Portal:Current events/2008 July 21
July 21, 2008 (Monday)
- The Congress of France (the National Assembly and the Senate meeting together) passes a bill that would make major changes to the Constitution of France, with a margin of only one vote; this bill is designed to strengthen Parliament, while establishing a two-term presidential term limit and allowing the President to speak before Parliament.(BBC News)
- Russia and China sign a pact demarcating their 4,300-kilometer border, bringing an end to more than 40 years of negotiations. (BBC News)
- Fugitive Radovan Karadžić, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, is arrested in Serbia. (BBC News)
- The United States Food and Drug Administration finds the same salmonella strain responsible for the 2008 United States salmonellosis outbreak in Mexican-grown jalapeño peppers. (AP via Google News)
- The first terrorism trial of a Guantanamo Bay inmate begins with Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the former driver and bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, pleading not guilty. (CBC)
- Yahoo! reaches a deal with Carl Icahn giving him three seats on its board of directors. (Bloomberg)
- Zimbabwe:
- Zimbabwe introduces a new 100-billion-dollar bank note as the annual inflation rate hits 2.2 million percent. (BBC News) (The Guardian)
- Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change sign an agreement to start talks on a powersharing arrangement in Zimbabwe. (AP via Google News)
- Nepal's presidential election concludes with Ram Baran Yadav winning with a majority. (China Daily)
- At least three people die and 14 are injured in deliberate explosions on buses in the city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the People's Republic of China. (Reuters)
- A United States Air Force B-52 bomber crashes near Guam in the western Pacific Ocean. (AP via MSNBC)
- Pope Benedict XVI holds a special mass in Sydney for victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic Church clergy. (Al-Jazeera)