Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi calls for a disarmament of the country's militias and businesses, and offers an amnesty to former members of the Islamic militias. (Shabelle)
CITIC, a state-owned investment enterprise of the Chinese government, buys Nations Energy Company, a Canadian petroleum extraction company, giving it a majority stake in KazMunayGas, the state-owned oil and gas company in Kazakhstan, for USD $1.91 billion. The deal is highly controversial because of the amount of control China now has over Kazakhstan's natural resources. Kazakh Oil Minister Baktykozha Izmukhambetov has criticized the deal since it was first considered in October 2006. (The Boston Herald)[permanent dead link]
Sri Lankan Airforce bombs the fishing hamlet of Padahuthurai in what they call a rebel LTTE sea base results in the death of 14 civilians on January 2, 2007.
A prison guard is arrested in Baghdad under suspicion of secretly filming the execution of Saddam Hussein using a mobile phone and publishing the video on the Internet. (The Times)
A Russian Soyuz 2 rocket body re-enters the atmosphere as "space junk", breaking up and disintegrating over Denver, Colorado, and is seen throughout the Rocky Mountains of the United States. The rocket was used to launch the French CoRoT astronomy satellite on December 27, 2006. None of the "space junk" fragments are confirmed to have struck Earth. (KMGH)(KDVR)
A bus bomb near the Sri Lankan town of Nittambuwa kills 5 and injures at least 30. The Sri Lankan government declares the Tamil Tigers responsible, but the rebel group denies involvement. (BBC News)(UPI)
A second victim of the National Express Coach crash, a male, is still not identified. Authorities have appealed to the public in the hopes of identifying the victim. (BBC News)
Leading U.S. Democrats oppose Bush's plan of deploying more troops to Iraq, calling it "a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed." (CNN)(Reuters)
The Sunday Times (UK) reports that Israel has drawn up plans to possibly destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons in the event that U.S. intervention does not occur, and non-nuclear strikes are ruled out. Iran has responded saying that "anyone who attacks will regret their actions very quickly." Israel denies such plans were made.(Times)(The Jerusalem Post)(Haaretz)
The British Army raises its maximum recruitment age from 26 years to 33, but denies that this is a reaction to a failure to recruit sufficient young people. The normal term of engagement remains 22 years, meaning that some soldiers could still be serving to age 55. (BBC News)
Fighting breaks out between Somali protesters and Ethiopian troops in the town of Beledweyne after an official is arrested for refusing to hand over a member of the ousted Islamic Courts Union. Three people are reportedly injured. (BBC)
The executions of two senior accomplices of former leader Saddam Hussein are expected to be carried out within this week according to Iraqi officials. (BBC)
It is reported that Chinese police killed 18 members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement organization and arrested 17 others in a raid in the Pamir Plateau on 5 January. ETIM members shot and killed one officer and wounded another. Police found 22 grenades and enough explosive material to make 1,500 more. (Xinhua)(USA Today)(BBC)
Chicago Alderman Arenda Troutman is arrested by the FBI and charged with accepting a bribe from a federal informant as part of an undercover investigation. (Chicago Sun Times)
The Tajik Parliament approves a Memorandum of Understanding between Tajikistan and Iran agreeing to begin a nuclear program with assistance from the Iranian government in building a power plant. Tajikistan is the second nation in Central Asia to pursue a nuclear program, the other being Kazakhstan. (IRNA)
Start of the 12th ASEAN Summit and 2nd East Asia Summit in Metro Cebu, Philippines. Meetings involve heads of the 10 member states and 6 dialogue partners with major discussions on relevance, diplomacy, security, economy and free trade and other important global issues. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
The Syrian government may sign an agreement in which it will recognize Israel and end its support for Hezbollah and Hamas in return for Israeli withdrawal from most of the Golan Heights. (Ha'aretz)
Saddam Hussein's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim as well as the former chief judge of Iraq Awad Hamed al-Bandar are hanged before dawn. According to the video released by the Iraqi government, the head of Barzan Ibrahim was separated from the rest of his body. Although government officials call the beheading an accident, many Iraqi Sunnis still express umbrage toward the decapitation, accusing the Iraqi government of mutilating the body. (The Australian)(Reuters)(BBC)(CNN)
A new cluster of bird flu infections involving at least two members of a family in Indonesia may indicate a change in the virus's ability to sicken people, researchers studying the disease said. (Bloomberg)
Japanese authorities incinerates more than 10,000 chickens that have either died or culled at a southern Japanese poultry farm. (AP via ABC News)
The virus is confirmed after 100 ducks died in the northern Phitsanulok province of Thailand. (BBC)
Pakistani cobra helicopter gunships destroy three suspected terrorist compounds in South Waziristan reportedly killing 8 people and wounding 10. (CBS News)
Ali al-Sadig, spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, accuses U.S. troops of raiding Sudan's defunct embassy in Iraq. The U.S. government denies that any raid took place. (CNN)
U.S. television network NBC officially pulls out of the soap opera market by canceling Passions, which is aired both domestically and internationally. NBC Universal Television president Jeff Zucker remarks that the network's other daytime drama, Days of Our Lives, is "unlikely to continue" when its contract expires in 2009. (USA Today)
Walter Forbes, the former chair of Cendant, is sentenced to twelve and a half years in jail and ordered to pay $3.28 billion in restitution for his role in the biggest accounting fraud in the 1990s. (Bloomberg)
The longest reigning minister-president in 200 years in Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, quits his position as minister-president and chairman of the CSU. Stoiber held the first position from 1993 and the second position from 1999. (BBC News)
Twelve of the thirteen suspects in Norway's NOKAS robbery case from 2004, are found guilty and given sentences from 4 - 19 years in prison. (Aftenposten)
The furore over the treatment towards contestant Shilpa Shetty in Celebrity Big Brother 2007, by contestants including Jade Goody, has resulted in Jade being evicted by popular vote from the show, due to heightened concerns over safety, after the issue reached a lowpoint in UK-Indian relations. (BBC News)
A three-man team, using only skis and kites, completes a 1,093 mile trek to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility for the first time since 1958 and for the first time ever without mechanical assistance. (BBC)
The WWF warns that some species of tuna including bluefin tuna are at risk of commercial extinction due to illegal fishing. (Reuters)
Dozens of containers, some containing toxic chemicals, are washed ashore at Devon, England after MSC Napoli ran aground on the coast last Thursday during Kyrill. (ABC News Australia)
A 7.3 Mw earthquake occurs off of Indonesia, centered in the Molucca Sea. Buildings shake in northeastern Indonesia, panicking residents, but there are no reports of casualties. (USGS)(Reuters)(BBC)
Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine's ambassador to Austria, is fired after he makes an unauthorized offer of a visa to Ukraine for exiled Turkmen opposition leader Hudaýberdi Ozarow. Ozarow and opposition leader Nurmuhammet Hanamow allegedly visited Kiev last week and met with Ukrainian Transportation Minister Mykola Rudkovskiy, but this has been denied by several officials. (RFE/RL)
2007 Guinean uprising: A heavy security presence is reported in the capital, Conakry, and other towns following Monday's clashes in which more than 30 people were killed. (BBC)
Thomas Lepoutre announced his gay pride movement today
Ecuador's Defense Minister Guadalupe Larriva is killed along with three pilots and her daughter in a crash involving two helicopters. Larriva was the first woman to serve as the country's defense minister. (BBC)(Reuters)
War in Somalia (ICU insurgency): At least two people have been killed, including a Somali police officer, during an hour-long gunbattle in the capital, Mogadishu. (BBC)
A terror plot has been foiled in the UK, where nine people have been arrested in Birmingham under suspicion of planning the kidnap and filmed execution of a British Muslim soldier. The alleged plot intended to pressure Prime Minister Tony Blair into withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. (The Times)
