Timeline 2005 April - June
Return to home
2005 Apr 1,
President Clinton's former national security adviser, Sandy Berger,
pleaded guilty to sneaking classified documents out of the National
Archives; he was later sentenced to two years' probation.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2005 Apr 1, Oil prices closed on
Nymex at a record $57.27 per barrel sending the DJIA down 99 points to
10,404.
(SFC, 4/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 1, It was reported that
scientific evidence from Brookhaven National Laboratory indicated the
creation of a quark-gluon plasma, a form of matter that last existed
moments after the big bang.
(WSJ, 4/1/05, p.B1)
2005 Apr 1, Suspected Taliban
gunmen ambushed a convoy of civilian trucks carrying vehicles to the US
military in southern Afghanistan, killing three drivers. A bomb planted
on a tractor trolley killed two people and injured five in the northern
city of Mazar-i-Sharif while a roadside bomb blast in southern Kandahar
province killed two teenagers.
(AP, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 1, Australia and NATO
signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against international
terrorism, weapons proliferation and other global military threats.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 1, UN officials said a
cholera epidemic has killed at least 4 and infected dozens in a squalid
camp for displaced people in northeastern Congo, and it threatens to
spread across the entire region.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 1, Influential Sunni
scholars encouraged Iraqis to join the country's security forces and
protect the country, issuing an edict that departed sharply from
earlier warnings against participating in the fledgling police and army.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 1, Nepal's royal
government freed a popular former prime minister and 258 other
detainees, the biggest prisoner release since King Gyanendra seized
full power 2 months ago.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 1, In Pakistan
motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead a Shiite scholar and injured two
people including his daughter in a suspected sectarian attack in Lahore.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 1, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul
All-Share Index reached a record 10853, up 28% for the year this far.
(WSJ, 4/4/05, p.C18)
2005 Apr 1, Saudi Arabia beheaded
3 men in public in the northern city of al-Jawf where in 2003 they
killed a deputy governor, a religious court judge and a police
lieutenant.
(AP, 4/3/05)
2005 Apr 1, The Vatican reported
that Pope John Paul II was near death, his breathing shallow and his
heart and kidneys failing.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2005 Apr 1, Zimbabwe opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai dismissed the previous day's elections as
"massive fraud" and accused President Robert Mugabe of treating his
country like "his private property."
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 2, In Florida Terri
Schiavo's body was cremated as disagreements continued between her
husband and her parents, who were unable to have their own independent
expert observe her autopsy.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2005 Apr 2, In southern
Afghanistan Taliban militants stormed a government building in Deshu
district and killed 3 Afghan soldiers in a two-hour gunbattle before
fleeing. A Western security source in Kandahar linked the attack to an
ongoing counter-narcotics drive in Helmand province and said security
was deteriorating there.
(AFP, 4/3/05)(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A9)
2005 Apr 2, An Australian navy
helicopter crashed on the earthquake-devastated Indonesian island of
Nias. Media reported that nine people were killed and two were rescued.
(AP, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 2, Brazilian state police
detained 2 police officers in the Mar 31 shooting spree that left 30
dead in Rio’s north side.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A9)
2005 Apr 2, UN troops killed up to
38 militia fighters during a raid by hundreds of peacekeepers backed by
helicopter gunships in the Ituri district of eastern Congo.
(Reuters, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 2, The Czech information
minister resigned, becoming the 4th Czech government member to do so
this week in fallout over a scandal surrounding PM Stanislav Gross'
luxury apartment.
(AP, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 2, Ecuador's former
president Abdala Bucaram returned home after spending eight years in
exile in Panama, telling thousands that he plans to lead a "revolution
of the poor" modeled after President Hugo Chavez' Venezuela.
(AP, 4/3/05)
2005 Apr 2, In central Iraq a car
bomb exploded, killing five people, including 4 police officers on
patrol. A gunmen killed an education official in Baghdad. A US Marine
was killed in Ramadi. 40-60 insurgents attacked the Abu Ghraib prison
but were repelled by US forces.
(AP, 4/2/05)(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 2, Pope John Paul II,
born in Poland in 1920 as Karol Wojtyla, died in Rome at age 84. He was
elevated to Pope in 1978 and was the first non-Italian pope in 455
years. In November Viking published “John Paul the Great: Remembering a
Spiritual Father” by Peggy Noonan.
(AP, 4/2/05)(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.D8)
2005 Apr 2, President Robert
Mugabe's ruling party won 78 out of 120 contested seats in Zimbabwe's
disputed parliamentary elections, giving him enough seats to press
ahead with plans to change the constitution to strengthen his grip on
power. The Opposition for Democratic Change (MDC) won 35 seats.
(AP, 4/2/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.A12)(Reuters, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 3, Daylight Savings Time
(DST) began on this 1st Sunday in April.
(SFC, 4/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 3, In Arizona Minuteman
anti-immigrant activists began showing up to guard the border against
illegal crossings. Grupo Beta, a Mexican government-sponsored
organization that tries to discourage people from crossing illegally
and aids those stranded in the desert, began patrolling that area along
with state police officers.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 3, Residents in China’s
Zhejiang province clashed with police officers and workers sent in to
quell their protests over pollution from chemical factories. As many as
60 cars were destroyed and some people were reported killed.
(SSFC, 10/2/05,
p.C1)(www.christusrex.org/www1/news/nyt-4-14-05b.html)
2005 Apr 3, Iraqi lawmakers
elected Sunni Arab Hachem Hassani as parliament speaker and Shiite and
Kurdish leaders as his deputies, ending days of deadlock.
(AP, 4/3/05)(WSJ, 4/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 3, In eastern Pakistan
hundreds of Islamic radicals protesting against the participation of
women in a road race hurled stones and bricks at competitors, and
clashed with police, leaving at least 18 people injured.
(AP, 4/3/05)
2005 Apr 3, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas announced plans for a jobs program aimed at militants.
(SFC, 4/12/05, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/6ldnx)
2005 Apr 3, In central Saudi
Arabia a gun battle began that left 7 suspected al-Qaida militants
killed in a shootout with Saudi security forces in ar-Rass.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 3, In southern Thailand 2
near-simultaneous bombs exploded, including one at the airport in Hat
Yai city killing one person and wounding a dozen.
(AFP, 4/3/05)
2005 Apr 3, A day after the death
of Pope John Paul II, the body of the pontiff lay in state. Millions
prayed and wept at services across the globe, as the Vatican prepared
for the ritual-filled funeral and conclave that would choose a
successor.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2005 Apr 4, The Los Angeles Times
and The Wall Street Journal captured two Pulitzer Prizes apiece;
Marilynne Robinson received the fiction award for her novel "Gilead,"
while John Patrick Shanley received the drama Pulitzer for "Doubt."
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A11)(AP, 4/4/06)
2005 Apr 4, The North Carolina
Tarheels won the NCAA men’s basketball championship over Illinois,
75-70.
(WSJ, 4/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 4, The US Supreme Court
ruled that IRAs can’t be seized in bankruptcies.
(WSJ, 4/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 4, The US Treasury Dept.
said all Series EE bonds sold after May 1 will pay interest rates that
are fixed for at least 20 years.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 4, US Coaches Jim Boeheim
and Jim Calhoun were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2005 Apr 4, Oil prices hit an
interday high of $58.28 per barrel.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 4, Chevron announced
plans to purchase Unocal Corp. for $18.4 billion. Chevron’s eventual
acquisition of Unocal included a stake in the Yadana project in
Myanmar, in which Unocal invested in the 1990s along with France’s
Total, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and the petroleum Authority of
Thailand. Total with a 31% stake operated the project. The Yadana
project brought in an estimated $969 million to the government
undercutting international sanctions to isolate the regime.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A1)(SFC, 10/4/07, p.A10)(SFC,
4/29/08, p.D3)
2005 Apr 4, Evergreen Int’l., a
Panamanian shipping line, pleaded guilty to over 2 dozen counts of
illegal dumping around the US. It was ordered to pay a fine of $25
million, one of the largest ever imposed for polluting the ocean.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.B8)
2005 Apr 4, The leaders of
Australia and Indonesia signed a partnership agreement that they said
would lead to new security pact between their countries.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, In Brazil authorities
arrested 11 police suspected of participating in death squad killings
that left 30 people dead in two towns on Rio's poor outskirts.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 4, In Canada Edward
Bronfman, Canadian businessman, died. Bronfman and his brother, Peter,
built Edper Investments Ltd. into a business with interests ranging
from forestry and mining to banking, beer and hockey to form the core
of what is today Brascan Corp.
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.B7)(http://tinyurl.com/6jsag)
2005 Apr 4, China's foreign
ministry called in Japan's ambassador to Beijing to express its
"indignation" at Tokyo's approval of nationalist school history
textbooks.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 4, Shanghai, China's
largest city, enacted a new rule requiring home owners to pay off their
mortgages before selling property, the boldest measure yet in new
efforts to cool surging real estate prices.
(AP, 4/7/05)
2005 Apr 4, About 300 university
students staged a rowdy protest in downtown Cairo calling for Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak to step down and further democratic reforms.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 4, Maoist rebel leaders
in southern India said they had given up on efforts to make peace,
blaming local police for mounting violence since a truce collapsed more
than three months ago.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, A joint US-Iraqi
attack on dozens of insurgents in eastern Diyala province left two
American soldiers and one Iraqi soldier dead. A suicide bomber blew
himself up near the gates of Abu Ghraib prison.
(AP, 4/5/05)(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 4, PM Junichiro Koizumi
proposed privatizing Japan's postal service by 2017, a step that would
create the world's biggest bank out of the mammoth pile of cash
deposited at post offices by conscientious Japanese savers.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, Kyrgyz President Askar
Akayev, who fled the country last month after demonstrators stormed his
offices, signed a resignation agreement.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, A minister said
Malaysia plans to hire 169,000 foreign workers to overcome an acute
labor shortage after a crackdown on illegal migrants.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, Nepal's King
Gyanendra, in his first address to the military since he seized power,
urged the security forces to crush a long-running revolt by Maoist
rebels, accusing the militants of "terrorism."
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, A Palestinian official
immediately denounced Israeli plans to dispose of garbage on
Palestinian land in the West Bank, as violating international law,
saying, "We are not a dumping ground."
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 4, Tens of thousands of
pilgrims paid their final respects to Pope John Paul II after his body
was carried on a crimson platform to St. Peter's Basilica.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2005 Apr 5, The US State Dept.
toughened passport rules and announced that Americans returning from
Canada, Mexico and elsewhere would be required to show their passports
in a program to be fully phased in by Dec 31, 2007.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.D1)
2005 Apr 5, Zalmay Khalilzad, a
former White House official who has served as US ambassador in his
native Afghanistan, was named to take over the post in Iraq.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 5, Crude futures prices
fell as traders took profits from a recent run-up. The EU cut its
economic growth forecast and OPEC began discussions on another output
increase.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Peter Jennings
(b.1938), Canada-born ABC News anchorman revealed, he had lung cancer.
He died in August 2005.
(AP,
4/5/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jennings)
2005 Apr 5, Saul Bellow (89),
Nobel winning novelist, died in Brookline, Mass. His books included
“The Dangling Man” (1944), “Herzog” (1964), and “Ravelstein” (2000).
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A1)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.76)
2005 Apr 5, Dale Messick (b.1906),
creator of the Brenda Starr cartoon series, died. The strip began in
1940 in Long Island.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.B7)
2005 Apr 5, The IMF warned that
the growing market for credit derivatives and other complex securities
could suffer a rapid selloff if conditions turned negative.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.A6)
2005 Apr 5, In Brazil authorities
charged eight policemen with murder for the Mar 31 death-squad killings
that left 30 people dead on the outskirts of Rio.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 5, Amnesty International
said China accounted for the majority of executions reported worldwide
last year, but the true frequency of the death penalty is impossible to
count because many death sentences are carried out secretly.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, China's top industrial
safety official said the number of deaths in China's accident-plagued
coal mines surged by nearly 21% to 1,113 in the first three months of
this year despite a national safety crackdown.
(AP, 4/5/05)(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 5, In Baghdad's southern
Dora neighborhood, an abandoned taxi exploded on an expressway near a
U.S. patrol, killing a US soldier and wounding four others. A US Marine
was killed by an explosion in the sprawling, western province of Anbar.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Rebels opposed to a
bus link joining parts of Kashmir controlled by rivals India and
Pakistan set off bombs and fought gun battles with troops, two days
before the service was due to start.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, Guadalupe Garcia
Escamilla (39), radio reporter, was wounded in the chest, abdomen, legs
and arms during an attack in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo,
across from Laredo, Texas. She died from her wounds April 16.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 5, Saudi police killed 2
more militants, bringing the total to 9, as security forces continued a
tense standoff in ar-Rass. Among those killed were Moroccan Kareem
Altohami al-Mojati and Saudi Saud Homood Obaid al-Otaibi, who were
ranked 4 and 7 respectively on Saudi Arabia's list of 26 most wanted
al-Qaida-linked terror suspects.
(AP, 4/5/05)(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 5, Tens of thousands of
Sudanese marched through the capital Khartoum against a UN resolution
referring war crime suspects to the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, The UN handed
prosecutors from the International Criminal Court thousands of
documents and a list of 51 people to be investigated for alleged war
crimes in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/6/05)(Econ, 4/9/05, p.38)
2005 Apr 6, A joint session of US
Congress listened to Ukrainian Pres. Yushchenko as he called for an end
to trade barriers and a new era in US-Ukraine relations.
(SFC, 4/7/05, p.A8)
2005 Apr 6, Matthew Hale (33), an
avowed white supremacist, was sentenced in Chicago to 40 years in
prison for trying to have a federal judge killed in 2002.
(SFC, 4/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 6, Frank Conroy (69),
novelist and director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, died in Iowa City.
(WSJ, 5/18/05, p.D14)
2005 Apr 6, The World Bank warned
that the global economic recovery has peaked and that the severity of
the coming slowdown depended on how skittish foreign investors are
about buying US-dollar denominated assets.
(WSJ, 4/7/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 6, In southeast
Afghanistan a US military helicopter crashed in bad weather. 15 US
service members and 3 American civilians were killed when their Chinook
helicopter crashed.
(AP, 4/7/05)
2005 Apr 6, A government official
said China plans to build 40 nuclear power plants over the next 15
years, making them the main power source for its booming east coast.
(AP, 4/7/05)
2005 Apr 6, The European
Commission proposed a major boost in EU spending in the 2007-2013
period to create jobs, spur growth and fund programs to make the
25-nation European Union safer and healthier for its 455 million
inhabitants.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, Under pressure to stem
a rising tide of textile imports from China, the European Union's
executive unveiled guidelines for imposing curbs on a country which
already has 20 percent of a $400 billion market.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, Colombia's president
met top Chinese leaders during a visit to boost trade, seek financing
for an oil pipeline and to promote sales of Colombian coal to fuel
China's booming economy.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, Marxist rebels
ambushed a Colombian military convoy on Wednesday, killing 17 soldiers,
the latest in a spate of bloody attacks that have undermined government
claims the rebels are being defeated.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, In India police beat
up hundreds of people protesting against the razing of their homes by
the government in the country's financial hub, Bombay. Authorities
flattened an estimated 90,000 shanties in the city early in January.
The slum clearance drive has left more than 300,000 people homeless.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, The Iraqi parliament
chose Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the country's new interim
president, reaching out to a long-repressed minority and bringing the
country closer to its first democratically elected government in 50
years.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, In Srinagar 2
suspected Islamic militants stormed a building housing passengers on
the eve of a historic bus ride across the divided Himalayan territory
of Kashmir, in an attack targeting the biggest India-Pakistan peace
gesture in decades. Both attackers were killed and at least six people
wounded, but all the bus passengers were safe.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, Ivory Coast's warring
factions agreed to end hostilities, start immediate disarmament and
make plans for new elections.
(AP, 4/6/05)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.39)
2005 Apr 6, Prince Rainier III
(b.1923) of Monaco died at age 81, nearly a month after he was
hospitalized with a lung infection. His fairy-tale marriage to
Hollywood star Grace Kelly brought elegance and glamour to one of
Europe's oldest dynasties.
(AP, 4/6/05)(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A8)
2005 Apr 6, Pakistani police
arrested some 40 faithful of the Muttahida Majlis Amal in Gujranwala as
they protested a mixed sporting event. The MMA, a 6-party religious
alliance, has demanded the ouster of Pres. Musharraf for being pro-West
and secular.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.38)
2005 Apr 6, Security forces killed
one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted Islamic militants. At least 14
militants were killed over the 4 straight days of shootouts with
extremists in different parts of the kingdom.
(AP, 4/6/05)(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 6, South Korea, faced
with ballooning foreign-exchange reserves, announced plans to drive
companies to invest excess dollars abroad rather than at home.
(WSJ, 4/5/05, p.A15)
2005 Apr 6, Security forces
stormed the headquarters of Sudan's main opposition party, arresting
scores of its members and top officials, apparently because of
celebrations marking an anti-government uprising nearly 20 years ago.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 7, Pres. Bush met with
Premier Berlusconi and Pres. Ciampi one day after viewing the pope’s
body at the Vatican.
(SFC, 4/7/05, p.A13)
2005 Apr 7, California state
prosecutors charged Julie Lee, a top volunteer fund-raiser for former
Sec. of State Kevin Shelley, with grand theft and other felonies. In
2008 Lee (62) was found guilty on 5 of 7 charges relating to Shelley’s
2002 campaign, All the charges related to a $500,000 grant for a SF
Sunset District community center that was never built. In state court
Lee pleaded guilty to 9 counts.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.A1)(SFC,
7/17/08, p.B1)
2005 Apr 7, In Delaware police
arrested Allison L. Norman (22) after he killed 2 people and wounded 4
others during a rampage.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 7, Montana voted to ban
smoking in all public places. Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he would sign
the legislation.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 7, Pfizer Inc. agreed to
suspend sales and marketing of its arthritis drug Bextra at the request
of US and EU drug regulators, who said the risks outweigh the drug's
benefits.
(AP, 4/7/05)(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A1)
2005 cApr 7, Riza Malaj (34),
Albania's most wanted man, blew himself up while fishing with dynamite.
He lost both hands, badly hurt his eyes and suffered serious wounds all
over his body while trying to catch trout.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 7, Australia’s PM John
Howard and Malaysia’s Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced plans to
negotiate a free trade agreement but refused to concede ground on key
differences regarding Canberra's role in the region.
(AP, 4/7/05)
2005 Apr 7, A bomb blast rocked a
Cairo bazaar popular with foreigners. An American tourist died the next
day from wounds sustained in a bomb blast raising the death toll to
three. Hassan Rafaat Ahmed Bashandi (17-18), was carrying almost 7
pounds of TNT in a leather bag filled with nails when it exploded
prematurely.
(AP, 4/8/05)(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 7, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a
Shiite, was named Iraq's interim prime minister; Kurdish leader Jalal
Talabani was sworn in as interim president.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2005 Apr 7, The Irish Republican
Army said it will consider an appeal by Sinn Fein party chief Gerry
Adams to renounce violence, a long-elusive goal in Northern Ireland
peacemaking.
(AP, 4/7/05)
2005 Apr 7, Mexico City's leftist
mayor formally declared his intention to run for president next year
even as Congress was to decide whether he should face criminal charges
for allegedly disobeying a court order in a land-use case.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 7, Passengers on historic
bus trips between the Pakistani and Indian portions of Kashmir crossed
a bridge spanning the de facto border, voyages both sides hope will
lead to lasting peace on the subcontinent. Kashmiris walked across the
“Peace Bridge,” on the Line of Control between India and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/7/05)(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 7, President Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe defied a European Union travel ban and arrived in
Rome to join world leaders attending Pope John Paul II's funeral. Italy
has a pact with the Vatican in which it does not interfere with people
transiting the country to see the pope.
(AP, 4/7/05)
2005 Apr 8, In Washington DC
Humayun A. Khan (47) of Islamabad, Pakistan, was indicted for supplying
India and Pakistan with outlawed components for nuclear weapons and
ballistic missile systems.
(SFC, 4/9/05, p.A8)
2005 Apr 8, ChevronTexaco Corp.
said it has awarded a $1.7 billion contract to build Nigeria's third
natural gas-to-liquids plant to a consortium including Halliburton Co.
subsidiary KBR.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, Angola’s death toll
from the Marburg virus, which has no effective treatment, rose to 181
with no signs of abating. Doctors without Borders urged the government
to close the regional hospital at Uige to help contain the spread.
Suspected cases have been identified in 7 provinces.
(SFC, 4/9/05, p.A8)(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.A5)
2005 Apr 8, The Wiggles, 4
Australian performers, topped BRW Magazine's list of Australia's 50
richest performers in 2004 with an estimated gross income of $34.5
million, up from $10.7 million in the previous year.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, The EU’s executive
commission said it had recommended guidelines to member states to boost
the market for low-cost, high-speed Internet access delivered over
electricity power supply lines.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, Kalman Ferenczfalvi
(84), credited with saving the lives of some 2,000 Jews during the
Holocaust, died in Hungary.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 8, Indonesia's Pres.
Yudhoyono was greeted in East Timor on a visit to bolster
reconciliation between Jakarta and the territory it once occupied with
brutal force.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, In Iraq 4 children
collecting trash were killed by a homemade bomb in Baghdad, and masked
gunmen killed an Iraqi Army officer in a restaurant in the southern
city of Basra.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, Fadhil al-Shawky, a
senior al-Sadr official who had arrived from Karbala to take part in a
protest, was gunned down in the New Baghdad neighborhood.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 8, The Gulmarg Gondola
was inaugurated. The Jammu and Kashmir Cable Car Corporation (JKCCC)
made the second phase of the Gulmarg Gondola operational taking it to
the heights of the Afarwat peak.
(SSFC, 2/26/06,
p.E1)(www.natives.co.uk/news/2005/04/13indi.htm)
2005 Apr 8, Lawmakers stripped
Mexico City's mayor of immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for
criminal charges. The shaky legal case against Lopez Obrador alleges
that in 2001, the city government failed for 11 months to obey a court
order to vacate contested land that it had expropriated for the purpose
of building a road.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, Raul Gibb Guerrero,
director of La Opinion of Poza Rica newspaper, was shot to death in an
apparent ambush by drug hit men, the 2nd attack on Mexican journalists
in a week.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 8, Nepalese soldiers
repelled a major rebel assault overnight on one of their bases in the
country's mountainous northwest, killing at least 50 communist
guerrillas during a battle that lasted more than 12 hours. Soldiers
soon recovered more bodies of Maoists killed in the raid, taking the
toll of rebels to 113 in the deadliest clash in the country in five
months.
(AP, 4/8/05)(AFP, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 8, Former Salvadoran
President Francisco Flores, the U.S. government's choice to lead the
Washington-based Organization of American States, withdrew his
candidacy. His withdrawal means that, for the first time in the 57-year
history of the OAS, Washington's candidate will not win.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 8, The World Food Program
said food rations will be cut for more than one million Darfuris who
have fled fighting to makeshift camps in the region because of a
drastic shortage of funds.
(Reuters, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, In northern Zambia a
truck packed with high school students skidded off a mountain road,
killing at least 38 and seriously injuring 50.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 8, World leaders joined
pilgrims and prelates in St. Peter's Square for the funeral of Pope
John Paul II.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2005 Apr 9, Andrea Dworkin (58),
feminist author, died in Washington.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2005 Apr 9, The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast the Bangladesh economy would grow at a
modest 5.2 percent in the 2004-2005 financial year despite floods and
high oil and commodity prices.
(AFP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, Chinese PM Wen Jiabao
arrived in Bangalore on the last leg of a 4 nation South Asia tour for
talks with Indian leaders expected to boost trade and narrow
differences.
(AFP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, Czech PM Stanislav
Gross said he would resign and make way for a new coalition government
because of a scandal surrounding the financing of his luxury apartment.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, Prince Charles and
Camilla Parker Bowles were married in a modest civil ceremony at the
17th century Guildhall, and the second marriage for each was blessed by
the Church of England.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, Haitian police shot
and killed Remissainthe Ravix, a prominent rebel leader, who helped
force former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile last year.
(AP, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 9-2005 Apr 10, In India
at least 58 Hindu pilgrims were drowned overnight during a ritual
bathing when the gates of a dam several kilometers upriver were opened
by officials unaware of the religious festival on the Narmada River in
Madhya Pradesh state.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 9, Tens of thousands of
Shiites marked the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with a protest
against the American military presence at the square where Iraqis and
U.S. troops toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein two years ago.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, Militants in Iraq
kidnapped Malik Mohammed Javed, a Pakistani diplomat, on his way to a
mosque for prayers. the Omar bin Khattab group, a previously unknown
group, claimed responsibility for the abduction.
(AP, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 9, Israeli border troops
shot and killed 3 Palestinian youths in a southern Gaza Strip refugee
camp in violence that ended weeks of calm.
(AP, 4/9/05)(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.A5)
2005 Apr 9, In Nepal 2 Russian
tourists were injured, two Nepali citizens were killed and 13 others
wounded in separate bombings by Maoist rebels.
(Reuters, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, In South Africa the
federal council of the New National Party, the successor to the
National Party that led apartheid, overwhelmingly approved the party's
dissolution at a meeting in Johannesburg. The National Party, which
came to power in 1948, presided over 48 years of systematic and often
brutal oppression of the country's black majority, who were denied the
right to vote or to mix with whites.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9, A day after the
funeral for Pope John Paul II, cardinals began an intense period of
silence and prayer before their conclave to choose the next pope.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2005 Apr 10, Tiger Woods won his
fourth Masters with a spectacular finish of birdies and bogeys.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2005 Apr 10, Steve Vaught (39)
left his San Diego, Ca., home on a walking trip to New York in an
effort to loose some of his 400 lbs. By July he was in Arizona and down
to 350 lbs. A year later he was in Ohio with less than 400 miles to
NYC. His weight was down to 292. He completed his walk at 178th and
Broadway in New York City on May 9, 2006; he had lost approximately 100
lbs.
(SFC, 7/9/05, p.A2)(www.thefatmanwalking.com)
2005 Apr 10, A blizzard hit
eastern Colorado knocking out power and stranding travelers along
highways and at the Denver airport.
(SFC, 4/11/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 10, In Indian Kashmir 2
civilians were killed and 20 others wounded when suspected Muslim
rebels hurled a grenade in a crowded area.
(Reuters, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 10, In Iraq Pres.
Talabani called for extending amnesty to insurgents, but excluded
clemency for al Qaeda and other armed foreign groups.
(SFC, 4/11/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 10, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in Texas to meet with President Bush.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2005 Apr 10, Thousands of Israeli
police encircled Jerusalem's Old City to keep Israeli ultranationalists
out of a disputed holy site and prevent protests by jittery Muslim
worshippers.
(AP, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 10, It was estimated that
Maoist guerrillas controlled two-thirds of Nepal.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.C6)
2005 Apr 10, Nepal agreed to
immediately allow UN monitors into the country to help prevent human
rights abuses.
(AFP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 10, Colonel General
Anatoly Trofimov, a former head of the FSB branch for Moscow and the
Moscow region, was killed when the gunmen opened fire on his jeep in a
northern residential area of Moscow.
(http://tinyurl.com/4vn9s)
2005 Apr 10, Spanish police seized
a cache of explosives in an operation against the armed Basque
separatist group ETA one week before a Basque regional election.
(AP, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 11, During a meeting at
his Texas ranch, President Bush told Israeli PM Ariel Sharon he could
not allow further West Bank settlement growth and said Israeli and
Palestinian doubts about each other were hampering peace prospects.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2005 Apr 11, Chelsea Cooley, the
reigning Miss North Carolina, was crowned Miss USA in the 54th annual
pageant.
(AP, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 11, Officials said UC
Berkeley will lead a 5-year, $19 million project, funded by the NSF, to
prevent a hacker threat from decimating US computer networks.
(SFC, 4/12/05, p.B1)(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.B3)
2005 Apr 11, Some 12,000 Wisconsin
citizens took part in an advisory poll on shooting free-roaming
domestic cats. 57% voted to allow shooting them. An advisory committee
dropped the issue May 13 following an outcry from animal rights groups.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.27)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 11, Andrea Dworkin (58),
feminist writer, died in Washington DC. Her books included “Woman
Hating” (1974).
(SFC, 4/12/05, p.B4)
2005 Apr 11, Maurice Hilleman
(85), US pioneer vaccine research scientist, died of cancer in New
Jersey. He helped develop vaccines for mumps, measles, chicken pox and
other childhood scourges.
(SFC, 4/12/05, p.B5)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.83)
2005 Apr 11, In Afghanistan at
least 12 suspected Taliban rebels were killed and two American soldiers
wounded in a battle that began with a botched rebel attack.
(AP, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 11, In central Argentina
a riot broke out in a crowded prison after a fight between rival gangs,
killing 13 people.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 11, In Bangladesh a
nine-story building toppled when a boiler exploded, killing at least 30
people and trapping 200. The death toll soon rose to 57. Up to another
100 bodies remain under the mountain of bricks and concrete slabs.
(AP, 4/12/05)(Reuters, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 11, Britain imposed a
year-long ban on delivering first-time visas to Nigerians aged 18 to
30, citing a backlog of applications, most of which are rejected.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 11, China reported
rioting in Dongyang after 2 older women were killed in a clash with
police during a pollution protest.
(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 11, In Germany thousands
of public sector workers staged warning strikes aimed at forcing German
states to agree to a deal that would introduce performance-rated pay.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 11, India and China
agreed to form a strategic partnership to end a border dispute and
boost trade in a deal marking a major shift in relations between the
Asian giants.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 11, Indonesia sentenced
Aceh Gov. Abdullah Puteh to 10 years in prison plus a fine ($52,631)
for padding the price of a helicopter, purchased with state funds in
2002, and keeping the extra money for himself.
(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.A18)(Econ, 4/30/05, p.40)
2005 Apr 11, In Iraq people
were killed in Samarra when a bomb went off near a passing US convoy.
Jeffrey Ake (47), a contract worker from LaPorte, Ind., was abducted in
Iraq.
(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.A1)(AP, 4/11/06)
2005 Apr 11, The Kyrgyz parliament
accepted the resignation of ousted Pres. Askar Akayev.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 12, President Bush
visited soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, marking the two-year anniversary
of the end of Saddam Hussein's regime.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2005 Apr 12, Three men with
suspected al-Qaida ties, already in British custody, were charged with
a years-long plot to attack the New York Stock Exchange and other East
Coast financial institutions.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2005 Apr 12, The US Commerce Dept.
said the US trade deficit, aggravated by surging imports of oil and
textiles, soared to an all-time high of $61.04 billion in February.
(AP, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 12, Fifteen traders at
the NY Stock Exchange were indicted for trading for their firms’ won
accounts at the expense of customers.
(WSJ, 4/13/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 12, Wal-Mart said it will
spend $35 million over 10 years to conserve land equal to the total US
footprint of its stores and other facilities.
(WSJ, 4/13/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 12, China said it will
soon begin “trial sales” of hitherto untraded stocks it holds in
publicly traded companies.
(WSJ, 4/13/05, p.C16)
2005 Apr 12, An EU feasibility
study deemed Serbia and Montenegro worthy to start accession talks.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.43)
2005 Apr 12, The Iraqi government
said it captured Fadhil Ibrahim Mahmud Al-Mashadani, a former member of
Saddam Hussein's regime who was believed to be funding the insurgency.
Al-Mashadani was a high-ranking member of Saddam's Baath Party and was
"among the main facilitators of many terrorist attacks. Militants
ambushed a convoy carrying Iraq's deputy interior minister, killing a
bodyguard and wounding the deputy's son and two other people.
(AP, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 12, Donors exceeded
Sudan's aid requests by pledging $4.5 billion to help it recover from
Africa's longest civil war amid criticism of Khartoum for failing to
halt atrocities in Darfur.
(Reuters, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 12, Zimbabwe's main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lodged a first court
challenge against results from March 31 polls it says were rigged.
(Reuters, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 13, Eric Rudolph pleaded
guilty to carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics
and three other attacks in back-to-back court appearances in
Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2005 Apr 13, US Gymnast Paul Hamm
received the 75th Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2005 Apr 13, National Geographic
and IBM Corp. announced a project to collect DNA samples from people
around the globe to trace the routes of human migration.
(SFC, 4/13/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 13, Johnie Johnson
(b.1924), pianist who worked with Chuck Berry, died in St. Louis.
Johnson had initially hired Berry as a replacement in his
rhythm-and-blues trio.
(SFC, 4/16/05, p.B4)
2005 Apr 13, Algerian Islamic
militants killed five people, including three security force members,
and injured eight others in attacks ahead of an expected general
amnesty.
(Reuters, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 13, Australia’s Mining
giant BHP Billiton said it had won a 71.5% rise in iron ore prices with
a number of its steel customers.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, Top border officials
of India and Bangladesh meet in Dhaka to discuss thorny issues
including New Delhi's plan to fence off the frontier and Dhaka's claim
that India harbors Bangladeshi militants.
(Reuters, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 13, Britain and India
agreed to more than double the number of flights between the two
nations, opening up dozens of lucrative new routes for airlines.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, In England Kamel
Bourgass (31) of Algeria, captured in Jan 2003, was sentenced to 17
years in jail for planning attacks using ricin, cyanide and other
poisons. He is already serving a life sentence for the murder of
policeman Stephen Oake. 8 others arrested in the case were acquitted or
not brought to trial.
(AP, 4/14/05)(SFC, 4/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 13, The European
Parliament approved the entry of Bulgaria and Romania into the EU in
2007, but it said both countries still need to carry out necessary
reforms.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, Al-Jazeera showed
video of Jeffrey Ake, who the US Embassy said appeared to be the
American kidnapped earlier this week in Baghdad. A bomb exploded while
being defused near a Kirkuk pipeline and 11 members of the Facilities
Protection Service were killed. A suicide bomber killed 5 Iraqis when
he drove his car into a US convoy down Baghdad’s airport road. 4 US
contract workers were injured.
(AP, 4/13/05)(SFC, 4/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 13, Italian regulator
Consob said it has approved a bid by Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya
Argentaria SA for Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, in what would
become the euro zone's largest cross-border banking takeover.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 13, Japan and India took
a first step to a possible free trade deal with an agreement to spend a
year looking at the effects of a pact on the two major Asian economies.
(AFP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 13, Lebanon’s pro-Syrian
premier quit for the 2nd time in 6 weeks.
(WSJ, 4/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 13, In Nepal businesses
reopened and traffic resumed on major highways after an 11-day general
strike called by communist rebels that crippled life across the
kingdom. The student wing of Maoist rebels demanded all private schools
shut down indefinitely.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, Norway’s Statoil ASA
announced oil exploration drilling from the offshore rig Eirik Raude
has been shut down after its 3rd spill into ecologically fragile Arctic
waters in just over two months.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, The UN approved a
global treaty aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism by making it a
crime for would-be terrorists to possess or threaten to use nuclear
material.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, Zimbabwe state radio
reported President Robert Mugabe's government has acquired six fighter
jets "to deal with any challenges." The aircraft appeared to be the K-8
advanced jet trainer, a Chinese copy of the British Aerospace BAE
"Hawk." Zimbabwe's opposition released a dossier to back claims that
last month's elections were rigged to hand victory to President Robert
Mugabe's ruling party.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 14, Pres. Bush threw out
the 1st pitch at RFK Stadium as the Nationals brought baseball back to
the capital. Washington, DC, had last hosted a major-league game in
September, 1971.
(WSJ, 4/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 14, The US House of
Representatives voted 302-126 to pass legislation that will make it
tougher for consumers to avoid repaying debt by filing for bankruptcy.
It cleared the Senate last month and now goes to the White House. Pres.
Bush has said he's eager to sign it.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, The US indicted 3
businessmen in the UN oil-for-food inquiry for paying kickbacks to Iraq
during Saddam Hussein rule.
(WSJ, 4/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 14, A US Federal Court
ruled in favor of Neutraceutical Corp. and struck down the 2004 ban on
supplements containing ephedra, a once-popular weight-loss aid.
(SFC, 4/15/05, p.A6)
2005 Apr 14, The DJIA dropped
125.18 to close at 10,278.75, the worst close since Nov 3, 2004. Oil
futures closed at $51.13. The US dollar strengthened against other
currencies.
(SFC, 4/15/05, p.C3)
2005 Apr 14, The Oregon Supreme
Court nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued in 2004 to
same-sex couples in Portland’s Multnomah County.
(SFC, 4/15/05, p.A6)
2005 Apr 14, Amanda Vanstone,
Australia’s immigration minister, said Australia would take in 140,000
immigrants in 2005-06, the biggest number for 35 years.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.40)
2005 Apr 14, Australian
authorities seized some 5 million ecstasy tablets and arrested 4 men in
what they said was the biggest ever haul of the party drug anywhere in
the world.
(AFP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 14, Canada cut its
economic growth forecast as the Canadian dollar’s strength put a drag
on exports. Canadian currency had risen 25% against the US dollar since
2003.
(WSJ, 4/15/05, p.A8)
2005 Apr 14, Ethiopia police said
authorities have seized more than 1,100 pounds of illegal ivory,
stuffed animals and ostrich eggs that were destined for collectors
abroad.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, In Haiti a Filipino
soldier was killed as U.N. forces pushed into a volatile slum
controlled by heavily armed gangs loyal to deposed President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
(AP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 14, India and the United
States signed an "Open Skies" aviation agreement allowing each other's
carriers to operate as many flights as they want between the two
countries.
(AFP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, India freed 24
Pakistani prisoners in an apparent response to similar gestures by
Islamabad ahead of President Pervez Musharraf's visit to New Delhi.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, In Iraq 2 car bombs
tore through a crowded street in front of the Interior Ministry in
central Baghdad, killing 18 people and wounding three dozen others.
Seven gunmen in northern Iraq fired on a police station just south of
Kirkuk, killing 5 police officers and one civilian. A suicide bomber
blew himself up near an Iraqi police checkpoint in Mahawil, 50 miles
south of Baghdad, killing 4 policemen and wounding 6 others.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, Israeli troops shot
and killed a Palestinian militant in the West Bank.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, In Mexico 3 would-be
casino developers were killed outside a popular Monterrey restaurant.
The murders delayed a congressional vote to amend a gambling ban and
sparked calls for stricter controls on the few places Mexicans are
allowed to place bets.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 14, Nepal’s King
Gyanendra said he was ordering municipal polls to be held by mid-April
2006 in view of an "improving law and order situation" since he seized
power. Opposition parties dismissed the king's pledge as a sham and
have urged a boycott of the municipal polls.
(AP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 14, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas on ordered reforms of his security services, a key
Israeli and U.S. condition for renewing peace negotiations.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, It was reported that
the bird flu virus was found in some 70% of a random sample of ducks
and geese in Vietnam’s southern Mekong Delta, and in 21% of sampled
chickens.
(WSJ, 4/14/05, p.A14)
2005 Apr 15, The DJIA dropped 191
to close at 10,087, the worst close since May 19, 2003.
(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 15, It was reported that
paleontologists have identified a new dinosaur species, an early
relative of Tyrannosaurus rex that probably roamed what is now the
Southeastern US about 77 million years ago. The scientists made the
identification from hundreds of fossilized fragments collected mostly
in Montgomery County, Ala., and southwestern Georgia. They named the
new dinosaur Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis, which means "the
Appalachian lizard from Montgomery County." The 25-foot-long creature
roamed the earth 10 million years before T. rex and was smaller and
more primitive, with a narrower snout.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 15, Belize
Telecommunications Limited (BTL) suffered an apparent act of sabotage
which left the entire country without any phone, Internet or fax
services. Unfortunately, BTL was unable to restore its services for the
entire weekend, leaving Belize completely stranded.
(www.sanpedrosun.net/old/05-161.html)(Econ, 4/30/05,
p.34)
2005 Apr 15, Administrators for
Britain’s MG Rover Group said they intend to break up the company,
laying off 5,000 workers, in a bid to find buyers for different units
after the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. made clear it was not
interested in a joint venture.
(AP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 15, Ecuador’s Pres. Lucio
Gutierrez declared a state of emergency in Quito and dissolved the
Supreme Court, saying the unpopular judges were the cause of three days
of pot-banging street protests.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 15, In France a fire
swept through a Paris hotel used by the city to house needy African
families. 24 people were killed, half of them children.
(AP, 4/16/05)(AP, 4/15/06)
2005 Apr 15, Sunni militants
seized a 35-50 Shiite hostages in the central Iraqi town of Madain and
threatened to kill them unless all Shiites leave.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 15, Italy’s government
teetered near collapse after 2 coalition parties said they would
withdraw from PM Berlusconi’s government.
(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A7)
2005 Apr 15, Communist rebels in
southern Nepal dragged at least 10 males from their homes, including a
14-year-old boy, and gunned them down for refusing to take up arms with
the guerrilla movement.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 15, Police in Peru seized
more than a ton of cocaine destined for the US as it was being packed
into a shipment of canned fish at the Colra Fish Factory in Tacna.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 15, Peruvian authorities
said 3 poachers have been charged with killing 7 people during a
five-year crime spree in which they allegedly slaughtered 2,500 vicuna,
a protected Andean animal prized for its wool.
(AP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 15, A Russian Soyuz-FG
rocket lifted off at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying 3 men to the int’l.
space station.
(SFC, 4/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 15, In Sri Lanka at least
five renegade Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in a fresh bout of
violence in the restive northeast.
(Reuters, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 15, Turkish troops backed
by attack helicopters killed 21 Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border
overnight in the biggest clash since the rebels declared a unilateral
truce more than five years ago. 3 Turkish soldiers and a village
guardsman also were killed in the clash 25 miles from the Iraq border
between the town of Pervari in Siirt province and Eruh in Sirnak
province.
(AP, 4/15/05)
2005 Apr 16, Authorities in
Hillsborough County, Fla., found the body of missing 13-year-old Sarah
Michelle Lunde. A suspect, David Lee Onstott, was charged with her
murder on April 17.
(AP, 4/16/06)(SSFC, 4/17/05, p.A13)
2005 Apr 16, It was reported that
Laszlo Kish and Maria King of Texas A&M had devised a new technique
for identifying small quantities of bacteria in minutes using a
combination of virology and microelectronics.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.70)
2005 Apr 16, A Bangladesh court
sentenced 22 people to death and six others to life in jail for killing
an opposition lawmaker on May 7, 2004. 18 of the accused were tried and
sentenced in absentia.
(Reuters, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, The Brazilian
government created "Raposa Serra do Sol" reserve in Roraima state,
which borders Venezuela and Guyana. The 1.7-million-hectare
(4.2-million-acre) reserve was set aside for the 15,000 people of the
Macuxi, Taurepang, Wapixana and Ingariko indigenous populations that
had demanded the territory for 30 years.
(AFP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 16, Kay Walsh (b.1911),
Actress and filmstar died in London.
(AP, 4/16/06)(www.leninimports.com/kay_walsh.html)
2005 Apr 16, Protesters in
Shanghai threw stones and broke windows at Japan's consulate and
Japanese restaurants as tens of thousands of people defied government
warnings and staged demonstrations against Tokyo's bid for a permanent
UN Security Council seat.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, Ecuador’s Pres. Lucio
Gutierrez revoked the one-day-old state of emergency as thousands of
people took to Quito's streets in defiance of the ban on demonstrations.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 16, A Finnish mediator
said Aceh rebels and Indonesian government delegates have made a
"breakthrough" at peace talks on the tsunami-ravaged province, and will
continue negotiations in Finland May 26-31.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, Indian troops shot
dead 7 Muslim rebels, including 2 commanders of Kashmir's main rebel
group as Pakistani Pres. Pervez Musharraf visited India for the first
time in 4 years.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, Bombings around Iraq
killed 24 people. 11 detainees upset about their treatment by US
captors escaped from the military's largest detention center in Iraq by
climbing through a hole in the fence. Armed militants tried to force
their way into Camp Blue Diamond near Ramadi and some suffered
casualties.
(AP, 4/16/05)(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 16, Marla Ruzicka (28),
California-based founder of CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims of
Conflict), died in a car bombing in Iraq, where she had been on and off
since the March 2003 invasion began, conducting door-to-door surveys to
determine the number of civilian casualties.
(AP, 4/18/05)(SFC, 4/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 16, Lebanon's president
Emile Lahoud named moderate pro-Syrian lawmaker Najib Mikati (49) as
prime minister.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, Pakistan's Pres. Gen.
Pervez Musharraf arrived in India to discuss the Kashmir dispute in an
effort to ease five decades of hostility.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, Pakistani authorities
seized nearly two tons of morphine worth millions of dollars from a
remote southwestern village near the Afghan border.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 16, Caribbean leaders in
Trinidad inaugurated a court that will serve as the highest judicial
body for much of the region, a step toward shedding their 170-year-old
dependence on Britain's Privy Council that many have resented as a
vestige of colonialism.
(AP, 4/16/05)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.34)
2005 Apr 16, Cardinals meeting at
the Vatican destroyed the late Pope John Paul II's ring and lead seal
to formally end his reign.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2005 Apr 16, Yemen's PM Bajammal
said underground religious schools that promote extremist forms of
Islam are drawing in many young students across the country. He
promised to eliminate the underground schools, which he estimated
numbered about 4,000 and drew about 330,000 students.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 17, In Washington concern
that rising oil prices could harm the global economy dominated weekend
meetings of world finance ministers (G-7) and central bankers.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, Registered sex
offender David Lee Onstott was charged with first-degree murder in the
death of Sarah Michelle Lunde, the 13-year-old Florida girl whose body
had been found the day before.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2005 Apr 17, In Colombia FARC
rebels with homemade rockets attacked Toribio, the same town they
bombarded three days earlier, killing at least one police officer.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 17, Millions of Cubans
elected municipal assemblies across the communist-run island Sunday in
local elections Pres. Castro defended as "the most democratic in the
world."
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, Mehmet Ali Talat (53)
captured 56% of the vote for the presidency of the breakaway Turkish
Cypriot state, replacing its 81-year-old founder, Rauf Denktash. Talat
pledged to work to reunite this divided Mediterranean island and
restart peace talks with Greek Cypriots following a resounding win he
labeled "a silent revolution."
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 17, Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak and Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi discussed joint projects to
allow their respective countries to benefit from the waters of the Nile
River.
(AFP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, Egypt's Interior
Ministry identified 4 men it accused of training a bomber who killed
three tourists and himself in a Cairo bazaar.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, The leaders of India
and Pakistan agreed to work to roll back their military deployments on
a Himalayan glacier that is claimed by both countries and believed to
be the world's highest battlefield, concluding the first day of talks
intended to push forward a 15-month-old peace process.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, In Indonesia
authorities arrested 9 young Australians, the Bali Nine, for trying to
smuggle 8 kilograms of heroin to Australia. In Feb, 2006, 2 of the 9
were sentenced to death and the rest to life in prison. An appeal by 4
sentenced to prison led to a change in their sentences to death. In
2008 3 of the convicted Australians had their death sentences reduced
to life imprisonment.
(Econ, 9/16/06,
p.52)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali_Nine)(AFP, 3/6/08)
2005 Apr 17, Iraqi security forces
raided a town in central Iraq where Sunni militants were holding dozens
of Shiite Muslims hostage and threatening to kill them. 3 American
soldiers were killed and 7 service members wounded overnight when
insurgents fired mortar rounds at a US Marine base near Ramadi.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, Israel's Cabinet
unanimously approved the release of nine Jordanian prisoners.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, Israeli defense
industry executives said the US has frozen Israel out of the
development of a prestigious jet fighter as punishment for its military
cooperation with China.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, Armed Palestinian
militants shut down a government building in the West Bank and
threatened to kill members of the Palestinian parliament, demanding the
Palestinian Authority provide jobs to former prisoners and to relatives
of people killed in fighting.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 17, In northern Spain the
Basque region's ruling nationalists faced a test of their drive to
secure more autonomy as elections got under way. The Basque Nationalist
Party (PNV), led by Juan Jose Ibarretxe, lost 4 seats.
(AP, 4/17/05)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.51)
2005 Apr 17, A Swiss tourist bus
carrying 27 people plunged into an Alpine ravine near the Great St.
Bernard Pass, and at least 100 rescuers descended to the wreck on ropes
to try to aid the injured. 12 people were killed.
(AP, 4/17/05)(AP, 4/17/06)
2005 Apr 18, The Boston Marathon
was won by Hailu Negusie of Ethiopia, 2:11:45; Catherine Ndereba of
Kenya became the first woman to win a fourth Boston Marathon with a
time of 2:25:13.
(WSJ, 4/19/05, p.A1)(AP, 4/18/06)
2005 Apr 18, Lance Armstrong
announced he was retiring after the upcoming Tour de France.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2005 Apr 18, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. Recipients included
Isidro Baldenegro of Mexico (forest protection), Rev. Jose Andres
Tamayo Cortes of Honduras (unregulated logging), Kaisha Atakhanova of
Kazakhstan (fighting the import of nuclear waste), Corneille E.N.
Ewango of Congo (animal and plant protection), Stephanie Daniel Roth of
Romania (for fighting an open-cast gold mine), and Chavannes
Jean-Baptiste of Haiti (for teaching sustainable agriculture).
(SFC, 4/18/05, p.B2)
2005 Apr 18, Adobe Systems
announced a $3.1 billion all stock merger with Macromedia.
(SFC, 4/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 18, Australia and China
agreed to start talks on a free trade pact. Visiting PM John Howard
also announcing Canberra's recognition of China as free market economy.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to widen the arms embargo in Congo as part of
stepped-up efforts to bring peace to the African country's volatile
east.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, In Ecuador
anti-government protests spread from Quito as a river of demonstrators
poured into the streets of Guayaquil to demand that President Lucio
Gutierrez step down.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, India and Pakistan
agreed to open up the militarized frontier dividing Kashmir, capping a
landmark visit to New Delhi by President Pervez Musharraf.
(Reuters, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, Iran suspended the
nationwide operations of Arab TV broadcaster Al-Jazeera, accusing it of
inflaming violent protests by the Arab minority in its southwest.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, Iraqi security
forces, backed by U.S. military, swept into Madain, a town south of
Baghdad, but found no hostages despite reports that Sunni militants had
kidnapped as many as 100 Shiites there.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, Italy's Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi agreed a deal with rebel ministers of the
Christian Democrat UDC party to form a new centre-right government and
avoid snap elections.
(AFP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, Lebanese lawmaker
Bassel Fleihan (41), a former economy minister, died of wounds received
2 months ago in a bombing that killed his close friend, former PM Rafik
Hariri.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, Madagascar’s Pres.
Ravalomanana signed a $110 million, 4-year aid package in Washington,
designed to fix problems with corruption and local bank loans. The
grant was from the Millennium Challenge Account, unveiled by Pres. Bush
in 2002 to fund honest governments pursuing sound economic policies
(WSJ, 4/18/05, p.A1)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.75)
2005 Apr 19, The US government
sacked its one-size-fits-all food pyramid in favor of a dozen different
guides geared to individual nutritional needs and lifestyles.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, The US Mint said it
will produce its 1st 24-karat gold coin in 2006.
(WSJ, 4/20/05, p.D2)
2005 Apr 19, General Motors
reported a loss of $1.1 billion for the 3 months ending in March, its
worst quarterly performance since 1992.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.71)
2005 Apr 19, US forces killed more
than 12 insurgents in a clash in southeastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 19, Britain's GW
Pharmaceuticals announced its multiple sclerosis (MS) pain relief drug
Sativex, the world's first containing cannabis, has been approved for
use in Canada.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, Canada released a
federal policy statement that said it will use more soldiers, more
foreign aid and more diplomats to carve its own niche in a
fast-changing world.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, A car exploded in the
southern Russian region of Dagestan, killing two people in what
investigators believe was a botched attempt to kill a local prosecutor.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, Hours after Ecuador's
embattled President Lucio Gutierrez said he would not resign, at least
30,000 people tried to march to the presidential palace in the
capital's largest demonstration yet against the country's leadership,
demanding that Gutierrez resign.
(AP, 4/20/05)
2005 Apr 19, Ethiopians welcomed
the return of the first piece of a giant, 1,700-year-old granite
obelisk that was looted from the African country 68 years ago by
Italian troops.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, India and its eastern
neighbor Bangladesh traded blame over a weekend border clash that
killed an Indian military officer and two Bangladeshi villagers.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, A suicide car bomb
outside an Iraqi army recruitment center and other attacks killed a
dozen people and wounded more than 50.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, In Kuwait lawmakers
agreed to permit women to vote and run in local council elections,
although the measure requires more legislative action before it becomes
law.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, Nepali soldiers
killed 22 Maoist guerrillas as the royalist government brushed aside a
rebel prediction of a victory in the nine-year civil war.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, Dutch authorities
arrested a Chechen citizen in the Netherlands in connection with the
November 2 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. A 2nd suspect was
arrested May 18 in Tours, France. Both were believed to have ties to a
group of Islamic fundamentalists which prosecutors dubbed the Hofstad
network.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 Apr 19, A Spanish court
convicted Adolfo Scilingo (58), a former Argentine naval officer, of
crimes against humanity for throwing 30 naked and drugged prisoners
from planes during his country's "dirty war" more than two decades ago.
It sentenced him to 640 years in prison. During the trial, Scilingo
insisted he fabricated the taped testimony to trigger an investigation
into Argentina's "dirty war."
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger (78) of Germany became Pope Benedict XVI. As the 265th pope
he promised to enforce strictly conservative policies for the world's
Roman Catholics. In Germany Ratzinger's latest book, "Werte in Zeiten
des Umbruchs" (Values in Times of Upheaval), was already sold out after
its release a week ago. Ratzinger viewed secularism and moral
relativism as the chief adversaries of God and the church. After
Ratzinger was elected pope, the Holy See's No. 2 official, Cardinal
Angelo Sodano, signed a decree assigning "in perpetuity and worldwide"
the copyrights of all Benedict's works, including the hundreds he wrote
before becoming pope, to the Vatican's publishing house, Libreria
Editrice Vaticana (LEV).
(AP, 4/19/05)(WSJ, 4/20/05, p.A1)(AP, 2/19/06)
2005 Apr 20, Pres. Bush signed new
legislation to make individual bankruptcy more difficult.
(SFC, 4/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 20, The US government
said consumer prices jumped 0.6 percent in March, the biggest inflation
surge in 5 months, as the costs of energy, clothing and airline fares
all rose sharply. The DJIA fell 115.5 to 10,012.36.
(AP, 4/20/05)(SFC, 4/21/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 20, The NYSE, in a move
toward computerized trading, agreed to buy Archipelago Holdings of
Chicago in a reverse merger. The new company, to be called NYSE Group
was valued at $3.5 billion.
(WSJ, 4/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 20, Gov. Jodi Rell signed
legislation making Connecticut the 2nd state after Vermont to offer
civil unions to gay couples.
(SFC, 4/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 20, An air tanker
Lockheed P-3 Orion crashed in California’s Lassen National Forest
killing 3 crew members.
(SFC, 4/22/05, p.B3)
2005 Apr 20, In Afghanistan 2
former Taliban leaders joined a reconciliation drive that American
commanders hope will undermine a three-year-old insurgency.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 20, Ecuador’s 100-member
Congress voted 60 to 0 to remove President Lucio Gutierrez from office
amid street protests calling for his ouster for abuse of power and
misrule. Brazil granted asylum to Gutierrez. Alfredo Palacio, a heart
surgeon and Ecuador's vice president, assumed the presidency.
(SFC, 4/21/05, p.A3)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.37)
2005 Apr 20, Pernod, French
spirits producer, announced the $14 billion purchase of Britain’s
Allied Domecq.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.62)
2005 Apr 20, Haiti's former
national police commander agreed to plead guilty to two of eight counts
in a federal indictment accusing him of smuggling drugs and laundering
money.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 20, Iraq’s President
Jalal Talabani said the bodies of more than 50 people have been
recovered from the Tigris River and have been identified. The bodies
were believed to have been those of hostages seized in the Madain
(Madaen) region earlier this month.
(AP, 4/20/05)(Econ, 5/7/05, p.19)
2005 Apr 20, Italian Premier
Silvio Berlusconi said he would step down but pledged to form a new
government, an attempt to strengthen a coalition left weakened by
electoral defeat and concerns over a slow economy.
(AP, 4/20/05)
2005 Apr 20, Mexican prosecutors
charged Mexico City's popular leftist mayor with abuse of authority in
a case that could knock him out of the 2006 presidential race.
(AP, 4/21/05)(WSJ, 4/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 20, Oxfam reported that
Vietnam’s Red River was at its lowest point for 100 years, and if the
drought persisted beyond May then significant numbers of people will
need food aid.
(www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/emergencies/country/eastasia/)
2005 Apr 20, In his first Mass as
pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI pledged to work for unity among Christians
and to seek an open and sincere dialogue'' with other faiths.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2005 Apr 21, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar
was convicted by a military jury at Fort Bragg, N.C., of premeditated
murder and attempted murder in an attack that killed two of his
comrades and wounded 14 others in Kuwait.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2005 Apr 21, Anna Ayala, the woman
who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili on Mar 22
in San Jose, Ca., was arrested at her home in Las Vegas.
(AP, 4/22/05)(SFC, 4/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 21, US and Afghan
soldiers backed by warplanes and artillery battled suspected insurgents
in clashes near the border with Pakistan. 4 fighters and 1 Afghan
soldier were killed.
(AP, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 21, Police in Melbourne
seized 18 million dollars (14 million US) worth of the party drug
ecstasy a week after announcing a world-record haul of the substance.
(AFP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 21, Canada’s PM Paul
Martin apologized to the nation for a corruption scandal that has
shaken his Liberal Party, delivering a rare televised address aimed at
rescuing his minority government.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 21, Tradeable shares on
China’s 2 stock exchanges were reportedly worth $150 billion, about the
same as Denmark’s stock exchange.
(WSJ, 4/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 21, In China a chemical
plant blast in Chongqing left 19 people missing.
(WSJ, 4/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 21, Zhang Chunqiao (88),
a member of The Gang of Four, died. Beginning around 1965 the Gang of
Four were able to manipulate the Chinese media and youth to leverage
their positions over party moderates, such as Deng Xiaoping. Mao’s
death in 1976 ended their influence and led to their imprisonment and
trial in 1980-81 for their role in the Cultural Revolution, during
which some 34,800 people died.
(SFC, 5/11/05, p.B7)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.90)
2005 Apr 21, Haiti's Supreme Court
overturned the convictions of 38 army and paramilitary leaders who were
sentenced for their roles in a mass slaying a decade ago. The men had
been sentenced in 2000 in connection with a 1994 raid on the seaside
shantytown of Raboteau.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 Apr 21, It was reported that
the US has quietly given thousands of guns to the Haitian National
Police and was moving to approve the sale of thousands more despite a
14-year arms embargo and allegations the force is corrupt, brutal and
responsible for unjustified killings.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 21, In western India a
passenger train departing from a pilgrimage site slammed into a parked
cargo train, throwing cars off the tracks and killing at least 24
people.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 21, A commercial
helicopter contracted by the US Defense Department was shot down by
missile fire north of Baghdad. 11 people aboard, including 6 American
bodyguards, were killed. A roadside bomb exploded on the highway
leading to Baghdad's airport morning, heavily damaging 3 SUVs carrying
civilians. Police said 2 foreigners were killed and 3 others wounded.
(WSJ, 4/22/05, p.A1)(AP, 4/21/06)
2005 Apr 21, Saudi authorities
extended their limited experiment in democracy to the holiest cities of
Islam with elections for some local council seats in Mecca and Medina,
in the third and final round of the kingdom's first nationwide vote.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 21, Islamic militants
clashed with Saudi security forces in Islam's holiest city of Mecca and
nearby Jiddah, killing two militants and two policemen.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 21, In western Turkey a
gas explosion caused a coal mine to collapse, killing at least 17
workers deep underground.
(AP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 21, Health officials said
a polio outbreak in Yemen may be due to pilgrims returning from Mecca.
(AP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 21, In Vietnam 31 war
veterans including 14 women and a driver were killed in a bus crash
while en route to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the end of the
Vietnam War.
(AP, 4/21/05)(WSJ, 4/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 21, In Zambia at least 51
people were killed in a blast at a Chinese-owned mining-explosives
factory in Chambisi.
(WSJ, 4/22/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/2/07, p.A1)
2005 Apr 22, President Bush named
Gen. Peter Pace to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2005 Apr 22, Zacarias Moussaoui
pleaded guilty for participating in a 2001 broad conspiracy by al Qaeda
to fly planes into American buildings.
(SFC, 4/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 22, The US Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. agreed to take over the underfunded pension
plans of United Airlines and assume some $6.6 billion in liabilities.
(SFC, 4/23/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 22, The Nasdaq Stock
Market said it will buy Instinet Group’s electronic trading network for
$934.5 million.
(SFC, 4/23/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 22, Daron Acemoglu (37)
of MIT, Turkish-born economist, won the John Bates Clark medal for his
work on key factors in a nation’s economic destiny.
(WSJ, 4/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 22, Elwood Norris,
inventor of a HyperSonic Sound system, received the $500,000 annual
Lemelson-MIT Prize. His system worked by sending a focused beam of
sound above the range of human hearing. When it lands on you, it seems
like sound is coming from inside your head.
(AP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 22, Eduardo Paolozzi
(b.1924), sculptor and printmaker, died. In 1952 he helped form an
association of British artists called The Independent Group. Paolozzi,
born in Scotland of Italian parents, became known as a key contributor
to British pop art.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.A23)(Econ, 4/30/05, p.82)
2005 Apr 22, In Colombia FARC
guerrillas hit the village of Jambalo with mortars and gunfire in
combat that began overnight and ended at dawn. Clashes have spread
across a 14-mile-long strip along the western face of the Central
Cordillera of the Andes.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 22, Indian Foreign
Minister Natwar Singh met Nepal's King Gyanendra on the fringes of an
international summit in Jakarta and pushed for a restoration of
democracy.
(AFP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 22, A car bomb exploded
during prayers at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing eight people and
wounding 20. A militant group claimed responsibility for shooting down
a Russian-made helicopter carrying 11 civilians and released a video
purportedly showing insurgents shooting the crash's lone survivor.
(AP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 22, Al Jazeera television
reported that insurgents gave Romania 4 days to withdraw its
troops from Iraq in order to save the lives of 3 journalists kidnapped
last month.
(Reuters, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 22, Japan's PM Koizumi
apologized for his country's World War II aggression in Asia in a bid
to defuse tensions with regional rival China, but a Chinese diplomat
dismissed the remarks, saying "actions are more important" than words.
(AP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 22, The US Embassy in
Caracas announced that President Hugo Chavez's government has
unexpectedly ended a military exchange program with US.
(AP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 23, Larry Lasater (35),
Pittsburg, Ca., police officer, was shot while chasing 2 robbery
suspects. Doctors declared him brain dead the next day. In 2007
Alexander Hamilton (20) and Andrew Moffett (20) were convicted of
murder and robbery and a jury said Hamilton should be executed. Moffett
was 17 at the time and not eligible for the death penalty. In 2007
Hamilton was sentenced to death by lethal injection. In 2008 Moffet was
sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 4/26/05, p.B1)(SFC, 8/14/07, p.B3)(SFC,
9/13/07, p.B3)(SFC, 7/25/08, p.B9)
2005 Apr 23, Two Bangladeshi
farmers were shot dead by Indian border forces in the latest in a spate
of frontier clashes.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, British actor Sir
John Mills (97) died at his home in Denham. His over 100 films included
“Great Expectations” (1946) and “Ryan’s Daughter” (1970).
(SSFC, 4/24/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 23, The government of the
Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus resigned, making way for PM
Mehmet Ali Talat to take over as president following his election win.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, The leaders of China
and Japan met in an effort to end a dispute over Japan's World War II
aggression that has badly damaged relations between them. They met on
the sidelines of a summit for Asian and African leaders in Jakarta.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, Indian troops killed
four Islamic rebel infiltrators who sneaked across the heavily
fortified frontier dividing Indian and Pakistan held Kashmir.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, In Indonesia leaders
from Asia and Africa struck what they called a historic deal to build
economic and political links.
(Reuters, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, Iraqi insurgents
struck across the country with bomb attacks, killing at least 16
people, including an American soldier. US forces captured six men
suspected in the downing of a civilian helicopter and the shooting
death of the lone survivor.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, A television
cameraman working for The Associated Press was killed when gunfire
broke out after an explosion in the northern city of Mosul. An AP
photographer was wounded in the same incident.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, Silvio Berlusconi
formed a new government and will present his choice of Cabinet
ministers to Italy's legislators for approval in the hopes of avoiding
new elections. Berlusconi was sworn in as head of Italy's 60th
government since the end of World War II.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2005 Apr 23, Leaders of the two
Koreas agreed to resume talks between their nations that broke down
last summer and to discuss the international standoff over the North's
nuclear weapons ambitions.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, In western Nepal 5
children were killed and three others wounded when a crude bomb left by
suspected Maoist rebels exploded.
(Reuters, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 23, President Hugo Chavez
says "Don Quixote" is a must-read for Venezuelans — and his government
has printed 1 million free copies to mark the 400th anniversary of the
classic tale of the knight who dared to dream.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 24, An unusual spring
storm dumped nearly 2 feet of wet snow on parts of the Midwest and
Appalachians, covering newly sprouting plants, snapping power lines and
taking a bite out of baseball. 80,000 in the Cleveland area lost their
electricity.
(AP, 4/25/05)(WSJ, 4/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 24, In northeast China
rescuers worked to free 69 coal miners trapped in a flooded mine at the
Tengda Coal Mine, run by the local government in Jiaohe, a city in
Jilin province.
(AP, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 24, Some 82 people died
in floods that swept eastern Ethiopia on the weekend.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 24, In Indonesia
representatives of more than 100 African and Asian countries closed out
a summit (b.1955) with promises to boost economic relations and counter
the threat of globalization.
(AP, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 24, A car bomb exploded
outside a police academy in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. Another
one went off moments later as authorities rushed to the scene, killing
at least six Iraqis and wounding 33. Deaths from car bombings targeting
police and civilians in Tikrit and Baghdad rose to 29.
(AP, 4/25/05)
2005 Apr 24, A US soldier was
killed when a roadside bomb exploded as his convoy passed west of
Baghdad.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 24, Ezer Weizman (80),
former Israeli president (1993-2000), died. He was a political moderate
who pioneered contacts with Palestinian leaders and helped bring about
the Jewish state's first peace treaty with an Arab country. As defense
minister in 1979, he was instrumental in negotiating Israel's peace
treaty with Egypt.
(AP, 4/25/05)(Econ, 5/7/05, p.81)
2005 Apr 24, Syrian troops burned
documents and dismantled military posts in their final hours in
Lebanon, before deploying toward the border and effectively ending 29
years of military presence in the country.
(AP, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 24, In southern Thailand
suspected Islamic separatists detonated a bomb, killing two police
officers and wounding three other people.
(AP, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 24, Voters lined up
across Togo to choose a new president, hoping to establish democracy
after the tiny West African nation was thrown into months of political
turmoil by the death of Africa's longest-serving ruler.
(AP, 4/24/05)
2005 Apr 24, Pope Benedict XVI
formally began his stewardship of the Roman Catholic Church; the former
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in his installation homily that as
pontiff he would listen to the will of God in governing the world's 1.1
billion Catholics.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2005 Apr 25, President Bush sought
relief from record-high gas prices and support for Middle East peace as
he opened his Texas ranch to Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 4/25/05)
2005 Apr 25, The CIA's top weapons
hunter in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, said his search for weapons of mass
destruction had been "exhausted" without finding any.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2005 Apr 25, Mayor Dick Murphy
(62) of San Diego announced his resignation effective July 15 under the
weight of mounting scandals and fiscal probes. San Diego faced a $50
million budget deficit and a $1.3 billion pension shortfall.
(SFC, 4/26/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/26/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 25, Bashir Noorzai (44),
alleged Afghan heroin dealer, was arrested while traveling to NY.
(SFC, 4/26/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 25, In Chicago 11 reputed
mob figures were indicted on charges of plotting at least 18 murders
including the 1986 hit on Tony Spilotro.
(SFC, 4/26/05, p.A5)
2005 Apr 25, It was reported that
Didemnum, a species of sea squirt, were spreading unabated off New
England and the Pacific Northwest to the detriment of valuable
shellfish beds and habitat for bottom feeding fish.
(SFC, 4/25/05, p.A6)
2005 Apr 25, A 3-man
U.S.-Russian-Italian crew from the Int’l. Space Station landed in
northern Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 4/25/05, p.A3)(AP, 4/25/06)
2005 Apr 25, Alex Trotman (71),
retired Ford Motor Co. Chairman (1993-1998), died at his home in
England. He spearheaded a $5 billion restructuring to restore the
automaker to profitability in the 1990s.
(AP, 4/25/05)(Econ, 4/30/05, p.63)
2005 Apr 25, Jiri Paroubek (52)
was officially named as the new Czech prime minister. Paroubek, local
development minister in Gross's government and deputy chairman of the
Social Democrats (CSSD), became the country's third prime minister in
nine months.
(AFP, 4/25/05)
2005 Apr 25, The 3rd and final
piece of the Axum obelisk was returned to Ethiopia from Italy.
(AP, 4/25/05)
2005 Apr 25, EU trade ministers
backed a full investigation into allegations that cheap textiles and
clothing from China were flooding the EU market, but disagreed on
imposing fast action to block imports.
(AP, 4/25/05)
2005 Apr 25, In San Pedro
Sacatepequez, Guatemala, gunmen killed Jose Victor Bautista Orozco, a
judge who ruled on drug smuggling cases, shooting him as he left his
home for work.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 25, Indian troops killed
6 Islamic militants in a mountainous Kashmir district bordering the
Pakistani-zone of the divided state, while suspected rebels hanged to
death a civilian.
(AFP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 25, A packed commuter
train that was behind schedule and may have been speeding jumped the
tracks and hurtled into an apartment complex, killing 107 people and
injuring 450 in Japan's worst rail accident in 40 years.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 25, Pakistan said the
start of a free trade agreement with Sri Lanka in June is expected to
double business between the 2 countries to almost 300 million dollars
in the first year.
(AP, 4/25/05)
2005 Apr 26, US Congressional
aides said global terrorist attacks rose to 650 in 2004 from 175 in
2003.
(WSJ, 4/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 26, A federal jury in
Virginia convicted Islamic scholar Ali al-Timini of urging followers to
join the Taliban and fight the US after the 9/11 attacks.
(WSJ, 4/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 26, Florida’s Gov. Bush
signed legislation giving people the right to meet “force with force,”
effective Oct 1.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A5)
2005 Apr 26, Clarence Williams
(58), suspected of raping at least 25 women in 3 states, was arrested
in NYC following DNA tests that linked him to a 1973 rape case.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 26, A US soldier and four
Afghan police officers were killed in separate rebel attacks, while at
least two Afghan civilians were injured by gunfire following the
bombing of an American patrol in the east of the country.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 26, In Australia, a state
official said thousands of wild camels will be shot in the Outback from
helicopters in an effort to reduce their numbers.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, Actress Maria Schell
died in Preitenegg, Austria, at age 79.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2005 Apr 26, In Bangladesh at
least 17 people were killed and 33 injured when a bus hurtled down a
bridge.
(Reuters, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, A bomb exploded at a
busy market in Myanmar's key tourist city of Mandalay, killing at least
two people and wounding 15 others.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 26, In Nicaragua
President Enrique Bolanos' attempt to address protesters demanding his
resignation was met with a barrage of rocks, which missed him but
injured his son.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 26, Augusto Roa Bastos
(88), one of South America's most celebrated novelists whose fictional
writings often examined Paraguay's social and political struggles,
died. Bastos was best known for his book "I, The Supreme," a novelized
version of the career of Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, who ruled
Paraguay with an iron fist from 1814 until 1840.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, President Vladimir
Putin started the first visit to Egypt by a Russian head of state in
more than 40 years, in an effort to reinforce Moscow's political and
economic ties with the Arab world.
(AFP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, Syria ended its
29-year military domination of Lebanon as soldiers flashing victory
signs completed a withdrawal.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, Lien Chan, the leader
of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party, arrived in China on an 8-day
trip for the first meeting between the party of Chaing Kai-shek and the
communists since both sides split amid civil war nearly six decades ago.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, Togo’s ballot results
showed Faure Gnassingbe, the son of Togo's longtime dictator, won 60
percent of the vote. Opposition supporters upset by the results built
flaming barricades in the capital and threw stones at passing cars.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 26, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan nominated former Turkish finance minister Kemal Dervis to
lead the UN Development Program, breaking with a tradition of giving
top UN posts to major contributor nations.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 27, Touting technology as
a way to solve the country's energy problems, President Bush called for
construction of more nuclear power plants and urged Congress to give
tax breaks for fuel-efficient hybrid and clean-diesel cars.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2005 Apr 27, The Airbus A380, the
world's largest jetliner, made its maiden flight.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2005 Apr 27, Abdus Samad Azad
(83), a former foreign minister and Bangladeshi independence hero, died
in Dhaka.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 27, The Dominican
Republic education secretary said all public elementary and secondary
schools will institute mandatory English classes by the next school
year.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Hundreds of
pro-democracy activists protested in 15 Egyptian cities and towns,
drawing out large numbers of riot police who briefly detained 75
protesters.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, The world's largest
passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed a maiden flight in France
that took it over the Pyrenees mountains.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Police fired on
protesters demanding the release of detainees loyal to Haiti's ousted
president, killing at least five demonstrators.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Indian troops killed
nine suspected Islamic militants in three separate clashes in
Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Lamia Abed Khadouri
al-Sagri, a member of the National Assembly and of outgoing premier
Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List party, was killed in her house in the Hay Aour
neighborhood in eastern Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, Vladimir Putin became
the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel, capping a historic
rapprochement between two nations that once faced each other as bitter
enemies across the Cold War divide.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, In northwestern Sri
Lanka an intercity passenger train collided with a bus that tried to
dash through a railroad crossing, killing 35 people.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 27, A UN tribunal in
Tanzania sentenced Mika Muhimana, a former local government official in
western Rwanda, to imprisonment for the rest of his life for shooting
to death and raping mostly Tutsi victims during the 1994 genocide.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 27, Opposition supporters
protesting the presidential election victory by the son of Togo's
longtime dictator threw Molotov cocktails and rocks during street
clashes with security forces in the capital, leaving at least six
people dead and some foreign embassies damaged.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 28, Pres. Bush endorsed
changes to Social Security that would cut benefits for future
middle-class and wealthy retirees, while raising retirement checks for
the poor.
(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 28, A military jury at
Fort Bragg, N.C., sentenced Sgt. Hasan Akbar to death for the 2003
murders of two officers in Kuwait.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2005 Apr 28, More than 100
volunteers joined police in Duluth, Ga., in searching for Jennifer
Wilbanks, a bride-to-be who had vanished two days earlier. Wilbanks
turned up in Albuquerque, N.M., having run away on her own.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2005 Apr 28, Steve Wynn opened the
new $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas casino-resort.
(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 28, Scientists reported
that deep ocean readings promised a steadily warming world and
attributed global warming to human activity.
(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 28, Percy Heath (81),
bassist and last surviving member of the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ),
died in Southampton, NY.
(SFC, 4/30/05, p.B4)
2005 Apr 28, India’s central bank
raised its key interest rate to 5% to stem inflation.
(WSJ, 4/29/05, p.A15)
2005 Apr 28, Indian troops shot
dead four Muslim rebels who infiltrated into Indian Kashmir from the
Pakistani-zone of the divided state.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 28, Premier Silvio
Berlusconi's new government won approval from the Italian Senate,
ending a government crisis that followed an embarrassing defeat in
regional elections.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 28, In Iraq Ahmad Chalabi
captured a key position in the new government, a deputy prime
minister's spot and temporary control of the lucrative oil ministry.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 28, Lt. Col. Ala'a Khalil
Ibrahim, who worked in the visa section of the Interior Ministry, was
shot dead on the way to work by gunmen in Baghdad's eastern section of
al-Shaab. A suicide car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint,
wounding four Iraqi soldiers, three U.S. soldiers and seven Iraqi
civilians.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 28, Four US soldiers were
killed and two wounded when a Task Force Freedom convoy was hit by a
roadside bomb in Tal Afar city, 90 miles east of the Syrian border.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 28, Islamic militant
group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it shot dead six abducted Sudanese
drivers working for U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a video posted on
the Internet.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 28, A twin-engine army
plane slammed nose-first into Peru's southern desert coast, killing all
13 people aboard.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 28, A military helicopter
crashed into a wooded ravine on a northern Philippine mountain, killing
all nine people on board.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 28, Dharmeratnam Sivaram
(46), a top Tamil journalist whose articles favored the mainstream
Tamil rebels over a breakaway faction, was fatally shot hours after
being seized by attackers at a restaurant in Colombo.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 28, The African Union
agreed to more than triple the size of its peacekeeping force in
Sudan's western Darfur region.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 28, Swiss engineers
blasted through the final four yards of rock to complete the bore of
the first of two deep rail tunnels under the Swiss Alps linking north
and south Europe. The 21-mile Loetschberg tunnel, part of a massive
construction project to move heavy European Union trucks off
Switzerland's narrow highways and onto transport trains, will shorten
the travel time between Germany and Milan, Italy, by an hour.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2005 Apr 28-2005 Oct 14, At least
3,663 Iraqis were killed in war-related violence during this period
leading up to the vote on a new constitution according to an Associated
Press count.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Apr 29, NASA again delayed
the first space shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster, worrying
that ice falling off fuel tank could doom Discovery.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2005 Apr 29, Apple began selling
the Tiger operating system, OS X version 10.4, for the Mac computer.
(SFC, 4/30/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 29, Afghan security
forces opened fire during a celebration in a western city, killing a
mother and her daughter. In central Afghanistan an airstrike on a
suspected insurgent camp killed three civilians and four militants. A
bomb tore through a jeep carrying Afghan anti-drug police in eastern
Afghanistan, killing 3 officers and injuring two more, in the first
deadly attack on the country's new counter-narcotics forces.
(AP, 4/30/05)(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 29, In Colombia
government troops consolidated their grip on Tacuejo, a mountain town
retaken from leftist rebels, and the town's Indian residents slowly
began to return despite fears of more violence.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, The German government
finally scaled back its 2005 growth forecasts, acknowledging that its
earlier prognosis had been too optimistic in face of high oil prices
and an unexpected economic contraction at the end of last year.
(AFP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, An audiotape
purportedly by America's most-wanted insurgent in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, posted on the Internet and threatened more attacks against
U.S. forces and urges followers to be wary of any American attempts at
dialogue.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Insurgents staged a
series of car bombings and other attacks, killing at least 41 people,
including three US soldiers, a day after the country's first
democratically elected government was approved.
(AP, 4/29/05)(AP, 4/29/06)
2005 Apr 29, India signed a pact
with the United Nations to combat HIV infections among military
personnel after defense authorities sounded a health alert last week.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, The head of India's
new task force, fighting to save the nation's dwindling stock of
tigers, said the big cats were on the verge of extinction, because of
rampant poaching for their body parts.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Insurgents set off at
least 17 bombs in Iraq, killing at least 50 people, including 5 US
soldiers, in a series of attacks aimed at shaking Iraq's newly formed
government.
(SFC, 4/30/05, p.A1)(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 29, Italy and the United
States said they had failed to agree on whether U.S. soldiers were at
fault in the death of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 29, Italy slashed its
2005 growth forecast by almost half to 1.2 percent and warned its
budget deficit could hit 4 percent of gross domestic product.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Japanese PM Junichiro
Koizumi wooed India, aiming to build a partnership with New Delhi to
cope with the growing clout of China in a changing continent.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Heavy rains in
western Romania have flooded hundreds of villages, forcing 3,700 people
to abandon their homes and disrupting rail and road traffic.
(Reuters, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Russian President
Vladimir Putin laid a wreath on the late-Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat's tomb and held talks with Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas,
but Palestinians held out little hope for concrete results.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Sri Lanka's
government ordered a "full-scale investigation" into the slaying of a
senior Tamil journalist who was abducted overnight as he left a
restaurant.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, The UN health agency
reported 18 new cases of polio in Yemen and said more people are
believed infected, sparking fears of an epidemic in the Middle Eastern
country with a low immunization rate among children.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Vietnam marked the
30th anniversary of war's end.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2005 Apr 30, James Toney
outpointed John Ruiz to win the WBA heavyweight title in NY.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2005 Apr 30, Jennifer Wilbanks
(32) of Duluth, Georgia, turned up in Albuquerque, NM, after being
missing for 4 days. She was scheduled to be married Apr 30, and got
“cold feet.”
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 30, “With all of its
liabilities in dollars and most of its assets in foreign currencies,
America gets a wealth boost when the dollar drops.” The Bank of Japan
and other central banks have amassed $2 trillion in foreign-exchange
reserves, perhaps 70% in dollars. Should the dollar fall, these central
banks will be exposed to heavy capital losses.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.70,74)
2005 Apr 30, In Egypt a bomb blast
and tour bus shooting took place near Cairo tourist sites. A man
identified as a suspect in an April 7 bombing blew himself up as he
leapt off a bridge during a police chase. Less than two hours later 2
veiled women opened fire on a tour bus in a historic part of Cairo and
one of them was killed in a gunbattle with security guards.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 30, Insurgents launched
fresh attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq, killing at least 10 Iraqis
and wounding more than 30.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Nepal's King
Gyanendra lifted a state of emergency he imposed after seizing power in
February.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Palestinian security
officials said Israeli special forces entered Tulkarem before dawn and
arrested 18-year-old Mohammed Shalhoub. Israeli military officials said
Shalhoub was an Islamic Jihad militant preparing an imminent suicide
attack against Israelis and had already filmed the video testament
often left by suicide bombers.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 30, Students and
administrators at the main campus of Puerto Rico's largest university
agreed to end a 3-week-old strike called to protest a 33 percent
tuition increase.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Sudanese leaders
began work on drafting an interim constitution expected to seal a peace
deal with the south, but major opposition groups boycotted the opening
session.
(AFP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, In western Turkey a
police officer was killed and four others were injured when a parcel
bomb exploded in the hands of a bomb disposal expert in a seaside
resort town.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Vietnam marked the
30th anniversary of the war's end.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2005 Apr, Moshe Alamaro of MIT
proposed the creation of small, man-made cyclones to cool the ocean and
prevent large natural hurricanes.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.8)
2005 Apr, In Arizona the Hualapai
Indian tribe began construction of the Skywalk, a glass overhang over
the Grand Canyon, to be completed in March, 2007. The $30 million
project was initiated by David Jin, a Las Vegas businessman from
Shanghai, who planned to collect half of the $25 ticket sales.
(SFC, 12/15/06, p.A33)
2005 Apr, The decomposing body of
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, was found in a ravine
in the French Riviera, five months after he disappeared from his home
in Cannes. In 2007 his mistress testified that he had been strangled to
death by Mohamed M'Barek, the brother of his wife, Jamila M'Barek.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2005 Apr, Canada, backed by
Minnesota and other states, provinces, environmental groups and Indian
leaders, asked for a year-long expedited review by the International
Joint Commission on a $25 million plan by North Dakota to take water
from land-locked Devils Lake to the nearby Sheyenne River with the goal
of stabilizing the lake at current levels. The water would ultimately
drain into Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg, the world's 10th largest
freshwater lake.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 Apr, China began promulgating
Document 16, a rallying cry for local propaganda officials to combat
specific practices—most notably yidi baodao, or "reports from other
places," in which papers dispatch teams of reporters to the site of
scandals in distant provinces, far from their immediate government
minders.
(Econ, 8/20/05,
p.32)(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8272398/site/newsweek/)
2005 Apr, Chinese journalist Shi
Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally providing state
secrets to foreigners. He had detailed how his newspaper colleagues
were instructed not to commemorate the 15th anniversary of 1989
pro-Democracy action. He was identified by his e-mail address provided
by Yahoo.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.A16)
2005 Apr, The Council of Europe,
Europe's top human rights body, rejected euthanasia as a legitimate
means to end life.
(AP, 12/21/06)
2005 Apr, The Ahwazi intifada
(uprising) began in Iran’s southwest Khuzestan province. Since the 1979
Islamic revolution a third of some 5 million Ahwazis, the native Arabs,
were driven from the oil-rich province.
(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.A16)
2005 Apr, Oleg Deripaska, Russian
oligarch, planned to buy KAP, Montenegro’s aluminium plant. KAP
accounted for up to 40% of Montenegro’s GDP and was seen as an
environmental nightmare. The deal included $20 million for
environmental clean-up.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.47)
2005 Apr, Singapore PM Lee Hsien
Loong announced his government’s decision to legalize gambling.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.43)
2005 Apr, Sudan and Uganda mounted
their 1st joint military operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA).
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.41)
2005 Apr, Yemen troops put down a
resumption of violence by the followers of cleric Hussein Badr Eddin
al-Hawthi (al-Houthi), who was killed in September. It was thought to
be led by his father, Badr Eddin al-Hawthi, in fighting that tribal
sources say killed 250 people on both sides.
(AP, 4/20/05)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.51)
2005 May 1, Newsweek, in its May
9th edition, ran a story that said US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay
prison had flushed a Quran, the Muslim holy book, down a toilet.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.32)
2005 May 1, Hundreds of thousands
of workers mobilized on May Day to demand more political muscle in the
face of global capitalism, as clashes with police marred some rallies.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, On what was to have
been her wedding day, "runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks was led by
Albuquerque, N.M., police to an airplane that flew her home to Georgia.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2005 May 1, The bodies of 3 Afghan
women were found raped, hanged and dumped on a roadside in Baglan
province with a warning not to work for foreign relief organizations.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.A15)
2005 May 1, Chinese computer maker
Lenovo completed its purchase of IBM's personal computer division.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2005 May 1, In Egypt police
detained about 200 people from the home villages of 3 attackers
responsible for a bomb blast and tour bus shooting near Cairo tourist
sites the day before.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, In Iraq insurgents
launched a 3rd straight day of attacks, including ambushes, car bombs
and a drive-by shooting, killing nine Iraqis and wounding more than 20.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, Five suspects were
arrested by Iraqi forces and confessed to the kidnapping and murder of
British aid worker Margaret Hassan.
(AFP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, In northern Iraq a car
bomb obliterated a tent packed with mourners at the funeral of a
Kurdish official, killing 25 people and wounding more than 50 in the
single deadliest attack since insurgents started bearing down on Iraq's
newly named government late last week.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, A videotape released
by Iraqi militants showed Douglas Wood (63), a kidnapped an Australian
man living in California, who pleaded for U.S.-led coalition forces to
leave Iraq to save his life.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, In Nepal about ten
thousand people marched through Kathmandu, demanding the restoration of
democracy in the biggest show of opposition strength since King
Gyanendra seized absolute power three months ago.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, North Korea test-fired
a short range missile.
(WSJ, 5/2/05, p.A16)
2005 May 1, Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Alexy II wished health and happiness to millions of Orthodox
Christians as believers marked Easter, the holiest day in the Orthodox
calendar.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 1, Thai fishermen netted
a 646-pound Mekong giant catfish believed to have been the world's
largest freshwater fish ever caught in Thailand.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 May 1, Turkish PM Recep
Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Israel for a visit seeking to mend relations
with the Jewish state and join in a new wave of Middle East peace
efforts.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 May 2, Florida’s Gov. Bush
signed legislation imposing 25-year jail terms for some child molesters
and forcing many to wear satellite tracking gear upon release.
(WSJ, 5/3/05, p.A1)
2005 May 2, Utah’s Gov. Jon
Huntsman signed a measure defying the Bush administration's No Child
Left Behind Act despite a warning from the federal education secretary
that it could cost $76 million in federal aid. The legislation gives
Utah's education standards priority over federal requirements of the No
Child Left Behind Act.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 2, Pvt. 1st Class Lynndie
England, the young woman pictured in some of the most notorious Abu
Ghraib photos, pleaded guilty at Fort Hood, Texas, to mistreating
prisoners. However, a judge later threw out the plea agreement; England
was later convicted in a court-martial and sentenced to three years in
prison.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2005 May 2, Neiman Marcus agreed
to be sold to Texas pacific Group and Warburg Pincus for $5.1 billion.
(WSJ, 5/3/05, p.B1)
2005 May 2, Verizon Communications
won its bid to buy MCI Inc. in a $8.44 billion deal.
(WSJ, 5/3/05, p.A1)
2005 May 2, Bob Hunter (63),
inspirer of Greenpeace, died.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.89)
2005 May 2, In Afghanistan an arms
cache, hidden under the house of a warlord and former government
militia commander named Jalal Bashgah, exploded in a bunker beneath his
home killing 34 people, injuring 16 and devastating surrounding
buildings.
(AP, 5/2/05)(SFC, 5/3/05, p.A5)
2005 May 2, Brazil posted a record
trade surplus for the month of April. During the month its currency
rose 5% against the dollar.
(WSJ, 5/3/05, p.A14)
2005 May 2, Jose Miguel Insulza,
Chile’s interior minister, became head of the Organization of American
States.
(WSJ, 5/2/05, p.A16)
2005 May 2, Coalition soldiers
fought suspected insurgents near Qaim, a Syrian border town, in a
battle that killed 12 militants, injured a 6-year-old girl and wounded
six coalition soldiers.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 2, A car bomb exploded in
an upscale shopping district of Baghdad, killing at least six Iraqis
and setting fire to an apartment building.
(AP, 5/2/05)
2005 May 2, Israeli cabinet
minister Natan Sharansky resigned to protest the planned Gaza
withdrawal, which he called a "tragic mistake" that will encourage
Palestinian violence and deepen the rift in Israeli society.
(AP, 5/2/05)
2005 May 2, An Israeli soldier and
a Palestinian fugitive were killed in a shootout at Seideh in the West
Bank.
(AP, 5/2/05)(SFC, 5/3/05, p.A5)
2005 May 2, Italian investigators
blamed US military authorities for failing to signal there was a
checkpoint ahead on the Baghdad road where American soldiers killed an
Italian agent, concluding in a report that stress, inexperience and
fatigue played a role in the shooting.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 2, In Kuwait a push to
allow women to participate in local elections stalled when Islamist and
conservative lawmakers abstained en masse from a key vote in
parliament, leaving the measure undefeated but short of the number of
votes needed for passage.
(AP, 5/2/05)
2005 May 2, An Oman state security
court convicted 30 people of plotting to overthrow the sultan and
install an Islamic government, but spared them the death penalty.
Another defendant was convicted of a lesser crime.
(AP, 5/2/05)
2005 May 2, Pakistani authorities
arrested Abu Farraj al-Libbi, head of al-Qaida operations in Pakistan.
The nation's most-wanted militant had a $10 million bounty on his head.
A 2nd militant was seized with al-Libbi, who has a five-million-dollar
US bounty on his head, was himself a key Al-Qaeda figure with a reward
tag of four million dollars.
(AP, 5/4/05)(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 2, Yevgeny Adamov,
Russia's former nuclear energy minister, was arrested in the Swiss
capital on a US warrant accusing him of diverting up to $9 million from
funds intended to improve Russian nuclear security.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 2, The world's nations
gathered, for the 7th time since it took force in 1970, to reassess how
well the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is working.
(AP, 5/2/05)
2005 May 3, The US Federal Reserve
hiked the fed funds target rate by a quarter-point to an even 3%,
marking a cumulative increase of two full percentage points in the past
10 months. That increase was matched by a quarter-point increase in
commercial banks' prime lending rate, the benchmark rate for millions
of consumer and business loans, which moved up to 6 percent, the
highest that rate has been since the fall of 2001.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 3-2005 May 4, American
troops and Afghan police killed 64 rebels and captured six during a
battle in the mountains of southern Afghanistan. 9 Afghan troops and
one policeman were also killed in the clashes in the southern provinces
of Zabul and Kandahar.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 3, The WHO said Indonesia
has detected its first case of polio in a decade, prompting the
government to launch a massive vaccination campaign that is expected to
inoculate more than 5 million children.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Iran told a United
Nations nonproliferation conference it would press on with its
uranium-enrichment technology.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2005 May 3, Shiite Arab leader
Ibrahim al-Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister as Iraq's first
democratically elected government took office.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Two American soldiers
died in roadside bomb attacks by insurgents in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 3, Insurgents attacked
coalition forces in Ramadi, setting off a battle that killed 12
militants, an Iraqi soldier and two Iraqi civilians.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Israeli officials said
Hamas must disarm before participating in Palestinian parliament
elections this summer, in a new twist to their standoff with
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas over his refusal to use force against
militants.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, In Indian-controlled
Kashmir suspected rebels killed six people in attacks, while at least
six militants died in an overnight gunbattle with soldiers.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Kuwait’s Parliament
created a constitutional roadblock that effectively kept women out of
this year’s race for municipal council seats.
(SFC, 5/4/05, p.A3)
2005 May 3, ChevronTexaco's
Nigerian subsidiary said it would overhaul its aid projects in the
country's oil-rich south after finding much of the tens of millions of
dollars spent yearly was fueling violence and wasted by corruption.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 3, In Pakistan a
parliamentary committee issued 32 recommendations on how the government
should address grievances in Baluchistan.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.37)
2005 May 3, On World Press Freedom
Day Pakistan police beat journalists with sticks and detained at least
30 of them for staging a rally in the capital, Islamabad.
(Reuters, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, In Lahore, Pakistan,
gas cylinders exploded in the basement of an apartment building as
residents slept, causing the three-story structure to collapse. At
least 25 people were killed and 20 injured.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, An explosion erupted
as Somalia's provisional prime minister was starting a speech, killing
at least seven people and causing an undetermined number of injuries at
a government rally in Mogadishu's soccer stadium.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 4, Constantin Brancusi's
"Bird in Space" shattered the record for a sculpture at auction when it
soared to an astonishing $27,450,000 at Christie's sale of
Impressionist and modern art.
(Reuters, 5/5/05)
2005 May 4, A military judge at
Fort Hood, Texas, threw out Pvt. 1st Class Lynndie England's guilty
plea to abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, saying he was not
convinced the Army reservist knew her actions were wrong at the time.
England was later convicted in a court-martial and sentenced to three
years in prison.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2005 May 4, Prosecutors rested
their case in the Michael Jackson molestation trial.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2005 May 4, ABC aired a segment of
"Primetime Live" in which former "American Idol" contestant Corey Clark
claimed an affair with judge Paula Abdul, who denied the allegation.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2005 May 4, Col. David H.
Hackworth (1931-2005), Vietnam war veteran, died. His books included
“About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior” (1990) and “Hazardous
Duty: America's Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports from the Front
and Tells It the Way It Is,” (1996) co-authored with Tom Matthews.
(SFC, 5/7/05, p.B5)
2005 May 4, In China 178 birds
were found dead at Bird Island in Qinghai province in a lake that
served as a major area for research on migratory water fowl. They were
killed by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus. The number of dead
birds was later raised to 1,500 with bar-headed geese among the most
dead.
(WSJ, 5/23/05, p.A11)(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A5)
2005 May 4, Chinese authorities
confined residents in Yanqing, 50 miles north of Beijing, to their
homes following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle.
Numerous farms were put under quarantine.
(WSJ, 5/24/05, p.A10)
2005 May 4, It was reported that
Cuba and Venezuela agreed to start a joint shipyard in Venezuela, the
latest sign of strengthening economic ties between the Latin nations.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, The Danish government
said that the mission of Denmark's 530 troops in southern Iraq would be
extended until Feb 1.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, Thousands of
supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic
group, protested across the country in an escalation of the opposition
campaign demanding political reform. Police arrested hundreds of
protesters.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, An Iraqi carrying
hidden explosives detonated them outside a police recruitment center in
Arbil where people were applying for jobs, killing at least 60 Iraqis
and wounding some 100. The Iraqi militant group Ansar al-Sunnah claimed
responsibility for the bombing saying in a Web statement the attack was
revenge for the Kurds' alliance with US forces.
(AP, 5/4/05)(SFC, 5/5/05, p.A1)(Econ, 5/7/05, p.19)
2005 May 4, Israeli Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz said he is freezing the handover of West Bank
towns to Palestinian security control because the Palestinians have
failed to honor their promise to disarm militants.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, Israeli soldiers shot
and killed two Palestinian youths in a West Bank village near the city
of Ramallah.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 4, Japanese media
reported Japan will withdraw its 550 soldiers from their non-combat
mission in Iraq in December.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, Mexico's government
cleared the capital's mayor of wrongdoing, conceding defeat in a nasty
political fight that ousted an attorney general and raised criticisms
that President Vicente Fox was trying to block his top rival from
running for president.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, President Bush met
with Nigerian Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo. They discussed oil and Obasanjo
said he would explore how to address US concerns that former Liberian
President Charles Taylor be brought to justice.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, The Bush
administration set aside a rule protecting 33% of national forests from
roads. This opened some 58.5 million acres for possible commercial use.
New rules by the Bush administration in 2008 repealed a 1982 regulation
requiring that fish and wildlife habitats be managed to maintain viable
populations. On June 30, 2009, these changes were reversed by a federal
judge in San Francisco.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 5/6/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/1/09,
p.A6)
2005 May 5, US National Prayer
Day. It has been celebrated since 1952 but was only fixed by Congress
in 1988.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.B1)
2005 May 5, "Precious Doe," a
slain girl mourned but unknown for four years in Kansas City, Mo., was
identified as Erica Michelle Marie Green; her mother and stepfather
were charged with murder.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2005 May 5, Michael Jackson's
lawyers opened their case in his molestation and conspiracy trial after
the judge denied a defense motion for an acquittal.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2005 May 5, The Arab-American
National Museum opened across from City Hall in Dearborn, Mich.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.E6)(http://tinyurl.com/ajzhu)
2005 May 5, Merck & Co. said
that Raymond V. Gilmartin is stepping down effective immediately from
the top jobs at the drugmaker, which has been slammed by mounting
lawsuits and falling revenues since recalling its blockbuster
painkiller Vioxx last fall. He was succeeded by Richard Clark, who
steered Merck through the Vioxx affair.
(AP, 5/5/05)(WSJ, 5/6/05, p.A1)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.75)
2005 May 5, June MacCloy Butler
(b.1909), film actress, died.
(SFC, 5/19/05, p.B7)
2005 May 5, Charlie Muse (87),
inventor of the baseball batting helmet, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.A1)
2005 May 5, Tony Blair was elected
to a historic third term as Britain's prime minister. Conservatives,
Michael Howard, announced that he would step down after a stinging
election defeat at the hands of PM Tony Blair's Labor Party.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 5, Dominica's governing
party won a narrow victory in parliamentary elections apparently
convincing voters of the need for an austerity program and a switch in
diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, Two American soldiers
accused of arms trafficking emerged from jail and were handed over to
US officials, but a top Colombian official tried to delay their
deportation, saying a treaty granting them immunity might be invalid.
(AP, 5/5/05)(WSJ, 5/5/05, p.A1)
2005 May 5, In central Congo a
Russian-made airplane crashed, killing 10 of the 11 passengers aboard.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, Insurgents killed at
least 20 people in three separate attacks targeting Iraqi security
forces in Baghdad, including one by a man who blew himself up while
waiting in line outside an army recruitment center.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, Palestinians voted for
local governments in dozens of towns and villages across the West Bank
and Gaza Strip. More than 2,500 candidates were vying for seats on 84
municipal councils.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, Russia's Federal
Security service said it foiled planned terror attacks ahead of Victory
in Europe celebrations, discovering a truck near Grozny packed with
more than a ton of explosives and a cache of poisons allegedly intended
for chemical attacks.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 5, In northern Uganda
rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army attacked villagers tending their
fields, hacking to death at least 10 people and wounding some 14 others.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 6, President Bush arrived
in Riga, Latvia, as he opened a fast-paced, four-country journey to
mark the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2005 May 6, Joe Grant (96),
pioneering Disney artist/storyman, died. He was co-story director on
"Fantasia," co-writer of "Dumbo" and designer of the witch/queen
character in "Snow White." Grant remained vital and active at Disney
feature animation until his death.
(www.talkdisney.com/forums/printthread.php?t=27485)
2005 May 6, In Bahrain about 5,000
citizens jammed a main road in the capital, waving red and white
Bahraini flags in the 2nd rally for constitutional reforms in a month.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 6, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair unveiled his Cabinet, changing leadership in defense and
health but keeping mostly familiar faces after a third term victory
dampened by a reduced majority in Parliament.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2005 May 6, Holocaust Memorial Day
(Yom Hashoah). In 1951 Israel’s Parliament set the day of commemoration
for the 27th of Nissan, a few days after the end of Passover.
(WSJ, 5/6/05, p.W11)
2005 May 6, An Indian federal
probe into disappearing tigers in a state-protected reserve has found
the entire population of big cats has been wiped out by poachers. "The
special investigation team in its preliminary assessment report has
indicated that there was no evidence to prove the presence of tigers in
Sariska (national park)."
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Arab television
station al-Jazeera said militants holding an Australian engineer
hostage have issued a 72-hour ultimatum for Australia to start pulling
troops out of Iraq.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Insurgent car bombs
struck a market in Suwayrah killing 17 civilians, and a police bus in
Tikrit, killing at least 8 policemen.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, At least a dozen
bodies were found buried at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Baghdad,
some of them blindfolded and shot in the head.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, In Lebanon an
explosion ravaged a shopping area and set off a fire near a Christian
religious radio station in the port city of Jounieh north of Beirut.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 6, In southwestern Nepal
unidentified gunmen fatally shot Narayan Pokhrel, the chief of the
World Hindu Council's Nepal chapter, while he was touring villages.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah movement narrowly fended off a strong
challenge by Hamas to win local elections, but the Islamic militant
group captured the 3 biggest races in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
establishing itself as a major political force.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, Romania's foreign
minister said his government would keep its troops in Iraq supporting
postwar operations despite the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 6, The UN Sec. Gen.
appointed Alvaro de Soto as the Special Coordinator for the Middle East
Peace Process. De Soto resigned in May, 2007.
(www.un.org/unsco/coordinator.html)
2005 May 7, Giacomo, a 50-1 shot,
defied the odds and won the $2.4 million Kentucky Derby in a gigantic
upset, running down Afleet Alex in the final strides and generating a
huge payoff.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 7, Peter Rodino (95), the
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee chairman who directed the
impeachment investigation of President Richard Nixon, died in New
Jersey. Rodino represented a Newark, NJ, district from 1949-1989.
(AP, 5/8/05)(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.A2)
2005 May 7, MIT students held
their 1st convention for time travelers.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.75)
2005 May 7, In Afghanistan a UN
worker from Myanmar was among three people killed in a suicide attack
at an Internet cafe in Kabul.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 7, In northeastern
Australia a commuter airplane carrying 15 people slammed into a
hillside and everyone on board was feared killed.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 7, Canadian Press
reported that Canada will send up to 150 military personnel to Sudan to
help the African Union and a UN mission keep the peace.
(CP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 7, China and Japan agreed
to try to improve strained ties and meet soon to discuss a disputed gas
field.
(Reuters, 5/7/05)
2005 May 7, After extensive use of
H2OIL fuel additives for over 15 years, China will begin manufacturing
F2-21 nanotechnology fuel additives. H2OIL's first overseas plant in
Tianjin opened under a joint venture agreement with PetroChina's Huafu
Oilfield Chemical Company. F2-21, developed by H2Oil president Richard
Hicks, is a mixture of water, shampoo and baby oil that forms
nano-sized globules which explode in an engine’s combustion chamber
helping the gas to burn more cleanly and completely.
(www.h2oil.com/press.shtml)(SFC, 3/23/06, p.C3)
2005 May 7, In central India about
200 Maoist rebels, some armed with AK-47 assault rifles, attacked a
mining unit of Hindalco Industries, India's largest aluminium and
copper producer, shutting down its operations.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 7, In Iraq US forces
began Operation Matador, aimed at clearing a region believed to be a
haven for foreign fighters slipping into Iraq from Syria.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 7, Two suicide car bombs
exploded in a central Baghdad square, killing 22 people, including two
American contract workers. 3 US Marines and one sailor were killed in a
bombing and firefight in Haditha.
(AP, 5/7/05)(SFC, 5/9/05, p.A1)
2005 May 7, In Iraq gunmen stopped
a minibus in which the 6 men were carrying the coffin of a relative to
a funeral service in the Shiite city of Najaf. The 6 men, 3 of them
brothers, were kidnapped and killed, and the attackers threw the coffin
into the nearby Euphrates River.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 7, In Riga, Latvia, Pres.
Bush said the Soviet domination of central and eastern Europe after
World War II will be remembered as "one of the greatest wrongs of
history" and acknowledged that the United States played a significant
role in the division of the continent.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 7, Gen. Michel Aoun, who
led a quixotic battle to oust Syria's army from Lebanon 16 years ago,
returned to Lebanon from a lengthy exile in France.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 7, In Myanmar 3
explosions rocked the capital, Yangon, killing at least 19 people and
wounding 162 others.
(AP, 5/8/05)(Reuters, 5/15/05)
2005 May 7, David Trimble, Nobel
Peace Prize laureate and one of the architects of Northern Ireland's
1998 peace accord, resigned as head of the Ulster Unionist Party after
losing his seat in this week's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 8, Steve Nash edged
Shaquille O'Neal by 34 points to win the NBA's most valuable player
award.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2005 May 8, In Zion, Ill., Laura
Hobbs (8) and Krystal Tobias (9), out on a Mother's Day bicycle ride,
were stabbed multiple times and left to die near a bike path. Laura’s
father Jerry Hobbs (34), just out of a Texas prison a few weeks, led
police to the girls' bodies in a ravine. He was charged with murder on
the second day of questioning by police.
(AP, 5/10/05)(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 8, Lloyd Cutler (87),
White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton and adviser to
presidents of both parties, died at his Washington home.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2005 May 8, Kristi Black (19) was
found strangled in the apartment shared with Ivan Villa (22) in
Ruidoso, New Mexico. Villa disappeared with Justin, his 16-month-old
stepson, leading to a frantic search for the toddler. Later in the
month Justin was recovered in Mexico. On Oct 5, 2006, Villa turned
himself in to US authorities in Guadalajara.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2005 May 8, In eastern Afghanistan
insurgents trying to escape US Marines took refuge in a cave and killed
2 Americans during a 5-hour battle that left an estimated 23 rebels
dead.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 8, In Brazil top
government officials from the 11 South American nations and 22 Middle
Eastern and North African countries attending the Summit of South
American-Arab Countries met ahead of the two-day summit's opening on
May 10.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Central African
Republic a coup leader who seized power in a rebel war two years ago
sought the presidency in a runoff election against a man representing
the former ruling party he ousted. The military strongman Francois
Bozize faces former PM Martin Ziguele in a poll that many hope will
bring an end to an era of army coups and revolts.
(AP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 8, In Alexandria Egypt,
some 3,000 female supporters of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood
gathered to demand democratic reforms.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, The new Turkish
Cypriot government of Premier Ferdi Sabit Soyer won a vote of
confidence in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In India the number of
rare bacterial meningitis cases in New Delhi rose by at least 30 over
the last 24 hours with 15 confirmed deaths from the disease.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Indonesia US Deputy
Secretary of State Robert Zoellick signed an agreement to build a $245
million road along Aceh's western coast.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, Iraq's parliament
approved six Cabinet nominees, handing four more posts to the
disaffected Sunni Arab minority. Iraq's newly approved human rights
minister turned down the job, saying he was selected only because he
was a Sunni Arab.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Iraq gunmen shot
and killed a senior official in Iraq's Transportation Ministry in
Baghdad. Zoba Yass, director general of the ministry's projects, and
his driver were killed.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Nepal seven
mainstream opposition parties agreed to form a united front to push for
a return to democracy following King Gyanendra's seizure of power.
Nepal's Maoist rebels soon threw their support behind the decision.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 8, In central Iraq 3 US
soldiers were killed in separate attacks.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Iraq the Ansar
al-Sunnah Army kidnapped Akihiko Saito (44), after ambushing a group of
five foreign contractors. It later said Saito was "seriously injured"
in the fighting and that the others had died.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 8-2005 May 9, American
troops backed by helicopters and war planes launched a major offensive
against insurgents in a remote desert area near the Syrian border, and
about 100 militants were killed in the first 24 hours.
(AP, 5/9/05)(SFC, 5/10/05, p.A1)
2005 May 8, In southeastern Niger
a swarm of locusts has descended on a town, sparking fears that the
West African nation, where millions of people face food shortages,
could endure another invasion of the crop-munching insects.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 8, President Bush paid
homage in the Netherlands to the "terrible price" paid by World War II
soldiers who never came home from their fight against tyranny.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Pakistan's
northwestern tribal region a bomb ripped through a car, killing 2
tribesmen.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Moscow Pres. Bush
and Vladimir Putin went out of their way to take a unified stand on
Middle East peace and terrorism after sharp words in recent days about
democratic backsliding and postwar Soviet domination.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, Russia began a
pomp-filled, high-security celebration of the 60th anniversary of the
Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Saudi Arabia a
Pakistani man was beheaded for attempting to smuggle heroin into the
kingdom.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 8, In Syria a prominent
Kurdish Islamic scholar was murdered in Damascus.
(WSJ, 6/6/05, p.A1)
2005 May 9, President Bush,
Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder commemorated the 60th anniversary
of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany with a lavish military parade
in Moscow. President Bush then traveled to Georgia.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2005 May 9, Actress Renee
Zellweger married country music star Kenny Chesney on the island of St.
John in the US Virgin Islands. The marriage was annulled just months
later.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2005 May 9, Eight-year-old Laura
Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias were found stabbed to death in
Zion, Ill.; Laura's father, Jerry Hobbs III, was later charged with
killing the girls.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2005 May 9, In Hingham, Mass., the
bodies of two homeless men were found. They had likely been killed the
previous April. In 2007 Eric Snow (25) and James Winquist (23) were
accused of beating the 2 men to death with baseball bats.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A3)
2005 May 9, In Espertantina,
Brazil, Mayor Felipe Santolia (32) declared May 9 as an official Orgasm
Day.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, In northern China
nearly a dozen homes built into hillside caves were buried when the
soil above them collapsed, trapping 24 people.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 9, In Ecuador former
President Gustavo Noboa was placed under house arrest on charges he
mishandled Ecuador's foreign debt negotiations during his three-year
term.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, In Tbilisi Pres. Bush,
before a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of people, said that the
former Soviet republic of Georgia is proving to the world that
determined people can rise up and claim their freedom from oppressive
rulers.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, Werner G. Seifert, the
long-serving chief executive of the German stock exchange, was ousted
by The Children's Investment Fund (TCI), a British hedge fund. In 2006
Seifert authored his account of the affair: “Invasion der Heuschrecken:
Intrigen, Machkampfe, Marktmanipulation.”
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.64)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.81)
2005 May 9, In Athens, Greece,
Christian leaders, theologians and religious activists from around the
world gathered for a meeting to assess some of the most serious
challenges for the faith, such as growing rifts between churches and
African congregations ravaged by AIDS.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, Iran confirmed that it
has processed 37 tons of uranium into gas, a key step into the using
the material as a fuel for reactors or weapons.
(WSJ, 5/10/05, p.A1)
2005 May 9, PM Ariel Sharon told
Israeli media that Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip will be put
off until mid-August.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, Leftist Mexico City
Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that he will resign on July
31 to run for president.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, Nepali troops killed
26 Maoist rebels who attacked a military base at Bandipur. 3 policemen
and one soldier were also killed.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 9, Palestinian militants
and police exchanged gunfire in two West Bank towns Monday, defying
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' attempts to crack down on lawlessness
and put peacemaking with Israel on a more solid footing.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 9, World leaders joined
Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin on Red Square for a lavish military parade
celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi
Germany.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 10, A federal bankruptcy
judge freed United Airlines from responsibility for pensions covering
120,000 employees.
(SFC, 5/11/05, p.A1)
2005 May 10, In Riverside County,
Ca., David McGowan (44) killed his wife, mother and 3 children, a boy
(14) and 2 girls (8 and 10), while they slept. He then killed himself
at their home in Garner Valley.
(SFC, 5/12/05, p.A5)
2005 May 10, Peter Costello,
Australia’s finance minister, proposed his 10th budget that included
income tax cuts worth almost $17 billion.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.44)
2005 May 10, Egypt's parliament
overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment allowing
multicandidate presidential elections for the first time, but the
opposition denounced the reform, saying it won't shake President Hosni
Mubarak's grip on power.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, A leading human
rights group said systematic political repression in Ethiopia's largest
state has kept people there from freely participating in the country's
third general election campaign on May 15.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, Germany dedicated its
national Holocaust memorial in Berlin, an undulating field of 2,711
concrete slabs.
(AP, 5/10/05)(Econ, 5/7/05, p.48)
2005 May 10, Cheered by tens of
thousands in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, President Bush
urged the spread of democracy across the former communist world and
beyond.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2005 May 10, In central India a
man with a sword cut off the hands of a government social worker for
trying to stop child marriages. The attack on the woman highlighted the
difficulty of ending the centuries-old practice in the region.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 10, Iran officially
launched production of its first locally built submarine, dubbed
Ghadir, a craft that can fire missiles and torpedoes at the same time.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, Gunmen kidnapped the
governor of Iraq's western Anbar province and told his family he would
be released when US forces withdraw from Qaim, the site of a major new
offensive against followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Gov. Raja Nawaf
Farhan al-Mahalawi was later killed.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2005 May 10, US forces backed by
helicopter gunships and warplanes swept through western Iraq near the
Syrian border for a third day, raiding desert outposts and safe houses
belonging to insurgents.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, Italy's center-left
opposition celebrated as returns from local elections in Sardinia and 2
northern regions dealt Premier Berlusconi's forces another embarrassing
defeat.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, A Moroccan jailed for
involvement in the Casablanca bombings two years ago died during a
hunger strike by some 1,000 predominantly Islamist inmates.
(Reuters, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, A UN resolution
backed by the US urged Nigeria to hand Charles Taylor to a court in
Sierra Leone on the grounds that Taylor had violated his terms of
asylum.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.52)
2005 May 10, Northern Ireland
State prosecutor Gordon Kerr told Belfast High Court that prosecutors
have accepted a police recommendation to charge Sean Gerard Hoey (35)
with the murders of all 29 people killed by the Aug. 15, 1998, bomb in
Omagh.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, Philip Agustin,
publisher of a weekly in Dingalan, Philippines, was shot dead in his
house. He had with him 500 copies of his newspaper featuring reports on
corruption in Dingalan.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.39)
2005 May 10, Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin and top European Union leaders unveiled a new
partnership accord which aims in particular to deepen ties in the
economic sphere, where Europe's thirst for energy dovetails with
Russia's need for investment.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 10, Taiwan arrested 17
military officers and civilians on suspicion of passing secrets about
the island's intelligence capability to rival China.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 10, The UN children's
agency said it is sending medical aid to the West African country of
Sao Tome and Principe to combat a cholera outbreak that has infected
131 people, killing three.
(AP, 5/10/05)
2005 May 11, The US Real ID Act of
2005 was signed into law. It was Division B of an act of the United
States Congress entitled Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for
Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act)
2005 May 11, In Afghanistan
demonstrators angry over the alleged desecration of the Quran at
Guantanamo Bay smashed car and shop windows and stoned a passing convoy
of US soldiers. Police opened fire on the protesters, killing four and
injuring at least 71, as protests spread over the Newsweek. Newsweek
later apologized for what it termed errors in the article.
(AP, 5/11/05)(AP, 5/12/06)
2005 May 11, Actor Macaulay Culkin
took the stand at Michael Jackson's trial to denounce the molestation
allegations against the pop star as "absolutely ridiculous."
(AP, 5/12/06)
2005 May 11, Lawmakers in Austria
and neighboring Slovakia voted overwhelmingly to ratify the new
European constitution, giving much-needed support to the charter
intended to strengthen the 25-member European Union.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 11, In northeastern China
a gas explosion at a coal mine killed nine miners.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 11, The European Union
parliament voted to abolish loopholes that give member states,
especially Britain, a way around the bloc's 48-hour maximum workweek.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 11, French police swooped
down by helicopter to the luxury Riviera villa of self-exiled Russian
tycoon Boris Berezovsky, seizing documents and computers.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 11, India and Pakistan
agreed to start a bus service between the cities of Lahore and
Amritsar, and share information on fishermen in each other's custody.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 11, In the Indian portion
of Kashmir a series of rebel bomb attacks and gunfights with security
forces left at least 13 people dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 11, In Hawija, Iraq, a
man with explosives strapped to his body killed at least 30 people at a
recruitment center. A wave of explosions and gunfire across Iraq killed
at least 39 more people.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 11, In western Iraq 4
Marines were killed when their troop transporter was struck by a bomb
near Karabilah, a village close to the Syrian border, during Operation
Matador.
(AP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 11, A Katyusha rocket
fired from Lebanon landed in the northern Israeli town of Shlomi
heavily damaging a factory and drawing an Israeli threat of retaliation.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 11, Qatar's first hard
look at its own human rights shortcomings produced a catalogue of
abuses that include prolonged detentions, mistreatment of foreign
workers and the use of children as jockeys in camel races.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 11, In Sudan's conflict
ridden Darfur region 2 main rebel groups signed a declaration pledging
to adhere to a cease-fire and help facilitate the flow of humanitarian
relief aid.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 12, The US Foreign
Relations Committee voted 10-8 along party lines to advance John
Bolton's nomination to be UN ambassador without the customary
recommendation that the Senate approve it.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2005 May 12, Microsoft officially
unveiled its Xbox 360, a video game console boasting improved graphics
over its predecessor.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2005 May 12, The Islamic Center of
America, a $12 million mosque, opened in Dearborn, Mich., down the road
near the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Co.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.E6)(www.icofa.com/)
2005 May 12, Police clashed with
anti-U.S. demonstrators in two Afghan towns, killing at least three
people, and Afghan students burned an American flag in Kabul as
protests spread over reported abuse of Islam's holy book at the U.S.
jail in Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Australian police
arrested five men after seizing more than 115 kgs (253 pounds) of
heroin, with a street value of more than A$60 million (US$46 million),
hidden in containers of plastic chairs from China.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 12, Austrian authorities
reported the break up a major human trafficking ring led by Romanian,
Moldovan and Ukrainian criminals who smuggled more than 5,000 East
Europeans to the West, many enduring horrific conditions in tiny hiding
spaces in cars, trucks and trailers.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Leaders from 12 South
American and 22 Arab nations ended their first summit by endorsing a
"Declaration of Brasilia," urging Israel to abandon Palestinian
territory and insisting free trade must be harnessed to benefit the
world's poor.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, It was reported that
Colombia’s Pres. Alvaro Uribe is creating a political party to formally
unite his followers, who until now have been known simply as
"Uribistas." The plan is being resisted by the opposition and even some
of his supporters, who worry about a political party based on one man's
hardline ideals.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Alberto Santofimio,
Colombia's former justice minister, was arrested in connection with the
1989 assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, leading presidential candidate
and anti-corruption crusader killed at a campaign rally.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, More than 13.5 tons
of cocaine stored in underground chambers was seized near Colombia's
southwest coast.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 12, Gunmen ambushed a UN
peacekeeping patrol in Congo's restless eastern Ituri region, killing
one soldier and injuring five.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Militants
assassinated a general and a colonel who were en route to work, and a
car bomb exploded near a busy market and movie theater in eastern
Baghdad, part of a wave of attacks that killed at least 21 Iraqis and
wounded more than 70.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, In Srinagar, Kashmir,
a grenade thrown by suspected Islamic rebels exploded outside a school,
killing two women and wounding at least 57 people, many of them
schoolchildren and their parents.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Latvia’s parliament
issued a declaration that said: "The Soviet Union occupied and annexed
the Republic of Latvia, destroyed its state system, killed, tortured
and deported hundreds of thousands of people, robbed them of their
property without any legal reason."
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 12, Roads in Peru's Colca
Canyon were blocked by townspeople demanding a larger share of revenue
from tourists who come to see condors soar over the desert-dry
moonscape and white-water raft in one of the world's deepest valleys.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Nikolai Patrushev,
Russia's security chief. said that his agency has uncovered US,
British, Kuwaiti and Saudi spy activity that was being conducted under
the cover of non-governmental organizations. He also suggested that
foreign governments are using NGOs to fund and support changes of power
in former Soviet republics.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, In Andijan,
Uzbekistan, supporters of 23 jailed local businessmen stormed the jail
where they were held freeing them and other prisoners. The businessmen
had been jailed as alleged Islamic extremists.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.39)
2005 May 13, The Pentagon proposed
the most sweeping changes to its network of military bases in modern
history.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2005 May 13, Michael Ross (45), a
serial killer who fought to hasten his own execution and was forced to
prove he wasn't out of his mind, was put to death in Connecticut in New
England's first execution in 45 years.
(AP, 5/13/05)(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A4)
2005 May 13, Afghan police and
demonstrators clashed, killing at least 4 people, as protests over
allegations that interrogators at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay
desecrated Islam's holy book spread to more cities.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, Canada said it would
go ahead with plans to send military advisors to Sudan's Darfur region
despite Khartoum's insistence that it did not want the troops to enter
the country.
(Reuters, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, A senior Chinese
official met with President Fidel Castro during a visit aimed at
cementing political and economic ties between the two communist nations.
(AP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 13, East Timor finished
talks in Sydney, Australia, that managed to overcome 2 main sticking
points on their maritime border and revenue from the Greater Sunrise
gasfield. They agreed to defer the boundary issue for 50 years along
with a 50% revenue split.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.46)
2005 May 13, John Jairo Velasquez,
the man who directed hit teams for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, said
that Alberto Santofimio Botero, a former top politician, was behind the
1989 assassination of Colombia’s leading presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galan.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, In India's southern
Andhra Pradesh state police shot dead six opposition party supporters,
sparking a riot in which hundreds of political activists stoned to
death a policeman and burned cars and trucks.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, Indonesia reported
that researchers had found a strain of bird flu in pigs on Java, and
feared the virus could spread to humans.
(SSFC, 5/15/05, p.A14)
2005 May 13, Iraq announced it has
renewed its state of emergency for another 30 days following two weeks
of insurgent-led violence that killed hundreds of people.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, Hezbollah shelled
Israeli positions in the disputed Chebaa Farms near the border, and the
Israeli army returned fire in the heaviest exchange in months between
Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla force.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, Pres. Fox praised the
dedication of Mexicans working in the US, saying they're willing to
take jobs that "even blacks" won't do. Pres. Fox apologized for his
comments a few days later saying he regretted any hurt feelings his
statements may have caused.
(AP, 5/17/05)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A3)
2005 May 13, Russia struck a
landmark deal to repay up to $15 billion it owes to the West, sealing
its rapid transformation from economic basket case to emerging markets
powerhouse. The deal crowns Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's drive to
use Russia's growing oil wealth to reduce the $43 billion it owes to
the Club's other 18 members.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, The 2 main rebel
groups fighting in Sudan's Darfur region announced they were willing to
resume stalled peace talks, dropping their previous conditions for new
negotiations.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, In southern Thailand
a roadside bomb exploded near a passing military truck, killing two
Thai marines and seriously wounding eight others.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, In Andijan,
Uzbekistan, soldiers opened fire on thousands of protesters after
demonstrators stormed a jail to free 23 local businessmen accused of
Islamic extremism. The next day Pres. Karimov said 10 soldiers were
killed in the clash. An estimated 700-1000 demonstrators were killed.
The Uzbek government put the death toll at 187.
(AP, 5/13/05)(SSFC, 5/15/05, p.A10)(Econ, 10/1/05,
p.39)
2005 May 13, Pope Benedict XVI
appointed SF Archbishop William Levada (68) as the new prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s top arbiter
of questions of faith and morals.
(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A1)
2005 May 14, The retired aircraft
carrier USS America sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean following
a series of explosions over 25 days.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 14, In Brazil more than
12,000 landless farmers who have marched nearly 125 miles to protest
the slow pace of land reform reached the outskirts of Brasilia.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 14, Congo's legislature
adopted a constitution that reduces the required age for presidential
candidates, a change that would allow President Joseph Kabila to stand
in the country's next elections.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 14, A magnitude 6.9
undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia's Sumatra island.
(AP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 14, In Iraq insurgents
staged a series of attacks, killing at least 9 people. The US military
wrapped up Operation Matador, a major offensive in a remote desert
region near the Syrian border.
(AP, 5/14/05)(AP, 5/14/06)
2005 May 14, In Indian Kashmir
suspected Muslim rebels shot dead the brother of an ex-militant who
became a moderate separatist leader.
(AFP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 14, In western Nepal
government soldiers rescued about 600 students who were abducted from
their classrooms in a series of bold strikes by communist rebels.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 14, Russian security
forces and police killed six suspected militants, including two female
suicide bombers, who had holed up in an apartment in Cherkessk. Russian
forces in Chechnya killed 4 rebels including former separatist vice
president Vakha Arsanov.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 14, Warlords began
withdrawing thousands of militia fighters from the Somali capital in a
bid to restore order after more than 15 years of anarchy and civil war.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 14, A surprise election
victory for Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), marred
by a record-low voter turnout, gave a limited endorsement of President
Chen Shui-bian's policy of standing up to China.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 13, Turkish soldiers
killed 9 Kurdish rebels in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Automatic weapons, plastic explosives, grenades, and a rocket-propelled
grenade launcher were seized in the operation. A Syrian citizen was
among those killed.
(AP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 14, Thousands of
terrified Uzbeks waiting to flee across the border into Kyrgyzstan
stormed government buildings, torched police cars and attacked border
guards in a 2nd day of violence spawned by an uprising against the
iron-fisted rule of US-allied Pres. Islam Karimov.
(AP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 15, Newsweek, in its May
23rd edition, issued a partial apology for a story from its May 9th
edition that said US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay prison flushed a
Quran, the Muslim holy book, down a toilet. The next day, under
pressure from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek retracted
the story.
(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A1)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.32)
2005 May 15, Algerian Islamic
militants with alleged links to al Qaeda killed 11 soldiers in the
worst attack on government troops in months.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 15, In southern
Bangladesh at least 22 people have died and over 70 are missing after a
twin-deck ferry with more than 100 aboard sank on the Char Kazal river
during a storm.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 15, The Czech Republic
denied Canada its third straight title and won the world ice hockey
championship 3-0 in Vienna, Austria.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2005 May 15, Ethiopia held
elections. EU monitors later said the elections did not meet int’l.
standards. Ethiopia's opposition soon claimed major gains in the
unprecedented open parliamentary election that drew a turnout of 90%.
Post election violence left close to 200 people dead.
(WSJ, 8/26/05, p.A1)(AP, 5/16/05)(AP, 12/22/09)
2005 May 15, The bodies of 46 men
shot execution-style were found dumped at an abandoned chicken farm, a
trash-strewn lot and an insurgent stronghold west of the capital.
Gunmen in two cars shot dead Industry Ministry official Col. Jassam
Mohammed al-Lahibi and his driver in western Baghdad's Ghazaliyah
neighborhood. attackers killed Shiite cleric Sheik Qassim al-Gharawi
and his nephew in the capital's New Baghdad neighborhood. 2 explosions
detonated about five minutes apart in a busy street as residents were
heading to work in Baqouba killing four people and wounding 37.
(AP, 5/15/05)(SFC, 5/16/05, p.A1)
2005 May 15, Gunmen freed the
kidnapped governor of Iraq's western Anbar province after US troops
ended a weeklong offensive in the region. 125 insurgents were reported
killed along with 9 US soldiers in Operation Matador.
(AP, 5/15/05)(WSJ, 5/16/05, p.A1)
2005 May 15, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit to Iraq to express support for
its new government.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2005 May 15, In Saudi Arabia 3
reform advocates were sentenced to terms ranging from six to nine years
in prison, prompting a human rights activist to call their trial a
"farce."
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 15, Ali al-Dimeeni
(al-Domeini), already jailed more than a year in a Saudi prison outside
Riyadh, was sentenced to nine years in prison for sowing dissent,
disobeying his rulers and sedition. His 1998 novel "A Gray Cloud,"
centered on a dissident jailed for years in a desert nation prison
where many others have done time for their political views.
(AP, 5/25/05)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.51)
2005 May 15, In eastern Uzbekistan
groups of attackers killed several soldiers before fleeing across the
border into Kyrgyzstan. About 500 bodies were laid out in nearby
Tefektosh, where troops fired on a crowd of protesters.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 16, A US Senate report
detailing alleged misuse of the program said almost one third of the
oil allocations granted under the United Nations' 1996 to 2003 Iraqi
Oil-for-Food program went to Russian parties or individuals.
(AFP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 16, The US Supreme Court
in Swedenburg v. Kelly ruled 5-4 that wine lovers may buy directly from
out-of-state vineyards if those states allow direct shipments from
in-state wineries. Vintner Juanita Swedenburg (1925-2007) had filed her
suit against a New York state law in 2000.
(AP, 5/16/05)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.A6)
2005 May 16, Army Specialist
Sabrina Harman was convicted at Fort Hood, Texas, of six of the seven
charges she faced for her role in the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners
at Abu Ghraib. She was sentenced to six months in prison after
testimony about her acts of kindness toward Iraqis before she became an
Abu Ghraib guard.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2005 May 16, Newsweek magazine
retracted its Quran abuse story that sparked deadly protests in
Afghanistan that left about 15 people dead and scores injured.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2005 May 16, In Coeur d’Alene,
Idaho, police found Mark McKenzie (37), Brenda (40) and Slade Groene
(13) bound and slain. Shasta Groene (8) and Dylan Groene (9) were
missing. Shasta was found alive July 2.
(AP, 5/18/05)(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.A18)
2005 May 16, In Afghanistan 4
armed men kidnapped Clementina Cantoni (32), an Italian relief worker,
from her car in Kabul. Authorities described the group as thieves.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 16, In Brazil thousands
of landless farmers, organized as the Movement of Landless Rural
Workers (MST), swarmed into Brasilia.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.39)
2005 May 16, In Brazil the Indian
rights group Survival International said logging companies were cutting
down the forest in the Rio Pardo area, about 1,400 miles northwest of
Rio de Janeiro, despite repeated reports that there were isolated
Indians in the region.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 16, Many French workers
ignored the new national "Day of Solidarity," an extra work day in
place of the annual Pentecost holiday, that was part of the
government's response to a 2003 heat wave that killed 15,000 people.
Under a new law workers give up a holiday, while their employers pay
into a government fund to improve health care for the aged and
handicapped.
(AP, 5/15/05)(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.A10)
2005 May 16, In southern India
firecrackers illegally stored in a home in Hassan exploded, killing
eight people.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 16, In Iraq 8 more bodies
were found executed by insurgents. Attacks left at least 24 Iraqis dead.
(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.A1)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A1)
2005 May 16, The Kuwait Parliament
extended political rights to women, but religious fundamentalists who
opposed women's suffrage succeeded in attaching a clause requiring
future female politicians and voters to abide by Islamic law.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 16, Mexican President
Vicente Fox regretted any hurt feelings for saying that Mexicans in the
United States were doing the work that even blacks wouldn't.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2005 May 16, Nepalese troops
resumed their search for hundreds of children taken hostage by Maoist
insurgents in the mountains of western Nepal. In the latest fighting, 4
rebels, 3 army soldiers and a policeman were killed in Sandheni area,
about 100 miles southeast of Kathmandu. Meanwhile, Nepal's
anti-corruption agency charged former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba
and five others with embezzling $53 million.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 16, Senior Russian
officials said Russia is prepared to reduce its strategic nuclear
arsenal below 1,500 warheads, less than the level agreed to with the
United States, but Moscow is concerned about nuclear threats on its
border.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 16, In Sri Lanka at least
one man was killed and four wounded in fresh violence, as international
aid donors tried to nudge the island's warring parties to revive peace
talks.
(AFP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 16, In Turkey 2 Kurdish
guerillas trying to attack the home of a Turkish governor were killed
after police fired on them as they approached the building.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 16, Gunfire persisted in
the eastern city of Andijan where Uzbek security forces fired on
protesters last week, a clash that reportedly left several hundred
dead. New accounts emerged that violence in nearby towns killed
hundreds more.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 17, The US Department of
Homeland Security said it detained Luis Posada Carriles, after the
longtime Castro opponent granted interviews to TV stations and The
Miami Herald for the first time since surfacing in the United States
two months ago.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 17, British lawmaker
George Galloway denounced US senators in testimony on Capitol Hill,
denying accusations that he'd profited from the UN oil-for-food program
and accusing them of unfairly tarnishing his name.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2005 May 17, Los Angeles
Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa (52) trounced Mayor James Hahn to
become the city's first Hispanic mayor in more than a century as voters
embraced the promise of change in a metropolis troubled by gridlock,
gangs and failing schools.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 17, Toyota said it will
build a gasoline-electric hybrid version of the Camry at its plant in
Georgetown, Ky.
(WSJ, 5/18/05, p.D4)
2005 May 17, Frank Gorshin (72),
actor, died in Burbank, Ca. He played the Riddler on the Batman TV
series (1966-1969).
(SFC, 5/19/05, p.B7)
2005 May 17, In Bolivia a measure
increasing taxes on foreign oil companies became law. It slapped a 32%
production tax on top of royalties of 18% paid by producers of natural
gas and oil. The president and thousands of street protesters wanted
the industry nationalized.
(AP, 5/18/05)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.42)
2005 May 17, PM Tony Blair
unveiled plans to shake up Britain's welfare state, tackle terrorism
and introduce Britain's first national ID card since WW II in a
challenging third term agenda that could spark revolt in his restive
Labour Party and test his waning authority.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 17, In Canada British
Columbians re-elected Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government, but
voters resoundingly signaled they wanted to end the government's free
ride, electing more than 30 New Democrats.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 17, Eritrean President
Issaias Afeworki met with Sudan Pres. Omar al-Beshir in Tripoli, Libya.
Beshir demanded that Eritrea refrain from harboring armed Sudanese
opposition and stops offering assistance to that opposition.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Ethiopia's ruling
party claimed to have won just over half the seats in parliamentary
elections, but opposition leaders said it was still too early to tell
who would form the next government.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, In northern India a
bus carrying a wedding party fell into a mountain gorge, killing 37
people and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, In Baghdad gunmen
killed a Shiite Muslim cleric, and two missing Sunni clerics were found
shot dead. Gunmen abducted and killed former Baath Party member Kanis
Mohammed al-Janabi and his three sons, aged 17 to 25 in Tunis.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Cyrus Kar,
Iranian-American filmmaker, was arrested by Iraqi security forces after
washing machine timers were found in the trunk of a taxi in which he
was traveling. He was in Iraq to film footage on the ancient Persian
king Cyrus the Great. Kar was released July 10. In 2006 Kar sued US
military officials for his 55-day detention.
(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A18)(AP, 7/10/05)(SFC, 7/8/06, p.A3)
2005 May 17, In Kashmir suspected
Muslim rebels threw a grenade at a group of mourners in Srinagar,
killing two and wounding at least 20. Earlier in the day suspected
rebels killed four villagers by slitting their throats on the outskirts
of Srinagar.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, In southeastern
Nigeria hundreds of youths stormed a police station and set fire to
cars after a protester was fatally shot by a police rifle.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Russian security
services killed Alash Daudov, a prominent Chechen rebel wanted for a
series of planned chemical attacks.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Russia and Venezuela
signed a contract for 100,000 Russian assault rifles to be provided to
the Latin American nation.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 17, Spain’s Parliament
approved a resolution authorizing a “negotiated end” to almost 40 years
of separatist violence. Parliament backed Socialist PM Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero's offer of talks with ETA if its groups end violence.
(WSJ, 5/18/05, p.A12)(AP, 3/22/06)
2005 May 17, The captain of the
Greenpeace boat, "The Rainbow Warrior," was sentenced to six months in
prison for disobedience during a protest against the war in Iraq in
2003. The case stemmed from the detention of five men on March 14,
2003, for staging a protest aboard the boat captained by Daniel
Rizzotti, an Argentine citizen, near the U.S.-Spanish Rota naval base
in southern Spain.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, Uzbekistan's top
prosecutor said that 169 people were killed in last week's violence in
the eastern town of Andijan. opposition activists maintained more than
700 died, most of them civilians.
(AP, 5/17/05)(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 17, In Vietnam an
international consortium led by French group Technip signed a
1.5-billion-dollar deal to build Vietnam's first oil refinery.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 17, The UN WHO health
agency said confirmed polio cases reached 83 in Yemen. The country was
believed to have been free of the disease until last month.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, President Bush
offered his unqualified support for Egypt's political reform process as
he received PM Ahmed Nazief at the White House.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2005 May 18, An Internet audiotape
was posted, purportedly by al-Qaida-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, In which he justifies the deaths of fellow Muslims in
attacks against US troops and their Iraqi allies by saying that jihad,
or holy war, dwarfs all other concerns.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18-2005 May 19, Suspected
Taliban militants ambushed and killed 11 Afghans working on a US-funded
project to end opium farming in Helmand province. Chemonics, which
employed 14,000 people, suspended operations.
(AP, 5/18/05)(AP, 5/19/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.40)
2005 May 18, In Afghanistan Shaima
Rezayee (24), a host on an MTV-style music show, was shot dead in the
head at her Kabul home.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 18, Cambodia's
legislature ratified a pact with the US exempting each country's
citizens from extradition for prosecution by the International Criminal
Court, an agreement sought by Washington to avoid political trials of
its citizens.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, A UN report said
Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in eastern Congo have killed, raped, or
kidnapped more than 900 civilians over the past year.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, Authorities in the
Republic of Congo quarantined two districts hit by the deadly Ebola
virus to ensure the highly contagious disease does not spread.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 18, Egyptian security
detained 56 men in northern Egypt in the latest of a series of sweeps
against the banned but usually tolerated Muslim Brotherhood.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, Ethiopia's two main
opposition parties claimed victory in parliamentary elections seen as a
test of the African nation's commitment to democracy, saying they have
won enough seats to form a government.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, Hong Kong said it
would place a cap on its currency's exchange rate to the U.S dollar,
but an official denied that the move signaled China would soon revalue
its currency.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, Insurgents gunned
down a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official and the bodies of seven
men shot in the head were found dumped west of Baghdad.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, An Israeli aircraft
fired at a group of Hamas militants who were about to shoot mortar
shells at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, Police arrested nine
terror suspects during raids in northern Italy in what they said was a
crackdown on extremist cells accused of planning attacks in Italy and
abroad.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, In Petra, Jordan,
Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Prize laureates debated
solutions to challenges facing the modern world.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, Spain's Senate
ratified the new European Union constitution, becoming the ninth
country to approve the landmark document.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 18, In Sudan at least 17
people were killed in clashes between refugees and police in a squatter
area some 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Khartoum.
(AFP, 5/19/05)
2005 May 18, A Muslim rebel group
claimed it had seized control of Korasuv, a small Uzbek town on the
border of Kyrgyzstan, and vowed to build an Islamic state.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 19, The film “Star Wars:
Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” premiered.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.A1)
2005 May 19, Republicans and
Democrats tangled over President Bush's judicial nominees and the
Senate's filibuster rules, with Democrats accusing Bush of trying to
"rewrite the Constitution" and Republicans accusing Democrats of
"unprecedented obstruction."
(AP, 5/19/06)
2005 May 19, J.P. Morgan Chase
introduced a no-swipe plastic credit card that used an embedded chip
and RFID technology as well as the usual magnetic strip.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.C1)
2005 May 19, The US FCC voted to
require internet phone companies to offer 911 service.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.67)
2005 May 19, UN health officials
said death from the Angola Marburg fever outbreak had exceeded 300.
(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.A1)
2005 May 19, British researchers
reported the creation of the country's first, and the world's second
(South Korea), cloned human embryo.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 19, The Canada House of
Commons split 152-152 on a confidence motion and it took a vote by the
parliament speaker to give Martin's minority government its one-vote
victory.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 19, Five Chilean soldiers
froze to death and 65 were missing after a fierce snowstorm pounded the
Andes mountains.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 19, In northern China a
large gas explosion in a coal mine left at least 51 workers trapped. 40
bodies were later found and 10 remained missing.
(AP, 5/19/05)(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 19, Colombian rebels
ambushed a police convoy and fought government forces along the border
with Ecuador in separate attacks, killing at least 13 police.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 19, In Egypt authorities
detained 14 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in the south
in a crackdown on the large Islamist movement. The number of detained
rose to more than 780.
(Reuters, 5/20/05)
2005 May 19, Indonesia lifted 2
years of emergency rule in Aceh.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.A1)
2005 May 19, Iraq's prime minister
called on Syria to block the infiltration of foreign fighters trying to
start a civil war. 25 Iraqis, including an Oil Ministry engineer, and 4
US soldiers were reported killed in the ongoing daily bloodshed. Oil
Ministry employee Ali Hamid Alwan al-Dulaimy (31) walked out of his
house toward his car when three men firing pistols from a minivan
killed him.
(AP, 5/19/05)(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.A1)
2005 May 19, South Korea
scientists announced the creation of 11 different stem cell lines
matching the DNA of human patients with a variety of diseases. The work
was later discredited.
(SSFC, 5/29/05, p.A17)(AP, 12/23/05)
2005 May 19, The leaders of Togo's
bitterly divided ruling and opposition parties, meeting in Nigeria,
failed to agree on a power-sharing deal to end a bloody post-election
crisis.
(AFP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 19, Uzbekistan troops
retook an eastern Uzbek town from rebels who said they would build an
Islamic state, arresting the group's leaders. Uzbekistan said it
opposes an int’l. investigation into Andijan.
(AP, 5/19/05)(WSJ, 9/2/05, p.A13)
2005 May 20, The US military
condemned the publication of photographs showing an imprisoned Saddam
Hussein naked except for his white underwear, and ordered an
investigation of how the pictures were leaked to a British tabloid.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2005 May 20, A federal judge in SF
tossed out half of the convictions against former Ukrainian Prime
Minister Pavlo Lazarenko in a multi-count money-laundering and fraud
verdict, but refused to grant a new trial.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 20, Illinois lawmakers
voted to have the state sell off about $1 billion worth of investments
in companies doing business with Sudan, part of a nationwide campaign
to protest genocide in the African nation.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, US Airways and
America West merged in a $1.5 billion deal.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.C1)
2005 May 20-2005 May 23, In
Arizona 12 illegal immigrants were reported dead while crossing the
border under triple digit heat.
(SFC, 5/23/05, p.A3)
2005 May 20, Australia stepped up
diplomatic efforts to stop Japan from increasing its whale hunt, saying
up to 35 countries were opposed to the plan.
(Reuters, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, Officials said 3
ferry accidents in Bangladesh in the past week left at least 133 people
dead as hope faded for 187 people still missing.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, British scientists
reported the discovery of a new species of monkey in Tanzania, the
Lophocebus kipunji.
(SFC, 5/21/05, p.A1)
2005 May 20, A bus crash north of
Edmonton killed 6 people. RCMP later charged truck driver Inderjit
Singh Virk (32), of Brampton, Ontario, with dangerous driving.
(CP, 11/28/05)
2005 May 20, Young Chilean
soldiers who made it out of a blizzard alive said they had to leave
behind comrades who collapsed from exhaustion and cold. The soldiers
were on a training march in the Andes Mountains May 18, when hit by the
worst snowstorm in the area in decades. As many as 41 soldiers, 40
draftees and one officer, were believed to have died.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 20, Chinese state media
reported China is to lift a decades-old ban on mainland tourists
visiting political rival Taiwan. Ultimately, however, it was up to the
Taiwan government to decide whether the floodgates should be opened.
(Reuters, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, In northern China 20
people died in mine explosions in two neighboring mines in Shanxi
province.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 20, Ashraf Saeed Youssef
(27), ringleader of 3 recent attacks that targeted Western tourists in
Egypt, died in the Cairo hospital he'd been transferred to a week ago
for treatment after hitting his head several times against the wall of
his prison cell.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 20, Hurricane Adrian
slammed into El Salvador, unleashing torrential rains in an area prone
to devastating floods and forcing some 14,000 people to seek higher
ground.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, The EU and NATO
called for an int’l. investigation into the May 13 suppression of
protestors at Andijan, Uzbekistan.
(WSJ, 9/2/05, p.A13)
2005 May 20, The Finnish paper
industry, which accounts for 15% of world production, remained at a
standstill after labor talks between unions and employers ended without
resolution.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, Paul Ricoeur (92), a
French philosopher whose broad interests included biblical
interpretation and the study of human perception, died.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 20, In Guatemala an angry
mob in the remote settlement of Cruz Chich set fire to 6 people accused
of forming a band of robbers, killing 4 as authorities tried to stop
the violence.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 20, Thousands of Shiites,
many waving Islam's holy book over their heads, protested the US
presence in Iraq. Sunnis shut down places of worship elsewhere in a
show of anger over alleged sectarian violence against the minority.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, Palestinian militants
fired six anti-tank missiles and a mortar round and opened up with
light arms at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, A bomb exploded in an
apartment building in southern Russia's Dagestan region, killing the
area's minister for ethnic relations and his bodyguard.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 20, Syrian Ambassador
Imad Moustapha said Syria has cut off military and intelligence
cooperation with the US over the last 10 days amid strains in relations
between the two countries over the insurgency in Iraq.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 21, Afleet Alex regained
his footing and his drive after being cut off by Scrappy T in a
frightening collision and breezed home to win the Preakness Stakes;
Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo finished third.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2005 May 21, In Oakland, Ca.,
groundbreaking took place for the new Cathedral of Christ the Light at
the northwest tip of Lake Merritt. It was built on the site of an 1893
neo-Gothic brick church damaged by the 1989 earthquake. The $131
million Catholic project was designed by Craig Hartman. Completion was
expected in 2008. Dedication ceremonies for the $190 million cathedral
were later set for Sep 25, 2008.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A1)(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A7)(WSJ,
2/18/09, p.D7)
2005 May 21, In east Cleveland,
Ohio, a fire broke out during a sleepover at a crowded house, killing
seven kids and two adults.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 21, In NYC a Cessna 172S
crashed at Coney Island killing all 4 people aboard.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A4)
2005 May 21, Howard Morris (85),
best known for playing poetry-spouting hillbilly Ernest T. Bass on the
"Andy Griffith Show," died at his home in the Hollywood section of Los
Angeles.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 21, In eastern
Afghanistan fighting between insurgents and US-led coalition and Afghan
forces left 12 rebels dead and one U.S. soldier slightly wounded. In
southern Afghanistan a bomb exploded near a U.S. military patrol,
killing one American soldier and wounding two others.
(AP, 5/21/05)(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 21, Azerbaijani
protesters demanding free elections were beaten back by police, who
arrested dozens as they broke up a banned rally.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, The Belgian film “The
Child,” by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, won the Palme d’Or at the
Cannes Film Festival.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A2)
2005 May 21, China ordered
emergency measures to prevent an outbreak of avian flu after
investigators said migratory birds found dead in a western province
this month were killed by the virus.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21-2005 May 22, Some 160
delegates from Cuba’s opposition movement held an assembly in Havana
without government interference.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.40)
2005 May 21, Germany's prestigious
Academy of Arts was reopened at its pre-World War II site next to
Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, Sunni groups joined
forces to form a political and religious organization to represent the
minority as it seeks to gain influence in Iraq's new Shiite-dominated
government.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, In South Korea Chung
Se-yung (76) died in Seoul. He helped build Hyundai Motor Co. into one
of the world’s biggest car companies.
(SFC, 5/23/05, p.B4)
2005 May 21, In Libya reporter
Daif al-Ghazal (32) was taken from the northern city of Benghazi by
armed men and taken to an unknown location. His body was found a week
later.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 May 21, In Lahore, Pakistan,
some 300 male and female runners participated in .06-mile footrace in a
symbolic victory for co-ed running.
(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A8)
2005 May 21, The Palestinian
interior ministry said the Hamas militant group has agreed to halt
mortar and rocket fire on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, a deal
meant to save a truce threatened by three consecutive days of violence.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, In central Peru a
passenger bus plunged off a bridge into a river on, killing at least 35
people and injuring 30 others.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, In South Africa
several hundred people, most of them white, demonstrated to protest a
proposal to change the capital's name from Pretoria, the name given to
it by white settlers, to Tshwane, as the site was once known to its
original African inhabitants.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 The Eurovision song contest
was held in Kiev, Ukraine.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.57)
2005 May 21, In eastern Venezuela
armed gunmen stole a 2nd government-owned helicopter before dawn after
taking 3 security guards hostage at an airport in Ciudad Bolivar.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 22, First Lady Laura Bush
was heckled by protesters during a visit to holy sites in Jerusalem.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2005 May 22, Voice actor Thurl
Ravenscroft (91), who supplied Tony the Tiger's "They're grrrrreeeat!"
for more than 50 years, died in Fullerton, Calif.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2005 May 22, Egyptian authorities
arrested the 4th-highest official in the powerful Muslim Brotherhood
and 25 others. Mahmoud Ezzat, secretary-general of the Islamist group
and head of its Cairo operations, is the highest-profile Brotherhood
arrest since 1996.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, In India bombs tore
through 2 cinemas in New Delhi showing a film considered offensive by
some Sikhs.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 22, Seven Iraqi
battalions backed by US forces launched an offensive in Baghdad in an
effort to stanch the violence that has killed more than 550 people in
less than a month.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, In Iraq gunmen killed
a top trade ministry official while aides of a radical Shiite cleric
met with a key Sunni group seeking to ease sectarian tensions.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, In Iraq 3 Romanian
journalists and their Iraqi-American guide were freed after nearly two
months in captivity. Mohammed Munaf, their Iraqi-American translator,
was later tried and convicted on charges that he assisted in the
kidnapping. In 2006 Munaf was sentenced to death.
(AP, 5/22/05)(SSFC, 10/15/06, p.A20)
2005 May 22, Jordan, Israel and
the Palestinian Authority said they had agreed terms for a feasibility
study on transferring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, to save
the world's lowest sea from vanishing.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, A North Korean cargo
ship arrived in South Korea to pick up fertilizer, the first such
vessel from the isolated communist nation to dock here in 21 years.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, A top Kyrgyz official
said Uzbeks who fled into neighboring Kyrgyzstan to escape violence in
their Central Asian country are not refugees and must return home.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, In Mongolia Nambariin
Enkhbayar, a candidate from the former Communist Party, won the
presidency with 53% of the vote.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 22, In Palestine
protesters besieged Laura Bush during her visit to two of Jerusalem's
most sacred sites.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 22, In South Africa 7
teenage girls drowned in a rip tide off the east coast and a boy was
missing after a beach outing turned tragic when the swimmers ventured
out before lifeguards were on duty.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 22, The UN condemned as
"utterly unacceptable" the alleged abuse of detainees at the main US
base in Afghanistan and called on the American military to allow an
investigation by Afghan human rights officials.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 23, US Senate moderates
reached a bipartisan compromise agreeing on a yes-no vote on some
disputed judicial nominees and not to block future ones except in
extraordinary circumstances. Republicans agreed to back off a bid to
end filibusters in such cases.
(WSJ, 5/24/05, p.A1)
2005 May 23, President Bush said
that US troops in Afghanistan will remain under US control despite
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's request for more authority over them.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, Kansas City rapper
Anthony “Fat Tone” Watkins (24) and another man were found shot dead in
the Southern Highlands area of Las Vegas. Police later said that a SF
rap promoter named Andre Dow, aka “Mac Minister,” and Jason Mathis
killed the 2 men to avenge the Nov, 2004, killing of Andre “Mac Dre”
Hicks in Kansas. Mathis was arrested in 2005 in SF. Dow was arrested in
2006 in SF.
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B5)(SFC, 11/29/05, p.A1)(SFC,
3/3/06, p.B7)
2005 May 23, Afghan and coalition
forces killed two insurgents in a firefight in central Afghanistan,
while US aircraft bombed and destroyed a cave where about six other
rebels were believed hiding.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, Thousands of British
Broadcasting Corp. journalists and technicians began a 24-hour strike
over proposed job cuts, severely disrupting radio and TV programs.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, In Shenzhen, China,
16 buildings toppled near the Hong Kong border in what state media said
was the largest urban demolition blast ever in China.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, In eastern Congo
militiamen calling themselves Rastas killed at least 18 people and
kidnapped at least 50 others in a late-night attack on the village of
Ninja, hacking their victims to death as they ran for safety.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, A Russian-made plane
crashed shortly after takeoff near Bunyakiri, Congo, killing 26 people.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2005 May 23, French anti-terrorist
officers captured three suspected members of the Basque separatist
group ETA in an early morning sweep in southeast France.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, A string of car bombs
and suicide attacks across Iraq killed at least 49 Iraqis and wounded
more than 130. Militants assassinated a top national security official.
Five US troops were killed by roadside bombs and a vehicle accident.
(AP, 5/23/05)(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, In Ireland a bus full
of high school students collided with two cars northwest of Dublin on
and tipped over into a ditch, killing five teenage girls and injuring
50 people.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, Morocco's king pulled
out of the first North African summit in more than a decade, over
Algeria's latest comments in a long-running dispute over independence
for Western Sahara. Moroccan King Mohammed VI will be represented at
the two-day summit in Tripoli, Libya, by Morocco's foreign minister,
Mohamed Benaissa.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, The Norwegian
Petroleum Directorate announced a wildcat exploration well drilled in
the Norwegian Sea has made a promising natural gas strike, although it
was too early to say how large.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, The Palestinian
Election Commission said that parliamentary elections scheduled for
July 17 will be delayed because it needed more time to prepare for the
vote.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, Ryszard Kalisz,
Poland's interior minister, offered his resignation amid reports of
growing corruption in police forces around the country.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, The Vatican said
there was no investigation under way of allegations that Rev. Marcial
Maciel Degallado, the Mexican founder of a conservative religious
order, sexually abused seminarians more than 30 years ago.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, In Zimbabwe
paramilitary units armed with batons and tear gas patrolled Harare's
main roads as police warned they would not tolerate any more protests
against their crackdown on street trading, the only livelihood for
thousands in the shattered economy.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 24, Breaking years of
gridlock, the Senate cleared the way for confirmation of Priscilla Owen
to the US appeals court following a compromise on President Bush's
current and future judicial nominees.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2005 May 24, Ignoring President
Bush's veto threat, the House voted to lift limits on embryonic stem
cell research.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2005 May 24, A US State Department
brochure, distributed to hundreds of delegates at the 188-nation
conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, listed
milestones in arms control since the 1980s, while touting reductions in
the US nuclear arsenal. But the timeline omitted a pivotal agreement,
the 1996 treaty to ban nuclear tests, a pact negotiated by the Clinton
administration and ratified by 121 nations but now rejected under Pres.
Bush.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, Texas lawmakers
tentatively voted to give juries the option of sentencing murderers to
life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 5/25/05, p.A3)
2005 May 24, Ismail Merchant (68),
film producer, died in London. He collaborated with James Ivory and
their films included adaptations of novels by Henry James (e.g. The
Europeans) and E.M. Forster (e.g. A Room With A View).
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B6)(Econ, 6/4/05, p.82)
2005 May 24, Indigenous leaders
from Arctic regions around the world called on the European Union to do
more to fight global warming and to consider giving aid to their
peoples.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Bolivia thousands
of demonstrators blocked major roads in and around La Paz, isolating
the city in a protest demanding the nationalization of the oil industry
and opposing autonomy for an oil-producing region.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, The environmental
group Greenpeace nominated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and five
others for its first "Golden Chainsaw" prize, to be awarded to the
Brazilian deemed to have contributed most to the Amazon's destruction.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, The British
government approved the extradition of three British bankers the United
States is seeking to prosecute on fraud charges involving Enron Corp.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In the Central
African Republic military strongman Francois Bozize won the May 8
runoff presidential runoff election, a move toward legitimizing his
rule two years after he seized power.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Colombia suspected
leftist guerrillas carrying assault rifles swept into a southern town
and attacked government offices, killing six town councilors and five
others.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, The EU announced that
its members would double their aid to poor countries by 2015.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.77)
2005 May 24, In Iraq a car bomb
exploded near a Baghdad junior high school for girls, killing six
people. 3 US soldiers were killed in central Baghdad when a car bomb
exploded next to their convoy. A US soldier sitting in the back of a
Bradley fighting vehicle at an observation post was shot to death by
gunmen in a passing car.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, A Web site that acts
as the clearinghouse for messages from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said that
Iraq's most-wanted militant had been wounded "for the sake of God" and
asked Muslims to pray for his recovery.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, Italian police raided
the homes and offices of 186 suspected members of a child pornography
ring, including three Roman Catholic priests and a local mayor, that
downloaded pictures from an exclusive Web site.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Mexico Eduardo
Villalobos, the director of a state prison in the border city of
Mexicali, was shot to death in an ambush outside his home.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Pakistan a bomb
exploded in the house of a tribal elder in South Waziristan region,
killing five women and a child.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, In Slovenia police
said Mitja Ribicic (86), a former Yugoslav secret service leader, has
been charged in connection with the revenge killing of thousands of
Slovenes following World War II, the first such charge in this
ex-Yugoslav republic.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO will offer airlift, training
and other logistics support to African Union (AU) forces struggling to
end the civil war in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, World Orthodox
leaders gathered in Istanbul, the ancient seat of Orthodoxy. They
decided to stop recognizing the beleaguered patriarch of Jerusalem,
Irineos I, for allegedly leasing sites in the Palestinian side of the
city to Jewish investors. They asserted a rare unified position on the
crisis facing the church in the Holy Land.
(AP, 5/24/05)(WSJ, 5/25/05, p.A1)
2005 May 25, Pres. Bush met with
Indonesian Pres. Yudhoyono. The US decided to lift a ban on the
government sale of non-lethal defense equipment to Indonesia as part of
a step-by-step process to restore full military ties frozen due to
human rights abuses.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 25, The US Senate
confirmed Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen to serve on the US
Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.A3)
2005 May 25, In Michigan City,
Ind., Gregory Scott Johnson (40) died by injection at 12:28 a.m. for
beating and stomping an 82-year-old woman to death in 1985, then
setting her house on fire to hide the crime. Gov. Mitch Daniels
rejected a request for a reprieve to allow Johnson to donate part of
his liver to his ailing sister.
(AP, 5/25/05)(SFC, 5/25/05, p.A3)
2005 May 25, Country sweetheart
Carrie Underwood won the latest edition of "American Idol."
(AP, 5/25/06)
2005 May 25, Ismail Merchant (68),
half of the prestigious Merchant-Ivory filmmaking team, died in London.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2005 May 25, In Azerbaijan
officials opened the first section of a $3.6 billion, 1,100-mile
pipeline that will carry Caspian Sea oil to Western markets. The
presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey were on hand
for the ceremony at the Sangachal oil terminal.
(AP, 5/25/05)(WSJ, 5/25/05, p.B2)
2005 May 25, China rolled out the
red carpet for Uzbekistan's Pres. Karimov, underscoring the importance
it places on curbing the rise of Islamic militancy as it welcomed the
authoritarian leader criticized in the West for a bloody crackdown on
protesters. China signed a $600 million joint oil venture with
Uzbekistan.
(AP, 5/25/05)(WSJ, 5/26/05, p.A1)
2005 May 25, In Egypt police and
plainclothes security men beat and arrested demonstrators calling for a
boycott of a government-backed referendum on constitutional changes
that would clear the way for Egypt's first multicandidate presidential
election.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 25, A new plaza on San
Salvador's Jerusalem Avenue was inaugurated in honor of the late
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Migrants from Palestine flowed to El
Salvador for decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and
several families became prominent in business and politics.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 25, About 1,000 US
Marines, sailors and soldiers encircled Haditha city in the troubled
Anbar province.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 25, In India Sunil Dutt
(75), sports minister and former Bollywood icon, died after a heart
attack.
(Reuters, 5/25/05)
2005 May 25, In Italy a judge
ordered best-selling author Oriana Fallaci to face trial on charges of
defaming Islam in her recent book "The Strength of Reason." Fallaci,
who is in her 70s, said she is accused of violating an Italian law that
prohibits "outrage to religion."
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 25, Japan and Malaysia
agreed to key elements of a free-trade pact, to be launched in
December, covering automobiles and most other economic sectors.
(WSJ, 5/26/05, p.A10)
2005 May 25, In Lebanon Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, vowed to fight anyone who tries
to take away the group's weapons, which he said included more than
12,000 rockets capable of hitting northern Israel.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 25, Riot police in Panama
City fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse people throwing
bottles and rocks during a protest by an estimated 10,000 workers and
students against proposed changes in the country's pension system.
(AP, 5/26/05)(WSJ, 5/26/05, p.A1)
2005 May 25, In Russia electricity
outages crippled large sections of Moscow and nearby regions. Power was
restored the next day.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 25, A powerful car bomb
exploded in Madrid after a warning call from the armed Basque
separatist group ETA. 18 people were injured.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 25, In Suriname Pres.
Venetiaan faced an electoral challenge from former dictator, Desi
Bouterse, a convicted cocaine smuggler and military strongman, whose
victory would threaten millions of dollars in promised aid from the
Netherlands.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 26, President Bush met
with Palestinian leader Mohmoud Abbas, praised his steps toward
democracy, and said the US will pay $50 million in housing aid for
Palestinians in Gaza.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, Investigators
confirmed five cases in which military personnel mishandled the Qurans
of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, but said they had found no
"credible evidence" that a holy book was flushed in a toilet.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2005 May 26, The US and Ukraine
signed an agreement to safeguard nuclear waste and upgrade storage
facilities in Ukraine.
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.A3)
2005 May 26, In Tennessee 4
lawmakers and a member of a powerful political family were indicted on
charges of taking bribes in a FBI sting dubbed “Tennessee Waltz.” State
Sen. John Ford had received payments totaling $55,000 and boasted to
undercover agents: “You are talking to the guy that makes the deals.”
(SFC, 5/27/05, p.A12)(Econ, 6/4/05, p.32)
2005 May 26, Eddie Albert (99),
actor who moved smoothly from the Broadway stage to nearly 100 movies,
died. He found stardom as the constantly befuddled city
slicker-turned-farmer in television's "Green Acres."
(AP, 5/28/05)(SFC, 5/28/05, p.A2)
2005 May 26, Dale Velzy (b.1927),
pioneer surfboard builder, died in Mission Viejo, Ca. His famous board,
The Pig, was made in 1955. Velzy helped launch the surfing-movie genre
by funding Bruce Brown to shoot “Slippery When Wet” (1957).
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.B4)
2005 May 26, It was reported that
Jayant "Jay" Patel (56), an America surgeon born and trained in India
and linked to the deaths of at least 87 patients in Australia over two
years (2003-2005, had been given glowing references by six colleagues
in the United States despite having been cited for negligence there
earlier. In 2006 a court issued warrants for Patel’s arrest on three
charges of manslaughter and five charges of causing grievous bodily
harm to patients at Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland. Patel was
hired at Bundaberg without disclosing that he had been disciplined for
negligence by medical boards in Oregon and New York. In 2008 Patel was
arrested by FBI agents in Oregon.
(AP, 5/26/05)(AP, 11/22/06)(AFP, 3/12/08)
2005 May 26, In Sao Paulo, Brazil,
at least 1.5 million evangelical Protestants rallied in the heart of
the financial district, demonstrating their growing clout in the
world's largest Roman Catholic country. "The purpose of this march, and
of all the other ones we have organized over the years, is to conquer
Brazil for Jesus Christ."
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, China’s Xinhua news
agency reported that China has developed vaccines that block the spread
of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu among birds and mammals.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, Pascal Lamy, former
European Union trade chief, was named next head of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and immediately vowed to steer struggling free trade
talks to a successful end. He was selected on May 13.
(AP, 5/26/05)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.79)
2005 May 26, Officials announced
that a nationwide referendum to open the way for Egypt's first
multicandidate presidential elections passed overwhelmingly.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, In southwestern
France protesting winemakers set fire to train cars, pelted them with
rocks and blocked rail traffic on their way home from demonstrations in
Nimes.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, India and Pakistan
exchanged ideas on ending a two-decade-old military standoff on
Kashmir's Siachen glacier, as senior defense officials began a two-day
meeting.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, In northeastern India
mudslides killed at least 14 people, burying them alive as they slept
in Nagaland state.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 26, The WTO agreed to
allow Iran to open talks to join the body that governs international
commerce, a day after Iranian nuclear negotiators renewed Tehran's vow
to refrain from developing atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, The Iraqi government
announced that a security cordon of 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police
will ring Baghdad starting next week to try to halt a spree of
insurgent violence. Attacks left 15 Iraqis and one Marine dead.
(AP, 5/26/05)(WSJ, 5/27/05, p.A1)
2005 May 26, The Iraqi government
arrested Musaab Kasser Abdul Rahman Hassan, known as Abu Younis, a
suspected member of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq. The
government claimed he was responsible for building car bombs and
carrying out more than 60 bombings around the capital. The arrest was
not announced until June 19.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 May 26, In central Iraq 2 US
soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down and crashed.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 26, Police killed 2
gunmen in a Dublin post office, the first fatal shootings by Ireland's
largely unarmed force in five years.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, The South Africa
state agency responsible for names of towns and cities approved plans
to rename the capital of Pretoria as Tshwane.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, International donors
pledged an additional $200 million to fund the African Union
peacekeeping operation in Sudan's western Darfur region during a
conference in Ethiopia to discuss the ongoing violence.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, Suriname's ruling
coalition survived an election challenge from a former dictator. But
former dictator Desi Bouterse's National Democratic Party more than
doubled its seats in the National Assembly.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, Syria's UN ambassador
said Syria has arrested more than 1,200 people trying to cross the
border into Iraq in recent weeks and sent many back to their home
countries because of suspicions they were trying to join the insurgency.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, In Tham Krabok,
Thailand, the largest refugee camp for ethnic Hmong, who had fled
communist Laos, was officially closed.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, Speaking out for the
first time in favor of controversial base closings, President Bush told
the Naval Academy commencement the nation was wasting billions of
dollars on unnecessary military facilities and needed the money for the
war on terrorism.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2005 May 27, Testimony ended in
the Michael Jackson child molestation trial after prosecutors showed
jurors a video of the accuser being interviewed by police and defense
lawyers decided not to put on a rebuttal case. Jackson was later
acquitted.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2005 May 27, Pfizer Inc.
acknowledged rare cases of blindness in men taking its impotence drug
Viagra and said it is in talks with US regulators to change the drug's
label.
(Reuters, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, A lawyer for Thomas
Noe, Ohio coin dealer and Republican Party man, reported that as much
as $13 million of the state’s $50 million investment in Noe’s rare coin
fund could not be accounted for [see Oct 27].
(SFC, 5/28/05, p.A4)
2005 May 27, In North Carolina
Junior Allen (65) walked out of prison after 35 years in prison for
stealing a black-and-white television set.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 27, Schapelle Corby (27),
an Australian woman, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison
for smuggling nine pounds of marijuana onto Indonesia's Bali island.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, Thousands of HSBC
staff belonging to the Amicus trade union staged the biggest walk-out
for more than eight years against a leading British bank when they went
on strike in a bitter pay dispute.
(AFP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for a power outage that caused
chaos in Moscow. Rebels said they burned a Moscow theater and caused
the blackout.
(AP, 5/27/05)(WSJ, 5/31/05, p.A1)
2005 May 27, In Colombia Diego
Fernando Murillo, a right-wing (AUC) paramilitary leader accused of
killing a state congressman, surrendered after a four-day, nationwide
manhunt.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, The EU constitution
cleared its final legislative hurdle in Germany, two days before French
voters have their say on the document. The Prum Treaty was signed by
Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria and Belgium
(Italy has since said it wants to join too). It covers a series of
justice and home affairs issues including the "exchange of information"
(in effect, the "principle of availability").
(AP,
5/27/05)(www.statewatch.org/news/2006/sep/05eu-g6.htm)
2005 May 27, Talks between India
and Pakistan to break their two-decade-old stand-off on Kashmir's
Siachen glacier, the world's highest battlefield, ended in apparent
deadlock.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, An Internet posting
said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is in good health and is running his terror
organization.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 27, In Iraq gunmen shot
and killed a moderate Sunni Muslim tribal leader with close ties to
Iraqi Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk. Sheik Sabhan Khalaf
al-Jibouri, 52, died in a hail of machine-gun fire outside his home.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 27, In Nepal thousands of
activists rallied to demand a restoration of democracy in the first
such protest since the monarch seized power and ordered a crackdown on
politicians.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, In Pakistan a suicide
bomber set off explosives in the midst of Shiite Muslims reciting the
Quran, killing at least 20 and wounding dozens gathered for a religious
festival at a shrine near Islamabad.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, King Fahd, Saudi
Arabia's monarch for the last 23 years was hospitalized for unspecified
tests.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 27, According to Israeli
sources Syria test fired 3 Scud missiles, one of which broke up over
two Turkish villages causing no injuries, in an act of defiance to the
US and the UN. Syria denied the charges.
(AFP, 6/3/05)(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 May 28, It was reported that
American rancher John Cain Carter served as the driving force behind
Alianca da Terra, a Brazilian NGO promoting certification and standards
of good practice for ranchers and farmers.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.68)
2005 May 28, Bulgarian President
Georgi Parvanov flew Tripoli to meet with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi,
days before a Libyan court rules on the appeal of five Bulgarian nurses
sentenced to death over an AIDS-tainted blood scandal.
(Reuters, 5/27/05)
2005 May 28, In Ethiopia
provisional results showed that the ruling coalition and its allies won
a majority in parliamentary elections, but the opposition made
significant gains.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 28, In Indonesia 2 bombs
exploded at a busy market on Sulawesi Island, killing at least 22
people and wounding 40 others in an area marred by years of
inter-religious fighting.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 28, Iran's hard-line
Guardian Council approved a law that puts pressure on the government to
develop nuclear technology that could be used to build atomic weapons.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 28, In Iraq 2 suicide
attackers detonated car bombs in northern Iraq, killing at least five
Iraqis, and the government confirmed the death of a Japanese hostage
abducted earlier this month. Attacks killed at least 45 Iraqis over the
past 2 days including 10 people returning from a religious pilgrimage
in Syria. A US Marine was killed when a roadside bomb struck his
vehicle in northwestern Iraq.
(AP, 5/28/05)(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 28, More than 40,000
Iraqi police and soldiers, backed by American troops and air support,
began “Operation Lightning” against insurgents in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 May 28, In Sudan tens of
thousands of chanting refugees lined the muddy streets of Darfur's
largest camp to greet the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, who later listened as
women raped during the conflict told their stories.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 29, Dan Wheldon won the
Indianapolis 500 as Danica Patrick's electrifying run fell short. She
finished fourth.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2005 May 29, In Bellefontaine,
Ohio, Scott Moody (18) who was about to graduate from high school is
believed to have fatally shot his grandparents, mother and two family
friends before killing himself.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, George Rochberg (86),
composer, died. He was America’s 1st evangelist for serialism, a way of
composing invented by Arnold Schonberg in the 1920s.
(WSJ, 6/16/05, p.D8)
2005 May 29, In southern
Afghanistan's Kandahar province gunmen shot and killed Mullah Abdul
Fayaz, the top Muslim leader.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, In Brazil almost 2
million gay men, lesbians, transvestites and their supporters, many in
lavish Carnival costumes and waving rainbow-colored flags, paraded in
Sao Paulo to celebrate gay pride and call for the legalization of civil
unions between homosexuals.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, French voters
rejected the EU's first constitution, dealing a potentially fatal blow
to the charter. In 2007 it was repackaged as the Lisbon treaty.
(AP, 5/30/05)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.28)
2005 May 29, In Iraq suicide
bombings and ambushes killed at least 30 people, including a British
soldier. Iraqi forces swept through Baghdad, erecting checkpoints and
searching vehicles as they launched the largest offensive of its kind
since Saddam Hussein's ouster.
(AP, 5/29/05)(SFC, 5/30/05, p.A1)
2005 May 29, In Iraq Maj. Gen.
Ahmed al-Barazanchi, the director of internal affairs of Kirkuk
province and a former police chief, was shot several times. He died the
next day.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, The body of Raja
Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, governor of Anbar province, was found killed.
Insurgents had abducted him May 10.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 29, Israel's Cabinet
approved the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, Thousands of South
Korean students rallying against the US military's five-decade presence
clashed with police after trying to enter the American base, and at
least 12 people were injured and more than 20 were arrested.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, Lebanon held
parliamentary elections. Candidates loyal to the son of assassinated
politician Rafik Hariri swept the 1st stage of the first Lebanese
election largely free of Syrian domination, claiming all 19
parliamentary seats in Beirut.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, In southwestern Nepal
Maoist rebels shot dead a policewoman and her four-year-old son.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, The World Association
of Newspapers' (WAN), meeting in Seoul, awarded veteran Sudanese
journalist Mahgoub Mohamed Salih its 2005 press freedom award.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, In Taipei thousands
of men in black gangster garb took part in the funeral procession of a
reputed Taiwan mob godfather, nicknamed "Mosquito" and "The Great
Arbitrator." Hsu Hai-ching died this month at 93 after a long illness.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, In Venezuela tens of
thousands of marched in Caracas demanding the US extradite a Cuban
militant wanted for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban
airliner.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 30, Quoting letters of
the fallen from the war in Iraq, President Bush vowed to a Memorial Day
audience at Arlington National Cemetery that America would honor its
dead by striving for peace and democracy, no matter the cost.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2005 May 30, Natalee Holloway
disappeared on the last night of a trip to Aruba to celebrate her
graduation from an Alabama high school.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 May 30, In Afghanistan
Taliban militants claimed responsibility for a bicycle bomb aimed at a
NATO-led vehicle which wounded at least 7 Afghans and a rocket which
slammed into the peacekeeping force's base in Kabul.
(AFP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, US-led warplanes and
troops killed up to 9 suspected Taliban rebels after the militants
launched 3 attacks in quick succession on Afghan and US-led coalition
forces.
(AFP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 30, In Graz, Austria, the
body of a slain infant was found at an apartment complex. 3 more soon
discovered: 2 stuffed in a basement freezer, one entombed in a paint
bucket filled with concrete and one in a plastic bag beneath debris in
a garden shed.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 May 30, Miss Canada, Natalie
Glebova, was crowned Miss Universe in the 54th annual pageant held in
the Thai capital of Bangkok.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 30, China scrapped
concessions meant to avert a trade war with the US and Europe,
withdrawing a plan to sharply increase export duties on Chinese-made
textiles that are flooding foreign markets. The turnaround followed new
import controls imposed by Washington and the EU, which China's
commerce minister called a violation of WTO rules.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, President Jacques
Chirac began a widely expected government shakeup to save face at home
as European Union officials worked to control damage after French
voters rejected the EU's first constitution.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, Germany's
conservative opposition nominated Angela Merkel, a former chemistry
researcher who entered politics during the collapse of communism, as
its challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, Indonesia's first
polio outbreak in a decade widened with two new cases reported, as the
government kicked off a massive eradication campaign that aims to
vaccinate 6.4 million children in one day.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, In Iraq 2 suicide
bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of police officers in Hilla,
south of Baghdad, killing 31 people and wounding 108, while US forces
mistakenly detained a Sunni political leader on the 2nd day of an
Iraqi-led security sweep in the capital.
(AP, 5/30/05)(SFC, 5/31/05, p.A1)
2005 May 30, In Iraq separate air
crashes killed 4 American and 4 Italian troops.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 30, The Israeli military
targeted rocket launchers just before an attack was to be launched from
northern Gaza, and two launchers were destroyed.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, Officials in Lebanon
announced that Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated former premier
Rafik Hariri, had swept parliamentary elections in Beirut.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2005 May 30, Nicaragua President
Enrique Bolanos issued an emergency decree, allowing him to raise
electricity prices as demanded by producers.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, In Pakistan a blast
ripped through a Shiite Muslim mosque in the southern city of Karachi,
leaving at least 4 people dead, 3 of them the attackers, and a dozen
injured in a suspected suicide bombing.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30-31, In Pakistan a mob
angered by an al-Qaida-linked suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque set a
KFC restaurant afire in overnight rioting, killing six employees and
bringing the day's overall death toll to 11. Police in southern
Pakistan later arrested eight Shiite Muslims for attacking the KFC
restaurant.
(AP, 5/31/05)(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 May 30, Russia agreed to
begin withdrawing its troops from two Soviet-era bases in Georgia this
year, resolving one of the most serious disputes between Moscow and its
pro-Western neighbor.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 31, President Bush, faced
with a string of setbacks on Capitol Hill, shrugged off questions about
his political clout and promised during a news conference to keep
pushing Congress for a Social Security overhaul.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2005 May 31, Vanity Fair Magazine
revealed that W. Mark Felt (91), former FBI official, was the Watergate
whistleblower Deep Throat, who helped bring down Pres. Nixon in 1974.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 May 31, Human Events, a
conservative weekly, published a list of what 15 conservative scholars
considered to be the 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century.
(www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591)(SSFC, 6/12/05,
p.C3)
2005 May 31, The US Supreme Court
overturned the 2002 criminal Enron-related conviction of Arthur
Andersen LLP ruling that the trial judge erred by granting the
government’s request to loosen the standard jury instructions.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, The Massachusetts
Legislature voted to override Gov. Romney’s veto of a bill easing
stem-cell research curbs.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) introduced its 1st PC microprocessors with a dual-core
chip design, the Athlon 64 X2.
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.C4)
2005 May 31, James Wolfensohn,
former World Bank chief, assumed the post of special envoy for Gaza
disengagement for the Quartet (USA, Russia, EU and UN). He was assigned
to co-ordinate Israel’s imminent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and to
focus on economic ways to help Palestinians after the Israeli exit. He
left the post a year later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wolfensohn)(Econ, 6/30/07,
p.55)
2005 May 31, NATO troops took
command of security and reconstruction efforts in western Afghanistan
from US forces under a plan that will likely soon put NATO forces into
insurgent hot spots.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, A Belarus court
sentenced 2 opposition leaders to 3 years of compulsory labor for
organizing a 2004 anti-Lukashenko demonstration.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, In Bolivia thousands
of demonstrators prevented legislators from reaching the congressional
building Tuesday, forcing the suspension of their first session after a
weeklong recess caused by continued street protests.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, In Brazil authorities
ordered the slaughter of 17,000 chickens after 6,000 chickens died from
a mysterious respiratory illness in Mato Grosso do Sul state. Brazil is
the world's largest chicken exporter.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, China said reporter
Ching Cheong of The Straits Times, Singapore's main English-language
newspaper, has admitted to spying for a foreign intelligence agency.
Cheong’s wife said he was arrested April 22 after a source gave him
documents about purged former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, who
died this year.
(AP, 5/31/05)(WSJ, 5/31/05, p.A1)
2005 May 31, In Dagestan a police
bus was bombed in Makhachkala and 7 people were killed.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 May 31, French President
Jacques Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who was
France's voice against the Iraq war, as prime minister.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, In Haiti a fire
burned through a large market in Port au Prince moments after a gun
fight erupted that killed at least one man.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, Two-thirds of
Israel's Ein Gedi nature reserve was destroyed by fire, causing
considerable damage to animal and plant life in the lush oasis
sandwiched between the harsh Judean Desert and the Dead Sea.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, Pakistan’s Pres. Gen.
Pervez Musharraf said Senior al-Qaida terrorist suspect Abu Farraj
al-Libbi, arrested on May 2, will be sent to the US for prosecution. He
is believed to be behind two assassination attempts against Musharraf
and could have received the death penalty here.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 May 31, A Russian court
declared oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of an array of charges
in a trial widely criticized as politically motivated, sentencing him
to nine years in prison minus time served. Co-defendant Platon Lebedev
also received a 9-year sentence and the 2 men were fined 17 billion
rubles ($615 million).
(AP, 5/31/05)(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A3)
2005 May 31, Sudan arrested a
second aid worker from the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) aid agency
over a report on hundreds of rapes in the troubled Darfur region.
(Reuters, 5/31/05)
2005 May 31, In Switzerland
Griselidis Real (76), writer and well-known prostitute who campaigned
for the rights and dignity of sex workers, died in Geneva. In 2009 she
was re-buried in the presence of 200 people at the Cemetery of the
Kings, which is reserved for individuals that have profoundly marked
Swiss or international history.
(www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/griselidis-real-493264.html)(AP,
3/10/09)
2005 May 31, Trinidad police
arrested Basdeo Panday, former prime minister (1995-2001) and
opposition leader, and 3 others on corruption charges connected to an
airport construction contract.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May, Feds in Minnesota shut
down the flagship company, Xpress Pharmacy Direct, of Christopher Smith
(25) and seized $1.8 million in luxury cars, two homes and $1.3 million
in cash held by Smith and associates. The Spamhaus Project, an
anti-spam group, considered him one of the world's worst offenders.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 May, Energy ministers from
Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela agreed to develop a field in
Venezuela’s heavy-oil belt in the Orinoco, a refinery in Brazil’s
north-east and an oil and gas venture in Argentina under the name
Petrosur.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.33)
2005 May, In Edmonton, Canada, the
body of Ellie May Meyer, a 33-year-old brunette, was found by a farmer
plowing his field northeast of the city. Over 16 years, 12 prostitutes
have been found dead around Edmonton. No one has been arrested.
(CP, 5/14/05)
2005 May, Italy reported that it
had fallen back into recession for the 1st quarter of 2005.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.13)
2005 May, In Nigeria Mike Amadi
was sentenced to 16 years in prison for setting up a Web site that
offered juicy but phoney procurement contracts. Amadi was caught by an
undercover agent posing as an Italian businessman.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 May, Norway announced a new
biennial prize for science, the Kavli prize, funded by philanthropist
Fred Kavli to begin in 2008. Only the fields of astrophysics,
nanoscience and neuroscience would be considered for the $1 million
prize.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.84)
2005 May, An arc of windmills
started supplying electricity to 40 per cent of Ilocos Norte province,
the first source of clean energy introduced in the Phillipines, a
nation with 84 million people reliant on oil and gas.
(AFP, 10/12/05)
2005 May, In Portugal an audit
estimated that the nation’s deficit could reach 7% of GDP this year,
well over the 1999 EU limit of 3%.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.53)
2005 May, South Africa’s ruling
ANC issued a paper suggesting that the nations massive unemployment,
estimated at over 40%, could be reduced if the labor market was more
flexible.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.49)
2005 May, US forces fired across
the Iraqi frontier and killed a Syrian soldier during an American
military operation. The event was reported by a Syrian general 5 months
later.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Jun 1, In his first day on
the job, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said he hoped the bank
could help transform Africa from a continent of despair to one of hope.
Wolfowitz began a five-year term as head of the 184-nation World Bank.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, In California a
landslide destroyed 17 multimillion-dollar houses and damaged nearly 11
others in Laguna Beach.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 1, A 5-day UN World
Environment Day conference opened in SF.
(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 1, Missouri opened its
1st season of legal hand-fishing following fierce lobbying efforts by
Noodlers Anonymous, a local support group for catching catfish by hand.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.37)
2005 Jun 1, eBay announced its
$620 million purchase of Shopping.com, a shopping comparison service.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.65)
2005 Jun 1, The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the web
suffix .xxx for porn oriented web sites.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.59)
2005 Jun 1, George Mikan (80),
Minneapolis Lakers basketball star, died. He was so big and dominant in
college that he sparked the goaltending rule.
(WSJ, 6/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 1, In Afghanistan a bomb
from a suicide attacker tore through a mosque during a funeral in
Kandahar for a Muslim cleric opposed to the Taliban, killing at least
20 people. The local governor said an al-Qaida-linked militant was
responsible.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, Burkina Faso President
Blaise Compaore opened the 7th summit of Sahel and Sahara countries,
spurring the 21-member body to take a decisive role in shaping
globalization.
(AFP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 1, China began levying a
5.5% tax on residential property sold after this date. It would only be
applied to property sold fewer than 2 years after its purchase.
(WSJ, 5/26/05, p.A10)
2005 Jun 1, China called a
resolution by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan to expand the U.N.
Security Council, and hopefully give them permanent seats, "dangerous"
and hinted it would use its veto power if necessary to block final
approval.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, In southern China
heavy rain triggered floods and mudslides, leaving about 200 people
dead or missing.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, In Haiti gunmen killed
Paul-Henri Mourral (53), a French diplomat, in Port-au-Prince and stole
his car.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 1, A suicide bomber
attacked the main checkpoint to Baghdad International Airport, wounding
at least 15 Iraqis.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, Jerusalem city
engineer Uri Shetrit said 88 homes in an Arab neighborhood are marked
for demolition to make way for an archaeological park documenting the
disputed city's ancient Jewish origins.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, About 200 people, some
throwing stones, broke into Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court and evicted
activists who had occupied the building for more than a month in a
protest on behalf of five losing parliamentary candidates.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, Dutch voters worried
about social benefits and immigration overwhelmingly rejected the
European Union constitution in what could be a knockout blow for a
charter meant to create a power rivaling the United States. Slow
economic growth in the Netherlands was seen as a key reason for the
massive rejection of the EU constitution
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, Peruvian doctors
separated the fused legs of Milagros Cerron, a 13-month-old baby girl
known as Peru's "mermaid."
(AP, 6/1/06)
2005 Jun 1, In Poland
investigators published a report offering new details of allegations
that a priest was an informer for Poland's communist government while
he was close to Pope John Paul II's entourage in the 1980s. The report
says against Rev. Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo met secretly with communist
agents from 1975 to 1988 in upscale restaurants and hotel rooms, giving
them details about the church in return for money and gifts of liquor.
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 1, Zimbabwe’s state
Herald newspaper reported that police have arrested more than 22,000
people as a fierce blitz on illegal stores and shantytowns gathered
pace, sending homeless people fleeing for the countryside.
(Reuters, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 2, Pres. Bush tapped
California Rep. Chris Cox (52) to chair the SEC following the
resignation of William Donaldson.
(SFC, 6/3/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 2, Georgia "runaway
bride" Jennifer Wilbanks pleaded no contest to faking her own
abduction; she was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2005 Jun 2, Thirteen-year-old
Anurag Kashyap won the national spelling bee championship by correctly
spelling "appoggiatura," which refers to an embellishing musical note.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2005 Jun 2, Network computer maker
Sun Microsystems Inc. said it agreed to buy Storage Technology Corp.
for $4.1 billion in cash, bolstering its presence in the fast-growing
market for data storage.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, Researchers reported
that human trust in others was related to the hormone oxytocin.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.76)
2005 Jun 2, Australia led 15
countries including Britain, France and Germany in a protest on against
Japan's plans to expand its annual whale hunt.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, On Australia's
southwest coast up to 160 whales became stranded on 2 beaches after 2
pods beached themselves.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, Federal police
targeted Brazil's environmental protection agency in a crackdown on
illegal logging, arresting 48 officials and several independent
businessmen.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 2, In northeastern Brazil
a government bus carrying Indians from a health clinic went out of
control on a wet road and careened into a creek, killing at least 19
people.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, Melita Norwood (93),
former Soviet Union spy in Britain (1937-1972), died.
(Econ, 7/2/05, p.52)(http://tinyurl.com/8f3yy)
2005 Jun 2, Chinese, Indian and
Russian foreign ministers, meeting in Vladivostok, agreed to intensify
joint work against terrorism and underscored their common approach to
international affairs.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, In northern Iraq 3
suicide car bombings struck within an hour. In Kirkuk a car bomb
targeting a restaurant where bodyguards of Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime
minister were eating killed nine people and wounded 25. A car bomb
attack killed the deputy head of Diyala provincial council and three of
his bodyguards. 2 parked motorcycles exploded in Mosul killing 5
Iraqis. Gunmen in speeding cars opened fire on a crowded market in
Baghdad. The series of attacks killed at least 34 people.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, A suicide car bomber
targeted a home where a group of people had gathered, killing at least
10 Iraqis and wounding 10 more in Saud, a remote village north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 2, Israel released 398
Palestinian prisoners, completing a pledge made under a cease-fire
agreement, hours after Israel and the Palestinians announced their
leaders would soon meet for the first time since February.
(AP, 6/2/05)(WSJ, 6/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 2, The US and France
reached a tentative deal to boost the size of the UN peacekeeping
mission in Ivory Coast by nearly 2,000 troops and police to help
enforce a shaky peace deal. Meanwhile thousands fled a region where a
village was burned and 55 people killed by unidentified gunmen.
(AP, 6/3/05)(WSJ, 6/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 2, Latvian lawmakers
voted to ratify the European Union constitution and challenged other
European nations not to give up hope that the charter can be
implemented.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, In Lebanon Samir
Kassir, a prominent journalist known for his anti-Syrian writings, was
killed after a bomb placed in his car exploded in Beirut.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, The Maldives ushered
in a new political era when parliament voted to allow parties to form
for the first time in the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, a move that
ended centuries of autocratic rule. The law passed in July.
(Reuters, 6/2/05)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.55)
2005 Jun 2, It was reported that
Russia's state-controlled gas giant was negotiating to buy a
controlling share of the influential Izvestia daily from a private
conglomerate, a move that could bring one of the country's largest
private newspapers under firm Kremlin control.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 2, Serbian police
reported the arrest of at least 8 men they say are shown in a 1995
video killing a group of Bosnian Muslim prisoners from Srebrenica.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, Schabir Shaik, the
financier of the African National Congress during its struggle to end
apartheid, was convicted of corruption by a South African court. He was
found to have given Jacob Zuma over $100,000 in bribes from a French
arms company. Shaik served 2 years and 4 months of his 15 year sentence
before he was freed in 2009, supposedly on medical grounds.
(AP, 6/2/05)(Econ, 3/14/09, p.51)
2005 Jun 2, In Sudan 5 people were
killed and 16 others injured when a passenger plane crashed shortly
after take-off from Khartoum and caught fire.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 2, In southern Ukraine a
freight train crashed into a passenger bus at a railroad crossing,
killing 14 people. In a separate accident, a train crashed into a car
at another crossing point, killing three people.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 3, The US accused 14
nations of failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in
prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers. The countries
included Bolivia, Cambodia, Cuba, Ecuador, Jamaica, Kuwait, Myanmar,
North Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo the United Arab Emirates,
and Venezuela.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 3, US military officials
said no guard at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects had
flushed a detainee’s Quran down the toilet, but disclosed there were
instances in which Qurans were abused by guards, intentionally or
accidentally.
(AP, 6/3/06)
2005 Jun 3, Nicholas Scott Faibish
(12) was mauled to death by 2 family pit bulls at 711 Lincoln Way, SF.
In 2006 a jury deadlocked in a trial that charged his mother, Maureen
Faibish (40), with felony child endangerment.
(SFC, 6/4/05, p.A1)(SFC, 8/1/06, p.B1)
2005 Jun 3, In eastern Afghanistan
a bomb exploded next to a US military convoy, killing two American
soldiers and wounding a third.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 3, Albanian novelist
Ismail Kadare (69) won the first international version of Britain's
prestigious Man Booker literary prize. Kadare became famous in his
homeland with the 1963 publication of his first novel, "The General of
the Dead Army." His other works include "The Concert," and "The Palace
of Dreams."
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, Bolivia's Pres. Carlos
Mesa called a constitutional assembly and a referendum over greater
regional autonomies, meeting the key demands behind street protests
that have virtually paralyzed La Paz for more than two weeks.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, In Brazil new logging
permits were suspended in Mato Grosso state where the rain forest is
being cleared at an ever increasing rate.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, Gordon Brown,
Britain's treasury chief, proposed canceling all debt to Africa's
poorest countries, eliminating all trade barriers and selling gold
reserves as part of a "modern Marshall plan" for the giant continent.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, Iraqi insurgent
commanders "apparently came face to face" with four American officials
during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a summer villa near Balad,
about 25 miles north of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 3, Gunmen killed a city
council official in Kirkuk. Gunmen also killed Razzouq Mohammed
Ibrahim, an Iraqi contractor in charge of renovating a mosque in
western Samarra. Two Iraqi civilians, including a child, were killed
when their car swerved into a US Bradley fighting vehicle near Khalis.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, Oscar Espinosa
Villarreal, former Mexico City mayor (1994-1998) and tourism secretary,
was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for embezzling
government funds and ordered to pay more than $26 million in
reparations.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 3, A Peruvian judge
ordered the arrest of 29 military officials for their alleged
involvement in the decades-old massacre of dozens of campesinos in an
Andean village.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, Thai Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in New Delhi, India, for talks on a free
trade agreement and civil aviation liberalization.
(AFP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 3, UN Pres. Jean Ping
presented 191 member governments the first draft of a plan for
overhauling the United Nations, complete with demands to pay more
attention to poverty and human rights. The document avoided the
contentious issues of Security Council expansion, defining terrorism
and guidelines for using force.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4, The White House
downplayed a Pentagon report detailing incidents in which U.S. guards
at Guantanamo Bay prison desecrated the Quran, saying in a statement,
"It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few
isolated incidents by a few individuals."
(AP, 6/4/06)
2005 Jun 4, Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said China is not a threat to the US but is building
up its military without being threatened by any other country. The US
commerce secretary warned China of a potential political backlash in
Washington amid tensions over mounting Chinese trade surpluses, surging
textile exports and rampant product piracy.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4, It was reported that
Larry Ellison, head of Oracle Corp., planned to create a database and
journal to track improvements in world health through a joint venture
with Harvard that would be accompanied by as much as $115 million. In
2006 Ellison decided against the donation due to the resignation of
Pres. Lawrence Summers.
(SFC, 6/4/05, p.C1)(SFC, 6/28/06, p.C1)
2005 Jun 4, In Afghanistan Haji
Sultan, division commander for the Taliban, was arrested with Mullah
Mohammad Rahim, another senior Taliban official, in the western Farah
province.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 4, Australian officials
said a senior Chinese diplomat has sought Australian government
protection for himself and his family, claiming he faces persecution if
he goes home. Analysts said Chen Yonglin's defection could muddy
Canberra's relations with Beijing.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4, Thousands of
opposition protesters chanted "Freedom!" and carried pictures of
President Bush as they marched across Azerbaijan's capital, urging the
government of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary
elections this year.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4, Bangladesh police
arrested the 2nd wife of former president Hussain Mohammad Ershad
(1982-1990), after he accused her of stealing money and threatening his
life.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4, In Canada Bernard
Landry resigned as leader of the Parti Quebecois.
(CP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 4, Masked Chechen
soldiers apparently avenging the killing of a woodcutter raided a tiny
village, beat and killed residents and set homes afire. The raid in
Borozdinovskaya pitted ethnic Chechens against ethnic Avars, marking
the first serious conflict between the two groups. Villagers, failing
to attract local authorities' attention to the abuses, abandoned their
houses June 16 and fled to nearby Kizlyar in Dagestan.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 4, It was reported that
the death rate on China’s roads, according to the WHO, was 680 per day
plus 45,000 injuries. American traffic deaths in contrast were at 115
per day.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.25)
2005 Jun 4, Justine Henin-Hardenne
beat Mary Pierce 6-1, 6-1 to win the French Open women's singles title.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2005 Jun 4, In Haiti police killed
at least 4 people and burned 12 homes during raids against gang members
in a slum filled with supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 4, Iraqi police arrested
Mutlaq Mahmoud Mutlaq Abdullah, also known as Abu Raad, a key aide to
the leader of the Mosul branch of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group.
A suicide car bomber blew himself up at an Iraqi police checkpoint on a
main road connecting northern Mosul with the nearby city of Tal Afar,
killing two officers and wounding four. Iraqi and US troops discovered
50 weapons and ammunition caches and a huge underground bunker west of
the capital fitted out with air conditioning, a kitchen and showers.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 4, In Northern Ireland
Terence Davison (49), a reputed IRA veteran, was arraigned for the Jan
30 killing of Robert McCartney.
(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 4, In Laos after decades
on the run, 170 women, children and old men of the Hmong ethnic
minority, once part of a U.S.-backed secret army fighting communists,
emerged from their jungle hideouts to surrender to the government.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4-2005 Jun 5, An
overnight border raid by al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Mgheiti, a
remote Mauritanian army post in the northern desert, sparked a
gunbattle that killed 15 Mauritanian troops and nine attackers.
Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat claimed responsibility for
the attack.
(AP, 6/5/05)(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Jun 4, Hundreds of activists
gathered in southern Nigeria to rally support for an opposition
conference, backed by the Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, to
end ethnic and political violence in Africa's most populous nation.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 4, In Pakistan Gul
Hassan, Islamic militant and member of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
group, was convicted and sentenced to death for planning two suicide
attacks that killed 45 minority Shiite Muslims on May 7 and May 31,
2004, at mosques in Karachi.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 5, "Monty Python's
Spamalot" won three Tony Awards, including best musical; the musical
play "The Light in the Piazza" won six prizes, while "Doubt" was named
best drama.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2005 Jun 5, FBI agents in Lodi,
Ca., arrested Hamid Hayat (22) for training at an al Qaeda camp in
Pakistan and his father (47) for lying about his son’s activities. In
2006 Umer Hayat pleaded guilty to charges of lying to customs agents to
avoid a trial. In 2007 Hamid was sentenced to 24 years in prison for
supporting terrorists by training with them in Pakistan.
(SFC, 6/9/05, p.A1)(SFC, 6/1/06, p.B1)(SFC, 9/11/07,
p.D2)
2005 Jun 5, In San Francisco big
city mayors from around the world signed a set of 21 urban
environmental accords, capping a 5-day UN World Environment conference.
(AP, 6/6/05)(SFC, 6/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 5, Texas Gov. Rick Perry
signed anti-abortion and anti-gay legislation at the Calvary Christian
Academy in Fort Worth.
(SFC, 6/6/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 5, The Chinese government
said 3 days of flooding triggered by torrential rains killed 204 people
in China's south and desert northwest and left 79 missing at the
beginning of the country's summer flood season.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 5, Spanish teenager
Rafael Nadal beat unseeded Mariano Puerta of Argentina 6-7 (6), 6-3,
6-1, 7-5 to win the French Open men's singles title.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2005 Jun 5, An accident inside the
Frejus Alpine tunnel between France and Italy killed at least two
people. A truck loaded with tires and another carrying glue caught fire
along with four other vehicles.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 5, In Jordan 14 men who
earlier admitted plotting terrorism and sparking riots that killed six
people in southern Jordan testified that they were tortured into
confessing. The men then pleaded innocent before a military court.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 5, Five suspected Islamic
militants were killed in an ongoing gunbattle with troops in Indian
Kashmir's Rajouri district.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 5, Kuwait named two women
to public office for the first time, less than a month after parliament
passed a historic law granting women the right to vote and run for
office.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 5, Lebanon held its 2nd
of a 4-stage vote. A week earlier anti-Syrian opposition candidates
took most of the capital's 19 parliamentary seats. 53 candidates vied
for 23 seats in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, the armed group considered
a terrorist organization by the US, and its Amal allies swept voting in
southern Lebanon.
(AP, 6/6/05)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 5, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser
(b.1949), Mexican scholar and diplomat, died.
(Econ, 6/18/05,
p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Aguilar_Z%C3%Adnser)
2005 Jun 5, Swiss voters approved,
by a 55-45% majority, joining the European Union in the Schengen
passport-free travel zone, abolishing checks on the country's border by
2007. They also granted same-sex couples more rights.
(AP, 6/6/05)(Econ, 6/11/05, p.48)
2005 Jun 5, Taiwan reported that
it had successfully test-fired a locally developed cruise missile
capable of striking southeastern areas of mainland China.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 5, In southeastern Turkey
Kurdish rebels ambushed a Turkish commando unit overnight, killing four
soldiers and wounding one near Tunceli.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 6, The US Supreme Court
ruled 6-to-3 that people who smoke marijuana because their doctors
recommend it to ease pain can be prosecuted for violating federal drug
laws.
(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.A1)(AP, 6/6/06)
2005 Jun 6, Actor Russell Crowe
was arrested for throwing a phone that hit a hotel employee in New York
City; he later pleaded guilty to third-degree assault.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2005 Jun 6, Scientists reported
success with monkeys in using vaccines to fend off the Ebola and
Marburg viruses.
(SFC, 6/6/05, p.A2)
2005 Jun 6, Apple Corp. confirmed
plans to switch to Intel Corp. microprocessors.
(SFC, 6/705, p.C1)
2005 Jun 6, IBM and Ecole
Polytechnique of Lausanne, Switz., announced a partnership to begin
building a computer model of the human brain.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.75)
2005 Jun 6, PropLogis, the largest
real estate investment trust in the US, announced that it will buy SF
developer Catellus Corp. for $4.9 billion.
(SFC, 6/705, p.C1)
2005 Jun 6, Washington Mutual
announced that it will take over Providian Financial in a deal valued
at $6.45 billion.
(SFC, 6/705, p.C1)
2005 Jun 6, Anne Bancroft
(b.1931), film actress, died in NYC. She won the 1962 best-actress
Oscar as the teacher of a young Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker,”
but achieved greater fame as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in “The
Graduate.”
(AP, 6/7/05)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000843/)
2005 Jun 6, Dana Elcar (77), film
and TV actor (MacGyver), died in California.
(AP, 6/6/06)(www.collinwood.net/cast/elcar.htm)
2005 Jun 6, It was reported that
the rate of rural suicide in Australia is among the highest in the
world as farmers battle the stress of years of drought, failed crops,
mounting debt and slowly decaying towns.
(Reuters, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 6, President Carlos Mesa,
his 19-month-old government unraveling amid swelling street protests
and a crippling blockade of the Bolivian capital, announced his
resignation in a nationally televised address.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 6, Chechnya’s
Moscow-backed Pres. Alu Alkhanov said Russian military forces carry out
up to 10 percent of the kidnappings that occur in turbulent Chechnya.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 6, In Ethiopia one girl
was killed and seven people were wounded in violence over disputed
election results that gave the ruling party control of parliament.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 6, In Kyrgyzstan an
arrest warrant was issued for former prime minister Nikolai Tanayev,
accused of illegally transferring about $1 million in state funds to a
private construction company run by his son. A request for Tanayev’s
extradition was sent to Moscow.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 6, In southern Nepal at
least 37 people were killed and dozens more wounded when a crowded bus
detonated a land mine planted by suspected communist rebels.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 6, The International
Criminal Court at the Hague formally announced the opening of a war
crimes investigation in Sudan's Darfur region after receiving a list of
51 potential suspects from UN.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 7, President Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair embraced a tentative plan to forgive
the debt of poor African nations.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2005 Jun 7, A Univ. of Alaska
Fairbanks student found a track from a three-toed dinosaur believed to
be about 70 million years old in Denali National Park, the first
evidence that the animals roamed there.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jun 7, General Motors
announced plans to close plants and eliminate some 25,000 manufacturing
jobs in the US by 2008.
(SFC, 6/805, p.C1)
2005 Jun 7, Terry Long, former
Pittsburgh Steelers lineman, died in a hospital about five hours after
he was found unresponsive in his suburban Pittsburgh home. An Oct 19
revised death certificate indicated that he had committed suicide by
drinking antifreeze, and did not die as a direct result of
football-related head injuries.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2005 Jun 7, In Australia 2 Chinese
defectors, one of them a diplomat who walked away from his post, claim
that China is running a spy network in Australia and other Western
countries.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 7, Brazil’s Pres. Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to carry out a battle against corruption
that would reduce it to a "sad memory."
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, A Chilean appeals
court stripped Gen. Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution in a
tax evasion case stemming from multimillion-dollar bank accounts the
former dictator held in the US.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, In Egypt 12 people,
including two children, were killed and 16 injured when a building
collapsed in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 7, In Ethiopia police
raided a technical college in Addis Ababa, firing rubber bullets and
beating up students defying a government ban on protests during a 2nd
day of violence.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, The EU head office
said that Italy broke the bloc's budget rules with excessive deficits
in 2003 and 2004 and is likely to breach the limit again this year and
in 2006.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, In Hungary legislators
narrowly elected Laszlo Solyom (63), a center-right opposition
candidate as the new president, in a setback for the governing
coalition.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, Lal Krishna Advani
(77), India's most prominent Hindu nationalist, quit as head of the
country's main opposition party following criticism of his kind words
for the founding father of Pakistan, a man reviled in India. His
resignation as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, also made it
official that India's Hindu political movement was splintering.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, A Sunni Arab
politician said two insurgent groups were willing to negotiate with the
government, possibly opening a new political front in embattled Iraq.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, Iraqi security forces
captured Jassim Hazan Hamadi al-Bazi, also known as Abu Ahmed. a
reputed key member of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist
group who is accused of building and selling cars used by suicide
bombers.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 7, In northern Iraq 4
apparently coordinated bombings in seven minutes killed 18 people and
wounded 39, while a car bomb in Baghdad injured 28.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, A convoy of trucks
believed to be carrying supplies to a U.S. military base west of
Baghdad was ambushed, and reporters who arrived after the attack said
they saw the bodies of at least seven people.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 7, Two US commanders were
killed at a base near Tikrit. The US military later charged a Staff
Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez of Troy, N.Y. National Guard with murdering
Capt. Philip Esposito and 1st Lt. Louis Allen, in what is believed to
be the 1st case of a US soldier in Iraq accused of killing his
superiors. Martinez was acquitted of murder on Dec 4, 2008.
(AP, 6/17/05)(AP, 11/1/05)(SFC, 10/23/08, p.A7)(SFC,
12/5/08, p.A6)
2005 Jun 7, Irishman Bob Geldof,
who organized the 1985 Live Aid concerts, urged people to sail to
France "in their thousands" and bring activists back to Britain to
press world leaders into doing more to end poverty in Africa at their
July summit in Scotland.
(AFP, 6/7/05)(Econ, 6/4/05, p.56)
2005 Jun 7, Israeli soldiers
killed a top Islamic Jihad militant in a West Bank gunbattle, and a
Palestinian mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza killed two
non-Israeli workers.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 7, A Libyan court
acquitted 9 police officers and a doctor accused of torturing six
foreign medics sentenced to death for allegedly infecting children with
HIV.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 7, A convention adopted
sweeping changes to Taiwan's constitution that will boost its top two
political parties and require future amendments to go directly before
voters, a measure opposed by China.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 8, The US Senate
confirmed California judge Janice Rogers Brown for the federal appeals
court, ending a two-year battle.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2005 Jun 8, Former Boston Bruins
star Cam Neely, the late Valeri Kharlamov and Murray Costello were
named to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2005 Jun 8, Seagate introduced a
disk drive for notebook computers that stores 160 gigabytes of data. It
used new technology called perpendicular recording.
(WSJ, 6/9/05, p.B7)
2005 Jun 8, The WWF conservation
group reported that fishing nets claim the lives of some 1,000 whales,
dolphins and porpoises around the world each day.
(WSJ, 6/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 8, In eastern Afghanistan
rebel rockets struck US troops unloading supplies from a helicopter,
killing two and wounding 8.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, In Brazil the top
financial officer for Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's party denied
paying off congressmen to keep the fragile governing coalition alive,
making a bid to contain political damage from an alleged
bribes-for-votes scandal.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, Security forces opened
fire on stone-throwing demonstrators in Ethiopia, killing 26 people in
a third day of protests over election results.
(AP, 6/8/05)(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 8, French PM Dominique de
Villepin easily won a parliamentary vote of confidence after announcing
a job creation plan worth $5.5 billion.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, In Haiti Butteur
Metayer (34), a gang leader who started the uprising that led to the
ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, died of kidney failure.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, In India a bus hit a
high voltage wire, killing 11 passengers and injuring 15 others in the
southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, An American-Iraqi
offensive killed at least 10 militants, including four blown apart by
their own car bomb.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, In Mexico Alejandro
Dominguez took office as police chief of Nuevo Laredo, saying he wasn't
afraid of anything. Nine hours later, he was ambushed and killed by
gunmen who fired some three dozen times.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 8, Nepalese police
arrested 53 journalists as they protested press restrictions.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, In Nigeria 5 men and
one woman were shot dead in the poor Apo neighborhood Abuja. Police
initially said they were armed robbers caught in the act, but an
inquiry established that they were unarmed. In Dec Nigeria apologized
to the families of the people who were shot dead and offered them 3
million naira ($22,600) each, setting a precedent in a country where
police brutality is a fact of daily life.
(Reuters, 12/03/05)
2005 Jun 8, In Norway US Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his Norwegian counterpart on signed an
agreement allowing the US military to continue storing equipment there.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, In Palestine 3 workers
at a Jewish settlement in Gaza were killed in a Palestinian mortar
strike, two West Bank militants were shot dead by soldiers and an
infiltrator from Egypt to Gaza was gunned down by Israeli forces.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 8, A 2-day conference on
racism sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) opened in Cordoba, Spain.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 9, Pres Bush nominated
CIA and FBI veteran Henry Crumpton as the State Department's
coordinator for counterterrorism policy. President Bush defended the
USA Patriot Act, saying it had made America safer and should be made
permanent.
(Reuters, 6/9/05)(AP, 6/9/06)
2005 Jun 9, The governor of
Massachusetts requested federal aid due to an unusually big red tide of
toxic algae that has crippled the state’s shellfish industry.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 9, Richard Eberhart
(101), Pulitzer Prize winning poet, died in New Hampshire.
(http://tinyurl.com/d72om)
2005 Jun 9, In Bolivia Vaca Diez,
president of the Senate, relinquished his claim to the presidency, as
did the president of the lower house. Eduardo Rodriguez, the Supreme
Court chief justice, automatically became president.
(AP, 6/10/05)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.34)
2005 Jun 9, Canada’s high court
struck down a Quebec ban on private health insurance that pays for
foster care.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A6)
2005 Jun 9, Chinese officials
signed preliminary agreements to invest about $1.5 billion in
construction, timber, agriculture and other industries in Russia.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 9, Iraqi Pres. Jalal
Talabani said Sunni Muslim Arabs will be given up to 25 seats on the
committee drafting Iraq's new constitution.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 9, Clementina Cantoni
(32), an Italian aid worker kidnapped at gunpoint in the Afghan capital
three weeks ago, was released.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 9, North Korea boasted it
was building more nuclear bombs and had the ability to arm them on
missiles.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 9, In the Netherlands
thousands of civil servants went on strike to protest declining social
benefits and low wages.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A6)
2005 Jun 9, Russia said it will
not back an int’l. investigation into the May 13 suppression of
protestors at Andijan, Uzbekistan.
(WSJ, 9/2/05, p.A13)
2005 Jun 9, The US lifted its
freeze on a $10 million aid package for Serbia-Montenegro, saying the
Balkan country had shown better cooperation with the UN war crimes
tribunal.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 9, Syria's ruling Baath
Party endorsed reforms that include allowing some independent political
parties, relaxing a state of emergency and granting more press freedom.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 9, Syrian forces raided a
suspected terrorist hideout near the capital, killing 2 men, arresting
a third and foiling alleged bombing plots that targeted the nation's
Justice Palace.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 9, A strike over
Zimbabwe's razing of shantytowns made a slow start and the opposition
boycotted President Robert Mugabe's opening of a new parliament elected
in polls critics said were unfair.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 10, President Bush and
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun pressed North Korea to rejoin
deadlocked talks on its nuclear weapons program and tried to minimize
their own differences over how hard to push the reclusive communist
regime.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 10, Citigroup Inc. said
it will pay $2 billion to Enron Corp. shareholders who accused it of
helping the energy trader in a massive accounting fraud.
(Reuters, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, Jim Exon (83), former
governor of Nebraska (1971-1979) and US Senator (1979-1996), died.
(SFC, 6/11/05, p.B4)
2005 Jun 10, In eastern
Afghanistan an American soldier was killed and three US troops were
wounded when insurgents ambushed a patrol.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 10, China resolved a
trade dispute over textiles with the EU.
(WSJ, 6/13/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 10, In northeast China a
torrent of water rushed down a mountain and hit a primary school in
Heilongjiang province, killing 91 people, most of them students, and
leaving another four people missing.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 10, In southern China a
fire raced through the top three floors of a hotel, killing 31 people
and injuring 15 others.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 10, Torrential rains in
northwestern Colombia unleashed mudslides on an impoverished
mountainside neighborhood in Colombia's coffee-growing region, killing
at least 6 people.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, In India opposition
leader Lal Krishna Advani agreed to stay on as president of the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, three days after resigning over his
comments on the founder of Pakistan.
(Reuters, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, In Iraq militants
killed five US Marines and authorities found 21 bodies in civilian
clothes scattered near Qaim, a town close to the Syrian border. 11 were
shot in the head and another was beheaded.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, Two American
scientists and an Austrian conductor won this year's Kyoto Prizes, the
Japanese awards for achievement in the arts and sciences.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, In southern Japan an
18-year-old student tossed a homemade bomb into a high school
classroom, injuring 58 teenagers.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, Jyrgalbek
Surabaldiyev, a Kyrgyz lawmaker and owner of Kyrgyzstan's largest
automobile market, was gunned down. He was a close ally of the
country's former leader.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, In Mexico lawyers for
the brother of a former Mexican president sought his release on bail
after an appeals court threw out his 27-year murder sentence.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, King Harald V of
Norway and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden met in the middle of the
Svinesund bridge and opened the span over a fjord south of Oslo.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, A Pakistani court
ordered the release next week of 12 men connected to a notorious June
22, 2002, gang-rape of Mukhataran Mai, including six convicted of the
crime.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, In South Africa Pius
Langa (66), a former shirt factory worker was handed the chief
justice's robes at a ceremony marking the appointment of the first
black South African to head a court system assailed by allegations of
racism.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 10, Zimbabwe police
fought running battles until dawn with supporters of a general strike
called to protest a government campaign against shack dwellers and
street traders. The mass strike failed on its final day.
(AFP, 6/10/05)
2006 Jun 11, Afleet Alex won the
Belmont Stakes by seven lengths.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2005 Jun 11, US officials said a
cow had tested positive for mad cow disease in November, opening the
door to possible changes in testing procedures in the US beef industry.
The cow was later identified as being calved in Texas in 1993.
(AP, 6/11/05)(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.A1)
2006 Jun 11, The first tropical
storm of the season, Arlene, sloshed ashore in the Florida Panhandle.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2005 Jun 11, Lillian Lux (86),
star of Yiddish theater, died. She made her name with almost continuous
performances of “A Khasene in Shtetl” (A Village Wedding) from the
1940s.
(Econ, 6/25/05, p.86)
2005 Jun 11, In southern
Afghanistan an Afghan army truck collided with a bus, killing three
villagers and wounding seven. A US soldier was killed by small-arms
fire in Orgun-e.
(AP, 6/11/05)(SFC, 6/14/05, p.B3)
2005 Jun 11, Police investigating
the disappearance of an Alabama honors student in Aruba arrested a man
at dawn, hours after one of three young men already in custody admitted
"something bad happened" to the woman after they took her to the beach.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, Australian farmers
danced in the rain as downpours delivered the first soaking falls in
over four years to large parts of drought-ridden eastern Australia.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, Finance ministers
from the Group of Eight industrialized nations meting in London agreed
to a historic deal canceling at least $40 billion worth of debt owed by
18 of the world's poorest nations. These included: Benin, Bolivia,
Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali,
Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania,
Uganda and Zambia.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, In northern China an
attack on a shantytown left six people dead and wounded 48 others.
Villagers had disputed compensation offered by officials for their land
and occupied the proposed site in 2004. Authorities have arrested more
than 100 people and began investigating two Communist Party officials
following the attack.
(AP, 7/11/05)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.40)
2005 Jun 11,Two Ethiopian
opposition leaders were placed under arrest, a day after the ruling
party agreed to work with its foes to end violent protests that have
left 29 dead.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, French journalist
Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant were freed and in good health
after nearly five months in captivity in Iraq.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 11, In Iraq a suicide
bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up during roll call at the
heavily guarded headquarters of an elite commando unit killing 5
people. Gunmen attacked a busload of construction workers south of
Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 11 and wounding three others.
Attacks in and around Baghdad killed at least 23 people.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, US fighter planes
equipped with precision-guided missiles launched airstrikes on an Iraqi
town near the Syrian border, killing about 40 insurgents who were
stopping and searching civilian cars.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, In the Philippines
thousands of protesters demanded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo step
down during the biggest anti-government rally since allegations
surfaced that she fixed last year's election and her family received
gambling kickbacks.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, More than 2,000
people defied a ban on a gay-rights rally in Poland's capital, taking
to the streets of Warsaw against the orders of the city's conservative
mayor.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, Vasco Goncalves (83),
former Portugal prime minister (1974-1975), died. He played a key part
in the 1974 April revolution that toppled 48 years of right-wing
dictatorship.
(AP, 6/11/05)
2005 Jun 11, A new round of peace
talks on Sudan's Darfur region ran into early problems as Khartoum's
negotiators rejected Eritrean participation, stopping the first
behind-closed-doors plenary session from going ahead.
(Reuters, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 11, Jose Maria Corredor,
a Colombian drug smuggler wanted by the US, bribed his way out of
Venezuela's secret police headquarters with help from federal agents.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 12, Vice President Dick
Cheney, reacting to a growing chorus of calls to close the US prison at
Guantanamo Bay, told Fox News Channel there were no plans to do so.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2005 Jun 12, At the LPGA
Championship, Annika Sorenstam closed with a 1-over 73 for a three-shot
victory over Michelle Wie, who shot a 69 to finish second.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2005 Jun 12, A fire in
Philadelphia left 5 children dead. Security bars on windows may have
hampered escape attempts.
(SFC, 6/13/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 12, In Iran 4 bombs
exploded in Ahwaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province on
the Iranian border with Iraq. 9 people were killed and 36 wounded in
the deadliest explosions in the nation in more than a decade.
(AP, 6/12/05)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.42)
2005 Jun 12, The US military
announced the killing of 4 more soldiers, pushing the American death
toll past 1,700. Iraqi police found the bullet-riddled bodies of 28
people, many thought to be Sunni Arabs, buried in shallow graves or
dumped streetside in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12,The Kurdish Parliament
elected veteran guerrilla leader Massoud Barzani the first president of
Iraq's northern Kurdistan region.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12, British troops
arrested a group of Iraqi insurgents suspected of carrying out separate
roadside bombings that killed two British soldiers.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12, The Venice Biennale
opened under the direction of Rosa Martinez and Maria de Corral.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.80)
2005 Jun 12, Italians voted in
national referendums on whether to loosen assisted fertility
legislation. 90% voted to change the law but only 26% of eligible
voters bothered to turn out.
(AP, 6/12/05)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.48)
2005 Jun 12, UniCredit, Italy’s
largest bank, announced the takeover HVB Group, Germany’s 2nd biggest.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.70)
2005 Jun 12, Kuwait state TV
reported that the Kuwaiti government has appointed its first female
Cabinet minister, a month after lawmakers in this oil-rich nation
granted women the right to vote and run for office. Massouma al-Mubarak
(54), a women's rights activist and columnist, was given the planning
and administrative development portfolios.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12, Lebanon held its
third round of a four-stage election. Michel Aoun, a Lebanese Christian
general, appeared headed toward a surprising victory. He once
fought the Syrian army and returned from exile just weeks ago.
Fifty-eight of 128 seats in parliament were at stake in the elections
in central and eastern regions of the country.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 12, Pakistan's army
seized control of the national telecoms firm after trade unions called
a strike against the company's privatization next week.
(AFP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12, The Palestinian
Authority carried out its first executions since 2001, killing four
convicted murderers as part of a new campaign to rein in lawlessness
and chaos.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12, In Russia an
explosion believed caused by a terrorist bomb derailed a train
traveling from Chechnya to Moscow during a national holiday, injuring
at least 15 people. The Day of Russia holiday, formerly known as
Independence Day, marks the Russian parliament's June 12, 1990,
declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 12, In South Africa
Makobo Modjadji (27), the famed rain queen of the Bolobedu people, died
of unspecified causes.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, The US Senate
apologized for blocking anti-lynching legislation in the early 20th
century, when mob violence against blacks was commonplace.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2005 Jun 13, The Supreme Court
warned prosecutors to use care in striking minorities from juries,
siding with black murder suspects in Texas and California who contended
their juries had been unfairly stacked with whites.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2005 Jun 13, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger called for a special election on his initiatives to
change state government.
(SFC, 6/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 13, A jury in Santa
Maria, Calif., acquitted Michael Jackson of molesting a 13-year-old
cancer survivor at his Neverland ranch. The pop music star was found
not guilty of child molestation, conspiracy and other counts.
(AP, 6/14/05)(AP, 6/13/06)
2005 Jun 13, Leonard Pickell,
former president of the James Beard Foundation, was sentenced 1 to 3
years in prison in NY state for stealing over a $1.1 million from the
foundation.
(SFC, 6/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Jun 13, Philip Purcell
announced that he would resign as CEO and Chairman of the Board at
Morgan Stanley. He was forced out with a golden parachute valued at
$113.7 million. Purcell had orchestrated the 1997 merger between Dean
Witter and Morgan Stanley. In 2007 Patricia Beard authored “Blue Blood
& Mutiny: The Fight for the soul of Morgan Stanley.”
(Econ, 10/13/07,
p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Purcell)
2005 Jun 13, Scientists reported
the discovery of an Earthlike planet orbiting the star Gliese 876,
which is about 15 light-years from Earth. The planet was 2 million
miles from its star and surface temperatures were estimated at 400-700
degrees.
(SFC, 6/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 13, Australia and
Pakistan signed a new counter-terrorism pact during a visit by
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Australia handed East
Timor the base at Moleana, a tiny town near the border with Indonesia,
signaling the end of a six-year mission that heralded a controversial
new era of regional intervention in East Timor.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 13, Burundi began forced
repatriation of thousands of Rwandan refugees, who feared reprisals at
home. The UN condemned the action.
(WSJ, 6/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 13, Ethiopia's main
opposition leader was freed from house arrest after the country's main
political parties agreed to work together for peace after 10 days of
political unrest left at least 37 people dead.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Ethiopia police
shot and killed an opposition politician, prompting the arrest of six
officers, as the government rejected an opposition offer to renew a
peace deal.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 13, The Paris Air Show
opened. The Russian Lavochkin Association demonstrated a new escape pod
for people trapped in tall, burning buildings.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.60)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.81)
2005 Jun 13, In India officials
said at least 275 people have died from sunstroke and dehydration in
northern India and neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh so far this summer,
as high temperatures sweep the region ahead of the monsoon.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Iraqi insurgent
commanders "apparently came face to face" with four American officials
during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a summer villa near Balad,
about 25 miles north of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Iraq 4 suicide car
bombings and other insurgent attacks killed 10 people, and at least 16
Iraqis were wounded after militants opened fire on authorities trying
to evacuate the injured from one of the blasts.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Israel was elected
one of 21 vice-presidents of the next UN General Assembly session.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Italy a
Vatican-backed voter boycott helped defeat efforts to ease restrictions
on assisted procreation and embryo research.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Kashmir a bomb
hidden in a pickup truck exploded in the bustling town of Pulwama,
killing 15 people, including the suspected attacker, and injuring at
least 60 others.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Kyrgyzstan guards
outside a hotel opened fire on hundreds of traders who had come to the
southern city of Osh to demand fair market practices. 4 people were
hurt.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Martinique Patrick
Mariello showed up at a police station to say he had set his
ex-girlfriend's car on fire. The charred body of the 28-year-old was
found near the car. In 2008 Mariello (32) Mariello testified that he
was upset his ex-girlfriend never told him she had an affair with his
best friend. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 5/17/08)
2005 Jun 13, Moroccan officials
said at least 12 people, six of them children, drowned when a rubber
dinghy carrying would-be immigrants to Europe capsized off Africa's
northern coast.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, In Nepal police
arrested nearly 100 journalists during a protest to demand King
Gyanendra immediately lift media restrictions imposed 4 months ago. At
least 14 rebels and security force members were killed in a gunbattle.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Alvaro Cunhal (91),
Portuguese Communist leader, died. He led Portugal's CP for half a
century and became a national hero after the overthrow of the country's
dictatorship.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Ukraine prosecutors
said authorities had arrested the former head of Ukraine's peacekeeping
troops in Iraq on charges of smuggling.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Mohammed ElBaradei
won a third term as head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 14, US Army deserter
Charles Jenkins, who crossed into North Korea in 1965, arrived in the
United States for his first visit in 40 years.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2005 Jun 14, Michelle Wie became
the first female player to qualify for an adult male U.S. Golf
Association championship, tying for first place in a 36-hole US Amateur
Public Links sectional qualifying tournament.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2005 Jun 14, The 7.0-magnitude
quake struck northern California about 90 miles southwest of the
coastal community of Crescent City, where a 1964 tsunami killed 11
people.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 14, A health expert
warned that Kabul is on the verge of a cholera epidemic, with more than
2,000 cases of the disease and at least eight deaths reported in recent
weeks.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, Fighting between
about 90 suspected Taliban rebels and hundreds of Afghan soldiers and
U.S.-led coalition troops left seven insurgents dead and 10 wounded,
while a rebel attack on a medical clinic killed a doctor and six others.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 14, The Argentine Supreme
Court struck down 2 amnesty laws passed in the 1980s. Hundreds of
people could be charged with torture, disappearances and babynapping
during Argentina's "Dirty War" against dissidents.
(AP, 6/14/05)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.39)
2005 Jun 14, A 7.9 earthquake
rattled cities in Bolivia and Peru and heavily damaged mountain
villages in northern Chile, killing at least 11 people including a
family of 6.
(WSJ, 6/14/05, p.A1)(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 14, Colombia unveiled its
own version of a deck of cards for its most wanted insurgent leaders.
Army officials planned to distribute 5,000 of the decks to soldiers
battling the rebels across the country.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, In Athens, Greece,
Asafa Powell of Jamaica, broke the world 100-meter dash record with a
time of 9.77 seconds.
(WSJ, 6/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 14, A bomb exploded
outside a bank in Kirkuk, killing 23 people, including child street
vendors and pensioners waiting for their checks. In Baghdad, the bodies
of 24 men killed in ambushes were brought to a hospital. 5 Iraqi and 3
US soldiers were killed.
(AP, 6/14/05)(WSJ, 6/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 14, A senior US military
official said up to 20 percent of suicide car bombers in Iraq are from
Algeria, a sign of growing cooperation between Islamic extremists in
northern Africa and like-minded Iraqis.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, Carlo Maria Giulini
(91), renowned conductor, died in Brescia, Italy.
(SFC, 6/16/05, p.B7)
2005 Jun 14, Japanese automaker
Toyota Motor Corp. broke ground on a new assembly plant in St.
Petersburg, in a vote of confidence in the booming Russian consumer
market despite investors' jitters over the Yukos case.
(AP, 6/14/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.58)
2005 Jun 14, A strike called by
Kashmir separatists paralyzed India's portion of the disputed Himalayan
province, shutting almost all shops, schools and offices to protest an
apparent suicide attack that killed 15 people and injured 60 a day
earlier.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, Raul Salinas, the
brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was
released on bail after 10 years in prison on charges he masterminded
the 1994 killing of a political rival.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, Nepal freed all the
journalists detained in a protest of media restrictions, bowing to
international demands that the reporters be released at once.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, President Thabo Mbeki
dismissed his deputy Jacob Zuma, after he was implicated in a
corruption scandal, throwing wide open the question of who will become
the next leader of South Africa. Mbeki soon picked Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka, his minister for minerals and energy, to replace Zuma.
(AP, 6/14/05)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.46)
2005 Jun 14, A UN report showed
South America's cocaine output rose by 2 percent last year, bucking a
five year downward trend as increases in Peru and Bolivia outpaced
Colombia's clampdown on coca cultivation.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 14, Zimbabwe reported
that police have razed more than 20,000 shacks and other structures in
what President Robert Mugabe called “Operation Murambatsvina,” (drive
out the rubbish), an urban cleanup campaign. Some 700,000 people had
their homes or businesses destroyed in the campaign.
(AP, 6/14/05)(Econ, 6/11/05, p.46)(Econ, 5/27/06,
p.46)
2005 Jun 15, A Republican-led
House voted to upend a provision of the Patriot Act that allows federal
agents to examine people’s book-reading habits at public libraries.
Pres. Bush threatened to veto any the Justice Dept. spending bill if it
weakens the act.
(SFC, 6/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 15, Former Baylor
basketball player Carlton Dotson was sentenced to 35 years in prison, a
week after he unexpectedly pleaded guilty to murdering teammate Patrick
Dennehy.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2005 Jun 15, The autopsy released
on Terri Schiavo backed the contention of her husband, Michael, that
she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and
irreversibly brain-damaged and blind as well.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2005 Jun 15, It was reported that
Microsoft Corp. will provide computer training to more than 2,000
disadvantaged youths in rural Bangladesh over the next year.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, The opera “Gertrude
Stein Invents A Jump Early On” with music by William C. Banfield
(b.1961) and words by Karren LaLonde Alenier (b.1947) had its world
premiere by the Encompass New Opera Theatre in New York City under the
direction of Nancy Rhodes.
(www.steinopera.com)
2005 Jun 15, In Afghanistan 4
people, including 2 boys, were killed by mines.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 15, Armenia said
Azerbaijan was stockpiling more arms than permitted by treaty.
(WSJ, 6/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 15, Blairo Maggi,
Brazilian soyabean magnate, governor of Mato Grosso, and winner of this
year’s Greenpeace “golden chainsaw” award for deforestation, refused to
accept the award and slunk out through the back door of the school he
was visiting, to the taunting shouts of hundreds of children.
(Econ, 8/8/09,
p.70)(www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/brazilian_soy_k.php)
2005 Jun 15, Canada's minority
government survived a series of confidence votes, boosting Prime
Minister Paul Martin and greatly reducing the risk his scandal-battered
Liberal Party government could fall.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, China's biggest
automaker, FAW Car Co., warned that its first-half net profit could
fall by more than 50 percent amid sluggish sales, rising costs and
government moves to tighten credit for buying cars.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, Diego Murillo, a
brutal paramilitary warlord who made a fortune in Colombia's drug
trade, demobilized more than 400 of his AUC fighters at a ceremony
under a peace deal critics say could let him get away with murder.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, A US-based human
rights group said thousands of people have been arrested across
Ethiopia following violent clashes in which police killed 36 people.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, The EU commission
slapped a 40 million pound fine on pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for
illegally pushing rivals of a stomach ulcer medicine out of the market.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, In Guatemala a
rain-sodden hillside gave way and buried houses in seven neighborhoods
of a rural town, killing at least 21 people.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 15, Veteran civil servant
Donald Tsang effectively won Hong Kong's leadership race, filing papers
that showed he had the solid backing of an election committee that
picks the Chinese territory's leaders.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, Indonesia reported
its 1st human case of bird flu.
(SFC, 6/16/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 15, Iraqi troops, backed
by US forces, freed Douglas Wood, an Australian-born contract engineer,
after six weeks in captivity. The release came as a suicide bomber
dressed in an Iraqi army uniform blew himself up in a mess hall north
of Baghdad, killing at least 25 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 27. A
suicide car bomber slammed into 3 police cars on patrol in eastern
Baghdad, killing 8 officers. Brutal attacks across Iraq killed more
than 50 people.
(AP, 6/15/05)(SFC, 6/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 15, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that former Mexican President Luis Echeverria can be
charged with genocide for his alleged involvement in the 1971 massacre
of student protesters.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, A militant group in
Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region kidnapped 2 German and 4 Nigerian
workers of a contractor firm providing service for Anglo-Dutch oil
giant Shell.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, OPEC agreed to
increase its production quota by half a million barrels a day in an
effort to cool high crude oil costs that have dampened the global
economy.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, Poland said it will
cut its 1,700-troop deployment to Iraq this summer by as many as 300
troops.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, In Romania Maricica
Irina Cornici (23), an Orthodox nun, was found dead, gagged and chained
to a cross. Father Daniel (29), the superior of the Holy Trinity
monastery, had ordered the crucifixion of the young nun because she was
"possessed by the devil." The Orthodox priest faced murder
charges and was unrepentant as he celebrated a funeral mass for his
alleged victim. [see Jun 22]
(AFP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 15, In Russia authorities
failed to contain a spill of heavy fuel from a derailed train and it
flowed into waterways that supply Moscow with drinking water. Some 770
tons of thick, tar-like fuel spilled from more than a dozen tanker cars
that went off the tracks about 100 miles northwest of Moscow.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 15, In Russia 2
explosions ripped through a petroleum storage depot outside Moscow,
killing two workers, injuring another and forcing the evacuation of
hundreds from nearby homes and a hospital.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, Spanish authorities
said police had arrested 16 Islamic terror suspects in raids in several
cities, including 11 men accused of having ties to Abu-Musab
al-Zarqawi's group al-Qaida in Iraq and recruiting people for suicide
attacks there.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, Sri Lanka's president
vowed to go ahead with a deal to share tsunami aid with the rebel Tamil
Tigers, despite a threat by a ruling coalition partner to leave the
government if she does not back down.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 15, Vietnam reported 6
new cases of bird flu in the past week.
(WSJ, 6/15/05, p.A15)
2005 Jun 16, On the eve of Iran's
presidential election, President Bush said the voting was designed to
keep power in the hands of a few rulers "through an electoral process
that ignores the basic requirements of democracy."
(AP, 6/16/06)
2005 Jun 16, James Weinstein
(b.1926), historian and founder of the political magazine “In These
Times,” died in Chicago.
(SFC, 6/25/05, p.B4)
2005 Jun 16, Taliban rebels
ambushed a police convoy in southern Afghanistan, taking at least 10
officers and a district police chief captive.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 16, Australian scientists
said they have found a way to make blood cells in volume out of human
master cells, which could eventually lead to production of safe blood
cells for transfusions and organ transplants.
(Reuters, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 16, In Brazil Chief of
Staff Jose Dirceu resigned over accusations he knew of a vote-buying
scheme in Congress, becoming the highest-ranking official hit by a
scandal that has shaken President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's
administration.
(AP, 6/16/05)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.37)
2005 Jun 16, In northwestern
Cambodia a man driven by a grudge against his former employer
spearheaded an assault on an international school in Siem Reap, taking
dozens of children hostage and silencing a crying a 2-year-old Canadian
boy by shooting him in the head.
(AP, 6/17/05)(SFC, 6/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 16, EU leaders put on
hold plans to unite their 25 nations under a single constitution.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2005 Jun 16, Officials said the
Peace Corps has suspended operations in Haiti and evacuated its 16
volunteers because of increasing violence.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 16, India allowed foreign
funds to invest in local news publications, widening the potential
investor base within a 26 percent ceiling on foreign ownership. Foreign
firms were allowed to own 100% of non-news publications.
(AP, 6/16/05)(Econ, 3/1/08, p.44)
2005 Jun 16, A roadside bomb
attack killed five US Marines, and gunfire killed an American sailor in
a western Iraqi town. A suicide car bomber slammed into a truck that
was carrying policemen along the main road connecting Baghdad with its
airport, killing at least eight officers and injuring at least 25.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 16, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi,
Japanese resort and railroad kingpin, pleaded guilty to charges of
insider trading and falsifying records at the opening of his trial.
This was widely seen as a symbol of the growing pressures toward
transparency and social responsibility in corporate Japan.
(AP, 6/16/05)(SFC, 6/17/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 16, Board members of the
UN atomic watchdog agency approved a deal that exempts Saudi Arabia
from nuclear inspections, despite serious misgivings about the
arrangement in an era of heightened proliferation fears.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 16, Marxists lawmakers
quit Sri Lanka's governing coalition over the president's plan to share
tsunami relief with ethnic Tamil rebels.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 17, The US Roman Catholic
bishops agreed to a five-year extension on their unprecedented policy
of permanently barring sexually abusive clergy from church work.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2005 Jun 17, MasterCard
International said a security breach had exposed about 40 million
payment cards of various brands to potential fraud in the biggest such
privacy violation ever reported. The breach was traced to Atlanta-based
CardSystems Solutions.
(Reuters, 6/18/05)(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 17, The US reported that
its Current Account Trade Deficit, the broadest measure of
international trade, rose to an all-time high of $195.1 billion from
January through March of this year as the country sank deeper into debt
to Japan, China and other nations.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 17, Marcus Wesson, the
domineering patriarch of a large clan he'd bred through incest, was
convicted in Fresno, Calif., of murdering nine of his children. Wesson
was later sentenced to death.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2005 Jun 17, Dennis Kozlowski,
former CEO of Tyco Int’l., and Mark Swartz, former CFO, were convicted
on all but one of 31 counts of various fraud charges. They were
convicted of looting their company of more than $600 million.
(SFC, 6/18/05, p.C1)(AP, 6/17/06)
2005 Jun 17, Crude oil prices for
July delivery hit a record high closing at $58.47 a barrel.
(AP, 6/18/05)(SFC, 6/18/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 17, Bank of America
signed an agreement to buy a 9 percent stake in state-owned China
Construction Bank for $3 billion, the largest single purchase of stock
in a Chinese bank by a foreign financial institution.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 17, San Francisco enacted
its Environmentally Preferable Purchasing for Commodities Ordnance. It
became the 1st US city take public health and environmental stewardship
into consideration when purchasing products.
(SFC, 6/18/05, p.B2)
2005 Jun 17, Australia pledged to
ease a controversial policy of locking up refugees.
(AFP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 17, Egyptian security
forces in the Sinai mountains clashed with suspects in deadly attacks
last year on Red Sea resorts. Security officials said a soldier and a
fugitive were killed and four other soldiers were wounded.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 17, In Germany former US
Pres. George Bush, one-time Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl received an award for their role in
ending Germany's Cold War division.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 17, In Haiti police
raided a slum of Bel Air teeming with gangs loyal to ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Residents accused the officials of killing two
people, including a 17-year-old girl.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 17, Iranians voted in an
election shaping up as the closest presidential race since the 1979
Islamic Revolution. Young people disillusioned by the theocracy called
for a boycott of the balloting. Voters failed to give any candidate an
outright majority and hard-liners made an unexpectedly strong showing.
A 2nd round between former president Rafsanjani and conservative Tehran
mayor Ahmadinejad was scheduled in a week.
(AP, 6/17/05)(AP, 6/18/05)(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.A13)
2005 Jun 17, The US military
launched a major combat operation with 1,000 Marines and Iraqi soldiers
in the hunt for insurgents and foreign fighters in a volatile western
province straddling Syria.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 17, In Iraq 2 US soldiers
were killed and one was wounded during a small-arms skirmish with
insurgents in Karabilah. A car bomb blew up outside a mosque in the
western town of Habaniyah, killing four people and injuring another 15.
(AP, 6/17/05)(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 17, In Kyrgyzstan several
hundred unarmed supporters of a presidential hopeful who was denied
registration in next month's election stormed the government
headquarters. Troops with truncheons and tear gas beat back protesters
in the biggest unrest in Kyrgyzstan since its longtime president was
ousted in March. The clash injured 39 people.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 17, In Northern Ireland
Roman Catholic hard-liners assaulted police and Protestant marchers in
a religiously polarized part of Belfast, and nearly 30 people were
injured.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 17, Pakistan said it has
completed arrangements to sell 26 percent of its state-run telephone
company amid employee protests over the sale.
(AP, 6/17/05)
2005 Jun 18, Former Texas
Congressman J.J. “Jake” Pickle died in Austin at age 91.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2005 Jun 18, In Australia more
than a dozen Chinese nationals detained for immigration violations
slashed their wrists and body parts in attempted suicide fearing they
will be deported.
(AFP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Austria an
explosion ripped through a pizzeria in a town in the southeastern
province of Styria, killing 2 children and injuring 7, in a blast that
may have been the result of an attack.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Azerbaijan
thousands of demonstrators chanting "Freedom" and carrying portraits of
President Bush marched across Baku, demanding the resignation of the
government and free parliamentary elections.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, Calgary, Canada,
declared an unprecedented state of emergency as flood fears prompted by
heavy rain forced 2,000 residents to be ordered out of their homes.
(CP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, It was reported that
rising waters in China's central Dongting Lake, one of the nation's
largest freshwater bodies, are forcing millions of rats into
surrounding farmlands where the rodents are ravaging crops.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, EU leaders blamed
each other after a summit collapsed without any real agreement on what
lies ahead for the half-century project of uniting the continent. But
they agreed Europe is in a crisis.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Guatemala huge
explosions rocked a weapons storehouse on a military base north of
Guatemala City. There were no casualties.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, Reliance, India's
largest private sector conglomerate, said the $24 billion group would
be split between Anil and Mukesh Ambani in a deal brokered by their
mother.
(AP, 6/19/05)(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.A13)(Econ, 6/25/05,
p.58)
2005 Jun 18, Iraqi forces and US
Marines battled insurgents on two fronts in a restive western province,
killing about 50 militants. It was the 2nd day of Operation Spear,
Romhe in Arabic, the military’s latest campaign to stop foreign
fighters infiltrating from neighboring Syria. In Baghdad a 10-year-old
Iraqi girl was killed and 2 people were injured when a roadside bomb
missed a passing American military convoy and detonated near the child.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Kyrgyzstan Mukar
Cholponbayev, who served as speaker of the Central Asian nation's lower
parliament house in the late 1990s, was arrested in the capital Bishkek
for allegedly helping to organize the previous day’s takeover of the
government headquarters.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, Militants in southern
Nigeria released six oil workers taken hostage by a group demanding $20
million from Shell for local communities.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, The Palestinian
parliament passed a compromise election law afternoon removing a major
hurdle to new legislative elections that were originally scheduled for
next month but were postponed indefinitely.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, Palestinian militants
attacked a Gaza Strip settlement, sparking a gunbattle that killed one
of the attackers and wounded another.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, The beheaded bodies
of a Laotian couple were found in southern Thailand over the weekend
and were believed to be the latest victims of Muslim separatist
violence.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, A senior Saudi police
officer was killed in a drive-by shooting in Mecca.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Scotland a couple
was wed in Britain's first legally recognized humanist ceremony. 12
members of the Humanist Society of Scotland were granted the right to
legally conduct marriages by the country's registrar general starting
June 1.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Spain ETA
announced it will no longer kill elected members of political parties.
(AP, 3/22/06)
2005 Jun 18, Sudan signed a
reconciliation deal with one of the country's largest opposition
groupings. The accord with the National Democratic Alliance is part of
the government's drive to clean up Sudan's multiple political and
military conflicts.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 18, Venezuela said
another land holding of Britain’s Vestey Group Ltd. has been found to
be idle and rightfully belongs to the state. The 67,000-acre ranch,
owned by Vestey subsidiary Agroflora, was reported to be underutilized.
(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.A14)
2005 Jun 19, Michael Campbell
answered every challenge Tiger Woods threw his way for a two-shot
victory in the U.S. Open.
(AP, 6/19/06)
2005 Jun 19, Fourteen Formula One
drivers refused to participate in the United States Grand Prix because
of unresolved concerns over the safety of their Michelin tires. The
race was won by Michael Schumacher, one of six drivers who raced using
Bridgestone tires.
(AP, 6/19/06)
2005 Jun 19, In southern
Afghanistan US warplanes and helicopters opened fire on a group of
suspected rebels after the ambush of a coalition convoy, killing 15-20
militants.
(AP, 6/19/05)(SFC, 6/20/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 19, China’s Xinhua news
agency reported that the China Regulatory Commission had approved 42
more companies to take part in a state share reform program. 4 maiden
companies were named a month earlier.
(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.C16)
2005 Jun 19, Top Croatian
financial officials left for Washington to present a package of fiscal
proposals that should shore up this year's budget and save the stand-by
arrangement with the International Monetary Fund.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, Local Cuban media
reported that the communist government has revoked some 2,000 licenses
from self-employed workers across the island, part of a campaign to
reassert state control over the economy.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 19, A new, domestic
French low-cost airline, Air Turquoise, took to the skies, opening
budget routes from the northeast city of Reims to Bordeaux, Marseille
and Nice.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, Guinea-Bissau began
its first presidential election since a 2003 coup, with 13 contenders
vying to become the West African country's leader. The candidates
include the man the military ousted two years ago.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, A suicide bombing
ripped through a popular Baghdad kebab restaurant at lunchtime, killing
23 people and wounding 36. A suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi
military checkpoint north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and one
civilian, officials said. Thirteen others were wounded.
(AP, 6/19/05)(SFC, 6/20/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 19, Israel publicly
apologized to the US over arms exports to China that have drawn
criticism from Washington and strained U.S.-Israeli security ties.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, In Lebanon voters
cast their ballot in the last round of elections. The anti-Syrian
opposition secured a majority in the Lebanese parliament, after
opposition candidates swept all seats in the last round of elections.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 19, Mauritius expected
that by year's end, or soon afterward, to become the world's first
nation with coast-to-coast wireless Internet coverage, the first
country to become one big "hot spot."
(CT, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, Mexico City
introduced metrobus, a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.A11)
2005 Jun 19, A South Korean
soldier threw a grenade at his commander and then opened fire on fellow
soldiers near the border with communist North Korea, killing 8 and
injuring 2 others.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, Palestinian militants
fired light arms and rocket-propelled grenades at Israelis near an army
post on the Gaza-Egypt border, wounding 3 Israelis. One militant was
killed in the attack.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, Voters in Spain's
northwest Galicia region were deciding whether to extend the 15-year
rule of Manuel Fraga (82), the last surviving politician of Gen.
Francisco Franco's regime.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 19, Eastern Sudanese
rebels launched a major offensive near the country's main port,
capturing government troops in what Khartoum charged was an operation
mounted with the complicity of Eritrea.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 19, Vietnam’s PM Phan Van
Khai (71) arrived in Seattle. The first visit to America by a prime
minister from Vietnam in 30 years was greeted by demonstrators shouting
"Down with communists!" and calling for an end to political and
religious persecution in Vietnam. Khai hoped to strengthen ties with
Washington during his weeklong US tour.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, During a joint news
conference with European leaders, President Bush said he was determined
to complete the mission of establishing democracy in Iraq because the
world would be a better place for it.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2005 Jun 20, A US federal judge
threw out evidence against four men charged with laundering more than
$60 million through their chain of US Virgin Islands grocery stores,
ruling that FBI agents acted in "reckless disregard for the truth."
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 20, John Rigas (80),
founder of Adelphia Corp., was sentenced to 15 years in prison for
looting the firm and lying about finances. His son, Timothy Rigas, his
ex-finance chief, received a 20-year sentence.
(SFC, 6/21/05, p.D1)
2005 Jun 20, California state and
federal officials set aside $2 million to determine why smelt and other
species in the San Joaquin and Sacramento River Delta has dropped
sharply. Numerous causes were suspect including nonnative predators and
increasing herbicide and pesticide runoff as well as water draw down to
supply Southern California and the Central Valley.
(SFC, 6/21/05, p.B3)
2005 Jun 20, H.J. Heinz Co., the
largest ketchup maker in the US, said it has agreed to buy the HP Foods
and Lea & Perrins sauce divisions from France's Groupe Danone for
$852 mil.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, Charles D. Keeling
(b.1928), American atmospheric chemist, died in Montana. His monitoring
of the pure air at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and the South Pole, begun in
1958, provided CO2 readings that climbed steadily and became known as
the Keeling Curve.
(WSJ, 6/24/05,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_David_Keeling)
2005 Jun 20, Jack Kilby (b.1923),
Nobel Prize winner and co-inventor of the integrated circuit (1958),
died in Dallas.
(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A5)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
2005 Jun 20, Bernard Schriever
(b.1910), German-born American general. He played a major role in the
U.S. Air Force programs for space and ballistic missile research. In
2009 Neill Sheehan authored “A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard
Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Adolph_Schriever)(SSFC,
10/25/09, Books p.F3)
2005 Jun 20, Fierce fighting
between Taliban rebels and Afghan security forces left 18 insurgents
and three others dead.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, Dutch scientists
reported that folic acid improved the memory of older adults.
(SFC, 6/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 20, European Union
agriculture ministers agreed to share out an annual 12.7 billion-euro
($15.51 billion) package to support rural development.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 20, India raised retail
petrol and diesel prices by about 7 percent, the first increase since
November.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, India approved a
free-trade agreement with Singapore.
(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.A14)
2005 Jun 20, In Iraq a suicide car
bomber killed at least 15 traffic police and wounded about 100 more
outside the unit's headquarters in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil.
Suicide attacks left 37 dead.
(AP, 6/20/05)(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 20, Japan said it would
dramatically expand its research whaling, doubling the number of minke
whales it kills annually for scientific study.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, The leaders of Japan
and South Korea failed to make progress on mending ties damaged by a
territorial dispute over islands in the Sea of Japan and a flap over
Tokyo's militaristic past during a tense summit.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, Massouma al-Mubarak,
Kuwait's first female Cabinet member, took the oath of office over the
shouts of Muslim fundamentalist and tribal lawmakers opposed to women
in politics.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2005 Jun 20, Palestinian gunmen
ambushed an Israeli minivan driving through the northern West Bank,
riddling the vehicle with bullets, killing one passenger and wounding a
second.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, In Thailand 3 Muslim
men were shop dead in Pattani.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.40)
2005 Jun 20, In Vietnam officials
said 2 more people from northern Vietnam have been sickened with bird
flu, and thousands of chickens have dropped dead in the south.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 21, President Bush told
Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai that he supports Vietnam's bid
to join the WTO, in the first visit by the Vietnamese leader since the
war.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, It was reported that
the number of California state employees who earned over $132,000
nearly doubled from 2002 to 2004.
(SFC, 6/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 21, American warplanes
pounded a suspected Taliban safe haven in southern Afghanistan in an
assault that left up to 76 insurgents and five policeman dead and five
U.S. soldiers wounded.
(AP, 6/22/05)(SFC, 6/23/05, p.A10)
2005 Jun 21, Edgar Ray Killen (80)
was convicted in Philadelphia, Miss., of manslaughter in the 1964
abduction and killing of 3 voter-registration volunteers.
(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 21, US researchers said a
common virus that is harmless to people can destroy cancerous cells in
the body and might be developed into a new cancer therapy. The
adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV-2, infects an estimated 80
percent of the population.
(Reuters, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 21, In Argentina retired
Gen. Guillermo Suarez Mason (81), a former junta commander under arrest
in connection with probes of suspected illegal adoptions dating to the
past dictatorship.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, Austria’s Health
Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat announced a cow in an alpine farm Austria
has been found to be infected with mad cow disease.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, China appointed
Donald Tsang as Hong Kong's new leader for the next 2 years. The
veteran civil servant expressed confidence the territory will become
more democratic.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, In Ecuador police
reported the break up an international cocaine ring led by a Lebanese
restaurant owner suspected of raising money for Hezbollah, the Shiite
Muslim group the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 21, President Bharrat
Jagdeo said Guyana will hire 600 new police officers and loosen rules
on wiretapping and asset seizures as part of a strategy to fight
increasing drug trafficking.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, In Iraq 3 US soldiers
were killed by small-arms fire during combat operations in Ramadi.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 21, In southern Israel a
passenger train plowed into a coal truck and sent three cars tumbling
off the tracks in a sunflower field, killing seven people and injuring
nearly 200.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, A high-level
delegation from North Korea arrived in Seoul for bilateral talks and
was immediately confronted by demonstrators who angered the visitors by
displaying posters of their leader, Kim Jong Il, tied up in ropes.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, The International
Whaling Commission meting in South Korea upheld its nearly
two-decade-old ban on commercial whaling.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, In Lebanon George
Hawi (67), a former Communist boss and critic of Syria, was killed when
his car blew up on a Beirut street in the 2nd slaying of an anti-Syrian
figure this month.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 21, Nuevo Laredo Mayor
Daniel Pena said that 150 police officers will be fired after failing a
screening process that included background checks and drug testing.
Former Mexican soldiers, turned into drug hit men (Zetas), have taken
the border city to the brink of anarchy, infiltrating local police and
threatening anyone who gets in their way.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met for the first
time since declaring a February truce, but the summit was clouded by
Israel's arrest of 52 Islamic Jihad activists and a missile strike in
the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, In Manila Cardinal
Jaime Sin (76), an outspoken advocate of democracy who played a key
role in the "people power" revolts that ousted two Philippine
presidents, died.
(AP, 6/21/05)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.77)
2005 Jun 21, A Russian Northern
Fleet submarine launched the world's first solar-sail spacecraft, $4
million Cosmos 1, but the craft failed to reach orbit.
(AFP, 6/22/05)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A4)
2005 Jun 21, Saudi security forces
killed two suspected terrorists accused of fatally shooting a senior
security official outside his home.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 21, Taiwan sent two
warships to protect fishermen who have repeatedly been chased by
Japanese patrol boats away from rich fishing grounds near disputed
islands in the East China Sea, a decision likely to raise diplomatic
tensions.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 22, A US Senate committee
charged Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist, and Michael Scanlon, a
public relations executive, in a scheme that overcharged Indian tribes,
faked invoices, and shuffled money between nonprofit groups and
charities to conceal their involvement and avoid paying taxes. Of $66
million collected since 2001, $22 million went directly to Abramoff.
(SFC, 6/23/05, p.A5)
2005 Jun 22, The US reported plans
to send 50,000 tons of food to North Korea.
(WSJ, 6/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 22, US drug agents
launched a wide-ranging crackdown on medical marijuana providers in
northern California, raiding pot clubs, homes and businesses in San
Francisco and arresting a husband and wife in Sacramento. The operation
followed a 2-year investigation dubbed “Operation Urban harvest.”
(AP, 6/23/05)(SFC, 6/23/05, p.A1)(SFC, 6/24/05, p.B4)
2005 Jun 22, Amnesty International
and Oxfam said arms exports from Group of Eight nations such as Britain
and the United States to poor, conflict-ridden countries are fueling
poverty and human rights abuses there.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, US military said a US
Air Force U-2 spy plane involved in a mission in Afghanistan crashed
while returning to its base in the United Arab Emirates, killing the
pilot.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, Ameritrade Holding
said it will acquire TD Waterhouse from Toronto Dominion Bank, in a
deal estimated at $2.25 bil.
(SFC, 6/23/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 22, The IBM BlueGene/L
System at Lawrence Livermore National Lab., a computer with 62,000
microprocessors, was crowned king among supercomputers at a conference
in Germany.
(SFC, 6/22/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 22, Chinese state-run oil
firm CNOOC Ltd. announced an $18.5 billion cash offer for U.S. producer
Unocal will prevail in the takeover battle with Chevron Corp.
(AP, 6/23/05)(SFC, 6/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 22, Xinhua News said
flooding triggered by torrential rains killed at least 27 people and
forced the evacuation of more than 300,000 in a mountainous region of
southern China.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, It was reported that
China's Pearl River estuary is so badly polluted the fish that once
thrived in its waters have virtually vanished.
(AFP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 22, Colombia’s Congress
passed a bill granting reduced punishments to right-wing warlords who
disarm, a key step in Pres. Uribe's strategy to wind down a
decades-long conflict.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, The European
Commission unveiled proposals for a radical overhaul on EU sugar
subsidies.
(Econ, 6/25/05, p.73)
2005 Jun 22, The European Union's
head office told Portugal to cut its burgeoning budget deficit and
public debt, saying the country's economic slowdown was no excuse for
violating euro-zone rules on sound finances.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, Senior peacekeepers
said more than 15,000 gunmen have joined a UN disarmament process in
Congo's Ituri district but that militias were still rearming and
regrouping despite intense UN military operations.
(Reuters, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, Egyptian police
opened the streets of north Cairo to political protests against and in
favor of President Hosni Mubarak, giving the opposition a chance to
argue their case with ordinary people.
(Reuters, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, In Iraq gunmen killed
a former judge whose name once was on a list of Sunni Arabs joining a
parliamentary committee to draft Iraq's new constitution. Separately, a
Filipino hostage was released after almost eight months in captivity. 4
car bombs exploded at dusk, killing at least 23 people, including
sidewalk diners and passengers at a bus station in Baghdad. In all, at
least 32 people were killed across Iraq, including a prominent Sunni
law professor assassinated by gunmen.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, In La Spezia, Italy,
10 former members of the Nazi SS were convicted in absentia of taking
part in the 1944 massacre of more than 500 villagers in the Tuscan
village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, Consuelo Velazquez
(b.1916), Mexican pianist and composer, died. Her music included Besame
Mucho, first recorded in 1941 by Emilio Tuero. It was the romantic
vision of a chaste, convent-educated teenager growing up in 1930s
Mexico, and was inspired by the sight of a smooching couple in the
street.
(www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/jan/26/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1)
2005 Jun 22, North Korea said it
would not need nuclear weapons if the US treated it like a friend, as
the isolated nation joined South Korea for high-level reconciliation
talks.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, The first
Palestinian-Israeli summit in four months failed to propel peace
prospects forward or solidify a shaky truce, leaving main issues
unresolved and both sides disappointed.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, Palestinian gunmen
fired shots and detonated an explosive device as PM Ahmed Qureia left a
building in a West Bank refugee camp where he was lecturing militants
on the need to restore order to the streets.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, A Romanian monk and
four nuns were charged with murder after a nun died during an exorcism.
Maricica Irina Cornici (23) was crucified and left without food for
three days. [see Jun 15]
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 22, South Asia endured
one of its hottest summers on record and at least 375 people were
reported to have died from sunstroke and dehydration in a month-long
heat wave sweeping India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, A lawmaker from
Thailand's ruling party fell to his death from his 10th floor
apartment, followed a few hours later by a woman with whom he had been
quarreling. Separately suspected Islamic separatists beheaded a man at
a teashop and then left his head in a sack on the side of the road.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 22, An explosion blasted
through an oil tanker moored for repairs off Trinidad's west coast,
killing two people and leaving two missing.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 22, The UN Security
Council voted to temporarily enlarge the peacekeeping mission in Haiti
by more than 1,000 troops and police in the run-up to elections set for
later this year.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 23, The San Antonio Spurs
won a thrilling Game 7 over Detroit Pistons, 81-74, to claim the NBA
championship.
(AP, 6/23/06)
2005 Jun 23, The White House
defended presidential adviser Karl Rove against Democratic demands he
apologize or quit for saying "liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11
attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and
understanding for our attackers" while conservatives "saw the savagery
of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."
(AP, 6/23/06)
2005 Jun 23, In Kelo vs. London a
divided US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that local governments may seize
people's homes and businesses against their will for private
development. In 2006 a group petitioned for signatures in Weare, New
Hampshire, to seize the home of Justice David Souter in order to build
an inn called the Lost Liberty Hotel. In 2009 Jeff Benedict authored
“Little Pink House,” the story of Susette Kelo’s battle in New London,
Connecticut, against eminent domain.
(AP, 6/23/05)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.A1)(Econ, 8/20/05,
p.21)(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.A6)(WSJ, 1/26/08, p.A13)
2005 Jun 23, Former Ku Klux
Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the
1964 Mississippi slayings of three civil rights workers.
(AP, 6/23/06)
2005 Jun 23, Joseph Massino, who
went from the New York Mafia's last old-school don to its
highest-ranking turncoat in a betrayal that rocked organized crime, was
sentenced to life in prison after admitting his involvement in eight
mob murders.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Ohio Republican Gov.
Bob Taft was reported to be mired in a scandal that started with a
questionable state investment in rare coins. It had the governor and
other Republicans all the way to Pres. Bush scrambling to give back
potentially tainted campaign contributions.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, The US FDA approved
the heart failure drug BiDil for use by blacks. It will be the 1st
medication targeted for a specific racial group.
(SFC, 6/24/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 23, An indictment,
unveiled in US federal court in Los Angeles, said Seymour Lazar and his
family were plaintiffs in over 50 class action lawsuits against both
large and small companies. Prosecutors claimed that he received $2.4
million in illicit kickbacks from a New York law firm believed to be
Milberg Weiss. In 2008 Melvyn Weiss (72) agreed to plead guilty to
racketeering and acknowledge that his firm, Milberg Weiss, concealed
secret payment arrangements with plaintiffs in class-action suits.
(Econ, 7/2/05, p.65)(SFC, 3/21/08, p.C3)
2005 Jun 23, In Morongo Valley,
Ca., the first major wildfire of the summer raced across more than
5,500 acres of desert brush, destroying at least six homes.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Shana Alexander (79),
writer and liberal commentator on 60 Minutes (1975), died in Hermosa
Beach, California.
(SFC, 6/25/05, p.B5)
2005 Jun 23, Afghan and U.S.-led
coalition forces surrounded a rebel hide-out in southern Afghanistan,
and the number of insurgents killed from three days of fighting rose to
102.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Aruba police arrested
the father of a young Dutch teen already in custody in connection with
the disappearance of a young Alabama woman, and said that he was
considered a suspect in the 3-week-old case.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 23, Australia's Deputy
Prime Minister John Anderson resigned because of health concerns.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, G8 foreign ministers
met in London. The Middle East peace process, Iran's nuclear program
and tackling opium production in Afghanistan topped the agenda.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Ecuador’s foreign
minister said his country will not sign a pact to grant US military
personnel special immunity from the International Criminal Court, even
if that means more aid cuts from Washington.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, The French government
launched the partial privatization of utility company Gaz de France
through an initial public offering of shares worth up to 4.9 billion
euros ($5.9 billion).
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Four apparently
synchronized car bombs in the Karada district of Baghdad killed 15 and
wounded 50. A sniper killed 2 soldiers in western Baghdad. US troops
backed by Iraqi troops and helicopters killed 7 insurgents who opened
fire on the patrol from a home in western Baghdad's Jamiaa. A web
statement said Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud, one of Saudi
Arabia's most-wanted militants, was killed by a US airstrike in
northwestern Iraq. A suicide car bomb in Fallujah and ensuing
small-arms fire killed 6 US troops including 3 women. 11 of 13 wounded
were female.
(AP, 6/23/05)(SFC, 6/24/05, p.A18)(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 23, A fast food chain in
northern Japan began offering a whale burger , even as anti-whaling
nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international
conference on whaling.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Jerusalem officials
said they will ban the annual gay pride parade set for next week,
claiming the march would offend many of the holy city's residents.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, The two Koreas agreed
to seek a peaceful resolution to the international standoff over the
North's nuclear program, but the rivals failed to set a date for
resuming stalled disarmament talks.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Palestinian officials
said they reached a tentative agreement to absorb about 700 gunmen in
Nablus into the Palestinian security services.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, Palestinian militants
killed an officer in an attack on a police station in the West Bank
town of Jenin.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 23, UN human rights
experts said they have reliable accounts of detainees being tortured at
the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 23, In Uruguay
firefighters recovered the badly burned remains of eleven men killed
aboard a Ukrainian-flagged fishing vessel that caught fire in
Montevideo. The "Simeiz," carrying a crew of 39, caught fire before
dawn the previous day.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 23, Zimbabwe state media
reported that 2 children were crushed to death by rubble during the
demolition of illegal houses this month in a government crackdown that
has made tens of thousands homeless.
(Reuters, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 24, Despite growing
anxiety about the war in Iraq, President Bush refused to set a
timetable for bringing home U.S. troops and declared, "I'm not giving
up on the mission. We're doing the right thing."
(AP, 6/24/06)
2005 Jun 24, US Agriculture
officials said a 2nd case of mad cow disease was confirmed in a cow
from Texas. This case of the disease, as well as one from Alabama in
2006, was later reported as atypical.
(SFC, 6/25/05, p.A3)(SFC, 6/12/06, p.A6)
2005 Jun 24, Crude oil, at close
to $60 a barrel, caused widespread selling on global equity markets, as
shares in transport and automobile companies fell sharply.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, In Yuma, Arizona, 6
people, including 4 children, were killed. Police said a man was seen
running from the scene and had not been apprehended.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 24, In New Jersey 3 boys
were found dead in the trunk of a car following a massive, two-day
search. They had died from accidental suffocation.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, Paul Winchell
(b.1922), ventriloquist, inventor and children's TV show host best
known for creating the lispy voice of Winnie the Pooh's animated friend
Tigger, died in LA, Ca.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 24, In Afghanistan 4 days
of fighting left 114 people dead, including 102 insurgents.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, A flash flood hit
Britain's famous Glastonbury rock festival and left some 120,000 people
trying to dry out after parts of the site soaked under neck-deep water.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, Statistics Canada
said that if you divided the national net worth by the population each
Canadian would have a share equal to $134,400.
(CP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, China’s government
said flooding and mudslides have killed at least 567 people across the
country in the past two weeks, with more heavy rain forecast in the
southern province whose factories are the heart of the country's
booming export industries.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, Ecuador inmates
stepped up a protest for improved conditions. Some prisoners were
voluntarily hung from crosses and others using their blood to scrawl
out demands.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, India refused
permission for Pakistan's information minister, who once sheltered
anti-Indian Kashmiri separatists, to visit its part of Kashmir on a new
"peace bus".
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, Iranians packed
polling stations in a tight presidential race. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
(49), the hardline Tehran mayor, won Iran’s presidency in a landslide
election victory that cements conservative control over the nation's
political leadership.
(AP, 6/24/05)(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, Three separate
roadside bombs exploded near US military convoys and a police patrol.
Iraqi security forces discovered the bodies of eight beheaded men in 2
villages north of Baghdad.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, An Italian official
said a judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for allegedly
helping deport an imam to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
The agents are suspected in the seizure of an Egyptian-born imam
identified as Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in February 2003.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, In Jordan Saddam
Hussein's daughter said his family will publish next week a novel
written by the ousted Iraqi leader before the U.S.-led war.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, In India's portion of
Kashmir Islamic militants triggered a car bomb by remote control as an
army convoy drove past a popular park, killing 9 soldiers and wounding
22 other people.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, In Indonesia 15
convicted gamblers were flogged for illegal gaming, the first time
caning was used as punishment in the world's most populous Muslim
country.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, Malaysia's ruling
UMNO party suspended cabinet minister Isa Samad for six years for
corruption.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, In Northern Ireland
veteran negotiator Reg Empey was elected leader of the Ulster
Unionists, a once-dominant Protestant party that has seen its support
crumble because it backed Northern Ireland's 1998 peace pact.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, A Norwegian court
sentenced the pilot of a British Airways jet to six months in prison
for preparing to fly even though members of his crew were drunk.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, Palestinian gunmen
opened fire on a group of hitchhikers and killed one, the third Israeli
slaying in a flare-up of violence that threatens a truce reached in
February.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, Russia, whose last
border guard left the Tajik-Afghan border last week, said Afghanistan's
heroin output was growing at breakneck speed and presented a threat to
the world community.
(Reuters, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, Thailand police
reported that attackers in Yala province had slashed the necks of a
couple, almost severing their heads in the latest killings attributed
to Islamic separatists.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 24, The UN Security
Council approved the transfer of $200 million in oil-for-food revenue
to the Development Fund for Iraq and said an additional $20 million can
be used to pay Iraq's past UN dues.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 25, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
signed a new state law that requires Illinois to divest about $1
billion worth of pension investments in companies that do business in
Sudan to protest the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country's
Darfur region.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, The NAACP selected
retired Verizon executive Bruce S. Gordon to be its new president.
(AP, 6/25/06)
2005 Jun 25, A shark attack near
Pensacola, Florida, killed a girl (14).
(WSJ, 6/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 25, Afghan forces found
the bodies of 76 suspected militants killed during a barrage of their
camps by Afghan and US forces. In all, a total of 178 militants were
killed and 56 suspected insurgents have been captured since Jun 21.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, In northern
Afghanistan a massive explosion at a weapons dump near an airfield
killed five Afghans and two German soldiers.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 25, Algerian militant
Amari Saifi, a leader of the al-Qaida-linked Salafist Group for Call
and Combat, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for helping to
create a terror group. He was considered the mastermind of the 2003
kidnapping of 32 European tourists in the Sahara desert.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 25, Bulgarians voted in
general elections. The ex-communist Socialist party was expected to see
the Socialists topple ex-king PM Simeon Saxe-Coburg and take over the
tough task of steering the country into the EU in 2007.
(Reuters, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, In southern China
thousands of students rioted at Jiujiang Institute, a university
jointly run by the military, to protest high university fees,
overcrowded dorms and unappealing cafeteria food.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jun 25, In Colombia leftist
rebels killed at least 25 soldiers in two clashes.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 25, In Dagestan, Russia,
4 explosions aimed at police vehicles and transportation links,
including one that derailed a cargo train, wounded eight people.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 25, India said police
forces have destroyed one of the largest Myanmarese rebel bases in
India, deep in the mountainous jungles of the remote northeast. Some
200 guerrillas and supporters living in the Chin National Army camp
fled before the attack.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Gujarat's chief
minister said Gujarat Petroleum Corp (GSPC) has made the India’s
biggest gas discovery 20 trillion cubic feet, worth $50 billion off the
southeast coast.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 25, Tehran Mayor Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's presidential runoff
election. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he seeks to make his country a
"modern, advanced, powerful, and Islamic" model for the world.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Mohammed Al-Sumaidaie
(21), a university student, was killed when he took Marines doing
house-to-house searches to a bedroom to show them where a rifle which
had no live ammunition was kept. When the Marines left, he was found in
the bedroom with a bullet in his neck. Iraq's UN ambassador later
accused U.S. Marines of killing his unarmed young cousin in what
appeared to be "cold blood" and demanded an investigation and
punishment for the perpetrators.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jun 25, A suicide car bomber
blew himself up outside an Iraqi police officer's home north of
Baghdad, killing at least six people and wounding at least a dozen. 3
evening mortar rounds struck a crowded cafe in a predominantly Shiite
neighborhood in Baghdad, killing 5 civilians and wounding 7.
(AP, 6/25/05)(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 25, In Kenya 24 people
were killed after drinking an illegal brew laced with industrial
alcohol. By the next day death toll climbed to 49 with 174 people
hospitalized.
(AP, 6/26/05)(SFC, 6/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 25, Rebels in Sudan's
remote east urged the world's media to come and see damage in civilian
areas that they say was caused by government bombing. They said the
bombing began in the Barka Valley on June 23 and resulted in a large
but unknown number of civilian casualties who filled hospitals in Port
Sudan and the town of Tokar.
(AFP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Taiwan reimposed a
ban on imports of American beef after the US confirmed its second case
of mad cow disease.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 26, Dozens of
international leaders met in San Francisco to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the UN’s birth.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2005 Jun 26, Tens of thousands of
festively dressed people marched in parades around the country to
celebrate the 35th anniversary of gay pride.
(AP, 6/26/06)
205 Jun 26, South Korea’s Birdie
Kim holed a 30-yard bunker shot to birdie the 18th hole and win the US
Women’s Open.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2005 Jun 26, In Bulgaria with
99.6% of the votes counted, the Socialists had 31% of the vote, while
the ruling center-right National Movement of PM Simeon Saxcoburggotski
had 20%. The Movement for rights and Freedoms, a party for ethnic
Turks, won 13%.
(AP, 6/26/05)(WSJ, 6/27/05, p.A12)(Econ, 7/2/05,
p.46)
2005 Jun 26, Toronto, Canada,
celebrated its 25th annual Pride Parade, one of the world's largest gay
and lesbian festivals under a blistering sun. NYC and SF also hosted
large parades as did other cities around the world.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 26, Thousands of Chinese
rioted in a dispute sparked by a lopsided roadside brawl, set fire to
cars and wounded six police officers in Chizhou, eastern Anhui province.
(Reuters, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 26, In Egypt some 200
demonstrators gathered outside state security headquarters in Cairo to
protest torture.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 26, Heavy rains caused
flooding and landslides in El Salvador and Honduras, leaving a total of
39 dead in both countries, including 21 people killed when a bus was
carried away by flood waters.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 26, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder arrived in Washington for a visit shortened by
election-year pressure.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 26, Iran President-elect
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to pursue a peaceful nuclear program, an
effort the US maintains is really a cover for trying to build atomic
bombs, and said his government will not be an extremist one.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 26, In Iraq a suicide
bomber with explosives hidden beneath watermelons in a pickup truck
slammed into a police station near a market in Mosul killing 10 police
officers and 2 civilians. In Sadiya 6 Iraqi soldiers were gunned down
outside their base. A bomber in Al Kasik killed 16 Iraqi civilians
arriving for work on an army base. In Mosul a suicide bomber killed 5
Iraqi police. One US soldier was killed in Baghdad by a homemade bomb.
(AP, 6/26/05)(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.A7)
2005 Jun 26, Israeli Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom released a letter saying Israel wished "to
express our regret for the activities which resulted in the arrest and
conviction of two Israeli citizens in New Zealand on criminal charges
and apologize for the involvement of Israeli citizens in such
activities." The two nations restored full diplomatic relations.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 26, An Israeli court
ruled that Jerusalem's gay pride parade could proceed as planned and
ordered the city's mayor to pay $6,500 out of his own pocket for trying
to stop it.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 26, Jordan barred
publication of Saddam Hussein's fourth novel, titled "Get Out, Damned
One," due to political concerns. Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, said
her father finished the novel March 18, 2003, a day before the U.S.-led
war on Iraq began
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 26, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, 44 kidnap victims were freed in a series of raids by soldiers
and federal agents. Deputy Attorney General Gilberto Higuera said those
rescued were apparently "involved in criminal activities and were not
victims of kidnappings" for ransom.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 26, In Nepal communist
rebels freed 90 high school students who were seized from their
classrooms last week.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, The US Supreme Court
ruled 5-4 that Kentucky cannot display framed copies of the Ten
Commandments in county courthouses, and allowed the Texas statehouse to
keep the commandments as part of a display on its grounds.
(AP, 6/27/05)(SFC, 6/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 27, The US Supreme Court
also ruled that cable-TV companies are not required to share their
high-speed Internet connections with rivals.
(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.B1)
2005 Jun 27, Bunnatine Greenhouse,
a senior contracting official for the US Army Corps of Engineers,
testified to a Democratic Party public committee, alleging specific
instances of waste, fraud, and other abuses and irregularities by
Halliburton with regard to its operations in Iraq since the Iraq War.
In August she was demoted in what her lawyer called an "obvious
reprisal" for her revelations about the Halliburton contracts.
(SFC, 8/29/05,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Greenhouse)
2005 Jun 27, In Kansas BTK suspect
Dennis Rader (60) pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder,
admitting in a chillingly matter-of-fact voice to a series of slayings
that terrorized the city from 1974-1991. Rader later received multiple
life sentences.
(AP, 6/27/06)
2005 Jun 27, Wal-Mart heir John T.
Walton (58), crashed and died while at the controls of a homemade,
experimental aircraft near Jackson Hole Airport, Wyoming. His net worth
was over $18 billion. Walton supported efforts to educate low-income
children.
(AP, 6/28/05)(SFC, 6/28/05, p.A2)
2005 Jun 27, Shelby Foote
(b.1916), novelist and historian, died in Memphis. His books included
the multi-volume “The Civil War: A Narrative” (1958-1974).
(SFC, 6/29/05, p.B7)
2005 Jun 27, Bangladesh opposition
parties led by the Awami League staged a human-chain protest in Dhaka
against what they called an anti-people budget taking effect on Friday.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, Bosnian Serb police
said they had arrested 11 people on war crimes charges.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, PM Tony Blair
defended Britain's deportation of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers, a
policy that has triggered a refugee hunger strike.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, Colombia's main
leftist rebel group offered to swap three kidnapped American defense
contractors for two guerrilla leaders jailed in the United States, but
the US government immediately rejected the proposal.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 27, In northeastern Congo
militia fighters using women and children as human shields battled with
UN peacekeepers south of Bunia.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, French investigators
raided the home and offices of finance minister Thierry Breton. It was
part of a criminal probe sparked by complaints filed by Rhodia
investors Hughes de Lasteyrie du Saillant and Edouard Stern. [see Mar 1]
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 27, France, Germany,
Brazil and Chile called for a tax on airline tickets to help finance
the global fight against poverty.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 27, Iraqi Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that two years would be "more than enough" to
establish security in his country, a task Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld believes may take up to 12 years.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, The US military said
it planned to expand its prisons across Iraq to hold as many as 16,000
detainees.
(SFC, 6/28/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 27, A US Apache attack
helicopter crashed north of Baghdad, killing both pilots. A car bomb
exploded between a movie house and mosque in eastern Baghdad, killing
at least four people and injuring 16.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, An Israeli military
court convicted Wahid Taysir, a former Israeli soldier, of manslaughter
in the killing of Tom Hurndall, a pro-Palestinian British activist on
Apr 11, 2003. Taysir, a member of Israel's Bedouin Arab minority,
charged the army with racism, saying he was prosecuted because he is an
Arab and his victim was a foreigner.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, An undersea cable
carrying data between Pakistan and the outside world developed a
serious fault, virtually crippling data feeds, including the Internet.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 27, It was reported that
a heat wave across Pakistan has killed about 175 people over the past
eight days.
(Reuters, 6/27/05)
2005 June 27, In Somalia gunman
hijacked the MV Semlow, a ship carrying food aid, and held the vessel
for 100 days before it was released Oct. 4.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Jun 27, South African trade
unions staged a one-day nationwide strike to protest high unemployment
and job losses, with employers reporting a mixed response at job sites
and tens of thousands of protesters marching in major cities.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, A meeting in Istanbul
of the World Tribunal on Iraq, the culmination of 20 meetings around
the world over the last 2 years, called the invasion and occupation of
Iraq illegal. The symbolic tribunal sought the immediate withdrawal of
coalition forces from Iraq and payment of reparations for the damage
caused during the conflict.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 27, The UN said it wanted
to move hundreds of Uzbek refugees to third countries from camps in
Kyrgyzstan because there were fears Uzbekistan might try to snatch them
and take them home by force.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 28, On the first
anniversary of Iraqi sovereignty, President Bush, addressing the nation
from Fort Bragg, NC, rejected suggestions that he set a timetable for
withdrawal from Iraq or send in more troops as he counseled patience
for Americans who were questioning the war’s painful costs.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2005 Jun 28, In Alabama a jury
acquitted former CEO Richard Scrushy of federal corporate corruption
charges in a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at HealthSouth. The SEC soon
announced that it would press a civil fraud case seeking $800 million
from Scrushy.
(SFC, 6/29/05, p.C1)(SFC, 7/6/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 28, The Grand Challenges
in Global Health announced 43 winners. The program was funded by the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($450m), the UK’s Wellcome Trust
($27m), and Canada’s Institute of Health Research ($4.5m).
(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.D6)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.69)
2005 Jun 28, Google unveiled a
free 3-D satellite mapping technology.
(SFC, 6/29/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 28, In Kunar province,
Afghanistan, 4 US Navy SEAL commandos radioed for help during a
reconnaissance mission for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, that was part
of Operation Red Wing. A US Chinook helicopter with 16 men responded to
the call and was shot down. Marcus Luttrell was rescued by US forces on
July 2. In 2007 Luttrell, the only survivor, authored “Lone Survivor:
The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL
Team 10.” Michael Murphy, a Navy Seal who gave his life to call for
help for his unit, was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2007.
(AP, 6/29/05)(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A14)(WSJ, 10/23/07,
p.A1)(WSJ, 10/27/07, p.A9)
2005 Jun 28, Austria launched an
energy exchange to trade carbon allowances in accord with the Kyoto
treaty to deal with greenhouse gases.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.64)
2005 Jun 28, Canada's House
of Commons passed legislation, drafted by PM Paul Martin, to legalize
gay marriage in spite of fierce opposition from Conservatives and
religious leaders. It would become only the third country in the world
to legalize gay marriage.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, Canada’s Supreme
Court said there is well-founded evidence that Rwandan exile Leon
Mugesera helped to incite the massacre of ethnic rivals in his homeland
and should be kicked out of Canada.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, China said it will
begin filling its strategic oil reserve by the end of the year.
(WSJ, 6/29/05, p.A13)
2005 Jun 28, Avian flu has killed
5,000 wild birds in China's northwest, the World Health Organization
said, five times the number previously reported by the Chinese
government.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro made a surprise visit to Venezuela for what he described on
arrival as an ''historic encounter'' with his top ally, Pres. Hugo
Chavez, and and 2-day summit with Caribbean leaders. This was his 4th
trip to Venezuela since 1999 and his first outside of Cuba since late
2003.
(www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/cuba/3212.html)
2005 Jun 28, Colombia began a
2-day operation in which 12 members of Colombia's navy were arrested in
raids that uncovered drug-making chemicals and documents linking them
to cocaine smuggling groups.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, In Dagestan, Russia,
a writer and critic of the Islamist movement was shot to death in
Makhachkala.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jun 28, Egypt ordered five
public sector company bosses to stand trial in a multi-million dollar
corruption case, one of the biggest of its kind in recent years.
(AFP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, In Ethiopia police
arrested four independent newspaper editors on criminal charges of
defaming the military. They were detained for seven hours and later
released on bail. The arrests stem from reports in their
Amharic-language weeklies about Ethiopian air force pilots who sought
political asylum while training in Belarus.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, An international
consortium chose France as the site for an experimental nuclear fusion
reactor, a $13 billion project that developers hope will one day
generate endless, cheap energy by reproducing the sun's power source
and wean the world off fossil fuels.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Stung by a recent
scandal that rocked India's booming business processing industry, the
government announced that it will tighten laws to prevent cyber crime
and ensure data secrecy.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, US troops allegedly
killed an Iraqi television director when he drove near a US convoy. A
suicide car bomb killed Sheikh Dhari Ali al-Fayadh, an Iraqi Shiite
legislator, his son and two bodyguards near Baghdad as they were headed
to a parliamentary session in the capital. A suicide bomber near Balad
killed a US soldier. A car bomb near Tikrit killed another US soldier.
In Samara police fired on a crowd demanding jobs and one person was
killed. A car bomb in Baquba killed on e person. A suicide bomber in
Musayyib killed a police officer. Bloodshed killed at least 18 people
throughout Iraq. In Kirkuk a suicide car bomber slammed into a convoy
killing a bodyguard of traffic police chief Brig. Gen. Salar Ahmed.
(AP, 6/29/05)(SFC, 6/29/05, p.A15)
2005 Jun 28, More than 1,000 U.S.
troops and Iraqi forces launched Operation Sword on Tuesday in a bid to
crush insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq, the third major
offensive in the area in recent weeks.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Pakistan's Supreme
Court overturned the acquittals of 13 men accused of gang-raping a
villager and ordered the suspects arrested in a case that has drawn
international attention to the brutal treatment of women in this
conservative Muslim country.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Lebanon's new
parliament overwhelmingly re-elected a pro-Syrian as speaker in a
political compromise by the anti-Syrian coalition that won the
elections.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Lawmakers
overwhelming approved a law allowing millions of Mexicans living abroad
to vote by mail in next year's presidential election, a measure that
could reshape the country's leadership race.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Mexico's Zapatista
rebels suggested they would seek to open a political front with
workers, farmers and students, a decision the government interpreted as
a move toward joining mainstream politics and away from armed struggle.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Russia said it
intends to cancel $2.2 billion owed by the poorest African countries in
support of an initiative by the eight major industrialized nations to
write off more than $40 billion of debt.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, Saudi Arabia issued a
list of 36 men wanted for acts of terror and called on people to report
them to the police.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, South Korea's spy
agency said North Korea has cut most of its international phone lines
since late March over concerns that sensitive information about its
society will flow out of the isolated country.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Swedish truck and bus
maker Volvo AB said it will close an assembly plant in Botswana and
open a new factory in Durban, South Africa.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, In Madrid a Tibetan
group presented a criminal case against top Chinese officials for
genocide and crimes against humanity, seeking to take advantage of
Spain's laws on international human rights crimes.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 29, President Bush,
embracing nearly all the recommendations of a White House commission,
said he was creating a national security service at the FBI to
specialize in intelligence as part of a shake-up of the disparate US
spy agencies.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2005 Jun 29, In Manhattan a new
design, by architect David M. Childs, was unveiled for the Freedom
Tower.
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.B1)
2005 Jun 29, The US military said
it sent a ship to Africa's oil-rich Gulf of Guinea to train west
African nations to combat threats including terrorism, drug trafficking
and petroleum theft.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, A state dept.
officials said the US has suspended a shipment of M-16 rifles to Nepal
to protest at King Gyanendra's takeover in February.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, A propaganda video,
purportedly made by al-Qaida-linked terror suspect Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, was posted on militant Web sites. It showed suicide attacks
against US soldiers and Iraqi forces and emphasizes that the war being
waged by Iraqi insurgents is in retaliation for America's war against
Islam.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jun 29, In central
Afghanistan Taliban militants attacked police checkpoints and a
village, and the fighting left 25 people dead, including tribal elders
who were taken hostage.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jun 29, In Haiti hundreds of
UN peacekeepers raided a slum filled with gangs loyal to ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, killing six gunmen.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, In Haiti a worker for
the International Committee of the Red Cross was kidnapped. Joel
Cauvin, a Haitian, was abducted and found dead near his home the next
day.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jun 29, The EU gave Italy
until the end of 2007 to cut its budget deficit in line with euro-zone
rules, a warning that is powerless as it carries no punishment.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, In India 2 workers
were killed and up to 12 others were believed trapped after a tunnel
they were building to bring water to a village north of Bombay
collapsed in a landslide triggered by heavy rain.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Extremist opponents
of Israel's Gaza pullout plan scattered nails and oil across a main
highway during morning rush hour, bringing traffic to a halt in the
first of a wave of violent demonstrations planned throughout the day.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Some 400 would-be
immigrants from Africa landed on Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island south
of Sicily, and air patrols spotted at least 200 more on their way.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Lebanon’s anti-Syrian
lawmakers nominated Fuad Saniora, a former finance minister known for
his pro-market policies, to be the country's next prime minister.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Hezbollah guerrillas
attacked Israeli forces in a disputed part of the south Lebanon border,
wounding six soldiers and triggering an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli
strike killed Hezbollah guerrilla Milhem Hassan Salhab (35).
(AP, 6/30/05)(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jun 29, In Malaysia Hamisa
Abu Hassan Saari (22) was arrested after police found some drugs on a
friend. A police officer secretly recorded her with a cell phone as she
was forced to strip and do squats, though she had no drugs. The
recording got on the Internet and led to a special commission that
denounced the police procedures and led to significant changes.
(SFC, 11/23/06, p.A34)
2005 Jun 29, Mexico released a
series of five stamps depicting a child character from a comic book
started in the 1940s that is still published in Mexico. The stamps
depicted an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 29, Poles lined up to buy
collectors' coins with the image of the late Pope John Paul II, issued
by the central bank to honor Poland's most famous son.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas asked Hamas militants to join his Cabinet to improve
prospects of a peaceful takeover of the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jun 29, Philippine Pres.
Gloria Macagapal Arroyo said her husband, implicated in bribes and
influence peddling, has agreed to leave the Philippines.
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.A10)
2005 Jun 29, A Russian court
ordered the radical national Bolshevik Party, led by ultranationalist
writer Eduard Limonov, to disband.
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.A10)
2005 Jun 29, In the southern
Russian region of Karachayevo-Cherkessiya about 200 ethnic minority
activists occupied the regional government headquarters, demanding
urgent action to save their dwindling population. Members of the tiny
Abazin minority have demanded that the 13 villages where they live be
united in a single district with its own financing. There were fewer
than 30,000 Abazins left in existence, all of them in
Karachayevo-Cherkessiya.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Two Rwandan
businessmen were found guilty of war crimes by a 12-person jury in
Brussels for their role in the killings of thousands during their
country's 1994 genocide. Beer trader Etienne Nzabonimana, 53, was found
guilty on 56 counts, and his half brother, Samuel Ndashyikirwa, 43, was
found guilty on 23 counts of aiding and abetting the slaughter of
Tutsis and moderate Hutus in their home region of Kibungo.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, More than 1,000 South
Korean sex workers rallied demanding recognition as legitimate members
of society and the withdrawal of an anti-prostitution law they say
threatens their livelihoods and their health.
(Reuters, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, A UN team of experts
called for an international tribunal to prosecute Indonesia’s security
forces and militia during its bloodstained exit from East Timor in 1999.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, Vietnam said it would
begin in August vaccinating poultry nationwide against bird flu.
(SFC, 6/30/05, p.A10)
2005 Jun 29, The UN World Food
Program in Zambia said lack of funds will soon force it to slash
rations and reduce the number of vulnerable women and children on food
aid.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 30, Pres. Bush, in
advance of the G-8 summit, announced a $1.7 billion aid package for
Africa and promised to double total assistance by 2010.
(SFC, 7/1/05, p.A15)
2005 Jun 30, The US Federal
Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point. It marked the 9th
increase since tightening began in 2004.
(SFC, 7/1/04, p.A1)
2005 Jun 30, Time editor Norman
Pearlstein agreed to hand over notes relating to the CIA-leak probe.
The next day Lawrence O’Donnell broke the story that the e-mails that
Time turned over to the prosecutor that day reveal that Karl Rove is
the source Matt Cooper is protecting. [see Jul 14, 2003, Sep 29,
2003]
(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/83v7r)(SSFC,
7/3/05, p.A8)
2005 Jun 30, Bank of America Corp.
said it will acquire MBNA Corp. in a $35 billion cash and stock deal
that will result in 6,000 jobs cuts but transform the nation's
third-largest bank into one of the world's largest credit card issuers.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Viacom launched Logo,
a gay oriented TV show.
(SFC, 6/30/05, p.E1)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.59)
2005 Jun 30, A 2-year, 11-nation
investigation, called Operation Site Down, culminated with arrests and
the shut down of 8 major pirated film and software distribution
servers. Over 120 cyber pirates were identified.
(SFC, 7/1/05, p.B1)
2005 Jun 30, At El Cahon, Ca., 5
illegal immigrants were killed and six others injured when their van
collided with a pickup truck shortly after it sped around a border
checkpoint.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Australia a
clinical audit of cases handled by surgeon Dr. Jayant Patel nicknamed
"Dr. Death" by his former colleagues, has found he contributed to eight
patient deaths during his two years at a Queensland hospital, far fewer
than earlier reported.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Storms lashed
Australia's east coast in a violent end to one of the country's worst
droughts on record.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, The income of Prince
Charles, heir to the British throne, rose by 11% in 2004 to more than
$23 million, according to an annual financial report released by his
household.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Christopher Fry,
English playwright, died at age 97. Fry was England’s last successful
playwright to write in verse. His work included “Look Back in Anger”
(1956).
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.83)
2005 Jun 30, A Cambodia doctor
reported that 2 infants have died in Cambodia from influenza, part of
an outbreak that has hospitalized more than 1,000 children. He said the
illness appears to be a form of human flu, not the avian influenza.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Chinese President Hu
Jintao visited Russia and is expected to bolster ties with Beijing's
former rival in hopes of quadrupling their trade turnover to up to $80
billion a year by 2010.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, China overtook Japan
as the world’s largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. The
combined China and Hong Kong reserves stood at $833 billion.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.80)
2005 Jun 30, The EU and China
plunged into a 2nd trade row, this time over shoes, but Brussels said a
deal was still possible over Beijing's surging footwear exports.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Kinshasa riot
police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators with batons as thousands
protested delays to Congo's first postwar presidential elections. At
least six died in violence nationwide.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, The Muslim
Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic group, launched an alliance
devoted to the peaceful removal of President Hosni Mubarak, who has
been in power since 1981. Several other opposition groups promptly lent
their support to what the Brotherhood has called the an alliance
intended "to exercise peaceful pressure on the regime, through legal
and constitutional means, to make it respond to democratic change."
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Honduras Central
American leaders agreed to create a regional special forces unit to
fight drug trafficking, gang violence and terrorism within their
borders. The 2-day regional meeting included the presidents of Costa
Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua,
and Panama.
(AP, 6/30/05)(SFC, 7/1/05, p.A14)
2005 Jun 30, The Israeli military
isolated the Gaza Strip, declaring it a "closed military zone" to
prevent Jewish extremists from going in.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, An ultra-Orthodox Jew
stabbed and wounded two marchers in the annual Jerusalem Gay Pride
parade.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Pres. Fox
signed a bill allowing millions of Mexicans living abroad to vote by
mail in next year's presidential election.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jun 30, Justice Minister Yuri
Chaika said that Russia was seeking to have assets of the beleaguered
Yukos oil company seized overseas and had asked Netherlands and
Lithuania for help.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Spain’s Parliament
voted 187-147 to legalize gay marriages, defying conservatives and
clergy making Spain the 3rd country to allow same-sex unions nationwide.
(AP, 6/30/05)(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 30, Sudan announced the
imminent end of a 16-year state of emergency across most of the giant
country and began releasing political prisoners, including the leading
Islamic opposition figure.
(AP, 6/30/05)(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 30, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait
approved its final claims, bringing the total award to $52.5 billion.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Zimbabwe police
targeted an illegal settlement west of Harare in the government's
six-week demolition and resettlement campaign, and as many as three
people were reported dead. 2 women, one of them pregnant, died when
they fell off the back of trucks ferrying them to a "transit camp"
where thousands of displaced people are living in tents. A 4-year-old
boy was run over by a truck
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jun, The board of MassMutual
Financial Group voted to fire CEO Robert O’Connell following an
investigation that revealed padding in his supplemental retirement
account and other allegations that involved a romantic affair with a
top female executive.
(WSJ, 8/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun, The BATS (Better
Alternative Trading System), led by Dave Cummings, was incorporated.
Within 2 years the Kansas City operation became America’s 3rd largest
stockmarket.
(Econ, 3/17/07,
p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Alternative_Trading_System)
2005 Jun, NYC doctors reported
outbreaks of imipenem resistant Klebsiella.
(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.A10)
2005 Jun, In Iraq construction
began about this time on a new US embassy complex with a target
completion date of June 2007. The 21 building complex on 104 acres will
be the largest US embassy in the world. Cost was estimated at over $1
billion.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2005 Jun, In Morocco Nadia Yassine
(47), leader of the underground Justice and Charity Islamic movement,
was charged with publicly criticizing the monarchy after she stated in
a newspaper interview that the country would be better off as a
republic than as a kingdom. She demanded the abolition of Article 19 of
the constitution enshrining the king’s role as Commander of the
Faithful.
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101472.html)
2005 Jun, The Trans-Sahara
Counter-Terrorism Initiative began operations. The US funded plan
intended to provide military equipment and development aid to 9
north-east African countries considered fertile ground for Muslim
militant groups. Participating countries included Algeria, Chad, Mali,
Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia.
(SFC, 12/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun, In India the Salwa
Judum, an anti-Maoist group, formed in southern Chhattisgarh state. It
soon became an arm of the government to fight Naxalite rebels.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.39)
2005 Jun, India's tsunami-hit
Andaman islands signed a tourist deal with Thailand’s resort town of
Phuket. Environmentalists slammed the deal saying such a move would
destroy the fragile ecology of the Andaman and Nicobar islands and
encourage the sex trade.
(Reuters, 8/3/05)
2005 Jun, San Marino set up a
central bank with supervisory powers.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.74)
2005 Jun, Article 301/1 of the
Turkish Penal Code, the “insulting Turkishness” law, took effect. The
law states “A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic
or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of
imprisonment for a term of six months to three years.”
(www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/694/prmID/172)
2005 Jun, Venezuela set up
Petrocaribe under which it offered 12 Caribbean countries cheap credit
for oil imports.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.33)
Go to July 2005