Portal:Current events/2008 January 16
January 16, 2008 (Wednesday)
- The proposed lyrics for the Spanish national anthem are withdrawn. (AP via The International Herald Tribune)
- The discovery of Tahina spectabilis, a palm in northern Madagascar that dies after flowering, is announced. (BBC News)
- Three United States Army soldiers are killed and another two wounded by small arms fire in the northern Salahuddin province of Iraq. (Reuters)
- War in Somalia (2006–2009): A huge blast in Mogadishu targeted an Ethiopian army convoy as it drove through a major intersection, killing seven soldiers on board, witnesses reported. (Garowe Online)
- War in Pakistan (2004–present); Sararogha Fort raid: Islamic militants overrun and capture a Pakistani military outpost, Sararogha Fort, close to the Afghan border in a battle that kills seven Pakistani soldiers and leaves 20 missing. The Pakistani military claims 50 attackers also died. (AP via Google News)
- Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister, resigns from the Cabinet of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with 10 party colleagues resigning from the government as well. (AFP via Google News)
- The Israel Defense Forces are dispatched to evacuate two settlements on the West Bank. (AP via Google News)
- A roadside bomb hits a bus in Buttala in southeastern Sri Lanka killing at least 23 people and injuring 67 others. (AP via Yahoo! News) (CNN)
- Sun Microsystems announces the acquisition of MySQL AB, a leading open source relational database management system vendor, for US$1 billion. (AP via Google News)