August 6, 2008 (Wednesday)
- At least nine firefighters are missing presumed dead after a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter crashes in northern California. (The Oregonian)
- UNICEF releases The State of Asia-Pacific’s Children 2008. The report recommends focus on China and India, where 2.4 million preventable child deaths occur every year. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters) (The Straits Times)
- An explosion on the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline halts oil supplies through one of the biggest pipelines in the world. (Reuters) (Hürriyet)
- Salim Hamdan, the former driver for Osama bin Laden, is convicted of supporting terrorism in the United States in the first military war crimes trial of a terror suspect captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks. (Bloomberg)
- A military coup d'état occurs in Mauritania with the Army, led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, seizing the President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed El Waghef and the Interior Minister. (ABC News Australia)
- A UH-1H helicopter of the Royal Thai Air Force crashes in Thailand, killing ten. (The Australian)[permanent dead link]
- Competitions start at the Beijing Olympic Games two days ahead of the opening ceremony with the Women's football tournament.
- The United States FBI claims scientist Bruce Ivins was responsible for the anthrax scares of 2001 that killed five people and made 17 others ill. (BBC News)
- Leader of Malaysian opposition Anwar Ibrahim is formally charged with sodomy, which he claims is a politically motivated charge. (BBC News)