Thaksin allies win Thai polls
2007 - Allies of deposed Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra claimed victory in elections, setting the stage for the billionaire’s political comeback, more than a year after his ouster in a coup. Samak Sundaravej said his People Power Party (PPP), which regroups Thaksin’s political allies, would form the next government. “I will be the next prime minister for sure,” Samak told reporters, adding that he had invited other parties to join PPP in a coalition. The pro-Thaksin PPP won 232 of the 480 seats in parliament, short of the majority needed to rule alone. The results were a repudiation of the military’s relentless efforts to wipe out Thaksin’s political influence, 15 months after the generals seized power in a bloodless coup, an analyst said.
December 23
1832 - French take Antwerp, forcing Holland to recognise Belgium’s independence.
1861 - Sultan of Turkey agrees to unification of Moldavia and Wallachia as Romania.
1909 - Albert I becomes King of the Belgians.
1913 - The Federal Reserve System is established in the US.
1920 - French and British approve convention fixing boundaries of Syria and Palestine.
1947 - The transistor is invented at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey.
1948 - Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese Second World War leaders are executed in Tokyo.
1950 - Vietnam becomes a sovereign nation.
1972 - Earthquake kills 10,000 in Nicaragua.
1978 - An Alitalia DC-9 crashes into the sea near Palermo killing at least 108 people.
1986 - Voyager ends its historic un-refuelled, non-stop trip around the world with a safe desert landing after a nine-day flight.
1990 - Slovenes vote overwhelmingly in favour of secession from Yugoslavia.
1994 - Bosnian Muslims and Serbs sign a ceasefire.
1995 - A fire in Dabwali, India, kills 540 people, including 170 children.
2000 - Pakistani legendary singer Noor Jehan dies.
2003 - An explosion at a natural gas field near Chongqing in Sichuan province of China kills at least 198 people.
2004 - Former Indian prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao dies after suffering a heart attack
2005 - South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk resigns from his university after he was found to have faked stem-cell breakthroughs.
2006 - UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose the first set of sanctions on Iran.
2007 - The world’s last Hindu monarchy is swept aside in Nepal.
2011 - Czech Velvet Revolution hero Vaclav Havel is laid to rest in Prague.
2012 - Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar retires from one-day cricket after playing 463 matches.
2013 - Inventor of AK-47 automatic rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, dies at 94.
