Timeline 2006 April-June
Return to home
2006 Apr 1,
Former hostage Jill Carroll arrived in Germany, where she strongly
disavowed statements she had made during captivity in Iraq and shortly
after her release, saying she had been repeatedly threatened.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2006 Apr 1, In eastern Afghanistan
a roadside bomb wounded five US troops when it hit their vehicle. A
suicide attack on a US-led coalition convoy in the country's south
killed the bomber but hurt no one else. In southern Afghanistan a
Taliban rebel posing as a traveler shot dead four policemen at a remote
checkpoint after eating dinner with them and sleeping in their
quarters. A fifth officer shot the rebel dead.
(AP, 4/1/06)(AP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 1, Cracking down on
visitors who come to Brazil for sex, police raided clubs in Natal known
for using call girls and strippers, detaining 118 foreigners to
discourage what authorities called "sexual tourism."
(AP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao arrived in Australia for a visit aimed at finalizing a uranium
supply deal and speeding up free trade negotiations between the two
nations.
(AFP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, In eastern China a
blast at an explosives plant killed at least 20 workers and injured
two. Nine workers were missing.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 1, Calls emerged within
the Shiite alliance Saturday for PM Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step aside as
the bloc's nominee for another term as pressure mounted against him
from Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, A US Apache helicopter
crashed southwest of Baghdad. It was believed to have been shot down
and the two crew members were presumed dead. Iraqi police reported that
at least 39 bodies were found in several neighborhoods of Baghdad.
Joint US-Iraqi troops killed four insurgents and wounded another after
two failed attacks near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. Two American
soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in central
Baghdad.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 1, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected Islamic militants attacked a military base in a
tribal region, killing one soldier and injuring four others.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 1, A Soyuz capsule docked
with the international space station (ISS), bringing Brazil's first
astronaut, a new Russian-American crew and a fresh load of supplies,
equipment and experiments.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, Three explorers from
Britain and New Zealand claimed to be the first to have traveled the
Nile from its mouth to its "true source" deep in Rwanda's lush Nyungwe
rainforest.
(Reuters, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, Karl Bushby was
briefly detained after walking from Alaska across the icy Bering
Straits into Russian territory, a treacherous crossing for which he was
joined by Dmitri Kieffer, a French-born US citizen who videotaped the
adventure. Authorities confiscated the two men's passports and other
belongings, effectively making it impossible for them to move. Bushby
was on a quest to trek around the world. Bushby set out on foot from
southern Chile on November 1, 1998 with the intention of walking back
to his home in the northern English city of Hull, a 36,000-mile
(58,000-kilometer) odyssey that he was scheduled to complete by 2010.
On April 14 a Russian court ordered the deportation of the British
adventurer for illegally crossing into Russia, dealing a potentially
fatal blow to his dream of walking around the world.
(AFP, 4/6/06)(AFP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 1, Tens of thousands of
people gathered at a rally in the northern city of Bilbao to call for
greater Basque self-determination and negotiations between the Spanish
government and separatists.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 1, Fresh clashes between
Kurdish protesters and police in southeast Turkey killed one protester
and injured 10.
(Reuters, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 2, Thunderstorms packing
tornadoes and hail as big as softballs ripped through eight US states,
killing at least 27 people. Tennessee was hit hardest, with tornadoes
striking five western counties and killing 23 people, including an
infant. Severe thunderstorms, many producing tornadoes, also struck
parts of Iowa, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois and
Indiana. Strong wind was blamed or at least three deaths in Missouri.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 2, It was reported that
Cecilia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South
Dakota, had joined with 14 co-chairs to form the South Dakota Campaign
for Healthy Families. The group planned a referendum in favor of
abortion.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.A4)
2006 Apr 2, Alcatel SA and Lucent
Technologies Inc. said that the French telecom equipment maker would
acquire its US rival. The deal valued Lucent at about $13.5 billion
(11.1 billion euros) in a stock swap that would form a major new global
player. Headquarters would be in Paris and about 8,800 jobs would be
cut.
(AP, 4/2/06)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.63)
2006 Apr 2, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban militants shot dead 9 policemen and wounded three
others. Insurgents fatally shot a Turkish road engineer and burned his
body in Nimroz province.
(AP, 4/2/06)(WSJ, 4/3/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 2, The World Health
Organization (WHO) confirmed that four Egyptians have caught bird flu,
including two who died from the virus.
(Reuters, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 2, In France the
contested First Job Contract appeared in the Official Journal, where
new laws are recorded.
(WSJ, 4/3/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 2, Iran announced its
second major new missile test within days, saying it has successfully
fired a high-speed torpedo called Hoot (whale), capable of destroying
huge warships and submarines.
(AP, 4/3/06)(SFC, 4/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 2, Iraqi police reported
that at least 3 more bodies were found in several neighborhoods of
Baghdad. A Sunni clerical association announced that gunmen had
assassinated a Sunni Arab sheik, Abdul-Minaam Awad, in his village of
Zobaa 40 miles west of Baghdad. 6 insurgents died while manufacturing a
homemade bomb inside a house in Madain, about 15 miles southeast of
Baghdad. Drive-by shooters killed a police captain outside his home in
Baghdad's Dora neighborhood. 5 Marines were killed and one was injured
when the seven-ton US military truck rolled over in a flash food. 4
American troops were killed by hostile fire. Gunmen killed a Shiite man
and three of his relatives at their home in southern Baghdad. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made
a surprise trip to Iraq to urge its leaders to form a unified
government.
(AP, 4/2/06)(AP, 4/3/06)(AP, 4/2/07)
2006 Apr 2, Mauritanian officials
said a boat packed with West Africans trying to reach Europe collided
with a fishing vessel, leaving 32 of the migrants missing and believed
drowned.
(CP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 2, In Pakistan’s
neighboring South Waziristan the bullet-riddled body of Maulana Zahir
Shah, was found. The cleric was killed by suspected Islamic militants
over suspicion he was a spy for the US and Britain. Ten people
including five tribal police were killed and 13 injured in separate
bomb blasts in the restive southwestern Pakistani province of
Baluchistan.
(AP, 4/2/06)(AFP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 2, Thailand citizens
voted in snap parliamentary elections. Thailand's PM urged citizens to
ignore an opposition boycott, saying the vote was crucial to ending the
country's deepening political stalemate amid demands for his
resignation. Bombs exploded at three polling stations in restive
southern Thailand, injuring four soldiers and a police officer.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 2, In southeastern Turkey
one protester died after police opened fire to disperse Kurdish
demonstrators, raising the death toll in six days of street violence to
nine. A group of men stopped a passenger bus and tossed gasoline bombs
at it, sending the vehicle careening into pedestrians and killing 3 in
Istanbul as pro-Kurdish riots continued to spread. The countrywide
death toll from nearly a week of unrest climbed to 15.
(AP, 4/2/06)(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, The Pentagon released
2,733 pages of declassified transcripts of Guantanamo Bay detainee
hearings.
(SFC, 4/4/06, p.A4)
2006 Apr 3, In Boston a 10-ton
construction platform collapsed and fell 13 stories killing 3 people on
Boylston St.
(SFC, 4/4/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 3, Denver area transit
workers went on strike for the 1st time in 24 years. A tentative
contract was reached on April 5.
(SFC, 4/4/06, p.A3)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A18)
2006 Apr 3, David Wittig, former
chairman and CEO of Westar Energy, was sentenced in Kansas to 18 years
in prison for defrauding the company. Former VP David Lake was
sentenced to 15 years. Both men were ordered to pay fines of $5 million
each.
(WSJ, 4/4/06, p.C3)
2006 Apr 3, Florida beat UCLA,
73-57, to win its first NCAA title in men's basketball.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2006 Apr 3, Charles Barkley,
Dominique Wilkins and Joe Dumars were among six people elected to the
Basketball Hall of Fame.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2006 Apr 3, Constellation Brands
and Vincor Int’l., Canada’s largest wine company announced plans for a
$1.3 billion merger.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.F2)
2006 Apr 3, Australia agreed to
sell China uranium for nuclear power stations despite concerns that
Beijing could divert the material to atomic weapons.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Czech officials
declared a state of emergency in seven flood-hit regions while rivers
continued to rise in neighboring European countries, forcing
evacuations in some areas. Flooding was also reported in Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, The National Bank of
Greece paid $2.8 billion for 46% of Finansbank, Turkey’s 3rd largest
bank. It planned a public offer for a controlling stake.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.74)
2006 Apr 3, In western Guatemala 4
young men accused of trying to rob a school were whipped by their
parents in a sentence dictated by Mayan elders.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, A suicide truck bomb
exploded near a Shiite mosque in northeastern Baghdad as worshippers
were leaving after evening prayers, killing at least 10 people and
wounding 30. A car bombing in Baghdad's eastern Shiite slum of Sadr
City killed at least two civilians and wounded six others, including a
9-year-old boy. 4 people were wounded when a car bomb struck the
central district of Karradah in Baghdad. Six people, a navy officer,
two policemen, two workers at an electrical plant and a boy, were
killed by drive-by shooters in a market area of the southern city of
Basra.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, PM Bertie Ahern
pledged that Ireland will legalize civil partnerships for gay couples,
as he opened new offices for the country's main gay rights group.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, In Jordan a bomb
exploded at a shop selling Iraqi scrap metal, killing two people and
wounding four.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Dozens of Mexican
newspapers, frustrated by fruitless police probes of slain and missing
journalists, simultaneously published the first in a series of reports
on the cases.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Morocco’s state news
agency MAP said security forces were holding nine suspected al Qaeda
activists. Local newspapers said they were part of a ring that plotted
bomb attacks in France, Italy and Morocco.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, The chief of Nepal's
communist rebels promised to suspend attacks on the capital ahead of a
planned nationwide strike, a first sign of easing tensions in a battle
of nerves between the king's government and its opponents.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, In Pakistan a roadside
bomb killed five people riding a minibus and security forces shot dead
two suspected militants in North Waziristan province.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Negotiations in Vienna
on the future of Kosovo appeared to founder as UN mediators struggled
to overcome Serb demands for autonomy within the majority Albanian
territory.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Former Liberian
President Charles Taylor pleaded not guilty before an international war
crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, denying he'd helped destabilize West
Africa through killings, sexual slavery and sending children into
combat.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2006 Apr 3, A senior South African
policeman went on a shooting rampage in Johannesburg, killing eight
people, including a 2-year-old baby, before being shot dead by
colleagues. A pedestrian was killed during a police chase of the
suspect.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 3, Jan Egeland, the
U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Sudan, said the government barred
him from visiting Darfur to prevent him seeing poor conditions there.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Mohammed al-Maghout
(72), a Syrian poet and playwright known for his satirical depictions
of authoritarian Arab regimes, died of a stroke at his home in Damascus.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, PM Thaksin claimed
victory in Thailand's general election that followed weeks of
anti-government protests, saying his party won more than half of the
popular vote, the threshold he had set for staying in office.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 3, Venezuela seized
control of oil fields from France's Total SA and Italy's Eni SPA in a
show of force against those resisting President Hugo Chavez's efforts
to pry more profits from the industry at a time of high oil prices.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 3, Dao Dinh Binh (61)
Vietnam's transport minister resigned and his deputy was arrested in a
major corruption scandal in which public officials embezzled millions
of dollars in government funds. The reformist newspapers Thanh Nien
(Young people) and Tuoi Tre (Youth Daily) had published a joint expose
of the transport ministry’s road building unit. In 2009 the government
refused to renew the contracts for the papers.
(AFP, 4/4/06)(Econ, 1/17/09, p.43)
2006 Apr 4, Republican Rep. Tom
DeLay of Texas, the House of Representatives' fallen majority leader,
announced the end of a re-election fight he was in jeopardy of losing
and said he would soon step down from the US Congress.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, In Massachusetts
legislators passed a bill requiring all citizens to have health
insurance. Gov. Romney signed it on April 12. The cost of the plan was
estimated at $1 billion, about as much as the state spends on the
uninsured. A dearth of primary-care physicians threatened to undermine
the program.
(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.A1)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.35)(SFC,
4/12/06, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.B1)
2006 Apr 4, Maryland beat Duke,
78-75, in overtime to win its first NCAA women's basketball title.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2006 Apr 4, Computer Sciences
Corp. said it plans to cut about 5,000 jobs, or about 6 percent of its
work force, over two years and is considering selling the company.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Arab diplomats said
top intelligence officers from several Arab countries and Turkey have
been meeting secretly to coordinate their governments' strategies in
case civil war erupts in Iraq and in an attempt to block Iran's
interference in the war-torn nation.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 4, A boatload of 52 dazed
and exhausted African men arrived at the Canary Islands, the latest of
a stream of desperate migrants risking everything on the open sea for a
slim chance at life in Europe.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, In Colombia
authorities announced the arrests of 7 active and retired police and
army officers working for one of Colombia's largest cocaine cartels,
who used commercial cargo planes to ship drugs to the US.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Wen Jiabao arrived in
Fiji as the first Chinese premier to visit the Pacific islands, seeking
to deepen China's influence in the region and contain Taiwan's
diplomatic clout.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Human Rights Watch
said tens of thousands of street children across Congo risk being
recruited by political parties to create chaos, intimidate voters and
contest the results of up-coming elections.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, In France a nationwide
strike shut down the Eiffel Tower and snarled air and rail travel for
the second time in a week while students barricaded themselves in
schools to protest a jobs measure that has riven the country and put
the government in crisis mode.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Mphasis BFL Ltd., an
Indian software services company, welcomed a $380 million bid by
Electronic Data Systems for a 52% stake.
(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.B3)
2006 Apr 4, Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran is prepared to negotiate on the
large-scale enrichment of uranium but will never abandon its right to
enrich uranium.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, The Iraq tribunal
announced new criminal charges against Saddam Hussein and six others,
accusing them of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from a
1980s crackdown against Kurds. A car bomb exploded in a mostly Shiite
area of eastern Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 28. Another
blast in Baghdad killed a woman and two of her young sons.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Denis Donaldson (55),
former British agent inside Sinn Fein, was killed by shotgun blasts in
northwest Ireland.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 4, Israeli warplanes
fired three missiles into the presidential compound of Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas, wounding 2 people and leaving deep craters in the
ground.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Kuwaiti women voted
and ran as candidates for the first time in a municipal election in the
conservative country's capital, but initial reports indicated not many
women were casting ballots.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Charles Taylor
appeared in a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone with 11 counts of crimes
against humanity and other violations of int’l. law.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.46)
2006 Apr 4, The South Korean ship
628 Dongwon was seized by eight armed assailants, who approached in two
speed boats firing guns off the coast of Somalia. 25 crew members were
reported safe and officials sought their release. The sailors were
released July 30 after more than $800,000 in ransom was paid.
(AP, 4/5/06)(AP, 7/30/06)
2006 Apr 4, Thailand’s Embattled
PM Thaksin Shinawatra abruptly announced he will step down from office,
bowing to a mounting opposition campaign seeking his ouster over
allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 4, Venezuelan authorities
found the bullet-ridden bodies of three Canadian boys who had been
kidnapped more than a month ago. John Faddoul (17), along with his
brothers Kevin (13) and Jason (12) were abducted Feb. 23 when
unidentified men dressed as police stopped their car at a checkpoint in
Caracas as the boys were on their way to school.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Seattle customs
authorities arrested 18 men and 4 women who had arrived from China in a
40-foot cargo container.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 5, Katie Couric announced
she was leaving NBC's "Today" show to become anchor of "The CBS Evening
News."
(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 5, Mike Pressler, the
lacrosse coach of Duke Univ., resigned amid allegations that 3 players
had raped a stripper at an off-campus party in March. Duke cancelled
the lacrosse season. The rape charges were later dropped, but the
players still faced allegations of sexual offense and kidnapping; all
maintained their innocence.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A2)(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 5, Apple Corp. introduced
free software to allow users of its latest Mac models to run MS
Windows.
(Reuters, 4/5/06)(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 5, SF picked Google and
EarthLink to bring free Internet access to the city.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 5, Brown-Forman said it
will lay off 76 people and close its Fetzer Vineyards’ Valley Oaks
Hospitality Center in Hopland. Brown-Forman acquired Fetzer in 1992.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.F2)
2006 Apr 5, Allan Kaprow (b.1927),
an artist who coined the term “happenings” in the late 1950s, died at
his home in Encinitas, Ca. In 1966 he published “Assemblage,
Environments, and Happenings.”
(SFC, 4/11/06, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.D7)
2006 Apr 5, Gene Pitney (b.1941),
US singer and songwriter and pop music star of the 1960s, died during a
tour of Britain. His chart-topping hits included “Town Without Pity”
(1961) "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" and "Something's Gotten Hold Of
My Heart."
(AP, 4/5/06)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.B7)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.86)
2006 Apr 5, In Afghanistan
coalition forces killed an insurgent and dropped 2,000-pound bombs on a
band of Taliban.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 5, A Brazilian
congressional investigative committee gave its final approval to a
report recommending prosecution of over 100 people linked to a campaign
finance and corruption scheme run by former members of the governing
Workers Party.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Britain reiterated its
sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and rejected Argentina's claims
in a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Britain’s Serious
Fraud Office began criminal proceedings against nine individuals and
five companies it alleges fixed the price of two widely prescribed
generic drugs sold to the country's free National Health Service (NHS).
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Home Secretary Charles
Clarke said London would press for Romania to be granted membership of
the European Union "as soon as possible" as he praised the country's
work against people trafficking.
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Cuban coast guard
officials fatally shot a suspected migrant smuggler and arrested two
others after confronting them in an apparent operation to ferry 39
migrants out of the country on a US-registered speedboat. State
television later said that the migrant smuggler who was fatally shot
had left the island as a migrant himself three weeks earlier, but
returned as a crew member on the same boat to repay a debt.
(AP, 4/7/06)(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 5, In France
demonstrators blocked roads, rail lines and mail delivery trucks in a
second straight day of protests to demand the repeal of a divisive jobs
law, while unions vowed they would not compromise in talks with
President Jacques Chirac's ruling party on the issue.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Indonesia an
explosion in the headquarters of the paramilitary police command in the
western city of Medan killed two officers and injured several others.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, A video posted on the
Internet in the name of an extremist group claimed to show Iraqi
insurgents dragging the burning body of a US pilot on the ground after
the April 1 crash of an Apache helicopter.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Iraq a Sunni
professor was found dead hours after he was abducted in the southern
city of Basra.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Nepal police
detained dozens of opposition politicians and ordered a night curfew to
thwart a planned general strike aiming to pressure King Gyanendra to
restore democracy.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Pakistani security
forces and suspected Islamic militants battled for a second day near
the Afghan border, leaving four soldiers and 16 fighters dead.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, PM Ismail Haniyeh said
the new Hamas-led government is broke and missed the April 1 monthly
pay date for tens of thousands of Palestinian public workers.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In the Solomon Islands
former premier Sir Allan Kemakeza narrowly clung to his seat in
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 5, Militants who captured
the South Korean fishing vessel off the coast of Somalia denied they
were pirates and said they were defending their waters from illegal
fishing.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Sudan said it would
allow UN Undersecretary Jan Egeland to visit Darfur.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Thailand’s PM Thaksin
Shinawatra handed over power to a longtime friend and fellow police
officer, less than 24 hours after saying he would step down over
allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Actor Michael Douglas
presented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan with an award for his
dedication to ridding the world of land mines, marking the first
international day to honor the cause.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, In Venezuela Jorge
Aguirre, a photographer for the Caracas daily El Mundo, was shot and
killed on the way to an anti-crime protest. He managed to take a
picture of his assailant fleeing on a motorcycle. Homicide charges were
filed on April 15 against Boris Lenis Blanco (33), a police officer,
who was arrested April 13.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 6, Newly released court
records cited Lewis "Scooter" Libby saying that in the summer of 2003
President Bush told Vice President Cheney to tell the vice president's
chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to disclose highly classified
information regarding Iraq intelligence in order to try and discredit
legitimate criticism of the administration.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Louis Eppolito (57)
and Steven Caracappa (64), former NYC detectives, were convicted of
moonlighting as hit men for Anthony Casso, a Luchese family underboss
from 1986-1990.
(SFC, 4/7/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 6, At the death penalty
trial of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, former New York City
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described his own harrowing experience in lower
Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2006 Apr 6, US Rep. Cynthia
McKinney (D-Ga.) apologized for an altercation in which she'd entered a
Capitol building unrecognized, refused to stop when asked by a police
officer and then hit him.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2006 Apr 6, Maine’s Gov. John
Baldacci signed legislation to allow stiffer penalties for those
convicted of attacks on homeless people.
(SFC, 4/7/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 6, Gold futures climbed
to a 25-year high of 601.90 in Asian trading and settled at 599.70 per
ounce in NY.
(SFC, 4/7/06, p.D1)
2006 Apr 6, In California 3 ski
patrollers were killed when snow collapsed around a volcanic gas vent
at Mammoth Lakes.
(SFC, 4/7/06, p.A2)
2006 Apr 6, A manuscript called
the Judas Gospel, probably copied from the original Greek around the
year 300, was unveiled. Discovered in the 1970s near Minya, Egypt, the
volume, including the gospel and other documents, was sold to an
Egyptian antiquities dealer in 1978.
(Reuters, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, A mortar blast near
the main US military base in Afghanistan left a civilian dead.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Britain's national
farming union said tests have confirmed a dead swan found in Scotland
had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, In Colombia bombs
exploded on two buses in a working class district of Bogota, injuring
two dozen passengers, including three children with burns over half
their body.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, A government minister
said Egypt has found two more people infected with the bird flu virus,
bringing the number of human cases in the country to 11.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, In Guatemala Mario
Pivaral, an opposition congressman, was shot to death as he stepped out
of his party's headquarters, the 2nd lawmaker assassinated in the past
two years.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Students protesting a
new labor law put more pressure on France's embattled government by
blocking roads, trains and a convoy of parts heading to the factory
that builds the world's largest airliner.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Shiite politicians
also blocked a bid to have parliament try to break the deadlock on
forming a new government. A car bomb exploded in the Shiite holy city
of Najaf, killing at least 13 people.
(AP, 4/6/06)(SFC, 4/7/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 6, An Iraqi soldier
allegedly shot and killed a US Marine at a base near the Syrian border.
Another American Marine then wounded the Iraqi soldier. One US service
member was killed by a roadside bomb near Beiji and another in action
in Anbar province.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 6, Israeli President
Moshe Katsav formally chose acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to form
Israel's next government.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Japan said it would
launch free trade talks with six Gulf kingdoms that provide
three-quarters of its oil imports, during a visit by a Saudi crown
prince aimed at expanding business ties.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, At least 28 people
received medical attention after suspected pickpockets used
pepper-spray to escape police at a Tokyo train station. Media reports
said the suspects are believed to be members of a South Korean
organized pickpocket gang which has preyed on Japan's train system.
(AFP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, An attack in Laos
killed 26 Hmong civilians, mainly unarmed women and children. In June
the US called on communist-ruled Laos to investigate the murder of the
Hmong civilians amid allegations that Lao military forces had killed
the group.
(AFP, 6/2/06)
2006 Apr 6, In Mexico hundreds of
machete-wielding farmers opposed to a hydroelectric dam project briefly
seized a pumping plant, cutting off much of the water supply to
Acapulco just days before tourists flock to the Pacific resort for
their Easter vacations.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, In Nepal police
arrested 300 protesters in Katmandu, chasing them down narrow lanes and
beating them with batons on the first day of a general strike to demand
the king restore democracy. Maoist rebels said they had shot down an
army helicopter for the first time, during clashes in which police
reported five of their officers and three guerrillas killed.
(AP, 4/6/06)(AFP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Palestinian PM Ismail
Haniya said his Hamas-led government would study any Israeli offer for
negotiations following an unprecedented peace overture to the UN.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Russian prosecutors
said Vasily Aleksanian, an executive recently assigned to saving Yukos,
Russia's former biggest oil producer, from bankruptcy was arrested on
charges of embezzlement and money-laundering.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, It was reported that
Russian health and sanitary officials had imposed a ban on Georgian and
Moldovan wines effective May 1. Authorities said the wines contained
pesticides and heavy metals. The ban was soon extended to brandy and
sparkling wines.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 6, Cheese and butter from
the Danish company Arla were back on supermarket shelves in Saudi
Arabia after an Islamic group ended a boycott of the dairy producer
sparked by Denmark's publication of drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 7, The US Court of
International Law ruled that US Customs violated a provision of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in applying a law known as
the Byrd amendment to antidumping and countervailing duties on goods
from Canada and Mexico.
(Reuters, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, Republican leaders
called on Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., to step down from his ranking
post on the House ethics committee because of allegations that he
provided legislative earmarks benefiting companies and individuals who
helped make him a millionaire.
(SFC, 4/8/06, p.A4)
2006 Apr 7, Dena Schlosser,
charged with murder for cutting off her baby daughter Margaret's arms
in what her lawyers portrayed as a religious frenzy, was found not
guilty by reason of insanity by a judge in McKinney, Texas.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2006 Apr 7, In Tennessee 10 people
were killed as tornadoes hit the area for the 2nd time in a week.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 7, It was reported that
scientists at MIT had harnessed a replicating virus, that binds to gold
and cobalt oxide, to create a nanotechnology battery.
(WSJ, 4/7/06, p.B2)
2006 Apr 7, In southern Algeria
gunmen attacked a convoy of customs agents traveling through the
desert, killing 13 and wounding eight others.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, Australian PM John
Howard moved to ease Indonesian outrage over a decision to grant visas
to asylum-seekers from Papua, saying his government would review the
process.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, In Austria a 2-day
meeting began in Vienna for European Imams aimed at creating a distinct
identity for European Muslims.
(SFC, 4/7/06, p.A16)
2006 Apr 7, A British judge ruled
that author Dan Brown did not steal ideas for "The Da Vinci Code" from
a nonfiction work.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2006 Apr 7, Britain’s BAE Systems
announced plans to sell its stake in aircraft maker Airbus to its
French-German partner EADS.
(AFP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 7, In Chile an appeals
court upheld the indictment of former dictator Gen. Pinochet on charges
of evading up to $3 million in taxes related to secret accounts in
foreign banks.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, The EU said it has cut
off direct aid payments to the Hamas-led Palestinian government because
of its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, A bus skidded off a
narrow mountain road and plunged into a river in a remote region of
Indian Kashmir and dozens were feared dead.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, A toned-down edition
of Playboy magazine went on sale in Indonesia, defying threats of
protests by Islamic hardliners in the world's most populous Muslim
nation.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, At least 2 suicide
attackers, one wearing a woman's cloaks, blew themselves up at the
Buratha Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, killing some 79-90 people
and wounding scores. One US service member died of wounds suffered
while on patrol in western Baghdad.
(AP, 4/7/06)(AP, 4/8/06)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.48)
2006 Apr 7, Israeli troops shot
and killed a Palestinian man during an overnight arrest raid in the
West Bank city of Nablus.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, Israeli missiles
slammed into a car in Gaza City, killing two members of a Palestinian
rocket squad in the 2nd deadly airstrike since the Islamic militant
group Hamas assumed power last week. An Israeli airstrike killed six
Palestinian militants and wounded five at a militant training camp in
central Gaza.
(AP, 4/8/06)(SFC, 4/8/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 7, Japan’s health and
welfare ministry said the nation’s population shrank in the year
through November 2005, the first annual decrease on record, confirming
an earlier government prediction.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, In Nepal police fired
tear gas and fought frenzied street battles with protesters on the
second day of a strike called by government adversaries of King
Gyanendra. Protesters said 150 people were arrested.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, It was reported that
some AIDS patients in South Africa were choosing cash disability grants
over advanced AIDS drugs in order to sustain their families.
(WSJ, 4/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 7, In Turkey a suicide
bomber blew herself up injuring 2 people, including a suspected
accomplice. Turkish forces killed 6 Kurdish rebels in Sirnak.
(WSJ, 4/8/06, p.A1)(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 7, The UN appealed for
$426 million to help victims of drought in Horn of Africa, where more
than 40 percent of people are undernourished and thousands have died
because of complications due to hunger.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 7, Venezuela Attorney
General Isaias Rodriguez said that five suspects were being charged
with willful homicide in the slayings of the 3 Faddoul brothers, whose
bodies were found April 4. Supporters of President Hugo Chavez pelted
the car of the US ambassador with eggs and tomatoes, then chased after
his convoy on motorcycles.
(AP, 4/7/06)(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, The New Yorker
magazine reported in its April 17 issue that the administration of
Pres. George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against
Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key
Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility.
(AFP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, Democratic Party
leaders in Vermont passed a motion asking Congress to immediately begin
impeachment proceedings against President Bush.
(Reuters, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 8, The US cost to date of
the Iraq war was put at $250 billion. Estimates suggested that the
costs could reach $2.24 trillion by 2015.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.33)
2006 Apr 8, In western Afghanistan
a suicide car bomb outside a NATO military base in Herat city killed
two Afghans and wounded seven others.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, Belarussian President
Alexander Lukashenko has been sworn in for a third five-year term and
used the occasion to lash out at his foreign critics.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, In Canada 8 men were
found dead inside abandoned vehicles in a remote wooded area of a
farmer's property. All were all from greater Toronto and all knew each
other.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 8, The Rolling Stones
made their debut in mainland China with a censored, but still raucous,
concert in Shanghai.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2006 Apr 8, Harley-Davidson Inc.
opened its first dealership in China, with promises to bring its
trademark easy-riding attitude to bikers in the world's most
sought-after market.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, In Ghana an overloaded
motorboat carrying about 150 passengers on Lake Volta, and 110 people
are missing and feared dead. Only 40 people are known to have survived
the sinking.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 8, Police found four
headless bodies showing signs of torture that were dumped on a farm
about 20 mile north of Baghdad. 7 other bodies were found in 3 Baghdad
neighborhoods. A mortar round hit a house near the Education Ministry
in central Baghdad, killing two men. In the southern neighborhood of
Dora, gunmen killed a Shiite cigarette vendor and police found the body
of a man killed by a roadside bomb near a highway. 6 Shiite pilgrims
were blown up by a suicide car bomber on a road leading to Shiite
shrines south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/8/06)(AFP, 4/8/06)(SSFC, 4/9/06, p.A14)
2006 Apr 8, In Nepal security
forces fired on anti-monarch demonstrators in separate marches, killing
one and wounding five.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, In Nigeria at least a
dozen people drowned when an overcrowded dugout canoe capsized in a
remote creek in the delta region. 5 employees of a contractor to US oil
company Chevron were among the dead. Nigerian newspapers said at least
20 people died, adding 12 bodies had been recovered.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 8, North Korea's top
negotiator to stalled six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear arms program
began discussions with other envoys involved in the negotiations in an
effort to put the process back on track.
(Reuters, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, Thousands of Russians
left behind by their country's economic boom came out onto the streets
to protest at what they said was the widening gulf between rich and
poor.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 8, Turkish forces killed
a Kurdish rebel outside Batman and arrested a Kurdish suspect in a
deadly bombing at a seaside resort last year. 2 soldiers were killed by
a land mine blast in Elazig.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 9, The White House sought
to dampen the idea of a military strike on Iran, saying the United
States was conducting “normal defense and intelligence planning” in
response to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2006 Apr 9, More than half a
million people in 10 US states rallied for immigrant rights.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2006 Apr 9, In Afghan 2 bombs
exploded within minutes of each other in Kandahar, wounding 11 people.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, In Austria a gathering
of Imams and Islamic leaders urged European governments to launch
affirmative action-style programs and streamline citizenship paths to
help ease integration for the continent's 33 million Muslims.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, Paulo Mendes da Rocha,
Brazilian architect, was named winner of the 2006 Pritzker Architecture
Prize. His work included the Brazilian Sculpture Museum in Sao Paulo.
(SFC, 4/10/06, p.A2)
2006 Apr 9, Croatia’s Pres.
Stjepan Mesic visited the SF Bay Area, home to some 50,000 Croatians,
for economic support. Croatia’s population stood at about 4.5 million
people.
(SFC, 4/10/06, p.A2)
2006 Apr 9, Hungary's ruling
Socialists appeared to hold a narrow lead in the first round of
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, A Beauty pageant was
held in a Baghdad social club and the initial winner, Tamar Goregian,
gave back the crown four days later. Silva Shahakian, an Iraqi
Christian, received the title of Miss Iraq when the initial winner
stepped down after receiving death threats and two other runners-up
also bowed out. Shahakian soon went into hiding.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 9, Five roadside bombs
killed at least three people in Iraq, the three-year anniversary of the
Baghdad's fall to US forces. American troops killed eight suspected
insurgents during a raid north of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, Israel's security
Cabinet recommended that the government cut all ties with the Hamas-led
Palestinian Authority, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
and declare it a "hostile entity." Israeli artillery fire killed a
Palestinian police officer and wounded 16 people in Gaza, as Israel
escalated its retaliation for militant rocket strikes and put pressure
on the new Hamas-led government that refuses to stop the attacks.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9-2006 Apr 10, Italy held
parliamentary elections. Conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi faced a
strong challenge from his center-left opponent Romano Prodi in a bitter
campaign marked by disenchantment over Italy's stagnant economy.
(AP, 4/9/06)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.28)
2006 Apr 9, A capsule carrying a
Russian, American and Brazilian landed in Kazakhstan following a
weeklong trip to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 4/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 9, In Nepal security
forces fired at anti-monarchy demonstrators in eastern Nepal, killing
at least one man.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, In Pakistan provincial
police chief Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqub said "The federal government has
declared Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) as terrorist organization
over its involvement in sabotage and subversive activities."
(AFP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, In Pakistan at least
29 women and children were suffocated or crushed to death in a stampede
at a religious gathering in southern Pakistan. More than 70 people were
injured.
(Reuters, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 9, Peruvians faced a
close, three-way presidential contest that put their Andean nation on a
leftist track akin to Venezuela and Bolivia. Ollanta Humala (43), a
former army officer, won with only 31% of the vote.
(AP, 4/9/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.42)
2006 Apr 9, A Swiss investigator
has issued an international arrest warrant for Iran's former
intelligence chief in the killing of an exiled Iranian opposition
leader. It demands the arrest of Ali Fallahian, intelligence minister
from 1989-1997, on grounds he "decided and ordered the execution of
Kazem Rajavi." Rajavi was shot to death in Geneva in 1990.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 10, Tens of thousands of
immigrants spilled into the streets of Atlanta and other US cities in a
national day of action billed as a "campaign for immigrants' dignity."
Some 200,000 gathered in DC; 10,000 in San Jose, Ca., and 5000 in SF.
(AP, 4/10/06)(SFC, 4/11/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 10, Former Enron Chief
Executive Jeffrey Skilling began testifying in his fraud and conspiracy
trial in Houston, declaring himself “absolutely innocent.”
(AP, 4/10/07)
2006 Apr 10, In northwestern
Afghanistan gunmen killed five medical workers, while two policemen and
a truck driver transporting food for US-led coalition troops were slain
in bombings and shootings in a southern Taliban stronghold.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, Mark Vaile,
Australia's trade minister, said he did not read a string of diplomatic
cables warning that the country's monopoly wheat exporter allegedly was
paying multimillion-dollar kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, Australian scientists
reported the discovery of an "anti-freeze gene" that allows Antarctic
grass to survive at minus 30°C, saying it could prevent
multi-million-dollar crop losses from frost.
(www.techimo.com/newsapp/index.pl?photo=16314)
2006 Apr 10, In Canada 5 men were
charged in the slayings of 8 people who were found on an isolated farm
in Ontario in what police called an "internal cleansing" of a
motorcycle gang. Most of the victims were either full or associate
members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 10, It was reported that
China has agreed to open a corridor through its tightly restricted
airspace. This could save airlines $30 million a year in fuel and trim
an average half hour off flight times between China and Europe.
(WSJ, 4/10/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 10, In China an explosion
in a hospital parking garage killed at least 30 people. The blast
occurred in an underground garage at a hospital for the staff of the
Xuangang Coal and Electricity Co. Ltd. in Shanxi province's Yuanping
county. Local authorities found explosives at the site.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 10, In northwest China a
truck crashed into a minivan and a passenger bus after its brakes
failed, killing at least 26 people and injuring 24.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, Cuba and Venezuela
signed agreements for a joint venture to revamp an unfinished
Soviet-era refinery in Cuba and supply it with oil from Venezuela.
(WSJ, 4/12/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 10, Egypt’s Health and
Population Minister Hatem el-Gabali said a 12th case of human bird flu
has been found.
(Reuters, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 10, The EU barred Belarus
President Alexander Lukashenko and dozens of his senior officials from
entering any bloc countries to protest his re-election last month in a
vote that international observers said was rigged.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, EU foreign ministers
endorsed a freeze of aid to the Palestinian government but said they
would seek alternative ways of providing money for humanitarian
projects.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, French President
Jacques Chirac threw out part of a youth labor law that triggered
massive protests and strikes, bowing to intense pressure from students
and unions and dealing a blow to his loyal premier in a bid to end the
crisis.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, Haiti's interim
leader PM Gerard Latortue announced a probe into the finances of all
government agencies amid allegations of corruption by state officials
in the aftermath of a bloody revolt that toppled the previous
government.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, In Indonesia
separatist rebels armed with bows and arrows stormed a military post in
Papua province, sparking a battle that killed two soldiers and two
attackers.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 10, Israel suspended
formal security ties with the Palestinians in a bid to further isolate
the new Hamas government one day after declaring it a hostile entity.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, A Kenyan military
plane carrying politicians to a peace conference crashed while
attempting to land in northern Kenya, killing a Cabinet minister, six
other politicians and at least seven other people.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, Salman Khan, one of
Bollywood's biggest film stars, was sent to prison for five years for
killing a protected antelope.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, In northern India a
fire swept through tents at a trade fair in a consumer electronics show
in the town of Meerut, killing at least 52 people.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 10, Lebanon arrested 9
Lebanese and Palestinians suspected of plotting the assassination of
Hezbollah’s leader.
(WSJ, 4/11/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 10, Mexican soldiers
seized 5 1/2 tons of cocaine worth more than $100 million from a
commercial plane arriving from Venezuela.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 10, In Maputo,
Mozambique, African leaders launched a campaign to get every child in
school by 2015, and Britain responded by pledging $15 billion in
education aid to developing countries over the next decade.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, In Nepal security
forces fired tear gas and beat protesters with batons to break up
democracy rallies as the political crisis deepened.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10-2006 Apr 12, About 25
people were killed in three days of skirmishes between two Nigerian
tribes over ownership of land in the central state of Plateau.
(Reuters, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 10, Hadil Ghaben (8) was
killed when 2 Israeli shells blew huge holes in a concrete block house
in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. The girl's mother and seven
siblings were hurt in the attack.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, In New Jersey a jury
awarded $9 million in punitive damages to a man who blamed his heart
attack on Vioxx, finding that manufacturer Merck & Co. failed to
warn about the risks of its arthritis drug and misrepresented the risks
to physicians.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, In Michigan Proof
(Deshaun Holton), a member of rap group D12 and a close friend of
Eminem, was shot to death early today at a Detroit nightclub along
Eight Mile Road. Keith Bender, shot by rapper Proof (32), just before
Proof himself was killed, died of his wounds on April 18.
(AP, 4/11/06)(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 11, June Pointer (52),
the youngest of the Pointer Sisters, died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2006 Apr 11, In eastern
Afghanistan a rocket slammed into a packed school yard near a US-led
coalition base, killing seven children and wounding 34 other people.
Police blamed Taliban militants for the explosion at the Salabagh
School in Asadabad, Kunar province.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, Colombia’s attorney
general said the bodies of more than 30 people had been found in a
series of mass graves in a violent area of Northern Santander province,
home to drug traffickers, far-right paramilitaries and leftist
guerrillas. Most of the villagers blamed a bloc of far-right
paramilitaries that operated there until its demobilization in 2004.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 11, A European spacecraft
went into orbit around Venus on a mission to explore the mysterious
atmosphere of Earth's nearest planetary neighbor.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, Former Iranian
President Hashemi Rafsanjani said that Iran has enriched uranium using
164 centrifuges, a major development in nuclear fuel cycle technology.
(AP, 4/11/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.47)
2006 Apr 11, In Iraq a bomb
exploded on a minibus in a Shiite area, killing three people. 5 US
soldiers were killed including 3 from an IED north of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/11/06)(WSJ, 4/12/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 11, Israel's Cabinet
declared PM Ariel Sharon permanently incapacitated, officially ending
his five-year tenure.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2006 Apr 11, Center-left
challenger Romano Prodi claimed an outright electoral victory over
Premier Silvio Berlusconi before official results were in, but the slim
margin could return Italy to political paralysis and instability.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, Bernardo Provenzano
(73), Italy's reputed No. 1 Mafia boss, was arrested at a farmhouse in
Sicily after frustrating investigators' efforts to catch him during
more than 40 years on the run.
(AP, 4/11/06)(SFC, 4/12/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 11, In Karachi, Pakistan,
a bomb exploded during evening prayers at a park, killing at least 50
people and injuring over 100. The bombing killed the entire leadership
of Sunni Tehreek, a moderate Muslim group.
(SFC, 4/12/06, p.A13)(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 11, In Peru with 80% of
the votes counted Ollanta Humala led with 30.3%. Former president Alan
Garcia (56) held a narrow lead over pro-business former Congresswoman
Lourdes Flores (46) in the race to face Ollanta Humala (43) in a
presidential runoff vote.
(AP, 4/11/06)(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 11, In Spain a judge
handed down the first indictments in the Madrid train bombings,
charging 29 people with murder, terrorism or other crimes after a
two-year investigation.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, In northeast Sri
Lanka a mine exploded and killed 10 sailors in a military bus.
(SFC, 4/12/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 11, The UN said it has
ended its policy of unrestricted political contacts with the
Palestinians and will now assess every request for political talks with
the new Hamas-run government.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, The UN Security
Council demanded that the Sudanese government and rebels reach
agreement by April 30 to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 12, The US Treasury
Department said "transactions with the Palestinian Authority by US
persons are prohibited, unless licensed." It said the decision was
based on "existing terrorism sanctions."
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 12, Jurors in the
Zacarias Moussaoui trial listened to a recording of terrified shouts
and cries in the cockpit as desperate passengers twice charged panicked
hijackers during the final half hour of doomed United Flight 93 on
Sept. 11.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2006 Apr 12, Police checking on a
home in Leola, Pennsylvania, discovered a gruesome scene: the bodies of
six people, some wrapped in sheets and blankets in the basement, and
blood, bone fragments and a hammer upstairs. Jesse Dee Wise (21) was
charged the next day for the murder of 6 relatives.
(AP, 4/13/06)(SFC, 4/14/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 12, The Indiana Toll Road
was leased for $3.8 billion to a Spanish-Australian consortium that is
to maintain and run it for 75 years.
(WSJ, 4/13/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 12, Google Inc. CEO Eric
Schmidt defended the search engine's cooperation with Chinese
censorship as he announced the creation of a Beijing research center
and unveiled a Chinese-language brand name.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, The Rev. William
Sloane Coffin (81), a former Yale chaplain known for Vietnam-era peace
activism, died in Strafford, Vt.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2006 Apr 12, Walter Clyde Pearson
(77), US poker champion, died in Nevada. He won the 1973 World Series
of Poker championship and introduced the “freeze-out” style of
tournament poker where all players start with the same amount of chips
and the winner takes all.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.B7)
2006 Apr 12, Joe Van Holsbeeck
(17) was stabbed to death at the Brussels Central train station in a
robbery by 2 men for his MP3 player. On August 2 a Polish teen,
suspected in the murder, was extradited to Belgium and taken into
police custody.
(AP,
8/2/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Van_Holsbeeck)
2006 Apr 12, In Brazil federal
prosecutors charged a former top presidential aide and dozens of others
with trying to bribe legislators into supporting Brazil's ruling party.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Britain and the US
called for sanctions against four Sudanese who have blocked peace
efforts and violated human rights in the conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Officials said
Canadian and US police have broken up a criminal ring that smuggled
dozens of Indian and Pakistani nationals into the US at a cost of up to
$35,000 each.
(Reuters, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, The final leg of
Canada's contentious seal hunt moved to the ice floes off northeastern
Newfoundland and Labrador, with sealers expected to harvest another
234,000 harp seal pups.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 12-2006 Apr 13, Sudanese
Janjaweed militia with local Chadian recruits shot or hacked to death
118 villagers in eastern Chad in a bloody spillover of violence from
Sudan's Darfur region.
(Reuters, 5/25/06)
2006 Apr 12, In southern China
thousands of villagers clashed with police over government plans to
tear down sluice gates built for irrigation, leaving one woman dead and
several people injured.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 12, Authorities said
Colombia's biggest right-wing paramilitary group has disbanded as part
of an ongoing peace process, but some renegade factions continued to
operate.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Government troops and
UN peacekeepers launched a fresh military offensive in Congo's restive
east, targeting Rwandan Hutu rebels blamed for attacking civilians at
home and in Congo.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Ecuador's Environment
Minister Ana Alban said some 5,000 Ecuadorians illegally residing in
the ecologically fragile Galapagos Islands will face deportation to the
mainland.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, France's lower house
of parliament approved a compromise youth job plan to replace a measure
that triggered nationwide protests and plunged the country into crisis.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, An Indian court
struck down a controversial order banning dance bars in the financial
hub of Mumbai, bringing cheers from champions of the drinking houses.
(AFP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Raj Kumar (77),
Indian movie star, died in Bangalore.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2006 Apr 12, In Jakarta,
Indonesia, some 150 members of the Islamic Defenders' Front, protesting
Playboy's decision to launch an Indonesian edition of the magazine,
clashed with police and stoned the company's editorial offices.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Iran’s deputy nuclear
chief said the country intends to move toward large-scale uranium
enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges, signaling its resolve to
expand a program the international community has insisted it halt.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, In Iraq car and
roadside bombings killed 13 people, including three US soldiers, and
injured dozens. Gunmen in Baghdad hunted down three different
government employees and shot them dead on their way to work. A car
bomb exploded as worshippers were leaving a Shiite mosque near Baqouba,
killing 26 people and injuring 32 others. The US military in Iraq
detained Bilal Hussein (35), an Iraqi citizen and an Associated Press
photographer. He was accused of being a security threat but charges
were never filed and no public hearing was permitted. 5 months later
military officials said Hussein was being held for "imperative reasons
of security" under UN resolutions. In the few years since the first
shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the US military has created
a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security
keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.
(AP, 4/12/06)(WSJ, 4/13/06, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Apr 12, The Israeli army
killed to Al Aqsa infiltrators trying to enter from Gaza.
(WSJ, 4/13/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 12, Italian police
arrested three people suspected of aiding Italy's No. 1 fugitive and
reputed Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, who was captured a day earlier.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, In Kyrgyzstan Edil
Baisalov, leader of a coalition of civic groups called For Democracy
and Civil Society, suffered a gunshot wound in the back of the head
when he was leaving his office in the capital, Bishkek. Baisalov has
led a campaign against a bid by alleged criminal boss Ryspek Akmatbayev
to become a lawmaker.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Malaysia abandoned
plans to build a controversial new bridge to Singapore, saying that the
city-state's demand for airspace access in return for its agreement was
unacceptable.
(AFP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Two people were
killed in a grenade attack on a restaurant and a shop owner was gunned
down as violence shook towns on Mexico's resort-studded Pacific coast.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 12, In southern Nepal
police shot and killed an anti-government protester as authorities
foiled pro-democracy activists' plans to hold a mass rally in the heart
of Katmandu and detained dozens of demonstrators.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, In Karachi, Pakistan,
mobs of youths rioted for a second straight day to protest a suicide
bombing that killed at least 56 people, which a top Pakistani official
said was aimed at "eliminating" the leadership of a moderate Sunni
Muslim group.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Pakistani army
helicopters struck a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan in an
attempt to kill a wanted senior al-Qaida operative. Seven suspected
militants and two children were believed killed. Mohsin Musa Matawalli
Atwah (45), an Egyptian and al-Qaida member wanted for his suspected
role in the bombings of US embassies in East Africa, was killed.
(AP, 4/13/06)(SFC, 4/14/06, p.A15)
2006 Apr 12, In northeastern Sri
Lanka 2 explosions in a market killed 17 people in the town of
Trincomalee and cast a cloud over upcoming peace talks.
(AP, 4/13/06)(AFP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 13, Two more retired US
generals called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign,
bringing the total to 6 this month, claiming the chief architect of the
Iraq war and subsequent American occupation should be held accountable
for the chaos there.
(Reuters, 4/14/06)(WSJ, 4/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 13, Confessed al-Qaida
conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui expressed no remorse for his role in the
Sept. 11 attacks as he took the stand for the second time in his
death-penalty trial in Alexandria, Va.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2006 Apr 13, In California an
independent task force issued a 29-page report faulting UC executives
and the Board of Regents for lack of oversight in pay practices and the
use of public funds.
(SFC, 4/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 13, The Nebraska
Legislature voted to divide the Omaha school system into 3 districts,
one mostly black, one mostly white, and one largely Hispanic. Gov. Dave
Heineman signed the measure into law, effective July 2008.
(SFC, 4/14/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 13, It was reported that
Iowa had counted at least 515 cases of mumps this year, where it had
previously averaged 5 cases per year. Another 100 cases were reported
in Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri
and Illinois.
(SFC, 4/1/06, p.A3)(SFC, 4/12/06, p.A14)
2006 Apr 13, In Tennessee’s
Cherokee National Forest a black bear killed a 6-year-old girl and
critically injured her mother and 2-year-old brother.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 13, European scientists
released new photos of Venus’ south pole from the orbiting Venus
Express spacecraft. The images revealed a mass of sulfuric acid clouds
swirling in 220 mph winds.
(SFC, 4/14/06, p.A2)
2006 Apr 13, A military court
convicted a British air force doctor of disobeying orders and sentenced
him to eight months in prison after he called the Iraq war illegal and
refused to return for a third tour of duty.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, The Danube reached
record-high levels in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia, flooding fertile
farmland as authorities in southeastern Europe considered ordering
evacuations.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, In Chad government
troops using tanks and attack helicopters repelled a rebel assault on
N’Djamena, Chad's capital. At least 100 rebels were killed. President
Deby went on state-run radio to assure residents he remained in
control, and he blamed Sudan, whose Darfur crisis has spilled over into
his country.
(AP, 4/13/06)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.50)
2006 Apr 13, China's controversial
choice for a Tibetan holy figure made his first major appearance before
an international audience, saying Tibetan Buddhists should be patriotic
and "defend the nation."
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, Chinese
Vice-President Zeng Qinghong met with Lithuanian Foreign Minister
Antanas Valionis in Beijing. Zeng said the relations between China and
Lithuania are developing smoothly with frequent high-level contacts and
fruitful cooperation in economic and cultural sectors.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com)
2006 Apr 13, In western Colombia
mudslides roared down on settlements, killing at least 10 people,
leaving dozens missing and blocking a key highway to the Pacific coast.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 13, Bayer AG made its
official takeover bid for fellow German drugmaker Schering AG, offering
16.5 billion euros ($20.01 billion), slightly more than its previous
16.3 billion euro ($19.76 billion) offer that Schering's board had
recommended be accepted.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, In India distraught
fans smashed cars, burned buses and battled with police in the southern
Indian city of Bangalore after they were prevented from seeing the body
of Raj Kumar (77), an Indian film icon who died this week.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, In Indonesia police
asked Playboy magazine to stop publishing its Indonesian edition out of
fears it could enrage Muslims. Officials of the publication said they
were considering the request.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, Al-Qaida's deputy
leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged all Muslims to support insurgents
fighting in Iraq "for the dignity of Islam" and said the "enemy has
begun to falter," according to a video posted on the Internet.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, In Iraq dozens of
policemen were missing and some 20-30 were dead after insurgents
ambushed a police convoy near a US base. By the next day only 35 of 80
policemen had returned to Najaf, after picking up new vehicles at the
US base of Taji. In western Iraq 2 US Marines were killed and 22
wounded two of them critically, in fighting in Anbar province.
(AP, 4/14/06)(SFC, 4/15/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 13, Dame Muriel Spark
(b.1918) died in Tuscany, Italy. Her spare and humorous novels made her
one of the most admired British writers of the post World War II years.
Her work of 23 novels, included the autobiographical "The Prime of Miss
Jean Brodie" (1961), which was later adapted for a Broadway hit (1966)
and a movie.
(AP, 4/15/06)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.83)
2006 Apr 13, In Jordan security
forces stormed a prison to put down a riot after inmates claimed they
had taken two policemen hostage. One prisoner was killed in the clashes
while 15 police and 20 inmates were injured.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, In Nepal police fired
rubber bullets and tear gas on hundreds of lawyers protesting in
Katmandu, the eighth day of pro-democracy demonstrations.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 13, In Russia a group of
young men beat inhabitants with metal bars, killing a man and a woman
and leaving an 80-year-old woman and a 14-year-old girl gravely
wounded. 9 people were later arrested in connection with the attack on
the Roma camp in the southern Volgograd region.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 13, The three parties
that were central to Ukraine's Orange Revolution signed a protocol
aimed at advancing the formation of a coalition government and ending
their wrangling after last month's elections.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 14, President Bush
rebuffed recommendations from a growing number of retired generals that
he replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying, “He has my
full support.”
(AP, 4/14/07)
2006 Apr 14, Kobe Bryant broke the
Los Angeles Lakers’ single-season scoring record, getting 50 points to
eclipse Elgin Baylor’s long-standing total of 2,719 points in a 110-99
victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2006 Apr 14, In Oklahoma Kevin Ray
Underwood (26) was arrested after investigators found the body of Jamie
Rose Bolin (10), missing since April 12, in a bedroom closet in his
apartment. The girl's unclothed body was inside a large plastic tub.
Police said she was killed as part of the neighbor's elaborate plan to
eat human flesh. On February 29 2008, a jury found him guilty of first
degree murder after deliberating for twenty-three minutes. This quick
verdict was attributed to the showing of Underwood's videotaped
confession. On Thursday, April 3, 2008, McClain County District Judge
Candace Blalock approved a recommended death sentence.
(AP,
4/16/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Ray_Underwood)
2006 Apr 14, Tornadoes hit the
campus of the Univ. of Iowa in Iowa City. One person was killed outside
of town.
(WSJ, 4/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 14, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber rammed a British military convoy and 3
soldiers were wounded. More than 3,000 British troops had moved into
Helmand province as part of a NATO mission to expand its presence
there. They planned to train Afghan forces, operating from a new $80
million army barracks, to hunt druglords and destroy opium stockpiles.
A bomb planted by Taliban militants hit a government convoy in the east
of the country near the town of Khost, killing three policemen and
injuring two others.
(AFP, 4/14/06)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.38)
2006 Apr 14, Afghan security
forces backed by coalition helicopters attacked a suspected Taliban
hideout in southern Afghanistan, setting off an intense gunbattle that
killed 41 rebels. It was later reported that Afghan police may have
been killed by the US-led coalition forces.
(AP, 4/15/06)(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 14, Miguel Reale (95),
widely considered one of the chief architects of Brazil's civil code,
died of a heart attack.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, The Central African
Republic said it has asked the International Criminal Court to
investigate crimes against humanity allegedly committed by its former
president and a Congolese vice president. Government spokesman Celestin
Gamou said CAR suspects ex-President Ange-Felix Patasse and Congo Vice
President Jean-Pierre Bemba of ordering or committing murder and rape
against civilians, as well as of embezzling funds and destroying public
and private property.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Chad broke off
diplomatic relations with Sudan and threatened to expel 200,000
Sudanese refugees, blaming its neighbor for a rebel attack that killed
350 in the capital.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Cuba ordered the
expulsion of a Czech diplomat, accusing him of spying for the United
States. Stanislav Kazecky, who was in charge of political, cultural and
media affairs for the Czech embassy, was given 72 hours to leave.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, In Egypt worshippers
at three Christian churches came under attack from knife-wielding
assailants during Mass. Police said one worshipper was killed and more
than a dozen wounded in the simultaneous attacks in the northern city
of Alexandria.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Five publishers, all
members of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood, were detained as they
prepared to publish material criticizing Egypt's emergency law.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 14, In India 2 bombs
exploded at New Delhi's main mosque shortly after hundreds of
worshippers offered Friday prayers, injuring at least 13 people.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, In Indonesia a
passenger train bound for Jakarta crashed into another train stopped at
Gubuk station, killing at least 13 people and injuring more than 25.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 14, A roadside bomb
exploded in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, killing three
Iraqi soldiers. In the southern city of Basra, four gunmen killed the
director of traffic police as he was driving to work. At least one
civilian was killed in fierce fighting between insurgents and the army
in Fallujah.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 14, Mahmut Bakalli (70),
Kosovo's communist-era leader, died of throat cancer. He lead the
disputed province's communists in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
stepping down following disagreements with the central body of the
Yugoslav Communist Party over the handling of unrest by ethnic Albanian
students.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, In Kashmir a series
of grenade attacks by suspected separatist rebels shook Srinagar,
killing five people and wounding at least 18.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Commercial life
halted in several Pakistani cities in a strike called by an Islamic
party to protest this week's suicide attack that killed its top leaders
and some 50 others.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, In the Philippines at
least 11 devotees were nailed to crosses during Good Friday
reenactments of Christ's final hours.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, A bankruptcy
supervisor at the shattered Yukos oil company said that he had won a
temporary injunction from a New York court banning the company from
selling its assets as it goes into bankruptcy hearings.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Russia's OAO GAZ
automaker agreed to buy DaimlerChrysler AG production lines in suburban
Detroit and move them to Russia, where it will produce DaimlerChrysler
cars under license.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 14, Jailed Russian tycoon
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was hospitalized after another prisoner slashed
him in the face while he slept.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 14, Security forces at a
Shiite mosque in northern Yemen fought with supporters of a slain
anti-US cleric in a clash that left at least four people dead.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, Stanford Univ. said
it will use a $3.3 million gift from the Malone Family Foundation of
Englewood, Colo., to offer an online high school for gifted students.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.B2)
2006 Apr 15, In Redwood City, Ca.,
3 men were shot and killed at the Headquarters Bar.
(SFC, 4/16/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 15, Taliban fighters
simultaneously attacked two police checkpoints on a southern Afghan
highway, and up to 14 militants were killed or wounded in the ensuing
gunbattle. Suspected Taliban attacked coalition and Afghan army troops
with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades in central Uruzgan
province, sparking a gunbattle that killed three attackers. Suspected
Taliban shot and killed a district administrator in Helmand province.
US-led coalition forces using warplanes and artillery clashed with a
small band of militants holed up in a house and a cave complex in Kunar
province in fighting that killed seven Afghan civilians and wounded
three. The US airstrike aimed at militants in eastern Kunar province
mistakenly killed seven civilians.
(AP, 4/16/06)(AP, 4/15/07)
2006 Apr 15, Bangladesh said it
will vaccinate about 18 million children aged 5 and under to combat
polio, which recently re-emerged after authorities believed it had been
eradicated five years ago.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, Cambodian soldiers
departed to Sudan for a UN-backed landmine clearing operation, saying
they hoped they could use their experience recovering from civil war to
help the war-torn Sudanese.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, Chad threatened to
cut off its flow of oil unless the World Bank releases $125 million
frozen in a dispute over how the central African country should spend
its oil revenues.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, In southern Chechnya
rebels killed two Russian soldiers and wounded five others in an ambush.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 15, China announced
tariff cuts on imports of fruit and fish from Taiwan, offering the
self-ruled island new trade concessions in an effort to boost sentiment
for uniting with the communist mainland.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, China reported that
the orbiting capsule of its Shenzhou VI spacecraft, which was launched
into space six months ago, has returned to earth after orbiting 2,920
times.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, Shiite politicians
suggested a formula for replacing their nominee for prime minister to
break the deadlock over Iraq's new unity government. At least 12 Iraqis
died in a car bombing near a Baghdad restaurant and other attacks. 4 US
Marines were killed in combat in western Anbar province.
(AP, 4/15/06)(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 15, In Libya US singer
Lionel Richie jived and rocked for an adoring audience in a concert to
mark the 20th anniversary of a US raid on the North African country.
Libya renewed a demand that Washington apologize and pay compensation.
(AP, 4/15/06)(Reuters, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 15, Palestinian police
sealed off a main road and briefly stormed a government building in the
central Gaza town of Khan Younis, angered by the Hamas-led government's
failure to pay them.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15, Saudi Arabia's Crown
Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz began a two-day visit to Pakistan during
which he is expected to discuss a possible arms deal.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15-2006 Apr 17, In
southern Sudan 15 people including 11 civilians were killed in clashes
between militia fighters, straining a deal that ended the country's
north-south civil war.
(Reuters, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 15, Suspected Tamil Tiger
rebels detonated mines near two military vehicles in northeastern Sri
Lanka, killing eight people in separate attacks.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, Kohlberg Kravis
Roberts (KKR), an American private equity firm, announced that it was
buying 85% of Flextronics Software Systems (FSS) for $600 million in
cash and $250 million in interest due in 8 years.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.62)
2006 Apr 16, Stephen Marshall, a
Canadian man suspected of murdering two registered sex offenders in
their Maine homes, took his own life with a gun on a crowded bus in
Boston.
(Reuters, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 16, Canada confirmed a
new case of mad cow disease. Canadian cattle ranchers were still
recovering from a two-year ban on their beef in the US.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 16, Chad's Pres. Deby
promised the UN that refugees from Sudan's Darfur region will not be
forcibly returned.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 16, In Egypt police fired
live ammunition into the air and lobbed tear gas into rioting crowds of
Christians and Muslims in a third day of sectarian violence in
Alexandria. Egyptian police detained 43 university students on
suspicion of membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood, the country's
largest Islamic fundamentalist group.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, A 37-year-old
Ethiopian-born German man suffered life-threatening head and brain
injuries in a beating at a tram stop in Potsdam. On April 19 a
15-strong Nigerian delegation was to check into Potsdam's Voltaire
Hotel and stay for a week, but pulled out after hearing about the
weekend attack.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 16, In northern Greece a
passenger train crashed into a truck at a crossing and derailed,
killing four people and injuring at least 40.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, In India heavily
armed Maoist rebels (Naxalites) killed 10 police officers in an attack
in eastern Chhattisgarh state. The Maoists, who have bases in 11 of
India's 29 states, say they are fighting to restore the rights of
neglected tribes and landless farmers.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, State-run television
reported that Iran will give the financially strapped Palestinian
Authority $50 million in aid.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, In Iraq 6 people were
killed during a raid as American troops hunted down an al-Qaida suspect
at a safehouse south of Baghdad. In Baghdad, a bomb hidden in a
shopping bag on a minibus killed 4 passengers. A car bombing near a
market in the town of Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of
Baghdad left 10 dead and 25 wounded.
(AFP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, The Rev. Cesar Torres
(42) killed Veronica Andrade Salinas (22), who was pregnant, at his
parish on Mexico City's eastern outskirts. He used a kitchen knife to
cut off her head and hack her body to pieces, which he packed the
pieces into plastic bags and dumped near a cemetery in Chimalhuacan.
The couple had an 18-month-old daughter. Torres admitted to the murder
on April 19.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 16, Nepal's sidelined
political parties called for a massive pro-democracy protest in the
capital on April 20 and urged citizens to stop paying taxes and utility
bills to help bring down the royal government.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo, president of the Philippines, said in an Easter announcement
that she would commute the death sentences of some 1,200 convicts,
including about a dozen al-Qaida-linked militants.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, Suspected pro-Taliban
militants beheaded two tribesmen in a remote part of Pakistan for
allegedly working for US forces across the border in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 16, In Spain a bus
carrying Boy Scouts overturned on a northern highway, killing at least
four people, including three minors.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 16, In his first Easter
message as pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI urged nations to use diplomacy to
defuse nuclear crises and prayed that Palestinians would one day have
their own state alongside Israel.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2006 Apr 17, In the Boston
Marathon was won by Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot in a record time of
2:07:14. Rita Jeptoo of Kenya won among the women in 2:23:38.
(WSJ, 4/18/06, p.A1)(AP, 4/17/07)
2006 Apr 17, In California Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed a law mandating names-based reporting of HIV
cases.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 17, Georgia's Gov. Sonny
Perdue signed a sweeping immigration bill that supporters and critics
say gives the state some of the toughest measures against illegal
immigrants in the nation.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 17, In Chicago a jury
convicted former Gov. George Ryan of steering state contracts and
leases to political insiders during his term as secretary of state in
the 1990s and then governor for one term. He was later sentenced to 6
1/2 years in prison,
(SFC, 4/118/06, p.A5)(AP, 4/17/07)
2006 Apr 17, Oil closed at a
record $70.40 per barrel in NY trading. This was the 1st time it had
closed above $70 in NY.
(SFC, 4/18/06, p.D1)
2006 Apr 17, Afghan and US
soldiers killed five militants during a Operation Mountain Lion
targeting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in a volatile eastern region
near Pakistan. Some 6,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops
have started moving into the rebellious southern provinces.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 17, Jean Bernard
(b.1907), French doctor, died. His research on blood disease helped to
found the discipline of hematology.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 17, In central Iraq a car
apparently driven by a suicide bomber exploded in front of a US
observation post. At least one civilian was killed and seven wounded in
a gunbattle between insurgents and the Iraqi army in northern Baghdad.
Police recovered 17 bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad as rebels killed
nine people in fresh attacks across the country. At least 5 insurgents
were killed and two Iraqi troops wounded in fighting. The body of Taha
al-Mutlaq, the brother of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue leader,
was discovered in a Shiite area of western Baghdad. He had disappeared
last month en route to Salahuddin province north of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/17/06)(AFP, 4/17/06)(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 17, Israeli soldiers
holed up in a home in Nablus opened fire on stone-throwing protesters
outside the building, wounding two people, including a 13-year-old boy.
Sami Hammad, a Palestinian suicide bomber, blew himself up outside a
fast-food restaurant in Tel Aviv during the Passover holiday, killing 9
other people and wounding at least 49 in the deadliest Palestinian
attack in more than a year. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
(AP, 4/17/06)(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A1)(Econ, 4/22/06,
p.47)
2006 Apr 17, In Indian Kashmir 2
guards were killed and a politician injured in a gun attack by
suspected Islamic militants. The army announced it had arrested 10
rebels and killed two others.
(AFP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 17, In Mexico an
overcrowded bus speeding home from a religious festival veered off a
highway emergency ramp and crashed through a metal barrier, plunging
more than 650 feet into a ravine near Maltrata, a town about 125 miles
east of the capital. 58 people were killed. There were 2 survivors.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 17, In Nepal security
forces in a southern town shot into a crowd marching on the main
highway to protest the royal dictatorship, killing one and wounding
five. Nepal deployed the army to ensure that food reaches the capital
and threatened to impose a new state of emergency, the 12th day of a
strike in which neither the king or opposition is backing down.
(AP, 4/17/06)(AFP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 17, In central Peru a
passenger bus tumbled off a mountain road and came to rest in a gorge,
killing at least 25 people on board in Jaucan district.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 17, Qatar said it would
give the Palestinian government $50 million in aid to help make up for
a shortfall after the US and the EU cut off funding.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 17, Somalia granted the
US Navy permission to patrol coastal waters to combat piracy.
(WSJ, 4/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 17, In northern Sri Lanka
land mines blasts in killed 4 soldiers and 2 Tamil Tiger rebels,
raising the death toll from a week of bloody unrest to at least 50.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 18, Pres. Bush nominated
former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman to head the White House budget office.
(SFC, 4/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 18, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Washington state, toured the Redmond campus of
Microsoft and had dinner at the home of MS Corp. Chairman Bill Gates.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 18, In a plea deal
unsealed in federal court, US contractor Philip Bloom admitted that
between December 2003 and December 2005, he conspired with some public
officials, including several U.S. Army officers, to rig bids on Iraq
rebuilding contracts.
(Reuters, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Two Duke University
lacrosse players were arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping a
stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party on March 13. The DA said
he hoped to charge a third person soon. A Dec pre-trial hearing
disclosed that no DNA material from the players had been found in the
stripper and that this information had been withheld in an initial
report. DNA evidence from several other men was found. In late December
rape counts were dropped when the alleged victim changed her story. On
April 11, 2007, all charges were dropped. Stuart Taylor and K.C.
Johnson soon authored “Until Proven Innocent” (2007), their evaluation
of the incident and following trial.
(AP, 4/18/06)(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.A1)(SSFC, 12/24/06,
p.A18)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.46)
2006 Apr 18, In SF thousands
gathered for the 100 year anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.
(SFC, 4/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 18, Josephine Crawford
(84), a Galloway Township widow, hit a $10 million jackpot, the biggest
in the history of casino gambling in Atlantic City, NJ.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 18, In Rhode Island the
1940 Jamestown Bridge was demolished. It connected North Kingstown and
Jamestown and was replaced by the Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge.
(SFC, 4/19/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 18, Australia said it
will send up to 110 troops to the Solomon Islands to help restore calm
after the election of a new prime minister sparked rioting.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Christian
Schwarz-Schilling, Bosnia's international administrator, said the
international community should end its decade-long control and allow
Bosnia to assume the responsibilities of a "normal" democracy.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, In northern Baghdad
clashes left 5 Iraqis dead and six people, including civilians,
wounded. A bomb exploded at a Baghdad cafe frequented by police in the
eastern neighborhood of Suleikh, killing at least three policemen and
four civilians and wounding more than 20 other people. Authorities
discovered 15 dead men shot in the head in various parts of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/18/06)(SFC, 4/19/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 18, Israel decided to
revoke the Jerusalem residency rights of four Hamas lawmakers, a
response to a suicide bombing that killed nine civilians in a Tel Aviv
restaurant. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a metal workshop in Gaza
City.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Jordan accused Hamas
activists of smuggling missiles and other weapons into the kingdom and
said it was canceling a planned visit of the Palestinian foreign
minister, the second diplomatic snub for the Hamas-led government in a
week. Jordan later reported that it had detained more than 20 Hamas
activists for smuggling arms from Syria.
(AP, 4/18/06)(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 Apr 18, In Kenya officials
said the Sabaki River, swollen by heavy rains, had overflowed its
banks, forcing at least 10,000 people to flee their homes.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, In Mongolia thousands
of demonstrators marched outside government headquarters, burning
effigies of the nation's leaders and demanding their resignations
because of alleged corruption and the mishandling of mineral wealth.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, In Morocco an appeals
court upheld record damages imposed on a weekly newsmagazine in a
defamation suit that some rights groups say the government is using to
intimidate independent media.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Noor Jehan, a
14-year-old Pakistani girl, was shot 5 times by male relatives over a
rebuffed marriage proposal and left for dead on the outskirts of
Karachi. She died at a hospital in Karachi on May 21.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 Apr 18, A security official
said Saudi authorities arrested five suspected terrorists linked to the
February 24 deadly attack on the world's largest oil processing
facility.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Mobs of Solomon
Islanders looted stores, torched buildings and cars, and pelted police
with stones after lawmakers elected Snyder Rini as the new prime
minister. He associated with a previous administration accused of
corruption. Seven officers were injured.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Thailand's government
said it will extend a state of emergency in southern Thailand as part
of measures to combat a Muslim insurgency that has left over 1,000
people dead.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Greenpeace said in a
new report that more than 90,000 people were likely to die of cancers
caused by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, countering a
United Nations report that predicted the death toll would be around
4,000.
(AP, 4/18/06)
2006 Apr 18, Vietnam's communist
party opened its 10th five-yearly congress. The 8-day session,
likely to reshuffle the national leadership, opened with a stern
warning from party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh that corruption
threatens the regime's survival. During the session Bloc 8406, a new
dissident group, emerged with a “manifesto on freedom and democracy.”
(AFP, 4/18/06)(Econ, 4/26/08, SR p.16)
2006 Apr 19, White House press
secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation as part of a
shake-up of President George W. Bush's senior aides. White House
political mastermind Karl Rove surrendered his role as chief policy
coordinator.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2006 Apr 19, The US government
released the most extensive list yet of the hundreds of detainees who
have been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Nearly all 558 on the list
were labeled enemy combatants, but only a handful of whom have faced
formal charges.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 19, The 2006 US estimated
cost of the war in Iraq was put at $94 billion.
(SFC, 4/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 19, US Immigration agents
arrested 7 executives and 1,187 illegal immigrants employed by IFCO
Systems, a Netherlands-based manufacturer of crates and pallets, as
part of a crackdown on employers of illegal workers.
(AP, 4/19/06)(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 19, In Croatia workers
who have been occupying a tobacco factory in Zagreb for nearly two
weeks asked the chief state prosecutor to investigate their claims that
the facility was illegally sold to a local tobacco giant.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 19, Cuba agreed to buy
another $30 million in food from Nebraska, strengthening trade
relations with the US farm state already selling corn, wheat, soybeans
and other products to the communist island.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, Ecuador approved
revisions to its Hydrocarbons Law to increase state revenue from
private crude-oil producers. The changes became effective on April 25.
(WSJ, 4/21/06, p.A7)(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 19, The Egyptian
government said it had arrested a group of 22 militant Islamists
planning bomb attacks on tourist targets, a gas pipeline near Cairo and
Muslim and Christian religious leaders. The statement listed 22
members, led by a 26-year-old humanities student named Ahmed Mohamed
Ali Gabr.
(Reuters, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, In Guatemala a mob
burned a man and a woman to death after accusing them of several child
abductions in the predominantly Mayan town of Sumpango, where residents
have long claimed youngsters are snatched and the police do nothing.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, Militants broke into
two schools in a mainly Shiite district of Baghdad and allegedly killed
a school guard in front of students and a teacher as he arrived. The
attack occurred at the Amna and Shaheed Hamdi elementary schools in
Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood. Police in the neighborhood denied that
the attack occurred.
(AP, 4/19/06)(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 19, A top Italian court
confirmed the slim electoral victory of center-left economist Romano
Prodi over Premier Silvio Berlusconi, according to Italian television.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, Japan defied South
Korean protests and dispatched two ships to begin a maritime survey
near disputed islets between the two nations, raising the stakes in the
territorial standoff.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, In Kyrgyzstan Pres.
Bakiyev threatened to expel American troops from the Central Asian
nation unless the US agrees to pay more for its military presence.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, The Mexican Congress
enacted a law that allows journalists to protect the confidentiality of
their sources.
(SFC, 4/20/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 19, In southeastern Nepal
security forces opened fire on thousands of pro-democracy protesters,
killing at least 4 and wounding several others.
(AFP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, Nigerian militants
killed two people in a car bomb attack on an army barracks in the
southern city of Port Harcourt, extending a four-month onslaught
against the world's eighth largest oil exporter.
(Reuters, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 19, Hyundai Motor Co.
said its chairman and his son will donate $1.1 billion worth of
personal assets to the public amid a slush fund scandal engulfing South
Korea's largest automaker.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, A UN spokesman said
Sudan has refused to grant visas for a UN military assessment mission
planning a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
(Reuters, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, In Venezuela a riot
erupted at a western prison, leaving 10 inmates dead and one wounded. A
day earlier authorities had seized weapons and illegal drugs from gang
members in the jail.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 20, Pres. Bush welcomed
Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House as the two leaders
embarked on talks aimed at cooling tensions over a yawning US-China
trade gap. Bush urged Hui Jintao to make trade concessions, improve
human rights and exert more influence over North Korea. The 2 leaders
broke no new ground on sensitive issues.
(AP, 4/20/06)(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 20, The CIA fired Mary
McCarthy, a top intelligence analyst, who admitted leaking classified
information about a network of secret CIA prisons. She had provided
information that contributed to a Washington Post story last year
disclosing secret US prisons in Eastern Europe.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 20, John Negroponte, US
National Intelligence Director, said the US employs almost 100,000
people in 16 federal departments and agencies dealing with intelligence.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A18)
2006 Apr 20, America’s FDA issued
a statement saying that smoked marijuana has no accepted medical use in
treatment in the US. Medicinal use of marijuana was well established
around the world.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.83)
2006 Apr 20, Arkansas Republican
Governor Mike Huckabee signed a $1.10 state minimum wage increase into
law to be effective Oct 1. The previous minimum was at the federal
standard of $5.15 per hour.
(http://tinyurl.com/mrppf)
2006 Apr 20, Georgia’s Gov. Sonny
Perdue signed a bill into law that offered government-sanctioned
elective classes on the Bible in public high schools. He also signed a
bill permitting the display of the Ten Commandments at courthouses.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 20, In Columbus, Kansas,
5 teenage boys were arrested for threatening to carry out a shooting
spree at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine
bloodbath.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 20, In SF federal and
local agents raided a chapter of the Hells Angels in the Dogpatch
neighborhood of Potrero Hill. They found a pound of methamphetamine.
Agents targeted 16 locations including Livermore and San Mateo County
recovering weapons and a total of 6 pounds of methamphetamine.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 20, Oil jumped to a fresh
record high above $74 a barrel after a steep drop in US gasoline
inventories fueled fears of tight summer supplies at a time of growing
anxiety over Iran's exports.
(Reuters, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 20, Scott Crossfield, the
hotshot test pilot who in 1953 became the first man to fly at twice the
speed of sound, was killed in the crash of his small plane in Georgia.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2006 Apr 20, Stanley Hiller Jr.
(b.1925), boy-wonder and helicopter pioneer, died in California.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.B7)
2006 Apr 20, Suspected Taliban
militants killed six Afghan policemen in Afghanistan's volatile south
and burned four of their bodies. US military said a soldier was killed
in a clash while inspecting a weapons cache in the central Uruzgan
province's district of Dihrawud.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 20, The Belgian
parliament narrowly approved a bill to grant same-sex couples equal
rights in adoption. Belgium became the fourth European Union member
state to allow same-sex couples equal rights in adoption, after Spain,
the Netherlands and Sweden.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 20, China denied it is
engaged in industrial espionage in Canada, calling accusations by
Ottawa's foreign minister baseless and irresponsible.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 20, In northeastern
Colombia leftist rebels ambushed a military convoy, killing 16 soldiers
and secret police officers in the deadliest attack on security forces
this year.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 20, In northeastern India
a bus carrying wedding guests veered off a road and plunged into a
lake, killing at least 64 people. Another bus crash later in the day
killed at least 15 people.
(AP, 4/20/06)(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 20, Bowing to intense
pressure, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari agreed to abandon his
claim to another term.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2006 Apr 20, In Mexico a violent
confrontation between 800 federal and state police agents and more than
500 striking steelworkers left two workers dead and dozens of workers
and police agents injured at the Siderurgica Lazaro Cardenas-Las
Truchas, SA (Sicartsa) steel plant in the port city of Lazaro Cardenas
in the state of Michoacan. The decapitated heads of two police
officials were found dumped in front of a government building in
Acapulco.
(http://ww4report.com/node/1879)(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 20, Nepalese police
opened fire on thousands of pro-democracy protesters marching toward
the capital in defiance of a government-imposed curfew, killing at
least three and wounding dozens.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 20, Militants ambushed a
convoy of Pakistani troops in a northwestern tribal region near the
Afghan border, killing seven soldiers and wounding 22. A suspected
foreign Islamic militant linked to al-Qaida and a security official
were killed in a gunfight at a roadblock near Afghan border.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 20, Tamil Tiger rebels
announced they were indefinitely postponing talks aimed at saving a
truce with the Sri Lankan government as 4 more people were killed in
fresh violence.
(AFP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 21, Pres. Bush began a
4-day visit to California. He denied Gov. Schwarzenegger’s request for
federal funds to repair Bay Area levees.
(SFC, 4/22/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 21, Chinese President Hu
Jintao wrapped up his US tour with a visit to Yale University in New
Haven, Conn.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2006 Apr 21, Crude oil futures
closed at $75.17 a barrel in New York for the first time, amid
increasing concerns about the Iranian nuclear crisis and a US gasoline
supply crunch.
(AP, 4/22/06)(WSJ, 4/22/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 21, G-7 ministers met in
Washington DC. They said the world economy remains buoyant but cited
threats from oil market developments, global imbalances and growing
protectionism.
(WSJ, 4/22/06, p.A4)
2006 Apr 21, The US Justice Dept.
gave assent to a Georgia law requiring photo IDs to vote.
(WSJ, 4/22/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 21, Miss Kentucky was
crowned Miss USA in the 55th annual pageant. Tara Elizabeth Conner (20)
of Russell Springs, was crowned by Chelsea Cooley of North Carolina,
who is Miss USA 2005.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, In western Bangladesh
dozens of people were feared to have drowned when a bus packed with
about 50 wedding guests plunged into a river.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, The Cambodian PM Hun
Sen ruled out sending troops to Iraq, rejecting a request by the US for
non-combat forces to assist with humanitarian work.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, Canada said 2 RCMP
members are heading to Sudan to assist the UN mission there in training
and supporting Sudanese police and, where possible, advising them on
policing methods.
(CP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, A bomb exploded on a
roadside in Chechnya where schoolchildren were cleaning up trash,
killing a boy and wounding five other children.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 21, An official from
China's social security fund was executed on charges of spying for
rival Taiwan. Government employees were then required to watch a video
about the case.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Apr 21, In Haiti polling
stations were nearly empty in a crucial legislative runoff. Hundreds of
candidates from more than a dozen parties sought 127 legislative seats.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, Shiite politicians
nominated Nouri al-Maliki as Iraq's prime minister after outgoing PM
Ibrahim al-Jaafari gave up his bid for another term. 6 off-duty Iraqi
soldiers were captured and shot execution-style outside a restaurant in
Beiji in northern Iraq. In Baghdad, a Shiite baker was killed in a
drive-by shooting as he headed to work, and the bullet-riddled bodies
of four other Iraqis were found in the capital. A senior UN official
said some 15,000 detainees are being held in Iraq by government
ministries in violation of Iraqi law, and nearly as many are being held
by US-led multinational forces.
(AP, 4/21/06)(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 21, A senior military
commander said Israel is actively preparing to reoccupy the Gaza Strip
and a powerful lawmaker said the entire Palestinian Cabinet could be
targeted for assassination after the appointment of a wanted militant
to head a new security force.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, Nepal's king vowed to
return power to the people of this Himalayan kingdom after weeks of
massive protests and increasing international pressure. King Gyanendra
called on the seven main political parties to name a prime minister as
soon as possible.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas blocked Hamas' plans to set up a shadow security force,
which was to be made up of militants and to be headed by the No. 2 on
Israel's wanted list.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 21, Russia began
delivering advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Belarus.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 21, US aviation
authorities upgraded Venezuela's safety ranking, averting a ban that
would have blocked most US airlines from flying to the country.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, In Alaska 6
seventh-graders were arrested in North Pole, just outside of Fairbanks,
for conspiracy to commit murder during an assault on their school.
Authorities found weapons in their homes.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 22, In Spring, Texas 2
white teenagers severely beat and sodomized a Hispanic boy (16) who had
tried to kiss a Hispanic girl (12). David Henry Tuck and 17-year-old
were later charged with aggravated sexual assault. The beaten boy was
in critical condition.
(SFC, 4/28/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 22, The 2-day Maker Faire
began in San Mateo, Ca., as a gathering of tinkerers to display their
gadgets.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.87)(http://makezine.com/faire/2006/)
2006 Apr 22, Ed Davis, former LA
police chief (1969-1978) and California state representative
(1980-1992), died in San Luis Obispo.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.B7)
2006 Apr 22, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb exploded as a Canadian armored vehicle drove by, killing
four soldiers.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Two British
scientists reported that the long-term effects of the Chernobyl
disaster could cause up to 66,000 extra deaths from cancer, 15 times
more than UN officials predicted last year. Their report was titled
"The Other Report on Chernobyl."
(AFP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, In Colombia Pedro Gil
Trujillo, a city council member in Rivera, was arrested while giving a
live radio interview by telephone for allegedly masterminding a
guerrilla attack that killed nine of his colleagues on Feb 27.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Gunmen burst into the
home of Satyadeo Sawh (50), Guyana's agriculture minister, and fatally
shot him along with two relatives and a security guard.
(AP, 4/22/06)(Econ, 4/29/06, p.42)
2006 Apr 22, In India Pramod
Mahajan (56), the general secretary of the opposition Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party, was shot and critically wounded by his brother.
Pramod Mahajan died from his wounds on May 3.
(AP, 4/23/06)(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 Apr 22, The population of
Kerala, India, was reported to be about 33 million. It boasted over 91%
literacy. The per capita income was about half that of Goa, India’s
richest state. Some 3.5 million Keralans worked abroad, 85% in the
Middle East.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.43)
2006 Apr 22, Iran's envoy to the
UN nuclear watchdog agency said the Islamic republic had reached a
"basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment
venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Iraq president
formally designated Shiite politician Jawad al-Maliki to form a new
government, starting a process aimed at healing ethnic and religious
wounds and pulling the nation out of insurgency and sectarian strife.
Parliament elected President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, to a second term
and gave the post of parliament speaker to Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a
Sunni Arab. Suspected insurgents set off two bombs in a public market
in northern Iraq, the second one timed to hit emergency crews arriving
at the scene, and the blasts killed at least two Iraqis and wounded 17.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, In Fallujah, Iraq,
Sheik Shaukit al-Kubaisi, a Sunni cleric and imam of a local mosque,
was killed by gunmen. 5 US soldiers were killed in bombings in southern
Baghdad. US and Iraqi forces fought an hour-long gunbattle with
insurgents in Ramadi.
(AP, 4/22/06)(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 22, Alida Valli (84),
Italian movie star, died in Rome. She appeared in over 100 films that
included “The Third Man” (1949).
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.B7)
2006 Apr 22, Japan and South Korea
defused a tense standoff over disputed waters, with Japan withdrawing a
plan to survey the area and South Korea delaying plans to submit name
proposals for underwater features.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Morocco's King
Mohammed VI pardoned all prisoners from the disputed territory of
Western Sahara currently being held in jails in the kingdom.
(AFP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Nepali security
opened fire on tens of thousands of protesters marching toward the
royal palace in defiance of a curfew, as opposition leaders rejected
the king's proposals for restoring democracy.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Saudi Arabia and
China signed defense, security and trade agreements in Riyadh on the
first day of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Hassan al-Turabi, a
Sudanese Islamist leader who once protected Al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin
Laden, was branded an apostate by the country's Muslim scholars for
taking a liberal stand on women's rights.
(AFP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 22, In eastern Ukraine
homemade bombs exploded in lockers at two supermarkets, wounding as
many as 14 people.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Thousands of
Venezuelans lay in the outlines of bodies chalked on a main avenue to
protest against President Hugo Chavez's handling of violent crime,
while supporters held a separate demonstration backing his social
policies.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 22, Vietnam welcomed
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who then spoke in Hanoi on Vietnam’s
potential in IT development.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A14)
2006 Apr 23, Some 10,000 people
marched in SF to denounce a bill in the US House of Representatives
that would make illegal immigration a felony.
(SFC, 4/24/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 23, In Alaska 2 small
planes collided midair and crashed about 20 miles north of Anchorage,
killing five people.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 23, In Maryland Katrina
Denise Powe (31) and Mystery Toma Hillian (9) were found dead in an
apartment in District Heights. A 12-year-old boy was charged with the
murders.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.A5)
2006 Apr 23, It was reported
that Massachusetts has decided to begin requiring doctors to state the
names of anyone testing positive for HIV.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 23, Afghan security
forces surrounded Taliban fighters hiding in a village in southern
Ghazni province, launching a gunbattle that killed at least three
militants and a police officer. Another policeman was killed and two
others were wounded in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province
when suspected Taliban militants attacked a road construction company.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 23, Osama bin Laden
issued new threats in an audiotape broadcast on Arab television and
accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on
Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2006 Apr 23, In Canada the bodies
of Marc Richardson (42), his wife Debra (48), and son Jacob (8) were
discovered stabbed to death in their family home in Medicine Hat,
Alberta. Their daughter Jasmine (12) and her boyfriend Jeremy Steinke
(23) were arrested the next day in Saskatchewan. With them were a bag
of bloodstained clothing, knives and a purse belonging to the preteen's
mother. In 2007 a jury found Jasmine guilty of first-degree murder for
helping her adult boyfriend stab her parents and little brother to
death. Jasmine was sentenced to serve four years in custody and another
4-1/2 years under community supervision.
(Reuters,
7/6/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_family_murders)(AP,
11/9/07)
2006 Apr 23, Powerful waves
capsized a boat carrying Dominican migrants near a popular surfing
beach off the coast of Puerto Rico killing at least five people. Small
boats frequently attempt to smuggle migrants from the Dominican
Republic to the US Caribbean territory, a roughly 70-mile journey
across the often-perilous Mona Passage.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 23, In Hungary Socialist
PM Ferenc Gyurcsany's coalition won the runoff parliamentary ballots,
becoming Hungary's first administration to win re-election since
communism fell.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 23, In Iraq 3 US soldiers
were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb northwest of
Baghdad. More than 20 Iraqis also died in other violence, including 7
who were killed in 3 explosions that occurred just outside the heavily
guarded Green Zone in Baghdad
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 23, Japan agreed to pay
59% of the $10.3 billion cost in transferring 8,000 US Marines from
Okinawa to Guam.
(SFC, 4/24/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 23, In Mongolia some 200
demonstrators have ended their protests over alleged government
corruption and the mishandling of mineral wealth after the country's
leaders agreed to investigate their complaints.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 23, Nepali police fired
rubber bullets at thousands of protesters, struggling to enforce a
curfew imposed to keep persistent pro-democracy demonstrators off the
streets in the Himalayan country's deepening crisis.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 23, In North Korea 2
troop trains packed with soldiers collided head-on leaving more than
1,000 dead. A Buddhist humanitarian aid group reported the tragedy
June1.
(AFP, 6/1/06)
2006 Apr 23, The militant Hamas
group and the rival Fatah Party agreed to work together to restore calm
following violent clashes and mass protests across the Palestinian
areas over their struggle for control over security forces.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 23, It was reported that
Sweden has allowed the letter 'W' into the mainstream of the Swedish
language. The Swedish language, according to the Swedish Academy, now
has 29 letters instead of 28.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 23, Opponents of
Thailand's outgoing prime minister wore black and tore up their ballots
to protest parliamentary elections they said were unfair. Weekend
elections failed to fill several seats in Parliament, deepening the
country's political crisis.
(AP, 4/23/06)(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 24, Speaking in Irvine,
Calif., President Bush said those calling for massive deportation of
the estimated 11 million foreigners living illegally in the United
States were not being realistic.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2006 Apr 24, Sanjay Kumar, the
former CEO of Computer Associates International Inc., pleaded guilty to
obstruction of justice and securities fraud charges in a massive
accounting scandal at the Long Island-based software company.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 24, Scott McNealy (51)
stepped down as CEO of Sun Microsystems. He was replaced by Jonathan
Schwartz, who had served as chief operating officer.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.C1)
2006 Apr 24, Rabbi Moses
Teitelbaum (91), the spiritual leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect,
died in New York.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2006 Apr 24, In Afghanistan a
US-leased Antonov-32 plane carrying counternarcotics officials crashed
into a nomad settlement while trying to avoid a truck on a runway
during landing. 2 Ukrainian crewmen were killed along with 3 people on
the ground, including 2 girls sleeping in their homes. In southern
Afghanistan US-led coalition warplanes bombed a suspected Taliban camp
in Helmand province, killing 3 insurgents. 5 more militants and one
policeman died in a gunbattle in the Miana Shien district.
(AFP, 4/24/06)(AP, 4/25/06)(WSJ, 4/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 24, In Rio de Janeiro a
law went into effect requiring “women-only” cars on subway and above
ground trains.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.G2)
2006 Apr 24, A tiny ecological car
was launched in Britain after three years of research financed by the
EU. The three-wheeled vehicle runs on natural gas and consumes 2.5
liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (94 miles per gallon). Known as the
Clever, Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport, the car is
easy to park and can transport a driver and one passenger, seated in
the back.
(AFP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 24, In Egypt 3 explosions
rocked the resort city of Dahab at the height of the tourist season,
killing 21 people and wounding more than 80. 3 of the dead were thought
to be suicide bombers.
(AP, 4/25/06)(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 Apr 24, In Haiti partial
results indicated that President-elect Rene Preval's party had won at
least 11 of 30 senate seats in the parliamentary runoff.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 24, In Iraq 7 car bombs
exploded across Baghdad, killing at least six people and wounding
dozens, as politicians met to try to finalize a new Cabinet. Mortar
attacks killed at least 15 people. Police discovered 28 bodies in
Baghdad and Mosul, 15 of them security forces recruits.
(AP, 4/24/06)(SFC, 4/25/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 24, In northern Nepal
communist rebels stormed army bases and government buildings in a bold
assault. A night-long gunfight left six people dead. In the capital,
security forces fired rubber bullets on crowds of pro-democracy
protesters. King Gayendra appeared on national television shortly
before midnight and read words that restored the parliament.
(AP, 4/24/06)(Econ, 4/29/06, p.44)
2006 Apr 24, In the Philippines
government prosecutors filed rebellion charges against a former
senator, six leftist lawmakers and 42 others suspected of plotting a
coup in February against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 24, Sri Lanka's military
accused ethnic Tamil minority rebels of killing six Sinhalese rice
farmers working in their fields to provoke ethnic rioting.
(AP, 4/24/06)
2006 Apr 24, In Turkmenistan
Gurbanbibi Atajanova, former chief state prosecutor, was charged with
corruption. She begged not to be sent to prison after being accused of
possessing 25 houses, 36 cars and 2,000 head of cattle.
(Econ, 5/27/06,
p.39)(http://turkmenistan.neweurasia.net/?cat=3)
2006 Apr 24, Vietnam's ruling
Communist Party re-elected its leader, General Secretary Nong Duc Manh
(65), for a second five-year term. The Congress approved a new
five-year plan with targets for improving infrastructure and making
Vietnam a modern industrial nation by 2020.
(AFP, 4/24/06)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.38)
2006 Apr 25, President Bush
ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline,
making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices
at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil
for the government's emergency reserve.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 25, US Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless estimated that Tokyo will pay
some $26 billion for the realignment of the US military in Japan. The
number shocked Japanese officials.
(AP, 4/27/06)(Econ, 5/13/06, p.26)
2006 Apr 25, Charles Clarke,
Britain’s Home Secretary, said that since 1999 Britain had freed 1,023
foreign prisoners, including murderers, rapists and pedophiles, who
should have been considered for deportation at the time of their
release.
(Reuters, 4/25/06)(Econ, 4/29/06, p.59)
2006 Apr 25, The fox population in
London was reported to be an estimated 10,000.
(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 25, Canada’s central bank
raised its overnight interest rate a 6th straight time, a quarter point
to 4%.
(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 25, Jane Jacobs (89),
American-born Canadian writer and activist, died. Her books included
“The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961).
(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A1)(Econ, 5/13/06, p.97)
2006 Apr 25, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said that the country is ready to
transfer its nuclear technology to other countries. Tehran threatened
to halt all cooperation with the UN atomic energy agency if the UN
Security Council imposes sanctions, warning that it might hide its
nuclear program if the West takes any other "harsh measures."
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 25, In a rare video
posted on the Internet, al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and said any government formed in
Iraq would be merely a "stooge." A bomb hidden in a minibus exploded
near the offices of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in eastern
Baghdad, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding three.
(AP, 4/25/06)(AP, 4/25/07)
2006 Apr 25, In Nepal tens of
thousands of people celebrated in the streets and weeks of
pro-democracy protests were called off after the king gave in to a key
demand to reinstate parliament.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 25, Pakistani attack
helicopters pounded suspected Islamic militant hideouts near the Afghan
border as clashes killed three militants and two soldiers. In
northwestern Pakistan the body of Khan Mati, a taxi driver missing
since April 17, was found. Suspected Islamic militants decapitated him
over suspicions he was a US spy and a frequent visitor to an American
military base in Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/25/06)(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 25, In Puerto Rico Gov.
Acevedo Vila warned in a televised address that "Beginning next Monday,
May 1, the majority of agencies of the central government will not be
able to operate." Puerto Rico's House of Representatives wants to
impose a 4 percent sales tax instead and has refused to review the
governor's plan. The island now has no sales tax.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 25, Russia launched a
satellite for Israel that the Israelis say will be used to spy on
Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 25, A pregnant suicide
bomber blew herself up in front of a car carrying Sri Lanka's
highest-ranking general, killing 8 people and badly injuring the top
officer.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 25, The UN Security
Council imposed sanctions on four men accused of atrocities in Sudan's
Darfur region, the first time it has moved to punish those responsible
for three years of conflict that has left 180,000 dead.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 26, Pres. Bush formally
named Tony Snow, a Fox News commentator, to be his press secretary.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 26, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld paid a
surprise visit to Iraq, where they embraced the country's fledgling
leaders as independent and focused on the future.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2006 Apr 26, Florida lawmakers
agreed to shut down the state’s juvenile boot camps in response to the
Jan 6 death of a boy (14), who was beaten by guards. They would be
replaced with a new, less militaristic program.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 26, It was reported that
John Prescott (67), Britain’s deputy prime minister, had engaged in a
2-year affair with his much younger secretary, Tracey Temple.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.60)
2006 Apr 26, Negotiators in Canada
reached an agreement to compensate some 80,000 Canadian Indians who
attended government-financed schools where many suffered physical and
sexual abuse. Nearly $2 billion would be paid out as damages to
survivors of the schools.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A12)
2006 Apr 26, About 2,500 foreign
construction workers rioted over wages and working conditions at a
building site in Dubai, smashing equipment and vehicles in the second
violent protest by construction workers in a month in the fast-growing
city. "We get 450 dirhams ($123) a month," one worker said, speaking on
condition of anonymity because he feared retribution. "It's not enough.
We can't save any money."
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 26, In Egypt 2 suicide
bombers struck outside the main base of the multinational peacekeeping
force near the Gaza border in Sinai, killing themselves but causing no
other casualties.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, EU Parliament
investigators said the CIA has conducted more than 1,000 undeclared
flights over European territory since 2001, a clear violation of an
international treaty.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, In Iraq US Marines
killed Hashim Ibrahim Awad (52) in Hamdaniya for allegedly setting a
land mine. On June 21 the US military announced murder and kidnapping
charges against 7 Marines and a Navy corpsman in connection with Awad’s
death. Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate (21) was accused of killing Awad. On
Oct 6 Corpsman Melson J. Bacos (21) pleaded guilty to kidnapping and
conspiracy and agreed to testify about what he saw. On Nov 15 Pfc. John
J. Jodka III pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to 18
months in custody. On Nov 16 Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson was sentenced to
21 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to reduced charges. On Nov
21 Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr. pleaded guilty to lesser charges and
was sentenced to 21 months in prison. In 2007 a military jury in San
Diego handed a bad conduct discharge to Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas,
convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy to murder in the execution of
Awad. Marine Cpl. Marshall Magincalda was found guilty of conspiracy,
but acquitted of premeditated murder and kidnapping.
(SFC, 6/22/06, p.A13)(SFC, 6/22/06, p.A13)(SFC,
9/13/06, p.A12)(SFC, 10/7/06, p.A3)(SFC, 11/16/06, p.A17)(SFC,
11/17/06, p.A19)(SFC, 11/22/06, p.A10)(SFC, 8/2/07, p.A13)
2006 Apr 26, A Mexican boycott
urged people to shun all products from U.S. businesses on May 1, a sort
of "Day Without Americans," timed to coincide with the "Day Without
Immigrants" boycott planned by activists north of the border.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, In southern Mexico a
speeding truck loaded with Guatemalan migrants en route to the United
States collided head-on with another truck, killing 10 migrants and
injuring 16.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 26, In southwestern Nepal
soldiers killed six villagers after thousands of civilians tried to
overrun an army camp. The killings were not believed to be connected to
the political turmoil that has gripped Nepal for weeks.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, President Vladimir
Putin ordered a giant new oil pipeline to be routed away from Lake
Baikal, the world's deepest lake and home to hundreds of unique species.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, Snyder Rini, the new
Solomon Islands prime minister whose election last week sparked two
days of rioting and looting in the archipelago's capital, resigned
after losing support in Parliament.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, In Sri Lanka
escalating violence between government forces and Tamil rebels left at
least 15 civilians dead and 15,000 Tamil villagers fleeing for their
lives.
(AFP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 27, The Bush
administration announced that it had reached a tentative agreement with
Canada to settle the long-running trade battle over softwood lumber.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Alberto Gonzales, the
US Attorney General, said police nationwide had arrested 9,037 people
in a roundup of fugitives from April 17 to 23, including over 1,100 sex
offenders.
(WSJ, 4/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, The US states joined
by environmentalists sued the federal government to compel it to
regulate carbon-dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.
(WSJ, 4/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, The publisher of the
teen novel “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life” pulled
the book off the market after its author, Harvard student Kaavya
Viswanathan acknowledged that numerous passages had been lifted from
another writer.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2006 Apr 27, In NYC construction
began at the site of the World Trade Center on a project to build 5
towers by 2012.
(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, A fiery crash in the
San Francisco’s Castro District killed one person and left at least 8
vehicle gutted.
(SFC, 4/28/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 27, Austria, in its role
as current president of the EU, began a poster campaign called
"Temptress Europe" designed to reawaken Europeans to the continent's
"sensuous" side.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 27, Thousands of
Bulgarians demonstrated against a deal to allow US troops to use
military facilities in the country.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Canadian and US
scientists reported success with an experimental vaccine against the
Marburg virus in monkeys, even if the shot is given after infection.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 27, China's central bank
raised interest rates by .27% in the government's strongest move yet to
cool an economy verging on overheating. The news sent resource stocks,
oil and commodity prices lower around the world.
(AP, 4/27/06)(Econ, 4/29/06, p.43)
2006 Apr 27, Liliana Gaviria (52),
sister of the former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria (1990-1994),
died in a botched kidnapping in the province of Risaralda, 110 miles
west of Bogota. She was real estate agent and owner of a transport
company. On Feb 26, 2010, Beatriz Villalba (25) was arrested after
being under observation for four months. She had been conducting spying
operations for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Bogota.
Prosecutors alleged that Villalba was in charge of buying a building
and modifying a vehicle used in the abduction and transportation of
Liliana Gaviria Trujillo. Gaviria's bodyguard was shot dead during the
kidnapping in Pereira.
(AP, 4/28/06)(AP, 2/26/10)
2006 Apr 27, Indian student
doctors staged a one-day strike at state-run hospitals in New Delhi to
protest government plans to boost quotas for the poor in top education
institutes.
(AFP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Iran's UN ambassador
denounced Israel's election as a vice-chair of the U.N. Disarmament
Commission, calling the Jewish state a threat to peace in the Middle
East.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 27, A sister of Iraq's
new Sunni Arab vice president was killed in a drive-by shooting in
Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated
insurgency to be crushed by force. In southern Iraq a bomb blast rocked
an Italian convoy at a base, killing three Italian soldiers and a
Romanian.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Israel's military
intelligence chief said in a published interview that Iran has received
its first batch of North Korean-made surface-to-surface missiles that
put European countries within firing range.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Israeli aircraft
fired missiles at two cars in Gaza packed with rockets, killing one
Islamic Jihad militant and critically wounding another.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 26, Malaysia’s central
bank raised its main interest rate by a quarter point to 3.5%.
(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 27, Reports from Myanmar
and Thailand said Myanmar troops were waging their biggest military
offensive in almost a decade and have uprooted more than 11,000 ethnic
minority civilians in a campaign punctuated by torture, killings and
the burning of villages.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Nepal's communist
rebels pledged to halt attacks for three months to give the Himalayan
country a chance for peace as a new government takes over in the wake
of bloody protests that forced the king to reinstate parliament.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, A Dutch agency said
the number of reported cases of legal euthanasia and doctor-assisted
suicide in the Netherlands increased in 2005 for the third year in a
row. Doctors reported 1,933 cases in 2005, up from 1,886 in 2004 and
1,815 in 2003.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, In Nigeria President
Hu Jintao said China wants a "strategic partnership" with Africa,
seeking to add a new political dimension to a blossoming economic
romance. China agreed to commit $4 billion for infrastructure in
exchange for 4 oil drilling licenses.
(Reuters, 4/27/06)(WSJ, 4/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 27, Russia’s Agriculture
Ministry said it has banned all imports of poultry and poultry products
in connection with violations of veterinary regulations. Moscow claimed
to have found diseased chickens and insufficient veterinary monitoring
on US poultry farms, but there were also Russia media reports linking
the ban to the country's unhappiness over US President George W. Bush's
decision to impose hefty tariffs on foreign steel imports.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, In South Korea state
prosecutors requested an arrest warrant for Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman
Chung Mong-koo amid a bribery and slush fund scandal that has rocked
the large automaker.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, In Sri Lanka rebels
said some 40,000 civilians fled homes in northeastern Sri Lanka to
escape government airstrikes on Tamil rebel areas in recent days that
have killed at least a dozen people. In northern Sri Lanka mine attacks
killed five military personnel and wounded another five. Police found
five headless corpses near Colombo.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Turkey said it has
deployed more than 30,000 additional troops in its predominantly
Kurdish southeast and along its rugged border with Iraq and Iran to
fight Kurdish guerrillas and stop them from coming across the frontier.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait
said the UN has paid out a $248 million installment to cover claims for
losses and damages.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 28, President George W.
Bush approved Dubai's $1.24 billion takeover of Doncasters, a British
engineering company with US plants that supply the Pentagon.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Five member of US
Congress were willingly arrested and led away from the Sudanese Embassy
in plastic handcuffs after protesting the Sudanese government's alleged
role in atrocities in the Darfur region.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, The US government
adopted a federal advisory council’s recommendations for deep cuts to
the 2006 salmon season for California and Oregon.
(SFC, 4/29/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 28, Attorneys for Rush
Limbaugh, who had been accused by Florida prosecutors of "doctor
shopping" for painkillers, announced a deal under which a single
prescription fraud charge against the talk show host would be dismissed
after 18 months provided he stayed drug-free and did not violate any
laws.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2006 Apr 28, Storms battered
eastern Texas with wind up to 100 mph and hail the size of baseballs.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2006 Apr 28, Rhode Island,
America's smallest state, was reported to be seeking to become the
first state to offer a wireless broadband network from border to
border. The Rhode Island Wireless Innovation Networks (RI-WINs) was
expected to be fully in place by 2007, providing wireless connectivity
throughout the state, whose land mass of about 1,045 square miles is
only slightly more than double the size of metropolitan Los Angeles.
(Reuters, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Ellen DeGeneres swept
the Daytime Emmy awards, winning best talk show host for the second
time and earning talk show honors for the third consecutive year.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2006 Apr 28, It was reported that
a research team at UC Berkeley had created microscopic versions of
compound eyes as used by insects.
(SFC, 4/28/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 28, NASA launched 2
weather satellites designed to provide the 1st 3-D views of Earth’s
clouds and help predict how cloud cover contributes to global warming.
(SFC, 4/29/06, p.A10)
2006 Apr 28, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai urged Taliban militants to end the violence raging across
the country and join forces with the new government to help
Afghanistan's reconstruction. NATO foreign ministers reaffirmed the
alliance's readiness to nearly double its peacekeeping operations in
Afghanistan, where violence is increasing.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, In Brazil police
charged Antonio Palocci, a former finance minister, with four crimes,
including money laundering. He was viewed as the architect of Brazil's
economic recovery.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Prince Harry, third
in line to the British throne, launched a charity in memory of his late
mother Princess Diana to help AIDS orphans in Lesotho.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, In Bulgaria Secretary
Rice signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement, which included a US lease
of 3 bases in Bulgaria.
(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/2006/65423.htm)(Econ,
6/24/06, p.62)
2006 Apr 28, Canadian currency
topped out at C$1.1162 to the US dollar, or 89.59 US cents, its highest
level since June 1978, rising for the sixth straight session.
(Reuters, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Chinese President Hu
Jintao signed an oil exploration contract with Kenya, the latest in a
series of deals designed to keep Africa's natural resources flowing to
China's booming economy.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, It was reported
Baiyangdian Lake in northern China's Hebei province was choking for its
life. Large-scale fish deaths have occurred regularly since the 1980s
as excessive amounts of untreated industrial waste water and raw
sewage, coupled with drought and constantly falling water levels, have
left fish farms decimated.
(AFP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Representatives of
the Colombian government and that nation's second largest rebel group
wrapped up four days of talks in Cuba without resolution, but agreed to
meet again after their country's May 28 elections.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, A cargo plane
carrying telecom equipment crashed in eastern Congo, killing as many as
eight passengers and crew on board. Another aircraft carrying three
people disappeared in the same region.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, In East Timor
hundreds of former soldiers burned cars and shops in Dili, sparking
violent clashes with police that left at least two people dead and 27
injured. The soldiers, who were dismissed last month for striking
against "discriminatory" working conditions, have held near-daily
rallies in Dili this week demanding that their grievances be heard.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, US forces killed a
local al-Qaida in Iraq leader and two other insurgents in a raid north
of Baghdad. Roadside bombs killed an American soldier and an Iraqi
policeman. The death toll in two days of fighting in Baqouba climbed to
58, including seven Iraqi soldiers.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, A senior Israeli
military official said Palestinian militants have smuggled dozens of
Katyusha rockets into the Gaza Strip, potentially threatening towns
well inside Israel.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Mexican lawmakers
approved a bill that would allow people to possess small amounts of
cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 28, Mexican police in
Tijuana found the body of a US citizen kidnapped nearly 3 weeks
earlier. They said he had been beaten, strangled, stripped naked and
stashed in the trunk of a car. George Kwok Choi Chu, a seafood
wholesaler, worked in Tijuana but lived across the border in San Diego.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 28, It was reported that
Morocco has just graduated its first team of women preachers to be
deployed as a vanguard in the kingdom's fight against any slide towards
Islamic extremism. A pioneer group of 50 Morchidat, or guides, finished
a 12-month course in early April. They were trained to "accompany and
orient" Muslim faithful, notably in prisons, hospitals and schools.
(AFP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Nepal's Parliament
reconvened for the first time in four years, and legislators proposed a
cease-fire with the Himalayan country's Maoist rebels and elections for
a constitutional assembly.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, More than 45,000
Puerto Ricans marched through the streets of San Juan demanding
politicians resolve a budget impasse that could lead to a government
shutdown next week.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, In South Korea
prosecutors arrested Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo in an
embezzlement and slush fund scandal.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, The UN food agency
said it is cutting rations in half for about 3 million refugees in
Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region because of a shortage of money,
calling it "scandalous" that it has to stretch out supplies while it
pleads for funds.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, A powerful group of
developing nations blocked reform proposals that would have given
Secretary-General Kofi Annan more budget power, and rich countries
warned the move could push the world body toward financial crisis.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, An official said
Vietnam needs more than $400 million to fight bird flu and prepare for
a potential pandemic over the next five years, and expects about half
to come from international donors.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 29, Thousands of US
anti-war demonstrators converged on lower Manhattan to call for an
immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, A rock slide at
Ferguson Ridge, 8 miles west of El Portal, Ca., shut down the Highway
140 connection to Yosemite National Park.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.B1)
2006 Apr 29, John Kenneth
Galbraith (97), an influential liberal Canadian-born economist and
author, died in Massachusetts. His more than 40 works included
“American Capitalism” (1952), "The Affluent Society" (1958), in which
he argued that the US had become rich in consumer goods but poor in
social services and “The New Industrial State” (1967).
(Reuters, 4/30/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.86)
2006 Apr 29, Afghan security
forces clashed with Taliban militants hiding in a cave complex in the
southern Helmand province, killing 11 insurgents after militants killed
three policemen and wounded another in an ambush. An Afghan cell phone
company confirmed that an Indian contractor was being held hostage by
the Taliban. Afghan soldiers and police attacked a Taliban camp co
miles north of Lashkar Gah and killed at least 2 militants.
(AP, 4/30/06)(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 29, Bolivia's new
left-leaning president, Evo Morales, signed a pact with Cuba and
Venezuela on rejecting US-backed free trade and promising a socialist
version of regional commerce and cooperation. Bolivia became the 3rd
member of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).
(AP, 4/29/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.38)
2006 Apr 29, A cyclone hit Burma
with 150 mph winds. Scattered deaths and injuries were reported.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 29, A coalition of
Chinese Web activists launched a petition decrying censorship of the
Internet and challenging the legality of government information
controls on China's more than 100 million net users.
(Reuters, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 29, In northwestern China
a gas explosion at a coal mine killed at least 30 miners and left eight
missing at the Wayaobao Coal Mine in Shaanxi province.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 29, It was reported that
just over 8% of workers in France belonged to a trade union compared
with 12% in America and nearly 30% in Britain.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.54)
2006 Apr 29, In Hong Kong while
riding a bus Elvis Ho asked Roger Chan to lower his voice while talking
on his cellphone. Chan proceeded to berate Ho for nearly 6 minutes and
the encounter was captured on video camera by another passenger, Jon
Fong. The video became famous as “Bus Uncle.” Some phrases in the
video, such as “I’ve got pressure” and “It’s not over,” quickly became
part of Hong Kong’s lexicon.
(WSJ, 6/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 29, In central India 13
people abducted by insurgents were found dead but 37 others were freed.
2 people were found dead a day earlier. Rebels had abducted 52 people
from a single village in the district of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh
state on April 25.
(AFP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, In Iraq 6 people were
killed in scattered violence. A top Iraqi official said sectarian
violence has forced about 100,000 families across Iraq to flee their
homes. A US Army soldier died when a roadside bomb hit his convoy near
Baghdad.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, In Kyrgyzstan
thousands of protesters demanding reform gathered in the main square in
Bishkek but dispersed peacefully after President Bakiyev and PM Felix
Kulov addressed the crowd.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, Newly returned
Nepalese legislators demanded that King Gyanendra be stripped of
control over the 90,000-strong army, fearing he could use it to regain
power after his recent concession to weeks of pro-democracy protests.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, A car bombing in the
Nigerian oil city of Warri destroyed at least five tanker trucks. The
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which demands
more local control over the southern delta's oil wealth, said it had
used a mobile phone to detonate 30 kg (66 lb) of dynamite in the
bombing.
(Reuters, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 29, North Korea claimed
that the US conducted about 160 spy flights against the communist state
this month.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, Peru recalled its
ambassador from Venezuela over what it called President Hugo Chavez's
"persistent and flagrant interference" in its upcoming presidential
elections.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, In the Philippines
military intelligence agents captured Abdasil Malangka Dima, an alleged
member of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group, in Isabela, the
capital of the southern island province of Basilan. He was allegedly
involved in the abduction of three Americans, including a missionary
couple, from a resort five years ago.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, A Qatar newspaper
reported that Qatar has frozen bilateral free trade talks with the US,
saying Washington was imposing preconditions that were not in Doha's
interest.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki
to suspend enriching uranium and ensure full-scale cooperation with the
UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
(Reuters, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, The UN said reports
of a Ugandan army incursion into Congo were "credible" after
peacekeepers conducted a verification mission in the remote
northeastern border region.
(Reuters, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 29, Scientists tried to
discover why some 400 dolphins washed up dead on a beach popular with
tourists on the northern coast of Zanzibar.
(AP, 4/29/06)(WSJ, 4/29/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, Some 100,000 rallied
in Washington DC, SF and other US cities to urge the Bush
administration to take decisive action to stop the genocide in Darfur.
(SFC, 5/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, It was reported that
on average a family of four should expect to pay $261 a day for food
and lodging when traveling in the US this summer.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.G2)
2006 Apr 30, In San Francisco
Daniel Elizalde (17) shot and killed Karl Bartolome (19) as Bartolome
walked with his girlfriend and nephew at Lisbon and Persia streets in
the Excelsior district. Elizalde later pleaded guilty to 2nd degree
murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life.
(SFC, 12/25/09, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/ydhpjr4)
2006 Apr 30, In Afghanistan Edward
Caraballo (44), an American jailed for two years in Kabul on charges of
torturing alleged terrorists in a makeshift jail, was freed two months
early after a government decree. Police found an Indian hostage's
beheaded body in southern Afghanistan. Taliban militants said they shot
the hostage dead as he tried to escape.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Australia rescuers
made voice contact with two miners trapped a half mile beneath the
earth for nearly a week. Todd Russell (34) and Brant Webb (37) were
trapped April 25 when a small earthquake caused a rock collapse at the
Beaconsfield Gold Mine. One of their co-workers was killed in the quake.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, A fisherman off
Barbados found a boat with the bodies of 11 men from Senegal. The boat
had left Senegal Christmas eve with 52 migrant people and was
apparently bound for the Canary Islands.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, British environment
ministry officials said work has begun to cull chickens at two more
poultry farms in eastern England after the suspected discovery there of
the H7 strain of bird flu.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, China successfully
tested a locally made magnetic levitation train, the first time the
country has achieved the feat without using foreign technology. The
20-ton test maglev train ran steadily on a 1,400-foot experimental line
in the provincial capital of Chengdu, the capital of southwestern
Sichuan province.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Congo's electoral
commission said that national elections, the first in 40 years for the
violence-plagued central African nation, will take place July 30, about
a month later than planned.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Egypt's parliament
agreed to a two-year extension of emergency law requested by the
government while it prepares replacement anti-terrorism laws. Egyptian
security forces hunting bombers behind attacks last week in the Sinai
peninsula fought gunbattles with suspects and killed 3 of them.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AFP, 5/2/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Ethiopia visiting
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he backed plans for
an expanded United Nations Security Council, adding that he would
present his country's position at the African Union (AU) headquarters
in Addis Ababa.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Iraq the office of
President Jalal Talabani said he had met with representatives of seven
armed groups and was optimistic they may agree to lay down their
weapons. Bombs and drive-by shootings killed 12 people. The bodies of 7
Iraqi men, who apparently were kidnapped and tortured, were found in
three areas of the capital. Three security contractors were killed and
two others injured in a roadside bomb attack 30 miles south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Israel's Cabinet
voted to modify the route of its West Bank separation barrier to put
thousands of Palestinians on the "Palestinian" side of the enclosure.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Suspected Islamic
militants raided a village in Indian-controlled Kashmir and killed 22
Hindus, lining them outside their homes and shooting them
execution-style. Police found the bodies of 4 of 13 Hindu cattle
grazers who were abducted over the weekend by suspected Islamic
militants. 9 more bodies were found the next day.
(AFP, 5/1/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Laotians voted for a
new parliament in a largely symbolic exercise since all the candidates
belonged to the communist party. But in an effort to bring in fresh
faces, only about a quarter were incumbents.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Nepal's Parliament
called for a cease-fire with Maoist insurgents and elections for an
assembly to rewrite the constitution, as the new PM Girija Prasad
Koirala (84) urged the rebels to sit down for talks.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Pakistan an army
spokesman said Mohammed Farooq, a senior Pakistani scientist suspected
of helping leak nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya, and North
Korea, has been released after two years in detention.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Saudi King Abdullah
issued a decree lowering domestic gasoline prices by about 25%. That
would lower the cost to about 16 cents per liter.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Serbia braced for
suspension of EU aid and trade talks as deadline expired for the arrest
of war-crimes fugitive Ratco Mladic.
(WSJ, 5/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, In eastern Sri Lanka
at least 18 rebels were killed and many wounded when Tamil Tiger
guerrillas launched a major attack against a breakaway faction.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, The Sudanese
government said it was ready to sign a draft peace deal with rebels
from its Darfur region, but the rebels said they still had reservations
about the agreement.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr, A report produced by the
US National Intelligence Ground Center said more than 500 chemical
munitions have been discovered in Iraq since 2003. They were produced
in the 1980s for the Iran-Iraq war.
(www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15738)
2006 Apr, Sue Ellen Wooldridge,
the US government’s top environmental prosecutor, purchased a $980,000
vacation home at Kiawah Island, SC, along with J. Steven Griles, an oil
and gas lobbyist, and Donald R. Duncan, a vice-president for
ConocoPhilips. 9 months later Wooldridge agreed to let ConocoPhillips
delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.A6)
2006 Apr, As of this month Google
held 43% of the US search engine market share. This reached 50%
counting AOL, which used Google’s search engine technology; Yahoo had
28%, MSN had 13% and Ask, owned by IAC/Interactive Corp, had 6%.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.65)
2006 Apr, In Afghanistan delegates
gathered in Kabul for a discussion on new information and
communications technology. Invitations to the conference were sent on a
Morse telegraph system.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.45)
2006 Apr, Anwar Kamal Marwat, a
PML-Nawaz politician in Peshawar, Pakistan, led 4,000 tribesmen in an
attack on a neighboring Pushtun tribe and killed 80 people. They
incurred a fine of $60,000.
(Econ, 7/8/06, Survey p.7)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.36)
2006 Apr, China and Turkmenistan
signed a gas-supply deal. Operations of the pipeline was scheduled to
start in 2009.
(WSJ, 9/28/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr, France released 2
Slovenian brown bears in the Pyrenees and planned to add five more to
boost genetic diversity.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.60)
2006 Apr, Archeologists unearthed
a major Maya Indian royal burial site in the Guatemalan jungle,
discovering jade jewelry and a jaguar pelt from more than 1,500 years
ago. The tomb, found by archeologist Hector Escobedo contained a king
of the El Peru Waka city.
(Reuters, 5/4/06)
2006 Apr, Investigators for
India's monopoly monitors accused US biotech group Monsanto, which has
a tight grip on the GM market, of overpricing its cotton seeds,
charging so-called "technology fees" on seed packets. Indian government
officials said more than 8,900 farmers had died from suicide in four
states since 2001. Rising costs and the failure of a government minimum
pricing policy had contributed to the farmers' deaths.
(AFP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr, Jamaican police arrested
botanist George Proctor at the capital's airport as he was about to
board a plane to the United States. Prosecutors later said Proctor had
given a co-conspirator $90,000 to kill 4 women. In 2010 Proctor (89)
was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring to kill his wife
and three other women who lived in the couple's home. The wife and the
three women, whose identities and relationship to the couple have never
been released by authorities, were not harmed.
(AP, 2/3/10)
2006 Apr, IKEA opened its first
store in Japan.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.69)
2006 Apr, Peru’s Legislature
approved a trade pact with the US. The US Congress and Senate approved
the free trade agreement in late 2007.
(WSJ, 12/5/07, p.A6)
2006 Apr, Saudi Arabia announced
plans to build an electrified fence along its 560-mile border with Iraq.
(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr, Somalia’s transitional
government named Mohamud Hassan Ali (52), a resident of Minnesota since
2000, as mayor of Mogadishu. His uncle had served as mayor of Mogadishu
from 1959-1963.
(SSFC, 6/11/06, p.A22)
2006 Apr, In South Africa the
government unveiled a project to build a luxury, four-star hotel at
Freedom Square in Soweto.
(AFP, 5/20/06)
2006 Apr, Basdeo Panday, former
Trinidad prime minister, was sentenced to 2 years in prison for
corruption.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.40)
2006 May 1, The EU imposed
additional retaliatory sanctions valued at $9.1 million against the US
in response to antidumping measures that were ruled illegal.
(WSJ, 5/1/06, p.A10)
2006 May 1, The US Supreme Court
ruled that Anna Nicole Smith could pursue part of her late husband's
oil fortune.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2006 May 1, A Florida judge
sentenced former professor Sami Al-Arian (48) to another year and a
half in prison before he will be deported in his terrorism conspiracy
case. Al-Arian signed a plea agreement April 14 in which he admitted
providing support to members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, Thousands of people
rallied in cities across the US for what organizers called “A Day
Without Immigrants.” An estimated 100,000 gathered in San Jose, Ca.,
400,000 in Chicago, 400,000 in Los Angeles and some 75,000 in Denver.
(SFC, 5/2/06, p.A1)
2006 May 1, In the SF Bay Area
KQED of SF and KTEH of San Jose announced their merger under the name
Northern California Public Broadcasting.
(SFC, 5/2/06, p.A1)
2006 May 1, Pure Digital
Technologies released its new $130 Pure Digital Point & Shoot Video
Camcorder.
(WSJ, 5/3/06, p.D1)
2006 May 1, Workers around the
world held May Day rallies to press for better factory conditions and
higher wages in mostly peaceful marches. Activists the Philippines used
the holiday to show their opposition to their government in tense
protests watched by police.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In Belarus more than
1,000 protesters carrying banned flags marched through Minsk to demand
the release of jailed opposition leaders who had pledged to work for
the removal of President Alexander Lukashenko.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, Bolivia’s President
Evo Morales ordered the oil and gas sector nationalized, threatening to
evict foreign companies unless they cede control over production within
six months. The biggest natural gas field was operated by Brazil’s
state-owned Petrobras.
(AP, 5/2/06)(SFC, 5/2/06, p.A3)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.37)
2006 May 1, Egyptian security
forces fatally shot three men wanted in terrorist bombings that killed
at least 18 people in a coastal Sinai Peninsula resort on April 24. A
police officer was also killed.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 1, In western India
police fired bullets and tear gas to disperse battling mobs of Hindus
and Muslims, killing two people as hundreds rioted after authorities
demolished a small Muslim shrine.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In southern India a
truck carrying mangos toppled over, killing 20 workers riding on board
to unload them.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In northern India a
sodium tank exploded at a paper factory, sparking a blaze that killed
at least nine nightshift workers and trapped hundreds more. One
official said 15 people were killed.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In Indonesia 3 Islamic
militants were convicted and sentenced to prison for helping shelter
Southeast Asia's top terrorist mastermind and financing bombings.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In Israel interim PM
Ehud Olmert announced his Cabinet appointments, naming Tzipi Livni as
vice premier and foreign minister. Israeli soldiers shot and killed a
Palestinian woman and wounded her two daughters when they fired on a
West Bank house that an Islamic Jihad militant was hiding in.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, Locals in Macao rioted
in protests against outsiders, who were finding jobs while many
middle-aged Macanese remained jobless.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.40)
2006 May 1, A day-long protest
dubbed "A Day Without Gringos" drew thousands of Mexicans into the
streets and kept many away from US-owned supermarkets and fast-food
restaurants to support rallies in the United States demanding
immigration reform.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, The government of
Puerto Rico ran out of money, forcing the US commonwealth to close
public schools and shut down government offices, putting almost 100,000
people out of work.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, Rwandan Hutu rebels
attacked a village and an army camp in a raid that left 7 residents
dead. Congolese troops killed six rebels during an attack at an army
camp that also claimed the lives of a soldier and his wife.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 1, Under pressure from
the US rebels in Sudan's Darfur region agreed to continue negotiations
in Nigeria with the Sudanese government after rejecting a peace
proposal that would end a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of
people.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In Turkey, police
fired pepper spray and tear gas to disperse demonstrators denouncing
the IMF and the United States.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, Louis Rukeyser (73)
died in Connecticut. The best-selling author, columnist, lecturer and
television host had delivered pun-filled, commonsense commentary on
complicated business and economic news.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 2, In Minnesota a small,
spiral-shaped snail that clones itself and is native to New Zealand has
been discovered in Duluth-Superior Harbor and the St. Louis River
estuary, raising concerns about the impact of another invasive species.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 2, A pre-dawn fire in NYC
raged through a 21-acre site. It destroyed 15 industrial buildings and
was the worst city fire in 10 years.
(http://nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/home2.shtml)(WSJ,
5/27/06, p.P9)
2006 May 2, Joseph Clark was
executed at a state prison in Lucasville, Ohio. After Clark was finally
pronounced dead, 86 minutes after the process began, an autopsy showed
19 needle puncture wounds from the process. In 2007 Irma Clark filed
suit in the Cincinnati, Ohio, district court, alleging her son was
exposed to "excessive suffering" violating the US constitution.
(AFP, 7/3/07)
2006 May 2, A suspected suicide
attacker set off a car bomb on a road between the Afghan capital Kabul
and a main US military base, killing himself and a civilian.
(AFP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, Bolivia's leftist
government said it would extend control over mining, forestry and other
sectors of the economy. Foreign governments warned relations could be
damaged. Soldiers guarded natural gas fields and refineries across
Bolivia after President Evo Morales ordered the sector nationalized,
threatening to evict foreign companies unless they cede control over
production within six months.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, Canada's new
government released its first federal budget, offering broad tax cuts
and pledging to shore up the country's security with spending increases
for the military, border security and policing.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, The Canadian dollar
cracked 90 US cents, setting a new 28-year high and helping Canadians
to realize cheaper US imports of everything from vegetables and
clothing to computers.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, China's official
Xinhua News Agency said glaciers in western China's Qinghai-Tibet
plateau, known as the "roof of the world," are melting at a rate of 7
percent annually due to global warming.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, In Colombia the entire
municipal council of Villavieja resigned and fled to Neiva in Huila
province, fearing for their lives amid a spate of political killings.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 2, In western India at
least 30 people were killed when a crowded bus veered off a bridge and
plunged into a river. The bus, which had a capacity of 58 but was
carrying 69 passengers, was traveling from Kashimira town to Thane,
near Mumbai.
(AFP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, In Iran a court
sentenced two Swedes to three years in prison each for photographing
military installations. The two men, both in their 30s, were convicted
of photographing military buildings and telecommunications equipment on
Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, Iraq's parliament
speaker said in a nationally televised speech that the new government's
top priority will be ending widespread bloodshed in cities such as
Baghdad. But insurgents launched new attacks, killing at least seven
Iraqis and a US soldier. US soldiers raided an al-Qaeda site and killed
10 insurgents, including 3 in suicide vests. German engineers Rene
Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke were released unharmed following 99
days in captivity.
(AP, 5/2/06)(WSJ, 5/3/06, p.A1)(AP, 5/3/07)
2006 May 2, PM Silvio Berlusconi,
the longest-serving leader in postwar Italy, resigned to make way for a
center-left government led by Romano Prodi.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, Nepal's new prime
minister announced a seven-member Cabinet, designating a communist as
his deputy and foreign minister.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, In Norway 3 key
suspects were convicted in the theft of the Edvard Munch masterpieces
"The Scream" and "Madonna" and sentenced to between four and eight
years in prison. The works were snatched by masked gunmen from the
Munch Museum in Oslo in August 2004. They are still missing.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, An explosion destroyed
a building inside a Palestinian national security compound in the
northern Gaza Strip, killing two police officers and wounding seven
others.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, Sri Lanka’s President
Mahinda Rajapakse called for immediate peace talks with Tamil Tiger
rebels, saying his tiny tropical island had seen enough violence.
Gunmen stormed the offices of the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna, 400
kilometers north of the capital Colombo, killing a manager and another
employee. The next day the government said the murders were timed to
embarrass it as Sri Lanka hosted UNESCO World Press Freedom Day
celebrations, while the rebel Tamil Tigers blamed government forces for
the attack.
(AP, 5/2/06)(AFP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3 In their second meeting
at the White House, President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
vowed to keep pressing Iran on its nuclear program as other allies took
the issue to the United Nations.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, The Bush
administration released a 234-page report on avian flu saying a global
bird flu epidemic could disable the US economy. It called for
stockpiling antiviral medication and new vaccine development.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.A11)
2006 May 3, A federal jury in
Alexandria, Va., rejected the death penalty for al-Qaida conspirator
Zacarias Moussaoui, deciding he should spend life in prison for his
role in 9/11; as he was led from the courtroom, Moussaoui taunted,
"America, you lost. ... I won."
(AP, 5/3/07)
2006 May 3, Vernon Jackson (53),
owner of iGate, pleaded guilty in Alexandria, Virginia, to bribing Rep.
William Jefferson, D-La., with more than $400,000 to promote the
Kentucky’s firm’s high tech business in Africa between 2001 and 2005.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.A3)
2006 May 3, The US Postal Service
said it wants to raise the price of a first-class stamp by 3 cents to
42 cents, and proposed a "forever" stamp that people could use as hedge
against future rate increases.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, US federal agents
conducted raids in California targeting a SF-based cocaine and
methamphetamine trafficking operation. 19 indictments were unsealed.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.B2)
2006 May 3, Sotheby’s auction
house sold “Dora Maar au Chat,” a painting by Pablo Picasso, for a
$95.2 million, the 2nd highest amount for a painting at auction.
(SFC, 5/5/06, p.A7)
2006 May 3, A burglary at a VA
data analyst's home in Aspen Hill, Md., included loss of a laptop with
personal data for 26.5 million veterans and military personnel. The
burglary was disclosed May 22 and the VA first said the data was for
50,000 veterans and military personnel. On June 29 federal officials
reported that the laptop was recovered.
(AP, 6/9/06)(SFC, 6/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 3, In western Afghanistan
suspected Taliban gunmen killed a judge.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, An Armenian Airbus
A-320 crashed in stormy weather off Russia's Black Sea coast while
readying to land at the Sochi resort, killing all 113 people on board,
most of them Armenians.
(AP, 5/3/06)(WSJ, 5/3/06, p.A1)
2006 May 3, Australia raised its
benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 5.75%. This sent its
currency to a seven-month peak against the US dollar.
(www.indiainfoline.com/news/news.asp?dat=77648)
2006 May 3, Bolivia's decision to
nationalize its natural gas industry drew challenges from Brazil as top
officials pledged to defend current gas contracts and suspend
investment in the Bolivian industry.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, A decade-old ban on
British beef, triggered by the mad cow crisis in the mid-1990s, was
officially lifted, allowing cattle farmers to resume exports.
(AFP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Britain and France
introduced a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Iran abandon
its uranium enrichment program, possibly setting the stage for
sanctions if Tehran does not comply.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Chadians voted for
president despite no real alternatives to incumbent Idriss Deby, who
rebuffed calls to delay the election in this emerging African oil
exporter in favor of peace talks with rebels.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, China's state-approved
Catholic church installed a bishop without Vatican approval, the second
this week.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Owners of a coal mine
in China's central Henan province falsely claimed that five workers
were killed and seven injured in a blast, when 66 miners were
underground. An investigation by the county government later revealed
that 10 workers were killed and 18 were injured in the accident which
occurred in Yegou village.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 3, The European
Commission fined 7 companies a total of $489.8 (388.1 euros) for
running a cartel in bleaching chemicals.
(WSJ, 5/4/06, p.A2)
2006 May 3, In New Delhi Muslim
separatists met India's prime minister for fresh peace talks on the
future of Kashmir. Hours before the talks were due to begin, four
rebels and three security men died in gunbattles in Kashmir.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, India and Pakistan
agreed to launch a truck service and a second passenger bus route this
summer linking the parts of Kashmir held by each country.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, The guardian of Budhia
Singh, a five-year-old Indian boy who runs 50 kilometers (31 miles) a
day, denied media accusations he was flogging him for personal gain.
When Budhia’s father died two years ago, his mother, a dish washer in
Bhubaneswar, was unable to provide for her four children and sold
Budhia to a man for 800 rupees (20 dollars).
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In northern India, a
driver apparently lost control of his speeding bus, veering off a
bridge into a dry river bed near Rampur, a town in Uttar Pradesh state.
21 people were killed and 26 were injured.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Indonesian police
detained the heads of the state electricity company Perusahaan Listrik
Negara (PLN) and a state fertilizer firm as suspects in corruption
cases.
(AFP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, Sunni insurgents
boldly attacked fellow Sunni Arabs, the latest in a growing campaign
against those who cooperate with the US-backed Iraqi government. A
suicide bomber cloaked in explosives killed two policemen and 13 police
recruits gathered in Fallujah. Three more of the new Iraqi soldiers
were found dead in Khaldiyah. The bodies of 20 Iraqi men were found in
several areas of the capital, apparent victims of death squads that
kidnap civilians of rival Muslim sects, torture them, and dump their
bodies. In Wasit province southeast of Baghdad, masked gunmen broke
into the home of a Shiite family, killing the husband, two of his sons
and his sister.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Mexican President
Vicente Fox refused to sign a drug decriminalization bill, hours after
US officials warned the plan could encourage "drug tourism."
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In Mexico one person
was killed as machete-wielding protesters near Mexico City clashed with
police, blocking highways, throwing molotov cocktails and briefly
seizing six officers. The residents attacked police after several of
their companions were arrested in the nearby town of Texcoco.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, Nepal's Cabinet
declared a cease-fire with communist rebels and will no longer
designate them as a terrorist group. Nepal's rebel chief ruled out
disarming his forces and launched a scathing attack on the nation's new
political leadership, according to the Maoists' website.
(AP, 5/3/06)(AFP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In Pakistan gunmen
attacked a police post in a remote northwestern tribal region near the
Afghan border, killing three policemen.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, Peru confirmed that
ex-President Garcia placed 2nd in the April 9 voting and will face
nationalist Ollanta Humala in a June 4 runoff.
(WSJ, 5/4/06, p.A1)
2006 May 3, The European Union
suspended aid and trade talks with Serbia after Belgrade failed to
deliver fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, The Alexandros T, a
bulk carrier, sank off the South African coast with 33 crewmen. The sip
sank in heavy seas on its way from Brazil to China. Five managed to
reach life rafts in time and one was rescued with a life vest.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, In Virginia US Judge
Leonie Brinkema sent Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for life, to "die
with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him." The US
military released video footage of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in which the
al-Qaida leader was seen wearing American tennis shoes and unable to
operate his automatic rifle.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2006 May 4, A US federal court
ruled that over 9,500 victims of human rights abuses under Ferdinand
Marcos (1917-1989) were entitled to $35 million in a US account, which
he established in 1972. Damages awarded in 1995 reached nearly $2
million.
(SFC, 5/5/06, p.B7)
2006 May 4, A US government study
said some 300,000 US children have been diagnosed with autism.
(SFC, 5/5/06, p.A8)
2006 May 4, Afghan warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar pledged fealty to al Qaeda. He controlled a large
network in eastern Afghanistan.
(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.A1)
2006 May 4, Brazil’s President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Argentina’s Pres. Nestor Kirchner,
Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez and Bolivia’s Pres. Morales in response to
Bolivia’s decision to nationalize its oil and gas industry. Morales
offered to refrain from cutting off supplies and to negotiate prices.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.43)
2006 May 4, Britain took command
of NATO's Afghan peacekeeping force as a tide of violence raised
apprehension about the alliance's planned takeover of security duties
across the country from US forces.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Cambodia's highest
judicial body approved 30 Cambodian and UN judges to preside over a
long-awaited genocide tribunal for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Chinese weather
specialists used chemicals to engineer Beijing's heaviest rainfall of
the year, helping to relieve drought and rinse dust from China's
capital.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 4, Over Chinese and
Russian opposition, Western nations circulated a UN Security Council
resolution that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face
the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to
sanctions.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Palaniappan
Chidambaram, India's finance minister, warned that a slowdown in the US
may trigger a worldwide recession that if "disorderly" will hit
emerging market economies hard. Speaking at the 39th annual meeting of
the Asian Development Bank (ADB), he said global economic growth
continued to depend heavily on the US economy.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, A suicide bomber
attacked a crowd of people waiting outside a heavily guarded court
building in Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding 52. Two US soldiers
died in a roadside bomb attack.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Lithuania hosted
leaders from the European Union, United States and the burgeoning
democracies in the Black Sea region at a summit on the future of the EU
and the NATO military alliance. Vice President Dick Cheney, in remarks
that caused a stir in neighboring Russia, accused President Vladimir
Putin of restricting the rights of citizens and said that "no
legitimate interest is served" by turning energy resources into
implements of blackmail.
(www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1746272&C=europe)(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Just before dawn
hundreds of law enforcement officials fired tear gas and crashed
through human barricades to take control of San Salvador Atenco, a
rebellious town outside Mexico City, hours after protesters released
six badly beaten police hostages.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, In Nepal Communist
rebels agreed to a new round of peace talks with the government,
raising hopes for an end to a decade-old insurgency that has killed
13,000 people.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Nicaraguan Foreign
Minister Norman Caldera asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to butt
out of his country's political affairs after Chavez signed a favorable
oil pact with dozens of leftist Nicaraguan mayors.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 4, Puerto Rico moved a
step closer to resolving a partial government shutdown as the island's
Senate voted to impose a sales tax of 5.9% and a new levy on large
corporations.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Thousands of police
armed with batons stormed an abandoned school in South Korea to evict
activists who were protesting plans to expand a US military base,
sparking clashes that resulted in dozens of injuries.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, The Vatican
excommunicated two bishops ordained by China's state-controlled church
without the pope's consent, escalating tensions as the two sides
explored preliminary moves toward improving ties.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez said he was withdrawing his ambassador from Peru as a
matter of principle after Peru called home its ambassador.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 5, CIA Director Porter
Goss resigned in a second-term shake-up of President Bush's team.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2006 May 5, The US State
Department disclosed that Albania has agreed to take in five Chinese,
ethnic Uighur detainees, held at Guantanamo Bay. They were flown to
Albania the next day.
(AP, 5/5/06)(WSJ, 5/6/06, p.A1)
2006 May 5, The US State
Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has waived a law to
make Myanmar refugees, almost all of whom back an armed group fighting
the Yangon military junta, eligible for resettlement into the US.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, Porter Goss (67), US
CIA director, resigned under pressure after 18 months on the job.
(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A3)
2006 May 5, Valerie Plame, former
CIA agent, agreed to sell her memoir for $2.5 million. The book, whose
working title is "Fair Game," is scheduled to be published in the fall
of 2007 by Crown Publishing, an imprint of Random House.
(www.rightnation.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=102710)
2006 May 5, A spokesman for Nevada
Gov. Kenny Guinn said Nevadans will be able to buy prescription drugs
from Canada over the Internet starting next week, despite objections by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, The DJIA rose 138
points to a 6-year high. A report of modest job growth triggered hopes
that the Federal Reserve will soon end interest rate hikes.
(SFC, 5/6/06, p.C1)
2006 May 5, Forbes Magazine in an
article titled, "Fortunes Of Kings, Queens And Dictators," put Fidel
Castro in 7th place in a group of 10 world leaders with "lofty
positions and vast fortunes." The magazine estimated Castro's personal
wealth to be $900 million, nearly double that of the $500 million of
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and just under Prince Albert II of
Monaco's estimated $1 billion. Forbes said it assumed Castro has
economic control over a web of state-owned companies including a
convention center, a retail conglomerate and an enterprise that sells
Cuban-produced pharmaceuticals. On May 15 Castro and Cuba’s Central
Bank President Francisco Soberon denied the claims. Soberon said that
all the money made from those companies is pumped back into the
island's economy, into sectors including health, education, science,
security, defense and solidarity projects with other countries.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 5, Berkshire Hathaway
Inc., the investment company controlled by Warren Buffett, said it
purchased an 80% stake in Iscar, a privately held Israeli metalworking
firm for $5 billion.
(http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/05/news/companies/berkshire/index.htm)
2006 May 5, In eastern Afghanistan
a US-led coalition military transport helicopter crashed while
conducting combat operations, killing all 10 American soldiers on
board. The CH-47 Chinook crashed while on a mission in support of
Operation Mountain Lion, an offensive to root out Taliban and al-Qaida
militants near the border with Pakistan.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 5, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb killed two Italian soldiers and wounded four as they were
traveling to help Afghan police hurt in an attack near Kabul.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, British PM Tony Blair
shuffled his Cabinet, replacing Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2006 May 5, In Windsor, Canada,
Const. John Atkinson (37) was shot to death as he approached two men
involved in a drug transaction in a parking lot outside a convenience
store. Nikkolas Brennan and Cody Defausses, both 18, were charged with
first-degree murder. Atkinson, a father of two, was the first officer
slain in the force's history of more than 120 years.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 5, In central China
explosions rocked two Internet cafes in Hefei, the capital of Anhui
province, killing two people, injuring four.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 5, The European
Commission said safety belts will have to be used in all seats on tour
buses and vans across the European Union.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, A roadside bomb killed
three US soldiers south of Baghdad. Coalition forces shot to death
three insurgents in Samarra, the site of the bombing of a Shiite shrine
in February that set off a wave of sectarian killings in Iraq. An
American soldier was killed by the roadside bomb in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/5/06)(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 5, An Israeli air strike
killed 5 members of a group with close ties to the ruling Hamas
movement in a Gaza City neighborhood training ground for militants.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 5, In Srinagar a strike
and protests to force the government to reveal names of people caught
up in a prostitution scandal paralyzed the summer capital of Indian
Kashmir and injured 20 people.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, Vice President Dick
Cheney traveled to Kazakhstan for talks with President Nursultan
Nazarbayev. Cheney promoted export routes for vast oil and gas reserves
that would bypass Russia and supply the West directly.
(AP, 5/5/06)(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A3)
2006 May 5, In Nicaragua riot
police stormed a government building and evicted about 200 striking
doctors who invaded it hours earlier in an effort to force President
Enrique Bolanos to restart wage negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, In Warsaw 2 parties
that opposed Poland's entry into the EU joined the government, raising
hopes for an end to six months of political wrangling.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, In Moscow a jury voted
to acquit Kazbek Dukuzov (32) and Musa Vakhayev (42), the two men in
the July 2004 death of Paul Klebnikov, a 41-year-old New Yorker of
Russian descent and editor of the Forbes Russian edition. The Moscow
City Court official handed down the verdict the next day. Prosecutors
said they would appeal the acquittal.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 5, A court in Russia's
Far East overturned a deportation ruling for US and British adventurers
accused of illegally crossing the border by walking across the frozen
Bering Straight from Alaska.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, In South Africa
Anthony Wakaba Mutheki, a Kenyan-born artist who once hawked his works
for as little as $1 apiece, was reported to have become one of Africa's
hottest young talents, fetching up to $12,000 for his paintings.
(Reuters, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, South Korean
protesters clashed with police for the second day at a planned site for
a new US military base, leaving scores of people wounded, some
seriously. A military training jet crashed during an air show in South
Korea. The pilot was presumed killed, but no spectators were hurt.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, Sri Lanka's navy and
air force hit Tamil Tiger targets on land and sea in the island's
northwest, while a policeman died in a fragmentation mine attack,
further straining a battered 2002 ceasefire.
(Reuters, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, Sudan's government and
the largest Darfur rebel group agreed to sign a peace plan, marking
major progress in an internationally backed effort to end the death and
destruction in western Sudan. Two other rebel factions rejected the
deal. The Abuja deal allocates an initial $30 million in compensation
from the government for more than 3 million Darfuris the United Nations
says were affected by the conflict. Opposition groups in the camps
dismissed the $10 per person payout as a joke.
(Reuters, 5/5/06)(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 May 6, Vice President Dick
Cheney met with President Stipe Mesic of Croatia, the final stop of a
three-nation tour dominated by the issue of political reform in
countries making the post-Cold War transition toward democracy.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, Barbaro won the
Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2006 May 6, Lillian Gertrud
Asplund (99), the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic,
died in Shrewsbury, Mass.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2006 May 6, Chen Li (b.1929), a
Chinese journalist and former editor-in-chief of China Daily, the
communist government's main English-language newspaper, died in Beijing.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 6, Gen. Frantisek Perina
(b.1911), a Czech WWII fighter ace who fought against Nazi Germany in
the French and British air forces died in Prague.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, In Athens, Greece,
some 30,000 people marched in an anti-war and anti-globalization
demonstration that also saw anarchist attacks on banks, shops and
police vehicles. The march was organized by the European Social Forum,
which was holding a four-day meeting on the outskirts of Athens.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, At least seven people,
including three Iraqi army officers and two children, were killed and
seven others kidnapped in a series of rebel attacks across Iraq.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, A chemical weapons
expert for a major Islamic extremist group was killed by security
forces in Baghdad. Ali Wali, a member of Ansar al-Islam, died during a
raid on a suspected militant safe house in the western Baghdad
neighborhood of Mansour.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 6, A British military
helicopter crashed in Basra and the 5 people were killed. Flight
Lieutenant Sarah Mulvihill died in the crash in the southern city of
Basra along with Wing Commander John Coxen, Lieutenant Commander Darren
Chapman, Lieutenant David Dobson and Marine Paul Collins. Iraqis hurled
stones at British troops and set fire to at least one armored vehicle
that rushed to the scene. Four Iraqi adults and a child were reported
killed during in the melee when Shiite gunmen exchanged fire with
British soldiers. 2 insurgents were killed in Tikrit while they were
planting a roadside bomb.
(AP, 5/6/06)(AP, 5/7/06)(AFP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 6, Teachers at five
schools in the West Bank city of Hebron went on strike, demanding their
overdue paychecks in the first sign of unrest by public employees.
Hundreds of government workers, most of them supporters of Abbas'
moderate Fatah faction, also protested in the West Bank city of Nablus.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, Singaporeans voted in
legislative elections. The ruling party won a landslide victory in
parliamentary elections. It has won every general election held in the
island nation since it became independent in 1965.
(AP, 5/6/06)
2006 May 6, A local rights group
said Zimbabwe state security agents have stepped up the use of torture
against government opponents, with 19 cases reported in March compared
with three during the previous two months.
(Reuters, 5/6/06)
2006 May 7, Vice President Dick
Cheney endorsed the NATO membership aspirations of Croatia, Albania and
Macedonia.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 7, Golden West Financial
Corp. of Oakland, Ca., agreed to sell itself to Wachovia Corp. for
$25.5 billion. Investors soon expressed skepticism calling the
transaction risky and too costly.
(AP, 5/8/06)(SFC, 5/8/06, p.A1)
2006 May 7, Taliban militia
fighters ambushed a police patrol in southern Afghanistan, sparking an
hour-long gunbattle that killed two policemen and one attacker.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 7, China's official Roman
Catholic church named a new bishop, reportedly with papal approval, as
Beijing rejected Vatican criticism of the unauthorized ordination of
two other bishops.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 7, Iran's hard-line
parliament threatened to pass legislation that would force the Tehran
government to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2006 May 7, In Iraq 3 car bombs
rocked northern Baghdad within a span of half an hour while another
struck Karbala, killing at least 17 and wounding 44. Elsewhere in Iraq,
the bound and bullet-ridden bodies of 8 men were found in eastern
Baghdad. Two other bodies with bullet wounds were found separately in
eastern Baghdad. An American soldier was killed and one wounded near
Tal Afar while US troops were helping Iraqi forces attack a building
where insurgents were firing at civilians and soldiers. A total of
about 30 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad and Karbala. Over the last 24
hours 51 bodies were found in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/7/06)(AP, 5/8/06)(SFC, 5/8/06, p.A3)
2006 May 7, Israeli police armed
with batons evicted dozens of Jewish squatters from a Palestinian home
in West Bank city of Hebron, in an important test for Israel's new
government and its plans to uproot tens of thousands of settlers.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 7, In Northern Ireland
Michael McIlveen (15), a Roman Catholic teenager, was hospitalized in
critical condition after being bludgeoning with baseball bats in the
overwhelmingly Protestant town of Ballymena. He died the next day.
Police interrogated 5 Protestant men on suspicion of the attack.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 7, In Pakistan an
11-year-old boy was strangled by relatives who killed him rather than
obey a tribal elders' order for them to marry one of their womenfolk to
the child.
(Reuters, 5/8/06)
2006 May 7, Officials said pirates
who hijacked a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia and killed one of
its crew members have released the vessel after holding it for a week.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 7, In Sri Lanka a senior
Japanese envoy began talks with government officials to try to save the
peace process. Tamil rebels said troops abducted 8 men in the island's
north.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 7, A fire broke out at a
club in the Thai resort town of Pattaya, killing at least seven people
and injuring at least 49.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 8, The White House said
it will nominate General Michael Hayden to run the CIA and defended the
move to name a top military officer to run the civilian intelligence
agency.
(AFP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, US federal Judge Gary
Klausner in Los Angeles sentenced "botmaster" Jeanson Ancheta (20) to
57 months in jail for taking control of an array of computers he had
corralled into his "Botnet."
(AFP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 8, Florida’s Gov. Jeb
Bush declared a state of emergency and called in the state National
Guard to help fight wildfires that have burned thousands of acres and
blanketed highways with thick smoke.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 8, Hawaii abandoned
gas-price controls after 8 months.
(WSJ, 5/9/06, p.A1)
2006 May 8, A former top aide to
Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in
the corruption and influence-peddling investigation involving lobbyist
Jack Abramoff.
(Reuters, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Stunt artist David
Blaine emerged weak and wrinkly from a week spent submerged within an
eight-foot snow globe-like tank in the plaza of New York's Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts, but without a world record for holding
his breath.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2006 May 8, Silicon Graphics, a
pioneer of 3-D visualization technology, filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection.
(SFC, 5/9/06, p.C1)
2006 May 8, Thermo Electron said
it will acquire Fisher Scientific for $10.6 billion.
(SFC, 5/9/06, p.C2)
2006 May 8, In Afghanistan US
airstrikes on a cave complex near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan
killed four Taliban militants and destroyed a truck loaded with rockets.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Argentina requested
the extradition of five former Uruguayan military officers and a former
police officer wanted in the 1976 disappearance of Maria Claudia
Garcia, the missing daughter-in-law of poet Juan Gelman.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, In China Bai Ningyang
(19) walked into a Gongyi kindergarten in central Henan, locked the
door and set fire to two gasoline cans. Local authorities said 13
children and one teacher were injured in addition to three students
killed. Ningyang was captured the next day.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 8, Oscar Arias (65),
Nobel Peace Prize winner (1987), returned to the Costa Rican
presidency, hoping to use his skills as a mediator to unite a country
sharply divided over free trade with the United States.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Indian voters braved
blistering summer heat as marathon state elections drew to a close with
ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi looking set to regain her
parliamentary seat in a by-election. The death toll from a heat wave
rose to 34.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Indonesia said it
supported Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful means
ahead of a visit to the country by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President Bush, proposing "new solutions"
to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian head of state
to an American president in 27 years.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2006 May 8, In Iraq a roadside
bomb killed a US soldier. A car bomb went off near a main courthouse in
western Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding 10. In
eastern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded during morning rush hour near a
police patrol on Palestine street in eastern Baghdad, killing two
policemen and wounding 12 Iraqis. Gunmen killed 4 police officers in
Ramadi and 2 Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit. Violence across Iraq left at
least 34 dead.
(AP, 5/8/06)(Reuters, 5/8/06)(WSJ, 5/9/06,
p.A1)(SFC, 5/10/06, p.A3)
2006 May 8, A report said UN
peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian
girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors, threatening
efforts to rebuild a nation wrecked by war.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, In the Hague the UN
war crimes court sentenced Ivica Rajic, a Bosnian Croat former militia
leader, to 12 years in prison. Rajic admitted that forces under his
command operating in the Muslim village of Stupni Do in central Bosnia
in October 1993 "forced Bosnian Muslim civilians out of their homes and
hiding places, robbed them of their valuables, willfully killed Muslim
men, women and children and sexually assaulted Muslim women".
(AFP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, In Gaza rival gunmen
from Hamas and Fatah fought with assault rifles and missiles, killing 3
militants in the bloodiest internal fighting since Hamas came to power
six weeks ago.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Five lawmakers who
took refuge in the Philippine legislature for two months while facing
coup accusations walked out of the building in triumph after a court
dismissed the charges.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Puerto Rico's governor
and legislative leaders have agreed to abide by the recommendations of
a commission seeking a solution to a fiscal crisis that has partially
closed the island's government.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 8, Rwandan President Paul
Kagame said he was considering a plea for clemency from Pasteur
Bizimungu, the nation's first post-genocide president (1994-2000).
Bizimungu was in jail for crimes including inciting ethnic violence and
embezzling state funds.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, A judge acquitted
former Deputy President Jacob Zuma of rape in a politically charged
trial that left in tatters his aspirations to lead South Africa.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Darfur refugees rioted
and forced the UN humanitarian chief to rush from their camp, then
later attacked African peacekeepers and killed a translator in a sign
of deep tensions in Sudan’s war torn region despite a fragile peace
deal. Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, attacked Labado town in South
Darfur, killing and injuring up to 50 people. The AU has a base in
Labado town.
(AP, 5/8/06)(Reuters, 5/20/06)
2006 May 8, A senior American
diplomat pledged US support to impoverished Tajikistan in improving
security and expanding economic opportunities and political plurality.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 8, Thailand's
Constitutional Court invalidated last month's parliamentary elections
and ordered fresh polls in a bid to end a political impasse that has
left the country unable to form a new government.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 9, The United States
bowed to pressure from its allies and agreed to support a new program
to temporarily funnel additional aid directly to the Palestinian people.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 9, Vermont Gov. Jim
Douglas signed a health reform package to provide health insurance to
as many as 25,000 uninsured residents.
(SFC, 5/10/06, p.A3)
2006 May 9, Cory Anthony Booker
(b.1969) was elected the 36th mayor of Newark, New Jersey. The
Democratic politician and former Newark Councilman and community
activist had run unsuccessfully for mayor in 2002 against longtime
incumbent Sharpe James. Booker inherited a $44 million deficit from
James, who had boasted of a $30 million surplus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker)
2006 May 9, Gold futures closed
above $700 for the 1st time since 1980.
(SFC, 5/10/06, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/10/06, p.C1)
2006 May 9, Tornadoes swept
through two North Texas towns after dark, reducing houses to bare
concrete slabs in a path of destruction that left three people dead and
10 injured.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 9, Victor Gonzalez,
former butcher, murdered his roofing foreman Wilfredo Pinto. He
then dismembered and bagged the body parts and scattered them on NYC
street corners. In 2009 Gonzalez was convicted of murder.
(SFC, 4/9/09, p.A4)(www.mahalo.com/Victor_Gonzalez)
2006 May 9, Australia's government
unveiled a big-spending "boom budget" that will use a projected 10
billion dollar (7.7 billion US) surplus to finance across-the-board tax
cuts and build up the military and national security agencies.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, In Beaconsfield,
Australia, Brant Webb and Todd Russell were rescued from a mine more
than a half mile underground. A small earthquake on April 25 trapped
Webb and Russell in the 4-foot-tall safety cage they were working in
under tons of rock. Mourners gathered to bury, Larry Knight, who died
in the same rock collapse.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, A plan by Bolivia's
leftist government to redistribute up to 54,000 square miles of land to
the poor generated protests by leaders in the wealthy province of Santa
Cruz, the stronghold of opposition to leftist President Evo Morales.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 9, Bosnia's war crimes
court launched the trial of 11 Bosnian Serbs charged over the 1995
Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, its first genocide trial
since it opened last year.
(Reuters, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, A land mine killed
five Cambodian soldiers and maimed another as they tried to remove it
from an area being developed to build a casino.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 9, The Canadian dollar
hit a 28-year high against the US dollar, as the greenback came under
broad selling pressure.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, Authorities said
Chinese and US had agents seized more than 300 pounds of cocaine in
March smuggled from Colombia in the country's largest ever cocaine
bust. Nine people involved in a drug ring were arrested in southern
China.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, In Egypt Nasser Khamis
el-Mallahi, the leader of an al-Qaida-inspired group wanted for last
month's bombings in Dahab, was killed in a gunbattle in the mountains
of the Sinai Peninsula.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, A German court handed
down a life sentence for murder to Armin Meiwes, the German cannibal
jailed for killing a man and feeding on his flesh, overturning a
previous manslaughter conviction.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, Officials said Iran
will supply crude oil and equity investment to build an oil refinery in
Indonesia that will supply China and provide Iran with a secure outlet
in the face of possible sanctions.
(WSJ, 5/10/06, p.A8)
2006 May 9, Iran's president
declared in a letter to President Bush that democracy had failed
worldwide and lamented "an ever-increasing global hatred" of the U.S.
government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the
letter, saying it didn't resolve questions about Tehran's suspect
nuclear program.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, In Iraq a suicide
truck bomber hit a crowded public market in the northern city of Tal
Afar, killing at least 19 people and wounding 35. In Suwayra police
recovered the corpses on 11 people, 9 of whom had been beheaded. In
Salahuddin province 3 Iraqi detainees were shot and killed by US
soldiers near Samarra. On June 19 the US military announced murder
charges against 4 US soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd
Brigade. The soldiers said they were under orders to kill all
military-age males on “Objective Murray.” In 2007 Spec. Juston Graber
pleaded guilty to reduced charges. On Jan 25, 2007, Pfc. Corey Clagett
(22) was sentenced to 18 years in prison for murdering a detainee and
taking part in the killing of 2 others. In 2007 Staff Sgt. Ray Girouard
was found guilty on 3 counts of negligent homicide. He was sentenced to
10 years in prison.
(AP, 5/9/06)(SFC, 5/10/06, p.A3)(SFC, 6/20/06,
p.A4)(SFC, 7/22/06, p.A3)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.A3)(SFC, 1/26/07, p.A3)(SFC,
3/17/07, p.A3)(AFP, 3/20/07)
2006 May 9, Mexican lawmakers
handed federal investigators a box of evidence that they claim shows
that two of President Vicente Fox's stepsons were involved in fraud and
illicit enrichment through real estate deals.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, In eastern Nepal a
school van plunged into a canal, killing at least nine students and
leaving several others missing.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, Renewed clashes
between Hamas and Fatah militants wounded nine Palestinians, including
five children, raising fears that Palestinian territories could erupt
in a much wider conflagration.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 9, Somalian factions said
they have agreed to a truce following clashes between Islamic fighters
and a warlord alliance that have killed about 60 people.
(WSJ, 5/10/06, p.A1)
2006 May 9, UN members elected 47
countries to a new Human Rights Council. Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and
Russia won seats on the new UN Human Rights Council despite their poor
human rights records. Two rights abusers, Iran and Venezuela, were
defeated.
(AP, 5/10/06)(SFC, 5/10/06, p.A17)
2006 May 10, The US Federal
Reserve raised interest rates for the 16th time in a row by .25% to 5%.
They said further moves may be needed to address inflation risks.
(SFC, 5/11/06, p.C3)
2006 May 10, Daniel Biechele, a
former rock-band manager whose pyrotechnics caused a 2003 Rhode Island
nightclub fire that killed 100 people, was sentenced to four years in
prison.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2006 May 10, Oklahoma became the
last state to make tattoos legal when the governor Brad Henry signed
legislation to license and regulate tattoo artists and parlors.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, Val Guest (94),
British movie director, died in Palm Desert, Calif.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2006 May 10, John Hicks (64), jazz
pianist, died in NY.
(SFC, 5/19/06, p.B5)
2006 May 10, A.M. Rosenthal (84),
former New York Times executive editor, died.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2006 May 10, Soraya, a
Colombian-American singer and songwriter, died of breast cancer in
Miami.
(SFC, 5/16/06, p.E1)
2006 May 10, In southern China a
gas blast at the Aotian Coal Mine in Sichuan province killed 11 people
and injured nine.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, Colombia's top court
voted to legalize abortion in specific cases, easing a complete ban on
the procedure in this majority Roman Catholic nation.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, The UN reported an
upsurge of rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces and
warned that UN peacekeepers overseeing the postwar transition in the
country could end their cooperation with the police and army.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, A Cuban pro-democracy
activist presented a proposal for a new constitution with expanded
freedoms for Cubans, calling for the right to criticize the government
and operate private businesses.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, German customs
authorities arrested four men, breaking up a smuggling ring that
allegedly was supplying Iran with navigation equipment for military use.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, In Iraq suspected
insurgents opened fire on a bus near Baqouba, killing at least 11
people and wounding three.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, Israel said it will
give the Palestinians until the end of the year to prove they are
willing to negotiate a final peace deal, and will unilaterally set its
final borders by 2008 if they don't. Israeli and Palestinian officials
said the Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian areas is
cutting off supplies due to growing debts. Israel said it was willing
to release millions of dollars in funds it has withheld from the
Palestinians and was considering easing restrictions on the transport
of goods between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 5/10/06)(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, The Italian
Parliament elected Giorgio Napolitano (80), a former Communist, to be
president, paving the way for a government headed by center-left leader
Romano Prodi to be formed within days.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, In Kyrgyzstan a
gunman in a passing car shot and killed Ryspek Akmatbayev, a reputed
crime boss, who was recently elected to parliament.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, In Lebanon a
quarter-million-strong wave of workers, students and activists, some
backed by pro-Syrian groups, marched through Beirut, protesting a
proposed tax hike and calling for the anti-Syrian prime minister to
resign.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, In southern Nigeria a
gunman riding a motorcycle shot to death an American oil worker on his
way to the office.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas said senior members of the rival Hamas and Fatah factions
had forged a joint platform, including acceptance of a Palestinian
state alongside Israel.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, Puerto Rican
officials resolved a budget impasse that put more than 95,000 public
employees out of work, crippled government services and hurt business
in this U.S. island territory.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, President Vladimir
Putin called population declines of hundreds of thousands a year one of
Russia's most serious problems and urged parliament to offer financial
incentives for families to have more children. He used his
state-of-the-nation speech to call for a big increase in military
spending to protect Russian interests world-wide. He dismissed US
criticism that the Kremlin is curtailing democratic freedoms.
(AP, 5/10/06)(WSJ, 5/11/06, p.A1)
2006 May 10, Georgy Korniyenko
(81), Soviet diplomat, died. He served at the Soviet Embassy in
Washington during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and later was a deputy
foreign minister.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 10, Alexander Zinoviev
(83), prominent Russian author, died in Moscow. Zinoviev's "The Yawning
Heights" (1976), a satirical description of Soviet society, was
published in Switzerland. It led to his ouster from his job at the
Academy of Sciences and his dismissal from the Communist Party. He was
forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union in 1978 for his satire aimed
at the Communist regime. He had returned to Russia in 1999.
(AP, 5/11/06)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.89)
2006 May 10, In Madrid, Spain,
hundreds of thousands of small investors who fell victim to a stamp
scam demonstrated to try to recover lost savings potentially amounting
to billions of euros. A day earlier police arrested nine directors of
two philately organizations, Afinsa and Forum Filatelico.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, Taiwan's President
Chen Shui-bian made a surprise visit to Libya, after he turned down an
offer to make a refueling stop in Alaska in an apparent sign of
diplomatic pique.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, In southern Thailand
a bomb exploded at a tea shop near a busy market, killing at least
three people and injuring more than a dozen.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 11, Pres. Bush,
responding to reports that the National Security Agency has collected
telephone records of tens of millions of Americans, said authorities
are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of ordinary
Americans and that government efforts are focused on terrorists.
(SFC, 5/12/06, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.A1)
2006 May 11, The Philadelphia City
Council unanimously approved a plan to blanket the city's 135 square
miles with a high-speed wireless Internet connection, a measure the
mayor is expected to sign soon.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 11, In SF 2 officials of
the defunct Pacific Cement company, including founder Ricardo Ramirez,
were arraigned on felony and grand theft charges for using inferior
concrete on Bay Area projects from 2001-2005. In 2008 Ramirez pleaded
guilty to a single environmental count. He was expected to serve a year
of home detention and pay $427,000 in fines and restitution.
(SFC, 5/12/06, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/9/06, p.A10)(SSFC,
6/1/08, p.A1)
2006 May 11, A priest was
convicted in Toledo, Ohio, of murdering a nun; the Rev. Gerald Robinson
was immediately sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the 1980
death of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2006 May 11, In Kingston, Tenn.,
deputy Bill Jones and a friend were shot and killed as they served
felony warrants alleging aggravated assault. Jones was shot 33 times by
two brothers at a rural farmhouse. Leon Houston (47) and his brother,
Rocky Houston (46), were accused of shooting Jones and Mike Brown.
Court records show the brothers had filed at least 15 federal lawsuits
since 1991 against federal and state judges, police officers, clerks,
attorneys and companies. Each petition claimed their civil rights were
violated while trying to expose government fraud. All were dismissed.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 11, Environmentalists and
authorities said about 100 oil-coated penguins have turned up dead in
recent weeks off the coast of Argentina, most in a nature reserve near
the frigid southernmost tip of Patagonia. The source of the oil was not
known.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, Floyd Patterson (71),
former heavyweight champion died in New Paltz, N.Y.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2006 May 11, In Australia the
local assembly of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which
encompasses the national capital Canberra, adopted controversial
legislation in a late night vote providing for civil unions between
same-sex couples, the first such law in Australia.
(AFP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 11, Bangladesh PM Khaleda
Zia reaffirmed her government's determination to crack down on Islamic
militants who have killed at least 28 people in the past year.
(AFP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, In Antwerp, Belgium,
a gunman (18) shot and wounded a woman of Turkish descent, then he
turned his rifle on a black woman from Mali and the 2-year-old white
girl in her care, killing both. In 2007 Hans Van Themsche was sentenced
to life in prison for the killings.
(AP, 5/12/06)(AP, 10/11/07)
2006 May 11, Thousands of Egyptian
riot police beat pro-democracy activists in Cairo, chasing and dragging
them through the streets to break up a demonstration in support of
judges who blew the whistle on election fraud.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 11, The EU and Latin
America opened a three-day summit in Vienna with over 60 national
leaders attending, including Venezuela's fiery, often anti-Washington
President Hugo Chavez. Bolivian President Evo Morales said that foreign
oil companies would not be compensated for oil and gas resources that
have been nationalized, and European Union president Austria called for
explanations.
(AFP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, Indian communists
swept to power in two of five state assembly elections. Sonia Gandhi,
the chief of the ruling Congress party, easily won a parliamentary
by-election.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, Iran's president said
he was ready to negotiate with the United States and its allies over
his country's nuclear program but he also suggested that any threats
against Tehran would make the dialogue more difficult.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, In Iraq 2 US soldiers
were killed near Batrah when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.
Another soldier died in a similar bombing near Zaybaq in a separate
attack. 4 US Marines drowned when their tank rolled off a bridge and
plunged into a canal, adding that while the accident occurred in a
Sunni insurgent stronghold, it was not the result of an enemy action.
Officials said a reporter, who worked for a pro-Sunni Iraqi television
station, had been gunned down in Baghdad last week, making him at least
the fourth media worker killed in Iraq this month.
(AFP, 5/11/06)(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 11, In Nepal Matrika
Yadhav and Suresh Ale Magar, 2 top rebel Maoist leaders, walked free
from jail after the new government dropped murder charges against them,
marking the administration's first major release of militants.
(AFP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, In Nigeria gunmen
kidnapped at least two foreign oil workers from a bus in the southern
city of Port Harcourt.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, The UN’s World Food
Program said it has reached agreement with North Korea to resume food
aid to the hunger-stricken country, but the operation will be smaller
than it was before its suspension in December.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, In southwestern
Pakistan 5 bombs ripped through a firing range at a police training
school, killing six members of an anti-terrorism unit and wounding nine.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, In Somalia fighters
loyal to secular warlords and Islamic extremists fired artillery and
mortars at each other Mogadishu as hundreds of families fled violence
that has killed at least 122 people over five days.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, Officials in Suriname
said floods caused by days of rain have killed three people and left up
to 22,000 others homeless along riverbanks of the remote central
lowlands.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 11, Tamil Tiger rebels
sank two Sri Lankan navy gunboats in sea battles and attacked a ferry
transporting 700 soldiers. The military hit back with air strikes. At
least 50 rebels were killed and 17 Sri Lankan sailors were missing.
(AFP, 5/11/06)(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.A1)
2006 May 12, Tony Snow made his
debut as White House press secretary.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2006 May 12, US Federal
authorities said the number of confirmed cases of a rare fungal eye
infection that can cause blindness has climbed to 122, most of them
contact-lens wearers who reported using Bausch & Lomb Inc.'s newest
lens cleaner. In Oct, 2007, Bausch & Lomb was acquired by private
equity firm Warburg Pincus for $3.67 billion. Chief Executive Ronald
Zarrella said the deal would allow the company "to pursue the growth
path we were on ... without a lot of outside distraction." Over the
past year, away from the glare of public scrutiny, the optical products
company quietly settled nearly 600 fungal-infection lawsuits with
dozens more individual claims yet to be resolved. The cost so far:
Upward of $250 million.
(AP, 5/12/06)(AP, 6/1/09)
2006 May 12, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger proposed a $131 billion budget.
(SFC, 5/13/06, p.A1)
2006 May 12, Kentucky Gov. Ernie
Fletcher said he will complete his first term and seek a second one
despite an indictment on misdemeanor charges that accuse him of
illegally rewarding political supporters with state jobs.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Jonathan Tisch (52),
co-chairman of Loews Corp., announced a donation of $40 million to
Tufts Univ., his alma mater.
(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W2)(www.tufts.edu/main.php?p=flash)
2006 May 12, Gold surged to 730.65
a troy ounce.
(WSJ, 6/20/06, p.C12)
2006 May 12, Best Buy said it will
pay $180 million for a majority stake in China’s Jiangsu Five Star
Appliance. Co.
(WSJ, 5/13/06, p.A6)
2006 May 12, It was announced that
"King Kong" star and Oscar nominee Naomi Watts of Australia has agreed
to serve as special representative for the Joint United Nations Program
on AIDS (UNAIDS).
(AFP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, In western
Afghanistan militants fired a rocket at a car carrying Unicef workers
killing 2 Afghans and wounding a third.
(WSJ, 5/13/06, p.A1)
2006 May 12, Relations between
Brazil and Bolivia sank to their lowest point in a century, as the two
sparred over Bolivia's nationalization of its energy sector and threats
to seize Bolivian land held by Brazilian farmers.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Gen. Oscar Naranjo,
the head of Colombia's judicial police, said he was shocked to learn
his brother, Juan David Naranjo (29), is suspected of involvement in a
major European drug trafficking ring.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 12, Gamal Mubarak, the
son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, met secretly with top White
House officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney. Gamal is widely
seen as his father's heir-apparent.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 12, In Ethiopia 9 bombs
exploded in Addis Ababa, killing 4 people and wounding at least 26.
(AP, 5/12/06)(WSJ, 5/13/06, p.A1)
2006 May 12, Indonesia dropped
corruption charges against former strongman Suharto, disappointing
those who struggled against his repressive rule and had long hoped to
see him brought to justice.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Eight Iraqis died in
violence, including a soldier and a civilian killed in an armed
confrontation between two Iraqi army units.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 12, Gunmen attacked
border posts on both sides of the frontier between Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan, killing five people and injuring two.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, In southwestern
Nigeria a ruptured pipeline exploded as villagers rushed to collect oil
gushing from it and a local TV station said up to 200 people were
feared dead. Militants threatened to destroy NLNG, a $13 billion
natural gas export plant.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, A Palestinian was
killed in a large Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Vladimiro Montesinos,
Peru's jailed ex-intelligence chief, was sentenced to 10 more years in
prison and fined $15.2 million after pleading guilty to charges of
illicit enrichment.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 12, A small boat sank
during a tropical storm in the central Philippines, killing at least 21
people. Two other people were electrocuted in the storm, while floods
submerged 16 villages.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 12, Russia's finance
minister said that remaining restrictions on currency movement would be
removed as of July 1, as Russia seeks to make the ruble fully
convertible against a backdrop of oil-driven economic stability.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Local media said
Russian authorities had fired a string of high-ranking security and law
enforcement officials in a shake up described as part of a Kremlin push
to fight graft and cement control of key government agencies.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 12, South Korean
prosecutors indicted disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk on
charges of fraud, embezzlement and bioethics violations in a scandal
over faked stem cell research that shook the scientific community.
(AP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 12, Spain's Banco Bilbao
Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) agreed to the French bank BNP Paribas'
purchase of its 14.75-percent stake in Italy's Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro (BNL), saying it will reap 567 million euros (731 million
dollars) in capital gains from the sale.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Former Presidents
George Bush and Bill Clinton helped Tulane University celebrate its
"miracle" commencement, nine months after Hurricane Katrina put
two-thirds of the campus under water and scattered students to more
than 600 schools nationwide.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2006 May 13, The US government
filed a motion to intervene and seek dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil
liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a federal program to monitor
U.S. communications.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In Boston, Mass.,
unbeaten Ricky Hatton of England dethroned World Boxing Association
welterweight champion Luis Collazo, lifting the title with a 12-round
unanimous decision in his welterweight debut.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, In Algeria security
forces found 28 bodies, most of them children, in a secluded cave used
as a hideout by an Algerian Islamic militant group.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, The presidents of
Brazil and Bolivia said they patched things up after days of
accusations and threats.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, One of Brazil's most
notorious gangs staged dozens of attacks on police before dawn, setting
off gunbattles in three cities that killed at least 30 people,
officials said. 74 of 140 prison uprisings were reported across Sao
Paulo state. Authorities blamed the violence on the prison-based gang,
First Command of the Capital (PCC), which formed in the aftermath of
the 1992 massacre at Carandiru Penitentiary. It was later reported that
a recording of Congressional talks to transfer gang leaders to a remote
prison had been leaked to the PCC.
(AP, 5/13/06)(SFC, 5/16/06, p.A7)(SFC, 5/23/06,
p.A6)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.39)
2006 May 13, In central China a
shaft collapsed in an iron mine, trapping eight miners 420 feet
underground at the Dalongshan Iron Mine near Anqing City.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, An international
charity said rich countries are not giving enough money to help fight a
humanitarian crisis in Congo, where more than 1,000 people die daily
from violence, hunger and disease.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, More than 11,000
people marched through Paris to protest a bill that would stiffen rules
for immigrants in France and give authorities power to choose who can
enter.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, PM Ferenc Gyurcsany
announced a plan to stabilize Hungary's economy involving massive
public sector layoffs, in an effort to get the country into the
eurozone by 2010.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In southern Hungary a
model airplane crashed into a crowd at an air show killing two
spectators.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In central India 4
special police were killed and five people were injured when hundreds
of Maoist rebels stormed a relief centre sheltering those fleeing
guerrilla violence.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In Indonesia a summit
of 8 large Muslim countries largely skirted a diplomatic nuclear crisis
engulfing its member Iran but agreed that members should cooperate to
develop atomic energy.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In central Indonesia
a landslide at a sand pit killed 11 workers, burying their bodies
beneath tons of mud and debris.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, In the
Indian-controlled portion of disputed Kashmir suspected Islamic
militants hurled a grenade at a Hindu political rally, killing two
people and wounding at least 35.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In southeastern Iran
armed bandits stopped four cars and killed 12 passengers on the road
between the cities of Kerman and Bam.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, Gunmen killed Ahmed
Midhat al-Mahmoud (22), the son of Iraq's top judge, along with two of
his bodyguards and dumped their bodies in Baghdad. Other attacks
outside Baghdad killed five Iraqis and a US soldier. The bodies of
three other Iraqis who had been kidnapped and tortured were found in
the capital. In Mosul suspected insurgents shot and killed Idrees
Shihatha, a local tribal sheik, as he drove his car. In another part of
Mosul, a drive-by shooting killed four Iraqis and wounded one.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In Iraq 2 British
soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb as they patrolled in an armored
vehicle near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, The Kenyan government
banned smoking in public places in order to protect non-smokers from
the harmful effects of tobacco.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Myanmar's ruling
military acknowledged that its army is targeting the Karen ethnic
minority, saying the offensive is necessary to suppress bombings and
other anti-government attacks.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, Nepal's communist
rebel chief put forth a peace plan that seeks the release of political
prisoners, the dissolution of parliament and the constitution and the
restructuring of the national army.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, A fishing trawler
sank off New Zealand's South Island, killing three people on board and
leaving three missing in treacherous seas.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, In Saroki, Pakistan
thousands of people gathered for the funeral of Amir Cheema (28), a
Pakistani student found dead in a German jail while awaiting trial for
an alleged assault over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Cheema was
found dead from suicide in his cell at the Moabit prison in Berlin on
May 3.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Poland’s general
unemployment was running at 18% with youth unemployment at 40%.
(Econ, 5/13/06, Survey p.3)
2006 May 13, Puerto Rican
lawmakers approved the first key pieces of legislation aimed at
resolving a budget crisis that has kept more than 100,000 public
employees out of work since May 1.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In Somalia Islamic
militia and secular fighters pounded each other with heavy artillery
and mortar fire as the death toll rose to 142 in seven days of fighting
for control of a neighborhood north of the Mogadishu.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Thousands of
activists held a candlelit vigil urging US troops to withdraw from
South Korea, a week after violent clashes left 210 injured.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Spanish police and
rescue vessels intercepted six boats carrying over 460 sub-Saharan
illegal migrants off the coast of the Canary Island of Tenerife.
Officials said as many as 1,000 immigrants may have drowned on this
route over just the last 6 months.
(AP, 5/13/06)(Econ, 5/13/06, p.61)
2006 May 13, In Sudan 6 people
were killed when demonstrators opposed to a peace deal the Sudanese
government signed with Darfur rebels clashed with police in the
war-torn region.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, Tamil rebels
threatened to resume war if they are denied access to the sea and
claimed government naval forces killed eight Tamil civilians in an
attack in northern Sri Lanka.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 13, A bomb exploded
outside a garage in eastern Turkey, killing three children.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, The United Arab
Emirates and South Korea signed a series of accords, including a
memorandum of understanding on stockpiling Emirati oil in South Korea,
on the second day of a visit by the South Korean president.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Pope Benedict XVI
named a new bishop for Vietnam, a country that lacks ties with the
Vatican but has the second highest number of Catholics in Southeast
Asia.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 14, Mexican President
Vicente Fox telephoned President Bush to express his concern about the
border between the two nations, a day before Bush's planned Oval Office
speech on immigration.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2006 May 14, Maine's governor
declared a state of emergency in the southern most county, and the
governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire also declared states of
emergency as a 3-day deluge turned streets into rivers across New
England, flooding homes up to their door knobs, forcing dozens of
schools to close because the buses couldn't get through, and
threatening dams and communities as rivers rise.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 14, Aras Baskauskas, a
24-year-old yoga instructor from Santa Monica, Calif., won "Survivor:
Panama, Exile Island," the 12th edition of the CBS reality show.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2006 May 14, Lew Anderson
(b.1922), who captivated young baby boomers as the Howdy Doody Show's
final Clarabell the Clown, died in Hawthorne, NY. Anderson broke the
clown's silence in the show's final episode in 1960. With trembling
lips and a visible tear in his eye, he spoke the show's final words:
"Goodbye, kids."
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 14, Marsha Spicer
(41) was raped and murdered in Lafayette County, Missouri. On July 31,
2008, Richard D. Davis (44) was found guilty of murder in her
videotaped sexual torture and slaying. In June 2008 Davis was
convicted in the kidnapping and rape of Michelle Huff-Ricci (36), whose
body was found in June, 2006. On Oct 10 Davis was sentenced to death.
(http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2006/05/27/marsha-spicer-murder-51406/)(SFC,
8/1/08, p.A4)(AP, 10/10/08)
2006 May 14, Stanley Kunitz
(b.1905), former US poet laureate (2000), died at his home in Manhattan.
(SFC, 5/16/06, p.B5)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.83)
2006 May 14, A Bangladesh court
sentenced 10 Islamic militants to life imprisonment and three others to
20 years in jail for their roles in deadly blasts across Bangladesh
last year.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 14, Rene Preval was sworn
in as Haiti's president for the second time in a decade. Prisoners
rioted at Haiti's main prison, with gunfire heard within its walls and
scores of inmates massing on the roof and holding what appeared to be
two dead bodies.
(AP, 5/14/06)(AP, 5/14/07)
2006 May 14, In Iraq 2 suicide car
bombings killed 14 Iraqis and injured at least six near a main
checkpoint leading to Baghdad's international airport. 5 roadside
bombings in Baghdad killed 12 people with some 55 injured. Six Shiite
shrines were damaged in a series of blasts around the Baqouba area
northeast of the capital. US forces, planes and helicopters attacked an
insurgent haven in Youssifiyah, killing 25 insurgents. Insurgents shot
down a US helicopter south of Baghdad and killed two soldiers, bringing
the weekend death toll of American service members to seven.
(AP, 5/14/06)(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 14, Israeli troops raided
a village in the West Bank, killing 5 Palestinians, including a
militant Israel blamed for several suicide bombings that have killed
dozens of Israelis.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 14, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected Islamic militants stormed a roadside security post
in a tribal region and shot dead an officer.
(AP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 14, Exiled former
Pakistan prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif met in London
and agreed to a “charter of democracy” and to join in opposition to the
rule of Pres. Musharraf.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.46)
2006 May 14, Officials said a
searing heatwave in central Pakistan has killed at least 84 people with
temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in the past
week.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 14, The armed Basque
group ETA stated publicly for the first time since a ceasefire
declaration in March that it still demands self-determination for the
Basque Country.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 14, Syria detained Michel
Kilo (66), a prominent writer and democracy campaigner, who has
long been one of the government's most outspoken critics.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 14, Vietnam’s state media
said the US had clinched a bilateral market access deal with Vietnam
that will help clear the path to its former wartime enemy joining the
World Trade Organization.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 15, Pres. Bush asked
Congress for $1.9 billion to permanently expand the civilian Border
Patrol. He endorsed a guest worker program and a program for
citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
Bush also called for the development of a tamper-proof ID card for
workers and pledged to send the National Guard to tighten security
along the US border with Mexico.
(SFC, 5/16/06, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/16/06, p.A1)
2006 May 15, The United States
restored full diplomatic ties with Libya, rewarding the longtime pariah
nation for scrapping its weapons of mass destruction programs.
(Reuters, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, Washington banned all
US arms sales to Venezuela, punishing President Hugo Chavez for his
ties with Cuba and Iran and for what it believes is his inaction
against guerrillas from neighboring Colombia.
(Reuters, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, The Pentagon
disclosed the names, ages and home countries of everyone held at the
isolated Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba as a suspect in
the U.S.-led war on terror. None of the most notorious terrorist
suspects was included in the list, raising questions about their
whereabouts.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 15, Valeant
Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval to resume sales of Cesamet (also
called nabilone) a synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the
active ingredient of marijuana, which it bought from Lilly in 2004.
Lilly received FDA approval in 1985, but withdrew it from the market in
1989 for commercial reasons.
(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A3)
2006 May 15, In Brazil prison
riots and attacks on police by a criminal gang extended into a 4th day,
raising the reported death toll to 70.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, China's official
exchange rate broke through the psychologically important 8 yuan per
dollar level, its highest level in more than a decade, in a move
traders said might signal Beijing's willingness to allow its currency
to appreciate faster.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, Ecuador expelled
Occidental Petroleum following a dispute over the sale of oil-drilling
rights by Occidental to Canada’s EnCana Corp. without government
approval. Occidental filed for international arbitration.
(WSJ, 5/16/06, p.A12)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.41)
2006 May 15, A top official said
the EU will support an Iranian nuclear program that cannot be put to
military use and will boost political and economic cooperation if
Tehran accepts international oversight.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, More than 12,000
doctors across Germany went on strike in the biggest walkout in the
sector since a dispute over pay flared two months ago.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, Indonesia’s Mount
Merapi erupted violently, sending searing gas clouds and burning rocks
down its scorched flanks and threatening villagers who refused to leave
because of ancient mystical beliefs.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, The chief judge
formally charged Saddam Hussein with crimes against humanity, including
torture of women and children, murder and the illegal arrest of 399
people in a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s. A defiant Saddam
refused to enter a plea. Iraq's interior ministry arrested two al-Qaida
in Iraq members: Salah Hussein Abdul-Razzaq in Ramadi and Omar Ahmed
Salah in Baghdad. Two US soldiers from 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team,
4th Infantry Division, were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside
bomb near Balad. Gunmen killed Nazar Abdel-Zahra, a manager of a local
soccer team, near his home in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 5/15/06)(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 15, In Nepal David Sharp
(34), a British engineer, died at about 1,000 feet into his
descent from the summit of Mt. Everest. Dozens of people walked right
past him, unwilling to risk their own ascents.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 15, Northern Ireland's
legislature, shut down for more than three years, sprang back to life
as a first step toward forming a Roman Catholic-Protestant
administration, the elusive goal of the Good Friday peace accord eight
years ago.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, The Palestine
Liberation Organization reopened its Beirut office, closed since the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 May 15, Zimbabwe state media
reported that police, carrying out a massive monthlong roundup, had
detained thousands of capital residents, charging many were responsible
for crime in Harare.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, The Pentagon released
the first video images of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the
military headquarters building and killing 189 people on 9/11.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2006 May 16, The US State
Department apologized to Bangladesh's national carrier, Biman, after a
flight was barred from landing at New York's JFK Airport on May 13. The
airline said that it would seek compensation for the financial losses
it suffered due to the FAA decision.
(AFP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Seven
African-American members of the US Congress were arrested at the
Embassy of Sudan, where they were protesting atrocities in that
country's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 16, The US Postal Service
approved a one-year trial that allows businesses to purchase custom
postage from private companies that contract with the Postal Service.
(SFC, 6/1/06, p.A1)
2006 May 16, After months of
intense pressure, the director of Los Angeles' J. Paul Getty Museum
agreed to recommend to the museum's board to return ancient artifacts
in its collections that Greece claims were illegally spirited out of
the country.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Richard Hatch, who
had won $1 million in the debut season of "Survivor," was sentenced in
Providence, R.I., to more than four years in prison for failing to pay
taxes on his reality TV prize and other income.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2006 May 16, Joe Paterno and Bobby
Bowden, the winningest coaches in Division I-A football, were elected
to the college football Hall of Fame.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2006 May 16, Militants attacked a
police post and a government office near Afghanistan's rugged eastern
border with Pakistan and a gunbattle killed four people and wounded
seven.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Bolivia's leftist
government outlined its plan to redistribute idle land to poor
peasants, ruling out mass expropriations and proposing instead the
distribution of state-owned property.
(Reuters, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, In Brazil an
unprecedented crime wave, that killed at least 97 people and terrified
the 18 million residents of Sao Paulo, seemed to be waning as stores
reopened and bus service was fully restored. Police struck back at
gangs that rampaged through Sao Paulo, killing 33 suspected gang
members in less than 24 hours and frisking motorists at roadblocks
while reporting only one death of their own.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Colombian-born Pablo
Rayo Montano, one of the world's most hunted drug traffickers was
arrested in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as part of an international crackdown.
He was accused of shipping more than 70 tons of cocaine to the United
States.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 16, Yang Tianshui, a
freelance writer, was sentenced to 12 years in prison amid one of
China's most severe media crackdowns since the 1980s. Yang was
convicted after being accused of posting articles on foreign Web sites,
receiving money from abroad and helping a would-be opposition party.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, In Colombia farmers
and members of indigenous tribes clashed with police during protests
against a free-trade agreement with the US and the re-election of
President Alvaro Uribe, and protest leaders said an Indian farmer was
killed.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, The UN mission Congo
said Innocent Kaina, one of the founding members of a militia group in
northeastern Congo, has been wounded and captured in fighting with the
Congolese army.
(Reuters, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Scientists warned
that tropical forests, which house El Salvador's famed coffee
plantations and provide habitat for migrating birds, are being depleted
at an alarming rate.
(Reuters, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Fiji's
indigenous-dominated governing party led the Indian-dominated
opposition after a second day of general election vote-counting, with
voters polarized along racial lines.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, France's PM Dominique
de Villepin was in the firing line as parliament debated a no
confidence motion filed by the opposition over the Clearstream dirty
tricks scandal. Jean-Luis Gergorin, a senior executive at EADS, was
later identified as the anonymous informer who tried to link important
politicians to secret bank accounts in Luxembourg.
(AP, 5/16/06)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.63)
2006 May 16, Militants raided a
parking lot in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. The shot
dead 5 militiamen working as guards and left behind a car bomb that
killed 18 would-be rescuers. A roadside bomb near Rasheed airfield
killed a US soldier. Suspected insurgents attacked a police patrol in
Kirkuk, killing two policeman. Gunmen in eastern Baghdad killed police
1st Sgt. Latif Abdullah, who worked in Interior Ministry intelligence.
(AP, 5/16/06)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A8)
2006 May 16, In Iraq gunmen
kidnapped UAR diplomat Naji Rashid al-Nuaimi (28) as he left the home
of the United Arab Emirates' cultural affairs attache in Baghdad's
Mansour district. On May 30 it was reported that Al-Nuaimi was released.
(AP, 5/17/06)(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 16, Irish rock star Bono
began a new African tour in Lesotho where he planned to unveil a new
initiative to fight AIDS in its ailing textile industry.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Italy’s top sporting
body put the national football federation under emergency rule as
prosecutors looked into a match-fixing scandal involving the Juventus
team of Turin in 19 games in the 2004-05 season.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.53)
2006 May 16, Electronics giant
Sony Corp said it will launch the world's first notebook personal
computer equipped with a next-generation Blu-ray optical disk drive on
June 24.
(AFP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a
Somali-born member of Parliament, said she will resign and leave
Holland after the government said she was improperly granted
citizenship. She became an internationally known opponent of some
violent types of Islam.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, A powerful magnitude
7.4 earthquake occurred deep under the South Pacific near an
uninhabited chain of islands north of New Zealand.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, The Nigerian Senate
rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed President
Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term in office in 2007.
(AFP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected Islamic militants ambushed a convoy of security
forces, setting off a shootout that left at least 7 militants and one
security official dead.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Shooting attacks in
the Gaza Strip left one Hamas member dead and two others wounded.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Saudi newspapers
reported that King Abdullah has told Saudi editors to stop publishing
pictures of women as they could make young men go astray.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, In Somalia fighting
between Islamic militias and rival secular fighters killed two people
on the outskirts of Mogadishu, despite a weekend cease-fire ending days
of bloodshed in the capital.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, South Korean
prosecutors indicted Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo in an
embezzlement and slush fund scandal. He was later convicted of
embezzling $90 million from his company. In August, 2008, he was
pardoned by Pres. Lee Myung-bak.
(AP, 5/16/06)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.13)
2006 May 16, The UN Security
Council passed a resolution pressing Sudan to cooperate with the United
Nations as it prepares take over peacekeeping in Darfur from an
underfunded African Union force.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 16, Vietnam's PM Phan Van
Khai (70) said he has nominated Deputy PM Nguyen Tan Dung (56) as his
successor.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 17, Pres. Bush signed tax
cut legislation that substantially increased taxes on American working
abroad in a provision that Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley included under
Section 911 of the tax code.
(Econ, 6/24/06,
p.78)(www.centerfortaxstudies.com/blog/taxnews/2006/05/18/)
2006 May 17, The FBI began digging
at a Michigan horse farm in search of the remains of former Teamsters
leader Jimmy Hoffa; the two-week search yielded no evidence.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2006 May 17, Stocks plunged after
a stronger-than-expected rise in consumer inflation fueled Wall
Street's fear that interest rates will keep climbing. The Dow Jones
industrial average lost 214 points to end the day at 11205.61.
(AP, 5/17/06)(SFC, 5/18/06, p.C1)
2006 May 17, Scientists reported
the sequencing of the last chromosome in the Human Genome project,
which began in 1990. Chromosome 1 is packed with 3,141 genes and linked
to 350 illnesses including cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
(Reuters, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, The US Food and Drug
Administration said it approved Azilect, also called rasagiline, for
use as an initial single-drug therapy for early Parkinson's disease.
The FDA said Azilect, made by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of Israel,
also has the potential to cause involuntary movements, hallucinations
and lowered blood pressure.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, US Navy divers
detonated explosives aboard the USS Oriskany, sending the retired
aircraft carrier on a 212-foot plunge to bottom of the Gulf of Mexico
24 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., to create the world's
largest intentional reef.
(AP, 5/17/06)(www.irishmansoftware.com/Oriskany.htm)
2006 May 17, Broadway producer Cy
Feuer died at age 95.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2006 May 17-2006 May 18, Some of
the fiercest violence since the Taliban's 2001 ouster erupted across
Afghanistan, with coalition forces engaging in multiple firefights, two
suicide car bombs and a massive rebel assault on a small village. Up to
105 people were killed. An attack on a police and government
headquarters in the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province sparked eight
hours of clashes with security forces. Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s
operational commander, claimed control of 20 districts in southern
Afghanistan with 12,000 fighters.
(AP, 5/18/06)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.22)
2006 May 17, In Australia
widespread evidence of child abuse in Aboriginal communities has
sparked calls for the Australian government to take greater action to
protect children at risk.
(AFP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, In Brazil the body
count grew in Sao Paulo as police, who lost 41 comrades in gang
attacks, killed 22 more suspected criminals. Authorities said little
about the latest deaths, generating criticism from rights groups.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, It was announced that
Paul McCartney and his second wife, Heather Mills McCartney, had agreed
to separate.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2006 May 17, In Canada 4 people
were reported killed at a mine being decommissioned in the British
Columbia. One of the victims may have gone undiscovered for two days.
Kimberley area media said the victims may have been overcome by
hydrogen sulfide gas, a highly toxic and explosive gas that is slightly
heavier than air and tends to concentrate at the bottom of poorly
ventilated areas.
(Reuters, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, Following a meeting
of the State Council China announced a series of policy measures to
rein in prices. These included levying profits taxes on real estate.
(WSJ, 5/19/06, p.A6)
2006 May 17, Some 620,000 people
were evacuated from southern China as Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest
storm to hit the region at this time of year, churned towards the
coastal province of Guangdong.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, The European
Parliament approved 864.4 billion euro ($1.11 trillion) budget for
2007-2013. The budget would cost EU citizens 26 European cents a day to
run the EU.
(WSJ, 5/18/06, p.A7)
2006 May 17, Fiji's caretaker PM
Laisenia Qarase claimed victory in parliamentary elections and said he
was committed to improving the South Pacific country's relations
between indigenous Fijians and the ethnic Indian minority.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, Medical services in
many parts of India were in chaos for a sixth day as student doctor
protests intensified over a government plan to boost seats reserved for
the poor in top universities.
(AFP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, Indonesia's bird flu
toll jumped to 30 after the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed
five family members had died of the virus.
(AFP, 5/17/06)(SFC, 5/19/06, p.A3)
2006 May 17, Iran's President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a possible European offer for incentives,
including a light-water nuclear reactor, in return for allaying fears
about his country's nuclear program by giving up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, In Iraq 3 roadside
bombs and a drive-by shooting targeted Iraqi forces in Baghdad, killing
one policeman. The bodies of two Iraqi men, handcuffed and shot in the
head, were found in western Baghdad. A US sailor died in fighting with
insurgents in Anbar province. 15 Tae kwon do athletes were kidnapped in
western Anbar province while driving to a training camp in neighboring
Jordan. In 2009 Iraqi commandoes and US forces arrested a suspect in
the kidnapping and murder of the tae kwon do team.
(AP, 5/17/06)(AP, 5/18/06)(SFC, 9/28/09, p.A2)
2006 May 17, Israel's new defense
minister reopened the main cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza
Strip, signaling a policy shift aimed at easing some of Israel's
security restrictions on the Palestinians.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, Romano Prodi became
prime minister of Italy, forming the country's 61st postwar government
more than a month after his center-left coalition narrowly won
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, In Libya Venezuela's
anti-American president was given a warm welcome in Tripoli by Col.
Moammar Gadhafi. Chavez and Gadhafi planned to discuss "social programs
based on oil revenues."
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, Under withering
criticism, the Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk agreed to
rethink her threat to revoke the citizenship of a Somali-born former
lawmaker known for her opposition to fundamentalist Islam.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, A powerful bomb blew
up a gas pipeline in a remote town of southwestern Pakistan, killing a
7-year-old girl.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, The Palestinians'
defiant Hamas-led government sent a 3000-man force into the streets of
Gaza, disregarding President Mahmoud Abbas' order banning the creation
of the security body and raising the stakes in their deepening power
struggle.
(AP, 5/17/06)(WSJ, 5/18/06, p.A1)
2006 May 17, In southern Russia
Ingushetia's Deputy Interior Minister Dzhabrail Kostoyev, two of his
bodyguards and four civilians were killed when a sedan packed with
explosives blocked a road on the outskirts of the region's main city of
Nazran and blew up. A rebel ambush killed 5 Russian soldiers.
(AP, 5/17/06)(WSJ, 5/18/06, p.A1)
2006 May 17, A secular alliance
that is battling fundamentalist Islamic militias in Somalia charged
that its rivals are bolstered by fighters from the Middle East,
Pakistan and elsewhere, and said it has the bodies to prove it. The
interim government said the US was supporting secular warlords fighting
Islamic groups for control of Mogadishu.
(AP, 5/17/06)(SFC, 5/18/06, p.A11)
2006 May 17, In Sri Lanka a rebel
sniper shot dead a soldier at a de facto front line while two civilians
were killed elsewhere.
(AFP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 17, The UN said armed
militiamen had ignored a peace pact and attacked several villages
this week in Sudan's Darfur region, killing at least 11 people and
wounding many others.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 17, In Turkey Alparslan
Arslan (29), a lawyer, stormed into a meeting at Ankara’s highest
administrative court and opened fire. One pro-secular judge was killed
and 4 wounded. Arslan picked on the judges because they supported a ban
on the Islamic headscarf in public places, schools and universities.
(AP, 5/17/06)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.49)(WSJ, 3/30/07,
p.A1)
2006 May 18, Visiting one of the
busiest crossing sectors between the US and Mexico, President Bush said
in Yuma, Ariz., that it made sense to put up fencing along parts of the
border but not to block off the entire 2,000 mile length to keep out
illegal immigrants.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2006 May 18, The US State
Department said that 16,000 computers it bought from a US-based company
partially owned by the Chinese government should be used only for
unclassified work after a lawmaker criticized the purchase as
potentially dangerous to national security.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, Prisoners with
makeshift weapons battled guards trying to save a detainee pretending
to commit suicide at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The
coordinated attack left six prisoners injured.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 18, The US proposed that
the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament negotiate a new treaty banning
production of the nuclear material needed to make atomic bombs.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, A federal grand jury
in LA indicted Milberg Weiss alleging a 20-year conspiracy by the law
firm to funnel kickbacks to plaintiffs in dozens of securities
class-action cases.
(WSJ, 5/19/06, p.A1)
2006 May 18, In Florida Lionel
Tate (19) was sentenced to 30 years in prison for violating probation
by having a gun and robbing a pizza delivery man in 2005. The teenager
had been convicted of murdering a 6-year-old girl in 1999 in what his
attorneys initially claimed was a pro wrestling move.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, Burger King Holdings
began trading on the NYSE at $17. The IPO closed up 2.9% at $17.50.
(WSJ, 5/19/06, p.C3)
2006 May 18, Andrew Martinez, the
famed Naked Guy at UC Berkeley (1992), died of suicide in a Santa Clara
County Jail. In 2009 Santa Clara County agreed to pay $1 million to
settle a wrongful death suit.
(SFC, 5/19/09,
p.B4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Martinez)
2006 May 18, In western
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber rammed into two vehicles carrying
foreigners, killing an American working on a counter-narcotics project
and wounding two other people. A female Canadian soldier, army Captain
Nichola Goddard, was killed in Kandahar.
(AP, 5/18/06)(AFP, 5/19/06)(WSJ, 5/19/06, p.A1)
2006 May 18, In Australia
officials released a 2005 statement in which Australia's national wheat
exporter admitted paying money to Saddam Hussein's regime.
(AFP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, Australian PM John
Howard, during his first official visit to Ottawa, urged Canada to work
with his country on climate change, much to the horror of
environmentalists. Australia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
(AFP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, More than 600 Toronto
police officers swooped down in coordinated pre-dawn raids across the
city, arresting more than 78 people and seizing guns, drugs and large
amounts of cash.
(Reuters, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, A Canadian citizen
and two US navy sailors were handed lengthy prison sentences for
attempting to smuggle methamphetamine into Australia stashed in the
radar dome of a visiting warship.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, A smiling Alberto
Fujimori left jail after almost seven months when Chile's Supreme Court
granted the former Peruvian president bail as he fights extradition to
face corruption and human rights charges.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, China reported a ban
on Ao Mei Ding, a breast-enlarging liquid that was approved for general
use in 2000. Some 300,000 women were injected with the liquid and some
reported so much pain that they had their breasts removed.
(SFC, 5/19/06, p.A17)
2006 May 18, In northern China an
underground flood trapped as 56 miners in a coal mine in the Xinjing
Coal Mine in Shanxi province. 9 mine managers were soon detained after
apparently trying to conceal the scale of the disaster. The last of the
bodies were recovered on June 28.
(AP, 5/21/06)(AP, 5/22/06)(AFP, 6/28/06)
2006 May 18, Typhoon Chanchu
pummeled southern China, killing at least eight people and leaving 27
Vietnamese fishermen missing after their boats sank in Chinese waters.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, In Cairo, Egypt,
police beat pro-reform protesters in the streets and arrested more than
300 for the second week in a row as Egyptian courts dealt new setbacks
to activists seeking greater democracy.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, At least 18 people
were killed and a police chief narrowly escaped an assassination
attempt in attacks in Baghdad and Basra. Coalition forces killed three
insurgents and wounded 10 in fighting in and around the northern city
of Mosul. In Karbala gunmen killed a math teacher and former senior
Baath party member as he was leaving his house. In northern Kirkuk,
police reported that two people had been killed in a drive-by shooting.
They also said they found the beheaded body of woman labor activist
affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic party. Four US soldiers and
their Iraqi interpreter were killed when a roadside bomb struck their
vehicle northwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, In Indian Kashmir one
person was killed and 22 wounded in two grenade attacks by suspected
Islamic militants at busy markets.
(AFP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, In Kenya hundreds
attended the burial of Robert Wambugu, a black man shot by Thomas
Patrick Gilbert Cholmondeley, one of Kenya's wealthiest landowners. In
2005 Cholmondeley was charged with murder in the shooting a Massai game
warden investigating reports of illegal wildlife trading. The charge
was dropped for lack of evidence.
(AP, 5/18/06)(AFP, 5/7/09)
2006 May 18, A Karen group said
Myanmar troops, who have driven an estimated 15,000 Karen villagers
from their homes, are throwing more battalions into a widening
offensive against the ethnic minority.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, In Nepal lawmakers
moved to reduce dramatically the powers of the king, calling for him to
be stripped of his legal immunity, authority over the army and
exemption from paying taxes. The proclamation also declared Nepal a
secular state, ending its unique status as the world's last Hindu
kingdom.
(AP, 5/18/06)(AFP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 18, Thousands of police
loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas marched in a show
of force, a day after the Hamas-led government deployed 3,000 heavily
armed militants in a daring challenge.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, In South Africa a
one-day national strike organized by the main trade union movement to
protest poverty and unemployment hit production in the mining and
car-manufacturing industries and had a patchy response in other sectors.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, Sri Lanka asked donor
nations to nudge Tamil Tigers to the table. EU officials agreed in
principle to blacklist Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels as a "terrorist"
group, in a move the rebels said would only lead to war in the country.
(AFP, 5/18/06)(AFP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 18, Swiss astronomers
reported the discovery of a 3-planet system circling the star HD69830
in the constellation Puppis.
(SFC, 5/18/06, p.A6)
2006 May 19, Sony Corp.’s film
“The Da Vinci Code,” opened. It was directed by Ron Howard and based on
Dan Brown’s best-selling 2003 novel. The weekend global debut produced
$224 million, Hollywood’s 2nd highest behind “Star Wars: Episode III,”
which took in $253 million.
(WSJ, 5/22/06, p.B4)
2006 May 19, The UN panel that
monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said the
United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror. The
report by the Committee Against Torture came as the US military
disclosed that prisoners wielding improvised weapons had clashed with
guards trying to save a detainee who was pretending to commit suicide.
(AP, 5/19/06)(AP, 5/19/07)
2006 May 19, In Detroit 12 people
died over the last 2 days from an overdose of a drug called fentanyl
that was considered 80 times more powerful than morphine. Some fentanyl
was being mixed with heroine. Officials reported over 100 confirmed
overdose cases from the drug since last fall.
(SSFC, 5/27/06, p.A21)
2006 May 19, The NRA opened its
annual convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wayne LaPierre, executive
VP, signed copies of his new book: “the Global War on Your Guns: Inside
the UN Plan to destroy the Bill of Rights.”
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.28)
2006 May 19, Freddie Garrity (69),
lead singer of the 1960s British pop band Freddie and the Dreamers,
died in Wales.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2006 May 19, Gunbattles in Helmand
province killed at least 6 militants and one Afghan soldier. A US
soldier was killed in Uruzgan province.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 19, Roadside bombs and
other attacks killed 10 Iraqis and wounded 26 people, including a US
soldier riding through Baghdad in a minesweeper.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, In Morocco the prime
ministers of Morocco and Pakistan expressed hopes for closer bilateral
ties, especially economically, after inking several agreements during a
visit by Pakistan's Shaukat Aziz.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, Nepal's new
government declared a public holiday after parliament passed a
proclamation stripping King Gyanendra of his powers and thousands of
people staged a celebration rally.
(AFP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, Nigeria sold to a
state-owned Chinese group licenses to explore four oil blocks,
underlining Beijing's increasing drive for energy resources. In
exchange for the drilling rights, China agreed to invest two billion
dollars in northern Nigeria's Kaduna refinery. The Movement for the
Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), rejected the claim and described
the allocation as a "bribe".
(AFP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, A gun battle erupted
between the new Hamas security force and rival Fatah forces in Gaza
City, police officials said. Two police officers were wounded.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, Officials said Russia
stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in international AIDS
funding because the World Bank has reclassified it as an upper
middle-income country.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, In South Africa
Noziphu Bhengu (32), a victim of AIDS and quackery, died.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.89)
2006 May 19, In Sudan's Darfur
region dozens were killed in a major attack by government-backed
militias on Shearia town, the latest in a wave of raids since a peace
deal was signed earlier this month.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 19, In southern Turkey a
truck carrying illegal immigrants from Afghanistan and Bangladesh
crashed into a parked transport truck, killing at least 40 people.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, Ukraine cultural
figures and celebrities criticized efforts to grant the Russian
language special status, calling it an act of war against the Ukrainian
language. Council officials said their decision is based on a European
charter, which was ratified by the Ukrainian parliament in 2003, that
protects regional and minority languages.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, The Vatican said it
had asked Rev. Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the conservative
order Legionaries of Christ (1941), to renounce celebrating public
Masses and live a life of "prayer and repentance" following its
investigation into allegations he sexually abused seminarians.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 19, In Vietnam 5 people
convicted of heroin dealing were executed by firing squad. About 100
people were executed in Vietnam each year for drug-related offenses.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 19, An official said at
least 150 Vietnamese fishermen were missing at sea and another 28 were
found dead after getting caught in Typhoon Chanchu.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 20, Federal agents
searched the Capitol Hill office of Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana
as part of a bribery investigation.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2006 May 20, In Maryland Barbaro,
winner of the Kentucky Derby, fractured an ankle at the start of the
Preakness; Bernardini won the race. Barbaro was euthanized Jan 29,
2007, due to medical complications.
(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.A1)(AP, 1/29/07)
2006 May 20, New Orleans Voters
re-elected Mayor Ray Nagin, whose blunt style endeared him to some but
outraged others after Hurricane Katrina, giving him four more years to
oversee one of the largest rebuilding projects in U.S. history.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 20, Barry Bonds tied Babe
Ruth for second place on the career list with his 714th home run.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2006 May 20, An explosion in the
Darby Mine No. 1 coal mine in Harlan County, eastern Kentucky, killed
five miners while one other miner was able to get out alive.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, In southern
Afghanistan one French and 16 Afghan soldiers were killed and about 40
other troops were wounded in two firefights as rebels ambushed two
Afghan army convoys and US forces. At least 9 Taliban militants were
killed in the battle in Sangin district. 2 French special forces troops
were killed in neighboring Kandahar province.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 20, Australian Aborigines
rejected calls for military peacekeepers to protect indigenous women
and children from violence, as a new report revealed high levels of
sexual abuse of young indigenous males.
(AFP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, In Brazil Sao Paulo's
government refused to release the names of 109 people killed by police
during a week of gangland violence, despite increased pressure from
activists who said public confidence in law enforcement had been shaken.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 20, China held a
ceremonial pouring of a final slab of cement for its Three Gorges Dam
in Hubei province. The 600-foot dam cost at least $22 billion.
(SFC, 5/18/06, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/29/07, p.A12)
2006 May 20, President Hosni
Mubarak opened the World Economic Forum in a booming Red Sea resort
with a surprisingly tough speech that signaled deepening strains in the
once-ironclad links with Egypt's American allies and benefactors. PM
Ahmed Nazif said the Egyptian government is not in a hurry to change
the country's political system.
(Reuters, 5/20/06)(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, Lordi, a Finnish
metal band with monster masks and apocalyptic lyrics, won the
Eurovision contest in Greece.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 20, India announced a one
billion dollar package to revive its tea industry blighted by
plummeting prices and a downturn in exports.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, Iraq's parliament
approved a national unity government, achieving a goal Washington hopes
will reduce violence so U.S. forces can eventually go home. But as the
legislators met, a series of attacks killed at least 27 people and
wounded dozens.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, Irish police removed
Afghan hunger-strikers from a Dublin cathedral, where some 40
protesters gathered on May 15 demanding asylum and warning they would
kill themselves if officers came near.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 20, Chanchu, the most
powerful storm to strike the South China Sea this early in the typhoon
season, killed nearly 90 people in Asia over the past week. It was now
weakened to a tropical storm and hovering off southern Japan. 198
Vietnamese fishermen remained missing.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, Lithuanian
police arrested Vidmantas Sungaila (41) for driving his truck down the
center of a two-lane highway 60 miles from Vilnius. Sungaila (41)
registered 7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood repeatedly on
different devices. Medical experts say anything above 3.5 grams per
liter of alcohol in the blood is lethal for most people. Lithuania has
one of the worst road safety records in the EU. Last year 760 people
died in traffic accidents in this country of 3.5 million residents.
Most were alcohol-related.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 20, A bomb blast
seriously wounded Tareq Abu Rajab, the Palestinian intelligence chief,
at his headquarters in what security officials called an assassination
attempt against a key ally of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. One
bodyguard was killed.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, In Gaza City an
Israeli missile killed Mohammed Dadouh, the top military commander of
the militant group Islamic Jihad. A 2nd missile killed civilians: 3
generations of the Amen family, a grandmother, mother and son were
killed, and a 4-year-old daughter and uncle were paralyzed. The Israeli
Defense Ministry later decided to pay the Amen family’s medical
expenses as "special humanitarian treatment."
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 May 20, South Korean media
reported that 4 North Koreans had overpowered a security guard and
scaled the wall of a US consulate in China in hopes of gaining asylum
from their impoverished, communist country.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 20, A man wielding a box
cutter attacked Park Geun-hye (54), the leader of South Korea's main
opposition party, slashing her face during a campaign rally. Park's
mother, Yook Young-soo, was fatally shot in 1974. Five years later,
Park's father was assassinated by the then-chief of the state
intelligence agency.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, US Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales said the government has the legal authority to
prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A2)
2006 May 21, In Louisiana a
shooting spree at The Ministry of Jesus Christ church in Baton Rouge
left 4 people dead. Anthony Bell (25) then kidnapped his wife and
killed her. He was charged with murder in the deaths of his wife and
her grandparents, great aunt and a cousin.
(AP, 5/22/06)(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A3)
2006 May 21, In Oregon demolition
crews destroyed the 499-foot cooling tower of the Trojan Nuclear Power
Plant. Demolition of the containment dome was scheduled in 2008.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A2)
2006 May 21, In SF some 62,000
runners participated in the annual Bay to Breakers race. Gilbert Okari
(27) of Kenya won in 34 minutes and 20 seconds. Among the women
Ukrainian Tetyana Hladyr won in 39:09. Mayor Newsom finished the 7.46
miles in 59:04.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A1)
2006 May 21, Katherine Dunham
(96), a pioneering dancer, author and civil rights activist, died in
New York.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2006 May 21, Grand Ole Opry legend
Billy Walker (77) died in a traffic accident along an Alabama
interstate highway.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2006 May 21, In Afghanistan a car
bomb exploded on a busy road in Kabul, killing the driver of the car
and two civilians.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Greek Cypriots voted
to elect a new parliament on this divided island, their first vote
since rejecting a UN reunification plan. Voters put their weight behind
parties in President Tassos Papadopoulos' governing coalition, a result
likely to be seen as an endorsement of his rejection of a UN plan to
reunify this war-divided island.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, In Egypt global
business and political leaders focused on dialogue, democracy and
development in the Middle East. 3 major players, Iran, Hamas and Syria,
were absent.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Iraq's new PM Nouri
al-Maliki promised to use "maximum force" if necessary to end the
brutal insurgent and sectarian violence racking his country. A suicide
bomber killed at least 13 people and injured 17 when he blew himself up
in a downtown Baghdad restaurant frequented by police. The attack came
as PM Nouri al-Maliki pledged to soon fill vacancies in his two key
security ministries. Bombs and killings across Iraq left a total of 30
people dead.
(AP, 5/21/06)(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A6)(AP, 5/21/07)
2006 May 21, The Israeli Cabinet
approved the transfer of $11 million worth of medicine and health
supplies to the Palestinians to help ease the deteriorating
humanitarian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Officials said
that Israel has approved plans to expand four Jewish settlements in the
West Bank, a practice the United States has opposed in the past.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Local authorities
said boats carrying more than 400 migrants have been intercepted off
Lampedusa over the past 48 hours, overwhelming the tiny island south of
Sicily.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Islamic militants
dressed as policemen hurled grenades and shot into a rally by the
ruling Congress party in India's portion of Kashmir, killing at least 7
people and wounding 22 others. Two attackers were killed.
(AFP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Kuwait's ruler
dissolved parliament and called early elections amid a dispute between
the government and lawmakers over electoral reform.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, A Kuwait criminal
court acquitted five former Guantanamo detainees of charges that they
collected money for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Abdullah Salih
al-Ajmi (29), released from Guantanamo in 2005, took part in a suicide
bomb attack in Mosul in April, 2008.
(AP, 5/21/06)(SFC, 5/8/08, p.A8)
2006 May 21, In Liberia tens of
thousands of children marched against hunger, adding their voices to a
global event to tackle food shortages that many in the war-battered
west African nation have felt firsthand.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Montenegro voted by a
slim margin to secede from Serbia and form a separate nation, erasing
the last vestiges of the former Yugoslavia.
(Econ, 3/4/06, p.47)(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 21, In Nigeria rock star
and activist Bono told African finance ministers that the recent
goodwill of wealthy industrialized countries toward Africa could
dissipate unless the continent tackles corruption.
(Reuters, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Pakistan and Iran
officials met again in Islamabad to discuss a proposed 1,735-mile
pipeline that would deliver Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, In Sri Lanka 2
soldiers were killed and two others wounded in two separate Claymore
mine attacks in the northeastern Trincomalee district and the northern
district of Vavuniya. Figures maintained by the Scandinavian truce
monitoring mission showed that 510 people were killed in Sri Lanka's
embattled regions since December. Suspected rebels attacked the offices
of three international aid groups in what appeared to be their first
assault on foreigners. Tamil separatists denied the charge.
(AFP, 5/21/06)(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 22, The US Supreme Court
ruled unanimously that police without a warrant can enter a home to
break up a fight, overturning 3 Utah court findings.
(WSJ, 5/23/06, p.A1)
2006 May 22, The Department of
Veterans Affairs said personal data, including Social Security numbers
of 26.5 million US veterans, was stolen from a VA employee after he
took the information home without authorization.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2006 May 22, AP reported that the
Wyoming Department of Family Services has funneled tens of thousands of
dollars to a grant program administered by a private religious
corporation that has funded churches, ministries and religiously
oriented anti-abortion centers.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, Braxton Bilbrey (7)
of Arizona swam from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco in 47 minutes.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2006 May 22, The NYSE under John
Thain made a $10.2 billion cash and stock bid for Euronext NV, a
European exchange operator, in an attempt to become the world’s first
transatlantic stock trading center. Euronext had formed earlier as a
combination of the Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels exchanges. The merged
entity began trading April 4, 2007.
(SFC, 5/23/06, p.C3)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.66)(WSJ,
4/5/07, p.C12)
2006 May 22, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
announced it was withdrawing from the highly competitive South Korean
retail market, agreeing to sell its 16 stores to the country's top
discount chain.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, Seagate Technology, a
disk-drive manufacturer, completed its acquisition of Maxtor Corp. and
said it will fire some 6,000 Maxtor employees.
(SFC, 5/23/06, p.C1)
2006 May 22, A US-led coalition
said nighttime airstrike against Taliban rebels in a southern Afghan
village killed up to 80 suspected militants. The local governor said 16
civilians were killed and 16 wounded in Azizi in Kandahar province.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, In Bangladesh textile
workers demanding better pay and one day off per week went on a rampage
at Savar, an industrial town near Dhaka, setting fire to two factories
and several buses.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, An explosion in an
illegal Chinese coal mine in the village of Siyuangou in Henan province
killed eight miners and left an undetermined number missing.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 22, Colombia's Interior
Minister Sabas Pretelt said the peace process with far-right
paramilitary gunmen was back on track, following days of tensions
caused by a court ruling that tossed out part of a peace pact. In
Jamundi 10 police officers in a US-trained unit were ambushed and
killed in a ferocious attack by a platoon of 28 soldiers who unleashed
a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven grenades. The attack stunned
Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe. An 11th
man, an informant who led the police squad to the scene promising they
would find a large stash of cocaine, was also found dead. When
investigators removed his ski mask, they found a bullet hole in his
head. In 2008 a judge gave a 54-year prison term to a cashiered army
lieutenant colonel who was convicted of ordering the massacre of the
anti-drug police. He also slapped near-maximum sentences of 52 years on
the unit's second-in-command, and 50 years each on the other 13
soldiers involved. Senior police believed former Lt. Col. Byron
Carvajal and his troops had been protecting a drug lord.
(AP, 5/22/06)(AP, 6/17/06)(AP, 5/8/08)
2006 May 22, Haiti’s President
Rene Preval said he has nominated former Cabinet member and close ally
Jacques Edouard Alexis as prime minister. UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan appointed Edmond Mulet (b.1951) of Guatemala as his Special
Representative in Haiti and Head of the UN Stabilization Mission in
Haiti (MINUSTAH). Mr. Mulet succeeded Júan Gabriel Valdés
of Chile.
(AP,
5/22/06)(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sga1007.doc.htm)
2006 May 22, India’s main market
index, the Sensex, set a record for intra-day volatility. Share prices
had fallen by nearly 20% within 2 weeks. The recent drop was seen as a
correction following a 3-year boom.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.70)
2006 May 22, In Iraq car bombs and
drive-by shootings killed 17 people, including seven police officers,
hours before Iraq's parliament met for its first session after swearing
in a new government.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, Fed up with legal
stonewalling and political posturing, Lithuania's government announced
that it would submit a bill on nationalizing Mazeikiu Nafta, the
country's largest corporation and the only oil refinery in the Baltics.
If approved, the unprecedented move would ostensibly end a slew of
legal battles and intense competition surrounding the enterprise, while
at the same time possibly opening a Pandora's box of litigation against
the Lithuanian government.
(http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/15498/)
2006 May 22, A court found the
former chief executive and chief financial officer of Dutch retailer
Royal Ahold NV guilty of fraud, but ruled the pair will not have to
serve prison time.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, AP Television News
opened a full-time office in North Korea, becoming the first Western
news organization to provide regular coverage of that nation.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, Hamas militiamen and
Palestinian police traded heavy fire near Gaza City's parliament
building, killing the driver of the Jordanian ambassador and wounding
six people in the worst internal fighting in recent weeks.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 22, Dr. Lee Jong-wook
(61) died following surgery for a blood clot on the brain. He
spearheaded the World Health Organization's successive battles against
SARS and bird flu and was the first South Korean to head a UN agency.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 23, Pres. Bush met with
Israel’s OM Olmert and urged him to reach out to Abbas as an
alternative to dealing with Hamas.
(WSJ, 5/24/06, p.A1)
2006 May 23, A US federal agency
charged that employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae manipulated
accounting so that executives could collect millions in bonuses as
senior management deceived investors and stonewalled regulators.
Federal regulators expected a $400 million settlement.
(AP, 5/23/06)(SFC, 5/24/06, p.C1)
2006 May 23, In a recording posted
on the Internet, a voice purported to be that of Osama bin Laden said
neither Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the US for the
Sept. 11 attacks, nor anyone held at Guantanamo had anything to do with
the al-Qaida operation.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2006 May 23, ABC appointed Charles
Gibson to replace Elizabeth Vargas as anchor of its "World News
Tonight" evening newscast.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2006 May 23, In California the
Hercules City Council voted unanimously to use eminent domain to
prevent Wal-Mart from building a bog box store on a 17-acre lot near
the city’s waterfront on the SF Bay.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.B1)
2006 May 23, Washington Mutual
Inc., the nation's largest savings and loan, notified 1,400 workers in
Washington and Florida that they will lose their jobs as part of the
company's cost-saving strategy.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 23, MIT unveiled its
first working prototype of its $100 laptop designed for the Third World
under an initiative named “One Laptop Per Child.”
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.C3)
2006 May 23, Lloyd Bentsen
(b.1921), former Texas senator, died at his home in Houston. In 1988
Michael Dukakis picked him as his vice-president candidate. In 1993 he
became Bill Clinton’s first treasury secretary.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.A2)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.84)
2006 May 23, In Afghanistan Pres.
Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation into US airstrikes on a village
that killed at least 16 civilians and asked to meet with the US
commander of forces. A land mine blew up under a vehicle carrying a
team of Afghan health workers, killing a doctor, two nurses and their
driver.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Bangladesh angry
garment workers set fire to seven textile factories in and around the
capital after news that an employee shot in the back during recent
protests over better pay and working conditions had died.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Congo arrested a
group of foreign security guards on suspicion of plotting a coup ahead
of national elections. Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba said there
were three Americans, 10 Nigerians and 12 South Africans among the
group of 32 taken into custody. Mbemba said all the men had received
visits from their respective ambassadors.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 23, Fighting between
disgruntled former soldiers and the military left at least two people
dead in East Timor, as Australia and New Zealand offered to provide
troops to the tiny nation to help restore calm.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met the Shanghai bishop from the Chinese Catholic church
on the final day of a visit in which rights issues took center stage
alongside trade.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Warplanes from Greece
and Turkey collided over the Aegean Sea island of Karpathos as they
shadowed each other. Officials said the Turkish pilot was rescued
unhurt, and a search was launched for the Greek pilot.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Iran’s government
closed one of the country's top three newspapers, detaining its editor
and cartoonist for publishing a caricature that caused members of
Iran's Azeri minority to riot in protest.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, A bomb went off in a
motorcycle parked in the courtyard of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad,
killing 11 people and wounding at least nine, the deadliest of the
attacks across Iraq that claimed 40 lives. A US soldier died when his
patrol was attacked by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades
south of Balad.
(AP, 5/23/06)(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 23, Ibrahim Hamed (41), a
top Hamas military commander, surrendered in Ramallah after Israeli
troops surrounded his hideout and threatened to demolish it with him
inside. He was linked by Israel to attacks that killed 78 people,
including five Americans.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Italy's new deputy
economics minister called the nation's economic situation "a disaster,"
saying the deficit in 2006 may exceed 4.5 percent of gross domestic
product.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Ziad Khalaf Raja
al-Karbouly, an Iraqi government contractor, confessed on Jordanian
television to kidnapping and killing on the orders of al-Qaida in Iraq
before he was lured to Jordan and arrested.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Mexico’s Pres. Fox
began a five-day trip to the US in Utah before moving on to Washington
state and California. Immigration was the major focus of Fox's trip as
the US Senate considered legislation to strengthen border security
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Mexico 3 men were
shot to death in two different attacks in the border city of Nuevo
Laredo, bringing to at least 115 the number of people slain by violence
this year.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 23, The Dutch parliament
approved new anti-terrorism measures that make it easier to arrest
suspects without strong evidence and hold them longer without charge.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Pakistani officials
said at least 7 people have died and thousands of others have fallen
sick after drinking contaminated water in Faisalabad, a city famous for
its textile mills. The outbreak of gastroenteritis began May 14. The
last two fatalities happened May 21.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Serbia's president
said he recognized the results of the independence vote in Montenegro
that will separate the tiny Adriatic republic from its union with
Serbia.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, A high-level UN
delegation arrived in Sudan to press a reluctant government to accept a
large force of U.N. peacekeepers in the strife-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Thailand PM
Thaksin Shinawatra resumed his duties as challenges to his hold on
power mounted even after a self-imposed leave of absence for seven
weeks.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In northern Thailand
flash floods left thousands of people stranded on rooftops and trapped
inside trains. 9 people were reported killed.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 24, House Republican and
Democratic leaders jointly demanded the FBI return documents taken in a
Capitol Hill raid as part of a bribery investigation of Rep. William
Jefferson of Louisiana.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2006 May 24, In Alabama Regions
Financial Corp. and rival AmSouth Bancorp struck a $10 billion deal to
merge.
(WSJ, 5/25/06, p.A1)
2006 May 24, Taylor Hicks was
named the new "American Idol" over runner-up Katharine McPhee.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2006 May 24, The film “An
Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary on global warming, opened. The Davis
Guggenheim film featured Al Gore.
(WSJ, 5/26/06, p.W4)
2006 May 24, Vonage Holdings, an
Internet-based phone company, began trading on the NYSE at $17 per
share and closed at $14.85.
(SFC, 5/25/06, p.C1)
2006 May 24, It was reported that
Google will shut down 6 sites on its Orkut service in Brazil in
response pressure from Brazilian law enforcement.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.C3)
2006 May 24, Pogo (48), one of the
oldest gorillas in the world, died at the SF Zoo.
(SFC, 5/25/06, p.B1)
2006 May 24, In Afghanistan
clashes left at least 24 militants and 5 Afghan soldiers dead. 13
insurgents and two police died in a battle in southern Helmand
province's Sangin district.
(WSJ, 5/25/06, p.A1)(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 24, The African Union
accepted a NATO offer to extend its assistance in Sudan's violent
Darfur region, stressing its presence there would remain small.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika appointed Abdelaziz Belkhadem as the country's
prime minister.
(AFP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, In northern Benin a
tanker truck overturned and then exploded when people with lanterns
began siphoning gasoline. At least 35 people were killed.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, In England 10 people
were arrested in a sweep targeting support for terrorism outside
Britain. Police served warrants at a number of addresses before dawn in
an operation involving about 500 officers.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, The Bank of Canada
raised its key overnight interest rate by a quarter percentage point to
4.25 percent, as expected, and signaled that it would not hike rates
further at least for now.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, In Chile Paul
Schaefer (84), the leader of now-dismantled Colonia Dignidad, was
convicted of sexually abusing 25 children and sentenced to 20 years in
jail. The colony was founded by German immigrants in southern Chile in
the early 1960s.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, China's government on
raised state-set gasoline and diesel prices by about 10 percent in
response to soaring world oil prices.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 24, Election results
indicated that Dominican President Leonel Fernandez's party won the
recent legislative elections, which should enable him to carry out
economic reforms.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, Dubai hosted the
Middle East's first major international art auction.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, The EU, the US,
Japan, China, Russia and others initialed a $12.8 billion agreement in
Belgium to build an experimental fusion project they hope will lead to
a cheaper, safer, cleaner and endless source of energy. The seven-party
consortium, which also includes India and South Korea, agreed last year
to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER,
in Cadarache, in the southern French region of Provence.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, International
peacekeepers and troops from Australia and New Zealand were headed to
East Timor to help restore order after gunbattles between disgruntled
ex-soldiers and the military killed two people and wounded nine.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Stone-throwing
Iranian students fought police and Islamic vigilantes on in protest
against restrictions imposed by the government of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Iraq announced the
arrest in Lebanon of Bashar Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a nephew
of Saddam Hussein, for crimes allegedly committed after the fall of
Saddam's regime. Drive-by shootings killed 12 people, including a
provincial official in northern Iraq and two of his bodyguards.
Authorities found the corpses of nine people who apparently had been
kidnapped and tortured.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Thomas Patrick
Gilbert Cholmondeley (38), a descendant of Kenya's first white
settlers, was charged with murder in the shooting of Robert Njoya
Wambugu (37), who was shot in the back and died en route to a hospital.
Cholmondeley’s attorney said the victim unleashed several dogs on
Cholmondeley after the man was caught poaching an impala. In 2009
Cholmondeley (40) was convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to 8
months in prison. He was released on Oct 23.
(AP, 5/24/06)(AP, 5/14/09)(AP, 10/23/09)
2006 May 24, North Korea abruptly
canceled groundbreaking test runs of trains across its highly guarded
border with South Korea, citing an atmosphere of confrontation.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Fierce gunbattles
broke out between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the heart of the
West Bank city of Ramallah, killing two Palestinians and wounding 30. A
Gaza security chief loyal to the Palestinian president was killed when
his car blew up, the second attack on a top commander in less than a
week.
(AP, 5/24/06)(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, Philippine officials
said the US States and the Philippines have forged a security
arrangement covering threats such as terrorism, piracy, natural
disasters and outbreaks of disease. The initiative was launched last
year and diplomatic notes for carrying out the arrangement were
exchanged in April.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Russian prosecutors
said St. Petersburg police have detained eight members of an extremist
group suspected in racist murders, including the shooting of a
Senegalese student outside a nightclub.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, In Sri Lanka 3
security personnel died in a mine blast as a Norwegian peace envoy
arrived to salvage a collapsing ceasefire.
(AFP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, A huge fire engulfed
the cargo section of Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport,
temporarily disrupting air traffic and causing thousands to flee nearby
terminals.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, President Hugo Chavez
said that Venezuela will buy Russian jets because of a dispute over
parts for US-made aircraft, launching yet another verbal assault on
Pres. Bush.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 25, President Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the two politicians most responsible
for beginning a war now highly unpopular with both their publics,
acknowledged sour notes during a news conference at the White House.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 25, In Texas a jury found
former Enron chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling guilty of fraud
and conspiracy in the collapse of the energy giant. Mr. Lay died on
July 25 and in October a judge vacated the conviction; Skilling was
sentenced to 24 years in prison.
(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)(AP, 5/26/07)
2006 May 25, A major power outage
stranded thousands of rush-hour commuters between New York and
Washington, stopping trains inside sweltering tunnels and forcing many
passengers to get out and walk.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, In the biggest IPO of
the year, MasterCard Inc. (MA) sold shares for 46% of its equity. The
IPO at $39 closed at $46.
(AP, 5/25/06)(WSJ, 5/26/06, p.C3)(Econ, 5/27/06,
p.72)
2006 May 25, Researchers confirmed
that the human AIDS virus originated in a corner of Cameroon in wild
chimpanzees. The first known human to be infected with HIV was a man
from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1959.
(SFC, 5/26/06, p.A2)(WSJ, 5/26/06, p.A1)
2006 May 25, PM John Howard
increased Australia’s contingent to Timor-Leste to some 1,300 troops.
500 Malaysians and troops from New Zealand and Portugal were also
deployed.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.15)
2006 May 25, In Belarus the
Justice Ministry said it had asked a court to close down one of the
country's leading human rights groups, the Belarusian Helsinki
Committee.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, The British
government unveiled a major overhaul of the state pensions system,
revealing that it will increase the retirement age and link benefits to
earnings to avert a looming funding crisis as people live longer and
have fewer children.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, China angrily
rejected a US Defense Department report that says Beijing is a
potential military threat, insisting that its multibillion-dollar
buildup is defensive.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, In East Timor fierce
gunbattles raged in Dili as international troops started arriving in
the tiny nation to help quell a rebellion by disgruntled ex-soldiers.
Soldiers fired on unarmed police killing 10 and wounding 27. At least
10 people died in other attacks.
(AP, 5/25/06)(SFC, 5/26/06, p.A15)(Econ, 6/3/06,
p.38)
2006 May 25, About 300 pro-reform
judges staged a sit-in outside a downtown Cairo courthouse to demand
the independence of Egypt's judiciary as thousands of riot police
watched.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, India and Japan
pledged to step up military cooperation, as Tokyo tries to move closer
to the South Asian nation which is seeking to modernize its armed
forces.
(AFP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, Gunmen wounded an
Iraqi general in southeast Baghdad and a blast killed three people in
the heart of the capital.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, Desmond Dekker
(b.1941), Jamaican singer, died. He brought the sound of Jamaican ska
music to the world with songs such as "Israelites" (1968).
(AP, 5/26/06)(SFC, 5/27/06, p.B5)
2006 May 25, In Kashmir PM
Manmohan Singh said his country was "committed" to living in harmony
with neighboring rival Pakistan and to resolving the issue of Kashmir
with a lasting peace treaty. As he left militants killed four people, a
man, two women and a child, in an explosion that blew up a bus carrying
Indian tourists.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, A New York judge
cleared the way for bankrupt oil giant Yukos to sell a controlling
stake in Lithuanian oil refinery Mazeikiu Nafta.
(http://tinyurl.com/mrma5)
2006 May 25, Mexican President
Vicente Fox addressed the California legislature. He praised a US
Senate which had just approved sweeping immigration reforms as a
"monumental step forward" in the relationship between his country and
the United States.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 25, A Nicaraguan appeals
court granted former President Arnoldo Aleman an injunction against
extradition, effectively blocking US and Panamanian efforts to try him
on money laundering charges.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, A gunfight between a
Palestinian security force and a Hamas militia killed one police
officer and wounded four others in the latest outbreak of internal
Palestinian fighting.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, Poland welcomed Pope
Benedict XVI with cheers and fluttering yellow and white Vatican flags
as the German-born pontiff started a four-day visit aimed at honoring
predecessor John Paul II and healing wounds from World War II.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, Russian President
Vladmir Putin and EU leaders met for a summit focused on EU concerns
about Russia's reliability as a key energy supplier.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, In Somalia renewed
fighting between Islamic militias and secular warlords killed at least
38 people in Mogadishu and sent thousands of frightened civilians
running from their homes.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, South Korea’s
Constitutional Court ruled that a law granting massage licenses only to
the visually impaired was discriminatory against others who wanted to
practice the trade.
(http://tinyurl.com/nreer)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.49)
2006 May 25, Sudan said it would
permit the UN to lay the groundwork for possible deployment of a
peacekeeping force in Darfur, but cautioned that the world body's role
would be smaller than some Security Council members want.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, The son in law of
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian was detained after hours of questioning
about his involvement in an alleged insider trading scandal which
rocked the island.
(AFP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 26, US Air Force General
Michael Hayden won confirmation to be the 20th CIA director in a 78-15
Senate vote.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2006 May 26, Gov. Schwarzenegger
signed legislation making California the 1st state in the country to
adopt comprehensive controls on fish farming.
(SFC, 5/27/06, p.B2)
2006 May 26, American
International Group Inc. said that one of its units had received
approval from local Chinese regulators to provide group insurance
there, as the world's largest insurer makes a push to boost its
business in the world's most populous nation.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Researchers reported
that a study involving 1200 marijuana users showed no increased
incidence of 3 cancers that were studied from smoking marijuana.
(SFC, 5/26/06, p.A2)
2006 May 26, Tiffany Marie Souers
(b.1986), a Junior Civil Engineering major at Clemson University, was
found dead in her apartment at The Reserve in Central, SC. In 2009
Jerry Buck Inman was sentenced to death for raping and strangling
Souers.
(www.clemsonwiki.com/wiki/Tiffany_Marie_Souers)(SFC,
4/23/09, p.A4)
2006 May 26, Cy Coben, American
song writer, died in California. His songs included “A Good Woman’s
Love” sung by Bill Monroe and other, and “Red Hot Women and Ice Cold
Beer” sing by New Riders of the Purple Sage in 1977.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.B8)
2006 May 26, A US-led coalition
strike on a militant training facility in Afghanistan's borderlands
with Pakistan killed five suspected extremists. Nearly a dozen people
were killed in fresh clashes between police and Taliban militants.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 26, In Belarus a monument
to Soviet secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky was unveiled in
Minsk, provoking protests from human rights defenders and opposition
politicians.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Bosnia's war crimes
court sentenced Bosnian Serb former officer Dragoje Paunovic to 20
years in prison for crimes against humanity during the country's
1992-95 war.
(Reuters, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, News Corp.'s
London-based newspaper The Times announced it will launch a US edition
next month as part of a push to make the paper an international brand.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, In Bulgaria lawmakers
overwhelmingly approved an agreement allowing US troops to use
Bulgarian military facilities.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Hundreds of foreign
troops struggled to keep East Timor from tipping into civil war amid
widening violence, including a mob attack that killed six relatives of
a government minister and set his house ablaze.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, The government of
Estonia banned rallies near a statue in Tallinn marking the Red Army's
victory over Nazi Germany, moving to ease recent tensions between some
ethnic Estonians and native Russian speakers.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Arcelor, Europe’s
biggest steel maker, unveiled a plan to merge with Severstal, a Russian
steelmaker. This was part of an effort to fend off a hostile bid by
India’s Mittal Steel.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.58)
2006 May 26, In Germany a
knife-wielding teenager went on a rampage and attacked pedestrians as
they left a celebration in Berlin, wounding 27 people. The attacker
(17) had mingled with crowds leaving a sound-and-light show
inaugurating Berlin's new central rail station in the heart of the
capital.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 26, In Iraq a powerful
bomb exploded in an outdoor market in a majority Shiite part of east
Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 30.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Italy said it will
pull 1,100 of its troops from Iraq in June, giving its first specific
numbers about the planned withdrawal.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, In Naples, Italy, the
body of a man was found in a manhole with a knife in his abdomen. He
was soon identified as Lewis Brooks Miskell (49), a Canadian diplomat
missing since March.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 26, In Lebanon security
officials said a car bomb killed Mahmoud Majzoub (41), a leader of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and his brother Nidal (39). Islamic Jihad
vowed retaliation. The Iran-backed militant group had persisted in
attacking Israel while other major factions adhered to a cease-fire.
Islamic Jihad is led by Ramadan Shallah, a Palestinian from Gaza who
now lives in exile in Syria. It considers the 1979 Iranian Revolution
to be the beginning of a new era for the Muslim world and wants to turn
all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza into an Islamic state. It rejects
compromise with Israel.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, The Hamas-led
government withdrew a controversial 3,000-member private militia from
the streets of Gaza, saying it wanted to reduce friction with the rival
Fatah movement.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, In Russia the only
known militant to survive the Beslan school siege was convicted in the
deaths of 331 people, many of them children, and sentenced to life in
prison.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, Yukos sold its 53.7%
stake in Mazeikiai to the Polish PKN Orlen oil refining company for
US$1.49 billion. Orlen signed the agreement in Amsterdam with the Yukos
company’s Netherlands-registered subsidiary, Yukos International, which
had all along held the legal title to that stake. The Lithuanian
government had exercised its right to authorize this sale-and-purchase
three days earlier.
(http://cms2000.isn.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=16079)
2006 May 26, A Moscow court upheld
a ban by city authorities on what would have been the Russian capital's
first gay and lesbian pride parade. Organizers said they were
considering flouting the prohibition. Russian police, militant Orthodox
Christians and neo-fascists broke up a first ever gay rights march in
Moscow, but the homosexuals claimed their short-lived protest as a
"great victory."
(AP, 5/27/06)(Reuters, 5/27/06)
2006 May 26, Las Vegas Sands
Corp., owner of The Venetian in Nevada, won a hotly-contested license
to build Singapore's first casino, which could be the world's costliest
casino resort project by the time it opens in 2009.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 26, In Sudan one African
Union soldier was killed and another critically wounded when heavily
armed men ambushed a patrol not far from their base in West Darfur.
(Reuters, 5/29/06)
2006 May 26, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez moved to expand his oil-rich country's influence in Bolivia
with a set of accords to secure Venezuela's role in the impoverished
Andean nation's recently nationalized energy industry.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 May 27, Simultaneous wine
tastings were held in London and Napa, Ca., to celebrate the 30th
anniversary of a Paris tasting in which California wines won over
French counterparts. In this session Cabernet Sauvignon wines from
California and Bordeaux, aged 30 years or more, were tasted. California
wines won the top 5 spots.
(SFC, 6/1/06, p.F1)
2006 May 27, Paul Gleason (67),
film star, died of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to
asbestos. His over 60 films included in "Trading Places" and "The
Breakfast Club."
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 27, Michael Riffaterre
(b.1924), literary theorist, died in Manhattan. His books included
“Semiotics of Poetry” (1978).
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.B5)
2006 May 27, Seven leading child
advocacy organizations said more than 2 million children under the age
of 15 are living with HIV, almost all in sub-Saharan Africa where there
is no access to treatment and death almost certain.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, It was reported that
Colombia could become a net importer of oil by 2010.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.34)
2006 May 27, Congo released a
group of South Africans, Nigerians and Americans arrested over what it
called a suspected coup plot, saying it did not have time to try them
itself before long-awaited national elections in July. In the volatile
northeast Ituri district a Nepalese peacekeeper was killed and seven
others were feared kidnapped by militiamen during a military operation.
2 peacekeepers were released on June 27. The remaining 5 were released
July 8.
(Reuters, 5/28/06)(AP, 5/29/06)(Reuters, 7/8/06)
2006 May 27, East Timor's capital
descended into chaos as rival gangs set houses on fire and attacked
each other with machetes and spears, defying international peacekeepers
patrolling in armed vehicles and combat helicopters. The prime minister
said a coup attempt was underway.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, In Ethiopia 3 blasts
in the town of Jijiga injured 42 people.
(Reuters, 5/29/06)
2006 May 27, The EU agreed to give
itself another year to sort out the impasse over its troubled
constitution and build confidence in the bloc's plans for further
expansion.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, Romeo Lucas Garcia
(81), former Guatemalan President (1978-1982), died in Venezuela. His
rule was marked by a bloody police raid on the Spanish Embassy.
(AP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 27, In central Indonesia
a 6.3 magnitude earthquake flattened homes and hotels on Java Island as
people slept, killing some 5,800 and injuring thousands more in the
nation's worst disaster since the 2004 tsunami.
(AP, 5/30/06)(SFC, 6/10/06, p.B8)
2006 May 27, A US Marine AH-1
Cobra helicopter crashed in an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq,
and two crew members were missing.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, In Kyrgyzstan
thousands of protesters demonstrated in the capital Bishkek to demand
that the government undertake promised constitutional reforms.
(AP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 27, A Myanmar government
official said Nobel Peace Prize-winning pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi will remain under house arrest for another year.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, Shiloh Nouvel
Jolie-Pitt, daughter of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, was born in
Namibia, where the family had traveled for privacy.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2006 May 27, The Hamas-led
government sent its private militia back into the streets of Gaza, a
day after withdrawing the force to help calm an increasingly bloody
standoff with forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, In Mogadishu,
Somalia, Islamic militiamen and rival secular fighters traded
machine-gun, rocket and mortar fire, killing at least eight and
wounding a dozen as residents fled on foot or in hired minivans.
(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 27, In South Africa 13
were killed on a highway after a pickup truck slammed into the back of
a minibus taxi which exploded into flames.
(Reuters, 5/28/06)
2006 May 27, Unemployment in
Turkmenistan was estimated at over 70%. It was exacerbated by public
sector layoffs and laws restricting job seekers to their home towns.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.40)
2006 May 28, In SF Barry Bonds hit
his 715th home run passing the Babe Ruth record of 714 and approaching
Hank Aaron’s 755 record.
(SFC, 5/28/06, p.A1)
2006 May 28, Sam Hornish Jr. won
the second-closest Indianapolis 500 ever.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2006 May 28, In SF tens of
thousands jammed the Mission District for the 28th annual Carnaval. 81
official units participated in the “Land of Childhood Dreams” parade.
(SFC, 5/28/06, p.B1)
2006 May 28, Afghanistan and Iran
pledged to crack down on drugs passing over their shared border as
Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Tehran. Officials also signed
seven agreements dealing with the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 28, Bangladesh increased
development spending by 21% to a record 3.8 billion dollars for the new
fiscal year to create more jobs and cut poverty ahead of general
elections.
(AFP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 28, The BBC reported that
at least 1,000 troops have "deserted" the armed forces since the US-led
war was launched in Iraq three years ago.
(AFP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 28, President Alvaro
Uribe won Colombia's presidential elections with 62% of the vote. The
turnout was 45% of those eligible. Uribe became the first incumbent to
win re-election in Colombia in more than a century, beating his nearest
rival by more than 40 percentage points with pledges to continue
fighting crime and reducing poverty.
(AP, 5/28/06)(AP, 5/29/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.34)
2006 May 28, In East Timor rival
gangs torched homes and battled each other with machetes in Dili,
scattering and regrouping as Australian troops in armored vehicles
rumbled toward the sound of gunfire.
(AP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 28, In France, the film
“The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” directed by Ken Loach, won the Palme
d’Or prize (Golden Palm) at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. The film
told the story of the Irish rebellion in the 1920s.
(SFC, 5/28/06, p.A2)
2006 May 28, Sheik Osama
al-Jadaan, a prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader, was assassinated in
Baghdad. He had provided fighters to help battle al-Qaida in western
Iraq.
(AP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 28, Lebanese guerrillas
fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel, wounding an Israeli
soldier at a military base. Israel destroyed most of the military
positions of Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas along its northern border.
Rocket and artillery exchanges killed two guerrillas in Lebanon and
wounded two Israeli soldiers, two Lebanese civilians and six militants.
(AP, 5/28/06)(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 28, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected militants shot dead tribal elder, Malik Takhti Khan,
in a North Waziristan town while he was shopping at a weekly open-air
market.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 28, Pope Benedict XVI
urged some 900,000 Poles at a giant mass to fight growing secularism by
spreading their Christian faith across Europe and the world. He visited
Auschwitz.
(AFP, 5/28/06)(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 28, Sri Lankan police
detained the drivers of 18 vehicles trying to smuggle explosives across
a de facto frontier post into the government-controlled part of the
Jaffna peninsula.
(AFP, 5/28/06)
2006 May 28, Turkey’s culture and
tourism minister said two pieces from the treasure of King Croesus that
were returned to Turkey from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
after a long legal battle have been stolen and replaced with fakes.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Pres. Bush in a
Memorial Day message said the US must continue the war on terror in the
names of those who have given their lives in the cause. He also signed
into a law a bill limiting protests at military funerals.
(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 29, The U.S. military
said the number of Guantanamo Bay detainees staging a hunger strike has
grown from three to 75.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Washington DC
Jordan's King Abdullah II met with President Bush and urged him to
pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Afghanistan 5
Canadian soldiers were hurt and up to six militants killed in a
gunbattle west of Kandahar, while US-led coalition aircraft bombed
Taliban militants meeting in remote Helmand province, reportedly
killing dozens.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, A deadly traffic
accident involving US troops left 5 people dead and sparked the worst
rioting in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban regime,
with hundreds of protesters looting shops and shouting "Death to
America!" Some 25 people were killed and 107 injured in the riots. The
unrest started after three US Humvee vehicles coming into the city from
the outskirts rammed into a rush-hour traffic jam, hitting several
civilian cars. On July 20 the US military said it was paying $112,000
in compensation to victims of the traffic accident involving an
American cargo truck.
(AP, 5/29/06)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.23)(AP, 7/21/06)
2006 May 29, A Belarus court
sentenced Sergei Lyashkevich, an opposition campaign official, to five
months in prison after convicting him of training and paying people to
riot. Lyashkevich had directed opposition candidate Alexander
Milinkevich's campaign office in Shchuchin.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Burundi's only
hold-out rebel group began talks with the government in an effort to
end the central African country's 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Canada hundreds of
thousands of frustrated commuters were forced to find alternate ways to
work as subway stations across Toronto were shut down and buses and
streetcars halted due to a labor dispute. Toronto transit workers were
ordered back to work, ending a wildcat strike that stranded some
700,000 commuters and filled the streets of Canada's biggest city with
extra cars, bicycles and pedestrians as commuters scrambled to get to
work.
(AP, 5/29/06)(Reuters, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, China and India
pledged to deepen military exchanges during a visit by Indian Defense
Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the latest sign of warming relations between
the neighbors and one-time foes.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, French Agriculture
Minister Dominique Bussereau ruled out changes to the EU's system of
farm subsidies, saying he would prefer that the Doha trade talks fail
instead.
(AFP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD), the US maker of computer chips, said it planned to
invest 2.5 billion dollars (1.96 billion euros) in expanding capacity
at its factory in Dresden, eastern Germany, over the next three years.
(AFP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, A group of prominent
Indians called for national talks between Maoist rebels and the
government, while also demanding an end to a controversial anti-rebel
campaign in the worst-affected state of Chhattisgarh.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Indonesia a
boiling mud flow began from a volcano in Sidoarjo, east Java. By 2007
it covered 1.6 square miles destroying 4 villages and 25 factories and
forced 16,000 people to leave their homes. The mud flow was triggered
by the drilling operations for gas of Lapindo Brantas, an energy
company whose major shareholder was the family-owned Bakrie Group.
Aburizal Bakrie, head of economics in Yudhoyono’s cabinet, called it a
natural disaster and tried to sell Lapindo to obscure offshore buyers.
The sale was blocked and Bakrie was moved to the post of coordinating
minister of public welfare. In Feb 2007 engineers began dropping large
cement balls into the crater in an attempt to stem the flow. In 2008
international scientists said they are almost certain that the mud
volcano was caused by faulty drilling of a gas exploration well.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A1)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.58)(AP,
6/10/08)
2006 May 29, In Iraq 8 bombs
killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens in the worst wave of
violence to hit Baghdad in days. A car bomb exploded in Baghdad,
killing two British members of a CBS News crew, a US soldier and an
Iraqi interpreter, and seriously injuring CBS correspondent Kimberly
Dozier. The Iraqi government captured Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir
al-Batawi, a key terror suspect who allegedly confessed to hundreds of
beheadings. Samir al-Batawi was arrested by a terrorist combat unit in
Baghdad.
(AP, 5/29/06)(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 29, Israel announced it
would fully participate in a NATO naval exercise for the first time,
bolstering defense ties with the Western military alliance in the face
of arch-foe Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In southwestern
Nigeria a truck hauling iron rods lost control and crashed into several
roadside buses as passengers were boarding, killing at least 30 people.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 29, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected Islamic militants fired at a car carrying Meherdil
Khan Shamankhel, a pro-government tribal elder, killing him and
wounding two other people in the vehicle.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 29, In Serbia an
explosion ripped through a chemical plant near Belgrade, killing at
least four people and injuring three. Police sealed off the Prva Iskra
chemical factory, which produces explosives as well as toxic
hydrofluoric acid, used as a component for household detergents.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger rebels agreed to more talks to shore up the implementation of a
collapsing ceasefire as the EU moved to ban them as a terrorist group.
(AFP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 30, Treasury Secretary
John Snow resigned, allowing President Bush to nominate Goldman Sachs
Chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr. (b.1946) as his replacement.
(AP, 5/30/06)(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)
2006 May 30, US Air Force Gen.
Michael Hayden was sworn in as CIA director.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 30, John Allen Muhammad
was convicted of 6 Maryland sniper killings. He was already condemned
to death in Virginia for his 2002 murder spree. On June 1 he was
sentenced to 6 consecutive life terms without parole.
(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A5)
2006 May 30, The FBI said it had
found no trace of Jimmy Hoffa after digging up a suburban Detroit horse
farm.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 30, The Pentagon said
that the Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency seems likely to hold
its strength the rest of the year, and some of its leaders are now
collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, Actor Robert
Sterling (88), who appeared in the ghostly 1950s comedy series
"Topper," died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 30, Afghanistan's
parliament approved a nonbinding motion calling on the government to
prosecute the US soldiers responsible for a deadly road crash that
sparked the worst riots in Kabul in years.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 30, A missionary group
said more than one-quarter of Brazil's isolated Indian tribes face
extinction unless the government defines their boundaries and gives
them control of their land.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, In Bulgaria more than
10,000 people protested in the streets of Sofia to demand changes in
the government's economic and social policy, which they blame for the
country's rising cost of living.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, A nationwide protest
by Chilean high school students demanding school reforms turned violent
as police struggling to contain hundreds of raucous marchers opened
fire with tear gas and water cannons. Some 600,000 pupils, backed by
university students, teachers and many parents, walked out of classes.
(AP, 5/30/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.35)
2006 May 30, In East Timor
machete-wielding mobs torched homes and ransacked buildings in Dili as
desperate residents scuffled over scarce food and the president said he
was taking over "sole responsibility" for the country's national
security.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, In Gambia Lamin Cham,
who works for the BBC's Africa service, was taken into custody by
authorities as part of a government crackdown on a US-based Web site,
Freedom Newspaper. Cham was released June 6. Authorities continued to
hold 2 other journalists.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 May 30, India's government
threatened to fire hundreds of government doctors striking to protest
an affirmative action plan for low-caste Hindus and said replacements
would prop up crippled medical services.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, Iran's foreign
minister said that Tehran is ready to restart negotiations with the
European Union on its nuclear program, but he ruled out direct talks
with the US.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, Iraq's prime minister
held meetings aimed at finding new defense and interior ministers. A
bomb hidden in a plastic bag detonated outside a bakery in east
Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10. Car bombs
targeting Shiite areas devastated a bustling outdoor market and an auto
dealership, part of a relentless onslaught that killed 54 people and
prompted the US to deploy more troops to combat insurgents in western
Iraq.
(AP, 5/30/06)(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 30, Israel launched its
first ground military operation inside the Gaza Strip since it pulled
out of the region nearly a year ago, killing three members of a
Palestinian rocket squad and a policeman in a fierce battle.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, In South Korea Daewoo
Group founder Kim Woo-Choong (69) was sentenced to 10 years in prison
for fraud and embezzlement relating to the collapse of the firm under
82 billion dollars of debt in one of the world's largest corporate
failures. Kim Woo-Choong had admitted to accounting fraud and
embezzlement worth over $30 million.
(AFP, 5/30/06)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.9)
2006 May 30, Emirati authorities
said Naji Nuaimi, an Emirati diplomat held hostage in Iraq since May
16, has been released without ransom.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 31, The US said it would
join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program
if Tehran first agreed to put challenged atomic activities on hold;
Iran dismissed the offer as "a propaganda move."
(AP, 5/31/07)
2006 May 31, Florida’s Gov. Jeb
Bush signed the Martin Lee Anderson Act, which replaced boot camps with
education based juvenile detention centers.
(Econ, 7/8/06, p.29)
2006 May 31, NBC's "Today" show
threw a going-away party for 15-year host Katie Couric, who left to
become anchor of "The CBS Evening News."
(AP, 5/31/07)
2006 May 31, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban fighters fired a grenade at a police vehicle in
southeastern Zabul province, killing the provincial deputy police chief
and wounding three officers. In Uruzgan province hundreds of suspected
Taliban fighters attacked the town of Chora and briefly occupied its
police headquarters after driving out security forces.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Smokers were required
to light up outside across much of eastern Canada, as one of North
America's most restrictive bans went into effect.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, The Canadian dollar
hit its strongest level in 28 years against the dollar, piercing
through a key chart level.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, China closed 201
Hebei clinics that aborted female fetuses and offered subsidies to
families without sons to curb widespread gender engineering.
(WSJ, 6/1/06, p.A1)
2006 May 31, In Chile police for a
second day used water cannons to scatter demonstrations by high school
students that turned violent when masked protesters started throwing
rocks near downtown Santiago. President Michelle Bachelet fired the
commander of the Santiago riot police, Col. Osvaldo Jara, in response
to the initial clashes.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, The UN Security
Council cut the number of peacekeepers deployed in Eritrea and Ethiopia
by at least one-third while extending the UN mission's mandate for
another four months.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, In France youths
torched a dozen cars and hurled stones at police in a second night of
violence in the troubled Paris suburbs, raising memories of rioting
that rocked the nation last year.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Greenpeace said
nuclear waste from a storage facility is seeping into groundwater in
the Champagne region of France and threatening vineyards that produce
the sparkling wine.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, In Indonesia a local
health official said preliminary tests have found that bird flu has
killed another person, as the country struggles to get a grip on a
spike in cases.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Two Iraqi women were
shot to death north of Baghdad after coalition forces fired on a
vehicle that failed to stop at an observation post. Iraqi police and
relatives said one of the women was about to give birth. Ali Jaafar
(25), a sportscaster for state-run al-Iraqiya TV, was gunned down in a
drive-by shooting near his home in southwestern Baghdad. A parked car
packed with explosives hit a police patrol in the northern city of
Mosul, killing at least five policemen and wounding 14. At least 25
Iraqis were killed across the country.
(AP, 5/31/06)(WSJ, 6/1/06, p.A1)
2006 May 31, A Dublin jury
convicted Rev. Daniel Doherty, a Roman Catholic priest, of raping a
13-year-old girl in 1985.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Kenya approved
legislation that included provisions to punish those found guilty of
child prostitution and sex tourism and trafficking. The new law aimed
at curbing increasing sex abuse drew protest for failing to criminalize
marital rape while penalizing false rape reports.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, Lithuania's
three-party government collapsed with the withdrawal of the Labor
Party, a key coalition partner being investigated on corruption
allegations. PM Algirdas Brazauskas announced the Baltic country's
government was resigning after an emergency meeting with his ministers.
(AP, 5/31/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.50)
2006 May 31, Malaysia’s PM
Abdullah Badawi announced a national 5-year plan. An elderly woman and
three children were feared dead following a landslide in Kuala Lumpur
that destroyed 43 homes.
(AFP, 5/31/06)(Econ, 6/17/06, p.50)
2006 May 31, Dutch pedophiles
registered a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for
sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child
pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Palestinian militants
fired homemade rockets at an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip, and
Israeli media reported that one landed near the home of Israel's
defense minister.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, In Somalia Islamic
militias and secular warlords resumed fighting for control of
Mogadishu, killing at least 13 people and wounding 11 after a five-day
lull.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, South Korea's main
opposition party won 11 of 16 key regional posts in local elections,
according to exit polls, riding to victory on nationwide sympathy for a
leader wounded in a knife assault and widespread disenchantment with
the government.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Taiwan's president
handed over day-to-day control of the island's government to the
premier in the wake of a series of scandals. Pres. Chen Shui-bian
pledged in a written statement night to give authority to Premier Su
Tseng-chang to control Taiwan's Cabinet. Police on May 24 arrested
Chen's son-in-law Chao Chien-min on suspicion he used insider
information to profit on the purchases of shares in partly state-owned
property company Taiwan Development Corp.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, The US and Vietnam
signed a trade pact that removes one of the last major hurdles in
Hanoi's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May, A series of top secret
US special operations were launched to locate, target, and kill key
individuals in extremist groups. The campaign may have been the
greatest factor in reducing violence in Iraq. This was revealed in Bob
Woodward’s 2008 book “The War Within: A Secret White House History,
2006-2008.”
(SFC, 9/15/08, p.B11)
2006 May, Joseph Guerriero began
publishing Success magazine in the US. The new Success targeted
entrepreneurs balancing their work and home life.
(www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/direct-mail/36493.html)
2006 May, Ernst & Young
reported that China’s stock of non-performing loans added up to $911
billion, over 5 times the government’s March estimate of $164 billion.
The People’s Bank of China called the report ridiculous and Ernst &
Young soon withdrew it.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.78)
2006 May, The tribal council of
the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota voted to ban all abortions and
to temporarily suspend Cecilia Fire Thunder for soliciting donations
for an abortion clinic without council approval.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.31)
2006 May, Austrian financial
institutions and the government stepped in to stem a run on BAWAG,
Austria’s 4th largest bank. Creditors alleged that BAWAG, owned by the
OGB trade union federation, was complicit in the October 2005
bankruptcy of Refco.
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.72)
2006 May, In Colombia brothers
Arley Vallejo Cardona and Yon Garcia Cardona disappeared in Medellin.
On July 31, 2009, a court sentenced 15 Colombian soldiers to as much as
30 years in prison for the slaying of the two brothers falsely
identified as guerrillas.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2006 May, Manvendra Singh Gohil,
an Indian prince, was disowned by his family after he publicly
announced he was gay. Homosexuality is outlawed in India by a
145-year-old law.
(Reuters, 7/7/06)
2006 May, Mongolia imposed a
windfall tax on profits from gold and copper extraction when prices
reach specified levels.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.62)
2006 May, In Nigeria 30 men
stormed the headquarters of the National Agency for the Prohibition of
Traffic in Persons in Abuja, destroying filing cabinets and boxes of
documents. The same month, an investigator was murdered.
(AP, 9/30/06)
2006 Jun 1, The US military said
more Guantanamo Bay detainees have joined a hunger strike, raising the
total to 89, and six of them were being force-fed.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 1, A contrite U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers took responsibility for the flooding of New Orleans
by Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2006 Jun 1, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger reluctantly reached an agreement with the federal
government to deploy 1,000 members of the California National Guard
along the US-Mexico border.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.B1)
2006 Jun 1, The Univ. of
California ceded control of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico to a consortium, the Los Alamos National Security, which
included, UC, Bechtel, Washington Group Int’l., and BWX Technologies.
(Econ, 6/17/06,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory)
2006 Jun 1, Texas Gov. Rick Perry
announced a plan to use night-vision Webcams along the border and let
Internet users serve as volunteer sentinels.
(http://tinyurl.com/k7z7a)(WSJ, 6/9/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 1, The NYSE under John
Thain agreed to acquire Paris-based Euronext NV, Europe’s 2nd largest
stock exchange, for $10 billion.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 1, Katharine Close, a
13-year-old New Jersey girl making her fifth straight appearance at the
Scripps National Spelling Bee, rattled off "ursprache" to claim the
title of America's best speller. For the first time in its 81-year
history, the final rounds of the spelling bee were broadcast live on
prime-time network TV.
(AP, 6/2/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.31)
2006 Jun 1, In Indiana 7
Covarrubias family members, the youngest just 5 years old, were shot to
death in their Indianapolis home. The next day police arrested suspect
James Stewart (30) without incident after a traffic stop. A second
suspect, Desmond Turner (28), turned himself in on June 3. Robbery was
the suspected motive.
(AP, 6/2-3/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.A11)
2006 Jun 1, In western Afghanistan
a suicide car bomb blew up near a convoy of Afghan and US-led coalition
troops, killing the attacker but hurting no one else.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In Vienna the US and 5
world powers agreed to offer Iran proposals that would bring it
significant benefits if it halts its drive to master nuclear power.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 1, Bolivian doctors
staged a 1-day strike to protest the presence of 600 Cuban physicians
providing free care as Pres. Morales cultivates links to Castro.
(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 1, East Timor President
Xanana Gusmao made an emotional plea for peace after weeks of violence,
as the rebel leader pressed him to oust the unpopular prime minister.
(AFP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, Jorma Ollila stepped
down as chief of Finland’s Nokia Corp. He was succeeded by Olli-Pekka
Kallasvuo. The new Nokia Nseries included the N73 camera-phone; the N91
phone, which doubled as an iPod-style music player; the N92, a mobile
TV; and the N93, a mobile video camera.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.64)
2006 Jun 1, The German parliament
overwhelmingly approved the government's plan to deploy German troops
to the Democratic Republic of Congo during its July election, despite
public skepticism about the mission.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, A German court jailed
Sabine Hilschenz (40) for 15 years for killing eight of her newborn
babies in the worst case of infanticide in the country's criminal
history. She had buried them in flower pots and a fish tank at her
parents’ home.
(AFP, 6/1/06)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.A3)
2006 Jun 1, In eastern India a
land mine thought to have been planted by communist rebels blew up a
police jeep, killing 12 officers from a paramilitary police force.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, The Iraqi government
decided to launch its own investigation into reports that US Marines
killed unarmed civilians last year. The top US general in Iraq ordered
American commanders to conduct ethical training on battlefield conduct.
In Iraq a bomb struck a group of construction workers seeking jobs in
central Baghdad, killing at least two and wounding 18. A mortar barrage
struck a number of houses in Baghdad's southern Dora district. A first
barrage of seven mortar rounds killed nine and wounded 40, while
another five rounds killed four and wounded 29. Gunmen opened fire on
Col. Ziyad Tariq, deputy-commander of the oil protection force in the
northern city of Kirkuk, killing him and a bodyguard and wounding
another bodyguard as they left a restaurant. Police set up roadblocks
around the oil-rich southern city of Basra as a monthlong state of
emergency declared by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went into effect.
(AP, 6/1/06)(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 1, In Indian Kashmir a
3-day siege left 8 Muslim rebels and a paramilitary soldier dead as
troops hunted down armed rebels in ongoing operations.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, Thousands of Shiite
Muslims enraged by a TV comedy that mocked the leader of Hezbollah took
to the streets of southern Beirut, burning car tires and blocking roads.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In a published
interview Monaco's Prince Albert II acknowledged he is the father of a
second illegitimate child, a 14-year-old girl living in California.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In southern Nigeria a
major oil spill forced Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to cut production by
50,000 barrels per day.
(AFP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In Pakistan officials
said sewage contamination in Faisalabad's water system has caused an
outbreak of gastroenteritis, sickening more than 19,000 people and
killing nine. In southwestern Pakistan police raided a militant hideout
and arrested Habib Ullah, a leader of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Sunni militant group, at a home in Quetta. He was the alleged
mastermind of sectarian attacks that killed more than 100 Shiite
Muslims in July, 2003, and March, 2004.
(AP, 6/1/06)(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 1, Several thousand
police officers fired into the air and smashed windows of the
Palestinian parliament building, raising fears of new unrest in Gaza
after the Hamas-led government said it still cannot pay most of its
workers.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, Chung Dong-young, the
leader of South Korea's ruling party, resigned one day after the
conservative opposition won 12 of 16 key regional posts in local
elections.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, Spain's Supreme Court
acquitted the only person convicted of involvement in the September 11
attacks in a trial last year of suspected Al Qaeda members. Imad Eddin
Barakat Yarkas, known as Abu Dahdah, had been convicted of conspiracy
to commit terrorist murder and sentenced to 27 years in jail. He will,
however, continue to serve a 12 year sentence for leading a terrorist
group.
(Reuters, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In Spain Rocio Jurado
(61), hailed as the country’s greatest singer, died of cancer. Her
recordings included 5 platinum and 30 gold records.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.B9)
2006 Jun 1, The US pledged
"tangible military cooperation" with embattled Sri Lanka, but warned
the government here against a return to war with Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AFP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, Swedish lawmakers
approved a law that makes it possible for the Scandinavian country to
imprison former Liberian President Charles Taylor if a UN-backed
tribunal convicts him of war crimes.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In western Turkey a
methane gas explosion ripped through a coal mine, killing 17 miners in
the village of Odakoy in western Balikesir province.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, The US government and
5 news organizations agreed to pay $1.65 million to Wen Ho Lee, a
former nuclear scientist, who claimed his privacy was violated by leaks
that portrayed him as a spy.
(SFC, 6/3/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 2, The board of Goldman
Sachs appointed Lloyd C. Blankfein (51) to replace Henry Paulson Jr.,
recently selected to head the US Treasury, as CEO.
(WSJ, 6/3/06, p.B1)
2006 Jun 2, Vince Welnick (55),
Grateful Dead pianist, died in California of apparent suicide. He had
taken over as the Grateful Dead's keyboard player in 1990 after a
succession of predecessors met untimely deaths.
(Reuters, 6/4/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.B6)
2006 Jun 2, Four governments
(Brazil, Chile, France, and Norway), the UN and the world's soccer
federation launched a plan to use the proceeds of a new airline ticket
tax to treat people in the developing world suffering from AIDS,
malaria or tuberculosis. Countries that have either approved or say
they expect to approve a new airline ticket tax include Britain,
Cyprus, Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Luxembourg, Madagascar,
Mauritius and Nicaragua.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, In Afghanistan dozens
of troops were dropped from coalition aircraft into a remote,
mountainous district of Uruzgan province and recaptured the area which
had been overrun by Taliban nearly three days earlier. Nearly 35
Taliban rebels were killed in the latest strikes as Afghan and
coalition troops took back a district that had been in rebel hands for
days.
(AFP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 2, British police raided
a house in east London house and arrested two men, shooting and
wounding one of them. Police said the raid was a response to a specific
threat of attack, refused to comment on news reports that the men were
plotting to use a chemical weapon. Mohammed Abdul Kahar (23), who was
injured in the dawn swoop, and Abul Koyair (20) were freed June 9 after
being held for questioning for a week.
(AP, 6/3/06)(AFP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 2, In Toronto, Canada, 17
people were arrested on "terrorism-related" charges including plotting
attacks with fertilizer bombs on Canadian targets. The adult suspects
from Toronto were Chand, alias Abdul Shakur, 25; Fahim Ahmad, 21;
Jahmaal James, 23; and Asin Mohamed Durrani, 19. Those from Mississauga
are Ghany; Abdelhaleen; Zakaria Amara, 20; Asad Ansari, 21; Saad
Khalid, 19; and Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43. Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasim
Abdi Mohamed, 24, were from Kingston. 14 men and 4 youths, dubbed the
“Toronto 18,” were originally charged. In 2009 Saad Khalid pleaded
guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. On Jan 18, 2010, Saad
Gaya (22), one of the "Toronto 18" group, was sentenced to 12 years in
prison. Zakaria Amara, the acknowledged ringleader, was sentenced to
life in prison.
(AP, 6/4/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.A1)(Reuters,
5/7/09)(Reuters, 9/3/09)(Reuters, 1/18/10)(SFC, 1/19/10, p.A2)
2006 Jun 2, Teck Cominco Ltd., a
Canadian mining company, agreed to pay millions to assess whether
pollution it dumped into the Columbia River damaged wildlife and public
health in Washington state.
(SFC, 6/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 2, Czechs cast ballots in
a tight parliamentary race that revealed deep divisions over whether
the nation needs bold reforms or the status quo. A forecast predicted
the right wing Civic Democratic party of Mirek Topolanek would win
legislative elections with 38% of the vote.
(AP, 6/2-3/06)
2006 Jun 2, Two Egyptian security
officers were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops after
crossing the border into Israel.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, The leader of al-Qaida
in Iraq urged Sunnis to confront Shiites and ignore calls for
reconciliation in a new audiotape posted on the Web, saying Shiite
militias are killing and raping the Sunni Arab minority. 2 bombs struck
in quick succession at a pet market in central Baghdad, killing at
least five people and wounding 57. Some 10 minutes later, an explosion
near a Shiite mosque in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Jadida
killed two civilians and injured five.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, Ireland passed an
emergency bill on under-age sex, and the Supreme Court ordered a man at
the center of the controversy to be reimprisoned for having sex with a
12-year-old girl.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, Israel has begun
laying the foundations for Maskiot, a new Jewish settlement deep in the
West Bank, breaking a promise to Washington while strengthening its
hold on a stretch of desert it wants to keep as it draws its final
borders.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, The UN Security
Council added 1,500 peacekeepers to its mission in Ivory Coast in
renewed efforts to restore order in the troubled West African country.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, A Japanese court
convicted a US sailor of killing a Japanese woman during a Jan 3
robbery near Tokyo and sentenced him to life in prison.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, The 12th edition of
the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music opened in Fez, Morocco. It
brought together spiritual and religious music from Syria, Iran, India,
Mali, Latin America, Japan, Tibet, Azerbaijan and the Mediterranean
under the theme of "harmonies."
(AFP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 2, In Nepal tens of
thousands of Maoist rebels and supporters thronged the heart of
Kathmandu for their first mass meeting here to be addressed by senior
leaders.
(AFP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, Norwegian rig owner
Fred. Olsen Energy ASA said 8 foreign workers on an oil rig operating
off Nigeria were kidnapped overnight. The workers, six British, one
American and one Canadian, were aboard the drilling rig Bulford Dolphin
when it was attacked during the night.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, In northwestern
Pakistan 2 suicide attackers detonated an explosives-laden car amid a
military convoy on a strategic road, killing four soldiers and wounding
seven.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, Russian President
Vladimir Putin removed his hawkish chief prosecutor in what analysts
said was a tactical victory for moderates over hardliners in a Kremlin
power struggle.
(Reuters, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, Clashes between Syrian
security forces and Islamic militants in an area of Damascus filled
with government buildings left five dead and four wounded.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, In Timor-Leste
lawlessness raged in parts Dili as mobs looted government warehouses,
stealing computers, office chairs and file cabinets. Foreign troops
deployed to restore order were nowhere to be seen.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, The United Nations
General Assembly concluded a conference on AIDS by promising to set
"ambitious national targets," but falling short of setting exact
financial goals for the fight against the disease.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2006 Jun 3, Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld, attending a security conference in Singapore,
branded Iran the world's leading terrorist nation yet hoped Tehran
seriously would consider incentives from the West in exchange for
suspending suspect nuclear activities.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2006 Jun 3, The 2006 World
Philatelic Exposition ended in Washington, DC. It is held in the US
every 10 years.
(SFC, 5/30/06, p.A2)
2006 Jun 3, Doctors reported that
a new experimental drug, lapatinib, from British-based GlaxoSmithKline
PLC, delayed the growth of advanced breast cancer in women who had
stopped responding to the drug Herceptin and were out of treatment
options. The company planned to sell the drug under the name Tykerb.
(AP, 6/3/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.A5)
2006 Jun 3, John Finley Scott
(b.1934), a retired UC Davis sociology professor, went missing from his
home outside Davis, Ca. Much spattered blood was found in his bedroom
and foyer. Scott was also known for inventing the mountain bike. In
January 2007 Yolo County authorities arraigned his handyman, Charles
Cunningham (38). Cunningham was charged with murdering a witness and
five other felonies. In December Cunningham was sentenced to 31 years
in prison.
(www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/scott_john.html)(SFC, 12/5/07, p.B2)
2006 Jun 3, Afghanistan's
government announced plans to replace dozens of police commanders,
including the police chief in Kabul. In southern Afghanistan suspected
Taliban rebels attacked a police station in Miana Shien, but police
repulsed them after a bloody battle that lasted several hours.
Witnesses said 12 rebels were killed and at least as many wounded. 4
policemen and 18 Taliban were killed in a battle that erupted after
rebels attacked a police post in Kandahar province.
(AP, 6/3-4/06)
2006 Jun 3, Bolivia’s leftist
President Evo Morales launched a sweeping land reform plan by handing
over roughly 9,600 square miles of state-owned land to poor Indians.
The ceremony came after talks broke down between Morales and
agribusiness leaders on land reforms that involve handing out 77,000
square miles of government land, an area twice the size of Portugal,
over the next five years.
(AP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 3, British PM Tony Blair
had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI, at which the two men
focused on the importance of inter-faith dialogue, in particular with
"moderate Islam", in achieving peace.
(AP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 3, In northeast China a
suicide bomber attacked his former wife's wedding, killing at least
eight other people and injuring five.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 3, In China a military
transport plane carrying 40 crashed in eastern Anhui province. All 40
people aboard were killed. 2 Beijing-backed newspapers later reported
that the plane was a surveillance aircraft carrying nearly 3 dozen
electronics experts.
(AP, 6/4/06)(AP, 6/6/06)(AP, 9/7/06)
2006 Jun 3, Gunmen attacked a car
belonging to the Russian Embassy in Baghdad, killing one diplomat and
kidnapping four employees. Gunmen ambushed a police checkpoint in
Baqouba, killing seven policemen and wounding five pedestrians. A
suicide attacker blew up his car bomb at the main market in the
oil-rich southern city of Basra, killing at least 27 people and
injuring 67.
(AP, 6/3/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.A4)
2006 Jun 3, Montenegro's
parliament declared independence from Serbia, forming Europe's newest
country and dissolving the last vestiges of the former Yugoslavia.
(AP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 3, The body of Zoran
Vukojevic, a key witness in the trial of the alleged assassins of
Serbia's first democratic prime minister since World War II, was found
outside Belgrade. Vukojevic, a member of so-called Zemun Clan criminal
group accused of plotting PM Zoran Djindjic's 2003 killing, had
testified in 2004 against his fellow gang members. Police also
discovered the body of another Zemun Clan member, Zoran Povic, in
central Belgrade.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 3, In Somalia 5 people
were killed in fighting between Islamic militiamen and their secular
rivals on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
(AP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 3, Thousands of Tibetan
exiles cast their votes for a de facto prime minister. Voting for one
of two candidates took place at 53 polling stations set up by the
election commission in India, Nepal, North America, Europe, Australia
and Taiwan.
(AFP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 3, The long-awaited first
shipment of Caspian oil from the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline
got on its way from a Turkish port.
(AFP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 3, President Hugo Chavez
inaugurated a Venezuelan film studio to counter what he called
Hollywood's cultural "dictatorship." Venezuela received 30,000
Russian-made assault rifles, the first shipment in a deal for 100,000
rifles.
(AP, 6/3/06)
2006 Jun 4, The US military said
dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees have abandoned a hunger strike,
lowering the number of inmates refusing food to 18.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 4, A suicide car bomb
exploded in Kandahar city near a convoy carrying the governor of
Afghanistan's Kandahar province, missing the apparent target but
killing 3 civilians and injuring a dozen. In Farah province 4 policemen
were killed. In Zabul province Afghan troops on a joint mission with
soldiers from the US-led coalition killed around five Taliban fighters
and arrested three more. In Helmand province troops with the US-led
coalition and Afghan army clashed with a group of rebel fighters, five
of whom were killed.
(AP, 6/4/06)(AFP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 4-2006 Jun 5, In
Afghanistan 17 suspected militants were killed in three operations. Two
coalition soldiers were wounded in one of those battles.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 4, The Czech republic
faced weeks of uncertainty or even fresh elections after a deadlock
between center-right and leftist parties in weekend general elections.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 4, In East Timor gangs
burned half a dozen buildings near the airport in Dili as residents
pleaded for a permanent police presence in their neighborhoods to stop
the violence.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 4, Nikos Palaiokostas
(46), one of the most wanted men in Greece, pulled off a daring jail
break, landing a helicopter in the Korydallos prison yard to pick up
his brother and another inmate before fleeing in a fog of smoke.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 4, In India 9 people died
in lightning strikes as the death toll from the early monsoon hit 118.
Some 25,000 people were displaced by flooding.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 4, Gunmen dragged
passengers off 2 minibuses northeast of Baghdad and killed 21 people,
including a dozen high school students. The attackers spared four Sunni
Arabs in one the worst sectarian atrocities in recent weeks. A
gunbattle broke out after Iraqi police surrounded a Sunni Arab mosque
in the southern city of Basra, leaving at least 9 people dead.(AP,
6/4/06)(WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 4, In Nigeria 8 foreign
oil workers, kidnapped on June 2, were released. Police declined to say
whether a ransom was paid and did not say who was responsible for the
hostage-taking.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 4, The Hamas-led
Palestinian government rejected a deadline to accept a proposal that
implicitly recognizes Israel, saying President Mahmoud Abbas' plan for
a referendum on the matter is illegal. Members of a new, unarmed
security force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas deployed in
Jenin in a move that residents feared could provoke clashes with rival
factions.
(AP, 6/4/06)(Reuters, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 4, Peruvians faced a
choice in runoff presidential elections between former president Alan
Garcia (57), and Ollanta Humala (43), a fiery political newcomer
pledging to punish a corrupt political establishment. Garcia beat
Humala, a nationalist backed by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, to regain
control of the country 16 years after his first presidential term ended
in economic ruin and rebel violence. Garcia’s American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party held only 36 of 120 seats in
Congress.
(AP, 6/4/06)(AP, 6/5/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.36)
2006 Jun 4, US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Vietnam for a visit aimed at
boosting security ties with a former foe that now shares American
wariness about China's rising military might.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 5, More than 50 National
Guardsmen from Utah became the first unit to work along the US-Mexico
border as part of President Bush's crackdown on illegal immigration.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2006 Jun 5, Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke warned of concern on core inflation. His remarks
knocked the DJIA down 199 points to 11,048.72.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.C1)
2006 Jun 5, Activists marked World
Environment Day with the United Nations warning that desertification
was a main obstacle to ending poverty and can trigger conflicts.
(Reuters, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 5, Brookfield Properties
Corp. said it will acquire Trizec Properties and its Canadian arm for
$4.8 billion. The deal would create one of North America’s largest
landlords.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.C3)
2006 Jun 5, Frederick Franck
(b.1909), Netherlands-born artist, died of congestive heart failure at
his home in Warwick, NY. His art and writings reflected his deep
interest in human spirituality. Franck wrote more than 30 books,
including "The Zen of Seeing - Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" (1973),
and "To Be Human Against All Odds" (1991).
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 5, In southern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban rebels stormed a highway police checkpost
and killed five policemen, abducted four others and stole weapons.
(AFP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Austria’s Bawag PSK
bank agreed to pay at least $675 million to avoid prosecution and
settle bankruptcy claims for its role in the collapse of Refco Inc, a
US commodities brokerage firm.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.C6)
2006 Jun 5, In Chile protesters
clashed with police in Santiago as students stepped up demands for
reforms to the country's educational system, saying new government
concessions didn't go far enough.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 5, A top official said
China's pollution problems cost the country more than $200 billion a
year and called for better legal protection for grassroots groups so
they can help clean up the environment.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Czech opposition
leader Mirk Topolanek, whose party narrowly won the weekend's
parliamentary elections, said he would seek a governing coalition. His
Civic Democrats allied with the Christian Democrats and Greens took 100
seats of the lower house.
(AP, 6/5/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.50)
2006 Jun 5, Iceland's PM Halldor
Asgrimsson (58) announced he was stepping down in the wake of his
party's poor performance in recent local elections.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 5, Gunmen in police
uniforms raided bus stations in central Baghdad, seizing at least 50
people, including drivers and passengers preparing to travel outside
Iraq. At least 2 students were shot dead elsewhere in Baghdad. Mustafa
Mohammed Jubouri was jailed for life by a Baghdad court for the
kidnapping and killing in 2004 of aid activist Margaret Hassan, a
British-born Iraqi citizen. At least 26 people died in Iraq, including
15 in Baghdad alone. In southern Iraq a bomb exploded near an Italian
patrol killing one Italian soldier and wounding four.
(AP, 6/5/06)(AFP, 6/5/06)(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 5, In Japan investment
manager Yoshiaki Murakami admitted that he had violated insider trading
laws and said he would resign from his fund. He was arrested later in
the day.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Liberia, the first
African country led by a democratically elected woman, began recruiting
women into its new postwar army.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Mexico proposed
creating an environmental reserve (the Rio Bravo del Norte proposal)
about 30 feet wide and 600 miles long on the Texas border, a "green
wall" to protect the Rio Grande from the roads and staging areas that
smugglers use to ferry drugs and migrants across the frontier.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Hamas militants
stormed a Palestinian TV broadcast facility in the southern Gaza Strip,
kicking workers out of the building and destroying equipment in a
shooting rampage. A large explosion ripped through a house in northern
Gaza, killing a member of the Hamas militant group and wounding two
other people, including his 8-year-old son.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Levon Chakhmakhchyan,
a regional lawmaker from Kalmykia, faced expulsion from Russia's upper
house of parliament after federal security agents allegedly caught him
accepting $300,000 in extorted money in a sting operation.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, Serbian lawmakers
proclaimed their republic a sovereign state after Montenegro decided to
split from a union and dissolve the remnants of what was once
Yugoslavia.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 5, An Islamic militia
said it has seized Somalia's capital after weeks of bloody fighting and
15 years of anarchy in this Horn of Africa nation, raising fears that
the nation could fall under the sway of al-Qaida. Some 350 fighters and
civilians had been killed over the past month with at least 2,000
wounded.
(AP, 6/5/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.44)
2006 Jun 5, In South Africa the
Johannesburg stock exchange (JSE) became a listed company on its own
exchange. The JSE was the 17th largest in the world and the largest in
Africa. It listed only 25 foreign companies.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.72)
2006 Jun 5, Key Syrian opposition
figures urged Syrians to work to oust President Bashar Assad by using
acts of civil disobedience reminiscent to the upheaval that freed
nations behind the Iron Curtain.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 6, US Veterans Affairs
Secretary Jim Nicholson acknowledged a stolen computer contained
personal data on about 2.2 million active-duty military, Guard and
Reserve personnel, not just 50,000 as initially believed.
(AP, 6/6/07)
2006 Jun 6, In South Dakota Bill
Nguyen and his wife, Tina, stepped forward with the winning ticket for
a nearly $117 million Powerball lottery jackpot, beating 1-in-146
million odds.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 6, The Ford Foundation
launched an independent, African-led nonprofit that aims to give
Africans greater opportunity to solve the continent's problems
themselves. The Foundation committed $30 million to fund TrustAfrica,
which has been developed over the past five years. It will now be based
in Senegal's capital of Dakar and governed solely by Africans.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Frank Lanza (74),
founder of US defense contractor L-3 Communications (1997), died in
White Plains, NY.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 6, Billy Preston
(b.1946), star rock ‘n’ roll keyboard player, died in Arizona. He
worked with the Beatles (the fifth Beatle) and the Rolling Stones and
wrote the 1974 Joe Cocker hit “You Are So Beautiful.”
(SFC, 6/7/06, p.B11)
2006 Jun 6, In eastern Afghanistan
3 people were killed when a motorbike being rigged up as a bomb
exploded. A suspected suicide car bomb hit a US-led coalition convoy,
injuring 3 American soldiers. A roadside bomb killed three Afghan
soldiers in Kunar province. 2 American soldiers were killed by a
roadside bomb in eastern Nangarhar province. 5 suspected militants were
killed as Afghan and allied troops raided an area near the southern
town of Tirin Kot.
(AFP, 6/6/06)(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 6, Diplomats in Austria
said the US is prepared to provide Iran with some nuclear technology if
it stops enriching uranium.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Bahrain's government
said it had appointed its first woman judge. She is believed to be one
of the first female judges in the entire Gulf region. Mona Al Kawari
was appointed by order of the tiny Gulf kingdom's ruler, Sheik Hamad
bin Isa Al Khalifa. Bahrain has a Sunni Muslim-dominated government,
but its Shiite majority has grown restive during the past few years,
mounting frequent anti-government protests.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, In Brasilia a melee
that erupted when hundreds of landless farmers demanding agrarian
reforms demonstrated at Brazil's Congress injured 20 people.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Britain’s BAA, owners
of Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick airports, accepted an $18.8 billion
bid from Spain’s Grupo Ferrovial, led by Rafael del Pino.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.55)(Econ, 7/7/07, p.67)
2006 Jun 6, In Cambodia more than
1,000 police, many armed and in riot gear, evicted hundreds of families
who had refused to leave a Phnom Penh shantytown, as authorities moved
to end a standoff that has stalled millions of dollars in commercial
development.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Chinese engineers blew
up a temporary barrier used during construction of the Three Gorges
Dam, unleashing the full force of the Yangtze River upon the world's
largest hydroelectric project.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Some 2,000 protesters
calling for the ouster of East Timor's PM Mari Alkatiri cruised around
Parliament in a convoy of horn-blaring trucks and motorcycles, hours
after mobs set fire to buildings and looted a warehouse filled with
farm supplies.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, EU finance ministers
slammed the door on Lithuania's plea to adopt the euro next year,
saying the Baltic country has failed to put a lasting lid on inflation.
Lithuania planned to appeal to EU government heads at a summit next
week in Brussels, before a final decision is made in July.
(http://tinyurl.com/h9r36)
2006 Jun 6, Haiti's president Rene
Preval appointed a coalition government in an effort to unite the
impoverished nation.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Santos Padilla (40), a
leader of a violent kidnapping gang that abducted and killed the son of
a former Honduran president in 1997, was among four inmates who escaped
from a prison outside Tegucigalpa.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Gas prices in India
rose 9.2%. Diesel prices rose 6.6%. The government left prices of
cooking fuels and liquefied petroleum gas unchanged.
(WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A10)
2006 Jun 6, In Iraq PM Nouri
al-Maliki said that 2,500 Iraqi prisoners will be freed from US and
Iraqi-run detention centers as part of reconciliation efforts. Police
found 9 severed heads in fruit boxes in a village northeast of Baghdad,
which followed a similar discovery there 2 days earlier. A decapitated
body was found in Aziziyah. A roadside bomb missed a US military convoy
in central Baghdad but killed a woman and wounded 3 other pedestrians.
3 local council workers were killed in a drive-by shooting in western
Baghdad. 2 mortar rounds slammed into an eastern Baghdad neighborhood,
killing 2 bystanders and wounding 9 others.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas gave the governing Hamas party on three more days to
accept a document that implicitly recognizes Israel, threatening to
bring the issue to a national referendum.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Qatar Petroleum and
South Africa’s Sasol unveiled a new plant in Qatar to transform natural
gas into a synthetic fuel similar to diesel by a process knows as
gas-to-liquids (GTL). Sasol was also building a GTL plant in Nigeria
with Chevron Texaco.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.58)
2006 Jun 6, South Korean PM Han
Myung-Sook embarked on a four-nation European tour which will take her
to France, Portugal, Bulgaria and Germany.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, The Spanish interior
ministry said that 67 suspects had been arrested for accessing child
porn on the Internet over the past five days. The international police
operation arrested 38 in France, 10 in Spain, 9 in Slovakia, 7 in
Belgium and 3 in the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Suspected Tamil rebels
exploded bombs outside a naval base near Sri Lanka's capital, wounding
two people while three others were killed in a similar attack elsewhere.
(AFP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, The Vatican issued a
sweeping condemnation of contraception, abortion, in-vitro
fertilization and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional
family has never been so threatened as in today's world.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 7, The International
Monetary Fund urged the Bush administration to set a more ambitious
goal of eliminating the federal budget deficit over the next five years
and said tax increases may be needed to accomplish that objective.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, US communications
giant Motorola announced it is setting up a $100 million manufacturing
facility in India to make mobile phone handsets and telecom network
equipment.
(AFP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, In Houston, Texas,
Gabriel Granillo (14) was beaten by about a dozen gang members with
baseball bats and tire irons. A teenage girl in the group stabbed him
to death.
(SFC, 6/8/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 7, In Afghanistan a
suspected suicide bomber also was killed when explosives he was
carrying into the offices of a Turkish construction company exploded
prematurely.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, In Brazil a shootout
between police and drug gangs in a Rio shantytown left 17 children
injured, several hit by stray bullets even though their teacher ordered
them to lie down on the floor when the shooting began.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, Britain’s University
and College Union agreed to accept a 13.1% pay rise over the next 3
years.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.53)
2006 Jun 7, A Chinese government
report said more than 60% of recent land acquisitions for construction
in China are illegal, with the figure rising to 90% in some cities. The
report demanded investigations.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, State-run media said
storms pummeling southern China over the past week have killed at least
46 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, In Indonesia a defiant
but demure second issue of the Indonesian edition of US adult glossy
Playboy hit Jakarta's streets, weeks after publishers halted operations
following violent protests by Muslim hardliners.
(AFP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, Iraq’s PM Nouri
al-Maliki released nearly 600 detainees, making good on a pledge
intended to ease feuding between Sunni Arabs and Shiites. Violence was
unabated with at least 14 deaths reported. Al-Zarqawi and five aides,
including spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed in a remote
area 30 miles from Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just
east of the provincial capital of Baqouba. He was killed when US
warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safehouse.
(AP, 6/7-8/06)(WSJ, 6/9/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 7, Latvia's parliament
approved a bill to publish the names of nearly 4,500 suspected Soviet
secret police informants. The bill went to President Vaira
Vike-Freiberga for approval. Should she veto it, Parliament can
override it with a two-thirds majority vote.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, A Dutch court
convicted Guus Kouwenhoven (64) of violating a UN arms embargo imposed
on the regime of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and sentenced
him to eight years in prison. The court found that he had traded guns
for timber rights and used his lumber company to smuggle weapons that
were later used by militias to commit atrocities against civilians in
West Africa.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, In southern Nigeria
gunmen kidnapped five South Koreans in an overnight raid on a gas plant
owned by Shell. 10 soldiers were killed in the raid.
(AP, 6/7/06)(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 7, Palestine’s Hamas-led
government agreed to withdraw a controversial private militia from
public areas of Gaza in an agreement with the rival Fatah movement
aimed at halting weeks of bloody infighting. A border clash with
Israeli soldiers left 3 Palestinians dead.
(AP, 6/7/06)(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 7, In Somalia Islamist
leaders in control of Mogadishu agreed to talks with the country’s
transitional government. A counter-offensive by rival warlords,
supported by the US, still posed a threat.
(SFC, 6/8/06, p.A18)
2006 Jun 7, A mine explosion in
northeast Sri Lankan killed 8 civilians and wounded 14. Tamil Tiger
rebels said the attack was carried out by government troops who had
infiltrated an area held by the guerrillas.
(AFP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, Swiss senator Dick
Marty, the head of an investigation into alleged CIA clandestine
prisons, said 14 European nations colluded with US intelligence in a
"spider's web" of secret flights and detention centers that violated
international human rights law. Marty asserted that at least 7 European
governments were complicit in the transports.
(AP, 6/7/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.49)
2006 Jun 7, In Syria Mohammad
Ghanem, a journalist who edits a Web site and advocates greater rights
for Kurds in Syria, was sentenced to a year in prison, but the military
court commuted his sentence to six months. Ghanem was convicted on
charges of "insulting the Syrian president, discrediting the Syrian
government and fomenting sectarian unrest."
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 7, Turkey’s central bank
unexpectedly raised its interest rate by 1.75%. This raised its
overnight borrowing rate to 15%.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.A13)
2006 Jun 7, Residential property
in Kiev, Ukraine, was reported to have risen to $2,600 a square meter,
from around $360 a square meter in mid-2002. Office property stood
25-30% above the residential cost, making Kiev 2nd only to Moscow as
Eastern Europe’s most expensive market for office space.
(WSJ, 6/6/06, p.B4)
2006 Jun 8, The US offered a
reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of
Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, a reputed Mexican drug cartel
chieftain, whose group allegedly smuggles tons of cocaine and marijuana
north each year.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 8, The US FDA approved
the vaccine Gardasil, developed by Merck to prevent most cases of
cervical cancer.
(SFC, 6/9/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 8, A jury in Memphis,
Tenn., convicted former state Sen. Roscoe Dixon for his role in the
Tennessee Waltz bribery sting. He was convicted on all five counts,
which centered on accepting $9,500 in bribe money to influence
legislation that would have been beneficial to E-Cycle Management Inc.,
a fake company the FBI created to orchestrate the Waltz sting.
(http://tinyurl.com/kt8od)(WSJ, 6/9/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 8, Richard Miller,
writer, died in Monterey, Ca. His 13 books included “Bohemia: The
Protoculture Then and Now” (1977).
(SFC, 6/17/06, p.B5)
2006 Jun 8, Afghan troops killed
13 suspected Taliban rebels including two Pakistani nationals in an
operation in southern Afghanistan. The US military released 33 Afghans
from a prison at Bagram Air Base. Violence killed nine people around
Afghanistan, including a regional security director and two Afghan aid
workers.
(AFP, 6/9/06)(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 8, In Azerbaijan the
Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania
met in the presence of the two countries’ delegations following a
one-on-one meeting.
(http://tinyurl.com/ffjol)
2006 Jun 8, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al
Khalifa, a pioneering lawyer and women's rights advocate from Bahrain,
was elected UN General Assembly president, the first woman from the
Middle East to take the post.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, A boat carrying more
than 70 people capsized in rough waters off Bangladesh's coast.
Rescuers recovered at least 16 bodies.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, In southern China the
bank of a rain-swollen river collapsed, flooding 11 villages filled
with sleeping people and causing an unknown number of deaths and
injuries.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, Fu Xiancai (47) was
called into the Zigui County Public Security Bureau in Hubei province
and criticized for his television appearance in which he criticized the
government's treatment of people who were forced to relocate as a
result of the Three Gorges dam project. He was attacked after leaving
the police station and was paralyzed after assailants broke his neck.
On July 26 the head of the security bureau's forensics department and
another county official said that experts concluded the injuries were
self-inflicted.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jun 8, The European Central
Bank (ECB) meeting in Madrid raised its key interest rate by a quarter
point to 2.75% amid worries that high oil prices would spur inflation.
Stock markets in Asia tumbled to their lowest levels in months and
European shares also declined amid anxiety that possible US interest
rates hikes will slow global growth.
(SFC, 6/9/06, p.D3)(AP, 6/8/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.75)
2006 Jun 8, It was reported that
pollution in Hong Kong is worse than Los Angeles, the most polluted
city in the United States, and claims around 2,000 lives a year.
(AFP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, Pres. Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said Iran was ready to discuss "mutual concerns" over his
country's nuclear program, but he refused to first suspend uranium
enrichment.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, Iraq's parliament
approved three new key ministers, including a Sunni Arab to head the
defense ministry. Bombs struck a busy outdoor market and a police
patrol in a mostly Shiite area of Baghdad. At least five bombs, most
them packed in vehicles, detonated in and around Baghdad, killing at
least 40 people. Gunmen kidnapped Muthanna al-Badri, a senior Iraqi oil
official in Baghdad, as he was returning home from work. In Ghalbiyah,
near where al-Zarqawi was killed, five civilians were killed and three
were wounded in a firefight.
(AP, 6/8/06)(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 8, The Israeli military
struck a PRC training camp in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Abu
Samhadana (43), Hamas government's top security chief, was killed when
four missiles struck. 3 other militants were also killed and 10
wounded. Palestinians fired 2 rockets into Israel hitting a building in
Sderot.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 8, In Nigeria militants
released one Nigerian and five South Korean gas workers after a plea
from the jailed militant leader in whose name they were abducted.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, The Hamas-led
government's 3,000-member private militia showed no signs of
withdrawing from Gaza's streets despite a deal with the rival Fatah
movement to remove it from public areas.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 8, Breakaway factions
from two rebel groups that rejected last month's peace accord for
Sudan's violence-riven Darfur region signed declarations committing
themselves to the pact. Southern Sudanese leaders said they are
organizing peace talks with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the
Ugandan government to try to end the brutal war in northern Uganda that
has spilled across the border into their own country.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 9, President Bush said
the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi two days earlier "helps a lot"
with security problems in Iraq but wouldn't bring an end to the war.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2006 Jun 9, Former Majority Leader
Tom DeLay, bowing to legal and ethical troubles, left the House of
Representatives.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2006 Jun 9, Leonard Herzenberg,
Stanford geneticist and immunologist, was named a winner of the Kyoto
Prize for his work in developing the Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorter
(FACS).
(SFC, 6/9/06, p.B3)
2006 Jun 9, Bosnia's war crimes
court said it would deliver Serb war crimes suspect Dragan Zelenovic to
the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague after he was handed over to
Sarajevo by Russia. Zelenovic, a former policeman, was wanted by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for
atrocities committed against non-Serbs in the eastern Foca region
during the 1992-95 war. In 2007 Zelenovic was convicted of raping women
in Foca and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 6/9/06)(AP, 11/1/07)
2006 Jun 9, In Brazil police
arrested 28 people suspected of operating an illegal logging ring in
the Amazon rain forest and were looking for 46 more. Some 300 officers
in five states were involved in the operation to shut down a gang
accused of using phony permits to harvest rare tropical hardwoods.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, India announced a
218-million-dollar economic package to help Nepal's new government
rebuild the troubled Himalayan country.
(AFP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, In India at least five
people died and six were injured when a bomb exploded in crowded
marketplace in Gauhati, the main city in northeastern Assam state.
Police blamed the blasts on the outlawed United Liberation Front of
Asom (ULFA) rebel group that has been fighting for an independent
Assamese homeland since 1979.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, A roadside bomb hit a
police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing one person and
wounding two, and three oil refinery workers were shot to death near
Tikrit. 8 bullet-riddled bodies were found floating near Kut, and a
firefight west of Baqouba killed five civilians and wounded three. A
roadside bomb near Kirkuk killed a US soldier and wounded another.
(AP, 6/9/06)(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 9, In Jamaica PM Portia
Simpson Miller and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, the first women
to be elected heads of state in Jamaica and Chile, met in Kingston and
said they will remove visa restrictions on travel between Chile and
Jamaica and work toward establishing air links to improve trade.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, In Kenya police
commissioner Hussein Ali deported Artur Margariyan and Arthur Sargsian,
who claimed to be Armenian brothers, for mercenary activities including
organizing police raids on television and newspaper offices.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.54)
2006 Jun 9, Palestinians fired
rockets into Israel and vowed to avenge Israel's assassination of Abu
Samhadana, the Hamas government's top security chief. Israeli artillery
fired shells at targets in the northern Gaza Strip. 8 civilians,
including 5 children, died and over 30 people were wounded at a
beachside picnic. The Israeli government issued a statement of egret
and launched an investigation. A separate Israeli strike killed 3
people in the northern Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 6/10/06, p.A3)(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 9, In Russia finance
ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) nations gathered for talks in
St. Petersburg. Russia offered to write off $700 million in poor-nation
debt.
(Reuters, 6/9/06)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 9, In Russia gunmen shot
and killed a police commander, his three young children, driver and
bodyguard in the troubled southern province of Ingushetia.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, Tribal leaders
rejected the possibility of UN peacekeepers replacing African Union
forces in Darfur, with one chief threatening a "holy war" if
non-African troops come to the Sudanese region.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 9, In northern Tanzania
an overloaded bus plunged off a bridge and into a river gorge, killing
at least 54 people.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, Thailand's King
Bhumibol Adulyadej (b.1927), the world's longest-reigning monarch,
began celebrating his 60th anniversary on the throne. He became the 9th
king of the Chakri dynasty, succeeding his older brother, Ananda,
killed by an unexplained shooting on June 9, 1946.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 9, A panel of Zimbabwe
lawmakers reported that prisoners there face acute food shortages and
are going weeks without soap or toilet paper.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 10, In New York Jazil
cruised to victory, holding off Bluegrass Cat in the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2006 Jun 10, In NYC a
firefighter’s monument was unveiled for the 343 who died in the Sept.
11 attacks.
(SSFC, 6/11/06, p.A2)
2006 Jun 10, Three Guantanamo Bay
detainees, 2 from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, hanged
themselves with nooses made of sheets and clothes, bringing further
condemnation of the isolated camp where hundreds of men have been held
for years without charge. Yasser Talal al-Zahrani (21) of Saudi Arabia,
captured in Pakistan in 2002, was one of the 3 Gitmo detainees who
committed suicide.
(AP, 6/11/06)(Econ, 6/17/06, p.92)
2006 Jun 10, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying the intelligence chief of Kabul,
missing him but killing three others. 2 suspected Taliban rebels were
killed in fighting with Afghan soldiers in Zabul province. In Kandahar
province a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying a district police chief
and government head, missing them but killing two of their police
guards. Gunmen killed four Afghan laborers working for an Indian road
construction company as they were driving in Kandahar province. They
stole $8,000 before killing them. The US-led coalition said the worst
three weeks of violence since the fall of the Taliban have left more
than 500 people dead.
(AP, 6/10/06)(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 10, Argentina reaffirmed
its claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, known here as the
Malvinas, and said it was ready for talks with Britain over the issue.
Argentina and Britain have disputed the sovereignty of the remote south
Atlantic islands since 1833.
(AFP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 10, In Brazzaville, the
Congo Republic, ministers from across Africa approved a draft democracy
charter, laying down guidelines on elections and good governance in the
world's poorest continent.
(Reuters, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, In Costa Rica a
Kansas high school student and teacher disappeared in the in the waters
off Palo Seco beach. The bodies of 2 other students were recovered.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 10, Justine
Henin-Hardenne won the French Open, beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4,
6-4.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2006 Jun 10, In India deaths from
the early monsoon storms reached at least 161 and flooding pushed the
number of displaced up to 30,000.
(SFC, 6/10/06, p.B8)
2006 Jun 10, A roadside bomb
targeting a police patrol exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad,
killing four people and wounding 27. Insurgents signaled the fight is
still on after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death, posting an Internet video
showing the beheading of three alleged Shiite death squad members in
revenge for killing Sunnis.
(AP, 6/10-11/06)
2006 Jun 10, In Calabria, Italy,
killers shot a farmer who had filed complaints against people who had
put a squeeze on him. Calabria’s ‘ndrangheta, a homebred Mafia, would
often present bullets by post to intended targets.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.71)
2006 Jun 10, In Kashmir one person
died and eight were injured when Indian troops opened fire on villagers
protesting against the alleged desecration of a mosque by soldiers.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, It was reported that
a recent outbreak of polio in Namibia had killed 7 people and paralyzed
another 33.
(SFC, 6/10/06, p.A6)
2006 Jun 10, Nepal's Parliament
stripped King Gyanendra of his veto power over the legislature, the
latest measure to curtail his authority. Lawmakers also will no longer
need to seek the approval of the king before signing a bill into law.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 10, Pakistani security
forces destroyed a militant hideout in a pre-dawn strike near the
Afghan border, killing at least 15 suspected militants.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, The ruling Hamas
group fired a barrage of homemade rockets at Israel, hours after
calling off a truce with Israel in anger over an artillery attack that
killed seven civilians at a beachside picnic in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, In Poland several
thousand people staged an international rally in Warsaw in support of
gays, who complained of prejudice, hostility and violence.
(AFP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, finance ministers from the world's most industrialized nations
(G8) said that global growth remains strong, but pointed at dangers
from high energy prices and widening economic imbalances. US Treasury
Secretary John Snow said the US and Russia had made progress in talks
on Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the two
nations could reach a deal before next month's G-8 summit.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, Tens of thousands of
Spaniards marched in Madrid to demand the government not hold talks
with Basque separatists.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 10, At least five people
were shot dead in Sri Lanka's restive northeast port district of
Trincomalee and the main city of Colombo.
(AFP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 10, Some 20,000 Taiwanese
demonstrated in the capital, demanding the president resign over
allegations some of his relatives engaged in insider trading.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 11, In the Tony Awards in
NYC the play “The History Boys” won best play and “Jersey Boys” won as
best musical. The award for best actor went to Richard Griffiths of
"The History Boys." Cynthia Nixon won best actress for her role in
“Rabbit Hole.”
(Reuters, 6/11/06)(SFC, 6/12/06, p.E3)
2006 Jun 10, James Cameron (92),
who survived an attempted lynching and went on to found America's Black
Holocaust Museum, died in Milwaukee.
(AP, 6/11/07)
2006 Jun 11, Afghan Pres. Hamid
Karzai said his government will give weapons to local tribesmen to help
fight the surge in Taliban violence. Afghan and US-led coalition forces
killed 15 suspected militants, including Mullah Amanullah, a relative
of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in Uruzgan province. Ten militants were
killed in Helmand province's Sangin district in a battle involving
Afghan and British forces.
(AP, 6/12/06)(SFC, 6/12/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 11, In Bangladesh police
fired tear gas at thousands of stone-throwing protesters demanding the
prime minister's resignation in Dhaka, leaving dozens of people injured.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 11, A military transport
plane crashed as it tried to land at an unlit airport at night in
Chad's main eastern city, killing five people. Chad rebels claimed that
they shot the C-130 military plane down at Abeche airport.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 11, Amnesty International
released a report saying China's sales of military vehicles and weapons
to Sudan, Nepal and Myanmar have aggravated conflicts and abetted
violence and repressive rule in those countries.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 11, Foreign Minister Jose
Ramos-Horta said the East Timorese government has asked the UN to form
an "independent special inquiry commission" into violence that has left
21 dead.
(AFP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 11, Iran's top nuclear
negotiator said that his country wants "unconditional" nuclear talks
and that a Western incentives package has "weak points."
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 11, Iraqi and US
officials released some 200 detainees from Abu Ghraib. Al-Maliki has
promised to release 2,500 prisoners by the end of this month. At least
five Iraqis were killed and a British soldier wounded in a firefight
which broke out between Shiite militiamen and British troops in the
southern city of Al-Amara. Al-Qaida in Iraq vowed "major attacks" after
the death of leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US airstrike.
(AFP, 6/11/06)(AP, 6/12/06)(AP, 6/11/07)
2006 Jun 11, Jordan arrested four
lawmakers who visited the family of slain terrorist leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi. They were charged with "instigating sectarian strike" and
"fueling national discord" and remained jailed, serving 15-day
detention orders.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 11, Palestinian militants
fired about 10 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip, critically
injuring an Israeli and nearly hitting a college in the southern Israel
town of Sderot. In return Israeli aircraft struck a rocket-launching
cell in the northern Gaza Strip, killing two militants from the
Palestinians' ruling Hamas party.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 11, In the Philippines a
grenade blast wounded eight people in a market in Batangas province. A
nearly simultaneous explosion damaged a mobile police station in Manila.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 11, Teams of
veterinarians were sent to destroy domestic poultry in northern Ukraine
after the first appearance of bird flu in the region.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 11, US troops sent to the
Black Sea peninsula of Crimea to prepare for joint war games left
Ukraine after two weeks of protests organized by pro-Russian parties
prevented them from carrying out their mission.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, US officials said
that the Cuban government had cut off electricity to the US diplomatic
mission in Havana on June 5 and that requests for power to be restored
have gone unanswered. Power was restored the next day.
(AP, 6/13/06)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 12, The US Supreme Court
paved the way for more death row inmates to challenge execution by
lethal injection. In an unanimous decision, the court allowed those
condemned to die to make last-minute claims that the chemicals used are
too painful, and therefore amount to cruel and unusual punishment in
violation of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
(http://talkleft.com/new_archives/015070.html)
2006 Jun 12, FBI statistics
confirmed that violent crime in the US was on the rise, posting its
biggest one-year increase since 1991.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 12, In SF Superior Court
Judge James Warren struck down a voter approved ban on handgun
possession. Proposition H, pass last November, would have outlawed
possession of handguns by all city residents except law enforcement
officers and other who need guns for professional purposes.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.B1)
2006 Jun 12, Forecasters issued a
hurricane warning for parts of Florida's Gulf Coast as the first named
storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season quickly gained strength in
the Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, Charla Mack was
slashed to death in Reno, Nevada. Judge Chuck Weller (53) was shot and
wounded the same day by a sniper. Police issued a murder warrant for
Charla’s husband, David Mack (45), the next day and declared him a
suspect in the shooting of Weller. Mack surrendered to Mexican police
on June 23. In 2008 Mack was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.B6)(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)(SFC,
2/9/08, p.A4)
2006 Jun 12, Afghan and US-led
coalition forces killed 12 suspected militants in Kandahar province.
Taliban militants killed Zulmai Khan, a district intelligence chief, in
a drive-by shooting in the Ghazni provincial district of Waghuz.
(AP, 6/12/06)(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 12, Gyorgy Ligeti
(b.1923), Hungarian composer, died in Vienna, Austria. Stanley Kubrick
used his scores in the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Ligeti’s
opera “Le Grand Macabre,” based on a play by Belgian surrealist Michel
Ghelderode, premiered in Stockholm in 1978.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.B7)
2006 Jun 12, Brunei police said 3
men have been sentenced to a year in prison for sending cell phone
video clips that were considered seditious and insulting to the royal
family.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 12, Ken Thomson (82),
Canadian newspaper tycoon, died. He helped transform his father's print
empire into one of the world's biggest electronic publishers.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, In northern China a
truck carrying the coal tar fell into the Dasha river in Shanxi
province. Cleanup crews scrambled to absorb 60 tons of toxic coal tar
accidentally dumped into a river before it reaches a reservoir serving
a city of 10 million people.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 12, EU foreign ministers
reached agreement with Cyprus on a formula to enable Turkey to take its
first step in detailed accession talks with the 25-nation bloc.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, In Guinea students
infuriated by a postponement of exams protested in Conakry, the capital
and in Labe, with some throwing rocks and burning tires. The Red Cross
said six people were killed during the demonstrations.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, Hungary’s director of
national epidemic affairs some 1,200 people the northeast had fallen
ill from drinking contaminated water. Flooding caused by heavy spring
rainfall contaminated the spring water that flows into the city water
system.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, US-led forces raided
a house near a volatile city northeast of Baghdad, killing nine people,
including two children. A suicide car bomber plowed into a gas station
in northern Iraq, killing four civilians and wounding more than 40. A
bomb also struck a minivan of workers in southern Baghdad, killing six
people and wounding 10. A roadside bomb detonated next to a police
patrol east of Kirkuk, but missed and struck a civilian car. One person
was killed in the explosion, two more were injured. Two mortar rounds
struck a neighborhood in southern Baghdad, killing three civilians just
moments after gunmen strafed the area with random fire. Al-Qaida in
Iraq said in a Web statement that a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer
was the group's new leader.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, In central Israel a
crowded, high-speed commuter train derailed after slamming into a
pickup truck at a crossing, killing five people and injuring 67.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, In Indian Kashmir at
least nine people were killed in a series of attacks, including one
close to a camp housing Hindu pilgrims, while a boy died in police
firing. Suspected Islamic militants shot dead seven Indian laborers.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, Gale force winds
battering northern New Zealand cut power to the nation's biggest city,
while heavy snow from a cold snap collapsed roofs and blanketed much of
the country's south.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, In southwestern
Pakistan a bomb ripped through a roadside tea stall in Quetta, killing
five people and wounding 17.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, Hundreds of
Palestinian security men loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas went on a
rampage against the Hamas-led government, riddling the parliament
building and Cabinet offices with bullets before setting them ablaze in
retaliation for an attack by Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 13, President Bush,
seeking to bolster support for Iraq's burgeoning government and US war
policy at home, made a surprise visit to Iraq to meet newly named Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki and discuss the next steps in the troubled
3-year-old war. A series of explosions struck the northern city of
Kirkuk, killing at least 15 people. Gunmen killed Ibrahim Seneid, an
Iraqi journalist. He worked for a newspaper accused by insurgents of
publishing US propaganda in the western city of Fallujah.
(AP, 6/13/06)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 13, US Congressional
investigators said fake aid to Katrina victims may have cost taxpayers
up to $1.4 billion. A FEMA official found the claims hard to credit.
(WSJ, 6/14/06, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 13, In Washington DC Karl
Rove’s lawyer said special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would not
bring charges against Rove in a 3-year-old CIA leak case.
(SFC, 6/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 13, The Illinois state
agriculture department said a pest blamed for killing millions of trees
across the Midwest has reached Illinois, prompting officials to prepare
a detection and eradication plan they expect to begin within the next
few weeks.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, In Millbrae, Ca.,
former restaurateur Fernand Wagner (78) and his wife Suzanne (68) were
murdered at their home on the 600 block of Lomita Ave. The couple’s
black Cadillac was later found in Daly City. On June 19 police in
Oxnard, Ca., arrested Joseph Cua (52), employed by the Wagner’s as a
property manager, in connection to the killings. Cua was charged with
murder on June 22. Cua was convicted on June 27, 2008. On Dec 18 Cua
was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.B1)(SFC, 6/20/06, p.B1)(SFC,
6/23/06, p.B9)(SFC, 6/28/08, p.B3)(SFC, 12/19/08, p.B12)
2006 Jun 13, Luis Jimenez
(b.1940), Chicago sculptor, was killed in Hondo, New Mexico, while
hoisting pieces of a massive mustang for final assembly. The work was
installed at the Denver Airport in February, 2008.
(SFC, 6/27/06,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Jim%C3%A9nez_(sculptor))(WSJ,
2/7/08, p.A1)
2006 Jun 13, Suspected Taliban
militants killed one US soldier and wounded two in an attack in
southern Helmand province, sparking a coalition retaliation that left
12 militants dead or wounded. A second coalition soldier was killed
while fighting enemy forces in eastern Kunar province.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 13, Conservative PM John
Howard's federal government has invoked special powers to invalidate a
territory's law that had been the first in Australia giving legal
recognition to same-sex relationships. On May 11 the Australian Capital
Territory, which includes the national capital Canberra, became the
first of Australia's six states and two territories to legally
recognize gay and lesbian relationships.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, In Austria Western
countries at a 35-nation UN meeting pushed for consensus on the need
for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, but diplomats said that most
nonaligned countries were preparing to endorse Tehran's right to
continue the work.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, China ordered civil
servants to do without cars, elevators and air conditioning for one day
as part of an energy-saving awareness campaign. Some 1,000 new cars
were hitting the streets of Beijing every day as nitrogen dioxide
levels exceeded WHO clean air guidelines by 78%.
(AP, 6/13/06)(WSJ, 6/13/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 13, European Aeronautic
Defense and Space (EADS), the parent company of Airbus, announced that
its new 555-seat airliner would be delayed up to 7 months.
(Econ, 6/24/06, p.69)
2006 Jun 13, Indian shares fell
sharply, with the benchmark index tumbling 4.4% to its lowest point
this year amid declines in global markets.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, Police in northern
India village retrieved 48 bodies after a truck crowded with wedding
guests veered off a mountain road and plunged into a deep gorge in
Uttaranchal state.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, Charles Haughey (80),
former Irish prime minister, died following a long battle with cancer.
He served 4 terms as Ireland's PM (1979-1982 and 1987-1992) in a career
overshadowed by ethical questions. He preached austerity, yet practiced
prodigality.
(AP, 6/13/06)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.101)
2006 Jun 13, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert said he had given the go ahead for a shipment of weapons to
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose loyalists are engaged in bitter
infighting with the militant Islamic Hamas. A failed Israeli airstrike
targeting a key figure in Palestinian rocket attacks killed 9 people,
including two children and three medical workers who rushed to the
scene of an initial blast. 2 of the dead were members of the Islamic
Jihad. An Israeli investigation into what caused an explosion on a Gaza
beach that killed eight Palestinians said that the blast was most
likely caused by a mine planted by Hamas militants against Israeli
naval commandos and not an Israeli shell.
(AP, 6/13/06)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 13, Toshihiko Fukui,
Japan’s central bank governor, admitted that he was an early investor
in the Murakami Fund. On June 5 Murakami admitted that he had violated
insider trading laws.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.47)
2006 Jun 13, The UN Security
Council eased a ban on weapons sales to Liberia so it could arm newly
trained security forces. The US proposed lifting a UN embargo on
Liberian timber exports.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, Nepal freed 190
jailed communist rebels after withdrawing terrorism cases against them
as part of efforts to forge peace with the insurgents.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, Pakistani security
forces backed by helicopter gunships destroyed a camp for suspected
tribal militants in the insurgency-wracked southwestern part of the
country, killing five suspects and capturing seven others near Dera
Bugti.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 13, In the eastern
Philippines 11 prisoners escaped from a jail after killing two guards
and wounding two others. The inmates were led by a communist guerrilla,
Jessie Galecio, who had escaped from jail twice before.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 13, Seven east African
nations imposed travel bans on Somali warlords, who lost bloody battles
with Islamist fighters over Mogadishu, and froze their assets in effort
to push them into peace talks.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, In southern Sri Lanka
at least 42 passengers were injured when two trains collided.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, UN chief Kofi Annan
asked UN human rights chief Louise Arbour to help set up an independent
enquiry commission to probe a recent wave of ethnic violence in East
Timor.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 14, President Bush, just
back from a surprise visit to Iraq, dismissed calls for a US withdrawal
as election-year politics and refused to give a timetable or benchmark
for success that would allow troops to come home.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2006 Jun 14, Librarian of Congress
James H. Billington named Donald Hall (77), former poet laureate of New
Hampshire, as the next poet laureate of the US.
(AP, 6/14/06)(http://tinyurl.com/hmh6j)
2006 Jun 14, In NYC Kenny Alexis
(20), a homeless man, was arrested following a string of stabbings
through Manhattan over a 13-hour period.
(SFC, 6/15/06, p.A12)
2006 Jun 14, Shares of EADS, the
parent company of Airbus, fell 26% following an announcement that its
new 555-seat airliner would be delayed up to 7 months.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.68)
2006 Jun 14, A delegation from
Kabul found prison conditions at Guantanamo humane and said the US will
send home for trial all 96 Afghans held there.
(WSJ, 6/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 14, Coalition and Afghan
forces killed 26 suspected militants in fighting in eastern mountains,
while in southern Afghanistan, more than 11,000 troops prepared for
their biggest offensive since the fall of the Taliban five years ago.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Four Andean nations
(Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru) agreed to chart new trade plans
with the United States without Venezuela.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Azerbaijan and
Armenia promised to continue talks over Nagorno-Karabakh despite two
failed efforts this year by the Caucasus nations' presidents to resolve
the status of the disputed enclave.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, China and Taiwan
they've agreed to launch direct charter passenger flights between them
during major holidays, a key trust-building step toward restoring
regular direct flights cut five decades ago amid civil war.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Husky Energy, Cnooc’s
Canadian partner, announced a large gas discovery under the South China
Sea. In 2009 Husky confirmed the discovery saying the Liwan field could
ultimately produce over 150 million cubic feet per day.
(WSJ, 7/19/06,
p.A8)(http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060614/to279.html?.v=30)(WSJ,
2/25/09, p.B3)
2006 Jun 14, Gunmen killed seven
coca pickers in southwestern Colombia in an attack police blamed on
leftist rebels.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, France's highest
court upheld George Soros' conviction for insider trading in a case
dating back nearly 20 years, and the billionaire investor vowed to
fight the ruling at the European Court of Human Rights.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, India's largest film
festival kicked off in Dubai, as a number of Bollywood stars descended
on this booming Gulf city state where Indians make up the largest
community.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14-2006 Jun 15, In Indian
Kashmir suspected Islamic insurgents shot dead five Muslims, and
exploded a bomb that injured four people.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 14, A French court handed
down prison terms ranging from six months to 10 years for 25 Islamic
radicals convicted of planning to carry out attacks on the Eiffel Tower
and other targets in Paris. All but one had been accused of helping
Islamic fighters in Chechnya.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, German drugmaker
Merck KGaA agreed to sell its 21.8% stake in Schering AG to Bayer AG,
clearing the way for Bayer to take over Schering and end a merger drama
that saw Merck in a position to block the takeover. In the process
Merck gained a windfall of some €400 million.
(AP, 6/14/06)(Econ, 6/17/06, p.64)
2006 Jun 14, In Indonesia Abu
Bakar Bashir (68), a reputed top leader of an al-Qaida-linked terror
group that has been blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and other deadly
attacks, walked free from prison after serving 26 months for conspiracy.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Tens of thousands of
Iraqi police and soldiers searched cars and secured roads in Baghdad as
PM Nouri al-Maliki launched a major security crackdown aimed at ending
the violence that has devastated the capital.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, In Mexico some 3000
elements of the state ministerial police, preventive police and Oaxaca
state firemen began to violently remove a sit-in of 70,000 workers from
Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) with tear
gas, smoke grenades, stun grenades and firearms. Thus far there have
been 13 reported arrests, 4 injuries, 5 bullet wounds, and between 6
and 9 deaths, as well as a break-in to the Teachers' Union building and
the destruction of the installations of Radio Plantón (a
free/non-licensed community radio station that has been a point of
reference for social movements in Oaxaca).
(www.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/840911.shtml)
2006 Jun 14, Dozens of Palestinian
civil servants stormed a parliamentary session to demand long-overdue
salaries, attacking Hamas lawmakers and forcing the parliament speaker
to flee the building. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who has been
seeking to raise money for the financially strapped government,
returned to the Gaza Strip with a suitcase full of cash. A Hamas
militant was shot and killed outside his home in the Gaza town of Khan
Younis after Hamas gunmen shot a security commander loyal to
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Somali lawmakers in
Baidoa approved a peacekeeping mission for Somalia. Islamic
militia captured Jowhar from warlord Mohammed Dheere, a member of the
US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
(ARPCT).
(AP, 6/14/06)(AFP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 14, The chief prosecutor
of the International Criminal Court said his office had documented
massacres with hundreds of victims in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region as
well as hundreds of rape cases.
(AFP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Pres. Hugo Chavez
said Venezuela will buy 24 Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets this year,
and his government will build a factory to produce Kalashnikov assault
rifles.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, Pres. Bush announced
plans to designate a new marine sanctuary in the area of the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands encompassing nearly 140,000 square miles.
The plan for Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, the nation’s
14th marine sanctuary, would end fishing in the area within 5 years.
Formal designation was about a year away.
(SFC, 6/15/06, p.A2)(WSJ, 6/16/06, p.A1)(Econ,
1/10/09, p.70)
2006 Jun 15, The US Senate
allocated $60 million toward launching a UN peacekeeping mission in the
Darfur region of Sudan.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, US House Democrats
voted to strip embattled Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson of his
seat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2006 Jun 15, A divided US Supreme
Court made it easier for police to barge into homes and seize evidence
without knocking or waiting.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2006 Jun 15, US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officials said federal agents over the last 3 weeks
had captured 2,179 illegal immigrants across the country in raids
targeting child molesters, violent gang members and past deportees who
re-entered the country. The crackdown, dubbed "Operation Return to
Sender," kicked off on May 26. California topped the list with 722
arrests.
(AP, 6/15/06)(SFC, 6/15/06, p.A6)
2006 Jun 15, A Colorado state
appeals court ruled that a 15-year-old girl can enter into a common-law
marriage. The court said that under English common law, which the state
recognizes, it could be legal for girls at 12 and boys at 14 to enter
common-law marriage.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.A4)
2006 Jul 15, A Chicago ban on the
sale of foie gras became effective. This made Chicago the 1st American
city to ban the food.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.37)
2006 Jun 15, Bill Gates (50)
announced that he would hand over his role as chief architect of
Microsoft to Ray Ozzie (50) in order to concentrate on the charitable
work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
(Econ, 6/24/06, p.75)(AP, 6/15/07)
2006 Jun 15, In Idaho Alofa Time
(50) drove into an oncoming car in downtown Boise and killed Samantha
Nina Murphy (36) and daughter Jae Lynne Grimes (4). The severed head of
Time’s wife's was tossed from his pickup truck in the suicide attempt.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 15, More than 10,000
Afghan and US-led coalition forces began a massive anti-Taliban
operation across southern Afghanistan, while a bomb killed seven people
riding a bus to a coalition base for work. Coalition forces killed 14
militants during combat operations linked to a large-scale anti-Taliban
blitz. The offensive was launched in support of Operation Mountain
Thrust, the largest anti-Taliban military campaign undertaken since the
former regime's 2001 ouster in an American-led invasion. Operation
Mountain Thrust began in mid-May with limited attacks and raids
launched by coalition forces.
(AP, 6/15/06)(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 15, The environmental
group WWF said toxic chemicals are harming Arctic animals including
polar bears, beluga whales, seals and seabirds.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, In Brazil some 3
million evangelical Protestants staged a huge rally in of Sao Paulo,
demonstrating their growing influence in the world's largest Roman
Catholic country. Brazil was nearly 100% Roman Catholic a century ago,
but the percentage dropped to 84% in 1995 and is 74% today.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, Britain promised to
hold Liberia's Charles Taylor in jail if he is convicted of war crimes,
paving the way for Liberia's former president to be tried in The Hague.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, In China a series of
explosions rocked the Longxin Chemical Plant in the city of Longquan,
Zhejiang province, destroying two factories and threatening to
contaminate the Oujiang river, which empties into the East China Sea.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 15, In China students
rioted at Shengda after learning that their the word Shengda would be
added to their graduation certificates. The quasi-private college was
affiliated with the prestigious Zhengzhou Univ. and up to now had just
Zhengzhou Univ. printed on their degree certificates.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.33)
2006 Jun 15, The Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, a Russian and Chinese-led bloc of Asian
states, said it plans to set up an expert group to boost computer
security and help guard against threats to their regimes from the
Internet. SCO members (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are mostly authoritarian states that
maintain tight controls on communications technology, including the
Internet.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, Geir Haarde became
Iceland's new prime minister, marking a return to the office for
Iceland's largest political party and a likely shift toward a tighter
fiscal policy.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 15, The US military said
American and Iraqi forces have carried out 452 raids since last week's
killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and 104 insurgents
were killed during those actions. Gunmen shot and killed 10 Shiites
after pulling them off a bus in Baqouba. The US military said the man
claiming to be the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri,
an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque near Tikrit, killing four people and
wounding 15. Sheik Aqeel, a key terror leader linked to the deaths of
at least seven coalition soldiers in roadside bombs, was captured in
Karbala. The death toll of US servicemen and women in Iraq war reached
2,500.
(AP, 6/15/06)(AP, 6/16/06)(AP, 6/15/07)
2006 Jun 15, The Israeli Supreme
Court ruled that Israel must move part of its barrier meant to keep
Palestinian attackers out because it causes hardships to nearby West
Bank residents. Palestinian militants fired five rockets at southern
Israel, shortly after officials said Israeli threats had cowered the
Hamas-led government into stopping the attacks. A Hamas government
minister returned to the Gaza Strip with $2 million in his luggage for
his money-starved government.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, The Serbian
government recognized newly independent Montenegro, and said it would
establish diplomatic ties with its former partner.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, In northern Sri Lanka
a powerful land mine ripped through a packed bus, killing at least 64
people, including 15 school children in the worst act of violence since
a 2002 cease-fire. Sri Lanka's air force responded by bombing
rebel-held areas in the northeast.
(AP, 6/15/06)(SFC, 6/15/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 15, Sudan said the
International Criminal Court did not have jurisdiction over crimes in
the violent Darfur region and no officials would be interrogated by the
court.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, In Thailand suspected
Muslim insurgents exploded bombs at 41 locations in 3 southern
provinces in attacks on government offices, killing at least two people.
(AP, 6/15/06)(SFC, 6/16/06, p.A20)
2006 Jun 16, The US House rejected
a timetable for pulling forces out of Iraq, 256-153.
(AP, 6/16/07)
2006 Jun 16, In Martinez, Calif.,
Susan Polk was convicted of stabbing to death her millionaire
psychotherapist husband, whom she had met as a 14-year-old girl in
treatment.
(AP, 6/16/07)
2006 Jun 16, In Oakland, Ca., an
unofficial final tally showed former US Rep. Ron Dellums winning the
mayor’s race by 155 votes with 50.18% of the vote.
(SFC, 6/17/06, p.B1)
2006 Jun 16, Barbara Epstein (77),
co-founder and editor of the NY Review of Books (1963), died in NYC.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.79)
2006 Jun 16, Coalition forces
pressed forward with a major offensive in southern Afghanistan, killing
an estimated 45 insurgents in attacks on two Taliban militant camps. 2
coalition soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Asadabad district
in eastern Kunar province. 4 highway policemen were killed in southern
Kandahar province when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle.
Three insurgents were killed in southern Helmand province when a bomb
they were trying to plant near the road exploded.
(AP, 6/17/06)(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 16, Bolivian President
Evo Morales' leftist government says it will fight poverty, hunger and
homelessness in South America's poorest nation by investing $6.8
billion through 2010, much of it with ambitious public works projects.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, Canada said it has
detected a case of H5 avian flu in the eastern province of Prince
Edward Island and plans further testing over the weekend to determine
whether it is the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain. On June 21 officials
said it was not the pathogenic H5N1.
(Reuters, 6/17/06)(Reuters, 6/21/06)
2006 Jun 16, A joint UN and
African Union delegation met Chadian President Idriss Deby to discuss
the possible deployment of UN troops in Sudan's war-ravaged western
Darfur region.
(AFP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, China's central bank
demanded that commercial banks raise reserves requirements by half a
percentage point to restrain credit and investment growth, which it
feared have been getting out of control.
(AP, 6/16/06)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.82)
2006 Jun 16, In China cleanup
crews scrambled to absorb toxic coal tar, from a June 12 spill, before
it reaches the Wangkuai Reservoir of Baoding, a city of about 10
million people. Authorities tried to slow the spread of a toxic spill
by building 51 makeshift dams along the tainted Dasha River and using
fire trucks to pump out polluted water. In eastern China an explosion
at a chemical plant in Anhui killed 16 people and injured 30.
(AP, 6/16/06)(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 16, East Timor rebel
soldiers surrendered the first of their weapons to Australian
peacekeepers, beginning a process deemed vital to ending months of
bloody unrest.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, EU leaders gave
Slovenia a green light to join the eurozone next year, launching a new
wave of expansion for the currently 12-nation single currency club. EU
leaders also gave their backing to the assessment of the EU's executive
arm that Lithuania would not be ready to join the eurozone next year
because inflation had overshot the limit required to join.
(AFP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, Germany’s parliament
approved a big increase in value-added tax, to take effect in 2007.
Efforts to lower corporate taxes faced stiff opposition.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.71)
2006 Jun 16, India's cabinet gave
its approval for signing and ratifying the International Convention for
the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
(AFP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, In Indonesia 2 men
were found dead in the emergency bunker where they had sought shelter
from erupting Mount Merapi.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, A shoe bomber blew
himself up inside an important Shiite Mosque during prayers, killing at
least 10 people and wounding 20. A mortar barrage struck a commercial
area near the Taji air base in the northern Baghdad suburb of Saaba
al-Bour, killing at least two people and wounding 16. Two US soldiers
went missing after an attack that killed one of their comrades at a
traffic checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death" just south of
Baghdad. Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik
Mansour, and two foreign fighters were killed as they tried to flee in
a vehicle near the town of Youssifiyah. Mansour "reportedly served as a
right-hand man of Zarqawi's, and also served as a liaison between
al-Qaida in Iraq and the various tribes in the Youssifiyah area. Three
101st Airborne Division soldiers were killed in an attack while two
others were abducted. Their mutilated bodies were found 3 days later.
In 2008 Ibrahim al-Qaraghuli, Walid al-Kartani and Kazim al-Zubaie were
the first to face court proceedings in the deaths of the three
Americans. In 2008 al-Qaraghuli, a 29-year-old farmer, was convicted in
the deaths of David J. Babineau (25) of Springfield, Mass.; Pfc.
Kristian Menchaca (23) of Houston; and Pfc. Thomas Tucker (25) of
Madras, Ore. The other two Iraqis on trial, Walid al-Kartani and Kazim
al-Zubaie, were acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.
(AP, 6/16/06)(AP, 6/17/06)(AP, 6/20/06)(AP,
6/16/07)(AP, 10/16/08)(AP, 10/28/08)
2006 Jun 16, In Indian Kashmir 2
civilians were killed and three policemen wounded when militants hurled
grenades and raked a police motorcade with AK assault rifle fire in
Srinagar’s northern Baramulla district.
(AFP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, EU leaders agreed to
channel aid to cash-starved Palestinians for health care, utilities and
social services while still maintaining a funding freeze on the
Hamas-led government.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, Japan's parliament
enacted a bill that would impose sanctions on North Korea if it fails
to cooperate in clearing up details of its past abductions of Japanese
citizens.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, Nepal’s rebel leader
Prachanda met with top government officials and said the Maoist rebels
will join an interim government to be formed shortly.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, In southeast Nigeria
at least six people were killed in the city of Onitsha when a feud
between a separatist group and a transport union degenerated into
street battles.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, Hayatullah Khan, a
Pakistani journalist who reported on a US airstrike that killed an
al-Qaida operative, was found shot to death in a remote tribal region
six months after vanishing.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, Peru's
President-elect Alan Garcia said that one of his first acts when he
takes office will be cutting public salaries, including his own, and
canceling plans to open an embassy in Turkey.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, In Moscow the world’s
richest countries vowed to cooperate more closely on fighting terrorism
with a particular focus on terrorist recruitment, cyber crime and the
flow of dangerous people and cargo across borders. The commitment came
at the end of a two-day meeting of G8 law enforcement and justice
officials as part of Russia's G-8 presidency.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 16, In Somalia some
10,000 opponents of an international peacekeeping mission demonstrated
in Mogadishu, which is controlled by an Islamic militia accused by the
US of harboring wanted al-Qaida members.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 16, Sri Lanka's air force
pounded Tamil Tiger rebel positions for a second day in retaliation for
a bus bombing that killed 64 people.
(AP, 6/16/06)
2006 Jun 17, The Edmonton Oilers
shut out the Carolina Hurricanes 4-0 to take the Stanley Cup finals to
a seventh and deciding game.
(Reuters, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 17, The typical American
chief executive earned 300 times the average wage, up tenfold from the
1970s.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.30)
2006 Jun 17, In Louisiana 5 people
aged 16-19 were gunned down just outside the business district of
New Orleans.
(SSFC, 6/18/06, p.A4)
2006 Jun 17, Arthur Franz (86),
American film and TV actor, died in Oxnard, Ca. His numerous films
included “The Sniper” (1952) and “Hellcats of the Navy” (1957).
(SFC, 6/20/06, p.B5)
2006 Jun 17, British troops
battled Taliban fighters near Kajaki dam in southern Helmand province
killing six insurgents. One suicide attacker on a motorcycle detonated
his explosives near a group of Afghan soldiers in southwestern Nimroz
province, killing himself and wounding two soldiers and three
bystanders. Seven militants and one police officer also were killed
during a gunbattle that lasted until dawn in southern Kandahar.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 17, Burundi's President
Pierre Nkurunziza left to sign a cease-fire agreement with the
country's last rebel group in neighboring Tanzania as his government
works toward ending a 12-year conflict.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 17, In Chechnya Russian
police killed rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev in a special police
operation in his hometown of Argun. An intelligence agent and a police
officer were killed in the operation. One rebel also was killed and two
rebels escaped.
(AP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 17, In Haiti kidnappers
seized Ed Hughes, a Canadian missionary, from his residence and
demanded $45,000 in ransom. After 5 days the ransom was lowered to
$10,000. Hughes lost an arm in December 2005 trying to stop the
abduction of Haitian-American