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Jul 1 In England a smoking ban goes into effect everywhere indoors except in private residences. Advertising and promotion of tobacco products have been banned in Britain since 2002.

Jul 3 Life expectancy estimates for 2007 indicate that in most countries since 2005 the average citizen's life span has increased from 4 to 7 months.

Jul 4 The increase use of farm products for fuel will drive up food prices claims a report co-written by the Organization for Economic Development (OECD).

Jul 4 Since Hamas has taken over in Gaza, people there feel safer and are in the streets more. Hamas wants to demonstrate that it can deliver law and order and in Gaza it forces members of the Dughmush clan to release the British journalist, Alan Johnston, after 16 weeks of captivity.

Jul 9 Zimbabwe's economy is not working. Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate, reported by the BBC to be at 3,700% (per year). President Mugabe has imposed price controls. Business people are being arrested for violating those controls, and produceers are not producing because they are being asked to do so for money less than the cost of production.

Jul 9 Hamas creates more order in Gaza. It rescues a lion stolen two years ago when she was a cub. Clan members were charging people to have their pictures taken with the animal, and they did not take care of her properly. Hamas has returned her to the Gaza Zoo, and the lion's brother recognized her instantly and is happy she is back.

Jul 10 In China, Zheng Xiaoyu is executed. He was convicted of taking bribes to approve medicines that killed an unknown number of people. It is considered unlikely that the U.S. Congress will pass a law creating such punishment as a deterent for similar behavior by U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials.

Jul 18 It is being said that a cause of the conflict in Darfur is drought, desertification and competition for water resources. Today the BBC reports that a huge underground lake has been discovered in Darfur. According to University of Boston researchers, reports the BBC, "some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudan's government."

Jul 19 The BBC reports that as life becomes increasingly hard many Algerians are turning to a "stricter form of Islam," while not supporting Islamist militants, whom they blame for having traumatized the population. Those militants, according to the BBC, this year have renamed themselves "al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb."

Jul 19 In Nepal, Sajani Shakya, the ten-year-old worshipped by Nepalese Hindus and Buddhists as a goddess, has disturbed temple elders. But they decide not to take away her status. This is because after having returned from the United States she is willing to undergo a cleansing ceremony.

Jul 22 In the U.S., Sunday talk shows discuss an apparent contradiction regarding Iraq. Almost everybody, including generals, have said that the war there is to be settled politically. The Bush administration is hoping that military action will give the Malaki government more time, but expert analysts, including the head of the CIA, describe the Malaki government as hopelessly dysfunctional. The world will be watching.

Jul 22 In Turkey those who see the country's secularism as threatened appear to be a minority as Prime Minister Erdogan wins a stunning election victory. But moderation dominates, with the prime minister as well, although his wife wears a head scarf, which has created a stir. A more extreme Muslim political party receives less than 3 percent of the vote.

Jul 24 Jean-Marie Guehenno, United Nations' Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, states that forces under Laurent Nkunda are the singlemost serious threat to stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nkunda is an ambitious breakaway general from the DRC army. He has been indicted for war crimes and is under investigation by the International Criminal Court. He reneged on a promise to abide by general elections in the DRC in November 2006.

Jul 27 Jon B. Alterman of CSIS has written that in Iraq "the trend lines are clear: the central government is less and less relevant to what happens in Iraq, and regional leaders—call them warlords, if you like—are grabbing the upper hand." ( CSIS, July 21, 2007)

Jul 28 Rather than vacation in violent Lebanon or religiously strict Saudi Arabia or Libya, more Middle East people are flocking to Cairo, Egypt, where they enjoy the food, well known movies, drink the locally brewed Stella beer and, some in Egypt complain, use Cairo as their sin city. (Reported in the Christian Science Monitor.)

Jul 30 Britain's Royal Society has published a study that concludes that on the Atlantic Ocean hurricanes doubled in frequency in the last century as a result of warmer water surfaces and climate change. (Reported by the BBC.)

Aug 1 The Kingdom of Jordan successfully completes public elections for council seats in the country's municipalities, positions previously held by persons appointed by the king.

Aug 1 In Minneapolis, Minnesota, an eight-lane bridge filled with bumper to bumper traffic collapses into the Mississippi River.

Aug 3 The governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, reverses himself. In 2005 and early in 2007 he vetoed bills to raise gasoline taxes. Today he says he is will consider a gas tax increase.

Aug 4 Some pundits in the U.S. describe the nation as spending too much on consumption and too little on its infrastructure.

Aug 5 Eric Weiss in the Washington Post writes of engineers in the 1950s and '60s building bridges with less steel and cheaper while not realizing the amount of stress that many of these bridges would eventually need to endure.

Aug 7 In the U.S. the Brookings Institute think tank reports that “On balance, Iraq at the end of July is showing significant signs of battlefield momentum in favor of U.S./coalition military forces, but there is nonetheless little good to report on the political front and only modest progress on the economic side of things.”

Aug 8 Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq meets again with Iranian officials, amid declarations of friendship and help from Iran.

Aug 12 Agence France-Presse reports that in the holy city of Medina, in Saudi Arabia, a Bangladeshi man dies of a heart attack (of fright says the article) after members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice detained him "for washing his car instead of praying."

Aug 14 On the Larry King show (CNN), a clip of Bill Maher shows him saying something like any country that lets me run my mouth the way I do in public deserves to be saved.

Aug 14 In an article for Reuters news service, Abigail Hauslohner descibes Sudanese in Cairo, Egypt, "living in gang-dominated neighborhoods" and feeling "forced to choose between one gang or another. She focuses on a 21-year old gang memeber, "Marc," who "loves rap music and has 'Los Angeles' scrawled in black ink across his forearm."

Aug 15 It is said that at least 250 were killed and 350 injured in yesterday's bombings in Yazidi villages near Mosul in Iraq. Yazidi are a religious minority among Kurds. This is the deadliest attack on a single area since since the war began in March 2003. The Bush administration claims that US forces and the Iraqi government will continue to "beat back" the "vicious and heartless murderers."

Aug 17 Russia's state media director has complained that BBC broadcasts in Russia are propaganda because the BBC is state owned. Pressure from the Russian government is ending FM broadcasts of BBC programs from within Russia. The BBC will still reach the Russians through the internet and shortwave frequences.

Aug 17 On a permanent basis, Russia is resuming the long- range bomber flights that was the practice of the Soviet Union. NATO has been shadowing the Russsian flights and it is reported that Russian and U.S. pilots exchanged smiles near Guam in the Pacific. None of the bombers have violated U.S. airspace.

Aug 21 In Kabwe, Zambia, the city's biggest employer, a textile factory, has closed, unable to compete with Chinese imports. Some complain of an old trading relationship: manufactured goods in, raw materials out.

Aug 22 President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya refuses to sign into law a bill that would allow courts to force reporters to reveal their sources.

Aug 22 On a panel on the News Hour (PBS television) Laith Kubba speaks of a "dysfunctional political system" in Iraq. Susanne Maloney of the Brookings Institute complains about the focus on Prime Minister Maliki and says, "it really demonstrates a paucity, I think, in the political debate here in Washington that, on this very important issue, we're now very much focused on the search for either a white knight or some opportunity for blame-laying."

Aug 25 In Liberia, officials are promoting morality and discipline among children at school by banning sloppy dress, exposure of underwear and unusual hair styles.

Aug 26 In eastern Shandong Province, officials are giving up hope of saving 181 miners trapped in a mine flooded during "unprecedented" rains.

Aug 27 McClatchy News reports that in Iraq sub-contractors for projects financed by the U.S. are paying extortion money to get supplies moving across roads controlled by the insurgents. In other words, money from the U.S. is helping to finance the insurgency.

Aug 29 An article for the BBC mentions that the Medeterranean Sea has "almost 2,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer of seabed."