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2008 was full of news stories, everything from the war to the election and of course the economy. So, what made the top 10 list?

      You can almost bet that something about the elections made this list, but what else? You can probably name a few dozen things you remembered hearing last year and I bet at least one of those things made the list here.

  1. When We Realized the Recession Was Here – Lehman Brothers, one of the pillars of American investment banking, went out of business. This lead to any doubts of a recession being squashed like a little bug. Once this happened, no one doubted we were in fact in a recession.
  2. Yes, He Could! – Election of President Barack Obama
  3. Mumbai Held Hostage – India’s financial center and movie capital, a metropolis of 12 million were held hostage by what officials insist was a band of 10 armed men — a figure some found impossible to believe.
  4. Devastation in Islamabad – the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 26, 2007 and the Sept. 20 blast that destroyed the heavily defended Marriott Hotel in the capital, killing up to 60 people.
  5. Pirates Rule the Waves – Having netted more than $30 million from more than 70 hijackings in 2008 alone, the pirates raised alarms in late September by seizing a Ukrainian freighter carrying tanks and other war material that may have been headed for conflict-ridden Sudan.
  6. War in the Caucasus – Russian invasion of Georgia (South Ossetia)
  7. China Spreads the Melamine – Melamine had been secreted into pet food manufactured in China to make it appear more nutritious. In 2008, the victims were babies. Six Chinese infants died from kidney failure, while close to 300,000 were hospitalized.  I think we need to stop trading with China, don’t you?
  8. Twilight of Cuba’s Patriarch – Fidel Castro steps down as president of Cuba
  9. An Audacious Rescue in Colombia – Ingrid Betancourt was rescued after three years of captivity
  10. Mother Nature’s Double Whammy – 225,000 lives were lost when two tragic events (cyclone and earthquake) struck Burma and Sichuan. Cyclone Nargis killed perhaps 150,000; China says 87,000 died in the quakes.

       So, last year was not the year of the election, big surprise right. There were so many stories that captured our attention last year and these were the top 10, but what stories do you remember?