Like all my blogs, this is a work in progress. I have many many thousands of pages of writings, articles and archived material from the past ten years which currently reside on hard drives and in boxes. My intention is to get all of this onto this blog in some form or other over the next few years.
Any entires that start looking rather good will be promoted to my main blog, Just Say Noam, and Twittered to death.
Until that day - please watch this space. Or not....

2008


financial disaster

Election campaign

January 2008
First-ever photograph of the "unseen side" of Mercury, taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft on January 14.
January 1 – A suicide bombing occurs in Zayouna, Baghdad, killing over 25 people during a funeral over the deaths from the preceding attack. [9]
January 2 – The price of petroleum hits $100 per barrel for the first time.
January 3 – A car bomb detonates, killing at least 4 and injuring 68, in Diyarbakır, Turkey. Police blame Kurdish rebels. [10]
January 14 – At 19:04:39 UTC, the MESSENGER space probe is at its closest approach during its first flyby of the planet Mercury.[13]
January 21 – Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. [15]
January 22 – Russia stages the largest naval exercise since the fall of the Soviet Union in the Bay of Biscay. The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, along with 11 support vessels and 47 long-range bomber aircraft, practises strike tactics off the coast of France and Spain, and test-launches nuclear-capable missiles in foreign waters. [16]
January 23 – Thousands of Palestinians cross into Egypt, as the border wall with Gaza in Rafah is blown up by militants. [18]

February 2008
February 4 – Iran opens its first space center and launches a rocket into space.[24]
February 4 – A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 1 and wounds 13 in a Dimona, Israel shopping center.[25]
February 5 – U.S. stock market indices plunge more than 3% after a report shows signs of economic recession in the service sector. The S&P 500 fall 3.2%, The Dow Jones Industrial Average 370 points. [26]
February 5–6 – A tornado outbreak, the deadliest in 23 years, kills 58 in the Southern United States.
February 7 – STS-122: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches to deliver the European-built Columbus science laboratory to the International Space Station. [28]
February 11 – President of East Timor José Ramos-Horta is seriously wounded in an attack on his home by rebel soldiers. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado is killed by Ramos-Horta's security guards during the attack.[30]
February 12 – PDVSA, a state oil company in Venezuela, suspends sales of crude oil to ExxonMobil, in response to a legal challenge by them.[31]
February 17 – A suicide bombing by a Taliban member kills up to 80 in Kandahar, Afghanistan[34]
February 17 – Kosovo formally declares independence from Serbia, with support from some countries but opposition from others.[35]
February 18 – A general election is held in Pakistan, delayed from January 8 due to riots in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Opposition parties, including Bhutto's, take more than half of the seats, while President Pervez Musharraf's party suffers a huge defeat.[37]
February 19 – Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba, effective February 24.
February 20 – The United States Navy destroys a spy satellite containing toxic fuel, by shooting it down with a missile launched from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean.[39]
February 22 – Former building society Northern Rock is the first bank in Europe to be taken into state control, due to the U.S. subprime mortgage financial crisis. [41]
February 24 – Raúl Castro is unanimously elected as President of Cuba by the National Assembly.
European Jules Verne ATV docked the to International Space Station.March–April – Rising food and fuel prices trigger riots and unrest in the Third World.

March 2008
March 1 – In Gaza Strip, at least 52 Palestinians and 2 Israeli soldiers are killed in the most intense Israeli air strikes since 2005.[44]
March 2 – 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis: Venezuela and Ecuador move troops to the Colombian border, following a Colombian raid against FARC guerrillas inside Ecuador's national territory, in which senior commander Raúl Reyes is killed. [45][46]
March 6 – Eight Israeli civilians are killed and 9 wounded when a Palestinian attacker opens fire at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.[47]
March 9 – The first European Space Agency Automated Transfer Vehicle, a cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station, launches from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.[48]
March 14 – Demonstrations by Tibetan separatists turn violent as rioters target government and Han Chinese-owned buildings.
March 25 – A 414 square kilometer (160 sq. mi.2) chunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegrates, leaving the entire shelf at risk.
March 29 – Presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Zimbabwe.[51]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/28/iraq1

American jets attack Basra
guardian.co.uk, Friday March 28 2008
Claire Truscott and agencies
American jets carried out two airstrikes on Shia militia in Basra overnight as they came to the aid of Iraqi forces after four days of bloodshed. The Iraqi forces requested aerial support from the coalition on at least two locations, according to a British military official. He would not give further details about the targets or say how many people were killed or injured in t
(...)on Shia militia in Basra...southern Iraqi city last December...airstrike in Sadr City after...Basra to hand over their weapons by (...)



April 2008
April 27 – The Taliban attempts to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a military parade in Kabul.[56]
April 28 – India sets a world record by sending 10 satellites into orbit in a single launch.[57]

In Basra without a paddle
guardian.co.uk, Thursday April 10 2008
Robert Fox
Hundreds of American military personnel and "advisers" have been ordered into Basra where the American command believes British security policies have failed. Relations between local British and American commanders are reported to be as strained as at any time since the allied invasion to topple Saddam five years ago. This follows the failure of the offensive by Iraqi army uni
(...)to drive Shia militias from the streets...cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who the Americans...known as Sadr City. During the (...)


May 2008
May 7 – Dmitry Medvedev Takes office as President of Russia, replacing Vladimir Putin.
May 8 – Start of armed clashes and fighting in Lebanon.
“When Émile Lahoud's presidential term ended in October 2007, the opposition refused to vote for a successor unless a power-sharing deal was reached, leaving Lebanon without a president. On 9 May 2008, Hezbollah and Amal forces, sparked by a government declaration that Hezbollah's communications network was illegal, seized western Beirut[50] in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war.[51] Moreover, the violence, decried by the Lebanese government as an attempted coup,[52] threatened to escalate into another civil war.[53] At least 62 people died in the resulting clashes between pro-government and opposition militias.[54]
“On 21 May 2008, after five days of negotiation under Arab League mediation in Qatar, all major parties signed the Doha Agreement, which ended the fighting.[50][54] Under the accord, both sides agreed to elect former army head Michel Suleiman president and establish a national unity government with a veto share for the opposition.[50] This ended 18 months of political paralysis.[53] The agreement was a victory for opposition forces, who received concessions regarding the composition of the cabinet, Hezbollah's telecommunications network, and the airport security chief, increasing their political clout.[54] “ Wikip
May 13 – A series of bomb blasts kills at least 63 and injures 216 in Jaipur, India.
May 15 – An oil pipeline explosion in Ijegun, Nigeria kills 100.
May 23 – The Union of South American Nations, a supranational union, is created by a union between the Andean Community and Mercosur.
May 25 – NASA's Phoenix spacecraft becomes the first to land on the northern polar region of Mars.[59]
May 30 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted in Dublin.[60]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/21/victoryoutofdefeat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/01/iraq.iran

June 2008
June 2 – A car bomb explodes outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 5.
June 27 – President Robert Mugabe is reelected with 85.5% of the vote in the second round of the controversial Zimbabwean presidential election.
June 27 – After 3 decades as the Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates steps down from daily duties to concentrate on philanthropy.[61][62]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/20/iraq.oil

July 2008
34th G8 summit heads of delegations in Tōyako, Japan.July 2 – Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are rescued from FARC by Colombian security forces.
July 7 – A suicide-bomber drives an explosives-laden automobile into the front gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 58 and injuring over 150.
July 7–9 – The 34th G8 summit is held in Tōyako, Hokkaidō, Japan.
July 10 – Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges, by a UN Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.
July 21 – Radovan Karadžić, the first president of the Republika Srpska, is arrested in Belgrade, Serbia on allegations of war crimes, following a 12-year long manhunt.[64]
July 25 – A series of 7 bomb blasts rock Bangalore, India, killing 2 and injuring 20; the next day, a series of bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, kills 45 and injures over 160 people.
July 27 – At least 17 are killed and over 154 wounded in 2 blasts in Istanbul.
July 28 – At least 48 are dead and over 287 injured after bombs explode in Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraq.[66][67]

August 2008
August 4 – Two members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which had threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics, kill 16 and injure another 16 officers at a police station in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.[
August 7 – The 2008 South Ossetia war begins, as Georgia and Russia launch a major offensive inside the separatist region of South Ossetia after days of border skirmishes between the 2 sides.
August 8–24 – The 2008 Summer Olympics take place in Beijing, China.[71]
August 18 – Pervez Musharraf resigns as President of Pakistan, under impeachment pressure from the coalition government.[74]
August 19 – Taliban insurgents kill 10 and injure 21 French soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan.[75]
August 19 – A suicide bomber rams a car into an Algerian military academy, killing 43 and injuring 45.[76]
August 21 – At least 60 die following twin suicide bombings outside the Pakistan Ordnance Factories in Wah, Pakistan.
August 24 – Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895 crashes upon takeoff near Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, killing 68.[80]
August 26 – Russia unilaterally recognizes the independence of Georgian breakaway republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia.[81]
August 26 – September 1 – Hurricane Gustav makes landfall on Louisiana as Category 2 and kills 7 in the United States, after making landfall on western Cuba as Category 4, and killing 66 in Haiti, 8 in the Dominican Republic, and 11 in Jamaica.[82][83]
August 28 – September 7 – Hurricane Hanna causes 7 deaths in the United States, and 529 in Haiti, mostly due to floods and mudslides.[84]

September 2008
September 2 – Prime Minister of Japan Yasuo Fukuda resigns, less than a year after taking office following Shinzo Abe's resignation.[87]
September 2 – Political crisis in Thailand: Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok.[88]
September 3 – Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani of Pakistan survives an assassination attempt near Islamabad, while on his way to meet British Leader of the Opposition David Cameron.
September 3 – President's Dimitris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat hold peace talks in Nicosia, aimed at reunifying Cyprus.[89][90]
September 6 – Asif Ali Zardari is elected President of Pakistan by the Electoral College of Pakistan.[91]
September 9 – Political crisis in Thailand: The Constitutional Court of Thailand orders Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to resign, after he is paid for appearing on a television cooking show.[93]
September 14 – Aeroflot Flight 821 crashes near the city of Perm, Russia, killing all 88 on board.[97]
September 15 – Following negotiations, President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara sign a power-sharing deal, making Tsvangirai the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
September 15 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
September 20 – A suicide truck bomb explosion destroys the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 60 and injuring 266.[100][101][102]
September 24 – The Diet of Japan elects Taro Aso as the new Prime Minister of Japan.[104]
September 25 – Kgalema Motlanthe is elected by the National Assembly of South Africa as the President of South Africa, succeeding Thabo Mbeki.[105]
September 25 – Shenzhou 7, the third manned Chinese spaceflight and the first with 3 crew members, is successfully launched. China becomes the third country ever to conduct a spacewalk.[106]
September 28 – SpaceX Falcon 1 becomes the world's first privately developed space launch vehicle to successfully make orbit.[107][108]

October 2008
October 3 – Global financial crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.[111]
October 6 – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second of 3 flybys of Mercury, decreasing the velocity for orbital insertion on March 18, 2011.[112][113]
October 6 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 magnitude kills at least 65 in Kyrgyzstan.[114]
October 7 – Global financial crisis: Russia agrees to provide Iceland with a 4-billion-euro loan.[115][116]
October 7 – The meteoroid 2008 TC3 impacts Earth, becoming the first such object to be discovered prior to impact.[117]
October 9 – Global financial crisis: Following a major banking and financial crisis in Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority takes control of the 3 largest banks in the country: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, and Glitnir.
October 17 – The United Nations General Assembly elects Turkey, Austria, Japan, Uganda, and Mexico to 2-year terms on the Security Council.
October 21 – The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is officially inaugurated. It is a collaboration of over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.
October 22 – The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launches theChandrayaan-1 spacecraft on a lunar exploration mission.
October 29 – Global financial crisis: Hungary's currency and stock markets rise on the news that it will receive an international economic bailout package worth $25 billion from the IMF, European Union, and World Bank.
October 29 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, forming the world's largest commercial carrier.

November 2008
Barack Obama.November 4 – United States presidential election, 2008: Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States and Joe Biden is elected the 47th Vice President. Barack Obama becomes the first African-American President-elect.
Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2 billion, mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn't matter.
While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting in the 1980s.
None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a government insurance policy called "too big to fail." The banks and investment firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout, clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.
That has been the regular process since the Reagan years, each crisis more extreme than the last -- for the public population, that is. Right now, real unemployment is at Depression levels for much of the population, while Goldman Sachs, one of the main architects of the current crisis, is richer than ever. It has just quietly announced $17.5 billion in compensation for last year, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6 million bonus while his base salary more than triples.
It wouldn't do to focus attention on such facts as these. Accordingly, propaganda must seek to blame others, in the past few months, public sector workers, their fat salaries, exorbitant pensions, and so on: all fantasy, on the model of Reaganite imagery of black mothers being driven in their limousines to pick up welfare checks -- and other models that need not be mentioned. We all must tighten our belts; almost all, that is.
Chomsky 2011, http://mistymountain.info/content/noam-chomsky-world-too-big-fail-contours-global-order

November 6 – King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan is crowned, having ascended to the throne in 2006.
November 7 – The 2008 Pétionville school collapse kills at least 92 in Pétionville, Haiti. Who needs an earthquake when you’re the poorest country on earth?
November 14 – STS-126: The Space Shuttle Endeavour uses the MPLM Leonardo to deliver experiment and storage racks to the International Space Station. There will only be 3 more launches of Space Shuttle Endeavour after this mission.
November 22 – 23 – The APEC Peru 2008 Summit is held in Lima.
November 25 – Greenland holds a referendum for increased autonomy from Denmark. The vote is over 75% in favour. Implications? US involved?
November 25 – Political crisis in Thailand: Protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy party storm into Suvarnabhumi Airport and block flights from taking off. More protesters seize control of Don Mueang Airport the following day.
November 26 – November 29 – A series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India by Pakistan-based Islamic militants kills 195, and injures at least 250.
November 29 – Riots in Jos, Nigeria kill 381, and injure at least 300.

December 2008

December 2 – Political crisis in Thailand: After weeks of opposition-led protests, the Constitutional Court of Thailand dissolves the governing People's Power Party and 2 coalition member parties, and bans leaders of the parties, including Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, from politics for 5 years. As such, Wongsawat promptly resigns and is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Chaovarat Chanweerakul as caretaker Prime Minister.[143]
December 3 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions opens for signature in Oslo.
December 4 – Political crisis in Canada: Governor General Michaëlle Jean grants the request of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to prorogue Parliament until January 26, 2009, averting a motion of no-confidence by the new opposition coalition led by the Leader of the Opposition Stéphane Dion, and the New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, with Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe as a coalition partner.
December 6 – Riots spread across Greece after a 15-year-old boy is shot dead by a special guard of the Greek Police.
December 12 – Switzerland becomes the 25th European country to join the Schengen Agreement, whereby cross-border passport checks will be abolished.
December 23 – A military coup d'état is announced in Guinea shortly after the death of long-time President Lansana Conté.
December 27 – Israel initiates a series of airstrikes followed by an invasion in Gaza Strip, killing at least 1300 (including at least 416 children)[153] and wounding over 2,700.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-loses-un-vote-on-gaza-war-crimes-1804364.html
Eventual Goldstone report. ICC proceedings? The UK and France called for delays in the decision.
US putting pressure on Palestinian President to agree to defer process.

Israel http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/?ibPage=5

December 29 – Bangladesh holds its general elections after 2 years of political unrest over the interim government.[154]

No comments:

2007


4th year of occupying Iraq. 130,000 troops battling a Sunni Arab insurgency. As the US push the insurgents out of one area, they move elsewhere. The US have too few troops to hold the territory.

Kurdistan has made itself a defacto independent state.

Bush signed an executive order sometime in late 2006 authorising US troops to undertake wide-rangin military action against Iranian operatives inside Iraq. There were two raids in early January 07 against Iranian targets.
In Bush’s address to the nation he outlined his plan to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. In his address, without citing any evidence, he accused Iran of supplying support for attacks being carried out on US troops and vowed to respond.
The US claimed Iran has provided explosives and infrared triggering devices for roadside bombs that can penetrate armour, holidng Iran accountable for actions carried out using their products while other countries are spared this responsibility. England’s explosives used by the IRA; US, UK and France in Iraq; French missiles against UK in 1982, etc. It’s a good principle if upheld evenly for all countires, but a unfair to hold Iran up to higher standards than any other arms dealing country.
The US deployed an additional aircraft carrier off the Iranian coast. USS John Stennis, USS Dwight D Eisenhower already there and leading a battle group. Also a 600 strong Patriot anti-missile defense system from fort Bliss was deployed to the Middle East.
Glimmer of hope – candidate Obama appeared
Goodbye Blair
Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union.
Slovenia adopts the Euro as its official currency, replacing the tolar.
South Korea's Ban Ki-moon becomes the new United Nations Secretary-General, replacing Kofi Annan.
Adam Air Flight 574, a routine domestic flight in Indonesia, disappears; debris is found 10 days later, but the aircraft remains missing.
Angola joins OPEC.
War in Somalia: Fighters of the Islamic Courts Union abandon their last stronghold in Kismayo and flee for the Kenyan border.
January 5 – War in Somalia: The first shots are fired in the Battle of Ras Kamboni.
January 8 Daniel Ortega becomes President of Nicaragua for the second time.
Russian oil supplies to Poland, Germany, and Ukraine are cut as the Russia-Belarus energy dispute escalates; they are restored 3 days later.
January 9 War in Somalia: U.S. planes conduct air strikes in Somalia against suspected terrorists.
An AerianTur-M Antonov An-26 crashes in Balad, Iraq; the Islamic Army in Iraq claims to have shot it down.
Apple Inc. announces and introduces the highly speculated iPhone at the 2007 Macworld Conference & Expo.[8]
January 10 –Bush announces a plan to station 21,500 additional troops in Iraq.
 “Frustration & anger are brewing here in a way I can’t remember during the 16 years I’ve been writing about America” and unusually this is the anger of “Senate Democrats and Republicans” – quote from UK American correspondent – find out who.
Senator Ted Kennedy sponsiored a reslotuion to stop bush increasing number of troops in Iraq: “George bush’s Vietnam”. Senator Dick Turbin, dem, Illinois, expected to introduce a non-binding resolution against the troops surge.
Chuck Hagel called the plan a “dangerously wrong-headed strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinable swamp at great cost.” John Murtha, normally a hawk, a VN vet who has vowed to bring the US troops home, compared iraq to the VN war in November 2005, arguing that US troops became a catalyst for violence in Iraq.
Cheney: issued a joint press release saying that anyone who compared iraq to the VN and criticised the president was engaging in “dishonest and reprehensible behaviour”.
Congress controls flow of troops and supplies to Iraq because it controls the purse strings.
Senator John McCain keeps saying “Iraq is no Vietnam” and favour troops surge.
General John Abizaid used to be in charge of military operations in Iraq – didn’t believe in troops surge.
January 11 In Bangladesh, a state of emergency is declared by caretaker President Iajuddin Ahmed, following weeks of violent protests preceding upcoming parliamentary elections.
Vietnam joins the World Trade Organization as its 150th member.
China successfully tests a ground-based ballistic missile capable of destroying satellites in orbit, drawing criticisms from other countries.
January 12 An Argentine judge issues a warrant for the arrest of former President Isabel Martínez de Perón, in connection with the disappearance of a human rights worker in 1976.
The U.S. Embassy in Athens is attacked with a rocket propelled grenade, which causes minimal damage and no injuries.
Comet McNaught, the brightest comet in more than 40 years, makes perihelion.
January 13 – The Greek ship Server breaks in half off the Norwegian coast, releasing over 200 tons of crude oil.
January 17
Hurricane force winds from storm Kyrill claim at least 40 lives in western Europe.
The Doomsday Clock is advanced from 7 to 5 minutes to midnight.
January 19 – Israel releases $100 million in frozen assets to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority, in order to bolster the president's position.[9]
January 22 – A bombing in a market in Baghdad, Iraq kills 88 people.
January 24 – The Israeli Ministry of Justice announces that the President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, will be charged with rape and abuse of power.
January 25 – The President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, takes a temporary leave of absence due to a sex scandal.
January 28 – A battle between insurgents and U.S.-backed Iraqi troops kills 300 suspected resistance members in Najaf, Iraq.
January 31
The Venezuelan National Assembly gives President Hugo Chávez the power to rule by decree for 18 months.
The Mooninite scare occurs in Boston, when devices used in a guerrilla marketing campaign for the animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force are mistaken for improvised explosive devices.

Jan 2007 US forces take five Iranian diplomats prisoner during a raid on the Iranian liaison office in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

February 2007
February 1 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair is questioned for a second time in the 'cash for peerages (Cash for Honours)' probe as a witness.
February 2 - An unseasonal tornado in central Florida kills at least 20 people.
Palestinian factional violence: Hamas and its rival Fatah renew their truce after violence broke out following the initial ceasefire.
Chinese President Hu Jintao signs a series of economic deals with Sudan.
War in Somalia: Eight people are killed in a mortar attack in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.
Martti Ahtisaari unveils a United Nations plan for the final status of Kosovo; Serbian leaders denounce the proposal.

The IPCC publishes its fourth assessment report, having concluded that global climate change is "very likely" to have a predominantly human cause. If anything the report underestimates the problem. Data is old due to due scientific process and cut-off set by IPPC. And the likely positive feedback mechanisms which were hard or impossible to quantify:

The report acknowledges a couple of the feedback mechanisms. “One is increased rate of evaporation from warmer oceans, which will lead to more warming, since water vapour traps heat: a  positive feedback. Another feedback, is the melting of the polar ice cover, particularly on the Arctic Ocean and around the Antarctic coast. This melting near the poles will replace highly reflective white ice sheets, which bounce 70 per cent of incoming sunlight straight back into space, with open ocean that absorbs 94 per cent of the sunlight striking it and converts it to heat....Unfortunately, the really big and dangerous feedbacks are left out of the IPCC Report entirely, except for the note that explains that they were not included in the calculations because there is no way yet available to model these processes..the feedbacks that have been omitted, and which are already starting to happen in small ways. They would gain unstoppable momentum when global temperature reaches somewhere between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius hotter” Climate Wars ~  Gwynne Dyer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6321351.stm

February 3
The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is found at a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk, England.
A state of emergency is declared in Indonesia after 'El Nino'-like flooding.
A truck bombing in a crowded Baghdad market kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339 others.
February 11 – Portuguese voters agree to legalise abortion in a national referendum.
February 12 – An armed gunman shoots and kills 5 people at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah, before being killed by the police, bringing the evening's rampage death toll to 6.
February 13
North Korea agrees to shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon by April 14 as a first step towards complete denuclearization, receiving in return energy aid equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.[10]
Taiwan opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou resigns as Kuomintang party chairman after being indicted on charges of embezzlement; Ma also announces his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election.
February 22 – A large fire causes 26 fatalities in the "Reģi" care center in Alsunga, Latvia.
February 25 – The 79th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, is held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The Departed wins Best Picture.
February 26 –
The International Court of Justice finds Serbia guilty of failing to prevent genocide in the Srebrenica massacre, but clears it of direct responsibility and complicity in the case.
Estonia becomes the first country to hold general Internet elections.
February 27
The Chinese Correction: World stock markets plummet after China and Europe release less-than-expected growth reports.
2007 Bagram Air Base bombing: A Taliban suicide attack at Bagram Air Base while Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney is visiting kills 23, but he is not injured.
February 28 – The New Horizons space probe makes a gravitational slingshot against Jupiter, which changes its trajectory towards Pluto.

Feb 2007 British intelligence in Basra secretly agree to release Mahdi Army militia prisoners in return for an end on attacks on UK forces. - Independent

March 2007
March 1
The International Polar Year, a $1.5 billion research program to study both the North Pole and South Pole, is launched in Paris.
March 7 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 (Boeing 737-400) crashes at Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java, killing many on board.
March 8 – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admits that Israel had planned an attack on Lebanon in the event of kidnapped soldiers on the border, months before Hezbollah carried out its kidnapping.
March 12 – BBC journalist Alan Johnston disappears in Gaza City, the Gaza Strip.
March 17 – Chlorine bombs injure hundreds in Baghdad, Iraq.
March 22 – NATO troops kill 38 in 2 assaults in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
March 23 – Naval forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guard seize 15 Royal Navy personnel in disputed Iran-Iraq waters.
March 27 – Prime Minister of Latvia Aigars Kalvitis and Prime minister of Russia Mikhail Fradkov finally sign a border treaty between Latvia and Russia.

“In Iraq: the arrest of Qais al-Khazali, a former follower Muqtada al Sadr. Khazali had gone on to lead the Iranian-backed Righteous League militant group and was arrested in March 2007 by the Americans.
“It is believed the kidnap of the Britons [May 29th] (Bearing Point: Peter Moore) later was intended to provide a bargaining chip to secure Khazali's release. He was transferred from US to Iraqi custody on the same day Mr Moore was released.
“At the time of the kidnapping, the US, already concerned that Iranian-manufactured munitions were being used in Iraq [The US made this pronouncement in November 2006, though it signified little other than insurgents in Iraq were buying munitions from Iran], wanted to take a tough stance against Tehran. The British, however, were keen to play down the Iranian connection, according to a senior British source. "There was a lot of debate going on between the Americans and the British over how tough to be in 2007 – on how hard they should be with Iran," he said. "There were other things going on at the time. There was an assumption the Iranians were involved in some way."
In 2010 a deal was done – though not couched in those terms:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/whitehall-and-washington-clashed-over-how-to-deal-with-tehran-after-moore-kidnap-1856171.html 


April 2007
April 3 – Second Orange Revolution: Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved the Ukrainian Parliament, following defections that increased the majority of his opponents.
April 4 - NATO and Afghan forces retake a key town from the Taliban, Sangin in southern Helmand Province. Iran announced it’s intention to release the British sailors and marines that they arrested on NATO and Afghan forces retake a key town from the Taliban, Sangin in southern Helmand Province.
Iran announces it will release the British sailors and marines that they captured on March 23. The captives arrive back in the UK the next day.
April 6 – Severe clashes between 2 rival factions erupt in Parachinar, a tribal area of Pakistan bordering the famous Tora Bora Heights.
April 11 – Al Qaeda claims responsibility for 2 bomb blasts in the Algerian capital of Algiers, which kill 33 people and injure 222 others.
April 16 – Thirty-two people are killed in the Virginia Tech massacre on the premises of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
April 18 – 32 Chinese steel workers are burnt to death in the Qinghe Special Steel Corporation disaster.
April 19 – U.S. and allied air forces conduct massive exercises over South Korea with over 500 planes.
April 24 – Gliese 581 c, a potentially habitable Earth-like extrasolar planet, is discovered in the constellation Libra.

April 17th Impeachment against Cheney – enter details from WIKI link
April 25 – U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduces articles to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney.[12]

May 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_oil_law_(2007) 
The Iraq oil law, also referred to as the Iraq hydrocarbon law,[1] is a proposed piece of legislation submitted to the Iraqi Council of Representatives in May 2007.[2][3]
The Iraqi government has yet to reach an agreement on the law (Feb 2010). In June 2008, the Iraqi Oil Ministry announced plans to go ahead with small one or two year no-bid contracts to Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — once partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and smaller firms to service Iraq’s largest fields.[4] These plans were canceled in September because negotiations had stalled for so long that the work could not be completed within the time frame, according to Iraqi oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani. Several United States senators had also criticized the deal, arguing it was hindering efforts to pass the hydrocarbon law.[5]
The new hydrocarbon law intended to give western oil companies a large slice of profits from the country’s oil fields in exchange for investing in new oil infrastructure

May 3 – The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Matthew Shepard Act. It is the first time that the House brings a gay rights bill to the floor for a vote.
May 6 – French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy wins the French presidential election, succeeding incumbent President Jacques Chirac 10 days later.
May 7 – The 2007 Chinese slave scandal is exposed.
May 9 – Subtropical Storm Andrea forms off the coast of Florida, the earliest since Subtropical Storm Ana in 2003.
May 15 – The coalition government of Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian National Authority breaks down, as massive fighting breaks out in Gaza Strip.
May 17 – The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate re-unite after 80 years of schism.
May 20 - Clashes in Tripoli, Lebanon, spark the 2007 Lebanon conflict.
May 26 – Russia is once again recognized as a full-fledged superpower by the United States
May 27 – Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) is taken off the air after the government of Venezuela refuses to renew its license. This action results in protests. On July 16, 2007, RCTV resumes broadcasting via cable and satellite.
On May 29, 2007, BearingPoint IT consultant Peter Moore and his four security guards (from Canadian security company Gardaworld) were abducted from the finance ministry in Baghdad, Iraq. All five men were British. The kidnappers wore Iraqi police uniforms, and arrived in police vehicles.[24]
Three of the security guards were shot dead; the bodies of Jason Swindlehurst and Jason Creswell were handed over to local authorities in June 2009,[25], with Alec MacLachlan's body following in September that year[26] Moore himself was released in December 2009, after two and a half years in captivity, the longest British hostage situation since the Lebanon hostage crisis.[27] The remaining security guard, Alan McMenemy, is believed to be dead, although his body have not been released despite pleas from British Foreign Secretary David Miliband[27] Wikip.
Bearing Point was appointed to advise the US government on the economic reconstruction of Iraq – paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican Party coffers . Bearing Point gave £60,000 to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns (centre for Responsive Politics) – via an in-house political fund. More than any other Iraq contractor.
Bearing Point got its initial contract within weeks of the fall of Iraq in 2003 – from US agency for International development  (USAID) – supporting the Coalition Provisional Authority to introduce policies “which are designed to create a competitive private sector”. 
May 31 – A calendar blue moon occurs in the Western Hemisphere and parts of the Eastern Hemisphere.

June 2007
Vicious street battles across Gaza strip – Fatch v. Hamas. “Hamas smothered all political dissent after 118 Palestinians were killed and 550 wounded in the fighting. Sporadic battles between the two Palestinian factions continued into 2008.
But the West still wanted to negotiate with the dicscredited President Mahmoud abbas. Hamas refused to recognise Israel but if they did - which Israel should they recognise? The Israel of 1948? The post 1967 borders Israel? The Israel with vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22% of ‘Palestine’ still to negotiate over?” .
June 1 U.S. warships bombard a Somali village where Islamic militants had set up a base.[15]
June 2 – Four people are charged in a terror plot to blow up JFK International Airport in New York.[16]
June 4 – Ten people, including a Californian National Guard officer and former Hmong general, are charged in a plot to overthrow the Laotian Government.[18][19]
June 5 NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second fly-by of Venus en route to Mercury.
A mass grave in southern Ukraine, found accidentally by workers in May, is confirmed to be filled with thousands of Holocaust victims.[20]
A train crash near Kerang in Victoria, Australia kills 11 people and injures 23 others.
June 6–8 – The 33rd G8 summit takes place amid strong protests in Heiligendamm, Germany.
Launch of the Space Shuttle AtlantisJune 8
The Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-117.
Storms in the coastal city of Newcastle, New South Wales[21] kill 9 and flood the city and its surrounding areas.[22]
June 24 Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 2007: Gordon Brown is elected Leader of the Labour Party UK, succeeding incumbent Tony Blair, and becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 3 days later.
June 25 – Following the wettest June on record in the United Kingdom, Sheffield and South Yorkshire are affected by flooding. Much of Sheffield, Doncaster and Rotherham is flooded when the River Don breaches its banks.
June 27 – The military police of the state of Rio de Janeiro invades the favela of Complexo do Alemão, causing a massacre.
On 27 June 2007, Blair officially resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after ten years in office, and he was officially confirmed as Middle East envoy for the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia.[129] Blair originally indicated that he would retain his parliamentary seat after his resignation as Prime Minister came into effect; however, he resigned from the Commons on being confirmed for the Middle East role by taking up an office for profit.[72] President George W. Bush had preliminary talks with Blair to ask him to take up the envoy role. White House sources stated that "both Israel and the Palestinians had signed up to the proposal".[130][131] In May 2008, Tony Blair announced a new plan for peace and for Palestinian rights, based heavily on the ideas of the Peace Valley plan.[132]
“Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara”… Postponed a cesefire in Lebanon “in order to share GWB’s forlorn hope of an Israeli victory over Hizbollah.”
Blair is a “politician who has signally failed in everything he ever tried to do in the middle east – now believing that he is the right man to lead the Quartet to patch up ‘Palestine’. Robert Fisk
During the first nine days of the 2008–2009 Israel-Gaza conflict, Tony Blair spent Christmas and New Year's with his family and according to the Daily Mail he was spotted at the opening of the Armani store at Knightsbridge. Aides insisted that reports of him being on holiday were 'totally untrue'. He has, they said, been 'working tirelessly' behind the scenes 'since day one'. Since taking on the position of Middle East envoy, he is reported to be spending one week out every month in the Middle East. His spokesman was quoted as stating that, Blair had been 'working the phones' constantly since Israel's ferocious bombardment of the Palastinian coastal enclave began.[133]
June 28 – In the aftermath of Greece's worst heatwave in a century, at least 11 people are reported dead from heatstroke, approximately 200 wildfires break out nationwide, and the country's electricity grid nearly collapses due to record breaking demand.  June 29 – British police defuse a bomb in Haymarket, Central London.[23]
June 30 A Jeep Cherokee drives into the entrance of the main terminal of Glasgow International Airport in an apparent terrorist incident, resulting in a petrol-driven fire.[24]
A calendar blue moon occurs in most of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The Hawaii Superferry arrives in Honolulu after a 7,600 mile journey from Mobile, Alabama.

In the summer of 2007 US officers persuaded and paid thousands of former Iraqi insurgents to change sides and fight alongside them. The new US collaborators then hunted down their former comrades, in many cases murdering them. “rehiring some of Saddams evil policement to hunt down the evil Saddam.” R.Fisk

July 2007
July 1 Portugal takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Germany.
July 2 – Venus and Saturn are in conjunction, separation 46 arcsecs.
July 3 – Torrential rains cause the onset of the 2007 Sudan floods, the worst in the Sudan's history.
July 4 – After being held captive for 114 days, BBC journalist Alan Johnston is freed by his Palestinian kidnappers.
July 10 – Zheng Xiaoyu, head of the State Food and Drug Administration of the People's Republic of China, is executed.
July 14 – Following a presidential decree, Russia withdraws from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.
July 16 – An earthquake in Japan kills 7 and causes a pipe at a nuclear power plant to break, releasing about 300 gallons of radioactive water.[citation needed]
July 19 Russia expels 4 British embassy staff in a tit-for-tat response over Britain's expulsion of 4 of Russia's diplomats. Russia also refuses to cooperate with Britain over the war on terror.[citation needed]
Prathiba Patil is elected as the first female President of India.
July 22 Floods cause chaos through wide areas of Great Britain, especially the counties of Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Oxfordshire, leaving hundreds homeless and thousands of vehicles stranded on major roads.

August 2007
August 3 – Foot and mouth disease is found on a farm at Wanborough, near to Guildford, Surrey. A UK-wide ban on movement of all livestock is put in place the following day.
August 4 – The Phoenix spacecraft launches toward the Martian north pole.
August 6 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives in the historic Palestinian town of Jericho, becoming the first Prime Minister of Israel to visit the West Bank or Gaza Strip in more than 7 years. Olmert meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Crandall Canyon Mine in Emery County, Utah collapses, trapping 6 miners.
August 14 Multiple suicide bombings kill 572 people in Qahtaniya, northern Iraq.
At least 22 people are killed, and at least 39 missing, as a bridge collapses in the southeastern province of Hunan, China.[citation needed]
August 15 – An 8.0 earthquake strikes Peru, killing 512 people, injuring more than 1,500, and causing tsunami warnings in the Pacific Ocean.
August 16 – The Crandall Canyon Mine in Emery County, Utah, collapses a second time, killing 3 rescue workers and injuring 6 more.
August 17 Vladimir Putin issues a statement, revealing that Russia is to resume the flight exercises of its strategic bombers in remote areas. The flights were suspended in 1991 after the Collapse of the Soviet Union.
August 25 Forty-four people are dead after 2 bombs explode in Hyderabad, India.
August 30 – 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident: A B-52 flies from Minot AFB, ND to Barksdale AFB, LA carrying 6 nuclear warheads.

In the autumn “thousands of western troops had been fought to a standstill outside Kandahar by a resurgent Taliban. Hamid Karzai’s Afghan “government” controlled little more than its own ministries in Kabul as dozens of suicide bombers assaulted Iraq style, his forces and those of his western allies. Fisk

September 2007
September 1 – Finland switches off all of its analogue terrestrial television signals as part of the digital switchover.
September 2–9 – The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit hosts its 19th annual city meeting in Sydney.
September 3 – British troops withdraw from the Basra region of Iraq.
September 4 – Northeast Nicaragua takes a direct hit from Hurricane Felix. The hurricane is a strong Category 5 storm when it reaches the coast.
September 6
Operation Orchard: Israeli airplanes strike a suspected nuclear site in Syria.
A bomb explodes in Batna, Algeria as a crowd gathers to see Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika; 19 people die, 107 are wounded by the attack.
September 8 – Over 50 people die when a car bomb explodes in the Algerian port city of Dellys.
September 12
The Sandiganbayan finds former Philippines President Joseph Estrada guilty beyond reasonable doubt on the charges of plunder, but acquits him on the charges of perjury.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announces his resignation, effective September 19.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and his entire cabinet resign.
September 13 – The Burj Dubai becomes the world's tallest free standing structure, after surpassing the CN Tower in Toronto.
September 14
The SELENE spacecraft launches. JAXA has called the mission, "the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program."
Viktor Zubkov is approved as the new Prime Minister of Russia after a vote in the Duma.
September 15 – Over 3,000 Taiwanese Americans and their supporters rally in front of the UN in New York City to demand that the UN accept Taiwan. At the same time, over 300,000 Taiwanese people rally in Taiwan to make the same plea.

Myanmar protestsSeptember 16 – One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 crashes in Phuket, Thailand, killing 89 passengers and crew.
September 19 – Typhoon Wipha hits Fuding, China. Authorities had evacuated over 2 million people prior to the storm's landfall.
September 20 – The 2007 Universal Forum of Cultures opens in Monterrey, Mexico.
September 21 – The Supreme Court of Chile rules that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori must be extradited to Peru, to face charges of corruption and human rights abuse.
September 26
Emperor Akihito swears in Yasuo Fukuda as the 91st Prime Minister of Japan.
The first confirmed deaths result from the Myanmar military's crackdown on weeks-long anti-government protests. Buddhist monks are arrested and Internet access is cut from the public.[26]
In southern Vietnam the Can Tho Bridge, which is under construction, collapses, killing scores of workers.

October 2007
October 2 – South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il meet in Pyongyang, for the second Inter-Korean Summit.
October 4 – Spanish authorities arrest 22 people associated with the banned Batasuna party, which campaigns for Basque independence, but also has ties to the terrorist group ETA.
Flames burn Santa Clarita, California during the California wildfires of October 2007.October 14
October 18
After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to her homeland Pakistan. The same night, suicide attackers blow themselves up near Bhutto's convoy, killing 136, including 20 police officers. Bhutto escapes uninjured.
October 20 – November 9 – Wildfires in Southern California result in the evacuation of more than a million people, and destroy over 1,600 homes and businesses.

November 2007
Grand Area doctrines clearly license military intervention at will. That conclusion was articulated clearly by the Clinton administration, which declared that the U.S. has the right to use military force to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources," and must maintain huge military forces "forward deployed" in Europe and Asia "in order to shape people's opinions about us" and "to shape events that will affect our livelihood and our security."
The same principles governed the invasion of Iraq. As the U.S. failure to impose its will in Iraq was becoming unmistakable, the actual goals of the invasion could no longer be concealed behind pretty rhetoric. In November 2007, the White House issued a Declaration of Principles demanding that U.S. forces must remain indefinitely in Iraq and committing Iraq to privilege American investors. Two months later, President Bush informed Congress that he would reject legislation that might limit the permanent stationing of U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq or "United States control of the oil resources of Iraq" -- demands that the U.S. had to abandon shortly after in the face of Iraqi resistance.
Noam Chomsky  http://mistymountain.info/content/noam-chomsky-world-too-big-fail-contours-global-order

November 3 – President Pervez Musharraf declares a state of emergency in Pakistan.
November 6 – A suicide bomber kills at least 50 people in Mazari Sharif, Afghanistan, including 6 members of the National Assembly.
November 7
A 48-hour-long state of emergency for Tbilisi is declared by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, due to the intense anti-government protests that have gripped the capital city.
November 13 – An explosion hits the south wing of the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Quezon City, north of Manila, killing 4 people, including Basilan Congressman Wahab Akbar, and wounding 6 others.
November 14
High Speed 1 from London to the Channel Tunnel is opened to passengers.
A 7.7 magnitude earthquake occurs in northern Chile.
November 16 – Over 3,000 people are believed to have died after Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, with the death toll expected to rise.
Kevin RuddNovember 20 – The UK's HM Revenue and Customs admits that it has misplaced 2 computer discs which contained the records of child benefit claimants data, including bank details and National Insurance numbers, in the United Kingdom, leaving up to 7.25 million households susceptible to identity theft.
November 21
November 24 – Police break up anti-Putin demonstrations in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
November 25
Nawaz Sharif makes a second attempt to return to Pakistan along with his brother Shahbaz Sharif and other family members.
Riots continue for a second night in Val-d'Oise, France following the death of 2 youths in a motorcycle collision with a police vehicle.
The United Nations Development Programme releases the 2007/2008 Human Development Report.

Mahmoud Abbas addresses the Annapolis Conference.November 27 – The Annapolis Conference, a peace conference trying to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, is held in Annapolis, Maryland in the United States.
November 28 – President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf stands down as the head of the Pakistan Army, and is successed by Lt. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
November 29 – The Armed Forces of the Philippines lays siege to The Peninsula Manila, after soldiers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes stage a mutiny.
November 30 – Atlasjet Flight 4203 crashes near Keçiborlu, Turkey, killing all 56 people on board.

December 2007
December 2 –
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's proposed changes to the Venezuelan constitution are narrowly defeated in a nationwide referendum.
Brazil started to broadcast ISDB-based SBTVD in a ceremony with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
December 3 – Winter Storms bring record amounts of rain fall in the Pacific Northwest, causing flooding and closing a 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days. At least eight deaths and billions of dollars in damages occur in Washington.
December 3 – 14 – The United Nations Climate Change Conference is held at Nusa Dua in Bali, Indonesia.
December 5 – Robert A. Hawkins shoots 8 people dead and injures 5 at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, then commits suicide.
December 8 – The 2007 Africa-EU Summit takes place as European Union and African Union leaders gather in Lisbon, Portugal, for their first joint summit in 7 years. The British and Czech prime ministers boycott the event due to the presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
December 10 – The United Nations deadline for a negotiated settlement on the future of Kosovo passes without an international agreement.
December 11 – In Algiers, Algeria, 2 bombs explode within 10 minutes of each other, the first near a UN office and the other detonated close to the Algerian Supreme Court. The official death count for both blasts stands at 31.
December 13
European leaders sign the Treaty of Lisbon in Lisbon.
December 15 – President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf lifts the state of emergency in Pakistan.
December 19
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, is announced as Time magazine's 2007 Person of the Year.
December 20
A group of activist Lakota people send a letter to the United States State Department, declaring their secession from the Union as the Republic of Lakotah.
An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 ML hits the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, causing 1 death and significant damage in the town of Gisborne.
December 21 – The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the Schengen border-free zone.
December 24 – The Nepalese government announces that the country's 240-year-old monarchy will be abolished in 2008 and a new republic will be declared.
December 27 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated, and at least 20 others are killed by a bomb blast at an election rally in Rawalpindi.
December 31 – Over 200 people are killed in Kenya, due to riots over the results of the December 27 presidential election.

Climate Change
The US having refused to join any climate change effort started critiscing the European trading system since India and china weren’t in it – C.Boyden Gray who was US top diplomat in the EU – also claimed that GW Bush had always believed in climate change science. Gray is long term bush family associate – had been legal counsel from 1989 to 1993.

No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)