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Today in History - December 8
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For Asian History:
65 BC Dec 8, Quintus "Horace" Horatius Flaccus (d.8 BC), Roman poet and satirist best known for his three books "Odes," was born. "Drop the question what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you."
899 Dec 8, Arnulf of Carinthia, last emperor of Austria-France, died.
1542 Dec 8, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland (1542-67), was born. She became the Queen of England when she was a week old, but was forced to abdicate her throne to her son because she became a Catholic. She was executed for plotting against Elizabeth I. [see Dec 7]
1596 Dec 8, Luis de Carabajal, 1st Jewish author in America, was executed in Mexico. The nephew of Luis Carvajal, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and governor of the province of Nuevo Leon, was accused of relapsing into Judaism. He was tried by Spanish Inquisitors and under torture gave out 116 names of other Judaizers that included his mother and 23 sisters. They were eventually strangled with iron collars and burned to death. A 1997 opera by Myron Fink was composed based on his story. Monterey, Mexico, was founded by conquistador Don Luis de Carvajal. He fell in love the wrong man's daughter and was later denounced to the Mexican Inquisition because of his Jewish heritage.
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.A19)(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)(WSJ, 2/25/97, p.A20)(MC, 12/8/01)
1626 Dec 8, Christina (d.1689), queen of Sweden (1644-1654), was born. She negotiated the Peace of Westphalia (1648), ending the Thirty Years' War. "Fools are more to be feared than the wicked." "Dignity is like a perfume; those who use it are scarcely conscious of it."
1643 Dec 8, John Pym (59), English House of Commons member, died.
1660 Dec 8, The first Shakespearean actress to appear on an English stage (she is believed to be a Ms. Norris) made her debut as 'Desdemona.'
1709 Dec 8, Thomas Corneille (74), French dramatist, died.
1731 Dec 8, Frantisek Xaver Dusek, composer, was born.
1741 Dec 8, Vitus Bering, Danish-born explorer and commander in the Russian navy, died on an island off the Kamchatka Peninsula, later named Bering Island.
(ON, 2/06, p.4)
1765 Dec 8, Eli Whitney (d.1825), American inventor and manufacturer, was born. He invented the cotton gin.
(CFA, '96, p.60)(HN, 12/8/00)
1776 Dec 8, George Washington's retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
1777 Dec 8, Britain's Gen. Howe withdrew to Philadelphia following a failed attempt on American forces encamped at Whitemarsh.
(ON, 8/07, p.8)
1777 Dec 8, Captain Cook left the Society Islands (French Polynesia).
1785 Dec 8, Antonio Maria Mazzoni (68), composer, died.
1792 Dec 8, The 1st cremation in US: Henry Laurens.
1813 Dec 8, Ludwig van Beethoven's 7th Symphony in A, premiered.
1830 Dec 8, Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (b.1767), Swiss-born thinker, writer and French politician, died. He was intimate with Anne Louise Germaine de Staël and their intellectual collaboration made them one of the most important intellectual pairs of their time. In 2008 Renee Winegarten authored the dual biography "Germaine de Stael & Benjamin Constant."
1849 Dec 8, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Luisa Miller," premiered in Naples.
1854 Dec 8, Fr. Nicolas Congiato, SJ, arrived in San Francisco to serve as the superior of the Jesuit mission in California. He later served as the 2nd president of St. Ignatius College.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1854 Dec 8, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In the encyclical Ineffabilis Deus (Latin for "Ineffable God") he stated that: "The Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God… Preserved immune from all stain of original sin".
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineffabilis_Deus)(AP, 12/8/97)(WSJ, 6/3/99, p.A27)
1857 Dec 8, 1st production of Dion Boucicault's "Poor of NY."
1859 Dec 8, Thomas De Quincey (b.1785), English essayist, died. In 2006 his essays on murder were collected and published under the title "On Murder." He is best know for his famous "Confessions of an Opium Eater" (1821).
(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029613/Thomas-De-Quincey)
1861 Dec 8, Aristide Maillol, French painter and sculptor (Seated Woman), was born.
1861 Dec 8, The American Bible Society announced that it would distribute 7,000 Bibles a day to Union soldiers.
1861 Dec 8, CSS Sumter captured the whaler Eben Dodge in the Atlantic. The war began affecting the Northern whaling industry.
1862 Dec 8, Georges Feydeau, French playwright (La Dame de Chez Maxim's), was born.
1863 Dec 8, President Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South. President Lincoln offered amnesty for confederate deserters.
1863 Dec 8, Averell's cavalry destroyed railroads in the southwestern part of West Virginia.
1863 Dec 8, A Jesuit church in Chile caught fire and 2,500 died in a panic.
1865 Dec 8, Jean Sibelius (d.1957), composer (Valse Triste, Finlandia), was born as Johan Julius Christian in Tavastehus, Finland: "Pay no attention to what critics say. There has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.B3)(WUD, 1994, p.1323)(SFEC, 11/16/97, Z1 p.5)(MC, 12/8/01)
1874 Dec 8, The Jesse James gang took a train at Muncie, Kansas.
1881 Dec 8, Vienna's Ring Theater was destroyed by fire and 640-850 people were killed.
1886 Dec 8, Diego Rivera (d.1957), Mexican painter, was born in Guanajuato.
(SSFC, 8/19/12, p.P2)
1886 Dec 8, The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded at a convention of union leaders in Columbus, Ohio, by some 25 labor groups representing about 150,000 members. The first president of the American Federation of Labor was Samuel Gompers, who had reorganized the Cigarmakers Union and participated in the founding of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881.
1894 Dec 8, James Thurber (d.1961), American humorist, writer and editor, best known for "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," was born. "You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."
1902 Dec 8, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. became Associate Justice on Supreme Court.
1903 Dec 8, Zoltan Szekely, composer, was born.
1903 Dec 8, Samuel P. Langley's man-carrying Great Aerodrome collapsed right after takeoff from a houseboat on the Potomac River.
1903 Dec 8, Herbert Spencer (b.1820), English philosopher, died. He was later considered to be the father of Social Darwinism. He is best known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest," which he did in "Principles of Biology" (1864).
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer)
1906 Dec 8, Richard Llewellyn, author (How Green Was My Valley), was born.
1907 Dec 8, Oscar II (78), the king of Sweden and former king of Norway, died in Stockholm.
1910 Dec 8, In San Francisco the Jesuits of St. Ignatius broke ground on a new church at Parker and Fulton. This was the site of the old Masonic Cemetery Association.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1911 Dec 8, The 61-member SF Orchestra, later known as the SF Symphony, played its first performance before some 1400 people and featured works by Wagner, Haydn and Tchaikovsky. The performance featured violinist Fritz Kreisler.
(SFC, 9/5/11, p.A12)
1913 Dec 8, Delmore Schwartz, poet and writer, was born.
1914 Dec 8, "Watch Your Step," the first musical revue to feature a score composed entirely by Irving Berlin, opened in New York.
1914 Dec 8, The German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Leipzig were sunk by a British force under Adm. Sturdee in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. 1,800 German sailors were killed including Adm. Von Spee and his 2 sons. Over 2,500 lives were lost in a single day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Leipzig)(ON, 3/02, p.11)(SSFC, 10/6/02, p.C12)
1915 Dec 8, Jean Sibelius' 5th Symphony in E, premiered.
1918 Dec 8, Gerard Souzay, baritone (Le Nozze di Figaro), was born in Angers, France.
1920 Dec 8, President Wilson declined to send a representative to the League of Nations in Geneva.
1921 Dec 8, Eamon de Valera publicly repudiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
1924 Dec 8, Composer Franz Xaver Scharwenka, German-Polish pianist, composer and teacher, died in Berlin.
1925 Dec 8, Sammy Davis Jr, singer, dancer and actor (Ocean's 11, Candy Man), was born in NYC.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A21)(MC, 12/8/01)
1930 Dec 8, Maximilian Schell, Austrian actor and director (Odessa File, Julia), was born.
1930 Dec 8, Cole Porter's musical "NYCers," premiered in NYC.
1930 Dec 8, In San Francisco Rosetta Baker, a wealthy widow with a taste for younger men, was found strangled in her California St. apartment. Liu Fook, her butler (63) and a secret opium addict, was suspected but found innocent at trial.
(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.D3)(SFC, 2/17/09, p.A11)
1931 Dec 8, Coaxial cable was patented.
1932 Dec 8, Gertrude Jekyll (b.1843), English gardener and writer, died.
(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W16)(http://www.cix.co.uk/~museumgh/jekyll.htm)
1932 Dec 8, Japan told the League of Nations that it had no control over her designs in China.
1933 Dec 8, Patrick Leigh Fermor (b.1915), London-born student, set off to walk the length of Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. He later recounted his adventures in "A Time of Gifts" (1977) and "Between the Woods and the Water" (1986). He was later widely regarded as Britain's greatest travel writer.
(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Leigh_Fermor)
1934 Dec 8, In China John and Betty Stam, Christian missionaries, were beheaded by communist soldiers in a village near Nanking.
(WSJ, 1/17/03, p.W13)
1936 Dec 8, NAACP filed suit to equalize the salaries of black and white teachers.
1936 Dec 8, Anastasio Somoza was elected president of Nicaragua. The Somoza family led Nicaragua until 1979.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A1)(MC, 12/8/01)
1937 Dec 8, In San Francisco 5 men were sentenced to death at San Quentin for the Sep 19 Folsom Prison break that cost Warden Clarence Larkin his life.
(www.odmp.org/officer/7907-warden-clarence-larkin)(SSFC, 12/9/12, p.46)
1938 Dec 8, The Graf Zeppelin, Germany's only aircraft carrier during World War II, was launched. It was taken over by Russia after the war and last seen in 1947. In 2006 a Polish oil company found the wreckage on the sea floor about 38 miles north of the northern port city of Gdansk.
1938 Dec 8, L.P. Beria followed Nikolai Jezjov as head of Russian secret police.
1939 Dec 8, James Galway, flutist (18k gold flute, Royal Phil), was born in Belfast, Ireland.
1940 Dec 8, During the Battle of Britain, the German Luftwaffe launched a massive attack on London as night fell. For nearly 24 hours, the Luftwaffe rained tons of bombs over the city, causing the first serious damage to the House of Commons and Tower of London.
1941 Dec 8, The United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T7)(AP, 12/8/97)
1941 Dec 8, A US tanker was shelled by a Japanese submarine off Cape Mendocino.
(Ind, 1/27/00, 5A)(Ind, 2/2/02, 5A)
1941 Dec 8, The Japanese armoured cruiser Izumo shelled Chinese positions from the middle of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, assisted in sinking the HMS Peterel, the last British gunboat, and captured the USS Wake, the last American gunboat. The Izumo and sister ship Iwate sank during the American aerial attack on Kure in July 1945.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumo-class_cruiser)(Econ, 1/7/17, p.13)
1941 Dec 8, Japanese bombers attacked Malaya.
1941 Dec 8, Japan attacked the Philippines.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T7)(AP, 12/8/97)
1941 Dec 8, Japanese troops occupied Hong Kong.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1941 Dec 8, Japanese General Yamashita began his attack against the British army at Singapore. General Tomoyuki Yamashita earned the name "Tiger of Malaya" for his masterful capture of Singapore and the whole Malay Peninsula from the British, who had a superior number of troops. Yamashita's forces landed on the northern Malay Peninsula and southern Thailand on December 8, 1941, and moved rapidly southward toward Singapore, which surrendered on February 15, 1942. The peninsula and Singapore remained under Japanese control throughout the war. Later in the war, while defending the Philippines from Gen. MacArthur's return, Yamashita's troops wantonly slaughtered more than 100,000 Filipinos in Manila. He was later tried and executed for war crimes.
1941 Dec 8, The Nazi Chelmno extermination camp opened in Poland.
(WUD, 1994 p.252)(MC, 12/8/01)
1941 Dec 8, Russians took Krijukovo back from Germany.
1941 Dec 8-9, In Latvia a final sweep of the Jewish ghetto in Riga resulted in over 800 bodies burned and thrown into a mass grave at a cemetery next to the ghetto. These events were later recalled in the book "Endless Miracles," by survivor Jack Ratz, who was 14 at the time, but went with the men on Nov 29.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A15)
1943 Dec 8, Jim Morrison, singer (Doors), was born in Melbourne, Fla.
1943 Dec 8, John Van Druten's "Voice of the Turtle," premiered in NYC.
1943 Dec 8, U.S. carriers sank two cruisers and down 72 planes in the Marshall Islands.
1944 Dec 8, The U.S. conducted the longest most effective air raid of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima.
1944 Dec 8, American Olivia De Havilland won a California court of Appeal victory against Warner Bros. She had sued the studio using a California law, which limited the right of an employer to enforce a contract against an employee for more than seven years.
1948 Dec 8, Jordan annexed Arabic Palestine. The old city of East Jerusalem came under Jordanian control until 1968. Transjordan was given to a client Arab family, the Hashemites (led by King Hussein's grandfather), and was run out of Mecca by the Saudis. The country now has an ethnic Palestinian majority. Elections chose a body evenly divided between Jordan and the Palestinian territories.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A14)(AP, 1/23/13)
1948 Dec 8, UN approved the recognition of South Korea.
1949 Dec 8, Jule Styne's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" opened at the NYC Ziegfeld Theater for 740 performances.
1949 Dec 8, The Chinese Nationalist government moved from the Chinese mainland to Formosa as the Communists pressed their attacks.
1951 Dec 8, "Tree Grows in Brooklyn" closed at Alvin Theater, NYC, after 267 performances.
1952 Dec 8, French troops shot on demonstrators at Casablanca, Morocco, and 50 people were killed.
1953 Dec 8, Pres. Eisenhower delivered his "Atoms for Peace" address to the UN. He called on both the US and Soviet Union to abandon their nuclear arsenals. The "Atoms for Peace" program spread nuclear technology to nations that agreed not to use it for military purposes.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A10)
1954 Dec 8, Maxwell Anderson's "Bad Seed," premiered in NYC.
1956 Dec 8, In Hungary at least 46 civilians were shot dead during protests in the town of Salgotarjan.
1962 Dec 8, A 114-day newspaper strike began in NYC.
1963 Dec 8, Three fuel tanks exploded when a jetliner, struck by lightning, crashed near Elkton, Maryland. 81 people died. This was the only case of a lightning caused crash.
1964 Dec 8, The UC Academic Senate passed resolutions that affirmed the rights of students to participate in political activity. It voted 842-115 that regulation of speech and advocacy is a function of the state, not the university. The FSM voted to support the faculty position.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.A15)
1965 Dec 8, Abe Burrows' "Cactus Flower," premiered in NYC.
1967 Dec 8, Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" album was released in UK.
1967 Dec 8, In the biggest battle yet in the Mekong Delta, 365 Vietcong were killed.
1968 Dec 8, South Vietnam's vice president Nguyen Cao Ky arrived in Paris for peace talks.
1969 Dec 8, The Los Angeles Police made a surprise attack on Black-Panthers. At two separate locations, 400 officers arrested Party members and children. During one shoot-out, Roland Freeman's body was riddled with bullets, but he survived.
1973 Dec 8, In Chile soldiers shot Argentine primary school teacher Bernardo Lejderman and Maria Avalos, a Mexican citizen, in front of their 2-year-old child. In 2007 a retired general and two former sergeants were fined and sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing the leftist couple, and were ordered to pay $600,000 to Ernesto Lejderman, the son of the slain couple.
(AP, 12/19/07)(www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/chile/chile_1993_pt3_ch1_a2_e.html)
1974 Dec 8, The Greek monarchy was rejected by referendum. Constantine Karamanlis organized a referendum that abolished the monarchy.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.B4)(www.traveldocs.com/gr/history.htm)
1975 Dec 8, "Raisin" closed at 46th St Theater NYC after 847 performances.
1977 Dec 8, In Argentina Leonie Duquet, a French nun, was abducted in a commando-style operation by state security agents. Alice Domon, another French nun, was abducted later this month, but her remains were never recovered. They were killed after befriending mothers of detained dissidents, who were among the first victims of a crackdown on dissent against the 1976-83 dictatorship. In 2011 an Argentine court charged three former police officers with killing five women, including Duquet and Domon, during the country's 1976-1983 "dirty war" by throwing them out of an airplane while still alive. In 2011 Alfredo Astiz (59), a former navy spy known as "the Angel of Death," was convicted in the disappearances of French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet.
1978 Dec 8, Golda Meir (80), PM of Israel from 1969 to 1974, died of cancer in Jerusalem.
1978 Dec 8, Harry Winston (b.1896), jeweler to the stars, died. He purchased the Hope diamond in 1949 and later donated it to the Smithsonian Institute.
(WSJ, 2/14/96, p.A-1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Winston)
1980 Dec 8, John Lennon, musician and one of the Beatles, was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman outside his New York City apartment building. Chapman was a schizophrenic with the delusion that he himself was John. In 1984 Prof. Jonathan M. Wiener wrote a book on Lennon and later got the FBI to surrender its secret files on Lennon.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A2)(AP, 12/8/97)
1982 Dec 8, A man demanding an end to nuclear weapons held the Washington Monument hostage, threatening to blow it up with explosives he claimed were inside a van. After a 10-hour standoff, Norman D. Mayer was shot dead by police; it turned out there were no explosives.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mayer)(AP, 12/8/07)
1982 Dec 8, Marty Robbins, American singer, died. His songs included "El Paso" (1959), "Devil Woman," and "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife" (1970). He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975.
1983 Dec 8, US Att. Gen. Edwin Meese said people go to soup kitchens "...because food is free and that's easier than paying for it."
1984 Dec 8, Robert Matthews (b.1953), co-founder for the neo-Nazi called The Order, was shot and killed by FBI agents on Whiebey Island, Washington. His "Silent Brotherhood" was a small extremist far right group that engaged in a multistate crime wave in this period. The group was also associated with the Aryan Nations Church. His life was fictionalized in the TV movie "Brotherhood of Murder" (1999).
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jay_Mathews)
1986 Dec 8, House Democrats selected majority leader Jim Wright to be the chamber's 48th speaker, succeeding Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill.
1986 Dec 8, Sydney J. Harris (b.1917), London-born American journalist and author, died. "Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."
1987 Dec 8, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty under which the superpowers agreed to destroy their arsenals of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
1987 Dec 8, Kurt Schmoke became the first African-American mayor of Maryland when he was elected the mayor of Baltimore. He was a Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate. He served 3 terms and decided to run for the Senate.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A12)(HN, 12/8/98)
1987 Dec 8-1987 Dec 9, The first Palestinian intefadeh (Arabic for uprising) began as riots broke out in Gaza and spread to the West Bank, triggering a strong Israeli counter-response.
(AP 12/8/97)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)(AP, 12/9/07)
1988 Dec 8, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev cut short his U.S. visit in order to return home following a killer earthquake in Armenia.
1989 Dec 8, Communist leaders in Czechoslovakia offered to surrender their control over the government and accept a minority role in a coalition Cabinet.
1990 Dec 8, As former American hostages began leaving Iraq and occupied Kuwait, President Bush—wrapping up his South America tour in Caracas, Venezuela—said the evacuation made for "one less worry I've got" in deciding whether to go to war against Baghdad.
1990 Dec 8, In Albania Tirana University students demonstrated in the streets and called for the dictatorship to end. Ramiz Alia met with the students 4 days later; a multiparty system was introduced; the Democratic Party, the first opposition party was established; the regime authorized political pluralism.
(www, Albania, 1998)(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E2)
1991 Dec 8, AIDS patient Kimberly Bergalis, who had contracted the disease from her dentist, died in Fort Pierce, Fla., at age 23.
1991 Dec 8, Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government dead, forging a new alliance to be known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kravchuk, and Belarus Pres. Stanislav Shuskevich met in a hunting lodge to proclaim the Soviet Union null and void and to form a loose Commonwealth of Independent States. The declaration later became known as the "Belavezha Accords."
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)(AP, 12/8/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislau_Shushkevich)
1992 Dec 8, Americans got to see live television coverage of US troops landing on the beaches of Somalia as Operation Restore Hope began (because of the time difference, it was early December ninth in Somalia).
1992 Dec 8, NBC announced that "Cheers" would go off the air in May, 1993.
1992 Dec 8, In San Francisco Barry Bonds singed a record six-year, $43.75 million contract with the SF Giants baseball club.
(SSFC, 12/3/17, DB p.46)
1992 Dec 8, Francia Young (25), a SF market analyst, was kidnapped at the MacArthur BART station, and raped and killed by Keith Tyson Thomas and Henry "Rooter" Glover. In 1996 Glover was sentenced to life in prison. In 1998 Young was sentenced to death.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A19)
1992 Dec 8, William Shawn (85), US editor-in-chief (New Yorker, 1952-87), died.
1993 Dec 8, President Clinton signed into U.S. law the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect at the start of 1994.
1993 Dec 8, In Algeria 30 people were killed at a religious rebellion.
1993 Dec 8, A French-flag container ship, the Sherbro, bound for Nigeria from Rotterdam, lost containers of the chemical Apron-Plus (by Ciba-Geigy). This chemical was packed in sachets and purchased by the Nigerian state of Osun with funds from the World Bank development fund. The chemical was intended to be used to fight the 'downy-mildew' fungus that was seriously afflicting the maize crop. Four days later the packets began to wash up on the beaches of France in Normandy.
(WSJ 6/21/95, p.A-22)
1993 Dec 8, Carlotta Monti (86), lover of WC Fields, died.
1994 Dec 8, In Los Angeles, 12 alternate jurors were chosen for the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
1994 Dec 8, In New Jersey Anna Mejia, a sister of Dolores Morgan, was found dead and partially clothed in a bedroom of a Long Branch apartment she shared with her boyfriend and two young children. Authorities later said she had been stabbed about 20 times. In 2020 Dolores Morgan (66) and her son Ted Connors (47), both of Delray Beach, Florida, were indicted for the Mejia's killing. Prosecutors alleged that Ted Connors carried out the murders with his best friend, Jose Carrero, who admitted to conspiring with the mother and son in the killing.
(NBC News, 2/27/20)
1994 Dec 8, Bosnian Serbs released dozens of hostage peacekeepers, but continued to detain about 300 others.
1994 Dec 8, Antonio Carlos Jobim (b.1927), Brazil-born composer (Girl From Ipanema), died in NYC.
1995 Dec 8, In New York, an arsonist killed seven workers and himself at a Harlem clothing store that had been the target of a racially charged lease dispute.
1995 Dec 8, Four months after the death of founder Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead announced it was breaking up after 30 years of making music.
1995 Dec 8, There was an accident at the Japanese Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor in the Fukui Prefecture that forced closure. Two tons of non-radioactive, but violently reactive liquid sodium leaked from the cooling system. Japan had 51 nuclear power plants that produced 33.8% of its energy needs.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-7)(SFC, 3/13/97, p.A12)
1996 Dec 8, In the Central African Republic the government and army mutineers agreed to a 15-day truce. The rebel ranks were dominated by the southern Bayas.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A22)
1996 Dec 8, In Ghana Rawlings defeated John Kufuor and his Great Alliance Party in elections 57% to 40%.
(WSJ, 12/12/96, p.A13)
1996 Dec 8, The Serbian Supreme Court ruled against opposition parties who said Slobodan Milosevic had robbed them of an election victory in Belgrade.
1996 Dec 8, In Zaire rebels surrounded Bunia, the last government held town in eastern Zaire. Government troops were looting and targeting Greek merchants and members of the Nande ethnic group.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A18)
1997 Dec 8, LeAnn Rimes (15) won the artist of the year award at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 12/10/97, p.E5)
1997 Dec 8, Federal hearings opened in Baltimore into the TWA Flight 800 disaster that had claimed 230 lives.
1997 Dec 8, The US HUD established a new program with a hotline to help the nations homeless estimated at 600,000 to 1 million people: 800-HUD-1010.
(SFC, 12/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 8, The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported that deaths in Rio, Brazil, attributed to police links with the military, averaged 20 a month last year.
(SFC, 12/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Dec 8, At the UN conference on global warming in Kyoto, Japan, US Vice President Al Gore signaled a willingness on the part of the US to compromise and perhaps raise the amount of greenhouse gases it is willing to cut.
(SFC, 12/897, p.A1)
1997 Dec 8, In Indonesia a fire gutted the top 3 floors of the central bank in Jakarta and at least 15 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/9/97, p.B3)
1997 Dec 8, In Iran leaders of the 55-member Organization of the Islamic Conference gathered to overcome historic divisions and promote Islamic solidarity.
(SFC, 12/9/97, p.B3)
1997 Dec 8, Iraq executed 4 Jordanians accused of smuggling $850 worth of auto parts. King Hussein of Jordan called and appealed for clemency to no avail.
(SFC, 12/11/97, p.A18)
1997 Dec 8, In Malaysia the Rupiah dropped 10% on rumors that Pres. Suharto had suffered a stroke.
(WSJ, 12/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Dec 8, Mexico agreed with the European Union to negotiate a trade pact.
(SFC, 12/9/97, p.A13)
1997 Dec 8, In Somalia doctors reported that 31 children had died of cholera in recent days and that medicine was needed to prevent an epidemic.
(SFC, 12/9/97, p.B10)
1997 Dec 8, In a $25 billion deal, Swiss Bank and Union Bank of Switzerland announced they would merge, forming Europe's largest and world's second largest bank.
(SFC, 12/897, p.A16)(AP, 12/8/98)
1997 Dec 8, In Thailand the government announced that it will liquidate 56 of 58 insolvent finance companies shut down by the Central Bank earlier in the year. The move was part of the conditions of the $17.2 billion IMF bailout.
(SFC, 12/897, p.A15)
1997 Dec 8, Leon Poliakov (87), French-Jewish historian, died. His books included "Harvest of Hate," one of the best narratives of the Holocaust.
1998 Dec 8, The White House opened its defense against the impeachment of Pres. Clinton. A 184-page defense, written by White House lawyers, held that Clinton's actions were "immoral" and "misleading" but did not amount to impeachable offenses.
(WSJ, 12/8/98, p.A1)(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 8, The Supreme Court ruled that police cannot search people and their cars after merely ticketing them for routine traffic violations.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A8)(AP, 12/8/99)
1998 Dec 8, Paul Edward Hindelang Jr. (51) agreed to forfeit to the US government $50 million that he had acquired dealing drugs in the 1970s. He had helped pioneer the "mother ship" smuggling technique.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A1)
1998 Dec 8, In the SF Bay Area an electrician's error in San Mateo caused a power outage along the northern peninsula that lasted more than seven hours before electricity was fully restored.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A1)(AP, 12/8/99)
1998 Dec 8, In Greeley, Colo., state transportation worker, Robert S. Helfer (50), killed one person during a disciplinary hearing and wounded another. He was killed by police while trying to escape.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A6)
1998 Dec 8, In Algeria 45 people were killed in Tadjena. Armed groups attacked three villages in the area and killed a total of 81 people. Security forces dug up 46 bodies from a well at a farm in Meftah, 10 miles from central Algiers.
(SFC, 12/10/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/12/98, p.B1)
1998 Dec 8, In Chechnya the severed heads of Darren Hickey, Rudolf Petschi, Stanley Shaw and Peter Kennedy were found lines up along a highway outside of Grozny. The mobile phone workers had been kidnapped Oct 3.
(SFC, 12/10/98, p.C8)
1998 Dec 8, In Estonia the Parliament approved an amendment to its citizenship law that made it easier for its Russian-speaking minority to become citizens. It granted citizenship to some 6,500 children born in Estonia of Russian parents following the 1991 independence.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.B8)
1998 Dec 8, From Sierra Leone it was reported that Chief Samuel Hinga Norman, the deputy minister of defense, had founded a cult-based militia, the Kamajors, to help fight the rebels.
(SFC, 12/8/98, p.A12,16)
1998 Dec 8, In Somalia at least 18 people were killed and 30 wounded in clashes between 2 rival clans in Baidoa.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.B8)
1999 Dec 8, US federal investigators arrested 8 alleged terrorist who they plotted attacks in Northern California and Nevada on public utilities, an abortion clinic and a synagogue.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 8, In Washington DC the FBI arrested Stanislav Borisovich Gusevm, a Russian diplomat, for collecting information transmitted from a bug in the State Department headquarters.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 8, A civil trial jury in Memphis ruled that the 1968 killing of Rev. Martin Luther King was a conspiracy. The jury concluded that Loyd Jowers, a former café owner, had conspired with elements of the Memphis Police Dept., the federal government and organized crime to kill King.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1) (SFC, 12/10/99, p.A15)
1999 Dec 8, In Chechnya Russian forces ousted rebels from Urus-Martan.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 8, In France a court ruled that Seita, the maker of Gauloise and Gitane cigarettes, was partly responsible for the death of a Richard Gourlain, a 3-pack-a-day smoker.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C8)
1999 Dec 8, Israel and Syria agreed to resume peace negotiations following a visit by Madeleine Albright to Damascus.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 8, In Montenegro Serbian troops occupied the main airport for one day. Montenegro had planned to assume control of the airport Dec 9.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A18)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D8)
1999 Dec 8, In Morocco a shoddily constructed building collapsed in Fez and at least 47 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Dec 8, In Northern Ireland Gerry Adams accused British spies of eavesdropping on secret discussions with IRA commanders using hidden surveillance gear in one of his party's cars.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Dec 8, Russia and Belarus signed a 3rd union agreement. It proposed combining currencies by 2005 and the introduction of a joint tax system in 2001.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Dec 8, Sudan and Uganda signed a peace agreement in a deal brokered by former Pres. Jimmy Carter.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C8)
2000 Dec 8, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) lifted California's $250 per megawatt-hour price cap and prices skyrocketed. Enron Corp. issued internal memorandums that its schemes to boost profits had nearly caused the lights to go out in California.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.A18)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A1)
2000 Dec 8, The Florida Supreme Court ordered, four to three, an immediate hand count of about 45,000 disputed ballots and put Democrat Al Gore within 154 votes of George W. Bush.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/8/01)
2000 Dec 8, Richard Clarke, top cyberspace official of the US National Security Council, warned that several nations had already created information-warfare units for disrupting computer networks.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 8, In Jerusalem and the West Bank 7 Palestinians and 3 Israelis were killed in the ongoing violence.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 8, In Russia the pardons commission recommended to Pres. Putin that clemency be granted to Edmond Pope.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A17)
2000 Dec 8, In Garaffa, Sudan, Abbas al-Baqer Abbas opened fire at the al-Sunna al-Mohammediya Mosque and killed 20 people. 40 others were wounded and police killed Abbas, a member of the Takfir wal Hijra militant Islamic group.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A18)(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.A28)
2000 Dec 8, In Uganda the victims with Ebola reached 400 including 160 dead.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A18)
2001 Dec 8, Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch was awarded the Heisman Trophy.
2001 Dec 8, The U.S. Capitol was reopened to tourists after a two-month security shutdown.
2001 Dec 8, John Walker Lindh, a Taliban soldier from Marin County, Ca., was held at Camp Rhino near Kandahar as a battlefield detainee. He was captured a week earlier following the prison revolt at Mazar-e-Sharif.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 8, In Ireland the bodies of 8 illegal immigrants, including 3 children, were found in a shipping container in Wexford. 5 people were still alive.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.A16)
2001 Dec 8, Israeli police arrested 3 teenagers for creating and spreading the "Goner" computer worm.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.A18)
2001 Dec 8, Malaysian authorities said they would expand a policy of caning illegal immigrants to include 1st-time offenders.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.A18)
2002 Dec 8, Iraq's massive dossier detailing its chemical, biological and nuclear programs arrived in New York; the U.N. Security Council agreed to give full copies to the United States and the four other permanent council members — Britain, France, Russia and China.
2002 Dec 8, Directors of 18 American and European art museums signed a "Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums."
(WSJ, 12/12/02, p.D10)
2002 Dec 8, Painter and sculptor Keith Tyson, whose playful artwork is inspired by scientific theories and often ponders the role of computers in the modern world, won Britain's prestigious Turner Prize.
2002 Dec 8, Devi Sridhar (18) of Coral Gables, Florida, was one of 32 recipients of the Rhodes scholarship and the youngest ever US recipient.
(SFC, 12/13/02, p.J1)
2002 Dec 8, The Colombian air force bombed a rebel camp and claimed about 40 guerrillas were killed.
2002 Dec 8, Typhoon Pongsona hit Guam with wind gusts of more than 180 mph. The U.S. territory was declared a federal disaster area.
2002 Dec 8, In Karnataka, India, Hannur Nagappa, a former state minister, was found dead. He had been kidnapped Aug 25 by the bandit Koose Muniswamy Veerappan.
(SFC, 12/9/02, p.A7)
2002 Dec 8, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian woman and wounded her 3 children at the Tel Sultan refugee camp near the settlement of Rafiah Yam.
(SFC, 12/9/02, p.A12)
2002 Dec 8, In Nepal 5 people were killed and more than 30 were injured when Maoist rebels blew up a bus in east Nepal.
(Reuters, 12/8/02)
2002 Dec 8, In Serbia voters chose between a moderate nationalist and two extreme right-wing candidates to become president.
2003 Dec 8, Pres. Bush signed into law the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (the Medicare Modernization Act or MMA). It was the biggest expansion of Medicare since its creation in 1965. The $400 billion Medicare overhaul bill included a provision to put away pre-tax money into interest bearing accounts to save for medical expenses. Medicare Part D, also called the Medicare prescription drug benefit, was enacted as part of the MMA (which also made changes to the public Part C Medicare health plan program) and went into effect on January 1, 2006.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Part_D)(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.D1)
2003 Dec 8, The Bush administration joined European human rights officials in expressing concern about the fairness of Russian parliamentary elections on Sunday that delivered big victories to allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
2003 Dec 8, Congress approved legislation to stem the flood of unwanted junk e-mail known as "spam."
2003 Dec 8, US District Judge James Ware ruled that US toxic cleanup law doesn't apply abroad. A suit by Filipinos sought that the US government be required to assess pollution near 2 former military bases.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 8, US Rep. Bill Janklow, R-S.D., resigned after being convicted in the traffic death of a motorcyclist, Randy Scott.
2003 Dec 8, In Abbeville, S.C., Arthur Bixby and his son Stephen (36) killed 2 police officers during a 13-hour standoff. They refused to give up some of their land for a highway.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 8, The US military launched its largest postwar offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents, sending 2,000 soldiers into a lawless swath of Afghanistan to put down a wave of attacks.
2003 Dec 8, Cuban pianist Ruben Gonzalez (84), who found new fame in the mid-1990s playing with Compay Segundo's Buena Vista Social Club band, died in Havana.
2003 Dec 8, In Greece a special tribunal convicted the mastermind, chief gunman and 13 other members of the November 17 cell for killings and attacks spanning a generation. Dimitris Koufodinas was convicted of belonging to November 17, which assassinated 23 people, including Western diplomats, between 1975 and 2000.
2003 Dec 8, Russian military documents confirmed that dozens of rockets outfitted with dirty bombs appeared to be missing from the military airport at Tiraspol, the capital of Transdniestria.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A13)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.46)
2003 Dec 8, In Nigeria the Commonwealth summit of 54-nations, representing nearly one-third of the world's 6 billion people, ended with Western nations blaming Zimbabwe for its own growing international isolation.
2003 Dec 8, Three tourists were kidnapped in southeastern Iran while cycling from the historical city of Bam to Zahedan. Drug smugglers demanded $6 million in ransom.
2004 Dec 8, The US Senate approved an intelligence restructure bill. The legislation called for a new director of national intelligence.
(SFC, 12/9/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 8, Disgruntled U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a question-and-answer session in Kuwait about long deployments and a lack of armored vehicles and other equipment.
2004 Dec 8, Treasury Secretary John Snow accepted President Bush's offer to remain in the Cabinet.
2004 Dec 8, In Columbus, Ohio, Nathan Gale (25) charged on stage and opened fire on a heavy metal band at a crowded bar, killing top heavy metal guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott (38) and 3 others and wounding two before being killed by police.
(AP, 12/9/04)(SFC, 12/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 8, The 738-foot freighter, Selendang Ayu, ran aground off Unalaska Island and began leaking oil. 6 crew members were missing following an attempted rescue in which a Coast Guard helicopter crashed. The ship carried some 500,000 gallons of bunker oil and diesel fuel.
(SFC, 12/11/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 8, Some 18,000 US troops in Afghanistan began Operation Lightning Freedom, a new offensive to hunt Taliban and al-Qaida militants through the country's harsh winter.
2004 Dec 8, British and Irish leaders published a detailed plan for reviving a Catholic-Protestant administration in Northern Ireland.
2004 Dec 8, Lord Scarman (93), English lawyer and judge, died. He investigated the 1981 Brixton riots and provided a report with ground breaking recommendations.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.68)
2004 Dec 8, China's Premier Wen Jiabao repeated that China will move gradually to a flexible exchange rate.
(WSJ, 12/9/04, p.A14)
2004 Dec 8, In Quito, Ecuador, inmates in the largest prison took 180 visitors hostage to protest what they called overcrowding, poor conditions and long sentences.
2004 Dec 8, In Cairo, Egypt, several thousand Christians who packed a cathedral compound hurled stones at riot police to protest a woman's alleged forced conversion to Islam. At least 30 people were injured.
2004 Dec 8, The European Union and China agreed to boost relations, but the EU made clear there can be no early lifting of its 15-year-old arms embargo until Beijing improves its human rights record.
2004 Dec 8, In Iraq gunmen attacked the police headquarters in Samarra, killing an Iraqi policemen and a child who was caught in the cross fire. Insurgents detonated a car bomb in southern Baghdad, causing an unspecified number of casualties. 18 young Iraqi Shiites, aged 14-20, were shot and killed while seeking work at a U.S. base near Mosul. Their bodies were discovered Jan 5. Dale Stoffel, an American arms dealer and contractor, was killed along with Joe Wemple. Before Stoffel was shot dead in Baghdad, he had told of corruption and payoffs to senior military officers in the country's reconstruction program. Stoffel and Wemple were reported to have been working on a $40 million dollar project in Iraq for a military facility in Taji which involved the arming of the 1st Iraqi Armored Brigade. Insurgents from the Brigades of the Islamic Jihad claimed they were responsible for the murder. However, the murders remain uninvestigated and unsolved.
(AP, 12/8/04)(AP, 1/6/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Stoffel)(SSFC, 2/15/09, p.A10)
2004 Dec 8, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi (30), son of leader Moammar Gadhafi, said Libya will soon pass new laws that limit capital punishment to a small number of crimes. Saif was currently enrolled in a doctoral program in governance at the London School of Economics.
(SFC, 12/9/04, p.A3)(SSFC, 9/23/07, p.A22)
2004 Dec 8, Presidents and high-ranking officials from 12 South American countries gathered at the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco, Peru, to create a political and economic bloc. They hoped to establish a 12-nation South American Community of Nations.
(AP, 12/8/04)(Econ, 12/11/04, p.36)
2004 Dec 8, Russian authorities slapped a back tax bill of almost 160 million dollars (121 million euros) on the number two mobile phone operator Vimpelcom, in what is widely seen as a government-linked campaign against the firm.
2004 Dec 8, Ukraine's parliament adopted electoral and constitutional changes in a compromise intended to defuse the nation's political crisis.
2005 Dec 8, The US Supreme Court ruled that the government can seize part of a person's monthly Social Security benefit to pay off old student loans.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A5)
2005 Dec 8, US federal prosecutors announced six arrests of eco-sabotage suspects following a 9-year investigation in 4 arson cases in Oregon dating to 1998 and 2001 and a toppled power line in Bend, Oregon in 1999.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A6)
2005 Dec 8, The US government reported that life expectancy in the US had risen to 77.6 years. Obesity and hypertension plagued the 55-64 cohort.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 8, Project Homeless Connect, a one-day homeless aid fair that began in SF a year ago, went national with attention given to some 6,000 homeless in 21 US cities.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.B3)
2005 Dec 8, In Chicago a Southwest Airlines jet trying to land amid heavy snow plowed off a runway at Midway airport and into a street, killing a 6-year-old boy in a car.
2005 Dec 8, Firestone, a multinational rubber manufacturing giant known for its automobile tires, has come under fire from human rights and environmental groups for its alleged use of child labor and slave-like working conditions at a plantation in Liberia.
2005 Dec 8, The New England Journal of Medicine reported that the bacterial infection Clostridium difficile (D. diff) appeared to be spreading rapidly around the country. Patients taking new heartburn drugs like Prilosec, Prevacid, Pepcid and Zantac appeared to be more vulnerable to the bug.
(SFC, 12/31/05, p.A14)
2005 Dec 8, Scientists said as wetlands disappear and shorelines are degraded, the Great Lakes are losing their ability to cope with environmental stress and ward off a catastrophic breakdown.
2005 Dec 8, Scientists published the complete DNA sequence for dogs based on a boxer named Tasha. The gene count was estimated at 19,300, most of which resemble human genes. A preliminary sequence was announced in 2003.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 8, The Int'l. Committee of the Red Cross decided to recognize Israel's new "Red Crystal" medical emblem alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 8, In Afghanistan the election board certified Pres. Karzai's 34 appointees for the upper house of parliament. The 1st meeting of parliament was scheduled for Dec. 19.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A17)
2005 Dec 8, NATO foreign ministers approved plans to send up to 6,000 troops into southern Afghanistan, a major expansion of the alliance's peacekeeping mission into some of the most dangerous parts of the country.
2005 Dec 8, In the first visit to Australia by a Turkish leader, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized military solutions to the so-called "war on terror", saying the US-led invasion of Iraq had transformed the country into a training ground for extremists.
2005 Dec 8, In Netrokona, Bangladesh, a suicide bomber on a bicycle rode into a crowd and detonated his explosives, killing 7 other people and wounding dozens. Police detained 8 suspects the next day.
2005 Dec 8, In Barbados leaders of Caribbean nations held a summit to discuss health care cooperation and cultural exchanges, but a major focus was on Cuba and its thorny relationship with the United States.
2005 Dec 8, Britain's highest court ruled that evidence obtained in other countries through torture may not be used in British courts.
2005 Dec 8, After half a century, London's red Routemaster buses rattled into retirement. Thousands of fans said farewell to the hop-on, hop-off buses, this last full day of regular service for the icon.
2005 Dec 8, Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, issued a statement to Chad expressing serious concerns about proposed changes to the use of petrodollars.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.C2)
2005 Dec 8, China announced a fifth human case of bird flu, a 31-year-old female farmer who fell ill after contact with dead birds but has since recovered.
2005 Dec 8, Preliminary results in Egypt's elections gave the leading opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, a record 19% of the seats in parliament after a four-week election that counted 11 fatalities.
(AP, 12/08/05)(Reuters, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, An Ethiopian court sentenced to death Major Melaku Tefera, one of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam's top soldiers, for genocide and abetting the murder of 971 people during the country's 1977-78 "Red Terror" campaign.
2005 Dec 8, In Iraq a suicide bomber who jumped on a bus after security checks had been completed detonated an explosives belt among passengers heading to a Shiite city, killing 32 people and wounding 44.
2005 Dec 8, An Iraqi insurgent group said in an Internet posting that it killed a U.S. security consultant it had taken hostage.
2005 Dec 8, In Iraq a US soldier attached to a Marine unit died while on guard duty at a base near the town of Fallujah.
2005 Dec 8, An Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip killed two Palestinian militants and a Palestinian stabbing attack killed an Israeli in the West Bank in a new spasm of violence.
2005 Dec 8, It was reported that a new Italian law required businesses, that offered Internet access to the public, to ask clients for ID and to log the owner's name a document type.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.C5)
2005 Dec 8, In Japan a typing error caused Mizuho Securities Co. to lose at least 27 billion yen, or $225 million, on a stock trade. The next day the government rebuked the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Mizuho Securities, one of the country's biggest brokerage firms.
2005 Dec 8, In northwestern Pakistan an explosion ripped through two munitions shops in a bazaar in a tribal town, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 30.
2005 Dec 8, In Saudi Arabia leaders from more than 50 Muslim countries promised to fight extremist ideology, saying they would reform textbooks, restrict religious edicts and crack down on terror financing.
2005 Dec 8, Police in Singapore said they have arrested 13 foreigners, including an American, in an anti-drug operation, less than a week after an Australian was put to death for a narcotics conviction.
2005 Dec 8, In South Korea international activists kicked off a conference on human rights abuses in North Korea by calling for the overthrow of Kim Jong Il's regime and accusing Pyongyang of enslaving its people.
2005 Dec 8, In northern Syria 8 Muslim militants died in a battle with security forces at a farmhouse.
2005 Dec 8, Ukraine said it had detected the highly pathogenic type of bird flu that is dangerous to humans, the strain known as H5N1. The September outbreak was located in several villages in the Crimean peninsula where about 2,500 birds died within hours.
2005 Dec 8, An erupting volcano on the remote South Pacific island of Vanuatu burst into spectacular life shooting steam and toxic gases 9,845 feet into the sky.
2006 Dec 8, President George W. Bush and visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki pressed for urgent deployment of international peacekeepers in violence-torn Darfur.
2006 Dec 8, The House ethics committee concluded that Republican lawmakers and aides failed for a decade to protect male pages from sexual overtures by former Rep. Mark Foley, but that they broke no rules and should not be punished.
2006 Dec 8, In Chicago a man carrying a cache of weapons into the Citigroup Center chained a law firm's doors closed and fatally shot three people before a police sniper killed him as he held a hostage at gunpoint. Authorities said Joe Jackson (59) felt cheated over an invention.
2006 Dec 8, McAfee, an Internet security firm, reported that organized gangs have adopted "KGB-style" tactics to hire high-flying computer students to commit Internet crime.
2006 Dec 8, Heelys, a company that produced wheeled footwear, went public. Roger Adams (b.1954) founded the company following an inspired idea in 1998.
(WSJ, 2/14/07, p.B11)
2006 Dec 8, Scientists said that the forests of the American West are under siege from bark beetles, miniscule but mighty foes that are ravaging the region's leading trees in record numbers. Experts said the region has failed in recent years to register the sustained periods of sub-zero temperatures that once dealt a fatal blow to beetle populations.
2006 Dec 8, Laura Gainey, the daughter of hockey great Bob Gainey, was washed overboard in the North Atlantic during a storm while working on a sailing ship bound for the Caribbean; she remains lost at sea.
2006 Dec 8, Thousands of firefighters rushed to contain more than a dozen wildfires burning across southern Australia amid fears that high temperatures and gusty winds forecast this weekend could further stoke the blazes, threatening farms and towns.
2006 Dec 8, The wife of Alexander Kozulin, a Belarusian opposition leader imprisoned since last spring's protests, said her husband has entered the 50th day of a hunger strike and is in critical condition.
2006 Dec 8, PM Tony Blair stoked a simmering debate over religious tolerance and cultural assimilation, saying it was the duty of all immigrants to integrate into British society.
2006 Dec 8, Government forces in the Central African Republic, bolstered by French and African support, recaptured the northeastern town of Sam Ouandja from rebels without incident.
2006 Dec 8, China launched its Fengyun-2D weather satellite. Its priority mission was forecasting weather for the 2008 Olympics.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.42)
2006 Dec 8, Former San Francisco Giants shortstop Jose Uribe was killed in a car crash in his native Dominican Republic.
2006 Dec 8, The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group announced Fiji is to be immediately suspended from the Commonwealth following a military coup there earlier this week. The Commonwealth of Nations is a successor to the British Empire and brings together some 53 nations, around a third of the world's countries and a quarter of the world's population.
2006 Dec 8, In Finland officials said alcohol is now the leading killer of Finnish adults, with consumption reaching an all-time high last year.
2006 Dec 8, US-led coalition forces killed 20 insurgents, including two women, in fighting and airstrikes that targeted al-Qaida in Iraq militants northwest of Baghdad. The final death toll in the US attack on the Sunni village of al-Ishaqi in Salahuddin province stood at 8 children, 7 women and 4 men. Key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash were reported to have said that private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money was used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles. At least 47 Iraqis were killed or found dead, including 25 who were struck in a mortar attack that night on a poor Shiite neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad.
2006 Dec 8, Israeli police captured Benny Sela (35), an escaped serial rapist in northern Israel, ending a two-week saga that caused nationwide panic.
2006 Dec 8, In Madagascar police searched the property of former President Albert Zafy as part of an ongoing investigation into the whereabouts of Gen. Randrianafidisoa and opposition politician Pety Rakotoniaina.
2006 Dec 8, In Mexico more than 100 prisoners escaped from a state penitentiary a few miles from Cancun's resort zone after hundreds of inmates overpowered guards with knives and bats. Police quickly recaptured most of the men, but there were still 17 at large. More than 250 federal police agents surrounded the offices of the Oaxaca state police force and seized its weapons to determine whether any were used in shootings during six months of demonstrations in Oaxaca City. Assailants shot dead an Indian activist in Mexico's conflict-ridden state of Oaxaca. The bullet-ridden corpse of Raul Marcial Perez was found on a road near the Mixtec Indian community of Agua Fria about 120 miles north of Oaxaca City.
2006 Dec 8, A Nigerian court ruled that Vice President Atiku Abubakar's suspension from the dominant political party was unconstitutional, potentially clearing the way for him to run for president on the party's ticket in the upcoming election.
2006 Dec 8, The MAP news agency said Qatar will invest 335 million dollars in tourist development schemes in the northern Moroccan city of Tangiers.
2006 Dec 8, Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh told thousands of Iranians that his Hamas-led government will never recognize Israel and will continue to fight for the "liberation of Jerusalem."
2006 Dec 8, In Moscow local media said Andrei Lugovoy, a second Russian businessman who met murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill, is now sick from radiation poisoning.
2006 Dec 8, Vojislav Seselj, a Serb war crimes suspect, ended his nearly monthlong hunger strike after UN Yugoslav tribunal judges allowed him to conduct his own defense.
2006 Dec 8, Singapore awarded its second casino resort contract to Genting International, whose $3.38 billion proposal promises to lure family tourists with a Universal Studios theme park and a huge outdoor marine park.
2006 Dec 8, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a top Islamic official, said that militiamen are fighting Ethiopian troops in Dinsor, a southern Somalia town. He called on Somalis to defeat "the enemies who have invaded our land."
2006 Dec 8, In Basel, Switzerland, a 3.4 magnitude tremor was accidentally triggered by engineers drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap its inner heat, in the world's search for new sources of energy.
2007 Dec 8, The US Justice Department and CIA announced a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotapes of interrogations of two suspected terrorists.
2007 Dec 8, The chief US negotiator at the climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, said the US will come up with its own plan to cut global-warming gases by mid-2008 and won't commit to mandatory caps.
(SSFC, 12/9/07, p.A17)
2007 Dec 8, Talk show host Oprah Winfrey publicly endorsed Barack Obama for president during appearances in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2007 Dec 8, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy.
2007 Dec 8, Ann Lisa Nguyen (35), a program manager in San Jose, Ca., went missing. Her body was found Dec 19 at the Newby Island Landfill in Milpitas. Anthony Dale Evans (45), a convicted felon who worked at the same gym that Nguyen frequented, was later arrested on suspicion of murder.
(SFC, 12/20/07, p.B2)
2007 Dec 8, Worldwide demonstrations began to draw attention to climate change and push their governments to take stronger action to fight global warming.
2007 Dec 8, A NATO and Afghan operation to retake Musa Qala, a Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan, left at least 12 Taliban fighters and two children dead. A Nato soldier killed in a mine explosion during the operation, which began Dec 7. Taliban militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns ambushed a district chief's vehicle in western Farah province, killing him, his son, nephew and three bodyguards.
2007 Dec 8, A suicide truck bomber attacked a police station in Beiji, one of Iraq's major oil hubs, killing at least seven people and injuring 13 in a neighborhood home to many refinery workers and engineers. In southeastern Kut a rocket landed on the home of a senior member of the local Sadrist bloc of Shiite politicians, killing him, his wife and their two children. Ten suspected militants were killed in a gunfight and airstrike outside Youssifiyah. In a raid outside Jalula US forces moving against a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq member killed one suspect and discovered an ammunition cache. Two other raids in Mosul and Samarra left one suspected militant dead and 11 detained.
2007 Dec 8-2007 Dec 11, US soldiers carrying out operations in volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad found graves containing 26 bodies next to what they called a torture center where chains were attached to blood-spattered walls and a metal bed frame was still connected to an electrical shock system. Soldiers found a total of nine caches containing a surface-to-air missile launcher, sniper rifles, 130 pounds of homemade explosives and numerous mortar tubes and rounds, among other weapons.
2007 Dec 8, In Naseerabad, Pakistan, gunmen killed three people in an attack on a party office of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the first reported deaths apparently linked to the current election campaign. Pakistan's army claimed it has cleared almost all militants from embattled northwestern Swat valley after killing 290 rebels and arresting another 143 in recent weeks.
2007 Dec 8, South Korea's worst-ever oil spill reached the country's southwest coastline, polluting beaches with pungent sludge and threatening valuable sea farms.
2007 Dec 8, In Spain 53 African and 27 European countries began a summit to bury old colonial relationships in favor of something more modern. German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged European and African leaders to confront human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, putting the country's president Robert Mugabe in the spotlight at an EU-Africa summit.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.54)(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 8, Soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels exchanged mortar and gunfire in northern Sri Lanka, leaving 16 rebels dead.
2007 Dec 8, Taiwanese director Ang Lee's erotic spy thriller "Lust, Caution" swept the top honors at the Golden Horse Film Awards, seen as the Chinese-language "Oscars."
2007 Dec 8, An overcrowded boat carrying at least some 85 illegal migrants sank off Turkey's Aegean coast and at least 43 died. The migrants were mostly Palestinians, Somalis and Iraqis.
2007 Dec 8, Venezuela's Pres. Hugo Chavez promised to supply the oil needs of Belarus for years to come and dismissed Western accusations that Pres. Alexander Lukashenko is a dictator. Chavez presented Lukashenko with a medal, and they signed an agreement pledging military cooperation.
2008 Dec 8, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 4 co-defendants, charged with plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, told a military judge that they want to immediately confess at their war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 12/8/08)(WSJ, 12/9/08, p.A1)
2008 Dec 8, Marc Dreier (58), owner of a prominent NYC law firm, was indicted with criminal charges and civil complaints alleging he defrauded investors of some $115 million by selling them phony financial instruments. On Dec 23 federal prosecutors charged Kosta Kovachev (57), a former stockbroker, for his role in Dreier's 2006 Ponzi scheme. In 2009 the indictment was amended and estimated the alleged fraud at about $700 million.
(WSJ, 12/9/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/24/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/18/09, p.A7)
2008 Dec 8, In San Diego The F/A-18D Hornet crashed into a street about two miles from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar as the pilot was returning from a training flight. 4 people, a mother, 2 children and a grandmother, were killed in one house. Two homes were destroyed.
(AP, 12/9/08)(WSJ, 12/9/08, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/08, p.A6)
2008 Dec 8, The Chicago-based Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy as it struggled with $13 billion in debt and a drop-off in advertising.
(SFC, 12/9/08, p.D2)
2008 Dec 8, Dow Chemical Co. said it will slash 5,000 full-time jobs, about 11 percent of its total work force, close 20 plants and sell several businesses to rein in costs amid the economic recession.
2008 Dec 8, Robert Prosky (77), American theater, film and TV actor, died.
(SFC, 12/12/08, p.B9)
2008 Dec 8, In Brazil Police chief Paulo Fernando Fortunato reported that 13 gay men were killed in a park in suburban Sao Paulo between February 2007 and August 2008.
2008 Dec 8, British car parts maker Wagon PLC said it planned to file for a form of bankruptcy protection after a global slump in demand for cars crippled its business.
2008 Dec 8, British and French leaders met with European business executives to discuss plans for major government spending on infrastructure and energy projects aimed at helping Europe to beat the downturn.
2008 Dec 8, Quebec's ruling Liberals strengthened their grip on power in a provincial election, winning a parliamentary majority and defeating separatists who want independence for the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province.
(Reuters, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 8, In China Liu Xiaobo (53), a dissident, was detained hours before releasing Charter 08, the China democracy movement's most comprehensive call yet for peaceful reform. Liu had cut short a visiting scholar stint at Columbia University to join the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989. He and three other older activists famously persuaded students to peacefully leave the square hours before the deadly June 4 crackdown.
2008 Dec 8, Congolese rebels opened peace negotiations with a government delegation in Nairobi in their first direct talks on ending the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
2008 Dec 8, The EU formally launches its anti-piracy task mission off the Somali coast, preparing to take over from the NATO flotilla guarding one of the world's most important shipping lanes.
2008 Dec 8, The EU joined calls for President Robert Mugabe to step down after 28 years ruling Zimbabwe, where spreading cholera and food shortages have worsened a desperate humanitarian crisis.
2008 Dec 8, French police arrested the suspected military chief and "No. 1 member" of ETA, a new blow to the banned Basque militant group just weeks after his alleged predecessor was caught.
2008 Dec 8, The National Bank of Hungary cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to an annual rate of 10.5% due to the deteriorating economy outlook.
(WSJ, 12/9/08, p.C2)
2008 Dec 8, The US military captured four suspected members of a Shiite militant group in Iraq allegedly trained and funded by Iran.
2008 Dec 8, Victor Hugo Moneda, a senior Mexico City police commander, was slain in a drive-by shooting outside his home. He had overseen raids in the capital's gang-filled Tepito neighborhood.
2008 Dec 8, In Pakistan armed militants launched a second raid in as many days on NATO depots, torching nearly 100 more vehicles destined for the alliance's forces in Afghanistan.
2008 Dec 8, In the Philippines suspected extortionists armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked two cargo ships docked at a southern port, wounding two crew members.
2008 Dec 8, In northern Vietnam a blast at a coal mine killed at least seven workers and injured 15.
2009 Dec 8, President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals, saying the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work.
2009 Dec 8, The US government announced that it intends to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds. The tentative settlement would resolve a 13-year-old lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th century.
(SFC, 12/9/09, p.A6)
2009 Dec 8, Ratings agency Moody's warned of a "fiscal crisis" lasting "several years" in Britain, France, Germany and the United States, but saw no immediate threat to their top AAA credit assessments.
2009 Dec 8, Ohio executed Kenneth Biros (51) by performing the nation's first lethal injection using a single drug, sodium thiopental, a supposedly less painful method than previous executions that required 3 drugs. Biros killed Tami Engstrom (22) in 1991 after offering her a ride home from a bar. He then scattered her body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
(AP, 12/8/09)(SFC, 12/9/09, p.A10)
2009 Dec 8, CBS canceled "As the World Turns," putting the company that coined the phrase "soap operas" out of the business of making daytime dramas for the first time in 76 years.
2009 Dec 8, The Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation in eastern Afghanistan. NATO disputed the allegation, saying only militants died.
2009 Dec 8, Human Rights Watch issued a report saying police in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have killed more than 11,000 people in the past six years, many execution-style.
2009 Dec 8, Brazil's largest city of Sao Paulo was been hit by severe floods for the second time in less than a week. Local media reported that six people have died in mudslides caused by heavy rain.
2009 Dec 8, In Cambodia Siwaraks Chothipong (31), a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was ordered to serve seven years in prison for spying on Thailand's former prime minister while he was in Cambodia as a guest of the government. Chothipong was accused of stealing Thaksin's flight schedule before his Nov. 10 arrival and sending it to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The case threatened to worsen a diplomatic feud between the two neighbors. On Dec 11 Cambodia's king pardoned Chothipong.
2009 Dec 8, China executed Yang Yanming, a former securities trader, for embezzlement. He became the first person in the industry to be put to death, but millions of yuan remained missing. He was the general manager of the Beijing securities trading department of the China Great Wall Trust and Investment Corp., which became Galaxy Securities, from 1997 to 2003.
(Reuters, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 8, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights watchdog, said that Eritrea tops the list of African countries that jail journalists for their work.
2009 Dec 8, EU nations agreed that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state, assuaging Israeli anger over earlier mention of east Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. An earlier proposal by the Swedish EU presidency, to explicitly support the idea of east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, was dropped by the foreign ministers.
2009 Dec 8, Honduras' president-elect Porfirio Lobo said he wants amnesty for ousted Pres. Manuel Zelaya and for all of those involved in the June 28 coup that deposed him. 2 gunmen riding motorcycles shot and killed retired Gen. Julian Aristides Gonzalez, the country's top anti-drug official.
2009 Dec 8, In Iraq a series of coordinated attacks struck Baghdad, including two suicide car bombers and another vehicle that blew up near government sites. At least 127 were killed and over 500 hundred wounded in the worst wave of violence in the capital in more than a month.
2009 Dec 8, In Iran pro-government militiamen assaulted university students demonstrating for a second straight day and hard-liners on motorcycles harassed the top opposition leader at his office Tuesday, signs of a possible intensified crackdown after the biggest anti-government demonstrations in months.
2009 Dec 8, Amnesty International released a report that said Mexican soldiers have carried out torture and forced disappearances while fighting drug cartels. A student's body was found in a truck at an intersection in Ciudad Juarez. He was the second student from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua to be killed since Dec 5.
2009 Dec 8, In central Pakistan a team of militants launched a gun, rocket and suicide attack on an intelligence office in Multan, killing 12 people in a strike that showed the insurgents can hit deep in the heart of the country.
2009 Dec 8, The Palestinians announced a boycott of Israeli products made in the West Bank, stepping up their campaign against Israeli settlements.
2009 Dec 8, Russia's highest court upheld a ruling halting the activities of a regional branch of Jehovah's Witnesses and banning dozens of its publications in what the group deplored as an unfair move.
2009 Dec 8, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Shahbaig, a Pakistan-flagged fishing vessel with 28 crew members aboard.
2009 Dec 8, Swedish telecom giant Ericsson said it would cut 946 jobs in Sweden in an effort to downsize its production staff as it strives to improve efficiency.
2009 Dec 8, The UN weather agency reported that this decade is on track to become the warmest since records began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five warmest years, on the second day of a pivotal 192-nation climate conference.
2009 Dec 8, In Venezuela a group of college students ended a hunger strike after 17 days following a meeting with Organization of American States representatives to air their concerns about human rights. A dozen students started the protest Nov. 21 outside the OAS office in Caracas, aiming to press the body to look into their complaints, including allegations that President Hugo Chavez's government abuses the legal system to persecute opponents. Jesus Ramirez Bello (20), a student, was shot and killed during a protest in the southwestern city of San Cristobal, Tachira state. 2 suspects were later detained in the killing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A22)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2010 Dec 8, In France heavy snowfall forced the closure of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2011 Dec 8, In Washington DC former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine testified before the House Agricultural Committee about the bankruptcy of MF Global, which followed disastrous bets on European debt. Corzine said he did not know what happened to an estimated $1.2 billion that went missing and blamed his predecessors for the company's precarious finances.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A17)
2011 Dec 8, The Washington Post reported that the US Air Force dumped the cremated, partial remains of at least 274 troops in a landfill before halting the secretive practice in 2008.
2011 Dec 8, The US Environmental Protection Agency announced for the first time that fracking, a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells, may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution. The EPA found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals.
2011 Dec 8, The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry accepted local claims that there is a higher incidence of cancer and other health ills on Vieques island compared with neighboring Puerto Rico, but said there is no proof the problem is linked to US military activity. The bombing range closed in 2003 following years of protests about environmental risks and the 1999 killing of a Puerto Rican civilian guard by an errant bomb.
2011 Dec 8, Researchers at the Univ. of Chicago reported experiments demonstrating that a rat would free a fellow rat trapped in a restrictive cage even without a payoff, indicating empathy and selfless behavior.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A16)
2011 Dec 8, In Virginia Ross Truett Ashley (22) shot and killed police officer Derrick Crouse on Virginia Tech's campus during a routine traffic stop, putting the campus on lockdown for several hours. Ashley, who then took his own life, used a legally purchased handgun in the shooting.
(AP, 12/8/11)(SFC, 12/14/11, p.A8)
2011 Dec 8, In Argentina Ali Miguel (80), his wife, Sara Garcia (83), their daughter Monica Miguel (49) and Miguel's son (10) were found dead with multiple stab wounds in their house in Mendoza province. A 13-year-old neighbor claimed he killed the 10-year-old in self-defense because the younger boy attacked him after killing his own mother and grandparents. Authorities said the adolescent may have killed the entire family.
2011 Dec 8, Britain's Defense Secretary Philip Hammond announced that women will be allowed to serve on British navy submarines, with female officers taking up roles from late 2013.
2011 Dec 8, British ministers ordered an urgent inquiry into England's exam system, after undercover reporters recorded examiners advising teachers on what questions were likely to come up.
2011 Dec 8, In the Dominican Rep. hundreds of people protested in front of the Supreme Court against what they say is a government practice of confiscating or annulling birth certificates for residents of Haitian descent.
2011 Dec 8, Egypt's biggest political group the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with the country's army leaders on Thursday, accusing them of trying to "marginalize" parliament over the writing of a new constitution.
2011 Dec 8, In El Salvador Hector Silva (64), a Boston-born Salvadoran physician, died of a heart attack. He had helped the Central American nation recover from its 12-year civil war. In 1997 he became the first leftist mayor of the capital following the civil war, earning a reputation for moderation during six years in office.
2011 Dec 8, The European Central Bank (ECB) lowered its benchmark rate from 1.25 to 1 percent, the second quarter point cut in as many months.
(Econ, 12/17/11, p.127)
2011 Dec 8, A German man (27) was arrested by a police special-ops team in the western city of Bochum on charges he was part of an al-Qaida bomb plot in Europe. Suspect Halil S. is accused of being part of the so-called "Duesseldorf Cell." The group was allegedly plotting the bombing before its three main members were swept up by police in April. Another suspect, identified only as Florian M., was arrested in Kiel on charges of involvement with Halil S.'s criminal activities.
2011 Dec 8, German authorities said a letter bomb has been intercepted by Deutsche Bank employees intended to chief executive Josef Ackerman. They it was apparently sent by an Italian anarchist organization.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A4)
2011 Dec 8, The Honduran Congress passed bills allowing authorities to wiretap the telephone conversations, emails and bank accounts of suspected criminals and banning motorcycles from carrying passengers for 6 months. The bills were aimed at stemming a wave of drug violence. President Porfirio Lobo was expected to sign both bills.
2011 Dec 8, An Israeli strike killed 2 Gaza militants. Israel said one of them, Issam al-Batsh, had planned a deadly bombing in Eilat in 2007. The Israeli military said the two men had also been planning another attack on southern Israel by infiltrating from the Sinai peninsula.
2011 Dec 8, Ivory Coast officials said 5 people have died since the start of the campaign for legislative elections, warning against a repeat of the poll that tore the country apart last year.
2011 Dec 8, The World Bank said high food and fuel prices, the Horn of Africa drought and the euro crisis will dampen Kenya's economic growth in 2011, and possibly into 2012.
2011 Dec 8, Liberia and Senegal pledged to reform their laws so that women can confer citizenship on their children. They were among at least 30 countries that let only fathers pass their citizenship to children from marriages with a foreigner.
2011 Dec 8, In Mali 4 people were arrested over the Nov 24 kidnapping of two French citizens. The suspects were reportedly "subcontracted" to an al-Qaida group and appear to be Malian.
2011 Dec 8, Mexican authorities say they have seized 226 tons (205 metric tons) of a chemical used in synthetic drugs. The methylamine was found over several days this month in the port of Lazaro Cardenas in 11 containers shipped from China.
2011 Dec 8, NATO informed Iraq that it will withdraw its training mission at year-end after Baghdad refused to grant it legal immunity, mirroring the nearly-complete pullout of US forces.
2011 Dec 8, In Pakistan assailants torched more than 20 tankers carrying fuel for US and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, in the first reported attack since Islamabad closed the border to protest coalition airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops last month.
2011 Dec 8, In Somalia planes bombed bases belonging to al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants in the southern town of Bardhere, killing at least 1 person.
2011 Dec 8, Syrian activists launched a campaign of civil disobedience to pile pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, after he drew a stinging rebuke from the US for denying he ordered a deadly crackdown. A major Syrian pipeline carrying oil to a refinery in the restive Homs province was blown up. Security forces reportedly killed up to 14 people, most of them in Homs.
(AFP, 12/8/11)(AP, 12/8/11)(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 8, In Thailand Joe Gordon, an American who translated a banned biography of Thailand's king and posted the content online while living in Colorado, was sentenced to two and a half years in a Thai prison for defaming the country's royal family. On July 10, 2012, Gordon (55) was granted a royal pardon.
2011 Dec 8, Togo authorities temporarily shut down the country's two public universities after security forces fired teargas to break up student protests over a new financial aid policy. The government last month introduced a new policy awarding payouts only to brilliant students instead of all scholars as was in the past.
2011 Dec 8, Kiev's Shevchenkivsky Court ordered former PM Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko arrested as part of a probe into the activity of an energy company she headed 15 years ago.
2011 Dec 8, The UN's World Food Program said meager rains and diminished harvests have left between five and seven million people in Africa's Sahel region facing food shortages. The countries of Niger, Mauritania, Mali and Chad were worst hit.
2011 Dec 8, Yemeni tribesmen killed two suspected Al-Qaeda militants as they tried to infiltrate Mudi in southern Abyan province.
2012 Dec 8, In Porterville, Ca., Hector Celaya (31), a member of the Tule River Indian Reservation, went on a shooting rampage that left a daughter, his mother and her two brothers dead. The suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot in a shootout with police.
(AP, 12/10/12)(SFC, 12/28/12, p.D5)
2012 Dec 8, Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Josh Brent was arrested for drunk driving and charged with manslaughter after a car he was driving crashed and killed teammate Jerry Brown Jr, in the second tragedy involving NFL players in a week.
(Reuters, 12/8/12)
2012 Dec 8, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the Dec 6 assassination attempt on the country's intelligence chief was planned in Pakistan, but vowed it would not stop him from seeking Islamabad's help in coaxing militants to the negotiating table.
2012 Dec 8, In Ghana about 413 polling stations reopened for an unexpected second day of voting after there were technical breakdowns on the first day of voting.
2012 Dec 8, Itallian media mogul Silvio Berlusconi confirmed that he's running to be premier again for a fourth term.
2012 Dec 8, An official with the rebel Free Syrian Army said commanders from all over the country have elected a new Supreme Military Council and named Brig. Gen. Salim Idriss as the group's chief of staff.
2012 Dec 8, Eight Yemeni soldiers, including a senior officer, were killed in an ambush by militants while visiting a main oil pipeline that had been destroyed in an earlier attack.
2013 Dec 8, In Washington DC the Kennedy Center Honors were awarded to Carlos Santana, Billy Joel, Herbie Hancock, Martina Arroyo and Shirley McClaine for their impact on Amereican culture.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 8, In Connecticut a man shot and killed 3 women and then killed himself in front of police officers at an apartment complex in Manchester.
(SFC, 12/9/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 8, A Bangladesh court ordered authorities to hang Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla (65), months after he was sentenced to death, raising fears of a new wave of clashes. On Dec 10 a late-night reprieve saved his life just hours before he was to be hanged.
2013 Dec 8, British MPs lined up to condemn plans by an independent body to grant them an 11-percent pay rise, embarrassed at how such largesse will be perceived at a time of deep public spending cuts.
2013 Dec 8, Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested three people following fresh allegations of match-fixing at English non-league games.
2013 Dec 8, The mostly Muslim fighters who control Central African Republic patrolled neighborhoods across Bangui despite an order to return to their barracks, reflecting the sectarian tensions still rippling across the impoverished nation. The French foreign minister said violence had killed at least 394 people in the past few days.
2013 Dec 8, India's Congress party headed for a bruising defeat in key state elections, in early results underlining the struggle it will face to cling to power in a national election due by May. The main Hindu nationalist party trounced the nationally ruling Congress in four heartland states and knocked them out of New Delhi in a ballot contest closely watched for clues to next year's general election.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Iraq a series of bombings across the country, including 14 blasts in and around Baghdad, killed 39 people and wounded over 130.
2013 Dec 8, North Korea's state TV showed Jang Song Thaek, the uncle of Kim Jong Un, being stripped of all his titles at a party meeting led by Kim Jong Un.
2013 Dec 8, The Philippine government and the MILF, the main Muslim rebel group, signed a crucial power-sharing accord, paving the way for a final peace agreement.
2013 Dec 8, Chevron said it has resumed activities to build its first shale gas exploration well in Romania, a day after protests forced the US energy giant to suspend work.
2013 Dec 8, Saudi authorities beheaded Mohammed Zayer Khan Qol, a Pakistani man, after he was convicted of smuggling drugs into the ultra-conservative Gulf state. An AFP count put this as no. 73.
2013 Dec 8, In Singapore an hour-long fracas was triggered when an Indian construction worker was struck and killed by a private bus in the Little India district. The rampage that left 39 police and civil defence staff injured, and 25 vehicles -- including 16 police cars -- damaged or torched.
2013 Dec 8, South Korea said it has extended its air defense zone to partially overlap with a similar zone declared by China two weeks ago that has sharply raised regional tensions.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir replaced his two vice-presidents and unveiled a new cabinet after urgent calls for reform in the 24-year-old regime.
2013 Dec 8, The Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) launched attacks in Bau district of Blue Nile state. Insurgents later said one rebel fighter was reported killed and three wounded during attacks against military convoys that also left several government troops dead.
2013 Dec 8, Syrian regime forces made gains in the key town of Nabuk, one of the last rebel-held areas in the Qalamoun region bordering Lebanon. Ali Bazzi, a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander, was killed in a combat zone.
2013 Dec 8, Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra proposed a referendum on her future and promised to resign if that was what the people wanted, as anti-government protesters prepared for a final push to try to force her from power. Thailand's main opposition party resigned from Parliament.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)(AP, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, UN inspectors visited an Iranian plant linked to a planned heavy-water reactor that could yield nuclear bomb fuel, taking up an initial offer by Tehran to open its disputed nuclear program to greater scrutiny.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 8, Several hundred thousand Ukrainians occupied a central square in the capital, denouncing President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to turn away from Europe and align with Russia. Protesters in the square knocked down a 3.4 meter statue of Vladimir Lenin, erected in 1946.
2013 Dec 8, Venezuela held municipal elections. The opposition saw this as a referendum on Pres. Maduro's performance amid soaring crime, high inflation, and shortages of basic household items. Early results gave Socialists and their allies 49 percent of votes, compared to 43 percent for the opposition coalition and its partners.
(AFP, 12/8/13)(Reuters, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 8, In Yemen gunmen in car ambushes shot dead the head of security of the presidential palace in Taiz, Brigadier General Saddam Hussein al-Dhahri. In a separate incident Police Colonel Abdullah Gaithallah was similarly killed in the southern province of al-Baida.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2014 Dec 8, Protesters with signs bearing names of black Americans killed by police marched outside the US Capitol and the Justice Department in peaceful demonstrations demanding a human rights investigation.
2014 Dec 8, US federal authorities said a dolphin was lethally shot by a hunting arrow in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the second violent killing of the protected animal in recent weeks. Harming, harassing or feeding a wild dolphin is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
(Reuters, 12/10/14)
2014 Dec 8, In Berkeley, Ca., more than 150 protesters were arrested after shutting down a major freeway in another outbreak of nationwide demonstrations against police use of deadly force on minorities.
(Reuters, 12/9/14)
2014 Dec 8, In southern California a fire destoryed the wooden framing of the new Da Vinci complex in downtown Los Angeles causing an estimated $20-30 million in damage. Arson was later determined as the cause.
(SFC, 12/19/14, p.A9)
2014 Dec 8, In Maryland a small private jet crashed into a house in Gaithersburg, Md. A woman, her two young sons and 3 people in the plane were killed.
(SFC, 12/9/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 8, Jewel thieves pulled off a $500,000 heist at a rest stop in Marion Township, Minn. Investigators believed they trailed a diamond dealer and employees returning from a trade show in Chicago.
(SFC, 12/9/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 8, The International Criminal Court's 122 member states opened their annual meeting at UN headquarters in NYC with Africa the focus.
2014 Dec 8, Amazon Indians on the Peru-Brazil border say they continue to receive death threats from loggers after the September murder of four local chiefs in a remote forest region overrun by illegal felling.
(Reuters, 12/8/14)
2014 Dec 8, Belgian workers striking against government austerity plans badly snarled rail and air service to and from the capital city of Brussels.
2014 Dec 8, In Afghanistan the US and NATO closed their combat command, more than 13 years after invading the country in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. A drone strike killed 6 Taliban fighters in Nuristan province. Taliban fighters backed by a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters, killing 5 people in Kandahar province.
(AP, 12/8/14)(Reuters, 12/8/14)
2014 Dec 8, In Bahrain a Jordanian officer on a security exchange program was killed in the village of Damistan.
(Reuters, 12/9/14)
2014 Dec 8, The body of British financier Scot Young (52) was found impaled on railings outside his luxury London apartment. During a drawn-out divorce court battle, Young claimed he was bankrupt and couldn't pay his wife a 27,500-pound monthly maintenance fee ordered by a judge. He said he had suffered a financial "meltdown" and was heavily in debt.
2014 Dec 8, Angela Wrightson (39), was found with more than 100 injuries in her blood-spattered living room in the British industrial town of Hartlepool. On April 7, 2016, two teenage girls, who beat the woman to death, were sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 15 years.
(www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35924491)(AP, 4/7/16)
2014 Dec 8, A Chinese court sentenced eight people to death on charges of leading terror groups and setting off explosives in two attacks that left 46 people dead in the far western region of Xinjiang. The Urumqi Intermediate People's Court in Xinjiang also handed out suspended death sentences to five others.
2014 Dec 8, In eastern China 5 middle school students were killed after a wall collapsed on them at Tongren Middle School in Huaibei city.
2014 Dec 8, In Dresden, Germany, some 10,000 people protested in a ralley organized by a group calling itself "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West." A counter demonstration numbered some 9,000.
(SFC, 12/9/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 8, In India US online ride-hailing service Uber was banned from operating in New Delhi after a female passenger accused one of its drivers of rape on Dec 5. Uber employed Shiv Kumar Yadav even though he had been arrested on allegations of sexual assault three years ago.
(Reuters, 12/8/14)(SFC, 1/14/15, p.A2)
2014 Dec 8, In Indonesia at least 4 people, including 3 high school students, were killed in the volatile Papua region in clashes between protesters and security forces. The clash had started the previous night when the youths reprimanded a soldier who was riding a motorcycle without the headlights on.
(Reuters, 12/8/14)(AP, 12/9/14)
2014 Dec 8, An Israeli court indicted Adam Everett Livix (30), an American Christian, for plotting to blow up Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. He was charged with illegal weapon possession and overstaying his visa by more than a year.
(AP, 12/9/14)(SFC, 12/10/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 8, A Dutch court ruled in a preliminary judgment that Uber, a California-based ride-sharing service, must stop working with drivers who charge fares but do not possess a taxi license.
2014 Dec 8, In Pakistan demonstrations in Islamabad turned deadly as one person was killed in clashes between protesters and security forces.
2014 Dec 8, In the Philippines Typhoon Hagupit weakened into a tropical storm after leaving at least 21 people dead and forcing more than a million into shelters, while sparing most of a central Philippine region still reeling from last year's monster Typhoon Haiyan.
2014 Dec 8, Poland said it has decided to refuse a toxic waste shipment from a pesticide plant in El Salvador that was to be destroyed at an incineration plant in a southern town, after the local community in Dabrowa Gornicza raised concerns.
2014 Dec 8, Saudi King Abdullah announced a Cabinet shakeup, naming new ministers to key portfolios overseeing the kingdom's universities and mosques where ultraconservative clerics and their supporters hold sway.
2014 Dec 8, A South African court cleared British businessman Shrien Dewani of charges that he paid hitmen to kill his wife while they were on honeymoon in Cape Town in Nov, 2010.
2014 Dec 8, In northern Syria the militant Islamic State group beheaded a man in Solouk, Raqqa province, after accusing him of blasphemy. 3 journalists from the opposition television channel Orient News were killed in the southwest when a missile hit their vehicle in Deraa province.
(AP, 12/9/14)(Reuters, 12/10/14)
2014 Dec 8, Thailand ordered US online taxi booking company Uber to cease operations, on the same day taxi apps were banned in the Indian capital New Delhi.
(Reuters, 12/9/14)
2014 Dec 8, A Ugandan maid pleaded guilty to charges of torturing a child who was under her care in a case that shocked Ugandans and sparked debate about the role of maids raising children. Jolly Tumuhiirwe (22) was sentenced on Dec 15 to four years in jail.
2014 Dec 8, The UN appealed for $16.4 billion to pay for global humanitarian needs in 2015, saying it needs that money to help 57.5 million of the world's most vulnerable people.
2014 Dec 8, Uruguay said six Guantanamo Bay prisoners sent to there to be resettled as refugees underwent medical checkups before being released to begin new lives.
2014 Dec 8, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe fired his deputy, Joice Mujuru, and seven government ministers, in the latest twist in a power struggle over the choice of his successor.
(Reuters, 12/9/14)
2015 Dec 8, The United States and its allies staged 26 air strikes against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 12/9/15)
2015 Dec 8, John Trudell (b.1946), American Indian activist and poet, died at his home in Santa Clara County, Ca. In 1969 he was the spokesman for the American Indians who had occupied Alcatraz.
(SFC, 12/10/15, p.D8)
2015 Dec 8, In Kansas Floyd Bledsoe (39) was freed after serving more than 15 years of a life sentence for the 1999 shooting death of his sister-in-law after his brother confessed in suicide notes that he was the actual killer.
(SFC, 12/9/15, p.A10)
2015 Dec 8, Boston College said the number of students complaining of gastrointestinal symptoms after eating at Chipotle has climbed to 80. Chipotle said it thinks the illnesses are an isolated case of norovirus.
(SFC, 12/9/15, p.A10)
2015 Dec 8, In southern Afghanistan Taliban militants stormed the airport complex in Kandahar city, triggering gunfights and explosions as a regional conference kicked off in Pakistan with hopes of reviving peace talks with the insurgents. More than 50 people were reported killed and dozens more wounded in renewed and ongoing fighting between rival Taliban factions in Shindand district near the western city of Herat.
(AFP, 12/8/15)(Reuters, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, Six Afghan children drowned after a rubber dinghy carrying migrants to Greece sank off Turkey's Aegean coast.
2015 Dec 8, In Albania several thousand opposition supporters scuffled with police during a protest in central Tirana against government economic reforms that they say have increased poverty.
2015 Dec 8, Bosnian police arrested retiree Sakib Mahmuljin (63), a wartime Muslim army commander, on charges of failing to prevent crimes committed by foreign Islamic fighters against captive Bosnian Serb soldiers during a 1992-1995 war.
(Reuters, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, Britain's National Crime Agency warned the average age of suspected cyber criminals has become younger, with investigations in the past year showing that suspects' average age dropped to just 17 compared to 24 in the previous year.
2015 Dec 8, London-based Anglo American said it will shed 85,000 employees, 63 percent of its workforce, in a radical restructuring meant to cope with tumbling commodity prices.
2015 Dec 8, Former British spy chief Richard Barrett said Syria has become the pre-eminent global incubator for a new generation of militants after Islamist groups more than doubled their recruitment of foreign fighters to as much as 31,000 over the past 18 months.
(Reuters, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced an inquiry into why nearly 1,200 indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing over decades.
2015 Dec 8, Central African Republic's exiled former president Francois Bozize, who is wanted for helping foment deadly unrest, was barred from running for election late this month.
2015 Dec 8, In Chile Douglas Tompkins (72), the co-founder of The North Face and Esprit clothing companies, died from severe hypothermia in a kayaking accident. He had bought up large swaths of land in South America's Patagonia region to keep them pristine.
2015 Dec 8, In China Half of Beijing's private cars were ordered off the streets and many construction sites and schools closed after authorities in Beijing responded to scathing public criticism with their first-ever red alert for pollution.
2015 Dec 8, Air France said it will resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years, as part of resuming European trade with Iran following a hard-fought deal to curb its nuclear activities.
2015 Dec 8, Mahmoud Doaei, the managing editor of the moderate Ettelaat daily, Iran's oldest newspaper, was indicted for defying a national reporting ban on comments and pictures of the country's reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
2015 Dec 8, Iraqi security forces recaptured a large part of the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State group.
2015 Dec 8, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian protester while they were carrying out an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem.
(Reuters, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, A boat carrying African migrants sank apparently due to bad weather as they tried to cross to the Canary Islands. Moroccan authorities recovered the bodies of 11 African migrants.
2015 Dec 8, Poland's constitutional crisis deepened, with the president indicating that he will stick by appointments to the Constitutional Tribunal that were declared illegal last week by that same court, the nation's highest arbiter of the law.
2015 Dec 8, Russia said that recent air strikes against targets in Syria included the new Kalibre cruise missile from its Rostov-on-Don submarine in the Mediterranean Sea.
(SFC, 12/9/15, p.A4)
2015 Dec 8, World Chess Federation (FIDE) president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (53), a Russian citizen, said he would seek $50 billion from the United States over his addition to a blacklist for alleged ties to the Syrian regime. Ilyumzhinov has dismissed the charge, repeatedly telling local media he has no economic interests in Syria or Iraq.
2015 Dec 8, The Slovak Parliament amended the constitution to give authorities more powers to deal with terror suspects following the attacks in Paris.
2015 Dec 8, Syria said it will export more than 700,000 tons of citrus fruits to Russia to "fill the gap" left by Moscow's ban on Turkish agricultural products.
2015 Dec 8, The administration in Ukraine's Kherson region said that Ukraine has restored electricity to the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
2015 Dec 8, The United Nations called on Jordan to allow in 12,000 Syrian refugees stranded at the border in deteriorating humanitarian conditions and offered to help reinforce security at registration points.
(Reuters, 12/8/15)
2015 Dec 8, Pope Francis launched an extraordinary Catholic Jubilee year of mercy by opening a "Holy Door" in the walls of St Peter's, embracing a 700-year-old tradition as he urged his Church to reach out to the modern world.
2016 Dec 8, A senior US military official said North Korea now has the capability to launch a nuclear weapon, adding that while the US believes Pyongyang can mount a warhead on a missile, it's not clear that it can hit a target.
2016 Dec 8, A US Surgeon General report said soaring use of e-cigarettes among young people is now a major public health concern.
(SFC, 12/9/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 8, In Alabama Ronald Bert Smith Jr. (45) was executed for killing a convenience store clerk more than two decades ago. This was the state's 2nd execution this year. Smith heaved and coughed for 13 minutes of the 30 minute ordeal.
(SFC, 12/9/16, p.A6)
2016 Dec 8, Arkansas' highest court ruled that same-sex parents will not be listed on their children's birth certificates. The ruling by a four-member majority determined that only biological parents can be listed on a child's birth certificate.
2016 Dec 8, Astronaut John Glenn (95) died. He was the first American to orbit the Earth and is best known for making his three tours around the planet on February 20, 1962. Glenn was also elected US senator in Ohio and served as a lawmaker from 1974 to 1999.
(AFP, 12/9/16)(Econ, 12/17/16, p.84)
2016 Dec 8, Ohio state lawmakers passed a bill allowing to carry concealed handguns on campus in the wake of the recent high-profile knife attack at Ohio State University. The law was sent to Gov. John Kasich's office to await his signature.
(Reuters, 12/9/16)
2016 Dec 8, Washington state Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced a lawsuit against agrochemical giant Monsanto over pervasive pollution from PCBs, the toxic industrial chemicals that have accumulated in plants, fish and people around the globe for decades. The company said the case "lacks merit."
2016 Dec 8, Retailer Sears Holdings Corp reported its fifth straight quarterly loss and said there was no guarantee when it would return to profitability, underscoring its struggle to stanch a years-long decline in sales.
2016 Dec 8, Zynga released its "Dawn of Titans" video game as a free download for Apple and Android phones.
(http://www.dawnoftitans.com/2016/12/08/358/)(SFC, 12/12/16, p.D1)
2016 Dec 8, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now "vulnerable" to extinction.
2016 Dec 8, In Azerbaijan a court in Baku sentenced youth activist Bayram Mammadov to ten years in prison on charges of heroin possession. Mammadov had pleaded not guilty Amnesty Int'l. condemned the sentence as an attempt by authorities to crush dissent.
(SFC, 12/9/16, p.A2)
2016 Dec 8, Britain's Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) said junk food ads aimed at children from both print and social media will be banned from next year.
2016 Dec 8, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary reported 436 accusations of sexual abuse by police in England and Wales over two years through the end of March.
(SFC, 12/9/16, p.A5)
2016 Dec 8, Canada's Finance Minister Bill Morneau said that Viola Desmond will grace the front of the $10 bill when the next series goes into circulation in 2018. In 1946 she rejected racial discrimination by sitting in a whites-only section of a New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, movie theatre. She was arrested and fined.
2016 Dec 8, The Canadian government said its air force will buy 16 Airbus C295W aircraft modified for search and rescue to replace its aging fleet, at a cost of Can $2.4 billion (USD$1.8 billion).
2016 Dec 8, China's state media said China will fine anyone who spreads fake news in its western region of Xinjiang, as part of new measures to maintain stability in an area prone to ethnic unrest.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund dropped its takeover bid for chip equipment maker Aixtron after the United States blocked the deal on security grounds, throwing the German company's future into doubt.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, A Tibetan Buddhist monk set himself on fire in northwest China's Maqu region in what appeared to be the latest such radical protest against Beijing's rule. Tashi Rabten became the 145th Tibetan to self-immolate since 2009.
2016 Dec 8, In Egypt Osama Morsi, one of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's five children, was led away from his house in the Nile Delta. The state-run news website Al-Ahram reported the arrest, saying Osama is accused of inciting violence.
2016 Dec 8, The European Union banned Iran's Aseman Airlines from operating within the EU due to safety concerns, in a blow to Tehran which is buying new jets to renew the country's ageing fleet following the lifting of long-term sanctions.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, The European Union said it will allow Ukrainians and Georgians to visit the bloc without a visa after diplomats and lawmakers struck a deal to end an internal EU dispute that had been holding up the plan.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, The European Central Bank said it will pour another half-trillion euros ($579 billion) in newly printed money into the eurozone economy to support its recovery as the currency union heads into what could be a tumultuous election year.
2016 Dec 8, The European Union started legal action against seven countries including Germany and Britain for failing to police emissions test cheating by carmakers after the Volkswagen scandal.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, Former French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac (64), whose brief in government was to crack down on tax dodgers, was sentenced to three years in prison for tax fraud and money laundering. The hidden wealth of Cahuzac and his wife Patricia Menard was estimated at 3.5 million euros ($3.8 million) in 2013, when Cahuzac was forced to resign after only 10 months in office.
2016 Dec 8, Germany's domestic intelligence agency said Russia is trying to destabilize German society with propaganda and cyberattacks ahead of the country's general election.
2016 Dec 8, In Greece a nationwide strike against spending cuts disrupted public transport, state-run schools, ferries and national rail services, and left public hospitals running with emergency staff.
2016 Dec 8, A Greek court rejected Turkey's extradition request for the last two of eight Turkish servicemen who fled to Greece after a failed July military coup.
2016 Dec 8, Human Rights Watch said the Philippines is facing one of the fastest growing epidemics of HIV in the Asia Pacific, fueled by government policies that restrict intervention, including access to condoms by men who have sex with men.
2016 Dec 8, Doctors Without Borders said 70 severely wounded Syrians, including 16 children, have been blocked from life-saving treatment since Jordan closed its border with Syria six months ago and that some have likely died.
2016 Dec 8, In Kashmir at least one civilian was killed and dozens of others injured in protests against Indian rule that erupted following a gunbattle between rebels and government forces.
2016 Dec 8, South Korea's parliament introduced a bill to impeach President Park Geun-hye, setting the stage for a historic vote to oust the embattled leader engulfed in an influence-peddling scandal.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2016 Dec 8, The Syrian army's advance in Aleppo slowed but a victory was still firmly in sight after President Bashar al-Assad vowed that retaking the nation's second city would change the course of the six-year civil war in his favor.
(Reuters, 12/8/16)
2017 Dec 8, US film director Bryan Singer denied lawsuit accusations of assaulting Cesar Sanchez-Guzman (17) at a party in 2003.
(SFC, 12/9/17, p.A5)
2017 Dec 8, In southern California firefighters in Ventura tried to corral the Thomas Fire, largest and most destructive fire in the state, which has destroyed 430 buildings. A new fire in San Diego area broke out a day earlier and became the latest front in the state's wildfire fight.
2017 Dec 8, California state Assemblyman Matt Dababneh, a Democrat from Los Angeles County, announced his resignation effective Jan. 1, days after three women accused him of sexual misconduct.
(SFC, 12/9/17, p.C1)
2017 Dec 8, In central Florida a small plane crashed into Lake Harney killing all three men on board.
(SSFC, 12/10/17, p.A9)
2017 Dec 8, In Maryland FBI Agent Carlos Wolff (36) and Fire Marshall Sander Cohen (33) were killed late today while standing on the shoulder of I-270 at the scene of a traffic crash in Rockville.
(SSFC, 12/10/17, p.A9)
2017 Dec 8, It was reported that Natalia Rollins (25), a mother of two, informed NYC this week of her intent to sue and filed a separate lawsuit in Brooklyn's Kings County Supreme Court against her landlord and property managers, filings show. The claims say her son Noah, 2, was exposed to lead paint in a hazardous Coney Island apartment.
(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 8, Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Arab and Muslim countries across the world to protest against US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. At least one Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
2017 Dec 8, Gay marriage in Australia became a law as PM Malcolm Turnbull gained a final signature on a bill hours after it was overwhelming endorsed by Parliament.
2017 Dec 8, An Australian judge sentenced Adrian Attwater to at least 14 years in prison for the slaying of Lynette Daley, an Aboriginal woman, who bled to death from a violent sexual assault on a remote beach, closing a six-year battle for justice by the woman's family in a case that exposed Australia's deep racial divide. His co-defendant, Paul Maris, was sentenced to nine years in prison.
2017 Dec 8, Britain's Theresa May won a temporary reprieve from rival factions within her own party by striking a overnight agreement with the European Union that some business leaders hope will increase prospects of an orderly exit from the bloc.
(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 8, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Italy called on the United States to put forward detailed proposals for peace between Israel and the Palestinians and described as "unhelpful" a decision by President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
(Reuters, 12/8/17)
2017 Dec 8, Cameroon officials said seven people died overnight during a botched raid by presumed separatists on a police station in a restive a restive English-speaking region.
2017 Dec 8, China's official Xinhua news agency reported that far western Xinjiang region has suspended mining in one of its big nature reserves, amid rising environmental concerns.
(Reuters, 12/8/17)
2017 Dec 8, In Paris Lebanon's PM Saad Hariri appealed for support for his country from world powers at a summit convened by France to bolster Lebanon's institutions as it emerges from a bizarre political crisis.
2017 Dec 8, In Germany French President Emmanuel Macron was awarded Aachen's prestigious International Charlemagne Prize for contributions to European unity in recognition of his "vision of a new Europe."
2017 Dec 8, Honduras' two main opposition parties presented formal requests to annul the results of the still-unresolved presidential election. Salvador Nasralla, the challenger in Honduras' still unresolved presidential election, filed a last minute challenge to the Nov. 26 contest that seeks to annul the results and requests a recount. The Honduran electoral court's original tally put President Juan Orlando Hernandez ahead by more than 52,000 votes or 1.6 percent.
(Reuters, 12/9/17)(AP, 12/9/17)
2017 Dec 8, Israeli troops shot dead two protesters in skirmishes along Gaza's border.
2017 Dec 8, The Dutch government ordered the country's farmers to keep all poultry indoors after H5 bird flu was discovered at a duck farm.
2017 Dec 8, The family of Pakistani human rights activist Raza Mahmood, who has campaigned for friendly ties with India, said he went missing earlier this week in the eastern city of Lahore.
2017 Dec 8, Poland's Pres. Andrzej Duda formally designated Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a former international banker, to be the country's next prime minister. Lawmakers voted to complete an overhaul of the justice system, defying warnings from elsewhere in Europe that the changes sought by Law and Justice are un-democratic. The legislation would give lawmakers the right to choose 15 out of the council's 25 judges. The judicial body's members currently all are selected by fellow judges.
2017 Dec 8, Russian authorities denied that a radioactivity spike in the air over Europe this fall resulted from a nuclear fuel processing plant leak in the Ural mountains, saying their probe has found no release of radioactivity there.
2017 Dec 8, A South African court overturned President Jacob Zuma's appointment of the head of public prosecutions, dealing a sharp reprimand to the scandal-tainted leader. Shaun Abrahams, who was in 2015 named by Zuma as director of public prosecutions, has often been criticized for allegedly protecting Zuma and his associates.
2017 Dec 8, South Sudan officials said at least 60 people have been killed and dozens wounded in battles over livestock.
2017 Dec 8, Swedish music streaming service Spotify and Chinese internet company Tencent said they will acquire new shares representing minority equity stakes in each other for cash.
2017 Dec 8, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with members of Greece's Muslim minority, ending a landmark visit to Greece that sharply divided opinion in the country and saw tensions in relations resurface.
2017 Dec 8, In Ukraine opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili was arrested. He quickly called on supporters to rally for the impeachment of the president and has declared a hunger strike.
2017 Dec 8, The UN migration agency called on social media giants to make it harder for people smugglers to use their platforms to lure West African migrants to Libya where they can face detention, torture, slavery or death.
(Reuters, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 8, In Vietnam Dinh La Thang (57), a former member of the country's communist politburo, was arrested. He was accused of financial mismanagement during his stewardship of the country's oil and gas giant PetroVietnam.
2017 Dec 8, In Vietnam more than 10,000 people filled up a stadium in a rare Christian evangelistic event led by the Rev. Franklin Graham, who said he wants the communist government to consider Christians its best citizens.
2017 Dec 8, In Yemen Saudi-led airstrikes outside a rebel-run TV station in Sanaa killed at least four people.
2018 Dec 8, President Donald Trump announced that he wants Gen. Mark Milley, a battle-hardened commander who oversaw troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be the nation's next top military adviser.
2018 Dec 8, The US Justice Dept. said Pres. Donald Trump directed illegal payments to buy the silence of two women whose claims of extra-marital affairs threatened his presidential campaign.
(SSFC, 12/9/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 8, US customs officials found 70 live finches inside har rollers at NY's JFK Int'l. Airport. A passenger from Guyana had the birds in a duffel bag to participate in singing contests.
(SFC, 12/14/18, p.A6)
2018 Dec 8, In Afghanistan a civilian vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, killing three civilians in western Herat province. In northern Kunduz province, at least four Taliban insurgents were killed by their own bomb. In eastern Nangarhar province, three members of the Islamic State group were arrested during a military operation in Bahsud district. The Taliban attacked an army checkpoint late today in the western Farah province, killing at least eight Afghan soldiers. Another 10 soldiers were abducted in the attack. Three insurgents were killed and four others were wounded.
2018 Dec 8, In Albania public university students protesting in Tirana turned down offers to negotiate with the government, saying their demands must be met first. Dec. 8 is considered a national holiday in Albania, marking the date in 1990 when a student protest brought down the communist regime.
2018 Dec 8, Australian school children led thousands of demonstrators nationwide calling for a halt on plans for Indian mining firm Adani to construct a controversial coal mine in the country's northeast.
2018 Dec 8, Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons at some 400 yellow-vested protesters calling for the resignation of PM Charles Michel after they tried to breach a riot barricade.
2018 Dec 8, In Bolivia two buses crashed head-on on a highway in the Andes Mountains, leaving at least 17 people dead and 10 injured.
2018 Dec 8, In Brazil José Bernardo da Silva and Rodrigo Celestino, members of Brazil's landless activist group MST, were killed late today in a rural area in the northeast state of Paraíba.
2018 Dec 8, In Brazil ten women on the Globo TV network accused self-styled spiritual healer Joao Teixeira de Faria, known as John of God, of sexually abusing them at a clinic in the central-western state of Goias.
2018 Dec 8, Authorities in Brazil said two more people have died after bank robbers attempted to carry out heists in Ceara state, bringing the death toll to 14. The dead included six hostages executed by the criminal group.
(AP, 12/8/18)(SFC, 12/10/18, p.A2)
2018 Dec 8, In Brazil a major oil leak in Rio de Janeiro was caused by fuel thieves who punctured a pipeline in the Guanabara Bay. About 15,850 gallons (60,000 liters) were released into the bay.
2018 Dec 8, In Canada right-wing protesters opposed to joining a UN pact for better regulating worldwide migration clashed with pro-immigration groups in the biting cold outside parliament in Ottawa.
2018 Dec 8, China warned Canada that there would be severe consequences if it did not immediately release Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer, calling the case "extremely nasty".
(Reuters, 12/8/18)
2018 Dec 8, China launched a Long March 3B rocket carrying a lunar probe from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province. It hoped to land the spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon.
2018 Dec 8, Egypt said police have killed two gunmen who carried out a Nov. 2 attack on a bus carrying Christians in Minya governorate to the south of Cairo.
2018 Dec 8, French riot police fired tear gas and water cannon in Paris, trying to stop thousands of yellow-vested protesters from converging on the presidential palace to express their anger at high taxes and French President Emmanuel Macron. Yellow-vested protesters blocked the border with Italy near the town of Ventimiglia causing a 6-km (nearly 4-mile) backup of traffic in both directions. Some 125,000 yellow vests took to the streets with a bevy of demands related to high living costs and a sense that Pres. Macron favors the elite and is trying to modernize the French economy too fast. Running battles between protesters and police left at least 71 injured in Paris and caused widespread damage in cities around the country.
2018 Dec 8, Hungarian trade unions protested a government plan to raise workers' allowable overtime from 250 to 400 hours a year and the relaxing of other labor rules meant to offset Hungary's growing labor shortage.
2018 Dec 8, Italian Deputy PM Matteo Salvini filled one of Rome's main squares with tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters in a rally that underscored the growing predominance of his rightist League party.
(Reuters, 12/8/18)
2018 Dec 8, In Italy six people, including five young teenagers, were crushed to death early today following a stampede when a walkway leading out of the Lanterna Azzurra nightclub in the town of Corinaldo collapsed. Witnesses reported seeing a hooded man spray a substance like pepper spray or tear gas into the crowd, triggering a panicked rush to the emergency exits.
2018 Dec 8, Japanese lawmakers approved government-proposed legislation allowing hundreds of thousands of foreign laborers to live and work in a country that has long resisted accepting outsiders.
2018 Dec 8, In Indian-controlled Kashmir at least 12 people were killed and 18 others injured after a bus fell into a rocky gorge along a mountainous road near southern Poonch town.
2018 Dec 8, In Malaysia tens of thousands of Muslims rallied in Kuala Lumpur against any attempt to strip the ethnic Malay majority of its privileges, in the first massive street gathering since PM Mahathir Mohamad's alliance won a historic vote in May.
2018 Dec 8, Mexico's Pres. Lopez Obrador accused Supreme Court judges of looking after their own pocketbooks: "They themselves decide that they are going to keep receiving exaggerated, stratospheric salaries - salaries of up to 600,000 pesos ($29,000) a month - those who impart justice." Obrador repeated one of his favorite mantras: "There can't be a rich government with a poor people".
2018 Dec 8, In Pakistan a blast late today targeted a religious gathering of an ethnic party and wounded six people in the southern port city of Karachi.
2018 Dec 8, In southern Poland thousands of people from around the world marched through Katowice, the city that's hosting this year's UN climate talks, demanding that their governments take tougher action to curb global warming.
2018 Dec 8, In Russia Lyudmila Alexeyeva (91), the founder of Russia's oldest human rights group, died in hospital in Moscow.
(Reuters, 12/8/18)
2018 Dec 8, Serbs took to the streets after thugs beat an opposition leader with brass knuckles, briefly knocking him unconscious and injuring his two associates. Images of Left party leader Borko Stefanovic with a bloody head and shirt alarmed citizens who thought the days of political violence were behind them.
2019 Dec 8, In Atlanta, Georgia, Zozibini Tunzi (b.1993), South African model, was crowned Miss Universe 2019. Tunzi had previously been crowned Miss South Africa 2019. She is the third woman from South Africa to win the title, and the first black woman since Leila Lopes was crowned Miss Universe 2011.
2019 Dec 8, American actor Rene Auberjonois (b.1940), died at his home in Los Angeles. He was best known for his roles on the TV show "Benson" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and his part as Father Mulcahy in the the film "M*A*S*H" (1970).
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.C2)
2019 Dec 8, Sesame Street puppeteer Caroll Spinney (b.1933), the animator of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, died at his home in Connecticut.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A7)
2019 Dec 8, Paul Volcker (92), the towering former Federal Reserve chairman (1979-1987), died in NYC. He tamed US inflation in the 1980s and decades later inspired tough Wall Street reforms in the wake of the global financial crisis. His memoir, "Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government," was published in 2018.
(Reuters, 12/9/19)
2019 Dec 8, The SpaceX Dragon caqpsule delivered three tons supplies to the Int'l. Space Station.The delivery include 8 of 40 mice genetically engineered with twice the normal muscle mass for a muscle and bone experiment.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A6)
2019 Dec 8, In Belarus some 500 hundred protesters braved the repressive climate to hold a demonstration for a 2nd day against deepening the country's ties with Russia.
2019 Dec 8, Belarus state news agency Belta reported that the government is seeking about $70 million in compensation because of disruption in flows in a pipeline on its territory caused by contaminated Russian oil. The Russian Druzhba pipeline, which pumps 1 million barrels per day of oil to eastern and western Europe, was found in mid-April to be contaminated.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 8, Congolese health authorities said an Ebola survivor has fallen ill with the disease for a second time in eastern Congo. It was not yet clear if it was a case of relapse or reinfection. The Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has infected over 3,300 people and killed more than 2,200 since the middle of last year, making it the second worst year on record.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 8, In Egypt a militant attack killed a police conscript in Rafah, a restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.
2019 Dec 8, Finland's transport minister, Sanna Marin (34), was tapped by the ruling Social Democratic Party to be the new prime minister. When she takes the reins of the country, most likely on Dec. 10, she will become the world's youngest sitting head of government.
2019 Dec 8, In France travel tangles continued for a fourth day as strikes kept most trains at a standstill. PM Edouard Philippe held special meetins about the government's divisive redesign of the national retirement system.
(SFC, 12/9/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 8, Hong Kong saw its biggest pro-democracy protest in months, signaling more unrest to come in 2020 as the movement that began in June to fight China's increasing grip on the city shows its staying power.
2019 Dec 8, In India a fire believed to be caused by an electrical short circuit engulfed a building New Delhi, where handbags and other items were made by workers earning as little as 2 dollars per day. At least 43 people were killed.
2019 Dec 8, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani announced a "budget of resistance" against US sanctions targeting the country's vital oil sector, backed by a $5 billion Russian investment.
(The Telegraph, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 8, Israeli aircraft bombed several militants' sites in Gaza early today, hours after three rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave toward southern Israel.
2019 Dec 8, Saudi authorities said restaurants in Saudi Arabia will no longer need to maintain entrances segregated by sex, further eroding some of the world's strictest social rules as sweeping reforms take hold.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 8, Sudan's PM Abdalla Hamdok said his country has 5,000 troops operating in Yemen, down from a peak of 15,000, adding that he believed no military solution was possible.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
2019 Dec 8, Some 5,000 Ukrainians rallied in Kiev warning President Volodymyr Zelensky to resist pressure from Russia's Vladimir Putin when the two men meet on Dec. 9 for talks on the conflict in Ukraine's east.
2019 Dec 8, Pope Francis named Manila Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle (62) to a major global Vatican post in a move likely to increase the Filipino's chances of one day being elected pope himself. He will become the new head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees the Roman Catholic Church's work in many developing countries.
(Reuters, 12/8/19)
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