Portal:Current events/2007 October 8

October 8, 2007 (Monday)

U.S. athlete Marion Jones returns the five medals she won at the Sydney Olympics and accepts a two-year ban from the sport after admitting to her use of a prohibited substance. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Australia suffers its first combat casualty in Afghanistan following the explosion of a bomb in the southern province of Orūzgān. (Canadian Press)
Washington plane crash
- Air crews conduct search and rescue missions for an airplane carrying 8-10 passengers that is believed to have crashed in a mountainous area of the U.S. state of Washington 45 miles west of Yakima. (Reuters)
- The wreckage of a small plane carrying nine skydivers and the pilot is found in Washington with no sign of survivors. (AP via Google)
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown announces that Britain will cut its troop commitment in Iraq by half to 2,500 troops. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
H D Kumaraswamy resigns as Chief Minister of the Indian state of Karnataka. Governor Rameshwar Thakur is likely to recommend presidential rule till further elections.
Mario R. Capecchi, Oliver Smithies, and Sir Martin J. Evans are announced as winners of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of the principles for introducing specific gene modifications by the use of embryonic stem cells in mice. (Nobelprize.org)
Pakistan:
- A helicopter escorting the helicopter of President Pervez Musharraf crashes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killing four security officials and injuring his spokesman.
- Forty five Pakistani soldiers and 130 pro-Taliban militants have died in two days of fierce fighting in North Waziristan, the Pakistani army says. (Aljazeera)
2007 Burmese anti-government protests: Burma's junta announces that Buddhist monasteries have accepted US$8000 as well as food and medicine from its soldiers to signify the armed forces have not left the faith. (AFP via Melbourne Herald Sun)
New Zealand introduces its biofuel bill. (NZ parliament)