Timeline 2004 July - September
Return to home
2004 Jul 1, The
US Coast Guard began boarding foreign vessels as int’l. security rules
went into effect.
(SFC, 7/3/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 1, AB 1627 declared that
beginning on this day each California hospital will be required to make
one written or electronic copy of its charge description master
(chargemaster) available at the hospital’s location or on its Internet
Web site.
(www.oshpd.cahwnet.gov/hid/hospital/chrgmster/index.htm)(WSJ, 12/28/04,
p.A1)
2004 Jul 1, Connecticut’s
Republican Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell (b.1946) became state governor
following the resignation of Gov. John Rowland. She was elected to her
own term in 2006.
(SFC, 11/10/09,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Jodi_Rell)
2004 Jul 1, The Cassini spacecraft
sent back photographs of Saturn's shimmering rings.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2004 Jul 1, Marlon Brando (80),
film actor, died in LA. His many films included “On the Waterfront”
(1954), and “The Godfather” (1972). In 2008 Stefan Kanfer authored
“Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando.”
(http://tinyurl.com/2vfnpa)(SSFC, 12/7/08, Books p.7)
2004 Jul 1, Historic Afghan
elections scheduled for September were delayed because of wrangling
among officials and political parties.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2004 Jul 1, Statistics Canada
counted 31,946,316 Canadians.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Jul 1, Horst Koehler, former
IMF, head was sworn in as Germany's 9th post-war president.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2004 Jul 1, Hundreds of thousands
of people marched in Hong Kong to demand democratic rights from China.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2004 Jul 1, India’s Fiscal
Responsibility and Budget Management Act took effect. It required the
government to cut the fiscal deficit by 0.3% of GDP annually until 2009.
(WSJ, 1/12/05, p.A9)
2004 Jul 1, A defiant Saddam
Hussein rejected charges of war crimes and genocide in a court
appearance, telling a judge "this is all theater, the real criminal is
Bush."
(AP, 7/1/04)
2004 Jul 1, In Iraq US jets
pounded a suspected safehouse of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in
Fallujah.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2004 Jul 1, In Ayacucho, Peru,
hundreds of striking teachers burned buildings and looted bank teller
machines during clashes with riot police that injured 34 people and led
to 15 arrests.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 1, Interfax news reported
that the Russian Tax Service is demanding another $3.3 billion from the
Yukos oil company in back taxes for 2001.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2004 Jul 1, Saudi security forces
traded gunfire with militants in a Riyadh, killing one militant and
wounding one. A police officer was killed and two were hurt.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 1, The United Nation's
World Food Program (WFP) began airlifting enriched food from the
Ethiopian capital to Sudan's western Darfur region, where it estimates
1.2 million people will need food aid every month until October. UN
Sec. Gen’l. Kofi Annan visited the area.
(AFP, 7/2/04)(WSJ, 7/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 2, In Kansas City,
Kansas, Elijah Brown (21), an employee at the ConAgra Foods
meat-packing plant, went on a shooting rampage that left 5 dead
including himself. A 6th person died overnight.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 2, China began censoring
telephone text messages to “block the dissemination of illicit news and
information.”
(SFC, 7/3/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 2, Shanghai police raided
the apartment of Randolph Hobson Guthrie III in a joint US-Chinese
operation against pirated DVDs. They seized 210,000 pirated DVD copies.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A1)
2004 Jul 2, The Dutch government
backed plans for "seals of quality" for well-run brothels and standard
contracts for prostitutes, as well as more support for those who want
to leave the world's oldest profession.
(Reuters, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 2, Reva Electric Car, an
Indian company that has launched the country's first electric car, has
received 500 orders from Britain and plans to build
environment-friendly mini-buses and small taxis. Its cheapest version
costs 250,000 rupees (US$ 5,500). The company has sold more than 600
cars in India.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 2, In India’s Bihar state
gunmen killed 10 people in the latest outburst of caste violence.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 2, Scientists from the
United States, Britain and Kenya reported that a skull fragment of a
small adult with some characteristics of Homo erectus was about 900,000
years old. It was found in 2003 in Olorgesalie, 100 miles southeast of
the capital, Nairobi, Kenya.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 2, A Norwegian strike
began targeting the oil exploration sector. It incidentally affected
two mobile production units, the Petrojarl I, which ceased operations
in early September, and the Petrojarl Varg.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2004 Jul 2, In Panama a
US-registered small jet crashed into an airport hangar during takeoff
and burst into flames, killing seven people.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 2, Yukos, Russia's
largest oil producer with an output of 1.7 million barrels per day,
warned that it may have to shut down as a result of the legal onslaught.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 2, In eastern Turkey a
car bomb exploded near a governor's convoy, killing 6 people, including
a 12-year-old boy, and injuring 23 others.
(AFP, 7/2/04)(SFC, 7/3/04, p.A10)
2004 Jul 2, In an eastern Turkey a
5.0 earthquake leveled stone and mud houses, killing 18 people and
injuring 27.
(AP, 7/2/04)(SFC, 7/3/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 3, Two Estonian students
clinched the country's seventh straight wife-carrying world
championship on Saturday, winning the "wife's" weight in beer and a
sauna.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 3, Insurgents attacked an
Iraqi checkpoint south of the capital, killing five national guard
soldiers and wounding five more.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, A statement attributed
to an Iraqi militant group claimed on a Web site that a captive US
Marine had been beheaded. However, the group later denied the claim;
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun turned up alive five days later.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2004 Jul 3, In the Indian portion
of Kashmir a mountain gunbattle, a time bomb hidden in a fruit seller's
hand cart and a grenade lobbed in a busy market killed 8 people and
wounded 44.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Israeli troops shot
and killed a 9-year-old Palestinian boy in the 5th day of an army
operation meant to prevent militants from firing rockets at Israeli
towns by the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, In Nicaragua a week of
heavy rains caused floods and mudslides that claimed 25 lives.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Tropical storm
Mindulle, the Korean word for dandelion, pushed toward South Korea
after killing at least 31 people in the Philippines and 18 in Taiwan.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 3, Andrian Nikolayev
(74), former Soviet cosmonaut died in Cheboksary, Chuvash Autonomous
Republic.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2004 Jul 3, Rwanda reopened its
border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, further reducing tension
between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Sudan pledged to
disarm Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 4, Defending the war in
Iraq, President Bush told a cheering crowd outside the West Virginia
state capitol that America was safer because Saddam Hussein was in a
prison cell.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2004 Jul 4, In NYC a 20-ton slab
of granite, inscribed to honor "the enduring spirit of freedom," was
laid at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the
skyscraper that will replace the destroyed towers.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 4, In NYC Takeru "The
Tsunami" Kobayashi chewed up the competition at the Nathan's Famous hot
dog eating competition, breaking his own previous world record.
Kobayashi, of Nagano, Japan, gulped down 53 1/2 wieners in 12 minutes
and shattered his own world record by three dogs. 105-pound Sonya "The
Black Widow" Thomas, 36, of Alexandria, Va., ate more hot dogs (32)
than any other woman and any other American in the contest's history.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 4, The Army's 1st Armored
Division stowed its flags and prepared to head home after the longest
tour in Iraq of any American combat command — 15 months.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 4, Afghan President Hamid
Karzai issued a decree ordering death penalty for criminals who remove
body parts from kidnapped children.
(Reuters, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 4, Australia and Thailand
signed a free-trade agreement that officials believe will boost the
economies of both countries by billions of dollars over the next two
decades.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 4, It was reported that
Libya's state-owned Tam Oil Co has bought the Niger unit of US oil
major ExxonMobil Corp, in the first such deal following an end to US
sanctions on Tripoli.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 5, Gov. Ed Rendell signed
laws authorizing 61,000 slot machines in Pennsylvania, more than any
other state except Nevada. Most of the state's share will pay for a $1
billion cut in property taxes a year.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, Ernst Mayr,
German-born American biologist, celebrated his 100th birthday. His
books included “Evolution and the Diversity of Life” (1976), “The
Growth of Biological Thought” (1982), “Toward a new Philosophy of
Biology” (1988) and “What Makes Biology Unique” (2204).
(NH, 5/97, p.8)(SFC, 7/5/04, p.A6)
2004 Jul 5, US military families
planned to leave Bahrain in the next few days following reports
terrorists were planning attacks here.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, It was reported that
India was logging nearly 1000 new AIDS cases a month and that there
were an estimated 5.1 million people infected with HIV.
(SFC, 7/5/04, p.A8)(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 5, In India a landslide
swept a busload of pilgrims into a river in Uttaranchal killing at
least 18 people and leaving hundreds of others stranded deep in the
Himalayas.
(Reuters, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 5, Former army Gen.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) won the first round in Indonesia's
presidential election. A Sep 20 showdown set Megawati Sukarnoputri
against SBY.
(SFC, 7/3/04, p.A14)(AP, 7/5/04)(SFC, 7/7/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 5, US-led coalition
forces launched an air strike in the restive city of Fallujah on a
suspected safe house used by followers of al-Zarqawi. The attack killed
15 people.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 5, Rwaida Al Shemre (33),
an Iraqi interpreter for the US 3rd Battalion, was assassinated as she
was driven to work.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 5, Italian Premier Silvio
Berlusconi won an endorsement from his EU colleagues for plans to
narrow Italy's budget deficit with $9.2 billion in new spending cuts
and tax measures.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, Hugh Shearer (81), a
prime minister (1967-1972) in the early stages of Jamaica's
independence, died. Shearer had succeeded Donald Sangster, who died in
office.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, A suspicious fire
gutted Kashmir's oldest educational institution, destroying 30,000 rare
books on Islam, including some of the world's oldest copies of the
Quran.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, Pres. Fox named Emilio
Goicoechea Luna, a business chamber leader and senator, as the new
chief of staff, and Ruben Aguilar Valenzuela, a presidential analyst,
as media relations chief. The 2 positions were held by Alfonso Durazo
who resigned saying that the first lady's political ambitions are out
of control and Fox is acting like the autocrats he replaced.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 5, Voters in Zacatecas,
Mexico, elected Amalia Garcia (PRD), the country's first female
governor since the end of one-party dominance. Pres. Fox's National
Action Party lost badly in Chihuahua and Durango. It finished a distant
third in Zacatecas,
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, Animal rights
activists protested in Pamplona, Spain, on the eve of the start of the
famous running of the bulls 'San Fermin' festival.
(Reuters, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 5, In Sierra Leone a
UN-sponsored war crimes court opened the first trials for rebel
military commanders accused in the 10-year campaign for control of the
diamond-rich country.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 6, US Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry selected former rival John Edwards to
be his running mate.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 6, A US fighter pilot
who'd mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002,
killing four, was found guilty in New Orleans of dereliction of duty;
Major Harry Schmidt was reprimanded and docked a month's pay.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2004 Jul 6, The Archdiocese of
Portland, Ore., filed for bankruptcy due to the financial impact of
sexual abuse claims.
(SFC, 7/7/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 6, President Thomas
Klestil (71), who helped distance Austria from its Nazi past and
strengthened the country's ties with emerging Eastern European
democracies, died two days before he was to leave office.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 6, Actress Angelina Jolie
(29) arrived in Cambodia. PM Hun Sen had offered her citizenship in
recognition of her nature conservation work in the country’s northwest.
(SFC, 7/7/04, p.E3)
2004 Jul 6, In Ethiopia a major
summit of the two-year-old African Union opened in Addis Ababa in the
presence of about 40 heads of state and government. The crisis in
Darfur took centre stage.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 6, A group of armed,
masked Iraqi men threatened to kill Jordanian militant Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi if he did not immediately leave the country, accusing him of
murdering innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 6, In Iraq a car bomb
exploded in the town of Khalis, killing 13 people attending a wake for
the victims of a previous attack.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 6, Khaled Sallah, an
American-educated computer science professor, and his son were killed
during an arrest raid by Israeli commandos in the Ein Beit Ilma refugee
camp in the West Bank city of Nablus. West Bank and Gaza fighting left
6 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead.
(AP, 7/6/04)(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 6, Samir Naqqash (66), an
Israeli author and playwright who wrote almost exclusively in the
Arabic of his native Iraq, died of a heart attack.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 6, Sudan ordered an end
to restrictions on the movement of aid to the Darfur region.
(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 6, President Hugo Chavez
announced that Venezuela has granted citizenship to 216,000 immigrants
since May under a fast-track nationalization plan.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 7, Former Enron chairman
Kenneth Lay was indicted on criminal charges related to the energy
company's collapse.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2004 Jul 7, Jeff Smith (65), a
white-bearded minister who became public television's popular "Frugal
Gourmet" (1983-1997) before a sex scandal ruined his career, died.
(AP, 7/9/04)
2004 Jul 7, The Iraqi government
issued a long-anticipated package of security laws to help crush
insurgents, including a provision allowing interim PM Iyad Allawi to
impose martial law. 4 Iraqi National Guard soldiers were killed and 20
injured from a gunbattle in central Baghdad.
(AP, 7/7/04)(SFC, 7/8/04, p.A15)
2004 Jul 7, In Russia the board of
Guta Bank approved its sale to the state-owned Vneshtorgbank. A day
earlier Guta had announced a suspension of payments.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.66)
2004 Jul 7, In Sri Lanka a Tamil
Tiger suicide bomber detonated explosives at a police station, killing
herself and 4 officers.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 7, It was reported that
fighting between Arab and African tribes has killed at least 70 people
and displaced thousands more this week in the Darfur region of western
Sudan.
(Reuters, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 8, New Jersey became the
2nd state in the nation after New York to ban the use of handheld cell
phones while driving.
(USAT, 6/29)
2004 Jul 8, John Rigas (79),
founder of Adelphia Communications Corp. (1952), was convicted along
with his son Timothy of looting the cable company to line their own
pockets.
(SFC, 7/9/04, p.C1)(USAT, 7/9/04, p.1B)
2004 Jul 8, Kenneth Lay, former
CEO of Enron Corp., was charged in Houston, Texas, with 11 counts of
conspiracy and fraud.
(WSJ, 7/8/04, p.A1)(USAT, 7/9/04, p.1B)
2004 Jul 8, It was reported that a
strain of syphilis has proved resistant to azithromycin.
(WSJ, 7/8/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 8, Iranian troops killed
two Turkish Kurdish rebels in clashes close to the Iraqi border, amid
reports of a major offensive by Tehran on Ankara's behalf.
(AP, 7/10/04)
2004 Jul 8, In Iraq insurgents hit
a military compound in Samarra with a car bomb and mortar fire. 5 US
soldiers were killed and 20 wounded.
(SFC, 7/9/04, p.A14)
2004 Jul 8, Israeli troops killed
7 Palestinians in northern Gaza.
(WSJ, 7/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 8, A Swedish appeals
court threw out a life prison sentence for the convicted killer of
Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, ruling that Mijailo Mijailovic should
receive treatment for his "significant psychiatric problems."
(AP, 7/8/05)
2004 Jul 9, A US Senate committee
report said that flawed prewar intelligence fueled the Bush
administration position that Saddam Hussein’s regime posed a serious
threat to the US.
(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 9, An appeals court
rejected Nevada’s claim against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository, but ordered leak plans beyond 10,000 years.
(WSJ, 7/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 9, Cpl. Wassef Ali
Hassoun (24) arrived in Germany from Lebanon, where he had turned up at
the US Embassy in Beirut a day earlier. He had been missing since June
20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah. The Pentagon
announced that Hassoun would be charged with desertion, larceny and
wrongful disposition of military property in connection with his
service-issued M9 pistol that disappeared with him and never turned up.
On January 4, 2005, he was again labeled a deserter after failing to
return to his base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina from authorized
leave. He was reportedly in Lebanon.
(AP, 7/10/04)(SFC, 7/9/04,
p.A1)(www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/05/hassoun.case/index.html)
2004 Jul 9, Geraldine Williams
(67) of Lowell, Mass., accepted a lump sum payment of $168 million for
her July 3 win in the $294 million lotto.
(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 9, Isabel Sanford (86),
actress, died Los Angeles.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2004 Jul 9, A U.N.-backed body
barred the Republic of Congo from the legitimate world diamond trade,
accusing it of blatantly sending millions of dollars in smuggled gems
onto the global market.
(AP, 7/10/04)
2004 Jul 9, In Egypt President
Hosni Mubarak's cabinet resigned and the longtime leader appointed
technocrat Ahmed Nazief (Nazif), a relative outsider, to replace Atef
Obeid as prime minister, further consolidating his power at a time of
growing calls for political, social and economic change. Half of the 26
regional governors were also replaced.
(AP, 7/9/04)(Econ, 7/17/04, p.47)
2004 Jul 9, In Baghdad, Iraq, 2
mortar shells targeting a hotel housing foreigners in the capital hit a
house instead, killing a child and wounding three others.
(AP, 7/9/04)
2004 Jul 9, The Int’l. Court of
Justice ruled that Israel’s separation barrier in the occupied West
Bank violates freedom of movement and should be demolished.
(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 9, Paul Klebnikov (41),
the American editor of Forbes Magazine's Russian edition and author of
a book about tycoon Boris Berezovsky, was shot to death. Klebnikov was
also the author of “Conversation with a Barbarian,” about organized
crime in Russia’s continuing war in Chechnya. In Nov. Muslim Ibragimov,
aka Kazbek Dukuzov, was arrested in Belarus. He was later extradited to
Moscow in 2005 and accused of involvement in the slaying. Russian
prosecutors later determined that Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, a former
separatist Chechen official who was the subject of a book by U.S.
journalist Paul Klebnikov, ordered the murder.
(AP, 7/9/04)(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A8)(WSJ, 2/24/05,
p.A13)(AP, 6/16/05)
2004 Jul 9, In Peru 2 passenger
buses collided head-on on a coastal highway, killing at least 36 people
and injuring two dozen.
(AP, 7/9/04)
2004 Jul 10, President Bush said
in his weekly radio address that legalizing gay marriage would redefine
the most fundamental institution of civilization, and that a
constitutional amendment was needed to protect traditional marriage.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2004 Jul 10, In Iraq US Marines
clashed with insurgents in Ramadi, a city known as a stronghold of
Saddam Hussein supporters, killing 3 of the attackers and wounding 5
others. Saboteurs attacked a natural gas pipeline that feeds into a
northern power station.
(AP, 7/10/04)
2004 Jul 10, Four U.S. Marines
were killed in a vehicle accident while conducting security operations
in Anbar, an area of western Iraq.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 10, In northwest Colombia
suspected leftist guerrillas shot and killed seven rural peasants in an
attack on a small village.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 10, Maria de Lourdes
Pintasilgo (74), the only woman to serve as Portugal's prime minister
(1979), died of heart failure.
(AP, 7/10/04)
2004 Jul 10, Sudan, under
international pressure to take action to end the humanitarian crisis in
Darfur, agreed with Chad to deploy a joint force along their troubled
border.
(AFP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 10, In northern Yemen 5
policemen were killed as security forces continued an offensive against
followers of a Shiite dissident, firing missiles on the militant's
mountain hideout.
(AP, 7/10/04)
2004 Jul 11, Joe Gold (82),
founder of Gold’s Gyms fitness chain, died in LA.
(WSJ, 7/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 11, Laurance Rockefeller
(94), conservationist, philanthropist and venture capitalist died in
his sleep in NY. He had a lifelong affinity for the rustic and left a
legacy of parks from Wyoming to Vermont that were expanded on land he
donated.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 11, It was reported that
Jonathan Keith Idema, former US special operations soldier, was
recently arrested along with Brent Bennet and Edward Caraballo for
running a vigilante anti-terrorism campaign in Kabul. They had posed as
government officials and imprisoned innocent Afghan men. Caraballo was
released April 30, 2006, after serving 21 months of a 2-year sentence.
Idema and Bennet continued to serve their 5 and 3 year sentences.
(SSFC, 7/11/04, p.A10)(SFC, 5/1/06, p.A8)
2004 Jul 11, A bomb exploded on a
bustling street of Herat, Afghanistan, killing five people, and
injuring 29.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 11, A truck crashed into
a house packed with guests at a wedding reception in Indonesia, killing
17 and injuring 13.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 11, Insurgents ambushed 2
US military patrols north of Baghdad and killed 3 US soldiers and an
Iraqi civilian.
(AP, 7/11/04)(SSFC, 7/11/04, p.A8)
2004 Jul 11, Gunmen killed the
head of a regional office of one Iraq's largest Shiite parties in a
drive-by shooting south of the capital.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 11, Suspected Muslim
guerrillas sliced off the nose, ears and tongue of Mariam Begum, a
14-year-old girl in Indian Kashmir, believing her to be an informer for
the Indian army. Elsewhere in Kashmir, 16 Muslim rebels and four
soldiers were killed in separate gun battles over the weekend.
(Reuters, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 11, In Japan’s
upper-house elections PM Junichiro Koizumi and his Liberal Democratic
Party LDP won 49 seats, one seat less than the opposition DPJ. Koizumi
and his Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling bloc held on to a majority.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.41)(AP, 7/11/05)
2004 Jul 11-2004 Jul 14, Security
forces raided five villages in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta,
leaving 15 people dead and homes ransacked and burned.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 11, Palestinian militants
set off explosives hidden in shrubs at a Tel Aviv bus stop, killing a
female soldier and seriously wounding at least five people.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 11, Boris Tadic (46)
leader of the Serbian opposition Democratic Party, took office vowing
to bring stability to the Balkan republic and push it closer to the EU
and NATO.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 11, The 15th Int’l. AIDS
conference began in Bangkok, Thailand. UN chief Kofi Annan challenging
world leaders to do more to combat the raging global epidemic.
(SFC, 7/13/04, p.A1)(AP, 7/11/05)
2004 Jul 12, President Bush
defended the Iraq war during a visit to the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee, saying the invasion had made America safer.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2004 Jul 12, The Bush
administration announced a new rule to allow the nation’s governors to
help decide whether roadless areas in their states should be opened for
logging or other commercial activity.
(SFC, 7/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 12, Wall Street brokerage
Morgan Stanley settled a sex discrimination suit brought by the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, agreeing to pay $54 million.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2004 Jul 12, A foot or more of
rain fell in parts of the Northeast. No injuries had been reported in
the stricken areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 12, Winter storms have
violently struck several South American countries in recent days,
leading to eight weather-related deaths in Argentina and Chile. Some
75,000 farm animals died in Peru and record below freezing temperatures
in southern Brazil.
(AP, 7/12/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.C8)
2004 Jul 12, Monsoon floods
continued to wreak havoc across South Asia, killing 37 more people and
forcing millions to flee their homes or seek emergency shelter.
Flooding has killed 36 people in Bangladesh this year. A total of 47
people have died in Nepal since June. In India a total of 158 people
have died in flooding since the beginning of June.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 12, The Danish government
upheld the clerical suspension of a Lutheran minister who proclaimed
last year that there was no God or afterlife, and he now could be fired
or fined for declaring his beliefs in the pulpit.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 12, Iraqi police in
Baghdad jailed over 500 criminal suspects in a large anti-crime
offensive. 1 suspect was killed in the crime-ridden Bab al-Sheikh
neighborhood.
(USAT, 7/4/04, p.5A)
2004 Jul 12, A Sri Lankan woman
was beheaded in the Saudi capital for murdering her employer. Bader
el-Nisaa Mibari had been convicted of killing Sara bint Mohammed
al-Haqeel, a Saudi woman, after trying to rob her with the help a male
companion.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 12, Newspapers in Senegal
and the Central African Republic suspended publication to protest the
jailings of leading journalists.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 13, The American League
cruised past the National League 9-4 in the All-Star game.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2004 Jul 13, Ken Jennings (30), a
software engineer from SLC, crossed the $1 million mark in a 30-game
winning streak on Jeapardy.
(USAT, 7/4/04, p.1A)
2004 Jul 13, In an Ohio court De
Beers ended a 60-year impasse and agreed to pay a $10 million fine for
the price fixing of industrial diamonds.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.60)
2004 Jul 13, American troops in
Afghanistan numbered about 17,000 with some 140,000 serving in Iraq.
(WSJ, 7/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 13, Police forces loyal
to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the acting head of state
Chea Sim out of the country in a purge of the ruling party.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 13, Chechnya's acting
president escaped injury in the Chechen capital when an explosion hit
his motorcade, but one person was killed and three were wounded. A
separate clash left 18 soldiers dead.
(AP, 7/13/04)(WSJ, 7/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 13, It was reported that
the bid price for a car license plate in Shanghai had surged to $4,133
in May.
(WSJ, 7/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 13, Carlos Kleiber
(b.1930), German conductor, died. He was buried in Slovenia next to his
wife. He was considered as one of the great conductors of the 20th
century.
(www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/obituary/0,12723,1265571,00.html)
2004 Jul 13, A confidant of Osama
bin Laden (Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harby) surrendered to Saudi
diplomats in Iran and was flown to Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2004 Jul 13, At least 13 people,
eight Maoist guerrillas, two security men and three civilians, were
killed in revolt-racked Nepal during the last 24-hour period.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 13, The Philippines said
it would withdraw its tiny peacekeeping force from Iraq as soon as it
can. The Philippine government made a direct appeal to insurgents
holding a Filipino hostage, pleading with them to show mercy for the
man they threatened to kill if the country did not agree to pull its
troops from Iraq early.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 13, Overflowing rivers
swamped villages in South Asia, leaving millions of residents stranded
in their flooded homes and 272 people dead in the annual monsoon rains.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 13, The US State Dept.
announced that Uzbekistan had not passed the test for assistance this
year.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.43)
2004 Jul 14, The US Senate
scuttled a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. 48 senators
voted to advance the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed, and 50 voted
to block it.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2004 Jul 14, King Sihanouk
reappointed Hun Sen as Cambodia’s premier.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 14, Canada pulled its
ambassador from Iran, which refused to admit observers to the trial of
a policeman over a Canadian journalist’s fatal beating.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 14, In Iraq a suicide
attacker detonated a massive car bomb at a checkpoint near the British
Embassy and the interim government's headquarters in Baghdad, killing
11 people.
(SFC, 7/14/04, p.A12)(AP, 7/14/05)
2004 Jul 14, Militants in Iraq
said they killed a captive Bulgarian truck driver and threatened to put
another hostage to death in 24 hours. Georgi Lazov (30) and Ivaylo
Kepov (32) were kidnapped Jun 29.
(AP, 7/14/04)(USAT, 7/4/04, p.5A)
2004 Jul 14, Gov. Osama Youssef
Kashmoula, a university professor, was gunned down as his convoy
traveled to Baghdad for meetings with police officials on improving
security.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, President Bush signed
into law a measure imposing mandatory prison terms for criminals who
use identity theft in committing terrorist acts and other offenses.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, The Senate approved a
plan to pay tobacco farmers $12 billion to give up federal quotas
propping up their prices.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, The new $650 million,
4.4-mile Las Vegas Monorail began operations with stops at 7 stations
between Sahara and Tropicana avenues.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D2)
2004 Jul 15, Scientists reported
that excess carbon dioxide spilled into the air by humans over the past
2 centuries has been taken up by the oceans. They warned that a
continuation of this process could damage the ability of ocean
creatures to make their shells.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A4)
2004 Jul 15, The Gates Foundation
announced a $44.7 million award at the AIDS Conference in Bangkok to a
consortium of TB and AIDS researchers. The 2 diseases were often
linked. A UN report cited 7 countries as the hardest hit by the AIDS
pandemic: Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, the Central
African Republic and Mozambique.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.B1)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A6)
2004 Jul 15, Retired Air Force
Gen. Charles W. Sweeney, who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic
bomb on Nagasaki in the final days of World War II, died in Boston at
age 84.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, In Kumbakonam,
southern India, a short circuit ignited a thatched roof and fire raged
through the Lord Krishna Middle School, killing 94 children and
injuring more than 100. The children were trapped inside a locked
building. In 2006 an inquiry commission found that a mixture of
avarice, dishonesty and a blatant disregard of safety standards caused
the devastating fire.
(AP, 7/17/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A3)(Reuters, 9/4/06)
2004 Jul 15, In Iraq attackers
detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings in the
western city of Haditha, killing 10 people. PM Alawi announced the
formation of a new national security agency to fight the insurgency.
(AP, 7/15/04)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A12)
2004 Jul 15, Israel said it will
spend $11.1 million to change completed portions of its West Bank
barrier, building new roads, underpasses and tunnels to try to ease
Palestinian conditions.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, In western Nepal 11
suspected Maoist rebels including two local leaders were killed in
armed clashes with security forces.
(AFP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, In Tanzania the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced former
finance minister Emmanuel Ndindabahizi to life imprisonment for his
role in the east African country's 1994 genocide.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, Thailand officials
said avian flu had been detected in 10 of its 76 provinces.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 16, Domestic icon Martha
Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home
confinement by a federal judge in New York for lying about a stock
sale. On March 4, 2005, Stewart was released from Alderson Federal
Prison Camp, aka “Camp Cupcake,” in West Virginia. She was then placed
under home confinement and required to wear an ankle bracelet for an
additional 5 months.
(AP,
7/16/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_case_and_conviction)
2004 Jul 16, PNC Financial, based
in Pennsylvania, agreed to by Riggs National of Washington DC for $779
million. Riggs was fined $25 million in May for violating money
laundering regulations.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.69)
2004 Jul 16, George Busbee 76,
former Georgia Gov., died in Savannah.
(AP, 7/16/05)
2004 Jul 16, New Zealand's prime
minister and media heaped vitriol on Israel over the case of two
Israelis imprisoned for passport fraud, saying there's "no doubt" the
pair are spies.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 16, A Saudi transport
company said it had pulled out of Iraq to save the life of an Egyptian
truck driver taken hostage by kidnappers who demanded the firm leave
the country.
(Reuters, 7/16/04)
2004 Jul 16, In Thailand the 15th
Int’l. AIDS Conference ended in Bangkok.
(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A14)
2004 Jul 17, California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger mockingly used the term "girlie men" during a
rally as he claimed Democrats were delaying the state budget by
catering to special interests.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2004 Jul 17, Office Depot and
Hewlett-Packard launched the country's first free, nationwide, in-store
electronics recycling program. The program ran to Sep 6.
(TechWeb, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 17, Monsoon rains
submerged new areas of Bangladesh and India, killing at least 13
people, as the death toll from flooding in South Asia rose to more than
400.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 17, French Defence
Minister Michele Alliot-Marie proposed a defense partnership between 3
North African countries, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia -- and four
southern European countries, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain,
preferably at defense minister level.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 17, An Ariane 5 rocket
took off from French Guyana carrying the heaviest commercial telecom
satellite ever.
(WSJ, 7/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 17, In Germany thousands
of DaimlerChrysler workers walked off the job, extending protests
against threats to cut jobs if employees don't accept steps to cut
labor costs.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 17, A car bomb struck the
Iraqi justice minister's convoy as it passed through western Baghdad,
killing four of his bodyguards. The minister was unhurt in the blast. A
roadside bomb hit a U.S. convoy, killing one U.S. soldier.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 17, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo
launched a wallet phone aimed to combine cash and cell phones with a
small embedded chip that can store money and personal information.
(Reuters, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 17, At least 15 people
were killed and many more injured when a crowded bus skidded off a road
and fell into a gorge in Kashmir.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 17, A court in Oman
convicted an American woman of murdering her husband and sentenced her
to death. Rebecca Thompson, along with her 14-year-old son, Derrick,
and two Omani men, were convicted for the Jan 1 killing of Mark
Thompson.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 17, A Palestinian
security panel under Yasser Arafat declared a state of emergency after
a spate of kidnappings.
(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A11)
2004 Jul 17, Palestinian PM Ahmed
Qureia submitted his resignation to Yasser Arafat, who rejected it the
next day.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2004 Jul 27, In Prestonpans,
Scotland, Baron Gordon Prestoungrange granted posthumous pardons to 81
people convicted and executed for being witches from 1563-1727.
(WSJ, 9/15/06,
p.A10)(http://forejustice.org/wc/sp/scottish_pardons.html)
2004 Jul 17, Sudanese rebels
walked out of peace talks, saying government representatives had
refused to meet their conditions for a new round of negotiations.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 18, The political film
“Outfoxed” premiered at over 3,000 house parties nationwide. Funding
and distribution were done by the liberal online hub MoveOn.org: “We
watch Fox so you don’t have to.”
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 18, A spokesman said
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would not apologize for mocking
certain lawmakers as "girlie men," despite criticisms from Democrats
that the remark was sexist and homophobic.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2004 Jul 18, Anne Gorsuch Burford
(62), Former Environmental Protection Agency chief, died in Aurora,
Colo.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2004 Jul 18, Bolivians voted in
favor of exporting the nation's vast natural gas reserves in a
referendum designed by the president to defuse social unrest. Voters
mandated higher taxes and greater government control over oil and gas.
(AP, 7/19/04)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.36)(Econ, 4/23/05,
p.38)
2004 Jul 18, Idjarruri Karaja
(40), an activist who worked to include Indian rights in Brazil's
constitution, died of complications from kidney surgery.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 18, In Chechnya Tamara
Khadzhiyeva of United Russia, a local leader of Russia's main
pro-presidential party, was fatally shot in Shali. The region's
prosecutor said it was a contract killing linked to next month's
presidential election.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 18, Militants killed
Essam al-Dijaili, the head of Iraq’s military's supply department, in a
drive-by shooting as he walked into his house in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 18, American jets hit a
position in Fallujah purportedly used by foreign militants, demolishing
a house and killing 14 people.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 18, Mexico and Cuba said
they will reinstate ambassadors in each other's countries at the end of
the month.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 18, In Nepal Maoist
guerrillas abducted at least 50 students and a dozen teachers from a
school near the capital to try to force them to back a campaign against
the constitutional monarchy.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 18, Gunmen angry over
Yasser Arafat's overhaul of his security forces burned down Palestinian
Authority offices in Gaza.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 18, Pedro Santana Lopes
was sworn in as PM of Portugal's 16th constitutional government at a
ceremony with President Jorge Sampaio.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 18, Economists and
international donors said mismanagement in Zimbabwe by Pres. Robert
Mugabe's regime is behind an annual inflation rate now close to 400
percent.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 19, A 3-day meeting of
the US National Governors Association ended in Seattle.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A7)
2004 Jul 19, Lori Hacking (27) of
Salt Lake City, Utah, went missing. Her husband Mark (28) said she
failed to return from a jog. She was reportedly five weeks pregnant.
Police found her husband Mark Hacking running naked around a motel not
far from his home the next day. He was put into a psychiatric hospital
after police found him. Police arrested Hacking on Aug 2 and filed 1st
degree murder charges on Aug 9. In 2005 Mark Hacking pleaded guilty to
her murder. On June 6, 2005, Mark Hacking was sentenced 6 years to life
in prison, the maximum the judge could give under Utah law. Under
Utah's system of indeterminate criminal sentences.
(SFC, 8/2/04, p.A3)(SFC, 8/3/04, p.A2)(SFC, 8/10/04,
p.A4)(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A5)
2004 Jul 19, An Egyptian truck
driver held hostage for two weeks by insurgents in Iraq was freed and
taken to the Egyptian Embassy.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, Indian Foreign
Minister Natwar Singh said he would push for progress in talks to
promote better ties with Pakistan when he meets Pakistani leaders this
week.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, Iraq announced the
appointment of 43 new ambassadors in its first move to re-engage with
the world.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, A suicide bomber in a
fuel truck blew it up at a police station in southwest Baghdad, killing
nine people and wounding about 60.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, An Israeli aircraft
struck a Palestinian militant safe house at a beach camp near Gaza
City, wounding three fighters.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, Zenko Suzuki, former
prime minister of Japan (1980-1982), died.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Jul 19, Kashmir militants
attacked a Congress party rally in Duru and killed 5 people.
(WSJ, 7/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 19, The car of a
Hezbollah militia official exploded as he was leaving his home in
southern Beirut, killing him in an attack the Islamic militant group
said was a "brazen crime" by Israel that would be avenged.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, The Philippines said
that it has completed the withdrawal of its peacekeeping contingent
from Iraq.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, President Vladimir
Putin dismissed the military's chief of general staff and other top
military and law enforcement officials after a devastating assault by
militants in southern Russia last month.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 19, In eastern Ukraine a
coal mine methane gas explosion killed at least 34 miners near Donetsk.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2004 Jul 20, Former national
security adviser Sandy Berger quit as an informal adviser to Democrat
John Kerry's presidential campaign after disclosure of a criminal
investigation into whether he'd mishandled classified terrorism
documents.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2004 Jul 20, Microsoft said it
would make a one-time dividend payment of $32 billion and buy back up
to $30 billion in company stock over the next 4 years.
(WSJ, 7/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 20, In Afghanistan US
forces killed one militant and captured 5 others including a brother of
Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Jul 20, Monsoon floods,
tornadoes and rains roared through already inundated villages in South
Asia, killing 42 more people. 15 died in Bangladesh and 27 in India.
Fresh rains in Asia took the rainy season death toll to nearly 800.
(AP, 7/21/04)(Reuters, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, Britain's government
backed long-standing plans to build a railway network linking east and
west London at a cost of around 10 billion pounds.
(AFP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, EU lawmakers elected
a pro-European from Spain to be its next president as the expanded
European Parliament met for the first time. The 732-member assembly
chose Josep Borrell, a relatively unknown Spanish Socialist, to its top
job.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Former Guam Gov. Carl
Gutierrez (1995-2003) was acquitted on charges he used government
workers and public money to build and improve his cliffside ranch.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, President Ricardo
Maduro said he is sending troops to help police quell a clash between
loggers and environmentalists in south-central Honduras.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, In Iran a prominent
history professor twice condemned to death on blasphemy charges was
informed of a three year jail sentence for insulting Islamic sacred
beliefs.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, A Filipino truck
driver held hostage in Iraq for nearly two weeks was freed, a day after
his nation withdrew its final peacekeepers from Iraq.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, A bomb attack on an
Iraqi minibus killed four civilians and injured two others near Baqouba.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Israeli helicopter
gunships and tanks fired on Hezbollah guerrilla positions in southern
Lebanon, killing one guerrilla, Lebanese security officials reported.
Hezbollah said it killed two Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, The U.N. General
Assembly called for the structure to be torn down in compliance with a
world court ruling. Israel's construction of its West Bank barrier
continued.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, In Nepal Communist
rebels freed about 50 students and a dozen teachers.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Pakistani officials
acknowledged the closing and bulldozing of 2 refugee camps Zarinoor 1
& 2 in South Waziristan. The government had decided to dismantle
all camps within 3 miles of the Afghan border.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Jul 20, In Saudi Arabia the
head of slain American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was kidnapped
and decapitated by militants last month, was found by security forces
during a raid that targeted the hideout of the Saudi al-Qaida chief.
Two militants were killed.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 21, Pres. Bush sketched
out a 2nd-term domestic agenda, telling campaign donors he would shift
focus to improving high school education and expanding access to health
care.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2004 Jul 21, Stephen Hawking
presented findings that contradicted his earlier work on black holes
and said black holes form an apparent horizon from which information
can eventually escape. This change lost him a 1977 bet with Dr.
Preskill of CalTech.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.74)
2004 Jul 21, Richard Block (78),
co-founder of H&R Block (1955), died in Kansas City.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.B8)
2004 Jul 21, Jerry Goldsmith (75),
Academy Award-winning composer, died. He created the memorable music
for scores of classic movies and television shows ranging from the
"Star Trek" and "Planet of the Apes" series to "The Man from
U.N.C.L.E." and "Dr. Kildare."
(AP, 7/22/04)
2004 Jul 21, In Afghanistan 10
militant fighters were killed and 5 wounded and captured when they
attacked a US-led force near Kandahar.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 21, Defence Secretary
Geoff Hoon announced Britain is to slash around 19,000 posts from its
armed forces over the next four years as part of an overhaul of
military priorities.
(AFP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 21, Insurgents in Iraq
said they have kidnapped 6 more foreign hostages, 3 Indians, 2 Kenyans
and an Egyptian. They threatened to behead one every 72 hours unless
their employer shuts down operations in Iraq.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 21, Fighting between US
troops and insurgents in Ramadi left 25 Iraqis dead and 17 wounded. A
decapitated corpse was found in Baiji.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 21, Rwanda officials said
500 judges were fired and 223 new ones appointed in a reform move to
improve the judiciary.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 21, South Korea pledged
to expand economic ties with North Korea while Japan said it would seek
normal relations with the communist state when a dispute over the
North's nuclear ambitions is resolved.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 22, The September 11
commission issued a report saying America's leaders failed to grasp the
gravity of terrorist threats before the devastating attacks of 9/11,
but stopping short of blaming President Bush and former President
Clinton.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.A1)(AP, 7/22/05)
2004 Jul 22, The Army Inspector
General's office released a report on abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan which found 94 cases of confirmed or alleged abuse and 39
deaths.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2004 Jul 22, The U.S. House of
Representatives gave final approval to a new free trade agreement with
Morocco.
(Reuters, 7/22/04)
2004 Jul 22, Adolph Coors and
Molson confirmed that they planned to merge their family-controlled
breweries.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C2)
2004 Jul 22, The USS John F.
Kennedy aircraft carrier collided with a dhow in the Arabian Gulf while
running night flights in support of U.S. operations in Iraq. The crew
of the small boat was missing.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 22, Illinois Jacquet
(81), jazz luminary known for his big sound on the tenor sax, died in
NYC.
(WSJ, 7/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 22, The Cuban government
released political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque from a hospital where
she was serving a 20-year sentence. She is the seventh and best-known
person let out of jail in three months.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 22, French crooner Sacha
Distel (71), whose seductive good looks won him legions of female fans
around the world, died.
(AP, 7/22/04)
2004 Jul 22, A court in
Dusseldorf, Germany, acquitted all 6 defendants in the 6-month
Mannesmann trial. They were accused of committing a breach of trust
relating to bonuses paid to CEO Klaus Esser and other executives
following the 2000 sale of Mannesmann to Vodafone.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.60)y
2004 Jul 22, It was reported that
over 200 doctors had been kidnapped in Iraq since the end of the war
and that an estimated 10-30 kidnappings take place every day, mostly in
Baghdad.
(WSJ, 7/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 22, In a Gaza City 2
Palestinians were killed when their car exploded. The Israeli attack
was aimed at a man involved in the slaying of six Israeli soldiers on
May 11.
(AP, 7/23/04)(SFC, 7/24/04, p.A14)
2004 Jul 22, In northwestern
Turkey a new high-speed passenger train derailed killing 37 people and
injuring 81 others.
(AP, 7/23/04)(AP, 7/22/05)
2004 Jul 23, President Bush froze
the assets of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, his family and
top aides and accused them of undermining the country's transition to
democracy.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 23, The Pentagon released
newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in
the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the
future president's activities during that summer.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2004 Jul 23, In Bosnia Britain's
Prince Charles and other foreign dignitaries gathered to reopen the
Mostar bridge over the Neretva River. The original was built in 1566.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 23, In northwest Colombia
police seized 4 1/2 tons of cocaine with an estimated street value of
$90 million.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 23, Gunmen in Mosul
attacked a retired Iraqi general as he headed to a mosque to pray,
killing him and another man. Maj. Gen. Salim Majeed Blesh (58) had
worked for the former U.S. occupation government.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 23, Iraqi insurgents in
Baghdad kidnapped Muhammad Mamdouh Qutb, a 3rd ranking official of the
Egyptian Embassy, demanding his country abandon any plans it had to
send security experts to Iraq.
(SFC, 7/24/04, p.A13)(AP, 7/23/05)
2004 Jul 23, A van carrying Iraqi
civilians collided with a U.S. tank near Baghdad, killing nine people
and injuring 10.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 23, Joe Cahill (b.1920),
a founding father of the modern Irish Republican Army who once narrowly
avoided the hangman's noose, died in Belfast.
(AP, 7/24/04)(SFC, 7/26/04, p.B4)
2004 Jul 23, The Japanese
government reported that suicides in Japan in 2003 surged to an
all-time high topping 34,000 deaths in a trend fueled by health and
financial troubles.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 23, Leaders from the 2
main rebel groups in Sudan's western Darfur region agreed to
participate in "substantive negotiations" for a political solution to
the humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 24, President Bush said
in his weekly radio address that his administration was committed to
relying on the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission in waging the
war on terrorism.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2004 Jul 24, Fred LaRue (75),
former Nixon administration official, died in Biloxi, Mississippi. He
served a prison term for Watergate.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2004 Jul 24, An online statement
by a group representing itself as al-Qaida's European branch threatened
to turn Australia into "pools of blood" if it doesn't withdraw its
troops from Iraq.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 24, A Tehran court
acquitted the sole defendant in the July 10, 2003, murder of an
Iranian-Canadian photojournalist. Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi had
pleaded innocent on July 17 and the trial was abruptly ended the next
day.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 24, Gunmen kidnapped the
head of an Iraqi government-owned construction company in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 24, The 16th edition of
Italy's Miss Cicciona contest (Italy's Miss Chubby) began in Forcoli,
central Italy.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 24, In India Coal and
Mines Minister Shibu Soren resigned after an arrest warrant was issued
against him on charges of inciting arson and violence during a rally in
1975.
(Reuters, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 24, Militants torched a
Palestinian police station south of Gaza City.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 24, Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger rebels killed eight rivals in the worst outbreak of violence in
three months.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 24, It was reported that
rebels fighting an 18-year insurgency in northern Uganda have killed at
least 42 civilians in southern Sudan in the past week.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 25, The Warwick agreement
came about as a compromise between Britain’s Labour Government
and trade unions at the Labour Party's National Policy forum.
(www.unionstogether.org.uk/articles/employment.html)
2004 Jul 25, Colombia's ELN rebel
group kidnapped Misael Vaca Ramirez, the Catholic Bishop of Yopal, but
planned to set him free bearing a political message for the government.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 25, Lance Armstrong (32)
became the 1st 6-time winner of the 2,107-mile Tour de France bicycle
race.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 25, American and Iraqi
forces clashed with insurgents in a battle that escalated from gunfire
to artillery barrages north of Baghdad, killing 13 Iraqi militants.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 25, Gunmen killed Brig.
Khaled Dawoud, a former regional official who worked under Saddam
Hussein's government, and his son in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 25, Tens of thousands of
Jewish settlers and their supporters joined hands to form a human chain
along a 55-mile route, serving notice they will fight Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 25, Israeli soldiers in
the West Bank shot to death six members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
in a gunbattle in the town of Tulkarem.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 25, In Kashmir a group of
9 militants barged into the home of Mohammed Shafi in a remote village
in Rajouri district and beheaded him. They also killed his 22-year-old
son and 15-year-old daughter.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 25, Carmen Gutierrez, a
doctor who won Mexico's Woman of the Year award (1997), was found dead
in a canal on the outskirts of Mexico City. She was kidnapped Jul 22.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2004 Jul 25, Pakistan arrested
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian al-Qaida suspect, wanted by the
United States in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2004 Jul 25, A Spanish newspaper
reported that Morocco had warned Spain earlier this month that it lost
track of 400 Moroccan Islamist militants who trained in al Qaeda camps
in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 25, The death toll from
monsoon flooding in South Asia reached 944.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 25, Central African
Republic President Francois Bozize wrapped up a two-day visit to Sudan
with a pledge to help his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir resolve
the crisis in the western Darfur region.
(AFP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 26, The Democratic
National Convention opened in Boston with an estimated 35,000 visitors.
Speakers included Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Hillary and Bill Clinton.
Speakers castigated George W. Bush as a president who mishandled the
economy and bungled the war on terror.
(SFC, 7/27/04, p.A1)(AP, 7/26/05)
2004 Jul 26, A new variation of
the Mydoom computer virus spread across the Internet.
(SFC, 7/27/04, p.D1)
2004 Jul 26, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai formally filed his candidacy for October presidential
elections and chose a brother of late resistance hero Ahmad Shah Masoud
as his running mate for vice president.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 26, Banco Santander
Central Hispano of Spain, with the help of Royal Bank of Scotland,
announced a deal to acquire Abbey National Bank in the UK. The $16
billion deal created the tenth largest bank in the world.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_(bank))
2004 Jul 26, Czech President
Vaclav Klaus named Social Democrat leader Stanislav Gross (B.1969) as
the country's next prime minister, making him Europe's youngest leader
and paving the way for a new center-left government.
(www.e-paranoids.com/s/st/stanislav_gross.html)
2004 Jul 26, Mohammed Mamdouh
Helmi Qutb, an Egyptian diplomat held hostage by militants in Iraq for
three days, was released and was in good condition.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 26, Al-Qaida-linked
Islamic militants threatened to "shake the earth" everywhere in Italy
if Rome does not withdraw troops from Iraq. The Internet statement,
attributed to the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, was the 2nd such threat
against the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in two weeks.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 26, A suicide car bomber
attacked near a U.S. base in the northern city of Mosul, killing three
Iraqis. Assassins gunned down a senior Interior Ministry official and
militants said they kidnapped two Jordanian truck drivers in spiraling
violence in Iraq. Basra gunmen shot 2 women dead and wounded 3 who were
on their way to cleaning jobs at Bechtel.
(AP, 7/26/04)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 26, Attackers shot and
killed Col. Musab al-Awadi, the ministry's deputy chief of tribal
affairs, and 2 of his bodyguards in a drive-by shooting at the
official's Baghdad home.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 26, Close to 5,000
'cybernauts' gathered for a weeklong computer party in Spain’s
southeastern city of Valencia.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 27, Barack Obama,
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, delivered a speech at
the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Other speakers included
Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Ron Reagan, and Teresa Heinz Kerry. Democrats
assailed President Bush's handling of the Iraq war at their convention
in Boston and painted a vivid portrait of John Kerry as a decorated war
hero. The candidate's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, told the gathering: "He
earned his medals the old-fashioned way, by putting his life on the
line."
(AP, 7/27/04)(AP, 7/27/05)
2004 Jul 27, NYC Mayor Michael
Bloomberg visited a slum in Haiti and met interim leaders.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, A boat carrying
people to a flood shelter capsized in Bangladesh killing 10 people. The
total monsoon death toll for SE Asia passed 1,000 as the worst flooding
in years turned the capital, Dhaka, into an open sewer and disease
spread.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, Belarus ordered a
leading independent university closed, citing licensing problems, a
week after a march against Lukashenko’s rule.
(WSJ, 7/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 27, Brazil’s police said
they have arrested 6 suspects in the Jan 28 shooting deaths of 4 Labor
Ministry employees. They still don't know who ordered the killings.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, The official Xinhua
News Agency said Chinese authorities have shut down 700 pornographic
Web sites in less than two weeks as part of a massive campaign to clean
up the Internet.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, A Costa Rican
policeman apparently distraught over an impending job transfer killed
himself and three of the 10 hostages he had taken at the Chilean
embassy.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 27, A Baghdad mortar
barrage killed an Iraqi garbage collector and injured 14 coalition
soldiers.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, The chief executive
of a Jordanian firm working for the U.S. military in Iraq said he was
withdrawing from the country to secure the release of two employees who
have been kidnapped by militants.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, The U.N. Security
Council extended an arms embargo on Congo for a year as fighting
continued between rival factions.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 27, All but three of 70
suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea
pleaded guilty to lesser charges in Zimbabwe.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 28, Democrats in Boston
made John Kerry their nominee for president as John Edwards, the
vice-presidential nominee, promised the country “hope is on the way.”
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 28, In California police
in Irvine said they were looking for a man who may have witnessed the
contamination of baby food jars with ground-up castor beans containing
tiny amounts of the poison ricin. Notes were found in jars on May 31
and June 16.
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 28, Francis Crick (88),
British Nobel laureate who with American James Watson discovered the
double-helix structure of DNA, died of colon cancer in San Diego, Ca.
(AP, 7/29/04)(Econ, 8/7/04, p.71)
2004 Jul 28, A bomb exploded in a
mosque where Afghans were registering for upcoming elections, killing
six people including two U.N. staffers.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 28, In Colombia Marxist
guerrillas freed a Roman Catholic bishop. 3 top commanders of
right-wing death squads spoke before Congress under safe-conduct passes
and professed commitments to peace talks.
(AP, 7/28/04)(SFC, 7/29/04, p.A13)
2004 Jul 28, Francisco Reyes,
former Guatemalan vice president (2000-2004), was arrested on charges
of illegally taking over a government property worth $2.4 million.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2004 Jul 28, Muslims and Hindus
burned buildings and clashed with police in a third day of sectarian
riots in the western Indian town of Verawal, throwing acid at officers
who shot at the crowd. The unrest has left two dead and more than a
dozen wounded.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 28, Iran's judiciary
claimed that an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist died (Jul 10, 2003) in
custody from a fall after her blood pressure dropped during a hunger
strike.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 28, A suicide car bomb
exploded on a downtown boulevard in Baqouba, shredding a bus full of
passengers and nearby shops and killing 70 people, almost all Iraqi
civilians.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2004 Jul 28, A fierce battle
between insurgents and Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside multinational
forces in the south-central city of Suwariyah left 7 Iraqi soldiers and
35 insurgents dead.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 28, The Italian
parliament approved structural economic reforms that included raising
the retirement age from 57 to 60 effective in 2008.
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.44)
2004 Jul 28, The second wave in
the biggest mass defection of North Koreans to South Korea arrived on a
flight from an unidentified Southeast Asian country, bringing the total
in the two-day airlift to nearly 460.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 28, Peru’s President
Alejandro Toledo, facing allegations of corruption, invited government
auditors to review all of his bank accounts.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 28, Deaths from monsoon
rains across South Asia reached 1,238.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 28, The Ugandan army
reportedly killed 120 rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters
during clashes in southern Sudan and narrowly missed capturing Joseph
Kony, the insurgents' leader.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2004 Jul 29, John Kerry gave his
acceptance speech as the Democratic presidential nominee before 15,000
supporters in Boston’s FleetCenter: “I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting
for duty.”
(SFC, 7/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 29, Target Corp. of
Minneapolis announced it would sell Mervyn’s to an investment group
that included Sun Capital Partners in Boca Raton, Fla., for $1.65
billion. Cerberus Capital Management, Lubert-Adler and Klaff Partners
were also in the deal, which was structured in 2 parts, one for the
retailer and one for the retailer’s real estate.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.J1)(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.B1)
2004 Jul 29, Four Indonesian
security officers convicted over atrocities during East Timor's 1999
violence-marred independence vote were acquitted.
(AFP, 8/6/04)
2004 Jul 29, Iraqi Prime Minister
Ayad Allawi met with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Saudi Arabia
and urged Muslim nations to dispatch troops to Iraq to help defeat an
insurgency that he said threatens all Islamic countries.
(AP, 7/29/04)(WSJ, 7/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 29, Israeli forces killed
2 top Palestinian militants in Gaza.
(WSJ, 7/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 30, Mike Tyson was
knocked out in the fourth round of a fight in Louisville, Ky., by
British heavyweight Danny Williams.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2004 Jul 30, Leaders of the Sept.
11 commission urged US senators to embrace their proposals for massive
changes to the nation's intelligence structure. The commission’s August
report said the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) produced reports in
1998 and 1999 about a hijacking threat posed by al Qaeda, including the
possibility of an attempt to use a commercial jet against a US
landmark. It also said that in 2000 the FAA warned carriers and
airports that the prospect for a terrorist hijacking had increased.
(AP, 7/30/05)(SFC, 9/14/05, p.A3)
2004 Jul 30, Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry plunged into the general election and
embarked on a coast-to-coast campaign swing through 21 states.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, Abdurahman Alamoudi
pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to moving cash from Libya and
involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Prince Abdullah.
(SFC, 7/31/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 30, In NYC Joseph
Massino, a Bonanno crime boss, was convicted of orchestrating murder,
racketeering, arson and extortion over the last 25 years.
(SFC, 7/31/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 30, Scientists reported
the creation of synthetic prions and showed they could replicate
without genetic material and cause brain disease in laboratory animals.
(SFC, 7/30/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 30, A new Austrian
postage stamp featuring a likeness of California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger went on sale on his birthday.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, In Belgium a major
natural gas pipeline exploded in Ath, killing 16 people and injuring
120, including firefighters and police responding to a report of a leak.
(AP, 7/30/04)(WSJ, 8/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 30, In Colombia Maria
Elena Rios (25) was shot to death in the head and back in a hillside
slum of Medellin. An internal army investigation absolved Capt. Jhon
Jairo Cano and four soldiers of any wrongdoing. The investigation was
reopened in 2007 along with 130 other investigations of killings of
civilians presented as deaths of leftist rebels in action, as the US
Congress refuses to ratify a bilateral trade pact over concerns about
human rights in Colombia.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2004 Jul 30, In Iraq fierce
overnight fighting between U.S. Marines backed by fighter aircraft and
insurgents using small arms and mortars killed 13 Iraqis in Fallujah
overnight.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, Parties to Ivory
Coast's moribund peace process committed themselves again to knitting
their civil-war divided country back together, setting new target dates
for implementation of their peace deal at a summit in Ghana.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 30, A small bomb exploded
in Faisalabad, an industrial city of eastern Pakistan, wounding 18
people, mostly children.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, In Pakistan an attack
on Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister designate, was a response to Pres.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf's transferring wanted militants to U.S. custody.
7 people were killed plus the suicide bomber. In 2005 police arrested 3
brothers for harboring suicide bombers, who made the attack on Aziz
that left 9 bystanders dead.
(AP, 7/31/04)(AP, 1/18/05)
2004 Jul 30, Turkish authorities
seized 200 pounds of plastic explosives hidden in a truck as it crossed
into Turkey from Iraq.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, In Uzbekistan suicide
bombers hit the U.S. and Israeli embassies, killing at least two Uzbeks.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, A Venezuelan judge
ordered the arrests of 59 former military officers on suspicion of
plotting against President Hugo Chavez's government.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 31, Virginia Grey (87),
American film actress, died in LA. She had appeared in over 100 films
and 40 TV shows.
(SFC, 8/7/04, p.B6)
2004 Jul 31, In southern
Afghanistan gunmen killed a local government leader and four of his
bodyguards in an ambush.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 31, Gunmen killed the
head of a state-run teacher's institute as he left a mosque after
prayers, an attack in apparent retribution for his refusal to stop
working for Iraqi authorities.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 31, A 10-day manhunt for
a murder suspect ended in a shootout near the Circus Maximus in central
Rome. Luciano Liboni had allegedly killed a policeman July 22.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 31, Laura Betti (70),
Italian film actress, died. Her debut was in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita”
(1960).
(SFC, 8/3/04, p.B6)
2004 Jul 31, In Poland some
200,000 people gathered for the 10th annual weekend concert called
Woodstock in Kostrzyn.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 31, Flood-weakened
riverbanks in South Asia collapsed around villages, pushing the death
toll from this season's monsoons above 1,500 and stranding more than 30
million people.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Jul 31, World Trade
negotiators in Geneva broke months of deadlock and put together a
framework for the rest of the Doha trade round.
(Econ, 8/7/04, p.59)
2004 Jul 31, The Vatican issued a
document denouncing feminism for trying to blur differences between men
and women and threatening the institution of families based on a mother
and a father.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2004 Jul, Homeland Security
officer Robert Rhodes subdued Zhao Yan (38), a Chinese businesswoman,
who was touring Niagara Falls near the Canadian border. In 2005 Rhodes
was found not guilty of violating her civil rights. Zhao Yan filed a
$10 million lawsuit against the US government.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2004 Jul, Chicago’s $475
million Millennium Park opened in Grant Park, 4 years overdue.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.78)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.34)
2004 Jul, Yuri Levintoff was
recruited by Boris Barshevsky, a Boston-area taxi driver, to help
organize paid protesters for rallies in NYC against Chechen
separatists. The rallies were then filmed by Russian state television.
(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)
2004 Jul, A fake list of public
figures, who allegedly held accounts at a Luxembourg-based clearing
house (Clearstream Banking S.A.) linked to kickbacks on the 1991 sale
of French frigates to Taiwan, was leaked to a French judge. This came
to be known as the 2nd Clearstream affair. In 2001 Clearstream was
accused of money laundering and tax evasion.
(Econ, 7/14/07,
p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearstream)
2004 Jul, A court in Saint-Omer,
northern France, convicted 10 out of 17 defendants on pedophilia
charges relating to the abuse of 18 children between 1995 and 2000. 6
of the 10 convicted were acquitted in 2005.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2004 Jul, In Germany Hartz IV was
voted into law. It limited unemployment pay to the 1st year out of
work, after which a much lower social security benefit kicked in.
(Econ, 9/4/04, p.62)
2004 Jul, In 2006 the Greek
government reported that mobile phones belonging to top Greek military
and government officials, including the prime minister and the US
embassy, were tapped for nearly a year beginning in the weeks before
the 2004 Olympic games. It was not known who was responsible for the
taps, which numbered about 100.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2004 Jul, Guinea state radio
announced that a 25-year-old miner found a 182-carat diamond near the
southeast border. By contrast the Hope diamond is 45.52 carats.
(SFC, 7/20/04, p.A12)
2004 Jul, The ship Mary Nour,
filled with Russian cement, was denied permission to unload its cargo
in Mexican ports under pressure from Cemex SA.
(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A12)
2004 Jul, In Russia the film
“Night Watch,” directed by Timur Bekmambetov, took in $8.5 million in
sales in its 1st 11 days. It was based on the sci-fi trilogy by Sergei
Lukyanenko that told the tale of a thousand-year-old battle between
forces of good and evil.
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.E5)
2004 Jul, In Tanzania over 10,000
flamingos died at the Lake Manyara National Park. Officials were
puzzled and no other wildlife appeared affected.
(SFC, 7/24/04, p.B10)
2004 Aug 1, The US government
warned of possible al-Qaida terrorist attacks against specific
financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2004 Aug 1, Alexandra Scott, a
young cancer patient who started a lemonade stand to raise money for
cancer research, sparking a nationwide fund-raising campaign, died at
her home in Wynnewood, Pa., at age 8.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2004 Aug 1, Karen Stupples won the
Women's British Open.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2004 Aug 1, A roadside bombing
near the town of Samarra killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two
others. A car bomb exploded outside a police station in the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least five people and injuring 53
others. The blast followed a night of clashes between U.S. troops and
insurgents that killed 12 Iraqis and wounded 39 others in Fallujah. Car
bombings in Baghdad targeted at 4 churches and at least 11 people
including 2 children were killed.
(AP, 8/1/04)(SFC, 8/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 1, A militant group
claiming links to al Qaeda has given Italy a 15-day deadline to
withdraw its troops from Iraq or face attacks.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Aug 1, A Kenyan government
spokesman said 7 truck drivers taken hostage in Iraq have been released.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Aug 1, A Lebanese hostage was
freed unharmed after Iraqi police raided his kidnappers' hideout in an
operation that ended with the arrest of three terror suspects.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 1, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz
(b.1958) was elected governor of Oaxaca, Mexico, by a narrow 2% margin.
Defeated candidate Gabino Cue, nominated by an alliance mainly of
Convergencia and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD),
repeatedly alleged electoral fraud.
(http://tinyurl.com/jnpk8)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.48)
2004 Aug 1, In Paraguay a
fast-spreading fire killed 420 people. Survivors of the inferno in a
crowded supermarket on the outskirts of Asuncion said that locked doors
slowed their escape. In 2008 a father and son who owned the supermarket
were sentenced to prison for manslaughter and endangerment. In 2009
Supreme Court voted 2-1 in favor of a sentence of 12 years for Juan Pio
Paiva and 10 years for his son Daniel Paiva. In 2009 a court upheld a
two-year prison sentence for architect Bernardo Ismachowiez, designer
of the supermarket.
(AP, 8/2/04)(AP, 8/6/04)(AP, 2/3/08)(AP, 8/6/09)(AP,
8/29/09)
2004 Aug 1, In Peru a bus plunged
off a cliff in the Andes Mountains, killing at least 34 passengers and
injuring 21.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 1, The Sudanese cabinet
condemned the 30-day deadline for action on Darfur set by the U.N.
Security Council, but said it would implement a 90-day program agreed
earlier with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Aug 1, World Trade
Organization members meeting in Geneva approved a plan to end export
subsidies on farm products and cut import duties across the world.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2004 Aug 2, Pres. Bush proposed
creating a national intelligence director in line with the Sep 11
Commission recommendations.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 2, Police in Salt Lake
City arrested Mark Hacking, whose wife, Lori, had disappeared, on a
charge of aggravated murder. On October 1, 2004, searchers found human
remains in the Salt Lake County landfill. By that afternoon police had
confirmed that the remains were those of Lori Hacking. Lori Kay Soares
was buried in Orem City Cemetery, Orem, Utah County, Utah. The dates on
her stone are December 31, 1976 to July 19, 2004.
(AP,
8/2/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Hacking)
2003 Aug 2, Afghan troops
backed by U.S. warplanes killed as many as 70 militants in a daylong
battle near the Pakistani border.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2004 Aug 2, Masked gunmen killed a
Turkish hostage with three gunshots to the head, according to a video
posted on the Internet, and the Turkish truckers' union said it would
stop bringing supplies to U.S. forces in Iraq. A car bomb in Baquba
killed at least 3 Iraqi national guardsmen. 6 American service members
were reported killed over the last 24 hours.
(AP, 8/2/04)(SFC, 8/4/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 2, In western Japan 7
members of a family were found stabbed to death with a kitchen knife.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 2, In Gaza City 5 masked
men broke into a hospital and shot dead a convicted Palestinian
collaborator who had been wounded in a grenade attack in his prison
cell just hours earlier.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 2, The UN began
air-dropping food for refugees in Darfur, Sudan.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 2, Ukraine's prime
minister called for reducing the country's troop contingent in Iraq,
openly disagreeing with top defense officials who want to increase the
force.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 3, Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge defended the decision to tighten security in New
York and Washington even though the intelligence behind the latest
terror warnings was as much as four years old.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2004 Aug 3, The Statue of Liberty
pedestal in New York City reopened to the public for the first time
since the Sept. 11 attacks.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2004 Aug 3, At Cape Canaveral,
Fla., a Delta II rocket lifted the spacecraft Messenger on a 6 ½
year journey toward Mercury. The name stood for Mercury Surface, Space
Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging.
(SFC, 8/4/04, p.A2)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.74)
2004 Aug
3, Missouri voters solidly endorsed a state constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage. The Democratic primary endorsed Auditor Claire
McCaskill (51) over Gov. Bob Holden.
(AP, 8/4/03)(SFC, 8/4/04, p.A2)
2004 Aug 3, In London 13 Asian men
were arrested. One known as Moussa (or al-Hindi) was later said to be
the head of al-Qaeda in Britain.
(Econ, 8/7/04, p.46)
2004 Aug
3, A car bomb planted by suspected Colombian rebels ripped apart three
passing police vehicles, killing nine officers.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2004 Aug 3, Henri Cartier-Bresson
(95), French photographer of the decisive moment, died. In 2005 Pierre
Assouline authored “Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Biography.”
(WSJ, 8/5/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/7/04, p.67)(Econ,
9/3/05, p.75)
2004 Aug
3, Fierce gunbattles broke out between Iraqi police and dozens of
masked militants roaming the northern city of Mosul, killing 12 Iraqis
and wounding 26 others.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2004 Aug
3, A Sudanese official and Arab tribal leader said rebels masquerading
as Arab militia have killed 28 Arab tribesman in attacks in western
Sudan over the last week.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2004 Aug 4, Richard Smith, a
Staten Island ferry pilot, pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in a
crash that killed 11 commuters in the October 15, 2003, wreck of the
Andrew J. Barberi Staten Island ferry, acknowledging that he'd passed
out at the helm after arriving at work with medication in his system.
(AP, 8/4/05)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Staten_Island_Ferry_crash)
2004 Aug 4, Former teacher Mary
Kay Letourneau, convicted of having sex with a sixth-grade pupil, was
released from a Washington state prison.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2004 Aug 4, It was reported that
LeapFrog Enterprises would donate 20,000 interactive women’s health
books to Afghan women under a $1.25 million development and
distribution grant from the US Dept. of health and Human Services.
(SFC, 8/4/04, p.C1)
2004 Aug
4, In China a school employee with a history of schizophrenia slashed
15 students and three teachers with a kitchen knife at a Beijing
kindergarten, killing one child and leaving terrified classmates
covered in blood.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2004 Aug 4, Fighting between
insurgents and Iraqi security forces in Mosul left at least 22 dead. At
least 14 of the dead were civilians.
(SFC, 8/5/04, p.A12)
2004 Aug 4, In Kashmir Muslim
militants killed nine Indian troopers in an attack on a paramilitary
camp, just hours before India and Pakistan, which both claim the
region, began a round of peace talks.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 4, Police in eastern
Nigeria discovered skulls and corpses of at least 83 people in shrines
where a secretive cult was believed to have carried out traditional
ritual killings. 30 shamans were arrested in a part of Anambra state
called “the evil forest.”
(AP, 8/5/04)(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A1)(CP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 4, Clashes in the Gaza
Strip left 4 Palestinians dead including a 10-year-old boy. Israeli
forces uncovered a smuggling tunnel on the border with Egypt.
(SFC, 8/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 4, The official Saudi
Press reported that municipal elections across Saudi Arabia, the first
such polls in decades, have been have been pushed back two months to
November.
(AP, 8/4/04)
2004 Aug 4, In southern Tanzania
some 22 villagers appeared in court on charges of killing 7 people who
allegedly practiced witchcraft. Villagers said the witches cut off the
sexual organs of dead villagers and used them to concoct charms
intended to bring good harvests and fortune.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 5, Pres. Bush signed a
$417.5 billion wartime defense bill.
(SFC, 8/6/04, p.A16)
2004 Aug 5, Patrick Ryan (52), New
York City's director of ferries, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of
manslaughter in the October 15, 2003, wreck of the Andrew J. Barberi
Staten Island ferry. Ryan later pleaded guilty to negligent
manslaughter.
(AP,
8/5/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Staten_Island_Ferry_crash)
2004 Aug 5, John Forney (42),
Enron energy trader, pleaded guilty in SF to charges of fraud and
plotting to manipulate the market during the 2000-2001 California
energy crises.
(SFC, 8/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 5, Alabama executed James
Hubbard (74) by lethal injection for the 1977 murder of Lillian
Montgomery (62). The 2-time killer was the oldest inmate executed in
the US since 1941, when James Stephens of Colorado was executed at age
76. The oldest person executed in the 20th century was 83-year-old Joe
Lee of Virginia in 1916.
(www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/hubbard922.htm)(WSJ, 8/6/04,
p.A1)(SFC, 8/6/04, p.A2)
2004 Aug 4, The Georgia men's
basketball team was placed on four years' probation for rules
violations under former coach Jim Harrick.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2004 Aug 5, David Hicks,
Australian terror suspect held at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba,
signed an affidavit stating: "Interrogators once offered me the
services of a prostitute for 15 minutes if I would spy on other
detainees.” Hicks documented a number of physical abuses.
(Reuters, 12/9/04)
2004 Aug 4, Two-year-old twins
from the Philippines born with the tops of their heads fused together
were separated at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2004 Aug 5, A bomb exploded in the
parking lot of a hotel in northeastern Bangladesh city where the
opposition-backed mayor was holding a meeting, wounding at least 50
people.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 5, The death toll from
monsoons in Bangladesh and India reached 1,823.
(SFC, 8/5/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 5, In eastern France a
predawn fire swept through an equestrian school, killing seven
teenagers and possibly two adults.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 5, Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr called on his supporters to rise against US-led security
forces. Fighting quickly spread to other Shiite areas, threatening a
shaky two-month-old truce. Insurgents blew up a bomb in a minibus and
opened fire on a crowd outside a police station south of Baghdad,
killing at least five people and wounding 21.
(AP, 8/5/04)(SFC, 8/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 5, A Pakistan army
helicopter crashed amid the al Qaeda hunt and 13 people were killed.
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 5, A helicopter
conducting a forest survey crashed in northern Siberia after apparent
engine trouble, killing all 15-16 people aboard.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 5, Yemeni officials said
its army has launched a major offensive to quash a rebellion in the
northern mountains. About 50 soldiers and rebels have been killed in
the two days of fighting.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 6, Louisiana’s Democrat
Rep. Rodney Alexander (57) switched party affiliations and filed as a
Republican 30 minutes before a deadline.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.A4)
2004 Aug 6, US payroll data fell
far short of expectations and sent the US and British markets crashing
to the floor. New July jobs totaled 32,000. The Dow plunged 147 points
to a new 2004 low of 9815.33.
(AP, 8/6/04)(SFC, 8/7/04, p.C1)(WSJ, 8/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 6, In Deltona, Fla., 4
men and two women were found slain in a home after one of them failed
to show up for an early morning shift at a nearby Burger King. A man
who was angry about a suspected theft recruited three teenagers to stab
and beat six people to death with baseball bats.
(AP, 8/6/04)(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 6, Rick James (56), Funk
legend born as James A. Johnson, died. He was best known for the 1981
hit "Super Freak" before his career disintegrated amid drug use and
violence that sent him to prison.
(AP, 8/6/04)(SFC, 8/7/04, p.B7)
2004 Aug 6, In Afghanistan gunmen
ambushed a convoy carrying election workers into a remote Taliban
stronghold, killing two of them.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 6-2004 Aug 8, Up to
100,000 rock and rollers crowded a remote desert venue in China's
isolated Ningxia province over the weekend for a three-day festival
featuring the nation's oldest and best bands.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 6, A German court found 2
former top East German officials guilty of failing to stop the killing
of people trying to escape across the Berlin Wall and sentenced them to
probation.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2004 Aug 6, Abdul Karim Rawi, gov.
of Iraq’s Anbar province, resigned under pressure from insurgents who
had kidnapped his 3 sons.
(SFC, 8/7/04, p.A13)
2004 Aug 6, There was intense
fighting in Najaf. The U.S. military said 300 militants were killed in
the past two days. Assailants in Iraq killed 3 US servicemen, one in
the capital and two in the south.
(AP, 8/6/04)(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 6, Israel reopened a
border crossing with Egypt, closed since July 18, enabling some 2,000
stranded Palestinians to return home.
(SFC, 8/7/04, p.A11)
2004 Aug 6, Mali said swarms of
locusts had spread across most of its vast arid territory. The swarms
were moving across the Sahara desert toward countries including
Senegal, Niger, Chad and Gambia.
(AP, 8/6/04)
2004 Aug 6, Reuters learned from
Pakistani intelligence sources that computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor
Khan, arrested secretly in July, was working under cover to help the
authorities track down al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United
States when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.
(Reuters, 8/7/04)(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 6, U.S. officials
returned $20 million in embezzled Peruvian government funds that had
been deposited in American banks under the direction of fallen spy
chief Vladimiro Montesinos.
(AP, 8/6/04)
2004 Aug 6, Saudi officials
reported the capture of Faris Ahmed Jamaan al-Showeel al Zahrani, No.
12 on their list of 26 most wanted terrorism suspects.
(SFC, 8/7/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 6, Yemeni warplanes and
artillery pounded mountain hideouts of an anti-U.S. leader and his
followers in a major offensive aimed at ending a six-week conflict that
has killed at least 500 people.
(AP, 8/6/04)
2004 Aug 7, Greg Maddux became the
22nd pitcher in major league history to reach 300 victories, leading
the Chicago Cubs to an 8-4 victory over San Francisco.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2004 Aug 7, AP reported that a
beheading was broadcast on 2 Arab TV stations. The video of the
beheading was fake and had been initially made and posted on the
Internet in May by 3 people from the SF Bay Area. Benjamin Vanderford
of SF said he made the video to show how easy it is to spread lies over
the Internet.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.A12)
2004 Aug 7, Paul N. Adair
(b.1915), Texas oil field firefighter, died. The 1968 film
“Hellfighter” with John Wayne was based on his life.
(SFC, 8/9/04, p.B6)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.78)
2004 Aug 7, Interim Iraqi Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi signed a long-awaited amnesty law that would
pardon Iraqis who have played minor roles in the country's
15-month-long insurgency. The Iraqi government closed the Iraqi offices
of the Arab television station Al-Jazeera for 30 days, accusing it of
inciting violence.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 7, Clashes between US-led
forces and fighters loyal to al-Sadr continued for a 3rd day in Najaf
and Sadr City. 23 civilians were killed and 121 wounded in the day’s
fighting.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 7, A bomb exploded
outside a car dealership in Karachi, Pakistan, killing two people and
wounding three.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 7, Nahed Arreyes,
Palestinian justice minister, resigned to protest Yasser Arafat’s
refusal to share power.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.A18)
2004 Aug 7, The Romanian sitcom
"The Winding Road to Europe" featured villagers in the fictional La
Europa pub and swapping stories about how joining the EU will change
their lives. The European Union's Romania office has funded 12
15-minute episodes of "Winding Road" at $16,800 each, 4 of which had
already aired.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 7, The Edinburgh Festival
Fringe, a three-week cultural jamboree, began this weekend. This year's
event featured 1,700 shows, a big jump on last year's 1,541.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Aug 7, Some 6,000 people
turned out for the start of a three-day gay and lesbian festival in
Singapore, where homosexual acts are still illegal. "Nation.04" -- a
festival of international DJs, podium dancers, pumping music and
muscular boys stripping off their tops on packed dance floors -- has
increased in size every year since it was launched four years ago.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 8, The US military said 2
American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter died when a bomb hit
their Humvee.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 8, Alan Keyes, the
Republican two-time presidential hopeful, threw his hat into Illinois'
Senate race (he ended up losing to Democrat Barack Obama).
(AP, 8/8/05)
2004 Aug 8, Fay Wray (b.1907),
film actress, died. She was best known for her 1933 performance in
“King Kong.”
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.B7)
2004 Aug 8, Traces of the
anti-depressant Prozac have been found in Britain's drinking water
supply, setting off alarm bells with environmentalists concerned about
potentially toxic effects. In the decade up to 2001, overall
prescriptions of antidepressants in Britain rose from 9 million to 24
million a year.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 8, Iraq reinstated
capital punishment for people guilty of murder, endangering national
security and distributing drugs.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 8, Iraq's chief
investigating judge said Ahmad Chalabi, a former Governing Council
member with strong U.S. ties, was wanted in Iraq on counterfeiting
charges, while Salem Chalabi, head of the special tribunal in charge of
trying Saddam, faced an arrest warrant for murder.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 8, Militants in Iraq said
they had taken a top Iranian diplomat hostage. Faridoun Jihani was
identified as the "consul for the Islamic Republic of Iran in Karbala."
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 8, In San Juan Chamula,
Mexico, hundreds of enraged residents of this impoverished Indian
community locked the mayor and three other municipal officials in jail,
claiming they embezzled funds from public works projects.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 8, In Pakistan 2 bombs
ripped through an Islamic school, killing 8 and injuring 42.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 8, Pakistan confirmed
that Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a senior bin Laden operative, had been
captured in the UAR and transferred to Lahore.
(SFC, 8/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 8, The death toll from
monsoons in South Asia reached 1,972. At least 1,152 have died in
India, 691 in Bangladesh, 124 in Nepal and 5 in Pakistan.
(AP, 8/8/04)(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 8, President Leonid
Kuchma, joined by other top officials, attended the startup of nuclear
reactor No. 2 at the Khmelnitskyi plant in western Ukraine.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 9, Oil prices for
September delivery of light crude hit a record high of $44.98 since
trading began in NYC in 1983.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 9, In McAlester,
Oklahoma, District Judge Steven Taylor sentenced Terry Nichols to 161
consecutive life sentences for the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building
bombing. Terry Nichols, addressing a court for the first time, asked
victims of the blast for forgiveness
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)(AP, 8/9/05)
2004 Aug 9, Trump Hotels and
Casino Resorts Inc. announced it would soon file for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. 3 Trump properties had filed for bankruptcy in 1992.
(SFC, 8/11/04, p.C1)
2004 Aug 9, David Raksin (92),
Oscar-nominated movie and TV composer, died in Van Nuys, Calif.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2004 Aug 9, The death toll from
this season's monsoon rains across South Asia passed 2,000, as
authorities in India reported that 39 bodies were found floating in
receding flood waters and four children were killed when a house
collapsed.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, Forensic experts said
they found a mass grave in the waste dump of a coal mine in eastern
Bosnia, which they suspect may contain the bodies of about 350 Muslims
who disappeared from a Bosnian Serb detention centre during the Bosnian
war.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, Al Sadr, whose
loyalists battled U.S. troops for a fifth straight day, vowed to fight
to the death. A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb northeast of
Baghdad, killing six people and wounding the deputy governor who was
the intended target.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, Four masked,
black-clad men who said they belong to a group that has claimed
responsibility for kidnappings and killings in Iraq beheaded a man
identified only as a Bulgarian in a video posted on the Internet.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, In Japan a
nonradioactive steam leak killed 5 people and injured seven in the
worst-ever accident at a nuclear power plant in Fukui prefecture. The
No. 3 reactor of the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant was shutdown and not
restarted until January 2007.
(AP, 8/9/04)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.54)(AP, 1/9/07)
2004 Aug 9, Mauritania arrested
renegade officers and Islamic extremists to break up what officials
said was a brewing coup involving a terror campaign.
(WSJ, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 9, Officials in South
Africa prepared to kill some 30,000 ostriches following the deaths of
over 1,500 due to avian influenza.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 10, Pres. Bush nominated
Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican congressman, to head the CIA. Goss
spent most of his career as a clandestine operative in Latin America.
(AP, 8/11/04)(WSJ, 8/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 10, The US Federal
Reserve Open Market Committee (FMOC) hiked the federal funds target
rate, to 1.50 percent from 1.25 percent.
(AFP, 8/11/04)
2004 Aug 10, The 20-year-old
woman, who accused Kobe Bryant of rape, filed a federal lawsuit in
Denver against the NBA star. The lawsuit was later settled out of
court; terms were not disclosed.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2004 Aug 10, Barry Bonds became
the first player in major league history to hit 30 home runs in 13
consecutive seasons, connecting in San Francisco's 8-7 loss to
Pittsburgh.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2004 Aug 10, In Austria a bus
carrying mostly British tourists veered off a road in the province of
Salzburg and rolled down an embankment, killing at least five people.
(AP, 8/10/04)
2004 Aug 10, In southwest China a
5.6 earthquake killed four and injured nearly 600 in Yunnan province.
More than 125,000 people were left homeless and cracked walls in
reservoirs posed a threat to villages downstream.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 10, Thirty-three missing
Dominican migrants were found alive after nearly two weeks at sea, but
two died on the way to the hospital. 53 others died on the journey.
(AP, 8/10/04)(SFC, 8/12/04, p.A12)
2004 Aug 10, Libya agreed to pay
$35 million to the non-US victims of the 1986 Berlin disco bombing.
Libya's Kadhafi Foundation, which negotiated the terms of a
compensation deal for victims of the bombing, demanded compensation
from the United States for subsequent air strikes against the north
African country.
(AP, 8/10/04)(WSJ, 8/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 11, The U.S. women's
soccer team defeated home team Greece 3-0 on the first day of
competition in the 2004 Olympic Games. The opening ceremony took place
two days later.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2004 Aug 11, A 3-day wildfire near
Lake Shasta broke out and covered some 10,000 acres destroying 86 homes
in Jones Valley. Matt Rupp (44) served 2 years in jail for accidentally
igniting the fire while riding a mower over a field of dry grass.
(SSFC, 8/15/04, p.B2)(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A1)
2004 Aug 11, In Algeria an appeals
court upheld a two-year prison term for one of Algeria's best known
journalists in a case seen by many as a pretext to crush press freedom.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 11, Britain granted its
1st license for human embryonic cloning research.
(WSJ, 8/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 11, In northeast Colombia
suspected rebel gunmen lined up and killed nine coca pickers on a
remote ranch.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 11, Ahmad Chalabi, former
Iraqi Governing Council member who fell out of favor with the United
States, returned to Iraq to face counterfeiting charges, but was never
arrested. Charges were later dropped citing lack of evidence. Chalabi
regained enough credibility to be made deputy prime minister on April
28, 2005. At the same time he was made acting oil minister. Since then
he has thrived in becoming invaluable to the Iraqi government.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi#Falling_out_with_the_U.S..2C_2004-5)(AP,
8/11/04)
2004 Aug 11, An Islamic Web site
carried a videotape that appeared to show militants in Iraq beheading a
man identified as a CIA agent. The authenticity of the videotape could
not be verified immediately.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2004 Aug 11, U.S. jet fighters
bombed the turbulent city of Fallujah, killing four people and injuring
four others.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2004 Aug 11-2004 Aug 15, Pakistani
officials arrested around a dozen local and foreign militants who
hatched a plot to launch strikes on August 13 and Pakistan's 57th
Independence Day celebrated on August 14. The plot was masterminded by
an Egyptian Al-Qaeda suspect named Sheikh Esa alias Qari Ismail.
(AFP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 11, A West Bank assailant
detonated a large bomb near a busy Israeli military checkpoint, killing
two Palestinian men and wounding 16 people.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2004 Aug 11, In northwestern
Turkey 2 trains collided head on, killing 8 people, injuring 55 others.
(AP, 8/11/04)(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, New Jersey Gov. James
E. McGreevey, a one-time rising Democratic star and twice-married
father, announced his resignation with the startling disclosure that he
is gay and had an extramarital affair with a man who threatened to
undermine his "ability to govern."
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 12, California’s supreme
court struck down San Francisco’s attempt to legalize same-sex
marriages, saying Mayor Newsome had illegally defied state law.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 12, Terrance Kelly (18),
a De La Salle High School football star, was shot and killed in
Richmond, Ca., 2 days before flying to the Univ. of Oregon on a
football scholarship. Police arrested Larry Pratcher (18) Aug 14 on
suspicion of murder and searched for other suspects. Larry was released
on Aug 18 after his younger brother turned himself in. On Aug 19 Darren
Pratcher (15) was charged with murder. On Oct 11, 2006, Darren Pratcher
was convicted of murder. In 2007 Pratcher was sentenced 50 years to
life in prison.
(SFC, 8/14/04, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/04, p.B5)(SFC,
10/12/06, p.B1)(SFC, 1/20/07, p.B2)
2004 Aug 12, Dust storms on I-10
in Arizona caused vehicle pile-ups that left 4 dead.
(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 12, It was reported that
a huge ant colony measuring 100 kilometers (62 miles) across had been
found under the southern Australian city of Melbourne. The ants were a
mutant variety of Argentine ants.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Laboratory monkeys
that started out as careless procrastinators became super-efficient
workers after injections into their brains that suppressed a gene
linked to their ability to anticipate a reward.
(LAT, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Greece’s $930
million, 3km Rion-Antirion bridge across the western end of the Gulf of
Corinth was set to open.
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.55)
2004 Aug 12, In Najaf thousands of
U.S. and Iraqi soldiers launched a major assault on militiamen loyal to
a radical Shiite cleric al-Sadr. Fighting in Kut left 72 dead.
(AP, 8/12/04)(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 12, The Iraqi soccer team
defeated Portugal in a preliminary match outside Athens.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 12, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously approved a resolution extending the U.N. mission in
Iraq for a year.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Japan’s Mitsubishi
Tokyo Financial Group (MTFG) announced that it had beaten the Sumitomo
Mitsui Financial Group for the acquisition of UFJ. [see Aug 30]
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.66)
2004 Aug 12, A Nepali court
sentenced notorious criminal Charles Sobhraj, also known as the
"Serpent" and the "Bikini Killer", to life imprisonment in connection
with the killing of an American backpacker in 1975.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, In northeastern
Nigeria flash floods have submerged houses and farms, drowning at least
23 people as they slept and forcing more than 1,000 to flee their
villages.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Pakistan authorities
said they had arrested five more suspected members of Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaida network in the past 48 hours.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, In Peru a
double-decker tourist bus missed a bridge and plunged into a dry
riverbed along a highway, killing at least six people and injuring 37.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 12, Lee Hsien Loong, the
son of Singapore's founding father (Lee Kuan Yew), took over as prime
minister of the city-state. Lee Kuan Yew continued service as cabinet
mentor.
(AP, 7/17/04)(WSJ, 7/19/04, p.A1)(Econ, 7/24/04,
p.39)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.42)
2004 Aug 12, South Korea’s central
bank cut interest rates from 3.75% to 3.5%.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.60)
2004 Aug 13, Hurricane Charley
roared across Cuba, ripping apart roofs, downing power lines and
yanking up huge palm trees on its way to Florida. Charley hit Florida
with winds at 145mph. It flattened oceanfront homes, killed 23 people
and left thousands more homeless.
(AP, 8/13/04)(AP, 8/14/04)(AP, 8/14/04)(AP,
8/16/04)(WSJ, 8/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 13, Julia Child (91), the
grande dame of US television cooking shows and books, died in Santa
Barbara, Ca. During WWII she spent 3 years working for the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS). In 2006 Her memoir “My Life in France,”
co-written with Alex Prud’homme, was published. In 1997 Noel Riley
Fitch authored “”Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child.”
(Reuters, 8/13/04)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.78)(SSFC,
4/2/06, p.M1)(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.D7)
2004 Aug 13, Australia's
parliament approved a free trade pact with the United States.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, The FNL, a Burundian
Hutu rebel faction, raided Gatumba camp, a UN refugee camp in western
Burundi, shooting and hacking to death 160 people. The camp sheltered
Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge.
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.37)(Econ, 9/11/04,
p.44)
2004 Aug 13, In Colombia 3
outlawed paramilitary factions agreed to disarm immediately.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, Typhoon Rananim
weakened to a tropical storm. The death toll from Rananim rose to 115,
after it slammed into the China's southeastern coast.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, The Olympics opened
In Athens. A sea of athletes under 202 flags parted to let a Greek
windsurfing champion jog across the stadium and climb to the Olympic
cauldron, which dipped on its slender 102-foot arm to receive the spark
from his torch. Women’s wrestling debuted as an Olympic sport.
(AP, 8/14/04)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
2004 Aug 13, In Calcutta a man
convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl was executed, becoming the
first person hanged for their crimes in India in nearly a decade.
Apartment guard Dhananjoy Chatterjee (42) was executed for the 1990
rape and murder of a teenage schoolgirl.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 13, Iraqi officials and
aides to a radical Shiite cleric negotiated to end fighting that has
raged in the holy city of Najaf for 9 days, after American forces
suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, An Islamic Web site
posted still pictures that purportedly show Iraqi militants beheading
an Egyptian man they claim was spying for the U.S. military.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, Lebanon criticized
French efforts to ban the militant group Hezbollah's television
station, saying the channel may be anti-Israeli but it is not
anti-Semitic.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 13, In the Maldives 3,000
people gathered outside the police headquarters Friday demanding the
release of prisoners. The government arrested 185 people, including a
former minister and a one-time attorney general.
(AP, 8/15/04)
2004 Aug 13, A Palestinian gunman
killed an Israeli security guard near a Jewish West Bank settlement
before being slain himself.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, A southern
Philippines court sentenced 17 members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu
Sayyaf militant group to death for kidnapping nurses from a hospital
there three years ago.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 13, The first elements of
a 300-strong African Union protection force left Kigali, Rwanda, for
Sudan's troubled region of Darfur, Sudan.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 14, William D. Ford (77),
15-term congressman died in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2004 Aug 14, In western
Afghanistan rival militias clashed, reportedly killing 21 people. Eight
militiamen, including two commanders, were killed when fighting erupted
between two rival warlords over control of a western district.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 14, Africa’s worst desert
locust plague in 15 years continued across Chad.
(SFC, 8/14/04, p.C8)
2004 Aug 14, In El Salvador a bus
careened off a mountain highway and toppled into a ravine in eastern El
Salvador, killing 34 people and injuring 24 others.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 14, A visibly weak Pope
John Paul II joined thousands of other ailing pilgrims at a cliffside
shrine in Lourdes, France, telling them he shares in their physical
suffering and assuring them the burden is part of God's "wondrous plan."
(AP, 8/14/05)
2004 Aug 14, Truce talks between
Shiite militants and Iraqi officials broke down, raising the prospect
of a return to the fierce fighting between militiamen and U.S-Iraqi
forces.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 14, U.S. warplanes bombed
the Sunni city of Samarrah. Iraqi hospital officials said several
people died, while the U.S. military said 50 militants were killed.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 14, More than 100
unemployed university graduates stormed a Palestinian Authority
building in a Gaza Strip refugee camp, calling on the Palestinian
leadership to provide them with jobs.
(AP, 8/15/04)
2004 Aug 14, Czeslaw Milosz (93),
Polish poet and Nobel laureate (1980), died in Krakow. He was known for
his intellectual and emotional works about some of the worst cruelties
of the 20th century. Milosz was born on June 30, 1911, in Szetejnie,
now Lithuania, and studied law at the University in Vilnius. There, he
published his first book of poems, "Three Winters," in 1936. In 2006
Cynthia L. Haven edited the book “Czeslaw Milosz: Conversations.”
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.72)(SSFC, 9/24/06,
p.M5)
2004 Aug 14, In central Russia a
crowded minibus crashed into a car on a highway linking the Volga River
cities of Ulyanovsk and Kazan, touching off a fire and killing all 15
people.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 15, In NY Spencer Tunick,
photographer, gathered 1,826 people at Buffalo’s old Central Terminal
for a group session of nude photographs.
(SFC, 8/17/04, p.E5)
2004 Aug 15, Vijay Singh won the
PGA Championship in Haven, Wis.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2004 Aug 15, Residents left
homeless by Hurricane Charley dug through their ravaged homes, rescuing
what they could as President Bush promised rapid delivery of disaster
aid.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2004 Aug 15, Sporadic gunfire and
shelling took place overnight in the disputed Georgian region of South
Ossetia in violation of a fragile ceasefire, wounding seven Georgian
servicemen.
(AFP, 8/15/04)
2004 Aug 15, IOC officials,
worried by the television images being flashed around the world of
athletes competing in near empty stadiums, told the Athens Games
organizers to give tickets away for free if necessary.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 15, In Athens, the US
men's basketball team lost 92-73 to Puerto Rico, only the third Olympic
defeat ever for the Americans and first since adding pros.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2004 Aug 15, In northeast India a
bomb exploded during an Independence Day parade in Dhemaji, killing 18
people, including schoolchildren.
(AP, 8/15/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.34)
2004 Aug 15, Hundreds of delegates
from across Iraq gathered in Baghdad at a three-day national conference
intended to bring a taste of democratic debate.
(AP, 8/15/04)
2004 Aug 15, US armored vehicles
and tanks rolled back into the streets of Najaf and troops battled
Shiite militants in a resumption of fighting after the collapse of
negotiations. 2 US soldiers were killed in Najaf when troops came under
attack by militiamen loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
(AP, 8/15/04)(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 15, In Liechtenstein
Prince Hans-Adam II formally handed over day-to-day governing powers to
his son Crown Prince Alois, and then invited all 33,000 of
Liechtenstein's people to a garden party.
(AP, 8/15/04)
2004 Aug 15, In Sweden Dr. Sune
Karl Bergstrom (88), 1982 Nobel laureate, died.
(SFC, 8/19/04, p.B7)
2004 Aug 15, In Venezuela the
opposition's long and bitter campaign to oust Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez finally came down to a recall referendum. Chavez survived a
referendum to oust him.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, Pres. Bush announced
plans to pull 70-100 thousand US troops from Europe and Asia and
redeploy them to meet the demands of the global war on terrorism.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, Colorado certified a
ballot question that would make it the 1st state to award electoral
votes by popular-vote percentages, not as winner take all.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 16, The children’s TV
show “Lazytown” made its US premier. Magnus Scheving spent over a
decade building the brand in Iceland before moving overseas.
(Econ, 3/31/07,
p.76)(www.tv.com/lazytown/show/29257/episode_listings.html)
2004 Aug 16, The FDA approved the
1st surgical device to clear clots from the brains of stroke victims.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 16, General Motors said
it will start making Cadillacs in China this year, joining a race by
foreign luxury car brands to sell to the country's newly rich elite.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, Costco began piloting
the sale of discounted coffins.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.50)
2004 Aug 16, Kamala Markandaya
(79), Indian novelist, died. Her books focused on rural life,
interracial relationships and conflicting Eastern and Western values.
(SFC, 12/28/04, p.D12)
2004 Aug 16, In China villagers in
an eastern province dug with farm tools to search for 24 people missing
in massive landslides unleashed by Typhoon Rananim.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, In Nigeria an oil
tanker truck went out of control and plowed into a bustling Nigerian
market in Kano, killing 17.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, In Russia the Novy
Ochevidets (New Eyewitness) magazine was introduced in Moscow. It
resembled the New Yorker.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 16, Election officials in
Venezuela announced that voters had overwhelmingly chosen to keep
President Hugo Chavez in office.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2004 Aug 17, Britain brought
terrorism charges against 8 al Qaeda suspects tied to recent alerts
about US financial sites. They were charged with conspiring to commit
murder and use radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals or
explosives to cause "fear or injury."
(WSJ, 8/18/04, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/05)
2004 Aug 17, Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili appealed to world leaders to convene an
international conference on the conflict in breakaway South Ossetia,
where daily exchanges of gunfire threaten to spark a war. The province
operated as a conduit for smuggling between Georgia and Russia.
(AP, 8/17/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.40)
2004 Aug 17, In Haiti a jury
acquitted Louis-Jodel Chamblain, the leader of a paramilitary group
blamed for killing some 3,000 people, after a 14-hour murder trial.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 17, A US research
institute said India is projected to outpace China and become the
world's most populous country by 2050, growing by 50 percent in the
next 46 years to reach more than 1.6 billion people.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 17, At the Athens games,
Romania won its second straight Olympic gold medal in women's
gymnastics; the United States took silver while Russia won the bronze.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2004 Aug 17, Iran said it would
destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor if the Jewish state were to
attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 17, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon approved the construction of 1,000 more homes in
Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 17, Israeli soldiers shot
and killed a 9-year-old Palestinian boy in Nablus as he sat on the
front steps of his home eating a sandwich.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 18, Google said it now
expects its stock to trade between $85 and $95 per share, down from its
old forecast of between $108 and $135. It also said the total number of
shares to be sold will be cut to 19.6 million, down from 25.7 million.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, In California federal
agents raided a farm in lake County where Charles Lepp grew over 32,000
marijuana plants. He said he had informed local authorities that his
land would be used to enable patients who didn’t own land to grow
marijuana for medical purposes. In 2009 Lepp (56) was sentenced to 10
years in prison under federal law that required a 10-year term for
growing at least 1,000 marijuana plants.
(http://fugitive.com/archives/6212)(SFC, 5/19/09,
p.B4)
2004 Aug 18, Two campers were
found slain at Fish Head Beach in Sonoma Ct., Ca. Lindsay Cutshall (23)
of Fresno, Ohio, and Jason Allen (26) of Holland, Mich., were found
with gunshots to the head. They had planned a wedding next month.
(SFC, 8/21/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenner,_California_Double-Murder_of_2004)
2004 Aug 18, Elmer Bernstein (82),
film composer, died in Ojai, Ca. His work included over 200 film and TV
scores. He received an Academy Award in 1967 for his score in
“Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
(SFC, 8/20/04, p.B6)
2004 Aug 18, Hiram L. Fong (97),
Hawaii's first U.S. senator, died.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2004 Aug 18, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai's 17 rivals in the presidential race threatened to boycott
landmark October 9 elections unless he stepped down before the vote.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, In El Salvador rival
inmates fought each other with knives and sticks at a San Salvador
prison, leaving at least 31 people dead and two dozen injured.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, In South Ossetia 3
Georgian peacekeepers were killed in overnight shooting.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, In Athens Paul Hamm
won the men's gymnastics all-around Olympic gold medal by the closest
margin ever in the event; controversy followed after it was discovered
a scoring error might have cost Yang Tae-young of South Korea the title.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2004 Aug 18, Indian shares slid as
oil prices surged to a new high of $47 a barrel, threatening domestic
demand and growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, Iraq's new air force
took to the skies for the 1st time since the 2003 US invasion. The
limited operations were intended to protect infrastructure facilities
and borders.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 18, In Iraq a rocket
slammed into a busy market in the northern city of Mosul, killing at
least five civilians. U.S. forces clashed with insurgents southeast of
Baghdad in fighting that left up to five civilians dead.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, Communist rebels
isolated Nepal's capital from the rest of the country, stopping all
road traffic near Kathmandu by threatening to attack vehicles. The
campaign, announced last week, was aimed at pressuring the government
to free jailed guerrillas.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 18, Five Palestinians
were killed in a blast outside the house of a well-known Hamas militant
in Gaza City.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 18, In Venezuela
opposition leaders charged that as many as 500 of 8,900 polling
stations used voting machines that were programmed with an artificial
cap to limit the number of votes cast in favor of recalling Pres.
Chavez. In 2003 the Chavez regime has purchased 28% of Bizta Software,
owned and operated by 2 Venezuelans, who also supplied the election
machinery (Smartmatic Corp). Bizta bought back the shares after the
story broke and after the 2 companies received a significant part of
the $91 million referendum contract.
(WSJ, 8/19/04, p.A11,12)
2004 Aug 19, Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry fought back against campaign
allegations that he had exaggerated his combat record in Vietnam,
accusing President Bush of using a Republican front group "to do his
dirty work."
(AP, 8/19/05)
2004 Aug 19, Carly Patterson won
gymnastics' premier event at the Olympics in Athens, becoming the first
U.S. woman to win the all-around title since Mary Lou Retton in 1984.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2004 Aug 19, Google, the Internet
search engine, began trading shares at $85 per share. 14.1 million
shares were recently sold in a Dutch Auction at $85 per share. Google
shares closed up 18% at $100.33.
(SFC, 8/19/04, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 19, Amelie Delegrange
(22), from Hanvoile, north of Paris, was battered to death in the
southwest London neighborhood of Twickenham Green after a night out in
a wine bar. In 2006 Levi Bellfield, former nightclub bouncer, faced
trial for her murder and the February, 2003, murder of student Marsha
McDonnell (19). Bellfield was convicted on February 25, 2008 of the two
murders. The following day, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with
a recommendation that he should never be released.
(AFP,
6/9/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Bellfield)
2004 Aug 19, In Hungary the
Socialist Party effectively ousted Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy from
office and said it would nominate his replacement next week.
(AP, 8/19/04)
2004 Aug 19, In Iraq PM Allawi
gave what he said was a final warning to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to
disarm and the leave the holy shrine in Najaf.
(SFC, 8/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 19, It was reported that
the Darfur refugee count in western Sudan had reached 11.2 million.
(WSJ, 8/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 20, Democrats labored to
deflect attacks on John Kerry's war record with fresh television ads
touting his fitness for national command.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2004 Aug 20, A bioethicist charged
in The Lancet medical journal charged that doctors working for the U.S.
military in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of
detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, profoundly breaching medical
ethics and human rights.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 20, In Brazil 4 homeless
men were bludgeoned to death and six were in critical condition
following early morning attacks by unknown assailants in downtown
streets of Sao Paulo.
(AP, 8/20/04)
2004 Aug 20, China said it would
offer 10-year residency permits to “high-level” foreigners, who bring
in important investments or business skills.
(WSJ, 8/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 20, In Athens, Michael
Phelps matched Mark Spitz's record of four individual gold medals in
the Olympic pool with a stirring comeback in the 100-meter butterfly,
then removed himself from further competition.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2004 Aug 20, Tropical storm Megi
swept out to sea beyond northern Japan, leaving behind an arc of
destruction that killed 13 people.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 20, Thailand’s PM Thaksin
said he would overturn the country’s current ban on commercial
production and trade in genetically modified food (GMOs).
(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.A13)
2004 Aug 21, In Ohio health
officials said cases of gastrointestinal illness had risen to 510 from
people in the Put-in-Bay resort area.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 21, In Afghanistan US
soldiers opened fire on a pickup truck that failed to stop at a
checkpoint in central Ghazni province, killing a man and two women.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 21, In Dhaka, Bangladesh,
a series of bombs exploded as a top opposition leader was speaking at a
rally from atop a truck, killing 23 people and injuring hundreds.
(AP, 8/21/04)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.37)
2004 Aug 21, In Chechnya gunmen
attacked a police station and polling sites in Grozny, killing several
people 8 days before a special election to replace the region's
assassinated president.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 21, A Chinese official
said a lethal strain of avian influenza had been found among pigs at
several farms.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 21, The International
Gymnastics Federation ruled that South Korean Yang Tae-young was
unfairly docked a tenth of a point in the all-around gymnastics final
at the Athens Olympics, costing him the gold medal that ended up going
to Paul Hamm of the United States; however, the ruling did not change
the final result.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2004 Aug 21, Iraq celebrated their
national soccer team's startling 1-0 victory over Australia in the
Olympic quarterfinal.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 21, In Najaf, Iraq,
militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr kept their
hold on a revered shrine, and clashes flared.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 21, Pakistani officials
said they had arrested at least five al-Qaida-linked terrorists who
were plotting suicide attacks on government leaders and the U.S.
Embassy.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 21, Sudan signed an
agreement to ensure the voluntary return of more than one million
people displaced by fighting in the Darfur region and said it was
giving Darfuris more say in local government.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 21, The head of the
Organization of American States said the results of an audit supported
the official vote count showing that President Hugo Chavez won this
month's recall referendum in Venezuela.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 21, A military plane
crashed into a mountain in central Venezuela, killing 25 people,
including five children.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 22, In the Olympics
Justin Gatlin of the US won the 10-meter dash in 9.85 sec.
(SFC, 8/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 22, In Bangladesh an
angry mob set fire to a passenger train and protesters clashed with
police across the country, leaving dozens of people injured, as
violence spread a day after a grenade attack on an opposition rally
killed 19 people.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 22, Pres. Putin flew to
Chechnya in advance of elections. Overnight attacks killed at least 30
people.
(SFC, 8/23/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 22, U.S. warplanes bombed
Najaf's Old City and gunfire rattled amid fears a plan to end the
standoff with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could. A car bomb
exploded north of Baghdad, killing two people and injuring four others,
including a deputy provincial governor.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 22, Gilberto Higuera
Guerrero, alleged leader of the powerful Arellano Felix drug gang, was
arrested before dawn at a house in the border city of Mexicali.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 22, Attackers killed one
Turkish citizen and two Iraqis on a road north of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 22, In Oslo, Norway,
armed men stormed into the Munch Museum, threatened staff at gunpoint
and stole 2 of Edvard Munch's famous paintings, "The Scream" and
"Madonna" before the eyes of stunned museum-goers. Another of 4
versions of “The Scream” was stolen in 1994. Police recovered both
paintings in 2006. In 2007 3 men were sentenced to prison for their
roles in the heist. The 3 were ordered to pay a total of $262 million
in compensation.
(AP, 8/22/04)(WSJ, 8/24/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/06,
p.A2)(SFC, 4/24/07, p.D6)
2004 Aug 22, Sudan said it would
reduce paramilitary forces in Darfur by 30 percent to try to ease
tensions in the western region.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 23, President Bush
criticized a commercial that had accused Democrat John Kerry of
inflating his own Vietnam War record, more than a week after the ad
stopped running, and said broadcast attacks by outside groups had no
place in the race for the White House.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2004 Aug 23, New US rules on
overtime pay went into effect. Under the new FairPay rules, workers
earning less than $23,660 per year, or $455 per week, were guaranteed
overtime protection.
(SFC, 8/24/04,
p.C1)(www.dol.gov/esa/WHD/regs/compliance/fairpay/)
2004 Aug 23, Researchers presented
results on genetically engineered mice capable of running farther and
longer than those bred naturally.
(SFC, 8/24/04, p.A2)
2004 Aug 23, Afghan Pres. Hamid
Karzai arrived in Pakistan for talks with his Pres. Pervez Musharraf on
eradicating Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from their common border.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 23, Antigua and Barbuda's
prime minister and American officials signed an agreement extending the
lease of the U.S. Air Force base in the Caribbean country until 2008.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 23, Electricity went out
across Bahrain, snarling rush hour traffic and leaving residents
without air conditioning as temperatures climbed toward 130 Fahrenheit.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 23, It was reported that
China recorded its 1st ever agricultural trade deficit, $3.73 billion,
for the 1st half of this year.
(WSJ, 8/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 23, Azarias Ruberwa,
prominent Tutsi and one of Congo’s 4 vice-presidents, announced that he
and his party (RCD-Goma) were walking out of the transitional
government.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.40)
2004 Aug 23, Israel announced
plans for more than 500 new housing units in the West Bank, following
an apparent US policy shift on Jewish settlements that has infuriated
the Palestinians.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 23, In Athens, Jeremy
Wariner became the sixth consecutive American to win the Olympic title
in the 400 meters, leading a US sweep of the medals. The US softball
team won its third straight gold medal with a 5-1 victory over
Australia.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2004 Aug 24, An independent
commission said the blame for abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison lay
mainly with the American soldiers who ran the jail, but said senior
commanders and top-level Pentagon officials could also be faulted for
failed leadership and oversight.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2004 Aug 24, Osama bin Laden's
chauffeur was arraigned at first U.S. military commission hearing since
World War II.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2004 Aug 24, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
(78), a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at
terminally ill patients and later as a pioneer for hospice care, died
in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her book "On Death and Dying" (1969) identified
five stages of grief. Her last book, co-written with David Kessler, "On
Grief and Grieving" was released in July 2005.
(AP, 8/25/04)(Econ, 9/4/04,
p.81)(http://www.elisabethkublerross.com/)
2004 Aug 24, China evacuated
hundreds of thousands of people as Typhoon Aere lashed neighboring
Taiwan, triggering landslides and disruption and leaving at least seven
people feared dead and one missing.
(AFP, 8/24/04)
2004 Aug 24, Hong Kong announced
the official end to nearly 6 years of deflation.
(WSJ, 8/24/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 24, In India a 4-day
strike by truckers over a new tax paralyzed the movement of goods.
Employees of state-owned banks launched a strike over pay.
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 24, In Iraq a car bomb
killed at least 2 people in Baghdad. In Najaf US forces intensified
fighting against rebels loyal to al-Sadr.
(SFC, 8/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 24, Nepalese rebels
lifted a weeklong blockade that cut off Kathmandu from the rest of the
nation.
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 24, The Nigerian Senate
ordered Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to pay 1.5 billion dollars (1.2
billion euros) compensation for damages caused by nearly 60 years of
exploration in the Niger Delta.
(AFP, 8/25/04)
2004 Aug 24, The International
Committee of the Red Cross said it was mounting a major airlift of
relief supplies to Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2004 Aug 24, A Russian airliner
crashed and a second disappeared from radar about the same time night
after both planes took off from the same Moscow airport, raising fears
that terrorism was involved. A distress signal was activated on the
second plane. All 89 passengers and crew were killed, 46 aboard a
TU-154 and 43 aboard a TU-134.
(AP, 8/25/04)(SFC, 8/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 24, In South Africa Mark
Thatcher, the son of former British PM Margaret Thatcher, was arrested
and charged with helping to finance a foiled coup attempt in oil rich
Equatorial Guinea. Thatcher was later fined three million rand
(approximately $500,000) and received a four-year suspended jail
sentence. In 2008 Equatorial Guinea issued an international arrest
warrant against Mark Thatcher, accusing him of being an instigator of
the abortive coup plot.
(AP,
8/25/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher)(FP, 3/29/08)
2004 Aug 25, An Army investigation
found that 27 people attached to an intelligence unit at Abu Ghraib
prison near Baghdad either approved or participated in the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2004 Aug 25, David Hicks, an
Australian cowboy who'd converted to Islam and allegedly fought for the
Taliban in Afghanistan, pleaded innocent to war crimes charges before a
U.S. military commission. He was detained by the U.S. Government in
Guantanamo Bay until 2007 when he became the first to be tried and
convicted under the U.S. Military Commissions Act of 2006. He was
extradited to Australia to serve the remainder of his sentence. Hicks
served his nine month term in Adelaide's Yatala Labor Prison and was
released under control order on December 29, 2007.
(AP,
8/25/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks)
2004 Aug 25, The US prepared to
ship 300 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium to France for conversion to
a less-dangerous nuclear fuel.
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 25, Astronomers reported
the discovery of a planet 14 times as massive as Earth near the star Mu
Arae which is 50 light years away.
(SFC, 8/26/04, p.A2)
2004 Aug 25, Hungary chose Ferenc
Gyurcsany (43), one of the nation’s richest businessmen, as the new
premier. He made his fortune from privatization deals in the 1990s.
(WSJ, 8/26/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.48)
2004 Aug 25, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani returned to Iraq from a hospital stay in London and called
for a mass demonstration to end the fighting in Najaf.
(SFC, 8/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 25, Militants said they
had kidnapped the brother-in-law of Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem
Shaalan and demanded he end all military operations in the holy city of
Najaf.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 25, Saboteurs attacked
about 20 oil pipelines in southern Iraq, reducing exports from the key
oil producing region by at least one third.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 25, Israel captured its
1st ever gold medal with a win by Gal Fridman in wind surfing.
(WSJ, 8/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 25, Sudan said it had
closed its embassy in Washington after being unable to find a bank that
would handle its financial matters.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 26, The US supply of
vaccine for the impending flu season took a big hit when Chiron Corp.
announced it had found tainted doses in its factory, and would hold up
shipment of about 50 million shots.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2004 Aug 26, MIT named Yale
neuroscientist Susan Hockfield as its new president, the 1st woman to
ever hold that job.
(WSJ, 8/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 26, Laura Branigan
(b.1957), a Grammy-nominated pop singer best known for her 1982
platinum hit "Gloria," died in East Quogue, N.Y.
(AP, 8/29/04)(SFC, 8/30/04, p.B4)
2004 Aug 26, Australia announced a
cruise missile program to give it the region's "most lethal" air combat
capacity, a move that further strained awkward relations with Indonesia.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 26, Chile’s Supreme Court
stripped Pinochet of his immunity.
(WSJ, 8/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 26, Typhoon Aere crashed
into mainland China prompting the evacuation of nearly a million
people, as the death toll climbed to 35 after a mudslide killed 15
villagers in Taiwan.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 26, In Colombia a bomb
exploded in front of a beauty salon in Bogota as a police car drove by,
killing two officers and wounding two other people.
(AP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 26, Cuba broke diplomatic
ties with Panama after the outgoing Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso
pardoned four Cuban exiles, including Luis Posada Carriles, the
communist government accuses of trying to assassinate President Fidel
Castro.
(AP, 8/27/04)(SFC, 5/18/05, p.A9)
2004 Aug 26, At the Athens
Olympics, the US women's soccer team won the gold medal by beating
Brazil, 2-1, in overtime; Shawn Crawford led a U.S. sweep of the 200
meters.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2004 Aug 26, In India a passenger
bus and another carrying paramilitary soldiers and their families were
blown up in separate explosions in the insurgency-wracked Assam state,
killing four people and wounding 39.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 26, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Husseini al-Sistani arranged a peace pact with Muqtada al-Sadr. The
5-point plan called for Kufa and Najaf to be declared weapons-free.
(SFC, 8/27/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 26, A mortar barrage hit
a mosque in Kufa filled with Iraqis preparing to join a march in Najaf
by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, killing 27 people and
wounding 63.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 26, The Arabic TV network
Al-Jazeera reported it had received a video that appeared to show the
killing of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni (56).
(AP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 26, In northern Vietnam a
boat capsized in heavy winds on a river, killing 16 people.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 27, President Bush signed
executive orders designed to strengthen the CIA director's power over
the nation's intelligence agencies and create a national
counterterrorism center.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2004 Aug 27, Thousands of cyclists
snarled traffic in NYC and police said they arrested more than 250
people and confiscated their bicycles in the first significant protest
against President Bush before the Republican convention.
(Reuters, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 27, A fire at a
University of Mississippi fraternity house killed 3 students.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2004 Aug 27, It was reported that
SABMiller was investing $82.2 million to build a brewery in Dongguan,
Guangdong province, China.
(WSJ, 8/27/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 27, In eastern Colombia
rebels killed a mayor and a former town council member after abducting
them at a roadblock.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 27, Liu Xiang (b.1983),
Chinese hurdler, set a record and won Olympic gold in Athens in the 110
meter hurdles with a time of 12.91 seconds equaling the 1993 time of
Colin Jackson.
(www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-08/28/content_369582.htm)
2004 Aug 27, A group of Eritreans
expelled from Libya hijacked a plane which was flying them home and
forced it to land in Khartoum where they surrendered.
(AFP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 27, Al-Sadr's followers
handed over the keys to the Imam Ali Shrine to religious
authorities loyal to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Militants, who had
been holed up in the site, left it after Iraq's top Shiite cleric
brokered a peace deal to end three weeks of fighting. Iraqi police
discovered about 10 bodies in a maverick religious court run by rebel
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's followers.
(AP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 27, In Iraq saboteurs hit
a pipeline that runs within the West Qurna oilfields, 90 miles north of
the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 27, Pakistan's National
Assembly elected former finance minister Shaukat Aziz prime minister,
after he was hand-picked for the post by military leader Pres. Pervez
Musharraf.
(Reuters, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 27, Riot police used
water cannons to disperse protesters demanding that the Philippines
lift its ban on allowing its citizens to go to war-ravaged Iraq for
jobs.
(AP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 27, Officials said one of
two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously was brought
down by a terrorist act, after finding traces of explosives in the
plane's wreckage. An Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for
the attack in a Web statement. Chechen women Amanta Nagayeva (30) and
S. Dzhebirkhanova (27) had purchased their tickets at the last minute.
(AP, 8/27/04)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.A8)
2004 Aug 27, A Zimbabwean court
found Briton Simon Mann guilty of attempting to illegally buy arms for
an alleged coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea but absolved 66
other suspected mercenaries.
(AP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 28, An explosion ripped
through a school in southeastern Afghanistan, killing nine youngsters
and one adult.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 28, London’s Notting Hill
Carnival began with more than a million revelers expected to turn out
to celebrate the 3-day event's 40th year.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 28, In Greece the US
men's basketball team won the bronze, the 100th U.S. medal of the
Athens Games.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2004 Aug 28, In Hungary hundreds
of thousands of young people thronged the streets of Budapest to the
sounds of techno music for the city's fifth annual electronic music
parade.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 28, Five Hindu pilgrims
were killed and 14 others injured in a stampede at a river bathing
festival in southern India.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 28, Shiite militants and
U.S. forces battled in the Baghdad's Sadr City slum and a mortar
barrage slammed into a busy eastern neighborhood in a new round of
violence in the capital that left 10 people dead and dozens wounded.
U.S. warplanes carried out airstrikes for the second straight day in
the city of Fallujah.
(AP, 8/28/04)(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 28, Islamic militants
claiming to be holding two French journalists in Iraq gave France 48
hours to overturn the law banning the wearing of Islamic head scarves
in schools. The reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot,
were released in December 2004.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2004 Aug 28, The foreign ministers
of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan approved Russian
membership to their economic block at talks in Astana, the Kazakh
capital.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 28, In Lebanon pro-Syrian
President Emile Lahoud's bid to stay in office three more years was
assured in a dramatic about-face when political rival Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri bowed to Syrian pressure and proposed a constitutional
amendment allowing the head of state to extend his term.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 28, In Morocco a bus
trying to pass another vehicle on a winding mountain highway collided
with an oncoming truck and taxi, killing 29 people and injuring 30.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 28, Pakistan's economic
czar Shaukat Aziz was sworn in as PM and said his government's greatest
challenge would be combating terrorism and maintaining law and order.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 28, Officials said they
had found traces of the explosive hexogen on the wreckage of the second
of two Russian airliners that crashed just minutes apart earlier this
week. Attention focused on the roles of two dead female passengers
believed to be of Chechen origin.
(AP, 8/28/04)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.A8)
2004 Aug 28, A Yemen court
convicted 15 militants on terror charges including the 2002 bombing of
a French oil tanker and plotting to kill the U.S. ambassador.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 29, Tens of thousands of
demonstrators took to the fortified streets of Manhattan to protest
President Bush's foreign and domestic policies as Republican delegates
gathered to nominate the president for a second term. Organizers
estimated up to 400,000 participants.
(AP, 8/29/04)(SFC, 8/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 29, Tropical storm Gaston
hit South Carolina.
(SFC, 8/30/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 29, In Afghanistan an
explosion tore through the office of DynCorp., an American defense
contractor, in the heart of Kabul, killing 12 people, including 3
Americans.
(AP, 8/29/04)(SFC, 8/31/04, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/31/04,
p.A1)(WSJ, 8/31/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 29, In Brazil an
overcrowded balcony collapsed inside a popular Sao Paulo nightclub that
featured male strippers, killing six people and injuring at least 117.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 29, Chechens voted for a
replacement for their assassinated president. One man was killed when
he attempted to blow up a polling station. Alu Alkhanov, the Russian
government's candidate in Chechnya, received nearly 74 percent of the
vote.
(AP, 8/29/04)(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 29, Muslim leaders in
France condemned the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq and
said the government should not capitulate to militant demands to revoke
a law that bans the wearing of Islamic head scarves in schools.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 29, Closing ceremonies
were held in Athens, Greece, for the 28th Olympiad. During one of the
final events, lead marathon runner Vanderlie Lima of Brazil was pushed
into the crowd by an intruder, but managed to finish 3rd behind Stefano
Baldini of Italy.
(SFC, 8/30/04, p.D1)
2004 Aug 29, Saboteurs blew up a
pipeline in southern Iraq in the latest attack. Al-Sadr called on his
followers to lay down arms and get involved in politics.
(AP, 8/29/04)(WSJ, 8/31/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 29, Israeli troops killed
an armed Palestinian man as he tried to sneak into southern Israel.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 29, In Sidon, Lebanon,
fighting in a Palestinian camp left 3 dead.
(WSJ, 8/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 29, Mexico City's leftist
Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador led more than 150,000 demonstrators
in a march to protest efforts to impeach him.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 29, A rocket attack and a
remote control bomb killed 2 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in the
western tribal regions where troops are hunting al Qaeda-linked
militants.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Aug 29, Nikolai Getman
(b.1917), Russian artist and gulag survivor (1946-1953), died in Orel,
Russia.
(WSJ, 9/22/04,
p.D12)(http://jamestown.org/press_details.php?press_id=11)
2004 Aug 29, The UN Security
Council set this date for Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur, allow
help to reach the region and disarm the militias terrorizing the region.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.39)
2004 Aug 30, Republicans opened
their convention in NYC with speeches by Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. John
McCain. They belittled Democratic Senator John Kerry as a
shift-in-the-wind campaigner unworthy of the White House and lavished
praise on Pres. Bush as a steady, decisive leader. Pres. Bush ignited a
Democratic inferno of criticism by suggesting on NBC's "Today" show
that an all-out victory against terrorism might not be possible.
(SFC, 8/31/04, p.A1)(AP, 8/30/05)
2004 Aug 30, US warplanes bombed
Weradesh village in eastern Afghanistan, killing 8 people and
destroying the camp of a Danish relief group after assailants rocketed
a nearby government office.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 30, A general strike to
protest a recent grenade attack that killed 20 people at an opposition
political rally brought Bangladesh to a near standstill.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, India's top
commercial bank, State Bank of India (SBI), hiked its fixed rates for
home loans in what analysts saw as an indication other interest rates
in Asia's fourth-largest economy are headed higher. The Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) said insufficient rainfall and uncertainty about the price
of crude oil, the country's biggest import item, posed downside risks
to growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, Rebel Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr called for his followers across Iraq to end fighting
against U.S. and Iraqi forces and is considering joining the political
process.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, Israeli officials
said PM Ariel Sharon wants all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip
evacuated at the same time, instead of in three stages.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, Japan's Supreme Court
ruled that troubled bank UFJ Holdings Inc. can pull out of a deal to
sell its trust business to a smaller rival, clearing the way for a full
takeover of UFJ by larger Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group (MTFG).
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, Typhoon Chaba plowed
into southern Japan, killing at least five people and injuring 73.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, Mexico’s state oil
company said it believes that vast untapped oil reserves lie in the
deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
(WSJ, 8/31/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 31, Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Laura Bush spoke on the 2nd night of the Republican Convention in
NYC as police arrested nearly 1,000 demonstrators.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, A report was filed
with the SEC that said Conrad Black and associates systematically
looted Hollinger Int’l. of more than $400 million from 1997-2003. In
2007 Black (62) was convicted in Illinois U.S. District Court. He was
sentenced to serve 78 months in federal prison, pay Hollinger $6.1
million and a fine of $125,000. Black was guilty of diverting funds for
personal benefit from money due Hollinger International when the
company sold certain publishing assets and he obstructed justice by
taking possession of documents to which he was not entitled. Black's
three co-defendants, former Hollinger International vice presidents
John Boultbee (64) of Vancouver and Peter Y. Atkinson (60) of Toronto
and attorney Mark Kipnis (59) of Chicago were all found guilty of three
counts of mail fraud.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.C3)(WSJ, 9/1/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black)
2004 Aug 31, Apple introduced its
3rd generation iMac with the computer built into the monitor.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.C1)
2004 Aug 31, US astronomers
reported finding 2 planets orbiting distant stars. One was near 55
Cancri, 41 light-years away; the other was near Gliese 436, 33
light-years away.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 31, Tropical Storm Gaston
flooded Richmond and other parts of central Virginia with a foot or
more of rain. Five people were killed.
(AP, 8/31/04)(WSJ, 9/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 31, In southern Guatemala
landless farm workers resisted police attempts to remove them from a
farm they had occupied and at least four police officers and three
farmers died in the battle.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, A video purporting to
show the methodical, grisly killings of 12 Nepalese construction
workers kidnapped in Iraq was posted on a Web site linked to a militant
group operating in Iraq.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, In northern Iraq
Ibrahim Ismael, head of Kirkuk’s education department, was killed in a
drive-by shooting as he drove to work.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, In Beersheba, Israel,
Palestinian suicide bombers exploded two buses almost simultaneously,
killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 80.
(AP, 8/31/04)(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Aug 31, In Mexico suspects
beat to death Francisco Arratia Saldierna (55), a newspaper columnist
and dumped his body outside the offices of the Red Cross in the border
city of Matamoros.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, A woman strapped with
explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station,
killing at least 10 people.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2004 Aug 31, The Sudanese
government said rebels in Darfur had kidnapped 22 health workers in the
strife-torn region, following the abduction of eight Sudanese nationals
working for international aid groups.
(AFP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, An official said
Turkish troops had killed 11 Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey
during the past three days.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Aug 31, The WTO ruled that
the Byrd amendment of 2000 is a violation of its trade rules. The
amendment authorized that money collected from anti-dumping tariffs be
disbursed to US companies hit by unfairly, low-priced imports.
(WSJ, 9/1/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug, An $11 billion merger
between Belgium’s Interbrew and Brazil’s largest brewer AmBev formed
InBev.
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.66)
2004 Aug, Brazil and Peru
inaugurated the construction of a $7 million bridge between Assis,
Brazil, and Inapari, Peru. It was part of a 2,500 mile Transoceanic
Highway program.
(SFC, 11/5/04, p.W1)(Econ, 3/26/05, p.40)
2004 Aug, The British government
sent out a pamphlet to the public titled “Preparing for Emergencies:
What You Need to Know.”
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.48)
2004 Aug, Dhiren Barot, a British
national who spent time training with Lashkar-e-Taiba, was arrested. In
2006 he was convicted of planning a bombing in London.
(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2004 Aug, The World Bank estimated
that pollution is causing China and annual 8-12% of its $1.4 trillion
GDP in direct damage.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.56)
2004 Aug, Following efforts by
Maimuma Taal-Ndure, Gambia’s director of aviation, Britain removed
Gambia from a blacklist allowing Gambian planes to again land in the UK.
(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A8)
2004 Aug, Swarms of locusts
descended on Mauritania. Hundreds of swarms were also reported in Chad,
Gambia, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.43)
2004 Sep 1, VP Cheney and Democrat
Zell Miller were featured as prime-time speakers at the Republican
Convention in NYC.
(SFC, 9/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 1, It was reported that
for about $10 million, Philadelphia city officials planned to turn all
135 square miles of the city into the world's largest wireless Internet
hot spot. EarthLink was given the contract and planned to rent 4,000
city light posts for its equipment. Completion of the network was
expected in Spring 2007.
(AP, 9/1/04)(SFC, 3/2/06, p.C2)
2004 Sep 1, Accused U.S. Army
deserter Charles Jenkins said he will surrender to the US to face
charges that have dogged him since he vanished from his unit in South
Korea in 1965. After expressing a desire to put his conscience at rest,
Jenkins reported on September 11, 2004 to Camp Zama in Japan. He
reported in respectful military form, saluting the receiving military
police officer. On November 3, 2004, Jenkins pleaded guilty to charges
of desertion and aiding the enemy, but denied making disloyal or
seditious statements – the latter charges were dropped. He was
sentenced to 30 days' confinement and received a dishonorable
discharge, being released six days early, on November 27, 2004, for
good behavior. Jenkins and his family settled on Sado Island in Japan.
(AP,
9/1/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Robert_Jenkins)
2004 Sep 1, In Colorado the
criminal trial against LA basketball player Kobe Bryant (26) ended in a
dismissal after the woman (20), who filed a rape charge, decided not to
testify. This saved Bryant’s $136 million contract with the Lakers.
Bryant still faced civil charges.
(SFC, 9/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 1, In the 5th annual
Latin Grammys Alejandro Sanz won 4 awards and jazz songstress Maria
Rita of Brazil won 2.
(SFC, 9/2/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 1, An Argentine Supreme
Court justice resigned rather than face Senate impeachment proceedings,
the 4th judge targeted in a high court purge led by Pres. Nestor
Kirchner.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, In Germany Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder's Cabinet agreed to forego a 4.4 percent pay raise
for itself and top civil servants in an attempt to help fight the
country's burgeoning budget deficit.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, The U.N. atomic
watchdog agency said Iran has announced plans to turn tons of uranium
into a substance that can be used to make nuclear weapons.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, In Fallujah, Iraq, US
bombing reportedly killed 17 people.
(WSJ, 9/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 1, Militants in Iraq
freed seven employees of a Kuwaiti trucking firm after their employer
paid $500,000 in ransom.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2004 Sep 1, Capping a day of angry
street protests and a strike by some 200,000 health care workers,
President Vicente Fox spent much of his state-of-the-nation speech
urging Mexicans to not give up on democracy, saying its "inherent
problems are not cause for discouragement.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, Nepal's government
imposed an indefinite curfew and appealed for calm after thousands of
demonstrators ransacked a mosque and clashed with police in the capital
to protest the slaying of 12 Nepalese hostages by Iraqi militants.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, Pakistani officials
said security forces have arrested two "important" al Qaeda operatives,
including an Egyptian and a Saudi national.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, Martin Torrijos, the
son of a former dictator, took office as Panama's president promising
jobs, better relations with Cuba and a referendum on a proposed $8
billion expansion of the Panama Canal.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, In Beslan, Russia,
more than a dozen militants wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a school
in North Ossetia, a region bordering Chechnya, taking hostage some 300
people, half of them children. They threatening to blow up the building
if police storm it and at least eight people were killed.
(AP, 9/1/04)(SFC, 9/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 1, In Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, 3 people were killed in a stampede to a newly opened Ikea
branch.
(SFC, 9/2/04, p.C2)
2004 Sep 1, Rebels released six
Sudanese aid workers in Darfur, four days after they went missing
during a trip to register refugees.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, A U.N. report called
for a quick increase in the international monitoring force in Sudan,
saying the government has not stopped attacks against civilians or
disarmed marauding militias.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 2, Pres. Bush pledged "a
safer world and a more hopeful America" as he accepted his party's
nomination for a second term at the Republican National Convention in
New York.
(SFC, 9/3/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/2/05)
2004 Sep 2, A military jury at
Camp Pendleton, Calif., convicted Marine Sgt. Gary Pittman of
dereliction of duty and abuse of prisoners at a makeshift detention
camp in Iraq. A jury at Fort Lewis, Wash., convicted a National
Guardsman of trying to help al-Qaida; Spc. Ryan G. Anderson was
sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2004 Sep 2, Halliburton said an
internal investigation has found that a consortium it later took over
(1998) had once considered bribing Nigerian officials to win a 1995
energy contract.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, Hurricane Frances
raged through the sparsely populated southeastern Bahamas.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, The first Chinese
tourists to visit Paris, French, on an official tour group were treated
to a full taste of its charms.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 2, A controversial
monument commemorating Estonians who fought in the German army against
Soviet troops during World War II was removed, after the government
said it damaged the Baltic state's image.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, Egypt's antiquities
chief revealed a 2,500-year-old hidden tomb under the shadow of one of
Giza's three giant pyramids.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, In Germany a fire in
Weimar's Duchess Anna Amalia Library caused the loss or damage of
thousands of irreplaceable books. Some 6,000 historical works were
saved.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 2, Kidnappers handed over
two French journalists in Iraq to an Iraqi Sunni Muslim opposition
group. A militant group in Iraq said it had killed three Turkish
captives. Gunmen ambushed an Associated Press driver, riddling his car
with bullets and killing him near his home in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, Anwar Ibrahim was set
free after his sodomy conviction was overturned by Malaysia's highest
court. This was six years to the day after the one-time heir apparent
to the country's premiership plunged into a divisive fight with his
political mentor.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, In Beslan, Russia,
camouflage-clad commandos carried crying babies away from a school
where gunmen holding hundreds of hostages freed at least 26 women and
children.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 2, In Saudi Arabia one
policeman was killed and three others wounded in clashes with militants
in a town northeast of Riyadh.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 2, The UN Security
Council narrowly approved a U.S.-backed resolution aimed at pressuring
Lebanon to reject a second term for its pro-Syrian president and
calling for an immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces.
(AP, 9/2/04)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.43)
2004 Sep 3, US Medicare announced
a 17.4% increase in premiums for doctor visits.
(WSJ, 9/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 3, Former President
Clinton was hospitalized in New York with chest pains and shortness of
breath; he ended up undergoing heart bypass surgery.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2004 Sep 3, A California federal
judge found Alvaro Rafael Saravia, a retired Salvadoran air force
captain living in Modesto, liable in the 1980 slaying of Salvadoran
archbishop Oscar Romero and ordered him to pay $10 million in damages.
(AP, 9/4/04)(SFC, 9/4/04, p.B7)
2004 Sep 3, Economic ministers
from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed to
liberalize 10 sectors as a first step toward the creation by 2020 of a
regional economic community akin to the European Union.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 3, Libya signed an
agreement to pay a total of $35 million US in compensation for 168
non-U.S. victims of a 1986 Berlin disco bombing.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 3, Commandos stormed a
school in southern Russia and battled Chechen separatist rebels holding
hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in
blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. Over 330 people, including
155 children, were killed in the violence that ended a hostage standoff
with militants in Beslan, Russia. 31 of 32 hostage takers were killed.
6 Chechens and 4 Ingush were identified among the hostage takers. In
2006 a woman died from her injuries in Beslan bringing the total deaths
to 334.
(SFC, 9/4/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/7/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/10/04,
p.A1)(AP, 12/9/07)
2004 Sep 3, In South Africa Johan
Meyer (53), head of an engineering company, was charged with
trafficking in nuclear-related materials that could be used to make
weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 4, Hurricane Frances
ripped apart roofs, shattered windows and flooded neighborhoods as it
raged through the Bahamas leaving 2 people dead.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 4, A gunfight broke out
in a church in a cocaine-producing region of southern Colombia, leaving
at least three people dead and 14 wounded.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 4, India's PM Singh said
his government was ready to talk to any militant group, including those
in Kashmir, abandoning previous preconditions that the rebels must
first disarm.
(AP, 9/4/04)
2004 Sep 4, Insurgents clashed
with American and Iraqi troops in northern Iraq, and local officials
said eight Iraqis were killed and more than 50 wounded. A suicide
attacker detonated a car bomb outside a police academy in the northern
city of Kirkuk as hundreds of trainees and civilians were leaving for
the day, killing 17 people and wounding 36. Saboteurs blew up an oil
pipeline in southern Iraq.
(AP, 9/4/04)(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 4, Lebanese lawmakers
amended their constitution to keep pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud in
office, boldly reaffirming their loyalty to Damascus and defying a U.N.
resolution calling for presidential elections.
(AP, 9/4/04)
2004 Sep 4, A shaken President
Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness
after more than 330 people were killed in a hostage-taking at a
southern school.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2004 Sep 5, The 19th Burning Man
went up in flames in Gerlach, Nevada, where some 35, 664 people had
gathered for the annual festival.
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.B1)
2004 Sep 5, The eye of Hurricane
Frances made official landfall near Sewall’s Point, Fl. Sustained winds
of 105 mph knocked out power to some 2 million people. Frances left 19
dead in Florida as it slowly moved northwest.
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/6/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/8/04,
p.A1)
2004 Sep 5, Australian Prime
Minister John Howard defended his country's controversial refusal to
ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases as he launched the 19th
World Energy Congress in Sydney.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 5, In Sylhet, Bangladesh,
2 people were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb blast.
(Reuters, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 5, London’s Sunday Times
reported that John Knight, a millionaire British arms dealer, is
reportedly fuelling a bloody civil war in Sudan by arranging to supply
its government with tanks, rocket launchers and a cruise missile.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 5, Iraqi forces
reportedly captured Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the King of Clubs and most
wanted member of Saddam Hussein's ousted dictatorship. DNA evidence
revealed that the suspect was only a cousin of al-Douri. An ensuing
battle left as many as 70 people dead. A mortar attack killed 2 US
soldiers.
(AP, 9/5/04)(SFC, 9/6/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 5, Typhoon Songda, billed
as the strongest to hit southern Japan in at least three decades,
lashed Okinawa island with heavy rains and high winds and headed toward
Japan's main islands.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 5, A Turkish company said
it was withdrawing from Iraq a day after Iraqi militants threatened to
behead its employee unless it ceased operations there.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 6, Former Pres. Clinton
(58) underwent successful quadruple heart bypass surgery in NYC.
(SFC, 9/4/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 6, Former hurricane
Frances pounded the Florida Panhandle as a tropical storm.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2004 Sep 6, Harvey Wheeler (85),
co-author with Eugene Burdick of “Fail-Safe” (1962), died. The novel
was turned into a 1964 film by Sidney Lumet.
(SFC, 12/28/04, p.D12)
2004 Sep 6, Algeria's largest
Islamic rebel group with ties to al Qaeda said it has appointed a new
chief, known as an explosives expert, as it tries to regroup following
the loss of key leaders in recent gun battles with authorities.
(Reuters, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 6, In southwest China at
least 90 people were killed and 77 were missing after some of the worst
rainstorms in recent years triggered landslides and flash floods.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 6, Colombia’s attorney
general's office ordered the arrest of a military officer and two
soldiers in connection with the killing of three union officials last
month.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 6, The Supreme Court
ordered the Dominican government to relinquish control of the country's
oldest daily newspaper, which was taken over more than a year ago amid
a major bank scandal.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 6, India and Pakistan
ended 2-day talks to settle their dispute over Kashmir. Yasin Malik,
the chairman of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF),
said the dispute could not be settled unless residents of the region
are included in talks. India’s Natwar Singh and Pakistan’s Khurshid
Kasuri closed the 1st stage of an 8-part “composite” dialogue.
(AFP, 9/6/04)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.38)
2004 Sep 6, An apparent suicide
bomber detonated an explosives-packed vehicle on the outskirts of
Fallujah, killing seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi national guardsmen.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 6, An Israeli military
satellite fell into the Mediterranean Sea after a botched launch from
southern Israel.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 6, In Lebanon 4 Cabinet
ministers resigned to protest the extension of President Emile Lahoud's
term.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 7, The Congressional
Budget Office said the US deficit would hit a record $422 billion this
year.
(SFC, 9/8/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 7, Kirk Fordice (70),
former Mississippi Gov. (1992-2000) died in Jackson, Miss.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2004 Sep 7, In southwestern China
floods unleashed by torrential rains have killed at least 161 people
and left dozens more missing, prompting authorities to put the massive
Three Gorges hydroelectric project on alert.
(AP, 9/7/04)(WSJ, 9/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 7, Hundreds of angry
farmers seized Guatemala's largest hydroelectric dam, threatening to
shut off power to large parts of the country unless the government
agrees to return nearby lands to them.
(AP, 9/7/04)
2004 Sep 7, British oil
exploration firm Cairn Energy, which has announced a series of oil
discoveries in India, said that oil in place in the Mangala field was
estimated to reach one billion barrels, with recoverable reserves of
100-320 million barrels.
(AFP, 9/7/04)
2004 Sep 7, Munir Said Thalib
(b.1965), prominent Indonesian human rights activist, died of arsenic
poisoning aboard a Garuda Indonesia flight to the Netherlands. In
March, 2005, Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto was taken into
custody. In June it was reported that Indonesia’s intelligence service
was involved in Thalib’s death. In December, 2005, Pollycarpus Priyanto
was found guilty of Munir's murder by an Indonesian court and sentenced
to 14 years imprisonment. In 2006 Indonesia’s Supreme Court quashed the
murder conviction citing insufficient evidence. In 2008 Indonesia’s
supreme court found Pollycarpus Priyanto guilty of poisoning Munir and
sentenced him to 20 years in prison. In 2008 Indonesian police arrested
Muchdi Purwoprandjono, a former top intelligence official, for
suspected involvement in the killing of Thalib.
(WSJ, 6/27/05,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munir_Said_Thalib)(AFP,
10/4/06)(AFP, 1/25/08)(AP, 6/19/08)
2004 Sep 7, US forces battled
insurgents loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the Baghdad slum
of Sadr City, in clashes that killed 34 people, including one American
soldier. The US death toll in Iraq topped 1,000 since military
operation began in March 2003. In private estimates Iraqi deaths ranged
from 10,000 to 30,000 killed across the nation.
(AP, 9/7/04)(SFC, 9/8/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 7, An Italian aid
organization said that two Italian women were kidnapped from its office
in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/7/04)
2004 Sep 7, Israeli helicopters
attacked a Hamas training camp, killing at least 14 militants and
wounding 30 others.
(AP, 9/7/04)
2004 Sep 7, A Nepali labor union
with links to Maoist rebels asked 35 firms across the embattled
Himalayan kingdom to shut shop in a move aimed at bolstering the
guerrilla campaign to overthrow the monarchy.
(Reuters, 9/7/04)
2004 Sep 8, Dan Rather featured a
story on 60 Minutes with documents that raised questions on Pres.
Bush’s National Guard Service in 1972-73. On Sep 20 Dan Rather and CBS
apologized for using what appeared to be forged documents.
(SFC, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 8, Delta Air Lines said
it will cut up to 7,000 jobs, reduce wages and pull back at its
Dallas-Fort Worth airport hub as part of a sweeping restructuring plan
that could still leave it vulnerable to bankruptcy.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, NASA’s $260 million
Genesis space capsule crashed in the Utah desert after its parachute
failed to open. It carried a cargo of solar wind particles.
(SFC, 9/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 8, Richard G. Butler
(86), founder of the Aryan Nations, was found dead in his bed in
Hayden, Idaho.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2004 Sep 8, Hurricane Ivan made a
direct hit on Grenada, killing at least three people. The most powerful
storm to hit the Caribbean in 10 years also damaged homes in Barbados,
St. Lucia and St. Vincent, just days after Hurricane Frances rampaged
through.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, India and Pakistan
opened up their countries to cross-border group tourism for the first
time and announced a series of high-level contacts to push forward the
peace process.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, US warplanes launched
strikes in the insurgent-held city of Fallujah, hitting at suspected
militant hideouts used to plan attacks on American forces. At least 2
people were killed.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, Insurgents kidnapped
the family of an Iraqi National Guard officer and set fire to his home
northeast of the capital.
(AP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 8, Japan's coast guard
found five more bodies from an Indonesian cargo ship that ran aground
during a powerful typhoon that has hammered Japan, raising the death
toll from the storm to at least 28.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, Police in Suriname
arrested six people and seized a large stash of weapons, uncovering
what they said was an arms-for-cocaine smuggling operation.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 8, In Thailand a young
man died from bird flu and increased fears of a avian influenza
pandemic. Asian deaths from bird flu for the year totaled 28.
(WSJ, 9/10/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 8, In Turkey rescue
workers started to evacuate dozens of workers trapped inside a copper
mine engulfed in fire. Eight miners were rescued so far. Between 25 and
30 miners were trapped inside the mine in the town of Kure in Kastamonu
province, some 185 miles north of the capital, Ankara.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, It was reported that
some 60 hippos had died of unknown causes over the last 2 months in
Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.
(SFC, 9/8/04, p.A6)
2004 Sep 9, Secretary of State
Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that abuses by
government-supported Arab militias in Sudan qualified as genocide
against the black African population in the Darfur region.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2004 Sep 9, It was reported that a
munitions plant in Oklahoma had suspended production of “bunker buster”
bombs after workers there developed anemia.
(WSJ, 9/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 9, Tourists and residents
were told to evacuate the Florida Keys because the powerful Hurricane
Ivan could hit the island chain by Sunday. It had top sustained winds
of 160 mph, making it a Category 5 storm.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 9, Ayman al-Zawahri said
in an al Qaeda videotape that the US will be ultimately defeated in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
(SFC, 9/10/04, p.A14)
2004 Sep 9, Crown Prince
Al-Muhtadee Billah Bolkiah (30), the future king of the oil-rich
sultanate of Brunei, married a 17-year-old half-Swiss commoner.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 9, Hurricane Ivan grew
into the deadliest of storms overnight, packing winds of 160 mph as it
made a beeline for Jamaica after pummeling Grenada, Barbados and other
islands, causing at least 20 deaths. Police in Grenada battled looters.
(AP, 9/9/04)(WSJ, 9/9/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 9, A military Lynx
helicopter crashed near the city of Brno in the Czech Republic, killing
six British soldiers.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 9, In Indonesia a car
bomb exploded outside the gates of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta,
killing 10 people and wounding more than 160.
(Econ, 9/11/04, p.39)(AP, 9/9/05)
2004 Sep 9, US jets pounded the
rebel stronghold of Fallujah, and American and Iraqi forces entered the
central city of Samarra for the first time in months to try to reseat
the city council and regain control. US and Iraqi security forces
launched attacks to flush out insurgents in northern Iraq, killing 12
people.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 9, Clashes with Israeli
troops killed 8 Palestinians and left 27 wounded in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
(AP, 9/9/04)(WSJ, 9/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 9, Nigerian troops
battled militia forces in the mangrove swamps of Africa's leading oil
region, the Niger Delta. The offensive has forced refugees to stream
into the Port Harcourt.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 9, A huge explosion
rocked North Korea. The huge blast hit a mountainous area close to an
underground missile base that was listed as a possible uranium
enrichment site. North Korea later said that the huge cloud caused by
an explosion near its border with China was the planned demolition of a
mountain for a hydroelectric project.
(Reuters, 9/12/04)(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 9, Pakistani jets pounded
a suspected training facility for foreign militants in a two-hour
barrage in tribal South Waziristan, killing 50 people. Pakistani troops
assaulted a suspected terror hideout, killing at least six militants.
Five of the six dead were foreigners.
(AP, 9/9/04)(AP, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, President Bush
ordered a partial cut in U.S. assistance to Venezuela because of its
alleged role in the international trafficking of women and children for
sexual exploitation.
(AP, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill barring necrophilia.
(Reuters, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, CBS News vigorously
defended its report about President Bush's Air National Guard service,
with anchor Dan Rather saying broadcast memos questioned by forensic
experts came from "what we consider to be solid sources." An
independent panel later concluded that documents used in the story
could not be verified.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2004 Sep 10, Scientists reported
evidence for a planet near a dwarf star some 230 light years from Earth
in the constellation Hydra.
(SFC, 9/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 10, Brock Adams (77),
former transportation secretary died in Stevensville, Md.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2004 Sep 10, Canada said it was
donating one million dollars (770,000 US) to United Nations efforts to
pacify strife-torn Darfur in western Sudan.
(AFP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 10, Li Yuanjiang, the
former editor-in-chief of one of China's biggest newspapers, the
Guangzhou Daily, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for taking bribes.
Guangzhou is the capital and the sub-provincial city of Guangdong
Province in southern mainland China. The city was formerly known
internationally as Canton, after a French language transliteration of
the name of the province in Cantonese.
(AP, 9/11/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou)
2004 Sep 10, European finance
ministers chose Luxembourg PM Jean-Claude Juncker to represent the
group of 12 European Union countries that share the euro currency.
(AP, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, Japan confirmed a
12th case of mad cow disease.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 10, Two Lebanese men were
shot dead in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, Nepali PM Sher
Bahadur Deuba vowed to crush a deadly Maoist revolt as giant neighbor
India promised more military help to fight the leftist guerrillas.
(AP, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, Yemen reported that
its troops had killed Hussein Badr Eddin al-Hawthi (al-Houthi), a rebel
cleric whose “Believing Youth” forces have battled the government in a
remote northern region for months.
(AP, 9/10/04)(SFC, 9/11/04, p.A10)(Econ, 5/21/05,
p.51)
2004 Sep 10, Simon Mann, a former
British special forces soldier and the alleged leader of a foiled coup
plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, was sentenced to seven years in
prison for trying to buy weapons from Zimbabwe's state arms
manufacturer.
(AP, 9/10/04)
2004 Sep 10, Svetlana Kuznetsova
overwhelmed Elena Dementieva 6-3, 7-5 in the first all-Russian U.S.
Open final.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2004 Sep 10, Mike Leigh's "Vera
Drake" won the Golden Lion for best picture at the close of the Venice
Film Festival.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2004 Sep 10, Specialist Armin Cruz
became the first Military Intelligence soldier convicted in the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal as he admitted abusing inmates and received a
lighter sentence in return for his testimony against others.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2004 Sep 11, Songwriter Fred Ebb
(76) died of a heart attack in NYC. His songs included “New York, New
York,” written for the 1977 film of the same name.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.B4)
2004 Sep 11, In Afghanistan Pres.
Karzai appointed Sayeed Mohammed Khairkhwa as governor of Herat and
offered Gov. Ismail Khan a post as minister of mines and industry.
Khan, the “Lion of Heart,” accepted the cabinet job in Kabul.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/14/05, p.A1)
2004 Sep 11, Egypt claimed that
its regional and international clout qualify it for a permanent seat on
an expanded U.N. Security Council.
(AP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 11, Petros VII, the
Christian Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, was killed after an army
helicopter that was transporting him and his entourage to a monastic
enclave in northern Greece crashed in the sea. The helicopter carried
12 passengers and 4 crew.
(AP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 11, In Iraq US Navy Petty
Officer 3rd Class David A. Cedergren (25) of South St. Paul, Minn.,
died of electrocution while showering. As of 2009 his death was one of
among 18 electrocution deaths, 16 US service members and two military
contractors, under review as part of a Department of Defense Inspector
General inquiry.
(AP, 2/2/09)
2004 Sep 11, Hurricane Ivan lashed
Jamaica with monstrous waves, driving rain and winds nearing 155 mph,
killing at least 15 people. Total deaths from the hurricane reached 65.
(AP, 9/11/04)(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 12, The US fiscal gap,
measured as future receipts minus future obligations, was reported to
be between $40 and 72 trillion. The debt portended a severe economic
decline or financial collapse.
(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 12, US Airways filed for
bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2004 Sep 12, In Columbus, Ohio, a
suspected arson fire in an apartment complex left 10 people dead.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 12, Jerome Chodorov (93),
playwright, died in Nyack, N.Y.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2004 Sep 12, In southern
Afghanistan US forces backed by helicopter gunships killed 22
insurgents, including 3 Arab fighters.
(AP, 9/13/04)(SFC, 9/14/04, p.A7)
2004 Sep 12, In Herat,
Afghanistan, mobs loyal to Gov. Khan burned a half dozen int’l. aid
compounds and as many as 7 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 12, Hurricane Ivan
skirted Grand Cayman with winds near 155 mph as it churned toward Cuba.
The storm has been blamed for 56 deaths across the Caribbean so far,
including 34 in Grenada and 11 in Jamaica.
(AP, 9/12/04)
2004 Sep 12, People in Hong Kong
turned out in large numbers for a legislative election, many venting
anger at their leaders and hoping to hand pro-democracy opposition
politicians unprecedented clout in the Chinese territory. Pro-democracy
opposition figures gained more clout in Hong Kong's legislature with
three new seats, but they fell short of expectations.
(AP, 9/12/04)(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 12, Militants pounded
central Baghdad with intense mortar barrages, targeting the Green Zone
and destroying a U.S. vehicle along a major street. At least 25 people
were killed, including an Arab television journalist, some of them when
a US helicopter fired at crowds around the burning vehicle. The death
toll across Iraq reached 59.
(AP, 9/12/04)(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 12, Three Polish soldiers
were killed in Iraq when they were attacked with grenades and
machine-gun fire as they returned to their base from a demining
operation.
(AP, 9/12/04)
2004 Sep 12 , North Korea opened
its Ninth Pyongyang Film Festival.
(www1.korea-np.co.jp/pk/209th_issue/2004092501.htm)
2004 Sep 12, Pakistani security
forces and militants clashed in fighting that killed at least nine
people in the mountains near the Afghan border.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 13, Oprah Winfrey
celebrated the premiere of her 19th season by surprising each of her
276 audience members with a new car.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 13, Oakland posted a 7-6,
10 inning win over the Rangers in a game that was delayed in the ninth
inning after Texas reliever Frank Francisco hurled a chair and hit two
fans at the Coliseum; the chair hit a man in the head and broke a
woman's nose.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2004 Sep 13, A Sony Group-led
consortium struck a deal to buy MGM for $3 billion.
(WSJ, 9/14/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 13, Colorado became home
to the country's newest national park as Interior Secretary Gale Norton
officially reclassified the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The
dunes' foundation was laid about 25 million years ago through erosion
of the San Juan Mountains. The sand dunes were declared a national
monument in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover.
(AP, 9/12/04)(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 13, The US ban on assault
rifles, signed in 1994 by Pres. Clinton, expired. The expiration means
firearms like AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s can now be legally bought.
(SFC, 9/10/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 13, Scientists reported a
new type of cancer-influencing gene that can either suppress or trigger
tumors.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 13, US warplanes pounded
a suspected hideout of al-Qaida-linked militants in the Sunni insurgent
stronghold of Fallujah, killing 20 people including women and children.
(AP, 9/13/04)(SFC, 9/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 13, Two Australians and
two East Asians have been kidnapped in Iraq, said a statement
purportedly from the Islamic Secret Army handed out in the Sunni Muslim
insurgent bastion of Samarra. A video posted on a Web site in the name
of the militants purportedly showed the beheading of a kidnapped
Turkish truck driver.
(AP, 9/13/04)(AP, 9/13/05)
2004 Sep 13, An Israeli helicopter
fired a missile at a car in the West Bank town of Jenin, killing three
Al Aqsa men. Israeli police shut down six Palestinian elections offices
in east Jerusalem after seizing voter registration lists.
(AP, 9/13/04)(WSJ, 9/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 13, Pres. Putin announced
a series of measures that would enhance Kremlin power. These included
presidential selection of the governors for Russia’s 89 regions.
(Econ, 9/18/04, p.55)
2004 Sep 14, President Bush told
veterans in Las Vegas he was proud of his time in the Texas Air
National Guard as he sought to deflect questions about his Vietnam-era
service.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2004 Sep 14, Arizona, California
and Nevada joined with the federal government to undertake a 50-year,
$620 million project to restore wildlife habitat along 342 miles of the
lower Colorado River.
(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A8)
2004 Sep 14, Firefox, developed by
Mozilla, released a new Web browser.
(Econ, 9/25/04, p.76)
2004 Sep 14, More than 35,000
Colombian Indians marched in a violence-wracked region to protest
attacks against Indians and a free-trade pact pursued by the US.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 14, Hurricane Ivan
whipped western Cuba with 160 mph winds. The hurricane knocked some 25
million barrels of oil off world markets by causing undersea mudslides
in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 9/14/04)(WSJ, 10/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 14, A car bomb ripped
through a busy market near a Baghdad police headquarters where Iraqis
were waiting to apply for jobs on the force killing 47 and wounding
114. Gunmen opened fire on a van carrying police home from work in
Baqouba, killing 12 people.
(AP, 9/14/04)(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 14, Saboteurs blew up a
junction where multiple oil pipelines cross the Tigris River in
northern Iraq, setting off a chain reaction in power generation systems
that left the entire country without power.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 14, Senior Israeli
Cabinet ministers approved the payment of cash advances to Jewish
settlers who will be removed from their homes under Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 14, Mount Asama, one of
Japan's largest and most active volcanoes, began spewing gray smoke
into the air. Its last major eruption was in 1783.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 14, Russia announced it
was pouring $5.4 billion in additional funding into its security
agencies.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 14, A UN World Health
report said 6-10 thousand people were dying from disease and violence
in Sudan’s Darfur region.
(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 15, Pres. Bush requested
shifting $3.46 billion in reconstruction money for Iraq to security.
(WSJ, 9/16/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 15, National Hockey
League owners agreed to lock out the players.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2004 Sep 15, Amazon unveiled a new
search engine called A9.com.
(Econ, 9/25/04, p.76)
2004 Sep 15, Johnny Ramone (55),
guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band "The Ramones," died
of cancer in Los Angeles.
(AP, 9/16/04)(Econ, 9/25/04, p.100)
2004 Sep 15, Three Americans
accused of torturing Afghans in a private jail were found guilty in a
Kabul court after a trial denounced by the defense as failing to meet
basic international standards of fairness.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, The Egyptian and
Syrian presidents linked calls by the UN and fellow Arab leaders for
Syrian troops to leave Lebanon to past UN resolutions demanding that
Israeli pull out of the West Bank and Golan Heights.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, In England the number
of people seeking unemployment benefits fell by 6,100 to 830,200, the
lowest level since July 1975.
(AFP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, Eight French speaking
African countries began retiring over 1 billion in decaying currency
with new CFA francs. Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast,
Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo had until Dec 31 to turn in old bills for
new ones.
(SFC, 9/15/04, p.C8)
2004 Sep 15, India and Bangladesh
ended a two-day meeting in Dhaka without any breakthroughs on the
sharing of water from common rivers.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, Security forces
discovered three beheaded bodies on a road north of Baghdad, and a car
bomb exploded in a town south of the capital, killing two people.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, Malaysia declared its
entire northern Kelantan state a quarantine zone to halt the spread of
bird flu.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, In Pakistan Pres.
Musharraf backed out of his pledge to give up his post as army chief.
(WSJ, 9/16/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 15, Tropical Storm Jeanne
lashed Puerto Rico with damaging winds and rain that knocked out power,
flooded roads and killed two people. It soon strengthened from a
tropical storm into the 6th hurricane of the season.
(AP, 9/16/04)
2004 Sep 15, In Saudi Arabia
Edward Stuart Muirhead-Smith (55) was killed at the Max shopping center
in eastern Riyadh.
(AP, 9/16/04)
2004 Sep 15, A rebel faction said
peace talks with the Sudanese government and rebels from the troubled
Darfur region collapsed after three weeks without an accord.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 15, South Africa formally
recognized the pro-independence government in the annexed Moroccan
territory of Western Sahara (Sahrawi statehood), prompting Rabat to
recall its ambassador from Pretoria in protest.
(AP, 9/16/04)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.53)
2004 Sep 16, The National Hockey
League lockout went into effect.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2004 Sep 16, Hurricane Ivan
slammed ashore in Alabama with winds of 130 mph, packing deadly
tornadoes and powerful waves and rain that threatened to swamp
communities from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. Ivan was blamed
for at least 115 deaths, 43 in the US.
(SFC, 9/17/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/16/05)
2004 Sep 16, Gunmen abducted two
Americans and a Briton, Kenneth Bigley (62), in a brazen attack on a
house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood. The US military said it
killed 60 in Fallujah and Ramadi strikes. The number of foreigners
kidnapped during the Iraq insurgency reached at least 100. All 3 were
beheaded. Bigley’s decapitation was confirmed on Oct 10, 2004.
(AP, 9/16/04)(WSJ, 9/17/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/16/05)(AP,
4/22/06)
2004 Sep 16, In Nigeria an oil
pipeline exploded near Lagos as thieves tried to siphon oil from it,
sparking a fire that killed at least 30 people.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 16, Taiwan celebrated the
opening of what officials called the world's fifth-longest road tunnel.
The 12.9-kilometre Hsueh Mountain tunnel was part of the newly built
55-kilometer Taipei-Ilan Expressway, which runs through mountains and
river valleys in northeastern Taiwan.
(AP, 9/16/04)
2004 Sep 17, In SF Barry Bonds
became the first new member of baseball’s homerun 700 club in 31 years,
joining Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. Timothy Griffith (21), was stabbed to
death in a fight after the game. Rafael Antonio Cuevas (22) was
arrested Oct 1. On Oct 27 the homerun ball was auctioned for $804,129.
On Oct 10, 2008, Cuevas was sentenced 16 years to life for 2nd degree
murder and ordered to pay a fine of $10,000.
(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A1)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.B4)(SFC,
10/28/04, p.B1)(SFC, 10/11/08, p.B2)
2004 Sep 17, The violent remains
of Hurricane Ivan pounded a large swath of the eastern United States,
drenching an area from Georgia to Ohio. Ivan left 70 dead in the
Caribbean and 40 dead in the US including 4 in Alabama, 16 in Florida,
4 in Georgia, 4 in Louisiana, 3 in Mississippi, and 8 in North Carolina.
(AP, 9/17/04)(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A16)
2004 Sep 17, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban rebels killed two tribal elders who were encouraging
participation in elections.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 17, Tropical Storm Jeanne
lashed the Dominican Republic with wind and rain that triggered
mudslides and collapsed walls before it weakened to a tropical
depression and headed toward the Bahamas. Eight were killed across the
Caribbean.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, The main Chechen
rebel Web site, Kavkaz-Center, posted what it said was an e-mail from
Basayev, claiming his "Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs' Brigade" was
responsible for the bombings of two passenger jets last month, a
suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station and the school siege in
the southern city of Beslan.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, Backed by 4,000
police officers, the Colombian government seized control of the
nation's largest pharmacy chain, saying its creation and expansion had
been funded by cocaine trafficking.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, A suicide car bomber
slammed into a line of police cars sealing off a Baghdad neighborhood
as American troops rounded up dozens of suspected militants, capping a
day of violence across Iraq that left at least 53 dead. Sheikh Abu Anas
al-Shami, a spiritual leader of a group of militants, was killed when a
missile hit the car in which he was traveling.
(AP, 9/17/04)(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/23/04,
p.A18)
2004 Sep 17, Mexico and Japan
signed a free trade agreement that Mexicans hope will ease their
reliance on the United States while encouraging Japan to build more
factories there. PM Junichiro Koizumi wrapped up a four-day Latin
American trip then headed for New York to pitch for a permanent
Japanese seat on the UN Security Council.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia was "seriously preparing" for pre-emptive strikes
against terrorists, as Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev took
responsibility for a school hostage-taking and other attacks that had
claimed more than 430 lives.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2004 Sep 17, Officials in
Singapore reported that a soil-borne bacterial infection called
melioidosis has killed 24 people there this year, making it more deadly
than SARS or bird flu. The illness, also known as Whitmore's Disease,
is listed by the U.S. government as a potential biological weapon but
Singapore government officials said there was no sign it had been
spread intentionally.
(Reuters, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 17, Gunmen killed a
Venezuelan oil engineer and six soldiers near the border with Colombia
in an attack that officials suspected was carried out by Colombian
rebels.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 18, Miss Alabama Deidre
Downs, an aspiring medical student, won the Miss America contest.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 17, Pop singer Britney
Spears married her fiancé, dancer Kevin Federline, in a surprise
ceremony.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2004 Sep 18, Louisiana voters
overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriages and civil unions.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 18, The Economist
announced its annual prizes for technology innovators. Winners in 6
categories included: David Goeddel for gene cloning; Vic Hayes for
standardizing Wi-Fi networks; Linus Torvalds for the development of
Linux; Takeshi Uchiyamada for developing the Prius hybrid car; Gerd
Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer and Christoph Gerber for developing the
scanning-tunneling microscope (1981); and Muhammad Yunus for the
development of micro-credit.
(Econ, 9/18/04, TQ p.17)
2004 Sep 18, Russ Meyer (82),
producer-director who helped spawn the "skin flick" with such films as
"Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1966) and later gained a measure of
critical respect, died. In 2005 Jimmy McDonough authored “Big Bosoms,
Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of Sex Films.
(AP, 9/22/04)(SFC, 9/22/04, p.A2)(SSFC, 7/10/05,
p.E1)
2004 Sep 17, Marvin Mitchelson
(76), Hollywood divorce lawyer, died in Beverly Hills, Calif.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2004 Sep 18, In Afghanistan 4
gunmen riding two motorcycles ambushed the car of a militia commander
in Helmand province, killing him and wounding two of his guards.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 18, Munich's mayor opened
the southern city's 171st Oktoberfest festival for a crowd of some
500,000.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 18, India said the US had
lifted export restrictions on equipment for India's commercial space
program and nuclear power facilities.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 18, Indian troops shot
dead 14 Islamic militants in clashes across Indian-administered
Kashmir, while suspected rebels killed four civilians.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 18, The UN atomic
watchdog agency demanded Iran suspend all uranium enrichment activities
and set a November timetable for compliance.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 18, Militants threatened
to decapitate two Americans and a Briton being held hostage unless
their demands were met within 48 hours. In Kirkuk a car bomb near a
crowd of recruits killed 19 people and wounded 67.
(AP, 9/18/04)(SSFC, 9/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 18, Northern Ireland's
rival Protestant and Roman Catholic parties are being left to find
common ground on their own, after three days of intensive high-level
talks failed to come up with a deal to revive power-sharing government
in the province.
(AFP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 18, Moscow police
arrested Alexander Pumane, a former submarine officer, on suspicious
behaviour and found mines and explosives in his car. Pumane soon died
under interrogation.
(Econ, 10/23/04, p.52)
2004 Sep 18, A divided UN Security
Council approved a resolution threatening oil sanctions against Sudan
unless the government reins in Arab militias blamed for a killing spree
in Darfur and ordered an investigation of whether the attacks
constitute genocide.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 18, Ugandan helicopter
gunships and ground troops attacked a rebel hideout in southern Sudan,
killing at least 25 insurgents and capturing seven others.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 19, "The Sopranos" won
best drama series at the Emmy Awards while "Arrested Development" won
best comedy series.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2004 Sep 19, The United States
suffered its biggest Ryder Cup loss in 77 years as it lost to the
Europeans, 18 1/2 to 9 1/2.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2004 Sep 19, President George W.
Bush has decided to lift sanctions against Libya, which he expects to
trigger release of more than $1 billion US to families of Pan Am 103
victims.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 19, Belarus barred dozens
of opposition candidates from running in the Oct 17 legislative
elections.
(WSJ, 9/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 19, British commoners
gained the right to stroll over an additional 153,000 hectares of
private land.
(Econ, 9/18/04, p.62)
2004 Sep 19, Former President
Jiang Zemin turned over his last major post as chairman of the
commission that runs China's military to his successor, Hu Jintao (61),
completing the country's first peaceful leadership transition since its
1949 revolution.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 19, In northern Egypt a
pickup truck and a minibus collided head on a rural road, killing 13
people and injuring 10.
(CP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 19, Floodwaters brought
by Tropical Storm Jeanne killed at least 90 people in Haiti.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 19, In India flooding in
the densely populated West Bengal has swamped hundreds of villages,
killing three people and making more than 650,000 homeless.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 19, A suicide attacker
detonated a car bomb near a joint U.S.-Iraqi checkpoint, killing 3
people and wounding 7, including four U.S. soldiers in the northern
city of Samarra. US warplanes and artillery pounded the guerrilla
stronghold of Fallujah. A militant group posted a video showing the
beheading of 3 Kurdish hostages.
(AP, 9/19/04)(SFC, 9/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 19, Kazakhs chose a new
parliament expected to be dominated by Otan, the party of Pres.
Nursultan Nazarbayev and Asar, a new party run by his daughter. US
backed int’l. monitors called the elections to the 77-seat Mazhilis
flawed.
(AP, 9/19/04)(WSJ, 9/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 9/25/04,
p.55)
2004 Sep 20, CBS News apologized
for a "mistake in judgment" in its story questioning President Bush's
National Guard service, saying it could not vouch for the authenticity
of documents featured in the report.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2004 Sep 20, The diocese of
Tucson, Arizona, filed for bankruptcy protection in seeking relief from
debt due to sex-abuse settlements.
(WSJ, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 20, A small plane with 5
aboard crashed in Montana’s Glacier National Park. 2 survivors were
found 2 days later.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 20, In southeastern
Afghan province 2 US soldiers were killed in a firefight with
insurgents.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, India's space agency
said it successfully launched the nation's first satellite for
educational services.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, In Indonesia Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono held a commanding lead over Incumbent President
Megawati Sukarnoputri in partial official results.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, A car bomb exploded
in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, killing three people. Gunmen killed
a Sunni Muslim cleric as he entered a mosque in Baghdad to perform noon
prayers. At least two people were killed and three wounded in
explosions that rocked the rebel-held city of Fallujah. An Islamic
group posted a video showing the beheading of US contract employee
Eugene Armstrong.
(AP, 9/20/04)(SFC, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 20, An Israeli helicopter
blew up a car in Gaza City, killing Khaled Abu Shamiyeh (30), a Hamas
militant who was involved in making and firing rockets at Israeli towns.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, Russia's embattled
Yukos oil giant raised the stakes in its bitter standoff with the
Kremlin as the company slashed supplies to China in a move analysts
said was designed to cause maximum embarrassment in Moscow.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 21, The new $219 million
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian opened in Washington
DC. It included some 800,000 artifacts collected by George Gustav Heye
(1874-1957).
(SFC, 9/16/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 21, President Bush,
defending his decision to invade Iraq, urged the U.N. General Assembly
to stand united with the country's struggling government.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2004 Sep 21, The US Federal
Reserve raised the overnight federal-funds interest rate a quarter
point to 1.75%.
(SFC, 9/22/04, p.C1)
2004 Sep 21, Yusuf Islam, formerly
known as singer Cat Stevens, was taken off a London-to-Washington
United Airlines flight because his name had shown up on a government
"no-fly" list.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2004 Sep 21, US forces killed 6
Afghan guerrillas following a rocket attack on a helicopter.
(WSJ, 9/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 21, China's PM Wen Jiabao
hailed a series of agreements with neighboring Kyrgyzstan including an
agreement on the thorny issue of the countries' common border.
(AFP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, The UN Children's
Fund and the World Food Program launched a $123 million program to
reduce the mortality rate of children in Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, The death toll across
Haiti from Tropical Storm Jeanne topped 700, with some 500 of them in
Gonaives. Officials expected to find more dead.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2004 Sep 21, In India incessant
rains caused flash floods that knocked down houses and killed at least
33 people in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 21, Former General Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono took a seemingly unassailable lead in Indonesia's
presidential election.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, Iran revealed that it
started converting tons of raw uranium as part of a process that could
be used to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, A posting on an
Islamic Web site claimed that the al-Qaida-linked group led by Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi has slain US hostage Jack Hensley.
(AP, 9/21/04)(WSJ, 9/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 21, A Turkish
construction company announced that it was halting operations in
neighboring Iraq in a bid to save the lives of 10 employees kidnapped
by militants.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, Israeli military
officials said the US will sell them 4,500 smart bombs in a deal valued
as much as $319 million.
(SFC, 9/22/04, p.A15)
2004 Sep 21, Italian and Lebanese
authorities reported the arrest of 10 alleged terrorists, thwarting
plans to blow up the Italian Embassy in Beirut in a car bomb attack.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, Liechtenstein
ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, bringing to 116 the
number of nations that have endorsed the pact.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 21, In northern Nigeria
Islamic militants fighting to create a Taliban-style state launched
their first attacks since January, assaulting two police stations in
the northeast and killing six people.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 21, In Paraguay Cecilia
Cubas (31), the daughter of former Pres. Raul Cubas, was kidnapped. Her
body was found stuffed down a well at a house on the outskirts of
Asuncion, in February 2005.
(Econ, 10/23/04, p.36)(AP, 4/5/08)
2004 Sep 21, Hundreds of Syrian
soldiers stationed in the hills near Lebanon's capital began
dismantling their bases in an effort to appease a U.N. Security Council
demand that all 20,000 Syrian troops leave the country.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, Inmates rioted at a
western Venezuela prison, killing at least six fellow inmates and
injuring 35 others before hundreds of national guardsmen restored order.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 21, Seeking more
influence over global decisions, Brazil, Germany, India and Japan
joined forces to lobby for a permanent UN Security Council seat and
pledged to work together to reform the United Nations.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, The US FCC fined CBS
$550,000 for Janet Jackson’s Feb 1 breast exposure.
(SFC, 9/23/04, p.A7)
2004 Sep 22, Federal prosecutors
indicted Sanjay Kumar, former chief of Computer Associates, saying he
helped orchestrate accounting fraud. Stephen Richards, head of sales,
was also named in the 10-count indictment.
(WSJ, 9/23/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 22, The new $600 million
Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center, named after the former
Oregon Senator (1967-1997), opened in Bethesda, Md., as the latest
addition to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par
p.17)(www.news-medical.net/?id=4963)
2004 Sep 22, In southern Brazil a
school bus swerved off a narrow road and plunged into a reservoir,
killing at least 16 children.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, Six members of the
same family were hanged in Egypt after being convicted for the
revenge-killing of 22 members of a rival family two years ago.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, The European
Commission approved a multi-billion pound bailout of the nuclear group
British Energy, after securing guarantees that the company would not
breach EU competition rules.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, The European Union
agreed in principle to lift an arms embargo on Libya after pressure
from Italy.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, France signaled it
will slash its public overspending next year to come into line with EU
rules in a 2005 budget published today and forecast economic growth of
2.5 percent.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, In Haiti, the death
toll from Tropical Storm Jeanne topped 1,000.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2004 Sep 22, Indian officials said
they have fenced nearly 40 percent of the porous border with Bangladesh
and would fence the entire frontier by March 2006 to prevent movement
of insurgents, illegal immigrants and smuggling.
(Reuters, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, In India's
mountainous northeast 10 people, including a state government minister
and two lawmakers, were killed in a helicopter crash.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, Four Islamic
militants were killed in a clash with Indian troops along the disputed
border in Kashmir on the eve of a summit between the two countries'
leaders.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 22, In Iraq kidnappers
seized 4 Egyptians and four Iraqis working for the country's mobile
phone company.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 22, British hostage
Kenneth Bigley appeared on a video posted on an Islamic Web site
weeping and pleading for his life. He was later beheaded by his captors.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2004 Sep 22, Suicide attackers
detonated a car bomb near an Iraqi National Guard recruiting center in
west Baghdad, killing at least six people and injuring 54. US aircraft
and tanks attacked Shiite militia positions in fierce fighting in
Baghdad's Sadr City slum, killing 10 people and injuring 92 others.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, A Palestinian suicide
bomber blew herself up near a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem. 2 Israeli
police officers were killed.
(AP, 9/22/04)(SFC, 9/23/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 22, On the 2nd day of the
General Assembly's ministerial meeting the UN Security Council
highlighted the need for more military and civilian cooperation to
rebuild war-torn nations, while the secretary-general called for more
resources and a more practical approach to international peacekeeping
efforts.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 22, Zimbabwe's government
dismissed reports of dozens of deaths linked to malnutrition as lies
peddled by detractors and insisted the nation has more food than it
needs.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 23, President Bush denied
painting too rosy a picture about Iraq, and said he would consider
sending more troops if asked; Iraq's interim leader, Ayad Allawi,
standing with Bush in the White House Rose Garden, said additional
troops weren't needed. Allawi declared that his country is succeeding
in its effort to move past the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 9/23/04)(AP, 9/23/05)
2004 Sep 23, The US Congress voted
to extend 3 tax cuts aimed at the middle class along with a bevy of
business tax breaks.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 23, Antarctic researchers
reported that the ice cap’s glaciers are now melting twice as fast as
in the 1990s and raising sea level.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 23, In Belgium a woman
gave birth to a healthy baby after doctors had transplanted ovarian
tissue, frozen since 1997, back into her abdomen.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 23, In southern Brazil
seven teenagers were beaten to death and five others were injured in a
rebellion at a juvenile detention center.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 23, Nigel Nicolson (87),
English writer and publisher, died. His mother was Vita Sackville-West.
(Econ, 10/2/04, p.87)
2004 Sep 23, Egypt’s ruling
National Democratic Party ended its annual conference and announced
that income and corporate taxes would be halved with top rates capped
at 20%.
(Econ, 9/25/04, p.61)
2004 Sep 23, Haiti officials said
the death toll from Tropical Storm Jeanne rose to more than 1,070 and
could double again.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 23, US warplanes fired on
insurgent targets in the east Baghdad slum of Sadr City. Iraqi doctors
said one person was killed and 12 were injured, many of them children.
Gunmen in Mosul killed a senior official of Iraq's North Oil Co.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 23, A militant group
falsely claimed in a Web posting that two Italian women taken hostage
in Iraq had been killed. [see Sep 28]
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 23, In Iraq kidnappers
seized 2 more Egyptian construction engineers working for the country's
mobile phone company.
(AP, 9/24/04)(SFC, 9/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 23, In Latvia lawmakers
rejected a proposal to let nearly 500,000 ethnic Russians vote in local
elections, despite giving the same right to citizens of EU countries
who live in the Baltic state.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 23, In northern Nigeria a
gunbattle between security forces and Islamic militants fighting to
create a Taliban-style state left 29 people dead, most of them
militants.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 23, Three Palestinian
gunmen infiltrated a fog-shrouded Israeli army post at dawn, killing
three Israeli soldiers in a fierce gunbattle before they were shot to
death.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 23, A senior Russian
official said his country’s appetite for counterfeits costs
manufacturers tens of billions of dollars each year: "Billions, tens of
billions of dollars of fake goods are in circulation."
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 24, The California Air
Resources Board backed sweeping reductions in auto emissions.
(AP, 9/24/05)
2004 Sep 24, William Corpuz turned
himself in to SF police for killing his wife, Marisa (31). In 2007
Corpuz (34) was convicted of using a fishing knife to slash the throat
of his wife. He had recently attended his 39th weekly session of a
52-week domestic abuse program.
(SFC, 5/12/07, p.B2)
2004 Sep 24, Nova Scotia became
the sixth Canadian province or territory to allow gay marriages when
the provincial Supreme Court ruled that banning such unions was
unconstitutional.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 24, French author
Francoise Sagan (69), who shot to fame with her first novel "Bonjour
Tristesse" (1954) at the age of 18 and courted controversy throughout
her life, died. She was a longstanding friend of late President
Francois Mitterrand and was convicted of taking drugs and for tax
evasion.
(Reuters, 9/24/04)(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.B5)
2004 Sep 24, Iraq's interim PM
Ayad Allawi appealed to world leaders at the UN General Assembly to
unite behind his country's effort to rein in spiraling violence,
lighten the foreign debt and improve security ahead of the January
elections. PM Allawi and President Bush declared that Iraq is on the
road to stability, with the Iraqi leader saying elections would be
possible in all but 3-4 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
(AP, 9/24/04)(AP, 9/24/05)
2004 Sep 24, Palestinians shelled
a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and killed an Israeli-American
woman just ahead of Yom Kippur.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 24, An uprising by some
800 gang members at two Salvadoran prisons ended peacefully on Friday
following government promises to study complaints by inmates.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 24, The UN High
Commissioner for Refugees proposed autonomy for the troubled Darfur
region of Sudan. The government has resisted this but said it would be
willing to discuss it anew in an effort to end the violence that has
killed 50,000 people.
(CP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 25, The Lasker Foundation
awarded its prize for clinical research posthumously to Dr. Charles
Kelman, who made cataract removal an outpatient procedure. The $50,000
award for basic research went to Dr. Pierre Chambon, Ronald Evans, and
Elwood Jensen for opening up the field of studying proteins called
nuclear hormone receptors.
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.A10)
2004 Sep 25, Marvin Davis (79),
oil mogul and former owner of 20th Century Fox, died in Beverly Hills.
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.B7)
2004 Sep 25, Hurricane Jeanne
lashed the Bahamas with violent winds and torrential rains, making a
direct hit on Abaco island and threatening the country's second-largest
city, Freeport. Late in the day Jeanne hit Florida.
(AP, 9/25/04)(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 25, Afghan security
forces killed a senior Taliban commander and two of his comrades in
southern Afghanistan. Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, a former inmate at the US
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, died in the gunbattle.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2004 Sep 25, In southwest China a
swollen river swept a bus off a bridge, and about 30 passengers were
missing.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 25, Ma Chengyuan (77),
former president of the renowned Shanghai Museum, died. He saved
priceless artifacts from marauding Red Guards during the Cultural
Revolution.
(AP, 10/10/04)
2004 Sep 25, US warplanes, tanks
and artillery units struck the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah,
killing at least 8 people and wounding 15. The US military announced
the deaths of four Marines and a soldier. Five mortar shells struck the
Iraqi Oil Ministry headquarters in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 25, An Internet posting
claimed that an al-Qaida-linked group has killed British hostage
Kenneth Bigley.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 25, An Israeli helicopter
fired two missiles toward a crowd of Palestinians on the outskirts of a
refugee camp, killing a 55-year-old man and wounding five people.
(SFC, 9/25/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 25, The Israeli army
charged into a Palestinian refugee camp, killing one person and tearing
down 35 homes.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 25, A film about Iraqi
children victims of war "Turtles can fly" directed by Iranian Bahman
Ghobadi won the Concha de Oro (Golden Shell) at the prestigious San
Sebastian film festival.
(AFP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 25, Sudanese authorities
accused an opposition party of plotting to kill more than three dozen
senior government officials and blow up key sites in the capital.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 26, Hurricane Jeanne
blasted ashore in Florida with drenching rains and 120 mph wind. At
least 1.5 million people were without power. An estimated 6 people were
killed.
(AP, 9/26/04)(WSJ, 9/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 26, Gordon Brown,
Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, repeated his proposal that the
IMF should revalue its gold reserves and use proceeds to cancel some
Third World debt.
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.A12)
2004 Sep 26, Colombia's army
killed at least 13 right-wing fighters during sustained combat with a
renegade paramilitary group that has refused to participate in
government peace talks.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2004 Sep 26, Haitians surrounded
by the destruction of Tropical Storm Jeanne prayed for the 1,500 dead
during church services and gave thanks their lives were spared, while
the UN rushed more peacekeepers in to stem looting in the ravaged city
of Gonaives. Tropical Storm Jeanne wiped out 7% of Haiti’s GDP.
(AP, 9/27/04)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.45)
2004 Sep 26, Suicide attackers
detonated a pair of car bombs outside an Iraqi National Guard compound
west of the capital, wounding American and Iraqi forces. A rocket hit a
busy Baghdad neighborhood, killing at least one person and wounding
eight.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2004 Sep 26, In Pakistan Amjad
Hussain Farooqi, accused in two attempts on the life of President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, died in a four-hour shootout at a
house in the southern town of Nawabshah. He was also wanted for his
alleged role in the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2004 Sep 26, Turkey’s Parliament
voted overwhelmingly to approve penal code reforms aimed at boosting
its chances of starting membership talks with the European Union.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2004 Sep 26, A French national was
shot and killed in the Saudi Arabian city of Jiddah.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2004 Sep 26, Ezzedin Sheikh
Khalil, a senior Hamas operative, was killed in a car bombing outside
his house in Damascus, the first such killing of a leader of the
Islamic militant group in Syria. The hit was claimed by Israeli
security officials.
(AP, 9/27/04)(Econ, 10/2/04, p.47)
2004 Sep 27, President Bush asked
Congress for more than $7.1 billion to help Florida and other
Southeastern states recover from their lashing by four hurricanes.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2004 Sep 27, A US Justice
Department audit said the FBI had a backlog of hundreds of thousands of
hours of untranslated audio recordings from terror and espionage
investigations.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2004 Sep 27, NBC announced that
"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno would be succeeded by "Late Night" host
Conan O'Brien in 2009.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2004 Sep 27, John Kamm (53), the
businessman-turned-rights lobbyist behind the release of scores of
dissidents from Chinese prisons, was one of 24 people awarded
500,000-dollar MacArthur Foundation grants. 7 of the winners, including
Kamm, were from the SF Bay Area.
(AP, 9/28/04)(SFC, 9/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 27, Operation Black
Widow, a local, state and federal investigation in San Francisco, ended
as 8 top members of the Nuestra Familia prison gang entered guilty
pleas to federal racketeering charges.
(SFC, 9/28/04, p.B3)
2004 Sep 27, San Francisco renamed
its sports stadium "Monster Park", in a 4-year deal that trades $6
million from an electronics cable company for the name to Candlestick
Park.
(AP, 9/28/04)(SFC, 9/28/04, p.B1)
2004 Sep 27, The body of Maxina
Danner (17), a student at Lincoln High, was found wrapped in a blanket
near Visitacion Ave. and Mansell. She had disappeared that morning on
her way to school. In 2005 Royce Miller (21), a youth councilor at a
group home, was arrested in connection with the murder. In 2007 Miller
was convicted of 2nd degree murder.
(SFC, 9/30/04, p.A1)(SFC, 2/12/05, p.B2)(SFC,
3/21/07, p.B2)
2004 Sep 27, In Brazil a strike by
bank workers entered its 2nd full week.
(WSJ, 9/28/04, p.A20)
2004 Sep 27, In Dubai a wall
collapsed at an airport construction site, killing more than eight
workers and injuring many more.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2004 Sep 27, Galapagos park
rangers ended a 17-day protest after Ecuador's government fired a new
park director the rangers claimed favored commercial fishing over the
islands' unique environment.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2004 Sep 27, U.S. jets pounded
suspected Shiite militant positions in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City,
killing at least five people and wounding 40. Elsewhere, insurgents
detonated car bombs and fired rockets, killing at least 7 National
Guardsmen, in separate attacks.
(AP, 9/27/04)(WSJ, 9/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 27, An Israeli helicopter
fired a missile at a Palestinian vehicle traveling in the southern Gaza
Strip, killing one person and wounding three others. 7 Palestinians
were killed in several incidents across the West Bank and Gaza. In Gaza
City gunmen kidnapped a CNN TV producer and released him the next day.
(AP, 9/27/04)(SFC, 9/28/04, p.A8)(WSJ, 9/29/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 27, Lebanon said Ismail
Katib, a local al Qaeda operative captured a week earlier, died “of a
heart attack” while in police custody.
(WSJ, 9/28/04, p.A1)(Econ, 10/2/04, p.47)
2004 Sep 27, In Nigeria militiamen
trying to wrest control of the oil-rich Niger Delta threatened to
launch a "full-scale armed struggle" on petroleum-pumping operations in
Africa's largest crude oil producing nation.
(AP, 9/28/04)(WSJ, 9/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 27, In Thailand officials
announced that a case of avian-flu was possibly caused by
human-to-human transmission.
(SFC, 9/28/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 28, The US Treasury
issued a new $50 bill with touches of red, blue and yellow.
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Sep 28, IBM Corp. claimed
unofficial bragging rights as owner of the world's fastest
supercomputer. IBM said its still-unfinished BlueGene/L System, named
for its ability to model the folding of human proteins, can sustain
speeds of 360 teraflops. A teraflop is 1 trillion calculations per
second. BlueGene/L reached full capacity in 2005
(AP, 9/29/04)(SFC, 9/29/04, p.C1)(SFC, 8/29/05, p.E1)
2004 Sep 28, A 6.0 earthquake
shook central California, cracking pipes, breaking bottles of wine and
knocking pictures from walls. The quake was centered about seven miles
southeast of Parkfield, a town of 37 people known as California's
earthquake capital.
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Sep 28, Geoffrey Beene (77),
the award-winning designer whose simple, classic styles for men and
women put him at the forefront of American fashion, died.
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Sep 28, The Pentagon notified
Congress of plans to build five bases in Afghanistan for the Afghan
National Army at a cost of up to one billion dollars.
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Sep 28, In southern Argentina
a student (15) drew a handgun and opened fire in a classroom, killing 3
classmates and wounding 5 at the Islas Malvinas Middle School No. 2.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep 28, In Iraq kidnappers
released two female Italian aid workers and five other hostages. A $1
million ransom was alleged. In 2005 it was reported that Italy's Red
Cross treated four Iraqi insurgents and hid them from U.S. forces in
exchange for the freedom of two Italian aid workers kidnapped in
Baghdad.
(AP, 9/28/04)(WSJ, 9/30/04, p.A1)(AP, 8/25/05)
2004 Sep 28, Kenya said it will
push for an international ban on trade in lion trophies and skins,
expressing concern that the African lion is "under threat."
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Sep 28, Virgin Group boss
Richard Branson has signed an agreement with Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo to launch a new airline out of the west African
nation that will be majority owned by Nigerian investors.
(AP, 9/28/04)
2004 Sep 28, Saudi Arabia's
highest religious authority issued an edict barring the use of cell
phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading obscenity."
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep 29, A US federal judge
ruled that a section of the Patriot Act, that allowed the search of
phone and Internet records, was unconstitutional.
(WSJ, 9/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 29, In a deal paving the
way for future joint ventures, U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips has won an
auction with a bid of nearly $2 billion US for the Russian government's
7.6 per cent stake in Russia's Lukoil - the world's No. 2 oil company
by reserves.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, Mike Melvill piloted
SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan, climbed to 337,500 feet in the
1st leg of an attempt to capture the $10 million X Prize. The prize
required a 2nd success within 2 weeks.
(SFC, 9/30/04, p.A4)
2004 Sep 29, The asteroid
Toutatis, a few kilometers in diameter, came within 1½
million km. of Earth. It was 1st discovered in 1989.
(Econ, 10/2/04, p.80)
2004 Sep 29, Chile's foreign and
defense ministers stepped down in moves making it easier for them to
seek public office.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, A video surfaced
showing Kenneth Bigley, a British hostage held by Iraqi militants,
pleading for help between the bars of a makeshift cage. Bigley was
later killed.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2004 Sep 29, A large force of
Israeli tanks, armored vehicles and troops pushed into northern Gaza in
an overnight raid aimed at militants who have fired rockets against
nearby Israeli towns. The incursion killed at least three Palestinians.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, Tropical storm Meari
battered Japan, killing five people and injuring 52 and forced
thousands to evacuate to shelters. [see Sep 30]
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, Kyrgyzstan police
arrested a man for attempting the black market sale of 60 small
containers of what was confirmed as plutonium.
(WSJ, 9/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 29, Nigeria reached a
truce with Alhaji Dokubo-Asari, head of an ethnically diverse mix of
fighters, that threatened a war in the Niger Delta.
(WSJ, 9/30/04, p.A1)(Econ, 10/2/04, p.45)
2004 Sep 29, Forty-four North
Korean men, women and children scaled the walls of the Canadian embassy
in Beijing in a likely bid for political asylum.
(AFP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, In northern Norway an
Algerian asylum seeker on a commuter plane attacked both pilots and a
passenger with an ax as the aircraft was landing.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov met with President Fidel Castro and other Cuban
leaders as the countries worked on re-creating more modest versions of
political and economic alliances that unraveled after the Soviet
Union's collapse.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 29, A Yemeni judge
sentenced two men to death and four others to prison terms ranging from
five to 10 years for orchestrating the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS
Cole.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep 30, President Bush and
Sen. John Kerry held their 1st debate. Neither candidate made the kind
of gaffe that will cost him the election, but Kerry fared slightly
better. Kerry charged Americans had been left with "this incredible
mess in Iraq" and Bush said U.S. troops look at the Democratic
challenger and wonder, "How can I follow this guy?"
(AP, 10/1/04)(AP, 9/30/05)
2004 Sep 30, The US House followed
the Senate in decisively rejecting a constitutional amendment banning
gay marriage.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2004 Sep 30, US fiscal year 2004
ended. The CBO soon estimated a budget deficit for the year of about
$415 billion.
(WSJ, 10/7/04, p.A9)
2004 Sep 30, Officials at US 115
int’l. airports and 14 seaports began photographing and electronically
fingerprinting travelers from 27 industrialized nations.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 30, The 14th annual Ig
Nobel prizes were handed out at Harvard. Winners included the late
Frank Smith and his son Donald for their 1977 combover patent; Steven
Stack of Wayne State University and James Gundlach of Auburn University
won for their 1992 report on "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Sep 30, Merck & Co. said
the arthritis drug Vioxx, used by 2 million people around the world,
was being pulled off the market after a study confirmed longstanding
concerns that it raises the risk of heart attack and stroke. Global
Vioxx sales in 2003 had reached $2.5 billion. In 2007 Merck agreed to a
$4.85 million settlement.
(AP, 9/30/04)(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/10/07,
p.A1)
2004 Sep 30, Taliban guerrillas
killed at least 12 Afghan soldiers in the southern province of Zabul.
(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 30, Bulgaria adopted
changes to its criminal justice system to meet EU demands for joining
the group in 2007.
(WSJ, 10/4/04, p.A15)
2004 Sep 30, In Haiti at least 3
people were killed as Port-au-Prince police battled Aristide backers.
Lack of security kept hurricane aid locked in warehouses.
(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 30, Three bombs exploded
at a neighborhood celebration in western Baghdad, killing 35 children
and seven adults as US troops handed out candy at a
government-sponsored celebration. Hours earlier, a suicide car bomb
killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis on the capital's outskirts. Across
Iraq insurgent attacks left 51 dead.
(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/30/05)
2004 Sep 30, The Arab news network
Al-Jazeera showed video of 10 new hostages seized in Iraq by militants.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep 30, Israeli troops pushed
deep into the largest Palestinian refugee camp after a Palestinian
rocket killed two preschoolers in an Israeli border town. 28
Palestinians and three Israelis, including a woman jogging in a Jewish
settlement and two soldiers, were killed in the fighting in the
northern Gaza Strip.
(AP, 9/30/04)(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 30, In Japan the death
toll from tropical storm Meari rose to 19 after searchers found more
victims.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep 30, Two gunmen in
Srinagar shot dead a member of the moderate faction of Kashmir's main
separatist alliance.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep 30, Russia's Cabinet
approved the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep 30, Sudan's foreign
minister pledged to allow more African troops and police to help end
the conflict in Darfur, responding to international demands for action
to protect civilians.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Sep 30, A United Nations body
argued that Africa's debt must be completely written off if the
continent is to have a chance of meeting international goals on
reducing poverty.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Sep, Scientists announced
that they had deciphered the genome of the black cottonwood tree, the
1st arboreal genome to be unraveled.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.70)
2004 Sep, San Francisco’s Cannery
block was renamed Del Monte Square.
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.J1)
2004 Sep, SF Mayor Newsom
announced the launch of free wireless Internet service at Union Square.
He soon planned to extend free service to Civic Center Plaza,
Portsmouth Square and Ferry Plaza.
(SFC, 10/29/04, p.F1)
2004 Sep, A Trader Vic’s
restaurant and bar reopened in SF. A previous version had closed in
1994.
(SFCM, 1/16/05, p.31)
2004 Sep, French auto maker
Renault rolled out the no-frills Logan. The midsize sedan was launched
at a cost of $7,254 (€5,700) in emerging markets like Poland. Western
buyers soon clamored for the car. In June, 2005, Renault began
delivering the roomy, unpretentious five-seater to France, Germany, and
Spain.
(AP, 6/25/05)(WSJ, 10/4/06, p.B18)
2004 Sep, In India the People’s
War Group merged with the Maoist Communist Center to form the CPI
(Maoist) party. Also known as Naxalites, the Maoists were most active
in southern Chhattisgarh state.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.38)
2004 Sep, Construction began on a
620-mile pipeline to take oil from eastern Kazakhstan into China’s
western Xingjian region.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.46)
2004 Sep, Unemployment in Slovakia
fell to 13.1% from 20% in 2002. The average household income was around
$240 per month.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.B2F)(SSFC, 11/21/04, p.B3)
2004 Sep, In Zimbabwe Kenny James
Froud and Simon Buckleywere, British nationals, were killed with an axe
in before the assailants stole goods and about 500 British
pounds. In November Zimbabwean police arrested three suspects in
the murder of the 2 men.
(AP, 11/15/04)
Go to October 2004
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