Brazzaville

Overview:

Civil wars and militia conflicts have plagued the Republic of Congo, which is sometimes referred to as Congo-Brazzaville.   Nearly half the population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank, even though the Republic of Congo is one of sub-Saharan Africa's main oil producers. Oil is the mainstay of the economy and in recent years the country has tried to increase financial transparency in the sector. Denis Sassou Nguesso is one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, having first come to power almost four decades ago.  He was installed as president by the military in 1979 and lost his position in the country's first multi-party elections in 1992.  He returned to power in 1997 after a brief but bloody civil war in which he was backed by Angolan troops.  He gained his latest seven-year term after elections in March 2016.  Constitutional changes to allow him to stand for another term were condemned by the opposition as a constitutional coup.  A French-trained paratrooper colonel, Mr Sassou Nguesso is seen as a pragmatist. During his first presidency in 1979-92 he loosened the country's links with the Soviet bloc and gave French, US and other Western companies roles in oil exploration and production.

But he has also been dogged by corruption allegations. In May 2009, a French judge announced an investigation into whether Mr. Nguesso and two other African leaders - all of whom deny wrongdoing - had plundered state coffers to buy luxury homes and cars in France. 

Source:  BBC Country Profile

American Embassy Brazzaville:

The newly opened Embassy Brazzaville maintained a small staff of American Foreign Service officers and included employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assigned to the World Health Organization mission in Brazzaville. The DCM was Jonathan Pratt who became Ambassador to Djibouti and who BTW was a PCV in Guinea Bissau.  The Management Officer, Vanessa Brooks, was a fairly new FSO and had to rely a lot on the Management Officer in Kinshasa and her staff for assistance in managing Human Resources (HR), Financial Management and General Services.    

The builder of the U.S. Embassy, BL Harbert, faced many challenges as a result of many years of civil war and violence in the Congo.  The city of Brazzaville’s infrastructure was left in complete ruin, making the importation of materials and equipment challenging.   Despite this challenge, Harbert constructed four main facilities on the 11-acre compound, including a two-story chancery building and utility building project that was completed three months ahead of schedule.  

Findings:

We had seven workdays in Brazzaville (from February 26 - March 9, 2009) and only three days to interview the staff and develop our findings.  It was the most compressed schedule I had experienced including working weekends to write up memorandums of conversations (Memcons) and prepare worksheets for my recommendations.   

Even with the New Embassy Compound (NEC) the embassy had to address some serious real property issues.  With all the materials left over from construction the embassy needed to conduct an inventory, identify what is salvageable and usable, and properly store this material in the warehouses. Any unneeded construction material and other obsolete or damaged items should be disposed of through a property sale. The embassy should coordinate with the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) and dispose of the two parcels of excess property that overlook the Congo River.  With the NEC and modern building systems a Safety, Health, and Environmental Management program in accordance with regulations was needed.  The local Public Affairs Villa Washington Information Resource Center needed to bring the facility into conformity with security standards.

In terms of administration the embassy needed to establish a functional medical unit and hire a local contract physician.

In the area of HR the embassy needed to review the Republic of the Congo labor law and the local practice of comparators regarding severance pay to determine if a change should be made to the local compensation plan. HR regional support from Embassy Kinshasa called for assistance in working with the Computer Aided Job Evaluation system adjust the grades of assigned to particular positions.  Supervisors did not complete of performance evaluations for all Locally Employed (LE) Staff timely.  There was a significant amount of funds in a suspense account for LE Staff retirement.  OIG recommended that the embassy, in coordination with the Bureau of African Affairs, and Bureau of Human Resources, make a determination on the disposition of the funds and consider establishing a defined contribution fund for LE Staff. 

For financial management Embassy Brazzaville, in coordination with the Global Financial Services in Charleston, needed to conduct a review of banking arrangements in the Republic of the Congo and determine whether a new depository account can be established with a local bank that will meet the needs of both the United States Disbursing Office and the employees for electronic salary payments.  There was a total of 35 informal recommendations in the OIG report to support the need for assistance from embassy Kinshasa staff. 

Highlights:

We crossed the two miles of the mighty Congo in 10 minutes to Brazzaville.  It was a 15-passenger pontoon type boat and moved real swiftly.  We had to wear life vests.  Very nice hotel, the Olympic Palace, and a lot cleaner than the Grand in Kinshasa.  Needless to say, there was not much to do in Brazzaville.  At home construction of our new custom-built home on Daniel Island was nearing completion and Doris facilitated contact with the builder to include installing all the furnishings that we sent from Bangkok.   

                                                                         

                                                                         Crossing the Mighty Congo River                                       

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Overview:

The recent history of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been one of civil war and corruption.  DR Congo is a vast country with immense economic resources and, until recently, has been at the center of what some observers call "Africa's world war", with widespread civilian suffering the result.  The war claimed an up to six million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition.  The war had an economic as well as a political side. Fighting was fueled by the country's vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural  resources.  Some militias fight on in the east, where a large United Nations force is struggling to keep the peace. Opposition leader candidate Félix Tshisekedi became president in January 2019 after protracted political wrangling in the wake of a controversial election the previous month.   

Source: BBC Country Profile

American Embassy Kinshasa:  

The inspection took place between February 9 and 24, 2009.  I was not originally assigned to this winter cycle inspection but in mid-December DAIG Charley Silver sent me an email apologizing for the late notice but asking if I would like to join the Congo inspection team.  Charlie wanted me to confirm my When Actually Employed (WAE) status in terms of hours and salary as well as of my medical and security clearance.  WAEs can earn up to half their salary at time of retirement and 1,080 hours in a year.  In addition to Kinshasa and Brazzaville the team was inspecting Praia, Cape Verde but he didn't think I would not need to go there since Praia was a very small mission (currently 5 State  American officers).   Our team leader, Joe Sullivan, was an Africa expert having served as Ambassador to Zimbabwe and Angola.  Among his other assignments were tours in Cuba and Israel.  He was from Boston and one of two team leaders that I went to church with on an inspection. He liked Jazz and we joked about attending the North Sea jazz concert in the Netherlands.  Paul Smith, our deputy, was a MC PD officer.  He created a CD of our trip with music by a Congolese group highlighting the fight against AIDS.  Perry Adair was the management lead and also Senior Foreign Service (SFS) having served as Management Counselor in Amman and New Delhi.  He came to the Department from GAO and worked with my colleague from CGFS, Marilyn Ferdinand in Frankfurt.  I learned a lot from Perry.  He retired to Whatcom Lake near Bellingham, WA.  Ernest J. Fischer (EJ) our CONS inspector bragged that he conducted 130 inspections since joining the OIG in 1994.  Pete Stella (Security) and I served together in Rabat.  Pete received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Police Science and ended up as an RSO and was on his last active tour.  Dennis Thatcher, IT inspector, had the distinction of serving two tours in Lagos as well as Athens.  Dennis and I compared notes on cruising during our retirement.  He retired to Florida. 

U.S. Embassy Kinshasa had 333 Locally Employed (LE) Staff, most of which were local guards.  This was a bone of contention with the Office of Diplomatic Security whether or not to have LE Staff hired locally by the embassy or have a contract guard service.  Our preference was contract guards given the demands on the embassy HR office for recruiting, hiring and maintaining local guard staff.  It includes the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Defense, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) located on three compounds.  The Management Officer was Craig Cloud with whom I reviewed their management controls and don't remember much about him but he must have done well in his career as he is presently the Ambassador in Botswana.  There were concerns about excessive fuel consumption and Fire and Life Safety issues.  He also mentioned an incident involving the theft of $14,000 worth of tires from the warehouse and collusion with the local guards.  where The FMO was Reginald Whatley who was on his first tour if I recall and is now in Libreville, Gabon.   He had issues of too many payments made in cash and not by EFT including staff salaries.  He had not deployed the Paper Check Conversion program for processing accommodation exchange checks.  Medical reimbursements were also made in cash.  The HRO was a long-term local hire German national, Helga Muller, who was well respected in AF.  She also provided regional support to Embassy Brazzaville.       

Findings:

Real property issues concerned Kinshasa intensifying efforts to identify a site for a new embassy. Steady mission growth since 2007 has resulted in a lack of office space, and more growth is projected. Recent plans to begin construction of a NEC have now been pushed back to 2014 because of the inability to find a suitable site.  OIG recommended sending a real estate specialist to work with post management in preparing and negotiating the transaction.  There were also urgent maintenance and repairs issues with the chancery and other buildings that required expedited funding.

In terms of staffing, it was recommended that the embassy submit an updated rightsizing report to the Office of Policy, Rightsizing, and Innovation in order to identify additional International Cooperative Administrative Support Services (ICASS) positions required to support the proposed staff growth in the mission.

In the area of general services post management needed to implement an accelerated plan for replacing the oldest vehicles in the motor pool fleet, as well as for expanding the fleet of not only vehicles but drivers to accommodate additional transportation requirements resulting from mission growth.   The embassy needed to hire a full-time locally employed staff member to handle all administrative tasks for managing the housing and supporting the temporary duty occupants of the office in Goma.  Goma is located in Eastern Congo on Lake Kivu near the Rwandan border.  It is not only dangerous due to the security situation but also threat of a major volcanic eruption.    The embassy had a POL officer assigned to Goma. 

There were serious problems with the administration of grants.  First off, the designated Grants Officer had a warrant of $25,000 and was breaking up grants for hundreds of thousands of $U.S. for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program into smaller amounts.   Grant files were incomplete, not closed out and funds not disbursed were not de-obligated.

The Human Resources Officer (HRO) should schedule quarterly visits for its HR specialist to Embassy Brazzaville to provide technical assistance and support.  There should be a catastrophic health insurance plan for locally employed staff.  Procedures needed to be established to ensure the timely completion of performance evaluations for the locally employed staff.   

Embassy Kinshasa participates in the revenue-generating recycling program using the funds received from approximately 6,000 students per year taking English language courses at the Congo American Language Institute (CALI). Almost $1 million in recycling funds was received in FY 2008. These funds are used to pay the salaries of 43 LE teachers and staff and to purchase required textbooks and educational materials.  The request for participating in the program for FY 2009 was pending and OIG supported the post request. 

We recommended that the embassy terminate its existing machine readable fee collection/nonimmigrant visa appointment contract and resume in house fee and appointment processing.  There was an issue with accounting for machine readable visa fees to determine if any were actually missing and, if so, attempt to recover them.  The embassy should request a waiver to the regulations to allow for the use of the suspense deposit abroad account for nonofficial U.S. Government payments. 

Highlights:

   Walking the diplomatic quarter next to the Congo river close to the hotel.

   Lunch at Al Dar Lebanese restaurant in the center of town.
   Watch out for the "shégués” youth gangs roaming around Kinshasa.
   Visiting the Bonobos.
   Crossing the Congo to Brazzaville.



Kinshasa Skyline



Perry Adair, Dennis Thatcher and me playing tennis at the Grand Hotel court 

Visit to the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve  in the Congo basin.  

Bonobos are humankind's closest relatives, along with chimpanzees, yet most people don't even know that bonobos exist! There were three separate areas with electric fence and over 50 Bonobos including eight orphans taken care of by Congo ladies.  They need love and affection when they are young.  We took a mile and a half walk over some pretty steep terrain to see them.

They live only in one country: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bonobos were last great ape species to be discovered, and could be the first to go extinct if we do not act quickly to save them and their rainforest home. Bonobos stand apart from the other great apes in important  ways.

The Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI) is dedicated to ensuring the survival of the bonobo and its tropical forest habitat in the Congo Basin. By working with indigenous Congolese people through cooperative conservation and community development programs, as well as on the national and international levels, BCI is establishing new protected areas and leading efforts to safeguard bonobos wherever they are found.



Ambassador's Residence

     

"shégués”

                                  Crossing the mighty Congo river from Kinshasa to Brazzaville

Crossing the Congo

Farmer carrying fruit to Brazzaville in a Pirogue

2008 Year in Review

Highlights:

• Early January our new Ambassador, Eric John, arrived.  Ambassador John served primarily in East Asia with three tours in Seoul Korea his latest as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs.   I continued to have visitors from CGFS/Charleston and Management Counselors/FMOs on consultations in route to embassies.  Chris Flaggs, the former Deputy Comptroller, became Comptroller and visited us along with Jim Millette and Alan Evans, Director Financial  Management Systems the end of February.  During the visit a Town Hall was held with Systems Development and Maintenance staff.  My OIG colleague and mentor, Alan Berenson, stopped by for consultations on his way to Tokyo.  

• I attended an Offsite conference at CGFS/CHS representing CGFS/Bangkok from January 14-18.

• Continued training with the Voucher Examiner class February 4-8.  

• Jim Basso, who covered for me last year when I was absent for three months due to surgery and recovery, departed post in February. 

• Renewed weekly conference calls with Charleston 8:00 a.m. Tuesday in Bangkok but 9:00 p.m. Monday night in the U.S.

• Attended a Financial Manager's Conference and Workshop in Washington D.C. May 5-8.

• Perfect timing to attend Jeffrey's graduation at Virginia Tech the following week.

• Sharon Yang would replace Steve Carignan as USDO in June.

• Butch Davisson arrived June 15 for consultations with different offices.  Butch was able to join us at the J.W. Marriott for a going away dinner hosted by Bobby Raja my tailor.  An old friend, Vince Abramo, from Peace Corps days, was able to join us.  Vince was working with OBO as a construction safety manager.  Vince and I go way back to the early 70's when I was in Liberia.  

• It was quite a send off from the staff.  I treasured my time working with the staff.  They all worked hard and were devoted to providing excellent services to our embassies in the region be it Disbursing, Banking, Cashier Operations, Accounting, Payroll or Systems support.   

• We departed Bangkok July 16th.

• After officially retiring and attending the Job Search program I came on board with Department of State Office of Inspector General (OIG) as a Retired Annuitant (REA) and began my job as a Management Inspector.  

• My first assignment was inspecting our embassies in Banjul, The Gambia See Post: Edit (blogger.com); Luanda, Angola See Post: Edit (blogger.com)  and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; See Faso Post: Edit (blogger.com)  The three inspections took six weeks. 

• For fall cycle inspections we are guaranteed to return home by Thanksgiving.  As part pf the OIG "no surprises" policy each inspector on the team would clear their findings and recommendations with the respective head of each section.  A draft report was reviewed with the Ambassador and often the Country Team before we departed post so everyone was on board.    

Favorite Memories:

• Brother Chris and my Meehan cousins from Norwich, U.K. Liz and John Froud visited Thailand  end of January.  Sadly, John and Liz passed away in early 2021 within days of each other.

                   

• Raine and Dick visit Bangkok in February and we made our way up to Chang Rai and from there took a boat ride on the Mekong river through the "Golden Triangle" where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet and is infamous for trafficking of opium and heroin shipped across the border to Northern Thailand and down to Bangkok.    

 

March 4th we took our visitors to the Baan Klang Nam 2 seafood restaurant.

Doris and David Visit Viet Nam end of March

• Visit to Phenom Penh and Ankor Wat with David April 11-13

For more photos and narrative see:  Doris and Bill Travel Adventures Blog: Angkor Wat Cambodia 

• Jeffrey graduates from Virginia Tech on May 9th.

• Hoda Kotb, of the NBC Today Show, a 1986 graduate, was the commencement speaker

                                                  

• Tennis at JUSMAG compound; Tournaments with Thai Police

• Visit to Phuket May 17-19

 

For more photos see:  Doris and Bill Travel Adventures Blog Phuket

• Farewell dinner at J.W. Marriott by Bobby Raja.  Butch Davisson from CGFS/Charleston and my old friend from Peace Corps days, Vince Abramo were also able to attend.

• We had an excellent American dentist on the JUSMAG compound by the name of Dr. Dick Graham.  After serving as a dentist with the US Army in Viet Nam Dick was reassigned to Thailand to work alongside 30 doctors and nine dentists at the US Army’s Fifth Field Hospital, known today as the Sukhumvit Hospital in Bangkok.  In June 1974, he left the military but remained at the hospital as a civilian dentist. Two years later, America’s military presence in Thailand was winding down and it looked as though Dick would be heading back home but, instead stayed on to serve the American Embassy community.  

10 K charity walk to celebrate the 175th Anniversary of U.S. - Thai relations.  Doris is standing next to Ambassador John.  Doris came in first for her age group.   The ambassador lost his 17 year old daughter, Nicole, who fell to her death from a window ledge in NYC.  

Good friends at our favorite Italian restaurant La Buca.  Steve, Fran, Bert and Mary.

  Bert worked for Deloitte Touche. 

• Departed Bangkok July 16, 2008 and stopped in San Francisco for a few days to see Mom, my brothers and relatives.  

• Our house was under construction when we returned so we had to move into my town house on DI drive, which was rented the whole time we were in Bangkok.  We ended up not moving into our new custom built home until March 2009.

                                                      

                     

  

From August 8-11 we took Josh and Brielle up to Washington D.C. for a long weekend and toured all over on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus stopping at all the historical sites and monuments.  We even got a pass to visit the White House gardens since President Bush was not in residence and were given some plant seedlings.  

• Also, on August 16 we attended the Bruce Springsteen concert at the North Charleston Coliseum.

Magic Tour  With Clarence Clemmons
and Danny Federici

  

• OIG Inspection of Banjul, The Gambia; Luanda, Angola;  and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso via Madrid October/November.  My first inspection following retirement. 

      The trip from hell.  Our flight was delayed out of Banjul so we missed our connection to the TAP
      airlines flight to Lisbon.  There were only a limited number of flights from Lisbon to Luanda each
      week so we had to spend two extra days in Madrid before we could catch another flight to
      Lisbon.  Our reward was a complimentary stay at a hotel and two days of sightseeing in Madrid. 
      I did catch the election results in Ouagadougou.   Mom passed away on November 8th while I was          finishing up in Ouagadougou.  I ended up having to take a flight back to San Francisco via Dakar          and Paris and remember completing my portion of the inspection report at the Paris Charles                     De Gaulle airport waiting for my flight to SFO.

     For more photos see Bill Booth Travels Blog - Banjul; Bill Booth Travels Blog - Madrid;    Bill Booth  Travels Blog - Luanda;   Bill Booth Travels Blog - Ouagadougou

• December 15-18 went up to D.C. to particpate in the "hot wash" for the inspection reports for Banjul, Luanda and Ougadougou.

• Christmas 2008 (12/22-28) was spent in San Francisco.  We had time to start to sort out and dispose household effects from Mom's house with brother Mike.  

  

Top U.S.  News Stories Of The Year

Nov. 4: Democratic senator Barack Obama wins the presidential election against Sen. John McCain, taking 338 electoral votes to McCain's 161. Obama becomes the first African American to be elected president of the United States. Also in the election, Democrats increase their majority in the House and pick up five seats in the Senate.

June 12: The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5 to 4, that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to challenge their detention in federal court.

Oct. 10: Connecticut's Supreme Court rules that a state law that limits marriage to heterosexual couples and a civil union law that protects gay couples violate equal protection rights.

Oct. 27: A jury finds Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) guilty of seven felony charges for lying on financial disclosure forms and failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from the VECO Corporation.

Feb. 5: Arizona senator John McCain emerges as the clear front runner among Republicans in the Super Tuesday primary races. On the Democratic side, New York senator Hillary Clinton wins big states such as California and Massachusetts, but Illinois senator Barack Obama takes more states.

March 8: President George W. Bush, saying intelligence officials must have "all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," vetoes legislation that would have outlawed all methods of interrogation that are banned in the Army Field Manual, which prohibits waterboarding and other harsh techniques that have been used by the CIA.

May 15: California's Supreme Court rules, 4 to 3 that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

May 20: Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts who's been in office since 1963, is diagnosed with malignant glioma, a brain tumor.

Dec. 19: President George W. Bush announces plans to lend General Motors and Chrysler $17.4 billion to survive the next three months.

June 26: The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5 to 4, that the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a gun, but insists that the ruling "is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

Sep. 4: Sen. John McCain accepts the Republican presidential nomination.

Sep. 29: An internal inquiry by the U.S. Justice Department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility reports "significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several of the U.S. attorneys." (Nine federal prosecutors were fired in 2006.)

Oct. 1: The U.S. Senate ratifies an agreement that allows India to buy nuclear fuel on the world market for its reactors as long as it uses the fuel for civilian purposes only.

March 11: The government begins to intervene in the U.S. financial system to avoid a crisis. The Federal Reserve outlines a $200 billion loan program that lets the country's biggest banks borrow Treasury securities at discounted rates and post mortgage-backed securities as collateral. March 16: The Federal Reserve approves a $30 billion loan to JPMorgan Chase so it can take over Bear Stearns, which is on the verge of collapse.

Top World  News Stories Of The Year: 

Sep. 20: A truck bomb explodes outside the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing more than 50 people and wounding hundreds. A previously unknown group, Fedayeen Islam, takes responsibility for the attack.

Dec. 28: Days after a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas expired, Hamas begins launching rocket attacks into Israel, which retaliates with airstrikes that kill about 300 people. Israel targets Hamas bases, training camps, and missile storage facilities.

Sep. 21: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who is under investigation for corruption, resigns.
Jan. 6: President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, is reelected, taking 52% of the vote. He had called for early elections in November 2007, after massive protests prompted by accusations that he abused power.

July 14: Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, formally charges Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, with genocide on main ethnic tribes.

Feb. 17: Kosovo's prime minister Hashim Thaci declares independence from Serbia. United States, France, Germany, and Britain indicate that they plan to recognize Kosovo as the world's 195th country.

Feb. 19: Cuban president Fidel Castro, who temporarily handed power to his brother Raúl in July 2006 when he fell ill, permanently steps down after 49 years in power.

July 2: After being held for nearly six years by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels in Colombia, 15 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, are freed by commandos who infiltrated FARC's leadership.

March 2: Dmitri A. Medvedev, a former aide to Russian president Vladimir Putin, wins the presidential election in a landslide. Putin will remain in a position of power, serving as Medvedev's prime minister.

Oct. 1: The Iraqi government takes command of 54,000 mainly Sunni fighters from the U.S., which had been paying the fighters for their support. The fighters, members of awakening councils, turned against al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia in 2007 and began siding with the U.S.

Dec. 2: Thailand's Constitutional Court ruling that the governing People Power engaged in fraud during the 2007 elections forces Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from power and bans party members from politics for five years. Dec. 15: Parliament elects Abhisit Vejjajiva, the head of the Democrat Party, as prime minister.

Dec. 14: At a news conference in Baghdad, a reporter for Al Baghdadia, a Cairo-based satellite television network, hurls his shoes at President Bush and calls him a "dog." The shoes narrowly miss Bush's head.

April 11: In Nepal millions of voters turn out to elect a 601-seat Constituent Assembly that will write a new constitution. Maoist rebels win 120 out of 240 directly elected seats.

June 19: Egypt brokers a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. The agreement is intended to stem the violence in the region.

Nov. 16: Iraq's cabinet passes by a large margin a status of forces agreement that will govern the U.S. presence in Iraq through 2011. The pact calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops by Dec. 31, 2011, and the removal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by the summer of 2009.

June 22: Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe wins runoff election with about 85% of the vote.

July 21: Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb president during the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, is arrested outside Belgrade and charged with genocide, persecution, deportation, and other crimes against non-Serb civilians. Karadzic orchestrated the massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995 in Srebrenica.

Sep. 6: Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the widower of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, wins 481 out of 702 votes in the two houses of Parliament to become president.

March 10: Some 400 Buddhist monks participate in a protest march in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to commemorate 1959's failed uprising against China's invasion and occupation of Tibet. Violence breaks out, with ethnic Tibetans clashing with Chinese citizens. Chinese police suppress the demonstrations, and Tibetan leaders say that more than 100 Tibetans are killed.

Nov. 26: More than 170 people are killed and about 300 are wounded in a series of attacks on several landmarks and commercial hubs in Mumbai, India. Indian officials say ten gunmen carried out the attack. It took Indian forces three days to end the siege.

Aug. 7: Pakistan's governing coalition, led by Asif Ali Zardari, of the Pakistan Peoples Party, and Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, begins impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf on charges of violating the constitution and misconduct. Aug. 18: Musharraf resigns as president.

Aug. 22: As many as 90 Afghan civilians, 60 of them children, die in an airstrike by coalition troops in the western village of Azizabad. It is one of the deadliest airstrikes since the war began in 2001, and the deadliest for civilians. The U.S. military refutes the figures, which were confirmed by the UN.

May 28: Nepal's newly elected Constituent Assembly votes to dissolve the 239-year-old monarchy and form a republic. King Gyanendra is told he must step down within 15 days.

Sep. 17:  Thailand parliament elects Somchai Wongsawater prime minister.

Aug. 7: Fighting breaks out after Georgian soldiers attack South Ossetia, a breakaway enclave in Georgia that won de facto independence in the early 1990s. Russia and Georgia sever diplomatic ties from each other. It is the first time Russia has cut off formal relations with one of its former republics, which gained independence in 1991.

Movies:

"No Country for Old Men" won the Oscar for best picture at the 80th Academy Awards. 
Daniel Day Lewis won lead actor award for "There will be Blood," and the lead actress Oscar went to Marion Cotillard "La Vie en Rose".  Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"  and Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men" won for supporting actress and supporting actor.

Super Bowl

Super Bowl XLII (42) was between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots to decide the National Football League champion for the 007 season. The Giants defeated the Patriots by the score of 17–14.  After a scoreless third quarter, the fourth quarter saw a Super Bowl record three lead changes, including New England wide receiver Randy Moss making a 6-yard touchdown reception with 2:42 left to play before New York's game-winning drive. Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who completed 19 of 34 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns, with one interception,
                                                      was named Super Bowl MVP. 

World Series

 Philadelphia Phillies Beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-3, to Win World Series.   from losingest team to longest game, the Philadelphia Phillies are World   Series champions. Brad Lidge and the Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay   Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint Wednesday night to win a suspended   Game 5 nearly 50 hours after it started.

Recap of 2008 Grand Slam Tennis Tournament Winners

·                Australian Open Men's Singles. Winner –  Novak Djokovic defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

·         French Open Men's Singles. Winner– Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer

·         Wimbledon Men's Singles. Winner –  Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer

·         US Open Men's Singles. Winner –  Roger Federer defeated Andy Murray

          Australian Open Ladies Singles. Winner – Maria Sharapova defeated Ana Ivanovic 

          French Open Ladies Singles. Winner– Ana Ivanovic defeated Dinara Safina 

·        Wimbledon Ladies Singles. Winner – Venus Williams defeated Serena Williams 

·        US Open Ladies Singles. Winner – Serena Williams defeated Jelena Jankovic