Timeline 2007 October-December
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2007 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, 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 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, 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, 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, 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.
(AP, 10/9/07)
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.
(AP, 10/13/07)(AP, 9/10/08)
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. 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.
(SFC, 10/25/07, p.B3)
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 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, 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 150,00 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.
(AP, 10/18/07)(AP, 10/19/07)
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,
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.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.102)(http://tinyurl.com/2myah5)
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.
(AFP, 10/23/07)
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 journalist, was shot to death. He had close ties to the
opposition to the authoritarian regime in neighboring Uzbekistan.
(AP, 10/24/07)
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.
(AP, 10/26/07)
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,
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.
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/14/07, p.B5)(SFC,
12/15/07, p.B1)(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B3)
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, 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. 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.
(Econ, 10/27/07,
p.83)(www.efinancialnews.com/homepage/specialfeatures/2449084355)
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.
(AP, 11/4/08)
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.
(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)
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.
(AP, 11/9/07)(AFP, 11/10/07)
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).
(AP, 11/10/07)(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.A7)
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.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)
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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 (55), 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)
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, 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, 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, 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.
(AP, 12/9/07)(Reuters, 12/12/07)
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 A