August 2007

• New Zealand launches its first commercially available biofuel, which consists of 90 percent petrol and 10 percent bioethanol made from cows' milk. (AFP via The China Post)
• The President of the United States George W. Bush orders senior adviser Karl Rove not to testify before a United States Senate committee on the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. (BBC)
• The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex lost 615 points in a single day becoming the third biggest such crash in its history.
• The bridge carrying Interstate 35W in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses into the Mississippi River late in the afternoon rush hour, killing thirteen and injuring hundreds. (Star-Tribune) (CNN)
• The remains of the RMS Titanic's Unknown Child, initially identified as Eino Viljami Panula, are re-identified by a Canadian research team and found to be those of another young passenger, Sidney Leslie Goodwin. (AP via FOX)
• The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) sign an agreement to bolster economic and security relationships. It also called for negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand by the end of 2008. (AP via Forbes)
• A French court orders the release of two suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. (AP via IHT)
• At least 28 people die in Uttar Pradesh, India as an overcrowded boat carrying flood evacuees and aid workers capsizes on the Rohni River. Monsoon floods have killed more than 150 people in India during July while at least 82 people have died in Nepal over the past two weeks and 38 in Bangladesh. (BBC)
• 2007 Russian North Pole expedition: A Russian expedition with the aim of claiming petroleum beneath the Arctic reaches the North Pole. (AP via CNN)
• The Accordance Front, Iraq's largest Sunni party, withdraws from the government while at least 70 people die in three bomb attacks. (AP via Boston Herald)
• US crude oil prices reach a new high of $78.77 a barrel due to declining stocks and decreased output. (Reuters)
• Russia’s gas exports monopoly Gazprom will almost halve supplies to Belarus from August 3 after failing to reach a deal with Minsk over a $456 million energy debt. (Financial Times)
• 18 militants killed near Banda checkpoint of North Waziristan, Pakistan by Pakistan troops.
• The United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading levies a fine of £121.5 million on British Airways for price collusion over long distance passenger fuel surcharges. British Airways and Korean Air later plead guilty to conspiracies to fix the price of passenger and cargo fees in the United States with fines of $300 million each being levied. (Wall Street Journal) (Washington Post)
• Sudan pledges support for UNAMID, a joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. (BBC)
• Sixty-nine Chinese coal miners are rescued from the Zhijian mine in Henan province. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• The US House of Representatives passes a resolution to lift travel restrictions on Taiwan's president and other high-level officials visiting the United States. (AP via China Post)
• The Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero visits the Canary Islands to inspect the damage caused by five days of fires on the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife. (BBC)
• Norihiko Akagi resigns as Japan's agriculture minister after scandals involving him adversely affected the Liberal Democratic Party's performance in the Japanese House of Councillors election, 2007. (ABC News Australia)
• Sumo wrestler Asashoryu becomes the first Yokozuna in history to be suspended from competition. (Mainichi)

• The first-ever United Nations plenary session on climate change is extended into a third day due to the large number of 'worried nations' wanting to describe their climate-related problems. (Fox News)
• Mary Peters, the United States Secretary of Transportation, orders an immediate inspection of all truss bridges in the United States following the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis. (CNN)
• Kafeel Ahmed, who was one of the instigators of the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack, dies in the Royal Glasgow Infirmary of the injuries he sustained in the attack. (AP via the Melbourne Age)
• United States Marine Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins III is convicted of murder and related offences in relation to the killing of an Iraqi man. (CNN)
• A Cabinet Minister and four junior ministers belonging to the Ceylon Workers Congress leave the Government of President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa due to "political differences". (The Hindu)
• The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rules that three insurers are not responsible for flood damage in New Orleans resulting from Hurricane Katrina. (Reuters)
• 100 people are killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when a train derails. Government officials attribute the accident to faulty brakes. (CBC)
• Two aides of al Qaeda and Taliban are arrested at different places in Pakistan.
• 2007 Russian North Pole expedition: Two Russian bathyscaphes, MIR submersibles have reached the seabed below the North Pole, at a depth of 4.2 km, for the first time ever. (BBC)
• An offshore earthquake occurs in the Pacific Ocean off the shore of Vanuatu measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale but no tsunami is triggered. (TV3 New Zealand)
• South Korea suspends beef imports from the United States following the discovery of banned parts in a recent shipment. (AP via Forbes)
• Journalists in the Indian state of Manipur refuse to put out newspapers as a protest against threats from rebel groups. (BBC)
• An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale hits the southern part of Sakhalin off the coast of Russia causing a death. It also triggered a small tsunami that struck the coast of Hokkaidō in Japan. (Russian News and Information Agency)
• The Dandy comic relaunched as Dandy Xtreme.

• The former deputy director of Augusto Pinochet's secret police, Raul Iturriaga, is captured by the police after having entered in rebellion in June 2007 against the Chilean state and justice Los Angeles Times.
• The Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger declares a state of emergency in Santa Barbara County, California with hundreds of people ordered to evacuate due to wildfire. (AP via Fox News)
• US President George W. Bush signs a bill to implement recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. (AP via San Diego Union Tribune)
• The United States Congress allocates $250 million to rebuild the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (BBC)
• The United States Senate votes to extend the powers of intelligence agents to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists in a victory for President of the United States George W. Bush. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Raids at the Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland, California allegedly produces evidence that links the bakery to the murder of Chauncey Bailey, editor of The Oakland Post, and two other people. (CNN)
• The Canadian government agrees to make available a judicial report on the treatment of Maher Arar falsely accused of terrorism. (ABC News Australia)
• Mexican archaeologists announce the discovery of what is believed to be the tomb of Aztec emperor Ahuitzotl. (IHT)
• Russia says that it will launch a criminal case against Andrei Lugovoi if the United Kingdom provides it with convincing evidence of Lugovoi's involvement in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• 50 people are feared drowned and 100 are missing after a boat capsized in Sierra Leone (Reuters via CNN)
• The President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe signs the Interception of Communication Act into law, allowing the Zimbabwean government to listen to private telephone conversations, open mail and intercept faxes and e-mail. (AFP via Africaasia)
• Two Cuban boxers, Guillermo Rigondeaux Olympic bantamweight champion and amateur welterweight world champion Erislandi Lara, who deserted their team at the 2007 Pan American Games are found in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and will be sent back to Cuba. (CNN)
• An outbreak of foot and mouth disease at a cattle farm in Surrey, UK is confirmed by Defra. The unlicenced movement of all livestock throughout the UK is prohibited. (BBC)
• George W. Bush invites representatives of the UN and major industrialized and developing countries to a conference to discuss a post-Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. (Reuters)
• 2007 South Asian floods: Monsoon floods make millions homeless in India, Nepal and Bangladesh with a death toll of 145 in India and 65 in Bangladesh. (BBC/AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Turkey's two largest cities, Ankara and Istanbul, struggle with water shortages with Ankara rationing water to two days on, two days off as a result of having 5% left in their reservoirs. (AP via the Guardian)
• The Supreme Court of Pakistan frees Javed Hashmi, the leader of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and Pakistan Muslim League faction leader, who was jailed in 2003 for writing a letter critical of the President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf. (BBC)
• Rebel groups in Darfur hold meetings in Tanzania jointly mediated by the United Nations and the African Union to resolve disputes. (BBC)
• Patriarch Teoctist of the Romanian Orthodox Church is buried in a ceremony in Bucharest led by Bartholomew I, the leader of the Eastern Orthodox churches. (AP via IHT)

• A natural gas pipeline between Turkey and Greece is completed allowing gas to be sent from the Middle East to Europe. (Today's Zaman)
• An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey, England prompts the banning of exports of British livestock and other animal products. (Globe&Mail)
• Jesse V. Spielman a United States Army soldier is sentenced to 110 years for his role in the gang-rape and murder of 14 old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family. (CNN)
• The United States House of Representatives passes the budget for the United States Department of Defense. (Fox News)
• The United States House of Representatives passes an energy bill which aims to expand the use of renewable energy and reduce tax concessions to oil companies. (BBC)
• A vehicle with Florida license plates driven by men of Middle Eastern origin is stopped by police in Goose Creek, South Carolina, and found to be carrying explosive devices. (ABC)
• The United States House of Representatives approves legislation expanding the United States Government's ability to conduct surveillance without a court order on foreign terrorism suspects. (Reuters)
• Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim fires the head of the Brazilian airports authority, José Carlos Pereira for recent problems including the crash of TAM Linhas Aéreas Flight 3054 and hires Sergio Gaudenzi, the President of the Brazilian Space Agency. (New York Times)
• San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds ties Hank Aaron for most career home runs with 755, while Alex Rodriguez becomes the youngest player to hit 500 home runs in Major League Baseball. (TSN), (Sports Illustrated)
• Oakland police claim that a 19-year-old man has confessed to the murder of Chauncey Bailey, the editor of The Oakland Post. (CNN)
• United States forces claim that they have killed Haitham al-Badri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Salahuddin province in Iraq and believed to be the man responsible for the bombing of the Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in June. (Reuters)
• NASA launches the Phoenix Mars Lander which is due to land in Planum Boreum on the Martian northern ice cap next year. (AP via Washington Post)
• The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown holds an emergency COBRA cabinet meeting to discuss an outbreak of foot and mouth disease on a farm in Surrey, England. The foot and mouth strain has been identified as a rare strain used at the nearby Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright. (Reuters) (BBC)
• 2007 South Asian floods: The Ganges River system will come under further strain from monsoon floods as 20 million are homeless in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Almost 200 people have died. (ABC News Australia) (BBC)
• Ten pro-Taliban militants and four Pakistan Army soldiers are killed in a clash in North Waziristan near the Afghanistan border. In another incident, a suicide car bomber kills six in Parachinar, North West Frontier Province in Pakistan. (BBC)

• Authorities in Mozambique seize thousands of boxes of counterfeit toothpaste which they fear may contain the dangerous chemical diethylene glycol. (AP via Forbes)
• Police fire shots to disperse an angry crowd in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea with unconfirmed reports of a man dying. (AP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Twenty-six people including 14 convicted prisoners escape from the Campsfield House detention centre in Oxfordshire, England. (Telegraph)
• Holocaust survivors protest outside the Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert's office over the level of support from Israel. (BBC)
• Republican Party candidates in the 2008 United States Presidential election hold a debate. (AFP via News Limited) (ABC News)
• Mexican golfer Lorena Ochoa wins the Women's British Open title, her first major. (The New York Times)
• The President of the United States George W. Bush meets with the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai at Camp David to discuss the security of Afghanistan. (Voice of America)
• Lebanon holds two by-elections to replace two members of the Parliament of Lebanon, Pierre Amine Gemayel and Walid Eido, killed in violent incidents claimed to be murder. Camille Khoury and Mohamad Amin Itani are declared as the winners of the elections although rival candidate Amin Gemayel has lodged a complaint about Khoury's victory. (BBC) (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• The death toll from the 2007 South Asian floods nears 1,100 in India while 120 people have died in Bangladesh and 84 in Nepal. Health officials have raised concerns about epidemics. (AFP via ABC News Australia) (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Bodies of two students of IIM Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India, are recovered after being swept away in flash floods.
• Mortar bombs strike a petrol station in eastern Baghdad killing at least nine people and injuring 11. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Thirty-four rail workers building a tunnel in Hubei province China are trapped 200 metres underground following a landslide. (AFP via News Limited)

• Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer gave a mandate to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to form his second cabinet following a landslide victory for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the general elections. (Turkish Daily News)
• Mexico and Brazil sign an agreement on developing technology for oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation involving co-operation between Pemex and Petrobras. (AP via IHT)
• The Lebanese government claim that the police have killed Abu Hureira, the second in command of Fatah al-Islam. (AP via Forbes)
• Trinidad Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls orders the extradition of three men to the United States to face charges of involvement in a terrorist attack on John F. Kennedy Airport. (New York Times)
• United States District Court judge Ronald Whyte strikes down a California law aiming to prohibit minors from buying or renting violent video games on First Amendment grounds. (IGN)
• An Arizona judge rules that that a United States Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett must stand trial for murder for shooting dead a Mexican immigrant. (Reuters)
• The United States Food and Drug Administration approves Pfizer's AIDS drug Selzentry. (Reuters via National Post)
• 50 feared dead when a boat carrying 130 passengers overturned in the midstream of River Ganges in Bihar, India.
• Five members of the Iraqiya coalition led by former Prime Minister of Iraq Ayad Allawi suspend their participation in the current Cabinet led by Nouri al-Maliki. (New York Times), (BBC)
• NASA reports that three galaxies the size of the Milky Way are colliding with another galaxy three times the size of the Milky Way in galaxy cluster CL0958+4702. The eventual galaxy could be up to ten times the size of the Milky Way. (BBC)
• A second case of foot and mouth disease is reported in Surrey, England, resulting in the culling of more cattle. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Six miners are trapped in a coal mine 15 miles west of Huntington, Utah. A 3.9 to 4.5 (USGS) magnitude earthquake was reported in the area around the time of the cave-in. (Reuters)
• Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina files petitions challenging government move to try her in connection with an extortion case.
• North Korea and South Korea exchange gun fire over the border, the first such incident in a year. (CNN)
• José Ramos-Horta, the President of East Timor, selects Xanana Gusmão as the Prime Minister of East Timor. (BBC)
• A truck bomb in Tal Afar in northern Iraq kills at least 25 people and destroys 10 homes. (Reuters)
• Sir Michael Somare's National Alliance Party forms a coalition with six partners which will be the next government of Papua New Guinea. (Radio New Zealand)
• Flooding in Lagos, Nigeria, leads to thousands of people being forced from their homes and six people going missing. (Reuters via Press TV)
• International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors examine the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Japan marks the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. (Reuters via Washington Post)
• A state of emergency is declared in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik due to a forest fire. (BBC)
• The Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert and the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas meet to discuss the establishment of a Palestinian state. (Reuters)

• Six new species of animal are discovered in a forest west of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of the Congo including a horseshoe bat, a rodent, two shrews and two species of insects. (China Daily)
• Two men are arrested in Paris for stealing Pablo Picasso paintings from the apartment of his granddaughter. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Argentina signs an "energy security treaty" with Venezuela in Buenos Aires. (BBC)
• Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hits his 756th career home run, passing Hank Aaron as the all-time leader in Major League Baseball. Bonds hits the shot against Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik in the fifth inning of their game at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California. (MLB.com), (BBC)
• Seismic activity frustrates rescue efforts for six coal miners trapped underground near Huntington, Utah. (AP via Houston Chronicle)
• Two buses crash on the Panamerican Highway in southern Peru resulting in 17 casualties and 37 injuries. (AFP via Times of India)
• Astronomers of the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey announce the discovery of TrES-4, the largest known planet in the universe, circling the star GSC 02620-00648 in the Hercules Constellation. (AP via IHT) (BBC)
• The Taliban attacks Firebase Anaconda in Uruzgan province but is repulsed by a joint force of Afghan fighters and United States Army forces with 20 militants killed. (AP via CNN)
• Jordan opens its government schools to Iraqi refugees. (BBC)
• Israel evicts Jewish settlers from Hebron. A dozen religious members of the Israeli Army refuse to participate and are sentenced for up to a month in a military jail. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Juan Carlos Ramirez-Abadia, Colombian cocaine trafficker boss of the Norte del Valle Cartel is apprehended in Brazil and faces extradition to the United States. The US Government had offered a reward of US$5 million dollars. (Reuters)
• Malaysia bans hiring of foreign security guards following rape and murder of a student by a Pakistani security guard recently.
• Georgian-Russian relations: Two Russian aircraft allegedly violate Georgia's airspace with one firing an air-to-surface guided rocket onto Georgian territory. The rocket did not explode and the Russian government denies the incident took place. (civil.ge) (Reuters via CNN)
• Tests confirm a second outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Surrey, England. Inspectors think that there is a "strong probability" that the disease came from a research site at Pirbright shared by Merial, a vaccine company and the Institute for Animal Health. (The Telegraph) (BBC)
• The United Kingdom asks United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to release five residents of the UK from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. (AP via FOX)
• Youths in East Timor attack Australian Army forces and United Nations personnel following the announcement that Xanana Gusmão would be the next Prime Minister. (News Limited)
• Fortune magazine lists Mexican businessman Carlos Slim as the richest man in the world ahead of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. (BBC)
• The Pakistan Army launches a strike on a militant base in the Degan area near Miranshah in North Waziristan. (BBC)
• A storm kills at least 17 people in Vietnam with another 12 missing. (AP via Washington Post)
• Bangladesh security officials arrest 24 suspected militants at Zia International Airport en route to Kabul, Afghanistan. (Times of India)
• Chinese police arrest six protesters calling for a free Tibet by unfurling banners on the Great Wall of China. (AP via the Guardian)
• Paul Calvert announces his resignation as President of the Australian Senate and as a Senator for Tasmania effective from next week. (AAP via Melbourne Herald Sun)
• An earthquake of 6.4 preliminary magnitude occurs off the coast of Okinawa in Japan. (Reuters)
• Satsuki Eda of the Democratic Party of Japan is chosen as the President of the House of Councillors making him the first member of an Opposition party to hold the position. (BBC)

• A British Army helicopter crashes near the Catterick Garrison army base in Yorkshire causing at least two deaths. (AP via Forbes), (BBC)
• Tropical Storm Pabuk causes deadly landslides in the Philippines before hitting Taiwan causing power cuts. This comes after floods from another tropical storm kill 34 in central Vietnam. (AP via the New York Times), (Reuters via Washington Post)
• Street gunbattles continue for a third successive day in Port Harcourt, Nigeria as part of a criminal turf war. (Reuters via CNN)
• Endeavour lifts off from Kennedy Space Center for the STS-118 assembly mission of the International Space Station. (CNN)
• Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, visits Iran to seek co-operation in reducing the level of violence. (AP via Forbes)
• Authorities tighten security on the site of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse following the arrest of 16 people for trespass and hindering investigations. (CNN)
• Powers Fasteners, the company that supplied the epoxy blamed for the Big Dig ceiling collapse in Boston, Massachusetts is indicted on a manslaughter charge. (AP via the Guardian)
• A United States raid and air strike on a Shiite militant base in Sadr City results in 32 deaths. (New York Times)
• A third outbreak of foot and mouth disease has been discovered in southern England but a ban of sending animals to slaughter is lifted in most of the country. (Reuters via News Limited)
• A tornado touches down in Brooklyn, New York just after dawn during a violent thunderstorm that dropped near three inches of rain in the New York City area, crippling the city's subway and commuter rail system during the morning rush hour. (CNN), (Reuters)
• Two fossils found in Kenya challenge existing views of human evolution by showing that Homo erectus and Homo habilis lived side by side in eastern Africa for half a million years. (New York Times)
• An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 hits Jakarta, Indonesia. (Sky)
• 2007 South Asian floods: Fresh round of floods hits Gujarat, India. People make trains at railway stations their homes in Bihar. Many places inaccessible by road or rail.
• In Germany the labour court of Nuremberg prohibited the strike prepared by the Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer (GDL), which was to be the largest in 15 years. According to the Deutsche Bahn train company, the strike was prohibited because of the heavy tribute which would have been paid by the national economy (BBC).
• Two people killed and several injured as a bomb hidden in a bicycle parked at a police station explodes at Jorhat, Assam, India
• The Pakistani government claims to have killed at least 10 pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan. (BBC)
• China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region celebrates its 60th Anniversary. Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong visits its capital, Hohhot, and participates in a series of large celebration events. (CCTV International)
• China sends investigators to investigate illegally-built government offices in 30 provinces. (ABC)
• The Reserve Bank of Australia raises interest rates to 6.5%, the highest level in Australia since 1996. (News Limited and AAP)
• The Yangtse River Dolphin is declared extinct. (The Scotsman) (Guardian)
• Violence erupts in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea with security forces and villagers exchanging gunfire. (ABC News Australia)
• Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce is sworn in as the new Governor of South Australia. (AAP via the Melbourne Age)
• Xanana Gusmão is sworn in as the Prime Minister of East Timor with the opposition Fretilin party boycotting the ceremony. (BBC)
• North Korea and South Korea agree to hold summit in Pyongyang from August 28 through the 30th. (Yonhap News)

• Amama Mbabazi, the Security Minister of Uganda, warns the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that Uganda would consider re-entering the DRC if recent raids did not stop. (AllAfrica)
• An Air Moorea airplane crashes in Moorea bound for Tahiti with at least 12 casualties. Initial reports indicate that all 20 passengers may have died. (News Limited) (ABC News Australia)
• Democratic candidates in the United States presidential election appear in a televised forum sponsored by Human Rights Campaign Foundation and focusing on gay and lesbian issues. (CNN)
• Two more bodies have been recovered at the site of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Reuters)
• A blaze at the Cinecittà film studio complex in Rome burns down several buildings. (ABC News Australia)
• Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada tours the Arctic regions of Canada to assert wider claims of sovereignty over the region following a recent claim by Russia to the North Pole. (BBC)
• China temporarily bans exports from two toy manufacturers whose products were banned or recalled in the United States and other countries. (AP via the Washington Post)
• Charges against two United States Marines accused of involvement in the killing of Iraqis in 2005 are dropped. (CNN)
• BNP Paribas announced that it could not fairly value the underlying assets in three funds as a result of exposure to U.S. subprime mortgage lending markets. Faced with potentially massive (though unquantifiable) exposure, the European Central Bank (ECB) immediately stepped in to ease market worries by opening lines of €96.8 billion (then US$130 billion) in low-interest credit.

(New York Times - 9 August 2007)

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by nearly 400 points due to credit worries. Canadian and European stocks also fall. The European Central Bank, United States Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada all inject money into their credit markets to ease concerns. (Market Watch)
• The South Carolina Republican Party moves its primary election date forward to January 19. (AP via the Guardian)
• The death toll from the 2007 South Asian floods rises to 2000. (AFP via News Limited)
• Two trains collide in Zimbabwe. (ZimDaily)
• India celebrates 65th anniversary of Quit India Movement.
• The President of Zambia Levy Mwanawasa suspends the head of the Drug Enforcement Commission Ryan Chitoba for alleged misappropriation of money confiscated from criminals. (BBC)
• Twelve people are killed by suspected United Liberation Front of Asom separatist gunmen in two different incidents in Assam. (AP via Forbes)
• Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants ambush Philippines Government troops on the island of Jolo, killing nine. More than 50 people died in fighting during the day between the army, Abu Sayyaf and elements of the Moro National Liberation Front. (AP via International Herald Tribune) (BBC)
• East Timor
  • A standoff occurs at Dili Airport as to whether jailed former Government Minister Rogerio Lobato can leave East Timor for medical treatment in Malaysia. (ABC News Australia)
  • Mobs burn hundreds of houses in pro-Fretilin areas between Viqueque and Baucau in protest at the appointment of Xanana Gusmão as the Prime Minister of East Timor with 60 people arrested in Baucau
• The National Assembly of Mauritania adopts legislation criminalising slavery. (AFP via News Limited)
• The President of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf pulls out of a meeting with the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and tribal leaders in Kabul over fighting the Taliban. (CNN) (BBC) He is also resisting pressure to institute a state of emergency, insisting that the planned parliamentary election in October must proceed as scheduled. (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
• Two of Australia's largest regional banks, Bendigo Bank and Adelaide Bank, agree to merge. (AAP via The Sydney Morning Herald)

• Novell wins the rights to the copyrights for Unix from the SCO Group in SCO v. Novell decided in the United States District Court in Utah. (Computer World)
• A storm system comprising at least three tornadoes sweeps across northern Ohio, killing a woman in Marion, Ohio and leaving thousands without power. (AP via the Cincinnati Post)
• Francisco Chaviano, a prominent opponent of Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, is released from prison after 13 years (of a 15 year sentence) for allegedly revealing state secrets. (AP via the Washington Post)
• The New York Police Department increases security in Manhattan and in bridges and tunnels as a result of an "unverified radiological threat". (Reuters via MSNBC)
• The Bush administration announces tougher penalties for companies that hire illegal immigrants. (BBC)
• Colombian general Hernando Perez Molina is relieved of his command of the Third Division based in western Colombia. Several officers in his command are accused of collaborating with the Norte del Valle cocaine cartel. (AP via International Herald Tribune)
• Three construction workers are killed installing equipment at a coal mine in southwestern Indiana. (CNN)
• The Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper announces the construction of two Arctic bases including an army training base and a deep water port in response to recent Russian claims to the area. (BBC via the ABC)
• Nurses in Fiji end industrial action after 18 days. (Radio Fiji)
• STS-118: NASA discovers a gouge in the belly of the Space Shuttle Endeavour after it docks with the International Space Station. (AP via Forbes)
• The Congolese Labour Party of the President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou-Nguesso and affiliated groups win 90 per cent of the seats in parliamentary elections. (Reuters)
• Another body is found in the Mississippi River as a result of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (New York Times)
• United States share markets finish slightly lower as a $38 billion injection from the Federal Reserve helps to stabilise the situation. (CNN Money)
• The United Nations Security Council approves an enhanced role for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq. (Maxims News)
• Hamid Ansari becomes 13th Vice-President of India.
• Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, sacks Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge as the Deputy Health Minister for attending an AIDS conference in Spain without authorisation and criticising hospital conditions. (BBC)
• The President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez meets with the President of Bolivia Evo Morales and the President of Argentina Néstor Kirchner in Tarija, Bolivia. (BBC)
• A bus carrying Serbian tourists to the Croatian Adriatic coast crashes resulting in two deaths and 40 injuries. (Reuters Alertnet)
• A gun battle in the Old City in Jerusalem results in the death of a gunman and injures at least ten other people. (Reuters)
• Asian stock markets fall sharply following trends in Europe and North America. The Bank of Japan and Reserve Bank of Australia try to inject liquidity to restore confidence to the market, shaken by the subprime mortgage crisis. (AFP via the Sydney Morning Herald)
• A drill reaches a pocket where six miners have been trapped for four days in the Crandall Canyon mine near Huntington, Utah. (AP via the Guardian)
• The Queensland Legislative Assembly passes legislation reducing the number of councils from 156 to 72. (ABC News Australia)
• The Ugandan government announces plans to pay the "chronically poor" earning less than a dollar a day a poverty allowance of $10 a month. (AP via the Guardian)
• Floods in Vietnam kill 43 people. (BBC)
• East Timor faces a humanitarian crisis as hundreds of houses are burnt down near Viqueque and affected villagers flee to the mountains. (ABC News)
• Envoys from the United States, European Union and Russia visit Serbia and Kosovo seeking a solution to the Kosovo issue. (BBC)
• Britain's Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds raises concern about another possible outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in England. (Reuters)

• A roadside bomb claims the life of the Governor of Ad-Diwaniyah province in Iraq Khalil Jalil Hamza and the provincial police chief Major-General Khalid Hassan. (San-Jose Mercury News)
• An explosion in Pasuruan in the East Java province of Indonesia causes three deaths and another three injuries. (AFP viaNews Limited)
• War in Afghanistan:
  • The Taliban attacks Firebase Anaconda in Uruzgan province for the third time in a week suffering casualties. The Taliban also launches unsuccessful attacks in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. (CNN)
  • The Taliban claims to have released two South Korean hostages but local and national officials cannot confirm the claims. (Reuters)
• Three by-elections for the Canadian House of Commons will be held for the ridings of Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and Outremont on September 17. (Globe and Mail)
• The President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez proposes building a gas pipeline between Venezuela and the Caribbean supplying states such as Cuba. (Bloomberg)
• The President of Russia Vladimir Putin states that a new radar station in the village of Lekhtusi near St Petersburg is the first step in a large-scale air defense program. (Reuters)
• New York City is put on high alert after an al Qaeda bomb threat surfaces on Internet.
• Thai insurgents attack several positions held by Thai security forces at Yala Province. (Xinhua via People's Daily)
• The President of the United States George W. Bush hosts the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy at a casual lunch at the Bush family home in Maine. (Reuters)
• United States presidential candidate Mitt Romney wins the Republican Party's Ames Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa. (The Washington Post)
• Voters in Sierra Leone go to the polls for the first time since the end of the country's civil war in 2002. (Voice of America)

• Bulk-carrier M/V New Flame collides with an oil tanker and runs aground near the southernmost tip of Gibraltar. (International Herald Tribune)
• African Union nations pledge up to 12,000 troops for the joint United Nations-African Union mission to Darfur. (Reuters via CNN)
• A clash between Taliban militants and Afghan security forces in Kandahar province results in nine militants dead with five police dying in a bomb. (AP via the International Herald Tribune)
• Peru issues a map of outlining its claim to maritime territory also claimed by Chile. (Xinhua)
• Heavy rains in Mauritania cause at least two deaths from mudslides and causes thousands of people to become homeless. (Voice of America)
• A gunman kills two people and wounds two others before killing himself on a Dallas, Texas freeway. (AP via CNN)
• Former Governor of Wisconsin Tommy Thompson withdraws as a candidate for the Republican nomination in the United States presidential election, 2008 following his low level of support in the Ames Straw Poll. (Wis Politics)
• Guatemalan authorities find 46 children believed to have been taken from the parents for illegal adoption overseas in Antigua Guatemala. (BBC)
• A gunman kills three people and injures as many as ten others in a church in Neosho, Missouri. (CNN)
• Tiger Woods wins the 2007 PGA Championship played at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• South Africa refuses to set up a refugee camp for the influx of people fleeing Zimbabwe. (AFP via News Limited)
• People claiming to be from Turkey attack the United Nations website forcing some sections to be taken offline. (BBC)
• Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, calls for emergency talks with Iraq's political leaders to try to save his national unity government. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, replaces his Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh with Gholamhossein Nozari, head of the National Iranian Oil Company acting as his deputy. (Reuters)
• Italian police uncover a secret plan to smuggle Russian weapons into Iraq. (AP via Forbes)
• Five hundred people are evacuated from the slopes of Mount Karangetang, an active volcano that is spewing ash and lava, on the island of Siau in Indonesia. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Denmark sends a scientific team to the Arctic to try to establish that the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Greenland so it can claim sovereignty over oil reserves. (AP via New Hope Courier)
• A Jakarta conference of Islamists sponsored by the Hizb ut-Tahrir discusses plans to reestablish a caliphate. (ABC News Australia)
• Fossilised remains of an ancient cypress forest estimated at 8 million years old are discovered in an open cast coal mine in Bükkábrány, Hungary. (BBC)
• Gloria Arroyo, the President of the Philippines, sends the chief of the army Romeo Tolentino to Zamboanga in the southern Philippines to direct operations against militants. (BBC)

• Two Belgian tourists who went missing last week in Iran appear to have been kidnapped by a bandit who is demanding that his brother be freed from prison. (AFP via AfricaAsia)
• A scandal erupts in Argentina when a Venezuelan businessman is caught trying to smuggle $800,000 into the country on a plane belonging to Enarsa, Argentina's government-owned energy company. (New York Times)
• Archaeologists using radar imagery reveal that Angkor, the former capital of the Khmer Empire, was the largest preindustrial urban centre of its time covering a 3,000 square kilometre area and with a population of up to half a million. (AFP via Independent Online South Africa)
• Werner Velasquez, mayor of the town of Santa Ana Huista in Guatemala, is shot dead in a political attack before the election on September 9. More than 40 Guatemalans have died in pre-election violence. (Reuters Alertnet)
• Chile withdraws its ambassador from Peru for consultations after Peru publishes a map of maritime territory claimed by both countries. (Reuters via CNN)
• The Taliban releases two of the 23 South Korean hostages kidnapped three weeks ago. (BBC) (CNN)
• 2007 Pacific hurricane season: A state of emergency is declared on the island of Hawaii as Category 3 Hurricane Flossie approaches. (Reuters)
• A 5.3 magnitude earthquake strikes the island of Hawaii about 25 miles south of Hilo, Hawaii. (AP via USA Today)
• War in Iraq: United States troops in Iraq launch an offensive against Al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants and alleged Iranian linked Shiite militants. (Gulf Daily News)
• Five members of a single family die when they fall from a ferris wheel car at an amusement park outside of Busan, South Korea. (Guardian Unlimited)
• A Russian luxury train going from Moscow to Saint Petersburg derails near Malaya Vishera. (BBC)
• Pakistan releases 134 Indian prisoners detained in its jail on its Independence Day eve.
• Salvage crews prepare to try to refloat a cargo ship that collided with an oil tanker off Europa Point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, and ended up partially submerged. (International Herald Tribune)
• Philip Ruddock, the Attorney-General of Australia, appoints Federal Court judge Susan Kiefel to the High Court of Australia. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Eric Laroche, the United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia raises concerns about recent killings of eminent Somali journalists. (BBC)
• Karl Rove, Deputy White House Chief of Staff and George W. Bush's leading political adviser, tells the Wall Street Journal that he intends to resign at the end of August. (BBC)
• Solidarity, a South African trade union, calls a strike in coal mines. (Reuters South Africa)
• Zhang Shuhong, the head of a Chinese toy company at the centre of a worldwide toy recall commits suicide. (News Limited) (AP via the Melbourne Age)
• Nineteen people are killed and seven seriously injured in a bus crash on the North-South Expressway in Malaysia. (BBC)
• The National Parliament of Papua New Guinea meets to select a new Speaker and Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea with Sir Michael Somare re-elected as Prime Minister. (Radio New Zealand) (Reuters)
• Flooding caused by Tropical Storm Pabuk causes widespread flooding in Guangdong Province in southern China affecting up to 1.2 million people. (Reuters)
• Westy joined PHD

• A bridge under construction completely collapses in Fenghuang County, Hunan Province, China, killing at least 47 people. 21 workers are injured, 13 are still missing.(ChinaDaily)(Xinhua)(Yahoo)
• A fire breaks out at the Shanghai World Financial Center in China. (BBC)
• The Italian coast guard finds the dead bodies of 14 illegal immigrants near the shores of the Lampedusa island. (BBC)
• A Russian far right group calling itself "National Socialism/White Power" publishes a video on the Internet showing the execution of two men, one from Tajikstan and the other one from Dagestan. Russian authorities investigate the video. (BBC)
• A Polish soldier is killed by Taliban near Gardez, Afghanistan. It is the first Polish casualty in the War in Afghanistan. (BBC)
• The Central Bank of Nigeria announces the naira will be made convertible by 2009. It will also be redenominated from August 2008. (BBC)
• A tropical storm warning is issued for parts of Texas and Mexico following the formation of a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP via the Guardian)
• A Bangladeshi court sentences 15 members of the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party to seven years in jail for extortion and three years for manipulating elections. (Jurist)
• Scott Kelly, the commander of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, on its current mission expresses confidence that it can return to earth safely without repairs to its heat shield. (AFP via News Limited)
• Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, current First Lady of Argentina and candidate to become President of Argentina, announces Julio Cobos, the Governor of Mendoza Province as her running mate. (AP via the International Herald Tribune)
• Benjamin Netanyahu wins the Likud primary election and continues as the party's parliamentary leader. (Xinhua)
• Hurricane Flossie weakens as it moves near the coast of the island of Hawaii. (Reuters)
• British authorities investigate two new suspected cases of foot and mouth disease, one in Kent and one in Surrey outside the exclusion zone. (The Globe and Mail)
• Two Belgians kidnapped in Iran have been released. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• A woman dies and two people are seriously ill from E. coli in the Paisley area of Scotland. The Morrisons supermarket chain withdraws cold sliced meats from two of its stores in Paisley. (Reuters via News Limited)
• War in Iraq:
  • 2007 Kahtaniya bombings: At least 250 people die in bombings in areas near the town of Kahtaniya in northern Iraq as suicide bombers drive fuel tankers into residential compounds of the Yazidi sect. (Reuters)
  • Gunmen kidnap Abdel Jabar al-Wagaa, the deputy Oil Minister of Iraq. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
  • Five American servicemen die in a CH-47 Chinook helicopter crash near the Al Taqaddum air base in Iraq. (The Telegraph)
  • A suicide bomber attacks the Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji, Iraq, killing at least 10 people. Meanwhile, a U.S. raid kills four people in Baghdad. (BBC)
• Bingu wa Mutharika, the President of Malawi, threatens to "close down" the National Assembly of Malawi unless it starts discussing the budget. (BBC)
• Nokia offers to replace 46 million Matsushita batteries that may be subject to overheating. (BBC) (Nokia)
• In Nigeria, gunmen kidnap the mother of a member of the Bayelsa State parliament. The 11-year-old son of another MP is freed. (BBC)
• 12 members of the Indian nationalist party Shiv Sena attack the Mumbai offices of Outlook magazine. (BBC)
• Mattel recalls over 18 million toys made in China that may potentially be harmful to children. (BBC) (Herald Sun)
• A pistol is recovered from the hand bag of a flight attendant of Pakistan International Airlines.
• Former Islamist guerrilla leader Mustapha Kartali is wounded by a car bomb in Larba, Algeria. (BBC)
• Four Palestinians are killed by Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians claim two of them were civilians. (BBC)
• Pakistan celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence from the United Kingdom. (BBC)
• Abdullah Gül, currently the Foreign Minister of Turkey, confirms that he will stand again for election as the President of Turkey. (Reuters)
• The Supreme Court of Thailand approves the issuing of arrest warrants for the former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife on corruption charges. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• The President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Afghanistan on the first leg of a Central Asian tour before visiting the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Bishkek. (BBC)
• Russian prosecutors launch a terrorism investigation after an improvised bomb derailed an overnight express train near the village of Malaya Vishera in the Novgorod region. (CNN)
• Alan Ferguson, Liberal Party Senator for South Australia, is elected as the President of the Australian Senate. (ABC)
• A Taiwanese court clears Ma Ying-jeou, the Kuomintang Party candidate for President of the Republic of China, of charges of corruption dating from when he was the mayor of Taipei. (BBC)
• Hundreds of people die in North Korea after days of torrential rain. (News Limited)
• The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation of Central Asian countries comprising the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meets in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek to discuss security issues. (Reuters)
• Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffles his cabinet. Among the changes, embattled defence minister Gordon O'Connor and heritage minister Bev Oda are moved to National Revenue and International Cooperation and replaced by Peter Mackay and Josée Verner, respectively. (Globe and Mail)

• Governments, companies, and non-profit organizations around the world have been editing Wikipedia to hide criticism and push a point of view. The previously anonymous edits can now be tracked to their source using the Wikipedia Scanner. (TIME) (Reddit) (BBC) (BBC)
• Hurricane Flossie passes Hawaii causing some damage but not as much as feared. It has deteriorated to a tropical storm and should cause no further damage. (Hawaii Reporter)
• A hurricane watch is issued for a portion of the Lesser Antilles including St. Lucia and Martinique due to the prospects of Tropical Storm Dean becoming a hurricane. (ABC News WLOS)
• The Israeli Defence Force destroys a tunnel from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. (Jerusalem Post)
• President of the United States George W. Bush, President of Mexico Felipe Calderón and the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper to meet later this month under the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) mechanism to discuss economic and security issues. (China View)
• Jack McConnell resigns as the leader of the Scottish Labour Party with Wendy Alexander likely to be elected as his replacement as leader. (The Scotsman)
• China will send officials to the United States to discuss food and product safety following a spate of product recalls in recent months. (Reuters)
• The trial of the President of Zambia Frederick Chiluba for stealing public money resumes today. (Reuters via CNN)
• A powerful earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale rocks Peru 100 miles near Lima, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A tsunami warning is issued for Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia, following the earthquakes. At least 72 people are killed and another 680 injured. (Fox News) (USGS) (Reuters) (Reuters via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Japan resumes economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian National Authority. (BBC)
• Tropical Depression Five strengthens into Tropical Storm Erin, causing tropical storm warnings to be issued for parts of Texas and Tamaulipas. (Reuters).
• Mexican authorities deport hundreds of illegal immigrants who got stuck on a closed GWI rail line in Chiapas. (BBC)
• 2007 South Asian floods: A landslide hits the Dharla village in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, killing at least five people. Another 55 are missing. (BBC)
• Hundreds of Kenyan journalists protest in the streets of Nairobi against a law that would require them to disclose their sources. (BBC)
• Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, confirms Australia will sell uranium and nuclear technology to India. (BBC)
• Richard Boucher, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, arrives in Pakistan to meet foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and President Pervez Musharraf. (BBC)
• Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentinian presidential candidate, presents Julio Cobos as her running mate. (BBC)
• Ali Mohammed Ghedi, the interim Prime Minister of Somalia, says he plans to create a Green Zone in Mogadishu and criticizes the United Nations for giving "so much emphasis on Darfur and not to Somalia". (BBC)
• ODM-Kenya, the main Kenyan opposition party, splits in two four months before the general elections. (BBC)
• Charles Murigande, the foreign minister of Rwanda, criticizes the Democratic Republic of Congo for stopping military operations against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. (BBC)
• War in Afghanistan:
  • Three Germans are killed by a bomb attack near Kabul. (BBC)
  • United States and Afghan forces start a new offensive in Tora Bora. (BBC)
• On the 62nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ministers do not visit the Yasukuni Shrine. (BBC)
• Government sources reveal that the Russian administration of Boris Yeltsin sent unofficial signals to Finland at the end of 1991 about returning Karelia to Finland. (Kainuun Sanomat via NewsRoom Finland)
• The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation invites Turkmenistan to its summit in Bishkek with a view to asking it to join. (RIA Novosti)
• The death toll from the 2007 Qahtaniya bombings reaches 500 with 350 more people injured. (CNN) (BBC) (CNN)
• Six Italians are found shot to death in the town of Duisburg, Germany. Police say they were connected to 'Ndrangheta. (Fox News) (BBC)
• The Myanmar government doubles the price of petrol and increases the cost of compressed natural gas fivefold leaving some commuters stranded. (BBC)
• The Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon orders a full evaluation of the needs of North Korea after severe floods hit the country. Up to 300,000 people may have been left homeless. (BBC) (Reuters)
• 60th anniversary of the Partition of India:
  • India marks the 60th anniversary of its independence from British rule. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
  • Five persons, including two policemen, are injured when suspected rebels threw grenades near an Independence Day venue in Assam.
  • A strike led by separatists brings the Muslim areas of Jammu and Kashmir to a standstill. (AFP/Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Bangladesh marks the 32nd anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a pioneer of Bengali independence from Pakistan and their first President. (The New Nation)
• The United States declares Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "specially designated global terrorist," paving the way for increased financial pressure on Iran and its assets abroad. (The Washington Post)

• Three people are killed and another six injured as a seismic jolt disrupts an attempted mine rescue effort at the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, United States. (NYT)
• The leaders of Russia, China and Iran use the forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to warn the United States not to become too heavily involved in Central Asia. (AP via IHT)
• The British government is preparing to evacuate all Britons from Zimbabwe, about 22,000 people, due to increasing violence and shortage of food. (Times Online)
• International conservation group BirdLife International launches a critical fundraising campaign to save 189 endangered species of birds. (San Jose Mercury News)
• U.S. jihadist José Padilla is convicted on all counts of supporting terrorism. (AP via WTOP News)
• Subprime mortgage crisis:
  • Share prices continue to fall in Asian markets as a consequence of the subprime mortgage crisis with South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines hardest hit. (NYT)
  • The Bank of Japan injects 400 billion yen into its money market. (AP via IHT)
  • The FTSE 100 falls below 6,000 points in trading in the morning session on the London Stock Exchange while other European markets fall as well. (Market Watch) (AP via Houston Chronicle)
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average sees a late recovery in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange after earlier losing 340 points. (Market Watch)
  • The iBovespa falls by 3,500 points in the afternoon session on the São Paulo Stock Exchange. Brazil's stock market recorded its biggest one-day drop since the September 11, 2001 attacks. (Reuters)
  • BSE Sensex falls by 642.70 points on a single day trade due to global factors. The fall is the second biggest in recent times.
• Human rights in Iran: Over 200 people are arrested in Iran for attending an "illegal rock concert" which included alcohol and female singers. (Press TV)
• The Red Cross estimates that the death toll from North Korean floods has reached 220. North Korea estimates that it has wiped out a tenth of its farmland. (BBC) (NYT)
• The United States and Israel agree to a $30 billion military aid package. (AP via Fox News)
• 2007 Atlantic hurricane season: Hurricane Dean becomes the first hurricane of the season, threatening the Lesser Antilles, while Tropical Storm Erin threatens Texas. At least five people died in thunderstorms resulting from Erin while another two people went missing. (CNN), (AP via the Guardian)
• Peru's civil defense agency estimates that the death toll from the 2007 Peru earthquake is now 337 with 827 more injured. The coastal province of Ica is hardest hit. A 6.3 magnitude aftershock hits the country. The Government of Peru declares a state of emergency. (The Telegraph) (Bloomberg) (AFP via ABC News Auatralia)
• The Supreme Court of Pakistan hears a petition from the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to be able to return to the country and contest elections. (BBC)
• War in Iraq:
  • United States forces launch an airborne assault on a desert compound south of Baghdad in search of Sunni militants in the first phase of Operation Marne Husky. (Reuters)
  • United States officials state that there is little hope remaining of finding survivors of the Qahtaniya bombings. (Reuters)
• The Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Almaz Atambayev and the President of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao meet to discuss Kyrgyz participation in a Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline. (Radio Free Europe)
• Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, announces plans to abolish term limits for the President by changing the Constitution. (BBC)
• Japan is hit by a 5.3 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Honshū. (Bloomberg)

• Six members of the Iranian security forces are killed in a helicopter crash near the town of Piranshahr close to the Iraqi border. (Daily Times, Pakistan)
• Five people are killed when the top floor of a building in South Mumbai, India, collapses on an adjoining building.
• A dozen Taliban die in an attempted ambush of a joint patrol of Afghan police and Coalition troops in Helmand province. (Times of India)
• France circulates a draft United Nations Security Council resolution extending the mandate of the 13,600 United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon. (AP via the Washington Post)
• Interpol issues warrants for the arrest of Saddam Hussein's eldest daughter Raghad Hussein and his first wife Sajida Khairalla Tulfa for providing support to Iraqi insurgents. (NYT)
• Texas oil executive David B. Chalmers, Jr pleads guilty to wire fraud connected with the United Nations oil-for-food program associated with the United Nations. (AP via Houston Chronicle)
• Russia, China and four Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation conduct war games in the southern Ural Mountains area of Russia with Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, proposing that they be held regularly. (The Hindu)
• A Nile boat sinks off the northern Egyptian town of Beni Suef with dozens feared missing. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• 172 coal miners are trapped in a flooded mine in Shandong province in eastern China. (AFP via ABC News Australia) (ChinaDaily)
• The search for six miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah is suspended indefinitely after the death of three rescue workers. (AP via Forbes)
• Vladimir Putin announces that Russia will resume patrols over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by its nuclear-capable Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers after a 15-year hiatus. (NYT)
• Ashley Mote, a Member of the European Parliament for South East England, is convicted on 21 counts of fraud. (BBC)
• Hurricane Dean:
  • Hurricane Dean intensifies into a Category 4 hurricane after hitting the Lesser Antilles. (Reuters)
  • The Prime Minister of Jamaica Portia Simpson-Miller convenes an emergency cabinet meeting as it is likely to cross Jamaica on Sunday. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
  • BP starts evacuating its oil and gas workers from the Gulf of Mexico ahead of Hurricane Dean. (The Scotsman)
  • The Governor of Louisiana Kathleen Blanco declares a state of emergency as a precaution. (Governor's Office)
• Stock prices in the United States and Europe rally after the Federal Reserve cuts its discount lending rate to restore confidence in the banking sector after the subprime mortgage crisis. (Bloomberg)
• 2007 Peru earthquake
  • The death toll from the 2007 Peru earthquake rises to 510 with another 1,500 people being injured. Aid reaches affected areas with President Alan García appealing for calm after reports of looting. (AP via Forbes)
  • A powerful aftershock earthquake of 5.9 magnitude hits the Huancavelica region. (The Scotsman)
  • Over 600 inmates escape from the Tambo de Mora Prison in Chincha, 25 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake, after it collapses. (AP via the International Herald Tribune)
• The International Atomic Energy Agency and the United States Government advises that North Korea is co-operating with plans to shut down its nuclear program. (AP via Forbes)
• Four people die as a United States Marine Corps helicopter crashes on a training flight north of Yuma, Arizona. (AP via Houston Chronicle)
• Australian Prime Minister John Howard says the country has decided to export Uranium to India.
• Adriaan Vlok, South African Police Minister during the apartheid era, pleads guilty to one charge of attempted murder of black activist priest Frank Chikane by poisoning his underwear. He is given a suspended sentence of ten years in jail. (Reuters via the Age)
• The Parliament of Australia passes the Northern Territory Indigenous Bill making changes to the Australian welfare system and land rights. (ABC News Australia)
• 2007 Pacific typhoon season: Southeast China and Taiwan prepare for typhoon Sepat. (Xinhua)
• Six Islamic militants involved in planning the 2002 Bali bombings have their sentences reduced by five months due to good behaviour. (News Limited)

• Rescuers say that a fourth hole in the Crandall Canyon mine near Huntington, Utah shows no sign of six trapped miners. (AP via Houston Chronicle)
• The death toll of a bridge collapse in Fenghuang, China rises to 64. (AP via IHT)
• A fire in the former Deutsche Bank Building near New York's Ground Zero kills two firefighters. (AP via Yahoo! News)
• Typhoon Sepat makes landfall in the Chinese province of Fujian after nearly a million people have been evacuated. (Xinhua)
• Two more suspects are arrested in relation to a triple murder in a Newark, New Jersey elementary schoolyard. (CNN)
• North Korea launches a flood relief program to help the hundreds of thousands of people left homeless. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Somalia:
  • An armed clash between two Somali clans in the village of Goobo results in at least 16 people being killed and 30 injured. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
  • The Deputy Governor of Mogadishu Abdullahi Hassan Geney survives an assassination attempt after his car hits a landmine. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• One person is dead, four people are missing, after a fire at the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall. (BBC)
• Survivors of the 2007 Peru earthquake flee the worst hit areas as looting intensifies. The President of Peru Alan García sends another 1,000 troops to the area. (Reuters) (AP via IHT)
• Voters in the Maldives go to the polls in a constitutional referendum to decide between a presidential or parliamentary system of government. (NDTV)
• Voters in Kazakhstan go to the polls for the Kazakhstani legislative election, 2007. (BBC via ABC News Australia)
• Scientists announce that Pavlof Volcano in Alaska is set to have a huge eruption that could disrupt air traffic. (AP)
• Afghanistan:
  • A suicide bomber kills at least 15 people in the southern Kandahar province. (Voice of America)
  • A female German aid worker is taken captive at gunpoint in Kabul. (BBC)
• Hurricane Dean (2007):
  • Hurricane Dean has already claimed three lives in the Lesser Antilles and is due to pass south of Haiti and the Dominican Republic en route to Jamaica where emergency shelters have been opened. (BBC)
  • Hurricane Dean is expected to intensify to a Category 5 hurricane. (RTT News)
  • Cuba's National Civil Defense declares a state of alert for the following provinces: Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguín, Las Tunas and Camagüey. (La Prensa)
  • NASA shortens a spacewalk during the current Space Shuttle Endeavour mission so that the crew can prepare for a Tuesday landing to avoid Hurricane Dean. (BBC)
  • U.S. President George W. Bush preapproves an emergency declaration for Texas if Hurricane Dean hits the state. (Reuters)
  • Mexican authorities evacuate tourists from the resort city of Cancún on the Yucatán Peninsula which Hurricane Dean is expected to hit late Monday or early Tuesday. (AP via IHT)
• An Atlas Jet plane en route from Nicosia in Cyprus to Istanbul in Turkey is hijacked. Some passengers were freed while the plane refueled in Antalya in southern Turkey. All 142 people escape unhurt while the hijackers surrender. (Xinhua) (Reuters via Sydney Morning Herald) (AP via Houston Chronicle)
• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says he will contend in the upcoming presidential election "because the country needs him."
• Rescuers race to reach over 180 coal miners trapped in two flooded mines in Shandong province in China. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• At least one person is dead and thousands evacuated as Typhoon Sepat hits Taiwan. (Times of India)

• Indonesia raises the lava alert for Mount Karangetang on the resort island of Siau as authorities move to evacuate those most at risk. (Reuters)
• Rescue workers start pumping water from a flooded coal mine in Xintai, Shandong where 172 Chinese miners are trapped. (CNN)
• United States floods:
  • The Governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty declares a state of emergency in six Minnesota counties as a result of flooding with six deaths reported. (AP via West Central Tribune)
  • At least two people die and another three are missing after the remains of Tropical Storm Erin hit Oklahoma. (Reuters via New Zealand Herald)
  • Twelve people have died in the midwest of the United States with Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio also badly affected. (AP via Forbes)
• A week-long heat wave in the southeast and midwest of the United States has caused the deaths of 49 with 12 deaths in Memphis, Tennessee. (AP via Fox News)
• The Philippines army captures an Abu Sayyaf base on the island of Basilan following a heavy struggle with at least 35 soldiers and militants killed in the battle. (Reuters via Canada.com)
• Kazakhstani legislative election, 2007: President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party wins 88 per cent of the vote in yesterday's election and will be the only party represented in the Majilis or Kazakh parliament. (ABC News Australia) (AAP via News Limited)
• Typhoon Sepat spawns a tornado that kills nine people in Zhejiang Province, China. More than a million people have been evacuated as a result of the typhoon. (Reuters via CNN)
• Jamaica prepares for Hurricane Dean with the hurricane already responsible for at least eight deaths on Caribbean islands St. Lucia, Martinique and Dominica. It is expected to hit the Cayman Islands on Monday and the Yucatán Peninsula on Tuesday with further impact on Mexico or Texas later in the week. (CTV) (AP via Forbes)
• Voters in Thailand go to the polls for a referendum to decide whether to accept or reject a new constitution. A majority of voters appear to have supported it.(BBC), (Xinhua)
• A German woman taken hostage yesterday in Kabul, Afghanistan is found during a police raid on a house. Multiple abductors arrested. (BBC)
• The second fire this year in the same building in Pakistan kills 1, injures four. (Wikinews)

• Delegates from the Russian Communist Youth Union vote 98-1 to back the pro-Kremlin, center-left party A Just Russia in December's State Duma elections. (The Moscow Times)
• NASA clears the Space Shuttle Endeavour for an early landing tomorrow at Cape Canaveral. (Reuters)
• The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to extend the African Union Mission to Somalia. (BBC)
• At least 20 people have died as a result of flooding in the United States with further flooding likely in Minnesota and Wisconsin. (New York Times)
• A military judge dismisses two charges against Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, a United States Army officer in charge of the interrogation centre at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Jordan still faces several more charges including cruelty and maltreatment of detainees, disobeying a superior officer and failure to obey orders. (Reuters via News Limited)
• The thirteenth and final victim is recovered from the site of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge Collapse. (AP via CNN)
• An earthquake of 6.5 magnitude hits south of the Philippines. (The Gulf Times)
• The Grand National Assembly starts voting to select a new President of Turkey. The frontrunner Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül fails to achieve a necessary two-thirds majority in the first round with 341 out of 550 but is highly likely to be elected in later rounds when a simple majority of 50 per cent is required. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick agrees to a plea deal to charges of conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and conspiracy to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture in Richmond, Virginia, USA. (ESPN.com)
• British police have released CCTV footage of a motorcyclist shortly before his murder on the M40 motorway near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. (Sky)
• Muslim groups occupy Sikh Bhai Taro Singh Jee temple in Lahore, Pakistan
• An official of Murray Energy Corp, the operators of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, say that six trapped miners "may never be found". (Wikinews)
• An earthquake of 5.2 magnitude hits northern Tanzania 85 kilometres north of Arusha. (Reuters)
• Mohammed Ali al-Hasani, the Shia governor of Iraq's southern Al Muthanna Governorate is killed by a roadside bomb at Samawa. (BBC)
• The Tasmanian Labor Party expels Harry Quick, the Member of the Australian House of Representatives for Franklin. (ABC News Australia)
• Hurricane Dean:
  • The eye of Hurricane Dean rapidly moves westward, passing just south of Jamaica, bringing strong hurricane-force winds and storm surges to bear down on the island nation, though the strongest wind is believed to have been offshore. (CNN)
  • Mexico evacuates tourists from the Yucatán Peninsula and anthropologists prepare Mayan heritage sites for the possible impact. (AP via Washington Post)
  • Hurricane Dean strengthens to Category 5 status as it already claims the lives of 11 people on Caribbean islands. (Reuters)
  • Petróleos Mexicanos evacuates 18,000 offshore workers from sites in the southern Gulf of Mexico. (AP via the Houston Chronicle)
• A summit between US president George W. Bush, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, and about 30 CEOs from the three countries begins in the resort town of Montebello, Quebec, near Ottawa. The talks will deal with the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Protesters representing a variety of issues hold demonstrations regarding the exclusion of civil society from the talks and the secrecy of the process; police respond with tear gas. (CBC News)
• A China Airlines Boeing 737 airplane explodes less than a minute after all passengers and crew are evacuated shortly after landing at Naha, Japan. (Wikinews)

• Laura Richardson of the U.S. Democratic Party is elected in the special election for California's 37th congressional district, replacing Juanita Millender-McDonald who died last spring. (San Jose Mercury News)
• The Bank of Japan and Reserve Bank of Australia inject more funds into money markets to ensure stock market liquidity. (AP via Taipei Times)
• Ziad Fariz resigns as the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan following a government decision not to increase fuel taxes. The Cabinet also sets an election date on November 20. (AP via the IHT)
• The National Assembly of Venezuela gives initial unanimous approval to constitutional amendments that would remove term limits on the position of President of Venezuela currently held by Hugo Chávez. (CBS)
• Jailed Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari is released on bail after more than 100 days in detention. (NYT)
• The Central Intelligence Agency releases a report critical of the Agency's performance prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. (NYT)
• 2007 Lebanon conflict: Fatah al-Islam fighters battling the Lebanese army in a refugee camp have asked for a ceasefire to allow their families and remaining civilians to be evacuated. (Aljazeera)
• Space Shuttle Endeavour lands safely at Kennedy Space Center at 12:32:29 EDT (16:32:29 UTC). (IHT)
• Five thousand Dhaka University students in Bangladesh riot, resulting in major disruption to the university with 150 students being injured. (USA Today)
• Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has called for independent institutions in Libya including a central bank, a high court and media. (Reuters)
• Hurricane Dean:
  • Hurricane Dean makes landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, just north of Chetumal, near the Belize border, at Category 5 strength.(BBC)
  • There are no reports of deaths but 11 people have died elsewhere as a result of the hurricane. (Reuters)
  • Hurricane Dean has wiped out Dominica's banana crop and causes major damage to the Jamaican crop. (AP via International Herald Tribune)
• The governments of Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are negotiating over a line demarcating each nation's respective rights to petroleum in the Atlantic Ocean. The DRC is expected to gain exploration rights to billions of untapped barrels worth of oil. (People's Daily)
• Dr Mohamed Haneef wins his bid in the Federal Court to have his Australian work visa reinstated after Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews canceled it after Dr Haneef was charged with "providing material support to a terrorist organization." (ABC News Australia) Andrews later says the Australian government would appeal against the court ruling.
• An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 hits the Indonesian province of Papua 101 kilometers from Tanahmerah. (The Philippine Star)
• Fifteen former associates of Saddam Hussein, including his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, face a trial in the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal for their alleged role in suppressing a Shiite uprising in 1991. (BBC)
• Winds equivalent to a Category 2 cyclone buffet the Byron Bay area of New South Wales before moving north to the Gold Coast area of Queensland. (ABC News Australia)

• War in Afghanistan:
  • Two Canadian Army soldiers are killed and a Radio Canada journalist injured in an explosion. (CNN)
  • A German engineer kidnapped by the Taliban pleads for help on Afghan television. (CNN)
• The Revolutionary Congolese Movement (MRC), the Front for the Patriotic Resistance of Ituri (FRPI), and the Front of National Integration (FNI) rebel groups agree to disarm and cooperate with the MONUC peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Scoop)
• Pakistan's Supreme Court says Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is not a law-enforcement agency or a customs authority.
• Hurricane Dean makes its final landfall near Tecolutla, Veracruz, Mexico, 100 miles north of the city of Veracruz, as a Category 2 storm. The Red Cross reports only one injury and no deaths from Dean's first landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula. (CNN)
• War in Iraq
  • An American UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashes in northern Iraq killing all 14 soldiers on board. (Wikinews)
  • A suicide bomber kills at least 20 people and wounding 40 more in the town of Baiji. (RTÉ)
• Voters in Kiribati go to the polls for the Kiribatian parliamentary election, 2007. (AP via IHT)
• Three Pakistani soldiers are killed in an attack by suspected pro-Taliban militants on a checkpoint in Bannu in the North-West Frontier Province. (BBC)
• Typhoon Sepat has killed at least 36 people in southeast China in the past week. (CNN)
• The U.S. Campaign for Burma claims that Myanmar's military government has arrested at least nine leaders of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students. (AP via the Guardian)
• UK government plans to spend £5.2bn in the next four years on Identity Card and related schemes. (The Register)

• Chororapithecus abyssinicus, a 10 million year old fossil found in Ethiopia, may prove that the last common ancestor of gorillas and humans existed 2 million years earlier than previously thought.(Nature)
• The Governor General of Jamaica Kenneth Octavius Hall announces that the Jamaican general election, 2007 is postponed to September 3 due to the impact of Hurricane Dean. (Reuters)
• The Nigerian government extends a curfew in Port Harcourt after hundreds die in gang violence this month. (Reuters Alertnet)
• A storm in Chicago injures 40 people and disrupts the transport network. (AP via WSB)
• Top British tennis player Tim Henman has confirmed he will retire from the sport after this year's Davis Cup in Croatia. (Sky News)
• The Supreme Court of Pakistan issues a ruling allowing former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif to return to Pakistan.
• Officials in Ohio declare a state of emergency in nine counties as a result of flooding. (Reuters)
• Two people are killed in Ermera, East Timor in another outbreak of political violence. (ABC News)
• The South African Communist Party launches an investigation into what happened to a political donation of 500,000 rand allegedly made in 2002. (BBC)
• The European Union lifts a ban on the export of British livestock, meat and dairy products imposed after a recent foot and mouth disease outbreak in Surrey. (The Telegraph)
• MySpace and MTV join forces to let candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election hold online webcasts with young people. (AFP via the Melbourne Age)
• At least 25 people are killed, 22 arrested and five abducted as suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq militants attack a Sunni mosque in Baquba, Iraq. (BBC)
• Japanese political activist Yoshihiro Tanjo is charged with intimidation for cutting off his little finger and sending it to the Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe over Shinzo's refusal to visit the Yasukuni shrine to commemorate Japan's World War II dead. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Hurricane Dean is downgraded to a tropical depression over Mexico after killing 20 people in the Caribbean. (AP via Fox News)
• Two youths aged 18 and 14 are arrested in Liverpool, England on suspicion of shooting dead an 11-year-old boy in Croxteth. (The Times and PA)
• More than 1200 Ford workers in Victoria, Australia are stood down due to an industrial dispute over unpaid entitlements owed to workers in a Ford supplier. (AAP via News Limited)
• Vendors selling puffer fish meat as salmon has led to 15 deaths and 115 people being sickened in Thailand over the past three years. (AP via IHT)
• U.S. Customs and U.S. Navy officials seized a submarine-like vessel filled with $352 million worth of cocaine off the Guatemalan coast. (prices given by CIA) (AP via Forbes)

• Former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak, whose arrest ended her career, apologized to U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, her former romantic rival and the woman she is accused of terrorizing. (Los Angeles Times)
• Former Ku Klux Klan member James Seale is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1964 murder of two black men in the U.S. state of Mississippi. (Reuters via News Limited)
• The Georgian government announces that its forces have fired on a Russian aircraft that was claimed to have violated Georgian airspace, possibly shooting it down. (BBC)
• United States District Court judge William Hoeveler rules against former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega returning to Panama after he completes his sentence in a United States prison stating that there was no reason why he shouldn't be extradited to France to face a prison term there. (Reuters)
• Citing a "very reliable" source at the University of Miami, the Swedish broad sheet newspaper Norra Skåne reports that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is dead. (Norra Skåne) (The Expressen)
• Part of the Montreal Metro and the street above are closed off after the formation of cracks at McGill station, causing severe traffic problems in downtown. There is no indication as to when the road or station will be re-opened. (CBC)
• At least 20 people are killed in Peloponnese, Greece as a result of 150 wildfires burning out of control: two regions have been declared as disaster areas. (Athens News Agency)
• A U.S. circuit judge sentences John Couey to death for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl Jessica Lunsford in Citrus County, Florida. (ABC News America)
• Russia sells Venezuela 98 Ilyushin Il-114 aircraft. (Reuters)
• Flood warnings are in place in 10 US states from Ohio to Texas with at least 25 people believed to have died in the past week. (BBC)
• Mexican oil platforms resume production following the end of the threat from Hurricane Dean. (Reuters)
• Three British Army soldiers die in Afghanistan in a suspected friendly fire incident. (BBC)
• Bangladesh eases curfew arrangements in place in its major cities following a reduction in street violence. (Reuters)
• Sixty suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq gunmen attack police facilities in Samarra, Iraq, resulting in at least 3 deaths and 9 injuries. (AP via Fox News)
• Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, urges the Government of Myanmar to show restraint in its treatment of students and pro-democracy activists who have been protesting against the regime. (ABC News Australia)
• At least four Pakistan Army soldiers die in a suicide bomber attack on a military convoy near Miranshah, the main city of North Waziristan near the Afghan border. (BBC)
• The explosion of a car bomb outside a police station in the Basque city of Durango, Spain, is believed to be the first attack by the separatist group ETA since it called off a ceasefire in June. (AP via CNN)
• Dozens of people are rescued from floods on the Sunshine Coast of the Australian state of Queensland. (ABC News)
• Two people are killed and eleven are injured when a hot air balloon bursts into flames in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. (CNN)

• A lawyer for missing coal miners in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah says that a sixth probe has not found enough space for the men to survive. (AP via AZ Central)
• Ongoing flooding in the midwestern United States affects six states and claim at least 26 lives (MSNBC)
• Twin blasts panic people in Hyderabad, India. A gas cylinder explosion at a food mart kills 27, injures 50. Another blast at a park kills at least 14.
• 2007 Greek fires: More than 53 people, including children, die during the Peloponnese forest fires in Greece and many are missing in burnt villages. Huge fires also occur in the Imitos mountain area, Filothei, Athens and also in the Styra, Euboea and Keratea regions. The Greek government declares a national emergency and seeks assistance from the European Union. (BBC) (Times of India) (BBC)
• The 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics get underway in Osaka, Japan. (BBC)
• On the 132-year anniversary of the first crossing, Bulgarian swimmer Petar Stoychev becomes the fastest person ever to swim across the English Channel. (Timed Finals)
• Voters in Nauru go to the polls for the Nauruan parliamentary election, 2007. (ABC News Australia)
• Horse racing meetings throughout Australia are cancelled due to an outbreak of equine influenza in Centennial Park stables next to Sydney's Randwick Racecourse. Peter McGauran, the Federal Minister for Agriculture, issues a 72-hour ban on horse movement throughout Australia. (ABC News Australia) (ABC News)

• Gunmen raid a farm in Putumayo Department in Colombia killing 9 people with authorities blaming FARC. (Associated Press in International Herald Tribune)
• 2007 Midwest flooding: Tornadoes hit parts of central and southeast Ohio as hundreds of thousands of people in the Midwest are without power. (AP via Fox News)
• A series of explosions in Mogadishu, Somalia kills three people. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• The Islamist militant group Fatah al-Islam seeks to extract its wounded from the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. (Reuters Alertnet)
• An Antonov plane carrying tin ore crashes in Kongolo, Tanganyika District of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Wikinews)
• Five Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political parties sign a deal forming a new "Moderates Front" supporting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (BBC)
• The equine influenza outbreak spreads in Australia threatening the Spring Carnival including the Melbourne Cup. (Reuters via the Washington Post)
• Bird flu breaks out at a German farm. (Washington Post)
• Ludwig Scotty's government wins a landslide victory in the Nauruan parliamentary election, 2007 with René Harris as the only member of the Opposition to win a seat. (ABC News Australia)
• 25 August 2007 Hyderabad bombings
  • Seven more unexploded bombs are found in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India a day after the bombings. (Reuters via News Limited)
  • The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy blames Pakistani and Bangladeshi terrorists for the bombings. (Bloomberg)
• 2007 Greek fires:
  • European Union countries send firefighters and equipment to help fight hundreds of fires.(BBC and AFP via ABC News Australia)
  • The fires threaten Olympia, the site of the Ancient Olympic Games. (Financial Times via MSNBC)
  • Greek authorities arrest and charge two people in connection with the fires. (CNN)
  • The Greek Government offers a reward of €1,000,000 to help catch arsonists. (BBC)

• Taliban rebels release 5 more South Koreans they are keeping hostage since July.
• Michael Vick, former National Football League star, arrived in US Federal Circuit Court in Richmond, Virginia and pleads guilty to federal dogfighting charges and then issues a public apology at the Omni Richmond Hotel. Sentencing by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson will be in December 2007. (Reuters) USA Today transcript of apology Newsday.com LA times
• Muhammed Ishaq Khakwani resigns as Pakistan minister of state for Information Technology over General Pervez Musharraf campaigning for re-election as the President of Pakistan while still an army officer. (The Hindu)
• In a Der Spiegel report, Chinese hackers are accused of breaking into the computer systems of the German Chancellor's office and three other government ministries. (Times Online). Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expresses "grave concern" at the allegations. (Forbes).
• The Montreal Metro Green Line and most of Downtown that were closed off on Friday reopens. Emergency reparation are made on a nearby building whose concrete side panels were in danger of falling off. The Bay considers suing the city, alleging that construction work is the source of the cracks. (CBC) (Radio-Canada)
• U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is revealed to have pleaded guilty on August 8 to a charge of disorderly conduct at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. (McClatchy Post Bulletin)
• Pakistan and Bangladesh reject charges by India that terror outfits operating in their countries were behind the Hyderabad bomb blasts which killed 42 and injured over 60.
• Indonesia's karate team boycotts an Asian championship in Malaysia to protest at the beating of one of its official referees by the local police. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announces his resignation. (NYT)
• Ten people are arrested in Russia over the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (BBC)
• Southeast Asian nations will seek $2 billion to build a rail link from Kunming in China to Singapore. (Reuters)
• Continuation of an equine influenza outbreak in Australia could threaten security at next week's APEC meeting (AP via IHT)
• A fire breaks out at the Jebel Ali port in the United Arab Emirates, triggering explosions at a chemical storage depot. (Reuters)
• The Vatican establishes a low cost charter flight service to Catholic shrines in France, Poland, Spain and the Middle East for pilgrims. (BBC)
• A report from the National People's Congress environment and resources protection committee finds that high levels of pollution in the Huai River and its tributaries poses a "threat to the water safety of one sixth of the country's 1.3 billion population". (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Prescott announces he will retire as a Member of Parliament at the next election. (BBC)
• The Flight Data Recorder is retrieved from the wreckage of Adam Air Flight 574. (Wikinews)
• Bluegrass Army Depot Sarin(GB) leak in Lexington, Kentucky. Officials reported the Sarin levels 85 times above the safe limit. The first leak was detected at 3:49PM.

• A total lunar eclipse takes place in the early morning hours across most of North America and the eastern Pacific Ocean region. (Canwest via Ottawa Citizen)
• The Supreme Court of Chile confirms a life sentence for Hugo Salas Wenzel, a Chilean general under former dictator Augusto Pinochet, for his role in the murder of 12 opponents of the regime. (BBC)
• The Sudanese Government and the United Nations launch a flood appeal to help victims of recent flooding which has killed 89 people and destroyed 73,000 homes. (BBC)
• South Korean hostage crisis: Officials in South Korea's Blue House claim that the Taliban has agreed to release 19 South Korean hostages. (Reuters)
• Battle of Karbala (2007): At least 52 people have been killed in fighting in Karbala, as thousands of Shia pilgrims gathered in the city for an annual festival. (Reuters)
• Scientists in Colombia discover new poisonous frog, dubbed the 'golden frog of Supatá,' in a remote mountainous region. (Fox News)
• A United States federal judge orders the extradition of former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega to France, where he has already been convicted in absentia on money-laundering charges. (CNN)
• Abdullah Gül of the Justice and Development Party is elected President of Turkey. (BBC)
• The Cockpit voice recorder is retrieved from the wreckage of Adam Air Flight 574, 24 hours after the recovery of the Flight data recorder. (ABC News Australia)
• The Ontario Court of Appeal acquits Steven Truscott of the 1959 murder of Lynne Harper, declaring the original trial that had sentenced the then-14-year-old to hang was a miscarriage of justice. The case has been a cause célèbre for almost fifty years. (CBC)

• Baiji, a river dolphin recently declared functional extinct, is witnessed in Anhui, China. (New York Times)
• Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is all set to return to Pakistan after seven years of exile.
• The Wyoming Republican Party votes to move its nominating convention to January 5, 2008, making it the first event in the nation for the Republicans in the United States presidential election, 2008. (MSNBC)
• The Red Cross reports that at least 17,000 are still missing from the former Yugoslavia, including 13,400 from the Bosnian wars, 2,300 from the Croatian conflict and 2,047 from the Kosovo conflict. (AFP via NYT)
• Moqtada al-Sadr suspends the activities of his Mehdi Army militia in Iraq for six months. (BBC)
• Senator Tim Johnson announces that he will return to the United States Senate on September 5 after recovering from brain surgery since last December. (Reuters)
• The United States Department of Defense's inspector general launches an investigation into the United States military's inability to account for weapons sent to Iraq after reports that Kurdish militants were using US weapons to attack Turkey. (Reuters)
• Thousands of people protest in Chile against the economic policies of the President Michelle Bachelet with 350 arrests made when they attempt to enter the grounds of the presidential palace. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
• A California produce company recalls bagged fresh spinach after it tests positive to salmonella. (CNN)
• The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) claim to have captured a Sudanese army base in the Kordofan province of Sudan. (Reuters via ABC)
• A NASA internal investigation finds no evidence of heavy drinking or drunkenness amongst astronauts prior to missions. (NYT)
• The United States Senate Republican Party leadership requests that Senator Larry Craig of Idaho stand aside from his Senate committees until the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics makes a ruling on his situation. Senator Craig agrees. (WSJ)
• John Holmes, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, warns that refugees of the Darfur conflict are arming themselves and may soon be able to defend themselves if the Sudanese government renews its attacks. (BBC)
• Three Palestinian children are killed in an explosion between Beit Lahiya and the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip caused by Israeli tank fire. The Israeli Defence Forces later claim they were aiming for rocket launchers in the area directed towards Israel, but eyewitnesses and medical sources said that there were no gunmen or rocket launchers at the scene. (BBC) (YNet)
• A 15-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the murder of British schoolboy Rhys Jones. (Sky News)
• Ten people are trapped alive in a collapsed apartment building in Baku, Azerbaijan with at least eight people having died. (Reuters via News Limited)
• The Taliban release twelve South Korean hostages of the 19 they have been holding. (BBC)
• A curfew is imposed in the Indian city of Agra after angry mobs clash with police resulting in one death and 50 police are injured. (BBC)
• Prison officers in the United Kingdom call a surprise 24-hour strike. (Daily Telegraph)
• The United States releases seven Iranians hours after detaining them in a Baghdad hotel. (AP via Fox News)
• Three people are killed - including a father and son - in a "targeted incident" involving firearms at a house in Bishop's Stortford. Two others are injured, but a 3 year-old girl is unharmed. Police are hunting "two Asian men" in connection with the attack. (BBC)
• 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident

• Militants fire rockets on a United States military aircraft containing three US Senators (Richard Shelby, Mel Martinez and James Inhofe) as well as Rep. Bud Cramer as it leaves Baghdad for Amman in Jordan. (CNN)
• At least 10 Malians are killed and several others injured after their vehicle hits a land mine. (Voice of America)
• 2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan: The Taliban releases the remaining South Korean hostages. (ABC News Australia)
• Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, states that he will return to Pakistan from exile after winning a case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. (chosun)
• An Iowa district court rules that same-sex couples can marry based on the Iowa constitution guarantee of equal protection. (CNN)
• United States health officials issue a consumer alert for people to check their freezers for contaminated meat. (Reuters via CNN)
• Darfur rebels accuse the Sudanese Government of bombing South Darfur. (Reuters via ABC News Online)
• Two trains collide in Nova Oguacu, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, killing at least eight and injuring 40. (Bloomberg)
• The Torre Mayor in Mexico City is evacuated after a car containing explosives is found in its carpark. Part of the building, Latin America's tallest, had also been evacuated the day before after police received an anonymous bomb threat. (Bloomberg)
• Waziristan War: Scores of Pakistani soldiers have gone missing near the Afghanistan border, amid claims from pro-Taleban militants that they have kidnapped the troops. (BBC)
• The United Nations Headquarters building in New York City is evacuated after vials containing the chemical agent phosgene are discovered. (CNN)
• The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah claims its militants have fired a missile into southern Israeli city of Sderot in response to Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip. Israeli sources said the rocket landed on a building and caused damages and panic. (Xinhuanet)
• Scores of Italians are arrested in a crackdown on the 'ndrangheta organised crime clans active in Calabria. (AP via CNN)
• Cao Gangchuan, the Defense Minister of People's Republic of China and Masahiko Komura, Defense Minister of Japan. meet and agree to strengthen exchanges. (Xinhua)
• The Chinese Finance Minister, Jin Renqing, resigns due to "personal reasons". (BBC)
• A report into the Virginia Tech massacre criticises staff for not acting quickly enough after Seung-Hui Cho's first killings. (BBC) (Report)
• The Anglican Church of Kenya consecrates two bishops from the Episcopal Church in the United States of America after they left the Episcopal Church due to concerns that the Church was consecrating gay bishops. (BBC)
• More than 450 people have been arrested after protests in which police used tear gas and water cannons in Chile's capital, Santiago. (BBC)
• Helping Angels was founded by Poesy Liang.

• The British Royal Family, including Prince Charles, Prince Harry and Prince William, and Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and hundreds more, gather for a memorial service for Diana, Princess of Wales, ten years after her death, at Guard's Chapel in London. (BBC)
• The President of French Polynesia Gaston Tong Sang loses a vote of no-confidence and is forced to resign. (AFP via News Limited)
• A fuel spill pollutes Puerto Rico's southwest coast from the town of Guanica to Guayanilla Bay. (AP via Fox News)
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • The United Nations mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo sends troops to the town of Katale in the Masisi district of North Kivu province due to heavy fighting between the army and supporters of rebel General Laurent Nkunda. (All Africa)
  • The World Health Organization reports an outbreak of an unknown disease with a high mortality rate in the province of Kasai Occidental A form of hemorrhagic fever is suspected to be the cause of the outbreak. (World Health Organization)
• U.S. Democratic Party fundraiser Norman Hsu surrenders to the San Mateo County sheriff's office on a 15-year-old felony warrant. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Twelve Chileans including a Catholic priest are charged for alleged involvement in death squads during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet. (BBC)
• The Mine Safety and Health Administration indefinitely suspends the search for six missing coal miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine in the U.S. state of Utah. (AP via Fox News)
• National Board of Revenue (NBR) of Bangladesh finds former premier Khaleda Zia having bank accounts in several names but with the same address.
• Canadian police arrest a man in Toronto found with three letter bombs in the boot of his car. (ABC News Australia)
• Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, states that he will meet with FARC guerillas to mediate a dispute with the Government of Colombia about the release of captives. (Reuters Alertnet)
• Provisional data from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office shows that the 2007 British summer was the wettest on record with five areas of England on flood warning. (BBC)
• Mike Nifong, the prosecutor in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, is found in criminal contempt of court for lying to a judge in the case and is sentenced to a day in jail. (Associated Press via New York Times)
• An explosion in Ingushetia near the Chechen border kills four Russian police officers. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• The U.S. Kroger supermarket chain recalls its "Southern-Style" and "Mustard" potato salads due to concerns over E. coli bacteria. (AP via CNN Money)
• Thousands of people protest against the ruling Hamas party in the Gaza Strip. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Talks aimed at negotiating peace in Iraq begin in Finland. (Wikinews)
• Waziristan War: The Pakistan government disputes claims by pro-Taliban militants that they have captured 300 Pakistan Army soldiers stating that a convoy of 100 soldiers has been trapped and they are working to relieve them. (BBC)
• Negotiators from 158 countries reach rough agreements on greenhouse gas targets at a United Nations climate change conference. (AP via Google News)
• Republican Senator John Warner announces that he will not seek re-election to the United States Senate. (Bloomberg)
• Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida are indicted for carrying explosive materials across state lines with one indicted for terrorism charges. (AP via CNN)
• The Secretary-General of the United Nations orders an investigation into how hazardous material from Iraq came to be in the United Nations headquarters in New York. (Xinhua)
• White House Press Secretary Tony Snow resigns, effective September 14, 2007. Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino will replace him after his resignation is effective. (AP)
• A tank truck crashes into four minibuses in Kisii, Kenya, resulting in at least 29 deaths and 30 injuries. (AP via IHT)
• The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown and the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy threaten the government of Sudan with sanctions over Darfur. (Reuters)
• While Greece brings the 2007 Greek forest fires under control, 8 people have died in 48 hours in forest fires in northern Algeria, six firefighters die in Croatia and the village of Les Useres in the Valencia region of Spain is evacuated. (AFP via ABC News Australia) (Euronews)
• Angry Victorian farmers trap the Premier of Victoria John Brumby and Rural and Regional Development Minister Jacinta Allan as well as advisers and media in a machinery yard outside Colbinabbin, east of Bendigo to raise concerns about the Government's water plans. (Herald Sun)
• War in Afghanistan
  • At least two people are killed and ten others injured by a suicide bomb at the Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan. (BBC), (Voice of America)
  • At least ten civilians are killed and several more injured in Kunar province as Taliban rockets aimed at a US military base hit a nearby village. (Voice of America)
  • Nearly two dozen Afghan militants die in heavy fighting in Helmand province. (AFP via Google News)
• Malaysia celebrates 50 years of independence.