Portal:Current events/2007 August 8

August 8, 2007 (Wednesday)

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) Archived 2012-11-02 at the Wayback Machine
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)^{[permanent dead link]} (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)