2008 Review: July

RIA Novosti looks back at the main events of the outgoing year; below the month-by-month review of 2008 continues, with July

July 1

* Russia's electricity monopoly, Unified Energy System ceases to exist following wide-ranging reforms

July 3

* Poland and the U.S. reach a tentative agreement on the deployment of an American missile base in Poland

* Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire owner of Chelsea FC, quits as governor of a remote Far East region

July 8

* Leaders of the G8 group of industrialized nations adopted at a summit in Japan a joint statement:

- on joint efforts to fight a growth in global food prices;

- expressing strong concerns about the sharp rise in oil prices, and calling for concerted efforts;

- setting a goal of halving carbon emissions by mid-century, but developing nations and top environmentalists dismissed the agreement as meaningless;

- saying their countries will meet commitments they made three years ago to boost aid to Africa.

* U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg sign an agreement on the deployment of a missile-tracking radar on Czech soil

July 10

* Iran test-fires a series of long and medium-range missiles as part of ongoing military exercises in the Persian Gulf

* Georgia recalls its ambassador from Russia in connection with the violation of its airspace by Russian military aircraft

July 12

* North Korea agrees to fully disable its nuclear facilities by the end of October in exchange for fuel and economic aid, in a deal signed after six-nation talks

July 13

* A new large oil deposit with estimated reserves of more than 1 billion barrels of crude is discovered in Iran, the Iranian oil minister said

July 14

* The Russian Navy resumes a military presence around the Arctic Ocean archipelago of Spitsbergen, which belongs to Norway

* U.S. President George W. Bush orders the Treasury to immediately launch a plan to strengthen the country's two largest mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

July 15

* Georgia's parliament approves a presidential initiative to increase the armed forces by 5,000 personnel to 37,000 amid growing tensions with Russia over its breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia

July 24

* TNK-BP CEO Robert Dudley leaves Russia to run the Russian-British joint oil venture from abroad

July 29

* Two Russian mini-submarines perform a record-breaking dive to the bottom of the world's deepest lake, Baikal

July 31

* Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, long wanted for his role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, appears at the UN war crimes tribunal