for Congress’s performance fell to 22%. Bush defended his
administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism
suspects, saying they were successful and lawful.
(WSJ, 10/5/07, p.A1)(AP, 10/5/08)
2007 Oct 5, The US EPA approved
methyl iodide as a new agricultural pesticide to replace methyl
bromide, despite protests from over 50 scientists, who noted that it
was a known carcinogen and neurotoxin.
(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A18)
2007 Oct 5, Marion Jones (31),
three-time Olympic gold medalist, pleaded guilty in White Plains,
NY, to lying to federal investigators when she denied using
performance-enhancing drugs, and announced her retirement. Jones
said she took steroids from September 2000 to July 2001 and said she
was told by her then-coach Trevor Graham that she was taking
flaxseed oil when it was actually "the clear." Jones also pleaded
guilty to a second count of lying to investigators about her
association with a check-fraud scheme.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 5, Topps Meat Co. of
Newark, NJ, founded in 1940, said a massive meat recall has forced
it out of business. Government scientists have yet to determine the
source of the E. coli contamination that appears to have sickened 32
people who ate its hamburgers.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 5, Afghan and US-led
coalition troops clashed with insurgents during a raid in eastern
Afghanistan, and civilians as well as militants were killed. In the
country's volatile south, a suicide bomber approaching NATO and
Afghan forces blew himself up prematurely in Helmand province's
Sangin district, killing two children.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 5, Chinese medical
officials agreed not to transplant organs from prisoners or others
in custody, except into members of their immediate families. The
agreement was reached at a meeting of the World Medical Association
in Copenhagen.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 5, Colombia’s
Constitutional Court ruled that gays may add their partners to
health insurance plans.
(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A5)
2007 Oct 5, Europe's .eu
Internet domain registrar EURid said the Internet address
www.sex.asia is likely to be the domain name most in demand next
week when dot Asia Web sites are launched.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 5, Finland’s justice
ministry said PM Matti Vanhanen is suing his ex-girlfriend for
revealing details of their relationship in a tell-all book published
earlier this year.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 5, Walter Kempowski
(b.1929), German writer, died. His work included “Echo Soundings,"
ten volumes of eyewitness accounts of the second world war.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kempowski)(Econ, 11/14/15,
p.86)
2007 Oct 5, Nearly 300
participants started twisting and turning a small multicolored cube
on the first day of the Rubik's Cube World Championships in
Budapest, the birthplace of the cult puzzle.
(AFP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 5, US forces backed by
attack aircraft killed at least 25 Shiite militia fighters north of
Baghdad in an operation targeting a cell accused of smuggling
weapons from Iran. An Iraqi army official claimed civilians,
including seven children, were among those killed in the raid. A
Shiite militia leader accused of forcibly removing Sunnis from their
homes north of Baghdad was captured in a raid. 3 Americans were
killed in roadside bombings in Baghdad and near Beiji to the north.
(AP, 10/5/07)(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 5, Japan put its first
satellite into orbit around the moon, placing the country a step
ahead of China and India in an increasingly heated space race in
Asia.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 5, Record floods, that
have wreaked havoc across Africa, killed at least 20,000 wildebeests
making their way to Kenya during their annual “great migration." The
animals, also known as gnus, were swept away by a river that broke
its banks in southern Kenya's Maasai Mara park. Kenya Wildlife
Service on Oct 13 said floods that have wreaked havoc across Africa
killed 5,000 wildebeests, and not tens of thousands, blaming
tourists for exaggerating the toll.
(AFP, 10/11/07)(AFP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 5, In Myanmar acting
Ambassador Shari Villarosa met with Deputy Foreign Minister Maung
Myint in the remote jungle capital of Naypitaw (Naypyidaw). During
her visit, she was expected to repeat the US view that the regime
must meet with democratic opposition groups and "stop the iron
crackdown" on peaceful demonstrators. The US said it would propose a
UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Myanmar if the
government there does not "respond constructively" to international
concern about repression of pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 10/5/07)(Econ, 4/12/08, p.27)
2007 Oct 5, Nepal's ruling
parties reluctantly agreed to Maoist demands to postpone upcoming
elections, ending one political crisis in the Himalayan nation but
still leaving the two sides deadlocked over other issues. 3
communist rebels shot and killed Birendra Shah a crusading
journalist. The group's leadership later said they did not order the
slaying and that the three men who took part have been kicked out of
the Maoist political party.
(AP, 10/5/07)(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Oct 5, On the eve of
Pakistan's presidential vote the highest court ruled that no
election winner can be declared until it decides whether Pres. Gen.
Musharraf is an eligible candidate. Musharraf pushed toward an
alliance with a former premier signing an amnesty clearing her of
corruption charges. Pres. Musharraf issued a National Reconciliation
Ordnance (NRO) as part of a political deal to allow former PM
Benazir Bhutto to return from years of exile to Pakistan. By 2009
over 8,000 government officials were reported to have benefited from
the decree. The amnesty lapsed on Nov 28, 2009, by order of the
Supreme Court. On Jan 19, 2010, the Supreme Court released a
287-page judgement explaining why it had ruled the NRO
unconstitutional.
(AP, 10/5/07)(SFC, 11/23/09, p.A3)(Econ,
11/27/09, p.29)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.40)
2007 Oct 5, Abdullah bin
Abdul-Aziz, Saudi Arabia's king, announced an overhaul of the
country's judicial system, fulfilling a pledge he made several
months ago to reform the current heavily-criticized administration.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7029308.stm)(Econ, 10/13/07,
p.51)
2007 Oct 5, Insurgents in
Somalia killed at least 5 people in a grenade attack at the main
market in Mogadishu.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 5, South African
prosecutors said they had obtained an arrest warrant for national
police chief and Interpol president Jackie Selebi, as one of his
friends appeared in court on murder charges.
(AFP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 6, US Representative
Jo Ann Davis (57), Virginia’s first Republican woman elected to
Congress, died of breast cancer.
(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A5)
2007 Oct 6, Sofiane el-Fassila
(b.1975), an alleged mastermind (alias Hareg Zoheir, Zobeir Harkat)
of several recent suicide bombing attacks in Algeria, was shot dead
with 2 suspected accomplices in the town of Boghni. He was the
deputy chief of al Qaeda's North Africa wing and believed to be the
group's operational leader. Security officials said 8 soldiers and
four Islamic extremists have been killed in the last few days in
eastern Algeria.
(AFP, 10/6/07)(AP,
10/10/07)(www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071011/world.htm#8)
2007 Oct 6, International
military planes called in by Afghan security forces killed 16
rebels, apparently all foreigners, suspected of preparing an attack
in the country's east. The dead were said to be from Pakistan,
Uzbekistan and Chechnya. Two officers were killed and two others
were wounded when a bomb exploded under their car in Yaqoubi
district in Khost province. A Taliban ambush in Nuristan province
left two other officers dead. Four militants were also killed in the
clash, which occurred in the remote Kamdesh district. 2 Afghan
civilians were killed in Kunar province after speeding toward a
checkpoint without stopping. In Paktika province, a "suspicious" man
was shot and killed after being asked to halt. A suicide car bomber
attacked an American military convoy on the road to Kabul's airport,
killing a US soldier and four Afghans. In the south, in Uruzgan
province, Taliban fighters attacked an Afghan security company
guarding a road construction project, killing five of the security
guards. In Helmand province's Gereshk district, a roadside bomb
explosion killed a policeman.
(AP, 10/6/07)(AFP, 10/7/07)(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 6, The Stirling Prize,
Britain's most prestigious architecture prize, was awarded to
Germany's Museum of Modern Literature. The classically influenced
building designed by David Chipperfield Architects, opened last year
in Marbach, southwest Germany.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 6, In London the New
Economics Foundation think-tank said the world moved today into
"ecological overdraft," the point at which human consumption exceeds
the ability of the earth to sustain it in any year and goes into the
red. If everyone in the world had the same consumption rates as in
the US it would take 5.3 planet earths to support them, NEF said,
noting that the figure was 3.1 for France and Britain, 3.0 for
Spain, 2.5 for Germany and 2.4 for Japan.
(Reuters, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 6, Jason Lewis (40), a
British adventurer, completed a 13-year trip around the world
powered by only his arms and legs. Lewis had begun the journey in
1994 with Steve Smith. The 2 men split after pedaling to Hawaii from
San Francisco. In 2005 Smith authored “Pedaling to Hawaii: A Human
Powered Adventure Across the Western Hemisphere."
(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A24)
2007 Oct 6, In eastern Cuba a
bus collided with a train, killing at least 28 people and injuring
another 73.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 6, Gambia arrested 2
senior Amnesty International officials on suspicion of spying. Tania
Bernath, Amnesty International's deputy director for Africa and an
advocacy officer Ameen Ayobele, were arrested in the eastern town of
Basse after they visited an opposition politician who has been held
in detention for more than a year. Yaya Dath, a journalist with the
country's privately-owned daily Foroyaa, who was traveling with the
London-based Bernath, a British-American national and Ayobele, a
Nigerian, was also arrested. All 3 were released on bail on Oct 8.
(AFP, 10/8/07)(AFP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 6, Radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and chief rival, Abdelaziz Hakim, reached a
truce to end bloodshed between their loyalists. The decapitated
bodies of two members of an awakening council in Iskandariyah, south
of Baghdad, were found. Both were Sunnis. In Baghdad a US soldier
was killed and three others were wounded by a roadside bombing while
they were taking part in a raid against suspected insurgents in the
capital.
(AP, 10/6/07)(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A20)
2007 Oct 6, In western Kenya
Stanley Livindo, a ruling party candidate for parliament, was
arrested after his bodyguards allegedly shot and killed a supporter
of Kenya's largest opposition party and injured two others. The
shootings came as tens of thousands of people rallied in the capital
to kick off the presidential campaign of Raila Odinga, who has
mounted a serious challenge to President Mwai Kibaki in December
general elections.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 6, Myanmar's junta
tried to cool growing UN pressure over its deadly crackdown on
peaceful protests, offering talks with democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, and relaxing its blockage of the Internet. A day of global
protests against Myanmar's junta began in cities across Asia, after
the military regime admitted detaining hundreds of Buddhist monks
when troops turned their guns on pro-democracy demonstrators last
week.
(AFP, 10/6/07)(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 6, Pakistan's Gen.
Pervez Musharraf swept the presidential election, according to
unofficial results, but the Supreme Court could still disqualify the
military leader in the vote boycotted by nearly all of Pakistan's
opposition. Opposition parties resigned from the parliaments and
members of Miss Bhutto’s party abstained from the vote.
(AP, 10/6/07)(Econ, 10/13/07, p.17)
2007 Oct 6, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin said former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will be
appointed head of the country's foreign intelligence service.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 6, A Saudi newspaper
said the Saudi Arabian government will temporarily release 55
prisoners recently transferred from the US military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and will give each of them about $2,600 to
celebrate the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 6, A UN inspection
team found the Darfur town of Haskanita, under the control of
Sudanese troops, burned down. The destruction of the town was in
apparent retaliation for the Sep 29 rebel attack on an African Union
peacekeeping base in which 10 AU troops were killed. 7,000 residents
were forced to flee the area.
(Reuters, 10/7/07)(WSJ, 10/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 6, Typhoon Krosa
lashed Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rains, cutting power to
nearly half a million homes and disrupting air and sea traffic.
Krosa killed five people in Taiwan as it knocked out power to 2
million homes and drenched the island.
(AP, 10/6/07)(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 6, In Vietnam floods
and landslides followed Typhoon Lekima and killed at least 86 people
with many missing and some villages cut off and inundated by water.
(Reuters, 10/6/07)(AP, 10/7/07)(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 7, Chad Schieber (35),
a Michigan police officer, died and dozens of others needed medical
care while running the Chicago Marathon as record heat and
smothering humidity forced race organizers to shut down the course
midway through the event. Kenya's Patrick Ivuti won the Chicago
Marathon by a fraction of a second; an additional 250 runners were
taken to hospitals because of heat-related ailments.
(AP, 10/8/07)(AP, 10/7/08)
2007 Oct 7, In Crandon,
Wisconsin, Tyler Peterson (20), an off-duty sheriff's deputy, killed
six young people and critically wounded another, before he was shot
to death, during a homecoming weekend gathering. Relatives of the
victims said the rampage may have been fueled by a romantic dispute.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, A Cessna 208 Grand
Caravan crashed in the Cascade Mountains after it left Star, Idaho,
near Boise, en route to Shelton, Wash., northwest of Olympia. 9
skydivers and the pilot were killed. Searchers found the wreckage
the next day.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 7, Douglas Yearley
(b.1936), former CEO of Phelps Dodge Corp. (1989-2000), died.
(WSJ, 10/13/07, p.A7)(http://tinyurl.com/3ctzg3)
2007 Oct 7, In eastern
Afghanistan 16 militants fighting under a wanted Uzbek warlord with
a $200,000 bounty on his head were killed in airstrikes. Afghanistan
executed 15 inmates by gunfire at its main prison outside Kabul,
carrying out the death penalty for the first time in more than three
years.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, Tropical storm
Krosa drenched China's southeast coast after killing five people on
Taiwan and prompting the mainland to evacuate more than 1 million
people.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, President of
Ichkeria Dokka Umarov abolished the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and
its presidency and proclaimed an Emirate in the Caucasus, an
al-Qaida-linked insurgency, declaring himself its Emir.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Emirate)(Econ, 7/4/15, p.42)
2007 Oct 7, Costa Ricans
appeared to narrowly vote in favor of joining the Central American
Free Trade Agreement with the US, and President Oscar Arias declared
victory for the pact.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, Thousands of angry
demonstrators destroyed the regional headquarters of Egypt's ruling
party in El Arish, demanding government protection from lawlessness
after a downtown shootout between Bedouin tribesmen and local
residents.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Paris, France,
intruders, apparently drunk, broke into the Orsay Museum through a
back door and punched a hole in "Le Pont d'Argenteuil," a renowned
work by Impressionist painter Claude Monet.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, Irakly Okruashvili,
Georgia's former defense minister, retracted allegations that the
president of this former Soviet republic was involved in a murder
plot and other corruption. Okruashvili's lawyer, Eka Beselia, said
the statements "were made under duress."
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, Thousands of people
marched through Hong Kong's streets to demand the right to pick
their city's leader and legislature and hoisted yellow umbrellas to
form the year 2012, their target year for full democracy.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Budapest,
Hungary, Yu Nakajima of Japan (16) took the top prize at the Rubik's
Cube World Championships, solving the cube 5 times in an average of
12.46 seconds.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Baghdad bombings
killed at least nine Iraqis in three separate attacks, including one
near Iran's embassy.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, Myanmar's military
leaders stepped up pressure on monks who spearheaded pro-democracy
rallies, saying that weapons had been seized from Buddhist
monasteries and threatening to punish all violators of the law.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, In northwest
Pakistan 2 suspected al-Qaida fighters and a dozen villagers were
among about 80 people killed in fierce fighting between soldiers and
militants. The early morning operation was launched in retaliation
for overnight attacks by extremists on two military convoys in the
region that left two soldiers dead and another 30 wounded.
(AFP, 10/7/07)(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, Rami Khader Ayyad
(32), a prominent Palestinian Christian activist, was found dead on
a Gaza City street, sending a shudder of fear through a tiny
Christian community feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic
Hamas seized control last summer. He bore a visible gunshot wound to
the head and was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing
since the previous afternoon.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, Qatar's Diar real
estate investment company announced it has agreed to buy phase two
of the Grosvenor Waterside residential development in the upmarket
London district of Chelsea.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, Serbian police
detained 56 neo-Nazis who defied a ban and demonstrated to demand
the contested province of Kosovo remain part of the Serbia.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 7, Sri Lanka's navy
sank a ship carrying arms and war equipment for separatist Tamil
Tiger rebels, killing at least 12 people on board. Meanwhile, eight
rebels and a government soldier were reported killed in other recent
clashes.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, Kurdish rebels
killed 13 Turkish soldiers in a clash in the country's southeast,
and troops responded by shelling an area near Iraq to try to stop
the rebels from escaping across the border.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 8, Two American
scientists and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on for
groundbreaking discoveries that led to a powerful technique for
manipulating mouse genes. Mario R. Capecchi (70) of the University
of Utah in Salt Lake City; Oliver Smithies (82) a native of Britain
now at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Sir Martin
J. Evans (66) of Cardiff University in Wales shared the prize.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Michael
Devlin was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping one of two
boys he'd held captive in his suburban St. Louis apartment. Devlin
later pleaded guilty to dozens of other counts, resulting in a total
of 74 life sentences.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2007 Oct 8, Thad Starr of
Pleasant Hill, Oregon, won the 34th annual pumpkin competition in
Half Moon Bay with his 1,524 pound squash. The world record was set
this year by Joe Jutras of Rhode Island with a 1,689-pound squash.
(SFC, 10/9/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 8, Vonage Holdings
Corp. settled a patent suit filed by Sprint Nextel Corp. for $80
million.
(SFC, 10/9/07, p.D3)
2007 Oct 8, Racing great
John Henry, the thoroughbred who'd earned more than $6.5 million
before retiring as a gelding, was euthanized at the Kentucky Horse
Park at age 32.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2007 Oct 8, Australia suffered
its first combat fatality in the war on terror when a soldier was
killed in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, PM Gordon Brown
said that Britain will cut its troop levels in Iraq to 2,500 in
early 2008, trimming the force by nearly half. Britain ended up
postponing the withdrawal amid a spike in militia violence.
(AP, 10/8/07)(AP, 10/8/08)
2007 Oct 8, British postal
workers started a second 48-hour strike as a dispute over pay and
restructuring remained unresolved.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, In Colombia a plane
carrying 15 soldiers and three civilians disappeared. The wreckage
was spotted Oct 11 high in the Andes and the armed forces chief said
there was no chance of survivors.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 8, In Guatemala City
the security guard and secretary of Otto Perez, the leading
presidential candidate, were shot and killed. Perez blamed organized
crime.
(SFC, 10/9/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 8, The UN's highest
court in the Hague granted Honduras sovereignty over four Caribbean
islands in its decades-old dispute with Nicaragua, and carved up
rich fishing grounds and offshore exploration concessions for oil
and gas. Nicaragua filed the case in 1999, saying international law
gave it the right to "explore and exploit" natural resources,
including possible oil reserves and fish stocks within a zone 200
miles from its coast. Honduras claimed that a ruling by the Spanish
king in 1906 set a boundary projecting eastward along the 15th
parallel from the mouth of the Coco River.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, One of the rarest
gems in the world, a flawless blue diamond, sold for US$7.98 million
(3.91 million pounds) at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong, making it
the most expensive gemstone in the world, per carat, sold at
auction.
(Reuters, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Iran reopened five
border crossing points with Kurdish-run northern Iraq, closed last
month by Tehran to protest the US detention of an Iranian official.
An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration against
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" and
scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Satoshi Nakamura
(23), a Japanese tourist, was abducted in a restive region of
southeast Iran bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan as he headed from
his hotel for the ancient mud-built citadel of Bam. Nakamura was
released on July 14. A bandit called Esmail Shahbakhsh, blamed for
the kidnapping, had reportedly demanded the release of his arrested
son in exchange for Nakamura.
(AFP, 6/15/08)
2007 Oct 8, An Iraqi report
called for the US government to sever all contracts in Iraq with
Blackwater USA within six months. Iraqi authorities want the firm to
pay $8 million in compensation to families of each of the 17 people
killed when its guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine
gun fire last month. Former Blackwater security guard Nicholas
Slatten and three other guards were later accused in the deaths of
14 Iraqis killed in the traffic circle. On April 8, 2014, a new
indictment was obtained against Slatten weeks after a judge had
dismissed all charges because of statute of limitation concerns.
(AP, 10/9/07)(SFC, 5/10/14, p.A10)
2007 Oct 8, Police in Mexico
City arrested Jose Luis Calva, an aspiring horror novelist, after
discovering his girlfriend's torso in his closet, a leg in the
refrigerator and bones in a cereal box. Police had come to Calva's
apartment to investigate the disappearance of his girlfriend,
Alejandra Galeana, a 30-year-old pharmacy clerk and single mother.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 8, A consortium of
Belgian, Scotch and Spanish banks announced that shareholders of ABN
AMRO, a Dutch bank, had accepted a $101 billion offer in the world’s
biggest banking transaction ever.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.17)
2007 Oct 8, Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf installed a loyalist and former spymaster as deputy
army chief, handpicking his successor as leader of the military in a
key step to restoring civilian rule. One of three helicopters
escorting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf crashed in Pakistan's
portion of Kashmir, killing four passengers and injuring five.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Mogadishu Mayor
Mohamed Dheere ordered Somalia's Elman Human Rights, an independent
rights group, to close its offices. The group was accused of
spreading "exaggerated and false information" about the country's
fragile government.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Oct 8, Sudan said it will
host hundreds of Palestinian refugees who have been stranded in
terrible conditions on Iraq's border with Syria and Jordan.
(Reuters, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Sudanese government
troops and allied militia attacked a town belonging to the only
Darfur rebel faction to sign a 2006 peace deal. The assault killed
at least 45 people in the Darfur town of Muhajiriya, where bodies
littered the streets amid burned out buildings. The Sudan Liberation
Army (SLA) said five SLA soldiers were killed and eight injured. A
key Darfur rebel leader accused the Sudanese army of burning
Haskanita in the troubled region, killing up to 100 people in
retaliation for an attack on African Union troops.
(Reuters, 10/8/07)(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, The US Supreme
Court rejected without comment an appeal from Khaled el-Masri, a
German citizen of Lebanese descent, who claims he was abducted and
tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration
arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were
allowed to proceed.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Texas Ronald
Taylor (47), who spent a dozen years in prison for a rape he didn't
commit, was freed based on DNA evidence. He became the third inmate
to be released because of problems with the Houston Police
Department's crime lab.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, A Maui judge said
he would not allow the Hawaii Superferry to sail between Honolulu
and Kahului while the state studies the environmental impact of
interisland service.
(SFC, 10/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 9, American Electric
Power (AEP) of Columbus, Ohio, accused of spreading smog and acid
rain across a dozen states, agreed to pay at least $4.6 billion to
cut chemical emissions in what the government called the nation's
largest environmental settlement.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Two European
scientists won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for a discovery that
lets computers, iPods and other digital devices store reams of data
on ever-shrinking hard disks. France's Albert Fert and German Peter
Gruenberg independently described giant magnetoresistance in 1988,
then saw the electronics industry apply it in disks with incredible
amounts of storage.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Brewers SABMiller
and Molson Coors Brewing said they have agreed to combine their US
operations to create a business that will have annual sales of $6.6
billion and be the second-biggest market player behind
Anheuser-Busch.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Carol Bruce
(b.1919), singer, Broadway star, and film and TV actress, died in
Woodland Hills, Calif.
(AP,
10/9/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Bruce)
2007 Oct 9, Afghan authorities
shut down two private security companies and said more than 10
others, some suspected of murder and robbery, would soon be closed.
In Kabul 82 illegal weapons had been found during the two raids at
the Afghan-run security companies Watan and Caps.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Argentina former
police chaplain Christian von Wernich was found guilty of being a
"co-participant" with police in seven homicides, 31 torture cases
and 42 kidnappings, ending a trial that has focused attention on the
church during the 1976-83 military rule.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 9, Australia's third
richest man, cardboard box billionaire Richard Pratt, apologized for
forming a price-fixing cartel with his main rival Amcor.
(AFP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Britain’s Labor
Party announce a decision to raise capital gains taxes to a flat 18%
from an effective 10% on most business assets as of April 2008.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/37mapa)
2007 Oct 9, In Canada the
Conservatives swept to an easy victory in Newfoundland and Labrador,
with voters giving a thumbs up to the province-first policies of
populist Premier Danny Williams.
(Reuters, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 9, The Ethiopian
parliament reelected President Girma Wolde-Giorgis for a new
six-year-term to his largely ceremonial post.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Iceland Yoko Ono
urged the world to give peace a chance as she unveiled a monument in
memory of her husband, former Beatle John Lennon (d.1980). Ono lit
up the Imagine Peace Tower on Videy island near the capital's harbor
on what would have been Lennon's 67th birthday.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Two suicide car
bombers targeted a local police chief and a prominent Sunni sheik
working with US forces against al-Qaida in Iraq in Beiji, killing at
least 19 people. Three car bombs in Baghdad killed 15 people,
including eight who died in an attack near the Shiite Khulani
mosque. Drive-by shooters killed the deputy police chief in Mosul. A
roadside bomb ripped through and outdoor market near a bus station
in Jisr Diyala on Baghdad's southeastern outskirts, killing two
civilians and wounding 10 others. The bullet-riddled bodies of three
men in their 30s also were found on a highway in Hillah, apparent
victims of so-called sectarian death squads largely run by Shiite
militias. At least 42 people were killed or found dead across Iraq.
Foreign security guards killed two Armenian Christian women when
they opened fire on a car in the center of Baghdad. Iraqi
authorities blamed the deaths on guards working for Unity Resources
Group, a security company owned by Australian partners but with
headquarters in the United Arab Emirates. The US military said nine
insurgents were killed and 21 suspects detained during operations
Oct 8-9 near Baghdad, Mosul, Beiji and Samarra.
(AP, 10/9/07)(AFP, 10/9/07)(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 9, Japan's Cabinet
approved plans to extend economic sanctions against North Korea,
despite the communist state's agreement to disable its main nuclear
complex by year's end.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Airstrikes hit a
village bazaar in North Waziristan tribal region, killing more than
50 militants and civilians and wounding scores more. Pakistan’s army
said fierce fighting between Islamic militants and security forces
near the Afghan border has killed as many as 250 people over four
days.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Puerto Rico
animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing
projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them to their deaths
from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja. Mayor Sol Luis
Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter.
In 2008 a Puerto Rican judge found a contractor and two of his
workers not guilty of animal cruelty due to lack of evidence.
International anger led more than 50,000 people worldwide to sign a
petition threatening to boycott travel to the Caribbean island.
Tourism officials estimated Puerto Rico lost more than $15 million
as a result.
(AP, 10/13/07)(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/16/10)
2007 Oct 9, Alexander
Pichushkin (33), a Russian man accused of murdering 49 people, asked
a Moscow court to add another eleven victims to his tally, and told
a jury when he first strangled a man it was like falling in love for
the first time. He has been branded the 'chessboard murderer' by
Russian newspapers because he hoped to put a coin on every square of
a 64-place chessboard for each murder.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Sierra Leone a
UN-backed court sentenced Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa, two
former leaders of a pro-government militia, to six and eight years
in prison for brutalities committed during Sierra Leone's civil war
(1991-2002).
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, The impoverished
Nama tribe won back diamond-rich land confiscated by a government
mining company more than 80 years ago, ending South Africa's longest
running court case. The Nama had lodged their claim to the coastal
plain in 1997.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 9, A car bomb exploded
in the northern city of Bilbao in Spain's Basque Country, badly
burning a man who worked as a bodyguard for a local politician.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, Turkish PM Tayyip
Erdogan gave the green light for a possible military incursion into
northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels hiding there after several
deadly attacks on Turkish security forces.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 10, The US House
Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27-21 to label as genocide the
deaths of Armenians a century ago at the end of the Ottoman Empire.
The Bush administration planned to pressure Democratic leaders not
to schedule a vote, though it is expected to pass.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed a law termination investment by the state’s
pension funds in companies doing business with Iran. He also signed
a bill that will give California motorists fines of up to $100 next
year if they are caught smoking in cars with minors, making their
state the third to protect children in vehicles from secondhand
smoke.
(AP, 10/11/07)(Econ, 10/20/07, p.42)
2007 Oct 10, Robert Levy (64),
mayor of Atlantic City, NJ, resigned. He had gone missing for 2
weeks after being accused of lying about his military record.
(SFC, 10/11/07, p.A6)
2007 Oct 10, Boeing Co. said
its new 787 Dreamliner faces a delay of at least 6 months.
Executives said the first plane would be delivered in late Nov. or
Dec., 2008, rather than May.
(WSJ, 10/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 10, Thousands of
Chrysler LLC autoworkers walked off the job after the automaker and
the United Auto Workers union failed to reach a tentative contract
agreement before a union-imposed deadline. Hours later negotiators
reached a tentative agreement.
(AP, 10/10/07)(WSJ, 10/11/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 10, In Cleveland,
Ohio, Asa H. Coon (14), armed with two revolvers, opened fire at the
SuccessTech Academy alternative school, wounding two students and
two teachers before fatally shooting himself. He had a history of
mental problems and was known for cursing at teachers and bickering
with students. Coon, who was white, stood out in the predominantly
black school for dressing in a Goth style, wearing a black trench
coat, black boots, a dog collar and chains.
(AP, 10/11/07)(SFC, 10/11/07, p.A6)
2007 Oct 10, James Robbins
(1942), former CEO of Cox Communications (1995-2005), died of
cancer.
(WSJ, 10/13/07, p.A7)
2007 Oct 10, Gerhard Ertl of
Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies of
chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding
questions like how pollution eats away at the ozone layer.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, Rudolf
Blechschmidt, a German engineer, and four Afghans taken hostage on
July 18 were freed in exchange for six Taliban fighters. Wardak
province district chief Mohammad Nahim later changed his statement
saying five imprisoned criminals had been freed. NATO-led and Afghan
troops clashed overnight with Taliban fighters in southern
Afghanistan, leaving eight suspected militants dead and three
detained.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, The African Union
imposed sanctions on leaders of the rebellious Comoro island of
Anjouan in a bid to coerce them into holding fresh elections.
(AFP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, Austrian
authorities arrested a Turkish-born man (76) suspected of fatally
shooting a younger Turkish associate (58) and slicing off the
victim's penis in what investigators called an "honor killing."
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, Ministers from
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine signed a deal to
build an oil pipeline linking the Black and Baltic seas.
(WSJ, 10/11/07, p.A18)
2007 Oct 10, Brazil's Supreme
Court denied a Lebanese request to extradite a fugitive banker
accused of a multimillion-dollar bank fraud and wanted for
questioning in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri. Rana Koleilat was given eight days to leave the
country once her passport is returned. She was jailed on fraud
charges in Lebanon in 2004, but fled the country. She was arrested
in Sao Paulo on March 12, 2006.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 10, In Brazil a truck
coming down a hill plowed into rescue workers and gawkers at the
site of an earlier collision, a double accident that killed least 28
people and injured 90.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, Ontario's Liberal
Party won a second term heading Canada's most populous province.
(Reuters, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, Some 30 Tibetan
exiles protesting Chinese religious policies stormed the Chinese
Embassy in New Delhi, with several breaching the front gate and
chaining themselves to the flag pole inside.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, In Colombia police
clashed with hundreds of protesters who blocked roads and burned
trucks in demonstrations called by unions, farmers and indigenous
groups who accuse the government of ties to right-wing militias.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, A roadside bomb
targeted a US military convoy in Baghdad, killing an Iraqi bystander
and wounding three others. In northern Iraq, a suicide bomber
slammed his minibus into blast walls at the offices of a key Kurdish
political party, killing a party official and a guard, and wounding
five other guards. A parked car bomb exploded near a market in
Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, killing a
policeman and a civilian, and wounding another policeman and three
civilians. Two Americans soldiers killed in a mortar attack at Camp
Victory and 35 other people were wounded.
(AP, 10/9/07)(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 10, Police in Japan
arrested Kazunari Saito (33), who ran an Internet suicide site, for
allegedly killing a woman who paid him to do so. He allegedly gave
Sayaka Nishizawa (21) sleeping pills and suffocated her in April.
Nishizawa had contacted the suspect through an Internet suicide site
he hosted and paid him $1,700.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, A Myanmar exile
group, made up of former political prisoners, said authorities had
recently informed the family of Win Shwe (42), that he had died
during interrogation in the central Myanmar region of Sagaing. He
and five colleagues were arrested on Sept. 26. The Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners said that at least seven people
have been arrested in the past two days in Yangon, including Hla Myo
Naung (39), a leader of the '88 Generation Students.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, A Nigerian
electoral court annulled the election of Ibrahim Idris, the governor
of the central Kogi State, following a complaint by his opponent,
Abubakar Audu, that he had been unfairly excluded from the April
vote.
(AFP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, Police in the
eastern Polish town of Kazimierz Dolny pushed their way into a
convent and evicted about 65 rebellious ex-nuns, arresting the
mother superior and a monk who had occupied the complex with them
illegally for two years. The women had taken over the building in a
rebellion against the Vatican, which had ordered the replacement of
their mother superior, Jadwiga Ligocka.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, A spokeswoman for
Other Russia said Russian electoral officials have barred the vocal
opposition alliance from participating in December parliamentary
elections. Election commission chief Vladimir Churov said Other
Russia was barred because it was not registered as a political
party.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, A Russian rocket
blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur launch pad, carrying 3
astronauts to the international space station. Sheikh Muszaphar
Shukor, an orthopedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala
Lumpur, left Earth alongside Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and
American astronaut Peggy Whitson. Shukor was selected from among
11,000 Malaysian candidates to fly aboard the ISS in a deal his
government arranged with Russia as part of a $1 billion purchase of
Russian fighter jets. Whitson will be the first woman to command the
outpost.
(Reuters, 9/20/07)(AP, 10/10/07)(SFC, 10/11/07,
p.A8)
2007 Oct 10, The criminal court
in Rwanda’s southern Rusizi district handed down a life sentence to
Emmanuel Bagambiki, now living in Belgium, who was governor of
Cyangugu during the 1994 genocide. The International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had acquitted him on war crimes and
genocide charges in February 2004, confirming the ruling on appeal
in February 2006.
(AFP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, Two suspects were
remanded in custody by a South African court in connection with the
murders of ten women whose bodies were found dumped in sugarcane
fields.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, Taiwan held a
National Day military parade for the first time since it halted such
displays of war-fighting prowess in 1991 to ease tensions with rival
China.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, It was reported
that Turkey had begun shelling suspected Kurdish rebel camps across
the border in northern Iraq. The government appeared unlikely to
move toward sending ground troops until next week.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, Zimbabwe said it
will import 30,000 tons of wheat from its neighbors in a bid to ease
widespread bread shortages of bread. The human rights group Women of
Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) said Zimbabwean security forces routinely
torture and sexually abuse women opposed to President Robert
Mugabe's government.
(AFP, 10/10/07)(Reuters, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 11, The Bush
administration reported that the federal budget deficit had fallen
to $162.8 billion in the just-completed budget year, the lowest
amount of red ink in five years.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2007 Oct 11, The environmental
group U.S. PIRG reported that over half of all industrial and
municipal facilities across the US dumped more sewage and other
pollutants in the nation’s waterways than allowed under the 1972
Clean Water Act.
(SFC, 10/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 11, Campaign for Safe
Cosmetics, a US consumer rights group, said more than half the
lipsticks it had tested were found to contain lead and some popular
brands including Cover Girl, L'Oreal and Christian Dior had more
lead than others.
(Reuters, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Cold
medicines for babies and toddlers were pulled off shelves amid
concerns about unintentional overdoses.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2007 Oct 11, Sri Chinmoy
(b.1931), Indian-born spiritual leader, died in Jamaica, Queens,
NYC. He had emigrated to NYC in 1964.
(SSFC, 10/14/07, p.B6)
2007 Oct 11, Doris Lessing,
British author of dozens of works from short stories to science
fiction, including the classic "The Golden Notebook," won the Nobel
Prize for literature. She was praised by the judges for her
"skepticism, fire and visionary power."
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Werner von Trapp
(91), a member of the Austrian family made famous by the musical
"The Sound of Music," died in Waitsfield, Vt.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2007 Oct 11, The Canadian
dollar hit a three-decade high versus the US dollar as the greenback
remained under broad selling pressure due to expectations of more
Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
(Reuters, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Rebel leader
Laurent Nkunda in eastern Congo called for a cease-fire as the army
said the death toll from five days of clashes had risen to 122.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, In India 2
worshippers were killed and nearly a dozen injured in a bomb attack
near a revered Islamic shrine in the northern state of Rajasthan. A
bus carrying Hindu pilgrims fell into a river in a remote part of
northern India, killing at least 41 people.
(AFP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Clashes between
suspected al-Qaida gunmen and police at checkpoints near Baqouba
killed at least one officer and wounded two others. East of Baqouba,
suspected al-Qaida gunmen took control overnight of 5 Sunni
villages, killing 6 people. Gunmen killed 5 Iraqi civilians and
wounded four in a morning attack on a minibus making its way from
Khalis to Kirkuk. An ophthalmologist, the son of the local head of
the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, was shot to death in Mosul. Six main
Iraqi insurgent groups announced the formation of a "political
council" aimed at "liberating" Iraq from US occupation in a video on
Al-Jazeera television. A US ground and air assault targeting
al-Qaida in Iraq northwest of Baghdad killed 15 civilians, six women
and nine children, as well as 19 suspected insurgents.
(AP, 10/11/07)(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 11, A World Health
Organization official said 69 children in northern Nigeria
contracted polio following vaccination against the disease. Peter
Eriki indicated that around 10 percent of the Nigerian population
has dodged the vaccination campaign. The new outbreak was caused by
the mutation of a vaccine's virus.
(AFP, 10/12/07)(AP, 8/14/09)
2007 Oct 11, A suicide bomber
in Somalia drove a pickup filled with explosives into an army base
killing himself and 2 other people.
(WSJ, 10/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 11, South Africa's
central bank chief Tito Mboweni announced the key lending rate is to
increase by half a percentage point to 10.5% to ward off a threat of
higher inflation.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Southern Sudan's
former rebels suspended participation in the central government,
accusing it of failing to abide by a peace deal in a dispute that
threatens a rare success in the troubled nation.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Turkey swiftly
condemned a US House panel's approval of a bill describing the World
War I-era mass killings of Armenians as genocide, and newspapers
blasted the measure on their front pages. Turkey also recalled its
ambassador to Washington and warned of serious repercussions if
Congress labels the killing of Armenians by Turks a century ago as
genocide.
(AP, 10/11/07)(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 11, Pope Benedict XVI
appealed to South Koreans' "inherent moral sensibility" to reject
embryonic stem cell research and human cloning after the country
decided to let embryonic stem cell research resume.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Eleven of
Zimbabwe's last remaining white farmers lost a bid to stay on their
farms while appealing the orders and are to be tried for defying
government eviction notices.
(AFP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 12, Former Vice
President Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for spreading awareness of
man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting
it.
(AP, 10/12/07)(SFC, 10/13/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 12, The US FDA
approved Isentress, a new drug by Merck to fight AIDS. Raltegravir,
its generic name, represented a new class of AIDS drugs known as
integrase inhibitors.
(SFC, 10/13/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 12, Two men were
sentenced to prison in the first successful criminal prosecution
under the CAN-SPAM Act. James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley,
Arizona, and Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, California, were
convicted in June of fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and
obscenity. Last week, the judge in the case sentenced Schaffer to 63
months and Kilbride to 72 months in federal prison.
(www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=1000096UTGDC)
2007 Oct 12, In Norristown,
Pa., Michele Cossey (46), the mother of a 14-year-old who
authorities say had a cache of guns, knives and explosive devices in
his bedroom for a possible school attack, was charged with buying
her son 3 weapons. Authorities said the teenager felt bullied and
tried to recruit another boy for a possible attack at Plymouth
Whitemarsh High School.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, A consortium
headed by Richard Branson and his Virgin Group Ltd. submitted a
proposal to Northern Rock PLC for an equity swap that would see the
struggling mortgage lender rebranded as Virgin Money.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, In southern
California 28 commercial vehicles and one passenger vehicle were
involved in the crash in the southbound truck tunnel of Interstate 5
that killed three people and injured at least 10.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 12, In Algeria a
police officer was assassinated in one of two attacks in the
northern Tizi Ouzou region. At about the same time, five soldiers
were injured when Islamists fired at a military checkpoint near the
neighbouring town of Boghni.
(AFP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 12, State media said
Chinese authorities plan to move some 4 million more rural residents
from behind the Three Gorges Dam in recognition of environmental and
economic problems spawned by the giant project.
(AFP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, In Costa Rica
heavy rains caused a landslide that killed 10 people.
(WSJ, 10/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 12, Half of Germany's
commuter and regional trains were brought to a standstill by a train
drivers' pay strike that caused chaos in many major cities.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, In Haiti a
rain-swollen river flooded a town killing at least 20 people.
(WSJ, 10/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 12, The government of
India, under pressure from opposition, indicated that that they wold
rather shelve a nuclear energy deal with the US rather than risk a
general election.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.51)
2007 Oct 12, A parked car bomb
went off near a police patrol in a central Baghdad shopping
district, killing four people, including two policemen, as Iraq's
Sunnis began marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday that ends the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan. In northern Iraq, a bomb planted among toys
in a cart left near a children's playground in the religiously mixed
city of Tuz Khormato, killing 2 children and wounding 17 others.
(AP, 10/12/07)(Reuters, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, In Mexico more
than 1,000 police officers in riot gear blocked street vendors from
setting up stands selling knockoff purses and pirated DVDs, clearing
Mexico City's clogged historic center for the first time in more
than a decade.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 12, Myanmar PM Gen.
Soe Win (59), reviled for his role in a bloody attack on opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers in 2003, died after a long
illness. Myanmar's military junta rejected a UN statement calling
for negotiations with the opposition, insisting that it would follow
its own plan to bring democracy to the country.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, The Netherlands
said it will ban the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms, rolling back
one element of the country's permissive drug policy after a teenager
on a school visit jumped to her death after taking the narcotic.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, Pakistan’s Supreme
Court refused to suspend a corruption amnesty for former PM Benazir
Bhutto but injected uncertainty into Pakistan's turbulent politics
by saying the law was reversible.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 12, In central South
Africa the Oerlikon GDF-005, a German-made computer-controlled
anti-aircraft gun, went haywire during a training exercise killing 9
South African soldiers and wounding 14 others.
(AP,
10/12/07)(http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki.html)
2007 Oct 12, The Zimbabwean
government authorized new increases in the prices of basis
foodstuffs in a bid to ease widespread shortages that followed an
order for retailers to halve their tariffs. The government allowed
bakers to increase the price of a loaf of bread by more than 200
percent, as shortages persisted across the country.
(AP, 10/12/07)(AFP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 13, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, after meeting with human-rights activists in
Moscow, told reporters the Russian government under Vladimir Putin
had amassed so much central authority that the power-grab could
undermine its commitment to democracy.
(AP, 10/13/08)
2007 Oct 13, In San Leandro,
Ca., Greg Ballard Jr. (17), was shot to death on the 9200 block of
Sunnyside Street in East Oakland. Authorities identified suspect
Dwayne Stancill (19), a gang member and son of a police detective,
with the help of his picture on the gang’s MySpace page. In 2010
Stancill was convicted of 2nd degree murder.
(SFC, 10/25/07, p.B3)(SFC, 2/11/10, p.C2)
2007 Oct 13, A suicide bomber
on a motorbike detonated his explosives in a crowded marketplace
near Afghan police, killing nine people and injuring at least 29.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 13, Some 130 Muslim
scholars from most of the world’s Islamic nations issued an
inter-religious initiative calling for a strategic dialogue with
Christian leaders.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.65)
2007 Oct 13, In Algeria 4 armed
Islamists were killed by security forces near the town of Thenia,
about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Algiers.
(AFP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 13, In southern
Bangladesh 5 rear carriages of an overcrowded express train jumped
their tracks, killing at least five passengers and injuring more
than 100 others.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 13, Belgian Countess
Andree De Jongh (90), who set up an escape route that helped
hundreds of British airmen flee the Nazi occupation of Belgium
during World War II, died. De Jongh, a female nurse in a men's world
of war resistance, helped found the Comet Line escape route while
still in 1940. By the time she was arrested in 1943, she had already
brought 118 people, including 80 downed pilots to safety.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 13, State media said
China plans to carve a huge national park out of its vast northwest
Xinjiang region that would eclipse Yellowstone National Park in
size.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 13, In Colombia a
landslide triggered by local residents digging for rumored deposits
of gold in an abandoned mine near Suarez killed at least 21 people
and injured another 26.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 13, Bob Denard (78), a
French former mercenary who staged coups and led uprisings across
Africa and the Middle East, died in Paris.
(AFP, 10/14/07)(Econ, 10/20/07, p.119)
2007 Oct 13, In Honduras 3
children and a woman were killed when their boat capsized, raising
to 21 the death toll from days of torrential rains that have driven
thousands from their homes across Central America.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 13, The police
commander in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk escaped an assassination
attempt, although the roadside bomb targeting his convoy killed one
of his guards and wounded three others, along with one bystander.
Police fatally shot a suicide bomber but his explosives-laden fuel
tanker blew up near Samarra's police headquarters, killing 18 and
wounding 27 others. Two Catholic priests were kidnapped on their way
home from a funeral Mosul. The priests were released the next day.
(AP, 10/13/07)(AP, 10/14/07)(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 13, Amnesty
International said 4 prominent political activists were arrested in
Myanmar as the ruling junta kept up its crackdown on pro-democracy
protesters.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 13, Dutch police
arrested 11 Greenpeace activists who boarded a cargo ship to stop it
unloading newsprint paper they suspected was made from ancient trees
felled in Canadian forests.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 13, In southern
Thailand 6 European tourists and their two Thai guides died when a
flash flood engulfed a cave they were exploring.
(AFP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 13, At least 15 people
were killed in a natural gas blast that partly destroyed an
apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk.
(AFP, 10/13/07)(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 14, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice opened an intense round of Mideast shuttle
diplomacy.
(AP, 10/14/08)
2007 Oct 14, In California Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed legislation banning toys that contain toxic
plastic softeners, i.e. phthalates, becoming the first state in the
US to do so.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 14, In southern
Afghanistan a mother who tried to stop her son from carrying out a
suicide bomb attack triggered an explosion in the family's home that
killed the would-be bomber, his mother and three siblings.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 14, In Canada Robert
Dziekanski (b.1967) died after being tasered five times by the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) at Vancouver International Airport
hours after he had arrived from Poland as a new immigrant. In 2010
the RCMP apologized as part of an out-of-court settlement with the
mother of Dziekanski.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_incident)(AP,
4/2/10)
2007 Oct 14, In Egypt at least
six people drowned and 15 others were reported missing after the
gangplank on their Nile ferry collapsed.
(AFP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 14, In a northern
Indian an explosion ripped through a crowded cinema, killing at
least five people in the industrial city of Ludhiana. The area
around the Shingar Cinema has a large Muslim population. At least 12
Hindu devotees were trampled to death on a narrow path crowded by
thousands heading to a temple in western India. Another eight people
were injured.
(Reuters, 10/14/07)(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 14, A parked car bomb
struck worshippers heading to a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing at
least 10 people with 18 injured as Iraqis celebrated the end of
Ramadan. An Iraqi soldier was killed and four others were wounded
when a roadside bomb targeted their patrol in Khan Bani Saad, just
northeast of Baghdad. Near the southern town of Hilla, a police
officer was fatally shot by gunmen from a speeding car. Salih Saif
Aldin (32), an Iraqi journalist who was shot while on assignment for
The Washington Post in Baghdad. A US soldier died from a roadside
bomb during combat operations in southern Baghdad.
(AP, 10/14/07)(SFC, 10/15/07, p.A14)
2007 Oct 14, In Italy
projections showed Rome's mayor overwhelmingly winning a nationwide
primary to become the leader of a new center-left party and the
probable candidate for premier against conservative billionaire
Silvio Berlusconi in the next general election.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 14, Myanmar's ruling
junta restored Internet access but kept foreign news sites blocked,
partially easing its crackdown as a UN envoy headed to Asia to
convey the world's demands for democratic reforms in the country.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 14, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh arrived in the Nigerian capital Abuja in the first state visit
by an Indian premier to the oil-rich west African state in 45 years.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 14, Serb and Kosovo
Albanian officials agreed on a new round of talks later this month
to try to break a deadlock over the future of the breakaway Serb
province.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 14, Former rebels from
south Sudan delivered a letter to Khartoum detailing their demands
for resolving a crisis sparked by the southerners' pullout from the
unity government.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 14, Togolese voted in
legislative elections that no opposition members boycotted for the
first time in nearly a decade, a hopeful sign for democracy in this
West African nation that has been ruled by one family for 40 years.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 14, Opiyo Makasi,
reported to be an operations and logistics commander of Uganda's
Lord's Resistance Army, gave himself up along with his wife and they
were transferred to Kinshasa, DRC. On Oct 25 Congolese authorities
handed him to the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC), which
should prepare his eventual return to Uganda.
(AP, 10/23/07)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 15, It was reported
that 3 of America's biggest banks are banding together to set up an
$80 billion fund to breathe life back into the commercial paper
market. The Treasury Dept. was urging banks to set up a “Master
Liquidity Enhancement Conduit" to buy assets. On Dec 21 the 3
largest US banks gave up on the fund.
(www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/video/embed.asp?id=725)(WSJ, 12/22/07,
p.A1)
2007 Oct 15, Americans Leonid
Hurwicz (d.2008 at 90), Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson won the
Nobel economics prize for developing a theory that helps explain how
sellers and buyers can maximize their gains from a transaction.
(AP, 10/15/07)(SFC, 6/26/08, p.B5)
2007 Oct 15, News Corporation’s
Fox Business Network launched a new cable channel that will focus on
financial markets and global economy news.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec07/fox_10-15.html)
2007 Oct 15, In San Diego, Ca.,
local and federal agents seized over 5,000 trained birds in the
largest cockfighting bust in US history.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.D12)
2007 Oct 15, In North Carolina
Gov. Mike Easley asked residents to stop washing cars and watering
lawns as the Southeast US experienced a severe drought.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 15, Kathleen
Casey-Kirschling became the first baby boomer to make an early
filing for Social Security benefits. Kathleen Casey became the first
official US baby boomer following her January 1, 1946, birth just
after midnight.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 15, Internet addresses
began in 11 languages that do not use the Roman alphabet.
(WSJ, 10/11/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 15, Medtronic Inc.
said it is stopping distribution of wires that connect some of its
defibrillators to patients' hearts after learning they may have
contributed to five deaths.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, Ernest Withers
(b.1922), African American freelance photographer, died. In 2012 the
FBI admitted that had served as an informant, revealing a 14-year
history between the noted civil rights photographer and the agency.
(SFC, 7/5/12,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Withers)
2007 Oct 15, Brazil’s President
Luiz Ignacio Lula Da Silva arrived in the Congolese capital
Brazzaville for a one-day visit, the first by a Brazilian leader to
the African country.
(AFP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 15, In China 2,217
delegates listened as party leader Hu Jintao pledged to make
communist rule more inclusive and better spread the fruits of
China's economic boom. Hu said economic growth must remain the
party’s main task.
(AP, 10/15/07)(WSJ, 10/16/07, p.A1)(Econ,
10/13/07, p.42)
2007 Oct 15, An army minibus
slammed into a water tanker truck in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula,
killing 13 soldiers and the civilian driver.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 15, The EU granted
final approval to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which
removes many restrictions on television product placement. Member
states will have 2 years to adopt the new rules.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/3con6l)
2007 Oct 15, European Union
foreign ministers gave their final approval to deploy a 3,000-strong
EU peacekeeping force for one year to help refugees and displaced
people living along Darfur's borders with Chad and the Central
African Republic.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, Airbus finally
delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet. Singapore Airlines took
delivery of the double-decker jet, the world's largest passenger
plane, almost two years late.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, In Germany Pres.
Putin held talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the
sidelines of a German-Russian political conference called the
Petersburg Dialogue.
(AFP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, Gunmen launched
simultaneous mortar and machinegun attacks on two mainly Polish
military bases in Diwaniyah, after Shi'ite militants vowed to step
up pressure on Polish soldiers to force them out. US helicopters
fired back during clashes that killed five Iraqi civilians,
including two children, and wounded 17. Iraqi journalist Dhi
Abdul-Razak al-Dibo (32), a freelance reporter, was killed while
driving his BMW with his guards near Kirkuk.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, Montenegro signed
a stabilization and association agreement with the EU, normally a
step towards membership.
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.72)
2007 Oct 15, Moroccan leaders,
after nearly a month of tough negotiations, formed a new government
that includes seven women but no one from the Islamic party that
placed second in September's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 15, Russia’s
Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said that major food producers
and retailers had agreed to fix their prices at the current level
following talks with the government. The prices for basic foods will
be fixed until January 31, 2008, a period which covers parliamentary
elections.
(www.prime-tass.com/news/show.asp?topicid=54&id=428507)(Econ,
10/27/07, p.63)
2007 Oct 15, Fresh fighting in
northern Somalia left several combatants dead in an escalating
boundary dispute between the breakaway regions of Somaliland and
Puntland.
(AFP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, In northern Sri
Lanka a fierce battle broke out between government troops and Tamil
rebels, leaving 30 guerrillas dead. 4 prominent activists resigned
from a government advisory panel on human rights, saying that
officials were more interested in fighting separatist rebels than
protecting human rights.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 15, Representatives of
seven Darfur rebel groups met in south Sudan to try to reach a
common negotiating position ahead of peace talks with the
government.
(Reuters, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, The Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN observer mission in
Georgia, expressing "serious concern" at violence that has escalated
tensions between Georgia and the breakaway region of Abkhazia.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
Haiti for a year, noting significant improvements in security in
recent months but saying the situation remains fragile.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 16, President Bush and
the Dalai Lama met with a ceremony planned for tomorrow to award the
spiritual leader the Congressional Gold Medal. China warned that the
events are bad for US-Chinese ties.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, In California a
blinding sandstorm north of Los Angeles caused a pileup of some 15
vehicles leaving at least 2 people dead and 16 injured.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.B4)
2007 Oct 16, The Oakland, Ca.,
the City Council adopted an ordnance banning smoking in ATM lines,
parks, bus stops and municipal golf courses.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 16, Oil prices reached
another record high closing at 87.61 per barrel in the NY Mercantile
Exchange.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 16, A Taliban ambush
on a police patrol in southern Afghanistan left one officer dead and
four others wounded.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 16, Barbara West
Dainton (96), believed to be one of the last two survivors from the
sinking of the Titanic in 1912, died in Camborne, England.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2007 Oct 16, British actress
Deborah Kerr (b.1921) died. She shared one of cinema's most famous
kisses with Burt Lancaster in "From Here to Eternity" (1953). Her
many films included “The King and I" with Yul Brynner.
(AP, 10/18/07)(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)
2007 Oct 16, Burundi's last
active rebel group said it will shun a weekend meeting to put the
central African nation's derailed peace process back on track as the
South African mediator was biased.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, Chad's government
declared a state of emergency along its eastern border with Sudan's
Darfur and in its remote desert north to tackle a fresh flare-up of
ethnic violence that killed at least 20 people.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, A boat from
Guatemala with over 20 migrants capsized. Mexican authorities by the
end of the week recovered the bodies of 15 migrants. The vessel was
believed to be carrying more than 20 people. There were 2 survivors.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 16, A study in Hong
Kong reportedly found that Lupeol, a compound in fruits like
mangoes, grapes and strawberries, appears to be effective in killing
and curbing the spread of cancer cells in the head and neck.
(Reuters, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, India and Nigeria
reaffirmed their stance in favor of UN Security Council reform and
signed up to a slew of cooperation agreements on day two of a state
visit to Nigeria by Indian PM Manmohan Singh.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, India's PM
Manmohan Singh raised fresh doubts about a landmark nuclear energy
accord with the US, telling President Bush that his government is
having "certain difficulties" finalizing the deal, which has faced
mounting domestic opposition.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, In
Iran Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian
counterpart and implicitly warned the US not to use a former Soviet
republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations should not
pursue oil pipeline projects that are not backed by regional powers.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, A car bomb
exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad, killing at least
six people and wounding 25.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, Anne Enright,
Irish author, won the Man Booker prize for her novel “The
Gathering."
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 16, Japan, Myanmar's
largest aid donor, said it had canceled a multimillion dollar grant
to protest the military-ruled nation's crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrators.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, Libya, a former
pariah state condemned by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism, won a
seat on the UN Security Council without opposition from the Bush
administration.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, In Myanmar
relatives said 5 pro-democracy activists had been sentenced to long
jail terms.
(WSJ, 10/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 16, A revolt at a
Russian prison for minors, in the Sverdlovsk region in the Ural
Mountains, swelled into a mass uprising that left two people dead
and buildings gutted before guards and riot police restored order.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 16, In Sudan 2 truck
drivers working for the UN's World Food Program were killed in an
ambush near the South Darfur town of Ed Daien. A 3rd was killed on
Oct 12.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, President Bush
attended a ceremony in which the Dalai Lama was awarded the
Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian honor. China
lodged an official protest over the honoring of the Dalai Lama in
Washington, while bluntly rejecting US President George W. Bush's
advice on how to handle the Tibet issue.
(AFP, 10/16/07)(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 17, The US Supreme
Court stopped the execution of Virginia death row inmate Christopher
Scott Emmet (36). Legal experts said the move signals a nationwide
halt to lethal injections until the court decides in 2008 whether
the procedure violates constitutional standards.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A15)
2007 Oct 17, Teresa Brewer
(b.1931), singer, died at her home in New Rochelle, NY. She had a
big hit with “Music, Music, Music" in 1950.
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)
2007 Oct 17, Joey Bishop
(b.1918), comedian and the last surviving member of Frank Sinatra’s
legendary Rat Pack, died. In 2002 Michael Seth Starr authored the
biography “Mouse in the Rat Pack: The Joey Bishop Story."
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A11)(AP, 10/17/08)
2007 Oct 17, Taliban used heavy
machine guns and rocket propelled grenades to ambush a US-led
coalition patrol in southern Afghanistan that wounded nine troops.
In the east, a roadside bomb on a police vehicle close to the border
with Pakistan killed an officer and wounded three others in Khost
province.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Australia a
group of children playing in a suburban Sidney park opened a
suitcase they found floating in a pond and discovered the body of a
youngster inside.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Hundreds of police
agents swooped in on drug gangs in two Rio de Janeiro shantytowns,
setting off gunbattles that killed 12 people, including an officer
and a boy (4).
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Cambodia
Alexander Trofimov (41), the Russian chairman of Koh Puos Investment
Group Ltd., was charged with debauchery, a Cambodian legal offense
covering sexual abuse of children. He was detained in the southern
resort town of Sihanoukville and accused of raping at least six
girls. In September last year, the Cambodian government gave
Trofimov's company permission to develop an island near
Sihanoukville into a tourist resort.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Costa Rica and
agreement was reached by which the US government and environmental
groups will trim $26 million off Costa Rica's debt rolls in exchange
for the country spending the same amount on tropical forest
conservation.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Fiji's coup leader
Voreqe Bainimarama pledged to hold elections in early 2009 as
Pacific countries welcomed the move and vowed to continue pressing
for progress at a regional summit.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A Greek-flagged
cargo ship carrying coal sank in the northern Greek port of
Thessaloniki after colliding with Panama-flagged Dubai Guardian. The
captain of the Diamond 1 was killed.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Indonesia's
Papua region rival tribes armed with bows and arrows clashed close
to a US-owned gold mine, killing eight people.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Iran hanged eight
men and one woman on murder charges in the notorious Evin Prison in
northern Tehran.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 17, A roadside bomb
exploded near a police patrol, killing at least seven officers in a
Shiite area south of Baghdad. A suicide bomber driving an
explosives-laden truck struck a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces
in Diyala province. The attack in a mountainous area near the
Iranian border killed 2 Kurdish soldiers and wounding more than 10
others. A bomb exploded near a residential building in the
predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, killing two
civilians and wounding two others. US troops captured 15 suspected
militants in operations targeted al-Qaida in Tikrit, Ramadi, Baqouba
and Mosul. Those captured were accused of helping smuggle foreign
fighters and weapons into Iraq, including five with alleged
connections to Syrian-based extremists.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Israeli troops
killed a Hamas gunman in a battle in southern Gaza.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A man opened fire
in a courtroom in northern Italy, seriously wounding his estranged
wife and killing her brother before being shot to death by police.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Investigators
began raids on Japanese companies accused of corruption in projects
to remove chemical weapons abandoned in China during World War II.
The allegations involve the illegal diversion of some of the $199
million the government has disbursed since 2004 to help dispose of
400,000 chemical weapons that retreating Japanese troops left in
northeast China at war's end. China has said poisons have leaked
from the weapons and killed about 2,000 people since 1945.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 17, Myanmar's military
junta acknowledged that it detained nearly 3,000 people during a
crackdown on recent pro-democracy protests, with hundreds still
remaining in custody.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, A clash between
Hamas security forces and members of a large Gaza clan affiliated
with the rival Fatah party left four people dead.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Interfax reported
that Russia has charged a lieutenant colonel in the security service
and 8 others for the Oct 7, 2006, slaying of anti-Kremlin journalist
Ann Politkovskaya.
(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)(Reuters, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Irdris Osman, the
head of UN food agency operations in the violence-wracked Somali
capital, was taken away by 50 to 60 heavily armed government
security officers who had stormed the UN compound in Mogadishu.
Osman was freed on Oct 23. Overnight, at least 8 civilians and one
policeman died during a battle between Islamic insurgents and
policemen.
(AP, 10/17/07)(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 17, In South Africa
the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa vowed to push the
interests of poor nations in stalled international trade talks and
said any agreement would have to benefit the developing world.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Sudan's former
southern rebels said they would rejoin the national government to
work through a stalemate on implementing a 2005 peace deal which
ended Africa's longest civil war.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, on a visit to Turkey, said that Damascus would back
a possible Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to crack down
"against terrorist activities" there.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Turkey’s
Parliament gave the government a one-year window in which to launch
cross-border offensives against Turkish Kurd rebels who've been
conducting raids into Turkey. The vote removed the last legal
obstacle to an offensive.
(AP, 10/18/07)(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI
named 23 new cardinals, tapping two Americans, the patriarch of
Baghdad, and archbishops from five continents to join the elite
ranks of the "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 18, US lawmakers
offered apologies to Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, who was
deported in 2002 by US counterterrorism officials to Syria, where he
says he was imprisoned and tortured.
(Reuters, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, Rene Medina (62)
of Atherton, owner of the Lucky Chances Casino in Colma, Ca.,
pleaded guilty to evading $591,000 in income taxes. In 2008 he was
sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for evading $973,000 in
income taxes.
(SFC, 10/23/07, p.D2)(SFC, 10/31/08, p.B3)
2007 Oct 18, William Crowe
(82), ex-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, died at Bethesda
naval Hospital. In 1994 Pres. Clinton appointed him as ambassador to
the United Kingdom, where he served for 3 years.
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.B10)
2007 Oct 18, The head of the
British Broadcasting Corp. announced budget cuts that will lead to a
net loss of 1,800 jobs.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, London's Science
Museum canceled talk by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson
after the co-discoverer of DNA's structure told a newspaper that
Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, Former Congolese
warlord Germain Katanga, suspected of war crimes committed in
northeast Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003, began his transfer
to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, Strikers defying
Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy's push to reform France crippled the country's
public transport system, forcing commuters to drive, pedal or walk
to work, or stay home. Some workers vowed to continue the walkout,
France’s biggest strike in 12 years. Sarkozy's office said Pres.
Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia, are divorcing after nearly 11 years
of marriage by mutual consent.
(AP, 10/18/07)(WSJ, 10/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 18, India and Pakistan
pledged to maintain a ceasefire after resuming talks as part of
their slow-moving peace process but reported no specific progress on
issues under discussion.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, In eastern
Indonesia a crowded passenger boat capsized, killing at least 15
people, with several others possibly missing.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, Sunni and Shiite
leaders in southwestern Baghdad signed an agreement intended to halt
sectarian violence on the condition that security forces limit their
raids and offensive operations. Thousands of Kurds and supporters
took to the streets in northern Iraq to protest the Turkish
parliament's decision to authorize the government to send troops
across the border to root out Kurdish rebels who have been
conducting raids into Turkey. Gunmen in Baghdad killed Ahmed
al-Mashhadani, an adviser to the leader of the largest Sunni Arab
bloc in parliament, Adnan al-Dulaimi.
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.A15)(AP, 10/18/07)(AP,
10/22/07)
2007 Oct 18, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert flew to Moscow in a surprise visit to discuss Iran's nuclear
program with President Vladimir Putin, who just returned from talks
with Iranian leaders in Tehran. Olmert pressed Russian President
Vladimir Putin to support new sanctions against Iran over its
nuclear activities and urged Russia not to sell arms to Iran or
Syria.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, Teenage pop star
Belinda (18), who starred in the Disney Channel's "Cheetah Girls 2,"
won the video of the year award at the MTV Video Music Awards Latin
America in Mexico City. The native of Madrid, Spain, who grew up in
Mexico, also won best solo artist.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 18, Benazir Bhutto
made a dramatic return to Pakistan, ending eight years of exile to
reclaim a share of power with the country's US-backed military
leader. More than 150,000 jubilant supporters gathered in Karachi to
greet her amid massive security. A suicide attack killed up to 136
people. Bhutto said there were two attackers in the deadly bombing,
and that her security guards found a third man armed with a pistol
and another with a suicide vest. Ahead of her arrival, she said, she
was warned suicide squads were dispatched to kill her. In February,
2008, Bhutto’s book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the
West," was published. In it she alleged that Qari Saifullah Akhtar
was involved in the October 17 bombing in Karachi. Akhtar was
released from custody in December, 2010, after authorities found no
grounds for charges.
(AP, 10/18/07)(AP, 10/19/07)(SFC, 1/10/11, p.A2)
2007 Oct 18, Palestinian
surveyors fanned out across Gaza and the West Bank, counting homes
and people in the first census in a decade, a rare joint endeavor of
bitter rivals Hamas and Fatah.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, South African
reggae star Lucky Dube (43) was shot in an apparent carjacking
attempt in Johannesburg's southern Rosettenville suburb. He died as
he tried to drive away and crashed into a car and a tree. On Oct 21
police arrested five men in the killing. His albums included “Rastas
never Die" (1984) and “Slave" (1987). In 2009 three men were
sentenced to life in prison for the botched carjacking and murder.
(AP, 10/19/07)(AP, 10/21/07)(Econ, 10/27/07,
p.102)(AP, 4/2/09)
2007 Oct 18, Crisis talks
between Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and southern leader Salva
Kiir ended without agreement on getting his former rebels to rejoin
the unity government they quit a week ago.
(AFP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, Swiss
pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced more than 1,200 job losses
in the US after its third quarter results weakened on sharper
competition from generic drugs.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 18, The UN said action
would be taken against the interpreter responsible for an erroneous
report that Syria has a nuclear facility and expressed regret at the
incident.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 19, Pres. Bush imposed
new financial sanctions against Myanmar, freezing YS assets of 11
additional members of the military government.
(SFC, 10/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 19, A team of students
from Germany's Technische Universitat Darmstadt won a weeklong
competition on the Washington DC National Mall for the best, most
efficient, and well-designed and -engineered solar home.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 19, A battle in
southern Afghanistan between US-led coalition forces and Taliban
militants left more than a dozen of the insurgents dead.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 19, Armed with clubs
and waving provincial flags, thousands of residents of Bolivia's
wealthiest province seized control of Santa Cruz’s Viru Viru airport
from troops sent in by President Evo Morales. The previous day
Morales had ordered 220 troops to take control of the airport after
workers threatened to block flights that did not pay landing fees to
local officials rather than the national airport authority.
Television footage showed a Venezuelan air force plane and uniformed
personnel at the site.
(AP, 10/19/07)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.32)
2007 Oct 19, A twin-engine
plane crashed into the ninth floor of a suburban Vancouver apartment
building, killing the pilot and injuring at least two people in the
building. Six people were found dead in what police described as a
graphic murder scene in an apartment building in a Vancouver suburb.
Police later said the killings, which took place on the 15th floor
of a suburban Vancouver apartment building, were related to gang
activity. They said that two of the dead were murdered because they
chanced upon the crime scene.
(AP, 10/20/07)(Reuters, 10/20/07)(Reuters,
10/23/07)
2007 Oct 19, European Union
leaders in Portugal endorsed a reform treaty to replace their failed
European constitution and give the 27-nation union a more
influential say in world affairs. The new Treaty of Lisbon created 2
new posts, a European foreign minister in all but name and a new
standing president of the European Council.
(AP, 10/19/07)(Econ, 10/27/07, p.64)
2007 Oct 19, Train service
started back up throughout much of France but many commuters in
Paris biked, roller-bladed and even used children's scooters as city
transit workers kept up a second day of strikes against proposed
economic reforms.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 19, French media
reported that Celine Lesage was arrested after her partner
discovered the corpses of 6 infants in plastic garbage bags in the
basement of their apartment building in Valognes.
(AP,
3/15/10)(www.crimemagazine.com/07/murderousmothers,0919-7.htm)
2007 Oct 19, India and Pakistan
reviewed their efforts to cut the risk of accidents involving
nuclear weapons and discussed arms and security issues.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 19, Lt. Col. William
H. Steele (52), a former US commander at the jail that held Saddam
Hussein, was acquitted of aiding the enemy by loaning an unmonitored
cell phone to an inmate, but a military judge in Iraq convicted him
of unauthorized possession of thousands of pages of classified
documents and two other charges for which he received two years
imprisonment after pleading for leniency.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 19, In eastern
Diwaniyah, U.S.-led ground forces backed by two Polish helicopters
came under fire from machine guns and an anti-tank grenade launcher.
No coalition casualties were reported, but two militants were
killed. A roadside bomb exploded near a minibus full of Shiite
civilians, killing at least three people and wounding nine as they
went to visit relatives south of Baghdad.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 19, A parliamentarian
said that 61 of 120 Israeli lawmakers have signed a petition against
any attempt by PM Ehud Olmert to transfer parts of Jerusalem to the
Palestinians.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 19, In Indian Kashmir
Rawathpora village residents claimed that Indian soldiers detained
teacher Abdul Rashid Mir (26) outside a school, then tortured and
fatally shot him while he was in custody. The Indian army said Mir
was accidentally shot after he got into a squabble with an army
patrol team. Violence quickly erupted.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 19, In the Philippines
a powerful explosion ripped through three floors of a shopping mall
in the heart of Manila's financial district, killing 11 people,
injuring scores and sending police and troops on the highest state
of alert. Police later said a gas leak was the likely cause.
(AP, 10/19/07)(WSJ, 10/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 19, Christopher Paul
Neil (32), a Canadian schoolteacher suspected of sexually abusing
boys, was arrested in rural Thailand and charged after a 3-year
international manhunt that relied on digitally unscrambled photos
and tips from the public. Neil later pleaded guilty to sexually
abusing a 13-year-old boy and was sentenced to three years and three
months in jail; he faces other charges involving the victim's
younger brother.
(AP, 10/19/07)(AP, 10/19/08)
2007 Oct 20, With water
supplies rapidly shrinking during a drought of historic proportions,
Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency for the northern
third of Georgia and asked President Bush to declare it a major
disaster area. The 38,000-acre Lake Lanier reservoir, which supplies
more than 3 million residents with water, was down to 3 months from
depletion.
(AP, 10/20/07)(SSFC, 10/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 20, Piyush "Bobby"
Jindal (36), the son of Punjabi immigrants, won an election in
Louisiana to become the United States' first Indian-American state
governor. Jindal, a Republican member of the House of
Representatives, also became the youngest governor in the US. He
became the first nonwhite to hold the job since Reconstruction.
(AFP, 10/21/07)(AP, 10/20/08)
2007 Oct 20, In Berkeley, Ca.,
the new, 4-story, $46.4 million C.V. Starr East Asian Library was
unveiled.
(SSFC, 10/21/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 20, In Ohio Daniel
Petric (16) shot his parents, killing his mother and wounding his
father, after they took away the Halo 3 video game from him.
In 2009 a judge ruled Petric guilty of murder.
(AP,
1/13/09)(http://pysih.com/2007/10/21/daniel-petric/)
2007 Oct 20, Max McGee (75),
former Green Bay Packers receiver, died in Deephaven, Minn.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2007 Oct 20, Peg Bracken (89),
author of the "I Hate to Cook Book," died in Portland, Ore.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2007 Oct 20, In eastern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants fought fierce battles with
US forces, killing 20 insurgents and one civilian.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 20, Burundi's last
active rebel group was urged to implement a 2006 ceasefire as it
boycotted a meeting aimed to put the central African nation's
derailed peace process back on track.
(AFP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, In China 13
foreign and domestic companies launched the Chinese Federation for
Corporate Social Responsibility in Shanghai.
(Econ, 1/19/08, SR
p.21)(www.chinacsr.com/2006/10/20/799-cfcsr-established-in-beijing/)
2007 Oct 20, France handed
Algeria details of where its forces laid some 3 million landmines on
the country's eastern and western borders from 1956-1959.
(AFP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, A roadside bomb
exploded near a minibus full of Shiite civilians, killing at least 3
people and wounding nine as they went to visit relatives south of
Baghdad. US-led forces raided houses in search of Shiite extremists
elsewhere in the volatile area. The US military said US forces in
Iraq discovered nearly 19 tons of explosives in a weapons cache
north of Baghdad this week, one of the biggest finds of its kind.
(AP, 10/20/07)(Reuters, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, In Indian Kashmir
thousands of angry Rawathpora villagers torched government vehicles
in street battles that injured 30 police one day after army soldiers
allegedly shot dead a schoolteacher.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, The foreign
ministers of France, Italy and Spain met with Lebanon's feuding
political leaders in a bid to break a long-running deadlock that is
preventing the election of a president.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, In Northern
Ireland Paul Quinn (21), a truck driver from south Armagh, was
brutally beaten to death. Assailants used iron bars and baseball
bats studded with nails. His death was said to be related to
smuggling diesel fuel. Relatives said he was murdered for defying an
IRA order to leave after quarrels in his village of Cullyhanna.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.67)(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A22)
2007 Oct 20, In Kazakhstan the
opposition staged a demonstration in Almaty against rising prices as
people hoarded food supplies and emptied shops.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.52)
2007 Oct 20, Malawi's second
opposition party suspended its national convention after 26
supporters died in a road accident on the way to the conference. The
supporters of the Alliance for Democracy, or AFORD, died the
previous night when the truck they were traveling in overturned in
the central mountainous district of Dedza.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, Myanmar announced
that it was lifting a curfew and ending a ban on assembly imposed
after a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the latest sign that
the government believes it has extinguished the largest
demonstrations in decades.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, A bomb ripped
through a bus parked at a terminal in southwestern Pakistan, killing
seven people and wounding six others.
(AP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 20, In Gaza City Hamas
police and a clan allied with the rival Fatah movement traded fire
killing a young man and a boy on the 4th day of heavy internal
fighting.
(SSFC, 10/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 20, In Moscow a group
of teens killed Sergei Nikolayev (46), a professional chess player
from Yakutia. The group attacked more than 10 people over several
months late this year. In 2008 a Moscow court convicted 12 teenage
boys and a man of committing the series of vicious ethnic attacks,
which were videotaped, set to heavy music and widely disseminated on
Web sites.
(http://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/23-09-2008/106430-skinheads-0)(AP,
9/23/08)
2007 Oct 21, Vice President
Dick Cheney said in a speech the United States and other nations
would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2007 Oct 21, The Boston Red Sox
won the American League championship in Game 7 of their series with
the Cleveland Indians, 11-2.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2007 Oct 21, Paul Byrd, pitcher
for the Cleveland Indians, acknowledged that he had used human
growth hormone from August 2002 to January 2005 due to a pituitary
gland issue. An investigation was pending as Major League Baseball
and the Indians said they had not been aware of Byrd’s use of the
muscle building substance.
(SFC, 10/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 21, More than a
half-dozen wildfires driven by powerful Santa Ana winds spread
across Southern California, killing one person near San Diego and
destroying several homes and a church in celebrity-laden Malibu. The
Buckweed fire started rampaging across 38,000 acres in the Santa
Clarita area, 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. An
unidentified youngster, believed to be a preteen, later admitted to
playing with matches and starting the fire.
(AP, 10/21/07)(Reuters, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 21, Ronald Brooks
Kitaj, Ohio-born artist, died in Los Angeles. He had spent much of
his career working in London. His work included “Desk Murder," a
14-year effort.
(Econ, 11/3/07,
p.102)(http://tinyurl.com/2myah5)(Econ, 3/2/13, p.81)
2007 Oct 21, Australia's
opposition Labor Party chief Kevin Rudd beat PM Howard in an
election debate marred by controversy when a national television
network's coverage was deliberately cut. Rudd had once worked as a
business consultant in China and spoke fluent Mandarin.
(AFP, 10/22/07)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.52)
2007 Oct 21, In Brazil
activists trying to invade a 304-acre biotech seed farm, owned by
the Swiss firm Syngenta AG, clashed with guards and at least
two people were shot dead.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 21, In Brazil a girl
(15) was arrested on accusations of breaking and entering a house
and jailed with male inmates in Abaetetuba, Para state. She was
locked up for weeks with 21 men who she said would only let her eat
in return for sex. By her account, officials did nothing, until the
story erupted in the national media and outraged Brazilians demanded
her transfer.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Oct 21, Thousands of
British Muslims gathered for a charity peace concert dubbed "Muslim
Live 8" to raise money for victims of Sudan's long-running Darfur
conflict.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, Chinese President
Hu Jintao engineered the retirement of a powerful Communist Party
rival in a move that enhanced his political standing yet may have
opened up a divisive battle to succeed him. A fire at a shoe factory
in southeastern China killed 37 people and injured at least 20. The
factory in Fujian province was operating without a license and the
owners were arrested.
(AP, 10/21/07)(AP, 10/22/07)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 21, Cubans opened an
election cycle that will lead to a decision next year on whether
ailing leader Fidel Castro will remain atop the communist-run
island's supreme governing body.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, Ethiopia's Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels said they killed 140
government soldiers in a weekend assault targeting a visiting senior
official, a statement Ethiopia immediately denounced as false.
(Reuters, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, New Delhi Deputy
Mayor S.S. Bajwa was rushed to a hospital after the attack by a gang
of Rhesus macaques, but succumbed to head injuries sustained in his
fall.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, The US military
said its forces killed an estimated 49 militants during a dawn raid
to capture an Iranian-linked militia chief in Baghdad's Sadr City
enclave. Iraqi police and hospital officials reported only 15 deaths
including three children. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh
said all the dead were civilians.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, Kyrgyzstan held a
national referendum on changing the constitution to elect the
Parliament by party list. On Oct 23 the main trans-Atlantic security
and rights group and the US Embassy said the referendum on
constitutional change was marred by numerous violations.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 21, Shell officials
said gunmen in speedboats attacked an offshore oil field in the
volatile Niger Delta, kidnapping three foreign workers and four
Nigerians.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, A pro-business
opposition party that wants to bring Poland's troops home from Iraq
was headed to an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections,
exit polls showed, setting it up to oust the prime minister's
staunchly pro-U.S. government. The opposition Civic Platform party
ousted PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski's government in the parliamentary
elections.
(AP, 10/21/07)(AP, 10/21/08)
2007 Oct 21, A technical glitch
sent a Soyuz spacecraft on a wild ride home, forcing Malaysia's
first space traveler and two Russian cosmonauts to endure eight
times the force of gravity before their capsule landed safely.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, Lojze Peterle, a
conservative former prime minister, won the most votes in Slovenia's
tight presidential elections, but fell far short of the majority
needed to avoid a runoff.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, Springboks, the
South African rugby team, beat England (15-6) in the Rugby World Cup
Final at the Stade France in Paris.
(AFP, 10/23/07)(Econ, 10/27/07, p.57)
2007 Oct 21, Sudanese
government officials said around 50 people have been killed in three
days of tribal clashes in the central region of Kordofan.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, A Swiss
nationalist party rode an anti-immigrant wave to the best showing of
any party in parliamentary elections since 1919, while the Greens
made gains by appealing to environmental concerns. The Swiss
People's Party (SVP), led by justice minister Christoph Blocher, won
62 seats and received 29% of the vote, after a bitter campaign
blaming foreigners for much of the country's crime.
(AP, 10/21/07)(AP, 10/22/07)(Econ, 10/27/07,
p.62)
2007 Oct 21, Ernst Ludwig
Ehrlich (86), a Jewish religious philosopher, died at his home in
Basel, Switz. He had escaped the Nazis and became a European
bridge-builder between Christians and Jews.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 21, In Syria a
high-level North Korean official held talks with PM Naji Otari on
ways to improve cooperation between the two countries.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, A Hong Kong
newspaper reported that police in the capital of Tibet clashed for
four days with Buddhist monks trying to celebrate the awarding of a
congressional honor for the Dalai Lama.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21, Kurdish rebels
ambushed a Turkish military convoy less than three miles from the
Iraqi border, killing 12 soldiers with 8 missing. The rebels said
they are holding them hostage. Turkey shelled the border region in
response to the attack, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself
a Kurd, ordered the rebels to lay down their arms or leave Iraq.
(AP, 10/21/07)(WSJ, 10/22/07, p.A1)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 22, Pres. Bush asked
Congress for $196.4 billion for the Iraq war. This included $500
million to help Mexico fight drug traffickers as Mexico and the US
announced plans for a $1.4 billion aid package to fight drug
trafficking and other organized crime south of the border.
(SFC, 10/23/07, p.A7)(WSJ, 10/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 22, The US announced
the Merida Initiative. It was signed into law on June 30, 2008. It
is a security cooperation between the United States and the
government of Mexico and the countries of Central America, with the
aim of combating the threats of drug trafficking, transnational
crime and money laundering. The assistance includes training,
equipment and intelligence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida_Initiative)
2007 Oct 22, The United States
handed over 30 military helicopters to key ally Pakistan to help
fight extremism and provide humanitarian relief in the region.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, A US Navy sailor
allegedly shot and killed two female sailors in the barracks of an
American military base in Bahrain.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, A federal judge in
Dallas declared a mistrial for former leaders of the Texas-based
Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity accused of funding terrorism.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2007 Oct 22, Bear Stearns, one
of America’s top investment banks, announced a strategic alliance
with Citic Securities, China’s largest listed brokerage firm.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.84)
2007 Oct 22, Microsoft Corp.
dropped a nearly decade-long legal battle with European regulators,
agreeing to key parts of an antitrust ruling that has already led to
hundreds of millions in fines.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, Two new studies
said the world's oceans may be losing their ability to soak up extra
carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, with the risk that this
will help stoke global warming.
(AFP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, NATO and Afghan
troops called in airstrikes during a battle against insurgents that
left 20 suspected militants but also several civilians dead in
Wardak province.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 22, President Hu
Jintao emerged politically stronger after the Communist Party handed
him a second five-year term, allowing him a freer hand to manage
tensions over a rising wealth gap and boost spending on
long-neglected social services.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, The United Nations
Refugee agency (UNHCR) said some 8,000 Congolese refugees have fled
to neighboring Uganda following clashes between Congo's army and
dissident general Laurent Nkunda.
(Reuters, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, Congolese militia
leader Germain Katanga became only the second war crimes suspect to
appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
(AFP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, Bombs struck
Shiite targets in Baghdad, killing at least seven people and
wounding two dozen. Iraqi Kurdish rebels said they were ready to lay
down their arms if Turkey stopped targeting the rebels and abandoned
plans for an incursion into Iraq, according to a rebel website.
Osama bin Laden called for Iraqi insurgents to unite and avoid
divisive "extremism," speaking in an audiotape and apparently
intended to win over Sunnis opposed to al-Qaida's branch in Iraq.
(AP, 10/22/07)(AFP, 10/22/07)(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, About 1,000
Palestinian prisoners rioted at an Israeli desert prison, attacking
guards, torching the tents where they are housed and leaving 30
people injured.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, About 40 tons of
oil spilled from a land pipeline carrying crude from the port of
Ashkelon in southern Israel to refineries in the northern city of
Haifa.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 22, An Italian lobby
group for small businesses said revenue from organized crime amounts
to an estimated $127 billion annually, making it the largest segment
of the economy.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, Kyrgyz President
Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed a decree dissolving parliament, a day after
voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum on constitutional
changes that his critics called a power grab.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy met with Morocco's King Mohammed XVI and signed a
string of deals aimed at fostering closer cooperation between the
two countries and economic development projects.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, Mozambique's
former President Joaquim Chissano, who brought peace and democracy
to his country, won the first Mo Ibrahim Prize for achievement in
African leadership.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22, In Poland election
results showed pro-business Civic Platform, led by Donald Tusk,
beating PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski's nationalist conservatives by nearly
10 percentage points, enough to allow them to form a coalition
government with an allied party. The incoming government promised to
negotiate a tougher deal with the US when it comes to hosting a
missile defense base. Civic Platform won 209 seats in the 460-member
lower house.
(AP, 10/22/07)(Econ, 10/27/07, p.59)
2007 Oct 22, Romania's
President Traian Basescu apologized for the deportation of thousands
of Gypsies to Nazi death camps during World War II, the first time a
government official has done so publicly.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 22, A group of Tamil
Tiger fighters, backed by the rebel group's tiny air force, carried
out a surprise pre-dawn attack on a Sri Lankan air force base,
setting off a huge battle that killed five airmen and 20 guerrillas.
24 of 27 aircraft were destroyed or damaged.
(AP, 10/22/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.54)
2007 Oct 23, Thousands more
residents were ordered to evacuate their homes, bringing the number
of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames that have engulfed
Southern California to at least 300,000. At least 700 homes were
already destroyed. President Bush declared a federal emergency for
seven counties.
(AP, 10/23/07)(AP, 10/23/08)
2007 Oct 23, The US space
shuttle Discovery launched from Cape Canaveral with a 7-person crew
for a 14-day mission to the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 10/24/07, p.A9)
2007 Oct 23, In Afghanistan a
child and 5 militants were killed in Zabul province after militants
fired on coalition soldiers from a tent.
(AP, 10/23/07)(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 23, Fernando de la
Rua, Argentina’s former president (1999-2001), was charged with
manslaughter in connection with bloody street riots in 2001.
(WSJ, 10/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 23, It was reported
that police patrolling the red-light district of the Belgian capital
have been ordered to stop visiting brothels and drinking in bars
when on duty.
(Reuters, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, In London a Quran
written in 1203, believed to be the oldest known complete copy, sold
for more than $2.3 million at an auction. A nearly complete,
10th-century Kufic Quran, thought to be from North Africa or the
near East, sold $1,870,000.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 23, The Canadian
dollar roared to a 33-year high against the US dollar after domestic
retail sales data for August beat expectations.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, French lawmakers
adopted a hotly contested bill that would institute language exams
and potential DNA testing for prospective immigrants, making it more
difficult for families to join loved ones in France.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, A US helicopter
opened fire on a group of men as they were planting roadside bombs
in a Sunni stronghold north of Baghdad, then chased them into a
nearby house, killing 11 Iraqis, including at least six civilians.
Iraq pledged to rein in Kurdish rebels who are launching attacks on
Turkey from mountain hideouts near the border after Ankara
threatened to send forces into Iraqi territory to confront the
guerrillas.
(AP, 10/23/07)(Reuters, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, Israel killed a
top Gaza militant with a missile strike on his car prompting threats
of more rocket attacks on Israeli border towns. A Palestinian
prisoner who was wounded in rioting at an Israeli desert prison
died, prompting Palestinian threats of revenge and accusations that
the man was abused by Israeli authorities.
(AP, 10/23/07)(WSJ, 10/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 23, Police broke up an
Italian-Canadian mafia clan that ran drug trafficking and money
laundering operations, arresting 12 people and seizing millions of
dollars in assets. The clan was led from Canada by Nick and Vito
Rizzuto, a father and son, who were jailed for previous crimes
respectively in 2006 and 2005.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, Lim Goh Tong
(b.1918), Chinese businessman, died in Kuala Lumpur. The casino king
of Malaysia had made a fortune in gambling casinos and a cruise
fleet. His family fortune was estimated at $4.2 billion.
(AP, 10/23/07)(WSJ, 10/27/07, p.A6)
2007 Oct 23, At least 21 oil
workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in
stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Pemex
said the workers who died included four Pemex employees, seven
employees of the subcontractor company that operated the rig, at
least one rescue boat crew member, and six others who worked for
other companies. On Dec 16 Pemex announced that the well was finally
capped. Roughly 420 barrels of oil per day had spilled from the
damaged platform since the accident.
(AP, 10/25/07)(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Oct 23, A bomb courier
accidentally blew up a taxi in Russia's Dagestan region, killing
herself and wounding eight other people.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, First lady Laura
Bush helped launch a screening facility in Saudi Arabia as part of a
U.S.-Saudi initiative to raise breast cancer awareness in the
kingdom where doctors struggle to break long-held taboos about the
disease.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, Mohammed Atif
Siddique (21), a British-born Muslim student, described at his trial
as a "wannabe suicide bomber," was jailed in Scotland for 8 years
after being convicted of promoting Islamist extremism on the
Internet. On Feb 9, 2010, his conviction was overturned after a
court in Scotland ruled that the trial judge did not properly
instruct the jury.
(AFP, 10/23/07)(AP, 2/9/10)
2007 Oct 23, A new Bin Laden
tape called for foreign forces to be driven from Darfur. The Justice
and Equality Movement, one of the leading Darfur rebel groups,
attacked the Defra oil field in Sudan’s Kordofan region and abducted
2 foreign workers. A rebel chief gave a one-week ultimatum for
foreign oil companies to cease operating in the zone.
(SFC, 10/24/07, p.A3)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 23, Turkey's foreign
minister rejected any cease-fire by Kurdish rebels as he met with
Iraqi leaders in Baghdad to press them to crack down on the
guerrillas. Turkish forces massed on the border and tensions rose
over a threatened military incursion.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23, In Uzbekistan
Karim Bozorboyev, leader of the Esguliq rights group in the central
city of Syrdarya, was arrested and charged with fraud. Bozorboyev
joined the group in 2004, after he left Fidokorlar, a
government-affiliated political party, saying he was disgusted by
the amount of corruption among Uzbek officials.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 23, In Venezuela
thousands of university students scuffled with police and government
supporters during a protest against constitutional reforms that
would let President Hugo Chavez run for re-election indefinitely.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 24, Pres. Bush
denounced Castro’s regime and called on the Cuban people to shed his
rule.
(WSJ, 10/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 24, US federal and
local law enforcement officials, targeting a violent Mexican heroin
drug ring, raided numerous locations in Oakland and northern
California arresting 30 people and confiscating drugs, guns and
cash.
(SFC, 10/25/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 24, Fires in southern
California expanded destruction to 1,500 homes and charred over
500,000 acres. Over half a million residents were forced to flee the
area, the largest evacuation in state history.
(WSJ, 10/25/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 24, Bank of America,
the nation's second-largest bank, said that it is cutting 3,000
positions in its investment banking unit, a day after cross-town
rival Wachovia Corp. starting eliminating several hundred positions
for the same reasons.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 24, Merril Lynch
reported its first quarterly loss in six years due to writedowns of
$8.4 billion related to mortgage loans in structured investment
vehicles (SIVs).
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.79)
2007 Oct 24, Microsoft secured
a deal to buy 1.6% of Facebook, a social networking site, for $240
million.
(SFC, 10/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 24, Afghan officials
said five militants were killed in two clashes with Afghan troops in
the southern provinces of Zabul and Helmand. US-led coalition and
Afghan attack on a gathering of another group of Taliban militants
in the Daychopan district of Zabul province killed 10 insurgents. A
suicide car bomb went off near the convoy of cars carrying Arsallah
Jamal, the provincial governor of Khost, wounding two of his
bodyguards and two civilians.
(AP, 10/24/07)(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 24, Anglo-Australian
mining giant Rio Tinto said all conditions on its $38.1 billion
takeover of Alcan Inc had been satisfied and most shareholders had
accepted its offer.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, In Beijing Costa
Rican president Oscar Arias signed several accords with his Chinese
counterpart, months after the Central American nation established
diplomatic relations with the Asian giant.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, China launched its
first lunar probe, Chang’e 1, an initial step in an ambitious
10-year plan to send a rover to the moon and return it to Earth.
(AP, 10/24/07)(Econ, 10/27/07, p.52)
2007 Oct 24, France's
government agreed to reward drivers of cars that use little
gasoline, drastically slow road construction and renovate all the
country's public buildings to slash energy consumption.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, A French defense
ministry official said France will for the first time send dozens of
military trainers to the volatile south of Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, Al-Sadr renewed
his appeal to his followers to uphold the six-month cease-fire
announced in August and threatened to expel those who do not. Nearly
simultaneous bombs struck commuters in a predominantly Shiite area
on the southeastern edge of Baghdad, killing at least nine people
and wounding about two dozen.
(AP, 10/24/07)(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 24, Officials said
Israeli military experts have formulated a plan to gradually cut off
power to the Gaza Strip in response to ongoing rocket fire from the
Palestinian area.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, In southern
Kyrgyzstan Alisher Saipov (26), a prominent independent ethnic-Uzbek
journalist, was shot to death. He had close ties to the opposition
to the authoritarian regime in neighboring Uzbekistan.
(AP, 10/24/07)(Econ, 6/19/10, p.28)
2007 Oct 24, A day of global
protests against Myanmar's junta began in Bangkok as democracy
leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi marked a cumulative
12 years in detention.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, Nigeria's top
corruption investigator said that up to six former governors will be
charged by the end of the year, a sign the country's new leadership
is making good on pledges to stamp out graft in one of the world's
most corrupt nations.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, In Pakistan a
senior official said the senior detective leading the investigation
into the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto has withdrawn from the
case after the opposition leader accused him of involvement in the
torture of her husband in 1999. Pakistan's army said that new troops
have been deployed to Swat, a mountain valley popular with tourists
until violence flared there this summer, to quell Maulana Fazlullah,
who has called for Taliban-style rule and holy war against Pakistani
authorities.
(AP, 10/24/07)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 24, Alexander
Pichushkin (33), a Russian former grocery clerk, was found guilty of
murdering 48 people in Moscow. On Oct 29 he was sentenced to life in
a hard labor colony.
(AP, 10/24/07)(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 24, In Somalia a
roadside bomb killed five civilians and wounded 16 when it exploded
near a minibus full of passengers in the war-ravaged Mogadishu.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, Turkish warplanes
and helicopter gunships reportedly attacked positions of Kurdish
rebels just inside Turkey along the border with Iraq, as Turkey's
military stepped up its anti-rebel operations.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, Spanish police
broke up an Islamic cell suspected of using the Internet to recruit
fighters for the Iraq insurgency, arresting six people in raids near
the northern city of Burgos.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, Zimbabwe's central
bank chief pledged that empty shop shelves would soon be replenished
as he denounced the "anarchy" inspired by the government's order for
retailers to slash their prices in half.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 25, President Bush
visited Southern California, telling residents weary from five days
of wildfires: "We're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C."
(AP, 10/25/08)
2007 Oct 25, The Bush
administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the
harshest since the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979, charging anew
that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles
and is engaging in a nuclear build up.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, The US government
issued a flurry of product-safety recalls affecting hundreds of
thousands of Chinese-made children's toys and jewelry amid fresh
concerns about lead paint.
(AFP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 25, Insurgents
ambushed NATO-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, leaving two
alliance troops dead and three others wounded in Kunar province.
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta was serving as a rifle team leader
with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment when an
insurgent ambush split his squad into two groups in the Korengal
Valley. Giunta exposed himself to enemy fire to pull a fellow
soldier back to cover and engaged the enemy again when he saw two
insurgents carrying away a wounded soldier, Sgt. Joshua C. Brennan
(22) of McFarland, Wis. Giunta killed one insurgent and wounded the
other before tending to Brennan, who died the next day. In 2010
Giunta became the 8th US service member to receive the Medal of
Honor during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The seven previous
medals were awarded posthumously.
(AP, 10/26/07)(AP, 9/11/10)
2007 Oct 25, An Airbus 380, the
world's largest jetliner, made aviation history, completing its
first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney with 455
passengers, some of them ensconced in luxury suites and double beds.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, The Canadian
dollar shot to a 33-year high against a broadly weaker US dollar, as
oil and gold prices firmed, giving the commodities-based currency a
boost.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, In Chad 9 French
citizens were arrested after a group tried to fly 103 African
children to France, saying it wanted to save them from the crisis in
neighboring Darfur. On Oct 29 six French nationals were charged with
kidnapping and a judge in the eastern city of Abeche also agreed to
allow prosecution charges of complicity against three French
journalists.
(AP, 10/26/07)(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 25, The Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China announced that it was buying 20% of
Standard Bank in South Africa for $5.6 billion.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.80)
2007 Oct 25, Rebels in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo set new conditions for disarming,
stalling the surrender of hundreds of fighters who have begun
massing near a designated UN camp.
(Reuters, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, Amnesty
International said human rights violations in the Russian region of
Ingushetia have increased with a surge in abductions and beatings.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, Ahmed al-Janabi
(45), a Sunni schoolteacher, was seized from his car in Baghdad,
then shot to death by suspected Shiite militia fighters.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, Irish PM Bertie
Ahern gave himself a hefty pay increase, putting his salary higher
than both President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, Suu Kyi, detained
since May 2003, met with a newly appointed Myanmar government
official as part of a UN-brokered attempt to nudge her and the
military junta toward reconciliation. At least 70 people detained by
the military government following protests in Myanmar, including 50
members of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, were
released.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 25, Niger's Tuareg-led
rebels allegedly killed at least 12 soldiers and destroyed two army
vehicles in the desert north of the central African country, but the
military denied this.
(Reuters, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 25, In southwest
Nigeria 17 people were killed when a passenger bus collided with an
oncoming truck on a road.
(AFP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 25, In northwestern
Pakistan a suicide car bomber hit a truck carrying Frontier
Constabulary paramilitary troops through a crowded area of Mingora,
killing 19 soldiers and a civilian, and wounding 35 people.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 25, In the Philippines
Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo pardoned Joseph Estrada (70), the
ousted former president and action hero. He was convicted last month
on graft charges and given a life sentence. He had been under house
arrest since 2001.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 25, In northern Syria
authorities hanged five men for murders they committed during
attempted robberies.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, A senior security
official said Yemen has set free Jamal al-Badawi, one of the
al-Qaida masterminds of the USS Cole bombing in 2000 that killed 17
American sailors. Al-Badawi was granted his freedom after turning
himself in 15 days ago and pledging loyalty to Yemeni President Ali
Abdullah Saleh.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 25, Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe launched an intelligence academy named after
him, saying it would produce officers able to counter growing
threats from Western powers.
(Reuters, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, A federal jury in
Kansas City, Mo., decided that Lisa Montgomery, convicted of killing
expectant mother Bobbie Jo Stinnett and cutting the baby from her
womb, should receive the death penalty.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2007 Oct 26, Georgia's Supreme
Court ordered the release of a young man who has been imprisoned for
more than two years for having consensual oral sex with another
teenager. The court ruled 4-3 that Genarlow Wilson's 10-year
sentence was cruel and unusual punishment.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, Thousands of
southern Californians returned to their neighborhoods as wildfires
charred some 800 square miles. At least 7 people had died in the
fires including 4 in a migrant camp. 7 other deaths were reported
from various causes following evacuation.
(SFC, 10/27/07, p.A6)(WSJ, 10/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 26, Astronauts added
the 24-foot long, Italian-built Harmony compartment to the int’l.
space station.
(SFC, 10/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 26, Friedman Paul
Erhardt (63), television's "Chef Tell," died in Upper Black Eddy,
Pa.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2007 Oct 26, Arthur Kornberg
(b.1918), genetics pioneer and Nobel Prize winner (1959), died at
Stanford Hospital in California. His books included “For the Love of
Enzymes: The Odyssey of a Biochemist."
(SFC, 10/27/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 26, In Afghanistan an
airstrike on a group of Taliban fighters left 18 militants dead in
the mountainous area of Daychopan district, in Zabul province.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, Shares in Bovespa,
the stock exchange of Sao Paulo, Brazil, began trading. The IPO
opened at $12.77 and closed at $17.77.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.88)(http://tinyurl.com/34oyeb)
2007 Oct 26, A British soldier
was convicted at a court martial of his part in a plot to smuggle
guns out of Iraq and sell them to colleagues at his unit's base in
Germany. Lance Corporal Anthony Creswick was involved in selling
illegal pistols bought on the black market in Basra.
(AFP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, A Chilean appeals
court dropped corruption charges against former dictator Gen.
Augusto Pinochet's widow and four of his children, who had been
accused of misuse of state funds related to multimillion-dollar
overseas bank accounts.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, China announced a
multibillion-dollar plan to clean up severely polluted Lake Tai,
where an algae bloom forced the suspension of water supplies to
millions of people this summer. The $14.5 billion plan to clean up
the lake, in a densely populated area northwest of Shanghai, should
take five years.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 26, In Congo heavy
rains swelled into a torrent of water that swamped Kinshasa, killing
30 people in less than 24 hours.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 26, The head of the
Cuban national ballet implored American artists, writers and
intellectuals to denounce Washington's 45-year-old embargo against
the communist-run island, saying that cultural exchanges between
both countries should not be considered crimes.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, A high-level Iraqi
delegation held talks with Turkish officials to try to defuse
tensions over Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq. Turkish
helicopters and fighter jets pounded Kurdish rebel positions as
diplomatic efforts began in Ankara.
(AP, 10/26/07)(Reuters, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, A suicide bomber
blew himself up near the headquarters of a nationalistic Sunni
insurgent group that has turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, killing a
woman on her way to the market and wounding four other people. A
bomb exploded near a village south of Buhriz, about 35 miles north
of Baghdad, killing a farmer and wounding two others. A roadside
bomb struck a police patrol in the Daghara area, about 12 miles
north of the mainly Shiite city of Diwaniyah, killing two officers
and wounding three others. A battle between al Qaeda in Iraq and a
major Sunni Arab insurgent group killed at least 16 militants near
the ancient city of Samarra.
(AP, 10/26/07) (Reuters,
10/27/07)
2007 Oct 26, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began talks in
Jerusalem as part of efforts to work out a joint statement ahead of
a US-sponsored Mideast peace conference this fall.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, An official said
Japan hopes to thwart potential terrorists from entering the country
by fingerprinting and photographing all foreigners aged 16 or over
on entry starting next month.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, The Mozambican
government set itself a new five-year target to remove all the
landmines that still litter the country, 15 years after its
long-running civil war.
(AFP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 26, In Myanmar
one-time drug warlord Khun Sa (b.1933), variously described as among
the world's most wanted men and as a great Shan liberation fighter,
died.
(AP, 10/30/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.106)
2007 Oct 26, In south Nigeria
armed militants attacked an offshore oil platform operated by
Italy's ENI and seized seven foreign workers and one Nigerian. The 6
foreign workers were released on Oct 30.
(AP, 10/26/07)(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 26, In northwestern
Pakistan paramilitary troops battled supporters of radical cleric
Maulana Fazlullah, killing at least one in a fierce fight with heavy
weapons. Militants seized and beheaded 7 civilians and 6 security
officers after government troops launched an assault on the radical
cleric's hideout. The clashes at the hideout of Fazlullah in the
village of Imamdheri also left three rebels and two civilians dead.
(AP, 10/26/07)(AFP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, The Bush
administration and NY state cut a deal to create a new generation of
super-secure driver’s licenses, which would also allow illegal
immigrants to get a version.
(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.A6)
2007 Oct 27, In San Francisco
thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as
they marched through downtown, chanting and carrying signs that
read: "Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die" or "Drop Tuition
Not Bombs."
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 27, Despite
significant dissent among some of its workers, United Auto Workers
members narrowly passed a four-year contract agreement with Chrysler
LLC.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2007 Oct 27, A suicide bomber
wearing an Afghan security uniform detonated his explosives at the
entrance to a combined US-Afghan base, killing four Afghan soldiers
and a civilian. In Helmand province Taliban militants killed three
Afghan police who had been trying to prevent them from carrying out
a kidnapping. The militants successfully kidnapped an Afghan man
during the gunbattle. US-led coalition forces killed about 80
Taliban fighters during a six-hour battle outside a
Taliban-controlled town near Musa Qala in southern Helmand province.
(AP, 10/27/07)(AP, 10/28/07)(SSFC, 10/28/07,
p.A16)
2007 Oct 27, Algerian security
sources said the army killed 17 Islamist rebels during security
operations in the east of the country over three days this week.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, Mai Mai militia
leader and army deserter Kibamba Kasereka said he had surrendered to
the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo's
restive Nord-Kivu province, agreeing to calls to disarm his forces.
(AFP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, Queues of
frustrated, angry passengers built up at main French airports as Air
France cancelled scores of flights on the third day of a strike by
cabin staff.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, In eastern India
Naxalite rebels opened fire on a crowd of revelers at a festival,
killing a politician's son and 17 other people in Jharkhand state.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, Iraqi troops found
17 decomposed bodies of unidentified men near the restive city of
Baquba in a grim reminder of sustained sectarian bloodletting, as 12
other people were killed in the country. Gunmen wearing military
uniforms abducted the police chief of the town of Muqdadiyah in
Diyala and his seven bodyguards. In Basra a local elections official
was gunned down in front of his house. US forces seized a Shiite
fighter and shot dead two others, accusing them of ignoring cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr's order to freeze militia's activities.
(AFP, 10/27/07)(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 27, In Somalia
insurgents and government-allied forces battled with machine guns,
mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in the heaviest fighting to
hit Mogadishu for months, leaving at least seven people dead and
dozens others wounded.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, An official of the
Vietnamese embassy to South Africa was shot and seriously injured in
a robbery at his Pretoria residence.
(AFP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 27, Sudan's government
and some rebel groups began talks in Libya to end 4-1/2 years of
conflict in Darfur. Sudan's government committed to a cease-fire in
Darfur, but mediators and journalists outnumbered the few rebels who
did not boycott the UN-sponsored negotiations, reducing hopes for an
end to the fighting. According to 2 rebel factions Sudan’s
government attacked the Jabel Moun area along the Chad-Sudan border.
(Reuters, 10/27/07)(AP, 10/28/07)(Reuters,
10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, In Denver the
Boston Red Sox swept to their second World Series title in four
years with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies in Game 4.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, Iowa Democrats
voted to move their leadoff precinct caucuses to Jan 3. Republicans
had picked the same date earlier this month.
(SFC, 10/30/07, p.A5)
2007 Oct 28, In Joliet,
Illinois, Stacy Peterson (23), the current wife of police officer
Drew Peterson, was last seen. On Nov 10 state police said Peterson
is no longer a person of interest in the disappearance but a
suspect. A coroner's jury ruled the 2004 death of Kathleen Savio,
Peterson's third wife, an accident. On Nov 17 former NYC chief
medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden analyzed Kathleen Savio's remains
and concluded she died after a struggle. In 2008 Dr. Larry W. Blum
said in an autopsy report that Kathleen Savio died by drowning and
her death was ruled a homicide. In 2009 Peterson (55) was arrested
during a traffic stop and faced murder charges.
(AP, 11/10/07)(AP, 11/17/07)(AP, 2/22/08)(AP,
5/8/09)
2007 Oct 28, A beach house
erupted into a storm of fire and smoke in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. Six
of the seven students killed attended the University of South
Carolina.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, In NYC
orthodontist Daniel Malakov was shot and killed when he too his
daughter for an arranged meeting with his former wife, Mazoltuv
Borukhova. Police soon charged Borukhova with hiring a cousin by
marriage to kill Malakov. In 2011 Janet Malcolm authored “Iphigenia
in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial.
(SSFC, 5/15/11,
p.G4)(www.fathersandfamilies.org/?tag=daniel-malakov)
2007 Oct 28, Porter Wagoner
(80), country singer, died. He was known for a string of country
hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his
trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly
Parton. The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955
and joined the Opry in 1957. His syndicated TV show, "The Porter
Wagoner Show," ran for 21 years, beginning in 1960.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, A six-hour battle
in southern Afghanistan left over 50 Taliban fighters killed or
wounded in Uruzgan province. In the east, coalition forces raided a
compound suspected of housing al-Qaida facilitators, killing several
militants in Kunar province.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, In Argentina
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the other half of the power couple
credited with the country’s rebound from an economic collapse,
overshadowed 13 rivals as voting opened in Argentina's presidential
elections. Cristina Fernandez, claimed victory in the country's
presidential election; she became the first woman elected to the
post.
(AP, 10/28/07)(AP, 10/28/08)
2007 Oct 28, Nordin Benallal, a
Belgian inmate, made a dramatic escape from jail for the fourth time
after his armed accomplices landed in the prison grounds in a
hijacked helicopter. On landing, the helicopter was crowded by other
prisoners, making takeoff impossible and causing it to crash.
Benallal and his cohorts then briefly seized two prison warders as
hostages and fled in a car parked nearby.
(Reuters, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, In London a media
report said US financial services group GMAC will lead a rescue bid
for stricken bank Northern Rock.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 28, Bulgarians voted
in municipal elections that attracted a record number of candidates
given the scheduled influx of millions of euros in EU funding over
the next few years. The vote will prove a mid-term test for the
ruling centre-left coalition government of PM Sergey Stanishev.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 28, In Dubai thousands
of South Asian construction workers went on strike over harsh
working conditions in the latest threat to a spectacular building
boom already endangered by a falling currency and labor shortage.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, Tens of thousands
of impoverished Indians arrived in New Delhi ending a monthlong
march to draw attention to the plight of those dispossessed of their
land by recent economic development.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, In Baghdad 10
Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders who joined forces against al-Qaida
were abducted. One sheik was soon found shot to death. Shehab
Mohammad al-Hiti (27), editor for the fledgling weekly Baghdad
al-Youm, was killed in Baghdad. A car bomb ripped through a Kirkuk
bus terminal that serves travelers to Iraq's Kurdish region, killing
eight people and wounding 26. Gunmen sprayed a car carrying five
bodyguards of the head of local Sunni Endowments department in the
turbulent city of Basra, killing one of them and injuring the rest.
(AP, 10/28/07)(SFC, 10/29/07, p.A9)(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, Israel began
cutting vital fuel shipments to the Gaza Strip, following through on
a promise to step up pressure on the area's Hamas rulers in response
to months of Palestinian rocket attacks.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 28, At least 15
migrants drowned in the waters off the Italian coast in two separate
incidents, including the disintegration of a boat that spilled more
than 100 passengers into rough seas.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, In northwestern
Pakistan security forces backed by helicopter gunships militant
hideouts in the mountains of the district. Over 60 militants died in
the fierce fighting.
(AP, 10/29/07)(SFC, 10/30/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 28, Puerto Rican and
US archaeologists said they have found the best-preserved
pre-Columbian site in the Caribbean, which could shed light on
virtually every aspect of Indian life in the region. Artifacts of
Taino or pre-Taino people dated from 600 A.D. to 1500 A.D.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 28, The USS Porter, a
guided missile destroyer, fired on and destroyed two pirate boats
tied to the Golden Nori, a hijacked Japanese-flagged chemical
tanker. The ship was carrying a load of benzene off the coast of
Somalia.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 28, UN-brokered peace
talks ground to a halt, with officials saying there could be no key
steps until the fighters decided how to negotiate with the Sudanese
government.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 28, Turkish troops
killed some 20 Kurdish guerrillas in fighting in eastern Tunceli
province. Turkey's PM Erdogan called for unity between Turks and
Kurds against the rebels.
(Reuters, 10/28/07)(AP, 10/29/07)(WSJ, 10/29/07,
p.A1)
2007 Oct 28, The Vatican staged
its largest mass beatification ceremony ever, putting 498 victims
(1934-1937) of religious persecution before and during Spain's civil
war on the path to possible sainthood.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 29, Police in riot
gear cleared several large crowds gathered around Fenway Park in the
early morning after the Red Sox won their second World Series title
in four years.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Oil prices closed
at a record $93.53 per barrel on the NY Mercantile Exchange.
(SFC, 10/30/07, p.C2)
2007 Oct 29, David Tallichet
(b.1922), pioneer of theme restaurants and collector of war planes,
died. He had opened his first South Seas-inspired venue on the edge
of the harbor in Long Beach, Ca. Specialty Restaurants went public
in 1968. He took it private again in 1980. The company declared
bankruptcy in 1993 and then emerged as a leaner operation. In 2007
the company operated 25 restaurants in 9 states.
(WSJ, 11/17/07, p.A7)
2007 Oct 29, In a special
Internet announcement in Arabic, picked up DEBKAfile’s
counter-terror sources, Osama bin Laden’s followers announced the
launching of Electronic Jihad. On Sunday, Nov. 11, al Qaeda’s
electronic experts will start attacking Western, Jewish, Israeli,
Muslim apostate and Shiite Web sites.
(http://debka.com/)
2007 Oct 29, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber targeting a police patrol ended in the deaths of
three civilians and an officer in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand
province.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, In Argentina
partial results indicated voters had elected a female president for
the first time and launched their country's most powerful political
dynasty since Juan and Evita Peron. President Kirchner and first
lady Cristina Fernandez were poised to switch jobs in December.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, In Azerbaijan the
US and British embassies suspended operations in Baku, where the
government said it thwarted a radical Islamic group's plot to
conduct a "large-scale horrifying terror attack" against diplomatic
missions and government buildings. One suspect was killed and
several others were detained in a weekend sweep in village outside
the capital.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Canada’s PM Harper
received Tibet's exiled spiritual leader in his office in
Parliament. He presented the 1989 Nobel laureate with a maple-leaf
scarf. The next day China condemned Harper for "disgusting conduct"
for playing host to the Dalai Lama.
(Reuters, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 28, Authorities in
Chad charged six French charity workers with kidnapping after they
tried to put 103 children on a plane to France, claiming they were
orphans from Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region. The charity
workers were later convicted, jailed for several months, then
pardoned.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2007 Oct 29, China’s Xinhua
news agency said more than 6,000 people will be forced from their
homes on the southern island of Hainan to make way for the country's
newest space launch centre. China said that it had arrested 774
people in a crackdown on substandard goods, part of ongoing efforts
to calm international worries over the quality of the country's
products. State media said coal mining regions of northern China are
reporting soaring levels of defects in newborns, an apparent result
of heavy pollution.
(AP, 10/29/07)(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Tropical Storm
Noel caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 20 people in
the Dominican Republic and left another 20 missing.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 29, Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak announced plans to build several nuclear power plants,
joining several Arab countries in the Middle East that recently have
broadcast their own atomic energy ambitions.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, In India 14
children working in a textiles factory were rescued after media
reports said an Indian clothing supplier to US retailer Gap was
employing underage workers.
(AFP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 29, A suicide bomber
on a bicycle blew himself up in a crowd of police recruits northeast
of Baghdad, killing at least 29 people, most of them struck by iron
balls packed with the explosives. A group of Shiite and Sunni tribal
leaders, meanwhile, were rescued, one day after they were kidnapped
in the capital after meeting with the government to discuss how to
coordinate efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq. The US military
discovered a weapons cache in Turki village near Balad Ruz, 45 miles
northeast of Baghdad. The stash included 20 rocket-propelled
grenades, ten mortar rounds and three hand grenades. US Brig. Gen.
Jeffrey Dorko was wounded in a roadside bombing in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 10/29/07)(AP, 10/30/07)(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 29, Israel’s PM Ehud
Olmert announced that he has prostate cancer and would soon have
surgery, but said the disease is not life-threatening and he would
continue to perform his duties.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Japanese megabank
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) said that its losses on US
subprime loans soared by as much as six-fold over two months to $263
million.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Pro-Taliban
militants and security forces reached a cease-fire in a troubled
district of northwest Pakistan.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, In Portugal senior
officials from the EU, three US states (California, New York, New
Jersey), Canada, Norway and New Zealand launched the International
Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), an international effort to fight
climate change by building a global carbon trading market.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 28, A Moscow court
sentenced Alexander Pichushkin, convicted of 48 murders, to life
imprisonment, ending one of Russia's worst serial killer cases.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2007 Oct 29, African leaders
and technology experts met in Rwanda to discuss plans to boost the
continent's development by securing universal Internet access by
2012.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, A long-brewing
power struggle between the Somali PM Ali Mohamed Gedi and Pres.
Abdullahi Yusuf ended with the premier's resignation, throwing the
government of the war-battered Horn of Africa nation into disarray.
In Mogadishu, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the streets
in a second day of protests against the presence of the Ethiopian
troops in the country.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Turkey's state-run
news said soldiers battled separatist Kurdish rebels across
southeast Turkey, trapping about 100 in caves near the Iraqi border
after blocking escape routes across the frontier. Helicopter
gunships bombed Kurdish rebel positions in southeast Turkey and the
government flexed its military muscle with big national day parades
and flypasts in major cities.
(AP, 10/29/07)(Reuters, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Patrick Duddy, the
new US ambassador to Venezuela met with President Hugo Chavez,
calling it a positive start toward improving tense relations.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Mike McConnell, US
Director of National Intelligence, said the government spent $43.5
billion on intelligence this year.
(SFC, 10/31/07, p.A6)
2007 Oct 30, The US Supreme
Court halted a Mississippi execution, their 3rd reprieve since
agreeing to rule on Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure.
(WSJ, 10/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30, It was reported
that John Murtha, US Democratic Congressman from Johnstown, Pa., and
chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, had
steered at least $600 million in earmarks to his district over the
past 4 years. Since 1992 he has sent some $2 billion to his home
district.
(WSJ, 10/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 29, Democrats Barack
Obama and John Edwards sharply challenged Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton's candor, consistency and judgment in a televised debate in
Philadelphia.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2007 Oct 30, Stan O’Neal, CEO
of Merril Lynch, left the company with $161.5 million in stock,
options and retirement benefits, following the recent investment
bank’s largest ever quarterly loss.
(SFC, 10/31/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 30, In Sunnyvale, Ca.,
Todd David Burpee kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old girl. He was
arrested 2 days later. In 2009 Burpee (22) was convicted of
kidnapping and sexual assault and was sentenced 43 years to life in
prison.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.B2)(SFC, 9/12/09, p.C3)
2007 Oct 30, The San Francisco
Bay area's largest earthquake in nearly two decades rattled homes
and nerves. The magnitude-5.6 temblor on the Calaveras Fault caused
no serious damage or injuries.
(AP, 10/31/07)(SFC, 10/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30, NASA said US
astronomers have discovered the biggest black hole orbiting a star
1.8 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia,
with a record-setting mass of 24 to 33 times that of our Sun.
(AFP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, It was reported
that a floating mass of trash some 1,000 miles
west of SF and 1,000 miles north of Hawaii covered an area about the
size of Texas with an estimated mass of 3 million tons, mostly made
up of plastic chips.
(SFC, 10/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30, Robert Goulet
(73), whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning
stage and recording career, died in Los Angeles. Goulet also
performed in movies ranging from the animated "Gay Purr-ee" (1962)
to "Underground" (1970) to "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" (1991). He played a
lounge singer in Louis Malle's acclaimed 1980 film "Atlantic City."
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, American
journalist Harry W. Morgan (73), founder of the World Press
Institute (1961), died in Romania. Morgan had moved to Romania in
1994, when the government invited him to help develop journalism
schools at the universities of Bucharest, Sibiu and Timisoara.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Linda Stein (62),
a pioneer in the punk music scene and later known as a real estate
“broker to the stars," was found murdered in her Manhattan
apartment. On Nov 9 police arrested Natavia Lowery (26), Stein’s
personal assistant, who bludgeoned her boss to death because Stein
“just kept yelling at her."
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.E2)(SFC, 11/10/07, p.E2)
2007 Oct 30, Washoe the chimp
(42), who had learned American sign Language, died at Central
Washington Univ. in Ellensburg, Wa. Cognitive researchers had
adopted the 10-month-old chimp from military researchers in 1966.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 30, An Azerbaijani
newspaper editor was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison over an
article alleging that the former Soviet republic could support a US
attack on neighboring Iran. The Court for Grave Crimes convicted
Eynulla Fatullayev, the founder and editor of two independent
newspapers that stopped publication this spring amid government
pressure, on charges of making a terrorist threat and inciting
interethnic conflict.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Nordin Benallal
(27), a Belgian gangster dubbed "The Eel" for his skill at slipping
away from Belgian prison authorities, was caught in the Netherlands
two days after his latest jailbreak.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, In London Saudi
Arabia's King Abdullah received a lavish welcome from Queen
Elizabeth II as he started a state visit amid angry protests and
headlines after accusing Britain of anti-terrorism failures. The
Policy Exchange, an independent think tank, said Agencies linked to
the Saudi government have distributed extremist literature to
mosques and Islamic centers in Britain.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Canada's
Conservative government vowed to slash corporate and personal taxes
and still pay down C$10 billion in debt this year.
(Reuters, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met India's leadership at the start of a state visit
aimed at boosting trade and security links.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, An Indonesian
court dismissed a legal challenge to the death penalty brought by
lawyers for members of an Australian drugs gang on death row for
heroin smuggling.
(AFP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Baghdad, gunmen
in a speeding car tossed a hand grenade into a crowd of shoppers in
eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five. At least four
mortar rounds slammed into a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown
of Tikrit, killing a woman and wounding five other civilians. Three
US soldiers were killed after their patrol was struck by an
explosive and small arms fire in Salman Pak.
(AP, 10/30/07)(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Oct 30, Israeli aircraft
hit a Hamas-run police station in the southern Gaza city of Khan
Younis, killing at least four people.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Italy Giovanna
Reggiani (47) was brutally attacked as she returned home in northern
Rome. She died 2 days later. Nicolae Mailat, a Romanian Gypsy,
admitted to snatching her bag but denied her murder. Her attack
triggered a public outcry.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.63)
2007 Oct 30, Myanmar's military
government freed seven members of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy
party, who had been held for more than a month. Human Rights Watch
charged that Myanmar’s military government is recruiting children as
young as 10 into its armed forces.
(AP, 10/30/07)(WSJ, 10/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30, Patricia Etteh,
the speaker of Nigeria's House of Representatives, resigned, just
hours after saying she would step aside temporarily to enable
lawmakers to debate a report indicting her over a contract scam. A
panel's report found Etteh did not follow due process before
awarding contracts worth several million dollars to equip and
renovate her official residence and that of her deputy.
(AFP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Pakistan a
suicide attacker set off a bomb at a checkpoint a quarter-mile from
the military headquarters in Rawalpindi where President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf was staying, killing 3 officers and 4 civilians.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Paraguay's Supreme
Court annulled the mutiny conviction of former army Gen. Lino Cesar
Oviedo, clearing the way for him to compete in April's presidential
election.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Puerto Rico
federal authorities arrested more than two dozen people in a
crackdown on fraudulent medical licenses on the island.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Somalia's
president named Salim Aliyow Ibrow, a former deputy prime
minister, as a caretaker prime minister, a day after the
outgoing premier lost a power struggle in the government and
resigned.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, The US Navy
boarded a North Korean flagged ship at its invitation with a small
team of medics, security personnel and an interpreter. The 22-person
North Korean crew already had regained control of the ship and
detained all the Somali pirates.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 30, Switzerland's
largest bank, UBS, reported its first quarterly loss in five years
after its third quarter results were hit in the financial crisis
caused by the ailing US home loans market.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Thailand's
military-installed government lifted martial law in more than half
of the 400 districts where it remained after being imposed during a
coup last year.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Turkish Cobra
attack helicopters blasted suspected Kurdish rebel targets near the
southeastern border with Iraq in a second day of fighting in the
area. PM Erdogan said an escalation of military action was
unavoidable.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, The UN General
Assembly voted for the 16th straight year to urge the United States
to end its trade embargo against Cuba, whose foreign minister
accused the US of stepping up its "brutal economic war" to new
heights.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 31, Pres. Bush signed
into law a measure barring states from levying taxes on Internet
access through 2014.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C2)
2007 Oct 31, The US
acknowledged that it had undertaken military moves against Kurdish
rebels in Iraq, including spy planes and providing Turkey with more
intelligence.
(WSJ, 11/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 31, The US Federal
Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point to 4.5%. The DJIA rose
137.54 to 13,930.01. Nasdaq rose 42.41 to 2,859. Oil futures rose to
a new record high closing at $94.53 per barrel on the NY mercantile
Exchange. Gold traded above $800 an ounce for the first time since
1980.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/1/07, p.C1)(AP,
10/31/08)
2007 Oct 30, In California
Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona was indicted on seven
counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering,
according to a sweeping indictment unsealed a day earlier. Carona
and others allegedly accepted $350,000 in gifts and cash in exchange
for political favors in a scheme that began as early as 1998, the
year he was first elected. On Jan 16, 2009, a jury convicted Carona
on one count of witness-tampering and acquitted him of bribery
charges.
(AP, 10/31/07)(SFC, 10/31/07, p.A3)(SFC, 1/17/09,
p.A3)
2007 Oct 31, In Alameda, Ca.,
Ichinkhorloo Bayarsaikhan (15) was shot in the back and killed in a
robbery attempt by a group of teenage boys. She had been out with
some 10 friends on Halloween when they were accosted at Washington
Park. Quochuy Tran (16), the suspected shooter, was arrested Nov 7
and 5 others were picked up the next day. 3 boys arrested earlier in
the week were released. On Dec 14 three teenage boys were convicted
in juvenile court of first degree murder. Charges were still pending
against 3 others. On Jan 25 Tran was sentenced to 7 years. His
younger brother (15) and another boy (13) were sentenced to a
wilderness camp for 2 years. In 2010 Quochuy Tran was tried as an
adult and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for first degree
murder.
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/14/07, p.B5)(SFC,
12/15/07, p.B1)(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B3)(SFC, 8/21/10, p.C2)
2007 Oct 31, San Francisco
energy officials approved a new $230 million power plant near
Potrero Hill, which would let it close an older, dirtier plant
nearby.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 31, Physicists at UC
Berkeley said they had produced the world’s smallest radio out of a
single carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than human hair. They
had it play “Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and said it could also
function as a transmitter.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 31, In Hawaii state
lawmakers voted to allow the new inter-island ferry to resume
service. The Superferry law overrode court decisions requiring an
environmental study.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A4)
2007 Oct 31, Officials said
Afghan, US and Canadian troops have surrounded a pocket of some 250
Taliban fighters who have commandeered people's homes in villages
just outside Kandahar. In western Farah province six police officers
were killed and two others wounded, and 14 Afghan army troops were
missing after clashes with Taliban militants. A nighttime raid in
eastern Afghanistan by Afghan troops with US support sparked a
gunbattle that killed three people, including two children.
(AP, 10/31/07)(AP, 11/1/07)(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Oct 31, In London King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met PM Gordon Brown to discuss Middle East
issues and counter-terrorism, amid a swirl of protests.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, China's worst fuel
crisis in two years spread to the capital and other inland areas,
and one man was killed in a brawl at a petrol station queue, upping
pressure on the government to intervene.
(Reuters, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In Dubai more than
4,000 south Asian workers who had been jailed since a weekend labor
strike were released, in an incident that has highlighted labor
tensions in this booming city.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Authorities said
French police had arrested 20 suspects as part of a Europe-wide
crackdown on child pornography over the Internet.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Alcatel-Lucent,
the struggling French-US telecommunications equipment maker,
announced it would cut an additional 4,000 jobs by 2009 as it
unveiled a sharp third quarter net loss.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, The Iraqi
government rejected the findings of a US oversight panel that a dam
near the northern city of Mosul is on the verge of a collapse that
could cause flooding along the Tigris River "all the way to
Baghdad." US helicopters opened fire after a ground patrol came
under attack southeast of Baghdad, and Iraqi police said three
officers were killed and one wounded in the strike. Two American
soldiers were killed by an explosion near their vehicle in Iraq's
northern Ninevah province.
(AP, 10/31/07)(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 31, More than 100
Buddhist monks marched in northern Myanmar for nearly an hour, the
first public demonstration since the government's deadly crackdown
last month on pro-democracy protesters.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, In southern
Nigeria one navy officer was killed and four other naval personnel
injured in an overnight attack on a vessel protecting a Shell
oilfield.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Pakistan military
helicopter gunships strafed Islamic militant positions in the
northwestern Swat Valley as a shaky truce collapsed.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, A bomb ripped
through a passenger bus in the central Russian city of Togliatti,
killing eight people and injuring 48. Togliatti is a city on the
Volga River known as the headquarters of Russia's largest carmaker,
AvtoVAZ, which returned to state control in 2005. The city has a
reputation for gang violence as varying groups have competed for
control over the lucrative factory.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Spanish lawmakers
passed historic legislation condemning Gen. Francisco Franco's coup
and nearly 40-year fascist dictatorship, brushing aside complaints
from the conservative opposition that the bill would reopen old
divides. 3 lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid terror bombings that
killed 191 people were convicted of murder by the Spanish court.
Four other top suspects were acquitted of murder but convicted of
lesser charges. In all 21 of the 28 defendants were convicted.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, The Turkish army
said it killed 15 Kurdish separatists near the Iraqi border, as
ministers discussed possible economic sanctions against Iraq's
autonomous Kurdish government.
(AFP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct, Hardline Indonesian
cleric Abu Bakar Bashir likened tourists to "worms, snakes, maggots"
and called for signs to be placed in Muslim areas warning them to
dress modestly in a speech to an Islamic youth organization in east
Java.
(AFP, 3/23/08)
2007 Oct, In Japan a woman (19)
in Hiroshima was allegedly raped by 4 US Marines. In 2008 Lance Cpl.
Larry A. Dean (20) was sentenced to two years in prison for
"wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts" but cleared of rape. 3
other Marines still faced court-martial.
(AP, 5/9/08)
2007 Oct, Mexican officials
seized 23.5 tons of cocaine this month, the largest seizure ever
reported in Mexico. A US report, commissioned by Sen. Lugar, later
estimated that 530-710 tons of cocaine crossed annually into the US.
(Econ, 2/2/08, p.45)
2007 Oct, The first commercial
wave farm was set up off the coast of Portugal. The system was
created at Pelamis Wave Power, a firm based in Scotland.
(Econ, 5/31/08, TQ p.22)
2007 Oct, Russian oil
production peaked at 9.9 million barrels a day. The state creamed
off as much as 92% of profits hindering incentives for production
and development.
(Econ, 5/10/08, p.71)
2007 Oct, Fighting broke out
between Somaliland and Puntland in the disputed Sool region.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.56)
2007 Oct-2008 Nov, In Senegal
lead poisoning killed 18 children in Thiaroye Sur Mer. For years,
the town's blacksmiths had extracted lead from car batteries and
remolded it into weights for fishing nets. The work left the dirt of
Thiaroye dense with small lead particles. As the price of lead
climbed local people had begun to sift the dirt to extract the lead.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2007 Nov 1, A defiant
Democratic-controlled Congress voted to provide health insurance to
an additional 4 million lower-income children; President Bush vowed
swiftly to cast his second straight veto on the issue.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2007 Nov 1, A federal jury
convicted Vic Kohring, a former Alaska lawmaker, of corruption
charges involving tax protections sought by oil companies as part of
plans for a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, Florida’s high
court ruled that the state’s lethal injection procedures aren’t
cruel and unusual, which could clear the way for an execution.
(WSJ, 11/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 1, Chrysler LLC said
it plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs, or up to 15 percent of its
workforce, as part of an effort to slash costs and match slowing
demand for some vehicles.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, General Mills
recalled about 5 million frozen pizzas sold nationwide under the
Totino's and Jeno's labels because of possible E. coli
contamination.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, An alliance
including Google announced a plan to make social networks as open as
Netscape’s browser made the web.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.78)
2007 Nov 1, A project called
“The Deep Carbon Observatory," a multidisciplinary, international
initiative dedicated to achieving a transformational understanding
of Earth's deep carbon cycle, received funding from the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation.
(Econ, 2/26/11,
p.86)(https://dco.gl.ciw.edu/about/history)
2007 Nov 1, Retired Air Force
Brigadier Gen. Paul Tibbets (92), who'd piloted the B-29 bomber
Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died in
Columbus, Ohio.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2007 Nov 1, Taliban militants
attacked a police checkpoint in Nad Ali district, in the southern
Helmand province, killing five officers and wounding three others.
In Kandahar province hundreds of Taliban militants fled from
Arghandab district following three days of fighting which left more
than 50 militants dead and hundreds displaced.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, Bosnian PM Nikola
Spiric resigned in protest at an international envoy's decision to
impose EU-backed reforms, deepening the country's worst post-war
political crisis.
(AFP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, London's
Metropolitan Police force was convicted of breaching health and
safety laws in the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a
Brazilian, who officers mistook for a suicide bomber on July 22,
2005.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, China’s government
for the first time in 17 months allowed an increase of about 10% in
the retail prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene. The government
also said more than 700 toy factories in southern China have been
banned from exporting what they produce as part of a crackdown on
shoddy products.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.46)(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, Floodwaters and
mudslides spawned by Tropical Storm Noel killed at least 143 people
including 84 in the Dominican Republic and 57 in Haiti. By this
evening Noel was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane and rains
continued to pound the area.
(AP, 11/1/07)(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 1, The Markets in
Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) went into effect across 30
countries in Europe. Approved in 2004 it drops traditional rules
that required banks and brokers to use national exchanges for
reporting and trading equities, opening Europe's exchanges to the
threat of new competition.
(www.efinancialnews.com/homepage/specialfeatures/2449084355)(Econ,
10/27/07, p.83)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.67)
2007 Nov 1, A top UN official
said South American traffickers are moving billions of dollars worth
of cocaine through Guinea-Bissau, amid growing demand in Europe, an
amount so large it dwarfs all other economic sectors combined and
could destabilize the coup-prone country.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 1, Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, former French finance minister, took over as head of
the IMF. By convention the IMF chief is European.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.88)
2007 Nov 1, The Indian
government proposed to recruit retired soldiers to patrol tiger
sanctuaries in the hopes of saving the last of the cats after an
official report confirmed a drastic drop in wild tiger numbers.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 1, Bombs and shootings
killed at least 21 people in attacks across Baghdad and its northern
suburbs. US and Iraqi troops arrested 85 suspected insurgents in
operations around the country. Two US airmen and an Air Force
civilian were killed by an explosive near Balad Air Base.
(AP, 11/1/07)(WSJ, 11/2/07, p.A1)(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 1, The Israel’
military announced that its forces operating in the Gaza Strip this
week had uncovered and destroyed seven tunnels used by Palestinian
militants to smuggle arms and people.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 1, Italy's president
signed a decree allowing the expulsion of EU citizens "for reasons
of public safety" to fight "episodes of heavy violence and ferocious
crime." This followed the Oct 30 attack on a 47-year-old woman as
she walked along a road after dark toward barracks where she lived.
She was beaten, dragged through mud and left half naked in a ditch.
The woman died 2 days later. Police arrested Nicolae Mailat a
Romanian in his 20s, who lives in a shack in one of several
sprawling settlements on the outskirts of Rome.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 1, In Italy Meredith
Kercher (21), a British university student, was killed [see Nov 2].
(AP, 12/5/09)
2007 Nov 1, Japan's defense
minister ordered ships supporting US-led forces in Afghanistan to
return home after opposition lawmakers refused to support an
extension of the mission, saying it violated the country's pacifist
constitution.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, Pakistani security
forces in the Swat region killed at least 60 militant supporters of
a pro-Taliban cleric, hours after a suicide attack on a Pakistan Air
Force bus killed eight and wounded 40. Militants said they had
captured 44 members of the Frontier Corps and were holding them
hostage.
(AP, 11/1/07)(SFC, 11/2/07, p.A21)
2007 Nov 1, The UN said nearly
90,000 people have fled Mogadishu in recent days following the
heaviest fighting to shake the war-battered city in months. About 40
people, mostly Somalis, drowned while crossing the Gulf of Aden on
their way to Yemen in a desperate attempt to escape gunbattles back
home. About 90 others survived and managed to reach the Yemeni
southern shores of Shokara after their rickety vessels capsized.
(AP, 11/1/07)(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 1, State media
reported that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe signed a law giving
him more power to choose his successor. The new law also provides
for simultaneous presidential and parliamentary polls next year.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, The UN General
Assembly's disarmament committee approved a resolution calling for
all nuclear weapons to be taken off high alert, despite objections
from the United States, Britain and France.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 1, Soldiers used tear
gas, plastic bullets and water cannons to scatter tens of thousands
who massed to protest constitutional reforms that would permit
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election
indefinitely.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 2, Speaking at a
graduation ceremony at Fort Jackson, S.C., President Bush said US
military deaths had fallen to their lowest levels in 19 months and
the Iraqi people were slowly "taking back their country" in the wake
of the American troop buildup there.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2007 Nov 2, Michael
Mukasey drew closer to becoming attorney general after two key
Senate Democrats, Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, said they
would vote for him despite his refusal to say whether waterboarding
was torture.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2007 Nov 2, Gold futures at the
NY Mercantile Exchange set a contract high of $805.70, its highest
level since the $873 contract high reached in January 1980.
(WSJ, 11/3/07, p.B3)
2007 Nov 2, A new study, issued
by the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, said drug-resistant
tuberculosis and HIV have merged into a double-barreled epidemic
that is sweeping across sub-Saharan Africa and threatening global
efforts to eradicate both diseases.
(AFP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 2, In southern
Afghanistan a US-led coalition soldier and an Afghan soldier were
killed in clashes with insurgents.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 2, In England a
massive fire at a vegetable packing warehouse in Atherstone On
Stour, near Stratford-upon-Avon, left one fire fighter dead and 3
missing.
(AFP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 2, Iraqi police found
only six bodies dumped in three Iraqi cities, and no reports of
shootings or bombings. The prime minister of Iraq's northern Kurdish
region condemned attacks by Kurdish rebel fighters inside Turkey and
said he hopes a weekend summit in Istanbul will reduce the threat of
Turkish military strikes inside Iraq.
(AP, 11/2/07)(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 2, Italy began
deporting Romanians with criminal records in response to a streak of
violent crime blamed on immigrants. In Rome up to 10 people wearing
motorcycle helmets attacked a group of Romanians with knives, metal
bars and sticks in the parking lot of a supermarket. Three Romanians
were injured. As part of the crackdown, bulldozers in Rome for a
second day knocked down shantytowns where thousands of foreigners
lived without permits.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 2, In Italy Meredith
Kercher (21), a British university student, was found dead with her
throat slashed in the bedroom of a house in the central city of
Perugia. A week later 3 suspects in the murder were remanded in
custody by an Italian investigating magistrate. On Nov 19 police in
Perugia identified a 4th suspect as Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory
Coast native. Guede was arrested in Germany the next day and DNA
evidence confirmed that he had sex with Kercher the night she was
stabbed. In 2009 roommate Amanda Knox, of Seattle, Wa., was
convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison. The court also
convicted Knox's co-defendant and former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele
Sollecito, and gave him a 25-year jail term for the murder. Rudy
Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast citizen, had already been convicted in
the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 11/2/07)(AFP, 11/10/07)(AP, 11/19/07)(AP,
11/22/07)(AP, 12/5/09)
2007 Nov 2, A UN helicopter
crashed on a routine flight in northern Liberia, killing two crew
members and leaving a third missing.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 2, Rescuers in boats
and helicopters worked to evacuate people stranded by a flood the
president called "one of the worst natural disasters" to hit Mexico.
A week of heavy rains caused rivers to overflow, leaving 70 percent
of the Gulf state of Tabasco underwater. Gov. Andres Granier
estimated the damage at $5 billion. The death toll reached to about
25.
(AP, 11/2/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.45)
2007 Nov 2, A Nigerian court
sentenced Omoniyi Sanlola (25), a university student, to 34 years in
jail for forging US Postal Service money orders. The judge handed
him one-year terms for each count, to run concurrently.
(AFP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 2, Pakistan
International Airlines had to cancel 40 percent of its international
and domestic flights after aircraft engineers went on mass sick
leave in a protest over pay. A missile strike on a pro-Taliban
militant camp in Pakistan's tribal belt killed 10 people, as rebels
in another area paraded 48 men said to be troops captured during
fierce clashes.
(AFP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 2, Igor Moiseyev
(101), called the king of folk dance, died in Moscow. In 1937 he
founded the Moiseyev Dance Company which went on to inspire folk
dance companies in many other countries.
(SFC, 11/3/07, p.B5)
2007 Nov 2, A Sri Lankan
airstrike pounded a meeting of top rebel leaders, killing S.P.
Thamilselvan, the head of the Tamil Tigers' political wing and five
others in an attack seen as a major victory for the government in
its long fight with the guerrillas.
(AP, 11/2/07)(Econ, 1/31/09, p.49)
2007 Nov 2, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir reached agreement with southern leader Salva Kiir,
who is also first vice president, that all provisions of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement would now be implemented by the end of
the year.
(AFP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 2, Venezuela's
pro-government National Assembly overwhelmingly approved
constitutional reforms that would greatly expand the power of
President Hugo Chavez and permit him to run for re-election
indefinitely.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 3, Agricultural giant
Cargill Inc. said it is recalling over 1 million pounds of ground
beef distributed in the United States because of possible E. Coli
contamination.
(Reuters, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 3, Spacewalker Scott
Parazynski fixed a ripped solar energy panel on the international
space station in a difficult and dangerous emergency procedure that
allowed the crew to extend the wing to its full length.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 3, Boss, a robotic
Chevrolet Tahoe from Carnegie Mellon Univ., won the annual DARPA
sponsored race in San Bernadino County, Ca. 6 of 11 starting
vehicles finished the 10-mile race, designed to simulate a town. No
car finished the first race in 2004.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.100)
2007 Nov 3, United Auto Workers
agreed to a tentative contract with Ford Motor Co.
(AP, 11/3/08)
2007 Nov 3, Eighteen big rigs
were involved in the massive pileup on Highway 99 just south of
Fresno, Ca., as patches of dense fog obscured visibility on the
heavily traveled roadway. More than 100 cars and trucks crashed,
killing at least two people and injuring dozens more.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 3, Abu Dhabi began
work on building the world's first Ferrari theme park, another step
in the Gulf emirate's ambition to become a global centre for
leisure, sport and culture.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 3, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel made her first visit to Afghanistan and said Berlin
would increase efforts to strengthen the Afghan police.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 3, Egypt's ruling
party appointed President Hosni Mubarak's son to an important new
committee in a move seen as further paving the way for the younger
Mubarak to succeed his father.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 3, In Indonesia
continuous tremors beneath the Mount Kelud volcano, in the heart of
densely populated Java island, became so strong that they could no
longer be read on seismological instruments, leading scientists to
evacuate their posts and warn that an eruption appeared to have
occurred. It was a false alarm but next day the volcano spewed ash.
(AP, 11/3/07)(Reuters, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 3, Two Iraqi officers
were killed and one was wounded in three separate attacks south of
Baghdad. The Basra police chief escaped an apparent assassination
attempt. Iraqi troops discovered 22 bodies in a mass grave in the
Lake Tharthar area northwest of Baghdad during a joint operation
with US troops. It was the second mass grave found in the area in
less than a month. The US military said that a female soldier was
killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, at least the 90th woman
service member to die since the start of the Iraq war.
(AP, 11/3/07)(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 3, Al-Qaida's No. 2
figure harshly criticized Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in a new
audio tape, accusing him of being an enemy of Islam and threatening
a wave of attacks against the North African country because it
improved relations with the US.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 3, Je Yell Kim, a
Canadian Christian aid worker who provided dental care for North
Koreans in the northeast part of the country, was taken into custody
by authorities on charges of violating national security. Kim was
released in late Jan 2008.
(Reuters, 1/28/08)
2007 Nov 3, Pakistan’s
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf launched his 2nd coup and declared a
state of emergency ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on
whether to overturn his recent election win and amid rising Islamic
militant violence. Eight Supreme Court judges immediately rejected
the emergency, which suspended the current constitution.
(AP, 11/3/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.31)
2007 Nov 3, In Russia some
1,500 people, half of them pensioners, marched through St.
Petersburg chanting anti-Kremlin slogans and banging saucepans in
protest against rising food prices.
(Reuters, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 3, Some 5,000 Turkish
Kurds protested against a military incursion into Iraq, saying such
a move would enflame ethnic tensions in the region and plunge the
local economy into ruin. Iraq said it was ready to hunt down and
arrest Kurdish guerrilla leaders responsible for cross-border raids
into Turkey in an effort to avert a major incursion by the Turkish
military.
(AFP, 11/3/07)(Reuters, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 4, Citigroup Inc.
Chairman and Chief Executive Charles Prince, beset by the company's
billions of dollars in losses from investing in bad debt, resigned.
Citigroup in this quarter took subprime-related write-downs of $18.1
billion.
(AP, 11/4/08)(Econ 5/6/17, SR p.5)
2007 Nov 4, Paula Radcliffe
outlasted Gete Wami to win her second New York City Marathon in
2:23:09. Martin Lel of Kenya won his second men's title, in 2:09:04.
(AP, 11/4/08)
2007 Nov 4, Taliban insurgents
seized Khak-e Sefid without a fight, its third district in western
Farah province. A Farah provincial police chief said: "There are
many Iranians and Pakistanis fighting among the Afghan Taliban."
Local residents have complained that NATO-led troops, under Italian
command in western Afghanistan, have not helped Afghan forces to
retake the districts.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 4, In Argentina a fire
apparently set as part of an escape attempt swept through a prison
cellblock and killed at least 29 inmates in the central province of
Santiago del Estero.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 4, Welshman Joe
Calzaghe confirmed his status as boxing's best super-middleweight by
unanimously outpointing Denmark's Mikkel Kessler in a triple world
title fight at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
(AFP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, In Chad 3 French
journalists and 4 Spanish flight attendants, among 17 detained for
over a week in an alleged attempt to kidnap 103 African children,
were released. French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Chad on a
visit to discuss the fate of Europeans facing charges for trying to
fly 103 African children to Europe.
(AP, 11/4/07)(Reuters, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, Cairo, ranked one
of the most polluted cities in the world, was reported to be once
again under the shadow of a highly toxic black cloud which settles
above the huge city every autumn. Exhaust fumes belched by millions
of cars mixed with the hypertoxic emissions of the annual burning of
rice stubble in rural areas of the Nile Delta are a prime cause,
along with the city's ever-expanding population.
(AFP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, In Egypt the face
of King Tut was unshrouded in public for the first time, 85 years
after the 3,000-year-old boy pharaoh's golden enshrined tomb and
mummy were discovered in Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings in 1922.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, Ethiopia's Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels said they had killed another
270 government troops in heightened fighting in the eastern region
of the country.
(Reuters, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, In Guatemala Alvaro
Colom, a businessman promising to end Guatemala's desperate poverty,
won the country's presidential election. Otto Perez Molina (56), a
former general vowing a crackdown on rampant crime, had held a slim
edge in polls over Alvaro Colom. Only 48% of registered voters went
to the polls. Colom’s National Union of Hope will control only 52 of
158 seats in Congress.
(AP, 11/4/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.47)
2007 Nov 4, Two carloads of
gunman ambushed a top aide to Iraq's Finance Ministry in Baghdad,
killing him and his driver. The two were among 15 people killed or
found dead in Iraq. Kurdish rebels released eight Turkish soldiers
in northern Iraq two weeks after they were captured in a deadly
ambush that intensified pressure on the Turkish government to attack
the guerrillas in Iraq.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, Israeli aircraft
fired at a rocket-launching site in the northern Gaza Strip, killing
three civilians sleeping in a nearby storage container.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 4, In Mexico a
landslide hit a rain-swollen river, triggering what officials called
a "mini-tsunami" that wiped San Juan Grijalva, in Chiapas near the
Tabasco border, off the map. 15 bodies were later recovered with 9
left missing. The floods killed at least 8 others in Tabasco and
elsewhere in Chiapas.
(AP, 11/6/07)(AP, 11/13/07)(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 4, Pakistani police
wielding assault rifles rounded up opposition leaders and rights
activists after Gen. Pervez Musharraf suspended the constitution,
ousted the top justice and deployed troops to fight what he called
rising Islamic extremism. Pro-Taliban militants set free 211
Pakistani troops they have held captive since late August in a
tribal region near the Afghan border. In exchange Pakistan released
25 Taliban including Sohail Zeb (22), who was sentenced to 24 years
in jail a month earlier after being arrested with 2 suicide belts.
(AP, 11/4/07)(Reuters, 11/4/07)(Econ, 11/10/07,
p.34)
2007 Nov 4, Some 5,000
nationalists turned out for the Russian March, held for the third
year on National Unity Day, a holiday the Kremlin created in 2005 to
replace the traditional Nov. 7 celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik
rise to power. Preston Wiginton (43), a white supremacist from
Texas, addressed thousands of Russian nationalists at the rally. A
fire tore through a nursing home in Russia, killing at least 31
people, the latest in a series of deadly blazes that have
underscored negligence and other problems plaguing state-run
institutions.
(AP, 11/4/07)(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 4, Somali pirates left
the Tanzanian-flagged boats Mavuno 1 and 2, which they had hijacked
in the waters off Somalia on May 15. The newly liberated vessels,
and their crew of 24, were under US Navy escort. Among the crew on
the South Korean-owned vessels were four South Koreans, 10 Chinese,
three Vietnamese, three Indians and four Indonesians.
(AP, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 5, Brent Wilkes (53),
a former defense contractor, was convicted by a San Diego court of
bribing former congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham with 700,000
dollars in cash, gifts and prostitutes. Cunningham was sentenced to
eight years and four months in March last year after pleading guilty
to accepting kickbacks.
(AFP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, Jurors at Los
Angeles Superior Court ruled that food giants Dole and the Dow
Chemical Co were jointly liable for the physical damage suffered by
workers who harvested bananas in Nicaragua during the 1970s and
1980s. Six workers left infertile after exposure to a pesticide were
awarded more than three million dollars.
(AFP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, Talk show host
Oprah Winfrey promised to ''clean house'' after a dorm matron was
accused of abusing students at Winfrey's school for disadvantaged
South African girls.
(AP, 11/5/08)
2007 Nov 5, The first walkout
by Hollywood writers in nearly 20 years got under way with noisy
pickets outside the "Today" show, a strike that threatens to disrupt
everything from late-night talk shows to soap operas.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, NYC Mayor Bloomberg
announced a new report card for the city’s schools. He said high
grade schools will get a budget increase and schools that fail will
not be tolerated. Bloomberg and school chancellor Joel Klein
announced a plan to in effect charterize the entire school system.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.16,35)
2007 Nov 5, Citigroup named Sir
Win Bischoff (66), a London banker, as interim chief executive
following the departure of Charles Prince, ousted the previous day
due to loan losses on mortgage related securities. The company had
over 300,000 employees in 100 countries.
(WSJ, 11/6/07, p.C1)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.89)
2007 Nov 5, Conde Nast said it
would cease publication of House & Garden magazine with the
December issue and close down the magazine web site.
(WSJ, 11/6/07, p.B1)
2007 Nov 5, Google introduced
Android, a new operating system for cell phones. It was expected to
appear in phones in the second half of 2008.
(SFC, 11/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 5, Ten Islamic
fundamentalists convicted of a terrorist attack were sentenced to
death in their absence by an Algerian court. The group was behind a
bomb attack on a police patrol in June 2003 in which nine officers
were killed.
(AFP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 5, Authorities said
police from across Europe have arrested 92 suspects linked to an
alleged network that produced and sold child abuse videos to 2,500
customers around the world. The 15-month investigation was triggered
by an Australian police discovery in July 2006 of a video depicting
a Belgian father raping his daughters, aged 9 and 11.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, In China
construction began on what was expected to be the world's tallest
Ferris wheel. The $99 million Beijing Great Wheel will soar 680 feet
over Beijing when it is complete.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, Ao Man-long, a
former transportation and public works secretary, went on trial
charged with taking $100 million in kickbacks in Macao, the
freewheeling Chinese gambling resort that has attracted some of Las
Vegas' top casino operators.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, PetroChina made its
debut on the Shanghai stock exchange. It sold 2.2% of its share
capital to domestic investors in an IPO that rose from 16.90 yuan to
43.96 yuan ($5.90). For a short time it was the most valuable
company in the world, but by December share value had dropped by a
third.
(WSJ, 11/6/07, p.C3)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.85)
2007 Nov 5, In eastern Congo 27
UN peacekeepers from India were injured when attacked by a mob of
hungry civilians who claimed not to have received any food aid.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.54)
2007 Nov 5, An Egyptian court
convicted two police officers and sentenced them to three years in
prison for torturing a bus driver, in a case that came to light
after a video of the abuse was posted on the Internet.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, The Delhi State
Consumer Commission ordered ICICI Bank to pay $137,500 in penalty
after its loan collectors beat a man with iron rods and dragged him
from a car before seizing the vehicle.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 5, In Iraq 6 US
soldiers were killed in 3 separate attacks, including 5 from 2
roadside bombs near Kirkuk. The 6th died in combat operations in
Anbar province.
(AP, 11/6/07)(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A9)
2007 Nov 5, Jordan's military
court convicted Muammar Ahmed Yousef al-Jaghbeer, an al-Qaida
militant of involvement in the deadly suicide car bombing of the
Jordanian Embassy in Iraq in 2003 and sentenced him to death.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, In North Korea a
team of experts led by the US started work to disable 3 nuclear
facilities at Yongbyon.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.55)
2007 Nov 5, Pakistani police
fired tear gas and clubbed thousands of lawyers protesting President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf's decision to impose emergency rule, as
Western allies threatened to review aid to the troubled Muslim
nation. More than 1,500 people have been arrested in 48 hours, and
authorities put a stranglehold on independent media. The government
said it would hold a national election by mid-January.
(AP, 11/5/07)(Reuters, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, Palestinian police
attacked militants in the Balata refugee camp, home to 22,000
people, one of 19 in the West Bank.
(SFC, 11/6/07, p.A17)
2007 Nov 5, Poland's prime
minister-designate Donald Tusk said in a published interview
that the new government plans to end the country's role in the
US-led coalition in Iraq in its "current form" next year. Poland's
conservative PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski handed in his resignation to his
twin, President Lech Kaczynski.
(AP, 11/5/07)(AFP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, A bus collided with
a car on a highway in central Portugal and rolled down a slope,
killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, In Sicily Salvatore
Lo Piccolo (65), who magistrates believe is the Sicilian Mafia's new
"boss of bosses," was arrested after nearly a quarter of a century
on the run. He was arrested with his son, Sandro (32), and two other
Mafia bosses.
(Reuters, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, Somali pirates
released a Taiwanese fishing vessel 5 1/2 months after seizing it.
The US Navy helped free the fifth ship in a week hijacked by Somalia
pirates, attempting to bring security to crucial shipping routes
between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The Navy was in contact with
two remaining ships held by pirates in Somali waters.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, South Korea’s Home
Affairs Ministry announced a campaign to promote bicycle use as a
way to cope with traffic, pollution and soaring oil prices.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, In central Vietnam
residents braced for a tropical storm expected to make landfall
later this week after floods triggered by heavy rains killed at
least 24 people. People in seven coastal areas fell victim to the
latest floods, which began Nov 2. The floods were the third to hit
the region in three weeks.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 5, In Yemen
unidentified saboteurs bombed an oil pipeline in Marib province. The
attack halted the flow of oil and added to concerns in the world oil
markets about adequate supplies for heating fuel.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 5, Zimbabwe's supreme
court ruled the government can seize equipment belonging to white
farmers whose properties were expropriated under controversial land
reforms.
(AFP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom declared victory. The vote tally was expected to take as long
as 2 weeks due to a state-mandated hand count.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 6, In Vallejo, Ca.,
mayoral candidates Osby Davis (62) and Gary Cloutier (45) finished
in a dead heat. Cloutier was later sworn in as mayor after elections
officials said he won by 4 votes. On Dec 11 Osby was sworn in as
mayor following a recount that put him on top by 2 votes.
(SFC, 12/12/07, p.B3)
2007 Nov 6, Kentucky Gov. Ernie
Fletcher, dogged by a hiring scandal, lost badly to Democratic
challenger Steve Beshear.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A16)
2007 Nov 6, Central bankers
past and present warned of more credit pain to come as Germany's
Commerzbank and a big American lender became the latest to reveal
losses from US subprime mortgage lending.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, Crude oil prices
hit a record highs at $97.10 and closed at a record $96.70 per
barrel on the NY Mercantile Exchange.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.C2)
2007 Nov 6, Astronomers said a
new planet has been discovered orbiting a sun-like star 41 light
years away in the galaxy called 55 Cancri, making it the first known
planetary quintet outside our solar system.
(AP, 11/7/07)(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A5)
2007 Nov 6, George Osmond (90),
father of Donny and Marie Osmond and patriarch to the family's
singing group The Osmond Brothers, died in Provo, Utah.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2007 Nov 6, Hank Thompson (82),
country singer, died in Texas of lung cancer. Between 1948 and 1975
he had 29 songs in the top ten including “A Six Pack to Go" and “The
Wild Side of Life" (1952). Kitty Wells (b.1919) sang her 1952 Honky
Tonk Angels song, which was written by J.D. Miller in response to
Thompson’s Wild Side of Life.
(SFC, 11/9/07, p.B7)
2007 Nov 6, In Afghanistan a
bomb targeted a group of lawmakers in the northern province of
Baghlan, killing at least 75 people, including 6 lawmakers. 61
schoolchildren were among the dead and 96 other students were
wounded. A UN report later said up to two-thirds of the 77 people
killed and 100 wounded were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers'
panicked bodyguards.
(Reuters, 11/6/07)(AP, 11/9/07)(AP, 11/17/07)(AP,
11/6/08)
2007 Nov 6, Chinese e-commerce
portal Alibaba.com soared in its debut on the Hong Kong stock
market. It opened at $3.86 and closed at $5.09.
(AP, 11/6/07)(SFC, 11/7/07, p.C1)
2007 Nov 6, In Bangalore,
India, doctors began operating on Lakshmi, a 2-year-old girl born
with four arms and four legs, in an extensive surgery that they hope
will leave the girl with a normal body. Surgeons completed the
surgery the next day and said will it give the girl a chance at a
normal life.
(AP, 11/6/07)(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 6, 2007 became the
deadliest year for US troops in Iraq, with at least 853 military
deaths.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2007 Nov 6, In Kashmir a 4-day
gunbattle began that left five Islamic militants and four Indian
soldiers killed.
(AFP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 6, Kurdish rebels
released another Iranian soldier captured two months ago in northern
Iraq.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, Italian police said
a Europe-wide sweep disrupted an Islamic cell that was recruiting
potential suicide bombers for attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. They
announced the arrests of 20 terror suspects, mostly Tunisians.
Authorities in Britain, France and Portugal confirmed arrests.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, A Mauritanian
patrol boat found a drifting boat from Senegal with some 100 people
aboard as well as 2 dead bodies. The migrants had spent nearly 3
weeks at sea and thrown 43 dead bodies overboard.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 6, A US diplomat said
the disablement of North Korea's nuclear weapons-making facilities
has started smoothly and the communist nation should be able to
complete the process by the end of the year.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, Pakistan's deposed
chief justice called on lawyers nationwide to defy police and
protest President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency
rule, while the government debated whether to delay parliamentary
elections by as much as three months.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, Singapore presented
its case regarding sovereignty of three disputed islands in the
Pacific Ocean at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The
Hague, a claim disputed by Malaysia.
(AFP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, In northern South
Africa a blaze swept through a nursing home, killing 12 people and
injuring five.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 6, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir met with South African President Thabo Mbeki in Cape
Town for talks on the situation in war-torn Darfur and political
upheaval in Khartoum.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, In the Vatican
Benedict XVI raised concerns about restrictions on Christian worship
in Saudi Arabia in the first meeting ever between a pope and a
reigning Saudi king.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 6, Zimbabwe’s Attorney
General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele was briefly detained over allegations he
promised to help a fugitive banker who had fled the southern African
nation avoid arrest. Police said he faces corruption charges.
(Reuters, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, Kenny Chesney won
as entertainer of the year and Carrie Underwood won as best female
vocalist at the annual Country Music Association Awards in
Nashville.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Nov 7, Pres. Bush met with
France’s Pres. Sarkozy, who addressed the US Congress and backed
Bush’s strategy to confront Iran.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A8)
2007 Nov 7, Prosecutors said 2
mid-level DC government employees used phony paperwork to collect
more than $16 million from illegal tax refunds, avoiding detection
for at least three years while issuing more than 40 checks cashed by
friends and family members in on the scam. The total stolen was
later raised to some $30 million. Harriet Walters, the alleged
ringleader of the scam, authorized checks to such fake companies as
Bilkemor LLC.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.36)(http://tinyurl.com/2o7sj5)
2007 Nov 7, The US dollar fell
sharply after a Chinese parliamentarian called for his country to
diversify its reserves out of weak currencies. The Canadian dollar
hitched a ride on surging commodities prices to rise against a
beleaguered US dollar, passing US$1.10.
(Reuters, 11/7/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.93)
2007 Nov 7, General Motors
posted a record loss of $39 billion, which included a $38.6 billion
noncash charge related to accumulated deferred tax credits.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.C3)
2007 Nov 7, Morgan Stanley said
it has suffered a $3.7 billion loss stemming from its US subprime
mortgage exposure, which it expects will reduce fourth-quarter
earnings by about $2.5 billion.
(Reuters, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, The Cosco Busan, a
65,131 ton Greek-owned container ship leased by Hanjin Shipping of
South Korea, hit a protective shield at the base of a tower of the
Bay Bridge. The Bridge was not damaged, but the ship suffered a gash
and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into the SF Bay. By
the end of the month estimated bird deaths due to the oil topped
20,000. The cleanup cost was later estimated at some $61 million. A
year later federal authorities still held 6 Chinese crew members for
their testimony. In July, 2009, Cosco Busan Capt. John Cota (61) was
sentenced to 10 months in prison, becoming the first ship’s pilot in
US history to be sent to prison for an accident. On August 13, 2009,
Fleet Management Ltd. of Hong Kong pleaded guilty to charges of
water pollution and falsifying documents and agreed to pay $10
million in fines. On Dec 4, 2011, a settlement was reached to pay
120 SF Bay Area commercial fishermen $3.6 million.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A1)(SFC,
12/19/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/5/08, p.A2)(SFC, 7/18/09, p.C1)(SFC,
8/14/09, p.D1)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.C3)
2007 Nov 7, The space shuttle
Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center after a 15-day mission
building and repairing the international space station.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A7)
2007 Nov 7, Argentina's Pres.
Nestor Kirchner unveiled a memorial in Buenos Aires to victims of
the so-called Dirty War that claimed some 13,000 lives during the
country's military dictatorship, using the occasion to urge judges
to speed human rights trials.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, Australia's central
bank raised interest rates 0.25 points to an 11-year high of 6.75
percent in a move expected to hurt PM John Howard's re-election
hopes.
(AFP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, In Belgium
politicians of the Flemish majority, 60% of the population, made a
bid to abolish the bilingual rights of 150,000 French speakers
living in suburbs near Brussels. This broke the decades-old “Belgian
Pact" under which the 2 language groups avoided holding a straight
sectarian vote.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.65)
2007 Nov 7, A novel by a former
radio broadcaster in Canada's north won the 2007 Scotiabank Giller
Prize, Canada's most lucrative and prestigious prize for fiction.
Elizabeth Hay's "Late Nights on Air" details the loves and rivalries
of a cast of eccentric characters at a small radio station in
Yellowknife, near Canada's Arctic.
(Reuters, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, A Chinese
government publication reported that industrial discharge and
household wastewater have polluted the northern Futuo River so badly
that the water is dark red in some sections and has caused chronic
illnesses among villagers.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, In southern Finland
8 people were killed and 11 wounded after Pekka-Eric Auvinen (18)
opened fire at Jokela High School in Tuusula. He then shot himself
in the head and died hours later in a hospital.
(AP, 11/7/07)(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, In Georgia police
forced dozens of opposition supporters from a site in Tbilisi, where
five days of protests had drawn thousands, but demonstrators later
returned and renewed their calls for the president's resignation. A
Georgian television station, regarded by the government as an
opposition mouthpiece, went off the air after riot police entered
its headquarters. The government declared a 15-day state of
emergency.
(AP, 11/7/07)(AP, 11/8/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.66)
2007 Nov 7, Interpol put Ali
Fallahian, Iran’s former intelligence chief, Mohsen Rezai, a former
leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, a Revolutionary
Guards general, and 2 other Iranians and Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese
militant on its most-wanted list for a 1994 bombing that killed 85
people at a Jewish center in Argentina.
(AP, 11/8/07)(WSJ, 1/15/08, p.A6)
2007 Nov 7, The Iraqi Army said
17 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in an area of brush near a
school in Hashimiyat, west of Baqouba. In Baghdad a Shiite math
teacher was killed in a drive-by shooting in the Sunni-dominated
Mansour area. Southeast of Baghdad, two children aged 4 and 8 were
killed when a mortar struck their house. In Kut gunmen broke into
the home of an Iraqi soldier and shot him to death. A suicide truck
bomb exploded at the office of a Kurdish political party in Kirkuk
and about 13 people were wounded.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, Kenya’s official
human rights commission reported that state security agents had
killed 454 people since the summer in and around Nairobi. They were
said to be members of the Mungiki sect, a Kikuyu gang that has
terrorized central Kenya for years.
(Econ, 11/10/07,
p.58)(http://allafrica.com/stories/200711080157.html)
2007 Nov 7, The watchdog group
Peace Now said Israel is enlarging 88 of its 122 West Bank
settlements despite an agreement to halt the spread of Jewish
communities in Palestinian territory.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A11)
2007 Nov 7, Latvia's PM Aigars
Kalvitis said that he would step down on Dec. 5 and that the
four-party ruling coalition would immediately begin searching for a
new head of government.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, Moroccan PM Abbas
El Fassi condemned Spain's "occupation" of two disputed enclaves, in
the wake of a visit by Spain's King Juan Carlos which prompted Rabat
to recall its ambassador to Madrid.
(AFP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, The country's top
prosecutor said Nigeria will drop criminal charges against an
American peace worker, her Nigerian associate and two German film
makers who had been accused of endangering national security.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, Former premier
Benazir Bhutto urged Pakistanis to hold mass protests against a
state of emergency declared by President Pervez Musharraf. Police
swung batons and fired tear gas at supporters of former PM Bhutto
demonstrating near Pakistan's parliament. The Bush administration
warned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that US patience is not
"never-ending," and that it expects him to return "soon" to the path
of democracy.
(AP, 11/7/07)(AFP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, In Somalia Doctors
Without Borders said the fighting had grown so bad in Mogadishu that
civilians who were shot or hit by shrapnel during the night
frequently bled to death because the violence cut them off from the
hospitals.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 7, The president of
Sri Lanka said there would be peace on the troubled island only
after more fighting to crush separatist rebels as he unveiled the
nation's biggest-ever war budget.
(AFP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, The UN said the
governor of South Darfur ordered the UN humanitarian director to
leave the state, which has been the scene of recent fighting. South
Darfur's Governor Ali Mahmood Mohammed said in a letter that Wael
Al-Haj Ibrahim, a Canadian, "was not complying with the Humanitarian
Act," but he didn't elaborate.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, Masked gunmen
opened fire on students returning from a march in which tens of
thousands of Venezuelans denounced President Hugo Chavez's attempts
to expand his power through constitutional changes. At least eight
people were injured.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, A Yemeni court
convicted 32 al-Qaida suspects of planning attacks on oil and gas
installations in the country, sentencing them to prison terms of up
to 15 years. Four others were acquitted.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 8, Pres. Bush suffered
his first veto override as the Senate voted 79-14 to enact a $23
billion water resources bill already passed by the House. The US
Senate confirmed President Bush's nomination of Michael Mukasey to
be the new attorney general, 53-40.
(WSJ, 11/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 11/8/08)
2007 Nov 8, John Walters, the
White House drug czar, said American-backed counter-narcotic
programs in Colombia and Mexico are disrupting the flow of cocaine
into the United States, driving up prices 44 percent on US streets
this year.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 8, California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger, joined by 14 other states, sued the Bush
administration over its refusal to let them enforce bigger auto
emissions cuts than those required by the federal government.
(WSJ, 11/9/07, p.A6)
2007 Nov 8, Brazil’s Petrobras
reported the discovery of a large oil reserve with as much as 8
billion barrels of crude in a field called Tupi. This represented
about 3 months worth of current world supply, with estimated use at
86 million barrels a day. The oil was sitting between 5.3 and 7km
below sea level.
(WSJ, 11/9/07, p.A12)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.36)
2007 Nov 8, Samina Malik (23),
who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" and penned poems with
titles including "How To Behead," became the first woman to be
convicted under Britain’s terrorism legislation. In December she was
given a suspended 9-month prison sentence and community service.
(AFP, 11/8/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.67)
2007 Nov 8, Britain’s Privy
Council ruled that Prince Jefri Bolkiah (53) of Brunei must transfer
ownership of 2 US hotels and 3 residences in Los Angeles, London and
Paris along with a trust fund to the Brunei Investment Agency. Jefri
had failed to return assets in a 2000 agreement to settle
accusations of embezzlement.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.A31)(http://tinyurl.com/39fvcf)
2007 Nov 8, In southwest China
a gas leak at the Qulin mine in Anyone county in Guizhou
province killed 35 coal miners.
(AP, 11/8/07)(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 8, Dominican
singer-songwriter Juan Luis Guerra swept the Latin Grammy Awards,
taking home five musical honors including album of the year, record
of the year and song of the year.
(AP, 11/8/08)
2007 Nov 8, A bridge under
construction in a new development in Dubai collapsed, killing seven
workers and injuring 15.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 8, German authorities
said bank manager in Tuebingen gave loans to a woman for sex and
then embezzled thousands of euros to buy the silence of her
relatives. In total the man diverted some 520,000 euros (362,033
pounds) from clients' accounts, of which he gave about 70,000 euros
to the woman, and kept 40,000 euros for himself.
(Reuters, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 8, Georgia's
pro-Western Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili said that the country would
hold early presidential elections in January to defuse a crisis
fueled by protests against him. Troops armed with hard rubber clubs
patrolled the center of Tbilisi to enforce a state of emergency
imposed after a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 8, Iraqi and US
authorities freed 500 prisoners from a detention system strained to
the limit by thousands of new suspects taken in campaigns to secure
Baghdad and surrounding areas. Abu Abdullah, also known as Muhammad
Sulayman Shunaythir al-Zubai, was killed north of Baghdad. He was
later described as described as an experienced bomb maker and former
associate of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. US Army
Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley of Candler, N.C., charged with
premeditated murder in three deaths, was acquitted of murder but
convicted of lesser charges. The 3 deaths occurred April 14, April
27 and May 11 during operations south of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/8/07)(AP, 11/11/07)(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Nov 8, A US Army UH-60
Blackhawk helicopter crashed in northern Italy, killing at least
four people on board and injuring six. Two more soon died in a
hospital.
(AP, 11/8/07)(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 8, Nordic countries
again dominated the World Economic Forum's ranking of gender-equal
countries. New Zealand squeezed into the top five and the US fell to
31st place. Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland retained the top
four spots in the 2007 Gender Gap Index released by the Swiss-based
think tank.
(Reuters, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 8, Pres. Musharaff
said Pakistan's parliamentary elections will he held by
mid-February, a month later than planned, a day after Pres. Bush
urged him to hold the vote on time. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto
denounced the pledge as insufficient and said Musharaff should step
down as army chief within a week.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 8, In Yemen tribesmen
attacked an oil installation and then clashed with government
troops, leaving 12 people dead. It was the second attack on the
country's oil industry this week.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 9, In Washington, DC,
Michael Mukasey, a retired federal judge, was sworn in as the 81st
US Attorney General.
(SFC, 11/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 9, Former New York
City police commissioner Bernard Kerik (52) surrendered to face
federal corruption charges, in what could prove to be an ongoing
embarrassment for presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani. The indictment
alleges Kerik made false statements to the White House and other
federal officials during his failed bid to head the Homeland
Security department. The investigation of Kerik arose from
allegations that, while a city official, he accepted $165,000 in
renovations to his Bronx apartment, paid for by a mob-connected
construction company that sought his help in winning city contracts.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, Merck & Co.
said it will pay $4.85 billion to end thousands of state and federal
lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx in one of the largest drug
settlements ever.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, In Newton County,
Missouri, David Spears (24) and another, unnamed, 24-year-old man,
were arrested in the death of Rowan Ford. Rowan had been missing
since Nov 3. Her body was found on private land about 10 miles south
of the girl's hometown of Stella.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 9, A British soldier
serving in Afghanistan was killed after the vehicle he was traveling
in came off a road and rolled over a bridge. 6 US and 2 Afghan
troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the
high mountains of eastern Nuristan province. The attack, the most
lethal against American forces this year, put US troop deaths to at
least 101 this year making 2007 the deadliest for US troops in
Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. In 2014 platoon radio operator
Kyle J. White was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during
the ambush in Nuristan.
(AP, 11/9/07)(AFP, 11/10/07)(SFC, 4/16/14, p.A6)
2007 Nov 9, A Belgian pilot and
three Spanish flight crew were set free by authorities in Chad who
had accused them of complicity in a plot to kidnap 103 children and
take them to France for adoption.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, In Kumba, Cameroon,
one person died and five were injured after security forces fired on
a crowd protesting after a two-week-long power cut. Locals had taken
to the streets to protest the arrest of four high school students
following an earlier demonstration.
(AFP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 9, China froze exports
of the "Aqua Dots" bead toy, following recalls of the potentially
toxic toy in the United States and Australia.
(Reuters, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, China Merchant
Bank, the country’s 6th largest bank, became the 3rd Chinese bank to
win permission to open a branch in NYC.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.90)
2007 Nov 9, Egyptian border
guards opened fire on Hana Mohamed (24) of Eritrea after she failed
to heed their warnings to stop south of the Rafah border crossing.
The young woman bled to death after being shot in the legs.
(AFP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 9, Finland said it
will raise the minimum age for buying guns from 15 to 18 in the wake
of the Nov 7 rampage by a teenage student.
(SFC, 11/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 9, Georgian opposition
leaders said they would end streets protests against President
Mikhail Saakashvili after he called for an early presidential
election for January.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, In Ingushetia a
special operation to capture alleged terrorists left a child dead
after soldiers fired on a family of five.
(Econ, 11/29/08, SR p.16)
2007 Nov 9, Former insurgents,
who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, launched an attack against the
terror group near Samarra and killed 18 of its members, asking the
US military to stay away while the battle raged. The US military
released nine Iranians from custody in Iraq, including two accused
of being members of an elite force suspected of arming Shiite
extremists. It said they were no longer considered security risks.
(AP, 11/9/07)(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 9, Pakistani police
placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest,
uncoiling barbed wire in front of her Islamabad villa, and
reportedly rounding up thousands of her supporters to block a mass
protest against emergency rule. A suicide bombing at a government
minister's home in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed four
people.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, Saudi authorities
beheaded Saudi citizen Khalaf al-Anzi in Riyadh for kidnapping and
raping a teenager.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 9, In Somalia
witnesses and doctors said heavy fighting between insurgents and
Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's shaky government has killed 50
people and wounded 100 others in the past 24 hours.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 9, Turkey's parliament
approved a bill allowing for the construction of nuclear power
plants in the country, despite opposition from environmental groups.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 10, Miami ended its
70-year stay at the famed Orange Bowl with the biggest shutout loss
in the stadium's history, a 48-0 rout to Virginia.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2007 Nov 10, A stagehands
strike shut down most Broadway shows, with curtains rising again 19
days later.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2007 Nov 10, In Vallejo, Ca.,
the last LCS (Landing Craft Support), which served in 1944 the
invasion of Okinawa, went on display. LCS 102 was one of 130
identical gunboats that served in the Pacific. The Royal Thai Navy
retired the ship in May.
(SFC, 11/10/07, p.B1)
2007 Nov 10, Laraine Day
(b.1920), film actress, died. She was best remembered as Nurse Mary
Lamont in the Dr. Kildare film series from 1938-1941.
(SFC, 11/13/07, p.D9)
2007 Nov 10, Norman Mailer
(84), writer, died. The macho prince of American letters reigned for
decades as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with
such books as "The Naked and the Dead" (1948) and "The Executioner's
Song" (1979). In 2013 J. Michael Lennon authored “Norman Mailer: A
Double Life."
(AP, 11/10/07)(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.A7)(SSFC,
12/29/13, p.F5)
2007 Nov 10, In Afghanistan’s
eastern province of Khost, police patrolling on foot were hit by a
land-mine blast that killed one officer and wounded two civilians.
Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint near Qalat city in
Zabul province. The ensuing gun battle left two policemen dead and
one wounded. Another policeman was missing. Six US troops died in an
insurgent ambush, making 2007 the deadliest year for American forces
in Afghanistan since 2001.
(AP, 11/11/07)(AP, 11/10/08)
2007 Nov 10, In Algeria 3
people were wounded when a booby trapped car exploded near a police
residence in the northern town of Mahatmas.
(AFP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 10, Some 20,000
demonstrators marched to Argentina's river border with Uruguay to
protest the impending startup of a paper pulp plant they fear will
pollute the environment. The cellulose mill in Fray Bentos was built
by Metsa-Botnia, a Finnish company, at a cost of $1.2 billion.
Construction was completed in October and Uruguay’s Pres. Vazquez
ordered it opened in November despite protests from Argentina.
(AP, 11/10/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.44)
2007 Nov 10, In the Czech Rep.
neo-Nazis trying to march through the Jewish quarter of Prague
clashed with groups trying to stop them, and at least 80 people were
arrested in outbreaks of violence around the capital.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 10, A top police
officer said the Champs Elysees, held up by France as the most
beautiful avenue in the world, has become blighted by prostitution,
racketeering and violence.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 10, German train
drivers ended the country's longest freight train strike, but the
labor dispute is set to continue next week.
(AFP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 10, Iranian state
television reported that Iran and Pakistan have reached a deal to
build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to transport natural gas
between the two countries.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 10, Malaysian police
unleashed tear gas and water cannons on protesters as tens of
thousands, wearing canary-yellow shirts, defied a government ban and
rallied in Kuala Lumpur to call for clean and fair elections in the
biggest anti-government street protests in nearly a decade. Some 245
people were detained.
(AP, 11/10/07)(AP, 11/11/07)(Econ, 11/17/07,
p.53)
2007 Nov 10, Pakistan announced
plans to lift its state of emergency within one month and allowed
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to leave her villa following a day
under house arrest. Police blocked opposition leader Benazir Bhutto
from visiting Pakistan's deposed chief justice. Militants abducted
8, who were stopped at a makeshift roadblock and overpowered.
(AP, 11/10/07)(Reuters, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 10, Saudi authorities
received a group of 14 Saudis Saturday from the US military prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani for
drug trafficking. This execution brought to 131 the number of people
beheaded in the kingdom this year. Saudi Arabia beheaded 38 people
last year and 83 people in 2005.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 11, Marking his fifth
Veterans Day since the invasion of Iraq, President Bush honored US
troops past and present at a tearful ceremony in Texas.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2007 Nov 11, The new War
Memorial Community Center at 6655 Mission St. in Daly City, Ca.,
held its grand opening. The structure included the new John Daly
Library.
(www.ci.daly-city.ca.us/city_news/fogcutter/fall_2007.htm)
2007 Nov 11, Delbert Mann,
television and film director, died in Los Angeles. His films
included “Marty" (1955) and “That Touch of Mink" (1962).
(SFC, 11/13/07, p.D9)
2007 Nov 11, Animal rights
activists attacked as inhumane an Australian state government's
plans to shoot more than 10,000 wild horses to protect the
environment.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 11, In western
Afghanistan unknown gunmen on motorbikes shot dead six
pro-government tribal elders as they headed to a prayer service. In
southern Afghanistan a suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near
a NATO convoy in Helmand province, seriously wounding 3 civilians,
while two separate attacks left 3 policeman dead elsewhere in the
country. US-led coalition troops battling suspected militants in the
Garmser district of Helmand lobbed a grenade that destroyed a house
and killed 15 militants as well as a woman and two children. A
service member with the US-led coalition died of wounds suffered
during a gun battle a day earlier near the Tagab Valley of Kapisa
province.
(AFP, 11/11/07)(AP, 11/11/07)(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 11, In France Jessica
Davies (28), the niece of multi-millionaire junior defense minister
Quentin Davies, plunged a knife into Olivier Mugnier (24), a young
Frenchman she picked up in an Irish bar. Mugnier died in her Paris
suburb flat, an hour after police arrived. He had been stabbed twice
in the upper chest. Her trial opened on Dec 11, 2010.
(AFP, 1/11/10)
2007 Nov 11, Israeli police
raided more than 20 government buildings and private offices,
searching for evidence in a series of criminal investigations of
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 11, In Italy a police
officer accidentally shot and killed a soccer fan while trying to
break up a fight by a Tuscan highway between supporters of rival
teams. Enraged by the killing, hundreds of fans rioted in Rome,
attacking a police station.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 11, Libya began
enforcing new regulations demanding an Arabic translation of
passports for visitors. A Libyan aviation official said the measures
were in response to a decision to prevent Libyans with visas for the
EU's Schengen border-free zone from entering certain European
countries, notably France and Britain.
(AFP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 11, Proton, Malaysia’s
national car maker, said it planned to team up with companies in
Iran and Turkey to produce "Islamic cars" for the global market.
(http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/12/news/international/bc.mi.malaysia.islamicc.ap/)
2007 Nov 11, The major Northern
Ireland Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defense
Association, announced it was formally renouncing violence, but a
commander said the group would not surrender its weapons to
international disarmament officials.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 11, Pakistan's
military ruler said elections would be held by January but set no
time limit on emergency rule that has suspended citizens' rights,
claiming it was essential for fighting terrorism and ensuring a free
and fair vote.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 11, A severe storm
broke the Volganeft-139, a small Russian oil tanker, in two in the
Strait of Kerch, spilling at least 560,000 gallons of fuel into the
strait between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. A Russian official
said it was an "environmental disaster." 8 seamen were left missing.
Two freighters nearby also sank under 18-foot waves in storm. As
many as 10 ships sank or ran aground in the area.
(AP, 11/11/07)(Reuters, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/12/07,
p.A15)
2007 Nov 11, Tens of thousands
of South Korean farmers and workers clashed with riot police at a
massive rally against a free trade agreement with the United States.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 12, The Dow Jones
industrial average closed below 13,000 for first time since August
2007.
(AP, 11/12/08)
2007 Nov 12, Ryan Braun won the
NL Rookie of the Year award in one of the closest votes, while
Dustin Pedroia ran away with the AL honor.
(AP, 11/12/08)
2007 Nov 12, It was reported
that a donor had given a staggering $100 million to the Erie
Community Foundation in Pennsylvania, and all of the charities would
receive a share.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, Constellation
Brands said it will pay $885 million for the US wine business of
Fortune Brands, which includes the Geyser Peak, Wild Horse, Buena
Vista Carneros and Gary Farrell labels. The deal also included 1,500
acres of vineyards in Sonoma and Napa counties.
(SFC, 11/13/07, p.B1)
2007 Nov 12, IBM said it would
buy Canada's Cognos Inc for $5 billion, snapping up the last of the
major makers of business intelligence software.
(Reuters, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, Nymex Holdings
Inc., the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange, said
it will buy a 15.1 percent stake in the Norwegian financial
derivatives exchange Imarex ASA for about $52 million.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, A new study said
US researchers have developed a method of producing hydrogen gas
from biodegradable organic material, potentially providing an
abundant source of this clean-burning fuel. The method used by
engineers at Pennsylvania State University combines
electron-generating bacteria and a small electrical charge in a
microbial fuel cell to produce hydrogen gas.
(AFP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 12, Ira Levin (78),
author, died in Manhattan. His work included the best-selling horror
and suspense novels "Rosemary's Baby" (1967), "The Stepford Wives"
(1972), and "The Boys from Brazil" (1976), all later made into
popular films. Levin also wrote for the stage, including "No Time
for Sergeants," starring a young Andy Griffith, and the long-running
"Deathtrap." Both were later adapted to the screen.
(Reuters, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 12, Lester Ziffren,
former news reporter and screenwriter, died in Manhattan. In 1936
Ziffren was the first to report the start of the Spanish Civil War.
(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.A8)
2007 Nov 12, Voters cast the
first ballots in Australia's elections as a new opinion poll showed
conservative PM John Howard heading for a landslide defeat.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, In Cambodia Ieng
Sary and Ieng Thirith, the ex-foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge
regime and his wife, were arrested on charges of crimes against
humanity. Ieng Sary was sentenced to death in absentia in August
1979, eight months after a Vietnam-led resistance movement overthrew
the Khmer Rouge regime. In 1996 the king rewarded Ieng Sary with an
amnesty for breaking away from his comrades-in-arms.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, An unknown armed
group killed 19 Cameroonian soldiers in Bakassi, a border region
handed back to Cameroon by Nigeria last year.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 12, China released
data that said its trade surplus had jumped to a new all-time
monthly high in October, despite government pledges to restrain
export growth and adding to pressure for action on trade barriers
and currency.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, The Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights and New York’s Human Rights Watch
released a report saying the Egyptian government refuses to
recognize minority religions and Christian converts in official
state records.
(SFC, 11/16/07, p.A25)(www.eipr.org/en/)
2007 Nov 12, IUCN, a
Geneva-based conservation group, said the world's smallest bear
species faces extinction because of deforestation and poaching in
its Southeast Asian home. The sun bear, whose habitat stretches from
India to Indonesia, has been classified as vulnerable by the World
Conservation Union.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, In Baghdad an
Iraqi taxi driver was shot dead by a private security guard
protecting a convoy driving through the city. Tal Afar Mayor Gen.
Najim Abdullah said Iraqi soldiers killed four men in clashes that
lasted throughout the night after a tribal chieftain was killed in
front of his village's mosque. The US military said Rocket and
mortar attacks in Iraq have decreased to their lowest levels in more
than 21 months.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, A Nigerian
official said security agents have arrested several men who
allegedly had materials for making explosives. Evidence has linked
them to the al-Qaida terror network.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, Hamas security
forces opened fire at a rally by the rival Fatah movement
commemorating Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. 7 people were killed
and 85 wounded in the bloodiest day of intra-Palestinian fighting
since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.
(AP, 11/12/07)(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 12, Pakistani
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest for
the second time in four days ahead of a planned march to protest
emergency rule.
(AP, 11/12/08)
2007 Nov 12, Alexander
Tkachyov, governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region, said more than
30,000 birds and countless fish have been killed in an "ecological
catastrophe" wrought by thousands of tons of oil from a tanker that
broke apart in a heavy storm near the Black Sea. 3 bodies washed
ashore and 20 sailors remained missing after the sinking of at least
11 ships.
(AP, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/13/07, p.A10)
2007 Nov 12, Airbus said it was
building a custom, 380 VIP double-decker jet for Saudi Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal with a price tag of over $320 million.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, In South Korea the
Catholic Priests' Association for Justice (CPAJ) disclosed the names
of 3 former and incumbent prosecutors, who have received money
regularly from Samsung Group. CPAJ urged the prosecution to
investigate the conglomerate's alleged bribery, slush fund creation,
and other irregularities.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.58)
2007 Nov 12, A Darfur rebel
group freed five workers, including two foreigners, taken hostage in
a rare attack on a Sudanese oil installation almost three weeks ago.
(AFP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 12, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said deploying a UN peacekeeping
operation to Somalia is not realistic or viable given the
war-wracked African country’s security situation, the intensifying
insurgency and the lack of progress towards any political
reconciliation.
(www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24625&Cr=somalia&Cr1)
2007 Nov 13, CC Sabathia won
the AL Cy Young Award to become the first Cleveland pitcher in 35
years to earn the honor.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2007 Nov 13, Officials said New
York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to abandon a plan to issue
driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, The SF Board of
Supervisors voted to issue municipal identification cards to city
residents, regardless of their legal status. They also voted to
double the amount of money available to candidates running for
supervisor.
(SFC, 11/14/07, p.B1)
2007 Nov 13, In Las Vegas the
New Frontier casino, opened in 1942, was imploded to make way for a
$5 billion megaresort. It earned historical notations by becoming
the Strip's first theme casino and hosting Elvis Presley's debut in
the city. Phil Ruffin sold the 34.5-acre site to Elad, owned by
Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva, for $1.24 billion in May. Ruffin
had bought the Frontier in 1997 for $165 million and quickly settled
a nearly 6 1/2-year strike by 550 hotel workers, one of the longest
job actions in US history.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Afghan and US-led
coalition forces clashed with militants in southern Afghanistan and
called in airstrikes that killed dozens of insurgents.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 13, Britain’s
government said an outbreak of bird flu in eastern England is the
deadly H5N1 strain of the disease. A two-mile protection zone and a
six-mile surveillance zone were created around the infected farm in
Suffolk.
(AP, 11/13/07)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.67)
2007 Nov 13, The British Virgin
Islands told the US there is overwhelming evidence that Leonid
Reiman, Russia’s Telecommunications Minister owns much of Russia’s
telecom industry through an offshore fund.
(WSJ, 11/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 13, Thousands of
refugees fled camps in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's
violent North Kivu province after the army said Tutsi-dominated
insurgents attacked its positions nearby.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Voting began in
Denmark's national election, with polls showing that the
center-right government needs a new ally to stay in power despite a
strong economy and low unemployment. Danes re-elected the governing
coalition to a third term, endorsing its economic and tough
immigration policies. Fogh Rasmussen’s blue block won 90 seats, just
enough for a majority. The New Alliance Party of Naser Khader won
just 5 seats. Pia Kjaersgaard’s far-right Danish People’s party won
25 seats.
(AP, 11/13/07)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.59)
2007 Nov 13, French rail
workers went on a nine-day strike over President Nicolas Sarkozy's
bid to strip away labor protections.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2007 Nov 13, Diplomats said
Iran has met a key demand of the UN nuclear agency, handing over
long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the
shape of warheads.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 13, In Iraq at least 9
Iraqis were killed, including a policeman and his 13-year-old son in
a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Shimon Peres
became the 1st Israeli president to address the parliament of a
Muslim government when he spoke to Turkish deputies.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.60)
2007 Nov 13, Researchers in
Kenya unveiled a 10-million-year-old jaw bone they believe belonged
to a new species of great ape that could be the last common ancestor
of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans. A Kenyan and Japanese team
found the fragment, dating back to between 9.8 and 9.88 million
years, in 2005 along with 11 teeth. The fossils were unearthed in
volcanic mud flow deposits in the northern Nakali region of Kenya.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto called on Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf
to resign and ruled out serving under him in a future government
after she was placed under house arrest for the second time in five
days. Bhutto’s plan for a “long march" from Lahore to Islamabad was
foiled by her house arrest.
(AP, 11/13/07)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.50)
2007 Nov 13, A bomb exploded at
an entrance of the Philippine House of Representatives, killing Rep.
Wahab Akbar, his driver and a staff person.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Journalists said
the Somali government has shut down three independent radio stations
in two days, as troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers continued to
battle Islamic insurgents in the shrapnel-strewn streets of the
capital.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Two cartoonists
who depicted Spain's crown prince having sex with his wife were
convicted of insulting the heir to the throne and were fined $4,370
each.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Six breakaway
factions from one of Darfur's biggest rebel groups and two other
insurgent forces said they had united under one banner, in a rare
but tentative show of unity in the troubled region.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, Turkish helicopter
gunships attacked abandoned villages inside Iraq, the first such
airstrike since border tensions have escalated in recent months.
Kurdish guerrillas killed four Turkish soldiers in a clash in
southeastern Turkey.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, In a letter to the
UN Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated
Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to lead the UN investigation
into the 2005 killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik al-Hariri.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 13, In Uzbekistan the
body of Fitrat Salakhiddinov (40), a prisoner convicted of Islamic
extremism, was delivered to his family with signs of torture.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 14, Michael Mukasey
took a ceremonial oath as the new US Attorney General.
(AP, 11/14/08)
(AP, 11/14/08)
2007 Nov 14, A US congressional
advisory panel said that Chinese espionage posed "the single
greatest risk" to US technology, and called for efforts to protect
industrial secrets and computer networks.
(Reuters, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, A justice of the
peace ordered O.J. Simpson to stand trial on kidnapping and armed
robbery charges stemming from a confrontation with memorabilia
dealers in a Las Vegas casino hotel room. Simpson and a co-defendant
were convicted in October, 2008.
2007 Nov 14, A sculpture by
Jeff Koons of a stainless steel heart hanging from a golden bow sold
for $23.6 million, becoming the most expensive piece by a living
artist ever auctioned.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, Merril Lynch
picked John Thain, boss of NYSE Euronext, to replace Sam O’Neal, who
walked out following enormous writedowns on mortgage-linked
holdings.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.90)
2007 Nov 14, Chevron agreed to
pay $30 million to settle charges that it made illegal kickbacks to
Iraq for oil purchased in 2001 and 2002 under the UN oil-for-food
program.
(SFC, 11/15/07, p.C1)
2007 Nov 14, A US-led team from
Oregon said they had created the world's first cloned embryo from a
monkey, in work that could spur cloning of human cells for use in
medical research.
(AFP, 11/14/07)(WSJ, 11/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 14, In Texas Joe Horn
(62) shot and killed two suspected burglars, with bags in hand,
crawling out of windows from his neighbor's home in the Houston
suburb of Pasadena. In 2008 a jury acquitted Horn of murder.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2007 Nov 14, In Afghanistan’s
Helmand province coalition forces killed several militants with
gunfire and airstrikes. Five rebel fighters were killed in a clash
in Uruzgan province.
(AP, 11/15/07)(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 14, AGRA, a foundation
set up in 2006 by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan to aid
African farmers, named agricultural expert Amos Namanga Ngongi from
Cameroon as its first president.
(AFP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, Abdelhamid
Sadaoui, also known as Abou El Haythem, was killed and another
Islamist wounded during clashes with the Algerian army in the
restive northeastern Kabylia region. Sadaoui was believed to be the
treasurer of Al-Qaeda's North African branch.
(AFP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 14, Labor party leader
Kevin Rudd, the man tipped to become Australia's next prime
minister, officially launched his pitch for office with pledges to
withdraw combat troops from Iraq and usher in an "education
revolution."
(AFP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, The final stage of
the cross-Channel high-speed rail service opened for business from
the newly rebuilt St. Pancras station in London.
(SFC, 11/28/07, p.E2)(www.raileurope.com)
2007 Nov 14, Burundi's
President Pierre Nkurunziza announced a new unity cabinet drawing
members from two leading opposition groups in a bid to end months of
political deadlock in the troubled African nation.
(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, In Chile a 7.7
magnitude quake, centered near the desert village of Quillagua in
the foothills of the Andes, killed at least 2 people.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, Guo Feixiong, a
Chinese dissident lawyer, was sentenced to five years in prison
after publishing a book about a political scandal and helping
villagers lead a campaign to unseat local officials accused of
corruption. Feixiong (also known as Yang Maodong), convicted of
alleged illegal business activity, was also fined US$5,300 in a
district court in Guangzhou.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, China’s state
media said the amount of sewage dumped into the Yangtze River rose 3
percent last year to a record level. An early morning blaze at a
foot massage parlor killed at least 11 people in northern China.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, The EU reached an
accord with the East African Community (EAC) states of Burundi,
Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. They will enjoy duty free,
quota free access to the EU for all products, except sugar and rice,
from January 1. Originally established in 1967, the EAC collapsed a
decade later amid diverging economic philosophies. It was
resurrected in 2000 as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to create
an EU-style common market for their 90 million citizens. Rwanda and
Burundi became members in July this year.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 14, In France striking
transportation workers cut train service and forced Parisians to
walk, bike or skate to work in a pivotal standoff with President
Nicolas Sarkozy over his bid to pare down labor protections.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, A French court
approved the handover to a UN court of Dominique Ntawukuriryayo
(65), a Rwandan 1994 genocide suspect accused of coordinating the
massacre of up to 25,000 people in one incident.
(Reuters, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, German train
drivers began a new 62-hour strike on freight services that industry
and the government fear could have a dramatic impact on Europe's
biggest economy.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, The official IRNA
news agency reported that Hossein Mousavian, Iran's former senior
nuclear negotiator, has been charged with passing classified
information to foreigners, including the British Embassy.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, Iraqi troops
seized the west Baghdad headquarters of the Association of Muslim
Scholars, a powerful Sunni Muslim group. Two bombs exploded on
opposite sides of Baghdad, killing at least three civilians. Clashes
were under way in two villages, one Shiite and one mixed, east of
Baqouba. Five people were killed, two civilians and three al-Qaida
members, and six others injured in the fighting. A leader of a Sunni
group formed to resist al-Qaida in Iraq claimed that US troops
mistakenly killed dozens of his fighters during a 12-hour battle
north of Baghdad. He said he tried repeatedly to call the Americans
and tell them they were fighting "their friends." US military
officials said American troops killed 24 fighters and captured 16 in
a battle in the same area. Penetrators were used in an attack
against a US Stryker vehicle near an entrance to the Green Zone,
killing an American soldier and wounding five others. 2 Iraqi
civilians also were killed. A US soldier was killed in an explosion
in Diyala province that wounded four other soldiers.
(AP, 11/14/07)(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, A broad electoral
reform that infuriated Mexico's broadcast industry by barring
political parties from buying radio and television advertisements
took effect.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 14, Myanmar's military
junta arrested three more activists, surging ahead with a crackdown
even as it hosted a UN human rights investigator and insisted that
all arrests had stopped.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, NATO defense
chiefs chose Italian Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola as head of the
alliance's military committee.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, The prime
ministers of North and South Korea met for the first time in 15
years, hoping to extend the detente fostered by the second-ever
summit of their leaders last month with new South Korean investment
in the impoverished North.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf said he expects to step down as army chief by the
end of November and begin a new presidential term as a civilian,
warning that Pakistan risked chaos if he gave into opposition
demands to resign. In the northwest 33 insurgents were reported
killed when the military pounded their positions with helicopter
gunships and artillery.
(AP, 11/14/07)(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, In Poland members
of the 460-member lower house, or Sejm, agreed to make April 13 an
annual "Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Katyn Crime," for more
than 14,000 Polish officers who were captured at the start of World
War II and killed by Soviet secret police in the Katyn forest.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, A Saudi court
sentenced a woman (19) who had been gang raped to six months in jail
and 200 lashes, more than doubling her initial penalty for being in
the car of a man who was not a relative. The court also roughly
doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the
woman. Their new sentences range from two to nine years. The court
also banned the lawyer from defending her, confiscated his license
to practice law and summoned him to a disciplinary hearing later
this month.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 14, An explosion at
the Tajik presidential palace killed a guard in what officials
called a terror attack.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 15, During a feisty
Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her
closest rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, of slinging mud
"right out of the Republican playbook" and sharply criticized their
records.
(AP, 11/15/08)
2007 Nov 15, Berkeley poet
Robert Haas won the National Book Award for his recent collection
“Time and Materials."
(SFC, 11/16/07, p.A2)
2007 Nov 15, Barry Bonds,
former SF Giant, was indicted on 4 counts of perjury and one count
of obstruction of justice related to a December, 2003, grand jury
investigation on the BALCO steroid ring. A revamped indictment was
unsealed last May.
(SFC, 11/16/07, p.A1)(AP, 11/15/08)
2007 Nov 15, Actress Lindsay
Lohan completed her jail sentence for drunken driving in a swift 84
minutes.
(AP, 11/15/08)
2007 Nov 15, Taliban insurgents
in Paktia province killed an Afghan man teaching English courses,
sparking a clash that left two suspected militants and two policemen
dead. The bodies of 20 Taliban were found on the battlefield
following a clash in the south-central province of Uruzgan. Two
policemen were killed in the three hours of fighting there, which
also involved international troops.
(AP, 11/15/07)(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 15, Greenpeace
protesters stormed an Australian power plant after a US report
condemned Australian electricity plants as some of the biggest
contributors to greenhouse gases. 15 protesters were arrested after
they chained themselves to conveyor belts at the Munmorah power
plant on the central coast of New South Wales state.
(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Ten of thousands
of coastal villagers took shelter inland as a cyclone rapidly
approached Bangladesh's southwestern shores, spawning cold drizzles,
strong winds and high waves. Tropical Cyclone Sidr killed at least
3,200 people and left millions homeless.
(AP, 11/15/07)(AP, 11/19/07)(AP, 11/15/08)
2007 Nov 15, Two Americans who
deserted the US Army to protest against the war in Iraq lost their
bid for refugee status in Canada, and the Canadian government made
it clear they were no longer welcome.
(Reuters, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Congo and the
London Club of private creditors reached a deal to cancel 80% of the
central African country's estimated 2.5-billion-dollar debt.
(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Gen. Sergio del
Valle Jimenez, a doctor in Fidel Castro's rebel army in the late
1950s and army chief of staff during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,
died.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 15, Transport workers
shut down most rail traffic in France for a 2nd day, frustrating
passengers forced to postpone trips and Parisians who had to walk,
bike or skate to work.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Georgia’s
parliament lifted the country’s state of emergency imposed last week
by Pres. Saakashvili.
(WSJ, 11/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 15, A suicide bomber
rammed his car into a police patrol in Kirkuk, killing six people
and wounding more than 20.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Royal Dutch Shell
said a major pipeline feeding one of its two main oil export
terminals in southern Nigeria was attacked and ruptured by unknown
assailants.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Officials said
Pakistani troops have launched a counter-offensive against
pro-Taliban militants in the northwest, pushing them back into
forests and mountains.
(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas called for the overthrow of Gaza's Islamic
Hamas rulers. Hundreds of Palestinian business people and
professionals, led by an influential billionaire, launched a new
political movement, reflecting growing disillusionment with
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, The Philippine
government reached an agreement with the country's main Islamic
separatist group on carving out boundaries for a Muslim homeland in
the conflict-ridden south. In Manila 3 suspects were killed and
three arrested as police raided an Islamic militant hideout near the
Philippines legislature.
(AP, 11/15/07)(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 15, Sergei Storchak,
one of Russia’s top authorities on international financial
relations, was detained. Investigators on Nov 19 revealed details in
the arrest of the deputy finance minister who allegedly tried to
embezzle $43 million in budget funds.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 15, A top Russian
general said that Russia has completed its withdrawal of troops that
had been based in Georgia since the Soviet collapse. He said
peacekeepers remained in Abkhazia along with forces in South Ossetia
with the participation of Georgia.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 15, A Tunisian court
convicted a former prisoner at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, on terror charges. Abdullah Bin Omar, a Tunisian citizen who
spent five years at the detention facility in Cuba, was released in
June.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 15, In Uzbekistan the
body of Takhir Nurmukhammedov (42) was delivered to his family and
it was clear he had been brutally tortured. Nurmukhammedov was
arrested in April 2002 and convicted of membership in Hizb-ut
Tahrir, a banned Islamic sect, and of plotting to overthrow the
government. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 15, President Robert
Mugabe commissioned the first biodiesel production plant in
oil-starved Zimbabwe, vowing that the country would "never
collapse."
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 16, US President
George W. Bush and Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda met for talks aimed at
bridging rifts on North Korea and Tokyo's military role in the "war
on terror."
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, US Senate
Republicans blocked a $50 billion bill by Democrats that would have
paid for several months of combat but also would have ordered troop
withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 30 days.
(AP, 11/16/08)
2007 Nov 16, Marchers
surrounded the Justice Department headquarters to demand federal
intervention in the Jena Six case in Louisiana and stepped-up
enforcement of hate crimes.
(AP, 11/16/08)
2007 Nov 16, US federal
biologists signed off on a plan to reduce the flow of water from
Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s main water source, as the southeast contends
with a historic drought.
(WSJ, 11/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 16, San Diego County
District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis, the Regional Auto Theft Task
Force (RATT), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF) announced an undercover operation resulting in the
break up of an extensive and highly organized auto theft ring in the
South Bay. The auto theft ring bust is the largest in San Diego
County and possibly in the state of California.
(http://tinyurl.com/3xwk6s)
2007 Nov 16, In Oakland, Ca.,
Francis William Reimers (62), formerly from Danville, Ca., was
sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for mail fraud and money
laundering. Reimers had attempted suicide in Dec, 2005, following
allegations that he swindled million from former friends.
(SFC, 11/17/07, p.B3)
2007 Nov 16, The first summit
of women leaders opened in NYC. The two-day "International Women
Leaders Global Security Summit," opened under the co-chairmanship of
former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Canadian prime
minister Kim Campbell. At the close over 70 women leaders issued a
call for action on global warming, terrorism, poverty and women's
security. The women leadership initiative was launched in October
2006.
(AFP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 16, Mubadala
Development, an investment arm of Abu Dhabi, announced that it would
pay $622 million for 8.1% of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.70)
2007 Nov 16, In western
Afghanistan a suicide attacker blew up a car bomb near an Italian
military convoy killing only himself. 4 police officers were killed
when their vehicle was hit by a remotely detonated bomb as they
traveled to work in the southern province of Kandahar. The UN said
profits from opium fuel the Taliban insurgency, in a new call on
NATO to tackle Afghanistan's burgeoning drugs trade. In the western
province of Ghor, between 4 and 9 police were killed after militants
attacked them during a police operation in Shahark district.
(AP, 11/16/07)(Reuters, 11/16/07)(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, A coroner urged
the Australian government to seek war crimes charges against former
Indonesian military officers over the 1975 killing of five
Australian newsmen during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, Belgium
researchers studying the collective behavior of insects said tiny
robots programmed to act like roaches were able to blend into
cockroach society. Cockroaches tend to self-organize into leaderless
groups, seeming to reach consensus on where to rest together.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, Ethiopian officers
claimed their forces had killed some 100 rebels in the Ogaden region
over the past month where its forces are cracking down on
insurgents.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, French transport
workers voted to keep a national strike going through the weekend
over President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to strip away generous
pension benefits.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, Georgia’s
President Mikhail Saakashvili dismissed the prime minister and
nominated an influential banker for the post in an apparent attempt
to win votes ahead of a hastily called presidential election.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, Guyana rushed
troops and police to its western border a day after Venezuelan
soldiers allegedly blew up two Guyanese gold-mining dredges on a
river near the frontier.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, The communist
parties that support India's ruling coalition backed off their
strong opposition to a landmark nuclear deal with the US, clearing
the way for the pact to go forward after months of high-stakes
political gamesmanship.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, Iraqi police said
8 al-Qaida fighters were killed in a Shiite village near Muqdadiyah.
One civilian killed by a roadside bomb outside a motorcycle shop in
central Baghdad. Police found the bodies of two men, both with
bullet wounds to the head, dumped in a barren area near Sadiyah, 60
miles north of Baghdad. The two were identified as brothers who had
disappeared the previous evening in the same town. Muntadhar
al-Zaidi (28), a reporter for the Iraqi satellite channel
al-Baghdadiyah, disappeared. US helicopters dropped 600 troops into
two villages south of Baghdad before sunrise, launching an assault
on militants believed to be involved in the May kidnapping of three
American soldiers.
(AP, 11/16/07)(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, North and South
Korea agreed to launch rail service across their heavily armed
border for the first time in more than half a century, a move
symbolizing the growing reconciliation between the two sides.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, The Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said its election
observers would be unable to monitor next month's Russian
parliamentary balloting because Moscow had refused to issue them
visas. All 56 OSCE member countries, including Russia, agreed in
1990 to invite international observers to monitor their elections.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, Between 35 and 40
rebels were killed as Pakistani gunship helicopters launched fresh
attacks on pro-Taliban bunkers in the troubled northwest. The
clashes left nearly 100 militants dead as they entered a 4th day.
(AP, 11/16/07)(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, Thousands of Hamas
loyalists protested outside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's
Gaza City home, warning that violence would erupt if he makes
concessions to Israel in a US-sponsored peace conference.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 16, Poland's new PM
Donald Tusk formally took office along with a team of former
anti-communist dissidents.
(AP, 11/16/08)
2007 Nov 16, Rwandan
investigators probing alleged French involvement in the country's
1994 genocide handed their report to President Paul Kagame, but
officials refused to divulge details.
(Reuters, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, In Spain
negotiators concluded a policy guide for governments on global
warming that declares climate change is here and is getting worse.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 16, Turkish
authorities took steps to ban the country's leading pro-Kurdish
political party and expel several of its lawmakers from parliament
on charges of separatism.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 17, US Deputy
Secretary of State John Negroponte delivered a blunt message to
Pakistan's military ruler, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, telling
him emergency rule had to be lifted and his opponents freed ahead of
elections.
(AP, 11/17/08)
2007 Nov 17, A Nobel-winning UN
scientific panel said in a landmark report that the Earth was
hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace.
(AP, 11/17/08)
2007 Nov 17, A suicide bomber
on a motorbike attacked a NATO convoy in Nangarhar province's
Chaparhar district, killing an Afghan civilian and wounding another
NATO soldier. In Kandahar province Canadian and Afghan troops
battled militants and called in airstrikes in Zhari district,
leaving an Afghan soldier and at least 20 suspected militants dead.
In Helmand province 23 Taliban militants were killed during a US-led
coalition operation aimed at disrupting a weapons transfer. Also in
the south 2 Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were
killed when a bomb struck their armored vehicle. In Zabul province
the Taliban ambushed and clashed with an Afghan army patrol, leaving
11 suspected insurgents dead and four soldiers wounded. Taliban
militants tortured five abducted policemen in southern Afghanistan
and then hung their mutilated bodies from trees in a warning to
Gazak villagers against working with the government.
(AP, 11/17/07)(AP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 17, In eastern Algeria
a gas explosion in an old house killed six people and injured
another eight.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, The official death
toll from a savage cyclone that wreaked havoc on southwest
Bangladesh reached 1,723, the deadliest storm to hit the country in
a decade.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, State media
reported that China has called on Myanmar to speed up democratic
reforms, an unusual move for Beijing, which has traditionally
refrained from criticizing the military regime.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, The UN children's
agency said aid groups in Congo have secured the release of 232
child soldiers from militia fighters who forcibly recruited them in
the east of the country. The 232 children, whose average age is 14,
were separated this month in the eastern provinces of North and
South Kivu from three different factions of the Mai Mai.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, France's biggest
rail union said a new offer of talks from employers did not go far
enough, as the country headed towards a fifth day of crippling
transport strikes.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, In Iran officials
at Niloofar Publications, which published the first edition of a
novel by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, known in the West
as "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," confirmed they have been
forbidden to put out a second edition. The Persian translation was
titled "Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts."
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, A mass grave
filled with at least 33 badly decomposed bodies was unearthed in
southern Baghdad. It was the third mass grave found in Iraq this
month. The US military said its troops killed seven suspects and
detained 10 in raids across central and northern Iraq.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, Front-runner and
former rebel and Hashim Thaci pledged independence for Kosovo as the
breakaway province voted for a new parliament in an election shunned
by Serbs bitterly opposed to its secession. With most votes counted,
opposition leader Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo led with
35 percent. Kosovo’s Serbs were told to boycott the election. Only
40-45% of Kosovar Albanians turned up to vote.
(Reuters, 11/17/07)(AP, 11/18/07)(Econ, 11/24/07,
p.58)
2007 Nov 17, Mauritanian
President Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi met Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi at the start of visit to Tripoli aimed at boosting relations
after years of tension.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, Pakistan’s army
said some 15,000 troops have massed for a major assault on Islamic
militants in a scenic northern valley, whose fall has raised concern
about Pakistan's ability to withstand rising extremism.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, It was reported
that generic Viagra, made in India, was a popular item in Gaza,
selling for 75 cents a tablet.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.56)
2007 Nov 17, The new Polish
Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said Poland will end next year its
mission in Iraq, where it currently deploys 900 soldiers.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, Slovenian trade
unions, students and pensioners staged the largest rally in the
country since independence in 1991, blocking traffic in the centre
of Ljubljana for several hours.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, Somali rebels
launched an overnight attack on a camp of Ugandan troops in
Mogadishu, triggering fighting that left at least one insurgent
dead.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, In South Africa
finance ministers from the world's largest 20 economies began talks
focusing on reforming the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF).
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir ordered the reopening of auxiliary training camps to
prepare for war and refused to accept certain countries from sending
peacekeepers to Darfur. Beshir said the "boots of those who attacked
the prophet Mohammed would never trample on Sudanese land". He was
referring to Swedes and Norwegians who want to participate in a
UN-African Union hybrid force set to deploy to Darfur. Beshir also
said Sudan would not allow Nepal or Thailand to send troops to
Darfur, although he agreed with the UN for engineering troops to
arrive from China and Pakistan.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 17, Police in Ho Chi
Minh City arrested two US citizens of Vietnamese descent, two
Vietnam citizens, one French citizen of Vietnamese descent and one
Thai citizen after "they participated in discussions with other
democracy activists on promoting peaceful democratic change."
Several were jailed in one-day trials for up to 8 years on charges
of defaming the Communist Party and "spreading propaganda against
the state."
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 18, Chris Daughtry's
band won favorite pop-rock album for "Daughtry," as well as
breakthrough artist and adult contemporary artist at the American
Music Awards.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2007 Nov 18, Detroit pushed
past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according
to a private research group's controversial analysis of annual FBI
crime statistics. Flint, Mich., ranked 3rd and Oakland, Ca., ranked
4th.
(AP, 11/19/07)(SFC, 11/19/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 18, The Jesuit order
of the Roman Catholic Church in Oregon agreed to pay $50 million to
110 Eskimos to settle claims of sexual abuse in Alaska.
(SFC, 11/19/07, p.A3)(Reuters, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 18, Greenpeace said an
international commission designed to protect bluefin tuna stocks has
effectively increased the fishing quota for 2008 from what was
already an "unsustainable" level. Greenpeace said the annual meeting
of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic
Tunas (ICCAT), held in Turkey had approved a nearly 1,000-ton
increase in the 2008 catch.
(AFP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, A new Afghanistan
Human Development Report said Afghanistan is fifth last on a global
index of human development, despite billions of dollars in aid and
help since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Police shot and
killed two suspected Taliban militants as they approached a police
checkpoint on a motorbike. In southern Helmand province, Taliban
militants attacked a police checkpoint, killing two officers and
wounding four others.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AFP, 11/18/07)(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 18, The death toll
from a cyclone that devastated Bangladesh has surpassed 2,200, as
rescuers struggled through blocked paths to reach hundreds of
thousands of survivors awaiting aid in wrecked homes and flooded
fields. The head of the country's Red Crescent Society said up to
5,000 to 10,000 people are believed to have died in the cyclone.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AFP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, British ambassador
Andrew Anderson said Algeria has formally demanded the extradition
from Britain of former Algerian bank chief Rafik Khalifa, sentenced
to life over a massive embezzlement scandal.
(AP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, MTV Arabia, an
Arab version of the pop-culture channel, began broadcasting from
Dubai.
(AP, 11/18/08)(www.freemuse.org/sw29678.asp)
2007 Nov 18, Separatist rebels
said Ethiopia's air force has been "carpet-bombing" villages and
nomadic settlements in its oil- and gas-rich Ogaden region, leaving
a trail of casualties.
(AFP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, German prosecutors
filed terrorism charges against a Moroccan man, identified as
Abdelali M. (25), was accused of helping recruit foreign fighters
for al-Qaida in Iraq. He was arrested in Sweden in March and handed
over to Germany in May.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Nov 18, Three members of
Iraq's Olympic soccer team and their assistant coach left the team
during a trip to Australia and are seeking asylum in the country.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 18, Bombs planted
along Iraq's roads and in a parked car killed at least four people
in separate attacks. In Baghdad a car bomb targeting an
undersecretary finance minister, killed 10 bystanders. 4 homicide
victims were found in Baghdad. Two Iraqis were killed and four
wounded in an incident involving a US military convoy in southern
Muthanna province. Local officials said the soldiers had opened fire
randomly and destroyed a truckload of sheep. In Baquba 3 US soldiers
were killed in a suicide bombing that also left 3 children dead and
7 wounded.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AP, 11/19/07)(SFC, 11/19/07,
p.A13)
2007 Nov 18, In Italy former
Premier Silvio Berlusconi announced the creation of a new political
party, saying the time felt right because his supporters had
gathered so many signatures calling for the ouster of Premier Romano
Prodi.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 18, A defiant Japan
embarked on its largest whaling expedition in decades, targeting
protected humpbacks for the first time since the 1960s despite
international opposition. 4 ships headed for the waters off
Antarctica, resuming a hunt that was cut short by a deadly fire last
February that crippled the fleet's mother ship. An anti-whaling
protest boat awaited the fleet offshore.
(AP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, In Kuwait a US
soldier was killed and another was seriously injured in a road
accident.
(AP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, In Nigeria’s
northern Kano state supporters of rival political parties clashed
over the results of local government elections, leaving six people
dead and dozens behind bars.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 18, President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf's government dismissed a last-ditch US call to end
emergency rule, a day after a visit by Deputy Secretary of State
John Negroponte. Security officials and state media reported that
fighting between rival Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the northwestern
tribal belt has claimed at least 90 lives.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AP, 11/18/08)
2007 Nov 18, In eastern Saudi
Arabia an explosion and fire on a gas pipeline killed 40 workers.
The cause of the fire was an accident during maintenance work and
Aramco said it did not expect a disruption in gas supplies.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 18, Two Sudanese
journalists from the independent Al-Sudani newspaper were jailed
after refusing to pay a fine for an article about the arrest of
other journalists.
(AP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 18, A methane blast
ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, killing 101 workers.
In 2008 the head of an investigative commission said negligence by
coal mine managers eager to ratchet up output led to a methane blast
in Ukraine's deadliest mining disaster since the Soviet breakup.
(AP, 11/18/07)(AP, 11/19/07)(AP, 1/25/08)
2007 Nov 19, President Bush
announced that Fran Townsend, the leading White House-based
terrorism adviser, was stepping down.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2007 Nov 19, The US and Russia
announced an agreement on how to safely dispose 34 metric tons of
Russian weapons-grade plutonium.
(SFC, 11/20/07, p.A11)
2007 Nov 19, Researchers said
the number of Americans in prison has risen eight-fold since 1970,
with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and
society. This was part of a report produced by the JFA Institute, a
Washington criminal-justice research group, calling for a major
justice-system overhaul.
(Reuters, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, California Sec. of
State Debra Bowen sued Election Systems and Software, a Nebraska
voting machine company, for allegedly selling nearly 1,000
uncertified machines to San Francisco and 4 other counties. Bowen
sought reimbursements of nearly $15 million.
(SFC, 11/20/07, p.D1)
2007 Nov 19, Amazon.com began
selling its Kindle electronic book reader, the size of a paperback,
for $399. It was able to hold 200 volumes.
(WSJ, 11/20/07, p.B1)(Econ, 10/25/08, SR p.11)
2007 Nov 19, The FBI reported
hate crime incidents rose nearly 8 percent in 2006.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2007 Nov 19, Milo Radulovich
(81), the Air Force Reserve lieutenant championed by CBS newsman
Edward R. Murrow when the military threatened to decommission him
during the anti-communist crackdown of the 1950s, died in Vallejo,
Calif.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2007 Nov 19, Actor Dick Wilson
(91), who played the fussy, mustachioed grocer who told customers,
"Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," died in Woodland Hills, Calif.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2007 Nov 19, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber struck outside a governor's residence, killing six
policemen and wounding 14 people in southwestern Nimroz province.
Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad said his son was among those killed.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, The death toll
from the Nov 15 cyclone in Bangladesh passed 3,100, and officials
said that number could reach 10,000 once rescuers get to outlying
islands.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, In Cambodia a
UN-backed tribunal arrested Khieu Samphan (76), the former Khmer
Rouge head of state. He was the fifth senior official of the brutal
regime to be rounded up ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial. In
his book "Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of
Democratic Kampuchea," which was released last week, Khieu Samphan
says the Khmer Rouge only wanted what was best for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, It was reported
that Chinese regulators in recent weeks have ordered commercial
banks to freeze lending through the end of the year. PM Wen Jiabao
acknowledged that vast amounts of currency were flowing out of China
through illegal channels. This followed the recent arrest of To Ling
(43), a Hong Kong resident, whose black market foreign exchange
business handled transactions worth more than $1 million a day.
(WSJ, 11/19/07, p.A1)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.78)
2007 Nov 19, In France a "large
majority" of rail workers voted to keep up the train strike.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, In Iraq 3 officers
were killed in an ambush on their checkpoint northeast of Baghdad.
Ten people, most of them women and children, were wounded when a car
bomb exploded in front of a police officer's house farther north in
Albu-Jawari village, on the northern outskirts of Beiji. Muntadhar
al-Zaidi (28), an Iraqi television reporter who was kidnapped in
Baghdad last week, was freed. In Baghdad a convoy belonging to
Almco, a US-contracted Dubai firm, was involved in a shooting that
left a woman wounded. Iraqi troops detained 43 contract workers.
(AP, 11/19/07)(SFC, 11/20/07, p.A15)
2007 Nov 19, The Israeli
Cabinet approved the release of 441 Palestinian prisoners in a
gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but stopped short of
US demands to halt West Bank settlement construction before a
crucial Mideast conference.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, International
Mideast envoy Tony Blair announced four economic projects designed
to create thousands of jobs for Palestinians and bolster peace
efforts with Israel.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 19, Pakistan’s Supreme
Court, hand-picked by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, swiftly
dismissed legal challenges to his continued rule, opening the way
for him to serve another five-year term, this time solely as a
civilian president.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, Uzbekistan's
electoral commission said Pres. Karimov (69) has registered as a
candidate in next month's election, even though the constitution
bars him from seeking a third consecutive term.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez made his fourth trip to Iran in two years, as
the two countries sought to strengthen ties while their leaders
exhort the international community to resist US policies.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 19, President Robert
Mugabe's government published a draft bill forcing mining firms to
transfer majority shareholdings to local owners, including giving
the Zimbabwe government a free 25 percent stake.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 20, Freddie Mac, the
larger US buyer and guarantor of home loans, reported a $2 billion
loss for the 3rd quarter and warned that it may need to raise fresh
capital. Fannie Mae, another US mortgage guarantor, had already
posted a $1.4 billion loss earlier in the month.
(SFC, 11/21/07, p.C1)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.76)
2007 Nov 20, In Utah polygamist
leader Warren Jeffs, self-proclaimed prophet of a breakaway Mormon
sect, was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for forcing a
14-year-old to marry her first cousin. In 2010 the Utah Supreme
Court reversed the convictions of Jeffs and ordered a new trial
saying a jury received incorrect instructions. On April 7, 2011, a
federal judge handed control of a $114 million communal land trust
back to the leaders of Jeff’s polygamous church. Courts had seized
control of the trust in 2005.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A4)(SFC,
4/9/11, p.A5)
2007 Nov 20, Crude-oil futures
surged to a record high settling at $98.03 a barrel on the NY
Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 11/21/07, p.C8)
2007 Nov 20, Researchers said
they have decoded the gene map of a strain of extensively
drug-resistant tuberculosis and that their work has identified
mutations that may help develop better treatments.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 20, Scientists in
Japan and the US reported that they have made ordinary human skin
cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a
startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical
payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, In SF large
grocery stores stopped using plastic bags as a new city ordnance
banning the bags took effect.
(SFC, 11/20/07, p.D1)
2007 Nov 20, British Treasury
chief Alistair Darling revealed a lapse at Britain's tax and customs
service regarding missing computer disks with details of 25 million
British individuals and 7.25 million families claiming child
benefit. There were gasps from lawmakers when Darling described the
scale of the loss.
(AP, 11/21/07)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.24)
2007 Nov 20, In Cambodia Kaing
Guek Eav (66), also known as Duch, the head of the Khmer Rouge's
largest and most notorious torture center appeared in court in the
first public session of the long-delayed UN-backed tribunal probing
the regime's reign of terror in the 1970s.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, A Chinese court
sentenced a Tibetan nomad to eight years in prison for seeking
Tibetan independence after he urged a crowd to proclaim loyalty to
the Dalai Lama.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, In China Huang
Qingnan (34), a workers’ rights advocate in Shenzhen, was severely
beaten and stabbed by thugs believed to have been hired by Chinese
companies opposed to labor activism.
(SFC, 1/7/08, p.A18)
2007 Nov 20, The Paris-based
World Association of Newspapers said imprisoned Chinese journalist
Li Changqing has been awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom, its annual
press freedom prize.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, A landslide in
central China buried a bus. Workers clearing rocks from the
landslide discovered the bus underneath rubble three days later and
recovered 29 bodies, that included 28 inside the bus. The landslide
raised concern that the massive reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam,
120 miles away, was wreaking ecological havoc in the region. The
death toll later increased to 34.
(AP, 11/23/07)(AP, 11/24/07)(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Nov 20, It was reported
that Congo is setting aside more than 11,000 square miles of rain
forest to help protect the endangered bonobo, a great ape that is
the most closely related to humans and is found only in this Central
African country.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 20, Travel woes piled
up in France with air traffic delays adding to a week of rail
strikes as many of the nation's 5 million civil servants held a
day-long walkout in the biggest test of President Nicolas Sarkozy's
appetite for reform.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, A British Puma
helicopter crashed southeast of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and
seriously injuring two others. A sophisticated roadside bomb killed
a US soldier and an Iraqi interpreter and wounded three other
soldiers on patrol in eastern Baghdad.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 20, Israel’s PM Olmert
met with Egypt’s Pres. Mubarek and said a peace deal with the
Palestinians can be signed within a year.
(WSJ, 11/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 20, Israel signed an
agreement with Liberia to extract diamonds from the African nation,
seven months after sanctions barring Liberia from exporting the gems
were lifted.
(AFP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, Jordan held
elections. Supporters of King Abdullah II, a close US ally, handily
defeated the country's Islamist opposition in parliamentary
elections, dropping their number of parliament seats by nearly
two-thirds.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 20, Officials said
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua will not allow his country to be
used as a base for the proposed US African military command AFRICOM.
(AFP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, The British
government announced that the legal age of sexual consent in
Northern Ireland will be lowered to 16 in line with the rest of the
United Kingdom.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 20, Pakistan’s
Interior Ministry said more than 3,000 people jailed under emergency
rule have been released, the latest sign that President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf was rolling back some of the harsher measures taken
against his opponents. Over 2,000 remained jailed. The government
said the army had killed 15 militants in Shangla as Pres. Musharraf
left for a visit to Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, President Vladimir
Putin said that Russia's decision to suspend its participation in a
key arms control treaty was a necessary response to NATO
"muscle-flexing" near its frontiers. The 1990 Conventional Forces in
Europe (CFE) treaty, which originally set limits on weapons of NATO
and Warsaw Pact countries, was revised in 1999. Russia ratified the
updated treaty in 2004, but the US and other NATO members have
refused to follow suit, saying Moscow first must fulfill obligations
to withdraw forces from Georgia and from Moldova's separatist
Trans-Dniester region.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 20, In Singapore
Southeast Asian leaders (ASEAN) adopted a landmark charter but their
vision to create an EU-style bloc faced hurdles because of concerns
over Myanmar, whose military rulers have defied international calls
to restore democracy.
(AP, 11/20/07)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.43)
2007 Nov 20, Ian Smith (88),
Rhodesia's last white prime minister, died in South Africa . His
attempts to resist black rule dragged the country, later renamed as
Zimbabwe, into isolation and civil war.
(AP, 11/20/07)(SFC, 11/23/07, p.B14)(Econ,
11/24/07, p.92)
2007 Nov 21, Michigan’s Gov.
Jennifer Granholm issued an order that bars discrimination against
state workers based on their "gender identity or expression," which
protects the rights of those who behave, dress or identify as
members of the opposite sex.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, New Hampshire set
its presidential primary to Jan 8, claiming its traditional spot as
the nation’s first primary.
(SFC, 11/22/07, p.A4)
2007 Nov 21, Officials in the
US announced the recall of more than a half-million pieces of
Chinese-made children's jewelry contaminated with lead.
(AP, 11/21/08)
2007 Nov 21, Herbert Saffir
(b.1917), an engineer who created the five-category system used to
describe hurricane strength, died. Saffir began working on an
intensity scale in 1969 as part of a United Nations project.
Saffir's scale was expanded by former National Hurricane Center
director Robert H. Simpson and became known as the Saffir-Simpson
scale in the 1970s.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 21, Aruba authorities
announced they had re-arrested Dutch student Joran van der Sloot and
two Surinamese brothers, Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, on suspicion of
involvement in voluntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily
harm that resulted in the 2005 death of Natalee Holloway.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, The presidents of
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey launched the construction of a
railroad that will link ex-Soviet republics in the Caucasus and
Central Asia with Europe, bypassing Russia.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, PM Gordon Brown
tried to reassure Britons their personal details were safe after the
one of the biggest security breaches in the country's history left
millions of people exposed to identity theft and bank fraud.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, Canada’s
government set aside 25 million acres of wilderness in the Northwest
Territories for conservation.
(SFC, 11/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 21, Chile’s Supreme
Court threw out embezzlement indictments against former dictator
Gen. Augusto Pinochet's widow and four of his children, who had been
accused of misuse of state funds related to multimillion-dollar
overseas bank accounts.
(SFC, 11/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 21, Colombia's
government said it was canceling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's
mediation role with leftist rebels in a possible hostage swap,
dealing a blow to efforts to free three kidnapped US contractors and
a former presidential candidate.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, Costa Rica's
president signed into law a free trade agreement (CAFTA) with its
Central American neighbors, the United States and the Dominican
Republic. Costa Ricans voted for the trade deal in a national
referendum, moving it forward. But then it became stalled again as
congress squabbled over the enabling legislation dealing with 13
different aspects of the deal. In late 2008 lawmakers overcame the
final intellectual-property hurdle by allowing schools and
universities to copy some materials and by reducing prison time for
those guilty of selling pirated goods.
(AP, 11/22/07)(AP, 11/11/08)
2007 Nov 21, A French judge
filed preliminary charges against former President Jacques Chirac in
a probe of suspicions that people were given fake jobs while he was
mayor of Paris (1977-1995). Some 10,000 people, mainly tobacco
sellers, marched through Paris to protest a smoking ban in cafes as
of Jan 1. Coordinated acts of sabotage struck France's high-speed
trains, causing further delays to services already widely disrupted
by strikes, just as talks were opening to coax unions into ending
their walkout.
(AP, 11/21/07)(AP, 11/22/07)(Econ, 11/24/07,
p.56)
2007 Nov 21, Two British
teenagers (16) faced up to three years in jail after a Ghanaian
court found them guilty of smuggling 6 kg (13 lbs) of cocaine. The
teenagers, who pleaded not guilty, had told British TV they were
tricked into carrying the bags by male acquaintances in Ghana and
Britain and did not know their content. In 2008 the 2 girls were
sentenced to one year in jail to include time already served. They
were released on July 17, 2008.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)(AP, 1/23/08)(AFP, 7/17/08)
2007 Nov 21, In Hungary several
trade unions and civic groups held a series of strikes and protests
against the Socialist-led government's plans to privatize health
insurance and close some railway lines.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, India and the
International Atomic Energy Agency agreed to start negotiations on
putting Indian reactors under IAEA safeguards, clearing a key hurdle
to closing a US-Indian nuclear supply pact. Dozens of soldiers
marched through Calcutta and police imposed a curfew to try to quell
riots that erupted after protesters alleged government brutality.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, A suicide car bomb
exploded at a police checkpoint guarding a courthouse in Ramadi,
killing at least six people in the largest attack on Anbar
province's capital in months. Iraqi security forces found 40
decomposed bodies, including women and children, north of Ramadi
near Lake Tharthar in an area controlled until recently by al-Qaida
in Iraq. A police officer was killed in a drive-by shooting in
central Kut. The US military said six suspected militants were
killed and 10 captured in two days of raids across central and
northern Iraq.
(AP, 11/21/07)(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, Owners of the only
salmon farm in Northern Ireland said they have lost their entire
population of more than 100,000 fish, worth some $2 million, to a
jellyfish attack. Pelagia nocticula, popularly known as the mauve
stinger, is noted for its purplish night-time glow and its
propensity for terrorizing bathers in the warmer Mediterranean Sea.
Until the past decade, the mauve stinger has rarely been spotted so
far north in British or Irish waters, and scientists cite this as
evidence of global warming.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, Pakistan asked a
key international forum comprising Britain and its former colonies
to delay a decision on whether to suspend it from the Commonwealth.
Law Minister Afzal Hayder said the government had freed 5,634
political activists and anti-government lawyers, including cricketer
Imran Kahn. 623 people remained in government custody. The army said
security forces attacked mountaintop positions of pro-Taliban
militants in the Swat region of northwestern Pakistan, leaving 40
fighters dead.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, In Senegal street
vendors protesting an attempt to clear them from the center of Dakar
clashed with police, throwing rocks at officers who fired tear gas
to disperse the crowd. Last week, Senegal's security forces began
clearing the capital's intersections of hawkers and beggars under a
presidential decree aimed at bringing some order to Dakar's clogged
streets.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, Ishmael Beah (27),
a former child soldier and survivor of Sierra Leone's civil war, was
appointed UNICEF's first Advocate for Children Affected by War.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, A South African
police officer died when a helicopter carrying 14 police officers
and five air force officials crashed near the border with Lesotho.
(AFP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, In northern Sri
Lanka soldiers killed nine Tamil Tiger rebels in several clashes.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, In southern
Thailand unidentified gunmen killed four local government employees
in the same district where a prominent political party leader was
campaigning.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council extended the EU's peacekeeping force in Bosnia for a year,
citing the Balkan nation's "very limited progress" towards EU
membership and its failure to implement key reforms.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council welcomed a deal signed by Congo and Rwanda to forcibly
disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo in an effort to reduce tensions
between the central African neighbors.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, In Venezuela tens
of thousands of President Hugo Chavez's supporters filled the
streets to back his proposed constitutional changes, while
anti-government student leaders announced a bold plan to march on
the presidential palace.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, More than 60
migrants drowned when their boat capsized off Yemen during an
attempt to flee their war torn homeland of Somalia.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 22, On Thanksgiving
day in Unity, Md., David Peter Brockdorff (40), shot and killed his
ex-wife, their 3 children (6-12) and then himself as the woman
prepared to hand over the children for a visit.
(SFC, 11/24/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 22, The World Health
Organization said nearly 400 people, mostly children, have fallen
ill in Angola in what medical investigators suspect is an outbreak
of bromide poisoning.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 22, The Explorer, a
Canadian cruise ship, struck ice late at night off Antarctica and
began taking on water. All 154 passengers and crew took to lifeboats
and were rescued safely the following morning by the Nordnorge, a
passing Norwegian liner.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 22, China’s state
media reported that five Hollywood studios have sued a Chinese
online service and internet cafe they accuse of offering pirated
downloads of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and other hit films.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 22, A nine-day
transport strike that has crippled the French rail network appeared
to be drawing to a close as many local union committees voted to
suspend their stoppage and give negotiations a chance.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 22, Some 70 suspected
al-Qaida fighters killed two Iraqi soldiers, then used their Humvees
to kill at least 18 rival Sunnis, members of the Awakening Council,
south of Baghdad. Armed civilians killed 15-20 of the insurgents in
fighting that left 3 Iraqi soldiers and 5 civilians dead as well as
4 of the armed civilians. Iraqi security forces killed 19 al-Qaida
fighters in Baqouba. Two civilians died and two others were wounded
in the crossfire. A mortar attack struck the base in Balad, 50 miles
north of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding two. A parked car
bomb in Mosul killed 2 civilians. US military officials reported
that about 60 percent of the foreign militants fighting in Iraq have
come from US allies Saudi Arabia and Libya.
(AP, 11/22/07)(Reuters, 11/22/07)(AP,
11/23/07)(SFC, 11/23/07, p.A14)
2007 Nov 22, Pakistan’s Supreme
Court, stacked with judges loyal to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf,
cleared the way for him to rule as a civilian president, throwing
out a final challenge to last month's election.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 22, A passenger bus
caught fire and exploded in southern Russia, killing at least five
people and wounding 12. Investigators in North Ossetia said
terrorism was the likely cause.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 22, In South Africa De
Beers announced that it was selling the Cullinan diamond mine, which
it has owned since 1930, to a consortium led by Petra Diamonds.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.82)
2007 Nov 22, The World Health
Organization said an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Sudan has
killed 164 people.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 22, A committee of the
53-nation Commonwealth, meeting in Uganda, suspended Pakistan from
the organization for failing to end emergency rule.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 22, The UN resumed the
repatriation of 12,000 Congolese refugees from Zambia which was
suspended three months ago due to insecurity in the Democratic
Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga province.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 23, Emily Sander (18),
a Kansas college student and Internet porn star, was last seen
leaving a bar in El Dorado, about 30 miles from Wichita, with a man
identified as Israel Mireles (24). Her body was found Nov 29 about
50 miles east of El Dorado. Mireles was arrested in Mexico on Dec 19
and extradited to the US on June 25, 2009.
(AP, 11/29/07)(AP, 11/30/07)(SFC, 12/20/07,
p.A4)(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A4)
2007 Nov 23, In Afghanistan
Taliban militants beheaded 7 police officers after overrunning their
checkpoints. An Australian commando (26) and 3 civilians were killed
in a clash with Taliban militia in Uruzgan province. In 2008 the
Australian military cleared its soldiers over the deaths of two
women and a baby during this battle but said all civilian casualties
were "highly regrettable."
(Reuters, 11/23/07)(SFC, 11/24/07, p.A3)(AFP,
5/12/08)
2007 Nov 23, Bulgaria’s
Interior Ministry said police have arrested nine people and broke a
huge counterfeiting ring that churned out foreign passports and
other documents and distributed them across Europe.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, Explosions and
machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Congo, where
government troops battled rebels for a third day amid a deepening
humanitarian crisis the UN says has displaced nearly 200,000 people
in the past few months.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, In Cuba Robert
Vesco (b.1935), a fugitive financier, died of lung cancer. He had
been wanted in the US for crimes ranging from securities fraud and
drug trafficking to political bribery. News of this death was not
publicly reported for another 5 months.
(SFC, 5/3/08, p.A6)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.91)
2007 Nov 23, A series of
near-simultaneous explosions ripped through courthouse complexes in
three north Indian cities, killing at least 13 lawyers and injuring
dozens of other people. Federal authorities blamed militants trying
to spark unrest between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority
for the blasts in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, Two bombs exploded
hours apart in a central Baghdad pet market and a police checkpoint
in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing 26 people and wounding
dozens. A parked car bomb targeted a police patrol in Shurqat, 155
miles northwest of Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding 15
others, along with one civilian.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, Lebanon's
parliament failed to elect a successor to President Emile Lahoud
just hours before he was set to leave office after it was unable to
convene due to an opposition boycott. Emile Lahoud left office
without a successor after announcing he was handing over security
powers to the army.
(AP, 11/23/07)(AP, 11/23/08)
2007 Nov 23, Vladimir Kryuchkov
(83), the Soviet Union's former KGB chief and one of Russia's most
influential hardline spy masters, died. Kryuchkov's biggest failure
was the defection to Britain in 1985 of Oleg Gordievsky, the highest
ranking KGB defector in its history.
(Reuters, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 23, Saudi Arabia and
other Arab nations grudgingly agreed to attend an upcoming
US-sponsored Mideast peace conference, despite failing to get any
guarantee of Israeli concessions.
(AP, 11/23/08)
2007 Nov 23, Sudan's Pres. Omar
al-Beshir said he would not accept non-African troops in a combined
United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, apart
from Chinese and Pakistani technical units already committed.
(Reuters, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, A study
commissioned by the state's emergency response council said nearly a
third of Swaziland's children are considered orphaned and vulnerable
as AIDS takes its toll on the country. Close to 40 percent of
Swaziland adults are living with HIV and AIDS, the highest infection
rate anywhere in the world.
(AFP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, In Uganda
presidents and prime ministers from Britain and its former colonies
discussed democracy, human rights and the rule of law at the start
of a Commonwealth summit. They were presented with the new report:
“Civil Paths to Peace: Report of the Commonwealth Commission on
Respect and Understanding," while police and anti-government
protesters clashed nearby.
(AP, 11/23/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.74)
2007 Nov 23, Ukrainian PM
Viktor Yanukovych submitted his resignation as a new parliament was
sworn in and rival parties jostled to form a government after
September elections.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 24, In southern
California a fast-moving wildfire destroyed more than a dozen homes
and spread through the canyons and hills above Malibu, forcing
dozens of residents to flee ahead of the flames. 53 homes were
destroyed with 7 square miles scorched. On Dec 13 authorities
arrested five men on allegations they caused the fire which caused
over $100 million in losses in Malibu.
(AP, 11/24/07)(SSFC, 11/25/07, p.A1)(WSJ,
11/26/07, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Nov 24, Beginning today
and continuing for less than a week, bad guys loaded up more than
40,000 Web pages with malicious software and thousands of common
search terms. The culprits' use of botnets to push a dark form of
SEO (search-engine optimization), called a "Google bomb," to boost
their sites' Google rankings.
(www.pcworld.com/article/id,141796/article.html)(PCWorld, 1/28/08)
2007 Nov 24, A Taliban suicide
bomber killed eight people, including three children and an Italian
military engineer, when he blew himself up in a scenic town near
Kabul. Insurgents attacked police in the Pathan district and were
targeted by airstrikes from NATO or coalition helicopters. The
bodies of 69 dead militants were said to be left in the area. Among
those killed were four Taliban who were traveling with two cars full
of explosives and ammunition.
(AFP, 11/24/07)(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 24, In Australia
conservative PM John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat at the
hands of the left-leaning opposition. Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd
has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global
warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, in southwestern
Bangladesh a section of a bridge collapsed under the weight of
thousands of hungry cyclone victims rushing toward a relief center.
At least 3 people died and dozens were injured.
(Reuters, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, In Bolivia
soldiers clashed with students protesting a constitutional assembly
in a second day of unrest against the pending legal overhaul. 2
people died in the violence.
(AP, 11/25/07)(WSJ, 11/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 24, Robert
Knipstrom (36) of British Columbia man died four days after police
used a Taser stun-gun on him because he reportedly was acting
erratically in a store. He was the third person to die in recent
weeks in Canada after being shocked by the hand-held weapon.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 24, Full service was
restored on the Paris Metro and most French trains were running
after transport workers ended a crippling strike so that talks on
pension reform could run their course.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, In India
protesting tea plantation workers in the remote northeast clashed
with area residents, in violence that left six people dead and 60
others injured. A group of nearly 10,000 workers from tea
plantations all over the state of Assam, led by the All Assam Tea
Tribes Students Association, had been marching in the state capital
of Gauhati to demand that the government recognize them as a
separate tribal group.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, In central
Indonesia a fire on a crowded passenger bus killed 12 people,
including three children.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, In Iraq a US
operation near Samarra killed 10 suspected Sunni militants. In the
same area 2 men who were confronted in a vehicle detonated a suicide
vest leaving both dead.
(SFC, 11/26/07, p.A18)
2007 Nov 24, Lebanon awoke a
republic without a president amid mounting worries over a power
vacuum that has intensified the nation's yearlong political turmoil.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, Militants struck
at the heart of Pakistan's security establishment, killing up to 35
people in suicide attacks on a checkpoint outside army headquarters
and a bus carrying intelligence agency employees. The attacks in
Rawalpindi coincided with the announcement that Nawaz Sharif, a
former prime minister overthrown in 1999 by the country's current
military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf, would return from exile the
next day.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, Russian police in
Moscow detained opposition leader and former world chess champion
Garry Kasparov and several other anti-Kremlin protesters when
thousands of people marched against President Vladimir Putin.
(Reuters, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, South Korea's
first bird flu outbreak in eight months forced the slaughter of
thousands of ducks in the country's south. The government said the
deadly H5N1 virus was not involved.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 24, More than 100
Chinese engineers arrived in Sudan's war-torn Darfur as part of the
vanguard for a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission to be in
place next year. Rebels demanded Beijing pull its peacekeepers out
of Darfur, just hours after a unit of Chinese army engineers
arrived.
(AFP, 11/24/07)(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 24, Pope Benedict XVI
elevated 23 churchmen from around the world to the top ranks of the
Catholic Church hierarchy, telling them they must be willing to shed
their blood to spread the Christian faith.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 25, Kevin Dubrow (52),
lead singer for the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, died in Las
Vegas from an accidental cocaine overdose.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Nov 25, NATO's ISAF
confirmed that airstrikes targeted and killed 3 Taliban militants
who were planting mines in nearby Gardez.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, Newly elected
leader Kevin Rudd moved quickly to bring Australia into
international talks on fighting global warming, and to head off
potentially thorny relations with the United States and key Asian
neighbors.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, More than 50
people were missing after a boat, possibly being ferried by human
traffickers, sank off a southern Bangladesh island bordering Myanmar
waters.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 25, In northeastern
Brazil a section of stands at a soccer stadium gave way as fans
cheered at the end of a game, killing eight people.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 25, Actor Neil Hope,
who starred as Derek "Wheels" Wheeler on the popular 1980s TV series
"Degrassi Junior High," died. He had little contact with relatives
and friends in his final years and died alone in an Ontario rooming
house. His death was not made public until 2012.
(AP, 2/18/12)
2007 Nov 25, In China 6 people
were confirmed dead and 7 others were reported missing after an iron
tailing dam collapsed early this morning in northeast Liaoning
Province.
(Reuters, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, Croatia held
parliamentary elections. Exit polls and preliminary results showed
that the ruling conservatives and opposition center-left Social
Democrats were virtually tied.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 25, In France youths
assaulted a police station, torched cars and vandalized stores in a
rampage that injured 21 police officers in Villiers-le-Bel, a
rundown Paris suburb. The violence was prompted when two teens were
killed in a motorbike crash with a police patrol car.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 25, Two strong
earthquakes struck Indonesia’s eastern island of Sumbawa and killed
at least three people, including a child, and injured 45 others.
(AP, 11/26/07)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.58)
2007 Nov 25, In Iraq a parked
car bomb exploded in a crowded area near a medical complex in
Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 30. A
roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol at an intersection in a
northeastern Baghdad neighborhood, killing one civilian and wounding
eight others. Masked gunmen killed 11 relatives of a journalist
critical of the Iraqi government, according to colleagues and the
media advocacy group Reporters Without Border.
(AP, 11/25/07)(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 25, In Malaysia some
10-20 thousand ethnic Indians clashed with police at a rally in
downtown Kuala Lumpur to demand economic equality.
(AP, 11/27/07)(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Nov 25, An army spokesman
and Palestinian medics said Israeli troops killed two armed
Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip overnight.
(AFP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, Pakistan’s exiled
former PM Nawaz Sharif returned home to a hero's welcome and called
on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to end emergency rule before
elections, a fresh challenge to the US-backed leader. The army said
that 30 pro-Taliban fighters and one Pakistani soldier died in an
operation to capture militant positions in the Swat valley.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, In the Philippines
Typhoon Mitag hit Isabela province after killing 8 people in other
parts of the country. A week earlier Typhoon Hagibis left 13 people
before heading toward Vietnam. It then reversed direction and headed
back toward the Philippines.
(SFC, 11/26/07, p.A10)
2007 Nov 25, Dozens of members
of a Russian opposition party and other activists were detained by
police as they tried to gather for a protest rally in central St.
Petersburg.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, In Sudan Gillian
Gibbons (54), a British teacher, was put under detention for
allegedly insulting Islam's prophet by allowing children to call a
teddy bear Mohammed. She was arrested because of a complaint under
Article 125 of the penal code, which provides punishment for
publicly insulting or degrading any religion, its rites, beliefs and
sacred items or humiliating its believers. On Nov 28 Sudan charged
Gibbons with inciting religious hatred.
(AFP, 11/26/07)(AP, 11/27/07)(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 25, In Uganda
Commonwealth leaders called on Pakistan to remain engaged with the
group as they wrapped up a summit here that saw the suspension of
President Pervez Musharraf's country.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 26, President Bush
signed a deal setting the foundation for a potential long-term US
troop presence in Iraq, with details to be negotiated over matters
that have defined the war debate at home. Bush also met with the
leaders of Israel and Palestine ahead of the Middle East peace talks
at Annapolis.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A15)
2007 Nov 26, Mississippi Sen.
Trent Lott announced his retirement after a 35-year career in
Congress.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2007 Nov 26, Citigroup
announced that the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government will
take a 4.9% stake and provide a $7.5 billion capital infusion.
(WSJ, 11/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 26, Amsterdam based
Royal Philips Electronics announced the purchase of Genlyte Group,
based in Louisville, Kentucky, for $2.7 billion. The deal made
Philips the biggest lighting firm in the American market.
(www.newscenter.philips.com/about/news/press/20071126.page)
2007 Nov 26, Rotary
International and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced
a $200 million donation for the global campaign to wipe out polio.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, A new report said
the US District of Columbia has the highest rate of AIDS of any city
in the country. An estimated one in 20 residents had HIV and one in
50 had AIDS.
(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 26, A new study by the
University of Michigan bolstered claims that Native Americans are
descended from one migrant group that crossed a lost land link from
modern Siberia to Alaska. The study examined genes of indigenous
people from North to South America and from two Siberian groups.
(AFP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 26, In Michigan a find
of dioxin at the bottom of the Saginaw River could be the highest
level of such contamination ever discovered in the nation's rivers
and lakes, according to a federal scientist involved in cleanup
efforts downstream from a Dow Chemical Co. plant.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, Roger Lee Dillon
(22), his girlfriend, Nicole N. Boyd (24), and Dillon’s mother,
Sharon Lee Gregory (48), stole $7.4 million in cash and checks from
an Ohio armored car company. They were arrested Dec 1 in West
Virginia.
(AP, 12/1/07)(SFC, 12/17/07, p.A8)
2007 Nov 26, Washington
Redskins star safety Sean Taylor was mortally wounded when he was
shot during a botched armed robbery at his home in Palmetto Bay,
Fla. Taylor died the next day.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2007 Nov 26, Bill Hartack (74),
Hall of Fame jockey, died in Freer, Texas.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2007 Nov 26, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb struck an Afghan army vehicle, killing 4 soldiers and
wounding two others in eastern Paktia province. 4 civilians were
killed by a roadside blast in the Musayi district of Kabul province.
In eastern Afghanistan US-led coalition troops killed 14 road
construction workers in airstrikes after receiving faulty
intelligence.
(AP, 11/26/07)(AP, 11/27/07)(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 26, The Bahamas
ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, bringing to 141
the number of nations that have done so. The treaty, which bans all
nuclear explosions, will not enter into force until it has been
ratified by all 44 states listed in an annex, that participated in a
1996 disarmament conference and had nuclear power or research
reactors at the time. 34 of those countries have ratified the pact.
The holdouts include the United States, China, India, Pakistan,
Israel and North Korea.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 26, Peter Watt, the
general secretary of Britain’s Labor Party, resigned after admitting
that he knew of an arrangement in which David Abrahams, a north-east
property developer, had donated money to the party through
intermediaries since 2003. PM Brown claimed not to have known of the
arrangement and promised to return the money.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.69)
2007 Nov 26, In eastern Chad
rebels and government soldiers fought gunbattles near the border
with Sudan's Darfur region after two rebel groups ended a month-long
ceasefire. A rebel group, Union of Forces for Development and
Democracy, claimed to have killed over 200 government soldiers with
20 of its fighters lost.
(Reuters, 11/26/07)(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/27/07,
p.A17)
2007 Nov 26, Croatia's ruling
conservative HDZ party looked on course to win another four years in
power and take the nation into the EU after a close-fought
parliamentary election. The ruling conservatives and center-left
opposition sought allies after the vote left no clear winner.
(AP, 11/26/07)(WSJ, 11/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 26, In Ecuador about
60 miners were trapped after the blast in the village of Ponce
Enriquez, 230 miles southwest of Quito.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 26, France netted
deals in China for nuclear reactors and passenger jets worth a
combined $29.62 billion on the second day of a state visit by
President Nicolas Sarkozy.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, In France youths
rioted for a 2nd night in Paris' suburbs, leaving 82 officers
injured.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/28/07, p.A4)
2007 Nov 26, In Indonesia the
capital of Jakarta was partially flooded, forcing thousands of
people to flee homes and cutting off a highway to the international
airport.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 26, An Iranian air
force F-4 Phantom jet crashed into the Oman Sea off the southeastern
coast of Iran, killing both pilots.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, An Israeli
aircraft pounded a squad of militants and Israeli border guards shot
two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, High school
students clashed with riot police in Amsterdam and demonstrated in
cities across the Netherlands to protest a national increase in
classroom hours.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, Former Pakistani
prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif signed up to run in
a January election while a spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf
said he would be sworn in as a civilian on Nov 29.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, Philip Alston, a
New York University law professor charged by the UN Human Rights
Council with investigating extra-judicial killings in the
Philippines, reported that the military was in a state of denial
about its role in the deaths of about 800 opposition activists over
the past six years.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, In the Philippines
the death toll from Typhoon Mitag rose to 17, as search operations
began for a missing air force jet and a fishing vessel with 27
people aboard.
(AFP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 26, A South Korean aid
group said North Korea has resumed frequent public executions, among
them a factory chief accused of making international phone calls who
was shot in a stadium before 150,000 spectators.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, In Sri Lanka
rebels said 11 schoolchildren and two others were killed when Sri
Lanka's military activated a roadside bomb near a car traveling near
Kilinochchi.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, Pres. Bush
declared that the time is right to relaunch Mideast peace talks to
create a Palestinian state because "a battle is under way for the
future" of the troubled region, in remarks prepared for the start of
the US-arranged Annapolis Mideast peace conference. Delegations from
46 countries and int’l. organizations attended the conference.
Israeli PM Olmert and Palestine’s Pres. Abbas agreed to launch
formal talks on Dec 12 and committed to negotiating a peace treaty
by the end of 2008.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A15)(WSJ,
11/28/07, p.A4)
2007 Nov 27, A Somali
immigrant, Nuradin Abdi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for
plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2007 Nov 27, The US Red Cross
fired chief executive Mark Everson (53) citing his personal
relationship with a subordinate employee. Everson was in office for
only 6 months.
(SFC, 11/28/07, p.A6)
2007 Nov 27, Cessna said it
will turn over complete production of its new Cessna 162 SkyCatcher
to a Chinese partner. The base price of the plane will be $109,500.
(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.A14)
2007 Nov 27, Google said it
will spend millions of dollars to develop renewable energy as part
of a plan to clean the environment and reduce the company’s own
power bill.
(SFC, 11/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 27, Wells Fargo &
Co. said it will take a $1.4 billion pretax charge tied to increased
losses on home equity loans.
(SFC, 11/28/07, p.C3)
2007 Nov 27, In Florida Pro
Bowl safety Sean Taylor died after he was shot in his home by an
apparent intruder, leaving the Washington Redskins in mourning for a
teammate who seemed to have reordered his life since becoming a
father. By the end of the week 4 men were charged with
unpremeditated murder, armed burglary and home invasion with a
firearm or another deadly weapon.
(AP, 11/27/07)(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Nov 27, Dr. J. Robert Cade
(80), inventor of Gatorade, died.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2007 Nov 27, Jane Rule,
American-born Canadian writer, died at her home on Galiano Island in
British Columbia. Her 1964 novel, “Desert of the Heart," is
considered a landmark work of lesbian fiction.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.C5)
2007 Nov 27, Bill Willis (86),
a Hall of Fame guard with the Cleveland Browns and Ohio State's
first black football All-American, died in Columbus, Ohio.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2007 Nov 27, In Afghanistan a
suicide car bomber triggered a huge blast near two armored vehicles
used by US-led coalition troops in Kabul, killing at least two
civilians and destroying the wall of a nearby house.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, In Algeria
officials said floods caused by days of torrential rain have killed
11 people, injured several others and have cut off many roads in
northern Algeria.
(AFP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 27, In Brussels Valdas
Adamkus, President of Lithuania, was declared “European of the Year"
at the annual EV50 gala awards ceremony hosted by European Voice.
President Adamkus was nominated as one of 50 “Europeans of the
Year." The 2007 winners of the EV50 awards were chosen by European
Voice readers from among 50 nominees, selected by a distinguished
panel of leading opinion-formers.
(http://tinyurl.com/2phf99)
2007 Nov 27, In Brazil a
Catholic bishop began his second hunger strike in two years to
protest a government project to divert river water to irrigate parts
of the country's arid northeast.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 27, International
experts convened in Burkina Faso for a three day session to discuss
the prospects for biofuel production in Africa. The conference was
organized by the International Institute for Water and Environmental
Engineering and CIRAD, the French agricultural research centre
international development. Co-organizers included the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the West African Economic
and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the government of Burkina Faso.
(AFP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 27, In central China
an explosion ripped through a house where villagers in Hunan
province were illegally making fireworks, killing 13 people.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, PM Meles Zenawi
said Ethiopia will sustain its crackdown on separatist rebels in the
restive Ogaden region, adding that scores of insurgents had been
killed. John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for Humanitarian
Affairs, arrived in the Ogaden region.
(AP, 11/27/07)(Reuters, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, In France youths
rioted for a 3rd night in Paris' suburbs, firing at officers and
ramming burning cars into buildings. In Toulouse a library went up
in flames.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/28/07, p.A4)
2007 Nov 27, French police
detained a 68-year-old retired "drag queen" performer on suspicion
of murdering 18 mainly gay men between 1980 and 2000.
(AFP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 27, Iceland has
overtaken Norway as the world's most desirable country to live in,
according to an annual UN table that again puts AIDS-afflicted
sub-Saharan African states at the bottom.
(Reuters, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, The Mezzanine, a
Panamanian freighter, hit rough seas off Taiwan's north coast and 26
Indonesian sailors were feared dead.
(AFP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 27, The news agency
IRNA reported that Iran has manufactured a new missile with a range
of 1,200 miles capable of reaching Israel and US bases in the
Mideast. A judiciary spokesman said an Iranian court has acquitted
Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator of spying charges,
but convicted him of acting against the Islamic government.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, More Iraqi
refugees, heartened by reports of the lull in violence in Baghdad,
were beginning to return. A woman wearing an explosives belt blew
herself up near an American patrol near Baqouba wounding 7 US troops
and 5 Iraqis. East of the city, mortar rounds apparently targeting a
local radio station instead landed near homes in the vicinity,
killing two people, while a roadside bombing killed one civilian. US
troops fired on vehicles trying to drive through roadblocks in
Baghdad and north of the Iraqi capital, killing at least five
people, including a child, in two separate shootings.
(AP, 11/27/07)(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 27, Lebanon's top
Shiite cleric declared that a Muslim woman is allowed to fight back
in self-defense if she is hit by her husband, in a ruling rare for
the region's male-dominated Islamic society.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, Mozambique
formally took over from Portugal the control of Cahora Bassa
hydroelectric dam, Africa's second most important after that of
Aswan in Egypt.
(AFP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, The defense chiefs
of North and South Korea began a rare meeting to discuss easing
tension across their disputed sea border on a harmonious note,
pledging to end the peninsula's division.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, Officials said
Pakistani government troops have retaken a strategic peak from
pro-Taliban rebels in the northwest Swat valley and shut down their
radio station. Major General Waheed Arshad said 45 militants had
been killed in the past two days of clashes.
(AFP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, Tens of thousands
of people in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip rallied against the Mideast
peace conference under way in the US, while the group's top leader
in Gaza insisted the summit is "doomed to failure."
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, PM Donald Tusk
announced that Poland will drop its opposition to Moscow's bid to
join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) in a drive to improve ties with Russia.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, Russia’s Gazprom
made clear its interest in buying a half share of TNK-BP and any
large UK power company that may come up for sale, while repeating
its warning that wholesale gas prices could rise sharply in Europe
next year.
(www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/28/bp.oil)
2007 Nov 27, Sri Lanka’s air
force bombed the Tiger’s radio station killing 9 civilian staff.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.48)
2007 Nov 28, A day after an
international Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., President
Bush told the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories he
was personally committed to their mission of peace.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2007 Nov 28, Republican
presidential rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney clashed over
immigration in a provocative, no-holds-barred CNN/YouTube debate.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2007 Nov 28, O.J. Simpson
pleaded not guilty in Las Vegas to charges of kidnapping and armed
robbery stemming from a confrontation with sports memorabilia
dealers. Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted in October, 2008.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2007 Nov 28, Broadway
stagehands and theater producers reached a tentative agreement on
ending a crippling 19-day-old strike.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2007 Nov 28, In Minnesota a
fire at a pipeline from Canada that feeds oil to the US killed 2
people. The pipeline that leaked and four others were shut down,
though it wasn't clear for how long, sending oil prices up the next
day.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 28, An Oakland, Ca.,
city auditor’s report said employees were allowed to cash out unused
vacation time and received millions of dollars in perks, much of it
not subject to scrutiny.
(SFC, 11/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 28, Joseph Hokai Tang
(28), musician and violin dealer, was arrested for fraud following a
performance in Eugene, Oregon. In 2008 he pleaded guilty to 10 fraud
counts and admitted to bilking at least 120 people out of $400,000
worth of instruments. In 2008 he was sentenced in SF District Court
to 37 months in prison.
(SFC, 5/12/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.B1)
2007 Nov 28, Afghan and foreign
troops battled Taliban fighters and called in airstrikes in southern
Afghanistan, leaving 30 militants dead. Four other militants were
killed in a separate clash in the east. In eastern Khost province
gunmen on motorbikes shot to death a school principal. In Ghazni
province Taliban insurgents ambushed police in Khogyani district,
and the ensuing clash killed one policeman and four suspected
militants. Militants in Paktia province attacked trucks carrying
supplies for foreign troops, killing one driver. In Paktika province
a roadside bomb hit Afghan troops, leaving one soldier dead and
three wounded.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 28, Across Bolivia
banks, shops, schools and public transportation were shuttered in
cities, as demonstrators protested a new law tapping regional
budgets for a fund for the elderly.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 28, Brazil and China
said they will give Africa free satellite imaging of its landmass to
help the continent respond to threats like deforestation,
desertification and drought.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, A Chinese warship
dropped anchor off Tokyo in the communist nation's first military
visit to Japan since World War II, symbolizing improving ties.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to punish rioters who shot at police but
sought to ease tensions with an independent probe into the deaths of
two youths that triggered the unrest.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Nazi documents
stored in a vast warehouse in Germany were unsealed, opening a rich
resource for Holocaust historians and for survivors to delve into
their own tormented past. Inquiries were handled by the archive's
400 staff members in the German spa town of Bad Arolsen.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Indonesia, which
is losing its forests at a faster rate than any other country,
launched a campaign to plant 79 million trees ahead of a critical
climate change conference on the resort island of Bali.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Iran claimed to
have built a small submarine equipped with sonar-evading technology,
saying the craft had been launched in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Nearly 6,000
Sunnis joined a security pact with American forces in a bid to close
escape routes for extremists. About 20 buses carrying hundreds of
Iraqi refugees rolled into a Baghdad depot, the first from the
Iraqi-funded effort to speed the return of families. An American
soldier was killed by small-arms fire in Baghdad.
(AP, 11/29/07)(WSJ, 11/29/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 28, In Japan former
Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya (63) and his wife were
arrested on suspicion they accepted lavish gifts from companies,
including one linked to General Electric, in exchange for contracts.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Kosovo stood firm
in its demand for independence after 3 days of talks, pushing the
issue to the UN Security Council.
(WSJ, 11/29/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 28, Kyrgyzstan's
president signed an order relieving PM Almazbek Atambayev of duty,
nine months after he was appointed in a move to appease opposition
groups.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, A lawmaker said
the largest bloc in Lebanon's deadlocked parliament has dropped its
opposition to the army chief becoming president, bringing Gen.
Michel Suleiman a step closer to being the new head of state and
ending a yearlong political crisis.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, North and South
Korea struggled to resolve differences over creating a joint fishing
zone around their disputed sea border at a second day of rare
defense talks in Pyongyang.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Pervez Musharraf
stepped down as Pakistan's military commander, fulfilling a key
opposition demand a day before he was to be sworn in as civilian
president. Musharraf handed over his ceremonial baton to his
successor, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani (b.1952), who is widely expected to
maintain the army's pro-Western policies. A shell aimed at Islamic
militants in northern Pakistan killed 11 civilians, while a roadside
bomb killed five soldiers in another troubled region near the Afghan
border.
(AP, 11/28/07)(AP,
11/29/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashfaq_Parvez_Kayani)
2007 Nov 28, Palestinian police
loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas fired shots in the air and beat
protesters with sticks during the funeral of a man killed during a
protest against this week's US-hosted Mideast peace summit. At least
26 people were wounded, one critically.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Authorities in
Saudi Arabia announced the arrest of 208 suspected terrorists in six
cells and thwarted several planned attacks in the kingdom's largest
terror sweep to date. They included 8 al-Qaida linked men allegedly
planning to attack oil installations.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Senegalese
President Abdoulaye Wade said he will propose the creation of a
committee of African heads of state to mend broken relations between
Zimbabwe and former colonial power Britain.
(AFP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, Two Hungarians and
a Ukrainian were arrested in eastern Slovakia and Hungary in an
attempted sale of a kilo (2.2 lbs) of uranium, material believed to
be from the former Soviet Union. Police said it was enriched enough
to be used in a radiological "dirty bomb."
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 28, In Sri Lanka a
bomb exploded near the entrance to a popular department store in a
busy Colombo suburb, killing 20 people and wounding 43. Earlier in
the day, a female suicide bomber sent by the rebels killed one
person and wounded two others in an unsuccessful attempt to
assassinate a government minister in his office in Colombo.
(AFP, 11/29/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.48)
2007 Nov 28, In southern
Thailand a Muslim military informant was shot and crucified, while
two Buddhist men were beheaded by suspected Islamic separatists.
(AFP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 29, The Bush
administration announced that China has agreed to eliminate improper
trade subsidies it was using to the detriment of US and other
foreign companies.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, Florida state
officials froze withdrawals from the state’s Local Government
Investment Pool (LGIP) as panicky investors pulled out nearly half
of the fund’s assets in the wake of the US mortgage mess. School and
municipal officials found themselves short of money to pay bills.
Other states faced similar problems due to purchases of high yield
debt known as structured investment vehicles (SIVs).
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.87)
2007 Nov 29, The jazz club
Yoshi’s in San Francisco held its grand opening at 1330 Fillmore.
(SFC, 11/30/07, p.E1)
2007 Nov 29, Cancer researchers
reported a link between night-shift work and a higher incidence of
cancer.
(WSJ, 11/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 29, In Richmond
County, Georgia, Jeanette Michelle Hawes (22) fatally stabbed her
two young children in a Food Mart convenience store bathroom.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 29, Henry Hyde
(b.1924), former Illinois Republican Representative (1975-2007),
died. In 1976 he attached an amendment to a spending bill barring
the use of federal funds for abortions. In 1998 he led House efforts
to impeach Pres. Clinton for allegedly lying about his affair with
intern Monica Lewinsky.
(SFC, 11/30/07,
p.A6)(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H001022)
2007 Nov 29, Roger B. Smith
(82), former chairman and CEO of General Motors, died in Detroit. He
was the target of Michael Moore’s 1989 film “Roger & Me." During
his term GM’s market share dropped from 45% to 36%. It currently
stood at 24%.
(SFC, 12/1/07, p.B5)
2007 Nov 29, In Afghanistan 2
Danish soldiers were killed in a gunbattle with the Taliban. They
were part of a Danish reconnaissance unit that came under fire in
Gereshk Valley in Helmand Province. Denmark has some 600 troops in
Helmand province that are part of NATO's 40,000-member force in
Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 29, Al-Qaida chief
Osama bin Laden released a new tape calling on Europeans to stop
helping the US in the war in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 29, Algeria's ruling
National Liberation Front (FLN) won local elections on a turnout of
43 percent.
(AFP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 29, Armenia approved a
plan to shut down its lone nuclear power plant, following years of
pressure from foreign nations concerned about its Soviet-era design
and safety.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 29, Australia’s
PM-elect Kevin Rudd named his Cabinet, choosing a woman as deputy
leader for the first time, a former rock singer as environment
minister and a lawyer from the Outback as foreign minister.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, In eastern Chad
new fighting erupted near the border with Sudan's strife-torn Darfur
region between the army and a leading rebel group.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, The European
Parliament voted to allow Britain and Ireland to keep some of their
old imperial measurements so pubs can still serve pints and road
signs can show miles instead of kilometers.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, According to a new
report released by the UN and the Chinese government the number of
people estimated to be living with HIV in China has risen to
700,000, with increases among intravenous drug users and sex
workers.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, It was reported
locals in eastern Ethiopia have accused soldiers fighting an
insurgency of burning villages to the ground, committing gang rape
and killing people "like goats." A September report by a UN
fact-finding mission said villagers had been told not to speak to
outsiders.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, Germany’s
Chancellor Angela Merkel surrendered to demands by the Social
Democrats, a junior partner in the grand coalition, for a minimum
wage for postal workers.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.60)
2007 Nov 29, Iraqi police
pulled six bodies from the Tigris River about 25 miles south of
Baghdad. The bodies were handcuffed and had signs of torture and
five, including a young child, had been beheaded. In Baghdad, a bomb
on a minibus killed one person.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, A wildcat protest
by cab drivers caused gridlock in downtown Rome, leaving Italians
and tourists alike stranded at airports and train stations across
the capital. Unions had been negotiating with Mayor Walter Veltroni
over planned fare increases, but they walked away from the talks and
called the sudden protest after authorities said they wanted to
issue 500 new taxi licenses.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, ZMP of Japan began
selling a two-legged walking robot that runs on Microsoft's new
robotics software, a product the companies said will make it easier
to transfer technology from one robot to another.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, The top defense
officials from North and South Korea agreed on security arrangements
for the first-ever regular train service across their heavily
fortified border.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, Pakistan’s Pervez
Musharraf embarked on a new five-year term as a civilian president,
promising to lift a state of emergency by Dec. 16 and restore the
constitution before January elections, a key demand of his domestic
opponents and foreign backers.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, Philippines’
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo quickly quashed the latest threat
to her rule, dispatching troops and SWAT teams when dissident
military officers commandeered a five-star hotel after walking out
of their coup trial.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, In Russia tycoon
and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky was convicted in absentia of
embezzling millions of dollars from the national airline, Aeroflot,
and reportedly sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, Gillian Gibbons,
the British teacher arrested in Sudan on Nov 25 for insulting Islam
by allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad," was
sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more
serious punishment of 40 lashes. Gibbons was pardoned after spending
more than a week in custody; she then left the country.
(AP, 11/30/07)(AP, 11/29/08)
2007 Nov 29, In Uganda a senior
Ministry of Health official said an Ebola outbreak has killed at
least 16 people out of 51 confirmed cases. The first case was
reported Nov. 10 in Bundibugyo district, 210 miles west of the
capital, Kampala. Uganda last had an outbreak of Ebola in October
2000, when 173 people died. A new form of the Ebola virus was
detected in the outbreak. The death toll soon climbed to 21,
including 8 doctors and health workers.
(AP, 11/29/07)(AP, 11/30/07)(Reuters,
12/1/07)(SFC, 12/8/07, p.B6)
2007 Nov 29, Ukraine's two
pro-Western parties forged a majority coalition in parliament,
paving the way for forming a government.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 29, in Venezuela more
than 100,000 people flooded the streets to protest constitutional
changes that would boost President Hugo Chavez's power. Students
again showed they are a key force behind the re-energized
opposition.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, Leeland Eisenberg
(46) of Somersworth, NH, carrying what appeared to be a bomb, took
hostages at a Clinton campaign office in Rochester, NH, before
surrendering after a 6-hour standoff. Eisenberg, one of over 500
recipients of payments in a 2003 settlement over clergy sexual
abuse, said he wanted help getting psychiatric care.
(WSJ, 12/1/07, p.A1)(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.A21)
2007 Nov 30, Scientists at Duke
Univ. reported the creation of the first map of genes that are
inherited as “silenced genes." The Duke map verified 40 and
identified another 156. Humans were first shown to have silenced
genes in 1991. They help explain why some people get sick and others
do not.
(SFC, 11/30/07, p.A7)
2007 Nov 30, An Amtrak train
and a freight train collided on a track on the South Side of
Chicago, injuring dozens of people.
{Train Crash, Chicago, USA}
(AP, 11/30/08)
2007 Nov 30, Evel Knievel
(b.1938), the hard-living US motorcycle daredevil, died in Florida.
His rocket-powered jumps and stunts made him an international icon
in the 1970s.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Nov 30, In Aruba a judge
ordered the release of two brothers suspected in the 2005
disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, ruling that the
evidence wasn't strong enough to continue holding them.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Nov 30, Australian
PM-elect Kevin Rudd said he would pull the country's 550 combat
troops out of Iraq by the middle of next year.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, Brazil’s President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited a teeming hillside shantytown to
launch a multimillion-dollar program to build an outdoor elevator,
sewage systems, improve roads and upgrade housing for slum
residents.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, In Chad
anti-government rebels declared a "state of war" against French and
foreign military forces in an apparent warning to an EU peacekeeping
force that plans to deploy soon in eastern Chad.
(Reuters, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, The $1.2 million
film “Lost in Beijing" directed by Li Yu was released in China and
made over $1.8 million before it was censored for sexually explicit
scenes in uncut, pirated copies. Li Yu was banned from producing
films for 2 years.
(SFC, 1/5/08, p.E4)
2007 Nov 30, Colombian
officials released newly obtained videos of rebel-held hostages,
among them three US defense contractors and a former presidential
candidate, the first images in years providing evidence the captives
may be alive.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, The Organization
for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OECD) awarded its rotating
chairmanship in 2010 to Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.50)
2007 Nov 30, India's Tata Steel
signed a joint venture with Australia's Riversdale Mining to develop
a hard coking and thermal coal project in Mozambique.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, An 18-month
attempt to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment collapsed after
a senior EU envoy failed to dent Iran's resolve to expand the
technology, despite the threat of new UN sanctions.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, Iraqi police
captured a suspect believed responsible for supplying and
coordinating roadside bomb attacks against American and Iraqi
troops. Gunmen abducted Raid al-Saaiy, the dean of a technical
institute in Amarah, a Shiite militia stronghold about 200 miles
southeast of Baghdad, leaving behind his car and driver. Adnan
al-Dulaimi, head of Iraq’s largest Sunni political block (the Iraqi
Accordance Front), was placed under house arrest after an employee
was found with keys to a car rigged with explosives. Over 40 of his
employees were detained including 2 accused of killing a member of a
neighborhood watch group.
(AP, 12/1/07)(SFC, 12/1/07, p.A6)
2007 Nov 30, In Italy a general
transport strike by workers demanding more investment in the sector
forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights and idled trains,
ships and buses across the country.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, Italian oil firm
Eni and oil and gas exploration firm Burren Energy said they had
agreed the terms of a takeover offer from Eni worth 1.74 billion
pounds. Burren is an independent group quoted on the London stock
exchange that runs oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Congo, Egypt
and Yemen.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, New Zealand
officials said police have questioned the suspected teenage kingpin
of an international cyber crime network accused of infiltrating 1.3
million computers and skimming millions of dollars from victims'
bank accounts. Earlier this month, Ryan Goldstein, 21, of Ambler,
Pa., was indicted in the case. Authorities allege that the New
Zealand suspect and Goldstein were involved in crashing a University
of Pennsylvania engineering school server Feb. 23, 2006. On Feb 29
Owen Thor Walker (18) was charged with two counts of accessing a
computer for dishonest purpose, damaging or interfering with a
computer system and possessing software for committing crime, and
two counts of accessing a computer system without authorization. In
2008 Walker pleaded guilty to 6 charges of computer hacking.
(AP, 11/30/07)(AP, 2/29/08)(SFC, 4/2/08, p.C2)
2007 Nov 30, Former Pakistani
prime minister Benazir Bhutto published her manifesto for a January
election, promising jobs for the poor if victorious but keeping open
the option of boycotting the vote.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, In the Philippines
50 military officers and their supporters, including a former vice
president, were under arrest and others were being sought following
a failed attempt to trigger a "people power" revolt against the
president.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, Poland's new PM
Donald Tusk paid a low-key visit to Lithuania on his first foreign
trip. Lithuania and Poland were locked in a dispute about their
relative share of the future output of a nuclear power plant that
the two countries, plus Latvia and Estonia, planned to build in
Lithuania by 2015.
(www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1196435824.82)
2007 Nov 30, President Vladimir
Putin signed a law suspending Russia's participation in the
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, In Russia fund
manager Oleg Shvartsman said in an interview in Kommersant, a
mainstream business newspaper, that his $3.2 billion fund was
closely connected to the Kremlin’s administration and security
services. Shvartsman said he reported indirectly to Igor Sechin,
chair of the Rosneft oil company.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.60)
2007 Nov 30, Thousands of
Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied in a central
square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of
insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear
"Muhammad."
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, In Geneva the
International Red Cross said 7 countries including the US and
Britain have joined in a new move to ensure the safety of
journalists in war zones. France, Germany, Australia, Canada and
Denmark also committed themselves to accept a new nonbinding accord
on protecting correspondents in line with the Geneva Conventions on
the conduct of warfare.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Nov 30, Turkey’s
government authorized the military to launch a cross-border
offensive against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq at any time.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Nov 30, In southwest
Turkey an Atlasjet plane crashed on a rocky mountain shortly before
it was due to land, killing all 57 people on board.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, In Venezuela some
200,000 gathered in Caracas as President Hugo Chavez urged
supporters to approve constitutional changes that he said could keep
him in power for life and threatened to cut off oil exports to the
US if it tries to meddle in the Dec 2 vote.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Nov 30, Thousands of
Zimbabwean war veterans gathered in Harare to lead a "million-man
march" in support of President Robert Mugabe's bid to extend his
rule despite a severe economic crisis blamed on his government.
Thousands of ZANU-PF supporters were ferried into the capital by bus
and train.
(Reuters, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov, Bayer AG removed the
drug Trasylol at the request of the FDA after an observational study
linked the medicine to kidney failure requiring dialysis and
increased death of those patients. Dr. Dennis Mangano, the study's
researcher, later said that 22,000 lives could have been saved if
Trasylol had been taken off the market when he first published his
study in January 2006.
(Reuters, 2/14/08)
2007 Nov, a new light rail
system began operating in Charlotte, North Carolina.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.35)
2007 Nov, Xue Feng, a
Chinese-born American geologist, was detained in China on charges of
procuring state secrets. Xue was sentenced in 2010 on charges of
illegally gathering information on China's oil industry. He was
released in 2015.
(AP, 4/4/15)
2007 Nov, In Egypt the film
"Heya Fawda" (Arabic for "It's Chaos") opened. It is a rare, frank
look at police torture, corruption and political oppression that
rights groups say is widespread in Egypt. It has been pulling in
viewers and spurring criticism since opening.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2007 Nov, In Haiti 108 Sri
Lankan soldiers were recalled after investigators found they had
paid for sex with Haitians, some of whom were underage.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Nov, Iraqi civilian deaths
due to the war numbered about 560 this month.
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.29)(www.icasualties.org)
2007 Nov, Geert Wilders, Dutch
member of Parliament, revealed plans to air on television an expose
of the wickedness of the Koran.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.57)
2007 Nov, Pakistan police and
intelligence agents snatched Mazhar ul Haq from his home on the
outskirts of Islamabad. In May, 2010, a court ordered him and 10
others released, but intelligence agents spirited him away. He
remained in custody in 2013 without trial or conviction of any
crime.
(Econ, 2/9/13, p.43)
2007 Nov, In Poland the Gdansk
Shipyard, in order to avoid bankruptcy, was sold Ukrainian firm
Donbass for $400 million. The transaction, notified to the OCCP in
October 2007, consisted in ISD Polska, a company belonging to the
Donbass Group, taking control over the shipyard.
(Econ, 5/30/09,
p.52)(www.uokik.gov.pl/en/press_office/press_releases/art98.html)
2007 Nov, Tunisia blocked
access to popular video-sharing sites YouTube and DailyMotion, which
both carried material about Tunisian political prisoners. Tunisian
activists and allies responded by linking videos about civil
liberties to the image of Tunisia’s presidential palace in Google
Earth.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.67)
2007 Dec 1, Pres. Bush sent a
letter, his first, to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il urging him to
fully disclose his nuclear programs by the end of the year.
(SFC, 12/7/07, p.A16)
2007 Dec 1, Roger Lee Dillon
(22) and his girlfriend, Nicole N. Boyd (24), were arrested in West
Virginia for the disappearance of $7 million in cash and checks from
an Ohio armored car company. The disappearance of the money was
discovered Nov 26.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, Police in Wichita,
Kan., identified a body found days earlier as that of Emily Sander,
a missing college student whose disappearance drew nationwide
attention after the discovery she was also an Internet pornography
model named Zoey Zane. As of 2008 suspect Israel Mireles, was
fighting extradition from Mexico.
(AP, 12/1/08)
2007 Dec 1, Four suspects were
charged in Miami in the shooting death of Washington Redskins star
Sean Taylor. One ended up pleading guilty to second-degree murder; a
fifth suspect was also charged.
(AP, 12/1/08)
2007 Dec 1, Cheryl Dunlap, a
nurse from Crawfordsville, Florida, went missing. On Dec 16 her
decapitated body was found in the Apalachicola National Forest. In
2011 a jury recommended the death penalty for Michael Hilton (64),
who was already serving life in prison for the 2008 slaying of
Meredith Emerson of Athens, Georgia.
(SFC, 2/22/11,
p.A4)(www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/12542231.html)
2007 Dec 1, Danny Newman
(b.1919), press agent, died at his home in Chicago. He boosted
theater success for the Lyric Opera of Chicago beginning in 1954
with the use of subscriptions. His 1978 book “Subscribe Now" became
a fund-raising classic.
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.A8)
2007 Dec 1, Afghan and NATO-led
troops battled with Taliban militants and called in airstrikes in a
series of clashes in the country's south that left 40 insurgents
dead.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 1, Officials said a
week of heavy rains in northern Algeria caused the death of 15
people, while three more people are missing feared dead.
(AFP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, The head of
Belgium's Flemish Christian Democrats abandoned efforts to form a
coalition government, after more than five months of fruitless
talks, plunging the country further into crisis.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, The Times reported
that Jonathan Evans, the head of Britain's domestic security
service, has warned business leaders that China has been carrying
out state-sponsored espionage against vital parts of the economy.
(AFP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, Zhang Zilin (23),
Miss China, won the Miss World 2007 title in her own country in
front of an estimated two billion viewers around the globe.
(AFP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, China and Japan
began talks on trade and economic issues that are intended to
bolster the recent warming of their long-uneasy relations.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, Dubai police
conducted a series of simultaneous raids on suspected brothels,
landing 247 suspects in jail in the emirate's biggest
anti-prostitution sweep to date. Human was trafficking rampant in
this wealthy Gulf city.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 1, A deadline for
Ethiopia and Eritrea to agree on the physical demarcation of their
border expired amid escalating tension between the two nations,
leaving the frontier only delineated on maps.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, At the 20th annual
European Film Awards in Berlin Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's
"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" won the best film prize.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, Dozens of militants
stormed Dwelah, a Shiite village north of Baghdad, killing at least
13 people and torching homes. The villagers fought back killing
three gunmen. Elsewhere in the same region, Iraqi and US troops
freed four villages from al-Qaida control.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, An Israeli
airstrike killed five Hamas members, prompting threats by Gaza
militants to fire longer-range rockets at Israeli border towns.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, In northwestern
Pakistan former PM Benazir Bhutto launched her election campaign, a
day after unveiling her party's platform despite calls from other
opposition groups to boycott the Jan. 8 vote.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, US coffee giant
Starbucks announced plans to build a regional support centre in
Rwanda for farmers in east Africa, where the industry has faced
difficulty despite recent price spikes.
(AFP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 1, In South Africa
Nelson Mandela drew a crowd of about 15,000 to his fifth
international awareness concert, held this year to coincide with
World AIDS Day.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 1, ETA gunmen shot and
killed a Spanish policeman and seriously injured another in France,
the first killing by the Basque separatist group in almost a year.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, In Sri Lanka at
least 11 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed and 49 injured in heavy
clashes across northern defense lines in Mannar. Elsewhere, 13
rebels were killed overnight in separate fighting near the
guerrillas' stronghold in the north of the island.
(AFP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 1, The Turkish
military said it fired on 50 to 60 Kurdish rebels inside Iraqi
territory, inflicting "significant losses." Turkish troops killed
four Kurdish rebels in fighting near its border with Iraq.
(AP, 12/1/07)(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 2, Singer and song
writer Brian Wilson, filmmaker Martin Scorsese, actor Steve Martin,
singer Diana Ross and pianist Leon Fleisher were honored at the
White House for their contributions to American culture. The five
were named in September as members of the 30th class of Kennedy
Center honorees.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 2, A snow storm headed
to the US Northeast after plastering a wide area of the Midwest the
day before, disrupting airport and highway traffic. At least 10
people were killed in weather-related traffic accidents.
(AP, 12/2/07)(SFC, 12/3/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 2, Robert O. Anderson
(b.1917), oil man and creator of the Atlantic Richfield Co. (1966),
died in Roswell, NM.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A7)
2007 Dec 2, In southern
Afghanistan coalition forces killed five suspected Taliban militants
in an operation targeting a commander believed to be involved in the
kidnapping of an Italian journalist earlier this year.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, In Australia night
time thieves stole 17.6 tons of ham and bacon from a warehouse in
suburban Sidney and left behind a message saying “Thanks" and “Merry
Christmas." The stolen meat was worth up to $88,000.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, China and Japan
amicably wrapped up their first high-level trade and economic talks
on Sunday by pledging greater overall cooperation, but left the
touchy issue of gas exploration in the East China Sea unresolved.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 2, Police in northern
Greece seized hundreds of ancient coins, some dating back 2,300
years, allegedly stashed away by a 70-year-old barber.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, Two outspoken
political veterans faced off in one of Hong Kong's most keenly
watched legislative elections. Pro-democracy candidate Anson Chan, a
hugely popular former government official, won a seat in Hong Kong's
legislature, a win she hailed as a victory for democracy in the
southern Chinese territory. Her closest opponent, former security
chief Regina Ip, who had the backing of Beijing-allied parties,
received 137,550, or 42.7% of votes.
(AP, 12/2/07)(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, The number of
Iraqis killed last month fell to 718. A roadside bomb targeting a
police patrol in a Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Baghdad killed
two officers. A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol near
Samarra killed three soldiers and injured four. Gunmen in two cars
fired on a Sunni Interior Ministry aide, Maj. Gen. Fauzi Hussein
Muhammed, as he returned home, killing him and wounding his driver.
A mass grave with the remains of 12 people, including a paramedic
who disappeared more than a year ago, was unearthed near Lake
Tharthar, an area long controlled by al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 12/2/07)(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, In Mexico Sergio
Gomez, lead performer for the top-selling group K-Paz de la Sierra,
was abducted, tortured and strangled to death. His body was found
the next day. A day earlier Zayda Pena of the group Zayda and the
Guilty Ones was killed execution-style at the hospital where she was
recovering from neck surgery for a shooting on Nov 30, in which 2
other people were killed. Fears rose that singers, whether
they have any links to drug cartels or not, get routinely "adopted"
by drug gangs, which post Internet videos showing their members
torturing and executing rivals to soundtracks of popular tunes.
(AP, 12/5/07)(SFC, 12/5/07, p.E3)
2007 Dec 2, Hamas officials
shut down the Gaza census office, saying the surveyors had violated
an agreement to share their data with Hamas as it is collected.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, About two dozen
protesters angry over a rape case involving a Marine stormed the
American Embassy. The protesters demanded the transfer to a
Philippine jail of Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, who was convicted
a year ago of raping a Filipino woman but has remained under U.S.
government custody.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 2, Russians voted in a
parliamentary election. Putin's United Russia party swept 70 percent
of seats in parliament.
(AP, 12/2/07)(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, A Somali human
rights group said violence in Mogadishu has killed 5,960 civilians
this year.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 2, Defense lawyers
said Sudan has authorized the release of Mubarak al-Fadil, a
high-profile opposition leader detained for more than four months.
Fadil is the leader of the opposition Umma Party for Renewal and
Reform and the cousin of former PM Sadig al-Mahdi.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 2, In Ukraine 5
workers looking for the bodies of miners killed in the country’s
worst mine explosion since the Soviet collapse were killed in a new
explosion. A day earlier 44 people were injured in an explosion in
the same section of the mine.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 2, Venezuelans voted
in a referendum on granting President Hugo Chavez expanded powers
and ending term limits under sweeping constitutional changes. Voters
narrowly rejected changes to 69 of 350 articles in the 1999
constitution by 51% to 49%.
(AP, 12/2/07)(AP, 12/3/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.30)
2007 Dec 3, A consensus
judgement of the US intelligence community was released saying Iran
had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and though it
continues an enriched uranium program, it apparently has not resumed
moving toward a nuclear capability. On Dec 11 the national Council
for Resistance in Iran said Iran’s weaponization program was
relocated and restarted in 2004.
(SFC, 12/4/07, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/11/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 3, US Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson proposed a freeze on interest rates on loans
made to millions of risky borrowers. Resistance by the mortgage
industry was expected. Paulson said he is confident there will soon
be an agreement to help thousands of homeowners avoid mortgage
defaults by temporarily freezing their interest rates.
(SFC, 12/4/07, p.C1)(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, The US national
debt was reported to be expanding by about $1.4 billion a day, or
nearly $1 million a minute.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Former commissioner
Bowie Kuhn was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame; former Dodgers
owner Walter O'Malley, managers Dick Williams and Billy Southworth
and ex-Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss also were elected.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2007 Dec 3, In NYC Don Imus
returned to the airwaves eight months after he was fired for a
racially charged remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team,
and introduced a new cast that included two black comedians on
WABC-AM.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, AT&T said that
it planned to leave the rapidly shrinking pay-phone business.
(SFC, 12/4/07, p.C1)
2007 Dec 3, In Afghanistan’s
southwestern Nimroz province a suicide bomber blew himself up next
to a police patrol, killing four other people, including two
policemen.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Ten people believed
to be Algerian asylum seekers drowned while a Dutch ship tried to
rescue them in stormy Mediterranean waters. Two men survived the
ordeal.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 3, Labor Party leader
Kevin Rudd became Australia's 26th prime minister and immediately
began dismantling the former government's policies by ratifying the
Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Artist Mark
Wallinger won Britain's prestigious Turner Prize for a fiercely
anti-war exhibit based on a lone protester's six-year vigil outside
British parliament.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, The Bank of England
under governor Mervyn King brought down its base interest rate by a
quarter point to 5.5%.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.65)
2007 Dec 3, In Congo (DRC) some
25,000 government forces army attacked a stronghold of renegade
Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda, a day after his men seized a strategic
town from the government and forced out thousands of civilians. The
troops were routed by some 4,000 insurgents.
(Reuters,
12/3/07)(www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/msg25522.html)(Econ,
6/14/08, p.63)
2007 Dec 3, In Cuba a human
rights leader said that police have detained 29 anti-government
activists in less than two weeks and seven remain jailed, including
a man who called for the communist-run island to tolerate
independent universities.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Hundreds of civil
servants protested in front of Egypt's Cabinet, demanding wage
increases to cope with rising prices and inflation.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, Egypt opened its
border crossing with Gaza to let in Palestinian religious pilgrims
headed for Saudi Arabia, the first time Palestinians have been
allowed to enter Egyptian territory since Hamas militants seized
Gaza in June.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, In Jakarta,
Indonesia, 6 Islamic militants were sentenced to up to 19 years in
prison for terrorist acts in eastern Indonesia that include
beheading three Christian schoolgirls in 2005 and shooting to death
Rev. Irianto Kongkoli in 2006.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, In Bali, Indonesia,
climate experts at a massive UN conference urged quick action toward
a new international pact to stem global warming. The UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) hoped for an agreement to
mitigate climate change after the Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012.
(AP, 12/3/07)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.73)
2007 Dec 3, Iran ordered
Canada's ambassador to leave the country after Canada rejected
candidates Tehran had proposed to represent the Islamic Republic in
Ottawa.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, Lawmakers from
Iraq's largest Sunni Arab bloc ended their boycott of parliament
over the "house arrest" of their leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi, who also
attended the session. In Baghdad an Interior Ministry aide was
gunned down in his car. The mutilated bodies of four guards at an
oil facility who were kidnapped at a checkpoint on their way back
from vacation were found north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Israel
released 429 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture meant to strengthen
moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Daniele Emmanuello
(43), the Mafia godfather of Gela, Sicily, was killed while trying
to escape police. He was considered one of Italy's 30 most dangerous
Mafia fugitives.
(AP, 12/3/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.62)
2007 Dec 3, In Qatar Iran’s
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reached out to Gulf Arab states,
proposing security and economic pacts free of "foreign influence" in
the first appearance by an Iranian leader before a summit of a key
group of Persian Gulf nations. The six-member Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) was formed shortly after the outbreak of the 1980
Iran-Iraq war, partly to counter the spread of Iran's Islamic
revolution.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, Opposition leader
Nawaz Sharif risks disqualification from Pakistan's crucial
parliamentary elections after an official rejected his nomination
papers. Sharif was said to be ineligible because of a conviction on
charges related to the 1999 coup, in which Musharraf ousted his
government. A bomb exploded inside an Islamic school in southwestern
Pakistan, killing six students and wounding four others.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas closed 92 charities linked to Hamas, as part
of a West Bank crackdown on Islamic militants.
(WSJ, 12/4/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 3, Foreign observers
and Russian opposition groups accused authorities of manipulating a
sweeping parliamentary election victory for the party of President
Vladimir Putin, who hailed the results as a validation of his
leadership. With ballots from nearly 98 percent of precincts
counted, Putin's United Russia party was leading with 64.1 percent
of the vote. Europe joined the US in demanding Russia investigate
alleged abuses in the election, and Germany denounced the poll as
undemocratic.
(AP, 12/3/07)(Reuters, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, A Moscow court
convicted Igor Reshetin, the head of the company TsNIIMASH-Export, a
rocket and space technology company, on charges of leaking sensitive
technology to China. This was the latest case involving a Russian
scientist who was prosecuted despite claims the sensitive materials
were in the public domain. Reshetin was sentenced to 11 1/2 years in
prison after prosecutors said the information Reshetin had handed
over to the Chinese could be used for building missiles capable of
carrying nuclear warheads.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Government troops
and Tamil Tiger rebels battled each other with rifles, mortars and
artillery across northern Sri Lanka, leaving 42 rebels and six
soldiers dead.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, Sudan's president
pardoned Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher jailed for insulting
Islam after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
Gibbons arrived back in England the next day.
(AP, 12/3/07)(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 3, A colleague said
Karim Bozorboyev, a prominent Uzbek human rights activist, has been
sentenced to six years and three months in jail as part of a
crackdown on dissidents and government critics.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, In Venezuela
President Hugo Chavez, humbled by his first electoral defeat ever,
said he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him
stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a
socialist state.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 4, Defending his
credibility, President George W. Bush said Iran was dangerous and
needed to be squeezed by international pressure despite a
blockbuster intelligence finding that Tehran had halted its nuclear
weapons program four years earlier. The intelligence report on Iran
figured in a Democratic debate on National Public Radio as rivals
assailed front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton for voting in favor of
a Senate resolution designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a
terrorist organization.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2007 Dec 4, The governors of
Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency after a severe
storm smacked the region with hurricane-force winds and several
inches of rain. At least four people were killed by the storm.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Pimp C (33), born
as Chad Butler, was found dead in an upscale hotel in Los Angeles.
He had spun searing tales of Texas street life into a key role in
the rise of Southern hip-hop.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Kabul US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates said he was pushing the world's countries for
more commitment to Afghanistan's fight against growing extremist
violence. A suicide car bomber targeted a NATO convoy in Kabul,
wounding 22 civilians passing nearby. An explosion struck a patrol
of NATO-led troops, leaving one soldier dead and two others wounded.
(AP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, Sen. Renan
Calheiros, president of Brazil's Senate, resigned while fighting
allegations of corruption. Calheiros, a key ally of President Luis
Inacio Lula da Silva, retained his position as a senator. A
legislative commission voted 17-3 last week to recommend his
expulsion after finding evidence that he used third parties to
illegally acquire two radio stations and a newspaper.
(AP, 12/4/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.43)
2007 Dec 4, New census data
said one in five people in Canada last year was born in another
country, the highest proportion since the 1930s. The Bank of Canada
cut its key overnight interest rate by one-quarter point to 4.25
percent, saying it expects US subprime mortgage woes and financial
market fallout to last longer than anticipated.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, The Chadian army
fought heavy battles against rebel forces in the east of the country
near the border with Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, France and Algeria
agreed to cooperate on civilian nuclear technologies. French oil
group Total said it had signed a deal to invest about 1.5 billion
dollars in a new 3.0-billion-dollar (2.0 billion euros)
petrochemical plant in Algeria.
(AFP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Greece and Turkey
agreed to joint military measures aimed at easing tensions and
improving ties.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 4, Police in northern
India broke up a major tiger poaching ring, arresting an alleged
kingpin and 15 others.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 4, Iran's foreign
minister welcomed the US decision to "correct" its claim that Tehran
has an active nuclear weapons program, while Israel's defense
minister said Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to
develop an atomic weapon.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iran Makwan
Moloudzadeh, a man convicted of raping three boys when he was 13
years old, was hanged despite a chief justice's order that the case
be reviewed.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Iraq Sunni Arab
lawmakers ended a yearlong boycott of politics in Kirkuk, after the
Kurdish majority agreed to allot one-third of government jobs to
Arabs and appoint an Arab as deputy governor. A suicide bomber blew
himself up near a police station in Jalula, northeast of Baghdad,
killing at least eight people and wounding 30. Kidnappers of five
Britons, seized on May 29, demanded that Britain pull all its forces
from Iraq, according to a new video broadcast made on Nov 18. The US
military said 40 senior al Qaeda in Iraq members were either
captured or killed in November, including a senior adviser to the
Sunni Islamist group's leader. Three US soldiers were killed in a
"complex attack" involving a roadside bomb and small arms fire north
of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 4, Israel said it is
seeking bids to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east
Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing Palestinian condemnations that the
move is undermining the newly revived peace talks.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Italy Vincenzo
Santapaola, a suspected Mafia boss, and scores of alleged mobsters
were arrested during raids in Catania, Sicily. Police also seized
weapons and drugs, and found a book that listed extortion fees and
salaries of the people working for the family.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In Mexico gunmen
shot and killed a deputy police chief inside his house in the border
city of Tecate.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, State media said
Myanmar's military junta has completed the release of 8,585
prisoners, but it was unclear if any of those released were among
those detained during the crackdown.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In southern Nigeria
pirates attacked a vessel operated by oil major ExxonMobil in the
Niger Delta, killing a crew member and injuring another.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Former PM Nawaz
Sharif said that Pakistan's major opposition parties will demand the
end of emergency rule and the release of former Supreme Court judges
as a condition for their participation in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, Tens of thousands
of mineworkers downed tools in South Africa in a one-day strike over
safety standards, accusing their bosses of putting lives at risk for
the sake of profits.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, UN human rights
experts said Sudanese forces and allied militia have killed several
hundred civilians in ground attacks and aerial bombardments on
villages in Darfur in the past six months.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, In southern
Thailand a bomb killed six people and injured 20 in one of the
deadliest attacks in recent months.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, American officials
confirmed that Vietnam is holding four US citizens, hours after
gaining their first consular access to two of the detainees, both
Vietnamese-born pro-democracy activists.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 5, President George W.
Bush, trying to keep pressure on Iran, called on Tehran to "come
clean" about the scope of its nuclear activities or else face
diplomatic isolation.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2007 Dec 5, California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted the 2007
California Hall of Fame inductees: Ansel Adams, Milton Berle, Steve
Jobs, Willie Mays, Robert Mondavi, Rita Moreno, Jackie Robinson,
Jonas Salk, M.D., John Steinbeck, Elizabeth Taylor, Earl Warren,
John Wayne, and Tiger Woods.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Hall_of_Fame)
2007 Dec 5, In Omaha, Nebraska,
Robert A. Hawkins (19) sprayed the third floor of the Von Maur
department store in Westroads Mall with gunfire. When the shooting
was over, Hawkins killed himself. His victims included six store
employees and two customers. An autopsy report later indicated that
only some Valium in his system.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 1/2/08, p.A3)
2007 Dec 5, It was reported
that the world’s largest helium reserve near Amarillo, Texas, was
expected to run out by 2015. The Bush Dome, begun as a reserve by
the government in 1925, supplied 35% of the world’s current usage.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 5, Andrew Imbrie
(b.1921), composer and teacher, died in Berkeley, Ca. His work
included the opera “Angle of Repose", which was commissioned and
premiered (1976) by the SF Opera.
(SFC, 12/8/07, p.B3)
2007 Dec 5, Afghan forces
clashed with Taliban who had blocked a main highway in the south,
killing 10 militants. A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden
car into a minibus carrying Afghan soldiers south of Kabul, killing
at least 13 people and wounding 20 others.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, An international
aid organization said Angolan soldiers routinely and repeatedly rape
Congolese women who have crossed the border illegally in search of
work in the diamond fields.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Australia’s PM
Kevin Rudd spoke at the state funeral for Bernie Banton (61), who
died from an asbestos-related disease he contracted while working
for building products company James Hardie. Banton's dogged campaign
ultimately led to the establishment of a 4 billion dollar (3.5
billion US) compensation fund for victims of Hardie's asbestos
products.
(AFP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Bolivian President
Evo Morales announced he would ask for a referendum on whether he
should remain president, and challenged opposition governors to do
the same.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, In Bosnia 4 men
wearing police uniforms and armed with automatic weapons stormed
Sarajevo international airport's cargo zone and stole $1.9 million.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, British police
arrested John Darwin (57) on fraud charges, five years after he
vanished in an apparent canoeing accident in the North Sea, only to
reappear last weekend, claiming he had amnesia.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Congo's army said
it retook a strategic town on from rebels loyal to renegade Tutsi
General Laurent Nkunda in the violence-torn eastern province of
North Kivu.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, French police
arrested two armed people in connection with a weekend shooting that
left two Spanish officers dead in what authorities described as the
first Basque-related killings in France in more than three decades.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, In Germany 3 men
were convicted of aiding the al-Qaida in Germany, including one who
prosecutors say was part of the terrorist network's command
structure and had contact with top leaders.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, In Darry, Germany,
the bodies of 5 young boys, ages 3 to 9, were found in their home
after their 31-year-old mother told a doctor where they were.
Authorities in eastern Germany announced they had found the bodies
of three infant girls and had taken their mother into custody on
manslaughter charges.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, Karlheinz
Stockhausen (b.1928), German avant-garde composer, died. His
innovative electronic works made him one of the most important
composers of the postwar era. His work included “Kontakte" (1959-60)
and “Stimmung" (1968), a sextet for unaccompanied voices on a 6-note
chord of B-flat.
(AP, 12/8/07)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.95)
2007 Dec 5, A survey said
Indian business confidence has slumped to a five-year low on the
back of flagging exports, aggressive monetary tightening and a
rising rupee that has slowed the economy.
(AFP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, A blast hit the
northern city of Mosul. Police said explosives hidden in a parked
car killed a civilian and wounded seven others. A car bomb exploded
in a largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad and killed at least 14
people. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a visit to the
capital that security and stability were within reach, although more
work is needed. In Baqouba a suicide car bomber targeted a bus
station and killed five civilians with at least 20 others wounded.
In Kirkuk a parked car bomb killed three Kurdish soldiers in a
convoy guarding a police chief.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Latvia's
center-right government resigned after coming under intense
criticism for firing a popular anti-corruption investigator and
failing to restrain inflation.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Liberia cleared its
debt arrears with the World Bank, paving the way for new development
lending and debt cancellation that will help the West African
country rebuild after years of civil war.
(Reuters, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Mexican police
conducted the biggest anti-logging raid in the nation's history at
clandestine sawmills that cut timber on a threatened nature reserve
where Monarch butterflies nest in the winter. Authorities in the
Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez said that they plan to exhume
the remains of more than 4,000 unidentified people buried in common
graves and take DNA samples in an attempt to identify them.
(AP, 12/5/07)(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 5, Six judges on
Nicaragua's Supreme Court threw out a law meant to block
neighborhood councils that will report directly to President Daniel
Ortega. But other judges call the ruling itself illegal.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, Two Palestinian
militants were killed by Israeli tank fire in northern Gaza. Lt.
Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said Israel's army has completed plans for a
large offensive in the Gaza Strip and is only waiting for government
approval for the action.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, Sri Lanka’s defense
ministry said at least 36 people including 7 soldiers were killed in
fresh fighting between security forces and Tamil rebels in the
embattled north. A land mine explosion blamed on Tamil separatists
tore through a passenger bus crowded with civilians in northern Sri
Lanka, killing at least 16 people and wounding 22 others.
(AFP, 12/5/07)(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 5, Turkish soldiers
killed eight Kurdish rebels, increasing the rebel death toll to 14
in a two-day clash near the border with Iraq.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 6, It was reported
that the Bush administration has developed a voluntary plan to
freeze interest rates for five years for thousands of strapped
homeowners whose mortgages were scheduled to rise in the coming
months. The plan called for a 5-year freeze for mortgages made from
Jan 2005 to July 30, 2007.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 12/6/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 6, CIA Director
Michael Hayden revealed the agency had videotaped its interrogations
of two terror suspects in 2002 and destroyed the tapes three years
later out of fear they would leak to the public and compromise the
identities of US questioners.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2007 Dec 6, Republican Mitt
Romney said his Mormon faith should neither help nor hinder his
quest for the White House and vowed to serve the interests of the
nation, not the church, if elected president.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2007 Dec 6, Former CEO William
McGuire of UnitedHealth Group Inc agreed to forfeit more than $400
million in stock options and other compensation and pay a $7 million
fine to settle an investigation into the health insurer's options
practices.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that
it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into
light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which
now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, A gas blast at mine
in northern China killed at least 105 people.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A French
anti-terrorist judge filed preliminary charges against Guillaume
Dasquie, an investigative journalist and author, accused of
publishing defense secrets.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A parcel bomb
exploded at a lawyer's office in central Paris, killing a secretary
and seriously injuring an attorney, but a motive was not immediately
clear.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, India overturned a
1914 law that banned women from tending bar in New Delhi. A ruling
in New Delhi in January said women could do bar work in hotels and
restaurants, ended a 92-year-old law barring their employment. In
August the Delhi government sought a ban on such jobs for women.
Each of India’s 29 states has its own laws governing the sale of
alcohol, and many restrict women working behind the bar.
(SFC, 12/22/07,
p.A15)(http://in.news.yahoo.com/071206/211/6o422.html)
2007 Dec 6, In Indonesia
American climate negotiators refused to back down in their
opposition to mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, even as a
US Senate panel endorsed sharp reductions in pollution blamed for
global warming.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Iraq suspended
parliamentary sessions for the year. Drive-by shootings killed at
least two people in separate attacks in Baghdad and Muqdadiyah. In
Muqdadiyah suspects gunned down a US-backed security volunteer.
Clashes broke out between Kurdish peshmerga soldiers and alleged
al-Qaida gunmen who attacked a Kurdish checkpoint near Khanaqin,
close to the Iranian border. A peshmerga spokesman said 8 Kurdish
troops were killed and 5 wounded. 3 militants also died. The US
military said its troops killed three suspected insurgents and
captured 19 in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq along the Tigris
River valley. US forces raided a house in the al-Hayy area south of
Kut, killing two suspects and wounding two others. Two men were
killed in Mosul, one who, wielding a knife, lunged at American
soldiers as they entered a building, and another who was wrapped in
blanket with wires protruding from it.
(AP, 12/6/07)(WSJ, 12/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 6, In southern Mexico
Jose Luis Aquino (33), a trumpet player, was found dead with his
hands and feet bound and a nylon bag over his head, in what
authorities said was apparently the country's third murder of a
musician in less than a week.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A New Zealand judge
sentenced two Chinese students to 18 1/2 years in prison for the
ransom kidnapping and slaying of a fellow student, saying the two
fell into "cyber sloth" and greed during their studies abroad.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Thousands of
lawyers boycotted courts across Pakistan while police blocked former
PM Nawaz Sharif and his supporters from marching to the heavily
guarded home of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, In the Philippines
14 Muslim Abu Sayyaf were sentenced to life in prison for the 2001
kidnapping of a US missionary couple and 18 others in a yearlong
jungle ordeal that prompted US-backed offensives against the
guerrillas.
(AP, 12/6/07)(SFC, 12/7/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 6, The 24th Southeast
Asian Games officially opened in Korat, Thailand.
(AFP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 6, Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe arrived in Lisbon for an EU-Africa summit,
which British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is boycotting because he
would not "sit down at the same table" as him.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 7, US Congressional
Democrats demanded a full Justice Department investigation into
whether the CIA had obstructed justice by destroying videotapes
documenting the harsh 2002 interrogations of two alleged terrorists.
(AP, 12/7/08)
2007 Dec 7, Howard Krongard,
the US State Department's embattled inspector general, announced his
resignation. He was accused of impeding a Justice Department
investigation of Blackwater Worldwide.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, US federal
officials outlined a new plan on how to allocate water to
California, Arizona and Nevada from the Colorado River in case of
shortages.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.A9)
2007 Dec 7, Former Alaska House
Speaker Pete Kott was sentenced to six years in a federal prison for
accepting $9,000 in bribes from the founder of an oil field services
company.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, Barry Bonds pleaded
not guilty in San Francisco to charges he'd lied to federal
investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs.
(AP, 12/7/08)
2007 Dec 7, In NYC 2 window
washers fell 47 stories from a Manhattan skyscraper when their
scaffolding failed; Edgar Moreno was killed, but his brother,
Alcides, miraculously survived.
(AP, 12/7/08)
2007 Dec 7, Afghan and NATO
troops surrounded the town of Musa Qala and launched air strikes to
dislodge Taliban rebels who had been in control for 10 months.
(AFP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, The Aruba
prosecutors' office said a judge has ordered the release of a Dutch
suspect who was re-arrested last month in the 2005 disappearance of
Natalee Holloway.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, Australian police
said they had smashed an international cocaine smuggling ring
spanning three continents and operating out of the Netherlands,
Thailand and Canada. Of the total 40 people arrested, 14 Canadian
and Australian nationals of Chinese and Vietnamese descent were
picked up in Sydney and Melbourne over the past six months.
Australian conman Peter Foster, once linked to the "Cheriegate"
scandal involving the wife of former prime minister Tony Blair, was
jailed for money laundering. Foster, who pleaded guilty to a charge
related to fraudulently obtaining 234,000 US dollars from the Bank
of the Federated States of Micronesia, was sentenced to
four-and-a-half years.
(AFP, 12/7/07)(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 7, Canada's TV
watchdog blessed the launch of Vanessa, a national pay TV porn
channel.
(Reuters, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, The Caribbean
Community (Caricom) meeting in Guyana, agreed to open up its markets
to certain European goods, on the condition that entertainment
workers from the region are allowed free access to Europe.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 7, Six French
nationals detained in Chad on suspicion of trying to illegally fly
103 children to Europe started a hunger strike, complaining their
case was being neglected.
(Reuters, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 7, China said it will
not consider mandatory cuts on greenhouse gases, saying the United
States and other industrialized countries should take the lead in
fighting climate change by embracing a less-extravagant lifestyle.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, The World Health
Organization confirmed that the father of a Chinese man who died of
bird flu has been infected with the virus that causes the disease,
saying it could not rule out the possibility of human-to-human
infection.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, In Zagazig, Egypt,
3 students were killed and dozens injured when a fire broke inside
an Al-Azhar university campus building in the Nile Delta.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 7, Germany's top
security officials said they consider the goals of the US-based
Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the
nation's constitution and will seek to ban the group.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, In Iraq’s Diyala
province a female suicide bomber attacked the offices of an
anti-al-Qaida group that has joined forces with the US, killing 16
people. The bomber was a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath
Party whose two sons joined al-Qaida and were killed by Iraqi
security forces. A second attack at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi
soldiers and another of the US-backed groups killed 10 people.
(AP, 12/7/07)(AFP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, Officials said
swarms of desert locusts have invaded Kenya's arid northeast for the
first time since 1962.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 7, NATO ministers
pledged to keep their KFOR peace force in Kosovo at current strength
as the Serbian province heads towards independence and to make more
troops available as necessary to deal with any violence.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, Gyude Bryant, a
former president of Liberia (2003-2005), was arrested for violating
the conditions of his bail while on trial on charges of embezzling
$1.3 million in government funds.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 7, Two gunmen barged
into a central Philippine town hall and killed the vice mayor, a
human rights advocate who had condemned a series of killings of
left-wing activists.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 7, A crane-carrying
vessel collided with the Hebei Spirit, an oil tanker off of South
Korea's west coast, spilling nearly 80,000 barrels of crude oil in
what was believed to be South Korea's largest offshore oil leak. On
Jan 21, 2008, courts indicted Samsung Heavy Industries and the owner
of the tanker on charges relating to the spill.
(AP, 12/7/07)(AP, 12/20/07)(Econ, 2/9/08, p.71)
2007 Dec 7, A UN court in
Tanzania trying masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide sentenced
Francois Karera, a former provincial governor, to life imprisonment
for his role in the killings, including helping soldiers kill
refugees in a church.
(Reuters, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 8, The US Justice
Department and CIA announced a joint inquiry into the spy agency's
destruction of videotapes of interrogations of two suspected
terrorists.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2007 Dec 8, The chief US
negotiator at the climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, said the US
will come up with its own plan to cut global-warming gases by
mid-2008 and won’t commit to mandatory caps.
(SSFC, 12/9/07, p.A17)
2007 Dec 8, Talk show host
Oprah Winfrey publicly endorsed Barack Obama for president during
appearances in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2007 Dec 8, Florida quarterback
Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2007 Dec 8, Ann Lisa Nguyen
(35), a program manager in San Jose, Ca., went missing. Her body was
found Dec 19 at the Newby Island Landfill in Milpitas. Anthony Dale
Evans (45), a convicted felon who worked at the same gym that Nguyen
frequented, was later arrested on suspicion of murder.
(SFC, 12/20/07, p.B2)
2007 Dec 8, Worldwide
demonstrations began to draw attention to climate change and push
their governments to take stronger action to fight global warming.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, A NATO and Afghan
operation to retake Musa Qala, a Taliban-controlled town in southern
Afghanistan, left at least 12 Taliban fighters and two children
dead. A Nato soldier killed in a mine explosion during the
operation, which began Dec 7. Taliban militants armed with
rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns ambushed a district
chief's vehicle in western Farah province, killing him, his son,
nephew and three bodyguards.
(AP, 12/8/07)(AFP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, A suicide truck
bomber attacked a police station in Beiji, one of Iraq's major oil
hubs, killing at least seven people and injuring 13 in a
neighborhood home to many refinery workers and engineers. In
southeastern Kut a rocket landed on the home of a senior member of
the local Sadrist bloc of Shiite politicians, killing him, his wife
and their two children. Ten suspected militants were killed in a
gunfight and airstrike outside Youssifiyah. In a raid outside Jalula
US forces moving against a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq member killed
one suspect and discovered an ammunition cache. Two other raids in
Mosul and Samarra left one suspected militant dead and 11 detained.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8-2007 Dec 11, US
soldiers carrying out operations in volatile Diyala province north
of Baghdad found graves containing 26 bodies next to what they
called a torture center where chains were attached to
blood-spattered walls and a metal bed frame was still connected to
an electrical shock system. Soldiers found a total of nine caches
containing a surface-to-air missile launcher, sniper rifles, 130
pounds of homemade explosives and numerous mortar tubes and rounds,
among other weapons.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 8, In Naseerabad,
Pakistan, gunmen killed three people in an attack on a party office
of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the first reported deaths
apparently linked to the current election campaign. Pakistan's army
claimed it has cleared almost all militants from embattled
northwestern Swat valley after killing 290 rebels and arresting
another 143 in recent weeks.
(AP, 12/8/07)(AFP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, South Korea's
worst-ever oil spill reached the country's southwest coastline,
polluting beaches with pungent sludge and threatening valuable sea
farms.
(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, In Spain 53 African
and 27 European countries began a summit to bury old colonial
relationships in favor of something more modern. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel challenged European and African leaders to confront
human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, putting the country's president
Robert Mugabe in the spotlight at an EU-Africa summit.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.54)(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, Soldiers and Tamil
Tiger rebels exchanged mortar and gunfire in northern Sri Lanka,
leaving 16 rebels dead.
(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 8, Taiwanese director
Ang Lee's erotic spy thriller "Lust, Caution" swept the top honors
at the Golden Horse Film Awards, seen as the Chinese-language
"Oscars."
(AFP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, An overcrowded boat
carrying at least some 85 illegal migrants sank off Turkey's Aegean
coast and at least 43 died. The migrants were mostly Palestinians,
Somalis and Iraqis.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 8, Venezuela’s Pres.
Hugo Chavez promised to supply the oil needs of Belarus for years to
come and dismissed Western accusations that Pres. Alexander
Lukashenko is a dictator. Chavez presented Lukashenko with a medal,
and they signed an agreement pledging military cooperation.
(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, In Arvada,
Colorado, a suburb of Denver, a gunman walked into a training center
dormitory for young Christian missionaries and opened fire, killing
two of the center's staff members and wounding two others. 2 more
people, including the gunman, were killed at the New Life megachurch
in Colorado Springs. Matthew Murray, killed himself.
(AP, 12/9/07)(AP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/9/08)
2007 Dec 9, In southern
Afghanistan Afghan, British and US troops closed in on Musa Qala, a
Taliban-held town. A second NATO soldier was killed in the
operation. This was the first mission in which British forces have
participated with the Afghan army as the main fighting force. Afghan
and NATO forces killed 30 Taliban fighters in Kandahar's Panjwayi
district.
(AP, 12/9/07)(AFP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, Bolivia’s
constitutional assembly approved a new charter that would empower
Pres. Evo Morales to run for re-election indefinitely. The new
constitution required approval by Bolivians in a national referendum
expected in 2008.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.A16)
2007 Dec 9, Voters in Bosnia's
Serb entity went to polls to choose a new president, as the country
was taking initial steps towards European integration.
(AFP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, Anne Darwin, whose
husband is accused of faking his own death in an insurance scam, was
arrested upon her return to Britain from Panama on suspicion of
fraud. Police said Darwin masterminded an elaborate fraud to pay off
family debts.
(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, A Canadian jury in
British Columbia convicted Robert 'Willie' Pickton (58), a pig
farmer, of murdering six women, handing him an automatic life
sentence but finding that the killings were not planned. Pickton
still faced 20 more murder charges for the deaths of women, most of
them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver
neighborhood. On Dec 11 Pickton was sentenced to life in prison with
no hope of parole for 25 years. Canadian authorities spent more than
C$100 million ($98 million) to catch and convict Pickton.
(AP, 12/9/07)(Reuters, 12/12/07)(Reuters,
11/17/10)
2007 Dec 9, Beijing's foreign
exchange regulator said the ceiling on foreign investment in Chinese
securities will be raised to $30 billion from $10 billion.
(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, Iran signed a
contract with China's Sinopec for the development of Iran's huge
Yadavaran oil field, the kind of energy deal the United States has
been trying to prevent. Hundreds of Iranian students angry over a
crackdown on activists protested at Tehran University, the second
such demonstration in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/9/07)(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, Maj. Gen. Jalil
Khalaf, the police chief of Basra, said religious vigilantes have
killed at least 40 women this year there because of how they
dressed. A roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying Brig. Gen. Qais
al-Maamouri, the police chief of Babil, the provincial capital of
Hillah, a predominantly Shiite province south of Baghdad, killing
him and two of his bodyguards. British PM Gordon Brown flew into
southern Iraq to rally troops and confirm that Iraqi forces will
take command of the last region under British control in
mid-December.
(AP, 12/9/07)(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 9, In Pakistan former
PM Nawaz Sharif's opposition party decided to run in next month's
parliamentary elections, a move could clear the way for other
members of Pakistan's largest opposition coalition to participate. A
suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a police outpost
near Imam Dheri, the headquarters of pro-Taliban cleric Maulana
Fazlullah, killing 8 people. The military there has been battling
Islamic militants loyal to the fugitive cleric.
(AP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, A blast on a bus in
Russia’s Stavropol region killed two people. An exploding gas
canister was suspected.
(Reuters, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, In Lisbon, Spain,
Senegal's Pres. Abdoulaye Wade said most African leaders have
rejected EU proposals for a free-trade deal that would replace
colonial-era trading systems at a summit marred by disputes over
Zimbabwe and Darfur. Africa and Europe's first summit in seven years
ended without agreement on the key issue of trade.
(AP, 12/9/07)(Reuters, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 9, A charter aircraft
flying from the Czech Republic crashed near Kiev airport in Ukraine
killing at least 5 people.
(AFP, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 10, A US judge
sentenced former media mogul Conrad Black (63) to 6-1/2 years in
prison for obstructing justice and defrauding shareholders in
one-time newspaper publishing empire Hollinger International Inc.,
and ordered him to report to prison in 12 weeks. The Canadian-born
member of Britain's House of Lords was found guilty in July of one
count of obstructing justice and three counts of fraud.
Co-defendants Jack Boultbee (64), former Hollinger chief financial
officer, got 27 months and former vice president and general counsel
Peter Atkinson (60) got 2 years for fraud.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, Suspended NFL star
Michael Vick was sentenced by a federal judge in Richmond, Va., to
23 months in prison for bankrolling a dogfighting operation and
killing dogs that underperformed.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2007 Dec 10, Madison Square
Garden and New York Knicks coach Isaiah Thomas reached an $11.5
million settlement of a sexual harassment case brought by former
team executive Anucha Browne Sanders.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2007 Dec 10, Former Vice
President Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a call for
humanity to rise up against a looming climate crisis and stop waging
war on the environment.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2007 Dec 10, US commuters
contended with treacherous roads from the southern Plains to the
Northeast as a storm spread a coating of ice and freezing rain. The
storm eventually was linked to 38 deaths including 21 in Oklahoma, 4
in Kansas and 3 each in Missouri and Michigan and one in Nebraska.
(AP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/13/07)(SFC, 12/12/07,
p.A3)(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 10, Seattle-based
Washington Mutual said it will lay off over 3,000 workers and close
190 offices in response to loan losses in the mortgage market.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 10, Afghan and
international forces retook the southern town of Musa Qala, held by
Taliban militants since February. A Taliban spokesman said the
militants fled to avoid civilian and Taliban casualties. In Sangin
district Afghan police clashed with a group of Taliban militants,
leaving 15 militants dead and 11 others wounded. An Afghan army
helicopter crashed in central Afghanistan because of bad weather,
killing four people. British PM Gordon Brown stopped in at Camp
Bastion, the main British camp in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/10/07)(AFP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, Cristina Kirchner
was sworn in as president of Argentina. Hector Febres (66), accused
of kidnapping and torturing dissidents during Argentina's past
military dictatorship, was found dead in his cell at a navy brig
four days before an expected verdict in his high-profile case. On
Dec 14 police detained the wife and two grown children of the former
coast guard officer hours after an autopsy found cyanide in his
blood.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 10, Australia accepted
seven asylum seekers from Myanmar as refugees as the country's new
Labor government began unwinding tough immigration laws which force
boatpeople into detention on Pacific island nations.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, In London Led
Zeppelin performed their first full concert in nearly three decades.
Three surviving members, singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page
and bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones, were joined by the late
John Bonham's son Jason on drums.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, Petro-Canada,
Canada's third largest oil and gas company, signed a $7 billion deal
with Libya's state-run National Oil Corp. to invest in exploration
in the North African nation.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, In Mississauga,
Canada, Aqsa Parvez (16), who was said to have clashed with her
father about whether she should wear a traditional Muslim head
scarf, died of injuries, and her father told police he had killed
her.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, American blues
guitarist "Philadelphia" Jerry Ricks (67), who mastered the sound of
the 1930s' Delta Blues, died in a clinic in Croatia.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, Cuba said it would
sign an international agreement on civil and political rights while
a few blocks away government supporters shoved and shouted down
activists calling for improved human rights on the communist-run
island.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said a 10-year program has begun
to save endangered orangutans from extinction by protecting tropical
jungle habitat from logging, mining and palm oil plantations. As
many as 50,000 orangutans have been lost over the past 35 years due
to shrinking habitat. As of January 2004, about 6,650 Sumatran
orangutans and 55,000 Borneo orangutans remained in the wild.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, In Baghdad mortar
shells slammed into an Interior Ministry prison, killing at least
seven inmates and wounding 23. A roadside bomb targeting a police
patrol in eastern Baghdad killed one policeman and injured five
other people. Gunmen on motorcycles fatally shot Dr. Ibrahim
Mohammed Ajil, the head of Iraq's largest psychiatric hospital, as
he was returning home from work. Iraqi security forces rounded up
several Shiite militia fighters in raids targeting suspects in the
assassination of a US-backed provincial police chief south of
Baghdad. A fire broke out at one of Iraq's main oil refineries, but
the US military said it was due to an industrial accident, not an
attack. It was reported that some 1,217 people in Iraq’s northern
Sulaymaniya province have been infected with cholera since late
August.
(AP, 12/10/07)(SFC, 12/10/07, p.A13)(AP,
12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, Japanese drugmaker
Eisai Co. said it will buy US biopharmaceutical company MGI Pharma
Inc. for $3.9 billion in cash in a move aimed at boosting its cancer
drug business and sustain sales growth.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, Kosovo Albanian
leaders said they will start immediate talks with Western backers
towards an independence declaration as the EU came closer to unity
in support of the province's drive to secede from Serbia. Thousands
of wildly cheering pro-independence demonstrators marched through
Pristina, as a sense of euphoria swept the breakaway province
preparing to gain statehood early next year.
(AP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, Libyan leader
Moamer Kadhafi arrived on his first visit to France in 34 years,
sparking protests from rights groups and criticism from the
government's own human rights minister. Gadhafi got straight to
business, cutting $14.7 billion in deals for arms and nuclear
reactors on his first official visit to the West since renouncing
terrorism and atomic weapons.
(AFP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, A suicide car
bomber struck near a bus carrying children of Pakistani air force
employees to school at a northern army base. At least five children
were wounded.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, Peru’s former
President Alberto Fujimori faced trial on charges of using a death
squad to kill leftist guerrillas and collaborators, a case stirring
mixed emotions in a country where many admire him for defeating a
bloody insurgency.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, President Vladimir
Putin threw his support behind first Deputy PM Dmitry Medvedev
(b.1965) as his successor, saying that electing him president would
keep Russia on the same course of the past eight years. Medvedev
also served as chairman of AOA Gazprom, the state-controlled energy
giant.
(AP, 12/10/07)(WSJ, 12/11/07, p.A22)
2007 Dec 10, Swiss banking
giant UBS AG said it will write off a further $10 billion on losses
in the US subprime lending market and will raise capital by selling
substantial stakes to Singapore and an unnamed investor in the
Middle East.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 11, Pres. Bush granted
pardons to 29 people.
(WSJ, 12/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 11, The US Senate
Intelligence Committee took closed-door testimony from CIA Director
Michael Hayden on how videotapes of terror suspect interrogations
were made, then destroyed.
(AP, 12/11/08)
2007 Dec 11, The United States
and China signed two deals to safeguard the quality of food and
drugs ranging from pet food to certain types of antibiotics imported
into the US from China.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, US officials in
Florida arrested 4 people, 3 from Venezuelan and one from Uruguay,
and accused them of being agents of the Venezuelan government.
Prosecutors later said the 4 were seeking to silence Guido Alehandro
Antonini Wilson, a citizen of both the USA and Venezuela. In August
Wilson was detained in Argentina for carrying $800,000 in a
suitcase, which prosecutors said was intended to aid the campaign of
Cristina Kirchner. Franklin Duran, multimillionaire owner of
Industrias Venoco CA, was one of the arrested Venezuelans. In 2008 a
federal jury convicted Duran on charges that he was a foreign agent
involved in a conspiracy.
(WSJ, 12/13/07, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/10/08, p.A5)(SFC,
11/4/08, p.A4)
2007 Dec 11, In eastern
Afghanistan US-led coalition and Afghan forces killed Mullah
Sangeen, a senior militant commander responsible for roadside
bombings and other attacks. Sangeen was second-in-command to Siraj
Haqqani, a militant leader in eastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 11, In Algeria car
bombs exploded minutes apart in central Algiers, heavily damaging UN
buildings and ripping the facade off the wing of a government
office. 37 people were killed, including 17 UN employees. Two
convicted terrorists who had been freed in an amnesty carried out
the suicide bombings at UN and government buildings. The interior
ministry later said the blasts were the work of the El Farouk
Brigade, which was responsible for a number of other attacks in the
last two years. Al-Qaida's self-styled North African branch claimed
responsibility.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)(AP, 12/12/07)(AP,
12/13/07)(AFP, 2/6/08)(AP, 12/11/08)
2007 Dec 11, Australia's Deputy
PM Julia Gillard (46) took charge of government in the absence of
the prime minister, becoming the first woman to run the country in
its 106 years as an independent nation. Gillard will lead the
government for just 60 hours while PM Kevin Rudd is in Bali for the
United Nations climate conference.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Australian
officials conceded that the welfare system failed a girl who was
removed from a remote Aboriginal community after being sexually
abused at age 7, then gang raped in 2006 at age 10 when she was
returned to live in the town.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 11, Guatemalan
legislators approved a new law that tightens adoptions, while
allowing pending cases, mostly involving US couples, to go through
without meeting stricter requirements.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, It was reported
that policewomen in Iraq have been told to hand in their guns.
Female recruits had dropped to zero since Iraqi authorities took
over police recruitment and training in 2006. The US had begun
training women in 2004 and graduated 1000 from the police academy. A
suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at a checkpoint
protecting the compounds of Iraq's former prime minister and a Sunni
lawmaker, killing two guards in a neighborhood bordering the
fortified Green Zone.
(WSJ, 12/12/07, p.B12)(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Israeli tanks and
bulldozers backed by attack aircraft moved into the southern Gaza
Strip, killing four militants in the widest operation in the
territory since Islamic Hamas forces wrested control in June.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Trucking unions
cut short a meeting with the Italian transport ministry, ending hope
that the chaos-causing strike disrupting traffic and petrol
deliveries would end soon.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, In southeast
Nigeria 20 people were killed and several injured when the driver of
a truck lost control and rammed into a crowd by the roadside in
Awka, Anambra state.
(AFP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 11, North and South
Korea began regular freight train service across their heavily armed
border for the first time in more than a half century, in another
symbolic step in their reconciliation.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Pakistan's
military vowed a strong response to any international attempt to
seize its atomic arsenal as the army successfully test-fired a
nuclear-capable cruise missile.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, In Peru former
President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of abuse of authority and
sentenced to six years in prison at the end of the first in a series
of trials on charges that include murder, kidnapping and corruption.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 11, A judge from the
top court in southern Russia's violence-plagued Dagestan region was
fatally shot by an unidentified attacker. Dagestan Supreme Court
Justice Kurban Pashayev was shot more than 10 times with a pistol in
the entranceway of his apartment building in the provincial capital,
Makhachkala. In Ingushetia an 18-year-old rookie in an elite police
unit was fatally shot by attackers who fired at him at close range
from a passing car as he was walking home after work.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Environmentalists
warned that a scenic coastal region could take years to recover from
South Korea's worst oil spill, as over 19,000 people worked to
contain or clean up the slick.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Darfur rebel group
the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it had attacked and
taken over a Chinese-run oilfield in central Sudan.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 11, Ukraine's
parliament narrowly rejected the candidacy of Orange Revolution
leader Yulia Tymoshenko for prime minister, but was expected to hold
a further vote.
(AFP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 12, President George
W. Bush vetoed a second bill that would have expanded
government-provided health insurance for children.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2007 Dec 12, Republican
presidential rivals gathered in Johnston, Iowa, called for deep cuts
in federal spending in a debate remarkably free of acrimony.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2007 Dec 12, The US announced
that it has sent 15 prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison back to
their home nations.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 12, Three British oil
executives pleaded guilty in a Houston court to price-fixing. They
were accused of conspiring from 1999-2007 to fix the prices of
millions of dollars worth of marine hoses used to transfer oil
between tankers and storage facilities. They were permitted to
return to Britain and to plead guilty to charges there.
(www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=130424&d=415&h=417&f=416)
2007 Dec 12, Igor Olenicoff
(65), California billionaire real estate developer, pleaded guilty
to lying on his tax returns and paid $52 million in back taxes, one
of the largest individual tax cases in Southern California history.
(www.ocregister.com/money/olenicoff-tax-million-1940962-company-agreement)
2007 Dec 12, Police in northern
California arrested Art Cheney, a winery tour guide dubbed “The
Highway 101 Bandit," following his robbery of a bank in Fairfield.
He had robbed at least 17 banks, including at least 8 in the Bay
Area, most of which were on the Highway 101 corridor. In 2008 Cheney
(65) was sentenced to 90 months in prison and ordered to pay back
the $50,760 that he stole.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A1)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.B3)
2007 Dec 12, Ike Turner
(b.1931), R&B pioneer and former husband of Tina Turner, died
due to a cocaine overdose at his home outside San Diego. He presided
over the 1951 recording of “Rocket 88," frequently cited as the
first rock ’n’ roll record. In 1966 Phil Spector produced “River
Deep – Mountain High" with Ike and Tina. The pair split in 1976. In
1989 Ike went to prison on drug charges and was still there when he
was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.
(SFC, 12/13/07, p.B5)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.142)(SFC,
1/17/08, p.A7)
2007 Dec 12, Afghanistan's
Defense Ministry said Afghan soldiers backed by NATO air power
killed more than 50 Taliban fighters during a two-day battle with
militants who tried to attack Sangin near Musa Qala, where they were
routed from this week. A suicide car bomb exploded near an Afghan
army convoy in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one person.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, A new report said
the trafficking of Bulgarian women as sex slaves brings in about 1.8
billion euros ($2.6 billion) a year for the gangs behind it, making
it the country's most profitable criminal activity.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, China launched a
nationwide recall system that shifts responsibility to companies to
recall harmful drugs. In eastern China a fire tore through an
apartment building, killing at least 21 people and injuring two
others.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, In Colombia 3
young highway bandits set fire to a bus during a botched robbery
near Bogota, burning to death 10 people including 2 assailants and
the bus driver. The 3rd assailant (23) was arrested.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 12, Tropical Storm
Olga soaked portions of the Caribbean, triggering floods and
landslides that killed at least 38 people in the Dominican Republic,
Haiti and Puerto Rico.
(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 12/13/07)(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 12, The European
Central Bank said it would take joint action with the US Federal
Reserve and other institutions to offer short-term funding to the
money markets to help ease a global credit squeeze. The ECB said it
would provide as much as $20 billion to European banks, in part to
fill their demand for dwindling dollars.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, Ashraf Juma Hajuj,
the Palestinian-born doctor held with five Bulgarian nurses in a
Libyan prison for over eight years, filed suit in Paris against
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi for torture. The six medics, who always
maintained their innocence, said they were subjected to torture,
including beatings, electric shocks, food and sleep deprivation, and
even sexual abuse, in order to confess to their alleged crime.
(AFP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 12, Tens of thousands
of demonstrators jammed central Athens and the northern city of
Thessaloniki as a general strike to protest government plans to
reform the country's debt-ridden pension system brought Greece to a
standstill.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, India announced
major plans to increase its nuclear capabilities, saying it was
close to testing a ballistic missile capable of hitting targets up
to 6,000 kilometers (3,800 miles) away.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, In Indonesia new
Australian PM Kevin Rudd completed ratification of the Kyoto
Protocol as he pressed for all nations, rich and poor, to commit to
fighting global warming.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, Three car bombs
exploded in quick succession in the market district of Amarah, a
southern Iraqi city, killing at least 25 people with 150 wounded.
The city is the provincial capital of Maysan province, which borders
Iran. In eastern Baghdad a parked car bomb apparently targeting a
passing police patrol killed five civilians. 13 people were wounded
in the late afternoon explosion in Ghadeer. In the Kurdish dominated
town of Khanaqin, 90 miles northeast of Baghdad, a roadside bomb
killed four civilians and wounded 12. A mass grave holding 16
bodies, all but four of them decapitated, was found in a palm grove
in a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold outside Muqdadiyah. US
soldiers killed two suspected insurgents and destroyed a weapons
cache in the village of Bawi, on the outskirts of Salman Pak.
(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 12/13/07)(AP, 12/12/08)
2007 Dec 12, The renewal of
peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians got off to a rocky
start, with the Palestinians criticizing Israel for a construction
project planned in disputed east Jerusalem, and Israel complaining
about continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, It was reported
that Italy's government has decided to appoint a special
commissioner to try to curb price rises after inflation hit a
three-and-a-half year peak in November, but economists see the move
as little more than a publicity stunt. Italy's truck drivers agreed
to call off a protest that has blocked highways and borders for
three days, causing shortages of gasoline, medicine and perishable
foods across Italy.
(Reuters, 12/12/07)(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, A car bomb attack
killed one of Lebanon's top generals and at least two other people.
Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj (55), a top Maronite Catholic in the
command, was considered a leading candidate to succeed the head of
the military, Gen. Michel Suleiman, if Suleiman is elected
president.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, It was reported
that William Kamkwamba (20) of Masitala, Malawi, had built 3
windmills using blue-gum trees and bicycle parts after seeing a
picture in an old text book.
(WSJ, 12/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 12, The former
governor of Nigeria's oil rich Delta state, James Ibori, was
arrested on corruption and money-laundering charges. His state
salary was less than $25,000 per year. In August a court in London
ordered a freeze on $35 million of his worldwide assets.
(AP, 12/12/07)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.38)
2007 Dec 12, Pakistani troops
killed 20 militants in an ongoing offensive against supporters of a
pro-Taliban cleric in the restive northwestern valley of Swat.
Residents said troops shot dead one person and wounded two others
for violating curfew restrictions in the town of Fizaghat.
(AFP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, Palestinian
pedestrians gawked at the unusual sight of female police officers
directing traffic in Ramallah, the first batch of women to venture
into a job traditionally reserved for men in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 12, US federal agents
and local police launched raids in several Puerto Rican cities with
arrest warrants for 121 drug suspects.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 12, Russia ordered a
British cultural organization to suspend all of its operations
outside Moscow at the beginning of 2008, the latest move in a
long-running dispute. Russian officials accused the British Council,
a non-governmental organization that acts as the cultural department
of the British Embassy, of operating illegally in St. Petersburg and
Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, Veteran diplomat
Yuli Vorontsov (78), who served the Soviet Union and Russia as
ambassador to Afghanistan (1988-99) and the United States
(1994-2000) in a career spanning the Cold War and the Gulf War, died
in Moscow.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 12, Pirates freed a
Japanese chemical tanker loaded with highly explosive benzene off
the coast of Somalia, six weeks after seizing the vessel and its
crew.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12-2007 Dec 14, In
South Africa 49 patients, all with multidrug resistant (MDR) and
extremely drug resistant (XDR) TB, escaped through holes they had
cut through the perimeter fences of Jose Pearson Hospital in Port
Elizabeth.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317354,00.html)
2007 Dec 12, Officials said
South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a
fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop
treatments for human genetic diseases.
(AFP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, North and south
Sudanese leaders said they had resolved almost all their differences
and that the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement would
soon rejoin the unity cabinet.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, Thailand smashed
through the 100-gold barrier at the SEA Games as they continued
their relentless pursuit of top spot on the medals table.
(AFP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, The UN Yugoslav
war crimes tribunal at The Hague sentenced former Bosnian Serb
general Dragomir Milosevic (b.1942) to 33 years imprisonment for the
shelling of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war, one of the court's
toughest sentences. In 2009 UN judges trimmed the sentence from 33
to 29 years but upheld his convictions for leading troops who
terrorized Sarajevo with a deadly rain of shells and sniper bullets.
(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 11/12/09)
2007 Dec 13, Nobel laureate Al
Gore accused the United States of blocking progress at the UN
climate conference, and European nations threatened to boycott
US-led climate talks next month unless Washington compromises on
emissions reductions.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, US Sen. George
Mitchell presented his report on steroid use among professional
baseball players. The 409-page report identified 85 names to
differing degrees in connection with the alleged use of
performance-enhancing drugs and recommended tough new measures for
testing and investigations.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A1)(AP, 12/13/08)
2007 Dec 13, Democratic
presidential hopefuls meeting in Johnston, Iowa, called for higher
taxes on the highest-paid Americans and on big corporations in an
unusually cordial debate.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2007 Dec 13, New Jersey
lawmakers approved a measure to abolish the death penalty. Gov. Jon
Corzine said he would sign it within a week.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 13, Shareholders of
Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, approved
a takeover by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2007 Dec 13, In SF Dr. David
Kessler, onetime commissioner of the FDA, was fired as dean of the
UCSF School of Medicine by Chancellor Michael Bishop. Kessler said
he had been labeled as a “whistle blower" after he attempted to
uncover financial irregularities that predated his 2003 appointment.
(SFC, 12/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 13, In Louisiana 2
graduate students from India were found tied up and shot in the head
on the edge of Louisiana State Univ.
(SFC, 12/15/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 13, In southern
Afghanistan a civilian car hit a freshly planted land mine, killing
six people and wounding six others. Taliban militants beheaded a
woman they accused of spying and her grandson.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Argentina's new
president reacted furiously to accusations by US prosecutors that an
intercepted suitcase full of cash from Venezuela was meant to
finance her election campaign, calling the charge "garbage in
international politics."
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 13, Brazil's Senate
refused to renew a financial transaction tax that fills the
government's coffers, handing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a
political defeat that could threaten his social programs for the
poor.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Former Canadian PM
Brian Mulroney apologized publicly for accepting hundreds of
thousands of dollars in cash from a German arms dealer, but he
bluntly rejected suggestions he had taken kickbacks.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, EU leaders signed
the Treaty of Lisbon to reform the bloc's institutions and give it
stronger leadership, marking the end of a difficult process that has
lasted nearly a decade.
(Reuters, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, In northeast
India a bomb tore through a moving train, killing five passengers
and wounding four others in Assam state. The Adivasi National
Liberation Army, a little-known militant group, said it was
responsible for the attack. In southern India two men attacked a
self-proclaimed holy man (80) and chopped off his right leg,
apparently believing it had magical powers.
(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/13/india.randeepramesh)(AP,
12/14/07)
2007 Dec 13, In Mosul gunmen
stormed a house and killed the woman who owns it, apparently because
she had turned a room in the home into a beauty salon. A car bomb
went off about 100 yards away from the Italian Embassy in the
northern Baghdad neighborhood of Waziriyah. 3 policemen and 4
civilians were wounded. An American soldier was shot to death in an
attack in southern Baghdad and another was shot and killed in
northern Ninevah province.
(AP, 12/13/07)(AP, 12/14/07)(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 13, Ireland's
government announced it will organize new nonreligious primary
schools in the capital, a move that reflects growing immigration and
declining church power in this traditionally Roman Catholic nation.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Israeli high
school teachers ended a two-month strike after receiving a pay raise
and government promises to redress some of the problems in the
Israeli school system, including class size.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Japan said that
Russia seized four Japanese fishing boats in disputed waters between
the two countries, calling the detention unacceptable and demanding
an explanation from Moscow.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Malaysia said it
has arrested five leaders of ethnic Indian rights group Hindraf
under controversial security laws that allow for detention without
trial.
(AFP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, In south-west
Nigeria at least 17 people burned to death when four vehicles burst
into flames in a crash.
(AFP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 13, North Korea
verbally responded through a diplomatic channel to a letter Bush
sent to Kim earlier this month. A senior US official with knowledge
of the contents said it was delivered through a diplomatic channel
in New York and contained what appeared to be a pledge from
Pyongyang to follow through on its denuclearization deal as long as
the United States held to its end of the bargain.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 13, In southwest
Pakistan twin suicide bombers blew themselves up close to a military
checkpoint in Quetta, killing five soldiers and wounding 22 people.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, In the Philippines
leaders of 2 separatist groups met with Seif al-Islam Khadafy, son
of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, and said they should be able to
resolve differences that dated back to 1976 when the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front broke from the Moro National Liberation Front.
(SFC, 12/15/07, p.A9)
2007 Dec 13, Opposition leader
Garry Kasparov said the Kremlin has stopped him from running for
president by preventing his supporters from meeting to nominate him.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Russia and Iran
reached agreement on a schedule for finishing construction of a
nuclear power plant that plays a central role in the international
tensions over Iran's atomic program, Russian news agencies reported.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Marie-Therese
Kampire, who taught politics at Rwanda's National University, was
found guilty by a traditional "gacaca" court. The former university
teacher was given a 19-year prison sentence for her role in the
murder of a colleague's wife during the Rwanda genocide.
(AFP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 13, In Somalia mortar
rounds slammed into the biggest market in Mogadishu and gunbattles
erupted across the city, killing 17 people hours after a government
official said radical Muslims had regrouped and were poised to
launch a massive attack.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, An official said
Thai tax authorities have seized assets worth about $34.2 million
from family members of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, New Jersey became
the first US state to require flu shots for preschoolers.
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 14, Maria Borrega, a
former ticket agent for the Contra Costa County public transit
system was extradited from Florida to California and charged with
embezzling at least $184,000 from 2002 until her retirement in 2005.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B2)
2007 Dec 14, A man accused of
being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in
prison for the sexual assaults of two sisters. As of 2008 Mark
Goudeau still faced trial for the slayings of eight women and a man
in 2005-2006; he has pleaded not guilty.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2007 Dec 14, Frank Morgan (73),
jazz alto saxophonist, died at his home in Minneapolis. In the 1960s
he played in the storied “warden’s band" at San Quentin State Prison
with other prominent musician-inmates that included Art Pepper and
Dupree Bolton. In 1991 he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Best
Alto Saxophonist.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 14, Australian PM
Kevin Rudd and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon jetted into East
Timor to lend support to the nation's efforts to stabilize and
rebuild after violence last year. Rudd pledged to support the
nation's ongoing security needs during the five-hour stop.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The leaders
Belarus and Russia pledged closer cooperation on military, economic
and foreign policy but gave no indication that the ex-Soviet
neighbors were moving closer to a long-discussed full merger.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Britain’s
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) confirmed
a new case of the livestock disease bluetongue in a cow imported
from Germany, two months after an earlier outbreak was said to have
been contained.
(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Canada's national
police force, criticized for excessive use of Tasers, said that,
from now on, officers would only fire the electric stun guns at
suspects who are combative or resisting arrest.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Diplomats from the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda met in Kampala to discuss
border tensions that have triggered deadly clashes on one of
Africa's hottest frontiers in the search for oil. The UN said rival
factions in Congo are forcibly recruiting hundreds of children and
sending them to fight on the front lines of an escalating conflict
in the east of the country.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Local newspapers
reported that nearly 2,000 Egyptian civil servants have ended a
sit-in outside government headquarters in Cairo after winning a
battle to change their status and increase their salaries.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, EU leaders held a
formal meeting in Brussels, where they agreed in principle to send
1,800 policemen, judges and officials to Kosovo. They also agreed to
set up a reflection group to think about challenges facing the EU
between 2020 and 2030.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.87)
2007 Dec 14, It was reported
that German AIDS researchers have discovered a protein common in
semen that boosts the infectious potential of HIV 100,000-fold.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 14, In northern India
a bus collided with a train, killing at least 16 people, including
nine children on their way to school.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Indonesia, the
nation hardest hit by bird flu, announced its 93rd death due to the
H5N1 virus. In China, the military in eastern Nanjing banned the
sale of poultry this week after a father and son came down with the
disease earlier this month. Health officials confirmed the
24-year-old man died from the virus a day before his father, 52,
became sick. It was the country's 17th bird flu death. The WHO
confirmed Myanmar's first human case of bird flu and praised the
secretive country for its quick and open handling of the infection.
State media reported a girl (7) was hospitalized on Nov. 27 and
released on Dec. 12 in good condition after being treated with the
antiviral drug Tamiflu.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, In northern and
central Iraq US forces targeting al-Qaida in Iraq detained 18
suspects and killed four.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 14, Ayo Fayose of
southwestern Ekiti state gave, a Nigerian former state governor,
turned himself in to police after more than a year on the run,
vowing to defend himself in court against allegations of corruption.
High Chief Ekpemupolo, an influential rebel commander in Nigeria's
oil-producing Niger Delta, ordered the suspension of peace talks
with the government because of military incursions and the arrest of
another commander.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, North and South
Korea ended three days of talks without an agreement on creating a
shared fishing zone to defuse tensions along their disputed sea
border.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Hamas gunmen burst
into the home of Omar Al-Ghoul, a top Fatah official in Gaza, and
arrested him. He was the most senior Fatah politician to be detained
since Hamas forces overtook the territory in June. In the West Bank,
Abbas' security forces arrested 26 Hamas supporters. 3 people were
killed in a mysterious explosion at a Fatah-organized funeral in
Gaza City.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Mortar shells
rained down on Mogadishu for a second day, killing at least five
people. The African Union's new representative for Somalia said he
expected more peacekeepers to arrive starting this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, South Korea
brought home 195 army medics and engineers from Afghanistan, ending
its five-year deployment to help rebuild the war-ravaged country at
Washington's request.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Clashes between
Sri Lankan soldiers and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the
country's embattled north left 31 guerrillas and one soldier dead.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 14, Asus Technology of
Taiwan unveiled a $299 version of Eee PC, a 2-pound laptop for kids
that stores data on flash memory.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D1)
2007 Dec 14, The UN refugee
agency said more than 200 migrants are feared to have drowned at sea
in separate incidents off Yemen, Turkey and the Canary Islands so
far this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The World Bank
convinced 45 countries to give over $25 billion to the world’s
poorest state over the next 3 years.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.100)
2007 Dec 14, Zimbabwe reserve
bank governor Gideon Gono on said President Robert Mugabe's cronies
were fuelling the country's runaway inflation through illicit
dealings. Amnesty International said Zimbabwean police are still
beating and torturing human rights activists and opponents of the
government despite mediation efforts launched by fellow African
nations.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 15, It was reported
that Google is testing a new service called Knol, that enlists
selected users to write about the breadth of human knowledge in
competition with Wikipedia.
(SFC, 12/15/07, p.C1)
2007 Dec 15, A winter storm
dropped snow from the Plains to the Midwest with as much as a foot
of snow in Kansas. Forecasts called for as much as 15 inches for
sections of southern Michigan.
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 15, A rocket landed in
a crowd of civilians near Kabul's police headquarters, and a truck
full of rockets smuggled into the city under a pile of hay exploded
nearby moments later. At least five people were killed.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, Some 20,000
Belgians demonstrated in Brussels against the erosion of their
spending power as the country's months-old political crisis begins
to hit people's pockets.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, Jean Oviedo (37),
a US woman, was shot and killed as she vacationed with her Colombian
husband in Bucaramanga, Colombia, in a robbery that netted $200 and
a laptop computer.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 15, In Indonesia 2
weeks of international climate talks marked by bitter disagreements
and angry accusations culminated in a last-minute US compromise and
an agreement to adopt a blueprint for fighting global warming by
2009.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 15, Bomb blasts,
ambushes and gunfights left 11 people dead across Iraq, including 4
members of US-backed security patrols.
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A15)
2007 Dec 15, Italian
authorities said they have captured, Edoardo Contini (52), a
fugitive Naples crime boss who built one of the most dangerous
cartels.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, In Kashmir one
person was killed when police fired on hundreds of students calling
for a college to be set up in their town. The protest in Magam
township, 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Srinagar, came a day
after the Kashmir government said it would set up 18 new colleges
across the insurgency-racked state. Magam was not included.
(AFP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, President Pervez
Musharraf lifted a six-week-old state of emergency and said in a
nationally televised address that he imposed it as a last resort to
save Pakistan from destruction from an unspecified conspiracy. In
northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed at least 2
soldiers and 3 civilians at a checkpoint near the gate of an army
school.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, Rashid Rauf, a
British suspect in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic
jetliners, escaped after appearing before a judge at a court in
Islamabad. Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, was arrested in August
2006 on a tip from British investigators.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 15, Pakistan's Health
Ministry issuing a statement saying six people had initially tested
positive for the virus last month, while the WHO said eight had been
reported. International health experts were dispatched to Pakistan
to help investigate the cause of South Asia's first outbreak of bird
flu in people and determine if the virus could have been transmitted
through human contact.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 15, Hamas marked the
20th anniversary of its founding with a huge rally in Gaza City.
Hamas was founded in Gaza after the outbreak of the first
Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, Filipino soldiers
killed Abdulmibin Sakandal, a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant wanted
by Philippine and US authorities for alleged involvement in the 2000
kidnappings of 21 people, including Western tourists.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 15, Russia's
state-controlled gas monopoly said Belarus will pay nearly 20
percent more for Russian gas beginning next year.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 15, President Robert
Mugabe suspended Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, Zimbabwe's attorney general,
and appointed a three-member tribunal to investigate allegations
that the state's highest law officer abused his powers.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 16, Morgan Stanley
senior executive Stephen Roach said the US is heading for a
recession and the rest of the world would be "dead wrong" to think
this will not impact on growing Asian economies.
(AFP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Street and highway
crews were at work trying to clear roads across the Great Lakes
states into New England as a storm blamed for three deaths spread a
hazardous mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain. The storm was blamed
for at least 10 deaths including 4 in Indiana, 2 in Michigan and
Wisconsin, one in Pennsylvania and one in Nova Scotia.
(AP, 12/16/07)(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A19)
2007 Dec 16, Dan Fogelberg
(56), the singer and songwriter, died at his home in Maine after
battling prostate cancer. His hits "Leader of the Band" and "Same
Old Lang Syne" helped define the soft-rock era.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 16, In eastern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb blast killed two Afghan civilians and
wounded five others, while a clash in the south left four Taliban
dead. Harald Kleber (42) a German national locally known by his
Muslim name, Abdul Rahman, was kidnapped in heart province. The next
day German authorities said Kleber was wanted in Germany for fraud.
(AP, 12/16/07)(AFP, 12/17/07)(AFP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 16, Argentina and
Brazil successfully launched a rocket into space in the first joint
space mission by the two South American nations. The VS30 rocket,
which carried experiments from both countries, blasted off from
Brazil's Barreira do Inferno launch center in northern Rio Grande do
Norte state.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 16, Australian police
said they had broken up an alleged nationwide child porn ring with
the arrest of six men overnight, including a former policeman, a
trainee teacher and a swimming instructor.
(AFP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, In Grozny,
Chechnya, a police officer and 4 militants were killed in a
gunbattle.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 16, China announced
holiday changes to ease overcrowding on trains, flights and other
transport systems. The changes will bring back three traditional
one-day holidays and let workers take paid vacations at times other
than officially-set breaks.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 16, The EU signed a
new trade agreement with the 15-member Caribbean Forum.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.74)
2007 Dec 16, In eastern India
299 communist prisoners overpowered guards and escaped from a
prison.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, British forces
formally handed over responsibility for Basra, the last region in
Iraq under their control, marking the start of what Britain hopes
will be a transition to a mission aimed at aiding the economy and
providing jobs in an oil-rich region beset by militia infighting. A
total of 174 British personnel have died in Iraq since the March
2003 invasion. The venture cost Britain some $10 billion.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.94)(AP, 12/16/08)
2007 Dec 16, In the Indian
portion of Kashmir hundreds of people clashed with police, hours
after burying a 20-year-old man killed by police a day earlier. At
least 35 people were injured.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Kyrgyzstan held
parliamentary elections. Critics have said election code changes,
introduced in October, were designed to evict all opposition
politicians from the legislature. The Central Election Commission
said Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Ak Jol party won 71 out of
90 parliament seats in the parliamentary election. The top
opposition party failed to win parliament seats and the party
accused the government of rigging the vote and said it would appeal
the results in court.
(AP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 16, Malaysia’s Premier
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi intervened to head off rising anger among the
Southeast Asian country's ethnic Indian population after a rare
public rally on Nov 25 led to violent clashes with police.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Russian
authorities expelled a Moldovan journalist critical of the Kremlin
in a move condemned by media watchdogs.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Millions of
Muslims from around the world gathered in Mecca for the start of the
annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage, as the Saudi Interior Ministry
announced tough security precautions.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Spanish police
said they had arrested 63 people across the country in five
investigations into child pornography being posted, viewed and paid
for on the Internet.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Spanish
construction group BTP Sacyr Vallehermoso said it had created a
joint company with the Libyan government to bid for infrastructure
contracts there.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Darfur rebels said
they had inflicted a crushing defeat on Sudan's army in West Darfur
in an overnight battle during which they captured 29 soldiers, 32
vehicles and heavy weaponry.
(Reuters, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Turkish warplanes
hit Kurdish rebel targets, marking an escalation of force against
the outlawed separatist group. An Iraqi official said the planes
attacked several villages, killing one woman. Turkey’s military
later said up to 175 rebels were killed on this day. A Kurdish
leader said the figure was exaggerated.
(AP, 12/16/07)(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 17, President George
W. Bush, addressing a Rotary Club meeting, tried to reassure an edgy
public that the economy is "pretty good" despite the mix of a
failing housing market, a national credit crunch and surging energy
costs.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2007 Dec 17, A US judge ruled
that the White House visitor logs are public, a blow to Pres. Bush,
who didn’t want to disclose visits by religious conservatives.
(WSJ, 12/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 17, In Washington, DC,
a military judge said the US must hold court hearings to determine
whether suspected terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay are
prisoners of war or unlawful enemy combatants in a ruling that could
delay war crimes trials.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 17, US trade officials
said the US has reached a deal with the EU, Japan and Canada to keep
its Internet gambling market closed to foreign companies, but is
continuing talks with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau and Costa
Rica.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, New Jersey Gov.
Jon Corzine signed into law a measure that abolished the death
penalty, making New Jersey the first US state in over decades reject
capital punishment.
(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 17, It was reported
that the US was investigation allegations that Public Warehousing
Co. owned by Kuwait’s Sultan Al-Essa family, had solicited as much
as $80 million in kickbacks under cover as discounts from US
suppliers.
(WSJ, 12/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 17, The World Trade
Organization (WTO) launched an investigation into Washington's
multi-billion-dollar farm subsidies that Brazil and Canada say break
international trading rules.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, The Int’l. Finance
Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank,
unveiled a $1 billion health-care strategy for Africa.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.121)
2007 Dec 17, In southern
Afghanistan several militants were killed in airstrikes and a
subsequent operation by US-led coalition troops.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Much of eastern
and central Canada was digging out after a massive storm dumped up
to 50 cm (20 inches) of snow in places, shocking Canadians who had
become accustomed to milder winters.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Grozny,
Chechnya, a roadside bomb killed a prison guard and wounded four
other people as they drove in a van transporting suspected
criminals.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Dubai ruling
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum pardoned 377 inmates of Dubai
prisons this week on the eve of Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic
holiday. The pardon included Bert Tatham, a Canadian UN official who
advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops.
Tatham (35) was granted amnesty, six months after being sentenced to
four years in prison on a drug smuggling conviction. Tatham was
arrested April 23 during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai
International Airport, after being caught with a half a gram of
hashish, and two poppy bulbs.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Nine Egyptians
were killed and seven injured when a car crashed into a group of
people celebrating a religious festival on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Iranian Vice
President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said the first nuclear fuel shipment
for the Bushehr atomic power plant has arrived in Iran from Russia.
Aghazadeh said the Bushehr plant was 95 percent complete and would
begin operations next year.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Al-Qaida's No. 2
Ayman al-Zawahri warned of "traitors" among insurgents in Iraq and
called on Iraqi Sunni Arab tribes to purge those who help the
Americans in a new videotape posted on the Web.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Defense officials
said Israel will allow the Palestinians to set up a new cell phone
network, part of warming relations between the sides. The world
rallied to the support of the embattled Palestinian government, and
the co-chairman of a donors' conference said he was confident they
could meet a $5.6 billion target in aid.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Japan and the
United Arab Emirates signed an accord to strengthen economic ties,
including a deal for Japanese banks to extend a multibillion-dollar
loan to a state-owned Abu Dhabi oil firm.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Japan began
sending warnings to an estimated 8.5 million people that their
pension data may have gone missing, as the government seeks to clean
up a scandal that has damaged its credibility.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, A Nicaraguan
appeals court overturned the conviction of Eric Volz, a US man
sentenced to 30 years in prison in the killing of his Nicaraguan
girlfriend. Volz (28) was freed on Dec 21 and quickly left
Nicaragua.
(AP, 12/18/07)(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 17, Nigeria's main
militant group urged all armed factions in the restive southern oil
heartland to join together and cripple Africa's biggest petroleum
industry.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Pakistan the
Election Commission rejected former PM Nawaz Sharif’s appeal against
the rejection of his nomination for next month's parliamentary
elections. Police used batons and fired tear gas in a clash with
protesters who hurled rocks and bricks at them in Islamabad. A
suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Pakistani army
recruits returning from a soccer game in northwestern Pakistan,
killing nine of them. The attacker struck near an army
communications center in Kohat, about 30 miles from the city of
Peshawar.
(AFP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/17/07)(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 17, Russian President
Vladimir Putin said he was ready to become prime minister if his
close ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep
a grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Saudi Arabia a
gang-rape victim who was sentenced to six months in prison and 200
lashes for being alone with a man not related to her was pardoned by
the Saudi king after the case sparked rare criticism from the United
States, the kingdom's top ally.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In Somalia mortar
shells slammed into Mogadishu, killing at least 12 people, including
a mother and her three children, and wounding dozens in an
increasingly ferocious Islamic insurgency.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, In northern Sri
Lanka renewed violence between Tamil rebels and government forces
left at least 33 people dead.
(AFP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Uruguay's last
military dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, was charged with the forced
disappearance of political prisoners, cheering human rights
activists who have long campaigned for his prosecution.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 18, The US Federal
Reserve endorsed new rules that would give people taking out home
mortgages new protections against shady lending practices.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, In New Jersey
authorities broke up a major organized crime ring that took in $2.2
billion in gambling bets over the last 15 months and supplied drugs
and cell phones to gang members in a New Jersey state prison. 2
ruling members of New York’s Lucchese crime family and 30 others
were arrested.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 18, The city council
of Half Moon Bay, Ca., voted to hire a team of appellate lawyers to
fight a federal court decision that ordered the city to pay a
developer $36.8 million in a property dispute. The city’s annual
budget was $10 million. On April 1, 2008 the City Council approved a
settlement under which it would pay $18 million only if it was
unable to get special legislation passed to allow Charles Keenan to
build 129 lots on property in question and an adjoining parcel,
bypassing wetlands protection laws.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B1)(SFC, 4/2/08, p.B1)
2007 Dec 18, PG&E reported
plans to support the first commercial wave power plant off
California’s Humboldt County coast. 8 power generating buoys, to be
built by Canada’s Finavera Co., was expected to begin operations in
2012.
(SFC, 12/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 18, John Morgridge,
the retired chairman of Cisco Systems, and his wife Tashia, both
graduates from the Univ. of Wisconsin, announced that they are
donating $175 million to help low-income Wisconsin students attend
any of the state’s public colleges and universities. Morgridge’s
fortune was estimated at $2.1 billion.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.C2)
2007 Dec 18, An Italian team
published the first full genetic sequence of a grape variety, pinot
noir, in the Public Library of Science.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.137)
2007 Dec 18, In western
Afghanistan Taliban fighters killed 15 Afghan guards working for a
private security company who were guarding a convoy of fuel tankers.
6 Taliban were killed in the ensuing fight. Elsewhere in Farah
fighting between police and militants left 2 militants dead.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, In Argentina 7
former army officers and an ex-police official were convicted and
sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for human rights abuses
during Argentina's bloody dictatorship.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, The leaders of
Argentina and Venezuela closed ranks against the United States,
rejecting US court charges in a campaign cash scandal as one more
example of Americans treating their nations like subservient
colonies.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 18, Prosecutors in
Aruba dismissed the case against the three main suspects in the
disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, saying they
still believe they were involved in her death but can't prove it
after 932 days of searching failed to turn up a body.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 18, An official said
Australian copper thieves have turned tomb raiders, pilfering
plaques and vases from cemeteries to sell the metal for scrap.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, Bermuda's ruling
party won a third term in general elections shadowed by racial
resentment and allegations of corruption. Premier Ewart Brown's
Progressive Labor Party won 22 seats compared with 14 seats for the
United Bermuda Party.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 18, Canada confirmed a
new case of mad cow disease, the 11th since 2003, and said the
animal in question was a 13-year-old beef cow from Alberta.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, A boatload of 59
exhausted African men arrived in the Canary Islands, the latest wave
in a constant flood of desperate migrants seeking a better life in
Europe.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, EU regulators said
Mastercard must drop fees it charges for cross-border transactions
or face daily fines of 3.5 percent of daily global turnover.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 18, About 250 Iraqi
police raided three villages near Hawija, about 30 miles southwest
of Kirkuk, in an operation against suspected al-Qaida in Iraq
militants. Police detained 12 al-Qaida in Iraq suspects as well as
another eight people, and seized a large weapons cache that included
2,500 mortar rounds, 350 Katyusha rockets, about 150 improvised
bombs and about 500 mines. A car bomb targeting a police patrol
exploded in central Baghdad killing two policeman and two civilians.
A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a cafe near Baquba, killing
13 people and wounding 24.
(AP, 12/18/07)(AFP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, Israeli aircraft
launched an assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organization in
Gaza, killing the group's overall commander and nine other militants
in three fiery strikes. A fourth attack on a security post in
southern Gaza killed two Hamas militants.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, Japan said it had
shot down a ballistic missile in space high above the Pacific Ocean
as part of joint efforts with the United States to erect a shield
against a possible North Korean attack.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, In South Africa
delegates of the governing African National Congress cast their
votes for party leader. Zuma defeated President Thabo Mbeki by 2,329
votes to 1,505 at the party convention and moved into position to
become president in 2009.
(AP, 12/18/07)(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 18, In northern Sri
Lanka fighting killed 13 rebels and two soldiers. The Tigers said
they killed five soldiers.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 18, A human rights
group said that Syrian authorities have arrested two activists,
raising to at least seven the number detained following a recent
meeting of opposition groups in Damascus. The two had attended the
National Council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change,
a Dec. 1 gathering of numerous opposition groups and activists
calling for democratic reforms in Syria.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, In southern
Thailand suspected Muslim insurgents shot and killed four people
before beheading one victim, days before the country's first
election since last year's coup.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, The Turkish army
sent soldiers about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq in an overnight
operation. A Turkish official said the troops seeking Kurdish rebels
were still in Iraq by midmorning.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, Ukraine's
pro-Western coalition appointed Orange Revolution leader Yulia
Tymoshenko prime minister and named a government that favors the
ex-Soviet republic winning NATO and EU membership.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the US-led multinational force
in Iraq for one year, a move that Iraq's prime minister said would
be his nation's "final request" for help.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, The UN passed a
resolution backed by 104 states calling for the 1st time for a
worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.
(Econ, 4/26/08,
p.46)(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10678.doc.htm)
2007 Dec 18, The Zimbabwe
government introduced amendments to tough security and media laws,
which critics said were used by President Robert Mugabe to stifle
opposition to his 27-year rule.
(AFP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 19, Pres. Bush signed
a bill calling for an increase in auto-fuel efficiency, the first in
32 years.
(WSJ, 12/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 19, The United States
government rejected a request by California for it to be allowed to
introduce tough new vehicle emissions standards, dealing a blow to
the state's hopes of slashing greenhouse gas levels over the next
decade.
(AFP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 19, Time magazine
named Russian President Vladimir Putin its 2007 "Person of the
Year."
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, US researchers
said a highly sensitive microchip may help doctors detect rare
traces of cancer circulating in the bloodstream, offering a way to
better manage treatment.
(Reuters, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, Lance Cpl. Maria
Frances Lauterbach (20) disappeared, just days after meeting with
military prosecutors to talk about her allegation that Marine Cpl.
Cesar Armando Laurean (21) raped her. Her cell phone was found Dec.
20 near the main gate at Camp Lejeune, NC. On Jan 11 her burned
remains were found in the backyard of Laurean’s home as a nationwide
search for Laurean continued. In 2010 a jury found Laurean guilty of
first degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison.
(AP, 1/12/08)(SFC, 1/12/08, p.A4)(SFC, 8/24/10,
p.A4)
2007 Dec 19, Leaders of
Belgium's feuding Dutch- and French-speaking parties agreed to form
an interim government to run the country in the short term, while a
more permanent solution to the political crisis is sought.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, In Chile a retired
general and two former sergeants were fined and sentenced to 10
years in prison for killing a leftist couple shortly after Chile's
1973 military coup. The Santiago Court of Appeals said in a
communique that Gen. Fernando Polanco and Sgts. Luis Fernandez and
Hector Vallejos, all retired, were ordered to pay $600,000 to the
son of the slain couple, Ernesto Lejderman.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, In Tianjin, China,
Li Baojin was convicted of taking bribes worth $760,000 from 7
businesses between 1996 and 2006. Li was also convicted of
misappropriating $1.9 million from the Tianjin prosecutor's office.
Li's sentence was suspended for two years. That means his death
sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment if he shows good
behavior for the next two years.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 19, Donors pledged
millions of dollars at a conference in Spain to help Guinea Bissau,
which a top UN official called "under siege" by drug cartels who
might even sway the country's future polls.
(AFP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, In southern
Pakistan an express train crowded with holiday travelers derailed,
killing 40 people and leaving hundreds of terrified survivors to
claw their way out of the wreckage in total darkness. A trailer
truck hit a rickshaw crowded with children going to school in
eastern Pakistan, leaving 14 people dead.
(AP, 12/19/07)(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 19, A Hamas official
confirmed that Gaza's embattled Hamas leaders are seeking a
cease-fire after months of Israeli attacks and sanctions, going so
far as to make an unprecedented appeal through the Israeli media.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, In South Korea
former Hyundai CEO Lee Myung-bak (66) claimed victory in
presidential election as voters overlooked fraud allegations to give
him a landslide win on hopes he will revive the economy. This was
also Myung-bak’s birthday and 37th wedding anniversary.
(AP, 12/19/07)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.49)
2007 Dec 19, The Sri Lanka
military said soldiers killed four separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in
two separate clashes.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 19, Uganda's military
said it had shot dead two Congolese soldiers on the volatile border
between the two countries, after they tried to resist being arrested
on suspicion of raping two teenage girls.
(Reuters, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 20, US regulators
cleared a plan by Google to acquire online advertising giant
DoubleClick, which had sparked concerns about privacy risks and
still faces a challenge in the European Union.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, Bear Stearns
reported the first quarterly loss in its 84-year history as it wrote
down $1.9 billion in mortgage assets.
(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 20, NetSuite Inc., a
software maker majority-owned by Larry Ellison, rose 37% in its
first day of trading after raising $161.2 million in an IPO a day
earlier at $26 per share.
(SFC, 12/21/07, p.D1)
2007 Dec 20, The New Orleans
City Council voted to demolish 4,500 public housing units as police
used chemical spray and stun guns to on dozens of protesters who
tried to force themselves into the council chamber.
(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A6)
2007 Dec 20, MBIA Inc, the
world's largest bond insurer, said it had guaranteed $8.1 billion of
the riskiest mortgage securities, imperiling its entire net worth
and sending its shares plunging 26 percent.
(Reuters, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, Jeanne Carmen
(b.1930), the "little country girl" who became a 1950s pinup and
actress and hobnobbed with Frank Sinatra and other stars, died at
her home in Orange County, Ca.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 20, Lydia Mendoza
(91), a pioneer of Mexican American music, died in San Antonio,
Texas.
(SFC, 12/31/07, p.B7)
2007 Dec 20, In Sao Paulo,
Brazil, thieves homed in on two paintings, the Portrait of Suzanne
Bloch" by Pablo Picasso and “O Lavrador de Cafe" by Candido
Portinari (1903-1962), in the first successful heist in the 60-year
history of Brazil's premier modern art museum. In Jan, 2007, police
recovered the paintings and had 2 suspects under arrest.
(AP, 12/21/07)(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A2)(AP, 1/9/08)
2007 Dec 20, In China a female
tiger was found with its head, legs and skin missing at the Three
Gorges Forest Wild Animal World in Yichang city in Hubei province.
The WWF conservation group lists the Siberian tiger as "critically
endangered" and says there are only about 530 of the animals alive
in the wild.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 20, Conservationists
said illegal trappers on Cyprus killed more than half a million
protected birds this fall for sale at local restaurants.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech
Republic halted land and sea border controls at midnight in a wave
of new members of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone. They all
joined the EU on May 1, 2004.
(AFP, 12/20/07)(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 20, Iran’s state
television reported that security forces killed four leaders of a
Sunni Muslim rebel group that Tehran has previously linked to
al-Qaeda and blamed for several attacks in the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, A suicide bomber
blew himself up outside a city council meeting in Kanaan northeast
of Baghdad, killing 6 people, including a US soldier, during a 4-day
Islamic holiday. In Baghdad a car bomb exploded outside a liquor
store, killing 4 civilians and wounding 36. At least 17 suspected
al-Qaeda gunmen were killed in clashes overnight with Iraqi and US
troops west of Baquba. An Iraqi soldier was killed in a road bomb
attack in Baquba. One al-Qaeda militant was killed by security
forces in the town of Abbarah, north of Baquba.
(AFP, 12/20/07)(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A19)
2007 Dec 20, Israeli troops
killed at least 6 Gaza militants, a day after rejecting an
unofficial truce offer from the besieged Hamas rulers of the coastal
territory.
(AP, 12/20/07)(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A18)(WSJ,
12/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 20, Latvian lawmakers
approved a new center-right government that will face an uphill
battle to restore popular trust and prevent the country's red-hot
economy from abruptly reversing course. Ivars Godmanis (56) became
prime minister. He led a four-party coalition which is facing a
sharply slowing economy and record high inflation.
(AP, 12/20/07)(Reuters, 6/18/08)
2007 Dec 20, Hundreds of
workers marched on Macau’s government in a rare protest demanding
full democracy in this booming Chinese casino enclave.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, Radio Rwanda
reported that the Belgian government has this month given Rwanda
39.5 million euros (56.6 million dollars), mainly to help its small
former colony with power supplies, health and education.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, South Africa's top
prosecutor said he had enough evidence to bring corruption charges
against Jacob Zuma, the man standing in line to be the country's
next president.
(AP, 12/20/07)
2007 Dec 20, Spain banned
parents from using corporal punishment on children.
(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 20, Thailand's
military-installed parliament approved a controversial internal
security law. Critics warned it will allow the military to maintain
a grip on power even after this weekend's general election.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, The US Federal
Reserve, working to combat the effects of a severe credit crunch,
announced it had auctioned another $20 billion in funds to
commercial banks at an interest rate of 4.67%. It pledged to
continue with the auctions "for as long as necessary."
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Ken Hendricks
(b.1941), creator of ABC Supply (1982), one of the largest US
roofing supply companies (1982), died. He used his wealth in part to
rebuild his home town of Beloit, Wisconsin.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A7)
2007 Dec 21, Two Afghans were
killed in Kandahar province when a bomb exploded that was planted in
a decapitated Afghan.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 21, Bahraini security
forces stormed the houses of the country's most outspoken Shiite
opposition group at dawn, arresting at least seven of its members.
Shiites account for about 70 percent of Bahrain's 450,000 citizens,
but the ruling family is Sunni.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Belgian police
arrested 14 Muslim extremists suspected of planning the jailbreak of
an al-Qaida prisoner convicted of plotting a terrorist attack on US
air base personnel. They were released the next day after a court
decided there was insufficient evidence to hold them for more than
24 hours.
(AP, 12/21/07)(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 21, Brazil announced
it will create a landholder registry and send 700 more federal
police to the Amazon River basin in a new effort to monitor and
prevent deforestation in the environmentally sensitive region.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Former British PM
Tony Blair left the Church of England and converted to Catholicism,
the faith of his wife and children.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 21, The British pound
hit an historic low against the euro owing to heightened
expectations of cuts to British interest rates in 2008.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Ian Thow, a former
mutual fund salesman in British Columbia, was fined C$6 million
($6.1 million) and banned from working in the West Coast province's
capital markets for life. In October a commission panel found that
Thow defrauded hundreds of clients between January 2003 and May
2005, convincing some to sell their mutual funds and mortgage their
homes to raise money to invest in non-existing construction loans
and Jamaican bank.
(Reuters, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Caribbean leaders
gathered in Cuba for a regional oil summit. Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez presided at a regional petroleum summit, pressing his
efforts to counter US influence in Latin America and the Caribbean
by suggesting more of his neighbors could pay for cheap oil with
goods or services in lieu of cash.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, A Chinese radio
station reported that about 1,000 riot police fired tear gas at
protesters in southern China who were blocking an electricity pylon
near a power station in Dongzhou village they felt was built on
unfairly seized land.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, China's first
fully homegrown commercial aircraft, the 70-seat ARJ21, rolled off
the production line, marking a potential milestone for the country's
aviation program. Its first test flight was set for 2008.
(AP,
12/21/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAC_ARJ21)
2007 Dec 21, Chinese
archeologists raised a merchant ship loaded with porcelain and other
rare antiques to the surface in a specially built basket. The
100-foot Nanhai No. 1, discovered in 1987, sank off the south China
coast some 800 years ago during the Southern Song Dynasty
(1127-1279).
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Costa Rican agents
made the largest marijuana bust in the Central American nation's
history, seizing 4.85 tons of the drug found in an abandoned boat.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 21, At least eight
Egyptians were killed and 24 others injured when a bus collided
head-on with another vehicle on an intercity road south of Cairo.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, In Guatemala
congressman-elect Marco Antonio Xicay (42) of the conservative
Patriotic Party was shot to death by unidentified attackers outside
the popular Fuentes Georginas resort.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 21, India announced a
final successful test of the surface-to-air Akash missile before
starting mass production under a plan to build a national missile
defense shield.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, New Australian PM
Kevin Rudd met with al-Maliki during a surprise visit to Baghdad.
Rudd said that after the troops withdraw in June, Australia will
continue to help train the Iraqi police force and army. A gunmen
attacked a family in Diyala province near Balad Ruz, killing two men
and kidnapping a third. Just east of Baqouba, the capital of Diyala,
two men standing in front of their house were killed by unknown
armed men. A double roadside bomb attack killed one US soldier and
wounded 11 in northern Kirkuk province.
(AP, 12/21/07)(Reuters, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 21, Israeli
Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that PM Ehud
Olmert may consider talks with Hamas on a long-term cease-fire. A
Hamas militant was killed in a clash with Israeli troops near the
Israel-Gaza border.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, Japan's regulators
announced the country's biggest financial market reforms in a decade
amid hot competition in Asia to be the region's financial hub. Chief
Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Japan is dropping its plan
to kill humpback whales in the seas off Antarctica. The fleet will,
however, kill some 935 minke whales, a smaller, more plentiful
species, and 50 fin whales.
(AP, 12/21/07)(AP, 12/22/07)(AFP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 21, In Pakistan a
suicide attacker detonated a bomb packed with ball bearings and
nails amid hundreds of worshippers at the residential compound of a
former top security official for President Pervez Musharraf, killing
56 people in Sherpao, a village 25 miles northeast of the city of
Peshawar.
(AP, 12/21/07)(AFP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 21, In Saudi Arabia
the annual 5-day hajj come to a close as some 3 million pilgrims
participated.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, In Freetown,
Sierra Leone, a two-story building of apartments and shops caught
fire and exploded, killing 14 people and injuring 40.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 21, In Tajikistan a
late night avalanche of snow hit a section of one of the main roads,
killing 3 people. Earlier reports had put the toll at 15.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 21, The Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
Congo for a year and demanded that all militias and armed groups in
the volatile east lay down their weapons and start disarming.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 22, In SF Leonard Milo
Hoskins (49), a computer software developer, was last seen alive in
the city’s Mission Terrace neighborhood. His body was found Feb 1 in
a van owned by housemates Richard Carelli (38) and Michelle
Pinkerton (38), who left town after their van was towed from the
area during a police investigation. Murder warrants were later
issued for the couple. On April 7 Carelli and Pinkerton were
arrested in El Rosario on the Baha peninsula after they were tracked
down by James Spring (39) of San Diego. In 2011 Carelli pleaded
guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was expected to serve 6 years
in prison.
(SFC, 2/14/08, p.A1)(SFC, 2/15/08, p.B6)(SFC,
4/9/08, p.A1)(SFC, 2/25/11, p.C5)
2007 Dec 22, Making the
first-ever trip to Afghanistan by a French president, Nicolas
Sarkozy met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss the
political and military situation in the war-torn country.
2007 Dec 22, In Bahrain
Security forces conducted sweeps through Shiite villages, arresting
several protesters involved in a week of demonstrations against the
Sunni-led government.
(AP, 12/23/07)
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, In Egypt a
policeman was killed overnight in a shootout with Bedouin tribesmen
smuggling African immigrants into Israel. A minibus fell off a ferry
and sank in the Nile River in southern Egypt, killing 16 people
including six children.
(AFP, 12/22/07)(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, Ethiopia claimed
it was receiving an influx of around 600 Eritreans fleeing political
oppression in their country every month.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, French author
Julien Gracq (97), one of the last links with the pre-World War II
Surrealist movement, died.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 22, Ghana's Pres. John
Kufuor said that offshore oil reserves discovered in the West
African country's waters total 3 billion barrels.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, Police in India
arrested two men near Lucknow suspected of being Islamic militants
involved in a series of explosions that ripped through courthouse
complexes in three north Indian cities last month, killing at least
16 lawyers.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, Iraqi Defense
Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi, who is himself a Sunni, said Sunni
militias, known as Awakening Councils, will not be allowed to become
a separate military force. A suicide car bomb exploded at a
checkpoint manned by Iraqi army and police in the western Baghdad
neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, killing 4 people and wounding another
six. On the southern outskirts of the capital, a roadside bomb
wounded five bystanders near a hospital in the town of Madin. In
Mosul a roadside bomb targeting a passing police patrol killed one
policeman and wounded two others.
(AP, 12/22/07)(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 22, Hundreds of
government soldiers withdrew from a vast buffer zone dividing Ivory
Coast, the first stage of a long-delayed nationwide disarmament
program.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 22, In northwestern
Pakistan clashes started, four days after the Shiite Turi and
Sunnite Mengal tribes signed a ceasefire agreement following weeks
of fighting which left more than 100 people dead. The rival tribes
were using heavy weapons and by Dec 30 the death toll had reached
63.
(AFP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 22, Spain's "El
Gordo," the world's biggest lottery, gave out 2.2 billion euros
($3.2 billion) in Christmas prizes.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, In northern Sri
Lanka government forces captured a key defense line of Tamil Tiger
guerrillas in fighting that killed six rebels and one soldier.
(AFP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, Turkish warplanes
bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq in the third confirmed
cross-border offensive by Turkish forces in less than a week.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 23, High wind and ice
coated power lines blacked out tens of thousands of people in the
Midwest. The storm was blamed for at least 22 deaths. At least 8
people in Minnesota, 5 in Wisconsin, 3 each in Indiana and Wyoming
and one each in Michigan, Texas and Kansas were killed in traffic
accidents.
(AP, 12/23/07)(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A1)(SFC,
12/25/07, p.A11)
2007 Dec 23, In Afghanistan
echoing pledges by the leaders of France and Australia, Italian PM
Romano Prodi emphasized his county's long-term commitment in a
meeting with President Hamid Karzai. Afghan intelligence agents
detained a 50-year-old foreign woman carrying a suicide vest in
eastern Afghanistan. A roadside explosion killed one policeman and
wounded three others in Kunar province. Police clashed with Taliban
militants in the Gelan district of central Ghazni province, killing
a local insurgent leader and two of his bodyguards. Another
booby-trapped body was discovered in Kandahar province.
(AP, 12/23/07)(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 23, Aloisio
Lorscheider (b.1924), one of Latin America's most influential
cardinals, died in Sao Paulo, Brazil, after a lengthy
hospitalization.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, Oscar Peterson
(b.1925), jazz pianist, died at his home in Mississauga, Canada. His
flying fingers, hard-driving swing and melodic improvisations made
him one of the world's most famous and influential jazz pianists in
a career that spanned seven decades.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 23, India's main Hindu
nationalist party swept to an impressive election victory in the
western state of Gujarat after a bitter campaign fought in the
shadow of deadly 2002 anti-Muslim riots that still scar the state.
Chief minister Narendra Modi led the BJP to carry 117 of 182 seats.
Modi represented the most anti-Muslim wing of the BJP.
(AP, 12/23/07)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.36)(Econ, 8/2/08,
p.44)
2007 Dec 23, A roadside bomb
targeting an Iraqi army patrol in Baghdad killed two civilians, as
attacks claimed the lives of at least five people.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, A Cabinet minister
said Israel has plans to build an additional 740 apartments in
disputed east Jerusalem and the West Bank in 2008, enraging
Palestinians who say such construction undermines nascent peace
talks.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, Media reported
that Malawi has asked Libya to close its mission in Lilongwe. The
Mutharika administration had suspicions that Libya funds Muluzi's
United Democratic Front, which is seeking to unseat Mutharika in
elections in 2009.
(AFP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, Nepal's major
political parties agreed to abolish the world's last Hindu monarchy
as part of a deal to bring former communist rebels back into the
government.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 23, A suicide bomber
killed four Pakistani soldiers and five civilians in an attack on a
military convoy in the northwest Swat Valley.
(Reuters, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, Saudi Arabia’s
Interior Ministry said police have arrested 28 men for allegedly
planning to attack holy sites around Mecca and Medina during the
recently finished Muslim hajj.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, In Somalia a first
contingent of 100 Burundian peacekeepers deployed in the capital,
joining 1,800 Ugandan troops in an African Union force, AMISOM, that
is still well short of the personnel strength needed to help restore
order. Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault
rifles attacked an Ethiopian army base in northern Mogadishu,
triggering a deadly nighttime clash that sent stray mortar rounds
crashing into homes. At least five Somalis were killed and eight
wounded in the crossfire.
(AP, 12/23/07)(AFP, 10/22/11)
2007 Dec 23, In Thailand allies
of deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra appeared to emerge as victors in
the post-coup election but failed to secure an absolute majority in
parliament. Thaksinites won 233 seats, 8 short of a majority in the
480-seat lower house.
(AP, 12/23/07)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.33)
2007 Dec 23, Turkish fighter
jets bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 23, Uzbeks cast
ballots in a tightly controlled presidential vote. Authoritarian
President Islam Karimov won a new term in office with 88.1 percent
of the votes in an election dismissed by critics as a sham.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, The New York Times
reported that more than five billion dollars in US aid to Pakistan
has often never reached the military units it was intended for to
fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was instead diverted to other
programs.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, Merrill Lynch
agreed to sell $5 billion of new stock to Temasek Holdings,
Singapore’s sovereign investment company and a smaller stake to a
domestic firm. Merrill said it will write down an additional $8
billion of mortgage investments in the 4th quarter.
(SFC, 12/25/07, p.E1)
2007 Dec 24, George Warrington
(b.1952), former head of New Jersey Transit (2002-2007) and former
president of Amtrak, died.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A7)
2007 Dec 24, In Montreal,
Canada, Gurpeet Gaur (29) the wife of Harinder Singh Cheema, was
beaten and strangled to death. On July 2, 2015, Cheema was arrested
in Fremont, Ca., following a fingerprint match on a US immigration
application.
(SFC, 7/10/15, p.D3)
2007 Dec 24, The international
charity Save the Children said boys and girls are being recruited in
record numbers to act as soldiers, spies and sex slaves in Congo and
children have been spotted marching in formation in the war-wracked
east of the country over the past week.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, A 12-story
building collapsed in Egypt's Mediterranean port city of Alexandria,
killing at least 35 people. Shoddy materials, illegal construction
and a culture of corruption were blamed for the deaths.
(AFP, 12/25/07)(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 24, The head of a
special unit said on German radio prosecutors are investigating
12,000 suspects in a child pornography network, the largest ever
found in Germany.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, A bomb hidden
inside a minivan exploded near the Baghdad governor's office,
killing two people and wounding six others. A train struck a minivan
at an intersection near the town of Hillah, about 60 miles south of
Baghdad, killing a couple and 11 children. 13 Shiite civilians were
abducted north of Baqouba.
(AP, 12/24/07)(SFC, 12/25/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 24, In Indian Kashmir
5 worshippers were being held hostage inside a mosque for a second
day by Muslim rebels as security forces sought to end siege
peacefully. Indian forces killed three suspected Islamic militants
ending the two-day hostage standoff and sparking angry protests that
injured dozens of people.
(AFP, 12/24/07)(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 24, In Kyrgyzstan Igor
Chudinov, a former energy and industry minister was, named prime
minister.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, Malaysia's
government unveiled a major initiative to protect Hindu temples,
hoping to pacify ethnic Indians who complain that hundreds of their
places of worship have been demolished in this Muslim-majority
country.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, Gunmen shot dead
four French tourists in Mauritania in West Africa. Sidi Ould Sidna,
was charged with planning and executing the killings of the French
tourists. He was extradited by Guinea-Bissau in January but later
escaped from authorities. 2 other suspected terrorists were arrested
on April 30. In May, 2010, a court sentenced 3 young men to death
for the murder of the French tourists. The men pleaded not guilty
and said their confessions were extracted under torture.
(AP, 12/24/07)(AP, 4/30/08)(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A2)
2007 Dec 24, A Nigerian court
ordered the arrests of three of the defendants in a trial over a
drug test conducted by Pfizer in 1996 which Nigerian authorities say
killed 11 children and left others disabled.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, In southwestern
Somalia gunmen threw grenades at the home of the regional police
chief, killing two of his grandchildren and a bodyguard but not
their target. Burundi deployed a 2nd contingent of 92 peacekeepers
to Mogadishu, to bolster an African Union force.
(AP, 12/24/07)(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 24, Southern army
officials said militias supported by Khartoum's army have attacked
southern Sudanese soldiers near the north-south border killing
dozens of people.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, Authorities closed
the mausoleum of Taiwan's late dictator Chiang Kai-shek as part of
the ruling party's vigorous campaign to diminish the legacy of the
late leader.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 24, The Thai political
party allied with deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra said that it has
recruited enough other parties to form a coalition government
following its win in the country's first election since a 2006 coup.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 25, In southern
California a pack of pit bulls surrounded Kelly Caldwell (45) and
mauled her to death. Barstow police shot and killed 2 of the dogs.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 25, A Siberian tiger
named Tatiana (4) escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo,
killing Carlos Sousa (17) of San Jose and mauling two others. The
same animal had chewed a keeper’s arm during an attack last
December. Police later reported that one of the three victims of the
tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at
the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure.
(AP, 12/26/07)(SFC, 12/26/07, p.A1)(SFC,
12/27/07, p.A1)(AP, 1/18/08)
2007 Dec 25, In King County,
Washington, six people, 3 generations of one family, were killed.
Carnation police the next day arrested Michele Kristen Anderson (29)
and Joseph McEnroe (29), the property owners' daughter and her
boyfriend.
(AP, 12/27/07)(SFC, 12/28/07, p.A5)
2007 Dec 25, Afghan officials
said 2 European diplomats who went to one of Afghanistan's most
volatile regions have been asked to leave Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, Actress Pat
Kirkwood (b.1921), once a star of British musical theater, died.
(AP, 12/26/07)(SFC, 12/29/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 25, Some 600
protesters marched in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to call
for speedier trials for the former leaders of Khmer Rouge regime.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, In Colombia an
elite anti-kidnapping force in Neiva rescued a 9-year old boy, who
was snatched seven months ago by leftist rebels. Captors had
demanded a $50,000 ransom for his safe return, an amount his family
was unable to pay.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 25, In Egypt dozens of
Palestinian security men affiliated to Fatah staged a mass break-out
from the camp where they have been held in Rafah. Egyptian police
were able to recapture 40 of them, transferring them to police
stations in the coastal town of Arish.
(Reuters, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, In eastern India
Hindu extremists attacked Christians celebrating Christmas,
ransacking and burning at least six village churches. One person was
killed in the violence.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 25, In Iraq a suicide
truck bomb exploded outside a residential complex belonging to a
state-run oil company in Beiji, home to Iraq's largest refinery,
killing 25 people and wounding 80. In Baqouba 10 people were killed
and five people were wounded in a suicide bombing targeting a
funeral procession for two members of an Awakening Council group.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, Mobs in Kenya's
opposition heartland beat up and killed at least 3 policemen accused
of taking part in a plan to rig Dec 26 elections in favor of
President Mwai Kibaki.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 25, In western Nepal a
steel footbridge collapsed when its suspension cables snapped,
sending scores of people into the river below. At least 15 people
were confirmed dead and over 50 were missing and dozens injured.
(AP, 12/25/07)(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 25, In Panama the
bodies of Michael Klein (37), a California hedge fund manager, his
daughter Talia Klein (13) and pilot Edwin Lasso (23) were found in
an uninhabited region known as Las Ovejas on the slope of the Baru
volcano. Francesca Lewis (12) survived the Dec 23 crash, but cold,
wet weather prevented authorities from evacuating her immediately.
(AP, 12/26/07)(SFC, 12/26/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 25, Russia's military
successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile
capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, a weapon intended to
replace aging Soviet-era missiles.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, Oleg Ugnivenko, a
spokesman for the regional branch of Russia's Emergency Situations
Ministry, said more than 600,000 chickens on the Gulyai-Borisovskaya
farm in the Rostov-on-Don region have been destroyed to prevent the
virus from spreading.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, A South Korean
ship carrying 2,000 tons of nitric acid sank on its way to Taiwan
and 14 sailors were feared drowned. One sailor was rescued.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, Deposed PM Thaksin
Shinawatra said he was planning to return home from exile and might
advise the victorious party in last weekend's elections, sparking
fears of another year of intense political conflict in Thailand.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 26, Pres. Bush signed
a $555 billion domestic spending bill and took a swipe at Congress
for including pet projects totaling nearly $10 billion.
(SFC, 12/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 26, The US Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission said that employers could reduce
of eliminate health benefits for retirees when they turn 65 and
become eligible for Medicare.
(SFC, 12/27/07, p.A4)
2007 Dec 26, It was reported
that Warren Buffet had agreed to pay $4.5 billion to buy a majority
of Marmon Holdings, an industrial conglomerate, from the Chicago’s
Pritzker family. Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway planned to buy the rest
of the company by 2014.
(WSJ, 12/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 26, Online auction
giant eBay said it has launched a microlending website,
www.microplace.com, that lets people invest in entrepreneurs
in poor communities around the world and get a return on their
money.
(AFP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 26, A roadside bomb
targeting a police patrol exploded east of Algeria's capital,
killing two officers and injuring two others. The attack came as
authorities rounded up 11 suspected members of two suspected support
networks for armed Islamic militant groups in recent days.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 26, Britain’s Daily
Telegraph newspaper reported that British intelligence agents held
secret talks with Taliban leaders on several occasions this year.
Earlier this month, British PM Gordon Brown ruled out direct talks
with Taliban insurgents, telling the House of Commons: "I make it
clear that we will not enter into any negotiations with these
people."
(AFP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, A Chadian court
convicted six French aid workers of trying to kidnap 103 African
children and sentenced them to eight years of forced labor. The
French Foreign Ministry in Paris said it would ask Chadian
authorities to transfer the six convicted to France. The countries
have a bilateral judicial agreement that could allow for such a
transfer.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Georgia's top
television station suspended its broadcasts, saying it was
protesting the pressure authorities have exerted because of the
station's links to a billionaire presidential contender challenging
the government.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, In western
Indonesia rescuers dug for survivors after landslides and floods
triggered by days of torrential rain killed over 87 people.
(AP, 12/26/07)(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran's defense
minister said that Iran had agreed to buy an S-300 surface-to-air
missile system from Russia.
(Reuters, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran and Malaysia
signed a $16 billion agreement to develop two Iranian gas fields, in
a deal described as the largest energy contract in Iran.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, In Iraq a bomb
explosion in the northern province of Ninevah killed three children
and wounded another two. An Iraqi soldier allegedly shot dead two
American troops while they were patrolling together north of the
capital. Three other US soldiers and a civilian interpreter were
wounded in the attack. An initial investigation indicated that the
Iraqi soldier was linked to local militant groups.
(AP, 12/26/07)(AP, 1/5/08)
2007 Dec 26, Joe Dolan (68),
one of Ireland's first pop music stars, died from a brain
hemorrhage. He had entertained audiences for decades with
Vegas-style showmanship. His last Irish No. 1 came in 1997, when he
re-recorded "Good-Looking Woman" with a popular fictional TV
comedian, a puppet named Dustin the Turkey.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 26, Israeli Defense
Minister Ehud Barak visited Egypt to discuss Israeli allegations
that Egypt was doing too little to prevent arms smuggling to the
Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Egypt rejected Israeli
complaints about weapons smuggling into Gaza.
(Reuters, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, A ruptured
gasoline pipeline exploded in flames, killing at least 34 people
near Nigeria's main city of Lagos as they tried to scoop fuel from
the gushing leak.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Pakistan's Pres.
Pervez Musharraf and Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai vowed to boost
intelligence cooperation to meet the menace of terrorism that was
destroying both countries.
(Reuters, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, An unmanned
Russian cargo ship carrying 2 tons of supplies including holiday
gifts, docked at the international space station.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Serbia's
parliament overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that threatens to
halt the country's integration into the European Union and cut off
diplomatic ties with Western countries if they recognize Kosovo's
independence.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 26, South Korea's
cabinet approved a bill setting up a fraud inquiry into
president-elect Lee Myung-Bak, one week after the conservative
opposition candidate won a landslide election victory.
(AFP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, In northern Sri
Lanka a wave of infantry attacks killed at least 66 rebels and 14
government troops.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 26, Turkish warplanes
hit eight suspected Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq, the
third cross-border air assault in 10 days.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 27, Bayron Jimenez
Castaneda (44), suspected Colombian cocaine trafficker, was arrested
in Orlando, Florida, for the kidnapping of an undercover US agent.
Three other suspects in the kidnapping of a US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agent on Dec. 14, 2005 remain at large.
Traffickers initially demanded a $2 million ransom, but released him
after half a day when they realized he was a US government agent.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Richmond, Ca.,
2 gunmen shot and killed Ravinder (30) and Paramjit (42) Kalsi as
they closed their restaurant. In 2009 police named Rajesh Kumar of
Fiji, as a suspect in the case. Kumar was wanted for allegedly
defrauding a woman connected to the restaurant.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.B2)
2007 Dec 27, Steven Florio
(b.1949), former CEO of Conde Nast, died in NYC.
(SFC, 12/29/07, p.B5)
2007 Dec 27, The Afghan
government expelled UN advisor Mervyn Patterson and EU official
Michael Semple, on accusations they held unauthorized meetings with
Taliban militants. A spokesman for the UN mission said the diplomats
had traveled to Musa Qala, a former Taliban stronghold in southern
Helmand province on Dec 24, where they met with local leaders.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Bahrain more
than a dozen people detained during recent Shiite protests were
charged with attempted murder, illegal assembly and rioting.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Chechnya
unidentified gunmen shot and killed a police officer in Grozny.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, Shawn Wang, the
chief financial officer of leading Chinese search engine Baidu.com,
died in an accident while on holiday.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 27, In eastern India
Hindu extremists burned down the house of a prominent Christian
politician, as violence by gangs from both sides continued despite a
curfew imposed after two days of attacks against Christians by Hindu
hard-liners. In Orissa state at least three people were killed when
they opened fire on a group of hard-line Hindus who set fire to a
police station during ongoing clashes between Hindus and Christians.
(AP, 12/27/07)(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Ingushetia
several militants ambushed a border guards' vehicle, killing two
officers and wounding two other servicemen.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Iraq a bomb
left inside a bus in eastern Baghdad exploded and killed two
passengers and wounded 12 others. US troops allegedly killed 11
members of a Mahdi Army splinter group in Kut. A local official said
4 people were killed and that they were innocent. Kut police said 6
suspected militiamen were killed. The military announced that it had
detained two more suspects in the capture of 3 US soldiers on May
12. The US military said in a statement that troops killed 12
suspected al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists and detained 37 others during
a Dec 22-25 operation near Muqdadiyah.
(AP, 12/27/07)(AP, 12/28/07)(SFC, 12/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 27, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held their first
summit since they agreed last month to renew peace talks, seeking to
resolve a dispute over planned Israeli construction in east
Jerusalem.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, Kenya held
elections. President Mwai Kibaki tried to fend off fiery opposition
leader Raila Odinga. In Nairobi monitors from the EU saw tens of
thousands of votes pinched for Kibaki. In 2009 Philip Alston, a UN
investigator, published a report documenting around 500 death-squad
executions in the months leading up the elections.
(AP, 12/27/07)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.37)(Econ, 3/14/09,
p.49)
2007 Dec 27, Nigeria reported
that Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), was being forced to resign in order to attend a
one year course at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic
Studies at Jos.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.38)
2007 Dec 27, Pakistan’s
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide
attack in Rawalpindi that also killed at least 20 others at the end
of a campaign rally. Doctors reported that Bhutto died from a bullet
wound. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif announced his party was
boycotting next month's elections following the assassination. He
demanded that President Pervez Musharraf resign immediately. Within
hours Sindhis began to rampage. After the 1st frenzy over 50 people
were killed and damages were later estimated at $200 million. In
February, 2008, her book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the
West," was published. In it she alleged that Qari Saifullah Akhtar
was involved in an October bombing in Karachi that killed some 150
people.
(AP, 12/27/07)(SFC, 12/31/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/5/08,
p.22)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.93)(AP, 8/6/08)
2007 Dec 27, In northern Sri
Lanka Air force jets destroyed a Tamil naval base.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, South Sudanese
former rebels rejoined the national government, two months after
walking out because of disputes over the implementation of a peace
deal that ended two decades of war.
(AFP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In Thailand
officials said deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra would be arrested if he
returns home from a self-imposed exile as planned, even if his
victorious allies form a government following last weekend's general
election.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, In southern
Zimbabwe floodwaters swept a truck down a raging river, killing 7
people. Their deaths bring the number of drownings in Zimbabwe to 21
in the past month.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, Azerbaijan's
president issued a decree granting amnesty to 119 prison inmates,
including several journalists whose convictions drew protests from
international rights groups.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, In Chad 6 French
aid workers sentenced to eight years' forced labor for trying to
kidnap 103 children left for France, boarding a plane in handcuffs
as security officers looked on.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, China and Japan
made no major breakthroughs in resolving a row over natural
resources in the East China Sea, but a visit by Japanese PM Yasuo
Fukuda signaled a new warmth in bilateral relations.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, Sun Daolin
(b.1921), Chinese actor and director, died in Shanghai. He appeared
in over 100 movies and plays during a career that was interrupted by
the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to work in the countryside
for 6 years.
(SFC, 1/5/08, p.B3)
2007 Dec 28, Iran received the
second shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia for a power plant being
constructed in the southern Iranian town of Bushehr.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, A car bomb
detonated in a busy Baghdad market killing at least 14 people and
ending what had been a relatively quiet holiday period in the Iraqi
capital. The US military said it had killed four gunmen tied to
al-Qaida in Iraq in an operation near Muqdadiyah in Diyala. Another
was killed in a predominantly Sunni area south of Baghdad. 2 senior
insurgents linked to al-Qaida were arrested. Ahmed Turky Abbas, the
"defense minister" of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front
group, was arrested in a village near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles
south of Baghdad. In Latifiyah the Iraqi army arrested Hussein Ali
Turky, considered a local religious leader for al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 12/28/07)(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 28, Unknown assailants
fatally shot two Israeli settlers hiking in the West Bank. The
attack followed an Israeli operation overnight in which troops
killed a bodyguard for the Palestinians' chief negotiator.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, Nepal's parliament
voted in favor of abolishing the centuries-old monarchy and turning
this Himalayan nation into a republic.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, In Pakistan
hundreds of thousands of mourners, weeping and chanting for justice,
thronged the mausoleum of Pakistan's most famous political dynasty
in a raw outpouring of grief for Benazir Bhutto. The government
blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for the assassination of the
opposition leader, who was buried alongside her father. Furious
supporters rampaged through several cities in violence that left at
least 23 dead. The government said that Benazir Bhutto was not
killed by gunshots or shrapnel as originally claimed but by a skull
fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car during a
suicide attack. A transcript released by the Pakistani government of
a purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud,
who is referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a
Maulvi Sahib, or Mr. Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted
conversation proves al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir
Bhutto.
(AP, 12/28/07)(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 28, Serigne Saliou
Mbacke (92), Senegal's spiritual leader, died. Mbacke was the leader
of the Mourides, the most powerful Muslim brotherhood in Senegal,
and his image was ever-present in the homes of his millions of
followers.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 28, Jacob Zuma (65),
the newly elected leader of South Africa's ruling party, was ordered
to stand trial on corruption and other charges next year, raising
doubts about whether the party would back his candidacy for the 2009
presidential election.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 28, Tanzania's
ambassador to South Africa and his wife were attacked by armed
robbers at a farewell dinner hosted for them in the capital
Pretoria.
(AFP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 28, South Korea's
parliament voted to extend the country's troop deployment in Iraq
for another year, amid protests by activists opposed to the
decision. South Korea has 650 troops in Iraq.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, Taiwan's High
Court cleared opposition presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou of
graft charges, securing a place for the former Taipei mayor in the
March presidential race.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 28, In Zimbabwe junior
doctors and nurses at major state hospitals went on strike to press
for higher pay and improved working conditions.
(AFP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 29, Nonja (55), a
Sumatran orangutan, was found dead at the Miami Metro Zoo. She had
lived in Miami since 1983 and was believed to be the world’s oldest
orangutan.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 29, In Oakland, Ca.,
carjackers stole a state-issued Dodge Charger from state Senate
pres. Don Perata. Jared Adams (25) and his girlfriend, Maeve
Clifford, were arrested on Jan 10 in another stolen vehicle. Their
prints were found on Perata’s car, which had been found abandoned in
Richmond. Ryan McGough (28), a 3rd suspect in the carjacking, was
arrested in May, 2008. In addition to the carjacking Adams was later
charged with a shooting, 12 days after the carjacking, that left
Christopher Rodrizuez (10) paralyzed. In 2011 Adams was sentenced to
70 years in prison.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B3)(SFC, 8/13/08, p.B4)(SFC,
8/17/11, p.C4)
2007 Dec 29, Taliban militants
in Wardak province fired rocket-propelled grenades from their
vehicles at a convoy of private security guards on Afghanistan's
main highway, killing six guards and two police officers. Taliban
militants attacked a police checkpoint in the south and killed 16
officers.
(AP, 12/30/07)(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 29, In Australia David
Hicks, the only person convicted of terrorism charges at a US
military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, walked free and said he did not
want to do "anything that might result in my return" to the prison
in Cuba.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, China said Hong
Kong will be allowed to directly elect its leader in 2017 and all of
its lawmakers by 2020 at the earliest, an announcement that sparked
protests by pro-democracy activists who sought an earlier date.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, In northeast China
19 miners died in a coal mine blast at the Shunfa Coal Mine in
Heilongjiang province, the latest casualties in the world's most
dangerous mines.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 29, A series of
explosions ripped through an army base in the Colombian city of
Medellin, killing at least two people and forcing nearby residents
to flee. The first of at least six large blasts was apparently
triggered by a grenade that detonated inside a weapons arsenal.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, Iraq's interior
ministry spokesman said that 75% of al-Qaida in Iraq's terrorist
network had been destroyed this year. Muqtada al-Sadr called for
reconciliation between his followers and Iraqi security forces in
Karbala. Osama bin Laden warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against fighting
al-Qaida and vowed to expand the terror group's holy war to Israel
in a new audiotape, threatening "blood for blood, destruction for
destruction."
(AP, 12/29/07)(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 29, Shu Uemura (79),
Japanese makeup artist, died. He had won acclaim in Hollywood and
built an international cosmetics brand under his name.
(AP, 1/8/08)(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.A10)
2007 Dec 29, Kenya's
presidential rivals were neck-and-neck with nearly 90 percent of
official results counted as accusations of rigging ignited ethnic
violence across the east African nation.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, In Pakistan an
Islamic militant group said it had no link to Benazir Bhutto's
killing and the opposition leader's aides accused the government of
a cover-up, disputing the official account of her death. The
government said mass rioting has killed 38 people and caused tens of
millions of dollars in damage.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, Palestinian PM
Salam Fayyad said his security forces had arrested a number of
suspects in the killings of two off-duty Israeli soldiers in the
West Bank and had given Israeli authorities weapons taken from the
dead men by their attackers.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, The Scottish
government said a new case of bluetongue has been detected for the
first time in Scotland.
(AFP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 29, Sudan accused
Chadian aircraft of bombing its western Darfur region in what it
called "repeated aggressions" by its western neighbor. a Sudanese
foreign ministry statement said 3 Chadian war planes bombed two
areas in West Darfur on December 28.
(AFP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 29, Zimbabweans formed
queues at banks to beat a December 31 deadline to hand in a currency
series phased out by the central bank.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 30, In Uruzgan
province four Afghan soldiers were killed in a mine explosion. One
soldier was killed in Paktia province in another blast.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 30, Belgian officials
said traditional New Year's Eve fireworks in central Brussels have
been canceled due to a continuing terror threat in the capital.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, President Nicolas
Sarkozy said France will have no more contact with Syria until
Damascus shows its willingness to let Lebanon end its current crisis
and appoint a new president.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, Ivory Coast's New
Forces rebel group, now part of the unity government, accused
Ibrahim Coulibaly, one of its former leaders, of trying to stage a
coup.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 30, President Mwai
Kibaki was declared the winner of the closest presidential election
in Kenya's history, a contest marked by allegations of rigging and
two days of deadly violence. Kibaki beat Raila Odinga by 231,728
votes. Kivuitu, the electoral commission chairman, acknowledged
problems, including a constituency where voter turnout added up to
115 percent and another where a candidate ran away with ballot
papers.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, Former communist
rebels rejoined Nepal's government, ending a political crisis that
began when the ex-guerrillas walked out of a ruling coalition three
months ago.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, Bilawal Zardari
(19), Benazir Bhutto's son, was chosen to succeed her as chairman of
her opposition party, while her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, will
serve as co-chairman, extending Pakistan's most famous political
dynasty to another generation. Zardari, who became investment
minister in Bhutto's second government, was nicknamed "Mr. 10
Percent" for allegedly skimming off commissions on government
contracts. 3 days of unrest left more than 40 dead and tens of
millions of dollars in damage. In eastern Pakistan 2 suspected
suicide bombers died when they prematurely detonated their bomb near
the residence of a senior leader of the ruling party.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, In Somalia a
mother and her five children were killed by a mortar round fired
during fighting in Mogadishu between insurgents and Ethiopian
troops.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 30, Spain’s Catholic
bishops called some 150,000 people onto the streets of Madrid for a
rally dubbed “Christian Family Day," in opposition to Socialist PM
Zapatero.
(Econ, 1/12/08, p.46)
2007 Dec 30, Local media
reported dozens of people have been killed in fighting between Arab
tribesmen and ex-rebel south Sudanese forces along the line
separating north and south Sudan.
(AFP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, Bert Bolin (82), a
Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the Nobel Peace-winning
UN panel on climate change, died in Stockholm. His last book, "A
History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" was published in
November 2007.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Dec 30, Turkmenistan
turned off gas supplies to Iran, citing technical problems, after
Iran balked at a price increase to $140 per thousand cubic meters,
almost double the contracted rate. The move had a domino effect
causing Iran to halt gas shipments to Turkey, which in turn cut off
gas to Greece.
(WSJ, 2/4/08, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/3xmzam)
2007 Dec 30, Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko signed off on Ukraine's 2008 budget,
which he hailed as proof that the country's razor-tight
parliamentary majority was functioning effectively.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 31, President George
W. Bush signed into a law a measure aimed at allowing states, local
governments, mutual funds and pension funds to divest from Sudan
businesses, particularly its oil sectors.
(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 30, In Ohio a drunken
driver went about four miles down a highway in the wrong direction
before his pickup truck slammed into a minivan, killing a woman and
four children and injuring three others. All 8 had been visiting
family in Michigan and were returning to Maryland.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In San Francisco
Albert Collins (30) shielded his daughter (9) from gunfire in the
Sunnydale public housing project and was killed becoming the city’s
98th homicide victim.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.B1)
2007 Dec 31, Oakland, Ca.,
police officers shot and killed Andrew Moppin-Buckskin (20) at 47th
and Int’l. Blvd. after he ran from his car following a traffic stop.
In 2010 a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by the family of
Moppin-Buckskin.
(SSFC, 1/17/10, p.C2)
2007 Dec 31, The International
Federation of Journalists said at least 134 media workers were
killed on assignment this year, most of them in Iraq, which has
become the most dangerous place for journalists since the start of
the US-led war there.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In California
murders for 2007 in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood of Los
Angeles held at 19 as of Dec 24. Murders there had dropped from 43
in 2005 to 19 in 2006. In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing"
their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of Florencia 13,
or F13, one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs
sometimes killed people just because of their race.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a NATO soldier and wounded four
others. In Helmand province, a roadside bomb exploded against a
police vehicle driving through Musa Qala, killing two officers.
Taliban militants killed more than 925 Afghan police this year, and
large swaths of the country remained outside government control.
More than 6,500 people, mostly militants, died in 2007, according to
an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western
officials. Also in 2007, 110 US soldiers were killed in the country,
the highest American toll since the 2001 invasion. US military
deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in
2007.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Canada’s PM
Stephen Harper said a one percentage-point cut to the country's
consumption tax will be effective January 1, 2008.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A Venezuelan-led
mission to rescue three hostages, including a 3-year old boy, from
leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles fell apart as the guerrillas
accused Colombia's military of sabotaging the promised handoff.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec 31, In southern Egypt
a bus plunged into a canal alongside the Nile River, killing 17
passengers and the driver.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A suicide bomber
drove a truck rigged with explosives into a checkpoint manned by
members of a US-backed security volunteer group in a town north of
Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. Another three people were
missing following the explosion in the town of Mishada, 20 miles
north of the capital. A female suicide bomber detonated herself near
a police patrol, wounding five policemen and four civilians in the
town of Baqouba. In the town of Khalis gunmen traded fire with
police and Awakening Council members, leaving one council member and
one policeman dead. A roadside bomb targeting a patrol near the
Iranian border killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured another four.
According to Iraqi health, defense and interior ministries, 16,232
civilians, 432 soldiers and about 1,300 policeman died this year
compared to 12,371 civilians, 603 soldiers and 1,224 policeman
killed in 2006. 2007 was the deadliest year for the US military
since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed.
(AP, 12/31/07)(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec 31, The number of
people killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence dropped dramatically
this year. A report from an Israeli human rights group said Israeli
forces killed 373 Palestinians during 2007, a 45 percent drop from
the previous year. Palestinians killed 13 Israelis in the same
period.
(SFC, 12/31/07, p.A3)
2007 Dec 31, Kenyan police
battled thousands of opposition supporters enraged over President
Mwai Kibaki's allegedly fraudulent re-election, firing tear gas and
live ammunition as the death toll from the violence rose to 103.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Nepal 4 former
communist rebels were sworn in as Cabinet ministers, ending a
political crisis that began when the ex-guerrillas walked out of a
coalition government three-months ago.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, North Korea failed
to meet a year-end deadline to declare all its nuclear programs
under an aid-for-disarmament deal, prompting disappointed reactions
from South Korea, the United States and Japan.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, A newly released
video of Benazir Bhutto's assassination and an inconclusive medical
report raised new doubts about the official explanation of her death
and were likely to intensify calls for an independent, international
investigation.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Palestinian
pilgrims broke windows and burned mattresses and blankets in
temporary camps to protest Egypt's refusal to let them return to
Gaza through a crossing controlled by Hamas. A Palestinian woman
(67) died of a heart attack when she was caught amid scuffles. The
standoff over the pilgrims began Dec 29, when some 3,060
Palestinians returning from the hajj in Saudi Arabia arrived by
ferry at the Egyptian Red Sea port of Nuweiba in southern Sinai,
heading back to Gaza.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Sudan the
African Union transferred authority to a new joint peacekeeping
force with the UN in Darfur. An AU official said Ethiopia and Egypt
will each send 850 troops early in the new year to serve with a
joint UN-AU force in the Darfur region.
(AP, 12/31/07)(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, Syria’s state-run
media called on the US to begin a direct dialogue, a day after an
influential US senator said Washington could "bridge the gap"
between Israel and Syria.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Thailand a bomb
attack wounded 27 people in Sungai Kolok, a tourist town where
people had gathered to celebrate the New Year.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, President Hugo
Chavez granted amnesty to many opponents accused of supporting a
failed 2002 coup that briefly drove him from power. Chavez said he
signed an amnesty decree that would also pardon others accused of
attempting to overthrow his government in recent years.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Dec, The NBER, a private,
nonprofit research organization, said on Dec 1, 2008, that its group
of academic economists, who determine business cycles, had met and
decided that the US recession began in December 2007.
(AP, 12/2/08)
2007 Dec, The US Army’s
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point made public documents
containing individual records of 606 foreign fighters who entered
Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007. The documents were
discovered in the Fall of 2007 in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar.
They indicated that 90% of the fighters were foreigners and had
entered Iraq via Syria. 19% of the fighters were from Libya and 40%
were North African.
(SFC, 1/21/08, p.A14)
2007 Dec, The European Council
adopted a set of Council Conclusions on flexicurity, by which the
common principles of Danish flexicurity will guide EU member states
when implementing reforms in order to meet the aims of the Lisbon
Strategy of Growth and Jobs.
(http://denmark.dk/en/society/welfare/flexicurity/)
2007 Dec, The 1,588-foot-tall
Int’l. Commerce Center, the tallest in Hong Kong and the 3rd tallest
in the world, opened for business on the Kowloon side of the city.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec, Blackwater Worldwide
Pres. Gary Jackson authorized secret payments of about $1 million to
Iraqi officials. They were intended to silence criticism following
the September 16 episode in which Blackwater guards shot 17 Iraqi
civilians. This was acknowledged by former company officials
November in 2009.
(SFC, 11/11/09, p.A3)
2007 Dec, Abu Obaidah al-Masri,
al-Qaida’s chief operational planner, was reported in 2008 to have
died of hepatitis at about this time in Pakistan’s tribal area.
(SFC, 4/10/08, p.A3)
2007 Dec, In Uganda Andrew
Mwenda launched The Independent magazine and focused on uncovering
official corruption. By early 2009 he and his staff had been
arrested or detained over a dozen times and was forced to print at a
secret location.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, Par. p.10)
2007 Rawi Abdelai authored
“Capital Rules: The Construction of Foreign Finance."
(WSJ, 2/14/07, p.D12)
2007 Bruce D. Abramson authored
“The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court Where the Rules of the
Information Age Unfold," a discussion of the American patent system.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M3)
2007 Eric Abrahamson and David
H. Freedman authored “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of
Disorder."
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.M3)
2007 Antoine van Agtmael
authored “The Emerging Markets Century." He is credited with coining
the term emerging markets.
(Econ, 6/20/15, p.66)
2007 Robin Aitken authored “Can
We Trust the BBC."
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.P10)
2007 Chris Alden authored
“China in Africa: Partner, Competitor of Hegemon."
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.89)
2007 Ayaan Hirsi Ali (b.1969),
Somalia born writer and resident at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington DC, authored her autobiography “Infidel." In
the Netherlands it was published under the title “My Freedom."
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.P12)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.87)
2007 Ali A. Allawi, a US and
British-educated engineer and financier, authored "The Occupation of
Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace." He concluded that the
corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded,
inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order."
(AP, 4/8/07)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.93)
2007 Arthur Allen authored
“Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver."
(WSJ, 2/1/07, p.D6)
2007 Stephen Alter authored
“Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief: Inside the World of Indian
Moviemaking."
(SSFC, 8/12/07, p.M3)
2007 Karen Armstrong authored
“The Bible: A Biography."
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.92)
2007 Paddy Ashdown, the EU's
High Representative in Bosnia (2002-2006), authored “Swords and
Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century.
(Econ, 6/30/07, p.94)
2007 Katherine Ashenburg
authored “The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History."
(SSFC, 12/9/07, p.M3)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.99)
2007 Ian Ayres authored “Super
Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart," a
look at how computers have enabled automatic processes to surpass
human experts in numerous fields.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.103)
2007 Kathleen M. Barry authored
“Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants."
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
2007 William J, Baumol, Robert
E. Litan and Carl J. Schramm authored “Good Capitalism, Bad
Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity," in which
they identified 4 main models of capitalism around the world:
entrepreneurial, big-firm, oligarchic and state-led.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.80)(Econ, 9/20/08, SR p.6)
2007 Ishmael Beah (26), former
child soldier in Sierra Leone, authored “A Long Way Gone."
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)
2007 Sharon Begley authored
“Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our
Extraordinary Power to Transform Ourselves."
(WSJ, 1/19/07, p.B1)
2007 Michael Belfiore authored
“Rocketeers," a survey of the entrepreneurs bent on conquering
space.
(WSJ, 1/28/07, p.P11)
2007 Michael Billington
authored “British Theater since 1945."
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.100)
2007 Bob Blumenthal authored
“Jazz: An Introduction to the History and Legends Behind America’s
Music."
(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.W10)
2007 John Bolton, former US
representative to the UN (2005-2006), authored his memoir “Surrender
Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and
Abroad."
(WSJ, 11/6/07, p.D5)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.91)
2007 Timothy Brook authored
“Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global
World."
(SFC, 2/14/08, p.E3)
2007 Ethan Brown authored
“Snitch: Informers, Cooperators & the Corruption of Justice."
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.M2)
2007 Mick Brown authored
“Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector.
Spector was arrested in 2003 for the murder of actress Lana
Clarkson.
(SFC, 6/27/07, p.E1)
2007 Todd G. Bucholz authored
“New Ideas From Dead CEOs: Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office."
(WSJ, 6/27/07, p.D10)
2007 Fred Buller authored “The
Doomsday Book of Giant Salmon: A Record of the Largest Atlantic
Salmon Ever Caught."
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.139)
2007 Nayan Chanda authored
“Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors
Shaped Globalization."
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.84)
2007 Ha-Joon Chang (b.1963)
authored “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret
History of Capitalism."
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.74)
2007 Eric Clark authored “The
Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for America’s Youngest
Consumers."
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
2007 Gregory Clark authored “A
Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World."
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.74)
2007 Former president Bill
Clinton authored “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World."
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.84)
2007 Francis Collins authored
“The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." He
conceived of God as being of the non-interfering sort.
(Econ, 6/2/07, p.91)
2007 William D. Cohan authored
“The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. – A
Tale of Unrestrained Ambition, Billion-Dollar Fortunes, Byzantine
Power Struggles and Hidden Scandal." The company, founded in 1848,
was private until 2005.
(WSJ, 4/11/07, p.D8)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.93)
2007 Paul Collier authored “The
Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest countries are Failing and What Can
Be Done About It." The Oxford economics professor argued that aid,
on its own, was unable to make a difference to the world’s poor.
(Econ, 8/4/07, p.71)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.86)
2007 Catherine Collins and
Douglas Frantz authored "The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the
Man Who Sold the World’s Most Dangerous Secrets… and How We Could
Have Stopped Him," in which they covered Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan
(b.1935), founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.M4)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.79)
2007 Kate Colquhoun authored
“Taste: The Story of Britain through its Food."
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.89)
2007 Scott Cooper and Peter
Gloor authored “Coolhunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing." In a
similar vein Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman authored “Chasing Cool:
Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace."
(WSJ, 5/9/07, p.D9)
2007 Heather Cooper and Nigel
Henbest authored “The History of Astronomy."
(WSJ, 12/1/07, p.W11)
2007 Matthew Crenson and
Benjamin Ginsberg authored “Presidential Power: Unchecked and
Unbalanced."
(AH, 6/07, p.44)
2007 M.W. Daly authored
“Darfur’s Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide.
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.75)
2007 Thomas H. Davenport and
Jeanne G. Harris authored “Competing on Analytics: The New Science
of Winning."
(WSJ, 4/18/07, p.D12)
2007 Mike Davis authored
“Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb."
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.86)
2007 Dr. Aubrey de Grey with
Michael Ray authored “Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs
That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime."
(WSJ, 9/8/07, p.P8)
2007 Rene Denfeld authored “All
God’s Children: Inside the Dark and Violent world of Street
Families."
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.M1)
2007 John Derbyshire authored
“Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.90)
2007 Philip Dine authored
“State of the Unions."
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.66)
2007 Dominic Dodd and Ken
Favaro authored “The Three Tensions" in which they covered
management’s dilemmas regarding profit and growth, short vs. long
term results, and the success of individual units vs. the whole
company.
(WSJ, 2/21/07, p.D8)
2007 Eric Jay Dolin authored
“Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America."
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.D7)
2007 Pamela Druckerman, former
WSJ reporter, authored “Lust in Translation: The Rules of Infidelity
from Tokyo to Tennessee."
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.92)
2007 William Duggan authored
“Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement," in
which he advocates watching for opportunities ahead of setting
goals.
(WSJ, 11/14/07, p.D16)
2007 Khamboly Dy authored "A
History of Democratic Kampuchea," the first history book written by
a Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Barbara Ehrenreich
authored “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy." In
it she covered the evolution of philanthropy in America.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.M1)(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.D7)
2007 Akiva Eldar and Idith
Zertal authored “Lords of the Land: The War for Israel’s Settlements
in the Occupied Territories 1967-2007."
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.97)
2007 Chester Elton and Adrian
Gostick authored “The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use
Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent and Accelerate
Performance."
(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.D9)
2007 Reese Erlich authored “The
Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East
Crisis."
(SSFC, 10/21/07, p.M3)
2007 Silvia Evangelisti
authored “Nuns: A History of Convent Life."
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.85)
2007 Curtis M. Faith authored
“Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People
into Legendary Traders."
(WSJ, 5/16/07, p.D9)
2007 Nicholas Fern, British
journalist, authored “The Latest Answers To the Oldest Questions."
(WSJ, 2/23/07, p.W4)
2007 Joshua Ferris (b.1974)
authored his novel “Then We Came to the End," a satire of office
life in an advertising firm.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.91)
2007 Ronald Findlay and Kevin
H. O’Rourke authored “Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World
Economy in the Second Millennium."
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.140)
2007 Joel L. Fleishman authored
“The Foundation: A Great American Secret – How Private Wealth is
Changing the World," a critique of philanthropic practice and an
agenda for reform.
(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.D6)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.86)
2007 James R. Flynn (b.1934)
authored “What Is Intelligence." He discovered that IQ scores
increased from one generation to the next for all of the countries
for which data existed. This came to be called the Flynn effect.
(http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/654)(Econ,
7/3/10, p.76)
2007 Former Mexican Pres. Fox
authored his ghost-written memoir “Revolution of Hope." It was
published in English prior to a Spanish version.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.42)
2007 Robert Frank authored
“Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives
of the New Rich," a look at the differences between the new
generation of super wealthy and the merely rich.
(Econ, 10/15/11, p.97)
2007 Robert Friedel authored
“Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium," a
survey of the entire past millennium of technological advancement.
(WSJ, 6/7/07, p.D7)
2007 John Ghazvinian authored
“Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil."
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.M1)
2007 Bob Gifford authored
“China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power."
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.80)
2007 Michael Gates Gill
authored “How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to
Live Like Everyone Else."
(WSJ, 9/19/07, p.D10)
2007 Mark Gevisser, a South
African journalist, authored a biography of South Africa’s Pres.
Thabo Mbeki “Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred."
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.97)
2007 Zarah Ghahramani (b.1981)
with Robert Hillman authored “My Life as a Traitor," an account of
her arrest and 30-day imprisonment in Iraq following a protest over
the firing of a beloved teacher. Ghahramani managed to escape Iran
after her arrest and settled in Australia.
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.E1)
2007 Paul Gillin authored “The
New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media."
(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.D10)
2007 Anastasia Goodstein
authored “Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing
Online."
(SFC, 3/21/09, p.A8)
2007 Alan Greenspan, former
Federal Reserve Chairman, authored “The Age of Turbulence:
Adventures in a New World," in which he criticized congressional
Republicans and Pres. Bush fro abandoning fiscal responsibility.
Greenspan caused a stir by alleging in his new memoir that "the Iraq
war is largely about oil."
(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.A1)(AFP, 9/17/07)
2007 Ramachandra Guha authored
“India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy."
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.93)
2007 Ted Gup authored “Nation
of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life."
(WSJ, 1/19/07, p.D7)
2007 Sanjay Gupta, MD, chief
medical correspondent for CNN, authored “Chasing Life: New
Discoveries in the Search for Immortality to Help You Age Less
Today."
(www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/chasing.life/)
2007 Jake Halpern authored
“Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite
Addiction." The book was about “basking in reflected glory" for
which Halpern coined the term “birging."
(WSJ, 1/5/07, p.W5)
2007 Derek Hayes authored his
“Historical Atlas of California."
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M1)
2007 Stephen F. Hayes authored
“Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and
Controversial Vice-President."
(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.W3)
2007 Chris Hedges authored
“American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."
(SFC, 3/16/07, p.E6)
2007 Judith Herrin authored
“Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire."
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.97)
2007 Christopher Hitchens,
US-based British writer, authored “God Is Not Great: How Religion
Poisons Everything."
(WSJ, 4/1207,
p.A11)(www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807)
2007 Calvin L. Hodock authored
“Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things."
(WSJ, 2/6/08, p.D8)
2007 Douglas Hofstadter
authored “I Am A Strange Loop," an examination of consciousness.
(WSJ, 3/23/07, p.W6)
2007 Robert D. Hormats authored
“The Price of Liberty: Paying For America’s Wars."
(WSJ, 6/5/07, p.D5)
2007 Lynn Hunt authored
“Inventing Human Rights: A History," a study in social psychology.
(WSJ, 3/6/07, p.D6)(SFC, 3/9/07, p.E8)
2007 Zahid Hussain authored
"Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle With Militant Islam."
(AP, 1/24/11)
2007 Lee Iacocca, former head
of Chrysler (1979-1992) with Catherine Whitney authored “Where Have
All the Leaders Gone."
(WSJ, 4/25/07, p.D9)
2007 Walter Isaacson authored
“Einstein: His Life and Universe."
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.B3)
2007 Sasha Issenberg authored
“The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern
Delicacy."
(WSJ, 5/23/07, p.D10)
2007 Chalmers Johnson authored
“Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic."
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.M1)
2007 Denis Johnson (1949-2017),
American fiction writer, poet and playwright, authored the Vietnam
War novel “Tree of Smoke" (2007). It won the National Book Award for
Fiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
(SFC, 5/27/17, p.C3)
2007 Rebiya Kadeer, prominent
Uighur exile, authored her memoir “Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic
Struggle for Peace with China." The original German publication was
made available in English in 2009.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.77)
2007 Benjamin J. Kaplan
authored “Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of
Toleration in Early Modern Europe."
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.92)
2007 David A. Kaplan authored
“Mine’s Bigger: Tom Perkins and the Greatest Sailing Machine Ever
Built."
(SFCM, 7/22/07, p.17)
2007 Robert D. Kaplan authored
Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at
Sea, and on the Ground," the product of 2 years work in the company
of assorted, world-wide groups of the American military.
(WSJ, 9/20/07, p.D6)
2007 Garry Kasparov, world
chess champion (1985-2000) and current candidate for the presidency
of Russia, authored “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves
from the Board to the Boardroom."
(WSJ, 10/25/07, p.D8)
2007 Christine Kenneally
authored “The First Word: The Search for the Origin of Language."
(SSFC, 7/29/07, p.M3)
2007 Barbara J. King authored
“Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion."
(SFC, 2/9/07, p.E8)
2007 Kenneth F. Kiple authored
“A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization."
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.82)
2007 Ian Klaus authored “Elvis
Is Titanic: Classroom Tales from the Other Iraq," an account of his
time as a teacher in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Klaus, a
former boyfriend of Chelsea Clinton, taught there in 2005.
(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
2007 Naomi Klein authored “The
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."
(SSFC, 9/23/07, p.M1)
2007 Charles Koch, chief
executive of Koch Industries, authored “The Science of Success: How
Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company,"
in which he delineates his philosophy of Market Based Management.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Success)
2007 Janos Kornai (b.1928),
Hungarian economist, authored “By Force of Thought: Irregular
Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey."
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.B15)
2007 Michael Krasny, SF talk
radio host, authored “Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary
Life."
(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.M1)
2007 Jeffrey J. Kripal authored
“Esalen: American and the Religion of No Religion."
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.M1)
2007 Anthony T. Kronman, a
professor at Yale, authored “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and
Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life." The book is his
impassioned defense of the study of the humanities.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.D7)
2007 Milan Kundera (b.1929),
Czechoslovakia born writer, authored “The Curtain: An Essay in Seven
Parts," an extended essay on the art of the novel.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.83)
2007 Joshua Kurlantzick
authored “Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming
the World."
(WSJ, 6/28/07, p.D7)
2007 Murat Kurnaz (24), a
German-born Turkish man who was held for years at Guantanamo,
authored a memoir about his time at the US prison. His 256-page book
was titled "Five Years of My Life: A Report from Guantanamo." Kurnaz
worked with a writer, Helmut Kuhn, on the memoir.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Hannah Landecker authored
“Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies," in which she
charted 60 years of tissue-culture science.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.93)
2007 David Landes authored
“Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family
Businesses: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor."
(Econ., 4/18/15, SR p.4)
2007 William Langewiesche
authored “The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor."
(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.D7)
2007 Walter Laqueur authored
“The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent."
(WSJ, 5/31/07, p.D7)
2007 Michael A. Ledeen authored
“The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction,"
a forceful argument for regime change in Iran.
(WSJ, 9/7/07, p.W5)
2007 Melvyn P. Leffler authored
“For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union and
the Cold War.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.101)
2007 Philippe Legrain authored
“Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them," a defense of open borders. In
2003 Legrain had authored “Open World: The Truth About
Globalisation."
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.74)
2007 Brinjar Lia authored
“Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al Qaida Strategist Abu
Mus’ab al-Suri." Abu Musab al-Suri, a Syrian-born militant, was
arrested in Pakistan in October 2005.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.98)
2007 Mark Lilla authored “The
Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West," a look at
the intellectual origins of current opinions.
(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.W10)
2007 Bjorn Lomborg of Denmark
authored “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global
Warming."
(WSJ, 9/13/07, p.D7)
2007 Edward Luce authored “In
Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India."
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.M3)
2007 Kyle MacDonald authored
“One Red Paperclip," an account of how he used the Internet to
barter up from a single red paperclip to a house.
(WSJ, 8/29/07, p.D10)
2007 David Magee authored “How
Toyota Became #1."
(WSJ, 12/12/07, p.D9)
2007 John Major, former British
prime minister, authored “More Than a Game: The Story of Cricket’s
Early Years."
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.97)
2007 Jason Makansi authored
“Lights Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It
Means To You."
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.P8)
2007 David Mamet authored
“Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the
Movie Business."
(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.P8)
2007 James Mann, American
journalist, authored “The China Fantasy: Why Capitalism Will Not
Bring Democracy to China."
(Econ, 6/25/11, SR p.5)
2007 Aliza Marcus authored
“Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence."
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.100)
2007 Daniel McGinn authored
“House Lust: America’s Obsession With Our Homes."
(SSFC, 12/23/07, p.M1)
2007 Angus McLaren authored
“Impotence: A Cultural History."
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.96)
2007 Edward McPherson authored
“The Backwash Squeeze & Other Improbable Feats: A Newcomer's
Journey into the World of Bridge."
(WSJ, 8/4/07, p.P8)
2007 John J. Mearsheimer and
Stephen M. Walt authored “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.87)
2007 Robyn Meredith authored
“The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What
It Means for All of Us."
(SSFC, 7/29/07, p.M1)
2007 Stephen Mihm authored “A
Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of
the United States."
(WSJ, 3/14/09, p.W8)
2007 Ethan Mordden authored
“All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway,
1919-1959."
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.M1)
2007 Dr. Robert D. Morris, a
Seattle epidemiologist, authored “The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster
and the Water We Drink."
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.M3)
2007 John Newhouse authored
“Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest
International Competition in Business."
(WSJ, 1/24/07, p.D11)
2007 Robert D. Novak authored
his autobiography “"The Prince of Darkness."
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.W5)
2007 Martha C. Nussbaum
authored “The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and
India’s Future."
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.93)
2007 Sari Nusseibeh, president
of Al Quds Univ. in Jerusalem, authored “Once Upon a Country: A
Palestinian Life."
(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.M1)
2007 Padraig O’Malley authored
“Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South
Africa."
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.M1)
2007 Michael Oren authored
“Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the
Present."
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.W6)
2007 Nicholas Ostler authored
“Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin."
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.W12)
2007 Johan Van Overtveldt
authored “The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago
Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business."
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.95)
2007 Adam Pellegrino posted his
book “Thermal Oblivion" online. The physics book challenges notions
and precepts of institutionally backed and taught beliefs in
mathematics, quantum physics, and theology.
(www.thermaloblivion.com/_mgxroot/page_10768.html)
2007 John Pepper, former CEO of
Procter & Gamble, authored “What Really Matters."
(WSJ, 6/13/07, p.D7)
2007 Linda Perlstein authored
“Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade." It was
based on her experience at a low-income elementary school in
Annapolis, Md., while looking at the impacts of the federal No Child
Left Behind program and the Maryland School Assessment on children’s
lives.
(SSFC, 8/5/07, p.M3)
2007 Steven Pinker authored
“The Stuff of Thought: Languages as a Window into Human Nature."
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.102)
2007 Joseph Dominick Pistone
(b.1939), alias Donnie Brasco, authored “Donnie Brasco: Unfinished
Business." Pistone, a former FBI agent, worked undercover for six
years (1976-1981) infiltrating the Bonanno family and to a lesser
extent the Colombo Family, branches of the Mafia in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Brasco)
2007 Norman Podhoretz authored
“World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism."
(WSJ, 9/11/07, p.D6)
2007 Lucien X. Polastron
authored “Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout
History.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.98)
2007 Stephen Prothero authored
“Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and
Doesn’t."
(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.M1)
2007 Kenneth B. Pyle authored
“Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and
Purpose."
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.94)
2007 Sam Quinines authored
“Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican
Migration."
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.M1)
2007 Robert Reich, former US
labor secretary, authored “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of
Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life," in which he denounces
corporate social responsibility as a dangerous diversion that is
undermining democracy.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.65)
2007 Darius Rejali authored
“Torture and Democracy," a genealogy of modern torture.
(SSFC, 1/27/08, p.M1)
2007 Walter Rice and Emiliano
Echeverria authored “The Key System: San Francisco and the Eastshore
Empire."
(SFC, 3/22/14, p.D2)
2007 Richard Rhodes authored
“Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race."
(SSFC, 10/21/07, p.M1)
2007 Tracy Rihill, British
classics lecturer, authored “The Catapult: A History."
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.92)
2007 Sergio Rizzo and Gian
Antonio Stella authored “La Casta" (The Caste), a dissection of the
way tax revenue is frittered away by Italy’s political class. "The
Caste: How Italian politicians have become untouchable," written by
journalists from the leading daily Corriere della Sera, became
best-seller soon after its publication.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.48)(AFP, 10/12/07)
2007 Elizabeth Roberts authored
“Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro."
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.85)
2007 Gregory Rodriguez authored
“Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and
the Future of Race in America."
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.102)
2007 Jeffrey Rosen authored
“The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined
America.
(AH, 4/07, p.69)
2007 Alex Ross authored “The
Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century," a history of
music in the 20th century.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.97)
2007 Bernard Rougier’s
“Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in
Lebanon" was published in English. The French version (Le Jihad au
quotidien) was initially published in 2004.
(WSJ, 6/26/07, p.D5)
2007 Graham Russell and Gao
Hodges authored “Taxi! A Social History of the New York City
Cabdriver."
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.W6)
2007 Prof. Larry Sabato of the
Univ. of Virginia authored: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our
Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country."
(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.F1)
2007 A.K. Sandoval-Strausz
authored “Hotel: An American History."
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.90)
2007 The English translation of
presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy’s “Testimony: France in the
Twenty-First Century," became available. It had been published in
France in 2006 as Temoignange."
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.86)
2007 Jon Savage authored
“Teenage: The Prehistory of Youth Culture: 1875-1945." In 2014 it
was turned into a documentary film.
(SFC, 4/25/14, p.E5)
2007 Mark Schapiro authored
“The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for
American Power."
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.66)
2007 Barrymore Lawrence Scherer
authored “A History of American Classical Music."
(WSJ, 12/4/07, p.D8)
2007 Phillip F. Schewe authored
“Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World."
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.P8)
2007 Amity Schlaes, US economic
historian, authored “The Forgotten Men: A New History of the Great
Depression."
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.76)
2007 Robert Service, Oxford
professor of Russian history, authored “Comrades! A History of World
Communism."
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.88)
2007 Wilfrid Sheed authored
“The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole,
and a Crew of About Fifty," a look back at the top tunesmiths of Tin
Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood.
(WSJ, 6/30/07, p.P6)
2007 Raja Shehadeh authored
“Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape," which told
of 6 walks taken between 1978 and 2006. It was first published in
Britain and in 2008 came out in the US.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.101)
2007 Susan L. Shirk authored
“China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could
Derail Its Peaceful Rise."
(WSJ, 5/17/07, p.D7)(Econ, 7/7/07, p.80)
2007 Ayesha Siddiqa authored
“Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy."
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.94)
2007 Julia Flynn Siler authored
“The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine
Dynasty."
(WSJ, 6/15/07, p.W1)
2007 James Smith, an English
professor at Boston College, authored "Ireland's Magdalene Laundries
and the Nation's Culture of Containment." The so-called Magdalene
Laundries, a network of 10 workhouses, operated in independent
Ireland from the 1920s to the mid-1990s. The Irish Human Rights
Commission later said that Ireland's civil authorities for decades
dumped women, often teenagers being punished for petty crimes or
becoming pregnant out of wedlock, into the so-called Magdalene
Laundries.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2007 Virginia Smith “Clean: A
History of Personal Hygiene and Purity."
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.139)
2007 Paul Starr authored
“Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism." He emphasized “that
the founders of liberalism aimed not just to control state power but
to create it too."
(WSJ, 4/1207, p.D7)
2007 Shelby Steele authored “A
Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win."
(WSJ, 12/11/07, p.B18)
2007 Amy Stewart authored
“Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the
Business of Flowers."
(Econ, 12/20/14, p.106)
2007 Ian Stewart authored “Why
Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry."
(SFC, 5/22/07, p.E2)
2007 Nassim Nicholas Taleb
(b.1960), Lebanese writer, authored “The Black Swan: The Impact of
the Highly Improbable." Here he wrote “Don’t ask the barber if you
need a haircut – and don’t ask an academic if what he does is
relevant." A review by the Sunday Times called it one of the twelve
most influential books since World War II.
(Econ, 6/2/07,
p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb)(Econ,
5/16/15, p.55)
2007 Gary Taubes authored “Good
Calories, Bad Calories," in which he says that obesity is related to
the quality of consumed calories, where bad ones come from refined
carbohydrates found in starchy food and sweets.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.W8)
2007 Charles Taylor, Canadian
philosopher, authored “A Secular Age," a discussion of the weakening
of religion’s power in Western history.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.84)
2007 George Tenet, former CIA
director, with Bill Harlow authored “At the Center of the Storm: My
Years at the CIA."
(WSJ, 5/4/07, p.W4)
2007 Clarence Thomas, US
Supreme Court justice, authored his memoir “My Grandfather’s Son."
The book stops at the point when he joined the Supreme Court
in 1991.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.38)
2007 Colin Thubron, travel
writer, authored “Shadow of the Silk Road," the story of his 8-month
trip in 2003 along the silk route from China to Central Asia.
(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P9)
2007 Jeffrey Toobin authored
“The Nine," in which he argued that from 1992 to 2005 the cautious
instincts of swing justices such as Lewis Powell and Sandra Day
O’Connor produced rulings that reflected public opinion.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.34)
2007 James B. Twitchell
authored “Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From In Your Heart
To In Your Face."
(WSJ, 10/23/07, p.D8)
2007 Jeff Warren authored “The
Dead Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness."
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.M1)
2007 Tim Weiner authored
“Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA."
(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.P8)
2007 Claire Wilcox edited “The
Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1945-1957."
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.W10)
2007 Alec Wilkinson authored
“The Happiest Man in the World: An Account of the Life of Poppa
Neutrino." Neutrino, born as David Pearlman in 1993, became veteran
of the Beat era and is the founder of the Flying Neutrinos and the
Floating Neutrinos."
(SSFC, 3/18/07, p.M2)(www.floatingneutrinos.com/)
2007 Valerie Wilson (aka
Valerie Plame), former CIA agent, authored “Fair Game: My Life as a
Spy, My Betrayal by the White House." Her cover was revealed in
2003.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A7)
2007 Adam Wishart, British
director and writer, authored “One in Three: A Son’s Journey Into
the History and Science of Cancer."
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.M4)
2007 Tony Wood authored
“Chechnya: The Case for Independence."
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.95)
2007 SF Bay Area filmmakers
Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori produced “Passion & Power: The
Technology of Orgasm." It was inspired by the 1999 book “The
Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator and Women’s Sexual
Satisfaction" by Rachel Maimes.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.F1)
2007 Andrew Breitbart
(1969-2012), outspoken conservative writer and activist founded the
online-based Breitbart News.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News)(AP, 3/1/12)
2007 The US FBI launched its
computerized System to Assess Risk (STAR) to find terrorist
suspects. It stemmed from a data processing program developed by
Frank Asher following the 9/11 attacks. Asher’s program had screened
450 million people and produced a list of 1,200 suspicious
individuals including 5 of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.63)(http://tinyurl.com/3a5rh3)
2007 The US Operationally
Responsive Space Office (ORSO) opened at Kirtland air Force Base in
New Mexico, following a congressional order for the Dept. of Defense
to establish a body for to lead a shift to quick-build, quick-launch
replacements of spy satellites.
(Econ, 12/11/10, TQ p.23)
2007 US federal officials
alleged that $84 million held in Swiss bank accounts stem from
bribes paid by US companies to Kazakhstan’s president and other top
officials for access to energy reserves. The money was frozen as an
investigation continued.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2007 In Arkansas six nuns were
excommunicated after refusing to give up membership in the Army of
Mary. In 1971 Marie Paule Giguere (b.1921), a Catholic nun in
Quebec, founded the Army of Mary as a prayer group, saying she was
receiving visions from God. In 2007 the Vatican declared her
teachings were heretical.
(SFC, 9/27/07,
p.A20)(www.religioustolerance.org/army_mary.htm)
2007 Rhode Island lawmakers
ended a 51-year prohibition on Sunday auto sales.
(WSJ, 11/6/08, p.A14)
2007 Charleston, South
Carolina, opened a slavery museum.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.34)
2007 California passed
legislation requiring traceable micro-stamping in all new
semiautomatic handgun models effective as of May 2013.
(SFC, 1/27/14, p.A1)
2007 Brian Chesky and Joe
Gebbia came up with the idea to rent out two air beds in their San
Francisco apartment because of a conference that left the local
hotels full-to-overflowing. Thus Airbed & Breakfast (Airbnb) was
born.
(Econ, 10/29/16, p.59)
2007 Tom Costello and his wife
Anna Patterson of Menlo Park, Ca., founded Cuil, an Internet search
engine. By mid 2008 they claimed to have an index of 120 billion Web
pages. They launched www.cuil.com on July 28, 2008.
(SFC, 7/28/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 7/28/08, p.B5)
2007 Multiverse Network created
MMO (massively multiplayer online) client and server software based
on open standards to allow users to build their own virtual worlds.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.14)
2007 Metaweb Technologies
created Freebase, a web site that sits atop a collection of data
allowing users to contribute, correct and recombine data.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.15)
2007 InPhase Technologies, a
spin-out from Bell Labs, planned to launch the first holographic
disc-drive this summer. The system would read write at a rate of 160
megabits per second.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.29)
2007 Mona Lori Frisbie started
OutOfPocket.com as a crowd-sourcing tool for patients. Visitor
posted prices are supplemented with Medicare data.
(SFC, 5/21/12, p.D4)
2007 In Arizona ImaRX began a
trial using microbubbles containing a clot-buster. New technology
allowed bubbles to reach intended targets where they were forced to
burst using ultrasound. Companies such as Nanotrope and Targeson
worked to develop customized bubbles.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.8)
2007 Texas voters approved a
bond measure for the creation of the Cancer Prevention Research
Institute of Texas.
(SSFC, 10/14/12, p.A16)
2007 Washington state, in an
effort to make the labor market fairer, banned firms from checking
the credit scores of job applicants.
(Econ, 7/23/16, p.55)
2007 A topless advocacy group
was founded by a spiritual leader named Rael after a topless
advocate in New York was arrested and held in jail for 9 days before
winning a lawsuit against the city. An annual topless day began to
be held on the Sunday closest to Women’s Equality Day. In 1971 a
joint resolution of Congress designated August 26 of each year as
Women's Equality Day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Equality_Day)(SFC, 8/26/13,
p.C3)
2007 Paul McCulley, a senior
executive at asset manager PIMCO, coined the term “shadow banking"
to describe legal structures used by big Western banks before the
financial crisis to keep opaque and complicated securitized loans
off their balance sheets.
(Econ, 5/10/14, p.5)
2007 Brian Robertson, a
software engineer, invented the idea of “holacracy" to describe a
management system based on overlapping, self-organizing teams. He
was inspired by the term “holarchy" used by Arthur Koestler in the
book “the Ghost in the Machine" (1967).
(Econ, 7/5/14, p.56)
2007 23andMe, based in Mountain
View, Ca., began offering customers aspects of their genome from
spit samples analyzed by the company. Their personal genome test kit
was named Invention of the Year by Time magazine in 2008.
(Econ, 11/30/13,
p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23andMe)
2007 Change.org, an online
petitions site, was launched.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.62)
2007 Dell Computer created
IdeaStorm, “a way of building an online community that brings all of
us closer to the creative side of technology by allowing you to
share ideas and collaborate with one another."
(www.dellideastorm.com/about)
2007 Lumos Labs launched
Lumosity, a website of online games designed to improve users’
cognitive performance.
(Econ, 8/10/13, p.56)
2007 Mark Pincus founded Zynga
Game Network. The company had a smash hit with the social online
game FarmVille in 2009. By the end of 2010 the San Francisco-based
company was valued at $5.4 billion.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.D8)
2007 Planar Energy of Orlando,
Florida, was spun off from America’s National Renewable Energy
Laboratory. The company went on to develop a process for printing
lithium-ion batteries onto sheets of metal or plastic. A pilot
production facility opened in 2011.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.77)
2007 Gabor Forgacs co-founded
Organovo, a US company dedicated to building human tissues. In 2014
the company delivered samples for testing of its first product,
slivers of human liver tissue.
(Econ, 3/8/14, p.18)
2007 A small unmanned
submarine, developed and operated by Rutgers Univ., traveled from
New jersey to Halifax, Nova Scotia, collecting scientific data under
sponsorship by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. In 2008 the sub, dubbed Scarlet Knight, embarked on
a journey from New Jersey to Spain.
(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.A15)
2007 The US Dept. of Education
noted that the average annual cost of a standard 4-year course at an
American university has tripled since the 1985-1986 school year.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.44)
2007 The US with a population
of 301,139,947 counted 1,498,157 soldiers on active duty (~4.9%);
China with a population of 1,321,851,888 counted 2,105,000 soldiers
on active duty (~.159%). Russia with a population of 141,377,752
counted 1,027,000 soldiers on active duty (~7.2%); These numbers
excluded paramilitary troops in China and Russia.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W5)
2007 Google garnered 56% of the
US Internet search market. Yahoo’s share sank to 20% and Microsoft’s
grew to 14%.
(SFC, 2/2/08, p.C1)
2007 The US CDC said 7% of
Americans, or about 21 million people, have diabetes. In global
terms some 246 million people were affected.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.37)
2007 Recycling in America
reached 32% of its municipal rubbish as compared to 9.6& in
1980.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.22)
2007 Fine quality emeralds sold
in the US for about $4,500 a carat.
(WSJ, 2/7/07, p.A12)
2007 In SF the number of
homicides for the year totaled 98, with 24 of them in the Bayview
neighborhood.
(SFC, 1/15/08, p.B1)
2007 Global wind power amounted
to about 1,200 megawatts with Denmark accounting for about a third
and Britain in 2nd place with 400 megawatts.
(WSJ, 11/29/07, p.B2)
2007 Carbon dioxide output
jumped 3% this year putting the world on track for a worst-case
global warming scenario.
(WSJ, 9/26/08, p.A1)
2007 Roshan, a cell-phone
network in Afghanistan, was the country’s largest taxpayer and
investor. The Aga Khan Development Network owned 51%.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.66)
2007 Afghanistan produced 92%
of the world’s opium-related drugs.
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.33)
2007 Some 8,000 Afghan’s were
killed this year. UN estimates said over 1,500 of those killed were
civilians.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.37)
2007 Juan Gelman (b.1930),
Argentine poet, won the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious award
for Spanish-language literature.
(AP,
8/28/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Gelman)
2007 Julian Assange, a former
Australian hacker, founded Wikileaks, an international publishing
service for whistle-blowers.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.67)
2007 The wine boom in Australia
went bust forcing many farmers to walk away from grapes and land
they could not sell. Falling grape prices due to over production and
cuts to irrigation water due to drought created a double whammy.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.84)
2007 In Austria Andreas K. from
Wiener Neustadt stumbled onto buried treasure while turning dirt in
his back yard. In 2011 Austria's department in charge of national
antiquities said the trove, dating back some 650 years, consists of
more than 200 rings, brooches, ornate belt buckles, gold-plated
silver plates and other pieces or fragments, many encrusted with
pearls, fossilized coral and other ornaments.
(AP, 4/22/11)
2007 Foreign nationals made up
nearly 10% of Austria’s population.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR p.8)
2007 The parliament of Bahrain
passed a non-binding motion banning the use of its territory for any
attack on Iran. Bahrain hosted the US 5th fleet.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.78)
2007 The population of
Bangladesh was about 150 million. The Ahmedija minority numbered
about 100,000.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.41)(Econ, 8/11/07, p.34)
2007 Blacks comprised about 60%
of Bermuda's 62,000 people.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Eike Batista, Brazilian
businessman, founded OGX, an oil and gas firm. Its IPO in 2008
raised $4.3 billion, a record for Brazil. By 2012 he was Brazil’s
richest man and ranked 7th richest in the world.
(Econ, 5/26/12, p.63)
2007 The population of Brunei
this year was about 374,000. Malays comprised 67% and Chinese 15%.
Muslims comprised 67% and Buddhists 13%.
(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.A6)
2007 Georgi Parvanov, president
of Bulgaria, was named as a collaborator with communist secret
services. He said he was approached to edit a book and did not
realize he was dealing with spooks.
(Econ, 5/31/08, SR p.13)
2007 In Bulgaria Delyan Peevski
was fired as a deputy minister of emergency situations in a
corruption scandal. He was eventually cleared after an investigation
established no wrongdoing, however, and was reinstated in the post.
Peevski and his mother, Irena Krasteva, control a network of
national newspapers and television channels.
(AP, 6/14/13)
2007 In Canada the towers of
the Toronto Dominion Center incorporated hydrothermal cooling using
cold water from Lake Ontario.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.4)
2007 In Canada Bombardier
Recreational Products developed the Can-Am Spyder Roadster. The
3-wheeled vehicle was planned to sell for $15,000.
(Econ, 3/10/07, TQ p.12)
2007 In Canada the $8.4 billion
hydroelectric project on Labrador’s Churchill River was expected to
begin power production.
(WSJ, 3/10/98, p.A19)
2007 Chile’s salmon farming
industry produced $2.2 billion in export revenues this year.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.45)
2007 China established a
sovereign wealth fund backed by around $1.2 trillion in foreign
currency reserves. China moved rapidly ahead with plans to create a
State Investment Corporation (SIC) that would more aggressively
invest approximately USD 200bn of the country’s USD 1.3tr of
existing foreign exchange reserves to boost long term returns.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.75)(http://tinyurl.com/3c6lo4)
2007 In China Zhang Hai, former
president and chief executive of the sports drink maker Jianlibao
Group, was found guilty of misappropriating 206 million yuan ($33.82
million). He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for embezzling
millions of dollars in public funds. Through bribery and the
fabrication of documents to prove his good behavior, Zhang was
released in 2011 and promptly went overseas with his girlfriend,
Huang Lu. In 2014 24 others were being or have been investigated in
connection with Zhang's release, including 11 in the judiciary and
prison service, a court official and two lawyers. Authorities sought
his extradition.
(Reuters, 2/24/14)
2007 China said it would offer
African countries $20 billion in new financing. No terms or time
period were announced.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.59)
2007 China surpassed the US
this year for the first time in its contribution to global GDP
growth.
(Econ, 10/20/07, SR p.34)
2007 China Minsheng Bank bought
a 10% stake in UCBH Holdings, a San Francisco based bank that served
Chinese Americans. UCBH failed in 2009 and Minsheng wrote off its
investment.
(Econ, 5/15/10, SR p.18)
2007 Industrial and Commercial
Bank of China (ICBC) spent $5.5 billion to acquire a 20% stake in
South Africa-based Standard Bank. This was China’s largest corporate
foreign investment to date.
(Econ, 5/15/10, SR p.18)
2007 A rail line from China’s
Qinghai province to Lhasa, Tibet, was expected to be completed. The
world’s highest railroad required pressurized rail cars.
(SFC, 2/24/05, p.A1)
2007 In China the Great Wall
Motor company in Hebei province produced 108,000 vehicles this year.
The company had ambitious plans for growth. It already built cars
with a licensee in Iran and in 2006 had opened a factory in the
Ukraine.
(Econ, 5/10/08, p.74)
2007 Chinese made cars were
expected to hit the US auto market.
(WSJ, 3/31/05, p.A2)
2007 China signed a deal to
invest some $3.5 billion in the Aynak copper mine in Logar province,
Afghanistan. It was said to be the 2nd largest source of untapped
copper in the world.
(Econ, 11/7/09, p.44)
2007 Accidents in China's coal
mines killed 3,786 people this year.
(AP, 1/12/08)
2007 Congo’s operating budget
for this year was $2.4 billion. Its population stood at about 60
million.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.46)
2007 Transparency Int’l. ranked
Congo 168th out of 179 countries for freedom from corruption.
(Econ, 3/15/08, SR p.13)
2007 The population of
Congo-Brazzaville stood at about 4 million.
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.38)
2007 The population in the
Czech Rep. stood at about 10.2 million.
(SFC, 11/23/07, p.A19)
2007 The Dominican Rep.
government began denying citizenship to people whose parents were
illegal immigrants. The policy was incorporated into an amended
constitution in 2010.
(Econ, 12/31/11, p.24)
2007 Egypt’s population stood
at about 75 million.
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.40)
2007 James and Maureen Tusty
produced “The Singing Revolution," a film that covered the Estonian
people’s move to re-establish independence. The film begins with
independence in 1918 and then moves to Soviet and German occupation
during WWII. The spirit of the nation is then captured with a focus
on how the singing nation moved re-establish itself in its
non-violent “singing revolution" (1987-1991).
(www.singingrevolution.com/cgi-local/content.cgi)
2007 In Ethiopia the northern
Tigrayans, who made up most of the ruling elite, comprised only
about 7% of the population. The Oromos, mainly in the center and
south, comprised 40% of the population and provided most of the
country’s food. The Amharas comprised about 22% of the populations
and have traditionally been the educated ruling class. Muslim
Somalis occupied the south-east Ogaden region.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.33)
2007 Yasmina Reza authored
“L’Aube le soir ou la nui" (Dawn evening or night), an account of
her year shadowing Nicolas Sarkozy.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.73)
2007 Olivier Roy, a French
scholar, authored “Secularism Confronts Islam."
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.75)
2007 Bernard Arnault, chairman
of luxury goods maker LVMH, and Colony Capital, an American private
equity firm, jointly bought a 9.8% stake in France’s Carrefour, the
world’s 2nd largest retailer.
(Econ, 10/18/08, p.74)
2007 Kakha Bendukidze, Georgian
industrialist, founded the Free University of Tbilisi to teach law,
business and languages. Each graduate was expected to finance a new
student.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.41)
2007 In Germany Eberhart
Zrenner led a project to implant chips into the eyes of people who
have lost sight due to retinitis pigmentosa, using a chip developed
by Retina Implant.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.6)
2007 Dan Hough authored “The
Left Party in Contemporary German Politics."
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.57)
2007 Researchers from
Karlsruhe's Natural History Museum found a 3-millimetre-long (0.118
inch) ant in the Amazon rainforest and dated its origin back to
about 120Mil BC, making it the oldest still inhabiting the earth.
(Reuters, 9/16/08)
2007 Ghana issued its debut
bond this year, just a year after most of its debts were cancelled.
(Econ, 4/2/15, p.72)
2007 In Guatemala 56
politicians or party activists were killed during the presidential
campaign.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.40)
2007 Guyana’s Pres. Bharrat
Jagdeo said that under the right circumstances he would cede his
country’s entire forest to stewardship by outsiders.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.80)
2007 Anthony Hedley of the
Univ. of Hong Kong calculated that bad air in Hong Kong causes 1,600
deaths a year.
(Econ, 6/30/07, SR p.11)
2007 MTV India, launched in
1996, came to America.
(Econ, 1/2/10,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_India)
2007 India planned to complete
a 1,800 mile fence along the Pakistan border and a 2,500-mile fence
along the Bangladesh border were scheduled to be completed at a cost
of $3 billion.
(SFC, 5/29/04, p.A1)
2007 India’s Bihar state, one
of its poorest and least developed, began a bike giveaway program
for females. Their literacy rate of 53 percent was more than 20
points below that of males. The results from Bihar were so
encouraging that the program was soon adopted by the neighboring
states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. By 2012 the Indian
government hoped to expand the program across the country to help
improve female literacy.
(AP, 5/21/12)
2007 In India brothers Himanshu
and Varun Aggarwal founded Aspiring Minds, an assessment technology
pioneer, in order to provide a full spectrum of assessments
including Language, Aptitude, Skill and Personality assessment.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.76)(www.aspiringminds.in/)
2007 India scrapped 129 ships
at its ship recycling yard in Alang, down form a high of 428 in
2001. Business was lost to less regulated recycling yards in
Bangladesh and Pakistan.
(SSFC, 7/6/08, p.A2)
2007 In India Sachin Bansai and
Binny Bansal setup shop in a flat in Bangalore and began an
e-commerce business that delivered books to people’s homes. By 2011
their firm, Flipcart, was one of India hottest Internet businesses.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.18)
2007 Road accidents in India
averaged nearly 100,000 per year.
(SFC, 12/7/07, p.A25)
2007 Masoud Dehnamaki, a former
Iranian militia leader, directed his first feature film. The
irreverent comedy, “Ekhrajiha" (The Outcasts), portrayed a gang of
Tehran thieves and junkies as war heroes. His previous work included
documentaries about prostitution and football violence.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.54)
2007 Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad
closed down the country’s Management and Planning Organization, the
country’s closest thing to an independent budget auditor. In 2013
Pres. Hassan Rohani re-opened the office.
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.52)
2007 In western Iran Kurdish
Law student Habibollah Latifi was arrested accused of carrying
activities on behalf of "anti- revolutionary" groups, Human Rights
Watch said in a statement. He was sentenced to death in 2008.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2007 The Sons of Iraq, an
overwhelmingly Sunni militia, was formed as a paramilitary and
neighborhood watch force. The US paid each member $300 per month to
man checkpoints throughout Iraq. In 2008 there were some 103,000
members including about 18,000 Shiites.
(SFC, 6/2/08, p.A8)
2007 In Iraq Qasim al-Araji was
detained by US forces for smuggling arms used against US troops. He
was held for 23 months before being released on insufficient
evidence. In 2017 he was appointed as the country’s Interior
Minister.
(SFC, 5/9/17, p.A4)
2007 Israel built some 2,600
new housing units this year, most of them inside its security fence
on Palestinian land.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.58)
2007 In Italy Khalid Khamlich,
an Islamic extremist, was convicted of terror ties. He was alleged
to be part of a cell that planned attacks on the Milan subway and a
cathedral. In 2010 he was expelled to his native Morocco.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2007 In Italy Oscar Farinetti
set up the first Eataly food market in Turin. In 2013 his 21st store
opened in Chicago.
(Econ, 11/30/13, p.62)
2007 Italian Oil company ENI
SpA bought Burren Energy PLC, a small independent company that
operates an oil field in Turkmenistan. ENI from that point on was
denied entry visas by Turkmenistan, which was annoyed at not being
consulted in the deal.
(WSJ, 4/23/08, p.B8)
2007 Japan’s government debt
this year stood at around 180% of GDP, the highest for any developed
economy.
(Econ, 12/1/07, SR p.3)
2007 In Japan the Nippon Kaigi
lobby group persuaded the government to make April 29 a national
holiday in honor of Hirohito (1901-1989), the WWII Emperor of Japan.
(Econ, 6/6/15, p.33)
2007 Over Some 33,000 people
took their lives in Japan this year, topping 30,000 for the tenth
consecutive year despite a government campaign to reduce what is one
of the highest suicide rates in the world.
(Reuters, 6/19/08)
2007 Corruption ratings for
this year by Transparency International placed Kazakhstan at 150th
out of 180 countries.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.49)
2007 In Kenya Pastor Jacob
Momposhi Samperu founded the Hope for the Maasai Girls center to
rescue girls from circumcision.
(AFP, 10/4/11)
2007 In Kenya police death
squads killed some 500 people this year.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.34)
2007 In 2011 prosecutors at the
world war crimes court said Kenya's Deputy PM Uhuru Kenyatta
organized deadly attacks on the opposition after disputed 2007 polls
to keep the ruling party's power by "any means necessary." Some
1,300 lives were lost in the politically stoked fighting following
the flawed elections.
(AFP, 9/22/11)(Econ, 2/18/17, p.40)
2007 Safaricom, Kenya’s largest
mobile phone operator, launched M-PESA, a mobile-money scheme. It
allowed people to pay bills and even save money, though without
interest.
(Econ, 9/26/09, SR p.17)
2007 Kenya’s population climbed
to 38 million people, half under age 20, and projections suggested
it would reach 57 million by 2025. The official minimum wage stood
at about $700 per year, with GDP per head at about $1,500. An MP’s
salary was about $60,000, which doubled with allowances. The Kikuyu
tribe comprised about 22% of Kenya’s population.
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.50)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.38)(Econ,
1/12/08, p.39)
2007 The population of Lesotho
stood at about 1.8 million and almost one of 4 adults had HIV/AIDS.
Lesotho’s textile industry, the only industry to speak of, employed
some 45,000.
(Econ, 6/30/07, p.56)(Econ, 7/21/07, p.61)
2007 Libya’s Col Gadhafi
established the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund
with $50 billion slotted for investment.
(WSJ, 5/21/08, p.A14)
2007 The population of
Lichtenstein numbered 35,000.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.D3)
2007 Transparency Int’l. ranked
Laos, population around 6 million, as one of the most corrupt
countries in the world ranking it 168 out of 179 surveyed nations,
with No. 1 being the least corrupt.
(SFC, 12/17/07, p.A15)
2007 Macedonia renamed Skopje
airport for Alexander the Great.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.55)
2007 The population of
Madagascar was about 18.6 million, with an average income of $290
per year.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.42)
2007 Malawi deported Michael
Sata, the head of the Zambian opposition, after he flew there on
personal business and to meet former Malawi president Bakili Muluzi.
(AP, 10/15/11)
2007 Malaysia’s Prince
Naquiyuddin Jaafar founded the EntoGenex biotech company. It took a
pre-existing protein called the Trypsin Modulating Oostatic Factor
(TMOF) and by 2012 developed it into what he called a fatal "diet
pill" for mosquitoes. The firm combined the TMOF with bacillus
thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) bacteria, which eats holes in the
guts of larvae but is non-toxic to people. He hoped it could
potentially become a weapon in the even larger fight against
malaria, which kills an estimated 650,000 people per year.
(AFP, 6/6/12)
2007 The population of Malaysia
numbered about 27 million people.
(Econ, 6/2/07, p.42)
2007 Maltese company Nude
Estates bought the Ausra shopping center in Utena, Lithuania. In
2017 it was revealed that U2 frontman Bono had used Nude Estates to
buy a share in the shopping mall. U2 was heavily criticized in 2006
for moving its corporate base from Ireland to the Netherlands, where
royalties on music incur virtually no tax.
(AP, 11/6/17)
2007 Alberto Nava, a California
cave diver, and two Mexican dive budies discovered a human skeleton
in a deep underwater cave in Mexico’s Yucatan jungle. In 2014
scientists said the skeleton was that of a young girl who probably
fell into the cave over 12,000 years ago. DNA evidence linked her to
modern native Americans.
(SFC, 5/16/14, p.D8)
2007 Myanmar slashed real
estate taxes to 15% from 50%. Drug traffickers seized the
opportunity to convert their cash to real estate.
(SSFC, 6/7/15, p.A17)
2007 Myanmar’s population was
around 53 million. Myanmar is rich in natural resources, but 90
percent of its people lived on less than $1 a day. 30% lived below
the poverty line.
(AP, 9/29/07)(Econ, 4/12/08, p.29)(Econ, 5/10/08,
p.12)
2007 The Netherlands launched
its €2.3 billion “Room for the River" project in an effort to make
the country more resilient to flooding.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.62)
2007 New Zealand had a bumper
year in wine, which overtook wool exports in value for the first
time becoming the country’s 12th most valuable export.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.85)
2007 In Pakistan Taliban
militants overran the country’s biggest ski resort at Malam Jaba in
the Swat Valley and smashed the “heathen" lifts.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.41)
2007 The Beck's petrel was
photographed by an Israeli ornithologist in the Bismarck
Archipelago, a group of islands northeast of Papua New Guinea. The
pale-bellied bird species was last seen in 1929 and long thought to
be extinct.
(AP, 3/7/08)
2007 In Paraguay former Pres.
Gonzalez Macchi (1999-2003) was acquitted of illegally transferring
$16 million from Paraguay's Central Bank to a US account.
(AP, 12/12/09)
2007 A Philippine antiterror
law said law-enforcemenmt officials could be fined 500,000 pesos for
each day they wrongfully detain a terror suspect.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A4)
2007 Andrzej Wajda (81),
Poland’s leading film maker, completed “Katyn," based on the letters
and diaries of victims murdered by Soviet secret police in 1943.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.81)
2007 In Romania agriculture
ministers Decebal Traian Remes resigned his Cabinet post after
prosecutors accused him of taking a bribe of $21,000 (euro15,800)
and the promise of homemade sausages and plum brandy from Ioan
Muresan, a former agriculture minister who allegedly was acting on
behalf of businessman Gheorghe Ciorba.
(AP, 2/14/12)
2007 New amendments to
Romania’s penal code prescribed jail sentences of up to 7 years for
journalists who publish material showing officials involved in
bribe-taking. The code also raised the financial threshold for
corruption charges.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.64)
2007 The population of Romania
numbered about 22 million people and counted 4.5 million farms and
smallholdings. This represented almost a third of all the farm
holdings in the EU.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.63)
2007 Arkady Babchenko, Russian
soldier, authored “A Soldier’s War in Chechnya," an account of his
service in Chechnya. In 2008 it was translated to English by Nick
Allen and published as “One Soldier’s War."
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.100)(WSJ, 1/22/08, p.D8)
2007 Yegor Gaidar (1956-2009),
former Russian finance minister and prime minister, authored
“Collapse of an Empire."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar)
2007 Pres. Putin promoted a new
Russian history manual for teachers entitled “A Modern History of
Russia: 1945-2006." Professor Oksana Gaman-Golutvina said the
material published in the book did not correspond to what she wrote
and said: "I really do not want my name to be associated with this
disgrace."
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.67)(http://tinyurl.com/355n8p)
2007 Four Russian defense
officials were sentenced this year to up to 11 years in jail for
selling missile delivery technologies to Beijing for $2 million.
(AP, 10/6/11)
2007 In northern Saudi Arabia
two men beheaded intelligence service Colonel Nasser al-Othman at
his farm near the city of Buraidah because they viewed him as an
apostate. In 2016 a Saudi court sentenced the two men it said were
al Qaeda followers to death.
(Reuters, 7/26/16)
2007 The population of Saudi
Arabia passed 24 million. The country imported $6 billion in food
this year.
(WSJ, 12/12/07, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/26/08, p.A12)
2007 Scotland gained control
over its railways.
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.55)
2007 Singapore proposed a
co-operative green-city venture with China. The Sino-Singapore
Tianjin Eco-City opened in 2011.
(Econ, 4/19/14, SR p.12)
2007 US military advisors began
secretly operating in Somalia. This was only made public in 2014 as
Washington planned to deepen its security assistance to help the
country fend off threats by al Shabaab.
(Reuters, 7/2/14)
2007 South Africa's Parliament
passed the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act, which declares the
Northern Cape an "astronomy advantage area", giving the Minister of
Science and Technology powers to protect the area from future radio
interference.
(http://www.southafrica.info/about/science/ska.htm)
2007 Spain’s Santander Bank
acquired ABN’s Brazilian unit.
(Econ, 5/15/10, SR p.15)
2007 Inflation in Sri Lanka
reached an annual rate of 21.6%.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.48)
2007 Sweden eliminated its
wealth tax.
(Econ, 10/13/12, SR p.20)
2007 Sweden removed its 1970
ban on professional boxing.
(Econ, 1/17/15, p.58)
2007 Bradley Birkenfeld, an
American employed by Swiss-based UBS, approached officials in
Washington to reveal the bank’s surreptitious servicing of thousands
of rich, tax-dodging Americans.
(Econ, 2/7/15, p.58)
2007 Syria’s oil exports were
expected to almost cease by this time.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A18)
2007 Syria’s population
numbered about 19 million.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.55)
2007 In Thailand 751 people
died in prison or under police custody this year.
(Econ, 4/19/08, p.55)
2007 Graham Fuller authored
“The New Turkish Republic: Turkey As a Pivotal State in the Muslim
World."
(Econ, 10/23/10, SR p.6)
2007 Uganda began construction
of the $860 million Bujagali Dam for hydroelectric power from Lake
Victoria water. About 55% of lower water levels on Lake Victoria
were attributed dams built by the Ugandan government. This severely
impacted farmers and fishermen in adjoining Kenya and Tanzania as
well as Uganda.
(SFC, 6/24/08, p.A14)
2007 Ukraine’s population
numbered about 48 million. This included some 8 million ethnic
Russians.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.51)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.16)
2007 UN-AIDS said 2.7 million
people were infected with AIDS this year, bringing the estimated
global total to 33 million.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.81)
2007 Pope Benedict XVI wrote an
open letter to Chinese Catholics emphasizing that the church had no
political ambitions.
(Econ, 8/23/14, p.36)
2007 Inflation in Venezuela
rose 22.5% for the year. Some 13,000 people were murdered this year
producing a murder rate of 48 per 100,000, the 2nd highest in the
world after El Salvador. In Caracas there were 2,710 murders, or 130
per 100,000 citizens.
(Econ, 1/12/08, p.32)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.47)(SSFC,
11/16/08, p.A16)
2007 The World Bank launched
its Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative in partnership with the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to help developing
nations recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders and invest the
returned funds in development programs.
(AFP, 8/25/12)
2007 Peter Godwin authored
“When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa," a description
of the collapse of Zimbabwe after 2000. This was his 2nd book in a
trilogy that began with “Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa." The 3rd
volume was “The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe" (2010).
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.101)
2007 Zimbabwe and Namibia
entered into an agreement under which Namibia gave Zimbabwe a
40-million-dollar loan for repairs to its thermal power stations
while Zimbabwe would pay back by exporting electricity to Namibia.
(AFP, 1/13/10)
2007 Zimbabwe Bishop Nolbert
Kunonga, a loyalist to President Robert Mugabe, was excommunicated
by the main Anglican Province of Central Africa and the worldwide
head of the church for inciting violence in sermons supporting
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.
(AP, 11/19/12)
2007 The population of Zimbabwe
was about 13 million. 3 million were thought to have left, mostly to
South Africa, due to the economic crises.
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.37)
2007-2008 Georgia issued bonds to fund a plan by
Gov. Sonny Perdue for a $19 million project to make the state the
most popular fishing destination in the country.
(WSJ, 1/5/09, p.A1)
2007-2008 Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., sponsored $14.7
million in defense earmarks for Kuchera Defense Systems, a campaign
donor. The Pentagon went along with it, despite the fact that two
convicted drug dealers had been deeply involved with the company.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2007-2008 South Africa’s MTN mobile phone company
invested over $1.5 billion in Iran to provide coverage for over 40%
of Iranians.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.49)
2007-2009 In Nigeria more than 17,000 people died
in about 31,000 road accidents across Nigeria between this period.
(AFP, 2/14/10)
2007-2016 Ecuadorean officials received about 33.5
million in bribes during this period from Odebrecht, a Brazilian
construction firm according to the US Dept. of Justice.
(Econ, 2/18/17, p.29)
