Events, Verisoph

2006 Bush fires CIA director Porter Goss ai_extracted 1 cit. no story President George W. Bush fired Porter Goss from his position as CIA Director on May 5, 2006, after only nineteen months leading the agency. Goss's departure followed persistent conflict and instability within the intelligence community during his tenure. ●●

2006 Robert Gates becomes Secretary of Defense ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Bob Gates, a former CIA director and one of the agency's most capable analysts, took over as Secretary of Defense on December 18, 2006. His appointment reflected the Pentagon's dominance over the CIA and signaled an effort to contain the military's influence over intelligence. ●●

2006 Rafael Correa elected president of Ecuador ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Correa wins democratic election and begins investigating EHM strategy and illegitimate debt ●●

2006 Limelight Pictures exposed as ecstasy smuggling front ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Limelight Pictures, with Kiera Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter) as president, was exposed as a front company for international ecstasy smuggling operations. ●●

2006 Facebook launches the News Feed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff documents that in 2006, Facebook engineered News Feed to exploit fear of invisibility and social comparison, deliberately engineering addiction through behavioral amplification. ●●

2006 Military coup ousts Thaksin in Thailand ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The middle classes, who had strongly supported the democratic opening in the early 1990s, turned against Thaksin and supported a military coup that forced him from power in 2006. ●●

2006 Reality mining predicts behavior with 90% accuracy ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff documents the 2006 breakthrough where Pentland and Eagle achieved 90% accuracy predicting individual location and activity within one hour using continuously harvested phone data. ●●

2006 Congressman Randy Cunningham convicted of corruption ai_extracted 1 cit. no story There have of course been egregious cases of outright individual corruption, such as those leading to the convictions of California congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham in 2006, and Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in 2011. ●●

16 November 2006 Milton Friedman's death 0 cit. Milton Friedman dies at age 94. Obituaries across the political spectrum credited him as the most influential economist of the second half of the twentieth century, while critics of his legacy pointed to rising inequality and the instability associated with deregulated finance in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. economy ●●

9 October 2006 Google acquires YouTube 0 cit. Google announced it would acquire YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars in stock, one of the largest internet acquisitions of its era. The deal closed the following month and made YouTube's founders, all PayPal alumni, considerably wealthier. economy / technology ●●

14 July 2006 Rosneft holds initial public offering 0 cit. Rosneft, by then enlarged with Yukos's former production assets, raised roughly 10.7 billion dollars in a London and Moscow stock listing, one of the largest IPOs in history at the time. The listing confirmed Rosneft's transformation from a minor state producer into Russia's dominant oil company under Kremlin-aligned management. economy ●●

1 November 2006 Litvinenko poisoned with polonium in London 0 cit. Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB officer and Berezovsky ally living in exile, fell ill after drinking tea containing radioactive polonium-210 and died three weeks later. A 2016 British public inquiry concluded the killing was probably carried out by Russian agents and 'probably approved' by Putin, a finding the Russian government has rejected. politics ●●●

1 August 2006 Yukos declared bankrupt and liquidated 0 cit. A Russian court formally declared Yukos bankrupt, and its remaining assets were sold off over the following year, mostly absorbed by Rosneft. The company that had been Russia's largest and most Western-facing oil producer ceased to exist within three years of Khodorkovsky's arrest. economy ●●

3 January 2006 The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal exposes pay-to-play influence 0 cit. Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleads guilty to fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe public officials, in a scandal that implicates several members of Congress and their staff. The case becomes a widely cited, well-documented example of how gifts, trips, and campaign contributions can be used to buy legislative access and favors. politics ●●

c. 2006 Historians reject the Ripper Masonic conspiracy theory contested 0 cit. By the 2000s, professional Ripperologists and historians treat Stephen Knight's royal-Masonic conspiracy theory as thoroughly discredited, citing its reliance on a source who admitted fabrication, its contradiction of contemporary medical and police evidence, and the absence of any corroborating record. The theory nonetheless remains widely repeated in popular culture and film. culture ●

c. 1 October 2006 Book of Mormon introduction revised on Lamanite ancestry 0 cit. The Church changed the introduction to the Book of Mormon, revising the statement that the Lamanites were "the principal ancestors of the American Indians" to say they were "among the ancestors of the American Indians." The Church described the change as accounting for details of Book of Mormon demography that are not known; the revision followed years of discussion prompted partly by DNA research on Native American ancestry. religion / science ●●

1 November 2006 Alexander Litvinenko poisoned in London 0 cit. Former FSB officer and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London and died three weeks later. A 2016 UK public inquiry led by Sir Robert Owen concluded the killing was probably approved by the Russian state and named two Russian suspects. The case raised questions about the British security agencies' ability to protect defectors and dissidents living in the UK. diplomacy / politics ●●

2 October 2006 Metropolitan Police Special Branch merged into Counter Terrorism Command 0 cit. The Metropolitan Police merged Special Branch with the Anti-Terrorist Branch to form the Counter Terrorism Command, known as SO15, ending Special Branch's separate existence in London after 123 years. Other UK police forces retained their own Special Branch units for some years afterward, but the merger marked the effective end of the original institution created in 1883. politics ●●

7 October 2006 Anna Politkovskaya murdered 0 cit. Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta known for exposing abuses in the Chechen war, was shot dead in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building. Several men were later convicted of the contract killing, but the courts did not establish who ordered it. Her death became a symbol of the dangers facing independent journalists in Russia. Colleagues and rights groups have long pressed for the identity of those who commissioned the murder. politics / society ●●

23 November 2006 The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko 0 cit. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who had defected and become a Kremlin critic in London, died after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. A British public inquiry led by Sir Robert Owen concluded in 2016 that two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing, and that the operation was probably approved by the FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev and President Putin. Russia rejected the findings and refused to extradite the two suspects. The case badly strained UK-Russia relations. diplomacy / politics ●●●

c. May 2006 Thomas Drake blows the whistle on the NSA 0 cit. NSA official Thomas Drake argued that a costly agency data program wasted money and endangered privacy, taking unclassified concerns to a reporter after internal complaints went nowhere. The government charged him under the Espionage Act in 2010, but the case collapsed and he pleaded to a minor count. His prosecution is often cited as a warning that pushed later leakers toward the press. politics / technology ●●●

c. 2006 Nkunda's CNDP reignites North Kivu 0 cit. The renegade general Laurent Nkunda formed the CNDP, a mainly Tutsi movement that claimed to protect Congolese Tutsi from the FDLR and fought the national army in North Kivu. UN experts reported that Rwanda supported the group, which Kigali denied. The rebellion showed that the peace deals had failed to pacify the east. politics / war ●●

21 November 2006 Botched raid kills Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta debunked 0 cit. Atlanta narcotics officers used a no-knock warrant to break into the home of Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old woman, who fired once in fear and was killed in the return fire. Investigators found the warrant rested on a fabricated informant tip, and officers later admitted planting drugs and lying, drawing federal convictions. The case became a widely cited example of how paramilitary drug raids on bad information could turn deadly for innocent residents. politics / society ●●

2006 Calderón's war on the cartels 0 cit. President Felipe Calderón sent the Mexican military against the cartels, opening a war that killed tens of thousands and displaced many more. The crackdown splintered the big groups into more violent factions and blurred the line between the drug trade and the state fighting it. politics / war ●●●

2006 Room 641A and the tapping of the internet backbone 0 cit. A whistleblower revealed that AT&T had let the National Security Agency install equipment in a secret room in its San Francisco facility to copy internet traffic. It was early public proof that big communications companies were quietly wired into the surveillance state. politics / society / technology ●●

June 2006 The rise and fall of the Islamic Courts Union 0 cit. In 2006 a coalition of Sharia courts, the Islamic Courts Union, defeated the warlords and briefly brought order to Mogadishu, welcomed by many exhausted residents. Fearing an Islamist state, Ethiopia invaded late that year with US backing and drove the Courts from power. The intervention scattered the movement and pushed its hardline youth wing toward armed insurgency. politics / religion / war ●●

2006 Chuka massacre file sealed until 2038 ai_extracted 1 cit. The file on the Chuka massacre contains eleven pages the government retained until 2038. When Lord Steel asked about them in the House of Lords in 2006, the government said they held statements by three Kenyan women raped by African soldiers. ●●

4 October 2006 ICSID tribunal dismisses World Duty Free's claim against Kenya 0 cit. In World Duty Free Company v Republic of Kenya, an ICSID tribunal threw out the investor's claim after finding the underlying airport concession had been obtained through a bribe paid to Kenya's then-president. The award became a leading precedent that contracts procured by corruption are unenforceable in investment arbitration. The case is one of the most cited examples of an African state prevailing in the ISDS system. diplomacy / economy / politics ●●

2006 The WHO documents a global health-worker crisis 0 cit. The World Health Report finds a shortage of about 4.3 million health workers, with 57 countries in critical deficit and the worst gaps in sub-Saharan Africa. It links the shortfall partly to emigration of trained staff to wealthy countries. The data made the loss of health workers from poor states a measured fact rather than an impression. economy / society ●●●

c. 2006 PNAC goes largely inactive 0 cit. By 2006 the Project for the New American Century had wound down, with its office effectively closed and little new output. The Iraq War had turned costly and unpopular, and the group's moment had passed. It left behind a record of documents, signatories, and policies rather than an ongoing organization. politics ●●●

February 2006 Fukuyama breaks with the neoconservatives 0 cit. Francis Fukuyama, a signatory of PNAC's founding statement, publicly breaks with the movement in his book America at the Crossroads. He argued that the Iraq War showed the limits of trying to remake other countries by force. His split marked a wider fracture among the group's former allies. politics / society ●●

c. 2006 The controlled-demolition claim 0 cit. A central claim of the 9/11 Truth movement is that the towers and WTC 7 were brought down not by planes and fire but by pre-planted explosives in a controlled demolition. NIST, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the broad engineering community reject this and attribute the collapses to impact and fire. Both the claim and the expert rejection are presented here as what each side holds. society / technology ●●●

c. 2006 The twelve indicators and the fragility bands 0 cit. Each country was scored on twelve indicators grouped into cohesion, economic, political, and social categories. They covered things like security, factionalized elites, group grievance, the economy, public services, human rights, and refugees. Every indicator ran from 0 to 10, for a total from 0 to 120, and countries were placed in bands from Alert at the high end down to Warning, Stable, and Sustainable. economy / politics / society ●●

7 April 2006 The World Health Report names a global health-worker shortage 0 cit. WHO's 2006 report, Working Together for Health, estimated that the world was short about 4.3 million doctors, nurses, midwives and support workers. It named 57 countries with critical shortages, 36 of them in Africa. The report tied the gap to failures in childhood immunization, safe childbirth and treatment for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. science / society ●●●

29 December 2006 Britain makes the final loan payment 0 cit. Britain makes the last repayment on the 1945 loan at the end of 2006, more than sixty years after the war ended. Only then is the wartime debt to the United States finally cleared. The long repayment marks how deeply the war and its settlement drained British finances. economy ●●

2006 Wolfe frames settler colonialism as a structure contested 0 cit. The historian Patrick Wolfe argued that settler colonialism works through what he called a logic of elimination, aimed at replacing native peoples rather than only ruling them. He is known for the claim that settler colonialism is a structure, not an event, meaning it is an ongoing system rather than a single moment. This is Wolfe's theoretical model, widely cited in settler-colonial studies and debated by other scholars. politics / society ●●●

c. 2006 Soy grievances feed the Sabaot Land Defence Force 1 cit. Anger over the Chebyuk land allocation led a section of the Soy to form the Sabaot Land Defence Force, a militia that began operating around 2005 and 2006 under commander Wycliffe Matakwei. Over about eighteen months it killed an estimated 600 people and displaced tens of thousands, running its own courts and taxation across much of Mount Elgon district. It grew from land scarcity, disputed resettlement and local political rivalry. politics / war ●●●

13 December 2007 Treaty of Lisbon 0 cit. EU treaty reforming the Union's institutions, creating a permanent European Council president and strengthening the parliament, after the failed constitutional treaty. It is the current legal basis of the European Union. diplomacy / politics ●●●

23 April 2007 Founding of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 0 cit. Antinuclear campaigners launch ICAN in Melbourne to push for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The campaign helped achieve the 2017 UN ban treaty and won that year's Nobel Peace Prize. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

14 September 2007 Collapse of Northern Rock 0 cit. News that the mortgage lender needs Bank of England support sets off the first run on a British bank in over a century, with depositors queuing outside branches. Northern Rock is nationalized in February 2008. economy ●●●

9 January 2007 iPhone unveiled 0 cit. Steve Jobs presents the iPhone, combining phone, internet, and touchscreen computer in one device. The smartphone era it launches puts the internet in most human hands and rewires social life, media, and commerce. society / technology ●●●●

6 September 2007 Israeli strike on al-Kibar 0 cit. Israeli aircraft destroy a secret reactor under construction in the Syrian desert, built with North Korean help. Both sides keep silent for years; Israel only acknowledges the raid in 2018. politics / war ●●●

14 August 2007 Qahtaniyah bombings 0 cit. Four coordinated suicide truck bombs struck Yazidi towns in northern Iraq, killing about 796 people. It was the deadliest car bomb attack of the Iraq War. religion / war ●●●

2007 The smartphone 0 cit. Apple released the iPhone, combining a phone, a computer and an internet device with a touch screen. Smartphones put the internet in billions of pockets and reshaped daily life, work and media. technology ●●●●●

29 June 2007 The iPhone and the smartphone era 0 cit. Apple released the first iPhone on 29 June 2007, and smartphones soon put internet media in nearly every pocket. Constant mobile access reshaped how people consume news, entertainment, and social media. society / technology ●●●●

16 January 2007 Netflix launches streaming video 0 cit. Netflix added instant streaming to its DVD-by-mail service, letting members watch over the internet. Streaming went on to upend television and film distribution. culture / technology ●●●●

June 2007 Hamas Takes Control of Gaza 0 cit. After winning elections and then fighting the rival Fatah faction, Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade that has continued since. politics ●●●

March 2007 M-Pesa mobile money in Kenya 0 cit. Safaricom launched M-Pesa, letting people store and send money using basic mobile phones and a network of agents. It brought financial services to millions without bank accounts and became a global model for mobile money. economy / society / technology ●●●●

25 June 2007 The CIA family jewels are declassified 0 cit. The CIA released a long secret internal report, compiled in 1973, cataloguing the agency's illegal and questionable activities. The family jewels documented assassination plots, domestic spying, and other abuses. politics ●●●

17 May 2007 The Wolfowitz affair 0 cit. World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz resigned amid an ethics scandal over a pay and promotion package arranged for a bank employee with whom he was in a relationship. The episode embarrassed an institution then campaigning against corruption. politics ●●●

2007 Naomi Klein and the Shock Doctrine 0 cit. Journalist Naomi Klein argued that free-market reforms were often imposed during crises when populations could not resist, naming the IMF and World Bank among the actors. The thesis is influential but disputed by many mainstream economists. economy / politics ●●●

2007 2007 FT/Harris poll on globalization ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A 2007 Financial Times/Harris poll found fewer than 20 percent of people in six industrialized countries thought globalization was good for their country. ●●

2007 CIA official Dusty Foggo indicted for corruption ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Federal authorities indicted Dusty Foggo, the third-highest official at the CIA, on February 13, 2007, for fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering involving fixed contracts. The indictment revealed a corruption scandal at the highest levels of the intelligence agency. ●●

2007 Russian cyberattack paralyzes Estonia ai_extracted 1 cit. no story formation on a scale sufficient to affect diplomatic conduct. Stuxnet, an example of a state-backed cyberattack, succeeded in disrupting and delaying Iranian nuclear efforts, by some accounts to an extent rivaling the effects of a limited military st ●●

2007 Kenya's contested 2007 election deepens ethnic divisions ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Kenya today, particularly since the contested presidential election of 2007, is fractured along ethnic lines that have pitted groups like the Kikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin, and Maasai against one another. ●●

2007 US courts and military recognize the pentagram as a valid religious symbol 0 cit. Following a lawsuit, the US Department of Veterans Affairs adds the Wiccan pentacle to the list of approved religious emblems for veterans' headstones, formally recognizing the upright pentagram as a legitimate religious symbol under US law rather than an occult or Satanic marker. religion / society ●●

26 November 2007 Fortune coins the term "PayPal Mafia" 0 cit. Fortune magazine published a cover story by Jeffrey M. O'Brien profiling former PayPal colleagues who had gone on to found or fund companies including YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, and SpaceX. The accompanying photo shoot, staged at San Francisco's Tosca bar with the group dressed as mobsters, popularized the phrase "PayPal Mafia" as shorthand for the network's outsized influence on Silicon Valley. culture / technology ●●●

14 September 2007 The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act tightens lobbying rules 0 cit. Passed in response to the Abramoff scandal, the act tightens disclosure requirements for lobbyists, restricts gifts and travel paid for by lobbyists to members of Congress, and lengthens the post-employment cooling-off period for senior officials before they can lobby. It is a documented legislative response to a documented capture problem, though enforcement gaps remain a subject of ongoing debate. politics ●

December 2007 Post-election violence police shootings 2 cit. In the weeks of ethnic and political violence that followed the disputed December 2007 presidential election, police shot and killed civilians, including unarmed protesters, in Kisumu, Nairobi's informal settlements, and other towns. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights later documented roughly 400 deaths from police gunfire during the crisis, out of an overall death toll from the violence that the Waki Commission put at about 1,133. politics / society ●●●

c. 2007 Mungiki crackdown killings 0 cit. Police carried out a sustained crackdown on the Mungiki sect and its suspected members and sympathizers, following a wave of Mungiki-linked killings. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights later concluded, in its 2008 report, that police had extrajudicially executed more than 500 mostly young men suspected of Mungiki membership during the operation, a finding the police service disputed. politics / society ●●●

27 December 2007 Kenya's 2007 general election and presidential vote 2 cit. Kenya held a disputed general election in which incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition leader Raila Odinga amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging. The disputed result triggered weeks of ethnic and political violence across the country. politics ●●●

March 2007 Chiquita pleads guilty over the payments 0 cit. Chiquita pleads guilty in a US court to doing business with a designated terrorist group and agrees to pay a 25 million dollar fine. It was the first time a major American company had been convicted of such dealings. No executives were imprisoned, which critics said showed how lightly corporate wrongdoing abroad was punished. economy / politics ●●

2007 The 'NGO-industrial complex' critique 0 cit. Activists and scholars, including the collection The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, argue that aid NGOs reliant on state and foundation money can end up serving donor interests and blunting real change. The term NGO-industrial complex captures the worry. It is a documented structural critique about incentives and funding, not a claim that all aid is a front. economy / politics / society ●●

13 November 2007 European court condemns Roma school segregation 0 cit. In the case of D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2007 that routinely placing Roma children in schools for pupils with learning disabilities was unlawful discrimination. The judgment named a pattern found in several countries, where Roma children were separated from their peers and given a lesser education. Segregation in schools has continued in practice despite the ruling. politics / society ●●

December 2007 The 2007-08 post-election violence 1 cit. After the disputed December 2007 result handed Kibaki a second term over Raila Odinga, weeks of ethnic and political violence swept the country. Official and human-rights tallies put the dead at roughly 1,100 to 1,300 and the displaced at around 600,000, with killings by mobs, militias, and police. A power-sharing deal mediated by Kofi Annan made Odinga prime minister, and the International Criminal Court later charged six suspects, including Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, though those cases collapsed by 2016 amid claims of witness interference. politics / war ●●●

18 February 2007 Kimathi Honored in Bronze 0 cit. On 18 February 2007, fifty years to the day after the British hanged him, a statue of the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi was unveiled in central Nairobi, the first official monument to the movement. Streets and memorials followed, marking a slow shift toward public recognition of the fighters. The long gap between his execution and any national honor measures how completely the independent state had first written him out. culture / politics ●●

2007 Google buys DoubleClick and the ad-funded web 0 cit. Google acquired the ad company DoubleClick, deepening a business model in which free services are paid for by tracking users and selling their attention to advertisers. Watching what people search, read, and click became the core of some of the world's most valuable companies. The bargain traded convenience for constant, detailed observation. economy / technology ●●

December 2007 Land and the 2007 to 2008 Violence 1 cit. After the disputed election of December 2007, the Rift Valley erupted in violence in which more than a thousand people were killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. Much of the bloodshed turned on land, as communities that saw Kikuyu settlement of the former Highlands as unjust attacked those they viewed as outsiders. Analysts widely trace the roots of the killing to the unresolved land question left by colonial alienation and the flawed independence settlement. politics / society / war ●●●

c. 2007 Al-Shabaab emerges as a jihadist insurgency 0 cit. Out of the wreckage of the Islamic Courts, the militant youth wing known as Al-Shabaab grew into a jihadist insurgency, later pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda. It fought the transitional government and African Union peacekeepers, seized much of the south, and imposed a harsh version of Islamic law. The group carried out mass-casualty bombings in Mogadishu and attacks in Kenya, and remained a potent force despite losing territory. politics / religion / war ●●●

27 December 2007 Disputed election triggers Kenya's post-election violence 7 cit. A disputed presidential vote between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga set off two months of ethnic and political violence across Kenya. Rights groups counted more than 1,100 people killed and about 600,000 forced from their homes. The crisis exposed unresolved grievances over land, power, and inequality that stretched back to colonial and independence-era Kenya. politics / society ●●●

December 2007 Post-election violence engulfs Kenya 0 cit. A disputed presidential result in December 2007 triggered two months of the worst violence since independence, with killings along ethnic lines in the Rift Valley, Nyanza, Nairobi, and beyond, and organized reprisals as well as heavy police force. More than a thousand people were killed and hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes. A power-sharing deal brokered by Kofi Annan ended the crisis in early 2008. The death toll and displacement are documented; the finding that much of the killing was organized by local elites comes from the official inquiry that followed. politics / society / war ●●●

2007 Tax Justice Network Africa established in Nairobi 0 cit. Tax Justice Network Africa was founded as a pan-African research and advocacy body focused on tax policy, illicit financial flows and the treaties that enable profit-shifting out of the continent. It went on to become the leading critic of double-taxation treaties it argues are used to drain revenue from African states. The organization frames these arrangements as engineered leaks in the tax base rather than neutral technical accords. economy / politics / society ●●

2007 Investors use ICSID to challenge South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment law 0 cit. In Piero Foresti and others v South Africa, European mining investors used a bilateral investment treaty to bring an ICSID claim against South Africa's post-apartheid mining law, which required transfer of ownership stakes to Black South Africans. The case was discontinued in 2010 after the investors obtained revised mining rights, but it shook confidence in the treaties. It is a central example cited for the regulatory chill critique, that the threat of investor claims can deter governments from adopting public-interest reforms. diplomacy / economy / politics ●●

May 2007 Courts split, and the payout reaches about $4.55 billion 0 cit. Juries and courts split the question: some insurers were bound to the single-occurrence reading, while others were found to face two occurrences. A 2007 settlement ended the litigation, and the insurance recovery totaled roughly $4.55 billion, well short of the $7 billion Silverstein had sought. The money went toward rebuilding the site. economy ●●●

April 2007 OECD principles for engaging fragile states 0 cit. OECD development ministers endorsed the Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations. The document treated fragility as a shared category for aid and development work and set state building as a central goal. Donor governments and agencies used indexes like this one to help decide where to direct attention and money. diplomacy / economy ●●

2007 Meinertzhagen's diaries exposed as unreliable 0 cit. Long after his death, examination of Meinertzhagen's original diaries at Oxford found different paper, typewriter ribbons, and page numbering, showing entries had been rewritten and inserted years later. Brian Garfield's study set out how he inflated his own record, and he was separately exposed for large-scale fraud in his bird collection. His accounts of the Kenya killings must therefore be read with heavy caution. society ●●

2007 African Lactase Persistence Evolves on Its Own 0 cit. The ability to digest milk as an adult was selected for among East African herders, but through different mutations than in Europe. Tishkoff and colleagues reported in Nature Genetics that three African variants near the lactase gene, distinct from the European one, rose to high frequency in a selective sweep over roughly the last 7,000 years. The oldest signal sat in Kenyan Nilo-Saharan and Tanzanian Afroasiatic herders. It is a textbook case of the same trait evolving twice, driven by a dairy diet. science ●●●

August 2007 Kuresoi, Molo and Mount Elgon violence foreshadows the 2007 election 1 cit. Before the 27 December 2007 vote, violence in places such as Kuresoi, Molo and Mount Elgon showed that the election crisis was already armed and local. Human Rights Watch, drawing on election observers and field interviews, described pre-election violence from August 2007 onward, including deaths, intimidation, weak policing and land-linked militia politics. The later PEV did not come from a blank slate. politics / society / war ●●●

30 December 2007 Kisumu police shootings mark the first wave of 2007 PEV 6 cit. After the disputed presidential result, protests in Kisumu and other ODM strongholds met police fire. Human Rights Watch and Kenyan rights bodies documented police killings of protesters and bystanders, while the Waki process later treated excessive and lethal police force as one of the core patterns of the crisis. This is the state-violence side of PEV, separate from militia killings but part of the same political breakdown. politics / society / war ●●●●

26 January 2007 Kibaki forms PNU for his second-term campaign 1 cit. Kibaki announced his intention to seek a second term on 26 January 2007 and moved into the Party of National Unity as the electoral vehicle for the campaign. PNU brought together DP, Narc-Kenya, Ford People, Shirikisho and other allies. The contest against Raila Odinga and ODM was projected as close and became the trigger for Kenya's gravest post-independence political crisis. politics ●●●●

17 February 2008 Independence of Kosovo 0 cit. no story Kosovo declares independence from Serbia, nine years after the Kosovo War; it is recognized by many but not all states. politics / war ●●●

15 September 2008 Collapse of Lehman Brothers 0 cit. The investment bank Lehman Brothers files the largest bankruptcy in United States history, turning the subprime mortgage crisis into a global financial panic. The crisis reshapes banking regulation worldwide. economy ●●●●

7 August 2008 to 12 August 2008 Russo-Georgian War 0 cit. Russia defeats Georgia in a five-day war over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is the first Russian invasion of a neighboring state since the Soviet collapse. politics / war ●●●

16 March 2008 Collapse of Bear Stearns 0 cit. The 85-year-old investment bank, crippled by mortgage securities losses and a run by its lenders, is sold to JPMorgan Chase in a Federal Reserve-backed rescue for a fraction of its recent value. It is the first major Wall Street casualty of the 2008 crisis. economy ●●●●

25 September 2008 Collapse of Washington Mutual 0 cit. Regulators seize the Seattle-based savings bank after depositors withdraw billions in days, and sell its banking operations to JPMorgan Chase. With 307 billion dollars in assets it is the largest bank failure in American history. economy ●●●●

15 September 2008 Global financial crisis erupts 1 cit. Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy and panic spreads through the world financial system. The deepest downturn since the Depression follows, discrediting elites and feeding a decade of populist politics. economy / politics ●●●●

26 November 2008 2008 Mumbai attacks 0 cit. Ten gunmen from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked hotels, a railway station and other sites across Mumbai over three days, killing 175 people. The attack strained relations between India and Pakistan. politics / war ●●●●

7 October 2008 Spotify launches streaming 0 cit. Spotify opened in Europe offering instant access to a huge music catalog for free or a monthly fee. Streaming soon became the main way the world listens to music. technology ●●●●

3 October 2008 TARP and the 2008 bank bailout 0 cit. Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program with up to 700 billion dollars to rescue banks. It marked a large federal intervention in the financial system. economy / politics ●●●●●

25 November 2008 The Federal Reserve launches quantitative easing 0 cit. The Federal Reserve began buying large amounts of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury debt to support the economy. Quantitative easing became a standard tool of central banks after the crisis. economy / technology ●●●●

14 November 2008 First G20 leaders summit 0 cit. During the global financial crisis the G20 met at leader level for the first time in Washington. The summit elevated the group into a central forum for coordinating responses to the crisis. economy / politics ●●●

August 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics 0 cit. China hosted the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008 with an elaborate opening ceremony. The games showcased the country's growing wealth and global standing. culture / society ●●●●

27 December 2008 to 2009 The Gaza War of 2008-2009 0 cit. Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza in late 2008, called Operation Cast Lead, after rocket fire. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in three weeks. politics / war ●●●

c. 2008 Quantitative easing 0 cit. After the financial crisis, central banks created new money to buy government bonds and other assets, a policy known as quantitative easing that Japan had pioneered earlier in the decade. It became a major tool for supporting economies when interest rates were near zero. economy / politics ●●●

2008 Zimbabwe's hyperinflation 0 cit. Zimbabwe experienced one of the worst hyperinflations on record, with prices doubling in a matter of days and the government printing notes in the trillions. The country eventually abandoned its own currency in favor of foreign money. economy / politics ●●●

15 September 2008 The 2008 financial crisis exposes gaps in the rules 0 cit. The global financial crisis revealed that banks were undercapitalized and short of liquidity despite the Basel standards. The failures pushed regulators to tighten the framework. economy / politics ●●●●

25 November 2008 to 2010 US Federal Reserve begins quantitative easing (QE1) 0 cit. In response to the financial crisis the Federal Reserve begins large-scale asset purchases, buying mortgage-backed securities and Treasuries to inject money into the system. economy / politics ●●●●●

2008 to 2010 The post-2008 reassessment 0 cit. The global financial crisis, born in the deregulated economies the Fund had held up as models, prompted fresh soul-searching about its advice. IMF research began to question the benefits of unrestricted capital flows and to soften its view of capital controls. economy / politics ●●●

28 September 2008 Falcon 1 reaches orbit 0 cit. SpaceX became the first private company to put a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit with its small Falcon 1. The success came after three failures had nearly bankrupted the firm. economy / technology ●●●

2008 Kenya introduces Free Day Secondary Education 0 cit. The government extends fee subsidies to secondary schooling, continuing the expansion of access under the coalition government. politics / society ●●