October 2008

• Russia's supreme court declares the imperial dynasty victims of political repression, marking the official rehabilitation of the house of Romanov. The decision overturns a lower court ruling that classified the killings as plain murder, and exonerates Emperor Nicholas II and his family of the alleged crimes the Bolshevik regime used to justify their killing. (Reuters)
• The United States Senate passes the civilian nuclear agreement with India by a vote of 86–13. India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but may now undertake nuclear trade to the States (TOI)
• The National Transportation Safety Board reports that a Metrolink engineer sent a text message 22 seconds before the Chatsworth train collision in Los Angeles, California, that killed 25 people. (CBS)
• Mayor of Melbourne John So announces his resignation. (news.com.au)
• United States Army General David D. McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, says that a greater military presence is "needed as quickly as possible." (CNN)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • U.S. Representative Carol Shea-Porter says that "more than 400 economists, including Nobel laureates, appealed to Congress to slow down and make sure [they] got [the bailout bill] right". (NHPR) (Nashua Telegraph)
  • Swedish Minister for Finance Anders Borg slams the culture of "greed" exemplified by U.S. financial institutions and its role in precipitating the current financial crisis. (The Local)
  • The U.S. Senate approves HR1424, a revised version of the proposed bailout of the nation's financial system. (BBC)
• A new U.S. Armed Forces Unified Combatant Command for Africa—AFRICOM—is created. Main functions of AFRICOM include fighting terror, securing oil supplies in Africa, and supporting U.S. foreign policy in the region where Chinese influence is growing. (BBC) (The Nation)
• A series of 4 blasts set off in Agartala, capital of the Indian state of Tripura, killing at least 4 people and injuring 100. Times of India

• Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have their only scheduled debate for the vice presidency of the United States. (ABC)(WP)
• Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko may face impeachment on charges of undermining national security, and illegal arms trade with Georgia months before the attack on Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, says Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Yushchenko earlier said the arms trade charges are "unsubstantiated". (USA Today) (Bikilar.Az) (The Times) (France24) (BBC News) (Izvestia)
• The commisioner of the Metropolitan Police Service and the most senior policeman in the United Kingdom, Sir Ian Blair, announces that he will stand down from his post in December of this year, citing a lack of support from London Mayor Boris Johnson. (BBC News)
• A search team finds the wreckage of the airplane flown by adventurer Steve Fossett in the mountains of Madera County, California, and what appears to be some of his personal effects nearby. Fossett had disappeared on September 3, 2007. (Sydney Daily Telegraph)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • The United States Securities and Exchange Commission says it would extend the short-sale ban to as long as October 17 or up to three business days after the passage of the proposed bailout plan, but will not make it permanent. (MarketWatch)
  • The Wall Street Journal reports that the short-sale ban fails to prevent stock-price declines, increases the volatility in the stock market and makes trading more expensive for investors. (MarketWatch)
  • U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says that no Democrats who opposed the proposed bailout plan earlier this week have pledged to back it. (Bloomberg)

• 2008 South Ossetia war aftermath:
  • An attempt of assasination of head of the Akhalgori Ossetian administration, Anatoli Margiev failed. He survived the explosion of a bomb planted on a road in Georgian village while driving to Tskhinvali, South Ossetia. (Rustavi 2)
  • Two teenagers are injured after blowing up a landmine at the territory of the military base in Gori, Georgia. (Rustavi 2)
  • Seven Russian soldiers die from an explosion in breakaway South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. (Bloomberg) (Civil Georgia) (CNN)
  • PACE calls for international probe into the 2008 South Ossetia war. (Civil Georgia)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • U.S. President George W. Bush signs the US$ 700,000,000,000 bailout bill after it is passed by the House. (NPR News)
• In response to the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, Australia begins withdrawing Chinese-made Kirin milk tea from shops after discovering it contained melamine in tests. (The Australian)
• Greece announces it will follow Ireland's lead and guarantee all bank deposits in the country. (RTÉ)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • Both of Russia's main stock exchanges, the MICEX and RTS, suspend trading of stocks "for technical reasons" as the markets rally after a 1-1/2 day trading halt that ended earlier in the morning. (Financial Times)
  • Trading is suspended for a second and a third time in the same day at the RTS stock exchange as Russian equities tumble. The dollar-denominated stock index was last down 7.8% in intraday trading. At MICEX, index fell 6.2% in intraday trading. (MarketWatch)
• Investigators in the United States announce that they have found human remains in what is believed to be the wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane, which went missing over California a year ago. (BBC News)
• United States government announces sale of billions of dollars of arms to Taiwan to keep a balance with China's massive arms buildup aimed at Taiwan. (CBC News)
• Russia's foreign minister calls for international action to halt piracy in Somalia. (BBC News)
• The remains of a Viking-era stave church, including the skeletal remains of a woman, is uncovered near the cemetery of the Lännäs church in Odensbacken outside Örebro in central Sweden. (The Local)
• A jury convicts retired American football player O.J. Simpson of armed robbery and kidnapping, 13 years to the day after he was acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her friend in Los Angeles. (New York Times)

• Police find nine more dead bodies around the Mexican city of Tijuana with 50 people having died over the past week as a result of a week of drug trade related violence. (AP via Google)
• Mahir al-Zubaydi, senior commander for al Qaeda in Iraq for Bagdad east of the Tigris River, is killed by U.S. troops. (BBC News)
• 2008 South Ossetia war:
  • Colonel Ivan Petrik, chief of staff of the Russian ground force in South Ossetia, is confirmed dead from wounds he suffered in the Friday blast in Tskhinvali.(Reuters)
  • Switzerland will represent Russian interests in Georgia (Rustavi 2). Sweden will represent Georgian interests in Russia.(Stockholm News)

Sir Peter George Alexander of Albury turns 18

• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • The German government moves to back troubled Hypo Real Estate with a 50 billion euro rescue plan. (MarketWatch)
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that Germany will explicitly guarantee the deposits in banks held by its citizens. (MarketWatch)
• Rugby League: The Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles win the 2008 NRL Grand Final, defeating the Melbourne Storm 40-0. (AAP via the Melbourne Age)
• Thai police arrest former mayor of Bangkok and protest leader Chamlong Srimuang on charges of insurrection. (AP via Newsday)
• 2008 South Ossetia war
  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Defense Ministry, law enforcement agencies and the Foreign Ministry to investigate a bombing in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, on 3 October, 2008. A car, carrying weapons, was detained by Russian peacekeepers in Georian village and transported to Tskhinvali, where it exploded. EU and OSCE earlier condemned this 'act of terrorism'. Georgian authorities claimed 'Russian special servises' 'were behind' the blast that left 7 servicemen of Russian peacekeeping forces dead. (Rustavi 2) (RIAN) (NY Times)
    • Earlier, on October 2, an attempt of assasination of head of the Akhalgori Ossetian administration, Anatoli Margiev failed. He survived the explosion of a bomb planted on a road in Georgian village while driving to Tskhinvali, South Ossetia. (Rustavi 2)
  • Russian troops are dismantling positions in security zones on the border of South Ossetia and Georgia created after the war, a Georgian Interior Ministry official said. (AP via Google News).
• Authorities detain separatist leader and impose curfew in anticipation of a separatist rally to be held on Monday in Kashmir. (BBC News)
• Apirak Kosayothin is re-elected as Governor of Bangkok. (Thai News Agency)
• Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari acknowledges his government's consent to US air strikes in Pakistan and says India has never been a threat. (BBC News)
• Senior British Commander says military victory in Afghanistan is impossible. (CBC News)

• The MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second pass of the planet Mercury.(NYT)
• An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 hits near the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, killing 60 people. (USGS) (CNN)
• Another earthquake of magnitude 6.4, with two magnitude-5 aftershocks, hits Damxung, Tibet, People's Republic of China, with conflicting casualty reports anywhere from 9 to 30 deaths. (USGS) (CNN)
• Nobel Prize:
  • The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Harald zur Hausen of Germany for his discovery of the human papilloma viruses that can cause cervical cancer in women, and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. (BBC News)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • The Dow Jones industrial average falls by as much as 800.06 points, its biggest intraday drop on record; the Dow closed below the 10,000 mark for the first time since October 26, 2004. (MarketWatch)
  • Speaking before a U.S. House Committee, Richard Fuld, CEO of failed Lehman Brothers says that he believed all his decisions "were both prudent and appropriate" given the information he had at the time.(New York Times)
  • Significant losses are marked on stock exchanges world-wide: São Paulo Stock Exchange suspended trading after a 15 percent drop in its benchmark index. (Reuters)
  • The UK's leading share index, the FTSE 100 closes down 391.1 points (7.85%), the largest single day points fall since it was launched in 1984. The French CAC 40 also recorded a record drop of 9.04%, whilst Germany's DAX finished down 7.09%. (BBC News)
  • United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson announces that Neel Kashkari will be in charge of administering the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.(NASDAQ)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • Trading is suspended on Russia's leading stock exchanges after shares plunged nearly 20 percent amid a backdrop of falling oil prices and fears over the global economy. (International Herald Tribune) (MarketWatch)
• A suicide blast in the Sri Lankan town of Anuradhapura has killed 25 people, including the former army general Janaka Perera. (BBC News)
• Nancy Kissel loses an appeal against her conviction of murdering her husband Robert Kissel in Hong Kong in 2003. (Bloomberg via Hong Kong Standard)
• U.S. to rely on Russia for manned space flights between 2010 and 2015. (International Herald Tribune)
• Human Rights Watch says Somalia is "most ignored tragedy" and the international community has "completely failed Somali civilians" regarding destruction of Mogadishu. (BBC News)
• Thousands of anti-government protesters march in Bangkok as People's Alliance for Democracy demand elected government step down. (Agence France Press)
• The 2008 Monorierdő train collision in Hungary leads to resignation of the transport minister and the president of Hungarian State Railways.

• Portugal recognizes Kosovo.(BalkanInsight)
• War on Terrorism in Afghanistan:
  • In talks brokered by Saudi Arabia, the Taliban renounces its ties to al-Qaeda and sues for peace with Afghanistan. (CNN)
• Nobel Prize:
  • The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded Yoichiro Nambu for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, and Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.(Wall Street Journal)(Nobel Foundation)
• 2008 Thai political crisis: The anti-government protester group were injured as police attacked barricades outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok injuring over 400 people, 2 found dead. (BBC News) (Reuters)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • Russia agrees to provide Iceland with emergency loans of 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion).(Reuters)
  • Iceland's Financial Supervisory Authority takes control of troubled Landsbanki Bank.(MarketWatch)
  • The Reserve Bank of Australia reduces interest rates by 100 basis points to 6.0 per cent to combat the effect of the subprime mortgage crisis. (Financial Times)
  • The United States Federal Reserve announces plans to buy billions of dollars of short-term commercial paper to restore liquidity to the money market. (Los Angeles Times)
  • The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke warns that the crisis will weaken the United States economy well into 2009 and expressed a willingness to cut interest rates. (CNN Money)
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 500 points following Bernanke's comments. (New York Times)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • President Dmitry Medvedev announces an extra 950 billion roubles ($36.4 billion) of new emergency credit for banks at a Kremlin meeting. (Reuters)
• A Hungarian plane is forced to land in Iran, countering earlier reports of a US military jet being forced to land for violating Iranian airspace. (BBC News)
• A bus carrying farm workers returning from Houtkop Farm plunges off a bridge on the outskirts of Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, South Africa, killing at least 31 and injuring 29.Condolences conveyed after Mpumalanga horror crash (SABC News)30 die, including two kids, as bus plunges off bridge (Sowetan)

• 2008 Ukrainian political crisis:
  • Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dissolves Parliament and calls an early election. (Reuters)
• Former South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota says that it is "inevitable" that South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) will split. (BBC News)
• The United States embassy in Beirut seeks assistance in finding two US journalists missing in Lebanon. (CNN)
• Nobel Prize:
  • The 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Y. Tsien for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein (GFP).(Nobel Foundation)
• Yeti Airlines Flight 103 crashes in the Everest region of Nepal killing 18 passengers. (AFP via Google News)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling releases details of a rescue package aimed at restoring confidence in British Banks. As part of the deal the British Government will provide £50bn of investment, provide a further £200bn in short term loans and guarantee up to £250bn of intra-bank loans (BBC News)
  • The United States Federal Reserve Board cuts interest rates by half a percentage point to 1.5% as part of coordinated activity with the European Central Bank and other central banks. (Los Angeles Times), (New York Times)
  • Ford Motor's Volvo subsidiary tripled the number of jobs it planned to cut to 6,000 positions, or 25 percent of its work force, citing a "rapidly deteriorating" auto market.(CNN)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • The RTS and MICEX stock exchanges halt trading until Friday after opening for just more than half an hour as prices plummeted in tune with the overall situation in the world's stock markets and falling oil prices. (Interfax via Onet.pl)
• Voters go to the polls in the Maldivian presidential election, the first democratic elections held in the Maldives, with six candidates including incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. (AFP)

• Narcoterrorist attack on a military convoy by Shining Path geuerillas kills 19 including women and children in southeast Peru. (AFP via Yahoo News)
• Montenegro and Macedonia recognize Kosovo, bringing the total number of United Nations members recognising Kosovo to fifty. (International Herald Tribune)
• The U.S. National Security Agency is accused of listening to Americans' private phone conversations.(ABC News)
• Nobel Prize:
  • French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio is announced the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 2008 Pacific hurricane season : Tropical Storm Odile forms south of Mexico while Hurricane Norbert weakens to tropical storm strength northwest of Odile. (AP via Google News)
• Global financial crisis of September–October 2008:
  • Head of International Monetary Fund says the US Financial Crises threatens to send the world into a recession. IMF releases World Economic Outlook report with gloomy projections for the global financial system. (Deutsche Welle)
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 678.91 points to 8,579.19 points. (New York Times)
  • Greece introduces a 100,000 Euro guarantee for the 230 billion Euro bank deposits in the country for three years, well above the EU-wide Ecofin-mandated minimum of 50,000 Euro for one year, and gives assurances that the Greek banking system is stable, while the Greek central bank announces a drop in the expected growth of the Greek economy to 3.3% (from 4%) because of decreased consumption caused by high petrol and food prices. (ekathimerini), (ekathimerini), (Forbes), (Wikinews)
  • Kaupthing Bank, Iceland's largest bank, is nationalized by the country's Financial Supervisory Authority. (Bloomberg)
• North Korea has forbidden ships to sail in an area of the Yellow Sea as it prepares for the launch of 10 short-range missiles. (Reuters) (BBC News)
• Democratic Republic of the Congo accuses Rwanda of sending troops across the border, threatening the city of Goma. (BBC News)
• War on Terrorism:
  • NATO commander U.S. Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock asks member countries for authority to target drug trade in Afghanistan. (Reuters)
  • U.S. claims 27 militants killed in military operations in Afghanistan (AFP via Yahoo News)
  • Suicide bomber attacks police headquarters in Pakistani capital of Islamabad, wounding eight. Two air strikes northwest of Pakistan kill 20 militants. (Reuters)
  • US missile strikes in northwest of Pakistan kill at least nine. (BBC News) (AP via Yahoo News)
  • A roadside bomb in north-western Pakistan hits a school bus and a prison vehicle, killing four school children and at least six others. (BBC News)
• Court in the United Kingdom hears of how two doctors planned car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow airports in revenge for how UK was treating Muslims (BBC News)
• NATO plans on sending seven warships to protect United Nations food aid from Piracy in Somalia. (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
• North Korea ends its nuclear freeze as it prepares to restart a nuclear facility (AP via Yahoo News)
• No candidate wins a majority in the Maldives' first democratic presidential election; the incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom will face Mohamed Nasheed in a runoff. (Minivan News)
• Los Zetas of the Gulf Cartel suspected killers of 5 police near Guadalajara during nationwide crackdown in Mexico. (AP via Yahoo News)

• Pirate spokesman threatens to blow up MV Faina, which has been held off the coast of Somalia since September 25, if $20 million is not paid by October 13. (BBC News)
• The president of Peru accepts the resignation of his entire cabinet in response to an oil kickbacks scandal. (AP via Yahoo News)
• Gunmen kill 11 in a bar in Mexico in drug smuggling related violence. (Reuters via Irish Times)
• 27 people were killed by a suicide car bomb in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border during a tribal meeting planning the eviction of the Taliban from the area. (BBC News)
• Dozens of bodies that washed ashore in Yemen are believed to be from the 130 migrants from Somalia thrown overboard by smugglers; prompting calls for action against human trafficking in the Gulf of Aden. (AP via Yahoo News)
• An Alaskan legislative committee finds that the Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her authority in terminating the Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. (AP via New York Times)
• The Connecticut Supreme Court rules that gay and lesbian couples have the right to marry in Connecticut. (CNN)
• Oxfam says those needing food aid in Ethiopia has risen to 6.4 million, nearly two million more than in June . (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
• NATO ministers reach a deal after overcoming resistance from France, Italy and Germany by agreeing that only willing countries temporarily "act in concert with the Afghans, against [drug] facilities". (Deutsche Welle)
• Nobel Prize:
  • The Nobel peace prize is awarded to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari for mediation for the resolution of international conflicts who, as a UN special envoy, guided Namibia to independence in 1990, oversaw the 2005 reconciliation between the government of Indonesia and rebels in Aceh, and mediated a peace deal in Kosovo.(AFP via Yahoo News)
• Former Russian cross country ski champion Alexey Prokurorov dies after he is hit by a car while crossing a road in Vladimir.(RIA Novosti)
• A Swedish appellate court sentences Chilean opera tenor Ernesto "Tito" Beltrán to two years and six months in prison for raping an 18-year-old nanny and molesting a 7-year-old girl.(Associated Press)
• North Korea draws nearer to a compromise in a nuclear deal that would prompt Washington to remove it from a list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. (Reuters via Yahoo News)
• Global financial crisis of September–October 2008:
  • European markets fall steeply upon opening. (BBC News)
  • Fears of a global recession send Asian markets tumbling. (AP via Yahoo News)
  • The Australian Stock Exchange suffers its greatest fall since the crash of 1987 (The Age).
  • The Dow Jones finished down 128 points, after twice reaching down 700 points and below 8000 points. (CNN)
  • The United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson says that the Bush administration will proceed with plans to buy stocks in United States financial institutions.(AP via USA Today)
  • Group of Seven finance ministers who met in Washington with IMF chief and World Bank president announce a plan to combat the crisis including the use of "all available tools" to support key institutions and prevent their failure. (NineMSN)
• Leaders of the anti-government protests in Thailand surrender to thepolice. (BBC)
• The Republic of China (Taiwan) celebrates its 97th National Anniversary on Double Ten Day, with its newly elected President Ma Ying-jeou. (The China Post)
• Scores missing as migrant vessel sinks off the coast of northern Morocco in a route used by illegal migrants trying to reach Europe. (BBC News)
• Fifteen killed when JEM rebels ambush a government convoy in west Darfur. (AFP via Yahoo News)

• Global financial crisis of September–October 2008:

• United States President George W. Bush commits to collaborative action with G7 finance ministers. (BBC News)
• The International Monetary Fund warns of a global meltdown and offers to lend to countries if needed. (BBC News)

• Former South African President Thabo Mbeki will mediate between the Movement for Democratic Change and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government after Mugabe takes control of ministries that command the military and the police, an action that allegedly violates the power-sharing agreement reached last month. (AFP via Yahoo News)
• The U.S. State Department removes North Korea from its list of sponsors of terrorism. (BBC News)
• An earthquake struck southern Russia with tremors felt across five Russian regions. The epicentre was in Chechnya, with 12 dead. (Russia Today)
• 2008 Pacific hurricane season: Hurricane Norbert reaches Category 3 strength as it nears Baja California in Mexico. (Canadian Press via Google News)
• Turkey bombs Kurdish military targets in northern Iraq. (AP via Yahoo News ) (Voice of America)
• Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim says he expects to seize power by December by winning over defectors of the ruling Barisan Nasional government. (Reuters via Yahoo News)
• Singapore Police Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui is elected the new president of Interpol. (Channel NewsAsia)
• European Union monitors in Georgia confirm that Russia has met the withdrawal deadline. (Irish Times)
• Austrian right-wing politician and Governor of Carinthia Jörg Haider is killed in an automobile accident near Klagenfurt in Carinthia, his political stronghold. (BBC News)
• Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines decrease as noted by the Commission on Human Rights. (Inquirer)