Timeline 2010 October - December
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2010 Oct 1, Pres. Obama bid farewell to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and announced that he will be replaced by Pete Rouse.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 1, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a measure making marijuana possession up to ounce an infraction, on par with traffic and littering tickets. Schwarzenegger opposed Proposition 19, the upcoming marijuana initiative.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 1, Medicago, a Canadian company, broke ground at Durham, NC, on its first American facility. The company genetically manipulates tobacco plants to produce proteins used in making flu vaccines.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.36)
2010 Oct 1, In southern Afghanistan 2 coalition soldiers were killed in a blast while on patrol. NATO said it has captured more insurgent leaders and announced it has detained at least 438 suspected militants over the last month. Just north of Kandahar, two Romanian soldiers were killed and one injured when their Humvee was struck by an improvised explosive device some 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Qalat in Zabul province.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Britain most provisions of the 2010 Equality Act took effect, including a measure to stop pay secrecy clauses being used to hide unfair differences between men and women's pay. But 10 percent of the legislation,- which was passed by Parliament in April, will be left out, while the government reviews certain sections of it.
(AFP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, China launched its second lunar exploration probe, boosting the country's efforts to rise as a major space power eventually capable of landing a man on the moon and perhaps one day exploring far beyond.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Ecuador was under a state of siege, the streets quiet with the military in charge of public order. Three police colonels were arrested for failing to prevent a massive protest by their subordinates that left 5 people dead.
(AP, 10/1/10)(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 1, European oil majors resisted pressure from the US to stop all business with Iran, in spite of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, The European Commission said it has decided to more than double its Pakistan flood aid to 150 million euros (205 million dollars). The UN has issued a record two-billion-dollar appeal for funds to cope with the disaster, which UN agencies say affected 21 million people and left 12 million in need of emergency food aid.
(AFP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Finland tobacco sales were pushed under shop counters as a new law, set to progress in stages, came into effect. Finland is the first country to target an end to smoking through legal means.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel called for calm after riot police used what critics called "Rambo" tactics to disperse thousands of opponents of a contentious rail project.
(AFP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Haiti gunmen killed Pierre Richard Denis (42), an engineer supervising the building of shelters at the Corail-Cesselesse relocation camp for Haitian earthquake survivors, forcing construction to be suspended on part of the site. Denis worked for International Organization for Migration.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Indian cinema's most expensive movie "Endhiran" (Robot), starring former bus conductor Rajinikanth, opened. The weekend opening of the $35 million film broke box office records.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Iran Ebrahim Yazdi (80) the head of a banned liberal party, was arrested. He was released on March 20, 2011.
(AFP, 3/20/11)
2010 Oct 1, In Iraq aides said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has agreed to support the bid by Iraq's PM al-Maliki to retain power. A roadside bomb exploded and killed at least three people, including two members of an anti-insurgent militia, and wounded seven others in a mostly Sunni district of southern Baghdad. In Mosul gunmen killed a policeman and a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi soldier on foot patrol.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Mexico a shootout between rival drug-dealing gangs broke out in the town of San Jose de la Cruz. 14 people were left dead. Assailants tossed a grenade into a square in the northern business city of Monterrey, injuring 12 people in an attack the government blamed on drug gangs.
(AP, 10/2/10)(Reuters, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 1, In the Netherlands more than 100 people protesting the outlawing of squatting at unused buildings clashed with police in Amsterdam's historic center, throwing stones, setting fires and erecting barricades.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Nigeria car bomb explosions killed 12 people and injured 17 near a parade Abuja marking the 50th anniversary of independence. Two blasts, which also destroyed three cars, came an hour after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), warned it had planted several bombs and told people to evacuate the area.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Pirates off the coast of Nigeria's southern delta kidnapped two foreign sailors from the MV Eckhardt tanker. A naval spokesman later suggested the crew worked in the black market trade of stolen crude from the region.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Northern Ireland Paul McCaugherty (43), a self-described senior Irish Republican Army dissident, received a 20-year prison sentence for trying to buy guns, explosives and other weapons from undercover British agents. He had been convicted in June of attempted arms smuggling.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Red Cross officials from the two Koreas agreed to hold reunions for families separated by the Korean War amid mixed signals from North Korea on easing tensions over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Pakistan's ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf launched a new political party in London. Musharraf said the only way to tackle Pakistan's ailing economy and its political infighting, problems exacerbated by recent floods, is to further bolster the army's role.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In southern Pakistan assailants launched two separate attacks on vehicles carrying fuel for NATO and American forces in Afghanistan, highlighting the vulnerability of the US-led mission a day after Pakistan closed a major border crossing.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Peru former President Alberto Fujimori's right hand man, Vladimiro Montesinos, two top ex-generals and a major were sentenced to 25 years in jail for ordering murders during Peru's so-called dirty war. They were found guilty of ordering the Colina Group, a secret army hit squad, to kill 24 people in two massacres in 1991 and 1992. Twenty other members of the Colina Group were sentenced to 15-25 years behind bars.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Moscow police detained several gay rights opponents at the first sanctioned gay rights protest in years. Former Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, fired on Sep 28, had compared gay people to the devil and forbade gay rights rallies.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 1, Spanish energy giant Repsol announced the sale of 40 percent of its Brazilian affiliate to China's Sinopec for 7.1 billion dollars, securing funding for the development of oil fields in Brazil.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Sudan Darfur rebels accused Sudan's army of killing 27 people in a week-long campaign of air and ground assaults on their positions, as peace efforts in the arid region continued to flounder.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Ukraine's Constitutional Court shifted key powers from parliament to the presidency, a move that boosted the influence of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, but also threw the country into legal uncertainty.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, The UN released its 545-page report into mass killings in Congo over a ten-year period. Rwanda and Uganda insisted the $3 million report is flawed and could harm security in Africa's volatile Great Lakes region.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Afghanistan at least three civilians were killed along with 17 insurgents in a NATO air strike targeting senior Taliban commanders in southern Helmand province. ISAF accidentally killed two civilians when insurgents attacked a military base in Baraki Barak district of Logar province south of Kabul.
(Reuters, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 2, Australian PM Julia Gillard met the chief of international forces in Afghanistan and vowed support for the US-led mission in a surprise visit to troops on her first overseas trip as leader.
(AFP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Britain’s Druids hailed a semi-governmental Charity Commission’s decision to grant it charitable status just like mainstream religions such as the Church of England. The Druid Network, a group of about 350 Druids, will receive exemptions from taxes on donations.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, China offered to buy Greek government bonds in a show of support for the country whose debt burden triggered a crisis for the euro zone and required an international bailout. Premier Wen Jiabao made the offer at the start of a two-day visit, where he says he expects to expand ties in all areas.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In China 8 workers were killed and three others were injured when the residential building toppled in Xi'an, the capital of northwestern Shaanxi province.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 2, Ecuador agreed to raise wages in the armed forces by up to $35 million annually, days after soldiers battled rebel police to rescue President Rafael Correa from what he called a coup bid. Defense Minister Javier Ponce said it was chance the wage were agreed two days after the assault on Correa. He said the increases will cost $30 million to $35 million a year.
(Reuters, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 2, French families, students and private sector workers joined mass demonstrations against the government's pension reforms, and unions hoped as many as 3 million protesters would take to the streets.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Guatemalan police captured a suspected drug trafficker wanted in the US for cocaine smuggling and seized nearly $2 million in cash that his brother was carrying in two bags. Mauro Ramirez Barrios, alias "The Purple One," was arrested in the southern town of San Bernardino after a four-day search. Ramirez, an alleged lieutenant of Juan Ortiz Lopez, was arrested two weeks after he escaped police during a shootout at a Guatemala City shopping mall that killed two officers.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 3/31/11)
2010 Oct 2, In central Indonesia a train crashed into another parked at a railway station, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens, many seriously. The next day Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said Halik Rudianto, the train’s engineer, had failed to stop at a red signal. Rudianto was arrested for negligence.
(AP, 10/2/10)(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 2, Visiting Iran Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that their ties were solid, a view unlikely to please Washington which is working to isolate the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Latvians went to the polls, as the Baltic nation emerges from a savage economic slump, with polls showing the Moscow-tied left being poised for big gains. PM Valdis Dombrovskis's center-right coalition took 63 seats in the 100-member parliament in the election. His Unity Party won 33 seats, while the Moscow-linked, left-wing Harmony Center won 29.
(AFP, 10/2/10)(AP, 10/3/10)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.74)
2010 Oct 2, In Mexico 33 murders took place in Chihuahua state over the last 2 days with 9 of the dead in Ciudad Juarez. In the northeast an explosion at a plaza in Guadalupe injured 15 people. Authorities blamed the attack on drug cartels targeting the civilian population to cause chaos. In the northeast an explosion at a plaza in Guadalupe injured 15 people. Authorities blamed the attack on drug cartels targeting the civilian population to cause chaos.
(AFP, 10/2/10)(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Moroccan publisher Ahmed Benshemsi said his Arab-language weekly magazine Nichane has gone bankrupt and been forced to close because "the highest circles of power" had organized a boycott of advertisers. The boycott was launched in August last year after Nichane, its French-language stablemate Telquel and France's prestigious Le Monde conducted an opinion poll on the monarchy.
(AFP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Pakistan 2 suspected American missile strikes killed 16 alleged militants in a northwestern tribal region, a sign the US is unwilling to stop using the tactic despite heightened tensions between the two countries over NATO's recent border incursions. Those killed were believed to be insurgents working for warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Gunmen killed Farooq Khan, a moderate Islamic scholar who was the vice chancellor of Swat University, and his assistant.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Senior Palestinian politicians backed President Mahmoud Abbas' demand to link peace talks to restrictions on Israeli settlement building, delivering a new setback to bogged down US efforts to salvage the negotiations.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Peru a small plane carrying British tourists crashed near the famed Nazca Lines, killing all six people on board.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, At least seven Somali civilians were killed in a fire fight between African Union forces and hardline Islamist rebels.
(AFP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, South African authorities arrested Henry Okah, an ex-leader of a militant group that claimed responsibility for the Oct 1 dual car bombing that killed 12 people in Nigeria. A day before the bombings, security agencies in South Africa had raided Okah's home and seized a laptop, though they did not arrest him. On Jan 21, 2013, a South African court found Okah guilty of masterminding the bombings. On March 26, 2013, Okah was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 1/21/13)(AP, 3/26/13)
2010 Oct 3, The US and Britain warned their citizens of an increased risk of terrorist attacks in Europe, with Washington saying al Qaeda might target transport infrastructure.
(Reuters, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Rohm Emanuel, former US White House chief of staff, said in a video on his website that he’s preparing to run for mayor of Chicago.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 3, Lawrence Salander (61), NYC owner of a lavish Upper East Side gallery, was sentenced to six to 18 years in prison. He had pleaded guilty earlier this year to 29 counts of grand larceny and fraud.
(AP, 10/24/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Salander)
2010 Oct 3, The SF Giants baseball team clinched a division title with a 3-0 win over the San Diego Padres.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 3, San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, sponsored by financier Warren Hellman, drew some 350,000 listeners to Golden Gate Park. The 10th annual weekend festival drew some 600,000 all together.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.C2)
2010 Oct 3, In NYC a potential recruit for the Latin King Goonies street gang and 2 other men were beaten and sodomized for their sexual contacts. 8 suspects were later arrested and one more was sought in the gruesome assaults. 2 more suspects were charged on Oct 12.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 3, The Afghan government said it has started dissolving private security firms in the country by taking steps to end the operations of eight companies, including the firm formerly known as Blackwater and three other international contractors. An insurgent with the Haqqani network responsible for attacking coalition and Afghan troops was captured in an operation in eastern Khost province. 3 insurgents died in an Afghan and NATO operation in Kandahar province's Arghandab district. The raid in Khisroo village also recovered explosive material and an anti-personnel mine that were destroyed. At least 3 Afghan civilians were killed along with 17 insurgents in a NATO air strike in Helmand.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)(Reuters, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 3, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales kneed an opposing player in the groin during a soccer match against a team of political rivals after an apparent hard foul by the opponent. Images of the altercation were broadcast and posted to YouTube.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 3, Voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina cast ballots in elections likely to further entrench their nation's ethnic divisions and threaten possible EU entry. Some 3 million voters uneasily split between Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats chose from 8,000 candidates for the central and several regional parliaments, the Bosnian Serb presidency and the federal presidency. Preliminary election results indicated that the three-person presidency will remain deadlocked over the nation's future, with two leaders of the ethnically divided country advocating unity and a third pushing for the country's breakup.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Brazil held presidential elections. Ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff looked poised to sweep to victory. Rousseff, who is trying to become Brazil's first female leader, fell short of getting a majority of votes in presidential elections and faced a runoff in four weeks against an experienced, centrist rival. Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva (45), better known by his clown name Tiririca, received more than 1.3 million votes in Sao Paulo state in Brazil's presidential and congressional elections. "What does a congressman do? The truth is I don't know, but vote for me and I'll tell you," he said in his campaign advertisements. On Nov 11 Silva convinced the Sao Paulo Electoral court that he could read and write.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)(Reuters, 10/5/10)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 3, In China 6 people were killed when the wall of a factory under construction fell in Qingzhou city, Shandong province. 5 people were injured, 2 of them severely.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Egypt backed the Palestinians' refusal to negotiate with Israel as long as it continues to build West Bank settlements, even as officials urged for continued diplomacy to salvage the month-old talks.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 3, In India the troubled Commonwealth Games got underway with a glittering opening ceremony in a fortress-like New Delhi after a shambolic run-up that threatened to derail the event.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, In Iran a top official said Industrial computers infected by Stuxnet have been cleaned and returned to their units, following reports that the malware was mutating and wreaking havoc with equipment.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, An Israeli military court convicted two soldiers of using a Palestinian child as a human shield by forcing him to check for booby traps on Jan 15, 2009, during the 2008-2009 Gaza war. Israeli police shot and killed Izzedine Qawasmeh (35), a father of five and a construction worker from the West Bank village of Sair, after he used a rope to scale a towering wall meant to keep Palestinians from sneaking into Israel. On Nov 21 the two soldiers received suspended sentences and demotions.
(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Oct 3, Nigeria's federal police force named two men, Ben Jessy and Chima Orlu, as the "masterminds" behind the Oct 1 bombings in Abuja.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Thousands of Serb pilgrims gathered in a medieval monastery in western Kosovo amid tight security to attend the enthronement ceremony of the new Serbian Patriarch Irinej.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, In Somalia fighting in Mogadishu left at least eight people dead.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Spain's beleaguered PM Zapatero suffered an embarrassing setback in a local election race, and a poll showed his party trailing ever further behind the opposition conservatives at the national level.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, President Barack Obama said the United States was facing an "untenable fiscal situation" and would have to get serious about tackling its federal deficit.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, US federal agents spread out across Alabama to arrest 11 people on charges of conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud related to attempts to legitimize bingo halls in 2009 and 2010.
(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 4, In New Jersey Craig Mueller (45) killed his brother with sniper fire from a second-floor window in the home they shared, took down a neighbor who came to the victim's aid and turned the gun on himself.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Afghanistan 3 NATO service members were killed by bombings in the south and an insurgent attack killed another in the east, raising the coalition's death toll to 11 in the first four days of October. NATO announced that a joint Afghan-coalition unit launched a night mission that killed a senior Taliban leader named Farman and two other militants in eastern Paktia province. A police convoy was ambushed in Khash Rod district. 5 militants were killed, 3 others wounded and two captured during a gunbattle. Habibullah Aghonzada, a former district chief, was gunned down by assailants as he prayed at a packed mosque in Kandahar city. 3 night time explosion in Kandahar City killed up to 4 Afghan police officers. Noor Ahman, deputy mayor in Kandahar, was killed in an insurgent attack. In the southwest 2 civilians riding a motorcycle died when a roadside bomb exploded as they passed. 2 others were killed by rockets in the country's east.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AP, 10/5/10)(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A5)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Belgium European and Asian leaders opened a formal summit amid high security and palace opulence, hoping to agree on commitments to keep the global financial system on an even keel and find a better balance on the Europe-dominated IMF.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Britain’s treasury chief George Osborne said payments to jobless families will be capped and child benefits for high earners scrapped in a sweeping overhaul of the country's welfare system.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Millions of commuters in London endured a grim journey to work after staff on the Underground network walked out for the second time in a month, sparking calls for tougher strike laws.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, British biologist Robert G. Edwards, whose contributions to the technology of in vitro fertilization have made more than 4 million couples parents, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born Jul 25, 1978.
(www.latimes.com/health/la-sci-nobel-medicine-20101005,0,7666490.story)
2010 Oct 4, Central African Republic government troops regained control of Yalinga, a town held by rebels since September 18. On Oct 6 a spokesman for the rebel group, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), claimed its fighters still held the town in the unstable east of the country.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 4, Colombia's defense minister Rodrigo Rivera said authorities have seized $29 million and 17 million euros in cash in a home in a poor district south of the capital, Bogota. Rivera said the money belonged to drug traffickers including Daniel "El Loco" Barrera. Authorities were offering a $2.7 million reward for Barrera's capture.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, A Cuban human rights leader revealed the names of nine inmates apparently offered early release by the government in exchange for accepting exile, including some convicted of violent crimes such as hijacking, assault and piracy.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi was sworn in for another five-year term, almost five months after controversial polls propelled his party to victory.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, France's Sanofi-Aventis launched an $18.5 billion hostile takeover offer for Genzyme Corp., stepping up its effort to capture the US biotech company's promising drugs for high cholesterol and lucrative treatments for rare genetic disorders.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Hungary a torrent of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant tore through Kolontar and two other villages. The next day Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties. After some days 9 people were reported killed and some 150 injured.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)(AFP, 10/8/10)(AP, 10/11/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.63)
2010 Oct 4, In Indonesia heavy rain unleashed flash floods and mudslides, killing at least 91 people in West Papua province's village of Wasior. Rescuers struggled to reach the area.
(AP, 10/5/10)(AP, 10/6/10)(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Iraq 5 people were killed in violence in Baghdad and central Iraq, including a roadside bomb targeting a junior minister.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Japan issued a travel alert for Europe, joining the United States and Britain in warning of a possible terrorist attack by al-Qaida or other groups, but tourists appeared to be taking the mounting warnings in stride.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Tokyo-based Toshiba unveiled the world's first high definition liquid crystal display 3-D television that does not require special glasses, one of the biggest consumer complaints about the technology.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a pre-dawn attack on tankers carrying fuel to Afghanistan for US and other NATO forces, left vulnerable on the side of the road after Pakistan shut down a key border crossing. Some 20 trucks went up in flames and four people were killed and seven injured. A US drone strike killed eight militants, including five Germans, in North Waziristan, where Western intelligence had traced an alleged plot to attack high-profile targets in Europe.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, Arsonists torched a mosque in a Palestinian village in the West Bank, scrawling "revenge" on a wall in Hebrew and charring copies of the Muslim holy book in a blaze that threatened to stoke new tensions over deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In the northern Philippines motorcycle-riding gunmen killed a regional trial court judge, prompting calls to exempt judges from a current gun ban.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Russia Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow who was fired by Pres. Medvedev, said in a published interview that he plans to form his own political movement.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Russia's VimpelCom Ltd and Weather Investments, the investment company headed by Egyptian telecom mogul Naguib Sawiris, said they are merging to form what would become the world's fifth largest mobile telecommunication service provider in a deal valued at over $6.5 billion. Under the agreement VimpelCom, which is Russia's second largest mobile phone service provider, would own via Weather 51.7 percent of Egypt's Orascom Telecom and all of Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA, both of which are headed by Sawiris.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Somalia two women, a boy and two men were killed in Mogadishu by stray bullets from fighting taking place between pro-government forces and Islamist militants.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, An official said Syria has accused a 19-year-old blogger who is in prison of being a spy in the first comment from authorities on a case that sparked calls by a leading rights group for the young woman's release. Tal al-Mallohi was taken into custody in December. Her blog, known for poetry and social commentary, focused mostly on the suffering of Palestinians.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, It was reported that Syria has ordered the arrest of 33 people over false testimony given in the UN-backed probe into the assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. Observers said the warrants carried no legal weight in Lebanon as the crime in question took place on Lebanese soil and the complainant as well as most of the defendants are Lebanese.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Vietnamese officials said weekend floods triggered by heavy rains have displaced thousands of villagers in central Vietnam, and left 3 people dead and 3 others missing.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 5, Two Russian-born scientists shared the Nobel Prize in physics for groundbreaking experiments with ultrathin carbon. University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom thick but more than 100 times stronger than steel, and showed it has exceptional properties, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, US ATF deputy director Kenneth Melson and Mexico Attorney General Arturo Chavez signed a memorandum of understanding that will increase to 30 a month the number of people trained to use the program, known as eTrace, an electronic database that can trace the manufacture, import, sale and ownership of guns.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 May 5, Faisal Shahzad (30), a US citizen who on May 1, drove a bomb-laden SUV meant to cause a fireball in Times Square, was sentenced to life in prison. The Pakistani immigrant had pleaded guilty on June 21 to 10 terrorism and weapons counts.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, San Francisco unveiled its Kindergarten to College program, the nation’s first city-bankrolled college savings plan. Public school kindergartners will get one-time payments of at least $50 as part of a program to be rolled out over 3 years. Additional contributions were to come from EARN and the San Francisco Foundation based on parental contributions.
(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 5, Illinois police officer Brian Dorian (37) of Lynwood, allegedly began a spree of random shooting that left one person dead and 2 wounded. Dorian was arrested on Oct 8. Dorian was freed on Oct 13. An attorney said he was the victim of a botched investigation.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A9)
2010 Oct 5, In Afghanistan roadside bombings in Kandahar city killed 9 people, including 5 children, and 30 left injured, including many police officers. A major shipment of drugs was intercepted by a combined force after a highway gunbattle in Kandahar that killed an unspecified number of "insurgents." A NATO airstrike killed Qari Ziauddin, identified as the Taliban's "shadow" governor of Faryab province, and four other insurgents. In neighboring Badghis province, a helicopter-borne raid by a joint force led to a gunbattle that killed Mohammad Ismail Quarisaderdin, another Taliban leader described as a shadow governor. Five other Taliban commanders also died in the operation.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 5, In the Bahamas a twin-engine Cessna 402 carrying a pilot and at least eight passengers crashed into Lake Killarney near the international airport in, Nassau, after one of its engines caught fire. Officials soon found the body of a 9th victim from the crash of what may have been an illegal charter flight to a cultural festival. They said a 10th passenger may missing as well.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Brazil a ruling posted on the Sao Paulo electoral court's website said there is sufficient doubt about whether comic performer Tiririca, which means "grumpy" in Portuguese, meets a constitutional mandate that federal lawmakers be literate. Francisco Silva, who got more votes than any other candidate for Congress, will have to convince authorities he can read and write if he wants to take office.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Fellow rebels handed over Congolese commander Sadoke Kokunda Mayele. He was arrested for allegedly leading fighters in the mass gang-rapes of more than 300 people from July 30 to August 2.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Zagreb, Croatia, artists Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic opened the first permanent gallery of their Museum of Broken Relationships.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.96)(http://new.brokenships.com/en)
2010 Oct 5, A leading independent Egyptian daily, Al-Dustour, announced that it has fired chief editor Ibrahim Eissa, an outspoken government critic, amid what journalists are calling a state crackdown on the media ahead of parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In France former Societe Generale SA trader Jerome Kerviel was convicted on all counts in one of history's biggest trading frauds. He was sentenced to three years in jail, with 2 years suspended, and was ordered to repay the bank euro4.9 billion ($6.7 billion) in damages.
(AP, 10/5/10)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.110)
2010 Oct 5, Police in southern France arrested 12 suspects in sweeps against suspected Islamic militant networks, including three men linked to a network recruiting fighters for Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Iran claimed that the Stuxnet computer worm, found on the laptops of several employees at the country's nuclear power plant, is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Iraq gunmen in the northern city of Mosul ambushed and killed the director of the city's crime lab in the latest targeted killing of security officials and government workers.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Myanmar detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi launched a legal battle against the ruling military junta, suing to keep her political party intact after it was disbanded earlier this year under Myanmar's new party registration law.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) said lead poisoning has killed more than 400 children under five in the past six months in the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara.
(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Northern Ireland a dissident Irish Republican Army car bomb damaged a hotel, bank and other businesses but caused no injuries in Londonderry, the sixth such attack this year in the British territory.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In northwestern Pakistan a small bomb damaged a truck that was carrying oil to NATO troops in Afghanistan, the latest attack on stalled supply convoys since Pakistan shut a key border crossing to international forces last week.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Portugal's Pres. Anibal Cavaco Silva opened a new cancer and neuroscience research center in Lisbon that aims to be among the world's best.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Somalia fighting in Mogadishu left seven people dead.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 5, South Africa launched a special wildlife crime unit to tackle a dramatic surge in rhino poaching driven by demand for the animal's horn in Asia for use in traditional medicines.
(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Thailand a blast blew out the side of a residential building in a Bangkok suburb killing 4 people and injuring nine. Police found bomb-making materials in the apartment, including fertilizer contained in fire extinguishers, electrical circuit boards and high-voltage batteries. Samai Wongsuwan, a Red Shirt supporter, was believed to be one of the dead.
(AP, 10/5/10)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Documents were released in which the national oil spill commission's staff described "not an incidental public relations problem" by the White House in the wake of the April 20 accident. The report said, the administration made erroneous early estimates of the spill's size, and President Barack Obama's senior energy adviser went on national TV and mischaracterized a government analysis by saying it showed most of the oil was "gone." The analysis actually said it could still be there. The explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, spewed 206 million gallons of oil from the damaged oil well, and sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of Prison Legal News against a county jail in Moncks Corner, SC, over a policy barring inmates from having any reading material other than the Bible.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 6, An American and two Japanese scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for finding new ways to bond carbon atoms together, methods now widely used to make medicines and in agriculture and electronics. Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki were honored for their development in the 1960s and '70s of one of the most sophisticated tools available to chemists today, called palladium-catalyzed cross coupling.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Facebook launched a new way for members to organize their friends, archive personal information and a new dashboard to control personal information sought by 3rd party applications and Web sites.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.D1)
2010 Oct 6, Logitech introduced Revue, a $299.99 set-top box for Google’s new TV service. The device allows users to access websites, Internet video, digital pictures and music from their televisions. Apple’s set-top box was introduced on Sep 1 for $99.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.D5)(http://tinyurl.com/2vzxpar)
2010 Oct 6, Cisco introduced its $599 Cisco Umi, a consumer product for video chats on home TVs. The service would also require a monthly fee of $24.99.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.D5)(http://tinyurl.com/2vzxpar)
2010 Oct 6, Researchers reported in the journal PLoS ONE that samples collected from hives affected by the colony collapse disorder (CCD) indicated the presence of a virus as well as a fungus. The two pathogens were not found in bee colonies not affected by the syndrome.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, The US and EU said that UN climate talks in Ttianjin, China, were making less progress than hoped due to rifts over rising economies' emission goals, while China pushed back and put the onus on rich nations.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia launched their transatlantic joint business, unveiling new routes and detailing benefits for customers that include a shared frequent flyers program.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, San Francisco unveiled new equipment allowing luxury liners to plug into the city’s power grid, part of an effort to cut diesel suit along the waterfront.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.C2)
2010 Oct 6, Northern Arizona was hit by 3 tornadoes. 28 cars of a parked freight train were derailed. 15 homes in Bellemont were made uninhabitable.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Oct 6, It was reported that Afghan Pres. Karzai has begun secret talks over a negotiated end to the war. Sources said that for the first time Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader Muhammad Omar. Taliban commander Maulawi Jawadullah, accused of organizing deadly ambushes, roadside bombings, and abductions of Afghan police and soldiers in northern Afghanistan, was killed in an airstrike in Yangi Qala district. A NATO service member died in a roadside bombing in the south. An Afghan-NATO force killed six insurgents and destroyed a compound used for making improvised explosive devices in Arghandab district of Kandahar province. 3 militants were killed in Zabul province during a firefight with a joint force. 16 militants were killed in air raids and ground fighting overnight in the Darqad, Yangi Qala and Khwaja Bahawuddin districts of Takhar province.
(SFC, 10/6/10, p.A2)(AP, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Britain Halima Bashir (30), a doctor who says she was gang-raped in 2004 by Sudanese soldiers after speaking out about atrocities in Darfur, won the Anna Politkovskaya award for women human rights defenders. She wrote about her experiences in her memoir, "Tears of the Desert" (2008).
(Reuters, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Canada Quebec presented legislation to award Bombardier Inc a contract worth more than C$1 billion ($980 million) to build nearly 500 subway cars for Montreal, short-circuiting a bidding process that has dragged on for five years.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 6, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the EU to stop piling pressure on Beijing to revalue its currency, saying a rapid shift could unleash disastrous social turmoil.
(Reuters, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Cuba a resolution from the Foreign Relations Ministry was published into law making the guayabera Cuba's official formal dress garment and mandating that government officials wear them at state functions.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ecuador's interior minister said 46 police officers have been detained for alleged participation in the Sep 30 police revolt against President Rafael Correa that claimed 5 lives.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ethiopia freed opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa (36), saying it had granted a plea for pardon from her. Birtukan and other opposition figures were charged with plotting against the constitution in connection with those skirmishes, but were released in 2007 after being pardoned. She was sent back to prison in December 2008 after claiming she had never asked for pardon.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Former US president Bill Clinton returned to Haiti to participate in a meeting on rebuilding the quake-ravaged nation, as his foundation pledged 500,000 dollars to a huge tent city.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, Hungary scrambled to contain a toxic mud spill that left four people dead and more than 100 injured in what is being described as an ecological catastrophe. The spill raised fears that pollution leeching from it could reach the Danube River, which courses through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine before flowing into the Black Sea.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ratings agency Fitch cut Ireland's credit worthiness another notch, citing the country's long fight to emerge from record deficits, the toughest bank-bailout effort in Europe and a lagging economy.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Italy Concetta Serrano was participating in a live TV show that focuses on missing people when the anchor told her brother-in-law had confessed to have allegedly murdered her daughter. The Italian news agencies broke the story of the alleged confession while the show was being broadcast from inside the uncle's house in the southern Italian town of Avetrana, where Sarah Scazzi (15) disappeared on Aug. 26.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Indian Kashmir 50 students arrested during months of deadly protests were released from custody in a latest move to defuse tension in the Himalayan region.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Indonesia helicopters dropped food to isolated villages and security forces helped clear debris and search for survivors as the number of people killed by floods and landslides across Asia climbed to nearly 110. Three-quarters of the deaths were in eastern Indonesia. In Vietnam 11 bodies were recovered in the worst-hit province of Quang Binh, where authorities were also searching for five sailors from a sunken barge. At least seven other bodies were found in Ha Tinh province, five in Nghe An and three in Quang Tri. On China's nearby island province of Hainan, seven straight days of heavy rains left two people missing and forced 64,000 to evacuate.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Malaysia a newborn baby died after being snatched by a monkey from her family's living room in Negri Sembilan state. Wildlife authorities fatally shot the monkey, which had remained near the house and might have been attracted by a female pet monkey the family kept in a cage.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Nigeria suspected members of Boko Haram, a northern radical Muslim sect, shot and killed Awana Ngala, the leader of the ruling All Nigeria People's Party, the latest attack by a group that engineered a massive prison break last month.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Pakistan a US missile strike killed five people in North Waziristan. Militants earlier attacked a depot housing 40 NATO oil tankers on the outskirts of Quetta, killing a member of staff and destroying at least 18 vehicles, in the fourth such attack in a week.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Scientists unveiled a spectacular array of more than 200 new species discovered in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo returned home and resumed his office after undergoing treatment in Brazil for a blood clot that doctors say resulted from chemotherapy for cancer.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Puerto Rico FBI agents began arresting police officers accused of corruption. Local newspaper El Nuevo Dia reported that police and corrections officers were among 133 people named in the federal indictments, yet to be opened.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev headed a top level business delegation to Algeria, seeking to use his clout to push through delicate energy and telecoms deals with a traditional Moscow ally. Algeria and Russia signed six deals in sectors including energy and transportation.
(AFP, 10/6/10)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, A Moscow court said is has sentenced 3 ultranationalists, convicted of hate killings and bombings, to long prison sentences. The were part of a militant neo-pagan cult that preyed on labor migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. From 2008-2009 they killed 10 people and arranged a number of bombings.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 6, In Somalia sporadic clashes between Islamic fighters and government soldiers killed four men in Mogadishu.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for financial support to increase his country's troop levels in the African Union force in Somalia.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Local media reported that Ukraine has adopted a dress code for government workers. The code called on men working at the Cabinet of Ministers to wear mostly gray and dark blue suits and not wear the same suit to work two days in a row. Women were asked to stick to business suits and low-heeled shoes, as well as refrain from excessive makeup and jewelry.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Vietnam fireworks intended for Hanoi's upcoming 1000th birthday celebration exploded prematurely, killing four people and injuring three others.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Yemen assailants fired a rocket at a convoy carrying Britain's No. 2 diplomat and killed a Frenchman working for an Austrian oil company in a pair of attacks that heightened fears over the safety of Westerners in a country facing a growing militant threat. Hisham Assem (19), a guard who worked at the French engineering firm SPIE, was later arrested and charged with killing the Frenchman.
(AP, 10/6/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 7, Afghan President Hamid Karzai hosted the inaugural session of a new peace council set up to guide efforts to reconcile with the Taliban and other insurgent groups. In the north a Taliban suicide attack killed a German soldier and wounded six others in Baghlan province. The death brought to 44 the number of German troops killed in the Afghan war. A senior Taliban leader, accused of commanding an "assassination cell" in Kandahar city, was captured. 4 militants were killed and one captured by an Afghan-NATO force in eastern Wardak province's Chaki Wardak district. A joint force also recovered and destroyed almost 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) of narcotics during two operations in Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces.
(AP, 10/7/10)(AFP, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, Australian PM Julia Gillard dropped her unpopular "citizens' assembly" to guide climate change policy after the plan drew fierce criticism during the recent election campaign.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Bangladesh boat operators said at least 200 fishermen were missing after 15 fishing boats capsized in the Bay of Bengal during a storm. A storm surge over the past two days has sent waves five feet high crashing into several towns and villages along the coast.
(Reuters, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Brazil Globo TV's website said that a 13-year-old boy was killed in the crossfire of a gunbattle during a police operation to recover a stolen vehicle in a shantytown. A 67-year-old woman died and two people were injured in an unrelated shootout between police and gang members. Dozens of armed drug gang members have been setting up roadblocks and robbing drivers en masse in recent days in the Rio de Janeiro area, prompting the firing of 19 police battalion leaders a day earlier.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Researchers at London’s Kew Gardens said they have discovered that the Paris japonica has a genetic code 50 times longer than that of a human being. To date this was the longest genome discovered.
(SFC, 10/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 7, In Canada mercury was discharged during a reconfiguration of pipes at the Teck Resources Ltd. lead smelter waste-treatment plant in Trail, British Columbia. The work has since been completed and the leak stopped.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, In China a new regulation that took effect saying mine bosses who don't go underground with their workers will be severely punished in the latest bid to improve safety in the world's deadliest mines.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, China says at least 38 people in the southern part of the country have been infected with a mosquito-borne virus that causes an illness similar to dengue fever. This was thought to be China's largest-ever outbreak of the chikungunya virus, which can cause fevers, joint pain, headaches and rashes.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In eastern Congo children in Burinyi village found an unexploded grenade on their way to fetch water from a well. 5 children died when it detonated as they were playing with it.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Ecuador a court was issued authorizing the jailing of 12 police officers and a police colonel while prosecutors investigate the Sep 30 police uprising that resulted in 5 deaths.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Hungary's most prestigious organization of scientists and researchers said tests of the red sludge flowing into the Danube show no dangerous heavy metal levels. Disaster relief officials said more than 150 people, most of them suffering chemical burns, were treated in hospitals after part of the MAL Zrt company metals factory reservoir collapsed and a toxic torrent swept through three villages killing 8 people.
(AP, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 7, Interpol notified its members that India has issued arrest warrants for five Pakistani citizens, including two army officers, for alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Iran a pair of gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in its Kurdish region, killing four officers and a bystander.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Iraq back-to-back bombings at a vegetable market south of Baghdad killed at least five people, including a policeman who was searching for explosives.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Israel signed a contract with the United States to buy 20 F-35 fighter jets after Washington offered "incentives" for the Jewish state to help sputtering peace talks.
(AFP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Italy Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sealed Sino-Italian business deals worth €2.25 billion ($3.15 billion), after fending off European pressure to raise the value of the yuan.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, The assembly in Indian-controlled Kashmir erupted in violence when opposition lawmakers scuffled with security guards to protest a suggestion that only a deal between India and Pakistan could bring peace to the region.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Kazakhstan a Russian Soyuz TMA-01M rocket blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station carrying one American and 2 Russian astronauts.
(SFC, 10/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 7, In Pakistan 2 suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up inside a crowded Sufi shrine compound in the southern city of Karachi, killing 8 people with 65 injured.
(Reuters, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, A top Palestinian negotiator says the Palestinians have accepted a US proposal calling on Israel to extend a West Bank settlement slowdown for another two months.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, The 2010 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (b.1936) "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat."
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov told reporters that Russia is reimbursing Iran for its down payments on a deal for advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles, which Moscow halted in the face of tough new UN sanctions.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, South Korean financial regulators said they will suspend the operations of an Iranian bank for two months, as part of international sanctions over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Sudan's army said it attacked rebel positions in the Darfur region hours before the arrival of a delegation of UN Security Council envoys in the territory. Armed men abducted a civilian peacekeeper in the capital North Darfur state hours after the arrival of UN Security Council envoys.
(Reuters, 10/7/10)(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Vietnam the death toll from vicious rains nearly doubled to 48 after disaster officials were finally able to access areas that had been cut off by high waters. Another 23 people remained missing as villagers started returning to areas where the water was receding.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Yemeni authorities announced the arrest of seven suspects in the attack on the motorcade of the British embassy's No. 2, all from Nuqum, an area in the capital that has become synonymous with militancy.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 8, The Nobel Committee named imprisoned Chinese scholar Liu Xiaobo the 2010 Peace Prize winner for "his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." The decision by the five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament came over the objection of the Chinese government, which considers Liu a criminal.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, President Barack Obama praised outgoing national security adviser Jim Jones and named close aide Tom Donilon (55) as his top security adviser, elevating a skeptic of the US troop surge in Afghanistan to oversee a major review of the war.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Pres. Obama signed a law on providing the disabled easier access to technology.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 8, A US Senate report said US funds for private security contractors in Afghanistan have flowed to warlords and Taliban insurgents, undermining the war effort and fueling corruption. A congressional report called "Warlord, Inc." said trucking contractors pay tens of millions of dollars annually to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for guarding their supply convoys, some of which are suspected of paying off the Taliban.
(AFP, 10/8/10)(AP, 7/31/12)
2010 Oct 8, The US Labor Dept. said a wave of government layoffs in September outpaced weak hiring in the private sector, pushing down the nation's payrolls by a net total of 95,000 jobs. The unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent last month.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 11,000 for the first time in five months.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Oct 8, Bank of America said it will suspend sales of foreclosed homes nationwide. A suspension in 23 other states had been announced a week earlier. The “Foreclosuregate" flared up when an employee at GMAC Mortgage admitted to having approved thousands of repossessions without properly reviewing the documents.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A1)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.87)
2010 Oct 8, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a $86.6 billion state budget, 100 days after beginning the fiscal year. He used his line-item veto power to cut nearly $1 billion from the plan approved by the Legislature. An independent analyst later estimated that the budget remained $25.4 billion in deficit.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A1)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.37)
2010 Oct 8, The remains of Lexis Roberts (12) from Nevada were found in Louisiana. A warrant was later issued for Thomas Steven Sanders (53). In 1994 family members had declared Sanders dead, seven years after he vanished. In November the remains of a woman, believed to be her mother, Suellen Roberts (31) were found in Arizona.
(http://tinyurl.com/2dwr8pa)(SFC, 11/5/10, p.A8)(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)
2010 Oct 8, Albertina Walker (81), Grammy-winning gospel vocalist, died in Chicago.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.C9)
2010 Oct 8, In northern Afghanistan Kunduz provincial governor Mohammad Omar and at least 19 other people were killed by a massive bomb blast inside a packed mosque during Friday prayers in Takhar province. NATO helicopters killed six Afghan militiamen in eastern Khost province. An insurgent attack killed a NATO service member and two others died in separate roadside bombings in the south. Armed men burst into a mosque and shot dead religious scholar Molvi Mohammad during Friday prayers in Kandahar city. Linda Norgrove (36) a British aid worker was killed during a botched US rescue raid. She had been abducted at gunpoint on Sep 26. A rescue team was closing in on the house where Norgrove was being held when a grenade was thrown into the room where she was kept, killing her. Troops opened fire and killed all the captors. An investigation over her death confirmed that a grenade thrown by US forces had killed Norgrove.
(AP, 10/8/10)(AFP, 10/9/10)(AFP, 10/11/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Australia plan was released by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to restore ailing rivers, posing a new headache for the Labor minority government. Farmers would lose more than a third of irrigation water in the major food bowl.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo Morales enacted an anti-racism bill opposed by most of the nation’s newspapers, which said it limited free speech.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 8, Organizers said a ticket-holder in Britain has won a record 129 million euros (181 million dollars) on the Euromillions lottery, although nobody has yet come forward to claim the prize. The Euromillions lottery, launched in 2004, is now played by nine countries across western Europe.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 8, China said on rich nations must lock in fresh vows to slash greenhouse gas output to unblock talks for a new climate change deal, while some negotiators said Beijing was holding progress hostage.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with the pope and top Vatican officials in a fence-mending visit following France's controversial crackdown on Gypsies, while a top Vatican cardinal urged France to welcome immigrants and those who have been persecuted.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, The YM Uranus, a chemicals tanker loaded with 6,000 tons of solvent, ran into trouble after a collision off the coast of France but authorities said its crew was rescued and its cargo did not seem to be leaking. The 120-meter-long YM Uranus had been in a collision with the 179,000 dead-weight ton bulk carrier Hanjin Rizhao.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Ireland's police force detectives arrested nine suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents and seized weapons. Police arrested two men aged 20 and 33 at a house near the Northern Ireland border and seized a gun and ammunition. They arrested seven people aged 19 to 71 in southeast Ireland and sealed off a home where they found bomb components.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Israeli troops killed two senior Hamas militants in an early-morning raid in the West Bank city of Hebron, raising tensions as peace talks remain stuck over Israeli settlement building. The two gunmen were wanted in connection with the killing of four Israelis near Hebron on Aug. 31. An incident captured on film and widely broadcast showed two masked boys standing in the road among a group throwing stones when a car driven by David Beeri, the local leader of Elad, drove round the corner and ploughed into them. One boy was thrown into the air and bounced off the car's windscreen before crashing to the ground. The car stopped briefly before driving off.
(AP, 10/8/10)(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Mexico Antonio Jimenez Banos (47), who would have taken office in January in Martires de Tacubaya, was killed by an assailant as he was returning to his farm. Eleven sitting mayors have been killed so far this year in Mexico.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Mozambique a settling pond breached its wall at the Irish mining firm Kenmare Resources’ Moma titanium and zircon mine in the northern province of Nampula, flooding the area with a mixture of water, sand and clay. A four-year-old girl was missing after the dam burst, flooding an area housing 3,000 families.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 8, A Nigerian court handed a 6-month jail sentence to Cecilia Ibru, one of the country's most prominent women, over millions of dollars loaned by her bank in a case linked to a financial crisis in the oil-rich nation.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 8, A top North Korean official confirmed to broadcaster APTN that Kim Jong Il's youngest son will succeed him as the next leader of the reclusive communist nation.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Pakistan's army chief ordered an inquiry into video clips that show men in soldiers' uniforms gunning down a group of bound and blindfolded detainees. The footage has raised concern over possible extrajudicial killings by a military that receives billions in US aid.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, The Swiss Im Grueene Foundation awarded Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales $104,000 for “democratizing the access to knowledge."
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 9, The IMF wrapped up 2 days of talks in Washington DC. Global leaders failed to resolve deep differences that threatened a full-blown currency war.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has acquired a Nevada ranch for use as a wild horse sanctuary, the Mustang Monument Preserve. The 14,000 acre property included grazing rights to 540,000 acres of public land. She was also said to be negotiating for and adjoining 4,000-acre ranch with grazing rights to 24,000 acres. She hoped to return all 34,000 in government funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 9, In North Carolina the parents of Zahra Baker (10) reportedly saw her alive for the last time. Stepmother Eliza Baker told police on Oct 24 that Zahra was dead and that her body had been dismembered. On Nov 12 police found a bone that matched Zahra’s DNA. On Feb 21, 2011, Elisa Baker was indicted for the murder of Zahra.
(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)(SFC, 2/22/11, p.A4)
2010 Oct 9, In southern Utah a small plane crashed and killed 2 National park Service law enforcement agents in the Dixie National Forest.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 9, President Hamid Karzai told Afghans in Kandahar that it was their duty to return to their homes and help protect their villages in the Kandahar region where international troops are trying to rout insurgents. 4 Italian soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack in the west. Intelligence sources tracked a Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Jamaluddin, as he traveled in western Badghis province's Murghab district. A gunbattle erupted and the Taliban leader and two militants were killed. Taliban leader, Ajmal Agha Jan, was killed in southern Helmand province's Marjah district after he pulled a pistol on a joint force that raided his compound.
(AP, 10/9/10)(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 9, The Arab League opened a summit in Libya with the pressing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Sudan added to the original agenda.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Bangladesh three days of incessant rains have left at least 17 people dead and 41 fishermen missing across the southern coast.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Chile a drilling rig punched through to the underground purgatory where 33 miners have been trapped for 66 agonizing days under the desert at Camp Hope. If close video examination persuades engineers that the shaft is smooth, strong and uniform enough to let the capsule pass without significant obstacles, then rescuers plan to start pulling the men out one by one as early as Oct 12.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, China and the United States clashed on the final day of climate change talks in Tianjin, accusing each other of blocking progress ahead of a major summit next month on global warming.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In China a collision between an intercity bus and a cement truck on a foggy eastern China highway killed at least 17 people outside Nanjing city.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Cuba will release into exile in Spain a lawyer jailed for allegedly revealing state security secrets and two hijackers, none of whom were on a list of 52 political prisoners the government has agreed to free in a deal with the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Hungarian police and soldiers evacuated 800 from the village of Kolontar as authorities said a second flood of toxic sludge from a chemicals plant was likely after new cracks appeared in a dyke.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Erwin Arnada (47), the former editor-in-chief of Playboy Indonesia, began a two-year prison sentence for publishing pictures of scantily clothed women, riling free speech activists in the world's most populous Muslim nation. The Supreme Court had found Arnada guilty of violating indecency laws during a closed-door session in August, overruling a 2007 acquittal by the South Jakarta District Court.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Iran said it is ready to hold talks over its nuclear program with the US and other major powers in late October or early November. Iran also revealed for the first time that some personnel at the country's nuclear facilities were lured by promises of money to pass secrets to the West, but said increased security and worker privileges have put a stop to the spying.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, A 650-foot Lithuanian-flagged ferry was ablaze in the Baltic Sea after an explosion on the upper deck. Firefighting ships sprayed the vessel with water to keep it from breaking apart and spilling some 170 tons of fuel. 249 people aboard were rescued by six ships that moved in to help after the explosion on the Lisco Gloria around midnight. A four-person team was lowered to the ferry by helicopter and managed to anchor the vessel off the southern tip of the Danish island Langeland to keep it from drifting farther ashore.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In northern Nigeria gunmen on motorcycle taxis killed Islamic cleric Sheikh Bashir Mustapha. He had been an outspoken critic of Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect blamed for a rash of recent shootings. Authorities believed Sheikh Bashir Mustapha was slain by members of Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Pakistan announced it would reopen a key border crossing and allow convoys to resume delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, ending a 10-day blockade during which trucks were stranded on their way to the border and almost 150 were destroyed by attackers. Just hours before the announcement of the reopening, gunmen armed with a rocket attacked 29 tankers carrying NATO fuel supplies which had been stopped outside a roadside restaurant in the southwest, setting them ablaze. The border is normally closed on Sundays, so Oct 11 appeared to be the soonest the flow of supplies over the crossing would resume.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Arab leaders to press the United States to recognize a unilateral declaration of statehood if peace talks with Israel collapse. Extremist Jews ripped off branches and cut the roots of Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank village of Burin, as the yearly 45-day harvest of the important crop began.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Somali pirates attacked the 241-ton Kenya-registered trawler. 2 South Koreans, 2 Chinese and 39 Kenyans were aboard the trawler when it was attacked in the waters off Kenya's Lamu Island.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Sudan some 30 separatists in Khartoum clashed with police as some 3,000 opponents of the country's potential breakup in a southern independence vote due in January demonstrated during a visit by UN ambassadors. Envoys from the 15 UN Security Council members were in the capital on the final stage of a four-day visit in which they expressed the international community's concern that the referendum go ahead on schedule.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In central Vietnam the death toll in devastating floods rose to 62 as authorities rushed aid to about 100,000 people facing food shortages.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Yemen self-confessed militant Saleh al-Shaoush admitted to carrying out deadly attacks on military targets and oil facilities, as four other suspected Al-Qaeda members went on trial for planning attacks. Al-Shaoush was arrested on January 30 as he prepared to carry out a suicide bombing in the southeastern port of Mukalla. The US-based SITE monitoring service reported that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed it had assassinated a colonel named Abdul al-Karim al-Baan in the southern Lahij province. AQAP also said it had shot an intelligence officer named Al-Hashidi in the province.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 10, Virgin Galactic’s space tourism rocket, SpaceShip Two, achieved its first solo glide flight. Manned by 2 pilots it flew for 11 minutes before landing in Mojave, Ca.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A5)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 10, In Chandler, Arizona, Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy's body was found in a suburban Phoenix apartment, his severed head a couple feet away. Detectives suspected that Cota-Monroy's killing was punishment for stealing drugs. A police report on Feb 2, 2011, said that Cota-Monroy stole 400 pounds of marijuana and some meth from the PEI-Estatales/El Chapo drug trafficking organization. Cota-Monroy told the cartel that the Border Patrol had seized the drugs, but the cartel learned the truth and hired men to kidnap and kill him in Nogales, Mexico. Cota-Monroy fled to the Phoenix area, leading the cartel to hire assassins to go to Arizona, befriend Cota-Monroy and kill him. One man, Crisantos Moroyoqui, was later charged in the killing, and three others were believed to have fled to Mexico.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 3/3/11)
2010 Oct 10, Solomon Burke (b.1940), the larger-than-life "King of Rock and Soul," died at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The Philadelphia-born singer was revered as one of music's greatest vocalists but never reached the level of fame of those he influenced. He joined Atlantic in 1960 and went on to record a string of hits in a decade with the label. He wrote "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" in 1964 and it was later featured in the Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi movie "The Blues Brothers."
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Dame Joan Sutherland (83), renowned Australian opera soprano, died at her home in Switzerland.
(SFC, 10/12/10, p.C3)
2010 Oct 10, The Afghan government named former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as the chief of a new peace council tasked with talking to insurgent groups. A roadside bomb killed 5 members of a family in Paktia province. 2 NATO troops were killed by a roadside bomb in the south. A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a military convoy, killing a child and wounding two other people in Khost province.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, The 10/10/10 event known as the "Global Work Party" kicked off in Australia and New Zealand before spinning its way across the globe with events in 188 countries. Environmental campaigners planted trees, collected rubbish and rallied against pollution for what organizers aimed to make the world's biggest day of climate-change activism.
(AFP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Austria the far-right anti-immigration Freedom party drew 27% of the vote in local elections in Vienna giving them 28 seats in the regional parliament.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 10, In Bangladesh a speeding bus veered off the road and into the water. Many of some 50 passengers swam to safety after the crash. 11 bodies were soon recovered and the search continued for more.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 10, In the Central African Republic rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) abducted a number of girls during an attack on the town of Birao. at least 5 people were taken by the rebels, who retreated when government troops arrived on the scene.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 10, In China the wife of construction worker Luo Yanquan (36) was taken kicking and screaming from their home by more than a dozen people and detained in a clinic for three days by family planning officials, then taken to a hospital and injected with a drug that killed her baby. Xiao Aiying (36) delivered the dead baby on Oct 14.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 10, Curacao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius were scheduled to go their own ways. The former Dutch Caribbean colonies of Curacao and St. Maarten became autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a change of constitutional status dissolving the Netherlands Antilles.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, A Hungarian official said the wall of a reservoir filled with caustic red sludge will inevitably collapse and unleash a new deluge of red sludge that could flow about a half-mile (1 km) to the north.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In India a boat carrying dozens of farm workers capsized on the flooded Ganges River killing at least 22 people.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 10, Iranian Sunni rebels said they had kidnapped a nuclear scientist and would publish secrets he knows about Iran's nuclear program unless 200 political prisoners were released.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Iran arrested two German nationals in Tabriz as they approached the home of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman whose sentence of death-by-stoning on an adultery conviction has drawn international condemnation. Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, and lawyer Houtan Kian were arrested along with two the German nationals, who were seeking to interview the son. On Feb 5, 2012, reporter Marcus Hellwig told the Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he was regularly beaten up during the first 10 "brutal" days in captivity until a German diplomat intervened. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Tehran for a rare meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Westerwelle brought Hellwig and his German photographer Jens Koch home after 5 months imprisonment.
(AP, 10/12/10)(AP, 11/4/10)(AP, 2/5/12)
2010 Oct 10, Israel's Cabinet approved a bill that would require new citizens to pledge a loyalty oath to a "Jewish and democratic" state, language that triggered charges of racism from Arab lawmakers who see it as undermining the rights of the country's Arab minority.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Kyrgyzstan about 56% of eligible voters turned out to elect a new and empowered parliament with the right to approve a government and appoint a prime minister. The nationalist Ata-Zhurt party, which opposed the new constitution, pulled ahead with around 8.6 percent of eligible votes. The Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, trailed in second place with 8.2 percent of the eligible vote.
(AP, 10/10/10)(AP, 10/11/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.52)
2010 Oct 10, Kim Jong Un (26), the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (68), joined his father at a massive military parade in his most public appearance since being unveiled as the nation's next leader. South Korean activists also sent some 20,000 leaflets packed with $1 bills and CDs carrying anti-Kim Jong Un rap songs floating across the border in hopes of reaching ordinary North Koreans.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Norwegian oil firm Statoil is expanding further its shale gas operations in the United States, saying it has created a joint venture with Canada's Talisman to acquire acreage on the Eagle Ford prospect in Texas for $1.325 billion.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Pakistan reopened a key border crossing to NATO supply convoys heading into Afghanistan, ending an 11-day blockade imposed after a US helicopter strike killed two Pakistani soldiers.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Serbia a gay rights parade in Belgrade descended into violence as thousands of police deployed to protect marchers clashed with gangs of anti-gay protesters, sparking riots, injuries and dozens of arrests.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Somali pirates seized the Panama-flagged Izumi, a Japanese-owned cargo ship with 20 Filipino crew members onboard. The Izumi was released on Feb 25, 2011.
(AP, 10/11/10)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 Oct 10, In South Korea Hwang Jang-yop (87), the key architect of North Korea's isolationist state policy, was found dead at his Seoul residence. He once mentored authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il before defecting to South Korea in 1997.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Some 7,200 South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed marriage vows in the Unification Church's second mass wedding this year.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Yemen 2 attackers on a motorbike in the southern town of Zinjibar gunned down, Ghazi al-Samawi, a criminal investigations officer who was featured on an Al-Qaeda hit list of policemen to be killed.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Two Americans and a British-Cypriot economist won the 2010 Nobel economics prize for developing a theory that helps explain why many people can remain unemployed despite a large number of job vacancies. Federal Reserve board nominee Peter Diamond was honored along with Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides for their analysis of the obstacles that prevent buyers and sellers from efficiently pairing up in markets.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, President Obama signed a major NASA act that turns his vision for US space exploration of asteroids and Mars into law.
(http://tinyurl.com/26w555z)
2010 Oct 11, The San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2 at Turner Field to clinch the National League Championship Series.
(SFC, 10/12/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 11, Microsoft unveiled a new mobile phone operating system as it seeks to regain ground lost to the iPhone, Blackberry and devices powered by Google's Android software.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Afghanistan a coalition airstrike killed Taliban commander Shirin Agha and another militant in northern Kunduz province.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 11, Al Arabiya TV said Al Qaeda's north African arm wants a repeal of a ban on the Muslim face veil in France, the release of militants and 7 million euros to free hostages who include five French. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is holding seven foreigners in the Sahara desert after kidnapping them last month.
(Reuters, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, The emir of Kuwait arrived in Algeria for a two-day visit on the latest step of a north African tour.
(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, Queen Elizabeth named a new British cruise ship the Queen Elizabeth. British monarchs have launched seven merchant ships bearing royal names since the Queen Mary in 1934. The newest vessel is the third named Queen Elizabeth.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Officials said Canadian troops are being forced to pull out of a military base in the United Arab Emirates that supports their mission in Afghanistan amid an ongoing dispute over airline landing rights.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, China blocked European diplomats from meeting with the wife of the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner, cut off her phone communication and canceled meetings with Norwegian officials, acting on its fury over the award.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Chinese state media reported that more than 440,000 people have been evacuated in Hainan after the heaviest rains for decades inundated 90 percent of the Chinese island in the South China Sea.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Dubai media reported that a key suspect in the killing of a Hamas operative in Dubai on Jan 19 has been arrested abroad but details of the capture are secret. The arrest took place in a Western country about two months ago.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Callixte Mbarushimana, a Rwandan leader of the FDLR rebel group, was arrested in Paris on charges of leading rebels accused of mass rapes and killings in Congo. The International Criminal Court said he is charged with 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including killings, rape, persecution based on gender and extensive destruction of property committed by the FDLR during most of 2009.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, The rights group EG Justice said in a statement that a letter signed by 125 African scholars and human rights defenders has denounced the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, a prize named for the president of Equatorial Guinea. Mbasogo seized power more than 30 years ago and has been accused of human rights violations including unlawful killings, torture, and arbitrary arrests.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, Hungary took over control of the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company (MAL). PM Orban said the that Zoltan Bakonyi, the managing director, of the MAL, has been arrested. Bakonyi’s father, Arpad Bakonyi, had played a central role in the privatization of the country’s aluminum industry and remained its largest shareholder.
(SFC, 10/12/10, p.A3)
2010 Oct 11, Krishna Poonia won India's first Commonwealth Games athletics gold medal in 52 years when she led a stunning host nation clean sweep in the women's discus.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree paving the way for a state takeover of Islamic Azad University, the country's largest private university, in a crushing blow to the nation's moderates. Khamenei's decree declared the university's 2009 endowment, which keeps it financially independent, to be religiously illegitimate and therefore null and void.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Iraq gunmen wearing military uniforms raided the homes of several anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighters. They killed four men in an execution-style slaying and left 2 wounded before dawn near the town of Youssifiyah.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Irish police uncovered a major arms and explosives cache hidden in a wood in County Louth. The find included a machine gun, bomb-making equipment and assorted ammunition. They described it as a significant blow to dissident republicans.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, The Israeli government endorsed a bill requiring a national referendum be held before any withdrawal from occupied east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. PM Netanyahu spelled out recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as his price for a renewal of a ban on construction in the occupied West Bank. The offer was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians, who said it had "nothing to do with the peace process."
(AFP, 10/11/10)(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Mexico 8 police officers were killed in an ambush in Sinaloa state. In Tijuana police found the decapitated bodies of two men hung by their feet off a bridge. Their heads were found in a car abandoned on the bridge.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, A Nigerian official said scores of slum residents in Lagos have been left homeless by flooding from the Ogun River following last month's opening of a dam.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, In northern Nigeria suspected members of a radical Islamic sect set a police station ablaze, wounding three officers in an attack similar to one that sparked rioting and a government crackdown that left 700 dead last year.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, North Korea’s Kim Jong Nam, the casino-loving eldest son of Kim Jong Il, said he opposes a hereditary transfer of power to his youngest half-brother. Analysts say Kim Jong Nam spends so much time outside his native land that his opinion carries little weight. He spoke to Japan's TV Asahi in an interview from Beijing.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2010 Oct 11, Russia's ruling party swept regional elections in several provinces this weekend, easily maintaining its grip on power, according to early returns.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Russian researchers said traces of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization have been discovered in the peaks of the Caucasus Mountains thanks to aerial photographs taken 40 years ago. the civilization dated from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC, high in the mountains south of Kislovodsk.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Somali pirates kidnapped Said Mohamed Rage, fisheries minister of the regional Puntland government. A soldier guarding the minister was killed and a civilian wounded. Pirates ambushed Rage's convoy because they thought he wanted to expel them from their bases. Rage was freed 2 days later.
(AP, 10/12/10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Yemen 2 bombs, timed to go off one after the other, killed two people and injured 12 others in San’a.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, The Obama administration lifted the deep-water drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico. Actual resumption was still weeks to months away.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 12, A US federal judge ordered an immediate halt to military discharges under the “don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. District Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside, Ca., had ruled the 1993 law unconstitutional on Sep 9.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 12, In Afghanistan a commander and 3 other militants from the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based faction of the Taliban with close ties to al-Qaida, were killed in a firefight overnight with NATO and Afghan forces in eastern Khost province's Spera district.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Afghanistan a cargo plane, carrying NATO supplies went down east of Kabul shortly after taking off from Bagram Air Field. The bodies of 5 of 8 people on board were recovered the next day. The plane, owned by United Arab Emirates-based TransAfrik, was under contract by the US-based company National Air Cargo.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Algeria 5 people were killed when a remote control bomb exploded on a construction site in Tlidgen.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, Australian PM Julia Gillard renewed her backing for a controversial Internet filter, saying it was driven by a "moral question."
(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood accused the government of cracking down ahead of November's parliamentary election. Police had arrested at least 28 members of the Islamist group over the last 2 days. An Egyptian regulatory body set new rules for companies sending text messages to multiple mobile phones, a step that activists say will stifle efforts to mobilize voters before the elections, which are to be held in the last week of November.
(AFP, 10/12/10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Ethiopia senior leaders of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a breakaway rebel faction, gathered in Addis Ababa to sign a peace deal with the government. The government claimed the breakaway group represents around 80 percent of the ONLF.
(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In France hundreds of thousands of workers, students and functionaries staged protests, the 4th this month, aimed to reverse a new law requiring people to work until 62 rather than 60 before receiving their retirement pensions.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 12, A Greek tanker, the Mindoro, collided with a container ship, the Cypriot-flagged Jork Ranger, 20 miles (30 km) off the Dutch coast and briefly leaked jet fuel into the North Sea.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In India a second doping case in two days, and again involving a Nigerian runner, was reported. Both cases involved Methylhexaneamine. It was also found in about a dozen Indian athletes in recent months.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Iran 18 members of the powerful Revolutionary Guard were killed in an explosion that struck the force's base in the city of Khoramabad. The blast was caused by a fire that had reached the ammunition storage area. 14 other troops were wounded.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Iraq Al-Qaida's umbrella group threatened to kidnap family members of Iraqi politicians and ministers unless the wife and children of its slain leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, are released from prison.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Japan residents of Taiji village, notorious for the dolphin hunt documented in the film "The Cove," slaughtered a pod of dolphins but spared the youngest animals.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, Mexican soldiers captured Seiki Ogata, an alleged Tabasco state Zetas gang leader, along with 5 other gang members. Ogata was suspected of organizing the massacre of a dead marine Melquisedet Angulo’s family last Dec., just days after Angulo had been killed during a raid in Cuernavaca, that left drug kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva dead. Authorities in Sinaloa state said they found 3 beheaded bodies along a highway that leads to the town of Imala. The bodies were accompanied with a message that accused them of being kidnappers. The decapitated head of police commander Rolando Flores was found in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army base. He had been investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on Falcon Lake. Pirates have robbed boaters and fisherman on the Mexican side. Motorists found a decapitated body underneath a bridge on a road leading to the beachside neighborhood of Playas de Tijuana. Earlier in the day police found a human head inside a bag in another Tijuana neighborhood, but it did not belong to the body found underneath the bridge.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 12, Hurricane Paula, the ninth hurricane of the busy 2010 Atlantic season, churned toward the east coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
(Reuters, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Mozambique 17 prisoners cut the bars at Nampula Industrial Penitentiary before escaping. They were among 99 inmates recently transferred to Nampula from neighboring provinces. One fugitive was soon re-captured.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In northwestern Pakistan suspected militants killed 3 anti-Taliban tribal elders in the Bazai area of the Mohmand tribal region, the latest in a string of attacks against tribesmen who dare stand up to the Islamist insurgents.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III granted amnesty to officers and soldiers accused of plotting to overthrow his predecessor. Only a handful of the original 300 troops who took up arms against then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in July 2003 remained in military custody on charges of mutiny and coup attempt.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In central Poland a van crammed with farm workers crashed head-on into a truck after apparently trying to overtake another vehicle in dense fog, killing all 18 people on board.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In eastern Ukraine a train crashed into a crowded bus, killing 43 people on the bus, including two children, and injuring nearly a dozen others. PM Mykola Azarov ordered his government to pay the family of each of the dead victims 100,000 hryvna ($12,600). He also instructed transport officials to install automated crossing gates at all the nation's railway crossings to prevent cars, buses and trucks from ignoring the siren.
(AP, 10/12/10)(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 12, At the United Nations Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa were elected to join the big guns on the UN Security Council for two years, starting in January.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20101012/ts_csm/331624)(Reuters, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, Pope Benedict XVI formally created a new Vatican office to revive Christianity in Europe, his latest attempt to counter secular trends in traditionally Christian countries.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Yemen Al-Qaida's offshoot warned it is setting up a "new army" to overthrow the country's president in response to his US-backed counterterrorism campaign and said it would fill its ranks with snipers and bomb makers.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 13, It was reported that officials in 50 US states and the District of Columbia have launched a joint investigation into allegations that mortgage companies mishandled documents and broke laws in foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of homeowners.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, US authorities said a vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program's history. Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian (46), was in custody in Los Angeles.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Tax officials in Billings, Montana, said developer Tim Blixseth and his wife owe the state $57 million in taxes on the money they drained from the Yellowstone Club. The state faced a deficit of $300 million.
(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A9)
2010 Oct 13, Mexican national Jose Antonio Medina Arreguin (36) was booked into a Ventura, Ca., county jail after being extradited from his home country. Court documents later showed Medina, accused of being Mexico's "King of Heroin," caught on wiretap conversations talking to coconspirators about drug transactions involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. In March 2011 Arreguin pleaded guilty and faced up to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 3/17/11)
2010 Oct 13, Gen. David Petraeus, NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, offered a cautiously optimistic assessment of the transition of security duties to Afghan forces during a briefing with alliance representatives in Brussels. A senior NATO officials said the alliance had facilitated contacts between senior Taliban members and the highest levels of the Afghan government. In Afghanistan insurgents killed 6 NATO service members, including 4 who died in a single bomb blast in the volatile south. Insurgents , at a market fatally shot Ahmed Khan, chief of Dihrawud district in southern Uruzgan province.
(AP, 10/13/10)(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 13, Australia and Indonesia agreed to further discuss plans for a refugee centre in East Timor to stem the flow of asylum seekers through Southeast Asia on their way to Australia.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Bahrain top justice official said 23 Shiite activists, detained in a sweeping crackdown by the country's Sunni rulers, have been charged with terrorism and conspiring against the government.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Bangladesh said it would deploy the army at the country's main seaport to keep cargo moving after days of strikes by dock workers hit crucial garment shipments.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Brazil Milton Marcondes of the Humpback Whale Institute said at least 75 humpback whales have died in 2010. The previous high was 41 in 2007.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Britain's Lloyds Banking Group said that it will axe another 4,500 jobs, including 1,750 posts outside the UK, as the crisis-hit lender continues its painful restructuring.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Canada declared that bisphenol A is a toxic chemical, prompting calls for far-reaching curbs on the industrial chemical that is used in everything from the linings of aluminum cans to coatings on electronic till receipts.
(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Chile the 33 miners trapped for 69 days climbed into a rescue capsule and made a smooth ascent to the surface. All the miners were pulled up through a narrow escape chute from nearly a half-mile down in under 23 hours.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Egypt was reported to have handed down new media requirements that will effectively put all live broadcasts, including TV talk shows and news bulletins, under the control of state television. Several private broadcast service providers said that they received letters from the telecom regulator ending their standing permits to offer live broadcast feeds from Egypt starting from Oct 15.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Hungarian authorities said the threat of another chemical spill had been averted and villagers could return home, as the plant responsible prepared to resume production. The municipal court in Veszprem released MAL's managing director Zoltan Bakonyi, who had been brought in for questioning.
(AFP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, welcomed by thousands of Shiite supporters throwing rose petals, sought to pull Lebanon firmly into his country's fold in a visit that underscored the growing power of Tehran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Tehran's chief prosecutor said authorities have arrested five people on suspicion of spying for the country's "enemies," a common reference in Iran for the US and Israel.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Iraq targeted explosions in Baghdad and northern Iraq wounded 28 people, among them 7 Iranian pilgrims and 9 policemen.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Italy became the latest NATO ally to detail plans to scale down its military presence and hand over territory to Afghan security forces by the end of next year.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Kuwait gave 28 million euros to Mauritania during Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah's whistle-stop visit to the poor northwest African nation.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Malaysia criticized the WHO for failing to tackle the spread of dengue in the region, which saw 242,000 cases of the mosquito-borne disease in 2009 and 831 deaths so far this year.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Mexico six prison guards were killed while driving to work in Chihuahua city, capital of Chihuahua state. In the northern state of Sinaloa, two police officers were killed when gunmen ambushed their patrol in Mazatlan.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, A Pakistani government official said international lenders are estimating that this summer's floods caused $9.5 billion in damage to Pakistan's infrastructure, agriculture and other sectors. Gunmen killed Nooruddin Mengal, an ethnic Baluch political activist, as he headed from his suburban home to the city of Kalat. In central Pakistan police arrested a group of Islamist militants plotting to kill the prime minister in a gun and suicide bomb attack at his house. The 7 men were also accused of targeting other government leaders for assassination. A suspected US drone launched 4 missile strikes in North Waziristan killing 11 militants, including 3 foreigners.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 13, The Palestinians called on the US administration and Israel to define Israel's borders after Washington invited proposals to get peace talks back on track.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Senegal dancers, traditional praise singers and leaders of three African nations greeted 163 Haitian students who left their earthquake-ravaged country and flew to Senegal, where victims of the calamity are being offered free housing and scholarships.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told visiting Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki that better ties between the two nations will be strengthened by the formation of a new Iraqi government.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In the Ukraine for the second time in two days, a vehicle ignored a warning light at a railroad crossing and was hit by a train in a fatal accident killing 2 people.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, On the Arizona and Nevada border a soaring bypass bridge high above the Colorado River near Hoover Dam was dedicated after nearly eight years and $240 million worth of work. The bridge, which officially opens next week, is named for former Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan and Pat Tillman.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Regulators in New York approved Verizon's request to stop mass-printing residential phone books. There, the company estimates it will save about 3,575 tons of paper per year and conserve the energy associated with printing, binding and distributing the directories. The company's August request with Virginia regulators was estimated to save about 1,640 tons of paper annually.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Oct 14, Antinette Keller (18), a Northern Illinois University freshman from Plainfield, Ill., was last seen as she left for a walk in a 150-acre nature preserve in DeKalb, Ill. Her body was found on Oct 23 in a heavily wooded area of Prairie Park in DeKalb.
(http://tinyurl.com/2f8tuqb)
2010 Oct 14, Benoit Mandelbrot (b.1924), the father of fractal geometry, died in Cambridge, Mass. His seminal book, “The Fractal Geometry of Nature," was published in 1982. He was born to a Lithuanian Jewish family in Warsaw. In 1936 his family fled the Nazis, first to Paris and then to the south of France, where he tended horses and fixed tools. In 2012 His wife completed his memoir: “The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick."
(www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/us/17mandelbrot.html?_r=1)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.106)(Econ, 10/27/12, p.84)
2010 Oct 14, Afghan officials requested NATO's support in smoothing new peace efforts with the Taliban, including by halting military operations in areas where reconciliation talks could take place. 7 NATO soldiers were killed in separate bomb attacks, bringing to 586 the total number of personnel killed so far this year. ISAF said 13 civilians had been killed in militant attacks over the past week, including nine who died in a single IED blast.
(AFP, 10/14/10)(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Australian police seized half-a-ton of cocaine from a luxury yacht in one of the country's largest ever hauls of the drug. 3 Australians were charged in connection with the yacht seizure.
(AFP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, British actor Simon MacCorkindale (58), who starred on British television in "Casualty" and in the United States in "Falcon Crest," died in London of bowel cancer. His film roles include the murderer Simon Doyle in "Death on the Nile" in 1977 and as Philip FitzRoyce in "Jaws 3-D" ("Jaws III").
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 14, Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative for sexual violence in armed conflict, told the 15-nation Security Council that a man known as "Colonel Serafim" was among those believed to be responsible for the rape of over 300 people. She also said Congolese government troops are raping, killing and looting civilians in the same area of eastern Congo where militias carried out mass rapes over two months ago.
(AP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Rival Cypriot leaders opened a new crossing point linking the ethnically split island's Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, offering a boost to plodding reunification talks.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In India the Commonwealth Games ended after 11 days of fiery competition that went some way to mending the damage done to Indian pride and prestige tarnished by the chaotic buildup to the event.
(AFP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Iraq a roadside bomb hit the car of Abdul Karim al-Mohammadawi, a prominent member of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance, killing four people and wounding six others, including the politician.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Madagascar conservationists said a new species of carnivorous mammal, likely highly endangered, has been discovered in the wetlands of Lake Alaotra, the largest expanse of fresh water on the Indian Ocean island. It has been baptized Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durelli) after the late British naturalist Gerald Durrell, who led conservation projects in Madagascar.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Mali a 2-day meeting of the G8 countries, looking at how to counter the threat posed by Islamic militants in northwest Africa, concluded. An al-Qaida-linked group was currently holding five French citizens and two others hostage in the area. The meeting brought together counterterrorism experts in the G8's Counter Terrorism Action Group as well as participants from African countries in the region, the United Nations and regional bodies.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Mexico the W Radio station broadcast what it described as a telephone conversation between federal lawmaker Cesar Godoy and one of Mexico's biggest drug lords. W Radio said the alleged conversation took place last year between Godoy and La Familia cartel leader Servando Gomez, known as "La Tuta." In it Godoy and Gomez express support for each other and discuss bribing a reporter. Mexican marines battled suspected drug cartel gunmen whose allies erected at least a dozen roadblocks in the northeastern city of Monterrey. One marine and three gunmen were killed.
(AP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 14, Mozambique state radio said a court in has sentenced two men to 20 years in prison each for mutilating a 12-year-old boy and trying to sell his body parts to a witchdoctor. The report said the two men, the boy's uncle and another, held the boy down, cut out his eyes and removed his genitals, intending to sell them to a Malawian witchdoctor. The boy survived.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Khagendra Thapa Magar, a Nepalese fruit seller’s son, was named the world’s shortest man as he turned 18 years old. He measured 26.4 inches.
(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 14, Dutch Queen Beatrix swore in her country's new right-wing minority Cabinet, ushering in a new era of budgetary austerity and tighter immigration rules.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Nigeria gunmen in the southern delta kidnapped, Lakshmi Tombush, the principal of a school sponsored by Exxon, and killed 2 police officers in a firefight. Gunmen attacked a police roadblock northern Bauchi state and two policemen were killed. Police officers recovered Tombush on Oct 28.
(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A2)(AFP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 14, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank said Pakistan's floods caused an estimated $9.7 billion in damage to the country's infrastructure, farms and homes.
(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Somalia’s Pres. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed named Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali American, as the new prime minister. In western Somalia masked gunmen abducted a Briton, Frans Barnard, and a Somali working for aid agency Save the Children from a compound in town of Adado. The Somali worker was soon released. Barnard was released on Oct 20.
(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A2)(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 14, A senior Sudanese official said it is impossible to hold a referendum on the future of the north-south border region of Abyei as planned. Dirdiri Ahmed, a member of Sudan's northern ruling party, said that internationally-mediated talks over Abyei failed to yield an agreement on who is eligible to vote in the region.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Taiwan's government reported plans to allow sex workers to set up small businesses in the latest change to laws that had once forced the huge industry underground. Prostitution was legal only in Taiwan's capital, Taipei, until 1997 when the city authorities made it a criminal offence to be a prostitute though not to patronize one. In 2009 it stopped punishing sex workers. Estimates from activists put the number of people involved in sex-related jobs in Taiwan at 600,000.
(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In south Yemen a police chief was shot dead during a protest marking the 47th anniversary of the launch of its uprising against British colonial rule. Abdullah al-Baham was shot in the head in Mudia in Abyan province. The attack by suspected al-Qaida militants triggered a series of clashes between soldiers and militants that killed eight people, mostly government troops.
(AFP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, US federal authorities aid they have rounded up over 40 people in New York and Florida during a takedown of a wholesale marijuana ring. Agents seized $1 million and almost 200 pounds of marijuana.
(SFC, 10/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 15, A security researcher said criminals are using a Zeus botnet to pillage Charles Schwab investment accounts. Although police in the US, the UK and Ukraine collared more than 100 members of a Zeus crimeware gang three weeks ago, experts warned that the arrests wouldn't stop the botnet. Other gangs can simply step into the void.
(http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=B7C76BC0-1A64-67EA-E459F0D62DD95E83)
2010 Oct 15, Mike Ehredt (49) a US Army veteran of Hope, Iowa, completed a coast to coast jog in Rockland, Maine. He had placed a flag in the ground every mile to honor military personnel killed in Iraq. He averaged about 29 miles a day with 4 days off.
(SFC, 10/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 15, A light plane carrying four US citizens on a medical aid flight crashed in Baja California, killing all four aboard. The plane that went down was one of three on a mission from the San Luis Obispo, Ca., area.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 15, The Afghan government said a system meant to ensure Afghan officials are consulted on sensitive international military operations has been "ineffective." 3 NATO troops were killed in a surge of attacks that raised the death toll to 17 over the past three days for international troops in the country. In the southeast 6 civilians were killed when a roadside bomb detonated beside their vehicle near Kalat.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 15, China's Communist Party opened its secretive annual meeting to discuss the nation's next five-year economic plan against the backdrop of unusually outspoken calls for political reform.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, China's basketball association fined a series of coaches and players in the national team after a bench-clearing brawl put an end to a friendly match with Brazil. The fight had erupted the night of Oct 12 at a game in central Henan province.
(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, Roger Meece, heads of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, said more than 15,000 people were raped in the volatile eastern region of Congo last year, according to the best data available.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Adrian Edwards, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army have killed at least 2,000 people and forced 400,000 to flee in three countries in less than two years. A UNHCR communique documented a mounting "campaign of terror against civilians" in the DR Congo, South Sudan and the CAR.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, The Costa Rican government said it is receiving nearly $56 million in donations and debt write-offs to expand its forest and marine conservation programs and has become the first developing country to meet UN goals on protected areas. Under the plan, the US agreed to buy back $27 million of Costa Rica's foreign debt, money that will be used instead to invest conservation programs. The US already trimmed $26 million of Costa Rican debt in 2007 as part of the US Tropical Forest Conservation Act. The debt now stands at $77 million.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Ecuador a tunnel collapsed in a gold mine in the south, trapping four miners 490 feet (150 meters) underground. Authorities said rescue efforts were under way. The bodies of 2 miners were found the next day as rescue efforts continued for 2 others. Their bodies were found on Oct 20.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/17/10)(Reuters, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 15, French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent in riot police to reopen fuel depots blocked by strikes, as the pipeline to Paris airports was cut in an escalating battle over pension reform.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Indonesia a rabies outbreak on the resort island of Bali has to date killed 100 people. Bali, an island of 3 million people and one of Asia's top tourist destinations, has been grappling with the outbreak for nearly two years.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran was ready to resume talks about its nuclear program with the international community within a matter of weeks.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Israel signed off on the construction of 238 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, bringing an end to an unofficial building freeze in the traditionally Arab sector of the city and further complicating peace talks stuck over the broader fate of West Bank settlements. A report released by aid organization Oxfam said attacks and other acts of harassment by Jewish settlers against Palestinian olive farmers "are common and often increase during the time of the harvest." The Israeli army says it does all it can to protect Palestinian olive growers. So far this year there have been no casualties at least. But neither have the police made any arrests.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, Israeli police arrested Staten Island resident Eric Bellucci (30), a US citizen who escaped to Israel after allegedly stabbing his parents to death in their New York home earlier this week. Bellucci's parents, Arthur (61) and Marian (56), were found dead the night of Oct 13 in their Staten Island home.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Italy judicial sources said prosecutors have launched an investigation against PM Silvio Berlusconi for tax evasion linked to his Mediaset media empire. The allegations, which were immediately rejected by Mediaset, were linked to tax declarations for 2003 and 2004 and are part of a wider inquiry.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Jamaica a bus plunged over a cliff on the island's north coast, killing a teenage girl and injuring 39 people. The bus driver fled after the accident.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Mexico armed men entered through the back of a house in a residential neighborhood near the center of Ciudad Juarez, surprising the party-goers with an assault-rifle attack that killed 6 people.
(Reuters, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, In southeastern Mexico a helicopter carrying oil workers crashed killing all 8 people aboard.
(SSFC, 10/17/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 15, Pakistan said it was willing to assist talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and NATO confirmed its forces had helped ensure a senior Taliban commander reached Kabul. In an early morning attack in South Waziristan 5 Pakistani soldiers were killed when militants sprayed an army checkpoint with gunfire. A suspected US unmanned aircraft launched two missiles in North Waziristan. 3 were killed in the first missile strike, which hit a vehicle in Machi Khel. The 2nd strike occurred several hours later, killing six suspected militants at a house in Aziz Khel. Gunmen ambushed a truck early in the morning as it was returning home after delivering NATO supplies in Afghanistan, killing the driver and his assistant.
(Reuters, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, Russian PM Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was nominated as Moscow's next mayor, a move seen as bringing the capital's sizable political and business interests under the direct control of the Kremlin.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Russia agreed to help build Venezuela's first nuclear power plant and buy $1.6 billion of oil assets, reinforcing ties with President Hugo Chavez, who shares Moscow's opposition to US global dominance.
(Reuters, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, The Saudi government said Jaber Jabran al-Faifi, a former Guantanamo detainee, has turned himself in to Saudi authorities. He had rejoined Al-Qaeda in Yemen after graduating from Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation program.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Swiss engineers smashed through the last stretch of rock to create the world's longest tunnel (35.4 miles), The Gotthard Base rail tunnel, sparking a national groundswell of elation over a costly, technically difficult project that has been 60 years in the making.
(AP, 10/15/10)(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 15, In Zambia nearly a dozen miners were shot in a pay dispute.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2010 Oct 16, In Afghanistan a bomb blast struck the police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one civilian and wounding 4 others. Two Taliban commanders, identified as Kaka Abdul Khaliq and Kako, were killed in an operation in Kandahar's Zhari district. Taliban fighter, Mullah Rahmatullah, was captured in the raid. Afghan and American troops made an air assault on the horn of Panjwai, a Taliban base. A motorized rickshaw carrying explosives was detonated behind police headquarters in Kandahar killing one bystander. Insurgents attacked an oil tanker on the other side of the city. The resulting explosion killed one civilian.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)(SSFC, 10/17/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 16, Armenia's president has opened an aerial tramway that the country claims is the world's longest. The tramway across the Vorotan River gorge in the country's south spans 5.7 km (3.5 miles), longer than the 4.5 km (2.8 mile) Sandia Peak Tramway in New Mexico, known as the world's longest passenger tramway. The $45 million tramway links the highway from the capital of Yerevan with the 9th century Tatev Monastery.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Belarus visiting Pres. Chavez of Venezuela promised that Belarusian refineries, the backbone of the country's economy, would see no oil shortages for the next 200 years.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Thousands of Chinese marched in the streets in sometimes violent protests against Japan and its claim to disputed islands. Thousands of protesters marched through Tokyo to demonstrate against what they called China's invasion of disputed islands that both countries claim. Beijing expressed "deep concern" at anti-China protests by Japanese nationalists over a diplomatic spat centered on a group of disputed islands.
(AP, 10/16/10)(Reuters, 10/16/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In central China rescuers battled dangerous levels of gas, tons of coal dust and the risk of falling rocks as they worked to free 11 miners trapped by an explosion at a mine. 26 miners were confirmed killed at the state-run Pingyu Coal & Electric Co. Ltd mine.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In China Li Qiming (22) reportedly hit two students with his car at a university campus in the northern province of Hebei. Chen Xiaofeng (20) was killed. The drunk man shouted "sue me if you dare" when a crowd stopped him from fleeing. On Oct 26 state media reported that Qiming, the son of a senior police officer, was arrested after the incident sparked outrage on the Internet. The young woman’s father, Chen Guangqian, said on Nov 18 that Li Gang gave him 460,000 yuan, or more than $69,250. On Jan 30 Qiming was sentenced to six years in prison.
(AFP, 10/26/10)(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 1/30/11)
2010 Oct 16, In France diesel and jet fuel supplies were running low in parts of the country as workers took to the streets for another nationwide protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of young members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union that while immigrants are welcome, they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural norms. "This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed."
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said Germany will help Japan gain access to vital rare earth minerals which are being withheld by China in a territorial dispute.
(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Iranian local media reported that a judge has ordered the amputation of the hand of a man (21) who confessed to robbing a candy shop. The ruling came days after authorities amputated the hand of another man convicted of theft in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico gunmen in the border city of Ciudad Juarez killed a local official and his son. Rito Grado Serrano was regional president of the community of El Porvenir outside Ciudad Juarez but lived with his family in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico the body of Lane Gilbert (46) of Marin County, Ca., was discovered in a lot behind a police station in Santa Maria Coyotepec, a town southwest of Oaxaca City. He had suffered multiple machete wounds. Gilbert was last seen leaving his home in San Andres Huayapan on Aug 27.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 16, A Nigerian army spokesman said soldiers have arrested this month about 100 suspected kidnappers and armed robbers in the southeastern state of Abia, including a Roman Catholic priest. Nigerian investigators raided a Lagos home of Charles Okah, the brother of former militant group leader Henry Okah, taking him into custody over his alleged role in funding the Oct 1 bombings that struck independence anniversary celebrations in Abuja.
(AFP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, North Korea said it is willing to resume six-nation nuclear disarmament talks but would not be "hasty" because the US and some other parties were not ready. North Korean media threatened a "1,000-fold" military buildup as the US ruled out lifting sanctions to try to coax the North into resuming talks aimed at its nuclear weapons programs.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency reported that flooding in the southern region of Krasnodar has killed 11 people with three missing.
(Reuters, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 17, The New York Times reported that possibly hundreds of members of Iraq's Awakening Councils, a group affiliated with the US military, have switched their loyalty to Al-Qaeda.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Washington Post reported that the United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Arizona a commercial tour bus drifted off a highway near Meadview and rolled over several times killing 2 people and injuring several others.
(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 17, In New York Danroy "D.J." Henry (20), a college football player driving away from the scene of a fight, ended up dead hours after the team's homecoming game, struck in a burst of police gunfire that pierced his windshield in the Westchester County hamlet of Thornwood.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, Afghanistan issued a statement issued by the president's office saying that private security firms will not only be able to operate inside international compounds, but also travel with diplomats and work as protection for international military installations. A NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast in the south. Afghan and Western officials said that fraud was pervasive in the Sep 18 elections and that 25% or 800,000 to a million votes would be likely thrown out. air strikes killed a Taliban "military leader" and 15 other insurgents in the northern province of Baghlan. A Taliban prisoner, Mullah Muhebullah, was found shot dead while under US guard in an Afghan holding facility. Pfc. David Lawrence (20) was soon placed under custody in a criminal investigation of Muhebullah’s death.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A3)(AFP, 10/19/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 17, In Afghanistan about this time 3 Taliban leaders secretly met with Pres. Karzai in an effort to weaken the Haqqani network, the US-led coalition's most vicious enemy.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Brazil three men broke into the home of Wanderley dos Reis, the owner of a small newspaper in Sao Paulo state, and shot and killed him.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 17, In southeastern Brazil a bus carrying people back from a sports festival for special needs athletes fell from a bridge into a river, killing 11 and injuring nearly 30.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Congo's first lady, Olive Lembe Kabila, led thousands of women marching in the country's volatile east to demand an end to a wave of mass rapes. 3 residents were killed when soldiers looted homes in Congo's South Kivu province.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Haiti 2 inmates were shot to death trying to escape from the roof of the quake-damaged national penitentiary. A third was trampled to death inside during a prison riot. Police officials familiar with the prison said some inmates had escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In northern India an argument over sacrificing goats during a Hindu festival triggered a stampede that killed 10 people in a packed temple.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad endorsed the idea of new talks with the international community over his country's nuclear program, while warning that negotiations would fail if the West does not clearly come out against Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran freed Reza Taghavi (71), an Iranian-American businessman. The next day he said he had spent some of his more than two years in prison alongside protesters detained in Iran's postelection crackdowns and praised his first taste of freedom as a blessing "no one can imagine." Taghavi, who regularly visits Iran to conduct business and see family, had been jailed for 29 months for passing $200 to someone suspected of links to a rebel group known as Tondar, which seeks to topple the Islamic system and was implicated in the mosque bombing.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Iraq two policemen and two gunmen were killed in gunfights between security forces and armed groups attempting to rob Baghdad jewelry stores. 5 gunmen escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, In Kuwait some 100 people stormed the offices of privately owned Scope TV’s studios and destroyed its equipment after the channel aired shows critical of the ruling Al Sabah family.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, The Mexican Navy said two men were killed in a confrontation with marines in Tamaulipas state. A Sonora state police officer was found dead, apparently from a blow to the head, alongside the road in Benito Juarez municipality. Ciudad Juarez gunmen burst into a home where a family was having a party. 3 women and 2 men died at the scene, and a man and a woman died at the hospital. Assailants attacked a second home in the neighborhood minutes later, killing 2 men.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Morocco world leaders at the World Policy Conference (WPC) in Marrakech examined frameworks for global governance ahead of a G20 summit in Seoul, with UN chief Ban Ki-Moon stressing no single power could tackle key issues alone.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, A Nigerian government spokesman said a Dubai court found cause to honor an extradition request for former Delta state Gov. James Ibori, a prominent politician in the ruling People's Democratic Party. Authorities have said Ibori faces charges over stealing $292 million in state funds while in office.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Pakistan gunmen killed at least 25 people in Karachi over the past 24 hours, raising tensions in Pakistan's largest city as voters cast ballots to replace a provincial lawmaker murdered in August.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Two Palestinians were killed and a third wounded in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike north of Gaza City. The Israeli military said the air force had struck a "squad of terror operatives who were preparing to fire rockets from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel."
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Thousands of Thailand's anti-government "Red Shirts" joined a mass rally in the latest large-scale demonstration by the movement in recent weeks.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Australia's first saint, canonizing Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), a 19th-century nun. The Vatican also declared five other saints in an open-air Mass attended by tens of thousands. Brother Andre (1845-1937), a Canadian, Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola were also canonized.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The official Vatican newspaper said that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics, and what's more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch "the adventures of the little guys in yellow." Executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly the next day he was in "shock and awe" at the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the "Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield. "The Simpsons" is the longest-running prime-time TV series in the United States and is now in its 22nd season.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, Vietnamese officials said more flooding has killed at least 14 people and forced around 78,000 people to be evacuated from their homes in the centre of the country.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Zambian police said managers at a Chinese-run coal mine who shot at workers protesting poor working conditions will be charged with attempted murder. 12 workers at Collum Coal Mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe were injured a day earlier when mainly Chinese managers fired randomly at the protesting workers.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Southern California Crystal Cathedral, the megachurch birthplace of the televangelist show "Hour of Power," filed for bankruptcy after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Tennessee workers Judy Spray (58), a rural carrier associate, and Paula Robinson (33), a retail clerk, were gunned down at a rural post office that doubles as a community center in Henning.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National reported that the UAE's highest judicial body has ruled that a man can beat his wife and young children as long as the beating leaves no physical marks.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Afghan and NATO forces killed "numerous insurgents" in Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, An Algerian court sentenced Bouchouta Fares (27) to two years in prison for breaking the fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan late in August. He was also fined 100,000 dinars (€972, $1,359) for "breaching a precept of Islam." Practicing a faith, Muslim or otherwise, is conditional in Algeria on obtaining a document stating the place of worship and another giving the name of the preacher, under a law passed in February 2006.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 18, Australia’s Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor said illegal pornographic material must be declared on arrival, watering down recent rules that asked for all pornography to be revealed. The government said it changed the wording on passenger arrival cards after becoming aware of confusion among travelers about what pornography to declare.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, A UN official said flooding in the West African nation of Benin has killed 43 people and left nearly 100,000 homeless, citing numbers collected since the beginning of October.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In northeastern Brazil Francisco Gomes de Medeiros, a veteran reporter who had often received death threats for his reports on crime, died instantly when he was shot five times in the city of Caico.
(AP, 10/2o/10)
2010 Oct 18, A new British government strategy was published saying International terrorism and cyber attacks pose the biggest threat to national security, ahead of a major shake-up of the defense budget.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Cambodia 20 people remained hospitalized after 14 people died over the weekend from drinking wine tainted with weed killer at a ceremony where villagers were appealing to spirits to protect children.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, French truck drivers staged go-slow operations on highways, rail strikes intensified and petrol stations ran out of fuel as protests gathered pace ahead of a Senate vote on an unpopular pension overhaul.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Germany, yielding to French pressure, softened its stance on stricter eurozone budget rules, angering governments that counted on Berlin to force through sanctions for nations living beyond their means.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Haiti civil protection officials said steady rains toppled hillsides and turned streets into rivers in Port-au-Prince over the weekend, leaving at least 12 people dead and three missing.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In India Yertward Mazmanian (aka Eight Finger Eddie, 1924-2010), an American-born hippie died of a heart attack in Anjuna's hospital. In 1965 he and some other hippies had settled in Anjuna, Goa state, and helped put the area on the travel map for global backpackers and stoners.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 18, Human rights activists said Indonesian security forces have been captured on video torturing an alleged separatist in Papua province, burning his genitals as he screams out in agony and then threatening to shoot him in the mouth.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iran took part for the first time in talks in Rome with the international contact group on Afghanistan that set "sufficient stability" and basic human rights as the most realistic aims for the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki was in Tehran to drum up support for his premiership bid, as his chief rival Iyad Allawi accused Iran of meddling in Baghdad's political affairs. In Iraq a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying Jassim al-Saiedi, a member of Baghdad's local government, killing him and wounding eight people. Two Associated Press journalists were among those assaulted by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cover the bombing.
(AFP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Mexico a bus has crashed into the back of a trailer truck and caught fire, killing 19 people outside the city of Queretaro. Security forces seized at least 105 tons of US-bound marijuana in Tijuana, by far the biggest pot bust in the country in recent years. The estimated weight was soon revised to 134.2 tons and said to likely belong to the Sinaloa cartel, run by Mexico's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 18, Myanmar election officials said foreign journalists will not be allowed to cover its Nov 7 elections, the first in 20 years.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 18, Pakistan’s election commission said 148 lawmakers from national and regional assemblies have been suspended for failing to disclose details of their wealth.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 18, In the Philippines the strongest cyclone in years killed at least 36 people, leaving a wasteland of fallen trees and power poles and sending thousands scampering to safety in near-zero visibility. Super Typhoon Megi was forecast next to head toward China and Vietnam.
(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/19/10)(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 18, Somali officials said an offensive launched a day earlier by government troops has killed at least 15 people. The weak, UN-backed government was attempting to win back control of areas held by militants. Al-Shabab announced that residents in areas under its control can no longer use mobile money transfer services.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, The UN said it is sending 100 more troops to Sudan's oil-producing Abyei region to step up security ahead of a referendum that could pitch the area back into bloodshed.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Vietnam a local official was sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes on a Japanese-funded road project he managed, in a scandal that prompted Japan to suspend aid for several months. Huynh Ngoc Si was convicted of receiving $262,000 from executives of Pacific Consultants International, or PCI, a Japanese company hired as consultants.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Vietnam 20 people on a bus were swept away by strong currents from a flooded river. They were presumed dead. Another 17 managed to save themselves by swimming or clinging to trees or power poles.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, A court in Yemen sentenced an al-Qaida militant to death after convicting him of involvement in terror attacks and manufacturing explosives. Saleh al-Shawish was arrested in February and later charged with involvement in attacks on security facilities, training would-be suicide bombers and bomb making.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Texas Hosam Smadi (20), a Jordanian national, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In May he had pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. An FBI sting in 2009 had caught him trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/2ac44d8)
2010 Oct 19, TV and film Actor Tom Bosley (1927) died. His films included “The World of Henry Orient" (1964). He was best known for his role at the father in the “Happy Days" TV series (1974-1985).
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.A8)
2010 Oct 19, The Afghan government said it had ordered an audit of all private banks following a corruption scandal that threatened to bring down the country's top lender. In the south 3 NATO soldiers were killed, bringing to 596 the number of foreign troops to die in the Afghan conflict so far this year. US officials said they have begun training Afghans on how to disrupt the flow of billions of dollars in cash being smuggled out of their country.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)(AFP, 10/19/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Austria tens of thousands of students, backed by university staff, marched to demand more money for higher education.
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 19, Bolivia and Peru signed an agreement giving Bolivia a dock, a free-trade zone and the right to run some naval vessels.
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 19, Britain will lose thousands of troops, build new aircraft carriers, without new fighter jets, and delay a multibillion pound upgrade to its nuclear deterrent under sweeping defense cuts announced following the first major military review in more than a decade.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Chechnya Islamic insurgents including a suicide bomber stormed the Parliament, leaving six people dead and 17 injured in one of the most brazen attacks on the provincial capital in months. The dead included one parliamentary official, 2 policemen and 3 insurgents.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, China's central bank surprised with its first increase of interest rates in nearly three years. The People's Bank of China said it was raising benchmark rates by 25 basis points, taking one-year deposit rates to 2.5 percent and one-year lending rates to 5.56 percent. The impact was felt by markets across the board. Oil and gold prices tumbled, stocks turned negative in Europe and the dollar jumped.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Egypt's main satellite operator said it shut down 12 private television channels on grounds of violating broadcasting licenses. Egypt's largest opposition Islamist group said that police detained 164 Muslim Brotherhood members, most of them election campaign workers, in a spate of raids across the country.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Egyptian and South African leaders met in Cairo for talks aimed at strengthening economic ties between the two African powerhouses and working towards a free trade deal for the continent.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Human Rights Watch said in a report that Ethiopia is denying opposition supporters food, other aid, loans and government services in a widespread effort to suppress political dissent.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, European Union finance ministers sealed a deal to regulate the trillion-dollar hedge fund industry after Britain and France settled a long-running conflict.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, The European Commission said it will temporarily suspend its human rights complaint against France for its expulsions of Gypsies, or Roma, after Paris promised to alter some of its laws to match EU regulations.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, The EU announced plans for a five-year ban on animal cloning for food production as well as a traceability system for imports of semen and embryos of clones.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In France masked youths clashed with police and set fires in cities across the country as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement age took an increasingly radical turn. Hundreds of flights were canceled, long lines formed at gas stations and train service in many regions was cut in half.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Deutsch Bahn’s high-speed train, ICE-3, became the first German train to pass through the Channel tunnel on its way to London’s St Pancras station.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.77)
2010 Oct 19, In Guinea 2 political demonstrators were killed by police in the capital, in one of several violent street clashes ahead of a planned presidential poll.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, India announced the creation of a tribunal to punish those who sully the forests or rivers or otherwise break its environmental laws, in the hopes of clearing a backlog of some 5,000 such cases languishing in a sluggish court system.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In India the Microfinance Institution Network petitioned the Andhra Pradesh state high court to block new provisions designed to protect impoverished people. High interest and coercive loan collection by some microfinance groups had led to some 30 suicides.
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.D7)
2010 Oct 19, In Ingushetia unidentified gunmen shot and killed a police officer in this southern Russian province hours after other Islamic insurgents raided Chechnya's regional parliament.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iran Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez held talks with leaders expected to focus on boosting cooperation between the countries' oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iraq a bomb exploded near the house of a policeman in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing his 6-month-old niece, both her parents and five other members of the same family. In Samarra a roadside bomb struck a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding two. In Baghdad two bombs attached to buses exploded and wounded 15 Iranian pilgrims. Chief UN envoy AD Melkert finished meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and was leaving the Shiite city of Najaf when his convoy hit a roadside bomb. A member of the Iraqi security forces was killed and several others were injured in the attack.
(AP, 10/19/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Nicaragua health officials reported 17 deaths and 600 suspected cases of leptospirosis in the past month. Most of the cases were in Leon and Chinandega.
(www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=123022)
2010 Oct 19, In Pakistan violence continued in the southern city of Karachi, with at least 16 people killed in different attacks, including eight in one incident.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, South African journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika, arrested after writing about alleged police corruption, said a proposed media bill could transform a country known for being among Africa's most free and transparent to one more like autocratic Zimbabwe. He spoke at a protest of more than 300 people marching against the government's media proposals.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Tibetan students in western China marched to protest unconfirmed plans to use the Chinese language exclusively in classes, an unusually bold challenge to authorities that reflects a deep unease over the marginalization of Tibetan culture.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 19, The UN said that 377 people had died in flooding in central and west Africa, with nearly 1.5 million people affected since the start of the rainy season in June. The highest toll was in Nigeria with 118, followed by Ghana (52), Sudan (50), Benin (43), Chad (24), Mauritania (21), Burkina Faso (16), Cameroon (13), Gambia (12), with other countries reporting less than 10 dead.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Two employees of the US Virgin Islands' tax bureau were accused of leading a scheme that pilfered as much as $500,000 from the government using fraudulent tax refund checks. Tax bureau employees Tiffanne Sutton and Colette Hacket-Browne and others had allegedly taken part in tax fraud since 2006.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In its biggest arms deal ever, the United States announced it will sell up to 60 billion dollars worth of warplanes, helicopters and other weapons to Saudi Arabia, partly to help it counter Iran.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, The United States relaxed sanctions on Sudan to exempt farm equipment, a move seen as part of a wider scheme of carrots and sticks before a sensitive referendum that could split Africa's largest country.
(Reuters, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, In Kansas Dr. Stephen Schneider was sentenced to 30 years in prison for unlawfully writing prescriptions, health care fraud and money laundering. His wife was sentenced to 33 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 20, Bob Guccione (b.1930), founder of Penthouse magazine, died of lung cancer in Plano, Texas. He started Penthouse in England in 1965 to subsidize a career in art. He introduced the magazine to the American public in 1969.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A8)
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, Robert Katz (77), American writer and historian, died in Italy. His meticulous reconstruction of an infamous Nazi massacre in Rome brought him fame and sparked a trial over whether he defamed the pope. His book "Death in Rome" (1967) and the subsequent movie based on it, called "Massacre in Rome," stirred controversy because it suggested Pope Pius XII did not intervene to stop the massacre even though he knew about the Nazis' plans.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, Afghanistan released full preliminary results from last month's parliamentary election. About 1.3 million votes were disqualified out of 5.6 million. That means about 23 percent of ballots were discarded because of ballot-box stuffing or re-jiggered totals. A four-day operation ended in which NATO troops and the Afghan army killed more than 10 insurgents and recovered four weapons caches in Kunar province.
(AP, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 20, Britain’s treasury chief George Osborne announced 81 billion pounds ($128 billion) in spending cuts through 2015, which will ax welfare payments, savage government services and see as many as half a million public sector jobs lost.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, British Justice David Bean sentenced Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Saud to a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 20 years for the brutal assault at the Landmark Hotel in London on Feb 15.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Britain's Supreme Court ruled in favor of German heiress Katrin Radmacher (40), seeking to protect her considerable fortune from her ex-husband Nicolas Granatino (39). The decision gave new strength to prenuptial agreements in England.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In France workers opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around the country, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane. Pres. Sarkozy sent in police to clear access to barricaded fuel depots and restore supply as trade unions kept up their resistance to an unpopular pension reform due for a final vote this week.
(Reuters, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Italian police arrested Antonio Cortese. He is suspected of planting an unloaded bazooka and carrying out a bomb attack earlier this year that damaged the entrance of the Reggio Calabria courthouse in southern Italy. Turncoat Antonino Lo Giudice, a former top 'Ndrangheta boss, accused Cortese of planting the explosives in an attempt to intimidate prosecutors.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, A court in Mauritania condemned three alleged al-Qaida members to death, including the former leader of the African nation's local terrorist network. Former al-Qaida leader, El Khadim Ould Semene, was accused of helping organize an attack on the Israeli embassy here two years ago.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In northern Mexico Marisol Valles Garcia (20) was sworn in as the police chief of the township of Praxedis G. Guerrero, a township of 8,500 on a drug trafficking route along the Texas border. Soldiers battled gunmen in two cities across the border from Texas, prompting panicked parents to pull children from school and factories to warn workers to stay inside. In Nuevo Laredo 5 gunmen were killed and 3 soldiers were wounded during shootouts. Assailants in a third city threw a grenade at an army barracks. In Ciudad Juarez a Texas National Guard soldier (21) was reportedly one of two men killed.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A4)(AP, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, Parts Karachi, Pakistan, shut down after an attack on a scrapyard pushed to 51 the number of people killed in four days, a spasm of politically motivated violence in a country already wracked by Islamist militancy.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Palestinians said Jewish settlers set fire to a girls school near the northern city of Nablus. A powerful explosion ripped through a Hamas military compound in the Gaza Strip, wounding more than a dozen people, including women and children.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Spain enacted a tough new anti-smoking law, eliminating its status as Western Europe's last country where lighting up in indoor public places is allowed.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Swiss mining giant Xstrata said that it would spend 4.9 billion rands (710 million dollars, 510 million euros) on expanding a ferrochrome smelter in South Africa.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In Turkey police detained five people, including three university students, suspected of providing financial and technical support to the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 20, Pope Benedict XVI named 24 new cardinals, putting his mark on the body that will elect his successor and giving a boost to Italian hopes to regain the papacy.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left Iran after signing 11 deals focused on energy cooperation between the two major oil producers who are foes of the United States.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 21, US federal authorities charged Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp. with Medicare fraud. Prosecutors said the company preyed on patients with severe dementia and billed some $200 million for services it never rendered.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A13)
2010 Oct 21, In Northern California an entire arm of the Roseville Galleria, a high-end regional mall, was destroyed after Alexander Corney Pigee (Piggee, 23), barricaded himself inside a video game store and started a fire.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Oregon a former Bend police captain and his wife, who have been under investigation by the FBI and IRS over their real estate dealings in Oregon and Indiana, were indicted on fraud charges. Kevin (56) and Tamara (47) "Tami" Sawyer were charged with 21 counts of various crimes that include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors claim the fraud cost investors more than $4.4 million.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 21, The Guinness World Records confirmed that a pumpkin grown in Wisconsin is officially the world’s heaviest. Chris Stevens of New Richmond grew the1,810.5 pound gourd. It was 85 pounds heavier than the record set in Ohio in 2009.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 21, A partnership backed by Amazon.com, Comcast, Facebook and other technology firms established the “S Fund," a $250 million fund led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to capitalize on the growing reach of social networking.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.C1)
2010 Oct 21, Afghanistan's new peace council said it would be willing to make concessions to bring insurgents to the negotiating table, and called for Saudi Arabia's help in mediating peace talks.
(Reuters, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Austria Christian Kandlbauer (22), man who was able to drive because of an innovative high-tech artificial arm, died. He had been in intensive care since Oct 19 after his vehicle veered off the road and into a tree. It was unclear whether the crash was caused by problems with Kandlbauer's artificial arms.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Britain the Privileges and Conduct Committee of the House of Lords suspended Pola Uddin, Swraj Paul and Amirali Bhatia after declaring they did not act in good faith in filing their expense claims. They were ordered to repay amounts ranging from 27,000 pounds ($45,000) to just over 125,000 pounds ($197,000).
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, China rejected a UN report that says Chinese bullets were used in attacks on peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, calling the charge groundless.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, At least 160,000 people were evacuated from southern China as Typhoon Megi, one of the most powerful storms to hit the region in years, bore down, bringing with it the threat of devastation.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In CongoDRC a small plane was owned by a local airliner Starec Congo crashed into a gorilla park in eastern Congo killing its pilot and co-pilot. It was carrying some 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) of commercial goods.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Cuba the office of Havana Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega announced the names of five more Cuban inmates who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom, though none are among a group of 52 political prisoners jailed in a 2003 roundup of dissidents.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In the Dominican Rep. 126 students were sickened after eating free school breakfasts despite the government's efforts to resolve past problems with tainted school food.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In El Salvador Benitez Canales, one of the owners of the Deportivo Vista Hermosa football club, was among a group making a deal over 2 kg (4.4 pounds) of cocaine when they were arrested.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, The European Parliament awarded its annual human rights prize to Guillermo Farinas (48), the Cuban dissident whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of political dissidents jailed in a 2003 crackdown on dissent.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Finland’s Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, announced 1,800 jobs cuts right on the heels of stellar third-quarter results and just one month after a new chief executive took the helm.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In France protesters blockaded Marseille's airport, Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris and rioting youths attacked police in Lyon ahead of a tense Senate vote on raising the retirement age to 62.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Israel the Elders, a group of retired world figures, visited a flashpoint east Jerusalem neighborhood, vowing to help Palestinian residents whose homes are facing demolition.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Italy demonstrators in Naples set vehicles ablaze and hurled stones and firecrackers at police over plans to build a garbage dump in the Vesuvio National Park. 20 officers were left injured.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Toyota said it is recalling 1.53 million Lexus, Avalon and other models, mostly in the US and Japan, for brake fluid and fuel pump problems, the latest in a string of quality lapses for the world's No. 1 automaker.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Mexican police found the bullet-ridden bodies of seven people in different parts of southern Guerrero state. Among them was Antonio Valdez, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the resort city of Acapulco. Valdez and three other men were found dead on the outskirts of the city with a message accusing them of being allied with Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "The Barbie."
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In central Mexico Canadian industrial giant Bombardier and Mexican President Felipe Calderon opened a new 250-million-dollar plant where it will produce components for the Learjet 85 business aircraft.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Military-ruled Myanmar unveiled a new national flag. The new flag has horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a big white star in the middle. (The three horizontal colors, minus the white star, are identical to the Lithuanian national flag.)
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Niger a statement read on national radio and television said the removal of the junta's second-in-command, intelligence minister, head of the national guard and minister of equipment were related to a coup plot within the national armed forces.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In northwestern Pakistan a roadside bomb killed six Taliban militants, including a prominent local commander, an attack that could have been motivated by tensions between different insurgent groups.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In the southern Philippines a bomb ripped through a passenger bus, killing at least 10 people and wounding nine in an attack authorities say may have been carried out by an extortion gang with links to Muslim militants.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Russia the Moscow legislature voted to approve Sergei Sobyanin, PM Putin’s chief of staff, as mayor of the city replacing Yuri Luzhkov, who was fired by Pres. Medvedev last month after 18 years in office. Luzhkov has said he believes the true reason behind his ouster was the Kremlin's desire to have a more pliant mayor before parliamentary elections next year and the 2012 presidential vote.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Somalia a failed offensive by al-Shabab left at least 20 people dead as the Islamist group attempted to recapture a district in the southwest from government forces.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Syria Venezuelan Pres. Chavez met with his Pres. Bashar Assad on the Mideast leg of an international tour partly intended to counter what he calls US "imperialism."
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Thailand said floods in the northeast have left 17 people dead over the last 2 weeks with damages estimated at $650 million. 28 of the country’s 77 provinces were affected.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A9)
2010 Oct 21, UNESCO, the UN's cultural and education agency, suspended plans to grant a prize named after Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea's longtime dictator, after human rights groups slammed the award by citing the leader's poor human rights record.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 22, The Obama administration laid out a five-year, $2 billion military aid package for Pakistan as it pressed the Islamabad government to step up the fight against extremists there and in neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, Ephren Taylor resigned from City Capital and has since been replaced by Jeff M. Smuda. Taylor allegedly took one million dollars from members at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta. Smuda was elected chairman of the failing company shortly after Taylor’s resignation. According to their SEC, filing Jeff M. Smuda is an expert in restructuring companies to profitability. Taylor was soon dubbed “the black Bernie Madoff."
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.63)(http://tinyurl.com/8a6vrqw)
2010 Oct 22, In Virginia Glenn Shriver (28) of Detroit pleaded guilty to trying to get a job with the Central Intelligence Agency in order to spy for China and to hiding contacts and money he got from Chinese intelligence agents. Shriver acknowledged that he met with Chinese officials about 20 times beginning in 2004 and that he received a total of about $70,000 from Chinese intelligence officers. His plea agreement called for a sentence of 48 months in prison.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, The WikiLeaks website released 391,831 purported Iraq war logs in the biggest leak of secret information in US history. The documents date from the start of 2004 to Jan 1, 2010. They suggested that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the American-led invasion in 2003. Accounts of civilian deaths included deaths unknown or unreported before now, as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, The Lancet journal published a study online reporting that low doses of aspirin, taken daily and over the long term, cut cases of colorectal cancer by a quarter and the death toll from this disease by a third. Aspirin is believed to have a preventive effect because it inhibits an enzyme called COX-2, which promotes cell proliferation in colorectal tumors.
(AFP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, A shark attack off the coast of Santa Barbara County, Ca., killed surfer Lucas Ransom (19).
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A12)
2010 Oct 22, In southeastern Afghanistan Taliban fighters attacked a NATO convoy and killed three drivers before setting 13 fuel tankers ablaze.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, A British judge sentenced James Robinson (73), a former Roman Catholic priest, to 21 years in jail after he was convicted of 21 charges of sexual offenses against boys. Ordained in 1971, he was accused of abusing boys from 1959 to 1983.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, A nuclear-powered British submarine, the HMS Astute, was grounded in an accident off the coast of Scotland. Officials said the incident was not serious and no one was injured.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Canada Alberta Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths of the 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond last June. Syncrude accepted the C$3 million sentencing proposal.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In China Kigali and Beijing agreed to enhance their military cooperation during a visit to China by Rwandan Defence Minister James Kaberebe. Kaberebe held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Liang Guanglie, as part of a five-day visit to China.
(AFP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, Costa Rica sent some 70 police reinforcements to the border area after receiving reports of Nicaraguan soldiers on its soil. This was one day after Costa Rica formally complained to Nicaragua's ambassador about the dredging in the San Juan River. Nicaragua's army chief of staff, Gen. Julio Aviles, later said the soldiers were on the Nicaraguan side of the border as part of an anti-drug operation.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 22, French riot police forced a strategic refinery to reopen, aiming to halt growing fuel shortages. The French Senate voted 177-153 to back the contested retirement reform.
(AP, 10/22/10)(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 22, Guinea announced an indefinite delay of a presidential election run-off two days before it was to be held, casting doubt on the West African state's hopes for civilian rule and provoking fresh protests.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Haiti aid groups rushed in medicine and other supplies to combat a suspected cholera outbreak. At least 135 people had already died in the rural Artibonite region, host to thousands of quake refugees.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In eastern India suspected Maoist rebels triggered a land mine as a police vehicle drove past, killing six officers in the Sheohar district of Bihar state.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In eastern Indonesia the Tersanjung, a small passenger ship, sank off the cape of Watumanuk on Flores island. It was reportedly carrying 66 people. 44 people were rescued and 22 remained missing.
(AP, 10/22/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, Human Rights Watch said banditry, violence, and rape are widespread in Ivory Coast's western provinces even as the country gears for historic national elections.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Mexico at least 13 young people (aged 13 to 32), including 6 women and girls, were shot dead and 20 wounded in an attack on a house party in Ciudad Juarez. A 14th person died soon after from wounds.
(AP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 22, Mexican authorities said federal police have captured Huang Chen Yaowei, the suspected leader of a gang that trafficked Chinese migrants through Mexico to the US.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In the central Netherlands a collision between the German cargo ship Duisburg Ruhror and a small Dutch passenger ferry on a canal took the life of ferry skipper Hendrik Plomp (56). Divers soon recovered his body.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Nigeria Mallam Tukur, a local government official, died after being shot in the body and head at his home in Bauchi state.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, The UN Children's Fund said about 1,555 people have died of cholera in Nigeria this year, marking a likely peak in a three-year-old surge in the disease in the country.
(AFP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Pakistan bombs hit a mosque and a group of soldiers in Peshawar, killing 9 people. Army airstrikes later in the day killed 22 suspected insurgents in the area where the soldiers had been traveling. A roadside bomb killed 6 paramilitary soldiers in the Orakzai tribal region.
(AP, 10/22/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In the Philippines ex-convict Fely Mateo stabbed 9 people at the Talisayan Elementary School in Zamboanga City, killing 3, before parents wrestled away his knife and stabbed him to death with it. The man killed a teacher, a 5th-grader and an elderly man who was among those who tried to grab the attacker's knife.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Singapore an American (37), who already may be caned for overstaying his visa, was charged with fraud for allegedly scamming an Australian man out of thousands of dollars. Prosecutors alleged that calls made from Kamari Charlton's mobile phone in March deceived Mirko Prskalo into sending 17,145 Australian dollars ($16,853) in four payments. Prskalo was told that his nephew and family in Singapore urgently needed the money.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, World Wildlife spokeswoman Marie von Zeipel, speaking at a seminar in Sweden, estimated that only 3,200 tigers remain in the wild and that this population would shrink 97% over the next 100 years.
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 22, In Taiwan at least 7 people died when a temple collapsed in Suao, a coastal town in the northeast Ilan county. Torrential rains unleashed by Typhoon Megi triggered landslides that also left dozens missing and hundreds stranded. 19 Chinese bus passengers were among 23 people still missing on the island. As many as 31 people were left dead.
(AFP, 10/22/10)(AP, 10/23/10)(SFC, 10/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 22, Thai police raided a warehouse where wildlife smugglers were storing thousands of illegally collected reptiles for shipment overseas.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Vietnam disaster officials said the death toll from severe flooding in four central provinces had climbed to 75, including 14 victims from a bus swept off a road by strong currents, with six passengers still missing.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In eastern Yemen suspected al-Qaida gunmen killed Lt. Col. Abdul-Aziz Abu Abed, a senior intelligence officer, outside his house in Mukalla.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, The whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks said it will soon publish 15,000 more secret Afghan war documents.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, The SF Giants won a trip to the World Series. In Pennsylvania Juan Uribe hit a tiebreaking homer off Ryan Madson with two outs in the eighth inning and the Giants held off the Phillies 3-2 in Game 6 of the NL championship series. This finished off the Phillies' bid to become the first NL team in 66 years to win three straight pennants.
(AP, 10/24/10)(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.1)
2010 Oct 23, In western Afghanistan a suicide car bomber and three armed militants wearing explosives vests and dressed as women attacked a UN compound, but Afghan security forces killed the attackers and no UN employees were harmed. NATO forces killed two civilians, including a teenage boy, during a fight with insurgents in Wardak province. In Kandahar a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up before reaching a checkpoint, killing two civilians and wounding two others. A Danish soldier was killed in Helmand province after insurgents attacked his patrol. Joao Silva (44), a photographer for The New York Times, was seriously injured when he stepped on a mine in Kandahar province.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, Bahrainis voted for the third time since reforms which turned the Gulf state into a constitutional monarchy, with the Shiite majority demanding an easing of the Sunni dynasty's grip on power. The embattled Shiite-led opposition held on to all of its parliament seats in the elections, but fell short of the majority it hoped to win as a show of strength against the island kingdom's Sunni rulers.
(AFP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, Bangladeshi police used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse thousands of people protesting against plans to acquire land for army housing.
(Reuters, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, Barbados PM David Thompson (48) died following a struggle with pancreatic cancer. Thompson had become PM of the Caribbean nation of 270,000 people in Jan 2008.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Belgium police and demonstrators opposed to President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo clashed in Brussels during a protest over the Oct 1 death in jail of Armand Tungulu, a visiting Congolese dissident who lived in Belgium.
(AFP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In the Czech Republic opposition Social Democrats won an election for one-third of Parliament's upper house, gaining a majority in the Senate for the first time. Voters were selecting 27 senators for the 81-seat Senate in the two-day balloting. The top two finishers from last week's first round were facing runoffs.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Dagestan a suicide bomber in a car tried to attack a police dormitory in the town of Khasavyurt but an armored vehicle blocked his way. The explosion killed the suspected militant and a police officer, and wounded seven people. In the village of Komsomolskoye two suspected militants were holed up in a house when police attacked, killing both of them.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, An Egyptian court issued a final ruling against the permanent presence of police on university campuses, saying they restricted academic independence.
(AFP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, The European Commission warned Italy that it may face sanctions if it doesn’t remove some 2,400 tons of trash piled up in the streets of Naples.
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 23, French unions took their battle against extending retirement from 60 to 62 to the courts, challenging orders to return to work the day after the Senate backed the fiercely-contested reform.
(AFP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Haiti 194 dead were confirmed dead of cholera in the poor Caribbean nation's worst health crisis since the Jan 12 quake. Authorities said more than 2,000 people were sick. Experts were investigating possible cases in Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of the capital, and radio reports said there were two dozen cases of diarrhea on Gonave island.
(AP, 10/23/10)(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A3)
2010 Oct 23, New Delhi Commonwealth Games organizers informed Sri Lanka that boxer Manju Wanniarachchi (30), Sri Lanka's only gold medalist at this month's games, had tested positive for the performance-enhancing steroid nandrolone.
(AFP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Indonesia a small freighter with seven crew was reported to be going down off Flores. Three people were apparently missing while the others survived.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Ingushetia police shot and killed two militants in a car chase. The men were later identified as being wanted on terrorism charges. Police found two machine guns and ammunition inside their men's car.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23 , Iraq's PM Nouri al-Maliki accused WikiLeaks of releasing documents that detail prisoner abuse by Iraqi security forces to sabotage his re-election hopes.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Italy mafia fugitive Gerlandino Messina (38) was nabbed by Carabinieri in Favara, near Agrigento, his power base in Sicily. He had been on the run for 11 years before being caught.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Kenya 7 fans died in a stampede while trying to enter a stadium where a football match between two of the country’s most popular teams in Nairobi.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, In the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca Heriberto Pazos, the leader of a leftist Indian group left disabled in 2001 by a previous assassination attempt, was shot to death by gunmen riding on a motorcycle.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, Pakistani army airstrikes killed 12 suspected insurgents in the Orakzai tribal region near the Afghan border.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, Somali pirates seized the MV York, a Singapore-registered liquefied gas tanker, 105 miles (165 km) off the coast of Kenya in the Somali Basin.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Vietnam Le Nguyen Huong Tra, who blogged under the pen name of Do Long Girl, was taken into police custody from a home in Ho Chi Minh City for allegedly slandering a senior government official. Police in Ho Chi Minh City also arrested blogger Phan Thanh Hai, known as Anhbasg, over the weekend and continued to detain Nguyen Van Hai, a blogger known as Dieu Cay, even though he had served out his 30-month sentence on "trumped-up" tax evasion charges.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 24, Lady Gaga became the first singer to reach 1 billion hits on YouTube.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, Par p.9)
2010 Oct 24, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signaled his willingness to backtrack on a blanket ban on all private security firms, asking the foreign community for a list of projects needing protection. ISAF said one of its service members was killed by a homemade bomb in the south of country.
(AFP, 10/24/10)(Reuters, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In CongoDRC militia attacked a UN base near Virunga National Park. Some 100 attackers were members of the shadowy Mai Mai militia. Peacekeepers killed 8 militiamen.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 24, A quarter of French petrol stations were short on fuel as refinery strikes over pension reform continued to drain supply, and one official said several holiday spots were likely to be particularly hard-hit.
(Reuters, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In Haiti a cholera outbreak, that already left 250 people dead and more than 3,000 sickened, was at the doorstep of an enormous potential breeding ground: the squalid camps in Port-au-Prince where 1.3 million earthquake survivors live.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, Tropical Storm Richard lashed Honduras' Caribbean coast with heavy rain and wind and was expected to strengthen into a hurricane as it roared toward Belize and southeastern Mexico.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, Iran state radio reported that the government has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings. The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among Iran's conservative leadership, women's studies and human rights. State radio also reported that authorities have amputated the hand of a convicted thief in front of other prisoners.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, Iraq's highest court ordered parliament back to work after a seven-month political impasse that has blocked the formation of a new government. In the Sunni-dominated northern city of Mosul, a car bomb killed two passers-by and wounded 19.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In Tijuana, Mexico, a gang of armed men burst into the building of a drug rehab center and gunned down 13 recovering addicts there. Police said at least 10 were killed. In the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero, state police found the bound, executed bodies of six men on a highway outside the resort city of Acapulco. 3 people were killed in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen, police and soldiers in northern Coahuila state.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, In southeastern Nigeria fighting erupted linked to a land dispute between the feuding Nsadop and Boje communities in Cross River state. Fighting led to the burning of dozens of houses and churches. After 2 days of unrest police recovered 13 burnt corpses.
(AFP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 24, Pakistani soldiers allegedly fired machine guns and rockets on an Indian military post killing an Indian soldier in the Poonch sector of Kashmir.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, Slovenia elected Peter Bossman (54), a Ghana-born physician, as its first black mayor. He is known as the "Obama of Piran," the town where he lives.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, Somali pirates seized the Beluga Fortune, a German freight ship, off the coast of Kenya, the second foreign vessel to be captured in the region in as many days. Rescue forces the next day freed the ship, but the hijackers got away.
(AP, 10/24/10)(SFC, 10/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 24, In Sudan the Darfur-based rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it was ready to start discussions with international mediators in Qatar, but was not yet prepared to re-join full peace negotiations.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, In northern Uganda a bus collided with a truck killing 21 people.
(SFC, 10/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 25, In Wyoming a single-engine plane disappeared after takeoff from the Jackson airport. The plane’s wreckage was found Nov 1. Luke Bucklin (40) of Minneapolis and his 3 sons were killed. Bucklin was co-founder of Sierra Bravo Corp., a web development company.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A6)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 25, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses, and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds. Gunmen seized a Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver in Takhar province. The NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) said at least 15 insurgents were killed in a NATO raid and air strike targeting a Taliban commander overnight in southern Afghanistan. In Logar province a senior Taliban leader, who is believed to have played a role in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of two US sailors in July, was captured along with two of his associates. An air strike killed Qari Mahmad Umar, a senior leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was serving as a Taliban chief in the northern Takhar province where violence is on the rise.
(AP, 10/25/10)(Reuters, 10/25/10)(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, The Australian and Singapore stock exchanges announced an 8.3 billion dollar merger that would create one of the world's largest and most diversified financial trading hubs.
(AFP, 10/25/10)(Econ, 10/30/10, p.78)
2010 Oct 25, Bolivian President Evo Morales was in Tehran on a 3-day visit aimed at securing Iranian investment in the South American country.
(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Toronto voters elected conservative Rob Ford as mayor of Canada's biggest city, tilting away from their recent liberal leanings and opting for his platform of small government, fewer taxes and big spending cuts.
(Reuters, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, Omar Khadr, a Canadian prisoner at Guantanamo accused of killing an American soldier, pleaded to five charges including murder in a plea agreement with military authorities. Khadr had been facing a possible life sentence if convicted at a trial that was scheduled to start today. He was 15 at the time of his capture.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, In Egypt a planned website, Harrasmap, will allow women to quickly report instances of harassment via text message or Twitter, to be loaded onto a digital map of Cairo to show hotspots and areas that might be dangerous for women to walk alone. The data will be shared with activists, media, and police. Cairo's online map will run off a platform called Ushahidi, an open-source software first developed to report violence in Kenya after 2008 elections there. Since then test models of it have run in South Africa, Gaza and India.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, President Nicolas Sarkozy's government warned that strikes against pension reform have cost up to three billion euros and threaten to derail France's still fragile economy recovery. Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the strikes are costing the economy up to euro400 million ($562 million) each day.
(AFP, 10/25/10)(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, In Haiti gunmen shot up and robbed a bus carrying journalists covering the campaign of a presidential candidate, killing the driver and injuring a reporter.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, The leaders of India and Japan signed a broad agreement in Japan aimed at increasing trade and agreed to speed up talks toward a civilian nuclear energy deal despite sensitivity in Japan over India's past atomic test blasts. PM Naoto Kan and PM Manmohan Singh also agreed to speed up talks toward a civilian nuclear cooperation deal that would allow Japanese companies to export nuclear power generation technology and equipment to India.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, In western Indonesia a 7.7 magnitude earthquake off Sumatra’s coast triggered a 10-foot (3m) tsunami that pounded remote island villages, killing over 400 people and leaving scores more missing.
(AP, 10/26/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 25, In Iraq masked gunmen in Baghdad stole more than $27,000 in cash intended for university workers' salaries in a daylight ambush of a money courier's car.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, A senior Israeli settler official said that work has begun on up to 600 new homes in West Bank settlements since Israel lifted its curb on such construction Sep 26. Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas has said he will only resume talks once building restrictions are reimposed, arguing there is no point negotiating while Israel continues to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Libya's Kadhafi Foundation announced projects costing eight million dollars to help Darfur refugees displaced by the conflict in western Sudan to return to their homes.
(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Humans Rights Watch said in a new report that suspects detained under Morocco's counterterrorism laws are routinely subjected to human rights violations.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, Myanmar state television reported that at least 27 people were killed and tens of thousands displaced when Cyclone Giri struck its western coast a week earlier.
(SFC, 10/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 25, In Pakistan a bomb blast outside the Sufi Farid Shakar Ganj shrine in Pakpattan killed at least 5 people, including 2 women. 12 people were wounded.
(AP, 10/25/10)(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, South African soldiers strayed into neighboring Mozambique and exchanged fire with civilians, leaving 2 people dead and one injured.
(AP, 10/26/10)(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 25, South Korea prepared to send 5,000 tons of rice to flood victims in North Korea in its first humanitarian rice shipment to its communist neighbor since a conservative, pro-US government took office in 2008.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the expropriation of the local affiliate of the US-based glassmaker Owens Illinois, accusing it of causing environmental damage and exploiting its workers. To date almost 400 companies have been nationalized since Chavez became president in 1999.
(AFP, 10/26/10)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.44)
2010 Oct 25, In Zimbabwe Kobus Joubert (67), a prominent white farmer, was shot dead in a robbery at his home. The Commercial Farmers Union, representing about 300 whites still on their land after a decade-long violent land seizure program that ousted some 4,000 white farmers, said the killing showed "the flagrant disregard for the rule of law" in farming areas ahead of proposed elections.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Arizona executed a convicted murderer by lethal injection in a case that stirred controversy after it emerged that one of the drugs being used to end the inmate's life was obtained in Britain. Jeffrey Landrigan (50), convicted of the murder of Chester Dean Dyer in 1989, was executed at a state prison in Florence. Dyer, who was strangled to death, was found by a co-worker on December 15, 1989, after he failed to show up for work. Landrigan was the 24th person executed in Arizona since the state resumed capital punishment in 1992. 132 inmates remained on the state's death row.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 26, An annual report by Transparency Int’l. marked Somalia as the most corrupt county in the world, followed by Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq. Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tied as the world’s least corrupt nations. The US declined to 22nd from 19th last year.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 26, In western Afghanistan a bombing killed four Afghan policemen, including a local police chief in Herat province.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at least 30 women were kept as prisoners in a dungeon-like structure and gang-raped over multiple weeks at the Congo and Angola border before being left in the bush without their clothes. The deportees said they were held by Angolan authorities in a dingy building. At least three were killed, including two men and a woman (27) who died after being raped repeatedly.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Armenian police arrested Georg Avanesov (27). He allegedly operated the “Bredolab" botnet of nearly 30 million PCs. Investigators alleged that Avanesov made up to US$139,000 each month renting the botnet to criminals who used it for sending spam and for installing password-stealing malicious software.
(www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792148/Spam_report_October_2010)
2010 Oct 26, In Belize the body of Bruce Cullerton, an American who also held Belizean citizenship, was found. He had been killed by a 30-pound (59 kilogram) jaguar, that had escaped from its cage last week during Hurricane Richard. Max, the jaguar, was recaptured and euthanized On Oct 27.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Authorities in Bosnia and Serbia said they had recovered the skeletal remains of at least 97 people from the banks of a border lake that was partially drained this summer for maintenance. Most were killed by Serbs in the nearby town of Visegrad at the start of the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. But on the Serbian side experts found the remains of what they presume to be 11 Albanians killed during the Kosovo war in 1998-1999.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Brazil a man accused of raping 40 women turned himself in, only to be let go because Brazilian law prohibits voters from being arrested five days before elections unless they are caught red-handed. The no-arrest provision was included in the Brazilian electoral code enacted in 1932 after a period in which election fraud and arrests to intimidate voters were common.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, A Brazilian court ordered McDonald's to pay a former franchise manager $17,500 because he gained 65 pounds while working there a dozen years. The 32-year-old man says he was forced to sample food products each day to ensure that quality standards remained high because McDonald's hired "mystery clients" to randomly visit restaurants and report on the food, service and cleanliness.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 26, China rolled out its fastest train yet and announced that the Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest hydroelectric project, is now generating electricity at maximum capacity. Inauguration ceremonies were held for the super-fast line from Shanghai's western suburb of Hongqiao to the resort city of Hangzhou. The train will cruise at a top speed of 220 mph (350 kph), making the 125-mile (200-km) trip in 45 minutes.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, The Czech Republic became the second European Union country after Spain to grant asylum to a Cuban political prisoner. Jimenez Posada, a lawyer, arrived with his wife, brother, son and niece. He was arrested in 2003 and received a 12-year prison term three years later for subversion.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Egyptian security forces detained 70 campaign workers from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood while hanging election posters in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria ahead of next month's parliamentary vote.
(AFP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Germany's Defense Minister said the country will begin a major restructuring of the military next year as it moves from a Cold War conscript army to one better positioned to face today's threats, while also cutting costs.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, UN officials counted 3,769 cases of cholera in Haiti and raised the death toll to 284.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 26, Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano erupted, prompting terrified villagers to flee and join the thousands already evacuated from its slopes.
(Reuters, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran acknowledged that it has been sending funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, saying the money was intended to aid reconstruction of the embattled country.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran began loading fuel into the core of its first atomic power plant, moving closer to the start up of the Bushehr facility that leaders have touted as defying of international efforts to curtail the country's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Iraq Saddam Hussein's longtime foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, was sentenced to death by hanging for persecuting members of Shiite religious parties under the former regime. Thieves armed with guns and hand grenades stormed a jewelry shop in northern Iraq and killed 10 people during a robbery attempt.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Mexico the bodies of two men, one of them decapitated, were found inside an SUV in Ciudad Juarez. Police suspected they may have been behind the massacre of 14 young people at a birthday party. The entire police force of the small northeastern town of Los Ramones quit, Nuevo Leon state, a day after gunmen attacked their headquarters. Oaxaca state police found the bound, tortured bodies of four people in a clandestine grave in a vacant lot near the state capital. In Morelos state the bodies of four men were found near a roadside with about 30 shell casings. A 25-year-old American was shot to death outside a restaurant in Ciudad Juarez. Gunmen killed three undercover Mexican federal police officers as they waited for a person to cross a bridge from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AFP, 10/27/10)(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Nigerian police arrested 10 local chiefs from Boje community accused of murder in a land dispute with neighbors after which 13 burnt corpses were recovered.
(AFP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Somali pirates failed to get control of the French flagged Maido, a liquefied petroleum gas carrier, because the crew had locked itself in a safe room.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Deborah Calitz and Bruno Pelizzari of South Africa were captured by Somali pirates from a yacht, the SY Choizil, off the coast of Tanzania. Skipper Peter Eldridge (61) escaped. A ransom of $10 million was later demanded.
(http://tinyurl.com/4nen4cw)(AP, 1/31/11)
2010 Oct 26, The UN refugee agency said some 60,000 civilians in Somalia have fled their homes over the past week as fresh fighting between Islamist insurgents and a government-allied militia claimed the lives of at least 10 people.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, A Southern Sudan official said that northern Sudan leaders are holding an oil-rich region "hostage" in negotiations being held before a January independence referendum.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, The UN General Assembly voted 187-2 to end US sanctions against Cuba. Only the US and Israel voted in favor.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 26, Yemen ordered the confiscation of all firearms in the possession of its citizens after canceling weapons' licenses not carrying the Interior Minister's signature. Some 50 million firearms are thought to be in the possession of Yemen's estimated 23 million people.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 27, US officials said the Obama administration has granted a waiver allowing Chad, CongoDRC, Sudan and Yemen to continue receiving US military aid despite their use of child soldiers. Officials said cutting off aid would do more damage than good.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 27, Farooque Ahmed, a Pakistani-born Virginia man, was arrested and charged with trying to help people posing as Al-Qaida operatives to bomb Washington-area subway stations. The plot was a bombing ruse by the FBI who monitored his activities the whole time. On April 11, 2011, Ahmed pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A8)(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A4)
2010 Oct 27, The SF Giants battered the Texas Rangers 11-7 in Game 1 of the World Series.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, Elon Musk officially unveiled a new Tesla sign for the former Nummi plant in Fremont, Ca., where the new electric Tesla cars will be manufactured.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A11)
2010 Oct 27, BrightSource Energy of Oakland, Ca., broke ground on its Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mohave Desert. Plant operator NRG Energy Inc. agreed to invest $300 million into the $2 billion project. On April 11, 2011, BrightSource finalized $1.6 billion in loans for the project.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.D1)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.69)
2010 Oct 27, In San Diego, Ca., police officer Christopher Wilson (50) was fatally shot as officers tried to serve warrants on Holim Lee (30). Hours later Lee was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His girlfriend, Lucky Xayasene (27) was also fatally shot. Wilson died of his wounds the next day.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 27, In Michigan police Raymond R. Bush (38) and Taylor E. Manley, a 15-year-old girl he knew, dead in a van in a cemetery, hours after the man was to appear in court on charges alleging he sexually assaulted the girl.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, Lisa Blount (53), actress and Oscar-winning filmmaker, was found dead in her home in Little Rock, Ark. Blount received a Golden Globe nomination for her supporting turn as the best friend of Debra Winger's character in "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982). Her other credits included "Prince of Darkness" (1987) and "Great Balls of Fire!" (1989).
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, Actress Denise Borino-Quinn (46), who unexpectedly won a TV role as a mafia wife on "The Sopranos," died of liver cancer in New Jersey.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 27, Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatens in a new audio tape to kill French citizens to avenge their country's support for the US-led war in Afghanistan and a new law that will ban face-covering Muslim veils.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, President Karzai said Afghanistan will extend a deadline for private security firms to disband through early next year in a face-saving compromise that could preserve foreign reconstruction projects worth billions of dollars. A roof collapsed at an Afghan wedding party, killing more than 40 women and children in Warchi village of Jalga district of Baghlan province. The international military coalition said nine insurgents were killed in a battle in the southern province.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AFP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Nestor Kirchner (60), former Argentine President (2003-2007) and the husband of current leader Cristina Fernandez, died after suffering from heart trouble.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Croatian PM Jadranka Kosor survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament, with the opposition complaining about Croatia's economic decline and corruption in the upper echelons of her party. Parliament voted 79 to 62 in Kosor's support, 15 votes short of what was needed to oust her in the 151-seat chamber.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, The French Parliament passed Pres. Sarkozy’s pension bill raising the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60, and the full-pension age to 67 from 65. Most French oil refineries were set to start outbound deliveries of fuel as work stoppages ended at two plants, further easing a strike movement that has led to pump shortages across France.
(Reuters, 10/27/10)(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 27, In Indonesia helicopters with emergency supplies finally landed on the remote islands slammed by a tsunami that killed over 400 people. Elsewhere in the archipelago the toll from a volcanic eruption rose to 30, including the mountain's spiritual caretaker.
(AP, 10/26/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Iraq a bomb blast near a Sunni religious organization in Baghdad killed two security guards. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a bomb hidden in a pickup truck exploded, killing the driver and injuring three passers-by.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Japan offered $2 billion in aid to help developing nations reach species-preserving goals that are being debated at a UN conference, a move that could jolt the stalled talks forward.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Jewish settlers said Israel's defense minister is holding up construction on 4,300 apartments that could be built immediately in the West Bank. Dozens of Jewish extremists hoisting Israeli flags defiantly marched through the Arab-Israeli town of Umm el-Fahm, chanting "death to terrorists" and touching off clashes between rock-hurling residents and police who quelled them with tear gas. An Israeli court convicted Amir Makhoul, a prominent Arab-Israeli activist, of spying for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a plea bargain that will send him to prison for up to 10 years.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Kenya's foreign minister Moses Wetangula said he is resigning to allow investigations into allegations of a multimillion dollar scandal involving five Kenyan embassies in Africa, Europe and Asia.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Mexico gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash in Tepic, Nayarit state, where drug-gang violence has risen this year. It was the third massacre in Mexico in less than a week. A Chihuahua state police officer was killed in his Ciudad Juarez home.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Scientists said a new type of snub-nosed monkey has been found in a remote forested region of northern Myanmar, which is under threat from logging and a Chinese dam project.
(Reuters, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Nigerian officials allowed journalists to see the 107 mm rockets, rifle rounds and other weapons seized at Apapa Port. Authorities said the shipment also contained grenades, explosives, mortars and possibly rocket launchers. However, journalists visiting the holding yard just inside of the port's main gate did not see those weapons. the manifest for the weapons described the shipment as "packages of glasswool and pallets of stone." The next day customs officials said the shipment of 13 containers came from a ship that had just left India and investigators continued to trace the weapons' origins.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Pakistan suspected US drones fired missiles at a house and a vehicle in a militant-infested area of North Waziristan, killing seven people. A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded as a member of a militia drove up to a market in the village of Qamberkhel in the Khyber tribal region, wounding the militiaman and five other people in the vehicle. A bomb apparently targeting a police patrol in Baluchistan province killed two civilians and wounded 9 other people, including four police officers.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Romania government survived a no-confidence, as some 30,000 people demonstrated in Bucharest against the nation's wage cuts and austerity measures.
(AP, 10/27/10)(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 27, In Somalia al-Shabab executed two girls by firing squad for spying for government soldiers. Ayan Mohamed Jama (18) and Huriyo Ibrahim (15) were brought before hundreds of residents. Ten masked men opened fire on the girls, who were blindfolded, soon after the sentencing.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, South Korea's Red Cross said North Korea is demanding that South Korea resume large-scale food aid and joint economic projects in return for regular reunions of family members separated by the Korean War more than a half century ago.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Thailand authorities said heavy downpours that caused rivers to burst have killed 57 people in nearly two weeks of flooding.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, UAR Sheik Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi (b.1918), a ruler of Ras the al Khaimah emirate and one of the world's longest-reigning monarchs, died.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, A Yemeni court charged Sharif Mobley (26), an American of Somali descent, with the murder of a Yemeni soldier and the wounding of another during a failed escape attempt. He had been arrested for suspected al-Qaida ties.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, A White House panel said that Halliburton Co. used flawed cement in BP Plc's doomed Gulf of Mexico well, which could have contributed to the blowout that sparked the worst offshore oil spill in US history. Halliburton had run a series of tests that showed the material was unstable in the weeks before the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. An interim report BP issued in September said Halliburton used an "unstable" cement mixture that allowed hydrocarbons to flow up the drill pipe and onto the floor of the rig, where they ignited.
(Reuters, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, US federal regulators said Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $25 million to the US government and at least $52.8 million in refunds to customers who inadvertently racked up data charges on their phones over the last three years.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, The SF Giants at home won game 2 of the world series, 9-0, over the Texas Rangers.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 28, Nvidia Corp. said China’s National University of Defense Technology has designed the world’s fastest supercomputer. Its Tianhe-1A set a performance record of 2.507 petaflops per second.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.C5)
2010 Oct 28, The Washington-based nonprofit, the National Association of Clean Air Act Agencies, surveyed the states on whether they would be ready to comply with the new EPA rules by the Jan 2, 2011, deadline. In a new report the association said 49 states have either changed their laws to allow regulation of greenhouse gases or will allow the EPA to issue permits. Texas is doing neither.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101029/ap_on_bi_ge/us_epa_vs_texas)
2010 Oct 28, James MacArthur (b.1937), stage and screen actor, died. He played "Danno" in the original version of television's "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980). His breakout role was in the 1957 "Climax!" television series production of "The Young Stranger," in which he starred as the 17-year-old son of a movie executive who has a run-in with the law.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, US microchip giant Intel said it plans to team up with Taiwan to set up a multi-million dollar Internet computing research laboratory.
(AFP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb targeting the car of a district police chief killed three police officers in Zabul province. A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban leader and another militant in southern Zabul province as he was showing his fighters a new anti-aircraft heavy machine gun mounted on the back of his vehicle. Militants shot and killed a government official in charge of the water supply in Dand district of Kandahar province as he was walking near his home. A NATO service member died following a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan. In Khost province a NATO airstrike killed one insurgent believed to be a senior leader of the Haqqani network. In neighboring Mando Zayi district of Khost, one civilian was killed and two others were wounded in fighting. US and Russian special forces and Afghan police ended an operation raiding 4 drug labs in an unprecedented collaborative military operation, destroying some $56 million worth of heroin in Nangarhar province. Months earlier Russia had provided US officials in Kabul with the coordinates of 175 laboratories where heroin is processed but the US failed to act. A NATO helicopter killed more than 20 insurgents after it was fired on during an operation in Kandahar province.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/29/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Bahrain more than two dozen Shiite Muslims accused of plotting against the Sunni rulers described abuses including beatings and electric shocks at a trial observed by US envoys.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Bangladesh police said arrested 20 members of the country’s largest Islamic party and seized homemade bombs from a house where they were holding a meeting.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, In China Guo Xianliang, an engineer from the southern province of Yunnan, disappeared while on a business trip in the southern city of Guangzhou. He had been handing out fliers on the streets and in public parks there. Police told Guo's wife on Nov 2 that Guo had been criminally detained.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Oct 28, In China 4 driverless vehicles arrived at the Shanghai Expo ending an 8,000 mile test drive from Italy.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 28, Liang Congjie (78), historian and modern China’s first environmentalist, died. In 1994 he and 3 colleagues founded Friends of Nature, China’s first legal NGO and the first committed to protecting the country’s environment..
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 28, In France further strikes disrupted rail and air transport, but the broader protest over plans to raise the retirement age appeared to be waning a day after parliament adopted pension reform legislation.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, A French helicopter crashed in Antarctica during rough weather conditions killing all 4 aboard. The downed AS350 Squirrel helicopter was operated in Antarctica from the French research vessel, L'Astrolabe, which was currently icebound about 230 miles (370 km) northeast of the Dumont-d'Urville station.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 28, Former Greenland premier Jonathan Motzfeldt (72) died. He had spearheaded a drive for more self-rule and opposed US bases on the semi-autonomous Danish territory. Motzfeldt led the Arctic island's government between 1979-1991 and again between 1997-2002 and is considered one of the founding fathers of its home rule agreement with Denmark.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, Guinea officials said thousands of people from the Peul ethnic group have been forced to flee their homes in ethnic clashes ahead of the country's upcoming presidential election, overshadowing a looming poll in a country that has never succeeded in freely electing its leader.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Ali Shakouri-rad, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and former MP, was freed on bail, two weeks after his arrest for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi termed "security reasons." On Dec 9 he was sent back to jail for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies."
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his car outside a police checkpoint in Mosul, killing one policeman and injuring seven. In Baghdad small bombs stuck on cars owned by ranking police officials killed one and wounded another.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Israeli officials said that the military-grade armaments seized at a shipping terminal in Nigeria came from Iran and were bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. On Oct 30 an international shipping company said the weapons cache originally came from Iran. Last week, the Iranian shipper filed a request for the containers to be picked up again and this time shipped to the West African nation of Gambia. On Feb 1, 2011, Azim Aghajani of Iran and his alleged accomplice, Nigerian national Usman Abbas Jega, both maintained their innocence against three charges over the shipment.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 2/1/11)
2010 Oct 28, Ehud Netzer (76), leading Israeli archaeologist, died of injuries suffered in a fall at an excavation at the King Herod-era site near Bethlehem.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, Kuwait's court of appeals upheld the acquittal of eight nationals, two of them tried in absentia, of charges of forming an Al-Qaeda cell and plotting attacks against a US military base. Five of the men were arrested in August last year while a sixth suspect was already serving a life sentence for a 2002 attack on the US military in Kuwait that killed an American soldier. The accused said that purported confessions presented to the court had been extracted under torture.
(AFP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called on all Lebanese to boycott the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of a former prime minister, saying all information gathered by the team was being sent to Israel. He spoke a day after a crowd of women attacked two UN investigators and a Lebanese interpreter as they gathered evidence at a private gynecology clinic in Beirut. He confirmed that the wives and relatives of Hezbollah commanders and officials were among the clinic's patients. A 13-year-old boy was killed and four other people wounded in a grenade blast outside a scrap metal yard in northern Lebanon's Nahr al-Bared camp.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Mexico gunmen killed 6 young men in a gritty neighborhood of Mexico City. Gunmen ambushed a convoy of 5 police vehicles in Jalisco state, killing 9 officers and leaving one missing. In Zapopan, a suburb of the Jalisco state capital of Guadalajara, two boys (2) and 3 other people were wounded by grenade fragments during an attack on a private home. The United States delivered three mobile X-ray inspection vehicles to Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative anti-drug aid plan. Francisco Javier Gomez Meza, the director of the Puente Grande prison, was arrested for alleged ties to drug gangs.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Karachi, Pakistan, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a Japanese consular vehicle, wounding two local employees and underscoring the fragile security in the country. An American missile strike killed 7 suspected militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Yemen clashes between Shiite rebels and a pro-government tribe in the northern mountains killed a tribesman and two rebels.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Authorities on 3 continents thwarted attacks when they seized explosives on cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England. The plot sent tremors throughout the US, where after a frenzied day searching planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily banned all new cargo from Yemen. The next day police in Dubai said that the bomb discovered there contained the powerful explosive PETN and bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida. One of the two powerful bombs mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two passenger planes within the Middle East. A tip of the plot came from Jabir al-Fayfi, a Saudi who was held for years at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. On Nov 5 al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing claimed responsibility for the explosive parcels.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)(Reuters, 11/5/10)
2010 Oct 29, In southern California 2 doctors were arrested along with 5 others for leading a scam in which mentally ill homeless patients were paid $100 each for unnecessary treatments that were fraudulently billed to Medicare and Medi-Cal.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 29, In San Francisco Kathleen Horan (46) was beaten to death by Gary Scott Holland. She had opened her door at 900 Chestnut to Holland who was posing as a utility worker. On Nov 8, 2011, Holland (44) pleaded guilty to murder and faced 25-50 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/9/11, p.C2)
2010 Oct 29, In Afghanistan’s western Herat province, insurgents surrounded a checkpoint manned by local police in the Chishti Sharif district and opened fire, killing 10 officers and wounding 12. A NATO soldier died in an attack in the south.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, Britain’s PM David Cameron claimed that the days of "crazy" European Union spending are finished after a deal to keep Brussels in line with reduced national budgets.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In the Central African Republic rebels of the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) abducted 21 census agents updating voters' rolls for forthcoming elections.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, A feud between China and Japan deepened at the East Asian Summit in Vietnam, as China accused its rival of making false comments and hopes for landmark talks between their leaders evaporated.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, An Egyptian security official said a man from Sudan's Darfur region was shot dead trying to sneak across the border into Israel. 2 others were taken into custody as smugglers and others scattered into the desert.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Finland the Allure of the Seas, the second in a pair of the largest cruise liners in the world, set sail for its new home port in Florida. Sister ship, the Oasis of the Seas, was also delivered to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines last year with a price tag of about $1.5 billion.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, French unions said they have decided to end strikes at all oil refineries and several major ports.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 29, In Haiti the death toll from the cholera epidemic rose to 330, as medical teams desperately sought to contain the outbreak.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, A leading ratings body warned that India may have to step in to avert collapse of the 6.7-billion-dollar microfinance industry, as lenders once hailed as saviors of the poor faced a major crisis.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Iran notified the EU that it is willing to restart international negotiations over its nuclear program after Nov. 10, potentially reviving talks that foundered a year ago.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Iraq a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a popular café in Balad Ruz, Diyala province. 22 people were killed with 68 wounded.
(AFP, 10/30/10)(Reuters, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 28, A Milan court convicted three doctors of performing unnecessary surgeries. Prosecutors produced evidence that unneeded operations, including amputations, were performed on 83 patients at the Santa Rita clinic in Milan with the aim of getting large reimbursements from the state health system. Pier Paolo Brega Massone, the hospital's chief surgeon, was sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Mexico a man was found shot to death and left in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco. Lorena Izaguirre (24), a US citizen and El Paso resident, was killed inside a tortilla shop in Ciudad Juarez. A Mexican man was also found dead in the store.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 29, Morocco’s communications ministry said it has suspended the operations of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television news channel in Rabat and withdrawn the accreditations of its staff. A government official who declined to be named said the authorities took exception to the way Al-Jazeera handles the issues of Islamists and Western Sahara.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Morocco’s interior ministry said two Al-Qaeda linked cells have been broken up and that 9 people have been arrested including a Yemeni national and a former Italian resident.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Nigeria Italian oil firm Eni SpA said a pipeline carrying some of its crude out of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has erupted after an "act of sabotage."
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, North and South Korea exchanged gunfire across their heavily armed land border, despite an apparent thaw in tensions on the divided peninsula in the past few months.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Tens of thousands of Palestinians turned out for a rally in the Gaza Strip to mark the 23rd anniversary of the founding of the hardline militant group Islamic Jihad.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Togo’s government said flooding has killed 21 people and affected more than 82,000 in recent months and that aid was needed.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Venezuelan health workers said an epidemic that may be malaria has killed dozens of people, decimating three villages of the Yanomami Indians, whose struggle for survival in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest has attracted worldwide support.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Texas the SF Giants lost game 3 of the World Series 4-2 to the Texas Rangers leaving SF up 2 games to 1.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 30, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded that NATO forces explain why they had carried out a joint counter-narcotics operation with Russian forces inside Afghanistan, calling it a violation of sovereignty. At least 40 Taliban insurgents were killed during a failed attack on a NATO combat outpost in Barmal district near the North Waziristan border. A NATO soldier died in an attack in the volatile south. Afghan and NATO troops killed 17 insurgents in an hours-long gunbattle in southern Helmand province.
(Reuters, 10/30/10)(AFP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Oct 30, Bahraini voters went to the polls for a run-off poll with three groups, two Sunni Islamist and a leftist alliance, contesting the last seats in parliament. Official results showed pro-government candidates won all nine parliamentary seats. The results gave pro-government Sunni candidates a combined total of 22 seats in the 40-member legislature.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales confirmed that his country plans to build a nuclear plant with Iran's help, stressing the facility would be for peaceful purposes.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In China Alexandria Mills, a soft-spoken 18-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, was named the winner in the 60th Miss World Competition, held on Hainan Island. Second place went to Emma Wareus of Botswana, and Adriana Vasini of Venezuela came third.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Honduras a carful of attackers armed with assault rifles drove up to a soccer field in a poor neighborhood of the northern city of San Pedro Sula and opened fire, killing 14 people. Officials said members of the Mara 18 gang were responsible.
(AP, 10/31/10)(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, In eastern India rescuers battled to find survivors after a ferry overcrowded with Muslim pilgrims capsized and sank in the Hooghly River near the Bay of Bengal. The 60 person capacity boat was carrying around 224 people. After 3 days 69 bodies were recovered.
(AFP, 10/30/10)(AFP, 11/1/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, In Indonesia clouds of gray ash rumbled down the slopes of Mount Merapi in its most powerful eruption of a deadly week, prompting soldiers to force reluctant villagers to evacuate amid fears of a larger blast as the death toll reached 36. Storms again prevented aid deliveries to increasingly desperate survivors of a tsunami, including a teenage girl with an open chest wound, that killed 413 people in the Mentawai islands. The number of missing dropped by half to 163 as searchers discovered survivors who had fled to the hills.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Mexico City an explosion inside a home where illegal fireworks were stored wrecked two houses, killing at least three adults and two children. A US woman and an American boy were slain shortly after crossing an international bridge from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez. Giovanna Herrera (26) and Luis Araiza (15) were shot to death along with a Mexican man traveling with them.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 30, Northern Ireland police seized a dissident IRA bomb packed into a beer keg and were inspecting a potential car bomb parked outside Belfast International Airport, the latest efforts to undermine peace in the British territory.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Hundreds of North and South Korean family members separated for more than half a century by the Korean War embraced each other in tearful reunions.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, A Russian unmanned cargo ship manually docked with the International Space Station, bringing 2.5 tons of food, water, oxygen and fuel for the orbiting laboratory and its US-Russian crew.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In eastern Rwanda 11 miners died in an accident at a tin mine in the Rwamagana district.
(AFP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Somali pirates overnight took control of the MV Polar, a cargo vessel with 24 crew members aboard. Pirates seized the Liberian-owned ship some 684 miles (1,100 km) east of the Indian Ocean island of Socotra. One of them, Prudente Cabral, died of a stroke in captivity in November. Pirates released the vessel on Aug 26, 2011.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AFP, 8/26/11)
2010 Oct 30, Hurricane Tomas, the 12th of the Atlantic season, hit a cluster of Caribbean islands including St. Vincent and St. Lucia and moved toward Jamaica. 3 deaths were reported on St. Vincent.
(SSFC, 10/31/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 30, Sudan began arresting Darfur activists, just weeks ahead of a southern referendum on secession. 9 activists including a prominent human rights lawyer were arrested over the next 24 hours.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 30, Police in Goteborg, Sweden, were on high alert over the weekend after receiving reports about a bomb threat and arrested the two men in early morning raids. Both men were soon released due to lack of evidence.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 30, Turkey said it was lifting a ban on YouTube more than two years after it blocked the site because of videos deemed insulting to the country’s founder.
(SSFC, 10/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, In Zimbabwe a supporter of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was beaten and stabbed by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party at a constitution meeting in Harare.
(AFP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Zimbabwean businessman Peter Evershed (59) was mauled by five lions while showering under a tree at the Chitake Springs bush camp.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Oct 31, A US military judge, under a plea bargain, sentencing Omar Khadr (24) to eight more years in custody for war crimes. The young Canadian had admitted to five war crimes charges, including killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. The sentence called for him to stay at the Guantanamo prison another year before he can ask Canada's government to allow him to return to his homeland to serve out his sentence or seek early release on parole.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Texas the SF Giants won game 4 of the World Series 4-0 against the Texas Rangers putting them up 3 games to 1.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 31, Theodore Sorenson (b.1928), special counsel to Pres. John F. Kennedy, died in NY. His memoir “Counselor" was published in 2008.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.C8)
2010 Oct 31, Afghan militants attacked a convoy carrying supplies for the police, Education Ministry, and the UN's World Food Program in western Nimroz province. Six militants were killed and one policeman was wounded in the gunbattle. A two-day battle over a bomb-making factory in Reg-i-Khan Nishin district ended with NATO and Afghan troops killing 15 insurgents.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Brazil held elections. Dilma Rousseff (62), the hand-picked candidate of Pres. Lula da Silva was the heavy favorite to replace him in the runoff election. Dilma Rousseff was elected over centrist rival Jose Serra 56 percent to 44 percent and will be the first woman to direct Latin America's biggest nation.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, China wrapped up its record-breaking World Expo with a lavish display of national pride, as organizers of the mammoth event pledged to continue pursuing more sustainable, balanced growth. Over 72 million visitors surpassed the record 1970 fair in Osaka, Japan, which drew 64 million.
(AP, 10/31/10)(SFC, 11/1/10, p.D2)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Iraq an al Qaeda attack left 68 people dead including 46 hostages, 7 police and 5 attackers, at the Sayidat al-Nejat Syriac Christian cathedral (Our Lady of Salvation) in Baghdad. The attack ended with police storming the church to free more than 100 hostages. Officials said most of the casualties were killed or wounded when the security forces raided the place and that the attack was aimed at driving the Christian minority out of the country. Al-Qaida cited the cases of 2 Egyptian women, wives of Coptic priests, who had converted to Islam in order to get away from their abusive husbands. On August 2, 2011, a Baghdad court convicted 3 Iraqis and sentenced them to death for their role in the church siege. A fourth man was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/1/10)(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A2)(AP, 8/2/11)
2010 Oct 31, Ivory Coast held a long-awaited presidential election, the first since civil war erupted in 2002 and split the world's leading cocoa producer in half. Pres. Laurent Gbagbo won 38% followed by 32% for Alassane Ouattara, the main opposition leader. Former Pres. Henri Konan Bedie came in third with 25% and later endorsed Ouattara in a run-off, set for Nov 28.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A2)(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Oct 31, Japan’s PM Naoto Kan said Vietnam has chosen Japan as a partner to mine rare earth metals and develop nuclear power.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 31, In Kenya a suspected elephant poacher was killed on the outskirts of Meru National Park. 2 suspected poachers were killed last week in Tsavo National Park following the poaching deaths of 4 other elephants.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Mexican police found the missing rental car of Canadian businessman Daniel Dion just north of the state capital of Chilpancingo. It was found completely burned with a corpse in the trunk. Dion was last seen about a week ago in Acapulco. Edgar Lopez (35) of El Paso, Texas, was killed along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Niger voters weighed in on a new constitution that would impose presidential term limits and pardon members of a military junta that seized power earlier this year. The country's new constitution passed with 90 percent of the vote.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Oct 31, Walid Husayin (26), a Palestinian blogger, was arrested in the West Bank. He had set off an uproar in the Arab world by sarcastically claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad. He was caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down. Husayin later posted the letter on his blog in hopes of winning release.
(AP, 11/12/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, Saudi Arabia's top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because it violates the kingdom's strict segregation of the sexes.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Somalia's parliament approved Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali-American as the country's prime minister.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Sudan shut the Khartoum office of Radio Dabanga, whose reports on Darfur have angered it, and arrested 13 staff from the radio station and a rights group that shares its offices. 9 journalists and four HAND activists were detained during the weekend raids.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Tanzania's ruling party, which has been in power for close to half a century, faced an energized opposition in national elections, following corruption scandals that have undermined the government's popularity. On Nov 5 election officials said Tanzania's Pres. Jakaya Kikwete won a 2nd term in office with 61% of the vote. In Zanzibar Ali Mohammed Shein (62) won the election with 50.1% of the vote. He was sworn in as president on Nov 3.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Turkey a suspected suicide bomber wounded 15 officers and 17 civilians in Istanbul's main square, as an extended unilateral ceasefire by the separatist PKK came to an end. The radical Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) later claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Oct 31, Ukraine voted for local councils and mayors in an election which should provide the first real clues to Pres. Yanukovich's standing at home since his election last February. Exit polls said Yanukovych’s swept elections to regional councils throughout the country.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Venezuela's Pres. Chavez ordered the nationalization of local steel company Sidetur in the latest of several recent government takeovers.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct, It was made public that some $34 million in funds from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was misused in Mali, Mauritania, Djibouti and Zambia.
(Econ, 2/19/11, p.65)
2010 Oct, In Texas Anthony Graves was released from death row after spending nearly 20 years in prison. He had been charged in 1992 with helping another man murder a family of 6. The other man had admitted lying just before he was executed in 2000.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.34)
2010 Oct, Roko Tevita Uluilakeb Mara, the commander of Fiji’s biggest regiment, was suspended and soon fled to Tonga. Mara was the youngest son of founding father Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. From Tonga he denounced the Fiji government and called for regime change.
(Econ, 5/21/11, p.43)
2010 Oct, The Times of India newspaper reported that the Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai, intended to giving shelter to wounded Indian war veterans and the widows of those slain in battle, appeared to have been a huge scam. Nearly every one of the valuable units was sold for a song to a clutch of top politicians, their kin and retired generals. The land had been earmarked for a six-story building of apartments for disabled veterans, war widows and heroes of the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan that raged for three months across the disputed Kashmir region. But the original blueprints for a modest building were cast aside and in its place arose a 31-story luxury high-rise. The scandal rocked India's ruling Congress Party. On Jan 16, 2011, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the building must be demolished within three months for violating coastal zoning laws.
(AP, 11/1/10)(AP, 1/16/11)
2010 Oct, India began assigning its 1.2 billion citizens a universal identity number (UID) based on biometric markers. The program under Nandan Nilekani was assigned to 3 vendors: Accenture, L-1 Identity Solutions of America and Morpho of France.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.61)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.39)
2010 Oct, In North Korean Choi Jin-I in co-operation with Asia Press (Tokyo) began publishing the Rimjingang magazine. Rimjin-gang aimed to bring objective news to the people of North Korea. The reporters were trained in undercover recording techniques in China.
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.51)(www.asiapress.org/rimjingang/english/)
2010 Nov 1, The US White House said President Obama is extending economic sanctions on Sudan for at least one year, ahead of the country's January referendum on independence for the south. Sudan rejected the decision.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said welfare recipients can no longer use state-issued debit cards at medical marijuana shops, psychics and other businesses whose services have been deemed "inconsistent with the intent" of the program. In June Schwarzenegger barred welfare cards at casino ATMs.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, The SF Giants won the Baseball World Series beating the Texas Rangers 3-1 in Game 5 in San Francisco. Edgar Renteria blasted his second home run of the 2010 Fall Classic, a three-run shot, to win the championship. Renteria had the game-winning hit in the 11th inning of Game 7 in the 1997 World Series for the Florida Marlins.
(AP, 11/2/10)(http://tinyurl.com/29joxc3)
2010 Nov 1, Salesforce.com announced the purchase of 14 acres in the Mission Bay area of San Francisco and planned a new corporate campus to be built over the next 10 years.
(SFC, 11/2/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 1, McKesson corp., the biggest US drug distributor, announced an agreement to buy closely held US Oncology Inc. for $560 million.
(SFC, 11/2/10, p.D2)
2010 Nov 1, In eastern Afghanistan the Taliban briefly overran a district seat and torched government buildings there. Government forces who regained control of Ghazni province's Khogyani district headquarters a few hours later discovered that the 16 Afghan policemen stationed there were missing. (The bodies of four of the policemen were found a few days later in Ghazni city. 5 more bodies were found on Nov 6. Seven remained missing) 2 Afghan women were found shot to death in Helmand province. They had been running a small organization helping other women set up businesses before their bodies were found in Naway-e-Barakzayi district. A bomb that killed two coalition service members. A suicide attack aimed at NATO troops in Zhari district killed one civilian.
(AP, 11/1/10)(AP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 1, Australian police said a mother (55) and son (28), along with a 33-year-old Hong Kong man, have been charged over one of the country's biggest heroin hauls after drugs with a potential street value of 405 million US dollars were found in a shipment of doors.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Britain's BG Group announced it will spend 15 billion US dollars on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Australia, an investment Canberra hailed as a boost for the national economy.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, The UN said flooding in Benin has affected more than half a million people, destroyed more than 300,000 acres of crops and killed 81,000 livestock.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, British scientists said alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others are assessed.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, China kicked off a once-a-decade census. Some 6 million people were mobilized to conduct a 10-day survey.
(AP, 11/1/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.56)
2010 Nov 1, In Cuba Roman Catholic officials announced the names of three more Cuban prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Egypt’s Information Minister Annas el-Fiqi ordered all companies providing the service or television networks with uplinks to reapply for permits. The measure will affect about a dozen uplink providers and TV stations. Providers have complained it is aimed at controlling live TV broadcasts such as political talk-shows.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Police in Greece arrested two terrorism suspects carrying letter bombs addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and western embassies in Athens. The two Greek men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested in central Athens after a parcel bomb addressed to the Mexican embassy in Athens exploded at a mail delivery service.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In northern Honduras 5 armed men broke into a military base at the major international airport and made off with a small airplane that authorities seized last year in an anti-drug operation.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Icelandic Meteorological Office geophysicist Gunnar Gudmundsson said that floodwater is coming from the subglacial Grimsvotn volcano, but there are no signs of the underground tremors that would signal an eruption.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Indonesia's most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, one of 22 that have been increasingly active, spewed searing clouds of gas and debris for hours in its most powerful eruption in a deadly week that has left 38 dead.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Ireland's health minister, Mary Harney, was pelted with red paint as tempers flared over government plans to slash euro1 billion ($1.4 billion) from the costs of running an overloaded hospital network.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Morocco IMF director general Dominique Strauss-Kahn said world leaders gathering at the Group of 20 summit must take action to fix the financial sector.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, ExxonMobil in Nigeria announced the discovery of rich gas condensate off the West African country's coast as the government seeks to boost gas supply to help solve electricity shortages.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In northwest Pakistan a US drone attack killed five people. 4 militants stormed a police complex in Swabi, killing two officers. Gunmen near Peshawar attacked tankers carrying fuel for NATO and US troops, wounding a driver and his assistant.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Philippine investigators arrested Rolando Fajardo, one of the country's most elusive fugitives. He was wanted over the 1986 kidnapping of a Japanese executive.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Romania a MiG-21 Lancer fighter jet crashed during a training exercise, killing two experienced pilots.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Russia's Pres. Medvedev visited Kunashiri Island in the Pacific Ocean claimed by both Russia and Japan, triggering immediate protests from Tokyo, which is already involved in a heated dispute with China over islands to the south.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Tanzania Gasper Kanyarukiga, a former Rwandan businessman, was found guilty of ordering bulldozers in 1994 to demolish the Nyange Church where 2,000 Tutsis had sought shelter. Judge Taghrid Hikmet said he intentionally participated in the genocidal act and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Turkey's main Kurdish rebel group extended a truce until elections next summer, denying responsibility for a suicide attack in Istanbul thought to have been the work of its own hardliners.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Uganda a controversial newspaper in Kampala published photos, names and home addresses of gay Ugandans, the second time the paper has done so, prompting a rights group to seek a legal injunction against the publication.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Uruguay's Supreme Court said an amnesty given for any crimes committed by the country's 12-year dictatorship (1973-1985) is unconstitutional. The ruling meant that about 20 murders in a case against former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry can be investigated.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 2, The US held mid-term elections. Early returns showed the GOP picked up at least 60 House seats and led for four more, far in excess of what was needed for a majority. About two dozen races remained too close to call. Republicans also gained at least six Senate seats, and tea party favorites Paul in Kentucky, Mike Lee in Utah and Marco Rubio in Florida were among their winners. Nevada Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept his seat.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, Iowa (Terry Branstad), Kansas (Sam Brownback), Maine (Paul LePage), Michigan (Rick Snyder), New Mexico (Susana Martinez), Ohio (John Kasich), Oklahoma (Mary Fallin), Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett), Tennessee (Bill Haslam), Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Wyoming (Matt Mead) all replaced the Democratic governors with Republicans. Snyder (R) defeated Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) by bragging about his managerial skills.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.45)
2010 Nov 2, Arizona voters by a narrow margin approved a measure to legalize medical marijuana.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 2, In California federal agents arrested Adam Gitschlag, a retired US Marine, for allegedly selling illegal assault weapons to members of Florencia 13, a Los Angeles street gang. On Nov 8 ATF agents arrested 2 more retired Marines associated with Gitschlag, and 2 others for smuggling machine guns from Iraq.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 2, In California Jerry Brown defeated Meg Whitman (54%-41%) in his bid for a comeback to the governor's office he occupied for two terms more than a quarter-century ago. California Sen. Barbara Boxer was elected to a fourth term, overcoming a challenge from Carly Fiorina.
(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 2, Nikki Haley (38) won election as governor of South Carolina, the first Indian-American female governor in US history. The Tea Party-backed Republican candidate won 51% of the vote against Democratic state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, who received 47%.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 2, The US attorney’s office indicted 3 San Diego residents on charges of conspiring to provide money to Al Shabab, a terrorist group in Somalia.
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 2, California voters rejected Proposition 19 declining to make their state the nation's first to legalize marijuana use and sales, heeding warnings of legal chaos and that pot smokers would get behind the wheel and show up to work while high. Voters approved Prop. 25 to allow lawmakers to pass a budget with a simple majority vote.
(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A17)
2010 Nov 2, Missouri passed the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act. The state was home to 1,462 licensed commercial dog breeders. A newly elected legislature soon gutted the meat of the proposition.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.36)(Econ, 5/14/11, p.20)
2010 Nov 2, Oklahoma voters approved a measure that would forbid judges from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases. The "Save Our State Amendment" was approved by 70 percent of state voters. A federal judge in Oklahoma City issued a court order in November 2010 barring the measure from taking effect. On Jan 10, 2012, a federal appeals court upheld an injunction against the voter-approved ban on Islamic law in Oklahoma, saying it likely violated the US Constitution by discriminating against religion.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)(AP, 1/11/12)(AP, 1/10/12)
2010 Nov 2, Oregon Democrat Gov. John Kitzhaber won a historic third term.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 2, San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom was elected as state lieutenant governor.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children. The law, which would take effect on December 1, would allow toys to be given away with kids' meals that have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar. Mayor Newsom vetoed the measure on Nov 13. On Nov 23 the board overrode the veto.
(Reuters, 11/3/10)(http://tinyurl.com/25458to)(SFC, 11/24/10, p.C1)
2010 Nov 2, US motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson said it will open an assembly plant in India next year to meet demand for its luxury two-wheelers in the country's booming economy.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Oracle Corp. announced an agreement to buy Art Technology Group, a provider of e-commerce services, for $1 billion in cash.
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 2, In southern Afghanistan a NATO service member died after an insurgent attack.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Algeria’s interior minister Dahou Ould Kablia said that Algeria will resume a policy of arming people to reinforce the fight against terrorism in the north African country.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, BP lifted its estimate of the likely cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill to $40 billion, denting profits, but its underlying performance beat all expectations on higher refining margins and a lower tax rate.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Britain and France vowed to work hand-in-glove as their leaders ushered in an unprecedented era of defense cooperation by agreeing to create a joint force and share nuclear test facilities.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Reprieve, a London-based legal advocacy group opposed to the death penalty, filed suit to try to prevent a British company from exporting a drug that could be used in the execution of an American inmate.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Greece bombs exploded at the Swiss and Russian embassies in Athens. Police then found explosive devices at the Bulgarian Embassy and one addressed to the Dutch embassy at a central Athens courier company, where German embassy had returned a suspicious package.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, India's central bank raised key interest rates for the sixth time this year to contain persistently high inflation, another sign of the gulf between fast growing emerging Asian economies and tepid growth in the developed world.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Iraq Shiite Baghdad neighborhoods were targeted in a series of bombings and mortar strikes that took place over the span of about an hour. In Sadr City 21 people were killed by car bomb near a market. In 12 other neighborhoods at least 55 more were killed. In total some 91 people were killed and some 232 people were wounded. The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent factions, soon claimed responsibility.
(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A3)(AP, 11/4/10)(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 2, Israel's military intelligence chief said Iran possesses enough enriched uranium to build one nuclear bomb and soon will have enough to produce a second.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Mexico 4 men were shot dead in the Pacific port city of Acapulco and at least 18 others were killed elsewhere in the latest gang-style violence. Eder Diaz (23) a student across the border at the Univ. of Texas at El Paso, was attacked along with classmate Manuel Acosta (25). Acosta was killed at the scene, while Diaz died the next day at a Juarez hospital.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, Myanmar election authorities canceled voting in Nov 7 elections in 12 more village tracts in six constituencies in Kayah state, where restive ethnic minorities are dominant. The commission in September announced the cancellation of voting in about 300 village tracts in 33 townships where restive ethnic minorities are dominant. Six armed ethnic groups in Myanmar forged an agreement to join forces, fearing they will be attacked by the regime after the elections. The "landmark deal" was struck in the Thai-Myanmar town of Mae Hong Son and included organizations from the Karen, Karenni, Chin, Kachin, Mon and Shan minorities.
(AP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, Russia said Pres. Medvedev planned more trips to a group of islands seized by the Soviet Union from Japan at the end of World War Two, deepening a serious rift with Tokyo.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Thailand battled to rescue thousands of people stranded in their homes after flash floods, several meters deep in places, swept through a southern city, cutting power and communications. The floodwaters swamped vast areas of southern Thailand and inundated its largest city killing 12 people. The death toll from across the country soon passed 120.
(AFP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos signed a string of accords seeking to sought to improve relations despite ideological differences and recent bitter disputes.
(AP, 11/2/10)(AFP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, State Vietnam News said blogger Le Nguyen Huong Tra (35), who blogged as Co Gai Do Long, has been detained for "infringing on the interests of the state" after she criticized a security official and his family.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Yemen put Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born radical cleric, on trial in absentia, accusing him and two other men of plotting to kill foreigners and being members of al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 3, The United States announced that it is bolstering its presence in Afghanistan with a 500 million dollar expansion of its Kabul embassy and the construction of two consulates. Taliban militants carried out two attacks against Afghan security forces, targeting a police station and a border patrol in strikes that left nine people dead. NATO said insurgents killed one service member in the north, while a roadside bomb killed another in the south. A coalition airstrike killed 5 militants planting a roadside bomb in Khost province.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, The United States officially designated Jundallah, shadowy Sunni rebel group, a foreign terrorist organization, blaming it for a series of attacks in Iran.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, The US Federal Reserve announced a 2nd round of quantitative easing (QE2) to invigorate the economy by buying $600 billion more in Treasury bonds between now and next June in order to drive down interest rates on mortgages and other debt.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.C1)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.89)
2010 Nov 3, The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted that unlicensed high-frequency traders will no longer be able to gain unfettered or "naked" access to public markets.
(http://tinyurl.com/27glv26)
2010 Nov 3, In Colorado Richard Paul (34) was arrested and federal agents seized five pounds of C-4 military explosives from his home in Durango. In Las Vegas Andrew Kaufman (36) was arrested. In San Diego Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle (33) was arrested. They were accused of conspiring to smuggle and sell weapons to an undercover federal agent in Nevada and Colorado. Bickle, his close friend Paul, and their associate Kaufman allegedly sold machine guns for $1,300 to $2,400 each, and handguns for $300 to an undercover federal agent who told them they would be shipped to Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Federal authorities in San Diego said they have made one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States, confiscating more than 20 tons of pot that was smuggled into the country through an underground tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of California's border with Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, A federal judge in Reno ordered 6 months of prison time for 2 men who admitted to shooting wild horses while drinking and leaving them to die.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 3, In San Francisco tens of thousands of baseball fans flocked downtown to toast the SF Giants' World Series championship and see their hometown heroes take a victory lap in a ticker-tape parade.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc, one of Hollywood's most storied film studios, filed for bankruptcy protection after struggling for years to reduce its debt load.
(Reuters, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan vowed to crack down on "arrogant" banks in an extraordinary attack as major lenders face mounting anger over rising interest rates and fees.
(AFP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Cuban President Raul Castro joined an American archbishop and other Roman Catholic leaders to open a national seminary on the outskirts Havana, the first religious construction on the communist-run island in more than a half century.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, The Czech Parliament approved a government plan to increase the number of Czech troops in Afghanistan during the next two years. It allows the deployment of up to 720 service members in Afghanistan in 2011, and up to 640 in 2012. The current mandate was no more than 535.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, A Paris appeals court said Callixte Mbarushimana could be extradited to the court in the Hague, Netherlands, but only on condition that he not be later sent to Rwanda. Rwanda has the death penalty, which France opposes.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Greece stopped all airborne parcels headed overseas and screened thousands of packages in an attempt to stop a spate of bombings blamed on Greek militants targeting diplomatic missions and European leaders.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Purushottama Lal (81), Indian poet and publisher, died. He published some 3,500 titles of Indian writers in English.
{India, Poet}
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.105)
2010 Nov 3, Israel suspended a special strategic dialogue with London as long as Israeli officials visiting Britain face possible arrest for suspected war crimes against Palestinians. The two countries announced the dialogue two years ago to boost relations. But Israel put them on hold at the beginning of the year after former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni canceled a trip to London for fear of arrest.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Kashmir two clashes broke out in Srinagar between police and stone-throwing youths chanting pro-independence slogans. Police said government forces have killed seven suspected Muslim rebels in four gunbattles this week.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Mexico police recovered 18 bodies from a mass grave announced in a YouTube posting, a video saying the victims were from a tourist group kidnapped in Acapulco a month ago. In the video two men say they killed the "Michoacanos" in an act of revenge against La Familia, a powerful drug cartel based in Michoacan state. Two bodies reported in the tip were found wearing the same clothes as the pair seen in the video and were lying on top of the mass the grave.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Northern Nigeria began deporting hundreds of illegal immigrants from neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon amid tight security and military patrols over a series of attacks blamed on an Islamist sect. Immigration officials said they were deported some 700 illegal immigrants to prevent them from casting votes in next year's presidential election.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Pakistan a US drone attack targeted Islamist fighters in North Waziristan, killing four militants and blowing their vehicle into a fireball. In neighboring South Waziristan, a Pakistan army soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle.
(AFP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, A car exploded outside the police headquarters of Gaza's Hamas rulers, killing a Palestinian militant (27) and wounding a second man. Ihab Ghussein, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry. The Israeli military said the target was Mohammed Namnam (25) of the Army of Islam group.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Viktor Chernomyrdin (72), former Russian prime minister (1992-1998), died. He served as the country was throwing off communism and developing as a market economy.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Serbia declared a state of emergency in the area around Kraljevo after a 5.3 earthquake rattled its central region, killing at least two people and injuring 50 others.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Slovakia’s government agreed to deploy up to 348 service members in the NATO-force in Afghanistan next year, up from the current 299. The decision still needed parliamentary approval.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Somali pirates seized the Aly Zoulfecar, a Comoros-flagged ship, en route to the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam with 29 people on board.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Sudanese intelligence agents arrested Gaafar al-Subki, a Darfuri journalist working for one the country's leading independent newspapers, As-Sahafa. Darfur rebels clashed with government troops in South Darfur, marking a resumption of fighting after heavy rains had largely subdued hostilities in Sudan's war-torn west.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Microsoft released Kinect, a motion-tracking peripheral for the Xbox console. Scientists soon found uses multiple other uses for the device.
(SFC, 1/10/11, p.D1)
2010 Nov 4, Sparky Anderson (76), Hall of Fame big league baseball manager, died from complications of dementia in Thousand Oaks, Ca. He was the first manager to win World Series titles in both leagues and the only manager to lead two franchises in career wins. Anderson won 863 games in nine years with the Cincinnati Reds and 1,331 in 17 seasons with the Detroit Tigers.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 4, In eastern Afghanistan Taliban militants killed a NATO service member.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In a new audio message Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2, vowed revenge for the imprisonment of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani female scientist convicted of trying to kill US interrogators in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, British Foreign Secretary William Hague pledged that Britain would act fast to amend a law that puts visiting Israeli officials at risk of arrest for alleged war crimes.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, The Bank of England voted to keep its key interest rate at a record low 0.50 percent and opted against following in the footsteps of the US Federal Reserve with fresh stimulus measures.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, China's President Hu Jintao landed in Paris for a three-day state visit set to see the signing of billions of dollars in deals for nuclear, aviation and energy technology.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Costa Rica a rain-sodden hillside collapsed on homes in the suburb of San Antonio de Escazu, killing at least 20 people, many as they slept. At least 14 people were missing.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Cuba all 68 people on board an Flight 883 of Aero Caribbean were killed when their plane crashed in the central mountains after issuing an emergency call. The plane was a 15-year-old ATR-72-212 twin turboprop built by ATR, a joint venture of Europe's EADS and Italian group Finmeccanica.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In the Czech Rep. a two-day informal gathering of NATO experts opened in Prague. They planned to consider the impacts of defense budget cuts by member countries.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Egypt and the World Bank signed two new loan agreements worth 820 million dollars, in the largest financing provided by the institution to the country's electricity sector.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, European computer guards battled against a simulated attempt by hackers to bring down critical Internet services in the first pan-continental test of cyber defenses. All 27 of the EU member nations as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland took part in the simulation. The USA held its own major exercise against a large-scale cyber attack on critical infrastructure in late September with 12 international partners and 60 private companies. Cyber security will be one of the top issues that NATO leaders will tackle at a summit of the 28-nation military alliance in Lisbon on November 20-29.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In India Irom Sharmila, an extremely frail 38-year-old woman dubbed "The Iron Lady," marked 10 years without voluntarily taking food or water, a hunger strike launched to protest an anti-terror law that grants Indian soldiers sweeping powers to crack down on rebels. She had her last voluntary meal on Nov. 4, 2000, in Imphal, capital of Manipur, one of several northeastern states facing armed rebellions against Indian rule. She was arrested three days later and has been force-fed through her nose ever since.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Indonesia clouds of hot ash gushed from the Mount Merapi volcano, forcing motorists in cities 20 miles (30 km) away to use their headlights in broad daylight and raising aviation concerns. The death toll climbed to 44.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to America" as they staged a mass protest against the "Great Satan" to mark the 31st anniversary of the capture of the American embassy by Islamist students. Iran reported the arrest of four Kurdish rebels of the banned Komala group, who worked for commander Jalil Fattahi, a militant based in Britain. The were arrested in Iran's western city of Marivan.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In northern Iraq a rocket confiscated by authorities blew up in the back of a police pickup truck, killing four people. Two people died in a roadside bomb explosion west of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Ireland’s government said planned budget cuts worth €6 billion in 2011.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.85)
2010 Nov 4, In Israel the global diamond industry's oversight body upheld restrictions preventing Zimbabwe from exporting its vast stockpile of diamonds from a large mine after efforts to reach a compromise ended in deadlock. Extending the approval to all the fields dominated this week's Kimberley Process plenary meeting in Jerusalem, where the unanimous agreement of members is required to certify the trade of diamonds. Israel is this year's sponsor of the conference.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Nigerian lawmakers approved constitutional changes allowing the postponement of presidential elections set for early next year after warnings there would not be enough time to prepare.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Russia on National Unity Day a group of men armed with knives killed 12 people, including four children, who had gathered for a celebration at a home in Kushchevskaya village. One of the children was strangled and another died of smoke inhalation when the attackers tried unsuccessfully to burn down the house. On Nov 15 prosecutors said that they had arrested Sergei Tsapok, and a member of his gang, Sergei Tsepovyaz. Four other suspects, including two teenagers, were arrested a week earlier. The farmer who was killed had refused to hand over some of his land.
(AP, 11/15/10)(Econ, 12/11/10, p.30)
2010 Nov 4, Serbian President Boris Tadic apologized at the Ovcara site near Vukovar of the 1991 bloody massacre of more than 200 Croats, offering the strongest condemnation yet by a Serbian leader of Serb wartime atrocities.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, A Qantas A380 with more than 450 people on board made a dramatic forced landing in Singapore, trailing smoke from a blackened engine after the Airbus superjumbo's first mid-air emergency. In response Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines suspended flights of the Airbus A380 superjumbos. In 2013 the engine failure was traced to an oil pipe that failed to conform to design specifications.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)(AP, 6/27/13)
2010 Nov 4, In western Sudan 3 Latvian helicopter crew working for the United Nations were kidnapped. They were contracted to the UN Humanitarian Air Service, which delivers aid to poverty-stricken Darfur. On Dec 8 officials said the men had been freed with no ransom paid.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Nov 4, In south Yemen a car bomb tore through a market near security headquarters in the town of Daleh, killing two people, one a policeman, and wounding 22.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, The UN named oil-rich Norway as the country with the best quality of life, while Asia has made the biggest strides in recent decades. Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Ireland followed at the top of the standings. Zimbabwe came in last among the 169 nations ranked, behind Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 4, Vietnam disaster officials say new flooding in the central part of the country has killed 16 people, bringing the death toll over the past month to 159.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, President Barack Obama launched a 10-day trip to Asia aimed at boosting exports and creating US jobs.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, In Los Angeles ex-BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle (28) was sentenced to a minimum term of 2 years for fatally shooting unarmed train rider Oscar Grant (22) at the Oakland Fruitvale BART station on Jan, 2009. Protesters marched in downtown Oakland and mobs smashed about a dozen cars. 152 people were arrested.
(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 11/7/10, p.C10)
2010 Nov 5, Jill Clayburgh (66), Hollywood and Broadway actress, died in Connecticut after a 21-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She was known for portrayals of empowered women in a career spanning five decades, highlighted by her Oscar-nominated role of a divorcee exploring life after marriage in the film "An Unmarried Woman" (1978).
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, In Afghanistan a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar in the northwest, killing at least nine people and wounding 30 others. The attack targeted the head of the Faryab provincial council, Mullah Rahmatullah Turkistani. NATO said three of its service members were killed. An Afghan and NATO force captured the Haqqani network's shadow governor for Spera district in Khost province during an overnight operation. An Afghan soldier reportedly shot and killed 2 NATO service members on their base in the Sangin district of Helmand province and then defected to the insurgency.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, Algeria’s newspaper El-Watan Week-end reported that local police have dismantled a group of currency forgers who put more than 48 million euros in fake banknotes on to the market.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, Britain began a 3-day hearing on Iraqi civilian claims of abuse. Lawyers for 222 Iraqi civilians were suing the British government, claiming their clients were subjected to a regime of systematic abuse by British soldiers and interrogators, and that their only realistic remedy is a far-reaching public investigation into how the U.K. treated its captives in Iraq.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, The British government said it has sold the right to run the rail line from London to the Channel Tunnel to a Canadian consortium for 2.1 billion pounds.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, China and India received long-sought recognition as global economic heavyweights as the International Monetary Fund gave them and other emerging powers a significantly larger role in stabilizing the world economy. IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn announced planned reforms to the fund's voting power after a meeting of the organization's board in Washington, DC.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, France and China reached a "real convergence" over the need to reform the global financial system after two days of talks between President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao. France told China that balanced trade and close cooperation was the best way to shield the world from future crises and the menace of protectionism, and China promised its support for Paris as it takes over the G20 presidency this month.
(Reuters, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, In France environmentalists handcuffed themselves in front of a train carrying what activists claim is "the most radioactive ever" cargo of nuclear waste. The shipment was returning German waste for storage after it was treated in France by the Areva group.
(AFP, 11/6/10)(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 5, Georgia's government announced the arrests of 13 people, including four Russian citizens, who are accused of spying for Russia's armed forces. The arrests, which took place in October, were announced on the day Russia's military intelligence agency celebrates its professional holiday, Day of the Military Intelligence Officer.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, Haiti was lashed by heavy rains and wind from Hurricane Tomas. Leaders of the quake-hit nation called for mass evacuations from tent cities. 6 people were killed. Tomas weakened the next day and was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm as it passed over the Turks and Caicos Islands.
(AFP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, In Indonesia searing gas avalanched down the Mount Merapi volcano with a thunderous roar, torching houses and trees and incinerating villagers as they fled. About 70 more people were killed raising the death toll to 122.
(AP, 11/5/10)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 5, Iraqi civil society groups said they are to launch a legal battle for Iraqi MPs left idle since a March 7 poll to return 40 million dollars received in salaries and allowances over the past eight months.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, Mexico's federal police said they have found the tortured body of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of Patricia Gonzalez, the former Chihuahua state attorney general. He was kidnapped on Oct 21 and eight people have been arrested in the slaying. A video had surfaced online showing the kidnapped man saying at gunpoint that he and his sister protected a street gang tied to the Juarez cartel and was behind several murders. Reputed Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen (48), also known as "Tony Tormenta" or "Tony the Storm," was killed along with four of his gunmen and three marines in the city of Matamoros. A soldier and local reporter Carlos Guajardo were also killed in related mayhem that began in the morning and lasted into the evening. The arrest of two alleged drug traffickers in the historic city of Patzcuaro outside of Morelia sparked roadblocks and car fires on the road between the two cities in the western state of Michoacan, which is controlled by La Familia cartel.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, In northwestern Pakistan a suicide bomber struck a mosque frequented by anti-Taliban tribal elders during afternoon prayers, killing at least 65 people in Peshawar. A second bombing later in the day wounded several people at another mosque in the Badhber area on the outskirts of Peshawar.
(AP, 11/5/10)(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 5, In Pakistan a private plane chartered by an Italy-based oil company crashed near the airport in Karachi after the pilot warned of engine trouble. All 21 people on board, including an Italian, were killed.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, A Peruvian judge ordered convicted rebel collaborator Lori Berenson freed from prison, ruling her initial parole decision sound. Berenson was freed on Nov 8, but the New Yorker's legal troubles remained unresolved.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 5, Swiss adventurer Yves Rossy (51) jumped from a hot-air balloon near Lake Geneva and completed two aerial loops using his custom-made jet-propelled wingsuit.
(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 6, President Barack Obama announced a host of new trade deals with India supporting tens of thousands of US jobs as he began a 10-day trip through Asia on a determinedly domestic note.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said their countries would enhance their military and defense cooperation by expanding joint exercises and the use of each other's training facilities. They also pledged to work together to influence the behavior of an increasingly assertive China.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, The Afghan attorney general's office said that it plans to indict an ex-minister for allegedly overcharging the government nearly $20 million for fuel, one of 20 cases involving government officials accused of corruption or misuse of power. An insurgent attack killed a NATO service member in the south. In the southeast a joint Afghan and coalition force killed Mullah Mohammadullah, a Taliban leader in Shahidi Hassas district of Uruzgan province, along with an associate as they were trying to escape on a motorcycle..
(AP, 11/6/10)(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Argentina thousands marched in a Gay Pride parade, celebrating the country's status as the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage and vowing to campaign for new rights for transgender people. More than 500 same-sex couples have been married since President Cristina Fernandez signed the law on July 21. The theme of the parade was "let's go for more," specifically, a "gender identity" law to enable individuals to change their gender on birth certificates and identity cards.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, BBC reporters planned further strikes after a two-day walkout over pension changes successfully disrupted the broadcaster's TV and radio programs.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Tens of thousands of French protesters took to the streets once more for what might prove to be the last in their recent series of marches against President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reform.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, A train carrying what activists claim is "the most radioactive ever" cargo of nuclear waste ran the gauntlet of hundreds of protesters as it crossed the Rhine from France to Germany. The shipment was returning German waste for storage after it was treated in France by the Areva group.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Airlines cancelled at least 36 flights to and from Jakarta, affecting international carriers from Europe to Asia, because of ash from the Mount Merapi volcano.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Iraq's political rivals reached a breakthrough power-sharing deal in which Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, retains the premiership. The deal came 8 months after inconclusive elections. The deal was between the National Alliance, which represents the main Shiite parties, and the Kurdish coalition, while the Sunni-backed Iraqiya's support hinged on its agreement over the posts of speaker and president. A roadside bomb killed two Sunni anti-Qaeda militiamen and two Iraqi soldiers died in separate attacks on checkpoints north of Baghdad. Twin mortar attacks in Baghdad wounded two people. 25 people were wounded when three car bombs exploded outside the homes of officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
(AFP, 11/6/10)(AFP, 11/7/10)(AFP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Italy Michael Seifert (86), a former Nazi SS prison guard known as "the beast of Bolzano" for his cruelty, died in an Italian hospital. The Ukrainian-born Seifert was serving a life sentence at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in southern Italy.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Kenya a police officer in Siakago town went on a shooting rampage, killing 10 people in three different bars. The man was said to be accusing a girl of having infected him with HIV and when he went to look for her he did not find her.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, Libyan authorities arrested 10 reporters for criticizing Libya's leadership. They worked for Libya Press, a news agency controlled by the son of leader Moammar Gadhafi. A further 10 journalists working for Al-Ghad titles were rounded up in a second wave of arrests. All the reporters were released on Nov 8, and Moamer Kadhafi asked that an inquiry be opened into the matter.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Mexico the decapitated body of a 30-year-old man was found in an Acapulco neighborhood. Another man was found shot to death and a 27-year-old woman who had been kidnapped last month was found strangled and dumped in a trash bin, a black hood covering her face. Seven men at a family party in ciudad Juarez were gunned down. 11 other people were killed in the city, including two whose bodies were found dismembered. Police in Oaxaca city found a human head in a gift-wrapped box left on the side of a cliff popular for its view of the picturesque colonial center.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into southern Israel on Saturday but caused no casualties or damage.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Poland a gigantic statue of Jesus that Poles claim is the world's largest rose majestically above the small town of Swiebodzin, as the grandiose dream of a local priest finally came to pass. Residents believed it will put their town of 22,000 on the map for tourists.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Russia Oleg Kashin (30), a reporter for the Kommersant newspaper, was left in a coma after two men smashed his head, legs and fingers in an attack that prosecutors believe was linked to his work. Among his more contentious reporting topics has been efforts by environmentalists and opposition activists to protect trees in the Khimki forest near Moscow from being cut down for a new highway.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Riyadh has halted mediation efforts between the Afghan government and the Taliban because the fundamentalist movement has refused to break ties with al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Pirates near Somalia fired on French naval forces from a private yacht they had captured. The yacht ran aground the next day and the South African skipper escaped captivity, but the pirates took two crew members hostage onto land.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Spain Pope Benedict XVI blasted the "aggressive" anti-church sentiment he said was flourishing in Spain as he sought to rekindle the faith in a once-staunchly Roman Catholic nation that is now among Europe's most liberal.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Swedish police arrested Peter Mangs (38) on suspicion of shooting at people with immigrant backgrounds in a yearlong rampage in Malmo, Sweden's third largest city. The first shooting was Oct. 10, 2009, when a 21-year-old convicted drug smuggler on furlough from prison was shot in the head in a parked car. Swedish media said he was hospitalized for a month with a bullet in his brain but survived. A 20-year-old woman sitting next to him was also hit in the head and died. On May 7, 2012, Mangs was charged with three counts of murder and 12 counts of attempted murder. On Nov 23, 20112, Mangs was sentenced to life in prison and ordered 40-year-old Peter Mangs to pay 1.2 million kronor ($180,000) in damages to survivors and their families.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 5/7/12)(AP, 11/23/12)
2010 Nov 6, United Nations officials said they were investigating reports that some 700 Congolese women were sexually attacked along the country's border with Angola. Many women had said Angolan soldiers were responsible for their attacks.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, A Yemeni judge ordered police to find Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical US-born cleric, "dead or alive" after the al-Qaida-linked preacher failed to appear at his trial for his role in the killing of foreigners.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 7, Senior US officials said the United States will drop Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as July 2011, if Khartoum ensures two key referendums take place on schedule in January and the results are respected.
(Reuters, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Douglasville, Georgia, Bobby Tillman (19) was shot and killed following a random attack at a house party in an Atlanta suburb. 4 men were soon charged with his murder.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 7, In eastern Afghanistan two NATO service members died in two different insurgents attacks. A vehicle hit a mine in Helmand province, killing five civilians. In Kandahar a government employee working at a prison in the city was shot and killed by insurgents. Afghan and NATO forces targeted suspected insurgent strongholds in a joint operation in southern Kandahar province, killing 15 and capturing 13. A rocket exploded in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, killing one civilian and wounding four. Gunmen set fire to the girls' middle school in Laghman province, burning the structure and its contents.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 7, Azerbaijan voted in parliamentary elections set to cement President Ilham Aliyev's grip on power but condemned by the opposition as a charade whose results have already been decided. Nearly 700 candidates competed for the 125 seats in the single chamber of the parliament. Azerbaijan's ruling party won a landslide victory. The next day international vote monitors said that ballot box stuffing and an uneven playing field for candidates marred Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections.
(AFP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Egypt Ahmed Shabaan (19) went missing. His body was recovered in a canal four days later. The family of Shabaan said police officers beat him at the Sidi Gaber police station in Alexandria. On Nov 16 Amnesty International called on Egyptian authorities to investigate allegations that police tortured the young man to death.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Germany activists rappelled down from a high bridge, broke through police lines and chained themselves to train tracks, trying to halt a shipment of nuclear waste as they protested Chancellor Angela Merkel's plans to keep using nuclear energy.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Greeks cast ballots in local polls that could trigger a general election unless voters show support for the governing Socialists' austerity measures in the debt-strapped country.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Guineans cast ballots in a vote that has been delayed multiple times following violent ethnic clashes that pitted the nation's two largest ethnic groups against each other, a vote that progressed calmly into the afternoon despite its underlying tensions. A week later Alpha Conde, a member of the Malinke ethnic group, was named the winner over Cellou Dalein Diallo, a member of the Peul ethnic group.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 7, Iran proposed that a new round of international talks on its nuclear program be held in Turkey, an ally that also has close ties to the West and has sought to mediate in the standoff.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Israeli court documents were published showing the government had sold or leased property in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to Israeli settlers at exceptionally low prices, helping them cement a Jewish presence there. Israeli police demolished an illegally built mosque in the impoverished Arab city of Rahat, touching off rock-throwing protests by residents and fueling new grievances for the country's Arab minority against the government.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Mexico two Ciudad Juarez police officers, a man and a woman, were shot to death inside their patrol car.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Myanmar held its first election in 20 years under tight security, a scripted vote that assured army-backed parties an easy win. Complex rules for the election thwarted any chance of a pro-democracy upset as Myanmar ended half a century of direct army rule. Minority Karen rebels seized government buildings in clashes with troops in the border town of Myawaddy. Myanmar's biggest military-backed party won the country's first election in 20 years by a landslide, after a carefully choreographed vote denounced by pro-democracy parties as rigged to preserve authoritarian rule.
(Reuters, 11/7/10)(Reuters, 11/8/10)(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Pakistan a pair of US drone attacks in North Waziristan killed 14 suspected militants.
(AFP, 11/7/10)(SFC, 11/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 7, In Portugal Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged to support Portugal's efforts to emerge from financial crisis, but he did not commit to purchasing Portuguese debt as was widely anticipated.
(AFP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Russia more than 1,000 military veterans and active servicemen rallied to demand the ouster of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, a civilian who is carrying out a radical reform of Russia's armed forces. Many of the participants in the rally said they were angry that Serdyukov did not want to see churches built on military bases.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In South Korea thousands of people chanted anti-globalization slogans in Seoul to protest this week's Group of 20 summit. Part of the crowd attempted to march down nearby streets but were stopped by riot police, who fired pepper spray.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Spain Pope Benedict XVI consecrated a world monument to family, the Sagrada Familia church, but faced a gay kiss-in protest before he attacked abortion and defended male-female marriage.
(AFP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Sri Lanka inmates resisting a search for prohibited items at a prison in Colombo wounded 46 police and five prison officials.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Cuban television that Colombia will extradite Walid Makled, known as "The Turk," a businessman accused of being a major drug kingpin back to his native Venezuela to face justice. Makled has said in a television interview that he poured $2 million into a 2007 Chavez political campaign and in return got a concession at Venezuela's Puerto Cabello, his alleged shipping point for drugs.
(Reuters, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, President Barack Obama backed India for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a dramatic diplomatic gesture to his hosts at the end of his first visit to this booming nation. The White House said Indian and US companies have discussed or signed over $14.9 billion in deals around President Barack Obama's trip that will support 53,670 US jobs.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, David Cordova (56), a retired Denver fire lieutenant, was among 35 alleged traffickers indicted by a US federal grand jury on suspicion of smuggling 20 kg (44 pounds) of cocaine a week from Mexico to Colorado. Cordova was arrested last week in a roundup of the alleged ring.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, An indictment was unsealed that charged 29 people in a sex trafficking ring in which Somali gangs in Minneapolis and St. Paul allegedly forced girls under age 14 into prostitution. 17 people were arrested in Minnesota, 9 in Tennessee and 3 remained at large.
(SFC, 11/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Nov 8, Video posted on the CBS News website showed an object flying through the evening sky over southern California that left a large contrail, or vapor trail. A news helicopter owned by KCBS, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, shot the video. Pentagon officials were stumped by the event.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, The American Carnival Splendor luxury liner, carrying nearly 3,300 passengers and almost 1,200 crew members, became crippled after fire erupted in its engine room. The blaze crippled the ship's propulsion system, leaving the vessel dead in the water and forcing Carnival to cancel the rest of its voyage. The next day the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan began delivering supplies to the marooned vessel and plans were made to tow the ship to San Diego.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Oakland, Ca., Derrick Jones (37) was shot a killed by police a block from his hair salon. Officers said they mistook a scale he was carrying for a gun. In 2013 Oakland agreed to pay $225,000 to settle a suit filed by his parents and daughter.
(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.C12)
2010 Nov 8, In Michigan high school freshman Samantha Kelly hanged herself after enduring taunting from classmates for accusing a senior of rape. Prosecutors were forced to drop criminal charges against Joseph Tarnopolski (18), saying they had no case without the accuser’s testimony.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 8, In eastern Afghanistan a NATO service member was killed by a bomb. Another died following an insurgent attack in the east.
(AP, 11/8/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Argentina 1976 coup leader Emilio Eduardo Massera (85) died after suffering for years from a heart condition and dementia that left him too ill to be tried for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 11/8/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.98)
2010 Nov 8, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard said the government plans to hold a referendum within three years on whether to amend its constitution to acknowledge the Aborigines as the first Australians.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Qantas extended the grounding of its Airbus A380 superjumbos for at least three more days after finding oil leaks in some engines, heightening safety fears after two mid-air blow-outs last week.
(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Britain’s PM David Cameron departed for a 2-day trip to China. He brought along 4 cabinet ministers and 50 businessmen. Cameron hoped to double trade with China over the next five years.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.65)
2010 Nov 8, Five Church of England bishops announced they are converting to Catholicism following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict XVI, the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to gay bishops and female clergy.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Chile two mine workers, 24 and 40 years old, were killed at the Los Reyes mine on their first day on the job. The National Geology and Mining Service said the mine was illegal and unregistered.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In south-central Congo at least 42 people were killed when a truck overturned on the country's poorly maintained roads. 16 children were among the dead from the crash in Kasai-Oriental province.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Germany a shipment of nuclear waste arrived at a railway depot in Dannenberg after a nearly three-day trip from France that was regularly disrupted by protests. The waste was set to be loaded onto trucks for the final 12-mile (20-km) leg of the trip to a storage site at Gorleben.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Haiti health officials said the cholera epidemic has spread into the capital, imperiling nearly 3 million people living in Port-au-Prince, nearly half of them in unsanitary tent camps for the homeless from the Jan. 12 earthquake. The outbreak had already killed at least 544 people.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In India Bodo militants in Assam state began killing innocent people to avenge the killing of a suspected rebel. 22 people were killed by the end of the week.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 8, In Indonesia frightened residents abandoned their homes in Yogyakarta, a bustling city of 400,000 at the foot of Mount Merapi, as authorities warned the volcano could erupt again at any time. 153 people have been killed in the last two weeks.
(AP, 11/8/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi said that opposition to the Iranian government is growing, spurred by an increase in government violence, more human rights violations and deepening poverty. Ebadi has lived outside her homeland since a day before last year's disputed presidential elections.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Iraq leaders of all the main political blocs met for the first time since March elections in a new push to break the eight-month deadlock over forming a new government. Car bombs struck Karbala and Najaf killing 14 people.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Israel said it is moving ahead with plans to build 1,300 new apartments in disputed east Jerusalem. The new $11 million performing arts center opened in Ariel, an Israeli enclave of 19,000 people. In August, more than 60 Israeli actors and playwrights signed a letter saying they would not perform in the new cultural center.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Mexican police arrested Manuel "The Sow" Fernandez Valencia, a reputed Sinaloa cartel associate. He was suspected of plotting with cartel capo Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of Mexico's most wanted drug lords, to smuggle eight tons of marijuana into the US by the end of this year. Gregorio Barradas Mirabete, the mayor of Juan Rodriguez Clara, a small town in southern Veracruz state, was kidnapped and killed, along with two others.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Myanmar fighting between ethnic rebels and government troops has sent at least 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand just after a widely criticized election expected to usher in a parliament sympathetic to the military regime. Thai officials said that fighting had died down, and government troops had regained control of Myawaddy.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Nigeria an oil rig in the volatile Delta region was attacked and 7 crew members were taken hostage. A security source said the crew included 2 Americans, 2 French, 2 Indonesians and a Canadian.
(AFP, 11/8/10)(AFP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Pakistan a local court in Nankana district, Punjab province, sentenced to death Asia Bibi (45), a farmworker and Christian mother of five, for blasphemy. In 2014 the Lahore High Court of appeals upheld the death sentence.
(AFP, 11/11/10)(SFC, 10/17/14, p.A3)
2010 Nov 8, In Russia Anatoly Adamchuk, a journalist who works for a suburban Moscow paper, was beaten up by two unknown men. He had written about efforts to protect forests around Moscow.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Slovakia Ernest Valko (57), the former chief judge of Czechoslovakia's Constitutional Court, was shot to death in his home in Limbach. As a lawyer, he represented the Slovak government and served as a legal adviser for the National Property Fund, an institution in charge state property privatization.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, Three gunmen from Somalia crossed the Kenyan border and killed a community organizer working with Somali refugees.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 9, Turkey’s Pres. Abdullah Gul received this year’s Chatham House prize from Britain’s queen.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 8, In Uruguay Gen. Miguel Dalmao was convicted of murder and sent to prison, becoming the first active member of Uruguay's military to be jailed for human rights violations committed during the country's 1973-85 dictatorship. Also imprisoned was Col. Jose Chialanza, who like Dalmao was convicted of "especially aggravated homicide" in the 1974 death of Nibia Sabalsagaray. Sabalsagaray was found hanged in her cell shortly after being captured.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Western Sahara a paramilitary gendarme and a fireman were killed and almost 70 people badly injured when Moroccan forces raided a camp outside Laayoune. A Moroccan raid to clear a refugee camp in the Western Sahara left at least 12 refugees dead and more than 700 wounded, while another 159 are missing. Moroccan authorities announced 11 deaths on their side after the clash.
(AFP, 11/8/10)(AFP, 11/9/10)(AFP, 11/11/10)(AFP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 8, Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born radical Yemeni cleric linked to previous attacks on the US, called for Muslims around world to kill Americans in a new video message posted on radical websites.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 9, President Barack Obama arrived in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. He voiced support for Pres. Yudhoyono's efforts to nurture a rapidly growing society even in a time when Indonesia has been hit by earthquakes, a tsunami, and now a volcanic eruption. He also expressed deep concern that Israelis and Palestinians aren't making the "extra effort" to secure a breakthrough for achieving Middle East peace.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Chevron Corp. said it will buy Atlas Energy for $4.3 billion giving it a big stake in natural gas from underground shale formations.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 9, The $60 Activision Blizzard video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops" was released. It raked in a record $360 million in the first 24 hours of sales and $650 million in the first 5 days.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.D3)(Econ, 12/10/11, SR p.3)
2010 Nov 9, Afghan security forces arrested a member of the deadly Haqqani network and three other associates after ordering the plane flying him to Saudi Arabia to return to the capital. A NATO service member was killed in a bomb attack in the south. In the eastern province of Paktia, militants killed the chief of Shewak district by blowing up his car with a roadside bomb. NATO announced the capture of a senior Taliban leader responsible for attacks in the Dand and Panjwai districts of Kandahar province, as well as another Taliban member linked to multiple bombings in the provincial capital. In Zabul province Afghan and coalition forces captured a Taliban insurgent responsible for moving weapons and coordinating attacks in the Shahjoy district. 4 policemen were killed in an ambush as they were driving through Imam Sahib district along the border with Tajikistan. A NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast in the south.
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Bangladesh said it would cap the annual interest rate for microfinance institutions at 27%.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.84)
2010 Nov 9, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva began a 2-day visit to Mozambique, focusing on education and health care in his last trip to Africa before leaving office.
(AFP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Brazil authorities negotiated an end to a rebellion in an overcrowded prison in the northeastern state of Maranhao after fighting between rival gangs left 18 inmates dead, including six who were decapitated.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Londoners Tom Freeman (26) and Katherine Doyle (26), after having their application to form a civil partnership rejected by officials at their local town hall in Islington, north London, said they will go to court to win the right. They were being backed by gay rights activists, who hope a ruling that allows straight couples the right to a civil partnership would mean, in turn, that gay couples have the right to wed.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, China signaled its intention to drain excess cash from its financial system by unexpectedly raising the yield on bills at a central bank auction and announcing new rules to curb hot money inflows.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, The WHO said a polio outbreak in the Congo Republic affected 201 people and caused 104 deaths in the last two weeks. The government in Brazzaville has declared an emergency and announced plans to vaccinate the entire population.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 9, Ethiopia's Ogaden rebels said they had killed more than 200 soldiers in a string of successful military operations since the beginning of October, a claim promptly ridiculed by the government.
(AFP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, France's constitutional watchdog ruled that the bill raising the minimum retirement age to 62 is perfectly legal, marking a political victory for Pres. Sarkozy.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, French detained 5 people (ages 25-30) suspected of a role in a network that allegedly sends French citizens to the tribal zone bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan to train for war. 2 of the five were detained at Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris, on their return from Egypt on Nov 8. Three others were picked up in Paris today. A woman was soon released. On Nov 13 four men were charged with "criminal association linked to a terrorist enterprise."
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 9, France's highest court authorized a probe into the assets of three African heads of state, after two rights groups' alleged that the leaders laundered money through French villas, cars and bank accounts. The probe will target Gabon's late leader Omar Bongo, the Republic of Congo's President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, India’s ruling Congress party sacked 2 officials, Suresh Kalmadi and Ashoka Chavan, over graft relating to the Commonwealth Games.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 9, Ireland's human rights watchdog appealed to the government to investigate the abuse of women and girls in prison-style Catholic laundries, an issue left unresolved by state probes into scandals inside other church-run institutions. The so-called Magdalene Laundries, a network of 10 workhouses, operated in independent Ireland from the 1920s to the mid-1990s.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Jordanians lined up to cast ballots for a new parliament in a vote that was dominated by anger at Israel over stalled peace talks and widespread frustration over an economic crisis. Loyalists of King Abdullah II won a majority of seats in the next parliament. The Islamist opposition boycotted the elections in protest of electoral laws they said were unfair. Votes in the capital carried only a quarter of the weight as ones cast in the hinterlands.
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/10/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 9, A judge in Kenya's second-highest court said that the country does not have jurisdiction to try pirates if attacks have taken place outside Kenya's waters, a decision that could harm US and international efforts to have pirates tried in East Africa.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Mexico members of the Inter American Press Association concluded a four-day assembly in Merida and issued a report citing concerns that both government censorship and organized crime pose threats to journalists in the region.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Mexico a one-page letter allegedly signed by "La Familia Michoacana" drug cartel was dropped in the streets of some mountain towns in the western state of Michoacan. It also showed up as a banner above an overpass and was sent as an e-mail to reporters. The letter offered to dissolve the gang if the government promises to protect citizens in Michoacan.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Mexican bread maker Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest bread maker, said it has agreed to buy Sara Lee Corp.’s North American bakery business for $959 million to boost sales outside Mexico.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.D4)
2010 Nov 9, About 20,000 refugees from Myanmar headed home after fleeing to Thailand as fighting followed a general election that is certain to keep Myanmar's military and its allies in power.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Nigerian authorities announced 23 new arrests announced, bringing the number of suspected Boko Haram sect members in police custody to 128.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Representatives of Hamas and the Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas started a meeting in Damascus for reconciliation talks.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Turkey’s Pres. Abdullah Gul received this year’s Chatham House prize from Britain’s queen.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 9, The United Arab Emirates said it will force Canadians to get a visa to travel to the Persian Gulf federation as of Jan 2, as ties soured between the once-close countries. Emirati officials have ratcheted up the pressure on Ottawa after failing to secure additional landing rights for their growing government-backed airlines.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, A UN report suggesting North Korea may have supplied Syria, Iran and Myanmar with banned nuclear technology headed to the Security Council. The latest report by the so-called Panel of Experts on Pyongyang's compliance with UN sanctions was delivered to the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee in May, but did not move for nearly six months due to Chinese objections.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 10, Miranda Lambert won three CMA awards, including the coveted album of the year, celebrating her 27th birthday by leading a sea change in country music that also included two wins for her fiance, Blake Shelton, and entertainer of the year for long-suffering Brad Paisley.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, Leaders of Pres. Obama’s deficit commission proposed an ambitious plan to rebalance the federal budget. The plan to slash $4 trillion in red ink included slashing spending on most federal programs, curbing increases in Social Security benefits, and wiping out over $100 billion in tax breaks.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 10, President Barack Obama arrived in South Korea for the G20 summit. He said a strong, job-creating economy in the United States would be the country's most important contribution to a global recovery as he pleaded with world leaders to work together despite sharp differences.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, US investigators said authorities have dismantled a major cell of a human smuggling ring that may be responsible for the transportation of thousands of illegal immigrants from the US-Mexico border to Phoenix and other parts of the country. 9 people were arrested after a yearlong investigation and 62 vans were seized from the group. The group was led by a Mexican man named as Mark Rodriguez-Banks (29), aka Ricardo Morales-Mejia.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office said the state faces a $25.4 billion budget deficit over the next 20 months.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 10, Oakland, Ca., city Councilwoman Jean Quan was declared the winner of the mayoral election because she had more second and third place votes than front runner Don Perata.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 10, California State Univ. trustees raised tuition by an expected 15.5% as students staged a sarcasm-laden carnival outside CSU headquarters in Long Beach. Tuition has increased from $1,428 in 2001 to $4,884 for the 2011-12 school year.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.C3)
2010 Nov 10, A NASA study said it would cost at least $6.5 billion to launch and run a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 10, Hewlett-Packard agreed to pay $16.25 million to settle allegations that it showered public school officials in Dallas with gifts to win contracts funded by the government’s E-rate program.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 10, In Howard, Ohio, Tina Herrmann (32) and her 2 children went missing along with friend Stephanie Sprang (41). Sarah Maynard (13) was found alive on Nov 14 in the Mount Vernon basement of the home of Mathew Hoffman (30), an unemployed tree trimmer. The bodies of Tina, Sprang and Kody Maynard were found on Nov 18 in a hollow tree central Ohio. On Jan 6, 2011, Hoffman admitted killing the 3 people and raping a 13-year-old girl. He was sentenced to life in prison.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A11)(SFC, 1/7/11, p.A6)
2010 Nov 10, Dino De Laurentiis (91), Italian film producer, died at his home in Beverly Hills. Over 6 decades he produced over 500 films including the Oscar winning “Serpico" (1973).
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.C7)
2010 Nov 10, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a bazaar in Khost province in the country's east, killing a policeman and an Afghan soldier. A NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack in the south. Another coalition service member died in fighting in the east. At least one de-miner was killed and another was wounded in Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province when the de-mining team's vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Attacks across the country left 10 dead altogether.
(AP, 11/10/10)(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 10, In an extensive interview with the Die Presse daily, Ambassador Kadri Ecved Tezcan said Austria was pushing people of Turkish origin to the fringes of society instead of learning to live with them and benefiting from their skills.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Bosnia inaugurated its new three-member presidency, and the leaders of the Bosniak, Serb and Croat communities remained deadlocked over key issues regarding the nation's future.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Some 52,000 people marched noisily through London to oppose plans to triple university tuition fees, in the largest street protest yet against the government's sweeping austerity measures.
(AP, 11/10/10)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 10, In Cameroon 2 buses collided head-on in remote Ngoa village, killing at least 14 people in a ghastly nighttime crash.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Canada alleged Mafia patriarch Nicolo Rizzuto (b.1924) was gunned down at his home in Montreal.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolo_Rizzuto)
2010 Nov 10, In China a Beijing court imposed a 2½ year sentence on Zhao Lianhai, for inciting public disorder by setting up a web site to help parents with sick children share information and seek compensation. Lianhai became an activist after his son suffered from kidney problems linked to contaminated baby formula.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 10, Human rights groups said they have filed a complaint with the EU accusing the Czech government of failing to comply with a court order that it stop placing thousands of healthy Roma children in schools for the mentally disabled.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 10, In El Salvador a fire tore through a prison north of the capital. The death toll soon rose to 19 following the deaths of some of the injured.
(AP, 11/10/10)(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 10, Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano spewed clouds of ash high into the sky, forcing some international airlines to again cancel flights and President Barack Obama to cut short his visit.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Iraq's fractious politicians agreed to return Shi'ite Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister, ending an eight-month deadlock that raised fears of renewed sectarian war. The deal will see Kurd Jalal Talabani retain the presidency and give Iyad Allawi's bloc the speaker post in parliament and other Iraqiya members cabinet jobs, such as foreign minister. Allawi himself will head a council of strategic policies.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Iraq a coordinated series of at least 11 roadside bombs blew up in predominantly Christian neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 6 people and sowing panic among the minority, many of whom now want to flee. 2 mortar rounds also struck Christian enclaves of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora in south Baghdad. An estimated 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq before the 2003 invasion but that number has since shrunk to around 500,000.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Ireland's financial troubles loomed large as investors, betting that the country soon could join Greece in seeking a bailout from the European Union, drove the interest rate on the country's 10-year borrowing to a new high.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Israeli forces arrested senior Hamas MP Mahmud al-Ramahi at his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah overnight. Omar Abdul Razek, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank, said Ramahi's arrest appeared to be an attempt by Israel to undermine the reconciliation talks between Hamas and the Fatah party that had just begun in Damascus.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Kashmir suspected Islamist rebels fatally shot two Indian paramilitary soldiers guarding a busy marketplace in Pattan town in India's portion of Kashmir.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Kyrgyzstan a new and more powerful parliament convened for the first time, an important step in the former Soviet nation's rough path toward democratic reform. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Kyrgyzstan should build on the new constitution’s provision of media freedoms and decriminalize defamation and libel.
(AP, 11/10/10)(http://tinyurl.com/3kxgjal)
2010 Nov 10, In Malaysia "Dalam Botol" (In A Bottle), a Malay-language film, earned applause from movie bloggers invited to its first public screening, three months before its scheduled nationwide release. It is about a man who gets a sex change operation because he thought it would satisfy his male lover, but ends up regretting it. Censors now say depictions of homosexuality are no longer barred, as long as being gay isn't condoned.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Mexico gunmen attacked the office of El Sur newspaper in the resort city of Acapulco, spraying the building with bullets but causing no injuries.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 10, Nigerian trade unions called off a strike protesting the minimum wage across the oil-rich nation, one day into the planned 3-day action. They said Pres. Goodluck Jonathan made promises to raise the wage. The current minimum monthly wage was 7,500 naira, or $50.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Pakistan increased income tax on the relatively well off to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the victims of the country's devastating floods.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Russia Mikhail Beketov, a muckraking reporter left handicapped by a 2008 beating, was convicted of defaming an official he criticized when writing about highway corruption and the destruction of the Khimki forest near Moscow. A symbolic fine was ordered.
(AP, 11/10/10)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.52)
2010 Nov 10, A South Korean navy ship was sinking late Wednesday after colliding with a larger fishing boat off the southern coast. 28 navy sailors were rescued but two were still missing.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Zimbabwe's high court referred the case of five of six diamond executives charged with fraud to the Supreme Court while ordering the release of the sixth.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Yale, Michigan, two men, dressed in Halloween masks, climbed through a window into a home around midnight and attacked a couple as they slept in their bed. Paul Skinner (47) managed to chase the suspects out of the home before collapsing from multiple knife wounds. His wife Mara Skinner (44) suffered more than 20 stab wounds and a punctured lung. On Nov 14 police arrested Tia Marie-Mitchell Skinner (17), her 18-year-old boyfriend Jonathan Kurtz and James Preston (18). They were charged with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy.
(http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8140762)
2010 Nov 11, The Afghan election commission said that it had opened an investigation into allegations that a top government official pressured an election worker to rig the results of the parliamentary ballot in western Afghanistan. At least 15 insurgents were killed by in a fierce round of fighting in Helmand province. 2 Taliban bomb makers were captured in an area of Kandahar province near the Pakistan border.
(AP, 11/11/10)(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, International and Brazilian human rights organizations submitted a formal petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), denouncing grave and imminent violations upon the rights of indigenous and riverine communities affected by the construction of Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20101111/pl_usnw/DC99718)
2010 Nov 11, The British government unveiled plans to stop handouts for up to three years to jobless who refuse work, in the biggest shake-up in the history of the welfare state, a day after violent protests rocked London.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Britain an 18th-century Chinese porcelain vase, sold by a family clearing out a deceased relative's house in a suburb of London, went to a Chinese buyer for 51.6 million pounds ($83 million), more than 40 times the pre-sale estimate and a record for a Chinese work of art. The price included 20% in fees.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, China said it has toughened rare earth export rules to allow only producers that meet environmental protection laws and international standards to ship the precious elements out of the country.
(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Dagestan shootouts across the capital of Makhachkala killed at least six policemen and four suspected militants.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud said 31 of the group's members were detained in the port city of Ismailia over the last 24 hours, including the three candidates for the district.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, An EU indictment revealed that at least 9 people, including former Kosovo senior health ministry official Ilir Rrecaj, were suspected of involvement in an international network that falsely promised poor people payment for their kidneys and then sold the organs for as much as euro100,000 ($137,000). Five Kosovo nationals, Turkish doctor Yusuf Sonmez and Moshe Harel, an Israeli citizen, were listed as wanted by Interpol.
(AP, 11/12/10)(SFC, 11/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 11, In Iraq Shi'ite Nuri al-Maliki was re-nominated as prime minister. Lawmakers from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance of former PM Iyad Allawi walked out of the parliamentary session. Parliament met for only the 2nd time since the inconclusive March 7 election, electing Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president and Iraqiya lawmaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, as speaker.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, Israeli police and stone-throwing youths clashed for a third day running in the Arab neighborhood of Issawiya in occupied east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, Israel's government told its citizens to immediately leave Egypt's Sinai desert because of a kidnapping threat from the Army of Islam. A day later Egyptian security officials said they had and confiscated explosives this week and arrested 20-25 members of a cell planning to attack Israelis and international forces in Sinai.
(AFP, 11/11/10)(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Madagascar police detained three politicians who have called for boycotting a constitutional referendum scheduled next week.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Nicaragua Jason Puracal, a former American Peace Corp worker, was working in his San Juan del Sur real estate office when National Police agents burst in without a warrant. On Aug 29, 2011, Judge Kriguer Alberto Artola Narvaez ruled that Puracal was guilty of money laundering, and said in a sentencing document that the American's bank accounts had registered deposits and withdrawals of large sums of money. His case was on appeal.
(AP, 9/6/12)
2010 Nov 11, A Nigerian government report identified Iranians Azimi Agajany and Sayed Akbar Tahmaesebi as the men who organized a shipment of arms through a Tehran-based company called International Trading and General Construction. The arms containers sat at Lagos' busy Apapa port from July until Oct. 26, when Nigerian security agents carried out a raid and discovered the weapons inside.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Pakistan a massive explosion ripped through a security compound on a busy commercial street in Karachi, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 11, A Russian paper said the head of Russia's deep cover US spying operations betrayed the network and defected, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War. Kommersant named the man as Col. Shcherbakov and said he had left Russia days before US authorities announced the spy ring arrests on June 28.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Serbia a law restricting smoking went into effect. Cafes and restaurants were required to provide nonsmoking areas. Smoking was banned in offices and public areas.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 11, Somali pirates overran the Panamanian-flagged MV Hannibal II, a chemical tanker, capturing the vessel and 31 crew members. The hijacking took place nearly 900 nautical miles east of the Horn of Africa, which is closer to India than Somalia. In December one crew member was evacuated for possible appendicitis. The Hannibal II and 30 crew members were released in March 2011.
(AP, 11/11/10)(AP, 3/17/11)
2010 Nov 11, A 2-day G20 economic summit opened in Seoul, South Korea, with President Barack Obama and fellow world leaders sharply divided over currency and trade policies. They hoped to address 3 major concerns: a) the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency and America’s management of it; b) the problem of vast foreign exchange reserves, particularly in emerging countries; c) The scale and volatility of capital flows.
(AP, 11/11/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.85)
2010 Nov 11, A woman (41) made her way to South Korea from North Korea becoming the 20,000th defector to do so. The last 10,000 came over the last 3 years.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 11, In Sudan a Tarco Airline Russian-built Antonov 26 carrying 36-38 people crashed on landing in the western Darfur region killing at least 6 and wounding four others.
(AP, 11/11/10)(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, The WHO said a rare parasitic disease has killed 260 people in southern Sudan in the past year, a figure that is threatening to double in the coming months. Kala azar, or visceral leishmaniasis, is a rare tropical disease contracted by the bite of a sand fly.
(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, Taiwan's Supreme Court cut ex-leader Chen Shui-bian's prison sentence for corruption in a land deal to 11 years, in its first ruling on the island's most high-profile graft scandal.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 12, The US Supreme Court allowed the Pentagon to continue preventing openly gay people from serving in the military while a federal appeals court reviews the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 12, The California state Dept. of Education reported 50.4% of the state’s public schools students identified themselves as Latino. 27% identified themselves as white, 9% as Asian and 7% as black.
(SFC, 11/13/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 12, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber targeted foreign forces in Kabul but the device detonated early, slightly injuring an Afghan soldier and a NATO service member. An ISAF soldier died after an attack by militant fighters in the east of the country. 15 militants were detained during three overnight operations targeting Taliban leaders across Afghanistan.
(AFP, 11/12/10)(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, British detectives investigating the 2009 theft of nearly 300 brightly colored stuffed birds from the Natural History Museum in Tring arrested Edwin Rist (22), a US citizen.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 12, Canada and India launched talks on a free trade deal they said could boost gross domestic product in each nation by C$6 billion ($5.9 billion) a year and increase existing trade flows by 50 percent.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, The UN asked for $164 million to fight the cholera outbreak in Haiti, as the death toll reached 724 with 10 of the deaths and 278 cases in the capital Port-au-Prince.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Italy's opposition presented a no-confidence motion against Premier Silvio Berlusconi, setting the stage for a showdown in parliament that could spell the end of the government.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 12, A Lebanese military court convicted Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Muslim cleric, of terrorism charges and sentenced him in absentia to life in prison. Bakri was among 54 people sentenced as part of ongoing trials of militants who fought deadly clashes with the Lebanese army in 2007. Bakri lived in Britain for 20 years where he headed the now-disbanded radical Islamist group al-Muhajiroun. He left Britain for Lebanon in 2005 and the British government barred him from returning.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Morelos state prosecutor said soldiers are hunting a 12-year-old suspected drug gang hitman accused of helping wage a gruesome turf war in central Mexico. 2 housewives this week took over the running of the police near Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua state, after no one else applied for the dangerous job. Olga Herrera (43), a mother of five, was appointed police chief in the town of Villa Luz, while Veronica Rios will be in charge of the police department in the town of El Vergel, both just south of Ciudad Juarez.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, An ally of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said an order for her release has been signed by Myanmar's ruling generals, as hundreds of supporters gathered at her political party headquarters and near her residence in anticipation.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III lashed out at the US and five other Western allies for issuing what he said were unverified warnings of a possible terrorist attack in the Southeast Asian nation at a time when it is trying to bolster its lackluster tourism industry.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (76), Polish classical composer, died following a serious illness in Katowice. Gorecki was best known for his Symphony 3 "Sorrowful Songs," which was published in the US in 1994 and became a best-seller, with more than one million copies sold.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, In South Korea leaders of the G20 major economies refused to back a US push to make China boost its currency's value, keeping alive a dispute that raises fears of a global trade war amid criticism that cheap Chinese exports are costing American jobs.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, A South Korean spy plane crashed during routine training and its two pilots were killed in the 2nd military accident to strike South Korea while it hosted the G20 summit.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, North Sudan's military bombed a disputed north-south border area, but a Southern Sudan army spokesman said the bombing was not a provocation. Casualties were said to be in the single digits.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 12, After weeks of delays due to Chinese objections, the UN Security Council received a report on violations of the arms embargo in Sudan's western Darfur region that infuriated Beijing. The confidential report said Khartoum committed multiple breaches of the embargo and China has done little to ensure its weaponry is not used in Darfur.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 13, US President Barack Obama used a Pacific Rim summit to press China on its flood of exports aided by a cheap yuan, but President Hu Jintao said Beijing would make reforms at its own pace.
(AFP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Texas Manny Pacquiao, boxer and Filipino congressman, cemented his claim to being the best fighter in the world by dominating the bigger but slower Antonio Margarito of Mexico. Pacquiao earned a guaranteed $15 million.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In California a gold Honda Accord tried to pass a group of motorcycles and caused a Dodge car to lose control on two-lane Route 98, a desert highway near Ocotillo, triggering a crash that killed five people and injured six others. Authorities were looking for the driver of the Accord. The driver of the dodge was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.
(AP, 11/14/10)(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 13, In Erie, Pa., an apparent suicide-murder by a father (29) left the mother and 2 daughters dead.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 13, In eastern Afghanistan a group of would-be suicide bombers tried to storm a major NATO base on the edge of Jalalabad city, but were repelled before they could enter. Six insurgents were killed, including two who were wearing bomb-laden suicide vests. Insurgents in the same area set fire to a NATO fuel convoy. The truck drivers quickly fled and the insurgents set 12 tankers ablaze A bomb hidden in a motorbike also exploded on a busy street in the Imam Sahib district of the northern province of Kunduz, killing 10 people. Insurgents killed 3 coalition service members in an attack in the south.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, Afghan diplomat Abdul Khaliq Farahi was freed in eastern Afghanistan in a joint effort by officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan and returned to Kabul. He was seized by gunmen on Sep 22, 2008, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Bangladesh at least three people were killed and five, including a lawmaker of the ruling party, injured in a suicide bomb attack near Khustia. Police in Dhaka swung batons to disperse hundreds of activists protesting a government bid to evict opposition leader Khaleda Zia from the military-owned house she has lived in for nearly 30 years.
(Reuters, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Belize a small plane made a bold midnight landing on a highway to drop off cocaine. Authorities seized 2 tons of cocaine and also detained five officers thought to have cordoned off a section of the road so the twin-engine Beechcraft could land. Authorities found 80 bales of cocaine in a village near the highway.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 13, Costa Rica boasted of a "diplomatic victory" in its border spat with Nicaragua after the Organization of American States approved a resolution calling for removal of soldiers and security forces from a disputed area along the San Juan River.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Cuba the first of 13 remaining Cuban dissidents jailed since 2003 was released from prison and returned to his home in the capital, a strong signal the government intends to release all of the men despite their refusal to go into exile.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Germany a fire at the Karlsruhe zoo killed 26 animals including Shetland ponies, goats, sheep and a llama.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, Iranian authorities detained lawyers Maryam Kianersi, Maryam Karbasi and Sara Sabaghian on their return home from Turkey. All three are women and were among signatories of an open letter in September that called for the release of prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. Two other lawyers related to the three were also detained. Kianersi and Rosa Gharachorlu were released on Nov 19.
(AP, 11/14/10)(Reuters, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Iraq the Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc said it will join efforts to produce a national unity government, backing away from a threat to boycott parliament. Lawmakers approved an agreement to bring all of Iraq's feuding political blocs into a new government.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Japan thousands of demonstrators waving Japanese flags and shouting anti-China slogans marched against Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit for an economic summit that comes as a territorial dispute strains ties between the Asian giants.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, Japan's PM Naoto Kan strongly protested Russian Pres. Medvedev's Nov 1 visit to the disputed island of Kunashiri and said in a meeting on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim leaders' conference that the two nations must build mutual trust. Pres. Obama attended the 2-day APEC summit in Yokohama.
(AP, 11/13/10)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.48)
2010 Nov 13, Myanmar's military government freed its archrival, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (65), after her latest term of detention expired. Several thousand jubilant supporters streamed to her residence.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, A Nigerian soldier was killed and another wounded in a suspected attack by a radical Muslim sect in northeastern Borno state. The assailants fired a Kalashnikov rifle at the soldiers from a motorbike. Gunmen burst into a burial vigil outside the oil city of Port Harcourt, firing shots and kidnapping 4 people.
(AP, 11/14/10)(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Pakistan a suspected US missile strike hit a Taliban stronghold in North Waziristan, killing five alleged militants as they traveled in a vehicle. At least three of the dead were believed to be foreigners. Thousands of people protesting the killing of a tribal elder by unknown gunmen in Chaman district of southwest Pakistan attacked a NATO supply convoy, setting four oil tankers on fire. Security forces killed six militants in clashes in the Swat Valley after militants attacked a security checkpoint near Shakar Dara.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In South Africa Anni Dewani (28), a British tourist, was found dead after being abducted by armed men in Cape Town just days after she and her new British husband, Shrien Dewani, arrived for a holiday. By Nov 18 two suspects, both 26, were arrested. A 3rd suspect (31) was arrested on Nov 20. On Dec 7 a court heard allegations that her husband had connived with a taxi driver to stage a robbery and have his wife shot dead.
(AFP, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 11/21/10)(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Spain thousands of people demonstrated in Madrid against Morocco's recent crackdown that has left at least 10 people dead in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara in northwestern Africa.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Western Sahara a statement from the prosecution services in the territory's main town of Laayoune said 67 people accused of crimes against the security forces and destruction of public and private property had been arrested, seven of whom had been cleared.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, Saudi Arabia’s first metro transit system, officially the Al Mashaaer Al Muqaddassah Metro, opened in Mecca.
(Econ, 1/5/13, p.50)
2010 Nov 13, Sudanese Pres. al-Bashir left Khartoum for the annual hajj in Mecca, despite an outstanding arrest warrant issued for al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Venezuela thousands of supporters of President Hugo Chavez filled a downtown Caracas avenue to demonstrate their backing for the socialist leader's crackdown on allegedly crooked real-estate and construction companies. Chavez ordered the expropriation of six residential complexes and "the temporary occupation" of eight gated communities in Caracas and other cities more than a week ago, arguing that real estate and construction companies were unjustly boosting prices.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 14, NY Gov. David Patterson announced an agreement with Phusion Products to stop shipments into NY state of Four Loko, a caffeinated alcoholic drink already banned in 4 states.
(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 14, Path, a photo-sharing startup, emerged from stealth mode. It was founded by former Facebook executive Dave Morin and Napster creator Shawn Fanning.
(SFC, 11/16/10, p.D3)
2010 Nov 14, Delvonte Tisdale (16) apparently fell from the sky after stowing away in an airplane’s wheel well at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC. His mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2dmblgm)
2010 Nov 14, In Afghanistan a series of bomb blasts and insurgents attacks killed 11 people across the country, including five NATO service members and three Afghan police taking part in Operation Bulldog Bite in Kunar province. A total of 7 ISAF troops were killed today.
(AP, 11/14/10)(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 14, Bangladesh police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and swung batons to break up demonstrations in Dhaka as the opposition party enforced a nationwide general strike to protest the eviction of its leader from a military-owned house.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Brazil a gay youth, Douglas Igor Marques Luiz (19), was shot by men in military uniforms in Rio de Janeiro following mammoth gay pride parade. 2 sergeants were arrested on Nov 18. An army statement says one of the suspects acknowledged shooting Luiz.
(AP, 11/17/10)(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 14, In China a court convicted Cheng Jianping (46) of "disturbing social order" after she added a few words to a message written by her fiance, Hua Chunhui, whose Twitter post mocked anti-Japanese protesters. On Nov 16 Amnesty Int’l. urged the government to release Cheng, saying she could be the first Chinese citizen to become "a prisoner of conscience on the basis of a single tweet."
(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 14, In the Central African Republic soldiers opened fire to disperse angry demonstrators protesting the death of a youth, wounding at least three people.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In France an early morning fire in a building housing immigrant workers in Dijon killed seven people, including two who jumped from the windows to try to escape. Some 90 other people were injured, of whom 11 are in life-threatening condition.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Authorities in Hong Kong detained the Decretive, a Maltese-flagged container vessel, over a debt dispute with several European banks. The target of the dispute is the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the guarantor of bank loans which funded the Decretive's construction in 2008. Loan defaults totaled 268 million US dollars.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Indonesia rescuers digging through several feet of ash discovered nine more bodies on the slopes of Mount Merapi, whose explosive eruption a week ago buried whole villages. Confirmation of more deaths trickled in and the toll from a series of blasts at the volcano rose to at least 250.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Iranian officials reported that Iran’s Entekhab Industrial Group has signed a contract sealing its acquisition of South Korea's Daewoo Electronics for some $518 million. Daewoo was set up in the 1960s and became one of the biggest companies in the world before it disintegrated in financial disarray in the 1990s. Its shipbuilding and auto units are now independent companies in their own right.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Israel’s Cabinet approved a proposal to allow 8,000 Ethiopians of Jewish descent to move to the Jewish state. The would-be immigrants are the last recognized members of the Falashmura, a community whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Christianity about 100 years ago.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Japan and Peru said they have reached an agreement on a free-trade deal. The 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group ended their summit in Japan with pledges to press ahead with moves toward freer trade, with an eventual goal of a region-wide free trade zone.
(AFP, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Lebanon radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was arrested at his home in Tripoli two days after a military court sentenced him in absentia to life in prison in a terrorism trial.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Mexico a powerful explosion killed five Canadian tourists and two Mexican workers at the 4-year-old Grand Riviera Princess hotel on the posh Riviera Maya. A build up of swamp gas under the foundation was first suspected. Evidence later pointed to a gas line leak.
(AP, 11/15/10)(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A2)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Mexico gunmen burst into a bar called "Desesperados" in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and opened fire, killing five people and wounding nine others. Assailants also killed the Gerardo Ortiz, the Chihuahua state's prisons director, and his son in a second attack in the area. Police in Acapulco found the bound, bullet-ridden bodies of five men on the outskirts of the city. In Guerrero state detectives reported they had found the bodies of two more men buried in a clandestine gave in a coconut grove where 18 bodies had been unearthed last week.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 14, In army-ruled Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for freedom of speech, urged thousands of supporters to stand up for their rights, and indicated she may urge the West to end sanctions.
(Reuters, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, A Nigerian army spokesman said its special joint military force has arrested 449 suspected kidnappers in four oil-producing states in the Niger Delta in under 7 weeks. Gunmen attacked an offshore facility operated by Exxon Mobil off the southern coast. 8 people were missing following the raid that knocked out 45,000 barrels per day of condensate production.
(AFP, 11/14/10)(AFP, 11/15/10)(Reuters, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Pakistan a suicide bomber apparently targeting a militant commander from a rival faction attacked a vegetable market on the Afghan border, wounding 9 people.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, An estimated 2.5-3 million Muslims began the annual hajj pilgrimage. The total number of tourists to Mecca and Medina, home to the prophet Muhammad, is expected to rise from about 12 million to almost 17 million by 2025. The Saudi Arabia government's commission for tourism and antiquities said revenue from tourism this year would reach $17.6 billion and double by 2015.
(http://tinyurl.com/25zum7p)(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Sri Lanka officials said they are probing allegations that one of its nationals, a housemaid identified as D.M. Chandima employed in Jordan, was forced to swallow nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three months.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Zimbabwe a report in the Standard Newspaper said retired police and war veterans are being recalled to direct operations during elections. Reporter Nqodani Ndlovu was arrested on Nov 17 on charges of criminal defamation. He was granted bail on Nov 26 after his lawyer went to the High Court to enforce an earlier magistrates decision.
(AP, 11/18/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 15, A California woman, Nima Ali Yusuf (24), was charged with conspiring to provide money and people to a Somali terrorist group to help carry out killings in the African nation, according to a federal indictment unsealed today. She was the fourth person charged in the past month in San Diego with helping al-Shabab.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, W. Howard Lester (b.1935), CEO emeritus of Williams-Sonoma Inc., died at his home in Indian Wells, California. He and a partner had purchased the company in 1978 and he served as chief executive from 1978 to 2001.
(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 15, Afghanistan's government played down comments by President Hamid Karzai calling on the US military to scale back its operations and reduce its "intrusiveness" on everyday life in the country. Taliban leader Mullah Omar, rumored to be in Pakistan, said in a statement that reports of peace talks between militants and the Afghan government were "misleading rumors" and dismissed the coalition surge as ineffective.
(AFP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In China a fire engulfed a Shanghai high-rise building, killing 58 and injuring 70, as panicked residents fled and thick smoke spread over China's commercial hub. Police the next day detained 8 welders on suspicion of accidentally starting the fire. 3 government officials were later detained for allowing illegal construction activities at the site. In June, 2011, prosecutors charged 26 people with bribery and other crimes related to the fire.
(AP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A3)(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A2)(AP, 6/25/11)
2010 Nov 15, In Germany a girl (14) was slain in Bodenfelde. On Nov 19 a boy (13) was slain nearby. On June 27, 2011, Jan O. (26), whose last name was withheld in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted in Goettingen state court of two counts of murder for the slayings and sentenced to life in prison. Jan O., dubbed the "cannibal killer," had confessed to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of one of his teenage victims.
(www.thelocal.de/society/20101127-31449.html)(AP, 6/27/11)
2010 Nov 15, Guinea’s National Independent Electoral Commission declared Alpha Conde the winner with 52.5% of the nearly 2.9 million ballots counted. Security forces arrested demonstrators and fired tear gas at those burning tires in the suburbs of Conakry. Over the next three days, security forces systematically attacked Peul communities, spraying populated areas with bullets. They burst into homes where they beat, slapped, stabbed and burned people.
(AP, 11/15/10)(Reuters, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 15, Haiti's cholera toll rose above 900, including dozens of deaths in the teeming capital, as the epidemic showed no sign of abating just two weeks ahead of presidential elections. Anti-UN riots spread to several cities and towns, as protesters blaming a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers for a deadly outbreak of cholera barricaded roads and exchanged gunfire with UN soldiers in clashes that lasted late into the night. Protests in Cap Haitien left at least 2 people dead.
(AFP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 15, Indian police arrested two top former officials of the Delhi Commonwealth Games on charges of corruption. In New Delhi a five-story building pancaked, killing 67 people and injuring scores.
(AP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Indonesia Gayus Tambunan (31) broke into tears when he admitted in a hearing at the South Jakarta District Court that yes, he was the wigged man captured by photographers at the international tennis match on Nov 5. Tambunan, a midlevel tax official with a salary of just $1,300 a month, was supposed to be in jail. He has been charged with pocketing at least $2.7 million from dozens of big companies to help them avoid paying taxes. 9 wardens have been arrested and face charges of accepting up to $40,000 from the tax official. Tambunan allegedly left the jail at least 60 times since his detention in April. On Jan 19, 2011, he was sentenced to seven years behind bars for corruption.
(AP, 11/16/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 Nov 15, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that the issue of an alleged Iranian arms shipment intercepted in Nigeria was a "misunderstanding" that has been settled.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In northern Iraq the Badoosh prison commander and his body guard were killed when twin car bombs detonated outside a residential complex housing prison guards and staff on the outskirts of Mosul. In downtown Baghdad an Iraqi policeman was killed when a roadside bomb struck a patrol, while four policemen were wounded when another roadside bomb detonated in eastern part of the capital. In the town of Qaim on the Syrian border some 340 km (210 miles) west of Baghdad, two people were killed and five others wounded by two roadside bombs, including one in a market. Gunmen in Mosul killed two Christians, in the latest assault on the country's dwindling Christian community.
(AFP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Italy the political crisis engulfing Premier Silvio Berlusconi deepened with four members of the Cabinet quitting their jobs, a move that does not topple the government but further weakens the leader. Berlusconi stands accused of having an "uncontrollable sickness" when it comes to women, and of hosting "bunga-bunga" parties that culminate in sex.
(AP, 11/15/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2anggqg)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.63)
2010 Nov 15, In northwest Pakistan a bomb exploded near the house of a slain anti-Taliban tribal elder Abdul Malik, killing two people and wounding three others. His son, Noor Malik, was getting in his car to leave the residence when the attack occurred, but he was not hurt.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Palestinian Gaza Strip Hamas freed 80 prisoners on the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Over the past week, Hamas has ordered the release of 284 prisoners in the run-up the four-day festival.
(AFP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Saudi Arabia nearly 3 million Muslims performing the annual hajj pilgrimage began making their way up the rocky desert Mount Arafat, chanting that they have come to answer God's call.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, South Korea's government the number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea has surged in recent years because of economic suffering in the North, with more than 10,000 defections over the past three years.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In South Korea a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after killing his mother in a fight over Internet games.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, The United States said it has banned four senior Kenyan government officials and a prominent Kenyan businessman from traveling to the US because they are suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, US Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Udall (D-CO) announced their intention to force the US Senate to hold a public vote on a binding earmark moratorium at the earliest opportunity. The moratorium would go into effect immediately and last through fiscal year 2013.
(http://tinyurl.com/mz6d6zp)
2010 Nov 16, US officials arrested Bruce Beresford-Redman, a former producer of hit TV show "Survivor," at his home in Los Angeles and held him for extradition to Mexico where he has been accused of murdering his wife in April.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 16, A US congressional panel found New York Rep. Charles Rangel (80) guilty of 11 violations of House ethics rules.
(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 16, In Mississippi the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility on behalf of 13 plaintiffs who alleged sexual abuse and denial of medical treatment.
(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 16, Viktor Bout (43), a suspected Russian arms dealer dubbed the "Merchant of Death," was flown out of Thailand to face trial in the United States following a long legal battle and fierce opposition from Moscow.
(AFP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen (64) was shot to death in her car in Beverly Hills as she drove home after the party. Police later attributed her murder to a botched robbery by small-time convict Harold Martin Smith, who killed himself on Dec 1 as detectives attempted to question him.
(AP, 12/2/10)(http://tinyurl.com/29scdch)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Nov 16, Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai urged insurgents to abandon violence and accept offers of reconciliation from the government, using the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to issue a plea for peace. In Kunduz province two Afghan men with government ties were killed by a bomb that had been hidden near the grave of one of their relatives. A British soldier was killed by insurgent gunfire in the southern province of Helmand. A homemade bomb also killed an ISAF service member in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/16/10)(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 16, It was reported that Britain has agreed to pay hefty settlements to a group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who sued the government for alleged complicity in their torture, one of the first big pay-outs stemming from the US-led war on terrorism.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping began a trip to mineral-rich South Africa aimed at securing resources for the Asian economic power, looking to extend its influence in the African continent.
(Reuters, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Egypt a senior Brotherhood official said Egyptian police have rounded up about 600 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of this month's parliamentary election and some 250 are still detained. In southern Egypt Muslims set fire overnight to at least 10 houses belonging to Coptic Christians in the village of al-Nawahid over rumors that a Christian resident had an affair with a Muslim girl. Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population of 80 million.
(AFP, 11/16/10)(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, The European Union issued a stark assessment of the Irish debt crisis, warning that the future of the 27-nation bloc was at risk as ministers headed for talks on an increasingly probable rescue.
(AFP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Greece dozens of far-right activists and local residents in Athens threw eggs and taunted hundreds of Muslim immigrants as they gathered to pray in a central square for Eid al-Adha surrounded by a protective cordon of riot police.
(Reuters, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, India's national auditors slammed a former telecommunications minister over a multi-billion-dollar scandal in which government contracts were handed out at "unbelievably low prices." The row over the second-generation (2G) spectrum for mobile phones being sold in 2008 at far below market rates forced Andimuthu Raja to quit on Nov 14.
(AFP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, Lebanese officials said Russia will provide the Lebanese army with free helicopters, tanks and munitions in a deal that will boost the country's poorly equipped military. This news came just days after two key members of the U.S. Congress released their holds on $100 million in US military aid to the Lebanese army.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Mexico Francisco Alberto Ruiz (35), a Colombian billing manager for Swiss-based oil services company Weatherford International, was found shot dead at the company's property in Tihuatlan, Veracruz state.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 16, Myanmar's military government warned against filing complaints over the Nov. 7 election, a move that could spell trouble for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has vowed to probe alleged voting irregularities.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Pakistan suspected American missiles slammed into a home and a speeding vehicle near the Afghan border, killing 20 alleged militants.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Saudi Arabia pilgrims performing the annual hajj cast pebbles at three stone walls representing Satan in a symbolic rejection of temptation, as Muslims around the world celebrated Islam's biggest holiday, the festival of sacrifice.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized everything from the growing of corn, beans and chilies to Mexican dishes prepared with grinding stones and mortars as an ancient process worth safeguarding in the face of encroaching global influences. France's multi-course gastronomic meal, Flamenco in Spain and carpet-weaving in Azerbaijan also made the list.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, US House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to remain as their leader despite massive party losses in this month's congressional elections.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, A US federal jury in NYC convicted Ahmed Ghailani, a Guantanamo detainee, of one count of conspiracy and acquitted him on 280 other counts. He was the first Gitmo detainee to face a civilian trial.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 17, Alaska election officials confirmed that Rep. Senator Lisa Murkowski won her US Senate seat as a write-in candidate.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 17, Some 48 of 1,730 California doctors, who received money from pharmaceutical companies over the past 21 months, have been the subject of disciplinary action as reported by ProPublica, an investigative news organization.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 17, In San Francisco some 300 students and UC employees protested at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus as regents met on day 2 of a 3-day meeting. Expectations of a 6th tuition increase in 4 years triggered the protests. On Nov 18 tuition was raised 8%.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A1)(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 17, Booz Allen Hamilton, government consulting company, hit Wall Street and raised $238 million with its initial public offering of stock.
(http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2010/11/17/booz-allen-ipo.aspx)
2010 Nov 17, Researchers reported that the new drug anacetrapib dramatically raises good cholesterol and reduces bad cholesterol.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A15)
2010 Nov 17, Scientists at CERN reported that they have stored 38 atoms of the antimatter called antihydrogen for a tiny fraction of a second. The first antihydrogen atoms were made 15 years ago at CERN.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 17, British officers in Sunningdale, near Ascot, stopped a van after a tip-off, causing four men inside to try to escape. Police arrested them before searching the vehicle, when they found a man wrapped in bags in the back. He had been tortured and soon died.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, China said it will intervene to control consumer prices if they rise too quickly, a move that will do little by itself to tame inflation but could foreshadow harsher monetary tightening. The government announced food subsidies for poor families as it tries to cool a double-digit surge in prices that communist leaders worry might stir unrest.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In eastern Congo Rwandan Hutu rebels attacked a truck, killing at least three people and wounding several others. UN-run Radio Okapi earlier reported the rebels killed 21 people in the attack in the heavily forested Walikale territory, but a UN spokeswoman said peacekeepers on patrol in the area confirmed only three dead.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Egypt a security official said a teenage bride (19) has been beaten and stabbed to death by brothers and an uncle after she married against the family's wishes. The trio murdered the woman after tracking her down to the apartment she shared with her husband, a poor farmer, in Minya province. The men were subsequently arrested.
(AFP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Germany said it had strong evidence Islamist militants were planning attacks in the next two weeks and ordered security at potential targets such as train stations and airports to be tightened.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Guinea's military declared a state of emergency following violence after a tense presidential election. Pan-African rights group RADDHO said 10 people have been killed and 215 others injured in violence since the election results were announced earlier this week.
(AP, 11/17/10)(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Haiti's health ministry said that 1,100 people have now died from cholera. In Cap-Haitien anti-UN riots disrupted international efforts to tackle a spreading cholera epidemic, increasing the risk of infection and death for tens of thousands of poor Haitians in the north.
(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Indonesia’s disaster agency said that the death toll due to Mount Merapi had risen to 275 and that most of the people were killed by searing gas clouds. Others died during panicked evacuations or from respiratory problems and other illnesses linked to the volcano.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Iraq’s Pres. Jalal Talabani said he would never sign former deputy premier Tareq Aziz's execution order, stressing it was time to turn the page on Iraq's history of capital punishment.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Ireland agreed to work with an EU-IMF mission on urgent steps to shore up its shattered banking sector.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Israel approved the withdrawal of troops from the northern half of a village that straddles the border with Lebanon, a step that would end its four-year presence in the area.
(AFP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, An Israeli airstrike killed two senior members of the Army of Islam. An Israeli statement said the men targeted were "part of a terror cell that planned to kidnap and kill Israelis" in the Sinai peninsula.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 17, Italian police captured Antonio Iovine (46), one of the country’s most wanted mobsters. He was considered the financial brains behind the Camorra crime syndicate clans.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 17, Kyrgyzstan put its deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, on trial in his absence, with prosecutors seeking a long prison term for Kurmanbek Bakiyev on charges that he ordered troops to fire on demonstrators, killing 78 people. Bakiyev, in self-imposed exile in Belarus, was being tried along with 27 other former officials for their alleged involvement in the deaths during April street protests that led to the fall of his government.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Madagascar Col. Charles Andrianasoavina, who supported a politician's takeover last year, claimed that he and other top-ranking officers have taken over the country. The claim came on a day voters were deciding whether to accept or reject a new constitution that calls for keeping Pres. Rajoelina in power indefinitely. The constitutional referendum was being held in defiance of regional efforts to find a negotiated solution that would involve Marc Ravalomanana, the president ousted in 2009, and other leaders. Rajoelina appeared confident of his hold on power and told reporters the majority of the military was behind him.
(AP, 11/17/10)(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, A gunbattle between Mexican soldiers and drug cartel gunmen near the border with Texas killed 11 alleged gang members and prompted the US to reinforce security at international crossings. In Cancun the owner of a company that distributes plastic bags was shot to death in a parking lot near the hotel zone. A mother, father and their adult son were found dead from gunshot wounds in Majahual, a fishing village near the border with Belize. A man was shot to death while leaving his house in the exclusive Tijuana neighborhood of Chapultepec. 2 other people were wounded in a shootout on one of the city's main avenues.
(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Namibia a suspected explosive device was found on a conveyor belt with luggage on a Germany-bound flight. On Nov 22 a court said that Nehemia Shafuda, chief inspector of the Namibian police aviation security, faces charges for smuggling a suspected explosive device, using the device in an airport and giving false information that interfered with airport operations.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 17, Nigeria's security forces rescued 19 foreign and local hostages from militant camps in the creeks of the Niger Delta oil region.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah stepped down as head of the country's National Guard and transferred the influential position to his son, in an apparent sign that the elderly monarch is beginning to lessen some of his duties.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Somalia artillery shelling and gunfire between African Union troops and Islamist insurgents killed at least 21 civilians in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 18, It was reported that about 39 percent of Americans said marriage was becoming obsolete. The sentiment followed US census data released in September that showed marriages hit an all-time low of 52 percent for adults 18 and over.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, New York Attorney Gen’l. Andrew Cuomo filed two lawsuits against Steven Rattner, former head of Pres. Obama’s auto task force, alleging he paid kickbacks to obtain $150 million from a large state pension fund to be invested in Quadrangle Group. Rattner agreed to a settlement with the SEC to pay $6.2 million and accept a 2-year ban on associating with any investment advisor or broker dealer.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 18, In southern California police arrested George Djura Jakubec (54), a Serbian emigre, after finding large quantities of explosive ingredients, including PETN, at his home in Escondido. On June 13, 2011, Jakubec was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A7)(SFC, 6/14/11, p.A4)
2010 Nov 18, General Motors stock rose sharply as the icon of American manufacturing returned to life as a publicly traded company. The share price would needs to rise above $50 for the US government to get all its bailout money back.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Afghan troops and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) wrapped up the four-day operation in the Pech River valley of volatile Kunar province. Reports said Operation Bulldog Bite may have killed more than 40 insurgents.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, FIFA, the Int’l. Football Federation, banned and fined 4 African officials from involvement in the sport for breaches of trust. They included Amos Adamu of Nigeria, and 3 others from Botswana, Mali and Tunisia. Reynald Temarii, president of the Oceania Football Confederation, was also banned and fined.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.58)(http://tinyurl.com/2dg6gmw)
2010 Nov 18, Australian officials said they would deport Gabe Watson, an American man convicted in the 2003 death of his wife on a scuba-diving honeymoon after US officials pledged not to seek the death penalty if he is convicted again at home.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Brazil’s federal police said they have dismantled an international human-trafficking ring that provided fake passports to Brazilians wanting to migrate illegally to the US.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, In Germany Samuel Kunz (89), one of the world's most-wanted Nazi suspects, died near Bonn. He was under indictment on allegations he was involved in killing hundreds of thousands of Jews at a concentration camp in occupied Poland. Kunz was indicted in July on ten counts of murder and 430,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he trained at the SS Trawniki camp in occupied Poland and was sent from there to the Belzec death camp as a guard from January 1942 through July 1943.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 18, India's Supreme Court issued a sharp and rare rebuke of PM Manmohan Singh, demanding he explain why the government took a year to investigate a cell-phone licensing scandal that cost the country billions of dollars.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Southern Israel received 2 mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip. There were no casualties or damage.
(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Moroccan dissident Abraham Serfaty (b.1926), one of a tiny minority of Jews in predominantly Muslim Morocco, died. He was imprisoned and exiled by French colonial rulers in 1952 and again by Morocco's independent government in the 1970s for plotting against the state. The Rabat government forced him into exile in France in 1991. He returned home 10 years later.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Nigeria's drug enforcement found and seized 286 pounds (130 kg) of high-quality heroin, destined for Europe, hidden inside a shipment of auto parts sent from Iran.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 18, The Norwegian Nobel Committee Russia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Morocco, Iraq and China have declined to attend the December 10 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. 16 more countries had not replied by the committee's extended deadline. An award spokesman said the Nobel Peace Prize may not be handed out this year because no one from imprisoned Liu Xiaobo's family is likely to attend the ceremony.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, In Saudi Arabia rain soaked crowds of Muslim pilgrims and lightning flashed as they performed some of the final rituals of the annual hajj, stoning symbols of the devil and circling the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Swedish prosecutors was permission to seek an int’l. arrest warrant for Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks, on allegations of rape and other sexual offenses.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 19, The opera “Billy Blythe" opened in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was created by Bonnie Montgomery and Britt Barber and focused on one day in the life of teenager and later US Pres. Bill Clinton.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.41)
2010 Nov 19, US President Barack Obama lifted a ban on US aid and government assistance for Sudan to allow computers to be exported into the country ahead of a key referendum.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, Jack Camp (67), a federal judge in Atlanta, pleaded guilty to two drug related charges. He had been arrested on charges that he bought and used drugs with a stripper.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 19, In Maryland Corey Ausby (16) was beaten while walking through a Baltimore neighborhood. In 2012 a trial opened for brothers Eliyahu (24) and Avi Werdesheim (21). Charging documents said they pulled up next to the black teenager in a vehicle, then got out and "surrounded him." The passenger threw the teen to the ground and the driver hit him in the head with a hand-held radio and patted him down. On May 3 Eliyahu was convicted of false imprisonment and 2nd degree assault. His brother was acquitted.
(AP, 4/23/12)(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A7)
2010 Nov 19, NYC officials said over 10,000 workers, exposed to toxic dust following the 9/11 fall of the world Trade Center, have ended a legal fight with the city and joined a settlement worth at least $625 million.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 19, Texas businessman Samir Mahmoud Itani (51), head of American Grocers ltd., agreed to pay $15 million to settle allegations of defrauding the government by selling old relabeled food to the military to supply soldiers in Iraq.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 19, In California PG&E announced that it is prepared to buy homes and farms in the Mohave Desert town of Hinkley threatened by chromium 6 laced groundwater.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 19, The Los Angeles Auto Show opened. Fiat, now associated with Chrysler, introduced its tiny Fiat 500. Fiat sales in America would begin in January, following a 27-year absence.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.69)
2010 Nov 19, In southern Afghanistan a NATO soldier was killed in a bomb attack as leaders met in Portugal to determine the future of the alliance's mission. ISAF reported the capture of a leader from the hardline, Pakistan-based Haqqani network in eastern Khost province. In Baghlan a joint force targeted a series of compounds and captured another key Haqqani figure, who served as a liaison between the network and Taliban operatives in northern Afghanistan. Six of his associates were taken into custody as well. In Kunar province ISAF troops killed three civilians and wounded four others during fighting with militants.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, China ordered lenders to lock up more of their money at the central bank for the second time in two weeks, stepping up its battle to pull excess cash out of the economy before inflation has a chance to take off.
(Reuters, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Egypt at least 100 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood were arrested across the country less than 10 days ahead of legislative elections.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, French Pres. Sarkozy, infuriated by reports linking him to an investigation into possible kickbacks to French politicians in the 1990s, lashed out “off the record" at a journalist in Lisbon and said he could just as easily accuse him of being a pedophile.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 19, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that an inquiry will be launched into a female migrant's suspicious death in Saudi Arabia. Kikim Komalasari, who had worked in Abha city in Saudi Arabia since June 2009, had died from abuse. She was from Cianjur in West Java province.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Iraq 4 Jordanians of Palestinian origin from Zarqa were killed while fighting American troops. The men were all in their 20s and 30s and with the exception of one, had served jail terms in Jordan for plotting anti-American terror attacks.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Nov 19, Israel's military condemned the publication of names and photographs of 200 Israeli soldiers on a website that called them "war criminals." It was put up earlier this week by anonymous activists in Britain and hosted by a US-based Web service, which took it down by today citing "breach of terms." Militants in Gaza fired rockets at southern Israel, causing no casualties. Retaliatory Israeli air strikes wounded five.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Mexico the bodies of two men were found hanging from the Los Alamos bridge in Tijuana.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, NATO leaders began a 2-day meeting in Portugal. A top official said it will start drawing down its troops in Afghanistan next July and its combat role in the war-torn nation will end by 2014 or earlier so security can be turned over to the Afghans. NATO leaders planned to approve a new 10-year vision for NATO.
(AP, 11/19/10)(Reuters, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In New Zealand an explosion ripped through the country’s largest coal mine with about 30 people underground. Five workers, dazed and slightly injured, stumbled to the surface, while 29 were missing. Fears over poisonous and combustible gases were preventing rescuers from entering the mine.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, The Nigerian army arrested a militant leader and 62 of his followers suspected of involvement in a string of recent kidnappings of oil workers, including foreigners. Gunmen suspected of being members of Boko Haram, an Islamist sect behind a deadly uprising last year, shot dead three worshippers at a mosque in the northern city of Maiduguri.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Pakistan suspected US missiles destroyed a moving vehicle in North Waziristan, killing four alleged militants inside it.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In the Republic of Congo 8 countries signed a convention to limit the spread of weapons in central Africa, but three countries opted out. The Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Chad, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Central African Republic and Cameroon all signed. Burundi, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda did not sign.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, Thai police found the remains of almost 1,700 illegally aborted fetuses hidden at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok as the full extent of the grisly discovery emerged. Thousands of anti-government demonstrators took to the streets of Bangkok, peacefully marking the six-month anniversary of the military's crackdown on their protest.
(AFP, 11/19/10)(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, A UN General Assembly committee passed resolutions condemning human rights violations in Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, provoking a furious reaction from their delegations. The committee passed the resolution by 80 votes to 44, with 57 abstentions.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, The world's cardinals met at the Vatican to discuss religious freedom, sex abuse by clergy and other issues amid a new dispute with China over an illicit ordination that threatens delicate relations between the two.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 20, American scientist Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the US Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, said in a report that he was taken during a recent trip to the North's main Yongbyon atomic complex to a small industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility. It had 2,000 recently completed centrifuges. The North told him it was producing low-enriched uranium meant for a new reactor. North Korea told Hecker it began construction on the centrifuges in April 2009 and finished only a few days before the scientist's Nov. 12 visit.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Florida Brandi Peters (27) and her 3 young children were found slain in a Tallahassee home.
(SSFC, 11/21/10, p.A14)(SSFC, 11/21/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 20, In eastern Afghanistan Taliban suicide bombers on bicycles killed four people and wounded 31. Hafiz Janan, a Taliban leader involved in training foreign fighters, was killed in the Bakwa district of Farah province. Another Taliban leader was captured in Baraki Barak district of Logar province.
(Reuters, 11/20/10)(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Australia David Auchterlonie was murdered on his 17th birthday in New South Wales. Mathew Milat (17) and Cohen Klein (18) had planned for over a week to lure Auchterlonie to his death. In 2012 Matthew Milat, a relative of serial killer Ivan Milat, pleaded guilty to the ax murder and was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison. Cohen Klein also pleaded guilty and was sentenced for at least 22 years.
(AFP, 6/8/12)
2010 Nov 20, China's government-backed Catholic church ordained a bishop who did not have the pope's approval, despite objections from the Vatican.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said a top FARC rebel leader who oversees major cocaine production may have been killed in the bombing of a guerrilla camp in the country's southern jungles. Fabian Ramirez's pistols, rucksack and computers were found at the scene of a pre-dawn bombing. At least six bodies were found.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Egypt a tour bus lost control and flipped over several times on a winding mountain road near a Red Sea resort, killing eight tourists.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Ireland moved towards finalizing its four-year crisis plan for cutting its budget deficit which could pave the way for a multi-billion euro bailout.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Yair Klein, an Israeli wanted in Colombia for training militias that killed hundreds of people, returned home after he was released from a Moscow jail. Klein has denied working with Colombia's cocaine cartels and said he only instructed paramilitaries in defense tactics.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Madagascar PM Camille Vital told reporters that 16 officers have surrendered, ending an impasse that began Nov 17, when a faction of officers declared they were taking over from Andry Rajoelina.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Mexico a gang of suspected kidnappers were arrested by marines. They had detailed plans of security arrangements for next week's UN climate change talks in Cancun.
(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 20, NATO nations meeting in Portugal formally agreed to start turning over Afghanistan's security to its military next year and give them full control by 2014. The US and its allies appeared to take conflicting views on when NATO combat operations would end. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he did not expect NATO troops to stay in the fight against the Taliban after 2014. Russia was receptive but stopped short of accepting a historic NATO invitation to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack.
(AP, 11/20/10)(Reuters, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Saudi Arabia a young woman in her twenties defying a driving ban in the capital died along with three female friends when her car overturned.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, Pope Benedict XVI formally created 24 new cardinals amid cheers in St. Peter's Basilica, bringing a mostly Italian group into the elite club that will eventually elect his successor. Benedict XVI reiterated that condoms are not a moral solution for stopping AIDS. But he added that in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, their use could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.
(AP, 11/20/10)(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez stepped up his threats against the country’s only remaining opposition-aligned television channel, calling its owner, Guillermo Zuloaga, a fugitive criminal and accusing him of conspiring against his government.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 21, A national US study by CQ Press found St. Louis as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009, overtaking Camden, NJ. Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five. For the second straight year, the safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, NY.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Afghanistan 3 civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar province. Small arms fire and a rocket attack killed the police chief of Musa Khel district of Khost province. ISAF said more than 20 militants were killed in air strikes and fighting, mainly in the restive south. The watchdog panel charged with rooting out fraud in the recent parliamentary election disqualified 19 candidates who had been announced as winners in preliminary results. A man working on a stream clearing project in Kandahar province was killed by an unknown gunman in front of his children in Zhari district. 7 were killed, two were wounded and four were captured during a clearing operation that ended in Herat province. In northern Kunduz province, insurgents attacked a checkpoint set up by a local police force, sparking heavy fighting. Two of the local police were killed, along with 17 of the attackers. A NATO service member died in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan.
(AFP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/22/10)(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 21, in Afghanistan US Marine Cpl. William Carpenter took a blow fram a grenade to save a fellow Marine in Helmand province and was severely wounded. In 2014 Pres. Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor.
(SFC, 6/20/14, p.A6)
2010 Nov 21, Burkina Faso held presidential elections. President Blaise Compaore (59), a former army captain, was expected to win as he faced an opposition so divided it could not mount a unified campaign to fight him effectively at the polls. State media suggested Compaore won at least 80% of the peaceful vote.
(AP, 11/21/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.58)
2010 Nov 21, In China water flooded a small coal mine, trapping 28 people as they did safety work to expand the mine's capacity. 13 workers escaped and rescue work was continuing for the 28 missing at the Batian mine in the southwestern province of Sichuan. 29 miners were rescued on Nov 22.
(AP, 11/21/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.51)
2010 Nov 21, In Indonesia the death toll from the Mount Merapi volcano rose to 304 after more victims succumbed to severe burns and illnesses.
(SFC, 11/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 21, Iranian newspapers reported that Pres. Ahmadinejad said the best age for girls to get married was between 16 and 18. The Iranian intelligence ministry said its security forces have killed two "terrorists" in clashes in the Kurdish-populated western city of Sanandaj.
(Reuters, 11/21/10)(AFP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, Ireland became the second European country to ask for a multibillion euro emergency loan to help stabilize its debt-ridden banks. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan (1959-2011) recommended to a cabinet meeting that the government should apply for a financial bailout program from the EU and the IMF.
(AP, 11/21/10)(AFP, 11/21/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Lenihan,_Jnr)
2010 Nov 21, In Israel 2 workers were killed and two others were in critical condition in a Haifa hospital after inhaling poisonous material from an accidental leak at the country's oil refinery.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Mexico Silverio Cavazos Ceballos (41), the former governor of the Pacific state of Colima (2005-2009), was shot dead by a group of armed men. Police mounting an operation to find the killers came across a doctor in an area near the crime. He was startled by officers and began to run away. They shot him dead when he ignored orders to stop.
(AP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Pakistan 4 suspected US missiles slammed into a house in North Waziristan, killing six people. The dead included 3 militants and 3 local tribesmen harboring them.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that he will not return to the negotiating table with Israel without a settlement freeze that includes annexed Arab east Jerusalem. Thousands of young Jewish settlers held a mass demonstration outside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's offices in Jerusalem in protest at plans for a new ban on settlement building.
(AFP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, Poles voted in local elections expected to reward the government's reluctance to trim the welfare state in the EU's largest new member, the only one in Europe to avoid a recession.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia. Experts wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, In central Somalia at least 13 people were killed in heavy clashes that began a day earlier between armed groups fighting for control of villages.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, The US and its allies accused North Korea of being a danger to the region after it showed off its latest advances in uranium enrichment, but Washington said it was still open to talks.
(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, The FBI raided three hedge funds in NYC as part of a sweeping investigation into insider trading.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.82)
2010 Nov 22, Novell Inc., the maker of Linux operating-system software, said it has agreed to be bought by Attachmate Corp., for $2.2 billion, or about $6.10 per share.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.D2)
2010 Nov 22, In eastern Afghanistan homemade bombs killed 4 Afghan civilians, including two children, riding on a tractor in the Zurmat district of Paktia province. In an overnight operation in the same district, a joint Afghan and NATO force killed Fared Gul, a Taliban fighter involved in planting roadside bombs. 2 NATO coalition service members were killed in the south. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest while driving a motorcycle down a main road in Mohmand Dara district, Nangarhar province. Haqqani network leader Wahidullah was killed by an airstrike in the Sabari district of Khost province.
(AP, 11/22/10)(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Australia police said that an ongoing operation has smashed a cartel that has raked in an estimated 400 million Australian dollars ($395 million). Police had already arrested 34 people and seized 6,000 cannabis plants in the biggest series of drug raids in the history of Victoria state.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Brazil local Rio de Janeiro news media reported that armed men used roadblocks to trap and rob drivers over the weekend, killing a man and alarming public officials who are preparing to receive hoards of summer tourists.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Cambodia a stampede by thousands of festival-goers left at least 351 people dead and hundreds injured. A panic-stricken crowd, celebrating the end of the rainy season on an island in a river, tried to flee over a narrow bridge in the capital of Phnom Penh. Reports from provincial officials put the death toll at 456.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 22, Germany’s defense minister announced that Germany will end conscription in July and switch to a slimmed-down volunteer military service focused on missions abroad.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 22, Egypt's Orascom Telecom said it is selling its entire 50% stake in its Tunisian subsidiary to Qatar Telecom in a deal valued at $1.2 billion.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, A Gambian Foreign Ministry statement was issued giving Iranian government officials 48 hours to leave the country. The next day a senior Gambian security official said the move was linked to Nigeria's recent seizure of arms sent from Iran which were allegedly destined for Gambia.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Haiti clashes between political factions left two dead as growing violence and a raging cholera epidemic raised fears of wider unrest ahead of key post-quake elections.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 22, India gave the green light for the construction of a second international airport in the commercial capital Mumbai, a two billion dollar project that was ten years in the making.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Diplomats said Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a recent setback with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of centrifuges enriching uranium.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 22, In Iraq gunmen shot and killed, Saad and Raad Hannah, two Christian brothers in the northern city of Mosul in the latest in a spate of attacks targeting the religious minority.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Ireland's the government said banks will be pruned down, merged or sold as part of a massive EU-IMF bailout taking shape. Ireland's Greens pulled the plug on the deeply unpopular coalition government by calling for a national election in January after an EU/IMF bailout package is in place.
(AP, 11/22/10)(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Israeli bulldozers began laying the groundwork for construction of a barrier to seal off part of the Jewish state's border with Egypt. Israel's parliament passed a law calling for a national referendum ahead of any withdrawal from annexed east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, a move that could derail future peace deals.
(AP, 11/22/10)(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, Madagascar’s head of the electoral commission said 74% of voters had approved a new constitution, which could keep coup Pres. Rajoelina in power indefinitely.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Pakistan US missiles killed five militants in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, US federal agents fanned out across Puerto Rico seeking to arrest 17 alleged members of a drug smuggling organization. Luis Figueroa, the younger brother of smuggling leader Jose Figueroa Agosto, had boarded the Caribbean Princess with his wife, two children and in-laws before the operation began. Agents waiting on board the ship arrested him without incident before the ship reached its first port-of-call in the US Virgin Islands.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Saudi King Abdullah (86) departed for New York for medical treatment and temporarily handed control of the world's top oil producer and key American ally to Crown Prince Sultan, his half brother and heir to the throne.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, Somalia’s Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden indefinitely postponed a session scheduled to endorse or reject the proposed Cabinet of PM Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Parliamentarians complained that he has reduced the number of ministers, tapped technocrats from outside Somalia and reduced some clans' influence.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, A South African court said a Zimbabwean government property in Cape Town can be auctioned to compensate three evicted white farmers in Zimbabwe for legal fees.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, UAR state media said a military Hawk training jet has crashed in Ras al-Khaimah, killing the pilot. The single-engine Hawk is made by British defense company BAE Systems.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Venezuela's oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, said that the latest exploratory drilling has confirmed "extraordinary results": about 15 trillion cubic feet of gas under the sea floor in a place where experts once thought there was only a fraction of that amount. An event launched a separate $17 billion oil project involving Italy’s Eni SpA and state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Atlanta, Georgia, Amador Cortes-Meza (36) of Mexico was convicted on federal charges of orchestrating a sex trafficking scheme in which prosecutors say he lured impoverished young Mexican women to the Atlanta area with false promises of better lives, high-paying jobs and even hints of romance. He was accused of bringing at least 10 women to the area between spring 2006 and June 2008.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, Alfred Gaynor (43), a serial killer from western Massachusetts admitted to strangling a woman in 1995, his first victim of eight.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 23, A US federal jury in Oakland, Ca., said SAP AG must pay Oracle Corp. $1.3 billion for copyright infringement. In 2011 A US District Judge called the award excessive and reduced it to $272 million.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/2/11, p.D1)
2010 Nov 23, A BP executive, James Patrick Black (58), helping to guide recovery from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill died with two others when a small plane crashed in waters off the Florida Panhandle.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, An Afghan close to negotiations with the Taliban said a man leading the Taliban side of peace talks with the Afghan government was an impersonator, in a setback to efforts to negotiate an end to the war.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Angola activist Antonio Paca Panzo was released from jail for lack of evidence after seven months and 12 days. Panzo was arrested in april in the Cabinda region for apparently having T-shirts emblazoned with the faces of four activists who had been arrested in January and were accused of responsibility in a deadly attack on the Togo team bus as it headed to the African Cup of Nations. Panzo was freed because of lack of evidence.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 23, Australia promised to be a future long-tem supplier of rare earths to Japan, after China suspended shipments of the minerals to its neighbor.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Police in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands arrested at least 10 people on suspicion of planning an Islamist militant attack in Belgium.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Brazil police in Rio launched a broad crackdown on gangs and drug-trafficking groups rolling out helicopter-backed armored tanks in 20 slums, killing at least two suspects.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Brazil Roberto Puppo, a native of Bergamo, Italy, was shot and killed. His bullet-ridden body was found in Alagoas on the next day. Authorities believe the killing was ordered by da Silva's boyfriend, an Italian man "suspected of belonging to an international organized crime group." A teenager, who was not identified because he is a minor; and a private security guard identified as Cosme Alves were arrested after a few weeks and charged with the killing.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Burkina Faso 4 of the 7 candidates in recent presidential election say they won't recognize the poll's results, claiming the vote was rigged.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, China acknowledged that it is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, as it called on the United States to ensure climate change talks opening next week make progress.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Croatia’s Atlantic Grupa food company took over Slovenia’s Droga Kolinska for $326 million. This was the biggest corporate deal in the Balkans in recent years.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.72)
2010 Nov 23, East African leaders met in the Ethiopian capital to discuss beefing up the African Union force in Somalia and tensions in Sudan ahead of January's referendum on autonomy for the south.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, The European Union urged Ireland to adopt an austerity budget on time to unlock promised EU/IMF funding, responding to a deepening political crisis that threatens to derail the financial rescue.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, The EU’s anti-piracy naval force said that have caught 16 suspected Somali pirates over the past 5 days in the Indian Ocean with the help of the Seychelles coast guard.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 23, Iran’s state radio reported that authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Mahdi Hashemi, the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on charges of helping foment last year's postelection unrest. Hashemi has been living in Britain since shortly after the election.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Iraq a surgeon and an engineer at Baghdad International Airport were gunned down in a mostly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad. an Education Ministry professor was shot in another Sunni area in northeastern Baghdad. A passer-by was slain in a drive-by shooting in the northeastern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, Ireland's banks are up for sale, the country's central bank chief said, as the government sought to cut them down in size after their reckless lending forced the country to seek an international bailout.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Authorities in southern Italy arrested two women in an operation against suspected mobsters, a development that reflects the increasing role of women in running the mob's affairs. Those arrested included Carmelina Capria, wife of imprisoned clan boss Antonio Pesce, and Maria Grazia Pesce, wife of fugitive boss Roberto Matalone.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri dismissed a media report that implicated Hezbollah and possibly Lebanon's head of police intelligence, Colonel Wissam Hassan, in the 2005 murder of his father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Mexican police arrested Carlos Montemayor Gonzalez, nicknamed "El Charro," or "The Cowboy," with help from the US Drug Enforcement Administration." He was linked to the recently arrested US-born kingpin known as "La Barbie," and to the killing of 20 Mexican tourists in September.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, Nigeria's most prominent armed group MEND said that on Nov 21 it had attacked and destroyed the Obidi refinery trunk line feeding a refinery in the Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire after the North shelled Yeonpyeong island near their disputed sea border, killing at least 2 South Korean marines and 2 civilians, setting dozens of buildings ablaze and sending civilians fleeing for shelter.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AFP, 11/24/10)(Econ, 10/26/13, SR p.5)
2010 Nov 23, In northwestern Pakistan the concrete cover of a sewage tank collapsed during a funeral, causing 14 people in Jhor village to plunge to their death.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Saudi media said a Saudi woman (53), accused of torturing her Indonesian maid, has been sent to jail while the maid, Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa (23), receives extensive hospital treatment for burns and broken bones.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, A Spanish judge ordered Carlos Vielmann, a former Guatemalan interior minister, be freed because authorities in the Central American country failed to request his extradition on charges he ordered the extra-judicial execution of seven inmates. He resigned in 2007 after allegations in one of those cases became known.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Trinidad Sgt. Simeon Roderique (38), a US Army soldier vacationing on the Caribbean island, was killed when gunmen rammed his car from behind in a rough slum and then opened fire. He was shot shortly after dropping a woman off at her home in Laventille, a gang-plagued community just east of Trinidad's capital. The woman's brother was also killed.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Virginia 5 Somali men, accused of attacking the USS Nicholas on April 1, were convicted on federal piracy charges. On March 14, 2011, the 5 men were sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/25/10, p.A19)(SFC, 3/15/11, p.A4)
2010 Nov 24, Former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, once one of the most powerful and feared Republicans in Congress, was convicted on charges he illegally funneled corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, The US Federal Transit Administration sent an invoice to New Jersey for some $271 million for work done on the cancelled $8.7 billion Hudson River rail tunnel connecting the state with NY.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 24, In California Rep. Steve Cooley conceded defeat to Dem. Kamala Harris for the office of attorney general. Harris became the state’s first woman, the first African American and the first Indian American in California history to be elected as state attorney general.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 24, In southern California Carlie Rose Attebury (31), a former El Modena High School high school band teacher, was convicted of 4 counts stemming from her sexual relationship with a boy (15).
(SFC, 11/26/10, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/2g9r229)
2010 Nov 24, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it had closed 4,200 square miles/10,880 square kms of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to royal red shrimping after a commercial shrimper discovered tar balls in his net.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Afghan election officials announced final vote totals for 33 of 34 provinces. 1.3m of 5.6m ballots were discarded for fraud and 19 candidates were disqualified for cheating. The top prosecutor announced a new investigation into allegations of ballot manipulation, potentially dealing another setback to a fraud-marred parliamentary election just as many had hoped a declaration of final results would allow the country to move on. Emerging opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah said that more than 90 of his supporters had won seats in parliament, following the announcement of certified results. Abdul Hadi, a Taliban leader, was killed when he pulled a pistol on Afghan and NATO forces who were trying to arrest him during a raid in the Khogyani district of Ghazni province.
(AP, 11/24/10)(AFP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(SFC, 11/26/10, p.A5)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 24, Australia said that a Thai-owned oil firm's "widespread and systematic shortcomings" caused the worst offshore drilling accident in the country's history, which created a massive oil slick. Thousands of barrels of oil gushed into the sea from a damaged well after a blow out on the West Atlas rig on August 21, 2009, prompting the evacuation of workers.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Brazil heavily armed men halted buses and cars, robbed their passengers and set the vehicles ablaze in Rio de Janeiro, continuing a wave of violence that has rattled rich and poor alike. Police raided gang-ruled shantytowns, setting off clashes that killed 14 people as authorities tried to halt a wave of violent crime.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Britain a student mob attacked a police van in central London as violence marred a second mass protest in the last fortnight against the government's plans to triple university fees.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In the Central African Republic rebels killed four soldiers and captured an unknown number of troops in an attack on Birao, the main town of northern CAR.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Egypt hundreds of Christians smashed cars and windows in Cairo and clashed with police in protests over the halt in the construction of a church that left one person dead in Giza's Omraniya neighborhood. A 2nd person died of injuries on Nov 26. The Coptic community said authorities in Egypt are reluctant to approve permits to build churches. Egypt’s attorney general decided to hold the 156 protesters for 15 days on suspicion of inciting the riots.
(AP, 11/24/10)(Reuters, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Guatemala Francisco Dall'Anese, the head of a special UN-backed commission (CICIG) prosecuting high crimes there, accused the government of sabotaging efforts to bring back Carlos Vielmann, a former interior minister, on charges of ordering extrajudicial killings of prison inmates. On Nov 23 a Spanish judge freed Vielmann from prison.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's National Democratic Alliance won 206 seats in the 243-seat Bihar assembly, a huge jump from the 143 seats it controlled in the last assembly. Bihar's reputation as one of India's most crime-ridden states forced officials to hold the elections in six phases over a month to allow the limited police force to protect the polls.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India a local official said the northern Lank village council in Uttar Pradesh state has banned unmarried women from using cell phones for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India police arrested eight people, including senior executives of leading state banks, in Mumbai on accusations of taking bribes of more than 200 million dollars to smooth large corporate loans to builders. Those arrested include the chief executive of LIC Housing Finance, India's second largest housing loan firm, as well as executives of the Bank of India, Central Bank of India and Punjab National Bank.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India police in the central state of Chhattisgarh arrested 11 people including a "witchdoctor" and his wife after the body of a boy (2) was discovered in their house. Further searches of the property in the industrial town of Bhilai, about 45 km (30 miles) from state capital Raipur, revealed the skeletal remains of a second victim, a girl (6). The accused man had confessed to killing both children to acquire "occult power and good fortune."
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, Indonesian Muslim cleric Pujiono Cahyo Widianto (46), who sparked a national outcry by marrying a 12-year-old girl, was sentenced to four years in prison.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Iraq a roadside bomb killed four people in the town of Shurqat, 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Ireland set out a four-year plan, aiming to make 15 billion euros worth of savings to bring down its record deficit.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, A court in southern Kyrgyzstan sentenced 17 people to life in jail for violence that wracked the region in June. Judge Damirbek Nazarov ruled the men killed 16 people on the highway linking the south with the capital, Bishkek. All defendants in the trial that ended the previous day were ethnic Uzbeks. International rights activists largely agree the Uzbek minority sustained the bulk of the violence that left 370 people dead.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In southern Mexico Ciro Diaz Sanchez, the mayor of Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan, and mayor-elect Pedro Bautista, disappeared after Mexico's army detained members of the municipal police force and other local officials on suspicion they were working for a drug cartel. The two, both members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, went missing ahead of searches of their houses, which turned up high-caliber weapons and two stolen cars at Bautista's.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 24, A Mexican air force cargo plane crashed at Monterrey International Airport killing five military personnel.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In New Zealand a second explosion occurred in the Pike River mine, almost exactly five days after the first blast there. All 29 workers missing underground were believed to have died after a second explosion.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 24, Nigeria said it has seized another illegal arms shipment at its main port, including pistols and military vehicles, weeks after the discovery of a weapons cache sent from Iran. The military items which were packed inside a vehicle painted in army green. The illegal arms shipment came from Belgium through Germany,
(AFP, 11/24/10)(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In northwestern Pakistan one soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during a foot patrol in South Waziristan.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Portuguese labor unions mounted a general strike, pressing the government to scrap austerity measures intended to ward off a debt crisis spreading through the euro zone.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Somalia Bashir Ahmed Abdi (51), a Minneapolis-based Somali lawyer, was shot dead in Mogadishu. Relative Abdirahman Moalin said he was driving Abdi to a meeting in Mogadishu when a single shot fired from what looked like a government pickup truck hit Abdi beneath his shoulder, killing him instantly.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, Sudan's south accused the northern army of carrying out an airstrike on an army base in southern Sudan in an attempt to derail a January 9 referendum on southern independence.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Emirati (UAR) leaders prepared a lavish welcome for Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, who is making her first state visit in more than 30 years to a country with deep British ties.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, The UN human rights office says a new international treaty against enforced disappearances will come into effect on Dec. 23 after Iraq became the 20th country to ratify it. The 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance declares widespread or systematic kidnappings a crime against humanity. The US has not signed the treaty.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, The Vatican denounced China for ordaining a bishop without papal consent, accusing the government-backed church of gravely damaging the faith and warning that the bishop risked excommunication. The Vatican also accused Chinese authorities of committing "grave violations of freedom of religion and conscience" by forcing Vatican-approved bishops to attend the ordination ceremony of Rev. Joseph Guo Jincai.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Yemen a suicide car bomber struck a convoy of Shiites on their way to a religious ceremony, killing at least 17 and wounding more than 15 people. Al-Qaida was suspected though it would be the extremist organization's first reported direct assault on the country's Shiite minority.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 25, US authorities found a sophisticated tunnel used to smuggle drugs between Mexico and San Diego, the second such discovery in the region in less than a month. Investigators seized some 20 tons of marijuana. The 2,200-foot passage ran from a residence in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa area.
(AP, 11/25/10)(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 25, San Francisco based Del Monte said it has agreed to be acquired by a group led by KKR & Co. in a $4 billion deal. KKR, Vestar Capital Partners and Centerview Partners agreed to pay $19 a share in cash and would assume $1.3 billion in net debt.
(SFC, 11/26/10, p.C1)
2010 Nov 25, The Afghan deputy attorney general said his office has arrested two employees of the nation's electoral commission and two people working in the money transfer business on allegations of fraud in the September parliamentary elections. In eastern Afghanistan 2 insurgent facilitators were arrested on separate operations. NATO captured a Haqqani leader in the eastern Afghan province of Khost.
(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 25, British PM David Cameron defended a new index aimed at measuring the population's social and environmental wellbeing rather than just its wealth.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Bernard Matthews (80), Britain’s largest turkey processor, died. He began in 1950 with an investment in 20 eggs. In 1953 he bought a derelict country house, Great Witchingham Hall, where he and his wife, Joyce, raised turkeys in all but one of the 36 rooms. It is still the company headquarters.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 25, China’s state media said Shanghai is suffering from its worst November air quality in five years after the local government lifted pollution controls that were in place for the six-month World Expo. China started publishing hourly air-quality information for major cities across the country as the world's top source of greenhouse gas emissions tries to rein in its notorious pollution.
(AFP, 11/25/10)(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 25, Colombian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for retired Gen. Miguel Maza Marquez (73), a former domestic security chief, who they say participated in the Aug 18, 1989, assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, The EU high court ruled that there is no such thing as "pure chocolate," ending an EU-Italy food fight over chocolate labels. It also said the EU's 1999 chocolate labeling rules make no room for a "pure chocolate" reference like the one Italy enacted in a 2003 law.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, European lawmakers voted in favor of an independent, UN-backed investigation into violence in Western Sahara that has left up to 11 people dead in the disputed territory.
(Reuters, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, India told financial firms to review their exposure to a string of companies whose executives were arrested on suspicion of taking millions of dollars in bribes.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Iraq's PM Nouri al-Maliki appealed to the country's warring political factions for unity after formally accepting a request by the president to form the next government, part of a deal to end an eight-month deadlock over who would lead the country the next four years.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Italian students occupied the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome's Colosseum to protest education cuts and university reforms being considered by parliament.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Macedonia police raided the building housing A1 television, a private channel often critical of PM Gruevski’s government.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.57)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP0jAsK9sog)
2010 Nov 25, In Mexico preliminary data was released by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography. It said Mexico had 112.3 million inhabitants as of July, 3.6 million more than experts had projected.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, A court in Nigeria charged an alleged member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three Nigerians over a shipment of mortars and rockets seized in the main port of Lagos last month.
(Reuters, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Nigeria's anti-corruption police raided the offices of US firm Halliburton and arrested 12 people in a bribery case involving former Halliburton unit KBR Inc. Houston-based engineering firm KBR pleaded guilty last year to US charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas project.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 25, In Pakistan a paramilitary soldier was killed and six others wounded, two of them critically, in a bomb attack on the outskirts of Hangu in the northwest. Pakistan said that most of the explosives used in bomb attacks on its territory were smuggled from Afghanistan but insisted it was limiting the cross-border movement of insurgents fighting US troops.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, South Africa said it has launched an anti-corruption unit to investigate government officials misusing funds and receiving bribes.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, South Korea's defense minister resigned amid intense criticism two days after a North Korean artillery attack killed four people on a small island near the Koreas' disputed frontier.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Zimbabwe's PM Morgan Tsvangirai filed court papers filed saying Pres. Mugabe violated the constitution with his unilateral appointment of 10 provincial governors last month. Tsvangirai said the power-sharing agreement requires the president to consult with the prime minister before making key appointments, and that Mugabe did not.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 26, US federal agents in a sting operation arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud (19), a Somali-born teenager, just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Argentina the newspaper Clarin published the comments of a woman who has accused her father of sexually abusing her for 30 years and having 10 children with her, including one who killed himself after learning that his grandfather was his father. Elvira Gomez (43) did not report the alleged abuse until her father, Armando Gomez (62), was recently arrested for robbery.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Brazil residents of Rio's northern slums braced for more violence as hundreds of reinforcements joined a widening crackdown on drug gangs that has killed at least 30 people in six days. Some 800 troops backed a police operation at the Alemao complex of shantytowns as drug gang members stood their ground.
(AFP, 11/26/10)(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 26, The Central African Republic government announced its forces had retaken Birao, captured by rebels in a deadly assault two days earlier, but the rebels said they were still in control.
(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Chile the lawyer for a group of men who accused Fernando Karadima, a prominent Chilean priest, of sexually abusing them as teenagers said his clients will not appeal a ruling in favor of the clergyman. Five men, now adults, had alleged that Karadima began abusing them about 20 years ago, when they were between 14 and 17 years old. In 2011 the Vatican said Karadima was guilty of abusing minors and must retire.
(AP, 11/26/10)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A2)
2010 Nov 26, Danish actor Palle Huld (98), who reportedly inspired a Belgian cartoonist to create the comic book reporter Tintin, died. He was a stage actor with Denmark's Royal Theater, and he appeared in 40 Danish films between 1933 and 2000. In 1928 Huld won a competition organized by Danish newspaper that wanted to send a teenager would-be-reporter around the globe. For 44 days the 15-year-old traveled to North America, Japan, Siberia and Germany, and was greeted by 20,000 people upon his return to Copenhagen. Herge, the pen name of Belgian author Georges Remi, heard of Huld's journey which reportedly inspired him to create Tintin, the globe-trotting reporter.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Nov 26, An Egyptian judicial source said courts have ordered the cancellation of Nov 28 parliamentary elections in 24 districts after orders to reinstate opposition and independent candidates were ignored. The Alexandria criminal court sentenced 11 Islamists to two years in prison for election campaigning for the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
(AFP, 11/26/10)(Reuters, 11/26/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Indonesia 5 endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in Riau province on Sumatra island. Conservationists suspected that farmers poisoned the animals to stop them from damaging crops.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 26, The Japanese parliament passed an extra budget worth 58 billion dollars to cover a new stimulus package aimed at averting the threat of a "double-dip" recession.
(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Kenya’s Wildlife Service said its agents shot dead 2 suspected poachers shooting at a herd of elephants in a national park.
(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 26, Myanmar published laws, signed by junta chief Gen. Than Shwe, stipulating that parliamentarians will be allowed freedom of expression unless their speeches endanger national security, the unity of the country or violate the constitution. They also provide a two-year prison term for those who stage protests in the parliament compound or physically assault a lawmaker on its premises.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, The Dutch navy said it has captured 20 suspected pirates off the Somali coast in two operations in the last week and is holding them on a warship on suspicion of involvement in hijacking a South African yacht.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, A Nigerian court annulled the election of the governor of the southwestern state of Osun and installed his opposition rival, in the latest blow to the ruling party ahead of national elections next April. The court ruled that Osun state governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) had been wrongly elected in the 2007 polls and installed his rival Rauf Aregbesola of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
(Reuters, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Pakistan said security forces arrested two would-be suicide bombers in the capital Islamabad, adding that the thwarted attacks targeted parliament and a mosque in an upmarket neighborhood. Suspected US missiles fired by an unmanned plane hit a vehicle killing three alleged militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Portugal adopted a raft of debt-reducing austerity measures, which the government claimed would be enough to restore market confidence in its public finances without resorting to a bailout.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Russia said it will miss an April, 2012, deadline for destroying all of its chemical weapons, as officials inaugurated a major new plant to dispose of them. Pochep, the latest of six plants built in Russia in recent years, will process nearly 19 percent of Russia's stockpile, or 7,500 tons of nerve agent used in aircraft-delivered munitions. The US has acknowledged it will also miss the deadline.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said authorities have arrested nearly 150 al-Qaida suspects over the past eight months, foiling planned attacks on Saudi government officials, civilians and media personalities.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Serbia sent a formal request for the extradition of Peter Egner (88), a naturalized American citizen who is suspected of serving in a Nazi unit that killed some 17,000 Jewish and other civilians here during World War II. Egner was born in Yugoslavia and emigrated to the United States in 1960, gaining American citizenship six years later.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, South African President Jacob Zuma arrived in Harare to try to smooth over disputes threatening Zimbabwe's troubled power-sharing government. Zuma said he had persuaded President Mugabe and PM Tsvangirai to start talking again to address the rifts in their power-sharing government.
(AFP, 11/26/10)(Reuters, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In South Africa a study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to Johannesburg, more than 37% of men said they had raped a woman. A quarter of the women interviewed said they'd been raped, but the study said only one in 25 rapes are reported to police.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In South Africa lightning and a storm killed seven people and injured 67 at a Christmas party at a nursery school in KwaZulu Natal.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, Spain’s PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said there was no chance Spain would seek a bailout.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Taiwan a gunman opened fire on a campaign rally on the eve of key local elections, killing one man and critically wounding the son of former Vice-President Lien Chan. A suspect was in custody and may belong to a gang.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Yemen a suicide car bomber struck Shiite mourners heading to a funeral to Saada province, killing at least two people.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 27, New York state police arrested Steven Pieper (21) just hours after searchers found the body of a missing woman, believed to be Jenni-Lyn Watson (20), a Mercyhurst College dance major.
(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 27, US film director Irvin Kershner (87) died in Los Angeles. His work included the direction of the Star Wars sequel "The Empire Strikes Back," the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again" and "Robocop 2." Other work included "A Fine Madness" (1966), "The Flim-Flam Man" (1967), "Loving" (1970), and "The Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978). The 1976 television movie "Raid on Entebbe" earned him an Emmy nomination for direction.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 27, In Afghanistan 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up at an Afghan police headquarters in eastern Paktika province, killing 13 police officers near the Pakistan border. A NATO service member also was killed in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition forces killed at least 15 insurgents during an overnight search for a senior Taliban leader in the Sherzad district of Nangarhar province.
(AP, 11/27/10)(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, Australia's Qantas Airways resumed flights of its Airbus A380 superjumbos, after a mid-flight engine failure grounded all six of the planes earlier this month.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, The British government said it is paying for more than 1,000 medical staff to work in Haiti as part of an aid package worth more than 5.6 million pounds to help combat a deadly cholera outbreak there.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In China an "extraordinary" Asian Games closed after 15 days of thrills and spills that saw China reinforce its sporting credentials as 45 countries and territories took part. China’s final gold tally reached 199 and its total medals to 416, both Asian Games records.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In France delegates at an Atlantic conservation conference in Paris took measures to protect sea turtles and several types of sharks. ICCAT members agreed to reduce the allowable Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna catch to 12,900 tons from 13,500 tons. The allowable western Atlantic catch was reduced to 1,750 tons from 1,800, a level that American and Canadian fisherman already had been unable to meet due to stock decline.
(AP, 11/27/10)(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A10)
2010 Nov 27, Guinea's government announced border closures with Sierra Leone by land, sea and air this evening stranding hundreds of people from Sierra Leone on Guinea's side.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, In Haiti at least one person was killed and several wounded when gunmen opened fire on a rally for presidential candidate Michel Martelly.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In eastern India suspected Maoist rebels blew up an ambulance with a land mine in Orissa state, killing at least three people inside.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, Iran's state radio reported that a man attempting to hijack a Syria-bound flight carrying a number of Iranian lawmakers was arrested on board. ISNA news agency reported that Iran has hanged in prison a man convicted of raping several women in Isfahan. The latest hanging brings the number of executions in Iran to at least 145 so far this year.
(AP, 11/27/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Iraq arrested 12 militants suspected of helping take Christians hostage in a church siege that killed 44 worshippers and two priests on Oct 31. Among those apprehended were Huthaifa al-Batawi, the Baghdad chief of the Islamic State of Iraq, the Al-Qaeda front group which carried out the attack, while senior ISI leader Ammar al-Najadi was killed.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In northern Italy 3 hikers died after being caught in an avalanche.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo issued a decree calling for a nationwide curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Nov 27-Dec 1 to prevent any tampering with vote counting. Opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara said the move was illegal and unconstitutional, adding a curfew should only come after the election if there is trouble.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri expressed concerns for stability in the Middle East as he began a visit to Tehran to rally Iran's support for his efforts to keep Lebanon stable amid tensions over a U.N. probe into the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Mexico's federal police in Ciudad Juarez captured Arturo Gallegos Castrellon (32), a presumed leader of the Aztecas cross-border drug gang. He was suspected in dozens of killings, including the slaying of a US consulate worker. Two other members of the gang were arrested with Gallegos on charges of transporting drugs and weapons.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, Morocco’s foreign minister in a published interview rejected a probe into violent clashes between its security forces and residents of Western Sahara by the UN. A day earlier, Human Rights Watch said Moroccan security forces repeatedly beat and abused people they detained during disturbances in Western Sahara earlier this month.
(AFP, 11/27/10)(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 27, Pakistan offered a reward for information about Taliban militants involved in planning or carrying out attacks, and promised to resettle informers in Pakistan or abroad. Hundreds of Sunni Muslims started a nearly 200-mile (320-km) high-risk trek across Pakistan in a protest against Taliban attacks on the country's religious sites.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Somalia's parliament passed the proposed Cabinet of new PM Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party won three out of five mayoral races, providing a boost for President Ma Ying-jeou's policy of improving relations with China ahead of the island's 2012 presidential poll.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Venezuelan President Chavez promoted Gen. Henry Rangel Silva to general-in-chief. Silva had sparked controversy by suggesting the military would not accept an electoral return to power by government opponents.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000 classified US State Department documents were released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel. Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. One cable revealed that the US kept nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.35)
2010 Nov 28, In Oregon an Islamic center in Corvallis was firebombed, 2 days after Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested in a sting operation for trying to blow up a van full of explosives in Portland. In August, 2011, federal officials arrested Cody Crawford (24) for firebombing the mosque.
(SFC, 11/29/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/26/11, p.A5)
2010 Nov 28, In Cleveland, Texas, a girl (11) was gang raped in an abandoned trailer home. Authorities were notified of the alleged rape after a student from Cleveland ISD found a video of the assault. Four assaults on the young girl had begun in September. By March 24, 2011, 19 young men and teenage boys were charged with participating in the rape. On Aug 30, 2012, Eric McGowen, who fled free on bail, was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/9/11, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/4cbmd2c)(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A5)(SFC, 8/31/12, p.A5)
2010 Nov 28, In Afghanistan gunmen firing on a car killed Abdullah Ahmadzai, a local government official, and two of his relatives in Logar province. Coalition forces launched an airstrike in Nad Ali district in Helmand province, killing a Taliban leader who planned and coordinated roadside bombs against Afghan and NATO forces.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Brazil Rio police, backed by helicopters and armored vehicles, invaded the Alemao slum complex, long held by traffickers, quickly taking over the key drug gang stronghold in a historic victory for the city hosting the 2016 Olympics.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, BP said it has agreed to sell its 60 percent stake in Pan American Energy to Argentina-based oil and gas firm Bridas Corporation, as part of asset sales to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Canadian comic actor Leslie Nielsen (84) died in Florida of complications from pneumonia. He was a star in a string of madcap spoof movies including "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun."
(Reuters, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, China called for emergency talks on resolving a crisis on the Korean peninsula, and Seoul and Tokyo said they would study the proposal, as the US and South Korean militaries started a massive drill.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Egypt held elections for a new, 508-seat parliament. The election was marred by scattered violence, reports of vote buying and the ejection of many independent monitors from polling stations.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, The EU's finance ministers agreed in an emergency meeting in Brussels to give Ireland a euro67.5 billion bailout to help it survive its massive banking crisis, and sketched out new rules for future emergencies to restore faith in the euro currency.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Guatemala police found the body of Mercedes Vasquez (27), a professional football player, chopped up and left in five plastic bags in a rural area. A message said the player was killed for "messing with other women." He had been kidnapped a day earlier.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Guatemala a livestock truck packed with workers on their way to a coffee plantation veered off a winding road and crashed, killing 19 of the passengers and injuring 44. Authorities smelled alcohol on the breath of the truck driver after the crash.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, Haiti held elections. 96 contenders competed for 11 Senate seats and more than 800 sought to fill the 99-seat lower house. Within hours, ballot boxes were ripped to pieces, protesters were on the streets and nearly every presidential hopeful was united against the government. 12 of the 19 presidential candidates appeared together at a news conference to accuse Pres. Rene Preval of stealing the election and installing his chosen candidate, Jude Celestin. Haitian radio reported one man was shot to death at a polling place in rural Artibonite. Electoral officials said another was killed in southern Haiti. On Dec 7 officials announced that government protege Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat would advance to a runoff in presidential elections.
(AP, 11/28/10)(AP, 11/29/10)(SFC, 11/29/10, p.A3)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Nov 28, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad and Turkmen Pres. Berdymukhamedov inaugurated the last section of the Sarakhs-Tehran pipeline to export Turkmen gas to northeast Iran.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Iraq US troops, who thought they were under attack, killed an Iraqi airport employee as he drove near a military convoy on his way to work. In the village of al-Meshahda gunmen wearing Iraqi security forces uniforms invaded the home of Sunni Sheik Abdul Kerim Talab Mutlak al-Halbussi, a leader of the local Sahwa, in a pre-dawn raid and shot him and his son (15). In Baghdad a roadside bomb in a western neighborhood killed a passer-by and wounded 3 during rush hour at the start of the local work week.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Israel's Cabinet voted to erect a massive detention facility to hold thousands of Africans who have slipped illegally through the porous southern border with Egypt, heating up a debate over how to handle their mounting numbers.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Ivory Coast held its runoff presidential election set to reunite the country eight years after a civil war divided it in two. 5 months of violence followed leaving at least 3,000 dead.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 4/13/13, p.51)
2010 Nov 28, In Japan the governor of Okinawa island was reelected and immediately called for the removal of a controversial US military base which has strained ties between Tokyo and Washington.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Kenya’s PM Raila Odinga said homosexuals who are found in the midst of sex acts will be arrested. Odinga's spokesman said in a statement later that night that the prime minister was quoted out of context.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, African foreign ministers, at a meeting on the eve of a summit on climate change in Libya, rejected the idea of a joint declaration, which was to have been signed at the conclusion of a two-day Africa-EU summit. The EU had hoped to deliver a joint statement at the gathering of 80 nations from the two continents to deliver "a strong symbol" as the Cancun conference on climate change opens in Mexico.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, Nuri al-Mismari, a top aide of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was arrested in Paris after a request from Tripoli, which said he was suspected of embezzlement. France gave Libya 30 days to submit evidence backing its accusations. Supporters of al-Mismari later said he was a victim of a power struggle inside the ruling elite.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Nov 28, Voters in Moldova, Europe's poorest nation, tried to break a political deadlock that has kept it without a functioning government for more than a year. The governing pro-Europe alliance led the opposition Communists in early election results, but it was not clear if the coalition would win enough legislative seats to end the country's year-long political deadlock.
(AP, 11/28/10)(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, Hundreds of thousands of Moroccans demonstrated against a Spanish political party's criticism of their country's raid on a protest camp in Western Sahara.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In New Zealand a 4th explosion in 9 days ripped through the mine where 29 miners perished. Officials said the coal was on fire, a development that could significantly delay recovery of the bodies. Efforts to retrieve the miners were abandoned on Jan 13.
(AP, 11/28/10)(AP, 1/13/11)
2010 Nov 28, In Pakistan an American drone fired one of its missiles but missed a speeding vehicle. Its occupants quickly bailed out before a 2nd missile hit and destroyed the vehicle.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Pakistan a cargo plane carrying 8 people crashed in a residential area of Karachi setting buildings on fire killing all 8 crew and at least 3 people on the ground.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Spain's Socialist government, battered by fears of an Irish-style rescue of its troubled economy, braced for a new blow as voters went to the polls in regional elections in Catalonia. The pro-business Convergence and Union (CIU) nationalists routed the ruling Socialists. The CIU won 62 of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament.
(AFP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.65)
2010 Nov 28, Swiss voters approved a plan to automatically deport foreigners found guilty of committing serious crimes or benefit fraud. Swiss national broadcaster SF1 says 52.9% of voters backed the proposal put forward by the nationalist Swiss People's Party, or SVP. Anti-racism groups bemoaned that the SVP's posters showing white sheep kicking black sheep off a Swiss flag played on stereotypical images of foreigners as criminals.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 29, President Barack Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for federal employees, a move White House officials say is the first of many difficult decisions that must be made to reduce the nation's mounting deficit.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, David Schmauder (48), a former Denver area postal worker, was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison for stealing over 11,000 packages and then selling their contents.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Nov 29, In Virginia Jama Idle Ibrahim, a Somali citizen, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in an attack on a US Navy ship on April 10.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 29, In Wisconsin sophomore Samuel Hengel (15) took 23 of his classmates and a teacher hostage in a classroom at the Marinette High School, shooting himself as police broke in. No one else was injured. Hengel died the next day.
(Reuters, 11/30/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A13)
2010 Nov 29, Managed care consortium Kaiser Permanente of Oakland, Ca., announced $10.5 million in donations including $7.5 million over 3 years for Oakland school programs.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.C1)
2010 Nov 29, Wal-Mart said it will pay $2.3 billion for a 51% stake in Massmart, giving the world's largest retailer a substantial presence in South Africa and paving the way for further expansion across the continent.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Richard Goldman (b.1920), San Francisco philanthropist and founder of the Goldman Environmental Prize (1989), died.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 29, The dismembered body of Herbert White (49) was found by a maid in a backpack in a Los Angeles hotel room. Authorities linked the $40-a-night hotel room to Edward Garcia Jr. (36) and his wife, Melissa Hope Garcia (25). The Pennsylvania couple were arrested on Dec 9.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/27gm7lw)
2010 Nov 29, Afghanistan said its relations with the United States would not be affected by leaked cables portraying President Hamid Karzai as weak and paranoid, and his brother as a corrupt drugs baron. 6 NATO troops were shot dead by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform during a training exercise in Nangarhar province. The shooter was killed. 9 Afghan private security guards from a construction company were kidnapped in Kabul province. Coalition forces killed Haji Ibrahim, a former chief of Gereshk district, Helmand province, and arrested six members of his family.
(AFP, 11/29/10)(Reuters, 11/29/10)(AFP, 12/1/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Nov 29, The British government said it has issued an order to control the export of a sedative used to execute death-row prisoners in the US. Exporters will now be required to prove drugs will be used for legitimate medical reasons, not execution.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, British pay-TV giant BSkyB and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp. said they will launch a free-to-air Arabic language news channel under a joint venture.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In eastern China a man detonated explosives near the president of Tianjin Normal University, killing himself and possibly injuring the president in an apparent suicide bombing.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Egypt demonstrations and riots swept across the country protesting alleged fraud by the ruling party in parliamentary elections. The opposition said its candidates had been heavily defeated. Rights groups estimated turnout for the elections was only 10 to 15 percent.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, The French daily Liberation reported that Pierre Le Guennec (71), a retired French electrician, and his wife have come forward with 271 undocumented, never-before-seen works by Pablo Picasso estimated to be worth at least $79.35 million. Police on Oct. 5 raided the couple's home, questioned them and hauled off the works, which are now held by France's official agency in charge of battling the illegal traffic of cultural items.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, International election monitors declared Haiti's vital post-quake elections valid, while two leading presidential candidates rowed back on allegations the polls had been rigged.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad admitted that "several" uranium enrichment centrifuges were damaged by "software installed in electronic equipment," amid speculation Iran's nuclear activities had come under cyberattack.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Iran assailants on motorcycles attached magnetized bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists as they were driving to work in Tehran, killing Majid Shahriari and wounding Fereidoun Abbasi. Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, An Iraqi court convicted Tariq Aziz (74), Saddam Hussein's longtime foreign minister, of terrorizing Shiite Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war, sentencing him to 10 years in prison. He already faced an execution sentence from another case. The Iraqi military said its forces have thwarted an attempt by a suicide bomber to blow up a vehicle by the French embassy using intelligence gathered after a bloodbath at a Baghdad cathedral.
(AP, 11/29/10)(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, Israel gave preliminary approval for 130 new apartments in disputed east Jerusalem, the area the Palestinians want as the capital of their hoped-for state.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Indian Kashmir 3 suspected militants and a policeman were killed in a gunbattle in a busy market in Srinagar, as panicked locals ran for cover. Police said one of the slain militants was identified as Abdul Rehman, alias Naveed of Lashkar, a Pakistani national active in the area for the last four years.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In southern Kyrgyzstan at least four Islamic militants were killed in a clash with security forces.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Lithuania the skeletons of 18 of Napoleon’s soldiers were laid to rest, 200 years following the French invasion of Russia. Their remains were found last year by road builders outside Vilnius. The new graves were added to some 2,000 others found during excavations in 2002.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 29, Mexican federal police arrested Jose Alfredo Landa Torres (37), a leader of the La Familia operations in Morelia, Michoacan state. La Familia recently made an unusual offer to disband if the government proves it can protect citizens from other criminals in Michoacan. Mexican soldiers found 18 bodies buried on a ranch near the Texas border. Gunmen killed Hermila Garcia (36), a female police chief of the town of Meoqui in Chihuahua state.
(AP, 11/30/10)(Reuters, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Mexico a 2-week UN conference opened on global warming. Some 15,000 negotiators, environmental activists, businessmen and journalists convened at Cancun to overcome the disconnect between rich and poor nations on fighting global warming.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Nigerian union leaders ordered their tanker drivers to halt the supply of petrol nationwide for 7 days in protest at alleged maltreatment and killing of their members by the military. The strike was suspended the next day after a group of soldiers behind the killing of one of their colleagues were handed over to police.
(AFP, 11/30/10)(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, Pakistan's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.5% to 14%, warning for the second time in two months that rising inflation was impacting the economy.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, A Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship, Karam 1, sank after colliding with the Dutch tanker Alessandro DP, 10 miles (16 km) off Cape Emine in the Black Sea. 5 sailors were rescued and 5 were missing.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, Investors fled Spanish debt, pushing 10-year bond rates to an eight-year high, as Ireland's 85-billion-euro rescue failed to stop fears the crisis may spread.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Turkey complied with a European Court of Human Rights ruling and returned a 19th-century orphanage to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, the center of Orthodox Christianity around the world. Turkey took control of the building in 1997, many years after it was abandoned, on the grounds that it belonged to another foundation and had fallen into disuse. The Patriarchate said the government had refused to issue necessary permits for the maintenance and repair of the structure, one of the largest wooden buildings in the world.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Uganda launched a program to circumcise over a million men every year in an effort to stem AIDS infections.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 29, The United Nations released a report saying armed groups in volatile eastern Congo, including the army, have bypassed international efforts at reform and have instead formed criminal networks to exploit the nation's mineral wealth.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, The UN launched an appeal for $252 million (193 million euros) in international aid to respond to the urgent needs of some 32 million West Africans in 2011.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touched down in Astana, Kazakhstan, to attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit on a trip through Central Asia that will also see her visit Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as Bahrain.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Investors sold off government bonds from Spain, Portugal and Italy amid worries that Europe's debt crisis has not been contained by Ireland's bailout but will force more expensive rescue efforts.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, The 2010 hurricane season came to an end. 10 storms were named with 12 hurricanes, none of which touched the US coastline.
(SFC, 11/29/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 30, Brazil’s government said troops would remain in the Complexo de Alemao slum, a sanctuary for many drug traffickers, for at least 6 months to maintain order. The recent operation to pacify the slum left at least 37 people dead.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A2)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.49)
2010 Nov 30, British students held a third day of protests over plans to triple university tuition fees, with police urging them to avoid the violence that marked earlier demonstrations. Police arrested 153 people as over 1,000 students took to the streets of London.
(AFP, 11/30/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 30, Chad's army said it has entered the northwest part of neighboring Central African Republic and pushed out a group of rebels that had attempted to take the town of Birao.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Nov 30, The EU announced that Iran has agreed to discuss its nuclear program at a meeting next week in Geneva.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Egypt’s official election results were released. The ruling National Democratic Party wiped out its Islamist opponents from parliament in the first round of a disputed election. The leading opposition group dismissed the results of parliamentary elections as "invalid," but nevertheless said its candidates would participate in weekend runoffs.
(AP, 11/30/10)(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, An Israeli court convicted Elior Chen, a self-proclaimed rabbi, of severely abusing eight young children and instructing his followers to do the same. He was found guilty of hitting the children with a hammer, binding their limbs and burning body parts, among other acts. Chen was arrested in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2008 after fleeing Israel. He was extradited to Israel last year. On Feb 28, 2011, an Israeli court sentenced Chen to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 11/30/10)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 Nov 30, In Italy police vans and lines of officers in riot gear blocked access to much of Rome's historic center to keep thousands of student protesters from reaching Parliament. Similar protests snarled other cities, including Milan, Turin, Naples, Venice, Palermo and Bari. In Genoa, students protested under the slogan "they block our future, we block the cities."
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Ivory Coast opposition leaders accused Pres. Laurent Gbagbo of trying to steal the presidential election.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 30, In Kyrgyzstan Social Democrat Party leader Almazbek Atambyev said that the leaders of two other parties have agreed on posts they would take in the government ending weeks of political uncertainty. Atambyev says he is set to become prime minister.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Mexico City lawmakers approved legislation to allow women in the capital district to be surrogate mothers.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, A Mexican human rights group and Disability Rights Int’l. released a report on atrocious and abusive conditions in Mexican institutions for the mentally and physically disabled.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A3)
2010 Nov 30, In Morocco a bus carrying workers plunged off a road into a ravine during heavy rain, killing at least 20 passengers and injuring three others.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Pakistani police arrested four Taliban militants who were planning "terror attacks" in the prosperous financial hub Karachi. Three suicide jackets, rifles, pistols and explosives were recovered in the raid. A suicide bomber blew himself up close to a police van in the northwest, killing six people and wounding 17 others.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov, Ronald L. Brekke of California was arrested for helping nearly 1,000 people falsely claim millions of dollars in tax refunds. He had earned over $400,000 since February 2009. Brekke had told his victims the US Treasury would pay out tax refunds equal to their personal debt, a deception known as "1099 OID" fraud, after the form used to claim the refund. The scam started to fall apart after two co-conspirators, both Canadians, tried to cash refund checks worth more than $350,000 each at a bank in Bellingham, Wash. In 2012 Brekke was convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud.
(AP, 3/18/12)
2010 Nov, Sarah Bara was beaten to death with sticks on Groote Eylandt off the northern Australian coast. In 2011 Glenys Wurrawilya, Susie Wurrawilya, Paul Wurramara and Roderick Mamarika received sentences ranging from five years to seven-and-a-half years in jail. The four were accused of killing Ms Bara during a fire circle ceremony in which they attempted to cleanse her of the devil.
(AP, 12/23/11)(http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=189133)
2010 Nov, In China Tan Yong attacked his wife Li Yan (39) with an air gun, but she grabbed it from him and used the butt of the weapon to kill him. He had previously hurt three other wives. Yan was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2015 the Ziyang Intermediate People's Court re-sentenced her to death with a two-year reprieve, meaning the penalty is likely to be commuted to life in prison.
(AFP, 4/24/15)
2010 Nov, Italy and Montenegro agreed to build an undersea cable to let Montenegro export electricity.
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.100)
2010 Nov, A Eurobarometer survey showed that faith in the courts was the lowest in Lithuania among 27 European Union member states.
(AP, 6/11/12)
2010 Nov, Jun Young-su, a Korean-American businessman from Orange County, Ca., was arrested in North Korea in connection with illegal religious activities.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.A2)
2010 Dec 1, President Barack Obama reversed a March decision to expand offshore oil exploration to the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico, but said deepwater drilling could continue in the part of the Gulf hit by the BP disaster.
(AFP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, It was reported that the Pentagon has rolled out prototypes of a programmable "smart" grenade launcher, a shoulder-fired weapon that uses microchipped ammunition to target and kill the enemy, even when the enemy is hidden behind walls or other cover.
(AFP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Extended unemployment benefits for nearly 2 million Americans began to run out, cutting off a steady stream of income and guaranteeing a dismal holiday season for people already struggling with bills they cannot pay.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Rohnert Park, Ca., Calli Murray (2) was killed and her mother injured as a Sonoma State Univ. student ran into them while texting on her phone. In 2011 Kaitlyn Dunaway (19) pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 5 days in jail and nearly 4 months of home detention.
(SFC, 11/17/11, p.C3)
2010 Dec 1, In San Francisco Dr. Dean Edell (69), syndicated radio medical show host, announced his retirement on KGO-AM, where he began in 1979.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.C7)
2010 Dec 1, Harold Martin Smith (43), a man wanted in the Nov 16 slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen (64), killed himself in the lobby of a dreary Los Angeles hotel as police closed in to question him.
(AP, 12/2/10)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Dec 1, A Delaware jury awarded $30 million in damages to John Vai, who claimed he was sexually abused by former priest Francis DeLuca (80) in the 1960s. DeLuca was defrocked in 2008 after serving a short prison sentence for repeatedly molesting his grandnephew (18). The Wilmington diocese, facing more than 100 priest-abuse lawsuits, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/2cqrfcl)
2010 Dec 1, The Illinois Legislature voted to legalize civil unions.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 1, The Journal Nature published a research study that estimated the universe contains some 300 sextillion stars, 3 times more than previously calculated.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A16)
2010 Dec 1, In Afghanistan gunmen kidnapped 16 deminers but released nine of them hours later before taking the rest to an unknown location. A coalition service member was killed in a roadside explosion in the south. The remaining 7 deminers were freed in Pakistan on Dec 3.
(AFP, 12/1/10)(AP, 12/2/10)(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 1, Belarus announced that it will give up its stockpile of material used to make nuclear weapons by 2012. The arrangement was announced on the sidelines of an international security meeting in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Belarussian counterpart, Sergei Martynov.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Central African Republic President Francois Bozize said Jean-Bedel Bokassa (d.1996), the former self-styled "emperor" who was overthrown in 1979, is "rehabilitated in all his rights" in a decree published to coincide with the country's 50th anniversary celebrations.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Egypt a top official from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood said the group is pulling out of parliamentary elections, citing widespread fraud.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, A Guatemalan ex-congressman, Manuel Castillo, was sentenced to 203 years in prison after being found guilty of ordering the assassination of three Salvadoran representatives to the Central American Parliament and their driver in 2007. Two former police officers and four others were also sentenced to between 99 and 210 years.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 1, In India Azim Premji (b.1945), chairman of Wipro Ltd., announced a nearly $2 billion donation to fund education programs for the poor.
(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azim_Premji)
2010 Dec 1, Human Rights Watch urged Indonesia to overturn the Shariah laws in Aceh province, in effect since 2001, due to alleged widespread rights abuses.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A11)
2010 Dec 1, In Iran for the second time in a month, heavy air pollution in the smog-filled capital of Tehran, home to over 12 million people, has forced authorities to close government offices and schools and declare a two-day public holiday because of the health dangers of being outdoors.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Iran hanged Shahla Jahed (40), a former soccer player's mistress. She was convicted in 2002 of murdering her love rival in a case that captivated the Iranian public for several years.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Kazakhstan began hosting a 2-day summit of the OSCE, the first in 11 years, seeking to revamp the organisation's ability to react to security crises.
(AFP, 12/1/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.54)
2010 Dec 1, Kuwait began hosting a two-day conference to try to attract aid and investment to resource-rich but neglected east Sudan.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, In southern Nigeria a gun battle between police and armed robbers left seven people dead, including a policeman and three passersby.
(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Peru a tourist bus collided head-on with a truck loaded with cement, killing 4 travelers from Belgium and one from the Netherlands as well as both drivers in the southern Chacachaca area. 28 people were injured.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In the Philippines suspected communist guerrillas seized a passenger bus then opened fire on pursuing government forces in a running gunbattle that killed at least four people in San Francisco town, Quezon province.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Portugal suffered another blow when its borrowing costs rose sharply in a government Treasury bill auction, but officials insisted the debt-ridden country could survive without an international bailout.
(Reuters, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin warned that his country will find it necessary to build up its nuclear forces, if the United State's doesn't ratify a new arms reduction treaty.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, South African white farmer Attie Potgieter (40), his wife Wilna (36) and their 3-year-old daughter were murdered on their farm in Lindley. 6 men were later charged with the murders. Attie was slashed over 150 times.
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.48)(http://tinyurl.com/3ru3qom)
2010 Dec 1, On World AIDS Day South Africa counted the world’s largest HIV-positive population with an estimated 5.7 million people infected, over 11% of its 50 million people.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A9)
2010 Dec 1, Spain said it will sell off a third of its national lottery business, partially privatize airports and cut both a key jobless benefit and taxes for small companies in an unexpected move to soothe market fears about debt.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Spain’s Interior Ministry said police over the last 24 hours have arrested seven people in Spain and three in Thailand in an international operation against a group suspected of forging passports for an al-Qaida-linked Islamic terrorist group.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In southern Sudan northern-backed militias ambushed its army killing 10 soldiers and two civilians in the latest hike in north-south tensions ahead of a January 9 vote on southern independence.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 1, Turkey’s PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a US diplomat who reported claims in a State Department memo that he has Swiss bank accounts should be punished for making a false allegation. A classified cable, released this week by WikiLeaks and dated Dec. 30, 2004, from then-U.S. Ambassador Eric Edelman said: "We have heard from two contacts that Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks; his explanations that his wealth comes from the wedding presents guests gave his son and that a Turkish businessman is paying the educational expenses of all four Erdogan children in the U.S. purely altruistically are lame."
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, The UN said it is seeking $530 million for aid projects in Somalia next year, and it called the country's 20 years of strife a catastrophe that is "as urgent as ever."
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, The UN named 3 Rwandan rebel leaders and a Congolese military officer, suspected of recruiting child soldiers and other abuses, on its worldwide travel ban and assets freeze aimed at stemming widespread violence in Congo.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, A US government report said nearly 50,000 prison inmates claimed over $130 million in tax refunds this year without providing and wage information to the IRS.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 2, NYC Rep. Charles Rangel (80) was censured by the US House of Representatives for financial misdeeds.
(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 2, PepsiCo agreed to buy one of Russia's top drinks companies in a deal that would make the US food giant a dominant force in the Russian market and extend its reach deep into former Soviet lands. Pepsi announced that it will buy 66% Wimm-Bill-Dann for $3.8 billion and launch a tender offer for the rest of the company.
(AFP, 12/2/10)(Econ, 12/11/10, p.75)
2010 Dec 2, NASA researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon (33) reported that a strange bacterium, Halomonadaceae, found in California's Mono Lake, thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it. She said the bacterium does not merely eat arsenic, but incorporates the toxic element directly into its DNA. Her finding stirred much controversy.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(SFC, 5/28/11, p.C1)
2010 Dec 2, In Afghanistan 2 coalition service members were killed by bombs and insurgent fighting in the south and east. Afghan and coalition forces detained numerous suspected insurgents during two security operations in the south and east.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Australia's PM Julia Gillard slammed WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents as "illegal," in the country's strongest condemnation yet of the website's ongoing release of sensitive data.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Australian contractor Leighton Holdings said it had won a 22-year coal mining contract with India's state-owned NTPC power company worth 5.5 billion dollars (5.3 billion US).
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Heavy snow caused travel chaos across much of northern Europe, keeping London's Gatwick airport closed for a second day and disrupting road and rail travel in France, Germany and Switzerland. Freezing temperatures and often blinding snowfall killed 12 people, 10 in Poland and 2 in Germany. Poland had already reported 8 dead due to the cold. Some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans. Authorities declared a state of emergency in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, A CAR spokesman said 71 people, including 65 rebels, were killed last week in clashes between insurgents and government troops in northeastern Central African Republic.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Dominican Rep. authorities detained 18 military officials and two US pilots, Kevin Kuranz (31) and Christopher Smith (28), after stopping a cocaine-laden airplane from taking off. The plane was owned by Wisconsin-based Air Cargo Carriers LLC. The pilots were freed on bail on Dec 20 pending further investigation.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 2, Egypt's second biggest opposition bloc said it would refuse to take up the two seats it won in a parliamentary election it said was faked, in addition to refusing to take part in a second round.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Greece police clashed with demonstrating students outside the parliament in the latest protest against austerity measures.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Guinea's Supreme Court validated Alpha Conde's victory in a presidential race considered the country's first democratic contest, but which was tainted by the ethnic divide it exposed.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 2, Iraqi officials said security forces have arrested 39 suspected Al-Qaeda members in the mostly Sunni western province of Anbar. 2 insurgents were killed and 2 others wounded in an army raid in the northern province of Salaheddin. One of those wounded was a Moroccan fighter. Violence in Baghdad and the restive northern city of Mosul left three dead, including an 18-year-old girl, and nine wounded.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In northern Israel at least 41 people were killed in a massive forest fire. At least 37 of the dead were prison guards on board a bus, who had been trying to evacuate prisoners from a facility in the forest.
(AP, 12/2/10)(AFP, 12/3/10)(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 2, Retired Naples Cardinal Michele Giordano (80), the highest ranking church official to ever stand trial in Italy, died. The cardinal was acquitted in 2000 of charges that he supplied about $800,000 (€600,000) to finance a loan-shark ring run linked to his family. He was also accused of misappropriating another $500,000 in church funds. He had always proclaimed his innocence.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Ivory Coast military policemen killed four people at an office of the opposition presidential candidate, as the country tensely waited for the release of election results that were being blocked by the president's followers. Election commission chief Youssouf Bakayoko announced that opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara had won with 54.1% of the vote, compared to 45.9% for Pres. Gbagbo. Shortly thereafter, two decrees read on state TV announced that the country's air, land and maritime borders had been closed and that all foreign radio and TV broadcasts were banned indefinitely.
(AP, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Kuwait City a two-day conference on east Sudan ended. Donors and investors pledged 3.55 billion dollars for the development of resource-rich but neglected area.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Mexico’s army detained a 14-year-old suspected of working as a killer for a drug cartel. The alleged young assassin, nicknamed "El Ponchis," was captured at the airport in Cuernavaca with his 19-year-old sister as they were trying to catch a flight to Tijuana. The siblings' mother was arrested in her San Diego apartment on Dec 6 and charged on Dec 8 with entering the US illegally. On Dec 9 US officials said the boy, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, was born in San Diego. On Feb 9, 2011, Jimenez was charged with the homicides and other crimes, including arms possession and transporting cocaine. On July 26, 2011, Jimenez was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/9/10)(AP, 2/10/11)(AP, 7/26/11)
2010 Dec 2, Nigeria's anti-corruption police said they planned to file charges against former Vice President Dick Cheney in a $180 million bribery case involving a former unit of oil services firm Halliburton.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, ExxonMobil said management staff in Nigeria have begun an indefinite strike after dozens of local employees were sacked, but that oil production has not been affected. A military taskforce (JTF) comprising the army, navy and air force began raiding three camps which are believed to belong to a notorious gang leader in Delta state. The next day local residents said several civilians were killed and scores displaced during the raids against armed gangs in the Niger Delta. At least 9 people were reported killed and houses were found burned after the military raids. Activists and witnesses said as many as 150 people were killed around the village of Ayakoromo.
(AFP, 12/2/10)(Reuters, 12/3/10)(AFP, 12/4/10)(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 2, Qatar was selected as host of the 2022 World Cup, beating out a bid by the United States to bring soccer's showcase back to America for the first time since 1994.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup following a vote by FIFA's executive committee members.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Somalia clashes between Islamic fighters and government soldiers killed at least five people in Mogadishu. Fighting between two Islamist groups in the southern town of Burhakaba entered a second day and left 9 dead and 15 wounded.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Spanish police and media said hooded thieves have stolen a van containing some 20 pieces of art reportedly including works by Picasso, Colombian artist Fernando Botero and Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida. The art was valued at least €5 million ($6.6 million).
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Sudan a protest outside a Western Darfur university against peace mediators ended violently when police fired gunshots to disperse the crowd, leaving two civilians dead.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was moved from a jail to a nearby penitentiary to formally begin serving a 19-year sentence, after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction on wide-ranging graft charges.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, The UN appealed for $415 million (€315 million) to feed almost two million Zimbabweans facing near immediate malnutrition.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Vanuatu PM Edward Natapei was replaced by deputy premier Sato Kilman following a vote of no confidence in the nation’s Parliament.
(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 3, President Barack Obama slipped unannounced into Afghanistan, one year after widening an ever deadlier war and just days before a pivotal review about the 9-year-plus conflict. Due to weather Obama planned a secure video conference with Pres. Karzai from Bagram Air Field.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, The White House announced that Pres. Barack Obama has granted the first pardons of his presidency, to 9 people convicted of crimes including possessing drugs, counterfeiting and even mutilating coins.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, A US federal court search warrant said Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer Minkyu Martin (22) was under investigation for passing classified information to an FBI agent he thought was a foreign intelligence agent.
(http://cicentre.net/wordpress/index.php/tag/bryan-minkyu-martin/)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 3, US and South Korean representatives broke through a stalemate on issues related to the automobile industry, clearing the way for closer economic ties with fast-expanding South Korea. President Barack Obama hailed the agreement as a "landmark trade deal" that would support at least 70,000 US jobs.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, It was reported that California is the only state in the nation to provide vehicles to its rank-and-file lawmakers for unlimited use. The state faced a $6 billion deficit and lawmakers already have cut programs such as adult dental care and health care programs for children from low-income families.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, The US Air Force's secrecy-shrouded X-37B unmanned spaceplane returned to Earth after more than seven months in orbit on a classified mission.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Online payment service provider PayPal said in a company blog it has cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Wikileaks struggled to stay online as corporations and governments moved to cut its access to the Internet, a potentially crippling blow for an organization dedicated to releasing secret information via the web.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, US diplomatic cables, revealed today by WikiLeaks, portrayed Afghanistan as rife with graft to the highest levels of government, with tens of millions of dollars flowing out of the country and a cash transfer network that facilitates bribes for corrupt Afghan officials, drug traffickers and insurgents.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Argentina leaders of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world held their annual goal-setting summit amid tensions raised by the publication of US diplomatic cables that in some cases plant doubts about the unity and friendship they publicly profess.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining firm, announced a joint venture with Chinalco, to hunt for minerals in China.
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.130)
2010 Dec 3, In Vienna, Austria, the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved an IAEA-run repository for nuclear fuel, in a move meant to limit proliferation by making domestic uranium enrichment programs superfluous.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Authorities in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro declared a state of emergency and evacuated hundreds of people after heavy rainfall caused severe flooding along the Drina River, the worst in 104 years.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in a public letter addressed to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. This was made public by Brazil's foreign ministry.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Negotiators for the US and Brazil initialed a text in Rio de Janeiro for a new air transport agreement. Once formally approved, the pact will establish an Open Skies air transportation relationship between the two countries that will expand services and could bring down prices.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 3, Former British Labor MP David Chaytor (61) pleaded guilty to fraud charges, becoming the first politician to be convicted over his expenses claims.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, British forecasters issued warnings of widespread ice and hazardous conditions lasting well into the weekend as the country's cold snap tightened its grip and three more deaths were reported.
(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, A land dispute on Easter Island turned violent when riot police evicting islanders from their ancestral home were surrounded by rock-throwing protesters. About two dozen people were injured in a 7-hours-long confrontation. The official native name of Easter Island, known for its stunning gigantic stone heads known as Moais, is Rapa Nui, and that's what many natives call themselves, refusing to identify with Chile, which annexed the island in 1888.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Chinese police detained the wife of Hada, the co-founder of a Mongolian separatist movement, and raided the family bookstore just days before the activist is to be released from 15 years in prison.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, A Chinese passenger train set a new record for speed, hitting 302 miles per hour (486 km per hour) during a test run.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, A Chinese cargo ship with 24 Chinese passengers and crew members sank off the coast of the Philippines. At least 14 crewmen were rescued and 10 were missing.
(www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B30U120101204)(SFC, 12/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 3, The death toll in Haiti’s cholera epidemic reached nearly 1,900 people since erupting less than two months ago. The Health Ministry said there have been more than 80,000 cases since it was first detected in late October. The Pan-American Health Organization projected it could sicken 400,000 people within a year.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Iraq 24 people, including 22 Iranian pilgrims visiting Shiite holy sites, died when two buses collided head-on south of Baghdad. A sniper shot and killed a policeman manning a checkpoint in Baghdad. Gunmen with silencers opened fire from a speeding car on a police colonel and wounded him.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Ivory Coast new figures put up by a Gbagbo loyalist said that the incumbent president had in fact been re-elected. They put Gbagbo on top with more than 51% of the vote by chucking out some 500,000 ballots from Ouattara strongholds.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Kenya two attacks in Nairobi killed three police officers. Police asked the US FBI for help and hoped that advanced forensics would determine whether the attacks were linked and if they were carried out by terrorists.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Lebanon the militant Hezbollah group said it discovered what it said was an Israeli device on Hezbollah's private telecommunications network in the southern village of Majdel Silim. The device was apparently detonated remotely by the Israelis.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Lithuania said a South Korean bidder, Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), had pulled out of a four-nation nuclear power plant project and another was rejected. Lithuania itself has been aiming to have a stake of around one-third, but there has been disagreement with Estonia, Latvia and Poland about their relative holdings and power share-out.
(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Mexican Judge Fernando Cordova del Valle ruled that prosecutors failed to bring enough evidence against Sandra Avila Beltran, described by US and Mexican officials as a major decision-maker for the Sinaloa gang, Mexico's most powerful cartel. The "Queen of the Pacific" had been charged with organized crime, conspiracy to traffic drugs and money laundering. Mexican police arrested Jacobo Tagle Dobin (31), a suspect in the 2005 kidnapping and presumed killing of Hugo Alberto Wallace (36), a Mexican businessman, whose crusading mother led a high-profile campaign that helped crack open the case. In January, 2011, Beltran was sentenced to time already served on a weapons charge.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 2/6/11)
2010 Dec 3, The Netherlands' justice minister and five southern Dutch cities said they will implement new restrictions on marijuana cafes after a wave of drug-related gangland violence.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Pakistani police said they have arrested five suspects linked to an attack on a spy agency building in Lahore last year which killed 24 people. Police said the suspects belonged to the previously unknown Al-Toheed-wa-al-Jihad faction which falls under the umbrella Pakistani militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied land.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Peru a bank robber held 34 people hostage for more than seven hours in a nationally televised drama that ended when a police sniper crawled through a ventilation duct and shot and killed him.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, The Philippine government and communist rebels announced they will resume peace negotiations to end the 41-year-old Maoist insurgency early next year after the talks were suspended more than six years ago.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Poland the death toll from a deep freeze increased to 30 with a dozen more deaths overnight. The death toll across Europe reached at least 40.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, South Korea threatened to bomb North Korea if it tries a repeat of last week's attack, raising its rhetoric after the US warned of an "immediate threat" from Pyongyang.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, The Spanish government approved new austerity measures and a limited economic stimulus package to ease investor fears about its debt, and insisted again it was taking strong steps to right its ailing economy.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Spain a sickout by air traffic controllers created travel chaos. Spain’s military assumed control and the government threatened the controllers with jail terms in an unprecedented emergency order to get planes back in the skies and clear chaotic airports clogged with irate travelers.
(AP, 12/4/10)(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 4, President Barack Obama signed legislation giving the lame-duck Congress two more weeks to try to pass a legislation funding the government for the rest of the budget year, through September.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 4, Mill Valley, Ca., resident John Nuzzo (65) died of an apparent heart attack. He was better know to legions of fans as John Leslie, an adult film actor who appeared in over 300 movies before becoming a prolific director.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.C5)
2010 Dec 4, In southwestern China an explosion caused by illegally stored chemicals killed seven people and injured 37 at an Internet café.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, The Colombian Red Cross said the toll from weeks of heavy rains across Colombia has risen to 174 people dead and over 1.5 million homeless.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Haiti 17 people died when a group taxi slammed into a truck on a blind curve in the southern peninsula town of Aquin.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Iraq bombs killed 17 people across Baghdad, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighborhood market.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Israel said it was disappointed by Brazil's decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was sworn in for a new term even though the UN and world leaders maintain his opponent won the disputed election, which was the West African nation's first since a civil war.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northern Israel a massive fire was still consuming swathes of land, with little sign Israeli and foreign firefighters were winning the battle to contain it.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Jamaica an oil spill was discovered in Kingston Harbor. Authorities were still investigating a Nov 22 spill in the capital's harbor, the 7th-largest natural harbor in the world.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northeastern Nigeria a shootout between suspected members of a radical Muslim sect and security forces killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Russia a Dagestan Airlines passenger jet, carrying at least 155 people, made an emergency landing at a snowy Moscow airport after its engines failed. It skidded off the runway and slammed into buildings, killing two people and injuring around 40.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, It was reported that South African gangsters were stealing supplies of the antiretroviral drug Stocrin. They were mixing it with cannabis, rat poison and some other ingredients to make a lethal new drug called whoonga (wunga), used to produce a cheap high.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.60)
2010 Dec 5, Pres. Obama honored 5 individuals for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. They included Oprah Winfrey, Beatle Paul McCartney, dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones, country singer Merle Haggard, and Broadway composer Jerry Herman.
(SFC, 12/6/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 5, Don Meredith (72), one of the most recognizable figures of the early Dallas Cowboys and an original member of ABC's "Monday Night Football" broadcast team, died.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up next to a string of shop stalls inside the eastern Gardez army base, killing two NATO service members and at least two civilians. In the south another NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack while an Afghan employee of an American contractor was shot dead in the city of Lashkar Gah. A British soldier was killed during an operation in the Nad-e Ali District of Helmand province. Supporting fire from a US aircraft was suspected. He was the 346th death among British forces and civilian defense workers in Afghanistan since 2002. Four Afghan election commission employees were arrested in a sign that the political intrigue over September's fraud-tainted parliamentary election is not over.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Argentina Spanish and Portuguese-speaking nations wrapped up their annual meeting by adopting a provision threatening exclusion for any member country that doesn't abide by democratic process.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, Mike Hancock (64), a member of the British House of Commons Defense Committee, and the European Security and Defense Assembly of the Western EU, said that his Russian assistant, Katia Zatuliveter (25), is facing deportation as a suspected spy. On Nov 29, 2011, a special immigration tribunal ruled that Zatuliveter can remain in Britain because she does not pose a threat to national security.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 11/29/11)
2010 Dec 5, In southwest China at least 22 people died and one person was severely burned when a spreading grassland fire swept through a mountainous Tibetan region.
(Reuters, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, Colombian officials said a landslide following weeks of drenching rains has buried more than 50 homes in the northwest. Rescue workers soon recovered 47 bodies. As many as 80 people remained missing and feared dead.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 5, Egypt held runoff parliamentary elections. President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party won a sweeping victory after the two main opposition groups decided to boycott in protest of alleged fraud in the first round. Mubarak's party won 420 of 508 seats in parliamentary polls.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, A shark tore the arm off an elderly German tourist at an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing her almost immediately, only days after sharks badly mauled four other European tourists in the waters.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, Iran claimed it could now use domestically mined uranium to produce nuclear fuel, giving the country complete control over a process the West suspects is geared toward producing weapons.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, An Israeli fire department official said the huge forest fire in Israel's north is under control. The fire burned half of one of Israel's largest wooded areas over four days. 42 Israelis were killed in the fire.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 5, In southern Italy a speeding car plowed head-on into a group of cyclists, killing eight of them. Police said the driver had been smoking marijuana.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Mexico armed commandos attacked two drug rehabilitation centers in Ciudad Juarez, killing four people and wounding five.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, Nigeria's military acknowledged that raids in pursuit of an alleged gang leader in the main oil-producing region may have killed civilians, but insisted only militants were targeted. On Dec 15 the military said 14 people, including 8 soldiers and 6 civilians, were killed during the operation targeting a notorious gang leader.
(AFP, 12/5/10)(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 5, Russian news reported that a Proton rocket and its payload of three GLONASS-M navigation satellites has fallen into the Pacific Ocean after failing to reach orbit. They were to be part of Russia's satellite navigation system competing with the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). The mishap eventually cost space chief Anatoly Perminov his job.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 8/18/11)
2010 Dec 5, Suspected Somali pirates hijacked the M.V. Jahan Moni, a Bangladeshi ship carrying nickel ore in the Arabian Sea and appeared to headed to the lawless East African nation. The 25 Bangladeshis on the cargo ship included the wife of one crewman. The Moni was released on March 14, 2011, followed an ransom said to be $4.2 million.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 3/14/11)
2010 Dec 5, Former South African leader Thabo Mbeki sought to mediate an end to a dispute over Ivory Coast's presidential election that has threatened to trigger unrest in the divided West African nation.
(Reuters, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Uruguay Maria Esther Gatti de Islas (92), a human rights activist, died. She helped found Uruguay's organization of relatives of people who disappeared during South America's "dirty wars."
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Venezuela voters in several regions elected governors in two states and mayors in 11 municipalities, including the country's second-largest city. An opposition candidate won the mayorship of Venezuela's second-largest city of Maracaibo. Candidates from Chavez's ruling party captured 7 of the 11 mayorships and one state.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, The US, South Korea and Japan all urged China to help rein in its ally North Korea and vowed solidarity in defending Seoul from any further attacks from the North.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, The US government provided estimates showing the US population grew to somewhere between 306 million and 313 million over the past decade.
(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 6, Internet giant Google fielded a new champion on the mobile phone market battlefield, a "Nexus S" smartphone made by South Korea's Samsung. It included built-in support for Near Field Communication, a wireless standard that enables customers to make payments over an electronic reader.
(AP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, It was reported that Fiji Water, owned by billionaire Stewart Resnick, will acquire Justin Vineyards and Winery in Paso Robles, Ca.
(SFC, 12/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, In Virginia the body of Tina Smith (41) was found slain in her home near Salem. Her daughter Brittany Mae Smith (12) was missing as well was the suspected killed Jeffrey Scott Easley (32). He had been living with the Smiths since meeting Tina online last October. On Dec 9 police in California arrested Easley in San Francisco and rescued the girl.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 6, The African Union appointed Guinea's interim president Sekouba Konate to drive forward plans for an African military force which had been due to be operational by this year.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, Argentina announced that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Belgium's central bank chief, Guy Quaden, urged the rudderless country's divided politicians to speedily form a government to allay financial market fears about its future.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, British researchers said they may have found a way to reverse damage in the central nervous system caused by multiple sclerosis, in a study hailed by campaigners as a major breakthrough.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Cuba’s Supreme Court, for the second time this month, commuted the death sentence of a Salvadoran man convicted of plotting a series of Havana hotel bombings in 1997, leaving just one person left on the island's death row. Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena's sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, European nations wrestled over whether to commit more money to help stabilize the euro, as finance ministers gathered in Brussels to find ways to fight the debt crisis that has rocked the currency bloc.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, A coalition of Egyptian rights groups urged President Hosni Mubarak to nullify the results of the country's parliamentary election because of widespread vote rigging. Election monitors charged that Egypt's polls were marked by widespread fraud, as Mubarak's party prepared to take almost 100-percent control of parliament.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Haitian medical sources said fully 140 people have died of cholera in recent days in the southwest, a region that had been largely spared the epidemic. Officials raised the death toll to over 2,000 since the outbreak began in October.
(AFP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 6, A motorboat overloaded with mostly Haitian migrants slammed into a reef off the British Virgin Islands and capsized as it tried to evade authorities. At least 8 people were killed, including two infants. 25 people were rescued. Police in St. Maarten arrested three Haitians and said they will be charged with human smuggling in the case.
(AP, 12/7/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, India and France signed a multibillion agreement to build two nuclear power plants in India as French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked to drum up business for his nation during his four-day visit.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Ireland Tony Walsh (56) was convicted of raping 3 boys over a 5-year period three decades earlier. Investigators had concluded that Walsh actually raped and molested hundreds of boys and girls while serving as a Dublin priest from 1978 to 1996. Investigators also reported that the Vatican had tried to stop the Dublin church from defrocking Walsh.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 6, Israel's top policewoman, who had clung to life for four days after her patrol car was trapped in a burning Israel forest, died of her wounds as the last of the flames subsided in the worst fire in Israel's history.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, New Zealand officials attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at the Ohau Point colony, one of the country’s most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals. Oahu Point was only reoccupied for breeding in 1990, and about 600 fur seal pups were born there in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Nigeria's Niger Delta a militant faction said it had ruptured an oil pipeline in response to what it said was the killing of innocent civilians during a military offensive last week.
(Reuters, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Pakistan twin suicide bombers in police uniform killed 43 people in Ghalanai, the main town in the tribal district of Mohmand, attacking an anti-Taliban militia and pro-government elders near the Afghan border. US drone missile strikes killed 7 people in the tribal region.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, Poland's parliament got notice of its first ever African lawmaker, a teacher and Christian pastor from Nigeria who has lived in Poland for 17 years and proven himself a popular local leader. John Abraham Godson (40), a councilman in the central city of Lodz, will fill a seat in the national parliament vacated by a fellow lawmaker from the Civic Platform party.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Russia Yegor Sviridov (28) was shot dead with rubber bullets during a fight in northwest Moscow. A suspect arrested in the shooting was from Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus. Russian media later said Sviridov was a member of the Spartak Ultras, a group linked to soccer fan violence in the past. In Oct 2011 a jury at Moscow City Court convicted Aslan Cherkesov of premeditated murder. The court's Judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Five other people who took part in the brawl were sentenced to five years in jail each for hooliganism and inflicting light bodily injury.
(AP, 12/11/10)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)(AP, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar (75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Somalia 18 people were reported killed in weekend fighting. Mogadishu ambulance service chief Ali Muse said that 66 civilians were also wounded in the fighting. In central Somalia clashes between rival Majerteen and the Sa'ad clans killed at least 20 people.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, A South African newspaper, The New Age, debuted with denials it is an agent of the governing African National Congress. The owners, members of the Gupta family, which has mining, computer and other businesses in South Africa and India, was seen as close to President Jacob Zuma.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Sudan aircraft from the northern Sudanese military began 3 days of bombings in western Bahr el Ghazal state. No casualties were reported. They follow multiple bombing runs by the north in November in a disputed region on the border between neighboring northern Bahr el Ghazal state and southern Darfur state. A committee with representatives from the UN mission in Sudan and the northern and southern Sudanese militaries later found that the bombings violated the 2005 agreement that ended more than 20 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Switzerland six world powers held their first meeting in 14 months with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, sounding out Tehran's intentions after it claimed to have taken a new step in making fissile material.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down a life sentence to Ildephonse Hategekimana, a lieutenant from the former Rwandan army, after finding him guilty of genocide, murder and rape in the 1994 massacre of Tutsis.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Venezuelan soldiers took charge at several privately owned hotels to help accommodate some of the thousands of people who have been forced from their homes by flooding and mudslides following weeks of torrential rains.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Pres. Obama reached a deal with GOP leaders to extend all tax cuts in return for an extension of unemployment benefits.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 7, The New York Times reported that US officials believe the militant group Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, has acquired an arsenal of some 50,000 rockets and missiles, raising fears of an enlarged conflict with Israel. Iran and Syria were named as the sources.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, The three-yearly OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report said the United States has fallen from top of the class to average in world education rankings and warned of US economic losses from the trend. America came 26th in a ranking of high school math scores.
(AFP, 12/8/10)(Econ, 12/11/10, p.82)
2010 Dec 7, In California 52 Filipino hospital workers sued their employer, Delano Regional Medical Center, alleging they were the sole ethnic group targeted by a rule requiring them to speak only English.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, Data released on education in California indicated that in 2009 some 37% of African American students in public schools had dropped out. The Hispanic dropout rate was 27%. The general dropout rate in SF was 9%, in Oakland it was 40%.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 7, In Connecticut the maker of Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco agreed to pay $5 million to the family of a man who died of mouth cancer in what is believed to be the first wrongful-death settlement won from a chewing tobacco company.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange was remanded in custody until December 14 by a London court after he said he would fight extradition to Sweden where he faces rape allegations.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Elizabeth Edwards (b.1949), separated wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, died in North Carolina of cancer.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 7, Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, a senior US Marine general in Afghanistan, declared the battle in the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah "essentially over."
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, John James Audubon's "Birds of America," a rare blend of art, natural history and craftsmanship, sold for more than $10.27 million at a London auction, making it the world's most expensive book.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, China hit back at the United States and its Asian allies for their refusal to talk to North Korea, saying dialogue was the only way to calm escalating tension on the divided Korean peninsula.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In central China an explosion at a coal mine killed 26 miners who were working despite an order to halt production, while a mine tunnel collapse elsewhere left four dead in the latest accidents to strike the country's mining industry.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, Hendrik Coetzee (35), an acclaimed South African outdoorsman, was dragged from his craft by a crocodile on the Lukuga River in Congo. 2 Americans watched, horrified, and paddled to safety. Coetzee was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo. In 2004 he had kayaked down the Nile, four months and 4,200 miles, from source to sea.
(AP, 12/9/10)(Econ, 1/1/11, p.78)
2010 Dec 7, The EU conceded that its previous bank stress tests were not stringent enough as it confirmed that it will start a new round in February, while the continent's strongest economies bet they can sort out the region's debt crisis without the need to top up bailout funds.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, An expert report submitted to the French foreign ministry said respected French epidemiologist Professor Renaud Piarroux conducted a study in Haiti last month and concluded the epidemic began with an imported strain of the disease that could be traced back to the Nepalese base.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Georgia said it has arrested six people, all of them Georgian citizens, suspected of being agents for Russia and accused them of staging a series of explosions, including one outside the US Embassy in the capital.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Leaders of six US-allied Gulf Arab nations, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), said they were monitoring with "utmost concern" developments in Iran's disputed nuclear program and issued a thinly veiled warning to their Persian neighbor not to meddle in their internal affairs. The 2-day gathering of leaders from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman followed the publication of leaked US diplomatic memos that revealed deeper concern among Gulf Arab leaders over Tehran's nuclear program than had previously been known.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Haiti furious supporters of an apparently eliminated candidate set fires and manned barricades in the streets of Port-au-Prince after officials announced that government protege Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat would advance to a runoff in presidential elections.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, In India a bomb hidden in a metal canister exploded in Varanasi as thousands gathered for a Hindu ceremony, killing a toddler and triggering a stampede that left many others wounded.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Jordanian computer engineer Mohammed Rateb Qteishat (33) was killed by Iraqi forces in Mosul. He was an al-Qaida operative fighting American forces in Iraq. In 2006, he was sentenced to death in absentia in his native Jordan for plotting attacks on Americans in Jordan and attempting to blow up hotels in Amman.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 7, Israel expressed disappointment with Argentina's recognition of a Palestinian state in territories Israel occupied in 1967, saying they undercut American-led efforts to create such a state through negotiations with Israel.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Israel 3 dozen top rabbis threw their support behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews, an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In the Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, the man who the UN says lost the country’s presidential election, went ahead with naming his new cabinet anyway. He tapped Charles Ble Goude as minister of youth, professional education and employment. Goude was sanctioned in 2006 by both the US and UN. He has been accused of making repeated public statements advocating violence against foreigners and UN installations and personnel.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Mexico's Defense Department said soldiers killed six assailants in a clash in the northern state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas. In Cancun police said they found the bodies of three men who had been shot to death in neighborhoods far from where UN Climate Change conference was taking place. The body of a fourth man was found in another Cancun neighborhood.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In the Netherlands a teacher (27) was arrested on suspicion of molesting dozens of very young children. The man's computers containing child pornography were seized and he later confessed to dozens of sex crimes allegedly committed over the past year and a half.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 7, Nigeria's anti-corruption agency charged former US Vice President Dick Cheney over a bribery scheme involving oil services firm Halliburton Co. during the time he served as its top executive. A Nigerian court charged Charles Okah, the brother of an alleged militant, and three other suspects with treason and terrorism over the October 1 Independence Day twin car bombings that killed 12 people.
(AP, 12/7/10)(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Norway Nobel officials said China and 18 other countries have declined to attend this year's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, as China unleashed a new barrage deriding the decision.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Pakistan a suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying the top official in the restive Baluchistan province, wounding 9 people but leaving the chief minister unscathed.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Saudi Arabia the Omma Conference magazine said in a statement posted on its website that police arrested its editor Mohammed Al-Abdul Karim at his home and took him to Hayer prison outside the capital Riyadh. In an article last week, Al-Abdul Karim predicted that Abdullah's death might cause the oil-rich kingdom to fall apart.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, South Korea's Pres. Lee Myung-bak promised to transform five islands that lie along the tense maritime border with North Korea into "military fortresses" impervious to the kind of deadly attack the rival neighbor launched last month.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Switzerland 6 world powers wrapped up two days of "substantive" talks with Iran on its contentious nuclear program, with the two sides agreeing to meet again in Istanbul next month.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 8, Pres. Obama signed legislation to pay American Indians and black farmers some $4.6 billion for government mistreatment over many decades. The legislation settled 4 long-standing Native American water rights in Arizona, New Mexico and Montana.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Dec 8, The Middle East peace process lay in tatters after Washington admitted defeat in its efforts to secure an Israeli freeze on settlement building, the Palestinians' condition for resuming talks.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the self-determination referendum on Sudan's oil-rich Abyei region will not take place as planned on January 9.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, The US Senate voted to convict Louisiana district court Judge Thomas Porteous on charges of corruption and perjury. The Senate acted for the 8th time in American history to remove a federal judge through the impeachment process.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A20)
2010 Dec 8, The US Business Roundtable published “Roadmap for Growth," a 26-page manifesto on what the nation’s biggest multinational companies want from government before they start hiring again.
(http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/12/08/top-ceos-offer-roadmap-for-growth/)
2010 Dec 8, In Maryland federal authorities arrested Antonio Martinez (21) for attempting to blow up a military recruitment center in Catonsville, with what he thought was a vehicle bomb. On April 6, 2012, Martinez renounced terrorism, but was still sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A22)(SFC, 4/7/12, p.A4)
2010 Dec 8, The Giving Pledge campaign, launched by Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett in June, announced 17 new pledges bringing the total to 57 billionaires pledging to give away at least half their fortunes.
(Reuters, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 8, Cyber attacks apparently organized by Internet activists sympathetic to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shut down the website of credit card company Mastercard and two Swedish sites. WikiLeaks published a new set of cables, and in a defiant message posted online the secret-spilling website promised that the leaks would keep on flowing despite the arrest and jailing of its founder on sex allegations.
(Reuters, 12/8/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, US scientists published a study of stem cell technology used to create mice from two fathers, an advance that they say could help preserve endangered species and even help same-sex couples have their own genetic children one day.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Space Explorations Technologies, aka SpaceX, successfully launched its Falcon 9 test rocket from Cape Canaveral. Its Dragon capsule was retrieved in the Pacific ocean 3 hours later after it had circled the globe 2 times.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Dec 8, In Afghanistan a Taliban leader and three of his family members were killed in a coalition airstrike on their car, which was traveling in Nad Ali district.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 8, Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said that the US government is responsible for the leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic memos and cautioned against blaming the website that published the secret cables and its founder.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In eastern Bangladesh a speeding train slammed into another moving slowly through a station, killing as many as 19 people and injuring scores more.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Brazilian mining giant Vale made its Hong Kong trading debut, the first South American firm to list in the city, as the company ramps up its exposure to resource-hungry China.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Chile a fire set off by rioting inmates in a severely overcrowded prison killed at least 81 prisoners and seriously injured at least 14 others at the San Miguel prison south of Santiago. In March, 2011, a Chilean court ordered three prison guards held on negligent homicide charges for the deaths of 66 of the 81 inmates. 5 senior officers were charged with manslaughter and ordered to remain in the country.
(AP, 12/8/10)(AFP, 3/28/11)
2010 Dec 8, The EU competition watchdog fined 5 Taiwanese and South Korean electronics companies euro649 million ($857 million) for fixing prices on LCD panels between 2001 and 2006. Samsung Electronics Co., also participated in the price fixing but escaped a fine because it blew the whistle on the cartel.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, A French court put 14 former Chilean officials on trial in absentia over the 1973-1975 disappearance of four French citizens under the regime of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In France heavy snowfall forced the closure of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, German prosecutors filed war crimes charges against two Rwandan men suspected of issuing orders to a mostly ethnic Hutu militia involved in killings of Congolese civilians. Ignace Murwanashyaka (47) and Straton Musoni (49) were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership in a foreign terrorist group. Murwanashyaka allegedly served as FDLR's president from 2001 and Musoni served as vice president from 2004, and the pair controlled the militia group from Germany.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Haiti Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly urged his backers to nonviolently protest results from Nov 28 presidential elections that demonstrators say were rigged. His campaign manager later said they would formally challenge the tallies released the previous evening to Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council. Thousands of protesters rampaged in Haitian towns, torching buildings in armed clashes that left four dead after election results triggered bitter accusations of vote-rigging.
(AP, 12/9/10)(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Iraq a car bomb outside a restaurant killed 3 people in Taji. Scattered bombings and gunfire left a total of 5 people dead and 24 wounded. A roadside bomb in Baghdad wounded 7 Iranian pilgrims on a bus traveling to a Shiite religious festival. In southern Iraq a US soldier was killed during operations.
(AP, 12/8/10)(AP, 12/9/10)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 8, Israel decided to allow increased exports from the Gaza Strip, further easing its blockade of the territory run by the militant Palestinian Hamas group.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, A top Israeli official said his government is holding talks with Turkey aimed at mending relations, seven months after a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla sent ties into a chill.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, The top UN envoy in Ivory Coast said that opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara had won the disputed presidential election by an "irrefutable margin" as the international community stepped up pressure on the incumbent to concede defeat.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Japan’s space agency said its “Akatsuki" space probe has hurtled past Venus after failing to enter the planet's orbit as planned, but it voiced hope for a successful rendezvous six years from now.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Mexican federal police investigating a tip about the presence of armed men in Apatzingan in Michoacan state came under fire from La Familia gunmen. Gunmen fired on civilian cars and used the sometimes-burning vehicles as barricades in Apatzingan. An 8-month-old baby, riding in a taxi with his mother, was killed as was the teenage daughter of a former city mayor, and a local police officer.
(AP, 12/10/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 8, In Mexico a federal police helicopter that had transported two inmates to a Mexican prison crashed in Veracruz state, killing four people and injuring two others.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, A Mozambican judge sentenced two former government officials to 12 years in prison for stealing 3.6 million meticais ($103,000) from the government. The court ordered the government data center's former director Orlando Come and former head of administration and finance Manuel Vilanculos to repay the stolen money.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Pakistan a teenage suicide bomber killed 15 people at a busy market in Kohat, in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This was the third attack in three days blamed on Islamist extremists bitterly opposed to the US-allied government. The Taliban kidnapped 7 teachers and the watchman of a government school travelling near Orakzai. 5 teachers were recovered in a shootout that left one policeman dead.
(AFP, 12/8/10)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 8, In Panama historic flooding forced the closure of the Panama Canal for the first time in 21 years.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 8, In the Philippines Pres. Benigno Aquino III lashed out at a Supreme Court decision rejecting an investigative body he created to look into alleged corruption during his predecessor's administration, vowing his anti-graft battle would not be deterred by the setback.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Russia drug control agencies from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and Tajikistan agreed to step up cooperation to stop the flow of drugs through Afghan borders.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Serbia's decision to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo triggered criticism from human rights activists and the EU, which expressed shock that the candidate for EU entry would meet China's demands. Serbia feared its attendance could anger China, which has supported Belgrade in opposing the 2008 independence declaration of its former province of Kosovo.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, South African President Jacob Zuma announced a 210 million rand ($30 million) credit package for Cuba and forgave Cuba's debt to South Africa during a state visit to the island nation, a decision his opponents criticized.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 9, Bank of America agreed to pay $137 million to settle federal and California state bid-rigging and kickback charges related to municipal bond contracts dating back to 1998.
(SFC, 12/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 9, In West Virginia an explosion at AL Solutions Inc., a small chemical plant in New Cumberland, killed 2 workers and injured 2 people.
(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A17)
2010 Dec 9, James Moody (b.1925), jazz musician, died in San Diego. His work included over 50 solo albums.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.C10)
2010 Dec 9, In southern Afghanistan insurgents killed a NATO service member.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Heavy British police presence held off angry student protesters marching to London's Parliament Square as lawmakers debated a controversial plan to triple university tuition fees in England. Protesters attacked a Rolls Royce carrying Prince Charles and wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, as they drove through London’s West End. The couple were not hurt.
(AP, 12/9/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 9, England’s Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree, venerated for centuries by Christians, was chopped down overnight after a sprig from the tree was cut off in a ceremony so it could be given to Queen Elizabeth II to decorate her Christmas table. Religious tradition holds that the original tree was planted by St. Joseph of Arimathea, the wealthy merchant who volunteered his tomb to Jesus, after he first made landfall in England some 2,000 years ago.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 9, A report in the medical journal Lancet criticized Canada for exporting chrysotile, or white asbestos, while it virtually bans the product at home, who fibers can lead to respiratory diseases and cancers.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 9, In China the inaugural Confucius Peace Prize was awarded to former Taiwan vice-president Lien Chan at a chaotic press conference held by a handful of Chinese university professors. Lien's office in Taiwan declined comment, saying they had no knowledge of the award. Chinese poet Qiao Damo, one of the "candidates", told reporters the lack of any word from Lien represented "silent acceptance" of the prize, prompting laughter from assembled journalists.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Former Croatian PM Ivo Sanader, under investigation in a corruption case, left the country crossing into Slovenia, hours before parliament voted on lifting his immunity from prosecution so that he could be detained.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Human Rights Watch said India's security forces routinely gun down cattle smugglers and other civilians crossing the border with Bangladesh despite scant evidence of any crime.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Iran Ali Shakouri-rad, one of the prisoners of the post-election events, was jailed for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies." He was released on Jan 24, 2011. He was previously freed on bail on October 28, two weeks after being arrested for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi called "security reasons."
(AFP, 1/24/11)
2010 Dec 9, In Iraq attacks on a police patrol in northern Baghdad and a checkpoint north of the city killed two policemen.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, The Israeli air force bombed four sites in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, causing no casualties. The air raids came after Palestinian militants fired several mortars into southern Israel from Gaza the previous day.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Ivory Coast pressure increased on Laurent Gbagbo as continental heavyweights South Africa and Kenya joined UN calls for him to abandon his bid to cling to power after disputed polls. The African Union suspended Ivory Coast until Gbagbo hands over power to Alassane Ouattara, whom the AU and UN consider the winner of last month's election.
(AFP, 12/9/10)(Reuters, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Jamaican police discovered a body buried in a shallow grave at a construction site outside the capital. The remains were identified as those of Esmond Morris (32), who had not been seen since Dec 6. He had a gunshot wound in the back of the head. 2 more bodies were found the next day and police said they expected to find more.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Japan the 3rd International Pole Dancing Championships concluded. The competition was held in a large arena near the Tokyo Dome, the Japanese capital's main sports stadium, with competitors from countries ranging from Malaysia to Moldova. Japan's Mai Sato defended her title as the women's champion, and Duncan West of Australia won in men's. This year also had a disabled division, which was won by hearing-impaired Eri Kamimoto of Japan.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 9, Jordan appointed a woman, Ihsan Barakat (46), as chief district attorney of the country's capital, marking the first time a woman has held a top prosecutor's post in the pro-American Arab kingdom.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Mexico federal police hunted for top leaders of the La Familia drug cartel in Michoacan state, unleashing narco-blockades and shootouts that left 2 more people dead. La Familia cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez (40), known as "The Craziest One," was killed in a clash between police and cartel gunmen. Police recovered the bodies of three other suspected La Familia members and detained three others. In northern Chihuahua state six people were gunned down by the side of a highway leading south of the capital. In the resort city of Acapulco, a traffic cop was found shot to death on a road, his hands bound.
(AP, 12/10/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A12)(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 9, Netherlands arrested a young hacker who confessed to participating in attacks by WikiLeaks sympathizers on websites, including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Nigeria an election officials said thieves had infiltrated Murtala Muhammed International Airport and stole just-arrived equipment needed to register voters ahead of next year's hotly contested presidential election. Police arrested four men while four others had fled, after a 30-minute shootout with members of Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect, who ambushed security officers at a checkpoint in Maiduguri.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Communist allies North Korea and China proclaimed their unity as the North's leader Kim Jong-Il held his first meeting with a senior Chinese envoy since the region's worst crisis in years erupted.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, South Africa unveiled its national space agency, aiming to become a leader in earth observation technology across the continent in 10 years.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, The Provea human rights group said 13,985 people were murdered in Venezuela last year and the figure could be significantly higher, alluding to the rampant crime that has become a central concern of Venezuelans.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 10, US Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said that the framework pact — known as the 123 agreement because its requirements are set in section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act — would help boost nonproliferation efforts and create new business opportunities. The deal did not require congressional approval, but Congress could have rejected it within 90 days of continuous session — a period that elapsed Dec 9 without a vote of disapproval.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the US, a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, The US Navy completed its latest test of an electromagnetic rail gun at the naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va. The gun generated a record 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel and sent a 20-pound slug of aluminum at 7 times the speed of sound. The electric gun was able to send a projectile over 100 miles.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A17)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported that the United States is concerned that Mozambique could become a narco-state because of close ties between drug smugglers and the nation's government, according to US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In NYC Nicholas Brooks (24), the son of an Oscar-winning songwriter, was arrested on charges of attempted murder and strangulation in the death of fashion designer Sylvie Cachay (33), who was discovered around 3 a.m. the previous day at the Soho House hotel. Brooks' Academy Award-winning father, Joseph Brooks (72), is awaiting trial in an unrelated case. He was accused of raping 11 women he lured to his apartment with the promise of a starring role in a movie. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges and is free on bail.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Afghanistan, in recognition of International Human Rights Day, several hundred demonstrators, some holding photographs of victims of three decades of war, shouted for justice and peace in Kabul, just hours before a suicide car bomber blew himself up in Nangarhar province, killing two civilians. In the south a NATO service member was killed by a roadside bomb. 15 civilians were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/10/10)(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Algerian troops killed 10 Islamist rebels in the eastern Kabylie region known as a stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Australia's attorney general declared 45 communities along the country's east coast disaster areas, following weeks of drenching rains that have submerged homes, destroyed crops and killed four people.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Bolivia enacted a law lowering the country’s retirement age to 58. The current retirement age was 65 for men and 60 for women.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 10, The Brazilian government said gay couples in stable relationships are entitled the same social security pension benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 10, China's central bank raised the amount of money the country's lenders must keep on reserve for the third time in a month, following a spate of robust data that strengthened the case for policy tightening.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Police in Croatia issued an international arrest warrant overnight for former PM Ivo Sanader, who left the country just as it became clear that prosecutors wanted him investigated and detained on corruption charges. Sanader was arrested on an international warrant in Austria.
(AP, 12/10/10)(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, EU banking supervisors agreed on finalized mandatory guidelines for awarding bank bonuses, saying key requirements can be "neutralized" for less risky firms and staff.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, A German battalion in a French-German military brigade officially took up arms at a ceremony in eastern France attended by the two countries' defense ministers. This was the first time since World War II that German combat troops were stationed in France, part of a conscious effort to show the two EU powers have forever buried former hatreds.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Guinea lifted a state of emergency in a sign of rising stability since elections marred by street violence. The African Union confirmed that it has lifted sanctions against Guinea following the country's presidential election.
(AP, 12/10/10)(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Indonesian police arrested Abu Tholut (42), one of the country's most-wanted Muslim militants, accusing him of plotting high-profile assassinations and bloody attacks on foreigners at luxury hotels in the capital. Tholut identified four more militants. Anwar Effendi, Wardi, Sukirno, and Sri Puji Mulyo Siswanto were suspected of concealing information about terrorism and of hiding Tholut. All 4 were arrested by the next day.
(AP, 12/10/10)(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 10, Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, confessed to helping a man kill her husband and re-enacted the alleged crime in an interview broadcast by Iranian state television, an apparent effort by the government to deflect international criticism over the case.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Jordan fans of rival soccer teams clashed after a match, injuring 250 people in violence that pointed to the deep divisions between the nation's native Bedouin clans and its Palestinians.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir arrested a college lecturer on charges he gave his students an English exam filled with questions attacking India's crackdown on demonstrations in the disputed region. The exam written by Noor Mohammed Bhat and administered to students across the region on Dec 8 included questions such as, "Are the stone pelters real heroes? Discuss."
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Mexico a gunbattle between rival gangs left 11 people dead during a Virgin of Guadalupe celebration in the western town of Tecalitlan.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 10, Mexico scrambled to break an impasse between rich and poor nations over future cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as 190-nation climate talks went down to the wire.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, A Moldova court ordered a recount in the inconclusive national election after the Communist Party complained of "massive irregularities" in the Nov 28 vote.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Dignitaries in Norway celebrated this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, with an empty chair. Xiaobo, derided by Beijing as a political farce, dedicated it from his prison cell to the "lost souls" of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
(AP, 12/10/10)(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Pakistan a suicide attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a hospital for Shiite Muslims that was under construction in the northwest, killing at least 10 people. A missile fired from a US drone destroyed a vehicle in the Mir Ali town of North Waziristan, killing at least four suspected militants.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Leading Pakistani newspapers acknowledged they were hoaxed after publishing reports based on fake WikiLeaks cables that contain crude anti-Indian propaganda.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli said he will declare a national state of emergency allowing the government to mobilize more resources for affected areas. Heavy rains and flooding in Panama have killed 10 people and forced more than 4,700 from their homes.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against 43 health workers arrested by the army as suspected communist rebels 10 months ago, saying their rights were violated.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, A Serbian court acquitted 10 men charged with helping Ratko Mladic, Europe's most wanted fugitive, evade arrest on genocide charges before a UN war crimes court.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Serbia reversed its boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo after facing sharp criticism from the EU and human rights activists at home.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Panama just east of the Tanzania-Mozambique border, making it one of the most southerly attacks Somali pirates have pulled off. All 23 crew members were from Myanmar.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Sweden a court convicted two men linked to the al Shabaab militant group for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and sentenced them to four years jail.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 10, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will ask his congressional allies to again grant him special powers to enact laws by decree.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 11, Nissan North American delivered its first all-electric Leaf to Olivier Chalouhi (31) of Redwood City at a dealership in Petaluma, Ca. His cost was $33,500, but rebates were expected to drop the price to about $20,000.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.C2)
2010 Dec 11, Mark Madoff (46), one of Bernard Madoff's sons, was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, In Afghanistan a car bomb blast near the police headquarters in Kandahar City wounded four Afghan police and two civilians. The suicide attacker in Kunduz province drove a police vehicle and targeted an Afghan National Army convoy, wounding five soldiers and four civilians. An air strike by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) killed seven road construction company employees overnight. ISAF said Afghan and foreign troops were approached and then fired on by armed men while hunting an insurgent and shot back, killing seven. The disputed incident sent hundreds pouring onto the streets of Gardez city in a protest that turned violent.
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, Egypt’s minister of electricity said his country plans to build its first nuclear power plant and have it operational by 2019.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 11, In Cancun, Mexico, almost 200 countries agreed to modest steps to combat climate change, including a Green Climate Fund to help poor nations, but they put off tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions until next year.
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, In northwest Pakistan gunmen on motorcycles shot dead two police officers in Hayatabad, while security forces killed four militants in fighting elsewhere in the region.
(AP, 12/11/10)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 11, Somali pirates captured the MV Renuar, a Panama-flagged, Liberian-owned cargo vessel, about 1,000 miles (1,610 km) east of Somalia.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 11, The Sudanese army attacked a village in South Darfur for a second consecutive day in violence that has left one person dead and driven at least 250 civilians from their homes.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, South Sudan’s ruling party formally confirmed for the first time that it will support secession in a January independence referendum that could lead to the break-up of Africa's largest nation.
(AFP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, In Sweden two blasts rocked central Stockholm, killing the suspected bomber, later identified as Taymour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly (b.1981). Two people were wounded. Police had good leads into what they said were "terror crimes." On March 8, 2011, police in Scotland arrested Ezedden Khalid Ahmed Al Khaledi (30) on suspicion of aiding the suicide bomber who had targeted Christmas shoppers in Stockholm.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)(Reuters, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A3)(AP, 3/8/11)(AP, 3/14/11)
2010 Dec 11, Turkmenistan signed broad agreements with Afghanistan, India and Pakistan at a summit in its capital Ashgabat on the 1,700-km (1,050-mile) TAPI pipeline. Afghanistan the next day said it will deploy up to 7,000 troops to secure the major transnational gas pipeline, slated to run through some of the most dangerous parts of the war-torn country.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, The Washington Post reported that 8 out of the 12 top US gun dealers whose products fuel Mexico's drug violence are located in the state of Texas. 3 others were in Arizona, and one was in California. There are 3,800 gun retailers in Texas, 300 in Houston alone.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, A storm that spanned parts of eight states continued to dump heavy snow in the upper Midwest, collapsing the Metrodome in Minneapolis and forcing numerous road closures.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Long Beach, Ca., police officers shot Doug Zerby (35) over a dozen times as he manipulated a pistol grip water nozzle. The shooting spurred street protests. Prosecutors in 2011 said police acted lawfully in killing Zerby, who was drunk at the time. His family filed a federal civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
(SFC, 11/4/11, p.C6)
2010 Dec 12, In southern Afghanistan an insurgent attack killed at least six foreign troops and two Afghan soldiers in Kandahar's Zhari district. Several suspects were arrested for the suicide attack that killed six US troops when an explosives-packed minibus blew up at the entrance of a joint NATO-Afghan base.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Australia unveiled tough changes to finance laws, banning unpopular mortgage fees and cracking down on price collusion between major banks in a bid to boost competition in the sector.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, Bangladesh's Dhaka Stock Exchange plunged 3.32%, its biggest one-day fall since the index was introduced in 2001. Garment workers demanding the implementation of a new minimum wage clashed with police at an industrial zone in the southeast, leaving up to three people dead and 100 hurt.
(AFP, 12/12/10)(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, Hundreds of Egyptian activists and members of opposition groups protested against what they said were violations during a parliamentary vote that handed the ruling party a huge victory last month.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Iran Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent reformist journalist and head of the Journalists' Association of Iran, said he has been sentenced to 16 months in jail on charges of insulting Pres. Ahmadinejad and undermining the Islamic regime. Shamsolvaezin went on trial in October and has 20 days to appeal. Sajjad Qaderzadeh, the son of a woman whose death sentence by stoning caused world outrage, was released after paying a $40,000 bail.
(AFP, 12/12/10)(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his car outside government offices in Ramadi, killing at least 13 people, including women and elderly people waiting to collect welfare checks. Six police officers were among the dead. Near Baquba a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vest near an Ashura procession, killing three people.
(AP, 12/12/10)(AFP, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/13/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 12, Kosovars voted in the first general poll since the country's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, a critical election already marred by ethnic tension that many fear will split the world's newest country.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, Heavy rain and fierce winds pummeled countries across the Middle East, killing a woman in Lebanon, sinking a ship off Israel's coast and prompting Egypt to close its largest Mediterranean port. At least 3 people killed in Egypt as gale-force winds and torrential rain pounded the coastline.
(AP, 12/12/10)(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, A foundation run by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam, released a mixed annual report on human rights in Libya, noting progress on some issues and failures in others.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Mexican police arrested Enrique Lopez of the notorious Sinaloa drug trafficking operation based in the northern Mexico town of Chihuahua. His brother, Ever Horacio Lopez, was shot and killed in the standoff with police. The men were lieutenants of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, said to be Mexico's most wanted man, who is believed to have escaped.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Nigeria's military said it had taken control of eight camps belonging to Ateke Tom, a militant leader in southern Rivers State. In the southeast Obioma Nwankwo, a gang leader accused of kidnapping children from a school bus, was killed. An unknown number of alleged gang members also died. 6 others were arrested. The operation freed a family of five.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Lawyers for a Sudanese campaign group launched a legal bid to halt Sudan's referendum on southern independence, accusing organizers of mishandling the process, a move which could derail the January 9 vote.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 13, President Barack Obama signed into law the $4.5 billion Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, part of an administration-wide effort to combat childhood obesity. Thousands more children would get into school-based meal programs and those lunches and dinners would become more nutritious.
(AP, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 13, The US government welcomed a World Trade Organization ruling that upheld President Barack Obama's controversial decision last year to slap duties on Chinese-made tires to protect US workers from a market-disrupting surge in imports.
(Reuters, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, A US federal judge in Virginia ruled that Congress could not order individuals to buy health insurance.
(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 13, A classified US document, dated Feb 26, 2010, released by WikiLeaks said Venezuela’s government sold China oil for as little as $5 a barrel and was upset that China apparently profited by selling the fuel to other countries. Another embassy report on Sept. 23, 2009, said Venezuela has been manipulating its oil price index. Other cables indicated significant problems at PDVSA.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, US immigration agents discovered a 13-foot drug tunnel stretching from the Mexican border to a metered parking space in Arizona, where vehicles with holes cut in the bottom would park and take marijuana from people inside the underground space.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, Sheila Verke, a 64-year-old substitute teacher and single parent from Fort Mohave, Arizona, claimed a $95.3 million Powerball jackpot.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, Richard Holbrooke (b.1941), a former US ambassador to the UN, died following surgery for a tear in his aorta. Holbrooke edited the magazine “Foreign Policy from 1972-1977. He was remembered for engineering the end of the 1992-1995 Bosnia war, Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II, and for seeking to bring stability to war-torn Afghanistan. In 2011 Derek Chollet and Samantha Power edited “The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World."
(AP, 12/14/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A6)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.166)(Econ, 12/3/11, p.102)
2010 Dec 13, Schools in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and other states closed because of snow and low temperatures. Authorities worked frantically to reach motorists in snow-covered northwest Indiana who were trapped in their cars in biting temperatures.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Afghan lawmakers demanded that President Hamid Karzai inaugurate a new parliament on December 19 and draw a line under disputed results of a fraud-hit September election.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Argentina a yacht returning from Antarctica smashed ashore in a storm near the city of Ushuaia, killing two Polish brothers, Marek and Pawel Radwanski, and injuring five other people.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 13, A Chinese vessel carrying fertilizer and heavy fuel collided with a German cargo ship off northwestern Denmark. The Hong Kong-flagged Cleantec was listing and its 24-man crew was ready to be evacuated.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Egyptian officials said rain and sandstorms that battered the country at the weekend killed at least 31 people, adding the toll could rise as rescue workers were still sifting through two collapsed buildings.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, The EU said it will impose sanctions on Ivory Coast unless the incumbent president recognizes his rival as the winner of last month's election, as panic spread in Abidjan after shots were briefly fired.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, India's parliament ended its winter session without having passed a single piece of legislation, after the opposition forced adjournments for 22 business days in a row.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Iraq four Shiites were killed and 17 others wounded when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in Balad Ruz. Insurgents killed a woman and her daughter when they bombed the house of a member of Sahwa, the anti-Qaeda militia, in the town of Jurf al-Sakhr.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Israel flew home 150 illegal Sudanese migrants in a secret operation that was the largest such deportation from the Jewish state.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, The Oriental Rose, Japanese-operated chemical tanker, was strafed by gunfire from an unidentified vessel off the Somali coast slightly wounding two crew members.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, A UN official said a campaign to resettle ethnic Nepalese forced out of Bhutan two decades ago has found homes for 40,000 refugees in Western countries, although tens of thousands continue to wait.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded near a school bus in Peshawar, killing the driver and wounding at least two children. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 22 Pakistani teachers and other education professionals were killed by suspected militants between January 2008 and October 2010 in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. The provincial government in Baluchistan said the situation was beginning to improve and that fewer teachers were asking to transfer.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets, introduced a new line of hybrid cars — called "Yo" — that he hopes to begin selling in 2012.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, A South Korean fishing boat sank in the Antarctic Ocean's frigid waters, with 22 sailors feared killed in the open sea where vessels trawl for deep-water fish. 20 survivors were rescued shortly after the 614-ton vessel went down some 1,400 miles (2,250 km) south of New Zealand. 5 bodies were recovered and 17 men remained missing.
(AP, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 13, St. Vincent and the Grenadines PM Ralph Gonsalves, who has led the Caribbean nation into an alliance with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, won a narrow victory in parliamentary elections to keep his party in power for another five years.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 14, The US Coast Guard named Rear. Adm. Sandra Stosz (50) to lead its academy at New London, Conn., beginning next summer.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A16)
2010 Dec 14, The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. to hand over private messages, billing addresses and connection records of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other alleged associates, including the US Army intelligence analyst suspected of handing classified information to the site and a high-profile Icelandic parliamentarian. A second document, dated Jan. 5, unsealed the court order.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2010 Dec 14, In Arizona a shootout between border patrol agents and bandits near the border with Mexico left American agent Brian A. Terry (40) dead and a suspect wounded. On May 6, 2011, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes of El Fuerte, Mexico, was indicted for 2nd degree murder. On July 9, 2012, a federal grand jury indictment named 6 people involved in Terry’s killing. A $1 million reward was offered to help track 4 fugitives in the case. On Feb 10, 2014 Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/16/10)(SFC, 5/7/11, p.A4)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A6)(SFC, 2/11/14, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In California a mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV was killed and six others were wounded in a gunbattle at a strip mall in south Sacramento. A 2nd victim, Marvion Barksdale (20), died at a hospital of his injuries.
(AP, 12/15/10)(SFC, 12/16/10, p.E3)
2010 Dec 14, In Florida gunman Clay A. Duke opened fire at a school board meeting in Panama City. He killed himself following an exchange of shots with a security guard.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 14, In Nevada an armed bandit escaped on a motorcycle after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips from the Bellagio resort. On Feb 3 police identified suspect Anthony M. Carleo (29) of Las Vegas as the bandit. Carleo was booked under the name Anthony M. Assad. On Aug 23, 2011, Carleo was sentenced to at least 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A7)(SFC, 8/24/11, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In Missouri Secret Santa II hit the streets in a long-standing Kansas City tradition of handing out $100 bills, sometimes several at a time, to unsuspecting strangers in thrift stores, food pantries and shelters.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A new US survey said about 6% of high school seniors reported smoking marijuana daily.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 14, San Jose, Ca., adopted the strictest ban on plastic bags in the state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.C3)
2010 Dec 14, In southern Afghanistan a NATO service member died from a roadside bomb. Jordanian-Palestinian militant Mahmoud Abu Reidah (38) was killed by US forces. An al-Qaida operative better known as Abu Rasmi, he was granted political asylum in Britain in 1998.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 14, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos started a historic first state visit to South Africa, a trip aimed at ending decades-long enmity between two of the region's major economies.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Bangladesh a devastating blaze raced through a garment factory near the capital, killing at least 29 people and injuring more than 100.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A report, "High and Dry," by the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organization and the Shan Women's Action Network, said local trade and transport on the river in northern Myanmar near a border trade crossing with China has been severely affected by unpredictable daily changes in the water level since the completion in mid-2010 of the 360-foot (110-m) tall Longjiang Dam about 19 miles (30 km) upstream.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said that Guillermo Farinas, whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of Cuban political dissidents, would be represented by an empty chair at the midweek ceremony to award the Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Amnesty International accused the European Union and Libya of cooperating to prevent migrants from Africa from reaching Europe.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Haiti Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, the popular singer-turned-presidential candidate, called for the electoral commission to be replaced and the vote redone with all the original candidates involved. His apparent loss in flawed elections helped spark days of rioting.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In India a bus carrying wedding guests plunged into a reservoir killing 29 people in Karnataka state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 14, Israel barred a group of Palestinian firefighters who helped battle the country's worst wildfire from attending a ceremony in their honor, the latest in a series of embarrassments over Israel's handling of the blaze.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Italy protesters set cars alight and hurled cobblestones at police in chaotic scenes in central Rome after PM Silvio Berlusconi won a crucial confidence vote in parliament. Over 100 people were injured including around police.
(AFP, 12/14/10)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.95)
2010 Dec 14, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi pushed again his dream for a sole African government and was backed by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade as he urged the creation of a single African army.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Mexico’s death toll in drug-related violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez rose to 3,000 this year after 2 men were shot dead on a street.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Nigerian official said Nigeria has negotiated a 250 million dollar settlement deal that would see it drop charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In the central Philippines suspected communist guerrillas killed 10 army soldiers returning to their camp after being recalled from combat two days before a Christmas cease-fire. A boy (9) also was killed in the crossfire when the New People's Army guerrillas detonated land mines then opened fire on the soldiers near where villagers were swimming in a river in Northern Samar province.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Sri Lanka official said security forces have stepped up a campaign to arrest some 50,000 military deserters, after reports that absent soldiers were increasingly involved in crime.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Sudanese authorities arrested about 30 women who tried to hold a protest in Khartoum against the brutal police whipping of a young woman shown in a video posted on YouTube and charged them with disrupting public order.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, The IMF said Togo's foreign debt will be slashed more than 80% after the African nation took steps to recover from economic crisis.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked congress to grant him special powers to enact laws by decree for one year, just before a new legislature takes office with a larger contingent of opposition lawmakers.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, The US filed suit for the first time against BP and eight other companies for uncounted billions of dollars in damages from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst in US history.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, New statistics showed that the IRS has increased the number of returns it audited by nearly 11 percent this year. Wealthy taxpayers and big businesses were most likely to be targeted.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (26) was named Time's "Person of the Year" for 2010, joining the ranks of winners that include heads of state and rock stars as the person the magazine believes most influenced events of the past year.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Newark, Ca., Justice Afoa (17), a high school football star, was stabbed to death. In 2012 three gang members were arrested and charged with conspiracy and murder. Rafael Tovar (34) and Daniel Howard (33) killed Afoa to get even for an earlier fight that caused one of the gang members “great embarrassment." Tovar and Howard were later convicted of first-degree murder. On June 30, 2015, Daniela Guzman (21) was convicted of conspiracy to commit assault.
(SFC, 12/13/12, p.C2)(SFC, 7/2/15, p.D2)
2010 Dec 15, In Las Vegas the new $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan resort opened with 2,995 rooms and 100,000 square feet of casino.
(SFC, 12/13/10, p.D4)
2010 Dec 15, Blake Edwards (b.1922), American film director, died in Santa Monica, Ca. In 1958 he created the TV series “Peter Gunn." His films included “Breakfast at Tiffany’s" (1961), “10" (1979) and the Pink Panther farces.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.D5)
2010 Dec 15, In southern Afghanistan a bicycle bomb killed three children and wounded six civilians near Kandahar City at a temporary camp for pilgrims returning from Mecca. A NATO service member was killed in a blast in the south.
(AFP, 12/15/10)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Australia signed an agreement with Brazil to share knowledge on putting on the Olympics to help preparations with Rio's hosting of the 2016 Games.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 15, In New South Wales, Australia, police found seven boxes of chemical glassware used to make drugs when a van was stopped outside the town of Quirindi. A forensic search of the van later found 43 pounds of hidden ecstasy tablets with a street value of about 20 million Australian dollars ($19.7 million).
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 15, In violent seas off Australia’s Christmas Island at least 48 refugees, thought to be from Iran and Iraq, died after their wooden boat shattered before horrified witnesses. 42 survivors, including 9 children were rescued. On January 24, 2011, Australian authorities charged three Indonesian men with people smuggling. Iranian-born Ali Khorram Heydarkhani (40) was detained by Indonesian authorities on January 25 but only sent to Australia after overstaying his visa. On May 12, 2011, he was charged in Sydney with offences relating to the boatpeople disaster.
(AFP, 12/15/10)(AP, 12/16/10)(AP, 12/20/10)(AP, 1/25/11)(AFP, 5/12/11)
2010 Dec 15, Brazil’s members of Congress voted themselves a 62% pay rise. Many state governments and municipalities soon followed suit.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.32)
2010 Dec 15, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's travelled to India to build trust between two Asian powers with increasingly close economic ties despite their ongoing competition for regional influence.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In southwest China local authorities told state press that Zeng Lingquan, the operator of an unlicensed shelter for disabled people, sold at least 70 mentally ill workers into slavery in recent years. Lingquan was arrested on Dec 13.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In China workers blasted through the last part of a tunnel that connects the Tibetan county of Metok to China's major thoroughfare.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, The Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States (OAS), condemned Brazil for the forced "disappearance" of 62 suspected leftist militants during its military dictatorship and said it should allow prosecutions for abuses committed during the era.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 15, Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas (48) used a video address at today’s award of the EU's main human rights prize, to call for the release of political prisoners in his homeland and for the government to end attacks on the opposition. Farinas was not allowed by Cuba to travel to receive the prize in Strasbourg, France.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, British-based explorer Tullow Oil PLC led a consortium and started producing 55,000 barrels per day from rigs off Ghana's Atlantic Ocean coast in the Jubilee Field, which was discovered three years ago and holds an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Greece angry unions triggered a 24-hour strike to protest labor reforms and pay cuts. Protesters clashed with riot police across Athens.
(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A9)
2010 Dec 15, Hong Kong police said they have dealt a major blow to a notorious triad group, after a territory-wide series of raids rounded up dozens of people, including a suspected gang leader.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Iran 2 suicide bomb attacks outside a mosque killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 during a Shi'ite religious ceremony in the southeastern city of Chabahar. Jundollah, a Sunni Muslim rebel group, claimed responsibility for the bombings.
(Reuters, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, Human Rights Watch said Iranians convicted for same-sex activities are on death row and awaiting hanging, including several who were minors when arrested.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Iraqi authorities said they have obtained confessions from captured insurgents who claim al-Qaida is planning suicide attacks in the US and Europe during the Christmas season. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites descended on Karbala ahead of the climax of Ashura ceremonies, surrounded by heavy security over fears of attacks. The UN Security Council lifted most of the sanctions imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
(AP, 12/15/10)(AFP, 12/15/10)(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 15, Ireland's parliament approved an €85 billion ($113 billion) EU/IMF bailout package in the face of opposition threats to renegotiate the deal to force losses on some senior bondholders in Irish banks.
(Reuters, 12/15/10)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.50)
2010 Dec 15, In Japan the city of Tokyo restricted the sale of manga comics and anime films with extreme depictions of rape, incest and other sex crimes, despite industry charges of censorship.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In the Indian portion of Kashmir police fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse hundreds of Muslims participating in religious processions. At least six people were injured.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Ben Zygier (34) reportedly committed suicide in a high-security Israeli jail after being held for months in great secrecy. His body was soon flown from Israel to Melbourne for burial. The Australian man had reportedly been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad.
(Reuters, 2/12/13)(AP, 2/19/13)
2010 Dec 15, Kenya's police commissioner said authorities will act swiftly and firmly against any outbreaks of violence connected to the announcement of suspects by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo was expected to announce the names of six Kenyan leaders suspected of fanning the flames of violence after the country's December 2007 presidential election. Officials from the UK, Canada, World Bank and UNICEF demanded that the Kenyan government prosecute corrupt officials who stole money earmarked to help send poor children to school.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Lebanon's army said its military experts have discovered and dismantled two spy cameras planted in the country's mountains by Israel.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, A Martinique court found businessman Alain Despointes (84), guilty of condoning a crime against humanity for praising slavery during a 2009 TV interview and sentenced him to pay a fine of nearly $10,000. He was the first man in Martinique found guilty under a 2001 French law that declared slavery a crime against humanity.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Nepal a small passenger plane with 22 people on board went missing while flying over a mountainous region. All people were killed after the plane’s wing apparently clipped a mountaintop.
(AP, 12/15/10)(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 15, Scottish engineering firm Weir was fined £3 million for paying illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime to secure contracts. Weir admitted making payments of £3.1 million to the Iraqi regime through an agent to get contracts worth £35 million between September 2001 and April 2004 to supply spare pumps for drinking water and oil projects.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Spain a man walked into a bar in the town of Olot and shot two men dead with a shotgun. Minutes later, he went to a bank and killed two staff members. The man had a mortgage at the bank for an apartment that was going to be seized for nonpayment.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Sweden deported 5 Iraqi Christians, part of a group of at least 20 Iraqis, who failed to gain asylum and were flown out of the country. On Dec 17 the UN refugee agency called itself "dismayed" over the deportation and called on countries to take in Iraqis from Baghdad, Kirkuk and three northern provinces that the UN considers unsafe because of repeated attacks, sectarian tensions and human rights violations.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 15, Jordanian engineer Maath Mohammed Kamal Alia (45) was arrested in Yemen on suspicion of throwing a bomb at a US Embassy vehicle.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 16, President Barack Obama said the United States will start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in July as promised. He still warned of sobering days, saying the war will remain a "very difficult endeavor." In Afghanistan a bomb killed 14 members of the same family north of Herat city. 4 Afghan soldiers died overnight in a NATO air strike in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, The US FDA said it was beginning the process to rescind Avastin’s accelerated approval in breast tumors. The drug had global sales of $6 billion in 2009.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.C1)
2010 Dec 16, The big set of sand barriers erected by Louisiana's governor to protect the coastline at the height of the Gulf oil spill was criticized by a presidential commission as a colossal, $200 million waste of BP's money so far.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, Lorillard Tobacco Co. was ordered to pay $81 million in punitive damages to the estate and son of a Boston woman who started smoking at age 13. A day earlier jurors ordered Lorillard to pay $71 million in compensatory damages to Willie Evans and the estate of his mother Marie, who died of lung cancer in 2002.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 16, US authorities said 7 people have been arrested following the seizure of nearly 11 tons of marijuana, valued at $22 million, packed into railroad cars from Mexico and destined to Chicago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 16, The California Air Resources Board approved the creation of the nation’s first broad-based program to put a cap on green house gas emissions.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 16, In California Rohayent Gomez (13) was shot and paralyzed by police officer Victor Abarca as the boy held a replica gun. In 2012 a jury ruled that the LAPD must pay $24 million to Gomez.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.A12)
2010 Dec 16, Prosecutors in Atlanta, Georgia, said they have seized 700,000 tabs of Ecstasy and charged Devon Samuels, a US Customs and Border Protection agent, along with 13 others in a large scale drug trafficking scheme.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 16, New York police scoured a 10-mile stretch of a Long Island beach access road where four bodies were discovered this week.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Oklahoma executed John David Duty (58) using a drug combination that included the sedative pentobarbital, commonly used to euthanize animals. Duty had strangled a cellmate nearly a decade ago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 16, A federal indictment said a Texas couple, Najmeh Vahid and Dr. Hossein Lahiji, and the head of an Oregon charity secretly sent millions of dollars to an Iranian bank and to a contact in Iran for nine years, violating a US embargo. The head of the charity, Mehrdad Yasrebi, allegedly funneled money that was meant for food and other assistance to his cousin and to a bank controlled by the Iranian government.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Astronauts from the US, Russia and Italy blasted off in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan on a mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 16, Gene Smith (b.1936), librarian and Tibetologist, died in NYC. In 1999 he set up the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center in Boston and then in NYC.
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Gene_Smith)
2010 Dec 16, In Bangladesh Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a key figure in the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was arrested. A tribunal has said it has found evidence of Chowdhury committing genocide, rape, arson and looting during the bloody 9-month liberation struggle against Pakistan in 1971. Allegations soon emerged that security forces tortured Chowdhury during interrogations.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Belgium NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new NATO building, said the new structure is essential to meet the demands of a rapidly changing security environment. Completion is due in 2015.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Bolivia lawmakers in a natural gas-rich eastern province removed Tarija Gov. Mario Cossio, a key opponent of leftist President Evo Morales, after he was charged with dereliction of duty and causing economic damage. His unseating by a legislature dominated by Morales supporters left opposition governors in control of just two of Bolivia's nine provinces.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, London's High Court upheld a decision to release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, under strict conditions, as he fought extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pressed on with a charm offensive in India, offering support for New Delhi's bid for a greater role in the United Nations and agreeing on an ambitious target of $100 billion annually in trade between the rising Asian powers by 2015.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 16, China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement that it has banned poultry and poultry product imports from Manitoba, Canada, after an outbreak of low-pathogenic H5N2 bird flu there.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Human Rights Watch urged the EU to stop returning migrants and asylum seekers to Ukraine, saying that they faced abuse and torture in the former Soviet republic.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Lawyers said a French judge has filed preliminary charges against six people close to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda over the 1994 assassination of the country's then-president in a missile attack on his plane. Among the six people in question are ranking Rwandan army officers, including James Kabarebe, who has been Rwanda's defense minister since April, Charles Kayonga and Jackson Nkurunziza. The remaining three were identified as Jacob Tumwine, Sam Kaka and Franck Nziza.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, India's Hero Group said it was ending a 26-year-old joint venture with Honda Motor and buying out the Japanese firm's stake in the biggest Indian motorcycle manufacturer by sales.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Iraq bombs hidden in trash cans exploded near a group of pilgrims in a town north of Baghdad, killing two people as millions of Shiites headed to ceremonies to mark Ashura, a day of mourning. Karbala provincial council chief Mohammed al-Mussawi said "We were able to destroy 14 terrorist cells and arrest 73 people, including 37 wanted persons."
(AP, 12/16/10)(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, The Israeli military said the air force has shot down a suspicious object, "apparently a balloon," hovering over southern Israel, where its main nuclear reactor is located.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Ivory Coast gunfire and explosions shook Abidjan as supporters and security forces loyal to the two men claiming to be president clashed. An attempt by Alassane Ouattara’s people to march on the state television building left about 20 people dead.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.46)
2010 Dec 16, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and three of his allies were suspended from parliament for six months in votes that triggered pandemonium and an opposition walkout.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Mexico said that more than 30,000 people have been killed in drug violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown against cartels in late 2006. Masked men pulled up in a car in front of the governor's office in Chihuahua. One appeared to exchange words with anti-crime crusader Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who was holding a vigil outside. She tried to flee by running across the street, but the gunman chased her down and shot her in the head. The burned and dismembered remains of Escobedo's 17-year-old daughter were found in a Ciudad Juarez trash bin in June, 2009. Three judges ordered the release of the main suspect in the daughter's killing after he was absolved by a court in April for lack of evidence. The scandal resulted in the suspension of the judges. The judges resigned on March 11, 2011.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AP, 12/18/10)(AP, 3/15/11)
2010 Dec 16, In Mexico some 50-100 migrants were reportedly abducted by an armed group that stopped a freight train they were traveling on as it entered Oaxaca state from the border state of Chiapas.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Nigeria Pentecostal pastor John Nadrew (46) was given three years and eight months after security agents found an AK-47 rifle and five pistols in his house in Dot village during a raid last month.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Pakistan 16 people were wounded, two critically, when an assailant threw an explosive device at Shiite Ashoura procession. A US missile strike killed 7 militants in the Spin Drand area of Khyber close to the Afghan border.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said he has asked representatives of several EU countries to recognize the truce lines before the 1967 Mideast war as the borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Russian cardiologist Ivan Khrenov told PM Putin during a live call-in show that his bosses instructed doctors and nurses to show fake pay slips and pose as recovering patients surrounded by new equipment during the premier's November visit to a hospital in the central town of Ivanovo. Putin's visit to the hospital was nationally televised, just like the call-in show where Khrenov made his claims.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Saudi Arabia hundreds of Sunni hard-liners in Medina attacked those participating in the commemorations, known as Ashura. The day of mourning marks the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein in the year 680 in present day Iraq. Shiites represented 10% of predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia's 22.6 million people.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 16, The UN's human rights chief said that Sudan is blocking aid workers from entering the country ahead of next month's referendum on independence for the south.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1960, which called for an end to all acts of sexual violence. The Secretary-General was asked to include information on parties suspected to be responsible for acts of rape or other acts of sexual violence, which the Council would use to engage with the parties or take action against them.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1960)
2010 Dec 16, A fierce fight in Ukraine's parliament sent at least six lawmakers to the hospital with concussions, a fractured jaw and multiple bruises, setting a new low for the often-tumultuous body. Pro-Tymoshenko legislators had been blocking legislative work all day, protesting a corruption probe against her.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, A Vietnam-registered fishing boat, named Phu Tan, capsized off the Chinese coast leaving 27 fishermen missing.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Zimbabwe Raphael Khumalo, chief executive at the Zimbabwe Standard said first lady Grace Mugabe (45) has filed a $15 million lawsuit against the independent newspaper after they published a story citing WikiLeaks cables, dating to 2008, alleging her involvement in illegal diamond deals.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 17, Pres. Obama signed into law a tax bill extending cuts for all Americans. The $858 billion package included 13 months of extended benefits to the unemployed and a boost for renewable power companies.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A12)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 17, The states of Arizona and Nevada sued Bank of America Corp., accusing the largest US bank of routinely misleading consumers about home loan modifications.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, The widow of Jeffrey Picower (d.2009), a Florida philanthropist, agreed to return $7.2 billion that her husband reaped from the giant Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 17, The Archdiocese of New York announced that a Roman Catholic tribunal has defrocked former monsignor Charles Kavanagh (73) for molesting a teenage student in the 1980s. Kavanagh denied the accusation.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 17, Don Van Vliet (69), American musician and artist, died in California. He had performed as Captain Beefheart and was best known for his 1969 album “Trout Mask Replica" released by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band."
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 17, In Afghanistan kidnappers killed a Bangladeshi working for a South Korean firm and held 3 road workers hostage after storming their camp at gunpoint between the northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan. Haitham Mohammed al-Khayat (26), a prominent Jordanian-Palestinian militant better known in extremist circles as Abu Kandahar al-Zarqawi, was killed by US forces. He was an administrator of the online jihadi forum, Al-Hesbah, according to Islamist militant websites.
(AFP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 17, British landscape architect Joanna Yeates (25) went missing following a night out. Her body was found in the Failand area of Bristol on Christmas Day. She had been strangled. On Jan 20, 2011, Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak (32) was detained after police uncovered fresh evidence. On Oct 28 Tabak was found guilty of murder.
(AFP, 1/4/11)(AFP, 1/22/11)(Reuters, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 17, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a rare visit to Pakistan aimed at expanding trade ties and the flow of Chinese investment into the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, A French court convicted 13 former officials who served under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for roles in the disappearance of 4 French nationals. It sentenced two to life in prison: Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who at the time headed Pinochet's political police, and Octavio Espinoza Bravo, an army colonel. All 14 of the defendants were tried in absentia.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Iraq a roadside bomb in southeast Baghdad exploded as Shiite pilgrims were returning home from Karbala, after final ceremonies ended for Ashura, the Shiite Muslims' most solemn religious event of the year. Eight pilgrims were wounded. The UN refugee agency said an "exodus" of thousands of Iraqi Christians was taking place following a deadly church attack in Baghdad carried out by Al-Qaeda militants at the end of October.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Israel Christine Luken (44), female American tourist, was stabbed to death. Her body was found on Dec 19 bound and with multiple stab wounds near a road outside Jerusalem. Her friend, Kaye Susan Wilson, told police the two had been hiking in a nearby forest when they were assaulted by two Arab men. She, too, was bound and stabbed, but managed to escape her assailants. On Jan 26, 2011, Palestinians Kifah Ghneimat and Iyad Fatafa were indicted for Luken’s murder. Ghneimat was convicted on Sep 25.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 1/26/11)(AP, 9/26/11)
2010 Dec 17, Ivory Coast police were out in force in Abidjan as supporters of the internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's presidential election vowed to try once again to seize state institutions after a similar attempt the day before resulted in up to 30 deaths.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Kyrgyzstan's fractious parliament named a new prime minister and formed a government, ending weeks of political uncertainty. Social Democrat Party leader Almazbek Atambayev was named premier with 92 out of 114 votes.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Maltese Foreign Minister Tonio Borg promised during a visit to the Gaza Strip to donate funds to the United Nations agency caring for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Mexico 141 inmates, a number later raised to 153, escaped from a state prison in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. Authorities said the breakout was probably helped by prison employees. More than 40 prison guards were later charged with helping 153 inmates escape from the prison. 11 men were reported abducted from a bar in Acapulco. Two of the abducted men were later found dead. Their hands and feet had been cut off. On Dec 27 police in Acapulco found the decapitated bodies of two more men in front of the same bar.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 17, A Nigerian court sentenced 15 Muslim herdsmen to 10 years each over sectarian violence in the country's central region that left hundreds dead this year. Nigerian tanker drivers suspended petrol deliveries to Lagos and other areas to protest the firing of 2,500 members, sparking long queues at filling stations.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigerian NDLF militants attacked three pipelines operated by the US oil giant Chevron and Italian firm Agip in the key oil producing state of Delta.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigeria dropped charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal allegedly involving Halliburton after a reported settlement of 250 million dollars. On Dec 21 Halliburton said it had agreed to pay 32.5 million dollars to the Nigerian government, plus 2.5 million dollars in costs.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, North Korea said it would strike again at the South if a live-firing drill by Seoul on a disputed island went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month's shelling that killed four people. Russia urged South Korea to halt plans for the artillery drill.
(AP, 12/17/10)(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Pakistan 3 American missile attacks killed 54 people in the villages of Spin Drag and Shandana in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber region, an area that has seen few such strikes in the past, possibly signaling an expansion of the CIA-led covert war inside the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Sudan's army clashed with Darfur rebels for a third time in a week. UN officials said clashes between the Sudanese army and former rebels who signed a peace treaty with Khartoum have forced the displacement of more than 12,000 people in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Tunisia Mohamed Bouazizi (26), a university graduate without a steady job and trying to support his family, burned himself after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he sold without a permit. His self-immolation left him in intensive care and sparked protests over unemployment that led to at least three deaths. Bouazizi died on Jan 4.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 17, Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc. Officials and troops began seizing 47 private ranches as pres. Chavez pushed ahead to take over big swaths of agricultural land in western Venezuela.
(AP, 12/18/10)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 17, In Vietnam Southeast Asia's largest hydroelectric power station began operating to help ease an electricity shortage. The first of six turbines at the Son La station was connected to the national power grid.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Yemen gunmen killed three soldiers and wounded seven others when they opened fire on a military base in the southern province of Abyan.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Zimbabwe's Pres. Mugabe said the power-sharing government is not working and must end, putting him on a collision course with PM Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe told his party conference that British and US companies in Zimbabwe will be nationalized unless sanctions against the country are dropped.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 18, Tensions between the US and Venezuela flared over Washington's nominee for ambassador, as President Hugo Chavez warned that diplomat Larry Palmer would be detained and put on the next flight home if he tries to set foot in the country.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In a historic vote for gay rights, the US Senate agreed to do away with the military's 17-year ban on openly gay troops and sent President Barack Obama legislation to overturn the Clinton-era policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Louisiana a small plane crashed after takeoff in Crowley killing 3 people and injuring 2 others.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 18, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said he has evidence Sudanese Pres. Omar al-Bashir has stolen billions of dollars from his impoverished country. The embezzlement accusations were first reported by British newspaper The Guardian, based on a diplomatic cable provided by the Wikileaks website.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In eastern Afghanistan NATO troops killed more than 20 insurgents in fighting after a patrol came under fire. German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid an unannounced visit to northern Afghanistan to boost German troops' morale for a war that is deeply unpopular at home and to meet with the Afghan president. A leader of the Haqqani network was killed in an operation by international forces and their Afghan counterparts in the eastern Khost province. A man was captured during a night raid in the Zharay district of southern Kandahar province by Afghan and coalition forces, who described him as "a key Taliban weapons facilitator."
(AP, 12/18/10)(Reuters, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 18, In northeastern Bangladesh a boat packed with passengers capsized on the Surma River. Rescuers the next day said at least 37 people died and 18 more were missing.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Brazil bridegroom Rogerio Damascena (29) fatally shot his new wife, Renata Alexandre Costa Coelho (25), his best man, Marcelo Guimaraes, and then himself after announcing to horrified guests that he had a "surprise" for them.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 18, Fresh snow brought much of Britain to a standstill, on what is traditionally the busiest weekend for shopping and travel in the run-up to Christmas. Blizzards and freezing temperatures shut down runways, train tracks and highways across Europe.
(Reuters, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Andrew Lindo (29) strangled, battered and stabbed Marie Stewart to death while their children were asleep, at their home in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. Hours later, he took the two children to collect his lover, Angela Rylance (30), spending the night with her in the bedroom where he had carried out the brutal murder. On Sep 21 a judge ordered that Lindo serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars.
(AFP, 9/21/11)(www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-14842805)
2010 Dec 18, A 63-ton Chinese fishing boat capsized after ramming into a 3,000-ton South Korean coastguard ship trying to curb its illegal fishing activities, leaving one Chinese crew member dead and another missing.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 18, Cuban President Raul Castro told legislators that the future of the country's revolution is at stake as the government tries to institute sweeping economic reforms, adding that the changes are meant to strengthen socialism — not replace it.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Germany’s weekly Der Spiegel reported that local tax authorities recovered 1.6 billion euros this year from citizens who had stashed their cash in secret accounts in Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Iran's president announced the start of a plan to slash energy and food subsidies, part of government efforts to boost the country's ailing economy.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Iraq's parliament took a major step toward creating a unity government, lifting a ban on three Sunni Muslim politicians who were barred from running in national elections last March after being accused of having ties to Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, An Israeli airstrike killed five Gaza militants in the deadliest attack against the coastal strip in months. The Israeli military says the men were about to launch a rocket attack against southern Israeli communities when they were struck.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In the Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to step down from the presidency, ordered all UN peacekeepers to leave the country immediately, calling the global body that has endorsed his political rival an "agent of destabilization." The UN certified results showed that opposition leader Alassane Ouattara had won by "an irrefutable margin."
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Mexico a lumber operation, associated with the family of anti-crime crusader Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, killed on Dec 16, was burned down in Ciudad Juarez by unknown arsonists. The body of Manuel Monge Amparan, a relative of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, was dumped on a street in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 18, Pakistan and China concluded nearly 15 billion dollars' worth of deals, as visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Beijing would "never give up" on the troubled nuclear-armed Muslim country.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Pakistan's top spy agency denied that it helped unmask the CIA's station chief in Islamabad, dismissing speculation it was retaliating for a US lawsuit linking the Pakistani intelligence chief to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India. The station chief in Islamabad has operated as a virtual military commander in the US war against al-Qaida and other militant groups hidden along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. His recall was made public a day earlier.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Russian news agencies said Moscow police have arrested 500 people to stop them attending rival protests over the killing of a soccer fan and the ethnic violence that erupted after the slaying. Seven hunters and forest rangers were shot dead in a wooded area in the Caucasus province of Kabardino-Balkaria.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Spain tens of thousands of workers staged strikes in 40 cities to protest state plans to up the retirement age to slash public deficit.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, A Sri Lanka Cabinet minister backtracked saying the government will now allow a UN team to visit the country and share evidence gathered during an investigation into whether war crimes were committed during the final phase of the island's bloody civil war.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 19, In northern Afghanistan troops shot dead rebels at an army recruitment center in Kunduz to end a day-long siege following 2 attacks by militants that killed at least 13 security personnel. In Kabul two suicide bombers targeted an army bus, killing five military personal. One civilian was killed and four children were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Panjwayi district, in Kandahar province.
(AFP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Belarus held elections. Authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko expressed confidence that he would win a fourth term. Opposition leaders and rights activists reported that more than 30 people campaigning against the president had been detained. The country's election commission declared that Lukashenko got almost 80% of the vote in a preliminary count, handing him a fourth term in office.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, A Dubai court sentenced Mark Arnold (42), a Briton, charged with killing Kelly Winter, his South African ex-lover, to life in prison. Winter (36) disappeared in August 2008 following a quarrel with Arnold. Prosecutors charged him with clubbing her to death with a baseball bat and dumping her body with weights in the sea. Her body was never found. Life in prison equals 25 years in the United Arab Emirates.
(AFP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Europe saw little respite from the Arctic conditions that have closed airports and disrupted travel on the weekend before Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, The Guatemalan military declared a state of siege in a northern province that authorities say has been overtaken by Mexican drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Iran levied up to a five-fold hike in fuel prices as the government started scrapping subsidies as part of a long-awaited economic overhaul, despite initial resistance by conservatives. Thousands of truck drivers nationwide stopped working because they were not allowed to increase their prices.
(AFP, 12/19/10)(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 19, Israel's cabinet decided to limit stipends paid to full-time ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students after the payments sparked widespread protests among university students.
(AFP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Ivory Coast state television left no doubt who's in control of the media: Laurent Gbagbo was shown taking the oath of office with no mention that the United Nations says he lost the presidential election and should step down. The UN warned against attacks on its personnel in Ivory Coast and said it would stay.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, In Mexico a massive oil pipeline explosion lay waste to parts of in San Martin Texmelucan, incinerating people, cars, houses and trees as gushing crude turned streets into flaming rivers. At least 29 people were killed, 14 of them children. Authorities blamed oil thieves after investigators found a hole in the pipeline and equipment for extracting crude. On Jan 10 a police officer died of his injuries bringing the death toll to 30.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Dec 19, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hosted dozens of Israeli legislators and activists, and urged them to relay a simple message to the Israeli public — he is serious about negotiating a peace deal and that the Palestinians will never again resort to violence.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, In the northern Philippines a fire rapidly swept through a 5-storey budget hotel in Tuguegarao burning to death 15 people, several crammed in bathrooms where they fled in panic. Nine of the victims were nursing students in town to take a licensing exam. The death toll rose to 16 after one person died in a hospital
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, In Somalia a merger was announced between al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam. Analysts and fighters said the weak, UN-backed government could face an increase in attacks from Islamist insurgents after the two largest groups dropped their running feud and merged.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir said the country would adopt an Islamic constitution if the south split away in a referendum due next month, in a speech in which he also defended police filmed flogging a woman.
(Reuters, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 20, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg toured the offices of Baidu, China's top search engine, during a visit that has sparked speculation the social networking magnate is looking for business opportunities in the world's largest Internet market.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, International observers and Western governments accused Belarus' strongman leader of using fraud and violence to remain in power after more than 16 years of repressive rule, saying that Pres. Lukashenko's re-election had been seriously flawed.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, British police arrested a dozen men suspected of plotting a large-scale terror attack, the biggest anti-terrorist sweep since April 2009, when 12 men were detained over an alleged al-Qaida bomb plot in the northern city of Manchester.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, China's state news agency said eight people have been sentenced to prison terms of up to two-and-a-half years for selling fake rabies vaccines that contributed to the death of one boy. A court in southwestern Guangxi region sentenced Zhang Dazhi to 30 months' jail while seven others were handed one-year prison terms.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Colombia another mudslide caused by weeks of rains destroyed 52 makeshift mountainside homes. Two people were missing.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 20, An Egyptian State Security prosecutor said that authorities have charged a local businessman, Tarek Hassan, and two Israelis for recruiting agents in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon to spy for Israeli intelligence.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Snow and frigid temperatures caused disruption across northern Europe for a third day, stranding travelers, snarling traffic and shutting schools, and the bad weather is likely to run through Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran and Qatar pledged to cooperate for greater regional security during a visit to Tehran by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of the tiny but energy-rich Gulf state.
(AFP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran hanged 11 men authorities said were members of Jundallah, an armed Sunni militant group, convicted of bombings.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran's judiciary spokesman confirmed that Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the country's first vice president, was facing corruption charges. Iran has 12 vice presidents but Rahimi is the most senior among them.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In southeastern Iran a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck a remote area late at night, killing at least 11 people and injuring 40 people.
(AP, 12/21/10)(SFC, 12/22/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 20, Iraqi army special forces killed three Libyans allegedly planning suicide bombings ahead of Christmas in a raid in the northern city of Mosul.
(AFP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Malaysia a double-decker bus carrying Thai tourists overturned on a highway, killing 28 people on their way back from a hill resort.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, North Korea said it would not react to "reckless" military drills by the South, despite an earlier threat to retaliate, and CNN reported that Pyongyang had agreed to the return of nuclear inspectors.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Pakistan militants fired rockets at a NATO convoy carrying supplies to Afghanistan, destroying two oil tankers and wounding two people in the Khyber tribal region.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired seven mortar shells into southern Israel that fell on open ground and caused no casualties.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Puerto Rico at least 17 people were detained as students at the largest public university in the Caribbean clashed with police during an indefinite strike over a new fee.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 20, A Puerto Rico National Guard UH-72 Lakota helicopter crashed in the ocean while returning from a drug raid on Vieques. 3 bodies of the six people on board were found and the remaining were feared dead. The last body was recovered on Jan 23.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(AP, 1/23/11)
2010 Dec 20, Serbia urged international authorities to investigate allegations of a trade in the kidneys and other organs of civilians slain in the aftermath of Kosovo's 1999 war for secession.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Orna cargo vessel after firing rocket propelled grenades and small arms at the ship, a Panama-flagged, bulk cargo vessel owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates. In June, 2011, pirate a said an undisclosed number of pirates and hostages were forced to abandon the bulk cargo carrier MV Orna. Abdi said it is believed the fire was caused by an electrical problem in the ship's kitchen.
(AP, 12/20/10)(AP, 6/15/11)
2010 Dec 20, Venezuela’s government formally rejected Larry Palmer, Washington's nominee for ambassador. The US State Department said the decision will have consequences on their relations. Venezuela’s parliament passed a law banning for the first time Internet content that promotes social unrest, challenges authority or condones crime, fueling outrage by the opposition.
(AP, 12/20/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, US tax authorities announced that Deutsche Bank has admitted criminal wrongdoing and agreed to pay more than $550 million in connection with its participation in tax shelters from 1996-2002 that enabled the rich to temporarily avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxes.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, The United States said it has approved travel sanctions against Laurent Gbagbo and about 30 others following Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe's attorney general, Johannes Tomana, saying his actions undermined the country's democratic institutions.
(Reuters, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In southern Afghanistan a British soldier was one of two NATO service members killed in Helmand. 5 civilians died as militants attacked coalition forces in the Sangin district. Seven insurgents were killed in the battle.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, The Australian Defense Force said steroids and unidentified substances had been seized in recent raids after a tip-off. A report claimed Australian sailors have been stashing large amounts of cocaine and heroin on navy ships and selling them in Sydney's red light district and that this has been going on "for years."
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Belarus Grigory Kostusyev, a presidential candidate arrested after weekend elections, said the KGB tried to pressure him into renouncing his opposition to the country's authoritarian regime.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, British man Stephen Griffiths (40), who called himself the "Crossbow Cannibal," was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three prostitutes. Griffiths admitted murdering Suzanne Blamires (36), Shelley Armitage (31) and Susan Rushworth (43), who all worked as prostitutes near his home in Bradford.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, Toronto-Dominion Bank said it will buy Chrysler Financial from private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management for $6.3 billion, joining the throng of Canadian institutions expanding foreign operations.
(Reuters, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, China urged North Korea to follow through on its offer to allow UN nuclear monitors into the country as a way to alleviate international tensions during a standoff with the South.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Cuba Francisco Chavez Abarca of El Salvador was handed a 30-year prison sentence for his role in a string of bombings at tourist hotels in the 1990s. The bombings killed an Italian tourist in 1997.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, The leaders of Egypt and Libya were in Khartoum for talks with Sudanese leaders on the future of Africa's largest country ahead of a referendum that's likely to break it into two.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, A French judge charged exiled Rwandan Hutu rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana (47) over his alleged role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The former "executive secretary" of the Hutu guerrilla FDLR, who had been living in France as a computer technician, was charged with crimes against humanity.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, Alpha Conde heralded a new era for Guinea after being sworn as the nation's first freely elected president in front of visiting heads of state and jubilant supporters.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, Hungary’s Fidesz party passed the second part of contentious legislation placing broadcast, print and online media under the supervision of a new authority with power to impose large fines for ill-defined offenses.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.53)
2010 Dec 21, In India Russia’s Pres. Medvedev clinched agreements with its Cold War-era ally to deepen nuclear energy cooperation and develop a supersonic fighter to rival a US jet. Russia and India pledged to share intelligence and work together to fight international terror.
(Reuters, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a new government to be headed by incumbent Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki, ending nine months of political deadlock that threatened to stall economic development and suck the country back into sectarian violence. They also adopted a 43-point program aimed at liberalizing the economy and fighting terrorism. Women made up a quarter of the 325-seat Parliament but were given only two ministries in the 44-member Cabinet, approved after a nine-month delay.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 21, The Israeli air force hit seven suspected militant sites in the Gaza Strip in an unusually large operation. Palestinian militants retaliated by sending a rocket crashing down near a kindergarten in southern Israel. Israel's military chief confirmed the Palestinian use of Kornet missiles. This marked a new milestone for Gaza militants, who have steadily built up their arsenal from a collection of crude, homemade rockets to include more menacing imported weapons. Israeli defense officials said the laser-guided Kornet came from Iran. Israel's answer, called Trophy, was the first-of-its-kind Israeli-made system carried by tanks that is designed to shoot down missiles like the Kornet.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to pay the US government a record $32.4 million in additional fines to settle an investigation into its handling of two recalls at the heart of its safety crisis. The latest settlement, on top of a $16.4 million fine Toyota paid earlier in a related investigation, brought the total penalties levied on the company to $48.8 million.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Mexico seven gunmen kidnapped 9 Central American migrants from a train near the Ixtepec, a town in Oaxaca state. Five of the migrants escaped and reported the kidnapping. Another was killed as he tried to flee. 3 remained missing.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 21, Netherlands-based Royal DSM NV, the world’s largest maker of vitamins, agreed to buy Martek Biosciences, a US maker of nutritional ingredients for baby food, for $1.09 billion.
(SFC, 12/22/10, p.D3)
2010 Dec 21, A Sudan military source said 20 soldiers from the south Sudan army (SPLA) have been killed in clashes with rebels led by former general George Athor.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Tonga Noble Lord Tu’ivakano won a secret ballot among lawmakers to become the country’s first prime minister elected by parliament rather than appointed by King George Tupou V.
(SFC, 12/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 21, Venezuela’s congress, dominated by President Hugo Chavez's allies, passed a law barring foreign funding for nongovernment organizations and political parties, adding to a series of measures that critics say aim to stifle dissent.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Zimbabwe 9 people died and 25 were injured when a speeding bus slammed into a truck in Harare. 3 infants were among the dead.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, President Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and signed a landmark law repealing the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the armed services.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The US Senate, in its final act of the lameduck session, approved the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (71-26) signed earlier this year by Pres. Obama and Russia’s Pres. Medvedev.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 22, In South San Francisco, Ca., 3 young men were shot and killed in a driveby shooting at the corner of Linden and Eighth Lane. In 2012 nineteen people were indicted for the killings. 3 federal agents were wounded during arrest procedures.
(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A10)
2010 Dec 22, In Chicago 2 firefighters were killed when a roof collapsed in a vacant burning building. The tragedy took place exactly 100 years following the Chicago Union Stock Yards fire that killed 21 firemen.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 22, Afghan officials said Iran has banned fuel exports to Afghanistan, stranding about 3,000 fuel trucks at the border and driving up wholesale prices for the refined products ahead of what many Afghans fear will be a blistery winter in their oil-poor nation.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A joint Afghan and NATO patrol killed several insurgents in the southern province of Helmand during an operation targeting a mid-level Taliban leader involved in roadside bomb attacks. A Taliban leader involved in the Dec 19 bus bombing in Kabul and two other insurgents in an airstrike in Ghazni province in the center of the country. A roadside bomb struck a tractor pulling a cart loaded with passengers, killing a child and wounding nine people in the Garm Ser district of Helmand province.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 22, Albania invited an international investigation into claims it was linked with the trafficking of organs from slain civilians during the war in neighboring Kosovo.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Argentina former dictator Jorge Videla was sentenced to life in prison for the torture and murder of 31 prisoners, most of whom who were "shot while trying to escape" in the months after his military coup.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Australia Kok Loong Wong of Malaysia appeared in a Sydney court charged with possessing 200 pounds (90 kg) of crystal meth in his home, the seventh-largest "ice" haul in Australian history.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A rights group said Belarus has opened criminal probes against 18 leading opposition figures over involvement in post-election riots that could see them jailed for up to 15 years. Belarus has said it arrested over 600 people in the wake of recent protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Bolivia sent a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declaring its recognition of an independent and sovereign state of Palestine.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A Dubai court slashed the prison terms for two men convicted in the 2009 slaying of a former Chechen warlord from life to just three years in a surprise ruling that highlighted the international intrigue surrounding the case. The family of the slain Chechen strongman, Sulim Yamadayev, had submitted a letter disavowing any desire for further punishments in connection with the killing.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In France 113 children arrived from Haiti to start new lives with adoptive parents in time for the holidays.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Haitian officials said angry mobs have lynched at least 45 people in recent weeks, accusing them of spreading a cholera outbreak that has killed over 2,500 people across the country.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The Indian government, facing mounting public anger over soaring onion costs, scrapped tax on imports of the vegetable to try to rein in prices of the staple food.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Iran's armed Sunni militant group said it will kill an abducted Iranian after authorities rejected an offer to swap the hostage for 200 of the group's imprisoned members. The man was identified as a former worker at an Iranian nuclear facility who was kidnapped two months ago.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Iraq a large military operation targeting Al-Qaeda and their sleeper cells was launched overnight in Anbar province. 93 suspects were arrested, including 60 wanted men. Gunmen with silenced weapons raked the car of General Imad Hasham with gunfire in a Baghdad street, killing him and wounding his daughter. Gunmen also with silenced weapons shot and wounded police Lieutenant Colonel Majid Hamid as he was driving through the Amiriya area of Baghdad.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Rome, Italy, all embassies were informed about a pair of package bombs that exploded at the Swiss and Chilean embassies, injuring two people who opened them. Security officials later said that an Italian group calling itself Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Rome tens of thousands of students took to the streets to peacefully protest planned changes in the university system. Protests in Palermo and Milan turned violent.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 22, Nigeria’s state oil firm said it has shut down three of its four refineries because of sabotage of pipelines leading to them. It called on the military to increase security.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A small Pakistani army training plane crashed into mountains in the country's southwest. The pilot and co-pilot died in the crash.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association said in a statement that the Interior Ministry summoned the coordinators of the protest to notify them that their request has been rejected, without giving any reasons. The group's 20 demands included curtailing privileges of members of the Saudi royal family, fighting corruption and nepotism, and creating an independent judiciary.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, South Korea announced land and sea military exercises including its largest-ever live-fire drill near North Korea just as tension on the peninsula was beginning to ease after Pyongyang's attack on a southern island.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Spain's "El Gordo", one of the world's biggest lotteries, gave out 2.3 billion euros (1.9 billion British pounds) in Christmas prizes with Spaniards spending almost the same as last year on tickets.
(Reuters, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Sudan Mudawi Ibrahim, a prominent Darfur activist, was sentenced to one year in prison and fined on embezzlement charges. He was acquitted on the same charges earlier. Authorities appealed and won a new verdict without a retrial.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 22, Thailand's government withdrew armed soldiers from skytrain stops in Bangkok and other key sites as it lifted an eight-month-old state of emergency imposed when protesters overran the capital.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Tunisia a 24-year-old jobless protester was electrocuted after announcing he wanted to end his life and mounting a high-voltage electricity pole in the town of Sidi Bouzid. Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters after simmering tensions linked to unemployment erupted after the demonstrator committed suicide.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 22, The UN nuclear agency said tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from a defunct Serbian reactor have been repatriated to Russia. The 2.5 metric tons (2.76 tons) of the spent fuel arrived at a secure Russian facility from Serbia's Vinca reactor.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The UN Security Council voted to increase by half the number of African Union peacekeepers supporting Somalia's transitional government against Al-Qaeda-inspired rebels.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A Venezuelan court sentenced Jose Sanchez Montiel, an opposition politician, to 19 years in prison, saying he was an accomplice in the 2007 killing of a military intelligence official. He was elected to the National Assembly in September while in jail awaiting sentencing. On Dec 24, 2011, a court granted parole to Montiel for humanitarian reasons because of his advanced prostate cancer.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/11)
2010 Dec 23, The US Treasury Department defended its issuance of special licenses for American companies to do business with Iran and other blacklisted nations, in response to a New York Times report on deals made despite sanctions and trade embargoes. An examination by the newspaper found the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has made nearly 10,000 exceptions to U.S. sanctions rules over the past decade.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, The US population reportedly grew 9.7% over the previous decade to 308.7 million as the US Census Bureau began releasing data.
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 23, In central Florida Kenneth Stephens Jr. (35), a blast team supervisor, was trapped underwater and feared dead after ground gave way at a limerock mine in Bushnell.
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 23, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed an Afghan policeman and wounded five civilians in Kunduz. A blast in Ghazni killed a man suspected of being either a suicide bomber or of trying to plant a bomb under a truck. A NATO helicopter opened fire on a convoy of cars heading to an event hosted by the head of a local council in Faryab province, killing a police officer and the brother of a lawmaker. It was reported that US-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant to keep the new Afghan army and police healthy have been disappearing before reaching Afghan military hospitals and clinics.
(AFP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Australia Melbourne men Wissam Mahmoud Fattal (34), Nayef El Sayed (26), both of Lebanese descent, and Somali-origin Saney Edow Aweys (27) were found guilty of conspiring to plan a terrorist act, which carries a possible life term. Two other men, Somali-origin Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed (26) and Yacqub Khayre (23) were found not guilty after the three-month trial.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Anglo-Australian resources giant Rio Tinto made a 3.9 billion US dollar offer for Australia's Riversdale, sparking speculation of a bidding war for its African steel-making coal with Indian and other rivals.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Human Rights Watch said The United States and Britain should immediately stop supporting the Bangladeshi Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an anti-crime force blamed for killing hundreds of suspects without trial, if there is no visible effort to reform it.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, China's capital announced that it will sharply limit new vehicle registrations to try to ease massive traffic jams that are rapidly turning Beijing's streets into parking lots.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, China said it will boost further its already expanding economic ties with Africa, which reached a record two-way volume of more than $100 billion this year.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In southwestern Colombia a landslide caused by weeks of rains buried 4-5 houses killing at least 12 people. The government and Red Cross said the year's heavy rains have killed at least 312 people in the country.
(AP, 12/24/10)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.40)
2010 Dec 23, It was reported that the first pill designed to curb a person’s urge to have more than a few drinks of alcohol was undergoing tests in Europe. The drug (nalmafene) was developed by H. Lundbeck A/S in Valby, Denmark.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 23, The EU and the US jointly threatened to review ties with Belarus following an opposition crackdown after elections that kept President Alexander Lukashenko in power.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Greece's governing Socialists won a key budget vote in Parliament, calling for deeper austerity measures in the crisis-hit country and promising to avoid default despite a soaring national debt.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Hungary’s lawmakers approved new budget plans and pledged to get the budget deficit below 3 percent of national income next year. Fitch Ratings said the measures proposed, particularly on pensions, could actually worsen the public finances in coming years.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Indian official data showed that food price inflation has returned to double-digits, fuelled by surging onion prices, adding to pressure on the scandal-hit Congress government.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined regional leaders for a summit on economic cooperation in Istanbul, just a month ahead of nuclear talks with world powers.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Iraq police patrol discovered the body of Barbaros Mohammed Habeeb, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's party, in the disputed northern oil hub of Kirkuk. Security forces, searching for a young woman on suspicion she had ties to al-Qaida, raided her father's home outside Baqouba. During questioning Najim al-Anbaky told police he had killed his daughter, Shahlaa, a month earlier because he found out she intended to blow herself up in a suicide attack.
(AFP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, The Irish government gained court approval to nationalize Allied Irish Banks, the fourth bank taken over by Ireland amid a financial crisis brought on by speculative real estate lending.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Israel's Peace Now movement said Israeli settlers have illegally begun work on at least 100 homes in the occupied West Bank since the end of a freeze on settlement construction.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, The UN said at least 173 people have been killed in the Ivory Coast and 90 others tortured or treated inhumanely because of post-election violence. The UN General Assembly formally recognized Alassane Ouattara as the winner of the Nov. 28 runoff vote and rescinded the credentials of the Ivory Coast UN ambassador, a supporter of Laurent Gbagbo.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Kazakhstan a forum of 900 people in Ust-Kamenogorsk put forward an initiative to extend via referendum the president’s term in office until 2020 and to cancel the next presidential election, due in 2012. On Dec 29 it was backed by the country’s one-party parliament and waited for the signature of Pres. Nazarbayev.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.40)
2010 Dec 23, Nigeria said it has signed loan deals with China worth 900 million dollars that will be used to finance rail and communication projects in Africa's most populous nation.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In South Africa serial killer Thozamile Taki (36) was convicted of murdering 13 women and dumping their bodies in sugarcane plantations around the country. The bodies of the women had decomposed in the fields when they were found in 2007. On Jan 19 Taki received the maximum 13 life sentences. He was also sentenced to 208 years for robbery charges.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 Dec 23, In western Sudan Darfur's main rebel groups fought alongside each other for the first time in years as they clashed with government forces. Rights group Amnesty International said that a Sudanese court had sentenced high profile rights activist Mudawi Ibrahim to one year in jail for embezzlement despite an earlier acquittal which found no fraud within his aid agency, SUDO, one of many shut down last year.
(AFP, 12/23/10)(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Venezuela police and soldiers fired water cannons and plastic bullets as thousands of students protested against a law passed by Venezuela's congress that increases the government's powers over the country's universities.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Afghanistan 2 Afghan security guards were killed after coalition forces raided the compound of Tiger International, an Afghan private security company, in Kabul over an alleged plot to attack the United States embassy. A policeman and one civilian were killed by a mine near Khost. A policeman was killed and another injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb near the main road between Jalalabad and Torkham in Nangarhar province.
(AFP, 12/24/10)(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 24, The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan met in Istanbul for a new round of talks aimed at building trust between the two neighbors. Turkey’s Pres. Gul said a railroad between Turkey and Pakistan should be extended to Afghanistan and flights between the three countries should be expanded for better cooperation.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, The Bangladesh government announced it was planning a “high-level" investigation into the operations of Grameen Bank, a microlender founded by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel peace prize.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.75)
2010 Dec 24, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was officially declared the winner of a fourth term in office in a vote that both his challengers and international monitors say was tainted by fraud.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Colombia’s police and air force began an anti-drug operation in Meta state.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 24, The Ecuadorean government recognized Palestine as a sovereign state.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Ecuador an overcrowded bus plunged into a 1,100-foot (350m) ravine leaving 38 people dead and 46 injured.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Heavy snow stranded thousands of Christmas travelers in Europe, with Belgium's main airport closed for landing and icy roads in Sweden choked with traffic.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Guinea's President Alpha Conde named Mohamed Said Fofana, a former director of economic research, as the nation's new prime minister.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, In India Dr. Binayak Sen (60), a physician, outspoken government critic and human rights activist, was convicted along with 2 others of aiding communist rebels in eastern India. All three were sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Iraq a Shiite militia leader, his wife and three children were killed in a bomb attack on their home in Haswa, south of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Israel hundreds of Israelis and African migrants marched down Tel Aviv's main boulevard to protest a government plan to build a detention facility to hold those who enter the country illegally.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to concede defeat after presidential elections, faced two major setbacks as officials cut off his access to the state funds used to pay soldiers and state television remained off the air in much of the country. The UN said masked gunmen with rocket launchers were blocking access to what officials believe may be a mass grave site. West Africa leaders from the 15-country regional bloc ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, threatened to send military intervention into Ivory Coast if incumbent Gbagbo refuses to step down peacefully.
(AP, 12/24/10)(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Macedonia police arrested Vellija Ramkovski and 14 employees of his private A1 television channel. The channel has often critical of PM Gruevski’s government.
(http://tinyurl.com/46rkkat)
2010 Dec 24, In Mexico 11 of the murder victims were shot in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Dutch police arrested 12 Somali men in the key port city of Rotterdam on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. Dutch authorities on Dec 26 cleared five of the 12 Somali men who were detained Christmas Eve on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. By Dec 30 the remaining Somalis were released but 3 were still considered suspect.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AP, 12/27/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 24, In central and northern Nigeria a series of unprecedented Christmas Eve bomb blasts and attacks on churches left 32 people dead in Jos. 6 people were killed when petrol bombs were thrown at churches in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, in Borno state.
(AFP, 12/25/10)(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 24, In northwestern Pakistan Taliban insurgents launched coordinated attacks on five paramilitary checkpoints, leaving at least 11 soldiers and 24 militants dead. A bomb fitted with a timer exploded in a private boys' primary school in Peshawar's Pelosi neighborhood, wounding four children. The US embassy in Islamabad said Washington transferred more than 600 million dollars to the Pakistani government this week to pay for its efforts in the fight against violent extremists.
(AFP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Russia's parliament gave preliminary approval to a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, supporting ratification of the new START pact in the first of three required votes.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Russia's central bank raised interest rates on its deposit operations to contain surging inflation, its first step away from the loose policy implemented after the financial crisis hammered the Russian economy.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Russia announced a deal to buy at least two of France’s advanced Mistral-class amphibious warships. This was the first time in modern history that Russia has made a major defense acquisition abroad.
(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 24, In Saudi Arabia police shot dead a man, disguised as a woman, at a checkpoint south of Riyadh after he opened fire on them. Police later identified the man as Mohammed Issam Tahir al-Baghdadi, an al-Qaida operative wanted for terrorist activities.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 24, South Africa's minister of international relations and cooperation said South Africa has been invited by China to join the four-member "BRIC" grouping of fast-growing emerging markets. South Africa is the world's 31st-largest economy, according to World Bank data for 2009 and is less than a quarter the size of the smallest BRIC economy, Russia.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Sudanese government troops killed at least 40 rebels and wounded many more in a new offensive in the country's troubled Darfur region. 3 soldiers also died and 13 were wounded when army forces attacked joint positions of two rebel groups: the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Thailand film director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit said she plans to appeal a decision by the National Film Board that her film, "Insects in the Backyard," cannot not be shown in Thailand because it is immoral and pornographic. The movie was about a transgender father struggling to raise two children.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 25, Benin said three West African presidents will fly to Ivory Coast to tell incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to quit or face force, a sign of mounting regional determination to force him out.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 25, In London Kristy Bamu (15) died after days of abuses in a Congolese exorcism ritual by his sister Magalie (29) and her partner, football coach Eric Bikubi (28). Bikubi and Magalie were found guilty of murder in 2012. Bikubi was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison and Bamu a minimum of 25 years.
(AFP, 3/5/12)
2010 Dec 25, China’s state media said police are offering cash and other rewards to encourage the country's millions of Internet users to help solve criminal investigations. China announced a 25-basis point increase in benchmark one-year interest rates, providing much-needed reassurance that it was determined to rein in price pressures.
(AFP, 12/25/10)(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 25, In China village leader Qian Yunhui (53) was killed under the wheel of a truck in Yueqing, Zhejiang province. On Jan 4 police charged the driver, Fei Liangyu, with accidental death. Thousands of netizens accused local government officials of killing Qian to silence his six-year campaign against fixed elections and illegal land expropriation, which was quickly denied by local authorities. On Feb 1, 2011, Fei was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.41)(http://tinyurl.com/4uwql4b)(AP, 2/1/11)
2010 Dec 25, In Colombia a 120 helicopter-borne commandos raided the camp of drug lord Pedro Oliverio Guerrero, head of the so-called Popular Revolutionary Anti-Terrorist Army of Colombia. Officials on Dec 29 confirmed that they had found the body of Guerrero, also know as "The Knife," near Puerto Alvira in Meta province. 2 police officers also died in the operation.
(AP, 12/30/10)(SFC, 12/30/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 25, Guatemala captured 4 suspected drug traffickers on top of 18 arrested over the past week, as well as automatic weapons and small planes in a country-wide sweep to crack down on Mexican cartels smuggling drugs through Central America.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 25, In India a rocket carrying a GSAT-5P communications satellite exploded just after takeoff from the Sriharikota space center in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SSFC, 12/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 25, In northern India a bus collided head-on with a van that was carrying mourners returning from a funeral, killing 35 people.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Iran a convicted drug trafficker has been hanged in the northern city of Sari after being convicted of keeping, carrying and selling the narcotic drug crack.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, In southern Lebanon Ghandi Sahmarani, the leader of an Al-Qaeda splinter group, was found shot dead execution-style in Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Mexico 2 more murder victims were shot in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan handed out $1 billion from the nation’s “excess crude account" to government officials for Christmas presents.
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.58)
2010 Dec 25, In Pakistan a burqa-clad, female, suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people as hundreds from the Salarzai tribe headed toward a food distribution center in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border. 45 people were killed. The Salarzais are a major regional anti-Taliban tribe, which has been backing army operations against the militants. The bombing forced the World Food Program to shut down operations in the Bajur region.
(AP, 12/25/10)(Reuters, 12/26/10)(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 25, In the southern Philippines a bomb exploded during Christmas Day Mass at a chapel inside a police camp on Jolo island, wounding 6 people. The next day Pres. Aquino said that investigators had identified a suspect and a possible "terror plot" in the bombing.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AFP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 25, Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea hijacked the MV Thor Nexus, a Thai-owned cargo ship with 27 crew members. Suspected Somali pirates attacked the Taiwanese ship FV Shiuh Fu No. 1, some 120 nautical miles off the northeastern tip of Madagascar. All communication was lost and there were strong indications that it may have been seized with its 26 crew members.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 25, Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez (88) died in Miami. His popularity soared with his country's oil-based economy, but later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment in his homeland. Perez governed Venezuela from 1974-79 and again from 1989-93 and denied any wrongdoing.
(AP, 12/25/10)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.86)
2010 Dec 26, Allstate Corp filed suit against Bank of America Corp, its Countrywide lending unit and 17 other defendants for allegedly misrepresenting the risks on more than $700 million of mortgage securities it bought from Countrywide.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Arizona Gavin MacFarlane (28) opened fire inside a Phoenix strip club killing 2 people and wounding 2 others.
(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 26, In Massachusetts police officer John McGuire was shot dead while investigating a robbery in Woburn. Scott Hanwright (19) was charged for murder and Kevin Dingwell (51) was charged with being an accessory after the fact. A 3rd suspect, Dominic Cinelli (57) was fatally shot by responding officers.
(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 26, Geraldine Doyle (86), a Michigan factory worker used as the unwitting model for the wartime Rosie the Riveter poster, died. The term "Rosie the Riveter" stems from a 1942 song honoring the women who took over critical factory jobs when American men went off to war. The inspirational "We Can Do It!" poster was not widely seen until the 1980s when it was embraced by the feminist movement as a potent symbol of women's empowerment.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 26, Teena Marie (b.1956), Motown’s “Ivory Queen of soul" died. Her hits included “Lovergirl," and “Fire and Desire" with mentor Rick James.
(SFC, 12/27/10, p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teena_Marie)
2010 Dec 26, The Afghanistan Defense Ministry said it will investigate missing US-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant for its army and police. "Numerous insurgents were killed" in two separate incidents in Helmand and Kandahar during a NATO operation targeting suspect vehicles. Several suspected insurgents were detained.
(AP, 12/26/10)(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Bolivia the government under Evo Morales announced an end to subsidies on many fuels. The measure involved a 73% increase in the price of petrol.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.36)
2010 Dec 26, London’s Underground drivers went on a 24-hour strike in a dispute over holiday pay. Members of the Aslef trade union voted to walk out after transport chiefs refused their demand for triple pay and a day off for working on December 26, the day after Christmas being a national holiday in Britain.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Dagestan eight men were killed in a shoot-out with police after they barricaded themselves in a house in the city of Makhachkala and refused to give up.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In the Dominican Rep. former President Salvador Jorge Blanco (84) died. He was convicted of corruption in 1991 under a political antagonist's administration but declared innocent in 2001 by an appeals court, died. Blanco was president from 1982-1986.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, Egypt said it has adopted a stimulus plan with the aim of injecting 10-20 billion pounds ($1.72-3.44 billion) into the economy in the 2011 calendar year. Gamal Mubarak, the son of Pres. Mubarak, said he will press ahead with bold new economic reforms that will be "more ambitious and more daring" than those that have come before, while still vowing to protect the nation's poor from any fallout.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In southern Egypt a tour bus slammed into a truck, killing eight Americans and injuring 21 others in the latest fatal crash involving tourists.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Iran local media reported that a death sentence has been imposed on a man suspected of spying for Israel. A Tehran prosecutor confirmed that economist Fariborz Raisdana has been arrested for trying to subvert the recent subsidies plans in radio interviews.
(AP, 12/26/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 26, Israel and Palestinian militants traded threats amid fresh skirmishes along the tense Gaza Strip border in which two Islamic Jihad fighters were killed. Nine French activists were arrested during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at a major Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank.
(AFP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Ivory Coast allies of Alassane Ouattara called for a general strike to last until incumbent Pres. Laurent Gbagbo concedes defeat.
(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 26, In Malaysia 3 Singaporean tourists drowned and two others were missing after an overloaded passenger boat capsized near Sibu island.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Nigeria clashes left at least one person dead and a number of houses burned in the city of Jos amid tensions following a series of Christmas Eve bomb attacks.
(AFP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In the Philippines Communist rebels threatened more attacks despite looming peace talks with the government, as they marked the insurgency's 42nd anniversary by defiantly marching with their weapons in public view.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia several thousand people rallied in Moscow to protest the ethnic clashes that have rocked Russia, holding posters reading "Fascists disgrace Russia" and chanting "No to Fascism!"
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia icy rain shut down Moscow's largest airport for nearly 15 hours, coated roads with ice and left more than 300,000 people and 14 hospitals without electricity.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, Ukraine's security service detained former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko, the latest move in a crackdown on the previous government since Pres. Yanukovich took power. The state prosecutor's office this month charged Lutsenko with abuse of office, saying he had embezzled state funds. He denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his first use of new decree powers to create a $2.3 billion fund for reconstruction after widespread flooding that left more than 130,000 people homeless.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93), US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions" (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban car bomb targeted a bank where police queued for salaries in Kandahar, killing three people. NATO said one of its service members was killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/27/10)(AFP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In China 14 children died when the vehicle taking them to school plunged into a creek in the central province of Hunan. In Guizhou province 7 people died and 15 were injured after a truck crashed into a gas station in fog, causing a pileup involving more than 100 cars.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, An Egyptian Ministry of Health official said a resurgent H1N1 swine flu virus has infected 1,172 people in Egypt and killed 56 since October 8.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Guatemala men claiming to belong to the Zetas drug gang forced radio stations to broadcast a threat of war in a northern Guatemalan province where the government declared a state of siege last week.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing nine people at the government compound in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province. 43 people were injured by the blasts. 3 members of the same family were killed when a roadside bomb hit their car outside the town of Dujail, 50 miles (80km) north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old. The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Italy bomb squad experts defused a package bomb that was delivered to the Greek Embassy in Rome, four days after similar mail bombs exploded at two other embassies, wounding two people.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Mexico police in Guerrero state found the remains of three people in a clandestine grave in the town Teloloapan. A police report said the three unknown people were believed to have been killed about four months ago. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz one policeman was killed, and a local police commander was wounded when a man opened fire on municipal offices in the town of Otatitlan. The Defense Department said troops patrolling the mountainous area of Tamazula, Durango, discovered a cache of weapons and 770 kg (1,697 pounds) of marijuana in 191 bales.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Morocco’s interior ministry said security forces have arrested six Moroccans suspected of planning attacks in the country and abroad.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Pakistan intelligence officials and tribal elders say the Pakistani Taliban have kidnapped 23 tribesmen who recently met the army chief in South Waziristan. Suspected US missiles struck two vehicles in a Taliban stronghold on Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan, killing 18 militants, including four foreigners.
(AP, 12/27/10)(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A3)(AP, 2/25/12)
2010 Dec 27, In the Philippines US Lt. Cmdr. Scintar Buenviaje Mejia (35) died of head injuries after jumping from a second-floor staircase while a security guard escorted him to the bathroom. He was arrested a day earlier with what was thought to be cocaine. Tests later showed the white powder wasn't an illegal drug.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Russia jailed ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of money laundering and theft of billions of dollars at a trial that has renewed doubts about the Kremlin's commitment to the rule of law.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Serbia a series of explosions damaged the Sloboda ammunition factory in Cacak.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.51)
2010 Dec 27, Somali pirates seized a ship with eight crew onboard. The MV EMS River was seized approximately 175 miles (280 km) northeast of the port of Salalah, Oman.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Venezuela said it has detained 12,376 people for drug-related crimes this year, about 40 percent more than in 2009.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, The US Postal Service unveiled its first-class commemorative stamps for 2011. All were marked with the word "forever" instead of the current rate of 44 cents.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, In New Orleans, La., a fire in an abandoned warehouse killed 8 homeless squatters.
(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 28, Dr. Billy Taylor (b.1921), jazz pianist and composer, died in Manhattan. His work included the ambitious “Suite for Jazz Piano and Orchestra" (1973).
(SFC, 12/30/10, p.C6)(www.nojazzfest.com/chat/showthread.php?t=14270)
2010 Dec 28, An Afghan soldier was killed in a suicide attack in the eastern Paktika province. NATO said that it, in conjunction with Afghan forces, had killed more than 15 insurgents over the past 24 hours.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Australia drenching rains pounded communities across the northeast, flooding major highways and prompting hundreds of evacuations.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Belarus Pres. Lukashenko appointed Mikhail Myasnikovich (60), the official head of the Belarussian Academy of Sciences, as the new prime minister.
(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 28, West African leaders Boni Yayi of Benin, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde met with incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo to deliver an ultimatum from the ECOWAS regional bloc to step down or face removal by force. But Gbagbo's government signaled he was unlikely to agree to cede power to Alassane Ouattara.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 28, China said it is reducing the amount of rare earths it will export for the first half of the year by more than 10 percent, likely to be an unpopular move worldwide since the minerals are vital to the manufacture of high-tech products.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, A Chinese journalist died from injuries sustained in a gang beating that some say was linked to his investigative work. Sun Hongjie, a senior reporter at the Northern Xinjiang Morning Post, died at a hospital in the city of Kuitun 10 days after he was beaten by six men at a construction site.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Cuba's Supreme Court commuted the death sentence against a Cuban-American who was the last person remaining on death row in the island nation. The court sentenced Humberto Eladio Real to 30 years in prison instead. On Oct. 15, 1994, Real and six other members of a Florida-based exile group came ashore in northern Cuba, armed with assault rifles and other weapons. A man was killed, and the group was captured shortly thereafter.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, German engineering group Siemens said it has won a contract that could be worth some €600 million ($790 million) to supply 258 wind turbines to a US power company.
(AFP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Honduras radio reporter Henry Suazo (36) was gunned down outside his home in La Masica, the 10th journalist killed in the Central American country this year.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Project developer Bashar Masri said about 20 Israeli suppliers will help build Rawabi, the first modern Palestinian city in the West Bank, but only after promising they will not use products or services from Israeli settlements.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Iran hanged Ali Akbar Siadat, an Iranian convicted of spying for Israel. Another Iranian was hanged for membership in an exile opposition movement.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Veteran Israeli journalist Dov Yudkovsky (89) died. He had fled the Nazi Holocaust and later became editor of Israel's best-selling newspaper. In 2002, Yudkovsky was awarded the Israel Prize, the Jewish state's highest honor, for his work in the media.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, Japan postponed the creation of a greenhouse gas emission trading system by a year until after April 2014 in the face of strong resistance from the business lobby.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Mexico gunmen battled police in the northern state of Durango, leaving two bystanders, a federal agent and two drug cartel suspects dead. 13 suspects were detained, including several former state policemen who allegedly worked for the Sinaloa cartel headed by fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman," which is fighting the Zetas gang for control of the region. The navy captured four suspects linked to drug-cartel activities, including two females under the age of 18. A raid by a feared drug gang burned down half of the isolated village of Tierras Coloradas, Durango state, leaving more than 150 people, mostly children, homeless in the raw mountain winter.
(AP, 12/29/10)(AP, 12/30/10)(Reuters, 2/17/11)
2010 Dec 28, In Nigeria members of the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram shot and wounded a retired senior police officer and two civilians in the city of Maiduguri. Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for the Christmas Eve bomb blasts in Jos that left at least 32 dead.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Pakistan a barrage of US missiles killed at least 15 militants in the North Waziristan tribal district, obliterating compounds and vehicles used by Islamist fighters.
(AFP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, A former Russian senator was sentenced to life in jail for ordering multiple killings and financing a criminal group. The Moscow City Court said that Igor Izmestyev, a former senator and oil trader from the central region of Bashkiriya, financed a mob that killed 14 people between 1992 and 2004. The court sentenced 4 more mobsters to up to 23 years in jail. Their so-called Kingisepp mob was known for finishing their victims off with a shot in the eye.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Russia robbers carrying assault rifles in a baby carriage fatally shot two guards outside a commercial bank and a man walking his dog and got away with more than $800,000 worth of cash in St. Petersburg.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, An aging Russian military cargo plane crashed, killing all 12 people aboard. The An-22 plane was on a flight from the southwestern region of Voronezh region when it crashed in the Tula region, about 120 miles (190 km) south of Moscow.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, South Korean education officials said almost 30 robots have started teaching English to youngsters in a South Korean city, in a pilot project designed to nurture the nascent robot industry.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Thailand US and Thai officials arrested a group of 12 Chinese nationals accused of obtaining fake visas to try to gain entry to the United States. The visas bore the same numbers as authentic ones issued by the US Embassy in Warsaw to Polish citizens.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, President Barack Obama bypassed Congress to name the first US ambassador to Syria in nearly six years. Obama took the controversial step of forcing through the appointments of Ambassador Robert Ford and five other officials while the Senate, which normally needs to confirm nominations, was out of session.
(AF, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Wayne, Michigan, a natural gas explosion destroyed a furniture store, killed two people and injured two others. Owner Paul Franks was in critical condition.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Groups including the UN, Harvard University, Google Inc and Not On Our Watch, an organization co-founded by actor George Clooney, launched the Satellite Sentinel Project, a project using satellites to "watch" Sudan for war crimes before a vote that could split the African country in two.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In eastern Afghanistan US forces clashed with insurgents, fending off a Taliban assault for the second time in as many days. NATO said it and Afghan forces have detained a Taliban leader in the southwestern province of Nimroz. NATO forces killed at least 5 Taliban fighters over night in Nangarhar province. Two slain Taliban commanders were identified as Shir Zaman and Zhir Gull.
(AP, 12/29/10)(SFC, 12/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 29, An Angolan court sentenced Jean Antuan Pwaty (42) a Congolese citizen, to 24 years in prison following the Jan 8 attack on Togo's national soccer team that killed two people and left eight others wounded including a goalkeeper. Pwaty was convicted of murder, armed rebellion and attempted murder.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Australia’s military cleared a town in eastern Australia, airlifting the entire population of 300 people by helicopter in Theodore, where waters were continuing to rise after days of drenching rain. A total of 1,000 people were evacuated from central and southern Queensland state.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Belarus lawyers said the seven presidential candidates who were arrested after this month's election have been formally charged with organizing a mass public disturbance and face up to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, A Belgian priest published a confession to a child sex-abuse accusation that came to light during a campaign to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting globalization's impact on developing countries. In October, after supporters of Francois Houtart (85) began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Brazilian media reported that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has decided not to extradite former Italian guerrilla Cesare Battisti, a move that could hurt ties with Italy.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Canada said it no longer recognized the Ivory Coast ambassador to Ottawa appointed by president Laurent Gbagbo, and that it would welcome new diplomatic representation from the West African nation.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Cuba’s official Gazette said that effective January 1, personal cleanliness products will be cut from ration books that islanders have come to rely on as part of a small supply of basic goods.
(SFC, 12/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 29, In Denmark 4 men planning to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were arrested in an operation that halted an imminent attack. The 4 were Swedish residents, a Tunisian (44), a Lebanese-born man (29), an Iraqi asylum seeker, and a 30-year-old whose national origin was not released. Police in Stockholm arrested a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, suspected of being linked to the plot. Denmark freed the Iraqi suspect the next day due to an apparent lack of evidence. The trial of Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri and Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti opened on April 13, 2012.
(AP, 12/29/10)(AP, 12/30/10)(AP, 4/13/12)
2010 Dec 29, In Egypt flood waters caused by torrential rains earlier this week swept a bus packed with 77 schoolgirls and their teachers off a highway in the country's south, ending in the tragic death of 15 people, most of them students. The last two survivors were pulled out of the waters in the early hours Dec 31.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 29, The spokesman for the EU's anti-piracy force said Somali pirates over the Christmas weekend unsuccessfully targeted two ships, going farther south than ever before to attack vessels.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Haiti Paul Waggoner, an American aid worker, was released from a notoriously overcrowded Haitian prison after a judge apparently cleared him of allegations that he kidnapped an infant from a hospital where he worked as a volunteer. Waggoner had been in custody for 18 days while authorities investigated the allegations of Frantz Philistin, a Haitian man whose infant son was treated at a hospital in Petionville in February.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Honduras and Mexico announced they have agreed to create a high-level group to combat attacks on undocumented Honduran migrants who are passing through the country en route to the United States.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, A payments dispute between India and Iran escalated after Tehran refused to sell oil to India under New Delhi's prohibitive new rules. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India said deals with Iran must be settled outside the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) system, used by central banks of member nations to settle bilateral trades.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Iraq 3 al-Qaida suicide bombers attacked a police building in Mosul, leveling the building and killing Lt. Col. Shamil al-Jabouri, the city's top commander. He had escaped at least five previous assassination attempts. On of the suicide bombers was shot dead before setting off his explosives belt.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Mexico gunmen believed to be linked to drug cartels killed 4 police officers and a doctor in apparently coordinated attacks in and around the northern city of Monterrey. Six people were found dead in the southern state of Guerrero.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Igor Luksic (b.1976) took office as prime minister of Montenegro.
(Econ, 6/16/12, p.63)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Luk%C5%A1i%C4%87)
2010 Dec 29, In southern Nigeria 2 bombs exploded during a political rally in Yenegoa, Bayelsa state. No one was killed but a number of people were taken to hospital with injuries. Suspected Islamists killed 8 people, including 3 policemen, in five separate attacks in the northern city of Maiduguri.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Northern Ireland frustration and fears of disease mounted as 36,000 people were left without water, some for more than a week, after a deep freeze and a sudden thaw caused aging pipes to burst.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Pakistan's US-allied ruling party scrambled to keep its fragile coalition government in power as its senior leaders met with two dissident political partners, urging them to rejoin the Cabinet.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas traveled to Brazil to lay the symbolic foundation stone of a Palestinian embassy in Brasilia.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In the Philippines a gift-wrapped grenade exploded and killed a woman (31) when she opened the package inside her house in an upscale neighborhood of Manila.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, A Russian a court ordered 3 men to be them held in custody at least until the end of the week. Investigators had arrested two men and Andrei Chernyshev, a government official, who is believed to have ordered the November attack and brutal beating of environmental activist Konstantin Fetisov.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Spain's government formally launched the privatization of air traffic control in 13 airports, just weeks after clamping down on a wildcat strike by controllers.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Sudan demanded a detailed UN audit on a program to rehabilitate ex-civil war soldiers following charges that millions of dollars have been embezzled or mismanaged.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, The UAE embassy in Ottawa said on its website that Canadians would be charged $250 for a 30-day single entry visa while a six-month multiple entry visa would cost $1000, with a maximum stay of 14 days during each visit. Tensions have risen between the two countries since Canada denied expanded landing rights for UAE airlines flying to Canada. That triggered a UAE government decision to end access to a military base used by the Canadian military to support troops in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 30, In southern Afghanistan 14 Afghan civilians were killed and four others injured when a minivan struck a roadside bomb in Helmand province. Several insurgents and a child were killed in fighting during a joint operation with Afghan forces targeting a Taliban logistics officer in a compound in Wardak province. Afghan and coalition troops killed Maulvi Bahadar (Bahadur), the Taliban "shadow governor" of northern Kunduz province.
(AFP, 12/30/10)(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/2/11)
2010 Dec 30, Reporters Without Borders said that since Dec. 25, the Belarus KGB had searched the offices of 3 news outlets and an opposition party, the homes of 2 journalists, 2 human rights activists, 2 former presidential candidates and 4 of their advisers. The homes of 2 more journalists were searched the next day.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Bolivia protests against sharp increases in gas prices turned violent as thousands demanded that Pres. Morales’ government repeal the hike.
(SFC, 12/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 30, Brazil's state-run Petrobras confirmed that oil fields recently discovered offshore contained 8.3 billion barrels of recoverable crude and gas, and said the biggest field was being renamed "Lula."
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cambodia charged seven Thais, including a ruling party politician, with illegal entry and put them in jail awaiting possible trial, despite strong protests from Thailand. The detainees were inspecting contested territory from Thailand's eastern Sa Kaeo province when they were captured a day earlier by Cambodian soldiers.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In China Zeng Jinchun was shot to death for taking more than $4.7 million in bribes. He was the ruling Communist party's top corruption inspector for Chenzhou city in the central province of Hunan. Zeng was found guilty of taking the 31 million yuan in bribes in return for handing out mining contracts and job promotions over a decade ending in 2006.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported that a fire at a factory belonging to the Quanxin Pharmaceutical Co. in southwestern China's Yunnan province caused a blast that killed at least five people and injured eight others.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Croatia the leading daily Sata published only good news for today. A huge smiley face appeared on the front page, and politics and crime were banished. The horoscope still forecast trouble for people with some signs.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Greece a powerful bomb hidden on a parked motorcycle exploded outside two court buildings in central Athens and a small bomb went off outside the Greek embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but neither caused injuries.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Iran media reported the arrest of seven Al-Qaeda militants in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Iraq at least four Christian homes in Baghdad were hit in the first string of attacks since al-Qaida-linked militants last week renewed their threats of violence against Christians. 2 people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a Christian family's house in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of al-Gahdir.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Israel former President Moshe Katsav (65) was convicted of raping an employee when he was a Cabinet minister in 1998. "Relax, you'll enjoy it." He held the largely ceremonial office of president from 2000-2007.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Israeli troops seized Khalil al-Rabai, a Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament, the fifth to be rearrested recently after serving previous prison terms. With Rabai's arrest the number of Hamas MPs in Israeli custody is now believed to be 13.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Poland Anders Hogstrom, a Swedish man, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for instigating the December 2009 theft of the notorious "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") sign from the former Auschwitz death camp.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In southwestern Poland 3 miners were killed by falling rocks after a minor earthquake at a copper mine.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Qatar Mathaf, the first Arab Museum of Modern Art, opened.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.74)
2010 Dec 30, Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to six more years in prison following a trial seen as payback for his defiance of Vladimir Putin.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, A Spanish court convicted four Civil Guard police officers of torturing members of the armed Basque group ETA who were arrested for bombing Madrid's airport in 2006. The officers were found guilty of beating and threatening Mattin Sarasola and Igor Portu after they were taken into custody in 2008.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, A Thai court ordered prison terms for 79 members of the right-wing, nationalist "Yellow Shirt" movement who stormed a state television station two years ago armed with guns, knives and clubs.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Turkey’s the state-run Anatolia news agency said police have detained 10 people suspected of links to the al-Qaida terror network and accused of preparing to stage an attack before New Year's Eve.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, The United Nations accused Ivory Coast incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's security forces of blocking access to mass graves, saying investigators believe as many as 80 bodies may be in one building that UN personnel are being kept from entering.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, The Independent Human Rights Defenders Group said at least 39 people have died of torture in prisons of authoritarian Uzbekistan this year amid a spiraling crackdown on religious groups and government critics.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Pope Benedict XVI issued new norms governing the Vatican’s banking system.
(SFC, 12/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 30, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government devalued its bolivar currency for the second time in 12 months, abolishing the lowest exchange rate as the OPEC member fights to revive its economy.
(Reuters, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, Yemen released hundreds of detained Shiite rebels as part of a ceasefire in their years long conflict.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cyber activists said they have brought down Zimbabwean government websites after the president's wife sued a newspaper for publishing a WikiLeaks cable linking her with illicit diamond trading.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 31, San Francisco was chosen to host the next America’s Cup in 2013.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A1)
2010 Dec 31, In Arkansas a tornado killed 3 people in the hamlet of Cincinnati. A storm spawned by the same weather left 3 people dead near Rolla, Missouri. A 4th person, injured in Rolla, died the next day.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/2/11, p.A11)
2010 Dec 31, The body of John Wheeler III (66), a national defense consultant, was found in a load of trash at a landfill in Wilmington, Delaware. He was last seen alive a day earlier in Wilmington.
(http://tinyurl.com/2c6hzrd)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
2010 Dec 31, In western Virginia a small aircraft collided with a medical helicopter in the air, killing two people on the plane.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Afghan forces conducted an overnight raid in two compounds in Tahar province killing a Taliban district chief in a gunfight that also left an Afghan policeman and a border guard dead, NATO said insurgents attacks claimed the lives of two coalition service members. Coalition forces killed Abdul Hai, a Taliban leader in Kunduz.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/2/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Argentina thieves dug a 100-foot-long (30m) ventilated and lit tunnel from a neighboring building into a Buenos Aires bank and spent the weekend opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch's 1,408 boxes. The robbery wasn't discovered until the bank opened on Jan 3.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Australia floodwater rose across a vast area in the northeast, inundating 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes, and closing a major sugar export port.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Belarus declared that Europe's top rights watchdog would no longer be able to work in the country, after the OSCE condemned the conduct of this month's presidential election.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Brazil's president granted political asylum to Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti, but the case must still be heard by the nation's Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Britain said it no longer recognized the ambassador appointed by Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo who is refusing to step down after elections widely viewed as having been won by his rival Alassane Ouattara. Britain said it would give support at the UN for the use of force to oust Ivory Coast's incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo if West African nations sought backing for a military intervention.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The Jakarta-based Legal Aid Foundation said in a new report that law enforcement officials from police to prison wardens routinely torture Indonesian suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Mexico's federal police said that the once-fearsome La Familia drug cartel has been "completely dismembered" and has broken down into small groups that commit robberies to pay their members. The half-naked body of a woman who had escaped from prison officials while facing kidnapping charges was found hanging by the neck from an overpass in Monterey. 5 inmates, including a Colombian man sentenced to more than 20 years for smuggling a ton of cocaine into Mexico aboard a boat, escaped a prison in Cancun.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 31, Nigerian police said they have arrested Bunu Wasili (55), a man suspected to be a leader and financier of Boko Haram, along with 91 others. The radical Muslim sect was responsible for dozens of recent killings in northern Nigeria. A New Year's Eve bombing in Abuja killed 4 people.
(AP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In Pakistan violence flared as police and protesters clashed during a mass protest strike that closed businesses across the country over a bid to end the death penalty for blasphemy. A US missile strike killed 8 suspected militants in North Waziristan. A bomb blew up outside a district police headquarters in the town of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a bystander and wounding two other people. A second bomb targeting a NATO supply convoy in the border town of Chaman set one fuel tanker on fire and wounded a passer-by. The Pakistani Taliban released 23 tribesmen it had kidnapped and held captive for three weeks. They were released after being tried by a Taliban court and being submerged in cold water as punishment.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas laid the first stone of what will become a Palestinian embassy in Brazil, the most important Latin American country to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, In the Philippines Councilman Reynaldo Dagsa was shot dead in Manila. A photograph identified one gunmen, who was captured Jan 3 along with an accomplice. One suspect was a car thief who was out on bail and likely sought revenge against Dagsa for ordering his arrest last year. The main shooter, Arnel Buenaflor, was captured on Jan 6 in a boarding house in Aurora township.
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/7/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy Russian prime minister during Boris Yeltsin's presidency, was among 68 people arrested at an unsanctioned rally in Moscow. He and other protesters had gathered on the opposite side of a square from an authorized protest. On Jan 2 he was sentenced to 15 days in jail for failure to follow police orders. Nemtsov was released on Jan 15. A female suicide bomber was killed on the outskirts of Moscow by a bomb that was to have been deployed in the city's central Manezh Square where Muscovites throng for holiday celebrations. A 2nd female suicide bomber was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in jail in May, 2012. On Nov 28, 2012, Ilyas Saidov of Dagestan, who brought the suicide belts, was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
(AP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/15/11)(AP, 2/3/11(AP, 11/28/12)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia 13 villages remained without power following a freezing rain that caused trees and power lines to snap. Power was cut off to 789 villages and towns with a total of 400,000 inhabitants in the region around Moscow.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, Rwandan police said they are working with counterparts in Dhaka to deport 64 Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking, after the arrest in Kigali of their suspected trafficker. Abdul Sattar Miah was arrested Dec 27 in a hotel in Kigali, in possession of the passports of his presumed victims.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The FV Vega 5, hijacked by Somali pirates, was spotted near the Mozambique coast, approximately 200 nautical miles southwest of the Comoros islands. It was seen towing what looked to be a pirate attack skiff and did not respond to any calls.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In South Africa thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants crowded outside immigration offices as a deadline approached for them to obtain permits or face deportation.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec, In China Dai Qingcheng (46) was given the death penalty for raping 116 women between 1993 and 2009 in Anhui province in eastern China.
(AP, 4/19/11)
2010 Dec, In the Czech Rep. 4,000 hospital physicians delivered resignations to protest low pay with an effective start time in March. Their current starting salary was about 4 euros per hour ($5.25).
(SSFC, 12/26/10, p.F4)
2010 Dec, In Greece the state's attempt to start work on a planned garbage dump on a hillside near Keratea caused locals to set fire to construction vehicles and erect massive roadblocks on a highway that bypasses the town and runs to the capital. Local opposition continued into April as locals developed increasingly inventive roadblocks to stop contractors from getting to the proposed dump site.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2010 Dec, Laos said China would build a $7.2 billion high-speed railway from the border to its capital, Vientiane. Construction was due to begin in April, 2011. The 262-mile railway was expected to take fie years just to lay the tracks.
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.49)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.49)
2010 Dec, Oliver O'Grady (66) was arrested in Dublin, Ireland, after leaving a computer containing pornographic images of children on a flight from Amsterdam. O'Grady had worked as a priest in northern California from 1971 until 1993, when he was arrested for abusing two brothers. He served seven years in prison and was deported to his native Ireland in 2000. In 2012 he was sentenced to 3 years in prison in Ireland for possessing child pornography.
(AP, 1/31/12)
2010 Dec, Transparency Int’l., a Berlin-based lobby group, ranked Liberia as the most corrupt country in the world.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.54)
2010 Dec, Lithuania reviewed its 2011 budget and declared war on smuggling to boost revenue as its deficit swelled to 9.2% of economic output. Smuggling of tobacco, alcohol and fuel was costing the country some $193 million a year in lost taxes.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec, In New Zealand 2 spade-toothed beaked whales, a mother and her calf, beached themselves. The species, identified later by DNA, was described as the world's "rarest and perhaps most enigmatic" marine mammal.
(AP, 11/5/12)
2010 Dec, In South Korea Jay Y. Lee (43), the son of Chairman Lee Kun-hee, was named president of Samsung Group, which contained 83 firms under an umbrella company called Everland. The Lee family controlled a 46% stake.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.77)
2010 Dec, The Paris Club decided to cancel $203 million in debt to Togo. The informal group of 19 creditor countries included the world's most industrialized nations.
(AP, 5/12/11)
2010 Elizabeth Abbott authored “Mistresses: A History of the Other Woman."
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.164)
2010 Richard Aldrich authored “GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency."
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.80)
2010 Ayaan Hirsi Ali authored “Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations."
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.F1)
2010 David Allbright authored “Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies.
(Econ, 3/13/10, p.86)
2010 Ronald Asmus authored “A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West." It covered the 2008 war in Georgia.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.78)
2010 Philip Ball authored “The Music Instinct: How Music works and Why We Can’t Do Without It."
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.90)
2010 Elif Batuman authored “The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People who Read Them."
(SSFC, 2/21/10, p.F1)
2010 Peter Beinart authored “The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris."
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.82)
2010 Ira Berlin authored “The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations."
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.84)
2010 Anthony Bianco authored “The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal, and the Ethical Collapse at Hewlett-Packard."
(SSFC, 7/18/10, p.F1)
2010 Tony Blair, former British prime minister, authored his memoir “A Journey."
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.60)
2010 Tom Bingham, British jurist, authored “The Rule of Law."
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.84)
2010 Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers authored “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption."
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.82)
2010 Charles Bowden authored “Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields."
(SSFC, 4/25/10, p.F3)
2010 Tom Bower, English historian, authored “Oil, Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century."
(SSFC, 5/30/10, p.F8)
2010 Ian Bremmer authored “The End of the Free Market: Who wins the War Between States and Corporations."
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.89)
2010 John Seely Brown, Lang Davison and John Hagel III authored “The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big things In Motion."
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.67)
2010 Oliver Bullough authored “Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus."
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.86)
2010 Former Pres. George W. Bush authored his memoir “Decision Points."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.40)
2010 Michael Byers authored “Who Owns the Arctic: Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North."
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.68)
2010 Peter Calthorpe authored “Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change."
(SSFC, 2/13/11, p.G1)
2010 Nicholas Carr, American commentator, authored “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," in which he claimed that the Internet is on its way to smothering creativity and profound thinking.
(SSFC, 6/6/10, p.F1)(Econ, 11/6/10, SR p.18)
2010 Philip Carr-Gomm authored “A Brief History of Nakedness."
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.79)
2010 Laura Citron authored “A Compendium of Kisses," an examination of philematology, or the study of kissing.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.86)
2010 Victoria Clark authored “Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes."
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.81)
2010 Jonathan R. Cole authored “The Great American University: Its Rise to Pre-eminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.81)
2010 Keith Colquhoun (1928-2010), former obituaries editor for the Economist, authored “Five Deadly Words," his 11th blackly comic novel.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.49)
2010 Ted Conover authored “The Routes of Man: How roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today."
(SSFC, 2/28/10, p.F1)
2010 Bruce Cumings, professor of history at the Univ. of Chicago, authored “Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power."
(Econ, 3/13/10, p.87)
2010 Paul Davies authored “The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence."
(Econ, 4/10/10, p.86)
2010 Howard Davies and David Green authored “Banking on the Future: The Fall and Rise of Central Banking."
(Econ, 2/19/11, p.78)
2010 Chinese writer Li Delin authored the "Goldman Sachs Conspiracy." The new book accused the investment bank of trying to destroy China. By August some 100,000 copies were sold following its release in June, reaching popular website Sina.com's top-10 list. It followed another by author Li Delin, "Eliminate All Competitors — How Goldman Sachs Wins Over the World," published last year.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia Univ., authored “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century."
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.15)
2010 Philip Dray authored “There is Power In a Union: The Epic Struggle of Labor in America."
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.F7)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.101)
2010 Alice Echols authored “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of Popular Culture."
(SSFC, 4/4/10, p.G1)
2010 Michael Eisner, the former boss of Disney, authored “Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.80)
2010 James Ellroy (b.1948), American crime novelist, authored “The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women." It was a sort of companion piece to “My Dark Places," a 1996 account of his obsessive search for his mother’s killer (1958).
(SSFC, 9/12/10, p.F1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ellroy)
2010 Timothy Ferris authored “The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature."
(SSFC, 2/28/10, p.F1)
2010 Stephen Goldsmith, Harvard professor, authored “The Power of Social Innovation."
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.56)
2010 Ken Gormley authored “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr."
(SSFC, 2/21/10, p.F1)
2010 Manlio Graziano authored “The Failure of Italian Nationhood: The Geopolitics of a Troubled Identity."
(Econ, 6/11/11, SR p.4)
2010 Paul Greenberg authored “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food."
(SSFC, 7/11/10, p.F1)(Econ, 7/24/10, p.82)
2010 Imtiaz Gul authored “The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan's Lawless Frontier," a book about Pakistan’s tribal areas.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.28)
2010 Stefan Halper authored “The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century."
(Econ, 6/25/11, SR p.3)
2010 Oren Harman authored “The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness."
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.89)
2010 Shane Harris authored “The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State."
(SSFC, 3/7/10, p.F5)
2010 British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking and physicist Leonard Mlodinow authored "The Grand Design."
(AP, 9/8/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.101)
2010 Thomas Hegghammer authored “Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism singe 1979."
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.91)
2010 David Hirst authored “Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East."
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.78)
2010 Arnold Hiura authored “Kau Kau: Cuisine and Culture in the Hawaiian Islands."
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.E1)
2010 Jonathan Holslag authored “China And India: Prospects for Peace."
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.89)
2010 Jennifer Homans authored “Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet."
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.F5)
2010 Fraser Howie and Carl Walter authored “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise."
(Econ, 12/11/10, p.105)
2010 Tony Hsieh, founder of online shoe retailer Zappos, authored “Delivering Happiness."
(Econ, 9/10/11, SR p.12)
2010 Yu Jie authored “China’s Best Actor, Wen Jiabao." It was published in Hong Kong, but was banned on the mainland.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.35)
2010 Simon Johnson and James Kwak authored “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown."
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.91)
2010 Douglas Hurd (b.1930), former British foreign secretary (1989-1995), authored “Choose Your Weapons: The British Foreign secretary, 200 Years of Argument, Success and Failure."
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.93)
2010 Steven Johnson authored “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation," in which he named 7 ways in which new ideas can sprout from old ones.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.90)
2010 Sebastian Junger authored “War," an account of his experiences as an embedded journalist in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 5/16/10, p.F1)
2010 Anatole Kaletsky authored “Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of a Crises."
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.81)
2010 Kevin Kelly authored “What Technology Wants," a sweeping history of technology.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.90)
2010 Jeff Kingston authored “Contemporary Japan: History, Politics and Social Change Since the 1980s."
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.68)
2010 Stephen Kinzer authored “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future."
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.87)
2010 David Kirkpatrick authored “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World."
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.92)
2010 Joel Kotkin authored “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050," a look at what America might be like as the population grows from some 300 million to 400 million.
(SSFC, 2/28/10, p.F3)
2010 Michael Krasny, San Francisco talk show host (KQED), authored “Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest."
(SSFC, 10/3/10, p.F3)
2010 Timur Kuran authored “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.67)
2010 Robert Lacey authored “Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia."
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.91)
2010 John Lanchester authored “IOU: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay."
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.92)
2010 Jaron Lanier (49), virtual reality pioneer, authored “You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto."
(SSFC, 2/7/10, p.A19)
2010 Annie Leonard authored “The Story of Stuff," an expansion of her 2007 video and Web site: www.storyofstuff.org.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A1)
2010 Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman authored “The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development."
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.93)
2010 Michael Lewis authored “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine," an account of the professional investors who foresaw the financial debacle and profited from it.
(SSFC, 3/14/10, p.F1)
2010 Suzanne Loebl authored “America’s Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy."
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.94)
2010 Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith authored “Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things."
(SFC, 3/12/10, p.F8)
2010 Nancy Lublin authored “Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business," in which she argues that for-profit companies can learn from non-profits.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.72)
2010 Clarence Lusane authored “The Black History of the White House."
(SSFC, 1/16/11, p.H5)
2010 David Lynch authored “When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out: The world’s Most Resilient Country and Its Struggle to rise Again."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.102)
2010 Neil MacGregor authored “A History of the World in 100 Objects." This followed his BBC radio series of the same title.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.106)
2010 Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson authored “Wasteland With Words: A Social History of Iceland."
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.84)
2010 Nelson Mandela (92) authored "Conversations with Myself," based on decades of his anti-apartheid notes, letters and conversations. His 1995 autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom," is known worldwide.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Harry Markopolos authored “No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller," the story of his discovery of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.92)
2010 Sebastian Mallaby authored “More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite," a history of hedge funds back to the 1950s.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.82)(Econ, 6/26/10, p.89)
2010 Joe Matthews and Mark Paul authored “California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It."
(Econ, 4/23/11, SR p.10)
2010 Richard McGregor authored “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers."
(Econ, 6/19/10, p.84)
2010 Robert McCrum authored “Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language."
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.83)
2010 Hamish McDonald authored “Mahabharata in Polyester: The Making of the World’s Richest Brothers and Their Feud." It was about Indian brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.105)
2010 Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera authored “All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis."
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.84)
2010 Joseph Menn, Financial Times cyber-security reporter, authored “Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing down the Internet."
(SSFC, 1/24/10, p.D1)
2010 Northern Ireland journalist Ed Moloney authored "Voices From the Grave," a book based on interviews provided by Northern Ireland militants to Boston College researchers on condition they not be published until the interviewees were dead. It identifies Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams as a key Irish Republican Army figure who directed some of the IRA's most notorious killings and bombings. Moloney had detailed Adams' IRA record in his 2002 book "A Secret History of the IRA." The new book also includes the story of Protestant bomber-turned-peacemaker David Ervine, who died in 2007.
(AP, 3/29/10)
2010 Craig Monson authored “Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art & Arson in the Convents of Italy."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.103)
2010 Ian Morris authored “Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History and What they Reveal About the Future."
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.119)
2010 Kosuke Motani authored “The Real Face of Deflation," in which he argued that deflation in Japan is a structural problem linked to bad business decisions and demography.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.85)
2010 Siddhartha Mukherjee authored “the Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer."
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.107)
2010 B.R. Myers authored “The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves And Why It Matters."
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.52)
2010 Tarek Osman authored “Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarek."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.102)
2010 Nicholas Ostler authored “The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel."
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.163)
2010 Fintan O’Toole authored “Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic," a call for Ireland to start afresh.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.102)
2010 Nell Irvin Painter authored “The History of White People."
(SSFC, 3/28/10, p.F4)
2010 Sarah Palin authored her 2nd book “America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag."
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A6)
2010 Raj Patel, British-born academic, authored “The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy."
(SSFC, 1/10/10, Books p.F7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Patel)
2010 Hank Paulson, former US Treasury Secretary, authored “On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global financial System."
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.90)
2010 Texas Gov. Rick Perry authored “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington."
(Econ, 7/23/11, p.32)
2010 Donald Pfaff, neurobiologist, authored “Man & Woman: An Inside Story."
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.76)
2010 Roger Pielke Jr. authored “The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming."
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.91)
2010 Sasha Polakow-Suransky authored “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with apartheid South Africa.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.88)
2010 James Prosek authored “Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.106)
2010 Robert D. Putnam authored "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us."
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.F3)
2010 Raghuram Rajan authored “Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy." He argued that inequality was a cause of the crises.
(Econ, 3/17/12, p.87)
2010 Jack Rakove, Univ. of Stanford professor, authored “Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America."
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.F4)
2010 Robert B. Reich authored “The Next Economy and America’s Future."
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.N1)
2010 Keith Richards, guitarist with the Rolling Stones, authored “Life."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.80)
2010 Burton Richter, Nobel Prize winner, authored “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century."
(SFC, 5/27/10, p.E1)
2010 David Riddle (1942-2012) co-authored authored, “The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights," a meticulously researched biography of the legendary Detroit labor lawyer. Mr. Riddle wrote the book with friends, Steve Babson and David Elsila.
(http://tinyurl.com/9v465zw)
2010 Matt Ridley authored “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves."
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.90)
2010 Larry Rohter authored “Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed."
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.69)
2010 Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, authored “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness."
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.A6)
2010 William Rosen authored “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention," a study of the process of tinkering with an existing mechanism to make it better.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.70)
2010 Australian PM Kevin Rudd penned a children's book featuring his family pets. It was titled "Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle."
(AFP, 1/3/10)
2010 Leila J. Rupp authored “Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women."
(SSFC, 2/14/10, p.F5)
2010 Ruth H. Sanders authored “German: A Biography of a Language."
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.86)
2010 Thilo Sarrazin (65), a board member of Germany's august central bank, authored “Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany Is Abolishing Itself or "Germany Is Doing Away with Itself), a book claiming German society was being made "dumber" by Muslim immigrants including Turks and others from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. It became a runaway best-seller, and cost him his job.
(AP, 9/15/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin)
2010 Robert Scheer authored “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street."
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.N1)
2010 Carl Schoonover authored "Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century" (Abrams 2010).
(www.livescience.com/14413-brain-images-portraits-mind.html)
2010 Tom Segev authored “Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends."
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.73)
2010 Prof. Scott Shane of Ohio’s Case Western Reserve authored “Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders, How Your Genes Affect Your Work Life."
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.99)
2010 Clay Shirky authored “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age."
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.76)
2010 Patti Smith, rock musician and writer, received the US National Book Award for her memoir “Just Kids."
(SFC, 2/9/13, p.A5)
2010 Timothy Snyder authored “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin."
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.101)
2010 Steven Solomon authored “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization."
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.64)
2010 Francis Spufford authored “Red Plenty: Industry! Progress! Abundance! Inside the Fifties’ Soviet Dream."
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.69)
2010 David Stipp authored “The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Ageing Revolution."
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.80)
2010 Barbara Strauch authored “ The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain."
(SFC, 6/7/10, p.E1)
2010 Angus Trumble authored “The Finger: A Handbook." Trumble examines the “digitus impudicus" from many angles with appealing anecdotes.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.88)
2010 Kelly Valen authored “Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships."
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.E1)
2010 Shankar Vedanta, India-born Washington Post science journalist (b.1969), authored: “The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives."
(www.answers.com/topic/shankar-vedantam)
2010 Vlatko Vedral authored “Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information," wherein he argues that information can be created out of nothing.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.81)
2010 Lorenzo Vidino authored “The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West."
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.91)
2010 Thomas de Waal authored “The Caucasus: An Introduction."
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.102)
2010 Barry Wain authored “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times." The book covered the 22 years that Mohamad spent as Malaysia’s prime minister (1981-2003).
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.79)
2010 Ethan Waters authored “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche."
(SSFC, 1/31/10, p.F7)
2010 Gunnar Wetterberg, Swedish historian, authored “The Nordic Federal State," which proposed a pan-Nordic federation to unite Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden under a single monarch: Denmark’s Queen Margrethe.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.66)
2010 Christopher Whalen authored “Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream."
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.164)
2010 Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and candidate for California governor, authored “The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life."
(SFC, 1/25/10, p.A1)
2010 Ben Wildavsky authored “The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World."
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.92)
2010 David Willetts (b.1956) authored “The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took their Children’s Future and Why They Should Give It Back."
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.83)
2010 Edward O. Wilson, Harvard biologist and the world’s leading myrmecologist, authored his novel “Anthill."
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.84)
2010 The 942-page, 3-volume set “Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons by Gahan Wilson" was published.
(SSFC, 1/24/10, Books p.F4)
2010 Simon Winder, British writer, authored “Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History."
(SFC, 4/16/10, p.F4)
2010 Robert S. Wistrich authored “A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism From Antiquity to the Global Jihad."
(SSFC, 2/14/10, p.F4)
2010 Bob Woodward authored “Obama’s Wars." In it he alleged that some 3,000 CIA operatives are active in the tribal regions of Pakistan.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.44)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.58)
2010 Tim Wu authored “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Systems." He proposed that America adopt a “Separations Principle" that would enforce a split between creators of content, those that distribute it and makers of devices on which it is consumed.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.77)
2010 John Yoo authored “Crisis and Command: “A History of Executive Power From George Washington to George W. Bush."
(SSFC, 1/31/10, p.F4)
2010 Gregory Zuckerman authored “The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History."
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.81)
2010 Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer produced the documentary “Kinshasa Symphony" in which they followed Armand Diangienda and the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste in Kinshasa as they prepared for a concert of Beethoven’s ninth symphony.
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.94)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vTk0XsgZV4)
2010 The US Congress enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.
(Economist, 9/15/12, p.71)
2010 American Bridge 21st Century was set up with backing by George Soros and other Democrats to prepare dossiers on prominent Republicans and film them in order to pounce on ill-chosen words.
(Econ, 7/12/14, p.27)
2010 California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law limiting handgun ammunition sales. It was to take effect in February, 2011, but was blocked by a Superior court judge in Fresno. In 2013 a state appeals court barred enforcement of the law.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.D6)
2010 California’s federal prison receivership put a stop to all tubal ligations on female prisoners. In 2013 the Center for Investigative Reporting found that 148 women in state prisons had received tubal ligations without required state approvals from 2006-2010. This prompted state lawmakers to call for an investigation.
(SFC, 7/12/13, p.D8)
2010 Uber launched in San Francisco as an alternative to taxi service allowing customers to hail drivers from their smartphones.
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.80)
2010 Georgia Congressman Nathan Deal faced an investigation by the US Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) for using his position to enrich himself. Shortly before the OCE report was due to be released Mr. Deal resigned saying he wanted to focus on running for governor.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.38)
2010 Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay marriage. Anti-gay-marriage groups targeted three judges and all 3 lost their seats.
(Econ, 11/24/12, p.32)
2010 The population of New Orleans, Louisiana, shrinking since the 1960s, was down to 343,829. The city lost 29% of its population since 2000.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.34)
2010 Maine’s candidate for governor Paul LePage said that if he was elected he would tell Pres. Barack Obama “to go to Hell." LePage won with 38% of the vote.
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.26)
2010 The Missouri Department of Corrections established a Puppies for Parole program in which inmates train animals with behavioral or other issues that make them difficult to adopt. Inmates managed to train deaf dogs to respond to hand signals.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)(http://doc.mo.gov/documents/dai/PuppiesForParole_flyer.pdf)
2010 New Hampshire boasted the highest beer sales per person in the US with an average of 32.7 gallons of beer sold per legal-age drinking person. Cross-border sales contributed.
(SFC, 6/25/11, p.D2)
2010 North Dakota counted some 641,000 residents, or about .02% of the US population.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.33)
2010 In the Automotive X Prize competition a fuel efficiency prize of $5 million was awarded to Edison2, a Virginia company, for a safe, cheap and easily built car that could do more than 100 miles per American gallon. The company’s Very Light Car (VLC) was a prototype design for 2- and 4-passenger automobiles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Light_Car)(Econ, 5/16/15, p.72)
2010 General Electric developed a hand-held electrocardiogram called the Mac 400. The $800 device reduced the cost of an ECG to just $1 per patient.
(Econ, 4/17/10, SR p.6)
2010 Organovo, a San Diego-based company founded in 2007, developed the first commercial 3D bio-printer. The $200,000 machine will initially produce simple tissues such as skin, muscle and short stretches of blood vessels.
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.77)(Econ, 3/8/14, p.18)
2010 Pinterest, an online scrapbooking website, was founded.
(SFC, 4/26/14, p.D1)
2010 The Allen Institute for Brain Science, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, launched its human brain atlas.
(Econ, 9/7/13, TQ p.25)
2010 Fourth-generation networks embraced internet protocol providing mobile devices with broadband access to the internet. The first generation of cellular phones began around 1980 and relied on analogue technology. The 2nd generation arrived in 1991 and wireless networks began to go digital. By 2001 the 3rd generation dumped circuit-switching for more efficient packet-switching.
(Econ, 5/30/15, TQ p.10)
2010 Analysis of human bone discovered in the Altai Mountains of Russia found that it was neither Neanderthal or modern human. The cave had been occupied in the 18th century by a monk named Denis, so Denisovan was the name given to this associated branch of Homo sapiens.
(Econ, 7/5/14, p.65)
2010 US public debt at the end of 2010 stood at 62% of GDP. This was defined as federal government debt held by the public. General government gross debt, however, stood at about 92% of GDP.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.84)
2010 US banks repossessed more than 1 million homes in 2010. That marked the highest annual tally of properties lost to foreclosure on records dating back to 2005.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2010 The average cost of this year’s Decennial US Census was estimated at $46.93 per person compared to 1.13 cents in 1790.
(http://www.genealogybranches.com/censuscosts.html)
2010 In the US 33,000 Americans were killed on roads. This was 60% above the OECD average.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.29)
2010 The US had 13.1 million arrests this year. Drug violations accounted for just over 1.6 million of the arrests according to FBI data released in 2011.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.40)
2010 In Abu Dhabi German entrepreneur Thomas Geissler, creator of the "Gold to Go" brand and chief executive of Ex Oriente Lux, installed a money machine at the Emirates Palace hotel that dispenses pure gold. The cash-for-gold machines were first tested in Germany in 2009.
(Reuters, 5/13/10)
2010 Afghanistan’s central bank spent $820 million of its reserves bailing out Kabul Bank.
(Econ, 6/18/11, p.47)
2010 In Afghanistan some 2,043 civilians died this year as a result of Taliban attacks and military operations targeting the militants. Roadside bombs killed 268 American troops this year, a 60% increase over the year before.
(AP, 1/19/11)(AP, 1/26/11)
2010 Algeria’s population stood at about 35 million.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.50)
2010 Bahrain’s population was about 738,000, including some 235,000 non nationals.
(NYT 2011 Almanac, p.537)
2010 The population of Bangladesh stood at about 160 million. 70% were under 35.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.45)
2010 The population of Belarus was about 10 million.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.66)
2010 Bosnia’s population numbered about 3.8 million.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.54)
2010 Brazil’s government began allowing taxpayers to deduct costs for cosmetic surgery.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A3)
2010 Brazilian census figures for this year showed that nearly 43,000 children under 14 years of age were living with a partner in defiance of laws forbidding these unions. The census put the number of Roman Catholics at about 65% of the population of 192 million, down from 74% in 2000. It also marked the first time in which black and mixed-race people officially outnumbered whites, weighing in at just over 50 percent, compared with 47 percent for whites.
(AP, 9/13/11) (AP, 11/3/12)(AP, 3/17/13)
2010 Bulgaria’s population was about 7.6 million and included a 750,000 Turkish minority.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.58)
2010 Burundi’s population stood at about 9 million. Tax revenues were around $9 million.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.48)
2010 The population of Cambodia was about 14 million.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.32)
2010 Canadian first-time novelist Johanna Skibsrud, author of "The Sentimentalists," was a surprise winner of the C$50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Nova Scotia-based specialty publisher Gaspereau Press could produce only 1,000 copies a week of the finely bound book, using an old-fashioned press.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Canada’s population was estimated at around 34,108,800 as of July 1 this year.
(SSFC, 10/3/10, p.A4)
2010 In Chile Nicolas Shea founded Start-Up Chile, a program that used government funded seed capital to encourage entrepreneurial activity.
(Economist, 10/13/12, p.79-80)
2010 China opened a 4-km bridge from the mainland to the island of Pingtan, directly across from Taiwan. By 2011 China hoped to develop the island together with Taiwan as a duty free enclave.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.52)
2010 A prediction was made that China’s paramount leader will either have been elected or selected by an elected multi-party national parliament.
(SFC, 5/26/96, Z1 p.6)
2010 Zhang Jingli, one of four deputy heads of China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), was removed from his post at the food and drug safety watchdog. He was under investigation over alleged bribery linked to US pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson. In early 2011 he was stripped of his party membership.
(AFP, 1/6/11)
2010 China began introducing donation schemes for human organs as its source of organs from prisoners fell due to fewer executions. A national organ bank was set up fight corruption in the organ-allocation system.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.42)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.48)
2010 Xiaomi, a Chinese maker of smart phones, was founded. In 2013 it was valued at $10 billion.
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.69)
2010 The AIDS epidemic in China was expected to infect over 10 million people by this time, according to a 1998 forecast by the Ministry of Health. In 2006 China backed off from the high number but gave no new estimate.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A3)(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.A17)
2010 China's population grew to 1.34 billion people.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 The Dominican Rep. government amended the country's constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the Dominican Republic to foreign parents. Government officials then began applying the change retroactively to people of Haitian descent who already held citizenship.
(AP, 10/12/11)
2010 Egypt’s population numbered about 85 million, roughly a quarter of all Arabs.
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.55)(Econ, 8/13/11, p.63)
2010 Eritrea supplied arms and supplies to Al Shabab militants in Somalia.
(SSFC, 4/29/12, p.E9)
2010 Stephane Hessel (93), a former French Resistance spy, authored “Indignez-Vous" (Get Indignant), a 32-page pamphlet calling people to action to protect human rights and combat against the yawning gap between rich and poor.
(www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/05-8)(SFC, 1/7/11, p.A5)
2010 In France there was an extortion attempt against Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, maker of the world’s most expensive wine. In 2014 Maximillian Potter authored “Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World’s Greatest Wine."
(Econ, 7/19/14,p.71)
2010 The French public health system had a $16 billion (€12 billion) shortfall.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.58)
2010 The population of Ghana was about 23 million.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.36)
2010 In Germany an 800-page history of the country’s foreign ministry was published: “Das Amt und die Vergangenheit." It was commissioned by the ministry and authored by Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes and Moshe Zimmermann.
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.57)
2010 Guinea’s population was about 10 million.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Honduras, country of 7.7 million people, held the planet’s highest murder rate. The country saw 6,200 killings this year, the equivalent of 82.1 homicides per 100,000 people, well above the 66 per 100,000 in neighboring El Salvador.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.40)(AP, 10/30/11)
2010 A UN study showed that 30 percent of Hondurans interviewed had been victims of extortion, 26 percent more than once.
(AP, 8/8/12)
2010 Iceland’s Parliament indicted former PM Geir Haarde for violating the laws of ministerial responsibility. He was charged with doing too little to protect the country against expansionary lending by bankers that resulted in financial disaster.
(SFC, 3/6/12, p.A2)
2010 In India over 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of Andhra Pradesh killed themselves late this year following over indebtedness to microfinance companies.
(SFC, 2/25/12, p.A4)
2010 In India some 410 million people lived below the UN’s estimated poverty line of $1.25 per day.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.36)
2010 In India nearly 135,000 people or 366 a day died on the country’s roads this year.
(AFP, 6/16/12)
2010 In Indonesia WHO reported that some 400,000 people die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Anti-smoking groups teamed up with Muhammadiyah, the country’s 2nd largest Islamic organization, to issue a fatwa declaring smoking haram, i.e. forbidden under Islam.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.44)
2010 In Indonesia a video circulated widely on the Internet late showed men in uniform burning the genitals of a suspected separatist and running a knife across the neck of another, sparking an international outcry. In 2011 three soldiers were charged with the relatively minor offense of disobeying orders, which carried a maximum penalty of 30 months in prison. The 3 soldiers were sentenced on Jan 24 for up to ten months in prison, angering rights activists who slammed the lenient verdict as a sham underlining the military's impunity.
(AP, 1/14/11)(AP, 1/24/11)
2010 Iran hanged at least 179 people in 2010.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2010 In Italy Operation Gaol led to the arrest of over 40 people associated with the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group.
(Econ, 4/26/14, p.52)
2010 Japan’s nominal GDP of $5.474 trillion in 2010 put it behind China's $5.879 trillion. China first eclipsed Japan in the second quarter.
(AP, 2/14/11)
2010 Japan’s population was about 127 million. Some 2 million foreigners lived there legally. It was expected to fall to around 100 million by 2050.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.49)(Econ, 7/17/10, p.68)
2010 Jordan’s population numbered about 6 million. Half of the people were of Palestinian origin.
(SFC, 2/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Kashmir’s population was about 11 million.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.35)
2010 Kenya’s technology-related services exploded to $360 million, compared to $16 million in 2002. Products were designed for mobile phones rather than computers.
{Kenya, Telecom}
(Economist, 8/25/12, p.52)
2010 The population of Kenya was estimated at over 40 million.
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.46)
2010 Kosovo’s population was about 2 million.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 The population of Kyrgyzstan was about 5.4 million.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.49)
2010 Lesotho, entirely surrounded by South Africa, barely numbered 2 million people.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.44)
2010 The US provided Liberia almost $230 million in aid this year.
(Eon, 11/19/11, p.51)
2010 The World Bank estimated that 447,000 people from Macedonia were living abroad.
(Econ., 3/7/15, p.54)
2010 In Mauritius Navinchandra Ramgoolam became prime minister following elections.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2010 Mexico this year was the world’s 11th largest by population and the 14th largest in economic size.
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.29)
2010 Morocco’s population stood at about 32 million.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.50)
2010 The population of Mozambique was about 20 million.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.50)
2010 In Myanmar the annual income per person was about $459.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.34)
2010 In Nicaragua the income per head was about $2,600, the lowest in Central America.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)
2010 The population of Niger numbered about 15 million.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.56)
2010 In Nigeria theft, sabotage and operational reasons caused 27,580 barrels of oil to spill from the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell facilities this year.
(AP, 5/27/11)
2010 In Pakistan some 21 million people were affected by flooding this year that killed 1,750 people and cost the economy $10 billion.
(AP, 9/12/11)
2010 The population of Pakistan was about 180 million.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.36)
2010 A leaked American embassy cable accused Horacio Cartes of Paraguay of laundering drug money.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
2010 In Romania Emil Boc's government increased sales tax from 19 percent to 24 percent and cut public workers' salaries by a quarter to reduce the budget deficit.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2010 Yury Kovalchuk, a friend of Pres. Vladimir Putin, bought Video Int’l., Russia’s largest advertising agency. Kovalchuk already had large stakes in Gazprom Media and National Media Group.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.45)
2010 In Sao Tome and Principe the Democratic Action party of Pres. Patrice Trovoada won legislative elections.
(AFP, 9/3/11)
2010 In Saudi Arabia an estimated 4 million women over the age of 20 were unmarried in the country of 24.6 million. Many male guardians forcibly kept women single, a practice known as "adhl." Saudi feminist Wajeha al-Hawaidar described male guardianship as "a form of slavery."
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Marine biologists predicted that Scotland’s Firth of Clyde was about to become Britain’s first ecological desert. This was based on historic catch data in the area.
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.50)
2010 The population of Senegal numbered about 13 million.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.55)
2010 Serbia’s population was about 7.3 million.
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.56)
2010 Sierra Leone writer Olufemi Terry won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing.
(www.caineprize.com/about.php)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.82)
2010 In Sierra Leone the UN radio station merged with the government-controlled Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service.
(Economist, 9/1/12, p.51)
2010 Singapore’s population numbered about 4.8 million.
(Econ, 5/22/10, SR p.10)
2010 Somali pirates stages 219 attacks in 2010. Ransoms climbed to $238 million, an average of $5.4 million per ship.
(Econ, 2/5/11, p.16)
2010 The population of Somaliland was about 2.5 million.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.45)
2010 In South Africa 566 people were reported killed this year as a result of police action.
(Econ, 8/27/11, p.41)
2010 South Africa lost 333 rhinos to poaching in 2010, the highest number ever recorded and almost triple the previous year's losses.
(AP, 1/12/11)
2010 In Sudan the Darfur conflict claimed more than 2,300 lives in 2010, according to new UN figures released in January 2011.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2010 Sweden’s population stood at about 9.4 million, of whom 14 percent was foreign-born. Some 71 percent of Swedes nominally are members of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, although few attend church regularly. Literacy is virtually 100 percent. Life expectancy is among the world's highest, 79 years for men, 83 for women.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Suriname numbered about 500,000 people. Satellite analysis of scarred earth and diverted waterways showed that miners have deforested at least 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) and damaged more than 2,200 km (1,370 miles) of river over the past decade.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Swaziland’s main revenue, generated mostly from a regional customs union dominated by South Africa, fell by almost two-thirds this year due to an economic slowdown.
(Econ, 7/30/11, p.43)
2010 In Tajikistan the government of Pres. Rakhmon (b.1952) stepped up a campaign to close unregistered mosques, while making it close to impossible for new mosques to register.
(Econ, 7/2/11, p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emomalii_Rahmon)
2010 The population of Tajikistan, one of the poorest of the former Soviet states numbered about 7.3 million people. 70% lived in abject poverty.
(AP, 1/3/10)(Econ, 3/6/10, p.60)
2010 Up to 3,000 female babies were presumed "missing" from Taiwan's population this year due to illegal sex-selective abortion.
(AP, 5/15/11)
2010 Thailand’s population numbered about 67 million people.
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.58)
2010 Trinidad and Tobago suffered 472 killings this year, close to 5% of all deaths. The murder rate was 36 per 100,000 people, seven times higher than in the US.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.46)(Econ, 8/27/11, p.32)
2010 Mehmet Emin Karamehmet (b.1944), founder of Turkcell and Turkey’s 2nd richest man, was sentenced to almost 12 years in jail for having used Pamukbank as a cash cow for Cukurova Holding, his family owned group. The sentence was suspended pending retrial.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Emin_Karamehmet)(Econ, 4/21/12, p.83)
2010 In Venezuela 476 people died and 967 were injured in prison violence this year, according to figures compiled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2010 In Vietnam the state-owned shipbuilder, Vinashin, imploded with debts of $4.5 billion.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.42)
2010 In northern Vietnam a Vietnam Association of Agent Orange Victims was established in Thai Binh province by five foreign members of a Scientology-funded sister organization, The Association of Better Living and Education. It offered a 25-day vitamin and sauna regime for victims of Agent Orange. Scientologists believed the regime can "sweat out" toxins stored in body fat. There were no peer-reviewed studies to back this claim.
(AP, 4/4/13)
2010 The population of Vietnam was about 86 million.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.46)
2010 Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros despite efforts to protect it. The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off. Illegal rhino killings in South Africa skyrocketed, from 122 in 2009 to 333 in 2010 and a record 448 in 2011. By 2012 crushed rhino horn powder fetched up to $55,000 per kg in Asia ($25,000 per pound).
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2010 Yemen was scheduled to receive $150 million from the US this year including $34 million for “tactical assistance."
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.45)
2010 In Zimbabwe ZIFA chief Henrietta Rushwaya sent the national soccer team to play unsanctioned friendlies in Thailand, Syria and Malaysia, where a betting syndicate allegedly fixed the results. She was fired and charged with bribery and corruption.
(AFP, 2/29/12)
2010-2012 In Tanzania the number of elephants at the Selous Game Reserve droped from 40,000 to 13,000 during this period. In 2014 it was reported that more than 100,000 African elephants had been killed during this period for their tusks.
(SFC, 8/23/14, p.A2)
2010-2013 In India some 300 young people reportedly killed themselves over a 3-year period in Telangana, a territory of 35 million people who make up about 40% of Andhra Pradesh state.
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.40)
Go to Jan 2011
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
End of file
Return to home
2010 Oct 1, Pres. Obama bid farewell to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and announced that he will be replaced by Pete Rouse.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 1, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a measure making marijuana possession up to ounce an infraction, on par with traffic and littering tickets. Schwarzenegger opposed Proposition 19, the upcoming marijuana initiative.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 1, Medicago, a Canadian company, broke ground at Durham, NC, on its first American facility. The company genetically manipulates tobacco plants to produce proteins used in making flu vaccines.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.36)
2010 Oct 1, In southern Afghanistan 2 coalition soldiers were killed in a blast while on patrol. NATO said it has captured more insurgent leaders and announced it has detained at least 438 suspected militants over the last month. Just north of Kandahar, two Romanian soldiers were killed and one injured when their Humvee was struck by an improvised explosive device some 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Qalat in Zabul province.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Britain most provisions of the 2010 Equality Act took effect, including a measure to stop pay secrecy clauses being used to hide unfair differences between men and women's pay. But 10 percent of the legislation,- which was passed by Parliament in April, will be left out, while the government reviews certain sections of it.
(AFP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, China launched its second lunar exploration probe, boosting the country's efforts to rise as a major space power eventually capable of landing a man on the moon and perhaps one day exploring far beyond.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Ecuador was under a state of siege, the streets quiet with the military in charge of public order. Three police colonels were arrested for failing to prevent a massive protest by their subordinates that left 5 people dead.
(AP, 10/1/10)(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 1, European oil majors resisted pressure from the US to stop all business with Iran, in spite of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, The European Commission said it has decided to more than double its Pakistan flood aid to 150 million euros (205 million dollars). The UN has issued a record two-billion-dollar appeal for funds to cope with the disaster, which UN agencies say affected 21 million people and left 12 million in need of emergency food aid.
(AFP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Finland tobacco sales were pushed under shop counters as a new law, set to progress in stages, came into effect. Finland is the first country to target an end to smoking through legal means.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel called for calm after riot police used what critics called "Rambo" tactics to disperse thousands of opponents of a contentious rail project.
(AFP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Haiti gunmen killed Pierre Richard Denis (42), an engineer supervising the building of shelters at the Corail-Cesselesse relocation camp for Haitian earthquake survivors, forcing construction to be suspended on part of the site. Denis worked for International Organization for Migration.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Indian cinema's most expensive movie "Endhiran" (Robot), starring former bus conductor Rajinikanth, opened. The weekend opening of the $35 million film broke box office records.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Iran Ebrahim Yazdi (80) the head of a banned liberal party, was arrested. He was released on March 20, 2011.
(AFP, 3/20/11)
2010 Oct 1, In Iraq aides said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has agreed to support the bid by Iraq's PM al-Maliki to retain power. A roadside bomb exploded and killed at least three people, including two members of an anti-insurgent militia, and wounded seven others in a mostly Sunni district of southern Baghdad. In Mosul gunmen killed a policeman and a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi soldier on foot patrol.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Mexico a shootout between rival drug-dealing gangs broke out in the town of San Jose de la Cruz. 14 people were left dead. Assailants tossed a grenade into a square in the northern business city of Monterrey, injuring 12 people in an attack the government blamed on drug gangs.
(AP, 10/2/10)(Reuters, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 1, In the Netherlands more than 100 people protesting the outlawing of squatting at unused buildings clashed with police in Amsterdam's historic center, throwing stones, setting fires and erecting barricades.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Nigeria car bomb explosions killed 12 people and injured 17 near a parade Abuja marking the 50th anniversary of independence. Two blasts, which also destroyed three cars, came an hour after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), warned it had planted several bombs and told people to evacuate the area.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Pirates off the coast of Nigeria's southern delta kidnapped two foreign sailors from the MV Eckhardt tanker. A naval spokesman later suggested the crew worked in the black market trade of stolen crude from the region.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Northern Ireland Paul McCaugherty (43), a self-described senior Irish Republican Army dissident, received a 20-year prison sentence for trying to buy guns, explosives and other weapons from undercover British agents. He had been convicted in June of attempted arms smuggling.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Red Cross officials from the two Koreas agreed to hold reunions for families separated by the Korean War amid mixed signals from North Korea on easing tensions over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Pakistan's ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf launched a new political party in London. Musharraf said the only way to tackle Pakistan's ailing economy and its political infighting, problems exacerbated by recent floods, is to further bolster the army's role.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In southern Pakistan assailants launched two separate attacks on vehicles carrying fuel for NATO and American forces in Afghanistan, highlighting the vulnerability of the US-led mission a day after Pakistan closed a major border crossing.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Peru former President Alberto Fujimori's right hand man, Vladimiro Montesinos, two top ex-generals and a major were sentenced to 25 years in jail for ordering murders during Peru's so-called dirty war. They were found guilty of ordering the Colina Group, a secret army hit squad, to kill 24 people in two massacres in 1991 and 1992. Twenty other members of the Colina Group were sentenced to 15-25 years behind bars.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Moscow police detained several gay rights opponents at the first sanctioned gay rights protest in years. Former Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, fired on Sep 28, had compared gay people to the devil and forbade gay rights rallies.
(SFC, 10/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 1, Spanish energy giant Repsol announced the sale of 40 percent of its Brazilian affiliate to China's Sinopec for 7.1 billion dollars, securing funding for the development of oil fields in Brazil.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Sudan Darfur rebels accused Sudan's army of killing 27 people in a week-long campaign of air and ground assaults on their positions, as peace efforts in the arid region continued to flounder.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 1, Ukraine's Constitutional Court shifted key powers from parliament to the presidency, a move that boosted the influence of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, but also threw the country into legal uncertainty.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, The UN released its 545-page report into mass killings in Congo over a ten-year period. Rwanda and Uganda insisted the $3 million report is flawed and could harm security in Africa's volatile Great Lakes region.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Afghanistan at least three civilians were killed along with 17 insurgents in a NATO air strike targeting senior Taliban commanders in southern Helmand province. ISAF accidentally killed two civilians when insurgents attacked a military base in Baraki Barak district of Logar province south of Kabul.
(Reuters, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 2, Australian PM Julia Gillard met the chief of international forces in Afghanistan and vowed support for the US-led mission in a surprise visit to troops on her first overseas trip as leader.
(AFP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Britain’s Druids hailed a semi-governmental Charity Commission’s decision to grant it charitable status just like mainstream religions such as the Church of England. The Druid Network, a group of about 350 Druids, will receive exemptions from taxes on donations.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, China offered to buy Greek government bonds in a show of support for the country whose debt burden triggered a crisis for the euro zone and required an international bailout. Premier Wen Jiabao made the offer at the start of a two-day visit, where he says he expects to expand ties in all areas.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In China 8 workers were killed and three others were injured when the residential building toppled in Xi'an, the capital of northwestern Shaanxi province.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 2, Ecuador agreed to raise wages in the armed forces by up to $35 million annually, days after soldiers battled rebel police to rescue President Rafael Correa from what he called a coup bid. Defense Minister Javier Ponce said it was chance the wage were agreed two days after the assault on Correa. He said the increases will cost $30 million to $35 million a year.
(Reuters, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 2, French families, students and private sector workers joined mass demonstrations against the government's pension reforms, and unions hoped as many as 3 million protesters would take to the streets.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Guatemalan police captured a suspected drug trafficker wanted in the US for cocaine smuggling and seized nearly $2 million in cash that his brother was carrying in two bags. Mauro Ramirez Barrios, alias "The Purple One," was arrested in the southern town of San Bernardino after a four-day search. Ramirez, an alleged lieutenant of Juan Ortiz Lopez, was arrested two weeks after he escaped police during a shootout at a Guatemala City shopping mall that killed two officers.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 3/31/11)
2010 Oct 2, In central Indonesia a train crashed into another parked at a railway station, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens, many seriously. The next day Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said Halik Rudianto, the train’s engineer, had failed to stop at a red signal. Rudianto was arrested for negligence.
(AP, 10/2/10)(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 2, Visiting Iran Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that their ties were solid, a view unlikely to please Washington which is working to isolate the Islamic state.
(Reuters, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Latvians went to the polls, as the Baltic nation emerges from a savage economic slump, with polls showing the Moscow-tied left being poised for big gains. PM Valdis Dombrovskis's center-right coalition took 63 seats in the 100-member parliament in the election. His Unity Party won 33 seats, while the Moscow-linked, left-wing Harmony Center won 29.
(AFP, 10/2/10)(AP, 10/3/10)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.74)
2010 Oct 2, In Mexico 33 murders took place in Chihuahua state over the last 2 days with 9 of the dead in Ciudad Juarez. In the northeast an explosion at a plaza in Guadalupe injured 15 people. Authorities blamed the attack on drug cartels targeting the civilian population to cause chaos. In the northeast an explosion at a plaza in Guadalupe injured 15 people. Authorities blamed the attack on drug cartels targeting the civilian population to cause chaos.
(AFP, 10/2/10)(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Moroccan publisher Ahmed Benshemsi said his Arab-language weekly magazine Nichane has gone bankrupt and been forced to close because "the highest circles of power" had organized a boycott of advertisers. The boycott was launched in August last year after Nichane, its French-language stablemate Telquel and France's prestigious Le Monde conducted an opinion poll on the monarchy.
(AFP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Pakistan 2 suspected American missile strikes killed 16 alleged militants in a northwestern tribal region, a sign the US is unwilling to stop using the tactic despite heightened tensions between the two countries over NATO's recent border incursions. Those killed were believed to be insurgents working for warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Gunmen killed Farooq Khan, a moderate Islamic scholar who was the vice chancellor of Swat University, and his assistant.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, Senior Palestinian politicians backed President Mahmoud Abbas' demand to link peace talks to restrictions on Israeli settlement building, delivering a new setback to bogged down US efforts to salvage the negotiations.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Peru a small plane carrying British tourists crashed near the famed Nazca Lines, killing all six people on board.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, At least seven Somali civilians were killed in a fire fight between African Union forces and hardline Islamist rebels.
(AFP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, South African authorities arrested Henry Okah, an ex-leader of a militant group that claimed responsibility for the Oct 1 dual car bombing that killed 12 people in Nigeria. A day before the bombings, security agencies in South Africa had raided Okah's home and seized a laptop, though they did not arrest him. On Jan 21, 2013, a South African court found Okah guilty of masterminding the bombings. On March 26, 2013, Okah was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 1/21/13)(AP, 3/26/13)
2010 Oct 3, The US and Britain warned their citizens of an increased risk of terrorist attacks in Europe, with Washington saying al Qaeda might target transport infrastructure.
(Reuters, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Rohm Emanuel, former US White House chief of staff, said in a video on his website that he’s preparing to run for mayor of Chicago.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 3, Lawrence Salander (61), NYC owner of a lavish Upper East Side gallery, was sentenced to six to 18 years in prison. He had pleaded guilty earlier this year to 29 counts of grand larceny and fraud.
(AP, 10/24/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Salander)
2010 Oct 3, The SF Giants baseball team clinched a division title with a 3-0 win over the San Diego Padres.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 3, San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, sponsored by financier Warren Hellman, drew some 350,000 listeners to Golden Gate Park. The 10th annual weekend festival drew some 600,000 all together.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.C2)
2010 Oct 3, In NYC a potential recruit for the Latin King Goonies street gang and 2 other men were beaten and sodomized for their sexual contacts. 8 suspects were later arrested and one more was sought in the gruesome assaults. 2 more suspects were charged on Oct 12.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 3, The Afghan government said it has started dissolving private security firms in the country by taking steps to end the operations of eight companies, including the firm formerly known as Blackwater and three other international contractors. An insurgent with the Haqqani network responsible for attacking coalition and Afghan troops was captured in an operation in eastern Khost province. 3 insurgents died in an Afghan and NATO operation in Kandahar province's Arghandab district. The raid in Khisroo village also recovered explosive material and an anti-personnel mine that were destroyed. At least 3 Afghan civilians were killed along with 17 insurgents in a NATO air strike in Helmand.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)(Reuters, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 3, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales kneed an opposing player in the groin during a soccer match against a team of political rivals after an apparent hard foul by the opponent. Images of the altercation were broadcast and posted to YouTube.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 3, Voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina cast ballots in elections likely to further entrench their nation's ethnic divisions and threaten possible EU entry. Some 3 million voters uneasily split between Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats chose from 8,000 candidates for the central and several regional parliaments, the Bosnian Serb presidency and the federal presidency. Preliminary election results indicated that the three-person presidency will remain deadlocked over the nation's future, with two leaders of the ethnically divided country advocating unity and a third pushing for the country's breakup.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Brazil held presidential elections. Ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff looked poised to sweep to victory. Rousseff, who is trying to become Brazil's first female leader, fell short of getting a majority of votes in presidential elections and faced a runoff in four weeks against an experienced, centrist rival. Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva (45), better known by his clown name Tiririca, received more than 1.3 million votes in Sao Paulo state in Brazil's presidential and congressional elections. "What does a congressman do? The truth is I don't know, but vote for me and I'll tell you," he said in his campaign advertisements. On Nov 11 Silva convinced the Sao Paulo Electoral court that he could read and write.
(AP, 10/3/10)(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)(Reuters, 10/5/10)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 3, In China 6 people were killed when the wall of a factory under construction fell in Qingzhou city, Shandong province. 5 people were injured, 2 of them severely.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Egypt backed the Palestinians' refusal to negotiate with Israel as long as it continues to build West Bank settlements, even as officials urged for continued diplomacy to salvage the month-old talks.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 3, In India the troubled Commonwealth Games got underway with a glittering opening ceremony in a fortress-like New Delhi after a shambolic run-up that threatened to derail the event.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, In Iran a top official said Industrial computers infected by Stuxnet have been cleaned and returned to their units, following reports that the malware was mutating and wreaking havoc with equipment.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, An Israeli military court convicted two soldiers of using a Palestinian child as a human shield by forcing him to check for booby traps on Jan 15, 2009, during the 2008-2009 Gaza war. Israeli police shot and killed Izzedine Qawasmeh (35), a father of five and a construction worker from the West Bank village of Sair, after he used a rope to scale a towering wall meant to keep Palestinians from sneaking into Israel. On Nov 21 the two soldiers received suspended sentences and demotions.
(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/3/10)(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Oct 3, Nigeria's federal police force named two men, Ben Jessy and Chima Orlu, as the "masterminds" behind the Oct 1 bombings in Abuja.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Thousands of Serb pilgrims gathered in a medieval monastery in western Kosovo amid tight security to attend the enthronement ceremony of the new Serbian Patriarch Irinej.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, In Somalia fighting in Mogadishu left at least eight people dead.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 3, Spain's beleaguered PM Zapatero suffered an embarrassing setback in a local election race, and a poll showed his party trailing ever further behind the opposition conservatives at the national level.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, President Barack Obama said the United States was facing an "untenable fiscal situation" and would have to get serious about tackling its federal deficit.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, US federal agents spread out across Alabama to arrest 11 people on charges of conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud related to attempts to legitimize bingo halls in 2009 and 2010.
(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 4, In New Jersey Craig Mueller (45) killed his brother with sniper fire from a second-floor window in the home they shared, took down a neighbor who came to the victim's aid and turned the gun on himself.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Afghanistan 3 NATO service members were killed by bombings in the south and an insurgent attack killed another in the east, raising the coalition's death toll to 11 in the first four days of October. NATO announced that a joint Afghan-coalition unit launched a night mission that killed a senior Taliban leader named Farman and two other militants in eastern Paktia province. A police convoy was ambushed in Khash Rod district. 5 militants were killed, 3 others wounded and two captured during a gunbattle. Habibullah Aghonzada, a former district chief, was gunned down by assailants as he prayed at a packed mosque in Kandahar city. 3 night time explosion in Kandahar City killed up to 4 Afghan police officers. Noor Ahman, deputy mayor in Kandahar, was killed in an insurgent attack. In the southwest 2 civilians riding a motorcycle died when a roadside bomb exploded as they passed. 2 others were killed by rockets in the country's east.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AP, 10/5/10)(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A5)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Belgium European and Asian leaders opened a formal summit amid high security and palace opulence, hoping to agree on commitments to keep the global financial system on an even keel and find a better balance on the Europe-dominated IMF.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Britain’s treasury chief George Osborne said payments to jobless families will be capped and child benefits for high earners scrapped in a sweeping overhaul of the country's welfare system.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Millions of commuters in London endured a grim journey to work after staff on the Underground network walked out for the second time in a month, sparking calls for tougher strike laws.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, British biologist Robert G. Edwards, whose contributions to the technology of in vitro fertilization have made more than 4 million couples parents, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born Jul 25, 1978.
(www.latimes.com/health/la-sci-nobel-medicine-20101005,0,7666490.story)
2010 Oct 4, Central African Republic government troops regained control of Yalinga, a town held by rebels since September 18. On Oct 6 a spokesman for the rebel group, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), claimed its fighters still held the town in the unstable east of the country.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 4, Colombia's defense minister Rodrigo Rivera said authorities have seized $29 million and 17 million euros in cash in a home in a poor district south of the capital, Bogota. Rivera said the money belonged to drug traffickers including Daniel "El Loco" Barrera. Authorities were offering a $2.7 million reward for Barrera's capture.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, A Cuban human rights leader revealed the names of nine inmates apparently offered early release by the government in exchange for accepting exile, including some convicted of violent crimes such as hijacking, assault and piracy.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi was sworn in for another five-year term, almost five months after controversial polls propelled his party to victory.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, France's Sanofi-Aventis launched an $18.5 billion hostile takeover offer for Genzyme Corp., stepping up its effort to capture the US biotech company's promising drugs for high cholesterol and lucrative treatments for rare genetic disorders.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Hungary a torrent of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant tore through Kolontar and two other villages. The next day Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties. After some days 9 people were reported killed and some 150 injured.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)(AFP, 10/8/10)(AP, 10/11/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.63)
2010 Oct 4, In Indonesia heavy rain unleashed flash floods and mudslides, killing at least 91 people in West Papua province's village of Wasior. Rescuers struggled to reach the area.
(AP, 10/5/10)(AP, 10/6/10)(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Iraq 5 people were killed in violence in Baghdad and central Iraq, including a roadside bomb targeting a junior minister.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Japan issued a travel alert for Europe, joining the United States and Britain in warning of a possible terrorist attack by al-Qaida or other groups, but tourists appeared to be taking the mounting warnings in stride.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Tokyo-based Toshiba unveiled the world's first high definition liquid crystal display 3-D television that does not require special glasses, one of the biggest consumer complaints about the technology.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a pre-dawn attack on tankers carrying fuel to Afghanistan for US and other NATO forces, left vulnerable on the side of the road after Pakistan shut down a key border crossing. Some 20 trucks went up in flames and four people were killed and seven injured. A US drone strike killed eight militants, including five Germans, in North Waziristan, where Western intelligence had traced an alleged plot to attack high-profile targets in Europe.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, Arsonists torched a mosque in a Palestinian village in the West Bank, scrawling "revenge" on a wall in Hebrew and charring copies of the Muslim holy book in a blaze that threatened to stoke new tensions over deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In the northern Philippines motorcycle-riding gunmen killed a regional trial court judge, prompting calls to exempt judges from a current gun ban.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Russia Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow who was fired by Pres. Medvedev, said in a published interview that he plans to form his own political movement.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Russia's VimpelCom Ltd and Weather Investments, the investment company headed by Egyptian telecom mogul Naguib Sawiris, said they are merging to form what would become the world's fifth largest mobile telecommunication service provider in a deal valued at over $6.5 billion. Under the agreement VimpelCom, which is Russia's second largest mobile phone service provider, would own via Weather 51.7 percent of Egypt's Orascom Telecom and all of Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA, both of which are headed by Sawiris.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Somalia two women, a boy and two men were killed in Mogadishu by stray bullets from fighting taking place between pro-government forces and Islamist militants.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, An official said Syria has accused a 19-year-old blogger who is in prison of being a spy in the first comment from authorities on a case that sparked calls by a leading rights group for the young woman's release. Tal al-Mallohi was taken into custody in December. Her blog, known for poetry and social commentary, focused mostly on the suffering of Palestinians.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, It was reported that Syria has ordered the arrest of 33 people over false testimony given in the UN-backed probe into the assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. Observers said the warrants carried no legal weight in Lebanon as the crime in question took place on Lebanese soil and the complainant as well as most of the defendants are Lebanese.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Vietnamese officials said weekend floods triggered by heavy rains have displaced thousands of villagers in central Vietnam, and left 3 people dead and 3 others missing.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 5, Two Russian-born scientists shared the Nobel Prize in physics for groundbreaking experiments with ultrathin carbon. University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom thick but more than 100 times stronger than steel, and showed it has exceptional properties, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, US ATF deputy director Kenneth Melson and Mexico Attorney General Arturo Chavez signed a memorandum of understanding that will increase to 30 a month the number of people trained to use the program, known as eTrace, an electronic database that can trace the manufacture, import, sale and ownership of guns.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 May 5, Faisal Shahzad (30), a US citizen who on May 1, drove a bomb-laden SUV meant to cause a fireball in Times Square, was sentenced to life in prison. The Pakistani immigrant had pleaded guilty on June 21 to 10 terrorism and weapons counts.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, San Francisco unveiled its Kindergarten to College program, the nation’s first city-bankrolled college savings plan. Public school kindergartners will get one-time payments of at least $50 as part of a program to be rolled out over 3 years. Additional contributions were to come from EARN and the San Francisco Foundation based on parental contributions.
(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 5, Illinois police officer Brian Dorian (37) of Lynwood, allegedly began a spree of random shooting that left one person dead and 2 wounded. Dorian was arrested on Oct 8. Dorian was freed on Oct 13. An attorney said he was the victim of a botched investigation.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A5)(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A9)
2010 Oct 5, In Afghanistan roadside bombings in Kandahar city killed 9 people, including 5 children, and 30 left injured, including many police officers. A major shipment of drugs was intercepted by a combined force after a highway gunbattle in Kandahar that killed an unspecified number of "insurgents." A NATO airstrike killed Qari Ziauddin, identified as the Taliban's "shadow" governor of Faryab province, and four other insurgents. In neighboring Badghis province, a helicopter-borne raid by a joint force led to a gunbattle that killed Mohammad Ismail Quarisaderdin, another Taliban leader described as a shadow governor. Five other Taliban commanders also died in the operation.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 5, In the Bahamas a twin-engine Cessna 402 carrying a pilot and at least eight passengers crashed into Lake Killarney near the international airport in, Nassau, after one of its engines caught fire. Officials soon found the body of a 9th victim from the crash of what may have been an illegal charter flight to a cultural festival. They said a 10th passenger may missing as well.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Brazil a ruling posted on the Sao Paulo electoral court's website said there is sufficient doubt about whether comic performer Tiririca, which means "grumpy" in Portuguese, meets a constitutional mandate that federal lawmakers be literate. Francisco Silva, who got more votes than any other candidate for Congress, will have to convince authorities he can read and write if he wants to take office.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Fellow rebels handed over Congolese commander Sadoke Kokunda Mayele. He was arrested for allegedly leading fighters in the mass gang-rapes of more than 300 people from July 30 to August 2.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Zagreb, Croatia, artists Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic opened the first permanent gallery of their Museum of Broken Relationships.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.96)(http://new.brokenships.com/en)
2010 Oct 5, A leading independent Egyptian daily, Al-Dustour, announced that it has fired chief editor Ibrahim Eissa, an outspoken government critic, amid what journalists are calling a state crackdown on the media ahead of parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In France former Societe Generale SA trader Jerome Kerviel was convicted on all counts in one of history's biggest trading frauds. He was sentenced to three years in jail, with 2 years suspended, and was ordered to repay the bank euro4.9 billion ($6.7 billion) in damages.
(AP, 10/5/10)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.110)
2010 Oct 5, Police in southern France arrested 12 suspects in sweeps against suspected Islamic militant networks, including three men linked to a network recruiting fighters for Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Iran claimed that the Stuxnet computer worm, found on the laptops of several employees at the country's nuclear power plant, is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Iraq gunmen in the northern city of Mosul ambushed and killed the director of the city's crime lab in the latest targeted killing of security officials and government workers.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Myanmar detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi launched a legal battle against the ruling military junta, suing to keep her political party intact after it was disbanded earlier this year under Myanmar's new party registration law.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) said lead poisoning has killed more than 400 children under five in the past six months in the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara.
(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Northern Ireland a dissident Irish Republican Army car bomb damaged a hotel, bank and other businesses but caused no injuries in Londonderry, the sixth such attack this year in the British territory.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In northwestern Pakistan a small bomb damaged a truck that was carrying oil to NATO troops in Afghanistan, the latest attack on stalled supply convoys since Pakistan shut a key border crossing to international forces last week.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, Portugal's Pres. Anibal Cavaco Silva opened a new cancer and neuroscience research center in Lisbon that aims to be among the world's best.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Somalia fighting in Mogadishu left seven people dead.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 5, South Africa launched a special wildlife crime unit to tackle a dramatic surge in rhino poaching driven by demand for the animal's horn in Asia for use in traditional medicines.
(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 5, In Thailand a blast blew out the side of a residential building in a Bangkok suburb killing 4 people and injuring nine. Police found bomb-making materials in the apartment, including fertilizer contained in fire extinguishers, electrical circuit boards and high-voltage batteries. Samai Wongsuwan, a Red Shirt supporter, was believed to be one of the dead.
(AP, 10/5/10)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Documents were released in which the national oil spill commission's staff described "not an incidental public relations problem" by the White House in the wake of the April 20 accident. The report said, the administration made erroneous early estimates of the spill's size, and President Barack Obama's senior energy adviser went on national TV and mischaracterized a government analysis by saying it showed most of the oil was "gone." The analysis actually said it could still be there. The explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, spewed 206 million gallons of oil from the damaged oil well, and sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of Prison Legal News against a county jail in Moncks Corner, SC, over a policy barring inmates from having any reading material other than the Bible.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 6, An American and two Japanese scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for finding new ways to bond carbon atoms together, methods now widely used to make medicines and in agriculture and electronics. Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki were honored for their development in the 1960s and '70s of one of the most sophisticated tools available to chemists today, called palladium-catalyzed cross coupling.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Facebook launched a new way for members to organize their friends, archive personal information and a new dashboard to control personal information sought by 3rd party applications and Web sites.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.D1)
2010 Oct 6, Logitech introduced Revue, a $299.99 set-top box for Google’s new TV service. The device allows users to access websites, Internet video, digital pictures and music from their televisions. Apple’s set-top box was introduced on Sep 1 for $99.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.D5)(http://tinyurl.com/2vzxpar)
2010 Oct 6, Cisco introduced its $599 Cisco Umi, a consumer product for video chats on home TVs. The service would also require a monthly fee of $24.99.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.D5)(http://tinyurl.com/2vzxpar)
2010 Oct 6, Researchers reported in the journal PLoS ONE that samples collected from hives affected by the colony collapse disorder (CCD) indicated the presence of a virus as well as a fungus. The two pathogens were not found in bee colonies not affected by the syndrome.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, The US and EU said that UN climate talks in Ttianjin, China, were making less progress than hoped due to rifts over rising economies' emission goals, while China pushed back and put the onus on rich nations.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia launched their transatlantic joint business, unveiling new routes and detailing benefits for customers that include a shared frequent flyers program.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, San Francisco unveiled new equipment allowing luxury liners to plug into the city’s power grid, part of an effort to cut diesel suit along the waterfront.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.C2)
2010 Oct 6, Northern Arizona was hit by 3 tornadoes. 28 cars of a parked freight train were derailed. 15 homes in Bellemont were made uninhabitable.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Oct 6, It was reported that Afghan Pres. Karzai has begun secret talks over a negotiated end to the war. Sources said that for the first time Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader Muhammad Omar. Taliban commander Maulawi Jawadullah, accused of organizing deadly ambushes, roadside bombings, and abductions of Afghan police and soldiers in northern Afghanistan, was killed in an airstrike in Yangi Qala district. A NATO service member died in a roadside bombing in the south. An Afghan-NATO force killed six insurgents and destroyed a compound used for making improvised explosive devices in Arghandab district of Kandahar province. 3 militants were killed in Zabul province during a firefight with a joint force. 16 militants were killed in air raids and ground fighting overnight in the Darqad, Yangi Qala and Khwaja Bahawuddin districts of Takhar province.
(SFC, 10/6/10, p.A2)(AP, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Britain Halima Bashir (30), a doctor who says she was gang-raped in 2004 by Sudanese soldiers after speaking out about atrocities in Darfur, won the Anna Politkovskaya award for women human rights defenders. She wrote about her experiences in her memoir, "Tears of the Desert" (2008).
(Reuters, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Canada Quebec presented legislation to award Bombardier Inc a contract worth more than C$1 billion ($980 million) to build nearly 500 subway cars for Montreal, short-circuiting a bidding process that has dragged on for five years.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 6, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the EU to stop piling pressure on Beijing to revalue its currency, saying a rapid shift could unleash disastrous social turmoil.
(Reuters, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Cuba a resolution from the Foreign Relations Ministry was published into law making the guayabera Cuba's official formal dress garment and mandating that government officials wear them at state functions.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ecuador's interior minister said 46 police officers have been detained for alleged participation in the Sep 30 police revolt against President Rafael Correa that claimed 5 lives.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ethiopia freed opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa (36), saying it had granted a plea for pardon from her. Birtukan and other opposition figures were charged with plotting against the constitution in connection with those skirmishes, but were released in 2007 after being pardoned. She was sent back to prison in December 2008 after claiming she had never asked for pardon.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Former US president Bill Clinton returned to Haiti to participate in a meeting on rebuilding the quake-ravaged nation, as his foundation pledged 500,000 dollars to a huge tent city.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, Hungary scrambled to contain a toxic mud spill that left four people dead and more than 100 injured in what is being described as an ecological catastrophe. The spill raised fears that pollution leeching from it could reach the Danube River, which courses through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine before flowing into the Black Sea.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ratings agency Fitch cut Ireland's credit worthiness another notch, citing the country's long fight to emerge from record deficits, the toughest bank-bailout effort in Europe and a lagging economy.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Italy Concetta Serrano was participating in a live TV show that focuses on missing people when the anchor told her brother-in-law had confessed to have allegedly murdered her daughter. The Italian news agencies broke the story of the alleged confession while the show was being broadcast from inside the uncle's house in the southern Italian town of Avetrana, where Sarah Scazzi (15) disappeared on Aug. 26.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Indian Kashmir 50 students arrested during months of deadly protests were released from custody in a latest move to defuse tension in the Himalayan region.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Indonesia helicopters dropped food to isolated villages and security forces helped clear debris and search for survivors as the number of people killed by floods and landslides across Asia climbed to nearly 110. Three-quarters of the deaths were in eastern Indonesia. In Vietnam 11 bodies were recovered in the worst-hit province of Quang Binh, where authorities were also searching for five sailors from a sunken barge. At least seven other bodies were found in Ha Tinh province, five in Nghe An and three in Quang Tri. On China's nearby island province of Hainan, seven straight days of heavy rains left two people missing and forced 64,000 to evacuate.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Malaysia a newborn baby died after being snatched by a monkey from her family's living room in Negri Sembilan state. Wildlife authorities fatally shot the monkey, which had remained near the house and might have been attracted by a female pet monkey the family kept in a cage.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Nigeria suspected members of Boko Haram, a northern radical Muslim sect, shot and killed Awana Ngala, the leader of the ruling All Nigeria People's Party, the latest attack by a group that engineered a massive prison break last month.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Pakistan a US missile strike killed five people in North Waziristan. Militants earlier attacked a depot housing 40 NATO oil tankers on the outskirts of Quetta, killing a member of staff and destroying at least 18 vehicles, in the fourth such attack in a week.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Scientists unveiled a spectacular array of more than 200 new species discovered in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, including a white-tailed mouse and a tiny, long-snouted frog.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo returned home and resumed his office after undergoing treatment in Brazil for a blood clot that doctors say resulted from chemotherapy for cancer.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Puerto Rico FBI agents began arresting police officers accused of corruption. Local newspaper El Nuevo Dia reported that police and corrections officers were among 133 people named in the federal indictments, yet to be opened.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev headed a top level business delegation to Algeria, seeking to use his clout to push through delicate energy and telecoms deals with a traditional Moscow ally. Algeria and Russia signed six deals in sectors including energy and transportation.
(AFP, 10/6/10)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, A Moscow court said is has sentenced 3 ultranationalists, convicted of hate killings and bombings, to long prison sentences. The were part of a militant neo-pagan cult that preyed on labor migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. From 2008-2009 they killed 10 people and arranged a number of bombings.
(SFC, 10/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 6, In Somalia sporadic clashes between Islamic fighters and government soldiers killed four men in Mogadishu.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for financial support to increase his country's troop levels in the African Union force in Somalia.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, Local media reported that Ukraine has adopted a dress code for government workers. The code called on men working at the Cabinet of Ministers to wear mostly gray and dark blue suits and not wear the same suit to work two days in a row. Women were asked to stick to business suits and low-heeled shoes, as well as refrain from excessive makeup and jewelry.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Vietnam fireworks intended for Hanoi's upcoming 1000th birthday celebration exploded prematurely, killing four people and injuring three others.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 6, In Yemen assailants fired a rocket at a convoy carrying Britain's No. 2 diplomat and killed a Frenchman working for an Austrian oil company in a pair of attacks that heightened fears over the safety of Westerners in a country facing a growing militant threat. Hisham Assem (19), a guard who worked at the French engineering firm SPIE, was later arrested and charged with killing the Frenchman.
(AP, 10/6/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 7, Afghan President Hamid Karzai hosted the inaugural session of a new peace council set up to guide efforts to reconcile with the Taliban and other insurgent groups. In the north a Taliban suicide attack killed a German soldier and wounded six others in Baghlan province. The death brought to 44 the number of German troops killed in the Afghan war. A senior Taliban leader, accused of commanding an "assassination cell" in Kandahar city, was captured. 4 militants were killed and one captured by an Afghan-NATO force in eastern Wardak province's Chaki Wardak district. A joint force also recovered and destroyed almost 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) of narcotics during two operations in Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces.
(AP, 10/7/10)(AFP, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, Australian PM Julia Gillard dropped her unpopular "citizens' assembly" to guide climate change policy after the plan drew fierce criticism during the recent election campaign.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Bangladesh boat operators said at least 200 fishermen were missing after 15 fishing boats capsized in the Bay of Bengal during a storm. A storm surge over the past two days has sent waves five feet high crashing into several towns and villages along the coast.
(Reuters, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Brazil Globo TV's website said that a 13-year-old boy was killed in the crossfire of a gunbattle during a police operation to recover a stolen vehicle in a shantytown. A 67-year-old woman died and two people were injured in an unrelated shootout between police and gang members. Dozens of armed drug gang members have been setting up roadblocks and robbing drivers en masse in recent days in the Rio de Janeiro area, prompting the firing of 19 police battalion leaders a day earlier.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Researchers at London’s Kew Gardens said they have discovered that the Paris japonica has a genetic code 50 times longer than that of a human being. To date this was the longest genome discovered.
(SFC, 10/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 7, In Canada mercury was discharged during a reconfiguration of pipes at the Teck Resources Ltd. lead smelter waste-treatment plant in Trail, British Columbia. The work has since been completed and the leak stopped.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, In China a new regulation that took effect saying mine bosses who don't go underground with their workers will be severely punished in the latest bid to improve safety in the world's deadliest mines.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, China says at least 38 people in the southern part of the country have been infected with a mosquito-borne virus that causes an illness similar to dengue fever. This was thought to be China's largest-ever outbreak of the chikungunya virus, which can cause fevers, joint pain, headaches and rashes.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In eastern Congo children in Burinyi village found an unexploded grenade on their way to fetch water from a well. 5 children died when it detonated as they were playing with it.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Ecuador a court was issued authorizing the jailing of 12 police officers and a police colonel while prosecutors investigate the Sep 30 police uprising that resulted in 5 deaths.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Hungary's most prestigious organization of scientists and researchers said tests of the red sludge flowing into the Danube show no dangerous heavy metal levels. Disaster relief officials said more than 150 people, most of them suffering chemical burns, were treated in hospitals after part of the MAL Zrt company metals factory reservoir collapsed and a toxic torrent swept through three villages killing 8 people.
(AP, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 7, Interpol notified its members that India has issued arrest warrants for five Pakistani citizens, including two army officers, for alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Iran a pair of gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in its Kurdish region, killing four officers and a bystander.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Iraq back-to-back bombings at a vegetable market south of Baghdad killed at least five people, including a policeman who was searching for explosives.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Israel signed a contract with the United States to buy 20 F-35 fighter jets after Washington offered "incentives" for the Jewish state to help sputtering peace talks.
(AFP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Italy Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sealed Sino-Italian business deals worth €2.25 billion ($3.15 billion), after fending off European pressure to raise the value of the yuan.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, The assembly in Indian-controlled Kashmir erupted in violence when opposition lawmakers scuffled with security guards to protest a suggestion that only a deal between India and Pakistan could bring peace to the region.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Kazakhstan a Russian Soyuz TMA-01M rocket blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station carrying one American and 2 Russian astronauts.
(SFC, 10/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 7, In Pakistan 2 suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up inside a crowded Sufi shrine compound in the southern city of Karachi, killing 8 people with 65 injured.
(Reuters, 10/7/10)(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, A top Palestinian negotiator says the Palestinians have accepted a US proposal calling on Israel to extend a West Bank settlement slowdown for another two months.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, The 2010 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (b.1936) "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat."
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov told reporters that Russia is reimbursing Iran for its down payments on a deal for advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles, which Moscow halted in the face of tough new UN sanctions.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, South Korean financial regulators said they will suspend the operations of an Iranian bank for two months, as part of international sanctions over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
(AFP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Sudan's army said it attacked rebel positions in the Darfur region hours before the arrival of a delegation of UN Security Council envoys in the territory. Armed men abducted a civilian peacekeeper in the capital North Darfur state hours after the arrival of UN Security Council envoys.
(Reuters, 10/7/10)(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 7, In Vietnam the death toll from vicious rains nearly doubled to 48 after disaster officials were finally able to access areas that had been cut off by high waters. Another 23 people remained missing as villagers started returning to areas where the water was receding.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 7, Yemeni authorities announced the arrest of seven suspects in the attack on the motorcade of the British embassy's No. 2, all from Nuqum, an area in the capital that has become synonymous with militancy.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 8, The Nobel Committee named imprisoned Chinese scholar Liu Xiaobo the 2010 Peace Prize winner for "his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." The decision by the five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament came over the objection of the Chinese government, which considers Liu a criminal.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, President Barack Obama praised outgoing national security adviser Jim Jones and named close aide Tom Donilon (55) as his top security adviser, elevating a skeptic of the US troop surge in Afghanistan to oversee a major review of the war.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Pres. Obama signed a law on providing the disabled easier access to technology.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 8, A US Senate report said US funds for private security contractors in Afghanistan have flowed to warlords and Taliban insurgents, undermining the war effort and fueling corruption. A congressional report called "Warlord, Inc." said trucking contractors pay tens of millions of dollars annually to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for guarding their supply convoys, some of which are suspected of paying off the Taliban.
(AFP, 10/8/10)(AP, 7/31/12)
2010 Oct 8, The US Labor Dept. said a wave of government layoffs in September outpaced weak hiring in the private sector, pushing down the nation's payrolls by a net total of 95,000 jobs. The unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent last month.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 11,000 for the first time in five months.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Oct 8, Bank of America said it will suspend sales of foreclosed homes nationwide. A suspension in 23 other states had been announced a week earlier. The “Foreclosuregate" flared up when an employee at GMAC Mortgage admitted to having approved thousands of repossessions without properly reviewing the documents.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A1)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.87)
2010 Oct 8, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a $86.6 billion state budget, 100 days after beginning the fiscal year. He used his line-item veto power to cut nearly $1 billion from the plan approved by the Legislature. An independent analyst later estimated that the budget remained $25.4 billion in deficit.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A1)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.37)
2010 Oct 8, The remains of Lexis Roberts (12) from Nevada were found in Louisiana. A warrant was later issued for Thomas Steven Sanders (53). In 1994 family members had declared Sanders dead, seven years after he vanished. In November the remains of a woman, believed to be her mother, Suellen Roberts (31) were found in Arizona.
(http://tinyurl.com/2dwr8pa)(SFC, 11/5/10, p.A8)(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)
2010 Oct 8, Albertina Walker (81), Grammy-winning gospel vocalist, died in Chicago.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.C9)
2010 Oct 8, In northern Afghanistan Kunduz provincial governor Mohammad Omar and at least 19 other people were killed by a massive bomb blast inside a packed mosque during Friday prayers in Takhar province. NATO helicopters killed six Afghan militiamen in eastern Khost province. An insurgent attack killed a NATO service member and two others died in separate roadside bombings in the south. Armed men burst into a mosque and shot dead religious scholar Molvi Mohammad during Friday prayers in Kandahar city. Linda Norgrove (36) a British aid worker was killed during a botched US rescue raid. She had been abducted at gunpoint on Sep 26. A rescue team was closing in on the house where Norgrove was being held when a grenade was thrown into the room where she was kept, killing her. Troops opened fire and killed all the captors. An investigation over her death confirmed that a grenade thrown by US forces had killed Norgrove.
(AP, 10/8/10)(AFP, 10/9/10)(AFP, 10/11/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Australia plan was released by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to restore ailing rivers, posing a new headache for the Labor minority government. Farmers would lose more than a third of irrigation water in the major food bowl.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo Morales enacted an anti-racism bill opposed by most of the nation’s newspapers, which said it limited free speech.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 8, Organizers said a ticket-holder in Britain has won a record 129 million euros (181 million dollars) on the Euromillions lottery, although nobody has yet come forward to claim the prize. The Euromillions lottery, launched in 2004, is now played by nine countries across western Europe.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 8, China said on rich nations must lock in fresh vows to slash greenhouse gas output to unblock talks for a new climate change deal, while some negotiators said Beijing was holding progress hostage.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with the pope and top Vatican officials in a fence-mending visit following France's controversial crackdown on Gypsies, while a top Vatican cardinal urged France to welcome immigrants and those who have been persecuted.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, The YM Uranus, a chemicals tanker loaded with 6,000 tons of solvent, ran into trouble after a collision off the coast of France but authorities said its crew was rescued and its cargo did not seem to be leaking. The 120-meter-long YM Uranus had been in a collision with the 179,000 dead-weight ton bulk carrier Hanjin Rizhao.
(Reuters, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Ireland's police force detectives arrested nine suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents and seized weapons. Police arrested two men aged 20 and 33 at a house near the Northern Ireland border and seized a gun and ammunition. They arrested seven people aged 19 to 71 in southeast Ireland and sealed off a home where they found bomb components.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Israeli troops killed two senior Hamas militants in an early-morning raid in the West Bank city of Hebron, raising tensions as peace talks remain stuck over Israeli settlement building. The two gunmen were wanted in connection with the killing of four Israelis near Hebron on Aug. 31. An incident captured on film and widely broadcast showed two masked boys standing in the road among a group throwing stones when a car driven by David Beeri, the local leader of Elad, drove round the corner and ploughed into them. One boy was thrown into the air and bounced off the car's windscreen before crashing to the ground. The car stopped briefly before driving off.
(AP, 10/8/10)(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Mexico Antonio Jimenez Banos (47), who would have taken office in January in Martires de Tacubaya, was killed by an assailant as he was returning to his farm. Eleven sitting mayors have been killed so far this year in Mexico.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Mozambique a settling pond breached its wall at the Irish mining firm Kenmare Resources’ Moma titanium and zircon mine in the northern province of Nampula, flooding the area with a mixture of water, sand and clay. A four-year-old girl was missing after the dam burst, flooding an area housing 3,000 families.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 8, A Nigerian court handed a 6-month jail sentence to Cecilia Ibru, one of the country's most prominent women, over millions of dollars loaned by her bank in a case linked to a financial crisis in the oil-rich nation.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 8, A top North Korean official confirmed to broadcaster APTN that Kim Jong Il's youngest son will succeed him as the next leader of the reclusive communist nation.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, Pakistan's army chief ordered an inquiry into video clips that show men in soldiers' uniforms gunning down a group of bound and blindfolded detainees. The footage has raised concern over possible extrajudicial killings by a military that receives billions in US aid.
(AP, 10/8/10)
2010 Oct 8, The Swiss Im Grueene Foundation awarded Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales $104,000 for “democratizing the access to knowledge."
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 9, The IMF wrapped up 2 days of talks in Washington DC. Global leaders failed to resolve deep differences that threatened a full-blown currency war.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has acquired a Nevada ranch for use as a wild horse sanctuary, the Mustang Monument Preserve. The 14,000 acre property included grazing rights to 540,000 acres of public land. She was also said to be negotiating for and adjoining 4,000-acre ranch with grazing rights to 24,000 acres. She hoped to return all 34,000 in government funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 9, In North Carolina the parents of Zahra Baker (10) reportedly saw her alive for the last time. Stepmother Eliza Baker told police on Oct 24 that Zahra was dead and that her body had been dismembered. On Nov 12 police found a bone that matched Zahra’s DNA. On Feb 21, 2011, Elisa Baker was indicted for the murder of Zahra.
(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)(SFC, 2/22/11, p.A4)
2010 Oct 9, In southern Utah a small plane crashed and killed 2 National park Service law enforcement agents in the Dixie National Forest.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 9, President Hamid Karzai told Afghans in Kandahar that it was their duty to return to their homes and help protect their villages in the Kandahar region where international troops are trying to rout insurgents. 4 Italian soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack in the west. Intelligence sources tracked a Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Jamaluddin, as he traveled in western Badghis province's Murghab district. A gunbattle erupted and the Taliban leader and two militants were killed. Taliban leader, Ajmal Agha Jan, was killed in southern Helmand province's Marjah district after he pulled a pistol on a joint force that raided his compound.
(AP, 10/9/10)(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 9, The Arab League opened a summit in Libya with the pressing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Sudan added to the original agenda.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Bangladesh three days of incessant rains have left at least 17 people dead and 41 fishermen missing across the southern coast.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Chile a drilling rig punched through to the underground purgatory where 33 miners have been trapped for 66 agonizing days under the desert at Camp Hope. If close video examination persuades engineers that the shaft is smooth, strong and uniform enough to let the capsule pass without significant obstacles, then rescuers plan to start pulling the men out one by one as early as Oct 12.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, China and the United States clashed on the final day of climate change talks in Tianjin, accusing each other of blocking progress ahead of a major summit next month on global warming.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In China a collision between an intercity bus and a cement truck on a foggy eastern China highway killed at least 17 people outside Nanjing city.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Cuba will release into exile in Spain a lawyer jailed for allegedly revealing state security secrets and two hijackers, none of whom were on a list of 52 political prisoners the government has agreed to free in a deal with the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Hungarian police and soldiers evacuated 800 from the village of Kolontar as authorities said a second flood of toxic sludge from a chemicals plant was likely after new cracks appeared in a dyke.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Erwin Arnada (47), the former editor-in-chief of Playboy Indonesia, began a two-year prison sentence for publishing pictures of scantily clothed women, riling free speech activists in the world's most populous Muslim nation. The Supreme Court had found Arnada guilty of violating indecency laws during a closed-door session in August, overruling a 2007 acquittal by the South Jakarta District Court.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Iran said it is ready to hold talks over its nuclear program with the US and other major powers in late October or early November. Iran also revealed for the first time that some personnel at the country's nuclear facilities were lured by promises of money to pass secrets to the West, but said increased security and worker privileges have put a stop to the spying.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, A 650-foot Lithuanian-flagged ferry was ablaze in the Baltic Sea after an explosion on the upper deck. Firefighting ships sprayed the vessel with water to keep it from breaking apart and spilling some 170 tons of fuel. 249 people aboard were rescued by six ships that moved in to help after the explosion on the Lisco Gloria around midnight. A four-person team was lowered to the ferry by helicopter and managed to anchor the vessel off the southern tip of the Danish island Langeland to keep it from drifting farther ashore.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In northern Nigeria gunmen on motorcycle taxis killed Islamic cleric Sheikh Bashir Mustapha. He had been an outspoken critic of Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect blamed for a rash of recent shootings. Authorities believed Sheikh Bashir Mustapha was slain by members of Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Pakistan announced it would reopen a key border crossing and allow convoys to resume delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, ending a 10-day blockade during which trucks were stranded on their way to the border and almost 150 were destroyed by attackers. Just hours before the announcement of the reopening, gunmen armed with a rocket attacked 29 tankers carrying NATO fuel supplies which had been stopped outside a roadside restaurant in the southwest, setting them ablaze. The border is normally closed on Sundays, so Oct 11 appeared to be the soonest the flow of supplies over the crossing would resume.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Arab leaders to press the United States to recognize a unilateral declaration of statehood if peace talks with Israel collapse. Extremist Jews ripped off branches and cut the roots of Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank village of Burin, as the yearly 45-day harvest of the important crop began.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, Somali pirates attacked the 241-ton Kenya-registered trawler. 2 South Koreans, 2 Chinese and 39 Kenyans were aboard the trawler when it was attacked in the waters off Kenya's Lamu Island.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Sudan some 30 separatists in Khartoum clashed with police as some 3,000 opponents of the country's potential breakup in a southern independence vote due in January demonstrated during a visit by UN ambassadors. Envoys from the 15 UN Security Council members were in the capital on the final stage of a four-day visit in which they expressed the international community's concern that the referendum go ahead on schedule.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In central Vietnam the death toll in devastating floods rose to 62 as authorities rushed aid to about 100,000 people facing food shortages.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 9, In Yemen self-confessed militant Saleh al-Shaoush admitted to carrying out deadly attacks on military targets and oil facilities, as four other suspected Al-Qaeda members went on trial for planning attacks. Al-Shaoush was arrested on January 30 as he prepared to carry out a suicide bombing in the southeastern port of Mukalla. The US-based SITE monitoring service reported that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed it had assassinated a colonel named Abdul al-Karim al-Baan in the southern Lahij province. AQAP also said it had shot an intelligence officer named Al-Hashidi in the province.
(AFP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 10, Virgin Galactic’s space tourism rocket, SpaceShip Two, achieved its first solo glide flight. Manned by 2 pilots it flew for 11 minutes before landing in Mojave, Ca.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A5)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 10, In Chandler, Arizona, Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy's body was found in a suburban Phoenix apartment, his severed head a couple feet away. Detectives suspected that Cota-Monroy's killing was punishment for stealing drugs. A police report on Feb 2, 2011, said that Cota-Monroy stole 400 pounds of marijuana and some meth from the PEI-Estatales/El Chapo drug trafficking organization. Cota-Monroy told the cartel that the Border Patrol had seized the drugs, but the cartel learned the truth and hired men to kidnap and kill him in Nogales, Mexico. Cota-Monroy fled to the Phoenix area, leading the cartel to hire assassins to go to Arizona, befriend Cota-Monroy and kill him. One man, Crisantos Moroyoqui, was later charged in the killing, and three others were believed to have fled to Mexico.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 3/3/11)
2010 Oct 10, Solomon Burke (b.1940), the larger-than-life "King of Rock and Soul," died at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The Philadelphia-born singer was revered as one of music's greatest vocalists but never reached the level of fame of those he influenced. He joined Atlantic in 1960 and went on to record a string of hits in a decade with the label. He wrote "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" in 1964 and it was later featured in the Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi movie "The Blues Brothers."
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Dame Joan Sutherland (83), renowned Australian opera soprano, died at her home in Switzerland.
(SFC, 10/12/10, p.C3)
2010 Oct 10, The Afghan government named former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as the chief of a new peace council tasked with talking to insurgent groups. A roadside bomb killed 5 members of a family in Paktia province. 2 NATO troops were killed by a roadside bomb in the south. A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a military convoy, killing a child and wounding two other people in Khost province.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, The 10/10/10 event known as the "Global Work Party" kicked off in Australia and New Zealand before spinning its way across the globe with events in 188 countries. Environmental campaigners planted trees, collected rubbish and rallied against pollution for what organizers aimed to make the world's biggest day of climate-change activism.
(AFP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Austria the far-right anti-immigration Freedom party drew 27% of the vote in local elections in Vienna giving them 28 seats in the regional parliament.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 10, In Bangladesh a speeding bus veered off the road and into the water. Many of some 50 passengers swam to safety after the crash. 11 bodies were soon recovered and the search continued for more.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 10, In the Central African Republic rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) abducted a number of girls during an attack on the town of Birao. at least 5 people were taken by the rebels, who retreated when government troops arrived on the scene.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 10, In China the wife of construction worker Luo Yanquan (36) was taken kicking and screaming from their home by more than a dozen people and detained in a clinic for three days by family planning officials, then taken to a hospital and injected with a drug that killed her baby. Xiao Aiying (36) delivered the dead baby on Oct 14.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 10, Curacao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius were scheduled to go their own ways. The former Dutch Caribbean colonies of Curacao and St. Maarten became autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a change of constitutional status dissolving the Netherlands Antilles.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, A Hungarian official said the wall of a reservoir filled with caustic red sludge will inevitably collapse and unleash a new deluge of red sludge that could flow about a half-mile (1 km) to the north.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In India a boat carrying dozens of farm workers capsized on the flooded Ganges River killing at least 22 people.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 10, Iranian Sunni rebels said they had kidnapped a nuclear scientist and would publish secrets he knows about Iran's nuclear program unless 200 political prisoners were released.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Iran arrested two German nationals in Tabriz as they approached the home of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman whose sentence of death-by-stoning on an adultery conviction has drawn international condemnation. Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, and lawyer Houtan Kian were arrested along with two the German nationals, who were seeking to interview the son. On Feb 5, 2012, reporter Marcus Hellwig told the Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he was regularly beaten up during the first 10 "brutal" days in captivity until a German diplomat intervened. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Tehran for a rare meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Westerwelle brought Hellwig and his German photographer Jens Koch home after 5 months imprisonment.
(AP, 10/12/10)(AP, 11/4/10)(AP, 2/5/12)
2010 Oct 10, Israel's Cabinet approved a bill that would require new citizens to pledge a loyalty oath to a "Jewish and democratic" state, language that triggered charges of racism from Arab lawmakers who see it as undermining the rights of the country's Arab minority.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Kyrgyzstan about 56% of eligible voters turned out to elect a new and empowered parliament with the right to approve a government and appoint a prime minister. The nationalist Ata-Zhurt party, which opposed the new constitution, pulled ahead with around 8.6 percent of eligible votes. The Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, trailed in second place with 8.2 percent of the eligible vote.
(AP, 10/10/10)(AP, 10/11/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.52)
2010 Oct 10, Kim Jong Un (26), the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (68), joined his father at a massive military parade in his most public appearance since being unveiled as the nation's next leader. South Korean activists also sent some 20,000 leaflets packed with $1 bills and CDs carrying anti-Kim Jong Un rap songs floating across the border in hopes of reaching ordinary North Koreans.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Norwegian oil firm Statoil is expanding further its shale gas operations in the United States, saying it has created a joint venture with Canada's Talisman to acquire acreage on the Eagle Ford prospect in Texas for $1.325 billion.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Pakistan reopened a key border crossing to NATO supply convoys heading into Afghanistan, ending an 11-day blockade imposed after a US helicopter strike killed two Pakistani soldiers.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Serbia a gay rights parade in Belgrade descended into violence as thousands of police deployed to protect marchers clashed with gangs of anti-gay protesters, sparking riots, injuries and dozens of arrests.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Somali pirates seized the Panama-flagged Izumi, a Japanese-owned cargo ship with 20 Filipino crew members onboard. The Izumi was released on Feb 25, 2011.
(AP, 10/11/10)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 Oct 10, In South Korea Hwang Jang-yop (87), the key architect of North Korea's isolationist state policy, was found dead at his Seoul residence. He once mentored authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il before defecting to South Korea in 1997.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, Some 7,200 South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed marriage vows in the Unification Church's second mass wedding this year.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Yemen 2 attackers on a motorbike in the southern town of Zinjibar gunned down, Ghazi al-Samawi, a criminal investigations officer who was featured on an Al-Qaeda hit list of policemen to be killed.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Two Americans and a British-Cypriot economist won the 2010 Nobel economics prize for developing a theory that helps explain why many people can remain unemployed despite a large number of job vacancies. Federal Reserve board nominee Peter Diamond was honored along with Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides for their analysis of the obstacles that prevent buyers and sellers from efficiently pairing up in markets.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, President Obama signed a major NASA act that turns his vision for US space exploration of asteroids and Mars into law.
(http://tinyurl.com/26w555z)
2010 Oct 11, The San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2 at Turner Field to clinch the National League Championship Series.
(SFC, 10/12/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 11, Microsoft unveiled a new mobile phone operating system as it seeks to regain ground lost to the iPhone, Blackberry and devices powered by Google's Android software.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Afghanistan a coalition airstrike killed Taliban commander Shirin Agha and another militant in northern Kunduz province.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 11, Al Arabiya TV said Al Qaeda's north African arm wants a repeal of a ban on the Muslim face veil in France, the release of militants and 7 million euros to free hostages who include five French. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is holding seven foreigners in the Sahara desert after kidnapping them last month.
(Reuters, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, The emir of Kuwait arrived in Algeria for a two-day visit on the latest step of a north African tour.
(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, Queen Elizabeth named a new British cruise ship the Queen Elizabeth. British monarchs have launched seven merchant ships bearing royal names since the Queen Mary in 1934. The newest vessel is the third named Queen Elizabeth.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Officials said Canadian troops are being forced to pull out of a military base in the United Arab Emirates that supports their mission in Afghanistan amid an ongoing dispute over airline landing rights.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, China blocked European diplomats from meeting with the wife of the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner, cut off her phone communication and canceled meetings with Norwegian officials, acting on its fury over the award.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Chinese state media reported that more than 440,000 people have been evacuated in Hainan after the heaviest rains for decades inundated 90 percent of the Chinese island in the South China Sea.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Dubai media reported that a key suspect in the killing of a Hamas operative in Dubai on Jan 19 has been arrested abroad but details of the capture are secret. The arrest took place in a Western country about two months ago.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Callixte Mbarushimana, a Rwandan leader of the FDLR rebel group, was arrested in Paris on charges of leading rebels accused of mass rapes and killings in Congo. The International Criminal Court said he is charged with 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including killings, rape, persecution based on gender and extensive destruction of property committed by the FDLR during most of 2009.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, The rights group EG Justice said in a statement that a letter signed by 125 African scholars and human rights defenders has denounced the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, a prize named for the president of Equatorial Guinea. Mbasogo seized power more than 30 years ago and has been accused of human rights violations including unlawful killings, torture, and arbitrary arrests.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, Hungary took over control of the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company (MAL). PM Orban said the that Zoltan Bakonyi, the managing director, of the MAL, has been arrested. Bakonyi’s father, Arpad Bakonyi, had played a central role in the privatization of the country’s aluminum industry and remained its largest shareholder.
(SFC, 10/12/10, p.A3)
2010 Oct 11, Krishna Poonia won India's first Commonwealth Games athletics gold medal in 52 years when she led a stunning host nation clean sweep in the women's discus.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree paving the way for a state takeover of Islamic Azad University, the country's largest private university, in a crushing blow to the nation's moderates. Khamenei's decree declared the university's 2009 endowment, which keeps it financially independent, to be religiously illegitimate and therefore null and void.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Iraq gunmen wearing military uniforms raided the homes of several anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighters. They killed four men in an execution-style slaying and left 2 wounded before dawn near the town of Youssifiyah.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Irish police uncovered a major arms and explosives cache hidden in a wood in County Louth. The find included a machine gun, bomb-making equipment and assorted ammunition. They described it as a significant blow to dissident republicans.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, The Israeli government endorsed a bill requiring a national referendum be held before any withdrawal from occupied east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. PM Netanyahu spelled out recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as his price for a renewal of a ban on construction in the occupied West Bank. The offer was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians, who said it had "nothing to do with the peace process."
(AFP, 10/11/10)(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Mexico 8 police officers were killed in an ambush in Sinaloa state. In Tijuana police found the decapitated bodies of two men hung by their feet off a bridge. Their heads were found in a car abandoned on the bridge.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, A Nigerian official said scores of slum residents in Lagos have been left homeless by flooding from the Ogun River following last month's opening of a dam.
(AFP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, In northern Nigeria suspected members of a radical Islamic sect set a police station ablaze, wounding three officers in an attack similar to one that sparked rioting and a government crackdown that left 700 dead last year.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 11, North Korea’s Kim Jong Nam, the casino-loving eldest son of Kim Jong Il, said he opposes a hereditary transfer of power to his youngest half-brother. Analysts say Kim Jong Nam spends so much time outside his native land that his opinion carries little weight. He spoke to Japan's TV Asahi in an interview from Beijing.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2010 Oct 11, Russia's ruling party swept regional elections in several provinces this weekend, easily maintaining its grip on power, according to early returns.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Russian researchers said traces of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization have been discovered in the peaks of the Caucasus Mountains thanks to aerial photographs taken 40 years ago. the civilization dated from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC, high in the mountains south of Kislovodsk.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 11, Somali pirates kidnapped Said Mohamed Rage, fisheries minister of the regional Puntland government. A soldier guarding the minister was killed and a civilian wounded. Pirates ambushed Rage's convoy because they thought he wanted to expel them from their bases. Rage was freed 2 days later.
(AP, 10/12/10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 11, In Yemen 2 bombs, timed to go off one after the other, killed two people and injured 12 others in San’a.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, The Obama administration lifted the deep-water drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico. Actual resumption was still weeks to months away.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 12, A US federal judge ordered an immediate halt to military discharges under the “don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. District Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside, Ca., had ruled the 1993 law unconstitutional on Sep 9.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 12, In Afghanistan a commander and 3 other militants from the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based faction of the Taliban with close ties to al-Qaida, were killed in a firefight overnight with NATO and Afghan forces in eastern Khost province's Spera district.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Afghanistan a cargo plane, carrying NATO supplies went down east of Kabul shortly after taking off from Bagram Air Field. The bodies of 5 of 8 people on board were recovered the next day. The plane, owned by United Arab Emirates-based TransAfrik, was under contract by the US-based company National Air Cargo.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Algeria 5 people were killed when a remote control bomb exploded on a construction site in Tlidgen.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, Australian PM Julia Gillard renewed her backing for a controversial Internet filter, saying it was driven by a "moral question."
(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood accused the government of cracking down ahead of November's parliamentary election. Police had arrested at least 28 members of the Islamist group over the last 2 days. An Egyptian regulatory body set new rules for companies sending text messages to multiple mobile phones, a step that activists say will stifle efforts to mobilize voters before the elections, which are to be held in the last week of November.
(AFP, 10/12/10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Ethiopia senior leaders of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a breakaway rebel faction, gathered in Addis Ababa to sign a peace deal with the government. The government claimed the breakaway group represents around 80 percent of the ONLF.
(AFP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In France hundreds of thousands of workers, students and functionaries staged protests, the 4th this month, aimed to reverse a new law requiring people to work until 62 rather than 60 before receiving their retirement pensions.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 12, A Greek tanker, the Mindoro, collided with a container ship, the Cypriot-flagged Jork Ranger, 20 miles (30 km) off the Dutch coast and briefly leaked jet fuel into the North Sea.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In India a second doping case in two days, and again involving a Nigerian runner, was reported. Both cases involved Methylhexaneamine. It was also found in about a dozen Indian athletes in recent months.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Iran 18 members of the powerful Revolutionary Guard were killed in an explosion that struck the force's base in the city of Khoramabad. The blast was caused by a fire that had reached the ammunition storage area. 14 other troops were wounded.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Iraq Al-Qaida's umbrella group threatened to kidnap family members of Iraqi politicians and ministers unless the wife and children of its slain leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, are released from prison.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Japan residents of Taiji village, notorious for the dolphin hunt documented in the film "The Cove," slaughtered a pod of dolphins but spared the youngest animals.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, Mexican soldiers captured Seiki Ogata, an alleged Tabasco state Zetas gang leader, along with 5 other gang members. Ogata was suspected of organizing the massacre of a dead marine Melquisedet Angulo’s family last Dec., just days after Angulo had been killed during a raid in Cuernavaca, that left drug kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva dead. Authorities in Sinaloa state said they found 3 beheaded bodies along a highway that leads to the town of Imala. The bodies were accompanied with a message that accused them of being kidnappers. The decapitated head of police commander Rolando Flores was found in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army base. He had been investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on Falcon Lake. Pirates have robbed boaters and fisherman on the Mexican side. Motorists found a decapitated body underneath a bridge on a road leading to the beachside neighborhood of Playas de Tijuana. Earlier in the day police found a human head inside a bag in another Tijuana neighborhood, but it did not belong to the body found underneath the bridge.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 12, Hurricane Paula, the ninth hurricane of the busy 2010 Atlantic season, churned toward the east coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
(Reuters, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Mozambique 17 prisoners cut the bars at Nampula Industrial Penitentiary before escaping. They were among 99 inmates recently transferred to Nampula from neighboring provinces. One fugitive was soon re-captured.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, In northwestern Pakistan suspected militants killed 3 anti-Taliban tribal elders in the Bazai area of the Mohmand tribal region, the latest in a string of attacks against tribesmen who dare stand up to the Islamist insurgents.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III granted amnesty to officers and soldiers accused of plotting to overthrow his predecessor. Only a handful of the original 300 troops who took up arms against then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in July 2003 remained in military custody on charges of mutiny and coup attempt.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In central Poland a van crammed with farm workers crashed head-on into a truck after apparently trying to overtake another vehicle in dense fog, killing all 18 people on board.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In eastern Ukraine a train crashed into a crowded bus, killing 43 people on the bus, including two children, and injuring nearly a dozen others. PM Mykola Azarov ordered his government to pay the family of each of the dead victims 100,000 hryvna ($12,600). He also instructed transport officials to install automated crossing gates at all the nation's railway crossings to prevent cars, buses and trucks from ignoring the siren.
(AP, 10/12/10)(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 12, At the United Nations Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa were elected to join the big guns on the UN Security Council for two years, starting in January.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20101012/ts_csm/331624)(Reuters, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 12, Pope Benedict XVI formally created a new Vatican office to revive Christianity in Europe, his latest attempt to counter secular trends in traditionally Christian countries.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 12, In Yemen Al-Qaida's offshoot warned it is setting up a "new army" to overthrow the country's president in response to his US-backed counterterrorism campaign and said it would fill its ranks with snipers and bomb makers.
(AP, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 13, It was reported that officials in 50 US states and the District of Columbia have launched a joint investigation into allegations that mortgage companies mishandled documents and broke laws in foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of homeowners.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, US authorities said a vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program's history. Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian (46), was in custody in Los Angeles.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Tax officials in Billings, Montana, said developer Tim Blixseth and his wife owe the state $57 million in taxes on the money they drained from the Yellowstone Club. The state faced a deficit of $300 million.
(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A9)
2010 Oct 13, Mexican national Jose Antonio Medina Arreguin (36) was booked into a Ventura, Ca., county jail after being extradited from his home country. Court documents later showed Medina, accused of being Mexico's "King of Heroin," caught on wiretap conversations talking to coconspirators about drug transactions involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. In March 2011 Arreguin pleaded guilty and faced up to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 3/17/11)
2010 Oct 13, Gen. David Petraeus, NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, offered a cautiously optimistic assessment of the transition of security duties to Afghan forces during a briefing with alliance representatives in Brussels. A senior NATO officials said the alliance had facilitated contacts between senior Taliban members and the highest levels of the Afghan government. In Afghanistan insurgents killed 6 NATO service members, including 4 who died in a single bomb blast in the volatile south. Insurgents , at a market fatally shot Ahmed Khan, chief of Dihrawud district in southern Uruzgan province.
(AP, 10/13/10)(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 13, Australia and Indonesia agreed to further discuss plans for a refugee centre in East Timor to stem the flow of asylum seekers through Southeast Asia on their way to Australia.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Bahrain top justice official said 23 Shiite activists, detained in a sweeping crackdown by the country's Sunni rulers, have been charged with terrorism and conspiring against the government.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Bangladesh said it would deploy the army at the country's main seaport to keep cargo moving after days of strikes by dock workers hit crucial garment shipments.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Brazil Milton Marcondes of the Humpback Whale Institute said at least 75 humpback whales have died in 2010. The previous high was 41 in 2007.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Britain's Lloyds Banking Group said that it will axe another 4,500 jobs, including 1,750 posts outside the UK, as the crisis-hit lender continues its painful restructuring.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Canada declared that bisphenol A is a toxic chemical, prompting calls for far-reaching curbs on the industrial chemical that is used in everything from the linings of aluminum cans to coatings on electronic till receipts.
(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Chile the 33 miners trapped for 69 days climbed into a rescue capsule and made a smooth ascent to the surface. All the miners were pulled up through a narrow escape chute from nearly a half-mile down in under 23 hours.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Egypt was reported to have handed down new media requirements that will effectively put all live broadcasts, including TV talk shows and news bulletins, under the control of state television. Several private broadcast service providers said that they received letters from the telecom regulator ending their standing permits to offer live broadcast feeds from Egypt starting from Oct 15.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Hungarian authorities said the threat of another chemical spill had been averted and villagers could return home, as the plant responsible prepared to resume production. The municipal court in Veszprem released MAL's managing director Zoltan Bakonyi, who had been brought in for questioning.
(AFP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, welcomed by thousands of Shiite supporters throwing rose petals, sought to pull Lebanon firmly into his country's fold in a visit that underscored the growing power of Tehran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Tehran's chief prosecutor said authorities have arrested five people on suspicion of spying for the country's "enemies," a common reference in Iran for the US and Israel.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Iraq targeted explosions in Baghdad and northern Iraq wounded 28 people, among them 7 Iranian pilgrims and 9 policemen.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Italy became the latest NATO ally to detail plans to scale down its military presence and hand over territory to Afghan security forces by the end of next year.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Kuwait gave 28 million euros to Mauritania during Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah's whistle-stop visit to the poor northwest African nation.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, Malaysia criticized the WHO for failing to tackle the spread of dengue in the region, which saw 242,000 cases of the mosquito-borne disease in 2009 and 831 deaths so far this year.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Mexico six prison guards were killed while driving to work in Chihuahua city, capital of Chihuahua state. In the northern state of Sinaloa, two police officers were killed when gunmen ambushed their patrol in Mazatlan.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, A Pakistani government official said international lenders are estimating that this summer's floods caused $9.5 billion in damage to Pakistan's infrastructure, agriculture and other sectors. Gunmen killed Nooruddin Mengal, an ethnic Baluch political activist, as he headed from his suburban home to the city of Kalat. In central Pakistan police arrested a group of Islamist militants plotting to kill the prime minister in a gun and suicide bomb attack at his house. The 7 men were also accused of targeting other government leaders for assassination. A suspected US drone launched 4 missile strikes in North Waziristan killing 11 militants, including 3 foreigners.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 13, The Palestinians called on the US administration and Israel to define Israel's borders after Washington invited proposals to get peace talks back on track.
(AFP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Senegal dancers, traditional praise singers and leaders of three African nations greeted 163 Haitian students who left their earthquake-ravaged country and flew to Senegal, where victims of the calamity are being offered free housing and scholarships.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told visiting Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki that better ties between the two nations will be strengthened by the formation of a new Iraqi government.
(AP, 10/13/10)
2010 Oct 13, In the Ukraine for the second time in two days, a vehicle ignored a warning light at a railroad crossing and was hit by a train in a fatal accident killing 2 people.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, On the Arizona and Nevada border a soaring bypass bridge high above the Colorado River near Hoover Dam was dedicated after nearly eight years and $240 million worth of work. The bridge, which officially opens next week, is named for former Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan and Pat Tillman.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Regulators in New York approved Verizon's request to stop mass-printing residential phone books. There, the company estimates it will save about 3,575 tons of paper per year and conserve the energy associated with printing, binding and distributing the directories. The company's August request with Virginia regulators was estimated to save about 1,640 tons of paper annually.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Oct 14, Antinette Keller (18), a Northern Illinois University freshman from Plainfield, Ill., was last seen as she left for a walk in a 150-acre nature preserve in DeKalb, Ill. Her body was found on Oct 23 in a heavily wooded area of Prairie Park in DeKalb.
(http://tinyurl.com/2f8tuqb)
2010 Oct 14, Benoit Mandelbrot (b.1924), the father of fractal geometry, died in Cambridge, Mass. His seminal book, “The Fractal Geometry of Nature," was published in 1982. He was born to a Lithuanian Jewish family in Warsaw. In 1936 his family fled the Nazis, first to Paris and then to the south of France, where he tended horses and fixed tools. In 2012 His wife completed his memoir: “The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick."
(www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/us/17mandelbrot.html?_r=1)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.106)(Econ, 10/27/12, p.84)
2010 Oct 14, Afghan officials requested NATO's support in smoothing new peace efforts with the Taliban, including by halting military operations in areas where reconciliation talks could take place. 7 NATO soldiers were killed in separate bomb attacks, bringing to 586 the total number of personnel killed so far this year. ISAF said 13 civilians had been killed in militant attacks over the past week, including nine who died in a single IED blast.
(AFP, 10/14/10)(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Australian police seized half-a-ton of cocaine from a luxury yacht in one of the country's largest ever hauls of the drug. 3 Australians were charged in connection with the yacht seizure.
(AFP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, British actor Simon MacCorkindale (58), who starred on British television in "Casualty" and in the United States in "Falcon Crest," died in London of bowel cancer. His film roles include the murderer Simon Doyle in "Death on the Nile" in 1977 and as Philip FitzRoyce in "Jaws 3-D" ("Jaws III").
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 14, Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative for sexual violence in armed conflict, told the 15-nation Security Council that a man known as "Colonel Serafim" was among those believed to be responsible for the rape of over 300 people. She also said Congolese government troops are raping, killing and looting civilians in the same area of eastern Congo where militias carried out mass rapes over two months ago.
(AP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Rival Cypriot leaders opened a new crossing point linking the ethnically split island's Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, offering a boost to plodding reunification talks.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In India the Commonwealth Games ended after 11 days of fiery competition that went some way to mending the damage done to Indian pride and prestige tarnished by the chaotic buildup to the event.
(AFP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Iraq a roadside bomb hit the car of Abdul Karim al-Mohammadawi, a prominent member of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance, killing four people and wounding six others, including the politician.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Madagascar conservationists said a new species of carnivorous mammal, likely highly endangered, has been discovered in the wetlands of Lake Alaotra, the largest expanse of fresh water on the Indian Ocean island. It has been baptized Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durelli) after the late British naturalist Gerald Durrell, who led conservation projects in Madagascar.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Mali a 2-day meeting of the G8 countries, looking at how to counter the threat posed by Islamic militants in northwest Africa, concluded. An al-Qaida-linked group was currently holding five French citizens and two others hostage in the area. The meeting brought together counterterrorism experts in the G8's Counter Terrorism Action Group as well as participants from African countries in the region, the United Nations and regional bodies.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Mexico the W Radio station broadcast what it described as a telephone conversation between federal lawmaker Cesar Godoy and one of Mexico's biggest drug lords. W Radio said the alleged conversation took place last year between Godoy and La Familia cartel leader Servando Gomez, known as "La Tuta." In it Godoy and Gomez express support for each other and discuss bribing a reporter. Mexican marines battled suspected drug cartel gunmen whose allies erected at least a dozen roadblocks in the northeastern city of Monterrey. One marine and three gunmen were killed.
(AP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 14, Mozambique state radio said a court in has sentenced two men to 20 years in prison each for mutilating a 12-year-old boy and trying to sell his body parts to a witchdoctor. The report said the two men, the boy's uncle and another, held the boy down, cut out his eyes and removed his genitals, intending to sell them to a Malawian witchdoctor. The boy survived.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Khagendra Thapa Magar, a Nepalese fruit seller’s son, was named the world’s shortest man as he turned 18 years old. He measured 26.4 inches.
(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 14, Dutch Queen Beatrix swore in her country's new right-wing minority Cabinet, ushering in a new era of budgetary austerity and tighter immigration rules.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In Nigeria gunmen in the southern delta kidnapped, Lakshmi Tombush, the principal of a school sponsored by Exxon, and killed 2 police officers in a firefight. Gunmen attacked a police roadblock northern Bauchi state and two policemen were killed. Police officers recovered Tombush on Oct 28.
(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A2)(AFP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 14, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank said Pakistan's floods caused an estimated $9.7 billion in damage to the country's infrastructure, farms and homes.
(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Somalia’s Pres. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed named Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali American, as the new prime minister. In western Somalia masked gunmen abducted a Briton, Frans Barnard, and a Somali working for aid agency Save the Children from a compound in town of Adado. The Somali worker was soon released. Barnard was released on Oct 20.
(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A2)(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 14, A senior Sudanese official said it is impossible to hold a referendum on the future of the north-south border region of Abyei as planned. Dirdiri Ahmed, a member of Sudan's northern ruling party, said that internationally-mediated talks over Abyei failed to yield an agreement on who is eligible to vote in the region.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, Taiwan's government reported plans to allow sex workers to set up small businesses in the latest change to laws that had once forced the huge industry underground. Prostitution was legal only in Taiwan's capital, Taipei, until 1997 when the city authorities made it a criminal offence to be a prostitute though not to patronize one. In 2009 it stopped punishing sex workers. Estimates from activists put the number of people involved in sex-related jobs in Taiwan at 600,000.
(Reuters, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 14, In south Yemen a police chief was shot dead during a protest marking the 47th anniversary of the launch of its uprising against British colonial rule. Abdullah al-Baham was shot in the head in Mudia in Abyan province. The attack by suspected al-Qaida militants triggered a series of clashes between soldiers and militants that killed eight people, mostly government troops.
(AFP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, US federal authorities aid they have rounded up over 40 people in New York and Florida during a takedown of a wholesale marijuana ring. Agents seized $1 million and almost 200 pounds of marijuana.
(SFC, 10/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 15, A security researcher said criminals are using a Zeus botnet to pillage Charles Schwab investment accounts. Although police in the US, the UK and Ukraine collared more than 100 members of a Zeus crimeware gang three weeks ago, experts warned that the arrests wouldn't stop the botnet. Other gangs can simply step into the void.
(http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=B7C76BC0-1A64-67EA-E459F0D62DD95E83)
2010 Oct 15, Mike Ehredt (49) a US Army veteran of Hope, Iowa, completed a coast to coast jog in Rockland, Maine. He had placed a flag in the ground every mile to honor military personnel killed in Iraq. He averaged about 29 miles a day with 4 days off.
(SFC, 10/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 15, A light plane carrying four US citizens on a medical aid flight crashed in Baja California, killing all four aboard. The plane that went down was one of three on a mission from the San Luis Obispo, Ca., area.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 15, The Afghan government said a system meant to ensure Afghan officials are consulted on sensitive international military operations has been "ineffective." 3 NATO troops were killed in a surge of attacks that raised the death toll to 17 over the past three days for international troops in the country. In the southeast 6 civilians were killed when a roadside bomb detonated beside their vehicle near Kalat.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 15, China's Communist Party opened its secretive annual meeting to discuss the nation's next five-year economic plan against the backdrop of unusually outspoken calls for political reform.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, China's basketball association fined a series of coaches and players in the national team after a bench-clearing brawl put an end to a friendly match with Brazil. The fight had erupted the night of Oct 12 at a game in central Henan province.
(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, Roger Meece, heads of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, said more than 15,000 people were raped in the volatile eastern region of Congo last year, according to the best data available.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Adrian Edwards, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army have killed at least 2,000 people and forced 400,000 to flee in three countries in less than two years. A UNHCR communique documented a mounting "campaign of terror against civilians" in the DR Congo, South Sudan and the CAR.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, The Costa Rican government said it is receiving nearly $56 million in donations and debt write-offs to expand its forest and marine conservation programs and has become the first developing country to meet UN goals on protected areas. Under the plan, the US agreed to buy back $27 million of Costa Rica's foreign debt, money that will be used instead to invest conservation programs. The US already trimmed $26 million of Costa Rican debt in 2007 as part of the US Tropical Forest Conservation Act. The debt now stands at $77 million.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Ecuador a tunnel collapsed in a gold mine in the south, trapping four miners 490 feet (150 meters) underground. Authorities said rescue efforts were under way. The bodies of 2 miners were found the next day as rescue efforts continued for 2 others. Their bodies were found on Oct 20.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/17/10)(Reuters, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 15, French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent in riot police to reopen fuel depots blocked by strikes, as the pipeline to Paris airports was cut in an escalating battle over pension reform.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Indonesia a rabies outbreak on the resort island of Bali has to date killed 100 people. Bali, an island of 3 million people and one of Asia's top tourist destinations, has been grappling with the outbreak for nearly two years.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran was ready to resume talks about its nuclear program with the international community within a matter of weeks.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Israel signed off on the construction of 238 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, bringing an end to an unofficial building freeze in the traditionally Arab sector of the city and further complicating peace talks stuck over the broader fate of West Bank settlements. A report released by aid organization Oxfam said attacks and other acts of harassment by Jewish settlers against Palestinian olive farmers "are common and often increase during the time of the harvest." The Israeli army says it does all it can to protect Palestinian olive growers. So far this year there have been no casualties at least. But neither have the police made any arrests.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, Israeli police arrested Staten Island resident Eric Bellucci (30), a US citizen who escaped to Israel after allegedly stabbing his parents to death in their New York home earlier this week. Bellucci's parents, Arthur (61) and Marian (56), were found dead the night of Oct 13 in their Staten Island home.
(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Italy judicial sources said prosecutors have launched an investigation against PM Silvio Berlusconi for tax evasion linked to his Mediaset media empire. The allegations, which were immediately rejected by Mediaset, were linked to tax declarations for 2003 and 2004 and are part of a wider inquiry.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Jamaica a bus plunged over a cliff on the island's north coast, killing a teenage girl and injuring 39 people. The bus driver fled after the accident.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Mexico armed men entered through the back of a house in a residential neighborhood near the center of Ciudad Juarez, surprising the party-goers with an assault-rifle attack that killed 6 people.
(Reuters, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, In southeastern Mexico a helicopter carrying oil workers crashed killing all 8 people aboard.
(SSFC, 10/17/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 15, Pakistan said it was willing to assist talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and NATO confirmed its forces had helped ensure a senior Taliban commander reached Kabul. In an early morning attack in South Waziristan 5 Pakistani soldiers were killed when militants sprayed an army checkpoint with gunfire. A suspected US unmanned aircraft launched two missiles in North Waziristan. 3 were killed in the first missile strike, which hit a vehicle in Machi Khel. The 2nd strike occurred several hours later, killing six suspected militants at a house in Aziz Khel. Gunmen ambushed a truck early in the morning as it was returning home after delivering NATO supplies in Afghanistan, killing the driver and his assistant.
(Reuters, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/15/10)(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, Russian PM Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was nominated as Moscow's next mayor, a move seen as bringing the capital's sizable political and business interests under the direct control of the Kremlin.
(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Russia agreed to help build Venezuela's first nuclear power plant and buy $1.6 billion of oil assets, reinforcing ties with President Hugo Chavez, who shares Moscow's opposition to US global dominance.
(Reuters, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, The Saudi government said Jaber Jabran al-Faifi, a former Guantanamo detainee, has turned himself in to Saudi authorities. He had rejoined Al-Qaeda in Yemen after graduating from Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation program.
(AFP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, Swiss engineers smashed through the last stretch of rock to create the world's longest tunnel (35.4 miles), The Gotthard Base rail tunnel, sparking a national groundswell of elation over a costly, technically difficult project that has been 60 years in the making.
(AP, 10/15/10)(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 15, In Zambia nearly a dozen miners were shot in a pay dispute.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2010 Oct 16, In Afghanistan a bomb blast struck the police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one civilian and wounding 4 others. Two Taliban commanders, identified as Kaka Abdul Khaliq and Kako, were killed in an operation in Kandahar's Zhari district. Taliban fighter, Mullah Rahmatullah, was captured in the raid. Afghan and American troops made an air assault on the horn of Panjwai, a Taliban base. A motorized rickshaw carrying explosives was detonated behind police headquarters in Kandahar killing one bystander. Insurgents attacked an oil tanker on the other side of the city. The resulting explosion killed one civilian.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)(SSFC, 10/17/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 16, Armenia's president has opened an aerial tramway that the country claims is the world's longest. The tramway across the Vorotan River gorge in the country's south spans 5.7 km (3.5 miles), longer than the 4.5 km (2.8 mile) Sandia Peak Tramway in New Mexico, known as the world's longest passenger tramway. The $45 million tramway links the highway from the capital of Yerevan with the 9th century Tatev Monastery.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Belarus visiting Pres. Chavez of Venezuela promised that Belarusian refineries, the backbone of the country's economy, would see no oil shortages for the next 200 years.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Thousands of Chinese marched in the streets in sometimes violent protests against Japan and its claim to disputed islands. Thousands of protesters marched through Tokyo to demonstrate against what they called China's invasion of disputed islands that both countries claim. Beijing expressed "deep concern" at anti-China protests by Japanese nationalists over a diplomatic spat centered on a group of disputed islands.
(AP, 10/16/10)(Reuters, 10/16/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In central China rescuers battled dangerous levels of gas, tons of coal dust and the risk of falling rocks as they worked to free 11 miners trapped by an explosion at a mine. 26 miners were confirmed killed at the state-run Pingyu Coal & Electric Co. Ltd mine.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In China Li Qiming (22) reportedly hit two students with his car at a university campus in the northern province of Hebei. Chen Xiaofeng (20) was killed. The drunk man shouted "sue me if you dare" when a crowd stopped him from fleeing. On Oct 26 state media reported that Qiming, the son of a senior police officer, was arrested after the incident sparked outrage on the Internet. The young woman’s father, Chen Guangqian, said on Nov 18 that Li Gang gave him 460,000 yuan, or more than $69,250. On Jan 30 Qiming was sentenced to six years in prison.
(AFP, 10/26/10)(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 1/30/11)
2010 Oct 16, In France diesel and jet fuel supplies were running low in parts of the country as workers took to the streets for another nationwide protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of young members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union that while immigrants are welcome, they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural norms. "This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed."
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said Germany will help Japan gain access to vital rare earth minerals which are being withheld by China in a territorial dispute.
(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Iranian local media reported that a judge has ordered the amputation of the hand of a man (21) who confessed to robbing a candy shop. The ruling came days after authorities amputated the hand of another man convicted of theft in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico gunmen in the border city of Ciudad Juarez killed a local official and his son. Rito Grado Serrano was regional president of the community of El Porvenir outside Ciudad Juarez but lived with his family in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico the body of Lane Gilbert (46) of Marin County, Ca., was discovered in a lot behind a police station in Santa Maria Coyotepec, a town southwest of Oaxaca City. He had suffered multiple machete wounds. Gilbert was last seen leaving his home in San Andres Huayapan on Aug 27.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 16, A Nigerian army spokesman said soldiers have arrested this month about 100 suspected kidnappers and armed robbers in the southeastern state of Abia, including a Roman Catholic priest. Nigerian investigators raided a Lagos home of Charles Okah, the brother of former militant group leader Henry Okah, taking him into custody over his alleged role in funding the Oct 1 bombings that struck independence anniversary celebrations in Abuja.
(AFP, 10/16/10)(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, North Korea said it is willing to resume six-nation nuclear disarmament talks but would not be "hasty" because the US and some other parties were not ready. North Korean media threatened a "1,000-fold" military buildup as the US ruled out lifting sanctions to try to coax the North into resuming talks aimed at its nuclear weapons programs.
(AP, 10/16/10)(AFP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 16, Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency reported that flooding in the southern region of Krasnodar has killed 11 people with three missing.
(Reuters, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 17, The New York Times reported that possibly hundreds of members of Iraq's Awakening Councils, a group affiliated with the US military, have switched their loyalty to Al-Qaeda.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Washington Post reported that the United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Arizona a commercial tour bus drifted off a highway near Meadview and rolled over several times killing 2 people and injuring several others.
(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 17, In New York Danroy "D.J." Henry (20), a college football player driving away from the scene of a fight, ended up dead hours after the team's homecoming game, struck in a burst of police gunfire that pierced his windshield in the Westchester County hamlet of Thornwood.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, Afghanistan issued a statement issued by the president's office saying that private security firms will not only be able to operate inside international compounds, but also travel with diplomats and work as protection for international military installations. A NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast in the south. Afghan and Western officials said that fraud was pervasive in the Sep 18 elections and that 25% or 800,000 to a million votes would be likely thrown out. air strikes killed a Taliban "military leader" and 15 other insurgents in the northern province of Baghlan. A Taliban prisoner, Mullah Muhebullah, was found shot dead while under US guard in an Afghan holding facility. Pfc. David Lawrence (20) was soon placed under custody in a criminal investigation of Muhebullah’s death.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A3)(AFP, 10/19/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 17, In Afghanistan about this time 3 Taliban leaders secretly met with Pres. Karzai in an effort to weaken the Haqqani network, the US-led coalition's most vicious enemy.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Brazil three men broke into the home of Wanderley dos Reis, the owner of a small newspaper in Sao Paulo state, and shot and killed him.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 17, In southeastern Brazil a bus carrying people back from a sports festival for special needs athletes fell from a bridge into a river, killing 11 and injuring nearly 30.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Congo's first lady, Olive Lembe Kabila, led thousands of women marching in the country's volatile east to demand an end to a wave of mass rapes. 3 residents were killed when soldiers looted homes in Congo's South Kivu province.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Haiti 2 inmates were shot to death trying to escape from the roof of the quake-damaged national penitentiary. A third was trampled to death inside during a prison riot. Police officials familiar with the prison said some inmates had escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In northern India an argument over sacrificing goats during a Hindu festival triggered a stampede that killed 10 people in a packed temple.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad endorsed the idea of new talks with the international community over his country's nuclear program, while warning that negotiations would fail if the West does not clearly come out against Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Iran freed Reza Taghavi (71), an Iranian-American businessman. The next day he said he had spent some of his more than two years in prison alongside protesters detained in Iran's postelection crackdowns and praised his first taste of freedom as a blessing "no one can imagine." Taghavi, who regularly visits Iran to conduct business and see family, had been jailed for 29 months for passing $200 to someone suspected of links to a rebel group known as Tondar, which seeks to topple the Islamic system and was implicated in the mosque bombing.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Iraq two policemen and two gunmen were killed in gunfights between security forces and armed groups attempting to rob Baghdad jewelry stores. 5 gunmen escaped.
(AP, 10/17/10)(SFC, 10/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, In Kuwait some 100 people stormed the offices of privately owned Scope TV’s studios and destroyed its equipment after the channel aired shows critical of the ruling Al Sabah family.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 17, The Mexican Navy said two men were killed in a confrontation with marines in Tamaulipas state. A Sonora state police officer was found dead, apparently from a blow to the head, alongside the road in Benito Juarez municipality. Ciudad Juarez gunmen burst into a home where a family was having a party. 3 women and 2 men died at the scene, and a man and a woman died at the hospital. Assailants attacked a second home in the neighborhood minutes later, killing 2 men.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Morocco world leaders at the World Policy Conference (WPC) in Marrakech examined frameworks for global governance ahead of a G20 summit in Seoul, with UN chief Ban Ki-Moon stressing no single power could tackle key issues alone.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, A Nigerian government spokesman said a Dubai court found cause to honor an extradition request for former Delta state Gov. James Ibori, a prominent politician in the ruling People's Democratic Party. Authorities have said Ibori faces charges over stealing $292 million in state funds while in office.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Pakistan gunmen killed at least 25 people in Karachi over the past 24 hours, raising tensions in Pakistan's largest city as voters cast ballots to replace a provincial lawmaker murdered in August.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Two Palestinians were killed and a third wounded in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike north of Gaza City. The Israeli military said the air force had struck a "squad of terror operatives who were preparing to fire rockets from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel."
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Thousands of Thailand's anti-government "Red Shirts" joined a mass rally in the latest large-scale demonstration by the movement in recent weeks.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Australia's first saint, canonizing Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), a 19th-century nun. The Vatican also declared five other saints in an open-air Mass attended by tens of thousands. Brother Andre (1845-1937), a Canadian, Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola were also canonized.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The official Vatican newspaper said that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics, and what's more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch "the adventures of the little guys in yellow." Executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly the next day he was in "shock and awe" at the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the "Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield. "The Simpsons" is the longest-running prime-time TV series in the United States and is now in its 22nd season.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 17, Vietnamese officials said more flooding has killed at least 14 people and forced around 78,000 people to be evacuated from their homes in the centre of the country.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, Zambian police said managers at a Chinese-run coal mine who shot at workers protesting poor working conditions will be charged with attempted murder. 12 workers at Collum Coal Mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe were injured a day earlier when mainly Chinese managers fired randomly at the protesting workers.
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Southern California Crystal Cathedral, the megachurch birthplace of the televangelist show "Hour of Power," filed for bankruptcy after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Tennessee workers Judy Spray (58), a rural carrier associate, and Paula Robinson (33), a retail clerk, were gunned down at a rural post office that doubles as a community center in Henning.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National reported that the UAE's highest judicial body has ruled that a man can beat his wife and young children as long as the beating leaves no physical marks.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Afghan and NATO forces killed "numerous insurgents" in Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, An Algerian court sentenced Bouchouta Fares (27) to two years in prison for breaking the fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan late in August. He was also fined 100,000 dinars (€972, $1,359) for "breaching a precept of Islam." Practicing a faith, Muslim or otherwise, is conditional in Algeria on obtaining a document stating the place of worship and another giving the name of the preacher, under a law passed in February 2006.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 18, Australia’s Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor said illegal pornographic material must be declared on arrival, watering down recent rules that asked for all pornography to be revealed. The government said it changed the wording on passenger arrival cards after becoming aware of confusion among travelers about what pornography to declare.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, A UN official said flooding in the West African nation of Benin has killed 43 people and left nearly 100,000 homeless, citing numbers collected since the beginning of October.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In northeastern Brazil Francisco Gomes de Medeiros, a veteran reporter who had often received death threats for his reports on crime, died instantly when he was shot five times in the city of Caico.
(AP, 10/2o/10)
2010 Oct 18, A new British government strategy was published saying International terrorism and cyber attacks pose the biggest threat to national security, ahead of a major shake-up of the defense budget.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Cambodia 20 people remained hospitalized after 14 people died over the weekend from drinking wine tainted with weed killer at a ceremony where villagers were appealing to spirits to protect children.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, French truck drivers staged go-slow operations on highways, rail strikes intensified and petrol stations ran out of fuel as protests gathered pace ahead of a Senate vote on an unpopular pension overhaul.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Germany, yielding to French pressure, softened its stance on stricter eurozone budget rules, angering governments that counted on Berlin to force through sanctions for nations living beyond their means.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Haiti civil protection officials said steady rains toppled hillsides and turned streets into rivers in Port-au-Prince over the weekend, leaving at least 12 people dead and three missing.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In India Yertward Mazmanian (aka Eight Finger Eddie, 1924-2010), an American-born hippie died of a heart attack in Anjuna's hospital. In 1965 he and some other hippies had settled in Anjuna, Goa state, and helped put the area on the travel map for global backpackers and stoners.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 18, Human rights activists said Indonesian security forces have been captured on video torturing an alleged separatist in Papua province, burning his genitals as he screams out in agony and then threatening to shoot him in the mouth.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iran took part for the first time in talks in Rome with the international contact group on Afghanistan that set "sufficient stability" and basic human rights as the most realistic aims for the war-torn nation.
(AFP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki was in Tehran to drum up support for his premiership bid, as his chief rival Iyad Allawi accused Iran of meddling in Baghdad's political affairs. In Iraq a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying Jassim al-Saiedi, a member of Baghdad's local government, killing him and wounding eight people. Two Associated Press journalists were among those assaulted by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cover the bombing.
(AFP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Mexico a bus has crashed into the back of a trailer truck and caught fire, killing 19 people outside the city of Queretaro. Security forces seized at least 105 tons of US-bound marijuana in Tijuana, by far the biggest pot bust in the country in recent years. The estimated weight was soon revised to 134.2 tons and said to likely belong to the Sinaloa cartel, run by Mexico's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 18, Myanmar election officials said foreign journalists will not be allowed to cover its Nov 7 elections, the first in 20 years.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 18, Pakistan’s election commission said 148 lawmakers from national and regional assemblies have been suspended for failing to disclose details of their wealth.
(SFC, 10/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 18, In the Philippines the strongest cyclone in years killed at least 36 people, leaving a wasteland of fallen trees and power poles and sending thousands scampering to safety in near-zero visibility. Super Typhoon Megi was forecast next to head toward China and Vietnam.
(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/19/10)(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 18, Somali officials said an offensive launched a day earlier by government troops has killed at least 15 people. The weak, UN-backed government was attempting to win back control of areas held by militants. Al-Shabab announced that residents in areas under its control can no longer use mobile money transfer services.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, The UN said it is sending 100 more troops to Sudan's oil-producing Abyei region to step up security ahead of a referendum that could pitch the area back into bloodshed.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Vietnam a local official was sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes on a Japanese-funded road project he managed, in a scandal that prompted Japan to suspend aid for several months. Huynh Ngoc Si was convicted of receiving $262,000 from executives of Pacific Consultants International, or PCI, a Japanese company hired as consultants.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Vietnam 20 people on a bus were swept away by strong currents from a flooded river. They were presumed dead. Another 17 managed to save themselves by swimming or clinging to trees or power poles.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 18, A court in Yemen sentenced an al-Qaida militant to death after convicting him of involvement in terror attacks and manufacturing explosives. Saleh al-Shawish was arrested in February and later charged with involvement in attacks on security facilities, training would-be suicide bombers and bomb making.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Texas Hosam Smadi (20), a Jordanian national, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In May he had pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. An FBI sting in 2009 had caught him trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/2ac44d8)
2010 Oct 19, TV and film Actor Tom Bosley (1927) died. His films included “The World of Henry Orient" (1964). He was best known for his role at the father in the “Happy Days" TV series (1974-1985).
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.A8)
2010 Oct 19, The Afghan government said it had ordered an audit of all private banks following a corruption scandal that threatened to bring down the country's top lender. In the south 3 NATO soldiers were killed, bringing to 596 the number of foreign troops to die in the Afghan conflict so far this year. US officials said they have begun training Afghans on how to disrupt the flow of billions of dollars in cash being smuggled out of their country.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)(AFP, 10/19/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Austria tens of thousands of students, backed by university staff, marched to demand more money for higher education.
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 19, Bolivia and Peru signed an agreement giving Bolivia a dock, a free-trade zone and the right to run some naval vessels.
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 19, Britain will lose thousands of troops, build new aircraft carriers, without new fighter jets, and delay a multibillion pound upgrade to its nuclear deterrent under sweeping defense cuts announced following the first major military review in more than a decade.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Chechnya Islamic insurgents including a suicide bomber stormed the Parliament, leaving six people dead and 17 injured in one of the most brazen attacks on the provincial capital in months. The dead included one parliamentary official, 2 policemen and 3 insurgents.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, China's central bank surprised with its first increase of interest rates in nearly three years. The People's Bank of China said it was raising benchmark rates by 25 basis points, taking one-year deposit rates to 2.5 percent and one-year lending rates to 5.56 percent. The impact was felt by markets across the board. Oil and gold prices tumbled, stocks turned negative in Europe and the dollar jumped.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Egypt's main satellite operator said it shut down 12 private television channels on grounds of violating broadcasting licenses. Egypt's largest opposition Islamist group said that police detained 164 Muslim Brotherhood members, most of them election campaign workers, in a spate of raids across the country.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Egyptian and South African leaders met in Cairo for talks aimed at strengthening economic ties between the two African powerhouses and working towards a free trade deal for the continent.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Human Rights Watch said in a report that Ethiopia is denying opposition supporters food, other aid, loans and government services in a widespread effort to suppress political dissent.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, European Union finance ministers sealed a deal to regulate the trillion-dollar hedge fund industry after Britain and France settled a long-running conflict.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, The European Commission said it will temporarily suspend its human rights complaint against France for its expulsions of Gypsies, or Roma, after Paris promised to alter some of its laws to match EU regulations.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, The EU announced plans for a five-year ban on animal cloning for food production as well as a traceability system for imports of semen and embryos of clones.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In France masked youths clashed with police and set fires in cities across the country as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement age took an increasingly radical turn. Hundreds of flights were canceled, long lines formed at gas stations and train service in many regions was cut in half.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Deutsch Bahn’s high-speed train, ICE-3, became the first German train to pass through the Channel tunnel on its way to London’s St Pancras station.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.77)
2010 Oct 19, In Guinea 2 political demonstrators were killed by police in the capital, in one of several violent street clashes ahead of a planned presidential poll.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, India announced the creation of a tribunal to punish those who sully the forests or rivers or otherwise break its environmental laws, in the hopes of clearing a backlog of some 5,000 such cases languishing in a sluggish court system.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In India the Microfinance Institution Network petitioned the Andhra Pradesh state high court to block new provisions designed to protect impoverished people. High interest and coercive loan collection by some microfinance groups had led to some 30 suicides.
(SFC, 10/20/10, p.D7)
2010 Oct 19, In Ingushetia unidentified gunmen shot and killed a police officer in this southern Russian province hours after other Islamic insurgents raided Chechnya's regional parliament.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iran Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez held talks with leaders expected to focus on boosting cooperation between the countries' oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iraq a bomb exploded near the house of a policeman in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing his 6-month-old niece, both her parents and five other members of the same family. In Samarra a roadside bomb struck a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding two. In Baghdad two bombs attached to buses exploded and wounded 15 Iranian pilgrims. Chief UN envoy AD Melkert finished meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and was leaving the Shiite city of Najaf when his convoy hit a roadside bomb. A member of the Iraqi security forces was killed and several others were injured in the attack.
(AP, 10/19/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Nicaragua health officials reported 17 deaths and 600 suspected cases of leptospirosis in the past month. Most of the cases were in Leon and Chinandega.
(www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=123022)
2010 Oct 19, In Pakistan violence continued in the southern city of Karachi, with at least 16 people killed in different attacks, including eight in one incident.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, South African journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika, arrested after writing about alleged police corruption, said a proposed media bill could transform a country known for being among Africa's most free and transparent to one more like autocratic Zimbabwe. He spoke at a protest of more than 300 people marching against the government's media proposals.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Tibetan students in western China marched to protest unconfirmed plans to use the Chinese language exclusively in classes, an unusually bold challenge to authorities that reflects a deep unease over the marginalization of Tibetan culture.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 19, The UN said that 377 people had died in flooding in central and west Africa, with nearly 1.5 million people affected since the start of the rainy season in June. The highest toll was in Nigeria with 118, followed by Ghana (52), Sudan (50), Benin (43), Chad (24), Mauritania (21), Burkina Faso (16), Cameroon (13), Gambia (12), with other countries reporting less than 10 dead.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 19, Two employees of the US Virgin Islands' tax bureau were accused of leading a scheme that pilfered as much as $500,000 from the government using fraudulent tax refund checks. Tax bureau employees Tiffanne Sutton and Colette Hacket-Browne and others had allegedly taken part in tax fraud since 2006.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In its biggest arms deal ever, the United States announced it will sell up to 60 billion dollars worth of warplanes, helicopters and other weapons to Saudi Arabia, partly to help it counter Iran.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, The United States relaxed sanctions on Sudan to exempt farm equipment, a move seen as part of a wider scheme of carrots and sticks before a sensitive referendum that could split Africa's largest country.
(Reuters, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, In Kansas Dr. Stephen Schneider was sentenced to 30 years in prison for unlawfully writing prescriptions, health care fraud and money laundering. His wife was sentenced to 33 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 20, Bob Guccione (b.1930), founder of Penthouse magazine, died of lung cancer in Plano, Texas. He started Penthouse in England in 1965 to subsidize a career in art. He introduced the magazine to the American public in 1969.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A8)
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, Robert Katz (77), American writer and historian, died in Italy. His meticulous reconstruction of an infamous Nazi massacre in Rome brought him fame and sparked a trial over whether he defamed the pope. His book "Death in Rome" (1967) and the subsequent movie based on it, called "Massacre in Rome," stirred controversy because it suggested Pope Pius XII did not intervene to stop the massacre even though he knew about the Nazis' plans.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, Afghanistan released full preliminary results from last month's parliamentary election. About 1.3 million votes were disqualified out of 5.6 million. That means about 23 percent of ballots were discarded because of ballot-box stuffing or re-jiggered totals. A four-day operation ended in which NATO troops and the Afghan army killed more than 10 insurgents and recovered four weapons caches in Kunar province.
(AP, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 20, Britain’s treasury chief George Osborne announced 81 billion pounds ($128 billion) in spending cuts through 2015, which will ax welfare payments, savage government services and see as many as half a million public sector jobs lost.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, British Justice David Bean sentenced Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Saud to a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 20 years for the brutal assault at the Landmark Hotel in London on Feb 15.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Britain's Supreme Court ruled in favor of German heiress Katrin Radmacher (40), seeking to protect her considerable fortune from her ex-husband Nicolas Granatino (39). The decision gave new strength to prenuptial agreements in England.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In France workers opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around the country, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane. Pres. Sarkozy sent in police to clear access to barricaded fuel depots and restore supply as trade unions kept up their resistance to an unpopular pension reform due for a final vote this week.
(Reuters, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Italian police arrested Antonio Cortese. He is suspected of planting an unloaded bazooka and carrying out a bomb attack earlier this year that damaged the entrance of the Reggio Calabria courthouse in southern Italy. Turncoat Antonino Lo Giudice, a former top 'Ndrangheta boss, accused Cortese of planting the explosives in an attempt to intimidate prosecutors.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, A court in Mauritania condemned three alleged al-Qaida members to death, including the former leader of the African nation's local terrorist network. Former al-Qaida leader, El Khadim Ould Semene, was accused of helping organize an attack on the Israeli embassy here two years ago.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In northern Mexico Marisol Valles Garcia (20) was sworn in as the police chief of the township of Praxedis G. Guerrero, a township of 8,500 on a drug trafficking route along the Texas border. Soldiers battled gunmen in two cities across the border from Texas, prompting panicked parents to pull children from school and factories to warn workers to stay inside. In Nuevo Laredo 5 gunmen were killed and 3 soldiers were wounded during shootouts. Assailants in a third city threw a grenade at an army barracks. In Ciudad Juarez a Texas National Guard soldier (21) was reportedly one of two men killed.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A4)(AP, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 20, Parts Karachi, Pakistan, shut down after an attack on a scrapyard pushed to 51 the number of people killed in four days, a spasm of politically motivated violence in a country already wracked by Islamist militancy.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Palestinians said Jewish settlers set fire to a girls school near the northern city of Nablus. A powerful explosion ripped through a Hamas military compound in the Gaza Strip, wounding more than a dozen people, including women and children.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Spain enacted a tough new anti-smoking law, eliminating its status as Western Europe's last country where lighting up in indoor public places is allowed.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Swiss mining giant Xstrata said that it would spend 4.9 billion rands (710 million dollars, 510 million euros) on expanding a ferrochrome smelter in South Africa.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In Turkey police detained five people, including three university students, suspected of providing financial and technical support to the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 20, Pope Benedict XVI named 24 new cardinals, putting his mark on the body that will elect his successor and giving a boost to Italian hopes to regain the papacy.
(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left Iran after signing 11 deals focused on energy cooperation between the two major oil producers who are foes of the United States.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 21, US federal authorities charged Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp. with Medicare fraud. Prosecutors said the company preyed on patients with severe dementia and billed some $200 million for services it never rendered.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A13)
2010 Oct 21, In Northern California an entire arm of the Roseville Galleria, a high-end regional mall, was destroyed after Alexander Corney Pigee (Piggee, 23), barricaded himself inside a video game store and started a fire.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Oregon a former Bend police captain and his wife, who have been under investigation by the FBI and IRS over their real estate dealings in Oregon and Indiana, were indicted on fraud charges. Kevin (56) and Tamara (47) "Tami" Sawyer were charged with 21 counts of various crimes that include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors claim the fraud cost investors more than $4.4 million.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 21, The Guinness World Records confirmed that a pumpkin grown in Wisconsin is officially the world’s heaviest. Chris Stevens of New Richmond grew the1,810.5 pound gourd. It was 85 pounds heavier than the record set in Ohio in 2009.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A10)
2010 Oct 21, A partnership backed by Amazon.com, Comcast, Facebook and other technology firms established the “S Fund," a $250 million fund led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to capitalize on the growing reach of social networking.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.C1)
2010 Oct 21, Afghanistan's new peace council said it would be willing to make concessions to bring insurgents to the negotiating table, and called for Saudi Arabia's help in mediating peace talks.
(Reuters, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Austria Christian Kandlbauer (22), man who was able to drive because of an innovative high-tech artificial arm, died. He had been in intensive care since Oct 19 after his vehicle veered off the road and into a tree. It was unclear whether the crash was caused by problems with Kandlbauer's artificial arms.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Britain the Privileges and Conduct Committee of the House of Lords suspended Pola Uddin, Swraj Paul and Amirali Bhatia after declaring they did not act in good faith in filing their expense claims. They were ordered to repay amounts ranging from 27,000 pounds ($45,000) to just over 125,000 pounds ($197,000).
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, China rejected a UN report that says Chinese bullets were used in attacks on peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, calling the charge groundless.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, At least 160,000 people were evacuated from southern China as Typhoon Megi, one of the most powerful storms to hit the region in years, bore down, bringing with it the threat of devastation.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In CongoDRC a small plane was owned by a local airliner Starec Congo crashed into a gorilla park in eastern Congo killing its pilot and co-pilot. It was carrying some 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) of commercial goods.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Cuba the office of Havana Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega announced the names of five more Cuban inmates who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom, though none are among a group of 52 political prisoners jailed in a 2003 roundup of dissidents.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In the Dominican Rep. 126 students were sickened after eating free school breakfasts despite the government's efforts to resolve past problems with tainted school food.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In El Salvador Benitez Canales, one of the owners of the Deportivo Vista Hermosa football club, was among a group making a deal over 2 kg (4.4 pounds) of cocaine when they were arrested.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, The European Parliament awarded its annual human rights prize to Guillermo Farinas (48), the Cuban dissident whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of political dissidents jailed in a 2003 crackdown on dissent.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Finland’s Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, announced 1,800 jobs cuts right on the heels of stellar third-quarter results and just one month after a new chief executive took the helm.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In France protesters blockaded Marseille's airport, Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris and rioting youths attacked police in Lyon ahead of a tense Senate vote on raising the retirement age to 62.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Israel the Elders, a group of retired world figures, visited a flashpoint east Jerusalem neighborhood, vowing to help Palestinian residents whose homes are facing demolition.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Italy demonstrators in Naples set vehicles ablaze and hurled stones and firecrackers at police over plans to build a garbage dump in the Vesuvio National Park. 20 officers were left injured.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Toyota said it is recalling 1.53 million Lexus, Avalon and other models, mostly in the US and Japan, for brake fluid and fuel pump problems, the latest in a string of quality lapses for the world's No. 1 automaker.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Mexican police found the bullet-ridden bodies of seven people in different parts of southern Guerrero state. Among them was Antonio Valdez, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the resort city of Acapulco. Valdez and three other men were found dead on the outskirts of the city with a message accusing them of being allied with Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "The Barbie."
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In central Mexico Canadian industrial giant Bombardier and Mexican President Felipe Calderon opened a new 250-million-dollar plant where it will produce components for the Learjet 85 business aircraft.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Military-ruled Myanmar unveiled a new national flag. The new flag has horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a big white star in the middle. (The three horizontal colors, minus the white star, are identical to the Lithuanian national flag.)
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Niger a statement read on national radio and television said the removal of the junta's second-in-command, intelligence minister, head of the national guard and minister of equipment were related to a coup plot within the national armed forces.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In northwestern Pakistan a roadside bomb killed six Taliban militants, including a prominent local commander, an attack that could have been motivated by tensions between different insurgent groups.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In the southern Philippines a bomb ripped through a passenger bus, killing at least 10 people and wounding nine in an attack authorities say may have been carried out by an extortion gang with links to Muslim militants.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Russia the Moscow legislature voted to approve Sergei Sobyanin, PM Putin’s chief of staff, as mayor of the city replacing Yuri Luzhkov, who was fired by Pres. Medvedev last month after 18 years in office. Luzhkov has said he believes the true reason behind his ouster was the Kremlin's desire to have a more pliant mayor before parliamentary elections next year and the 2012 presidential vote.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Somalia a failed offensive by al-Shabab left at least 20 people dead as the Islamist group attempted to recapture a district in the southwest from government forces.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Syria Venezuelan Pres. Chavez met with his Pres. Bashar Assad on the Mideast leg of an international tour partly intended to counter what he calls US "imperialism."
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Thailand said floods in the northeast have left 17 people dead over the last 2 weeks with damages estimated at $650 million. 28 of the country’s 77 provinces were affected.
(SFC, 10/22/10, p.A9)
2010 Oct 21, UNESCO, the UN's cultural and education agency, suspended plans to grant a prize named after Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea's longtime dictator, after human rights groups slammed the award by citing the leader's poor human rights record.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 22, The Obama administration laid out a five-year, $2 billion military aid package for Pakistan as it pressed the Islamabad government to step up the fight against extremists there and in neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, Ephren Taylor resigned from City Capital and has since been replaced by Jeff M. Smuda. Taylor allegedly took one million dollars from members at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta. Smuda was elected chairman of the failing company shortly after Taylor’s resignation. According to their SEC, filing Jeff M. Smuda is an expert in restructuring companies to profitability. Taylor was soon dubbed “the black Bernie Madoff."
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.63)(http://tinyurl.com/8a6vrqw)
2010 Oct 22, In Virginia Glenn Shriver (28) of Detroit pleaded guilty to trying to get a job with the Central Intelligence Agency in order to spy for China and to hiding contacts and money he got from Chinese intelligence agents. Shriver acknowledged that he met with Chinese officials about 20 times beginning in 2004 and that he received a total of about $70,000 from Chinese intelligence officers. His plea agreement called for a sentence of 48 months in prison.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, The WikiLeaks website released 391,831 purported Iraq war logs in the biggest leak of secret information in US history. The documents date from the start of 2004 to Jan 1, 2010. They suggested that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the American-led invasion in 2003. Accounts of civilian deaths included deaths unknown or unreported before now, as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, The Lancet journal published a study online reporting that low doses of aspirin, taken daily and over the long term, cut cases of colorectal cancer by a quarter and the death toll from this disease by a third. Aspirin is believed to have a preventive effect because it inhibits an enzyme called COX-2, which promotes cell proliferation in colorectal tumors.
(AFP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, A shark attack off the coast of Santa Barbara County, Ca., killed surfer Lucas Ransom (19).
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A12)
2010 Oct 22, In southeastern Afghanistan Taliban fighters attacked a NATO convoy and killed three drivers before setting 13 fuel tankers ablaze.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, A British judge sentenced James Robinson (73), a former Roman Catholic priest, to 21 years in jail after he was convicted of 21 charges of sexual offenses against boys. Ordained in 1971, he was accused of abusing boys from 1959 to 1983.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, A nuclear-powered British submarine, the HMS Astute, was grounded in an accident off the coast of Scotland. Officials said the incident was not serious and no one was injured.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Canada Alberta Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths of the 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond last June. Syncrude accepted the C$3 million sentencing proposal.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In China Kigali and Beijing agreed to enhance their military cooperation during a visit to China by Rwandan Defence Minister James Kaberebe. Kaberebe held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Liang Guanglie, as part of a five-day visit to China.
(AFP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, Costa Rica sent some 70 police reinforcements to the border area after receiving reports of Nicaraguan soldiers on its soil. This was one day after Costa Rica formally complained to Nicaragua's ambassador about the dredging in the San Juan River. Nicaragua's army chief of staff, Gen. Julio Aviles, later said the soldiers were on the Nicaraguan side of the border as part of an anti-drug operation.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 22, French riot police forced a strategic refinery to reopen, aiming to halt growing fuel shortages. The French Senate voted 177-153 to back the contested retirement reform.
(AP, 10/22/10)(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 22, Guinea announced an indefinite delay of a presidential election run-off two days before it was to be held, casting doubt on the West African state's hopes for civilian rule and provoking fresh protests.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Haiti aid groups rushed in medicine and other supplies to combat a suspected cholera outbreak. At least 135 people had already died in the rural Artibonite region, host to thousands of quake refugees.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In eastern India suspected Maoist rebels triggered a land mine as a police vehicle drove past, killing six officers in the Sheohar district of Bihar state.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In eastern Indonesia the Tersanjung, a small passenger ship, sank off the cape of Watumanuk on Flores island. It was reportedly carrying 66 people. 44 people were rescued and 22 remained missing.
(AP, 10/22/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, Human Rights Watch said banditry, violence, and rape are widespread in Ivory Coast's western provinces even as the country gears for historic national elections.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Mexico at least 13 young people (aged 13 to 32), including 6 women and girls, were shot dead and 20 wounded in an attack on a house party in Ciudad Juarez. A 14th person died soon after from wounds.
(AP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 22, Mexican authorities said federal police have captured Huang Chen Yaowei, the suspected leader of a gang that trafficked Chinese migrants through Mexico to the US.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In the central Netherlands a collision between the German cargo ship Duisburg Ruhror and a small Dutch passenger ferry on a canal took the life of ferry skipper Hendrik Plomp (56). Divers soon recovered his body.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Nigeria Mallam Tukur, a local government official, died after being shot in the body and head at his home in Bauchi state.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, The UN Children's Fund said about 1,555 people have died of cholera in Nigeria this year, marking a likely peak in a three-year-old surge in the disease in the country.
(AFP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Pakistan bombs hit a mosque and a group of soldiers in Peshawar, killing 9 people. Army airstrikes later in the day killed 22 suspected insurgents in the area where the soldiers had been traveling. A roadside bomb killed 6 paramilitary soldiers in the Orakzai tribal region.
(AP, 10/22/10)(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In the Philippines ex-convict Fely Mateo stabbed 9 people at the Talisayan Elementary School in Zamboanga City, killing 3, before parents wrestled away his knife and stabbed him to death with it. The man killed a teacher, a 5th-grader and an elderly man who was among those who tried to grab the attacker's knife.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Singapore an American (37), who already may be caned for overstaying his visa, was charged with fraud for allegedly scamming an Australian man out of thousands of dollars. Prosecutors alleged that calls made from Kamari Charlton's mobile phone in March deceived Mirko Prskalo into sending 17,145 Australian dollars ($16,853) in four payments. Prskalo was told that his nephew and family in Singapore urgently needed the money.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, World Wildlife spokeswoman Marie von Zeipel, speaking at a seminar in Sweden, estimated that only 3,200 tigers remain in the wild and that this population would shrink 97% over the next 100 years.
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 22, In Taiwan at least 7 people died when a temple collapsed in Suao, a coastal town in the northeast Ilan county. Torrential rains unleashed by Typhoon Megi triggered landslides that also left dozens missing and hundreds stranded. 19 Chinese bus passengers were among 23 people still missing on the island. As many as 31 people were left dead.
(AFP, 10/22/10)(AP, 10/23/10)(SFC, 10/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 22, Thai police raided a warehouse where wildlife smugglers were storing thousands of illegally collected reptiles for shipment overseas.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Vietnam disaster officials said the death toll from severe flooding in four central provinces had climbed to 75, including 14 victims from a bus swept off a road by strong currents, with six passengers still missing.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 22, In eastern Yemen suspected al-Qaida gunmen killed Lt. Col. Abdul-Aziz Abu Abed, a senior intelligence officer, outside his house in Mukalla.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, The whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks said it will soon publish 15,000 more secret Afghan war documents.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, The SF Giants won a trip to the World Series. In Pennsylvania Juan Uribe hit a tiebreaking homer off Ryan Madson with two outs in the eighth inning and the Giants held off the Phillies 3-2 in Game 6 of the NL championship series. This finished off the Phillies' bid to become the first NL team in 66 years to win three straight pennants.
(AP, 10/24/10)(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.1)
2010 Oct 23, In western Afghanistan a suicide car bomber and three armed militants wearing explosives vests and dressed as women attacked a UN compound, but Afghan security forces killed the attackers and no UN employees were harmed. NATO forces killed two civilians, including a teenage boy, during a fight with insurgents in Wardak province. In Kandahar a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up before reaching a checkpoint, killing two civilians and wounding two others. A Danish soldier was killed in Helmand province after insurgents attacked his patrol. Joao Silva (44), a photographer for The New York Times, was seriously injured when he stepped on a mine in Kandahar province.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, Bahrainis voted for the third time since reforms which turned the Gulf state into a constitutional monarchy, with the Shiite majority demanding an easing of the Sunni dynasty's grip on power. The embattled Shiite-led opposition held on to all of its parliament seats in the elections, but fell short of the majority it hoped to win as a show of strength against the island kingdom's Sunni rulers.
(AFP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, Bangladeshi police used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse thousands of people protesting against plans to acquire land for army housing.
(Reuters, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, Barbados PM David Thompson (48) died following a struggle with pancreatic cancer. Thompson had become PM of the Caribbean nation of 270,000 people in Jan 2008.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Belgium police and demonstrators opposed to President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo clashed in Brussels during a protest over the Oct 1 death in jail of Armand Tungulu, a visiting Congolese dissident who lived in Belgium.
(AFP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In the Czech Republic opposition Social Democrats won an election for one-third of Parliament's upper house, gaining a majority in the Senate for the first time. Voters were selecting 27 senators for the 81-seat Senate in the two-day balloting. The top two finishers from last week's first round were facing runoffs.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Dagestan a suicide bomber in a car tried to attack a police dormitory in the town of Khasavyurt but an armored vehicle blocked his way. The explosion killed the suspected militant and a police officer, and wounded seven people. In the village of Komsomolskoye two suspected militants were holed up in a house when police attacked, killing both of them.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, An Egyptian court issued a final ruling against the permanent presence of police on university campuses, saying they restricted academic independence.
(AFP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, The European Commission warned Italy that it may face sanctions if it doesn’t remove some 2,400 tons of trash piled up in the streets of Naples.
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 23, French unions took their battle against extending retirement from 60 to 62 to the courts, challenging orders to return to work the day after the Senate backed the fiercely-contested reform.
(AFP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Haiti 194 dead were confirmed dead of cholera in the poor Caribbean nation's worst health crisis since the Jan 12 quake. Authorities said more than 2,000 people were sick. Experts were investigating possible cases in Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of the capital, and radio reports said there were two dozen cases of diarrhea on Gonave island.
(AP, 10/23/10)(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A3)
2010 Oct 23, New Delhi Commonwealth Games organizers informed Sri Lanka that boxer Manju Wanniarachchi (30), Sri Lanka's only gold medalist at this month's games, had tested positive for the performance-enhancing steroid nandrolone.
(AFP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Indonesia a small freighter with seven crew was reported to be going down off Flores. Three people were apparently missing while the others survived.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Ingushetia police shot and killed two militants in a car chase. The men were later identified as being wanted on terrorism charges. Police found two machine guns and ammunition inside their men's car.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23 , Iraq's PM Nouri al-Maliki accused WikiLeaks of releasing documents that detail prisoner abuse by Iraqi security forces to sabotage his re-election hopes.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Italy mafia fugitive Gerlandino Messina (38) was nabbed by Carabinieri in Favara, near Agrigento, his power base in Sicily. He had been on the run for 11 years before being caught.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Kenya 7 fans died in a stampede while trying to enter a stadium where a football match between two of the country’s most popular teams in Nairobi.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, In the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca Heriberto Pazos, the leader of a leftist Indian group left disabled in 2001 by a previous assassination attempt, was shot to death by gunmen riding on a motorcycle.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, Pakistani army airstrikes killed 12 suspected insurgents in the Orakzai tribal region near the Afghan border.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, Somali pirates seized the MV York, a Singapore-registered liquefied gas tanker, 105 miles (165 km) off the coast of Kenya in the Somali Basin.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 23, In Vietnam Le Nguyen Huong Tra, who blogged under the pen name of Do Long Girl, was taken into police custody from a home in Ho Chi Minh City for allegedly slandering a senior government official. Police in Ho Chi Minh City also arrested blogger Phan Thanh Hai, known as Anhbasg, over the weekend and continued to detain Nguyen Van Hai, a blogger known as Dieu Cay, even though he had served out his 30-month sentence on "trumped-up" tax evasion charges.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 24, Lady Gaga became the first singer to reach 1 billion hits on YouTube.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, Par p.9)
2010 Oct 24, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signaled his willingness to backtrack on a blanket ban on all private security firms, asking the foreign community for a list of projects needing protection. ISAF said one of its service members was killed by a homemade bomb in the south of country.
(AFP, 10/24/10)(Reuters, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In CongoDRC militia attacked a UN base near Virunga National Park. Some 100 attackers were members of the shadowy Mai Mai militia. Peacekeepers killed 8 militiamen.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 24, A quarter of French petrol stations were short on fuel as refinery strikes over pension reform continued to drain supply, and one official said several holiday spots were likely to be particularly hard-hit.
(Reuters, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In Haiti a cholera outbreak, that already left 250 people dead and more than 3,000 sickened, was at the doorstep of an enormous potential breeding ground: the squalid camps in Port-au-Prince where 1.3 million earthquake survivors live.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, Tropical Storm Richard lashed Honduras' Caribbean coast with heavy rain and wind and was expected to strengthen into a hurricane as it roared toward Belize and southeastern Mexico.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, Iran state radio reported that the government has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings. The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among Iran's conservative leadership, women's studies and human rights. State radio also reported that authorities have amputated the hand of a convicted thief in front of other prisoners.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, Iraq's highest court ordered parliament back to work after a seven-month political impasse that has blocked the formation of a new government. In the Sunni-dominated northern city of Mosul, a car bomb killed two passers-by and wounded 19.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In Tijuana, Mexico, a gang of armed men burst into the building of a drug rehab center and gunned down 13 recovering addicts there. Police said at least 10 were killed. In the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero, state police found the bound, executed bodies of six men on a highway outside the resort city of Acapulco. 3 people were killed in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen, police and soldiers in northern Coahuila state.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, In southeastern Nigeria fighting erupted linked to a land dispute between the feuding Nsadop and Boje communities in Cross River state. Fighting led to the burning of dozens of houses and churches. After 2 days of unrest police recovered 13 burnt corpses.
(AFP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 24, Pakistani soldiers allegedly fired machine guns and rockets on an Indian military post killing an Indian soldier in the Poonch sector of Kashmir.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, Slovenia elected Peter Bossman (54), a Ghana-born physician, as its first black mayor. He is known as the "Obama of Piran," the town where he lives.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, Somali pirates seized the Beluga Fortune, a German freight ship, off the coast of Kenya, the second foreign vessel to be captured in the region in as many days. Rescue forces the next day freed the ship, but the hijackers got away.
(AP, 10/24/10)(SFC, 10/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 24, In Sudan the Darfur-based rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it was ready to start discussions with international mediators in Qatar, but was not yet prepared to re-join full peace negotiations.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 24, In northern Uganda a bus collided with a truck killing 21 people.
(SFC, 10/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 25, In Wyoming a single-engine plane disappeared after takeoff from the Jackson airport. The plane’s wreckage was found Nov 1. Luke Bucklin (40) of Minneapolis and his 3 sons were killed. Bucklin was co-founder of Sierra Bravo Corp., a web development company.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A6)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 25, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses, and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds. Gunmen seized a Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver in Takhar province. The NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) said at least 15 insurgents were killed in a NATO raid and air strike targeting a Taliban commander overnight in southern Afghanistan. In Logar province a senior Taliban leader, who is believed to have played a role in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of two US sailors in July, was captured along with two of his associates. An air strike killed Qari Mahmad Umar, a senior leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was serving as a Taliban chief in the northern Takhar province where violence is on the rise.
(AP, 10/25/10)(Reuters, 10/25/10)(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, The Australian and Singapore stock exchanges announced an 8.3 billion dollar merger that would create one of the world's largest and most diversified financial trading hubs.
(AFP, 10/25/10)(Econ, 10/30/10, p.78)
2010 Oct 25, Bolivian President Evo Morales was in Tehran on a 3-day visit aimed at securing Iranian investment in the South American country.
(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Toronto voters elected conservative Rob Ford as mayor of Canada's biggest city, tilting away from their recent liberal leanings and opting for his platform of small government, fewer taxes and big spending cuts.
(Reuters, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, Omar Khadr, a Canadian prisoner at Guantanamo accused of killing an American soldier, pleaded to five charges including murder in a plea agreement with military authorities. Khadr had been facing a possible life sentence if convicted at a trial that was scheduled to start today. He was 15 at the time of his capture.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, In Egypt a planned website, Harrasmap, will allow women to quickly report instances of harassment via text message or Twitter, to be loaded onto a digital map of Cairo to show hotspots and areas that might be dangerous for women to walk alone. The data will be shared with activists, media, and police. Cairo's online map will run off a platform called Ushahidi, an open-source software first developed to report violence in Kenya after 2008 elections there. Since then test models of it have run in South Africa, Gaza and India.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, President Nicolas Sarkozy's government warned that strikes against pension reform have cost up to three billion euros and threaten to derail France's still fragile economy recovery. Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the strikes are costing the economy up to euro400 million ($562 million) each day.
(AFP, 10/25/10)(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, In Haiti gunmen shot up and robbed a bus carrying journalists covering the campaign of a presidential candidate, killing the driver and injuring a reporter.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, The leaders of India and Japan signed a broad agreement in Japan aimed at increasing trade and agreed to speed up talks toward a civilian nuclear energy deal despite sensitivity in Japan over India's past atomic test blasts. PM Naoto Kan and PM Manmohan Singh also agreed to speed up talks toward a civilian nuclear cooperation deal that would allow Japanese companies to export nuclear power generation technology and equipment to India.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, In western Indonesia a 7.7 magnitude earthquake off Sumatra’s coast triggered a 10-foot (3m) tsunami that pounded remote island villages, killing over 400 people and leaving scores more missing.
(AP, 10/26/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 25, In Iraq masked gunmen in Baghdad stole more than $27,000 in cash intended for university workers' salaries in a daylight ambush of a money courier's car.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, A senior Israeli settler official said that work has begun on up to 600 new homes in West Bank settlements since Israel lifted its curb on such construction Sep 26. Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas has said he will only resume talks once building restrictions are reimposed, arguing there is no point negotiating while Israel continues to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Libya's Kadhafi Foundation announced projects costing eight million dollars to help Darfur refugees displaced by the conflict in western Sudan to return to their homes.
(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Humans Rights Watch said in a new report that suspects detained under Morocco's counterterrorism laws are routinely subjected to human rights violations.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 25, Myanmar state television reported that at least 27 people were killed and tens of thousands displaced when Cyclone Giri struck its western coast a week earlier.
(SFC, 10/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 25, In Pakistan a bomb blast outside the Sufi Farid Shakar Ganj shrine in Pakpattan killed at least 5 people, including 2 women. 12 people were wounded.
(AP, 10/25/10)(AFP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, South African soldiers strayed into neighboring Mozambique and exchanged fire with civilians, leaving 2 people dead and one injured.
(AP, 10/26/10)(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 25, South Korea prepared to send 5,000 tons of rice to flood victims in North Korea in its first humanitarian rice shipment to its communist neighbor since a conservative, pro-US government took office in 2008.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 25, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the expropriation of the local affiliate of the US-based glassmaker Owens Illinois, accusing it of causing environmental damage and exploiting its workers. To date almost 400 companies have been nationalized since Chavez became president in 1999.
(AFP, 10/26/10)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.44)
2010 Oct 25, In Zimbabwe Kobus Joubert (67), a prominent white farmer, was shot dead in a robbery at his home. The Commercial Farmers Union, representing about 300 whites still on their land after a decade-long violent land seizure program that ousted some 4,000 white farmers, said the killing showed "the flagrant disregard for the rule of law" in farming areas ahead of proposed elections.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Arizona executed a convicted murderer by lethal injection in a case that stirred controversy after it emerged that one of the drugs being used to end the inmate's life was obtained in Britain. Jeffrey Landrigan (50), convicted of the murder of Chester Dean Dyer in 1989, was executed at a state prison in Florence. Dyer, who was strangled to death, was found by a co-worker on December 15, 1989, after he failed to show up for work. Landrigan was the 24th person executed in Arizona since the state resumed capital punishment in 1992. 132 inmates remained on the state's death row.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 26, An annual report by Transparency Int’l. marked Somalia as the most corrupt county in the world, followed by Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq. Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tied as the world’s least corrupt nations. The US declined to 22nd from 19th last year.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 26, In western Afghanistan a bombing killed four Afghan policemen, including a local police chief in Herat province.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at least 30 women were kept as prisoners in a dungeon-like structure and gang-raped over multiple weeks at the Congo and Angola border before being left in the bush without their clothes. The deportees said they were held by Angolan authorities in a dingy building. At least three were killed, including two men and a woman (27) who died after being raped repeatedly.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Armenian police arrested Georg Avanesov (27). He allegedly operated the “Bredolab" botnet of nearly 30 million PCs. Investigators alleged that Avanesov made up to US$139,000 each month renting the botnet to criminals who used it for sending spam and for installing password-stealing malicious software.
(www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792148/Spam_report_October_2010)
2010 Oct 26, In Belize the body of Bruce Cullerton, an American who also held Belizean citizenship, was found. He had been killed by a 30-pound (59 kilogram) jaguar, that had escaped from its cage last week during Hurricane Richard. Max, the jaguar, was recaptured and euthanized On Oct 27.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Authorities in Bosnia and Serbia said they had recovered the skeletal remains of at least 97 people from the banks of a border lake that was partially drained this summer for maintenance. Most were killed by Serbs in the nearby town of Visegrad at the start of the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. But on the Serbian side experts found the remains of what they presume to be 11 Albanians killed during the Kosovo war in 1998-1999.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Brazil a man accused of raping 40 women turned himself in, only to be let go because Brazilian law prohibits voters from being arrested five days before elections unless they are caught red-handed. The no-arrest provision was included in the Brazilian electoral code enacted in 1932 after a period in which election fraud and arrests to intimidate voters were common.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, A Brazilian court ordered McDonald's to pay a former franchise manager $17,500 because he gained 65 pounds while working there a dozen years. The 32-year-old man says he was forced to sample food products each day to ensure that quality standards remained high because McDonald's hired "mystery clients" to randomly visit restaurants and report on the food, service and cleanliness.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 26, China rolled out its fastest train yet and announced that the Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest hydroelectric project, is now generating electricity at maximum capacity. Inauguration ceremonies were held for the super-fast line from Shanghai's western suburb of Hongqiao to the resort city of Hangzhou. The train will cruise at a top speed of 220 mph (350 kph), making the 125-mile (200-km) trip in 45 minutes.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, The Czech Republic became the second European Union country after Spain to grant asylum to a Cuban political prisoner. Jimenez Posada, a lawyer, arrived with his wife, brother, son and niece. He was arrested in 2003 and received a 12-year prison term three years later for subversion.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Egyptian security forces detained 70 campaign workers from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood while hanging election posters in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria ahead of next month's parliamentary vote.
(AFP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Germany's Defense Minister said the country will begin a major restructuring of the military next year as it moves from a Cold War conscript army to one better positioned to face today's threats, while also cutting costs.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, UN officials counted 3,769 cases of cholera in Haiti and raised the death toll to 284.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 26, Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano erupted, prompting terrified villagers to flee and join the thousands already evacuated from its slopes.
(Reuters, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran acknowledged that it has been sending funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, saying the money was intended to aid reconstruction of the embattled country.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, Iran began loading fuel into the core of its first atomic power plant, moving closer to the start up of the Bushehr facility that leaders have touted as defying of international efforts to curtail the country's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Iraq Saddam Hussein's longtime foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, was sentenced to death by hanging for persecuting members of Shiite religious parties under the former regime. Thieves armed with guns and hand grenades stormed a jewelry shop in northern Iraq and killed 10 people during a robbery attempt.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Mexico the bodies of two men, one of them decapitated, were found inside an SUV in Ciudad Juarez. Police suspected they may have been behind the massacre of 14 young people at a birthday party. The entire police force of the small northeastern town of Los Ramones quit, Nuevo Leon state, a day after gunmen attacked their headquarters. Oaxaca state police found the bound, tortured bodies of four people in a clandestine grave in a vacant lot near the state capital. In Morelos state the bodies of four men were found near a roadside with about 30 shell casings. A 25-year-old American was shot to death outside a restaurant in Ciudad Juarez. Gunmen killed three undercover Mexican federal police officers as they waited for a person to cross a bridge from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AFP, 10/27/10)(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Nigerian police arrested 10 local chiefs from Boje community accused of murder in a land dispute with neighbors after which 13 burnt corpses were recovered.
(AFP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Somali pirates failed to get control of the French flagged Maido, a liquefied petroleum gas carrier, because the crew had locked itself in a safe room.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 26, Deborah Calitz and Bruno Pelizzari of South Africa were captured by Somali pirates from a yacht, the SY Choizil, off the coast of Tanzania. Skipper Peter Eldridge (61) escaped. A ransom of $10 million was later demanded.
(http://tinyurl.com/4nen4cw)(AP, 1/31/11)
2010 Oct 26, The UN refugee agency said some 60,000 civilians in Somalia have fled their homes over the past week as fresh fighting between Islamist insurgents and a government-allied militia claimed the lives of at least 10 people.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, A Southern Sudan official said that northern Sudan leaders are holding an oil-rich region "hostage" in negotiations being held before a January independence referendum.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 26, The UN General Assembly voted 187-2 to end US sanctions against Cuba. Only the US and Israel voted in favor.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 26, Yemen ordered the confiscation of all firearms in the possession of its citizens after canceling weapons' licenses not carrying the Interior Minister's signature. Some 50 million firearms are thought to be in the possession of Yemen's estimated 23 million people.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 27, US officials said the Obama administration has granted a waiver allowing Chad, CongoDRC, Sudan and Yemen to continue receiving US military aid despite their use of child soldiers. Officials said cutting off aid would do more damage than good.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 27, Farooque Ahmed, a Pakistani-born Virginia man, was arrested and charged with trying to help people posing as Al-Qaida operatives to bomb Washington-area subway stations. The plot was a bombing ruse by the FBI who monitored his activities the whole time. On April 11, 2011, Ahmed pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A8)(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A4)
2010 Oct 27, The SF Giants battered the Texas Rangers 11-7 in Game 1 of the World Series.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, Elon Musk officially unveiled a new Tesla sign for the former Nummi plant in Fremont, Ca., where the new electric Tesla cars will be manufactured.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A11)
2010 Oct 27, BrightSource Energy of Oakland, Ca., broke ground on its Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mohave Desert. Plant operator NRG Energy Inc. agreed to invest $300 million into the $2 billion project. On April 11, 2011, BrightSource finalized $1.6 billion in loans for the project.
(SFC, 10/28/10, p.D1)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.69)
2010 Oct 27, In San Diego, Ca., police officer Christopher Wilson (50) was fatally shot as officers tried to serve warrants on Holim Lee (30). Hours later Lee was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His girlfriend, Lucky Xayasene (27) was also fatally shot. Wilson died of his wounds the next day.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 27, In Michigan police Raymond R. Bush (38) and Taylor E. Manley, a 15-year-old girl he knew, dead in a van in a cemetery, hours after the man was to appear in court on charges alleging he sexually assaulted the girl.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, Lisa Blount (53), actress and Oscar-winning filmmaker, was found dead in her home in Little Rock, Ark. Blount received a Golden Globe nomination for her supporting turn as the best friend of Debra Winger's character in "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982). Her other credits included "Prince of Darkness" (1987) and "Great Balls of Fire!" (1989).
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, Actress Denise Borino-Quinn (46), who unexpectedly won a TV role as a mafia wife on "The Sopranos," died of liver cancer in New Jersey.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 27, Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatens in a new audio tape to kill French citizens to avenge their country's support for the US-led war in Afghanistan and a new law that will ban face-covering Muslim veils.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, President Karzai said Afghanistan will extend a deadline for private security firms to disband through early next year in a face-saving compromise that could preserve foreign reconstruction projects worth billions of dollars. A roof collapsed at an Afghan wedding party, killing more than 40 women and children in Warchi village of Jalga district of Baghlan province. The international military coalition said nine insurgents were killed in a battle in the southern province.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AFP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Nestor Kirchner (60), former Argentine President (2003-2007) and the husband of current leader Cristina Fernandez, died after suffering from heart trouble.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Croatian PM Jadranka Kosor survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament, with the opposition complaining about Croatia's economic decline and corruption in the upper echelons of her party. Parliament voted 79 to 62 in Kosor's support, 15 votes short of what was needed to oust her in the 151-seat chamber.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, The French Parliament passed Pres. Sarkozy’s pension bill raising the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60, and the full-pension age to 67 from 65. Most French oil refineries were set to start outbound deliveries of fuel as work stoppages ended at two plants, further easing a strike movement that has led to pump shortages across France.
(Reuters, 10/27/10)(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 27, In Indonesia helicopters with emergency supplies finally landed on the remote islands slammed by a tsunami that killed over 400 people. Elsewhere in the archipelago the toll from a volcanic eruption rose to 30, including the mountain's spiritual caretaker.
(AP, 10/26/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Iraq a bomb blast near a Sunni religious organization in Baghdad killed two security guards. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a bomb hidden in a pickup truck exploded, killing the driver and injuring three passers-by.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Japan offered $2 billion in aid to help developing nations reach species-preserving goals that are being debated at a UN conference, a move that could jolt the stalled talks forward.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Jewish settlers said Israel's defense minister is holding up construction on 4,300 apartments that could be built immediately in the West Bank. Dozens of Jewish extremists hoisting Israeli flags defiantly marched through the Arab-Israeli town of Umm el-Fahm, chanting "death to terrorists" and touching off clashes between rock-hurling residents and police who quelled them with tear gas. An Israeli court convicted Amir Makhoul, a prominent Arab-Israeli activist, of spying for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a plea bargain that will send him to prison for up to 10 years.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Kenya's foreign minister Moses Wetangula said he is resigning to allow investigations into allegations of a multimillion dollar scandal involving five Kenyan embassies in Africa, Europe and Asia.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Mexico gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash in Tepic, Nayarit state, where drug-gang violence has risen this year. It was the third massacre in Mexico in less than a week. A Chihuahua state police officer was killed in his Ciudad Juarez home.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Scientists said a new type of snub-nosed monkey has been found in a remote forested region of northern Myanmar, which is under threat from logging and a Chinese dam project.
(Reuters, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Nigerian officials allowed journalists to see the 107 mm rockets, rifle rounds and other weapons seized at Apapa Port. Authorities said the shipment also contained grenades, explosives, mortars and possibly rocket launchers. However, journalists visiting the holding yard just inside of the port's main gate did not see those weapons. the manifest for the weapons described the shipment as "packages of glasswool and pallets of stone." The next day customs officials said the shipment of 13 containers came from a ship that had just left India and investigators continued to trace the weapons' origins.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Pakistan suspected US drones fired missiles at a house and a vehicle in a militant-infested area of North Waziristan, killing seven people. A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded as a member of a militia drove up to a market in the village of Qamberkhel in the Khyber tribal region, wounding the militiaman and five other people in the vehicle. A bomb apparently targeting a police patrol in Baluchistan province killed two civilians and wounded 9 other people, including four police officers.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Romania government survived a no-confidence, as some 30,000 people demonstrated in Bucharest against the nation's wage cuts and austerity measures.
(AP, 10/27/10)(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 27, In Somalia al-Shabab executed two girls by firing squad for spying for government soldiers. Ayan Mohamed Jama (18) and Huriyo Ibrahim (15) were brought before hundreds of residents. Ten masked men opened fire on the girls, who were blindfolded, soon after the sentencing.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 27, South Korea's Red Cross said North Korea is demanding that South Korea resume large-scale food aid and joint economic projects in return for regular reunions of family members separated by the Korean War more than a half century ago.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, Thailand authorities said heavy downpours that caused rivers to burst have killed 57 people in nearly two weeks of flooding.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, UAR Sheik Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi (b.1918), a ruler of Ras the al Khaimah emirate and one of the world's longest-reigning monarchs, died.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, A Yemeni court charged Sharif Mobley (26), an American of Somali descent, with the murder of a Yemeni soldier and the wounding of another during a failed escape attempt. He had been arrested for suspected al-Qaida ties.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, A White House panel said that Halliburton Co. used flawed cement in BP Plc's doomed Gulf of Mexico well, which could have contributed to the blowout that sparked the worst offshore oil spill in US history. Halliburton had run a series of tests that showed the material was unstable in the weeks before the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. An interim report BP issued in September said Halliburton used an "unstable" cement mixture that allowed hydrocarbons to flow up the drill pipe and onto the floor of the rig, where they ignited.
(Reuters, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, US federal regulators said Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $25 million to the US government and at least $52.8 million in refunds to customers who inadvertently racked up data charges on their phones over the last three years.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, The SF Giants at home won game 2 of the world series, 9-0, over the Texas Rangers.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 28, Nvidia Corp. said China’s National University of Defense Technology has designed the world’s fastest supercomputer. Its Tianhe-1A set a performance record of 2.507 petaflops per second.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.C5)
2010 Oct 28, The Washington-based nonprofit, the National Association of Clean Air Act Agencies, surveyed the states on whether they would be ready to comply with the new EPA rules by the Jan 2, 2011, deadline. In a new report the association said 49 states have either changed their laws to allow regulation of greenhouse gases or will allow the EPA to issue permits. Texas is doing neither.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101029/ap_on_bi_ge/us_epa_vs_texas)
2010 Oct 28, James MacArthur (b.1937), stage and screen actor, died. He played "Danno" in the original version of television's "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980). His breakout role was in the 1957 "Climax!" television series production of "The Young Stranger," in which he starred as the 17-year-old son of a movie executive who has a run-in with the law.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, US microchip giant Intel said it plans to team up with Taiwan to set up a multi-million dollar Internet computing research laboratory.
(AFP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb targeting the car of a district police chief killed three police officers in Zabul province. A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban leader and another militant in southern Zabul province as he was showing his fighters a new anti-aircraft heavy machine gun mounted on the back of his vehicle. Militants shot and killed a government official in charge of the water supply in Dand district of Kandahar province as he was walking near his home. A NATO service member died following a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan. In Khost province a NATO airstrike killed one insurgent believed to be a senior leader of the Haqqani network. In neighboring Mando Zayi district of Khost, one civilian was killed and two others were wounded in fighting. US and Russian special forces and Afghan police ended an operation raiding 4 drug labs in an unprecedented collaborative military operation, destroying some $56 million worth of heroin in Nangarhar province. Months earlier Russia had provided US officials in Kabul with the coordinates of 175 laboratories where heroin is processed but the US failed to act. A NATO helicopter killed more than 20 insurgents after it was fired on during an operation in Kandahar province.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/29/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Bahrain more than two dozen Shiite Muslims accused of plotting against the Sunni rulers described abuses including beatings and electric shocks at a trial observed by US envoys.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Bangladesh police said arrested 20 members of the country’s largest Islamic party and seized homemade bombs from a house where they were holding a meeting.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, In China Guo Xianliang, an engineer from the southern province of Yunnan, disappeared while on a business trip in the southern city of Guangzhou. He had been handing out fliers on the streets and in public parks there. Police told Guo's wife on Nov 2 that Guo had been criminally detained.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Oct 28, In China 4 driverless vehicles arrived at the Shanghai Expo ending an 8,000 mile test drive from Italy.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 28, Liang Congjie (78), historian and modern China’s first environmentalist, died. In 1994 he and 3 colleagues founded Friends of Nature, China’s first legal NGO and the first committed to protecting the country’s environment..
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 28, In France further strikes disrupted rail and air transport, but the broader protest over plans to raise the retirement age appeared to be waning a day after parliament adopted pension reform legislation.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, A French helicopter crashed in Antarctica during rough weather conditions killing all 4 aboard. The downed AS350 Squirrel helicopter was operated in Antarctica from the French research vessel, L'Astrolabe, which was currently icebound about 230 miles (370 km) northeast of the Dumont-d'Urville station.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 28, Former Greenland premier Jonathan Motzfeldt (72) died. He had spearheaded a drive for more self-rule and opposed US bases on the semi-autonomous Danish territory. Motzfeldt led the Arctic island's government between 1979-1991 and again between 1997-2002 and is considered one of the founding fathers of its home rule agreement with Denmark.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, Guinea officials said thousands of people from the Peul ethnic group have been forced to flee their homes in ethnic clashes ahead of the country's upcoming presidential election, overshadowing a looming poll in a country that has never succeeded in freely electing its leader.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Ali Shakouri-rad, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and former MP, was freed on bail, two weeks after his arrest for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi termed "security reasons." On Dec 9 he was sent back to jail for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies."
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his car outside a police checkpoint in Mosul, killing one policeman and injuring seven. In Baghdad small bombs stuck on cars owned by ranking police officials killed one and wounded another.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Israeli officials said that the military-grade armaments seized at a shipping terminal in Nigeria came from Iran and were bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. On Oct 30 an international shipping company said the weapons cache originally came from Iran. Last week, the Iranian shipper filed a request for the containers to be picked up again and this time shipped to the West African nation of Gambia. On Feb 1, 2011, Azim Aghajani of Iran and his alleged accomplice, Nigerian national Usman Abbas Jega, both maintained their innocence against three charges over the shipment.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 2/1/11)
2010 Oct 28, Ehud Netzer (76), leading Israeli archaeologist, died of injuries suffered in a fall at an excavation at the King Herod-era site near Bethlehem.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, Kuwait's court of appeals upheld the acquittal of eight nationals, two of them tried in absentia, of charges of forming an Al-Qaeda cell and plotting attacks against a US military base. Five of the men were arrested in August last year while a sixth suspect was already serving a life sentence for a 2002 attack on the US military in Kuwait that killed an American soldier. The accused said that purported confessions presented to the court had been extracted under torture.
(AFP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called on all Lebanese to boycott the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of a former prime minister, saying all information gathered by the team was being sent to Israel. He spoke a day after a crowd of women attacked two UN investigators and a Lebanese interpreter as they gathered evidence at a private gynecology clinic in Beirut. He confirmed that the wives and relatives of Hezbollah commanders and officials were among the clinic's patients. A 13-year-old boy was killed and four other people wounded in a grenade blast outside a scrap metal yard in northern Lebanon's Nahr al-Bared camp.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Mexico gunmen killed 6 young men in a gritty neighborhood of Mexico City. Gunmen ambushed a convoy of 5 police vehicles in Jalisco state, killing 9 officers and leaving one missing. In Zapopan, a suburb of the Jalisco state capital of Guadalajara, two boys (2) and 3 other people were wounded by grenade fragments during an attack on a private home. The United States delivered three mobile X-ray inspection vehicles to Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative anti-drug aid plan. Francisco Javier Gomez Meza, the director of the Puente Grande prison, was arrested for alleged ties to drug gangs.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Karachi, Pakistan, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a Japanese consular vehicle, wounding two local employees and underscoring the fragile security in the country. An American missile strike killed 7 suspected militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 10/28/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Yemen clashes between Shiite rebels and a pro-government tribe in the northern mountains killed a tribesman and two rebels.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Authorities on 3 continents thwarted attacks when they seized explosives on cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England. The plot sent tremors throughout the US, where after a frenzied day searching planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily banned all new cargo from Yemen. The next day police in Dubai said that the bomb discovered there contained the powerful explosive PETN and bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida. One of the two powerful bombs mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two passenger planes within the Middle East. A tip of the plot came from Jabir al-Fayfi, a Saudi who was held for years at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. On Nov 5 al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing claimed responsibility for the explosive parcels.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)(Reuters, 11/5/10)
2010 Oct 29, In southern California 2 doctors were arrested along with 5 others for leading a scam in which mentally ill homeless patients were paid $100 each for unnecessary treatments that were fraudulently billed to Medicare and Medi-Cal.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 29, In San Francisco Kathleen Horan (46) was beaten to death by Gary Scott Holland. She had opened her door at 900 Chestnut to Holland who was posing as a utility worker. On Nov 8, 2011, Holland (44) pleaded guilty to murder and faced 25-50 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/9/11, p.C2)
2010 Oct 29, In Afghanistan’s western Herat province, insurgents surrounded a checkpoint manned by local police in the Chishti Sharif district and opened fire, killing 10 officers and wounding 12. A NATO soldier died in an attack in the south.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, Britain’s PM David Cameron claimed that the days of "crazy" European Union spending are finished after a deal to keep Brussels in line with reduced national budgets.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In the Central African Republic rebels of the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) abducted 21 census agents updating voters' rolls for forthcoming elections.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, A feud between China and Japan deepened at the East Asian Summit in Vietnam, as China accused its rival of making false comments and hopes for landmark talks between their leaders evaporated.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, An Egyptian security official said a man from Sudan's Darfur region was shot dead trying to sneak across the border into Israel. 2 others were taken into custody as smugglers and others scattered into the desert.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Finland the Allure of the Seas, the second in a pair of the largest cruise liners in the world, set sail for its new home port in Florida. Sister ship, the Oasis of the Seas, was also delivered to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines last year with a price tag of about $1.5 billion.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, French unions said they have decided to end strikes at all oil refineries and several major ports.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 29, In Haiti the death toll from the cholera epidemic rose to 330, as medical teams desperately sought to contain the outbreak.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 29, A leading ratings body warned that India may have to step in to avert collapse of the 6.7-billion-dollar microfinance industry, as lenders once hailed as saviors of the poor faced a major crisis.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Iran notified the EU that it is willing to restart international negotiations over its nuclear program after Nov. 10, potentially reviving talks that foundered a year ago.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Iraq a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a popular café in Balad Ruz, Diyala province. 22 people were killed with 68 wounded.
(AFP, 10/30/10)(Reuters, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 28, A Milan court convicted three doctors of performing unnecessary surgeries. Prosecutors produced evidence that unneeded operations, including amputations, were performed on 83 patients at the Santa Rita clinic in Milan with the aim of getting large reimbursements from the state health system. Pier Paolo Brega Massone, the hospital's chief surgeon, was sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Mexico a man was found shot to death and left in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco. Lorena Izaguirre (24), a US citizen and El Paso resident, was killed inside a tortilla shop in Ciudad Juarez. A Mexican man was also found dead in the store.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 29, Morocco’s communications ministry said it has suspended the operations of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television news channel in Rabat and withdrawn the accreditations of its staff. A government official who declined to be named said the authorities took exception to the way Al-Jazeera handles the issues of Islamists and Western Sahara.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Morocco’s interior ministry said two Al-Qaeda linked cells have been broken up and that 9 people have been arrested including a Yemeni national and a former Italian resident.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Nigeria Italian oil firm Eni SpA said a pipeline carrying some of its crude out of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has erupted after an "act of sabotage."
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, North and South Korea exchanged gunfire across their heavily armed land border, despite an apparent thaw in tensions on the divided peninsula in the past few months.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Tens of thousands of Palestinians turned out for a rally in the Gaza Strip to mark the 23rd anniversary of the founding of the hardline militant group Islamic Jihad.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Togo’s government said flooding has killed 21 people and affected more than 82,000 in recent months and that aid was needed.
(AFP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, Venezuelan health workers said an epidemic that may be malaria has killed dozens of people, decimating three villages of the Yanomami Indians, whose struggle for survival in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest has attracted worldwide support.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Texas the SF Giants lost game 3 of the World Series 4-2 to the Texas Rangers leaving SF up 2 games to 1.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 30, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded that NATO forces explain why they had carried out a joint counter-narcotics operation with Russian forces inside Afghanistan, calling it a violation of sovereignty. At least 40 Taliban insurgents were killed during a failed attack on a NATO combat outpost in Barmal district near the North Waziristan border. A NATO soldier died in an attack in the volatile south. Afghan and NATO troops killed 17 insurgents in an hours-long gunbattle in southern Helmand province.
(Reuters, 10/30/10)(AFP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Oct 30, Bahraini voters went to the polls for a run-off poll with three groups, two Sunni Islamist and a leftist alliance, contesting the last seats in parliament. Official results showed pro-government candidates won all nine parliamentary seats. The results gave pro-government Sunni candidates a combined total of 22 seats in the 40-member legislature.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales confirmed that his country plans to build a nuclear plant with Iran's help, stressing the facility would be for peaceful purposes.
(AFP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In China Alexandria Mills, a soft-spoken 18-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, was named the winner in the 60th Miss World Competition, held on Hainan Island. Second place went to Emma Wareus of Botswana, and Adriana Vasini of Venezuela came third.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Honduras a carful of attackers armed with assault rifles drove up to a soccer field in a poor neighborhood of the northern city of San Pedro Sula and opened fire, killing 14 people. Officials said members of the Mara 18 gang were responsible.
(AP, 10/31/10)(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, In eastern India rescuers battled to find survivors after a ferry overcrowded with Muslim pilgrims capsized and sank in the Hooghly River near the Bay of Bengal. The 60 person capacity boat was carrying around 224 people. After 3 days 69 bodies were recovered.
(AFP, 10/30/10)(AFP, 11/1/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, In Indonesia clouds of gray ash rumbled down the slopes of Mount Merapi in its most powerful eruption of a deadly week, prompting soldiers to force reluctant villagers to evacuate amid fears of a larger blast as the death toll reached 36. Storms again prevented aid deliveries to increasingly desperate survivors of a tsunami, including a teenage girl with an open chest wound, that killed 413 people in the Mentawai islands. The number of missing dropped by half to 163 as searchers discovered survivors who had fled to the hills.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Mexico City an explosion inside a home where illegal fireworks were stored wrecked two houses, killing at least three adults and two children. A US woman and an American boy were slain shortly after crossing an international bridge from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez. Giovanna Herrera (26) and Luis Araiza (15) were shot to death along with a Mexican man traveling with them.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 30, Northern Ireland police seized a dissident IRA bomb packed into a beer keg and were inspecting a potential car bomb parked outside Belfast International Airport, the latest efforts to undermine peace in the British territory.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Hundreds of North and South Korean family members separated for more than half a century by the Korean War embraced each other in tearful reunions.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, A Russian unmanned cargo ship manually docked with the International Space Station, bringing 2.5 tons of food, water, oxygen and fuel for the orbiting laboratory and its US-Russian crew.
(AP, 10/30/10)
2010 Oct 30, In eastern Rwanda 11 miners died in an accident at a tin mine in the Rwamagana district.
(AFP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Somali pirates overnight took control of the MV Polar, a cargo vessel with 24 crew members aboard. Pirates seized the Liberian-owned ship some 684 miles (1,100 km) east of the Indian Ocean island of Socotra. One of them, Prudente Cabral, died of a stroke in captivity in November. Pirates released the vessel on Aug 26, 2011.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AFP, 8/26/11)
2010 Oct 30, Hurricane Tomas, the 12th of the Atlantic season, hit a cluster of Caribbean islands including St. Vincent and St. Lucia and moved toward Jamaica. 3 deaths were reported on St. Vincent.
(SSFC, 10/31/10, p.A5)
2010 Oct 30, Sudan began arresting Darfur activists, just weeks ahead of a southern referendum on secession. 9 activists including a prominent human rights lawyer were arrested over the next 24 hours.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 30, Police in Goteborg, Sweden, were on high alert over the weekend after receiving reports about a bomb threat and arrested the two men in early morning raids. Both men were soon released due to lack of evidence.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 30, Turkey said it was lifting a ban on YouTube more than two years after it blocked the site because of videos deemed insulting to the country’s founder.
(SSFC, 10/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, In Zimbabwe a supporter of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was beaten and stabbed by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party at a constitution meeting in Harare.
(AFP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 30, Zimbabwean businessman Peter Evershed (59) was mauled by five lions while showering under a tree at the Chitake Springs bush camp.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Oct 31, A US military judge, under a plea bargain, sentencing Omar Khadr (24) to eight more years in custody for war crimes. The young Canadian had admitted to five war crimes charges, including killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. The sentence called for him to stay at the Guantanamo prison another year before he can ask Canada's government to allow him to return to his homeland to serve out his sentence or seek early release on parole.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Texas the SF Giants won game 4 of the World Series 4-0 against the Texas Rangers putting them up 3 games to 1.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A1)
2010 Oct 31, Theodore Sorenson (b.1928), special counsel to Pres. John F. Kennedy, died in NY. His memoir “Counselor" was published in 2008.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.C8)
2010 Oct 31, Afghan militants attacked a convoy carrying supplies for the police, Education Ministry, and the UN's World Food Program in western Nimroz province. Six militants were killed and one policeman was wounded in the gunbattle. A two-day battle over a bomb-making factory in Reg-i-Khan Nishin district ended with NATO and Afghan troops killing 15 insurgents.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Brazil held elections. Dilma Rousseff (62), the hand-picked candidate of Pres. Lula da Silva was the heavy favorite to replace him in the runoff election. Dilma Rousseff was elected over centrist rival Jose Serra 56 percent to 44 percent and will be the first woman to direct Latin America's biggest nation.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, China wrapped up its record-breaking World Expo with a lavish display of national pride, as organizers of the mammoth event pledged to continue pursuing more sustainable, balanced growth. Over 72 million visitors surpassed the record 1970 fair in Osaka, Japan, which drew 64 million.
(AP, 10/31/10)(SFC, 11/1/10, p.D2)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Iraq an al Qaeda attack left 68 people dead including 46 hostages, 7 police and 5 attackers, at the Sayidat al-Nejat Syriac Christian cathedral (Our Lady of Salvation) in Baghdad. The attack ended with police storming the church to free more than 100 hostages. Officials said most of the casualties were killed or wounded when the security forces raided the place and that the attack was aimed at driving the Christian minority out of the country. Al-Qaida cited the cases of 2 Egyptian women, wives of Coptic priests, who had converted to Islam in order to get away from their abusive husbands. On August 2, 2011, a Baghdad court convicted 3 Iraqis and sentenced them to death for their role in the church siege. A fourth man was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/1/10)(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A2)(AP, 8/2/11)
2010 Oct 31, Ivory Coast held a long-awaited presidential election, the first since civil war erupted in 2002 and split the world's leading cocoa producer in half. Pres. Laurent Gbagbo won 38% followed by 32% for Alassane Ouattara, the main opposition leader. Former Pres. Henri Konan Bedie came in third with 25% and later endorsed Ouattara in a run-off, set for Nov 28.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A2)(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Oct 31, Japan’s PM Naoto Kan said Vietnam has chosen Japan as a partner to mine rare earth metals and develop nuclear power.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 31, In Kenya a suspected elephant poacher was killed on the outskirts of Meru National Park. 2 suspected poachers were killed last week in Tsavo National Park following the poaching deaths of 4 other elephants.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Mexican police found the missing rental car of Canadian businessman Daniel Dion just north of the state capital of Chilpancingo. It was found completely burned with a corpse in the trunk. Dion was last seen about a week ago in Acapulco. Edgar Lopez (35) of El Paso, Texas, was killed along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Niger voters weighed in on a new constitution that would impose presidential term limits and pardon members of a military junta that seized power earlier this year. The country's new constitution passed with 90 percent of the vote.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Oct 31, Walid Husayin (26), a Palestinian blogger, was arrested in the West Bank. He had set off an uproar in the Arab world by sarcastically claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad. He was caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down. Husayin later posted the letter on his blog in hopes of winning release.
(AP, 11/12/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, Saudi Arabia's top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because it violates the kingdom's strict segregation of the sexes.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Somalia's parliament approved Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali-American as the country's prime minister.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, Sudan shut the Khartoum office of Radio Dabanga, whose reports on Darfur have angered it, and arrested 13 staff from the radio station and a rights group that shares its offices. 9 journalists and four HAND activists were detained during the weekend raids.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Tanzania's ruling party, which has been in power for close to half a century, faced an energized opposition in national elections, following corruption scandals that have undermined the government's popularity. On Nov 5 election officials said Tanzania's Pres. Jakaya Kikwete won a 2nd term in office with 61% of the vote. In Zanzibar Ali Mohammed Shein (62) won the election with 50.1% of the vote. He was sworn in as president on Nov 3.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Oct 31, In Turkey a suspected suicide bomber wounded 15 officers and 17 civilians in Istanbul's main square, as an extended unilateral ceasefire by the separatist PKK came to an end. The radical Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) later claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Oct 31, Ukraine voted for local councils and mayors in an election which should provide the first real clues to Pres. Yanukovich's standing at home since his election last February. Exit polls said Yanukovych’s swept elections to regional councils throughout the country.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Oct 31, Venezuela's Pres. Chavez ordered the nationalization of local steel company Sidetur in the latest of several recent government takeovers.
(Reuters, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct, It was made public that some $34 million in funds from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was misused in Mali, Mauritania, Djibouti and Zambia.
(Econ, 2/19/11, p.65)
2010 Oct, In Texas Anthony Graves was released from death row after spending nearly 20 years in prison. He had been charged in 1992 with helping another man murder a family of 6. The other man had admitted lying just before he was executed in 2000.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.34)
2010 Oct, Roko Tevita Uluilakeb Mara, the commander of Fiji’s biggest regiment, was suspended and soon fled to Tonga. Mara was the youngest son of founding father Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. From Tonga he denounced the Fiji government and called for regime change.
(Econ, 5/21/11, p.43)
2010 Oct, The Times of India newspaper reported that the Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai, intended to giving shelter to wounded Indian war veterans and the widows of those slain in battle, appeared to have been a huge scam. Nearly every one of the valuable units was sold for a song to a clutch of top politicians, their kin and retired generals. The land had been earmarked for a six-story building of apartments for disabled veterans, war widows and heroes of the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan that raged for three months across the disputed Kashmir region. But the original blueprints for a modest building were cast aside and in its place arose a 31-story luxury high-rise. The scandal rocked India's ruling Congress Party. On Jan 16, 2011, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the building must be demolished within three months for violating coastal zoning laws.
(AP, 11/1/10)(AP, 1/16/11)
2010 Oct, India began assigning its 1.2 billion citizens a universal identity number (UID) based on biometric markers. The program under Nandan Nilekani was assigned to 3 vendors: Accenture, L-1 Identity Solutions of America and Morpho of France.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.61)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.39)
2010 Oct, In North Korean Choi Jin-I in co-operation with Asia Press (Tokyo) began publishing the Rimjingang magazine. Rimjin-gang aimed to bring objective news to the people of North Korea. The reporters were trained in undercover recording techniques in China.
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.51)(www.asiapress.org/rimjingang/english/)
2010 Nov 1, The US White House said President Obama is extending economic sanctions on Sudan for at least one year, ahead of the country's January referendum on independence for the south. Sudan rejected the decision.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said welfare recipients can no longer use state-issued debit cards at medical marijuana shops, psychics and other businesses whose services have been deemed "inconsistent with the intent" of the program. In June Schwarzenegger barred welfare cards at casino ATMs.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, The SF Giants won the Baseball World Series beating the Texas Rangers 3-1 in Game 5 in San Francisco. Edgar Renteria blasted his second home run of the 2010 Fall Classic, a three-run shot, to win the championship. Renteria had the game-winning hit in the 11th inning of Game 7 in the 1997 World Series for the Florida Marlins.
(AP, 11/2/10)(http://tinyurl.com/29joxc3)
2010 Nov 1, Salesforce.com announced the purchase of 14 acres in the Mission Bay area of San Francisco and planned a new corporate campus to be built over the next 10 years.
(SFC, 11/2/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 1, McKesson corp., the biggest US drug distributor, announced an agreement to buy closely held US Oncology Inc. for $560 million.
(SFC, 11/2/10, p.D2)
2010 Nov 1, In eastern Afghanistan the Taliban briefly overran a district seat and torched government buildings there. Government forces who regained control of Ghazni province's Khogyani district headquarters a few hours later discovered that the 16 Afghan policemen stationed there were missing. (The bodies of four of the policemen were found a few days later in Ghazni city. 5 more bodies were found on Nov 6. Seven remained missing) 2 Afghan women were found shot to death in Helmand province. They had been running a small organization helping other women set up businesses before their bodies were found in Naway-e-Barakzayi district. A bomb that killed two coalition service members. A suicide attack aimed at NATO troops in Zhari district killed one civilian.
(AP, 11/1/10)(AP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 1, Australian police said a mother (55) and son (28), along with a 33-year-old Hong Kong man, have been charged over one of the country's biggest heroin hauls after drugs with a potential street value of 405 million US dollars were found in a shipment of doors.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Britain's BG Group announced it will spend 15 billion US dollars on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Australia, an investment Canberra hailed as a boost for the national economy.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, The UN said flooding in Benin has affected more than half a million people, destroyed more than 300,000 acres of crops and killed 81,000 livestock.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, British scientists said alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others are assessed.
(Reuters, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, China kicked off a once-a-decade census. Some 6 million people were mobilized to conduct a 10-day survey.
(AP, 11/1/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.56)
2010 Nov 1, In Cuba Roman Catholic officials announced the names of three more Cuban prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return for freedom.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Egypt’s Information Minister Annas el-Fiqi ordered all companies providing the service or television networks with uplinks to reapply for permits. The measure will affect about a dozen uplink providers and TV stations. Providers have complained it is aimed at controlling live TV broadcasts such as political talk-shows.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Police in Greece arrested two terrorism suspects carrying letter bombs addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and western embassies in Athens. The two Greek men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested in central Athens after a parcel bomb addressed to the Mexican embassy in Athens exploded at a mail delivery service.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In northern Honduras 5 armed men broke into a military base at the major international airport and made off with a small airplane that authorities seized last year in an anti-drug operation.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Icelandic Meteorological Office geophysicist Gunnar Gudmundsson said that floodwater is coming from the subglacial Grimsvotn volcano, but there are no signs of the underground tremors that would signal an eruption.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Indonesia's most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, one of 22 that have been increasingly active, spewed searing clouds of gas and debris for hours in its most powerful eruption in a deadly week that has left 38 dead.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Ireland's health minister, Mary Harney, was pelted with red paint as tempers flared over government plans to slash euro1 billion ($1.4 billion) from the costs of running an overloaded hospital network.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Morocco IMF director general Dominique Strauss-Kahn said world leaders gathering at the Group of 20 summit must take action to fix the financial sector.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 1, ExxonMobil in Nigeria announced the discovery of rich gas condensate off the West African country's coast as the government seeks to boost gas supply to help solve electricity shortages.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In northwest Pakistan a US drone attack killed five people. 4 militants stormed a police complex in Swabi, killing two officers. Gunmen near Peshawar attacked tankers carrying fuel for NATO and US troops, wounding a driver and his assistant.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Philippine investigators arrested Rolando Fajardo, one of the country's most elusive fugitives. He was wanted over the 1986 kidnapping of a Japanese executive.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Romania a MiG-21 Lancer fighter jet crashed during a training exercise, killing two experienced pilots.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Russia's Pres. Medvedev visited Kunashiri Island in the Pacific Ocean claimed by both Russia and Japan, triggering immediate protests from Tokyo, which is already involved in a heated dispute with China over islands to the south.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Tanzania Gasper Kanyarukiga, a former Rwandan businessman, was found guilty of ordering bulldozers in 1994 to demolish the Nyange Church where 2,000 Tutsis had sought shelter. Judge Taghrid Hikmet said he intentionally participated in the genocidal act and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Turkey's main Kurdish rebel group extended a truce until elections next summer, denying responsibility for a suicide attack in Istanbul thought to have been the work of its own hardliners.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, In Uganda a controversial newspaper in Kampala published photos, names and home addresses of gay Ugandans, the second time the paper has done so, prompting a rights group to seek a legal injunction against the publication.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, Uruguay's Supreme Court said an amnesty given for any crimes committed by the country's 12-year dictatorship (1973-1985) is unconstitutional. The ruling meant that about 20 murders in a case against former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry can be investigated.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 2, The US held mid-term elections. Early returns showed the GOP picked up at least 60 House seats and led for four more, far in excess of what was needed for a majority. About two dozen races remained too close to call. Republicans also gained at least six Senate seats, and tea party favorites Paul in Kentucky, Mike Lee in Utah and Marco Rubio in Florida were among their winners. Nevada Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept his seat.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, Iowa (Terry Branstad), Kansas (Sam Brownback), Maine (Paul LePage), Michigan (Rick Snyder), New Mexico (Susana Martinez), Ohio (John Kasich), Oklahoma (Mary Fallin), Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett), Tennessee (Bill Haslam), Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Wyoming (Matt Mead) all replaced the Democratic governors with Republicans. Snyder (R) defeated Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) by bragging about his managerial skills.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.45)
2010 Nov 2, Arizona voters by a narrow margin approved a measure to legalize medical marijuana.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 2, In California federal agents arrested Adam Gitschlag, a retired US Marine, for allegedly selling illegal assault weapons to members of Florencia 13, a Los Angeles street gang. On Nov 8 ATF agents arrested 2 more retired Marines associated with Gitschlag, and 2 others for smuggling machine guns from Iraq.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 2, In California Jerry Brown defeated Meg Whitman (54%-41%) in his bid for a comeback to the governor's office he occupied for two terms more than a quarter-century ago. California Sen. Barbara Boxer was elected to a fourth term, overcoming a challenge from Carly Fiorina.
(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 2, Nikki Haley (38) won election as governor of South Carolina, the first Indian-American female governor in US history. The Tea Party-backed Republican candidate won 51% of the vote against Democratic state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, who received 47%.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 2, The US attorney’s office indicted 3 San Diego residents on charges of conspiring to provide money to Al Shabab, a terrorist group in Somalia.
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 2, California voters rejected Proposition 19 declining to make their state the nation's first to legalize marijuana use and sales, heeding warnings of legal chaos and that pot smokers would get behind the wheel and show up to work while high. Voters approved Prop. 25 to allow lawmakers to pass a budget with a simple majority vote.
(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A17)
2010 Nov 2, Missouri passed the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act. The state was home to 1,462 licensed commercial dog breeders. A newly elected legislature soon gutted the meat of the proposition.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.36)(Econ, 5/14/11, p.20)
2010 Nov 2, Oklahoma voters approved a measure that would forbid judges from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases. The "Save Our State Amendment" was approved by 70 percent of state voters. A federal judge in Oklahoma City issued a court order in November 2010 barring the measure from taking effect. On Jan 10, 2012, a federal appeals court upheld an injunction against the voter-approved ban on Islamic law in Oklahoma, saying it likely violated the US Constitution by discriminating against religion.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)(AP, 1/11/12)(AP, 1/10/12)
2010 Nov 2, Oregon Democrat Gov. John Kitzhaber won a historic third term.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 2, San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom was elected as state lieutenant governor.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children. The law, which would take effect on December 1, would allow toys to be given away with kids' meals that have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar. Mayor Newsom vetoed the measure on Nov 13. On Nov 23 the board overrode the veto.
(Reuters, 11/3/10)(http://tinyurl.com/25458to)(SFC, 11/24/10, p.C1)
2010 Nov 2, US motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson said it will open an assembly plant in India next year to meet demand for its luxury two-wheelers in the country's booming economy.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Oracle Corp. announced an agreement to buy Art Technology Group, a provider of e-commerce services, for $1 billion in cash.
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 2, In southern Afghanistan a NATO service member died after an insurgent attack.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Algeria’s interior minister Dahou Ould Kablia said that Algeria will resume a policy of arming people to reinforce the fight against terrorism in the north African country.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, BP lifted its estimate of the likely cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill to $40 billion, denting profits, but its underlying performance beat all expectations on higher refining margins and a lower tax rate.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Britain and France vowed to work hand-in-glove as their leaders ushered in an unprecedented era of defense cooperation by agreeing to create a joint force and share nuclear test facilities.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Reprieve, a London-based legal advocacy group opposed to the death penalty, filed suit to try to prevent a British company from exporting a drug that could be used in the execution of an American inmate.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Greece bombs exploded at the Swiss and Russian embassies in Athens. Police then found explosive devices at the Bulgarian Embassy and one addressed to the Dutch embassy at a central Athens courier company, where German embassy had returned a suspicious package.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, India's central bank raised key interest rates for the sixth time this year to contain persistently high inflation, another sign of the gulf between fast growing emerging Asian economies and tepid growth in the developed world.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Iraq Shiite Baghdad neighborhoods were targeted in a series of bombings and mortar strikes that took place over the span of about an hour. In Sadr City 21 people were killed by car bomb near a market. In 12 other neighborhoods at least 55 more were killed. In total some 91 people were killed and some 232 people were wounded. The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent factions, soon claimed responsibility.
(AP, 11/3/10)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A3)(AP, 11/4/10)(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 2, Israel's military intelligence chief said Iran possesses enough enriched uranium to build one nuclear bomb and soon will have enough to produce a second.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Mexico 4 men were shot dead in the Pacific port city of Acapulco and at least 18 others were killed elsewhere in the latest gang-style violence. Eder Diaz (23) a student across the border at the Univ. of Texas at El Paso, was attacked along with classmate Manuel Acosta (25). Acosta was killed at the scene, while Diaz died the next day at a Juarez hospital.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, Myanmar election authorities canceled voting in Nov 7 elections in 12 more village tracts in six constituencies in Kayah state, where restive ethnic minorities are dominant. The commission in September announced the cancellation of voting in about 300 village tracts in 33 townships where restive ethnic minorities are dominant. Six armed ethnic groups in Myanmar forged an agreement to join forces, fearing they will be attacked by the regime after the elections. The "landmark deal" was struck in the Thai-Myanmar town of Mae Hong Son and included organizations from the Karen, Karenni, Chin, Kachin, Mon and Shan minorities.
(AP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, Russia said Pres. Medvedev planned more trips to a group of islands seized by the Soviet Union from Japan at the end of World War Two, deepening a serious rift with Tokyo.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Thailand battled to rescue thousands of people stranded in their homes after flash floods, several meters deep in places, swept through a southern city, cutting power and communications. The floodwaters swamped vast areas of southern Thailand and inundated its largest city killing 12 people. The death toll from across the country soon passed 120.
(AFP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos signed a string of accords seeking to sought to improve relations despite ideological differences and recent bitter disputes.
(AP, 11/2/10)(AFP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 2, State Vietnam News said blogger Le Nguyen Huong Tra (35), who blogged as Co Gai Do Long, has been detained for "infringing on the interests of the state" after she criticized a security official and his family.
(AFP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, Yemen put Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born radical cleric, on trial in absentia, accusing him and two other men of plotting to kill foreigners and being members of al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 3, The United States announced that it is bolstering its presence in Afghanistan with a 500 million dollar expansion of its Kabul embassy and the construction of two consulates. Taliban militants carried out two attacks against Afghan security forces, targeting a police station and a border patrol in strikes that left nine people dead. NATO said insurgents killed one service member in the north, while a roadside bomb killed another in the south. A coalition airstrike killed 5 militants planting a roadside bomb in Khost province.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, The United States officially designated Jundallah, shadowy Sunni rebel group, a foreign terrorist organization, blaming it for a series of attacks in Iran.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, The US Federal Reserve announced a 2nd round of quantitative easing (QE2) to invigorate the economy by buying $600 billion more in Treasury bonds between now and next June in order to drive down interest rates on mortgages and other debt.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.C1)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.89)
2010 Nov 3, The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted that unlicensed high-frequency traders will no longer be able to gain unfettered or "naked" access to public markets.
(http://tinyurl.com/27glv26)
2010 Nov 3, In Colorado Richard Paul (34) was arrested and federal agents seized five pounds of C-4 military explosives from his home in Durango. In Las Vegas Andrew Kaufman (36) was arrested. In San Diego Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle (33) was arrested. They were accused of conspiring to smuggle and sell weapons to an undercover federal agent in Nevada and Colorado. Bickle, his close friend Paul, and their associate Kaufman allegedly sold machine guns for $1,300 to $2,400 each, and handguns for $300 to an undercover federal agent who told them they would be shipped to Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Federal authorities in San Diego said they have made one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States, confiscating more than 20 tons of pot that was smuggled into the country through an underground tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of California's border with Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, A federal judge in Reno ordered 6 months of prison time for 2 men who admitted to shooting wild horses while drinking and leaving them to die.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 3, In San Francisco tens of thousands of baseball fans flocked downtown to toast the SF Giants' World Series championship and see their hometown heroes take a victory lap in a ticker-tape parade.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc, one of Hollywood's most storied film studios, filed for bankruptcy protection after struggling for years to reduce its debt load.
(Reuters, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan vowed to crack down on "arrogant" banks in an extraordinary attack as major lenders face mounting anger over rising interest rates and fees.
(AFP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Cuban President Raul Castro joined an American archbishop and other Roman Catholic leaders to open a national seminary on the outskirts Havana, the first religious construction on the communist-run island in more than a half century.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, The Czech Parliament approved a government plan to increase the number of Czech troops in Afghanistan during the next two years. It allows the deployment of up to 720 service members in Afghanistan in 2011, and up to 640 in 2012. The current mandate was no more than 535.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, A Paris appeals court said Callixte Mbarushimana could be extradited to the court in the Hague, Netherlands, but only on condition that he not be later sent to Rwanda. Rwanda has the death penalty, which France opposes.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Greece stopped all airborne parcels headed overseas and screened thousands of packages in an attempt to stop a spate of bombings blamed on Greek militants targeting diplomatic missions and European leaders.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Purushottama Lal (81), Indian poet and publisher, died. He published some 3,500 titles of Indian writers in English.
{India, Poet}
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.105)
2010 Nov 3, Israel suspended a special strategic dialogue with London as long as Israeli officials visiting Britain face possible arrest for suspected war crimes against Palestinians. The two countries announced the dialogue two years ago to boost relations. But Israel put them on hold at the beginning of the year after former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni canceled a trip to London for fear of arrest.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Kashmir two clashes broke out in Srinagar between police and stone-throwing youths chanting pro-independence slogans. Police said government forces have killed seven suspected Muslim rebels in four gunbattles this week.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Mexico police recovered 18 bodies from a mass grave announced in a YouTube posting, a video saying the victims were from a tourist group kidnapped in Acapulco a month ago. In the video two men say they killed the "Michoacanos" in an act of revenge against La Familia, a powerful drug cartel based in Michoacan state. Two bodies reported in the tip were found wearing the same clothes as the pair seen in the video and were lying on top of the mass the grave.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Northern Nigeria began deporting hundreds of illegal immigrants from neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon amid tight security and military patrols over a series of attacks blamed on an Islamist sect. Immigration officials said they were deported some 700 illegal immigrants to prevent them from casting votes in next year's presidential election.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Pakistan a US drone attack targeted Islamist fighters in North Waziristan, killing four militants and blowing their vehicle into a fireball. In neighboring South Waziristan, a Pakistan army soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle.
(AFP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, A car exploded outside the police headquarters of Gaza's Hamas rulers, killing a Palestinian militant (27) and wounding a second man. Ihab Ghussein, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry. The Israeli military said the target was Mohammed Namnam (25) of the Army of Islam group.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Viktor Chernomyrdin (72), former Russian prime minister (1992-1998), died. He served as the country was throwing off communism and developing as a market economy.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Serbia declared a state of emergency in the area around Kraljevo after a 5.3 earthquake rattled its central region, killing at least two people and injuring 50 others.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Slovakia’s government agreed to deploy up to 348 service members in the NATO-force in Afghanistan next year, up from the current 299. The decision still needed parliamentary approval.
(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, Somali pirates seized the Aly Zoulfecar, a Comoros-flagged ship, en route to the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam with 29 people on board.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Sudanese intelligence agents arrested Gaafar al-Subki, a Darfuri journalist working for one the country's leading independent newspapers, As-Sahafa. Darfur rebels clashed with government troops in South Darfur, marking a resumption of fighting after heavy rains had largely subdued hostilities in Sudan's war-torn west.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Microsoft released Kinect, a motion-tracking peripheral for the Xbox console. Scientists soon found uses multiple other uses for the device.
(SFC, 1/10/11, p.D1)
2010 Nov 4, Sparky Anderson (76), Hall of Fame big league baseball manager, died from complications of dementia in Thousand Oaks, Ca. He was the first manager to win World Series titles in both leagues and the only manager to lead two franchises in career wins. Anderson won 863 games in nine years with the Cincinnati Reds and 1,331 in 17 seasons with the Detroit Tigers.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 4, In eastern Afghanistan Taliban militants killed a NATO service member.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In a new audio message Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2, vowed revenge for the imprisonment of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani female scientist convicted of trying to kill US interrogators in Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, British Foreign Secretary William Hague pledged that Britain would act fast to amend a law that puts visiting Israeli officials at risk of arrest for alleged war crimes.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, The Bank of England voted to keep its key interest rate at a record low 0.50 percent and opted against following in the footsteps of the US Federal Reserve with fresh stimulus measures.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, China's President Hu Jintao landed in Paris for a three-day state visit set to see the signing of billions of dollars in deals for nuclear, aviation and energy technology.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Costa Rica a rain-sodden hillside collapsed on homes in the suburb of San Antonio de Escazu, killing at least 20 people, many as they slept. At least 14 people were missing.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Cuba all 68 people on board an Flight 883 of Aero Caribbean were killed when their plane crashed in the central mountains after issuing an emergency call. The plane was a 15-year-old ATR-72-212 twin turboprop built by ATR, a joint venture of Europe's EADS and Italian group Finmeccanica.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In the Czech Rep. a two-day informal gathering of NATO experts opened in Prague. They planned to consider the impacts of defense budget cuts by member countries.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Egypt and the World Bank signed two new loan agreements worth 820 million dollars, in the largest financing provided by the institution to the country's electricity sector.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, European computer guards battled against a simulated attempt by hackers to bring down critical Internet services in the first pan-continental test of cyber defenses. All 27 of the EU member nations as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland took part in the simulation. The USA held its own major exercise against a large-scale cyber attack on critical infrastructure in late September with 12 international partners and 60 private companies. Cyber security will be one of the top issues that NATO leaders will tackle at a summit of the 28-nation military alliance in Lisbon on November 20-29.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In India Irom Sharmila, an extremely frail 38-year-old woman dubbed "The Iron Lady," marked 10 years without voluntarily taking food or water, a hunger strike launched to protest an anti-terror law that grants Indian soldiers sweeping powers to crack down on rebels. She had her last voluntary meal on Nov. 4, 2000, in Imphal, capital of Manipur, one of several northeastern states facing armed rebellions against Indian rule. She was arrested three days later and has been force-fed through her nose ever since.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Indonesia clouds of hot ash gushed from the Mount Merapi volcano, forcing motorists in cities 20 miles (30 km) away to use their headlights in broad daylight and raising aviation concerns. The death toll climbed to 44.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to America" as they staged a mass protest against the "Great Satan" to mark the 31st anniversary of the capture of the American embassy by Islamist students. Iran reported the arrest of four Kurdish rebels of the banned Komala group, who worked for commander Jalil Fattahi, a militant based in Britain. The were arrested in Iran's western city of Marivan.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In northern Iraq a rocket confiscated by authorities blew up in the back of a police pickup truck, killing four people. Two people died in a roadside bomb explosion west of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Ireland’s government said planned budget cuts worth €6 billion in 2011.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.85)
2010 Nov 4, In Israel the global diamond industry's oversight body upheld restrictions preventing Zimbabwe from exporting its vast stockpile of diamonds from a large mine after efforts to reach a compromise ended in deadlock. Extending the approval to all the fields dominated this week's Kimberley Process plenary meeting in Jerusalem, where the unanimous agreement of members is required to certify the trade of diamonds. Israel is this year's sponsor of the conference.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, Nigerian lawmakers approved constitutional changes allowing the postponement of presidential elections set for early next year after warnings there would not be enough time to prepare.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, In Russia on National Unity Day a group of men armed with knives killed 12 people, including four children, who had gathered for a celebration at a home in Kushchevskaya village. One of the children was strangled and another died of smoke inhalation when the attackers tried unsuccessfully to burn down the house. On Nov 15 prosecutors said that they had arrested Sergei Tsapok, and a member of his gang, Sergei Tsepovyaz. Four other suspects, including two teenagers, were arrested a week earlier. The farmer who was killed had refused to hand over some of his land.
(AP, 11/15/10)(Econ, 12/11/10, p.30)
2010 Nov 4, Serbian President Boris Tadic apologized at the Ovcara site near Vukovar of the 1991 bloody massacre of more than 200 Croats, offering the strongest condemnation yet by a Serbian leader of Serb wartime atrocities.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, A Qantas A380 with more than 450 people on board made a dramatic forced landing in Singapore, trailing smoke from a blackened engine after the Airbus superjumbo's first mid-air emergency. In response Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines suspended flights of the Airbus A380 superjumbos. In 2013 the engine failure was traced to an oil pipe that failed to conform to design specifications.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)(AP, 6/27/13)
2010 Nov 4, In western Sudan 3 Latvian helicopter crew working for the United Nations were kidnapped. They were contracted to the UN Humanitarian Air Service, which delivers aid to poverty-stricken Darfur. On Dec 8 officials said the men had been freed with no ransom paid.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Nov 4, In south Yemen a car bomb tore through a market near security headquarters in the town of Daleh, killing two people, one a policeman, and wounding 22.
(AFP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 4, The UN named oil-rich Norway as the country with the best quality of life, while Asia has made the biggest strides in recent decades. Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Ireland followed at the top of the standings. Zimbabwe came in last among the 169 nations ranked, behind Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 4, Vietnam disaster officials say new flooding in the central part of the country has killed 16 people, bringing the death toll over the past month to 159.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, President Barack Obama launched a 10-day trip to Asia aimed at boosting exports and creating US jobs.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, In Los Angeles ex-BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle (28) was sentenced to a minimum term of 2 years for fatally shooting unarmed train rider Oscar Grant (22) at the Oakland Fruitvale BART station on Jan, 2009. Protesters marched in downtown Oakland and mobs smashed about a dozen cars. 152 people were arrested.
(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 11/7/10, p.C10)
2010 Nov 5, Jill Clayburgh (66), Hollywood and Broadway actress, died in Connecticut after a 21-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She was known for portrayals of empowered women in a career spanning five decades, highlighted by her Oscar-nominated role of a divorcee exploring life after marriage in the film "An Unmarried Woman" (1978).
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, In Afghanistan a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar in the northwest, killing at least nine people and wounding 30 others. The attack targeted the head of the Faryab provincial council, Mullah Rahmatullah Turkistani. NATO said three of its service members were killed. An Afghan and NATO force captured the Haqqani network's shadow governor for Spera district in Khost province during an overnight operation. An Afghan soldier reportedly shot and killed 2 NATO service members on their base in the Sangin district of Helmand province and then defected to the insurgency.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, Algeria’s newspaper El-Watan Week-end reported that local police have dismantled a group of currency forgers who put more than 48 million euros in fake banknotes on to the market.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, Britain began a 3-day hearing on Iraqi civilian claims of abuse. Lawyers for 222 Iraqi civilians were suing the British government, claiming their clients were subjected to a regime of systematic abuse by British soldiers and interrogators, and that their only realistic remedy is a far-reaching public investigation into how the U.K. treated its captives in Iraq.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, The British government said it has sold the right to run the rail line from London to the Channel Tunnel to a Canadian consortium for 2.1 billion pounds.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, China and India received long-sought recognition as global economic heavyweights as the International Monetary Fund gave them and other emerging powers a significantly larger role in stabilizing the world economy. IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn announced planned reforms to the fund's voting power after a meeting of the organization's board in Washington, DC.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, France and China reached a "real convergence" over the need to reform the global financial system after two days of talks between President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao. France told China that balanced trade and close cooperation was the best way to shield the world from future crises and the menace of protectionism, and China promised its support for Paris as it takes over the G20 presidency this month.
(Reuters, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, In France environmentalists handcuffed themselves in front of a train carrying what activists claim is "the most radioactive ever" cargo of nuclear waste. The shipment was returning German waste for storage after it was treated in France by the Areva group.
(AFP, 11/6/10)(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 5, Georgia's government announced the arrests of 13 people, including four Russian citizens, who are accused of spying for Russia's armed forces. The arrests, which took place in October, were announced on the day Russia's military intelligence agency celebrates its professional holiday, Day of the Military Intelligence Officer.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, Haiti was lashed by heavy rains and wind from Hurricane Tomas. Leaders of the quake-hit nation called for mass evacuations from tent cities. 6 people were killed. Tomas weakened the next day and was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm as it passed over the Turks and Caicos Islands.
(AFP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, In Indonesia searing gas avalanched down the Mount Merapi volcano with a thunderous roar, torching houses and trees and incinerating villagers as they fled. About 70 more people were killed raising the death toll to 122.
(AP, 11/5/10)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 5, Iraqi civil society groups said they are to launch a legal battle for Iraqi MPs left idle since a March 7 poll to return 40 million dollars received in salaries and allowances over the past eight months.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, Mexico's federal police said they have found the tortured body of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of Patricia Gonzalez, the former Chihuahua state attorney general. He was kidnapped on Oct 21 and eight people have been arrested in the slaying. A video had surfaced online showing the kidnapped man saying at gunpoint that he and his sister protected a street gang tied to the Juarez cartel and was behind several murders. Reputed Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen (48), also known as "Tony Tormenta" or "Tony the Storm," was killed along with four of his gunmen and three marines in the city of Matamoros. A soldier and local reporter Carlos Guajardo were also killed in related mayhem that began in the morning and lasted into the evening. The arrest of two alleged drug traffickers in the historic city of Patzcuaro outside of Morelia sparked roadblocks and car fires on the road between the two cities in the western state of Michoacan, which is controlled by La Familia cartel.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 5, In northwestern Pakistan a suicide bomber struck a mosque frequented by anti-Taliban tribal elders during afternoon prayers, killing at least 65 people in Peshawar. A second bombing later in the day wounded several people at another mosque in the Badhber area on the outskirts of Peshawar.
(AP, 11/5/10)(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 5, In Pakistan a private plane chartered by an Italy-based oil company crashed near the airport in Karachi after the pilot warned of engine trouble. All 21 people on board, including an Italian, were killed.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 5, A Peruvian judge ordered convicted rebel collaborator Lori Berenson freed from prison, ruling her initial parole decision sound. Berenson was freed on Nov 8, but the New Yorker's legal troubles remained unresolved.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 5, Swiss adventurer Yves Rossy (51) jumped from a hot-air balloon near Lake Geneva and completed two aerial loops using his custom-made jet-propelled wingsuit.
(SFC, 11/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 6, President Barack Obama announced a host of new trade deals with India supporting tens of thousands of US jobs as he began a 10-day trip through Asia on a determinedly domestic note.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said their countries would enhance their military and defense cooperation by expanding joint exercises and the use of each other's training facilities. They also pledged to work together to influence the behavior of an increasingly assertive China.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, The Afghan attorney general's office said that it plans to indict an ex-minister for allegedly overcharging the government nearly $20 million for fuel, one of 20 cases involving government officials accused of corruption or misuse of power. An insurgent attack killed a NATO service member in the south. In the southeast a joint Afghan and coalition force killed Mullah Mohammadullah, a Taliban leader in Shahidi Hassas district of Uruzgan province, along with an associate as they were trying to escape on a motorcycle..
(AP, 11/6/10)(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Argentina thousands marched in a Gay Pride parade, celebrating the country's status as the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage and vowing to campaign for new rights for transgender people. More than 500 same-sex couples have been married since President Cristina Fernandez signed the law on July 21. The theme of the parade was "let's go for more," specifically, a "gender identity" law to enable individuals to change their gender on birth certificates and identity cards.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, BBC reporters planned further strikes after a two-day walkout over pension changes successfully disrupted the broadcaster's TV and radio programs.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Tens of thousands of French protesters took to the streets once more for what might prove to be the last in their recent series of marches against President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reform.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, A train carrying what activists claim is "the most radioactive ever" cargo of nuclear waste ran the gauntlet of hundreds of protesters as it crossed the Rhine from France to Germany. The shipment was returning German waste for storage after it was treated in France by the Areva group.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Airlines cancelled at least 36 flights to and from Jakarta, affecting international carriers from Europe to Asia, because of ash from the Mount Merapi volcano.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Iraq's political rivals reached a breakthrough power-sharing deal in which Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, retains the premiership. The deal came 8 months after inconclusive elections. The deal was between the National Alliance, which represents the main Shiite parties, and the Kurdish coalition, while the Sunni-backed Iraqiya's support hinged on its agreement over the posts of speaker and president. A roadside bomb killed two Sunni anti-Qaeda militiamen and two Iraqi soldiers died in separate attacks on checkpoints north of Baghdad. Twin mortar attacks in Baghdad wounded two people. 25 people were wounded when three car bombs exploded outside the homes of officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
(AFP, 11/6/10)(AFP, 11/7/10)(AFP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Italy Michael Seifert (86), a former Nazi SS prison guard known as "the beast of Bolzano" for his cruelty, died in an Italian hospital. The Ukrainian-born Seifert was serving a life sentence at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in southern Italy.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Kenya a police officer in Siakago town went on a shooting rampage, killing 10 people in three different bars. The man was said to be accusing a girl of having infected him with HIV and when he went to look for her he did not find her.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, Libyan authorities arrested 10 reporters for criticizing Libya's leadership. They worked for Libya Press, a news agency controlled by the son of leader Moammar Gadhafi. A further 10 journalists working for Al-Ghad titles were rounded up in a second wave of arrests. All the reporters were released on Nov 8, and Moamer Kadhafi asked that an inquiry be opened into the matter.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Mexico the decapitated body of a 30-year-old man was found in an Acapulco neighborhood. Another man was found shot to death and a 27-year-old woman who had been kidnapped last month was found strangled and dumped in a trash bin, a black hood covering her face. Seven men at a family party in ciudad Juarez were gunned down. 11 other people were killed in the city, including two whose bodies were found dismembered. Police in Oaxaca city found a human head in a gift-wrapped box left on the side of a cliff popular for its view of the picturesque colonial center.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 6, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into southern Israel on Saturday but caused no casualties or damage.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Poland a gigantic statue of Jesus that Poles claim is the world's largest rose majestically above the small town of Swiebodzin, as the grandiose dream of a local priest finally came to pass. Residents believed it will put their town of 22,000 on the map for tourists.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Russia Oleg Kashin (30), a reporter for the Kommersant newspaper, was left in a coma after two men smashed his head, legs and fingers in an attack that prosecutors believe was linked to his work. Among his more contentious reporting topics has been efforts by environmentalists and opposition activists to protect trees in the Khimki forest near Moscow from being cut down for a new highway.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Riyadh has halted mediation efforts between the Afghan government and the Taliban because the fundamentalist movement has refused to break ties with al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Pirates near Somalia fired on French naval forces from a private yacht they had captured. The yacht ran aground the next day and the South African skipper escaped captivity, but the pirates took two crew members hostage onto land.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Spain Pope Benedict XVI blasted the "aggressive" anti-church sentiment he said was flourishing in Spain as he sought to rekindle the faith in a once-staunchly Roman Catholic nation that is now among Europe's most liberal.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, Swedish police arrested Peter Mangs (38) on suspicion of shooting at people with immigrant backgrounds in a yearlong rampage in Malmo, Sweden's third largest city. The first shooting was Oct. 10, 2009, when a 21-year-old convicted drug smuggler on furlough from prison was shot in the head in a parked car. Swedish media said he was hospitalized for a month with a bullet in his brain but survived. A 20-year-old woman sitting next to him was also hit in the head and died. On May 7, 2012, Mangs was charged with three counts of murder and 12 counts of attempted murder. On Nov 23, 20112, Mangs was sentenced to life in prison and ordered 40-year-old Peter Mangs to pay 1.2 million kronor ($180,000) in damages to survivors and their families.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 5/7/12)(AP, 11/23/12)
2010 Nov 6, United Nations officials said they were investigating reports that some 700 Congolese women were sexually attacked along the country's border with Angola. Many women had said Angolan soldiers were responsible for their attacks.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, A Yemeni judge ordered police to find Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical US-born cleric, "dead or alive" after the al-Qaida-linked preacher failed to appear at his trial for his role in the killing of foreigners.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 7, Senior US officials said the United States will drop Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as July 2011, if Khartoum ensures two key referendums take place on schedule in January and the results are respected.
(Reuters, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Douglasville, Georgia, Bobby Tillman (19) was shot and killed following a random attack at a house party in an Atlanta suburb. 4 men were soon charged with his murder.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 7, In eastern Afghanistan two NATO service members died in two different insurgents attacks. A vehicle hit a mine in Helmand province, killing five civilians. In Kandahar a government employee working at a prison in the city was shot and killed by insurgents. Afghan and NATO forces targeted suspected insurgent strongholds in a joint operation in southern Kandahar province, killing 15 and capturing 13. A rocket exploded in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, killing one civilian and wounding four. Gunmen set fire to the girls' middle school in Laghman province, burning the structure and its contents.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 7, Azerbaijan voted in parliamentary elections set to cement President Ilham Aliyev's grip on power but condemned by the opposition as a charade whose results have already been decided. Nearly 700 candidates competed for the 125 seats in the single chamber of the parliament. Azerbaijan's ruling party won a landslide victory. The next day international vote monitors said that ballot box stuffing and an uneven playing field for candidates marred Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections.
(AFP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Egypt Ahmed Shabaan (19) went missing. His body was recovered in a canal four days later. The family of Shabaan said police officers beat him at the Sidi Gaber police station in Alexandria. On Nov 16 Amnesty International called on Egyptian authorities to investigate allegations that police tortured the young man to death.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Germany activists rappelled down from a high bridge, broke through police lines and chained themselves to train tracks, trying to halt a shipment of nuclear waste as they protested Chancellor Angela Merkel's plans to keep using nuclear energy.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Greeks cast ballots in local polls that could trigger a general election unless voters show support for the governing Socialists' austerity measures in the debt-strapped country.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Guineans cast ballots in a vote that has been delayed multiple times following violent ethnic clashes that pitted the nation's two largest ethnic groups against each other, a vote that progressed calmly into the afternoon despite its underlying tensions. A week later Alpha Conde, a member of the Malinke ethnic group, was named the winner over Cellou Dalein Diallo, a member of the Peul ethnic group.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 7, Iran proposed that a new round of international talks on its nuclear program be held in Turkey, an ally that also has close ties to the West and has sought to mediate in the standoff.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Israeli court documents were published showing the government had sold or leased property in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to Israeli settlers at exceptionally low prices, helping them cement a Jewish presence there. Israeli police demolished an illegally built mosque in the impoverished Arab city of Rahat, touching off rock-throwing protests by residents and fueling new grievances for the country's Arab minority against the government.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Mexico two Ciudad Juarez police officers, a man and a woman, were shot to death inside their patrol car.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Myanmar held its first election in 20 years under tight security, a scripted vote that assured army-backed parties an easy win. Complex rules for the election thwarted any chance of a pro-democracy upset as Myanmar ended half a century of direct army rule. Minority Karen rebels seized government buildings in clashes with troops in the border town of Myawaddy. Myanmar's biggest military-backed party won the country's first election in 20 years by a landslide, after a carefully choreographed vote denounced by pro-democracy parties as rigged to preserve authoritarian rule.
(Reuters, 11/7/10)(Reuters, 11/8/10)(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Pakistan a pair of US drone attacks in North Waziristan killed 14 suspected militants.
(AFP, 11/7/10)(SFC, 11/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 7, In Portugal Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged to support Portugal's efforts to emerge from financial crisis, but he did not commit to purchasing Portuguese debt as was widely anticipated.
(AFP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Russia more than 1,000 military veterans and active servicemen rallied to demand the ouster of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, a civilian who is carrying out a radical reform of Russia's armed forces. Many of the participants in the rally said they were angry that Serdyukov did not want to see churches built on military bases.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In South Korea thousands of people chanted anti-globalization slogans in Seoul to protest this week's Group of 20 summit. Part of the crowd attempted to march down nearby streets but were stopped by riot police, who fired pepper spray.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Spain Pope Benedict XVI consecrated a world monument to family, the Sagrada Familia church, but faced a gay kiss-in protest before he attacked abortion and defended male-female marriage.
(AFP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Sri Lanka inmates resisting a search for prohibited items at a prison in Colombo wounded 46 police and five prison officials.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Cuban television that Colombia will extradite Walid Makled, known as "The Turk," a businessman accused of being a major drug kingpin back to his native Venezuela to face justice. Makled has said in a television interview that he poured $2 million into a 2007 Chavez political campaign and in return got a concession at Venezuela's Puerto Cabello, his alleged shipping point for drugs.
(Reuters, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, President Barack Obama backed India for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a dramatic diplomatic gesture to his hosts at the end of his first visit to this booming nation. The White House said Indian and US companies have discussed or signed over $14.9 billion in deals around President Barack Obama's trip that will support 53,670 US jobs.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, David Cordova (56), a retired Denver fire lieutenant, was among 35 alleged traffickers indicted by a US federal grand jury on suspicion of smuggling 20 kg (44 pounds) of cocaine a week from Mexico to Colorado. Cordova was arrested last week in a roundup of the alleged ring.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, An indictment was unsealed that charged 29 people in a sex trafficking ring in which Somali gangs in Minneapolis and St. Paul allegedly forced girls under age 14 into prostitution. 17 people were arrested in Minnesota, 9 in Tennessee and 3 remained at large.
(SFC, 11/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Nov 8, Video posted on the CBS News website showed an object flying through the evening sky over southern California that left a large contrail, or vapor trail. A news helicopter owned by KCBS, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, shot the video. Pentagon officials were stumped by the event.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, The American Carnival Splendor luxury liner, carrying nearly 3,300 passengers and almost 1,200 crew members, became crippled after fire erupted in its engine room. The blaze crippled the ship's propulsion system, leaving the vessel dead in the water and forcing Carnival to cancel the rest of its voyage. The next day the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan began delivering supplies to the marooned vessel and plans were made to tow the ship to San Diego.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Oakland, Ca., Derrick Jones (37) was shot a killed by police a block from his hair salon. Officers said they mistook a scale he was carrying for a gun. In 2013 Oakland agreed to pay $225,000 to settle a suit filed by his parents and daughter.
(SSFC, 2/24/13, p.C12)
2010 Nov 8, In Michigan high school freshman Samantha Kelly hanged herself after enduring taunting from classmates for accusing a senior of rape. Prosecutors were forced to drop criminal charges against Joseph Tarnopolski (18), saying they had no case without the accuser’s testimony.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 8, In eastern Afghanistan a NATO service member was killed by a bomb. Another died following an insurgent attack in the east.
(AP, 11/8/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Argentina 1976 coup leader Emilio Eduardo Massera (85) died after suffering for years from a heart condition and dementia that left him too ill to be tried for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 11/8/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.98)
2010 Nov 8, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard said the government plans to hold a referendum within three years on whether to amend its constitution to acknowledge the Aborigines as the first Australians.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Qantas extended the grounding of its Airbus A380 superjumbos for at least three more days after finding oil leaks in some engines, heightening safety fears after two mid-air blow-outs last week.
(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Britain’s PM David Cameron departed for a 2-day trip to China. He brought along 4 cabinet ministers and 50 businessmen. Cameron hoped to double trade with China over the next five years.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.65)
2010 Nov 8, Five Church of England bishops announced they are converting to Catholicism following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict XVI, the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to gay bishops and female clergy.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Chile two mine workers, 24 and 40 years old, were killed at the Los Reyes mine on their first day on the job. The National Geology and Mining Service said the mine was illegal and unregistered.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In south-central Congo at least 42 people were killed when a truck overturned on the country's poorly maintained roads. 16 children were among the dead from the crash in Kasai-Oriental province.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Germany a shipment of nuclear waste arrived at a railway depot in Dannenberg after a nearly three-day trip from France that was regularly disrupted by protests. The waste was set to be loaded onto trucks for the final 12-mile (20-km) leg of the trip to a storage site at Gorleben.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Haiti health officials said the cholera epidemic has spread into the capital, imperiling nearly 3 million people living in Port-au-Prince, nearly half of them in unsanitary tent camps for the homeless from the Jan. 12 earthquake. The outbreak had already killed at least 544 people.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In India Bodo militants in Assam state began killing innocent people to avenge the killing of a suspected rebel. 22 people were killed by the end of the week.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 8, In Indonesia frightened residents abandoned their homes in Yogyakarta, a bustling city of 400,000 at the foot of Mount Merapi, as authorities warned the volcano could erupt again at any time. 153 people have been killed in the last two weeks.
(AP, 11/8/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi said that opposition to the Iranian government is growing, spurred by an increase in government violence, more human rights violations and deepening poverty. Ebadi has lived outside her homeland since a day before last year's disputed presidential elections.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Iraq leaders of all the main political blocs met for the first time since March elections in a new push to break the eight-month deadlock over forming a new government. Car bombs struck Karbala and Najaf killing 14 people.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Israel said it is moving ahead with plans to build 1,300 new apartments in disputed east Jerusalem. The new $11 million performing arts center opened in Ariel, an Israeli enclave of 19,000 people. In August, more than 60 Israeli actors and playwrights signed a letter saying they would not perform in the new cultural center.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Mexican police arrested Manuel "The Sow" Fernandez Valencia, a reputed Sinaloa cartel associate. He was suspected of plotting with cartel capo Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of Mexico's most wanted drug lords, to smuggle eight tons of marijuana into the US by the end of this year. Gregorio Barradas Mirabete, the mayor of Juan Rodriguez Clara, a small town in southern Veracruz state, was kidnapped and killed, along with two others.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Myanmar fighting between ethnic rebels and government troops has sent at least 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand just after a widely criticized election expected to usher in a parliament sympathetic to the military regime. Thai officials said that fighting had died down, and government troops had regained control of Myawaddy.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Nigeria an oil rig in the volatile Delta region was attacked and 7 crew members were taken hostage. A security source said the crew included 2 Americans, 2 French, 2 Indonesians and a Canadian.
(AFP, 11/8/10)(AFP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Pakistan a local court in Nankana district, Punjab province, sentenced to death Asia Bibi (45), a farmworker and Christian mother of five, for blasphemy. In 2014 the Lahore High Court of appeals upheld the death sentence.
(AFP, 11/11/10)(SFC, 10/17/14, p.A3)
2010 Nov 8, In Russia Anatoly Adamchuk, a journalist who works for a suburban Moscow paper, was beaten up by two unknown men. He had written about efforts to protect forests around Moscow.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Slovakia Ernest Valko (57), the former chief judge of Czechoslovakia's Constitutional Court, was shot to death in his home in Limbach. As a lawyer, he represented the Slovak government and served as a legal adviser for the National Property Fund, an institution in charge state property privatization.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, Three gunmen from Somalia crossed the Kenyan border and killed a community organizer working with Somali refugees.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 9, Turkey’s Pres. Abdullah Gul received this year’s Chatham House prize from Britain’s queen.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 8, In Uruguay Gen. Miguel Dalmao was convicted of murder and sent to prison, becoming the first active member of Uruguay's military to be jailed for human rights violations committed during the country's 1973-85 dictatorship. Also imprisoned was Col. Jose Chialanza, who like Dalmao was convicted of "especially aggravated homicide" in the 1974 death of Nibia Sabalsagaray. Sabalsagaray was found hanged in her cell shortly after being captured.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Western Sahara a paramilitary gendarme and a fireman were killed and almost 70 people badly injured when Moroccan forces raided a camp outside Laayoune. A Moroccan raid to clear a refugee camp in the Western Sahara left at least 12 refugees dead and more than 700 wounded, while another 159 are missing. Moroccan authorities announced 11 deaths on their side after the clash.
(AFP, 11/8/10)(AFP, 11/9/10)(AFP, 11/11/10)(AFP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 8, Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born radical Yemeni cleric linked to previous attacks on the US, called for Muslims around world to kill Americans in a new video message posted on radical websites.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 9, President Barack Obama arrived in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. He voiced support for Pres. Yudhoyono's efforts to nurture a rapidly growing society even in a time when Indonesia has been hit by earthquakes, a tsunami, and now a volcanic eruption. He also expressed deep concern that Israelis and Palestinians aren't making the "extra effort" to secure a breakthrough for achieving Middle East peace.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Chevron Corp. said it will buy Atlas Energy for $4.3 billion giving it a big stake in natural gas from underground shale formations.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 9, The $60 Activision Blizzard video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops" was released. It raked in a record $360 million in the first 24 hours of sales and $650 million in the first 5 days.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.D3)(Econ, 12/10/11, SR p.3)
2010 Nov 9, Afghan security forces arrested a member of the deadly Haqqani network and three other associates after ordering the plane flying him to Saudi Arabia to return to the capital. A NATO service member was killed in a bomb attack in the south. In the eastern province of Paktia, militants killed the chief of Shewak district by blowing up his car with a roadside bomb. NATO announced the capture of a senior Taliban leader responsible for attacks in the Dand and Panjwai districts of Kandahar province, as well as another Taliban member linked to multiple bombings in the provincial capital. In Zabul province Afghan and coalition forces captured a Taliban insurgent responsible for moving weapons and coordinating attacks in the Shahjoy district. 4 policemen were killed in an ambush as they were driving through Imam Sahib district along the border with Tajikistan. A NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast in the south.
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Bangladesh said it would cap the annual interest rate for microfinance institutions at 27%.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.84)
2010 Nov 9, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva began a 2-day visit to Mozambique, focusing on education and health care in his last trip to Africa before leaving office.
(AFP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Brazil authorities negotiated an end to a rebellion in an overcrowded prison in the northeastern state of Maranhao after fighting between rival gangs left 18 inmates dead, including six who were decapitated.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Londoners Tom Freeman (26) and Katherine Doyle (26), after having their application to form a civil partnership rejected by officials at their local town hall in Islington, north London, said they will go to court to win the right. They were being backed by gay rights activists, who hope a ruling that allows straight couples the right to a civil partnership would mean, in turn, that gay couples have the right to wed.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, China signaled its intention to drain excess cash from its financial system by unexpectedly raising the yield on bills at a central bank auction and announcing new rules to curb hot money inflows.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, The WHO said a polio outbreak in the Congo Republic affected 201 people and caused 104 deaths in the last two weeks. The government in Brazzaville has declared an emergency and announced plans to vaccinate the entire population.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 9, Ethiopia's Ogaden rebels said they had killed more than 200 soldiers in a string of successful military operations since the beginning of October, a claim promptly ridiculed by the government.
(AFP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, France's constitutional watchdog ruled that the bill raising the minimum retirement age to 62 is perfectly legal, marking a political victory for Pres. Sarkozy.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, French detained 5 people (ages 25-30) suspected of a role in a network that allegedly sends French citizens to the tribal zone bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan to train for war. 2 of the five were detained at Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris, on their return from Egypt on Nov 8. Three others were picked up in Paris today. A woman was soon released. On Nov 13 four men were charged with "criminal association linked to a terrorist enterprise."
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 9, France's highest court authorized a probe into the assets of three African heads of state, after two rights groups' alleged that the leaders laundered money through French villas, cars and bank accounts. The probe will target Gabon's late leader Omar Bongo, the Republic of Congo's President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, India’s ruling Congress party sacked 2 officials, Suresh Kalmadi and Ashoka Chavan, over graft relating to the Commonwealth Games.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 9, Ireland's human rights watchdog appealed to the government to investigate the abuse of women and girls in prison-style Catholic laundries, an issue left unresolved by state probes into scandals inside other church-run institutions. The so-called Magdalene Laundries, a network of 10 workhouses, operated in independent Ireland from the 1920s to the mid-1990s.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Jordanians lined up to cast ballots for a new parliament in a vote that was dominated by anger at Israel over stalled peace talks and widespread frustration over an economic crisis. Loyalists of King Abdullah II won a majority of seats in the next parliament. The Islamist opposition boycotted the elections in protest of electoral laws they said were unfair. Votes in the capital carried only a quarter of the weight as ones cast in the hinterlands.
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/10/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 9, A judge in Kenya's second-highest court said that the country does not have jurisdiction to try pirates if attacks have taken place outside Kenya's waters, a decision that could harm US and international efforts to have pirates tried in East Africa.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Mexico members of the Inter American Press Association concluded a four-day assembly in Merida and issued a report citing concerns that both government censorship and organized crime pose threats to journalists in the region.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Mexico a one-page letter allegedly signed by "La Familia Michoacana" drug cartel was dropped in the streets of some mountain towns in the western state of Michoacan. It also showed up as a banner above an overpass and was sent as an e-mail to reporters. The letter offered to dissolve the gang if the government promises to protect citizens in Michoacan.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Mexican bread maker Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest bread maker, said it has agreed to buy Sara Lee Corp.’s North American bakery business for $959 million to boost sales outside Mexico.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.D4)
2010 Nov 9, About 20,000 refugees from Myanmar headed home after fleeing to Thailand as fighting followed a general election that is certain to keep Myanmar's military and its allies in power.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, Nigerian authorities announced 23 new arrests announced, bringing the number of suspected Boko Haram sect members in police custody to 128.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Representatives of Hamas and the Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas started a meeting in Damascus for reconciliation talks.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Turkey’s Pres. Abdullah Gul received this year’s Chatham House prize from Britain’s queen.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 9, The United Arab Emirates said it will force Canadians to get a visa to travel to the Persian Gulf federation as of Jan 2, as ties soured between the once-close countries. Emirati officials have ratcheted up the pressure on Ottawa after failing to secure additional landing rights for their growing government-backed airlines.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, A UN report suggesting North Korea may have supplied Syria, Iran and Myanmar with banned nuclear technology headed to the Security Council. The latest report by the so-called Panel of Experts on Pyongyang's compliance with UN sanctions was delivered to the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee in May, but did not move for nearly six months due to Chinese objections.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 10, Miranda Lambert won three CMA awards, including the coveted album of the year, celebrating her 27th birthday by leading a sea change in country music that also included two wins for her fiance, Blake Shelton, and entertainer of the year for long-suffering Brad Paisley.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, Leaders of Pres. Obama’s deficit commission proposed an ambitious plan to rebalance the federal budget. The plan to slash $4 trillion in red ink included slashing spending on most federal programs, curbing increases in Social Security benefits, and wiping out over $100 billion in tax breaks.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 10, President Barack Obama arrived in South Korea for the G20 summit. He said a strong, job-creating economy in the United States would be the country's most important contribution to a global recovery as he pleaded with world leaders to work together despite sharp differences.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, US investigators said authorities have dismantled a major cell of a human smuggling ring that may be responsible for the transportation of thousands of illegal immigrants from the US-Mexico border to Phoenix and other parts of the country. 9 people were arrested after a yearlong investigation and 62 vans were seized from the group. The group was led by a Mexican man named as Mark Rodriguez-Banks (29), aka Ricardo Morales-Mejia.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office said the state faces a $25.4 billion budget deficit over the next 20 months.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 10, Oakland, Ca., city Councilwoman Jean Quan was declared the winner of the mayoral election because she had more second and third place votes than front runner Don Perata.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 10, California State Univ. trustees raised tuition by an expected 15.5% as students staged a sarcasm-laden carnival outside CSU headquarters in Long Beach. Tuition has increased from $1,428 in 2001 to $4,884 for the 2011-12 school year.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.C3)
2010 Nov 10, A NASA study said it would cost at least $6.5 billion to launch and run a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 10, Hewlett-Packard agreed to pay $16.25 million to settle allegations that it showered public school officials in Dallas with gifts to win contracts funded by the government’s E-rate program.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 10, In Howard, Ohio, Tina Herrmann (32) and her 2 children went missing along with friend Stephanie Sprang (41). Sarah Maynard (13) was found alive on Nov 14 in the Mount Vernon basement of the home of Mathew Hoffman (30), an unemployed tree trimmer. The bodies of Tina, Sprang and Kody Maynard were found on Nov 18 in a hollow tree central Ohio. On Jan 6, 2011, Hoffman admitted killing the 3 people and raping a 13-year-old girl. He was sentenced to life in prison.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A11)(SFC, 1/7/11, p.A6)
2010 Nov 10, Dino De Laurentiis (91), Italian film producer, died at his home in Beverly Hills. Over 6 decades he produced over 500 films including the Oscar winning “Serpico" (1973).
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.C7)
2010 Nov 10, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a bazaar in Khost province in the country's east, killing a policeman and an Afghan soldier. A NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack in the south. Another coalition service member died in fighting in the east. At least one de-miner was killed and another was wounded in Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province when the de-mining team's vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Attacks across the country left 10 dead altogether.
(AP, 11/10/10)(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 10, In an extensive interview with the Die Presse daily, Ambassador Kadri Ecved Tezcan said Austria was pushing people of Turkish origin to the fringes of society instead of learning to live with them and benefiting from their skills.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Bosnia inaugurated its new three-member presidency, and the leaders of the Bosniak, Serb and Croat communities remained deadlocked over key issues regarding the nation's future.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Some 52,000 people marched noisily through London to oppose plans to triple university tuition fees, in the largest street protest yet against the government's sweeping austerity measures.
(AP, 11/10/10)(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 10, In Cameroon 2 buses collided head-on in remote Ngoa village, killing at least 14 people in a ghastly nighttime crash.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Canada alleged Mafia patriarch Nicolo Rizzuto (b.1924) was gunned down at his home in Montreal.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolo_Rizzuto)
2010 Nov 10, In China a Beijing court imposed a 2½ year sentence on Zhao Lianhai, for inciting public disorder by setting up a web site to help parents with sick children share information and seek compensation. Lianhai became an activist after his son suffered from kidney problems linked to contaminated baby formula.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 10, Human rights groups said they have filed a complaint with the EU accusing the Czech government of failing to comply with a court order that it stop placing thousands of healthy Roma children in schools for the mentally disabled.
(SFC, 11/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 10, In El Salvador a fire tore through a prison north of the capital. The death toll soon rose to 19 following the deaths of some of the injured.
(AP, 11/10/10)(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 10, Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano spewed clouds of ash high into the sky, forcing some international airlines to again cancel flights and President Barack Obama to cut short his visit.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Iraq's fractious politicians agreed to return Shi'ite Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister, ending an eight-month deadlock that raised fears of renewed sectarian war. The deal will see Kurd Jalal Talabani retain the presidency and give Iyad Allawi's bloc the speaker post in parliament and other Iraqiya members cabinet jobs, such as foreign minister. Allawi himself will head a council of strategic policies.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Iraq a coordinated series of at least 11 roadside bombs blew up in predominantly Christian neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 6 people and sowing panic among the minority, many of whom now want to flee. 2 mortar rounds also struck Christian enclaves of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora in south Baghdad. An estimated 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq before the 2003 invasion but that number has since shrunk to around 500,000.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Ireland's financial troubles loomed large as investors, betting that the country soon could join Greece in seeking a bailout from the European Union, drove the interest rate on the country's 10-year borrowing to a new high.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Israeli forces arrested senior Hamas MP Mahmud al-Ramahi at his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah overnight. Omar Abdul Razek, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank, said Ramahi's arrest appeared to be an attempt by Israel to undermine the reconciliation talks between Hamas and the Fatah party that had just begun in Damascus.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Kashmir suspected Islamist rebels fatally shot two Indian paramilitary soldiers guarding a busy marketplace in Pattan town in India's portion of Kashmir.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Kyrgyzstan a new and more powerful parliament convened for the first time, an important step in the former Soviet nation's rough path toward democratic reform. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Kyrgyzstan should build on the new constitution’s provision of media freedoms and decriminalize defamation and libel.
(AP, 11/10/10)(http://tinyurl.com/3kxgjal)
2010 Nov 10, In Malaysia "Dalam Botol" (In A Bottle), a Malay-language film, earned applause from movie bloggers invited to its first public screening, three months before its scheduled nationwide release. It is about a man who gets a sex change operation because he thought it would satisfy his male lover, but ends up regretting it. Censors now say depictions of homosexuality are no longer barred, as long as being gay isn't condoned.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Mexico gunmen attacked the office of El Sur newspaper in the resort city of Acapulco, spraying the building with bullets but causing no injuries.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 10, Nigerian trade unions called off a strike protesting the minimum wage across the oil-rich nation, one day into the planned 3-day action. They said Pres. Goodluck Jonathan made promises to raise the wage. The current minimum monthly wage was 7,500 naira, or $50.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Pakistan increased income tax on the relatively well off to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the victims of the country's devastating floods.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, In Russia Mikhail Beketov, a muckraking reporter left handicapped by a 2008 beating, was convicted of defaming an official he criticized when writing about highway corruption and the destruction of the Khimki forest near Moscow. A symbolic fine was ordered.
(AP, 11/10/10)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.52)
2010 Nov 10, A South Korean navy ship was sinking late Wednesday after colliding with a larger fishing boat off the southern coast. 28 navy sailors were rescued but two were still missing.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 10, Zimbabwe's high court referred the case of five of six diamond executives charged with fraud to the Supreme Court while ordering the release of the sixth.
(AFP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Yale, Michigan, two men, dressed in Halloween masks, climbed through a window into a home around midnight and attacked a couple as they slept in their bed. Paul Skinner (47) managed to chase the suspects out of the home before collapsing from multiple knife wounds. His wife Mara Skinner (44) suffered more than 20 stab wounds and a punctured lung. On Nov 14 police arrested Tia Marie-Mitchell Skinner (17), her 18-year-old boyfriend Jonathan Kurtz and James Preston (18). They were charged with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy.
(http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8140762)
2010 Nov 11, The Afghan election commission said that it had opened an investigation into allegations that a top government official pressured an election worker to rig the results of the parliamentary ballot in western Afghanistan. At least 15 insurgents were killed by in a fierce round of fighting in Helmand province. 2 Taliban bomb makers were captured in an area of Kandahar province near the Pakistan border.
(AP, 11/11/10)(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, International and Brazilian human rights organizations submitted a formal petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), denouncing grave and imminent violations upon the rights of indigenous and riverine communities affected by the construction of Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20101111/pl_usnw/DC99718)
2010 Nov 11, The British government unveiled plans to stop handouts for up to three years to jobless who refuse work, in the biggest shake-up in the history of the welfare state, a day after violent protests rocked London.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Britain an 18th-century Chinese porcelain vase, sold by a family clearing out a deceased relative's house in a suburb of London, went to a Chinese buyer for 51.6 million pounds ($83 million), more than 40 times the pre-sale estimate and a record for a Chinese work of art. The price included 20% in fees.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, China said it has toughened rare earth export rules to allow only producers that meet environmental protection laws and international standards to ship the precious elements out of the country.
(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Dagestan shootouts across the capital of Makhachkala killed at least six policemen and four suspected militants.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud said 31 of the group's members were detained in the port city of Ismailia over the last 24 hours, including the three candidates for the district.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, An EU indictment revealed that at least 9 people, including former Kosovo senior health ministry official Ilir Rrecaj, were suspected of involvement in an international network that falsely promised poor people payment for their kidneys and then sold the organs for as much as euro100,000 ($137,000). Five Kosovo nationals, Turkish doctor Yusuf Sonmez and Moshe Harel, an Israeli citizen, were listed as wanted by Interpol.
(AP, 11/12/10)(SFC, 11/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 11, In Iraq Shi'ite Nuri al-Maliki was re-nominated as prime minister. Lawmakers from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance of former PM Iyad Allawi walked out of the parliamentary session. Parliament met for only the 2nd time since the inconclusive March 7 election, electing Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president and Iraqiya lawmaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, as speaker.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, Israeli police and stone-throwing youths clashed for a third day running in the Arab neighborhood of Issawiya in occupied east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, Israel's government told its citizens to immediately leave Egypt's Sinai desert because of a kidnapping threat from the Army of Islam. A day later Egyptian security officials said they had and confiscated explosives this week and arrested 20-25 members of a cell planning to attack Israelis and international forces in Sinai.
(AFP, 11/11/10)(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Madagascar police detained three politicians who have called for boycotting a constitutional referendum scheduled next week.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Nicaragua Jason Puracal, a former American Peace Corp worker, was working in his San Juan del Sur real estate office when National Police agents burst in without a warrant. On Aug 29, 2011, Judge Kriguer Alberto Artola Narvaez ruled that Puracal was guilty of money laundering, and said in a sentencing document that the American's bank accounts had registered deposits and withdrawals of large sums of money. His case was on appeal.
(AP, 9/6/12)
2010 Nov 11, A Nigerian government report identified Iranians Azimi Agajany and Sayed Akbar Tahmaesebi as the men who organized a shipment of arms through a Tehran-based company called International Trading and General Construction. The arms containers sat at Lagos' busy Apapa port from July until Oct. 26, when Nigerian security agents carried out a raid and discovered the weapons inside.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Pakistan a massive explosion ripped through a security compound on a busy commercial street in Karachi, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 11, A Russian paper said the head of Russia's deep cover US spying operations betrayed the network and defected, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War. Kommersant named the man as Col. Shcherbakov and said he had left Russia days before US authorities announced the spy ring arrests on June 28.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 11, In Serbia a law restricting smoking went into effect. Cafes and restaurants were required to provide nonsmoking areas. Smoking was banned in offices and public areas.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 11, Somali pirates overran the Panamanian-flagged MV Hannibal II, a chemical tanker, capturing the vessel and 31 crew members. The hijacking took place nearly 900 nautical miles east of the Horn of Africa, which is closer to India than Somalia. In December one crew member was evacuated for possible appendicitis. The Hannibal II and 30 crew members were released in March 2011.
(AP, 11/11/10)(AP, 3/17/11)
2010 Nov 11, A 2-day G20 economic summit opened in Seoul, South Korea, with President Barack Obama and fellow world leaders sharply divided over currency and trade policies. They hoped to address 3 major concerns: a) the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency and America’s management of it; b) the problem of vast foreign exchange reserves, particularly in emerging countries; c) The scale and volatility of capital flows.
(AP, 11/11/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.85)
2010 Nov 11, A woman (41) made her way to South Korea from North Korea becoming the 20,000th defector to do so. The last 10,000 came over the last 3 years.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 11, In Sudan a Tarco Airline Russian-built Antonov 26 carrying 36-38 people crashed on landing in the western Darfur region killing at least 6 and wounding four others.
(AP, 11/11/10)(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, The WHO said a rare parasitic disease has killed 260 people in southern Sudan in the past year, a figure that is threatening to double in the coming months. Kala azar, or visceral leishmaniasis, is a rare tropical disease contracted by the bite of a sand fly.
(AFP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 11, Taiwan's Supreme Court cut ex-leader Chen Shui-bian's prison sentence for corruption in a land deal to 11 years, in its first ruling on the island's most high-profile graft scandal.
(AFP, 11/11/10)
2010 Nov 12, The US Supreme Court allowed the Pentagon to continue preventing openly gay people from serving in the military while a federal appeals court reviews the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 12, The California state Dept. of Education reported 50.4% of the state’s public schools students identified themselves as Latino. 27% identified themselves as white, 9% as Asian and 7% as black.
(SFC, 11/13/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 12, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomber targeted foreign forces in Kabul but the device detonated early, slightly injuring an Afghan soldier and a NATO service member. An ISAF soldier died after an attack by militant fighters in the east of the country. 15 militants were detained during three overnight operations targeting Taliban leaders across Afghanistan.
(AFP, 11/12/10)(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, British detectives investigating the 2009 theft of nearly 300 brightly colored stuffed birds from the Natural History Museum in Tring arrested Edwin Rist (22), a US citizen.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 12, Canada and India launched talks on a free trade deal they said could boost gross domestic product in each nation by C$6 billion ($5.9 billion) a year and increase existing trade flows by 50 percent.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, The UN asked for $164 million to fight the cholera outbreak in Haiti, as the death toll reached 724 with 10 of the deaths and 278 cases in the capital Port-au-Prince.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Italy's opposition presented a no-confidence motion against Premier Silvio Berlusconi, setting the stage for a showdown in parliament that could spell the end of the government.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 12, A Lebanese military court convicted Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Muslim cleric, of terrorism charges and sentenced him in absentia to life in prison. Bakri was among 54 people sentenced as part of ongoing trials of militants who fought deadly clashes with the Lebanese army in 2007. Bakri lived in Britain for 20 years where he headed the now-disbanded radical Islamist group al-Muhajiroun. He left Britain for Lebanon in 2005 and the British government barred him from returning.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Morelos state prosecutor said soldiers are hunting a 12-year-old suspected drug gang hitman accused of helping wage a gruesome turf war in central Mexico. 2 housewives this week took over the running of the police near Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua state, after no one else applied for the dangerous job. Olga Herrera (43), a mother of five, was appointed police chief in the town of Villa Luz, while Veronica Rios will be in charge of the police department in the town of El Vergel, both just south of Ciudad Juarez.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, An ally of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said an order for her release has been signed by Myanmar's ruling generals, as hundreds of supporters gathered at her political party headquarters and near her residence in anticipation.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III lashed out at the US and five other Western allies for issuing what he said were unverified warnings of a possible terrorist attack in the Southeast Asian nation at a time when it is trying to bolster its lackluster tourism industry.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (76), Polish classical composer, died following a serious illness in Katowice. Gorecki was best known for his Symphony 3 "Sorrowful Songs," which was published in the US in 1994 and became a best-seller, with more than one million copies sold.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, In South Korea leaders of the G20 major economies refused to back a US push to make China boost its currency's value, keeping alive a dispute that raises fears of a global trade war amid criticism that cheap Chinese exports are costing American jobs.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, A South Korean spy plane crashed during routine training and its two pilots were killed in the 2nd military accident to strike South Korea while it hosted the G20 summit.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, North Sudan's military bombed a disputed north-south border area, but a Southern Sudan army spokesman said the bombing was not a provocation. Casualties were said to be in the single digits.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 12, After weeks of delays due to Chinese objections, the UN Security Council received a report on violations of the arms embargo in Sudan's western Darfur region that infuriated Beijing. The confidential report said Khartoum committed multiple breaches of the embargo and China has done little to ensure its weaponry is not used in Darfur.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 13, US President Barack Obama used a Pacific Rim summit to press China on its flood of exports aided by a cheap yuan, but President Hu Jintao said Beijing would make reforms at its own pace.
(AFP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Texas Manny Pacquiao, boxer and Filipino congressman, cemented his claim to being the best fighter in the world by dominating the bigger but slower Antonio Margarito of Mexico. Pacquiao earned a guaranteed $15 million.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In California a gold Honda Accord tried to pass a group of motorcycles and caused a Dodge car to lose control on two-lane Route 98, a desert highway near Ocotillo, triggering a crash that killed five people and injured six others. Authorities were looking for the driver of the Accord. The driver of the dodge was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.
(AP, 11/14/10)(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 13, In Erie, Pa., an apparent suicide-murder by a father (29) left the mother and 2 daughters dead.
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 13, In eastern Afghanistan a group of would-be suicide bombers tried to storm a major NATO base on the edge of Jalalabad city, but were repelled before they could enter. Six insurgents were killed, including two who were wearing bomb-laden suicide vests. Insurgents in the same area set fire to a NATO fuel convoy. The truck drivers quickly fled and the insurgents set 12 tankers ablaze A bomb hidden in a motorbike also exploded on a busy street in the Imam Sahib district of the northern province of Kunduz, killing 10 people. Insurgents killed 3 coalition service members in an attack in the south.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, Afghan diplomat Abdul Khaliq Farahi was freed in eastern Afghanistan in a joint effort by officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan and returned to Kabul. He was seized by gunmen on Sep 22, 2008, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Bangladesh at least three people were killed and five, including a lawmaker of the ruling party, injured in a suicide bomb attack near Khustia. Police in Dhaka swung batons to disperse hundreds of activists protesting a government bid to evict opposition leader Khaleda Zia from the military-owned house she has lived in for nearly 30 years.
(Reuters, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Belize a small plane made a bold midnight landing on a highway to drop off cocaine. Authorities seized 2 tons of cocaine and also detained five officers thought to have cordoned off a section of the road so the twin-engine Beechcraft could land. Authorities found 80 bales of cocaine in a village near the highway.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 13, Costa Rica boasted of a "diplomatic victory" in its border spat with Nicaragua after the Organization of American States approved a resolution calling for removal of soldiers and security forces from a disputed area along the San Juan River.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Cuba the first of 13 remaining Cuban dissidents jailed since 2003 was released from prison and returned to his home in the capital, a strong signal the government intends to release all of the men despite their refusal to go into exile.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Germany a fire at the Karlsruhe zoo killed 26 animals including Shetland ponies, goats, sheep and a llama.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, Iranian authorities detained lawyers Maryam Kianersi, Maryam Karbasi and Sara Sabaghian on their return home from Turkey. All three are women and were among signatories of an open letter in September that called for the release of prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. Two other lawyers related to the three were also detained. Kianersi and Rosa Gharachorlu were released on Nov 19.
(AP, 11/14/10)(Reuters, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Iraq the Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc said it will join efforts to produce a national unity government, backing away from a threat to boycott parliament. Lawmakers approved an agreement to bring all of Iraq's feuding political blocs into a new government.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Japan thousands of demonstrators waving Japanese flags and shouting anti-China slogans marched against Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit for an economic summit that comes as a territorial dispute strains ties between the Asian giants.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, Japan's PM Naoto Kan strongly protested Russian Pres. Medvedev's Nov 1 visit to the disputed island of Kunashiri and said in a meeting on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim leaders' conference that the two nations must build mutual trust. Pres. Obama attended the 2-day APEC summit in Yokohama.
(AP, 11/13/10)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.48)
2010 Nov 13, Myanmar's military government freed its archrival, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (65), after her latest term of detention expired. Several thousand jubilant supporters streamed to her residence.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, A Nigerian soldier was killed and another wounded in a suspected attack by a radical Muslim sect in northeastern Borno state. The assailants fired a Kalashnikov rifle at the soldiers from a motorbike. Gunmen burst into a burial vigil outside the oil city of Port Harcourt, firing shots and kidnapping 4 people.
(AP, 11/14/10)(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Pakistan a suspected US missile strike hit a Taliban stronghold in North Waziristan, killing five alleged militants as they traveled in a vehicle. At least three of the dead were believed to be foreigners. Thousands of people protesting the killing of a tribal elder by unknown gunmen in Chaman district of southwest Pakistan attacked a NATO supply convoy, setting four oil tankers on fire. Security forces killed six militants in clashes in the Swat Valley after militants attacked a security checkpoint near Shakar Dara.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 13, In South Africa Anni Dewani (28), a British tourist, was found dead after being abducted by armed men in Cape Town just days after she and her new British husband, Shrien Dewani, arrived for a holiday. By Nov 18 two suspects, both 26, were arrested. A 3rd suspect (31) was arrested on Nov 20. On Dec 7 a court heard allegations that her husband had connived with a taxi driver to stage a robbery and have his wife shot dead.
(AFP, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 11/21/10)(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Spain thousands of people demonstrated in Madrid against Morocco's recent crackdown that has left at least 10 people dead in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara in northwestern Africa.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Western Sahara a statement from the prosecution services in the territory's main town of Laayoune said 67 people accused of crimes against the security forces and destruction of public and private property had been arrested, seven of whom had been cleared.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, Saudi Arabia’s first metro transit system, officially the Al Mashaaer Al Muqaddassah Metro, opened in Mecca.
(Econ, 1/5/13, p.50)
2010 Nov 13, Sudanese Pres. al-Bashir left Khartoum for the annual hajj in Mecca, despite an outstanding arrest warrant issued for al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 13, In Venezuela thousands of supporters of President Hugo Chavez filled a downtown Caracas avenue to demonstrate their backing for the socialist leader's crackdown on allegedly crooked real-estate and construction companies. Chavez ordered the expropriation of six residential complexes and "the temporary occupation" of eight gated communities in Caracas and other cities more than a week ago, arguing that real estate and construction companies were unjustly boosting prices.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 Nov 14, NY Gov. David Patterson announced an agreement with Phusion Products to stop shipments into NY state of Four Loko, a caffeinated alcoholic drink already banned in 4 states.
(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 14, Path, a photo-sharing startup, emerged from stealth mode. It was founded by former Facebook executive Dave Morin and Napster creator Shawn Fanning.
(SFC, 11/16/10, p.D3)
2010 Nov 14, Delvonte Tisdale (16) apparently fell from the sky after stowing away in an airplane’s wheel well at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC. His mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2dmblgm)
2010 Nov 14, In Afghanistan a series of bomb blasts and insurgents attacks killed 11 people across the country, including five NATO service members and three Afghan police taking part in Operation Bulldog Bite in Kunar province. A total of 7 ISAF troops were killed today.
(AP, 11/14/10)(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 14, Bangladesh police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and swung batons to break up demonstrations in Dhaka as the opposition party enforced a nationwide general strike to protest the eviction of its leader from a military-owned house.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Brazil a gay youth, Douglas Igor Marques Luiz (19), was shot by men in military uniforms in Rio de Janeiro following mammoth gay pride parade. 2 sergeants were arrested on Nov 18. An army statement says one of the suspects acknowledged shooting Luiz.
(AP, 11/17/10)(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 14, In China a court convicted Cheng Jianping (46) of "disturbing social order" after she added a few words to a message written by her fiance, Hua Chunhui, whose Twitter post mocked anti-Japanese protesters. On Nov 16 Amnesty Int’l. urged the government to release Cheng, saying she could be the first Chinese citizen to become "a prisoner of conscience on the basis of a single tweet."
(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 14, In the Central African Republic soldiers opened fire to disperse angry demonstrators protesting the death of a youth, wounding at least three people.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In France an early morning fire in a building housing immigrant workers in Dijon killed seven people, including two who jumped from the windows to try to escape. Some 90 other people were injured, of whom 11 are in life-threatening condition.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Authorities in Hong Kong detained the Decretive, a Maltese-flagged container vessel, over a debt dispute with several European banks. The target of the dispute is the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the guarantor of bank loans which funded the Decretive's construction in 2008. Loan defaults totaled 268 million US dollars.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Indonesia rescuers digging through several feet of ash discovered nine more bodies on the slopes of Mount Merapi, whose explosive eruption a week ago buried whole villages. Confirmation of more deaths trickled in and the toll from a series of blasts at the volcano rose to at least 250.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Iranian officials reported that Iran’s Entekhab Industrial Group has signed a contract sealing its acquisition of South Korea's Daewoo Electronics for some $518 million. Daewoo was set up in the 1960s and became one of the biggest companies in the world before it disintegrated in financial disarray in the 1990s. Its shipbuilding and auto units are now independent companies in their own right.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Israel’s Cabinet approved a proposal to allow 8,000 Ethiopians of Jewish descent to move to the Jewish state. The would-be immigrants are the last recognized members of the Falashmura, a community whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Christianity about 100 years ago.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Japan and Peru said they have reached an agreement on a free-trade deal. The 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group ended their summit in Japan with pledges to press ahead with moves toward freer trade, with an eventual goal of a region-wide free trade zone.
(AFP, 11/14/10)(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Lebanon radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was arrested at his home in Tripoli two days after a military court sentenced him in absentia to life in prison in a terrorism trial.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Mexico a powerful explosion killed five Canadian tourists and two Mexican workers at the 4-year-old Grand Riviera Princess hotel on the posh Riviera Maya. A build up of swamp gas under the foundation was first suspected. Evidence later pointed to a gas line leak.
(AP, 11/15/10)(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A2)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Mexico gunmen burst into a bar called "Desesperados" in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and opened fire, killing five people and wounding nine others. Assailants also killed the Gerardo Ortiz, the Chihuahua state's prisons director, and his son in a second attack in the area. Police in Acapulco found the bound, bullet-ridden bodies of five men on the outskirts of the city. In Guerrero state detectives reported they had found the bodies of two more men buried in a clandestine gave in a coconut grove where 18 bodies had been unearthed last week.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 14, In army-ruled Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for freedom of speech, urged thousands of supporters to stand up for their rights, and indicated she may urge the West to end sanctions.
(Reuters, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, A Nigerian army spokesman said its special joint military force has arrested 449 suspected kidnappers in four oil-producing states in the Niger Delta in under 7 weeks. Gunmen attacked an offshore facility operated by Exxon Mobil off the southern coast. 8 people were missing following the raid that knocked out 45,000 barrels per day of condensate production.
(AFP, 11/14/10)(AFP, 11/15/10)(Reuters, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Pakistan a suicide bomber apparently targeting a militant commander from a rival faction attacked a vegetable market on the Afghan border, wounding 9 people.
(AP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, An estimated 2.5-3 million Muslims began the annual hajj pilgrimage. The total number of tourists to Mecca and Medina, home to the prophet Muhammad, is expected to rise from about 12 million to almost 17 million by 2025. The Saudi Arabia government's commission for tourism and antiquities said revenue from tourism this year would reach $17.6 billion and double by 2015.
(http://tinyurl.com/25zum7p)(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, Sri Lanka officials said they are probing allegations that one of its nationals, a housemaid identified as D.M. Chandima employed in Jordan, was forced to swallow nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three months.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Zimbabwe a report in the Standard Newspaper said retired police and war veterans are being recalled to direct operations during elections. Reporter Nqodani Ndlovu was arrested on Nov 17 on charges of criminal defamation. He was granted bail on Nov 26 after his lawyer went to the High Court to enforce an earlier magistrates decision.
(AP, 11/18/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 15, A California woman, Nima Ali Yusuf (24), was charged with conspiring to provide money and people to a Somali terrorist group to help carry out killings in the African nation, according to a federal indictment unsealed today. She was the fourth person charged in the past month in San Diego with helping al-Shabab.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, W. Howard Lester (b.1935), CEO emeritus of Williams-Sonoma Inc., died at his home in Indian Wells, California. He and a partner had purchased the company in 1978 and he served as chief executive from 1978 to 2001.
(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 15, Afghanistan's government played down comments by President Hamid Karzai calling on the US military to scale back its operations and reduce its "intrusiveness" on everyday life in the country. Taliban leader Mullah Omar, rumored to be in Pakistan, said in a statement that reports of peace talks between militants and the Afghan government were "misleading rumors" and dismissed the coalition surge as ineffective.
(AFP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In China a fire engulfed a Shanghai high-rise building, killing 58 and injuring 70, as panicked residents fled and thick smoke spread over China's commercial hub. Police the next day detained 8 welders on suspicion of accidentally starting the fire. 3 government officials were later detained for allowing illegal construction activities at the site. In June, 2011, prosecutors charged 26 people with bribery and other crimes related to the fire.
(AP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A3)(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A2)(AP, 6/25/11)
2010 Nov 15, In Germany a girl (14) was slain in Bodenfelde. On Nov 19 a boy (13) was slain nearby. On June 27, 2011, Jan O. (26), whose last name was withheld in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted in Goettingen state court of two counts of murder for the slayings and sentenced to life in prison. Jan O., dubbed the "cannibal killer," had confessed to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of one of his teenage victims.
(www.thelocal.de/society/20101127-31449.html)(AP, 6/27/11)
2010 Nov 15, Guinea’s National Independent Electoral Commission declared Alpha Conde the winner with 52.5% of the nearly 2.9 million ballots counted. Security forces arrested demonstrators and fired tear gas at those burning tires in the suburbs of Conakry. Over the next three days, security forces systematically attacked Peul communities, spraying populated areas with bullets. They burst into homes where they beat, slapped, stabbed and burned people.
(AP, 11/15/10)(Reuters, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 15, Haiti's cholera toll rose above 900, including dozens of deaths in the teeming capital, as the epidemic showed no sign of abating just two weeks ahead of presidential elections. Anti-UN riots spread to several cities and towns, as protesters blaming a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers for a deadly outbreak of cholera barricaded roads and exchanged gunfire with UN soldiers in clashes that lasted late into the night. Protests in Cap Haitien left at least 2 people dead.
(AFP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 15, Indian police arrested two top former officials of the Delhi Commonwealth Games on charges of corruption. In New Delhi a five-story building pancaked, killing 67 people and injuring scores.
(AP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Indonesia Gayus Tambunan (31) broke into tears when he admitted in a hearing at the South Jakarta District Court that yes, he was the wigged man captured by photographers at the international tennis match on Nov 5. Tambunan, a midlevel tax official with a salary of just $1,300 a month, was supposed to be in jail. He has been charged with pocketing at least $2.7 million from dozens of big companies to help them avoid paying taxes. 9 wardens have been arrested and face charges of accepting up to $40,000 from the tax official. Tambunan allegedly left the jail at least 60 times since his detention in April. On Jan 19, 2011, he was sentenced to seven years behind bars for corruption.
(AP, 11/16/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 Nov 15, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that the issue of an alleged Iranian arms shipment intercepted in Nigeria was a "misunderstanding" that has been settled.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In northern Iraq the Badoosh prison commander and his body guard were killed when twin car bombs detonated outside a residential complex housing prison guards and staff on the outskirts of Mosul. In downtown Baghdad an Iraqi policeman was killed when a roadside bomb struck a patrol, while four policemen were wounded when another roadside bomb detonated in eastern part of the capital. In the town of Qaim on the Syrian border some 340 km (210 miles) west of Baghdad, two people were killed and five others wounded by two roadside bombs, including one in a market. Gunmen in Mosul killed two Christians, in the latest assault on the country's dwindling Christian community.
(AFP, 11/15/10)(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Italy the political crisis engulfing Premier Silvio Berlusconi deepened with four members of the Cabinet quitting their jobs, a move that does not topple the government but further weakens the leader. Berlusconi stands accused of having an "uncontrollable sickness" when it comes to women, and of hosting "bunga-bunga" parties that culminate in sex.
(AP, 11/15/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2anggqg)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.63)
2010 Nov 15, In northwest Pakistan a bomb exploded near the house of a slain anti-Taliban tribal elder Abdul Malik, killing two people and wounding three others. His son, Noor Malik, was getting in his car to leave the residence when the attack occurred, but he was not hurt.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Palestinian Gaza Strip Hamas freed 80 prisoners on the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Over the past week, Hamas has ordered the release of 284 prisoners in the run-up the four-day festival.
(AFP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In Saudi Arabia nearly 3 million Muslims performing the annual hajj pilgrimage began making their way up the rocky desert Mount Arafat, chanting that they have come to answer God's call.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, South Korea's government the number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea has surged in recent years because of economic suffering in the North, with more than 10,000 defections over the past three years.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 15, In South Korea a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after killing his mother in a fight over Internet games.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, The United States said it has banned four senior Kenyan government officials and a prominent Kenyan businessman from traveling to the US because they are suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, US Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Udall (D-CO) announced their intention to force the US Senate to hold a public vote on a binding earmark moratorium at the earliest opportunity. The moratorium would go into effect immediately and last through fiscal year 2013.
(http://tinyurl.com/mz6d6zp)
2010 Nov 16, US officials arrested Bruce Beresford-Redman, a former producer of hit TV show "Survivor," at his home in Los Angeles and held him for extradition to Mexico where he has been accused of murdering his wife in April.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 16, A US congressional panel found New York Rep. Charles Rangel (80) guilty of 11 violations of House ethics rules.
(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 16, In Mississippi the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility on behalf of 13 plaintiffs who alleged sexual abuse and denial of medical treatment.
(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 16, Viktor Bout (43), a suspected Russian arms dealer dubbed the "Merchant of Death," was flown out of Thailand to face trial in the United States following a long legal battle and fierce opposition from Moscow.
(AFP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen (64) was shot to death in her car in Beverly Hills as she drove home after the party. Police later attributed her murder to a botched robbery by small-time convict Harold Martin Smith, who killed himself on Dec 1 as detectives attempted to question him.
(AP, 12/2/10)(http://tinyurl.com/29scdch)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Nov 16, Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai urged insurgents to abandon violence and accept offers of reconciliation from the government, using the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to issue a plea for peace. In Kunduz province two Afghan men with government ties were killed by a bomb that had been hidden near the grave of one of their relatives. A British soldier was killed by insurgent gunfire in the southern province of Helmand. A homemade bomb also killed an ISAF service member in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/16/10)(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 16, It was reported that Britain has agreed to pay hefty settlements to a group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who sued the government for alleged complicity in their torture, one of the first big pay-outs stemming from the US-led war on terrorism.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping began a trip to mineral-rich South Africa aimed at securing resources for the Asian economic power, looking to extend its influence in the African continent.
(Reuters, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Egypt a senior Brotherhood official said Egyptian police have rounded up about 600 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of this month's parliamentary election and some 250 are still detained. In southern Egypt Muslims set fire overnight to at least 10 houses belonging to Coptic Christians in the village of al-Nawahid over rumors that a Christian resident had an affair with a Muslim girl. Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population of 80 million.
(AFP, 11/16/10)(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, The European Union issued a stark assessment of the Irish debt crisis, warning that the future of the 27-nation bloc was at risk as ministers headed for talks on an increasingly probable rescue.
(AFP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Greece dozens of far-right activists and local residents in Athens threw eggs and taunted hundreds of Muslim immigrants as they gathered to pray in a central square for Eid al-Adha surrounded by a protective cordon of riot police.
(Reuters, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, India's national auditors slammed a former telecommunications minister over a multi-billion-dollar scandal in which government contracts were handed out at "unbelievably low prices." The row over the second-generation (2G) spectrum for mobile phones being sold in 2008 at far below market rates forced Andimuthu Raja to quit on Nov 14.
(AFP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, Lebanese officials said Russia will provide the Lebanese army with free helicopters, tanks and munitions in a deal that will boost the country's poorly equipped military. This news came just days after two key members of the U.S. Congress released their holds on $100 million in US military aid to the Lebanese army.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Mexico Francisco Alberto Ruiz (35), a Colombian billing manager for Swiss-based oil services company Weatherford International, was found shot dead at the company's property in Tihuatlan, Veracruz state.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 16, Myanmar's military government warned against filing complaints over the Nov. 7 election, a move that could spell trouble for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has vowed to probe alleged voting irregularities.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Pakistan suspected American missiles slammed into a home and a speeding vehicle near the Afghan border, killing 20 alleged militants.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Saudi Arabia pilgrims performing the annual hajj cast pebbles at three stone walls representing Satan in a symbolic rejection of temptation, as Muslims around the world celebrated Islam's biggest holiday, the festival of sacrifice.
(AP, 11/16/10)
2010 Nov 16, The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized everything from the growing of corn, beans and chilies to Mexican dishes prepared with grinding stones and mortars as an ancient process worth safeguarding in the face of encroaching global influences. France's multi-course gastronomic meal, Flamenco in Spain and carpet-weaving in Azerbaijan also made the list.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, US House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to remain as their leader despite massive party losses in this month's congressional elections.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, A US federal jury in NYC convicted Ahmed Ghailani, a Guantanamo detainee, of one count of conspiracy and acquitted him on 280 other counts. He was the first Gitmo detainee to face a civilian trial.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 17, Alaska election officials confirmed that Rep. Senator Lisa Murkowski won her US Senate seat as a write-in candidate.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 17, Some 48 of 1,730 California doctors, who received money from pharmaceutical companies over the past 21 months, have been the subject of disciplinary action as reported by ProPublica, an investigative news organization.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 17, In San Francisco some 300 students and UC employees protested at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus as regents met on day 2 of a 3-day meeting. Expectations of a 6th tuition increase in 4 years triggered the protests. On Nov 18 tuition was raised 8%.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A1)(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 17, Booz Allen Hamilton, government consulting company, hit Wall Street and raised $238 million with its initial public offering of stock.
(http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2010/11/17/booz-allen-ipo.aspx)
2010 Nov 17, Researchers reported that the new drug anacetrapib dramatically raises good cholesterol and reduces bad cholesterol.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A15)
2010 Nov 17, Scientists at CERN reported that they have stored 38 atoms of the antimatter called antihydrogen for a tiny fraction of a second. The first antihydrogen atoms were made 15 years ago at CERN.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 17, British officers in Sunningdale, near Ascot, stopped a van after a tip-off, causing four men inside to try to escape. Police arrested them before searching the vehicle, when they found a man wrapped in bags in the back. He had been tortured and soon died.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, China said it will intervene to control consumer prices if they rise too quickly, a move that will do little by itself to tame inflation but could foreshadow harsher monetary tightening. The government announced food subsidies for poor families as it tries to cool a double-digit surge in prices that communist leaders worry might stir unrest.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In eastern Congo Rwandan Hutu rebels attacked a truck, killing at least three people and wounding several others. UN-run Radio Okapi earlier reported the rebels killed 21 people in the attack in the heavily forested Walikale territory, but a UN spokeswoman said peacekeepers on patrol in the area confirmed only three dead.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Egypt a security official said a teenage bride (19) has been beaten and stabbed to death by brothers and an uncle after she married against the family's wishes. The trio murdered the woman after tracking her down to the apartment she shared with her husband, a poor farmer, in Minya province. The men were subsequently arrested.
(AFP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Germany said it had strong evidence Islamist militants were planning attacks in the next two weeks and ordered security at potential targets such as train stations and airports to be tightened.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Guinea's military declared a state of emergency following violence after a tense presidential election. Pan-African rights group RADDHO said 10 people have been killed and 215 others injured in violence since the election results were announced earlier this week.
(AP, 11/17/10)(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Haiti's health ministry said that 1,100 people have now died from cholera. In Cap-Haitien anti-UN riots disrupted international efforts to tackle a spreading cholera epidemic, increasing the risk of infection and death for tens of thousands of poor Haitians in the north.
(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Indonesia’s disaster agency said that the death toll due to Mount Merapi had risen to 275 and that most of the people were killed by searing gas clouds. Others died during panicked evacuations or from respiratory problems and other illnesses linked to the volcano.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Iraq’s Pres. Jalal Talabani said he would never sign former deputy premier Tareq Aziz's execution order, stressing it was time to turn the page on Iraq's history of capital punishment.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Ireland agreed to work with an EU-IMF mission on urgent steps to shore up its shattered banking sector.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, Israel approved the withdrawal of troops from the northern half of a village that straddles the border with Lebanon, a step that would end its four-year presence in the area.
(AFP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, An Israeli airstrike killed two senior members of the Army of Islam. An Israeli statement said the men targeted were "part of a terror cell that planned to kidnap and kill Israelis" in the Sinai peninsula.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 17, Italian police captured Antonio Iovine (46), one of the country’s most wanted mobsters. He was considered the financial brains behind the Camorra crime syndicate clans.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 17, Kyrgyzstan put its deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, on trial in his absence, with prosecutors seeking a long prison term for Kurmanbek Bakiyev on charges that he ordered troops to fire on demonstrators, killing 78 people. Bakiyev, in self-imposed exile in Belarus, was being tried along with 27 other former officials for their alleged involvement in the deaths during April street protests that led to the fall of his government.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Madagascar Col. Charles Andrianasoavina, who supported a politician's takeover last year, claimed that he and other top-ranking officers have taken over the country. The claim came on a day voters were deciding whether to accept or reject a new constitution that calls for keeping Pres. Rajoelina in power indefinitely. The constitutional referendum was being held in defiance of regional efforts to find a negotiated solution that would involve Marc Ravalomanana, the president ousted in 2009, and other leaders. Rajoelina appeared confident of his hold on power and told reporters the majority of the military was behind him.
(AP, 11/17/10)(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, A gunbattle between Mexican soldiers and drug cartel gunmen near the border with Texas killed 11 alleged gang members and prompted the US to reinforce security at international crossings. In Cancun the owner of a company that distributes plastic bags was shot to death in a parking lot near the hotel zone. A mother, father and their adult son were found dead from gunshot wounds in Majahual, a fishing village near the border with Belize. A man was shot to death while leaving his house in the exclusive Tijuana neighborhood of Chapultepec. 2 other people were wounded in a shootout on one of the city's main avenues.
(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Namibia a suspected explosive device was found on a conveyor belt with luggage on a Germany-bound flight. On Nov 22 a court said that Nehemia Shafuda, chief inspector of the Namibian police aviation security, faces charges for smuggling a suspected explosive device, using the device in an airport and giving false information that interfered with airport operations.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 17, Nigeria's security forces rescued 19 foreign and local hostages from militant camps in the creeks of the Niger Delta oil region.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 17, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah stepped down as head of the country's National Guard and transferred the influential position to his son, in an apparent sign that the elderly monarch is beginning to lessen some of his duties.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 17, In Somalia artillery shelling and gunfire between African Union troops and Islamist insurgents killed at least 21 civilians in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 18, It was reported that about 39 percent of Americans said marriage was becoming obsolete. The sentiment followed US census data released in September that showed marriages hit an all-time low of 52 percent for adults 18 and over.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, New York Attorney Gen’l. Andrew Cuomo filed two lawsuits against Steven Rattner, former head of Pres. Obama’s auto task force, alleging he paid kickbacks to obtain $150 million from a large state pension fund to be invested in Quadrangle Group. Rattner agreed to a settlement with the SEC to pay $6.2 million and accept a 2-year ban on associating with any investment advisor or broker dealer.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 18, In southern California police arrested George Djura Jakubec (54), a Serbian emigre, after finding large quantities of explosive ingredients, including PETN, at his home in Escondido. On June 13, 2011, Jakubec was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A7)(SFC, 6/14/11, p.A4)
2010 Nov 18, General Motors stock rose sharply as the icon of American manufacturing returned to life as a publicly traded company. The share price would needs to rise above $50 for the US government to get all its bailout money back.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Afghan troops and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) wrapped up the four-day operation in the Pech River valley of volatile Kunar province. Reports said Operation Bulldog Bite may have killed more than 40 insurgents.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, FIFA, the Int’l. Football Federation, banned and fined 4 African officials from involvement in the sport for breaches of trust. They included Amos Adamu of Nigeria, and 3 others from Botswana, Mali and Tunisia. Reynald Temarii, president of the Oceania Football Confederation, was also banned and fined.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.58)(http://tinyurl.com/2dg6gmw)
2010 Nov 18, Australian officials said they would deport Gabe Watson, an American man convicted in the 2003 death of his wife on a scuba-diving honeymoon after US officials pledged not to seek the death penalty if he is convicted again at home.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Brazil’s federal police said they have dismantled an international human-trafficking ring that provided fake passports to Brazilians wanting to migrate illegally to the US.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, In Germany Samuel Kunz (89), one of the world's most-wanted Nazi suspects, died near Bonn. He was under indictment on allegations he was involved in killing hundreds of thousands of Jews at a concentration camp in occupied Poland. Kunz was indicted in July on ten counts of murder and 430,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he trained at the SS Trawniki camp in occupied Poland and was sent from there to the Belzec death camp as a guard from January 1942 through July 1943.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 18, India's Supreme Court issued a sharp and rare rebuke of PM Manmohan Singh, demanding he explain why the government took a year to investigate a cell-phone licensing scandal that cost the country billions of dollars.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Southern Israel received 2 mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip. There were no casualties or damage.
(AFP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Moroccan dissident Abraham Serfaty (b.1926), one of a tiny minority of Jews in predominantly Muslim Morocco, died. He was imprisoned and exiled by French colonial rulers in 1952 and again by Morocco's independent government in the 1970s for plotting against the state. The Rabat government forced him into exile in France in 1991. He returned home 10 years later.
(Reuters, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Nigeria's drug enforcement found and seized 286 pounds (130 kg) of high-quality heroin, destined for Europe, hidden inside a shipment of auto parts sent from Iran.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 18, The Norwegian Nobel Committee Russia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Morocco, Iraq and China have declined to attend the December 10 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. 16 more countries had not replied by the committee's extended deadline. An award spokesman said the Nobel Peace Prize may not be handed out this year because no one from imprisoned Liu Xiaobo's family is likely to attend the ceremony.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, In Saudi Arabia rain soaked crowds of Muslim pilgrims and lightning flashed as they performed some of the final rituals of the annual hajj, stoning symbols of the devil and circling the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site.
(AP, 11/18/10)
2010 Nov 18, Swedish prosecutors was permission to seek an int’l. arrest warrant for Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks, on allegations of rape and other sexual offenses.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 19, The opera “Billy Blythe" opened in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was created by Bonnie Montgomery and Britt Barber and focused on one day in the life of teenager and later US Pres. Bill Clinton.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.41)
2010 Nov 19, US President Barack Obama lifted a ban on US aid and government assistance for Sudan to allow computers to be exported into the country ahead of a key referendum.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, Jack Camp (67), a federal judge in Atlanta, pleaded guilty to two drug related charges. He had been arrested on charges that he bought and used drugs with a stripper.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 19, In Maryland Corey Ausby (16) was beaten while walking through a Baltimore neighborhood. In 2012 a trial opened for brothers Eliyahu (24) and Avi Werdesheim (21). Charging documents said they pulled up next to the black teenager in a vehicle, then got out and "surrounded him." The passenger threw the teen to the ground and the driver hit him in the head with a hand-held radio and patted him down. On May 3 Eliyahu was convicted of false imprisonment and 2nd degree assault. His brother was acquitted.
(AP, 4/23/12)(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A7)
2010 Nov 19, NYC officials said over 10,000 workers, exposed to toxic dust following the 9/11 fall of the world Trade Center, have ended a legal fight with the city and joined a settlement worth at least $625 million.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 19, Texas businessman Samir Mahmoud Itani (51), head of American Grocers ltd., agreed to pay $15 million to settle allegations of defrauding the government by selling old relabeled food to the military to supply soldiers in Iraq.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 19, In California PG&E announced that it is prepared to buy homes and farms in the Mohave Desert town of Hinkley threatened by chromium 6 laced groundwater.
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 19, The Los Angeles Auto Show opened. Fiat, now associated with Chrysler, introduced its tiny Fiat 500. Fiat sales in America would begin in January, following a 27-year absence.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.69)
2010 Nov 19, In southern Afghanistan a NATO soldier was killed in a bomb attack as leaders met in Portugal to determine the future of the alliance's mission. ISAF reported the capture of a leader from the hardline, Pakistan-based Haqqani network in eastern Khost province. In Baghlan a joint force targeted a series of compounds and captured another key Haqqani figure, who served as a liaison between the network and Taliban operatives in northern Afghanistan. Six of his associates were taken into custody as well. In Kunar province ISAF troops killed three civilians and wounded four others during fighting with militants.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, China ordered lenders to lock up more of their money at the central bank for the second time in two weeks, stepping up its battle to pull excess cash out of the economy before inflation has a chance to take off.
(Reuters, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Egypt at least 100 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood were arrested across the country less than 10 days ahead of legislative elections.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, French Pres. Sarkozy, infuriated by reports linking him to an investigation into possible kickbacks to French politicians in the 1990s, lashed out “off the record" at a journalist in Lisbon and said he could just as easily accuse him of being a pedophile.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 19, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that an inquiry will be launched into a female migrant's suspicious death in Saudi Arabia. Kikim Komalasari, who had worked in Abha city in Saudi Arabia since June 2009, had died from abuse. She was from Cianjur in West Java province.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Iraq 4 Jordanians of Palestinian origin from Zarqa were killed while fighting American troops. The men were all in their 20s and 30s and with the exception of one, had served jail terms in Jordan for plotting anti-American terror attacks.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Nov 19, Israel's military condemned the publication of names and photographs of 200 Israeli soldiers on a website that called them "war criminals." It was put up earlier this week by anonymous activists in Britain and hosted by a US-based Web service, which took it down by today citing "breach of terms." Militants in Gaza fired rockets at southern Israel, causing no casualties. Retaliatory Israeli air strikes wounded five.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Mexico the bodies of two men were found hanging from the Los Alamos bridge in Tijuana.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, NATO leaders began a 2-day meeting in Portugal. A top official said it will start drawing down its troops in Afghanistan next July and its combat role in the war-torn nation will end by 2014 or earlier so security can be turned over to the Afghans. NATO leaders planned to approve a new 10-year vision for NATO.
(AP, 11/19/10)(Reuters, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In New Zealand an explosion ripped through the country’s largest coal mine with about 30 people underground. Five workers, dazed and slightly injured, stumbled to the surface, while 29 were missing. Fears over poisonous and combustible gases were preventing rescuers from entering the mine.
(AP, 11/19/10)(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, The Nigerian army arrested a militant leader and 62 of his followers suspected of involvement in a string of recent kidnappings of oil workers, including foreigners. Gunmen suspected of being members of Boko Haram, an Islamist sect behind a deadly uprising last year, shot dead three worshippers at a mosque in the northern city of Maiduguri.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Pakistan suspected US missiles destroyed a moving vehicle in North Waziristan, killing four alleged militants inside it.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In the Republic of Congo 8 countries signed a convention to limit the spread of weapons in central Africa, but three countries opted out. The Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Chad, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Central African Republic and Cameroon all signed. Burundi, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda did not sign.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 19, Thai police found the remains of almost 1,700 illegally aborted fetuses hidden at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok as the full extent of the grisly discovery emerged. Thousands of anti-government demonstrators took to the streets of Bangkok, peacefully marking the six-month anniversary of the military's crackdown on their protest.
(AFP, 11/19/10)(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, A UN General Assembly committee passed resolutions condemning human rights violations in Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, provoking a furious reaction from their delegations. The committee passed the resolution by 80 votes to 44, with 57 abstentions.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, The world's cardinals met at the Vatican to discuss religious freedom, sex abuse by clergy and other issues amid a new dispute with China over an illicit ordination that threatens delicate relations between the two.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 20, American scientist Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the US Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, said in a report that he was taken during a recent trip to the North's main Yongbyon atomic complex to a small industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility. It had 2,000 recently completed centrifuges. The North told him it was producing low-enriched uranium meant for a new reactor. North Korea told Hecker it began construction on the centrifuges in April 2009 and finished only a few days before the scientist's Nov. 12 visit.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Florida Brandi Peters (27) and her 3 young children were found slain in a Tallahassee home.
(SSFC, 11/21/10, p.A14)(SSFC, 11/21/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 20, In eastern Afghanistan Taliban suicide bombers on bicycles killed four people and wounded 31. Hafiz Janan, a Taliban leader involved in training foreign fighters, was killed in the Bakwa district of Farah province. Another Taliban leader was captured in Baraki Barak district of Logar province.
(Reuters, 11/20/10)(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Australia David Auchterlonie was murdered on his 17th birthday in New South Wales. Mathew Milat (17) and Cohen Klein (18) had planned for over a week to lure Auchterlonie to his death. In 2012 Matthew Milat, a relative of serial killer Ivan Milat, pleaded guilty to the ax murder and was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison. Cohen Klein also pleaded guilty and was sentenced for at least 22 years.
(AFP, 6/8/12)
2010 Nov 20, China's government-backed Catholic church ordained a bishop who did not have the pope's approval, despite objections from the Vatican.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said a top FARC rebel leader who oversees major cocaine production may have been killed in the bombing of a guerrilla camp in the country's southern jungles. Fabian Ramirez's pistols, rucksack and computers were found at the scene of a pre-dawn bombing. At least six bodies were found.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Egypt a tour bus lost control and flipped over several times on a winding mountain road near a Red Sea resort, killing eight tourists.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Ireland moved towards finalizing its four-year crisis plan for cutting its budget deficit which could pave the way for a multi-billion euro bailout.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Yair Klein, an Israeli wanted in Colombia for training militias that killed hundreds of people, returned home after he was released from a Moscow jail. Klein has denied working with Colombia's cocaine cartels and said he only instructed paramilitaries in defense tactics.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, Madagascar PM Camille Vital told reporters that 16 officers have surrendered, ending an impasse that began Nov 17, when a faction of officers declared they were taking over from Andry Rajoelina.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Mexico a gang of suspected kidnappers were arrested by marines. They had detailed plans of security arrangements for next week's UN climate change talks in Cancun.
(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 20, NATO nations meeting in Portugal formally agreed to start turning over Afghanistan's security to its military next year and give them full control by 2014. The US and its allies appeared to take conflicting views on when NATO combat operations would end. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he did not expect NATO troops to stay in the fight against the Taliban after 2014. Russia was receptive but stopped short of accepting a historic NATO invitation to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack.
(AP, 11/20/10)(Reuters, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Saudi Arabia a young woman in her twenties defying a driving ban in the capital died along with three female friends when her car overturned.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, Pope Benedict XVI formally created 24 new cardinals amid cheers in St. Peter's Basilica, bringing a mostly Italian group into the elite club that will eventually elect his successor. Benedict XVI reiterated that condoms are not a moral solution for stopping AIDS. But he added that in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, their use could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.
(AP, 11/20/10)(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez stepped up his threats against the country’s only remaining opposition-aligned television channel, calling its owner, Guillermo Zuloaga, a fugitive criminal and accusing him of conspiring against his government.
(AP, 11/20/10)
2010 Nov 21, A national US study by CQ Press found St. Louis as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009, overtaking Camden, NJ. Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five. For the second straight year, the safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, NY.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Afghanistan 3 civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar province. Small arms fire and a rocket attack killed the police chief of Musa Khel district of Khost province. ISAF said more than 20 militants were killed in air strikes and fighting, mainly in the restive south. The watchdog panel charged with rooting out fraud in the recent parliamentary election disqualified 19 candidates who had been announced as winners in preliminary results. A man working on a stream clearing project in Kandahar province was killed by an unknown gunman in front of his children in Zhari district. 7 were killed, two were wounded and four were captured during a clearing operation that ended in Herat province. In northern Kunduz province, insurgents attacked a checkpoint set up by a local police force, sparking heavy fighting. Two of the local police were killed, along with 17 of the attackers. A NATO service member died in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan.
(AFP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/22/10)(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 21, in Afghanistan US Marine Cpl. William Carpenter took a blow fram a grenade to save a fellow Marine in Helmand province and was severely wounded. In 2014 Pres. Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor.
(SFC, 6/20/14, p.A6)
2010 Nov 21, Burkina Faso held presidential elections. President Blaise Compaore (59), a former army captain, was expected to win as he faced an opposition so divided it could not mount a unified campaign to fight him effectively at the polls. State media suggested Compaore won at least 80% of the peaceful vote.
(AP, 11/21/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.58)
2010 Nov 21, In China water flooded a small coal mine, trapping 28 people as they did safety work to expand the mine's capacity. 13 workers escaped and rescue work was continuing for the 28 missing at the Batian mine in the southwestern province of Sichuan. 29 miners were rescued on Nov 22.
(AP, 11/21/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.51)
2010 Nov 21, In Indonesia the death toll from the Mount Merapi volcano rose to 304 after more victims succumbed to severe burns and illnesses.
(SFC, 11/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 21, Iranian newspapers reported that Pres. Ahmadinejad said the best age for girls to get married was between 16 and 18. The Iranian intelligence ministry said its security forces have killed two "terrorists" in clashes in the Kurdish-populated western city of Sanandaj.
(Reuters, 11/21/10)(AFP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, Ireland became the second European country to ask for a multibillion euro emergency loan to help stabilize its debt-ridden banks. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan (1959-2011) recommended to a cabinet meeting that the government should apply for a financial bailout program from the EU and the IMF.
(AP, 11/21/10)(AFP, 11/21/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Lenihan,_Jnr)
2010 Nov 21, In Israel 2 workers were killed and two others were in critical condition in a Haifa hospital after inhaling poisonous material from an accidental leak at the country's oil refinery.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Mexico Silverio Cavazos Ceballos (41), the former governor of the Pacific state of Colima (2005-2009), was shot dead by a group of armed men. Police mounting an operation to find the killers came across a doctor in an area near the crime. He was startled by officers and began to run away. They shot him dead when he ignored orders to stop.
(AP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Pakistan 4 suspected US missiles slammed into a house in North Waziristan, killing six people. The dead included 3 militants and 3 local tribesmen harboring them.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that he will not return to the negotiating table with Israel without a settlement freeze that includes annexed Arab east Jerusalem. Thousands of young Jewish settlers held a mass demonstration outside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's offices in Jerusalem in protest at plans for a new ban on settlement building.
(AFP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, Poles voted in local elections expected to reward the government's reluctance to trim the welfare state in the EU's largest new member, the only one in Europe to avoid a recession.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia. Experts wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 21, In central Somalia at least 13 people were killed in heavy clashes that began a day earlier between armed groups fighting for control of villages.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, The US and its allies accused North Korea of being a danger to the region after it showed off its latest advances in uranium enrichment, but Washington said it was still open to talks.
(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, The FBI raided three hedge funds in NYC as part of a sweeping investigation into insider trading.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.82)
2010 Nov 22, Novell Inc., the maker of Linux operating-system software, said it has agreed to be bought by Attachmate Corp., for $2.2 billion, or about $6.10 per share.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.D2)
2010 Nov 22, In eastern Afghanistan homemade bombs killed 4 Afghan civilians, including two children, riding on a tractor in the Zurmat district of Paktia province. In an overnight operation in the same district, a joint Afghan and NATO force killed Fared Gul, a Taliban fighter involved in planting roadside bombs. 2 NATO coalition service members were killed in the south. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest while driving a motorcycle down a main road in Mohmand Dara district, Nangarhar province. Haqqani network leader Wahidullah was killed by an airstrike in the Sabari district of Khost province.
(AP, 11/22/10)(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Australia police said that an ongoing operation has smashed a cartel that has raked in an estimated 400 million Australian dollars ($395 million). Police had already arrested 34 people and seized 6,000 cannabis plants in the biggest series of drug raids in the history of Victoria state.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Brazil local Rio de Janeiro news media reported that armed men used roadblocks to trap and rob drivers over the weekend, killing a man and alarming public officials who are preparing to receive hoards of summer tourists.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Cambodia a stampede by thousands of festival-goers left at least 351 people dead and hundreds injured. A panic-stricken crowd, celebrating the end of the rainy season on an island in a river, tried to flee over a narrow bridge in the capital of Phnom Penh. Reports from provincial officials put the death toll at 456.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 22, Germany’s defense minister announced that Germany will end conscription in July and switch to a slimmed-down volunteer military service focused on missions abroad.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 22, Egypt's Orascom Telecom said it is selling its entire 50% stake in its Tunisian subsidiary to Qatar Telecom in a deal valued at $1.2 billion.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, A Gambian Foreign Ministry statement was issued giving Iranian government officials 48 hours to leave the country. The next day a senior Gambian security official said the move was linked to Nigeria's recent seizure of arms sent from Iran which were allegedly destined for Gambia.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Haiti clashes between political factions left two dead as growing violence and a raging cholera epidemic raised fears of wider unrest ahead of key post-quake elections.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 22, India gave the green light for the construction of a second international airport in the commercial capital Mumbai, a two billion dollar project that was ten years in the making.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Diplomats said Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a recent setback with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of centrifuges enriching uranium.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 22, In Iraq gunmen shot and killed, Saad and Raad Hannah, two Christian brothers in the northern city of Mosul in the latest in a spate of attacks targeting the religious minority.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Ireland's the government said banks will be pruned down, merged or sold as part of a massive EU-IMF bailout taking shape. Ireland's Greens pulled the plug on the deeply unpopular coalition government by calling for a national election in January after an EU/IMF bailout package is in place.
(AP, 11/22/10)(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Israeli bulldozers began laying the groundwork for construction of a barrier to seal off part of the Jewish state's border with Egypt. Israel's parliament passed a law calling for a national referendum ahead of any withdrawal from annexed east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, a move that could derail future peace deals.
(AP, 11/22/10)(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, Madagascar’s head of the electoral commission said 74% of voters had approved a new constitution, which could keep coup Pres. Rajoelina in power indefinitely.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Pakistan US missiles killed five militants in North Waziristan.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, US federal agents fanned out across Puerto Rico seeking to arrest 17 alleged members of a drug smuggling organization. Luis Figueroa, the younger brother of smuggling leader Jose Figueroa Agosto, had boarded the Caribbean Princess with his wife, two children and in-laws before the operation began. Agents waiting on board the ship arrested him without incident before the ship reached its first port-of-call in the US Virgin Islands.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Saudi King Abdullah (86) departed for New York for medical treatment and temporarily handed control of the world's top oil producer and key American ally to Crown Prince Sultan, his half brother and heir to the throne.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, Somalia’s Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden indefinitely postponed a session scheduled to endorse or reject the proposed Cabinet of PM Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Parliamentarians complained that he has reduced the number of ministers, tapped technocrats from outside Somalia and reduced some clans' influence.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 22, A South African court said a Zimbabwean government property in Cape Town can be auctioned to compensate three evicted white farmers in Zimbabwe for legal fees.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, UAR state media said a military Hawk training jet has crashed in Ras al-Khaimah, killing the pilot. The single-engine Hawk is made by British defense company BAE Systems.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, Venezuela's oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, said that the latest exploratory drilling has confirmed "extraordinary results": about 15 trillion cubic feet of gas under the sea floor in a place where experts once thought there was only a fraction of that amount. An event launched a separate $17 billion oil project involving Italy’s Eni SpA and state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Atlanta, Georgia, Amador Cortes-Meza (36) of Mexico was convicted on federal charges of orchestrating a sex trafficking scheme in which prosecutors say he lured impoverished young Mexican women to the Atlanta area with false promises of better lives, high-paying jobs and even hints of romance. He was accused of bringing at least 10 women to the area between spring 2006 and June 2008.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, Alfred Gaynor (43), a serial killer from western Massachusetts admitted to strangling a woman in 1995, his first victim of eight.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 23, A US federal jury in Oakland, Ca., said SAP AG must pay Oracle Corp. $1.3 billion for copyright infringement. In 2011 A US District Judge called the award excessive and reduced it to $272 million.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A1)(SFC, 9/2/11, p.D1)
2010 Nov 23, A BP executive, James Patrick Black (58), helping to guide recovery from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill died with two others when a small plane crashed in waters off the Florida Panhandle.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, An Afghan close to negotiations with the Taliban said a man leading the Taliban side of peace talks with the Afghan government was an impersonator, in a setback to efforts to negotiate an end to the war.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Angola activist Antonio Paca Panzo was released from jail for lack of evidence after seven months and 12 days. Panzo was arrested in april in the Cabinda region for apparently having T-shirts emblazoned with the faces of four activists who had been arrested in January and were accused of responsibility in a deadly attack on the Togo team bus as it headed to the African Cup of Nations. Panzo was freed because of lack of evidence.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 23, Australia promised to be a future long-tem supplier of rare earths to Japan, after China suspended shipments of the minerals to its neighbor.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Police in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands arrested at least 10 people on suspicion of planning an Islamist militant attack in Belgium.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Brazil police in Rio launched a broad crackdown on gangs and drug-trafficking groups rolling out helicopter-backed armored tanks in 20 slums, killing at least two suspects.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Brazil Roberto Puppo, a native of Bergamo, Italy, was shot and killed. His bullet-ridden body was found in Alagoas on the next day. Authorities believe the killing was ordered by da Silva's boyfriend, an Italian man "suspected of belonging to an international organized crime group." A teenager, who was not identified because he is a minor; and a private security guard identified as Cosme Alves were arrested after a few weeks and charged with the killing.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Burkina Faso 4 of the 7 candidates in recent presidential election say they won't recognize the poll's results, claiming the vote was rigged.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, China acknowledged that it is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, as it called on the United States to ensure climate change talks opening next week make progress.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Croatia’s Atlantic Grupa food company took over Slovenia’s Droga Kolinska for $326 million. This was the biggest corporate deal in the Balkans in recent years.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.72)
2010 Nov 23, East African leaders met in the Ethiopian capital to discuss beefing up the African Union force in Somalia and tensions in Sudan ahead of January's referendum on autonomy for the south.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, The European Union urged Ireland to adopt an austerity budget on time to unlock promised EU/IMF funding, responding to a deepening political crisis that threatens to derail the financial rescue.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, The EU’s anti-piracy naval force said that have caught 16 suspected Somali pirates over the past 5 days in the Indian Ocean with the help of the Seychelles coast guard.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 23, Iran’s state radio reported that authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Mahdi Hashemi, the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on charges of helping foment last year's postelection unrest. Hashemi has been living in Britain since shortly after the election.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Iraq a surgeon and an engineer at Baghdad International Airport were gunned down in a mostly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad. an Education Ministry professor was shot in another Sunni area in northeastern Baghdad. A passer-by was slain in a drive-by shooting in the northeastern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, Ireland's banks are up for sale, the country's central bank chief said, as the government sought to cut them down in size after their reckless lending forced the country to seek an international bailout.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Authorities in southern Italy arrested two women in an operation against suspected mobsters, a development that reflects the increasing role of women in running the mob's affairs. Those arrested included Carmelina Capria, wife of imprisoned clan boss Antonio Pesce, and Maria Grazia Pesce, wife of fugitive boss Roberto Matalone.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri dismissed a media report that implicated Hezbollah and possibly Lebanon's head of police intelligence, Colonel Wissam Hassan, in the 2005 murder of his father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Mexican police arrested Carlos Montemayor Gonzalez, nicknamed "El Charro," or "The Cowboy," with help from the US Drug Enforcement Administration." He was linked to the recently arrested US-born kingpin known as "La Barbie," and to the killing of 20 Mexican tourists in September.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, Nigeria's most prominent armed group MEND said that on Nov 21 it had attacked and destroyed the Obidi refinery trunk line feeding a refinery in the Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire after the North shelled Yeonpyeong island near their disputed sea border, killing at least 2 South Korean marines and 2 civilians, setting dozens of buildings ablaze and sending civilians fleeing for shelter.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AFP, 11/24/10)(Econ, 10/26/13, SR p.5)
2010 Nov 23, In northwestern Pakistan the concrete cover of a sewage tank collapsed during a funeral, causing 14 people in Jhor village to plunge to their death.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Saudi media said a Saudi woman (53), accused of torturing her Indonesian maid, has been sent to jail while the maid, Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa (23), receives extensive hospital treatment for burns and broken bones.
(AFP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, A Spanish judge ordered Carlos Vielmann, a former Guatemalan interior minister, be freed because authorities in the Central American country failed to request his extradition on charges he ordered the extra-judicial execution of seven inmates. He resigned in 2007 after allegations in one of those cases became known.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Trinidad Sgt. Simeon Roderique (38), a US Army soldier vacationing on the Caribbean island, was killed when gunmen rammed his car from behind in a rough slum and then opened fire. He was shot shortly after dropping a woman off at her home in Laventille, a gang-plagued community just east of Trinidad's capital. The woman's brother was also killed.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Virginia 5 Somali men, accused of attacking the USS Nicholas on April 1, were convicted on federal piracy charges. On March 14, 2011, the 5 men were sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/25/10, p.A19)(SFC, 3/15/11, p.A4)
2010 Nov 24, Former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, once one of the most powerful and feared Republicans in Congress, was convicted on charges he illegally funneled corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, The US Federal Transit Administration sent an invoice to New Jersey for some $271 million for work done on the cancelled $8.7 billion Hudson River rail tunnel connecting the state with NY.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 24, In California Rep. Steve Cooley conceded defeat to Dem. Kamala Harris for the office of attorney general. Harris became the state’s first woman, the first African American and the first Indian American in California history to be elected as state attorney general.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 24, In southern California Carlie Rose Attebury (31), a former El Modena High School high school band teacher, was convicted of 4 counts stemming from her sexual relationship with a boy (15).
(SFC, 11/26/10, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/2g9r229)
2010 Nov 24, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it had closed 4,200 square miles/10,880 square kms of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to royal red shrimping after a commercial shrimper discovered tar balls in his net.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Afghan election officials announced final vote totals for 33 of 34 provinces. 1.3m of 5.6m ballots were discarded for fraud and 19 candidates were disqualified for cheating. The top prosecutor announced a new investigation into allegations of ballot manipulation, potentially dealing another setback to a fraud-marred parliamentary election just as many had hoped a declaration of final results would allow the country to move on. Emerging opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah said that more than 90 of his supporters had won seats in parliament, following the announcement of certified results. Abdul Hadi, a Taliban leader, was killed when he pulled a pistol on Afghan and NATO forces who were trying to arrest him during a raid in the Khogyani district of Ghazni province.
(AP, 11/24/10)(AFP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(SFC, 11/26/10, p.A5)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.50)
2010 Nov 24, Australia said that a Thai-owned oil firm's "widespread and systematic shortcomings" caused the worst offshore drilling accident in the country's history, which created a massive oil slick. Thousands of barrels of oil gushed into the sea from a damaged well after a blow out on the West Atlas rig on August 21, 2009, prompting the evacuation of workers.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Brazil heavily armed men halted buses and cars, robbed their passengers and set the vehicles ablaze in Rio de Janeiro, continuing a wave of violence that has rattled rich and poor alike. Police raided gang-ruled shantytowns, setting off clashes that killed 14 people as authorities tried to halt a wave of violent crime.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Britain a student mob attacked a police van in central London as violence marred a second mass protest in the last fortnight against the government's plans to triple university fees.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In the Central African Republic rebels killed four soldiers and captured an unknown number of troops in an attack on Birao, the main town of northern CAR.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Egypt hundreds of Christians smashed cars and windows in Cairo and clashed with police in protests over the halt in the construction of a church that left one person dead in Giza's Omraniya neighborhood. A 2nd person died of injuries on Nov 26. The Coptic community said authorities in Egypt are reluctant to approve permits to build churches. Egypt’s attorney general decided to hold the 156 protesters for 15 days on suspicion of inciting the riots.
(AP, 11/24/10)(Reuters, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Guatemala Francisco Dall'Anese, the head of a special UN-backed commission (CICIG) prosecuting high crimes there, accused the government of sabotaging efforts to bring back Carlos Vielmann, a former interior minister, on charges of ordering extrajudicial killings of prison inmates. On Nov 23 a Spanish judge freed Vielmann from prison.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's National Democratic Alliance won 206 seats in the 243-seat Bihar assembly, a huge jump from the 143 seats it controlled in the last assembly. Bihar's reputation as one of India's most crime-ridden states forced officials to hold the elections in six phases over a month to allow the limited police force to protect the polls.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India a local official said the northern Lank village council in Uttar Pradesh state has banned unmarried women from using cell phones for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India police arrested eight people, including senior executives of leading state banks, in Mumbai on accusations of taking bribes of more than 200 million dollars to smooth large corporate loans to builders. Those arrested include the chief executive of LIC Housing Finance, India's second largest housing loan firm, as well as executives of the Bank of India, Central Bank of India and Punjab National Bank.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In India police in the central state of Chhattisgarh arrested 11 people including a "witchdoctor" and his wife after the body of a boy (2) was discovered in their house. Further searches of the property in the industrial town of Bhilai, about 45 km (30 miles) from state capital Raipur, revealed the skeletal remains of a second victim, a girl (6). The accused man had confessed to killing both children to acquire "occult power and good fortune."
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, Indonesian Muslim cleric Pujiono Cahyo Widianto (46), who sparked a national outcry by marrying a 12-year-old girl, was sentenced to four years in prison.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Iraq a roadside bomb killed four people in the town of Shurqat, 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Ireland set out a four-year plan, aiming to make 15 billion euros worth of savings to bring down its record deficit.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, A court in southern Kyrgyzstan sentenced 17 people to life in jail for violence that wracked the region in June. Judge Damirbek Nazarov ruled the men killed 16 people on the highway linking the south with the capital, Bishkek. All defendants in the trial that ended the previous day were ethnic Uzbeks. International rights activists largely agree the Uzbek minority sustained the bulk of the violence that left 370 people dead.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In southern Mexico Ciro Diaz Sanchez, the mayor of Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan, and mayor-elect Pedro Bautista, disappeared after Mexico's army detained members of the municipal police force and other local officials on suspicion they were working for a drug cartel. The two, both members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, went missing ahead of searches of their houses, which turned up high-caliber weapons and two stolen cars at Bautista's.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 24, A Mexican air force cargo plane crashed at Monterrey International Airport killing five military personnel.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In New Zealand a second explosion occurred in the Pike River mine, almost exactly five days after the first blast there. All 29 workers missing underground were believed to have died after a second explosion.
(SFC, 11/24/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 24, Nigeria said it has seized another illegal arms shipment at its main port, including pistols and military vehicles, weeks after the discovery of a weapons cache sent from Iran. The military items which were packed inside a vehicle painted in army green. The illegal arms shipment came from Belgium through Germany,
(AFP, 11/24/10)(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, In northwestern Pakistan one soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during a foot patrol in South Waziristan.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Portuguese labor unions mounted a general strike, pressing the government to scrap austerity measures intended to ward off a debt crisis spreading through the euro zone.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Somalia Bashir Ahmed Abdi (51), a Minneapolis-based Somali lawyer, was shot dead in Mogadishu. Relative Abdirahman Moalin said he was driving Abdi to a meeting in Mogadishu when a single shot fired from what looked like a government pickup truck hit Abdi beneath his shoulder, killing him instantly.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 24, Sudan's south accused the northern army of carrying out an airstrike on an army base in southern Sudan in an attempt to derail a January 9 referendum on southern independence.
(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Emirati (UAR) leaders prepared a lavish welcome for Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, who is making her first state visit in more than 30 years to a country with deep British ties.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, The UN human rights office says a new international treaty against enforced disappearances will come into effect on Dec. 23 after Iraq became the 20th country to ratify it. The 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance declares widespread or systematic kidnappings a crime against humanity. The US has not signed the treaty.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, The Vatican denounced China for ordaining a bishop without papal consent, accusing the government-backed church of gravely damaging the faith and warning that the bishop risked excommunication. The Vatican also accused Chinese authorities of committing "grave violations of freedom of religion and conscience" by forcing Vatican-approved bishops to attend the ordination ceremony of Rev. Joseph Guo Jincai.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In Yemen a suicide car bomber struck a convoy of Shiites on their way to a religious ceremony, killing at least 17 and wounding more than 15 people. Al-Qaida was suspected though it would be the extremist organization's first reported direct assault on the country's Shiite minority.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 25, US authorities found a sophisticated tunnel used to smuggle drugs between Mexico and San Diego, the second such discovery in the region in less than a month. Investigators seized some 20 tons of marijuana. The 2,200-foot passage ran from a residence in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa area.
(AP, 11/25/10)(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 25, San Francisco based Del Monte said it has agreed to be acquired by a group led by KKR & Co. in a $4 billion deal. KKR, Vestar Capital Partners and Centerview Partners agreed to pay $19 a share in cash and would assume $1.3 billion in net debt.
(SFC, 11/26/10, p.C1)
2010 Nov 25, The Afghan deputy attorney general said his office has arrested two employees of the nation's electoral commission and two people working in the money transfer business on allegations of fraud in the September parliamentary elections. In eastern Afghanistan 2 insurgent facilitators were arrested on separate operations. NATO captured a Haqqani leader in the eastern Afghan province of Khost.
(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 25, British PM David Cameron defended a new index aimed at measuring the population's social and environmental wellbeing rather than just its wealth.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Bernard Matthews (80), Britain’s largest turkey processor, died. He began in 1950 with an investment in 20 eggs. In 1953 he bought a derelict country house, Great Witchingham Hall, where he and his wife, Joyce, raised turkeys in all but one of the 36 rooms. It is still the company headquarters.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 25, China’s state media said Shanghai is suffering from its worst November air quality in five years after the local government lifted pollution controls that were in place for the six-month World Expo. China started publishing hourly air-quality information for major cities across the country as the world's top source of greenhouse gas emissions tries to rein in its notorious pollution.
(AFP, 11/25/10)(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 25, Colombian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for retired Gen. Miguel Maza Marquez (73), a former domestic security chief, who they say participated in the Aug 18, 1989, assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, The EU high court ruled that there is no such thing as "pure chocolate," ending an EU-Italy food fight over chocolate labels. It also said the EU's 1999 chocolate labeling rules make no room for a "pure chocolate" reference like the one Italy enacted in a 2003 law.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, European lawmakers voted in favor of an independent, UN-backed investigation into violence in Western Sahara that has left up to 11 people dead in the disputed territory.
(Reuters, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, India told financial firms to review their exposure to a string of companies whose executives were arrested on suspicion of taking millions of dollars in bribes.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Iraq's PM Nouri al-Maliki appealed to the country's warring political factions for unity after formally accepting a request by the president to form the next government, part of a deal to end an eight-month deadlock over who would lead the country the next four years.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Italian students occupied the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome's Colosseum to protest education cuts and university reforms being considered by parliament.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Macedonia police raided the building housing A1 television, a private channel often critical of PM Gruevski’s government.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.57)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP0jAsK9sog)
2010 Nov 25, In Mexico preliminary data was released by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography. It said Mexico had 112.3 million inhabitants as of July, 3.6 million more than experts had projected.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, A court in Nigeria charged an alleged member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three Nigerians over a shipment of mortars and rockets seized in the main port of Lagos last month.
(Reuters, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Nigeria's anti-corruption police raided the offices of US firm Halliburton and arrested 12 people in a bribery case involving former Halliburton unit KBR Inc. Houston-based engineering firm KBR pleaded guilty last year to US charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas project.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 25, In Pakistan a paramilitary soldier was killed and six others wounded, two of them critically, in a bomb attack on the outskirts of Hangu in the northwest. Pakistan said that most of the explosives used in bomb attacks on its territory were smuggled from Afghanistan but insisted it was limiting the cross-border movement of insurgents fighting US troops.
(AFP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, South Africa said it has launched an anti-corruption unit to investigate government officials misusing funds and receiving bribes.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, South Korea's defense minister resigned amid intense criticism two days after a North Korean artillery attack killed four people on a small island near the Koreas' disputed frontier.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, Zimbabwe's PM Morgan Tsvangirai filed court papers filed saying Pres. Mugabe violated the constitution with his unilateral appointment of 10 provincial governors last month. Tsvangirai said the power-sharing agreement requires the president to consult with the prime minister before making key appointments, and that Mugabe did not.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 26, US federal agents in a sting operation arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud (19), a Somali-born teenager, just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Argentina the newspaper Clarin published the comments of a woman who has accused her father of sexually abusing her for 30 years and having 10 children with her, including one who killed himself after learning that his grandfather was his father. Elvira Gomez (43) did not report the alleged abuse until her father, Armando Gomez (62), was recently arrested for robbery.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Brazil residents of Rio's northern slums braced for more violence as hundreds of reinforcements joined a widening crackdown on drug gangs that has killed at least 30 people in six days. Some 800 troops backed a police operation at the Alemao complex of shantytowns as drug gang members stood their ground.
(AFP, 11/26/10)(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 26, The Central African Republic government announced its forces had retaken Birao, captured by rebels in a deadly assault two days earlier, but the rebels said they were still in control.
(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Chile the lawyer for a group of men who accused Fernando Karadima, a prominent Chilean priest, of sexually abusing them as teenagers said his clients will not appeal a ruling in favor of the clergyman. Five men, now adults, had alleged that Karadima began abusing them about 20 years ago, when they were between 14 and 17 years old. In 2011 the Vatican said Karadima was guilty of abusing minors and must retire.
(AP, 11/26/10)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A2)
2010 Nov 26, Danish actor Palle Huld (98), who reportedly inspired a Belgian cartoonist to create the comic book reporter Tintin, died. He was a stage actor with Denmark's Royal Theater, and he appeared in 40 Danish films between 1933 and 2000. In 1928 Huld won a competition organized by Danish newspaper that wanted to send a teenager would-be-reporter around the globe. For 44 days the 15-year-old traveled to North America, Japan, Siberia and Germany, and was greeted by 20,000 people upon his return to Copenhagen. Herge, the pen name of Belgian author Georges Remi, heard of Huld's journey which reportedly inspired him to create Tintin, the globe-trotting reporter.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Nov 26, An Egyptian judicial source said courts have ordered the cancellation of Nov 28 parliamentary elections in 24 districts after orders to reinstate opposition and independent candidates were ignored. The Alexandria criminal court sentenced 11 Islamists to two years in prison for election campaigning for the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
(AFP, 11/26/10)(Reuters, 11/26/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Indonesia 5 endangered Sumatran elephants were found dead in Riau province on Sumatra island. Conservationists suspected that farmers poisoned the animals to stop them from damaging crops.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 26, The Japanese parliament passed an extra budget worth 58 billion dollars to cover a new stimulus package aimed at averting the threat of a "double-dip" recession.
(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Kenya’s Wildlife Service said its agents shot dead 2 suspected poachers shooting at a herd of elephants in a national park.
(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 26, Myanmar published laws, signed by junta chief Gen. Than Shwe, stipulating that parliamentarians will be allowed freedom of expression unless their speeches endanger national security, the unity of the country or violate the constitution. They also provide a two-year prison term for those who stage protests in the parliament compound or physically assault a lawmaker on its premises.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, The Dutch navy said it has captured 20 suspected pirates off the Somali coast in two operations in the last week and is holding them on a warship on suspicion of involvement in hijacking a South African yacht.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, A Nigerian court annulled the election of the governor of the southwestern state of Osun and installed his opposition rival, in the latest blow to the ruling party ahead of national elections next April. The court ruled that Osun state governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) had been wrongly elected in the 2007 polls and installed his rival Rauf Aregbesola of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
(Reuters, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Pakistan said security forces arrested two would-be suicide bombers in the capital Islamabad, adding that the thwarted attacks targeted parliament and a mosque in an upmarket neighborhood. Suspected US missiles fired by an unmanned plane hit a vehicle killing three alleged militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Portugal adopted a raft of debt-reducing austerity measures, which the government claimed would be enough to restore market confidence in its public finances without resorting to a bailout.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Russia said it will miss an April, 2012, deadline for destroying all of its chemical weapons, as officials inaugurated a major new plant to dispose of them. Pochep, the latest of six plants built in Russia in recent years, will process nearly 19 percent of Russia's stockpile, or 7,500 tons of nerve agent used in aircraft-delivered munitions. The US has acknowledged it will also miss the deadline.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said authorities have arrested nearly 150 al-Qaida suspects over the past eight months, foiling planned attacks on Saudi government officials, civilians and media personalities.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, Serbia sent a formal request for the extradition of Peter Egner (88), a naturalized American citizen who is suspected of serving in a Nazi unit that killed some 17,000 Jewish and other civilians here during World War II. Egner was born in Yugoslavia and emigrated to the United States in 1960, gaining American citizenship six years later.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, South African President Jacob Zuma arrived in Harare to try to smooth over disputes threatening Zimbabwe's troubled power-sharing government. Zuma said he had persuaded President Mugabe and PM Tsvangirai to start talking again to address the rifts in their power-sharing government.
(AFP, 11/26/10)(Reuters, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In South Africa a study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to Johannesburg, more than 37% of men said they had raped a woman. A quarter of the women interviewed said they'd been raped, but the study said only one in 25 rapes are reported to police.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In South Africa lightning and a storm killed seven people and injured 67 at a Christmas party at a nursery school in KwaZulu Natal.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 26, Spain’s PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said there was no chance Spain would seek a bailout.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Taiwan a gunman opened fire on a campaign rally on the eve of key local elections, killing one man and critically wounding the son of former Vice-President Lien Chan. A suspect was in custody and may belong to a gang.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 26, In Yemen a suicide car bomber struck Shiite mourners heading to a funeral to Saada province, killing at least two people.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 27, New York state police arrested Steven Pieper (21) just hours after searchers found the body of a missing woman, believed to be Jenni-Lyn Watson (20), a Mercyhurst College dance major.
(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A14)
2010 Nov 27, US film director Irvin Kershner (87) died in Los Angeles. His work included the direction of the Star Wars sequel "The Empire Strikes Back," the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again" and "Robocop 2." Other work included "A Fine Madness" (1966), "The Flim-Flam Man" (1967), "Loving" (1970), and "The Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978). The 1976 television movie "Raid on Entebbe" earned him an Emmy nomination for direction.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 27, In Afghanistan 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up at an Afghan police headquarters in eastern Paktika province, killing 13 police officers near the Pakistan border. A NATO service member also was killed in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition forces killed at least 15 insurgents during an overnight search for a senior Taliban leader in the Sherzad district of Nangarhar province.
(AP, 11/27/10)(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, Australia's Qantas Airways resumed flights of its Airbus A380 superjumbos, after a mid-flight engine failure grounded all six of the planes earlier this month.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, The British government said it is paying for more than 1,000 medical staff to work in Haiti as part of an aid package worth more than 5.6 million pounds to help combat a deadly cholera outbreak there.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In China an "extraordinary" Asian Games closed after 15 days of thrills and spills that saw China reinforce its sporting credentials as 45 countries and territories took part. China’s final gold tally reached 199 and its total medals to 416, both Asian Games records.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In France delegates at an Atlantic conservation conference in Paris took measures to protect sea turtles and several types of sharks. ICCAT members agreed to reduce the allowable Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna catch to 12,900 tons from 13,500 tons. The allowable western Atlantic catch was reduced to 1,750 tons from 1,800, a level that American and Canadian fisherman already had been unable to meet due to stock decline.
(AP, 11/27/10)(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A10)
2010 Nov 27, Guinea's government announced border closures with Sierra Leone by land, sea and air this evening stranding hundreds of people from Sierra Leone on Guinea's side.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, In Haiti at least one person was killed and several wounded when gunmen opened fire on a rally for presidential candidate Michel Martelly.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In eastern India suspected Maoist rebels blew up an ambulance with a land mine in Orissa state, killing at least three people inside.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, Iran's state radio reported that a man attempting to hijack a Syria-bound flight carrying a number of Iranian lawmakers was arrested on board. ISNA news agency reported that Iran has hanged in prison a man convicted of raping several women in Isfahan. The latest hanging brings the number of executions in Iran to at least 145 so far this year.
(AP, 11/27/10)(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Iraq arrested 12 militants suspected of helping take Christians hostage in a church siege that killed 44 worshippers and two priests on Oct 31. Among those apprehended were Huthaifa al-Batawi, the Baghdad chief of the Islamic State of Iraq, the Al-Qaeda front group which carried out the attack, while senior ISI leader Ammar al-Najadi was killed.
(AFP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, In northern Italy 3 hikers died after being caught in an avalanche.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo issued a decree calling for a nationwide curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Nov 27-Dec 1 to prevent any tampering with vote counting. Opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara said the move was illegal and unconstitutional, adding a curfew should only come after the election if there is trouble.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri expressed concerns for stability in the Middle East as he began a visit to Tehran to rally Iran's support for his efforts to keep Lebanon stable amid tensions over a U.N. probe into the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Mexico's federal police in Ciudad Juarez captured Arturo Gallegos Castrellon (32), a presumed leader of the Aztecas cross-border drug gang. He was suspected in dozens of killings, including the slaying of a US consulate worker. Two other members of the gang were arrested with Gallegos on charges of transporting drugs and weapons.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 27, Morocco’s foreign minister in a published interview rejected a probe into violent clashes between its security forces and residents of Western Sahara by the UN. A day earlier, Human Rights Watch said Moroccan security forces repeatedly beat and abused people they detained during disturbances in Western Sahara earlier this month.
(AFP, 11/27/10)(AFP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 27, Pakistan offered a reward for information about Taliban militants involved in planning or carrying out attacks, and promised to resettle informers in Pakistan or abroad. Hundreds of Sunni Muslims started a nearly 200-mile (320-km) high-risk trek across Pakistan in a protest against Taliban attacks on the country's religious sites.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Somalia's parliament passed the proposed Cabinet of new PM Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party won three out of five mayoral races, providing a boost for President Ma Ying-jeou's policy of improving relations with China ahead of the island's 2012 presidential poll.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 27, Venezuelan President Chavez promoted Gen. Henry Rangel Silva to general-in-chief. Silva had sparked controversy by suggesting the military would not accept an electoral return to power by government opponents.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000 classified US State Department documents were released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel. Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. One cable revealed that the US kept nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.35)
2010 Nov 28, In Oregon an Islamic center in Corvallis was firebombed, 2 days after Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested in a sting operation for trying to blow up a van full of explosives in Portland. In August, 2011, federal officials arrested Cody Crawford (24) for firebombing the mosque.
(SFC, 11/29/10, p.A7)(SFC, 8/26/11, p.A5)
2010 Nov 28, In Cleveland, Texas, a girl (11) was gang raped in an abandoned trailer home. Authorities were notified of the alleged rape after a student from Cleveland ISD found a video of the assault. Four assaults on the young girl had begun in September. By March 24, 2011, 19 young men and teenage boys were charged with participating in the rape. On Aug 30, 2012, Eric McGowen, who fled free on bail, was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/9/11, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/4cbmd2c)(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A5)(SFC, 8/31/12, p.A5)
2010 Nov 28, In Afghanistan gunmen firing on a car killed Abdullah Ahmadzai, a local government official, and two of his relatives in Logar province. Coalition forces launched an airstrike in Nad Ali district in Helmand province, killing a Taliban leader who planned and coordinated roadside bombs against Afghan and NATO forces.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Brazil Rio police, backed by helicopters and armored vehicles, invaded the Alemao slum complex, long held by traffickers, quickly taking over the key drug gang stronghold in a historic victory for the city hosting the 2016 Olympics.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, BP said it has agreed to sell its 60 percent stake in Pan American Energy to Argentina-based oil and gas firm Bridas Corporation, as part of asset sales to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Canadian comic actor Leslie Nielsen (84) died in Florida of complications from pneumonia. He was a star in a string of madcap spoof movies including "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun."
(Reuters, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, China called for emergency talks on resolving a crisis on the Korean peninsula, and Seoul and Tokyo said they would study the proposal, as the US and South Korean militaries started a massive drill.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Egypt held elections for a new, 508-seat parliament. The election was marred by scattered violence, reports of vote buying and the ejection of many independent monitors from polling stations.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, The EU's finance ministers agreed in an emergency meeting in Brussels to give Ireland a euro67.5 billion bailout to help it survive its massive banking crisis, and sketched out new rules for future emergencies to restore faith in the euro currency.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Guatemala police found the body of Mercedes Vasquez (27), a professional football player, chopped up and left in five plastic bags in a rural area. A message said the player was killed for "messing with other women." He had been kidnapped a day earlier.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Guatemala a livestock truck packed with workers on their way to a coffee plantation veered off a winding road and crashed, killing 19 of the passengers and injuring 44. Authorities smelled alcohol on the breath of the truck driver after the crash.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, Haiti held elections. 96 contenders competed for 11 Senate seats and more than 800 sought to fill the 99-seat lower house. Within hours, ballot boxes were ripped to pieces, protesters were on the streets and nearly every presidential hopeful was united against the government. 12 of the 19 presidential candidates appeared together at a news conference to accuse Pres. Rene Preval of stealing the election and installing his chosen candidate, Jude Celestin. Haitian radio reported one man was shot to death at a polling place in rural Artibonite. Electoral officials said another was killed in southern Haiti. On Dec 7 officials announced that government protege Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat would advance to a runoff in presidential elections.
(AP, 11/28/10)(AP, 11/29/10)(SFC, 11/29/10, p.A3)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Nov 28, Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad and Turkmen Pres. Berdymukhamedov inaugurated the last section of the Sarakhs-Tehran pipeline to export Turkmen gas to northeast Iran.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Iraq US troops, who thought they were under attack, killed an Iraqi airport employee as he drove near a military convoy on his way to work. In the village of al-Meshahda gunmen wearing Iraqi security forces uniforms invaded the home of Sunni Sheik Abdul Kerim Talab Mutlak al-Halbussi, a leader of the local Sahwa, in a pre-dawn raid and shot him and his son (15). In Baghdad a roadside bomb in a western neighborhood killed a passer-by and wounded 3 during rush hour at the start of the local work week.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Israel's Cabinet voted to erect a massive detention facility to hold thousands of Africans who have slipped illegally through the porous southern border with Egypt, heating up a debate over how to handle their mounting numbers.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Ivory Coast held its runoff presidential election set to reunite the country eight years after a civil war divided it in two. 5 months of violence followed leaving at least 3,000 dead.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 4/13/13, p.51)
2010 Nov 28, In Japan the governor of Okinawa island was reelected and immediately called for the removal of a controversial US military base which has strained ties between Tokyo and Washington.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Kenya’s PM Raila Odinga said homosexuals who are found in the midst of sex acts will be arrested. Odinga's spokesman said in a statement later that night that the prime minister was quoted out of context.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, African foreign ministers, at a meeting on the eve of a summit on climate change in Libya, rejected the idea of a joint declaration, which was to have been signed at the conclusion of a two-day Africa-EU summit. The EU had hoped to deliver a joint statement at the gathering of 80 nations from the two continents to deliver "a strong symbol" as the Cancun conference on climate change opens in Mexico.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, Nuri al-Mismari, a top aide of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was arrested in Paris after a request from Tripoli, which said he was suspected of embezzlement. France gave Libya 30 days to submit evidence backing its accusations. Supporters of al-Mismari later said he was a victim of a power struggle inside the ruling elite.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Nov 28, Voters in Moldova, Europe's poorest nation, tried to break a political deadlock that has kept it without a functioning government for more than a year. The governing pro-Europe alliance led the opposition Communists in early election results, but it was not clear if the coalition would win enough legislative seats to end the country's year-long political deadlock.
(AP, 11/28/10)(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 28, Hundreds of thousands of Moroccans demonstrated against a Spanish political party's criticism of their country's raid on a protest camp in Western Sahara.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In New Zealand a 4th explosion in 9 days ripped through the mine where 29 miners perished. Officials said the coal was on fire, a development that could significantly delay recovery of the bodies. Efforts to retrieve the miners were abandoned on Jan 13.
(AP, 11/28/10)(AP, 1/13/11)
2010 Nov 28, In Pakistan an American drone fired one of its missiles but missed a speeding vehicle. Its occupants quickly bailed out before a 2nd missile hit and destroyed the vehicle.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, In Pakistan a cargo plane carrying 8 people crashed in a residential area of Karachi setting buildings on fire killing all 8 crew and at least 3 people on the ground.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Spain's Socialist government, battered by fears of an Irish-style rescue of its troubled economy, braced for a new blow as voters went to the polls in regional elections in Catalonia. The pro-business Convergence and Union (CIU) nationalists routed the ruling Socialists. The CIU won 62 of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament.
(AFP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.65)
2010 Nov 28, Swiss voters approved a plan to automatically deport foreigners found guilty of committing serious crimes or benefit fraud. Swiss national broadcaster SF1 says 52.9% of voters backed the proposal put forward by the nationalist Swiss People's Party, or SVP. Anti-racism groups bemoaned that the SVP's posters showing white sheep kicking black sheep off a Swiss flag played on stereotypical images of foreigners as criminals.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 29, President Barack Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for federal employees, a move White House officials say is the first of many difficult decisions that must be made to reduce the nation's mounting deficit.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, David Schmauder (48), a former Denver area postal worker, was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison for stealing over 11,000 packages and then selling their contents.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A6)
2010 Nov 29, In Virginia Jama Idle Ibrahim, a Somali citizen, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in an attack on a US Navy ship on April 10.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 29, In Wisconsin sophomore Samuel Hengel (15) took 23 of his classmates and a teacher hostage in a classroom at the Marinette High School, shooting himself as police broke in. No one else was injured. Hengel died the next day.
(Reuters, 11/30/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A13)
2010 Nov 29, Managed care consortium Kaiser Permanente of Oakland, Ca., announced $10.5 million in donations including $7.5 million over 3 years for Oakland school programs.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.C1)
2010 Nov 29, Wal-Mart said it will pay $2.3 billion for a 51% stake in Massmart, giving the world's largest retailer a substantial presence in South Africa and paving the way for further expansion across the continent.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Richard Goldman (b.1920), San Francisco philanthropist and founder of the Goldman Environmental Prize (1989), died.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A1)
2010 Nov 29, The dismembered body of Herbert White (49) was found by a maid in a backpack in a Los Angeles hotel room. Authorities linked the $40-a-night hotel room to Edward Garcia Jr. (36) and his wife, Melissa Hope Garcia (25). The Pennsylvania couple were arrested on Dec 9.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/27gm7lw)
2010 Nov 29, Afghanistan said its relations with the United States would not be affected by leaked cables portraying President Hamid Karzai as weak and paranoid, and his brother as a corrupt drugs baron. 6 NATO troops were shot dead by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform during a training exercise in Nangarhar province. The shooter was killed. 9 Afghan private security guards from a construction company were kidnapped in Kabul province. Coalition forces killed Haji Ibrahim, a former chief of Gereshk district, Helmand province, and arrested six members of his family.
(AFP, 11/29/10)(Reuters, 11/29/10)(AFP, 12/1/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Nov 29, The British government said it has issued an order to control the export of a sedative used to execute death-row prisoners in the US. Exporters will now be required to prove drugs will be used for legitimate medical reasons, not execution.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, British pay-TV giant BSkyB and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp. said they will launch a free-to-air Arabic language news channel under a joint venture.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In eastern China a man detonated explosives near the president of Tianjin Normal University, killing himself and possibly injuring the president in an apparent suicide bombing.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Egypt demonstrations and riots swept across the country protesting alleged fraud by the ruling party in parliamentary elections. The opposition said its candidates had been heavily defeated. Rights groups estimated turnout for the elections was only 10 to 15 percent.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, The French daily Liberation reported that Pierre Le Guennec (71), a retired French electrician, and his wife have come forward with 271 undocumented, never-before-seen works by Pablo Picasso estimated to be worth at least $79.35 million. Police on Oct. 5 raided the couple's home, questioned them and hauled off the works, which are now held by France's official agency in charge of battling the illegal traffic of cultural items.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, International election monitors declared Haiti's vital post-quake elections valid, while two leading presidential candidates rowed back on allegations the polls had been rigged.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad admitted that "several" uranium enrichment centrifuges were damaged by "software installed in electronic equipment," amid speculation Iran's nuclear activities had come under cyberattack.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Iran assailants on motorcycles attached magnetized bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists as they were driving to work in Tehran, killing Majid Shahriari and wounding Fereidoun Abbasi. Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, An Iraqi court convicted Tariq Aziz (74), Saddam Hussein's longtime foreign minister, of terrorizing Shiite Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war, sentencing him to 10 years in prison. He already faced an execution sentence from another case. The Iraqi military said its forces have thwarted an attempt by a suicide bomber to blow up a vehicle by the French embassy using intelligence gathered after a bloodbath at a Baghdad cathedral.
(AP, 11/29/10)(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, Israel gave preliminary approval for 130 new apartments in disputed east Jerusalem, the area the Palestinians want as the capital of their hoped-for state.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Indian Kashmir 3 suspected militants and a policeman were killed in a gunbattle in a busy market in Srinagar, as panicked locals ran for cover. Police said one of the slain militants was identified as Abdul Rehman, alias Naveed of Lashkar, a Pakistani national active in the area for the last four years.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In southern Kyrgyzstan at least four Islamic militants were killed in a clash with security forces.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Lithuania the skeletons of 18 of Napoleon’s soldiers were laid to rest, 200 years following the French invasion of Russia. Their remains were found last year by road builders outside Vilnius. The new graves were added to some 2,000 others found during excavations in 2002.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 29, Mexican federal police arrested Jose Alfredo Landa Torres (37), a leader of the La Familia operations in Morelia, Michoacan state. La Familia recently made an unusual offer to disband if the government proves it can protect citizens from other criminals in Michoacan. Mexican soldiers found 18 bodies buried on a ranch near the Texas border. Gunmen killed Hermila Garcia (36), a female police chief of the town of Meoqui in Chihuahua state.
(AP, 11/30/10)(Reuters, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Mexico a 2-week UN conference opened on global warming. Some 15,000 negotiators, environmental activists, businessmen and journalists convened at Cancun to overcome the disconnect between rich and poor nations on fighting global warming.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Nigerian union leaders ordered their tanker drivers to halt the supply of petrol nationwide for 7 days in protest at alleged maltreatment and killing of their members by the military. The strike was suspended the next day after a group of soldiers behind the killing of one of their colleagues were handed over to police.
(AFP, 11/30/10)(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, Pakistan's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.5% to 14%, warning for the second time in two months that rising inflation was impacting the economy.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, A Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship, Karam 1, sank after colliding with the Dutch tanker Alessandro DP, 10 miles (16 km) off Cape Emine in the Black Sea. 5 sailors were rescued and 5 were missing.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, Investors fled Spanish debt, pushing 10-year bond rates to an eight-year high, as Ireland's 85-billion-euro rescue failed to stop fears the crisis may spread.
(AFP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Turkey complied with a European Court of Human Rights ruling and returned a 19th-century orphanage to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, the center of Orthodox Christianity around the world. Turkey took control of the building in 1997, many years after it was abandoned, on the grounds that it belonged to another foundation and had fallen into disuse. The Patriarchate said the government had refused to issue necessary permits for the maintenance and repair of the structure, one of the largest wooden buildings in the world.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, Uganda launched a program to circumcise over a million men every year in an effort to stem AIDS infections.
(SFC, 11/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 29, The United Nations released a report saying armed groups in volatile eastern Congo, including the army, have bypassed international efforts at reform and have instead formed criminal networks to exploit the nation's mineral wealth.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, The UN launched an appeal for $252 million (193 million euros) in international aid to respond to the urgent needs of some 32 million West Africans in 2011.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touched down in Astana, Kazakhstan, to attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit on a trip through Central Asia that will also see her visit Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as Bahrain.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Investors sold off government bonds from Spain, Portugal and Italy amid worries that Europe's debt crisis has not been contained by Ireland's bailout but will force more expensive rescue efforts.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, The 2010 hurricane season came to an end. 10 storms were named with 12 hurricanes, none of which touched the US coastline.
(SFC, 11/29/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 30, Brazil’s government said troops would remain in the Complexo de Alemao slum, a sanctuary for many drug traffickers, for at least 6 months to maintain order. The recent operation to pacify the slum left at least 37 people dead.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A2)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.49)
2010 Nov 30, British students held a third day of protests over plans to triple university tuition fees, with police urging them to avoid the violence that marked earlier demonstrations. Police arrested 153 people as over 1,000 students took to the streets of London.
(AFP, 11/30/10)(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 30, Chad's army said it has entered the northwest part of neighboring Central African Republic and pushed out a group of rebels that had attempted to take the town of Birao.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Nov 30, The EU announced that Iran has agreed to discuss its nuclear program at a meeting next week in Geneva.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Egypt’s official election results were released. The ruling National Democratic Party wiped out its Islamist opponents from parliament in the first round of a disputed election. The leading opposition group dismissed the results of parliamentary elections as "invalid," but nevertheless said its candidates would participate in weekend runoffs.
(AP, 11/30/10)(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, An Israeli court convicted Elior Chen, a self-proclaimed rabbi, of severely abusing eight young children and instructing his followers to do the same. He was found guilty of hitting the children with a hammer, binding their limbs and burning body parts, among other acts. Chen was arrested in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2008 after fleeing Israel. He was extradited to Israel last year. On Feb 28, 2011, an Israeli court sentenced Chen to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 11/30/10)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 Nov 30, In Italy police vans and lines of officers in riot gear blocked access to much of Rome's historic center to keep thousands of student protesters from reaching Parliament. Similar protests snarled other cities, including Milan, Turin, Naples, Venice, Palermo and Bari. In Genoa, students protested under the slogan "they block our future, we block the cities."
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Ivory Coast opposition leaders accused Pres. Laurent Gbagbo of trying to steal the presidential election.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 30, In Kyrgyzstan Social Democrat Party leader Almazbek Atambyev said that the leaders of two other parties have agreed on posts they would take in the government ending weeks of political uncertainty. Atambyev says he is set to become prime minister.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Mexico City lawmakers approved legislation to allow women in the capital district to be surrogate mothers.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, A Mexican human rights group and Disability Rights Int’l. released a report on atrocious and abusive conditions in Mexican institutions for the mentally and physically disabled.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A3)
2010 Nov 30, In Morocco a bus carrying workers plunged off a road into a ravine during heavy rain, killing at least 20 passengers and injuring three others.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, Pakistani police arrested four Taliban militants who were planning "terror attacks" in the prosperous financial hub Karachi. Three suicide jackets, rifles, pistols and explosives were recovered in the raid. A suicide bomber blew himself up close to a police van in the northwest, killing six people and wounding 17 others.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov, Ronald L. Brekke of California was arrested for helping nearly 1,000 people falsely claim millions of dollars in tax refunds. He had earned over $400,000 since February 2009. Brekke had told his victims the US Treasury would pay out tax refunds equal to their personal debt, a deception known as "1099 OID" fraud, after the form used to claim the refund. The scam started to fall apart after two co-conspirators, both Canadians, tried to cash refund checks worth more than $350,000 each at a bank in Bellingham, Wash. In 2012 Brekke was convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud.
(AP, 3/18/12)
2010 Nov, Sarah Bara was beaten to death with sticks on Groote Eylandt off the northern Australian coast. In 2011 Glenys Wurrawilya, Susie Wurrawilya, Paul Wurramara and Roderick Mamarika received sentences ranging from five years to seven-and-a-half years in jail. The four were accused of killing Ms Bara during a fire circle ceremony in which they attempted to cleanse her of the devil.
(AP, 12/23/11)(http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=189133)
2010 Nov, In China Tan Yong attacked his wife Li Yan (39) with an air gun, but she grabbed it from him and used the butt of the weapon to kill him. He had previously hurt three other wives. Yan was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2015 the Ziyang Intermediate People's Court re-sentenced her to death with a two-year reprieve, meaning the penalty is likely to be commuted to life in prison.
(AFP, 4/24/15)
2010 Nov, Italy and Montenegro agreed to build an undersea cable to let Montenegro export electricity.
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.100)
2010 Nov, A Eurobarometer survey showed that faith in the courts was the lowest in Lithuania among 27 European Union member states.
(AP, 6/11/12)
2010 Nov, Jun Young-su, a Korean-American businessman from Orange County, Ca., was arrested in North Korea in connection with illegal religious activities.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.A2)
2010 Dec 1, President Barack Obama reversed a March decision to expand offshore oil exploration to the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico, but said deepwater drilling could continue in the part of the Gulf hit by the BP disaster.
(AFP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, It was reported that the Pentagon has rolled out prototypes of a programmable "smart" grenade launcher, a shoulder-fired weapon that uses microchipped ammunition to target and kill the enemy, even when the enemy is hidden behind walls or other cover.
(AFP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Extended unemployment benefits for nearly 2 million Americans began to run out, cutting off a steady stream of income and guaranteeing a dismal holiday season for people already struggling with bills they cannot pay.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Rohnert Park, Ca., Calli Murray (2) was killed and her mother injured as a Sonoma State Univ. student ran into them while texting on her phone. In 2011 Kaitlyn Dunaway (19) pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 5 days in jail and nearly 4 months of home detention.
(SFC, 11/17/11, p.C3)
2010 Dec 1, In San Francisco Dr. Dean Edell (69), syndicated radio medical show host, announced his retirement on KGO-AM, where he began in 1979.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.C7)
2010 Dec 1, Harold Martin Smith (43), a man wanted in the Nov 16 slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen (64), killed himself in the lobby of a dreary Los Angeles hotel as police closed in to question him.
(AP, 12/2/10)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Dec 1, A Delaware jury awarded $30 million in damages to John Vai, who claimed he was sexually abused by former priest Francis DeLuca (80) in the 1960s. DeLuca was defrocked in 2008 after serving a short prison sentence for repeatedly molesting his grandnephew (18). The Wilmington diocese, facing more than 100 priest-abuse lawsuits, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/2cqrfcl)
2010 Dec 1, The Illinois Legislature voted to legalize civil unions.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 1, The Journal Nature published a research study that estimated the universe contains some 300 sextillion stars, 3 times more than previously calculated.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A16)
2010 Dec 1, In Afghanistan gunmen kidnapped 16 deminers but released nine of them hours later before taking the rest to an unknown location. A coalition service member was killed in a roadside explosion in the south. The remaining 7 deminers were freed in Pakistan on Dec 3.
(AFP, 12/1/10)(AP, 12/2/10)(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 1, Belarus announced that it will give up its stockpile of material used to make nuclear weapons by 2012. The arrangement was announced on the sidelines of an international security meeting in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Belarussian counterpart, Sergei Martynov.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Central African Republic President Francois Bozize said Jean-Bedel Bokassa (d.1996), the former self-styled "emperor" who was overthrown in 1979, is "rehabilitated in all his rights" in a decree published to coincide with the country's 50th anniversary celebrations.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Egypt a top official from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood said the group is pulling out of parliamentary elections, citing widespread fraud.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, A Guatemalan ex-congressman, Manuel Castillo, was sentenced to 203 years in prison after being found guilty of ordering the assassination of three Salvadoran representatives to the Central American Parliament and their driver in 2007. Two former police officers and four others were also sentenced to between 99 and 210 years.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 1, In India Azim Premji (b.1945), chairman of Wipro Ltd., announced a nearly $2 billion donation to fund education programs for the poor.
(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azim_Premji)
2010 Dec 1, Human Rights Watch urged Indonesia to overturn the Shariah laws in Aceh province, in effect since 2001, due to alleged widespread rights abuses.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A11)
2010 Dec 1, In Iran for the second time in a month, heavy air pollution in the smog-filled capital of Tehran, home to over 12 million people, has forced authorities to close government offices and schools and declare a two-day public holiday because of the health dangers of being outdoors.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Iran hanged Shahla Jahed (40), a former soccer player's mistress. She was convicted in 2002 of murdering her love rival in a case that captivated the Iranian public for several years.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Kazakhstan began hosting a 2-day summit of the OSCE, the first in 11 years, seeking to revamp the organisation's ability to react to security crises.
(AFP, 12/1/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.54)
2010 Dec 1, Kuwait began hosting a two-day conference to try to attract aid and investment to resource-rich but neglected east Sudan.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, In southern Nigeria a gun battle between police and armed robbers left seven people dead, including a policeman and three passersby.
(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 1, In Peru a tourist bus collided head-on with a truck loaded with cement, killing 4 travelers from Belgium and one from the Netherlands as well as both drivers in the southern Chacachaca area. 28 people were injured.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In the Philippines suspected communist guerrillas seized a passenger bus then opened fire on pursuing government forces in a running gunbattle that killed at least four people in San Francisco town, Quezon province.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Portugal suffered another blow when its borrowing costs rose sharply in a government Treasury bill auction, but officials insisted the debt-ridden country could survive without an international bailout.
(Reuters, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin warned that his country will find it necessary to build up its nuclear forces, if the United State's doesn't ratify a new arms reduction treaty.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, South African white farmer Attie Potgieter (40), his wife Wilna (36) and their 3-year-old daughter were murdered on their farm in Lindley. 6 men were later charged with the murders. Attie was slashed over 150 times.
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.48)(http://tinyurl.com/3ru3qom)
2010 Dec 1, On World AIDS Day South Africa counted the world’s largest HIV-positive population with an estimated 5.7 million people infected, over 11% of its 50 million people.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A9)
2010 Dec 1, Spain said it will sell off a third of its national lottery business, partially privatize airports and cut both a key jobless benefit and taxes for small companies in an unexpected move to soothe market fears about debt.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, Spain’s Interior Ministry said police over the last 24 hours have arrested seven people in Spain and three in Thailand in an international operation against a group suspected of forging passports for an al-Qaida-linked Islamic terrorist group.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, In southern Sudan northern-backed militias ambushed its army killing 10 soldiers and two civilians in the latest hike in north-south tensions ahead of a January 9 vote on southern independence.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 1, Turkey’s PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a US diplomat who reported claims in a State Department memo that he has Swiss bank accounts should be punished for making a false allegation. A classified cable, released this week by WikiLeaks and dated Dec. 30, 2004, from then-U.S. Ambassador Eric Edelman said: "We have heard from two contacts that Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks; his explanations that his wealth comes from the wedding presents guests gave his son and that a Turkish businessman is paying the educational expenses of all four Erdogan children in the U.S. purely altruistically are lame."
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, The UN said it is seeking $530 million for aid projects in Somalia next year, and it called the country's 20 years of strife a catastrophe that is "as urgent as ever."
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, The UN named 3 Rwandan rebel leaders and a Congolese military officer, suspected of recruiting child soldiers and other abuses, on its worldwide travel ban and assets freeze aimed at stemming widespread violence in Congo.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, A US government report said nearly 50,000 prison inmates claimed over $130 million in tax refunds this year without providing and wage information to the IRS.
(SFC, 12/2/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 2, NYC Rep. Charles Rangel (80) was censured by the US House of Representatives for financial misdeeds.
(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 2, PepsiCo agreed to buy one of Russia's top drinks companies in a deal that would make the US food giant a dominant force in the Russian market and extend its reach deep into former Soviet lands. Pepsi announced that it will buy 66% Wimm-Bill-Dann for $3.8 billion and launch a tender offer for the rest of the company.
(AFP, 12/2/10)(Econ, 12/11/10, p.75)
2010 Dec 2, NASA researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon (33) reported that a strange bacterium, Halomonadaceae, found in California's Mono Lake, thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it. She said the bacterium does not merely eat arsenic, but incorporates the toxic element directly into its DNA. Her finding stirred much controversy.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(SFC, 5/28/11, p.C1)
2010 Dec 2, In Afghanistan 2 coalition service members were killed by bombs and insurgent fighting in the south and east. Afghan and coalition forces detained numerous suspected insurgents during two security operations in the south and east.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Australia's PM Julia Gillard slammed WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents as "illegal," in the country's strongest condemnation yet of the website's ongoing release of sensitive data.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Australian contractor Leighton Holdings said it had won a 22-year coal mining contract with India's state-owned NTPC power company worth 5.5 billion dollars (5.3 billion US).
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Heavy snow caused travel chaos across much of northern Europe, keeping London's Gatwick airport closed for a second day and disrupting road and rail travel in France, Germany and Switzerland. Freezing temperatures and often blinding snowfall killed 12 people, 10 in Poland and 2 in Germany. Poland had already reported 8 dead due to the cold. Some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans. Authorities declared a state of emergency in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, A CAR spokesman said 71 people, including 65 rebels, were killed last week in clashes between insurgents and government troops in northeastern Central African Republic.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Dominican Rep. authorities detained 18 military officials and two US pilots, Kevin Kuranz (31) and Christopher Smith (28), after stopping a cocaine-laden airplane from taking off. The plane was owned by Wisconsin-based Air Cargo Carriers LLC. The pilots were freed on bail on Dec 20 pending further investigation.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 2, Egypt's second biggest opposition bloc said it would refuse to take up the two seats it won in a parliamentary election it said was faked, in addition to refusing to take part in a second round.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Greece police clashed with demonstrating students outside the parliament in the latest protest against austerity measures.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Guinea's Supreme Court validated Alpha Conde's victory in a presidential race considered the country's first democratic contest, but which was tainted by the ethnic divide it exposed.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 2, Iraqi officials said security forces have arrested 39 suspected Al-Qaeda members in the mostly Sunni western province of Anbar. 2 insurgents were killed and 2 others wounded in an army raid in the northern province of Salaheddin. One of those wounded was a Moroccan fighter. Violence in Baghdad and the restive northern city of Mosul left three dead, including an 18-year-old girl, and nine wounded.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In northern Israel at least 41 people were killed in a massive forest fire. At least 37 of the dead were prison guards on board a bus, who had been trying to evacuate prisoners from a facility in the forest.
(AP, 12/2/10)(AFP, 12/3/10)(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 2, Retired Naples Cardinal Michele Giordano (80), the highest ranking church official to ever stand trial in Italy, died. The cardinal was acquitted in 2000 of charges that he supplied about $800,000 (€600,000) to finance a loan-shark ring run linked to his family. He was also accused of misappropriating another $500,000 in church funds. He had always proclaimed his innocence.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Ivory Coast military policemen killed four people at an office of the opposition presidential candidate, as the country tensely waited for the release of election results that were being blocked by the president's followers. Election commission chief Youssouf Bakayoko announced that opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara had won with 54.1% of the vote, compared to 45.9% for Pres. Gbagbo. Shortly thereafter, two decrees read on state TV announced that the country's air, land and maritime borders had been closed and that all foreign radio and TV broadcasts were banned indefinitely.
(AP, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Kuwait City a two-day conference on east Sudan ended. Donors and investors pledged 3.55 billion dollars for the development of resource-rich but neglected area.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Mexico’s army detained a 14-year-old suspected of working as a killer for a drug cartel. The alleged young assassin, nicknamed "El Ponchis," was captured at the airport in Cuernavaca with his 19-year-old sister as they were trying to catch a flight to Tijuana. The siblings' mother was arrested in her San Diego apartment on Dec 6 and charged on Dec 8 with entering the US illegally. On Dec 9 US officials said the boy, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, was born in San Diego. On Feb 9, 2011, Jimenez was charged with the homicides and other crimes, including arms possession and transporting cocaine. On July 26, 2011, Jimenez was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/9/10)(AP, 2/10/11)(AP, 7/26/11)
2010 Dec 2, Nigeria's anti-corruption police said they planned to file charges against former Vice President Dick Cheney in a $180 million bribery case involving a former unit of oil services firm Halliburton.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, ExxonMobil said management staff in Nigeria have begun an indefinite strike after dozens of local employees were sacked, but that oil production has not been affected. A military taskforce (JTF) comprising the army, navy and air force began raiding three camps which are believed to belong to a notorious gang leader in Delta state. The next day local residents said several civilians were killed and scores displaced during the raids against armed gangs in the Niger Delta. At least 9 people were reported killed and houses were found burned after the military raids. Activists and witnesses said as many as 150 people were killed around the village of Ayakoromo.
(AFP, 12/2/10)(Reuters, 12/3/10)(AFP, 12/4/10)(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 2, Qatar was selected as host of the 2022 World Cup, beating out a bid by the United States to bring soccer's showcase back to America for the first time since 1994.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup following a vote by FIFA's executive committee members.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Somalia clashes between Islamic fighters and government soldiers killed at least five people in Mogadishu. Fighting between two Islamist groups in the southern town of Burhakaba entered a second day and left 9 dead and 15 wounded.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Spanish police and media said hooded thieves have stolen a van containing some 20 pieces of art reportedly including works by Picasso, Colombian artist Fernando Botero and Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida. The art was valued at least €5 million ($6.6 million).
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, In Sudan a protest outside a Western Darfur university against peace mediators ended violently when police fired gunshots to disperse the crowd, leaving two civilians dead.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was moved from a jail to a nearby penitentiary to formally begin serving a 19-year sentence, after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction on wide-ranging graft charges.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, The UN appealed for $415 million (€315 million) to feed almost two million Zimbabweans facing near immediate malnutrition.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, Vanuatu PM Edward Natapei was replaced by deputy premier Sato Kilman following a vote of no confidence in the nation’s Parliament.
(SFC, 12/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 3, President Barack Obama slipped unannounced into Afghanistan, one year after widening an ever deadlier war and just days before a pivotal review about the 9-year-plus conflict. Due to weather Obama planned a secure video conference with Pres. Karzai from Bagram Air Field.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, The White House announced that Pres. Barack Obama has granted the first pardons of his presidency, to 9 people convicted of crimes including possessing drugs, counterfeiting and even mutilating coins.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, A US federal court search warrant said Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer Minkyu Martin (22) was under investigation for passing classified information to an FBI agent he thought was a foreign intelligence agent.
(http://cicentre.net/wordpress/index.php/tag/bryan-minkyu-martin/)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 3, US and South Korean representatives broke through a stalemate on issues related to the automobile industry, clearing the way for closer economic ties with fast-expanding South Korea. President Barack Obama hailed the agreement as a "landmark trade deal" that would support at least 70,000 US jobs.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, It was reported that California is the only state in the nation to provide vehicles to its rank-and-file lawmakers for unlimited use. The state faced a $6 billion deficit and lawmakers already have cut programs such as adult dental care and health care programs for children from low-income families.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, The US Air Force's secrecy-shrouded X-37B unmanned spaceplane returned to Earth after more than seven months in orbit on a classified mission.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Online payment service provider PayPal said in a company blog it has cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Wikileaks struggled to stay online as corporations and governments moved to cut its access to the Internet, a potentially crippling blow for an organization dedicated to releasing secret information via the web.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, US diplomatic cables, revealed today by WikiLeaks, portrayed Afghanistan as rife with graft to the highest levels of government, with tens of millions of dollars flowing out of the country and a cash transfer network that facilitates bribes for corrupt Afghan officials, drug traffickers and insurgents.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Argentina leaders of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world held their annual goal-setting summit amid tensions raised by the publication of US diplomatic cables that in some cases plant doubts about the unity and friendship they publicly profess.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining firm, announced a joint venture with Chinalco, to hunt for minerals in China.
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.130)
2010 Dec 3, In Vienna, Austria, the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved an IAEA-run repository for nuclear fuel, in a move meant to limit proliferation by making domestic uranium enrichment programs superfluous.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Authorities in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro declared a state of emergency and evacuated hundreds of people after heavy rainfall caused severe flooding along the Drina River, the worst in 104 years.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in a public letter addressed to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. This was made public by Brazil's foreign ministry.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Negotiators for the US and Brazil initialed a text in Rio de Janeiro for a new air transport agreement. Once formally approved, the pact will establish an Open Skies air transportation relationship between the two countries that will expand services and could bring down prices.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 3, Former British Labor MP David Chaytor (61) pleaded guilty to fraud charges, becoming the first politician to be convicted over his expenses claims.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, British forecasters issued warnings of widespread ice and hazardous conditions lasting well into the weekend as the country's cold snap tightened its grip and three more deaths were reported.
(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, A land dispute on Easter Island turned violent when riot police evicting islanders from their ancestral home were surrounded by rock-throwing protesters. About two dozen people were injured in a 7-hours-long confrontation. The official native name of Easter Island, known for its stunning gigantic stone heads known as Moais, is Rapa Nui, and that's what many natives call themselves, refusing to identify with Chile, which annexed the island in 1888.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Chinese police detained the wife of Hada, the co-founder of a Mongolian separatist movement, and raided the family bookstore just days before the activist is to be released from 15 years in prison.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, A Chinese passenger train set a new record for speed, hitting 302 miles per hour (486 km per hour) during a test run.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, A Chinese cargo ship with 24 Chinese passengers and crew members sank off the coast of the Philippines. At least 14 crewmen were rescued and 10 were missing.
(www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B30U120101204)(SFC, 12/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 3, The death toll in Haiti’s cholera epidemic reached nearly 1,900 people since erupting less than two months ago. The Health Ministry said there have been more than 80,000 cases since it was first detected in late October. The Pan-American Health Organization projected it could sicken 400,000 people within a year.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Iraq 24 people, including 22 Iranian pilgrims visiting Shiite holy sites, died when two buses collided head-on south of Baghdad. A sniper shot and killed a policeman manning a checkpoint in Baghdad. Gunmen with silencers opened fire from a speeding car on a police colonel and wounded him.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Ivory Coast new figures put up by a Gbagbo loyalist said that the incumbent president had in fact been re-elected. They put Gbagbo on top with more than 51% of the vote by chucking out some 500,000 ballots from Ouattara strongholds.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Kenya two attacks in Nairobi killed three police officers. Police asked the US FBI for help and hoped that advanced forensics would determine whether the attacks were linked and if they were carried out by terrorists.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Lebanon the militant Hezbollah group said it discovered what it said was an Israeli device on Hezbollah's private telecommunications network in the southern village of Majdel Silim. The device was apparently detonated remotely by the Israelis.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, Lithuania said a South Korean bidder, Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), had pulled out of a four-nation nuclear power plant project and another was rejected. Lithuania itself has been aiming to have a stake of around one-third, but there has been disagreement with Estonia, Latvia and Poland about their relative holdings and power share-out.
(AFP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Mexican Judge Fernando Cordova del Valle ruled that prosecutors failed to bring enough evidence against Sandra Avila Beltran, described by US and Mexican officials as a major decision-maker for the Sinaloa gang, Mexico's most powerful cartel. The "Queen of the Pacific" had been charged with organized crime, conspiracy to traffic drugs and money laundering. Mexican police arrested Jacobo Tagle Dobin (31), a suspect in the 2005 kidnapping and presumed killing of Hugo Alberto Wallace (36), a Mexican businessman, whose crusading mother led a high-profile campaign that helped crack open the case. In January, 2011, Beltran was sentenced to time already served on a weapons charge.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 2/6/11)
2010 Dec 3, The Netherlands' justice minister and five southern Dutch cities said they will implement new restrictions on marijuana cafes after a wave of drug-related gangland violence.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Pakistani police said they have arrested five suspects linked to an attack on a spy agency building in Lahore last year which killed 24 people. Police said the suspects belonged to the previously unknown Al-Toheed-wa-al-Jihad faction which falls under the umbrella Pakistani militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied land.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Peru a bank robber held 34 people hostage for more than seven hours in a nationally televised drama that ended when a police sniper crawled through a ventilation duct and shot and killed him.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 3, The Philippine government and communist rebels announced they will resume peace negotiations to end the 41-year-old Maoist insurgency early next year after the talks were suspended more than six years ago.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Poland the death toll from a deep freeze increased to 30 with a dozen more deaths overnight. The death toll across Europe reached at least 40.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, South Korea threatened to bomb North Korea if it tries a repeat of last week's attack, raising its rhetoric after the US warned of an "immediate threat" from Pyongyang.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, The Spanish government approved new austerity measures and a limited economic stimulus package to ease investor fears about its debt, and insisted again it was taking strong steps to right its ailing economy.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 3, In Spain a sickout by air traffic controllers created travel chaos. Spain’s military assumed control and the government threatened the controllers with jail terms in an unprecedented emergency order to get planes back in the skies and clear chaotic airports clogged with irate travelers.
(AP, 12/4/10)(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 4, President Barack Obama signed legislation giving the lame-duck Congress two more weeks to try to pass a legislation funding the government for the rest of the budget year, through September.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 4, Mill Valley, Ca., resident John Nuzzo (65) died of an apparent heart attack. He was better know to legions of fans as John Leslie, an adult film actor who appeared in over 300 movies before becoming a prolific director.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.C5)
2010 Dec 4, In southwestern China an explosion caused by illegally stored chemicals killed seven people and injured 37 at an Internet café.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, The Colombian Red Cross said the toll from weeks of heavy rains across Colombia has risen to 174 people dead and over 1.5 million homeless.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Haiti 17 people died when a group taxi slammed into a truck on a blind curve in the southern peninsula town of Aquin.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Iraq bombs killed 17 people across Baghdad, including Iranian pilgrims near a revered shrine and shoppers at a Shiite neighborhood market.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Israel said it was disappointed by Brazil's decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was sworn in for a new term even though the UN and world leaders maintain his opponent won the disputed election, which was the West African nation's first since a civil war.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northern Israel a massive fire was still consuming swathes of land, with little sign Israeli and foreign firefighters were winning the battle to contain it.
(AFP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Jamaica an oil spill was discovered in Kingston Harbor. Authorities were still investigating a Nov 22 spill in the capital's harbor, the 7th-largest natural harbor in the world.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In northeastern Nigeria a shootout between suspected members of a radical Muslim sect and security forces killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 4, In Russia a Dagestan Airlines passenger jet, carrying at least 155 people, made an emergency landing at a snowy Moscow airport after its engines failed. It skidded off the runway and slammed into buildings, killing two people and injuring around 40.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, It was reported that South African gangsters were stealing supplies of the antiretroviral drug Stocrin. They were mixing it with cannabis, rat poison and some other ingredients to make a lethal new drug called whoonga (wunga), used to produce a cheap high.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.60)
2010 Dec 5, Pres. Obama honored 5 individuals for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. They included Oprah Winfrey, Beatle Paul McCartney, dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones, country singer Merle Haggard, and Broadway composer Jerry Herman.
(SFC, 12/6/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 5, Don Meredith (72), one of the most recognizable figures of the early Dallas Cowboys and an original member of ABC's "Monday Night Football" broadcast team, died.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up next to a string of shop stalls inside the eastern Gardez army base, killing two NATO service members and at least two civilians. In the south another NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack while an Afghan employee of an American contractor was shot dead in the city of Lashkar Gah. A British soldier was killed during an operation in the Nad-e Ali District of Helmand province. Supporting fire from a US aircraft was suspected. He was the 346th death among British forces and civilian defense workers in Afghanistan since 2002. Four Afghan election commission employees were arrested in a sign that the political intrigue over September's fraud-tainted parliamentary election is not over.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Argentina Spanish and Portuguese-speaking nations wrapped up their annual meeting by adopting a provision threatening exclusion for any member country that doesn't abide by democratic process.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, Mike Hancock (64), a member of the British House of Commons Defense Committee, and the European Security and Defense Assembly of the Western EU, said that his Russian assistant, Katia Zatuliveter (25), is facing deportation as a suspected spy. On Nov 29, 2011, a special immigration tribunal ruled that Zatuliveter can remain in Britain because she does not pose a threat to national security.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 11/29/11)
2010 Dec 5, In southwest China at least 22 people died and one person was severely burned when a spreading grassland fire swept through a mountainous Tibetan region.
(Reuters, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, Colombian officials said a landslide following weeks of drenching rains has buried more than 50 homes in the northwest. Rescue workers soon recovered 47 bodies. As many as 80 people remained missing and feared dead.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 5, Egypt held runoff parliamentary elections. President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party won a sweeping victory after the two main opposition groups decided to boycott in protest of alleged fraud in the first round. Mubarak's party won 420 of 508 seats in parliamentary polls.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, A shark tore the arm off an elderly German tourist at an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing her almost immediately, only days after sharks badly mauled four other European tourists in the waters.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, Iran claimed it could now use domestically mined uranium to produce nuclear fuel, giving the country complete control over a process the West suspects is geared toward producing weapons.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, An Israeli fire department official said the huge forest fire in Israel's north is under control. The fire burned half of one of Israel's largest wooded areas over four days. 42 Israelis were killed in the fire.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 5, In southern Italy a speeding car plowed head-on into a group of cyclists, killing eight of them. Police said the driver had been smoking marijuana.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Mexico armed commandos attacked two drug rehabilitation centers in Ciudad Juarez, killing four people and wounding five.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, Nigeria's military acknowledged that raids in pursuit of an alleged gang leader in the main oil-producing region may have killed civilians, but insisted only militants were targeted. On Dec 15 the military said 14 people, including 8 soldiers and 6 civilians, were killed during the operation targeting a notorious gang leader.
(AFP, 12/5/10)(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 5, Russian news reported that a Proton rocket and its payload of three GLONASS-M navigation satellites has fallen into the Pacific Ocean after failing to reach orbit. They were to be part of Russia's satellite navigation system competing with the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). The mishap eventually cost space chief Anatoly Perminov his job.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 8/18/11)
2010 Dec 5, Suspected Somali pirates hijacked the M.V. Jahan Moni, a Bangladeshi ship carrying nickel ore in the Arabian Sea and appeared to headed to the lawless East African nation. The 25 Bangladeshis on the cargo ship included the wife of one crewman. The Moni was released on March 14, 2011, followed an ransom said to be $4.2 million.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 3/14/11)
2010 Dec 5, Former South African leader Thabo Mbeki sought to mediate an end to a dispute over Ivory Coast's presidential election that has threatened to trigger unrest in the divided West African nation.
(Reuters, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Uruguay Maria Esther Gatti de Islas (92), a human rights activist, died. She helped found Uruguay's organization of relatives of people who disappeared during South America's "dirty wars."
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Venezuela voters in several regions elected governors in two states and mayors in 11 municipalities, including the country's second-largest city. An opposition candidate won the mayorship of Venezuela's second-largest city of Maracaibo. Candidates from Chavez's ruling party captured 7 of the 11 mayorships and one state.
(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, The US, South Korea and Japan all urged China to help rein in its ally North Korea and vowed solidarity in defending Seoul from any further attacks from the North.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, The US government provided estimates showing the US population grew to somewhere between 306 million and 313 million over the past decade.
(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 6, Internet giant Google fielded a new champion on the mobile phone market battlefield, a "Nexus S" smartphone made by South Korea's Samsung. It included built-in support for Near Field Communication, a wireless standard that enables customers to make payments over an electronic reader.
(AP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, It was reported that Fiji Water, owned by billionaire Stewart Resnick, will acquire Justin Vineyards and Winery in Paso Robles, Ca.
(SFC, 12/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 6, In Virginia the body of Tina Smith (41) was found slain in her home near Salem. Her daughter Brittany Mae Smith (12) was missing as well was the suspected killed Jeffrey Scott Easley (32). He had been living with the Smiths since meeting Tina online last October. On Dec 9 police in California arrested Easley in San Francisco and rescued the girl.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 6, The African Union appointed Guinea's interim president Sekouba Konate to drive forward plans for an African military force which had been due to be operational by this year.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, Argentina announced that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Belgium's central bank chief, Guy Quaden, urged the rudderless country's divided politicians to speedily form a government to allay financial market fears about its future.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, British researchers said they may have found a way to reverse damage in the central nervous system caused by multiple sclerosis, in a study hailed by campaigners as a major breakthrough.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Cuba’s Supreme Court, for the second time this month, commuted the death sentence of a Salvadoran man convicted of plotting a series of Havana hotel bombings in 1997, leaving just one person left on the island's death row. Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena's sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, European nations wrestled over whether to commit more money to help stabilize the euro, as finance ministers gathered in Brussels to find ways to fight the debt crisis that has rocked the currency bloc.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, A coalition of Egyptian rights groups urged President Hosni Mubarak to nullify the results of the country's parliamentary election because of widespread vote rigging. Election monitors charged that Egypt's polls were marked by widespread fraud, as Mubarak's party prepared to take almost 100-percent control of parliament.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Haitian medical sources said fully 140 people have died of cholera in recent days in the southwest, a region that had been largely spared the epidemic. Officials raised the death toll to over 2,000 since the outbreak began in October.
(AFP, 12/6/10)(SFC, 12/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 6, A motorboat overloaded with mostly Haitian migrants slammed into a reef off the British Virgin Islands and capsized as it tried to evade authorities. At least 8 people were killed, including two infants. 25 people were rescued. Police in St. Maarten arrested three Haitians and said they will be charged with human smuggling in the case.
(AP, 12/7/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, India and France signed a multibillion agreement to build two nuclear power plants in India as French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked to drum up business for his nation during his four-day visit.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Ireland Tony Walsh (56) was convicted of raping 3 boys over a 5-year period three decades earlier. Investigators had concluded that Walsh actually raped and molested hundreds of boys and girls while serving as a Dublin priest from 1978 to 1996. Investigators also reported that the Vatican had tried to stop the Dublin church from defrocking Walsh.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 6, Israel's top policewoman, who had clung to life for four days after her patrol car was trapped in a burning Israel forest, died of her wounds as the last of the flames subsided in the worst fire in Israel's history.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, New Zealand officials attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at the Ohau Point colony, one of the country’s most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals. Oahu Point was only reoccupied for breeding in 1990, and about 600 fur seal pups were born there in 2004.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Nigeria's Niger Delta a militant faction said it had ruptured an oil pipeline in response to what it said was the killing of innocent civilians during a military offensive last week.
(Reuters, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Pakistan twin suicide bombers in police uniform killed 43 people in Ghalanai, the main town in the tribal district of Mohmand, attacking an anti-Taliban militia and pro-government elders near the Afghan border. US drone missile strikes killed 7 people in the tribal region.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 6, Poland's parliament got notice of its first ever African lawmaker, a teacher and Christian pastor from Nigeria who has lived in Poland for 17 years and proven himself a popular local leader. John Abraham Godson (40), a councilman in the central city of Lodz, will fill a seat in the national parliament vacated by a fellow lawmaker from the Civic Platform party.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Russia Yegor Sviridov (28) was shot dead with rubber bullets during a fight in northwest Moscow. A suspect arrested in the shooting was from Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus. Russian media later said Sviridov was a member of the Spartak Ultras, a group linked to soccer fan violence in the past. In Oct 2011 a jury at Moscow City Court convicted Aslan Cherkesov of premeditated murder. The court's Judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Five other people who took part in the brawl were sentenced to five years in jail each for hooliganism and inflicting light bodily injury.
(AP, 12/11/10)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)(AP, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar (75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Somalia 18 people were reported killed in weekend fighting. Mogadishu ambulance service chief Ali Muse said that 66 civilians were also wounded in the fighting. In central Somalia clashes between rival Majerteen and the Sa'ad clans killed at least 20 people.
(AP, 12/6/10)(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 6, A South African newspaper, The New Age, debuted with denials it is an agent of the governing African National Congress. The owners, members of the Gupta family, which has mining, computer and other businesses in South Africa and India, was seen as close to President Jacob Zuma.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Sudan aircraft from the northern Sudanese military began 3 days of bombings in western Bahr el Ghazal state. No casualties were reported. They follow multiple bombing runs by the north in November in a disputed region on the border between neighboring northern Bahr el Ghazal state and southern Darfur state. A committee with representatives from the UN mission in Sudan and the northern and southern Sudanese militaries later found that the bombings violated the 2005 agreement that ended more than 20 years of civil war.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Switzerland six world powers held their first meeting in 14 months with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, sounding out Tehran's intentions after it claimed to have taken a new step in making fissile material.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down a life sentence to Ildephonse Hategekimana, a lieutenant from the former Rwandan army, after finding him guilty of genocide, murder and rape in the 1994 massacre of Tutsis.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 6, Venezuelan soldiers took charge at several privately owned hotels to help accommodate some of the thousands of people who have been forced from their homes by flooding and mudslides following weeks of torrential rains.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Pres. Obama reached a deal with GOP leaders to extend all tax cuts in return for an extension of unemployment benefits.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 7, The New York Times reported that US officials believe the militant group Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, has acquired an arsenal of some 50,000 rockets and missiles, raising fears of an enlarged conflict with Israel. Iran and Syria were named as the sources.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, The three-yearly OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report said the United States has fallen from top of the class to average in world education rankings and warned of US economic losses from the trend. America came 26th in a ranking of high school math scores.
(AFP, 12/8/10)(Econ, 12/11/10, p.82)
2010 Dec 7, In California 52 Filipino hospital workers sued their employer, Delano Regional Medical Center, alleging they were the sole ethnic group targeted by a rule requiring them to speak only English.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, Data released on education in California indicated that in 2009 some 37% of African American students in public schools had dropped out. The Hispanic dropout rate was 27%. The general dropout rate in SF was 9%, in Oakland it was 40%.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 7, In Connecticut the maker of Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco agreed to pay $5 million to the family of a man who died of mouth cancer in what is believed to be the first wrongful-death settlement won from a chewing tobacco company.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange was remanded in custody until December 14 by a London court after he said he would fight extradition to Sweden where he faces rape allegations.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Elizabeth Edwards (b.1949), separated wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, died in North Carolina of cancer.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 7, Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, a senior US Marine general in Afghanistan, declared the battle in the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah "essentially over."
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, John James Audubon's "Birds of America," a rare blend of art, natural history and craftsmanship, sold for more than $10.27 million at a London auction, making it the world's most expensive book.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, China hit back at the United States and its Asian allies for their refusal to talk to North Korea, saying dialogue was the only way to calm escalating tension on the divided Korean peninsula.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In central China an explosion at a coal mine killed 26 miners who were working despite an order to halt production, while a mine tunnel collapse elsewhere left four dead in the latest accidents to strike the country's mining industry.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, Hendrik Coetzee (35), an acclaimed South African outdoorsman, was dragged from his craft by a crocodile on the Lukuga River in Congo. 2 Americans watched, horrified, and paddled to safety. Coetzee was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo. In 2004 he had kayaked down the Nile, four months and 4,200 miles, from source to sea.
(AP, 12/9/10)(Econ, 1/1/11, p.78)
2010 Dec 7, The EU conceded that its previous bank stress tests were not stringent enough as it confirmed that it will start a new round in February, while the continent's strongest economies bet they can sort out the region's debt crisis without the need to top up bailout funds.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, An expert report submitted to the French foreign ministry said respected French epidemiologist Professor Renaud Piarroux conducted a study in Haiti last month and concluded the epidemic began with an imported strain of the disease that could be traced back to the Nepalese base.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Georgia said it has arrested six people, all of them Georgian citizens, suspected of being agents for Russia and accused them of staging a series of explosions, including one outside the US Embassy in the capital.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Leaders of six US-allied Gulf Arab nations, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), said they were monitoring with "utmost concern" developments in Iran's disputed nuclear program and issued a thinly veiled warning to their Persian neighbor not to meddle in their internal affairs. The 2-day gathering of leaders from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman followed the publication of leaked US diplomatic memos that revealed deeper concern among Gulf Arab leaders over Tehran's nuclear program than had previously been known.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Haiti furious supporters of an apparently eliminated candidate set fires and manned barricades in the streets of Port-au-Prince after officials announced that government protege Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat would advance to a runoff in presidential elections.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, In India a bomb hidden in a metal canister exploded in Varanasi as thousands gathered for a Hindu ceremony, killing a toddler and triggering a stampede that left many others wounded.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Jordanian computer engineer Mohammed Rateb Qteishat (33) was killed by Iraqi forces in Mosul. He was an al-Qaida operative fighting American forces in Iraq. In 2006, he was sentenced to death in absentia in his native Jordan for plotting attacks on Americans in Jordan and attempting to blow up hotels in Amman.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 7, Israel expressed disappointment with Argentina's recognition of a Palestinian state in territories Israel occupied in 1967, saying they undercut American-led efforts to create such a state through negotiations with Israel.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Israel 3 dozen top rabbis threw their support behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews, an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In the Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, the man who the UN says lost the country’s presidential election, went ahead with naming his new cabinet anyway. He tapped Charles Ble Goude as minister of youth, professional education and employment. Goude was sanctioned in 2006 by both the US and UN. He has been accused of making repeated public statements advocating violence against foreigners and UN installations and personnel.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, Mexico's Defense Department said soldiers killed six assailants in a clash in the northern state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas. In Cancun police said they found the bodies of three men who had been shot to death in neighborhoods far from where UN Climate Change conference was taking place. The body of a fourth man was found in another Cancun neighborhood.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In the Netherlands a teacher (27) was arrested on suspicion of molesting dozens of very young children. The man's computers containing child pornography were seized and he later confessed to dozens of sex crimes allegedly committed over the past year and a half.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 7, Nigeria's anti-corruption agency charged former US Vice President Dick Cheney over a bribery scheme involving oil services firm Halliburton Co. during the time he served as its top executive. A Nigerian court charged Charles Okah, the brother of an alleged militant, and three other suspects with treason and terrorism over the October 1 Independence Day twin car bombings that killed 12 people.
(AP, 12/7/10)(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Norway Nobel officials said China and 18 other countries have declined to attend this year's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, as China unleashed a new barrage deriding the decision.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Pakistan a suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying the top official in the restive Baluchistan province, wounding 9 people but leaving the chief minister unscathed.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Saudi Arabia the Omma Conference magazine said in a statement posted on its website that police arrested its editor Mohammed Al-Abdul Karim at his home and took him to Hayer prison outside the capital Riyadh. In an article last week, Al-Abdul Karim predicted that Abdullah's death might cause the oil-rich kingdom to fall apart.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, South Korea's Pres. Lee Myung-bak promised to transform five islands that lie along the tense maritime border with North Korea into "military fortresses" impervious to the kind of deadly attack the rival neighbor launched last month.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 7, In Switzerland 6 world powers wrapped up two days of "substantive" talks with Iran on its contentious nuclear program, with the two sides agreeing to meet again in Istanbul next month.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 8, Pres. Obama signed legislation to pay American Indians and black farmers some $4.6 billion for government mistreatment over many decades. The legislation settled 4 long-standing Native American water rights in Arizona, New Mexico and Montana.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Dec 8, The Middle East peace process lay in tatters after Washington admitted defeat in its efforts to secure an Israeli freeze on settlement building, the Palestinians' condition for resuming talks.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the self-determination referendum on Sudan's oil-rich Abyei region will not take place as planned on January 9.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, The US Senate voted to convict Louisiana district court Judge Thomas Porteous on charges of corruption and perjury. The Senate acted for the 8th time in American history to remove a federal judge through the impeachment process.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A20)
2010 Dec 8, The US Business Roundtable published “Roadmap for Growth," a 26-page manifesto on what the nation’s biggest multinational companies want from government before they start hiring again.
(http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/12/08/top-ceos-offer-roadmap-for-growth/)
2010 Dec 8, In Maryland federal authorities arrested Antonio Martinez (21) for attempting to blow up a military recruitment center in Catonsville, with what he thought was a vehicle bomb. On April 6, 2012, Martinez renounced terrorism, but was still sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A22)(SFC, 4/7/12, p.A4)
2010 Dec 8, The Giving Pledge campaign, launched by Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett in June, announced 17 new pledges bringing the total to 57 billionaires pledging to give away at least half their fortunes.
(Reuters, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 8, Cyber attacks apparently organized by Internet activists sympathetic to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shut down the website of credit card company Mastercard and two Swedish sites. WikiLeaks published a new set of cables, and in a defiant message posted online the secret-spilling website promised that the leaks would keep on flowing despite the arrest and jailing of its founder on sex allegations.
(Reuters, 12/8/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, US scientists published a study of stem cell technology used to create mice from two fathers, an advance that they say could help preserve endangered species and even help same-sex couples have their own genetic children one day.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Space Explorations Technologies, aka SpaceX, successfully launched its Falcon 9 test rocket from Cape Canaveral. Its Dragon capsule was retrieved in the Pacific ocean 3 hours later after it had circled the globe 2 times.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)
2010 Dec 8, In Afghanistan a Taliban leader and three of his family members were killed in a coalition airstrike on their car, which was traveling in Nad Ali district.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 8, Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said that the US government is responsible for the leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic memos and cautioned against blaming the website that published the secret cables and its founder.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In eastern Bangladesh a speeding train slammed into another moving slowly through a station, killing as many as 19 people and injuring scores more.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Brazilian mining giant Vale made its Hong Kong trading debut, the first South American firm to list in the city, as the company ramps up its exposure to resource-hungry China.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Chile a fire set off by rioting inmates in a severely overcrowded prison killed at least 81 prisoners and seriously injured at least 14 others at the San Miguel prison south of Santiago. In March, 2011, a Chilean court ordered three prison guards held on negligent homicide charges for the deaths of 66 of the 81 inmates. 5 senior officers were charged with manslaughter and ordered to remain in the country.
(AP, 12/8/10)(AFP, 3/28/11)
2010 Dec 8, The EU competition watchdog fined 5 Taiwanese and South Korean electronics companies euro649 million ($857 million) for fixing prices on LCD panels between 2001 and 2006. Samsung Electronics Co., also participated in the price fixing but escaped a fine because it blew the whistle on the cartel.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, A French court put 14 former Chilean officials on trial in absentia over the 1973-1975 disappearance of four French citizens under the regime of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In France heavy snowfall forced the closure of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, German prosecutors filed war crimes charges against two Rwandan men suspected of issuing orders to a mostly ethnic Hutu militia involved in killings of Congolese civilians. Ignace Murwanashyaka (47) and Straton Musoni (49) were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership in a foreign terrorist group. Murwanashyaka allegedly served as FDLR's president from 2001 and Musoni served as vice president from 2004, and the pair controlled the militia group from Germany.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Haiti Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly urged his backers to nonviolently protest results from Nov 28 presidential elections that demonstrators say were rigged. His campaign manager later said they would formally challenge the tallies released the previous evening to Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council. Thousands of protesters rampaged in Haitian towns, torching buildings in armed clashes that left four dead after election results triggered bitter accusations of vote-rigging.
(AP, 12/9/10)(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Iraq a car bomb outside a restaurant killed 3 people in Taji. Scattered bombings and gunfire left a total of 5 people dead and 24 wounded. A roadside bomb in Baghdad wounded 7 Iranian pilgrims on a bus traveling to a Shiite religious festival. In southern Iraq a US soldier was killed during operations.
(AP, 12/8/10)(AP, 12/9/10)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 8, Israel decided to allow increased exports from the Gaza Strip, further easing its blockade of the territory run by the militant Palestinian Hamas group.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, A top Israeli official said his government is holding talks with Turkey aimed at mending relations, seven months after a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla sent ties into a chill.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, The top UN envoy in Ivory Coast said that opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara had won the disputed presidential election by an "irrefutable margin" as the international community stepped up pressure on the incumbent to concede defeat.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Japan’s space agency said its “Akatsuki" space probe has hurtled past Venus after failing to enter the planet's orbit as planned, but it voiced hope for a successful rendezvous six years from now.
(AFP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Mexican federal police investigating a tip about the presence of armed men in Apatzingan in Michoacan state came under fire from La Familia gunmen. Gunmen fired on civilian cars and used the sometimes-burning vehicles as barricades in Apatzingan. An 8-month-old baby, riding in a taxi with his mother, was killed as was the teenage daughter of a former city mayor, and a local police officer.
(AP, 12/10/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 8, In Mexico a federal police helicopter that had transported two inmates to a Mexican prison crashed in Veracruz state, killing four people and injuring two others.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, A Mozambican judge sentenced two former government officials to 12 years in prison for stealing 3.6 million meticais ($103,000) from the government. The court ordered the government data center's former director Orlando Come and former head of administration and finance Manuel Vilanculos to repay the stolen money.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Pakistan a teenage suicide bomber killed 15 people at a busy market in Kohat, in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This was the third attack in three days blamed on Islamist extremists bitterly opposed to the US-allied government. The Taliban kidnapped 7 teachers and the watchman of a government school travelling near Orakzai. 5 teachers were recovered in a shootout that left one policeman dead.
(AFP, 12/8/10)(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 8, In Panama historic flooding forced the closure of the Panama Canal for the first time in 21 years.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 8, In the Philippines Pres. Benigno Aquino III lashed out at a Supreme Court decision rejecting an investigative body he created to look into alleged corruption during his predecessor's administration, vowing his anti-graft battle would not be deterred by the setback.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, In Russia drug control agencies from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and Tajikistan agreed to step up cooperation to stop the flow of drugs through Afghan borders.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, Serbia's decision to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo triggered criticism from human rights activists and the EU, which expressed shock that the candidate for EU entry would meet China's demands. Serbia feared its attendance could anger China, which has supported Belgrade in opposing the 2008 independence declaration of its former province of Kosovo.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 8, South African President Jacob Zuma announced a 210 million rand ($30 million) credit package for Cuba and forgave Cuba's debt to South Africa during a state visit to the island nation, a decision his opponents criticized.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 9, Bank of America agreed to pay $137 million to settle federal and California state bid-rigging and kickback charges related to municipal bond contracts dating back to 1998.
(SFC, 12/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 9, In West Virginia an explosion at AL Solutions Inc., a small chemical plant in New Cumberland, killed 2 workers and injured 2 people.
(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A17)
2010 Dec 9, James Moody (b.1925), jazz musician, died in San Diego. His work included over 50 solo albums.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.C10)
2010 Dec 9, In southern Afghanistan insurgents killed a NATO service member.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Heavy British police presence held off angry student protesters marching to London's Parliament Square as lawmakers debated a controversial plan to triple university tuition fees in England. Protesters attacked a Rolls Royce carrying Prince Charles and wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, as they drove through London’s West End. The couple were not hurt.
(AP, 12/9/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 9, England’s Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree, venerated for centuries by Christians, was chopped down overnight after a sprig from the tree was cut off in a ceremony so it could be given to Queen Elizabeth II to decorate her Christmas table. Religious tradition holds that the original tree was planted by St. Joseph of Arimathea, the wealthy merchant who volunteered his tomb to Jesus, after he first made landfall in England some 2,000 years ago.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 9, A report in the medical journal Lancet criticized Canada for exporting chrysotile, or white asbestos, while it virtually bans the product at home, who fibers can lead to respiratory diseases and cancers.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 9, In China the inaugural Confucius Peace Prize was awarded to former Taiwan vice-president Lien Chan at a chaotic press conference held by a handful of Chinese university professors. Lien's office in Taiwan declined comment, saying they had no knowledge of the award. Chinese poet Qiao Damo, one of the "candidates", told reporters the lack of any word from Lien represented "silent acceptance" of the prize, prompting laughter from assembled journalists.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Former Croatian PM Ivo Sanader, under investigation in a corruption case, left the country crossing into Slovenia, hours before parliament voted on lifting his immunity from prosecution so that he could be detained.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Human Rights Watch said India's security forces routinely gun down cattle smugglers and other civilians crossing the border with Bangladesh despite scant evidence of any crime.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Iran Ali Shakouri-rad, one of the prisoners of the post-election events, was jailed for "propagating against the regime and spreading lies." He was released on Jan 24, 2011. He was previously freed on bail on October 28, two weeks after being arrested for what Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi called "security reasons."
(AFP, 1/24/11)
2010 Dec 9, In Iraq attacks on a police patrol in northern Baghdad and a checkpoint north of the city killed two policemen.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, The Israeli air force bombed four sites in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, causing no casualties. The air raids came after Palestinian militants fired several mortars into southern Israel from Gaza the previous day.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Ivory Coast pressure increased on Laurent Gbagbo as continental heavyweights South Africa and Kenya joined UN calls for him to abandon his bid to cling to power after disputed polls. The African Union suspended Ivory Coast until Gbagbo hands over power to Alassane Ouattara, whom the AU and UN consider the winner of last month's election.
(AFP, 12/9/10)(Reuters, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Jamaican police discovered a body buried in a shallow grave at a construction site outside the capital. The remains were identified as those of Esmond Morris (32), who had not been seen since Dec 6. He had a gunshot wound in the back of the head. 2 more bodies were found the next day and police said they expected to find more.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Japan the 3rd International Pole Dancing Championships concluded. The competition was held in a large arena near the Tokyo Dome, the Japanese capital's main sports stadium, with competitors from countries ranging from Malaysia to Moldova. Japan's Mai Sato defended her title as the women's champion, and Duncan West of Australia won in men's. This year also had a disabled division, which was won by hearing-impaired Eri Kamimoto of Japan.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 9, Jordan appointed a woman, Ihsan Barakat (46), as chief district attorney of the country's capital, marking the first time a woman has held a top prosecutor's post in the pro-American Arab kingdom.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Mexico federal police hunted for top leaders of the La Familia drug cartel in Michoacan state, unleashing narco-blockades and shootouts that left 2 more people dead. La Familia cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez (40), known as "The Craziest One," was killed in a clash between police and cartel gunmen. Police recovered the bodies of three other suspected La Familia members and detained three others. In northern Chihuahua state six people were gunned down by the side of a highway leading south of the capital. In the resort city of Acapulco, a traffic cop was found shot to death on a road, his hands bound.
(AP, 12/10/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A12)(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 9, Netherlands arrested a young hacker who confessed to participating in attacks by WikiLeaks sympathizers on websites, including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Nigeria an election officials said thieves had infiltrated Murtala Muhammed International Airport and stole just-arrived equipment needed to register voters ahead of next year's hotly contested presidential election. Police arrested four men while four others had fled, after a 30-minute shootout with members of Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect, who ambushed security officers at a checkpoint in Maiduguri.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, Communist allies North Korea and China proclaimed their unity as the North's leader Kim Jong-Il held his first meeting with a senior Chinese envoy since the region's worst crisis in years erupted.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, South Africa unveiled its national space agency, aiming to become a leader in earth observation technology across the continent in 10 years.
(AFP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 9, The Provea human rights group said 13,985 people were murdered in Venezuela last year and the figure could be significantly higher, alluding to the rampant crime that has become a central concern of Venezuelans.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 10, US Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said that the framework pact — known as the 123 agreement because its requirements are set in section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act — would help boost nonproliferation efforts and create new business opportunities. The deal did not require congressional approval, but Congress could have rejected it within 90 days of continuous session — a period that elapsed Dec 9 without a vote of disapproval.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the US, a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, The US Navy completed its latest test of an electromagnetic rail gun at the naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va. The gun generated a record 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel and sent a 20-pound slug of aluminum at 7 times the speed of sound. The electric gun was able to send a projectile over 100 miles.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A17)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported that the United States is concerned that Mozambique could become a narco-state because of close ties between drug smugglers and the nation's government, according to US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In NYC Nicholas Brooks (24), the son of an Oscar-winning songwriter, was arrested on charges of attempted murder and strangulation in the death of fashion designer Sylvie Cachay (33), who was discovered around 3 a.m. the previous day at the Soho House hotel. Brooks' Academy Award-winning father, Joseph Brooks (72), is awaiting trial in an unrelated case. He was accused of raping 11 women he lured to his apartment with the promise of a starring role in a movie. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges and is free on bail.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Afghanistan, in recognition of International Human Rights Day, several hundred demonstrators, some holding photographs of victims of three decades of war, shouted for justice and peace in Kabul, just hours before a suicide car bomber blew himself up in Nangarhar province, killing two civilians. In the south a NATO service member was killed by a roadside bomb. 15 civilians were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/10/10)(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Algerian troops killed 10 Islamist rebels in the eastern Kabylie region known as a stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Australia's attorney general declared 45 communities along the country's east coast disaster areas, following weeks of drenching rains that have submerged homes, destroyed crops and killed four people.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Bolivia enacted a law lowering the country’s retirement age to 58. The current retirement age was 65 for men and 60 for women.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 10, The Brazilian government said gay couples in stable relationships are entitled the same social security pension benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 10, China's central bank raised the amount of money the country's lenders must keep on reserve for the third time in a month, following a spate of robust data that strengthened the case for policy tightening.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Police in Croatia issued an international arrest warrant overnight for former PM Ivo Sanader, who left the country just as it became clear that prosecutors wanted him investigated and detained on corruption charges. Sanader was arrested on an international warrant in Austria.
(AP, 12/10/10)(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, EU banking supervisors agreed on finalized mandatory guidelines for awarding bank bonuses, saying key requirements can be "neutralized" for less risky firms and staff.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, A German battalion in a French-German military brigade officially took up arms at a ceremony in eastern France attended by the two countries' defense ministers. This was the first time since World War II that German combat troops were stationed in France, part of a conscious effort to show the two EU powers have forever buried former hatreds.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Guinea lifted a state of emergency in a sign of rising stability since elections marred by street violence. The African Union confirmed that it has lifted sanctions against Guinea following the country's presidential election.
(AP, 12/10/10)(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Indonesian police arrested Abu Tholut (42), one of the country's most-wanted Muslim militants, accusing him of plotting high-profile assassinations and bloody attacks on foreigners at luxury hotels in the capital. Tholut identified four more militants. Anwar Effendi, Wardi, Sukirno, and Sri Puji Mulyo Siswanto were suspected of concealing information about terrorism and of hiding Tholut. All 4 were arrested by the next day.
(AP, 12/10/10)(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 10, Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, confessed to helping a man kill her husband and re-enacted the alleged crime in an interview broadcast by Iranian state television, an apparent effort by the government to deflect international criticism over the case.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Jordan fans of rival soccer teams clashed after a match, injuring 250 people in violence that pointed to the deep divisions between the nation's native Bedouin clans and its Palestinians.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir arrested a college lecturer on charges he gave his students an English exam filled with questions attacking India's crackdown on demonstrations in the disputed region. The exam written by Noor Mohammed Bhat and administered to students across the region on Dec 8 included questions such as, "Are the stone pelters real heroes? Discuss."
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Mexico a gunbattle between rival gangs left 11 people dead during a Virgin of Guadalupe celebration in the western town of Tecalitlan.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 10, Mexico scrambled to break an impasse between rich and poor nations over future cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as 190-nation climate talks went down to the wire.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, A Moldova court ordered a recount in the inconclusive national election after the Communist Party complained of "massive irregularities" in the Nov 28 vote.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Dignitaries in Norway celebrated this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, with an empty chair. Xiaobo, derided by Beijing as a political farce, dedicated it from his prison cell to the "lost souls" of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
(AP, 12/10/10)(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Pakistan a suicide attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a hospital for Shiite Muslims that was under construction in the northwest, killing at least 10 people. A missile fired from a US drone destroyed a vehicle in the Mir Ali town of North Waziristan, killing at least four suspected militants.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Leading Pakistani newspapers acknowledged they were hoaxed after publishing reports based on fake WikiLeaks cables that contain crude anti-Indian propaganda.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli said he will declare a national state of emergency allowing the government to mobilize more resources for affected areas. Heavy rains and flooding in Panama have killed 10 people and forced more than 4,700 from their homes.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against 43 health workers arrested by the army as suspected communist rebels 10 months ago, saying their rights were violated.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, A Serbian court acquitted 10 men charged with helping Ratko Mladic, Europe's most wanted fugitive, evade arrest on genocide charges before a UN war crimes court.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Serbia reversed its boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo after facing sharp criticism from the EU and human rights activists at home.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Panama just east of the Tanzania-Mozambique border, making it one of the most southerly attacks Somali pirates have pulled off. All 23 crew members were from Myanmar.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Sweden a court convicted two men linked to the al Shabaab militant group for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and sentenced them to four years jail.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 10, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will ask his congressional allies to again grant him special powers to enact laws by decree.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 11, Nissan North American delivered its first all-electric Leaf to Olivier Chalouhi (31) of Redwood City at a dealership in Petaluma, Ca. His cost was $33,500, but rebates were expected to drop the price to about $20,000.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.C2)
2010 Dec 11, Mark Madoff (46), one of Bernard Madoff's sons, was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, In Afghanistan a car bomb blast near the police headquarters in Kandahar City wounded four Afghan police and two civilians. The suicide attacker in Kunduz province drove a police vehicle and targeted an Afghan National Army convoy, wounding five soldiers and four civilians. An air strike by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) killed seven road construction company employees overnight. ISAF said Afghan and foreign troops were approached and then fired on by armed men while hunting an insurgent and shot back, killing seven. The disputed incident sent hundreds pouring onto the streets of Gardez city in a protest that turned violent.
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, Egypt’s minister of electricity said his country plans to build its first nuclear power plant and have it operational by 2019.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 11, In Cancun, Mexico, almost 200 countries agreed to modest steps to combat climate change, including a Green Climate Fund to help poor nations, but they put off tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions until next year.
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, In northwest Pakistan gunmen on motorcycles shot dead two police officers in Hayatabad, while security forces killed four militants in fighting elsewhere in the region.
(AP, 12/11/10)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 11, Somali pirates captured the MV Renuar, a Panama-flagged, Liberian-owned cargo vessel, about 1,000 miles (1,610 km) east of Somalia.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 11, The Sudanese army attacked a village in South Darfur for a second consecutive day in violence that has left one person dead and driven at least 250 civilians from their homes.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, South Sudan’s ruling party formally confirmed for the first time that it will support secession in a January independence referendum that could lead to the break-up of Africa's largest nation.
(AFP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 11, In Sweden two blasts rocked central Stockholm, killing the suspected bomber, later identified as Taymour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly (b.1981). Two people were wounded. Police had good leads into what they said were "terror crimes." On March 8, 2011, police in Scotland arrested Ezedden Khalid Ahmed Al Khaledi (30) on suspicion of aiding the suicide bomber who had targeted Christmas shoppers in Stockholm.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)(Reuters, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A3)(AP, 3/8/11)(AP, 3/14/11)
2010 Dec 11, Turkmenistan signed broad agreements with Afghanistan, India and Pakistan at a summit in its capital Ashgabat on the 1,700-km (1,050-mile) TAPI pipeline. Afghanistan the next day said it will deploy up to 7,000 troops to secure the major transnational gas pipeline, slated to run through some of the most dangerous parts of the war-torn country.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, The Washington Post reported that 8 out of the 12 top US gun dealers whose products fuel Mexico's drug violence are located in the state of Texas. 3 others were in Arizona, and one was in California. There are 3,800 gun retailers in Texas, 300 in Houston alone.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, A storm that spanned parts of eight states continued to dump heavy snow in the upper Midwest, collapsing the Metrodome in Minneapolis and forcing numerous road closures.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Long Beach, Ca., police officers shot Doug Zerby (35) over a dozen times as he manipulated a pistol grip water nozzle. The shooting spurred street protests. Prosecutors in 2011 said police acted lawfully in killing Zerby, who was drunk at the time. His family filed a federal civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
(SFC, 11/4/11, p.C6)
2010 Dec 12, In southern Afghanistan an insurgent attack killed at least six foreign troops and two Afghan soldiers in Kandahar's Zhari district. Several suspects were arrested for the suicide attack that killed six US troops when an explosives-packed minibus blew up at the entrance of a joint NATO-Afghan base.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Australia unveiled tough changes to finance laws, banning unpopular mortgage fees and cracking down on price collusion between major banks in a bid to boost competition in the sector.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, Bangladesh's Dhaka Stock Exchange plunged 3.32%, its biggest one-day fall since the index was introduced in 2001. Garment workers demanding the implementation of a new minimum wage clashed with police at an industrial zone in the southeast, leaving up to three people dead and 100 hurt.
(AFP, 12/12/10)(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, Hundreds of Egyptian activists and members of opposition groups protested against what they said were violations during a parliamentary vote that handed the ruling party a huge victory last month.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Iran Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent reformist journalist and head of the Journalists' Association of Iran, said he has been sentenced to 16 months in jail on charges of insulting Pres. Ahmadinejad and undermining the Islamic regime. Shamsolvaezin went on trial in October and has 20 days to appeal. Sajjad Qaderzadeh, the son of a woman whose death sentence by stoning caused world outrage, was released after paying a $40,000 bail.
(AFP, 12/12/10)(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 12, In Iraq a suicide bomber blew up his car outside government offices in Ramadi, killing at least 13 people, including women and elderly people waiting to collect welfare checks. Six police officers were among the dead. Near Baquba a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vest near an Ashura procession, killing three people.
(AP, 12/12/10)(AFP, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/13/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 12, Kosovars voted in the first general poll since the country's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, a critical election already marred by ethnic tension that many fear will split the world's newest country.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, Heavy rain and fierce winds pummeled countries across the Middle East, killing a woman in Lebanon, sinking a ship off Israel's coast and prompting Egypt to close its largest Mediterranean port. At least 3 people killed in Egypt as gale-force winds and torrential rain pounded the coastline.
(AP, 12/12/10)(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 12, A foundation run by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam, released a mixed annual report on human rights in Libya, noting progress on some issues and failures in others.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Mexican police arrested Enrique Lopez of the notorious Sinaloa drug trafficking operation based in the northern Mexico town of Chihuahua. His brother, Ever Horacio Lopez, was shot and killed in the standoff with police. The men were lieutenants of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, said to be Mexico's most wanted man, who is believed to have escaped.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Nigeria's military said it had taken control of eight camps belonging to Ateke Tom, a militant leader in southern Rivers State. In the southeast Obioma Nwankwo, a gang leader accused of kidnapping children from a school bus, was killed. An unknown number of alleged gang members also died. 6 others were arrested. The operation freed a family of five.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, Lawyers for a Sudanese campaign group launched a legal bid to halt Sudan's referendum on southern independence, accusing organizers of mishandling the process, a move which could derail the January 9 vote.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 13, President Barack Obama signed into law the $4.5 billion Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, part of an administration-wide effort to combat childhood obesity. Thousands more children would get into school-based meal programs and those lunches and dinners would become more nutritious.
(AP, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 13, The US government welcomed a World Trade Organization ruling that upheld President Barack Obama's controversial decision last year to slap duties on Chinese-made tires to protect US workers from a market-disrupting surge in imports.
(Reuters, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, A US federal judge in Virginia ruled that Congress could not order individuals to buy health insurance.
(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 13, A classified US document, dated Feb 26, 2010, released by WikiLeaks said Venezuela’s government sold China oil for as little as $5 a barrel and was upset that China apparently profited by selling the fuel to other countries. Another embassy report on Sept. 23, 2009, said Venezuela has been manipulating its oil price index. Other cables indicated significant problems at PDVSA.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, US immigration agents discovered a 13-foot drug tunnel stretching from the Mexican border to a metered parking space in Arizona, where vehicles with holes cut in the bottom would park and take marijuana from people inside the underground space.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, Sheila Verke, a 64-year-old substitute teacher and single parent from Fort Mohave, Arizona, claimed a $95.3 million Powerball jackpot.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, Richard Holbrooke (b.1941), a former US ambassador to the UN, died following surgery for a tear in his aorta. Holbrooke edited the magazine “Foreign Policy from 1972-1977. He was remembered for engineering the end of the 1992-1995 Bosnia war, Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II, and for seeking to bring stability to war-torn Afghanistan. In 2011 Derek Chollet and Samantha Power edited “The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World."
(AP, 12/14/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A6)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.166)(Econ, 12/3/11, p.102)
2010 Dec 13, Schools in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and other states closed because of snow and low temperatures. Authorities worked frantically to reach motorists in snow-covered northwest Indiana who were trapped in their cars in biting temperatures.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Afghan lawmakers demanded that President Hamid Karzai inaugurate a new parliament on December 19 and draw a line under disputed results of a fraud-hit September election.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Argentina a yacht returning from Antarctica smashed ashore in a storm near the city of Ushuaia, killing two Polish brothers, Marek and Pawel Radwanski, and injuring five other people.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 13, A Chinese vessel carrying fertilizer and heavy fuel collided with a German cargo ship off northwestern Denmark. The Hong Kong-flagged Cleantec was listing and its 24-man crew was ready to be evacuated.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Egyptian officials said rain and sandstorms that battered the country at the weekend killed at least 31 people, adding the toll could rise as rescue workers were still sifting through two collapsed buildings.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, The EU said it will impose sanctions on Ivory Coast unless the incumbent president recognizes his rival as the winner of last month's election, as panic spread in Abidjan after shots were briefly fired.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, India's parliament ended its winter session without having passed a single piece of legislation, after the opposition forced adjournments for 22 business days in a row.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Iraq four Shiites were killed and 17 others wounded when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in Balad Ruz. Insurgents killed a woman and her daughter when they bombed the house of a member of Sahwa, the anti-Qaeda militia, in the town of Jurf al-Sakhr.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Israel flew home 150 illegal Sudanese migrants in a secret operation that was the largest such deportation from the Jewish state.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, The Oriental Rose, Japanese-operated chemical tanker, was strafed by gunfire from an unidentified vessel off the Somali coast slightly wounding two crew members.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 13, A UN official said a campaign to resettle ethnic Nepalese forced out of Bhutan two decades ago has found homes for 40,000 refugees in Western countries, although tens of thousands continue to wait.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded near a school bus in Peshawar, killing the driver and wounding at least two children. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 22 Pakistani teachers and other education professionals were killed by suspected militants between January 2008 and October 2010 in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. The provincial government in Baluchistan said the situation was beginning to improve and that fewer teachers were asking to transfer.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets, introduced a new line of hybrid cars — called "Yo" — that he hopes to begin selling in 2012.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 13, A South Korean fishing boat sank in the Antarctic Ocean's frigid waters, with 22 sailors feared killed in the open sea where vessels trawl for deep-water fish. 20 survivors were rescued shortly after the 614-ton vessel went down some 1,400 miles (2,250 km) south of New Zealand. 5 bodies were recovered and 17 men remained missing.
(AP, 12/13/10)(SFC, 12/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 13, St. Vincent and the Grenadines PM Ralph Gonsalves, who has led the Caribbean nation into an alliance with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, won a narrow victory in parliamentary elections to keep his party in power for another five years.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 14, The US Coast Guard named Rear. Adm. Sandra Stosz (50) to lead its academy at New London, Conn., beginning next summer.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A16)
2010 Dec 14, The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. to hand over private messages, billing addresses and connection records of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other alleged associates, including the US Army intelligence analyst suspected of handing classified information to the site and a high-profile Icelandic parliamentarian. A second document, dated Jan. 5, unsealed the court order.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2010 Dec 14, In Arizona a shootout between border patrol agents and bandits near the border with Mexico left American agent Brian A. Terry (40) dead and a suspect wounded. On May 6, 2011, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes of El Fuerte, Mexico, was indicted for 2nd degree murder. On July 9, 2012, a federal grand jury indictment named 6 people involved in Terry’s killing. A $1 million reward was offered to help track 4 fugitives in the case. On Feb 10, 2014 Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 12/16/10)(SFC, 5/7/11, p.A4)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A6)(SFC, 2/11/14, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In California a mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV was killed and six others were wounded in a gunbattle at a strip mall in south Sacramento. A 2nd victim, Marvion Barksdale (20), died at a hospital of his injuries.
(AP, 12/15/10)(SFC, 12/16/10, p.E3)
2010 Dec 14, In Florida gunman Clay A. Duke opened fire at a school board meeting in Panama City. He killed himself following an exchange of shots with a security guard.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec 14, In Nevada an armed bandit escaped on a motorcycle after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips from the Bellagio resort. On Feb 3 police identified suspect Anthony M. Carleo (29) of Las Vegas as the bandit. Carleo was booked under the name Anthony M. Assad. On Aug 23, 2011, Carleo was sentenced to at least 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A7)(SFC, 8/24/11, p.A5)
2010 Dec 14, In Missouri Secret Santa II hit the streets in a long-standing Kansas City tradition of handing out $100 bills, sometimes several at a time, to unsuspecting strangers in thrift stores, food pantries and shelters.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A new US survey said about 6% of high school seniors reported smoking marijuana daily.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 14, San Jose, Ca., adopted the strictest ban on plastic bags in the state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.C3)
2010 Dec 14, In southern Afghanistan a NATO service member died from a roadside bomb. Jordanian-Palestinian militant Mahmoud Abu Reidah (38) was killed by US forces. An al-Qaida operative better known as Abu Rasmi, he was granted political asylum in Britain in 1998.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 14, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos started a historic first state visit to South Africa, a trip aimed at ending decades-long enmity between two of the region's major economies.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Bangladesh a devastating blaze raced through a garment factory near the capital, killing at least 29 people and injuring more than 100.
(AP, 12/14/10)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A report, "High and Dry," by the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organization and the Shan Women's Action Network, said local trade and transport on the river in northern Myanmar near a border trade crossing with China has been severely affected by unpredictable daily changes in the water level since the completion in mid-2010 of the 360-foot (110-m) tall Longjiang Dam about 19 miles (30 km) upstream.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said that Guillermo Farinas, whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of Cuban political dissidents, would be represented by an empty chair at the midweek ceremony to award the Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Amnesty International accused the European Union and Libya of cooperating to prevent migrants from Africa from reaching Europe.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Haiti Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, the popular singer-turned-presidential candidate, called for the electoral commission to be replaced and the vote redone with all the original candidates involved. His apparent loss in flawed elections helped spark days of rioting.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In India a bus carrying wedding guests plunged into a reservoir killing 29 people in Karnataka state.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 14, Israel barred a group of Palestinian firefighters who helped battle the country's worst wildfire from attending a ceremony in their honor, the latest in a series of embarrassments over Israel's handling of the blaze.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In Italy protesters set cars alight and hurled cobblestones at police in chaotic scenes in central Rome after PM Silvio Berlusconi won a crucial confidence vote in parliament. Over 100 people were injured including around police.
(AFP, 12/14/10)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.95)
2010 Dec 14, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi pushed again his dream for a sole African government and was backed by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade as he urged the creation of a single African army.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Mexico’s death toll in drug-related violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez rose to 3,000 this year after 2 men were shot dead on a street.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Nigerian official said Nigeria has negotiated a 250 million dollar settlement deal that would see it drop charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, In the central Philippines suspected communist guerrillas killed 10 army soldiers returning to their camp after being recalled from combat two days before a Christmas cease-fire. A boy (9) also was killed in the crossfire when the New People's Army guerrillas detonated land mines then opened fire on the soldiers near where villagers were swimming in a river in Northern Samar province.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Sri Lanka official said security forces have stepped up a campaign to arrest some 50,000 military deserters, after reports that absent soldiers were increasingly involved in crime.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Sudanese authorities arrested about 30 women who tried to hold a protest in Khartoum against the brutal police whipping of a young woman shown in a video posted on YouTube and charged them with disrupting public order.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, The IMF said Togo's foreign debt will be slashed more than 80% after the African nation took steps to recover from economic crisis.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked congress to grant him special powers to enact laws by decree for one year, just before a new legislature takes office with a larger contingent of opposition lawmakers.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, The US filed suit for the first time against BP and eight other companies for uncounted billions of dollars in damages from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst in US history.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, New statistics showed that the IRS has increased the number of returns it audited by nearly 11 percent this year. Wealthy taxpayers and big businesses were most likely to be targeted.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (26) was named Time's "Person of the Year" for 2010, joining the ranks of winners that include heads of state and rock stars as the person the magazine believes most influenced events of the past year.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Newark, Ca., Justice Afoa (17), a high school football star, was stabbed to death. In 2012 three gang members were arrested and charged with conspiracy and murder. Rafael Tovar (34) and Daniel Howard (33) killed Afoa to get even for an earlier fight that caused one of the gang members “great embarrassment." Tovar and Howard were later convicted of first-degree murder. On June 30, 2015, Daniela Guzman (21) was convicted of conspiracy to commit assault.
(SFC, 12/13/12, p.C2)(SFC, 7/2/15, p.D2)
2010 Dec 15, In Las Vegas the new $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan resort opened with 2,995 rooms and 100,000 square feet of casino.
(SFC, 12/13/10, p.D4)
2010 Dec 15, Blake Edwards (b.1922), American film director, died in Santa Monica, Ca. In 1958 he created the TV series “Peter Gunn." His films included “Breakfast at Tiffany’s" (1961), “10" (1979) and the Pink Panther farces.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.D5)
2010 Dec 15, In southern Afghanistan a bicycle bomb killed three children and wounded six civilians near Kandahar City at a temporary camp for pilgrims returning from Mecca. A NATO service member was killed in a blast in the south.
(AFP, 12/15/10)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Australia signed an agreement with Brazil to share knowledge on putting on the Olympics to help preparations with Rio's hosting of the 2016 Games.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 15, In New South Wales, Australia, police found seven boxes of chemical glassware used to make drugs when a van was stopped outside the town of Quirindi. A forensic search of the van later found 43 pounds of hidden ecstasy tablets with a street value of about 20 million Australian dollars ($19.7 million).
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 15, In violent seas off Australia’s Christmas Island at least 48 refugees, thought to be from Iran and Iraq, died after their wooden boat shattered before horrified witnesses. 42 survivors, including 9 children were rescued. On January 24, 2011, Australian authorities charged three Indonesian men with people smuggling. Iranian-born Ali Khorram Heydarkhani (40) was detained by Indonesian authorities on January 25 but only sent to Australia after overstaying his visa. On May 12, 2011, he was charged in Sydney with offences relating to the boatpeople disaster.
(AFP, 12/15/10)(AP, 12/16/10)(AP, 12/20/10)(AP, 1/25/11)(AFP, 5/12/11)
2010 Dec 15, Brazil’s members of Congress voted themselves a 62% pay rise. Many state governments and municipalities soon followed suit.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.32)
2010 Dec 15, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's travelled to India to build trust between two Asian powers with increasingly close economic ties despite their ongoing competition for regional influence.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In southwest China local authorities told state press that Zeng Lingquan, the operator of an unlicensed shelter for disabled people, sold at least 70 mentally ill workers into slavery in recent years. Lingquan was arrested on Dec 13.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In China workers blasted through the last part of a tunnel that connects the Tibetan county of Metok to China's major thoroughfare.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, The Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States (OAS), condemned Brazil for the forced "disappearance" of 62 suspected leftist militants during its military dictatorship and said it should allow prosecutions for abuses committed during the era.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 15, Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas (48) used a video address at today’s award of the EU's main human rights prize, to call for the release of political prisoners in his homeland and for the government to end attacks on the opposition. Farinas was not allowed by Cuba to travel to receive the prize in Strasbourg, France.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, British-based explorer Tullow Oil PLC led a consortium and started producing 55,000 barrels per day from rigs off Ghana's Atlantic Ocean coast in the Jubilee Field, which was discovered three years ago and holds an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Greece angry unions triggered a 24-hour strike to protest labor reforms and pay cuts. Protesters clashed with riot police across Athens.
(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A9)
2010 Dec 15, Hong Kong police said they have dealt a major blow to a notorious triad group, after a territory-wide series of raids rounded up dozens of people, including a suspected gang leader.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Iran 2 suicide bomb attacks outside a mosque killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 during a Shi'ite religious ceremony in the southeastern city of Chabahar. Jundollah, a Sunni Muslim rebel group, claimed responsibility for the bombings.
(Reuters, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, Human Rights Watch said Iranians convicted for same-sex activities are on death row and awaiting hanging, including several who were minors when arrested.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Iraqi authorities said they have obtained confessions from captured insurgents who claim al-Qaida is planning suicide attacks in the US and Europe during the Christmas season. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites descended on Karbala ahead of the climax of Ashura ceremonies, surrounded by heavy security over fears of attacks. The UN Security Council lifted most of the sanctions imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
(AP, 12/15/10)(AFP, 12/15/10)(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 15, Ireland's parliament approved an €85 billion ($113 billion) EU/IMF bailout package in the face of opposition threats to renegotiate the deal to force losses on some senior bondholders in Irish banks.
(Reuters, 12/15/10)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.50)
2010 Dec 15, In Japan the city of Tokyo restricted the sale of manga comics and anime films with extreme depictions of rape, incest and other sex crimes, despite industry charges of censorship.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In the Indian portion of Kashmir police fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse hundreds of Muslims participating in religious processions. At least six people were injured.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Ben Zygier (34) reportedly committed suicide in a high-security Israeli jail after being held for months in great secrecy. His body was soon flown from Israel to Melbourne for burial. The Australian man had reportedly been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad.
(Reuters, 2/12/13)(AP, 2/19/13)
2010 Dec 15, Kenya's police commissioner said authorities will act swiftly and firmly against any outbreaks of violence connected to the announcement of suspects by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo was expected to announce the names of six Kenyan leaders suspected of fanning the flames of violence after the country's December 2007 presidential election. Officials from the UK, Canada, World Bank and UNICEF demanded that the Kenyan government prosecute corrupt officials who stole money earmarked to help send poor children to school.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Lebanon's army said its military experts have discovered and dismantled two spy cameras planted in the country's mountains by Israel.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, A Martinique court found businessman Alain Despointes (84), guilty of condoning a crime against humanity for praising slavery during a 2009 TV interview and sentenced him to pay a fine of nearly $10,000. He was the first man in Martinique found guilty under a 2001 French law that declared slavery a crime against humanity.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Nepal a small passenger plane with 22 people on board went missing while flying over a mountainous region. All people were killed after the plane’s wing apparently clipped a mountaintop.
(AP, 12/15/10)(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 15, Scottish engineering firm Weir was fined £3 million for paying illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime to secure contracts. Weir admitted making payments of £3.1 million to the Iraqi regime through an agent to get contracts worth £35 million between September 2001 and April 2004 to supply spare pumps for drinking water and oil projects.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, In Spain a man walked into a bar in the town of Olot and shot two men dead with a shotgun. Minutes later, he went to a bank and killed two staff members. The man had a mortgage at the bank for an apartment that was going to be seized for nonpayment.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Sweden deported 5 Iraqi Christians, part of a group of at least 20 Iraqis, who failed to gain asylum and were flown out of the country. On Dec 17 the UN refugee agency called itself "dismayed" over the deportation and called on countries to take in Iraqis from Baghdad, Kirkuk and three northern provinces that the UN considers unsafe because of repeated attacks, sectarian tensions and human rights violations.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 15, Jordanian engineer Maath Mohammed Kamal Alia (45) was arrested in Yemen on suspicion of throwing a bomb at a US Embassy vehicle.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 16, President Barack Obama said the United States will start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in July as promised. He still warned of sobering days, saying the war will remain a "very difficult endeavor." In Afghanistan a bomb killed 14 members of the same family north of Herat city. 4 Afghan soldiers died overnight in a NATO air strike in Helmand province.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, The US FDA said it was beginning the process to rescind Avastin’s accelerated approval in breast tumors. The drug had global sales of $6 billion in 2009.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.C1)
2010 Dec 16, The big set of sand barriers erected by Louisiana's governor to protect the coastline at the height of the Gulf oil spill was criticized by a presidential commission as a colossal, $200 million waste of BP's money so far.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, Lorillard Tobacco Co. was ordered to pay $81 million in punitive damages to the estate and son of a Boston woman who started smoking at age 13. A day earlier jurors ordered Lorillard to pay $71 million in compensatory damages to Willie Evans and the estate of his mother Marie, who died of lung cancer in 2002.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 16, US authorities said 7 people have been arrested following the seizure of nearly 11 tons of marijuana, valued at $22 million, packed into railroad cars from Mexico and destined to Chicago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 16, The California Air Resources Board approved the creation of the nation’s first broad-based program to put a cap on green house gas emissions.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Dec 16, In California Rohayent Gomez (13) was shot and paralyzed by police officer Victor Abarca as the boy held a replica gun. In 2012 a jury ruled that the LAPD must pay $24 million to Gomez.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.A12)
2010 Dec 16, Prosecutors in Atlanta, Georgia, said they have seized 700,000 tabs of Ecstasy and charged Devon Samuels, a US Customs and Border Protection agent, along with 13 others in a large scale drug trafficking scheme.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A10)
2010 Dec 16, New York police scoured a 10-mile stretch of a Long Island beach access road where four bodies were discovered this week.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Oklahoma executed John David Duty (58) using a drug combination that included the sedative pentobarbital, commonly used to euthanize animals. Duty had strangled a cellmate nearly a decade ago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 16, A federal indictment said a Texas couple, Najmeh Vahid and Dr. Hossein Lahiji, and the head of an Oregon charity secretly sent millions of dollars to an Iranian bank and to a contact in Iran for nine years, violating a US embargo. The head of the charity, Mehrdad Yasrebi, allegedly funneled money that was meant for food and other assistance to his cousin and to a bank controlled by the Iranian government.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Astronauts from the US, Russia and Italy blasted off in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan on a mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 16, Gene Smith (b.1936), librarian and Tibetologist, died in NYC. In 1999 he set up the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center in Boston and then in NYC.
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Gene_Smith)
2010 Dec 16, In Bangladesh Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a key figure in the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was arrested. A tribunal has said it has found evidence of Chowdhury committing genocide, rape, arson and looting during the bloody 9-month liberation struggle against Pakistan in 1971. Allegations soon emerged that security forces tortured Chowdhury during interrogations.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Belgium NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new NATO building, said the new structure is essential to meet the demands of a rapidly changing security environment. Completion is due in 2015.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Bolivia lawmakers in a natural gas-rich eastern province removed Tarija Gov. Mario Cossio, a key opponent of leftist President Evo Morales, after he was charged with dereliction of duty and causing economic damage. His unseating by a legislature dominated by Morales supporters left opposition governors in control of just two of Bolivia's nine provinces.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, London's High Court upheld a decision to release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, under strict conditions, as he fought extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pressed on with a charm offensive in India, offering support for New Delhi's bid for a greater role in the United Nations and agreeing on an ambitious target of $100 billion annually in trade between the rising Asian powers by 2015.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 16, China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement that it has banned poultry and poultry product imports from Manitoba, Canada, after an outbreak of low-pathogenic H5N2 bird flu there.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Human Rights Watch urged the EU to stop returning migrants and asylum seekers to Ukraine, saying that they faced abuse and torture in the former Soviet republic.
(Reuters, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Lawyers said a French judge has filed preliminary charges against six people close to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda over the 1994 assassination of the country's then-president in a missile attack on his plane. Among the six people in question are ranking Rwandan army officers, including James Kabarebe, who has been Rwanda's defense minister since April, Charles Kayonga and Jackson Nkurunziza. The remaining three were identified as Jacob Tumwine, Sam Kaka and Franck Nziza.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, India's Hero Group said it was ending a 26-year-old joint venture with Honda Motor and buying out the Japanese firm's stake in the biggest Indian motorcycle manufacturer by sales.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Iraq bombs hidden in trash cans exploded near a group of pilgrims in a town north of Baghdad, killing two people as millions of Shiites headed to ceremonies to mark Ashura, a day of mourning. Karbala provincial council chief Mohammed al-Mussawi said "We were able to destroy 14 terrorist cells and arrest 73 people, including 37 wanted persons."
(AP, 12/16/10)(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, The Israeli military said the air force has shot down a suspicious object, "apparently a balloon," hovering over southern Israel, where its main nuclear reactor is located.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Ivory Coast gunfire and explosions shook Abidjan as supporters and security forces loyal to the two men claiming to be president clashed. An attempt by Alassane Ouattara’s people to march on the state television building left about 20 people dead.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.46)
2010 Dec 16, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and three of his allies were suspended from parliament for six months in votes that triggered pandemonium and an opposition walkout.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Mexico said that more than 30,000 people have been killed in drug violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown against cartels in late 2006. Masked men pulled up in a car in front of the governor's office in Chihuahua. One appeared to exchange words with anti-crime crusader Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who was holding a vigil outside. She tried to flee by running across the street, but the gunman chased her down and shot her in the head. The burned and dismembered remains of Escobedo's 17-year-old daughter were found in a Ciudad Juarez trash bin in June, 2009. Three judges ordered the release of the main suspect in the daughter's killing after he was absolved by a court in April for lack of evidence. The scandal resulted in the suspension of the judges. The judges resigned on March 11, 2011.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AP, 12/18/10)(AP, 3/15/11)
2010 Dec 16, In Mexico some 50-100 migrants were reportedly abducted by an armed group that stopped a freight train they were traveling on as it entered Oaxaca state from the border state of Chiapas.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Nigeria Pentecostal pastor John Nadrew (46) was given three years and eight months after security agents found an AK-47 rifle and five pistols in his house in Dot village during a raid last month.
(AFP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Pakistan 16 people were wounded, two critically, when an assailant threw an explosive device at Shiite Ashoura procession. A US missile strike killed 7 militants in the Spin Drand area of Khyber close to the Afghan border.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said he has asked representatives of several EU countries to recognize the truce lines before the 1967 Mideast war as the borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, Russian cardiologist Ivan Khrenov told PM Putin during a live call-in show that his bosses instructed doctors and nurses to show fake pay slips and pose as recovering patients surrounded by new equipment during the premier's November visit to a hospital in the central town of Ivanovo. Putin's visit to the hospital was nationally televised, just like the call-in show where Khrenov made his claims.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Saudi Arabia hundreds of Sunni hard-liners in Medina attacked those participating in the commemorations, known as Ashura. The day of mourning marks the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein in the year 680 in present day Iraq. Shiites represented 10% of predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia's 22.6 million people.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 16, The UN's human rights chief said that Sudan is blocking aid workers from entering the country ahead of next month's referendum on independence for the south.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1960, which called for an end to all acts of sexual violence. The Secretary-General was asked to include information on parties suspected to be responsible for acts of rape or other acts of sexual violence, which the Council would use to engage with the parties or take action against them.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1960)
2010 Dec 16, A fierce fight in Ukraine's parliament sent at least six lawmakers to the hospital with concussions, a fractured jaw and multiple bruises, setting a new low for the often-tumultuous body. Pro-Tymoshenko legislators had been blocking legislative work all day, protesting a corruption probe against her.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 16, A Vietnam-registered fishing boat, named Phu Tan, capsized off the Chinese coast leaving 27 fishermen missing.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 16, In Zimbabwe Raphael Khumalo, chief executive at the Zimbabwe Standard said first lady Grace Mugabe (45) has filed a $15 million lawsuit against the independent newspaper after they published a story citing WikiLeaks cables, dating to 2008, alleging her involvement in illegal diamond deals.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 17, Pres. Obama signed into law a tax bill extending cuts for all Americans. The $858 billion package included 13 months of extended benefits to the unemployed and a boost for renewable power companies.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A12)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.D1)
2010 Dec 17, The states of Arizona and Nevada sued Bank of America Corp., accusing the largest US bank of routinely misleading consumers about home loan modifications.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, The widow of Jeffrey Picower (d.2009), a Florida philanthropist, agreed to return $7.2 billion that her husband reaped from the giant Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 17, The Archdiocese of New York announced that a Roman Catholic tribunal has defrocked former monsignor Charles Kavanagh (73) for molesting a teenage student in the 1980s. Kavanagh denied the accusation.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 17, Don Van Vliet (69), American musician and artist, died in California. He had performed as Captain Beefheart and was best known for his 1969 album “Trout Mask Replica" released by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band."
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 17, In Afghanistan kidnappers killed a Bangladeshi working for a South Korean firm and held 3 road workers hostage after storming their camp at gunpoint between the northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan. Haitham Mohammed al-Khayat (26), a prominent Jordanian-Palestinian militant better known in extremist circles as Abu Kandahar al-Zarqawi, was killed by US forces. He was an administrator of the online jihadi forum, Al-Hesbah, according to Islamist militant websites.
(AFP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 17, British landscape architect Joanna Yeates (25) went missing following a night out. Her body was found in the Failand area of Bristol on Christmas Day. She had been strangled. On Jan 20, 2011, Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak (32) was detained after police uncovered fresh evidence. On Oct 28 Tabak was found guilty of murder.
(AFP, 1/4/11)(AFP, 1/22/11)(Reuters, 10/28/11)
2010 Dec 17, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a rare visit to Pakistan aimed at expanding trade ties and the flow of Chinese investment into the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, A French court convicted 13 former officials who served under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for roles in the disappearance of 4 French nationals. It sentenced two to life in prison: Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who at the time headed Pinochet's political police, and Octavio Espinoza Bravo, an army colonel. All 14 of the defendants were tried in absentia.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Iraq a roadside bomb in southeast Baghdad exploded as Shiite pilgrims were returning home from Karbala, after final ceremonies ended for Ashura, the Shiite Muslims' most solemn religious event of the year. Eight pilgrims were wounded. The UN refugee agency said an "exodus" of thousands of Iraqi Christians was taking place following a deadly church attack in Baghdad carried out by Al-Qaeda militants at the end of October.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Israel Christine Luken (44), female American tourist, was stabbed to death. Her body was found on Dec 19 bound and with multiple stab wounds near a road outside Jerusalem. Her friend, Kaye Susan Wilson, told police the two had been hiking in a nearby forest when they were assaulted by two Arab men. She, too, was bound and stabbed, but managed to escape her assailants. On Jan 26, 2011, Palestinians Kifah Ghneimat and Iyad Fatafa were indicted for Luken’s murder. Ghneimat was convicted on Sep 25.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 1/26/11)(AP, 9/26/11)
2010 Dec 17, Ivory Coast police were out in force in Abidjan as supporters of the internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's presidential election vowed to try once again to seize state institutions after a similar attempt the day before resulted in up to 30 deaths.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Kyrgyzstan's fractious parliament named a new prime minister and formed a government, ending weeks of political uncertainty. Social Democrat Party leader Almazbek Atambayev was named premier with 92 out of 114 votes.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Maltese Foreign Minister Tonio Borg promised during a visit to the Gaza Strip to donate funds to the United Nations agency caring for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Mexico 141 inmates, a number later raised to 153, escaped from a state prison in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. Authorities said the breakout was probably helped by prison employees. More than 40 prison guards were later charged with helping 153 inmates escape from the prison. 11 men were reported abducted from a bar in Acapulco. Two of the abducted men were later found dead. Their hands and feet had been cut off. On Dec 27 police in Acapulco found the decapitated bodies of two more men in front of the same bar.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 17, A Nigerian court sentenced 15 Muslim herdsmen to 10 years each over sectarian violence in the country's central region that left hundreds dead this year. Nigerian tanker drivers suspended petrol deliveries to Lagos and other areas to protest the firing of 2,500 members, sparking long queues at filling stations.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigerian NDLF militants attacked three pipelines operated by the US oil giant Chevron and Italian firm Agip in the key oil producing state of Delta.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigeria dropped charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal allegedly involving Halliburton after a reported settlement of 250 million dollars. On Dec 21 Halliburton said it had agreed to pay 32.5 million dollars to the Nigerian government, plus 2.5 million dollars in costs.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, North Korea said it would strike again at the South if a live-firing drill by Seoul on a disputed island went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month's shelling that killed four people. Russia urged South Korea to halt plans for the artillery drill.
(AP, 12/17/10)(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Pakistan 3 American missile attacks killed 54 people in the villages of Spin Drag and Shandana in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber region, an area that has seen few such strikes in the past, possibly signaling an expansion of the CIA-led covert war inside the country.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Sudan's army clashed with Darfur rebels for a third time in a week. UN officials said clashes between the Sudanese army and former rebels who signed a peace treaty with Khartoum have forced the displacement of more than 12,000 people in less than a week.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Tunisia Mohamed Bouazizi (26), a university graduate without a steady job and trying to support his family, burned himself after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he sold without a permit. His self-immolation left him in intensive care and sparked protests over unemployment that led to at least three deaths. Bouazizi died on Jan 4.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 17, Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc. Officials and troops began seizing 47 private ranches as pres. Chavez pushed ahead to take over big swaths of agricultural land in western Venezuela.
(AP, 12/18/10)(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 17, In Vietnam Southeast Asia's largest hydroelectric power station began operating to help ease an electricity shortage. The first of six turbines at the Son La station was connected to the national power grid.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Yemen gunmen killed three soldiers and wounded seven others when they opened fire on a military base in the southern province of Abyan.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 17, Zimbabwe's Pres. Mugabe said the power-sharing government is not working and must end, putting him on a collision course with PM Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe told his party conference that British and US companies in Zimbabwe will be nationalized unless sanctions against the country are dropped.
(AFP, 12/17/10)(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 18, Tensions between the US and Venezuela flared over Washington's nominee for ambassador, as President Hugo Chavez warned that diplomat Larry Palmer would be detained and put on the next flight home if he tries to set foot in the country.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In a historic vote for gay rights, the US Senate agreed to do away with the military's 17-year ban on openly gay troops and sent President Barack Obama legislation to overturn the Clinton-era policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Louisiana a small plane crashed after takeoff in Crowley killing 3 people and injuring 2 others.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 18, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said he has evidence Sudanese Pres. Omar al-Bashir has stolen billions of dollars from his impoverished country. The embezzlement accusations were first reported by British newspaper The Guardian, based on a diplomatic cable provided by the Wikileaks website.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In eastern Afghanistan NATO troops killed more than 20 insurgents in fighting after a patrol came under fire. German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid an unannounced visit to northern Afghanistan to boost German troops' morale for a war that is deeply unpopular at home and to meet with the Afghan president. A leader of the Haqqani network was killed in an operation by international forces and their Afghan counterparts in the eastern Khost province. A man was captured during a night raid in the Zharay district of southern Kandahar province by Afghan and coalition forces, who described him as "a key Taliban weapons facilitator."
(AP, 12/18/10)(Reuters, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 18, In northeastern Bangladesh a boat packed with passengers capsized on the Surma River. Rescuers the next day said at least 37 people died and 18 more were missing.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Brazil bridegroom Rogerio Damascena (29) fatally shot his new wife, Renata Alexandre Costa Coelho (25), his best man, Marcelo Guimaraes, and then himself after announcing to horrified guests that he had a "surprise" for them.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 18, Fresh snow brought much of Britain to a standstill, on what is traditionally the busiest weekend for shopping and travel in the run-up to Christmas. Blizzards and freezing temperatures shut down runways, train tracks and highways across Europe.
(Reuters, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Andrew Lindo (29) strangled, battered and stabbed Marie Stewart to death while their children were asleep, at their home in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. Hours later, he took the two children to collect his lover, Angela Rylance (30), spending the night with her in the bedroom where he had carried out the brutal murder. On Sep 21 a judge ordered that Lindo serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars.
(AFP, 9/21/11)(www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-14842805)
2010 Dec 18, A 63-ton Chinese fishing boat capsized after ramming into a 3,000-ton South Korean coastguard ship trying to curb its illegal fishing activities, leaving one Chinese crew member dead and another missing.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 18, Cuban President Raul Castro told legislators that the future of the country's revolution is at stake as the government tries to institute sweeping economic reforms, adding that the changes are meant to strengthen socialism — not replace it.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Germany’s weekly Der Spiegel reported that local tax authorities recovered 1.6 billion euros this year from citizens who had stashed their cash in secret accounts in Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Iran's president announced the start of a plan to slash energy and food subsidies, part of government efforts to boost the country's ailing economy.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Iraq's parliament took a major step toward creating a unity government, lifting a ban on three Sunni Muslim politicians who were barred from running in national elections last March after being accused of having ties to Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, An Israeli airstrike killed five Gaza militants in the deadliest attack against the coastal strip in months. The Israeli military says the men were about to launch a rocket attack against southern Israeli communities when they were struck.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In the Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to step down from the presidency, ordered all UN peacekeepers to leave the country immediately, calling the global body that has endorsed his political rival an "agent of destabilization." The UN certified results showed that opposition leader Alassane Ouattara had won by "an irrefutable margin."
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Mexico a lumber operation, associated with the family of anti-crime crusader Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, killed on Dec 16, was burned down in Ciudad Juarez by unknown arsonists. The body of Manuel Monge Amparan, a relative of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, was dumped on a street in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 18, Pakistan and China concluded nearly 15 billion dollars' worth of deals, as visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Beijing would "never give up" on the troubled nuclear-armed Muslim country.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Pakistan's top spy agency denied that it helped unmask the CIA's station chief in Islamabad, dismissing speculation it was retaliating for a US lawsuit linking the Pakistani intelligence chief to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India. The station chief in Islamabad has operated as a virtual military commander in the US war against al-Qaida and other militant groups hidden along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. His recall was made public a day earlier.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, Russian news agencies said Moscow police have arrested 500 people to stop them attending rival protests over the killing of a soccer fan and the ethnic violence that erupted after the slaying. Seven hunters and forest rangers were shot dead in a wooded area in the Caucasus province of Kabardino-Balkaria.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Spain tens of thousands of workers staged strikes in 40 cities to protest state plans to up the retirement age to slash public deficit.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 18, A Sri Lanka Cabinet minister backtracked saying the government will now allow a UN team to visit the country and share evidence gathered during an investigation into whether war crimes were committed during the final phase of the island's bloody civil war.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 19, In northern Afghanistan troops shot dead rebels at an army recruitment center in Kunduz to end a day-long siege following 2 attacks by militants that killed at least 13 security personnel. In Kabul two suicide bombers targeted an army bus, killing five military personal. One civilian was killed and four children were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Panjwayi district, in Kandahar province.
(AFP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Belarus held elections. Authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko expressed confidence that he would win a fourth term. Opposition leaders and rights activists reported that more than 30 people campaigning against the president had been detained. The country's election commission declared that Lukashenko got almost 80% of the vote in a preliminary count, handing him a fourth term in office.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, A Dubai court sentenced Mark Arnold (42), a Briton, charged with killing Kelly Winter, his South African ex-lover, to life in prison. Winter (36) disappeared in August 2008 following a quarrel with Arnold. Prosecutors charged him with clubbing her to death with a baseball bat and dumping her body with weights in the sea. Her body was never found. Life in prison equals 25 years in the United Arab Emirates.
(AFP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Europe saw little respite from the Arctic conditions that have closed airports and disrupted travel on the weekend before Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, The Guatemalan military declared a state of siege in a northern province that authorities say has been overtaken by Mexican drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Iran levied up to a five-fold hike in fuel prices as the government started scrapping subsidies as part of a long-awaited economic overhaul, despite initial resistance by conservatives. Thousands of truck drivers nationwide stopped working because they were not allowed to increase their prices.
(AFP, 12/19/10)(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 19, Israel's cabinet decided to limit stipends paid to full-time ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students after the payments sparked widespread protests among university students.
(AFP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, Ivory Coast state television left no doubt who's in control of the media: Laurent Gbagbo was shown taking the oath of office with no mention that the United Nations says he lost the presidential election and should step down. The UN warned against attacks on its personnel in Ivory Coast and said it would stay.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, In Mexico a massive oil pipeline explosion lay waste to parts of in San Martin Texmelucan, incinerating people, cars, houses and trees as gushing crude turned streets into flaming rivers. At least 29 people were killed, 14 of them children. Authorities blamed oil thieves after investigators found a hole in the pipeline and equipment for extracting crude. On Jan 10 a police officer died of his injuries bringing the death toll to 30.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Dec 19, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hosted dozens of Israeli legislators and activists, and urged them to relay a simple message to the Israeli public — he is serious about negotiating a peace deal and that the Palestinians will never again resort to violence.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, In the northern Philippines a fire rapidly swept through a 5-storey budget hotel in Tuguegarao burning to death 15 people, several crammed in bathrooms where they fled in panic. Nine of the victims were nursing students in town to take a licensing exam. The death toll rose to 16 after one person died in a hospital
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, In Somalia a merger was announced between al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam. Analysts and fighters said the weak, UN-backed government could face an increase in attacks from Islamist insurgents after the two largest groups dropped their running feud and merged.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir said the country would adopt an Islamic constitution if the south split away in a referendum due next month, in a speech in which he also defended police filmed flogging a woman.
(Reuters, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 19, The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 20, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg toured the offices of Baidu, China's top search engine, during a visit that has sparked speculation the social networking magnate is looking for business opportunities in the world's largest Internet market.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, International observers and Western governments accused Belarus' strongman leader of using fraud and violence to remain in power after more than 16 years of repressive rule, saying that Pres. Lukashenko's re-election had been seriously flawed.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, British police arrested a dozen men suspected of plotting a large-scale terror attack, the biggest anti-terrorist sweep since April 2009, when 12 men were detained over an alleged al-Qaida bomb plot in the northern city of Manchester.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, China's state news agency said eight people have been sentenced to prison terms of up to two-and-a-half years for selling fake rabies vaccines that contributed to the death of one boy. A court in southwestern Guangxi region sentenced Zhang Dazhi to 30 months' jail while seven others were handed one-year prison terms.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Colombia another mudslide caused by weeks of rains destroyed 52 makeshift mountainside homes. Two people were missing.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 20, An Egyptian State Security prosecutor said that authorities have charged a local businessman, Tarek Hassan, and two Israelis for recruiting agents in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon to spy for Israeli intelligence.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Snow and frigid temperatures caused disruption across northern Europe for a third day, stranding travelers, snarling traffic and shutting schools, and the bad weather is likely to run through Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran and Qatar pledged to cooperate for greater regional security during a visit to Tehran by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of the tiny but energy-rich Gulf state.
(AFP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran hanged 11 men authorities said were members of Jundallah, an armed Sunni militant group, convicted of bombings.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Iran's judiciary spokesman confirmed that Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the country's first vice president, was facing corruption charges. Iran has 12 vice presidents but Rahimi is the most senior among them.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In southeastern Iran a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck a remote area late at night, killing at least 11 people and injuring 40 people.
(AP, 12/21/10)(SFC, 12/22/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 20, Iraqi army special forces killed three Libyans allegedly planning suicide bombings ahead of Christmas in a raid in the northern city of Mosul.
(AFP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Malaysia a double-decker bus carrying Thai tourists overturned on a highway, killing 28 people on their way back from a hill resort.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, North Korea said it would not react to "reckless" military drills by the South, despite an earlier threat to retaliate, and CNN reported that Pyongyang had agreed to the return of nuclear inspectors.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Pakistan militants fired rockets at a NATO convoy carrying supplies to Afghanistan, destroying two oil tankers and wounding two people in the Khyber tribal region.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired seven mortar shells into southern Israel that fell on open ground and caused no casualties.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, In Puerto Rico at least 17 people were detained as students at the largest public university in the Caribbean clashed with police during an indefinite strike over a new fee.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 20, A Puerto Rico National Guard UH-72 Lakota helicopter crashed in the ocean while returning from a drug raid on Vieques. 3 bodies of the six people on board were found and the remaining were feared dead. The last body was recovered on Jan 23.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(AP, 1/23/11)
2010 Dec 20, Serbia urged international authorities to investigate allegations of a trade in the kidneys and other organs of civilians slain in the aftermath of Kosovo's 1999 war for secession.
(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 20, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Orna cargo vessel after firing rocket propelled grenades and small arms at the ship, a Panama-flagged, bulk cargo vessel owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates. In June, 2011, pirate a said an undisclosed number of pirates and hostages were forced to abandon the bulk cargo carrier MV Orna. Abdi said it is believed the fire was caused by an electrical problem in the ship's kitchen.
(AP, 12/20/10)(AP, 6/15/11)
2010 Dec 20, Venezuela’s government formally rejected Larry Palmer, Washington's nominee for ambassador. The US State Department said the decision will have consequences on their relations. Venezuela’s parliament passed a law banning for the first time Internet content that promotes social unrest, challenges authority or condones crime, fueling outrage by the opposition.
(AP, 12/20/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, US tax authorities announced that Deutsche Bank has admitted criminal wrongdoing and agreed to pay more than $550 million in connection with its participation in tax shelters from 1996-2002 that enabled the rich to temporarily avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxes.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, The United States said it has approved travel sanctions against Laurent Gbagbo and about 30 others following Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe's attorney general, Johannes Tomana, saying his actions undermined the country's democratic institutions.
(Reuters, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In southern Afghanistan a British soldier was one of two NATO service members killed in Helmand. 5 civilians died as militants attacked coalition forces in the Sangin district. Seven insurgents were killed in the battle.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, The Australian Defense Force said steroids and unidentified substances had been seized in recent raids after a tip-off. A report claimed Australian sailors have been stashing large amounts of cocaine and heroin on navy ships and selling them in Sydney's red light district and that this has been going on "for years."
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Belarus Grigory Kostusyev, a presidential candidate arrested after weekend elections, said the KGB tried to pressure him into renouncing his opposition to the country's authoritarian regime.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, British man Stephen Griffiths (40), who called himself the "Crossbow Cannibal," was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three prostitutes. Griffiths admitted murdering Suzanne Blamires (36), Shelley Armitage (31) and Susan Rushworth (43), who all worked as prostitutes near his home in Bradford.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, Toronto-Dominion Bank said it will buy Chrysler Financial from private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management for $6.3 billion, joining the throng of Canadian institutions expanding foreign operations.
(Reuters, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, China urged North Korea to follow through on its offer to allow UN nuclear monitors into the country as a way to alleviate international tensions during a standoff with the South.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Cuba Francisco Chavez Abarca of El Salvador was handed a 30-year prison sentence for his role in a string of bombings at tourist hotels in the 1990s. The bombings killed an Italian tourist in 1997.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, The leaders of Egypt and Libya were in Khartoum for talks with Sudanese leaders on the future of Africa's largest country ahead of a referendum that's likely to break it into two.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, A French judge charged exiled Rwandan Hutu rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana (47) over his alleged role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The former "executive secretary" of the Hutu guerrilla FDLR, who had been living in France as a computer technician, was charged with crimes against humanity.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, Alpha Conde heralded a new era for Guinea after being sworn as the nation's first freely elected president in front of visiting heads of state and jubilant supporters.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, Hungary’s Fidesz party passed the second part of contentious legislation placing broadcast, print and online media under the supervision of a new authority with power to impose large fines for ill-defined offenses.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.53)
2010 Dec 21, In India Russia’s Pres. Medvedev clinched agreements with its Cold War-era ally to deepen nuclear energy cooperation and develop a supersonic fighter to rival a US jet. Russia and India pledged to share intelligence and work together to fight international terror.
(Reuters, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a new government to be headed by incumbent Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki, ending nine months of political deadlock that threatened to stall economic development and suck the country back into sectarian violence. They also adopted a 43-point program aimed at liberalizing the economy and fighting terrorism. Women made up a quarter of the 325-seat Parliament but were given only two ministries in the 44-member Cabinet, approved after a nine-month delay.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AFP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 21, The Israeli air force hit seven suspected militant sites in the Gaza Strip in an unusually large operation. Palestinian militants retaliated by sending a rocket crashing down near a kindergarten in southern Israel. Israel's military chief confirmed the Palestinian use of Kornet missiles. This marked a new milestone for Gaza militants, who have steadily built up their arsenal from a collection of crude, homemade rockets to include more menacing imported weapons. Israeli defense officials said the laser-guided Kornet came from Iran. Israel's answer, called Trophy, was the first-of-its-kind Israeli-made system carried by tanks that is designed to shoot down missiles like the Kornet.
(AP, 12/21/10)(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to pay the US government a record $32.4 million in additional fines to settle an investigation into its handling of two recalls at the heart of its safety crisis. The latest settlement, on top of a $16.4 million fine Toyota paid earlier in a related investigation, brought the total penalties levied on the company to $48.8 million.
(AP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Mexico seven gunmen kidnapped 9 Central American migrants from a train near the Ixtepec, a town in Oaxaca state. Five of the migrants escaped and reported the kidnapping. Another was killed as he tried to flee. 3 remained missing.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 21, Netherlands-based Royal DSM NV, the world’s largest maker of vitamins, agreed to buy Martek Biosciences, a US maker of nutritional ingredients for baby food, for $1.09 billion.
(SFC, 12/22/10, p.D3)
2010 Dec 21, A Sudan military source said 20 soldiers from the south Sudan army (SPLA) have been killed in clashes with rebels led by former general George Athor.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Tonga Noble Lord Tu’ivakano won a secret ballot among lawmakers to become the country’s first prime minister elected by parliament rather than appointed by King George Tupou V.
(SFC, 12/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 21, Venezuela’s congress, dominated by President Hugo Chavez's allies, passed a law barring foreign funding for nongovernment organizations and political parties, adding to a series of measures that critics say aim to stifle dissent.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 21, In Zimbabwe 9 people died and 25 were injured when a speeding bus slammed into a truck in Harare. 3 infants were among the dead.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, President Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and signed a landmark law repealing the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the armed services.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The US Senate, in its final act of the lameduck session, approved the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (71-26) signed earlier this year by Pres. Obama and Russia’s Pres. Medvedev.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 22, In South San Francisco, Ca., 3 young men were shot and killed in a driveby shooting at the corner of Linden and Eighth Lane. In 2012 nineteen people were indicted for the killings. 3 federal agents were wounded during arrest procedures.
(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A10)
2010 Dec 22, In Chicago 2 firefighters were killed when a roof collapsed in a vacant burning building. The tragedy took place exactly 100 years following the Chicago Union Stock Yards fire that killed 21 firemen.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A7)
2010 Dec 22, Afghan officials said Iran has banned fuel exports to Afghanistan, stranding about 3,000 fuel trucks at the border and driving up wholesale prices for the refined products ahead of what many Afghans fear will be a blistery winter in their oil-poor nation.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A joint Afghan and NATO patrol killed several insurgents in the southern province of Helmand during an operation targeting a mid-level Taliban leader involved in roadside bomb attacks. A Taliban leader involved in the Dec 19 bus bombing in Kabul and two other insurgents in an airstrike in Ghazni province in the center of the country. A roadside bomb struck a tractor pulling a cart loaded with passengers, killing a child and wounding nine people in the Garm Ser district of Helmand province.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 22, Albania invited an international investigation into claims it was linked with the trafficking of organs from slain civilians during the war in neighboring Kosovo.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Argentina former dictator Jorge Videla was sentenced to life in prison for the torture and murder of 31 prisoners, most of whom who were "shot while trying to escape" in the months after his military coup.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Australia Kok Loong Wong of Malaysia appeared in a Sydney court charged with possessing 200 pounds (90 kg) of crystal meth in his home, the seventh-largest "ice" haul in Australian history.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A rights group said Belarus has opened criminal probes against 18 leading opposition figures over involvement in post-election riots that could see them jailed for up to 15 years. Belarus has said it arrested over 600 people in the wake of recent protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Bolivia sent a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declaring its recognition of an independent and sovereign state of Palestine.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A Dubai court slashed the prison terms for two men convicted in the 2009 slaying of a former Chechen warlord from life to just three years in a surprise ruling that highlighted the international intrigue surrounding the case. The family of the slain Chechen strongman, Sulim Yamadayev, had submitted a letter disavowing any desire for further punishments in connection with the killing.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In France 113 children arrived from Haiti to start new lives with adoptive parents in time for the holidays.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Haitian officials said angry mobs have lynched at least 45 people in recent weeks, accusing them of spreading a cholera outbreak that has killed over 2,500 people across the country.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The Indian government, facing mounting public anger over soaring onion costs, scrapped tax on imports of the vegetable to try to rein in prices of the staple food.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Iran's armed Sunni militant group said it will kill an abducted Iranian after authorities rejected an offer to swap the hostage for 200 of the group's imprisoned members. The man was identified as a former worker at an Iranian nuclear facility who was kidnapped two months ago.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Iraq a large military operation targeting Al-Qaeda and their sleeper cells was launched overnight in Anbar province. 93 suspects were arrested, including 60 wanted men. Gunmen with silenced weapons raked the car of General Imad Hasham with gunfire in a Baghdad street, killing him and wounding his daughter. Gunmen also with silenced weapons shot and wounded police Lieutenant Colonel Majid Hamid as he was driving through the Amiriya area of Baghdad.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Rome, Italy, all embassies were informed about a pair of package bombs that exploded at the Swiss and Chilean embassies, injuring two people who opened them. Security officials later said that an Italian group calling itself Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Rome tens of thousands of students took to the streets to peacefully protest planned changes in the university system. Protests in Palermo and Milan turned violent.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 22, Nigeria’s state oil firm said it has shut down three of its four refineries because of sabotage of pipelines leading to them. It called on the military to increase security.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A small Pakistani army training plane crashed into mountains in the country's southwest. The pilot and co-pilot died in the crash.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association said in a statement that the Interior Ministry summoned the coordinators of the protest to notify them that their request has been rejected, without giving any reasons. The group's 20 demands included curtailing privileges of members of the Saudi royal family, fighting corruption and nepotism, and creating an independent judiciary.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, South Korea announced land and sea military exercises including its largest-ever live-fire drill near North Korea just as tension on the peninsula was beginning to ease after Pyongyang's attack on a southern island.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Spain's "El Gordo", one of the world's biggest lotteries, gave out 2.3 billion euros (1.9 billion British pounds) in Christmas prizes with Spaniards spending almost the same as last year on tickets.
(Reuters, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Sudan Mudawi Ibrahim, a prominent Darfur activist, was sentenced to one year in prison and fined on embezzlement charges. He was acquitted on the same charges earlier. Authorities appealed and won a new verdict without a retrial.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 22, Thailand's government withdrew armed soldiers from skytrain stops in Bangkok and other key sites as it lifted an eight-month-old state of emergency imposed when protesters overran the capital.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Tunisia a 24-year-old jobless protester was electrocuted after announcing he wanted to end his life and mounting a high-voltage electricity pole in the town of Sidi Bouzid. Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters after simmering tensions linked to unemployment erupted after the demonstrator committed suicide.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 22, The UN nuclear agency said tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from a defunct Serbian reactor have been repatriated to Russia. The 2.5 metric tons (2.76 tons) of the spent fuel arrived at a secure Russian facility from Serbia's Vinca reactor.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The UN Security Council voted to increase by half the number of African Union peacekeepers supporting Somalia's transitional government against Al-Qaeda-inspired rebels.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, A Venezuelan court sentenced Jose Sanchez Montiel, an opposition politician, to 19 years in prison, saying he was an accomplice in the 2007 killing of a military intelligence official. He was elected to the National Assembly in September while in jail awaiting sentencing. On Dec 24, 2011, a court granted parole to Montiel for humanitarian reasons because of his advanced prostate cancer.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/11)
2010 Dec 23, The US Treasury Department defended its issuance of special licenses for American companies to do business with Iran and other blacklisted nations, in response to a New York Times report on deals made despite sanctions and trade embargoes. An examination by the newspaper found the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has made nearly 10,000 exceptions to U.S. sanctions rules over the past decade.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, The US population reportedly grew 9.7% over the previous decade to 308.7 million as the US Census Bureau began releasing data.
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 23, In central Florida Kenneth Stephens Jr. (35), a blast team supervisor, was trapped underwater and feared dead after ground gave way at a limerock mine in Bushnell.
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 23, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed an Afghan policeman and wounded five civilians in Kunduz. A blast in Ghazni killed a man suspected of being either a suicide bomber or of trying to plant a bomb under a truck. A NATO helicopter opened fire on a convoy of cars heading to an event hosted by the head of a local council in Faryab province, killing a police officer and the brother of a lawmaker. It was reported that US-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant to keep the new Afghan army and police healthy have been disappearing before reaching Afghan military hospitals and clinics.
(AFP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Australia Melbourne men Wissam Mahmoud Fattal (34), Nayef El Sayed (26), both of Lebanese descent, and Somali-origin Saney Edow Aweys (27) were found guilty of conspiring to plan a terrorist act, which carries a possible life term. Two other men, Somali-origin Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed (26) and Yacqub Khayre (23) were found not guilty after the three-month trial.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Anglo-Australian resources giant Rio Tinto made a 3.9 billion US dollar offer for Australia's Riversdale, sparking speculation of a bidding war for its African steel-making coal with Indian and other rivals.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Human Rights Watch said The United States and Britain should immediately stop supporting the Bangladeshi Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an anti-crime force blamed for killing hundreds of suspects without trial, if there is no visible effort to reform it.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, China's capital announced that it will sharply limit new vehicle registrations to try to ease massive traffic jams that are rapidly turning Beijing's streets into parking lots.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, China said it will boost further its already expanding economic ties with Africa, which reached a record two-way volume of more than $100 billion this year.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In southwestern Colombia a landslide caused by weeks of rains buried 4-5 houses killing at least 12 people. The government and Red Cross said the year's heavy rains have killed at least 312 people in the country.
(AP, 12/24/10)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.40)
2010 Dec 23, It was reported that the first pill designed to curb a person’s urge to have more than a few drinks of alcohol was undergoing tests in Europe. The drug (nalmafene) was developed by H. Lundbeck A/S in Valby, Denmark.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 23, The EU and the US jointly threatened to review ties with Belarus following an opposition crackdown after elections that kept President Alexander Lukashenko in power.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Greece's governing Socialists won a key budget vote in Parliament, calling for deeper austerity measures in the crisis-hit country and promising to avoid default despite a soaring national debt.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Hungary’s lawmakers approved new budget plans and pledged to get the budget deficit below 3 percent of national income next year. Fitch Ratings said the measures proposed, particularly on pensions, could actually worsen the public finances in coming years.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Indian official data showed that food price inflation has returned to double-digits, fuelled by surging onion prices, adding to pressure on the scandal-hit Congress government.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined regional leaders for a summit on economic cooperation in Istanbul, just a month ahead of nuclear talks with world powers.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Iraq police patrol discovered the body of Barbaros Mohammed Habeeb, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's party, in the disputed northern oil hub of Kirkuk. Security forces, searching for a young woman on suspicion she had ties to al-Qaida, raided her father's home outside Baqouba. During questioning Najim al-Anbaky told police he had killed his daughter, Shahlaa, a month earlier because he found out she intended to blow herself up in a suicide attack.
(AFP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, The Irish government gained court approval to nationalize Allied Irish Banks, the fourth bank taken over by Ireland amid a financial crisis brought on by speculative real estate lending.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, Israel's Peace Now movement said Israeli settlers have illegally begun work on at least 100 homes in the occupied West Bank since the end of a freeze on settlement construction.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, The UN said at least 173 people have been killed in the Ivory Coast and 90 others tortured or treated inhumanely because of post-election violence. The UN General Assembly formally recognized Alassane Ouattara as the winner of the Nov. 28 runoff vote and rescinded the credentials of the Ivory Coast UN ambassador, a supporter of Laurent Gbagbo.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Kazakhstan a forum of 900 people in Ust-Kamenogorsk put forward an initiative to extend via referendum the president’s term in office until 2020 and to cancel the next presidential election, due in 2012. On Dec 29 it was backed by the country’s one-party parliament and waited for the signature of Pres. Nazarbayev.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.40)
2010 Dec 23, Nigeria said it has signed loan deals with China worth 900 million dollars that will be used to finance rail and communication projects in Africa's most populous nation.
(AFP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 23, In South Africa serial killer Thozamile Taki (36) was convicted of murdering 13 women and dumping their bodies in sugarcane plantations around the country. The bodies of the women had decomposed in the fields when they were found in 2007. On Jan 19 Taki received the maximum 13 life sentences. He was also sentenced to 208 years for robbery charges.
(AP, 12/23/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 Dec 23, In western Sudan Darfur's main rebel groups fought alongside each other for the first time in years as they clashed with government forces. Rights group Amnesty International said that a Sudanese court had sentenced high profile rights activist Mudawi Ibrahim to one year in jail for embezzlement despite an earlier acquittal which found no fraud within his aid agency, SUDO, one of many shut down last year.
(AFP, 12/23/10)(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 23, In Venezuela police and soldiers fired water cannons and plastic bullets as thousands of students protested against a law passed by Venezuela's congress that increases the government's powers over the country's universities.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Afghanistan 2 Afghan security guards were killed after coalition forces raided the compound of Tiger International, an Afghan private security company, in Kabul over an alleged plot to attack the United States embassy. A policeman and one civilian were killed by a mine near Khost. A policeman was killed and another injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb near the main road between Jalalabad and Torkham in Nangarhar province.
(AFP, 12/24/10)(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 24, The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan met in Istanbul for a new round of talks aimed at building trust between the two neighbors. Turkey’s Pres. Gul said a railroad between Turkey and Pakistan should be extended to Afghanistan and flights between the three countries should be expanded for better cooperation.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, The Bangladesh government announced it was planning a “high-level" investigation into the operations of Grameen Bank, a microlender founded by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel peace prize.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.75)
2010 Dec 24, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was officially declared the winner of a fourth term in office in a vote that both his challengers and international monitors say was tainted by fraud.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Colombia’s police and air force began an anti-drug operation in Meta state.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 24, The Ecuadorean government recognized Palestine as a sovereign state.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Ecuador an overcrowded bus plunged into a 1,100-foot (350m) ravine leaving 38 people dead and 46 injured.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Heavy snow stranded thousands of Christmas travelers in Europe, with Belgium's main airport closed for landing and icy roads in Sweden choked with traffic.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Guinea's President Alpha Conde named Mohamed Said Fofana, a former director of economic research, as the nation's new prime minister.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, In India Dr. Binayak Sen (60), a physician, outspoken government critic and human rights activist, was convicted along with 2 others of aiding communist rebels in eastern India. All three were sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Iraq a Shiite militia leader, his wife and three children were killed in a bomb attack on their home in Haswa, south of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Israel hundreds of Israelis and African migrants marched down Tel Aviv's main boulevard to protest a government plan to build a detention facility to hold those who enter the country illegally.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to concede defeat after presidential elections, faced two major setbacks as officials cut off his access to the state funds used to pay soldiers and state television remained off the air in much of the country. The UN said masked gunmen with rocket launchers were blocking access to what officials believe may be a mass grave site. West Africa leaders from the 15-country regional bloc ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, threatened to send military intervention into Ivory Coast if incumbent Gbagbo refuses to step down peacefully.
(AP, 12/24/10)(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Macedonia police arrested Vellija Ramkovski and 14 employees of his private A1 television channel. The channel has often critical of PM Gruevski’s government.
(http://tinyurl.com/46rkkat)
2010 Dec 24, In Mexico 11 of the murder victims were shot in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Dutch police arrested 12 Somali men in the key port city of Rotterdam on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. Dutch authorities on Dec 26 cleared five of the 12 Somali men who were detained Christmas Eve on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. By Dec 30 the remaining Somalis were released but 3 were still considered suspect.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AP, 12/27/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 24, In central and northern Nigeria a series of unprecedented Christmas Eve bomb blasts and attacks on churches left 32 people dead in Jos. 6 people were killed when petrol bombs were thrown at churches in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, in Borno state.
(AFP, 12/25/10)(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 24, In northwestern Pakistan Taliban insurgents launched coordinated attacks on five paramilitary checkpoints, leaving at least 11 soldiers and 24 militants dead. A bomb fitted with a timer exploded in a private boys' primary school in Peshawar's Pelosi neighborhood, wounding four children. The US embassy in Islamabad said Washington transferred more than 600 million dollars to the Pakistani government this week to pay for its efforts in the fight against violent extremists.
(AFP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Russia's parliament gave preliminary approval to a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, supporting ratification of the new START pact in the first of three required votes.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Russia's central bank raised interest rates on its deposit operations to contain surging inflation, its first step away from the loose policy implemented after the financial crisis hammered the Russian economy.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Russia announced a deal to buy at least two of France’s advanced Mistral-class amphibious warships. This was the first time in modern history that Russia has made a major defense acquisition abroad.
(SFC, 12/25/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 24, In Saudi Arabia police shot dead a man, disguised as a woman, at a checkpoint south of Riyadh after he opened fire on them. Police later identified the man as Mohammed Issam Tahir al-Baghdadi, an al-Qaida operative wanted for terrorist activities.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 24, South Africa's minister of international relations and cooperation said South Africa has been invited by China to join the four-member "BRIC" grouping of fast-growing emerging markets. South Africa is the world's 31st-largest economy, according to World Bank data for 2009 and is less than a quarter the size of the smallest BRIC economy, Russia.
(Reuters, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 24, Sudanese government troops killed at least 40 rebels and wounded many more in a new offensive in the country's troubled Darfur region. 3 soldiers also died and 13 were wounded when army forces attacked joint positions of two rebel groups: the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement.
(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 24, Thailand film director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit said she plans to appeal a decision by the National Film Board that her film, "Insects in the Backyard," cannot not be shown in Thailand because it is immoral and pornographic. The movie was about a transgender father struggling to raise two children.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 25, Benin said three West African presidents will fly to Ivory Coast to tell incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to quit or face force, a sign of mounting regional determination to force him out.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 25, In London Kristy Bamu (15) died after days of abuses in a Congolese exorcism ritual by his sister Magalie (29) and her partner, football coach Eric Bikubi (28). Bikubi and Magalie were found guilty of murder in 2012. Bikubi was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison and Bamu a minimum of 25 years.
(AFP, 3/5/12)
2010 Dec 25, China’s state media said police are offering cash and other rewards to encourage the country's millions of Internet users to help solve criminal investigations. China announced a 25-basis point increase in benchmark one-year interest rates, providing much-needed reassurance that it was determined to rein in price pressures.
(AFP, 12/25/10)(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 25, In China village leader Qian Yunhui (53) was killed under the wheel of a truck in Yueqing, Zhejiang province. On Jan 4 police charged the driver, Fei Liangyu, with accidental death. Thousands of netizens accused local government officials of killing Qian to silence his six-year campaign against fixed elections and illegal land expropriation, which was quickly denied by local authorities. On Feb 1, 2011, Fei was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.41)(http://tinyurl.com/4uwql4b)(AP, 2/1/11)
2010 Dec 25, In Colombia a 120 helicopter-borne commandos raided the camp of drug lord Pedro Oliverio Guerrero, head of the so-called Popular Revolutionary Anti-Terrorist Army of Colombia. Officials on Dec 29 confirmed that they had found the body of Guerrero, also know as "The Knife," near Puerto Alvira in Meta province. 2 police officers also died in the operation.
(AP, 12/30/10)(SFC, 12/30/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 25, Guatemala captured 4 suspected drug traffickers on top of 18 arrested over the past week, as well as automatic weapons and small planes in a country-wide sweep to crack down on Mexican cartels smuggling drugs through Central America.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 25, In India a rocket carrying a GSAT-5P communications satellite exploded just after takeoff from the Sriharikota space center in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SSFC, 12/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 25, In northern India a bus collided head-on with a van that was carrying mourners returning from a funeral, killing 35 people.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Iran a convicted drug trafficker has been hanged in the northern city of Sari after being convicted of keeping, carrying and selling the narcotic drug crack.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, In southern Lebanon Ghandi Sahmarani, the leader of an Al-Qaeda splinter group, was found shot dead execution-style in Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Mexico 2 more murder victims were shot in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan handed out $1 billion from the nation’s “excess crude account" to government officials for Christmas presents.
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.58)
2010 Dec 25, In Pakistan a burqa-clad, female, suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people as hundreds from the Salarzai tribe headed toward a food distribution center in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border. 45 people were killed. The Salarzais are a major regional anti-Taliban tribe, which has been backing army operations against the militants. The bombing forced the World Food Program to shut down operations in the Bajur region.
(AP, 12/25/10)(Reuters, 12/26/10)(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 25, In the southern Philippines a bomb exploded during Christmas Day Mass at a chapel inside a police camp on Jolo island, wounding 6 people. The next day Pres. Aquino said that investigators had identified a suspect and a possible "terror plot" in the bombing.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AFP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 25, Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea hijacked the MV Thor Nexus, a Thai-owned cargo ship with 27 crew members. Suspected Somali pirates attacked the Taiwanese ship FV Shiuh Fu No. 1, some 120 nautical miles off the northeastern tip of Madagascar. All communication was lost and there were strong indications that it may have been seized with its 26 crew members.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 25, Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez (88) died in Miami. His popularity soared with his country's oil-based economy, but later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment in his homeland. Perez governed Venezuela from 1974-79 and again from 1989-93 and denied any wrongdoing.
(AP, 12/25/10)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.86)
2010 Dec 26, Allstate Corp filed suit against Bank of America Corp, its Countrywide lending unit and 17 other defendants for allegedly misrepresenting the risks on more than $700 million of mortgage securities it bought from Countrywide.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Arizona Gavin MacFarlane (28) opened fire inside a Phoenix strip club killing 2 people and wounding 2 others.
(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 26, In Massachusetts police officer John McGuire was shot dead while investigating a robbery in Woburn. Scott Hanwright (19) was charged for murder and Kevin Dingwell (51) was charged with being an accessory after the fact. A 3rd suspect, Dominic Cinelli (57) was fatally shot by responding officers.
(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 26, Geraldine Doyle (86), a Michigan factory worker used as the unwitting model for the wartime Rosie the Riveter poster, died. The term "Rosie the Riveter" stems from a 1942 song honoring the women who took over critical factory jobs when American men went off to war. The inspirational "We Can Do It!" poster was not widely seen until the 1980s when it was embraced by the feminist movement as a potent symbol of women's empowerment.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 26, Teena Marie (b.1956), Motown’s “Ivory Queen of soul" died. Her hits included “Lovergirl," and “Fire and Desire" with mentor Rick James.
(SFC, 12/27/10, p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teena_Marie)
2010 Dec 26, The Afghanistan Defense Ministry said it will investigate missing US-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant for its army and police. "Numerous insurgents were killed" in two separate incidents in Helmand and Kandahar during a NATO operation targeting suspect vehicles. Several suspected insurgents were detained.
(AP, 12/26/10)(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Bolivia the government under Evo Morales announced an end to subsidies on many fuels. The measure involved a 73% increase in the price of petrol.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.36)
2010 Dec 26, London’s Underground drivers went on a 24-hour strike in a dispute over holiday pay. Members of the Aslef trade union voted to walk out after transport chiefs refused their demand for triple pay and a day off for working on December 26, the day after Christmas being a national holiday in Britain.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Dagestan eight men were killed in a shoot-out with police after they barricaded themselves in a house in the city of Makhachkala and refused to give up.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In the Dominican Rep. former President Salvador Jorge Blanco (84) died. He was convicted of corruption in 1991 under a political antagonist's administration but declared innocent in 2001 by an appeals court, died. Blanco was president from 1982-1986.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, Egypt said it has adopted a stimulus plan with the aim of injecting 10-20 billion pounds ($1.72-3.44 billion) into the economy in the 2011 calendar year. Gamal Mubarak, the son of Pres. Mubarak, said he will press ahead with bold new economic reforms that will be "more ambitious and more daring" than those that have come before, while still vowing to protect the nation's poor from any fallout.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In southern Egypt a tour bus slammed into a truck, killing eight Americans and injuring 21 others in the latest fatal crash involving tourists.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Iran local media reported that a death sentence has been imposed on a man suspected of spying for Israel. A Tehran prosecutor confirmed that economist Fariborz Raisdana has been arrested for trying to subvert the recent subsidies plans in radio interviews.
(AP, 12/26/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 26, Israel and Palestinian militants traded threats amid fresh skirmishes along the tense Gaza Strip border in which two Islamic Jihad fighters were killed. Nine French activists were arrested during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at a major Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank.
(AFP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Ivory Coast allies of Alassane Ouattara called for a general strike to last until incumbent Pres. Laurent Gbagbo concedes defeat.
(SFC, 12/27/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 26, In Malaysia 3 Singaporean tourists drowned and two others were missing after an overloaded passenger boat capsized near Sibu island.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Nigeria clashes left at least one person dead and a number of houses burned in the city of Jos amid tensions following a series of Christmas Eve bomb attacks.
(AFP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In the Philippines Communist rebels threatened more attacks despite looming peace talks with the government, as they marked the insurgency's 42nd anniversary by defiantly marching with their weapons in public view.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia several thousand people rallied in Moscow to protest the ethnic clashes that have rocked Russia, holding posters reading "Fascists disgrace Russia" and chanting "No to Fascism!"
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia icy rain shut down Moscow's largest airport for nearly 15 hours, coated roads with ice and left more than 300,000 people and 14 hospitals without electricity.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, Ukraine's security service detained former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko, the latest move in a crackdown on the previous government since Pres. Yanukovich took power. The state prosecutor's office this month charged Lutsenko with abuse of office, saying he had embezzled state funds. He denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 26, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his first use of new decree powers to create a $2.3 billion fund for reconstruction after widespread flooding that left more than 130,000 people homeless.
(Reuters, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93), US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions" (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 27, In Afghanistan a Taliban car bomb targeted a bank where police queued for salaries in Kandahar, killing three people. NATO said one of its service members was killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 12/27/10)(AFP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In China 14 children died when the vehicle taking them to school plunged into a creek in the central province of Hunan. In Guizhou province 7 people died and 15 were injured after a truck crashed into a gas station in fog, causing a pileup involving more than 100 cars.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, An Egyptian Ministry of Health official said a resurgent H1N1 swine flu virus has infected 1,172 people in Egypt and killed 56 since October 8.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Guatemala men claiming to belong to the Zetas drug gang forced radio stations to broadcast a threat of war in a northern Guatemalan province where the government declared a state of siege last week.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing nine people at the government compound in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province. 43 people were injured by the blasts. 3 members of the same family were killed when a roadside bomb hit their car outside the town of Dujail, 50 miles (80km) north of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old. The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Italy bomb squad experts defused a package bomb that was delivered to the Greek Embassy in Rome, four days after similar mail bombs exploded at two other embassies, wounding two people.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Mexico police in Guerrero state found the remains of three people in a clandestine grave in the town Teloloapan. A police report said the three unknown people were believed to have been killed about four months ago. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz one policeman was killed, and a local police commander was wounded when a man opened fire on municipal offices in the town of Otatitlan. The Defense Department said troops patrolling the mountainous area of Tamazula, Durango, discovered a cache of weapons and 770 kg (1,697 pounds) of marijuana in 191 bales.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Morocco’s interior ministry said security forces have arrested six Moroccans suspected of planning attacks in the country and abroad.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Pakistan intelligence officials and tribal elders say the Pakistani Taliban have kidnapped 23 tribesmen who recently met the army chief in South Waziristan. Suspected US missiles struck two vehicles in a Taliban stronghold on Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan, killing 18 militants, including four foreigners.
(AP, 12/27/10)(SFC, 12/28/10, p.A3)(AP, 2/25/12)
2010 Dec 27, In the Philippines US Lt. Cmdr. Scintar Buenviaje Mejia (35) died of head injuries after jumping from a second-floor staircase while a security guard escorted him to the bathroom. He was arrested a day earlier with what was thought to be cocaine. Tests later showed the white powder wasn't an illegal drug.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Russia jailed ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of money laundering and theft of billions of dollars at a trial that has renewed doubts about the Kremlin's commitment to the rule of law.
(Reuters, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Serbia a series of explosions damaged the Sloboda ammunition factory in Cacak.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.51)
2010 Dec 27, Somali pirates seized a ship with eight crew onboard. The MV EMS River was seized approximately 175 miles (280 km) northeast of the port of Salalah, Oman.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 27, Venezuela said it has detained 12,376 people for drug-related crimes this year, about 40 percent more than in 2009.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, The US Postal Service unveiled its first-class commemorative stamps for 2011. All were marked with the word "forever" instead of the current rate of 44 cents.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, In New Orleans, La., a fire in an abandoned warehouse killed 8 homeless squatters.
(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A5)
2010 Dec 28, Dr. Billy Taylor (b.1921), jazz pianist and composer, died in Manhattan. His work included the ambitious “Suite for Jazz Piano and Orchestra" (1973).
(SFC, 12/30/10, p.C6)(www.nojazzfest.com/chat/showthread.php?t=14270)
2010 Dec 28, An Afghan soldier was killed in a suicide attack in the eastern Paktika province. NATO said that it, in conjunction with Afghan forces, had killed more than 15 insurgents over the past 24 hours.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Australia drenching rains pounded communities across the northeast, flooding major highways and prompting hundreds of evacuations.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Belarus Pres. Lukashenko appointed Mikhail Myasnikovich (60), the official head of the Belarussian Academy of Sciences, as the new prime minister.
(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 28, West African leaders Boni Yayi of Benin, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde met with incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo to deliver an ultimatum from the ECOWAS regional bloc to step down or face removal by force. But Gbagbo's government signaled he was unlikely to agree to cede power to Alassane Ouattara.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 28, China said it is reducing the amount of rare earths it will export for the first half of the year by more than 10 percent, likely to be an unpopular move worldwide since the minerals are vital to the manufacture of high-tech products.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, A Chinese journalist died from injuries sustained in a gang beating that some say was linked to his investigative work. Sun Hongjie, a senior reporter at the Northern Xinjiang Morning Post, died at a hospital in the city of Kuitun 10 days after he was beaten by six men at a construction site.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Cuba's Supreme Court commuted the death sentence against a Cuban-American who was the last person remaining on death row in the island nation. The court sentenced Humberto Eladio Real to 30 years in prison instead. On Oct. 15, 1994, Real and six other members of a Florida-based exile group came ashore in northern Cuba, armed with assault rifles and other weapons. A man was killed, and the group was captured shortly thereafter.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, German engineering group Siemens said it has won a contract that could be worth some €600 million ($790 million) to supply 258 wind turbines to a US power company.
(AFP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Honduras radio reporter Henry Suazo (36) was gunned down outside his home in La Masica, the 10th journalist killed in the Central American country this year.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Project developer Bashar Masri said about 20 Israeli suppliers will help build Rawabi, the first modern Palestinian city in the West Bank, but only after promising they will not use products or services from Israeli settlements.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Iran hanged Ali Akbar Siadat, an Iranian convicted of spying for Israel. Another Iranian was hanged for membership in an exile opposition movement.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, Veteran Israeli journalist Dov Yudkovsky (89) died. He had fled the Nazi Holocaust and later became editor of Israel's best-selling newspaper. In 2002, Yudkovsky was awarded the Israel Prize, the Jewish state's highest honor, for his work in the media.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, Japan postponed the creation of a greenhouse gas emission trading system by a year until after April 2014 in the face of strong resistance from the business lobby.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Mexico gunmen battled police in the northern state of Durango, leaving two bystanders, a federal agent and two drug cartel suspects dead. 13 suspects were detained, including several former state policemen who allegedly worked for the Sinaloa cartel headed by fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman," which is fighting the Zetas gang for control of the region. The navy captured four suspects linked to drug-cartel activities, including two females under the age of 18. A raid by a feared drug gang burned down half of the isolated village of Tierras Coloradas, Durango state, leaving more than 150 people, mostly children, homeless in the raw mountain winter.
(AP, 12/29/10)(AP, 12/30/10)(Reuters, 2/17/11)
2010 Dec 28, In Nigeria members of the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram shot and wounded a retired senior police officer and two civilians in the city of Maiduguri. Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for the Christmas Eve bomb blasts in Jos that left at least 32 dead.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Pakistan a barrage of US missiles killed at least 15 militants in the North Waziristan tribal district, obliterating compounds and vehicles used by Islamist fighters.
(AFP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, A former Russian senator was sentenced to life in jail for ordering multiple killings and financing a criminal group. The Moscow City Court said that Igor Izmestyev, a former senator and oil trader from the central region of Bashkiriya, financed a mob that killed 14 people between 1992 and 2004. The court sentenced 4 more mobsters to up to 23 years in jail. Their so-called Kingisepp mob was known for finishing their victims off with a shot in the eye.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Russia robbers carrying assault rifles in a baby carriage fatally shot two guards outside a commercial bank and a man walking his dog and got away with more than $800,000 worth of cash in St. Petersburg.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, An aging Russian military cargo plane crashed, killing all 12 people aboard. The An-22 plane was on a flight from the southwestern region of Voronezh region when it crashed in the Tula region, about 120 miles (190 km) south of Moscow.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 28, South Korean education officials said almost 30 robots have started teaching English to youngsters in a South Korean city, in a pilot project designed to nurture the nascent robot industry.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Thailand US and Thai officials arrested a group of 12 Chinese nationals accused of obtaining fake visas to try to gain entry to the United States. The visas bore the same numbers as authentic ones issued by the US Embassy in Warsaw to Polish citizens.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, President Barack Obama bypassed Congress to name the first US ambassador to Syria in nearly six years. Obama took the controversial step of forcing through the appointments of Ambassador Robert Ford and five other officials while the Senate, which normally needs to confirm nominations, was out of session.
(AF, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Wayne, Michigan, a natural gas explosion destroyed a furniture store, killed two people and injured two others. Owner Paul Franks was in critical condition.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Groups including the UN, Harvard University, Google Inc and Not On Our Watch, an organization co-founded by actor George Clooney, launched the Satellite Sentinel Project, a project using satellites to "watch" Sudan for war crimes before a vote that could split the African country in two.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In eastern Afghanistan US forces clashed with insurgents, fending off a Taliban assault for the second time in as many days. NATO said it and Afghan forces have detained a Taliban leader in the southwestern province of Nimroz. NATO forces killed at least 5 Taliban fighters over night in Nangarhar province. Two slain Taliban commanders were identified as Shir Zaman and Zhir Gull.
(AP, 12/29/10)(SFC, 12/30/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 29, An Angolan court sentenced Jean Antuan Pwaty (42) a Congolese citizen, to 24 years in prison following the Jan 8 attack on Togo's national soccer team that killed two people and left eight others wounded including a goalkeeper. Pwaty was convicted of murder, armed rebellion and attempted murder.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Australia’s military cleared a town in eastern Australia, airlifting the entire population of 300 people by helicopter in Theodore, where waters were continuing to rise after days of drenching rain. A total of 1,000 people were evacuated from central and southern Queensland state.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Belarus lawyers said the seven presidential candidates who were arrested after this month's election have been formally charged with organizing a mass public disturbance and face up to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, A Belgian priest published a confession to a child sex-abuse accusation that came to light during a campaign to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting globalization's impact on developing countries. In October, after supporters of Francois Houtart (85) began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Brazilian media reported that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has decided not to extradite former Italian guerrilla Cesare Battisti, a move that could hurt ties with Italy.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Canada said it no longer recognized the Ivory Coast ambassador to Ottawa appointed by president Laurent Gbagbo, and that it would welcome new diplomatic representation from the West African nation.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Cuba’s official Gazette said that effective January 1, personal cleanliness products will be cut from ration books that islanders have come to rely on as part of a small supply of basic goods.
(SFC, 12/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 29, In Denmark 4 men planning to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were arrested in an operation that halted an imminent attack. The 4 were Swedish residents, a Tunisian (44), a Lebanese-born man (29), an Iraqi asylum seeker, and a 30-year-old whose national origin was not released. Police in Stockholm arrested a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, suspected of being linked to the plot. Denmark freed the Iraqi suspect the next day due to an apparent lack of evidence. The trial of Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri and Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti opened on April 13, 2012.
(AP, 12/29/10)(AP, 12/30/10)(AP, 4/13/12)
2010 Dec 29, In Egypt flood waters caused by torrential rains earlier this week swept a bus packed with 77 schoolgirls and their teachers off a highway in the country's south, ending in the tragic death of 15 people, most of them students. The last two survivors were pulled out of the waters in the early hours Dec 31.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 29, The spokesman for the EU's anti-piracy force said Somali pirates over the Christmas weekend unsuccessfully targeted two ships, going farther south than ever before to attack vessels.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Haiti Paul Waggoner, an American aid worker, was released from a notoriously overcrowded Haitian prison after a judge apparently cleared him of allegations that he kidnapped an infant from a hospital where he worked as a volunteer. Waggoner had been in custody for 18 days while authorities investigated the allegations of Frantz Philistin, a Haitian man whose infant son was treated at a hospital in Petionville in February.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Honduras and Mexico announced they have agreed to create a high-level group to combat attacks on undocumented Honduran migrants who are passing through the country en route to the United States.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, A payments dispute between India and Iran escalated after Tehran refused to sell oil to India under New Delhi's prohibitive new rules. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India said deals with Iran must be settled outside the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) system, used by central banks of member nations to settle bilateral trades.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Iraq 3 al-Qaida suicide bombers attacked a police building in Mosul, leveling the building and killing Lt. Col. Shamil al-Jabouri, the city's top commander. He had escaped at least five previous assassination attempts. On of the suicide bombers was shot dead before setting off his explosives belt.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Mexico gunmen believed to be linked to drug cartels killed 4 police officers and a doctor in apparently coordinated attacks in and around the northern city of Monterrey. Six people were found dead in the southern state of Guerrero.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Igor Luksic (b.1976) took office as prime minister of Montenegro.
(Econ, 6/16/12, p.63)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Luk%C5%A1i%C4%87)
2010 Dec 29, In southern Nigeria 2 bombs exploded during a political rally in Yenegoa, Bayelsa state. No one was killed but a number of people were taken to hospital with injuries. Suspected Islamists killed 8 people, including 3 policemen, in five separate attacks in the northern city of Maiduguri.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Northern Ireland frustration and fears of disease mounted as 36,000 people were left without water, some for more than a week, after a deep freeze and a sudden thaw caused aging pipes to burst.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Pakistan's US-allied ruling party scrambled to keep its fragile coalition government in power as its senior leaders met with two dissident political partners, urging them to rejoin the Cabinet.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas traveled to Brazil to lay the symbolic foundation stone of a Palestinian embassy in Brasilia.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, In the Philippines a gift-wrapped grenade exploded and killed a woman (31) when she opened the package inside her house in an upscale neighborhood of Manila.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, A Russian a court ordered 3 men to be them held in custody at least until the end of the week. Investigators had arrested two men and Andrei Chernyshev, a government official, who is believed to have ordered the November attack and brutal beating of environmental activist Konstantin Fetisov.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Spain's government formally launched the privatization of air traffic control in 13 airports, just weeks after clamping down on a wildcat strike by controllers.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, Sudan demanded a detailed UN audit on a program to rehabilitate ex-civil war soldiers following charges that millions of dollars have been embezzled or mismanaged.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, The UAE embassy in Ottawa said on its website that Canadians would be charged $250 for a 30-day single entry visa while a six-month multiple entry visa would cost $1000, with a maximum stay of 14 days during each visit. Tensions have risen between the two countries since Canada denied expanded landing rights for UAE airlines flying to Canada. That triggered a UAE government decision to end access to a military base used by the Canadian military to support troops in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 30, In southern Afghanistan 14 Afghan civilians were killed and four others injured when a minivan struck a roadside bomb in Helmand province. Several insurgents and a child were killed in fighting during a joint operation with Afghan forces targeting a Taliban logistics officer in a compound in Wardak province. Afghan and coalition troops killed Maulvi Bahadar (Bahadur), the Taliban "shadow governor" of northern Kunduz province.
(AFP, 12/30/10)(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/2/11)
2010 Dec 30, Reporters Without Borders said that since Dec. 25, the Belarus KGB had searched the offices of 3 news outlets and an opposition party, the homes of 2 journalists, 2 human rights activists, 2 former presidential candidates and 4 of their advisers. The homes of 2 more journalists were searched the next day.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Bolivia protests against sharp increases in gas prices turned violent as thousands demanded that Pres. Morales’ government repeal the hike.
(SFC, 12/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 30, Brazil's state-run Petrobras confirmed that oil fields recently discovered offshore contained 8.3 billion barrels of recoverable crude and gas, and said the biggest field was being renamed "Lula."
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cambodia charged seven Thais, including a ruling party politician, with illegal entry and put them in jail awaiting possible trial, despite strong protests from Thailand. The detainees were inspecting contested territory from Thailand's eastern Sa Kaeo province when they were captured a day earlier by Cambodian soldiers.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In China Zeng Jinchun was shot to death for taking more than $4.7 million in bribes. He was the ruling Communist party's top corruption inspector for Chenzhou city in the central province of Hunan. Zeng was found guilty of taking the 31 million yuan in bribes in return for handing out mining contracts and job promotions over a decade ending in 2006.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported that a fire at a factory belonging to the Quanxin Pharmaceutical Co. in southwestern China's Yunnan province caused a blast that killed at least five people and injured eight others.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Croatia the leading daily Sata published only good news for today. A huge smiley face appeared on the front page, and politics and crime were banished. The horoscope still forecast trouble for people with some signs.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Greece a powerful bomb hidden on a parked motorcycle exploded outside two court buildings in central Athens and a small bomb went off outside the Greek embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but neither caused injuries.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Iran media reported the arrest of seven Al-Qaeda militants in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Iraq at least four Christian homes in Baghdad were hit in the first string of attacks since al-Qaida-linked militants last week renewed their threats of violence against Christians. 2 people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a Christian family's house in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of al-Gahdir.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Israel former President Moshe Katsav (65) was convicted of raping an employee when he was a Cabinet minister in 1998. "Relax, you'll enjoy it." He held the largely ceremonial office of president from 2000-2007.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Israeli troops seized Khalil al-Rabai, a Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament, the fifth to be rearrested recently after serving previous prison terms. With Rabai's arrest the number of Hamas MPs in Israeli custody is now believed to be 13.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Poland Anders Hogstrom, a Swedish man, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for instigating the December 2009 theft of the notorious "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") sign from the former Auschwitz death camp.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In southwestern Poland 3 miners were killed by falling rocks after a minor earthquake at a copper mine.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Qatar Mathaf, the first Arab Museum of Modern Art, opened.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.74)
2010 Dec 30, Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to six more years in prison following a trial seen as payback for his defiance of Vladimir Putin.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, A Spanish court convicted four Civil Guard police officers of torturing members of the armed Basque group ETA who were arrested for bombing Madrid's airport in 2006. The officers were found guilty of beating and threatening Mattin Sarasola and Igor Portu after they were taken into custody in 2008.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, A Thai court ordered prison terms for 79 members of the right-wing, nationalist "Yellow Shirt" movement who stormed a state television station two years ago armed with guns, knives and clubs.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Turkey’s the state-run Anatolia news agency said police have detained 10 people suspected of links to the al-Qaida terror network and accused of preparing to stage an attack before New Year's Eve.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, The United Nations accused Ivory Coast incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's security forces of blocking access to mass graves, saying investigators believe as many as 80 bodies may be in one building that UN personnel are being kept from entering.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, The Independent Human Rights Defenders Group said at least 39 people have died of torture in prisons of authoritarian Uzbekistan this year amid a spiraling crackdown on religious groups and government critics.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Pope Benedict XVI issued new norms governing the Vatican’s banking system.
(SFC, 12/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 30, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government devalued its bolivar currency for the second time in 12 months, abolishing the lowest exchange rate as the OPEC member fights to revive its economy.
(Reuters, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, Yemen released hundreds of detained Shiite rebels as part of a ceasefire in their years long conflict.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cyber activists said they have brought down Zimbabwean government websites after the president's wife sued a newspaper for publishing a WikiLeaks cable linking her with illicit diamond trading.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 31, San Francisco was chosen to host the next America’s Cup in 2013.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A1)
2010 Dec 31, In Arkansas a tornado killed 3 people in the hamlet of Cincinnati. A storm spawned by the same weather left 3 people dead near Rolla, Missouri. A 4th person, injured in Rolla, died the next day.
(SFC, 1/1/11, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/2/11, p.A11)
2010 Dec 31, The body of John Wheeler III (66), a national defense consultant, was found in a load of trash at a landfill in Wilmington, Delaware. He was last seen alive a day earlier in Wilmington.
(http://tinyurl.com/2c6hzrd)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
2010 Dec 31, In western Virginia a small aircraft collided with a medical helicopter in the air, killing two people on the plane.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Afghan forces conducted an overnight raid in two compounds in Tahar province killing a Taliban district chief in a gunfight that also left an Afghan policeman and a border guard dead, NATO said insurgents attacks claimed the lives of two coalition service members. Coalition forces killed Abdul Hai, a Taliban leader in Kunduz.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/2/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Argentina thieves dug a 100-foot-long (30m) ventilated and lit tunnel from a neighboring building into a Buenos Aires bank and spent the weekend opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch's 1,408 boxes. The robbery wasn't discovered until the bank opened on Jan 3.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Australia floodwater rose across a vast area in the northeast, inundating 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes, and closing a major sugar export port.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Belarus declared that Europe's top rights watchdog would no longer be able to work in the country, after the OSCE condemned the conduct of this month's presidential election.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Brazil's president granted political asylum to Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti, but the case must still be heard by the nation's Supreme Court.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Britain said it no longer recognized the ambassador appointed by Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo who is refusing to step down after elections widely viewed as having been won by his rival Alassane Ouattara. Britain said it would give support at the UN for the use of force to oust Ivory Coast's incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo if West African nations sought backing for a military intervention.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The Jakarta-based Legal Aid Foundation said in a new report that law enforcement officials from police to prison wardens routinely torture Indonesian suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Mexico's federal police said that the once-fearsome La Familia drug cartel has been "completely dismembered" and has broken down into small groups that commit robberies to pay their members. The half-naked body of a woman who had escaped from prison officials while facing kidnapping charges was found hanging by the neck from an overpass in Monterey. 5 inmates, including a Colombian man sentenced to more than 20 years for smuggling a ton of cocaine into Mexico aboard a boat, escaped a prison in Cancun.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Dec 31, Nigerian police said they have arrested Bunu Wasili (55), a man suspected to be a leader and financier of Boko Haram, along with 91 others. The radical Muslim sect was responsible for dozens of recent killings in northern Nigeria. A New Year's Eve bombing in Abuja killed 4 people.
(AP, 12/31/10)(Reuters, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In Pakistan violence flared as police and protesters clashed during a mass protest strike that closed businesses across the country over a bid to end the death penalty for blasphemy. A US missile strike killed 8 suspected militants in North Waziristan. A bomb blew up outside a district police headquarters in the town of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a bystander and wounding two other people. A second bomb targeting a NATO supply convoy in the border town of Chaman set one fuel tanker on fire and wounded a passer-by. The Pakistani Taliban released 23 tribesmen it had kidnapped and held captive for three weeks. They were released after being tried by a Taliban court and being submerged in cold water as punishment.
(AFP, 12/31/10)(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas laid the first stone of what will become a Palestinian embassy in Brazil, the most important Latin American country to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, In the Philippines Councilman Reynaldo Dagsa was shot dead in Manila. A photograph identified one gunmen, who was captured Jan 3 along with an accomplice. One suspect was a car thief who was out on bail and likely sought revenge against Dagsa for ordering his arrest last year. The main shooter, Arnel Buenaflor, was captured on Jan 6 in a boarding house in Aurora township.
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/7/11)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy Russian prime minister during Boris Yeltsin's presidency, was among 68 people arrested at an unsanctioned rally in Moscow. He and other protesters had gathered on the opposite side of a square from an authorized protest. On Jan 2 he was sentenced to 15 days in jail for failure to follow police orders. Nemtsov was released on Jan 15. A female suicide bomber was killed on the outskirts of Moscow by a bomb that was to have been deployed in the city's central Manezh Square where Muscovites throng for holiday celebrations. A 2nd female suicide bomber was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in jail in May, 2012. On Nov 28, 2012, Ilyas Saidov of Dagestan, who brought the suicide belts, was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
(AP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/15/11)(AP, 2/3/11(AP, 11/28/12)
2010 Dec 31, In Russia 13 villages remained without power following a freezing rain that caused trees and power lines to snap. Power was cut off to 789 villages and towns with a total of 400,000 inhabitants in the region around Moscow.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, Rwandan police said they are working with counterparts in Dhaka to deport 64 Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking, after the arrest in Kigali of their suspected trafficker. Abdul Sattar Miah was arrested Dec 27 in a hotel in Kigali, in possession of the passports of his presumed victims.
(AFP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec 31, The FV Vega 5, hijacked by Somali pirates, was spotted near the Mozambique coast, approximately 200 nautical miles southwest of the Comoros islands. It was seen towing what looked to be a pirate attack skiff and did not respond to any calls.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Dec 31, In South Africa thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants crowded outside immigration offices as a deadline approached for them to obtain permits or face deportation.
(AP, 12/31/10)
2010 Dec, In China Dai Qingcheng (46) was given the death penalty for raping 116 women between 1993 and 2009 in Anhui province in eastern China.
(AP, 4/19/11)
2010 Dec, In the Czech Rep. 4,000 hospital physicians delivered resignations to protest low pay with an effective start time in March. Their current starting salary was about 4 euros per hour ($5.25).
(SSFC, 12/26/10, p.F4)
2010 Dec, In Greece the state's attempt to start work on a planned garbage dump on a hillside near Keratea caused locals to set fire to construction vehicles and erect massive roadblocks on a highway that bypasses the town and runs to the capital. Local opposition continued into April as locals developed increasingly inventive roadblocks to stop contractors from getting to the proposed dump site.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2010 Dec, Laos said China would build a $7.2 billion high-speed railway from the border to its capital, Vientiane. Construction was due to begin in April, 2011. The 262-mile railway was expected to take fie years just to lay the tracks.
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.49)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.49)
2010 Dec, Oliver O'Grady (66) was arrested in Dublin, Ireland, after leaving a computer containing pornographic images of children on a flight from Amsterdam. O'Grady had worked as a priest in northern California from 1971 until 1993, when he was arrested for abusing two brothers. He served seven years in prison and was deported to his native Ireland in 2000. In 2012 he was sentenced to 3 years in prison in Ireland for possessing child pornography.
(AP, 1/31/12)
2010 Dec, Transparency Int’l., a Berlin-based lobby group, ranked Liberia as the most corrupt country in the world.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.54)
2010 Dec, Lithuania reviewed its 2011 budget and declared war on smuggling to boost revenue as its deficit swelled to 9.2% of economic output. Smuggling of tobacco, alcohol and fuel was costing the country some $193 million a year in lost taxes.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A8)
2010 Dec, In New Zealand 2 spade-toothed beaked whales, a mother and her calf, beached themselves. The species, identified later by DNA, was described as the world's "rarest and perhaps most enigmatic" marine mammal.
(AP, 11/5/12)
2010 Dec, In South Korea Jay Y. Lee (43), the son of Chairman Lee Kun-hee, was named president of Samsung Group, which contained 83 firms under an umbrella company called Everland. The Lee family controlled a 46% stake.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.77)
2010 Dec, The Paris Club decided to cancel $203 million in debt to Togo. The informal group of 19 creditor countries included the world's most industrialized nations.
(AP, 5/12/11)
2010 Elizabeth Abbott authored “Mistresses: A History of the Other Woman."
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.164)
2010 Richard Aldrich authored “GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency."
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.80)
2010 Ayaan Hirsi Ali authored “Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations."
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.F1)
2010 David Allbright authored “Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies.
(Econ, 3/13/10, p.86)
2010 Ronald Asmus authored “A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West." It covered the 2008 war in Georgia.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.78)
2010 Philip Ball authored “The Music Instinct: How Music works and Why We Can’t Do Without It."
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.90)
2010 Elif Batuman authored “The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People who Read Them."
(SSFC, 2/21/10, p.F1)
2010 Peter Beinart authored “The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris."
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.82)
2010 Ira Berlin authored “The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations."
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.84)
2010 Anthony Bianco authored “The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal, and the Ethical Collapse at Hewlett-Packard."
(SSFC, 7/18/10, p.F1)
2010 Tony Blair, former British prime minister, authored his memoir “A Journey."
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.60)
2010 Tom Bingham, British jurist, authored “The Rule of Law."
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.84)
2010 Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers authored “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption."
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.82)
2010 Charles Bowden authored “Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields."
(SSFC, 4/25/10, p.F3)
2010 Tom Bower, English historian, authored “Oil, Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century."
(SSFC, 5/30/10, p.F8)
2010 Ian Bremmer authored “The End of the Free Market: Who wins the War Between States and Corporations."
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.89)
2010 John Seely Brown, Lang Davison and John Hagel III authored “The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big things In Motion."
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.67)
2010 Oliver Bullough authored “Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus."
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.86)
2010 Former Pres. George W. Bush authored his memoir “Decision Points."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.40)
2010 Michael Byers authored “Who Owns the Arctic: Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North."
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.68)
2010 Peter Calthorpe authored “Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change."
(SSFC, 2/13/11, p.G1)
2010 Nicholas Carr, American commentator, authored “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," in which he claimed that the Internet is on its way to smothering creativity and profound thinking.
(SSFC, 6/6/10, p.F1)(Econ, 11/6/10, SR p.18)
2010 Philip Carr-Gomm authored “A Brief History of Nakedness."
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.79)
2010 Laura Citron authored “A Compendium of Kisses," an examination of philematology, or the study of kissing.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.86)
2010 Victoria Clark authored “Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes."
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.81)
2010 Jonathan R. Cole authored “The Great American University: Its Rise to Pre-eminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.81)
2010 Keith Colquhoun (1928-2010), former obituaries editor for the Economist, authored “Five Deadly Words," his 11th blackly comic novel.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.49)
2010 Ted Conover authored “The Routes of Man: How roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today."
(SSFC, 2/28/10, p.F1)
2010 Bruce Cumings, professor of history at the Univ. of Chicago, authored “Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power."
(Econ, 3/13/10, p.87)
2010 Paul Davies authored “The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence."
(Econ, 4/10/10, p.86)
2010 Howard Davies and David Green authored “Banking on the Future: The Fall and Rise of Central Banking."
(Econ, 2/19/11, p.78)
2010 Chinese writer Li Delin authored the "Goldman Sachs Conspiracy." The new book accused the investment bank of trying to destroy China. By August some 100,000 copies were sold following its release in June, reaching popular website Sina.com's top-10 list. It followed another by author Li Delin, "Eliminate All Competitors — How Goldman Sachs Wins Over the World," published last year.
(AP, 8/25/10)
2010 Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia Univ., authored “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century."
(SFC, 12/24/10, p.15)
2010 Philip Dray authored “There is Power In a Union: The Epic Struggle of Labor in America."
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.F7)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.101)
2010 Alice Echols authored “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of Popular Culture."
(SSFC, 4/4/10, p.G1)
2010 Michael Eisner, the former boss of Disney, authored “Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.80)
2010 James Ellroy (b.1948), American crime novelist, authored “The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women." It was a sort of companion piece to “My Dark Places," a 1996 account of his obsessive search for his mother’s killer (1958).
(SSFC, 9/12/10, p.F1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ellroy)
2010 Timothy Ferris authored “The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature."
(SSFC, 2/28/10, p.F1)
2010 Stephen Goldsmith, Harvard professor, authored “The Power of Social Innovation."
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.56)
2010 Ken Gormley authored “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr."
(SSFC, 2/21/10, p.F1)
2010 Manlio Graziano authored “The Failure of Italian Nationhood: The Geopolitics of a Troubled Identity."
(Econ, 6/11/11, SR p.4)
2010 Paul Greenberg authored “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food."
(SSFC, 7/11/10, p.F1)(Econ, 7/24/10, p.82)
2010 Imtiaz Gul authored “The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan's Lawless Frontier," a book about Pakistan’s tribal areas.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.28)
2010 Stefan Halper authored “The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century."
(Econ, 6/25/11, SR p.3)
2010 Oren Harman authored “The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness."
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.89)
2010 Shane Harris authored “The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State."
(SSFC, 3/7/10, p.F5)
2010 British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking and physicist Leonard Mlodinow authored "The Grand Design."
(AP, 9/8/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.101)
2010 Thomas Hegghammer authored “Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism singe 1979."
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.91)
2010 David Hirst authored “Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East."
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.78)
2010 Arnold Hiura authored “Kau Kau: Cuisine and Culture in the Hawaiian Islands."
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.E1)
2010 Jonathan Holslag authored “China And India: Prospects for Peace."
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.89)
2010 Jennifer Homans authored “Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet."
(SSFC, 11/14/10, p.F5)
2010 Fraser Howie and Carl Walter authored “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise."
(Econ, 12/11/10, p.105)
2010 Tony Hsieh, founder of online shoe retailer Zappos, authored “Delivering Happiness."
(Econ, 9/10/11, SR p.12)
2010 Yu Jie authored “China’s Best Actor, Wen Jiabao." It was published in Hong Kong, but was banned on the mainland.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.35)
2010 Simon Johnson and James Kwak authored “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown."
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.91)
2010 Douglas Hurd (b.1930), former British foreign secretary (1989-1995), authored “Choose Your Weapons: The British Foreign secretary, 200 Years of Argument, Success and Failure."
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.93)
2010 Steven Johnson authored “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation," in which he named 7 ways in which new ideas can sprout from old ones.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.90)
2010 Sebastian Junger authored “War," an account of his experiences as an embedded journalist in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 5/16/10, p.F1)
2010 Anatole Kaletsky authored “Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of a Crises."
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.81)
2010 Kevin Kelly authored “What Technology Wants," a sweeping history of technology.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.90)
2010 Jeff Kingston authored “Contemporary Japan: History, Politics and Social Change Since the 1980s."
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.68)
2010 Stephen Kinzer authored “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future."
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.87)
2010 David Kirkpatrick authored “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World."
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.92)
2010 Joel Kotkin authored “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050," a look at what America might be like as the population grows from some 300 million to 400 million.
(SSFC, 2/28/10, p.F3)
2010 Michael Krasny, San Francisco talk show host (KQED), authored “Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest."
(SSFC, 10/3/10, p.F3)
2010 Timur Kuran authored “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.67)
2010 Robert Lacey authored “Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia."
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.91)
2010 John Lanchester authored “IOU: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay."
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.92)
2010 Jaron Lanier (49), virtual reality pioneer, authored “You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto."
(SSFC, 2/7/10, p.A19)
2010 Annie Leonard authored “The Story of Stuff," an expansion of her 2007 video and Web site: www.storyofstuff.org.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A1)
2010 Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman authored “The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development."
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.93)
2010 Michael Lewis authored “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine," an account of the professional investors who foresaw the financial debacle and profited from it.
(SSFC, 3/14/10, p.F1)
2010 Suzanne Loebl authored “America’s Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy."
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.94)
2010 Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith authored “Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things."
(SFC, 3/12/10, p.F8)
2010 Nancy Lublin authored “Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business," in which she argues that for-profit companies can learn from non-profits.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.72)
2010 Clarence Lusane authored “The Black History of the White House."
(SSFC, 1/16/11, p.H5)
2010 David Lynch authored “When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out: The world’s Most Resilient Country and Its Struggle to rise Again."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.102)
2010 Neil MacGregor authored “A History of the World in 100 Objects." This followed his BBC radio series of the same title.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.106)
2010 Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson authored “Wasteland With Words: A Social History of Iceland."
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.84)
2010 Nelson Mandela (92) authored "Conversations with Myself," based on decades of his anti-apartheid notes, letters and conversations. His 1995 autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom," is known worldwide.
(AP, 10/10/10)
2010 Harry Markopolos authored “No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller," the story of his discovery of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
(Econ, 3/20/10, p.92)
2010 Sebastian Mallaby authored “More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite," a history of hedge funds back to the 1950s.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.82)(Econ, 6/26/10, p.89)
2010 Joe Matthews and Mark Paul authored “California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It."
(Econ, 4/23/11, SR p.10)
2010 Richard McGregor authored “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers."
(Econ, 6/19/10, p.84)
2010 Robert McCrum authored “Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language."
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.83)
2010 Hamish McDonald authored “Mahabharata in Polyester: The Making of the World’s Richest Brothers and Their Feud." It was about Indian brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.105)
2010 Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera authored “All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis."
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.84)
2010 Joseph Menn, Financial Times cyber-security reporter, authored “Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing down the Internet."
(SSFC, 1/24/10, p.D1)
2010 Northern Ireland journalist Ed Moloney authored "Voices From the Grave," a book based on interviews provided by Northern Ireland militants to Boston College researchers on condition they not be published until the interviewees were dead. It identifies Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams as a key Irish Republican Army figure who directed some of the IRA's most notorious killings and bombings. Moloney had detailed Adams' IRA record in his 2002 book "A Secret History of the IRA." The new book also includes the story of Protestant bomber-turned-peacemaker David Ervine, who died in 2007.
(AP, 3/29/10)
2010 Craig Monson authored “Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art & Arson in the Convents of Italy."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.103)
2010 Ian Morris authored “Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History and What they Reveal About the Future."
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.119)
2010 Kosuke Motani authored “The Real Face of Deflation," in which he argued that deflation in Japan is a structural problem linked to bad business decisions and demography.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.85)
2010 Siddhartha Mukherjee authored “the Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer."
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.107)
2010 B.R. Myers authored “The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves And Why It Matters."
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.52)
2010 Tarek Osman authored “Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarek."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.102)
2010 Nicholas Ostler authored “The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel."
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.163)
2010 Fintan O’Toole authored “Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic," a call for Ireland to start afresh.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.102)
2010 Nell Irvin Painter authored “The History of White People."
(SSFC, 3/28/10, p.F4)
2010 Sarah Palin authored her 2nd book “America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag."
(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A6)
2010 Raj Patel, British-born academic, authored “The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy."
(SSFC, 1/10/10, Books p.F7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Patel)
2010 Hank Paulson, former US Treasury Secretary, authored “On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global financial System."
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.90)
2010 Texas Gov. Rick Perry authored “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington."
(Econ, 7/23/11, p.32)
2010 Donald Pfaff, neurobiologist, authored “Man & Woman: An Inside Story."
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.76)
2010 Roger Pielke Jr. authored “The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming."
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.91)
2010 Sasha Polakow-Suransky authored “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with apartheid South Africa.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.88)
2010 James Prosek authored “Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.106)
2010 Robert D. Putnam authored "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us."
(SSFC, 10/10/10, p.F3)
2010 Raghuram Rajan authored “Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy." He argued that inequality was a cause of the crises.
(Econ, 3/17/12, p.87)
2010 Jack Rakove, Univ. of Stanford professor, authored “Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America."
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.F4)
2010 Robert B. Reich authored “The Next Economy and America’s Future."
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.N1)
2010 Keith Richards, guitarist with the Rolling Stones, authored “Life."
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.80)
2010 Burton Richter, Nobel Prize winner, authored “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century."
(SFC, 5/27/10, p.E1)
2010 David Riddle (1942-2012) co-authored authored, “The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights," a meticulously researched biography of the legendary Detroit labor lawyer. Mr. Riddle wrote the book with friends, Steve Babson and David Elsila.
(http://tinyurl.com/9v465zw)
2010 Matt Ridley authored “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves."
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.90)
2010 Larry Rohter authored “Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed."
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.69)
2010 Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, authored “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness."
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.A6)
2010 William Rosen authored “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention," a study of the process of tinkering with an existing mechanism to make it better.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.70)
2010 Australian PM Kevin Rudd penned a children's book featuring his family pets. It was titled "Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle."
(AFP, 1/3/10)
2010 Leila J. Rupp authored “Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women."
(SSFC, 2/14/10, p.F5)
2010 Ruth H. Sanders authored “German: A Biography of a Language."
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.86)
2010 Thilo Sarrazin (65), a board member of Germany's august central bank, authored “Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany Is Abolishing Itself or "Germany Is Doing Away with Itself), a book claiming German society was being made "dumber" by Muslim immigrants including Turks and others from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. It became a runaway best-seller, and cost him his job.
(AP, 9/15/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin)
2010 Robert Scheer authored “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street."
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.N1)
2010 Carl Schoonover authored "Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century" (Abrams 2010).
(www.livescience.com/14413-brain-images-portraits-mind.html)
2010 Tom Segev authored “Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends."
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.73)
2010 Prof. Scott Shane of Ohio’s Case Western Reserve authored “Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders, How Your Genes Affect Your Work Life."
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.99)
2010 Clay Shirky authored “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age."
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.76)
2010 Patti Smith, rock musician and writer, received the US National Book Award for her memoir “Just Kids."
(SFC, 2/9/13, p.A5)
2010 Timothy Snyder authored “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin."
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.101)
2010 Steven Solomon authored “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization."
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.64)
2010 Francis Spufford authored “Red Plenty: Industry! Progress! Abundance! Inside the Fifties’ Soviet Dream."
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.69)
2010 David Stipp authored “The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Ageing Revolution."
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.80)
2010 Barbara Strauch authored “ The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain."
(SFC, 6/7/10, p.E1)
2010 Angus Trumble authored “The Finger: A Handbook." Trumble examines the “digitus impudicus" from many angles with appealing anecdotes.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.88)
2010 Kelly Valen authored “Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships."
(SFC, 11/3/10, p.E1)
2010 Shankar Vedanta, India-born Washington Post science journalist (b.1969), authored: “The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives."
(www.answers.com/topic/shankar-vedantam)
2010 Vlatko Vedral authored “Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information," wherein he argues that information can be created out of nothing.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.81)
2010 Lorenzo Vidino authored “The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West."
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.91)
2010 Thomas de Waal authored “The Caucasus: An Introduction."
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.102)
2010 Barry Wain authored “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times." The book covered the 22 years that Mohamad spent as Malaysia’s prime minister (1981-2003).
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.79)
2010 Ethan Waters authored “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche."
(SSFC, 1/31/10, p.F7)
2010 Gunnar Wetterberg, Swedish historian, authored “The Nordic Federal State," which proposed a pan-Nordic federation to unite Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden under a single monarch: Denmark’s Queen Margrethe.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.66)
2010 Christopher Whalen authored “Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream."
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.164)
2010 Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and candidate for California governor, authored “The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life."
(SFC, 1/25/10, p.A1)
2010 Ben Wildavsky authored “The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World."
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.92)
2010 David Willetts (b.1956) authored “The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took their Children’s Future and Why They Should Give It Back."
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.83)
2010 Edward O. Wilson, Harvard biologist and the world’s leading myrmecologist, authored his novel “Anthill."
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.84)
2010 The 942-page, 3-volume set “Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons by Gahan Wilson" was published.
(SSFC, 1/24/10, Books p.F4)
2010 Simon Winder, British writer, authored “Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History."
(SFC, 4/16/10, p.F4)
2010 Robert S. Wistrich authored “A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism From Antiquity to the Global Jihad."
(SSFC, 2/14/10, p.F4)
2010 Bob Woodward authored “Obama’s Wars." In it he alleged that some 3,000 CIA operatives are active in the tribal regions of Pakistan.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.44)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.58)
2010 Tim Wu authored “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Systems." He proposed that America adopt a “Separations Principle" that would enforce a split between creators of content, those that distribute it and makers of devices on which it is consumed.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.77)
2010 John Yoo authored “Crisis and Command: “A History of Executive Power From George Washington to George W. Bush."
(SSFC, 1/31/10, p.F4)
2010 Gregory Zuckerman authored “The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History."
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.81)
2010 Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer produced the documentary “Kinshasa Symphony" in which they followed Armand Diangienda and the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste in Kinshasa as they prepared for a concert of Beethoven’s ninth symphony.
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.94)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vTk0XsgZV4)
2010 The US Congress enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.
(Economist, 9/15/12, p.71)
2010 American Bridge 21st Century was set up with backing by George Soros and other Democrats to prepare dossiers on prominent Republicans and film them in order to pounce on ill-chosen words.
(Econ, 7/12/14, p.27)
2010 California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law limiting handgun ammunition sales. It was to take effect in February, 2011, but was blocked by a Superior court judge in Fresno. In 2013 a state appeals court barred enforcement of the law.
(SFC, 11/8/13, p.D6)
2010 California’s federal prison receivership put a stop to all tubal ligations on female prisoners. In 2013 the Center for Investigative Reporting found that 148 women in state prisons had received tubal ligations without required state approvals from 2006-2010. This prompted state lawmakers to call for an investigation.
(SFC, 7/12/13, p.D8)
2010 Uber launched in San Francisco as an alternative to taxi service allowing customers to hail drivers from their smartphones.
(Econ, 3/29/14, p.80)
2010 Georgia Congressman Nathan Deal faced an investigation by the US Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) for using his position to enrich himself. Shortly before the OCE report was due to be released Mr. Deal resigned saying he wanted to focus on running for governor.
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.38)
2010 Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay marriage. Anti-gay-marriage groups targeted three judges and all 3 lost their seats.
(Econ, 11/24/12, p.32)
2010 The population of New Orleans, Louisiana, shrinking since the 1960s, was down to 343,829. The city lost 29% of its population since 2000.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.34)
2010 Maine’s candidate for governor Paul LePage said that if he was elected he would tell Pres. Barack Obama “to go to Hell." LePage won with 38% of the vote.
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.26)
2010 The Missouri Department of Corrections established a Puppies for Parole program in which inmates train animals with behavioral or other issues that make them difficult to adopt. Inmates managed to train deaf dogs to respond to hand signals.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)(http://doc.mo.gov/documents/dai/PuppiesForParole_flyer.pdf)
2010 New Hampshire boasted the highest beer sales per person in the US with an average of 32.7 gallons of beer sold per legal-age drinking person. Cross-border sales contributed.
(SFC, 6/25/11, p.D2)
2010 North Dakota counted some 641,000 residents, or about .02% of the US population.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.33)
2010 In the Automotive X Prize competition a fuel efficiency prize of $5 million was awarded to Edison2, a Virginia company, for a safe, cheap and easily built car that could do more than 100 miles per American gallon. The company’s Very Light Car (VLC) was a prototype design for 2- and 4-passenger automobiles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Light_Car)(Econ, 5/16/15, p.72)
2010 General Electric developed a hand-held electrocardiogram called the Mac 400. The $800 device reduced the cost of an ECG to just $1 per patient.
(Econ, 4/17/10, SR p.6)
2010 Organovo, a San Diego-based company founded in 2007, developed the first commercial 3D bio-printer. The $200,000 machine will initially produce simple tissues such as skin, muscle and short stretches of blood vessels.
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.77)(Econ, 3/8/14, p.18)
2010 Pinterest, an online scrapbooking website, was founded.
(SFC, 4/26/14, p.D1)
2010 The Allen Institute for Brain Science, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, launched its human brain atlas.
(Econ, 9/7/13, TQ p.25)
2010 Fourth-generation networks embraced internet protocol providing mobile devices with broadband access to the internet. The first generation of cellular phones began around 1980 and relied on analogue technology. The 2nd generation arrived in 1991 and wireless networks began to go digital. By 2001 the 3rd generation dumped circuit-switching for more efficient packet-switching.
(Econ, 5/30/15, TQ p.10)
2010 Analysis of human bone discovered in the Altai Mountains of Russia found that it was neither Neanderthal or modern human. The cave had been occupied in the 18th century by a monk named Denis, so Denisovan was the name given to this associated branch of Homo sapiens.
(Econ, 7/5/14, p.65)
2010 US public debt at the end of 2010 stood at 62% of GDP. This was defined as federal government debt held by the public. General government gross debt, however, stood at about 92% of GDP.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.84)
2010 US banks repossessed more than 1 million homes in 2010. That marked the highest annual tally of properties lost to foreclosure on records dating back to 2005.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2010 The average cost of this year’s Decennial US Census was estimated at $46.93 per person compared to 1.13 cents in 1790.
(http://www.genealogybranches.com/censuscosts.html)
2010 In the US 33,000 Americans were killed on roads. This was 60% above the OECD average.
(Econ, 4/30/11, p.29)
2010 The US had 13.1 million arrests this year. Drug violations accounted for just over 1.6 million of the arrests according to FBI data released in 2011.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.40)
2010 In Abu Dhabi German entrepreneur Thomas Geissler, creator of the "Gold to Go" brand and chief executive of Ex Oriente Lux, installed a money machine at the Emirates Palace hotel that dispenses pure gold. The cash-for-gold machines were first tested in Germany in 2009.
(Reuters, 5/13/10)
2010 Afghanistan’s central bank spent $820 million of its reserves bailing out Kabul Bank.
(Econ, 6/18/11, p.47)
2010 In Afghanistan some 2,043 civilians died this year as a result of Taliban attacks and military operations targeting the militants. Roadside bombs killed 268 American troops this year, a 60% increase over the year before.
(AP, 1/19/11)(AP, 1/26/11)
2010 Algeria’s population stood at about 35 million.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.50)
2010 Bahrain’s population was about 738,000, including some 235,000 non nationals.
(NYT 2011 Almanac, p.537)
2010 The population of Bangladesh stood at about 160 million. 70% were under 35.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.45)
2010 The population of Belarus was about 10 million.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.66)
2010 Bosnia’s population numbered about 3.8 million.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.54)
2010 Brazil’s government began allowing taxpayers to deduct costs for cosmetic surgery.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A3)
2010 Brazilian census figures for this year showed that nearly 43,000 children under 14 years of age were living with a partner in defiance of laws forbidding these unions. The census put the number of Roman Catholics at about 65% of the population of 192 million, down from 74% in 2000. It also marked the first time in which black and mixed-race people officially outnumbered whites, weighing in at just over 50 percent, compared with 47 percent for whites.
(AP, 9/13/11) (AP, 11/3/12)(AP, 3/17/13)
2010 Bulgaria’s population was about 7.6 million and included a 750,000 Turkish minority.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.58)
2010 Burundi’s population stood at about 9 million. Tax revenues were around $9 million.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.48)
2010 The population of Cambodia was about 14 million.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.32)
2010 Canadian first-time novelist Johanna Skibsrud, author of "The Sentimentalists," was a surprise winner of the C$50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Nova Scotia-based specialty publisher Gaspereau Press could produce only 1,000 copies a week of the finely bound book, using an old-fashioned press.
(Reuters, 11/11/10)
2010 Canada’s population was estimated at around 34,108,800 as of July 1 this year.
(SSFC, 10/3/10, p.A4)
2010 In Chile Nicolas Shea founded Start-Up Chile, a program that used government funded seed capital to encourage entrepreneurial activity.
(Economist, 10/13/12, p.79-80)
2010 China opened a 4-km bridge from the mainland to the island of Pingtan, directly across from Taiwan. By 2011 China hoped to develop the island together with Taiwan as a duty free enclave.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.52)
2010 A prediction was made that China’s paramount leader will either have been elected or selected by an elected multi-party national parliament.
(SFC, 5/26/96, Z1 p.6)
2010 Zhang Jingli, one of four deputy heads of China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), was removed from his post at the food and drug safety watchdog. He was under investigation over alleged bribery linked to US pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson. In early 2011 he was stripped of his party membership.
(AFP, 1/6/11)
2010 China began introducing donation schemes for human organs as its source of organs from prisoners fell due to fewer executions. A national organ bank was set up fight corruption in the organ-allocation system.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.42)(Econ., 3/14/15, p.48)
2010 Xiaomi, a Chinese maker of smart phones, was founded. In 2013 it was valued at $10 billion.
(Econ, 9/14/13, p.69)
2010 The AIDS epidemic in China was expected to infect over 10 million people by this time, according to a 1998 forecast by the Ministry of Health. In 2006 China backed off from the high number but gave no new estimate.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A3)(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.A17)
2010 China's population grew to 1.34 billion people.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 The Dominican Rep. government amended the country's constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the Dominican Republic to foreign parents. Government officials then began applying the change retroactively to people of Haitian descent who already held citizenship.
(AP, 10/12/11)
2010 Egypt’s population numbered about 85 million, roughly a quarter of all Arabs.
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.55)(Econ, 8/13/11, p.63)
2010 Eritrea supplied arms and supplies to Al Shabab militants in Somalia.
(SSFC, 4/29/12, p.E9)
2010 Stephane Hessel (93), a former French Resistance spy, authored “Indignez-Vous" (Get Indignant), a 32-page pamphlet calling people to action to protect human rights and combat against the yawning gap between rich and poor.
(www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/05-8)(SFC, 1/7/11, p.A5)
2010 In France there was an extortion attempt against Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, maker of the world’s most expensive wine. In 2014 Maximillian Potter authored “Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World’s Greatest Wine."
(Econ, 7/19/14,p.71)
2010 The French public health system had a $16 billion (€12 billion) shortfall.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.58)
2010 The population of Ghana was about 23 million.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.36)
2010 In Germany an 800-page history of the country’s foreign ministry was published: “Das Amt und die Vergangenheit." It was commissioned by the ministry and authored by Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes and Moshe Zimmermann.
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.57)
2010 Guinea’s population was about 10 million.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Honduras, country of 7.7 million people, held the planet’s highest murder rate. The country saw 6,200 killings this year, the equivalent of 82.1 homicides per 100,000 people, well above the 66 per 100,000 in neighboring El Salvador.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.40)(AP, 10/30/11)
2010 A UN study showed that 30 percent of Hondurans interviewed had been victims of extortion, 26 percent more than once.
(AP, 8/8/12)
2010 Iceland’s Parliament indicted former PM Geir Haarde for violating the laws of ministerial responsibility. He was charged with doing too little to protect the country against expansionary lending by bankers that resulted in financial disaster.
(SFC, 3/6/12, p.A2)
2010 In India over 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of Andhra Pradesh killed themselves late this year following over indebtedness to microfinance companies.
(SFC, 2/25/12, p.A4)
2010 In India some 410 million people lived below the UN’s estimated poverty line of $1.25 per day.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.36)
2010 In India nearly 135,000 people or 366 a day died on the country’s roads this year.
(AFP, 6/16/12)
2010 In Indonesia WHO reported that some 400,000 people die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Anti-smoking groups teamed up with Muhammadiyah, the country’s 2nd largest Islamic organization, to issue a fatwa declaring smoking haram, i.e. forbidden under Islam.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.44)
2010 In Indonesia a video circulated widely on the Internet late showed men in uniform burning the genitals of a suspected separatist and running a knife across the neck of another, sparking an international outcry. In 2011 three soldiers were charged with the relatively minor offense of disobeying orders, which carried a maximum penalty of 30 months in prison. The 3 soldiers were sentenced on Jan 24 for up to ten months in prison, angering rights activists who slammed the lenient verdict as a sham underlining the military's impunity.
(AP, 1/14/11)(AP, 1/24/11)
2010 Iran hanged at least 179 people in 2010.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2010 In Italy Operation Gaol led to the arrest of over 40 people associated with the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group.
(Econ, 4/26/14, p.52)
2010 Japan’s nominal GDP of $5.474 trillion in 2010 put it behind China's $5.879 trillion. China first eclipsed Japan in the second quarter.
(AP, 2/14/11)
2010 Japan’s population was about 127 million. Some 2 million foreigners lived there legally. It was expected to fall to around 100 million by 2050.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.49)(Econ, 7/17/10, p.68)
2010 Jordan’s population numbered about 6 million. Half of the people were of Palestinian origin.
(SFC, 2/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Kashmir’s population was about 11 million.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.35)
2010 Kenya’s technology-related services exploded to $360 million, compared to $16 million in 2002. Products were designed for mobile phones rather than computers.
{Kenya, Telecom}
(Economist, 8/25/12, p.52)
2010 The population of Kenya was estimated at over 40 million.
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.46)
2010 Kosovo’s population was about 2 million.
(SFC, 10/27/10, p.A2)
2010 The population of Kyrgyzstan was about 5.4 million.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.49)
2010 Lesotho, entirely surrounded by South Africa, barely numbered 2 million people.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.44)
2010 The US provided Liberia almost $230 million in aid this year.
(Eon, 11/19/11, p.51)
2010 The World Bank estimated that 447,000 people from Macedonia were living abroad.
(Econ., 3/7/15, p.54)
2010 In Mauritius Navinchandra Ramgoolam became prime minister following elections.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2010 Mexico this year was the world’s 11th largest by population and the 14th largest in economic size.
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.29)
2010 Morocco’s population stood at about 32 million.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.50)
2010 The population of Mozambique was about 20 million.
(Econ, 7/10/10, p.50)
2010 In Myanmar the annual income per person was about $459.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.34)
2010 In Nicaragua the income per head was about $2,600, the lowest in Central America.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)
2010 The population of Niger numbered about 15 million.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.56)
2010 In Nigeria theft, sabotage and operational reasons caused 27,580 barrels of oil to spill from the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell facilities this year.
(AP, 5/27/11)
2010 In Pakistan some 21 million people were affected by flooding this year that killed 1,750 people and cost the economy $10 billion.
(AP, 9/12/11)
2010 The population of Pakistan was about 180 million.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.36)
2010 A leaked American embassy cable accused Horacio Cartes of Paraguay of laundering drug money.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
2010 In Romania Emil Boc's government increased sales tax from 19 percent to 24 percent and cut public workers' salaries by a quarter to reduce the budget deficit.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2010 Yury Kovalchuk, a friend of Pres. Vladimir Putin, bought Video Int’l., Russia’s largest advertising agency. Kovalchuk already had large stakes in Gazprom Media and National Media Group.
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.45)
2010 In Sao Tome and Principe the Democratic Action party of Pres. Patrice Trovoada won legislative elections.
(AFP, 9/3/11)
2010 In Saudi Arabia an estimated 4 million women over the age of 20 were unmarried in the country of 24.6 million. Many male guardians forcibly kept women single, a practice known as "adhl." Saudi feminist Wajeha al-Hawaidar described male guardianship as "a form of slavery."
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Marine biologists predicted that Scotland’s Firth of Clyde was about to become Britain’s first ecological desert. This was based on historic catch data in the area.
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.50)
2010 The population of Senegal numbered about 13 million.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.55)
2010 Serbia’s population was about 7.3 million.
(Econ, 10/30/10, p.56)
2010 Sierra Leone writer Olufemi Terry won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing.
(www.caineprize.com/about.php)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.82)
2010 In Sierra Leone the UN radio station merged with the government-controlled Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service.
(Economist, 9/1/12, p.51)
2010 Singapore’s population numbered about 4.8 million.
(Econ, 5/22/10, SR p.10)
2010 Somali pirates stages 219 attacks in 2010. Ransoms climbed to $238 million, an average of $5.4 million per ship.
(Econ, 2/5/11, p.16)
2010 The population of Somaliland was about 2.5 million.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.45)
2010 In South Africa 566 people were reported killed this year as a result of police action.
(Econ, 8/27/11, p.41)
2010 South Africa lost 333 rhinos to poaching in 2010, the highest number ever recorded and almost triple the previous year's losses.
(AP, 1/12/11)
2010 In Sudan the Darfur conflict claimed more than 2,300 lives in 2010, according to new UN figures released in January 2011.
(AFP, 1/19/11)
2010 Sweden’s population stood at about 9.4 million, of whom 14 percent was foreign-born. Some 71 percent of Swedes nominally are members of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, although few attend church regularly. Literacy is virtually 100 percent. Life expectancy is among the world's highest, 79 years for men, 83 for women.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2010 Suriname numbered about 500,000 people. Satellite analysis of scarred earth and diverted waterways showed that miners have deforested at least 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) and damaged more than 2,200 km (1,370 miles) of river over the past decade.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Swaziland’s main revenue, generated mostly from a regional customs union dominated by South Africa, fell by almost two-thirds this year due to an economic slowdown.
(Econ, 7/30/11, p.43)
2010 In Tajikistan the government of Pres. Rakhmon (b.1952) stepped up a campaign to close unregistered mosques, while making it close to impossible for new mosques to register.
(Econ, 7/2/11, p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emomalii_Rahmon)
2010 The population of Tajikistan, one of the poorest of the former Soviet states numbered about 7.3 million people. 70% lived in abject poverty.
(AP, 1/3/10)(Econ, 3/6/10, p.60)
2010 Up to 3,000 female babies were presumed "missing" from Taiwan's population this year due to illegal sex-selective abortion.
(AP, 5/15/11)
2010 Thailand’s population numbered about 67 million people.
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.58)
2010 Trinidad and Tobago suffered 472 killings this year, close to 5% of all deaths. The murder rate was 36 per 100,000 people, seven times higher than in the US.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.46)(Econ, 8/27/11, p.32)
2010 Mehmet Emin Karamehmet (b.1944), founder of Turkcell and Turkey’s 2nd richest man, was sentenced to almost 12 years in jail for having used Pamukbank as a cash cow for Cukurova Holding, his family owned group. The sentence was suspended pending retrial.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Emin_Karamehmet)(Econ, 4/21/12, p.83)
2010 In Venezuela 476 people died and 967 were injured in prison violence this year, according to figures compiled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2010 In Vietnam the state-owned shipbuilder, Vinashin, imploded with debts of $4.5 billion.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.42)
2010 In northern Vietnam a Vietnam Association of Agent Orange Victims was established in Thai Binh province by five foreign members of a Scientology-funded sister organization, The Association of Better Living and Education. It offered a 25-day vitamin and sauna regime for victims of Agent Orange. Scientologists believed the regime can "sweat out" toxins stored in body fat. There were no peer-reviewed studies to back this claim.
(AP, 4/4/13)
2010 The population of Vietnam was about 86 million.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.46)
2010 Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros despite efforts to protect it. The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off. Illegal rhino killings in South Africa skyrocketed, from 122 in 2009 to 333 in 2010 and a record 448 in 2011. By 2012 crushed rhino horn powder fetched up to $55,000 per kg in Asia ($25,000 per pound).
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2010 Yemen was scheduled to receive $150 million from the US this year including $34 million for “tactical assistance."
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.45)
2010 In Zimbabwe ZIFA chief Henrietta Rushwaya sent the national soccer team to play unsanctioned friendlies in Thailand, Syria and Malaysia, where a betting syndicate allegedly fixed the results. She was fired and charged with bribery and corruption.
(AFP, 2/29/12)
2010-2012 In Tanzania the number of elephants at the Selous Game Reserve droped from 40,000 to 13,000 during this period. In 2014 it was reported that more than 100,000 African elephants had been killed during this period for their tusks.
(SFC, 8/23/14, p.A2)
2010-2013 In India some 300 young people reportedly killed themselves over a 3-year period in Telangana, a territory of 35 million people who make up about 40% of Andhra Pradesh state.
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.40)
Go to Jan 2011
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
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