2006... the summary
As always, the year we are just about to leave was full of events, and in order to remember, I will report the most important ones... by category...
Politics...
Ariel Sharon, Israel Prime Minister suffered massive hemorragic stroke and fell into coma, after 4 months he is replaced by Ehud Olmert... Hamas wins the elections in Palestine.... first Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova dies... a coup to oust Philippine's President Gloria M. Arroyo fails... Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb war criminal, is found dead in his cell in The Hague... Sweden's Foreign Affairs Minister Leila Freivalds resign following scandals about Tsunami relief aids... ETA declares permanent ceasefire in Spain... Montenegro declares its independence... women allowed to vote for the first time in Kuwait... North Korea test fires seven missiles including long range Taepodong-2... Israel invades Lebanon starting a new conflict in the region... Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev killed... Fidel Castro relinquishes power to his brother Raul due serious illness... new regulations for air transportation safety put in place... Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is exiled following a military coup... new Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe succeeds Junichiro Koizumi... South Korea Ban Ki-moon is elected new U.N. Secretary General... Brazil's President of humble origins Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is re-elected... Iraqi former dictator Saddam Hussain is sentenced to death for crimes against humanity... Russian anti-Kremlin journalist Anna Politkovskaya is liquidated by a hitman in Moscow... US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigns as the Repubblicans lose the mid-term elections, he is replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates... foreign intervention is needed in Tonga due to heavy social unrest... Iran and Syria recognize Iraq's government... Lebanon's Minister of Industry is assassinated in Beirut... Alexander Litvinenko, defector and former KGB spy and outspokenly anti-Kremlin, killed with a lethal dose of radioactive material in London... military coup in the Fiji islands led by Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama... egocentric Turkmenistan dictator Suparmurat Niyazoz dies... Ethiopian military attacks Somalia's Islamic militants and take control of Somali capital Mogadishu...
News...
US Vice-President Dick Chaney accidentaly shoots a friend during hunting... 53.1 million British pounds stolen in the biggest robbery in UK history... 1 billionth song purchased from Apple Itunes Store... new kind of shark discovered in Mexican waters... billionaire Warren Buffett donates US$ 30 billions to the Gates foundation... Quinghai, the world's highest railway opens, connecting China to Tibet... Zuleyka Rivera becomes Puerto Rico's 5th Miss Universe... Austria's Natascha Kampusch escape after being kidnapped for 8 years... Edward Munch's painting The Scream recovered in Oslo by police... Taipei's airport Chiang Kai Shek, in a politically driven move, is renamed Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport... after 40 long years of development, the new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport opens and replaces Don Mueang airport, and to describe it with my friend's Tad words, it's so FUGLY, it's so dark it looks like a f**king garage, and I agree...Google buys YouTube for US$ 1.65 billion... Jeffrey Skillings, one of the people responsible for the Enron financial collapse that ruined thousands of people, sentenced to more than 24 years of prison... in Sadr City, a coordinated attack with multiple car bombs and mortars kills an unprecedented 215 people... the Chinese River Dolphin (Baiji) is declared extinct... a Lybian court sentences 5 Bulgarian nurses and 1 Palestinian doctor to death for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with HIV, while an unheard independent study found the inhuman conditions of the facilities to be the main culprit... Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus, a banker and economist, who developed the concept of microcredit for entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for regular loans is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his fight to poverty... James Brown dies...
News we wouldn't want to report...
During the 2006, there were a lot of tragedies ranging from natural disasters to wars and terrorist attacks to job related accidents to transportation accidents, to crowd and housing related deaths... and even if nothing came close to the 2004 Tsunami's 230.000 casualties, there were 1800 death in the Philippines due to a mudslide, 65 in each Mexico and Poland in mines related accidents, 362 pilgrims died in a stampede at the Hajj, 1400 in Egypt when an overloaded boat capsized, 6000 as a result of a earthquake in Indonesia, 56 in Moscow when a hospital was set ablaze, 76 in Mecca when a hotel collapsed, 265 in Nigeria when a Oil pipeline exploded, hundreds in the Philippines for the latest hurricane, plus 48 more in Bahrein, 38 in Germany, 23 in Poland, 41 in Yemen 45 in Russia in different kinds of accidents, and tens more in USA, Romania, China, Japan and Australia mainly in mines related accidents plus many more in bombs related deaths in Varanasi, Mumbai, Israel and Egypt. Needless to say, hundreds more have perished in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Congo and all other war-torn and famine striken countries... for aviation, at least seven major accidents were registered for a total of 623 victims...
Sports...
Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant scored an NBA all-time second best 81 points against Toronto, and I was there to witness that... the Winter Olympics were held in Turin, and I was there too... the Pittsburgh Steelers stole, with the help of the refrees, Superbowl XL against the Seattle Seahawks to win the NFL title... Barcelona defeated Arsenal to win the the UEFA Champions League... CSKA Moscow won the Euroleague of basketball, beating two times champs Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv in the final in Prague... Spain won the World Championships of basketball held in Japan... the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Edmonton Oilers to win the NHL Stanley Cup... the Miami Heat held off the Dallas Mavericks to win their first NBA title... USA's Floyd Landis won the Tour de France only to be the first winner in the race history to be disgracefully disqulified for failing a doping test... Italy wins the Football World Cup in Germany defeating France in the final, it's Italy's 4th win, second only to Brazil with 5... the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series of the MLB... talking about outstanding accomplishments, Andre Agassi retires after being only one of five professional male tennis players to win all four Grand Slam tournaments, and the only one to add an Olympic Gold medal and a Davis Cup to his 8 Grand Slam titles and his 60 tournament victories... Roger Federer won 3 majors this year, bringing his total to 9. He is 6th all time, one major behind Bill Tilden, 2 behind Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver, 3 behind Roy Emerson and 5 behind all time leader Pete Sampras, all long retired. Federer could surely jump to number 2 spot in this list in the next year or two, having already passed historic players such as Connors, McEnroe, Beckers, Lendl and Agassi... Michael Schumacher retires as the greatest Formula 1 driver ever, as he holds nearly every record including most driver's championships, race victories, fastest laps, pole positions, most races won in a single season and he leaves with 7 titles (2 with Benetton, 5 with Ferrari), 2 more than Argentinian great and previous record holder Juan Manuel Fangio... Tiger Woods won 2 more majors, the British Open and the PGA Championship, bringing his total to 12 and trailing only Jack Nicklaus by a mere 6 majors at age 31...
Politics...
Ariel Sharon, Israel Prime Minister suffered massive hemorragic stroke and fell into coma, after 4 months he is replaced by Ehud Olmert... Hamas wins the elections in Palestine.... first Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova dies... a coup to oust Philippine's President Gloria M. Arroyo fails... Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb war criminal, is found dead in his cell in The Hague... Sweden's Foreign Affairs Minister Leila Freivalds resign following scandals about Tsunami relief aids... ETA declares permanent ceasefire in Spain... Montenegro declares its independence... women allowed to vote for the first time in Kuwait... North Korea test fires seven missiles including long range Taepodong-2... Israel invades Lebanon starting a new conflict in the region... Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev killed... Fidel Castro relinquishes power to his brother Raul due serious illness... new regulations for air transportation safety put in place... Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is exiled following a military coup... new Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe succeeds Junichiro Koizumi... South Korea Ban Ki-moon is elected new U.N. Secretary General... Brazil's President of humble origins Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is re-elected... Iraqi former dictator Saddam Hussain is sentenced to death for crimes against humanity... Russian anti-Kremlin journalist Anna Politkovskaya is liquidated by a hitman in Moscow... US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigns as the Repubblicans lose the mid-term elections, he is replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates... foreign intervention is needed in Tonga due to heavy social unrest... Iran and Syria recognize Iraq's government... Lebanon's Minister of Industry is assassinated in Beirut... Alexander Litvinenko, defector and former KGB spy and outspokenly anti-Kremlin, killed with a lethal dose of radioactive material in London... military coup in the Fiji islands led by Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama... egocentric Turkmenistan dictator Suparmurat Niyazoz dies... Ethiopian military attacks Somalia's Islamic militants and take control of Somali capital Mogadishu...
News...
US Vice-President Dick Chaney accidentaly shoots a friend during hunting... 53.1 million British pounds stolen in the biggest robbery in UK history... 1 billionth song purchased from Apple Itunes Store... new kind of shark discovered in Mexican waters... billionaire Warren Buffett donates US$ 30 billions to the Gates foundation... Quinghai, the world's highest railway opens, connecting China to Tibet... Zuleyka Rivera becomes Puerto Rico's 5th Miss Universe... Austria's Natascha Kampusch escape after being kidnapped for 8 years... Edward Munch's painting The Scream recovered in Oslo by police... Taipei's airport Chiang Kai Shek, in a politically driven move, is renamed Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport... after 40 long years of development, the new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport opens and replaces Don Mueang airport, and to describe it with my friend's Tad words, it's so FUGLY, it's so dark it looks like a f**king garage, and I agree...Google buys YouTube for US$ 1.65 billion... Jeffrey Skillings, one of the people responsible for the Enron financial collapse that ruined thousands of people, sentenced to more than 24 years of prison... in Sadr City, a coordinated attack with multiple car bombs and mortars kills an unprecedented 215 people... the Chinese River Dolphin (Baiji) is declared extinct... a Lybian court sentences 5 Bulgarian nurses and 1 Palestinian doctor to death for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with HIV, while an unheard independent study found the inhuman conditions of the facilities to be the main culprit... Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus, a banker and economist, who developed the concept of microcredit for entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for regular loans is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his fight to poverty... James Brown dies...
News we wouldn't want to report...
During the 2006, there were a lot of tragedies ranging from natural disasters to wars and terrorist attacks to job related accidents to transportation accidents, to crowd and housing related deaths... and even if nothing came close to the 2004 Tsunami's 230.000 casualties, there were 1800 death in the Philippines due to a mudslide, 65 in each Mexico and Poland in mines related accidents, 362 pilgrims died in a stampede at the Hajj, 1400 in Egypt when an overloaded boat capsized, 6000 as a result of a earthquake in Indonesia, 56 in Moscow when a hospital was set ablaze, 76 in Mecca when a hotel collapsed, 265 in Nigeria when a Oil pipeline exploded, hundreds in the Philippines for the latest hurricane, plus 48 more in Bahrein, 38 in Germany, 23 in Poland, 41 in Yemen 45 in Russia in different kinds of accidents, and tens more in USA, Romania, China, Japan and Australia mainly in mines related accidents plus many more in bombs related deaths in Varanasi, Mumbai, Israel and Egypt. Needless to say, hundreds more have perished in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Congo and all other war-torn and famine striken countries... for aviation, at least seven major accidents were registered for a total of 623 victims...
Sports...
Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant scored an NBA all-time second best 81 points against Toronto, and I was there to witness that... the Winter Olympics were held in Turin, and I was there too... the Pittsburgh Steelers stole, with the help of the refrees, Superbowl XL against the Seattle Seahawks to win the NFL title... Barcelona defeated Arsenal to win the the UEFA Champions League... CSKA Moscow won the Euroleague of basketball, beating two times champs Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv in the final in Prague... Spain won the World Championships of basketball held in Japan... the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Edmonton Oilers to win the NHL Stanley Cup... the Miami Heat held off the Dallas Mavericks to win their first NBA title... USA's Floyd Landis won the Tour de France only to be the first winner in the race history to be disgracefully disqulified for failing a doping test... Italy wins the Football World Cup in Germany defeating France in the final, it's Italy's 4th win, second only to Brazil with 5... the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series of the MLB... talking about outstanding accomplishments, Andre Agassi retires after being only one of five professional male tennis players to win all four Grand Slam tournaments, and the only one to add an Olympic Gold medal and a Davis Cup to his 8 Grand Slam titles and his 60 tournament victories... Roger Federer won 3 majors this year, bringing his total to 9. He is 6th all time, one major behind Bill Tilden, 2 behind Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver, 3 behind Roy Emerson and 5 behind all time leader Pete Sampras, all long retired. Federer could surely jump to number 2 spot in this list in the next year or two, having already passed historic players such as Connors, McEnroe, Beckers, Lendl and Agassi... Michael Schumacher retires as the greatest Formula 1 driver ever, as he holds nearly every record including most driver's championships, race victories, fastest laps, pole positions, most races won in a single season and he leaves with 7 titles (2 with Benetton, 5 with Ferrari), 2 more than Argentinian great and previous record holder Juan Manuel Fangio... Tiger Woods won 2 more majors, the British Open and the PGA Championship, bringing his total to 12 and trailing only Jack Nicklaus by a mere 6 majors at age 31...
posted by Raf at 7:20 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home