Events, Verisoph

c. 2003 French and British Rothschild houses merge 0 cit. The separate French and British banking houses were brought together under David de Rothschild in 2003. Further mergers led to the group renamed Rothschild and Co in 2015. economy ●●●

2003 Kenya introduces Free Primary Education 2 cit. The Kibaki government abolishes primary school fees, enrolling over a million additional children almost overnight, a flagship of the Millennium Development Goals era backed by the World Bank and donors. economy / politics / society ●●●

2003 Brazil ties cash aid to school attendance 0 cit. The Bolsa Familia program paid poor families a stipend on the condition that their children stayed in school. The conditional model cut dropout rates and was copied across Latin America and beyond. economy / society ●●●

2003 Halliburton, no-bid contracts, and the Iraq War economy 0 cit. The 2003 Iraq War brings a surge of military contracting, including no-bid contracts to firms like Halliburton, whose former CEO was the sitting vice president. The war becomes a much-cited modern example of the profit interests entangled with the decision to fight. economy / war ●●●

1 January 2003 Kimberley Process Certification Scheme launched 0 cit. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme took effect, requiring participating countries to certify shipments of rough diamonds as conflict-free and to trade only with other participating members. Critics have since argued the scheme's narrow definition of 'conflict diamond' and weak enforcement have let it miss diamonds tied to state violence and labor abuse outside civil-war contexts. diplomacy / economy ●●●

c. February 2003 Khodorkovsky funds opposition parties 0 cit. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, by then Russia's richest man through his Yukos oil holdings, began openly funding liberal and communist opposition parties ahead of the December 2003 parliamentary election. He also publicly clashed with Putin at a televised meeting in February 2003 over corruption in state oil purchases, a confrontation many analysts see as accelerating his downfall. economy / politics ●●

25 October 2003 Khodorkovsky arrested 0 cit. Armed FSB agents boarded Mikhail Khodorkovsky's private plane at a refueling stop in Novosibirsk and arrested him on charges of fraud and tax evasion. His arrest triggered a sharp fall in Russian stock prices and marked the most dramatic confrontation yet between the Kremlin and a leading oligarch. economy / politics ●●●

12 March 2003 The Elf affair trial exposes decades of French oil-for-influence payments 0 cit. A French court convicted 30 former executives of the state oil company Elf Aquitaine of embezzling roughly 300 million dollars over the 1990s, much of it used to fund African leaders' political campaigns, personal enrichment, and French politicians' interests in exchange for oil concessions in Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, and Cameroon. The trial, then Europe's largest corporate corruption case, provided court-documented evidence for what had long been alleged: that French access to former colonies' oil was maintained through direct payments to their rulers rather than ordinary commercial terms. economy / politics ●●●

c. 2003 The odious debt doctrine gains renewed attention after Iraq 0 cit. Legal scholars and campaigners revived the century-old concept of odious debt, which holds that loans taken on by an unrepresentative or dictatorial regime without benefiting its population, and known by lenders to be so used, should not bind successor governments. The doctrine, first articulated regarding Cuba's debt after the Spanish-American War, has been invoked in later disputes over former colonies' and dictatorships' inherited debts, though it has never been formally adopted as binding international law. economy / politics ●

30 June 2003 Ndung'u Commission appointed on illegal land allocation 1 cit. The new Kibaki government appointed the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land, chaired by Paul Ndung'u, to investigate decades of irregular allocation of government, trust and public land, largely under the Moi era. The commission comprised 20 lawyers, civil servants and other prominent citizens. economy / politics ●●

c. 3 February 2003 Goldenberg Commission of inquiry appointed 2 cit. The Kibaki government set up a judicial commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Samuel Bosire to investigate the Goldenberg scandal of the early 1990s, in which the state paid fraudulent export compensation for gold and diamonds that were never actually exported. Over nearly two years the commission heard 102 witnesses. economy / politics ●●

25 October 2003 Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrested 0 cit. Armed agents boarded the private plane of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of the oil company Yukos and then Russia's richest man, and arrested him on fraud and tax charges. He had funded opposition parties and challenged the Kremlin politically. His prosecution and long imprisonment were widely seen abroad as politically driven, a reading the Russian government rejected. The case became the clearest signal that Putin had broken the power of the independent oligarchs. economy / politics ●●●

2003 The Kimberley Process targets blood diamonds contested 0 cit. Governments, industry, and campaigners launched the Kimberley Process, a certification scheme meant to keep diamonds that fund armed rebellion out of world trade, after wars in Sierra Leone and Angola. It was a direct response to the "blood diamond" trade, which is covered more fully in the De Beers record. Critics argue the scheme defines conflict narrowly and lets abusive but non-rebel regimes pass, so its real effect is disputed. diplomacy / economy / war ●●

2003 China consolidates its state-owned enterprises under SASAC 0 cit. China set up the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) to act as the controlling shareholder of its largest firms in energy, banking, telecoms, and heavy industry. The government runs these national champions as businesses while steering them toward state goals. Analysts point to this blend of market operations and party control as the model now called state capitalism. economy / politics ●●●

c. 2003 DHS grants fund tactical gear after 9/11 0 cit. After the September 11 attacks, the new Department of Homeland Security began sending billions of dollars in counterterrorism grants to state and local police. Unlike the 1033 surplus program, this money let departments buy new armored trucks, tactical rifles, and surveillance equipment directly, often justified by the threat of terrorism. Watchdogs later found much of the gear was used for everyday policing far from any terror threat, deepening the flow of military-style equipment into local agencies. economy / politics ●●●

2003 The CALO project and the origins of Siri 0 cit. DARPA funded CALO, a huge artificial intelligence effort at SRI to build a software assistant that could learn and organize its user's life. A spin-off company turned that work into Siri, which Apple bought in 2010 and put into the iPhone. economy / science / technology ●●

2003 The Bosire Commission reports on Goldenberg 0 cit. A judicial commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Samuel Bosire investigated the Goldenberg affair from 2003 and reported in October 2005. It traced roughly 158 billion shillings through hundreds of companies and named senior figures, recommending further investigation of former president Moi and charges against minister George Saitoti. Despite the findings, no major figure was convicted. economy / politics ●●

November 2003 The Elf trial ends in convictions 0 cit. A Paris court convicts around thirty people, including former executives Loik Le Floch-Prigent and Alfred Sirven, in what was called the biggest corruption scandal in a European democracy since the war. The trial laid bare how Elf's money moved between African oil states and French power. It confirmed that the oil company had operated as an arm of the state. economy / politics ●●

2003 The Tax Justice Network is founded 0 cit. Campaigners and researchers launched the Tax Justice Network in 2003 to study tax havens and push for reform. The group popularised the term "secrecy jurisdiction" to shift focus from low taxes to hidden ownership. It argues the offshore system is not an accident but a structure built to help the wealthy and powerful hide money, a claim it presents as its analysis of the evidence. economy / society ●●

c. 2003 The debate over what caused the lost decades 0 cit. Richard Werner argues the long slump was engineered, the intended result of a central bank steering credit to force reform. The mainstream view holds it was not designed but was the wreckage of a genuine asset bubble made worse by slow policy, weak banks, and an aging population. Both sides agree that the bubble and crash were real and that policy shaped the outcome; they disagree on whether the damage was intended. economy / politics ●●●

c. 2003 South Africa both loses and recruits health workers 0 cit. South Africa lost doctors and nurses to Britain, Canada and the Gulf while itself hiring staff from Zimbabwe, Nigeria and other African states to fill the gap. Britain and South Africa signed a memorandum in 2003 meant to limit direct NHS recruitment of South African staff. The pattern shows migration flowing up a chain of income, with each country drawing from poorer ones. diplomacy / economy / society ●●

c. 2004 Dubai as the Middle East's financial hub 0 cit. The Dubai International Financial Centre opens in 2004 as an offshore zone with its own courts based on English common law. Dubai becomes the leading financial hub of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region and now ranks in the global top ten. economy ●●●

4 February 2004 Founding of Facebook 0 cit. Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launches thefacebook.com from his dorm. Renamed Meta in 2021, the company's social networks come to connect billions of people and reshape media and politics. economy / society / technology ●●●●

26 June 2004 Basel II revises the capital rules 0 cit. The committee released Basel II, a more detailed framework that let banks use their own risk models and added supervision and disclosure requirements. The reliance on bank models later drew criticism after the financial crisis. economy / politics ●●●

2004 Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (contested) unproven 0 cit. John Perkins claimed in a bestselling memoir that consultants deliberately trapped poor nations in debt to serve US corporate interests. The book is widely read but its specific claims are unverified and treated by scholars as anecdote rather than documented fact. economy / politics ●●

July 2004 De Beers pleads guilty to price-fixing in the United States 0 cit. De Beers pleaded guilty to a US federal charge of conspiring to fix prices of industrial diamonds and paid a 10 million dollar fine, ending decades of the company avoiding direct business in the United States to escape antitrust prosecution. The settlement let De Beers finally operate openly in the US retail market. economy ●●

February 2004 Musk becomes lead investor and chairman of Tesla 0 cit. Elon Musk led Tesla Motors' Series A funding round, investing 6.35 million of the 7.5 million dollars raised. The investment made him the company's largest shareholder and chairman of its board, though Martin Eberhard remained CEO until 2007. economy / technology ●●●

c. 2004 Yelp founded 0 cit. Former PayPal engineers Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons founded Yelp, originally conceived as an email-based referral service before pivoting to the local business review site it became known as. Both had worked together at PayPal before eBay's acquisition. economy / technology ●●

August 2004 Thiel makes first outside investment in Facebook 0 cit. Peter Thiel invested 500,000 dollars in Facebook for a 10.2 percent stake, becoming the company's first outside investor and valuing it at 4.9 million dollars. The investment, structured as a convertible note, became one of the most profitable angel investments in history after Facebook's 2012 IPO. economy / technology ●●●

c. April 2004 Yukos hit with massive back-tax claims 0 cit. Russian tax authorities presented Yukos with retroactive tax bills totaling billions of dollars, far exceeding the company's cash reserves. Yukos and its supporters argued the claims were selectively applied and designed to force the company into bankruptcy and state seizure; the government maintained they reflected legitimate tax evasion by the company. economy / politics ●●

c. July 2004 Sechin becomes chairman of Rosneft 0 cit. Igor Sechin, a deputy head of the presidential administration and one of Putin's closest allies from his St. Petersburg years, was named chairman of the state oil company Rosneft. His appointment marked the growing role of siloviki, officials with security and military backgrounds, in running Russia's state-owned energy champions. economy / politics ●●

19 December 2004 Yuganskneftegaz auctioned to Rosneft 0 cit. Yukos's main production subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, was auctioned off to cover the company's tax debts and was bought by an obscure shell company for about 9.4 billion dollars; the shell was financed by state-owned Rosneft and absorbed into it days later. Western governments and Yukos shareholders called the sale a rigged renationalization; Russian officials described it as lawful debt recovery. economy / politics ●●●

2004 John Perkins publishes Confessions of an Economic Hit Man 0 cit. Former economic consultant John Perkins published Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, describing his own claimed role inducing developing-country leaders to accept oversized infrastructure loans from US-linked institutions that, he argued, were designed to be unrepayable and to leave those countries under US financial and political influence. Perkins presents this as firsthand testimony of a deliberate strategy; the book's specific claims have been disputed by some economists and former colleagues and should be understood as one insider's account rather than an established historical record. economy / politics ●●

c. 30 June 2004 Ndung'u Commission report presented to Kibaki 1 cit. The Ndung'u Commission presented its report to President Mwai Kibaki, documenting widespread and systematic irregular allocation of public land, including forest land, road reserves and land set aside for schools and other public use, benefiting politically connected individuals across successive administrations. The report recommended repossession of illegally acquired land and reform of land administration, though implementation was subsequently slow and partial. economy / politics ●●●

19 December 2004 Yukos dismantled and absorbed by the state 0 cit. Hit with back-tax claims running to billions of dollars, Yukos was broken up, and its main production unit Yuganskneftegaz was sold at a forced auction. The asset ended up with the state oil company Rosneft, run by Putin ally Igor Sechin. The European Court of Human Rights later found serious procedural violations in the tax proceedings. The affair transferred a huge private oil business into state-controlled hands and reshaped the Russian energy sector. economy / politics ●●

c. 2004 The resource wars over coltan, cobalt, and gold 0 cit. Long after the formal peace, armed groups and neighboring states kept fighting over the mineral-rich east, financing themselves through coltan, gold, tin, and cobalt. The country holds much of the world's cobalt, a metal central to modern batteries and electronics, tying global supply chains to the conflict. UN reports and rights groups have documented armed control of mines, forced labor, and the illicit export of Congolese minerals. economy / war ●●●

1 May 2004 Eastern enlargement of the European Union 0 cit. Ten countries joined the EU at once, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states, most of them former communist countries. It was the largest single expansion in the Union's history and reunited much of the continent after the Cold War. diplomacy / economy / politics / society ●●●

2004 Collier and Hoeffler debate greed versus grievance in civil war 0 cit. Economists Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler published influential research arguing that the ability to loot resources, more than political grievance, predicted the risk of civil war. Their finding suggested that valuable, lootable commodities like diamonds and oil can fund and prolong armed conflict. Other scholars pushed back, saying grievance and history still matter, but the study framed how the world talks about "conflict resources." economy / politics / war ●●

March 2004 The DARPA Grand Challenge launches self-driving cars 0 cit. DARPA offered a cash prize for a driverless vehicle that could cross the desert on its own. No car finished the first race in 2004, but a follow-up in 2005 and an urban course in 2007 produced the engineers and techniques behind today's self-driving car industry. economy / science / technology ●●

2004 Keyhole becomes Google Earth 0 cit. In-Q-Tel invested in Keyhole, a startup that stitched satellite images into a browsable globe. Google bought the company in 2004 and turned its software into Google Earth, so a mapping tool backed by the CIA ended up on hundreds of millions of ordinary computers. economy / society / technology ●●

2004 Palantir is built on intelligence work 0 cit. Peter Thiel and others founded Palantir to build data-analysis software, and In-Q-Tel money and CIA feedback helped shape its early product. The company grew into a major contractor whose tools are used by spy agencies, the military, and police to sift huge amounts of data. economy / politics / technology ●●

2004 The Ndung'u Land Report documents the grabbing 0 cit. The Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land, chaired by Paul Ndung'u, reported in 2004. It documented decades of grabbing of public land, including forests, road reserves, and school and hospital plots, most of it clustered around the elections of 1992, 1997 and 2002. It recommended repossessing the land and prosecuting those responsible. Most of its recommendations were never carried out. economy / politics / society ●●●

2004 Anglo-Leasing: paying for phantom contracts 2 cit. In 2003 and 2004, under a Kibaki government elected on an anti-corruption platform, officials signed a series of security contracts for passports, navy ships, forensic labs and more with companies such as 'Anglo Leasing and Finance' that did not really exist or never delivered. The state paid or committed hundreds of millions of dollars for goods and services that never arrived. The case showed that grand corruption had survived the change of government. economy / politics ●●●

2004 Fauna & Flora International creates Ol Pejeta Conservancy 3 cit. Fauna & Flora International, with funding from the US-based Arcus Foundation, buys the former Ol Pejeta cattle ranch and turns it into a conservancy of about 90,000 acres. The land had earlier passed through the hands of Lord Delamere and the Lonrho company. Ol Pejeta becomes the largest black rhino sanctuary in East Africa. economy / environment ●●

c. 2004 The care drain strains health systems in poorer countries 0 cit. Malawi lost so many nurses to Britain and elsewhere that in 2004 it launched an emergency programme to train and keep staff. When a country trains a health worker who then emigrates, it pays for the schooling but loses the service, a transfer of value from poor to rich. Thin staffing weakens maternal care and treatment for common illness in the countries that can least afford the loss. economy / society ●●●

c. 2004 Community conservancies spread across the rangelands 0 cit. Kenya saw a fast rise of community and private conservancies, blocks of land set aside for wildlife and tourism alongside or instead of grazing. Backers presented them as a way to earn income from conservation and give communities a stake in wildlife. The model reshaped huge areas of the north and the Maasai lands, changing who controlled land and how it could be used. economy / environment / society ●●

2004 Northern Rangelands Trust founded 0 cit. The Northern Rangelands Trust was set up to link and support a growing network of community conservancies across northern Kenya. Over time it came to cover millions of hectares and many pastoralist communities, funded by Western donors including The Nature Conservancy and USAID. It became the biggest and most influential body in Kenya's conservancy movement. diplomacy / economy / environment ●●

December 2004 The Ndung'u report documents decades of stolen land 0 cit. A government commission led by lawyer Paul Ndiritu Ndung'u reported on how public land had been handed out illegally and irregularly to the powerful over decades. It found that forests, road reserves, school grounds, and other public property had been grabbed by politicians, officials, and companies tied to them. The report put on record the scale of the land betrayal that had run from the Kenyatta era onward. economy / politics ●●●

June 2004 Ndung'u narrows reform to illegal public-land allocations 2 cit. The Ndung'u Commission exposed decades of illegal and irregular allocation of public land to politically connected people. Its value was real: it documented state land grabbing. Its limit was also clear: the mandate was public land, not a wholesale reopening of the original colonial and independence land settlement, private titles, or the willing-buyer bargain that had moved former settler land into elite hands. economy / politics / society ●●●●

c. 2005 Founding of the Qatar Investment Authority 0 cit. Qatar created a sovereign wealth fund to invest its gas revenue in global assets. The fund bought stakes in banks, property, and companies across Europe and beyond. economy ●●●

July 2005 The Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative 0 cit. Agreed at the G8 summit in 2005, the MDRI cancelled the remaining IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank debts of countries that completed HIPC. It delivered the deepest multilateral debt relief to date. economy / politics ●●●●

2005 Founders Fund launched 0 cit. Peter Thiel launched the venture capital firm Founders Fund together with fellow PayPal alumni Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. The firm became one of the most prominent vehicles for the PayPal network's investing activity, backing companies such as SpaceX and Palantir. economy / technology ●●

31 May 2005 Khodorkovsky convicted at first trial 0 cit. A Moscow court found Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced him to nine years in prison, later reduced on appeal to eight. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and many Western governments called him a political prisoner; Russian prosecutors maintained the conviction rested on genuine financial crimes. economy / politics ●●●

28 September 2005 Gazprom acquires Sibneft from Abramovich 0 cit. State-controlled Gazprom purchased Roman Abramovich's majority stake in the oil company Sibneft for about 13.1 billion dollars, one of the largest deals in Russian corporate history. Unlike Khodorkovsky, Abramovich sold voluntarily and at a substantial profit, illustrating the different fates of oligarchs who avoided political confrontation with the Kremlin. economy ●●

11 June 2005 Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative cancels debt for poorest countries 0 cit. G8 finance ministers agreed to the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, canceling roughly 40 to 55 billion dollars owed by the poorest, mostly formerly colonized, countries to the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank. The relief was tied to countries having completed the HIPC process and continuing to meet its policy conditions, again linking debt forgiveness to continued external oversight of economic policy. economy ●●

2005 Toys R Us bought in leveraged buyout by KKR, Bain Capital, and Vornado 0 cit. KKR, Bain Capital, and the real estate firm Vornado bought the toy retailer Toys R Us in a 6.6 billion dollar leveraged buyout, loading the company with roughly 5 billion dollars of debt. The company's annual interest payments on that debt, reported at several hundred million dollars a year, left little room to invest in stores or compete with Amazon and Walmart over the following decade. The private equity owners said they had tried to modernize a struggling retailer against difficult industry headwinds; critics, including many of the company's own employees, argued the debt load itself was the primary cause of its later collapse. economy ●●

c. 1 April 2005 Bracero Wage Restitution Fund 0 cit. After years of advocacy and lawsuits, including the US class action Cruz v. United States filed in 2001, the Mexican Congress created a fund to compensate surviving braceros or their heirs for a mandatory 10 percent wage deduction that was supposed to be held as savings during the Bracero Program but that many workers never received. Payments of roughly 38,000 pesos, later supplemented by additional US dollar payments, began reaching some former braceros and families in the following years, though many braceros had already died and advocacy groups criticized the application process as slow and difficult to navigate. economy / politics ●

1 October 2005 Goldenberg Commission report submitted 0 cit. The Bosire-led Goldenberg Commission submitted its report, finding that KSh 158.3 billion had been transacted through the scheme involving 487 companies and individuals, with billions of shillings transferred abroad and never returned. The report said former President Daniel arap Moi, who was never called to testify, should be further investigated over an alleged shareholding in Goldenberg International; the report was made public in February 2006. economy / politics ●●●

2005 Nation branding is measured like a corporate brand 0 cit. Policy adviser Simon Anholt launched the Nation Brands Index, which surveys global opinion and ranks countries as if they were consumer brands. Governments began hiring consultants to manage their image, tourism, and investment appeal the way firms manage marketing. The nation was recast as a brand to be positioned and sold. culture / economy / society ●

2005 Jochen Zeitz buys the Segera ranch 0 cit. The German businessman Jochen Zeitz, then chief executive of Puma, buys the Segera ranch in Laikipia, roughly 50,000 acres. He runs it as a conservancy with a luxury retreat and later sets up the Zeitz Foundation. Segera is another example of a former ranch bought by a wealthy foreign owner and continued as a private conservation estate. economy / environment ●

1 January 2005 East African Community Customs Union takes effect 0 cit. The EAC Customs Union Protocol takes effect, introducing a common external tariff and phasing out internal duties among member states. Kenya, the bloc's largest economy, adjusts its trade regime to the shared tariff schedule. The step transfers a measure of tariff-setting authority from the national government to the community. diplomacy / economy ●●

January 2005 The East African Community sets a 25 percent car tariff 0 cit. The East African Community customs union took effect in 2005 with a Common External Tariff on goods entering the bloc. Finished passenger vehicles fall in the top band, carrying an import duty of 25 percent of customs value. This is the first of several charges stacked on an imported car. diplomacy / economy ●●

2005 Unilever Kenya wins landmark transfer-pricing case 0 cit. In Unilever Kenya Ltd v Commissioner of Income Tax, Kenya's High Court ruled against the tax authority's attempt to adjust prices on goods the company sold to a related firm in Uganda. The case exposed that Kenya then had no clear transfer-pricing rules and pushed the country to issue its first regulations in 2006. Tax-justice campaigners cite intra-group pricing in tea, horticulture and extractives as a routine channel for shifting profit out of Kenya. economy / politics ●●

2 March 2005 The Paris Declaration confronts tied aid and expert dependency 0 cit. Donor and recipient governments sign a declaration on aid effectiveness that commits them to use country systems, untie aid, and cut the duplicative technical assistance and parallel project units that bypass local institutions. The agreement is an official admission that tied aid and foreign consultants had failed to build lasting local capacity. Follow-up reviews found progress on these pledges was slow. diplomacy / economy ●●

4 April 2005 IRS rejects the all-caps strawman name theory debunked 2 cit. IRS Revenue Ruling 2005-21 directly rejected the claim that different capitalization formats create a separate strawman entity that can carry tax debts instead of the human taxpayer. It also rejected the idea that an all-uppercase name has legal significance for federal tax purposes. This is the cleanest source for uppercase name versus lower case name claims. economy / politics / society ●●●●●

c. 2005 Mara conservancies lease subdivided Maasai land back into wildlife blocks 2 cit. Around the Maasai Mara, tourism operators and conservation bodies began leasing individual Maasai-owned parcels and pooling them into conservancies. Landowners kept title and received lease payments, while grazing, settlement and cultivation were restricted by conservancy rules. The model rebuilt open wildlife habitat after subdivision, but it also turned access to ancestral grazing land into a contract governed by tourism income. economy / environment / society ●●●●●

January 2006 Collapse of Kongo Gumi 0 cit. Unable to service debts taken on during Japan's bubble era, the 1,428-year-old temple builder Kongo Gumi goes into liquidation and its assets pass to Takamatsu Construction. The world's oldest independent company ends. culture / economy ●●

2006 The Secret and the law of attraction 0 cit. Rhonda Byrne's book and film The Secret repackaged the New Thought law of attraction, the claim that positive thoughts draw wealth and success into your life. Promoted heavily on daytime television, it became a global bestseller and mainstreamed manifestation thinking. culture / economy ●●●

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 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 ●●

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 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 ●●

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 ●●

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 ●●●

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 ●●●●

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 ●●●

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 ●●

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 ●●

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 ●●

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 ●●●●

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 ●●●●

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 ●●●

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 launches Vision 2030 2 cit. Kenya launches Vision 2030, a national development blueprint to become a middle-income industrialized country by 2030, drawn up with international consultants and aligned with the World Bank and global development frameworks. economy / politics ●●●