JANUARY

- Israel imposes a complete blockade on the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip in a new bid to prevent militant attacks.

- The French bank Societe Generale admits that a single securities trader lost it almost five billion euros (seven billion dollars) in unauthorised trades.

FEBRUARY

- The president of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, is badly hurt in an assassination attempt.

- Imad Mughnieh, a fugitive leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, is killed by a car bomb in Syria.

- With support from many but not all western countries, Kosovo formally declares independence from Serbia. In Belgrade, rioters set fire to the US embassy.

- A suicide bomber kills some 80 men and boys attending a dog-fight event in Afghanistan.

- Turkey mounts a major offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

MARCH

- Dmitry Medvedev is elected president of Russia, succeeding Vladimir Putin, who is to stay on as his prime minister.

- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pays a landmark visit to neighbouring Iraq.

- The Spanish Socialist Party wins a second term in legislative elections.

- Violence erupts in Lhasa, capital of the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet.

- The US military death toll in Iraq passes the 4,000 mark.

APRIL

- Fighters loyal to Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr withdraw from the streets after a week of deadly clashes with the army.

- As Beijing gears up to host the Olympic Games, a Chinese court jails the dissident Hu Jia.

- The opposition in Zimbabwe claims it has won elections, but President Robert Mugabe refuses to concede.

- The passage of the Olympic flame through London and then Paris is marred by protests, causing anger in China.

- The conservative Silvio Berlusconi wins a third term as prime minister of Italy.

- A suicide bomber kills at least 45 people at a funeral in Iraq.

- Fighting in Sri Lanka between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels intensifies after a deadly bus bombing.

- Afghan President Hamid Karzai narrowly escapes when militants attack a parade.

- Police in Austria arrest Josef Fritzl, who has kept his daughter locked up in a specially designed cellar for 24 years, fathering seven children by her.

MAY

- A train crash kills at least 70 people in China.

- Tens of thousands of people die and millions are made homeless when a cyclone devastates the secretive Asian state of Myanmar.

- Dmitry Medvedev is sworn in as the new president of Russia.

- Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding.

- A massive earthquake hits the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, killing tens of thousands and causing massive destruction.

- Dozens of people die in a wave of attacks on immigrants in South Africa.

- Rising food prices cause tension in many developing countries.

JUNE

- Some 100 people burn to death when a passenger plane crashes at the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

- Around 1,000 inmates of an Afghan prison escape when Taliban guerrillas mount an attack.

- Voters in Ireland reject the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, the successor to the doomed EU Constitution.

- At least 800 people die whan a passenger ferry sinks in the Philippines.

- Veteran Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe claims victory in presidential elections despite widespread accusations of fraud.

JULY

- The French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt is freed after being held hostage for six years by FARC guerrillas.

- Iran once again refuses to freeze its uranium enrichment work, despite protest by countries which believe it is developing an nuclear bomb.

- Suicide bombers kill over 60 people in an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

- US stock markets plunge after two giant mortgage companies are revealed to be in deep financial trouble.

- The Lebanese movement Hezbollah hands over the remains of several Israeli soldiers, in exchange for the release by Israel of jailed militants.

- Serbian police capture the fugitive Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who is extradited to a UN war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands.

- A young Palestinian man driving a bulldozer wounds at least 16 people in Jerusalem before being shot dead.

- In one of several such incidents, a US missile fired from Afghanistan kills six people in a tribal zone of Pakistan.

- World trade talks in Geneva collapse as large developing countries refuse conditions imposed by the richest states.

AUGUST

- Some 150 Hindu worshippers die in a stampede at a temple in northern India.

- The Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who denounced the Soviet Gulag system of labour camps, dies aged 89.

- Government forces in Georgia mount an assault on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, prompting a massive response from the military in neighbouring Russia.

- The Summer Olympic Games open with a spectacular ceremony in Beijing. They go off without incident.

- Threatened with impeachment, Pervez Musharraf resigns as president of Pakistan.

- Ten French soldiers recently deployed to Afghanistan as part of a troop buildup are killed in a gun-battle with Taliban forces.

- 153 people die as a Spanish passenger plane crashes and burns at Madrid's airport.

- Afghan officials say 76 civilians, many of them women and children, died when US forces attacked a village in the west of the country.

- The US Democratic Party formally nominates Barack Obama as its candidate for the upcoming presidential election.

- North Korea reverses a pledge to dismantle its nuclear installations.

- The Caribbean hurricane season kills hundreds of people in several countries, notably Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The latter country also suffers catastrophic flooding.

SEPTEMBER

- In Thailand, clashes break out between security forces and anti-corruption protesters occupying government buildings.

- The US Republican Party suspends its congress due to the imminent arrival of Hurricane Gustav on the Louisiana coast, where the city of New Orleans is evacuated. Resuming a few days late, the congress nominates John McCain for the presidency.

- North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is reported to have undergone brain surgery after a stroke.

- A fire aboard a truck being carried through the Channel Tunnel causes major damage, but no casualties.

- The Pakistani parliament elects Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the slain politician Benazir Bhutto, as the country's new president.

- The crash of a Russian airliner near the city of Perm kills 88 people.

- The giant US bank Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt after the government refuses to save it.

- South African President Thabo Mbeki is forced to resign over political dirty tricks.

- The scandal-hit Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, resigns.

- The US central bank bails out AIG, a huge insurance company.

- Chinese officials say that thousands of babies are ill after consuming tainted milk formula.

- A truck bomb kills at least 60 people at a hotel in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

- A masked student kills 10 people and then himself in a Finnish school.

- A car bomb kills 17 people in the Syrian capital Damascus.

- Chinese astronauts return to earth after a mission including their first space walk.

- US film star Paul Newman dies at 83.

- US politicians agree on a 700 billion dollar rescue plan for their economy.

- At least 149 people die in a stampede at a Hindu temple in western India.

OCTOBER

- Stock markets crash around the world, evoking comparisons with the collapse of 1929.

- The Austrian far right politician Joerg Haider dies in a high-speed car crash.

- US forces operating from Iraq kill eight people in an attack on a Syrian village. They say the dead were insurgents.

- An earthquake kills over 200 people in southwestern Pakistan.

- New fighting flares up in the mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

NOVEMBER

- North Korea releases pictures of its leader, Kim Jong Il, who is believed to have been seriously ill.

- US voters hand a convincing victory to the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, who will be the first ever African-American president.

- Indonesia executes three men for the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali.

- Elections in New Zealand give victory to the centre-right National Party.

- At least 93 children and teachers die in Haiti when a school collapses.

- The veteran South African singer and anti-apartheid campaigner Miriam Makeba dies in Italy after collapsing at a concert.

- Pirates operating off the coast of lawless Somalia grab their biggest catch to date: a laden Saudi Arabian supertanker.

- Heavily armed men landing by sea wreak havoc in the Indian city of Mumbai. At least 163 people die in three days of violence.

- Zimbabwe appeals for help to combat a serious cholera epidemic.

- The Iraqi parliament approves a contentious agreement with the US, under which foreign forces will leave the country by 2011.

DECEMBER

- A Thai court dissolves the country's ruling party, handing a victory to anti-corruption activists who have occupied the main Bangkok airport.

- US President-elect Barack Obama announces that his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, will be his secretary of state.