Top Headlines
* Voters in Nauru go to the polls for the Nauruan parliamentary election, 2007 and the Nauruan constitutional referendum, 2007 proposing the direct election of the President of Nauru. (ABC News Australia)
* Horse racing meetings throughout Australia are cancelled due to an outbreak of equine influenza in Centennial Park stables next to Sydney's Randwick Racecourse. (ABC News Australia)
* Former Ku Klux Klan member James Seale is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the murder of two black men Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore in Mississippi in 1964. (Reuters via News Limited)
* A Georgian official announces that Georgian forces have fired on a Russian aircraft claimed to have violated Georgian airspace, possibly shooting it down. (BBC)
* United States District Court judge William Hoeveler rules against former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega returning to Panama after he completes his sentence in a United States prison stating that there was no reason why he shouldn't be extradited to France to face a prison term there. (Reuters)
* Citing a "very reliable" source at the Miami University, the Swedish broad sheet newspaper Norra Skåne reports that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is dead. (Norra Skåne) (The Expressen)
* Quebec City mayor Andrée Boucher dies of a heart attack at 70. (CBC), (CANOE)
* Part of the Montreal Metro and the street above are closed off after the formation of cracks at McGill station, causing severe traffic problems in downtown. There is no indication as to when the road or station will be re-opened. (CBC)
* At least 20 people are killed in Peloponnese, Greece as a result of 150 wildfires burning out of control: two regions have been declared as disaster areas. (Athens News Agency)
* A Florida judge sentences John Couey to death for the rape and murder of a 9 year old girl Jessica Lunsford in Citrus County, Florida. (ABC News America)
* Russia sells Venezuela 98 Ilyushin Il-114 aircraft. (Reuters)
* Flood warnings are in place in 10 US states from Ohio to Texas with at least 25 people believed to have died in the past week. (BBC)
* Mexican oil platforms resume production following the end of the threat from Hurricane Dean. (Reuters)
* Three British Army soldiers die in Afghanistan in a suspected friendly fire incident. (BBC)
* Bangladesh eases curfew arrangements in place in its major cities following a reduction in street violence. (Reuters)
* Sixty suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq gunmen attack police facilities in Samarra, Iraq resulting in at least 3 deaths and 9 injuries. (AP via Fox News)
* Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations urges the Government of Myanmar to show restraint in its treatment of students and pro-democracy activists who have been protesting against the regime. (ABC News Australia)
* At least four Pakistan Army soldiers die in a suicide bomber attack on a military convoy near Miranshah, the main city of North Waziristan near the Afghan border. (BBC)
* The explosion of a car bomb outside a police station in the Basque city of Durango, Spain is believed to be the first attack by the separatist group ETA since it called off a ceasefire in June. (AP via CNN)
* Dozens of people are rescued from floods on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. (ABC News)
* The Governor General of Jamaica Kenneth Octavius Hall announces that the Jamaican general election, 2007 is postponed to September 3 due to the impact of Hurricane Dean. (Reuters)
* The Nigerian government extends a curfew in Port Harcourt after hundreds die in gang violence this month. (Reuters Alertnet)
* A storm in Chicago injures 40 people and disrupts the transport network. (AP via WSB)
* Top British tennis player Tim Henman has confirmed he will retire from the sport after this year's Davis Cup in Croatia. (Sky News)
* The Supreme Court of Pakistan issues a ruling allowing former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif to return to Pakistan. (AndhraNews.net)
* Officials in Ohio declare a state of emergency in nine counties as a result of flooding. (Reuters)
* Two people are killed in Ermera, East Timor in another outbreak of political violence. (ABC News)
* The South African Communist Party launches an investigation into what happened to a political donation of 500,000 rand allegedly made in 2002. (BBC)
* The European Union lifts a ban on the export of British livestock, meat and dairy products imposed after a recent foot and mouth disease outbreak in Surrey. (The Telegraph)
* MySpace and MTV join forces to let candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election hold online webcasts with young people. (AFP via the Melbourne Age)
* At least 25 people are killed, 22 arrested and five abducted as suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq militants attack a Sunni mosque in Baquba, Iraq. (BBC)
* Japanese political activist Yoshihiro Tanjo is charged with intimidation for cutting off his little finger and sending it to the Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe over Shinzo's refusal to visit the Yasukuni shrine to commemorate Japan's World War II dead. (BBC) (Reuters)
* Hurricane Dean is downgraded to a tropical depression over Mexico after killing 20 people in the Caribbean. (AP via Fox News)
* Two youths aged 18 and 14 are arrested in Liverpool, England on suspicion of shooting dead an 11-year-old boy in Croxteth. (The Times and PA)
* More than 1200 Ford workers in Victoria, Australia are stood down due to an industrial dispute over unpaid entitlements owed to workers in a Ford supplier. (AAP via News Limited)
* Vendors selling puffer fish meat as salmon has led to 15 deaths and 115 people being sickened in Thailand over the past three years. (AP via IHT)
* U.S. Customs and U.S. Navy officials seized a submarine-like vessel filled with $352 million worth of cocaine off the Guatemalan coast. (prices given by CIA) (AP via Forbes)
* War in Afghanistan:
o Two Canadian Army soldiers are killed and a Radio Canada journalist injured in an explosion. (CNN)
o A German engineer kidnapped by the Taliban pleads for help on Afghan television. (CNN)
* The Revolutionary Congolese Movement (MRC), the Front for the Patriotic Resistance of Ituri (FRPI), and the Front of National Integration (FNI) rebel groups agree to disarm and cooperate with the MONUC peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Scoop)
* Pakistan's Supreme Court says Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is not a law-enforcement agency or a customs authority. (AndhraNews.net)
* Hurricane Dean makes its final landfall near Tecolutla, Veracruz, Mexico, 100 miles north of the city of Veracruz, as a Category 2 storm. The Red Cross reports only one injury and no deaths from Dean's first landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula. (CNN)
* War in Iraq
o An American UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashes in northern Iraq killing all 14 soldiers on board. (Wikinews)
o A suicide bomber kills at least 20 people and wounding 40 more in the town of Baiji. (RTÉ)
* Voters in Kiribati go to the polls for the Kiribatian parliamentary election, 2007. (AP via IHT)
* Three Pakistani soldiers are killed in an attack by suspected pro-Taliban militants on a checkpoint in Bannu in the North-West Frontier Province. (BBC)
* Typhoon Sepat has killed at least 36 people in southeast China in the past week. (CNN)
* The U.S. Campaign for Burma claims that Myanmar's military government has arrested at least nine leaders of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students. (AP via the Guardian)
* UK government plans to spend £5.2bn in the next four years on Identity Card and related schemes. (The Register)
* Laura Richardson of the U.S. Democratic Party is elected in the special election for California's 37th congressional district, replacing Juanita Millender-McDonald who died last spring. (San Jose Mercury News)
* The Bank of Japan and Reserve Bank of Australia inject more funds into money markets to ensure stock market liquidity. (AP via Taipei Times)
* Ziad Fariz resigns as the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan following a government decision not to increase fuel taxes. The Cabinet also sets an election date on November 20. (AP via the IHT)
* The National Assembly of Venezuela gives initial unanimous approval to constitutional amendments that would remove term limits on the position of President of Venezuela currently held by Hugo Chávez. (CBS)
* Jailed Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari is released on bail after more than 100 days in detention. (NYT)
* The Central Intelligence Agency releases a report critical of the Agency's performance prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. (NYT)
* 2007 Lebanon conflict: Fatah al-Islam fighters battling the Lebanese army in a refugee camp have asked for a ceasefire to allow their families and remaining civilians to be evacuated. (Aljazeera)
* Space Shuttle Endeavour lands safely at Kennedy Space Center at 12:32:29 EDT (16:32:29 UTC). (IHT)
* Five thousand Dhaka University students in Bangladesh riot, resulting in major disruption to the university with 150 students being injured. (USA Today)
* Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has called for independent institutions in Libya including a central bank, a high court and media. (Reuters)
* Hurricane Dean:
o Hurricane Dean makes landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, just north of Chetumal, near the Belize border, at Category 5 strength.(BBC)
o There are no reports of deaths but 11 people have died elsewhere as a result of the hurricane. (Reuters)
o Hurricane Dean has wiped out Dominica's banana crop and causes major damage to the Jamaican crop. (AP via International Herald Tribune)
* The governments of Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are negotiating over a line demarcating each nation's respective rights to petroleum in the Atlantic Ocean. The DRC is expected to gain exploration rights to billions of untapped barrels worth of oil. (People's Daily)
* Dr Mohamed Haneef wins his bid in the Federal Court to have his Australian work visa reinstated after Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews canceled it after Dr Haneef was charged with "providing material support to a terrorist organization." (ABC News Australia) Andrews later says the Australian government would appeal against the court ruling. (AndhraNews.net)
* An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 hits the Indonesian province of Papua 101 kilometers from Tanahmerah. (The Philippine Star)
* Fifteen former associates of Saddam Hussein, including his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, face a trial in the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal for their alleged role in suppressing a Shiite uprising in 1991. (BBC)
* Winds equivalent to a Category 2 cyclone buffet the Byron Bay area of New South Wales before moving north to the Gold Coast area of Queensland. (ABC News Australia)
* Delegates from the Russian Communist Youth Union vote 98-1 to back the pro-Kremlin, center-left party A Just Russia in December's State Duma elections. (The Moscow Times)
* NASA clears the Space Shuttle Endeavour for an early landing tomorrow at Cape Canaveral. (Reuters)
* The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to extend the African Union Mission to Somalia. (BBC)
* At least 20 people have died as a result of flooding in the United States with further flooding likely in Minnesota and Wisconsin. (New York Times)
* A military judge dismisses two charges against Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, a United States Army officer in charge of the interrogation centre at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Jordan still faces several more charges including cruelty and maltreatment of detainees, disobeying a superior officer and failure to obey orders. (Reuters via News Limited)
* The thirteenth and final victim is recovered from the site of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge Collapse. (AP via CNN)
* An earthquake of 6.5 magnitude hits south of the Philippines. (The Gulf Times)
* The Grand National Assembly starts voting to select a new President of Turkey. The frontrunner Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül fails to achieve a necessary two-thirds majority in the first round with 341 out of 550 but is highly likely to be elected in later rounds when a simple majority of 50 per cent is required. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
* Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick agrees to a plea deal to charges of conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and conspiracy to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture in Richmond, Virginia, USA. (ESPN.com)
* British police have released CCTV footage of a motorcyclist shortly before his murder on the M40 motorway near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. (Sky)
* Muslim groups occupy Sikh Bhai Taro Singh Jee temple in Lahore, Pakistan (AndhraNews.net)
* An official of Murray Energy Corp, the operators of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, say that six trapped miners "may never be found". (Wikinews)
* An earthquake of 5.2 magnitude hits northern Tanzania 85 kilometres north of Arusha. (Reuters)
* Mohammed Ali al-Hasani, the Shia governor of Iraq's southern Al Muthanna Governorate is killed by a roadside bomb at Samawa. (BBC)
* The Tasmanian Labor Party expels Harry Quick, the Member of the Australian House of Representatives for Franklin. (ABC News Australia)
* Hurricane Dean:
o The eye of Hurricane Dean rapidly moves westward, passing just south of Jamaica, bringing strong hurricane-force winds and storm surges to bear down on the island nation, though the strongest wind is believed to have been offshore. (CNN)
o Mexico evacuates tourists from the Yucatán Peninsula and anthropologists prepare Mayan heritage sites for the possible impact. (AP via Washington Post)
o Hurricane Dean strengthens to Category 5 status as it already claims the lives of 11 people on Caribbean islands. (Reuters)
o Petróleos Mexicanos evacuates 18,000 offshore workers from sites in the southern Gulf of Mexico. (AP via the Houston Chronicle)
* A summit between US president George W. Bush, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, and about 30 CEOs from the three countries begins in the resort town of Montebello, Quebec, near Ottawa. The talks will deal with the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Protesters representing a variety of issues hold demonstrations regarding the exclusion of civil society from the talks and the secrecy of the process; police respond with tear gas. (CBC News)
* A China Airlines Boeing 737 airplane explodes less than a minute after all passengers and crew are evacuated shortly after landing at Naha, Japan. (Wikinews)
all headlines on Wikinews
