2008 Review: June

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

June 3

* Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Nikolai Makarov is appointed as chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to replace Gen. Nikolai Baluyevsky

June 4

* Barack Obama claims the Democratic Party presidential nomination on the last day of the U.S. primary season

June 7

* Euro 2008 kicks off in Austria and Switzerland

June 8

* The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum ends in Russia's northern capital producing $14.6 billion in deals

June 17

* Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas agree on a ceasefire in Gaza starting June 19

June 18

* Russia's government gains a controlling stake in the country's largest diamond producer Alrosa through the purchase of Alrosa's newly issued shares

June 19

* More than two million people are left homeless after floods swept across eastern India over the past week 

June 22

* Russia's liberal opposition Yabloko party elects Sergei Mitrokhin, the head of Yabloko's Moscow branch, as its new chairman after the party's long-time leader Grigory Yavlinsky stepped down

June 24

* Chile declares a permanent ban on whaling in its waters, the government confirmed on its website

June 26

* U.S. President George W. Bush pledges to lift unilateral trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from a terrorism blacklist

June 27

* Bill Gates, the world's third richest man, officially steps down as head of the $40-billion Microsoft empire to concentrate on his charitable foundation

June 29

* Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe wins the presidential election, in which he was the only candidate

* Spain wins the European Championship trophy, their first major soccer title for 44 years in a deserved victory over Germany in the Euro-2008 finals in Vienna