Portal:Current events/2007 January 17

January 17, 2007 (Wednesday)

United States President George W. Bush announces that the NSA has ended its practice of warrantless wiretapping for domestic surveillance, and will go to the courts for warrants in the future. (CNN)
Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, resigns while inquiries into the performance of the Israel Defense Forces in the action against Hezbollah continue. (BBC)
Ali al-Sadig, spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, accuses U.S. troops of raiding Sudan's defunct embassy in Iraq. The U.S. government denies that any raid took place. (CNN)
U.S. television network NBC officially pulls out of the soap opera market by canceling Passions, which is aired both domestically and internationally. NBC Universal Television president Jeff Zucker remarks that the network's other daytime drama, Days of Our Lives, is "unlikely to continue" when its contract expires in 2009. (USA Today)
The Philippine Army kills Abu Sulaiman, the leader of Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda that operates in the Philippines. (BBC)
Members of the Senate of the United States agree on a draft resolution opposing the proposed increase in the number of troops in Iraq. (USA Today)
Four employees for the National Democratic Institute, a U.S. think tank, are killed when their convoy is ambushed in Baghdad. (Dow Jones Online)
The minute hand on the Doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moved to five minutes to midnight. (Bloomberg)
Walter Forbes, the former chair of Cendant, is sentenced to twelve and a half years in jail and ordered to pay $3.28 billion in restitution for his role in the biggest accounting fraud in the 1990s. (Bloomberg)
The Indian Government has waded into the alleged bullying and racial abuse of contestant Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother UK, which is said to have sparked more viewer complaints to media regulator Ofcom than any other show in the history of British television. (The Times)