At least three Qassam rockets landed in the western Negev, despite Israel Defense Forces' Operation Blue Skies. At least one Qassam rocket landed in Sderot, in which the Red Dawn alert system was activated around 15:30. Two Qassam rockets landed in an open area near Israeli communities in the western Negev. In all the cases there were no injuries. (Ynetnews)
Disasters and accidents
Sydney, Australia swelters through its second hottest day in its history and its hottest new years day on record. The mercury was pushed up to 44.2°C (111.56°F) on Observatory Hill, Sydney and 45.2°C (113.36°F) on Sydney Airport. This heatwave caused 40 bushfires to emerge in Australia's east coast along with power blackouts.
Iranian PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad accuses European nations of trying to complete the Holocaust by creating a "Jewish camp" Israel in the Middle East. "Don't you think that continuation of genocide by expelling Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Isn't that an important question?" He went on to say that Europe should cede some of their territory for a Jewish state, and that anti-Semitism has a long history in Europe, while Jews have lived peacefully among Muslims for centuries. (Reuters)
Russian natural gas supplier Gazprom cuts gas supplies to Ukraine, following Ukraine's rejection of a 460% price increase. President Vladimir Putin had offered a three-month price freeze if Ukraine would agree to pay the higher price thereafter, but this was rejected. Ukraine pays US$50 per 1000 cubic metres, Russia claims the market rate is $230. (BBC)
Countries across Europe report reductions in gas supplies after Russia disconnected supplies to Ukraine yesterday. Russia accuses Ukraine of stealing 100 million cubic metres of gas yesterday from pipelines transiting the country; Ukraine denies this but has previously claimed the right to 15% of the gas as a transit toll. Hungary reports supplies are down by 40%, France and Italy by 30%, and Poland by 14%. Germany, Russia's principal customer, also reports reductions. Russian supplier Gazprom says that it will increase supplies and return them to normal by Tuesday night. (Sky News)
Eleven people are killed when the roof of an ice rink collapse in Bad Reichenhall, southern Germany, under the weight of recent snowfall, trapping some 50 skaters underneath. (CNN)
Severe storms affected East Java, Indonesia, leading to flooding and landslides. At least 57 people are believed to have been killed in the flooding and up to a further 200 people were assumed to be buried alive in the town of Cijeruk 350 kilometers east of Jakarta. (BBC)
Law and crime
Ugandan presidential candidate Kizza Besigye is released from prison. Besigye was arrested on November 14 on treason and rape charges. (News24)
The leader of the Maoistguerrillas in Nepal issued a statement that his group, the People's Liberation Army, will resume its war with the monarchy after a four-month truce. (New Kerala)
Sago Mine disaster: In West Virginia, US, family members now say only one trapped miner has been brought out alive from the collapsed coal mine. All 12 others are dead. Earlier news reports, at approximately 10:30 p.m. EST, indicated that 12 miners were found alive. Rescue crews found one body late Tuesday after 13 miners were trapped following an explosion on Monday. (Yahoo!)(ABC)
Russia-Ukraine gas dispute: The Russian and Ukrainian natural gas companies agree to end their dispute and resume gas supply to Ukraine under a complex price scheme in which OAO Gazprom will sell gas to the Rosukrenergo trading company (owned by Gazprom Bank and Raiffeisen Bank) for US$230 (E195) per 1,000 cubic meters as of Jan. 1, and Ukraine will buy gas from the company for US$95 (E80). (IHT)
Rescue workers are still battling to find survivors after the roof of an ice rink collapsed in Bad Reichenhall, southern Germany, leaving at least 10 people dead, some of them children. It is thought many are still trapped under the rubble. (BBC)
Jack Abramoff of the Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal pleads guilty to federal conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges. According to NPR, this puts Abramoff on the prosecutor's side and he is expected to cooperate in the continuing investigation that could involve "up to 20 members of Congress" (NPR). The court filing is available as a PDF on NPR.org
Mirant Corp., Atlanta, Georgia, a power generation company that filed for bankruptcy court protection in July 2003, emerges from Chapter 11 status after converting more than $6 billion of debt and liabilities into equity. (company website)[permanent dead link]
Conflict in Iraq: At least 50 die following a series of insurgent attacks across Iraq, including a suicide bomb at a Shia funeral which left 36 mourners dead. (BBC)
Dow Jones & Co., one of the world's most important financial publishers, announces its new CEO, Richard Zannino, takes over from Peter Kann. Since Mr. Zannino is not a reporter, this breaks a century-old tradition of keeping newsmen at the helm. (New York Sun)
A leaked intelligence report states that Iran has been "successfully scouring Europe" for the equipment needed to create a nuclear bomb, as well as parts for a ballistic missile. (The Guardian)
Fourteen people are killed, with many more feared dead, after a landslide destroys a village in Java after flash floods in the region. It is the second such incident in the region within a week. (BBC)
Seven Qassam rockets are fired on civilian Israeli targets by Palestinian insurgents. Two rockets land near a gas station on a road leading to the Israeli town of Sderot, and another five land near Kibbutz Zikim. There are no reports of injuries or damage. (B92)
At least 76 people have died following the collapse of a five-story hotel in Mecca. The death toll is expected to rise. Most of the dead are foreign Muslim pilgrims who had made their way there for the Hajj. (Forbes)
The People's Republic of China announces that the last surviving member of the Gang of Four, Yao Wenyuan, died on December 23, 2005. (BBC)
Zapatistas, led by Subcomandante Marcos, begin a six-month nationwide tour of Mexico to unite social movements for positive change. The tour coincides with presidential election campaigns. Marcos claims that the all the party candidates are liars and criminals who do not care about the Mexican people. (Scotsman)
A third child from the same family in eastern Turkey dies of H5N1avian influenza. Hülya Koçyiğit, 11, was the sister of Mehmet Ali, 14, who died last weekend, and of Fatma, 15, who died on Thursday. She was the third human fatality outside China and South-East Asia. A six-year-old brother is also being treated for the same disease. (Reuters)(Times)
Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in the United Kingdom, announces his resignation with immediate effect after unprecedented criticism from his party's MPs. This comes despite previous vows to stand in the leadership election he declared two days earlier. (BBC News)
Thirteen Sri Lankan soldiers are killed when a boat manned by Tamil Tiger rebels and filled with explosives rammed into a naval ship in the port city of Trincomalee. (CNN)
A strong earthquake measuring 6.7 on the moment magnitude scale hits Greece at 13:34. The earthquake's epicentre was in the sea region 25 km east of the island of Kythira, about 200 km south of Athens. Although it was felt as far as Sicily, south Italy, Egypt, and Amman in Jordan, it was not disastrous due to its deep hypocentre and the sea-bed epicentre. Little damage (mainly in Kythira) and few light injuries are reported. (CNN.com)(USGS)
Japanese whalers and anti-whaling environmental groups continue to clash in Antarctic waters near Australia, as calls for the Australian Government to intervene intensify. (ABC)
The foreign ministers of Britain, France, and Germany declare that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program have reached a "dead end." They recommend that Iran be referred to the United Nations Security Council, where the nation may face sanctions. (ABC)
The U.S. CIA attempts to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri by bombing Damadola, Pakistan, a village near the Afghanistan border. The attack kills at least 18 people: eight men, five women and five children. Anonymous U.S. government sources claim he was invited to a feast in the village, but did not attend. (CNN)
President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya has declared the ongoing drought a national disaster and has appealed for US$150 million to feed the hungry. 2.5 million people have been left close to starvation due to the lack of rains over the last three years and corrupt officials who steal food aid. (Reuters)
Russia and Ukraine are set to enter more diplomatic troubled waters over the alleged occupation of a lighthouse in the Black Sea. (BBC)
Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea, is alleged to have made a journey to China as part of a fact-finding mission in the region. (BBC)
The Stardust spacecraft has successfully landed in the Dugway Proving Ground after collecting dust samples from the cometWild 2. It is the first time extraterrestrial samples other than of the moon have been collected and the Stardust spacecraft is the fastest man-made object to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. (AP)
The French warship Clemenceau's transit through the Suez Canal is approved by Egyptian authorities. This decision is heavily criticized by Greenpeace and other environmental groups. (BBC)
Canadian diplomatGlyn Berry is killed and two Canadian soldiers critically injured by a bomb blast in Afghanistan. He is the first Canadian diplomat to be killed on duty. (CBC)
The United Nations appeals for US$240 million of food aid for West Africa to feed at least 10 million people affected by the food crisis, with Niger being the worst-affected country. (Reuters)
A dockworkers' strike in Europe has thousands of workers off the job in protest over proposed liberalization of European Union rules on port services. A demonstration outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg leaves twelve French police officers injured. (BBC)
Nine people die after jumping from a burning eight-story office building in the Russian city of Vladivostok amid allegations of blocked emergency exits and fire code violations. (CBC)
Iraq's electoral commission rules Monday that more than 99 percent of the ballots from the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections are valid, opening the way for a new government to start coming together. (CBS News)
Human Rights Watch in its annual report strongly condemns the United States, saying "it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush administration's strategy of interrogating terrorist suspects". (CBC) (BBC News) (Human Rights Watch press info)
The Tokyo Stock Exchange closes 20 minutes early due to a flood of sell orders overwhelming the capacity of its trading system. (AP/Yahoo!News)
China has recorded its sixth death from the avian flu virus, according to a report on the Chinese Health Ministry's Web site. (CNN)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il says he is committed to a peaceful resolution of the standoff over his country's nuclear ambitions. (CBS)
A building collapses on the outskirts of New Delhi on Wednesday, trapping at least 15 people in the rubble. (CNN)
Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels have ambushed a navy bus in Sri Lanka's northeast, injuring six sailors and a civilian. (CBC)
Two people who conspired to extort money from Wendy's by planting a severed finger in a bowl of chili and then suing the restaurant are sentenced to about ten years each in prison. (CTV)Archived 2006-02-19 at archive.today
Iran warns of a world oil crisis if sanctions are imposed over its nuclear program even as the United States and Europe struggle to get support for UN Security Council action. (AFP)[permanent dead link]
Italy will conclude its mission in Iraq by the end of the year, in the first clear timetable for Rome to withdraw its troops, says Defense Minister Antonio Martino. (ABC)
Isabelle Dinoire, the world's first face transplant recipient, is using her new lips to take up smoking again, which doctors fear could interfere with her healing and raise the risk of tissue rejection. (CTV)Archived 2007-01-21 at the Wayback Machine
At least thirty-one people have died during a four-day cold snap in Russia where temperatures have plunged to as low as −42 °C (−44 °F). (CBC)
A leaked memo from the United Kingdom's Foreign Office reveals that the British government had a strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured. (Guardian Unlimited).
At 4 o'clock UTCNASA's Pluto probe New Horizons crossed the orbit of the Moon, eight hours and thirty-five minutes after launch. This is a new Earth-to-Moon-distance flight record.
Three former workers at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio are indicted for repeatedly falsifying inspection reports and other information to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant's owner, FirstEnergy Corporation, accepts a plea bargain and $28 million in fines in lieu of criminal prosecution. (Toledo Blade)
Archeologists digging under the Roman Forum, Rome, Italy, discover a tomb estimated at 3000 years old, predating the creation of the Forum by several centuries. (USA Today)
Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have defused a huge car bomb found not far from their base near Kandahar. The discovery comes just days after a suicide bomber killed CanadiandiplomatGlyn Berry and seriously wounded three soldiers travelling with him. (CBC)
Embroiled in a nuclear standoff with the West, Iran says it is moving funds out of Europe to shield them from possible U.N. sanctions. (Reuters)
At least 52 people including five children are killed after an overcrowded bus plunges down a deep gorge in Indian Kashmir. (CBC)
Israel says it has proof that Iran financed the bombing of a fast-food restaurant in Tel Aviv, and that Syria carried it out. (ABC)
Rescue teams search for two West Virginia miners missing after a coal mine fire. (ABC)
Japan has halted the import of U.S. beef after an animal spine was found in a beef shipment at Tokyo International Airport. A ban has now been reinstated. (CNN)
Turkish police are reported to have taken into custody, Mehmet Ali Ağca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 after an appeals court ordered his return to prison to serve more time for killing a journalist. (CNN)
Another case of mad cow disease has been confirmed in Canada but officials do not expect international borders to close to Canadian beef as a result. (CBC)
A five-story building in Nairobi, Kenya, collapses and kills at least eight people, burying dozens more. Rescuers use their bare hands to dig through the rubble. (Sky News)(BBC)(CTV)Archived 2007-03-14 at archive.today
Azerbaijan has started supplying Russian natural gas to Georgia, the Georgian gas company says, helping compensate for a fuel cutoff caused by explosions in southern Russian pipelines that brought a new energy crisis to the region this weekend. (International Herald Tribune)(CBC)
The U.S. Supreme Court rejects an appeal from Research In Motion Ltd. which had asked it to reverse a lower-court ruling that found its BlackBerry wireless email device in violation of patents held by NTP, Inc., a Virginia patent-holding firm. The case now moves to a federal district court in Virginia, which will decide whether to reinstate an injunction against the U.S. sale of the popular BlackBerrys. (MarketWatch)[permanent dead link]
Venezuela buys a further US$312 million of Argentina's national debt, adding to the US$1 billion already purchased. The government of Hugo Chávez says that the scheme will further South American integration. (Reuters)(Bloomberg)
A bomb in the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz kills six and injures up to 40. IranianPresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad was due to have visited the city today, however the trip was called off at the last minute. Lebanon's al-Manar television said the president had called off his trip after a security tip-off. Local MP Nezam Molla-Hoveyzeh accused Britain of being behind the attack. (Reuters)[permanent dead link](BBC)
Microsoft, in an effort to resolve a controversy with the antitrust authorities of the European Community, announced that it will license some of its source code to rivals. (CNET)
Google's launch of a new, self-censored search engine in China is a "black day" for freedom of expression, says leading international media watchdog Reporters without Borders. (BBC)
Ryanair, Europe's largest low-cost carrier, and the world's most profitable airline, announces that it intends to charge up to €7 per bag checked in by customers. In return, the airline fares will drop by 9%. (RTÉ.ie)
Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran reacts sharply to US Ambassador David Mulford's warning over the future of the Indo-US nuclear deal, saying on Thursday that it was "inappropriate" and not conducive to good relations between the two countries. (Express India)[permanent dead link]
Pakistani PresidentPervez Musharraf rejects US objections to a proposed Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline for natural gas saying "It is in our economic interest. If somebody wants to stop us they should compensate us ... But at the moment we are going ahead". Musharraf also repeats his condemnation of the recent U.S. air strike in northern Pakistan which killed 18 people, including women and children. (VOA News)
India's foreign ministry calls the comments inapproapiate and summons the ambassador to Delhi for an explanation (BBC news).
The Foreign Ministry of China says "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems" and also indicates that they would support Russian efforts to resolve the dispute. (Reuters)
PresidentMikhail Saakashvili of Georgia pledges to end his country's energy crisis by importing Iraniannatural gas. Starting Monday, Georgia will import 2 million m3 of gas a day at $120/m3, $10 more than for Russian gas. Georgia's supply of Russian gas has been interrupted since Sunday due to pipeline explosions. Saakashvili has accused Moscow of sabotage for political gain. (RIA Novosti)
The roof of a trade-exhibition hall in southern Poland collapses with several hundred people inside, trapping many beneath the wreckage, 62 people are killed and over 160 injured. Poland declares a day of national mourning. (CNN)
Also directed out of the U.S. Capitol Building was Beverly Young, wife of GOP congressman Bill Young, for wearing a T-shirt that read "Support the Troops: Defending Our Freedom" (ABC).
The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced it has evidence within its report for the Thursday meeting that Iran obtained documents showing how to mold highly enriched grade uranium into the core of warheads. (Reuters)
In the United States, a female ex-postal worker opens fire in a mail-processing plant, killing six people and critically wounding another before committing suicide in what's believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out by a woman in U.S. history. (CNN)
U.S. oil company ExxonMobil announced profits for 2005 of $36.1 billion, a record amount in US corporate history. In anticipation of a public backlash, the company simultaneously posted newspaper advertisements in the US to explain its success. (Seattle Times)
A tourist coach crash in Egypt on the highway between Hurghada and Luxor kills 14 and injures another 30 people. All casualties are from Hong Kong and were joining Jetour Holidays tours.
