Portal:Current events/2005 December 7

Current events of December 7, 2005 (2005-12-07) (Wednesday)

• 2005 United Nations Climate Change Conference
  • Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin addresses the Montreal conference on climate change, and is critical of the United States's stance on the issue. Martin's allegedly "undiplomatic" comments—"there is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it"—reportedly anger Vice President Dick Cheney. (CBC)
• The third President of Singapore, Chengara Veetil Devan Nair, passes away in Canada at the age of 82. (CNA)
• Two people are wounded in Malawi, which is facing serious food shortages, following clashes between police and people trying to buy cornmeal. (BBC)
• Microsoft loses a South Korean antitrust case, and is fined ₩n32 billion (USD 32m). (Reuters) (BBC)
• A U.S. Federal Air Marshal fatally shoots Rigoberto Alpizar on American Airlines Flight 924 in a jetway at Miami International Airport in Florida. Alpizar, a U.S. citizen who had disembarked from an American Airlines flight from Medellín, Colombia, claimed to have a bomb. No explosive was found. (BBC) (CNN)
• Nobel Prize in Literature winner Harold Pinter accuses Britain and the United States of engaging in state terrorism in Iraq and demands the prosecution of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. (Reuters) (BBC)
• An Italian court rules that calling someone a "dirty negro" while committing a crime is not necessarily a hate crime. (Reuters)